Essay --

GMOs or GI Joes When I first began my research of GMOs, the name always reminded me of GI Joes. Well soon after learning what GMOs, were I quickly found out that the two have no relation. Now as I briefly enlighten you about GMOs, I would like for you to imaging a world where there is no longer starving people. Super powers and third world countries have the technology and the ability to feed its people. This may sound like a fairytale, but the technology is here at our fingertips for us to grasp onto and use. For centuries, man has found ways to manipulate nature and to select crops for more desirable traits. If society were to stumble across a technology that would further advance these selections, it could quite possibly and significantly reduce the number of starving and malnourished people in the world while at the same time benefit the producers. â€Å"The UN Food and Agriculture Organization estimate that farmers will have to produce 70% more food by 2050 to meet the needs of the world's expected 9-billion-strong population. That amounts to one billion tons more wheat, rice and other cereals.† Less than one per cent of the American population is responsible for growing and harvesting all of the food for this country alone. The demand overseas for American produce varies depending upon the product, but overall exceeds the supply. On the forefront of this worldwide embittering battle to end world hunger and provide cost-effective medicine, society has stumbled across the a nswer known as biotechnology and genetically engineered organisms. In the end, we shall see that the benefits outweigh the negatives. For a number of years now the United States has been the mainstay in the push for biotechnology research and testing... ...advancement has been disproved or legitimately refuted. Of the remaining positions, there are sensible alternatives. In order to protect innocent victims of allergies from blindly consuming potentially toxic elements, producers could label genetically altered products with the added contents. As for the scientific arguments, these have been in place for centuries from the dawn of time. If society has not found an answer to them yet, then certainly they pose no immediate risk and are overshadowed by the potential benefits. In the end, Dennis Avery best describes how the public should react to biotechnology. â€Å"The big truth is that there is no inherent danger from biotechnology, in either food or medicine. We should take the modest risks of researching these powerful technologies because they have the potential to save millions of human lives and our habitats.† Essay -- GMOs or GI Joes When I first began my research of GMOs, the name always reminded me of GI Joes. Well soon after learning what GMOs, were I quickly found out that the two have no relation. Now as I briefly enlighten you about GMOs, I would like for you to imaging a world where there is no longer starving people. Super powers and third world countries have the technology and the ability to feed its people. This may sound like a fairytale, but the technology is here at our fingertips for us to grasp onto and use. For centuries, man has found ways to manipulate nature and to select crops for more desirable traits. If society were to stumble across a technology that would further advance these selections, it could quite possibly and significantly reduce the number of starving and malnourished people in the world while at the same time benefit the producers. â€Å"The UN Food and Agriculture Organization estimate that farmers will have to produce 70% more food by 2050 to meet the needs of the world's expected 9-billion-strong population. That amounts to one billion tons more wheat, rice and other cereals.† Less than one per cent of the American population is responsible for growing and harvesting all of the food for this country alone. The demand overseas for American produce varies depending upon the product, but overall exceeds the supply. On the forefront of this worldwide embittering battle to end world hunger and provide cost-effective medicine, society has stumbled across the a nswer known as biotechnology and genetically engineered organisms. In the end, we shall see that the benefits outweigh the negatives. For a number of years now the United States has been the mainstay in the push for biotechnology research and testing... ...advancement has been disproved or legitimately refuted. Of the remaining positions, there are sensible alternatives. In order to protect innocent victims of allergies from blindly consuming potentially toxic elements, producers could label genetically altered products with the added contents. As for the scientific arguments, these have been in place for centuries from the dawn of time. If society has not found an answer to them yet, then certainly they pose no immediate risk and are overshadowed by the potential benefits. In the end, Dennis Avery best describes how the public should react to biotechnology. â€Å"The big truth is that there is no inherent danger from biotechnology, in either food or medicine. We should take the modest risks of researching these powerful technologies because they have the potential to save millions of human lives and our habitats.†

