Children if convicted of a capital crime, should be given the death Essay

Children if convicted of a capital crime, should be given the death penalty - Essay Example Historically, only 2 percent of capital punishment was juvenile execution since a large number of capital punishment imposed on children was either reversed or commuted. Often public opinion is considered, but â€Å"it is critical to distinguish between judging what is cruel and unusual punishment and what should become policy for such issues as capital punishment† (Kalbeitzer & Goldstein, 174). This paper focuses on different perspectives regarding this sensitive issue. Unlike many developed countries, United States is still embracing capital punishment for serious offenders. One major objective of juvenile criminal system â€Å"is to hold juvenile offenders accountable for delinquent acts while providing treatment, rehabilitative services, and programs designed to prevent future involvement in law-violating behavior† (Cothern, 1). The juvenile court was established in Chicago in 1889 in order to protect the juvenile offenders from receiving rough treatment in the criminal justice system. The juvenile court accepted that adults and children have different developmental capacities; therefore it advocated rehabilitation as alternative for capital punishment in case of children. However due to the growing number of young people getting involved in criminal activities in the turn of this century, the juvenile justice system has become more prone towards more rigid policies and stricter punishments. It now happens that children below the age of 1 8 who have committed capital crimes are subjected to the ultimate form of punishment like the death penalty or life imprisonment without parole. Supporters of juvenile death penalty see it as a way to deter other young people from committing similar kinds of crimes, and a way to maintain public safety (Cothern, 1-2). As of 2000, more than two-third of all independent states advocate death penalty. In 1999, 30 offenders were executed other than 3,500 others who were on death row. Even

Poetry Analysis Essay Example for Free

Poetry Analysis Essay The poetry of Judith Wright conveys a strong sense of ? Australian Identity. This is evident though Wrights strong connection to the sea, using descriptions and personifications of the sea. Wrights ? Australian Identity is firmly established through poetry with her use of ideas that have become synonymous with the Australian stereotype: what people recognise as being uniquely ? Australian. This includes the description of the stereotypical Australian beach scene and the attitudes shown by the surfer and even the surf in the poem: characteristics recognised as ? typically Australian. These features of her poetry have established Wright as a truly ? Australian poet. The surf, grey-wolf sea sitting on the whitened pebbles and shells are images that are recognised as Australian and part of the Australian identity. The surfer too is instantly recognisable as typical Aussie character. He is described as brown and he has muscle ? he is the stereotype of the bronzed, muscular surfer. The use of these ideas that have become typically Australian show Judith Wright as an Australian poet which in turn reflects the Australian identity. Judith Wright has a strong connection to the Australian beach, and the ideas she conveys through her poetry are very much steeped in nature. This link to the Australian sea immediately distinguishes Wright as an Australian poet. The Australian connection to the sea and surf is reflected in the repetition of muscle to describe both the surfer and the wave expresses the surfers connection to the wave and to nature. This connection is further emphasised by the personification of the wave through long muscle of water. The bond of both the surfer and Wright to the sea defines Wright as Australian and reflects Australians strong links to the sea. ?Australian traits are not shown only by Wright herself, but by characters in her poems. In The Surfer, Wright uses assonance (those and foam) to describe the wave. This has the effect of creating a long and lazy piece of sound imagery for the reader. The laconic nature of the wave is the same as the typical Australian ? laid back spirit giving Wrights poetry an Australian flavour and such contribute greatly to Wrights recognition as being an Australian poet.

