Death and Rebirth: Examinig Death Through Poetry Essay -- essays resea

Death and Rebirth: Examining Death Through Poetry   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚     Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Death is one of the only true constants in the universe and is the only guarantee in life. Everyone knows of death and everyone will experience it, but to the living death is still one of life's greatest mysteries. In some cultures death is celebrated and embraced, while in others it is feared. However it is perceived, death holds different meanings for different people. Through the art of poetry a writer can give a reader many different outlooks and maybe a better understanding of life and death.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Death is certain. We cannot escape it, but just because it is inevitable should we just give in to its dark embrace or should we fight against it? In the poem The Black Snake, the speaker uses vivid images to explain what happened and to express his or her feelings about the situation. In the beginning of the poem a black snake darts onto a busy road and is then hit by a truck. Later a motorist finds the dead snake and buries it in the woods. After burying the snake the motorist continues on his or her drive and reflects on what has transpired. In the first couple of lines †When the black snake flashed onto the morning road, and the truck could not swerve-death, that is how it happens.†(687), and from lines 13 to 15 â€Å"I leave him under the leaves and drive on, thinking about death: its suddenness, its terrible weight, its certain coming.†(687)...

People for Gun Control Essay -- Argumentative Persuasive Example Essay

People for Gun Control The recent events that has happened, such as the school shootings and all the violence seen on television, has without a doubt made many of us consider gun control as a possible solution to the violence that has spread across the nation. On the other hand there are other ways to reduce the violence besides using gun control to do that, which are teaching proper gun handling and making mandatory licensing to obtain a gun. With gun control laws the government is putting the average citizen in harms way by taking there gun away from them. More important that gun control is gun safety. People need to learn not only how, but also when to use a gun. Most of the people who go out and buy guns usually don't have the proper training. This is dangerous for them and the people they interact with. There are to many people that treat guns as toys, and forget their killing power. Gun owners need to learn the responsibility that is needed to own and handle a gun. As Carol Simmons once stated, "It strikes me odd that a person has to take a test and get license in order to drive a car, but they don't have to take a test or get a license to purchase a gun. Maybe if such enforcement's were implied and enforced there would be no need to limit the purchase of guns."(Simmons 4) A person must also purchase a hunting license, which gives them permission to use the gun for hunting, but that doesn't mean that they know the proper and safe way to use it. Gun control was designed to protect citizens from criminals who should not have a gun in the first place. But only 27 percent of criminals who are in prison for crimes involving guns have obtained them legally. (Bogus 188) If criminals can get guns illegally n... ...rue gun control lessons the amounts of guns on the streets, but it takes the guns out of the hands of responsible owners, not from criminals. Illegally purchased firearms can't be regulated and these are the guns that are doing most of the killing. By placing a block on legal purchasing the government is denying the common citizens the ability to protect themselves. It seems such a shame that one would have to die because the government wouldn't allow them to have a gun. The emphasis of gun control should be placed on teaching gun safety to those who haven't already had any experience and licensing those wishing to use there firearms and putting stricter regulations on criminals and criminal acts with guns. By doing so, the government would be helping the average gun owner learn what his of her mistakes might be, and keep some of the deaths by guns occurring.

Assess the work of Hjalmar Schacht in restoring Germanys economic :: Economics

Assess the work of Hjalmar Schacht in restoring Germany's economic situation. Germany at the beginning of 1933 had a high unemployment rate, which meant poverty was widespread. Those in work found that their wages declining which had consequences for those who produced consumer goods. International trade, industrial production and national income had all dropped. Schacht had been chosen by Hitler to solve Germany's economic problems due to a couple of reasons. The most important one was the fact he was the man who had solved hyperinflation in 1923 and had brought Germany's economy back on track then; the other reason was because Schacht was strongly right wing. Schacht became the Economic Minister in 1934 and used the financial facilities of the Reichsbank to help Germany rearm. He was then given dictatorial powers over the economy. The new plan of September 1934 provided control of all aspects of trade and currency exchange. Schacht had many ideas on how to get Germany's economy back up to full strength. One of his ideas was influenced by Keynes, a British economist. He adopted the policy of deficit financing; this idea was that money would be spent of public works to create jobs. The government would pay people to build motorways, which would then reduce unemployment. They then had money to spend, which would mean more products would be needed and companies would have to take on more workers, lowering unemployment further. The German government hoped that the secondary jobs, which were being created, would reemploy the majority of the population, instead of having to feed more money into the system. But this didn't just solve unemployment; it was useful to the public, it meant there were now modern roads, which eased travel over the country. This idea had one more advantage although this wasn't for the people; it was for the Nazi party. Building roads and updating the country was good propaganda; people liked what they were doing and had even more reason to want to keep them in power. Building wasn't the only scheme launched; afforestation was also used to create jobs. This idea paid off as unemployment was down to 2.5 million by mid 1934, and then by the middle of 1935 it had decreased further to 1.7 million. Hitler wanted 'autarky', which in principal was that Germany would become economically self-sufficient. This would then mean that Germany no longer would have to be dependent on other countries to import foodstuffs and raw materials. Another advantage was that Reichsmarks weren't wasted on import taxes. It also gave Germany the opportunity to strive towards a target and it would give them pride when it was

