611 week 10 Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

611 week 10 - Essay Example The advantage of the grading systems is that they show a record of achievement and the learning progress and help the teachers and parents to know the student’s capability in academics. A student who scores an A or A minus is student who is doing well. A student who scores C is an average performer. A student with an E is a failure. The limitation of the grading system is that they only tell what a student can do theoretically in class and does not show what the student can do past the class or practically. The guidelines for developing multiple grading and reporting systems: Communication is the main objective for grading and reporting. The grades should be able to communicate to the parents, teachers and the public on performance of the students. The methods of reporting and grading must offer understandable and accurate descriptions of the learning process. The systems must also offer learning and teaching. Considerations in conducting parent-teacher conference: The parents ought to talk to their children before the conference begins. They must know if the child has a favorite subject. They must also ask their children if they would prefer to discuss any topic with the teacher. It is always advisable to discuss before the conference begins. The parents should talk with the teachers before the conference begins. The pre-meeting with the teachers helps the parents in share information about their child’s personality, interests and hobbies. The parents must also set priorities by setting questions that are important to them. The parents must also manage their minds while the head to the school. The parents must remind themselves that the trip is for the benefit of their child. They must also prepare for an opening that is friendly. Listening is important because it helps the parents to get information about their child, the school and the teachers. Sometimes the teacher may have a problem with the child, but it is

Korean-Americans Essay Example for Free

Korean-Americans Essay Korean-Americans are increasingly rising in number and have established their own communities in the different parts of the country (Lee, p. 21). They usually settle in the country as entrepreneurs and prosper in this endeavor. The highest concentration of Korean-Americans can be found in California, in the 1990’s census the Korean population in the state was 32. 5% (Min Pyong, p. 33). The increase in number of Korean-Americans in California can be attributed to the fact that it is geographically closer to their homeland and it has a mild climate, moreover, new immigrants may want to live in areas where there is already and existing Korean community. Koreans migrate to the U. S. hoping that they can provide better futures for their children, to enable them to have a better chance at going to college and better employment opportunities for them. Most of those who come to America are from the upper-middle class in Korea and are well-educated. Initially, Koreans live in apartments where the neighborhood is predominantly Korean, then after a few years, they move out to the suburbs to have their own homes. Owning a home is often equated with the first sign of realizing their American dream. In this connection, the Korean-American group did not differ in their perceptions of home ownership with the Northern California informants of Towsend’s which reported that home ownership symbolizes success and social standing (1999, p. 1). The similarity of their views may be due to the fact that most Korean Americans are generally well-educated and have higher social standing in their own country where they are accustomed to having their own homes. The groups are also similar in their choice of residence, which is in the suburbs. The suburbs according to Towsend have become a physical and moral separation from the city which is considered to be unsafe and full of violence (1999, p. 2), it can be said that the Korean Americans choose to have their homes in the suburbs because it signifies that they are becoming assimilated into the American Housing the good life Page #2 community, where they want their children to have the same opportunities as American children have. Towsend’s informants also revealed that although a home represents independence and self-sufficiency, most of them are in debt and are tied to their jobs in order to pay off their debts (1999, p. 3). However, for the Korean-Americans I interviewed, they emphasized that one must strive first to raise the amount needed to buy a house rather than to incur debts. The two groups may have differed in this respect because the Korean Americans in this particular group are entrepreneurs and they are more financially-wise than their American counterparts. To illustrate, most Korean-Americans run their own stores and family members help in the running of the store without being paid in order to keep labor costs at a minimum. The family is highly valued by Korean Americans and parents desire to send their children to the best schools thus they usually prefer suburbs that are closer to the schools or universities they send their children to, whereas the Towsend group use their time commuting from work to their homes and fail to â€Å"be there† for their children (1999, p. 4). The difference in the groups responses indicate the difference in the values that the group espouse, to the Korean American, education is seen as the best way to be successful while to the American informants, owning a home in a specific neighborhood spells success wherein the good provider outweighs being a more involved father. As Towsend (1999, p. 4) found, home ownership has become an integral part of family life. Having a home is equated to being a good family man, a good provider and hence a good father. But as shown by my interview, there are cultural underpinnings in the perceptions of home ownership and that it warrants further research. Although the group I interviewed is small in number, the ideas they have shared nonetheless offer a new way of thinking about the sociological impact of owning a home. Bibliography Lee, Lauren. Korean Americans. Marshall Cavendish Corporation, New York,. p. 21;1995 Min, Pyong Gap. Caught in the Middle: Korean Communities in New York and Los Angeles. University of California Press, Los Angeles, Table 2, p. 33;1996 Towsend, N. Housing the good life. Anthropology Newsletter, 40, 1 pp1-4; 1999 Yu, Eui-Young. Korean Community Profile: Life and Consumer Patterns. Korea Times, Los Angeles, p. 28; 1990.

Waste Land Essay: Love and Sex -- T.S. Eliot Waste Land Essays

Love and Sex in The Waste Land      Ã‚   Attitudes toward love and sex are one of the major themes of the poem. The introduction to "The Waste Land" in The Norton Anthology of English Literature states that "This is a poem about spiritual dryness," and much of this spiritual dryness relates to the nature of the modern sexual experience (although there are also other aspects of spiritual dryness the introduction also notes that major themes include a lack of a "regenerating belief" that gives "significance and value to people" and a type of death that "heralds no resurrection"). (Introduction 2146) Comparisons of different types between past and present are often used to highlight the nature of this modern sexual experience, which is pictured as empty, as lacking in both romance and passion, and as fruitless. Lil's rejection of her offspring (line 160) has already been mentioned; other examples abound throughout the poem. One example is furnished by the seduction of the typist by the "young man carbuncular," describ ed by Tiresias in lines 230-256. This scene describes a seduction seemingly without any love or passion. The typist seems to have no desire for sex, but no desire to resist seduction, either -- the young man's "caresses are unreproved, if undesired." (lines 236-237) Her single emotion expressed in the passage is a vague relief when the episode ends. Eliot follows the scene of seduction with these lines:    When lovely woman stoops to folly and Paces about her room again, alone, She smoothes her hair with automatic hand, And puts a record on the gramophone. (lines 253-256)    These lines parody a song from Oliver Goldsmith's The Vicar of Wakefield, in which a woman who had been seduced earlier... ... life cycle cannot continue and a large context for meaning in life is lost.    Works Cited and Consulted: Abrams, M.H., et al. Footnotes to "The Waste Land" in The Norton Anthology of English Literature, Sixth Edition, Volume 2. General Ed. M.H. Abrams. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 1993. Abrams, M.H., et al. Introduction to "The Waste Land" in The Norton Anthology of English Literature, Sixth Edition, Volume 2. General Ed. M.H. Abrams. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 1993. Eliot, Thomas Stearns. Footnotes to "The Waste Land" in The Norton Anthology of English Literature, Sixth Edition, Volume 2. General Ed. M.H. Abrams. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 1993. Eliot, Thomas Stearns. "The Waste Land" in The Norton Anthology of English Literature, Sixth Edition, Volume 2. General Ed. M.H. Abrams. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 1993.   

Fundamental Problems with the Catholic Church in 15th Century and How Martin Luther Faced Them

Question: What was Luther’s fundamental religious problem with the Catholic Church? Trace the development of this problem and why Luther solved it. Among the many problems Luther pointed out in the Catholic Church in his 95 theses, the one he had the most problem with was the issue of salvation and the selling of indulgencies. At the time, the doctrine of the church stated that those who did not receive a baptism would spend time in purgatory for their sins. The Church said that acceptance of Jesus took away the blame of the sin but did not clear the sins completely because of the fact that the people were sinners. This was significant because the church was selling indulgences. The Catholic Church once sold indulgences to people who would fight in the Holy Wars to be forgiven of their sins. However, this time, the Church sold indulgences to followers at a certain price so that buyers would be forgiven of past and future sins. According to Luther, this was nowhere to be found in the Holy Bible. Luther preached self morals and on the acceptance of Jesus and complete obedience as the true way to reach heaven as stated in the Bible. This influx of indulgence buying and selling by the people around Luther irritated him to no end. In his sermons he emphasized the true scriptures in the Bible and not doctrine according to the so called â€Å"Holy Church†. The Catholic Church was selling indulgences in an effort to raise money for St. Peters Basilica, which was under construction in the Vatican during this period. It would be a very costly project and therefore the Church needed a means to pay for it and their answer was to sell indulgences at a monetary price. This infuriated Luther because it advocated that people could literally buy their way into heaven without truly accepting Jesus as it states in the Bible. A man by the name of Johann Tetzel was selling the indulgences in Germany at Luther’s time and Luther pleaded to his followers not to buy them but to simply read the scriptures and accept Jesus. The sale of indulgences greatly upset Luther because he felt certain that people were eternally damning themselves by relying on the indulgences instead of the scripture. This drove Luther to write his 95 theses which blasted the Catholic Church from a variety of angles on its policies and the controversies surrounding the Church. Some of these included the sale of indulgences, the flaws and errors in the Church’s doctrine, and in some cases the ignorance by some members of the clergy to even read the scripture. In one case, Luther even inquired as to why the Pope insisted on paying for St. Peters Basilica through the poor people’s money instead of taking money out of his own pocket to pay for the new Church. Luther then nailed this list to a Church door in Germany, as was the tradition, on the day after Halloween. At first, Pope Leo X did not take Luther seriously calling him â€Å"a drunk friar†, however when Luther’s 95 theses began to spread around Germany like wild fire with the help of Gutenberg’s printing press the Church took notice. The 95 theses gained sympathy in Europe because many rulers were sick of the power over the Church over their provinces and used this as an excuse to break away from Catholic Church. Because of this, many new Protestant religions, such as antibaptism and Calvinism, began popping up as more people began to speak out against the church. The church’s own personal attempt to reform was largely unsuccessful and it simply pushed more converts in to Protestantism. At the Edict of Worms where Luther stood trial for heresy, Luther plead his case to the Church. The Church’s verdict however was that one man who has different views than the thousands of clergy men before Luther must be wrong. Luther was to be taken into custody, his books burned, and delivered to the Emperor. Luther, however, was able to escape and hid for brief period before he returned to Wittenberg to build a new Church. The Catholic Church’s unwillingness to reform and it’s continuance of its programs set the stage for the rest of the Protestant Reformation in Europe. Although Luther’s true intentions can only be speculated, most historians believe that at the Reformation’s onset he had not intended to break from the Catholic Church. In this area, he failed. He was not able to simply reform the Church from the inside and clean up its practices. Thus, Luther’s solution to this problem was unfortunately to split from the church along with millions of others and to change the Catholic Church forever.

