Marley is warning Scrooge Essay

Charles Dickens wrote A Christmas Carol in October 1843. It was the voice of the poor in London at that period. There was a great divide between the classes, Dickens wrote a Christmas Carol so that his readers could learn about the class divide and the suffering of the poor in London; Dickens shows the contrast very well in A Christmas Carol. Dickens came from a family who experienced debt. Charles’ younger years where evidently very hard, although he quoted that himself and his family ‘loved Christmas and celebrated it with a smile’, even thought he family lived on a low wage. When Dickens started to write A Christmas Carol he often walked the streets of London gathering ideas and looking at the poor people living in their slums. There is no doubt that Dickens’ life encouraged him to write A Christmas Carol, his father was thrown in prison for being in debt and Charles had to work at a boot blackening factory on the banks of the Thames. In A Christmas Carol we meet Scrooge ‘a tight fisted’ and very rich man, who lived life on as little as possible so not to ‘waste his well earned money’. In a Christmas carol he is a caricature – the worst possible person anyone could have met. Dickens lists negatives in the story to display the kind of man he is; Scrooge was a â€Å"squeezing, wrenching, grasping, scraping, clutching, covetous old sinner† Dickens also uses similes to describe him through out the book, it begins on a simile as ‘dead as a door nail’ this is a clichi d simile – a simile that is constantly used in common vocabulary. Dickens used a clichi because the poor and uneducated would have recognised and enjoyed his language, and the wealthy would realize the unarguable nature of the fact. He also uses then to describe Scrooge he was â€Å"as solitary as an oyster† he refuses to speak with anyone long terms at the start of the book, Dickens writes that â€Å"even blind mans dogs even hide form him†, backing up that scrooge was a caricature. Scrooge plays the part of the upper classes in London, not noticing the divide in society. The upper classes believed that the poor where too lazy to work. Therefore the Victorians created workhouses – a place where the poor worked for a bed and food for them self and their families. These places were help slightly by the work of the philanthropists. Scrooge also does not like philanthropists – people who want to collect money to help the poor â€Å"are there no prisons? † asked Scrooge. â€Å"The Treadmill and the Poor Law are in full vigour, then? † said Scrooge. â€Å"Both very busy, sir. † This show that Scrooge considers money over human welfare, and that he does not want to learn about the plight of the poor; this reflects the views of many wealthy businessmen of the day. â€Å"I’m very glad to hear it† answers Scrooge to help the philanthropists regarding the workhouse. â€Å"Many can’t go there; and many would rather die. † This depicts the truly callous side to the class division. â€Å"If they would rather die,† said Scrooge, â€Å"they had better do it, and decrease the surplus population†. The poor law was the only way of collecting money for the poor, and this tax was so very little that it hardly helped any of the poor or needy. The first ghost Scrooge is haunted by is that of his old business partner Jacob Marley. He warns of three other ghosts that will haunt Scrooge in the coming night. Jacob and Scrooge ran the business of loan agents their aim was to target the poor people of London lending them large amounts of money, money these people could ill afford and when the deadline came to pay him back; and may couldn’t they where thrown into prison and their belongings sold. Marley wore chains â€Å"I wear the chain I forged in life,† said Marley â€Å"I made it link by link, and yard by yard; I girded it on of my own free will, and of my own free will I wore it†. Marley wore the chains because of every bad thing he did in his lifetime another link was added to the chain. This shows us that Marley was not a kind person. â€Å"Is its pattern strange to you? † The ghost questions Scrooge. Marley is warning Scrooge that when he dies he shall have a chain of his own due to all his bad deeds. Marley states that making money was his business â€Å"mankind was my business† At one o’clock, the ghost appears, the features of the ghost were ever changing an old man a young child. This portrays the two ages that would suffer the most at Christmas time; it also shows the in fluctuation between past – Scrooges youth and the present -Scrooge nowadays.

Understanding by Design

Marnelli C. Joyosa January 19, 2013 BSED/ 011-0187 Understanding by Design’s Weaknesses 1. If you plan lessons that may broadly be described as open ended, based on standards, containing clear criteria for student success, include different ways to ensure student enthusiasm, flexible enough to accommodate the â€Å"teachable moment†, accessing the higher echelons of bloom’s taxonomy and integrating skills then the likelihood is you won’t learn anything new from understanding by design. . Creating a unit using the backward design planning process is not a neat, tidy or easy process. It is a recursive one; you will move back and forth across the curriculum map, making revisions and refinements each time you add something to a section of your planning. 3. Teachers think that â€Å"transfer† in UBD means applications to real life. They often â€Å"force† activities that are contrived.Sometimes applications are beyond students’ experiences . 4. â€Å"Other activities are impractical for huge classes. † 5. Understanding alone can be detrimental to other skills. 6. â€Å"In UBD, knowing aims to come after understanding but in reality, understanding comes after knowing. † 7. â€Å"Mandate that every teacher must use UBD for all of their planning immediately (without sufficient training, ongoing support or structured planning time).Provide one introductory presentation on UBD and assume that teachers now have the ability to implement UBD well. † 8. Other teachers were not directly trained but were told to just follow the guides. Some did not get any guides, so they had to do â€Å"UBD-sounding† lesson plans on their own. 9. Many schools say they do not know what textbooks to use since current books are not â€Å"UBDized. † 10. UBD’s process was not fine-tuned with consonant to an area or region’s context, needs and goals.

Building Engineering services Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2750 words

Building Engineering services - Essay Example With technologies like telecommunication, internet & video conferencing etc gaining presence the people across the world have become closer and interaction among them has increased. This has given companies from different countries access to a large talent pool, newer avenues and increased business opportunities. With business expansion also comes increased manpower and equipment and naturally the need for more buildings to house them. The last couple of decades has seen an unprecedented growth in the construction of residential and non-residential buildings across the world particularly in developing countries. The bigger the size of the building, more the number of building services and more the complexity of these services. With bigger the buildings the cost of deployment and maintenance increases and leads to high energy bills. So the emphasis naturally turns towards energy savings. Energy savings not only results in monetary savings to the company but also gives management the s atisfaction of doing their bit towards environmental protection. Typically, when a new building project is planned, the management may appoint one or many firms or individuals having specific skill sets. These include an Architect, Quantity Surveyor, Project Management Company (PMC), Service Consultants, Technology Consultants, Third Party Testing & Commissioning Agency etc. These can directly appointed by the management or the management can appoint an architect or PMC and they in turn appoint the rest. Either ways, Architect usually reigns supreme and is the fulcrum of the structure around which others work around. Generally, the plans and layouts are designed by the architect upon which the various service consultants design their respective systems. For example, the air conditioning consultant follows the interior designer in terms of deciding the duct sizing, location of the air handling unit etc. A lot of importance is given to the aesthetics of the building and

Kodak Case Study Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1750 words

Kodak - Case Study Example Besides, the Company has been creating differentiated value offerings in new growth markets, waiting to be revolutionized. The Company’s four selected growth products include consumer inkjet in CDG division, and commercial inkjet, workflow software and services, and packaging solutions in GCG division (Kodak Annual Report, 2010). The Company’s business strategy is aligned with performance-Based compensation. The component of compensation of the Company’s Named Executive Officers’ yearly target overall direct compensation is variable and based on performance and equity price rise, which can go to the limit of 69% to 87% (162) (Kodak Annual Report, 2010). Market competition has been one of the big pressures, creating risky situations on Kodak’s income, total profits, and its market share as well. Market is quite powerful and highly competitive. Market for new products lacks the leverage that old players have from the scale of distributors. Besides, Kodak faces price competition on global front, affecting Kodak’s functional and financial position from product pricing and across the industry pricing pressures. Therefore, Kodak is highly under pressure to reduce prices to remain in the market although it is affecting the company’s overall profit levels and income (Kodak Annual Report, 2010). Kodak business model in 2010 was focused on primary growth strategy, which was negatively impacted because of competitive pricing and increasing commodity costs in relatively mature product categories, such as Prepress Solutions, Digital Capture and Devices, and Entertainment Imaging. Goals for 2011 were aimed at Kodak business model in 2010 was focused on primary growth strategy, which was negatively impacted because of competitive pricing and increasing commodity costs in relatively mature product categories, such as Prepress Solutions, Digital Capture and Devices, and Entertainment Imaging. Goals for 2011 were aimed at The Company has