Rise And Fall Of Joseph Stalin

Rise And Fall Of Joseph Stalin Joseph Stalin, a man of great ambition and power, played a significant role in the transformation of Russia throughout the 20th century and up until his death in 1953. Joseph Stalin was a coldblooded leader, capable of provoking revolutionary loyalty in his followers. Nikita Khrushchev, who followed Stalin to power, described Stalins guidance as creating a cult of personality. What gave Stalin such power? Was it because he could persuade people on his behalf? Was it his rise to power along with the rise of industrialization? Or did he simply create a cult? Stalins success likely derived from a combination of all three. Its undeniable however that Stalins leadership played a massive role in the present portrayal of Russia. By the 1930s, he managed to lead Russia into the industrial age and at the same time alter the Soviet people into a strong-willed and modern nation able to counter the Western powers. Stalin was without a doubt an aggressive yet remarkable leader, and it would be te sted when World War Two broke out in Europe in 1941. He characteristically ordered vigorous attacks and was willing to take risks with the lives of his soldiers, and urged the Central Committee to discharge commanders that proved futile. Stalins behavior during the civil war anticipated exactly the role he would play as Leading Commander throughout World War Two. However, it was this behavior and his fear of losing power that would haunt him until his death in 1953. Born into a dysfunctional family in the mountains of Georgia in 1879, Joseph Stalin from childhood embraced his strong desire for greatness and respect. Joseph was a devout Orthodox, and often involved himself in sermons. Due to an early outbreak of smallpox and a deformed arm as a child, Stalin felt inferior to many intellectuals and from that point on he would distrust many of the people hed meet in his future. Because Stalin grew up in a dangerous village where blood feud persisted, he learned to crush any individuals that would attempt to harm him. Georgian popular culture had a broad emphasis on honour. This involved loyalty to family, friends and clients. Joseph by contrast felt no lasting obligation to anybody. He was later to execute in-laws, veteran fellow leaders and whole groups of communists whose patron he had been. On the surface he was a good Georgian. He hosted lavish dinner partiesà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦he dandled children on his knee. But his sense of traditional honour was non-existent (Service 27). Through a traumatic childhood event, where he witnessed the hanging of two local Georgian men, Joseph learned that state power was an essential factor in any society, and that if changes in government were to ever happen, force would be a key component to go against the status quo. Prior to his engagement in school education, Joseph loved Georgian literature including thirteenth century epic poetry such as The Patricide by Alexander Qazbegi, a story about the great resistance against Russian Imperial power in the 19th century. When he began attending school, he was soon to be recognized as a competent student that was well-behaved and quick to learn. By the end summer in 1894, Joseph had completed his term at the Board of the Gori Spiritual School, and was recommended to attend the Tiflis Spiritual Seminary. The school itself followed many rules, which ranged from prohibiting students to only spending up to an hour a day in the city, to only being allowed to speak and write Russian. Inevitably, Josephs desire for more power and intellect led him to join the rebel students. Through his rebellious acts, he acquired texts by Marx, Darwin, Plekhanov and Lenin. During his attendance, Marxism was on the rise and he would not hesitate to learn in its tenets. By the end of his term at Tiflis Spiritual Seminary, Stalin lost interest in poetry and religion, and began to focus on his study of socialism, Marxism, economics and politics. During the Revolution in 1905, Stalin along with other Marxist and Bolshevik organizations across Russia were involved in a series of thefts from banks to help fund their party. Lenin and Stalin, who were firm supporters of Bolshevism, demanded for money to help sustain the party. By the end of 1906, Stalin was well-recognized in Georgia as The next Lenin. In 1913, Stalin, along with other Bolshevik leaders were sent to exile in northeast Siberia. Their planned term of life in exile was cut short however, when in March of 1917, news came to Stalin that Nicholas II of Russia abdicated his position as ruler, thus ending the reign. A Provisional Government was formed on March 3rd, with Prime Minister Prince Lvov, cabinet members made up of Constitutional-Democrats, and Minister Alexander Kerenski. Immediately, Stalin and Kamenev were demanding a revolutionary democratic dictatorship. On their journey back to Petrograd, both Kamenev and Stalin agreed that they would seize control of the Bolshevik Central Committee in the capital. The Central Committee was not pleased with the arrival of Kamenev, when they discover which side he, Stalin, and Muranov were taking in the political debate. The Committee members were determined to avoid giving the three of them high ranks. Over the next few months, Stalin, who did not adopt all of Lenins policie s which demanded state ownership of the land, argued that it would alienate peasants who wished to control the countryside. Stalin and Kamenev both agreed that in order for their Bolshevik party to grow, they had to convince everyone that they were the only party in Russia that could bring peace. Inevitably, the Provisional Government ran into difficulties, mainly due to the prolongation of the war with Germany and the dislocation of the economy. Food supplies fell. Factories faced closures