Organizational Culture and Performance Essay

The concept of organizational culture has drawn attention to the long-neglected, subjective or ‘soft’ side of organizational life. However, many aspects of organizational culture have not received much attention. Instead, emphasis has been placed primarily on the cultural and symbolic aspects that are relevant in an instrumental/pragmatic context. The technical cognitive interest prevails. Culture then is treated as an object of management action. In this regard, Ouchi and Wilkins (1985: 462) note that ‘the contemporary student of organizational culture often takes the organization not as a natural solution to deep and universal forces but rather as a rational instrument designed by top management to shape the behavior of the employees in purposive ways’. Accordingly, much research on corporate culture and organizational symbolism is dominated by a preoccupation with a limited set of meanings, symbols, values, and ideas presumed to be manageable and directly related to effectiveness and performance. This is in many ways understandable, but there are two major problems following from this emphasis. One is that many aspects of organizational culture are simply disregarded. It seems strange that the (major part of the) literature should generally disregard such values as bureaucratic-‘meritocratic’ hierarchy, unequal distribution of privileges and rewards, a mixture of individualism and conformity, male domination, emphasis on money, economic growth, consumerism, advanced technology, exploitation of nature, and the equation of economic criteria with rationality. Instrumental reason dominates; quantifiable values and the optimization of means for the attainment of pre-given ends define rationality (Horkheimer and Adorno, 1947; Marcuse, 1964). Mainstream organizational culture thinking – in organizations but also in academia – tend to take this for granted. The values and ideas to which organizational culture research pays attention are primarily connected with the means and operations employed to achieve pre-defined and unquestioned goals. A second problem is that subordinating organizational culture thinking to narrowly defined instrumental concerns also reduces the potential of culture to aid managerial action. Organizational culture calls for considerations that break with some of the assumptions characterizing technical thinking, i.e. the idea that a particular input leads to a predictable effect. This chapter thus shows some problems associated with the use of the term culture that does not take the idea of culture seriously enough and presses the concept into a limited version of the technical cognitive interest. It argues for a ‘softer’ version of this interest as well as for thinking following the other two cognitive interests (as sketched in Chapter 1). A basic problem in much management thinking and writing is an impatience in showing the great potential of organizational culture. Associated with this is a bias for a premature distinction between the good and the bad values and ideas, trivialization of culture, overstressing the role of management and the employment of causal thinking. Premature normativity: the idea of good culture Associated with the technical interest of optimizing means for accomplishment of goals is an underdeveloped capacity to reflect upon normative matters. Viewing cultures as means leads to evaluations of them as more or less ‘good’, i.e. as useful, without consideration whether this goodness is the same as usefulness or if usefulness may be very multidimensional. The more popular literature argues that ‘good’ or ‘valuable’ cultures – often equated with ‘strong’ cultures – are characterized by norms beneficial to the company, to customers, and to mankind and by ‘good’ performance in general: Good cultures are characterized by norms and values supportive of excellence, teamwork, profitability, honesty, a customer service orientation, pride in one’s work, and commitment to the organization. Most of all, they are supportive of adaptability – the capacity to thrive over the long run despite new competition, new regulations, new technological developments, and the strains of growth. (Baker, 1980: 10) Good cultures are, according to this author, cultures that incorporate all good things in peaceful co-existence. Also many other authors eager to appeal to practitioners focus on highly positive-sounding virtues, attitudes, and behaviour claimed to be useful to the achievement of corporate goals as defined by management (e.g. Deal and Kennedy, 1982; Trice and Beyer, 1985). They are largely instrumental in character, without considering any ambiguity of the virtue of culture or what it supposedly accomplished in terms of goal realization. The assumption that culture can be simply evaluated in terms of right and wrong come through in embarrassing statements such as that ‘the wrong values make the culture a major liability’ (Wiener, 1988: 536) has already been mentioned. Similarly, Kilmann et al. (1985: 4) argue that ‘a culture has a positive impact on an organization when it points behavior in the right direction†¦. Alternatively, a culture has negative impact when it points behavior in the wrong direction’. According to Wilkins and Patterson (1985: 272): ‘The ideal culture †¦ is characterized by a clear assumption of equity †¦ a clear sense of collective competence †¦ and an ability to continually apply the collective competence to new situations as well as to alter it when necessary.’ Kanter (1983) talks about ‘cultures of pride’, which are good, and ‘cultures of inferiority’, which any sane person will avoid. This type of functionalist, normative, and instrumentally biased thinking is also found in Schein’s (1985) book, in which culture is seen as a pattern of basic assumptions that has ‘proved’ to be valid for a group coping with problems of external adaptation and internal integration. Basically, culture in this literature is instrumental in relation to the formal goals of an organization and to the management objectives or tasks associated with these goals (i.e. external and internal effectiveness). It is assumed to exist because it works – or at least used to work. Of course, changed circumstances can make a culture dysfunctional – calling for planned, intentional change – but the approach assumes that culture is or can be ‘good’ for some worthwhile purpose. As will be shown later ‘good’ and ‘bad’ are not, however, self-evident, especially when it comes to complex phenomena such as culture. A bias towards the ‘positive’ functions of culture and its close relation to issues such as harmony, consensus, clarity, and meaningfulness is also implicit in many of these studies (see Martin and Meyerson, 1988). Symbols and cultural aspects are often seen as functional (or dysfunctional) for the organization in terms of goal attainment, meeting the emotional-expressive needs of members, reducing tension in communication, and so on. Instrumental/functional dimensions are often emphasized, for instance, in studies of rites and ceremonies (e.g. Dandridge, 1986; Trice and Beyer, 1984). The typical research focus is on social integration (Alvesson, 1987). Culture is understood as (usually or potentially) useful – and those aspects of culture that are not easily or directly seen as useful remain out of sight, e.g. on gender and ethics. The most common ideas guiding organizational analysis draw upon such metaphors for culture as tool, social glue, need satisfier, or regulator of social relations. Problems include the premature use of moral judgement, in a way hidden behind technical understanding in which culture is viewed as a tool and presumably as easy to evaluate in terms of its goodness as a hammer. But few issues are simply good or bad, functional or dysfunctional. Some things that may be seen as good may be less positive from another angle. A ‘clear sense of collective competence’ – to connect to the citation above – does in itself sound positive and is good for self-esteem and commitment, but a high level of self-confidence may be a mixed blessing as it easily forms a part of, or leads to, fantasies of omnipotence, and may obstruct openness, reflection, willingness to listen to critique and take new external ideas seriously (Brown and Starkey, 2000). Cultural themes thus call for careful consideration, where normative judgement should be applied with great caution. Normative talk easily prevents more nuanced interpretation. Trivialization of culture As argued above, the consequence of the functionalist/pragmatic approach is that culture tends to be reduced to those limited aspects of this complex phenomenon that are perceived to be directly related to organizational efficiency and competitive advantage (see, e.g. Barney, 1986; Kilmann et al., 1985). This means a rather selected interest in organizational culture. But much worse is a tendency to emphasize mainly the superficial aspects of these selected parts of organizational culture. These superficial aspects have the advantage that they are compatible with technical thinking, presumably accessible to managerial interventions. Culture may even be equated with certain behavioural norms viewed as ‘an excellent vehicle for helping people understand and manage the cultural aspects of organizational life’ (Allen, 1985: 334). In marketing, market-oriented culture is frequently defined as the key to strong performances (Harris and Ogbonna, 1999), culture here implying certain behaviours. The problem, of course, is that norms are not the best vehicle for understanding culture. Whereas norms tell people how to behave, culture has a much broader and more complex influence on thinking, feeling, and sense-making (Schneider, 1976). Again, Barney (1986), Pfeffer (1994) and others argue that to serve as a source of sustained competitive advantage culture must be ‘valuable, rare, and imperfectly imitable’. If this statement is to make any sense at all, culture must be interpreted as highly normative, accessible to evaluation in terms of frequency (i.e. quantifiable), and capable of being copied a t will. This conception deprives culture of the richness that is normally seen as its strength. At the same time, any culture may be seen as vital for competitive advantage (or as disadvantage), as it is arguably, highly significant and not easy to imitate. As Pfeffer (1994), among others, notes, many of the earlier identified sources of competitive advantage, such as economies of scale, products or process technology, access to financial resources and protected or regulated markets, become of diminishing significance as a consequence of more fragmented markets with an increasing need for flexibility in production, shorter product life cycle, internationalizations and de-regulations. A company’s competence and ability to manage people – to a considerable degree overlapping organizational culture – are not easy to imitate. Even to describe and analyse culture is difficult, as indicated by all the management texts providing only superficial and trivial descriptions of culture, such as norms about ‘market-oriented’ behaviour. The trivialization of organizational culture is not, however, solely restricted to writings promising the quick fix. Despite an effort to define organizational culture on a deeper level, emphasizing basic assumptions, Schein (1985) in most of his empirical examples tends to address the more superficial aspects. One example concerns the acquisition of a franchised business: The lack of understanding of the cultural risks of buying a franchised business was brought out even more clearly in another case, where a very stuffy, traditional, moralistic company whose management prided itself on its high ethical standards bought a chain of fast-food restaurants that were locally franchised around the country. The company’s managers discovered, much to their chagrin, that one of the biggest of these restaurants in a nearby state had become the local brothel. The activities of the town were so well integrated around this restaurant that the alternative of closing it down posed the risk of drawing precisely the kind of attention this company wanted at all costs to avoid. The managers asked themselves, after the fact, ‘Should we have known what our acquisition involved on this more subtle level? Should we have understood our own value system better, to ensure compatibility?’ (Schein, 1985: 34–5) Here the problem seems to be lack of knowledge on a very specific point – what the company was buying – rather than lack of understanding of the company’s own value system. Most ordinary, ‘respectable’ corporations, whatever their organizational culture, would probably wish to avoid becoming owners of brothels. Prostitution is broadly seen as illegitimate, not only by those who Schein views as ‘very stuffy, traditional, moralistic’ people. Apart from the moral issue, there is of course the risk that bad publicity would follow and harm the company. Managerialization of culture Another aspect of adapting culture to technical concerns, and the reduction of complexity and depth contingent upon such concerns, is the confusion of organizational culture with the firm’s management ideology. Frequently what is referred to as organizational or corporate culture really stands for the ideals and visions prescribed by top management (Alvesson, 1987; Westley and Jaeger, 1985). It is sometimes held that the best way to investigate ‘corporate culture’ is through interviews with top managers, but the outcome of this approach tends to be a description of the espoused ideology of those managers that ‘only skim the culture that surrounds the top executives’ (Czarniawska-Joerges, 1992: 174). Denison (1984) in a survey claiming to study corporate culture, for example asked one manager per company in a large number of companies to fill in a questionnaire. Organizational culture and managerial ideology are in most cases not the same, partly due to the lack of depth of ideology compared to culture, partly due to variation within organizations and discrepancies between top management and other groups. To differentiate between corporate culture as prescribed and manager-led and organizational culture as ‘real culture’ and more or less emergent from below is one possibility (Anthony, 1994). However, management ideology is not necessarily very different from organizational culture – there are cases where management ideology powerfully impregnates cultural patterns (Alvesson, 1995; Kunda, 1992). But this needs to be empirically investigated and shown, and cannot be assumed. Management ideology is but one of several expressions of organizational culture. In most discussions of the relationship between culture and performance, authors focus on values espoused by senior managers, to a higher or lower degree shared by larger groups, while the complexity and variety of culture is neglected.1 From a management point of view, the managerialization of organizational culture immediately appears appealing; but arguably deeper, less conscious aspects of cultural patterns than those managers are already aware of and promote are more valuable, at least in the long run, to focus on. Rather than smoothing over differences and variations in meanings, ideas and values within organizations, highlighting the latter is significant as a basis of informed management thinking and action. Loosening the grip of premature practicality The three weaknesses of much organizational culture thinking reviewed above are related to the wish to make culture appear as of immediate interest to practitioners, and to fit into a predominantly technical cognitive interest in which culture is reduced to a tool. Cultural studies should be permitted to develop unrestricted by, or at least more loosely connected to, concerns for practicality. It is important here is to recognize the contradiction between sophisticated thinking and easily applicable practical concerns: The more rigorously (anthropologically) the term (culture) is applied, the more the concept of organizational culture gains in theoretical interpretative power and the more it loses in practicality. In the effort to overcome this contradiction the danger is that theoretical rigour will be lost in the interest of practicality. (Westley and Jaeger, 1985: 15) Even if one wants to contribute to practicality, rather than to anthropology, this still calls for another kind of intellectual approach than most of the authors cited above exemplify. Oversimplification and promises of ‘quick fixes’ do not necessarily serve narrow pragmatic interests, neither those of managers nor of others. Making things look clear-cut and simple may mislead. Practitioners might benefit much more from the pro-managerial and pragmatic organizational culture literature if it stopped promising recipes for how to manage and control culture and instead discussed other phenomena which managers might, with luck and skill, be able to influence – for example, specific cultural manifestations, workplace spirit and behavioural norms. Learning to ‘think culturally’ about organizational reality might inspire enlightened managerial everyday action rather than unrealistic programmes for culture change or bending patterns of meaning, ideas and valu es to managerial will. Before assuming that culture is functional or good for organizational or managerial purposes, it makes sense to distinguish among possible consequences and to recognize that they may conflict. Critical reflection and learning may be a good thing, consensus facilitating control and coordinated action another, and reduction of anxiety a third; but not all these good things may be attainable at the same time and they may contradict each other. Perhaps more important, contradictory interests – those of professions, divisions, classes, consumers, environmentalists, the state, owners, top management, etc. – may produce different views on what is good, important, and appropriate. Also within complex organizations, corporate goal-attainment may presuppose considerable variation in cultural orientations. Most aspects of culture are difficult to designate as clearly good or bad. To simplify these relationships runs the risk of producing misleading pictures of cultural manifestati ons. Instead, the focus must become the tensions between the creative and destructive possibilities of culture formation (Jeffcutt, 1993). Approaches to the cultureÂâ€"performance relationship There are different ideas regarding to what extent organizational culture can be used as a managerial tool. I will point at and discuss three versions of how managers can work with culture. These represent the relative significance of management versus culture: can management control culture or must management adapt to culture? Cultural engineering: corporate culture as managerial design In the most instrumentally oriented of these formulations, culture is conceived as a building block in organizational design – a subsystem, well-demarcated from other parts of the organization, which includes norms, values, beliefs, and behavioural styles of employees. Even though it may be difficult to master, it is in principle no different from other parts of the organization in terms of management and control. The term ‘cultural engineering’ captures the spirit of this position, which is sometimes called the ‘corporate-culture school’ (Alvesson and Berg, 1992). Kilmann (1985: 354) recognizes that there is considerable disagreement about what culture is but concludes that ‘it is still important to consider what makes a culture good or bad, adaptive or dysfunctional’. He describes culture almost as a physical force: ‘Culture provides meaning, direction, and mobilization – it is the social energy that moves the corporation into allocation †¦ the energy that flows from shared commitments among group members’ (p. 352) and ‘the force controlling behaviour at every level in the organization’ (p. 358). He believes that every firm has a distinctive culture that can develop and change quickly and must be managed and controlled: ‘If left alone, a culture eventually becomes dysfunctional’ (p. 354). The underlying metaphor then clearly comes from technical science. The crucial dimension of culture, according to Kilmann, is norms; it is here that culture is ‘most easily controlled’. More precisely, it is the norms that guide the behaviour and attitudes of the people in the company that are of greatest interest and significance, because they have a powerful effect on the requirements for its success – quality, efficiency, product reliability, customer service, innovation, hard work, loyalty, etc. This is the core of most (American) texts on corporate culture (e.g. Deal and Kennedy, 1982; Peters and Waterman, 1982; Sathe, 1985; Wiener, 1988). There are many difficulties with this model. Norms refer to a too superficial and behaviour-near aspect to really capture culture, at least as defined in this book. Norms and behaviours are affected by many dimensions other than culture. Within a culture there are a number of norms related to the enormous variety of different behaviours. The point with culture is that it indicates the meaning dimension, i.e. what is behind and informs norms. A related problem with this behaviour-near view on culture is the tendency to see culture as more or less forcefully affecting behaviour. For example, Sathe (1985: 236) argues that ‘the strength of a culture influences the intensity of behavior’, and the ‘strength’ of a culture is determined by ‘how many important shared assumptions there are’, how widely they are shared, and how clearly they are ranked. A ‘strong’ culture is thus characterized by homogeneity, simplicity, and clearly ordered assumptions. In a ‘complex’ culture – by definition any culture – assumptions will probably be very difficult to identify and rank, and it can even be argued that such a measurement approach distorts the phenomena it is supposed to study. As Fitzgerald (1988: 9–10) has put it: Values do not exist as isolated, independent, or incremental entities. Beliefs and assumptions, tastes and inclinations, hopes and purposes, values and principles are not modular packages stored on warehouse shelves, waiting for inventory. They have no separate existence, as do spark plugs in an engine; they cannot be examined one at a time and replaced when burned out†¦. They have their own inner dynamic: Patriotism, dignity, order, progress, equality, security – each implies other values, as well as their opposites. Patriotism implies homeland, duty, and honor, but also takes its strength from its contrast to disloyalty; dignity requires the possibility of humiliation and sham e.

