Reflections on Bowling for Columbine Essay Example for Free

Reflections on Bowling for Columbine Essay The Columbine High School massacre struck me the hardest. It was horrifying to see the whole school in turmoil. Students and teachers were running wild and everyone screamed and panicked as the vitriolic killers aimed for their next target. Even more repulsive, the killers were only teenagers who study at that exact school in Columbine and were killing their own classmates. They were also seen going to bowling class that morning of the calamity. How could they do such a leisure activity when they were preparing to lay innocents to waste, to end their lives? How could they embark on such a shooting rampage, and finally, committing suicide? The deaths, injuries, and upheaval of the school plunges audiences into thinking the abuse of firearms and the seriousness of gun violence in the USA. What is the cause for such massive gun abuse in the USA? Michael Moore has tackled with some of the suggested reasons. Some may say the USA has a violent history, yet Germany, considering what its been through during the second world war, does not have as much snipers roaming about as the USA; countries other than America also have violent video games or movies but does not seem to suffer from gun abuse; Canada has a larger diversity of ethnic groups and higher unemployment rate, and people can possess a gun out of their own volition, but they dont have as much homicides through guns. One of the real causes behind the extreme behaviour of murderers can be because of the influence of the media. What has media done to their lives, to our lives? It can bring us with the latest news from all corners of the earth, convey messages, influence docile citizens, start a fad, or perhaps, spread fear and anxiety among people in the society as well? If the media announced that from tomorrow onwards no more imports will be allowed to enter Hong Kong, there is no doubt people will start panicking right on the spot and rush to supermarkets to hoard food and supplies. This would have wreaked a complete havoc on Hong Kong. This actually happens in the USA, where the media always tends to alert the public by exaggerating (or sometimes truthfully saying) facts. Americans start to live in fear, and as they start to live in fear, they begin to secure themselves with weapons. When everyone has a weapon and is ready and prepared to use it at anytime, the country will soon end up chaotic with everyone suspicious of his own  neighbour and ready to for some homicide. With the use of irony and mockumentary, Michael Moore has successfully presented Bowling for Columbine in a light-hearted way in some respects. Clips of South Park totally subdued the taut atmosphere from the scenes of the grisly massacre and the cartoon on American history was a brief mocking version that is flippant but true. Its theme song What a wonderful world was played several times throughout the documentary and the lyrics trees of green, red roses too, I see them blue echoed over black and white picture of dying war victims, massacres and killing sprees that went out of control. The contrast was stark which imprints deeply into audiences mind. Nothing can be too biased, nor can it be too democratic. Although this documentary seems to present us with an omniscient viewpoint, but are we restricted to one perspective (naturally Michael Moores) only? It is often impossible for directors to totally subjugate personal political convictions to their professional commitment to fairness and balance, and in this case, we might be oblivious of a few blatant facts that are not presented in the documentary. Like Canada may not be as crime-free as it seems (is it possible that all Canadians do not lock their doors?) and what would really happen if it was declared illegal for Americans to own a firearm. Would a greater disorder be resulted?

Comparing Knowledge in Descartes’ Meditations on First Philosophy and H

Comparing Knowledge in Descartes’ Meditations on First Philosophy and Hume’s An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, Rationalists would claim that knowledge comes from reason or ideas, while empiricists would answer that knowledge is derived from the senses or impressions. The difference between these two philosophical schools of thought, with respect to the distinction between ideas and impressions, can be examined in order to determine how these schools determine the source of knowledge. The distinguishing factor that determines the perspective on the foundation of knowledge is the concept of the divine. Descartes is a prime example of a rationalist. Descartes begins his Meditations on First Philosophy by doubting his senses in the first meditation. â€Å"From time to time I [Descartes] have found that the senses deceive, and it is prudent never to trust completely those who have deceived us even once†(Descartes: 12). In the second meditation, Descartes begins to rebuild the world he broke down in the first meditation by establishing cogito ergo sum with the aid of natural light. It is with this intuition that the cogito is established, from the cogito, intellect, from the intellect, knowledge; thus knowledge has been defined in this world that Descartes is constructing from scratch. Descartes uses the fact that he is a thinking thing to establish the existence of other things in the world with the cosmological and ontological arguments, as well as a meditation on truth and falsity. â€Å"So now I seem to be able to lay it down as a general rule that whatever I perceive very clearly and distinctly is true† (Descartes: 24). Descartes only utilizes his perceptions to establish ideas of the things t... ...traced back to original impressions. The source of knowledge is not a topic that is universally agreed upon. To rationalists, who usually have a sense of the divine, innate ideas give them cause to base knowledge in reason, being derived from ideas. To empiricists, who do not hold innate ideas to be valid, knowledge is unearthed through the senses, derived from observations. The presence of a concept of the divine is the deciding factor of whether knowledge originates from the senses or the ideas. Works Cited Aristotle. Nicomachean Ethics. Translated by Terence Irwin. Hackett Publishing Company: Indianapolis. 1985. Descartes, Rene. Meditations on First Philosophy. Translated by John Cottingham. Cambridge University Press: Cambridge. 1996. Hume, David. An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding. 2nd edition. Hackett Publishing: Indianapolis. 1993.

