A sociological look at JAWS essays

A sociological look at JAWS essays The movie I choose to review was Jaws, which is one of my favorites and a timeless classic. A traditional story about man against beast takes place on an island that depends on its summer tourist business. When the summer season in threatened by a series of shark attacks three men are sent out to track down a great white shark. The three main (human) characters are Brody (Roy Scheider), the police chief, who came to the island from New York looking, so he thought, for a change from the fears of the city. There's Quint (Robert Shaw), a caricature of the crusty old seafaring salt, who has a very personal reason for hating sharks. And there's Hooper (Richard Dreyfuss), the rich kid turned oceanographer, who knows best of all what a shark can do to a man, and yet is willing to get into the water with one The movie starts just before the summer boom with a girl running out in to the ocean for a midnight dip. She is undoubtedly attacked by a shark and when she is found on the beach the next morning the town officials dismiss the find as a boating accident. Chief Brody who is not convinced of that is was a boating accident fears it was a shark attack. With the safety of not only the islanders but also the coming tourist crowds Brody tries to close the island off the tourists until the problem is solved. The Mayor sensing what Brody is up to stops the Chief from cutting off the islands only means of income. The Mayor tells Brody that no one is sure what happened to the girl and no decision like this can be made with the evidence at hand. Brody unwillingly agrees. When there is another attack, this time on a small child and in broad daylight, a meeting is called to discuss what to do about the islands problem. The Chief decides t call the mainland for help but being an island of fishermen the locals have only on thing on their minds. This is where we get to meet Quint. Quint is convinced that the only way to solve the prob...

The Male and Female Self in European Civilization Essay

The Male and Female Self in European Civilization - Essay Example Two of these personalities were Heloise and Abelard who became famous for their disastrous affair which shook the church in France during the Middle-Ages. Peter Abelard, a renowned philosopher and priest, fell in love with his beautiful and convent-educated student Heloise who eventually became pregnant. The affair ended in a tragedy when the couple secretly got married. When Heloise's uncle found out about the illicit affair and the marriage, he ordered Abelard castrated. Abelard spent the rest of his life in a monastery and Heloise decided to take vows as an Abbess, both embittered and separated from each other. Heloise's and Abelard's letters, written to each other at the height of their affair, compiled by Constant Mews, in a book called 'The Lost Love Letters of Heloise and Abelard,' radically and eloquently described the transcendent nature of their love. These collection of letters found and translated by Mews, only manifested that although men mainly dominated this period, th e voices of women in that generation could never be silenced by constraints on gender or the established religious institutions. In one of her letters, Heloise wrote to Abelard she preferred love to chains and freedom to marriage as marriage was done merely for conventional purposes. And if the name of wife appears more sacred and more valid, sweeter to me is ever the word friend, or, if thou be not ashamed, concubine or whoreI preferred to love to wedlock, freedom to a bond. I call God to witness, if Augustus, ruling over the whole world, were to deem me worthy of the honour of marriage, and to confirm the whole world to me, to be ruled by me forever, dearer to me and of greater dignity would it seem to be called thy strumpet than his empress. (Constant 27) Heloise altered her definition of 'self' from being 1'a woman of great wisdom and prudence and religion' to someone who is not 'chaste.' Constant Mews mentioned this as 2'an incredible insight into Heloise's perception of the hypocrisy of religious life.' A part of Heloise identification of the 'self' was her strong views about gender issues of her time questioning the functions of Christian women in religious life and how this life could be made to suit them and not the other way around. Mews added that 3'the traditions [Heloise] inherited were one in secular level' quite distinct from the love based on the Scriptures that Heloise had to follow or the love that '[was] talked about in monastic life.' The Middle-Ages were the period in which society identified women as the cause of decay and corruption and Heloise defied this prevailing idea by developing a notion of love which at best was liberal and beyond her time. In another letter to Abelard, Heloise wrote 4'I do not consider the friendship of those who seem to love each other for riches and pleasures to be durable at all since the very things on which they base their love seem to have no durability.' In many of her letters in which she professed love to Abelard, Heloise stressed equality and friendship as essential to love and relationships. For the most part, Abelard agreed with Heloise's view about love saying that they could live

