Book Review First To Fight by Victor H. Krulak - 644 Words

Book Review: First To Fight by Victor H. Krulak The United States Marine Corps is a frequently misunderstood, occasionally maligned but more frequently mythologized division of the U.S. Armed Forces. Sometimes its role is perceived as overlapping the roles and responsibilities of its military counterparts such as the U.S. Army, the U.S. Navy and the U.S. Air Force. However, as the exhaustive text by Victor Krulak shows, it is far more often seen as enhancing, focusing and insuring the roles and responsibilities. As the original pressing of Krulaks text was completed in 1984, a great many of the sentiments that permeate First in Fight: An Inside View of the U.S. Marine Corps carry pointedly Cold War-related messages and imperatives. However, an open-minded consideration of the text demonstrates a particular relevance for the servicemen and women of todays U.S. Marine Corps. Krulaks telling of the Corps history is among the sections which retains its relevance. At all points, Krulaks h istorical reporting is clear, straightforward and in the cases of World War II, Korea and Vietnam, strengthened by the authors firsthand and experience-driven accounts. Certainly, Krulaks experience is among the texts most important virtues. Indeed, this also informs the sense of protectiveness and resentment that sometimes emerges in the text as a product of what Krulak characterizes as a sort of relegation and isolation within the broader American defense scheme. In a sequence

Analysis Of The Article Sign Here If You Exist By Jill...

Austrian-British philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein once said, â€Å"The real question of life after death isn t whether or not it exists, but even if it does what problem this really solves.† The idea that death is inevitable is well known by everyone, yet no one is certain as to what happens afterwards. Even though the subject of life after death has been argued for centuries by many philosophers and theologians. In the article Sign Here If You Exist, Jill Sisson Quinn adequately employs figurative language, rhetoric questionings, and personal anecdotes to demonstrate a controversial argument on the topic of life after death. In her article, Quinn uses multiple figurative languages to strengthen her claim that life after death does not exist. This is a very opinionated piece therefore using figurative language such as metaphors, simile, diction and symbols help enhance the validity of the author’s argument, while effectively giving her opinion to the readers in a subdu ed manner. Quinn’s use of the Ichneumon wasp as a symbol for the process of human life is a subtle way of writing it. Her article starts off with a detailed description of the physical features of a Female Giant Ichneumon Wasp, which then proceeds to a biology based background explanation on the specie. During her descriptions, Quinn uses carefully chosen words that is meant to let the reader go beyond imagining the wasp and to think of it as something more. She explains â€Å"Her overall appearance of fragility - the

