Contrasting Cities. Miami and Charleston Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Contrasting Cities. Miami and Charleston - Essay Example This vast collection of states and the cities within them offer huge variety of language, culture, food habits, dressing style and ethnicity. Among all such variances, it was really confusing to select the appropriate city for the present report. After a lot of brainstorming, I decided to compare the cities of Miami within the state of Florida and Charleston belonging to South Carolina. The cities are totally opposite to each other. While Miami is highly contemporary in their style, Charleston exhibits a conventional manner of lifestyle. Both the cities have their own charm. Culture and Tradition Miami is one of Florida’s and the entire world’s most well-liked vacation destinations. It offers several temptation and interests to several group of people from all around the world. The city consists of stylish nightlife, extremely caffeinated liveliness of the Little Havana and the remarkable secrete of the Coral Gables. The city even offers facilities for the activities like fishing, golfing, football, hockey, baseball, basketball and playing tennis for the sports lovers. The presence of over 25 beaches makes the city a perfect spot for spending leisure time and getting relief from anxiety and stress of the daily work life. On the other hand Charleston is seemingly opposite to Miami. It is the oldest and the most ethnic city of USA. Charleston is also known to be one of the most gracious and has been voted as the warmest city of America through the various opinion polls conducted by several magazines. The city comprise of a hospitable and well mannered group of people who exhibit a blend of British, French and West African culture. The city offers an ambience encircling art festivals, history, music and culture. Neighborhood and Food Miami has got an assorted neighborhood. The city has got the giant pouncing banyan tree at the Coral Gables with wide-open paths that makes the place as one of the most attractive and traditional neighborhoods of the city. Shoppers look for superior boutiques and elegant stores for bridal wears and leather goods at the Coral Gables. The Coconut Grove on the other hand offers an altogether different feel with the presence of the galleries, sidewalk cafes and the boutiques. T he little bohemian village ambience is further supported by small cafes and college bars standing in a line by the street. The rural west neighborhood in Coconut Grove is the historic enclave of the present era depicting the early civilization of the African-American and Bahamian descendants. This place is home to several admired annual events. The Sunny Isles Beach forms a relatively jovial neighborhood of Miami. The atmosphere in this place is very casual displaying funky motels of the 1950s style and the hotels of the beachfront which facilitates an entirely luxurious lifestyle. This place has the provisions for swimming and sunbathing. The Cuban effect on the foods can be significantly felt for the lamb or chicken dishes. In Miami, meat is generally prepared with vegetables and tomato sauce and is served with rice. The most important dishes of the city includes    grilled fish, fried pork chops, onions and peppers served with sausage or ham with tomatoes. The regional influenc e can be seen in the colors and flavors of the desserts of Miami. Thus it can be concluded that Miami is a diverse city which has got everything for everyone (PriceTravel.com n.d.). Charleston being one of the oldest towns of the US offers charm and history along with its other features. The Mt. Pleasant is located across the Cooper River on the middle of Charleston. There is an old village that includes historic houses which seems to be the most attracti

About the history Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

About the history - Essay Example This period lasted from the Alexander Severus’ death to the reign of Diocletian. During this period, the Empire witnessed rapid changes of emperors. Despite the turbulent times that the empire went through, it succeeded in sustaining itself. However, this crisis precipitated the splitting of the empire into two divides, one comprising of the Eastern Empire while the other comprised of the Western Empire. The splitting of the empire into the eastern and western empires can be regarded as one of the internal factors, which contributed to the dissolution of the Roman Empire (Gibbon, Lentin & Norman, 1998). Another internal factor that contributed to the dissolution of the Roman Empire included the antagonism between the emperor and the senate. The emperor had the power to make decisions with regard to issues related to religion, civil affairs, and the military affairs of the Empire. The Senate acted as the advisory body to the Emperor. As a result of the powers accorded to his office, the emperor became. This led to numerous disagreements between the emperors and the senators, thus leading to the dissolution of the Empire (Gibbon, Lentin & Norman, 1998). Another internal factor that contributed to the dissolution of the Roman Empire included the decline in morals within the empire. The rich upper class, the emperor, and the nobility became immoral, and this had a negative impact on the empire. Some of the immoral behaviors that characterized the empire included sexual immorality, which entailed orgies and adultery. The immoral behaviors of the empire also encompassed the keeping of young boys for the purposes of pleasure by Emperor Tiberius (Gibbon, Lentin & Norman, 1998). Other internal factors that can be attributed to the dissolution of the Roman Empire included forced prostitution, which used to be common in brothels. The masses got angered by such acts and expressed their bitterness towards the empire. This had a

