Life of a Homeless Man Essay Example for Free

Life of a Homeless Man Essay To whom it may concern, Imagine all the events that occurred in your life today. You woke up from your warm bed, took a shower, got dressed, and went to school, work, or both. Then you came home, you had dinner, and went to sleep. These are all basic needs that many people in the United States today dont have. Most people would agree that a day like this is fairly ordinary. Shelter, clothes, food, education, and family are all things that we usually take for granted and things that every person deserves. Now imagine your normal, everyday, routine being taken away from you. All in all you would essentially have my life. I have been facing an intense struggle just to stay alive despite the fact that society turns its head on me. The government has made laws that discriminate against me, which makes it almost illegal for me to co-exist with society. The mistreatment of homeless people is an issue that is often ignored by my community. When you see me on the streets how do you react? Do you turn your head and ignore me? Do you become angry that I am living on the streets? Do you feel frightened and avoid confrontation with me all together? Or do you see me as a human being and treat me in that way? Imagine if you were homeless, living everyday on the streets, having to go through constant judgments and listening to criticizing comments everyday like Get a job, or Ew, stay away. Imagine how hard it would be getting a job, especially in these times. Imagine living in a world with the You need money to get money philosophy; applying for jobs, yet the employer wont hire you because of your lack of clean clothes. So now you need to get new clothes, yet you dont have money. You need money, yet you dont have a job. It is a vicious cycle. Just think of how it would be, being homeless and not even having a mailing address. No family, no friends, being around drugs and violence 24/7. No roof to stand under in case of a storm. You dont even have time to think about getting food, yet that’s all you think about. Imagine living in a world where your best friends, and even your country, had left you behind. It would be tough, and it will change your perspective on me and how I live my life. I try not to accept my situation, but what other choice do I have? I used to ask for spare change and you think that I would have been asking for a kidney. For a country who likes to watch other people’s problems on TV, you think I would live in a country that would be more willing to at least hear what I have to deal with each day, if for entertainment at the very least. When people see me they assume I am more capable of committing violent crimes than a normal person. The only luxury I really have is the newspaper, and you would be shocked on how little we turn up vs. ormal Americans when it comes to violent crimes. Given the chance I would steal to survive another day, yet most believe it is ok to steal bread to feed one’s family. Hypocrites are normally the ones who have no problem passing judgment to me, yet we are not so different. As a homeless man, I don’t get to interact with many exciting things. You’d be surprised what I’d give if I had o ne friend that would visit me for as little as an hour a week. Considering that, since society looks down on me on a 24/7 basis, I don’t get a day off for fun. Congress issues American citizens â€Å"freedom of speech†, however I am still waiting on my chance to be heard. I would like people to know how it feeling of freezing rain feels every winter. The smell of molding cardboard is something I have to deal with on a monthly basis, until I can move to a new home. Some of the things that I’ve seen are not for the faint of heart; along with some of the things I’m left to eat in order to make it another day. You may read this letter and assume it to be the voice of the homeless firing back at society. You may read this letter and find it as a cry for help. Chances are is that you are probably interpreting this letter as a complaint against the community I live in. Why all those could be true consider the intent of this letter as a reminder of how bad it could be. I can guarantee you that the extent of your problems can be solved, so the next time you think about giving up, complaining about your relationship or job, or even get upset when your favorite sports team doesn’t win the big game; it can get worse.

