Christmas past Essay Example for Free

Christmas past Essay Ebenezer Scrooge is a tightfisted miser who has only one purpose in life, to extort as much money and profit he can from anything and everything. As with all things, too much of one thing is bad for you; Scrooges miserly ways are catching up with him. His cheap ways have not brought him any friends, quite the contrary; they have brought him derision and scorn. He was thought of as a tight-fisted hand at the grindstone! A squeezing, wrenching, grasping, scraping, clutching, selfish, covetous old sinner! As we can see, he wasnt a very pleasant person, but that is to be expected of people who work around money all their lives. Money became more than a possession to Scrooge, all his coins were his little children. He kept them safe in their strongboxes. To give away but one petty coin, would have been asking Scrooge to give away part of his soul. He was greedy and crooked to the bone. He was a cold heartless man No warmth could warm No wind that blew was bitter than he. Scrooge hated the idea that on Christmas day his workers were allowed the day off and Scrooge still had to pay their wages. A poor excuse for picking a mans pocket every twenty-fifth of December. Scrooge dislikes people who try and raise money to help the poor, when the charity workers tell Scrooge some poor people would rather die than work in a workhouse Scrooge replies. If they would rather die They had better do it, and decrease the surplus population. This quote shows that Scrooge doesnt care about other people apart from himself. He doesnt care that other people are worse off than he is and he doesnt care if they die. If I could work my will Every idiot who goes about with merry Christmas should be boiled with his own pudding. This is a quote from Scrooge before the ghosts visit him. It shows that Scrooge doesnt like Christmas and doesnt like other people enjoying themselves at Christmas. Scrooge wasnt just miserable and bad tempered at Christmas; he was like that all year round. These famous lines were uttered by Scrooge on Christmas Eve, 7 years to the day, of his old partner, Jacob Marleys death. Then as Scrooge was about to enter his marvelously slum-like mansion, he looked at his doorknocker, and nearly fainted dead away with fright. Scrooge saw in the knocker not a knocker, but Marleys face. Bad omens breed ill times to come, and this was most definitely a bad omen. As Scrooge looked fixedly at this phenomenon, it was a knocker again. Scrooge just thought it was the dark playing with his mind. Darkness was cheap and Scrooge liked it. When Scrooge sat down by the small fire the cellar floor blew open with a booming sound, still Scrooge wouldnt believe anything strange was happening. Its still humbug I wont believe it. When the ghost of Marley appears before Scrooge he still doesnt accept what hes seeing. The ghost asks Scrooge Why do you doubt your senses? Scrooge replies, Because a little thing effects them theres more of gravy than of grave about you. Marleys ghost explains to Scrooge that he is forced to travel around the world; he sees people suffering and cant do anything to help them. Marleys ghost explains to Scrooge that he is forced to do this in death because of the way he was in life. Marley tells Scrooge that his punishment after life will be even greater because Scrooge was just as bad as Marley and has had an extra seven years of life to do bad things. Marley told Scrooge that unless he changes his ways he will be punished. He tells Scrooge that three spirits will visit him. Expect the first tomorrow when the bell tolls one. The ghost of Christmas past was a strange figure. Its hair hung about its neck and was white as if with age. Its arms were very long and muscular. It had a lustrous belt around its waist and was holding a branch of fresh green holy in its hand. You are one of those whos passion made this cap, and force me through whole trains of years. The ghost said to Scrooge. Meaning because of people like Scrooge the ghost has to visit them. The ghost of Christmas past took Scrooge to the place where he grew up. They saw travelers; Scrooge knew and named every one of them. Why did his cold eye glisten Why did his heart leap as they went past. The ghost then took Scrooge to his old school; he was the only child left there. All the other children had gone back home to their families for Christmas. The ghost then took Scrooge to a house were a young Scrooge was reading a book by a weak fire. Some actors visited young Scrooge and performed a play for him. Scrooge remembered how lonely he was and how happy the actors made him feel. There was a boy singing a Christmas Carol at my door last night.