Analysis Of Blindness By Jose Saramago English Literature Essay

Analysis Of Blindness By Jose Saramago English Literature Essay Blindness, a novel by Portuguese author Josà © Saramago, depicts the dystopian outcome of a plague of white blindness, (clunky) a mysterious disease that eventually becomes known among the novels characters as the white evil. Saramago quickly introduces the malady, recounting the first infection within the first few pages of the novel. Out of fear of future contamination, the government arranges for a quarantine in an abandoned mental asylum.  Inside the asylum, the reader follows the harrowing account of a small group of internees led by the Doctors Wife, who is the only person to retain her eyesight. The white blindness spreads at a seemingly exponential rate to the point that the whole world has fallen victim to the white evil. Once the number of quarantined individuals accumulates in the asylum, social order crumbles and morality disintegrates, for even the Doctors Wife balances on the cusp of right and wrong. However, there still remains those individuals who make decisions t hat demonstrate altruistic sacrifice for the good of the rest. Josà © Saramago writes a captivating story of not only social decay, but also the emergence of a new morality only present in the most desperate circumstances. An easier way to establish context for Blindness would be to analyze Saramagos life as well as the historical events surrounding it. On November 16, 1992, Josà © Saramago was born in Azinhaga, Portugal in the Ribatejo province to a poor farming family. His father had served in the French military during World War I, and he decided to pursue a career in law enforcement in Lisbon, Portugals capital. Their way of living had greatly improved because of his new job, but they remained poor regardless of a new home. Saramagos parents sent him to grammar school, though, they could not afford the tuition long enough for him to finish his studies. As a result, Saramago attended a technical school to become a mechanic while studying literature during his free time. Before marrying his first wife Ilda Reis in 1944, he began working as an administrative civil servant for the Social Welfare Service. Three years later he published his first book, The Land of Sin, though his initial literary endeav ors were not very successful. He wrote more novels, but he failed to publish his projects. Saramago describes his early attempts at writing in his autobiography, The matter was settled when I abandoned the project[s]: it was becoming quite clear to me that I had nothing worthwhile to say For 19 years, I was absent from the Portuguese literary scene, where few people can have noticed my absence (Saramago, Autobiography). For more than half of Saramagos life, the brutal Portuguese fascist dictator, Antonio de Oliveira Salazar, a former professor, was in power (1928 1974). Salazar drew inspiration for his own dictatorial rule from Hitler and Mussolini, just as Saramago modeled his mental asylum in Blindness after Salazars appalling and inhumane prisons that simulated Nazi concentration camps as well as the Japanese internment camps in the United States following the bombing of Pearl Harbor. In an interview for a Portuguese newspaper, Saramago calls his mental asylum the final solution, a resemblance of Hitlers plan to exterminate the Jews (quoted in Frier). Not only were the prisoners subjected to horrifying punishments such as being forced to lie under the African sun, the ocean water flowed into the chambers everyday, washing up both garbage and human waste (Frier). The mental asylum, though not against an ocean, also filled with human excrement because the internees had given up locating the restro oms after a few days, resorting to defecating on the floor or on their beds. ( Same as last sentence?) One could be sent to these prisons, the most notorious being Tarrafal on the Cape Verde Islands, for being a dissident and for criticizing the Portuguese government, often without physical evidence. Antà ³nio de Rigueiredo, a Portuguese dissident, recounts his experience in Tarrafal, After 1945, as soon as the regime felt sure of its survival and new alliances, it passed from arbitrary but casual repression to a scientific system of incarcerating individuals (quoted in Frier). Another prisoner recalls that the only doctor in Taraffal neglected prisoners and allowed them to die in the unsanitary conditions of the prison (Frier). Though the victims of the white evil in Blindness were not interned for any political reason, they experienced many of the same abuses by the military; their force was a direct order from the government as well as out of fear of being contaminated. A sergeant on assignment tells his soldiers after he has killed an internee, From now on, we shall leave the con tainers at the halfway point, let the/m come and fetch them, well keep them under surveillance, and at the slightest suspicious movement, we fire (Saramago 84). Although these prisoners try to approach their providers without provoking attack, their blindness prevents them from knowing whether they will be shot for making a wrong move. Acquiring the daily rations most often ends in violence or verbal abuse from the military. Saramago was highly distrusting of the Salazar regime and government, so he joined the Portuguese Communist Party in 1969. To do so was illegal under Salazars dictatorship. Within the last few years of Salazars rule, Saramago worked for two Lisbon newspapers, Dià ¡rio de Lisboa and, later, Dià ¡rio de Nà ³ticias. He lost his job from the latter in 1975 after the new anti-Communist government had come into power. With no hopes of finding another journalistic position, he turned to writing literature and developed his unique writing, consisting of very little punctuation and dialogue within narration. His later novels became much more successful, though he met much opposition from both the Catholic Church and the Portuguese government because of Communistic and anti-religious undertones. Baltazar and Bilmunda (1982) criticized the role of Catholicism in 18th-century Portugal. The Church criticized The Gospel According to Jesus Christ (1991), claiming that Saramagos depiction of Jesus was too human and offensive to the Church (Saramago, Autobiography). Because the government was very much influenced by the Church, it did not allow this novel to be presented for the European Literary Prize. Many of Saramagos supporters protested the decision. Later on, Saramago moved to the Canary Islands with his second wife, Pilar del Rà ­o, because the support he received inspired him to write even more. There, he wrote his two most famous novels, Blindness (1995) and All the Names (1997). Saramago expresses his distrust for the Church again in Blindness in a scene towards the end of the novel in which the Doctors Wife enters a church that has become a refugee camp for the blind. She observes that all the images in the church had their eyes covered, statues with a white cloth tied around the head, paintings with a thick brushstroke of white paint, there was only one woman who did not have her eyes covered, because she carried her gouged-out eyes on a silver tray (Saramago 317). She tells her husband and he replies, Perhaps it was the work of someone whose faith was badly shaken when he realised that he would be blind like the others, maybe it was even the local priest (Saramago 317). The strange alteration of the images and the speculation that a priest may be behind them suggests that, just as the world has been struck blind, so too has the Church. God and the saints no longer listen to the pleas of the victims. Naturally, those who in the church are offended from he aring the mere suggestion that their faith could not cure them. However, they flee the church after a few scream at the thought that what the Doctor and his wife say may be true. Shortly after, people slowly begin to regain their sight. In her analysis of the novel, Carole Champagne says that the powers associated with the images in the church have been transferred to humanity, who are empowered to use their own moral and spiritual resources-their own eyes-which are their birthright (Champagne). So long had the refugees in the church depended on their faith for a moral balance until they had regained their sight. They would no longer have to look to a higher power that did not answer their prayers. The presence of morality in a damaged society, and the lack thereof, and the consequences that result from right and wrong are major themes of Josà © Saramagos Blindness. Early in the novel, as the Ministry of Health arrives at the Doctors apartment, his wife attempts to accompany him. The ambulance driver refuses to let her in, but she claims that she has been struck blind. Shortly after, the reader learns that she had faked her blindness though she is sure that she will eventually become blind. After days of experiencing the unsanitary conditions and constant conflict between internees, the Doctors Wife feels the need to help them, though she struggles both with herself and with her husband over the proposition. Her husband tells her, Think of the consequences, they will almost certainly try to turn you into their slave, [Y]ou will be at the beck and call of everyone [D]ont think that blindness has made us better people, It hasnt made us any worse, Were on our way though (Saramag o 133). The Doctor suggests that the peoples morality has left along with their sight, and that once his wife tries to assist them, she will be taken advantage of until she no longer can utilize her sight for herself. What she had thought was the right thing to do had gotten her caught in a downward spiral of disintegrating social order and chaos. Also, early in the novel, the First Blind Man confronts the Car Thief in the asylum. As soon as the First Blind Man discovers that his Samaritan had stolen his car after bringing him home, they immediately resort to hopeless fist fighting. This event signifies the first descent into moral decline, especially with how quickly the event transpires, though the First Blind Mans reaction to the car theft is still a normal reaction a sighted person would have. As the novel progresses, interpersonal conflicts become more prevalent among the internees, especially when dealing with the meager rations the government supplies them. The Doctor says, Fighting has always been, more or less, a form of blindness (Saramago 133). Fighting had existed before the whole world was struck blind, suggesting that people had already been blind, not in the literal sense but blind to each others needs. The conflict over food finally escalates to the point that a group of hoodlums band together to take control of all the food in hopes of taking all the internees valuables. The Doctors Wife organizes a resistance to fight against the gang, though it end in bloodshed on her side. In their confrontation, the head of the gang says to the Doctors Wife, I wont forget your voice, and she responds without thinking, Nor I your face (Saramago 140). Though she can physically see the hoodlums face, her threat suggests that only his face could belong to something so evil that would take food away from the rest of the internees. As if foreshadowing a heightened conflict, the First Blind Man says to the Doctor, Well, Im not entirely convinced that there are limits to misfortune and evil (Saramago 144). After the hoodlums run out of valuables to steal from the other internees, they demand that each ward send in all its women to satisfy their lust. Otherwise, the wards would not get their food. Immediately the men pressure the women to visit the hoodlums and have sex with them for the well-being of the others. The women, fearing for their lives, become enraged and chastise the men for suggesting they appease the hoodlums. While some of the women listened to the mens reasoning, others challenge the men with the same attitude the men had expressed. And what would you do if these rascals instead of asking for women had asked for men, what would you do then[?] (Saramago 168). One man replies, There are no pansies here, while another woman says, And no whores either (Saramago 168). In desperation, the asylum has eru pted into a mess of sexism and moral degradation. The men would be willing to give up their women in exchange for food, thus reducing and objectifying the status of women. A small group of women including the First Blind Mans Wife and the Doctors Wife agree to prostitute themselves despite protests by their husbands, the former especially. The narrator concludes the womens decisions: [D]ignity has no price, that when someone starts making small concessions, in the end life loses all meaning (Saramago 169). At the expense of the men, the group of women experience a brutal gang rape, resulting in the death of one of the women. To restore the dead womans dignity, the Doctors Wife finds water to wash her. This event indicates how much the community within the asylum has degenerated, for the men have put a price on the bodies of the women they know. Perhaps the event that illustrates the most difficult moral decision of the whole novel is the murder of the hoodlums leader. Prior to the event, the Doctors Wife discovers that she had brought a pair of scissors with the intent of helping her husband shave. She never uses them for the original purpose and hangs them on a wall. However, after her rape, she grabs the scissors without hesitation and heads for the hoodlums ward. As the leader rapes one of the women, the Doctors Wife sneaks behind him and stabs him in the throat as he has an orgasm. His cry was barely audible, it might have been the grunting of an animal about to ejaculate, as was happening to some of the other men (Saramago 189). Saramago describes the hoodlums as having degenerated to the point of becoming animals, acting solely upon appeasing natural inclinations and vices. The Doctors Wife runs away with the raped woman and breaks down. She justifies the murder by thinking, And when is it necessary to kill When what is still alive is already dead (Saramago 192-93). Though the first inclination is to think that the Doctors Wife justified the murder because the hoodlum had proven himself to be incapable of being human, she could have meant that it was she who was the inhuman one. She is the only sighted person among the blind. If even she has dropped to this level of moral decay, then the rest of the internees have little hope in restoring their own humanity until they regain their sight.

Electoral College System Essays -- Political Science

Analyze criticism of the "Electoral College" system and the alleged advantages and disadvantages of various reform proposals. The Electoral College is a system in which the individual voter does not actually vote directly for the president. When a person votes they are voting for an elector that has pledged their vote or allegiance to the running party. The Framers realized that without widespread communications available at the time and with other varying factors an "each vote counts" or "the popular vote" system would not be practical. Because of this they formed the Electoral College system, Under Article II of the US Constitution, although this system was never called this in the Article. This system has survived for over 200 years, with only two changes to it. These would be Amendment 12, and 23 of US Constitution. Many people have throughout the years said that the Electoral College is antiquated and needs to be changed, where as many others defended the Electoral College system. Some people believe the Electoral College system have many flaws, these can include electing a minority president, faithless Electors, the Electoral College causing a decline in voter turnout, the inequality of votes from large to small states, and the disadvantages for third parties. One large issue is that a president could be elected without the countries popular vote. One way this can happen is if three or more parties run splitting the Electoral votes so no one party can receive the majority of the votes. This has happened in 1824 and almost happened in 1948, and in 1968. If this does happen Amendment 12 states that the U.S. House of Representatives would then select the president from the top three. Another big issue is Electors t... ...at would like the votes to be split between parties. One of the last proposed changes is the "drop two" Electoral votes. In this proposal each states Electoral votes would be equal to their state Representatives. This system would function the same but just remove two Electoral votes from each state. This would still allow small states to over represent but would lessen the effects. Even though the Electoral College system has many flaws, it has worked for well over 200 years. Many people feel that the system is old and needs to be updated but the system was well thought out by the Framers. Ref: http://www.fec.gov/pdf/eleccoll.pdf http://www.archives.gov/federal-register/electoral-college/ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._Electoral_College http://jceb.co.jackson.mo.us/fun_stuff/electoral_college.htm http://www.ksg.harvard.edu/case/3pt/electoral.html#pro