as metal, oil and other raw materials failed to be delivered. Banks ceased to bail out industrial enterprises. The civilian administrative system, which was already creaking under wartime strains, started to collapse. Transport and communication became unreliableà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦Workers called for higher pay and secure employment. Soldiers in the garrisons supported a peace policy: they were horrified by the possibility of being transferred to the front line (Service 128). By 1918, Civil war broke out between the Red and White groups. Slowly overtime, Stalin and other Bolshevik groups begin to seize control. It was not until 1922, when Stalin was appointed to General Secretary of the Communist Partys Central Committee. Stalin understood his power, and used it against the committee, and it was not until much later that the organization came to a realization of what he was planning. The only person who could challenge Stalin, was Lenin, who was near death after a series of strokes. In due course, Stalin became the leader of the country up until Mikhail Gorbachev. After Lenins death in 1924, Stalin went about destroying the ally commanders. At first, hed remove them from their posts and exiled abroad. Stalin was still not satisfied, however, when he culminated a series of show trials in the 1930s against the founding fathers of the Soviet Union. Stalin successfully managed to manipulate the public of Russia that these revolutionaries were enemies of the p eople. Driven by his own sense of inferiority, Trotsky along with any other intellectual professionals were liquidated or sent into exile. The First Moscow Trial accused Grigory Zinoviev and Lev Kamenev, two prominent party leaders, of attempted assassination of Stalin. The two were sentenced to death. The Second Moscow Trial involved Karl Radek, Yuri Piatakov, Leon Trotsky and Grigory Sokolnikov, in which they were said to have conspired with Nazi Germany. Most were either sentenced to death or exile. The third and final trial, known as The Trial of the Twenty-One involved Nikolai Bukharin, Alexei Rykov, Nikolai Krestinsky, Christian Rakovsky, and Genrikh Yagoda. The twenty-one members were accused of belonging to the Bloc of Rightists and Trotskyites. All the leading defendants were executed except Rakovsky and two others. Through a series of purges in 1936-38, Stalin became the sole intellectual force of Russia, and began to pursue an economic policy which would mobilize the enti re country to achieve rapid industrialization, so that he may stand alongside with other Capitalist leaders. To this end, he forcefully collectivized agriculture, instituted the Five-Year Plans to coordinate all investment and production in the country, and undertook a massive program of building heavy industry. Although the Soviet Union boasted that its economy was booming while the Capitalist world was experiencing the Great Depression, and its industrialization drive did succeed in rapidly creating an industrial infrastructure where there once had been none, the fact is that all this was done at exorbitant cost in human livesà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦and the discovery of a source of cheap labor through the arrest of millions of innocent citizens led to countless millions of deaths from the worst man-made famine in human history and in the camps of the Gulag (Abamedia 1). Inevitably, Stalin managed to make Russia a world power, only to the demise of millions of innocent people. In the early hours of August 24, 1939 Stalin came to agreements with Hitler a ten-year non-aggression pact. The agreement, which took place in Molotovs office in Kremlin, ended six years of mutual discrepancy between the Soviet Union and the Third Reich. Stalin, who was greatly pleased and signed the treaty which ultimately divided the northern regions of Eastern Europe into two areas. Stalin believed that he and Hitler had a truce, thus he refused to listen to any warnings in 1941 that Hitler was planning a massive attack. On May 5, 1941, Stalin addressed a speech in Moscow which declared: War with Germany is inevitable. If comrade Molotov can manage to postpone the war for two or three months through the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, that will be our good fortuneà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦Until now we have conducted a peaceful, defensive policy and weve also educated our army in this sprit. But now the situation must be changed. We have a strong and well-armed army. A good defense signifies the need to attack. Attack is the best form of defenseà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦We must now conduct a peaceful, defensive policy with attack (Service 407). As Hitler began to take over France, Stalin realized it was only a matter of time before Germany would attempt to takeover Russia. If the Soviet state would fail to defeat the German armed forces, it would mean the end of the communist party. On the 23rd of June, Stalin worked with the members of the Supreme Command to plan for war. Over the next few days, the members would vote on Supreme Commander. It was not until the 10th of July, that Stalin was appointed the position. As the three million German forces crept closer to Moscow, panic began to pervade all of USSR. Because the military had been removed of its best commanders in the 1930s, it took much time for the Soviets to reorganize. à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦owing to Stalins purges the army was to all intents and purposes leaderless. In this respect Hitler was right in declaring that the Red Army was a headless giant, and in hurrying to invade the Soviet Union while its head had still not regrown (Wegner 381). Stalin ordered that armament production be boosted, along with labor discipline be tightened and food