The World s Strongest Military Power - 1580 Words

By the end of World War II, it was globally evident that the United States was the world’s strongest military power. During the 1950s, the United States experienced a period of glaring economic growth, with an increase in manufacturing and nation-wide consumerism. The benefits of this prosperity — television sets, new cars, new homes (suburbanization), and other consumer goods — were more prominent than ever before. The 50s were also an era of great conflict. (ex. racial discrimination and the early stages of civil rights movement, the fear/fight against communism at home and abroad, and the issues of classism and social inequality). The 1950s in the United States are commonly described as socially conservative and extremely materialistic.†¦show more content†¦The term â€Å"boom† is frequently used when describing the United States during the 1950s. It’s used to refer to the booming economy, the booming suburban development, and most of a ll the â€Å"baby boom†. After World War II ended, despite the fear caused by the Cold War, many Americans were confident that the future held nothing but peace and prosperity. This belief made Americans start having children, at a rapid rate (around four million babies were born each year). Between 1945 and 1960, the country’s GNP was more than twice the amount prior, increasing from two-hundred billion to more than five-hundred billion. The unemployment rate and inflation rate were very low, and the wages were high. During World War II, many people had to pick up jobs that they weren’t normally doing, so after the war traditional job titles were reaffirmed. The men were expected to be the source of income for the family and women were to take care of things at home. Another critical element of the 1950s was the Cold War(1945-1991). The Cold War was the continuing state of military tension, economic competition, political conflict, and ideological rivalry betw een the Soviet Union and the United States. The war did not consist of any physical fighting or violence. The Cold War was characterized by the use of espionage, the building up of military forces and nuclear arsenals, weapon

Essay on Effective Writing Is Important - 502 Words

Effective Writing is Important I have become to notice, through my coursework, that writing well is a tool that everyone can benefit from. Good writers will tell of many an occasion in which their talent has earned them advancement; an advancement that comes to play not only in the job market but also for personal gratification. Fortunately, writing is a skill that can be both taught and practiced to a point at which virtual perfection is reached. The many facets of writing can seem quite overwhelming to the novice. The aspect of writing that most people are unaware of is the fact that it is actually broken down into just a few basic principles. Because of the many benefits that proper voice, structure, and thesis development bring to†¦show more content†¦Voice is the key to getting the reader involved in an essay. Without it, the reader becomes passive and the essay can not be comprehended. Most essays have the essential material, so the manner in which the material is presented can make a difference. When voice is properly executed in an essay, the reader can interact with the writing and make the necessary connections. The best sportswriters in the country are experts in using voice. How else can one become involved in the action? Without voice, a play by play description can become a tedious mas s of words. Voice is a logical facet of writing which, when properly executed, leads the path to effective writing. nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;Effective structure is a necessity in essay writing. Without it, a capable piece of writing can become a nebulous maze of imperfection. Structure acts as a road map for the reader. When the reader can follow the essays structure, the essay as a whole becomes easier to comprehend. The reader can follow the essay logically and therefore does not have to fill in his own gaps. When a reader can read without stumbling across deformities, he is at bliss and proper structure can lead to this bliss. nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;Finally, the actual development of the thesis is a key to effective writing. Again, the reader is always the primary focus and the writing must adhere to his needs. The thesis statement provides a basis for the essay; a basis for the reader. OnceShow MoreRelatedEffective College Level Writing Strategies Essays711 Words   |  3 PagesEffective College Level Writing Strategies When asked about effective writing, many people respond that it is the act of placing the thoughts together in a logical manner. This response is too narrow because it suggests that effective writing is only a matter of getting the writing code correct. It also suggests that writing degenerates from the thought, which is not the case. Although the definitions of effective writing has nothing to do with effective writing itself, there are various points ofRead More‘WRITE EVERYDAY’ it is a common advice. Indeed writing is an important and inescapable part of our800 Words   |  4 Pages‘WRITE EVERYDAY’ it is a common advice. Indeed writing is an important and inescapable part of our daily life. When a person learns how to write daily, a whole world of possibilities open for him. He can pen up his thoughts, create a story and can make his own illusionary world. Writing promotes one’s ability to pose worthwhile questions. Writing is something which is en during, it always leaves an impact on others. It makes thinking visible. Writing daily makes you seem more professional and geniusRead More7cs of Written Communication1327 Words   |  6 PagesC’s off effective communication (with respect to written communication): Written communication  occupies an important position in the communication sphere, so written communication has to pay adequate attention on certain principles of necessity. The essentials of every written communication are principles of unity, coherence and emphasis. These principles along with other essentials of effective communication, like language, planning and organization make the written communication effective. Read MoreEssay about Important Language Skills1735 Words   |  7 PagesImportant Language Skill Out of the Four Language Skills Communication plays a vital role in our daily life. To acquire good communication, command on four language skills is important i.e. Reading, Writing, Listening and Speaking. I studied a few articles in which the authors specified the significance of each language skill. They found a strong positive relation between the four skills and stated that none of these is complete without the other. Effective communication is acquired after learningRead MoreFree Writing Is A Common Issue Among Beginner Writers985 Words   |  4 Pagesfree writing. Free writing is a form of pre-writing. It is important to become familiar with this technique. Most English professors’ use this tool to assist their students with organizing their creative thought. In this essay, I will reveal the true meaning behind the mastery of free writing. Writer s Block is a common issue amongst beginner writers. The ability to write freely takes practice. An exercise that may help you to organize your thought process is called free writing. Free writing isRead MoreThe Seven Tips For Effective Business Writing1110 Words   |  5 PagesCoherence is one of the seven tips for effective business writing. It allows flow of thoughts to be logical and easy to follow. Analyzing purpose, examining reader’s need and outlining before writing are some of the ways to make writing coherent. In addition to these, there are several other techniques that can help to structure effective paragraphs and essays. One way to write coherently is to write with unity. This can be achieved by establishing a main idea and summarizing it into a single sentenceRead MoreBusiness Writing1661 Words   |  7 PagesImproving Business Writing Why is writing important in business? Writing is essential in any form of business. We use writing in all types of communication such as: email, facsimile, letter writing, etc. Writing skills are important to the business professional because it prepares the workplace for well-written business communications. The three topics I will cover can serve as an outline for improving writing skills in businesses. The topics are principles of business writing, how to writeRead MoreEffective Reading and Writing Instruction Essay1231 Words   |  5 PagesDespite the importance of writing, many students are performing below grade level and lack the necessary skills needed to be successful (Zumbrunn Krause, 2012; Santangelo Olinghouse, 2009). There are many factors that shape students’ writing development but there are others that contribute to students’ writing problems. According to Graham (2008) and Zumbrunn Krause (2012), students and teachers both struggle to grasp the concept due to the complex nature of writing and writing instruction. ThereforeRead MoreEssay on The Writing Process944 Words   |  4 PagesConsider how the writing process you read about in this class differs from the process you have used in the past. What specifically have you done in the past compared to what you read about this week? . The process that I have read about in this class differs a lot from the process I have used in the past in many different ways. I n the past when I was given a writing assignment if research was needed I just found the basic information I needed and write the paper. After the readings this weekRead MoreThe Main Reason For The Writing Process849 Words   |  4 PagesThe main reason for the writing process is to assess what the students can come up with or can create on their own. There are five stages of the writing process, which are prewriting, drafting, revising, editing and publishing. These stages reoccur once the students begin to write, meaning that the order of the process can go back and forth. Grammar is important when students think of writing because in order to write you need to know how to use correct spelling conventions to communicate with readers

What is Wrong with Rap Artist free essay sample

The music these days are getting more and more adult. I think that the artist wirting these lyrics should take it down a notch. I think that children 3-6 do not have a understanding what some of these songs they danced to are either a bad meaning or a nasty meaning. Sometimes, I do not blame the rapers or singers, I blame the people who agree to play the nasty and sometimes negative music. Like the record label. Do singers or rapers understand the message they are sending out to the kids. Now or these days it seems like all songs are about realtionships and dating people and how someone needs to change. Why are people singing these songs and does not understand what the meaning of this song or songs mean. I think that the kids today should have music my mother used to listen to, because that music had a good meaning like do not do drugs and not to disobey your parents. We will write a custom essay sample on What is Wrong with Rap Artist or any similar topic specifically for you Do Not WasteYour Time HIRE WRITER Only 13.90 / page I have one dream and that is to make music something that you can dance to and not have to think about the words.

Demand & Supply of Oil in Australia-Free-Samples for Students

Question: Discuss about the Demand and Supply Of Oil In Australia. Answer: Globally, oil is described as the engine of the economy. Mainly, this is because oil is a significant raw material for many industries. For this reason, any changes in its supply and demand considerably influence the rest of the economy. As such, alterations in its demand and supply affect the prices of the commodity, which then influences the prices of other goods and service. According to Jessica Resnick-Aults article, the prices of oil dropped. In her article Oil falls despite steep draw in US crude, reveals that the prices of oil in the country have fallen by approximately one percent. Notably, the changes in price of the commodity are as a result of changes in its demand and supply in the global market. It is worth pointing out that the article implores the interests of various groups, among them individuals and firms. Firstly, households may find the article interesting simply because the global prices of oil influences their utility bills with respect to cooking gas and vehicle fuel. In the same way, manufacturing firms may take keen interest in the article because oil is a significant component in many production processes. For this reason, changes in the price of the commodity greatly influence their cost of production, which in turn affect the prices they charge for their goods and services. In addition, refining companies might also find the article interesting as it informs them on the factors that cause significant changes in the prices of oil in the country and the rest of the world. Fundamentally, the issues presented in the article can be presented in terms of economic concepts and theories. In this case, the concept of the law of demand and the law of supply can be applied to explain the changes in the price of oil in the country as well as the rest of the world. In economics, an increase in the demand of a product brings about a rise in its price (Amadeo, 2017). In the same way, a drop in the supply of the commodity leads to an increase in the price of the product. Mainly, this is because a decrease in supply creates pressure on the available amount, thereby pushing its prices upwards. In the article, Resnick-Ault suggests that the gradual slowdown in the demand for oil has significantly influenced the falling of petroleum prices in the country. Predominantly, the reduction in the quantity demanded is as a result of the ending of the peak of the summer driving season. In addition, the demand for crude is expected to slow down following decreases in refinery needs by companies. Furthermore, it has slowed as a result of a decline in the number of summer road trips within the country. All these factors combined, have adversely affected the level of demand for oil and its related products in the country. Consequently, a reduction in the demand for oil has caused a downward pressure on the price of the commodity in the country. Effects of low demand on oil prices Source: (Khan, n.d.). In addition to demand, the supply of the commodity has played a major role in influencing its price level in the country. More specifically, there is a global surplus of oil from OPEC countries and the uses. Fundamentally, it arises from the fact that the global economy is facing a significant growth in the level of output from oil producing countries throughout the world. Primarily, economic theory dictates that when the supply of a good increases, a negative and downward pressure is placed on its price. In the same view, the continued oversupply of oil in the international marketed has placed a negative pressure on the price of the commodity, forcing it to drop. Effects of supply on price Source: (Khan, n.d.). It is worth noting that the reduction in the price of oil in the country has both positive and negative implications for the Australian economy. By and large, low oil prices act a significant economic stimulus that brings about growth and development. More specifically, lower oil prices lead to a reduction in the cost of transport for households and firms. In turn, this ensures lower costs for businesses and ensures profitability. Additionally, lower prices leads to a reduction in the level of inflation in the economy and, thus, ensures price stability. Moreover, it leads to a decrease in the cost of production of manufacturing companies in the country, which then leads to a decline in the prices they charge for their products. Thus, the combined effects of lower prices in the country boost economic growth. Even so, it is imperative to point out that a continued drop in the prices of oil in the country may negatively affect economic growth. As such, it may force oil companies to go out business to cut back on their production or go out of business. Consequently, this forces firms to lay off some workers, leading to an increase in the level of unemployment in the country. thus, eventually, a continued increase in the price of the product will be detrimental for the Australian economy. In this regard, it is recommended that the government should control the demand and supply of the commodity. This way, decreases in the price of oil would be moderate, and hence, act as a stimulus to the Australian economy. All in all, taking all factors into consideration, the demand and supply of oil plays a significant role in influencing the price level in the country. Through Resnick-Aults article, the reader discovers that low demand in the country has led to a fall in the price oil. In addition, a consistent increase in the supply of the commodity has negatively affected its price. For this reason, one notes that the forces of demand and supply are significant in determining the price level of a particular commodity. Reference List Amadeo, K. (2017). Law of Demand: Definition, Explained, Examples. [Online] The Balance. Available at: https://www.thebalance.com/law-of-demand-definition-explained-examples-3305707 [Accessed 18 August 2017]. Johnson, S. Supply, demand, and market equilibrium. [Online] Sophia. Available at: https://www.sophia.org/tutorials/economic-basics-supply-and-demand [Accessed 18 August 2017]. Khan, S. Law of Demand. [Online] Khan Academy. Available at: https://www.khanacademy.org/economics-finance-domain/microeconomics/supply-demand-equilibrium/demand-curve-tutorial/a/law-of-demand [Accessed 18 August 2017]. Khan, S. Law of supply. [Online] Khan Academy. Available at: https://www.khanacademy.org/economics-finance-domain/microeconomics/supply-demand-equilibrium/demand-curve-tutorial/a/law-of-supply [Accessed 18 August 2017]. Khan, S. Supply, demand, and market equilibrium. [Online] Khan Academy. Available at: https://www.khanacademy.org/economics-finance-domain/microeconomics/supply-demand-equilibrium [Accessed 18 August 2017]. Resnick-Ault, J. (2017). Oil falls despite steep draw in US crude. [Online] The Australian. Available at: https://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/latest-news/oil-falls-despite-steep-draw-in-us-crude/news-story/f89a7e35ae51086c13f40e8a03cb31b4 [Accessed 10 August 2017]

