The First Arrival Of Negroes - 959 Words

In order to know why, you need to know when, where, and how slavery began. The first arrival of negroes was in the 1619, in Jamestown Virginia. Brought here against their will, the adolescents, men, women, and children, were all brought to the United States of America against there will, to work for people that only wanted money and power. While many black men and women believed that they had gained freedom, it would be removed immediately. However, majority of the black men and women never gained freedom, their are also many that changed history. Around 1911 and 1912, the southern states spent would spend on average ten dollars and thirty-two cents on educating individual Caucasian children. However, only two dollars and eighty-nine cents was spent on educating individual African children. People refused, to allow the negroes to have a job, because they believed that they were thieves and criminals. They also claimed that they were under educated, while that could have only been th e slave owners fault. How did they believe that someone who was always being yelled at and punished to not want to retaliate in the same manner? If it is known that you should treat others the same way you want to be treated, how is it that when a white man steals ones belongings, they may be sentenced to several years to jail, but when the tables are turned and it is a negroes doing, a full life sentence or death is offered? Would a negro choose the death punishment over life, because heShow MoreRelatedGarvey s Theory Of Economic And Political Reformation1023 Words   |  5 Pagesdangerous theory of economic and political reformation because it seeks to put government in the hands of an ignorant white mass who have not been able to destroy their natural prejudices towards Negroes and other non-white people. While it may be a good thing for them, it will be a bad thing for the Negroes who will fall under the government of the most ignorant, prejudiced class of the white race (Nolan , 1951). Garvey s plan involved letting the communists fight their own battles. African AmericansRead More Racism Or Slavery Essay953 Words   |  4 Pages Racism or Slavery, which came first? nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;Racism or slavery, neither, this essay will document the prejudice against Africans from Europeans that led into slavery and racism. Prejudice issues in a dislike for an individual or group of these individuals. This dislike can simulate from many differences that are shared, religion, culture, system of living (government and social practice), or in some cases looks. nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;â€Å"Initially English contact withRead MoreRedemption Review. â€Å"I Found That The Negroes Who Had Been1218 Words   |  5 PagesRedemption Review â€Å"I found that the negroes who had been declared free by the United States were not free, in fact that they were living under a code that made them worse than slaves; and I found that it was necessary, as commanding officer, to protect them, and I did† (pg. 55). Those are the words of Governor Adelbert Ames, a former general of the Union army, turned senator and later becoming the governor of Mississippi. Ames was advocate in ensuring that negroes receive the rights that they wereRead MoreThe Autobiography Of Malcolm X By Alex Haley Essay1398 Words   |  6 PagesMalcolm X had a very interesting life and there were several aspects that affected his views of American society. In â€Å"The Autobiography of Malcolm X† by Alex Haley, the three main things that effected Malcolm’s life was his arrival in the city of Boston, the conk he received, and his brother Reginald. These three symbols changed his life forever. Also all of them were connected as well. Malcolm X, being from Lansing, Michigan, never expected his life to change as drastically as it did. Growing upRead MoreWhite People At The Beginning Of The 17th Century997 Words   |  4 Pagesmales. â€Å"This law represents the loss of legal protection for a slave s life in Virginia. It also was the first of several laws passed during the last thirty years of the seventeenth century that reduced the personal rights of black men and women. â€Å"Whereas the only law in force for the punishment of refractory servants resisting their master, mistress or overseer cannot be inflicted upon negroes, nor the obstinacy of many of them by other then violent means suppress.† Source: Hening, ed., The StatutesRead MoreTriangular trade.970 Words   |  4 PagesAnalyze the role of slavery and Triangular trade in the Colonial mercantile structure and for the primitive accumulation of Capital that allowed the take off of Capitalism? The slave trade originated in a shortage of labor in the New World. The first slaves used were Native American people, but they were not numerous enough and were being decimated by European cruelty and diseases. It was also impossible to convince enough Europeans to migrate to the colonies, despite attempts to distribute freeRead MoreEssay on American Immigration1388 Words   |  6 Pages(American Cities/New York/African American/Intergroup Relations/Color Lines). New York City was a prime location for the immigrants and migrants of the time to create their new lives. They joked that â€Å"The Jews own New York, the Irish run it and the Negroes enjoy it† (American Cities/New York/African American/Intergroup Relations/Color Lines). The single line clearly shows how each group, Jewish, Italian, and African American, had distinct experiences from one another. Although they had experiences thatRead MoreI, Tituba, Black Witch of Salem by Maryse Condà ©1133 Words   |  5 Page sand suffering is caused by the hands of men, in particular, white men. The most prominent destructive white male in Titubas life is Samuel Parris. From the moment Tituba is placed into Parris ownership, he is quote clear about his hatred for Negroes. He thrives on he power bestowed upon him by the forces of racism and, at the same time, cowardly hides behind the mask of religion. He treats Tituba as if she is worthless, and undeserving of a happy life, which breaks down her sense of self-worthRead MoreEssay on Importance of the Trial in To Kill a Mockingbird1235 Words   |  5 Pagesto Tom he was caught by his inability to hit a white woman and the extreme taboo that Maycomb placed on any form of sexual contact. He had no choice but to run from Mayella when he got the chance. Unfortunately for Tom the chance came with the arrival of Bob Ewell at the window.    The trial itself provides Harper Lee with the opportunity to examine the attitudes of people like the Ewells and the presumably more respectable members of the jury. Bob Ewell emerges as a drunken, bullyingRead MoreThe Spanish Slave Trade Between 1500 And 1866 Essay1019 Words   |  5 Pagesintention of gaining wealth and spreading Christianity, the Spanish launched their ships in the coastal regions of the West Indies. Christopher Columbus, upon arrival, forcefully dominated the land of the â€Å"Indians†. In his letter to King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella, the Spanish sailor mentioned that as soon as he arrived in Indies, in the first Island which he found, he took by force some of them, in order that they might learn and give him information of that which there is in those parts.1 For the

The Great Essay - 1449 Words

The Great The Corruptness of the American Dream The nineteen twenties was a decade of renaissance characterized by the American Dream- the widespread aspiration of Americans to live better than their parents. F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel, The Great Gatsby, contains themes that continue to be relevant today. In his novel, Fitzgerald reprehends the American dream by describing its characteristics: the pseudo-relationship between money and happiness, the superficiality of the rich, and the class strife between the rich and the poor. â€Å"The American Dream is that dream of a land in which life should be better and richer and fuller for everyone, with opportunity for each according to ability or achievement† (Mailer 97). This†¦show more content†¦Perhaps the real problem; however, is that he felt powerless in his life. Although he was wealthy, there was one thing he did not have-Daisy Buchanan. For many years, Gatsby idolized Buchanan and found her to be completely desirable and without flaws. Buchanan was wealthy and had a lot of social power. In addition, she was very attractive. The only flaw most people would see in Daisy is that she is married. Gatsby, because of his arrogant nature, did not care that she was married. Since he believed that only his feelings were important, he decided that he would try to take Daisy away from her husband. Gatsby stated, â€Å"I don’t think she ever loved him [her husband] (Fitzgerald 159). Gatsby’s imagination and arrogance led to his decline. Gatsby’s dream was not successful. Since he did not â€Å"have† Daisy, his life was purposeless and empty. In fact, he had nothing to live for. His wealth had not brought him happiness. Instead, however, it brought him great displeasure: he had no friends and no family members to talk to. Fitzgerald used Gatsby to illustrate that wealth cannot make one happy. In fact, being excessively wealthy can actually make people miserable. Gatsby did not know what to do with his life. He decided to lie about his life to make him seem more successful and go after a girl who was married. Moreover, the superficiality of the rich is very apparent in the idea of the American Dream. Daisy andShow MoreRelatedThe Great Depression And Great Recession Essay1700 Words   |  7 PagesThe Great Depression and Great Recession were two unique events that had monumental impact on the economy. Both had similarities, and differences that made them unique. The Great Depression was caused by people living on credit, and when it was time to pay they didn’t have the money, this happened on a wide spread scale. The crashing of the stock market was what officially started the Great Depression in 1929. The great recession was caused by subprime mortgages as well, as risk taking by financialRead MoreGreat Depression And The Great Recession864 Words   |  4 PagesThe â€Å"Great Depression† and the â€Å"Great Recession† are two of the darkest times in American history. There is much debate about the cause of the Great Depression and how it differed from the cause o f the Great Recession. Many people believe that the stock market crash of 1929 played a major role the Great Depression. On the other hand, the stock market crash of 2008 drove America into the Great Recession. The causes of stock market crashes are often unforeseen, but many have detectable indicators.Read MoreGreat Recession And The Great Depression906 Words   |  4 PagesGREAT ECONOMIC TIMES IN AMERICA The Great Recession and the Great Depression are the fallout of the exact same economic problems and are only different in a few respects. Each period is marked by a massive run ups in asset prices followed by a crash in the stock market and sent both debt and equity markets down. These periods are said to be the worse economic downturn in the country’s history. During the great depression, as banks failed and threatened to shut down the financial system altogetherRead MoreGreat Impact Of The Great Lakes1870 Words   |  8 PagesThe Great Impact of the Great Lakes Glaciers are formed in places where there is adequate snowfall and cold temperatures; specifically, the area needs to have temperatures that are less than 32* F and more snow than is able to melt in the summer. Present-day, glaciers only form in high latitudes and high elevations. However, 14,000 years ago, during the Pleistocene Ice Age, Michigan was covered by a mile-and-half-mile deep glacier. Over thousands of years, the temperatures alternated from warm toRead MoreEssay on The Great Gatsby and the Great Depression1145 Words   |  5 PagesThe Great Gatsby and the Great Depression      Ã‚  Ã‚   When F. Scott Fitzgerald published The Great Gatsby in 1925, it was impossible for him to predict that only four years later his story would be enacted in real-life during the Great Depression.   There are many prophetic symbols in the novel that tie The Great Gatsby and the Great Depression together.      Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   The twenties was a decade full of new financial opportunities in a society unable to adopt so much so quickly.   All of theRead MoreHow Great Was Alexander The Great?810 Words   |  4 PagesHow Great Was Alexander the Great? You are trudging through the desert. The sun is blazing and you are already very dehydrated. You are very discouraged and are ready to give up. Some scouts came back from a search for water they are carrying a helmet in their hands. You see them walk past you towards the King. Of course he gets it. You get jealous and upset. You see him lift up the helmet †¦ and dump it on the sandy floor. What’s happening? Why did he waste it. You hear him speak, â€Å"If there is notRead MoreThe Great Depression and the Great Recession2123 Words   |  9 Pagesresulting from an extended period of negative economic activity as measured by GDP .The great economic depression of the US from 1929-1939 was one of the worst economic depressions in the world economy. The GDP per capita of the United States fell by a third (Federico 2005). A lot of economic activities went down and so many people suffered. Even though the depression affect the rest of the world, it has been called the great d epression of the US because it’s believed that the US suffered more than any otherRead MoreAlexander The Great : The Characters Of Alexander The Great1222 Words   |  5 PagesFrom the beginning of his short-lived life in Pella, the capital of Macedonia, Alexander the Great was immensely affected by the traits of his mother, father, and tutor. Philip II, king of Macedonia and Alexander’s father, was a man of great strategic ability, and gave Alexander practice in military leadership. This experience and knowledge passed down from his father became useful during his conquest across Europe. Olympias, one of Philip II’s wives and Alexander’s mother, had incredibly strongRead MoreThe Great Death of the Great Gatsby Essay741 Words   |  3 PagesThe story The Great Gatsby written by F. Scott Fitzgerald takes you through the life of the protagonist of the novel, Jay Gatsby, who is shot to death in the end. Who was really the reason for Gatsby’s death? There are many of reasons that lead up to Gatsby’s death and several people who are considered to have caused it. Although George Wilson physically killed him, Tom Buchanan, Daisy Buchanan and Jay Gatsby himself all take part in the death. Tom’s anger, Daisy’s carelessness, and Gatsby’s ideaRead MoreThe Great Depression Essay1390 Words   |  6 PagesIntroduction: The world had faced two main economic problems. The first one was the Great Depression in the early of 20th Century. The second was the recent international financial crisis in 2008. The United States and Europe suffered severely for a long time from the great depression. The great depression was a great step and changed completely the economic policy making and the economic thoughts. It was not only an economic situation bit it was also miserable making, made people more attention