Psychoanalytic Personality Assessment Essay

Freud’s latency period theory is accurate, because these years are mainly focused on social interaction with others (Friedman & Schustack, p. 72, 2012). This stage is not considered to be a stage of the psychosexual development; rather the energy is put into other activities such as sports, school, and social interaction with their peers (Stevenson, 1996). During the latency period the libido is suppressed and this is the most important time for the development of social skills (â€Å"Freud’s Psychoanalysis: A Revolutionary Approach†, 2012). Freud theorized at this time a child goes through â€Å"infantile amnesia† it is when the child forgets the unwanted memories that may be deemed as traumatic for him/her (â€Å"Definition: Latency Period†, n.d.). If there is anything that went amiss this is when it will start to show-up in the personality (â€Å"Freud’s Stages of Psychosexual Development†, n.d.). Genital stage of psychosexual devel opment is the last phase in Freudian theory. This stage starts at the onset of puberty and goes into adulthood (â€Å"Sigmund Freud’s Psychosexual Development†, n.d.). Previous stages were mainly on individual accomplishments and learning one’s place in the family as well as in society. Individuals normally start to develop sexual desires for the opposite sex at the beginning of this stage and last until death (Cherry, n.d.). It is of the most importance that there are no problems with the other stages, if some issues were not resolved in the other stages; more than likely it will carry over into the final stage and can lead to severe psychological problems for the adult (The Science Museum, 2004). Some things about Freudian theory are understandable, but there are certain aspects of it that a person would disagree on. For instance the Phallic stage is when â€Å"the child is focused on the genitals† (Friedman & Schustack, p. 69, 2012). Children at that age are too young to understand things in a sexual way. If a child does understand things like that at that age; a person would rightfully be thinking that something traumatic has happ ened to the child to lead the child into that kind of behavior such as masturbation. Starting at around age two a child enters the Anal stage (Friedman & Schustack, p. 68, 2012). Children as well as adults need relief, when you need to go you need to go; they as in children do not understand let alone are capable of using the bathroom unless they are properly trained to do so. If a child does try to hold –it in; that would be an indicator that the parents are not doing something right in the first place. Scolding a child for not going at a certain time, may be an indicator, if the child is trying to holding it in. There are five different stages of Freudian theory and each with its own sets of personal characteristics, depending on if a person becomes fixated at a certain stage. Oral stage is the first stage, it is said that if a person becomes fixated at this stage they may develop behaviors such as, dependency, attachment, and always having something in their mouth, such as chewing gum, and tobacco products (Friedman & Schustack, p. 68, 2012). Anal stage of development is said to include behaviors such as concern with neatness, order, and organization. They might also like bathroom humor jokes and the like (Friedman & Schustack, p.69, 2012). Phallic stage is mainly concerned with developing sexual relationships and can have a profound effect on these kinds of relationships. If the problems are not resolved before a person establishes this kind of relationship with someone else (Friedman & Schustack, p. 70, 2012). Latency period can have an impact negative effects on behavior as well just like any other stage of development. Even though this period is not included in the psychosexual stages of development (Friedman & Schustack, p. 72, 2012). Genital stage of development is the last stage in the Freudian theory; problems can arise because of unresolved issues in the other stages or can also develop in this stage under the right circumstances. Defense mechanisms are an attribute that a lot of people have to help deal with things that may be too hard to bear otherwise (Friedman & Schustack, p. 75, 2012). Repression is one of the coping mechanisms that are used by someone who has been traumatized, such as sexual abuse or witnessing a horrible event such as a violent death of someone close to them. Denial is another form of coping, though it is unhealthy.

Cover Note Essay

â€Å"The Relation of Science and Religion† is a transcript of a talk given by Dr. Feynman at the Caltech YMCA Lunch Forum on May 2, 1956. In this age of specialization men who thoroughly know one field are often incompetent to discuss another. The great problems of the relations between one and another aspect of human activity have for this reason been discussed less and less in public. When we look at the past great debates on these subjects we feel jealous of those times, for we should have liked the excitement of such argument. The old problems, such as the relation of science and religion, are still with us, and I believe present as difficult dilemmas as ever, but they are not often publicly discussed because of the limitations of specialization. But I have been interested in this problem for a long time and would like to discuss it. In view of my very evident lack of knowledge and understanding of religion (a lack which will grow more apparent as we proceed), I will organize the discussion in this way: I will suppose that not one man but a group of men are discussing the problem, that the group consists of specialists in many fields – the various sciences, the various religions and so on – and that we are going to discuss the problem from various sides, like a panel. Each is to give his point of view, which may be molded and modified by the later discussion. Further, I imagine that someone has been chosen by lot to be the first to present his views, and I am he so chosen. I would start by presenting the panel with a problem: A young man, brought up in a religious family, studies a science, and as a result he comes to doubt – and perhaps later to disbelieve in – his father’s God. Now, this is not an isolated example; it happens time and time again. Although I have no statistics on this, I believe that many scientists – in fact, I actually believe that more than half of the scientists – really disbelieve in their father’s God; that is, they don’t believe in a God in a conventional sense. Now, since the belief in a God is a central feature of religion, this problem that I have selected points up most strongly the problem of the relation of science and religion. Why does this young man come to disbelieve? The first answer we might hear is very simple: You see, he is taught by scientists, and (as I have just pointed out) they are all atheists at heart, so the evil is spread from one to another. But if you can entertain this view, I think you know less of science than I know of religion. Another answer may be that a little knowledge is dangerous; this young man has learned a little bit and thinks he knows it all, but soon he will grow out of this sophomoric sophistication and come to realize that the world is more complicated, and he will begin again to understand that there must be a God. I don’t think it is necessary that he come out of it. There are many scientists – men who hope to call themselves mature – who still don’t believe in God. In fact, as I would like to explain later, the answer is not that the young man thinks he knows it all – it is the exact opposite. A third answer you might get is that this young man really doesn’t understand science correctly. I do not believe that science can disprove the existence of God; I think that is impossible. And if it is impossible, is not a belief in science and in a God – an ordinary God of religion — a consistent possibility? Yes, it is consistent. Despite the fact that I said that more than half of the scientists don’t believe in God, many scientists do believe in both science and God, in a perfectly consistent way. But this consistency, although possible, is not easy to attain, and I would like to try to discuss two things: Why it is not easy to attain, and whether it is worth attempting to attain it. When I say â€Å"believe in God,† of course, it is always a puzzle – what is God? What I mean is the kind of personal God, characteristic of the western religions, to whom you pray and who has something to do with creating the universe and guiding you in morals. For the student, when he learns about science, there are two sources of difficulty in trying to weld science and religion together. The first source of difficulty is this – that it is imperative in science to doubt; it is absolutely necessary, for progress in science, to have uncertainty as a fundamental part of your inner nature. To make progress in understanding we must remain modest and allow that we do not know. Nothing is certain or proved beyond all doubt. You investigate for curiosity, because it is unknown, not because you know the answer. And as you develop more information in the sciences, it is not that you are finding out the truth, but that you are finding out that this or that is more or less likely. That is, if we investigate further, we find that the statements of science are not of what is true and what is not true, but statements of what is known to different degrees of certainty: â€Å"It is very much more likely that so and so is true than that it is not true;† or â€Å"such and such is almost certain but there is still a little bit of doubt;† or – at the other extreme – â€Å"well, we really don’t know. † Every one of the concepts of science is on a scale graduated somewhere between, but at neither end of, absolute falsity or absolute truth. It is necessary, I believe, to accept this idea, not only for science, but also for other things; it is of great value to acknowledge ignorance. It is a fact that when we make decisions in our life we don’t necessarily know that we are making them correctly; we only think that we are doing the best we can – and that is what we should do. Attitude of uncertainty I think that when we know that we actually do live in uncertainty, then we ought to admit it; it is of great value to realize that we do not know the answers to different questions. This attitude of mind – this attitude of uncertainty – is vital to the scientist, and it is this attitude of mind which the student must first acquire. It becomes a habit of thought. Once acquired, one cannot retreat from it any more. What happens, then, is that the young man begins to doubt everything because he cannot have it as absolute truth. So the question changes a little bit from â€Å"Is there a God? † to â€Å"How sure is it that there is a God? † This very subtle change is a great stroke and represents a parting of the ways between science and religion. I do not believe a real scientist can ever believe in the same way again. Although there are scientists who believe in God, I do not believe that they think of God in the same way as religious people do. If they are consistent with their science, I think that they say something like this to themselves: â€Å"I am almost certain there is a God. The doubt is very small. † That is quite different from saying, â€Å"I know that there is a God. † I do not believe that a scientist can ever obtain that view – that really religious understanding, that real knowledge that there is a God – that absolute certainty which religious people have. Of course this process of doubt does not always start by attacking the question of the existence of God. Usually special tenets, such as the question of an afterlife, or details of the religious doctrine, such as details of Christ’s life, come under scrutiny first. It is more interesting, however, to go right into the central problem in a frank way, and to discuss the more extreme view which doubts the existence of God. Once the question has been removed from the absolute, and gets to sliding on the scale of uncertainty, it may end up in very different positions. In many cases it comes out very close to being certain. But on the other hand, for some, the net result of close scrutiny of the theory his father held of God may be the claim that it is almost certainly wrong. Belief in God – and the facts of science That brings us to the second difficulty our student has in trying to weld science and religion: Why does it often end up that the belief in God – at least, the God of the religious type – is considered to be very unreasonable, very unlikely? I think that the answer has to do with the scientific things – the facts or partial facts – that the man learns. For instance, the size of the universe is very impressive, with us on a tiny particle whirling around the sun, among a hundred thousand million suns in this galaxy, itself among a billion galaxies. Again, there is the close relation of biological man to the animals, and of one form of life to another. Man is a latecomer in a vast evolving drama; can the rest be but a scaffolding for his creation? Yet again, there are the atoms of which all appears to be constructed, following immutable laws. Nothing can escape it; the stars are made of the same stuff, and the animals are made of the same stuff, but in such complexity as to mysteriously appear alive – like man himself. It is a great adventure to contemplate the universe beyond man, to think of what it means without man – as it was for the great part of its long history, and as it is in the great majority of places. When this objective view is finally attained, and the mystery and majesty of matter are appreciated, to then turn the objective eye back on man viewed as matter, to see life as part of the universal mystery of greatest depth, is to sense an experience which is rarely described. It usually ends in laughter, delight in the futility of trying to understand. These scientific views end in awe and mystery, lost at the edge in uncertainty, but they appear to be so deep and so impressive that the theory that it is all arranged simply as a stage for God to watch man’s struggle for good and evil seems to be inadequate. So let us suppose that this is the case of our particular student, and the conviction grows so that he believes that individual prayer, for example, is not heard. (I am not trying to disprove the reality of God; I am trying to give you some idea of – some sympathy for – the reasons why many come to think that prayer is meaningless. ) Of course, as a result of this doubt, the pattern of doubting is turned next to ethical problems, because, in the religion which he learned, moral problems were connected with the word of God, and if the God doesn’t exist, what is his word? But rather surprisingly, I think, the moral problems ultimately come out relatively unscathed; at first perhaps the student may decide that a few little things were wrong, but he often reverses his opinion later, and ends with no fundamentally different moral view. There seems to be a kind of independence in these ideas. In the end, it is possible to doubt the divinity of Christ, and yet to believe firmly that it is a good thing to do unto your neighbor as you would have him do unto you. It is possible to have both these views at the same time; and I would say that I hope you will find that my atheistic scientific colleagues often carry themselves well in society. Communism and the scientific viewpoint I would like to remark, in passing, since the word â€Å"atheism† is so closely connected with â€Å"communism,† that the communist views are the antithesis of the scientific, in the sense that in communism the answers are given to all the questions – political questions as well as moral ones – without discussion and without doubt. The scientific viewpoint is the exact opposite of this; that is, all questions must be doubted and discussed; we must argue everything out – observe things, check them, and so change them. The democratic government is much closer to this idea, because there is discussion and a chance of modification. One doesn’t launch the ship in a definite direction. It is true that if you have a tyranny of ideas, so that you know exactly what has to be true, you act very decisively, and it looks good – for a while. But soon the ship is heading in the wrong direction, and no one can modify the direction any more. So the uncertainties of life in a democracy are, I think, much more consistent with science. Although science makes some impact on many religious ideas, it does not affect the moral content. Religion has many aspects; it answers all kinds of questions. First, for example, it answers questions about what things are, where they come from, what man is, what God is – the properties of God, and so on. Let me call this the metaphysical aspect of religion. It also tells us another thing – how to behave. Leave out of this the idea of how to behave in certain ceremonies, and what rites to perform; I mean it tells us how to behave in life in general, in a moral way. It gives answers to moral questions; it gives a moral and ethical code. Let me call this the ethical aspect of religion. Now, we know that, even with moral values granted, human beings are very weak; they must be reminded of the moral values in order that they may be able to follow their consciences. It is not simply a matter of having a right conscience; it is also a question of maintaining strength to do what you know is right. And it is necessary that religion give strength and comfort and the inspiration to follow these moral views. This is the inspirational aspect of religion. It gives inspiration not only for moral conduct – it gives inspiration for the arts and for all kinds of great thoughts and actions as well. Interconnections These three aspects of religion are interconnected, and it is generally felt, in view of this close integration of ideas, that to attack one feature of the system is to attack the whole structure. The three aspects are connected more or less as follows: The moral aspect, the moral code, is the word of God – which involves us in a metaphysical question. Then the inspiration comes because one is working the will of God; one is for God; partly one feels that one is with God. And this is a great inspiration because it brings one’s actions in contact with the universe at large. So these three things are very well interconnected. The difficulty is this: that science occasionally conflicts with the first of the three categories – the metaphysical aspect of religion. For instance, in the past there was an argument about whether the earth was the center of the universe – whether the earth moved around the sun or stayed still. The result of all this was a terrible strife and difficulty, but it was finally resolved – with religion retreating in this particular case. More recently there was a conflict over the question of whether man has animal ancestry. The result in many of these situations is a retreat of the religious metaphysical view, but nevertheless, there is no collapse of the religion. And further, there seems to be no appreciable or fundamental change in the moral view. After all, the earth moves around the sun – isn’t it best to torn the other cheek? Does it make any difference whether the earth is standing still or moving around the son? We can expect conflict again. Science is developing and new things will be found out which will he in disagreement with the presentday metaphysical theory of certain religions. In fact, even with all the past retreats of religion, there is still real conflict for particular individuals when they learn about the science and they have heard about the religion. The thing has not been integrated very well; there are real conflicts here – and yet morals are not affected. As a matter of fact, the conflict is doubly difficult in this metaphysical region. Firstly, the facts may be in conflict, but even if the facts were not in conflict, the attitude is different. The spirit of uncertainty in science is an attitude toward the metaphysical questions that is quite different from the certainty and faith that is demanded in religion. There is definitely a conflict, I believe – both in fact and in spirit – over the metaphysical aspects of religion. In my opinion, it is not possible for religion to find a set of metaphysical ideas which will be guaranteed not to get into conflicts with an everadvancing and alwayschanging science which is going into an unknown. We don’t know how to answer the questions; it is impossible to find an answer which someday will not be found to be wrong. The difficulty arises because science and religion are both trying to answer questions in the same realm here. Science and moral questions On the other hand, I don’t believe that a real conflict with science will arise in the ethical aspect, because I believe that moral questions are outside of the scientific realm. Let me give three or four arguments to show why I believe this. In the first place, there have been conflicts in the past between the scientific and the religious view about the metaphysical aspect and, nevertheless, the older moral views did not collapse, did not change. Second, there are good men who practice Christian ethics and who do not believe in the divinity of Christ. They find themselves in no inconsistency here. Thirdly, although I believe that from time to time scientific evidence is found which may be partially interpreted as giving some evidence of some particular aspect of the life of Christ, for example, or of other religious metaphysical ideas, it seems to me that there is no scientific evidence bearing on the golden rule. It seems to me that that is somehow different. Now, let’s see if I can make a little philosophical explanation as to why it is different – how science cannot affect the fundamental basis of morals. The typical human problem, and one whose answer religion aims to supply, is always of the following form: Should I do this? Should we do this? Should the government do this? To answer this question we can resolve it into two parts: First — If I do this, what will happen? – and second – Do I want that to happen? What would come of it of value – of good? Now a question of the form: If I do this, what will happen?is strictly scientific. As a matter of fact, science can be defined as a method for, and a body of information obtained by, trying to answer only questions which can be put into the form: If I do this, what will happen? The technique of it, fundamentally, is: Try it and see. Then you put together a large amount of information from such experiences. All scientists will agree that a question – any question, philosophical or other – which cannot be put into the form that can be tested by experiment (or, in simple terms, that cannot be put into the form: If I do this, what will happen?) is not a scientific question; it is outside the realm of science. I claim that whether you want something to happen or not – what value there is in the result, and how you judge the value of the result (which is the other end of the question: Should I do this? ) – must lie outside of science because it is not a question that you can answer only by knowing what happens; you still have to judge what happens – in a moral way. So, for this theoretical reason I think that there is a complete consistency between the moral view – or the ethical aspect of religion – and scientific information. Turning to the third aspect of religion – the inspirational aspect – brings me to the central question that I would like to present to this imaginary panel. The source of inspiration today – for strength and for comfort – in any religion is very closely knit with the metaphysical aspect; that is, the inspiration comes from working for God, for obeying his will, feeling one with God. Emotional ties to the moral code – based in this manner – begin to be severely weakened when doubt, even a small amount of doubt, is expressed as to the existence of God; so when the belief in God becomes uncertain, this particular method of obtaining inspiration fails. I don’t know the answer to this central problem – the problem of maintaining the real value of religion, as a source of strength and of courage to most men, while, at the same time, not requiring an absolute faith in the metaphysical aspects. The heritages of Western civilization Western civilization, it seems to me, stands by two great heritages. One is the scientific spirit of adventure – the adventure into the unknown, an unknown which must be recognized as being unknown in order to be explored; the demand that the unanswerable mysteries of the universe remain unanswered; the attitude that all is uncertain; to summarize it – the humility of the intellect. The other great heritage is Christian ethics – the basis of action on love, the brotherhood of all men, the value of the individual – the humility of the spirit. These two heritages are logically, thoroughly consistent. But logic is not all; one needs one’s heart to follow an idea. If people are going back to religion, what are they going back to? Is the modern church a place to give comfort to a man who doubts Godmore, one who disbelieves in God? Is the modern church a place to give comfort and encouragement to the value of such doubts? So far, have we not drawn strength and comfort to maintain the one or the other of these consistent heritages in a way which attacks the values of the other? Is this unavoidable? How can we draw inspiration to support these two pillars of western civilization so that they may stand together in full vigor, mutually unafraid? Is this not the central problem of our time? I put it up to the panel for discussion.

