Immorality of Excessive Gambling Essay Example for Free

Immorality of Excessive Gambling Essay Excessive gambling is immoral because it causes people to exhaust their resources on an activity with uncertain results which can result to bigger problems in the end. Those who gamble should practice moderation in their ways so that they will be able to avoid the possibilities of gambling dependency on one’s future and of drying-up one’s financial resources just to satisfy an earthly pleasure. Instead of going to casinos and playing card games on a regular basis, people should only do so as a pastime so that they can a lot most of their time to more rewarding activities that are certain to compensate for their efforts. If a person gambles too much, the tendency of the individual is to use most—if not all—of his financial resources just to satisfy his desire to gamble (Kusyszyn, 1984). An excessive gambler does not mind if the odds of winning are small compared to the odds of losing. Moreover, an excessive gambler no longer minds if the money he has gambled has already reached to amounts that are already way beyond the ordinary. The excessive gambler, therefore, is so devoted to spending a luxurious amount in the hopes of winning his bet which, if he did win, he will then again use to gamble. While the case of an excessive gambler is not always beyond repair, the damages that his deeds can inflict not only to himself but also to his family can certainly alter the course of their lives for the worse, if not the worst. For one, financial debt can never be far behind because an excessive gambler will find ways just to fuel his addiction—including loans either from lending institutions or other people. This will certainly affect the financial security of himself and of his family. Another thing is that excessive gambling can lead to loss of time for work and for the family. If the excessive gambler losses time for his work, there is a great chance that he will be losing his job which can cut-off his or his family’s source of income. The loss of time for the family is also negative consequence because it causes family members to lose emotional bond. If the gambler is a father, there is the risk that his children will no longer see him as a fatherly figure or, probably worse, they may reach the point where they will no longer miss his presence in the household while he is out in the casinos gambling. More importantly, excessive gambling is immoral because it takes away the opportunity for families to develop and grow in many ways. Instead of spending the money on gambling, the money could have been better spent on household furniture, on paying monthly bills, family vacation and other things that could have brought the family closer together. The latter options are certainly the better options to take instead of gambling too much. The omission of these good options in exchange for the worse option is certainly not a moral thing to do when the person could have just chosen the option that was primarily beneficial to everybody in the household and its future. From a utilitarian perspective, disregarding the option that maximizes benefits to the most number of individuals concerned is not the moral thing to do (Freeman, 1994). Thus, excessive gambling is immoral from a utilitarian standpoint. Aristotle’s philosophy of moderation suggests that human beings should avoid the extremes because the excess and the deficiency of anything are vices whereas the moderation of it is considered to be a virtue (Yu, 1998). The same principle can be applied to contemporary gambling. For example, an individual’s deficiency of playing slot machines in casinos or anywhere else where there ways to gamble is considered as a vice. On the other hand, spending too much time, attention and resources on playing poker in a Las Vegas casino is also considered to be a vice. The best option that should be taken is a moderate gambling practice because, according to Aristotle, the moderate way is the virtuous way which can lead to the good life. Instead of going regularly to casinos or spending more time in the race track than in the household, the excessive gambler should practice moderating his addiction. He can instead cut the time and money he is spending on his vices and devote more of them to his family. He can also choose to work harder in the office or spend more time with his children so that he will have less time for gambling. The bright side to that is that he becomes less of a person addicted to gambling while being more of a normal person at the same time. The point is not to siphon all of your time, resources and attention to gambling as it deprives you of some of life’s better activities. It does not mean, however, that the person should altogether abandon gambling. The thing is that gambling can still be a part of a person’s life, only that this time around gambling is no longer an addiction but rather a leisurely activity spent for pastime. In fact, moderate gambling can be a source of emotional bond for family members especially for the adult parents. For instance, a couple can decide to go on vacation in Las Vegas and spend a bit of time and money in a casino where they can play together for fun. If they lose, not much is lost because the primary goal was to establish more emotional bond together. If they win, however, their financial winnings can be considered as mere ‘bonuses’ to their primary intent. This perhaps best explains why gambling can also be a good deed so long as it is within moderate limits. It is easy to see and understand why excessive gambling is immoral. For the most part, it is a menace that tears down family bond and deprives people of spending their lives on better activities. Although excessive gambling is immoral, the moderation of gambling can still be considered as a good thing for it can also bring families closer together. References Freeman, S. (1994). Utilitarianism, Deontology, and the Priority of Right Utilitarianism, Deontology, and the Priority of Right. Philosophy and Public Affairs, 23(4), 313-349. Kusyszyn, I. (1984). The Psychology of Gambling. Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 474, 133-145. Yu, J. (1998). Virtue: Confucius and Aristotle. Philosophy East and West, 48(2), 323-347.

