Eleanor Roosevelt Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 5000 words

Eleanor Roosevelt - Essay Example She was a strong advocate for civil rights before it was a popular approach and struggled to improve the conditions of working women. On an international scale, she helped to form Freedom House, an organization dedicated to research and study of democracy around the world. She was also an early supporter of the United Nations, including forming a national association in America to help support the effort. As a result of her efforts, Roosevelt was appointed as a delegate to the UN General Assembly from 1945 to 1952 by then President Harry S. Truman, a position that was confirmed by the US Senate. As a delegate, she introduced and won approval for the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. In her later years, Roosevelt helped start the second-wave feminism as chairman of President Kennedy’s Commission on the Status of Women. All of these things contributed to her reputation as one of the most admired women of the 20th century. To gain a full understanding of Eleanor Rooseveltâ⠂¬â„¢s impact on life in America and in the world as we know it today, it is necessary to first understand her biography as a means of understanding her character. This leads to an understanding of how and why she changed the position of First Lady from its traditional conception to have the effects she had on future politics. This will include an examination into some of her more important activities, such as those mentioned above. It may not be evident from a glimpse of her lifetime activities and works, but Anna Eleanor Roosevelt was actually raised in a very traditionally Victorian household in which women were held to a rigid standard of behavior and education. She was born on October 11, 1884 as the oldest child of very wealthy socialite parents. â€Å"Her parents lived in style and comfort on their ample inheritances. They owned a townhouse staffed with servants on a fashionable Manhattan street. Anna had her own horse and

Foreign Intelligence Organization Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Foreign Intelligence Organization - Essay Example In the past, these countries focused their efforts on getting intelligence concerning the United States Military capabilities, as well as military research and development activities. Today, these nations also collect technical, scientific, proprietary and economic information. The information collected is aimed at promoting the national welfare of these nations and also acquiring and maintaining highly developed military systems. These countries have the ability of collecting U.S. intelligence information using Human Intelligence (HUMINT), Signal Intelligence (SIGINT), and by analyzing open source material.1 Other countries also have the ability to collect imagery products that can be used to collect Image Intelligence (IMINT). It is essential to note that only the Russian Federation gathers space-borne intelligence. 1The People’s Republic of China also has this ability though to a rather limited extent. Therefore, Russia remains to be the nation that poses the most significa nt intelligence collection threat to the U.S. Russia has immense intelligence capability that was inherited from former Soviet Union. A large proportion of Russia’s intelligence collection infrastructure is focused on collecting information relating to the U.S. The Russian Federation uses SIGINT, HUMINT, IMINT, MASINT, and open source analysis. This is used to develop intelligence products for military planners and Russian political leaders. According to the federal Bureau of Investigation, Russian intelligence operations have increased in sophistication, scope, and number.2 They are likely to remain at this high level for the near future. The bodies legally responsible for foreign intelligence functions in Russia include the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR), the Main Intelligence Directorate of General Staff (GRU) and the Federal Agency for Government Communications and Information (FAPSI). SVR mainly collects scientific, political, technical and economic informati on. Majority of case officers working for SVR operate from Russian Embassies and consulates under diplomatic cover. Though alleged that SVR personnel have been reduced by 30%, active collection operations continue, and suspicion that SVR influences operations, and conduct propaganda is rife.2 The GRU mainly provides strategic and tactical intelligence for the Russian Military.2 They collect warning intelligence, important information on military capabilities of likely adversaries, and data on superior military technologies. Their collection techniques include HUMINT, both overt and clandestine, open sources, satellite imagery reconnaissance, SIGINT from ships, ground stations aircrafts and satellites. Collection activities that significantly threaten U.S interests are those under the Space Intelligence Directorate and First Deputy Chief.3 The Space Intelligence Directorate, in conjunction with the Fleet Intelligence Direction, manages Russia’s space reconnaissance program. Th e SDI operates many research institutes, its own cosmodromes, and a centralized computer processing facility. FAPSI’s main role is communications security for Russia.2 Russia continues to place emphasis on HUMINT.3 This is because of the information they gathered from the past. It is