9 ways on how to turn your hobby into a successful business

9 ways on how to turn your hobby into a successful business Hobbies are something we enjoy doing when we have free time. Whether it’s painting, playing sports, or even gardening, hobbies help us relax while doing something we love. What if there was a way to get paid to do your hobby? Well, there is! Here are 9 ways you can turn your hobby into a profitable business. It’s time to get paid for something you truly love to do.  Source [ Omni Papers ]

Audit Expectation Gap

Audit Expectation Gap Definition and structure of the audit expectation gapIn today's growing world of business, we see organizations reaching heights and falling dramatically. In last 100 years, the size of the companies has grown multiple folds and so is their list of stakeholders, especially investors. A huge investment in the past years is seen on the corporate governance activities to ensure a good image of the company. Auditing being a legal obligation for the companies now, ensure that the financial reports of the company are without any material misstatement and frauds. Reports presented by the auditors work as an assurance for the investors and other stake holders. However, in recent years, while many corporate scandals and collapses, that were associated with auditors' fraud and negligence, have been unveiled, the auditors' legal liabilities became the bone of contention in almost every country. Auditing being an expensive activity is performed till a limited extent, best possible ways are imple mented to avoid any chance of leaving the problems in the financial reports, but despite everything, things go wrong and probably would continue to be the same way.English: Verner after his 1940 election as Vermont...We will find laws in every country to safeguard the interest of an auditor and the stakeholder as well. In this relation, there is seen an increase in the number of lawsuits filed against the auditors in the recent times. This gives us an indication that the investors are not satisfied with the way auditing firms are operating and or they are not producing the desired results. The atmosphere around and the job profile creates a necessity for the auditor to know its legal duties, so that they can discharge their duties properly. On the other hand, in case of the investor or other stakeholders relying on the audit reports, we will see a lot of misperceptions...

