12 Angry men Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

12 Angry men - Essay Example The courthouse of which the movie was filmed was filled with 12 men all who seem to be of the same race and of the same general age. It seems that the only difference between the jurors are their social and economic backgrounds which the movie had illustrated on it could influence a person’s mindset and judgment. For example, Juror 5 shared the â€Å"slum upbringing â€Å" as the young boy being charged, that allowed him to relate to his living conditions but other juror like Juror 4 seemed to judge the boy harshly based on where he was raised. Juror 4 even as far to say†¦ â€Å" If you live in slum you become slum†. These statements indicates the biases of the jurors due to their backgrounds that reflect in their faulty reasoning as well as their erroneous judgment. When these prior biases and prejudices were overcome however, the jury begins to realize the error in their reasoning that finally led them to vote for non-conviction of the boy. They are many reasoning and thinking errors in film. Some of the thinking errors identified in the movie, â€Å"12 angry men† was being closed-minded, being prejudice and being impatient. We identify these as thinking errors because it demonstrates how our faulty judgment just like the case of the jurors are influenced by their background to erroneously judge the case of the boy. As an example of the thinking error of being impatient was when one of the jurors does not want to engage in a lengthy discussion about the case for fear of running late for the baseball game. Another thinking error in the film was being closed-minded and prejudice. This was shown in the case of Juror 3 whose estranged relationship with his son affected his judgment in the case of wanting to convict the suspect just because of his strained relationship with his son. Another is juror 10 who is prejudiced against the slums dwellers as killers and people

My Experience of Volunteer at Various Organizations Essay

My Experience of Volunteer at Various Organizations - Essay Example Once I had collected enough books, I would pack these up in delivery boxes and send it out to the various prisons that are affiliated with our organization. I would also take the time to write letters to the inmates who were directly involved with the book program. I was almost like an unofficial librarian in a way since I had to match certain book types with certain inmates. This was one of the most rewarding activities in the volunteer program because I would receive letters from the inmates who were so happy to be beneficiaries of our program. Since some of them had no family or friends, the books that we sent them helped lighten their lonely mood. We volunteer in effect, became a part of their extended family in the outside world just because of the simple act of kindness that we did for them. I personally received letters from those inmates who wanted to spend their time in prison or in jail productively. They would ask me to find books that would truly widen their horizon and challenge their minds. Books like those specializing in Spanish, medicine, math, English, and other educational reading material. I was more than happy to help them find those books and get it to them. It made me feel like by doing this type of volunteer job with th e organization, I was truly making an impact in the inmate's lives and helping them to see that they had a future outside of prison if they wanted to. My other volunteer job was at the Melbourne Animal Shelter. The South Animal Care shelter to be precise helped keep the cats and dogs in a presentable manner for possible adoption. My job was to make sure the animals were bathed, their cages cleaned, and most importantly, I made sure that these animals were given their daily exercise by taking them for leisurely walks. It saddened me that I this animal shelter was a kill shelter. Meaning the animals that did not get adopted would be out to sleep.