Voyager Interstellar Mission

The Voyager Interstellar Mission is rooted in the Grand Tour – an alignment of the outer planets which allowed for a single space probe to visit each of them rapidly.The Voyager spacecraft were constructed to do just that – obtain close up views and observations of the outer planets. Together, the two spacecraft brought unprecedented observations of Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune and their corresponding satellites and ring systems.Having completed their planetary mission after the visit of Neptune in 1989, the two Voyagers are now continuing their journey out of the Solar System. Instead of fading into obscurity, the Voyagers are still transmitting back observations in its new mission – the Voyager Interstellar Mission. Instead of observing planets, the two spacecraft are now giving us our first glimpses into the edges of the solar system.To do this, mission scientists had to use instruments meant for observing planets for observing the environment at the area at the edge of the Solar System. Five distinct and specialized scientific groups are currently engaged on analyzing the data coming from Voyager. Together with Voyager, these groups have expanded our understanding of the outer solar system.Power and funding challenges continue to hound the Voyager mission. Since its launch, Voyager's power source has been continually declining. To cope with the lowered power output, components of Voyager have been shut down one by one which means that some measurements have already been or will be stopped in the near future.The mission ends when the power sources cannot anymore power any single instrument. Some earth bound problems remain however as budget cuts threaten the existence of the mission.Voyager Interstellar Mission – Paper ProposalFor this paper, I plan on discussing the Voyager Interstellar Mission.   The proposed   outline is attached below.My interest in the Voyager Interstellar Mission lies in their wonderful history and u nique position. In this sense, the Voyager spacecraft are like â€Å"the little space probes that could†.The Voyager spacecraft were initially launched more than thirty years ago to take advantage of a unique arrangement of the outer planets.   This arrangement made The Grand Tour possible, visiting each of the outer planets consecutively within a short amount of time.The spacecraft were originally meant to take closeup observations of the outer planets, observations which were not possible to make from Earth. They were successful in doing this, having sent back pictures of Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune. Their discoveries adding to and refining our knowledge of the outer planets.Having finished their original mission, the two spacecraft continue on their voyage out of the Solar System. With no forces holding them back, the two will continue on their journey indefinitely and will soon be traveling in Interstellar space.The Voyager Interstellar Mission takes advantage o f this fact, exploiting the location of the twin Voyagers to gather data and observations about the edge of the Solar System. If the planetary mission helped to add and refine our knowledge of the outer planets, the interstellar mission is currently helping add and refine our knowledge of the environment and processes at work at the solar system's edge.In line with this, I also plan on discussing current knowledge about the edge of the Solar System. This knowledge will help the reader comprehend the scope of the Voyager Interstellar Mission as well as what the Voyager probes are expected to understand.A discussion of the spacecraft is also needed to understand the mission. The instruments used in the interstellar mission are the same instruments used in observing the outer planets.By understanding these instruments, we get an understanding of the kind of observations that the Voyagers are doing in Interstellar space. We also gain an understanding of the operations that enable the mi ssion to communicate with Earth. Understanding the spacecraft also allows us to understand the main challenge facing the mission – the loss in power.Even if the success of the Voyager program has already been established, it still faces some challenges. Due to its age its power generating system has had severe losses in capacity. Because of this several instruments and systems aboard the craft have already been shut down due to the loss in power. Earth bound troubles also hound the craft as budget cuts threaten the existence of the mission.To complete the paper, I plan on giving a few samples of the scientific advances that the Interstellar mission has brought. It is also important to realize the amount of research that the thirty year old Voyagers have enabled. I also point out some researches from Voyager that have helped us in our understanding of the Sun.In this way, I point out that these spacecraft even if they are very far are even giving us new insights to something t hat is quite close to home.  