Redneck Culture

Relative Deprivation and Deprivation Theory

Relative Deprivation and Deprivation Theory Relative deprivation is formally defined as an actual or perceived lack of resources required to maintain the quality of life- diet, activities, and material possessions- to which various socioeconomic groups or individuals within those groups have grown accustomed, or are considered to be the accepted norm within the group. Key Takeaways Relative deprivation is the lack of resources (money, rights, or social equality) necessary to maintain the quality of life considered typical within a given socioeconomic group. Relative deprivation often contributes to the rise of social change movements, such as the U.S. Civil Rights Movement.Absolute deprivation or absolute poverty is a potentially life-threatening situation that occurs when income falls below a level adequate to maintain food and shelter. In simpler terms, relative deprivation is a feeling that you are generally â€Å"worse off† than the people you associate with and compare yourself to. For example, when you can only afford a compact economy car, but your coworker, while getting the same salary as you, drives a fancy luxury sedan, you may feel relatively deprived. Relative Deprivation Theory: Definition, Examples, and History As defined by social theorists and political scientists,  Relative Deprivation Theory suggests that people who feel they are being deprived of almost anything considered essential in their society- whether money, rights, political voice or status- will organize or join social movements dedicated to obtaining the things of which they feel deprived. For example, relative deprivation has been cited as one of the causes of the U.S. Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s, the struggle of Blacks to gain social and legal equality with whites. Similarly, many gay people join the same-sex marriage movement in order to acquire the same legal recognition of their marriages enjoyed by straight people. In some cases, relative deprivation has been cited as a factor driving incidents of social disorder like rioting, looting, terrorism, and civil wars. In this nature, social movements and their associated disorderly acts can often be attributed to the grievances of people who feel they are being denied resources to which they are entitled. Development of the concept of relative deprivation is often attributed to American sociologist Robert K. Merton, whose study of American soldiers during World War II revealed that soldiers in the Military Police were far less satisfied with their opportunities for promotion than regular GIs. In proposing one the first formal definitions of the relative deprivation, British statesman and sociologist Walter Runciman listed the effect’s four required conditions: A person does not have something.That person knows other people who have the thing.That person wants to have the thing.That person believes he or she has a reasonable chance of getting the thing.   Runciman also drew a distinction between â€Å"egoistic† and â€Å"fraternalistic† relative deprivation. According to Runciman, egoistic relative deprivation is driven by an individual’s feelings of being treated unfairly compared to others in the group. For example, an employee who feels he or she should have gotten a promotion that went to another employee may feel relatively deprived. Fraternalistic relative deprivation is more often associated with massive group social movements like the Civil Rights Movement. Relative vs. Absolute Deprivation Relative and absolute deprivation are measures of poverty in a given country. Absolute deprivation describes a condition at which household income falls below a level needed to maintain the basic necessities of life like food and shelter. Relative deprivation describes a level of poverty at which household income drops to a certain percentage below the country’s median income. For example, a country’s level of relative poverty could be set at 50 percent of its median income. While absolute poverty can threaten one’s very survival, relative poverty is more likely to limit one’s ability to participate fully in their society. In 2015, the World Bank Group set the worldwide absolute poverty level at $1.90 a day per person based on purchasing power parities (PPP) rates. Critiques Critics of relative deprivation theory have argued that it fails to explain why some people who, though deprived of rights or resources, fail to take part in social movements meant to attain those things. During the Civil Rights Movement, for example, Black people who refused to participate in the movement were derisively referred to as â€Å"Uncle Toms† by other Blacks in reference to the excessively obedient slave depicted in Harriet Beecher Stowe’s 1852 novel â€Å"Uncle Tom’s Cabin.† However, proponents of relative deprivation theory argue that many of these people simply want to avoid the conflicts and life difficulties they might encounter by joining the movement with no guarantee of a better life as a result.   Relative deprivation theory does not account for people who take part in movements that do not seem to materially benefit them, such as the animal rights movement. In many of these cases, for example, straight people who march alongside lesbian and gay rights activists, or wealthy people who demonstrate against policies that perpetuate poverty or income inequality, are believed to do so more out of a sense of empathy or sympathy than feelings of relative deprivation. Sources Curran, Jeanne and Takata, Susan R. Robert K. Merton. California State University, Dominguez Hills. (February 2003).Duclos, Jean-Yves. Absolute and Relative Deprivation and the Measurement of Poverty. University Laval, Canada (2001).Runciman, Walter Garrison. Relative deprivation and social justice: a study of attitudes to social inequality in twentieth-century England. Routledge Kegan Paul (1966). ISBN-10: 9780710039231.

MID TERM Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

MID TERM - Essay Example On politics as the conduct of governing, Section 17 of the Tao Te Ching provides a pointed observation: "When the Master governs, the people are hardly aware that he exists." This can be interpreted to mean that in a state of benevolent governance, well being of the people, even prosperity, is assumed as natural occurrence that people become less conscious of the governing authority. Then he proceeds, "Next best is a leader who is loved. Next, one who is feared. The worst is one who is despised." And we can not argue with that. Section 57 also provides wisdom that people who govern can reflect upon: "The more prohibitions you have, the less virtuous people will be. The more weapons you have, the less secure people will be. The more subsidies you have, The concept of war as armed conflict, however, does not appear to conform with the principles Lao Tzu espoused. Section 31 begins, "Whoever relies on the Tao in governing men doesn't try to force issues or defeat enemies by force of arms. For every force there is a counterforce.

Time-Driven ABC and Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) articles Essay

Time-Driven ABC and Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) articles analysis - Essay Example After realizing that this technique consumes a lot of time, Kaplan and Anderson improved on it and developed a new method known as Time-driven Activity Based Costing (TDABC). This technique uses information from Enterprise Resource Planning System (ERP) to assign costs to products and services directly and in a less costly manner (Kaplan, & Anderson, 2005). This paper will analyze the drawbacks of ABC that made Kaplan to develop TDABC and the relationship between TDABC and ERP. The drawbacks of ABC that led to the development of TDABC include overlooking capacity, expensive, and time consuming (Gilbert, 2007). The technique consumes time because organizations have to conduct interviews to ask workers the amount of time that they take to complete each activity. Companies take time to develop questions to ask workers about all the activities that they carry out in the firm and it consumes even more time to conduct the interview sessions (Kaplan, & Anderson, 2005). This process is also expensive because companies have to acquire resources to conduct the interviews; for example, organizations spend money on developing questionnaires, paying interviewers, and analyzing the data from the interviews. This increases the expenses of a firm leading to low profits. Kaplan also argues that the traditional ABC technique ignored the role of capacity in organizations. The traditional ABC method allocated costs to products by first determining the cost of all activities in a company. This means that this technique ignored the ability of workers and machines to produce goods in a company (Kaplan, & Anderson, 2005). The other limitation of ABC is that it is inaccurate because of errors that employees make when estimating the time that they use to complete activities in an organization (Gilbert, 2007). Time-driven Activity Based Costing solves the problems of traditional ABC by using accurate data from ERP that consumes less time and takes into account the capacity of

Aerospace business management and legislation Essay

Aerospace business management and legislation - Essay Example are some of the reasons that the Airline has stayed successful and has been able to survive the global economic problems that have befallen the aviation industry in recent times. Southwest Airlines has continued to be successful due to good financial planning on the part of the company’s administration, which has ensured that the company has continued to grow steadily over a period of more than 30 years. Although Southwest provides low-cost airline transport, new customers may assume that the airline’s services might be less professional because of low training budgets or that the airline acquire cheaper facilities for lowering of operational costs. (Butler and Keller, 2000) This can prevent the more picky travelers from trying out the airline’s services and thus prevent the airline from getting business from these travelers. Although pickier customers would not mind paying lesser amounts for tickets, the customers will probably not be willing to endure any poor equipments or inadequate services. Upon entering any new market or market sector the airline’s low fares usually stimulate demand at a fast rate. Although this stimulates higher a load factor, the airline has been able to handle increase in capacity through proper financial planning. In this light, some other airlines have been known to respond by dropping their own fares and further stimulating the total market. The airline’s financial plan also caters to the financial needs of their employees, as they are known to pay their employees well. This translates into more success for the company, as well paid employees are usually happy employees, and would possess better company morale than the employees of their competitors. The airline has been using only one type of aircraft (Boeing 737) and this strategy was intended to keep maintenance costs low, as well as lower training costs too, because the pilots, engineers and flight attendants only have to undergo training for Boeing 737 airplanes.