The Humor In Friends

The Humor In Friends Friends is the famous sitcom in the United States which was played at the NBC television since the 1990s. After entering the Chinese film market, The TV sitcom also have given Chinas TV viewers a new feeling, and attracted many fans of it. As one of the most popular sitcoms in the United States, Friends has been successfully completed 10 seasons. And more than 60 countries have its loyal audience. But, when the film was playing, I fount that most of the people seemed by no means to had laughed as might as perhaps had been anticipated in canned laughter. To explore the reason is people are unable to understand the humor of it. So they dont laugh. Therefore, this essay attempts to explore humor of Friends through the use of relevant theory and research. Definition and Classification of Humor Humor derived from the Latin whose original meaning is body fluid. And the extensive use of humorous is attribute to the British playwright whose name is Ben Jonson. The Every Man in His Humor which is created by him is remarkable for humor. Humor is a form of languages which through the art of processing and it is artistic language. Definition of Humor French writer named Degebola had given a definition of humor: Humor is an element in peoples laugh. Humor is what moves us. Humor is a smile in the eyes of wise man. This is a happy idea of an unsophisticated person. In fact, it is very hard to give a definition of humor for it belongs to a genius and inspiration. Humor will use the glows of wisdom to rout of the dark of life, and create the beaming smile. Lenin had said that: Humor is a beautiful, healthy quality. Maybe this is why some people have sense of humor as a manifestation of a persons maturity. So humor is the great wisdom, which is the ridicule and naughty after apperceive life. And this will be my definition of humor. Common Classification of Humor From the form of points, humor mainly including these types as followed: Transform Humor means to agree with this point firstly, and then worsened, and point out the different point of view. This humor can make both sides of this antagonism freed from the confrontation, and create a relaxed atmosphere. Lets take an example: Huxley actively supported and promoted Darwins theory of evolution, for which he had been cursed as Darwins bulldog by the church at that time. A debate, when Huxley went into the meeting, the religious leaders and some people who against the theory of evolution were shouting: Be careful, Darwins bulldog comes again! Huxley wasnt angry, and then he said to the detractors contemptuously: Yes, you are right. But the hounds are the most fearsome things of thieves! As a result, the attackers got much unhappiness, but Huxley and his supporters kept calm and happy. The character of Transform Humor is the objection after agreement, and it clarify their own point of view unexpectedly with the purpose to enable readers to understand thats witty sense of humor. Self-mockery Humor means that others tease you intentionally or unintentionally to send you into a dilemma, and then you can use the Self-mockery Humor to disengage yourself from adversity decently. Rockefeller who was the U.S. oil magnate was a little bald. Once at a public occasion, one of his opponents in a sarcastic tone said to him: Sir, you have made combing into an art form, because you have made an arrangement for every hair of your head! With a wry smile, Rockefeller said: In the past years, they are just a number. But now they both have their own names. Everybody got into laugh, and Rockefeller was also able to escape the predicament quickly. A real sense of humor is inseparable from self-involvement, which gives the humor to others, but also to themselves. People who lack of self-confidence can not humor himself. Therefore, the Self-mockery Humor is more need for self-confidence. Distortion Humor means the listener dont understand the meaning of each other, but apprehend from another aspect intentionally. And bring a sense of humor to make people laugh. Lets take an example to explain. Teacher: I hope all of students parents will come to attend on the parent-teacher meeting this Friday. Student: Excuse me, sir. Which should we call to take part in, farther or mother? Teacher: Its not important. Ask the person who is the head of a household to come. Student: That had to be me. The object that the teacher pointed was parents. But the student interpreted it as member of family. So, of course, he included himself. Distortion Humor is often expressed in the form of pun, similar sound and ambiguity. Sophistry Humor. Hegel once discussed sophistry like this: Sophistry usually means to make a false truth very nice, which like the real thing. Sophistry Humor means to make humor in a sophistic way. Of course, it should make sophistry emotional and extreme. Because it is the only way to make sophistry integrates with humor. Emotionality means to inject joking and ridicule factors into Sophistry. Extreme can make a person know it is false immediately, which avoid deceptive and damaging. Sophistry Humor is not the same as Sophistry Logic. Sophistry Humor let you see the flaws deliberately, and realize the humor in it. For example: The teacher discovered that Peter was sleeping in the class. Then she asked: Why do you sleep at class, Peter? Peter: Im not sleeping. Teacher: Why do you close your eyes? Peter: Teacher, I was reciting the concept. Teacher: Why do you nod you head all the time? Peter: Because your class is very nice, sir. Teacher: Why do you drool? Peter: Because it is full of relish in your class. Peter was sleeping in the class, but he refused to acknowledge. The words that he answered the teacher were all false, which like Hegel said: It is very nice, and like the real thing. The Humor Used in Friends Universal Humor means the way of humor which make different cognitive environment of readers understand easily. For example: Phoebe: Yeah. We dont speak. Shes like this high-powered ¼Ã…’driven career type. Chandler: What does she do? Phoebe: Shes a waitress. (Season 1:2) In this dialog the waitress does not like her twin sister clearly. First, the description of her sister makes the audience think of a high occupation immediately. But as the dialogue progresses, the audience know she is a waitress. Two kinds of script opposition (high / low status) make them have to understand the text again, and this processing has also got more contextual effects. Cultural Humor. Such humorous use the elements of knowledge which should be understood under a particular cultural context. In sitcom, it is often to use some movie stars or the name of a classic novel to get humorous effects. Therefore, the focus of such a translation is that we must notice whether the audience can understand the original knowledge and do some necessary adjustments before translation. Or it must result in failure. For example: Monica: Oh wait ¼Ã…’you know what ¼Ã…’I got it ¼Ã…’I got it ¼Ã…’pretend like you just woke up ¼Ã…’okay ¼Ã…’that will throw her off. Be sleepy. Rachel: Yes ¼Ã…’and grumpy. Chandler: What are you ¼Ã…’stop naming dwarves! ¼Ã‹â€ Season3:4 ¼Ã¢â‚¬ ° Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs is well-known story in the West. Sleepy and Grumpy are two of the small dwarfs names. Chandlers reply gives an additional contextual effect to the recipients. But in China, the more familiar calling is the first dwarf, the second dwarf, and the third And the Chinese audiences are unable to obtain the names of the dwarfs. The translation make interpreter pay more efforts, but received little of the contextual effects. So it is failure. Verbal Humor. Language humor (or named pun) is a word game to strive to achieve a humorous effect. When the two scripts appear in a scene simultaneously, they may be overlap or completely overlap, but the meaning must be opposed in certain degree. In translation, due to the coincidence of language, puns can also be reflected perfectly in the translated version by the way of literal translation. For example: 1)Joey: AH ¼Ã…’now Rachel ¼Ã…’these ah ¼Ã…’these little women. Rachel: Yeah. Joey: How little are they? I mean ¼Ã…’are they like scary little? (Season 3:13) Joy is going to read Little women which is recommended by Rachel. But he still comprehends in wrong way for his little reading. 2)Phoebe: Well ¼Ã…’I-I wasnt hopping mad ¼Ã…’you know. Frank: You hopped a little bit. (Season 3:5) Hop means light jumping. But the meaning of the text is very angry. This translation is very successful. However, such a language is rare and more of the status as flowed: 3) Phoebe: Oh. (They start kissing again) Ross :Wait ¼Ã…’wait ¼Ã…’wait. Phoebe: What? Ross: My foot is stuck in the pocket. Phoebe: What? Ross: No ¼Ã…’I cant get it out. Phoebe: Well ¼Ã…’thats not something a girl wants to hear. Ross: No ¼Ã…’come on dont start. (They start kissing again) Ouch! Phoebe: What? Ross: Stupid balls are in the way. (Holds up two balls)(Season 3:6) In this event, the translators can adjust at all levels to make the translation as similar as original interpretation. Humor Translation Theories Through the comparison of humor used in common environment and Friends, we know that humor can roughly be divided into the following two kinds of humor theory. General Theory of Verbal Humor The General Theory of Verbal Humor (GTVH) proposed by Victor Raskin and Salvatore Attardo in 1991 (an extension of the semantic script theory of humour, SSTH which Raskin proposed in 1985) identifies a semantic model capable of expressing incongruities between semantic scripts in verbal humor; this has been seen as an important recent development in the theory of laughter. The GTVH is one of the most mature theories which research the humor of language from linguistic humor. GYVH proposed the humor mechanism which is mad up by script oppo-sition, logical mechanism, situatio, target, narrativestrategy and language. Oppo-sition can be interpreted as overlapping and opposition of two or more of the script. Logical mechanism would mean that only works in a joke. Distorted and joking logic means the logical mechanism of combine two or more scripts. Situatio is the various props of joke: people, events and things. Target means the laughing-stock in humor. Narrativestrategy indicates that any sense of humor will adopt some sort of narrative techniques, such as general narration, dialogue, puzzles and so on. Language contains all the needed information and specific wording the text of the oral language of the text. Attardo think that the most important element of knowledge is that the inconsistent script which has determined the specific choices of other elements. So he point out that any humorous text must contain this factor. He also pointed out that when two humorous compare, the levels higher, the same less. (Attardo, 1994:183) So it is also a tool to compare the similarity of humorous. Relevant Theory of Humor Translation Relevance theory is used mainly to understand the problem and describe discourse.In the view of its founders Sperber and Wilson, the context in discourse comprehension is a very important factor. They suggest that it is necessary to understand the words in context. And its only need to activate in certain aspects of the context, but not all. The building of context doesnt progress in the bound of mutual knowledge for understanding the discourse, but try their best to build their own context to become communion. When people affiliating with each other, they continue to correspond and compromise, and be in accord at last. Relevance theory suggests that here are generally three situations about complementarity and expansion for interlocutors to cognize context: The first is encyclopedic knowledge in context, which the listeners add some necessary encyclopedic knowledge to expand their understanding context in their existing cognitive context. The second is context of knowledge. It means that the listeners can transfer related information from the short-term memory which provided by above text to expand their understanding of the context. The last is situational knowledge in context. It means that the listener must call the relevant information from the surrounding scene to expand their understanding of the context. When translating the universal humor, its important for readers to gain more contextual effects through the process of seeking the opposite script to pay extra effort. When translating the cultural humor, the translator should pay attention to that if the readers knowledge can understand the elements in the text. When translating the verbal humor, the translator can do some flexible adjustments within the allowable range. Analysis of Humor in Friends dialogues Through the above descriptions and argumentations between common humor and the humor in Friends, the following we will make a detailed analysis of the humorous dialogues in Friends. There are a large number of humorous dialogues in Friends. But not all these dialogues can be used in this paper. So, the humorous dialogue needs to be created in accordance with factors or the reasons for creating humor. Those that flout three maxims were chosen to be explained in details. Humor Produced by the Deliberate Flout of the Maxim of Quality By the maxim of quality, it means that in a dialogue we all make our contribution to one thing that is true or say things that are true. To keep to this maxim, we simultaneously observe two sub-maxims: we do not say what we believe to be false, and we do not say anything we lack adequate evidence. Joey: What are you talking about? Keep it! Phoebe: Its not mine, I didnt earn it. If I kept it, it would be like stealing. Rachel: Yeah, but if you spent it, it would be like shopping! Phoebe: Okay. Okay, lets say I bought a really great pair of shoes. Do you know what Id hear, with every step I took? Not-mine. Not-mine. Not-mine. And even if I was happy, okay, and, and skipping-Not-not-mine, not-not-mine, not-not-mine, not-not-mineà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦Ãƒ ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦(Friends, 1994) This dialogue appears in this scene that Phoebe find there is 500 extra dollars appeared in her account. And every one advises her to keep the money, but she is unwilling. She wants to use them to buy something. She believes that if she used the money to buy shoes, shoes would blame her. Of course, she knows shoes can say nothing. She is saying something untrue and is thus flouting the maxim of Quality. At the same time, humor is produced by the shoes which are personified as a person having a voice. Her implied message is I should not keep the extra money. And I would feel guilty if I kept and used it. 2)Ross: Yeah, uhà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦ and then I figured after you win, we could all go out to the balcony and see a night rainbow with gremlins dancing on top of it! Ross: You know what, Im sure your wish is gonna come true, but, you guys-just in case, maybe a genie will come out if we rub this lamp! (Friends, 1999) Ross said that these two sentences, meaning that compare with his friends words someone see a night rainbow with gremlins dancing on top of It, the words a genie will come out if we rub this lamp is more convinced, to show he does not believe his friends would win. The humor here is expressed through the use of metaphor. Ross knows that it is hardly happen for the phenomenon what he said, so he is flouting the maxim of quality deliberately. The implicature that results is It is impossible for you to win. 3) Ross: If I hadnt let you talk me to go into the airport in the first place, I wouldnt have put my fist through the wall. Chandler: You put your fist through the wall? Ross: No. I miss it and hit the door. But it opened really hard. (Friends, 1997) Ross fails to persuade his girlfriend to stay with him. He says he put his fist through the wall to show how upset and angry he is. But, what Ross said is doubted by Chandler because Chandler knows Ross is too timid to put his fist through the wall. Last, Ross admits he just put his fist on the door. Here, the untrue words which said by Ross on purpose and so it flout the maxim of quality. This kind of humor is founded on hyperbole largely. Humor Produced by the Deliberate Flout of the Maxim of Relevance The maxim of relevance means that we make all of contribution relevant to the exchange in a dialogue. 1 ¼Ã¢â‚¬ °Ross: So, I just finished this fascinating book. By the year 2030, therell be computers that can carry out the same amount of functions as an actual human brain. So theoretically you could download tour thoughts and memories into this computer and and and live forever as a machine. Chandler: And I just realized I could sleep with my eyes open. (Friends, 1995) Although Ross and Chandler are good friends, they are worried about different things due to their differences in character. When Ross is talking about high-tech, Chandler talks about sleeping with eye open in response. His reaction has nothing to do with the subject of Ross. Therefore, he is flouting the maxim of Relation. It is easy for audience to understand his sense of humor. That the subtext is: Im not interested in your topic. 2 ¼Ã¢â‚¬ °Ross: I can ask her to live with me. Chandler: Are you serious? Ross: Why not? Chandler: Because youve only known her for six weeks. Ive got a carton of milk in my fridge, and Ive had a longer relationship with. Ross: Look, guys, I love her, you know? (Friends, 2001) Chandler: And I love the milk! But I wont ask some British girl to move in with me! Ross wants to ask his British Girlfriend to live with him. But Chandler disagrees. He thinks it is too short for them to live together. And this is reasonable. Later, he refers to the milk which is in his fridge. Chandler compares the time that he keeps the milk in fridge with the time that Ross knows his girlfriend. It is clear that there are no comparable kinds. Obviously, the thing said by Chandler is irrelevant to the matter of Ross. Thus humor is produced by his flouting the maxim of Relevance. Phoebe: Oh, hey, Mon, do you still have your like old blouses and dresses from high school? Monica: Yeah, I think I have some around here somewhere. Why? Phoebe: Well, its just that maternity clothes are so expensive. (Friends, 2003) In this conversation, when Phoebe is asked why she talks about Monicas dresses from high school, she answers maternity clothes are expensive which does not seem to answer the question. But in fact, she is suggesting that the blouses and dresses of Monica are big enough for a pregnant woman. Thus humor is produced by her flouting the maxim of Relevance deliberately. Humor Produced by the Deliberate Flout of the Maxim of Manner By the maxim of manner, it is meant that in a dialogue we all try to be perspicuous. In line with this maxim, there are four sub-maxims: 1) we try to avoid obscurity, 2) we try to avoid ambiguity, 3) we try to be brief, and 4) we try to be orderly. Phoebe: Ooh! Oh! (She starts to pluck at the air just in front of Ross.) Ross: No, no dont! Stop cleansing my aura! No, just leave my aura alone, okay? Phoebe: Fine! Be murky! (Friends, 1996) In this conversation, Phoebe tries to catch Rosss attention by the way of plucking the air in front of Ross. But Ross feels annoying, and he would like leaving alone. So he said: Stop cleansing my aura! Just leave my aura alone. Moreover, Phoebe doesnt use unhappy to describe the air around Ross directly. She uses murky. Here, both Ross and Phoebe use obscure expression and thus flout the maxim of Manner. But the humorous effect they create and the implicature of their utterance are obvious and accepted by audience. Emily: What did you decide? Does your uncle Nathan get an invitation or not? Ross: Oh, God! Nobody likes him. And hes so cheap. I mean hed never fly to London in a million yearsà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦ Yeah, invite him. (Friends, 1997) Ross and Emily are deciding attendees for their wedding. When Emily and Ross discuss whether tell Ross uncle to attend the wedding, Ross does not answer yes or no briefly and directly. Instead, he says a lot of weak points of his uncle in the first place, but finally he decides to invite him so quickly. Therefore, it is clear that Ross intentionally express in a long way which create a sense of humor in the way of flouting the maxim of Manner. Chandler: Now it seems like all of a sudden, so much is happening. Joey: I know. Ross is getting married. Chandler: Phoebes making people. Joey: Everybodys doing stuff. Chandler: And we just sit here. I meant if I died, the only people know would be that I was here only by the ass print on the chair! (Friends, 1997) Chandler and Joey have a conversation talking about their recent life. Compared with the friends who are in dealing with some major events, they are wasting their lives. Chandler says these words to create a funny effect, and that is we just sit hereà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦if I died, the only people know would be t hat I was here only by the ass print on the chair. This sentence could hardly be humorous if he just says directly and briefly we just sit here without doing things meaningful. Therefore, Chandler produces humor by the way of flouting the maxim of Manner. Conclusion This paper discusses some humorous conversations in the U.S. sitcom Friends. Humorous conversation delivers the meaning of a conversation situation in this case. Therefore, this paper, furthermore, is possible to explore the deeper meanings which are implied or hidden in humor. To some extents, this paper can help audiences better understand the method for humor, as well as the expression of humor, in particular, to improve their ability of understanding and using humor of American verbal because the humor in Friends is humor of unique American style. However, the researches in this field have not reached a mature stage, which are quite deficiency and lack of authority both in China and abroad. Because of the differences between different cultures, people in non-English speaking countries do not fully understand the English sense of humor sometimes. Friends is a classical and typical American sitcom which is full of strong elements of American culture. The way of Studying and discussing American culture is a great help for English learners to understand American humor. Therefore, a further study of humor in Friends can possibly make certain contributions for cross-cultural communication. Humorous language, as the main form to express humor, is popular in our daily life. It comes from our daily life while to some degree it goes beyond life reality. Humor is such a pervasive human phenomenon, observable in many aspects of life that it has been studied from a multi-disciplinary viewpoint, including fields like linguistics, rhetoric, aesthetics, philosophy, sociology, and etc. From this essay, detailed and Pragmatic Analysis of Verbal Humor in Friends can help English learners to better improve their ability of understanding and the appreciation of the nature of American humor. At the same time, it is illuminating for them to apply humor skill to mediate interpersonal relationships. References English Language Humor Appreciation. Mao Guirong. Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences Publishing House, 1993. Friends (File). Bright, Kevin (Director). 1994-2004. Pragmatic Analysis of Humor in FRIENDS. Chen Jin. South China Agricultural University, 2006. English Linguistics. Ling Zhenghua. Hunan Peoples Publishing House, 2006. The American Way of Comedy. Inga Walte. 2000. Linguistic Humor. Hu Fanchou. Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences Publishing House, 1987.