The Foundation of Orthodoxy and the Canon Research Paper

The Foundation of Orthodoxy and the Canon - Research Paper Example The best-selling book of all time is itself a compilation of books written by different authors. This paper shall outline how these books earned their place in the Bible. This paper shall discuss the key events and movements that were influential in the recognition of the canonical book. In addition, it shall look into the methodology used in determining these books as the inspired word of God. The canon of the Old Testament was apparently inherited from the Jewish faith. Jesus Christ himself recognized the authority of these books by making constant references to these books in his teachings to the apostles and to the very lucky people who had walked the earth with him and had listened to the voice of Jesus with their very own ears. The mere fact that Jesus Christ himself recognizes the authenticity and authority of the books in the Old Testament far exceeds any proof of its authority and divine inspiration. Moreover, majority of the contents of the Old Testament is also accepted as historical accounts of the ancient days. Hence, this paper shall focus on the canon of the New Testament. Although the New Testament is centered on Jesus Christ, not one book is attributed to him as the author. The books in the New Testament are accounts about the life and the teachings of Jesus Christ during his lifetime as well as the teachings of his disciples as they fulfill their duty of spreading the Word of God with the guidance of the Holy Spirit. In the furtherance of this divine duty, the Apostles and other learned followers of the young Christian faith wrote their eye-witness accounts of the acts and teachings of Jesus Christ. These writings are then passed around as the disciples’ letters to different groups of people as the Christian faith slowly grew in number. â€Å"About the end of the first century we find two collections of Christian writings beginning to circulate as collections among the churches: the Fourfold Gospel and the body of Pauline Epistles. Thi s was a step towards the acceptance of an authoritative collection, or Canon, of books of the New Covenant, as distinct from the authority which the individual Gospels and Epistles already had for those who first received them.†1 For years, the early Christianity blossomed on this collection of Gospels and Epistles. However, its authenticity and divine inspiration was challenged by the rise of the Gnostics, one of which was Marcion who declared that the entire Old Testament was nothing but a mere legend, that is, without divine authority and authenticity. As such, he published his own version of a Gospel wherein he removed all references to the Old Testament. In response, Apologists also came into existence to defend the faith and concomitantly its teachings and writings from those who want to destroy it. The Church Fathers, those who have been the students of the Apostles themselves, and who took over the reins of the young Christian faith when all of the Apostles passed away , also went into action in order to protect and preserve the faith. In response to Marcion’s heretic challenge, they declared that, â€Å"We do not believe that the New Testament books supersede the Old Testament; we place them alongside it as its proper sequel and fulfillment. We do not acknowledge one Gospel only, but four, and one of the four is the genuine edition of that Gospel which Marcion has mutilated. We do not acknowledge ten Pauline Epistles only, but thirteen: and in addition to these we also acknowledge the

Define security and loss prevention and list resources Personal Statement

Define security and loss prevention and list resources - Personal Statement Example New functions of security such as: anti-terrorist units, information security, crises controlling system and auditing have been added to the definition of security. Due to increase in specialized functions of security, practitioners have started using a comprehensive term to refer to functions of security. The term used to discuss functions is loss prevention. Loss prevention refers to use of any methods by companies and individuals to increase prevention and control loss of resources, people and information. These methods may include: encryption of information, auditing of records and safety measures such as fire alarm systems. The main reason due to which people have started using the term loss prevention instead of security is that the term security is used in a negative manner. Thus, the use of the term loss prevention can provide a positive image of the term security. Titles used for people who are responsible for loss prevention includes: security manager, Information Security officer

Cross Cultural Management Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

Cross Cultural Management - Assignment Example The human resource manager’s busy schedule meant that the interview session had to be re-scheduled several times. It was on the fourth schedule that the manager was available but only for one and half hours. Through this face-to - face contact with human resource manager, it was evident that expatriates in this country face several challenges. It came out clear that expatriates have multiple challenges in respect to the country. These challenges relate to a change in the physical environment, culture adaptation to new attitudes and traditions. Other factors include changes in the legal aspects, organizational norms, policies and procedures in accomplishing tasks (Blackbum, 2012). Other factors that the expatriate brings out to the reader include politics, entertainment, and social influences. The coffee shop where the interaction took place is a wonderful place. On the walls, different traditional photos communicate to the customer almost popular artifacts of the people. It was an anticipation that a busy individual like this manager would rush through the interview. At times, one would not been able to capture important aspects in the notepad. This meant that the interview had to be on record an issue the manager considered okay. This manger has been working for a non-governmental organization in the capacity of Human resource manager for the last one year. This position came as a vacancy in its head office. The expatriate is married and had to relocate with his family. In terms of age, the individual is almost in his early thirties with a Masters degree in human resource management. The organization assists in relief work and other activities around the globe, and this is his second country of assignment. The interview yield information on the economy of expatriates on foreign missions, their personal experiences, and the issue of raising a family in these foreign countries. The interview provides information on work outcomes of

Organisational Culture & International Management Essay

Organisational Culture & International Management - Essay Example ......................................................................6 2.1 Advantages and Disadvantages of Organisational Culture........................6 2.2 Dyson Paper's Organisational Structures & Cultural Trends......................7 2.3 Jones Sales Agency's Organisational Structures & Cultural Trends............8 3.1 Issues in the Merger Between the Two UK Departments..........................8 3.1.1 Structures & Cultural Clash..............................................................9 3.1.2 Management & Unity of Purpose.......................................................10 3.1.3 Ethical Differences..........................................................................11 3.1.3 Motivation.....................................................................................11 3.2 Towards Resolving the Issues With the Merger †¦..................................12 3.2.1 Team Building................................................................................12 3 .2.2 Definition of A New Management Structure for Paper Converters...........13 3.2.3 Formulation of Common Systems and Structures................................13 3.2.4 Communication & Interpersonal Interaction........................................14 3.2.5 Supervision...................................................................................14 3.2.6 Training........................................................................................14 4.0 Zambian Joint Vent... ..................................................................16 4.1.3 Poor Information Flow Systems & Lack of Control..............................16 4.2 International Cultural Issues..............................................................16 4.2.1 Disregard for Cultural Dimensions....................................................17 4.2.2 Power Distance Issues....................................................................17 4.2.3 Uncertainty Avoidance Lapses..........................................................17 4.2.4 Role Playing Issues.........................................................................18 4.3 Towards Improving the Zambian Joint Venture......................................18 Conclusion.............................................................................................18 References.............................................................................................20 Executive Summary This paper provides an insight into the major organisational behaviour problems being faced by Paper Converters Limited. The company is the culmination of a merger between two companies with distinct specializations. However, a move to a joint premises and the establishment of an unsuccessful international branch has prompted an enquiry into the causes of issues in the company. The paper identifies that there are major organisational culture issues between the two entities and this spans from the clash of cultures of the two departments. Also, the failure of the management of Paper Converters to take decisive action has led to major problems. This has affected motivation and performance of the organisation. It would be appropriate to integrate some measures relating to team building like communication, definition of

Dissertation Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 10750 words

Dissertation Example A number of theories were reviewed as well as existing literature in the area of VoIP and emergency medical service. The literature review and theories established a very clear and tangible relationship for the workability of a VoIP system in medical alert service. Based on this the systems structured analysis and design method (SSADM) was used to develop the IT project. The procedure used through out the project was a combintion of action research with SSADM such that the action research aimed in the identification of the problem and gave background to solving the problem. After the IT project was completed therefore, it was introduced to the research setting where the problem had been found to exist. Results from the research showed that there was massive improvement in the medical alert system with the introduction of the VoIP because aided in ensuring effective and efficient service delivery. DECLARATION I hereby certify that this dissertation constitutes my own product, that whe re the language of others is set forth, quotation marks so indicate, and that appropriate credit is given where I have used the language, ideas, expressions, or writings of another. I declare that the dissertation describes original work that has not previously been presented for the award of any other degree of any institution. Signed, your-name-here â€Å"This dissertation contains material that is confidential and/or commercially sensitive. It is included here on the understanding that this will not be revealed to any person not involved in the assessment process.† Student, Supervisors and Classes: Student name: Student ID number: GDI name: CRMT class ID: DA name: CAC class ID: ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS A number of people played very instrumental roles in the completion of the current research. For various roles in which they supported me morally, spiritually, intellectually, and logistically, I would like to express a depth of gratitude to I would like to thank Dr. Yongge Wang (my dissertation advisor) for his support throughout this dissertation. I would like to thank my family for their continuous support and the University of Toronto. Finally, to all respondents who dedicated their time to answering interview questions during the primary data collection. LIST OF TABLES Table 6.1 Emergency Services given before and after the Intervention 47 Table 6.2 Deaths recorded before and after the Intervention 49 LIST OF FIGURES Fig. 3.1 Information Systems as an Activity 25 Fig 3.2 Decision-Making Theory Diagram 26 Fig 4.1 SSDAM Diagram 30 Fig 4.2 Simplified Data Flow Diagram 32 Fig 4.3 Business Systems Options Diagram 33 Fig 4.4 Requirements Specifications Diagram 35 Fig 5.1 Combined use of Waterfall Model and Action Research 42 TABLE OF CONTENT Chapter 1. Introduction 10 1.1 Scope 10 1.2 Problem Statement 11 1.3 Approach 12 1.4 Outcome 13 Chapter 2. Background and review of literature 15 2.1 Background 15 2.2 Literature Review 16 2.21 The Need for Medical Systems 16 2.22 Reliability in VoIP Usage 17 2.23 Using VoIP Service for improved Medical Alert Service 18 2.3 Terms 19 Chapter 3. Theory 21 3.1 Information Systems Theory 21 3.2 Emergency Medicine 24 3.3 Decision theory model of the emergency medical process 25 Chapter 4. Analysis and Design 29 4.1