Murray Siskind: Wise Man Or Raving Mad? Essay -- essays research paper

Is Murray Siskind a raving lunatic or a wise, but somewhat eccentric man? Does he ever have a point, or is he just mindlessly rambling? He’s neither of those things. The first impression he gives is of someone who’s in between, but that proves not to be the case. He’s actually a very cunning man, one who has become the â€Å"devil† voice of Jack Gladney’s conscience. Eventually he’d like to become Jack. He covets not only his position and standing in the university, but also his wife, Babette, and he makes no secret of it. Why else would he do something to lewd as to sniff her hair and grope her the way he does? He tells Jack that the only way to seduce a woman is with clear and open desire. Well, it don’t get no clearer than that. All those things become apparent later on. First, we find out who Murray Jay Siskind is. He’s an ex-sportswriter from New York. He’s Jewish. He was briefly married once during his sportswriter days. We know he is now a visiting lecturer on â€Å"living icons† at College-on-the-Hill. Physically, he is â€Å"a stoop shouldered man with little round glasses and an Amish beard† (DeLillo 10). He’s hairy, but does not have a moustache, only a beard. He dresses almost entirely in corduroy. He likes his men simple and his women complicated. He â€Å"is trying to develop a vulnerability that women will find attractive† (DeLillo 21), but so far has only managed to create sneaky and lecherous expression. For him, sex seems very matter-of-fact, like a business transaction. Just flat out lust. He even reads a magazine called American Transvestite. Murray is, by his own admission, â€Å"a solitary crank who marrons himself with a TV set and dozens of stacks of dust-jacketed comic books† (DeLillo 52). He shares a house across the street from an insane asylum with boarders who seem like they ought to be confined there too. Not that he minds, though. He’s â€Å"totally captivated and intrigued †¦ totally enamored of †¦ the small town setting† (DeLillo 10). At first, Murray seems like a deep person with interesting quirks (he takes pleasure in sniffing food labels in the supermarket). He’s deeper than the other pop culture professors who read nothing but cereal boxes and have food fights while discussing the culture of public toilets and reminiscing where they were when James Dean died. Murray has theories. Lots of theories. In an odd way, some of them make sense. For exa... ...mps out the fragments of Jack’s mind and fills it with his own devious thoughts. Jack is not a killer, and under normal circumstances Jack would never have been a killer. Murray is a killer, if just psychologically. He proves it once and for all when he forces Jack to â€Å"elicit the truths [he] already possess† (DeLillo 293), that a dier can become a killer. He disguises himself - â€Å"I’m only a visiting lecturer. I theorize, I take walks, I admire trees and houses† (DeLillo 293), and prefaces nearly every sentence with â€Å"in theory† or â€Å"theoretically† but he knows what the outcome will be. When Jack shoots Willie Mink, Murray is as guilty as if he pulled the trigger himself. Murray probably hoped Jack would be sent to prison for shooting Willie, freeing up Babette for himself. I stated in the beginning that Murray was cunning. People who are cunning possess a strong ability to mesmerize and manipulate. They can, on some levels, seem very logical. Hitler is often described as a cunning man. Murray is not wise. Murray is bad. He manipulated minds, he played with peoples’ lives. In hindsight none of it worked out in his favor, but that doesn’t change that facts. It was an evil thing to do.