Advertisements: How Do They Persuade Us Essay

Advertisements are part and parcel of our lives. Perhaps, they are one of the most decisive and, at the same time, imperceptible factors moulding and channelling our â€Å"purchasing habits,† so to speak. On the face of it, advertisements promote products and services; they create demand by dint of inducing and increasing consumption. Yet, the ways in which they convey their messages have a profound effect on all aspects of our lives: our happiness, our culture, family and interpersonal relations, business, stereotypes, wealth and status, individuality, and so forth. According to Leiss et al. (1990: 1), advertising is ‘a â€Å"privileged form of discourse†Ã¢â‚¬â„¢, in that it can attract our attention, insinuating itself into our thought processes and carving out a niche in our lives. As we shall see, advertisements succeed in selling us a lot more than merely products; in fact, they contrive to reconstruct our relations to things and other people—in short, they interfere with our sense of identity, they equate us with things, and manipulate us. Williamson’s observation succinctly encapsulates their power: ‘Advertisements are selling us something else besides consumer goods: in providing us with a structure in which we, and those goods, are interchangeable, they are selling us ourselves’ (Williamson, 1978: 13). In the present study we are concerned with how advertisements, or rather ‘ad men’, to quote Packard (1957), persuade us to buy their products, and exploit our â€Å"hidden† needs—both processes taking place beneath our level of awareness. See more:  First Poem for You Essay In searching for more effective ways of persuading people to buy goods, a great many merchandisers or ‘probers’ (Packard, 1957) turned to psychologists in order to gain insights into the deepest recesses of the psyche and the factors that motivate people, and then to capitalise on their expectations and fears. Equipped with this knowledge, ad men nowadays exert a remarkable influence on people’s habits and conceptualisation of the world and themselves in relation to values—values which are, in great measure, determined by the marketplace. Packard (1957: 14), perhaps one of the most vehement critics of â€Å"the hidden persuaders† who have ensnared us by appealing to our unconscious or subconscious needs, eloquently captures the â€Å"state of the art†: The symbol manipulators and their research advisers have developed their depth view of us by sitting at the feet of psychiatrists and social scientists (particularly psychologists and sociologists) who have been hiring themselves out as ‘practical’ consultants or setting up their own research firms. These ‘motivation analysts’ have definitely become our shamans who, ‘having helped to inspire the fear of the devil [in us], [they offer] redemption’ (Bolinger, 1980: 2) by means of the products they sell. They are not only interested in moving their merchandise off the shelves; they are actually seeking out powerful communicative cues, ‘a discourse through and about objects’ (Leiss et al. , 1990), which will weld together people, products, and cultural models. In view of this, ‘we no longer buy oranges, we buy vitality. We do not buy just an auto, we buy prestige’ (Packard, 1957: 15). The sale of ‘self-images’ (ibid. ) is now the norm. Advertisements barely focus on products alone; it is the prospective buyers that they make â€Å"overtures† to—which is mirrored in the language used and in such features as the colours in the ad, its layout, and so on (we will consider some of these aspects in due course). As Ewen (1976, cited in Leiss et al. 1990: 23) notes, advertisers have effected a ‘self-conscious change in the psychic economy’ by inundating the marketplace with suggestions that consumers should buy goods in order to enter realms of experience previously unfamiliar to them. Gradually then, advertising has become a ‘highly organized and professional system of magical inducements and satisfactions’ (Williams, 1980 [1962], cited in Leiss et al. , 1990: 25) which can sell us emotional security, reassurance of wealth, ego-gratification, creative outlets, love objects, a sense of power and roots, and