The Downfall of Nobility of Poe Essays

The Downfall of Nobility of Poe Essays The Downfall of Nobility of Poe Essay The Downfall of Nobility of Poe Essay Essay Topic: The Fall of the House Of Usher The short narratives of Edgar Allan Poe The Fall of the House of Usher and The Cask of Amontillado shows the ruin of baronial households or persons- The Usher’s in the former and Fortunato in the latter. Both short narratives besides feature eerie vaults and infinites. The death of the baronial household represents the ruin of worlds in general and the eerie puting represents the human consciousness. Downfall and VaultsThe rubric The Fall of the House of Usher foreshadows what would go on in the narrative literally and figuratively. Roderick Usher and his sister Medeline are the last of their baronial household because merely one of the Usher’s household members survives in each coevals. †¦the root of the Usher race. all clip honered as it was. had put away. at no period. any abiding subdivision ; in other words. that the full household ballad in the direct line of descent. ( Poe ) .Making the characters baronial is merely Poe lodging to the guidelines of Aristotle that a calamity must be about characters of aristocracy. What Poe truly wanted to convey is that everybody ( even baronial work forces ) can fall merely like the Usher’s. D. H. Lawrence meanwhile has explained absolutely what Poe is seeking to convey in his changeless usage of vaults as symbols. All this belowground vault concern in Poe merely symbolizes that which tales topographic point beneath the consciousness. ( Lawrence. ch. 6 ) .This meant that the act of burying Fortunato and Medeline alive by Montresor in The Cask of Amontillado and Roderick Usher in The Fall of the House of Usher severally is. on the surface. merely talked approximately lightly but beneath lies the homicidal purpose of the characters with changing motives. Montresor buried Fortunato alive to revenge whatever abuse he has done to him while Roderick Usher may hold allowed his sister to remain buried alive despite hearing her shrieks out of love because he does non desire her anymore to endure.Plants Cited Poe. Edgar Allan. The Fall of the House of Usher. Bartleby. com. 28 April 2009. lt ; hypertext transfer protocol: //www. bartleby. com/195/10. hypertext markup language gt ; Poe. Edgar Allan. The Cask of Amontillado. Literature. org. 28 April 2009. lt ; hypertext transfer protocol: //www. literature. org/authors/poe-edgar-allan/amontillado. hypertext markup language gt ; Lawrence. D. H. Studies in Authoritative American Literature: Chapter 6 Edgar Allan Poe. 28 April 2009. lt ; hypertext transfer protocol: //xroads. Virginia. edu/~HYPER/LAWRENCE/dhlch06. htm gt ;

The Rise of Oil and Electricity Price Essays - Economy, Free Essays

The Rise of Oil and Electricity Price Essays - Economy, Free Essays The Rise of Oil and Electricity Price Issues; T he government has declared that fuel price, electricity and telecommunication service rates are increased. This decision was effective since early January 2003. The policy has had good and bad effects and impacts on social situations. Argument pro; On one hand, the government policy on the increase of prices has good impacts on strengthening the national economy, avoiding smuggling and increasing the competitiveness of national economy. Firstly, the policy has strengthened the national economy. Indonesian economy has so far been much dependent on the oil price. The government has subsidized the price of commodity for domestic use. Argument contra; This is prone to crisis. In other words, the huge amount of subsidy so far has put more burden on national economy. The increase of fuel of price is due to the lift or lessening of the subsidy. Secondly, the domestic oil price is much lower than that overseas. The consequence, is that smuggling of the commodity overseas from Indonesia is a common practice, particularly by those who are adjacent to the neighboring countries like Malaysia. Thirdly, the increase of oil price has induced the competitiveness of Indonesian economy. 2. Categorize the whole sentence connector on the discussion text above! T he government has declared that fuel price, electricity and (additional information) , t elecommunication service rates are increased. This decision was effective since (time) early January 2003. The policy has had good and bad effects and impacts on social situations. On one hand (cause and effect) , the government policy on the increase of prices has good impacts on strengthening the national economy, avoiding smuggling and (additional information) , increasing the competitiveness of national economy. Firstly (furthermore or additional information) , the policy has strengthened the national economy. Indonesian economy has so far been much dependent on the oil price. The government has subsidized the price of commodity for domestic use. This is prone to crisis . In other words (contrary cause and effect) , the huge amount of subsidy so far has put more burden on national economy. The increase of fuel of price is due to the lift or lessening of the subsidy. Secondly (furthermore or additional information) , , the domestic oil price is much lower than that overseas. The consequence (emphasis) , is that smuggling of the commodity overseas from Indonesia is a common practice, particularly by those who are adjacent to the neighboring countries like Malaysia. Thirdly (furthermore or additional information) , the increase of oil price has induced the competitiveness of Indonesian economy. 3. Write a Discussion text in at least 400 words on one of the following topics Social effects of social networks on young viewers . How social media affect our children The early of the 21 st century have withnessed an explosion of internet usage. The popularity of this system give us change to keeps interconnected nonstop via media social. Obviously, with the universal acces to interactive and communicate which was offers by in ternet. It is no hard to understand why people on the world are addicted to it especially a teenager. and all of us have less attention to account of social media. there are some hidden danger the negative effect of media social . it is quite ironic that according to the Washinton press about 6% of young user of media social got hurt as a part of bullying in some of media social. Some of the kid may feel insulted or embarrassed because of hars comments or o[pinon.

Get Access to 200+ Grammar Exercises and Quizzes

Get Access to 200+ Grammar Exercises and Quizzes Get Access to 200+ Grammar Exercises and Quizzes Get Access to 200+ Grammar Exercises and Quizzes By Daniel Scocco When we launched the DailyWritingTips Pro subscription six months ago, our main goal was to create a resource our readers could use to improve their English and writing skills. The feedback we received far exceeded our expectations, so it seems we are on the right track. The main part of the Pro subscription are the exercises and quizzes. Subscribers get a new exercise every day, and they also get access to the archive of over 200 interactive exercises that have been published already. Here are some of the topics our exercises and quizzes cover: -Pronoun Usage -Confused Words -Irregular Verbs -Prepositions -Comma Usage -Hyphenation -Wordiness -If Clauses -Nominalization -Compound Nouns -Possessives -Verb Tense -Capitalization -Dangling Modifiers -Expletives -Colons and Semicolons -Subject-Verb Agreement -Quotation Marks -Parallel Constructions -Misspelled Words -Idiomatic Expressions -Redundancy -Prefixes and Suffixes We offer a 15-day free trial, so you have two weeks to try everything out completely free, and only then decide whether or not the subscription is right for you. Click here to get all the details and join! Want to improve your English in five minutes a day? Get a subscription and start receiving our writing tips and exercises daily! Keep learning! Browse the General category, check our popular posts, or choose a related post below:100 Idioms About NumbersWhat is the Difference Between Metaphor and Simile?9 Forms of the Past Tense

Does A Star is Born Represent the Real Judy Garland Essay

Does A Star is Born Represent the Real Judy Garland - Essay Example The story is used as a Hollywood flick to grab the attention of the audience and to create a strong basis to help with advertising and production of the film. The concepts that are approached in â€Å"A Star is Born† comes from the ideology of asking Garland to perform after she had not produced a movie for over four years. This particular method is one which immediately grabbed attention, specifically because those in public were interested in what had happened to the young actress since her growth and fame. This approach drew the attention of society and was able to form a sense of culture and ideologies around the actress that everyone had loved as one of the brightest of Hollywood. Since this was the main ideology, Hollywood attempted to change the main approaches which were taken while trying to highlight Garland as one that had continuous success with every part of her life (Haver, 7). The need to enhance the publicity of the movie was followed with trying to highlight G arland as a success story. The first part of the movie, which is inclusive of Nelson helping Garland to get her start in the movies and to build her success with her first musical are parts of Garland’s career that were true. ... r first movie and went and out of fame, specifically which could be seen with the decision not to make a film in four years and the problems which occurred with some of her later films in terms of critiques and acting styles. The double standard which was a part of her career, including the heightened success and the lower aspects, were not highlighted in the movie and only were able to show the positive parts of her career (McGilligan, 217). The other parts of Garland’s life were fictional, specifically with the relationship that was highlighted throughout the story and the effects which this had on the character of Garland. Norman is the husband of Garland who helps her to get her start as a famous actress. However, in doing so, he loses his prestige as an actor. He moves into gambling, drinking and other lifestyle dependencies that cause Garland to be the main character of him in the household. This leads him to acting up on stage as a drunk, being arrested for gambling and continuing to use drugs. This also leads to his tragedy of committing suicide because of his downfall. These particular concepts are a reflection of Garland; however, it was Garland who had the several problems. She was known to be millions of dollars in debt, went through four divorces and was on drugs as well as faced several illnesses throughout her life. She gave birth to three children during her marriages; however, she remained caught in between the illnesses, stardom and problems with the several drugs and other influences that were surrounding her personal life (Clarke, 5). The several known facts about Garland’s life were not presented in the film. Instead, Garland is seen in â€Å"A Star is Born† as one who only carries the problems of her husband. She is seen as wealthy, takes care

International Work Environments Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

International Work Environments - Research Paper Example It will be pertinent to explore the cost of living in 5 different countries through purchasing power parity point of view to understand how it may affect the wage payments to the managers. This has a base in U.S $1 with the local currency. Purchasing power parity is a good way of calculating how much on aggregate basis he/she will need to spend in that country for the matching living. It is quite possible that some of the components of spending will be expensive and some may be quite low. However, advantage with the purchasing power parity of currency calculations take into account all major spending in that country essential for the living. The factor which is expensive in a particular country can be taken a special consideration while relocating oneself in that country. INDIA: Currently, India is the second fastest developing economy of the world growing at the rate between 7-8 percent. Due to high GDP growth rate job market is thriving with the opportunity. India offers one of the lowest costs of living compared to many other developing economies. Housing costs including rentals, mortgage, and household fuels costs do not offer low cost promise and it is expensive compared to other countries under study that is mainly due to large scale urbanization and burgeoning population. Restaurants and meals outside are relatively less expensive. Groceries, communication, education goes much favorably compared to other countries in study. Russia: Apartments and transportation costs are quite affordable except Moscow and St. Petersburg, where costs may rise 2-3 times more than country side or small cities. Utilities are not expensive and local phone calls are not chargeable. Local Russian style restaurants, bars or cafes are not expensive and does not cost exorbitant prices. Japan: Japan is considered as one of the most expensive country to live in.

