Rap Trends essays

Rap Trends essays Have African Americans in the 21st century established a trend that can be seen throughout a persons everyday life? I would say yes, and the most popular of trends is found in music industry of today. Now what makes a trend, a trend is defined as The relatively constant movement of a variable throughout a period of time. The period may be short-term or long-term, depending upon whether the trend itself is short-term or long-term. For example, a rising market is taken to mean that prices of most stocks are in an upward trend, (Dictionary). Most famous rappers are African American and everyday they are judged and watched by millions of people on TV, and some of their habits/styles might be viewed to others as cool, thus leading that person to imitate what they see their icon doing. What are the trends that have some people empting their bank account just to look cool? They could be the addition of chrome rims or spinners to ones car. Another trend that was first established by African Americans in the music industry is the wearing of what is known as platinum jewelry. Music has been around for centuries, but probably the music that has had the greatest influence on people, young and old has to be the rap/hip-hop industry. Rap has been around since the 1980s and since then many rappers have achieved the establishment of a trend in todays society. Back in the 1980s African Americans that were in the music industry werent too flashy as todays artist, but without even realizing it, they started some trends that still exist today. One of those trends was the wearing of flashy and expensive jewelry. Now the jewelry known as platinum wasnt exactly very popular back then. In fact some people might say that gold was the thing that was considered in. Gold chains, rings, and earrings were worn by most rappers while performing in music videos, concert, or on TV ...

GUERRERO Surname Meaning and Origin

GUERRERO Surname Meaning and Origin The  Guerrero surname is thought to have originated as a nickname which described either a soldier who had returned home from the war or an aggressive individual. Derived from the word guerre, meaning war. Guerrero is the 54th most common Hispanic surname. Surname Origin:  Spanish, Portuguese, Italian Alternate Surname Spellings:  GUERERRO, GUERRE, GUIERRE, LAGUERRE, GUERRA, GUERRERO, GUERREIRO, GUERRI and GUERRIERO. See also, the English WARR or WARRE. Famous People with the Surname GUERRERO Eddie Guerrero - famous American wrestler, part of the famed Guerrero wrestling family.Vladimir Guerrero - Major League Baseball player from the Dominican Republic.Vicente Guerrero – Second president of Mexico Where do People with the GUERRERO Surname Live? According to World Names PublicProfiler,  the majority of individuals with the Guerrero surname live in Spain, followed by concentrations in Argentina, the United States, France, and Switzerland. Public Profiler doesnt include information from all countries, however, including Mexico and Venezuela. Forebears marks Guerrero as the 456th most common surname in the world found most prevalently in Mexico. Based on the percentage of the population with the surname, Guerrero is most common in Guam (ranked 16th), followed by Ecuador (23rd), Mexico (43rd), Spain (47th), the Dominican Republic (49th) and Colombia (52nd). Genealogy Resources for the Surname GUERRERO 100 Common Hispanic Surnames Their MeaningsGarcia, Martinez, Rodriguez, Lopez, Hernandez... Are you one of the millions of people sporting one of these top 100 common Hispanic last names? The Guererro DNA ProjectThis ancestral y-DNA testing project is open to any male with any spelling of the Guerrero surname interested in combining DNA testing with traditional family history research to sort out Guerrero ancestral lines. GeneaNet - Guerrero RecordsGeneaNet includes archival records, family trees, and other resources for individuals with the Guerrero surname, with a concentration on records and families from France, Spain, and other European countries. GUERRERO Family Genealogy ForumSearch this popular genealogy forum for the Guerrero surname to find others who might be researching your ancestors, or post your own Guerrero query. FamilySearch - GUERRERO GenealogyAccess over 2 million free historical records and lineage-linked family trees posted for the Guerrero surname and its variations on this free genealogy website hosted by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. GUERRERO Surname Family Mailing ListsRootsWeb hosts several free mailing lists for researchers of the Guerrero surname. DistantCousin.com - GUERRERO Genealogy Family HistoryExplore free databases and genealogy links for the last name Guerrero. The Guerrero Genealogy and Family Tree PageBrowse family trees and links to genealogical and historical records for individuals with the last name Guerrero from the website of Genealogy Today.- References: ï » ¿Surname Meanings OriginsCottle, Basil.  Penguin Dictionary of Surnames. Baltimore, MD: Penguin Books, 1967.Dorward, David.  Scottish Surnames. Collins Celtic (Pocket edition), 1998.Fucilla, Joseph.  Our Italian Surnames. Genealogical Publishing Company, 2003.Hanks, Patrick and Flavia Hodges.  A Dictionary of Surnames. Oxford University Press, 1989.Hanks, Patrick.  Dictionary of American Family Names. Oxford University Press, 2003.Reaney, P.H.  A Dictionary of English Surnames. Oxford University Press, 1997.Smith, Elsdon C.  American Surnames. Genealogical Publishing Company, 1997.