Business Plan Healthy Restaurant free essay sample

Plan â€Å"Good eating Good looking† Free Healthy Foods Restaurant Business Plan: Executive Summary * This is a business plan for a a fast-casual restaurant, serving fast, fresh, healthy grilled meats and vegetables. Business Plan Mission Statement: * Good eating Good looking will offer a trendy, fun place to have great, healthy food, vitamins shackes in a social environment. Our Chef has a large repertoire of healthy ingredients and recipes. Good eating Good looking forecasts that the majority of purchases will be from the dietitian’s recommendations. Healthy recipes will be used to provide the customers with a diverse, unusual menu. Chef will also emphasize healthy dishes, recognizing the trend within the restaurant industry for the demand for healthy cuisine. The Market * The first restaurant will open in Nicosia ( The population of Nicosia on January 1st 2011 is approximately 239,945). The second group that will be targeted is young happy customers which are growing at an annual rate of 8% with potential customers. We will write a custom essay sample on Business Plan Healthy Restaurant or any similar topic specifically for you Do Not WasteYour Time HIRE WRITER Only 13.90 / page The third group is rich hippies who naturally desire healthy foods as well as ethnic cuisine. The fourth group which is particularly interested in the menus healthy offerings is dieting women which number in the area. The fifth group families and individuals. Families make up the majority of dinner time business with individuals making up the majority of lunch time business. The family segment is increasing annually at with potential customers. The individuals have a growth rate with potential people within the segment. â€Å"Good eating Good looking† will operate in the fast-casual niche of the restaurant industry, competing against fast food franchises and traditional sit down restaurants. Healthy Restaurant Business Plan Forecast: Competitive Edge The customer experience is extremely important as an effective way of distinguishing â€Å"Good eating Good looking†. Having such a good experience will encourage repeat business. The second competitive edge is â€Å"Good eating Good looking† offering of fast, healthy food. Business Plan Forecasts â€Å"Good eating Good looking† is forecasting for  aggressive growth. Each location will be ? square feet, on average, able to serve approximately ? people. For restaurants to succeed, the key factor is location. We had developed criteria for future site locations (density business areas of the city, close to gym ) Healthy Restaurant Sample Profit Plan (First Year)

The arctic race Essay Example For Students

The arctic race Essay The Arctic Race, a long marathon involving men walking along white snow plains to reach the South Pole first. There are many ways in which you can die, such as glaciers, frost-bit, lack of food that isnt frozen and of course, Polar Bears, which is what this story is all about. In the frozen waste-lands near the South Pole, actually it was never really known where this story took place, but what is known is what happened. In the ice-cold, three men were walking through the white plains. The first man was called Damien, he was English, Woo-pang was from China and Thomas was from America. We will write a custom essay on The arctic race specifically for you for only $16.38 $13.9/page Order now These three men were just walking along when suddenly one of them stopped and said Look. Where? Woo- Pang replied There, up ahead. What? Up there? asked Thomas. Yes. Theres a good place to set up camp. Damien pointed out. So they all walked over to what looked like a shelter and set up camp there. During the night, Woo-Pang heard a noise. He sat up and saw a shadow against the tent. He woke up Damien and Thomas and they all sat still and watched as the shadow moved slowly toward the tent entrance. Wheres the gun? Damien whispered. Hang on, Ill just look. Woo-Pang started to rummage through his rucksack. Its not there. He said finally Well then where is it? Oh. Oh, what? Its outside, I think. You think? What are we going to defend ourselves with? asked Thomas. All we have are distress flares. Replied Woo-Pang. Great. Just great. Damien sighed. By this time the shadow was almost at the entrance and then Damien said with amazement; Ive got it. What? said Thomas and Woo-Pang together Aarrgghh! The shadow jumped into the tent. It was a Polar Bear. It grabbed Thomas by the leg and tried to drag him outside, but Damien grabbed Thomass hand just before he disappeared. Help me! Thomas shouted. Hold on! Damien shouted back. AARrgghh! Thomas vanished from view. Blood splattered the outside of the tent. Give me the flares. Damien shouted to Woo-Pang. The Polar Bears head appeared again , this time it was covered in blood. Damien set off one of the distress flares and thrust it into the Polar Bears eye. Take that! he shouted. The Polar Bear turned, and ran off whimpering. Is he gone? asked Woo-Pang. Damien sniffed. What is that smell? Woo-Pang rummaged through the rucksack and found a tin of anchovies which was slightly open. Lets get moving Damien said. By the morning, they had packed all of their stuff up and were walking back to headquarters. They had discarded the tin of anchovies and that is the story of how Polar Bears can be very dangerous and also that theres a bear right next to me so I AARRGGHHhhhh.

Everything You Need to Know About WordPress Private Posts

Wondering what the deal is with WordPress private posts? When creating a WordPress page or post, you may have looked over that little Visibility area in the Publish module. Underneath it, you see three radio buttons: Public, Password Protected, and Private.So whats with that private option? If youre publishing a blog post, dont you want the whole world to see it? Well, not all the time, seeing as how WordPress private posts are wonderful for internal corporate communications, restricted content, and documentation that regular customers might not need to see. Private WordPress posts lock  all unauthorized users out of that content. Only certain logged-in users can navigate to the post and view whats on it.An advantage of a private WordPress post is the power you have when granting user access. For instance, you dont need to let all users see the post. If you have a blog post with SEO guidelines for your writers, you might restrict entry for those who arent listed as Authors.The proc ess is simple for creating private posts. So, well walk through a tutorial on making a post private, right after explaining some of the instances where WordPress private posts can come in handy.Some situations where WordPress private posts come in handyHere are some situations where private posts can be helpful:For a product or service launch One of the advantages of a private post or page is that it still gets published. Since several stakeholders are often involved with new ideas and product launches, it makes sense to place the post in a live environment, while also locking out all guests. The admins have full control over which stakeholders see the private page.For content or design tweaks Although a sandbox setting is the preferred method for developers, many bloggers enjoy publishing posts and formatting articles with a live post. Theres no need to hit the Preview button, and it gives you a real-world test into how content appears. Not only that, but you can run the content by your editors in that published form.For an exclusive community Some forums and membership communities are private because of exclusivity. Others involve special people in an organization.For internal training and reference pages This is one of the most common ways to use WordPress private posts. A writing guide, customer support training module, or something of the sort, doesnt need the highest security. However, website visitors dont need to see this information.For a private blog Some folks like to journal without the pressure of other people seeing it. A private WordPress post gives you an official publication atmosphere as opposed to previewing the post and storing it as a draft. In addition, it still gives you the option to share posts with friends or family.Specialized content You may want to lock content thats reserved for special users. Although its entirely possible to share private posts with specific user groups, your  best bet is to go with a content gateway plu gin or membership site. Think of the private post option as the poor mans content gate.Are private posts a good option for sensitive information?By default, anyone with a user role of Editor or Administrator can see all the private posts on your site. They also have control over changing the privacy settings. Keep this in mind when working in an environment with multiple editors or admins. There might be someone who shouldnt be reading the private post, or they may accidentally  (or purposefully) make the post public without you knowing.Furthermore, private posts arent ironclad safes. I dont recommend publishing any sensitive information using WordPress private posts. For instance, lawyers and real estate agents shouldnt publish contracts. Similarly, eCommerce companies should avoid publishing any customer information.Overall, private posts generate hidden parts of your website not completely protected parts. Its more of an advantage when youd like to not bother users, while stil l maintaining a fluid work environment.Are the images in private posts still private?All images are technically available to the public, even when you publish them as part of private posts. Anyone can obtain these images if they have the image URL. Although its not probable, its certainly possible. Finally, all Authors on your site can view the images in the media library.How to create private posts in WordPressCertain user roles can view and edit private posts. These roles include:Administrator Can view, create, edit, and delete any private post, regardless of who made it.Editor Can view, create, edit, and delete any private post, regardless of who made it.Author Can view, create, edit, and delete  their own posts. Authors cannot view or edit private posts created by other users, though.Step 1: Create a new post/page or edit an old oneIm sure most people know how to add or edit a post, but I wanted to let you know that its possible to make a private post from a new one or one thats already published and public.Step 2: Edit the posts visibilityGo to the Publish module on your post.Find the Visibility section and click on the Edit link.Switch the Public radio button to the one that reads Private. Click on the OK button to lock it in.If this is a new post, click the Publish button. If its an old one, youll see the Update button.Step 3: Publish the post and check its privacyYou can test WordPress private posts by logging in as an Admin or Editor. If you see the Private: text before the title, only the Admin and Editors can see it.Your site will direct other users to a 404 page.Step 4: Share the post with certain user groups (optional) WP JV Post Reading Groups Author(s): Janos VerCurrent Version: 2.2Last Updated: December 28, 2018wp-jv-post-reading-groups.2.2.zip 80%Ratings 6,204Downloads 3.9.2Requires By default, only Admins and Editors can view private posts. However, if youd like to show your content to specific user groups (like family members or colleagues,) the  WP JV Post Reading plugin  helps you out with that.If youre a little bit more advanced in your WordPress knowledge, you can also use WordPress user roles and the User Role Editor plugin  to give additional user roles access to the read_private_posts and read_private_pages capabilities. This will allow those user roles to view private posts and pages, as well.Thats it! If you have any questions about WordPress private posts, share your thoughts in the comments. How to create #WordPress private posts + some cool things you can do with them