Sexism in Advertising free essay sample

A paper which discusses sexist and offensive messages in advertisements.The paper provides an overview of the topic of sexism and offensive messages in advertisements. It points out that the average American views up to 3000 advertisements a day and therefore the messages that come across have a huge impact on the viewer. The paper uses the example of De Beers diamond ads as an example of sexist advertising and offers suggestions, such as boycotting products, as a means to control offensive messages.The ways in which women are stripped of their individuality through traditional advertising tropes can be seen in a DeBeers billboard that was recently easily spotted when driving on local freeways. What is so striking about this ad is that it manages to be offensive and sexist without actually portraying any women at all. But by trading on sexist stereotypes that should be long dead (or rather, should never have existed in the first place but most certainly have no business being brought in to play now) it qualifies as a perfect example of how are inundated with messages in the mass media that diminish women in a way that should make us all ashamed. We will write a custom essay sample on Sexism in Advertising or any similar topic specifically for you Do Not WasteYour Time HIRE WRITER Only 13.90 / page Sexism in Advertising free essay sample Sex sells, plain and simple. It doesnt matter the gender, male, female, adult or youth, it really doesnt matter because in the end the only thing they care about is whether or not the ideal person has it. Both men and women try to live up the expectations of the opposite gender, which is expressed in advertising. Advertisers take the expectations of the consumer and push them to the extreme in their ads creating a keeping up with the joneses complex, standards that cant possibly be met by all, but would like to be met by most. In the article Constructed Bodies, Deconstructing Ads:Sexism in Advertising written by Anthony J Cortes it describes the manipulation of the public as well as the characteristics of the person that is sought after in advertisements for both men and women. Cortes states, Advertising sells much more than products; it sells values and cultural representations, such as success and 28) Advertisements sell a way of life. We will write a custom essay sample on Sexism in Advertising or any similar topic specifically for you Do Not WasteYour Time HIRE WRITER Only 13.90 / page The article brings to light the disorders that are brought on by trying to achieve the perfect body along with the constant stereotyping that affects everyone from preschoolers to full grown adults.Advertising rates a positive by making people buy products, but a negative at what is the cost for those items be it the emotional, physical or mental objects that go along with it. Basically Cortes says it is inevitable that people will conform to the norm to be apart of what they believe is the ideal life style. When a person thinks of Sky Vodka they think life of the party. They think offbeat night they wish they could remember kind of like The Hangover experience. What people dont realize though is that there is a big difference between what is appropriate or expected behavior for men and women, or for boys and arils. (Cortes,1 29) Ads use men and women to grab our attention and persuade the consumer to buy the product. In Sky Vodkas case they take the flawed perspective that men dominate women in life in most of their ads, but still keep the allure of being the life of the party. Sky Vodka uses the concept that successful men are inherently flawed by bring to light that they can get and ideal girl (bottle blonde with big breasts) that has the attention of everyone else by getting her drunk off their vodka.In most of the ads the advertisers create the perception that women are objects and like Sky Vodka o down nice and easy. They create this white lie that harms little girls and boys every. Inhere that see the advertisement because it creates the conceptual belief that without being one of these people in you will not be able to have a guy buy a drink for you, or be able to afford the drink to thus be able to afford the girl. Sky Vodka ads eliminate the belief that you can just be ordinary by creating the extraordinary. Envision a warm sunny day with nothing but blue skies and a few scattered white clouds. Envision a beautiful blonde lying out with the water at her feet letting the sun hit her bronze owned skin as her itty bitty tiny bikini does little to cover her enhancements, putting them on show for the world to see. Envision a headless man in a two thousand dollar Airman suite standing directly above the two perfectly shape breasts of a bottle blonde, big breasted, 20 something female in an itty-bitty blue bikini. In one hand he grasps a dark blue bottle that is engraved with the yellow words SKY Vodka, and in the other two glass martini glasses as if they were just going to share a casual drink.Now envision her leaning up on either her elbows, or pushing herself up with her hands. This beautiful bottle blonde, big breasted, 20 something females face goes directly into the crotch of this all-powerful businessman. This is but one of the many ads that depict the sexual innuendo that goes along in SKY Vodka advertisements. In the Sky Vodka advertisement the positioning of the models creates the belief that men and women are not equal, just like in Cortà ¨ges article. Cortes states images of women from sexpots to airheads not only sold brand products but also helped to shape social attitudes on relationships and on the roles and status accorded to women. (Cortes,133) Basically he is saying that women are suppose to be seen but not heard, just like in this advertisement. Instead of being at a bar or a restaurant were they would converse and find out more about each other, they are alone on what seems to be a beach. The man appears to headless indicating that it could be any man in his position that fits the mold.He seems as if to be on a short brake from work in the middle of the day like during a lunch period seeking just another blow and go while the woman seems to have nothing better to do than go along for the did as long as she gets her drink first. It is not an out right depiction but assumption that is lead on by the positioning of the arms and legs of the characters depicted in the ad that brings to light what the impending future is for bo th models. One of the main discussion topics throughout Cortà ¨ges article that correlates well to the SKY Vodka advertisements is physical body representation, (how the body looks). Cortes states, the face becomes a mask (something you put on) and the body becomes an 130) Both men and women spend so much money on their appearance to live up o the ideals that are created in advertisements but cannot because the models in advertisements are not real. Take the Sky Vodka ad for example. Advertisers took a picture of beautiful man and woman that are models then they airbrushed, digitally enhanced and increased the color ratio with computers before seeing what is presented before which is the final product.That final product of advertising is as real as Santa Clause. Its a figment of a persons imagination that they want to believe so bad that it becomes real after constant forages of like images. You can tell that The Sky Vodka advertisement has been airbrushed and digitally enhanced because if you pay attention to detail and look were the horizon line is everything behind the male model at that point has been drawn in, including the female models feet.

