Saturday, December 28, 2019

The Bluest Eye Analysis - 812 Words

Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye follows Pecola Breedlove’s â€Å"journey† to obtain beauty in the form of the titular blue eyes. Not only is it told in Claudia’s perspective, but the readers witnesses several backstories, namely Geraldine, Pauline, Cholly, and Soaphead Church’s, which is in a third-person perspective. This might be seen as odd at first, but after taking a deeper look into their pasts, there is something that stands out: something â€Å"beautiful† in the eyes of these people. These â€Å"beautiful† things are as unobtainable as Pecola’s wish for blue eyes, and yet they are an important aspect of The Bluest Eye, as are the â€Å"beauty† standards during that time. This â€Å"beauty† standard is what most African-Americans yearned (some even able to†¦show more content†¦In this statement, while he did love Blue as a father figure, he compares him to the devil due to him believing that God was a White man who cares about the White men who do good, not one of a minor race, who wouldn’t care about what happens to the â€Å"ugly† African American race. The â€Å"ugliness† will make an appearance later in the essay, but as the readers can see, blue is the color most depicted with White people and a rarity amongst African-Americans. The second most obvious, the standards of â€Å"beauty† begin with a certain object that children loves: dolls. The Baby Doll is the first thing introduced to the readers in the novel, and it is no African-American doll: rather, it is a blue-eyed, blonde-haired, pink-skinned dolls. This is depicted in the first potion of the story to Claudia in the form of a birthday gift, and it seems that â€Å"from the clucking sounds of adults† (Morrison 20). While this is an indication that Claudia wanted the dolls, she wants nothing more than â€Å"to dismember it; to see of what it was made, to discover the dearness, to fi nd the beauty, the desirability that had escaped [Claudia], but apparently only [her]† (Morrison 20). This is a callback to the â€Å"Doll Study,† and in this story, it can be seen as the main symbol of what â€Å"beauty† should be like for African-Americans. In â€Å"â€Å"Oh!Show MoreRelatedAnalysis Of The Bluest Eye1555 Words   |  7 Pages The Bluest Eeye Bbackground A woman’s race and the time period she lives in influences not only whether she will be a victim of sexual assault but also, the punishment of the offender. Toni Morrison, The author of The Bluest Eye, a victim of segregation, deals with sexual assault and segregation in her book. Chole Anthony Wofford, who goes by the name of Toni Morrison when writing her books, was born in Lorain, Ohio on February 18, 1931. Her father had several jobs to supportRead MoreThe Bluest Eye Analysis921 Words   |  4 Pagesâ€Å"The Bluest Eye† â€Å"The Bluest Eye† by Toni Morrison is a very complex story. While not being a novel of great length is very long on complexity. It tells the story of Pecola Breedlove, a young African American girl immersed in poverty and made â€Å"ugly† by the Society of the early 1940’s that defines beauty in terms of blonde haired white skinned , and in this case specifically Shirley Temple. The novel opens in the fall of 1941, just after the Great Depression, in Lorain, Ohio. Nine-year-old ClaudiaRead MoreThe Bluest Eye Analysis778 Words   |  4 PagesThe opinions of others, wether one notices or not, greatly affect his or her life. In Toni Morrison’s novel The Bluest Eye, Pecola Breedlove, a young black girl with dark brown eyes, is deemed ugly. Although she does not possess ugliness; she â€Å"put it on, so to speak, although it did not belong to [her]† (Morrison 38). Pecola believes she is ugly because she does not meet the societal beauty standard. Pecola convinces herself that all her struggles are rooted in the fact that she not beautiful. IfRead MoreAnalysis Of The Bluest Eye 818 Words   |  4 PagesIn The Bluest Eye, Pecola the protagonist is taken under the Macteer family’s wing much like â€Å"The African family is community-based and the nurturing quality is not contained within the nuclear family, but is rather the responsibility of the entire community† (Ranstrà ¶m). In traditional Africa each child has a place and is welcome in the community. The act of parenting another child was not odd because every adult that lived in each community believed that any child is welcome in anyone’s home. ThisRead MoreThe Bluest Eye Analysis985 Words   |  4 Pages Pecola Breedlove, an eleven-year-old black girl in Tony Morrison’s The Bluest Eye, combats with self love and self image throughout the entire novel. Her only wish is to be loved and adored, and she believes the only route to that destination is to simply be more â€Å"white†. Throughout her journey in Morrison’s masterpiece, she attempts to transform herself into an idealistic version of herself, but she ultimately discovers that she is physically unable to attain what she had hoped for and is drivenRead MoreThe Bluest Eye Analysis1148 Words   |  5 Pagesthe novel The Bluest Eye Pecola is involved in a quest – for love and identity and Morrison depicts the world in the novel from a child’s point of view. The story of the eleven-year-old Pecola, the tragic female protagonist of The Bluest Eye, stemmed out of Morrison’s memory of a girlhood friend who as well craved for ‘blue eyes’. Morrison had written of the little Black gir l whom she knew : â€Å"Beauty was not simply something to behold, it was something one could do. The Bluest Eye was my effort toRead MoreAnalysis Of The Book The Bluest Eye 1917 Words   |  8 Pages1. Through the Big Screen and Flashing Lights In the book The Bluest Eye Mrs. Breedlove talks about who was her motivation, who gave her drive to start dressing up nice and refashioning herself. She started using celebrities as role models or a mirror to help her find ways for her to get the same physical attractiveness they have. In the book Mrs. Breedlove mentions that,†I went to see Clark Gable and Jean Harlow. I fixed my hair up like I’d seen hers on a magazine. A part on the side, with oneRead MoreAnalysis of the Bluest Eye Prologue727 Words   |  3 PagesEach section of this prologue gives, in a different way, an overview of the novel as a whole. At a glance, the Dick-and-Jane motif alerts us to the fact that for the most part the story will be told from a child’s perspective. Just as the Dick-and-Jane primer teaches children how to read, this novel will be about the larger story of how children learn to interpret their world. But there is something wrong with the Dick-and-Jane narrative as it is pres ented here. Because the sentences are not spreadRead MoreAnalysis Of The Book The Bluest Eye 1115 Words   |  5 Pagesbeliefs. However, in The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison, the topic of racism is approached in a very unique way. The characters within the novel are subjected to internalizing a set of beliefs that are extremely fragmented. In accepting white standards of beauty, the community compromises their children’s upbringing, their economic means, and social standings. Proving furthermore that the novel has more to do with these factors than actual ethnicity at all. In The Bluest Eye, characters experience aRead MoreThe Bluest Eye Analysis Essay1420 Words   |  6 PagesIn The Bluest Eye, Toni Morrison strongly ties the contents of her novel to its structure and style through the presentation of chapter titles, dialogue, and the use of changing narrators. These structural assets highlight details and themes of the novel while eliciting strong responses and interpretations from readers. The structure of the novel also allows for creative and powerful presentations of information. Morrison is clever in her style, forcing readers to think deeply about the novel’s heavy

Friday, December 20, 2019

Business Decision Making FINAL - 3261 Words

Table of Contents Task # 1.1: 4 Introduction: 4 Research 4 Data collection objective: 5 Task 1.2: 6 Survey methodologies: 6 Sampling frame used: 7 Task # 1.3: 7 Questionnaire: 7 Task # 2.1 2.2: 8 Data analysis: 8 Task # 2.3: 11 Measures of dispersion: 11 Task # 2.4: 12 Quartile, percentile and correlation coefficient calculation: 12 Task # 3.1: 14 Task # 3.2: 16 Task # 3.3: 17 Task # 3.4: 18 Formal business report 18 Task # 4.1: 18 Information processing tools: 18 Task # 4.2: 20 Task # 4.3: 22 Financial tools: 22 Reference: 23 Task # 1.1: Introduction: Dunkin Donuts restaurant is one of the world’s largest companies in fast food industry, which deals in wide range of hot, iced and cold beverages, baked goods, sandwiches and†¦show more content†¦Questions are short ended means sometimes they gave us space to write about their view of specific things and sometimes operations are given and we just need to choose the answer as per our perception. Interview: Interviews are quicker way to get respond from customers rather than Questionnaire survey. These are no any prominent difference between Questionnaire and interview. Interview can be of many types like face-to-face interview (those interview which are conducted personally and face to face. This is time consuming and direct way to conduct survey) and telephonic interview (those interview which are conducted on telephone or indirect way to conduct survey) etc. We use open- ended questionnaire survey methodology to know about the views of customers and their preference or satisfaction level. Sampling frame used: Sampling is known as process to test or conduct census the wroth and influence ability of product directly on consumers. Sampling frame is called the target consumers of a specific area. Numbers of people are selected to study the change in their behavior or effect on them within certain condition. Before conducting sampling, we will choose few people from population and test or judge their behavior to analysis and interpret the result. Task # 1.3: Questionnaire: Keeping in view the above-mentioned scenario, few of questionnaire for solving existing problems are of following types: Have you everShow MoreRelatedDifferences between B2B and B2C800 Words   |  4 Pagesbetween B2B and B2C Business to business and business to customers is two important different terms that one needs to understand. The two terms mean different things in the business environment. The aim of this research paper is to evaluate the differences between business to business and business to customers. Transactions in the case of business to business involve two business organizations while business to customer involves transactions between an organization and the final customers. An exampleRead MoreB2b Buyers Essay836 Words   |  4 PagesIDC survey reports that 3 out of 4 B2B buyers used social media to communicate with peers before making purchasing decisions. According to Accenture 94% of buyers research online before making the final decision. Research indicates that 64% of C-suite have the final sign-off on purchases. Overview Hello! Thanks for your question about who makes the buying decisions in the business to business training field. The short version is that Below you will find a deep dive of my findings. METHODOLOGY Read MoreEmployees Expect Consistency From Managers Essay1000 Words   |  4 Pagesconsistency from managers in their decision-making style, but many managers believe that the decision making style should depend on the situation. If a specific situation requires low involvement from employees, then they will be allowed to communicate their opinions about the problem and potential solution without making the final decision. If another situation requires high involvement, then they will be able to both, communicate their opinions and make the final decision. So how can managers solve thisRead MoreDecision By Graham Allison978 Words   |  4 Pagespublished The Essences of Decision, in which he suggested three perspectives one might use to analyze a major decision (Nahavandi, Denhardt, Denhardt, Aristigueta, 2015). These three perspectives allow every decision to have a potentially different outcome depending on which is used to make the decisions. The rational model, the organizat ional process model, and the governmental politics model or collaborative models have been used to analyze many different decisions. Out of the three optionsRead MoreSP15 SCM 305 Syllabus1256 Words   |  6 PagesSchool of Business Course Syllabus – SCM 305 Business Decision Making Spring 2015, Wescoe 3140 1:00-2:15, Tuesday/Thursday Instructor: Joe Walden E-mail: joewalden@ku.edu Office: 118i Summerfield Office hours: Tuesday/Thursday: 9:00-11:30 PM; Monday/Wednesday 8:00-10:30; Or by appointment TAs: Jamie Mack Pamela Carper Deepa Anant Jill Carroll Angie Kim Course Description: This course is an introduction to decision making encountered in business and everydayRead MoreDecision Making Techniques in Managerial Accounting876 Words   |  4 Pageseducated decisions and do their job duties efficiently. A typical manager’s responsibilities with managerial accounting include interpreting finance reports and projections and using those to make financial decisions that will affect the company. Since managers have to make routine decisions and finalize reports periodically, it is vital that they are able to conduct healthy decision making processes and are able to come to make quick educated conclusions. While there are plenty of decision makingRead MoreBusiness Decision of Rivers Dance School Essay1308 Words   |  6 PagesBusiness Decision of Rivers Dance School When making a drastic business decision such as the one proposed by River’s Dance School, it is important to go about making the decision in the appropriate manner, through the use of a formal decision-making model process. This should be done with the aid of relevant information generated in the accounting process and through an evaluation of the effectiveness of the dance school’s ownership structure. When decidingRead MoreMetrics1099 Words   |  5 Pagesfor strategic business decisions. One challenge for companies today is the wealth of information and computers to process it. There are numerous software applications to assist in forecasting, capacity planning, production scheduling, enterprise resource monitoring and other decision areas. Businesses must determine the proper application to work with their company model and carefully monitor implementation of a system that will have a broad impact on how the company does business for years toRead MoreDecision-Making Style Summary. Snehapriya Bharatha. Mba1167 Words   |  5 Pages Decision-making Style Summary Snehapriya Bharatha MBA 505: Foundations of Management Dr. Frear January, 23, 2017 Decision-making Style Summary: Detailed understanding of the identified problems and collaborative determination of the solution is decision-making. Successful accomplishment of this task requires applying multiple steps which assist individuals to make exceptional decisions. One’s decision-making model might be different than others because there are four known decision-makingRead MoreThe Role of Consensus in Business1652 Words   |  7 Pages Understanding consensus and its role in a business As mentioned earlier in the introduction, consensus is a general agreement that is made within different groups. Consensus is another word for consent, which means to give permission. It is part of the process of decision-making where everyone within the group has a say and agrees to support a decision in the best interest of the business as a whole. Consensus builds a relationship within the workforce and this helps them find a solution that meets