The Boer War Essays - Afrikaner People, South Africa, Kimberley

The Boer War Essays - Afrikaner People, South Africa, Kimberley The Boer War The Boer War of 1899 was a dirty little conflict. It started a result of cultural resentment between the Boers (Dutch settlers) and immigrating British. At first, the war was fought with the honor typically associated with the British, but, in the end, it turned nasty. South Africa's Cape of Good Hope was colonized in the 17th century by Dutch Boers (farmers). The Boers used African slaves on their farms. Britain occupied the Cape during the Napoleonic wars and took complete control after the Congress of Vienna. Slavery was abolished throughout the British Empire in 1833. Many of the Boers then decided that they could no longer live under British rule. They began moving northward and soon established two independent republics the Transvaal and the Orange Free State. There was peace between British and Boers until the Boer republics were found to be rich in diamonds and gold. Fortune hunters, mostly British, poured in to stake claims. The Dutch farmers called these people uitlander s (outlanders) and bitterly resented their intrusion. In 1895 the outlanders in the Transvaal planned a revolt against the Boer government. The British Empire, seeing their subjects mistreated, decided to get involved. Leander Jameson, with a small British force, invaded the Transvaal to aid the uprising. The Jameson raid was a total failure. The angered Boers, led by their president, Paul Kruger, began to arm themselves. Militarily, the conflict between Boer and British forces can be divided into two phases: first, a period of Boer commando successes, quickly reversed after the arrival of the main British force in January 1900, which captured the republican capitals between March and June. Then came a guerrilla phase when the Boer forces regrouped after the fall of Pretoria and carried on the conflict for two years before reluctantly accepting peace terms from the British in May 1902 in the Treaty of Pretoria. Though often called a 'white man's war', this conflict involved the entire population of South Africa in one way or another. Boer women and children who were evicted from farms or villages put to the torch by the British, were either sent to concentration camps where many died from disease, or went to endure the exposure of commando life in the field. African ex-miners and farm laborers were also concentrated in camps, and drawn into labor tasks by the British Army. Boers raided the African reserves for food. Africans reasserted control over land and livestock previously taken by Boers, and on rare occasions attacked Boer commandos. Martial law was proclaimed step by step across the whole region, and the movements of people were drastically restricted. For African scouts on the British side, or Boers caught in captured British uniforms, punishments were swift and final, while of the 10 000 Cape Afrikaner rebels convicted of treason, a small proportion of those sentenced to death by military courts were indeed shot. Under Gruger*s Republic, Natal and the Cape, two of Britain's colonies, were invaded in October 1899 by the Boers. They besieged a British force at Ladysmith. Other troops were pinned down at Kimberley and Mafeking. The second war, which lasted until 1902, was underway. Between September 1900 and the peace of Pretoria in May 1902, Boer commandos fought a prolonged guerrilla war against the British, who responded by putting Boer civilians in concentration camps. Then reinforcements came to the British from Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. In March 1900 Frederick Sleigh Roberts, the British commander who had been the hero of the Indian mutiny, captured Bloemfontein, capital of the Orange Free State. In June British forces reached Pretoria, capital of the Transvaal. The greatly outnumbered Boers continued to fight under Louis Botha, Christiaan de Wet, and Jan Smuts. Herbert Kitchener, the new British commander in chief, then decided and eventually proceeded to bring the war to an end. He advanced slowly, burning farms and establishing concentration camps for Boer civilians. The camps had a high death rate, due largely to lack of medical services. The Treaty of Pretoria (May 31, 1902) ended the war. The Transvaal and the Orange Free State became British colonies. Both Dutch and English were made official languages. Britain then began to restore the

How is toy selection associated with gender-roles and acceptance in Essay

How is toy selection associated with gender-roles and acceptance in the play ground with 5yr old children - Essay Example This paper intends to get preliminary research on the way at which children below the age of five years behave while at the play ground. It will analyze the findings of how they will react or interact with each other as a result of possessing a specific kind of toy. It will also from an analytical point of view look at the relationship between the choice of a toy by a target participant and their perceived roles while playing with each other in the play ground. The main aim of this study is to understand the relationship between children’s toy selection and gender-roles and also acceptance as observed in the play grounds. The findings are replicated to conform to what other researchers in the past have linked the three issues above. Specifically, I shall become a participant/observant in the whole process and take part in noting the behaviors of the children with reference to the toys they own. A co-nomination type of monitoring is applied while singling out every child in terms of the various types of toys owned by the children. By summarizing how many social interactions and the rate of acceptance of each child to their peers There is an already built up assumption that children tend to associate more with specific toys and may become afflicted with specific types of the toys. The roles of these children become more pronounced by the way they particularly take care of these toys. It is believed that children begin to adopt responsible behaviors right at the beginning of this tender age. In addition, there is an assumption that more children tend to acquire and strengthen their roles in the society by exercising them through their toys. This hypothesis is strong and can guide people including parents to build on that basis. Female and male children while at this stage are not sensitive of their roles within their peers but there is some sense of responsiveness to some kind of actions by the

Potential Employees' use of Google and Facebook to Assess Applicants Assignment

Potential Employees' use of Google and Facebook to Assess Applicants - Assignment Example Technology which has remained indispensable to most organizations today is undoubtedly changing and advancing their internal operations. The work of human resource departments specifically has been made easier with the advent of technology especially social networks, because they can easily evaluate the integrity and moral life of the applicant outside the professional field. Most firms would wish their employees to uphold high level of integrity within and without job settings because everywhere they are they represent the organizations image. (Zeidner,2007) This paper will try to evaluate the legal and professional implications of applying the utilitarian approach of ethics which is purely meant to ensure employers full satisfaction with a least harm to the affected i.e. customers, employees, shareholders, community and the environment. The investigation will offer more information on the legal implications of invading applicant’s privacy and also the need for the applicants to enhance their privacy settings besides minding what they post to the public. The key question that this paper will address is on whether employers should invade the applicant’s privacy during recruiting processIn order to complete this research work successfully, there are different aspects of methodology which were used. One of them was the sampling of participants who included employers, employees and job seekers in the proportion of 5, 7, and 8 respectively. They were emailed structured questionnaire which was later received and the information collected was presented. The questionnaires were mainly used to collect primary data but there are also other ways through which data was collected such as interviews. Information was also collected from secondary sources of which mainly included books, academic articles and journals. The information collected in the secondary sources as presented earlier on makes it possible to compare what has been written and the information which was collected first hand through the questionnaires. Findings Throughout the data collected and analyzed and presented, there were a number of findings which were established. The most outstanding view was that applicants especially students be very careful with the posts they make because it could give poor judgment and career limiting effects. They believed that currently there is no proper legal framework regarding posts on face book. One employer stated that they found a provocative picture and content related to drugs abuse on face book page of the potential applicants’ wall which made him to lose the job. Applicants had the view that it is unethical for most employers to view their face book profiles. The findings sated that most students tended to drew a line between the

Health Promotion Plan on Substance Abuse Assignment

Health Promotion Plan on Substance Abuse - Assignment Example The selected population stratum for this teaching program is teenage school students within the age limit of 13-14 years. This segment is particularly selected because researches have shown that substance abuse usually begins in early teenage life due to various factors and not only affects the quality of present life by causing physical and mental distress but also leads to alcoholism and drug addiction later. Literature Review Alcoholism and drug addiction is an increasing problem in adolescents these days. Various researches conducted have shown an increasing trend in the consumption of sentence abuse. Where there are various factors identified for this increased pattern of consumption, one of them was found to be unsupervised teenage life in which substance abuse leads to addiction in later part of life. According to researches conducted by Changalwa et al. (2012), Bahr and Hoffman (2012) and, Peckham and Morgan-Lopez (2007), there is a direct link between parenting styles and su bstance abuse in teenagers and adolescents. Teenagers with unhealthy or strained bonding with their parents and guardians tend to develop inclination towards substance abuse during their teenage life which leads to addiction in future. ... ces of them drinking excessively later in life.† Hence, children with their parents having authoritative parenting style tend to develop healthy personalities since this parenting style is a combination of love, independence and supervision allowing children to make decisions (shunning rebellion resulting substance abuse) but with necessary guidance (which allows teenagers to be aware of what is harmful for them and do not give them over-independence). Therefore, child’s desires are well-respected but with necessary controls imposed. According to American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry (2011), â€Å"The most commonly used illegal drugs are marijuana (pot), stimulants (cocaine, crack, and speed), LSD, PCP, opiates, heroin, and designer drugs (Ecstasy).   The use of illegal drugs is increasing, especially among young teens.   The average age of first marijuana use is 14, and alcohol use can start before age 12.   The use of marijuana and alcohol in high school has become common†. It is important to note that drugs and alcohol are not easily accessible commodities. Therefore, for teenagers to have access to them means getting involved in criminal activities or being present in an environment which is harmful for their cognitive growth. According to researches of Baumrind (1991) and Njenga (2005), environment and inheritance are the two decisive factors which instigate substance abuse in teenagers. For an environment, current family setup, daily settings including academic setup and playgrounds, cultural forces and peer pressure are the basic elements which have direct impact on the teenagers and adolescents. On the other hand, hereditary traits also play a vital role in inducing substance abuse even if the environment is healthy enough. Various researches