immortality (see Packard, 1957: 66-74 for further details). Many people would, at this juncture, hasten to defend advertising on the grounds that the consumer is a rational decision maker who avails herself of technology; advertising cannot create new needs but can only help increase or speed up consumption (Schudson, 1984, cited in Leiss et al. , 1990: 36); and without the help of advertising, consumers would have limited information about the products circulating around them. What they lose sight of, though, is the fact that ‘[w]e never relate to goods only for their plain utility; there is always a ymbolic aspect to our interactions with them’ (Leiss et al. , 1990: 45). Now that we have briefly outlined the â€Å"state of the art,† we move on to the actual study of advertisements and the ways in which they persuade us. There are many approaches to this end, but we will draw upon two: semiology, or the study of signs, and content analysis. Semiology, on the one hand, is concerned with the emergence and â€Å"movement† of meaning within the text and between the text and the world surrounding it. Content analysis, on the other, focuses on the surface meaning of an ad, detecting similarities and differences. Indisputably, the growing predominance of visuals in ads has resulted in a kind of ambiguity of meaning, which renders the interpretation of the message more complex and challenging. Earlier advertisements explicitly stated the message by describing the product and adducing arguments in its favour. In the 1920s, however, visuals were more frequently used, and these two, text and visual, became complementary. Still, in the 1960s, the text shifted away from describing the visual toward a more elaborate and mystic form, whereby it functioned as a â€Å"key† to the visual (Leiss et al. 1990: 199). Against this background of radical changes in the form and content of advertisements, the abovementioned approaches, semiology and content analysis, offer us an insight into the structures of ads and help throw light on the subtle elements, expectations and assumptions, with which they are imbued. Roland Barthes (1973, cited in Leiss et al. , 1990: 200-201), following Ferdinand De Saussure’s tradition, divides a sign into two components: the signifier and the signified. The signifier is the material object; the signified is its abstract meaning. Let us illustrate this with Barthe’s own example: Roses signify passion or love. If we analyse their â€Å"meaning,† we have three elements: the signifier—the roses; the signified—passion or love; and the sign—the â€Å"passionified roses† as a whole. Of course, there is nothing inherently â€Å"passionate† or â€Å"amorous† about roses; they are viewed as such within the context of western culture. In another culture, roses could signify something different, even the opposite of passion or love. Thus, any interpretation of advertisements from a semiotic perspective is bound up with cultural norms and values which may be at odds with those operating in different cultures or different systems of meaning. After all, the power of advertisements lies in, and appropriates, these very norms and values, with a view to reconstituting reality, while â€Å"tinging† it with an arcane suggestiveness and elusiveness. Drawing upon several advertisements, we will endeavour to probe into the ‘probers’’ minds, weaving the two approaches together. More specifically, we will focus on the rhetorical devices employed (e. . , metaphors, metonymy, jingles, etc. ), as well as the ways in which the text and the visual element prevail upon us to react, i. e. , to buy the product (e. g. , their proclivity for creating a problem, only to consign it to the â€Å"omnipotence† of the product, their spatial arrangement, etc. ). Unfortunately, an in-depth analysis is outside the remit of this study. Let us consider the following ad: A black Ford Zetec covers two pages in the magazine, while the text reads: â€Å"When the lorry in front loses its load, most drivers would find themselves losing control. Not if you’re driving the new 2. 0 litre Ford Focus Zetec ESP. One of the first cars in its class available with an Electronic Stability Program. ESP constantly assesses the angle you are steering against information received from sensors on the behaviour and direction of the car. By reducing engine power and braking individual wheels it helps you to maintain control and stability, allowing you to stay on track. It’s almost like it knows what to do before you do. So sit back, enjoy the ride and expect more. † And the motto just above the car is: â€Å"just steer. This common, albeit â€Å"catchy,† ad addresses the prospective buyer directly through the use of the pronoun you. What is more, the strategy it employs is that of creating a problem—or rather setting a scene familiar to many a driver (â€Å"When the lorry in front loses its load, most drivers would find themselves losing control. †) Only in the first sentence is there any mention of â€Å"most drivers†Ã¢â‚¬â€apparently in order to juxtapose them to you, the prospective buyer. â€Å"You† are not like â€Å"most drivers† because â€Å"you† are driving â€Å"the new 2. 