Is American Culture a Harmless Invasion Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

Is American Culture a Harmless Invasion - Essay Example The author of the paper states that American troops may have been fighting against a country without an army for five years in Iraq to bring the culture of democracy to it, but the real victory has been the corporate invasion that has even managed to witness a company that has long used the advertising slogan related to how many hamburgers it has sold establish a footing in India, a country where the natural resource that provides beef is considered sacred. American culture is not a harmless invasion because it is even more successful actual battlegrounds attempting to enforce democracy upon foreign nations that are perhaps not quite ready to make that leap. Every town in American already looks like alike with its Wal-Marts, Burger Kings, Home Depots and Rave Motion Picture Theaters standing proudly as beacons of homogeneity in part because they displace the specific cultural touchstones of home-owned business. American culture is constructed upon a solid foundation of destroying the specific generational individualities of towns, cities, and regions. Monoculture is the real description of American culture because it is based upon a bland sameness in which every street in a town resembles every street in any other town.  Globalizing America’s monoculture threatens to do the same, and is there really anyone who wants to travel to London or Paris or Tokyo or Sydney and not be able to distinguish between those towns and Peoria or Las Cruces or Pittsburgh?  Ã‚  

Experience Essay Example for Free

Experience Essay I personally believe that a persons field of experience plays a very pivotal role in defining who that person is. With that in mind, there are definitely countless experiences and accomplishments that made me who I am. It is said that a persons field of experience is the sum of all experiences that have ever happened to that person since birth. As such, the things that make me who I am are the people I meet, the things I am exposed to every day, and the things that I do. In my life, I continuously meet new people. These people help form me. Whenever I meet someone, especially if I get to know them well enough, that person leaves his or her mark on me. Friends, family, and strangers have all contributed to my edification. The kindness I see in some of them make me realize that if you are nice to people, they will, more often than not, reciprocate your kindness. Likewise, the blind idealism Ive seen in some of them made me understand that the world is not a place full of sunshine and rainbows. I once had a friend who was going through a very difficult time in his life. I saw him suffer at the hands of typhoon Ondoy. The next time I saw him, he was practically homeless. His grades plummeted and he told me he kept seeing flashes of the flood happening again and again. I assumed there was no hope for him. I thought he was falling in a downward spiral. That taught me life isnt always fair. Sometimes we go through hardships that we have done nothing to deserve, but, as the days went by, I saw that same person get back on his feet, beat the odds, and persevere despite what he went through. This taught me that, no matter what happens, we must remember that God will always be with us, and His grace abounds. The things I am exposed to every day can be anything from what I read, what I see on a billboard, or even what I smell on the way to the cafeteria. These things help me stimulate my thoughts and reach certain realizations that help in my formation. For example, when I was at Lake Tahoe, I remember seeing a snowflake fall on my hand. When I was staring at my garden at home, I saw a petal from a flower fall down to the floor. Those things didnt mean anything to me then, but just recently, I understood that they can mean so much more. Something as beautiful as a snowflake or flower petal falling only lasts so long. The snowflake melts, and the petal withers and dies. It made me realize that the best things in life are simply the fleeting moments that come and go in a blink of an eye. That only means we need to enjoy the falling of the snowflake or the petal even more, and we can always wait for the next one to fall. My actions have caused me both great joy and deep sorrow. There are things I regret doing and there are opportunities I have missed. Despite it all, I still say the both the things I have done, and things I could have but didnt do all contributed to my current self. If even one decision Ive ever made or action Ive ever done, no matter how seemingly insignificant, was changed, I probably wouldnt be who I am today. If I decided not to go with my grandmother to the hospital; if didnt suggest that she go take the helpers home and leave me there; even if I decided to stop by 7-Eleven on my way up the stairs to buy a Coke, I wouldnt have been the only one there to see my great-aunt die. If I didnt experience that, I would definitely be different. How I would have turned out, I do not know. All I know is whatever I do or dont do contributes to my field of experience. Our fields of experience make us who we are. Everything that weve ever been through makes us who we are. Everything we see, everything we feel, every person we meet, and everything that we do help define us. As our life goes on, we continuously change. Minds broaden or narrow. Skills may sharpen or dull. Ideas may spark to life or wither and die. It is up to us whether these changes are for the better or for the worse.