Prevalence of Refractive Errors in School Children

Prevalence of Refractive Errors in School Children Introduction : Uncorrected errors of refractions have become one of the major important public health problems worldwide nowadays. They include myopia , hyperopia and astigmatism . Myopia (nearsightedness)is an ocular disorder in which the optical power of the eye is very strong for the corresponding axis. (1) It represents a major health problem among school children and it is reported that there are about 80 millions myopic child in the world.(2) It has two groups simple myopia or non pathogenic ( 6 diopters ) that is progressive and presents at early childhood. (3) Hyperopia or ( farsightedness) is categorized by the degree of refractive error into : Low hyperopia is +2.00D or less, Moderate hyperopia ranges from +2.25 to +5.00D, and High hyperopia is +5.25D or more but rarely reach +8 D. (4) Astigmatism is a condition that may affect both farsighted and nearsighted people . It is due to corneal or lenticular irregularities that cause blurring of vision. Mild and moderate astigmatism have the r ange of ( 1 to 2 D ) , severe astigmatism ( 2-3 D) , while the extreme astigmatism reach > 3 D . About 5-15% of children are considered to have refractive errors ( world health organization WHO ,2001) .In 2002 , 161 million people globally have been reported to be visually impaired due to different eye diseases as cataract , trachoma and onchocerciasis ( but errors of refractions as a cause was not included in such statistics) (WHO 2002 ). But since then , the WHO and the International Agency for the Prevention of Blindness(IAPB), both separately and with them the global initiative ,VISION 2020: The Right to Sight, have worked very hard to include uncorrected errors of refractions in such statistics due to their great importance in visual impairment occurrence. So on October 12, 2006 , the WHO has revealed the magnitude of visually impaired people due to uncorrected errors of refraction to be 153 millions either blind or of low vision , with at least 13 million children (aged 5†“15 years) (5,6) Blindness is defined in terms of visual acuity (VA) as 3/60 in the better seeing eye and low vision as VA between 6/18 to 3/60 in the better seeing eye , but all on the base of the presenting visual acuity rather than the best corrected visual acuity . And so, uncorrected errors of refractions become the second main cause of preventable blindness ( 18%) after the cataract (39%). (7,8). Uncorrected refractive errors are major problem in school children. Lead to inability to read what is written on chalkboard which greatly affect a child’s learning process.[19]. It has serious social effect on the child in school. Continuous blaming of the child as being lazy and stupid is very frequent by non-responsible teachers. schoolmates tease the child. These factors may lead to decrease the child’s performance leading to recurrent school failure. A study formed in Brazil showed the great impact of refractive errors on the child’s education. About 10% of these children at higher probability of dropping out of school. [11] Non-compliant Children who don’t wear spectacles had an average academic score lesser than compliant beers . But, there could be confounders for this like IQ.[17] the prevalence of visual impairment from uncorrected refractive errors in some regions appears to be higher in urban areas than in rural areas, despite the presence of better health services. This may be due to a high incidence of myopia in these populations because of direct relation between increased access to education and myopia.[12] The lack of screening, and the availability and affordability of refractive corrections are the most important. [12,13] Many factors that contribute for refractive errors remaining uncorrected like lack of awareness and recognition of the problem at personal and family level and community level, equipment for diagnosis and treatment of errors of refraction are not available (WHO, 1993). In the age group 5–15 years, non-correction of refractive errors is due to several factors like absence of screening program. However, cultural barriers and believes can play a role, as shown in studies from where free and easy routine screening program and aids to correct errors of refraction are present. [12,13] Poor access to refractive services in rural children, despite the fact that refractive errors are less common amongst rural children.[14,15] cosmetic factors like that the spectacles make the face look more nerdy, which may be more acceptable to girls and boys are more prone for activities and sports in rural areas.[13] A Tanzanian study showed that spectacles provided free of cost under insurance cove rage, were used less as compared to those the patient pay for them.[18] The age factor showing controversial effect on compliance of spectacles wear, increasing the age has minor negative effect in a study from Mexico, while it shows a positive effect in a study from rural china.[16, 17] less educated parents is a contributing factor for non-compliance of spectacle wear. Fathers education has more prominent effect than mother’s educational level. This may be due to that educated women always have equal or more educated husbands. Children from larger villages were more non-compliant than those from smaller villages. Cosmetics is not an important issue in small villages.[19] Non-availability of different types, shapes, colors, and sizes of spectacles is another cause. only one size spectacles that fit all ages is considered unfashionable. Small refractive errors (20] Many studies have been conducted in different parts of the world using the same protocol . The latest global estimate of prevalence of visually impaired children ( 5-15) due to refractive errors was 0.97% with higher prevalence in china and urban areas of south east Asia (9) Few studies were also conducted in Egypt , but one of largest studies conducted in Cairo , the capital of Egypt, using a large sample (6000) children from different governorates and socioeconomic classes has revealed the prevalence of refractive errors (VA = or So the objective of our study is to measure the prevalence of refractive errors among schoolchildren from (5 to 18 years ) at El-Demerdash hospital . Subjects Methods: A cross-sectional descriptive study is to be conducted where participants are selected from patients attending the Ophthalmology Department, at El Demerdash Hospital, with a total of 500 children; 250 boys and 250 girls. Age group ranges from 5-18 years and the study will take place in the period from February 2014 till July 2014. Each participating child will have his/her personal details recorded on a form, and will undergo a standard ophthalmological examination including: Visual Acuity (VA) with/without glasses, cycloplegic retinoscopy, cycloplegic autorefraction, external eye and fundus examination with all the results recorded. Refraction will be done using retinoscopy after 1% cyclopentolate eye drops instilled in the eyes at least half an hour prior to the examination. Only children who have a VA of less than 6/6 in at least one eye will undergo retinoscopy. Inclusion criteria: Any child at the school age of 5-18 years, attending the Ophthalmology Department, at El Demerdash hospital as inpatients, whose parents will sign a written informed consent forum. Exclusion criteria: Children who are unwilling to undergo the examination, although an informed consent is signed by their parents. Children with co-morbidities or other illness, or children taking any drugs that might have ocular side effects. Sampling method used is the convenience (purposeful) method, sample size of 500 patients with a sampling frame from the patients’ records are to be obtained at the start of the study. Data analysis: Data will be entered into a computerized database-using the CDC-WHO package EPI-INFO, and results of analysis are presented in the form of tables. Ethical considerations : The study protocol is approved by the ethical committee at Ain Shams University. Written informed consent are taken from parents or legal guardians as a pre requisite for inclusion References : 1-The National Eye Institue, The National Institute ofHealth.http://www.nei.nih.gov/healthyeyes/myopia.asp [May 2010] . 3-Friedman NJ, Kaiser PK. Essentials of Ophthalmology. Philadelphia, PA: Elsevier Inc; 2007:253-254. 4-Moore BD, Augsburger AR, Ciner EB, Cockrell DA, Fern KD, Harb E. Optometric Clinical Practice Guideline: Care of the Patient with Hyperopia. St. Louis, MO: American Optometric Association; 1997:1-29. 5-World Health Organization. Sight test and glasses could dramatically improve the lives of 150 million people with poor vision.Press release, 11 October 2006. http://www.who.int/mediacentre/news/releases/HYPERLINK http://www.who.int/mediacentre/news/releases/2006/pr55/en/index.html2006HYPERLINK http://www.who.int/mediacentre/news/releases/2006/pr55/en/index.html/prHYPERLINK http://www.who.int/mediacentre/news/releases/2006/pr55/en/index.html55HYPERLINK http://www.who.int/mediacentre/news/releases/2006/pr55/en/index.html/en/index.html. 6-Resnikoff S et al. Global data on visual impairment in the year 2002. Bulletin of the World Health Organization 7- Dandona R, Dandona L. Refractive error blindness. Bull World Health Organ. 2001;79(3):237–243. 8-World Health Organization. International Statistical Classification of Diseases and Related Health Problems. 10th Revision, 2nd Ed. Geneva,World Health Organization: 2005. 9.Zhao, J., Mao, J., Luo, R., Li, F., Pokharel, G. P., Ellwein, L. B. (2004). Accuracy of noncycloplegic autorefraction in school-age children in China. Optometry and Vision Science, 81, 49-55. http://dx.doi.org/HYPERLINK http://dx.doi.org/10.1097/00006324-200401000-0001010HYPERLINK http://dx.doi.org/10.1097/00006324-200401000-00010.HYPERLINK http://dx.doi.org/10.1097/00006324-200401000-000101097HYPERLINK http://dx.doi.org/10.1097/00006324-200401000-00010/HYPERLINK http://dx.doi.org/10.1097/00006324-200401000-0001000006324HYPERLINK http://dx.doi.org/10.1097/00006324-200401000-00010HYPERLINK http://dx.doi.org/10.1097/00006324-200401000-00010200401000HYPERLINK http://dx.doi.org/10.1097/00006324-200401000-00010HYPERLINK http://dx.doi.org/10.1097/00006324-200401000-0001000010 10. Negrel AD, Maul E, Pokharel GP, Zhao J, Ellwein LB. Refractive errorstudy in children: sampling and measurement methods for amulticountry survey. Am J Ophthalmol. 2000;129(4):421–426. 11. Gomes-Neto J, Hanushek E, Leite R, Frota-Bezzera R. Health and schooling: evidence and policy implications for developing countries. Econ Edu Rev. 1997;16(3):271–282. 12.Khandekar, R., Mohammed, A. J., Al Raisi, A. (2002). The compliance of spectacle wear and its determinants among school children of Dhakhiliya region of the Sultanate of Oman. A descriptive study. Sultan Qaboos University Journal for Scientific Research Medical Sciences, 4, 39-42. 13.Preslan, M. W., Novak, A. (1998). Baltimore vision screening project. Phase 2 Ophthalmology, 105, 150-3. 14.Dandona R, Dandona L, Srinivas M, Sahare P, Narsaiah S, Muà ±oz SR, et al. Refractive error in children in a rural population in India.Invest Ophthalm Visc sci.2002;43:623–31.[PubMed] 15.Murthy GVS, Gupta SK, Ellwein LB, Muà ±oz SR, Pokharel GP, Sanga L, et al. Refractive error in children in an urban population in New Delhi.Invest Ophthalm Visc Sci.2002;43:615–22. 16.Congdon N, Zheng M, Sharma A, Choi K, Song Y, Zhang M, et al. Prevalence and determinants of spectacle non-wear among rural Chinese secondary school children. The Xichang Pediatric Refractive Error Study Report 3.Arch Ophthalmol.2008;126:1717–23.[PubMed] 17.Castanon Holguin AM, Congdon N, Patel N, Esteso P, Toledo Flores S, et al. Factors associated with spectacle-wear compliance in school-aged Mexican Children.Invest Ophthalmol Vis Sci.2006;47:925–8.[PubMed] 18.Esteso P, Castanon A, Toledo S, Rito MA, Ervin A, Wojciechowski R, et al. Correction of moderate myopia is associated with improvement in self-reported visual functioning among Mexican school-aged children.Invest Ophthalmol Vis Sci.2007;48:4949–54.[PubMed] 19.Preslan MN, Novak A. Baltimore vision screening project.Phase 2.Ophthalmology.1998;105:150–3.[PubMed] 20.Congdon NG, Patel N, Esteso P, Williams C, Wolke D. The association between refractive cutoffs for spectacle provision and visual improvement among school aged children in south Africa.Br J Ophthalmol.2008;92:13–8.[PubMed]

