Free Essays on Who Are You To Judge

Who are you to judge? When I was in seventh grade, I went to Cascade Jr. High School, which is right next to Evergreen High School. One day my friend Jessica and I decided to walk over to Evergreen and try to find her sister who was a junior at the time. On our way, we ran into some cute boys who started talking to us. They were cute and we were â€Å"impressionable young girls† the next thing we knew we were smoking a strange cigarette and passing it around the circle. When we discovered we were smoking weed, it made the high even more exciting. Only the cool kids were brave enough to do an illegal drug and suddenly we felt cool. We had sat through all the D.A.R.E. classes and other lectures about the evils of drugs but none of that stuff worked for us. Marijuana should be legalized because the efforts to make it illegal are doomed to failure. Marijuana is a flowering bud off a bush, which grows naturally. People not make it in a chem. Lab; it does not contain rat poison or deadly substances. What is so wrong with law-abiding citizens occasionally smoking? Who is the government to judge what consenting adults put into their own bodies? The war on drugs is a waste of taxpayer’s money. According to Steven Duke, the United States spends 50 billion or more dollars on the prohibition of drugs (Para. 10). Despite all the money spent on the war on drugs it is not working; marijuana and other drugs are easily available to consumers including young children. I know from my own experiences that it is easier for minors to acquire marijuana then it is legal substances such as tobacco and alcohol. According to Cynthia Rowe 14, million people have admitted to using an illegal drug and almost ten percent of children twelve to seventeen have used an illegal drug in the past thirty days (Para. 1). Elizabeth Hovde asserts that half of all high school seniors in the U.S. have tried illegal drugs (Para. 1-10). These numbers alone prov... Free Essays on Who Are You To Judge Free Essays on Who Are You To Judge Who are you to judge? When I was in seventh grade, I went to Cascade Jr. High School, which is right next to Evergreen High School. One day my friend Jessica and I decided to walk over to Evergreen and try to find her sister who was a junior at the time. On our way, we ran into some cute boys who started talking to us. They were cute and we were â€Å"impressionable young girls† the next thing we knew we were smoking a strange cigarette and passing it around the circle. When we discovered we were smoking weed, it made the high even more exciting. Only the cool kids were brave enough to do an illegal drug and suddenly we felt cool. We had sat through all the D.A.R.E. classes and other lectures about the evils of drugs but none of that stuff worked for us. Marijuana should be legalized because the efforts to make it illegal are doomed to failure. Marijuana is a flowering bud off a bush, which grows naturally. People not make it in a chem. Lab; it does not contain rat poison or deadly substances. What is so wrong with law-abiding citizens occasionally smoking? Who is the government to judge what consenting adults put into their own bodies? The war on drugs is a waste of taxpayer’s money. According to Steven Duke, the United States spends 50 billion or more dollars on the prohibition of drugs (Para. 10). Despite all the money spent on the war on drugs it is not working; marijuana and other drugs are easily available to consumers including young children. I know from my own experiences that it is easier for minors to acquire marijuana then it is legal substances such as tobacco and alcohol. According to Cynthia Rowe 14, million people have admitted to using an illegal drug and almost ten percent of children twelve to seventeen have used an illegal drug in the past thirty days (Para. 1). Elizabeth Hovde asserts that half of all high school seniors in the U.S. have tried illegal drugs (Para. 1-10). These numbers alone prov...

