Doubt by John Patrick Shanley Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Doubt by John Patrick Shanley - Assignment Example For this reason, she harshly declares that the priests is a pedophile and must leave the school immediately. Her doubt cannot be seen in a positive view as she has picked a very irreconcilable argument yet she has no evidence to show that Father Flynn is guilty. Based on her interaction with people, Sister Aloysius reveals to be a distrustful person especially to men and that is why she thinks that Father Flynn is guilty of pedophile. She is a very strict person who thinks that teachers who are not doubtful are naà ¯ve. When a boy nose-bleeds in class, she concludes that he induced the bleeding to get out of class. She shows how strict and doubtful she is when she makes such utterances as; â€Å"There is a chain of discipline. Make use of it.† (p.8), â€Å"Every easy choice today will have its consequence tomorrow.† (p.9), and â€Å"The best teachers do not perform, they cause the students to perform,† (p.11). When Sister James tells her that Father Flynn has always paid more attention to Donald Miller since he became an altar boy, she is certain that the Father has always had sexual interest in the boy or worse that the boy has already been violated by the priest. Despite all the barriers preventing Sister Aloysius from finding the answers she is seeking, she still pushes the argument of Father Flynn too far as she is torn between her personal emotions and her role as a school principal. She wants to straighten the wrong which she perceives the priest is creating in the school. However, she does take it too far in her pursuit for the truth. When she says: â€Å"In the pursuit of wrongdoing, one steps away from God. Of course, there’s a price.† I believe she stepped â€Å"away from God† by relying on her personal speculation to lie and contradict the same rules she is trying to safeguard. She feels immature and selfish at the end of the parable due to her blind rampage as she declares â€Å"I have doubts! I have such doubts!† (58).

honda insight the next generation of cars :: essays research papers fc

honda insight the next generation of cars Grab some pavement with the Insight: the hybrid that paved the way. The Honda Insight was the very first petrol-electric hybrid sold in the United States, and it remains a benchmark the others strive to meet. In fact, the EPA named this remarkable car the most fuel-efficient vehicle in the two-seater class, and the Insight holds its title as the overall fuel efficiency leader in America. Those prestigious accolades translate into great gas mileage: just about 1072 kilometers on one tank of gas. And just to make things even easier on its loyal drivers, the Insight doesn't ever need to be plugged in. Fun to drive, with a sporty and stylish exterior and a comfortably well-equipped interior exterior The distinctive aerodynamic and functional form is built to allow the Insight to become one with the wind, while keeping the air cleaner. Sleek, elegant lines fold into an innovative design incorporating both aluminum and molded plastic-resin panels developed just for the Insight. This impressive silhouette shows the world you have places to go, while dropping little hints that you're also very much enjoying the journey. interior Power windows, mirrors and door locks respond to your commands, and an innovative Electronic Instrument Display (IMA Charge and Assist Module) gives you a bird's-eye view of every relevant detail. Meanwhile, convenient beverage holders keep you refreshed for your journey and the Immobilizer Theft-Deterrent System keeps watch so that you (and only you) are in the driver's seat. braking By maintaining a constant speed, you will make the most efficient use of your fuel. Â ·Avoid abrupt stops - When you stop your car, the electric motor in the hybrid acts like a generator and takes some of the energy out of the car while slowing it down. If you give the electric motor more time to slow the vehicle, it can recover more of the energy. If you stop quickly, the brakes on the car will do most of the work of slowing the car down, and that energy will be wasted. engine the engine in this beast is a 3-cylinder vtec engine made from Aluminum-Alloy highly reduces wieght in this small pocket rocket aluminum alloys and exotic magnesium are the keys to keeping things light on the Insight. Even the slick-shifting 5-speed manual transmission is designed to be especially lightweight. Brilliant friction-reducing measures make both engine and transmission exceptionally efficient. And underscoring the sophistication of the Insight is the fact that the first full tune-up is scheduled at 168,000 kilometers

