Hero Essay Example for Free

Hero Essay Heroes are often stereotyped as fairytale characters who are endowed with supernatural powers that make them strong and buff. In reality, a hero can be an ordinary human being who strives to do extraordinary things to help others and make a difference in the world. A true hero not only possesses the qualities of strength and bravery, but also embody selflessness, morality and perseverance, essentially becoming a role model for all of those around him or her. Oprah Winfrey is just one example of an average person in our society who fits the characteristics and role of being a hero. She has devoted her time, skills, attention, and resources towards making the world a more prosperous place for others by educating, motivating, inspiring and rescuing people all over the world. Through the great generosity of Oprahs Angel Network and the construction of the Oprah Winfrey Leadership Academy for Girls in South Africa, Oprah Winfrey has proven herself to be a true role model and inspiration to all by her selfless deeds that make her a true hero of our times. To begin with, Oprah Winfrey was born into poverty to a single mother in Mississippi and faced many difficulties and grievances throughout her childhood years. She was sexually abused by her uncle, cousin, and family friend and became pregnant at the age of fourteen; her son died a short while after. Oprah then moved to Tennessee with her father where she began her career in the entertainment business. Her career began with a job on the radio at the age of nineteen and eventually led to the creation of the Emmy-winning talk show The Oprah Winfrey Show. According to Forbes Magazine, in 2003, Oprah became the first African-American woman to reach billionaire status, breaking through cultural, geographical and gender barriers, letting the world know it’s not your circumstances, but your heart that determines how far you go in this world. As Oprahs name became more widespread, so did her generosity. The Oprah Angel Network began to donate one hundred thousand dollars for the Use Your Life Award to all of those who dedicated their lives to helping others and had numerous achievements regarding humanitarian issues. Furthermore, she regularly gives charity to organizations such as AIDS Foundation of Chicago, Childrens Memorial Hospital and the Chicago Academy of the Arts. In addition to those organizations, Oprah has also gave out her sincere wishes and help to those poor souls who have been affected by the Tsunami and Hurricane Katrina. She donated over one million dollars to the Tsunami relief fund and ten million to those who were gravely affected by the disaster of Katrina. Growing up with a childhood full of hardships and being able to overcome them truly makes Oprah Winfrey an inspiration to everyone. Her selflessness, generosity, and general love and compassion for human kind has brought so many changes to our society that cannot be overlooked. Her immense perseverance and selflessness are just two contributing factors that make her the person she is today; a hero. Most importantly, Oprahs dedication to helping under privileged students obtain their education makes her a role model and symbol of hope for children all around the world. She created the Oprah Winfrey Leadership Academy for Girls in South Africa, where girls learn to use their full capacity to become excellent decision makers and the next leaders of our generation. The best African American teachers and administrators will be appointed in this school to help the girls excel in their knowledge and education. Not only is she the founder of the school, but the Oprah Winfrey Foundation contributed ten million dollars to maintain it as well. Oprah is helping to fight the battle against illiteracy one step at a time, and through her actions against it, she creates a foundation that many other people can follow. By giving so much importance to education, she becomes an inspiration and motivation that encourages girls all around the world to pursue their education further. By providing education, Oprah is empowering girls everywhere and giving them more options in their life than they ever imagined. As Oprah once stated, â€Å"Education is the path to the future. I believe that education is indeed freedom. With Gods help, these girls will be the future leaders on the path to peace in South Africa and the world. Once again, Oprah proved herself to be selfless and moral woman who persevered in becoming a role model for all of those around her. Her generosity is now the reason that girls in South Africa actually have a chance to make something of themselves and to receive an education. With one simple donation, she changed the lives of thousands of girls and created a brighter, much better future for them than they could imagine. By doing such deeds open-handedly and without anything in return, Oprah Winfrey is a genuine hero of our society. In conclusion, heroes are not people like Superman or Batman, but rather those who do everything in their ability to make the world a better place and Oprah Winfrey is just one of many who fit the criteria of being a true hero. She is engulfed around being selfless, moral, brave, perseverant, and a role model and inspiration to everyone around her. The generosity of Oprahs Angel Network has helped many impoverished people and even led to the construction of the Oprah Winfrey Leadership Academy for Girls in South Africa. With donations like these, Oprah has literally changed the future for African American girls in South Africa and helped them become more independent. She is now looked upon as a symbol for hope and a prosperous future because of all of her charity work concerning humanitarian issues. Heroes like Oprah Winfrey inspire everyone with their openness and compassion, essentially becoming a symbol for hope with their vision for a brighter and better future.