The UK has two legal professionals, solicitors and barristers. should Essay

The UK has two legal professionals, solicitors and barristers. should the professions be fused - Essay Example As perceived by the general public solicitors spend their time sitting in an office surrounded by legal tomes, whereas barristers lead a rather more active life. However there times when a barrister can act without being asked to do so by a solicitor, as so on such occasions does his own office work, as when for instance he is instructed by barristers in employment, when acting for patent agents or when instructed by Officers of the Children and Family Court Advisory and Support Service. (The Bar Council, undated). At the same time solicitors can, under certain conditions, represent clients in court. Should this practise of differentiation between these two ways of being a British continue or should the two professions become united and act as one? Discussion There are always those who want change and those who will always prefer the status quo. In 1990 the Courts and Legal Services Act 1990 (Act)2 became legislation. Thurman ( 1993) described this as a monumental change. The aim was to give the public of the United Kingdom a greater choice of legal practitioners. The act, a controversial one, especially among lawyers, gave not only suitably qualified solicitors , but also nonlawyer members of other occupations. There are a number of other important changes such permission being given for the establishment of multi-disciplinary law practices which could nonlawyer members. Even international legal firms were allowed using lawyers from other lands. The Lord Chancellor stated that the aim of the bill was â€Å"ensuring that ... a market providing legal services operates freely and efficiently ....† Green Paper, supra note 10,  § 1.1 as quoted by Thurman .( page 4) If solicitors are allowed to represent clients in the magistrates court why can they not do so in other courts? Firstly many would not wish to do so. They may have an excellent knowledge of the law , but would not want to be seen on a public stage, which to some extent is what a high court is. S econdly a solicitor’s company may have a wide variety of clients with an equally wide variety of legal needs. They will have a wide knowledge of the barristers available and their particular abilities and specialties – there may be those for instance who specialize in commercial law or be excited by criminal practice. Also many cases are heard in London or other large cities, whereas the magistrates courts are much more local for the majority, as well as dealing with by far the bulk of cases, 95% according to HM Courts and Tribunal Services ( 2009). Only when a case is considered to require a sentence exceeding 6 months in duration are cases passed on to the higher courts. Even then much of the work leading up to the actual court case is done by the solicitor, the barrister taking over for the actual higher court appearance. Another point is that advocacy is only a small proportion of the work undertaken by solicitors according to UK Law Online 1998 which describes how much more time is spent on other tasks:- Litigation is only a small part of the work of the solicitor’s profession as a whole. Most are involved in commercial work relating to business eg dealing with commercial transactions, corporate matters, land, share and other property dealings. There is also a large amount of private client work which does not involve any litigation (if all goes to plan!) such as the conveyancing of houses, making wills, advising on tax matters:- Apart

