Category: Uncategorized

Capital punishment is the most premeditated of murders. – Albert Camus

“Capital punishment is the most premeditated of murders. – Albert Camus.” The Death Penalty is among one of the many topics that cause much debate and bring controversy whenever it is addressed in our criminal justice system. Over the course of my undergraduate studies, I have read and researched a lot of data behind this concept and although some of it may be convincing, I have stuck with my stance that the death penalty is wrong and should not be supported. Capital punishment is a topic that I am highly passionate about and have formed many opinions on. The death penalty creates issues in society and has many risks attached to it. While I disagree with capital punishment, the majority of Americans agree with it and its policies. Most of them side with the fact that if you kill a person, then you should be killed as well – an eye for an eye. They feel that if you do such a heinous act, then why should mercy be shown towards you? Their perspectives on supporting the death penalty revolve mostly around revenge and retribution. These concepts date back to a Babylonian law from Hammurabi’s code which are said to have originated in 1754 BC. Although many countries still abide and their implement philosophies, death penalty creates social injustices. While revenge may leave a sense of satisfaction to some, it can be agreed that there is nothing good about taking revenge into one’s own hands. As a society, who are we to judge another? Why should we take a person’s life into our hands? The answer is simple – we are no one to decide whether a person gets to live or not. Taking away the life of a person because they killed someone does not change or make the situation right overall, two wrongs do not make right. If anything, we make the system worse by taking away more and more lives. There are other alternatives to giving them the highest punishment possible and one of them is sentencing them to life without parole. Life without parole makes a person spend the rest of their lives inside of a cell, with no chance of getting out and reminding them of their consequences. If we are looking to punish someone for murdering another person, we should do it in a way where we don’t stain our own hands, but rather remind a person of their actions. Continuing on, the death penalty shouldn’t be supported is the fact that race and place can have a toll on the sentencing. Although everyone is supposed to receive a fair and easy trial by their peers, sadly this does not always happen. Data and statistics show that blacks are often more incarcerated than whites, especially when the victim is white. Race should not be a factor in deciding whether someone gets to live or not. Evidence from prosecutors suggests that the death penalty was easier to seek if the defendant was black and jurors have states that the person’s race influenced their decision. All cases should be from an unbiased point of view and as per research, being unprejudiced is not guaranteed. The system is unfair, and racism is ingrained in it. Aside from the bias that is influences it, capital punishment does not serve as a deterrent for crime. If capital punishment were causing crime rates to go down, then maybe there would be a benefit towards using it. “Scientific studies have consistently failed to demonstrate that executions deter people from committing crime. Around our country, states without the death penalty have a lower murder rate than neighboring states with the death penalty.’ (OADP) If no evidence for deterrence has been found, why are states still using the death penalty? How is it benefiting society? There is no reason other than revenge against another person. When the state is the one killing, that means that we are also killing because we represent the state. The death penalty centers on ideas from past centuries and does not consider the dignity that a person has left.

Module 11 Discussion

Module 11 Discussion

One thing that I know about comics is that they can be used for entertainment. For a long time, comics have been used to make people laugh, which can be attributed to the funny characters in comic books. However, after reading the article – ‘Comics: Not Just for laughs,’ I have identified several key points as to why comics are not only considered for laughs but tools for effective communication to a diverse audience. Comics have been depicted as effective tools of communication, and this is because they are essentially narrative and also because they are unpretentious, easy to follow, and accessible. Comics use pictures and interactions to get ideas across, and this is one of the main reasons why it is effective means of communication. The narrative part of the comics makes it able to convey stories more in a dialogue form, and this enables the audience to get a clear message from what each of the characters in passing.

Another major issue regarding comics that can be identified in the article is that comics can easily be used to illustrate a user’s response to an onscreen integration. For example, comics use pictures to pass messages, and in illustrating response, the characters in the comic can use different facial expressions to clearly reflect on an emotional response such as frustration or pleasure. Based on this, comics can be deemed as effective tools of communication as they not only convey text messages in the form of dialogue but also convey facial expressions to determine the reaction of the characters as they receive messages and experience different situations. Finally, screenshots of the user interface (UI) elements can be incorporated into comic frames to provide readers with additional insight into the user experience. According to the article, when presenting comics and page elements, the screenshots of the user interface allow readers to provide timely feedback on a screenshot, low fidelity prototype, or wireframe while understanding a page element in a greater context. All these elements as evidence enough that comics are not only used for laughs but also to ensure effective communication.