Thursday, December 12, 2019

DoctorAssisted Suicide Essay Research Paper Doctor Assisted free essay sample

Doctor-Assisted Suicide Essay, Research Paper Doctor Assisted Suicide An issue of great contention boomed in the United States about ten old ages ago. Doctor-assisted self-destruction was brought to the attending of Americans in the mid-1980s, but did non go the issue it is today until the 1890ss. The inquiry of whether to populate the balance of one s life in hurting or dice with self-respect, became evident. The thought that doctors could order medicine to terminally ill patients to stop their agony for good by seting them to rest was presented. This thought struck some Americans as chance for alleviation, and others as an dismaying misdemeanor of ethical motives.and the contention began. Doctor-assisted self-destruction has repeatedly shown up on ballots across the state for the past 10 old ages. However, because of the complexness of the issue a consistent determination has non been reached or followed for any length of clip. Doctor-assisted self-destruction is non every bit simple as one may believe. It is non merely a physician prescribing pills to any unhappy, ordinary Joe. There are general guidelines to the procedure. The guidelines may differ from province to province, but the chief thoughts are the same. Major guidelines are: The patient must be terminally sick, which can be defined as holding no more than six months to populate ; At least two independent doctors must hold on the diagnosing and forecast of the patient ; There must be a mental wellness scrutiny that proves the patient to be mentally stable ; and Civil and condemnable unsusceptibilities are provided to any parties helping the patient, every bit long as all regulations are followed. Doctor-assisted self-destruction can be viewed many different ways. There is a moral issue involved. Peoples are ever taught that killing is incorrect and classify physician assisted suicide as killing. To counter that, others see physician assisted suicide as alleviation. A manner to be set free from all hurting that non even morphine can dull. There is besides the position of the health care profession. As a whole they are opposed to sophisticate aided self-destruction. They feel that health care is at that place to maintain people alive and assist them, non to kill them. Helping people survive is what they are taught. However, others may notice that maintaining person in intolerable hurting is non assisting them at all. That assisting them would be helping them in for good alleviating their hurting. It all depends on how one would specify the word, aid. This is contention. It is all in the oculus of the perceiver. One group, called The Hemlock Society, is truly what began this contention. They were the first 1s to show the issue of doctor-assisted self-destruction. Derek Humphry founded the Hemlock Society in 1980. It is the oldest and largest organisation of it s sort, dwelling of over 27,000 members from across the United States. Hemlock believes that, Peoples who wish to retain their self-respect and pick at the terminal of life should hold the option of a peaceable, soft, certain and fleet decease in the company of their loved 1s. They feel that this should be done legitimately with lawfully prescribed drugs as portion of the continuum of attention between a patient and a physician. Hemlock does non back up anything illegal refering to this issue. Hemlock is forcing to alter the jurisprudence so doctor-assisted self-destruction is allowed. To protect patients and doctors they want a jurisprudence that allows a deceasing patient to rush up his/her decease with a physician s aid, with the un dermentioned precautions: A terminal diagnosing confirmed by two independent doctors ; An rating by a mental wellness professional ; A written, witnessed petition ; A waiting period ; Voluntary on the portion of the physician ; Revocable by the patient at any clip ; Medication prescribed by the physician and self-administered by the patient ; No condemnable liability for a doctor or household member that helps ; No consequence on insu rance ; and Monitoring by province wellness section. The Hemlock Society strongly opposes self-destruction for emotional or fiscal grounds and strongly supports suicide bar plans. Their end is non to promote people towards suicide, merely to do the option available for the terminally ailment. There is another organisation on a much smaller graduated table, but with close to the same sentiment as The Hemlock Society. The Association for the Right to Die with Dignity ( ADMD ) would wish to see doctor-assisted self-destruction legalized. The ADMD promotes change non merely in the heads of the general populace, but besides in the manner the health care profession responds to the issue. The ADMD has four ends: First, to do hurting alleviation available to all ; Second, to guarantee the acknowledgment of the right to decline unwanted, life-prolonging intervention ; Third, to legalise Living Will ; Fourth, to legalize physician assisted self-destruction. They object to suicide for political, societal, or economical intents. They merely want the option. On the other side, there is The American Medical Association ( AMA ) . They are strongly opposed to doctor-assisted self-destruction. They have made it clear that they have perfectly no purposes on loosening their stance on the issue. Alternatively, they said they would seek to better educate physicians on relieving hurting and agony of deceasing patients. A physician and current member of the AMA strongly opposed to assisting patients commit self-destruction said ; We re speaking about preserving and protecting life, non stoping it. Another: The terminal merely does non warrant the agencies. Many actions have been taken in the authorities refering the issue of doctor-assisted self-destruction. On June 26, 1997, the Supreme Court ruled on two similar instances affecting aided self-destruction. The two instances, Washington v. Glucksberg and Vacco v. Quill challenged their province Torahs on the prohibition of aided self-destruction. They felt that the prohibition on aided self-destruction was a misdemeanor of the 14th Amendment s Due Process Clause. The Supreme Court nem con ruled that there is no Constitutional right to hold a physician s aid in stoping a life. In 1997, Oregon electors approved the assisted self-destruction jurisprudence. June 5, 1998, Attorney General Janet Reno announced that there would be no federal challenge to Oregon s assisted suicide jurisprudence. Reno said, The federal authorities would esteem the will of Oregon electors and let the physician self-destruction step to travel frontward. In 1997, President Clinton signed a jurisprudence that blocks any federal support of aided self-destruction plans. If the thought of leting physician s to help in their patients suicide is adopted throughout the state there is the possibility the jurisprudence could spread out. This is one thing Americans fright. Some feel that if doctor-assisted self-destruction is accepted it will shortly be available for anyone alternatively of merely the terminally sick. They are afraid that person will easy be able to stop their ain life because they are unhappy with the cards life has dealt them. On the other side of that there are the effects of the jurisprudence non being approved. If doctor-assisted self-destruction is non approved many people will endure. They will populate every minute of their lives in tormenting hurting and have to digest the adversities of a long, extended decease. There is besides the possibility that more and more people will get down to take self-destruction into their ain custodies and do it illicitly. Doctor-assisted self-destruction is ever traveling to be controversial. There are excessively many moral issues and inside informations involved for it non to be. There is no manner to acquire all the groups in the state to hold. The issue involves such a serious terminal consequence that there are many strong sentiments out at that place. With doctor-assisted self-destruction there will ever be at least two antagonistic sentiments. For every statement there is a counter statement and it all depends on position.

Wednesday, December 4, 2019

Marshall Mathers LP by Eminem free essay sample

Marshall Mathers LP is the fastest selling rap album of all time and sold a total of 1.76 million copies. So, it was obviously very popular. After listening to the album, I can understand why it sold so well. It’s amazing. The lyrics actually make sense unlike some rap songs and have a purpose behind them. In fact, if you took the lyrics out of the music, they would make a quite an excellent poem. Eminem also has an incredible talent of rapping extremely fast which is absolutely awesome to listen to. Also, the album holds several unforgettable songs like â€Å"The Real Slim Shady†, â€Å"Stan†, â€Å"I’m Back†, and â€Å"The Way I Am†. The songs on this album show Eminem’s wide variety of voices and talents. The album also vividly shows Eminem’s personality which is both good and bad. This is good because it shows how passionate he is about rap and how hard he works to make the best songs. We will write a custom essay sample on Marshall Mathers LP by Eminem or any similar topic specifically for you Do Not WasteYour Time HIRE WRITER Only 13.90 / page It’s bad because he sometimes steps over the line with his humor. But this is easy to ignore. I strongly recommend this album but, if you get it, do not get the clean version. A substantial part of the songs will be censored. In conclusion, Marshall Mathers LP is a must have album for any rap fan.