Profile of Death Row Inmate Patricia Blackmon

Profile of Death Row Inmate Patricia Blackmon Patricia Blackmon is on death row in Alabama for capital murder in the death of her 28-month-old adopted daughter, Dominiqua.  Blackmon had adopted  Dominiqua nine months before she was murdered. The Crime On May 29, 1999, Patricia Blackmon, age 29, called 9-1-1 in Dothan, Alabama because her daughter Dominiqua was not breathing. When paramedics arrived at Blackmons mobile home, they found Dominiqua lying on the floor of the master bedroom she was wearing only a diaper and blood-soaked socks, was covered in vomit, and she was not breathing. There was a large bump on her forehead and blood on her chest. After the paramedics attempted to revive her, she was transported to Flowers Hospital Emergency Room where she died shortly after arriving. Two doctors, one of them being  Dominiquas pediatrician, Dr. Robert Head, examined the child and found that she had multiple bruises and contusions and an imprint of the sole of a shoe on her chest. They also observed several older scars on Dominiqua, that were from previous injuries and in various stages of healing. The Autopsy Included in the 30 separate injuries found on her body, the medical examiner Dr. Alfredo Parades found bruises on the front part of her lower chest and upper abdomen and around the right groin. She had also suffered a fractured leg. He also found that Dominiqua had two broken bones and many other injuries that were in various stages of healing. Parades concluded that her death was due to  multiple blunt-force injuries to her head, chest, abdomen, and extremities.  Another discovery found on Dominiqua was an imprint of the sole of a shoe on her chest that was so clearly defined that it was captured in a photograph taken by the doctor. The Trial Dr. James Downs, chief medical examiner for the State of Alabama, testified that he compared the images taken of the shoe print to sandals Blackmon was wearing on the day of the murder. It was his opinion that the sole of the sandals matched the imprint embedded in Dominiquas chest. Downs also said that he believed  Dominiqua was struck with a pool cue resulting in her most recent injuries. Wayne Johnson, Blackmons father-in-law testimony showed that Blackmon was the only person caring for Dominiqua on the evening of the murder, up until the time the paramedics arrived at Blackmons home at around 9:30 p.m. Johnson testified that on the night Dominiqua was killed, he saw Dominiqua  earlier in the evening and she seemed fine, playing and acting normally. He said Blackmon and Dominiqua left his house at around 8 p.m. A search of Blackmons mobile home uncovered several blood-splattered items. Forensic tests found the blood on a broken pool cue, a childs T-shirt, a pink flat bed sheet, a quilt, and two napkins. The blood found on all of the items matched Dominiquas blood. Blackmons Defense In her defense, Blackmon said that the child was injured when she fell off of the bed. Blackmon called several character witnesses to testify in her defense. Judy Whatley, an employee of the Department of Human Resources, said that in her opinion, Blackmon and Dominiqua had a good relationship. Whatley had contact with Dominiqua and Blackmon once a month for five months before August 1998. Tammy Freeman, Blackmons neighbor, testified that she frequently left her children under Blackmons care. Convicted The jury convicted Blackmon of capital murder. A separate sentencing hearing was held, at which the State relied on the aggravating circumstance that the murder was especially heinous, atrocious, or cruel to support a death sentence. After the sentencing hearing the jury, by a vote of 10 to two, recommended the death penalty. Appeals In August 2005, Blackmon appealed to the court, arguing that the State failed to prove that the murder was especially, heinous, atrocious, or cruel as compared to other capital murders.  She argued that the State failed to prove that Dominiqua was conscious during any of the  attacks and that she suffered. Blackmon believed that Dominiqua was knocked unconscious before Blackmon beat her, and as a  result, the child did not feel the pain of being beaten. Her appeal was turned down. Patricia Blackmon now sits on death row at Tutwiler Prison for Women in Wetumpka, Alabama.

Why Do We Garden Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1750 words

Why Do We Garden - Research Paper Example Indeed, in America and by extension in the world, gardening is the most common hobby or personal activity. We can identify various gardens in America whose care is under people of distinct ages. In fact, it is amazing to realize that gardening is more popular than many major sporting activities in the U.S. Ideally, to get a clear understanding of gardening, it is necessary to study various books, follow given instructions, carryout research, and engage in practical gardening activities. Generally, gardening keeps our lives busy and satisfies our practical and emotional needs. However, the purpose of establishing a garden or gardening heavily relies on the gardener and most specifically their age. This paper defines a garden and establishes the fundamental reasons as to why we garden. In doing this, the paper addresses our need for botanical samples and defines the satisfaction we get from successful gardens and why we blame ourselves on failed gardens. In this context, the paper refe rs to English Garden, Organic Garden, and Zen Garden. Indeed, establishing a good garden is not an easy fete as there are numerous challenges relating to weeds among other factors. More so, the parents or guardians may tend to prevent their children from establishing gardens for fear of the health, physical, or even injurious risks involved. Notably, a garden may be a representation of our lives. Indeed, our lives may have several dimensions that define our mode of living depicting the several gardens that reflect our lives. Firstly, one of the gardens in our lives may involve our minds, which form part of our personal lives where we grow our aspirations, desires, and dreams. More so, the society may form a garden where the community grows and derives humanity. In addition, we can refer to our homes as another garden where we grow up and bring up our children. As such, a garden symbolizes a place of growing things and the art of growing things refer to gardening. However, in this co ntext, we will address a garden and gardening within the realms of agriculture and plants. We therefore focus on where we grow, what we grow, and how we grow it. Notably, there is a big difference between the traditional and modern gardens and ways of gardening. Indeed, in the traditional set up, gardening involved following wandering cow paths. We can actually trace the history of ornamental gardens to the Egyptian paintings of 1500 BCE, which manifested lotus ponds and rows of cultivated acacias and palms. However, this has changed over time and within cultures from Zen gardens to beautiful rose gardens, from the elegant English gardens to the rock gardens (Pollan 1-2) and from the greenhouse/organic gardens to the rudimentary cactus gardens located within a high building. As such, we can establish significant differences from traditional gardening and modern gardening. However, in most cases, a garden is generally in a secluded place, and its main purpose is to derive pleasure an d beauty. Ideally, gardens are synonymous in our lives and you can identify their uniqueness in appearance everywhere you go. Actually, different gardens bear unique characteristics, adopt distinct gardening techniques, and serve different purposes. Most, assuredly, the purposes of gardening are as unique as the gardener or the physical appearance of various gardens in the world. Furthermore, there is available information relating to gardens and gardening in various books and web sources. These sources enable different people in establishing successful gardens and carrying out gardening activities. A garden generally refers to an enclosed and privileged space out of doors where people of different ages grow various plants

Unit 4 Individual Project - Present Risks to ODHS Project Essay

Unit 4 Individual Project - Present Risks to ODHS Project - Essay Example (JordaÃŒÆ'o, B., 2010) This is the point of divergent compared to the role of quality management. Quality management lays emphasis on the standards involved in the process, the process itself as well as the techniques that are involved in to ensure that quality is achieved in the whole process. This brings to clarity the understanding that risk management would portray a more direct focus on potential risk associated with the execution of the project while the quality management is principally concerned with the broader management efforts. This makes quality management to be more of overall determination of the project quality as a whole. This study will try to explore the aspects of the projects management that are relevant and would be important for adoption in the project at hand. To this end, the study will attempt to identify fundamental aspects of risk management and project quality management. This aspect will form the ground for evaluation of Ohio Department of Human Services (ODHS) The basic components of a quality management are quality assurance, quality control as well as quality planning. Quality planning acts as the main way of assisting in identification of quality standards that would be relevant for the project in place. This is the most relevant stage to any organization that intends to implement a project. The case of ODHS would be well managed at this stage. First of all, the project has been able to identify that the project lacks two network engineers and a business analyst who would be responsible for project documentation. They have further identified that the existing budget plan is not able to cover the anticipated 20% increase in licensing for one of the key candidate products under consideration. This is one step that the company would be able to exploit in order to get to the desired goal of delivering it’s services to its clients. First and foremost, lack of business analyst

Culture and communications Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Culture and communications - Essay Example People meeting these two Asian groups get confused because their outlook is also remarkably similar to differentiate them (Howe 1996, p. 222). It is necessary to have a look at elements in each of the country as it will give a clear picture of similarities and differences present. This will also help in understanding the differences and similarities between Chinese and Japanese cultural elements. The first similarity evident in the culture of the two Asian countries is on how they do their naming. The culture of the two countries dictates that a person’s first name should be that of the family and the preferred name should be the last. The family name should resemble the community and this simply indicates that these two cultures do not take their interests first but focus on communal interest first. The norm of using family names has also been extended in Chinese and Japanese businesses, and they name their companies after family names. Employees view their businesses as an extended family where people working in their companies are considered as members of the extended family. This is indicated as one reason why Japan is growing at a high rate in its corporations and can withstand the financial crisis that sweeps economies of most world powers (Howe 1996, p. 225). The other similarity is in their language. Japan’s written language is mostly borrowed from Chinese culture. The Japanese did not have a written language, and they only got it when they started interacting with the Chinese. Japan’s written language, referred to as Kanji, is created from characters that originated from the Chinese symbol language. People from the countries who cannot communicate effectively verbally rely on the symbol language for their communication. Japanese students who studied in China impacted the development of the Kanji language in Japan once they returned back. In addition, Japan is credited for coming up with new words, which refer to similar things and