Memorandum on the 2012 presidential elections Essay

Memorandum on the 2012 presidential elections - Essay Example The whole US economy was severely shaken and the US policy on economy was put in question, a question to which no one had the answer, except one man, and that man was â€Å"Barrack Obama†, after devouring his opponent â€Å"John McCain† in every single presidential debate specially when it came to answering for the economical goofs that the previous administration had made, senator Obama was elected president. The whole world held its breath and waited to see what the young president had to offer, they’d all granted him not only their votes but their utter confidence and allegiance as well, the 2008 elections saw the collecting of a colossal unprecedented 700 million US dollars in campaign money that funded the 44th US president’s campaign and guaranteed him the title of 44th US president, the majority of Americans believed in change and they believed in the promises their president swore to honor. So much was the support evident and unanimous that the Oba ma handily secured states like North Carolina and Virginia, states that had long been loyal to the republicans. To put it briefly, what the democrat candidate had done was extraordinary, he’d flipped the tide in many key states and swayed a big number of voters who all put their faith and trusted president Obama. The newly elected president was quick to deliver on his promises as he immediately instigated a rough campaign which culminated in the implementation of a Universal Health Care policy throughout all US soil, a first victory claimed by the democrats, but yet another and many other victories were to follow, major changes in student loan programs, reforms that have to do with financial regulation†¦. And last but surely not least came the news about the liquidation of public enemy Number 1, Osama Bin Laden, leader of the terrorist organization Al Qaeda, who orchestrated the monstrous 9/11 attacks, Bin Laden who had for long been considered the most wanted criminal i n the world and who’s mere mention of his name ignites storms of fury and grief in every American’s heart. Sadly and despite all the accomplishments that Barrack Obama had done, a bittersweet taste was all that was reserved for president Obama as the complexity of the US economic crisis proved too much for Mr. Obama to handle which in turn led to the undermining of the democrats’ chances in securing a 2010 congress majority. The economy had played a trick on the US administration and cost the democrats the November 2010 midterm elections, as it were to seem the US population cared about nothing more than their economy, only a striving economy meant a striving presidency and as far as the electors were concerned, a striving economy was far-fetched with the democrats in power. The November 2010 elections dealt a powerful blow to president Obama and left looming away from all the other issues and focusing on the economy for as it had turned out it is only this that can guarantee him a safe pass to another term in the 2012 presidential elections. President Obama will be hoping to replicate what Bill Clinton had done in 1997 by being the first democrat president to be re-elected since World War II, but for this to happen he must make sure to find

Lightest football Essay Example for Free

Lightest football Essay I have chosen to focus on just one of the sports manufacturers Nike, for two reasons. 1. Nike is arguably the fore runner in the technological developments of most sports football being one. 2. There is little deviation between the finished products and their properties regardless of the manufacturer and with Nike being the largest of all the sports brands, it seems logical to focus on them. Shirt Nike cool motion shirt (image 1)   Two layers lighter than one   Inner shirt wicks moisture. Outer shirt has vents and water resistant properties   Luminous colouring makes visibility improved under floodlights Boots Nike vapour boots (image 2)   Lightest football boot around built for speed Soft ground 194 g Firm ground 202 g   Sprint spike stud configuration   Ultra thin synthetic for `feel` of the ball Ball Nike mercurial vapour ball (image 3). Synthetically made strength and durability in all conditions   Low water retention keeps shape and weight  Ã‚  2% more deviation in flight leading to harder shots, therefore more spectacular goals   Special small sided games version in metallic silver higher visibility Protection Nike vapour guards (image 4) Lightweight again built for speed   Anatomically shaped providing optimum fit   Wicking inner layer Nike Kracken gloves (image 5) 4mm thick grip durability and shock absorption in all conditions   curved grip for easier catching of the ball   wicking inner layer Headers` padded head band (image 6). reduces shock to the brain   reduces risk of concussions   reduces risk of onset of post game illnesses directly associated with brain trauma (i. e. Parkinsons) Stadia After the Hillsborough disaster of 1989 and a series of other crowd related tragedies (Heysel 1985, Bradford fires) there was a need to drastically improve the stadia across the world. The Taylor report deemed that all top division clubs must have all seater stadiums, with restrictions placed on those without. Similar guidelines were introduced and applied with lower league clubs, where although all-seater stadiums were not compulsory, the safety of each stadium must pass stringent checks. There have been cases especially highlighted in the conference league where upon a club has been promoted, only to be demoted back to the same league immediately because their ground or stadium did not meet safety regulations. The recent world cup in Japan/Korea highlighted the new breed of `super stadia`, where spectators can rely upon space age technology to enjoy watching in safety and comfort. (Image 7) Television Due to the ever increasing demand to watch football, and sometimes the increasing price to do so, the needs of the spectator, whether at home or at the stadium remain almost the same. Television, has pumped money into many clubs, and very nearly ruined many others. (the collapse of ITV digital bankrupted some smaller clubs)   Television runs football date and times of kick off are directly effected by television companies The majority of money involved is directly to do with television TV rights, pay-per-view   Some clubs cannot survive without TV. money. Football and television have become co-dependent Conclusion   advancements are geared towards providing more of a spectacle   speed of the game has increased more end to end action   balls/boots are benefiting the scoring of spectacular goals again more spectacle   Spectators watch games in more comfort at a price, some match tickets are no longer affordable.   Sport is run now like a business high risk for high rewards, and the rewards are getting that much greater Money essentially now runs the game.

“The Seventh Seal” by Ingmar Bergman Essay Example for Free

â€Å"The Seventh Seal† by Ingmar Bergman Essay This paper is devoted to the film by Ingmar Bergman â€Å"The Seventh Seal† – a tale about the journey of a medieval knight. The form of the story is very difficult: realistic details were blended with religious and mythic overtones. The main hero was traveling with the target to find manifest of God, his journey was physical and at the same time spiritual one. The title of the film was related to the Book of Revelation, it was used at the beginning of the film and at the very end: â€Å"And when he had opened the seventh seal, there was silence in heaven about the space of half an hour (Revelation 8:1). Bergman studied the themes of death and mortality, existential and apocalyptic fears and finally â€Å"silence in heaven† – the silence of God in the world. There was an idea that the whole film was in reality an allegory for the modern disquiet among people after they lost medieval faith, â€Å"with one character embodying tortured doubt, another simple faith, still another defiant unbelief.† (Greydanus, 2001). The film can not be considered an absolutely philosophical or purely religious one; it dealt with religious issues in the society and human souls, reflected the fear of people, that there was probably no afterlife and no God if he was so silent. One of the main messages of the film was not to search for concrete answers, as at any rate they could be absolutely different from the initial expectations. Most of the film scenes were based on the balance between drama and comedy, at the same time the themes of revenge, anger, freedom, fear interchanged. The optimistic moments of the film were significant, due to them, the inevitable end of the world could not make people give up. There was a strong contrast between the disappointment of the knight and his squire and the exasperated crowd, claiming that a girl was a witch and ought to be burnt, it is clear that the girl was innocent, but the process of burning helped the mob to deal with their fear of death. It was easer for them to believe that they annihilated evil, when burning the girl, than looking for the evil inside of themselves. This heart-rending scene was reinforced with the constant impression that the Judgment Day was inescapable and was coming closer and closer. The most evident reminding of it could be seen, when the leader of the procession of the self-torturing people was shouting about the God’s punishment and inevitable perdition waiting for all humans. The film was rich in symbols as well as existentialist themes death, religion, and metaphysics. The plague was not a simple disease, but embodiment of the intrinsic destructive forces of people; it was supposed to verify the inherent values and strength of individuals. One of the key themes of the film was contrast: between reality and illusion, between faith and skepticism, between intellect and emotions, between courage and cowardice, between love and lust.   Death was a character in the film along with the others – from time to time he seemed to reveal some human feelings, like for example sympathy with the Knight;   at the same time a phantom and a force. The main controversy about Death was either his freedom or obedience to an omniscient God. In reality he didn’t help the Knight to find answers to his questions. The family of the actors: Jof, his wife Mia and their son Mikael, met by the Knight were also in a way contrasted to his religious doubts and anxiety. The names of the man and woman as diminutive forms of the names Joseph and Mary, contribute to building the association with the Holy Family (Marshall, 2004). Also at the beginning of the film Jof had a vision of the Virgin Mary when she was teaching Jesus to walk. Later in the film Antonius saw Mia teaching her son in the similar way. This parallel however seemed to be rather strange for the overall skeptical tone of the film.   It was never clear why Death left Jof and his family alive, when Antonius helped them, distracting Death for the moment, to run away through a bore in their wagon, as nobody was supposed to escape from Death. We don’t know whether this was their destiny to die later or some other reasons.   For the other heroes Death played various roles: Plog met Death with modest dignity, the Girl, who probably had a lot of suffering during her life, met Death as salvation, associating it with Jesus. The main reason why the Knight didn’t want to die was his hope to conduct one meaningful act before dying and to find the answer to his question about God’s existence. Probably after doing this significant act the Knight expected to get the proof, that the universe was not absolutely absurd and there was a force controlling the lives of people, however this would be also in a way ambiguous proof.   Within the whole film he was not able to find piece and conciliation, he was the prisoner of his doubts and fantasies, apart of the meal with Jof and Mia; even cheating of Death didn’t bring the desired satisfaction. The main internal conflict of the Knight rooted from the fact that he lost pure faith and could not find the meaning of life and death without it. He started his fight with shadows not wanting to accept the absurdness of the universe. He saw the main problem in the absence of proofs of God’s existence, but in reality his intellectual confinement caused it. Overall, the film is very profound and controversial, there are no answers, and there are only new intricate questions about life and death, about faith and science, about eternal values and nihilism. References: Greydanus D. S. (2001). The Seventh Seal (1957).   1-4 Marshall. B. (March 5, 2004). The Seventh Seal, Movie Review. 2-5