Thursday, November 28, 2019

Collision Aviodance Essays - Avionics, Air Traffic Control

Collision Aviodance Collision Avoidance: ADS-B or TCAS March 7, 2000 INTRODUCTION Background Collision avoidance is something that has been a problem in aviation for a long time. Most of the flights conducted today rely on the see and avoid concept and ground radar. Both of which have their flaws. The FAA predicts that mid-air collisions will increase by 300% over the next 20 years due to the increase in flights being flown by all areas of the aviation community (Kraus xiv). Civil aircraft have had onboard protection from midair collisions only since 1990 and general aviation aircraft are not required to have any collision avoidance technology onboard(www.cassd.org 1). In order to effectively manage the national airspace system in the future we will need to implement Free Flight. Free Flight is a concept designed to enhance safety and efficiency of the airspace by allowing aircraft to choose their own route instead of using victor airways (www.ads-b.com 1). Along with this freedom there is still the problem of aircraft separation which when on an instrument flight plan is air traffic control's (ATC) responsibility. In free flight there may be areas where ATC cannot give the required collision avoidance necessary. In order to safely manage the safety zone around an aircraft, pilots will need to rely on systems installed in the aircraft for better separation. Purpose The purpose of this report is to identify whether Automatic Dependence Surveillance Broadcast (ADS-B) or Traffic Alert and Collision Avoidance System (TCAS II) should be placed in all aircraft if the FAA decides that there is a need for some collision avoidance technology to be required for all aircraft. TCAS is currently required on all commercial passenger aircraft over 30 seats and ADS-B is currently being tested. Scope In this report, I will discuss: ? Automatic Dependant Surveillance Broadcast (ADS-B) ? ADS-B's Advantages and Disadvantages ? Traffic Alert and Collision Avoidance System (TCAS) ? TCAS's Advantages and Disadvantages ? Summarize which system is better for collision avoidance Body ADS-B ADS-B is a collision avoidance tool that allows aircraft to transmit position, speed, heading and identification via a data link to either other aircraft in the air or on the ground and/or controllers on the ground. ADS-B can also be used with equipped vehicles on the surface movement area. An ADS-B emitter will periodically broadcast the required information obtained from the onboard navigation systems. Other equipped aircraft will be able to receive this information and view it on the Cockpit Display of Traffic Information (CDTI). The CDTI is a display that shows traffic in relation to your heading. It is a multifunctional display that can incorporate weather and navigation information. Other aircraft that are receiving the broadcast will be able to avoid a collision and maintain separation much easier than the methods used today. This will lead to safer and more efficient aircraft operations. ADS-B will be able to provide controllers on the ground with valuable information that they might not be able to see on modern secondary radar. If all aircraft were equipped, separation coverage would be granted everywhere not just in certain areas. ADS-B will also provide accurate position and identification information of aircraft and equipment on the airport surface area. This will enhance the pilot's and controller's job of avoiding aircraft and vehicles on the ground during times of bad weather. The FAA has conducted Ground-to-Ground, Air-to-Ground, and Air-to-Air tests on ADS-B. So far these tests have been very successful in all areas (www.faa.gov). Advantages and Disadvantages of ADS-B ADS-B offers many advantages for air-to air and ground-to-air surveillance. First it greatly enhances situational awareness while in flight. The ability to see other aircraft on the CDTI is extremely helpful in adverse weather. Another advantage of ADS-B is its ability to let controllers see aircraft movement out of their surveillance coverage. It also offers reduced communication congestion because controllers do not have to advise of aircraft in the vicinity. On the ground, ADS-B provides some of the same benefits as it does in the air such as reduced communications, situational awareness, and it also provides for reduced taxi and takeoff delays (www.faa.gov 2). ADS-B will increase operational capacity and efficiency by providing more accurate information for the terminal areas. A main disadvantage of the system is that in order for it to work properly, in

Sunday, November 24, 2019

Biochemistry Atom and Covalent Bond

Biochemistry Atom and Covalent Bond Biochemistry: Atom and Covalent Bond- ­Ã¢â‚¬  Atoms Essay BIOCHEMISTRY NOTES - ­Ã¢â‚¬ UNIT 2- ­Ã¢â‚¬  ATOMS ________________- ­Ã¢â‚¬  the basic unit of matter. Contains subatomic particles o _____________________ (+ charge) o _____________________ (no charge/neutral) o _____________________ (- ­Ã¢â‚¬  charge) ELEMENTS AND ISOTOPES ___________________- ­Ã¢â‚¬  a pure substance that consists of only one type of atom. Elements are represented by a 1 or 2 letter symbol. (ie: C = carbon) The number of ___________________ in an element is that element’s _______________________. o The atomic number of carbon is 6, therefore carbon has 6 protons and consequently 6 neutrons. ISOTOPES _________________- ­Ã¢â‚¬  atoms of the same element that have different numbers of neutrons. o Isotopes are identified by their _________________________________________________ (ie: carbon- ­Ã¢â‚¬ 12, carbon- ­Ã¢â‚¬ 13, carbon- ­Ã¢â‚¬ 14) The _____________________________________________ of the masses of an element’s isotopes is called its _____________________________. Isotopes have the same number of _______________________, so all isotopes of an element have the same ______________________________________. Mass Number- ­Ã¢â‚¬  the sum of the number of ________________________ plus the number of ________________________. Protons and neutrons have about the same mass. Electrons are much ________________. Atoms have equal numbers of __________________________ and ___________________________. o Because these particles are opposite charges, the whole atom is _______________. RADIOACTIVE ISOTOPES Some isotopes are _____________________________. This means that their nuclei are unstable and break down at a continuous rate over time. IONS _______________- ­Ã¢â‚¬  an atom that has gained or lost an electron, giving it a positive or negative charge. o ___________________- ­Ã¢â‚¬  a positively charged ion o ___________________- ­Ã¢â‚¬  a negatively charged ion CHEMICAL COMPOUNDS _______________________- ­Ã¢â‚¬  formed by the chemical combination of two or more elements in definite proportions. o Compounds are typically written as a __________________________________________ (ie: NaCl, CO2, etc.) This gives you the ratio elements in the compound. o The physical and chemical properties of a compound are usually very different from those of the elements form which it is formed. CHEMICAL BONDS ___________________________________- ­Ã¢ €  formed when one or more electrons are transferred from one atom to another. o Form between a _____________________ and a

Thursday, November 21, 2019

The Security Risks Associated with online access to database. The Article

The Security Risks Associated with online access to database. The common mistakes made by database administrators, security personal, and the application developers - Article Example This leads to only minimal security if any, despite regulations requiring organizations to secure their data (Chickowski, 2009-8). Further complicating factors are the complexity of large databases, and the heterogeneity of the modern database environment (Chickowski, 2009-6). Thus, Chickowski (2009-9) also recommends an education program to teach users about database security, and highlights the importance of good password management. Patches are infrequently applied because of the concept that if something is not broken, it doesn’t need to be fixed. Other areas of neglect are poor configuration management such as taking shortcuts, using test databases on production servers, etc. The latter especially leads to even further risks (Chickowski, 2009-8). These and other security lapses make databases vulnerable from worms, automated scanners, etc. Online databases can suffer from buffer overruns and the URLs â€Å"allow attacker code to be executed, and generally wreak havoc† (Chickowski, 2009-6). As for the application design itself, experts have even identified the most risky packages such as DBMS_SQL, UTL_TCP and DBMS_XMLGEN within Oracle, and third party applications can also undermine databases (Chickowski, 2009-8). Simple and expected measures for security are authentication, authorization, and access control. Apart from configuration and patches, more advanced measures are encryption, auditing, monitoring, and data masking essential for enterprise databases. Besides these, other technological solutions are ‘hardening’ the database using features provided by the database vendor, and keeping out non-essential items from the server, including documentation, sample configurations, code files and if possible built-in stored procedures that are unused. Anything else that cannot be deleted should be disabled instead. The relationship between databases and web applications are based on trust but

Wednesday, November 20, 2019

Culture Expos Project Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Culture Expos Project - Research Paper Example market. In assessing the Filipino culture, the study hopes to suggest some strategies to attract and fulfill the needs of this particular market. Filipinos are natives of the Philippines, a country in the Asia Pacific region near Hong Kong and Malaysia. Historians have noted that the Filipinos have a mixed culture due to their mixed ancestry. The earliest generations of this culture are Malays who came to the Philippine islands for settlement (Halili, 2004). They scattered all over the country, and because the Philippines is an archipelago, the Filipinos speak different dialects or local languages (Agoncillo, 1974) but like their Chinese neighbor, manage to maintain a national language also called Filipino. Chinese inhabitants are also all over the country but they settled in the Philippines merely for business, hence the Filipino of today also bears some Chinese ancestry. In 1521, the Philippines was discovered by Spanish colonizers led by Magellan (Halili, 2004). This started the c olonization of the Philippines by the Spaniards whose settlement lasted for more than three centuries (ibid.). This long history of colonization has a great impact on the Filipino culture. Nevertheless, the cruelty of the colonizers kept a distance between the natives and the former. Rizal, the Philippine’s national hero whose name is acclaimed in some Western countries like Germany, noted in his writings how the Spaniards, especially the rulers of the Church treated the Filipinos with lambasting words, unjust imprisonment and disappearance, denial of property, among many other acts of injustice (Capino, Gonzales, and Pineda, 2005). The Philippines was liberated from the Spanish regime when the Americans came in 1901. Unlike the Spaniards who did not teach their language for fear of being overpowered, the Americans, through the Thomasites taught English to the Filipinos and promoted education, especially free elementary education. The Thomasites were the first American teache rs who came to the Philippines to teach the Filipinos (Halili, 2004). The Americans noted the lack of education and the poverty that loomed in the Philippines after the Spanish regime. They attempted to improve the living conditions of the Filipino by sending some scholars in the U.S. to study (ibid.). Those Filipinos may have inspired others to come to America, thus explaining the wide population of Filipinos in the U.S. at present. When the WWII broke up, the Philippines was invaded by Japan and along with Filipino soldiers, some American soldiers were tortured by the Japanese to march several miles from Bataan Province to Manila (ibid.). This is known today as the Bataan Death March, in which some soldiers died of hunger and thirst. After four days, when additional American troops were sent to the Philippines, the Japanese invaders were ousted, making the Filipinos free from another threat of colonization. The different settlers in the Philippines impacted the Filipino culture, m aking it a combination of the Spanish, American, and Japanese culture superimposed by the Malay ancestry it has. Filipinos nowadays have healed from their past and seen on American television, for instance, Charice Pempengco, ultimately project easy adaptability with other cultures. Their clothes are a cross between Western and Asian influences. They have developed a cultural adaptability style that tends to accept differences and unify

Monday, November 18, 2019

Vision of Future Education Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Vision of Future Education - Essay Example From this study it is clear that the federal government, non-governmental organizations, and policy makers bear the mandate of implementing the vision of future education. The eminent technological advancements will equally define my vision of future education. Indeed, future students and tutors will have an opportunity to adopt various technologies in learning. Such technologies will enable students to join online classes, access academic data, choose their convenient classes and extracurricular activities regardless of their residence. Nevertheless, a limitation in to innovative educational options will limit future academic success. As the study outlines the disparities among students will persist subject to their cultural, economic, gender, and academic needs. In the future, the education system will embrace diverse and advanced learning and instructional tools that will be accessible to all students. The continued growth in technology will present the internet as an effective le arning and research tool. Subject to the foreseen availability of learning opportunities and choice of schools and subjects, students will have a right to combine related credits earned from different schools for purposes of completing a specific educational program. The students will also have an opportunity to study more than what is available in their classrooms. Indeed, future education will adopt extracurricular activities in the academic programs.

