Humanities are not useless Essay

Humanities are the subjects such as history, philosophy, and literature which are concerned with human ideas and behaviors. This is only a general idea. The deeper meaning of studying humanities is that it is an academic approach to understanding people better, a way to enable us to develop better not only through four years university life but also in one’s entire life. Some people may say that humanities are useless because people cannot make considerable money with them. However, that is not the truth. Once someone has realized the value of studying humanities, this will be beneficial for his or her life. I study humanities because I believe I will gain plenty of meanings of life through the learning process. Most people think that humanities are useless, my mother is one of those people. She is always asking me that why would you waste our money and your time on such useless stuff. However, my father does not think so, he believes that everything has its own value, even humanities. In this case, I strongly agree with my father. The reason why my mother thinks that humanities are useless is that people cannot make good money with them; the jobs related to humanities are not well-paid. Actually this is a generalization which people have commonly. Nevertheless, people who think so are wrong. The truth is opposite. According to the article â€Å"Liberal Arts and the Advantages of Being Useless†, the author explains that even people with Liberal Arts degree have pretty much the same chance as other majors to end up making good money. Although humanities are useless for maximal one’s salary immediately after graduation, and bring a slightly greater risk of unemployment immediately after graduation, there is good evidence that Liberal Arts majors tend to earn higher salaries by midcareer. Besides, life is short, and it should not be all about money. There are other intangible things to pursue. â€Å"There are lessons to be learned from the humanities that were not available anywhere else† said by Julia T. Cadenhead(2001). According to the Syllabus of ACMA01, courses in humanities explore such fundamental questions as how we use language, how our ideas and thoughts on the human experience are expressed and interpreted, how we determine value of meaning, how we define ideas such as †truth† â€Å"beauty†, and â€Å"arts†. They consider ideas about meaning of life, the reasons for our thoughts and actions, and the values and principles that inform our laws, norms and customs those written and unwritten. Unlike science, there are not standard answers to these questions. Furthermore, different people grew up in different environments, they have various cultures, backgrounds, and languages. Studying humanities make people think in different ways and experience a journey that they have never taken before. In addition, people who are studying humanities are becoming more comprehensive and compassionate about one’s self and one’s community. Different from other subjects such as medicine and law which make people useful for specific purposes, humanities make people better citizens. During the learning process, people gain self-improvements because studying humanities can make people think meaningful questions that somehow change people’s life in a good way. For example, many prisoners do not have religions before they go to prison, but some of these people are found through religions. When they are not only learning religions but studying humanities as a whole, they reflect what they have done. They can tell the rights from wrongs. They are becoming better. After they are released from prison, they behave well, they become useful citizens. This is beneficial for both society and individuals. Humanities are not useless. They can make you earn considerable money; they can make you gain self-improvements; they can make you question things that may change your life. Once someone has discovered the value of studying humanities, his or her life will change. Reference: Jones, Nichlaos. â€Å"Liberal Arts, and the Advantages of Being Useless. † Academia. edu. n. p. n. d. Web. 5 Sept. 2013.

The Nanny Murder Case essays

The Nanny Murder Case essays Louise Woodward, a British Nanny, was hired in November of 1996 by Sunil and Deborah Eappen, for their sons, Matthew and Brendan. On February 4, 1997, the Massachusetts police received a phone call from Woodward stating that Matthew Eappen was having trouble breathing. When the paramedics examined Matthew, they said he had a 2-Â ½ inch skull fracture. His eyes were bulging, which is a sign of the shaken baby syndrome. Before Matthew Eappens death, he spent four days on life support. After the event, Woodward was jailed without bond. Supporters from Massachusetts and Britain argued that she should not have to stay in jail on grounds that she is a foreigner and did not understand the U.S. legal system. She was kept in a states womens prison and had to stay because prosecutors felt that she might flee the country if she was freed on bail. Prosecutors said that Woodward admitted to harming Matthew. They said she shook him, dropped him on the floor, and then tossed him on the bed in order to quiet the baby. Prosecutors argued that Woodward was so frustrated with Matthews uncontrollable crying, that she began to violently shake him to stop the crying. Medical examiners said that Matthew must have hit the floor with the force equivalent to a fall from a second-story window. Naturally the injuries from the fall along with the shaking caused Matthews death. Forensic expert, Barry Scheck, who took part in the O.J. Simpson trial, was recruited to help Woodwards defensive argument. The defense stated that a pre-existing medical condition might have killed Matthew, not the supposed mistreatment. The defense attempted to find genetic disorders that could have affected his bone strength and development or could have caused brain hemorrhages, by requesting DNA tests on Matthew. The defense also tried to put the blame on Matthewss two-year-old brother, B ...