Resource based view of strategies Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 3750 words

Resource based view of strategies - Essay Example They face a lot of profits in the long run. The resource-based view has both advantages and disadvantages. Some people despise it by saying that it does not put into consideration the importance of worker’s input in the work; it also has little focus on capabilities and prescriptive implications. Some other organizations claim that Resource-based view is just a theory and cannot be put under practice. But most important, it is not good to criticize a theory; people should look at the organizations which used it and have become successful. Though it may take some time, it is the best way to uplift unsuccessful organizations. Despite the many criticisms organizations still prefer to use it to make their strategies.  A Resource-Based View is a management device that is used by an organization, to assess its strategies by effectively and efficiently applying its useful, tangible or intangible resources to determine its competitive advantage. It is also used to transform its shor t term competitive ability to its sustainability (Clark & Barney, 2007, p.26). Competitive advantage is the implementation of a specific current strategy that is not being implemented by other organizations at the moment and will facilitate to more market opportunities, competitive threats will be neutralized, value creation and the profits will be improved (Clark & Barney, 2007, p.60). This essay aims to use a resource-based view of strategies to Nokia Mobile Company, in order to define its competitive advantage and competitive survival over other mobile companies. This essay will critically evaluate a resource-based view of Nokia strategic management in order to improve its markets and its profits.

Galen Strawson Considers Freedom of Will to Be Profanation Essay

Galen Strawson Considers Freedom of Will to Be Profanation - Essay Example I disagree with Strawson’s position and posit that humans can and should be held responsible for their actions because, as Strawson points out, even if the situation is such that you have a gun to your head, you still have a choice.   The unpleasantness of the choice does not nullify the presence of the choice or the fact that we always have the option to choose either the pleasant or more tolerable route over the unpleasant option and vice versa.According to Strawson’s analysis, humans lack the capacity to make free choices.   The influences of society, parents, friends, teachers, and all of the contributory factors that shape each of us into the unique individuals we are countermand our ability to freely make decisions.   Since we do not control who we are and who we determine the decisions we make, logic dictates that we are not engaging in free will because we did not have the power to shape who we are.   Additionally, Strawson states that, even if a person changes who they are, this does not mean they have free will because heredity and experience have already affected you in ways that you can never change.   The way a person is ultimately has a significant effect on how they are able to change and what attributes they are able to change, which causes the redundancy in the whole concept of change to facilitate free will.  Strawson begins by presenting the gamut of views concerning free will from the perspective of the Compatibilists and the Libertarian and No-Freedom Incompatibilists.   The philosophical view of the Compatibilist is that humans have free will and are morally responsible for their actions (Strawson, 1995).   According to Strawson, Compatibilists base their analysis of the condition of free will on the fact that it is compatible with the concept of determinism, which states that each action creates a pattern that makes subsequent actions or reactions unavoidable.This theory deems the determining factors that aff ect personality irrelevant and maintain that free will is absolute, despite the inclusion of determinism.   However, the presence of determinism in the Compatibilist view of free will actually nullify the viewpoint because how can you freely choose an option that has been predetermined?  

BEHAVIOR MANAGEMENT Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

BEHAVIOR MANAGEMENT - Essay Example As a far as being and achiever is concerned, I consider myself one since I see life as a set of goals that need to be fulfilled and as such whenever I complete a task I feel that I have achieved something no matter how small. Lastly, I am a restorer because I always derive pleasure and satisfaction from patching things, situations and even people. This is influenced by my positivism since whenever I come across a situation that could be made better; I almost always try my utmost to remedy it. While the test may have indicated that am an includer, I do not think that is very descriptive of me since I tend to prefer to run projects on my own rather than as part of a team. While I do include people in them, when it comes to their management, I end up trying to be the one to run point because I am a bit of a perfectionist. In the past, teachers and even friends have been full of praise about my positivism, I remember one of my teacher once told me that my glass is always half full and I should influence my colleagues to be as positive. Whenever my siblings or friends are stressed, sometimes by academics or life issues such as relationship they often seek me out since they know I will help them see the best in such situations. This has also been very useful to me personally since, as a student, I frequently used my positivism to motivate myself to take on complicated projects that others did not want to tackle. I often view challenges as opportunities to make myself a better person rather than inconvenient situations that should be avoided. As a result, I have found myself exceling and standing out, not because I am better than others are but because I am willing to try what they refuse to handle. Being an achiever as well as a positivist is often instrumental in helping one achieve success in most of the things they set out to do (Clear). In many cases, I make small short term goals which I gradually and consistently work on combining the small

Galen Strawson Considers Freedom of Will to Be Profanation Essay

Galen Strawson Considers Freedom of Will to Be Profanation - Essay Example I disagree with Strawson’s position and posit that humans can and should be held responsible for their actions because, as Strawson points out, even if the situation is such that you have a gun to your head, you still have a choice.   The unpleasantness of the choice does not nullify the presence of the choice or the fact that we always have the option to choose either the pleasant or more tolerable route over the unpleasant option and vice versa.According to Strawson’s analysis, humans lack the capacity to make free choices.   The influences of society, parents, friends, teachers, and all of the contributory factors that shape each of us into the unique individuals we are countermand our ability to freely make decisions.   Since we do not control who we are and who we determine the decisions we make, logic dictates that we are not engaging in free will because we did not have the power to shape who we are.   Additionally, Strawson states that, even if a person changes who they are, this does not mean they have free will because heredity and experience have already affected you in ways that you can never change.   The way a person is ultimately has a significant effect on how they are able to change and what attributes they are able to change, which causes the redundancy in the whole concept of change to facilitate free will.  Strawson begins by presenting the gamut of views concerning free will from the perspective of the Compatibilists and the Libertarian and No-Freedom Incompatibilists.   The philosophical view of the Compatibilist is that humans have free will and are morally responsible for their actions (Strawson, 1995).   According to Strawson, Compatibilists base their analysis of the condition of free will on the fact that it is compatible with the concept of determinism, which states that each action creates a pattern that makes subsequent actions or reactions unavoidable.This theory deems the determining factors that aff ect personality irrelevant and maintain that free will is absolute, despite the inclusion of determinism.   However, the presence of determinism in the Compatibilist view of free will actually nullify the viewpoint because how can you freely choose an option that has been predetermined?  

Technology and Management Functions Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Technology and Management Functions - Essay Example Secure Call Management was basically a call center operation prior to acquiring the Image Project. As a call center technology played a huge role as well in the day to day operations. The manager of the call center would utilize satellite image transfer to create virtual meetings with salespeople across national and international boundaries. The wireless internet service the company utilized for its requirements of communication with field employees allow anyone to connect to the internet from any remote location. When the iPhone came out on June 29, 2007 it was suggested that they could replaced the current practice due to its smart phone capabilities, but using a laptop computer was more practical because the iPhone inter phase did not allow for a professional to work efficiently (Timesonline, 2007). When the image project started the team was given an open space. We had to build the infrastructure necessary from scratch. The project manager utilized the designing software, Alibre Cad, to create the facilities layout. The twelve members of the team received a PDA that displayed the design. We had to build 150 small office modules for the workers. It took us approximately four to complete the construction project. Whenever there were any minor design changes the PDA which were connected to the company wi-fi system would enable us to see the changes and change our work specifications accordingly. The next stage of the project was the installation of the computers. The firm bought 200 new dell computers. The project manager showed us a delivery confirmation slip that he retrieved from the UPS website. It said the computers would arrive at 12:10 P.M. on a Sunday. Good news for us it meant we would get paid some good overtime on a Sunday for our work. The computers arrived on time. T he manager was able to accelerate work because he had information he obtained thanks to technological advancements that were not available in the past. We had installed all the