Friday, November 15, 2019

Developmental Psychology: Research Methods

Developmental Psychology: Research Methods BOTTE Christopher Louis Cellio Outline and evaluate the research methods employed by developmental psychologists. Developmental psychology is defined by Muir Slater(2003) as the discipline that attempts to describe and explain the changes that occur over time in thoughts, behavior, reasoning and functioning of an individual due to biological, individual and environmental influences. Any developmental psychologist, in its way to try to describe and explain the changes in an individual over time, need to find out what research design combined with research method will be best to gather information to be able to effectively carry its research. In the following paragraphs I will start by explaining the different research methods that are currently used by developmental psychologist. Lastly I will take some question asked by some psychologist from past studies that have been made and try to evaluate the research methods used in it. Research methods can be broken into two parts: qualitative research method and quantitative research method. The distinction between those two types of research methodologies is that qualitative methods are essentially used for exploratory researches, using unstructured or semi-structured techniques such as naturalistic observation and clinical interviews. Exploratory research, defined by Wikipedia is, â€Å"research conducted for a problem that has not been clearly defined.† The quantitative methods are used to quantify the gathered information by generating numeral data so that the data can be statistically used for description and interpretation of information from a large population. Structured observation, structured interviews and tests are some examples of quantitative research methods. As said in the preceding paragraphs, there are different types of research methods. Let us now outline and evaluate the different research methods by using past psychological studies so that we can see those research methods in a real context. Descriptive Methods It is in the human nature to observe others and to draw conclusion about their behaviour. We have to admit that we often judge people by their body language. In fact, scientist like psychologist also draw conclusion from people behaviours by observing them. There is a lot to learn just by observing people. The difference between a simple individual’s observation of an event and the observation of a psychologist is that, the scientific observation is done under precisely defined conditions, it is done systematically and objectively. In addition, the event they are observing is carefully recorded. As it is very difficult to study all behaviours and large population at a time, a representative sample of behaviour should be chosen accordingly to the study they are carrying. The sample should be as good as possible for the external validity of the study. External validity means the extent to which the findings from the observations can be generalized. Other than a good representative sample, psychologist have to choose a good time sampling as it enable psychologist to be exposed to the behaviour of interest at different period of the day. For instance, while observing a group of workers to assess their stress level (in work place), they should be observed for the whole day in order to generalize their findings. They cannot be observed only in the morning, where they are still fresh. Instead, they should be observed at different periods of the day or of the week, where under pressure of work, they express different behaviours. Another important factor to make a good observation is situation sampling. Situation sampling is choosing another sample, in another place and under different conditions and circumstances. Situation sampling enhances the external validity of the research findings. There are two distinct types of observation. One is naturalistic or direct observation. It can be both qualitative and quantitative research method. In this type of observation, the researcher is on field, observes and records (written) its subjects in their natural setting. The strength of this method is that, when observing on field the researcher can see the everyday behavior that the subjects expresses. The subject’s behaviours are not biased by the fact that they are being observed by the researcher because they do not know that they are being observed. The drawback is that the researcher is not in control of the situation, therefore he may fail to see the behaviour he is interested in. Also naturalistic observation is often time consuming. Example of naturalistic observation are work of (Farver Branstetter, 1994) in which they observed preschooler prosocial response to their peers’ distress. Another example is the study of (Matsumoto Willingham, 2006) where the observed athletes in their natural setting of an olympic judo competition. The second type of observation also can be both quantitative and qualitative research method. It is the structured observation. This kind of observation is done in laboratory setting, where the researcher reproduce as much as possible real life setting in order to facilitate the occurrence of the behaviour of interest. The laboratory is also set in a way in which every participants can equally display this desired behaviour. The advantages of this research method is that the experimenter can control the laboratory experiment to get the desirable behaviour from the subjects. The drawback is that, very often the subjects will show an admirable and unnatural behavior to impress the researcher because they know that they are being studied. Garner (2003) set a laboratory observation to study the emotional reactions, to harm that two-year-old children thought they had caused. Self-Reports There are three common types of self-report procedures that developmental researcher uses to ask research participants to give information on their perception, thought, abilities, feeling, attitudes and past experiences. These types of self-report methods can be relatively unstructured interviews such as clinical interviews to highly structured interviews and questionnaires. Clinical interview is a type of self-report method. The researcher, which is also the interviewer and the research participant engage in a conversation for a given period of time where the participant give his point of view of the subject in discussion. The advantages of this method is that the researcher can see the way the participant expresses its thought in its everyday life and also a lot of information can be gathered in a session. The disadvantages is that the participant can distort the way the use to think just to please the interviewer. Also when participants are asked questions about past events in their life, they do not remember things. In addition, as the clinical interview is based on conversation, one of the major problem that occurs is the fact that very often the participants has difficulty to put their thoughts into word. An example of clinical interview is the interview of Piaget to a 5-year-old child about dreams. (Piaget, 192611930, pp. 97-98) Structured interview can be both qualitative and quantitative research method in which each and every participants are ask the same set of question. It allows psychologist to gain time during the session as the questions are already prepared in advance. In this methods the psychologist has to prepare an interview schedule and has to stick to this schedule even if the participant is deviating from the focus of the interview. The questions set in the structured interview can be either open-ended or close-ended. The advantage is that this method is not time consuming as the questions are already pre-set but its drawback is that the answers that will result from the participants may still be affected by miscommunication of thought. Structured interview does not provide information in detail as clinical interview does. Questionnaires is a research method where a series of questions are asked for the purpose of obtaining information from respondent. It is considered as a written interview. Again, in this type of self-report interview the questions is set the same way for each participants/respondent. The outcome of this type of research may be very useful in statistical comparison. Questionnaire can be used for large populations at low cost and sometime this method can be quick if the questions asked are close ended. The limitations of this method is that it show little details about the respondents. Also, respondents may not be true in the expression of the feelings and thoughts even though questionnaires are confidential. Clinical or Case Study Method Case study method can provide a full range information on a subject. It is often used to study specific and interesting rare phenomena such as the case of Henry Gustav Molaison (Wikipedia 2015) who was an American memory disorder patient. This method analyses every event in the life the subject so as to give cues about how and why a subject is behaving like it is. Do women have better memories than men? Research suggest that women are better than men when there is a verbal material to remember. For example a list of words. Galea and Kimura (1993) did a laboratory experiment to test the hypothesis that woman have better memory than men. They tried to make an experiment to find if women were also better than men for remembering visual material. They showed the participants, women and men a series of simple and familiar images such as car, table and pen to remember. After that they had to recognise the remembered images in a second series of images. After the experiment, the results were in the advantage of the women. Indeed women remembered more images than men. But is this result true? It is not simple as that to interpret the results directly as they did. It is possible that the women encoded the simple images into simple words so that they were more likely to remember after. This experiment is not valid if the women stored the images as words. The experiment does not show that wome n are better than men in memorising simple images. Therefore we conclude that experiment should be done using specific methods. Do children think an object that is out of sight is out of mind? Jean Piaget is the pioneer of cognitive development in children. He started by observing children’s behaviours and study their responses to his questions. He therefore, develop his theoretical framework to show that every children pass through a series of cognitive stages. In each different stages, a new cognitive ability were acquired. One important milestone in his theory is the object permanence. Object permanence means knowing that when an object is out of sight does not mean out of existence. In the first stage of his theory, the sensorimotor stage starts from birth to the age of two. This stage is said to be the object concept. When doing the search A not B error test, children age around five months cease to search for an interesting object when the experimenter hid it. Piaget concluded that for the children the object has ceased to exist. For older children aged around nine months, they did search for the hidden object but made errors which he called place error, or AB error. The experiment procedure was like that, there were two cloth in front of the children. Let us name it cloth A and cloth B. The interesting object was shown to the child, then place under cloth A. The child successfully retrieved it. Just after the child has retrieved the object, the experimenter places the object under under cloth A and the child was able to retrieve the object again. Now the experimenter places the object under cloth B and this time the child ceases to search for the object. Piaget says that the 5 months old children cease to search because they lack cognitive abilities and they believe that when object disappears, it is just vanished and non-existent anymore. For the nine months old children, Piaget would argue that they have a better understanding of the world but the subjective, egocentrism perspective of the child dominates. How far can we rely on these observation made by Piaget? What are possible alternative explanation of such behaviour? Do children of five months really think that object cease to exist when they are out of their sight? A possible alternative explanation could be that five months children could not retrieve the object under the cloth because they lack motor skills to do it. They simply cannot hold themselves, they cannot bend forward and lift the cloth. If the reason that they do not search for the object when hidden is due to the lack of motor skills, then their cognition abilities has nothing to do with this experiment. Bower and Wishart (1982) did a laboratory experiment to test that 1 to 4 months children did not have object permanence. They tested if the heart rate of the children would rise when they saw an object disappear and then come back again. They hypotheses that if children age from 1 to 4 month did not have object permanence they would not react to the object when its reappears and their heart rate would not change. The result was that when the hidden object reappeared their heart rate did not rose. Therefore Bowen and Wishart concluded that the child had an expectation that the objec t was still there and did not disappeared. However, the moment when the object disappeared their heart rate rose showing their concern about the disappearance of the object. They have an understanding that the object is hidden by an obstacle (the cloth) but it is still there and eventually continues to exist. We have seen from the examples that one methods cannot fully explain some behaviours. Sometimes researcher should use different methods to get out the best from research. Criticism and critical evaluation of their methods and results help in getting reliable and valid research pieces. To conclude, the different methods works for specific event and time. The developmental psychologist should be careful when choosing their research method and designs. The psychologist in their way to describe and explain behaviour should ask themselves a good research question to correctly theorise their ideas and also they should take care of all variables that can interfere with their results. After the handling of those enumerated conditions, then their research results can be accepted and generalized. Reference list: Bower, T., Wishart, J. (1972). The effects of motor skill on object permanence.Cognition,1(2-3), 165-172. doi:10.1016/0010-0277(72)90017-0 Farver, J. M., Branstetter, W. H. (1994). Preschooler prosocial response to their peers distress.Developmental Psychology, 30,334-341. Galea, L., Kimura, D. (1993). Sex differences in route-learning.Personality And Individual Differences,14(1), 53-65. doi:10.1016/0191-8869(93)90174-2 Garner, P. (2003). Child and family correlates of toddlers emotional and behavioral responses to a mishap.Infant Mental Health Journal,24(6), 580-596. doi:10.1002/imhj.10076 Matsumoto, D., Willingham, B. (2006). The thrill of victory and the agony of defeat: Spontaneous expressions of medal winners of the 2004 Athens Olympic games.Journal Of Personality And Social Psychology,91(3), 568-581. doi:10.1037/0022-3514.91.3.568 Slater, A., Bremner, J. (2003).Introduction to developmental psychology. Malden, MA: Blackwell Pub. Wikipedia,. (2015).Henry Molaison. Retrieved 8 February 2015, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Molaison 1