The Pros of Therapeutic Cloning Essay Example for Free

The Pros of Therapeutic Cloning Essay Are you for or against human cloning? Before you answer this pertinent question, picture this. A loved one who is very dear to you is diagnosed with a serious disease such as muscular dystrophy, Parkinson’s disease, or even diabetes. If they could be treated, cured or have their life saved by stem cells or the results of cloning research, would that change your answer? Cloning can be defined as creating â€Å"an identical copy of a plant or animal from the genetic material of a single organism† (Cloning). There are two main types of human cloning, reproductive and therapeutic. Reproductive human cloning would essentially produce entire, living human beings, whereas therapeutic cloning would only produce parts or pieces such as tissue samples or organs needed for transplantation. The major debate over cloning is an ethical one. Would a clone have the same rights as the original? Would cloning result in a new form of slavery? Personally, I am not sure what the answers to these questions are. But regardless, therapeutic cloning should be allowed because humans are not being created, only the components needed to heal ailing patients. One major issue in regards to the cloning debate is the conjoining of the two separate types of cloning. The public sees cloning as the creation of a belated twin, which actually only describes reproductive cloning. When most people think about cloning they picture a mad scientist creating faux people in some dank, secret laboratory. In reality, this is about as far from the truth as one can get. Medical science is very far from creating actual people. However, we are much closer to discovering the necessary technology for producing cells and tissue samples essential for the treating, and possibly curing, of many debilitating diseases. Stem cell research is a major part of indispensable advances in therapeutic cloning. â€Å"Stem cells are useful because of their ability to become other cell types†¦Embryonic stem (ES) cells, however, have a much greater developmental potential [than Adult stem cells] and can be coaxed to give rise to nearly every cell type† (Davies, Fairchild, and Silk). Stem cells can be used to start established cell lines, from which multiple different cell types can be grown. This technology could be utilized majorly for replacement tissue growth, which is crucial to the treatment of diseases such as Parkinson’s, multiple sclerosis, or amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, which is more commonly referred to as Lou Gehrig’s disease. Therapeutic cloning is not nearly as complicated as some people make it out to be. According to Kevin Bonsor and Cristen Conger on the How Stuff Works website, which is a Discovery Channel company, therapeutic cloning involves a serious of steps. DNA is extracted from a sick person. The DNA is then inserted into an enucleated donor egg [an egg with the nucleus removed]. The egg then divides like a typical fertilized egg and forms an embryo. Stem cells are removed from the embryo. Any kind of tissue or organ can be grown from these stem cells to treat various ailments and diseases. Using this process, healthy organs can be grown to replace damaged ones, or new skin can be produced to graft onto a burn victim. Furthermore, neurons can be grown to help treat patients with Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, or other neurological ailments. Therapeutic cloning is referred to in the field as nuclear transportation or, more specifically, somatic cell nuclear transfer. According to an article written by Chan et al. in 2008, scientists conducted a study to learn whether or not they could treat Parkinson’s in mice and it began with the â€Å"derivation of 187 ntES [(nuclear transfer Embryonic Stem)] cell lines from twenty four parkinsonian mice. † Based on the information found in this study it is reasonable to say that, using therapeutic cloning, we may be able to treat Parkinson’s disease in mice (Chan et al. ). Taking that into account, it is hardly a far stretch until medical experts are capable of treating human sufferers of Parkinson’s. Furthermore, this study alone should be proof enough that research into therapeutic cloning is not only ethical, but necessary. Gregg Wasson was a distinguished law practitioner, and his fiancee, Ann Campbell, an author of children’s books. That is, until they were both diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease and their careers were ended by their impending dementia. Somehow, with help from the twenty five odd medications he take every day, Gregg managed to testify on behalf of the Coalition for the Advancement of Medical Research (CAMR) in front of the U. S. Senate Committee on the Judiciary. With medicine where it is right now, this man is required to spend around $11,000 every year on his medication, and continue to medicate every three hours. Furthermore, â€Å"Parkinson’s medications become less effective over time†, so eventually his medications will no longer accomplish their job and he will slowly die (Therapeutic). If the government were to put a ban on therapeutic cloning, this would be the life that millions of Americans would be condemned to. However, if research is allowed to continue, we could someday be able to help these people, or even cure them. In the words of Gerald Ford, the thirty-eighth president of the United States of America, reproductive cloning would be â€Å"a perversion of science†. On the other hand, however, he argues that therapeutic cloning is anything but. In 2002, around the time of Ford’s eighty-ninth birthday, a bill was put before Congress that would ban not only reproductive cloning, but therapeutic as well. The late President Ford said that therapeutic cloning is â€Å"a very different branch of science that holds limitless potential to improve or extend life for 130 million Americans now suffering from chronic or debilitating conditions. He felt that all of these people deserved the best possible care that science and medicine could possibly produce, and banning therapeutic cloning would hinder advancement toward this goal significantly (Ford). The absolute epitome of the opposition to cloning is that people should not have the power to create people. This resistance does not apply here since I am only in favor of therapeutic cloning. Some may say that growing human tissue is equally as immoral as creating entire humans, to which I reply, is taking a biopsy equally as immoral as committing murder? Others may say that cloning is a boldfaced violation of the Nuremburg code. I feel that this does not even remotely apply, since the code says, in layman’s terms, that it is wrong to initiate experimentation on a human subject when it is known that the outcome may be serious pain, injury, or death. â€Å"People have been cloning plants for thousands of years†¦Many common fruits, vegetables, and ornamental plants are produced in this way from parent plant with especially desirable characteristics† (Cloning). Why, then, are people so opposed to it now? Fear of the unknown begets anger and opposition. Society has no idea what may come of cloning or stem cell research, so they wholeheartedly combat them. A number of people believe they do know will happen, and their ideas are often incredible stretches of the imagination. In my opinion, the worst possible outcome of therapeutic cloning would be to discover that some conditions and diseases are actually irreversible or incurable.