Analysis Of Cultural Imperialism With Hollywood Films Media Essay

Analysis Of Cultural Imperialism With Hollywood Films Media Essay With the rising of electronic media, in the 1960s scholar Marshall Mcluhan raised the notion of global village, which provides a common platform of random communication without physical and geography distance for worldwide people. In this perspective, this kind of information circumstance will enforce everyone globally to be the participant of, and struggle for a same strategy, because we are inevitably connected with each other (Mcluhan and Quentin, 1967). In the rest years of twentieth century, with the assistant of advanced technology and high-developing economy ¼Ã…’the whole world seems to increasingly move forwards to the global village in nature. The concept of globalization, to some extent, already gradually rooted in peoples mind. In the process of globalization, in generally, two primary constituent parts cannot be neglected. One is the distance between time, space and place has shrunk (Giddens, 1990; Harvey, 1990; Rantanen, 2005), which is owing to the technological adv ances, such as electronic media, instantaneous communication that enable people to realize interaction over the boundaries of country and time, which is also the precondition of the realization of globalization. In this sense, the global communication systems prompt the instant currency of capital and offer possibility for the expansion of production and marketing strategies. The other one concerns the content of the communication. With the help of telecommunication technology, the diffusion of media products have surpassed the country border. By the way of music, press issues, films and broadcast channels, the images, thoughts, and sounds of different cultures are mutually flowing among a vast network of people in the worldwide sphere. For this, the project of globalization refers to the communication and incorporation of culture from different areas. In addition, the globalization of mass media, especially, aims to the content of cultural products can be obtained globally (Croteau and Hoynes, 2003). In this sense, confronting the problem of the promise and reality of media globalization, researchers respectively hold different viewpoints. Among these debates, an important discourse called cultural imperialism, which is resulted from the worry of the inequality of global media ownership, control consumption and content, should be highlighted. A number of scholars, because of the superiority of Western media products on the consumption marketing, claim that media globalization equals cultural imperialism, and convey deep concerns with globally cultural homogenization and standardization. Especially, accompanied by the globally prevailing consumerism, traditionally national cultures of each country all have the possibility of being unified into a common global commercial culture system. The most typical evidence is the export of American cultural goods in the range of whole world. As we can see, Coca-Cola, IBM, Levis, and Hollywood films, these global brands ar e all produced by the U.S.. However, there are still a part of socialists understandably suspect the discourse of cultural imperialism on the concept of culture and the confusion of cultural goods and ideological effects (Tomplinson, 1999). On the Basis of the controversy over the discourse of cultural imperialism, in this essay, I intend to through the analysis of concrete and weighted American media product-Hollywood films, research whether so-called cultural imperialism can work under the condition of consumerist culture, which appeared as the key representation of cultural homogenization. The focus of part 1 is the literature review of the details of cultural imperialism, which involving its original definition, critique and impacts. Based on the theoretical analysis of cultural imperialism in part1, the next section will associate with specific data and text analysis, to examine the relative statement of cultural imperialism. In the last part, I will point out my own discussion over the cultural imperialism, and conclude the limitation. The Discourse of Cultural Imperialism Before moving to the main argument of this paper, it is necessary to define the notion of cultural imperialism. As early as the first decade of the nineteenth century, Lenin suggested the concept of imperialism. In his perspective, the term of imperialism was closely linked with economy, and we can regard it as the highest form of capitalism. ( Lenin, 1939). He pointed that at this level of capitalism, imperialism appeared as a process that big conglomerates incorporate smaller enterprises for the further profits, and moreover, this kind of operation could surpass the national boundaries. In addition, this sort of economic conduction is between the major capitalist nations, and it will result in specific imperialist patterns of domination. In this sense, Maybe cultural imperialism is one consequence of the specific imperialist patterns of domination Lenin said. Williams (1983) also has more further viewpoint towards the concept of imperialism. As for Williams, he concludes imperialis m as: Like any word which refers to fundamental social and political conflicts, cannot be reduced, semantically, to a single proper meaning. Its important historical and contemporary variations of meanings point to real processes which have to be studied in their owen terms (p. 160). Additionally, he even particularly generalized the development of imperialism into two categories, politically and economically. Relating with this paper, the economic category is worth being mentioned. As Williams argued, this process originated from Marxist analysis of the development of modern capitalism, which is similar as Lenins argument. As a result, combining current modern capitalism statement with the characteristic of imperialism, Williams claimed, imperialism in contemporary context is applied to the practices of US and Soviet Union. However, American imperialism refers to a primarily economic denomination associated with the global reach of capitalism but not having the political form of colonialism (John, 1991). As a result, with the post-war non-colonial process since the 1960s and the development of contemporary capitalism, the analysis of new imperialism has emerged among academic circle, which considered that, in the new international settings, the imperialist expan sion strategy has moved primarily from military aggression and directly colonial domination to economic and cultural penetration, in which, the discourse of cultural imperialism is a significant and critical theory of cultural globalization. About the concept of cultural imperialism, there are existing different versions. The earliest systematic one was given by Herbert Schiller. Furthermore, Tunstall(1977) crystalized the definition of cultural imperialism as: The cultural imperialism thesis claims that authentic, traditional and local culture in many arts of the world is being battered out of existence by the indiscriminate dumping of large quantities of slick commercial and media products mainly from the United States. In this sense, it is clear that the process of cultural imperialism is operated by the products import of majority capitalist countries (mainly the U.S.A.), primarily media products. In this sense, non-Marxists prefer to see cultural imperialism as media imperialism. If that, the discourse of cultural imperialism can be approached on the sphere of media, which turns to the empirical territory instead of theoretical assumptions (Chin-Chuan Lee, 1979). Similar as Lees account of media imperialism, Oliver Boyd Barrett (1977) defines media imperialism as: The process whereby the ownership, structure distribution or content of the media in any one country is subject to substantial external pressures from the media interests of any other country or countries- without proportional reciprocation of influence by the country so affected (p. 116). He also suggests four modes of media imperialism: 1) the shape of the communication vehicle 2) a set of industrial arrangements 3) a body of values 4) media content, which could exert the cultural dominance instead of direct economic relationship. David Croteau and Wiliam Hoynes (2003) proposed more detailed connection and explanation of Boyd-Barretts statement. First of all, they claims that the linkage between cultural imperialism and media imperialism is because of the media products, which from Western side, especially America, intensely impact other regions culture, almost have reached the level of cultural domination. Here, it refers to the relation of media ownership and media content. According to the theory of media imperialism, both values and ideology of Western society are embedded in the media products sold on the interests of Western corporations. Next, Croteau and Hoynes (2003) in their book Media/Society also cite Antonio Gramscis theory of hegemony to explain the con cept and significance of cultural hegemony, and sociologist Stuart Halls analysis of how mass media institutions mix with this conception of hegemony. The conception of Gramscis (1971) hegemony is connecting all culture, power, and ideology together. In his perspective, besides military force, power can be obtained by the way of cultural and ideological domination as well. For this direction, the key strategy is to create consent, which can be realized through a kind of cultural hegemony. Croteau and Hoynes said that consent is something that is won ¼Ã¢â‚¬ ºruling groups in a society actively seek to have their worldview accepted by all members of society as the universal way of thinking (p.166). In this sense, schools, religion, and media naturally become the sites where help the dominant class approach this kind of hegemony, due to these institutions are the places where we form the ways of thinking. On this basis, Hall(1982) suggested that mass media is the main site where the cultural hegemony is exercised, because media images are not merely reflecting the world, but represent ing the world, and could actively make things have meanings. And then, associating with media ownership and commercial profits, many scholars argue that media is principally on the behalf of the dominant assumptions, and applying the universal views of the world that most people know. With the development of the globalization of mass media, this conception is more convincing. For example, because of the motive of media globalization is commercial interests, plus the economic distance among different countries, the inequality of media globalization is inevitable and obvious. The growth of centralized media conglomerates will result in a concentrated global media industry. And additionally, the ownership of these global media firms are still in the hands of a few advanced developed countries, which also dominate the production of global media products. As a result, from this respect, major researchers are likely to connect the elite status of Western media products with cultural imperialism. The most typical one should be the impact of American media items globally. Coca-Cola, the products of Disney series, McDonald, Hollywood movies, and so forth American products are all prevailing across the world because of the propaganda of American mass media. The supporters of cultural imperialism claims that these foreign imports will threaten and even dominate the local culture. (Coteau and Hoynes, 2003). For instance, according to the data of Ministry of Culture and Communication in 2001, American films occupy 54% to 92% of the performing movie in theaters in countries of the European Union, in contrast, European films make up only 3% of films shown in the United States (Ministry of culture and Communication, 2001). Schiller (1992) also from the television program export to describe the high level of American media domination globally. He indicated that commercial television has become an important and flourishing national export (p.129). He also quoted the former official of United States Information Agency Woilson P. Dizards (1964) words to prove this point, who said that today, overseas sales account for 60 percent of all U.S. telefilm syndication activities and represent the difference between profit and loss for the entire industry (p. 58). Besides, in 1967, Dizard reported that the amount of [TV commercial] exports, now approaching $100 million a year, is such that the television screen is becoming the main source of the American image for increasing millions of people abroad (1967, p. 59). From all these data, it is clear that American media industry, to a large extent, is relying on foreign markets, and its impact of media products is intensifying. Associating with Halls analysis of mass media and culture, through media products to diffuse Western values and ideology seems sensible. The discourse of cultural imperialism looks like could be used to describe one phenomenon of cultural globalization, which through exporting media products to diffuse own countrys values and ideology, in order to the last culture domination. However, there are partial scholars who dont agree with this discourse of cultural imperialism or media imperialism. The main critic of the discourse of cultural imperialism-John Tomlinson, provided a comprehensive critique pinpointing each part of cultural imperialism. Schillers theory of cultural imperialism focuses on the media, and from economic and political perspective to view the unequal structure of global cultural production and distribution. For this, Tomlinson (1991) argues that there are two mistakes underlying in this theory. First, though media is an important component of culture, it can not substitute all aspects of culture, and its impact on indigenous culture is closely connected with local audiences understanding and individual experience of media products. Secondly, Tomlinson argues that it is a kind of exaggeration to attribute the overwhelming significance of cultural imperialism to the media. It is problematic to equate cultural imperialism with media imperiali sm. All these studies are very helpful in the depiction of the discourse of cultural imperialism, either proponent or sceptic. In next part, I will combine the specific media text-American Hollywood films, to analyze the expression of cultural imperialism on the basis of American primarily cultural values. Hollywood Films Like I mentioned in last section, media products are an effective way to diffuse certain values and ideology, consequently, realizing the purpose of cultural domination. In this respect, in order to analyze the discourse of cultural imperialism through the dissection of one concrete media text, it is inevitable to mention what kind of values or ideological theory is implied in that media text, and these ideas is serving for whose benefits. Undoubtedly, in recent decades, the United States of America through its powerful economic and technological strength, its cultural perpetrator to the less advanced countries is apparent, either material products or spiritually cultural products and social political values. For example, the standard American icons-Mickey Mouse, Coca-Cola, McDonalds, Hollywood are typical evidences. Then, what American values have been propagated through these popular issues? In general, white peoples traditional culture is the leading culture in America, what is al so called WASP culture (White Angle-Saxon Protestant Culture) (Kennedy, 2001. p. 913). American main stream culture actually is the special mixture of Christianity, Capitalism and democracy (translated from: Majie Zhu, 2003). Contemporary Hollywood films can, to some extent, through this specially cultural value, gain the market and extraordinary box office receipts, and subsequently, become the key approach for the expansion and penetration of culture imperialism. Individualism as the cultural value originated from