Introduction To The Solar System Environmental Sciences Essay

Introduction To The Solar System Environmental Sciences Essay A. This essay will briefly describe the planets and how they relate to the planet Earth. The surface and inner geology, the atmosphere, and other general properties will show how the other planets are not unlike the Earth. B. How do the unique characteristics of each major solar system body compare with the planet Earth primarily the mass and density, and the composition? 2. The Planets Other Objects. The charted regions of the Solar System consist of the Sun, four terrestrial inner planets, an asteroid belt composed of small rocky bodies, four gas giant outer planets, and a second belt, called the Kuiper belt, composed of icy objects. Beyond the Kuiper belt is hypothetical Oort cloud. The inner Solar System is the traditional name for the region comprising the terrestrial planets and asteroids. Composed mainly of silicates and metals, the objects of the inner Solar System crowd very closely to the Sun; the radius of this entire region is shorter than the distance between Jupiter and Saturn. The four inner or terrestrial planets have dense, rocky compositions, few or no moons, and no ring systems. They are composed largely of minerals with high melting points, such as the silicates which form their solid crusts and semi-liquid mantles, and metals such as iron and nickel, which form their cores. Three of the four inner planets (Venus, Earth and Mars) have significant atmospheres; all have impact craters and tectonic surface features such as rift valleys and volcanoes. Our probe, the ESP begins the exploration of the solar system with the third planet from the sun, the Earth and the fifth largest in our solar system. Astronomers usually measure distances within the Solar System in astronomical units (AU). One AU is the approximate distance between the Earth and the Sun or roughly 149,598,000 km (93,000,000 mi). A. The Earth. The mass of the Earth is 5.98 E24 kg with a mean density of 5,520 kg/m3 and the densest of any planet in the solar system. Earths diameter is just a few hundred kilometers larger than that of Venus, and considered our sister planet. Earth is the largest of the inner planets, the only one planet known to have current geological activity, although there are moons of Jupiter and Saturn that have seismic activity, and the only planet known to have life. Its liquid hydrosphere is unique among the terrestrial planets, and it is also the only planet where plate tectonics has been observed, unlike Venus where there is no evidence of plate tectonics. Earths atmosphere is radically different from those of the other planets, having been altered by the presence of life (in two oxygen generating events) to contain 21% free oxygen. It has one satellite, the Moon, the only large satellite of a terrestrial planet in the Solar System so large as compared to its planet. No other moon-pla net has this size ratio. The four seasons are a result of Earths axis of rotation being tilted 23.45 degrees with respect to the plane of Earths orbit around the sun. During part of the year, the northern hemisphere is tilted toward the sun and the southern hemisphere is tilted away, producing summer in the north and winter in the south. Six months later, the situation is reversed. During March and September, when spring and fall begin in the northern hemisphere, both hemispheres receive nearly equal amounts of solar illumination. Earths global ocean, which covers nearly 70 percent of the planets surface, has an average depth of about 4 km (2.5 miles). Fresh water exists in the liquid phase only within a narrow temperature span, 32 to 212 degrees Fahrenheit (0 to 100 degrees Celsius). The presence and distribution of water vapor in the atmosphere is responsible for much of Earths weather. The Earths rapid rotation and molten nickel-iron core create the magnetic field which prevents the solar wind from reaching the surface (the solar wind is a stream of charged particles continuously ejected from the sun.) The Earths magnetic field does not fade off into space, but has definite boundaries. When charged particles from the solar wind become trapped in Earths magnetic field, they collide with air molecules above our planets magnetic poles. These air molecules then begin to glow, and are known as the aurora the northern and southern lights. Earths lithosphere, which includes the crust (both continental and oceanic) and the upper mantle, is divided into huge plates that are constantly moving, and the movement is accurately determined via radio telescopes from a stationary point such as a star . Earthquakes result when plates grind past one another, ride up over one another, collide to make mountains, or split and separate. The theory of motion of the large plates of the li thosphere is known as plate tectonics. Developed within the last 40 years, this explanation has unified the results of centuries of study of our planet. The Earths atmosphere consists of 78 percent nitrogen, 21 percent oxygen and 1 percent argon and other trace ingredients. The atmosphere affects Earths long-term climate and short-term local weather, shields us from much of the harmful radiation coming from the sun and protects us from meteors as well, most of which burn up before they can strike the surface as meteorites. Before the ESP leaves the immediate vicinity of the Earth, ESP will begin the journey starting with Earths Moon approximately 250,000 miles away. B. The Moon. The Earths moon provides a more livable planet by moderating our home planets wobble on its axis, leading to a relatively stable climate, and creating a rhythm that has guided humans for thousands of years. The Moon was likely formed after a Mars-sized body collided with Earth approximately 4.5 billion years ago, and the resulting debris accumulated (or accreted) to form our natural satellite. The newly formed Moon was in a molten state. Within about 100 million years, most of the global magma ocean had crystallized, with less dense rocks floating upward and eventually forming the lunar crust. The moons surface shows four significant impact structures and are used to date objects on the Moon; are called the Nectaris and Imbrium basins and the craters Eratosthenes and Copernicus. The Moon was first visited by the USSRs Luna 1 and Luna 2 in 1959. These were followed by a number of U.S. and Soviet robotic spacecraft. The U.S. sent three classes of robotic missions to prepare the way for human exploration, the Rangers (1961-1965) were impact probes, the Lunar Orbiters (1966-1967) mapped the surface to find landing sites and the Surveyors (1966-1968) were soft landers. The first human landing on the Moon was on 20 July 1969. During the Apollo missions of 1969-1972, 12 American astronauts walked on the Moon and used a Lunar Roving Vehicle to travel on the surface to investigate soil mechanics, meteoroids, lunar ranging, magnetic fields and the solar wind. The Apollo astronauts brought back 382 kg (842 pounds) of rock and soil to Earth for study. The Moon has no internally generated magnetic field, although areas of magnetism are preserved in the lunar crust, but how this occurred remains a mystery to science. The early Moon appears not to have had the right conditions to develop an internal dynamo, the mechanism for global magnetic fields for the terrestrial planets; so an iron-core did not form or have the ability for motion. In retrospect, no magnetic field may be a good thing as perhaps there would be some interactions between the Earths magnetic filed and the moons, when considering the abnormal size ratio between these bodies. With no atmosphere to impede impacts, a steady rain of asteroids, meteoroids and comets strike the surface. Over billions of years, the surface has been ground up into fragments ranging from huge boulders to powder. Nearly the entire Moon is covered by a rubble pile of gray, powdery dust and rocky debris called the lunar regolith. Beneath the regolith is a region of fractured bedrock referred to as the megaregolith. The ESP now leaves the Earth to journey toward the sun and visit the second closet to the sun, Venus our sister planet. C. Venus. From the Earth, the distance to Venus is about 23 million miles, and 0.723 AU from the sun. The orbital period of Venus is about 225 Earth days long, while the planets sidereal rotation period is 243 Earth days, making a Venus solar day about 117 Earth days long. Venus has no natural satellites. The mass of Venus is 4.87 E24 kg and close in size to Earth (0.815 Earth masses) and, like Earth, has a thick silicate mantle around an iron core, a substantial atmosphere and evidence of internal geological activity. Because of the similar silicate mantle around an iron corer, the density is not unlike the Earths at 5,250 kg/m2. The slow rotation of Venus cannot generate a magnetic field similar to Earths, though its iron core is similar to that of the Earth and approximately 3,000 km (1,900 miles) in radius. Venus rotates retrograde (east to west) compared with Earths (west to east) rotation. Seen from Venus, the sun would rise in the west and set in the east. Current thinking suggests that Venus was completely resurfaced by volcanic activity 300 to 500 million years ago. More than 1,000 volcanoes or volcanic centers larger than 20 km (12 miles) in diameter dot the surface. Volcanic flows have produced long, channels extending for hundreds of kilometers. Venus has two large highland areas: Ishtar Terra, about the size of Australia, in the North Polar Region; and Aphrodite Terra, about the size of South America, straddling the equator and extending for almost 10,000 km (6,000 miles). Maxwell Montes, the highest mountain on Venus and comparable to Mount Everest on Earth, is at the eastern edge of Ishtar Terra. No definitive evidence of current geological activity has been detected on Venus, but as mentioned it has no magnetic field that would prevent depletion of its substantial atmosphere, which suggests that its atmosphere is regularly replenished by volcanic eruptions. Venus atmosphere consists mainly of carbon dioxide, with clouds of sulfuric acid droplets with trace amounts of water detected in the atmosphere (96% carbon dioxide, 3% nitrogen, and 0.1% water vapor.) The atmosphere is much drier than Earth and ninety times as dense. It is the hottest planet, with surface temperatures over 400 Â °C, most likely due to the amount of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. The thick atmosphere traps the suns heat, resulting in surface temperatures higher than 880 degrees Fahrenheit (471 degrees Celsius). Probes that have landed on Venus survived only a few hours before being destroyed by the incredible temperatures. Sulfur compounds are abundant in Venus clouds. The corrosive chemistry and dense, moving atmosphere cause significant surface weathering and erosion. Atmospheric lightning bursts were confirmed in 2007 by the European Venus Express orbiter. On Earth, Jupiter and Saturn, lightning is associated with water clouds, but on Venus, it is associated with clouds of sulfuric acid. As we leave the Venusian orbit, Earths probe ESP continues toward the sun and onward Mercury. D. Mercury. The closest planet to the Sun and the smallest planet (0.055 Earth masses), Mercury is 0.387 AU from the sun. Mercury has no natural satellites, and its mass is 3.30 E23 kg with an average density of 5,420 kg/m3. The similarity of the rocky terrestrial planets is apparent. Mercurys surface resembles that of Earths Moon, scarred by many impact craters resulting from collisions with meteoroids and comets. While there are areas of smooth terrain, there are also scarps or cliffs, some hundreds of miles long and soaring up to a mile high, formed by contraction of the crust. Mercury is the second densest planet after Earth, with a large metallic core having a radius of 1,800 to 1,900 km (1,100 to 1,200 miles), about 75 percent of the planets radius (Earths core is many times smaller compared to the planets diameter). In 2007, researchers using ground-based radars to study the core found evidence that it is molten (liquid). Mercurys outer shell, comparable to Earths outer shell (called the mantle), is only 500 to 600 km (300 to 400 miles) thick. The only known geological features besides impact craters are wrinkle-ridges, probably produced by a period of contraction early in its history. The Caloris Basin, one of the largest features on Mercury, is about 1,550 km (960 miles) in diameter. It was the result of a possible asteroid impact on the planets surface early in the solar systems history. Mercurys almost negligible atmosphere consists of atoms blasted off its surface by the solar wind. Though Mercurys magnetic field has just 1 percent the strength of Earths, the field is very active. The magnetic field in the solar wind creates intense magnetic tornadoes that channel the fast, hot solar wind plasma down to the surface. When these ions strike the surface, they knock off neutral atoms and send them high into the sky where other processes may fling them back to the surface or accelerate them away from Mercury. As we leave Mercury before heading out to the deepest regions of the solar system, the ESP will make a fly-by of the sun, as the voyager probes did around Jupiter and Saturn to increase the velocity. E. Our Sun. The principal component of the Solar System is the Sun that contains 99.86% of the systems known mass and dominates it gravitationally. Jupiter and Saturn, the Suns two largest orbiting bodies, account for more than 90% of the systems remaining mass. Most large objects in orbit around the Sun lie near the plane of Earths orbit, known as the ecliptic. The planets are very close to the ecliptic while comets and Kuiper belt objects are usually at significantly greater angles to it. The orbits of the planets are nearly circular, but many comets, asteroids and objects of the Kuiper belt follow highly-elliptical orbits. The probe ESP circles the sun picking up velocity to begin the voyage to Mars again passing the terrestrial planets. F. The Red Planet, Mars. Mars is smaller than Earth and Venus (0.107 Earth masses) has a mass of 6.42 E23 kg and a mean density of 3,940 kg/m3 (lower than that of the other terrestrial planets,) and is 1.524 AU from the sun. Mars is a cold desert-like world similar to our Southwestern States, and has the same amount of dry land. Like Earth, Mars has seasons, polar ice caps, volcanoes, canyons and weather, but its atmosphere is too thin for liquid water to exist for long on the surface. There are signs of ancient floods on Mars, but evidence for water now exists mainly in icy soil and thin clouds. Mars has two tiny natural satellites Deimos and Phobos thought to be captured asteroids. Mars experiences seasons because of the tilt of its rotational axis (in relation to the plane of its orbit). Mars orbit is slightly elliptical, so its distance to the sun changes, affecting the Martian seasons that last longer than those of Earth. The polar ice caps on Mars grow and recede with the seaso ns; layered areas near the poles suggest that the planets climate has changed more than once. Mars is a rocky body about half the size of Earth. As with the other terrestrial planets (Mercury, Venus and Earth) the surface of Mars has been altered by volcanism, impacts, crustal movement, and atmospheric effects such as dust storms. Volcanism in the highlands and plains was active more than 3 billion years ago, but some of the giant shield volcanoes are younger, having formed between 1 and 2 billion years ago. Mars has the largest volcanic mountain in the solar system, Olympus Mons, as well as a spectacular equatorial canyon system, Valles Marineris. Mars has no global magnetic field, but NASAs Mars Global Surveyor orbiter found that areas of the Martian crust in the southern hemisphere are highly magnetized. Evidently, these are traces of a magnetic field that remain in the planets crust from about 4 billion years ago. Mars often appears reddish due to a combination of the fact that its surface is comprised of iron-rich minerals that rust (or oxidize) and that the dust made of these minerals is kicked up into the atmosphere, giving the atmosphere a reddish hue as well. Mars possesses an atmosphere of mostly carbon dioxide (seems like a natural tendency of the terrestrial planets), and other gases (nitrogen 3%, and argon 1.6 %.) The thin atmosphere on Mars does not allow liquid water to exist at the surface for long, and the quantity of water required to carve Mars great channels and flood plains is not obvious today. Unraveling the story of water on Mars is important to unlocking its climate history, which will help us understand the evolution of all the planets. Water is believed to be an essential ingredient for life; evidence of past or present water on Mars is expected to hold clues about whether Mars could ever have been a habitat for life. In summary, there is evidence and good science that large quantities of water may still be present below the surface. Scientists believe that Mars experienced huge floods about 3.5 billion years ago, though it is not know where the ancient flood water came from, how long it lasted or where it went, recent missions to Mars have uncovered exciting evidence. In 2002, NASAs Mars Odyssey orbiter detected hydrogen-rich polar deposits, indicating large quantities of water ice close to the surface. Further observations found hydrogen in other areas as well. If water ice permeated the entire planet, Mars could have substantial subsurface layers of frozen water, and if true, the long-term colonization of Mars is probable. In 2004, the Mars Exploration Rover named Opportunity found structures and minerals indicating that liquid water was once present at its landing site. The rovers twin, Spirit, also found the signature of ancient water near its landing site halfway around Mars from Opportunitys location. Recently, in August 2012, the probe Curiosity made another surface landing in a crater and being the first nuclear-powered probe. Leaving Mars orbit and the terrestrial planets, ESP moves further from the sun to explore the left-over remains from the formation of the solar system, the Asteroid belt. G. The Asteroids Belt. These small Solar System bodies are mostly composed of rocky and metallic non-volatile minerals. Tens of thousands of these minor planets and small rocky bodies are gathered in the main asteroid belt, a vast doughnut-shaped ring between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter. Asteroids that pass close to Earth are called Near-Earth Objects (NEOs). The main asteroid belt occupies the orbit between Mars and Jupiter, and is between 2.3 and 3.3 AU from the Sun. It is thought to be remnants from the Solar Systems formation that failed to coalesce because of the gravitational interference of Jupiter. Asteroids range in size from hundreds of kilometers across to microscopic. Despite this, the total mass of the main belt is unlikely to be more than a thousandth of that of the Earth. The main belt is very sparsely populated; spacecraft routinely pass through without incident. Asteroids with diameters between 10 and 10-4 m are called meteoroids. Asteroid groups in the main belt are divided into groups and families based on their orbital characteristics. Asteroid moons are asteroids that orbit larger asteroids. They are not as clearly distinguished as planetary moons, sometimes being almost as large as their partners. The asteroid belt also contains main-belt comets which may have been the source of Earths water. The inner Solar System is also dusted with rogue asteroids, many of which cross the orbits of the inner planets. The three broad composition classes of asteroids are C-, S- and M-types. The C-type asteroids (carbonaceous) are most common, and probably consist of clay and silicate rocks and are dark in appearance. C-type asteroids are among the most ancient objects in our solar system. The S-types (silicaceous) are made up of silicate (stony) materials and nickel-iron. M-types (metallic) are made up of nickel-iron. The asteroids compositional differences are related to how far from the sun they formed. Some experienced high temperatures after they formed and partly melted, with iron sinking to the center and forcing basaltic (volcanic) lava to the surface. One such asteroid, Vesta, survives to this day. Ceres is 2.77 AU from the sun, is the largest body in the asteroid belt, and considered a dwarf planet. It has a diameter of slightly less than 1000 km, large enough for its own gravity to pull it into a spherical shape. Ceres was considered a planet when it was discovered in the 19th century, bu t was reclassified as an asteroid in the 1850s as further observation revealed additional asteroids. It was again reclassified in 2006 as a dwarf planet along with Pluto. Leaving the left-over rubble of the Asteroid belt ESP now begins s very long journeys as did the Voyager, and Cassini probes and visit the four outer planets, or gas giants (sometimes called Jovian planets), and collectively make up 99 percent of the mass known to orbit the Sun. H. The Gas giants Jupiter. Jupiter and Saturns atmospheres are largely hydrogen and helium. Uranus and Neptunes atmospheres have a higher percentage of ices, such as water, ammonia and methane. Some astronomers suggest they belong in their own category, ice giants. All four gas giants have rings, although only Saturns ring system is easily observed from Earth. Our probe ESP approaches Jupiter at an average distance of 5.203 AU from the sun we are now in the region of deep space. Jupiter at 318 Earth masses has 2.5 times the mass of all the other planets put together, and an average density of 1,314 kg/m3. It is composed largely of hydrogen and helium. Jupiters internal heat creates semi-permanent features in its atmosphere, such as cloud bands and the Great Red Spot. On 7 January 1610, using a telescope (probably the first) he constructed, astronomer Galileo Galilei saw four small stars as he first thought near Jupiter. He had discovered Jupiters four largest moons, now called Io, Europa, Ganymede, and Callisto. These four moons are known today as the Galilean satellites. In retrospect, Jupiter has sixty-three known satellites, and show similarities to the terrestrial planets, such as volcanism and internal heating. Galileos surprise and illumination is understood. In 2004, while looking through a small Meade reflecting telescope, Jupiters four largest moons were visible as they were all in a straight line moving around the planets equatorial plane. For the first time ever, I gazed at four moons in the solar system other than our own, and it was an amazing sight. Looking at Jupiter from an Earth or near-orbit telescope or planetary probe, the apparent surface and appearance is a blend of striking colors and atmospheric features. Most visible clou ds are composed of ammonia, and water vapor exists deep below and can sometimes be seen through clear spots in the clouds. The planets stripes are dark belts and light zones are created by strong east-west winds in Jupiters upper atmosphere. The Great Red Spot, a giant spinning storm, has been observed since the 1800s, and in recent years, three storms merged to form the Little Red Spot, about half the size of the Great Red Spot. In December 1995, NASAs Galileo spacecraft dropped a probe into Jupiters atmosphere, which made the first direct measurements of the planets atmosphere, and began a multiyear study of Jupiter and the largest moons. The magnetic field of Jupiter and is nearly 20,000 times as powerful as Earths. Trapped within Jupiters magnetosphere (the area in which magnetic field lines encircle the planet from pole to pole) are swarms of charged particles. Jupiters rings and moons are embedded in an intense radiation belt of electrons and ions trapped by the magnetic field, and perhaps a moon landing is possible in the future, but protection from this radiation will be necessary. Jupiters atmosphere is similar to that of the sun, and the composition is mostly hydrogen and helium. Deep in the atmosphere, the pressure and temperature increase, compressing the hydrogen gas into a liquid. At further depths, the hydrogen becomes metallic and electrically conducting. In this metallic layer, Jupiters powerful magnetic field is generated by electrical currents driven by Jupiters fast rotation (9.8 Earth hours.) At the center, the immense pressure may support a solid core of rock about the size of Earth. Jupiters Galilean Satellites. Io is the most volcanically active body in the solar system and the surface is covered by sulfur in different multi-colored forms. As Io travels in its slightly elliptical orbit, Jupiters immense gravity causes tides in the solid surface that rise 100 m (300 feet) high on Io, generating enough heat for volcanic activity and to drive off any water. Ios volcanoes are driven by hot silicate magma. Europas surface is mostly water ice, and there is evidence that it may be covering an ocean of water or ice beneath. Europa is thought to have twice as much water as does Earth, and intrigues scientists because of its potential for having a habitable zone. Life forms have been found thriving near subterranean volcanoes on Earth and in other extreme locations that may be analogues to what may exist on Europa. Given the right chance and some basic conditions, life is possible on so many different levels. Ganymede is the largest moon in the solar system (larger than the planet Mercury), and is the only moon known to have its own internally generated magnetic field. Callistos surface is extremely heavily cratered and ancient, a visible record of events from the early history of the solar system. However, the very few small craters on Callisto indicate a small degree of current surface activity. The interiors of Io, Europa and Ganymede have a layered structure similar to the Earth). Io, Europa and Ganymede all have cores and mantles partially molten rock or a solid rock envelope around the core. The surface of Europa and Ganymede is a thick, soft ice layer and a thin crust of impure water ice. In the case of Europa, a subsurface water layer probably lies just below the icy crust and may cover the entire moon. This makes Europa a candidate for moon landing, but in the movie 2001 A Space Odyssey, mankind was forbidden to land on Europa, however, we will of course disregard. Layering at Callisto is less well defined and appears to be mainly a mixture of ice and rock. As ESP leaves the Jovian world and once more, as the voyager space probes successfully navigated, rounds the giant planet to pick up additional speed for the voyage to Saturn, and beyond. I. Saturn. At 9.5 AU from the sun Saturn has a mass of 5.69 E26 kg. With an average density of 690 kg/m3, Saturn is far less massive than any planet in the solar system, being only 95 Earth masses and could be floated in water since its density is less than that of water. Famous for its extensive ring system, Saturn has similarities to Jupiter, such as its atmospheric composition, as Saturn is mostly a massive ball of hydrogen and helium. Saturn is unique among the planets. All four gas giant planets have rings, made of chunks of ice and rock, but none are as spectacular or as complicated as Saturns. Saturns magnetic field is not as huge as Jupiters, however; it is still 578 times as powerful as the Earths. Saturn, its rings and many of its satellites lie totally within Saturns own enormous magnetosphere (the region of space in which the behavior of electrically charged particles is influenced more by Saturns magnetic field) than by the solar wind. Jupiter shares the magnetic field s imilarity. Saturn has sixty known satellites; two of which, Titan and Enceladus, show signs of geological activity, though they are largely made of ice. Titan is larger than Mercury and the only satellite in the Solar System with a substantial atmosphere. In 1610, Italian astronomer Galileo Galilei was the first to gaze at Saturn through a telescope, and in 2004, after seeing Jupiters Galilean satellites; I saw the outline of Saturns rings. My image was not unlike Galileos where I could resolve the rings, not their structure or color, and noticed a dark space between the ring system and the planet was visible. Although a fascinating sight, nothing compared to seeing the Galilean satellites. However, to credit Galileo, my modern-day meade-reflector was equal to Galileos very first refractor; a testament to the mind of a genius. He would probably say, they dont build them like they used too. Winds in the upper atmosphere reach 500 m (1,600 feet) per second near the equatorial region. These super-fast winds, combined with heat rising from within the planets interior, cause the yellow and gold bands visible in the atmosphere. In the early 1980s, NASAs Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 spacecraft revealed that Saturns rings are made mostly of water ice and the ring system extends hundreds of thousands of kilometers from the planet, however surprising, the vertical depth is typically only about 10 m (30 feet) in the main rings. Saturns Moons. The largest moon, Titan, is a bit bigger than the planet Mercury (Titan is the second-largest moon in the solar system; only Jupiters moon Ganymede is bigger.) Titan is so large that it affects the orbits of other near-by moons. At 5,150 km (3,200 miles) across, it is the second largest moon in the solar system. Titan hides its surface with a thick nitrogen-rich atmosphere. Titans atmosphere is similar to the Earths atmosphere of long ago, before biology took hold on our home planet and changed the composition from carbon dioxide to oxygen. Titans atmosphere is approximately 95% nitrogen, 3% helium with traces of methane. While the Earths atmosphere extends about 60 km (37 miles) into space, Titans extends nearly 600 km (ten times that of the Earths atmosphere) into space. The moon Iapetus has one side as bright as snow and one side as dark as black velvet, with a huge ridge running around most of its dark-side equator. Phoebe is odd as the moon orbits the planet in a direction opposite that of Saturns larger moons, as do several of the more recently discovered moons. The result of an impact that nearly split the moon Mimas apart has an enormous crater on one side providing evidence that the solar system still contains left-over debris and can cause substantial impacts. The probe Cassini observed warm fractures on Enceladus where evaporating ice clearly escapes and forms a huge cloud of water vapor over the South Pole. Scientists have seen evidence of active ice volcanism on Enceladus. Hyperion has an odd flattened shape and rotates chaotically, probably due to a recent collision, and probably due to the space junk being tossed out from the ring-system due to collisions there. The moon Pan orbits within the main rings and helps sweep materials out of a narrow space known as the Encke Gap (have to do a better job of sweeping with the many impacts on-going.) Finally, Tethys has a huge rift zone called the Ithaca Chasma that runs nearly three-quarters of the way around the moon. Four additional moons orbit in stable places around Saturn they tag along with their larger sisters. These moons lie 60 degrees ahead of or behind a larger moon and in the same orbit. Telesto and Calypso move along with the larger moon Tethys in its orbit; Helene and Polydeuces occupy similar orbits with Dione. A collision with any of these smaller moons within the same orbit can cause catastrophic consequences with Saturns larger moons. Uranus is next as our probe moves on from Saturn. J. Uranus This strange upside-down world is 19.6 AU from the sun, and at 14 Earth masses, has a mass of 8.68 E25 kg with a mean density of 1,290 kg/m3. Uniquely among the planets is the only gas-giant whose equator is nearly at right angles to its orbit (its axial tilt is over ninety degrees to the eclip