supplies be secured from villages. Stalin encouraged à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦enhancing the Soviet defensive position along the USSRs western borderlands. Hence the takeover of the Baltic States and the move into Romania (Roberts 122). Unfortunately, the lack of military experience by Stalin was detrimental to their early success. After the battle for Minsk came to a close, Stalin lost more than 400,000 Red Army troops to German forces. The Soviet air force had been destroyed, and the areas of transport and communications throughout USSR had been shattered. In October of 1941 the German forces, having lunged across the plains and marshes to the east of the River Bug, were massing outside Moscow for a final thrust at the USSRs capital. Critical decisions needed to be taken in the Kremlin. The initial plan was for the entire government to be evacuated to Kuibyshev on the Volga. Stalin was set to leave by train and Lenins embalmed corpse, was prepared for the journey to Tyumen in west Siberia. Moscow appeared likely to fall to the invader before winterà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦and Stalin, could scarcely expect that Hitler would grant him his life in the event of the increasingly probable German victory (Service 420). From 1941 to 1945, the forces under the command of Stalin ordered nearly 50 different strategic operations, nearly a quarter of which were defensive. Because of Stalins lack of military knowledge, he was not able to forecast any future attacks by Hitler. Thus many of the battles were spontaneous defensive battles, which was mainly due to the lack of preparation in long-term strategy for the whole USSR. As military leader, Stalin attempted to maintain morale of his forces through means of Stalinist methods and propaganda. He would pay less attention to strengthening the roles of his commanders and political commissars, and focus more on violence and punishment. It was not until Zhukov, one of Stalins assisting commanders, concluded that they must abandon the Ukrainian capital in order to conserve resources and human lives. Stalin, who did not agree with Zhukov, followed through with the plan. While Zhukov worked on a campaign, Stalin promoted the expansion of the armed forces. Miracul ously, Stalins war slogan Everything for the Front! helped provide a massive economic boost. In the second half of 1942, Stalin managed to have the USSR produce 15,000 aircrafts and 13,000 tanks. However as a result, farms fell out of production and a deeper impoverishment of the countryside. By November, Stalin and Zhukov arranged a new operation called Uranus. Operation Uranus consisted of a series of telegrams, in which Stalin would order a series of attacks to crush the enemy. Thus Hitler would order his fellow general to break into Stalingrad, which had been prepared with Russian army groups. The battle persisted until February 2, 1943, when German resistance finally ceased. Stalingrad was a Soviet city again. Following the war, Stalin met in the Teheran, Yalta, and Potsdam Conferences and ordered for the Soviet Union to directly seize property from conquered nations. Stalin managed to successfully negotiate with the other leaders and secured three seats for Russia at the UN, a nd took control the Baltic States, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Bulgaria, and Romania. Communist governments were installed in the newly controlled territories, and many people began to leave. The Soviet Union was now a recognized superpower worldwide, having its own permanent seat with the Security Council, giving Stalin the respect hed been dreaming his whole life. The strains of the Second World War on Stalin were great, by this time he was old, a long-term smoker and drinker, and was inevitably driving him to an earlier death. After the suicide of his wife, Stalin and his family began to lead odd lives. While Stalin lived, however, his policies remained unchallengeable. He was not absolutely inflexible and most war-related decisions were kept in policy. While many of the churches had been reopened due to the war thrived, Stalin consented to act as unofficial ambassador for the peace policy of the USSR government. Thus the Russian Orthodox Church began to occupy previously recognized Christian buildings. Cultural expression became as wide as the war, where the level of material provision for Soviet citizens maintained the Stalinist mindset. While Stalin did not play for an economy of shortage, he still aimed to expand the supply of food and industrial products through the retail trade. Stalin agreed that in order to stimulate the production an d distribution of consumer goods, he would have to cease wartime inflation. As a result, in December of 1947, Stalin declared the devaluation of the ruble, reducing its value to a tenth of what it had been valued at. At the end of January in 1953, Stalins physician Miron Vovsi was arrested in relation to The Doctors Plot. This plot was an alleged conspiracy made by Stalin, which would nearly bring purges again to Russia. The conspiracy would eliminate the leadership of the Soviet Union by means of highly regarded Jewish doctors. Khrushchev, along with others, suggested that Stalin had long held negative attitudes towards Jews that had manifested prior to the 1917 Russian Revolution. Further suspicions of Stalins crudeness towards Jews were seen through the elimination of the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee in 194 and his campaign referred to as rootless cosmopolitans. The Soviet dictator accused nine doctors plotting to poison and kill the Soviet leadership. The convicted men were arrested, and at Stalins order, were tortured until they confessed. Within days of the doctors arrest, however, Stalin who was in terrible health was rapidly deteriorating. His high-blood pressure, along