the thinking of European burgeoning bourgeoise, which was used to oppose the autocracy feudal aristocracy during the renaissance. The early North American Puritan as same as the reason for getting rid of the European religion oppression migrated to America. And then, in American The Declaration of Independence, some self-evident truth is included, all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness (Tefferson and Fink, 2002, p. 21-23). In American peoples thought, individual liberty is the final purpose, and society just the channel to reach this aim. In addition, Americans advocate surpass others by own effort, against any kind of inference to personal liberty from country or society. In short, individualism, is I will take responsibility of every thing by myself. In 1998, when American president Clinton visited China, he has said that the rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, free from government interference to express different views and the right of free faith, are the central idea of the founding of the United states. And this is also the thought that leaded Americans from one side of continent to another side, and finally stand on the top of the world , and so far, American people still value it as a precious thinking (translated from: Zheng Yuan, 1998). In this respect, individualism is the main motive stimulating not only American constant innovation, but also the reckless expansion with the indifference of other countries interests. On the basis of above introduction of several American mainstream values, it is timing to associate it with the analysis of concrete Hollywood films to research the discourse of cultural imperialism in American way. The classic film-Forrest Gump in 1995, ever gained the Best Film Reward of Oscar Award. Through the picture of the life of retarded Gump, we can get in touch with many aspects of American social life. This film was adapted from the same named novel of Winston Groom. The original book is fantastic fiction filling with ironic senses, however, the film has decorated and beautified the whole story. The original fantastic and ironic meaning have been removed, and the rebellious fighting spirit was sacrificed as well. Gump in the film has been shaped as an idealized American civilian hero, who has noble morality, and his way of earning life and pursuing happiness is on the effort to glorify America. The role of Gump in film, can be seen as the representative figure of American individualism, and this image is advocated by American society, which can be testified from the scene that Gump is endowed of congress badge. Another instance is the extremely costing Hollywood war film- Saving Priva te Ryan, which is an propaganda of American individualism. The whole story is processing along with the group rescue of individual life. This theme matches the Jewish traditional principle in the film Schindlers list- he who saves one life saves the world entire. Additionally, Hollywood films always put the mission of saving all the world on the shoulder of an individual. In the film Air Force One, the image of American President Tim Marshall is a good example. For protecting own countrys people and reputation, he insists on not compromising over the terrorists. In the condition of utter helplessness, by the familiar with each precise device of Air Force One, Marshall struggled with those terrorists by himself, and finally, realized the promise of zero-tolerance and save the world (lines in the film Air Force One, 1997). Within this film, American President is eager to expand the liberal-democracy, the Christian faith and the concept of American family to global people. However, in realistic life, this kind of omnipotent heroism is merely a myth. What anti-terrorism really need is the cooperation of all the nations, which has been proved through the fact of Somali Piracy event in April, 2009. Another film Bable in 2006 provides another angle to view cultural imperialism in Hollywood film. An accidental gun shooting event leads to the whole plots in the next story. Western people in this film enact rare indecision when they are encountering accident, which seems to lose the traditional image of the leadership globally. However, it cannot say that Hollywood films give up to play the role as an assistant of undertaking American cultural imperialism. One made-up clip story in the film that American tourists get innocent attacked, is bringing the color of cultural imperialism seemingly, because we can see the scene in the way that it tells the immense audiences that terrorism is prevailing in East as well, and Americans in this turn are becoming innocent victims. Although the director of this film attempts to utilize a large number of Eastern images to cover the hegemony of American cultural imperialism, the propagated American universalism and human right have been performed obviously. Furthermore, another kind of Hollywood films should be paid attention in particularly-Hollywood cartoon, some of which are coated by Chinese traditional culture. The film Mulan presented by Disney corporation was adapted from Chinese folktale. The protagonist Mulan made her promise to resist outside invasion, and protect family reputation, which looks as if expressed Chinese traditional loyalty and filiality. But, the role of Mulan enacted in the film is independent and pursuing the confirmation of self-value and the sexual equality, which is against the original Chinese convention. Additionally, her intensive desire of individual happiness and freedom are all representing the individualism of America. And as same as the elements of KungFu Panda presented by Dreamwork, which are not real Chinese culture. As the first cartoon that has over hundreds million tickets sale in Chinese market, KungFu Panda benefited from the outfit of Chinese culture and the inside substantive c ontents of Western culture. On the surface, there are plenty of Chinese culture facts in the films, such as the architecture music, martial arts, firecrackers, and Chinese food. Even many story details have precisely conformed to the relative characteristics of Chinese culture. In spite of all these work, the protagonist Po, it still a hero in the context of American culture values. The process of how he turns to legendary warrior just from a cooker is a typical instance of Americanized value. Originally, Po is a normal people, although because of an accidental opportunity he becomes the candidate of legendary warriors, he is indeed attending the selection ceremony. In another words, although his hero role is destined officially, he also follows the contest policy. This is a classic paradox logic in American culture: advocating everyone possesssing equal right to be a hero, although frequently, the hero is destined. Pos success is through defeating the bad guy-Tai Lung, to gain the final hero coronation ceremony. This kind of fight between justice and evil, and the procedural of how the justice side defeats the bad side are the essence of American heroism. Pos success, simultaneously, is bringing the peace to the whole village, which as same as the line in Spiderman- great power comes with great responsibility (cited from the lines of the film Spiderman, 2002). In American individualism, the standard of being a hero is to defeat the evil power and have the sense of bearing huge responsibility, which consequently, might be improved into the thinking that only the supremacy of strength is equivalent with the duty of guarding the world peace. In this sense, we can see the color of cultural imperialism is embedded in KungFu Panda. Thus maybe we can think in this way like that the set of films such as Mulan and KungFu Panda are packed with Chinese culture, but actually, are the means of distributing American ideology through adaption. Further Discussion of Culture Imperialism In contemporary global market, Hollywood movie is merely one of the popular import media products of America, but from the analysis of its underlying elements of culture imperialism, maybe we can consider the media products, television programs, advertisements, and music in the similar way. However, in this respect, I dont mean that the discourse of cultural imperialism does make sense, or even could be totally equaled with media imperialism, because after all, it is just a researching theme raised in the background of globalization and consumerism, and the debate about it is still taking place, therefore I cannot arbitrarily suggest its character here. What I want to do here is to use already existing facts to demonstrate that the discourse of cultural imperialism to some extent in particular time and condition may be could have an effect, but with the moving of age and society, in certain environment, another possibility maybe emerge. Among several suspicions of the possibility of cultural imperialism or media imperialism, an important one is to oppose to mix the material media products with complicated ideology together. In other words, the sceptic claims that the way of thinking that media products could diffuse Western values or ideology is ridiculous and doubtful, all of those analysis, such as the one above about Hollywood movie, are just assumption. In this perspective, if by some way I can prove the causal relationship between media productions and ideology or mind, the discourse of cultural imperialism at least will be more convincing. I will still utilize films as the evidence. During the 1980s there were two popular film genres-action adventure and military/war films deserving research, such as the films Raiders of the Lost Ark, Romancing the Stone and the series of Rombo were all effective and classic in that age. The most historical and typical one, I think should be Rombo. From the presentation time, we can know that it was after the Vietnam War and during the period of the Cold War, which represented by the United States and Soviet Union. The protagonist Rombo is a Vietnam Veteran, his mission is to return to Vietnam for rescuing American prisoners who have been abandoned by the U.S. government. And the common ending of this series of films was that the protagonist won the final victory and he become the hero in audiences mind. Following the story of these films, American people as if return to the battle of Vietnam War, but in this battle there are no vanquish and shame any more, American soldier will always be the victor. A part of scholars analyzed that these films could be seen as one political approach of Regans presidency, which was helpful to re-shape national image and regain national conviction. And actually, in the late 1980s, American people indeed overcame the so-called Vietnam syndrome, which was the subsequence of American failure of Vietnam War (Croteau and Hoyne s. 2003). From this example, we can see that there actually exists some relation between media texts and peoples way of thinking. So in this sense, the discourse of cultural imperialism maybe really can have an effect. However, the analysis of media texts is a plural item, which should be connected with special time and conditions, because of media texts are made under special historic background and people. We also cannot use one example to explain all the other terms. Additionally, the discourse of cultural imperialism was raised under the context of global culture, which maybe impact on global people, who have different religion, education, national culture and ideology, the possibility of their reactions over a media text are so hard to define. As a result, the relation between media texts and ideology maybe exist, but it is hard to say when put it in the global environment, then, dont even say the realization of cultural imperialism. Tunstall (1977) also claims that there are a t least two problems on the discourse of cultural imperialism of America. Firstly, the precondition of cultural imperialism is the superiority of Western countries on the aspect of media product market share , especially the United States of America, but the researchers thinks that with the economic and technologic development globally, other countries will rapidly create local media products, which would substitute the dependance on exporting American media products. Secondly, Tunstall said that the range of media is fairly wild, we cannot only concentrate on the popular American media products to analysis its impact of global culture. And in the aspect of some media forms, such as music, the tendency of globally incorporation is ongoing. If another media texts develop in the same way, the possibility of cultural imperialism will reduce. In addition, the debate of central status of media of cultural imperialism, like what Tomlinson said above, it is incorrect to make media equal cu lture. The term of culture is a complex to be clearly explain, and add the different way of understanding in different places, Western countries intention of conducting culture penetration or invasion is not a simple progress. Conclusion Combining all the supporting points and scepticism of the discourse of cultural imperialism together, maybe we can conclude this debate in this way, firstly, we should consider the wholly global society condition and the detailed situation of relative areas. As what Tunstall (1977) suggested, the arise of the media products is just an assumption so far, it still needs the time to testify. According to the current condition of global media distribution market, the diffusion range and impact of Western media products is considerable, so if in this respect to argue the discourse of cultural imperialism, it indeed exists the possibility. Secondly, confronting a number of differences between culture and nations, for the pursuit of commercial benefit, the big media corporations has start making relevant policy to remove the obstacles. For example, some media producers will invite global superstar to propagate their products, and another way is to apply the resources within local culture, a nd decorate the products to coherent to the local character, in fact, the global expansion of American advertising agency is a good example. Actually, to a large extent, the popularity of American products is the direct consequence of American transnational advertising. The central office in the U.S.A firstly send the advertisement mode to the relevant branch agencies around the world sphere. And then on the basic of remaining the essence of original advertisement, the local agency will blend the indigenous elements into it for satisfying the regional taste and culture. By this way, the impact on some places is this country is occupied, and there is no consciousness of that (Escobar and Anne. 1995). From this example, the threat of the discourse of cultural imperialism does deserve cautions, although maybe as Tomlinsons suggestion, there is no necessity to view media as the central reference of the argument towards cultural imperialism, the power of it cannot be ignored, because in current consumption society, for the economic interest, the media consortiums are rolling to make any policy to break down the obstacles on the way to maximize global market share. What I suggest here is when we are facing the discourse of cultural imperialism, first of all, we should have a correct attitude, excessive reception and neglect are both incorrect. Especially when we are surrounded with the numerous foreign media texts, the primary thing is to recognize the innate character embedded in them, and distinguish which part of it is useful for us, and which is useless. The discourse of cultural imperialism is more like a kind of trepidation in the context of globalization, researchers just around the necessity of this anxiety offer their different viewpoints, which are having different standpoints, angles, and conditions. So for the masses, what they can do is to have the cautious consciousness towards foreign media products, and depend on own values to make correct judgement.

