Assassination of John F. Kennedy Essay Example for Free

Assassination of John F. Kennedy Essay On the day of November 24, 1963, Americans were all shocked by the sudden death of the 35th President of the United States of America. During that day, the itinerary of the president was to join the motorcade from the Dallas airport to the city business district. While the President and the First Lady were aboard an open vehicle along with other political dignitaries in Dallas, Texas, a gunshot was fired as the presidential party approached the Dealey Plaza. Unfortunately, it was Kennedy who was the target and was hit on the head and on his back. The only other causality during that event was John Connally, the Texas Governor who was also shot on the back. Though Jackie Kennedy, the First Lady, was seated near the President in the car, she was left unharmed (BBC, 2008). Many civilians have witnessed this incident because it happened in a public place and it was televised at the local TV networks. Because of these circumstances, many claimed that they have seen where the gunman took his shot. According to Bob Jackson, a photographer from Dallas Times Herald who was then covering the event and situated near the presidential car, â€Å"As I looked up I saw a rifle being pulled back from a window it might have been resting on the windowsill I didnt see a man. † Also, others said that the shots came from the â€Å"window of a building overlooking the road† where Kennedy was shot (BBC, 2008). After the shooting incident, the president was right away brought to the Parklands hospital. But after 35 minutes, Kennedy was pronounced dead. As the protocol, Lyndon John, vice-president, who was next in line was immediately â€Å"sworn in as the new US leader. † This tragedy caught America by surprise that have left them mourning the unexpected death and the brief term in office of President John F. Kennedy (BBC, 2008).

Transformation of Milkman in Toni Morrisons Song of Solomon :: Song Solomon essays Toni Morrison Papers

Transformation of Milkman in Toni Morrison's Song of Solomon In Toni Morrison's Song of Solomon, the character of Milkman gradually learns to respect and to listen to women. This essay will examine Milkman's transformation from boy to man. In the first part of the novel, he emulates his father, by being deaf to women's wisdom and women's needs, and casually disrespecting the women he should most respect. He chooses to stray from his father's example and leaves town to obtain his inheritance and to become a self-defined man. From Circe, a witch figure, he is inspired to be reciprocal, and through his struggle for equality with men and then with women, he begins to find his inheritance, which is knowing what it is to fly, not gold. At the end, he acts with kindness and reciprocity with Pilate, learning from her wisdom and accepting his responsibilities to women at last. By accepting his true inheritance from women, he becomes a man, who loves and respects women, who knows he can fly but also knows his responsibilities. In the first part of the novel, Milkman is his father's son, a child taught to ignore the wisdom of women. Even when he is 31, he still needs "both his father and his aunt to get him off" the scrapes he gets into. Milkman considers himself Macon, Jr., calling himself by that name, and believing that he cannot act independently (120). The first lesson his father teaches him is that ownership is everything, and that women's knowledge (specifically, Pilate's knowledge) is not useful "in this world" (55). He is blind to the Pilate's wisdom. When Pilate tell Reba's lover that women's love is to be respected, he learns nothing (94). In the same episode, he begins his incestuous affair with Hagar, leaving her 14 years later when his desire for her wanes. Milkman's experience with Hagar is analogous to his experience with his mother, and serves to "[stretch] his carefree boyhood out for thrifty-one years" (98). Hagar calls him into a room, unbuttons her blouse and smiles (92), just as his mother did (13). Milkman's desire for his mother's milk disappears before she stops milking him, and when Freddie discovers the situation and notes the inappropriateness, she is left without this comfort. Similarly, Milkman ends the affair with Hagar when he loses the desire for her and recognizes that this affair with his cousin is not socially approved, leaving Hagar coldly and consciously, with money and a letter of gratitude.