Fast Breeder Reactors Essay -- Nuclear Power Energy

Fast Breeder Reactors Abstract In this report I will investigate how different breeder reactors operate, the many problems addressed by the Fast Breeder Reactor, including efficiency and cost, the disadvantages of Fast Breeder Reactors, and working examples that have been constructed throughout the world. Introduction There is another type of modern nuclear energy, an interesting idea that will grow on you, so to speak. If one were to think of an â€Å"alternative† nuclear energy source, a pebble bed fission reactor or namely fusion reactors come to mind. The Liquid Metal Fast Breeder reactor (FBR) is the alternate â€Å"alternative† reactor. FBRs first went critical (became operational) in 1951 with the American experimental EBR-1 in Idaho. FBRs, in principle, produce more fissile material than they produce. Although they still need a blend of stable fertile material with fissile fuel, the fact that they convert this mix to a unified fissile material while generating electricity at the same time is the primary reason these reactors are appealing. The technology used for FBRs has been consistently researched in the US, USSR, France, UK, Germany, Japan, China, and India at different points in time beginning in 1949 with initial design work performed on the EBR-I in the US (Encarta-200 5). Asian countries currently lead the world in the effort being invested in this type of reactor. We could see a significant number of FBRs being built within the next 25 to 50 years, as the demand for fossil fuels increases with pollution and the constant and inefficient consumption of fossil fuel supplies by all nations. Are FBRs a viable energy source for California or the US? I will discuss the atomic process that FBRs use to operate, the problems the... ...Foundation. Retrieved July 28, 2006, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monju Nuclear Power Reactors. (2005). Nuclear Energy. In Encarta Reference Library 2005 [CD-ROM].Microsoft Corporation. Nuclear reactor. (2006). In Wikipedia [Web]. Wikimedia Foundation. Retrieved July 28, 2006, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_reactor Fast Breeder Reactors: Do They Have the Juice? Breeder Reactors 11 Nuclear Waste and Breeder Reactors - Myth and Promise. Retrieved July 28, 2006, from agree.net Web site: http://www.agree.net/DefenseWatch/Nuclear%20Waste%20and%20Breeder%reactors.htm Shi, R. R. Liquid Metal Fast Breeder Reactor. Retrieved July 20, 2006, Web site: http://www.nuc.berkeley.edu/thyd/ne161/shir/project5.html Superphenix. (2006). Superphenix. In Wikipedia [Web]. Wikimedia Foundation. Retrieved July 28, 2006, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superph%C3%A9nix