Maxine Kumin :: essays research papers

Maxine Kumin   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Maxine Kumin, who experienced many different views of the world through travel, feels the most comfortable in New Hampshire, her rural home. In any area that she travels, she always makes a similarity to her home, as expressed in her poems.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  In her poem, â€Å"The Long Approach†, she is driving in her Saab hatchback from Scranton to her farm in New Hampshire. She also discusses her plane ride back from Orlando to New Hampshire the week before. Throughout the poem she makes references back to the animals she cares for and comes in contact with on the farm. Her knowledge of rural life is shown, by describing details of animals; such as, â€Å"eel-thin belly†, â€Å"life as loose as frogs†, â€Å"slag heaps stand like sentries shot dead†, and â€Å"I'm going home with the light hand on the reins†.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Next in her poem, â€Å"How It is†, she puts on a blue jacket that belonged to her recently deceased friend, whom played a major role in her life. By putting on the jacket, she tries to relive the past by, â€Å"...unwind(ing) it, paste it together in a different collage...†. In this poem, Maxine Kumin, uses plants to describe her feelings, as in; â€Å"scatter like milkweed† and â€Å"pods of the soul†. These similes show what she sees and feels.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã¢â‚¬Å"The Longing to be Saved†, is a dream, where her barn catches fire. â€Å"In and out of dreams as thin as acetate.† She visualizes herself getting the horses out, but they â€Å"wrench free, wheel, dash back†.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  In, â€Å"Family Reunion†, she writes that â€Å"nothing is cost efficient here†. Vegetables are grown on the farm, and animals are raised to be killed. â€Å"The electric fence ticks like the slow heart of something we fed and bedded for a year, then killed with kindness' one bullet and paid Jake Mott to do the butchering.†   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã¢â‚¬Å"Waiting for the End in New Smyrna Beach, Florida†, Maxine Kumin notices in her venture in Florida a homeless couple with a baby. In her poem she describes the couple watching the passing cars at Lytle and South Dixie to an â€Å" egret grazing the canals who darts and pecks and lunges and after an eternity at Lytle and South Dixie the light changes.†   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  In her last poem written in the booklet, â€Å"Getting Through†, she describes different types of snow.

Factors Influencing Media and Media Reports in Nigeria

By Chidera onyemenam As comprehensive as this topic might seem, factors influencing media as it concerns structure, number of outlets and contents can be broadly classified into two. a) EXTERNAL FACTORS                                              b) INTERNAL FACTORS EXTERNAL FACTORS: this covers the influence on the media as a result of the environment within which the mass media communication system operates.They include:                                              i)cultural influence                                              ii) influence of the Economy                                              iii) political influence                                                iv)Religious influence                                              v)   Legal influence                                              vi) Technological influence                                              vii)Influence of Security INTERNAL FACTORS: theses are influences on the media that take place inside the media organisation. It is not readily obvious to the entire populace.Some of these influences are even denied by the media workforce. Some of these factors include:                                                 i)Media bias                                                 ii) Ownership control                                                 iii)Wealth iv)   Threats Both classified factors are instrumental to the state of the media in Nigeria. In this regard, the state of media in Nigeria differs from that in south Africa, since the conditions in which they both operate, differ. This chapter seeks to identify and explain these different conditions and factors and how they directly affect our country Nigeria.EXTERNAL FACTORS                                                    CULTURAL INFLUENCE Culture as defined by Clyde Wuckhohn (1905-1960) an influential American anthropologist is the total way of life commonly followed by the members of a society. He also describes it as a social legacy that an individual acquires from his group. According to Clyde as stated by Ifedayo Daramola in his book ‘Media and Society' (2005), culture includes values, beliefs, customs, religion, technology, and the roles people play in them.In the same vein, Sir Edward B Tylor defines culture as,                                              that complex whole which includes knowledge, arts morals,                                                law,custom and any other capabilities and habits acquired                                                  by man as a member of a society. (1871) Sharing the same views with him, Chinoy (1967) defines culture as                                                † everything in the environment which is not in the form                                                  originally given it by nature. Therefore culture includes all the acquired traits which the members of a society have in common, but one of the inborn ones. In other words, cultural traits are traits that are generally accepted and embibed. Consequent upon these definitions, we can conclude that culture includes language, the philosophy, the religion, values, ideologies,moral codes, rituals, political beliefs and even style of greeting found among a people. This subsequently influences the thought pattern and idea of what is and what is not morally acceptable.For instance, the African culture strongly abhors expository attir es, whereas it means little or nothing to an American. The media exists for the society and so their first point of duty and allegiance is to their major audience. However, the bulk of the Nigerian audience is complex, stratified, differentiated and inter-related in so many ways. Considering this factor, the Nigerian media seeks to maintain a balance between their media report and the diverse cultures present.Making sure to rightly represent and not offend any culture in favour of another. In this regard, the media seeks to promote, all existing cultures since its products will ultimately be handed down to these diverse audience for consumption. With the difference in philosophies and ideologies,the mass media is careful to tailor their news and advert with all sensitivity to the philosophies of their target audience. With respect to culture also, the mass media has coined ways to disseminate information to all and sundry.In this light, the NTA news sub-stations in different States, broadcast news in the various languages common there. For example NTA Benue State broadcasts news in TiV and Idoma (the two most common tribes in Benue State). In conjunction with this localisation of news, local newspapers in different States exist to address the particular ideas and needs of that immediate society. These steps are taken to sustain audience patronage and increase coverage of a media outfit in a given region or society.The cultural influence on media has made it possible to reach all facets of society including the masses and minority. Television programmes like African Pot are solely dedicated to the promotion of diverse cultures. The media, thus stands to uphold promote and devote its time and space to adjust and fit into the boundaries of the peoples slated moral standards, values and belief. Anything contrary to this phenomenon will cause an uproar from all cultural groups and institutions within the country. LEGAL AND LEGISLATIVE INFLUENCE