Through A Narrow Chink: An Ethical Dilemma :: essays research papers

Through A Narrow Chink: An Ethical Dilemma In 1951 Carl Djerassi, with the Mexican pharmaceutical company Syntex, developed the first oral contraceptive by synthesizing and altering the natural hormone Progesterone into a superpotent, highly effective oral progestational hormone called "norethindrone". Admittedly, the dynamics and importance of this find were astounding, since before this the only means of contraception was abortion, and even that was not legalized at the time. The race to produce this synthetic agent was highly competitive, being sought after by many pharmaceuticals throughout the world, and for a small fledgling company in Mexico of all places to find it first only added to the excitement of the achievement. Yet aside from all this excitement and competitive fervor something great and disturbing was being bypassed. Science, in my view had done something great without looking into the possibilities of where this would lead. I believe Djerassi, similar to most scientists of his day, was so entranced by the excitement of synthesizing his product and achieving his goal that he did not stop to think of the ramifications of his accomplishment. The ethical dilemma was not explored before hand, and this to me is the great tragedy of most scientific discovery, since I firmly believe each scientist is responsible for that which he creates. Djerassi does confront a few questions of ethics and morality after the fact. On page 61, in chapter 6, he reflects on the argument of the use of poor Mexican and Puertorrican women for preliminary experiments. Is this just another manifestation of exploitation of the poor? Djerassi says absolutely not. Yes, the poor our the initial guinea pigs for research but this is no different from what dentists, barbers, and young surgeons do. All of these groups use the poor to hone their skills, not because of the poor women's ignorance but because middle class, suburbanite, white women are unlikely to volunteer their services for the sake of science. My main problem with this is that he claims they will not "volunteer" their services. Of course not, they are aware of the possible detrimental effects of such experimentation. This is obviously because they are probably more highly educated the poor Hispanic women. Poverty often precludes a lack of good schooling and education. Thus the awareness of such a group to scientific studies will most likely be much lower. They probably knew nothing of scientific research at all, let alone how to read a consent form that leaves them without legal recourse. Djerassi mentions this as well, the idea that he can not offer them consent forms because they can't read. That seems preposterous to me! If he can not inform his patients of the possible side effects then what

Freedom of Speech vs Censorship -- First Amendment

We are blessed to live in a country that has many rights, the most important is the freedom of speech which provides an umbrella of protection over our remaining rights; however, all of our rights are under attack beginning with the First Amendment which is under constant assault by censorship. The Constitution of the United States says that â€Å"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.† Censorship as defined by Wikipedia is â€Å"the suppression of speech or deletion of communicative material which may be considered objectionable, harmful, sensitive, or inconvenient to the government or media organizations as determined by a censor.† Any statement or image can be determined to be offensive by anyone at anytime, therefore censorship is an attack on our Freedom of Speech. No one can determine for anyone else what is or is not offensive. What we as individuals determine to be offensive to us, might be beautiful to someone else. Also, the definition states suppression of speech considered inconvenient to the government. The Constitution guarantees us the right to Freedom of Speech specifically to keep government from suppressing our speech. Many argue that there are words, phrases, pictures and ideas that are so offensive that we must have government pass laws to keep these from being spoken or discussed. They would further argue that the enormity of the degree of offense warrants such censorship. There are certain types of speech that fall under that definition, howe... ...an trust what the paper’s say because the state runs the media. The constitution provides that â€Å"no law shall be made abridging our right to freedom of speech. Therefore all laws supporting censorship are unconstitutional and should be banned as per the First Amendment. If we fail to ban censorship then we give up all of our rights we cease to be free. Works Cited Merriam-Webster. Abridged. Retrieved May 24, 2010, from http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/abridging Wikipedia. Censorship. Retrieved May 24, 2010, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Censorship Wikipedia. Fairness Doctrine. Retrieved May 24, 2010, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fairness_Doctrine Wikipedia. Main article: United States Bill of Rights. The Bill of Rights (Amendments 1 to 10) Retrieved May 24, 2010, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Constitution Freedom of Speech vs Censorship -- First Amendment We are blessed to live in a country that has many rights, the most important is the freedom of speech which provides an umbrella of protection over our remaining rights; however, all of our rights are under attack beginning with the First Amendment which is under constant assault by censorship. The Constitution of the United States says that â€Å"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.† Censorship as defined by Wikipedia is â€Å"the suppression of speech or deletion of communicative material which may be considered objectionable, harmful, sensitive, or inconvenient to the government or media organizations as determined by a censor.† Any statement or image can be determined to be offensive by anyone at anytime, therefore censorship is an attack on our Freedom of Speech. No one can determine for anyone else what is or is not offensive. What we as individuals determine to be offensive to us, might be beautiful to someone else. Also, the definition states suppression of speech considered inconvenient to the government. The Constitution guarantees us the right to Freedom of Speech specifically to keep government from suppressing our speech. Many argue that there are words, phrases, pictures and ideas that are so offensive that we must have government pass laws to keep these from being spoken or discussed. They would further argue that the enormity of the degree of offense warrants such censorship. There are certain types of speech that fall under that definition, howe... ...an trust what the paper’s say because the state runs the media. The constitution provides that â€Å"no law shall be made abridging our right to freedom of speech. Therefore all laws supporting censorship are unconstitutional and should be banned as per the First Amendment. If we fail to ban censorship then we give up all of our rights we cease to be free. Works Cited Merriam-Webster. Abridged. Retrieved May 24, 2010, from http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/abridging Wikipedia. Censorship. Retrieved May 24, 2010, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Censorship Wikipedia. Fairness Doctrine. Retrieved May 24, 2010, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fairness_Doctrine Wikipedia. Main article: United States Bill of Rights. The Bill of Rights (Amendments 1 to 10) Retrieved May 24, 2010, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Constitution

