JFKs assassination Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

JFKs assassination - Essay Example The successor of JFK Lyndon B. Johnson suffered a credibility gap as illustrated in the polls. That showed that Americans no longer trusted their government due to other evils happening around the same time such as Vietnam War, assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Junior,and the unfolding Watergate scandal preceding years of malaise. The death of the lone gunman Lee Harvey Oswald dispelled shock and confusion during an abortive transfer by strip club operator Jack Ruby. President Johnson instituted the Warren Commission to unravel the mysterious death of JFK. It became as one of the most vilified investigation panel in American history due to conspiracy and cover up. Hawken investigates that Lee Harvey Oswald is the likely assailant linked to the death of JFK. Prior to the death of JFK, Oswald was a Marine that worked as a radar operator based at U-2 spy plane. Once he left the Marines, he went to Russia where he interacted with KGB operatives. He lived an extravagant lifestyle probably due to crucial information he passed to the Soviets concerning U-2 spy operatives. In reality, Oswald was working for the CIA while smokescreen as a traitor to America. Warren affirms that Lee Harvey Oswald fired the shots that killed JFK from the building’s southeastern sixth-floor window. That is the same evidence depicted by Dallas Police Department, FBI, and Texas School Book Depository employee. Conspirators’ theories posit Oswald as a lone gunman in the league of other plotters that fail to gain foothold in the popular imagination of the likelihood of having another gunman. A Philadelphia attorney observes confusion, shock, and pandemonium at the crime scene amidst sensory assaults of wailing sirens, roaring motorcycles, and animated throng cheering the arrival of the President. Skeptics stress on the eyewitnesses reports that seem to contradict the official conclusion. Several witnesses claim of hearing four shots while the Warren report cites of three

Personal Change Essay Example for Free

Personal Change Essay Every day I hear people talking about how they do not like this or how they want to change that. Oddly enough, I do not often hear someone say I really need to make a personal change. The thought that people point fingers at others and take not fault weighted on my mind for quite a while. So I decided if I could change one thing about myself in a positive way, it would be to stop being so self-centered. This change would not only be beneficial to me, but also the people around me. They would be a lot happier around me, it would open my eyes to a new perspective on life as a whole, and last but not least, I would not be as irresponsible. From my experience nobody likes to be around a selfish inconsiderate person. Making this change in my life would transform me from that selfish guy, to a caring, considerate and positive individual. Socially my world would sky rocket almost instantly. When someone is fun and considerate, they are easy to be around. This means I would attract more people, which leads me to my next point. The more people we meet in life, the more we learn. I feel that if I do not meet new people and experience new things, I will have that same old one tract mind. It is ok to be wrong and do what someone else wants to do from time to time. This will allow me to explore not only the world differently, but myself as well. A basic outlook on life is the direct product of being self-centered and hard to be around. Part of having a new perspective means, seeing that my old self interpretation or old opinion of myself may change. Ultimately this could lead to me looking at how I act and do things honestly. After looking at myself and how I actually am, there is no doubt in my mind I would come to the conclusion that I am not the most responsible person in the world. As a result, the logical thing for me to do next is to fix that problem. If I were more responsible I could take a lot more control of my life. Open new doors for myself in my school life, work life, and social life. Responsibility is the glue that holds a successful life together . All I really want in the end is to be successful anyway, so being responsible would defiantly be a great trait to have. All in all the change to stop being so self-centered would only change my life for the better. I can not think of any other change that would benefit me more. So I say to myself and anyone who will listen â€Å"Don’t let yourself hold you back.†