The Reliability of Heidegger’s Reading of Plato’s Gigantomachia :: Philosophy Philosophical Papers

The Reliability of Heidegger’s Reading of Plato’s Gigantomachia ABSTRACT: At issue is the reliability of Heidegger’s contention that Greek thinking, especially Plato’s, was constricted by an unthought "pre-ontology." "The meaning of being" supposedly guiding and controlling Greek ontology is "Being = presence." This made "the question of the meaning of ousia itself" inaccessible to the Greeks. Heidegger’s Plato’s Sophist is his most extensive treatment of a single dialogue. To test his own reliability, he proposes "to demonstrate, by the success of an actual interpretation of [the Gigantomachia], that this sense of Being [as presence] in fact guided [Plato’s] ontological questioning . . .". I will show Heidegger’s strategy in connecting what he takes to be Plato’s naive pre-ontology — Being = Presence — to the ontology of the Gigantomachia — Being = Power. I will show that Heidegger blatantly misreads the text to make the connection: he completely misses the distinction between bodies and bodiless things. The text makes sense, I will show, if and only if its explicit ontology — Being = Power — is its implicit pre-ontology. Plato wrote his text not to discuss, but to exemplify, Heidegger’s ontology-preontology distinction. He wrote the Gigantomachia for Heidegger, but Heidegger missed it. Heidegger proposed "to demonstrate, by the success of an actual interpretation of [Plato’s gigantomachia] that this sense of Being [as presence] in fact guided the ontological questioning of the Greeks...." I will show Heidegger failed this self-imposed test. Then with Heidegger’s interpretation as a starting point, I will show the basic structure of the text. The organizers of this conference have arbitrarily established a fifteen minute long border artificially confining my thought: Anything that cannot be thought within that boundary cannot be thought or said at this conference. In Plato’s gigantomachia peri tes ousias (Soph. 246-48), the Stranger establishes a border that constricts, not thought, but beings within a sharply defined boundary: "For I am establishing that there is a border that confines the beings in such a way that they are nothing else but power" (247de). (My translation). Heidegger, however, claims Plato’s Stranger establishes this boundary confining beings because a conceptual boundary, analogous to the fifteen minute long boundary established for this conference, constricts Plato’s own thinking: Plato cannot think outside the boundary, the "unthought" implicit "pre-ontology," that controlled all Greek thought; Plato’s gigantomachia peri tes ousias, his "ontology," his explicit "theoretical inquiry explicitly devoted to the meaning of entities," occurs within the confines of this constricting pre-ontology.

Free Speech in the Digital World Under Threat?