0 litre Ford Focus Zetec ESP. Another device employed in the ad is the use of personification, as in â€Å"ESP constantly assesses†¦it helps you†¦It’s almost like it knows†¦Ã¢â‚¬  The new Ford Focus is more of a jinee in a bottle waiting for you to rub it than merely a car. All â€Å"you† have to do is â€Å"sit back, enjoy the ride and expect more,† revelling in the security its omnipotence affords. Finally, the pun in â€Å"just steer,† referring to the actual steering of the vehicle and, only obliquely, to the idiom â€Å"to steer clear of,† consciously or unconsciously, dares us to pop into the car and drive, reminding us of our inability to resist the temptation vs. he omnipotence of the vehicle. As Williamson observes, ‘puns perform the correlating function seen in all ads, but in a way that begs to be deciphered†¦condensation draws together both the denoted and connoted meanings of the ad, therefore making a deterministic connection between them’ (Williamson, 1978: 87). Yet, not all ads are so straightforward and direct. Let us examine the following ad (found in Williamson, 1978: 25). The ad shows Catherine Deneuve’s face and a Chanel No 5 bottle. There is no text linking these two; they are simply juxtaposed. But are they really linked, in the first place? One could say that they are supposed to be linked, in terms of an assumption that they are inextricably related. This link, though, is arbitrary, drawing upon our knowledge of a glamorous world of films and magazines, which Deneuve has come to be associated with. Thus, in juxtaposing her face, which signifies beauty and glamour, with Chanel No 5, there is a â€Å"latent† transference of meaning from Deneuve’s face to the product, and back again. Not only is her face rendered an object that is summoned to â€Å"argue† in favour of the product, but it also depends on that product for the beauty and glamour ascribed to it. Here, the use of language is irrelevant, as the ad appropriates the relationship obtaining between signifier (Catherine Deneuve) and signified (glamour and beauty). In other ads, the visual, not only complements, but virtually transcends, the text, to convey a meaning which is not always easy to decipher. Consider the Gordon’s Gin ad, where there are two different photographs of a famous actor of the 1950s, the second one being obviously altered to the point where the actor is barely recognisable. On the left side of the first photo, there is a text in italics, reading: Gordon’s is made with the pick of the Tuscan Juniper. On the right side of the second photo, the text written in a regular typeface reads: â€Å"Other gins are made with what’s left. † Finally, at the bottom of the page, there is a Gordon’s Special Dry London Gin bottle in the middle of the sentence: â€Å"If you’re not drinking (bottle of Gin) what are you drinking? † Apparently, the significance of the ad resides in assumptions and values outside its ‘grammar’ (Williamson, 1978). First of all, the juxtaposition of the two photographs appropriates the general belief that a good photograph means good quality, which then invites the reader to make the connection between he quality of the first photograph with that of the product through the association of the text in italics with the first picture, and the regular text with the second. Furthermore, the thin typeface (i. e. , italics) stands in stark contrast to the regular text, as it is associated with glamour and prestige and arouses â€Å"elegant† feelings. So, the last sentence â€Å"If you’re not drinking (bottle of Gin) what are you drinking? † could easily be rephrased as: â€Å"If you’re not one of those who prefer our gin, then who are you? Once again, the product is â€Å"put on a pedestal,† while tinkering with our desire for approval, that is, suggesting to us that we will find our identity only if we indulge in it. In addition, the use of the calligram, i. e. , the picture of the bottle, instead of the words naming it, establishes the product as something that has a substance all its own, which is beyond words. As Williamson (1978: 91) has noted, the calligram playfully seeks to erase the oldest oppositions of our alphabetical civilisation: to show and to name; to figure and to speak; to reproduce and articulate; to look and to read†¦[It is a] double trap, an inevitable snare.