An observation report of a faculty member Essay

An observation report of a faculty member - Essay Example Let me start off the relating of my observations by first describing the kind of class that I was assigned to observe. While I was hoping to be assigned to a highly exciting and eye-opening class, I was instead assigned to an ESL class for college graduates who had very little English writing skills. The students in this English 100 class were all college school students who, due to one reason or another, managed to graduate from high school with very poor English writing skills. Gaining acceptance into college may have meant that they had the chance to get a better future by completing all the levels of their education, the problem of their English writing readiness became quite evident when they enrolled int heir regular English classes. Due to the serious nature of their problem in expressing themselves in English, these students were advised to enroll in remedial English writing classes. The aim of this type of class, is to improve their English writing abilities to the extent th at the student will be able to clearly and legibly express his thoughts and emotions through his writing. The professor in this class was a female in her late thirties who felt that the best way to help her students learn how to write in English was to ask them to engage themselves in a writing activity that they could relate to. Which is why she asked the class to write their personal memoirs. Since her students came from highly diverse backgrounds, their English writing skills seemed to copy the kind of background they were exposed to when they tried to express themselves through writing. However, the teacher, who used the â€Å"Daniel Stiepleman Cluster† in her class, managed to divide her time equally among the students and in the process, managed to help them improve their writing abilities in the process. She did this by clustering her class in groups that came from similiar backgrounds. This way the students shared a set of low writing skill problems that she could hel p them address by group rather than individually. In doing so, she allowed the class members to become teaching aides in a way because they found themselves in the unique position of helping one another improve their writing ability through consultation with one another. By asking the students to write their own memoirs, the professor actually encouraged the students to express themselves by discussing a topic that they are highly familiar with and therefore, gave them the confidence to take a chance upon which they could express themselves in English as best as they could. Since this was a basic English writing class, I observed that most of the students had apprehensions about how they should write about themselves and how they might be judged for their written grammatical mistakes. This was a point of nervousness for the students that the professor was able to diffuse by encouraging them to write regardless of their mistakes, which she would help them correct later on. It was her belief that unless they took a chance upon expressing themselves, they would never be able to do so. Part of her encouragement and genius in teaching came from the way that she effectively utilized the clustering technique in teaching the

When You Shouldn't Take the Job Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words - 7

When You Shouldn't Take the Job - Essay Example It is a tricky position she is in because she would not have to pay them back for the costs they incurred, and she would have secured herself a job. Still, it looks like coercion. Moving is a not an easy thing too. There are more challenges for the young lady than there are for the company. For example, if the girl agrees to the terms the company has set forth for her, then it will have to incur the travel costs and pay for her accommodation in the hotel. Still, it would be profitable in the long run since she will be rendering her services to the firm. For the young woman, however, there is more to lose than there is to gain. The company has her in a dilemma, and her thoughts that she is being coerced are justified. For example, if she does not agree to relocate, she will have to reimburse the company for the cost they incurred paying for her flight and the hotel accommodation. The young woman is unemployed so far and asking that she repays the money is more likely to be a coercive way of telling her that she has to take the job. Since she may have no money to reimburse the company, which could have gotten her an expensive ticket and hotel, she would have no choice but to take the job. If she takes the job, she will have much moving to do and have to leave her social ties and her friends and neighbors from where she lives. Also, she will have to go through all the hassles involved in moving and then slowly make new friends from her new neighborhood. While it is a good thing to have secured herself a job in the company, the terms the company has placed on the opportunity are selfish. It shows the company is willing to use any coercion to have people work there. That is already a red flag as such a company is likely to have other forms of oppression to those people who already work there in a bid to keep them working.