Harsh Fate - Short story about giving up somthing important for the greater good.

Harsh Fate - Short story about giving up somthing important for the greater good. It had been 2 years since Hassan Feiraz had returned to his home country of Iraq after living most of his life in America. As he was sitting there, listening to his training instructor tell him how to cock a gun to finish reloading after gunning out of ammo in the last cartridge, he couldn't help thinking about how he got to be where he was now. Hassan Feiraz was born in Iraq in 1986.but his family sent him to America when he was six, to attend school there, get an education as well as learn English. When he stayed in America, he lived with a foster family who looked after him and helped him anyway they could. The family had a son named Will, who was exactly the same age as Hassan was. They grew up together and fast became best friends, Hassan was considered part of the family and even with his origin, and he was fitting in nicely.Hassan, parade of girls in whiteHis life couldn't have been any better until the attacks started. September 11 had an impact on every American, especially Hassan.Being of middle-eastern origin he started receiving all of the taunts of the other boys and girls paying out his nationality, calling him words like towel head or telling him to go back to his own country. This made Hassan get extremely depressed and a loathing for America started to form in the bottom of his stomach. The only thing keeping him there was Will. Will would stick up for him and help him ignore the taunts but Will couldn't be around to protect him all the time and eventually Hassan decided it would be best if he returned to his own country to escape the inhuman comments he was getting at school and everywhere else he went.