with his unhealth y lifestyle, led to his eventual coma. Four days later, Stalin briefly regained consciousness, and demanded the leading members of the party be brought for a conference. As a last sign of life, Joseph Stalin raised his left arm, only to die moments later. He remained a hero to the people of Russia until Nikita Krushchev, the new leader of the Soviet Union, made a prominent speech to the Party Congress in 1956. The speech attacked the policies of Stalin and revealed how Stalin was responsible for the execution of thousands of loyal communists during the purges. In the months following Krushchevs speech, thousands of the imprisoned under Stalins order were released. Attempts were further made to completely erase Stalins image from the Soviet Union. Public statues and portraits of the leader were removed, and parks and streets were renamed after being originally named after Stalin. Stalingrad, which had been associated with Stalin during both the Civil War and World War Two, was renamed Volgagrad. Finally, Stalins ashes were removed from the Kremlin Wall. While images and names of the leader were removed from the public domain, the system which Stalin had worked for still remained. The state which protected Soviet leaders was to stay unchanged for the next thirty years, until Mikhail Gorbachev took control in the 1980s. The Cold War continued, gulags remained operational, and the totalitarian government remained. The world was finally permitted to access the records of Stalin and his crimes after the fall of the Berlin Wall, the conclusion of the Cold War, and the final end of the Soviet Union in 1991-92. While most of the contemporaries working under Stalin managed to hide the corruption behind Stalins past, many people still managed to acquire some information against the cruel dictator. In the end, just as we may never gain full knowledge of his past crimes, we may never seize an absolute understanding of his motivations and personality. For decades, Stalin and his committee members managed to justify their deeds by saying that their goal, the building of a utopia, necessitated the sacrifice of any number of lives. In order to make a life which would better the whole, lives must be surrendered. While Stalin believed he never reached a complete Communist society, he did prove that his tactics such as collectivization and the Five-Year Plan guided toward an ideology that focused on Totalitarian control. While the world continues to suffer, it is important to realize Stalins unbridled desire for power can devastate millions of lives. His egocentric personality not only was detrimental to the Russian people, but to countries across the globe. While he may be revered as a man who greatly contributed to Russias success as a world superpower, it is undeniable that it was a t the cost of something much more important. While he was a political genius, it was his paranoid loss of power which led to his demise. Joseph Stalin will always be remembered as a ruthless leader of Russia, and while he may have been erased from the public streets, he will always remain in the thoughts and prayers of the people in Russia and across the globe.

Stem Cells in the Treatment of Diabetes Essay -- Diabetes Mellitus Sci

Stem Cells in the Treatment of Diabetes Diabetes mellitus affects 18 million people in the U.S. alone (8.7% of the population) and more than 190 million worldwide. The prevalence of diabetes has increased alarmingly in the past three decades and, corresponding to global dietary and lifestyle trends, is projected to nearly double in the next ten years (1). Although diabetes can be treated, serious complications from improperly managed diabetes are common and can lead to death. Recent reports suggest that one of the most promising potential treatments may come from the use of stem cells, undifferentiated cells that can be coaxed into becoming insulin-producing islet-like cells that reduce diabetes symptoms in mice (2). There is one ethical catch, however: stem cells can be derived from a number of sources, including adult tissues, but the purest source of stem cells with the greatest therapeutic potential is early-stage embryos. The process of deriving stem cells destroys the embryo. Does the human embryo have moral status that would proscribe its destruction, regardless of the potential good that might be achieved? If so, are there still avenues of stem cell research that are both scientifically viable as well as morally permissible? Diabetes is a disease that results from the body's inability to maintain consistent levels of glucose (the main energy source for cells) in the blood. In a healthy individual, blood glucose levels are kept within a certain range by insulin, a hormone that aids the uptake of glucose by cells. The release of insulin in response to blood glucose levels is coordinated by clusters of cells in the pancreas called islets; residing in these islets are the beta cells, the cells that actually produc... ...cell? Journal of Clinical Investment. 111:799-801. 4. Hori, Y. et al. 2002. Growth inhibitors promote differentiation of insulin-producing tissue from embryonic stem cells. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. USA. 99:16105- 16110. 5. Ianus, A. et al. 2003. In vivo derivation of glucose-competent pancreatic endocrine cells from bone marrow without evidence of cell fusion. Journal of Clinical Investment. 111:843-850. 6. Yang, L. et al. 2002. In vitro trans-differentiation of adult hepatic stem cells into pancreatic endocrine hormone-producing cells. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. USA. 99:8078-8083. 7. Meyer, J. June 2000. Human embryonic stem cells and respect for life. Journal of Medical Ethics. 26: 166-170 8. Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. Donum Vitae. I:1-5. Boston: St. Paul Editions, 1987.