Theory and Research in Contemporary Consumer Behaviour Essay Example for Free

Theory and Research in Contemporary Consumer Behaviour Essay Abstract Over the past century, each new generation has entered a new consumer world where the forms and avenues for consumption have multiplied exponentially. The twenty first century saw rapid and dramatic changes in the realms of private and public life that became subject to commodification and marketing. Although the culture of consumption has been written about extensively, the breadth and complexity of consumption within contemporary industrialized societies has not yet seen much attention, particularly among anthropologists. In looking at the consumer lives of Hip Hop subculture, this work aims not only to explore and illustrate the ways in which contemporary commodity consumption is internally differentiated, but also to highlight â€Å"an aspect of contemporary consumption that often has been overlooked: its role as a medium through which social inequalities—most notably of race, class, and gender—are formed, experienced, imposed, and resisted† (Carrier and Heyman 30). Introduction Chicago sociologists of the 1930s began to study subcultural groups in the USA as if they were studying the indigenous tribes of isolated islands. This became known as streetcorner sociology as it studied the deviant subcultures of America (Downes and Rock, 36). Ethnography is an approach to research that is often associated with cultural anthropology. This study has often been conducted over a long period of time so that researchers can gain a truly insider perspective. Management and marketing researchers have also adapted ethnographic approaches to use in shorter periods of research. Ethnographic principles have been used to study consumers and consumption in order to better understand the effects and implications of strategic marketing management actions (Clarke 1999). For example, Elliott and Jankel-Elliott (2002) have used ethnography in strategic consumer research for many global brands, while Morris (1999) studied the culture of the British pub. Ritson and Elliott (1999) used ethnographic principles to research the social uses of advertising among UK adolescent advertising audiences. Belk (1995) explored the subculture of hip-hop music. He was particularly interested in the clothes associated with hip-pop and how manufacturers gained access to the group. In management and marketing research, the applied tradition of ethnography is often reflected in the problem-focused nature of much research. Ethnography is used as a tool to help in the design of management interventions and processes. Social and cultural life is created by people through symbolic interaction. Focus on local shared meanings and the reproduction of cultural norms. This research study into a hip-hop consumption practice began with a thorough investigation of secondary sources. The research then progressed to a first-hand engagement with the contexts of consumption. In an attempt to convey something of the meanings, motivations and experiential understanding of hip-hop consumer behaviour, the research creates an imaginative representation of the social life in question. This research study involves, first, gaining as much insider knowledge as possible about the subject in question. The pervasive theme of this work is that the consumer sphere, by its very nature, is a medium for social inequality. The next section lays the groundwork for understanding the particular complexities of hip-hop consumer engagement. The following analytical section locates the hip-hop consumer experience, looks at contemporary media depictions of hip-hop youth as out of control and dangerous â€Å"combat consumers.† This analysis insists that any understanding of hip-hop consumption must be understood in its specific cultural, historical, and political context, one that engages with centuries-old incidents like slavery, as well as symbolic representations of hip-hop consumer in the contemporary consumer world. Discussion In the post-modern world of consuming passions (Huffman 25) there are a number of dynamics that are rightly the concern of cultural criminology. First there is the process of the commodification of everyday life, including crime and violence. Second there is the absolute necessity for the legal or illegal consumption of commodities for the reproduction of both the economic system and our social selves. Commodities themselves appear, as Marx (1977:435) commented, a very trivial thing and easily understood†¦it is in reality a very queer thing, abounding in metaphysical subtleties and theological niceties. However the relationship between the production and commodification process, and the distribution and consumption process, takes on a supreme significance in late modernity. In a culture in which the supreme goal is to have†¦and to have more and more†¦and in which one can speak of someone as being worth a million dollars, how can there be an alternative between having and being? On the contrary, it would seem that the very essence of being is having; that if one has nothing, one is nothing (Fromm 3). It is worth quoting Erich Fromm further on contemporary capitalism as he unravels the connections between violent acts, crime and consumption. It means: that I want everything for myself; that possessing, not sharing, gives me pleasure; that I must become greedy because if my aim is having, I am more the more I have; that I must feel antagonistic toward all others: my customers whom I want to deceive, my competitors whom I want to destroy, my workers whom I want to exploit. I can never be satisfied because there is no end to my wishes; I must be envious of those who have more and afraid of those who have less. But I have to repress all these feelings in order to represent myself as the smiling, rational, sincere, kind human being everybody pretends to be†¦ Greed and peace preclude each other (Fromm 8). Here individualism, greed, destruction, dishonesty, fear