Forms of Political Violence

Forms of Political Violence Nihad Safarli Political violence: revolutions and terrorism Political violence has become a part of a daily life of each person living on the Earth. Almost everyone- politicians, mass media, scientists, taxi drivers.and etc. is talking about this. In this paper I will analyze the reasons of its popularity by investigating its origins and the factors which trigger off political violence. Based on the theoretical framework created by the knowledge I’ve amassed before, mainly my paper is focused on two prevailing forms of political violence with what this term often is being associated –revolutions and terrorism. I will try to find out more precious definition of revolutions and clarify which historical events can be conceptualized as a revolution, also try to ascertain the main cause of terrorism. Theda Skocpol’s article â€Å"France, Russia, China: A Structural Analysis of Social Revolution† provided quite good definition of revolution , although in my opinion her study is so tightly squeezed that doesn’t fit to all cases in the history. I want to criticize Skocpol’s conceptualization of social revolutions .After reviewing the definitions given by S.Huntington and Lenin she combined the content of them and applied it for analysis of revolutions in particular states. According to the author, revolution is a very rapid and fundamental transformation of social conditions and class structures and can be achieved through uprising of the lower class. The main difference of social revolutions from other forms of conflicts and transforming processes is that they attended by class insurrection, political and social transformations in social structure. But even rebellions with the same characteristics cannot be considered as revolutions as they don’t aim to make structural changes. Skocpol used a comparative historical method, in order to analyze cautiously the history of some modern revolutions, use the data gathered from the cases to make generalizations. Limitation of this method is that it is good to compare only similar cases. For example, comparison of Russian and German revolutions could be appropriate as a lot of common factors had an impact on revolutions, such as forfeit of war. But for France war ended up with a victory and overall situation was different from Russia which makes difficult to compare French and Russian revolutions applying comparative method. Scokpol thought that trouble Russia felt during World War I caused the revolution as its economy couldn’t respond to such huge pressure yielded by military expenditure. But the main thing is not how â€Å"a boxer was punched, the main thing is how he will he be able to stand this† Not only rapid industrialization but also lack of capacity to respond to this rapid process, played an essential role. The challenging part of this definition is about the phrase- â€Å"very rapid†. The â€Å"blurred† part about social revolution word is due to vague starting point and the end. For instance, the Russian revolution: did it begin exactly in 1917? Or may be seeds of revolutions were spread before? For defining the paradigm of rapid change, we should know whether that revolution ended exactly in October 1917 or not? Main missing point here is that we don’t know during which period should structural transformation happen to be called revolution. Probably I can conclude that periods called revolutions, transformation happened much more rapid now carried the qualitative character. If we accept social revolutionas a fundamental transformation of society, we should define what is fundamental about it. The author mentioned it dimly: changes in the social structure, accompanied by class uprisings; second, political and social transformation.Butwhich changes in the social structure does she mean? It is known that social structure changes continually. A person is a unit of society. In that sense birth and death of a person is also a change in social structure. Consequently, were talking about peculiar types of transformations in society. Skocpol wrote that the changes in society are attend by class uprisings. The fact that two events in society took place at the same time doesn’t mean that one is a result of another one. In contrast with her idea I can state that the social changes happened during social revolutions are definitely the outcomes of insurrection. The nature of a social revolution can be best evaluated by the outcomes which are accomplished immediately after an insurgency by downtrodden class below. For instance, the nature of the French revolution can be best estimated by process befall after the overthrow of the king. However, it is possible to discuss the upheavals of the downtrodden classes, but also about counter-revolutionary upheavals. Symbolically, we can call them rebellions. Best example is the rebellion of Franco, as result of which a civil war has begun in Spain. Consequently, I can claim that the upheavals of the downtrodden are the inherentsegment of a social revolution. Another point regarding social revolutions which wasn’t clarified in the article is about achievement of ultimate goal. Should the notion revolution be used for the instances when the downtrodden are finally nullified, or are not able to hold on to the power? Was 1905 events a revolution if to take into account that resistance of revolution was broken and it didn’t manage to accomplish its goals? Skocpol considers political revolutions different from social revolutions.As an outcome of the latter, the form of the government ( and the government itself) is changed but the social structure and the property relations remains intact. Actually, political revolutions even doesn’t fit the term â€Å"revolution† from Skocpol’s perspective. As a conclusion of article we can define social revolutions as: a) an outcome , but also an origin of a scientific revolution, b) entails