Proposal for Inventory System Essay

In today’s global world, access to basic and quality healthcare is crucial and imperative in order to have a good and healthy life. In view of this, access to quality and affordable drugs is a basic raw material in enhancing good and quality healthcare. It is therefore necessary and important to ensure that patients can easily get access to quality, un-expired and affordable drugs for the treatment of their diseases and sicknesses. Most importantly the efficiency with which these services are carried out can go a long way to save lives and improve upon the health status of individuals. Medisol Pharmaceutical Company Limited is a private retail pharmaceutical company established in Ghana and their main focus is to regularly sell pharmaceuticals, skin care products, baby care products and cosmetics to its customers. The company makes continuous efforts to maximize client’s satisfaction by providing good customer service and also segmenting their market so as to enable customers have easy access to their sales outlets. The company has its head office at Kanda and two other branches at west legon and kasowa respectively with their main target groups being the general public. Medisol Pharmaceutical Company ltd. has two major departments namely the Finance/Administrative Department and the Retail Department which are directly under the supervision of the CEO. The company has numerical staff strength of five (5) comprising of a CEO, a superintendent pharmacist, pharmacist, an accountant and a medicine counter assistant. Below is an organogram of Medisol Pharmaceutical company ltd. The Finance/Administrative department which is headed by the accountant handles mainly the financial and administrative tasks of the company. The company’s Retail Department serves as a liaison between Medisol and its customers and is headed by the Medicine Counter Assistant. The main responsibilities of this department are to manage the retail stock, sell items to customers and submit weekly reports to the CEO. Medisol’s operations are solely manual; as our team got to the company we were privileged to speak to the head of the retail department who explained thoroughly to us how the manual process takes place. The process starts with stock purchase where the medicine counter assistant makes a list of all needed items to be bought. This list is sent to their wholesalers for delivery of the items. Upon delivery, the items are crossed checked with the order list made and a sales invoice is then given to Medisol which is then filed in a purchasing file. Items to be sold are arranged on shelves with price tags on each item. Details of items sold are recorded in a sales book. Retail stocks are taken three times in a month and the process used is as follows; -Drugs on the shelves are counted and the quantity is crossed checked with the sales invoice kept in the purchase file(which shows quantity of items bought ), this is done to know the quantity of items sold -The quantity of sold items is then crossed checked from the sales books to further check if the items were really sold, expired or stolen. This process helps them to know how much items have been sold, how much stock is left and also determine whether to make an order or not. Medisol also has a special way of identifying expired drugs so that they won’t be sold to customers, with this the medicine counter assistant prepares a manual list of drugs whose expiry date falls within a particular year hence every six months this list is checked for drugs which have their expiry dates closer or already expired. Those almost about to expire are sold faster while those already expired are cleared from the shelves and discarded. In today’s world it is impossible to compete in the job market without a working knowledge of IT. It is therefore imperative that Medisol Pharmaceutical Company Limited implement and invest into good inventory control management system that have the ability to track, report and replenish stock. This will then improve accuracy and enhance safety and efficiency thereby helping the resale department decrease stock errors. This solution is intended to help the department to manage all transactions of received stocks, price, quantity and invoice. Security of this system will be enhanced, making it impossible for items to be misplaced or stolen. The benefits of the computerized inventory control system to Medisol Pharmaceutical Company ltd. is to make inventory decisions that minimize the total cost of inventory, which is distinctly different from minimizing inventory. It is often more expensive to run out of an item (and thus be forced to obtain it through more expensive channels) than simply to keep more units in stock. Several models have been proposed in the literature for minimizing the total cost of inventory through the use of an economic order quantity, which attempts to balance the carrying costs of inventory with the cost of running out of an item. Most pharmacy inventory decisions involve replenishment–how much to order, when to decide to order, and when to place the order.