Free Slaughterhouse-Five Essays: Dresden :: Slaughterhouse-Five Essays

Slaughterhouse Five  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Dresden "In Slaughterhouse Five, -- Or the Children's Crusade, Vonnegut   delivers a complete treatise on the World War II bombing of Dresden. The main character, Billy Pilgrim, is a very young infantry scout* who is captured in the Battle of the Bulge and quartered in a Dresden slaughterhouse where he and other prisoners are employed in the production of a vitamin supplement for pregnant women. During the February 13, 1945, firebombing by Allied aircraft, the prisoners take shelter in an underground meat locker. When they emerge, the city has been levelled and they are forced to dig corpses out of the rubble. The story of Billy Pilgrim is the story of Kurt Vonnegut who was captured and survived the firestorm in which 135,000 German civilians perished, more than the number of deaths in the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki combined. Robert Scholes sums up the theme of Slaughterhouse Five in the New York Times Book Review, writing: 'Be kind. Don't hurt. Death is coming for all of us a nyway, and it is better to be Lot's wife looking back through salty eyes than the Deity that destroyed those cities of the plain in order to save them.' The reviewer concludes that 'Slaughterhouse Five is an extraordinary success. It is a book we need to read, and to reread.' "The popularity of Slaughterhouse Five is due, in part, to its timeliness; it deals with many issues that were vital to the late sixties: war, ecology, overpopulation, and consumerism. Klinkowitz, writing in Literary Subversions.New American Fiction and the Practice of Criticism, sees larger reasons for the book's success: 'Kurt Vonnegut's fiction of the 1960s is the popular artifact which may be the fairest example of American cultural change. . . . Shunned as distastefully low-brow . . . and insufficiently commercial to suit the exploitative tastes of high-power publishers, Vonnegut's fiction limped along for years on the genuinely democratic basis of family magazine and pulp paperback circulation. Then in the late 1960s, as the culture as a whole exploded, Vonnegut was able to write and publish a novel, Slaughterhouse Five, which so perfectly caught America's transformative mood that its story and structure became best-selling metaphors for the new age. '"Writing in Critique, Wayne D. McGinnis comments that in Slaughterhouse Five, Vonnegut 'avoids framing his story in linear narration, choosing a circular structure.