Contract and Chou Essay

The case scenario under review by our team includes a contract law situation involving a board game company and a game inventor. Big Time Toymaker (BTT) is a board game company which develops, manufactures, and distributes board games, and Chou is the name of the inventor of a new strategy game. In this scenario, what began with a payment made from BTT to Chou for exclusive negotiating rights for 90 days, ended in a change in management at BTT, leading to their company no longer having interest in distributing Chou’s game. Several questions will be asked about the validity of the terms agreed upon by the parties involved, including at what point did the parties have a contract, and what role does the statute of frauds play in this contract? Our objective is to analyze the case scenario, including the previously stated questions, and provide the answers to those and other questions pertaining to the scenario and contract law. Question 1 At what point, if ever, did the parties have a contract? There was mutual agreement between Chou and BTT via verbal agreement, and a subsequent email verifying that an agreement had been tentatively reached. According to the terms of distribution between Chou and BTT a contract was only valid if formalized in writing. An argument may be made that three days prior to the 90 day time limit a mutual agreement was reached and valid via an E-contract law. There was mutual assent between both Chou and BTT. The argument for the other side will state there was never a formalized written contract from either Chou or BTT, only an email with a subject heading stating Strat Deal. Is the email a valid contract? Question 2 What facts may weigh in favor of or against Chou in terms of parties’ objective intent to contract? Facts show that BTT sent an email with a subject heading of Strat Deal with information stating that Chou and BTT have reached an agreement. The writing states that after months of no response from BTT and with no management in place the company no longer wishes to distribute Chou’s intellectual property. Chou was in compliance with BTT at all times regarding issues pertaining to Strat. Chou will allege that there was a contract between himself and BTT that was of mutual assent and under E-contract law the emails were valid. Question 3 Does the fact that the parties were communicating by email have any impact on your analysis in questions 1-2 above? According to CA Civil Code 1624, b 3, a, online contracts are endorsable even if writing is required by the statute of frauds. Communication of contracts is valid under E-contract law. There is no impact on analysis made of above stated questions because of online communication. Question 4 What role does the statute of frauds play in this contract? A key factor in any contract is acceptance, and in this case a verbal agreement had been reached three days before the exclusive negotiation right was expired. Chou then said he was going to draw up the contract. Big Time Toymaker (BTT) then sent Chou an email outlining all of the things that they had agreed upon that would be included in the contract. Seeing the email, Chou then assumed that this was the contract to be enforced and did not respond to BTT. Even though Chou received the email, he did not respond to it, thereby giving Chou the defense that silence is never acceptance. However, in E-contact law dictated by CA Civil Code 1624, b, 3, a, it says that online contracts are endorsable even if writing is required by the statute of frauds. In addition, the â€Å"Click On† or â€Å"Click Wrap† agreement clause states that these agreements are enforceable since the opportunity to read and acknowledge was given. The statutes of frauds do play a part in this contract due to the Uniform Commercial Code requiring that the statute of frauds applies to any contract for the sale of goods for $500 or more. However, the exact amount of â€Å"Strat† units that Big Time Toymaker (BTT) will sell or at what cost of each unit is unclear to the reader, it was described in detail in the email BTT sent to Chou. Question 5 Could BTT avoid this contract