Love for One’s Country

Love for one’s own country Loving one’s own country is closely associated with patriotism. Patriotism is a loyal feeling which one has about his own country. one must have a deep and passionate loyal feeling about his country. One of these feelings of one man in a country is upsurge and unhonoured. The feeling has kindled many dormant nations into actions. History is filled up with instances where patriotic people under able leadership have saved their land. Our father of nation Mahatma Gandhi bought for the freedom of our country with a burning patriotic zeal.One must take pride in the culture and beauty of one’s own country, the rivers, mountains, hills, valleys, deltas must inspire one’s patriotic feeling. He has to encourage the art and trade of his country. He must support his country as his duty. He shall never do anything that would bring down the fair name and image of his country. In the present context of the world the narrow patriotism is nearly out moded. country however powerful or rich can stand isolated. The world is shining with the fast mode of communication and no country is too far away.The complex economy of the world has every country dependent on one another. Self-contained condition is only a thing of past, every culture today is what it has rowed from culture. No culture can boast of being pure. so there is no meaning in narrow nationalisation . it is safe to conclude that fantastic patriotism is bad though loving ones country for beherment and good deals is a noble act. Being proud of India is not enough. Resolve to do something in your lifetime that India will be proud of†¦..

dias de los muertos essays

dias de los muertos essays During the first and second of November, Mexicans celebrate death and the remembrance of their deceased family, friends, and relatives, this is known as Dias de los Muertos, or Days of the Dead. The families of the dead prepare an alter in their home by using boxes to form a pyramid shape and a white table cloth to cover it. Candles are lit to represent each dead family member, as well as four candles to signify the four cardinal directions, along with flowers, and food and drink are prepared. For the family and friends of the dead, this is a time of healing and acceptance. In Mexico, death is not feared, but rather considered as a reward from life. It is also believed that it is the next phase of life. Family members welcome back the deceased into their homes. The alters have items on them which each symbolize something. For example, water, salt, and bread are used for purification, season food, and represent necessities for continued existence. Materials of hygiene are also placed at the alter so the spirits are cleansed upon their return. Calaveras are hand crafted skeletons also placed at the alter to represent each loved one and their character and hobbies. Another symbol used is copal which is the sap of a Mexican tree. It is burned as incense to ward off evil and to attract spirits to their homes. The tradition of Dias de los Muertos began when the Celtic dead had access to earth on October 31st. They celebrated, wearing animal heads and hides, dancing, and burning crops and animals in huge bonfires as contributions to the dead. Then, the church set November 2nd as All Souls Day to honor the dead. This was celebrated by people who dressed up as saints, angels, and devils, along with bonfires and parades. However this tradition was not completely accepted and today, All Saints day and All Souls day honor the dead with color and candles. I think this holiday is a good way for families and friends to remember...

Learning The Outdoor Playground Children And Young People Essay Essays

Learning The Outdoor Playground Children And Young People Essay Essays Learning The Outdoor Playground Children And Young People Essay Essay Learning The Outdoor Playground Children And Young People Essay Essay Introduction The intent in making this research and expressed in this paper is to understand the context, from a kid s angle, of larning the outdoor resort area with a peculiar focal point on the part, in order to develop better participatory plans which relevant to healthy physical activities with ecological grasp and acquisition. Play plays an of import portion for a kid s life. Children s resort area can be seen as an unreal game infinite environment. It should run into the map and psychological demands of kids s drama behaviours. Outdoor drama Fosters chances for creativeness, imaginativeness, societal connexions, and learns to be more behaviours. Natural playscapes offer centripetal stimulation and physical diverseness which is critical for childhood experiences out-of-doorss. Through careful design, constructed playscapes can be greened to imitate natural playscapes. Greening is the integrating of natural elements and procedures in a playscape. Children s direct societal and single experiences in nature in early to middle childhood during the developmental window of chance between the ages of three and twelve old ages assist determine their environmental individuality and steer their environmental actions. However, as times changed, the engineering becomes more sophisticated, for illustration like autos, nomadic phones, computing machines ; non merely that, the people s desire is besides hard to fulfill, ensuing in low degrees of felicity in one s life. Peoples live under force per unit area ( harmonizing to developing state ) while the hapless people that do non hold adequate strengths to vie in a competitory society will be disqualified, by so those people would be evolve into immoral individual, for illustration like burglars, terrorists, drug nuts, slayers and so on. More than of all time before, immature people are being badly and sometimes below the belt criticised for their deviant behavior. This can run from hooliganism to random Acts of the Apostless of force and even slay. Much of this is inexcusable but ill understood. Some of our best rational childs can yield to the force per unit areas to vie exerted by household, friends and society as a whole. In this conservatory env ironment ( Quart, 2006 ) many childs end up on drugs, prescribed or otherwise, in marauding packs, or finally travel postal ( Ames, 2007 ) , kill and perpetrate self-destruction. If all teens are thought of as assets in the devising, instead than jobs waiting to go on, so non merely our ain households but besides society as a whole could be transformed. ( Richard Lerner, 2007, p.213 ) In the involvement of this state of affairs, the parents have alerted that the society have become more and more unsafe comparison to the old epoch, they can non allow travel both of their custodies or must maintain an oculus on their kids every seconds. Negative promotion such as robbery, larceny, colza instances and etc. , have uninterrupted been reported in assorted media. Presents, the parents give electronic devices like iPad, iPods, and iPhone to their kids but non genuinely sincere have a duologue and understanding towards the kid. Recent grounds proposing that kids now are non merely less active, but they are less hazard aware and show a reduced involvement in the natural universe, frequently favoring, alternatively, plugged-in drama environments ( Louv, 2005 ; Gill, 2007, 2010 ; Honore, 2008 ) . The literature reviews show a deficiency of cohesive research on the connexion between kids, out-of-door drama and the design of kids s playscapes. However, the wide aggregation of current resources have minutes of convergence that illustrate the chance for the coherence in future research on childhood connexions to nature through out-of-door drama. Literature reviews supply a solid base for the creative activity of design guidelines which can further childhood drama experiences out-of-doorss. Findingss will be used to develop a set of guidelines for kids s landscapes to assist supply chances which can take in strong child out-of-door experience. There are 4 literature reappraisals: Chapter 1- What is drama and how does it related to kids, out-of-door drama, nature? Chapter 2- What is the importance for kids to see out-of-door environment? Chapter 3- Why and how do we better the design of out-of-door resort area for kids? Chapter 4- How to plan a better resort area to pull kids to travel out-of-door resort area? The lessening of quality of interaction between kids and outdoor environments has a negative impact on kids s wellness, larning and development. Play is of import in childhood. The environment used for drama is besides an of import portion because different playscapes offer different chances. Outdoor drama is polar in making a nexus between nature and kids. In add-on, out-of-door drama has the ability to give kids stimulation which the indoor drama can non accomplish. We should believe as a society and as parents about how to advance healthy, positive, admirable, and productive behaviours in our immature people. And we need to happen new vocabulary to speak about our immature people. Let s call the good things they can and should make. Let s step these good things. Let s so happen ways to do those good things more likely to be present in their lives. ( Richard Lerner, The Good Teen, p.10, 2007 ) Experiences in nature aid to determine kids s constructs and values. Assorted types of contact with nature drama different functions. While each of these types of contact is of import for kids to develop an environmental consciousness and individuality, direct experiences are most of import for childhood geographic expedition of natural elements. Literature Review Chapter 1- What is play? Play is one of the ways kids about themselves, the people around them, their environment and their community. It is an of import portion of every kid s life and indispensable to their hereafter development. Play Fosters creativeness, imaginativeness, societal connexions and learned behaviours of kids. It is the activity which can be defined as a scope of voluntary, centrally motivated activities that are usually associated with pleasance and enjoyment. *** ( Ashley Parsons, taken from Garvey, Catherine. Play. The Developing Child Series. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1990 ) . Through drama, kids learn to research the universe around them, develop and pattern accomplishments they will utilize throughout their lives. Play is defined as behaviour that is freely chosen, personally directed and inherently motivated. Children should be given the limitation of safety in a operable and freedom manner. In add-on, kids should be in control of how they play, but non knock or call o n the carpet them for illustration stating a kid the right manner to keep a pigment coppice will deny kids many of these first manus experiences. Play is indispensable for physical, emotional and religious growing ; rational and educational development ; and societal and behavioural accomplishments of a kid. A kid s capacity for positive development will be inhibited if denied entree to a scope of stimulating drama chances. Play frequently, though non ever, implies a sense of merriment for the kid. ( hypertext transfer protocol: //www.valeofglamorgan.gov.uk/enjoying/leisure__activities/play/development/what_is_play.aspx )