SHALL WE OR SHALL WE NOT HIRE POLICE OFFICERS BASED ON GENDE essays

SHALL WE OR SHALL WE NOT HIRE POLICE OFFICERS BASED ON GENDE essays SHALL WE OR SHALL WE NOT HIRE POLICE OFFICERS BASED ON GENDER OR MINORITY ISSUES? We should not hire people based on gender or minority issues because everybody has different skills and capabilities to perform specific tasks. If we talk about gender issues... well, women are very good in certain aspects, for example, organization and communication... when men have other traits, such as physical strength. If we talk about minority issues... well, people is different... there are many different cultures in the world. Its call diversity. So, if we hire diverse people, we have more probability to find a solution for an specific problem with specific people... For example: An east Indian has decided to kill himself by jumping from a building. The police arrives and surrounds the building. The guy is about to jump, while the cops yell at him orders... But the guy doesnt understand a word... he doesnt speak English very well. So, what to do? Just call the east Indian officer (which is woman, haha) and let her talk with him. She will probably save his life. That is another reason to hire women in the police department. Women tend to use dialogue most of the time to solve their conflicts. Men dont. Men are usually more aggressive, and tend to use their physical strength. So... it is better to have diverse people to develop different tasks. Depending on the situation. At the end I believe that the real question would be... should we hire police officers, or should we hire big guys? If we think about it, it doesnt matter how physically strong is a police officer when you have a problem like in the example. In that case what you need is a person that has good communication skills, that is intelligent, (and last but not least), that is bilingual. Variety is good. Joining different people with different capabilities will give us a stronger police department (or whatever is the case) as a re ...

That Is vs. Which Is

That Is vs. Which Is That Is vs. Which Is That Is vs. Which Is By Mark Nichol This generation, like every one before it and every one to follow, has the dubious pleasure of seeing evolution of language in action. The changes are obvious to careful writers, as they notice with distressingly increasing frequency the erosion of a distinction between words with similar but divergent meanings (for example, anxious versus eager) or a relaxing of a grammatical rule. One example of the latter that is near or at its tipping point (in this case, the point at which a grammatical error becomes so ubiquitous as to widely be deemed acceptable) is the distinction between restrictive and nonrestrictive, or essential and nonessential, clauses. Throughout the modern era, at least in American English, careful writers have honored a distinction between the use of â€Å"that is† and â€Å"which is† and, universally, the insertion or omission of punctuation to begin or bracket a subordinate clause. For example, the sentences â€Å"The dog that has a bone is well trained† and â€Å"The dog, which has a bone, is well trained† have distinct meanings signaled not only by the difference of a word but also the use of parenthetical punctuation in the latter sentence. For the sake of promoting unambiguous communication, such statements as â€Å"The dog which has a bone is well trained† is avoided (though such usage is common in British English). The phrase â€Å"that has a bone† in â€Å"The dog that has a bone is well trained† provides essential information: More than one dog is visible to the speaker or writer and the observer or reader, and the person making the statement is providing an additional detail to direct the other person to one dog in particular. By contrast, â€Å"The dog, which has a bone, is well trained† likely refers to a scenario in which only one dog is present. The sentence does not specify whether one or more other dogs are in the vicinity, because such information is irrelevant. The phrase â€Å"which has a bone† is providing additional, nonessential information to the base sentence â€Å"The dog is well trained.† Unfortunately, writers often fail to observe the distinction, and even more unfortunately, many of these writers are paid to write; their content is published online and in printed publications that many other people read, and many of these other people see the erroneous content, accept it (it’s published, after all, so it must be correct- right?), and consciously or unconsciously imitate it. Eventually, the tipping point is reached, and (for better or worse) wrong becomes right. A case in point, with not one but two identical grammatical violations: One writer said of two much-anticipated films, â€Å"Before giving us his upcoming Blade Runner sequel that’s shrouded in mystery, director Denis Villeneuve has the sci-fi movie Arrival that is getting incredible  word of mouth.