References

Rebekah Sedaca, (2007). Comics: Not Just for Laughs. Retrieved from: https://boxesandarrows.com/comics-not-just-for-laughs/

Monty Python and the Holy Grail

Name

Instructor

Class

Date

“Monty Python and the Holy Grail”

Several aspects of the medieval ages are depicted in the film named above. This enjoyable film is a satirical movie that depicts the comic misadventures and adventures of the legendary King Arthur and a cohort of his knights who included Sir Robin, Sir Bedivere, Sir Lancelot the brave and Sir Galahad the chaste. With this cast, the film had very interesting memorable jokes. This one of a kind film contained classic gags such as the “Trojan Rabbit,” where Sir Bedivere made the knights build a wooden rabbit to slip their way into a French Castle (Gilliam and Jones Web).

Amongst the film’s memorable scenes is when King Arthur stumbles on a number of peasants and announces that he is Arthur the Bretons King. The peasants clarify to him that they do not have a lord and that they employ a type of government in which the week’s official is put into office through a simple majority vote done by the peasants that reside in the area. This not only stabs the British monarchy, but is also a satire of the superstition and ignorance that typified the medieval ages (Gilliam and Jones Web).

As far as the Middle Ages are concerned, if Arthur existed, then he would have been a hero that held the Anglo Saxon when the Roman Empire packed and abandoned the British Isles. Arthur and his troops would have utilized Europe’s equipment of the Dark Age with nothing more than a helmet and perhaps a maille hauberk. His helm would have looked similar to the one found in the Sutton Hoo treasure. King Arthur is actually depicted in the film to be living in a later century than what he would have actually preferred. This is because most of these Middle Ages historical manuscripts portray him in such a situation (Gilliam and Jones Web).

The big stone castles in the film indicate that the “Monty Python and the Holy Grail” characters are in the Dark Ages and wearing Dark Age amour. However, in the Dark Ages, wood in the motte was used to build English Castles. The mansions were also made in barley style where a round enrichment built from timber was placed on top of a manmade hill, objectively to defend the people in the castle. As much as the film is not from the legitimate dark middle ages, it essentially manages to attain the feel and perception of the early to middle 13th century remarkably well with a few exceptions (Gilliam and Jones Web).

Arthur is observed with his knights in the film clad in maille amour with Sur-coats around the maille. These were historically used in the middle ages to give prominence to the coats of arms upon the identification of the wearer in a battle, while protecting the maille from getting rust. Jokingly, the knights avoid riding horses and are instead pursued by men who are carrying their clanging coconuts and belongings together to emulate horses’ hooves. It is ironical that medieval England was not famous for its cavalry forces. The English in the middle ages made better use of archers and foot soldiers than of heavy cavalry. The yeomen archers and longbow-men, together with the men at arms and bill-men of medieval England were first amongst all in this age (Gilliam and Jones Web).

Works Cited

Gilliam T. and Jones T. Monty Python and the Holy Grail (2013): Web.

Capital punishment is an old punishment in which a person is punished for his or her crime with execution.

Name of student:

Institutional Affiliation:

Course:

Instructor’s Name:

Date:

Introduction

Capital punishment is an old punishment in which a person is punished for his or her crime with execution. Since the Babylonian era, death penalty laws have been in effect and several books and inscriptions make a mention of this practice. Despite education, democratic, technical, and other changes we have made as a society, this phenomenon persists even today in civilized countries such as the US. Indeed, America is the only advanced state that does not abolish the death penalty by death. Do we not display barbaric characteristics as a culture in maintaining this type of punishment? That’s what this paper talks for. The death penalty is an inhuman act precisely because the law should protect and not kill people. This paper starts out with a brief history of the US death penalty and addresses the cruel essence of and the abolishment of the death penaltyADDIN CSL_CITATION {“citationItems”:[{“id”:”ITEM-1″,”itemData”:{“ISSN”:”00389765″,”abstract”:”Cass Sunstein and Adrian Vermeule argue that, if recent empirical studies finding that capital punishment has a substantial deterrent effect are valid, consequentialists and deontologists alike should conclude that capital punishment is not merely morally permissible but actually morally required. While the empirical studies are highly suspect (as John Donohue and Justin Wolfers elaborate in a separate article in this Issue), this Article directly critiques Sunstein and Vermeule’s moral argument. Acknowledging that the government has special moral duties does not render inadequately deterred private murders the moral equivalent of government executions. Rather, executions constitute a distinctive moral wrong (purposeful as opposed to nonpurposeful killing) and a distinctive kind of injustice (unjustified punishment). Moreover, acceptance of “threshold”” deontology in no way requires a commitment to capital punishment even if substantial deterrence is proven. Rather