Definition and Examples of the English-only Movement

Definition and Examples of the English-only Movement The English-only movement is a political movement that seeks to establish English as the sole official language of the United States or of any particular city or state within the U.S. The expression English-only is primarily used by opponents of the movement. Advocates prefer other terms, such as Official-English Movement. U.S.ENGLISH, Inc. states that it is the nations oldest, largest citizens action group dedicated to preserving the unifying role of the English language in the United States. Founded in 1983 by the late Senator S.I. Hayakawa, an immigrant himself, U.S. English now has 1.8 million members nationwide.​ Commentary President Theodore Roosevelt We have room for but one language in this country, and that is the English language, for we intend to see that the crucible turns our people out as Americans, of American nationality, and not as dwellers in a polyglot boarding house. –Works, 1926 Peter Elbow Its touching when speakers of English argue for purity in the language since English is probably the most impure bastardized language theres ever been. Its slept with every language it ever encountered, even casually. The strength of English comes from how many babies its had with how many partners. –Vernacular Eloquence: What Speech Can Bring to Writing, 2012 Geoffrey Nunberg Given the minor role that language has played in our historical self-conception, it isnt surprising that the current English-only movement began in the political margins, the brainchild of slightly flaky figures like Senator S.I. Hayakawa and John Tanton, a Michigan ophthalmologist who co-founded the U.S. English organization as an outgrowth of his involvement in zero population growth and immigration restriction. (The term English-only was originally introduced by supporters of a 1984 California initiative opposing bilingual ballots, a stalking horse for other official-language measures. Leaders of the movement have since rejected the label, pointing out that they have no objection to the use of foreign languages in the home. But the phrase is a fair characterization of the goals of the movement so far as public life is concerned.)... Considered strictly in the light of the actualities, then, English-only is an irrelevant provocation. It is a bad cure for an imaginary disease, and moreover, one that encourages an unseemly hypochondria about the health of the dominant language and culture. But it is probably a mistake to try to engage the issue primarily at this level, as opponents of these measures have tried to do with little success. Despite the insistence of English-only advocates that they have launched their campaign for the immigrants own good, its hard to avoid the conclusion that the needs of non-English speakers are a pretext, not a rationale, for the movement. At every stage, the success of the movement has depended on its capacity to provoke widespread indignation over allegations that government bilingual programs are promoting a dangerous drift toward a multilingual society. –Speaking of America: Why English-Only Is a Bad Idea. The Workings of Language: From Prescriptions to Perspectives, ed. b y Rebecca S. Wheeler. Greenwood, 1999 Paul Allatson Many commentators regard English-Only as a symptom of a nativist backlash against immigration from Mexico and other Spanish-speaking countries, the ostensible focus on language by proponents often masking deeper fears about the nation under threat from Spanish-speaking peoples (Crawford 1992). At a federal level, English is not the official language of the USA, and any attempt to give English that function would require a Constitutional amendment. However, this is not the case at city, county, and state level across the country, and much of the recent legislative success to enshrine English as the official state, county, or city language is attributable to English-Only. –Key Terms in Latino/a Cultural And Literary Studies, 2007 James Crawford [F]actual support has generally proved unnecessary for English-only proponents to advance their cause. The facts are that, except in isolated locales, immigrants to the United States have typically lost their native languages by the third generation. Historically they have shown an almost gravitational attraction toward English, and there are no signs that this proclivity has changed. To the contrary, recent demographic data analyzed by Veltman (1983, 1988) indicate that rates of anglicization- shift to English as the usual language- are steadily increasing. They now approach or surpass a two-generation pattern among all immigrant groups, including Spanish-speakers, who are most often stigmatized as resistant to English. –At War with Diversity: US Language Policy in an Age of Anxiety, 2000 Kevin Drum I may not have any big objections to making English our official language, but why bother? Far from being unique, Hispanics are just like every other wave of immigrants in American history: they start off speaking Spanish, but the second and third generations end up speaking English. And they do it for obvious reasons: they live among English speakers, they watch English-language television, and its hellishly inconvenient not to speak it. All we have to do is sit back and do nothing, and Hispanic immigrants will eventually all become English speakers. –The Best Way to Promote the English Language Is to Do Nothing, 2016 Opponents Anita K. Barry In 1988, the Conference on College Composition and Communication (CCCC) of the NCTE passed a National Language Policy (Smitherman, 116) that lists as the goals of CCCC: 1. to provide resources to enable native and non-native speakers to achieve oral and literate competence in English, the language of wider communication;2. to support programs that assert the legitimacy of native languages and dialects and ensure that proficiency in ones mother tongue will not be lost; and3. to foster the teaching of languages other than English so that native speakers of English can rediscover the language of their heritage or learn a second language. Some opponents of English-only, including the National Council of Teachers of English and the National Education Association, united in 1987 into a coalition called English Plus, which supports the concept of bilingualism for everyone... –Linguistic Perspectives on Language and Education, 2002 Henry Fountain Fewer than half of the nations in the world have an official languageand sometimes they have more than one. The interesting thing, though, said James Crawford, a writer on language policy, is that a large percentage of them are enacted to protect the rights of language minority groups, not to establish a dominant language. In Canada, for example, French is an official language along with English. Such a policy is intended to protect the francophone population, which has remained distinct for hundreds of years. In the United States we dont have that kind of stable bilingualism, Mr. Crawford said. We have a pattern of very rapid assimilation. A more apt comparison might be to Australia, which like the United States has had high levels of immigration. Australia doesnt have an English-only movement, Mr. Crawford said. While English is the official language, Australia also has a policy that encourages immigrants to preserve their language and English-speakers to learn new ones, all to benefit trade and security. They dont use language as a lightning rod for expressing your views on immigration, Mr. Crawford said. Language has not become a major symbolic dividing line. –In Language Bill, the Language Counts, 2006