Media Studies A2 Have Scorsese's gangster films become too violent Essay

Media Studies A2 Have Scorsese's gangster films become too violent - Essay Example He has been producing films since the 1970's - his most recent one is The Departed (2006). His films are notorious for reflecting New York's life, which imply organized crime and violence. Violence has always been a part of the gangster film genre. Already films like Scar face from 1932 highly contained violence in the plot as well as The Maltese Falcon from 1941. This key issue has maintained over the last decades and I would like to analyze whether the genre has become too violent, regarding to Martin Scorsese film repertoire. I further try to examine if this is a natural progression, because of what is happening to the modern society and as a result to the Films or if this is attributable to Martin Scorsese only. I am going to start with analyzing three films of Scorsese spread over nearly 30 years, to pinpoint this trend. I am therefore going to analyze a couple of main scenes from the films The Departed (00's), Goodfellas (90's) and Mean Streets (70's), which reflect three decades of his work. All three films are considered to be great gangster films. The first scene to be analyzed is from Mean Streets from 1973. The whole film contains a couple of fighting scenes but only two in which you can actually see blood. Also, there are two shoot-outs and in total two people die. The USK for Mean Streets is 18. The iconography in the mean streets is overtly religious. Perhaps the only more religious movie Martin Scorsese has made is the last temptation of Christ. The search of Charlie for redemption perhaps shows a simpler time when good was good and bad was bad. Charlie had no doubt where he stood in this equation. The scene I am analyzing is the end of the film which suggests that it can be seen as the main scene of the film. One of the main character gets killed in this part of the film and the fact that this is likely to be the main scene of the whole film gives the impression that these 53 seconds of violence are the climax of the film and hence the climax of violence as well. There was certain clarity in this film on the morality which was again perhaps a reflection of the times In goodfellas, the ante on the violence is definitely raised. There is the Murder of the Innocent Spider and the brutal murder of Billy Batts. And the murder of Billy Batts is Jarring. First Billy Batts is beaten up, thrown in the trunk of the car, then stabbed later and then buried. And while it is graphically shocking it is done extremely nonchalantly as if it is commonplace. None of the actors were widely known yet for their acting of gangster roles in 1973 so there were no suggestions that the film may contain high violence as Robert De Niro, Harvey Keitel or David Proval (main actors) were not associated with brutality in films at that time. It starts off with three main characters driving in a car. You can hear the sound of squealing tyres and another car appears in the dark. A man is holding a gun out of the window. One of the passengers gets shot and you can see the blood coming out of the victim. However the lighting is very low and you can barely see any details. The car th en crashes. The lighting plays a major role in this scene as it "censors" the whole villainy. The narrative of the film is mainly four men acting as loan sharks. The murders have a storical background which fit into the

Popular Culture-Villains Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words - 1

Popular Culture-Villains - Essay Example The source asserts that the movies where Lecter is not presented significantly i.e. Lambs and Manhunter are better in the series because more attention is deflected from the main character. The author rates other movies lowly due to the fact that Lecter is predominantly represented in the movies. The source even goes to extent of predicting the nature of the next movie in reference to the past trends. It is predicted that Lecter will still feature predominantly, â€Å"†¦the next Lecter film gets made (I’m quite certain it will, and probably sooner than later), it’s going to have to feature Lecter predominantly† (Lev 4). This is an assumption that the preceding movies in the series might be of low quality, which is not always the case. The first impression that the article presents to the reader is that the â€Å"totally overrated† status that is used to define Hannibal Lecter is due to the cheap price attached to the book (Lev 1). However, the low price of the material might not be necessarily because the product is of low quality. Other factors such as the economic stability of the readers could be at play. The source may dismiss the actor as overrated but the admission that the AFI named him the leading movie villain of all times. This creates doubts on the sincerity of the overrated claims. One of the source’s ratings of the main character is related to his role, â€Å"...guy with his tics and theatrical preening and eating people ...† (Lev 3). This is a personal confession of the author on the unpleasant things that the he identified after watching the movies. Although some character behaviors might not be attractive, the source should not have blamed all the weaknesses on the Lecter alon e because he serves to advance the theme of the film. Therefore, the failure to entertain should also be blamed on the general failure of thematic organization of the movie. The roles of the characters should be the same as that of the directors as they all work

Domestic Violence around the World

Domestic Violence around the World Domestic Violence around the World Domestic violence or abuse occurs when one a partner, ex-partner or a family member tries to physically emotionally or sexually dominate the other (Buzawa, 2002). Domestic abuse has been happening around the world and the United Nation through a research found out that, there is a correlation between the poor performing economies and womens discrimination. Countries that have high rate of women violation incur very high costs that are detrimental to their economies and therefore all governments should aim at reducing the rate of sexual violation and other discrimination that women undergo. Living conditions of women have been improving since the year 1994 when 179 governments met in Egypt and decided to improve women living conditions. Stan Bernstein, a senior researcher said that they are still many cases of women discrimination around the world that constitute to grave human rights violations and therefore we should all try to eradicate this in our society as this would improve our economies. According to a report titled state of the world population 2000, it is claimed that 1% increase in the number of women attending secondary school it would lead to an increase of 0.3 of the countrys economy. If, for example the Pakistani government increased its education budget by only a small percentage this would translate in to an economic growth worth $262 million. The report shows bleak statistics about women abuse. One out of three women is abused and in most cases, by people that they know. Sexual abuse results to deaths, stillbirths, unwanted pregnancies and abortions that are committed to get rid of the unplanned child. More than 80 million children are not planned for. Women all over the world fear discussing family planning methods and ways of having protected sex with their husbands for fear of being physically abused. This has resulted to increase in HIV/Aids leading to poor economies. The report suggests that governments should do more to change these scenarios. Some remedial measures planned are banning female genital mutilation, the sale of low dosage oral contraceptives, adding in the constitution laws that govern sexual and reproductive rights and gender equality of all women. If all this are embraced by all the countries of the world then women violence would be reduced or even eliminated. References Buzawa, C. (2002). Domestic violence: the criminal justice response. London: SAGE, 2002. United, Nations.2000. Womens unequal treatment hurts economies. Worldwide abuse a massive violation of human rights. Retrieved on August 26, 2009, from http://edition.cnn.com/2000/WORLD/europe/09/20/un.population.report/index.html