Artificial Intelligence And The Legal Profession

Artificial Intelligence And The Legal Profession Technologies that may be able to automate typical legal duties, such as performing case research or creating standard contracts, have existed now for quite some time but have not been fully integrated into practice as of yet. However, in roughly the last decade, pressure on lawyers and law firms to reduce fees has increased and this has led to a more favorable attitude toward legal technologies in a push to increase efficiency throughout the profession. Second, pressure to improve access to justice by reducing both financial and structural barriers affecting disadvantaged groups has led to the development of several online or otherwise accessible legal technologies. Third, as the capabilities of computers grow to include higher-level processes, the possibilities for their integration into the legal field grow too. While previous legal technologies threatened to replace mostly clerical work, artificial intelligence may threaten to replace lawyers themselves. To gain a comprehensive un derstanding of this topic, it is necessary to explore the current state of artificial intelligence in the legal profession, how it impacts the demand for lawyer labor, and how the profession’s regulatory structures relate to the trajectory of legal technology. The term â€Å"artificial intelligence† describes how computers can perform tasks that might generally be thought to require some level of human intelligence. These tasks can range from flagging outliers in a set of data to transcribing an audio tape and everything in between. Fundamentally, computers operate based on sets of defined rules. Any task to be performed by computers must be able to be articulated as a set of basic rules to be followed. Deductive rules are those laid out in a step-by-step process that is followed by the computer until the task is completed. An example of this as applied to automated legal work is the use of automated document assembly, such as the creation of a template for a will or other standard legal document. In a matter of seconds, a document assembly application can pull relevant information about a client and use this to create a personalized document. Similarly, a computer could provide a list of cases from a particular court citing a parti cular statute. In addition to such tasks whose processes can be modeled explicitly, some other tasks can be accomplished with the use of data-driven rules. The relationship between a set of input variables and the resulting outputs can be estimated by a process called â€Å"supervised machine learning†, so called because the estimation is bounded by the set of training data. For example, a team of researchers was able to develop a model to predict the behavior of the Supreme Court, based only on data from past decisions. They were able to achieve 70.2% prediction accuracy at the case outcome level and 71.9% prediction accuracy at the justice vote level. While these predictions cannot be expressed based on a combination of deductive rules as in previous examples, with enough input data a relatively consistent pattern can be recognized. Similarly, software for automated document review has been developed and proven successful at determining relevancy of documents based on the i nput of a â€Å"seed set† of documents designated relevant or not. As well as being able to potentially replace or improve the efficiency of routine legal tasks, predictive algorithms like these have possible applications to the legal field as a whole. For example, results of a race-neutral sentencing predictor algorithm could be compared to actual sentences to determine the influence of human bias in such processes. Overall, the success of data-driven algorithms is significant primarily in that it highlights the routineness of some tasks that would otherwise be viewed as more sophisticated and complex. The adoption of technology into the legal workplace will be influenced by the market in addition to the quality and capabilities of available technologies. Historically, the demand for technology in law firms has been low for several reasons. The billable hour system economically encouraged inefficiency, while the typical partnership structure meant the funds for new technologies would come directly out of the pockets of partners, unlike a traditional corporation structure in which the money would come from shareholders. To the first point, in recent years there has been a notable shift in supply of lawyers relative to demand for lawyer labor. This leads to increasing pressure to improve efficiency and reduce cost to clients. Additionally, a rise in the share of legal work performed by a company’s house legal department compared to that performed by outside law firms allows these technologies to be purchased with corporation funds, which is more favorable. In addition to the g rowing demand for legal technologies, the capabilities of such technologies are expanding rapidly as well. The theory of disruptive innovation explains how this will also contribute to the growing prevalence of legal technology. When the only legal tasks that could be automated were clerical and other low-level services, law firms were willing to buy into such software to improve efficiency and better serve their clients. However, developers have since been able to expand their technologies to handle more complex tasks, and firms now are practically required to adopt them as client pressures grow. This phenomenon, in addition to the growing market interest, will lead to rapid adoption of technology into the legal realm. As the use of technology in the legal profession grows, the impact of artificial intelligence on the demand for lawyer labor in some areas has been or will be relatively significant, while in others is unlikely to pose a significant threat. The distinction between tasks that can easily be automated versus those that cannot is in the extent to which their underlying structures can be defined. For example, while document drafting can be successfully automated as discussed above, more complex legal writing characterizing the state of the law or its application to particular factual circumstances presents a much more challenging situation. The conceptual creativity and flexibility demanded by this type of writing cannot be defined by either deductive or data-driven rules. Another example is the distinction between document review during discovery and document review during due diligence. While the former can be automated with the use of explicit rules, the latter requires critical judgme nts that a computer cannot make. A trained lawyer can note, for example, any unexpected information or violations of appropriate rules that a computer would not be able to recognize without being explicitly primed to look for such things. Some advanced applications of artificial intelligence to the legal profession have found ways to extend its reach despite these limitations. For example, IBM’s Debater System is able to analyze documents and other materials annotated first by humans. While this is clearly less efficient than purely automated processes since it requires time put in by an associate, it alleviates some of the major issues with automated lawyering; any glaring contradictions or relevant subtleties can be highlighted before the materials are analyzed by the software. Another way by which artificial intelligence can be employed to perform tasks that a lawyer is qualified to do is through online systems to resolve minor disputes ranging from parking violations to e -commerce complaints. These technologies aid lawyers in negotiating by analyzing overlap between stated preferences of the two parties and can typically reach a mutual solution without the involvement of a lawyer at all. While such systems may thus be able to replace lawyers and even judges entirely, they will likely have little impact on the overall demand for lawyer labor since it would likely not be feasible economically or otherwise to hire an attorney and litigate. In this way, the full automation of legal services comes at no cost to lawyer labor. In fact, a study that categorized legal tasks by the impact of automation on employment found that only around 4% of lawyers’ time was billed to tasks most acutely threatened by artificial intelligence. In summary, while even moderately complex legal tasks have been successfully automated, the legal profession is unlikely to find itself obsolete within a decade as some headlines predict. As new technologies continue to develop and make their way into the practice of law, there emerges a need for a better way to protect the integrity of the legal system while ensuring consumer protection and access to quality services for all members of the population. With regard to consumer protection, computers offer the advantage of eliminating human error and standardizing services in some cases, but certainly not all. For example, online services cannot effectively analyze highly complex scenarios, but instead of returning an error message often return products completed in a way that places the client liable. While consumer protection concerns are not necessarily graver with automated legal services, they deserve at least the same attention afforded to legal services provided by human lawyers. Current professionalism guidelines limit the performance of legal services to those trained and licensed to practice law, and the stated reason for this is â€Å"to protect the public fr om the consequences of receiving legal services from unqualified persons†. These regulations are then enforced through disciplinary sanctions imposed by bar committees. However, these guidelines have several weaknesses when it comes to the regulation of new technologies in the legal field. They fail to specifically outline what tasks require the expertise of a licensed practitioner, which makes them unhelpful in governing what tasks may be left to automated providers. Next, even though computers may not be skilled enough to perform some tasks normally handled by lawyers, they may be competent enough to assist trained professionals, something not addressed by the guidelines. Finally, there has never been a sophisticated investigation into exactly what tasks computers can perform at the same level lawyers can. Although the quality of legal services provided by automated programs may be lower than that provided by a trained and experienced lawyer, the low prices associated with t hese types of services justify their employment in certain instances. For example, someone who needs a simple will written has little need for a full-service lawyer. However, the consequences of trading low quality for low cost are magnified in more complex high-stakes issues like custody disputes or messy divorce negotiations. The â€Å"access to justice† problem discussed briefly above is a key aspect of the legal profession and should not be redefined as â€Å"access to some form of legal services whether quality or not†. While the introduction of low-cost automated services does increase accessibility to low-income persons, the result could be a two-tiered system that does not equally serve justice to the disadvantaged. For these reasons, it is important that the use of technology in the legal profession is regulated in the future to prevent it from being driven forward on the basis of outcome alone. When it comes to the recent discussion surrounding technology in the legal profession, there are two major sides taken. Some argue that incorporating more technology into the field will reduce costs to client with little expense in terms of quality and oppose strict regulations while others argue that there is no equal alternative to the work of a trained professional. This paper has shown the principles of artificial intelligence that govern which tasks can be automated successfully and discussed the impacts of such automation on the legal profession. While the media forecasts an end to the legal profession, in reality only a small portion of legal tasks are affected and the overall effect on the demand for lawyer labor is moderate at best. With that said, current regulations are insufficient at providing a consistent framework to guide the incorporation of artificial intelligence and other emerging technologies into the field, and the careful creation of such regulations will prove necessary as automated legal services develop further.