Thomas Hardys Tragic Stories Essay -- Biography Biographies Essays

Thomas Hardy's Tragic Stories For centuries, various writers have endeavored to encapsulate the constituents of tragedy, and create works of literature that adhere to their understanding of an ostensibly universal system of tragic structure, tragic plot, and tragic theme. Nevertheless, the etymology of the word, "tragedy," proves to be as elusive and arcane as the tragic construct is seemingly concrete and unequivocal; indeed, the word, "tragedy," can be traced to the Greek word, "tragoidia," which literally means, "goat-song." We do not know whether actors in the Choral Odes read their lines clad in goatskins, or if goats were bestowed as prizes; we do know, however, that Aristotle reconfigured the more bucolic play tradition, and, in his Poetics, developed a technique founded on the tradition of regal grandeur, sweeping scope, and cosmic power. Thomas Hardy, one of the few Victorian tragic prose writers, undoubtedly draws from the tradition of Aristotelian Greek tragedy. Nevertheless, our thesis expresses skepticism in the precision and alacrity with which Hardy is equated with tragedy and conventional tragic form. In a post-Shakespearean nineteenth-century world, writers were acquainted with two tragic traditions: Greek and Christian. The Greek tragic tradition is founded upon the ritual feasting of Dionysus (or the Roman version, Bacchus); the Christian mystery play tradition is rooted in the Passion of Christ. Both traditions bind themselves inextricably to forces larger than themselves - either to gods and goddesses, or to the Holy Trinity - and structure their plays around the rituals inherent in these traditions. Hardy's own novels comprise elements of both Greek and Christian tragic conventions, thus elici... ...on tragedy from The Life and Work of Thomas Hardy Bibliography Bloom, Harold. Shakespeare: The Invention of the Human. New York: Riverhead Books, 1998. Brereton, Geoffrey. Principles of Tragedy: A Rational Examination of the Tragic Concept in Life and Literature. Florida: University of Miami Press, 1969. Gibson, James. Thomas Hardy: Interviews and Recollections. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1999. Hardy, Thomas. The Life and Work of Thomas Hardy. Athens: The University of Georgia Press, 1985. Kramer, Dale. Thomas Hardy: The Forms of Tragedy. Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1975. Krook, Dorothy. Elements of Tragedy. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1969. Margeson, J.M.R. The Origins of English Tragedy. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1967. Page, Norman. Oxford Reader's Companion to Hardy. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000.