Australian contract law Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Australian contract law - Essay Example Such ways of making a contract can be; signing a document, clicking ‘agree’ button on the web as well as making an agreement over the phone. Contract law constitutes any regulations or laws directed inline of enforcing certain promises. The contract law in Australia is mainly regulated by the common law. However, more states are supplementing the common law of contract specifically in connection with the consumer protection (Goldring, 1998). What makes a valid enforceable contract between parties? A contract is considered valid if there is the provision of a written or signed agreement by both parties. It has been stated that the two companies entered into a written service contract which meant that, the Big industry decided to make an offer to Pat while on the other side, Pat accepted the offer and anticipated to arrive at a significant work from Big industry in future. The enforcement is valid due to the way that is has been laid down in a written document. The contrac t agreement had involved both parties which must have signed a document to establish an offer from one side and at the same time an acceptance of the other party. There is therefore a valid enforceable contract between Pat and Big Industry. Pat, a computer software consultant was expected to write four computer programs which were made to be used by the Big Industry in controlling its automated manufacturing machines. More terms within the contract agreement was that the Big industry was supposed to pay twenty five thousand dollars to Pat on completion of the work. Payments would only be made after the completion of the work on contract. Another term provided within the contract was that the written computer programs be delivered to the Big industry no later than may first. The contract agreement did not seem to provide any chance for delivery after the agreed date, the first day of May. No modifications of the contract would be valid unless it was in writing and signed by both the Big industry and Pat. The April fifteen phone call between Pat and Hillary brought in much effect on the contract terms. According to the contract agreement made on first April, Pat accepted to write the total number of the computer programs and gave much expectation for the Big Industry that before the first day of May, all programs would be ready for use. The phone call was meant to make a change in the agreement that Pat would not deliver the contract as it was agreed on April first. Pat said that he was having a problem with the programs three and one and that he would not be able to deliver them until at least eight may or may be sometimes closer to fifteenth of May. Pat went ahead to mention that he had some doubts that he would be able to write program number four at all since the Big Industry’s computer hardware was nearly obsolete. He communicated that he would only deliver program number one and two by the first day of May. This phone call demonstrated that change w ould occur in the terms agreed as per the contract. The contract terms were that Pat would write four programs by May first and that the total payment would only be made after the delivery. Pat on the phone call notified that he would only deliver two written programs and that one would come late while the other one would not be written at all. The change in the content of delivery meant that all terms and conditions of the contract would as well change. The Big Industry would as well adjust its payments and expectations for the

State and local GOVT Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

State and local GOVT - Assignment Example Public merit personnel system has become important in terms or ensuring that federal employment is given to the qualified individuals. However, it has been stated, â€Å"the greatest professional challenges for public merit personnel are at the local level. The merit principle entails the selection and appointment of the best person for any given job (Bowman & West, 2006). This is the first instance where the challenge comes because public appointments have leaned towards professionalism, even at the local level. Professionals link professionalism to possession of knowledge and are attached to group identity. When applying issues of merit for a job at a local level more issues other than professionalism such as gender and race balance issues are considered to get the best individual for the job and this is a challenge. In looking at pay for performance systems, which is a type of public merit personnel system, both Perry et.al (2009) and Bowman (2010) found out that public merit personnel systems at the local level have many challenges that are caused by issues that include lack of adequate funding, inability to distinguish levels of performance, lack of employee confidence in merit systems, employee-manager distrust and bureaucratic resistance to merit systems among others (Bowman, 2009: Perry, Engbers & Jun, 2009). These issues show that the above statement is true. Discuss the implications for state and local governments of the Intergovernmental Personnel Act of 1997 (Revised). http://www.opm.gov/policy-data-oversight/hiring-authorities/intergovernment-personnel-act/#url=Provisions. What issues were addressed and why do you think they were included in the Act. The Revised Intergovernmental Personnel Act (IPA) mobility program regulations came into effect from May 29, 1997 allowing federal agencies to operate efficiently and productively. The regulations have

Education Law Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Education Law - Essay Example The significance of the case is to show that school authorities should ensure that the off-campus rules they implement need clear wording, applied and interpreted for students who do not understand them. The case is an excellent example for school authority officials and for students showing what happens in instances when school rules get breached. The student was not suspended from carrying out other school activities and functions, but got suspended from the baseball team as punishment for being in possession of alcohol. The violation of school rules warrants different punishments. However, certain factors have to be considered before enforcing such punishments. The first factor is the seriousness of the offense. Other factors such as the student’s age, the student’s code adopted by the board, the attitude and how often the student commits the offense are also important to assess. Lastly, the other two factors include requirements of chapter 37 of the education code and the potential effect that the student’s misconduct has on the school environment. The first concept is that the state has to take action (Lesson 3). For example, a teacher from a private school who gets fired without getting a notice from the school’s board of team members has the right to complain for contractual breach. In such an instance the school becomes liable for a lawsuit because it violates its own policies. The second concept is that the person must have been dispossessed of his or her property or liberty by the state for the court to accept that there has been a violation of due process. In this case, the state is liable for violation of due process because of breaching the contract formed between it and the person. The third concept is that the nature of due process is dependent on how severe the problem is in a case. In a case where a person has killed another person and gets sentenced to life imprisonment or death penalty, the state is liable for

State and local GOVT Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

State and local GOVT - Assignment Example Public merit personnel system has become important in terms or ensuring that federal employment is given to the qualified individuals. However, it has been stated, â€Å"the greatest professional challenges for public merit personnel are at the local level. The merit principle entails the selection and appointment of the best person for any given job (Bowman & West, 2006). This is the first instance where the challenge comes because public appointments have leaned towards professionalism, even at the local level. Professionals link professionalism to possession of knowledge and are attached to group identity. When applying issues of merit for a job at a local level more issues other than professionalism such as gender and race balance issues are considered to get the best individual for the job and this is a challenge. In looking at pay for performance systems, which is a type of public merit personnel system, both Perry et.al (2009) and Bowman (2010) found out that public merit personnel systems at the local level have many challenges that are caused by issues that include lack of adequate funding, inability to distinguish levels of performance, lack of employee confidence in merit systems, employee-manager distrust and bureaucratic resistance to merit systems among others (Bowman, 2009: Perry, Engbers & Jun, 2009). These issues show that the above statement is true. Discuss the implications for state and local governments of the Intergovernmental Personnel Act of 1997 (Revised). http://www.opm.gov/policy-data-oversight/hiring-authorities/intergovernment-personnel-act/#url=Provisions. What issues were addressed and why do you think they were included in the Act. The Revised Intergovernmental Personnel Act (IPA) mobility program regulations came into effect from May 29, 1997 allowing federal agencies to operate efficiently and productively. The regulations have

Social Pedagogy Essay Example for Free

Social Pedagogy Essay What is social pedagogy? Social pedagogy is concerned with well-being, learning and growth. This is underpinned by humanistic values and principles which view people as active and resourceful agents highlight the importance of including them into the wider community, and aim to tackle or prevent social problems and inequality. Social pedagogy uses the holistic approach to education in the broadest sense, the centrality of relationships, and the use of observation and reflection as a tool for continuous development of all that are included in the pedagogic process. It uses various predominant elements that form part of social pedagogy, and each of them is underpinned in its significance by theory and research. This makes it helpful to apply theory to practice. Social pedagogy aims to provide nurturing conditions that support childrens growth in both directions, towards independence and interdependence. In Goethes words children need two things from their parents: roots and wings When did it begin/originate? As an idea ‘sozial pà ¤dagogik’ first started being used around the middle of the nineteenth century in Germany as a way of describing alternatives to the dominant models of schooling. parents have the shared responsibility same as practitioners as they aim to provide a nurturing condition that support natural growth this is for children and young people until they reach adolescence in every setting. The term social pedagogy has been used in countries such as Germany, Holland and Hungary to embrace the activities of youth workers, residential or day care workers work with offenders, and play and occupational therapists. It has also been used to describe aspects of church work and some community development activity. How does it benefit children? Social pedagogy is about the holistic wellbeing and education and this is a shared responsibility between parents and the society as a whole. It also develops children and young people’s knowledge of what is expected of them as an individual. This helps them gain skills that they want to achieve, coping with emotions and also physical skills. This is put in to place to learn children and young people on how to become a valued member of society. How can it support children’s development? Social Pedagogy can support children’s development by helping children and young people to take more risks in life as this is a way of helping them to develop their judgement and also how to test boundaries. Social Pedagogy also helps to remove any barriers in stopping the child’s development to decrease, or not be as developed as other children, helping the child to understand more complex things. Social Pedagogy also helps to increase social interactions and communication, giving the child confidence within themselves.