Tough Guise

Tough Guise What does it mean to be a man in society? Jackson Katz in the documentary â€Å"Tough Guise† argues that social media puts a lot of pressure on how men should look and act. For example, Arnold Schwarzenegger is possibly one of the most popular role models for young boys and men today. Therefore when our society thinks of the ultimate â€Å"many man† the first thing that comes to mind is strong, aggressive, tall, handsome, courageous, rough, tough, emotionless, insensitive, fearless and practical. Men should not be soft, submissive or weak. If a man would show weakness in any way, there would be much criticism to follow.People fail to realize how their cultural expectations can be harmful to boys, men, women, and society as a whole. Our culture needs to be more excepting of what it â€Å"truly† means to be a man. Gender roles are taught to boys from the very day they are born. Parents treat sons and daughters differently. Little boys are taught to be t ough. When little boy’s cry their parents might respond by telling him to grow up, and be a tough. However if a little girl did the same thing she would most likely receive more sympathy from her parents. A good example of this is in athletics. It is acceptable for a female athlete to cry when an injury takes place.But male athletes are usually made fun of for being â€Å"weak† or â€Å"sissies. † These expectations can be harmful to boys and men. According to Dennis Thompson, some studies show men and women share more emotional similarities than differences. When men are forced to hold in their emotions, they are more likely to suffer from high blood pressure, and participate in riskier behaviors such as smoking or drinking. (â€Å"Gender Differences in Emotional Health. †Ã‚  EverydayHealth. com. N. p. , n. d. Web. ) Boys and men should be allowed to grow up with non-stereotypical responses to their true emotional needs.Due to this tough guise persona, w omen suffer too. In the documentary â€Å"Tough Guise† Jackson Katz talks about the modern multicultural women’s movement. Katz explains how this movement in history has given men new intakes about relationships, work, and parenting. There are now many young men today who are very open minded about relationships between men and women, and sexual equality. But there has also been a â€Å"backlash. † This means some men are not adjusting to these cultural changes. For example Howard Stern plays the role of a â€Å"bad boy† who is only famous for demeaning women.Stern shows women as objects by airing them on television half naked and uses degrading names. Howard Stern makes young male viewers feel good about themselves by degrading women and regressing back to traditional sexist ways. Not only are young men seeing people like Howard Stern as the â€Å"social norm,† they are also being influenced by sexual violence films. Many slasher films show women in sexually explicit ways right before they are being assaulted. Jackson Kratz seems to think this might be why so many men are sexually assaulting women. Violence is rapid among boys and men, which is affecting our whole society.Men and boys are being bullied in their schools. This is resulting in mass murders. In order to show dominance boys and men are relying on guns. In fact, the boys interviewed felt they needed to seek revenge on those who bullied them to assert their manhood. Luke Woodham, who carried out the Pearl, Mississippi, quoted â€Å"people called me gay, stupid, fat, and lazy. Murder is not weak and slow-witted, murder is gutsy and daring. † I am not insane; I did this to show society that people like me are mistreated every day. † ( â€Å"The Day Luke Woodham Killed All Those People. †Ã‚  YouTube. YouTube, 15 Apr. 008. )   Luke Woodham was did not fit into societies cultural norm; therefore felt the need to show his dominance by taking lifeâ⠂¬â„¢s. These are things society needs to think about. Unfortunately Men are putting up a front for society. With this being said men go through a lot in order to fit the stereotypical â€Å"manly man. † Our culture needs to see all of the negative outcomes of putting this kind of pressure on men. Men should be allowed to be true to themselves without being judged. When men are expected to fit a certain stereotype, this sometimes results in violence against women, and society.

How The Internet Affects The Human Brain Changes Its...

Rough Draft Are you on the connected to the internet every day? If so, your brain’s way of functioning is changing, for better or for worse. After five days of accessing the internet, the human brain changes its pathways and alters how it retains information. When a person uses the internet repeatedly, their brain remembers facts based on where to find the information instead of the actual information. Depending on the age of the person using the internet and how frequently they use it, the brain function and social skills normally being learned through face to face contact is altered as well as memory. As we continue to use the internet as a form of external memory, we are starting to rely on it much like the Greeks started to rely on†¦show more content†¦Since the use of the internet is still a new mode of accessing information, there is very little we know about the effects it has on our brains. Even what we are finding now could be interpreted for or against internet use. In the article â€Å"Neuroscience: Browsing and the Brain,† the authors analyze two books written by experts in the field that have opposing views. Both see similar information, but one interprets it as positive effects and the other sees them as negative. Since the topic is still relatively new, we don’t have enough evidence to make a definite statement in either direction. Nicholas Carr’s book The Shallows, according to the authors in the article, takes a negative view on the research available. He sees the activity of using the internet as a negative experience because the changes it causes the brain may lead to loss of other ways of processing information. In Nick Bilton’s I Live in the Future sees the use of the internet as solely positive, creating new possibilities for the human brain to function, allowing the brain to adapt and explore the new possibilities. The information both of the books are based on is an MRI study that is explained in â€Å"Y our Brain on Google: Patterns of Cerebral Activation during Internet Searching.† The study was taken to understand how the human brain functions with differing levels of internet use. A test is administered to