After the Ratification of the Declaration of Independence Essay Example for Free

After the Ratification of the Declaration of Independence Essay After the ratification of the Declaration of Independence, establishing the united colonies as Free and Independent States, the Continental Congress set to work on the task of drawing up a document that would provide a legal framework for that Union, and which would be enforceable as the law of the new land. The Articles were written during the early part of the American Revolution by a committee of the Second Continental Congress of the now independent thirteen sovereign states. The head of the committee, John Dickinson, who had refused to sign he Declaration of Independence, nevertheless adhering to the will of the majority of the members of the Continental Congress, presented a report on the proposed articles to the Congress on July 12, 1776, eight days after the signing of the Declaration of Independence. Dickinson initially proposed a strong central government, with control over the western lands, equal representation for the states, and the power to levy taxes. Because of their experience with Great Britain, the 13 states feared a powerful central government. Consequently, they changed Dickinsons proposed articles rastically before they sent them to all the states for ratification in November 1777. The Continental Congress had been careful to give the states as much independence as possible. The Articles deliberately established a confederation of sovereign states, carefully specifying the limited functions of the federal government. Despite these precautions, several years passed before all the states ratified the articles. The delay resulted from preoccupation with the revolution and from disagreements among the states. These disagreements included quarrels over boundary lines, conflicting ecisions by state courts, differing tariff laws, and trade restrictions between states. The small states wanted equal representation with the large states in Congress, and the large states were afraid they would have to pay an excessive amount of money to support the federal government. In addition, the states disagreed over control of the western territories. The states with no frontier borders wanted the government to control the sale of these territories so that all the states profited. On the other hand, the states bordering the frontier wanted to control as much land as they could. Eventually the states agreed to give control of all western lands to the federal government, paving the way for final ratification of the articles on March 1, 1781, Just seven and a half months before the surrender of Lord Cornwallis and his British Army at Yorktown, October 19, 1781, the victory ended fighting in the War of Independence and virtually assured success to the American cause. Almost the entire war for five long years had been prosecuted by the members of the Second Continental Congress as representatives of a loose federation of states with no resources and reputations. Under the Articles, on paper, the Congress had power to regulate foreign affairs, war, and the postal service and to appoint military officers, control Indian affairs, borrow money, determine the value of coin, and issue bills of credit. In reality, however, the Articles gave the Congress no power to enforce its requests to the states for money or troops, and by the end of 1786 governmental effectiveness had broken down. Nevertheless, some solid accomplishments had been achieved: certain state claims to western lands were settled, and the Northwest Ordinance of 1787 established the undamental pattern of evolving government in the territories north of the Ohio River. Equally important, the Confederation provided the new nation with instructive experience in self-government under a written document. In revealing their own weaknesses, the Articles paved the way for the Constitutional Convention of 1787 and the present form of U. S. government. The Articles were in force from March 1, 1781, to March 4, 1789, when the present Constitution of the United States went into effect. During those years the 13 states were struggling to achieve their independent status, and the Articles of Confederation stood them in good stead in the process and exercise of learning self- government. The articles created a loose confederation of independent states that gave limited powers to a central government. The national government would consist of a single house of Congress, where each state would have one vote. Congress had the power to set up a postal department, to estimate the costs of the government and request donations from the states, to raise armed forces, and to control the development of the western territories. With the consent of nine of the thirteen states, Congress ould also coin, borrow, or appropriate money as well as declare war and enter into treaties and alliances with foreign nations. There was no independent executive and no veto of legislation. Judicial proceedings in each state were to be honored by all other states. The federal government had no judicial branch, and the only Judicial authority Congress had was the power to arbitrate disputes between states. Congress was denied the power to levy taxes; the new federal government was financed by donations from the states based on the value of each states lands. Any amendment to the articles required the unanimous approval of all 13 states. In attempting to limit the power of the central government, the Second Continental Congress created one without sufficient power to govern effectively, which led to serious national and international problems. The greatest weakness of the federal government under the Articles of Confederation was its inability to regulate trade and levy taxes. Sometimes the states refused to give the government the money it interstate commerce. The government could not pay off the debts it had incurred uring the revolution, including paying soldiers who had fought in the war and citizens who had provided supplies to the cause. Congress could not pass needed measures because they lacked the nine-state majority required to become laws. The states largely ignored Congress, which was powerless to enforce cooperation, and it was therefore unable to carry out its duties. After the Colonial victory in the Revolutionary War, it became obvious to the Founding Fathers that the original attempt would not be equal to the task of providing the equitable law which they sought. Congress could not force the states to adhere to the terms of the Treaty of Paris of 1783 ending the American Revolution, which was humiliating to the new government, especially when some states started their own negotiations with foreign countries. In addition, the new nation was unable to defend its borders from British and Spanish encroachment because it could not pay for an army when the states would not contribute the necessary funds. Leaders like Alexander Hamilton of New York and James Madison of Virginia criticized the limits placed on the central government, and General George Washington is said o have complained that the federation was little more than a shadow without substance. On February 21, 1787, Congress called for a Constitutional Convention to be held in May to revise the articles. Between May and September, the convention wrote the present Constitution for the United States, which retained some of the features of the Articles of Confederation but gave considerably more power to the federal government. The new Constitution provided for executive and Judicial branches of government, lacking in the Articles, and allowed the government to tax its citizens.