COMMENTARY Free Speech in the Digital World under Threat? Kirsty Hughes We are at a moment where the digital world can go either way – it can become a space of genuine free expression, one enjoyed by ever larger numbers of people or it can become a controlled and monitored space. Like any battle for free speech and fundamental rights, governments and other major players – in this case big web companies and internet service providers – must be held to account and challenged to defend our rights. T e digital world continues to open up huge opportunities for communication, interaction, sharing views and exchanging information across and within borders. It is even rather dated to say we are all our own publishers now, we can all be citizen journalists – though we are and can be. And as millions more people in the next couple of years join that digital world as the price of smart phones fall, the digital revolution is surely not over. Or is it? Are Governments Hardwired to Snoop and Censor? Kirsty Hughes ([email  protected] om) is with the Index on Censorship, London, United Kingdom. The ability of both governments and big corporations to monitor the internet, to gather data on us all, to determine what we can and cannot do or see on the web is another key but less welcome part of our digital world. And censorship and surveillance of digital communications is on the rise – not only in countries such as Iran, China and Russia, but also in India, the United Kingdom (UK) and the United States (US). While China’s â€Å"great ? ewall† and army of snoopers does its best to block a whole gamut of politically-sensitive topics and debates – sensitive that is to China’s authoritarian elites – the democratic world is increasingly looking at using the technological opportunities out there, either to block content, or to monitor their own citizens. Earlier this year, Indian authorities came top in Googleâ₠¬â„¢s transparency report – which shows government requests to Google to remove material and how many Google complied with – with the largest number of requests for Google to take down posts not backed by court orders.The US and Brazil had the highest number of takedown demands backed by court orders, while in Twitter’s similar transparency report, the US was the number one country demanding information on users. Google and Twitter also go along with many but not all of the requests NovemBER 17, 2012 they receive – private companies playing a crucial role in determining the extent of our free speech and our privacy. Meanwhile in the UK, a draft Communications Data Bill currently being scrutinised in Parliament, would, if it became law, lead to monitoring and retention of a vast array of digital data across the entire population.From tracking who our emails go to or come from, likewise our phone calls, to storing the data our mobiles give up on our locatio ns or our web searches, showing what topics we are investigating, the draft UK Bill certainly deserves its popular name â€Å"a snooper’s charter†. Iran is also aiming to develop its own intranet that would operate in a way detached from the wider world-wide web, and so be much easier to control by state authorities. But how can India or the UK or US stand up to Iran and pressure them not to cut their citizens off from the wider digital world, if they are not fully respecting basic rights of their own citizens online?What Is Driving the Urge to Control? Freedom of expression is a fundamental right – and without it democracies cannot function and power cannot be held to account. So why are so many governments increasingly looking at control of our digital lives? There are two overlapping justi? cations at the heart of this. Do we need protecting from being offended? Attempts to justify censorship often appeal to the protection of public order, or public morals, t ackling hate speech, or promoting national security.But unless highly limited, such censorship rapidly intrudes on open democratic debate, serious discussion, on art and entertainment, on all our communication and interaction. In the UK, a recent spate of cases indicate a deeply worrying trend towards criminalising speech – individuals have received jail sentences or community service orders for publishing sick or bad jokes online or on Twitter (or in one case for strong anti-police sentiments on a t-shirt). And while the â€Å"Innocence of Muslims† video was highly offensive to some (though not all had seen it) is it really vol xlviI no 46EPW Economic & Political Weekly 18 COMMENTARY the job of governments to decide what is offensive or not? And if they do, and all governments between them censor all that is offensive on the web, then there will be very little left for us all to read or debate or write. We will end up in the opposite of a digital world – in a c ontrolled and fragmented set of con? ned digital spaces. The other main justi? cation governments use for controlling the digital world is in order to justify monitoring and surveillance.We need it to tackle crime and terror, the authorities say with great urgency – the criminals are technologically leaps and bounds ahead of us. But do democracies really need to monitor and survey their entire populations just because digital technology makes it easy to do? Surely tackling crime needs a focused, targeted, intelligent approach – not a population-wide sledgehammer. And if democracies do mimic the mass snooping behaviour of the East German Stasi, or of today’s China or Iran, then they will be undermining their own democratic systems.Free speech does not prevail where everything is being monitored, or collected, or stored so one day it may be checked on. And while governments need to be challenged not to censor and monitor and undermine the global digital space we s hare, private companies have become an increasingly important part of the equation – but one less easily held to account. Facebook’s