Catch 22 Essays (819 words) - Yossarian, Orr, Catch-22, Bombardier

Catch 22 America has been involved in the cold war for years. The fear of communism is ruining lives. The country moves closer and closer to the Korean war. Joseph Heller's Catch 22 is published. 1963- College students are seen wearing army fatigues with "Yossarian" name tags. Reports are being made about a "Heller Cult". Bumper stickers are manufactured which read, "Better Yossarian then Rotarian". The phrase "Catch 22" has surfaced meaning a"no win situation" it is now an excepted word in the English dictionary. Such a dramatic change in opinion from the earlier, Pro-war society, it is obvious that Catch 22 had some impact on the anti-war movement of the 1960's-1970's. Not to say the book was the one reason the movement started, It was certainly a catalyst. A protest novel, Heller's story portrays the absurdity of bureaucracy, the stupidity of war, and the power they both have to crush the human spirit. Heller uses a war zone setting, to satirise society at large. He compares the commanding officers to Incompetent businessmen. "Don't mumble, and mumble "sir" when you do, and don't interrupt, and say "sir" when you do." Desiring promotion over every thing else, Colonel Cathcart keeps raising the number of missions the men of his squadron must fly. Even though the army says they need fly only forty, a bureaucratic trap called "Catch 22" says they can't go home at forty because they must obey their commanding officers. Much like the work place, the men are forced to go through endless amounts of red tape, which hardly gets them anywhere. Yossarian tries to pretend he is crazy to get out of fighting. He signs "Washington Irving" on letters he censors, and walks around naked for a couple of days. If someone is crazy he needs only ask and he can be dismissed from duty. Yet, one would be crazy to fly, and only a sane person would ask to stop, Yossarian is therefore not crazy and is ordered to continue flying his missions. Heller also demonstrates the effect war has on one's mind. All of the pilot's are coping (except Yossarian) with the war in different ways...The daredevil pilot, McWatt, loves to buzz his friend Yossarian's tent. Mess officer Milo Minderbender turns his job into an international black-market food syndicate. Lead Bombardier Havermeyer Zeros in on target's, no matter how much anti-aircraft peppers his plane. Yet the most crazy are the people in charge. A feud between two generals makes picture-perfect placement of bombs more important then actually hitting a target. The general in command is a recluse who orders his aide to let people in to see him only when he is out. The use of comparison is throughout the book, furthering the theme of military ignorance. Besides businessmen, the commanding officers act like insane gods, while Yossarian, is a sort of reluctant Achilles. No matter what the officers throw at him, he keeps on living. He is paranoid that his luck will someday run out. To drive home his ideas, Heller employs satire. He uses humour to convey situations which are utterly horrible, allowing Heller to poke fun at authority. . The reader can't help but be amused at the fact that Yossarian's parachute was taken from him in exchange for a share in Milo's franchise. Perhaps the most important aspect of the book, is the idea, that individuality is more important then dying for ones country. "A second ago you were stepping into college with your lungs full of fresh air. Today you are an old man....... You're inches away from death every time you go on a mission. How much older can you be at your age? A half minute before you were stepping into high school, ....... only a fifth of a second before that you were a small kid with a ten week summer vacation that lasted a hundred years and still ended to soon. Zip! They go rocketing by so fast. How the hell else are you ever going to slow down?" Yossarian does not believe in what he is fighting for, he thinks it's all crazy, There is no point of him fighting, he doesn't have a problem with anybody. This book questions the individual duties a person has to their country. Should they die for their country, or should they question the authority? Is something right, just because everybody says it is? By asking these questions, Mr. Heller was able to appeal to the youth of that day who were asking just the same questions.