Use of Steroids in Baseball Essay -- Sports Argumentative Persuasive E

Use of Steroids in Baseball Since Major League Baseball all-star Ken Caminiti openly admitted to Sports Illustrated to have used steroids during his career, steroid use as a muscle and performance enhancer has been uncovered and become a big issue Major League Baseball is wrestling with. The â€Å"ongoing and delicate subject, baseball’s dirty, little secret that is no secret anymore,† is a huge and growing problem (Curry B20). Now that light has been shed on the issue, critics are beginning to realize the magnitude of this problem and do not like it. Steroids are a cheating virus that is spreading quickly. Users cheat other players, themselves, the fans, and the game itself. Action must be taken to rid Major League Baseball of this virus before it takes over the game. Steroids are illegal in the US, and banned from baseball, however in the past they have not been suspected to be such a big problem. Therefore, Major League Baseball has failed to properly address it with preventative measures. In the 2001, the Major League Players Association’s contract with Major League Baseball protected players on the 40 man roster against testing. As for the minor leagues, testing only occured in-season, and was restricted to some players. Many players use in the off season and know how long the drugs will remain in their bodies (anywhere from 2 weeks to 18 months). If tested positive, they receive a warning about the hazards of the drug and are not punished at all. Five to ten percent of minor leaguers tested positive, and which fails to account for users not tested, those who used out-of-season, and those who found measures around the test. In the majors, some suspect that 50% of players use steroids and some, such as Jose Canseco, as hig... ...2002: D3 Steroids.com. 2003. Anabolics.com, Inc.5 Mar. 2003. Verducci, Tom. â€Å"Totally Juiced.† Sports Illustrated.com 3 June 2002. 5 Mar. 2003. Yesalis, Charles E; Cowart, Virginia S. The Steroids Game US 1998 Associated Press articles on www.CBSnews.com National Pastime Altered By Drugs CLEARWATER, Fla., March 31, 2003 Jason Giambi Subpoenaed SAN FRANCISCO, Oct. 20, 2003 Barry Bonds In Subpoena Lineup SAN FRANCISCO, Oct. 22, 2003 Designer Steroid Doping Scandal SAN FRANCISCO, Oct. 23, 2003 Steroid Scandal's Impact Spreads SAN JOSE, Calif., Oct. 25, 2003 Athletes Testify In Doping Probe WASHINGTON, Oct. 30, 2003 Baseball To Test For Steroids NEW YORK, Nov. 13, 2003 Bonds At Bat In Steroid Probe SAN FRANCISCO, Dec. 5, 2003