under the doctrine of mistake? Explain. The new management at BTT cannot avoid this contract under the doctrine of mistake because a mistake was not made by both Chou and the old management team. The mistake by Chou was accepting the email outline of the contract terms as an actual contract agreed to by both parties. Scienter applies to Chou in this case by accepting a seemingly legitimate contract. Would either party have any other defenses that would allow the contract to be avoided? The change of management brought about individuals bound to the same company as the old management team was, therefore, scienter applies to the new management team in privity. The draft sent from Chou and received by BTT is a negotiable instrument. BTT thereby becomes a holder in due course. The inaction of BTT after the draft was sent is in violation of the UCC requirement that all offers are to be open for a reasonable period of 90 days. Chou was under the impression that a contract had been made before that 90 days had expired. Chou has real defense as well as personal defense due to breach of contract and fraud. Question 6 Assuming, arguendo, that this e-mail does constitute an agreement, what consideration supports this agreement? By law, statute of frauds would support this agreement. Due to the terms, there cannot be a lawsuit that can be upheld on particular contracts or arrangements, except if it is written and signed by the authorized party or representative. Under the statute, certain kinds of contracts have to be in writing in order to be enforceable in a court of law (Contracts: Statute of Frauds, 2013). The writing also has to be signed by the person who is held responsible for the contract or by that person’s agent. To evade the justification of the Statute of Frauds, one would need to make sure the contracts are in text and signed by the other party; so, if the opposing party does not hold his or her end of the agreement, one would gain from that particular party. Question Assuming BTT and Chou have a contract, and BTT has breached the contract by not distributing the game, discuss what remedies might or might not apply. It is obvious BTT’s manager did not think clearly about protecting BTT from liability. He carelessly wrote the emails, and his careless actions put BTT at risk. This led Chou to believe that this e-mail was meant to replace the earlier notion that he should draft a contract. Although the word contract was not ever used in the e-mail, it said that all of the terms had been agreed upon. The compensation would be awarded to Chou by the court in a civil action due to the wrongful conduct, being the breach from the other party, BTT. If the contract is breached by BTT, Chou will be granted equitable relief by the court, which comes in the form of specific performance, injunctive relief, or reformation. Monetary damages could also be in effect, in which they can be compensatory, resulting from a loss due to nonperformance. Also, consequential, which are indirect but to be expected from non-completion. Restitution would also take place that would be equivalent to total the party has been unfairly supplemented by the non-breaching party, and liquidated, which damages are a preset value rendering from the agreement. The compensatory damages for recovery Chou suffered by the non-breaching party would be the damages that would be awarded to the party in the same situation he would have been in if the other party had executed as agreed upon (Melvin, 2011). After review of the case scenario involving Big Time Toymaker and Chou the game inventor, we have concluded that not only was there a contract agreement between the parties, but that according to E-contract law, Chou may be bound by the terms included in the original email sent from BTT. In addition, the doctrine of mistake cannot be used in this situation because of scienter toward Chou and the old and new management of BTT. Several questions were asked of our team in accordance with contract law and the scenario provided by the textbook. This completes our analysis of the scenario and answers to the questions we were presented.