Field Trip Essay Essay Example

Field Trip Essay Essay Example Field Trip Essay Essay Field Trip Essay Essay Our Saturday Activity Bridges! Jazmine Gomez My experience on the last field trip honestly made me very pensive and actually forced me to evaluate the different meanings of a â€Å"bridge. † Never had I thought of a bridge anything more than JUST a bridge. Simply something I or anyone else would use to cross over from one point to another simple. When the topic of a bridge was brought up the class before our fieldtrip I indefinitely didn’t really focus my attention onto what Professor Padilla was trying to set us up for. Once Saturday came along and we got the rubric while we were at Ruben F. Salazar Park in LA I stopped and focused. Where am I? And how could this not be one of multiple bridges I have crossed in just today? I thought about it more and more, once we reached Mariachi Plaza I realized that this too is another bridge. I finally came to the conclusion that everything in my life is a bridge. Any experience I go through, any place I visit, and person I meet, or any opportunity at hand is a bridge. A bridge in my opinion isn’t something that JUST connects one place to another but it is your fate. A bridge is an opportunity for life, to learn and experience. Whether that bridge is keeping you connected to something or it is keeping you apart from it. On Saturday as I crossed the LA River, later on did I go back and observed my emotions I felt as I crossed, and realized that at that moment I was connecting myself to different types of the LA World. On one side I saw more hardship, more people engaging, people walking, people LIVING, it all seemed like a big neighborhood. : While on the other side I felt more of an industrial feel, people working, people, on the go from one place or another, it felt as if it wasn’t about to stop at all times through the day there was no way it was ever going to stop, while on the other side some part of me felt as if that more â€Å"homey† side of LA, stopped at night and people took time to settle. I saw the difference between the two, and it was a bridge. I also felt a bridge in the connection with the people. I felt as if they thought we were strangers, as if we in a way didn’t really belong there? I guess I realized that when you live in a place like Anaheim Hills you’re blinded by things like poverty, people who are homeless, things like eating in hole-in-the-wall places with the most BOMB. COM sopes! The bridge I felt with the people, in a way, made me sad. I was quick to assume that they probably knew that we weren’t from there, that maybe, just maybe, we didn’t understand. Never had I felt that way before, and I had always gone to various parts of LA to be there with family or friends. . . There was something about that time that made me actually feel conscious of who I was and where I came from. I indefinitely saw the way people sometimes stared at us wondering who we were. At a point in time we had a couple people ask us: Where we came from? And why we were there? In this point in, I felt like the bridge was keeping me apart from the people who lived their lives there every day, in return I’m sure if they came and lived in the center of Anaheim Hills, they too would feel out of place and as if something was keeping them from connecting to the people that lived there. As a student I felt like I was reading a book learning about the different meanings of a bridge, the different possibilities of a bridge, and the things that bridge had to offer. As a young teen I felt myself in the middle of a bridge trying to connect with the people, the lifestyle, the surroundings, the customs, the art, and the people that passed by me as I walked with my classmates†¦ Overall, I’m grateful for bridges, they are the learning pieces that allow us to connect and disconnect with people, places, feelings, opportunities, etc.

RELATIONAL DATA MODEL Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

RELATIONAL DATA MODEL - Essay Example I use a Windows 7 operating system; therefore I used the Oracle developer client Program to connect to connect to the database. However, I experienced some challenges while using the command prompt to type the required commands. Additionally, I was not sure at which step am I supposed to create my user name and password that will allow me to connect to the database. After a few trials the connection was set and I was able to test the connection successfully. According to the connection steps and instructions this allowed me to connect to the database as a developer. Hence, I was logged in to the Sql developer environment. Viewing data and properties of any table involves selection of the table and selecting data to be able to view the records that are stored in the table. The properties such as constraints can also be viewed by selecting the constraints tab in the connections frame. Other properties can be viewed by selecting the appropriate tabs in the connections frame. Selection of data from a table in Oracle database is achieved by using queries. The SELECT statement is used to select data and records from a table or views. By using additional commands, selection can be narrowed down to specific criteria. The SELECT statement is simple to use but requires mastery of the syntax to be used , it has both the select list such as columns from a particular table and a source list that specifies the table from which the records and data are to be sourced. SELECT statement helped me to select all the columns from the Employee table. Selection of specific columns required mentioning the column names in the SELECT statement command. These data could also be narrowed down to specific items matching specific criteria. The process is simple but requires mastery of the syntax to be included in the SELECT statement. Data can be selected from several tables from the same database. The data can then be used for reporting purposes. The

Curriculum Specialist Paper Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Curriculum Specialist Paper - Essay Example In curriculum, the crucial part is the definition of the course objectives which are often expressed in terms of learning outcomes and normally includes the assessment strategy for the programme. These learning outcomes and assessments are often grouped into modules, therefore a curriculum comprises of a collection of such units, each specializing on a specific part of the curriculum. So, a typical curriculum would include modules on mathematics, languages, information technology together with more specialized provision. In the United States, the basic curriculum is established by each state with the individual school districts adjusting it to their desires. However, each state, builds its curriculum relying heavily on the input of national groups selected by the United States Department of Education, for example the National Council of Mathematics Teachers for mathematics instruction. Education in the United States is highly decentralized, and the federal government and Department of Education are not heavily involved in determining curriculum or educational standards. The job of centralization and coordination has been left to large private educational foundations. However, the primary function of the United States Department of Education is to formulate federal funding programs involving education and to enforce federal educational laws involved with privacy and civil rights. The quality of educational institutions and their degrees is maintained through an informal private process known as accreditation which the Department of Education has no direct public jurisdictional control over. Currently, there are thirty-nine curriculum specialists serving schools in South Carolina State. Basically, curriculum specialists have the following duties and responsibilities in the following areas: a) Curriculum planning and alignment, In curriculum planning and alignment they perform the following duties; Assisting the instructional staff and teachers in making curricular recommendations that reflect best practices to ensure high achievement, Assisting the school staff in developing a school curriculum guide or in revising the school's curriculum guide to ensure alignment to state and district standards, Engaging in collaborative curricular planning with the leadership team, Focusing on building curricular continuity across grade levels and courses, and Conducting periodic curricular alignment to ensure congruence with school and district goals. b) Curriculum instructional support, In curriculum instrumental support they perform the following duties; Providing direct support for building classroom curricular efforts; Taking