Iago’s soliloquy at the end of Act 1 Essay

â€Å"Iago’s soliloquy at the end of Act 1; what does his language tell us about his character and motivation? How does it compare with his language in the rest of the act†? Iago seems to be presented as a Machiavellian villain; he is cunning and always seems to know what’s going to happen. In Iago’s soliloquy at the end of Act 1 Scene3, he says of Roderigo â€Å"thus do I ever make my fool my purse†. This conveys Iago’s character as superior and manipulative. Iago states that Roderigo is a â€Å"fool†; a stupid moron. He also calls him a â€Å"snipe† which is a small bird which also is used to mean unintellegent. Iago refers to Roderigo possessively, referring to him as â€Å"my fool† as if the extent of his own influence makes Roderigo his own possession (as with â€Å"my purse†; purse being an object that is owned). By saying â€Å"I even make† Iago is implying that manipulating a â€Å"fool† for their money is a usual activity for him, as if he always does this. Iago holds such little respect for Roderigo and feels himself so superior that he â€Å"should profane if [he] time expend with such †¦ But for [his] sport and profit†. He’s claiming that Roderigo is so beneath him that it is only for the money (â€Å"profit†) and the game he plays with the characters (â€Å"sport†) that he’d ever bother wasting his time with such an idiot. This seems to be revealing of Iago’s attitude toward social classes. Just because another character is richer or has higher social standing this does not mean that he has any extra respect for them. Taking into account that England in the Elizabethan era worked with strict social classes I think that Shakespeare uses Iago’s lack of respect for the system as another way of demonising him. He is the villain because he believes himself to be superior to everyone else. Iago is Othello’s ‘ancient’. However, Iago obviously feels he is superior to his master. Iago likens Othello to a donkey; a dull, stupid animal. Iago says Othello will â€Å"be led by th’ nose. As asses are†. Asses, or donkeys, are literally led by the nose with a harness. Might the harness be the society they are both part of? This implies that Othello is not free. It implies that he is tamed, obedient, dependent and without a mind of his own. It is Iago’s intention to use this harness to lead Othello to his ruin. In act 1 scene 1 Iago reveals his views on the roles of master and servant (in his case ancient) to Roderigo. Iago’s opinions show his perceived superiority in his character. Iago says how there are â€Å"many a duteous and knee crooking knave that†¦wears out his time, much like his master’s ass†. He is saying that the dutiful are â€Å"knee crooking†, meaning that they bow down, accepting their inferiority. To say that a subordinate â€Å"wears out his time much like his master’s ass† shows how he feels that they waste their lives being another’s workhorse while receiving none of the profits. In this respect Iago feels himself above Othello. By later referring to Othello as an â€Å"ass† he could be the â€Å"knee crooking knave† to the governors of Venice. This is what I feel is supposed to be conveyed by the line: â€Å"were I the Moor, I would not be Iago†. Iago is resentful of the lack of recognition he has received from his society. I would say that Iago has motivation against his society. He misses out on promotion and Cassio takes the position. He resents Cassio for being better educated and of higher social standing. From scene 1 Iago says â€Å"I know my price, I am worth no worse a place† when telling Roderigo of being passed over for promotion. I think that Shakespeare has Iago say this because he’s supposed to be resentful of the lack of recognition he’s received. By saying â€Å"I know my price† he is also saying that no-one else perceives his worth. Iago mentions that Cassio is â€Å"a Florentine† while disrespectfully describing him. That Shakespeare has Iago mention this means that it is relevant. Perhaps that Iago disapproves of a Florentine being promoted in a Venetian army shows he has a kind of respect for the society he’s in. If he is ambitious then he is ambitious toward the higher roles/accomplishments of his own society; Venice. Iago may also feel he has not been duly acknowledged for the fighting he has done for the causes of Venice â€Å"at Rhodes, at Cyprus, and on other grounds Christian and Heathen†. By not being advanced he may have felt the sacrifices he made were not appreciated, as if he’d been cheated, which may explain why he cheats so much in the conventions of his society. Iago is presented as being a very effective user of language. He seems to know exactly the right language to use in order to affect the decisions of the other characters. When bating Brabantio he uses course language about his family to infuriate him. Instead of merely informing Brabantio of his daughter’s whereabouts and who she is with Iago tells him that â€Å"your daughter and the moor are now making the beast with two backs†. â€Å"Making the beast with two backs† is a crude euphemism for having sex. â€Å"Beast† implies that the sex is ugly and savage. Iago uses the word ‘moor’ instead of his name, Othello, to bring attention to his race as opposed to his high rank and standing in Venice. Iago knows how to offend. He immediately starts referring to Brabantio’s family in animal terms; â€Å"you’ll have your nephews neigh to you; you’ll have coursers for cousins and jennets for germans†. In the Elizabethan era it was probably a taboo to have a mixed race marriage probably because people of African origins would have been considered inferior. This is a reason why Iago refers to Othello as a horse (â€Å"coursers for cousins†). As a further example of Iago’s ability to alarm through his seemingly perverted perception would be â€Å"you’ll have your daughter covered with a Barbary horse†. Iago alarms him by conjuring bestial imagery. Bestiality is sacrilegious, which a few hundred years ago was more important than it is now. Perhaps this sacrilegious imagery influenced Brabantio to rationalise his daughter’s behaviour as witchcraft. Shakespeare presents Iago as an effective liar. This must be the case as Othello refers to him in Act one as â€Å"Honest Iago†. He also describes him as â€Å"a man he is of honesty and trust†. Despite Iago keeping Roderigo’s presents to Desdemona for himself he still can convince him of his trustworthiness. When reassuring Roderigo he says â€Å"I have professed me thy friend, and I confess me knit to thy deserving with cables of perdurable toughness†. By claiming that he is Roderigo’s ‘professed’ friend and that he’s prepared to help him with everlasting strength he convinces of his honesty. Iago also successfully manipulates Roderigo by repeatedly suggesting (instructing really) to â€Å"put money in thy purse† so as he can take it from him. Iago repeats this six times. Iago also convinces Roderigo to do his biddings by distracting him with his philosophies; â€Å"Our bodies are our gardens, to which are wills are gardeners†. In this speech Iago basically turns Roderigo’s loss into his own gain.