Assess the View That the Nuclear Family Functions

Assess the view that the nuclear family functions for the benefit of the individual and society. A nuclear family is universal and consists of two generations of families: a father, a mother and their children, all living in the same household. In this essay, I will be assessing the views that the nuclear family functions to benefit all its members and society as a whole, from a Functionalist, Feminist and a Marxist perspective.In order to assess these views, it is necessary to first establish the functions that the nuclear family performs and then to assess whether these benefit the individual and the wider society. Sociologists such as George Peter Murdoch (1949) claimed that the family was a ‘universal institution'. This is a functionalist view, however Marxists feminists argues that it online met the needs of capitalists. Functionalists see society as playing a major role in achieving social goals such as proving positive norms and values for the individual and society to r eproduce consensus.They believe that institutions such as the family must have a function which benefits society and its members. They believe that without consensus society will collapse into chaos. Consensus and shared values enables the members of society to cooperate with each other providing unity. Functionalist sees society as an institution from which norms and values are shares providing harmony. Functionalists regard society as a system that depend on each other such as the institution of the family, the education system and the economy.They look at what the nuclear family does for the whole of society, not just for certain individuals. Functionalists consider the nuclear family as essential for society’s smooth running. George Peter Murdoch (1949) claimed that the family was a universal institution. He studied 250 different societies and cultures and found that the family existed in one form or another. This suggests that families are necessary in some way whether i t be for societies to survive, for individual well-being, or both. He believed that the family performed four vital functions.Sexual: where adults can enjoy healthy sex lives with their marital parenters preventing disruption to society and conflicts that could arise from sexual desires such as affairs and also allows children to be raised by their natural parents. Reproductive: the family allows the reproduction of the next generation without doing so, society will cease to exist. Economic: the family ensures the survival of its members by providing food and shelter. Education: the family allows primary socialisation without it there will be no consensus about society’s norms and values.Functionalists have been criticised for ignoring the dark side of family life. Many families are places of disruption and violence from at least one of its members suffering from domestic violence, child abuse and divorce. Murdock’s views have been criticised to be conservative rather than universal. In different society’s people have different methods of child rearing influenced by their religious teachings, class and different psychological approaches to the upbringing of children. Talcott Parsons believed that the family performed two functions.Primary socialisation: children’s personalities are moulded in terms of society’s culture; they learn normal and values from their parents for example expressive roles from the mother and an instrumental role from the father. Stabilisation of adult personalities: marital parents provides each other with emotional support, idea that the man can relieve the stress of being insecure in his workplace by allowing himself to relax by indulging in his childish side. Due to this taking place, it relieves adult family members and strengthens social stability.Parsons views can be criticised as his perceptions of society are outdated. Family diversity now exits. Marxists would criticise of the nuclear family a s they see the role of primary socialisation as exploiting the working class which promotes and maintains class inequality. A Hierarchal structure exists within the Nuclear Family, as the man is considered the breadwinner, the head of the household who has the responsibility to go out and work to earn money for the family’s needs.This structure enables men to accept their perhaps low status at work which stops them from questioning the hierarchal nature of capitalism which only benefits the powerful and rich. Marxists Feminist would criticise the nuclear family as benefitting the capitalists system and therefore the ruling class. Men benefit from the Nuclear family and the capitalist system through the exploitation of women. Women are expected to have children and spend a lot of time to raise them. They would argue that primary socialisation means that males will remain dominant and women will remain inferior even in the future generations.