History of Mexican Revolution Essay

The novel transports readers to a ghost town on the desert plains in Mexico, and there it weaves together tales of passion, loss, and revenge. The village of Comala is populated by the wandering souls of former inhabitants, individuals not yet pure enough to enter heaven. Like the character Juan Preciado, who travels to Comala and suddenly finds himself confused, as readers we are not sure about what we see, hear, or understand. But the novel is enigmatic for other reasons. Since publication in 1955, the novel has come to define a style of writing in Mexico. Sparse language, echoes of orality, details heavy with meaning, and a fragmentary structure transformed the literary representation of rural life; instead of the social realism that had dominated in earlier decades, Rulfo created a quintessentially Mexican, modernist gothic.. The haunting effect of Pedro Paramo derives from the fitful story of Mexican modernity, a story that the novel tells in a way that more â€Å"objective† historical and sociological analyses cannot. As an aesthetic expression characterized by imaginative understanding, the novel explores Mexican social history of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The decadent remnants of a quasi-feudal social order, violent revolutions, and a dramatic exodus from the countryside to the city all gave rise to ghost towns across Mexico. Pedro Paramo tells the stories of three main characters: Juan Preciado, Pedro Paramo, and Susana San Juan. From the point of view of Juan Preciado, the novel is the story of a son’s search for identity and retribution. Juan’s mother, Dolores Preciado, was Pedro Paramo’s wife. Although he does not bear his father’s name, Juan is Pedro’s only legitimate son. Juan has returned to Comala to claim â€Å"[j]ust what’s ours,† as he had earlier promised his dying mother. Juan Preciado guides readers into the ghost story as he encounters the lost souls of Comala, sees apparitions, hears voices, and eventually suspects that he too is dead. We see through Juan’s eyes and hear with his ears the voices of those buried in the cemetery, a reading experience that evokes the poetic obituaries of Edgar Lee Masters’ Spoon River Anthology (1915). Along with Juan Preciado, readers piece together these fragments of lives to construct an image of Comala and its demise. Interspersed among the fragments recounting Juan’s story are flashbacks to the biography of Pedro Paramo. Pedro is the son of landowners who have seen better days. He also loves a young girl, Susana San Juan, with a desire that consumes his life into adulthood. â€Å"I came to Comala because I had been told that my father, a man named Pedro Paramo, lived there. † —page 3 Although the story line in these biographical fragments follows a generally chronological order, the duration of time is strangely distorted; brief textual passages that may read like conversational exchanges sometimes condense large historical periods. Moreover, the third-person narrative voice oscillates between two discursive registers. On the one hand, poetic passages of interior monologue capture Pedro’s love for Susana and his sensuality; on the other, more exterior descriptions and dialogues represent a domineering rancher determined to amass wealth and possessions. Within this alternation between the first- and third-person narrative voices, readers must listen for another voice and reconstruct a third story, that of Susana San Juan. We overhear bits of her tale through the ears of Juan Preciado, listening with him to the complaints that Susana—in her restless death—gives forth in the cemetery of Comala. â€Å"I was thinking of you, Susana. Of the green hills. Of when we used to fly kits in the windy season. We could hear the sounds of life from the town below; we were high above on the hill, playing out string to the wind. ‘Help me Susana. ‘ And soft hands would tighten on mine. ‘Let out more string. ‘† —page 12 Poetic sections evoke her passion for another man, Florencio, and Pedro never becomes the object of Susana’s affection. Juan Preciado, Pedro Paramo, and Susana San Juan are all haunted by ghosts; in turn, they become ghosts who haunt the realities of others. â€Å"They say that when people from there die and go to hell, they come back for a blanket. † —page 6 Although as readers we have the sense of lives once lived by these characters, they emerge for us as phantasms, as partially known presences who are not immediately intelligible and who linger with inexplicable tenacity. Reading Pedro Paramo creates a transformative recognition of Mexico’s move toward modernity in the early twentieth century; more than the objective lessons learned from social and cultural history, as a novel, Pedro Paramo produces a structure of feeling for readers that immerses us through the experience of haunting. As ghosts, Pedro, Susana, and Juan point outward to the social context of Mexico in the difficult movement toward modernization, toward social arrangements that never completely die as a newer social order is established. Pedro’s accumulation of land as a rancher harks back to the trends of capital accumulation during the benign dictatorship of President Porfirio Diaz (1876-1911). The Porfiriato strove to modernize the nation through the development of infrastructure and investment; it allowed for anomalies such as the creation of the Media Luna ranch and strong local power brokers such as Pedro Paramo who shared the interests of the elite and helped maintain a thinly veiled feudal social order. Within this context, Susana San Juan and other individuals murmur their complaints in ghostly whispers. Indeed, at one point, Rulfo planned to call the novel Los murmullos—the murmurs. Speaking in the streets of Comala, overheard in dreams, and groaning in the cemetery, these spectral murmurs