Perspectivism and Truth in Nietzsche’s Philosophy: A Critical Look at

Perspectivism and Truth in Nietzsche’s Philosophy: A Critical Look at the Apparent Contradiction â€Å"There are no truths,† states one. â€Å"Well, if so, then is your statement true?† asks another. This statement and following question go a long way in demonstrating the crucial problem that any investigator of Nietzsche’s conceptions of perspectivism and truth encounters. How can one who believes that one’s conception of truth depends on the perspective from which one writes (as Nietzsche seems to believe) also posit anything resembling a universal truth (as Nietzsche seems to present the will to power, eternal recurrence, and the ÃÅ"bermensch)? Given this idea that there is no truth outside of a perspective, a transcendent truth, how can a philosopher make any claims at all which are valid outside his personal perspective? This is the question that Maudemarie Clark declares Nietzsche commentators from Heidegger and Kaufmann to Derrida and even herself have been trying to answer. The sheer amount of material that has been written a nd continues to be written on this conundrum demonstrates that this question will not be satisfactorily resolved here, but I will try to show that a resolution can be found. And this resolution need not sacrifice Nietzsche’s idea of perspectivism for finding some â€Å"truth† in his philosophy, or vice versa. One, however, ought to look at Nietzsche’s philosophical â€Å"truths† not in a metaphysical manner but as, when taken collectively, the best way to live one’s life in the absence of an absolute truth. By looking at one of Nietzsche’s specific postulations of perspectivism, we can get a better idea of precisely how this term applies to his philosophy and how it relates to the â€Å"tru... ...’s lack of a direct response to this apparent contradiction ensures that this matter will continue to be hotly debated well into the future. For this seemingly simple contradiction of positing truths when one has denied all absolute truths, Nietzsche gives a very complex and personal answer. Bibliography PRIMARY TEXTS Friedrich Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil, trans. R. J. Hollingdale (London: Penguin Books, 1990). Friedrich Nietzsche, The Will to Power, trans. Walter Kaufmann and R. J. Hollingdale, ed. Walter Kaufmann (New York: Random House, 1967). SECONDARY TEXTS Clark, Maudemarie, Nietzsche on Truth and Philosophy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990). Solomon, Robert C., ‘Nietzsche ad hominem: Perspectivism, personality, and ressentiment,' in The Cambridge Companion to Nietzsche (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), 180-222.

Nutritional Health Essay

Explaining the terms: food, diet, meals and snacks, nutrients Food: Food is a nutritious substance that people or animals eat or drink in order to carry on life and growth. Food has been categorised as carbohydrates, including fibre, protein, fat and vitamins and minerals. Food allows us to keep on living. For example bread contains carbohydrate, meat contains protein, milk contains fat but it depends what milk you take, fruit and vegetables both contain vitamin and minerals. Examples of non food are tea, it has no nutritional value. Diet: Diet means the different food types that have been eaten regularly by a person. It doesn’t always mean losing weight. A diet means everything a person has eaten throughout the day. In the UK people might eat 3 meals a day: breakfast, lunch and dinner. You can also have special diets such as losing weight which means you are reducing your fat on your body. Being more careful with sugar because you are diabetic or because you are anaemic you will need to eat food with iron such as red meat and green vegetables. Meals and snacks: A snack is a portion of food which is smaller than a meal. Snacks are eaten between meals. Snacks designed to be small, quick and enjoyable. For example you have snack and jacks it doesn’t contain fat or fruits such as bananas or apples. You eat a meal 3 times a day which are breakfast, lunch and dinner. It is reasonable amount of food in a day. Nutrients: The process by which people take in food and use it for growth and repair. Examples of nutrients are: protein which you can find in fish, fat which you can find in milk, carbohydrate which you can find in bread or pasta and minerals which you can find in spinach. Malnourished and undernourished: Malnutrition is a serious condition that comes when a person’s diet does not have enough nutrients to meet the expectations of their body. This can affect the growth, your physical health, mood and behaviour. Being malnourished does not always mean that you’re thin or underweight. It is possible to eat a diet which contains high calories but a few vitamins and minerals. This means that you can become malnourished when you are obese or overweight. Symptoms of being malnourished are: Lack of strengths or energy to do activities Lack of energy and breathlessness because of anaemia Changes of your skin and nails Mood changes An increase of illnesses or infections Undernourished is a lack of calories or nutrients from eating not enough food or unable to break down nutrients from the diet because of medical condition such as Marasmus and Kwashiorkor. Marasmus means having problems with: Growing A huge amount of weight loss Muscle wasting Diarrhoea Irritability Kwashiorkor means having problems with: Bad growing Muscle wasting A long time of diarrhoea and infections Deterioration of hair, skin and nails A swollen liver and abdomen Swelling of the face, hands and feet The most common symptoms of being malnourished is unplanned weight loss. If your BMI is lower than 18.5 or you experience the symptoms you will need to contact your GP. To calculate your BMI you can use a chart or you can calculate it like this BMI = weight (kg) height (cm) BMI CHART Young children are taken to the health care centre at least once a week to look at their weight and height. They are looking if the baby is gaining weight in a healthy way or gaining weight too fast and also to check if the baby is growing. The babies are going to be compared to other babies of their age to see if their weight and height is normal. They mostly use growth charts too at the weight and height. GROWTH CHART They also look at someone’s gender and height to see what their weight has to be. For female the weight looking is different than that of a male because a male is builder than a female and also a man needs to take 2500 calories as to which a female has to take 2000 calories a day. Male Female To prevent yourself from getting malnourished and undernourished you will need to have a good diet which has enough vitamins, minerals, fat and carbohydrate. To make sure you take enough and healthy food you can use the eat well plate which shows varieties of food we need to eat and what proportion we should eat it, to have a good and balanced diet. You can also use the five-a-day which means eating 5 portions of fruit and vegetables a day. This makes sure you get all the right things your body needs. You can eat sweet things because your body needs fat but you will need to take a small amount. Here are some easy and healthy recipes to give some ideas. A recipe for breakfast, lunch, dinner and snacks: Breakfast an avocado on toast: INGREDIENTS 2 avocados 2-3 tbsp extra virgin olive oil Juice of 1 lime A little splash of Worcestershire sauce 4 slices of sour dough/rye bread Salt and pepper Small bunch of basil, roughly chopped 2 sweet tomatoes, roughly chopped METHOD How to make simple avocado on toast breakfast 1. Mash the avocado with a fork to a rough puree, adding the olive oil, lime juice, and Worcestershire sauce as you go. Season with salt and pepper to taste. 2. Toast the bread, drizzle a little olive oil over each piece then spread over the avocados. Sprinkle with basil and the diced tomatoes. Lunch Italian turkey club sandwich: INGREDIENTS 2 tbsp olive oil 4 turkey breast steaks 3 tbsp fresh red or green pesto 200g carton half-fat crà ¨me fraà ®che 1 baguette, cut into 4 pieces 4 ripe, plum tomatoes, sliced Small bag baby leaf salad METHOD How to make Italian turkey club sandwich 1. Heat 1 tablespoon of the oil in a griddle pan. Season the turkey and cook over a medium heat for 8-10 minutes, turning, until lightly charred and cooked through. Set aside. 2. Meanwhile, lightly mix the pesto into the crà ¨me fraà ®che and season to taste. Split each baguette piece in half lengthways, to give 8 halves. Brush the cut-side with the remaining oil, then griddle or toast under a hot grill in batches until golden. 3. Assemble the sandwiches. Spread a little pesto and crà ¨me fraà ®che sauce on 4 baguette halves, then top with sliced tomatoes. Top with a turkey breast, add a handful of salad leaves and another spoonful of the pesto and crà ¨me fraà ®che sauce. Top each sandwich and serve. Dinner chicken pasta soup: INGREDIENTS 5–6 chicken thighs 1 large white onion, sliced 1 tbsp olive oil 4 medium carrots, chopped into small dice 6–8 closed cup mushrooms, quartered  ½ red pepper, seeds removed and chopped into small dice 1 x 400g can chopped tomatoes 600ml chicken stock 175ml white wine 100g frozen sweet corn (use tinned if you cannot find any frozen) Salt and freshly ground black pepper 150g pasta shells Handful of fresh coriander, chopped Method 1. Preheat the oven at 190ÚC/gas mark 5. Place the chicken thighs on a baking tray and roast in the oven for about 30–40 minutes, until cooked. Remove from the oven and leave to cool. Once cooled, remove the skin and separate the meat from the bones before cutting the meat into pieces. 2. Heat the oil in a deep saucepan over a medium heat, add the onions and fry for a minute or two before adding the carrots. Cook until the carrots and onions start to soften, about 5 minutes, then add the mushrooms and red pepper. Mix thoroughly and continue to cook until the mushrooms have shrunk in size and begin to brown. 3. Next, add the can of tomatoes, chicken stock, wine, sweet corn and chicken pieces and season well with salt and pepper. Leave to simmer on a low heat, covered, for about 20 minutes. 4. Add the pasta to the soup and leave to simmer for a further 15 minutes or until the pasta is cooked, stirring occasionally to avoid the pasta sticking to the pan. Once ready, remove from the heat and set aside for half an hour, covered, to allow the flavours to infuse. When you’re ready to serve, reheat the soup, pour into bowls and garnish with a sprinkle of fresh coriander. Snacks: You can have snacks such as: Banana Apple Cookie Snack and jack Overweight and obese: Overweight means that you’re BMI is 25 or over 25. If you are overweight you will have a great risk of getting: Arthritis Type 2 diabetes High blood pressure. When people talk about being overweight they mean that the person is not eating enough healthy or they could eat healthy food but they will eat a big portion. It will not only affect somebody health but their self esteem as well. They won’t be able to do activities when people of their same age can do all the things they won’t and wear the clothes they want to wear. Obesity means that your BMI is 30 or over 30. Being obese increases your risk of getting serious and life-threatening diseases such as: Type 2 diabetes Heart disease Some types of cancer, such as breast cancer and colon cancer stroke Obesity can affect your life in a serious way than being overweight it could damage the way life and it often leads to depression. There are simple ways for you can see if you are obese or overweight, for example you could go to the GP or to a dietician, they are able to give you advice at how you could live a healthier life. You could also use a BMI chart or you could look at the weight for height and gender. Dietary Reference Values (DRVs) is something that also could be use to see what you are recommended to take in. The DRVs shows you what your daily intakes should be, they have made charts to show you what you should take in. The charts are: Chart made for age and gender Chart made for ageïÆ'   Reference Nutrient Intakes (RNTs) is part of the DRVs which shows the amount of nutrients each individual is recommended to take in to maintain good health. If you look at the backside of the product it shows you how much nutrients you take in per portion and per 100 g of food. It can help you see if you eat too much. You could also look at your actual food intake which means that you are looking what you eat everyday and compare it to you should have been eating every day. What I would recommended for people who are overweight or obese is to look at the portion of what you eat. Go to your GP or dietist they are able to help you make a diary of you should eat every day. Also eat things of the food groups which are: If you eat at least one of the things in each food group you will be able to stay healthy. Examples of using the different types of the food group are: In the morning drinking milk with bread and peanut butter For lunch eating a fruit salad For dinner eating vegetables with pasta and fish. Also using the right food preparations and processing methods will also make a huge difference in your diet. Example of good preparations and processing methods is using fresh food. If you buy fresh it means that the vitamins and minerals are still in the food but if you buy old food it could be that the vitamins and minerals already left the food. Good ways of cooking your food is grilling and steaming it makes sure that every vitamin and mineral stays in the food. Make sure that there are varieties of colours on your plate which will make it more interesting for you to eat. Eat small portions which will make sure that you ate enough. Use small plates which will make it look like you are eating a lot. Not only eating healthy food is a good thing for you to stay healthy but also doing exercise every day for at least 30 minutes. 30 minutes a day exercise is enough. A few examples of exercises you can do at home are: You can also go to the gym and get a personal trainer who will help you do the right exercise every day. Eating healthy food and doing exercise will make your body stay fit.