The Ballad of the White Horse Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

The Ballad of the White Horse - Essay Example These lines were quoted by leading journals which were carrying war news. The Lady appearing before Alfred tells him that there is nothing much to look forward to, if it is only comfort that he is desiring. Things would only get tougher and man has to keep fighting as evil would only return stronger each time to engulf. Earl Ogier of the Stone and Sling, a General in King Gurthrum's army sings these lines in reply to the sentimental songs sung earlier by another Earl Elf, and Prince Harold before him who sang of the pleasures of this earth. He refutes their songs in which they speak about gods and women. Here he says that when all the pleasures are enjoyed , in life there is only Hate left. Having grown old, men like him and King Guthrum know that there is no such thing as true love. Chesterton with his strong faith in Roman Catholicism writes such lines to underline the state of Hell in side the minds of men of no belief. There is only despair and no faith in God to relieve the despair. This is King Gurthrum's song which express the bleakness of his heart. He sings in reply to the songs of Ogier and Elf before him , that, by now men have grown up to realize that there is no comfort of truth in any of the fanciful tales of gods and youth. The cold truth is that even gods die; even the mightiest kingdoms are raced down.

The Stigma Associated With Mental Disorders Psychology Essay

The Stigma Associated With Mental Disorders Psychology Essay Many people believe that individuals with a disorder cannot function in society, whether its school, work, or relationships. Individual attitudes, judgments and beliefs play a hug role in reasons for stigma, mainly towards people with a mental disorder. Mental disorders are health conditions characterized by significant dysfunction in an individuals cognitions, emotions, or behavior that reflects a disturbance on the psychological, biological, or developmental processes underlying mental functioning, and are not considered part of normal development of an individuals culture (American Psychiatric Association 2012). No one can be certain that there are direct stigmas, but the majority of individuals can identify with feeling a certain way towards those with disorders. It is speculated that there is a more negative than positive attitude towards the mentally disordered and may actually feel that way on an unreliable basis. In order to really understand the reasons behind this, we have to understand things like self-stigmatization and public awareness and knowledge. Key aspects, other than stigma, have to be understood in order to grasp the reasons behind negative judgments against others. Stigma, as defined by Link and Phelan, is the co-occurrence of its components- labeling, stereotyping, separation, status loss, and discrimination-and further indicate that for stigmatization to occur, power must be exercised (2001). Power can come in many different forms, such as family, friends, media, and influential figures. Stigma is also most powerful when the disorder is considered as severe and is coupled with inappropriate environmental responses (ex. incongruous verbal remarks or erratic behavior) (Martin 2007). Stigma and its effects are distinguished into two forms, public and self-stigma. Public stigma perceives as individuals with a mental disorder as: being dangerous, being unpredictable, being difficult to talk with, having only themselves to blame, distrustful, being able to pull themselves together, an embarrassment, having a poor outcome and responding poorly to treatment (Crisp 2000; Martin 2007). In one study conducted through media influences, it was found that heavy exposure to the medias version of mental illnesses creates not only misinformation about crime and those who commit crime, but generates intolerance towards individuals with a mental illness and negatively impacts the publics opinion on mental health. Opposing this negative opinion, a companion study discovered that the majority of people with a mental illness never commit violent acts. Even though they are more likely to be the victim, the public overstresses their personal risk and the frequency of violence committed by individuals afflicted with mental disorders (Stuart 2006). It is this type of generalization that leads to self-stigma and distrust in those with mental disorders. Everyone has a different reaction to stigma. Some use it to empower their actions and apply it to treatment, while others are not affected by the stigma at all. Some people, on the other hand, internalize that stigma, and it becomes like a disease all its own. Stigma results in lowered self-esteem and self-efficacy (Watson, Corrigan, Larson, Sells 2007). Self-esteem is defined as varied and complex mental states pertaining to how one views oneself (Bailey 2003), while self- efficacy refers to a persons belief about ones ability to perform a specific behavior (LudÄ ne). To experience self-stigma, the person must be aware of the stereotypes that describe a stigmatized group (e.g., people with mental illness are to blame for their disorder) and agree with them. These two factors, though, are enough to be classified as self-stigma. The third factor that has to be included is application. The individual must apply stereotypes to ones self, I am mentally ill so I must be to blame fo r my disorder. This perspective represents self-stigma as a hierarchical relationship; a person with mental illness must first be aware of corresponding stereotypes before agreeing with them and applying self-stigma to themselves (Watson 2007). The public can view a person with a mental disorder in two ways, either positive or negative. During our research we predicted that there will be more negative thoughts than positive thoughts as the public views a person with a mental disorder. As previously defined, mental disorders are health conditions characterized by significant dysfunction in an individuals cognitions, emotions, or behavior. (American Psychiatric Association 2012). Mental disorders usually fall on Axis I of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual- IV (DSM). The goal of our study is to examine the publics perceptions of mental illness and to determine how individuals with these mental problems recognize and seek help. Studies have shown that more than two thirds of people experience mental health problems. It is thought that lack of knowledge about mental illness, the stigma of mental illness, and ignorance about effective treatments play an important role in lack of treatment seeking. The study of public attitude s toward mental illness and persons with mental illness has mostly been the domain of mental health professionals, namely psychiatrists, psychologists, psychiatric social workers, academics in those related fields, and psychiatric programs directors and administrators. Deinstitutionalization, defined as replacement of long-stay psychiatric hospitals with smaller, less isolated community-based alternatives for the care of mentally ill people, and the problems associated with implementation of community-based mental health care brought mental illness into the public sphere. According to the survey results, a majority of Americans believe that the number of people with mental illness has increased over the past twenty years and that mental illness is a serious health problem in the United States. An impressive number of Americans report personal experience with mental illness and mental health professionals. Approximately sixteen percent of all survey respondents said that they have so ught the professional services of a psychiatrist, psychologist, or other mental health professionals. Americans believe that mental illness is caused by physical disturbances (such as a chemical imbalance in the brain) or environmental conditions (such as the stress of daily life or alcoholism/ drug abuse). Survey responses reveal that a majority of Americans agree that maintaining a normal life in the community will help a person with mental illness get better and that with treatment, most individuals with serious mental illness can get well and return to productive lives. In addition, pluralities of Americans do not agree that mental health facilities should be kept out of residential neighborhoods or that mental illness can never be cured. Furthermore, the vast majority of Americans do not agree that the best way to handle the mentally ill is to keep them behind locked doors. (Bornstein 1992). In conclusion, there is a lot of controversy over who has a mental illness and not, how people with mental illness should be treated in society, and if there should be locked up or not. Studies have stated that two thirds of people have a mental illness, but most will not seek help due to lack of knowledge or fear of being judged and labeled. This group of individuals lives healthy lives, have decent jobs, and most have healthy relationships. If these who have not labeled can, then some of the mentally ill that have been labeled should be able to also. But due to being labeled and judged they do not get the chance. If society as a whole would try to learn more about being mentally ill and how their judging and discriminating affects people with mental illness, society would work better together and the people who need professional help with their mental illnesses will no longer be fearful of being judged nor being locked up. Most Americans believe only people who have done something wrong should be locked up, but because of most mental patients being locked up in the past people are still fearful of this as being in their future if its known they have an illness. With knowledge and wiliness to be patient society can get lower the stigma and help reduce the fear of being ridiculed for being mentally ill.