Failed Leadership Essay -- Religion, Yahweh

Elijah is a prophet of Yahweh, Whom ministry is started with dramatic surprise to the local people and the nation. He announce drought that there will not be either rain or dew in the nation except by his word (1Kings 17:1). Elijah’s ministry again followed by another victory on mountain of Carmel in revenging the power that claims to be mighty. We see different pictures of Elijah in 1Kings 17-19. In Chapter 17 we see Elijah who is talking as powerful decision maker. In Chapter 18, we see Elijah who is victorious over his rivals, and confront with the King (1kings 18:17-19). In Chapter 19 we see a disheartened Elijah who seems forgotten his late victory over the prophets of Baal. Finally in this text (19:1-4) we see the fallen Elijah, fallen mighty saint who is begging for death and Elijah who was retiring from his long-term service as prophet of Yahweh (1kings 19:15-18). Lives of all the actors of this text may loudly speak to the Oromo people who have fled persecution o f dictatorial regime and suffered selfish character of some of their own leader who led the liberating institution. I. Application Today, when we read this text (1Kings 19:1-4 and 19:8-15) having the Elijah in the previous two chapters (17 and 18) in mind a lot of things may come to our minds, such things as confidence, mightiest , fair, and persecution. After the great events on Mount Carmel, Elijah did not get the opportunity to enjoy the victorious moments over the prophets of Baal. For those of you who had tremendous experiences in the struggle for freedom and went through persecution, it must be easier to understand what it feels to be in hopelessness, fair and disappointment. Lately friend of mine told me that he walked on his feet for nine da... ...ip and turn people face to worship the might God, however, he was filled with pride. Similarly the leaders who claim to lead the liberating force working toward the Oromo people might resemble Elijah who has big courage to work for the kingdom he is called to serve but failed in pride. Finally, the steps Elijah took in freeing people from worshiping the Idol could partly please God he was serving, to the contrary his pride displease God. Hence in order the struggles to continue the people who have been messing with the issue have to be removing. In our text God told to Elijah to go and remove the current political and religious leaders to be replaced by new leaders (1Kings 19:15-18). We are human being we will not serve forever and we will not mess up forever. God will use all possible means to call and install whom he want and remove that He wants to remove.