Personal Reflections on the Self Essay

I  certify that  the attached  paper is my original work and has not previously been submitted by me or anyone else for any class. I further declare I have cited all sources from which I used  language, ideas, and information,  whether quoted  verbatim or paraphrased, and that any assistance of any kind, which I received while producing this paper, has been acknowledged in the References section. I have obtained written permission from the copyright holder for any trademarked material, logos, or images from the Internet or other sources. I further agree that my name typed  on the line below is intended to have, and shall have, the same validity as my handwritten signature. Student’s  signature (name typed here is equivalent to a signature):   Marjorie Neal When we talk about self, it is generally meant to be a reflection of an individual’s identity and separate from others and the environment (Huitt, 2009). The most widely used concepts when it comes to self are the self-concept and self-esteem. Self-esteem is the sense of self worth and dictates how we feel about ourselves where self-concept is dictated by how an individual answers the question â€Å"who am I? †(Myers, 2008). Research has shown that self-concept is the basis for all motivated behavior because self-concept that provides individuals with possible selves and those possible selves create the motivation for behavior (Huitt, 2009). Self-concept is built through the process of taking action and reflecting on the action one has taken as well as what others tell him about what he has done (Huitt, 2009). We are not born with a self-concept. Self-concept is developed through interaction with the environment and one’s reflection of that interaction. Self-concept has four parts: self-image, self-esteem, ideal-self and self-efficacy My sister had all the friends that my parents approved of, she got the good grades, she was not in special education classes and at home report cards and progress reports were constantly compared. I never heard that I was doing a great job or that I had improved on this subject or that it was always how wonderful my sisters grades were compared to my C’s that I worked very hard for in the early years. By the third grade I was behind in reading and math so I had to go to special classes to get help on those subjects. I not only felt inadequate at home but the other students in school made me feel very stupid and not good enough. I was picked on at school and called all sorts of names from stupid to Margarine to Rhino. Looking back it was kids being kids and picking on me because they could see that it bothered me. I used to come home in tears and all my parents said was to ignore them and they would stop but they did not stop. I was in the â€Å"loser† group and there was no getting out of it. By third grade I believed them. When I entered Junior High School, I started off in the lowest group for my classes, the one that all the troublemakers were in and all the â€Å"stupid† kids. I got tired of being lumped with those kids and decided I could do better so I decided I was going to work hard and talk to my teachers about moving up a group. In sixth grade I went from group four to group three at the half way point in the year. This gave me a bit of a boost but I still was not happy. I wanted to be one of the smart kids like my sister was so that my parents would be proud. So in seventh grade I worked harder and talk to my teachers and I was moved from group three into group two. I was feeling better about myself and continued to push harder until I was finally in group one by the end of the eighth grade. Being in group one meant I could take the college level classes I wanted to take in High School, it also meant that I was just as good as my sister was but that did nothing for me at home because I was struggling to pull C’s and my sister was still pulling A’s. Nonetheless, I was proud of my accomplishment and myself so I tried college level classes in High School. I did fine in college English but not so good in Math. I found that high school was very difficult for me and after all those years of trying to be as good as my sister I still could not pull the same grades no matter how hard I worked at it. I gave up and stopped taking college level classes with the hope that the other classes would be easier for me and I could pull the A’s and B’s that my parents were so proud of my sister for getting. When I continued to struggle my freshman and sophomore year I gave up and decided that I was going to do what it took to get those C’s and nothing more. I became very discouraged. Then my parents separated and we moved from my hometown to the Cape with my aunt so I had to change schools half way through my sophomore year. I was happy with that, a new group of kids to meet and different expectations by the kids I already knew in that school so this was going to be easy and that was my easiest semester ever. I finally got the good grades that I was looking for and my mother stopped criticizing me for my choice in friends. She actually approved of most of my friends. My sister at that point became the problem child. Then it all fell apart. My mother decided that she was going to take a job in Boise, Idaho and my sister and I had to move with her across the country. I had finally adjusted to the idea of my parents getting a divorce and now she was going to take me away from all of my life long friends and everything I knew. My attitude, self-esteem and everything went right down the toilet. When we got to Idaho I didn’t care anymore. I was going to do what I had to do to graduate and get out of my mother’s house so I could go back to Massachusetts where I knew people and I was home. I made poor choices in friends, poor choices in behavior, and poor choices in my schoolwork all because the only thing I could see was anger. I was so angry with both of my parents, my mother for making me move to Idaho and my father for not fighting to keep us in Massachusetts. It was like my opinion did not matter and once again my sister was the queen. All the good I had done in junior high and down the Cape did not matter anymore. I graduated from high school, turned down a military career and moved back to Massachusetts where I met my first husband. It was a marriage destined to fail. My first husband was very abusive verbally and emotionally. He constantly made me feel like I was not worth the dirt I walked on. I was diagnosed bipolar two years after we got married and he never took the time to learn about it, said he didn’t believe in mental illness and did not help me find the help I needed so it was a very rocky ten-year marriage. I did get two wonderful children out of the marriage though, of that I was thankful and challenged. After my first husband and I divorced, I met my current husband. He is the exact opposite of my first husband. We have a very good relationship. It was the relationship with my first husband and all the abuse that I went through in the ten years we were married and my childhood experiences that made me who I am today.

Advertisements That Make Women Look Bad Essay

Some advertising companies do not see the problem with using women to sell their product and make money. â€Å"In advertising today, women are still dismembered—just parts of them presented to sell a product. Kilbourne says in the imposed American obsession with breasts, uplifted derrieres, etc., women forget things like the sensation they lose when they have plastic surgery on their breasts† (Kilbourne). Advertisements should make sure they do not portray women in a derogatory manner. The roles of women have dramatically changed over the generations. Women have gone from housekeepers and wives to sex symbols. Placing women on advertisements in hardly any clothing draws attention to the product itself, but making women seen vulnerable. Dolce and Gabanna, for example, uses and ad where there is one female wearing a strappy, black dress and some high heels. Dolce and Gabanna has her lying on her back, while a shirtless man is on top of her, as if he were pinning her down. There are also three shirtless men in the scene who are standing around watching. Having an advertisement, such as this one, might work to sell a product because of the impression it places on the consumer. Male viewers would presume that the only way to get a beautiful woman to be submissive is to wear products of Dolce and Gabanna. Advertisements like these make the woman in the ad provocative; therefore, viewers conceive their own opinion about women in general. See more:  The Story of an Hour Literary Analysis Essay There becomes a problem when teenagers and young adults see these women on ads dressing seductive and inviting. Women and young girls alike, start to believe they must dress in this manner because that is what the models are wearing. Women also see ads, such as the one Dolce and Gabanna have published, and they look at the women in the ad that dress tantalizing and getting handsome men, that the female viewers too, think they must dress appealing to capture a man’s attention. These advertisements are ultimately doing more damage and are corrupting our society. Advertising companies need to produce ads that make everyone look at women as beautiful, smart, and self-sufficient human beings and not a body used just to sell a product. Doing this would help society see that women can be beautiful and classy without having to be a sex symbol. It would help women get a better idea of how to be a lady. Also, the viewers of the ads would understand women are not really inferior to men, and buying a certain product does not make a person admirable. Something should be done about these advertisements. It is only putting bad ideas and morals into the consumers heads about the way they should view women. Society should appreciate women. All in all, bashing women in advertisements should be stopped and talked about by the advertising companies. Ads of this sort should not be posted all over the billboards, subways, Walters 3 televisions, and computers. Women-bashing is an ongoing problem, and it will continue to escalate if we do not open the eyes of the businesses selling the product and the viewers who agree that basing women is a sufficient way to sell a product. The ads are slowly getting out-of-control, and if we do not put our foot down now, nothing will ever be fixed, and advertising companies will continue to look for ways to make women seem less than average. Works Cited â€Å"Dolce and Gabbana Boutique â€Å"For Men Only†Ã¢â‚¬  10 May 2010. Web. 21 Sept. 2010. . Kilbourne, Jean. â€Å"Summary of â€Å"Killing Us Softly 3†³Ã¢â‚¬  Welcome To Journalism’ Web. 1 Oct. 2010. . â€Å"Killing Us Softly 3: Advertising’s Image of Women | Watch Free Documentary Online.† Web. 19 Sept. 2010. . â€Å"10 Worst Woman-Bashing Ads | Business Pundit.† Business Pundit: Your Daily Dose of Smart Business Opinion. Web. 19 Sept. 2010. .