Genius Paper free essay sample

In Kurt Vonnegut’s, Harrison Bergeron, and Malcolm Gladwell’s, Outliers: The Story of Success, â€Å"The Trouble with Geniuses† Part I II, are both similar because they tell stories that are about geniuses and how they live their lives. Being a genius does not mean that life is simple, but that life is filled with disadvantages and you just have to deal with the situations. In Outliers, the two main characters are Christopher Langan and Robert Oppenheimer are real people who struggle with their disadvantages, such as: excuses, appearance, IQs, and Their stories will be compared with Harrison Bergeron’s life as another genius who is a fictional character. Christopher Langan is the world’s smartest man alive, at the age of sixty-one with an IQ of one hundred and ninety-five. Langan would appear in interviews, magazine articles, and TV shows such as 1vs. 100, Likewise in Outliers, â€Å"Saget looked at Langen oddly, as if he were some kind of laboratory specimen. We will write a custom essay sample on Genius Paper or any similar topic specifically for you Do Not WasteYour Time HIRE WRITER Only 13.90 / page † (70). Langan is the eldest of four brothers living with a single mother on a ranch house not having much but each other. At age three Langan read comics, and at age five Langan was curious about his religion, Langan’s mother’s boyfriend would abuse the boys, until one day Langan had enough, socked the boyfriend so hard, that he left and has never came back. Langan would never show up to any of classes but he would attend school for test days and he would ace the tests. Robert Oppenheimer is another character that Gladwell mentions on how he is a genius. In the third grade, Oppenheimer did lab experiments and in fifth grade, he study physics and chemistry. Oppenheimer grew up in a wealthy neighborhood and he was involved with social activities. Oppenheimer had friends that were communist and he was not. Oppenheimer enrolled in Harvard, and then to Cambridge University for a degree in Physics. Oppenheimer’s tutor Patrick Blackett had forced Oppenheimer to study physics and to work on it for his whole day which Oppenheimer disliked and he wanted to change this torture. Oppenheimer had locked himself in a chemistry lab room and was plotting to poison his tutor, but instead of being expelled, Oppenheimer was sent to therapy to get help. . Oppenheimer had help America during War World II by inventing the atomic bomb that had made Japan forfeit the war. In Kurt Vonnegut’s story â€Å"Harrison Bergeron† society was a very important concept. It is described as a futuristic American society because it takes place in 2081. It is described as a communist structure, where if you break the law you have to suffer the consequences and suffer. Society is taken to a whole other level when it comes to the American’s Declaration of Independence. The Amendments 211, 212, 213 to the Constitution states that â€Å"All men are created equal. † This concept is taken literally where no one can be uglier, weaker, attractive, or slower than everyone else. Citizens that are gifted with higher intelligence and are brighter are punished and handicapped in order to be equal to the rest of the citizens. They created a team called â€Å"The Handicapper General† and they enforce the law. Intelligent citizens are forced to wear a radio on their head to keep them from being different from others. In addition, citizen who are considered beautiful are forced to wear a mask to hide their face from others so others don’t feel bad about themselves. In this story, the main character Harrison Bergeron was taken away from their parents at a very young age because he was brighter than most people. He was different from what society has as an aspect of. Bergeron was consider weird for being smarter than everyone else because he kept on getting A’s while everyone else was failing miserably for having an IQ of sixty and having to stay behind grades for little knowledge. Bergeron was not welcomed at school for his success and not accepted by his peers and teachers. At age sixteen he was taken from his parents and he was held hostage and was strapped down, he wasn’t able to leave the facility they took him to. Few years later he escapes from this facility and disrupts a ballerina performance and his mother is watching him on television, he claimed that he would destroy anything that got in his way. Bergeron had planted a bomb below the auditorium of the ballet show and he threatened anyone that disagreed with him, so everyone watched Bergeron take over the show. All the citizens were handicapped as it is so to go against someone who was a genius and a stronger man would not be ideal. As his mother watches her son getting killed on stage she starts to gets emotional when all of a sudden she forgets and tells her husband George she’s sad, but she can’t remember why. One of a disadvantage that the genius had faced was excuses. When Langen was enrolled in college at Reed College in Oregon and Montana State, he was expelled from both schools for not having a good reason of his situations. The Langen’s first excuse was that his mother had forgotten to fill out his financial aid papers, â€Å"Then I had lost that scholarship†¦.. My mother was suppose to fill out those financial statements for the renewal of that scholarship. †(93). So Langen could not continue on his education with Reed College. When he was attending Montana University, his car had broken down because his brothers had borrowed his car and they had driven recklessly that damage the car itself. Langen did not have enough money to fix his car, so he had no transportation, and he was sure enough expelled from this University. As for Oppenheimer, he would inform his professors about his situations and they had believed him, but it could be because of Oppenheimer’s communication skills is greater than Langen’s excuses were. Langen had lack communication skills because he had come from a ranch lifestyle to a suburb lifestyle with no knowledge at all. As Oppenheimer grew up into a rich community, where everyone had knew each other and had get to gathers with social communities. In the Harrison Bergeron movie, Bergeron had went through an excuse was being the smartest person alive in the time the movie had set place in. Bergeron was considered a genius for having an IQ higher than one-hundred, than the others who have IQs less than one-hundred. Bergeron would be made of fun of being a genius and everyone would wonder, â€Å"Why is Bergeron acting this way or talking a certain way? † (Harrison Bergeron Movie) There would be some reasons in which Bergeron could not be the same as the others, but he was protected by the government. Bergeron had live with his family, as the others in is house, were affected by the wire hand band. So when Bergeron had left and did his thing on television, no one had recognized who he was and when Bergeron was hurt, no one would seemed to care or anything, So Harison suffers and so does his family as well. Both these stories have a similar concept of how geniuses are treated and their disadvantages. One of the main reasons Gladwell outlines is there IQ. Genesis have the highest IQ scores, but when it had come down to the Divergence Test, they had failed miserably by not coming up with any imagination of the use of a blanket and a brick. â€Å"It requires you to use your imagination and take your mind in as many different directions as possible. † (86-87). Another study was when high school students were at least the top thirty of their class, smartest of America, top SAT scores, and GPA of 4. 