Friday, January 24, 2020

Steroid Use in Pro Sports is Unethical Essay -- essays research papers

  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  When you were a kid, didn’t you want to play a professional sport? What would you give to be one of the best athletes in the world? Would you risk your reputation? Your health? Would you be willing to die? Although many studies have come out saying that steroids diminish one’s health, people still take them hoping to be the best. Imagine if you were a 28 year old who left college early because a pro team â€Å"guaranteed† you that you would play in the big leagues. Yet you just got stuck in the minors, and the only way you could get to the big’s was to take a pill that made you super-strong and super-fast. It would make sense to just take it. But what if that pill shrunk your testicles, hurt your heart and vascular system, and made your heart work 3 times harder than it is suppose to? An athlete would be pressured to take these pills, yet it would be smarter to say no. Why would athletes, of all people-risk harming their bodies? If I became a major league baseball player, and hit 65 homeruns, I couldn’t live with myself thinking that most of those wouldn’t have gone over that fence if I hadn’t taken steroids. I could never be proud of my stats or not be ashamed when a reporter told me how good I was and asked me how I learned to hit the ball that far. Although the benefits of steroids are good, the risks and side effects are too dangerous. Therefore athletes should not use steroids. Steroids have a surprisingly long and interesting history. Although steroids did not become popular until the late 1980’s and early 1990’s, they were around for a long time before that. In the 1930’s, anabolic steroids were developed to treat anemia and other muscle-wasting diseases. But it was not until 1954 that anabolic steroids began to appear in athletic competition when Soviet weightlifters supposedly used them at the World Championships. In 1958, a doctor by the name of John Ziegler developed Dianabol; the first mass produced anabolic steroid, with the help of a Pharmaceutical company, and in 1960 distributed Dianabol to the U.S. weightlifting team. The IOC (International Olympic Committee) banned the use of anabolic steroids in 1974, just 7 years after it hired a medical commission to perform drug tests on athletes. Two years after the ban by the IOC, eight athletes were disqualified from the Montreal Olympics after testing positive for steroids. The NFL started ... ...y if every player uses them. Also when sports were invented it was made to be challenging. Baseball wasn’t invented for someone to go up to the plate and hit 2 of every 10 balls pitched to them over the fence. When a player hits a homerun it is supposed to be special. When golf courses need to be renovated from 500 yard Par 5’s, to 650 yard Par 5’s, because players are driving the ball 350 yards, it kind of defeats the purpose of the game. What is the point of watching it when the players are too good for the courses they play on. Are all sports going to become obsolete or boring to watch from the use of steroids? The answer is yes, if the use of steroids isn’t stopped. Bibliography Congress gets baseball to act on steroids www.comcast.net/news/sports Fredric J. Frommer Associated press writer Steroid use a growing problem among American High School athletes www.opposingviewpoints.com Gary Mihoces USA Today Athletes have the right to accept the risks of steroids www.opposingviewpoints.com Robert Lipsyte New York Times United states must spearhead reform to eradicate drugs www.opposingviewpoints.com Barry R. McCaffery Retired U.S. Army general

Thursday, January 16, 2020

Exposé of Hypocrisy of Imperialism in Conrad’s Heart of Darkness Essay

In his novella Heart of Darkness, author Joseph Conrad attempts to expose the hypocrisy of imperialism since its explorers emphasize the importance of helping natives, while actively exploiting them. He also depicts the Africans in the story as nothing more than mindless savages. During his journey to the Congo, Conrad witnessed the horrors firsthand that the Europeans inflicted upon the African natives. He shares his experiences through Marlow, the protagonist, who sees the evil side of humanity through its materialism. Conrad denounces the oppressive nature of those of his time by exposing their social darwinist thought. Imperialism is portrayed as a hypocritical tool used purely for the Europeans’ own benefit. Europeans began what is known as â€Å"the scramble for Africa† in the late 19th century. The major powers all fought each other to gain control, disregarding the Africans in the process. The Europeans believed themselves to be taking up â€Å"the white man’s burden†, which was the belief that the Europeans had a duty to gain control of Africa and civilize the inhabitants in order to help them. The hypocrisy of it was that what they deemed as helping and civilizing them was actually entirely against the natives’ wishes, as their culture was being destroyed as well as their people enslaved. Conrad depicts this throughout his novel, Conrad denounces oppression by showing racism to criticize the immorality and cruelty of enslaving others for personal gain. Inhumane treatment of the africans is expressed through how they wore rags, which gives a sense of desolation. Racism is conveyed through the dehumanization of the natives, revealing that their captors went as far to put them in collars, showing they were seen as and treated like dogs. Even Marlow refers to his helmsman as a piece of machinery. Nigerian writer Chinua Achebe, author of Things Fall Apart, famously criticized Heart of Darkness in his 1975 lecture An Image of Africa: Racism in Conrad’s â€Å"Heart of Darkness†, saying the novella de-humanized Africans, denied them language and culture and reduced them to a metaphorical extension of the dark and dangerous jungle into which the Europeans venture. All the European colonists desired was wealth and treasures, willing to go as far as completely exploit other human beings. The metaphor comparing colonists to burglars was used to convey that they had no morals and did whatever they please in order to achieve personal gain, including exploiting them. This is all very hypocritical considering they believed themselves to be helping and civilizing them. Conrad uses Mr. Kurtz to unveil how he feels about imperialism as a whole. Marlow describes how Mr. Kurtz says everything is his own, which shows that imperialists claimed Africa is theirs and it was okay to exploit the natives as slaves. Conrad uses the dehumanization of Kurtz to exemplify his beliefs to maintain one’s morals to avoid becoming caught up in a world of materialistic desires. Mr. Kurtz is described as having a bald head similar to that of an ivory ball, leading the reader to believe that all he thinks about is ivory. The fact that he is withered is to show Conrad’s belief of what greed will result in upon a person.