The Influence Of Bob Marley History Essay

The Influence Of Bob Marley History Essay One of the most influential people in music is Bob Marley. He was a heroic figure and in some ways he still is. His music has inspired many people and brought happiness to many people around the world. Marleys viewpoints on racism, freedom, and love made him and his music unforgettable. Robert Nesta Marley, better known as Bob, was born in Rhoden Hall to the north of Jamaica on February 6, 1945. His father, Captain Norval Marley, was a fifty-year-old white quartermaster attached to the British West Indian regiment and his mother, Cedella Booker, was an eighteen-year-old black woman. She became pregnant so they married to legitimize the child. Bobs mixed race wasnt uncommon but the mix of classes was. His father helped financially, but he left and he rarely saw his son. Cedella and Bob moved to Trench Town, which was one of Kingstons poorest cities. Trench Town was also known for its music and it was an inspiration for Bobs music. Bob did not find much success at first being a solo artist, but he found more success when joining his friends to form a band. In 1963, Bob Marley, Neville Bunny ORiley Livingston, and Peter McIntosh formed the Wailing Wailers. They named themselves the Wailing Wailers because of their sad background and upcoming. It was also around this time that Bob started exploring his spiritual side. Both religious and political, the Rastafarian movement started in Jamaica in 1930s and drew its beliefs from many sources, including Jamaican-born black nationalist Marcus Garvey, the Old Testament, and their African heritage and culture. Bob eventually joined the movement in regard to using marijuana as wisdom weed that had grown on the grave of Solomon. Bobs belief in One World, One Love was inspired by his belief in Rastafari. It not only influenced his music and spirit, but it also influenced his appearance. Rasta men embraced the look of long dreadlocks and beards. Bob came to embrace the appearance, the weed, the movement, and all of the powerful aspects of Rasta. Bob especially embraced the signature music of Rasta known as reggae, and then made a career of conquering it. The Wailing Wailers released their first single, Simmer Down, during the last weeks of 1963. By the following January it was number one in the Jamaican charts, a position it held for the next two months. Simmer Down caused a sensation in Jamaica and The Wailing Wailers began recording regularly. Over the next few years the Wailing Wailers put together some thirty sides that properly established the group. Despite their popularity, the ecomnomics of keeping the group together was too difficult. Bobs mother, Cedella, had remarried and moved to Delaware in the United States where she had saved up enough money to send Bob an airline ticket. She wanted Bob to start a new life. Before moving to America Bob met a young girl called Rita Anderson and, on February 1966, they were married. Bob stayed and worked in America just long enough to finance his real ambition: music. After only eight months in America, Bob returned to Jamaica. Marley joined back up with Neville Bunny ORiley Livingston and Peter McIntosh to re-form the group, now known as The Wailers. In the summer of 1971 Bob accepted an invitation from Johnny Nash to accompany him to Sweden. By spring 1972 the entire Wailers were in London to promote their single Reggae on Broadway. Instead they ended up stranded in Britain. Bob sought out, Chris Blackwell, the founder of the Basing Street Studios of Island Records. Blackwell knew of Marleys Jamaican reputation. The group was offered a deal unique in Jamaican terms. The Wailers were advanced money to make an album and, for the first time, a reggae band had access to the best recording facilities. Before this deal, it was considered that reggae sold only on singles and cheap compilation albums. The Wailers first album Catch A Fire broke all the rules: it was beautifully packaged and heavily promoted. It was the start of a long climb to international fame and recognition. Bob Marley and The Wailers were taking reggae into the mainstream. Marley had a growing political importance in Jamaica, where his firm Rastafarian stance had found a strong quality with the ghetto youth. By a way of thanking the Jamaican people, Marley decided to hold a free concert at Kingstons National Heroes Park on December 5, 1976. The idea was to emphasize the need for peace in the slums of the city, where warring factions had brought turmoil and murder. Not everyone was happy about this. On the night before the concert gunmen broke into Marleys home and shot him, his wife, and the band manager. Luckily, they all survived and out of defiance of the gunmen he played a brief concert anyway. In 1978 the band capitalized on their chart success with their album Kaya. The album was number four in the UK the week after its release. That album say Marley in a different mood; a collection of love songs and tributes to the power of ganja. There were three more events in 1978 that were all of extraordinary significance to Bob Marley. He returned to Jamaica to play the One Love Concert in front of the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition. He was then invited to the United Nations in New York to accept the organizations Medal of Peace. Bob also visited Africa for the first time near the end of 1978, going to Kenya and Ethiopia, spiritual home of Ratafari. The greatest honor the band ever received was in April, 1980, when the band was invited to Zimbabwe to play the countrys Independence Ceremony. A month later the Wailers released a new album Uprising. The band then embarked on a major European tour, breaking festival records throughout the continent. The schedule included a 100,000-capacity crowd in Milan, the largest show in the bands history. At the end of the tour Bob and the Wailers played two shows at madison square garden, but immediately afterwards Bob became very sick. Bob had hurt his toe while playing football three years earlier and the wound became cancerous and was belatedly treated in Miami. By 1980 the cancer had begun to spread through his body. He fought the disease for eight months. At the beginning of May Bob Marley left Europe for his Jamaican home, but it was a journey he would not complete. Bob Marley died in a Miami Hospital on May 11, 1981, only one month after being awarded Jamacias Order of Merit, the nations third highest honor. His work stretched across two decades and yet still remains timeless and universal. Today you can still see his influence in many ways. There are a lot of bands that still play covers or tributes to Bob Marley. He only lived to be 36-years-old, but his legend continues.

Why Americas Capitalist System Is Failing Essay -- Capitalism Failure

Why America's Capitalist System Is Failing   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  The American capitalist system works in a way that enables a small percentage of the population to live in utmost comfort with a large percentage of the country’s money and power. The majority of them get to this position through affiliation, and the lesser of them contrastingly through many years of hard work and struggle through a system that forces assimilation prior to incorporation. The majority of the population either lingers in the middle-class working for big businesses, whose ethical role in society they have no say in, or own a business that puts the responsibility of the lives of several shareholders in their hands. The remainder of society lives off of these people; cleaning, cooking, or serving for them. The only difference between this economic system and the old caste system in India is that the Americans can move between castes only by denying their moral beliefs.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Take, for example, the current president George Bush; his business skills did not permit his original business endeavors to succeed. He was actually a drunken party-boy, until the expectations to live up to his family name pressed him to seek success. Despite his disqualifications, the Bush name enabled him to overcome his bad investments and eventually receive a well-paying office job that required little of him. In contrast to a man that came from a less-renowned family, this young man’s lack of characteristics that generally evoke succe...

Alzheimers Disease Essay -- essays research papers fc

An Exploration of one of the Most Mysterious Diseases   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Alzheimer’s disease, named after Dr. Alois Alzheimer, is a disease that is on the rise in America and the rest of the world. People should learn as much as they want about this disease, because as you age, your chances of becoming an Alzheimer’s Disease, or AD, patient increases. It is estimated that approximately 3 percent of Americans between the ages of 65 and 74 have the illness, and more than half of all people over age 85 have the ailment.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  AD is a form of dementia, a disease, that according to the Alzheimer's Disease Education & Referral Center is defined as: â€Å"†¦a group of symptoms that are caused by changes in brain function. Dementia symptoms may include asking the same questions repeatedly; becoming lost in familiar places; being unable to follow directions; getting disoriented about time, people, and places; and neglecting personal safety, hygiene, and nutrition. People with dementia lose their abilities at different rates.†   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  It is not uncommon for AD patients to become lost and wander away from their homes, thus leading to a very disturbing and upsetting experience for family members.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Alzheimer’s can be diagnosed before age 65, although rare, and is caused by a mutation in 3 known genes. About 5 percent of those who are under 65 and possess the ailment have AD in their family history. Given that the symptoms of AD are caused by plaque in the brain, causing loss of nerve cells that help the body communicate with the brain, mutations to these genes; amyloid precursor protein, presenilin 1, and presenilin 2 cause a excessive production of certain proteins (primarily a B-42 form of amyloid protein), and therefore spark an excessive growth of plaque cells which are toxic to the neurons of the brain. For those cases of Alzheimer’s that occur after age 65, a genetic mutation has yet to be proven, although some may be linked, to the fact that a difference may cause an increased chance of developing the ailment. Whatever the case may be for patients over 65 years old, the disease and its symptoms are caused by neurofibrillary tangles of al myloid plaques. It is impossible for someone to test positive for Alzheimer’s Disease, because the only way to determine an affirmative case i... ...t one has it. Many scientists hypothesize that there is an inflammatory response in the brain when there is an extensive B-42 amassing. To slow or stop this, scientists theorize that the use of anti-inflammatory drugs, such as aspirin, could delay the swelling in the brain. Also, as scientists have known that taking a multi-vitamin tablet each day is good for you, there has been recent research demonstrating that the use of antioxidants may protect neurons, not just the immune system and keeping the body healthy by providing vitamins and minerals. These special supplements protect the neurons from the effects of the accruing B-Amyloid that would likely cause the plaque that causes AD. Works Cited www.crystalinks.com/ alzheimers.html Picture of Brain Cross Section http://apt.rcpsych.org/cgi/content/full/6/3/193 Information on Alzheimer’s Disease and Dementia http://www.emental-health.com/alzh_biology.htm Information on the biology of Alzheimer’s Disease http://www.alznyc.org/ Information about Treatments and the AD community Delaware Valley Veterans Hospital- Alzheimer’s Ward- Allowing me to enter the facility and communicate with AD patients, nurses, and care-takers.

Comparative Analysis Literary Works Essay

Did you know that many books, poems, and other literary works, sometime share some similarities or same point of views on a topic? Well, these similarities can be anything from the same setting, same characters, etc, and sometime they may have similarities in their conflicts. Like in the play, A Midsummer Night’s Dream by William Shakespeare and in the story, â€Å"The Coldest Winter Since 1854† by William Saroyan. Both of these literary works had many similarities but one major similarity is in their conflicts, but what are their major conflicts in both of these works and how are both of these conflicts similar? Well you are just about to find out. In the story, â€Å"The Coldest Winter Since 1854† our main character, Dewey, a young boy who is in school, share his love to another young girl named Emma, by giving her a love letter. Soon the teacher finds out about this â€Å"love letter† and sent him to the office. He later spends a whole day with the principal as his punishment, but what is the conflict? Well later, the principal, Mr. Bowler, ask Dewey to stop being in love with Emma, why? Well it’s because of his social stats. You see, Dewey is just â€Å"a poor man’s son and Emma is a rich man’s daughter† so they’re not fit to be together, which Dewey is force to accept this fact, but Dewey may still continue to love her. In A Midsummer’s Night Dream, the story is a little different. In this plot, taking place along time ago in the city of Athens, one of the characters named Lysander, a young man, is in love with a young woman named Hermia, and Hermia is in love Lysander as well. So what’s the problem? Well Hermia’s father, Egeus is the problem. Egeus doesn’t want her daughter, Hermia, to marry Lysander, instead, he want her to marry Demetrius. Demetrius is another young man that Hermia’s best friend, Helena is in love with. But can Egeus make Hermia marry Demetrius? Well under the law of Athens, he can. The law said that a daughter must follow what her father said; otherwise she is put to death. So Hermia and Lysander decided to run away together to another city, where the laws are different and get marry there. Which later, Helena tells Demetrius about their plan. Soon later, most of characters are in magical forest, late at night, where it starts to go downhill fr om there. Now that you know part of these works, and their main conflict, you may be wondering, how can these conflicts be any similar? Well if you readied carefully, you may had noticed their similarities. In both stories, there is a love connection between two characters. In â€Å"The Coldest Winter Since 1854†, it’s between Dewey and Emma, and in A Midsummer’s Night Dream, it’s between Lysander and Hermia, and later in the plot, it’s also between Demetrius and Helena. Another similarity is that in both stories, is that the guy can not be with the girl he like, because of an issue that preventing them to be together. In â€Å"The Coldest Winter Since 1854†, Dewey can not be with Emma because of his social stats; he is the son of a poor man, while Emma is the daughter of a rich man, and them being together would cause huge trouble for him and her. While in A Midsummer’s Night Dream, Lysander can’t be with Hermia because of Hermia’s father, Egeus. Egeus is forcing Hermia to marry Demetrius instead of Lysander, and under the law of Athens, he can that. So now you should be able to notice the similarities between the two stories, but if you still can’t, another good example would be from another book called Jake Reinvented. In this book, Jake, the main character of the book, can not date an popular girl he like, because of his social stats, so he moved and goes to this new school, where the girl he likes, goes there too, and pretends to be a popular guy, by doing stuff like being on the football team, hanging out with the popular crowd and throw huge parties. So as you see, these literary works, both had many similarities, one of them being in their similar conflicts, and these are not the only stories that share similarities between two different stories. There are a huge list of stories, poems, novels, and even in songs, movies and so many more. Who know how many similarities there could be. So why not try for yourself, and see if any stories, share any similarities between each other like these two stories did.