Reflective paper on event management Essay

As per the course requirement, we have undergone the process of planning an international music event. While the whole process was a simulation, we could still realize the challenges and excitements that an event manager faces in his/her career. At the first phase of the project, groups were formed following Belbin’s Theory (West, 2004). Belbin proposed a model that specifies the aspects of an individual’s personality, i.e. strength and weakness that he/she shows in workplace. According to the model, there are nine roles an individual can play within a group. These roles are: Plant, Resource investigator, Coordinator, Shaper, Monitor evaluator, Team worker, Implementer, Completer finisher, and Specialist. I was chosen to play the role of Team worker within my group. My core responsibilities were to carry out the instructions given by the team leader and cooperate with others on every stage of the event simulation planning. As we have experienced, the planning of an event, especially an international music gig is a complex process. There are a number of factors that need to be considered along the way and the event itself has multifaceted impact on the society, environment, and culture. However, this experience was immensely valuable considering my event management as my future career choice as it has given me a better understanding about the procedure and the real life drill of an event really helped me to realize how to work in a team and synergize all the tasks with others that are needed to execute a musical event successfully. However, as the course instructor promised us at the beginning of the course, I also came to realize that event management is pure fun. Planning an international musical event involves different aspects of the even including the financial planning, rules and regulations, possible impact on the local community, staff management, branding of the performers, sponsorship and so on. Different scholars attempted to define Event in different ways. Getz (1993) gave the minimalist definition of ‘themed public celebration’, which was  further elaborated by Douglas et al. (2001) as events are ‘for people to come together to celebrate, to demonstrate, to worship, to honour, to remember, to socialise’. From this list of public purposes, events look like modern day rituals which were reflected by the definition given by McDonnell et al. (1999) where they argued that events are specific rituals or celebrations that are planned and created to mark any special occasion. Goldblatt (1997) gave a much simpler definition as he said that an event is a ‘unique moment in time celebrated with ceremony and ritual to satisfy specific needs’. In my experience of working with this group, the first thing I realized about what an ‘event’ is that an event is not just an occasion where people come together, get entertained and go back to home. An event is much more than that. An international music festival has the power to change a small, relatively unknown town in the corner of the country into one of the most celebrated destination. If planned and executed properly, a big event has the capabilities to transform a place and the lives of the people in the community. It is, unfortunately, equally true that same applies on the negative side if an event is poorly managed and executed. The planning and organization of an event requires the formation of a working team, as we were formed into teams. This team acted as a temporary organization where the role and responsibilities of each member were specified. According to Slack and Parent (2006), organizational framework or structure may have three dimensions: _Formalisation:_ refers to the degree to which the rules and regulations, strategies, and individual and team roles guide the activities of the team. _Complexity:_ the inner structure of the event management team with the hierarchy and authoritative system. _Centralisation:_ the degree to which an individual exercises his/her role as the decision maker of the even management team. Since our project was a drill, while the two aspects of an event management organization were noticeable (Formalisation and Centralisation), the third element, Complexity was not strongly present since the team was not very hierarchical. However, we followed the formal procedure and showed respect to the laws and regulations while we planned the event. In addition to that, we followed the policies mentioned during the course lectures to determine different aspects of the event such as financial planning, impact management, staff and volunteer management, environmental and political effect and so on. Event planning and management always requires team effort, regardless of the size or range of the event. Hence, there has to be a member of the team who plays the role of facilitator to guide the knowledge and resource sharing process. The facilitator is not exactly the team leader. Bens (2000, p.7) asserted that facilitation is ‘a way of providing leadership without taking the reigns’. In our group, different members played the role of facilitator at different stages. I observed the roles they played and learned how to disperse organizational knowledge for a better performing team. According to facilitation theory, learning within a team occurs with the help of the facilitator, not simply by someone who provides knowledge to the group (Lambert and Glacken, 2005). My personal experience confirmed this theory since I have experienced that personal knowledge can add little value to a group unless it is fairly disseminated and discussed by the other members within the group. If I look back at my experience of the group work; this will be my primary takeaway that I have learned the importance of facilitating ideas and knowledge among the group members and in future I will be aware of applying this knowledge in my career as an Event manager. Even if I don’t end up to be an event manager, this learning will help me to become better as a social being and as an individual. As an event manager, I will focus on the decentralisation of power and letting other assume responsibility and take the lead when necessary. It is sometimes better to play the labour and sometimes play the leader. Performance of a team is determined by the participation and effort given by each member. The team leader or the event manager plays the role of the ‘director of performance’ (Vidal, 2004). He synchronizes individual performances and creates synergy among the group members and specific functional departments while he enjoys working creatively and collectively with the aim of achieving certain objectives (Vidal, 2004, p. 394). Hence, I realized the nature of the work of an event manager and I am now more attracted to pursue a career in event management than before. The event management industry is embodied with a number of challenges that every event management effort has to endure. The biggest challenge is to ensure financial viability. The economy is yet to recover from the recession completely and it is still very difficult to organize a profitable event. As Smith et al. (2010) addressed, allocating the limited resources of an event effectively has become more critical than ever. For our group as well, financial consideration posed tremendous challenges and I realized that the skills I have acquired regarding event budgeting will be particularly helpful in future. Another area of difficulty was the impact analysis and contingency planning. Every event has several possible positive and negative impacts on the local society, environment, governance, and politics to some extent. Maximizing positive impact and reducing negative impact requires intelligent strategic decisions and planning. This was another learning outcome for me from the experience. However, there were a few places where I identified shortcomings in terms of group performance or my individual performance. First of all, effective communication among the group members was an issue. Every individual is different and we were formed into a group with people with different personalities. Also, there was no elected leader or director of the group. Hence, in the beginning it was a bit difficult to ensure effective communication which led to some confusion and inefficiency. As Greenberg (2002, p.217) explained that communication is the process of sending and receiving information, it requires the meaningful coding and decoding from  the both end. Another shortcoming of the exercise was that we could not specifically measure the impact of the event on the community. Actually, unless the event takes place in real life, it is difficult to say whether it would be received well by host communities or not. Though I had the experience of planning an event with a team, without the experience of executing the plan, it is always incomplete. However, this was a very enjoyable and valuable journey. The experience will add values to my character as an individual and will help me to become a better event manager in future, if I pursue this career for myself. However, even if I don’t end up to be an event manager, this experience will remind me about the values of working in synergy to produce positive results. For me, that was the significance of the whole experience. _REFERENCES:_ West, M. A. (2004). _Effective teamwork: practical lessons from organizational research_ (2nd ed.). Malden, MA: BPS Blackwell. Getz, D. (1993). Corporate culture in not-for-profit festival organisations: concepts and potential applications. _Festival Management and Event Tourism_, 1, 11-17. Douglas, N., Douglas, N. and Derrett, R. (eds) (2001). _Special Interest Tourism_, p. 356. John Wiley and Sons. Goldblatt, J. (1997). _Special Events – Best Practices in Modern Event Management_. John Wiley and Sons. McDonnell, I., Allen, J. and O’Toole, W. (1999). _Festival and Special Event Management_. John Wiley and Sons. Vidal, R. (2004). The vision conference: Facilitating creative processes. _Systemic Practice and Action Research_, 17(5), p. 385 – 405. Slack, T. and Parent, M.(2006). _Understanding sport organizations: The application of organization theory_ (2nd Ed.). Champaign, IL: Human Kinetics. Bens, I. (2000). _Facilitating with ease: A step-by-step guidebook_. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Lambert, V. and Glacken, M. (2005). Clinical education facilitators: A literature review. _Journal of Clinical Nursing_, 1(4), 664 – 673. Rogers, C. and Friedberg, H.J. (1994) . _Freedom to learn_. New York: Merril, Macmillan College Publishing. Greenberg, J. ( 2002). _Managing behaviour in organizations_. New Jersey, NY: Prentice Hall.