Converting Radians and Degrees in Pre-Calculus

You are probably familiar with degrees as a measure of how large an angle is, but another way of describing angles is with radians. As you approach pre-calculus and your upper years of mathematics, degrees will become less and less frequent as radians become the norm, so it’s a good idea to get used to them early, especially if you plan on studying mathematics. Degrees work by dividing a circle into 360 equal parts, and radians work the same way, except a circle has 2Ï€ radians and  Ãâ‚¬Ã‚  or pi radians equal one-half of the circle or 180 degrees, which is important to remember. In order to convert angles from degrees to radians, then, students must learn to multiply the measurement of the degrees by pi divided by 180. In the example of 45 degrees in radians, one can simply reduce the equation of r 45Ï€ / 180 to  Ãâ‚¬/4, which is how you would leave the answer to express the value in radians. Conversely, if you know what an  angle is in radians and you want to know what the degrees would be, you multiply the angle by 180/Ï€, and thus 5Ï€ radians in degrees will equal 900 degrees—your calculator has a pi button, but in case its not handy, pi equals 3.14159265. Identifying Degrees and Radians Degrees are units of measurements valued one through 360 that measure the sections or angles of a circle while radians are used to measure the distance traveled by angles. Whereas there are 360 degrees in a circle, each radian of distance moved along the outside of the circle is equal to 57.3 degrees. Essentially, radians measure the distance traveled along the outside of the circle as opposed to the view of the angle that degree takes up, which simplifies solving problems that deal with measurements of distance traveled by circles like tire wheels. Degrees are much more useful for defining the interior angles of a circle than for how the circle moves or what distance is traveled by moving along the circle instead of merely looking at it from one perspective while radians are more appropriate for observing natural laws and applying to real-world equations. In either case, theyre both units of measurements which express the distance of a circle—its all a matter of perspective! The Benefit of Radians Over Degrees Whereas degrees can measure the internal perspective of angles of the circle, radians measure the actual distance of the circumference of a circle, providing a more accurate assessment of distance traveled than degrees which rely on a 360 scale. Additionally, in order to calculate the actual length of a segment of a circle with degrees, one must do more advanced computations that include the use of pi to arrive at a product. With radians, the conversion to distance is much easier because a radian views a circle from the perspective of distance rather than the measurement of internal angles alone. Basically, radians already factor in distance as part of the basis for the equation for defining a radians size, which makes them more versatile in use than degrees.