qualitative and quantitative transformations which become inalterable, c ) the downtrodden class can try to make changes any times before succeeding, d) representatives of this class come to government, e) social revolution continues in the consequent transformations in society. Terrorism as another widespread form of political violence can be analysed and also defined in different contexts such as religion, war, crime an etc. Some aspects of terrorism are going to stay outside of the outlook you used to study this term. I focused on the M.Chrenshaw’s article and can say that I appreciate the outlook she used in her article to describe the causes of terrorism. The main perceptible and important moment is that she didn’t used â€Å"populist reasoning† , like education level of terrorists or their physiological status, for justifying her arguments which I think makes her article a high-quality paper. But I still want to challenge some points she made regarding the causes of terrorism. Chrenshaw took modernization and grievance as one of the origins of this form of political violence. Modernization as a precondition can be taken as a factor only in states with less developed and conservative societies with stereotypes and taboos where new technological innovations are being impose by globalization wave. Conservative people has some distrust to new lifestyle, policies and don’t want to give up their traditional life. But I don’t agree with the statement, in a sense that, Chernhaw missed intervening variable .It is not modernization itself causes terrorism, rather it is just content of human character to resist to transformations and adjust to new way of life. That’s why revolutions which are rapid changes in social structure preceded with terror either by state in order to impose changes on people or by group of people for stopping that change. Even reactionary changes can lead to revolution. In other sense, revolution is a good condition for terrorism to rise. The article publish in Foreign Affairs journal states that After Tunisian uprising , which usually depicted as revolution( but just a political revolution according to Skocpols definition) , al Qaeda got greater operational freedom of action, its followers probably will try to stir up and benefit from new uprisings in order to fight for their political goals. (Byman, 2011). The similar trends are noticed in all places where revolution happened. As a direct condition for terrorisms grievance is very important an I think that it is the factor which is a condition for other direct causes to emerge .Grievance can be conceptualized as a real or assumed wrong or other cause for discontent or protest. I appreciate Crenshaw’s argument about grievance and want to develop it more, that terrorists are driven by grievances about international political issues within particular regions and the world. They nourish a radical will to sacrifice innocent civilians because they ardently dream to expose their feelings and the only way of realizing them is terrorism.Off course, there can be various reasons why people nurse grievance. Some people are religious, some are nationalistic ad etc. Most probably â€Å" popular reasons† described as causes of terrorism such as education and poverty level therefore is not sufficient to explain the motives of terrorism.There isn’t any concrete formula of grievance as in different soci eties there are people who are ready to devote his life to some goals. If to exclude one origin of grievance, many other factors will serve as an origin to nurse grievance in a violent way.That’s why it is hardly possible to prevent the emergence of grievance but is possible to prevent terrorism by fighting against institutionalized terrorist groups. Because terror institution is a safe environment where grievance can be directed to violence path while that radical feeling can be used in favour of humankind as well. But what about variables like poverty and lack of education – which are the explanations often articulated by mass media and politicians? In reality more highly educated people are those who are aware of their rights and freedoms and persistent enough to fight for their political intentions to be carried out. For instance, results from public opinion polls on support for attacks against Israeli targets conducted in the West Bank and Gaza Strip indicate that support for violent attacks does not decrease among those with higher education and higher living standards. (Krueger, Alan B. Jitka Maleckova., 2003)High education level in the country promises many favourable things for its people, but analysis of the facts suggests that it doesn’t bring about complete consensus and welfare in a society.If we want to look at the terrorism from the â€Å"window of education† we should concentrate on its content, rather than merely educational level of the country. Terrorism and Revolution also other forms of political violence don’t have clear border by which we can easily identify them. Because all this terms are socially contracted. For example, Babek for Azerbaijanis is a hero, but for Arabs he was just a rebel, for Italians Juli Sezar is a hero but for French people he is an enemy conquer, Attila for Turks is a great hero but for Europeans he is a wild , cruel barbarian king who occupied their territory, English troops in Baku in early 20th century were considered as enemies during Soviet times , but friends after independence . The same is true for terrorism. For someone somebody can be a terrorist, for another one he can be a fighter for freedom. This socially constructed character of political violence makes it difficult to define and its analysis depends on the context. Bibliography Byman, D. (2011). Terrorism After the Revolutions.. Foreign Affairs. Krueger, Alan B. Jitka Maleckova. (2003). Education, Poverty And Terrorism: Is There A Causal Connection?. Journal of Economic Perspectives.