Of Kind and Cruel Fates Essay

Irony, in its essence, is the humor of contradiction. It is contradiction, in the sense that where we would expect events to lean on one way, events instead completely take the opposite direction. A crude example would be where a string of freak accidents occur at a factory where the manager is showing off to his potential clients that his company is â€Å"accident-free†. Irony is humorous because if one saw it with impartiality, one would find it funny. Having a car accident right after a road is â€Å"improved† to avoid further accidents, would be funny. To study irony further, one could study an average person’s sense of humor. While as a child, he may delight in the curiosities of the environment, eventually he becomes adjusted to seeing it everyday, and eventually his enjoyment of it fades. Humor takes on a different characteristic for him. There is the slapstick comedy, where he finds the antics of the performers as funny and absurd, and there is the situational comedy, where he finds funny ordinary people falling to ridiculous situations. The common thread to this humor is that it attacks at something. Whether it is to ridicule a person behaving out of the social norm (as the slapstick), or to ridicule a person’s belief or principle that is generally viewed as absurd (the parody), the higher the degree of abuse at the object of humor, the funnier. Irony, then, is humorous in the sense that it attacks something, through its contradiction. As an impartial viewer, we may find funny things that we know to be true as envisioned by the ironic set-up, but which is obscured in the minds of those who are involved in the irony. Humor moreover has intrinsic values it seeks to instill to its impartial witnesses, and consequently irony occurs as some way to inform the viewer of a cosmic lesson. We can delve in this further through the study of three stories, Tartuffe, The Princess of Cleves, and Nathan the Wise. There are several ironic situations that occur throughout the play Tartuffe. The story revolves around a household scandalized by having its head (the father) entertain and welcome as part of the family a man who openly and vocally shows his displeasure at what he deems as vices borne by the various members of the family and the house. One of the first ironic situations occurs with the son, Damis, who hides in the room while Tartuffe has a private conversation with his mother, Elmire. His intention is to unmask Tartuffe to his father as a hypocrite and get him out of the house (Moliere, 39-46). When he finally sees evidence of the man’s scandalous behavior towards his mother and reveals it to his father, not only does his father not believe (owing to the hypocrite’s skillful use of words), but has Damis instead kicked out and even encourages Tartuffe to continue his scandalous behavior towards his wife, in order to spite his family (47-51). The humor in the situation centered on how big a fool the father was to believe in Tartuffe’s virtue, and an even bigger fool not to see the truth when it is right in front of him. This is further stressed in the next ironic situation, where after Orgon (the father) finally realizes the extent of his friend’s deceit, he tries to tell his mother, who was also fooled by the hypocrite. For all his protestations she does not believe him until she sees it herself (Moliere, 68-71). The irony is that where he once ignored the loud protests of his family, likewise his mother does not believe him, even for his loud protests. The final ironic twist, however, turns out for the good as the hypocrite Tartuffe, having been unmasked and set his plans for revenge, intrigues on the King and plans to have them all arrested, only to have him as the object of arrest, as the King was â€Å"wise† to his intrigues (77-80). The play has these alternating reversal of fortunes, and its ironic humor attacks two things: that blind faith without reason in open Virtue is folly, and that any malice masked in virtue never remains unpunished. A more tragic tale of irony is that of the Princess of Cleves. Introduced to a court as Madam Chartres, she wins the affection of the Prince of Cleves, who endeavor to marry her despite the protests of his father; she falls, however for someone else, the Duke Nemours (Lafayette, 15-17). The story then centers around him trying to find the opportunity to confess his love, and she, now married, desperately tries to stave off his affections while suppressing hers. We do not see the irony unfold until the very end: the Princess anguishes over her affection for the Duke throughout her marriage, but following the death of her husband suddenly she has a change of heart and is convinced that her husband was a far better man than the Duke (101-107). It is only after the husband dies and they finally have an opportunity to be together does she decide not to be with the Duke. The irony here attacks the notion that love borne from adulterous intention will eventually bear fruit. It might have been attack towards the growing acceptance of the public towards the notion of infidelity, (almost every character is involved in an affair with someone else) and their giving it idealistic fervor. The Princess of Cleves, despite the best of her intentions, continued to bear her love to someone else, and pined for that other person, and consequently, in her husband’s death she realized her folly too late, and chose to suffer the rest of her life in that guilt. Nathan the Wise has such a complicated string of ironies, that one who skims through even the slightest of details would not appreciate the ironies that eventually occur. Originally, the story of the Jewish merchant Nathan centered around the Muslim conqueror Saladin trying to fool him out of his money—and this tale has found itself in the pages of Boccaccio’s Decameron. Nathan answers so skillfully that ironically it was Saladin who was put to shame by his own question and humbled before the Jew (Lessing, 90-97). This story is, however, expanded by Gotthold Ephraim Lessing, and this encounter between the Egyptian conqueror and the Jew becomes the main theme. The tale then revolves around a Templar, who was pardoned by Saladin for the reason that he resembled the conqueror’s brother (Lessing, 36); the consequences of his rescue of a Jewish maiden (and subsequent encounter of the grateful surrogate father Nathan), and the intrigues of the Patriarch who would have him either kill Saladin or turn over Nathan, who he found had raised a Christian child to the Jewish faith (the same Jewess he rescued) (37-40). The irony, from an impartial point of view, might have been to some degree absurd. The Templar, in almost the fashion of Oedipus, tries desperately to seek the truth, and unmask what he sees in his prejudice as malice committed by the Jew Nathan (Lessing, 109-127). And, also in the fashion of Oedipus, not only does he discover that the girl he was trying to save (and hope to marry) was his sister, but Saladin who he would have killed had he agreed to the Patriarch, was his uncle after all (165-172). The irony also hits Saladin, as his pardoning the Templar Conrad because he looked like his brother, redounds to the truth that Conrad was his brother’s son. While the ironic twist might seem ridiculous to the trained eye, in the sense it fits to the lesson first imparted by Nathan to Saladin: that all men are equal before God, regardless of Faith. This is a happier chide at the Medieval sensibility of hostility between Faiths. Irony is humorous, because we find that the contradiction it creates makes sense. We might have felt our sensibilities offended when we saw that the Princess of Cleves did not end up with the Duke Nemours, but the cosmic twist was to show to us that infidelity was wrong. We would have preferred that the Templar should have instead ended up marrying the Jewess, but the irony was there to impart the lesson that prejudice has, after all, no place in the world. We sometimes do not find ironic circumstances that funny, as if we lived the life of Duke Nemours or became as aghast as the Templar Conrad. But eventually, we will learn that the contradiction was to impart to us that our plans may go completely the other way, because they may not have been right in the first place. And, the wiser we become to this truth, the more we will realize that irony, though it might strike sad for us, has a reason. The better we accept this, the more we will be prepared to just take a step back, take a view of the bigger picture, and laugh. WORKS CITED Lafayette, Madame de. The Princess of Cleves. New York: Project Gutenberg. 27 Sept. 2008 . Lessing, Gotthold Ephraim. Nathan the Wise. New York: Page, Curtis. Project Gutenberg. 01 Mar. 2003. . Moliere, Jean Baptiste. Tartuffe. New York: Project Gutenberg. 26 Oct. 2008. .