Effect of the Moon on Planet Earth

Effect of the Moon on Planet Earth Josh Chaplin â€Å"The Earth would be a very different place without the moon. Discuss†¦Ã¢â‚¬  It’s true that without the moon, the earth would be a less romantic place. Mythical werewolves would never have been conceived, nor would we have a calendar based on the concept of the lunar phases. It has undoubtedly influenced human culture over millennia, but can the same be said for our neighbouring celestial satellite in geological terms? A seemingly insignificant lump of rock in comparison, it can be hard to comprehend that the moon has had such potentially significant impacts on shaping the earth as it appears today. But as it seems, a chain of events were set in motion from the instant the moon was formed which have not only left us here perplexed by it, but have left us here in the first place. The bulk of the moon’s responsibility for impacting upon the planet lies with its gravitation and proximity to the earth. Such a scenario allows for it to have a profound influence on the tides of our oceans, which in turn serves to slow the earth’s rotation and hurl the moon further away from us. The gravitational attraction of the moon is also the stabilising factor in a celestial battle between the large bodies of the solar system to throw the planet’s axial obliquity off-balance. The very fact that the moon is here in the first place tells of how fortunate the impact that formed it was, because were it not for that humble collision over 4.5 billion years ago, life on earth would be vastly different today at the very least (and conceivably even absent at worst). Its presence has also stimulated the application of mathematics and induced superstition in generations of humans, whilst providing total solar eclipses which are a universally rare, defining aspect of earth. The regular monthly cycle of the lunar phases has also been linked to mating sequences, hunting rituals and even the menstrual cycle, which 51% of the earth’s human population will experience for a large quantity of their lives. On top of all of this, the moon has defined the scenery of the night sky along with the stars and reflected the sun’s light to dampen its pitch black darkness since time immemorial, achieving omnipresence in a multitude of modern media. â€Å"The earth would be a very different place without the moon†. It only seems prudent to commence with the earliest chronological appearance of the moon. The most widely accepted modern theory for its formation is centred around a hypothetical protoplanet by the name of Theia. It is proposed to have been around the size of Mars, and about 10% of the mass of the earth. [1] Isotope analysis of lunar rocks bought back from the Apollo mission tells us that Theia is hypothesised to have collided with the earth at 4.527  ± 0.010 billion years before present. [1] Earth as it was back then would have been wholly transformed by this impact, altering its composition and ultimately allowing it to become the planet it is today. This collision would have also produced a considerable amount of debris, which would have subsequently accreted to form the moon. [2] This is the only feasible model which explains why the moon finds itself in orbit with the earth; physics- based computerised reconstructions show that it would not have been possible to capture a pas sing-by moon with the gravitational field of the earth, nor would it have been possible to originate from ejection of material from the molten earth due to fission by centrifugal force. [3] Assuming that this hypothesis is correct, it is obvious that earth has been extensively altered because of the moon. For one, upon impact, material from the dense iron core of Theia would likely have sunk towards the core of earth due to gravity, whilst mantle material would likely have been accreted onto the surface of the early earth. [2] This is the reason for the characteristic inner layers of the earth today. The moon would have then formed from excess material from the impact coalescing in the surrounding vicinities of the early earth. Thus, the formation of the moon both added and took away material from the early earth, heavily influencing its very composition from as early as 4.537 Ga. [1], [2] Having considered that this moon-forming impact would have been a major source of much of the terrestrial iron found on earth today, the size of our iron-nickel core would have been directly affected by it. The earth’s mantle chemically differentiated in an event called the iron catastrophe, throughout the first 500 million years of the planet’s formation. Extremely large quantities of iron succumbed to gravity and sunk to form the core. The innermost part of the earth was thus comprised of conductive elements, an iron-nickel alloy, which became able to generate electrical currents whilst rotating due to the coriolis effect in interaction with convection in the mantle [8] (which originated in the first place from heat escaping from the core). As a result, the roughly dipolar magnetosphere was conceived, giving rise to the radioactive Van Allen Belts by trapping charged protons and electrons in concentric bands surrounding the planet. [8] Figure 1 above is a scaled repre sentation of the invisible magnetosphere and Van Allen belts surrounding the earth. Only discovered in 1958, the infamously ‘deadly’ belts have been unvoiced yet fundamental in the development of life on our planet. This is due to the particles’ ability to prevent horrific ionising radiation to reach the surface of the earth and effectively fry anything which ever endeavoured to exist on the surface. The magnetosphere itself would also have prevented any charged particles of solar wind from reaching the earth’s surface and causing similar damage. Amongst other variables, the strength of the earth’s magnetic field would be directly proportional to the size of the core according to dynamo theory, [8] and therefore we have the moon-forming impact to thank for a hospitable and agreeable planet. It’s therefore fair to say that without the moon coming into fruition, the earth may never have done either. There are more obvious ongoing effects of the moon on the earth today though, than there were back in the Hadean. It is fairly common knowledge that the moon has influence on the tides of our seas and oceans. Along with the sun, it produces the twice-daily rise and fall of the seas that boggled coastal dwellers for millennia prior to Newton’s formulation of the universal law of gravitation in 1687. Naturally, the gravitational attraction between two separate entities is inversely proportional to the distance between them. [4] Thus, whilst the sun may be roughly 400 times as large as the moon, it is (coincidentally) around 400 times further away than it, and so exerts less influence over the tides. [4] The area of the earth closest to the moon at any given point will see a protuberance of its oceans, as the water is attracted to the moon’s gravitational field. [4] Simultaneously on the opposite side of the earth furthest from the moon, the crust itself succumbs to the lunar gravitation and is, in effect, marginally subsided, producing an additional oceanic bulge. [4] Figure 2 (right ) illustrates and annotates this gravitational phenomenon, by ever-so-slightly exaggerating the potential bulge of the tides! However, depending on the topography of shoreline localities and nature of continental slopes around the globe, the fluctuation can vary wildly between low and high tides. [4] In extreme cases, this can affect the livelihoods of littoral inhabitants by dictating fishing schedules or putting their homes in danger, showing how the moon really is a foremost influence on making the earth the place it is. One such scenario is the extraordinary tidal range at the Bay of Funday in Eastern Canada, which can surpass 12 metres. [4] Circumstances like this can occur upon the arrival of ‘spring’ tides (from the German verb springen, ‘to leap’, not from the name of the season) whereby the sun and moon align, causing maximum attraction in their direction and thus amplifying the height of the tides. [4] Alas, the moon is a dictatorial authority on the tides of our oceans, and presumably has been since the oceans formed around 3.8 billion years ago. Swishing and swashing the oceans for eons of geological time has not passed by without its consequences however. The moon’s gravity has created the tides on the one hand, whilst the rotation of the earth has slightly offset the location of them on the other; the actual location of the peaked tidal bulge is slightly ahead of where it would logically be, at the closest point on the earth’s surface to the moon. [7] As a result, a surprisingly large amount of mass (the tidal protuberance of the oceans) is offset slightly from the closest locality on earth to the moon at that point in time, meaning that a certain quantity of the gravitational pull is no longer directly between the earth and moon, but at a 90 ° angle to it. [7] Thus, torque is effectively created between the two planetary bodies, [7] and is often called ‘tidal friction,’ ‘tidal acceleration’ or ‘tidal braking’. This means that the presence of the moon causes our charac teristic 24 hour days to lengthen by around 2.3 milliseconds every century. [7] Taking Newton’s third law of equal and opposite reactions into account, the earth is also pushing the moon away by 3.82 ±0.007 cm per year as a result of this ‘torque’. [7] Would all of this really mean though that without the moon, the earth would be a very different place? Extrapolating back in time to 4 billion years ago tells us that the moon was some 15,000 km closer. Tidal forces would have been gargantuan, with hypothesised constant tsunami waves ravishing the planet. Perhaps, this would not only have served to shape the landscape by causing erosion, but it would have also dictated when proportions of the land surface would have been settled enough for life to flourish. In addition, the day would have been much shorter, with the year being around 400 days long due to the faster rotation of the earth. Looking ahead to the future, the earth may very well slow until it reaches t he same rotational speed as the moon, and then the exact same visage of the moon will always face the earth as in the Pluto-Charon arrangement on the outskirts of our solar system. [7] This demonstrates how that over short periods of time, the consequences of the moon’s presence on the earth are subtle, nigh negligible, but are not to be taken lightly in the (very) long run. Moving on from the tides of the planet, there is another reason in addition to the earlier-discussed Van Allen belts that the moon may well be the reason that life exists on earth as it does today. The axial tilt of the earth (also referred to as obliquity, a Milankovich cycle) is currently measured at 23.4 ° (and decreasing) between the earth’s rotational axis and the perpendicular to its orbital plane. [5] Whilst all sizeable bodies in our solar system (such as the sun and the gas giants) have an effect on this angle of tilt, the much closer proximity of the moon means that it is the most regulatory factor in this cosmic gravitational tug-of-war. [5] Figure 3 (left) shows the range between the earth’s minimum and maximum axial tilt values, for which we have the moon to thank for keeping the planet within those parameters. Without such a valuable sidekick, the tilt of a planetary body could incline wildly. In fact, there is evidence that Mars has tilted by up to 60 ° in the past, [5] presumably no thanks to the inferior gravitation of Phobos and Deimos in comparison to our moon. In a more horrific circumstance, computer models have liberated the earth of the moon’s gravitational effects and shown that it could tip by as much as 85 °, essentially interchanging the locations of the equator and the poles! [5] The would-be climatic consequences of such an event are naturally rather sketchy, but it is safe to presume that life on land would have been hard-pushed to adapt and may very well have been diminished. [5] Extrapolating from this, perhaps life on earth would be completely different, with organisms such as thermophiles at oceanic ridges, migratory birds and aquatic beings flourishing in the absence of land-dwelling mammals. It’s hard to imagine that the moon has the potential to command the diversity of the species in existence on the planet, and that it has been maintaining our climate and giving us our seasons, all due to the fact that it is steadying our axial tilt. This is the reason why the moon is such a prominent part of the ‘Rare Earth’ hypothesis, which explains how there are many different astrological criteria which must come together in order for a planet to prospectively bear life; [6] in other words, we owe our existence to the moon. Regardless of our location in the galactic habitable zone, our rocky terrain (not gaseous) and the fortune to have evolved beyond microbial life, the arrival of the moon was the ultimate (and perhaps the flukiest) stroke of luck to have ever graced the planet from a human perspective. [6] In conclusion, it’s obvious to draw from these analyses that the earth simply wouldn’t be the same without the moon, not only from a geological perspective, but from every perspective conceivable when its role in putting us here in the first place is considered. The moon is receding from our planet, and only time will tell if earth will succumb to life without it. References [1] Wieczorek, M. et al. (2006)The constitution and structure of the lunar interior Pages 322-323 [2] Canup, R.M. (2004) Simulations of a late lunar-forming impactIcarus Issue 168, Pages 433–436, 453-456 [3] Stroud, R. (2009)â€Å"The Book of the Moon† Pages24–31 [4] Grotzinger, J. Jordan, T. (2010) â€Å"Understanding Earth† Sixth Edition, Pages 540-541 [5] Dartnell, L. (2007) â€Å"Life in the Universe, a Beginners Guide† Pages 69-70 [6] Ward, P.D. Brownlee, D. (2000) â€Å"Rare Earth: Why Complex Life is Uncommon in the Universe† Pages 191, 194 200 [7] Chao, B.F. Ray, R.D. (1998) â€Å"Oceanic tidal angular momentum and Earths rotation variations† Page 403 [8] Glatzmaier, G.A. Roberts, P. H. (1995) A three-dimensional self-consistent computer simulation of a geomagnetic field reversalNature Issue377Pages 203–209 Image References Figure 1 – http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/sunearth/news/gallery/Magnetosphere.html Figure 2 – http://science.howstuffworks.com/moon4.htm Figure 3 – http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/Milankovitch/milankovitch_2.php 1

Songs :: essays research papers

I don't know if I'll ever know why Or hear the sound when angels cry What you said to me late last night I'll remember for the rest of my life Every night when you close my eyes I see the ways that you've touched my life And I want you to know that I'll Always be right here These are the days these are the moments that pass us by We ask the questions but we never really find out why I dig my toes into the sand The ocean looks like a thousand diamonds strewn across a blue blanket I lean against the wind Pretend that I am weightless And in this moment I am happy...happy I wish you were here... I lay my head into the sand The sky resembles a backlit canopy with holes punched in it I'm counting UFO's I signal them with my lighter And in this moment I am happy...happy I wish you were here... And all the roads we have to walk are winding And all the lights that lead us there are blinding There are many things that I Would like to say to you but I don't know how Because maybe, you’re gonna be the one that saves me And after all, you’re my wonderwall I'm here without you baby But you're still on my lonely mind. I think about you baby and I dream about you all the time. I'm here without you baby But you're still with me in my dreams And tonight, it's only you and me. Cuz it’s you and me And all other people with nothing to do Nothing to lose And it’s you and me And all other people And I don’t know why I can’t keep my eyes off of you What are the things That I want to say Just aren’t coming out right And tripping on words You got my head spinning I don’t know where to go from here I'm slow But I'm trying And I'm still dying to know Say you won't leave for the rest of my I can't have you leave for the rest of my Say you won't leave for the rest of my life listen to your heart when he’s calling for you listen to your heart there’s nothing else you can do I don’t know where you’re going and I don’t know why but listen to your heart