blair witch project an analytical essay essays

blair witch project an analytical essay essays The Blair Witch Project is a mock documentary on three film students: Heather, Mike and Shaun, who go out and shoot their own documentary on the Blair Witch. This Blair Witch apparently haunts a forest in Burkittsville Maryland and these students are going to find out firsthand if this rumor is true. Unfortunately this rumor turns out to be fact and all three characters are eventually hunted and killed by the Blair witch. The scene which I have chosen to analyze is a short ten second scene near the very end of the movie. In this scene we see a close up of Mike, from a diagonal angle. Mike is rocking back and forth and then yawns. This scene is key point were the viewer realizes that there is no hope for MIke and Heather. The woods are just too vast for these inexperienced students. In this scene, Mike is wearing his backpack that is bigger than him indicating the the burden he has to carry. Besides the burden it can also represent all the pressure he is under at this particular point. The backpack, being larger than he is can be a metaphor for how small and insignificant he is in comparison to the colossal trees around him. The fact that the straps are so big and that they wrap around Mike can show how he is completely engulfed by this pressure, just like he is surrounded by the trees. The backpack and trees completely overpower Mike, causing him to feel helpless and miniscule, like a child. The second image chosen is Mike rocking back and forth, followed by the yawn. In most scenarios children rock themselves when they are nervous. This clearly hints that Mike, an average sound technician is no longer himself but rather someone else who is overtaken by the immensity of the forest. The yawn gives Mike the innocent look tha ...

nothing essays

nothing essays I found this on a message board and decided to try it. A little while back, I was browsing through newsgroups and came across an article similar to this that said you could make thousands of dollars within weeks with only an initial investment of $6.00! So I thought, "Yeah right, this must be a scam", but like most of us, I was curious, so I kept reading. Anyway, it said that you send $1.00 to each of the 6 names and address stated in the article. You then place your own name and address in the bottom of the list at #6, and post the article in at least 200 newsgroups. (There are thousands) No catch, that was it. So after thinking it over, and talking to a few people first, I thought about trying it. I figured: "what have I got to lose except 6 stamps and $6.00, right?" Then I invested the measly $6.00. Well GUESS WHAT!!... Within 7 days, I started getting money in the mail! I was shocked! I figured it would end soon, but the money just kept coming in. In my first week, I made about $25.00. By the end of the second week I had made a total of over $1,000.00! In the third week I had over $10,000.00 and it's still growing. This is now my fourth week and I have made a total of just over $42,000.00 and it's still coming in rapidly. It's certainly worth $6.00, and 6 stamps. Let me tell you how this works and most importantly, why it works.... Also, make sure you print a copy of this article NOW, so you can get the information off of it as you need it. I promise you that if you follow the directions exactly, that you will start making more money than you thought possible by doing something so easy! Suggestion: Read this entire message carefully! (print it out or download it.) Follow the simple directions and watch the money come in! It's easy. It's legal. And, your investment is only $6.00 (Plus postage) IMPORTANT: This is not unethical ; it is not indecent; it is not illegal; and it is virtually no risk - it really works!!!! If all of the f...

Rhetorical Perspectivism Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Rhetorical Perspectivism - Essay Example Rhetorical perspectivism, as union of communication and Philosophy, postulates that in practicing this stance, there would be a balanced objectivity when it comes to the openness of a person’s mind towards ideas opposing his own thought, and is vital in acquiring unbiased learning. Rhetorics and Perspectivism Rhetorics and perspectivism were once separate ideologies. The art of rhetorics can be traced back to the age of oratorical speeches in Ancient Greece. According to Cline (2010), Greeks of long ago wondered about language, and this curiosity has led to the â€Å"realization, coming from collective political arrangements† that spoken and written language â€Å"had very real effects towards the polis.† This idea is parallel to Aristotle’s view which states that rhetorics is â€Å"a means of persuasion† and makes it as a unique form of art (as Cited in Xiuguo, 2005). It is believed that rhetorics is practiced the way it is because Greeks who could afford education primarily want to learn how â€Å"to speak with authority† for future involvement in the state affairs or Politics (Cline, 2010). Nowadays, rhetorics is seen as a way to â€Å"coordinate social action† in response to an influence of an opinion (Xiuguo, 2005). Perspectivism, on the other hand, is more related to the area of Philosophy. The tenets of perspectivism were conceptualized by Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche, where his core assumption argues that there is no absolute truth. However, other contemporary philosophers questioned the â€Å"truthfulness† of Nietzsche’s concept. Clark (n.d.) argues that if Nietzsche’s claim is true, then no philosopher could assure the validity of their assumption, and even Nietzsche’s idea would negate itself (as cited in Olson, n.d.). However, Olson (n.d.) was able to resolve this dilemma by treating Nietzsche’s concept as â€Å"the best way to live one’s life in the absence o f an absolute truth.† Nietzsche’s perspectivism may have been the mother concept of the old phrase: â€Å"the truth at the other side of the table.† Both rhetorics and perspectivism, although different, have their own seats in the room of education. Basically, the two are treated as separate fields of concern, where rhetorics is categorized along with the other pillars of public speaking and perspectivism in the area of philosophy. However, rhetorical perspectivism shifts the normal treatment of both subjects is inter-related bodies of knowledge which are specifically helpful in the area of education, with respect to the different learning strategies of each student. Olson (n.d.) promotes open-mindedness as the main thought of Nietzsche’s perspectivism, and thus, it plays a critical role in the field of debate and argumentation; activities where rhetorics is strongly related. At this point, one can see the vague line connecting the two disciplines which co uld possibly be the key of unraveling the ideas of Cherwitz and Hikins and the birth of rhetorical perspectivism. Cherwitz and Hikins denounce subjectivity and intersubjectivity in rhetorical perspectivism, since it is much like weighing all sides of an argument rather than sticking to one’s belief as indispensable truth. Rhetorical Perspectivism and its Role in Education Lucaites, Condit, and Cuadill (1999) contend that rhetorical perspe

Nursing research Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words - 56

Nursing research - Essay Example In this regard, this process of dissemination will include submission of an abstract to the members of the audience three days prior to the presentation in order to give them an opportunity to scrutinize the contents of the presentation before the actual presentation. In effect, providing the audience with an overview of the presentation will be effective in providing them with an opportunity to ask questions following the presentation. My workplace setting relies on the process of a combination of publications and posters to disseminate a solution. I find these two processes ineffective since they fail to provide the target audience with an opportunity to scrutinize the solution and ask questions regarding the solution’s effectiveness in the workplace. On the other hand, it is evident that these two processes are not interpersonal in nature. In this regard, the two processes only inform an individual about a solution without providing the individual with the opportunity to scrutinize the solution, which makes the two processes

Policy research memo Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2500 words

Policy memo - Research Paper Example ld Left Behind Act was meant to assure the quality of education and develop accountability it seems that its goals are attainable and beyond the scope of the law. The No Child Left Behind Act meant to model education among children from disadvantaged backgrounds and to ensure that irrespective of race, colour or health status, each child had the right to access to quality education. The policy required that the performance of the students be assessed from time to time to ensure that children performed well between 2rd grade and 8th grade (Olivert 23-27). The ability of the policy to set the standards of education and find ways of measuring performance is an important aspect of ensuring that all students become responsible citizens. To ensure that all students, including those from struggling families performed well, the policy stated that all student who do not attain the minimum score be provided with extra tuition or have their study time extended. This would go on until they attain they attain the benchmark grades to proceed with their education. This is crucial in ensuring that all students get good grades to acquire employment despite an y economic constraints. To maintain accountability, the Act required that the teachers regularly report on the performance of students and provide results at the each of year. The Act achieved accountability by compelling the teachers to account for the performance of the student throughout the learning process. The teachers had to monitor the students’ results every time to ensure that all children achieve good grades (Roberts 12). The Act required that the schools and the district boards provide detailed report cards to the parents reflecting the performance of every child. Secondly, the NCLB Act required that strict measures be taken against teachers who do not deliver in terms of education performance in schools. The extreme measures include the change of the worker structure in the learning institutions. The policy