† By including the phrases â€Å"that’s shrouded in mystery† and â€Å"that is getting incredible word of mouth†- with that in place of which and without parenthetical punctuation- the writer creates the impression that the phrases are essential. Evidently, more than one Blade Runner sequel is imminent, and one of them, directed by Denis Villeneuve, is shrouded in mystery. (Presumably, the other is not- or the others are not.) In addition, of two or more movies titled Arrival, one is getting incredible word of mouth. (Presumably, the other is not- or the others are not.) What the writer should have written is â€Å"Before giving us his upcoming Blade Runner sequel, which is shrouded in mystery, director Denis Villeneuve has the sci-fi movie Arrival, which is getting incredible  word of mouth.† This sentence describes two unique films, one of which is shrouded in mystery and one of which is getting incredible word of mouth. The phrases that provide those additional details are bracketed by commas to signal that the details are not necessary for one to understand the basic fact that two films directed by the same man are being released in sequence. (The additional information is potentially intriguing but not essential.) I’ve noticed the lack of distinction between essential and nonessential clauses more and more often over the years, not because I’m more observant than before but because the erosion is more common than it used to be. I know that such evolution is inevitable, but as with any change, one can accept the inevitability yet still resist it. More than that, it is the responsibility of all careful writers to do so. Want to improve your English in five minutes a day? Get a subscription and start receiving our writing tips and exercises daily! Keep learning! Browse the Style category, check our popular posts, or choose a related post below:50 Idioms About Legs, Feet, and ToesDisappointed + PrepositionWhile vs. Whilst

Holy Wear Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Holy Wear - Essay Example ated places that the believers in the faith consider as sacred, such as Gaya in Buddhism, Kasi in Hindu religion, Mecca and Medina in Islam and Jerusalem in Christianity. Conventional philosophy believes that sacred or holy things exude â€Å"potent meanings and significances† to believers and the presence of such things offers some â€Å"inherent benefits† (23). On the other hand, the postmodern view on the sacred deviate drastically from the traditional view, which contends that the meanings to the holy are not inherent but attributed by the believers as an outcome of their â€Å"cultural practice† (23). It, therefore, transpires that illogical or irrational notions such as sacred derive from communal and social practices of certain dominant cultures like Greek civilization as well as the customs being followed within various religions. My photographic project called â€Å"Holy Wear† incorporates the philosophy of Roland Barthes, which identifies culture as the â€Å"contract arrived at† between the creators of art and its consumers (Barthes 1981:27). In this context, the photograph of the monk illustrates the Lama culture and imbibes in the viewers a sense of holyness in his attire, which represents sacredness for the believers in Buddhist religion. Thus, irrespective of logic or rationality, the audience of the photo associate holynesss to the clothes worn by the monk because the cultural practices have informed them that the attire of the monk is a â€Å"Holy Wear.† Similarly, the attire and appearance of the Hindu saint will inspire awe and a sense of holiness in people practicing Hindu religion or those who understand various cultural nuances relating to that religion. Therefore, it can be construed that the emotions and sensations that these photographs emulate derive not from any logic o r rational appreciation of the meaning of sacred or holy but due to the association of the images to various cultural practices. The photographs also validate Barthes’

Social groups Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Social groups - Essay Example The podcasts portray targeted actions that cause immense psychological or even physical injuries to the victims. Just as with any other form of crime, the actions of the perpetrators did not only disregard the basic rights of the victims but also caused them varied forms of injuries. However, the listening process elicited a number of emotions beginning with anger especially after assuming the position of the people the various speakers discriminated. After listening to the experiences of the speakers a sense of guilt engulfed me because I have often prejudged others based on their physical appearance. Hate crimes have varied psychological effects both to the perpetrators and to the victims. Most victims often suffer from depression and anxiety among other psychological distress. Such victims may often acquire antisocial behavior while others may develop an equal measure of hatred for others thus decide to retaliate whenever possible. The psychological effects are varied and systemat ic. As explained earlier, hate crime affects the identity and self-esteem of the individual victims. The crime affects the minority group thus instigating a social disharmony in the society. The society acquires a systematic disruption as people form groups with people of similar identities. Listening to the seven sections of the broadcast presented the diverse nature of hate crime prevalent in the society. The section included racial discrimination, gender based discrimination and other prejudiced comments against individuals.