Pilgrimage Toward Social Equality

The Emancipation Proclamation of 1863 declaring African’s freedom from slavery and officially making them part of the United States was mandated a century prior to Martin Luther King Jr’s historical speech calling for social justice and abolition of racial discrimination against African Americans. Between the two historical periods, the black communities all over America have suffered subtle and savage forms of discrimination and oppression from the whites. The black community strived to seal their place in society amidst hostility and negative criticisms.One short story that very well illustrates their struggles is Ralph Ellison’s Battle Royal. The story provides a very descriptive narration of a black man’s pilgrimage to overcome oppression from an overly-racist community ruled by the economically-powerful white men and to find his opportunity to shape the destiny of his people. This paper aims to provide a vivid presentation of inhumane and savage oppre ssion that the African Americans encountered in Southern America before gaining their voice and place in American society.Battle Royal was narrated in a first-person perspective with a nameless narrator. He suggests that twenty years back, he has been struggling to find his own identity through other people’s acceptance and affirmation. He further explained that his dilemma for self discovery rooted from his grandfather’s last words on his deathbed, â€Å"Live with your head in the lion’s mouth. I want you to overcome ‘em, with yeses, undermine ‘em with grins, agree ‘em to death and destruction. Let ‘em swoller you till they vomit or bust wide open.† (Ellison, 2000, p 935) He calls his grandfather’s lines a â€Å"curse† haunting him whenever he feels accepted as the narrator describes, â€Å"When I was praised for my conduct, I felt a guilt that in some way, I was doing something that was really against the wishes of the white folks, that if they had understood they would have desired me to act just the opposite, that I should have been sulky and mean, and that they really would have been what they wanted, even though they were fooled and thought they wanted me to act as I did.†(Ellison, 936) The narrator’s statement represents his mindset of his actions and attitude toward the white folks. His current partially confused mindset is influenced by his grandfather’s words. In layman’s term, his grandfather’s words can be translated to a call to action to fight a good fight by acting according to the opponent’s will until they take you all in with acceptance until they destruct themselves in their own volition.One such incident where the orator became accepted and triumphant is when he delivered a graduation speech, which he describes by saying, â€Å"On my graduation day I delivered an oration in which I showed that humility was the secret, indeed, the ver y essence of progress. (Not that I believed this — how could I, remembering my grandfather? — I only believed that it worked)† (Ellison 938). His speech received accolades from his professors that he was given the opportunity to deliver it again in a â€Å"gathering of the town’s most leading white citizens†.When he arrived at the venue where he was supposed to deliver his speech, he was informed that before delivering his speech, he needs to join the Battle Royal. The hotel he’s in at that moment was indeed full of economically powerful people all dressed up with their tuxedos, intoxicating themselves with whiskey, and getting themselves a good spot among the chairs neatly lined up along the three corners of the ring. Inside the ring, a pool of black men were lined up blindfolded and were forced to do engage in a violent boxing war against each other.After torturous moments of fighting like headless chickens on the ring, the narrator was abl e to see slightly behind his blindfold. His awareness enabled him to keep a good fight without drawing attention to himself so the white men wouldn’t notice that he’s starting to dodge his hits. In the end of the first round, the narrator remained on the ring together with the biggest boy in the group to fight. While they were fighting it out on the ring, the narrator tried to negotiate with his opponent by scripting the fight and he’ll give him a proportion of the winning pot.His opponent refused and they continued to fight until the narrator was knocked out. Allegorically, the narrator’s unexpected battle before delivering his speech is a symbolic representation of the African American’s years of pains and struggles before they were given the chance to be heard. The battle royal may well represent the fights that black men wage against each other just to gain money, position, and prominence, as is the case of the narrator’s opponent.The co ncept of the fighters blindfolded can be allusion to some of the black men’s blindness of allowing the economically powerful white men to use them as a means of entertainment as if they were freaks of nature. After the first round, the fighters were then called out again for another round of activity where they were attracted to scourge over gold coins and bills scattered in a rug. They urged the fighters to gather the coins for themselves saying it’s all good â€Å"American cash†. In the process, they soon discovered that the rug was electrified.This narration emphasized the white men’s racism through barbaric treatment to the black men, as they treat them like animals. When the show ended, all the participants were paid and the narrator was about to leave the nightmare when the MC called him back to deliver his speech in the congregation of intoxicated people who have earlier gained pleasure through his pains. The narrator proceeded to deliver his Booke r T. Washington inspired speech while trying to conceal his aching physique while gulping down his blood.The narrator described that his audience continued with their incessant chatting and laughter as he delivers his speech and though he was tempted to do something else, the presence of the school superintendent who is still closely listening to him kept him going. In the process of his oration and swallowing his own blood, the narrator accidentally yelled â€Å"social equality†, a phrase had â€Å"often seen denounced in newspaper editorials, heard debated in public. † (Ellison, 940)Upon uttering the word, a deep silenced covered the whole room and the narrator received hostile reactions from his intoxicated audience, until a mustached man asked him upfront what he just said, and he got the chance to correct himself. The interrogator then asked him if he’s not being smart and that social equality was indeed a mistake. The narrator nodded and the man dropped th is statement, â€Å"We mean to do right by you, but you’ve got to know your place at all times. † (Ellison, 944)This man’s powerful statement is a general representation of the white men’s attitude towards racism over the negroes. They are aware of such discrimination, but they gain pleasure in treating them as inferior human beings as it constantly feeds them the feeling of superiority and power. The man’s statement may mean well as to change the narrator’s current status but he commands him to keep his head and mouth in its’ proper place. Upon the end of his speech, he was greeted with applauses as if the entire audience listened with so much enthusiasm to his speech.The school superintendent then came up to the stage to present him with a gift- a scholarship to the State College of Negroes. He then turned to the narrator and addressed him, â€Å"Prize it. Keep developing as you are and someday, it will be filled with important pap ers that will help shape the destiny of your people. † (Ellison, 947) The scholarship the narrator received is a symbol of an opportunity presented to him to â€Å"shape the destiny of his people†. That by going to college, he might become more knowledgeable and able so as to create a better society for his people.The scholarship becomes the first step to his pilgrimage towards social equality. Battle Royal is a very compelling short story that Ralph Ellison eventually made it the first chapter of his greatly-acclaimed novel, the â€Å"Invisible Man†. Every black man in that horrifying period might have been represented by the nameless narrator and all the pain he was inflicted during the Battle Royal is a representation of every black man’s pain and struggle for years.If the readers at that period view it as an allegory to the harsh conditions of the African American people within the American society, it would have been a wakeup call to those who were op pressed to unite and to those oppressors to change the society. References: Ellison, Ralph. â€Å"Battle Royal. † Making Literature Matter. Ed. John Schilb and John Clifford. Boston: Bedford, 2000. Ellison, Ralph Waldo. Invisible Man. New York: Random House, 1952.