National Institute for Engineering Ethics Essay

NIEE produced Henry’s Daughters to raise awareness of the ethical aspects of engineering work, advance knowledge and understanding of professional standards and public obligations and expectations, improve skills in moral reasoning, and strengthen personal dedication to exemplary conduct. Executive Producers were Joseph Herkert, Michael Loui, William Marcy, Steven Nichols, and Jimmy Smith. The entire NIEE Executive Board members served as Senior Investigators and Technical Advisors. Discussion Questions Professional Issues 1. Are there ethical implications to Henry, a lobbyist, hosting the senator on his expensive yacht? 2. Is there a legal or ethical limit to the level at which Henry should host the senator? 3. Is there an accepted code of practice or ethics for lobbyists? If not, suggest a few ethical statements for lobbyists. 4. Was it ethical for Henry to pull strings to get Julie her internship? 5. To what extent should engineers consider the political factors and social impacts to their engineering work? Ethics and New Technology Issues 6. What are the responsibilities of engineers when developing new technologies whose risks are difficult to foresee? 7. If GUIDME has the â€Å"best† technology, why should cost and other factors matter? 8. Because the experience base for a new technology is limited, it is difficult to write technical specifications. If engineers believe that the specifications are inadequate for future needs, should they recommend a system with characteristics exceeding those specifications? Conflict of Interest 9. Was it appropriate for Henry and his daughters to work on the same project for different parties? 10. How should Laura and Henry have handled their apparent conflict of interest? 11. How should Laura and Julie have handled their apparent conflict of interest? 12. Was Laura given the project because of her engineering talents and work ethic or because of Henry’s connections? If so, this might be a conflict of interest. If you are involved in a conflict of interest, what should you do? Gender Issues 13. Does the appropriate response to sexual harassment depend on the setting – for example, whether one is in a situation with one’s peers vs. with one’s supervisor? 14. Are sexist comments disguised as â€Å"jokes† acceptable? 15. Would Henry or the senator have treated events differently if either or both of Henry’s children had been sons? 16. Does the fact that Laura and Julie are attractive enter into any part of the interaction? Should it? 17. Is there a’ glass ceiling’ issue in this story? 18. How should the engineering profession address either the glass ceiling with the men’s club issue? 19. Is it permissible for a male employee to put his hand on a female employee’s shoulders? Or vice versa? For a male employee to put his hand on another male employee’s shoulders? 20. Is it permissible for a male employee to complement the female employee’s appearance? Or vice versa? Intellectual Property Issues 21. What is proprietary information? 22. Are there ethical limits to what the sisters can share with each other about their work? 23. Is it appropriate for an engineer to discuss work matters with family members? 24. How should employees and engineers decide whether to share some of their information from work when they go home? 25. When and why might using unlicensed software be unethical? 26. Is Julie justified in feeling harmed by the fact that some work she did for OUTOCAR was used as a dissertation without giving her credit? Issues for Henry 27. What were the unethical actions of Henry? 28. What, if anything, did Henry do that was ethically laudable? Issues for Laura 29. What were the unethical actions of Laura? 30. What, if anything, did Lara do that was ethically laudable? Issues for Julie 31. What were Julie’s unethical actions? 32. What, if anything, did Julie do that was ethically laudable? 33. As a  new employee, one of the limits to the engineering work that she should perform? Issues for other characters 34. Given that the project was assured for GUIDEME, was it appropriate to assign the OUTOCAR project to Warren and Marty’s team? 35. Could Warren have done anything to swat the chain of unethical actions? How could he have ethically acted with the least residual damage? 36. Which of Barry’s actions were ethical? Unethical? 37. Was Julie treated appropriately by Barry, Warren, and Marty? 38. Was Marty’s treatment of Warren harassment? 39. Should Laura have said something about Marty’s treatment of Warren (like she did about the ogling of Julie)? 40. Which of Jeff’s actions were ethical? Unethical? Privacy Issues 41. Given that biometric information is information about the physical condition or characteristics of individuals, is there a problem with collecting biometric information about individual vehicle drivers and passengers? 42. Does tracking vehicle location cause a violation of privacy? 43. Why might a central computer network be more threatening to individual privacy and information security than a decentralized system? 44. Should individual privacy rights be trumped by the law enforcement and safety benefits to the public from collecting such information? Vice versa? Legal, regulatory, and political issues 45. Should Sen. Bob every accused himself from the investigative committee? If not, why not? Is there anything that he should have done differently as a member of the committee? 46. How does an organization’s cop culture affect how engineers practice? How might it affect dealings with ethical issues? With legal issues? Effective Communications 47. One team meeting is marked by tensions about getting the projector started. Do ethical obligations suffer when the team is dysfunctional? Is some degree of disagreement appropriate? When does conflict become counterproductive? 48. If you were to develop an ethical corporate or  organizational culture, how would you encourage workers to feel comfortable about speaking freely about ethical, safety, and legal issues, and see such discussions as an obligation? 49. What are some standards the leadership of an organization should consider when creating an environment that creates good working and communication conditions? How would you set the appropriate standards? How would you make sure that you have communicated those standards effectively so that people not only understand them but also believe you are serious about them? 50. Two organizations have an obligation to host sensitivity training for their managers and their engineers? 51. What is society taught people about sensitivity training? 52. How can sensitivity training be brought into the organization’s leadership practices? 53. How can sensitivity training be subsumed into the organizations culture? 54. What do you think you would do to promote trust and respect among your colleagues and other professionals in other departments? Safety issues 55. Do accidents just have been or are they caused? 56. Whose responsibility is it to make sure that reasonable care and attention is given to safety? a. The engineer – designer? b. The Department of Transportation employee? c. Anyone who observes the problem? 57. . Did both designs involve an adequate margin of error? 58. Since complete safety is unobtainable and safety comes at a cost, what is a reasonable amount of protection from failure? Making Decisions 59. What would engineering codes of ethics say about Henry’s activities? About Lars? 60. When making final decisions, was Henry trying to meet his ethical obligations within the constraints that he had? 61. What options did Henry have? 62. What options did Lara have? 63. What options they Julie have? 64. What did you have done if you would been: a. Henry? b. Lara? c. Julie? 65. Do you think that you would receive the same degree of criticism from your organization if you violated ethical standard compared to violating or missing a deadline or an objective? 66. Do you put ethical issues on the same level of importance as business objectives? Should you? Important elements of business relationships 67. What is the most critical element of effective relationships? Loyalty? Obedience? Money? Trust? Openness? Candor? Something else? 68. What role should trust play in our professional and personal interactions? 69. What role should candor play in a professional or personal relationship? 70. Would candor imply effective communications? 71. Could you envision one definition of ethics being â€Å"those activities and practices that enhance trust†? Why or why not? 72. Although you will gain many things during a professional career, other things can be taken away from you. Your job could be taken away (and it often is during economic downturns). a. What things can never be taken away, unless you allow them to be? Can your reputation for integrity be taken away? b. List several ways you could protect that reputation. 73. if someone says â€Å" I trust you,† how does this make you feel about the relationship Guidance for the future  In our day-to-day work, we tend to look up to our leaders, supervisors, and/or bosses for guidance and inspiration about how we conduct ourselves. If we imagined that we were the boss, we might ask additional questions. Imagine that you won’t an organization, have all the necessary money, and need to decide what to produce, where to produce it, how to produce it, and how to set up your organization. 74. What specific actions could you take as the boss to make sure that everyone in your organization felt that they should conduct themselves to the highest standards of professional conduct and professional ethics? 75. What specific attributes would you haven’t placing your organization to make sure that happened? 76. What would you do to make sure that everyone in your organization conducted themselves to the highest professional and ethical standards? Would some of the following actions come to mind? a. Clearly define your expectations of  professional/ethical actions b. communicate those expectations effectively and continuously c. Live the standards personally. What people see in actions is what they’re going to believe. d. Create candor and open communication in the environment so that anyone within the organization feels free to bring up and discuss their thoughts, opinions, and ideas, but most of all, they feel free to bring up their concerns, problems, and news, be it good or bad, without fear of suffering some sort of retribution or reprisal.

Writing Impressive College Entrance Essays

Writing Impressive College Entrance Essays More and more people are going to college these days right out of high school, so it goes without saying that making a stellar first impression is a necessity in order to stand out from the pack and get that coveted acceptance letter to your chosen university. With that in mind, writing an impressive college entrance essay that makes admissions personnel want to get to know you even better is the ideal way to get the attention you deserve.Write to impressWhether your entrance essay is an open-ended work or directed toward answering specific admissions questions, the key to drawing in the reader and making him or her want to know more is a compelling, honest view into your life and what makes you unique, including your history, accomplishments, strongest traits, interests, extracurricular activities and, of course, grades. Since there is typically a word-count limit to adhere to, the idea here is to give the reader an interesting taste in each of these areas without inundating them wi th information.The best way to do this is to write by example – from an intro that puts the reader right there next to you for one of your proudest or most challenging events in life to little nuggets of interest that demonstrate the positive traits you have and want to let shine. For example, instead of telling the reader all about yourself like so:My proudest moment in life thus far was winning first place in the USAA Gymnastics competition for mens trampoline. I worked for two years training in the event and really wanted to win badly.Showing the reader by taking them with you to the moment is more effective:As I stood in front of a crowded Anaheim stadium full of 30,000 people last July, my name echoed over the loudspeaker and a rush of accomplishment and pride ran through me when I heard, And in first place in mens trampoline, Scott Smith. The words were a culmination of two years of training at the gym – three hours a day on weekdays and five hours a day on weeke nds – for a goal I had set my sights on long before I had even had a drivers license.When a writer uses this second method – showing, not telling – they take the reader to the moment with them, much like a good fiction writer draws in his or her readers. Whether the reader is a gymnastics enthusiast or not, chances are they have experienced the same sort of emotions when accomplishing something, too – pride and the payoff of hard work – and will relate to what they are reading better than simply being told by a writer, Ive worked very hard for things and am proud of myself.The secret to showing, not telling, is to not show too much. No reader (especially busy admissions office personnel) has the desire or time to read two pages of every detail of the above gymnastic event. Therefore, your little tidbits should be just that – three to five sentences that give them a front-row seat at the event you describe. Of course, these all dont have to b e life-altering events like winning a gymnastics championship. Showing the reader by example how you have some positive personality traits is also a sure way to make your college entrance essay stand out. For instance, rather than telling the reader youre involved in volunteerism and church functions like so:I have participated in missions visits to third-world countries each summer since I was 12 with my churchs youth group.Showing the reader this would read something like:My summer vacations since I was 12 have been spent in an exciting variety of Central American countries where I worked on behalf of my churchs youth group at teaching young children in Costa Rican, Guatemalan and Nicaraguan jungle villages some basic reading and writing skills. Not only was this experience fulfilling, seeing the children write their names for the first time in their lives and start to read simple words, but one where I made cherished friendships and realized some vital professional goals for my f uture in a possible career in social work.The maturity, worldliness and ability to think outside of your high schools walls really shine through in this last paragraph. Showing how you have such positive characteristics by the things you have taken part in is a terrific way to demonstrate to a potential college that you have thought about more than just getting finished with your classes in high school. Other excellent, worldly traits to mention would be extensive travel (whether for work or pleasure), having numerous pen pals or connections to other countries (whether you were born in Korea or have extensive family in Greece) or even places you hope to visit one day and compelling reasons why (i.e., not just because they sound cool).Making the best of gradesOf course, a college entrance essay wouldnt be complete without some mention of your high school grades, accomplishments and activities. Since not everyone is valedictorian or has a year of college already finished when they gra duate from high school, it really depends on a writers own grades whether to mention them a lot or not. If you were an A+ student in high school, of course that should be mentioned and touted; if you barely got by with Cs in most of your classes, play up the classes you did do well in or enjoyed most, and make little or no mention of the ones you didnt quite ace.Contrary to popular belief, getting into college is not all about having a 4.8 GPA and being a National Honor Society contender. Of course, if youre trying to get into Harvard or other Ivy League institutions out there with straight Bs, you better have some outstanding stories of your other accomplishments in and out of school to impress them. But an average state university does put significant stock these days in the uniqueness of their students with less than perfect grades.All the more reason to make sure your essay and the parts of your life you use in it to describe yourself make you stand out and get noticed. Your col lege entrance essay does not have to be a boring, form essay listing every trait you think a school wants you to have. Being yourself – and showing a college who that is with intimate, engaging stories – can make the difference between an essay that piques admissions interest or one that gets thrown into the growing pile of mediocre applicants.