No Topic Needed. This is only essay assignment

No Topic Needed. This is only essay - Assignment Example In the year 1914, countries such as Germany and Great Britain increased their forces, especially the navies. Thus, with time the establishment of the military became influential on the public and the entire public policies. Therefore, an increase in militarism assisted in pushing the nations into the world war. Mutual alliances for defense or rather defense agreements among countries in Europe were key causes of the World War 1. Whenever a nation was attacked, allied countries moved in to defend them. For instance, Australia and Hungary declared a war on the Serbia nation when Russia decided to defend Serbia. On seeing that, Germany declared against Russia and France mobilized its forces against Germany, Australia and Hungary. Later, Japan, United States and Italy entered the war. America initially played a neutral nation until the death of Archduke of Australia-Hungary. This murder gave rise to the most destructive war in history. In addition, trade with the most super power nations by then was cut by greater percentages. This prompted the German navy to attack America from the sea. After about two years of attack, America decided to join the Great War. The Second World War was caused by a number of factors; both short term and long term. To start with, the Treaty of Versailles angered the Weimar Germany thus stimulating conflicts across the German nation. Secondly, the League of Nations’ inability to deal with major global issues was major cause of the war. Thus, the League failed to control the power of nations which were against the International Law. America fully got involved in the Second World War in the year 1939 after the Pearl Harbor’s attack. This followed the announcement by Frankline Roosevelt that United States would no longer engage in trade with Japan. In the year 1941, United States froze all the assets that belonged to Japan. Thus, the Japanese attacked and killed more than two thousand Americans.

Love.Ethical Dilemma of repeat Valve replacement Essay

Love.Ethical Dilemma of repeat Valve replacement - Essay Example This dysfunction in turn causes a need for re-operation of the patients, due to complications arising such as the structural deterioration of bioprosthesis. Though the chances of patient mortality when undergoing a repeat operation are high, there has always been re-operations to such patients (Antunes, 1992). An ethical question arises to why a patient should be re-operated, yet in so doing, the chances of that patient’s death are increased. In the subsequent operations after the first one, the causes of patient’s death changes from the structural deterioration of the bioprosthesis to valvular leak. This is what further increases the chances of death. With such knowledge though, MVR has continued to be done over the years. Furthermore, subsequent re-operations have continued to be undertaken on patients, even though they increase their chances of death. However, the justification to this is that there are chances of saving the lives of the patients, even though such chances continues to diminish with each re-operation done (Antunes, 1992). Although performing re-operation to patients well knowing that it increases their chances of death seems unethical, there is a need to have it since the patient’s chances of surviving are increased by the re-operation, than when they are left to die of valvular

Why I Want to Become a College Student Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words - 1

Why I Want to Become a College Student - Essay Example People that complete a college degree have better higher paying jobs. During my tenure in high school, I demonstrated the ability to work with other classmates and provide support to my teammates during group assignments. I always pay close attention to the lectures provided by the teachers and I take good notes that help me study for exams. The most important aspect of education is the knowledge gained from the lessons by the students. It is important for me to obtain a college degree. My parents have always helped me with my studies and they fully support me in my college aspirations. Both my parents attended college and I want to follow in their footsteps. Today getting a college degree is imperative because the new wave of jobs in the knowledge economy of the 21st century requires people that are well trained and have advanced knowledge. I am fully committed to starting a new stage in my life where education becomes the primary focus of my day to day routine. Students in college have to attend class as well as countless hours in the university surrounding studying, reading, and performing research in the library. I have always been a good student. To me, education is very important. I also believe a lot in the value of helping others. During my high school years, I spend a lot of time volunteering for different activities and community service. I worked in homeless shelters and other community initiatives. I liked providing a helping hand to others in need. As a student, I also on many occasions helped my classmates with their studies by providing tutoring sessions. Upon acceptance into a university, I plan on getting involved in the alumni community by volunteering my time. College is a tremendous experience that goes beyond the time spent in class.  Ã‚  

Equality and Diversity Policies Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2250 words

Equality and Diversity Policies - Essay Example Although there are varied perceptions of diversity in concept and practice, one compact and comprehensive definition is provided by Esty, et al. (1995), where the authors state that:â€Å"Diversity is acknowledging, understanding, accepting, valuing, and celebrating differences among people with respect to age, class, ethnicity, gender, physical and mental ability, race, sexual orientation, spiritual practice, and public assistance status.†Diversity management, Foster and Harris (2005) opine, â€Å"Encourages innovative practices in human resource management that values employment relationship by addressing individual needs.† Potentially, employers see immense advantage in deploying demographically diverse workforce.Diversity, as opposed to equal opportunity, extends beyond legislation and focuses more on differences amongst individuals and groups. The liberal perspective has moved the diversity discourse from providing equal opportunities addressing social discriminati on to promoting and managing diversity for societal progress and advantages. Equal opportunities policies often promotes sameness in treatment of individuals; whereas, diversity focuses on managing individual differences for gaining competitive edge. Diversity connotes, gender, age, ethnic background, as well as, non-visible characteristics, like work experience and disability factors (Kersten, 2000). In this context, diverse workgroup is beginning to be recognized for its contributory value to meet organizational objectives, than merely to meet legal. and regulatory aspects. Laflà ¨che (2005) chooses a metaphor â€Å"head and heart† to emphasize the effect of diversity on the inner-workings of an organization. It is another way of saying that the entire enterprise must commit to the cause of diversity in order to make a convincing and lasting change in human resource and team management practices that is seen as consistent and

Chinese History Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

Chinese History - Essay Example According to the text, the top trigram is referred to as Tui, the Joyous and denotes gladness. The lower trigram in my throw denotes Chen, also referred to as the Arousing and has the attribute of movement (pantherwebworks.com, 2). When the two trigrams are joined together, they yield gladness in movement (following). According to the text, following is endowed with the utmost victory, perseverance promotes, and no blame. The opposite hexagram (Chieh) warns that one must not persevere in the face of vexing limitation. I wanted to know if this year will offer more good than bad, hence I believe that the divination holds that if I seek to serve on the side of good, then goodness will follow me however the reverse also holds true. The divination also holds that I should strive to overcome all limitations that may prevent me from achieving my following in order to succeed. While I truly did enjoy this exercise, I believe divination is largely idealistic. The exercise did allow me to think more about my question and I believe that the answers that it provided were very helpful. I however would not depend on divinity to solve my large questions/decisions. As to the value, I truly believe that the practice offers temporary peace that can enable one to view their problems in a different

Business and Management for Engineers Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Business and Management for Engineers - Essay Example Its management remains in control during the period of Chapter 11 but the important thing is that it gives the company â€Å"automatic stay† and â€Å"breathing room† to put its house in order by not allowing parties to take legal action or take away its assets (http://www.gmreinvention.com). General Motors was originally founded on September 16, 1908 as a holding company for Buick by two partners, William C. Durant and Charles S. Mott. Two years later or around 1910, Durant lost control of General Motors because of a default in its bank loan obligations. However, he was able to regain control through a proxy war he waged by using the Chevrolet Motor Car Company to acquire shares secretly but then he lost control again when the vehicle market collapsed during the Great Depression. General Motors Corporation was part of the so called three generals in American business – the other two being General Electric and General Mills. Years of mismanagement and a bureaucratic corporate culture led to its collapse in the last financial crisis and is now owned by the US government through its Treasury Department under the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP); it was overtaken by Toyota last year. After its restructuring under Chapter 11 rules, it is now a limited liability company. It means being an LLC, it provides limited liability to its owners which are the US government and to a lesser extent, also the Canadian government. Other present owners include the United Auto Workers Union Employee Association and various bondholders of Motors Liquidation Corporation (the new name of General Motors while it is undergoing rehabilitation at present) while the previous stockholders of the company are now holding worthless pieces of paper as company liabilities are much greater than its total assets (a negative net-worth of $86 billion). Before the restructuring, it was a

Chinese History Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

Chinese History - Essay Example According to the text, the top trigram is referred to as Tui, the Joyous and denotes gladness. The lower trigram in my throw denotes Chen, also referred to as the Arousing and has the attribute of movement (pantherwebworks.com, 2). When the two trigrams are joined together, they yield gladness in movement (following). According to the text, following is endowed with the utmost victory, perseverance promotes, and no blame. The opposite hexagram (Chieh) warns that one must not persevere in the face of vexing limitation. I wanted to know if this year will offer more good than bad, hence I believe that the divination holds that if I seek to serve on the side of good, then goodness will follow me however the reverse also holds true. The divination also holds that I should strive to overcome all limitations that may prevent me from achieving my following in order to succeed. While I truly did enjoy this exercise, I believe divination is largely idealistic. The exercise did allow me to think more about my question and I believe that the answers that it provided were very helpful. I however would not depend on divinity to solve my large questions/decisions. As to the value, I truly believe that the practice offers temporary peace that can enable one to view their problems in a different

Group Work vs Alone Essay Example for Free

Group Work vs Alone Essay You could receive useful feedback from group members, and shorten the amount of time you might have originally spent on the project if you had worked alone. Contrary to popular belief, there most certainly is an I in team. It is the same I that appears three times in responsibility. ~Amber Harding When you work in group you will be able to assign each member job that will help the project because of their specialization in that area of expertise, like shy person wouldn’t want to be the presenter and a terrible writer wouldn’t want to have the job of writing down everything. Using each person’s skills and talent to the group’s advantage will make the work easier; everyone has different strengths and can contribute something positive to the group. When all the skills are combined it creates new approaches to solving a problem with better results than if you were to work alone. When working in a group its best to make sure everyone has a job to do so at the end you would know who the slackers were and it’s also important to know your job so at the end of the project there’s no mix up’s at the end causing the entire group to start the project over again. Team means Together Everyone Achieves More! ~Author Unknown When you work in a group you will be able to receive feedback on what you’re doing and help to make the project as a whole better. When you’re working in a group it’s easier to improve your ideas than when you work alone, because you’ll think the idea is really good until someone in your group helps you make the idea better.