Culture Influences the Lives of Individuals Essay

The novel â€Å"Kite Runner† by Khaled Hosseini vividly portrays the impact of culture on personality and even destiny of the main characters. Khaled Hosseini describes unique Afghan culture, its traditions and rituals, social norms and human relations which have a great influence on decisions of the protagonist and his life. Thesis using different themes and motifs, Hosseini creates a powerful life story portraying that culture and national identity determine destiny of a person, his life choices and relations with others. The book is based on the ideas of friendship and family relations, generation gap and immigration, cultural assimilation in America and cultural identity. In the interview Hosseini comments that â€Å"Because the themes of friendship, †¦ the uneasy love between fathers and sons are universal themes and not specifically Afghan, the book has been able to reach across cultural, racial, religious, and gender† (cited Azad 2004). The protagonist of the novel, Amir, is faced by cultural traditions of his nations, misunderstanding with his father and feeling guilt. Hosseini portrays family relations typical for many Afghans based on a man’s power and dominance and oppression of women in this culture. This theme is closely connected with generation gap and inability of Amir’s father to understand his only son. In contrast to many young people of his culture, Amir loves literature and poetry. He is portrayed as a radical whose circumstances and temperament lead him into a very different experience. Literature and story writing are not considered as a good profession for a man like Amir belonging to high social classes. The conflict between this cultural tradition and Amir’s desire to become a writer creates a tension and misunderstanding between Amir and his father. The idea of friendship and close peer relations between men is another theme which runs through the novel. When he was a child, Amir betrayed Hassan and defamed him. Many years have passed, but he feels guilty because of his weakness and disloyalty. Using this theme, Hosseini portrays that much human behavior is based not on the underlying values people hold, but on their compliance to the pressures exerted by the social world around them which can be resisted only at a high price. Everyone lives by cultural and social rules whose existence they are well aware of, but that they cannot resist their social world mostly rules them. In the explanations that the people in this book give of their lives, the dominant form personal level takes is that of the world of other people. Amir ponders: â€Å"I wondered if that was how forgiveness budded †¦ with pain gathering its things, packing up, and slipping away unannounced in the middle of the night† (Hosseini 198). The novel vividly portrays a conflict between Afghan culture and the Soviet Union traditions spread in this land. On the other hand, through minor characters of Afghan military, Hassan and his wife, Hosseini depicts different cultural traditions and national identity of two opposite cultures. Patriotism is not always a delusion and there may be values in one’s country that are worth defending, even dying for. However, states’ molding of their citizens into a common way of life is under challenge today. It is under challenge in part because of the resurgence of ethnicity and ethnic identity. These ideas of self echo Hosseini’s interpretation of culture: both self and culture are seen by some as belonging to a particular place, bounding and shaping the beings therein, and by others as radically open and free. In his interview Hosseini comments: â€Å"It’s hard not to feel some guilt in a country where privilege and poverty are basically next door to each other† (Jolly 2006). The themes of immigration and assimilations help readers to perceive cultural differences between Afghan and American cultures based on different values and religious traditions. In contrast to Afghanistan, American culture is based on collective consciousness. This contradiction can best be resolved by considering self and culture in a common phenomenological framework: a framework based on how people experience the world. For Afghan people, their experienced are based on revolutions and military struggle, constant tension to be killed and master-servant relations. Through the character of Sohrab, a nephew of Amir, Hosseini depicts a strong bond between relatives and importance of blood relations. In spite of great risk and Taliban rule, Amir returns to Kabul and saves his nephew Sohrab. Through this theme, Hosseini depicts that this choice of values and identities is not really free. People pick and choose themselves in accordance with their class, gender, religious belief, ethnicity, and citizenship, as well as all the exigencies of their own personal molding, from a cultural frame; they pick and choose themselves in negotiation with and performance for others. â€Å"Hosseini gives his readers credit by being subtle about his metaphors, such as the fact that Afghanis live among war and kite flying is children playing at war, preparing for it† (Most Readers Loved This Novel 2005, G3). For Amir, his half-brother Hassan, choice is not free, but it seems to be free: as if, from the vast array of available cultural choices as to what one might believe, how one might live, they make their choices and live and believe accordingly. For the most part, these men characters shape themselves in ways close to home, in congruence with their membership in home societies. Following Makhmalbaf (2001) â€Å"transformation changes the socioeconomic infrastructure that in turn breaks the traditional culture and creates a more modern one, exporting oil and consuming the products of industrialized countries† (29). The facts, events and destinies of the characters described by Hosseini show that culture is the main factor which determines human life and personality. According to Hall and Gay (1996): â€Å"The cultural shaping of self occurs at what may analytically be viewed as separate levels of consciousness† (34). In the novel, lives of all characters are shaped by a particular language and set of social practices that condition them as to how they comprehend self and world. All characters think in language and behave in accordance with Afghan cultural values and norms of their ethical group. In sum, the novel portrays that the self universally is made of past memories and future anticipation linked to an ever-shifting present. Amir’s experience in America shows that human self-identity does not disappear in the other country determining life goals and behavior. Human personality is culturally shaped: people of different cultural backgrounds clearly have different ways of experiencing the world.