TKAM Essay (To Kill a Mockingbird) essays

TKAM Essay (To Kill a Mockingbird) essays To Kill a Mockingbird: Symbolism of the Mockingbird "I'd rather you shoot at tin cans in the backyard, but I know you'll go after birds. Shoot all the bluejays you want, if you can hit 'em, but remember it's a sin to kill a mockingbird (Lee 90). Harper Lee, a creative novelist, uniquely quoted this from To Kill a Mockingbird. Lee uses symbolism rather extensively through out this novel and much of it refers to the problem of racism in the south during the earls 1900s. To Kill a Mockingbird is a well-written novel that symbolizes three mockingbirds, and they are Arthur Radley (Boo), Tom Robinson, and Mr. Dolphus Raymond. Boo Radley is one of the novels mockingbirds, a good person injured by the evil of mankind. The first reason is that Boo went through his life never wanting to hurt a fly; he was a gentle man. He left gum, pennies, a pocket watch, and wax dolls for Scout and Jem. He just stays inside because he does not want to face the corrupt and prejudice world outside. The second reason is that he never left his house because the people of Maycomb created unjustifiable rumors and remarks about him. Boo was about six-and-a-half feet tall, judging from his tracks; he dined on raw squirrels and any cats he could catch, thats why his hands were blood stained if you ate any animal raw, you could never wash the blood off (Lee 13). The final reason is that Boo, emotionally damaged by his cruel father, provides an example of how evil is a threat to his innocence and goodness. It would be a sin to send Boo to jail because it would be like killing a mockingbird. Tom Robinson was an innocent mockingbird who was destroyed by evil. First of all, in Maycomb during the 1930s, a white mans word weighed more than a black mans word, like when the jury convicted innocent Tom. Secondly, it was like a mockingbird being shot down when Tom was accused of t...

Tracking An Offender After a Crime Research Paper

Tracking An Offender After a Crime - Research Paper Example This essay analyses the case of O.J Simpson and the offences that he committed. The main aim of this essay is to show knowledge of the criminal Justice system and the processes involved in this institution (Uelmen, 2009. His case was presided over by Judge Lance. The case of Simpson was characterized by hiring of a highly professional defense team, which was initially lead by Robert Shapiro. Simpson was arrested in police car chase in Los Angeles. His arrest was a public arrest and it was watched on the national television by the national audience. During the time of Simpson’s arrest, he was running away from Los Angeles. The police managed to locate him through a vehicle that his friend was driving. Simpson explained to the police that he had a firearm and he would commit suicide if the police would stop his car by force. The police on a cellular phone promised that they would not stop him forcefully. This event was aired in the television since the Los Angeles Helicopters captured the scene. His arrest and trial ignited a national debate of race, corruption in the legal system and fame resulted into a highly publicized case (Uelmen 2009. Simpson was arrested and tried on 20th June and he pleaded not guilty for both murders. As it is stipulated in the United States constitution, the judge ordered that he should be held without bail. On the day that followed, the re was a conference of a jury so that they could discuss and reach a consensus whether they should indict Simpson for the two murders. The jury was later dismissed after two days when due to excessive media coverage. This was done because it appeared as if the media coverage in this case would affect neutrality of this case. Jill Shively was the witness of this case who testified to the judges that he had actually seen Simpson when he was speeding away from the area surrounding Nicole’s house during the night of the Murder (Rantala 2001). The second witness of this

International Law, the Vienna convention on the law of treaties 1969 Essay

International Law, the Vienna convention on the law of treaties 1969 - Essay Example recognized as such by the British expert Lord McNair, who recalled the MOU as "an informal but nevertheless legal agreement" between two or more parties. The State Sovereignty has the attributes of entering into agreements and treaties with foreign powers. No state can protect itself from the rest of the countries of the world on matters of foreign affairs or relations, international trade, environmental issues, communications or finance. This was strongly implemented after World War II. The great advances made in the field of communications and information technology and the arrival of globalization has made independent States inter-dependent on each other. Treaties can have a significant impact upon the economy and social and political situation of the country and to its people. Nowadays every State has either entered or in the course of entering into treaties be it multilateral or bilateral. Treaties need to have a proper set of laws after a comprehensive study of a particular matter and its perverse effects it can have on food security, indigenous knowledge, health care, the security and the life and livelihood of the citizens – whether beneficial or prejudicial. The treaty-making power is highly potent and can also have some serious harmful effects if not revised carefully. The parliament of a country’s government is competent to make a law and so treaty-making power is not within the exclusive competence of the Executive. it is obvious that the Parliament is competent to make a law with respect to the several matters mentioned in the above entries. In other words, treaty-making is not within the exclusive competence of the Executive. In theory, it is always open to the Parliament to condemn a treaty entered into by the Executive where the treaty will have to affect whatever. Moreover, if any treaty or agreement violates any of the provisions of the Cons titution, it would be totally incompetent and ineffective and even the Vienna Convention would not

Political Correctness Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

Political Correctness - Assignment Example Protecting the rights of minorities is important due to external factors such as gender and race in relation to the use of offensive words. Moreover, not everyone reacts to situations, in the same way. Some people are more irritable than others (Uelmen 1). Sometimes, things get out of hand leading to dangerous fights or bitterness that leads to revenge. Choice of words should be based on the relationship between individuals and the situation at hand. While some people might entertain jokes, some may interpret them as being offensive. The dynamics of choosing words vary depending on the situation. It is better to avoid offensive words because the mood in which people might be in is sometimes unpredictable. On the other hand, maintaining a stand in terms of being able to say yes or no is usually the right thing to do. Saying no can and should be accompanied by the right choice of words. Disagreeing with something does not imply that people should offend others. Being fearful on the choice of words is not a sign of weakness as some may interpret. It is an implication that besides being mindful and respectful, people regard others with high

Visual Basic Programming Language Essay Example for Free

Visual Basic Programming Language Essay A computer program is the set of instructions a computer follows to execute a specific operation that includes to input, process, output and store data to meet unique information needs. Professors John Kemeny and Thomas Kurtz of Dartmouth College as a tool to train students in computer programming created the original basic programming language in the 1960s. (Voon Kiong, 2008) The word basic stands for Beginner’s All-purpose Symbolic Instruction Code. The latest advancement of basic; visual basic programming language has incorporated a graphic interface and event-driven programming. Features of current system It includes several components; first a graphic user interface which provides a fully integrated development environment for easy access to all visual basic development tools. Secondly it incorporates a set of objects such as labels and buttons that can respond to a wide variety of user-initiated events. Thirdly it consists of a vocabulary of statements, methods, and a set of rules for the construction of program codes. Lastly it has the ability to compile stand-alone executable Windows programs. (Mabbutt, 2008) Benefits and uses This programming begins with a form on which the programmer draws all the objects necessary to support the needs of the application and user for example data can be displayed on the in labels that are placed in the form and keyboard input is typically entered via text boxes where command buttons provide access to activities such as printing or exiting the applications. All these are controls which contain both a purpose and a set of predefined events to which they can respond. The programmer writes modules of code called procedures associated with an event of a command button. This approach to programming is a departure from traditional programming that required execution in a top-down manner sequence, which had to be pre-defined. An event-driven program gives the user control over the order in which actions occur. Work cited: Dr. Liew Voon Kiong (2008, 5th November) visual basic tutorial. Retrieved 9th May 2008 Accessed from: http://www. vbtutor. net/ Dan Mabbutt (2008, 7th May). Guide to visual basic. Retrieved 9th May 2008 Accessed from: http://visualbasic. about. com

Medea - the conception of drama within theatrical production :: essays research papers fc

â€Å"The Conception of Drama within Theatrical Production†   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  In Euripides’ tragic play, Medea, the playwright creates an undercurrent of chaos in the play upon asserting that, â€Å"the world’s great order [is being] reversed.† (Lawall, 651, line 408). The manipulation of the spectators’ emotions, which instills in them a sentiment of drama, is relative to this undertone of disorder, as opposed to being absolute. The central thesis suggests drama in the play as relative to the method of theatrical production. The three concepts of set, costumes, and acting, are tools which accentuate the drama of the play. Respectively, these three notions represent the appearance of drama on political, social, and moral levels. This essay will compare three different productions of Euripides’ melodrama, namely, the play as presented by the Jazzart Dance Theatre ¹; the Culver City (California) Public Theatre ²; and finally, the original ancient Greek production of the play, as it was scripted by Euripi des.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  The two contemporary productions of Medea were selected for this essay in an effort to contrast the ancient Greek version of the play with two modernized versions, which would demonstrate a wide distinction between the styles of production. Furthermore, both modernized versions of the play add their own innovation to the production, making for an even broader dissimilarity among the plays. Moreover, both recent productions are fashioned within cultures which have borrowed their political, social, and moral ways of life from Ancient Greek society, specifically, South Africa ¹ (British Colonies), and The United States ².   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Based in Cape Town, South Africa, Jazzart Dance Theatre is known today for its distinctive style and ingenuity in extending the boundaries of South African dance. Contrarily to the original production of Medea, Jazzart’s unique approach uses dance (as opposed to music) to articulate emotion to the viewers. The dancers reinvent Greek tragedy, harbouring no artistic safety net.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  The set plays a central role in dramatizing the theatrical experience of this particular production. As you can see in both figures 1 and 2, the set is purposely designed to resemble a metropolitan alleyway. This dramatic ambiance is created in an effort to parallel the harshness of the unforgiving streets of any particular conurbation. Normally, the audience would tend to construe this setting as a symbol of turmoil in the kingdom of Corinth. Thus, the set itself works as a device in developing a sense of political drama.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  The costumes which are used for this particular production are also essential in dramatizing the on-stage action.