The Rote Leaning Of Thailand Education Essay

The Rote Leaning Of Thailand Education Essay Education system is important all over the world. It concerns the future of a country by educating children who will become a countrys future. The issue of whether Thailand should revise its educational system has been a very big topic. We think that Thai education system is good, but it isnt. Thai education system should be reformed. This report will be mentioning about the problems that Thai education system are facing, which is the rote learning. Rote learning is a learning technique which focuses on memorization. The major practice involved in rote learning is learning by repetition by which students commit information to memory in a highly structured way. The idea is that one will be able to quickly recall the meaning of the material the more one repeats it. Rote methods are routinely used when quick memorization is required. (Emma, 2012) Teaching by rote is an old-fashioned and ineffective way of teaching. It relies on learners remembering and reciting lists of information. What is not taught in rote learning is the full well rounded understanding of the subject. That is why you should say no to rote learning at any level. Mainstream education in Thailand is mostly done by teaching from the front and rote learning. Teachers give lessons and information to students by chalkboards while the pupils listen passively and occasionally take notes. Reformations are planned to change the countrys education system. After brainstorming and sharing our experience, the production team can list the causes of the rote learning of Thailand as follow. Firstly, students lack of critical thinking skills, because of Thai students memorize everything in the books, and dont find the true knowledge by themselves. Most knowledge was traditionally transmitted orally and not in writing. Secondly, education in Thailand is based on the textbook because Thai teacher will not find other lessons that are not in the textbook to teach. They follow all of the text in the books. If the state publishes textbooks for students are late, the education method will be carried out in the same delay. The third is teachers give lessons and information to students by chalkboards while the pupils listen passively and occasionally take notes. The curriculum is blamed that it aimed only to teach students to listen, speak and write and know about Thai literature. It failed to make students loving the language and knowing enough to c reate their own work. Half of our old primary and secondary school students failed their Thai language test. Thai language knowledge of primary and secondary school students has been declining. We think there is nothing wrong with the aims of the curriculum (teaching listening, speaking, writing and literature). It must be the way it is being taught is not working. Making students love the language is a teachers job. Changing the curriculum without changing the teachers or training them better wont help at all. I think a lot of Thai students are in danger of an over teaching of this educational method. If an education is mainly based on learning by using memory more than understanding (which is what rote learning is), graduates might turn out to be well-educated parrots rather than proficient scholars capable of creative and critical thinking. Not only children are bad at learning English, they arent good at Thai neither. It is very important for Thai students to master their mother tongue before leaning second language. I have to agree that putting more focus on reading and writing and introducing more enjoyable learning activities could enhance the students interest in learning. As mentioned above, we found the solutions to solve the rote learning of Thailand. At first, the Ministry of Education should push teachers to make sure the students learn critical thinking and problem solving skills. We see a serious need to develop the teachers quality, which should raise the quality of instruction as well as students learning. The training has to be given to teachers to ensure their solid knowledge of what they teach. Teachers should explore effective teaching methods and materials they have never tried before. With the teachers more willing to think outside the box, students are likely to have more fun at school. Classroom should not be just the learning place. Teachers can extend teaching space from classrooms to the other places such as museums, local markets or even paddy fields. There is knowledge everywhere. Going outside must teach students to search for the truth by themselves from various dimensions of truth, from various contexts where the truths are sit uated. Because there is no one-size-fits-all solution, teachers could re-design their classroom setting and teaching methods in line with their students pace of learning. However, the problems can be fixed but it has to take a long time. If we all change our own learning behaviors from now on, its not too long to develop the Thai learning styles. Finally, if Thailand wants to be part of the global community of scholars and innovators, sending its sons and daughters to foreign centers of study and research, in other words study and work abroad, Thai policy-makers will have to realize soon that swift and efficient action has to be taken, better sooner than later. Studying at a foreign university or working for an international company requires a fair amount of creativity, critical and inventive thinking, original ideas and the capability of having and expressing ones personal opinions. If Thai education doesnt prepare students for these challenges, Thailand will never become the centre of anything in the world, and it will forever remain a backbencher in the eyes of the international community.

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The bestselling novel To Kill a Mockingbird, written by Harper Lee is about a racist southern community in Maycomb, Alabama in the 1930s. At that time, southern states were still racially segregated. Harper Lee constructs her book by teaching all her readers about human standards. By presenting the good and bad in people. A major theme of this novel is the humankind’s inhumanity toward the humankind. One character that is treated terribly was Boo Radley. Boo Radley is a very obscure character in To Kill a Mockingbird. Not only does the whole community treat him terrible, so does his whole family. Boo Radley’s father is the number one victim to treat Boo Radley terrible. Boo was going to be locked in jail for some trouble he got in when he was a teenager. Boo’s father wanted the punishment in his hands and locked Boo into the house till he was an adult. Boo’s father thinks of Boo as a disgrace to their family. Boo stabbed his father in the leg with scissors with all his hatred in him. Boo’s father was always a very cruel man. Another character that treated Boo terrible is his brother, Nathan Radley. Boo always communicates with the children, Jem and Scout, by the knothole of a tree. Nathan noticed that Boo was giving the children gifts, so he filled the knothole of the tree with cement. Boo has never communicated with anyone for almost 15 years, and Nathan prevented Boo’s chance to ever talk to someone and be friends with. Boo was treated terribly by the children also. The children thought Boo was a scary person. Every time they came to a path where Boo was located they would always be frightened by the rumors they heard about him. \:Boo was about six-and-a-half feet tall, judging from his tracks; he dined on raw squirrels ... ...ayella’s father sees Tom, Mayella insists that Tom raped her. She did a horrible thing and blamed Tom. Tom did all her chores for free of charge, and Mayella ruined his life by blaming Tom for something he did not do. Mrs. Merriweather is part of a missionary circle. It’s a group of Christian women who are determined to help people suffering poor countries. They complain about her black servants, that they don’t work hard or deserve their pay. They only pay little amount to their servants. They do not perform their Christian attitude toward other people. This makes them an hypocrite because they make people believe that they are perfect Christians. Harper Lee teaches her readers something. It demonstrated the good and bad in people. She shows the readers how racist people could be so cruel. This novel showed how humankind’s inhumanity toward the humankinds.

Romanticism :: essays research papers

Romanticism Roughly from 1815 to 1910, this period of time is called the romantic period. At this period, all arts are transforming from classic arts by having greater emphasis on the qualities of remoteness and strangeness in essence. The influence of romanticism in music particularly, has shown that romantic composers value the freedom of expression, movement, passion, and endless pursuit of the unattainable fantasy and imagination. The composers of the romantic period are in search of new subject matters, more emotional and are more expressive of their feelings as they are not bounded by structural rules in classical music where order, equilibrium, control and perfection are deemed important (Dorak, 2000). The characteristics of romantic music are influenced by the Romantic Movement, where the arts of literature and painting play a great role in influencing romantic music. Other evidence of non-musical influences in romantic music is the popularity of romantic poetry during that era. Poems, opera arias and works form great romantic poets are transformed into instrumental works and composers like Schubert uses musical elements such as melodies inspired by poetry in his works (http://absoluteastronomy.com). The musical language itself has shown that romantic music is different from the rest of the music before its time. Extended tonal and harmonic elements are noticed in romantic music compared to those in the classical era, where chromaticism, the usage of dissonance, and modulations are used extensively. Other societal practice during romanticism is the Romantic Opera. In comparison to the classical and baroque opera, romantic opera has a continuous flow of music in each scene and soon, people pay less attention to tenors and pays equal attention to choruses. To name a few of many composers for romantic operas, Wagner and Bizet are known for their works for romantic opera during the romantic era. Romantic music is also influenced by folk music, tunes, rhythms and themes as many romantic composers wrote nationalist music, which is inspired from folk dances and songs, during the romantic period (http://absoluteastronomy.com). Another factor that contributed to romantic music in defining its traits is the instrumentation.