Wednesday, November 13, 2019

Bachs Art of the Fugue :: Art of the Fugue Essays

The silence hangs heavily in the air, creating a single moment where one can feel the weight of the absence of sound. But a lone D cuts through the stillness, a flicker of light amidst black oblivion. It is followed by eleven other notes, a simple melody, but one that will be the very core of one of the greatest musical masterpieces to ever be conceived. This twelve-note melody becomes entwined and enveloped in an intricate accretion of variations, counterpoints, and modified themes, all based on the original twelve-note motif. The entire collection of variations comprises what is considered to be Bach’s most ambitious undertaking, the Art of the Fugue, meant to serve as an intensive study of the fugue as an entity. Already a complex and multifaceted piece, Art of the Fugue gains a whole new level of depth and significance when placed inside its historical context, amidst the story of its creation and the demise of its creator. During the two hundred and fift y years of its existence, Art of the Fugue has acquired quite the reputation, as it has become enshrouded in a web of mystery and mystique. However, when we strip away these layers, the piece retains its magnitude, as the sheer mastery of the piece is enough to merit substantial renown and reverence. In the early 1740’s, Bach began work on what many consider to be his most monumental project ever, Art of the Fugue. Bach intended this piece to be an extensive study of â€Å"the art of fugal counterpoint,† exploring the possibilities and various outcomes that can be produced by manipulating a single theme (â€Å"The Art of the Fugue†). Bach was not commissioned to compose this piece, nor was the idea inspired or suggested to him by anyone else; in creating Art of the Fugue, Bach was â€Å"alone in his genius† (Herz, 4-5). The result of Bach’s endeavors was a collection of eighteen fugues, all in the same key, and all based on the same principle theme. This principle theme was modified and transformed into an astonishing number of over twenty different major variations and one hundred minor variations (â€Å"The Art of the Fugue†).

Sunday, November 10, 2019

Coral reefs

The Blue Plan et on coral reefs. Coral reefs are specialist species because they can only develop in shallow war m tropical water. Corals develop in shallow water because they depend on algae for oxygen an d algae requires direct sunlight. Because Coral reefs are specialist species, spacing is very II emitted and can be very competitive. Coral reefs biological community carries both introspecting c intention ND interspecies competition.Coral reefs are born from a single larvae and from a so Ft base they begin to harden. After a coral Is fully formed, they can expand 1 5 centimeters a year and a single coral species can expand for miles. Once a coral reef Is established It attracts multiple e species which depend on the coral reef to survive. Some species live within the coral reef, so me use the coral reefs as a home, some use the coral reefs as protection, and others either feed off the reefs algae. Without coral reefs many of these species would not exist, which Is why coral r fees playa very Important role.To start off before I watched the film, I was not aware that coral reefs were animals. I was always under the Impression that they were Just plants. They way they fed at nigh HTH for plantation Is also very Interesting. They way corals compete for space Is crazy. When a coral species gets too close to another species the aggressor on the right will eat Its rival al Eve. I was also very amazed at how much they provide for the environment and what they do to her species. In conclusion, I was fascinated with the film on coral reefs and enjoyed It. Coral reefs The Blue Plan et on coral reefs. Coral reefs are specialist species because they can only develop in shallow war m tropical water. Corals develop in shallow water because they depend on algae for oxygen an d algae requires direct sunlight. Because Coral reefs are specialist species, spacing is very II emitted and can be very competitive. Coral reefs biological community carries both introspecting c intention ND interspecies competition.Coral reefs are born from a single larvae and from a so Ft base they begin to harden. After a coral Is fully formed, they can expand 1 5 centimeters a year and a single coral species can expand for miles. Once a coral reef Is established It attracts multiple e species which depend on the coral reef to survive. Some species live within the coral reef, so me use the coral reefs as a home, some use the coral reefs as protection, and others either feed off the reefs algae. Without coral reefs many of these species would not exist, which Is why coral r fees playa very Important role.To start off before I watched the film, I was not aware that coral reefs were animals. I was always under the Impression that they were Just plants. They way they fed at nigh HTH for plantation Is also very Interesting. They way corals compete for space Is crazy. When a coral species gets too close to another species the aggressor on the right will eat Its rival al Eve. I was also very amazed at how much they provide for the environment and what they do to her species. In conclusion, I was fascinated with the film on coral reefs and enjoyed It.

Friday, November 8, 2019

Free Essays on Weblogs And Emergent Democracy

Introduction Ten years ago, if someone told you that in 10 years there would be just shy of a billion Internet users, more than 100 billion Web pages, and trillions of dollars of commerce based on a globally connected network, you might have thought the person insane. It was difficult to imagine then, as it is difficult to imagine now. Internet is developing at an escape speed, millions of thousands of virtual communities such as online games, weblogs, social networks, mailing lists, Instant messaging, regular IRC channels, etc, established .Among them, weblog boosts in recent years. Replacing the high-cost, venture-funded Web site with one that is intensely personal and built around the connectivity between people and ideas, weblogs play more and more important role in today’s society. It's no accident that weblogs are increasingly turning up as the top hits on search engines, since they trade in the same currency as the best search engineshuman intelligence, as reflected in who's already paying attention to what. As Joi said developers and proponents of the Internet have hoped to evolve the network as a platform for intelligent solutions which can help correct the imbalances and inequalities of the world. however, the Internet of today is a noisy environment with a great deal of power consolidation instead of the level, balanced democratic Internet. In 1993 Howard Rheingold wrote[2], We temporarily have access to a tool that could bring conviviality and understanding into our lives and might help revitalize the public sphere. The same tool, improperly controlled and wielded, could become an instrument of tyranny. The vision of a citizen-designed, citizen-controlled worldwide communications network is a version of technological utopianism that could be called the vision of "the electronic agora." In the original democracy, Athens, the agora was the marketplace, and moreit was where citizens met to talk, gossi... Free Essays on Weblogs And Emergent Democracy Free Essays on Weblogs And Emergent Democracy Introduction Ten years ago, if someone told you that in 10 years there would be just shy of a billion Internet users, more than 100 billion Web pages, and trillions of dollars of commerce based on a globally connected network, you might have thought the person insane. It was difficult to imagine then, as it is difficult to imagine now. Internet is developing at an escape speed, millions of thousands of virtual communities such as online games, weblogs, social networks, mailing lists, Instant messaging, regular IRC channels, etc, established .Among them, weblog boosts in recent years. Replacing the high-cost, venture-funded Web site with one that is intensely personal and built around the connectivity between people and ideas, weblogs play more and more important role in today’s society. It's no accident that weblogs are increasingly turning up as the top hits on search engines, since they trade in the same currency as the best search engineshuman intelligence, as reflected in who's already paying attention to what. As Joi said developers and proponents of the Internet have hoped to evolve the network as a platform for intelligent solutions which can help correct the imbalances and inequalities of the world. however, the Internet of today is a noisy environment with a great deal of power consolidation instead of the level, balanced democratic Internet. In 1993 Howard Rheingold wrote[2], We temporarily have access to a tool that could bring conviviality and understanding into our lives and might help revitalize the public sphere. The same tool, improperly controlled and wielded, could become an instrument of tyranny. The vision of a citizen-designed, citizen-controlled worldwide communications network is a version of technological utopianism that could be called the vision of "the electronic agora." In the original democracy, Athens, the agora was the marketplace, and moreit was where citizens met to talk, gossi...