A Streetcar Named Desire, by Tennessee Williams :: A Streetcar Named Desire Essays

Set in the French Quarter of New Orleans during the restless years following World War Two, A STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE is the story of Blanche DuBois, a fragile and neurotic woman on a desperate prowl for someplace in the world to call her own. After being exiled from her hometown of Laurel, Mississippi for seducing a seventeen-year-old boy at the school where she taught English, Blanche explains her unexpected appearance on Stanley and Stella's (Blanche's sister) doorstep as nervous exhaustion. This, she claims, is the result of a series of financial calamities which have recently claimed the family plantation, Belle Reve. Suspicious, Stanley points out that "under Louisiana's Napoleonic code what belongs to the wife belongs to the husband." Stanley, a sinewy and brutish man, is as territorial as a panther. He tells Blanche he doesn't like to be swindled and demands to see the bill of sale. This encounter defines Stanley and Blanche's relationship. They are opposing camps and Stella i s caught in no-man's-land. But Stanley and Stella are deeply in love. Blanche's efforts to impose herself between them only enrages the animal inside Stanley. When Mitch -- a card-playing buddy of Stanley's -- arrives on the scene, Blanche begins to see a way out of her predicament. Mitch, himself alone in the world, reveres Blanche as a beautiful and refined woman. Yet, as rumors of Blanche's past in Laurel begin to catch up to her, her circumstances become unbearable. Characters: Blanche Dubois: Blanche Dubois is the older sister of Stella Kowalski who visits them in New Orleans and stays throughout the summer. She was a schoolteacher of English in Mississippi and presents herself as very prim, proper, and prudent. Her name is French and she says, 'It [Dubois] means woods and Blanche means white, so the two together mean white woods. Like an orchard in spring!' (Act III, pg. 177). She was married to a young man named Allan, who committed suicide when she was very young. She drinks and smokes and tells lies. She suffers from continual delusions of hearing polka tunes and gunshots. Stella loves her dearly, but Stanley is in direct opposition to her false appearance and selfish attitude. Blanche cannot be around direct light and is overly concerned with her appearance, accessories, bathing, and age. She has a brief romance with Mitch and is later committed to a mental institution. Stanley Kowalski: Stanley is Stella's strong and good-looking husband.