bespeak a reality hidden beneath the facade of Porfirian progress. The Mexican Revolution of 1910-1920 gave expression to repressed peasants—the campesinos of rural Mexico—and put an end to the Porfiriato. Susana San Juan, in turn, reveals the repressed role of women in a patriarchal order. In this world women are chattel and ranch-owners can forcibly populate the countryside with bastard children by asserting feudal rights to the bodies of peasant women living on their lands. Peasant revolutionaries and Susana San Juan as well are all manipulated by Pedro Paramo. He can force events to keep them all in the places where he would have them, but he cannot control their desires and their pleasures. The peasants celebrate festivals, and after the revolution they eventually rebel again by participating in the Cristero Revolt of 1926-1929. Susana suffers guilt and remembers pleasure in evocative passages that underscore her erotic ties to Florencio, a man unknown to others in the novel, perhaps a dead soldier from the revolution, the man Pedro would have had to be in order to have Susana’s love. â€Å"The sky was crowded with fat, swollen stars. The moon had come out for a little while and then vanished. It was one of those sad moons that nobody looks at or even notices. It hung there for a little while, pale and disfigured, and then hid itself behind the mountains. † -Juan Rulfo References Carol Clark D’Lugo, The Fragmented Novel in Mexico: The Politics of Form (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1997), 70-81. Patrick Dove, â€Å"‘Exigele lo nuestro’: Deconstruction, Restitution and the Demand of Speech in Pedro Paramo,† Journal of Latin American Cultural Studies 10. 1 (2001): 25-44,

Free Essays on How Mans Humanness Can Be Taken Away At The Hands Of Another.“

â€Å"How man’s sense of being human can be taken away at the hand’s of another.† Man’s identity lies in the ability to understand him as being a human that is free. He is free to have his own thoughts and opinions about the world around him and to make his own decisions regarding how he lives his life. When that ability is taken away, he is no longer a human being. He now becomes an animal hunting for one last sense of himself. He strives to hold onto what little sanity he has left and tests his own memory that is beginning to deteriorate. He regales himself with thoughts that he used to hold near and dear to his heart. Like Primo Levi does while he is trying to keep his sanity while in Auschwitz he tries to remember the â€Å"Canto of Ulysses† from Dante’s inferno. Try as he might he cannot seem to recall it in any order whatsoever. He has now become a desperate man. He struggles to get a grip on the situation but notices him falling even further into oblivion. This is only one instance out of many in which he tries to get a grip on reality but fails and loses! a sense of being. A human as it evolves becomes more intelligent and gains more knowledge of the outside world. This makes the person a whole and separates one from another. In dire circumstances such as when a person’s entire world is crushed, they can begin to lose a sense of being in this world. For instance, during the holocaust people were taken away from their homes and stripped of all personal belongings. They were crammed into railroad cars where they had no place to use the restroom or even to move about. The elders in the group did not survive because of the squalor that was thrust upon them. They were then taken to a place where they were forced to fight each other for what little food was given to them. Their life became a daily struggle to push themselves to live on from day to day. They are no longer humans but animal machines in the sense that they fi... Free Essays on How Man's Humanness Can Be Taken Away At The Hand's Of Another.â€Å" Free Essays on How Man's Humanness Can Be Taken Away At The Hand's Of Another.â€Å" â€Å"How man’s sense of being human can be taken away at the hand’s of another.† Man’s identity lies in the ability to understand him as being a human that is free. He is free to have his own thoughts and opinions about the world around him and to make his own decisions regarding how he lives his life. When that ability is taken away, he is no longer a human being. He now becomes an animal hunting for one last sense of himself. He strives to hold onto what little sanity he has left and tests his own memory that is beginning to deteriorate. He regales himself with thoughts that he used to hold near and dear to his heart. Like Primo Levi does while he is trying to keep his sanity while in Auschwitz he tries to remember the â€Å"Canto of Ulysses† from Dante’s inferno. Try as he might he cannot seem to recall it in any order whatsoever. He has now become a desperate man. He struggles to get a grip on the situation but notices him falling even further into oblivion. This is only one instance out of many in which he tries to get a grip on reality but fails and loses! a sense of being. A human as it evolves becomes more intelligent and gains more knowledge of the outside world. This makes the person a whole and separates one from another. In dire circumstances such as when a person’s entire world is crushed, they can begin to lose a sense of being in this world. For instance, during the holocaust people were taken away from their homes and stripped of all personal belongings. They were crammed into railroad cars where they had no place to use the restroom or even to move about. The elders in the group did not survive because of the squalor that was thrust upon them. They were then taken to a place where they were forced to fight each other for what little food was given to them. Their life became a daily struggle to push themselves to live on from day to day. They are no longer humans but animal machines in the sense that they fi...