Response to Decolonizing the Mind

In â€Å"Decolonising the Mind† Ngugi Wa Thiong’o makes the call to African writers to begin writing literature in their own languages, and to make sure that literature is connected to their people’s revolutionary struggles for independence from their colonial regimes. He begins with the historical meeting he was invited to with his fellow African writers in Kampala, Uganda. In this conference, writers who wrote their stories in African languages were automatically neglected.He also continues to point out about how English and other European languages are assumed, until today, to be the natural languages and unifying forces in both literature and political views among African people. For instance, to explain his point, Ngugi uses Chinua Achebe, one of the major African writers, who embraces the use of an English Language in his works. Ngugi quotes â€Å"For me (Achebe) there is no other choice, I have been given the language and I intend to use it† (Achebe , 62).Finally, Ngugi concludes that writing in African languages is a necessary step toward cultural identity and liberation from centuries of European exploitation. Firstly, I support Ngungi’s claim that an educational system that focuses and embraces only foreign works, such as language and culture is destructive: â€Å"Thus language and literature were taking us further and further from ourselves to other selves, from our world to other worlds†(266). Obviously, there is a need to create a literature that embraces the real African experience starting from the perspective of the locals, not the intruders.The local language is an integral part of conveying that experience, this is simply because much of the local tradition is preserved in that language. For example, Ngugi insists that stories and songs are effectively passed down from one generation to the next through oral (story-telling), and the fact that both the story teller and the listener are interested and inv olved in the conversation. Therefore, the benefits of embracing and working in the local language and within the local traditions bring the entire community together.Secondly, I support Ngugi’s view that colonialism has deemed African languages unworthy of use – both by the colonizers and the colonized. He explains how a â€Å"cultural bomb† was dropped on Africa so the minds and consequently the resources of Africans were controlled. In my view, not only colonizers understand that it is not enough to take over Africa with guns alone, but they also need to take over the mind of its people through language and the fine education they offer through that language.This is seen in the schools where European languages are idolized, in the streets where African languages become synonymous with the language of the peasantry, and at the prison cells were those African writers who choose to stay true to their mother tongue are held. I strongly agree about Ngugi’s c hoice to write only in Gikuyu rather than English language: â€Å"I believe that my writing in the Gikuyu language, a Kenyan language, an African language, is part and parcel of the anti-imperialist struggles of Kenyan and African peoples† (267).He reminds me my native country, Kenya, and Kamba is my mother tongue, so if I choose to write in Kamba as Ngugi did, I will not be doing something abnormal. It true that â€Å"imperialism† has turned African people’s minds upside down: African people view abnormal as normal and normal as abnormal. For example, Europe and America became rich and continue to get rich from using both Africa’s natural and human resources, but African people are made to believe that they cannot become poverty free without European and American intervention.Therefore, Ngugi’s decision to abandon English completely in his writings and embrace Gikuyu in attempt to align himself with the people (Gikuyu-speaking population) is one s tep toward cultural identity and independence from European exploitation. I also agree with Ngugi that colonization is not simply a process of physical force rather â€Å"the bullet is the means of physical subjugation, and Language is the means of the spiritual subjugation†(265).In Kenya, colonization propagated English as the language of education; as a result, oral literature in Kenyan indigenous languages gradually faded away. This is devastating to African literature because, as Ngugi writes, â€Å"language carries culture and culture carries, particularly through orature and literature, the entire body of values by which we perceive ourselves and our place in the world†(267).This means that Language as culture, it expresses and carries the culture of people; therefore, it becomes the storehouse of its images, ideas, wisdom, experience and history. It ties me to my people and becomes part of who I am. And finally, language as culture, it shapes how I look at the w orld and myself. Lastly but not least, I think â€Å"Decolonising the Mind† is an integral to understanding an anti-colonialist struggles. Europe and America view colonialism in terms of the most visible aspects of a nation, namely its leadership.People fail to see and recognize the long-term effects of colonialism, such as the widespread poverty. Decolonizing the Mind reminds me of another aftereffect, specifically, the domination of language by the Western World. In a sense, the language barrier enables social apartheid where legal separation is considered anachronistic. By dominating African languages, and asserting the superiority of European ones over them, Western nations, including some African nations, do perpetuate a system where educated whites rise to the highest.As a result, native Africans resign to the working classes and peasantry. This domination of language effectively prevents any native African from rising into intellectual ranks because, as Ngugi puts it, the use of European languages splits African soul in two, forcing him to give up his roots if he wishes to climb the social ladder. Work Cited Currey, James. â€Å"The Language of African Literature† Decolonising the Mind: The politics ofLanguage in African Literature. London: 1981. 263-267