users hit the one billion mark this autumn. But not only does Facebook make a lot of money out of the private and public information that the one billion share on its pages, it also sets the rules for the conversations in its space.Fair enough you may say, so do plenty of clubs or newspapers or societies. But telephone operators do not set rules of what you can and cannot say on the phone; cafes do not ask you to sign up to what you can and cannot say at the door. And as Twitter, Google and others respond to governments’ requests to take material down – or stand up to governments (as they sometimes do) and defend what has been posted – we are witnessing a major privatisation of censorship in the digital world. Can We Defend the Digital Revolution?So have we lost the digital revolution while it is still in its infancy? Not necessarily. Some big web companies are issuing transparency reports, as Google and Twitter do, so we can all see and judge what they as companies are doing – though we cannot get that picture yet for any individual country. This is an important but partial step. Beyond this, some of the big companies, as well as many democratic governments, have made clear statements supporting an open, free digital space that respects human rights including the right to free expression.And the European Union (EU) and US are currently standing up to a push from China and Russia for top-down regulation of the internet. The next summit where this battle will continue is the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) meeting in Dubai in early December. Which way will India, or Brazil, or South Africa go at that summit – with the US and EU or with China and Russia? We are at a moment where the digital world can go either way – it can become a space of genuine free expression , one enjoyed by ever larger numbers of people, or it can become a controlled and monitored space.Like any battle for free speech and fundamental rights, governments and other major players – in this case big web companies and internet service providers – must be held to account and challenged to defend our rights. If democracies like India, the EU, the US or Brazil do not defend free speech in the digital world, and hold back from the temptation of censorship and surveillance almost at the click of a mouse, then we are on a dangerously slippery slope. It is a moment to stand up and defend our digital freedoms – for if we do not, who will?N EW The Adivasi Question Edited By INDRA MUNSHI Depletion and destruction of forests have eroded the already fragile survival base of adivasis across the country, displacing an alarmingly large number of adivasis to make way for development projects. Many have been forced to migrate to other rural areas or cities in search of work, leading to systematic alienation. This volume situates the issues concerning the adivasis in a historical context while discussing the challenges they face today.The introduction examines how the loss of land and livelihood began under the British administration, making the adivasis dependent on the landlord-moneylender-trader nexus for their survival. The articles, drawn from writings of almost four decades in EPW, discuss questions of community rights and ownership, management of forests, the state’s rehabilitation policies, and the Forest Rights Act and its implications. It presents diverse perspectives in the form of case studies specific to different regions and provides valuable analytical insights.Authors: Ramachandra Guha †¢ Sanjeeva Kumar †¢ Ashok K Upadhyaya †¢ E Selvarajan †¢ Nitya Rao †¢ B B Mohanty †¢ Brian Lobo Pp xi + 408 Rs 695 ISBN 978-81-250-4716-2 2012 †¢ K Balagopal †¢ Sohel Firdos †¢ Pankaj Sekhsaria â₠¬ ¢ DN †¢ Judy Whitehead †¢ Sagari R Ramdas †¢ Neela Mukherjee †¢ Mathew Areeparampil †¢ Asmita Kabra †¢ Renu Modi †¢ M Gopinath Reddy, K Anil Kumar, P Trinadha Rao, Oliver Springate-Baginski †¢ Indra Munshi †¢ Jyothis Sathyapalan †¢ Mahesh Rangarajan †¢ Madhav Gadgil †¢ Dev Nathan, Govind Kelkar †¢ Emmanuel D’Silva, B Nagnath †¢ Amita Baviskar ww. orientblackswan. com Mumbai †¢ Chennai †¢ New Delhi †¢ Kolkata †¢ Bangalore †¢ Bhubaneshwar †¢ Ernakulam †¢ Guwahati †¢ Jaipur †¢ Lucknow †¢ Patna †¢ Chandigarh †¢ Hyderabad Contact: [email  protected] com Economic & Political Weekly EPW Orient Blackswan Pvt Ltd NovemBER 17, 2012 vol xlviI no 46 19

Critical essay on Shakespeares Twelfth Night

Twelfth Night by Shakespeare From my point of view, the Twelfth Night is a very fascinating and charming play, as well as its main character Viola. When reading the comedy, I admired this lady and the way she acted in the situations she had to face. Viola, to my mind, is a collective character of a Renaissance person. She is active, brave, and generous. In addition, she is well-educated and very beautiful. She is the queen of her life, and even when she finds herself in quite a strange situation and in unfamiliar environment, she is smart enough to choose the best strategy quickly, meanwhile, charming all the people around her. It is after the shipwreck, when we meet our heroine for the first time. She managed to get to the shore and appears in Illyria. Viola finds out all the necessary details about the country she happens to be in and realizes that a man can be more unrestricted in his actions than a woman. She finds male clothes and becomes a servant and a friend to local duke Orsino. In a course of her advantages, Viola under the name of Cesario acts as a bright and penetrating person, who can easily see lies and pretence in people and who is very devoted to her lord, with whom she, eventually, fells in love. Viola managed to be a winner in a very difficult situation. She stayed in perfect relations with all the people she got to know and conquered the duke with her wit and beauty. I think this magic combination of power and femininity that helped Viola, is a perfect mixture for any woman.