My reaction to Dante’s Inferno Essay

While I was looking back through all the freewrites I had written about Dante’s The Divine Comedy I realized how much I had really progressed in my understanding of the poem itself, and in doing so had really been given a whole new view on religion and spirituality. The freewrite that showed this growth to me the most was the second one we had written after reading Canto’s III and IV. I had a rather strong reaction to the ideas presented to me within those sections that dealt with the concept of Limbo. That reaction brought on somewhat of a domino effect, bringing up even larger issues for me that had to do with my views on Christianity and the assumptions I made about it. Through further reading and class discussions I was able to start looking The Divine Comedy with a whole new angle, allowing me to grasp Dante’s message of being responsible for your actions so that you can be in control of your own fate. Limbo was making little sense to me. I could not comprehend how God could let these worthy souls, especially Virgil, not go up to heaven just because of certain technicalities that were beyond their control, such as not living in a time of Christianity or living in a culture that was not Christian. Or being held up because of something as small as not being baptised. It seemed so arbitrary to me that God could get so hung up on these details and punish those souls by not permitting them to go to heaven even though they seemed to deserve it. I am really not religious at all, and I have a lot of my own views about the afterlife and God. Realizing that my values are probably different than the average Christian, I adopted what I think of as the â€Å"normal† Christian view when I go into anything that deals with religion. That view, to be simplistic about it, is that we go through life, and when we die, God either rewards or punishes us for the life we led by sending us to heaven or hell. So when I began reading The Divine Comedy, I was trying to apply that overly simplistic view to the poem, and it led to a lot of confusion for me. I had to overcome my assumption that God was the judgemental ruler and determiner of all things and realize that Dante wants us to understand that we have all the control over our fate because we have the power to choose right from wrong in any situation. In this poem, it’s a matter of making the right  decisions and doing the right things to lead a life of God, or its choosing to do the wrong thing, therefore giving your self a hellish existence. Dante gives us the idea that God is eternally forgiving and accepting of us. Therefore the people we see suffering so horribly all throughout the Inferno have made the decision to be there. None of them ever ask to get out. They are quite literally still choosing to be in hell because they refuse to see the evil in their decisions. You can’t feel sorry for any of them because of this. It gives it a certain level of deservidness when you read of all the tortures going on in the Inferno. That I think really explains the idea of contrapasso. You get what you deserve. This is seen in every level of hell, it is what the Inferno is based upon, it is the physical punishment that fits the sin. Like in the seventh circle, for example, tyrants and murderers are immersed in a boiling river of blood. Or in the first ring of the ninth circle, traitors are immersed in ice with their heads bent down. Dante feels that they chose to sin, and now they are paying for it. They choose to be there by not recognizing their responsibility to do the right thing. I think it is really hard for anyone to read about the suffering in hell and not feel some sympathy for those who are going through it, whether they are choosing it or not. I think it should be understood that Dante was not being literal about it all. Contrapasso is something that I think is supposed to be somewhat amusing to think about and can create some gratifying mental images for one’s imagination, but to have people actually suffering I think it feels a bit harsh. Hell in The Divine Comedy I think is mainly used for allegorical purposes, and contrapasso accomplishes that. He was writing a poem, an entertaining one at that, and I highly doubt he was trying to show us what the afterlife was really like. What I do think he was trying to do was tell us that we have the power to choose right from wrong, and based upon that we can decide our own fate. I feel that anyone can find some solice in that idea, whether you are Christian or not. Limbo is still probably the hardest concept for me to accept, but I do know that before I just thought it was really unjust of God to hold back  worthy people, whereas now I understand that it is really a bit more complicated then that. Based on how every other level of hell works in The Divine Comedy, I might say that God really doesn’t have much to do with keeping them there, it has more to do with them keeping themselves there. Or perhaps Limbo is just an exception to that rule. It’s hard to say. But by realizing how simplistic I thought the â€Å"normal† Christian view was, I think I’ve gained a lot in understanding that the views of Christianity can be seen in a multitude of ways. It would certainly be unfair of me to continue to assume I know how anyone, Christian or not, views the afterlife and God.