Characterize The Protagonist

Characterize The Protagonist Thesis Statement: The narrator, who originally loves animals and his wife, turns violent towards them and even kills his wife, because of alcohol addiction. Alcohol addiction as a form of illness, its consequences and examples from personal experience. In the â€Å"The Black Cat† (1843) by Edgar Allan Poe, the protagonist and his wife love animals and have a number of them. The protagonist favorite pet was a black cat named Pluto. Because of his addiction to alcohol he ends up killing his favorite pet and his wife. The narrator, who originally loves animals and his wife, turns violent towards them and even kills his wife, because of alcohol addiction. Alcohol addiction as a form of illness, its consequences and examples from personal experience. In the biging of the story, the narrator is a day before he dies and explains the reasons why he is in prison. Firstly he mention that he is always fond of animals and his wife also shard this love. They had a number of pets, including the cat named Pluto of which the narrator was particularly fond of. As the story goes on the narrator addiction to alcohol got worse taking the best out of him. His illness drives him to have dilutions of the cat that avoiding him while he was drunk. And later on drives him to kill his wife. It seems to me that a clear explanation of his addiction is not given in the story. Around that time of the story alcohol was something many men got addicted to. Perhaps we could say that poverty and such issues had something to do with the problem. But still one can only assume. We could also assume that a reason as to why he became addicted to alcohol was because he hadnt a really strong personality. According to the narrator the problem with the alcohol progressed gradually and although in the beginning he only spoke harshly to his wife, he went on to physically abuse her as well.   That story strongly reminds me of my father and me. My personal experiences are the following. When it comes to my father it seems that he was shearing the same motive as the protagonist of the story. In the time when my father had a problem with alcohol was a time when he had financial and personal problems. At that time us family was just beginning to expand and us family business had suffered blow. Our family was counting of him to provide for everything and he couldnt keep up. Because of that he began drinking. He had mention to me that during that period the alcohol was helped him to escape reality temporally. The result from drinking was frustration and anger; he was rude and angry towards us. Those are of the similarities I noticed between the narrator and my father. To sum up, people with alcohol problems usually are having problems in their lives and they are trying to escape from them in order fell good or not to feel anything at all. Alcohol leads to many consequences physical and social ones as well. Perhaps the people that end up having such addictions already suffer from health, social and other problems, but in my opinion it usually happens to weaker characters. People with strong personalities tend to have a better control over their lives, and even though both the narrator could have been a strong character, just like my father he could be going through a rough phase in his life.

Monster Essay -- Biography, Kody Scott

Kody Scott, also known as â€Å"Monster† for his viciousness in beating of a man and further crimes, forms a realistic and brutal picture of gang violence in America. Throughout his story, Scott views his gang participation as the only viable means of survival. Killing is done through the necessity to promote oneself in order to become an O.G., or Original Gangster, the pinnacle of gang member status and achievement. The urge to become an O.G. seems to be paramount in Scott's eyes, and he outlines his plan: first he must build his reputation, then his influence as part of his set, and finally as a â€Å"promoter† of the Crips (Shakur, 1993, pp. 14-15). By age eleven Scott's sole desire is to become a gang member of his local set, the Eight Trays. He disregards education, at one point stating how he paid no attention to his middle school teacher, focusing only on the streets and his â€Å"homeboys† as source of lifestyle and adventure (Shakur, 1993, pp. 3-4). He c learly reaches his goal, putting the entirety of his mental and physical being into being a gangster, even though it leads him to a life wreaked by violence and prison sentences. While many factors can be reported to showcase the reasons why an individual would be led to such violence, ethology remains the single most accurate theory in explaining the many facets of gang violence by showing the parallels between animal behavior and the lifestyle of gang members. Ethology also attempts to explain the violence exhibited by humans as corresponding to violence displayed by animals. For predatory animals, violence is necessary for survival and adaptation to the surroundings is vital. Genetically humans are closest to chimpanzees, which â€Å"routinely engage in murder, assassination, rape, raid... ...suit of a promoted street war and personal achievements of status and further violence. Kody Scott's tale of the street war in Los Angeles in which he witnessed and played a dramatic part in is punctuated by the reasons behind his deviant behavior and adherence to a lifestyle focused on violence. By studying the behavioral patterns of animals in ethology, the traits of predatory animals which must fight and guard in order to stay alive is the same intensity of the battle to survive in the case of Monster's reality. Each of Monster's action's proved to be founded in the culture he was born into along with his personal desire to see his acts of violence glorified. Without the drive to commit himself to a rational lifestyle, Kody is swept into the maelstrom of gang-banging, all of its twisted faculties accepted due to an equally twisted and antisocial personality.