Lanthanides Definition in Chemistry

Below the main body of the periodic table are two rows of elements. These are the lanthanides and the actinides. If you look at the atomic numbers of the elements, youll notice they fit in the spaces below scandium and yttrium. The reason they arent (usually) listed there is because this would make the table too wide to print on paper. Each of these rows of elements has characteristic properties. Key Takeaways: What Are the Lanthanides? The lanthanides are the elements in the top of the two rows located below the main body of the periodic table.While there is disagreement over exactly which elements should be included, many chemists state the lanthanides are elements with atomic numbers 58 through 71.Atoms of these elements are characterized by having a partially filled 4f sublevel.These elements have several names, including the lanthanide series and the rare earth elements. The IUPAC preferred name is actually lanthanoids. Lanthanides Definition The lanthanides are generally considered to be elements with atomic numbers 58-71 (lanthanum to lutetium). The lanthanide series is the group of elements in which the 4f sublevel is being filled. All of these elements are metals (specifically, transition metals). They share several common properties. However, there is some dispute over exactly where the lanthanides begin and end. Technically, either lanthanum or lutetium is a d-block element rather than f-block element. Yet, the two elements share characteristics with other elements in the group. Nomenclature The lanthanides are indicated by the chemical symbol Ln when discussing general lanthanide chemistry. The group of elements actually goes by any of several names: lanthanides, lanthanide series, rare earth metals, rare earth elements, common earth elements, inner transition metals, and lanthanoids. The IUPAC formally prefers the use of the term lanthanoids because the suffix -ide has a specific meaning in chemistry. However, the group acknowledges the term lanthanide predates this decision, so it is generally accepted. Lanthanide Elements The lanthanides are: Lanthanum, atomic number 58Cerium, atomic number 58Praseodymium, atomic number 60Neodymium, atomic number 61Samarium, atomic number 62Europium, atomic number 63Gadolinium, atomic number 64Terbium, atomic number 65Dysprosium, atomic number 66Holmium, atomic number 67Erbium, atomic number 68Thulium, atomic number 69Ytterbium, atomic number 70Lutetium, atomic number 71 General Properties All of the lanthanides are shiny, silver-colored transition metals. Like other transition metals, they form colored solutions, however, lanthanide solutions tend to be pale in color. The lanthanides tend to be soft metals that can be cut with a knife. While the atoms can exhibit any of several oxidation states, the 3 state is most common. The metals are generally quite reactive and form an oxide coating upon exposure to air. Lanthanum, cerium, praseodymium, neodymium, and europium are so reactive they are stored in mineral oil. However, gadolinium and lutetium only slowly tarnish in air. Most lanthanides and their alloys quickly dissolve in acid, ignite in air around 150-200  °C, and react with halogens, sulfur, hydrogen, carbon, or nitrogen upon heating. Elements of the lanthanide series also display a phenomenon called lanthanide contraction. In lanthanide contraction, the 5s and 5p orbitals penetrate into the 4f subshell. Because the 4f subshell is not fully shielded from the effects of the positive nuclear charge, the atomic radius of the lanthanide atoms successively decreasing moving across the periodic table from left to right. (Note: This is, in fact, the general trend for atomic radius moving across the periodic table.) Occurrence in Nature Lanthanide minerals tend to contain all elements within the series. However, the vary according to the abundance of each element. The mineral euxenite contains lanthanides in nearly equal proportions. Monazite contains mainly lighter lanthanides, while xenotime contains mostly heavier lanthanides. Sources Cotton, Simon (2006).  Lanthanide and Actinide Chemistry. John Wiley Sons Ltd.Gray, Theodore (2009). The Elements: A Visual Exploration of Every Known Atom in the Universe. New York: Black Dog Leventhal Publishers. p. 240. ISBN 978-1-57912-814-2.Greenwood, Norman N.; Earnshaw, Alan (1997). Chemistry of the Elements (2nd ed.). Butterworth-Heinemann. pp. 1230–1242. ISBN 978-0-08-037941-8.Krishnamurthy, Nagaiyar and Gupta, Chiranjib Kumar (2004). Extractive Metallurgy of Rare Earths. CRC Press. ISBN 0-415-33340-7.Wells, A. F. (1984). Structural Inorganic Chemistry (5th ed.). Oxford Science Publication. ISBN 978-0-19-855370-0.