In every society, people use their appearance as a way to express their social relationships. Applying makeup, adding or removing clothing, building muscles, or piercing various parts of the body are examples of how people try to change their appearance in order to fit in, or in some cases, to stick...

Ukinipamba Nitapendeza is an African proverb that roughly translated to English means "If you decorate me, then I will be beautiful." Body modification or adorning the body in a meaningful way was as popular in ancient Africa as it is in present-day America. Africans have been embellishing their b...

Human Cloning: An issue of Ethics vs. Medical/Technological Advances Human cloning offers medical benefits, as well as other possible technological advances in many areas of science, however, the ethical issues are far greater than these benefits. I fully sup...

Introduction This day in age murderers' actions are getting more and more incomprehensive. They are no longer just committing murder: they are torturing, mutilating, and engaging in grossly inappropriate acts against fellow human beings. Behaviors such as this will continue if nothing is ...

A group of junior high students assembled outside of their school early one morning. The teachers instructed the students to form lines facing towards the school when something caught one of the student's eyes. Soon the other students noticed what appeared to be an airplane in the sky. They all ...

We are in full bloom, fertilizing the American soil rich with nutrients of intellect and imagination. Shouting our 19th Century American voice far and wide for all to hear. Appealing to most, offensive to others, yet engrossing the minds of future generations to come. We see an era where liter...

When first signing up for sociology it started off just as another class I needed to take towards my degree. Not once did I think to myself that I would enjoy or learn anything from this class that would benefit me in my everyday life. There have been many things while taking this course that I h...

Are Athletes Role Models? Lately, a topic of great controversy has been whether or not athletes should be looked upon as role models by their fans. Does an athletes' responsibilities pertain solely to his performance on the field of play or does it also extend to his personal life as we...

In the 1800's slavery was the most treacherous degrading and spiteful act ever forced on any human being in the United States. Stripping an individual of equality, education, and freedom because of their skin color is something that America was accustomed to during this time. The idea of educ...

Writers differ in the purpose for which they write. Some aim to entertain, but the more serious and skilled writers usually have the goal of expressing a serious idea. Writers such as Hariet Beecher Stowe and Alex Haley are writers who write for more than mere entertainment. Uncle Tom's Cabin, w...

Introduction The Metric system is the most used system of measurement in the world. Americans are not fairly up to date about. Some people believe that the whole world deals with miles, feet, and pounds. Yet, they are mistaken. The whole world deals with meters, grams, and liters. The...

As a young woman in the early seventies, I knew a few girls in high school who found themselves pregnant and yearning to find a way to "get rid of it", dreaming of legal abortions, or even a way to find an illegal one. And of course, the rest of us were just glad not to be in their shoes....

The definition of physical education as in Webster dictionary is as follows: n: training in the development and care for the human body; stress athletics; includes hygiene. In 2001 nearly half of American youth's age 12-21 years old was not vigorously active on a regular basis, if fact about 1...

Early in 1997 Scottish scientist Dr. Ian Wilmot revealed to the world that he had successfully cloned an entire adult sheep. Dolly was the young clone's given name. With this announcement the world made a collective gasp at the realization that no longer was cloning a pipe dream or an element of sc...

Blind Faith When the news of the Heaven's Gate suicides hit the stands it was America's new obsession. We wanted to know more about the "wackos" who killed themselves at the same time in order to catch a ride in a UFO We wanted to know what Heaven's Gate was and why the cu...

Child Development Babies grow and develop at a very rapid rate during the first year of life. They grow physically, mentally, emotionally, and socially. In this paper I will discuss the physical growth and development patterns of an infant all the way through adulthood. Development is the ba...

This theme song to a popular cartoon is a farce dealing with experiments carried out on animals. In the cartoon one mouse is made very smart and wants to take over the world while the other is clearly not as smart. While the cartoon makes jokes, the reality is that mice and other animals re being ...

How Many times as a citizen of this great nation does one hear, "I wish America would take care of its problems at home and not everybody else's problems. This attitude leads to ideas such as, "International law and morality has nothing to do with me and my family." However, it i...

How Did Hector Reach Hades? Ceremonies for the dead have been around for centuries and vary greatly in every culture as well as religion. In present America, it is customary to praise the dead in obituaries and have funeral precessions from the church to the cemetery regardless of the religion. ...

Abortion in America One of the most debated issues in America is abortion: Pro-life or pro-choice. This is a decision that each person has to make for him or herself. Many people say that abortion is the woman's choice. I firmly believe, however, that if the woman is willing to have sex, ...

The question of race has been a long debated topic that still has not been answered. Jeffrey Fish embraces this issue in his writing entitled, "Mixed Blood." The document opens by proposing the question of "What is race?", then breaking it down into smaller factions. The two lesser questi...

Cloning - "A Step in The Right Direction" It all began with the experimentation of Dolly - the first genetically cloned animal. Since this scientific breakthrough, President Clinton, realizing the effects this would have on the human race as a whole, banned the cloning of humans for f...

For what reason do women alter themselves cosmetically? Why do they alter themselves in any way? Why do they wear high heals, make-up, change their hair, wear push up bras, wax? All of these are done in order and try and achieve the status of today's standards. What's the reaso...

Rituals are a significant part of our society and the way we live our lives. They are important because they give us a sense of security and loyalty to a group. Rituals are also a main aspect of religion, and studying the differences among cultures helps us gain a greater understanding of how ritual...

Is Abortion Right? Abortion is one of the greatest subjects of controversy in America. Some people, who are generally called pro-choice, think that a woman should have the "right" to choose whether or not she really wants her baby. There are others that think that abortion is okay if t...