Earl of Warwick in revolt against Edward IV by 1469 Essay

Richard Neville, Earl of Warwick has been labelled by historic tradition, with some justification, as the ‘kingmaker’. It is with his support that Edward IV was able claim the throne from Henry VI, Warwick’s support during the Wars of the Roses, and especially at the Battle of Towton was vital in putting the first Yorkist king on the throne. It is clear that he was instrumental in Edwards rise to the throne, however his contribution has sometimes been overemphasised. Pickering suggests that their alliance in taking the throne was equal, the victories Edwards own and even that Edward seemed more adept in battle than his ally. He says â€Å"Edward was neither ‘made’ by Warwick, nor controlled by him.† Nevertheless, his relationship with Richard, both as an ally and a friend, must have been very good. What lead him then, less than a decade later, to revolt against Richard in support of the exiled Henry VI? The first thing to understand about Warwick was his character and to see that it was pure ambition that drove him. With the romanticism that the epithet â€Å"Kingmaker† implies, one could picture him as the noble-knight. However he seems to have far from the vignette that is perceived from the word â€Å"Kingmaker†. Keen says of him â€Å"Warwick was not a wholly attractive character. His temper was short, and when thwarted he was sullenly unforgiving.† The Old English Chronicle (edited by T.Hearne) describes the unquenched ambition that drove him â€Å"his insatiable mind could not be content†¦there was none in England who was before him or who owned half the possessions that he did†¦yet he desired more†. It is with the possessions and the patronage that Richard Neville’s grievances with the king started to appear. Edward IV, as previously explained, came to the throne very much as Warwick’s protà ¯Ã‚ ¿Ã‚ ½gà ¯Ã‚ ¿Ã‚ ½. He must have thought that with Edward on the throne he would have a controlling influence over the king, and with this influence the obvious power he so desired. Warwick was rewarded handsomely for his continued support, given titles and territories such as Captain of Calais, admiral of England and constable of Dover Castle, all of which were very important (and powerful) posts. He was by far the mightiest of Richards subjects, however he lacked the monopoly of Royal power that he yearned for, as royal patronage was (rightfully) extended to other leading Yorkists. Most prominently was Warwick’s stewardship of the duchy of Lancaster, given to Lord Hastings, and the lieutenancy of Southern Wales which was given to the recently knighted, Sir William Herbert. Despite this set back for Warwick, he still was in full support of Edward, and to some extent had control of Edwards thinking. Edward was still a relatively young king, and Warwick was there for advice, and with help in making decisions. Warwick’s support was also necessary for Edward, as his kingship was still under-threat in the north and west by Margaret of Anjou’s continued attempts to re-instate her husband to the throne. This drove Edward and Warwick together further more during the early years of Edwards reign, and indeed in 1462 Warwick seemed to have won a decisive battle for Edward. He forced the lords in Bramburgh (including Somerset and Sir Ralph Percy) to surrender to Edwards allegiance, on the condition that their lands were re-instated. Although this was not the final problems Edward faced from the Lancastrian supporters during his reign, it showed that in 1462, Warwick was firmly behind Edward as King of Britain. A factor which historians have usually put forward as a major cause of Warwick’s treachery is Edwards’s marriage to Elizabeth Woodville. In 1464, Warwick was, to further the kings alliance to France, arranging a marriage between the King and a French Princess. In the final stages of these arrangements, on 14th September 1464, Edward revealed to Warwick and the rest of his assembled nobles at the council in Reading, that he was already married to Elizabeth. The assembled magnets were stunned and horrified at the news, and it especially hurtful to Warwick who’s embarrassment over the whole French alliance marriage affair must have been huge. The chronicle of the time (Edited by J.Warkworth), says that after the announcement â€Å"(The Earl of Warwick was) greatly displeased with the king†¦And yet they were reconciled several times; but they never loved each other afterwards† One must however beware of putting, as traditionally been done, too much emphasise on this marriage as a turning point in the relationships between Edward IV and Richard Neville. It is certainly a major factor in the breakdown of their relationship, however one must take into account that it occurred five years before Warwick’s revolt, and Warwick, at least publicly, still supported the king during these years. Having said this, Richards marriage, though romantic and loving, was a serious, irresponsible mistake for a king to make. Elizabeth was, by Richards’s standards, a commoner. Edward was the first king since the Norman Conquest to marry a commoner; however this was not really the problem it was that he missed out on strengthening his position as king by arranging a more political marriage. Furthermore by marrying a Woodville, he alienated his other major noble families, especially the Neville’s. The Woodvilles, much to Warwick’s and others annoyance, managed with this marriage to promote their family to the upper echelons of the English aristocracy. It also enabled them to marry off some of their ‘lesser relations’ to be married to either nobility or families of a very high standing which further enhanced their political position. The marriage did have significant repercussions for the relationship of Edward and Richard, however Keen points out, that rather than the damage the marriage itself caused, it was the undermining of Warwick’s plans that led to their relationship, â€Å"If the marriage of the king put a period to his friendly association with Warwick-and it did-this was not, it would seem, because of its domestic repercussions, but because it was a direct challenge to Warwick’s continual diplomacy.† It was not, as the quotation states, because of the repercussions of the marriage domestically that Warwick felt aggrieved, rather it was because it aired publicly and formally for the first time Edwards’s difference in opinion with Warwick about the foreign policy that they should employ. It was clear from Warwick’s failed attempt to marry Richard off to a French Princess that Warwick was in favour of Edward forming an alliance with England’s traditional enemies, the French. Indeed, he had been in regular contact with Louis XI of France, in an attempt to broker an alliance between France and England. Richard, conversely, wanted put his support in his present enemy, the Burgundians. This was a contentious issue for the King to deal with, his leading advisor, whose protà ¯Ã‚ ¿Ã‚ ½gà ¯Ã‚ ¿Ã‚ ½, he was, had completely antithetical views upon the very important issue of foreign relations, and it was hear that Edward proved that he was no longer dependent, or felt indebt of Warwick. He favoured the Burgundian option, and ignoring Richards’s pressure, he applied for and was granted a double subsidiary from the parliament to help support the Burgundians and ‘revive English continental ambitions’. Edward was maturing into his own king and he began to take more and more control over the running of the kingdom. Conversely of course, Richard Nevilles influence over the king was rapidly diminishing, and with this influence the power he so lusted after. It was this Maturity, and the lack of power that Warwick was afforded that ultimately, I believe led to Warwicks treachery. He had, when Edward was young, influenced and controlled the King. He had had his power that his personality demanded, however as Edward matured he started to take things into his own hands, which Richard, having tasted power, could not take. To make matters worse for Richard, power was being taken away from him and given to other nobility. His siblings were being passed over for marriage that was being afforded to others, and although his brother, George Neville, was enthroned as archbishop of York in September 1465, he felt his and his families power-base was faltering. It was here that Warwick decided to act, for the first time, against the king, in an attempt to enhance his standing. Firstly Warwick continued to negotiate with Louis XI. Keen describes Warwick’s actions, â€Å"For four years he instead continued to pursue with Louis’s encouragement what was in effect a private diplomacy of his own, independent and opposed to that of the king† He was effectively siding against his own king, believing the French to be more powerful than the Burgundians and also enhancing his own power-base if he ever wanted to challenge the king (which he goes onto do). At much the same time, however, Warwick was engineering the marriage, against the Kings wishes, of his daughter, Isabel, to the king’s younger brother and presumptive heir, George, Duke of Clarence. He would, if this marriage went ahead, become immediately more powerful, and a pose a threat to the Woodville’s dominance. Clarence, like Warwick, was extremely ambitious and would do almost anything to further his own cause. By the spring of 1469 Warwick and Clarence were in league with one another and also with Louis XI to undermine the Woodville’s, and possibly to over throw the king. Pickering says â€Å"Clarence encouraged Warwick to turn against the King and helped spread the rumour that his brother was not Duke Richard’s son but the bastard of an archer called Blaybourne† This rumour was almost certainly unfounded, yet both risked turning against their own king They did this for their own gain, one with the view of taking his brothers place as king, the other with the view to once again controlling the king himself. Thus in July 1469, Clarence defied his brother’s wishes and married Isabel and on the 12th July, Warwick, with the support of his brother Archbishop Neville and George, Duke of Clarence, published the ‘Calais Manifesto’.

Analysis of Coming Home Again Essay

The world is becoming smaller day by day, connecting millions if not all within the frame of internet and telecommunication. Hence, traveling abroad or immigration to a foreign land is quite common nowadays. Of course, the decision to move to a new country entails many benefits; however, it is not without problems. One such negative after-effect would be the possible family feud that arises from the clash between family members, mainly that of parents and children, often sparked by provision of new education. Language plays a part in family dispute. As the first generation immigrants, parents are usually confined by their teachings in the language and cultural lessons of their mother country while the offspring are ready to make transition to their newly-adopted home. Problems often arise in most mundane circumstances such as calling the bank, buying clothes, and more. Chang Rae Lee narrates about a personal experience of encountering a bitter argument with his mother as he â€Å"was getting more and more impatient with the difficulty she encountered in doing everyday things†. Although a very trivial matter, the mother can’t make a phone call because of the language barrier. When the son was asked to make a phone call for his mother, the author felt that his mother’s life was â€Å"so small to him†, thus creating a disorder between the two. Language is a way to connect and even divide the family members. Often when families immigrate to a foreign country, the roles of the parents and the offspring switch. Already accustomed to their home country’s culture and values, parents become unfamiliar with the new lifestyle and environment, thus losing responsibility of daily tasks and circumstances. On the other hand, children have the opportunity to adjust themselves to new perceptions and settings, granting them the responsibility to take care of trivial matters. Such reversal of roles that create dysfunctional unnatural circumstances causes the spark of family feud. Wounded and entangled, family feud caused by education is not easily curable. However, Chang Rae Lee, though he experienced a hard time with his mother because of his adoption of American education, recover his bondage with his mother because of his efforts to help her cope with her incoming death, allowing him to gain true understanding of his mother’s sentiments toward him. Through realization of love and sacrifice, the author is able to overcome the family.