The School For Prison Pipeline - 978 Words

â€Å"Tomorrow s future is in the hands of the youth of today† is not a particularly new sentiment. But what is new, what has become a pressing question, is what is to become of the future if our youth are behind bars instead of in schools? Youth today are being pushed into the criminal justice system at an alarming rate. This issue is known as the school to prison pipeline ─ the rapid rate at which children are pushed out of schools and into the criminal justice system. The school to prison pipeline is a term that came into use by activists in the late 1970’s and has gained recognition throughout the years as the issue became more prominent in the 1990’s. Some activists view policies meant to â€Å"correct† misbehaviors, especially in regards to Zero Tolerance policies and the policing of schools, as a major contributor to the pipeline. Others believe that the funding of schools and the education standards are to blame for the rapid increase of you th incarcerations. While the school to prison pipeline affects every student, African American students, both male and female, are more often the victim of discrimination in education. The school to prison pipeline must end, and the trend must be reversed. Proponents of change have noted that the school to prison pipeline has been perpetrated by harsh discipline guidelines and policies placed in schools. Russell J. Skiba, Ph.D., a Professor in Counseling and Educational Psychology at Indiana University, defined Zero Tolerance policies asShow MoreRelatedThe School For Prison Pipeline1834 Words   |  8 Pageskeeps being repeated. That cycle is known as the school-to-prison pipeline where students are punished based off the policies that have been made by the school districts and court of law. Consequently, minorities have been disproportionately punished by schools and the justice system. You may be aware that the funding towards the school district is underfunded which leads to less resources and policies that enforce inequality of race throughout the school system. For example, 30 teachers had to be laidRead MoreThe School to Prison Pipeline2688 Words   |  11 PagesThe School to Prison Pipeline: The Criminalization of American Stu dents The School to Prison Pipeline: The Criminalization of American Students Kimberly N. Wright Western Governors University Introduction Your permanent record! The thing that was held over most of our heads when we were in school. Your teacher or maybe your parents threatened that your bad behavior was going to end up on your â€Å"permanent record† and ruin your life. We shrugged them off, thoughtRead MoreThe School Of Prison Pipeline Essay2154 Words   |  9 PagesThe school-to-prison pipeline in the United States is a figure of speech used to describe the increasing patterns of interaction students have with the juvenile and adult criminal justice systems as a consequence of procedures used by many school systems. A specific procedure would be the zero tolerance policies and the use of officers in schools. Currently in today’s American schools many children of color are being unfairly judged and treated by the public school systems zero tolerance policiesRead MoreThe School Of Prison Pipeline Essay1441 Words   |  6 Pagespublic schools around the country is the school to prison pipeline epidem ic. The school to prison pipeline is a term used to describe how students are being pushed out of public school and into the criminal justice system. This epidemic is a result of the education system’s zero tolerance policy that enforces harsh punishments for misbehaving students. Although its goal was to eliminate misbehavior, studies have shown that the increased disciplinary actions have resulted in a modified school environmentRead MoreSchool to Prison Pipeline1948 Words   |  8 Pagesï » ¿ Topic: School-to-Prison Pipeline Research Paper What is meant by the school-to-prison pipeline? What are ways to address this problem? The school-to-prison pipeline is a devastating part of reality for all too many students. The pipeline in definition is simply a term representing the tendency for certain students to easily end up in prison during or shortly after schooling. To decrease this tendency, it is important that teachers are aware of the issue andRead MoreSchool to Prison Pipeline2888 Words   |  12 PagesSchool-to-Prison Pipeline: Does the Current Educational System Demonize or Criminalize Our Youth? In today’s society our children go down one of two paths: become successful or become criminals. The question then must be asked: have we allowed our children to be tracked down such opposite paths by using discipline as an excuse? There may well be an argument that ultimately the school and prison system have nothing to do with one another; however, I believe they have become one in the sameRead MoreAlternatives For School And Prison Pipeline962 Words   |  4 PagesAlternatives to School-to-Prison Pipeline Changes to Viewing the System This problem in Americas school system does not have to continue this way. There are changes that can be made and policies that need to be changed in order to provide the proper access to education for all students. The Association of Mexican America Educators presents research done with educators of low-income Latino students and what they believe needs to be changed to provide well for students. The article shares four mainRead MoreBreaking The School Of Prison Pipeline859 Words   |  4 PagesBreaking the School-to-Prison Pipeline How would you feel if the outcome of your interaction with authority depended on whether you were black, Latino, or white? Unfortunately, police brutality is the sad reality that many black and Latino boys experience in their childhood. The disadvantages of their upbringing results to the reinforcement of societal restrictions on their success. On a positive note, education becomes salvation to marginalized group because it provides them means to escape theRead MoreThe Juvenile Justice School To Prison Pipeline634 Words   |  3 Pagesrelationship between educational institutions and the juvenile justice system which was once created to protect children, has displayed an ultimatum for minors through â€Å"zero tolerance† policies which results in sending individuals through the school to prison to pipeline. Studies have shown that these zero tolerance policies are not beneficial to students or the educational environment that should be guaranteed to children. Opponents argue that the policies promote safety, but through this research it canRead MoreLiterature Review Of School To Prison Pipeline970 Words   |  4 Pagessimilar to my question, â€Å"How is School to Prison Pipeline affecting juveniles around the United States?†. In 2014, Fader wrote an article called A Promising Approach to Narrowing the School-to-Prison Pipeline: The WISE Arrest Diversion Program. In the article, it mentions how the school to prison pipeline came about and how hard it is for a student who enters the school to prison pipeline to get out of it, there’s a stigma to the kids once they have entered the pipeline. By having an afterschool program