0 or above, yet when applying to Stanford or any top schools, at least ten percent were accepted, why? Well it could be the fact when writing their letter of recommendation; they had little use of social aspects and did not complete with others was well then those other ten percent who were involved and did have high social class. The relationship between success and IQ works only up to a point once someone has reached an IQ of somewhere around one-twenty, having additional IQ points does not seem to translate into any measurable real-advantage. In addition, in Outliers the author Malcolm Gladwell talks about society and how it impacts your life and the people around you. He talks about â€Å"practical intelligence† which means the ability to change in different situations that life gives you. For example, saying the right thing to the right person in the right situation. Furthermore, to explain this concept better he describes parenting styles by a sociologist named Annette Lareau. Annette Lareau was a sociologist, from 1993-1995. She had interest in parenting styles, racial issues, and social class. She conducted a research on parenting styles, it was called concerted cultivation vs. natural growth. She and her researchers studied over 80 families. Lareu instructed the families to pay attention to their kids. To spend time with them when they had free time. She called this strategy â€Å"the family dog. † Annette discovered that the working class parents pursed an approach called â€Å"accomplishment of natural growth. † Whereas middle class families used an approach called â€Å"concerted cultivation. † The working class family, had their children exposed mostly to the outdoors, more often you would find them playing with their friends from their neighborhood or siblings. And as for parents in the working class, they spent more time working and waiting for their transportation, they didn’t have time to spend with their children. Working class parents also tended to be more authoritarian. These kids didn’t question anyone with authority. For example, their teachers, principals, or anyone with a higher position. These children were described as quiet, mellow, and uninvolved. They called this parenting style â€Å"accomplishment of natural growth. † Furthermore, children in the middle class were completely different from the working class. Their families had more time to spend with them whereas working class didn’t. These families treated their children like â€Å"the family dog. † They were accompanied by their parents to their appointment, sport practices, and school activities. These parents made their kids go from one activity to the other. The children in the middle class families were more involved in after school activities and outside clubs. These parents adapted a strategy called â€Å"concerted cultivation. † As a result these children questioned authority more and were less quiet. Annette gives an example of this. She describes a little boy named Alex that comes from a middle class family. He was being taken to the doctors by his mother, and during the car ride she tells her son to not be shy and to tell him anything he wants. Moreover, while Alex was in the room at the doctors he asked him questions without being shy and he interrupted the doctor when he didn’t know what he was talking about. This showed that Alex certainly understood that he was â€Å"worthy of adult interest† like Annette says. As a result Annette says that there is no strategy that is morally better than the other. Children in that grew up in the working class families were more inventive, better behaved, and self-reliant. Whereas in the middle class family, children grew up to be more confident and had a huge advantage in the professional and educational setting. In Outliers, Gladwell compares Annette Lareau’s research with the case study of Christopher Langan vs. Oppenheimer. Oppenheimer came from a wealthy family. His father was a doctor and a successful man. Oppenheimer was able to attend some of the best school back then at his time. When Oppenheimer was in school he tried to kill one of his tutor but he convinced the administrators of his school to not expel him. Whereas Christopher Langan grew up from a poor family and an abusive father. Even though his IQ exceeded Einstein’s he didn’t have the same advantage as Oppenheimer. Christopher’s mother didn’t sign his financial papers on time and he wasn’t able to attend that school at all. Langan did not have the same social skills as Oppenheimer did. In â€Å"Harrison Bergeron,† Harrison was really smart but was unable to convince the law to let him go. He suffered from being too smart from everyone else and he was punished. This relates to Gladwell’s concept on why geniuses suffer. Furthermore, Gladwell outlines that geniuses are looked as different from others. For example, in Outliers, â€Å"Saget looked at Langen oddly, as if he were some kind of laboratory specimen† (70). Gladwell describes how being too smart makes people look at you differently. Likewise in â€Å"Harrison Bergeron† Harrison was not welcomed at school for his success and not accepted by his peers and his teachers. This is how geniuses are looked at by society. In conclusion, Gladwell outlines many issues that geniuses go though. He explains that even geniuses who know everything, lack of social skills. Moreover, a high IQ means nothing when putting it into real life situations. In addition, geniuses face many issues with society because the of the way that they are looked at. This is how geniuses in â€Å"Outliers† and â€Å"Harrison Bergeron† have similar characteristics that Gladwell outlines.