culture and conflict :: essays research papers

  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  The culture of conflict is just as important as the conflict itself. The reasons for conflict and the inner agony of pride are all do to culture. The epic poem of Gilgamesh, and The Odyssey, the story of Genesis have many forms of many conflicts. Cultural conflicts have many different forms, but pride is usually at the root of all of them.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  The book of Gilgamesh has many conflicts, and battles. Gilgamesh was a flashy warrior and leader that resolved everything with primitive actions. He was a conflict all his own because the towns people didn’t like his leadership. His acts of womanizing and mistreating the towns people is what caused this hatred towards him. They all wished for an equal to come. Enkido was a forest man that was an equal to Gilgamesh. He came, and at first wasn’t an equal to Gilgamesh, but a rival. Gilgamesh and Enkido battled through the streets of the town. These actions were pride based and human nature must have had an impact. In anything once a leader is challenged he will do anything to keep his leadership and step up to the occasion. In this case, Gilgamesh the leader was challenged. â€Å"Enkido stood, guardian on the threshold of the martial chamber, To block the way of the king, The aura and power of the wild ox, Gilgamesh, Who was coming to the chamber and take his bride.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Stormy heart struggled with stormy heart, As Gilgamesh met Enkido in his rage, At the marital threshold they wrestled, bulls contending: The doorposts shook and shattered; the wrestling staggered.† (Gilgamesh_14,15)   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Once the battle ended, Gilgamesh knew that they were equal. Being the leader that he was, he decided not to be rivals, but be friends. They decide to travel to the forest of Cedars, where they set to challenge the org Huwawa. Enkido doesn’t want to proceed with this thought but Gigamesh wants to continue. They show up and battle the superhuman guardian, kill him, cut down the forest, cut off Huwana's head as a trophy, build a raft, and head back to Uruk.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  The really only cultural experience in this battle isn’t just the battle itself, but after the battle when they cut off Huwawa's head and made it into a trophy. Making his head into a trophy exemplifies their in their great victory. It demonstrates was gained and shows that they had something to remember it by.

Interpreter of Maladies Essay

Secrecy is a recurrent theme of Interpreter of Maladies. With reference to at least three stories, what are the causes and effects of this trait on the lines of the characters? Secrecy is the act of hiding information from certain individuals or groups. Secrecy is often controversial, depending on the content of the secret, the group or people keeping the secret, and the motivation of secrecy. Jhumpa Lahiri’s anthology, â€Å"Interpreter of Maladies†, explores this theme through several characters in different stories. In the story Interpreter of Maladies, A Temporary Matter and Sexy, the characters hide their emotions and do not express themselves. Due to this, the relationships that they are involved in become dysfunctional. Mrs Das’s infidelity in Interpreter of Maladies puts a strain on her marriage. The secret affair she had with her husband’s friend causes her to hide behind her sunglasses and disengage with her family. She is selfish and self-absorbed, that she doesn’t realise how her actions would affect the others around her. This is demonstrated by her, when she refuses to share her food with her children, reluctantly taking her daughter to the bathroom and refusing to paint her daughter’s fingernails. She has not revealed her unfaithfulness to anyone apart from Mr Kapasi and as a result of this she feels the strain in her marriage only as her own pain. Mrs Das fails to recognise, the impact her affair takes on her husband and children. She openly mocks her husband’s enthusiasm for tourism and illustrates her lack of love for her husband. The puffed rice that Mrs Das scatters across the trail in India, represents her mistakes and careless actions. Physically Mrs Das is young and attractive, but she is spiritually empty. She does not love her children and husband and is caught in the boredom of her life as a housewife. This is evident, when monkeys surround Bobby and terrify him; she refuses to take responsibility to the situation, just as she refuses to acknowledge the affair with Mr Das’s friend. If Mrs Das’s secret is ever revealed, Bobby would be the true victim. Conceived out of anger, boredom and spite and lied to about his father, Bobby is surrounded by deceit. Lahiri shows that, lack of communication leads to misunderstandings and breakups in relationships. As their electricity gets cut off from 8pm for a few days, Shoba and Shukumar play a game. A game where they tell all their secrets. Every night they played the game, Shukumar would feel Shoba getting close to him, as they used to be before their child passed away. Since the death of their child, Shoba and Shukumar have had less communication. On the last day, Shoba told him, how she desired to move out of the house and has already found an apartment. Looking at the fact that Shukumar was not there, when their child passed away, gets Shoba angry along with the fact that his still a student and hasn’t got a job annoys her. The relationship ends when Shoba confesses that she had been ‘looking for an apartment’, and has now found one. She thought they had been ‘through enough’, and that it was ‘nobody’s fault’. Shukumar is both ‘relieved’ at the release and yet ‘sickened’ that she had played a game all along while knowing that their marriage was only a ‘temporary matter’. At the end Shukumar reveals that he was actually at the hospital when their son passed away. You would never be too late to realise your mistake. In the story Sexy, Laxmi always tells Miranda about her cousin’s husband who had cheated on her. Miranda has a similar story that she never told anyone. She had an affair with a married man named Dev. Miranda was attracted to Dev, because he is different to her. When Dev’s wife went overseas, they got together and went out to many places. Miranda preferred to keep Dev a secret from Laxmi, but she didn’t realise how Laxmi’s cousin’s life was similar to hers. When Miranda had to babysit, Rohin (Laxmi’s cousin’s son), she realised what her relationship with Dev was like. She realised the point that she was affecting Dev’s wife and his kids.