Hurricane Katrin The Second Largest Hurricane - 862 Words

Hurricane Katrina known as the fifth largest hurricane ever to hit the United States formed on August 23, 2005 and dissipated August 31, 2005. Katrina was classified as a category five hurricane with wind speeds up to 175 mph. Katrina made headlines because of its destruction region which was Louisiana. Many families especially African-Americans were considered to be vulnerable and left to die from the disaster. In the following I will address whether Katrina was a natural disaster ready to happen or if it could have been prevented by an elaborate plan to evacuate the effected regions. African-American neighborhoods were devastated by Hurricane Katrina because they lived in low line areas, whereas Whites lived in higher grounds less likely to get hit by the storms. Low income communities were hit more because of urban areas. These areas included levees that didn’t protect homes from the storms. What is astonishing is that the government was fully aware that New Orleans levees were failing and wouldn’t hold a category five Hurricane. Yet they did nothing to protect the humans. Federal and local government hindered and prevented the evacuation of African-Americans from their neighborhoods. Failures included not having an evacuation plan for New Orleans. IEM which stands for Innovative Emergency Management is compromised by the government to form an evacuation plan for a natural disaster. In reality there was no plan that IEM had for Hurricane Katrina. Here we can clearly noteShow MoreRelatedRastafarian79520 Words   |  319 Pagesinspiration: Dulcie Roach from Hopewell Primary School, St. Elizabeth, Jamaica; Elaine Bortner and Philip Hirai from Jamaica Wesleyan Bible College, Savanna-la-mar, Jamaica; and Roger Ringerberg, Jamaica Theological Seminary, Kingston, Jamaica. Second, thanks to my professors and advisors at Drew University, Karen Brown, Jonathan Reader, and Roger Shinn, whose advice and insights have helped to shape the focus and hone the arguments of this book. Third, the research for this book was facilitated