Why Literature Essay Example for Free

Why Literature Essay It has often happened to me, at book fairs or in bookstores, that a gentleman approaches me and asks me for a signature. It is for my wife, my young daughter, or my mother, he explains. She is a great reader and loves literature. Immediately I ask: And what about you? Dont you like to read? The answer is almost always the same: Of course I like to read, but I am a very busy person. I have heard this explanation dozens of times: this man and many thousands of men like him have so many important things to do, so many obligations, so many responsibilities in life, that they cannot waste their precious time buried in a novel, a book of poetry, or a literary essay for hours and hours. According to this widespread conception, literature is a dispensable activity, no doubt lofty and useful for cultivating sensitivity and good manners, but essentially an entertainment, an adornment that only people with time for recreation can afford. It is something to fit in between sports, the movies, a game of bridge or chess; and it can be sacrificed without scruple when one prioritizes the tasks and the duties that are indispensable in the struggle of life. It seems clear that literature has become more and more a female activity. In bookstores, at conferences or public readings by writers, and even in university departments dedicated to the humanities, the women clearly outnumber the men. The explanation traditionally given is that middle-class women read more because they work fewer hours than men, and so many of them feel that they can justify more easily than men the time that they devote to fantasy and illusion. I am somewhat allergic to explanations that divide men and women into frozen categories and attribute to each sex its characteristic virtues and shortcomings; but there is no doubt that there are fewer and fewer readers of literature, and that among the saving remnant of readers women predominate. This is the case almost everywhere. In Spain, for example, a recent survey organized by the General Society of Spanish Writers revealed that half of that countrys population has never read a book. The survey also revealed that in the minority that does read, the number of women who admitted to reading surpasses the number of men by 6. 2 percent, a difference that appears to be increasing. I am happy for these women, but I feel sorry for these men, and for the millions of human beings who could read but have decided not to read. They earn my pity not only because they are unaware of the pleasure that they are missing, but also because I am convinced that a society without literature, or a society in which literature has been relegatedlike some hidden viceto the margins of social and personal life, and transformed into something like a sectarian cult, is a society condemned to become spiritually barbaric, and even to jeopardize its freedom. I wish to offer a few arguments against the idea of literature as a luxury pastime, and in favor of viewing it as one of the most primary and necessary undertakings of the mind, an irreplaceable activity for the formation of citizens in a modern and democratic society, a society of free individuals. |[pic] | e live in the era of the specialization of knowledge, thanks to the prodigious development of science and technology and to the consequent fragmentation of knowledge into innumerable parcels and compartments. This cultural trend is, if anything, likely to be accentuated in years to come. To be sure, specialization brings many benefits. It allows for deeper exploration and greater experimentation; it is the very engine of progress. Yet it also has negative consequences, for it eliminates those common intellectual and cultural traits that permit men and women to co-exist, to communicate, to feel a sense of solidarity. Specialization leads to a lack of social understanding, to the division of human beings into ghettos of technicians and specialists. The specialization of knowledge requires specialized languages and increasingly arcane codes, as information becomes more and more specific and compartmentalized. This is the particularism and the division against which an old proverb warned us: do not focus too much on the branch or the leaf, lest you forget that they are part of a tree, or too much on the tree, lest you forget that it is part of a forest. Awareness of the existence of the forest creates the feeling of generality, the feeling of belonging, that binds society together and prevents it from disintegrating into a myriad of solipsistic particularities. The solipsism of nations and individuals produces paranoia and delirium, distortions of reality that generate hatred, wars, and even genocide. In our time, science and technology cannot play an integrating role, precisely because of the infinite richness of knowledge and the speed of its evolution, which have led to specialization and its obscurities. But literature has been, and will continue to be, as long as it exists, one of the common denominators of human experience through which human beings may recognize themselves and converse with each other, no matter how different their professions, their life plans, their geographical and cultural locations, their personal circumstances. It has enabled individuals, in all the particularities of their lives, to transcend history: as readers of Cervantes, Shakespeare, Dante, and Tolstoy, we understand each other across space and time, and we feel ourselves to be members of the same species because, in the works that these writers created, we learn what we share as human beings, what remains common in all of us under the broad range of differences that separate us. Nothing better protects a human being against the stupidity of prejudice, racism, religious or political sectarianism, and exclusivist nationalism than this truth that invariably appears in great literature: that men and women of all nations and places are essentially equal, and that only injustice sows among them discrimination, fear, and exploitation. Nothing teaches us better than literature to see, in ethnic and cultural differences, the richness of the human patrimony, and to prize those differences as a manifestation of humanitys multi-faceted creativity. Reading good literature is an experience of pleasure, of course; but it is also an experience of learning what and how we are, in our human integrity and our human imperfection, with our actions, our dreams, and our ghosts, alone and in relationships that link us to others, in our public image and in the secret recesses of our consciousness. |[pic| |] | his complex sum of contradictory truthsas Isaiah Berlin called themconstitutes the very substance of the human condition. In todays world, this totalizing and living knowledge of a human being may be found only in literature. Not even the other branches of the humanitiesnot philosophy, history, or the arts, and certainly not the social scienceshave been able to preserve this integrating vision, this universalizing discourse. The humanities, too, have succumbed to the cancerous division and subdivision of knowledge, isolating themselves in increasingly segmented and technical sectors whose ideas and vocabularies lie beyond the reach of the common woman and man. Some critics and theorists would even like to change literature into a science. But this will never happen, because fiction does not exist to investigate only a single precinct of experience. It exists to enrich through the imagination the entirety of human life, which cannot be dismembered, disarticulated, or reduced to a series of schemas or formulas without disappearing. This is the meaning of Prousts observation that real life, at last enlightened and revealed, the only life fully lived, is literature. He was not exaggerating, nor was he expressing only his love for his own vocation. He was advancing the particular proposition that as a result of literature life is better understood and better lived; and that living life more fully necessitates living it and sharing it with others. The brotherly link that literature establishes among human beings, compelling them to enter into dialogue and making them conscious of a common origin and a common goal, transcends all temporal barriers. Literature transports us into the past and links us to those who in bygone eras plotted, enjoyed, and dreamed through those texts that have come down to us, texts that now allow us also to enjoy and to dream. This feeling of membership in the collective human experience across time and space is the highest achievement of culture, and nothing contributes more to its renewal in every generation than literature. |[| |p| |i| |c| |]| t always irritated Borges when he was asked, What is the use of literature? It seemed to him a stupid question, to which he would reply: No one would ask what is the use of a canarys song or a beautiful sunset. If such beautiful things exist, and if, thanks to them, life is even for an instant less ugly and less sad, is it not petty to seek practical justifications? But the question is a good one. For novels and poems are not like the sound of birdsong or the spectacle of the sun sinking into the horizon, because they were not created by chance or by nature. They are human creations, and it is therefore legitimate to ask how and why they came into the world, and what is their purpose, and why they have lasted so long. Literary works are born, as shapeless ghosts, in the intimacy of a writers consciousness, projected into it by the combined strength of the unconscious, and the writers sensitivity to the world around him, and the writers emotions; and it is these things to which the poet or the narrator, in a struggle with words, gradually gives form, body, movement, rhythm, harmony, and life. An artificial life, to be sure, a life imagined, a life made of languageyet men and women seek out this artificial life, some frequently, others sporadically, because real life falls short for them, and is incapable of offering them what they want. Literature does not begin to exist through the work of a single individual. It exists only when it is adopted by others and becomes a part of social lifewhen it becomes, thanks to reading, a shared experience. One of its first beneficial effects takes place at the level of language. A community without a written literature expresses itself with less precision, with less richness of nuance, and with less clarity than a community whose principal instrument of communication, the word, has been cultivated and perfected by means of literary texts. A humanity without reading. untouched by literature, would resemble a community of deaf-mutes and aphasics, afflicted by tremendous problems of communication due to its crude and rudimentary language. This is true for individuals, too. A person who does not read, or reads little, or reads only trash, is a person with an impediment: he can speak much but he will say little, because his vocabulary is deficient in the means for self-expression. This is not only a verbal limitation. It represents also a limitation in intellect and in imagination. It is a poverty of thought, for the simple reason that ideas, the concepts through which we grasp the secrets of our condition, do not exist apart from words. We learn how to speak correctlyand deeply, rigorously, and subtlyfrom good literature, and only from good literature. No other discipline or branch of the arts can substitute for literature in crafting the language that people need to communicate. To speak well, to have at ones disposal a rich and diverse language, to be able to find the appropriate expression for every idea and every emotion that we want to communicate, is to be better prepared to think, to teach, to learn, to converse, and also to fantasize, to dream, to feel. In a surreptitious way, words reverberate in all our actions, even in those actions that seem far removed from language. And as language evolved, thanks to literature, and reached high levels of refinement and manners, it increased the possibility of human enjoyment. Literature has even served to confer upon love and desire and the sexual act itself the status of artistic creation. Without literature, eroticism would not exist. Love and pleasure would be poorer, they would lack delicacy and exquisiteness, they would fail to attain to the intensity that literary fantasy offers. It is hardly an exaggeration to say that a couple who have read Garcilaso, Petrarch, Gongora, or Baudelaire value pleasure and experience pleasure more than illiterate people who have been made into idiots by televisions soap operas. In an illiterate world, love and desire would be no different from what satisfies animals, nor would they transcend the crude fulfillment of elementary instincts. Nor are the audiovisual media equipped to replace literature in this task of teaching human beings to use with assurance and with skill the extraordinarily rich possibilities that language encompasses. On the contrary, the audiovisual media tend to relegate words to a secondary level with respect to images, which are the primordial language of these media, and to constrain language to its oral expression, to its indispensable minimum, far from its written dimension. To define a film or a television program as literary is an elegant way of saying that it is boring. For this reason, literary programs on the radio or on television rarely capture the public. So far as I know, the only exception to this rule was Bernard Pivots program, Apostrophes, in France. And this leads me to think that not only is literature indispensable for a full knowledge and a full mastery of language, but its fate is linked also and indissolubly with the fate of the book, that industrial product that many are now declaring obsolete. |[pic| |] | his brings me to Bill Gates. He was in Madrid not long ago and visited the Royal Spanish Academy, which has embarked upon a joint venture with Microsoft. Among other things, Gates assured the members of the Academy that he would personally guarantee that the letter - would never be removed  from computer softwarea promise that allowed four hundred million Spanish speakers on five continents to breathe a sigh of relief, since the banishment of such an essential letter from cyberspace would have created monumental problems. Immediately after making his amiable concession to the Spanish language, however, Gates, before even leaving the premises of the Academy, avowed in a press conference that he expected to accomplish his highest goal before he died. That goal, he explained, is to put an end to paper and then to books. In his judgment, books are anachronistic objects. Gates argued that computer screens are able to replace paper in all the functions that paper has heretofore assumed. He also insisted that, in addition to being less onerous, computers take up less space, and are more easily transportable; and also that the transmission of news and literature by these electronic media, instead of by newspapers and books, will have the ecological advantage of stopping the destruction of forests, a cataclysm that is a consequence of the paper industry. People will continue to read, Gates assured his listeners, but they will read on computer screens, and consequently there will be more chlorophyll in the environment. I was not present at Gatess little discourse; I learned these details from the press. Had I been there I would have booed Gates for proclaiming shamelessly his intention to send me and my colleagues, the writers of books, directly to the unemployment line. And I would have vigorously disputed his analysis. Can the screen really replace the book in all its aspects? I am not so certain. I am fully aware of the enormous revolution that new technologies such as the Internet have caused in the fields of communication and the sharing of information, and