and violence are woven, through the processes of production and consumption, inevitably into all our everyday lives. Now crime, in the form of a commodity, enables us all to consume without cost as we enjoy the excitement, and the emotions of hate, rage and love that crime often contains. As everyday life becomes less and less interesting, so it also becomes less and less bearable and there is felt a general desire for daily excitement that becomes an essential ingredient in a consumer commodity culture (Clarke, 16). Excitement is now created for consumption in a multitude of manners such as bungee jumping, spectacular rides, ballooning, theme parks and carnivals, all aimed at the commodification of excitement. All these need to be bought at the market rate. The experience of excitement can also be attained by a large range of criminal activities. Bank fraud and theft, joyriding, manipulating the stock market, all contain the thrills and spills of edge-work. In a society that demands excitement and desire in order to keep the momentum of the marketplace, we can expect the problems associated with the quest for excitement to become both enduring and extensive. The general collective yearn is now for spectacle and experience as we become consumers of imagery. As such we have lost our capacity for astonishment, wonder and curiosity in a world that no longer moves us in an emotional way. There is a high fantasy factor within emotional life and existence that creates the need for immediate satisfaction which in turn becomes the driving force of violence. In this world the desire for excitement can, for some, only be satisfied through senseless acts of violence and destruction. In this way the images we consume become devoid of context and become infantile and immediate. As Schopenhauer points out, this outlook is like the childish delusion that books, like eggs, must be enjoyed when they are fresh (Schopenhauer, 1470). In this world based on sensations and emotions the individual is revered and nurtured. It is a Disney-like world based on the immediacy of and need for fun and pleasure. In everyday life and education in particular, there is an emphasis on morale rather than morality. Here institutions strive to achieve activity without pain. Learning must be fun; poverty must be fun; housework must be fun; and as in Clockwork Orange and even Wind in the Willows (where Toad steals a car and partakes in what must be the first literary joyride) violence, crime and disorder must be fun. The violence demonstrates the closeness that the stars of rap and hip-hop have with the community that they come from. They are in a sense still part of that struggle for both survival and the maintenance of whatever success they have achieved. It is a precarious position for all young people from these communities where nothingness waits just round the corner, where acceptance and success are transient and culturally ephemeral, disappearing as quickly as they arrive. Along with clubbing and rave, rap completes the criminalisation of youth styles and creative culture that ensures that the continuing carnivalisation of everyday life will remain the major experience of being young. There is here a strange tension between the rationality (organisation) demanded by production and consumption and the irrationality of senseless consumption needed to reproduce the cycle. As science and rational liberalism attempt to order everyday life and meaning-making, so irrationality is banished to the act of consumption, as irrational acts themselves become commodified, acting as a bridge to the displaced world of the upside down. It is part of the consuming of displays, displays of consuming, consuming of displays of consuming, consuming of signs and signs of consuming (Lefebvre, 108). The endless, senseless and irrational appears a necessary ingredient of contemporary life as we strive through consumption to push back the ordering of rationality and return once more to the comfort of anarchy, disorder and irrationality. Violence itself is not to do with a rational approach to life but is connected to the personal gratification gleaned from the excitement of the superiority of winning. The consumption of crime becomes a blissful state of non-responsibility, a sort of never-ending moral holiday where we can enjoy in private immoral acts and emotions. It is the political and economic realities of life outside of polite society that are reflected in rap as it analyses and celebrates the otherness of poverty and struggle. It celebrates the cultural answer to ascribed social position and economic survival, which includes the legal and illegal acquisition of wealth, the struggle not just for work but the struggle at work. It reflects oppression both through education and through policing and the struggle for respect in life. It not only emphasises suffering but is also a celebration of leisure time as the time free from the industrial processes of production. And it is in the street where others darent go that hip-hop and rap culture is lived and comes to life. The aim is to be street-wise, to survive with dignity and respect amongst your own, without selling out. In the roll-call of rap stars, their names and song titles reflect not only their clashes with the law but also the violence involved in living a life of struggle and the maleness of the culture, although female rappers and DJs have large followings as well and reflect their own struggle for survival. To give some examples, there was the shooting of Tupac Shakur in Las Vegas in September 1996 followed by Biggie Smalls (Notorious B.I.G.), shot at the age of 24 in a rap war on 8 March 1997 not long after his last album Life after Death and its ironic track Youre Nobody Til Somebody Kills You. Ninjaman was imprisoned in Jamaica charged with murder, reflecting his raps Murder Dem and Murder Weapon. Frances best-known rappers, Kool Shen and Joey Starr, were jailed in 1996 for 6 months for