Effects of Maternal Employment on Infant Development Essay -- essays r

  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  The topic of this paper is the debate of whether or not maternal employment has any effect on infant development. Research on this described topic has recently become popular due to the rise of working mothers over the past several decades. Their increasing numbers in the workplace and decreasing numbers as stay at home moms are creating a number of different issues to be studied. The effects of maternal employment are determined by a number of factors that include, the mother’s job satisfaction and drive, amount of work, and the mother’s opinion of quality versus quantity time with children. The main concept at hand here is the importance of an attachment in the first few years as being vital to a child’s later development. One side of the argument backs up this fact saying that it is important for a child to have their mother home with them during this period of development. The other side argues that they are finding that it may be more be neficial for the child to be placed in some form of nontraditional care environment. This paper will examine these different effects on infant development whether they are positive or negative. There are two sides to this argument as expected for any issue in debate. I will discuss these two sides by using the arguments of researchers that have studied this topic and written articles on their opposing feelings on maternal employment. I will summarize separately these two researchers’ different views along with their findings. After I have summarized some of their findings I will be presenting my own personal view on this topic.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  The authors arguing the yes side of this debate are, Jay Belsky and David Eggebeen. Their purpose in writing on this issue was to touch upon some of the issues involved in what has become known as the infant day care controversy. They reviewed previous studies of maternal employment and of the infants involved receiving various type s of non-parental care and found that the children that received the type of non-parental care available in the United States for 20 or more hours a week during their first year of life are at a higher risk of developing insecure attachments to their mothers and have been known to misbehave with adults and act more aggressively toward their peers as 3 to 8 year olds. It was also found that the children that ha... ...nced skills when in school. It has been discussed that children that were not placed in non-traditional care and stayed at home with their mothers for their first three years do not take long to catch up academically with the kids that had been placed in different care environments. Children that have been able to stay at home with their mothers have also been found to be more compliance and less behavioral problems when placed into school. I think that the one-on-one relationship that they got to have with their mother right from the beginning help a great deal in creating these types of good behaviors. The children who have been placed in the care of others all their lives would not know this feeling because they have always been surrounded by other children receiving care from the same few center workers. I really feel that the best thing a mother can do for her children to ensure good development and a happy childhood is be a loving mother at home for at least the first three years of life. Once they have had this experience, and they are closer to 4 years old they will probably be ready for some kind of pre-school program.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  

Atticus Quotes from to Kill a Mockingbird

â€Å"You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view — until you climb into his skin and walk around in it. † –Atticus (pg. 30) â€Å"As you grow older you’ll see white men cheat black men every day of your life, but let me tell you something and don’t you forget it— whenever a white man does that to a black man, no matter who he is, how rich he is, of how fine a family he comes from, that white man is trash. †Ã¢â‚¬â€œAtticus (pg. 200) â€Å"I wanted you to see what real courage is, instead of getting the idea that courage is a man with a gun in his hand. It’s when you know you’re licked before you begin but you begin anyway and you see through it no matter what. †Ã¢â‚¬â€œAtticus (pg. 112) â€Å"Before I can live with other folks I’ve got to live with myself. The one thing that doesn’t abide by majority rule is a person’s conscience. †Ã¢â‚¬â€œAtticus (pg. 105) â€Å"You just hold your head high and keep those fists down. No matter what anyone says to you, don’t let ‘em get your goat. Try fighting with your head for a change†¦it’s a good one, even if it does resist learning. †Ã¢â‚¬â€œAtticus (pg. 6) â€Å"It’s not okay to hate anybody. †Ã¢â‚¬â€Atticus (pg. 246) â€Å"Jem see if you can stand in Bob Ewell’s shoes a minute. I destroyed his last shred of credibility at that trial, if he had any to begin with. The man had to have some kind of comeback, his kind always does. So if spitting in my face and threatening me saved Mayella Ewell one extra beating, that’s something I’ll gladly take. He had to take it out on somebody and I’d rather it be me than that household full of children out there. †Ã¢â‚¬â€œAtticus (pg. 218)

How Do You Say It in Spanish

If youve learned Spanish for more than a few weeks, you probably know that à ©l typically means he (or sometimes him) and ella means she. But did you also know that both of these words are sometimes used to say it? Other words such as lo, la and ello are also used at times to mean it. But more often than not, as explained in our lesson about it, no word is used at all.