Database+Coursework Database 101

Area Film and Literary Society (MLFS) provide groups and events for local people. All participants must be members (who pay an annual fee) or their guests who may attend events. Fees vary from one group to another. In addition members may have a reduction in fees depending on their type of membership. For example Individual members pay 100% fees and Concessionary members pay 50%. There are also Household members and a special category called Friends of the Society. The Society hosts a number of groups which meet monthly.Members can join one or more groups; currently these include Film, Science, Reading and Poetry Groups. A paper record is held for each member, an example of which is given below. Member details| Event talents| Member No1022 NameJay PatelTelephone020 8888 3333AddressHigh Rd, London Member type Individual | Ability Code| Talent | | 01 Poetry 05 Science| membership records| Session (year)| Group code| Group name| CoordNo| CoordName| Feepaid| Date paid| 2007-2008| 01 | Po etry | 102| Carol Duffy| ? 0| 19/09/07| 2008-2009| 01 | Poetry | 102| Carol Duffy| ? 60| 02/09/08| 2008-2009| 06 | Reading| 111| Jane Austen| ? 75| 03/09/08| 2009-2010| 05 | Science| 181| Marie Curie| ? 90| 03/09/09| * | * | * | * | * | * | * | Note that the group code and the ability code are both based on the same domain of values. The latter represents members’ talents which the Society may make use of – this is described later. One group of a particular type (such as Poetry) will be run each year, assuming there are nine or more members who want to join a group.Each group is run by a coordinator, who may change from one year to the next. In addition to the above, the society holds the address and telephone number of each coordinator. Besides groups, the society also holds one-off special events, such as lectures, films, art exhibitions and musical evenings. Events do not relate to particular groups: they are open to all members and their guests and are organised by one of the coordinators. Events will be led by an outside speaker, or sometimes a member (who have special talents as shown in the example record above) will act as the speaker.Each event will have only one speaker (whether an outside speaker or a member speaker), but a speaker may speak at a number of events. Details will be held of the event name, the date, and venue and outside speakers (name and telephone number). The Society will keep records of members who attended events and the number of guests for each member per event. 1a) Entity-relationship model mapped to a relational database If you need to revise this topic, see Text Book Chapter 3. Produce an Entity-Relationship Model using UML notation for the above case.Convert to a relational model by specifying the primary and foreign keys, mapping any one-to-one relationships into relations, and decomposing any many-to-many relationships. This is the Relation diagram and the diagram which you should submit. Note that there is n o need to include the type of each attribute. State any assumptions that you may need to make particularly about optional and mandatory relationships. Note that assumptions are about how you have interpreted the scenario, not about the E-R modelling process. The ERD is not trivial – it involves at least 10 entities.I suggest you start by each member of your group concentrating on different parts of the ERD and then coming together to discuss. Remember: * databases hold historical information, not just details of current records * to work out cardinality of relationship use ‘two sentences each starting with the word one’ * check all attributes; they should be atomic (single-valued) * check primary/foreign key links (remember the foreign key goes on the ‘many side’) * decompose any m:n relationships 1b) Validate the model Checking for connection trapsExamine your model and identify one potential trap (fan trap or chasm trap) – if present. Consid er whether this may cause a problem to your model and re-draw if necessary, arguing your case either way. Supporting the functional requirements Validate the model to check it can support the following functional requirement i. e. specify the access path by listing the appropriate relations (taking into account the correct relationships) from your diagram: ‘List all members by name who have ever belonged to the Science group, who have a talent for music and have attended an event with Goldie as the outside speaker. ’