Freudian Analysis of “Beauty and the Beast” Essay

           In â€Å"Beauty and the Beast†, Beauty, the dreamer, successfully travels through the phallic stage and the Oedipus complex into the latency and genital stages. She is at first attached to her father, and wants to protect him. She mentions that she is willing to even die for him so that he can live a happy life. Beauty eventually realizes that she is actually in love with the beast (Brett, n.p).             Beauty starts out in the phallic stage of development. She is starting to recognize the difference between male and female, however, she still views males as beastly, and chose her father over them. When the beast comes into the story, Beauty offers to sacrifice her life for her father. This shows the Oedipus complex of Beauty. She still is competing with other people for her dad. Beauty’s father depicts phallic symbolism of a man through the efforts that he undertakes to especially by portraying that he is a self-made man, that is wealthy and makes use of common sense (Brett, n.p). Beauty’s father is portrayed as a self-made, wealthy man with common sense. Despite his bad luck and loss of his wealth, he still manages to bring up his six children and provide them with quite a comfortable life, talking the role of the man of the house and ensuring that his family is provided for despite all the circumstances.             Beauty stays in the Oedipus complex when she is brought into the castle. She still views other males as gross (the beast) and puts her father first. When the beast asks to marry her, she quickly rejects him. However, the Beast continues to see her regularly, day after day (Brett, n.p). The beast offers for Beauty to see her father, except that he would die if this happened. This is when Beauty starts entering the latency stage.            When Beauty visits her father and her sisters, she starts to realize how much she is longing to see the Beast. She starts to get annoyed by her sisters, who are jealous of how beautiful she is. However, she spends most of her time with the same sex, a sure sign of the latency stage. Beauty is seen to be very close to her father in a way and has what is referred to as an â€Å"electra complex† which is an â€Å"oedipal complex†, a female version (Brett, n.p). She sees her father as one that never does anything wrong and is always a good person. There is no fight between her and her mother over her dad hence she becomes quite closer to him although she undergoes a very quick transition (Brett, n.p).          When Beauty sees Beast at the end of the story, she is scared that the Beast will kill himself since she did not keep her promise. The Beast is upset about this, but still says how happy he is to see her and that he will die satisfied. This is where the genital stage begins. Beauty explains her love for him and that she cannot live without him. She is basically starting to go through puberty, a sure sign of the genital stage (Brett, n.p).          As Beauty passes through the stages in her life, she has the desire to read but also has more desires that she wants to satisfy and is not sure of the place or the person to find it from but this change when she starts developing interest and liking for the Beast. On the other hand, the Beast is seen as unconsciously searching for some form of help as well as someone that can be able to love him for who he is. As the picture and symbol of morality, Beauty finally develops a super-ego that is great (Brett, n.p).             Beauty passes through all of the stages of psychosexual development without much of a problem. She overcomes a little bit of trouble with the Oedipus complex, but seems to finally get to the genital stage when the story is over (Brett, n.p). The end of the story represents the rest of the genital stage where Beauty recognizes her love for the opposite sex. She has to renounce her affection and care for her father for a suitor that she would be spending the rest of her life with (Brett, n.p). In this part, the Beast, despite the nature of that he has, undergoes a lot of struggle in trying to contain and control the urges that he has just to have someone to love him. The refinement of the Beast in to something that is more human is not a mere facade, but it is part of who he really is and also forms part of the reason why he is able to succeed in controlling his lust (Brett, n.p).               The Beast is symbol of dual nature of the males whereby the outside portrays the rough and manipulative males while the inside is full of love and care, similar to Beauty’s father. He is strong on the outside and strict with his daughters although in the inside he is compassionate and loves them hence takes care of them despite losing his wealth (Brett, n.p). From the overall story, male presence is dominant and the Beauty has to make a choice between men that she is emotionally attached to in her life. Her father has been part of life for a long time but she then finds love and intimacy in the Beast, of which she wants to experience in her life as she also loves the Beast. Reference Brett, Jan. Beauty and the Beast. New York: Clarion Books, 1989. Print. N.p Source document

Learning Team Deliverable Essay

Measuring Domestic Output and National Income – Ch. 24 Topics comfortable Kris is comfortable with the concept of gross domestic product (GDP) as it is the dollar value of goods and services in a country during a set period. Walter is comfortable with the GDP concept and understands that is the economic thermometer of the country’s current financial status. Topics Struggle Kris still has to wrap his head around nominal GDP and real GDP when it comes to the GDP Price Index. So calculating real GDP is dividing nominal GDP by the price index. What is the difference between real GDP and nominal GDP? Walter also struggles with the concept of nominal GDP, and how it interacts with inflation. If GDP goes up and inflation goes down†¦it seems to be my understanding of the formula for calculating the nominal GDP that is holding me back. Application of topic GDP is fluctuates with whatever final good or service is bought by a customer. Living through life affects the GDP. If the GDP declines for too long, economists normally label the economy as being in a recession. Business Cycles, Unemployment and Inflation – Ch. 26 Topics comfortable Kris is comfortable with the different business cycles and measurement of unemployment. These items also affect the GDP. Walter is comfortable with the different symptoms of a recession, a period of decline lasting more than six months in total output. Of which high unemployment rates is another tell of a recession. Topics struggle Kris struggles with the concept of inflation and how it affects money today compared to money values in the past. Walter is struggling with defining a recession’s severity. Two examples given were the Great Depression and the recent recession in the last few years, Is the intensity or length of time that the recession lasts that makes one more severe than the other? Application of topic The business cycle is very familiar in Kris’ organization as the company goes through yearly contractions and expansions based on the demand from consumers in the market. The business cycle is also something Walter is familiar with in the hotel industry. The hotel industry goes up and done depending the current state of the economy. The Aggregate Expenditure Model – Ch. 28 Topics comfortable Kris is comfortable with the concepts of equilibrium GDP and disequilibrium GDP. Equilibrium is the point where goods produced equals goods purchased. Disequilibrium is any situation where goods produced are greater than goods purchased and vice versa. Walter is comfortable with the concept of GDP equilibrium, The basic premise of this equilibrium being that supply meets demand. Topics struggle Kris did not struggle with any concepts in the chapter, as they were all straightforward and easy to understand. Walter struggled with the concept of disequilibrium and how often, or what circumstances causes this to happen. I assume it is the opposite of the equilibrium and that demand supply exceeds demand but do not feel comfortable enough with the concept to say for sure. Application of topic As such, Kris cannot think of a time where there was equilibrium GDP. In reality, consumer tastes vary and it would be difficult to reach equilibrium Walter thinks that when the economy is doing well the equilibrium can be met because consumers are finically settled to continue purchasing products and business continue to produce according to demand. Aggregate Demand and Aggregate Supply – Ch. 29 Topics comfortable Kris is comfortable with aggregate demand in which it shows the real GDP that consumers desire to purchase at different price levels. Aggregate supply shows the relationship between the price level and the output of producers. Walter is comfortable with the concept of aggregate demand, and how consumer spending and government investments play into that calculation. As prices increases, consumer demand decreases and vice versa. Topics struggle Kris did not struggle with any concepts in this chapter. Walter struggled with understanding why aggregate supply is not affected by price levels. Application of topic Supply and demand is central to the market and economics in general. Consumer tastes always affect supply and demand. When the economy is bad and underemployment is high the demand for hig priced products decreases. Fiscal Policy, Deficits, and Debt – Ch. 30 Topics comfortable Kris is comfortable with fiscal policy, deficits, and debt as it affects his organization. Market rates are affected by the fiscal policy of the government. More or less spending affects the company’s contraction or expansion. Walter is comfortable with the concept that the fiscal debt and deficit show the governments current financial state. Topics struggle Kris struggles with the concept of automatic or built-in stabilizers. As the text states that a built-in stabilizer is something that increases the government’s budget, what kind of items constitute as a built-in stabilizer? Walter did not struggle with any of the general concepts in chapter 30. Application of topic The budget deficit affects all citizens as the government does not wisely use the tax payer’s funds properly. There is a lot of waste that keep the  government in debt. Walter notes that when the fiscal debt is higher so are taxes and fines. The misspending of the government is then the burden of the people.