Wednesday, November 6, 2019

How Globalization Has Affected Americans

How Globalization Has Affected Americans Globalization can be defined as increased unification of economic order at the international level through reduction of the several of blockades to international trade such as exportation cost, import rations and levy. Globalization is mainly intended at to raising goods, services and material wealth through division of labour in the world.Advertising We will write a custom essay sample on How Globalization Has Affected Americans specifically for you for only $16.05 $11/page Learn More The attainment of this important component of trade is accelerated by specialization, good international relations and competition. Globalization generally describes the procedure by which local society’s customs and economies amalgamate through trade, communication and transportation. Globalization can be determined by a mishmash of political, technological, economic, biological and socio-cultural factors. It entails multinational exchange of ideas, trendy cultures and languages through assimilation. Factors that led to globalization include increased mass movement and migration, technologies in transportation, increased economic movement, combinations of industries and international concords.A world or state that has undergone the process can be alleged to have been globalized. Globalization has greatly impacted the world today, its effect can be felt everywhere in politics, economics, finance, language, ecology, culture, religion, technology, industry and information. Contemporary Globalization Contemporary analysts correlate globalization with deterritorialization. This is whereby social activities continue to grow irrespective of geographical position of the participants. To draw this conclusion, these analysts used computers and other telecommunication technologies and examined global events. These kinds of events occur almost everywhere and anywhere in the world. They therefore defined contemporary globalization as increased possible action s among people living in different longitudinal and latitudinal location. The distance does not affect social activities that take place in the location.Advertising Looking for essay on business economics? Let's see if we can help you! Get your first paper with 15% OFF Learn More Deterritorialization exists or manifests itself in businesses that people do in different continents with the help of electronic commerce. For example, television enables people in different parts of the world to observe how terrible wars waged far away from their homes impact the world. Moreover increased technology inventions enable people to hold seminars by use of video conferencing apparatus whereby those involved are located in different geographical positions. The internet also enables people to instantaneously communicate with each other despite the long distance that separates the two. By examining the current interconnectedness of social growth which has surpassed the poli tical and geographical limits recent theorists have able been to put globalization into a clear perspective. According to their views, globalization majorly concerns the way in which distant forces and events impact regional and local endeavours (Vallas, Finlay Wharton, 188). An encyclopaedia is an example of detteritorialized social space given that it permits exchange of ideas. The book can be used by other students in different geographical areas to access the same knowledge and ideas in a particular topic. Therefore, contemporary globalization can be defined as processes which have an impact on life in local institution as a result of environmental events and decisions. This means that any social activity can influence more or less events in different geographical location. The impact and the degree of activities taking place may also vary; environmental events can either have a huge impact or less impact on different events in particular areas. This means that the degree of in terconnectedness across different frontiers can be easily predicted and regulated (Vallas, Finlay, Wharton, 190). Contemporary globalization involves social acceleration. Interconnectedness and deterritorialization is directly tied to social acceleration. For social activities in different areas to develop and reach other frontiers, the ideas must move swiftly.Advertising We will write a custom essay sample on How Globalization Has Affected Americans specifically for you for only $16.05 $11/page Learn More This will also be aided by the flow of information, capital and goods and migration of people. Without swift flow, it will be difficult to view how people are influenced by different distant affairs. High-speed technology has greatly contributed in increasing the velocity of different human events and affairs. This means that globalization is mainly a matter of extent. Most analysts conceive globalization as a long term process. This is because it is com posed of present history and present world. Globalization has led to innovations in information technology, communication and transportation. Many problems experienced in globalization are directly associated with the surfacing of technologies that are of high-speed. They lessen the magnitude of distance and boost social interconnectedness and deterritorialization. Lastly, contemporary globalization can be conceived also as a multi-pronged process. This is because social interconnectedness, social acceleration and deterritorialization can be visualized through diverse economical, cultural and political grounds of social actions. How Globalization has affected Americans Many Americans feel that globalization has both positive and negative impacts on them. Even majority of Americans view globalization as a result of positive economy, they are less positive when it comes to American jobs, business environment and living standards in general. Americans began feeling the pain of globaliz ation as early as 1980. Many people lost their jobs when most companies decided to outsource to other foreign countries. This is why most American families and communities do not embrace global market. They see it as a threat to their lives. Many American workers were greatly hit when American steel industry went global. All the steel mills in small towns were shut done which destroyed both the American economy and the living standards of those living in the regions (Vallas, Finlay, Wharton, 198). This shows that there is no benefit felt by the Americans when many companies decide to go global. Most Americans believe that outsourcing is a way in which corporations take advantage of under developed countries and the people living in the regions in order to gain profit. Most of these under developed countries greatly depend on American market. However the American economy is now under a great risk of collapse due to globalization. This is because America has lost its manufacturers to the global world and in case of economic crisis; the country will have nothing to rely on.Advertising Looking for essay on business economics? Let's see if we can help you! Get your first paper with 15% OFF Learn More Without manufacturers, America is not capable of producing goods hence American workers lose their jobs due shutdown of these manufacturing companies. Moreover globalization has a negative impact on United State’s wages for workers. This is due to job losses in the country which lead to trade deficits in most goods and services. Globalization leads to shifting of jobs which induce negative effects on trade and on average wages of the American workers. This is because importation of goods reduces jobs and it requires less education to do export. This cannot be compared to exports which increase job opportunities for the Americans and also requires high education for one to be employed. Moreover globalization leads to foreign investment which negatively affects the average wages of workers in America and American families at large. Foreign investment deteriorates the supremacy of United States workers which lowers the price of the wages they are being paid as they are considere d worthless. High level of education and highly skilled labour are required to carry out foreign investment. More workforces are directed towards foreign affiliates leaving United States with fewer jobs making more people jobless. Globalization also impacts government policies which in-turn affects United States families and communities. The government of America was forced to adopt economic policies that are contractionary to protect its global capital market. (Vallas, Finlay Wharton, 200). The government cannot inflict corporate taxes because it wants to preserve competition and inflate investments in commerce. The government is forced to decrease the amount spent on social welfare due to limitations of taxation and spending leading to poor welfare benefits to many families. Global market pressure can also force the government to control United State’s products and labour bazaar leading to job cuts and consequently poor living standards. However, globalization can have som e positive impacts in America to some extent. McKinsey which is a global institute believes that globalization has positive impacts on the lives of Americans. Globalization renders United States industries to high competition in the global world which promote productivity. Many countries believe that United States products are of high quality. They therefore purchase those products through online trading especially those who cannot reach the shops in America due to long distance. This increases sales for American companies and hence more employment opportunities for many Americans. Moreover many American families and communities gain by getting high quality goods and services. In conclusion, globalization has positively and negatively affected Americans. Many American workers have lost their jobs and have experienced a reduction in wages. However many jobs have also been created in the process in other sectors of the economy. The government has come up with policies aimed at protect ing the Americans from the effects of globalization at the same time promoting it. Vallas, Steven, Finlay, William, Wharton Amy. Sociology of work: Structures and Inequalities. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009.

Monday, November 4, 2019

Discussion Topics Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words - 9

Discussion Topics - Essay Example If not, there will be a total disaster. For instance, last summer, I volunteered in a health organization. Things there were not smooth because of the lack of communication between the manager and supervisor. The power games in the sector, according to Metoyer (2009), are based on resource and technical skill. The political roles displayed by Metoyer (2009) are sub-divided into three parts; firstly, decisional, which relies heavily on information; secondly, interpersonal, which ensures that information is well conveyed and; lastly, informational, which is the back-bone of all these roles and managerial tasks. All these need to be harmonized in the best way possible to have an effective team and ensure no conflicts occur (Johnson, 2008). In case of a conflict, it needs to be effectively resolved to avoid future reoccurrences. Conflicts are solved depending on the nature of the problem (Metoyer, 2009). The manager plays an important role to harmonize the two parties in conflict. A good manager resolves conflicts when perceived in the early stages to avoid the situation to escalate further (Johnson, 2008). The manager should resolve the conflict, appoint a unit to address employee issues and develop a system of encouragement by offering rewards to individuals who do an outstanding job. This, in turn, will initiate team building, as well as create healthy competition among the

Friday, November 1, 2019

Transitioning From Closed to Open Systems Research Paper

Transitioning From Closed to Open Systems - Research Paper Example Apparently, the nursing sector has an open and closed system of solving problems. In the open system a nursing facility is at freewill to look for external help from other facilities and organizations. However, closed system perspectives state that a facility will only seek solutions from the internal environment. The latter limits the number of solutions to the existing problems. In recent times, many health facilities have experienced a shortage in the number of nurses that should attend to patients. Nurses are considered vital in ensuring all the patients are recuperating at a desirable rate. This is owing to the basic services that are offered by the nurses which include exercises, administering drugs, feeding and cleaning of patients. Without adequacy in such services patients will not recover in good time. Therefore, shortage of nurses in the nursing sector is a blow as the patients rarely get the services they need (Smith, 2010). One prevalent issue is the lack of sufficient number of nurses, especially in the ICU. Most patients who are taken to the ICU require intensive care that involves various delicate services. Acceptable standards state that there should be at least one nurse taking care of two patients in the ICU. Nevertheless, in most health facilities this is a rare ratio. Most of the nurses have to offer their services to at least three patie nts, which obviously overworks the nurses leading to poor service delivery. In bizarre incidents a single nurse is forced to serve four patients in the ICU. This highly degrades the quality of services offered across the nursing profession. As such, it jeopardizes the health and safety of the patients in the ICU as well as the reputation of particular health institutions. Shortage of nurses is a prevalent problem that risks the lives of patients. There are various ways of solving the problem though. However, it would be a hard task to use a closed

Wednesday, October 30, 2019

Peter singer and john arthur Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2250 words

Peter singer and john arthur - Essay Example This may result in getting muddy and the clothes wet, but the fact that it has saved a life is justification enough.. Singer uses the argument that mass starvation and deaths due to hunger and suffering is preventable only if the affluent governments and the well off citizens donated more. Currently, rich governments and rich citizens are not under any moral obligation to help starving people and this is not ethically justified. Singer says that our morality needs to change along with our lifestyle and only then can we become more ethical people. People tend to look after their family and dear ones since they are bound by blood ties an they help someone nearby since the victims are within reach. According to Singer, one must be rid of this fallacy and be ready to help other, irrespective of the distances. Singer (1972) believes that the affluent and people should contribute to help the poor and the starving. According to Singer, the rich and affluent do not respond to famine situations in countries such as Bangladesh where over nine million people were starving because of a failing government, cyclone and failing harvests. According to the author, people do not donate liberally to such causes nor do they take any extra efforts to increase the awareness in their government to take any action. As per the argument that Singer uses, countries continue to fritter away their money on useless expenses such as the Concorde project that would cost 440 million GBP. Even individuals do not care to donate any sizeable amount to help the starving for whom the donation is a difference between life and death. Singer points out that every day, hundreds of people die of starvation in the world and people and governments of affluent nations do not care to help the people and stop people from being kil led. He relates this apathy to a type of murder and that people have come to take human life for granted. Singer