Coastal and Plateau Native Americans

The Coastal and Plateau Native Americans have different lifestyles in food, housing, and transportation because of where they lived. The Cascade Mountains separate the Coastal and Plateau tribes, and puts them into two different environments, caused by the rainshadow effect. Being in two different environments, means that both of the tribes are in different climates, which changes how they live. The Coastal live in a colder and wetter climate due to being so close to the Pacific Ocean. The Plateau tribe has a warmer and dryer climate since they are farther away.When it comes to food for the Native Americans, it is very different. For the Coastal tribe, they would fish and hunt all sorts of animals like; salmon, seal, deer, bear, goats, and whale. Whale hunting was really big for the Native Americans, especially tribes that were closer to the ocean. The women would usually pick roots and berries, and cook the food (Lambert 100). The Plateau Native Americans were not by water all the t ime because they were nomadic. They did not get all the same foods as the Coastal, but they hunted a lot. They usually hunted deer, antelope, rabbits, goats, and buffalo.When they moved by water, they would get salmon and other fish (Lambert 100-102). Coastal and Plateau Native Americans had very different housing styles. The Coastal lived in houses called longhouses. Longhouses were large permanent cedar log houses that were usually 40 to 100 feet long. There were no windows and very few doors (Lambert 105). On the other hand, the Plateau Natives lived in tepees. Since the Plateau Natives were nomadic, which means they did not stay in one place for long, they moved frequently. That required a form of shelter that was easy to put up and take down.A tepee is a cone shaped shelter made of several long poles covered by woven mats or animal hides. During the winter, the Plateau Native Americans would move into caves, or construct a pit house which is covered in animal skin, hides, and e arth materials (Lambert 105). Transportation was a very big deal in the lives for Coastal and Plateau Native Americans. For the Coastal, they would walk and occasionally use horses. They began to use dug-out canoes. Building a canoe was simple, but needed a lot of hard work. It usually took around a month to complete one canoe. Canoes were used to transport people, trading goods, and supplies.They came in varies sizes, large ones could be up to 30 feet and hold up to 25-30 people (Lambert 106). Unlike the Coastal, the Plateau did not have canoes. They would walk, or run to get where they needed to go. In the early 1800s, they started to capture wild horses. The Plateau Natives would breed, trade, receive, exchange, or steel horses from other tribes (Lambert 106). The Appaloosa breed of horses as the most popular for the tribes. Coastal and Plateau Native Americans did not have the same lifestyle, because the Cascade Mountains dividing the two environments.

split brain research essays

split brain research essays 1. Gazzaniga, M.S. "One Brain or Two?" Scientific American. 1967. Rpt. In Forty Studies That Changed Psychology. Ed. Roger R. Hock. Engewood Cliffs: Prentice Hall, 1995. 2-11. 2. This article dealt with experiments that showed the different functions of the right and left hemisphere of the brain. It also described the functions of the left and right hemisphere. "Your left brain is better at speaking, writing, mathematical calculations, and reading, and is the primary center for language. Your right hemisphere, posses superior capabilities for recognizing faces, solving problems involving spatial relationships, symbolic reasoning, and artistic activities"(9). The experiments were done to find how each hemisphere of the brain process information. To do this the corpus callosum was severed. This made it impossible for the two hemispheres of the brain to communicate with each other. When the corpus callosum is severed it is referred to as the split brain effect. The tests that were performed on the individuals fell into three fields: they were sight, hearing, and touch. All the tests showed that the above is true concerning the functions of each hem isphere of the brain. The problem that the author was addressing was the fact that the two hemispheres of the brain communicate with each other, and if the communication is destroyed then the functions could be handled by one hemisphere better then the two combined. These experiments proved that there was a dominance in each hemisphere of the brain to perform certain tasks. Even though a connected brain can perform the tasks of both sides. 3. I think that the experiment showed exactly what it set out to do. Show that the separate hemispheres of the brain perform different tasks. It also showed that the brain is capable of performing these tasks even when the corpus callosum has been severed. Although some tasks are performed better ...