Kashmir conflict Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2500 words

Kashmir conflict - Essay Example Muslim Pashtun tribesmen from Pakistan took to regularly raiding into Kashmir. The Maharaja was ill equipped to respond and India refused to intervene until Kashmir agreed to annexation. The Maharaja â€Å"eventually decided to accede to India, signing over key powers to the Indian government – in return for military aid and a promised referendum.†5 When Indian troops entered the Kashmir, Pakistan invaded to ‘defend’ Kashmiri autonomy. The result was the first India-Pakistan War, fought in and over the Kashmir. It ended on New Year’s Day, 1949 when the United Nations brokered a cease-fire agreement and dispatched a peacekeeping force to the region.6 Map 1: Kashmir Remarkably, this cease-fire was tenuously maintained through fifteen years of â€Å"unending artillery duels and annual clashes on the world’s highest glacier.†7 However, in 1965 war broke out again. India accused Pakistan of infiltrating local insurgents into the Indian contr olled region and fermenting rebellion. In response India crossed the cease-fire line and occupied key defensive positions. Eventually another cease-fire saw them return to their original positions. In 1971, while a devastating civil war raged in East Pakistan (Bangladesh) Indian troops entered that country. That ignited the third India-Pakistan War. Although that war was not fought in the Kashmir directly one of its results was the â€Å"Simla agreement that turned the Line of control [cease-fire line] into their unofficial temporary border.†8 Since 1972 India and Pakistan have not fought another war although the border conflicts have persisted. Also, as noted earlier, the potential for catastrophic conflict increased significantly in... The province of Kashmir is located in India, on the border between India and Pakistan. It is the only state in India with a Muslim majority (67.2 percent). Consequently, it has been a point of hostility, endemic guerrilla warfare, and occasional conventional military clashes. Additionally, for the last few years the threat of nuclear conflagration has hung ominously over the province. Then events over the last decade, the current situation, will be examined. Finally, prospects for the future, specifically prospects for the resolution of the dispute will be considered. With an autonomous Kashmir a non-starter and India and Pakistan both firmly committed to controlling Kashmir rather than its partition, it is difficult to see that the dispute is any closer to a resolution today than it was a decade ago when Fathers described it as 'stumbling toward resolution'. On the positive side this dispute has simmered and occasionally flared up throughout the decade since both India and Pakistan revealed that they had nuclear capabilities without ever becoming an out and out declared war, let alone a nuclear exchange and it seems reasonable to assert that the conflict will continue to smolder without becoming grounds for a nuclear confrontation.

Civil War Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words - 4

Civil War - Essay Example law was put forward as a measure to placate the South which was upset over the increasing number of free states and anti-slavery sentiments penetrating the government. The law enforced fines on all law personnel who did not arrest a run slave. Prior to this act, the fugitive slave act of 1793 was in action which demanded the return of run-away slaves from the free states. In other words, it was asking the North which termed slavery illegal to abide by the slavery laws of the South. This was in direct contrast with the Northern sentiments. In many states like Massachusetts that had abolished slavery during the eighteenth century, the idea of returning slaves was met with great resistance. The law was not only dangerous for the run-away slaves but also for the free blacks, people who were born and raised in the Free states. The law could easily be misused and these people could then be shipped to the South having been unjustly termed as run-away slaves. The law was not acceptable to the North as it was asking them to become part of enforcing slavery throughout the country. The intention of this law was exacerbate the ensuing tension between the North and the South, however it further increased the divide. The law gave rise to many abolitionist leader like Frederick Douglas who raised their voice actively against the discrimination. The fugitive slave act was soon followed by the Kansas Nebraska act in the 1854 which further increased the divide. The ultimate blow was however dealt during the Kansas killings when proslavery as well as antislavery supporters flooded from the North as well as the South to cast their votes. The ultimate result of all the chaos and bloodshed was the civil war itself which decided once and for all the fate of slavery in the country. The Civil War can undoubtedly be called as one of the most influential events in American history whose effects helped shape the American nation. It is important to study the causes of an event which is of

Public Health and Health Policy Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 3000 words

Public Health and Health Policy - Essay Example Lack of shelter is regarded as homelessness state. Vostanis, Grattan & Cumella (1998) highlight that many times, homelessness is interchangeably used with the term rooflessness. It is an example of social exclusion that can be incorporated in the equalities in terms of health agendas. Individuals without shelter are often termed as homeless. Baggott (2011) explains that homelessness is not an entity but multiple entities that encompass housing needs. It entails the need for individuals to have short term or temporary accommodation. Sometimes living on the short term or temporary accommodation presents the uncertainty of the future. Wilson & Mabhala (2009) elaborate further by highlighting that the temporary accommodation includes the rough sleepers; individuals sleeping at their friends’ or relatives’ houses; and homeless shelters. Some of them live in accommodations that are supported such as temporary accommodation (bread and breakfast) or in the hostels. It is elaborated in Homeless Link (2010) that that homeless individuals who seek accommodation from friends or relatives are sometimes compelled to either stay on the relatives’ sofas or squat. Moreover, individuals who are driven out of their homes due to factors such as disasters or violence are also faceted as homeless. This is inclusive of the immigrants. Despite the fact that they are the widely known group as illuminated by Baggott, Allsop & Jones (2005), the majority of culprits are of homelessness state are single individuals who live in either insecure or temporary (short term) accommodation. Carr, Unwin & Pless-Mulloli (2007) illuminate that homeless is not a homogeneous group and individuals faceted to be homeless are in most cases families that are young and headed by females who are lonely. They tend to experience general health problems, as well as mental health. However, Douglas (2010).reveals that those who are not officially homeless are