Monday, October 28, 2019

Meaning of life Human Essay Example for Free

Meaning of life Human Essay Youth is not a time of life; it is a state of mind; it is not a matter of rosy cheeks, red lips and supple knees; it is a matter of the will, a quality of the imagination, a vigor of the emotions; it is the freshness of the deep springs of life. Youth means a temperamental predominance of courage over timidity, of the appetite for adventure over the love of ease. This often exists in a man of 60 more than a boy of 20. Nobody grows old merely by a number of years. We grow old by deserting our ideals. Years may wrinkle the skin, but to give up enthusiasm wrinkles the soul. Worry, fear, self-distrust bows the heart and turns the spirit back to dust. Whether 60 or 16, there is in every human being’s heart the lure of wonders, the unfailing appetite for what’s next and the joy of the game of living. In the center of your heart and my heart, there is a wireless station; so long as it receives messages of beauty, hope, courage and power from man and from the infinite, so long as you are young. When your aerials are down, and your spirit is covered with snows of cynicism and the ice of pessimism, then you’ve grown old, even at 20; but as long as your aerials are up, to catch waves of optimism, there’s hope you may die young at 80.  · : Three Days to See(Excerpts) ( ) Three Days to See All of us have read thrilling stories in which the hero had only a limited and specified time to live. Sometimes it was as long as a year, sometimes as short as 24 hours. But always we were interested in discovering just how the doomed hero chose to spend his last days or his last hours. I speak, of course, of free men who have a choice, not condemned criminals whose sphere of activities is strictly delimited. Such stories set us thinking, wondering what we should do under similar circumstances. What events, what experiences, what associations should we crowd into those last hours as mortal beings, what regrets? Sometimes I have thought it would be an excellent rule to live each day as if we should die tomorrow. Such an attitude would emphasize sharply the values of life. We should live each day with gentleness, vigor and a keenness of appreciation which are often lost when time stretches before us in the constant panorama of more days and months and years to come. There are those, of course, who would adopt the Epicurean motto of â€Å"Eat, drink, and be merry†. But most people would be chastened by the certainty of impending death. In stories the doomed hero is usually saved at the last minute by some stroke of fortune, but almost always his sense of values is changed. He becomes more appreciative of the meaning of life and its permanent spiritual values. It has often been noted that those who live, or have lived, in the shadow of death bring a mellow sweetness to everything they do. Most of us, however, take life for granted. We know that one day we must die, but usually we picture that day as far in the future. When we are in buoyant health, death is all but unimaginable. We seldom think of it. The days stretch out in an endless vista. So we go about our petty tasks, hardly aware of our listless attitude toward life. The same lethargy, I am afraid, characterizes the use of all our faculties and senses. Only the deaf appreciate hearing, only the blind realize the manifold blessings that lie in sight. Particularly does this observation apply to those who have lost sight and hearing in adult life. But those who have never suffered impairment of sight or hearing seldom make the fullest use of these blessed faculties. Their eyes and ears take in all sights and sounds hazily, without concentration and with little appreciation. It is the same old story of not being grateful for what we have until we lose it, of not being conscious of health until we are ill. I have often thought it would be a blessing if each human being were stricken blind and deaf for a few days at some time during his early adult life. Darkness would make him more appreciative of sight; silence would teach him the joys of sound.  · :Companionship of Books ( ) Companionship of Books A man may usually be known by the books he reads as well as by the company he keeps; for there is a companionship of books as well as of men; and one should always live in the best company, whether it be of books or of men. A good book may be among the best of friends. It is the same today that it always was, and it will never change. It is the most patient and cheerful of companions. It does not turn its back upon us in times of adversity or distress. It always receives us with the same kindness; amusing and instructing us in youth, and comforting and consoling us in age. Men often discover their affinity to each other by the mutual love they have for a book just as two persons sometimes discover a friend by the admiration which both entertain for a third. There is an old proverb, ‘Love me, love my dog. † But there is more wisdom in this:† Love me, love my book. † The book is a truer and higher bond of union. Men can think, feel, and sympathize with each other through their favorite author. They live in him together, and he in them. A good book is often the best urn of a life enshrining the best that life could think out; for the world of a man’s life is, for the most part, but the world of his thoughts. Thus the best books are treasuries of good words, the golden thoughts, which, remembered and cherished, become our constant companions and comforters. Books possess an essence of immortality. They are by far the most lasting products of human effort. Temples and statues decay, but books survive. Time is of no account with great thoughts, which are as fresh today as when they first passed through their author’s minds, ages ago. What was then said and thought still speaks to us as vividly as ever from the printed page. The only effect of time have been to sift out the bad products; for nothing in literature can long survive e but what is really good. Books introduce us into the best society; they bring us into the presence of the greatest minds that have ever lived. We hear what they said and did; we see the as if they were really alive; we sympathize with them, enjoy with them, grieve with them; their experience becomes ours, and we feel as if we were in a measure actors with them in the scenes which they describe. The great and good do not die, even in this world. Embalmed in books, their spirits walk abroad. The book is a living voice. It is an intellect to which on still listens.  · :If I Rest,I Rust , If I Rest, I Rust The significant inscription found on an old keyâ€Å"If I rest, I rust†would be an excellent motto for those who are afflicted with the slightest bit of idleness. Even the most industrious person might adopt it with advantage to serve as a reminder that, if one allows his faculties to rest, like the iron in the unused key, they will soon show signs of rust and, ultimately, cannot do the work required of them. Those who would attain the heights reached and kept by great men must keep their faculties polished by constant use, so that they may unlock the doors of knowledge, the gate that guard the entrances to the professions, to science, art, literature, agricultureevery department of human endeavor. Industry keeps bright the key that opens the treasury of achievement. If Hugh Miller, after toiling all day in a quarry, had devoted his evenings to rest and recreation, he would never have become a famous geologist. The celebrated mathematician, Edmund Stone, would never have published a mathematical dictionary, never have found the key to science of mathematics, if he had given his spare moments to idleness, had the little Scotch lad, Ferguson, allowed the busy brain to go to sleep while he tended sheep on the hillside instead of calculating the position of the stars by a string of beads, he would never have become a famous astronomer. Labor vanquishes allnot inconstant, spasmodic, or ill-directed labor; but faithful, unremitting, daily effort toward a well-directed purpose. Just as truly as eternal vigilance is the price of liberty, so is eternal industry the price of noble and enduring success.  · :Ambition Ambition It is not difficult to imagine a world short of ambition. It would probably be a kinder world: with out demands, without abrasions, without disappointments. People would have time for reflection. Such work as they did would not be for themselves but for the collectivity. Competition would never enter in. conflict would be eliminated, tension become a thing of the past. The stress of creation would be at an end. Art would no longer be troubling, but purely celebratory in its functions. Longevity would be increased, for fewer people would die of heart attack or stroke caused by tumultuous endeavor. Anxiety would be extinct. Time would stretch on and on, with ambition long departed from the human heart. Ah, how unrelieved boring life would be! There is a strong view that holds that success is a myth, and ambition therefore a sham. Does this mean that success does not really exist? That achievement is at bottom empty? That the efforts of men and women are of no significance alongside the force of movements and events now not all success, obviously, is worth esteeming, nor all ambition worth cultivating. Which are and which are not is something one soon enough learns on one’s own. But even the most cynical secretly admit that success exists; that achievement counts for a great deal; and that the true myth is that the actions of men and women are useless. To believe otherwise is to take on a point of view that is likely to be deranging. It is, in its implications, to remove all motives for competence, interest in attainment, and regard for posterity. We do not choose to be born. We do not choose our parents. We do not choose our historical epoch, the country of our birth, or the immediate circumstances of our upbringing. We do not, most of us, choose to die; nor do we choose the time or conditions of our death. But within all this realm of choicelessness, we do choose how we shall live: courageously or in cowardice, honorably or dishonorably, with purpose or in drift. We decide what is important and what is trivial in life. We decide that what makes us significant is either what we do or what we refuse to do. But no matter how indifferent the universe may be to our choices and decisions, these choices and decisions are ours to make. We decide. We choose. And as we decide and choose, so are our lives formed. In the end, forming our own destiny is what ambition is about.  · :What I have Lived for What I Have Lived For Three passions, simple but overwhelmingly strong, have governed my life: the longing for love, the search for knowledge, and unbearable pity for the suffering of mankind. These passions, like great winds, have blown me hither and thither, in a wayward course, over a deep ocean of anguish, reaching to the very verge of despair. I have sought love, first, because it brings ecstasyecstasy so great that I would often have sacrificed all the rest of my life for a few hours for this joy. I have sought it, next, because it relieves lonelinessthat terrible loneliness in which one shivering consciousness looks over the rim of the world into the cold unfathomable lifeless abyss. I have sought it, finally, because in the union of love I have seen, in a mystic miniature, the prefiguring vision of the heaven that saints and poets have imagined. This is what I sought, and though it might seem too good for human life, this is whatat lastI have found. With equal passion I have sought knowledge. I have wished to understand the hearts of men. I have wished to know why the stars shine. And I have tried to apprehend the Pythagorean power by which number holds sway above the flux. A little of this, but not much, I have achieved. Love and knowledge, so far as they were possible, led upward toward the heavens. But always it brought me back to earth. Echoes of cries of pain reverberate in my heart. Children in famine, victims tortured by oppressors, helpless old people a hated burden to their sons, and the whole world of loneliness, poverty, and pain make a mockery of what human life should be. I long to alleviate the evil, but I cannot, and I too suffer. This has been my life. I have found it worth living, and would gladly live it again if the chance were offered me.  · :When Love Beckons You When Love Beckons You When love beckons to you, follow him, though his ways are hard and steep. And when his wings enfold you, yield to him, though the sword hidden among his pinions may wound you. And when he speaks to you, believe in him, though his voice may shatter your dreams as the north wind lays waste the garden. For even as love crowns you so shall he crucify you. Even as he is for your growth so is he for your pruning. Even as he ascends to your height and caresses your tenderest branches that quiver in the sun, so shall he descend to our roots and shake them in their clinging to the earth. But if, in your fear, you would seek only love’s peace and love’s pleasure, then it is better for you that you cover your nakedness and pass out of love’s threshing-floor, into the seasonless world where you shall laugh, but not all of your laughter, and weep, but not all of your tears. Love gives naught but it self and takes naught but from itself. Love possesses not, nor would it be possessed, for love is sufficient unto love. Love has no other desire but to fulfill itself. But if you love and must have desires, let these be your desires: To melt and be like a running brook that sings its melody to the night. To know the pain of too much tenderness. To be wounded by your own understanding of love; And to bleed willingly and joyfully. To wake at dawn with a winged heart and give thanks for another day of loving; To rest at the noon hour and meditate love’s ecstasy; To return home at eventide with gratitude; And then to sleep with a payer for the beloved in your heart and a song of praise upon your lips.  · :The Road to Success The Road to Success It is well that young men should begin at the beginning and occupy the most subordinate positions. Many of the leading businessmen of Pittsburgh had a serious responsibility thrust upon them at the very threshold of their career. They were introduced to the broom, and spent the first hours of their business lives sweeping out the office. I notice we have janitors and janitresses now in offices, and our young men unfortunately miss that salutary branch of business education. But if by chance the professional sweeper is absent any morning, the boy who has the genius of the future partner in him will not hesitate to try his hand at the broom. It does not hurt the newest comer to sweep out the office if necessary. I was one of those sweepers myself. Assuming that you have all obtained employment and are fairly started, my advice to you is â€Å"aim high†. I would not give a fig for the young man who does not already see himself the partner or the head of an important firm. Do not rest content for a moment in your thoughts as head clerk, or foreman, or general manager in any concern, no matter how extensive. Say to yourself, â€Å"My place is at the top. † Be king in your dreams. And here is the prime condition of success, the great secret: concentrate your energy, thought, and capital exclusively upon the business in which you are engaged. Having begun in one line, resolve to fight it out on that line, to lead in it, adopt every improvement, have the best machinery, and know the most about it. The concerns which fail are those which have scattered their capital, which means that they have scattered their brains also. They have investments in this, or that, or the other, here there, and everywhere. â€Å"Don’t put all your eggs in one basket. † is all wrong. I tell you to â€Å"put all your eggs in one basket, and then watch that basket. † Look round you and take notice, men who do that not often fail. It is easy to watch and carry the one basket. It is trying to carry too many baskets that breaks most eggs in this country. He who carries three baskets must put one on his head, which is apt to tumble and trip him up. One fault of the American businessman is lack of concentration. To summarize what I have said: aim for the highest; never enter a bar room; do not touch liquor, or if at all only at meals; never speculate; never indorse beyond your surplus cash fund; make the firm’s interest yours; break orders always to save owners; concentrate; put all your eggs in one basket, and watch that basket; expenditure always within revenue; lastly, be not impatient, for as Emerson says, â€Å"no one can cheat you out of ultimate success but yourselves. †  · :On Meeting the Celebrated On Meeting the Celebrated I have always wondered at the passion many people have to meet the celebrated. The prestige you acquire by being able to tell your friends that you know famous men proves only that you are yourself of small account. The celebrated develop a technique to deal with the persons they come across. They show the world a mask, often an impressive on, but take care to conceal their real selves. They play the part that is expected from them, and with practice learn to play it very well, but you are stupid if you think that this public performance of theirs corresponds with the man within. I have been attached, deeply attached, to a few people; but I have been interested in men in general not for their own sakes, but for the sake of my work. I have not, as Kant enjoined, regarded each man as an end in himself, but as material that might be useful to me as a writer. I have been more concerned with the obscure than with the famous. They are more often themselves. They have had no need to create a figure to protect themselves from the world or to impress it. Their idiosyncrasies have had more chance to develop in the limited circle of their activity, and since they have never been in the public eye it has never occurred to them that they have anything to conceal. They display their oddities because it has never struck them that they are odd. And after all it is with the common run of men that we writers have to deal; kings, dictators, commercial magnates are from our point of view very unsatisfactory. To write about them is a venture that has often tempted writers, but the failure that has attended their efforts shows that such beings are too exceptional to form a proper ground for a work of art. They cannot be made real. The ordinary is the writer’s richer field. Its unexpectedness, its singularity, its infinite variety afford unending material. The great man is too often all of a piece; it is the little man that is a bundle of contradictory elements. He is inexhaustible. You never come to the end of the surprises he has in store for you. For my part I would much sooner spend a month on a desert island with a veterinary surgeon than with a prime minister.  · :The 50-Percent Theory of Life The 50-Percent Theory of Life I believe in the 50-percent theory. Half the time things are better than normal; the other half, they re worse. I believe life is a pendulum swing. It takes time and experience to understand what normal is, and that gives me the perspective to deal with the surprises of the future. Let’s benchmark the parameters: yes, I will die. I’ve dealt with the deaths of both parents, a best friend, a beloved boss and cherished pets. Some of these deaths have been violent, before my eyes, or slow and agonizing. Bad stuff, and it belongs at the bottom of the scale. Then there are those high points: romance and marriage to the right person; having a child and doing those Dad things like coaching my son’s baseball team, paddling around the creek in the boat while he’s swimming with the dogs, discovering his compassion so deep it manifests even in his kindness to snails, his imagination so vivid he builds a spaceship from a scattered pile of Legos. But there is a vast meadow of life in the middle, where the bad and the good flip-flop acrobatically. This is what convinces me to believe in the 50-percent theory. One spring I planted corn too early in a bottomland so flood-prone that neighbors laughed. I felt chagrined at the wasted effort. Summer turned brutalthe worst heat wave and drought in my lifetime. The air-conditioned died; the well went dry; the marriage ended; the job lost; the money gone. I was living lyrics from a country tunemusic I loathed. Only a surging Kansas City Royals team buoyed my spirits. Looking back on that horrible summer, I soon understood that all succeeding good things merely offset the bad. Worse than normal wouldn’t last long. I am owed and savor the halcyon times. The reinvigorate me for the next nasty surprise and offer assurance that can thrive. The 50-percent theory even helps me see hope beyond my Royals’ recent slump, a field of struggling rookies sown so that some year soon we can reap an October harvest. For that on blistering summer, the ground moisture was just right, planting early allowed pollination before heat withered the tops, and the lack of rain spared the standing corn from floods. That winter my crib overflowed with cornfat, healthy three-to-a-stalk ears filled with kernels from heel to tipwhile my neighbors’ fields yielded only brown, empty husks. Although plantings past may have fallen below the 50-percent expectation, and they probably will again in the future, I am still sustained by the crop that flourishes during the drought.  · :What is Your Recovery Rate? What is Your Recovery Rate? What is your recovery rate? How long does it take you to recover from actions and behaviors that upset you? Minutes? Hours? Days? Weeks? The longer it takes you to recover, the more influence that incident has on your actions, and the less able you are to perform to your personal best. In a nutshell, the longer it takes you to recover, the weaker you are and the poorer your performance. You are well aware that you need to exercise to keep the body fit and, no doubt, accept that a reasonable measure of health is the speed in which your heart and respiratory system recovers after exercise. Likewise the faster you let go of an issue that upsets you, the faster you return to an equilibrium, the healthier you will be. The best example of this behavior is found with professional sportspeople. They know that the faster they can forget an incident or missd opportunity and get on with the game, the better their performance. In fact, most measure the time it takes them to overcome and forget an incident in a game and most reckon a recovery rate of 30 seconds is too long! Imagine yourself to be an actor in a play on the stage. Your aim is to play your part to the best of your ability. You have been given a script and at the end of each sentence is a ful stop. Each time you get to the end of the sentence you start a new one and although the next sentence is related to the last it is not affected by it. Your job is to deliver each sentence to the best of your ability. Don’t live your life in the past! Learn to live in the present, to overcome the past. Stop the past from influencing your daily life. Don’t allow thoughts of the past to reduce your personal best. Stop the past from interfering with your life. Learn to recover quickly. Remember: Rome wasn’t built in a day. Reflect on your recovery rate each day. Every day before you go to bed, look at your progress. Don’t lie in bed saying to you, â€Å"I did that wrong. † â€Å"I should have done better there. † No. look at your day and note when you made an effort to place a full stop after an incident. This is a success. You are taking control of your life. Remember this is a step by step process. This is not a make-over. You are undertaking real change here. Your aim: reduce the time spent in recovery. The way forward? Live in the present. Not in the precedent.  · :Clear Your Mental Space Clear Your Mental Space Think about the last time you felt a negative emotionlike stress, anger, or frustration. What was going through your mind as you were going through that negativity? Was your mind cluttered with thoughts? Or was it paralyzed, unable to think? The next time you find yourself in the middle of a very stressful time, or you feel angry or frustrated, stop. Yes, that’s right, stop. Whatever you’re doing, stop and sit for one minute. While you’re sitting there, completely immerse yourself in the negative emotion. Allow that emotion to consume you. Allow yourself one minute to truly feel that emotion. Don’t cheat yourself here. Take the entire minutebut only one minuteto do nothing else but feel that emotion. When the minute is over, ask yourself, â€Å"Am I wiling to keep holding on to this negative emotion as I go through the rest of the day? † Once you’ve allowed yourself to be totally immersed in the emotion and really fell it, you will be surprised to find that the emotion clears rather quickly. If you feel you need to hold on to the emotion for a little longer, that is OK. Allow yourself another minute to feel the emotion. When you feel you’ve had enough of the emotion, ask yourself if you’re willing to carry that negativity with you for the rest of the day. If not, take a deep breath. As you exhale, release all that negativity with your breath. This exercise seems simplealmost too simple. But, it is very effective. By allowing that negative emotion the space to be truly felt, you are dealing with the emotion rather than stuffing it down and trying not to feel it. You are actually taking away the power of the emotion by giving it the space and attention it needs. When you immerse yourself in the emotion, and realize that it is only emotion, it loses its control. You can clear your head and proceed with your task. Try it. Next time you’re in the middle of a negative emotion, give yourself the space to feel the emotion and see what happens. Keep a piece of paper with you that says the following: Stop. Immerse for one minute. Do I want to keep this negativity? Breath deep, exhale, release. Move on! This will remind you of the steps to the process. Remember; take the time you need to really immerse yourself in the emotion. Then, when you feel you’ve felt it enough, release itreally let go of it. You will be surprised at how quickly you can move on from a negative situation and get to what you really want to do!  · :Be Happy Be Happy! â€Å"The days that make us happy make us wise. †-John Masefield when I first read this line by England’s Poet Laureate, it startled me. What did Masefield mean? Without thinking about it much, I had always assumed that the opposite was true. But his sober assurance was arresting. I could not forget it. Finally, I seemed to grasp his meaning and realized that here was a profound observation. The wisdom that happiness makes possible lies in clear perception, not fogged by anxiety nor dimmed by despair and boredom, and without the blind spots caused by fear. Active happinessnot mere satisfaction or contentment often comes suddenly, like an April shower or the unfolding of a bud. Then you discover what kind of wisdom has accompanied it. The grass is greener; bird songs are sweeter; the shortcomings of your friends are more understandable and more forgivable. Happiness is like a pair of eyeglasses correcting your spiritual vision. Nor are the insights of happiness limited to what is near around you. Unhappy, with your thoughts turned in upon your emotional woes, your vision is cut short as though by a wall. Happy, the wall crumbles. The long vista is there for the seeing. The ground at your feet, the world about you-people, thoughts, emotions, pressuresare now fitted into the larger scene. Everything assumes a fairer proportion. And here is the beginning of wisdom.  · :The Goodness of life The Goodness of Life Though there is much to be concerned about, there is far, far more for which to be thankful. Though life’s goodness can at times be overshadowed, it is never outweighed. For every single act that is senselessly destructive, there are thousands more small, quiet acts of love, kindness and compassion. For every person who seeks to hurt, there are many, many more who devote their lives to helping and to healing. There is goodness to life that cannot be denied. In the most magnificent vistas and in the smallest details, look closely, for that goodness always comes shining through. There si no limit to the goodness of life. It grows more abundant with each new encounter. The more you experience and appreciate the goodness of life, the more there is to be lived. Even when the cold winds blow and the world seems to be cov ered in foggy shadows, the goodness of life lives on. Open your eyes, open your heart, and you will see that goodness is everywhere. Though the goodness of life seems at times to suffer setbacks, it always endures. For in the darkest moment it becomes vividly clear that life is a priceless treasure. And so the goodness of life is made even stronger by the very things that would oppose it. Time and time again when you feared it was gone forever you found that the goodness of life was really only a moment away. Around the next corner, inside every moment, the goodness of life is there to surprise and delight you. Take a moment to let the goodness of life touch your spirit and calm your thoughts. Then, share your good fortune with another. For the goodness of life grows more and more magnificent each time it is given away. Though the problems constantly scream for attention and the conflicts appear to rage ever stronger, the goodness of life grows stronger still, quietly, peacefully, with more purpose and meaning than ever before.  · :Facing the Enemies Within Facing the Enemies Within We are not born with courage, but neither are we born with fear. Maybe some of our fears are brought on by your own experiences, by what someone has told you, by what you’ve read in the papers. Some fears are valid, like walking alone in a bad part of town at two o’clock in the morning. But once you learn to avoid that situation, you won’t need to live in fear of it. Fears, even the most basic ones, can totally destroy our ambitions. Fear can destroy fortunes. Fear can destroy relationships. Fear, if left unchecked, can destroy our lives. Fear is one of the many enemies lurking inside us. Let me tell you about five of the other enemies we face from within. The first enemy that you’ve got to destroy before it destroys you is indifference. What a tragic disease this is! â€Å"Ho-hum, let it slide. I’ll just drift along. † Here’s one problem with drifting: you can’t drift your way to the to of the mountain. The second enemy we face is indecision. Indecision is the thief of opportunity and enterprise. It will steal your chances for a better future. Take a sword to this enemy. The third enemy inside is doubt. Sure, there’s room for healthy skepticism. You can’t believe everything. But you also can’t let doubt take over. Many people doubt the past, doubt the future, doubt each other, doubt the government, doubt the possibilities nad doubt the opportunities. Worse of all, they doubt themselves. I’m telling you, doubt will destroy your life and your chances of success. It will empty both your bank account and your heart. Doubt is an enemy. Go after it. Get rid of it. The fourth enemy within is worry. We’ve all got to worry some. Just don’t let conquer you. Instead, let it alarm you. Worry can be useful. If you step off the curb in New York City and a taxi is coming, you’ve.