Enzyme Biochemistry - What They Are and How They Work

An enzyme is defined as a macromolecule that catalyzes a biochemical reaction. In this type of chemical reaction, the starting molecules are called substrates. The enzyme interacts with a substrate, converting it into a new product. Most enzymes are named by combining the name of the substrate with the -ase suffix (e.g., protease, urease). Nearly all metabolic reactions inside the body rely on enzymes in order to make the reactions proceed quickly enough to be useful. Chemicals called activators can enhance enzyme activity, while inhibitors decrease enzyme activity. The study of enzymes is termed enzymology. There are six broad categories used to classify enzymes: Oxidoreductases - involved in electron transferHydrolases - cleave the substrate by hydrolysis (uptaking a water molecule)Isomerases - transfer a group in a molecule to form an isomerLigases (or synthetases) - couple the breakdown of a pyrophosphate bond in a nucleotide to the formation of new chemical bondsOxidoreductases - act in electron transferTransferases - transfer a chemical group from one molecule to another How Enzymes Work Enzymes work by lowering the activation energy needed to make a chemical reaction occur. Like other catalysts, enzymes change the equilibrium of a reaction, but they arent consumed in the process. While most catalysts can act on a number of different types of reactions, a key feature of an enzyme is that it is specific. In other words, an enzyme that catalyzes one reaction wont have any effect on a different reaction. Most enzymes are globular proteins that are much larger than the substrate with which they interact. They range in size from 62 amino acids to more than 2,500 amino acid residues, but only a portion of their structure is involved in catalysis. The enzyme has what is called an active site, which contains one or more binding sites that orient the substrate in the correct configuration, and also a catalytic site, which is the part of the molecule that lowers activation energy. The remainder of an enzymes structure acts primarily to present the active site to the substrate in the best way. There may also be allosteric site, where an activator or inhibitor can bind to cause a conformation change that affects the enzyme activity. Some enzymes require an additional chemical, called a cofactor, for catalysis to occur. The cofactor could be a metal ion or an organic molecule, such as a vitamin. Cofactors may bind loosely or tightly to enzymes. Tightly-bound cofactors are called prosthetic groups. Two explanations of how enzymes interact with substrates are the lock and key model, proposed by Emil Fischer in 1894, and the induced fit model, which is a modification of the lock and key model that was proposed by Daniel Koshland in 1958. In the lock and key model, the enzyme and the substrate have three-dimensional shapes that fit each other. The induced fit model proposes enzyme molecules can change their shape, depending on the interaction with the substrate. In this model, the enzyme and sometimes the substrate change shape as they interact until the active site is fully bound. Examples of Enzymes Over 5,000 biochemical reactions are known to be catalyzed by enzymes. The molecules are also used in industry and household products. Enzymes are used to brew beer and to make wine and cheese. Enzyme deficiencies are associated with some diseases, such as phenylketonuria and albinism. Here are a few examples of common enzymes: Amylase in saliva catalyzes the initial digestion of carbohydrates in food.Papain is a common enzyme found in meat tenderizer, where it acts to break the bonds holding protein molecules together.Enzymes are found in laundry detergent and stain removers to help break up protein stains and dissolve oils on fabrics.DNA polymerase catalyzes a reaction when DNA is being copied and then checks to make sure the correct bases are being used. Are All Enzymes Proteins? Nearly all known enzymes are proteins. At one time, it was believed all enzymes were proteins, but certain nucleic acids, called catalytic RNAs or ribozymes, have been discovered that have catalytic properties. Most of the time students study enzymes, they are really studying protein-based enzymes, since very little is known about how RNA can act as a catalyst.