Aligning Elementary School to Middle School Curriculum Essay

There has been an upsurge in curriculum alignment actions among educational institutions in an attempt to reinforce the efficiency and effectiveness of instructions and assessment programs (Marsh & Willis, 2003). The need to eliminate the differences in both learning and teaching has compelled leaders in educational settings to examine the concepts and skills taught in educational institutions (Marsh & Willis, 2003). Also, the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) program of 2002 justifies the significance of curriculum alignment activities (Clarke, Kayona, Ruebling & Stow, 2006). In curriculum development, there are three essential areas that need great considerations. One, the curriculum document needs to â€Å"give direction, focus, and accountability in the learning environment. (Clarke, Kayona, Ruebling & Stow, 2006). Two, the curriculum document should be revised on a regular basis by at least two educational leaders and three; student outcomes that recognize what the learners acquire prior to graduation should align with the standards set by the state. According to Clarke, Kayona, Ruebling & Stow, (2006) many educational institutions have not yet integrated successfully the essentials standards within their curriculum nor maintained a written document to guide instruction. Again, the important role of leaders in educational setting to develop and implement curriculum is evident with the alignment of taught, written and tested curriculum. Clarke, Kayona, Ruebling & Stow, 2006) also affirms that the lack of curriculum alignment can result to lower achievement where educators teach contents that is not part of the curriculum document and nor is it part of assessment material. This dissertation will analyze the curriculum articulation and alignment between elementary school and middle school social studies, specifically, fourth and seventh grade. Inclusive of this dissertation will be a plan to improve curriculum articulation and alignment between elementary school and middle school social studies as well as improve the academic progression of student and the consistency of the curriculum. Summary of Original Analysis The curriculum for the North Dakota Department of Public Instruction is a standards-based design that lays emphasis on the student’s ability. The curriculum is divided by subject, grade level and standard. It explains the core contents for each subject with proficiency descriptors. The curriculum document is relevant to the mission of the North Dakota Department of Public Instruction as well as the objectives for the subjects. The Social Studies curriculum document for North Dakota Department of Public Instruction has five major themes for both elementary school and middle school as well as benchmark expectations in each category. The main ideas and academic expectations are the same for both schools. The design of subject matter for adjoining educational stages includes concepts, skills, understandings, and the core content useful in assessment. The curriculum documents of North Dakota Department of Public Instruction for the elementary and middle school comprise vertical alignment between the adjoining educational levels. The concepts, skills and understandings become more complicated amid the two educational levels. Therefore, learners should understand the concepts and skills of the elementary school before learning the concepts and skills of middle school. The concentration of the elementary school is narrower than that of middle school. The curriculum documents of both elementary and middle school do not exhibit horizontal alignment. Improvement of curriculum alignment, student progression and curriculum consistency Curriculum alignment is necessary to guarantee harmony between the curriculum’s intentions and the instruction of the curriculum by testing what is taught. In effect, there is little or no space left for differences in curriculum implementation. The educational leaders thereafter, assess educators by the degree in which the learners meet the set standards through standardized examination (Marsh & Willis, 2003). The vertical alignment links subjects that express a relationship and a particular order and then match the curriculum to the particular order. In this, students will gain vital knowledge prior to the next subject. The alignment aids in material reinforcement and offers teachers knowledge in relation to students’ ability. In addition, Melvin (2007 notes that vertical alignment enhances learning for students as well as communication between teachers at various educational levels. Horizontal alignment transversely brings together curriculum objectives between subjects. Horizontal alignment benefits learners in that learning transmits to new situation where students realize the significance of the knowledge gained (Wraga, 1999). The social studies curriculum within the North Dakota Department of Public Instruction between elementary and middle school, puts emphasis on standards and outlines objectives needed by students to learn. So as to improve curriculum alignment, it is necessary for curriculum at adjoining educational levels to lay emphasis on these objectives at every appropriate occurrence but not only within a particular grade. Glatthorns (1999) suggests it is important that the curriculum contain objectives for constant development, which can center on learning as well as testing when probable. Again, the curriculum should include enhancement units for all learners. Educators can then assess the standards and align the taught, written and tested curriculum. By gathering the acknowledged state standards and applying resourcefulness, tutors can develop unit which, will be interesting to the students. Teachers’ flexibility can also be put in play where the curriculum can be adjusted to meet the requirements and capability of the learners. In this strategy, educators align the written curriculum with the tested curriculum and the taught curriculum with the written one. As they implement the curriculum, In addition, teachers can include objectives for ongoing development and enhancement units. This process will allow learners to achieve high grades on tests while the ongoing students will have units of study that are comprehensive and thus will get their interest (Glatthorn, 1999). The North Dakota Department of Public Instruction maintains a standards-based curriculum that contains list of fundamental details and abilities at the lower end of Bloom’s Taxonomy, with no intention for connecting the fundamental details into more important outcomes of learning. Marsh and Willis (2003) contends that the progression that has been mandated by state would then be trussed by practical and fundamental knowledge with minimal consideration of lasting learning competency that is necessary to life as well as other areas of learning. A curriculum that lays out the necessity to address all students and concentrates on cognition development at a higher-level whilst keeping the standards-based curriculum is the most suitable to put into practice for the two adjoining educational stages (Wraga, 1999). A combined curriculum that is integrated, inclusive and student centered with holistic and multicultural aspects will enhance curriculum alignment both horizontally and vertically. In addition, this kind of curriculum will enhance learners’ academic progression and assist in curriculum consistency. Wraga (1999) admits that the standards-based curriculum must contain curriculum alignment of a larger curriculum that ensures lifelong learning. A curriculum that contains intrapersonal improvement encourages the learners to discuss learning and associate in relation to the learners’ life. Teaching and nurturing social skills through the curriculum allows cooperation of learners with other individuals, builds conflict resolution skills, and assists in team building. The curriculum within the North Dakota Department of Public Instruction shall integrate multicultural aspect so as to align the curriculum with the today’s society. Learners will get to value diverse culture and as a result develop communication among cultures. An all grade inclusive curriculum which is also adaptive is valuable to all learners; it will offer equal learning opportunities to students with disabilities as well as allow all students to embrace diversity among individuals. A student-centered curriculum focuses on the learners but not the curriculum materials, content to be covered or written goals. When there is implementation of a standards-based curriculum in association with a combined curriculum and high-stakes testing, students are assured of quality education. Layton & Lock (2007) asserts that student assessments are vital and in an effort to assist in academic progression of student educators should build tests that assess student learning correctly and adjust tests for the at-risk learners. Educators can unearth better ways of evaluating test results so as to identify learning needs of students and revise instruction. In addition this plan integrates authentic assessment. Authentic assessment demands the relevance and integration of skills vital to solve complicated problems and allows enhanced substantiation of the students’ ability to prosper in all situations. Learners have a chance to explain themselves allowing teachers to better understand the learning process and get instant feedback for learners. Furthermore, the application of authentic assessment sets up teacher collaboration and collegiality as well as expands the reflection and inquiry by the teacher. Conclusion Curriculum alignment involves matching a curriculum’s content to the use of tests so as to assess the learning of student (Marsh & Willis, 2003). Curriculum alignment calls for educational institutions to ensure consistence in the objectives, guides, textbooks, and tests that make up the curriculum (Marsh & Willis, 2003). Leaders in educational settings determine academic achievement through standard testing as a means to find out what happens in schools. Institutions of education emphasize effectiveness through increasing academic achievement where they term decline in academic achievement as a problem in the quality of the curriculum. Thus, aligning the intended curriculum with the taught curriculum seems to resolve this problem (Marsh & Willis, 2003). By integrating the previous aspects into the North Dakota Department of Public Instruction curriculum, a more significant learning experience can be achieved by both educators and students. Lastly, curriculum alignment will be seen, student academic progression as well as curriculum consistency will improve (Marsh & Willis, 2003). References Alexson, R. G. & Kemnitz, C. P. (2004): Curriculum articulation and transitioning student success: Where are we going wrong and what lessons have we learned? Educational Research Quarterly, Retrieved from ProQuest Education Journals database. Accessed on September 26, 2007 Biessman, J. B. 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(2003): Curriculum audits: achieving alignment for student success. Education Today. Retrieved from CBCA Complete database. Accessed on September 26, 2007. Odden, A. (2000): The costs of sustaining educational change through comprehensive school reform. Ornstein, A. C. & Levine, D. U. (1990): School effectiveness and reform: Guidelines for action. Porter, A. C. (2005): Getting the Content of Instruction Right. Retrieved from CBCA Complete database. Accessed on September 25, 2007 Layton, C. A. & Lock, R. H. (2007): Use authentic assessment techniques to fulfill the promise of no child left behind. Intervention in School and Clinic. Retrieved from ProQuest database. Accessed on September 25, 2007 Marsh, C. J. , & Willis, G. (2003): Curriculum: Alternative approaches, ongoing issues, 3rd edition. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson. Wraga, W. G. (1999). The educational and political implications of curriculum alignment and standards-based reform. Journal of Curriculum and Supervision. Retrieved from ProQuest database. Accessed on September 25, 2007 Young, M. L. (2004): High-stakes assessment and school accountability: A multicase study describing and comparing the best practices of five K–6 elementary schools that have demonstrated significant increases in student achievement as measured by the norm-referenced SAT-9 assessment and the Academic Performance Index of California. Retrieved from ProQuest Digital Dissertations database. Accessed on September 25, 2007