Disability Case Study :: essays research papers

Disability Issues in the Public Workplace Eloise, a supervisor at the Federal Administration Agency (FAA), was faced with trying to ensure productivity when one of her workers became ill, and was not maintaining her level of work. Brenda, who had been a computer programmer for the Management Information Systems Support Division of the FAA for nine years, was diagnosed with breast cancer in January of 1991. She left work immediately to have an operation and to start treatments. Brenda was supposed to return to work after the medical procedure so Eloise reached out to her in February. Brenda stated that she did not feel up to it, that she would continue to use her sick leave and would return in March. Seeing that Brenda would not be back in the near future, Eloise asked the other workers in the office to â€Å"pitch in† and help pick up the slack in work due to her absence. To entice one employee to pitch in, she upgraded his work status from a GS7 to a GS9 (which is what Brenda’s status was) until Brenda returne d. In March, Brenda could not return to work on her scheduled date and had her medical leave extended until she became better accustomed to the chemotherapy treatments. Brenda returned to work on April 1st. She was apparently not up to speed and could not handle the work that was assigned to her. In addition, she stated that she needed some accommodations in order to stay at work. These accommodations included rest hours during the workday and the need to leave work early on certain days. Eloise allowed these accommodations. When Brenda started taking breaks and putting her feet up on her desk to relax, the other workers didn’t seem to mind, and they would even try to be quiet around her. Brenda felt like the other workers had changed their attitude towards her and â€Å"freeze up when she came into the room.† Eloise tried to explain that it would be natural for the others to feel uncomfortable around her and recommended that Brenda speak to Employee Counseling. Brenda refused and soon thereafter started to call in sick again. Even with Brenda’s return, the other workers still had to continue doing her work. The worker that Eloi se upgraded to a GS9 was returned to GS7 upon Brenda’s return. He refused to do Brenda’s work unless he was reinstated to GS9 status.