I confess that the Internet provides invaluable help to me every day in my work; but my gratitude for these extraordinary conveniences does not imply a belief that the electronic screen can replace paper, or that reading on a computer can stand in for literary reading. That is a chasm that I cannot cross. I cannot accept the idea that a non-functional or non-pragmatic act of reading, one that seeks neither information nor a useful and immediate communication, can integrate on a computer screen the dreams and the pleasures of words with the same sensation of intimacy, the same mental concentration and spiritual isolation, that may be achieved by the act of reading a book. Perhaps this a prejudice resulting from lack of practice, and from a long association of  literature with books and paper. But even though I enjoy surfing the Web in search of world news, I would never go to the screen to read a poem by Gongora or a novel by Onetti or an essay by Paz, because I am certain that the effect of such a reading would not be the same. I am convinced, although I cannot prove it, that with the disappearance of the book, literature would suffer a serious blow, even a mortal one. The term literature would not disappear, of course. Yet it would almost certainly be used to denote a type of text as distant from what we understand as literature today as soap operas are from the tragedies of Sophocles and Shakespeare. |[pic| |] | here is still another reason to grant literature an important place in the life of nations. Without it, the critical mind, which is the real engine of historical change and the best protector of liberty, would suffer an irreparable loss. This is because all good literature is radical, and poses radical questions about the world in which we live. In all great literary texts, often without their authors intending it, a seditious inclination is present. Literature says nothing to those human beings who are satisfied with their lot, who are content with life as they now live it. Literature is the food of the rebellious spirit, the promulgator of non-conformities, the refuge for those who have too much or too little in life. One seeks sanctuary in literature so as not to be unhappy and so as not to be incomplete. To ride alongside the scrawny Rocinante and the confused Knight on the fields of La Mancha, to sail the seas on the back of a whale with Captain Ahab, to drink arsenic with Emma Bovary, to become an insect with Gregor Samsa: these are all ways that we have invented to divest ourselves of the wrongs and the impositions of this unjust life, a life that forces us always to be the same person when we wish to be many different people, so as to satisfy the many desires that possess us. Literature pacifies this vital dissatisfaction only momentarilybut in this miraculous instant, in this provisional suspension of life, literary illusion lifts and transports us outside of history, and we become citizens of a timeless land, and in this way immortal. We become more intense, richer, more complicated, happier, and more lucid than we are in the constrained routine of ordinary life. When we close the book and abandon literary fiction, we return to actual existence and compare it to the splendid land that we have just left. What a disappointment awaits us! Yet a tremendous realization also awaits us, namely, that the fantasized life of the novel is bettermore beautiful and more diverse, more comprehensible and more perfectthan the life that we live while awake, a life conditioned by the limits and the tedium of our condition. In this way, good literature, genuine literature, is always subversive, unsubmissive, rebellious: a challenge to what exists. How could we not feel cheated after reading War and Peace or Remembrance of Things Past and returning to our world of insignificant details, of boundaries and prohibitions that lie in wait everywhere and, with each step, corrupt our illusions? Even more than the need to sustain the continuity of culture and to enrich language, the greatest contribution of literature to human progress is perhaps to remind us (without intending to, in the majority of cases) that the world is badly made; and that those who pretend to the contrary, the powerful and the lucky, are lying; and that the world can be improved, and made more like the worlds that our imagination and our language are able to create. A free and democratic society must have responsible and critical citizens conscious of the need continuously to examine the world that we inhabit and to try, even though it is more and more an impossible task, to make it more closely resemble the world that we would like to inhabit. And there is no better means of fomenting dissatisfaction with existence than the reading of good literature; no better means of forming critical and independent citizens who will not be manipulated by those who govern them, and who are endowed with a permanent spiritual mobility and a vibrant imagination. Still, to call literature seditious because it sensitizes a readers consciousness to the imperfections of the world does not meanas churches and governments seem to think it means when they establish censorshipthat literary texts will provoke immediate social upheavals or accelerate revolutions. The social and political effects of a poem, a play, or a novel cannot be foreseen, because they are not collectively made or collectively experienced. They are created by individuals and they are read by individuals, who vary enormously in the conclusions that they draw from their writing and their reading. For this reason, it is difficult, or even impossible, to establish precise patterns. Moreover, the social consequences of a work of literature may have little to do with its aesthetic quality. A mediocre novel by Harriet Beecher Stowe seems to have played a decisive role in raising social and political consciousness of the horrors of slavery in the United States. The fact that these effects of literature are difficult to identify does not imply that they do not exist. The important point is that they are effects brought about by the actions of citizens whose personalities have been formed in part by books. Good literature, while temporarily relieving human dissatisfaction, actually increases it, by developing a critical and non-conformist attitude toward life. It might even be said that literature makes human beings more likely to be unhappy. To live dissatisfied, and at war with existence, is to seek things that may not be there, to condemn oneself to fight futile battles, like the battles that Colonel Aureliano Buenda fought in One Hundred Years of Solitude, knowing full well that he would lose them all. All this may be true. Yet it is also true that without rebellion against the mediocrity and the squalor of life, we would still live in a primitive state, and history would have stopped. The autonomous individual would not have been created, science and technology would not have progressed, human rights would not have been recognized, freedom would not have existed. All these things are born of unhappiness, of acts of defiance against a life perceived as insufficient or intolerable. For this spirit that scorns life as it isand searches with the madness of Don Quixote, whose insanity derived from the reading of chivalric novelsliterature has served as a great spur. |[pi| |c] | et us attempt a fantastic historical reconstruction. Let us imagine a world without literature, a humanity that has not read poems or novels. In this kind of atrophied civilization, with its puny lexicon in which groans and ape-like gesticulations would prevail over words, certain adjectives would not exist. Those adjectives include: quixotic, Kafkaesque, Rabelaisian, Orwellian, sadistic, and masochistic, all terms of literary origin. To be sure, we would still have insane people, and victims of paranoia and persecution complexes, and people with uncommon appetites and outrageous excesses, and bipeds who enjoy inflicting or receiving pain. But we would not have learned to see, behind these extremes of behavior that are prohibited by the norms of our culture, essential characteristics of the human condition. We would not have discovered our own traits, as only the talents of Cervantes, Kafka, Rabelais, Orwell, de Sade, and Sacher-Masoch have revealed them to us. When the novel Don Quixote de la Mancha appeared, its first readers made fun of this extravagant dreamer, as well as the rest of the characters in the novel. Today we know that the insistence of the caballero de la triste figura on seeing giants where there were windmills, and on acting in his seemingly absurd way, is really the highest form of generosity, and a means of protest against the misery of this world in the hope of changing it. Our very notions of the ideal, and of idealism, so redolent with a positive moral connotation, would not be what they are, would not be clear and respected values, had they not been incarnated in the protagonist of a novel through the persuasive force of Cervantess genius. The same can be said of that small and pragmatic female Quixote, Emma Bovary, who fought with ardor to live the splendid life of passion and luxury that she came to know through novels. Like a butterfly, she came too close to the flame and was burned in the fire. |[pic| |] | he inventions of all great literary creators open our eyes to unknown aspects of our own condition. They enable us to explore and to understand more fully the common human abyss. When we say Borgesian, the word immediately conjures up the separation of our minds from the rational order of reality and the entry into a fantastic universe, a rigorous and elegant mental construction, almost always labyrinthine and arcane, and riddled with literary references and allusions, whose singularities are not foreign to us because in them we recognize hidden desires and intimate truths of our own personality that took shape only thanks to the literary creation of Jorge Luis Borges. The word Kafkaesque comes to mind, like the focus mechanism of those old cameras with their accordion arms, every time we feel threatened, as defenseless individuals, by the oppressive machines of power that have caused so much pain and injustice in the modern worldthe authoritarian regimes, the vertical parties, the intolerant churches, the asphyxiating bureaucrats. Without the short stories and the novels of that tormented Jew from Prague who wrote in German and lived always on the lookout, we would not have been able to understand the impotent feeling of the isolated individual, or the terror of persecuted and discriminated minorities, confronted with the all-embracing powers that can smash them and eliminate them without the henchmen even showing their faces. The adjective Orwellian, first cousin of Kafkaesque, gives a voice to the terrible anguish, the sensation of extreme absurdity, that was generated by totalitarian dictatorships of the twentieth century, the most sophisticated, cruel, and absolute dictatorships in history, in their control of the actions and the psyches of the members of a society. In 1984, George Orwell described in cold and haunting shades a humanity subjugated to Big Brother, an absolute lord who, through an efficient combination of terror and technology, eliminated liberty, spontaneity, and equality, and transformed society into a beehive of automatons. In this nightmarish world, language also obeys power, and has been transformed into newspeak, purified of all invention and all subjectivity, metamorphosed into a string of platitudes that ensure the individuals slavery to the system. It is true that the sinister prophecy of 1984 did not come to pass, and totalitarian communism in the Soviet Union went the way of totalitarian fascism in Germany and elsewhere; and soon thereafter it began to deteriorate also in China, and in anachronistic Cuba and North Korea. But the danger is never completely dispelled, and the word Orwellian continues to describe the danger, and to help us to understand it. |[pic| |] | o literatures unrealities, literatures lies, are also a precious vehicle for the knowledge of the most hidden of human realities. The truths that it reveals are not always flattering; and sometimes the image of ourselves that emerges in the mirror of novels and poems is the image of a monster. This happens when we read about the horrendous sexual butchery fantasized by de Sade, or the dark lacerations and brutal sacrifices that fill the cursed books of Sacher-Masoch and Bataille. At times the spectacle is so offensive and ferocious that it becomes irresistible. Yet the worst in these pages is not the blood, the humiliation, the abject love of torture; the worst is the discovery that this violence and this excess are not foreign to us, that they are a profound part of humanity. These monsters eager for transgression are hidden in the most intimate recesses of our being; and from the shadow where they live they seek a propitious occasion to manifest themselves, to impose the rule of unbridled desire that destroys rationality, community, and even existence. And it was not science that first ventured into these tenebrous places in the human mind, and discovered the destructive and the self-destructive potential that also shapes it. It was literature that made this discovery. A world without literature would be partly blind to these terrible depths, which we urgently need to see. Uncivilized, barbarian, devoid of sensitivity and crude of speech, ignorant and instinctual, inept at passion and crude at love, this world without literature, this nightmare that I am delineating, would have as its principal traits conformism and the universal submission of humankind to power. In this sense, it would also be a purely animalistic world. Basic instincts would determine the daily practices of a life characterized by the struggle for survival, and the fear of the unknown, and the satisfaction of physical necessities. There would be no place for the spirit. In this world, moreover, the crushing monotony of living would be accompanied by the sinister shadow of pessimism, the feeling that human life is what it had to be and that it will always be thus, and that no one and nothing can change it. When one imagines such a world, one is tempted to picture primitives in loincloths, the small magic-religious communities that live at the margins of modernity in Latin America, Oceania, and Africa. But I have a different failure in mind. The nightmare that I am warning about is the result not of under-development but of over-development. As a consequence of technology and our subservience to it, we may imagine a future society full of computer screens and speakers, and without books, or a society in which booksthat is, works of literaturehave become what alchemy became in the era of physics: an archaic curiosity, practiced in the catacombs of the media civilization by a neurotic minority. I am afraid that this cybernetic world, in spite of its prosperity and its power, its high standard of living and its scientific achievement would be profoundly uncivilized and utterly soullessa resigned humanity of post-literary automatons who have abdicated freedom. It is highly improbable, of course, that this macabre utopia will ever come about. The end of our story, the end of history, has not yet been written, and it is not pre-determined. What we will become depends entirely on our vision and our will. But if we wish to avoid the impoverishment of our imagination, and the disappearance of the precious dissatisfaction that refines our sensibility and teaches us to speak with eloquence and rigor, and the weakening of our freedom, then we must act. More precisely, we must read. MARIO VARGAS LLOSAs new book, The Feast of the Goat, will be published by Farrar, Straus Giroux in November. He is professor of Ibero-American Literature and Culture at Georgetown University.