Lehman Brothers

Research a failure that occurred at a large organization such as Tyco, Chrysler/Daimler-Benz, Daewoo, WorldCom, or Enron. In an APA formatted paper that is no longer than 1,050 words, describe how specific organizational behavior theories could have predicted or can explain the failure of the company. Compare and contrast the contributions of leadership, management, and organizational structures to the organizational failure. Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc, the fourth largest US investment bank, succumbed to the sub prime mortgage crisis in the biggest bankruptcy filing in history. The 158 year old firm, which survived railroad bankruptcies of the 1800s, the great depression in the 1930s, & the collapse of long term capital management a decade ago, filed a chapter 11 petition with US bankruptcy caught in Manhattan on September, 15. The following day, its investment banking & trading divisions were acquired by Barclays plc along with its New York headquarters building. In the biggest reshaping of the financial industry since the Great Depression, Wall Street’s most storied firm, Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. , headed towards extinction. The 158 year old firm, which survived railroad bankruptcies of the 1800s, the great depression in the 1930s, & the collapse of long term capital management a decade ago, filed a chapter 11 petition with US bankruptcy caught in Manhattan on September, 15. The following day, its investment banking & trading divisions were acquired by Barclays plc along with its New York headquarters building. The collapse of Lehman, which listed more than $613 billion of debt, dwarfs World Com Inc’s insolvency in 2002 & Drexel Burnham Lambert’s failure in 1990. What happened that weekend was that the Fed got a bunch of bank presidents together and asked them to invest in Lehman (basically loan Lehman money). The bank CEOs, knowing the risk of such a loan (they could see Lehman's finances), refused to do so without some kind of assistance from the government (whether it be loss-protection, the government paying half of the loan, etc etc). Hank Paulson, the Secretary of Treasury, refused to do this, saying that he didn't want to saddle the taxpayers with paying to save a private company that screwed up. Breakup process IMIDIATE AFTER EFFECTS- US stocks tumbled, more than $300 billion in market value, pummeled by the developments. Lehman plunged 95%; AIG retreated 42% on funding concerns while Bank of America Corp slumped 14% after agreeing to buy Merrill Lynch & Co. for $50 billion. The bankruptcy filing represents the end of a 158-year-old company that survived world wars, the Asian financial crisis and the collapse of hedge fund Long-Term Capital Management, but not the global credit crunch. Financial institutions globally have recorded more than $500 billion of write-downs and credit losses as the U. S. subprime mortgage crisis has spread to other markets. {text:bookmark-start} {text:bookmark-end} Bankruptcy also represents a bad end to Chief Executive Dick Fuld's four-decade career at Lehman. Fuld, who piloted the investment bank through prior crises with aplomb, was widely seen as too slow to recognize Lehman's need to raise capital and shed bad assets. Lehman Brothers filed for bankruptcy because they failed to raise enough capital to secure their debts. The next logical question is why did they have so much debt? This is a two-fold answer: second, Lehman had a ton of what is called â€Å"leveraged assets†. Basically what happened (the non-basic is for another question) is Lehman took their assets and took out loans secured by those assets (for instance, using their on-hand cash as down payments on loans) and then invested those loans in the aforementioned property derivatives. So, not only did those investments lose value, but Lehman had to pay the interest on the money they borrowed (and subsequently lost). In short, Lehman was a casualty of the credit crunch due to exposure to bad debt. In August 2007, the firm closed its subprime lender, BNC Mortgage, eliminating 1,200 positions in 23 locations, and took an after-tax charge of $25 million and a $27 million reduction in goodwill). Lehman said that poor market conditions in the mortgage space â€Å"necessitated a substantial reduction in its resources and capacity in the subprime space†. At the end of August ‘07, Lehman had $600 billion of assets financed with just $30 billion of equity. Having so little capital meant that a 5 percent decline in assets would wipe out the value of the company, which investors saw as a real risk due to the company's billions of dollars of mortgage securities. In 2008, Lehman faced an unprecedented loss to the continuing subprime mortgage crisis. Lehman's loss was apparently a result of having held on to large positions in subprime and other lower-rated mortgage tranches when securitizing the underlying mortgages; whether Lehman did this because it was simply unable to sell the lower-rated bonds, or made a conscious decision to hold them, is unclear. In any event, huge losses accrued in lower-rated mortgage-backed securities throughout 2008. In the second fiscal quarter, Lehman reported losses of $2. 8 billion and was forced to sell off $6 billion in assets. In the first half of 2008 alone, Lehman stock lost 73% of its value as the credit market continued to tighten. In August 2008, Lehman reported that it intended to release 6% of its work force, 1,500 people, just ahead of its third-quarter-reporting deadline in September. On August 22, 2008, shares in Lehman closed up 5% (16% for the week) on reports that the state-controlled Korea Development Bank was considering buying the bank. Most of those gains were quickly eroded as news came in that Korea Development Bank was â€Å"facing difficulties pleasing regulators and attracting partners for the deal. † It culminated on September 9, when Lehman's shares plunged 45% to $7. 79, after it was reported that the state-run South Korean firm had put talks on hold. On September 17, 2008 Swiss Re estimates its overall net exposure approximately CHF 50 million to Lehman Brothers. Investor confidence continued to erode as Lehman's stock lost roughly half its value and pushed the S&P 500 down 3. 4% on September 9. The Dow Jones lost 300 points the same day on investors' concerns about the security of the bank. The U. S. government did not announce any plans to assist with any possible financial crisis that emerged at Lehman. The next day, Lehman announced a loss of $3. 9 billion and their intent to sell off a majority stake in their investment-management business, which includes Neuberger Berman. The stock slid 7 percent that day. Lehman, after earlier rejecting questions on the sale of the company, was reportedly searching for a buyer as its stock price dropped another 40 percent on September 11, 2008. Just before the collapse of Lehman Brothers, executives at Neuberger Berman sent e-mail memos suggesting, among other things, that the Lehman Brothers' top people forgo multi-million dollar bonuses to â€Å"send a strong message to both employees and investors that management is not shirking accountability for recent performance. † Lehman Brothers Investment Management Director George Herbert Walker IV, second cousin to U. S. President George Walker Bush, dismissed the proposal, going so far as to actually apologize to other members of the Lehman Brothers executive committee for the idea of bonus reduction having been suggested. He wrote, â€Å"Sorry team. I am not sure what's in the water at Neuberger Berman. I'm embarrassed and I apologize. † In its Chapter 11 filing, Lehman named Citibank and Bank of New York Mellon as trustees for about $138 billion of senior Lehman bonds. It said Citi's Hong Kong affiliate had made a $275 million bank loan to Lehman. Among Lehman's other unsecured creditors are Japanese banks Aozora Bank, Mizuho Financial Group Inc, Shinsei Bank and UFJ Bank. France's BNP Paribas is also on Lehman's list of its 30 largest unsecured creditors. The firm said that as of May 31, it owed about $110. 5 billion on account of senior unsecured notes, $12. 6 billion on account of subordinated unsecured notes, and $5 billion on account of junior subordinated notes. Lehman also disclosed that it owned stakes of 10 percent or more in a number of companies, including Imperial Sugar Co , Lpath Inc, Derma Services, Flagstone Reinsurance, GLG Partners, Ronco Corp , Pacific Energy Partners, Blount International , Pemstar Inc and Transmontaigne Inc. The investment bank, once the fourth-largest in the United States, had hoped to raise capital by selling off a stake in its investment unit, and use that capital as well as other funds to spin off some of its toxic assets to shareholders. But that plan did not satisfy investors, who punished Lehman's share price, or rating agencies, who pressed the company to find a stronger partner. Lehman said the uncertainty, particularly among banks through which it clears securities trades, ultimately made it impossible for it to continue to operate its business. The bankruptcy filing comes after a weekend of heated negotiations among regulators and Wall Street firms about Lehman's fate. The U. S. government refused to backstop Lehman's worst assets the way it backstopped Bear Stearns Cos Inc's sale to JPMorgan Chase. Government officials told banks to support Lehman or else be prepared for more investment banks to lose investor confidence and fail. But prospective bidders refused to buy Lehman without government support, people briefed on the matter said. In the end, Lehman was allowed to fail, and Bank of America Corp agreed to buy what was seen as the next weakest U. S. investment bank, Merrill Lynch & Co Inc. For many of Lehman's 26,000 employees the outlook is likely to be gloomy, with job losses expected to be substantial even if significant parts of the business can be sold. At Lehman's headquarters in midtown Manhattan on Sunday afternoon, men dressed in suits came and went, while some employees entered the building with what appeared to be empty duffel bags, then left with them full. Others emerged with accordion files, binders stuffed with papers and full valises. On Sunday night, hundreds of Lehman employees were still in the office to clear their desks and pack personal belongings, according to an employee. Several money-market funds and institutional cash funds had significant exposure to Lehman with the institutional cash fund run by The Bank of New York Mellon and the Primary Reserve Fund, a money-market fund, both falling below $1 per share, called â€Å"breaking the buck†, following losses on their holdings of Lehman assets. In a statement The Bank of New York Mellon said its fund had isolated the Lehman assets in a separate structure. It said the assets accounted for 1. 3% of its fund. The drop in the Primary Reserve Fund was the first time since 1994 that a money-market fund had dropped below the $1-per-share level. About 100 hedge funds used Lehman as their prime broker and relied largely on the firm for financing. As administrators) took charge of the London business and the U. S. holding company filed for bankruptcy, positio ns held by those hedge funds at Lehman were frozen. As a result the hedge funds are being forced to de-lever and sit on large cash balances inhibiting chances at further growth. In Japan, banks and insurers announced a combined 249 billion yen ($2. billion) in potential losses tied to the collapse of Lehman. Mizuho Trust & Banking Co. cut its profit forecast by more than half, citing 11. 8 billion yen in losses on bonds and loans linked to Lehman. The Bank of Japan Governor Masaaki Shirakawa said â€Å"Most lending to Lehman Brothers was made by major Japanese banks, and their possible losses seem to be within the levels that can be covered by their profits,† adding â€Å"There is no concern that the latest events will threaten the stability of Japan's financial system. † During bankruptcy proceedings a lawyer from The Royal Bank of Scotland Group said the company is facing between $1. billion and $1. 8 billion in claims against Lehman partially based on an unsecured g uarantee from Lehman and connected to trading losses with Lehman subsidiaries, Martin Bienenstock. After Constellation Energy was reported to have exposure to Lehman, its stock went down 56% in the first day of trading having started at $67. 87. The massive drop in stocks led to the New York Stock Exchange halting trade of Constellation. The next day, as the stock plummeted as low as $13 per share, Constellation announced it was hiring Morgan Stanley and UBS to advise it on â€Å"strategic alternatives† suggesting a buyout. While rumors suggested French power company Electricite de France would buy the company or increase its stake, Constellation ultimately agreed to a buyout by MidAmerican Energy, part of Berkshire Hathaway (headed by billionaire Warren Buffett). The Federal Agricultural Mortgage Corporation or Farmer Mac said it would have to write off $48 million in Lehman debt it owned as a result of the bankruptcy. Farmer Mac said it may not be in compliance with its minimum capital requirements at the end of September. 2008). economies. Furthermore, such wealth effects tend to play out gradually. The 158 year old Lehman Brothers’ move to file for bankruptcy wiped off more than Rs2000 crore from the market valuation of those Indian companies in which the US financial major made equity investments. Major stocks held through participatory notes issued by Lehman Brothers Investment Management, a SEBI- registered foreign institutional investor, saw their prices nosedive. Participatory notes are derivative instruments through which foreign investors that are not registered in India can trade on the Indian markets. In addition to its equity holdings in listed companies, Lehman had also invested in various projects of Indian companies, especially in real estate. In India, Lehman also acquired BRICS Institutional Equities business of research analysts and sales and trading professionals and bought a 26% stake in Edelweiss Capital Finance , a non banking financial company, recently. The investment banking major has also been involved in several Indian initial public offers. IT SECTOR- The meltdown in US had a huge impact on indian IT & IT companies as a large chunk of their revenues is from US. Thus, the crisis had definitely delayed various new projects. Market sources revealed that the companies affected by the crisis such as Lehman Brothers, Merill Lynch and AIG have been outsourcing work to wipro, Tata Consultancy Services & Infosys. There was a direct impact on the revenues of this companies. As more & more consolidation, acquisition & mergers took place in the US, the number of companies in this space came down & shrunk the addressable market for the Indian IT services companies. Consolidation also led to consolidated IT resources & reduction in IT spending, which had negative effect on the IT companies. The slowdown also had an jmpact on the hiring practices of Indian IT services companies, who had to now focus on just-in-time hiring, rather than advanced hiring practices like campus recruitment. Thus, w. r. t. Lehman, as much as 60% of the revenue of India’s software firms comes from the global financial sector, so the fallout of Lehman’s bankruptcy on India’s IT sector cn be well imagined. REAL ESTATE- The collapse of Lehman Brothers and the bailout of Merrill Lynch, the global financial behemoths, affected Indian realty companies that were in the process of raising fresh funds. Many leading realtors, already facing a paucity of funds due to a slowdown or a correction in prices, found it more difficult to raise resources even at the project level. Merrill Lynch & Lehman Brothers had exposure to more than a dozen realty companies, including, Ansal Housing, Anant Raj Industries, Unity Infrastructure, the Puravankara group and J Kumar Infrastructure, among others. The Indian companies are not only unable to raise fresh capital but they are also finding it difficult to sell the inventory of housing stock as demand & prices both have fallen. BANKING- ICICI Bank said that it might need to make an additional provision of $28 million (Rs. 188 crore) on its exposure to bonds issued by Lehman. It had already made provisions of $12 million on these bonds. Indian IT major Wipro Technologies has expressed interest in bidding for the Indian back office business of Lehman. The bankrupt investment banking firm is expected to close its captive unit in Mumbai by the end of this month. The unit’s 1200 employees, who work on equity research and analytics support for the mergers and acquisitions business, have been asked to quit by September end. Unlike employees in Lehman’s investment banking business who have been receiving feelers from domestic banks, employees in the captive BPO are unlikely to find alternate jobs quickly because the IT and IT- enabled services industries have already begun downsizing, owing to the global financial crisis. The RBI had moved quickly to improve liquidity. Still there could be some impact on credit availability. That implies more expensive credit (even public sector banks are said to be raising money at 11. 5%, so that lending rates will inch up to 16 % and higher). For companies looking to raise capital, the alternative of funding through fresh equity is not cheap, either, since stock valuations have suffered in the wake of the FII pull out. Capital has suddenly become more expensive. There is a risk that projects underway will suffer from delays and cost overruns as cost of credit shoots up. Real estate could be most affected sector. Builders may have to resort to dropping prices to find customers for housing projects nearing completion. Another worry is impact on job creation in the country. There could be downsizing in companies in sectors impacted by high cost of credit and fall in demand. The layoffs in IT sector may be a fair portent of things to come. The crisis does have a silver lining. The falling rupee(against the dollar) will mean that exporters affected by the earlier rise of the currency can breathe easy. However importers would be at the receiving end. Importers of oil and other commodities’ prices will neutralize the impact of the dollar’s decline against the rupee. Prices of stocks and real estate, which had appreciated by too much, will come down to realistic levels. The Lehman Brothers bankruptcy filing indicate that as of their May 31, 2008 financial statement that the firm has $639 billion of assets and $613 billion of debt. At that time the firm had about $110 billion in ordinary bonds, and about $17. 6 billion in subordinated bonds. The composition of the other debts is hard to determine, in part, because of a bad cross reference in that part of the filing. As of the last financial statement, accounts payable were about $71 billion, short term debt was $163 billion, other current liabilities were about $29 billion, and long term debt was about $350 billion. As of the filing date, the listing of the top 30 outsider creditors of the firm mentioned $138 billion of ordinary bonds (managed by two bond trustees), $17 billion of subordinated bonds (managed by one of the two ordinary bond trustees), and about 3 billion in bank loans and letters of credit ranging in size from $463 million to $10 million from 23 different institutions (a few of whom appear to be related entities of each other). This leaves about $485 million of debts owed to creditors in amounts less than $10 million and insider debtors. This would suggest that $71 billion+ is made up of trade credit in small amounts per creditor, while $414 billion is made up of financial creditors in amounts less than $10 million and insider debt, with insider debt probably making up the bulk of the debts, as investment banks don't generally take deposits from millions of households the way that commercial banks do. There don't appear to be any significant (i. e. more than $10 million) secured creditors or trade creditors, although this might not include financial rights of setoff. There are more details in an Affidavit of the CFO, which is honestly rather dubious and unsatisfying. I find it very hard to believe that Lehman Brothers is incapable of providing much, much more information than it has to date with only modest effort. While it might not be able to provide ever single creditor in a matter of weeks, it ought to be able to publicly account for more than a third of its outstanding debt. These folks are in the financial analysis business and live and die on their own ability to be highly leveraged without becoming insolvent. Equity The most recent financial statement listed the aggregate value of preferred stock at $7 billion (and did not include it as a debtor in the petition). The aggregate redemption value of the preferred stock based upon the rights of each class of preferred stock, the number of preferred shares identified in the petition (presumably the number of authorized preferred shares in each class), and assuming that preferred stock dividends aren't grossly in arrears, is about $237 billion. This is calculated as follows: 5 million shares, $500 each, $2. 5 billion 4 million shares, $5000 each, $2. billion 12 million shares, $2500 each, $30 billion 5. 2 million shares, $2500 each, $12. 5 billion 66 million shares, $2500 each, $165 billlion 12 million shares, $25 each, $0. 3 billion 12 million shares, $25 each, $0. 3 billion 16 million shares, $25 each, $0. 4 billion 8 million shares, $25 each, $0. 2 billion 4 million shares, $1000 each, $4 billion 2 million shares, $1000 each, $2 billion But, this appears to grossly overstate the amount of preferred stock shares outstanding. There are 694,401,926 common shares outstanding according to the petition. Assets The source balance statement listed the company's assets as $314 billion in cash, $42 billion in net receivables, $4. 3 billion in fixed assets, and $279 billion in non-current assets. Presumably, this number is lower now, due to market losses, particularly in mortgage based securities. Some breakdown on the nature of those assets is available: Sanford Bernstein analyst Brad Hintz estimates that 55% of Lehman's balance sheet can be quickly liquidated, particularly such assets as receivables and short-term loans known as repurchase agreements. There are about $269 billion in securities that are â€Å"another story,† Hintz wrote in a report released Monday. He estimates 27% of the $269 billion is in mortgages, 17% in derivatives, and 8% in real estate. Analysis The two primary bond trustees seem likely to be the dominant voice on behalf of creditors in this bankruptcy on the creditor's committee. This could be a 100% payout liquidity failure bankruptcy, and failing that, could be one in which common stock shareholders, preferred stock shareholders, and perhaps subordinated debtors bear the brunt of the impact, while general creditors are held harmless or nearly so. Indeed, if the company adopts a plan that holds harmless all preferred and general unsecured creditors, and all secured creditors, then only the holders of subordinated debt would have any right to object. Since all of the subordinated debt appears to be represented by a single bond trustee, this might mean that the plan could be confirmed in a one on one negotiation with the representative of that bank. Equity and subordinated debt together are capable of absorbing a $43 billion loss between May 31, 2008 and the bankruptcy filing, and pre-bankruptcy loss estimates had been in the vicinity of $7 billion. Barclays Bank is discussing buying the brokerage and investment banking operations including the headquarters out of bankruptcy for about $8 billion (presumably the usually highly profitable brick and mortar part of the operation which probably also counts for most accounts payable and accounts receivable), and assuming that this is a market value for that operation by some reasonable measure, the market losses that other creditors would have to bear would remain unchanges, but greater liquidity could speed up the payout. The bankruptcy filing covers only Lehman’s holding company. Its brokerage and money-management units are not in Chapter 11 † employees still have their jobs, customers still execute transactions on accounts, and portfolio managers still manage mutual funds. The relative independence of these subsidiaries from the bankruptcy process is what enables Barclays, the U. K. -bank that walked away from a Lehman rescue over the weekend, to consider purchasing part of Lehman. Another interesting possibility would be a plan that allocated good, short term assets to outsider creditors as payment in full, while allocating securities of uncertain value, like the mortgage backed securities, to the insiders. Outsiders can't object if they get quick cash in exchange of the debts owed to them, so this plan could be imposed on them, leaving insiders with any windfalls resulting from market undervaluation of Lehman Brothers' complex financial assets. The biggest overall risk is that the derivatives market, and in particular, the credit default market, will be screwed up by the freezing of the positions of a major market player, although recent bankruptcy law reforms are designed to minimize this impact. Financial crises are terrifying when underlying economic fundamentals are out of line with established theory, leading to bursts of unjustified optimism and/or pessimism. It is the responsibility of the powers that be to bring sense to the market. Every financial crisis is different, but they do all end. The Lehman Brothers bankruptcy and Merrill Lynch’s acquisition by Bank of America is yet another stage in the progression of the financial crisis that had its roots in the US sub-prime mortgage market. The initial stage of the crisis took a toll on direct mortgage lenders like Countrywide Financial. In a subsequent stage, guarantors of mortgage-backed securities like Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae came under attack. This culminated in their going into US government ‘receivership’ (effectively nationalization) a few weeks ago before the bankruptcy was actually filed. Lehman’s demise marks the stage where banks with indirect but large exposures to the US mortgage market, principally through derivative instruments, bear the brunt. This is not necessarily the final stage and the worst is perhaps not over. A key feature of this crisis that started in the middle of 2007 has been the lack of clarity on both the nature and number of financial institutions that have indirect exposure to subprime assets, as well as, cross-product problems involving movement from subprime to prime mortgages with final spillover into derivatives, structured products and counterparty risks. We could see another set of intermediaries coming under severe pressure. The decision by the US Treasury and the Fed not to guarantee Lehman’s financial liabilities is a clear signal to the market that they believe that no institution is ‘too big to fail’. Going forward, a government-funded bailout is likely to be the exception, not the norm. Besides, with Lehman’s bankruptcy, the fate of its counterparties hangs in balance. It is not clear whether a fire-sale of Lehman’s assets will be adequate to pay off its creditors. Besides, apprehensions of other banks meeting Lehman’s fate will keep inter-bank lenders on edge. This could lead to a huge squeeze on inter-bank liquidity and trigger another bout of turbulence in credit markets. Finally, the Lehman episode has ramped up the level of risk-aversion in the global financial system. These are days of extreme and often irrational pessimism. The way to survive this crisis is to stay focused on the fundamentals. From a fundamental perspective, India’s financial system has a lot going for it. Indian banks have no direct exposure to G-7 mortgage markets and their ndirect exposure is minuscule relative to the size of their balance sheet. This has protected us in the past and will continue to insulate us to a significant degree from the turmoil in global markets. As this phase of extreme pessimism abates a bit, global investors are likely to reward India for the robustness of its system. Thus, at last, the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers Holdings I nc, was mainly caused by the fall in house prices & the easy finance provided for housing at vary low interest rates which made the Dow Jones Industrial Average to fall 500 points. The treasury secretary Henry M. Paulson Jr. had been sending warning signals to Lehman Brothers ever since the firm announced its second quarter losses of $2. 8 billion. Experts were also quoted as saying that the 158-year-old bank was just living off the brand name that it had nurtured over the years. The Lehman bankruptcy had a great impact on INDIA. The undercapitalization of financial houses that was at the core of the financial meltdown in the US & developed markets became a problem in Indian Financial System, too.