Aristotle Life Story

Aristotle was born in Greece approximately 384 B. C. , to parents Nicomachus and Phaestis. His father Nicomachus was physician to King Amyntas of Macedon, and his mother was of a wealthy family from the island of Euboea. When he was 17 he went to study at Plato’s Academy in Athens, where he stayed for around 20 years. Aristotle did very well at the Academy, but when Plato died he was not chosen to be among the leaders. Soon after Plato’s death he left to tutor Prince Alexander, later to be known as Alexander the Great. Aristotle later returned to Athens to open his own school which is known as the Lyceum.Aristotle was more interested in science than other philosophers in his time, maybe because his father was a doctor. He’s sometimes referred to the father of science. One of Aristotle’s most important contributions was sorting and classifying the various knowledge of science into branches. He thus laid the foundation of science today. Aristotle is also tho ught to be the father of the scientific method. In ancient times, gods were thought to be the cause of events in nature. Early Greek philosophers questioned the roles of gods as the cause of these events. If the gods weren’t the cause of these events, who was?Philosophers advanced explanations based on philosophical principles and mathematical forms. Aristotle found that unsatisfactory. He was the first to realize the importance of empirical measurement (measurement based on observation and experience), believing that knowledge could only be gained from building on what was already known. Aristotle’s contributions were measurement and observation, which is what science, is built upon. He was the first to propose the idea of induction as a tool to gaining knowledge, and understood that theoretical thought and reasoning had to be supported by real world findings.His method is summarized as follows; Study what others have written about the subject, look for the general co nsensus about the subject, and perform a systematic study of everything even partially related to the topic. This is the very first sign of a scientific method. Aristotle loved categorizing and organizing things. For instance, with the soul he thought it was composed of two components: a rational and irrational part. The rational half was subdivided into â€Å"scientific† and â€Å"calculative† sections, and the irrational half was made up of a â€Å"desiderative† (desire) part and a â€Å"vegetative† part.A person operates by combining all the workings of these parts. The vegetative part may be hungry. The desiderative part may want lots of candy instead of, say, vegetables, but the scientific part knows candy will be bad for teeth and weight. The calculative part will then try to work out a compromise. Problem solved! Aristotle assumed that there must be some basic commodities that combine to make all things. These basic four groups are, earth, water, a ir and fire, and each of these are a combination of two of four opposites, hot and cold, and wet and dry.For example, fire is hot and dry. He claimed that all materials were made from various combinations of these elements. His love of categories also led him to divide people into three groups. The big group, who loved pleasure, a smaller group -includes politicians- that love honor, and the smallest, but most elite group, who love contemplation. The latter were the philosophers. Aristotle’s next task was to find the key reason that separated humans from animals. His answer was our ability to reason. Aristotle’s really great contribution was that of biology.Having established the division between humans and animals he set out categorizing all he could of the biological world. He grouped animals with related characteristics into genera and then divided these genera into species. This same process is used today, though subsequent research has caused some of the individua ls to be moved around. He wrote in detail about five hundred different animals in his works, including a hundred and twenty kinds of fish and sixty kinds of insect. He was the first to perform dissections on living things, so he could try to make sense of how they worked.He described how a chick develops within an egg and realized that dolphins and whales were different from fish. He noted that ruminant animals, like cows, had multi-chambered stomachs, something that separated them from simple-stomached animals. Not only did he study large animals, but small ones as well, such as bees. He also made lead way in botany. He attempted to classify over 500 plants into trees, shrubs, and herbs and, while he was not entirely successful in this, he certainly understood which features of plants were necessary for making distinctions.This time he has earned the title of father over botany. Aristotle made many other contributions to science, one of which was proving the Earth was a sphere, alt hough he wrongly thought that Earth was the center of the universe. Plato disagreed with this theory; he sided with Copernicus who rightly thought the sun was the center of the universe. Aristotle also studied physics. He did not have many tools for experimentation so he could not measure time or speed. He did not allow for invisible forces, so he did not study gravity. Things fell to Earth and the moon circled the earth because that’s what they did.In spite of his limitations, Aristotle made some remarkable contributions to physics and laid the groundwork for Galileo, Newton, and Einstein. He reasoned that infinite velocities could not exist, that time and movement are continuous and inseparable, and that time was even flowing, infinite, and the same everywhere at once. These are all true, and are part of Einstein’s Theory of Relativity. That’s amazing considering the limitations he had to work with. Anti-Macedonian feeling broke out in Athens around 323 BC. Th e Athenians accused Aristotle of irreverence.He chose to flee, so that the Athenians might not â€Å"twice sin against philosophy† (by killing him as they had Socrates). He fled to Chalcis on the island of Euboea. Aristotle died in 322 BC. After he died a lot of his work and research was lost. It is thought that today we only have about 1/3 of what he had originally written. Aristotle was an amazing scientist, but even he was not without mistakes. For example, he wrongly assumed that force is required to keep an object moving at constant speed. This error held progress back for years. He also, as I stated before, thought the Earth was the center of the universe.But, really isn’t that what science is about? Trial and error, make mistakes then learn from them, that’s how you make real progress in science. Aristotle is proof of this. Look at all the progress we have made today, from his mistakes. Bibliography Bibliography 1. http://www. ucmp. berkeley. edu/history/ aristotle. html 2. http://www. enotes. com/topics/aristotle 3. http://www. philosophypages. com/ph/aris. htm 4. http://jcmooreonline. com/2010/12/28/aristotles-enduring-contribution-to-scien ce-education-and-physics/ 5. http://www. iep. utm. edu/aristotl/ 6. http://galileo. phys. virginia. du/classes/109N/lectures/aristot2. html 7. http://www. valpo. edu/geomet/histphil/test/aristotl. html 8. http://plato. stanford. edu/entries/aristotle-biology/#LifWor 9. http://leavis. tripod. com/science. htm 10. http://www. experiment-resources. com/history-of-the-scientific-method. html 11. http://www. sciencekids. co. nz/sciencefacts/scientists/aristotle. html 12. http://www. historyforkids. org/learn/greeks/philosophy/aristotle. htm 13. http://www. mlahanas. de/Greeks/AristotleBiol. htm 14. http://www. thocp. net/biographies/aristoteles. html 15. Info from class 16. Physical Science Book