Free Essays on Windows 2000

Introductory Windows 2000 has four operating systems. The four operating systems in Windows 2000 are: Windows 2000 Professional, Windows 2000 Server, Windows 2000 Advanced Server, and Windows 2000 Datacenter Server. There are three file systems that support Windows 2000; they are FAT16, FAT32 and NTSF (NT File System). In order for Windows 2000 to run, each operating system has several requirements met by Microsoft. Windows 2000 was released by Microsoft on February 17, 2000. Windows 2000 Professional It is an operating system designed to replace Windows 9x. It includes Plug and Play, is by definition is a standard designed to make installation of new hardware easier by automatically configuring devices. IT is supported by Windows 9X, Windows 2000, and Windows XP. There are many different features in Windows 2000 professional. The Microsoft Corporation has listed several features on their website. Windows 2000 Professional is reliable, easy to use and comes with the Internet. Microsoft states that â€Å"Windows 2000 is very good for mobile users. Windows 2000 Windows 2000 Professional is a lot faster than Windows 98. Windows 2000 Server Windows 2000 Server is an improved version of the Windows NT Server (Andrews A+ Guide to Software 212). Windows 2000 Server is a server that is used for networking and has different features from Windows 2000 Professional. A research study done by Microsoft says that Windows 2000 server cost less than the Linux operating system to operate. The Microsoft Corporation lists the top ten reasons to switch to Windows 2000 Server. They are listed below. 1. Business Value 2. You have a choice of how to deploy Windows 2000 Server 3. Reliability 4. Availability 5. Performance 6. Scalability 7. Manageability 8. Internet Ready 9. Hardware 10. Prepare for .NET... Free Essays on Windows 2000 Free Essays on Windows 2000 Introductory Windows 2000 has four operating systems. The four operating systems in Windows 2000 are: Windows 2000 Professional, Windows 2000 Server, Windows 2000 Advanced Server, and Windows 2000 Datacenter Server. There are three file systems that support Windows 2000; they are FAT16, FAT32 and NTSF (NT File System). In order for Windows 2000 to run, each operating system has several requirements met by Microsoft. Windows 2000 was released by Microsoft on February 17, 2000. Windows 2000 Professional It is an operating system designed to replace Windows 9x. It includes Plug and Play, is by definition is a standard designed to make installation of new hardware easier by automatically configuring devices. IT is supported by Windows 9X, Windows 2000, and Windows XP. There are many different features in Windows 2000 professional. The Microsoft Corporation has listed several features on their website. Windows 2000 Professional is reliable, easy to use and comes with the Internet. Microsoft states that â€Å"Windows 2000 is very good for mobile users. Windows 2000 Windows 2000 Professional is a lot faster than Windows 98. Windows 2000 Server Windows 2000 Server is an improved version of the Windows NT Server (Andrews A+ Guide to Software 212). Windows 2000 Server is a server that is used for networking and has different features from Windows 2000 Professional. A research study done by Microsoft says that Windows 2000 server cost less than the Linux operating system to operate. The Microsoft Corporation lists the top ten reasons to switch to Windows 2000 Server. They are listed below. 1. Business Value 2. You have a choice of how to deploy Windows 2000 Server 3. Reliability 4. Availability 5. Performance 6. Scalability 7. Manageability 8. Internet Ready 9. Hardware 10. Prepare for .NET...