European Union Bringing Peace To Europe

The wars bore the modern nations of Europe such as England, France, Germany, Russia, and Italy. Afterwards, they developed their own cultures, which are nationalities, languages, traditions and histories. Due to this characteristic mixed with these various cultures and its nation- centred international politics system of Europe, there rarely was period that ceased from wars in Europe.Furthermore, two world wars in XX century caused the collapse of all Europe's peace and prosperity and Europe, as a result, was no longer the centre f the world. The world power was already moved on the U. S. A and the U. S. S. R. For this reason, people of Europe started to perceive the need of its combination and the European Union was made to restore political peace and economic prosperity of Europe (Nugent, 2006). At this point, it is needed to ask that the European Union has truly fetched peace and prosperity to Europe.It strongly appears to me that the European Union has contributed to political st ability and economic growth to Europe. To demonstrate it, this essay will deal with the following aspects of the historical fforts and intergovernmental agreements which the European Union has made to contributed to political stability and economic growth of Europe in XX century. ‘Main Body Above all, it is essential to define the mutual relation between political peace and economic prosperity. These two important factors which can decide the rise and fall of each country tend to move together.It means that it is hard to say that there is prosperity without peace or peace without prosperity. For a recent example, economic status of Ireland was almost the lowest in the European Union in the past ut now is definitely regarded as a wealthy country in the European Union. This remarkable economic rise led to synchronize the decrease of al large number of armed conflicts in Northern Ireland, one of the most unstable areas in Northern Europe. In other words, this means that it is cle ar that political stability of a country was highly dependent on economic prosperity (Strong, 2006).Therefore, peace and prosperity are achieved separately rather simultaneously. Equally, it is needed to approach to political peace and economic prosperity of Europe in this way. Peace and prosperity of Europe through the European Union have not gained respectively but coincidently. The first significant movement that brought peace and prosperity to Europe was the treaty of ‘The European Coal and Steel Community. After the Second World War, it was widely diffused to aim at ‘United Europe' for its peace and prosperity seeing Europe impoverished by war.Robert Schuman, the French Foreign Minister at that time, suggested epoch-making idea about creation of the consolidated organisation that Jointly supplies and controls strategically important esources such as coal and steel. This is called ‘The European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC)' and it became the cornerstone of t he European Union (http:// europa. eu/ecsc/results/index_en. htm). It was obvious that this ECSC treaty brought rise of living standards to overall European society with high economic growth of each country, based on common market, common goal and common organisation.In C provided witn not only co-operation ot the tield ot Coal and S but also political stability of Europe still surrounded with fear of war. It means that it ecame possible to check each other between nations of Europe by Joint distribution and Joint control of Coal and Steel, which is indispensible for war. The second important movement with respect to peace and prosperity of Europe is the Single European Act of 1986 (SEA). In the period of 1971-86, Europe was in heavy economic recession.This stagnation could be regarded as a result that EC members did not successfully cope three serious incidents such as the collapse of the Bretton Woods system, the oil crisis, and the resulting bad economic results' (qiftq, 2005:476 ). Afterwards, in 1985-91, The European Union accomplished prompt growth in the process of economic integration of Europe. However, there was the budgetary crisis, which was an obstruction to progress economic integration of Europe. It was fortunately settled by Mitterrand's consent in 1984 about sharing a great amount of the expenses with respective to the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) budget.Consequently, these successive events extended into the creation of the Single European Act of 1986 (ibid). Beyond all, the main issue of the SEA was the accomplishment of internal single market of Europe. The SEA became the opportunity to support institutionally development of the internal single market and deregulation. Through the SEA, the integration process of European community was changed qualitatively. Internal single market is qualitatively different concept from free trade zone between nations or geographical extends of trade.In other words, this internal single market means that each government should be pushed to adopt common standards such as technology, regulations, and norms and so on. It means that all European countries should be responsible for mutual economic benefits. More importantly, needless to say each government, European commission and supranational capitals, this progress was supported by public opinion and even many trade unions such as public consensus (Benink, 1992). It means that the SEA brought economic growth to Europe and, at the same time, drew a conclusion, national consensus which can be developed to political stability.As a consequence, it is seen that peace and prosperity of Europe were not achieved separately. They mostly come together. The third remarkable movement related with peace and prosperity of Europe is the Maastricht treaty of 1992. This treaty brought the most innovative outcome. The Economic and Monetary Union of 2000 was inaugurated. This was definitely the climax of exertion of European Communitys countries that ha d accelerated European monetary integration for around 30 years and also the turning point in history, which proceeded to new stage of European integration (Grieco, 1995).As a result of this treaty, European single currency, the Euro was launched in 1999. By launching the Euro, it was vanished to lose the benefits due to extreme fluctuations in the exchange rate and became clear to know prices of other ountries' merchandise. In addition, there was no longer exchange fee. These advantages of the Euro led to more active international trade between European nations and ultimately brought the economic prosperity of Europe. Moreover, in the Maastricht treaty, the Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP) was launched.The CFSP included all areas related to Joint security, Joint defense and diplomacy of the European Union. Despite that militarily importance of the United States of America was relatively reduced by extinction ot the USSR's threat, it was still seen that European nations was dependent on the USA. This was mainly because the NATO, which still had important role in European security due to disability regarding dispute resolution of European nations, was practically moved by the USA.In this circumstance, a bond of sympathy that Europe needed its own military strength to cope Jointly increasing international terrorism and geopolitical conflicts began to be naturally formed. Subsequently, the Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP) was initiated according to the Maastricht treaty (Hurd, 1994). The purposes of the CFSP were to safeguard the common values, fundamental interests and independence of the Union and to develop and consolidate democracy and the rule of law, and the respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms. (Nugent, 2006:90). Hence, it can be told that the Maastricht treaty consequently begot peace and prosperity of Europe by pursuit of two objectives such as The Economic and Monetary Union and the Common Foreign and Security Policy. conc lusion To sum up, by examining three significant treaties in this essay, it becomes self- vident that the European Union has constantly pursued peace and prosperity of Europe by advancing the treaties and implementing them and they have finally built the new framework of peace and prosperity of Europe.Additionally, it is also crucial to comprehend that political peace and economic prosperity are concurrently fulfilled. It is true that the European Union has kept a large number of difficulties to stabilise national status for decades. Nevertheless, it is undoubtedly certain that the European Union will be a high-quality model of many areas where peace and prosperity need.

Pursuing A Post Secondary Education - 949 Words

Pursuing a post-secondary education is very important because without that extra education you will not be able to get as good of a career as you would with a post-secondary education. With that extra education you have more opportunities of higher paying jobs and healthcare coverage. Also when students go to college they have a chance to listen to the Professors lecture on their personal field of study, so they know what they are talking about. With a college degree you are also open to more promotion opportunities. Also when you go into the college life it is a time where you get a big taste of the real world, you start to be independent, learn to save money and pay bills. My career goal is to get a Master’s degree in Music Therapy, an Associates in Music, and a Major in Psychology. The reason I chose this path is because originally I wanted to be a Vet. 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