Business Intelligence Essay

As Business Intelligence (BI) becomes a captious component of daily operations, real time info w atomic number 18houses (DW) that pass on end users with rapid updates and alerts generated from transactional systems are increasingly being deployed. Real-time discipline warehovictimization and BI, alivenessing its aggressive Go Forward care scheme, have helped Continental Airlines alter its industry status from lash to first and then from first to favorite. Continental Airlines is a leader in real-time BI. In 2004, Continental win the Data Warehousing Institutes Best Practices and Leadership Award.Big ProblemsContinental Airlines was founded in 1934, with a single-engine Lockheed aircraft in the southwest U.S. As of 2006, Continental (Houston) is the fifth largest airway in the United States and the seventh largest in the world. Continental has the broadest global route profit of any U.S. airline, with more than than 2,300 daily departures to more than 227 destinatio ns.Back in 1994, Continental was in deep financial trouble. It had fi take for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection twice and was heading for its third, and in all likelihood final, bankruptcy. Ticket sales were hurting because accomplishment on factors that are important to customers was dismal, including a low percentage of on-time departures, frequent baggage arrival problems, and too some an(prenominal) customers sour away due to overbooking.SolutionThe revitalization of Continental began in 1994, when Gordon Bethune became CEO and initiated the Go Forward plan, which consisted of four interrelated move to be implemented simultaneously. Bethune targeted the need to change customer-valued performance measures by better arrangement customer needs as wellspring as customer perceptions of the value of function that were and could be offered. Financial management practices were in addition targeted for a signifi displacet overhaul. As former(a) as 1998, the airline had sepa rate infobases for market and operations, all hosted and managed by outside vendors. bear upon queries and instigating marketing programs to its high-value customers were time-consuming and ineffective. In addition, nurture that the workforce needed to make contiguous stopping points was simply not available. In 1999, Continental chose to integrate its marketing, IT, revenue, and operational information sources into a single, in-house, enterprise data store (EDW). The data warehouse provided a variety of early, major benefits.As soon as Continental returned to profitability and ranked first in the airline industry in many performance metrics, Bethune and his management group elevated the bar by escalating the vision. Instead of exclusively performing best, they wanted Continental to be their customers favourite airline. The Go Forward plan established more actionable shipway to move from first to favourite among customers. applied science became increasingly critical f or put uping these refreshed initiatives. In the early days, having access to historical, co-ordinated tuition was sufficient. This produced substantial strategic value. only it became increasingly imperative for the data warehouse to provide real-time, actionable information to support enterprise-wise tactical termination making and disdain processes.Luckily, the warehouse team had expected and staged for the real-time shift. From the very beginning, the team had created an computer architecture to handle real-time data feeds into the warehouse, extracts of data from legacy systems into the warehouse, and tactical queries to the warehouse that requisite almost immediate response times. In 2001, real-time data became available from the warehouse, and the sum up stored grew rapidly. Continental moves real-time data (ranging from to-the-minute to hourly) closely customers, reservations, check-ins, operations, and flights from its main operational systems to the warehouse. C ontinentals real-time applications include the following tax income management and accounting Customer kinship management (CRM) Crew operations and paysheet Security and fraud Flight operationsBenefitsIn the first year alone, afterwards the data warehouse project was deployed, Continental identified and eliminated over $7 trillion in fraud and reduced be by $41 meg. With a $30 million investment in hardware and software over six years, Continental has reached over $500 million in increased revenues and cost savings in marketing, fraud detection, demand forecasting and tracking, and meliorate data centre management. The single, integrated, trusted put one over of the business (i.e. the single version of the truth) has led to better, faster decision making.Continental is without delay identified as a leader in real-time BI, based on its scalable and extensible architecture, practical decisions in what data are captured in real-time, self-colored relationships with end user s, a small and exceedingly competent data warehouse staff, fair weighing of strategic and tactical decision support requirements, understanding of the synergies between decision support and operations, and changed business processes that use real-time data.Questions1.Describe the benefits of implementing the Continental Go Forward strategy.2.Explain wherefore it is important for an airline to use a real-time data warehouse.3.Examine the following seek system output screen. Describe how it can assist the user in identifying problems and opportunities.Extracted from http//www.teradata.com/t/page/139245/4.Identify the major differences between the handed-down data warehouse and a real-time data warehouse, as was implemented at Continental.5.What strategic advantage can Continental derive from the real-time system as opposed to a traditional information system?Additional information on Continental Airlines extracted from http//www.teradata.com/t/page/139245/Continental scores with T eradata and HyperionContinental Airlines, the worlds sixth largest airline, was recently named the most prize global airline by batch magazine. But Continental wasnt of all time so highly acclaimed. In 1994, it ranked 10th out of 10 airlines assessed by U.S. Department of Transportation metrics. The airline knew dwarfish about its important customers, set fares and schedules using conventional industry assumptions, conducted contract negotiations blindly and fought fraud only after the slander was done. Continentals turn rough dramatically demonstrates how a data warehouse implementation and strategic use of BIin this case, Teradata and Hyperion, respectivelycan change a company to attain competitive advantage. In fact, Continentals pull in it Gartners 2005 BI Excellence Award.Continental developed an enterprise data theoretical account that simplifies the joining of different subject areas to provide a single view of information for the BI environment. The model can suppor t any query a user asks. Twenty-seven source systems feed the data warehouse, including schedules, inventory, reservations, OnePass (Continentals frequent flyer program) and employee/ conclave payroll. More than 1,100 people use Continentals Teradata/Hyperion-based system. The single, integrated, trusted view of the business has produced benefits ranging from better, faster decision-making to more than $500 million in cost savings, as well as incremental revenue from many initiatives that required BI information. The CRM and marketing team at Continental offers a button-down estimate of $150 million in revenue gains and $25 million in cost savings and fraud prevention.