anti-police lyrics Piss on the brainless police machine from the Nique ta Mà ¨re (Fuck your Mother) concert. Then Frankie Tah of the Lost Boyz was shot dead on 29 March 1999. In April 1999 Sean Puffy Combs was arrested for beating up an employee of Interscope Records and later also arrested for the possession of weapons. Consumption of the irrational remains an important connecting bridge to pre-productive life. Here the marketplace and the process of hip-hop consumption take on an extraordinarily important role in the creation of self and identity. Now in the ever-expanding realm of commodification and consumption, acts of hurt and humiliation, death and destruction, all become inextricably woven into processes of pleasure, fun and performance. We all participate in the creation of crime as we consume the filming of the carnival of the chase, becoming part of the process of production of real crime and real violence. It is not just the criminals but also the police, the public and the media who all play a part (Clarke 15). If hip-hop young people dont steal cars there can be no chase. If the police dont chase there is no event. If the event is not filmed there can be no product. If the product is not communicated there can be no distribution. If we dont watch there is no consumption and the process of production distribution and consumption is incomplete. Shopping is infused with racism; going to the corner store is at once an adventure in independence and a trial where the temptations and dangers of the drug economy must be negotiated; Barbie dolls are representatives of a world both foreign and hostile. In recognizing that these childrens consumer lives are shaped by the same forces of social inequality evident in their neighbourhood, educations, and even their life chances, my aim has been to highlight consumer culture as a terrain in which questions of social justice loom large. The deprivations experienced by children like those in hip-hop subculture are deep and lasting and perhaps all the more poignant because they take place in such close proximity to wealth and comfort. More than a depoliticized cultural space in which people may choose to purchase or try on identities, fantasies, and styles, consumer culture is a medium through which multiple oppressions are brought to bear on peoples lives in enduring and intimate ways. While white kids (among others) might debate the assertion that â€Å"they have everything, † the important point made by this man is that people value the things they own, whether these are sneakers or Porsches. Consumer lives are not simply expressions of individual desire. These lives cannot be understood apart from such processes as urban renewal, deindustrialization, the drug economy, informal segregation, and public transportation, since these are the processes that have been critical in shaping the consumption horizons of the hip-hop community. The ethnography of consumption, then, needs to take into account more than the interactions between individuals and particular commodities, the specific moment of purchase, the malls and stores where shopping takes place. This is in part because consumption activities cannot be seen as being limited to these relatively obvious encounters; consumption begins well outside of the store and continues well after a given purchase has been made. Any particular act of consumption is a moment—a snapshot—taken at the confluence of complex social, political, and historical streams. Understanding these moments requires thinking about what is taking place within the relatively arbitrary frame as a prelude to investigation into the breadth of factors that brought that moment into being. Hip-hop childrens reasons for seeking out particular items and their capacity for â€Å"spending my money wisely† are socially rooted in attempts to please caretakers, efforts to avoid the disappointment or anger of parents, the desire to share with siblings, and anticipation of the pleasures of giftgiving. These relationships, in turn, are shaped by the straitened economic circumstances of these families, circumstances ensuring that consumption is often for these children not a realm of unbridled fantasy, but rather one where fantasies must be reined in. This is not to say that questions of fashion or style, fad and fancy have no place in childrens consumption. Such status items as Cross-Colours clothes and Nike sneakers were without doubt consistent objects of intense desire and scrutiny, coveted by some or lovingly cared for by others. Conclusion This work has cantered its attention on the ways in which consumption is implicated in the exercise of oppression and in responses to such oppression. Because much of the oppression operative in the consumer sphere is symbolic, much of this work has been generated in tension with discussion about the consumption of the hip-hop subculture. This work conducted analysis of consumption under the production of images of hip-hop pathological consumption, for instance, that such oppression is operative at both the symbolic and material levels, both of which have real and telling effects on peoples lives. Such images and portrayals are an important element in the politics of consumption, a politics that portrays the consumption of the poor as being, on the one hand, problematic because they do not want enough and, on the other, dangerous because they want too much. Tales of constrained consumption are often used as examples to show why the poor cannot get ahead, and a lack of consumer desire is often seen as preventing the poor from attaining middle-class status. Rather than not wanting enough, these poor people want too much. In this vein, terms like compensatory consumption surface with regularity. The beauty of this discourse is that whether consuming too little or too much, the supposed consumer orientation of the poor explains their poverty. In hip-hop and rap there is no need for special legislation to control and criminalise both music and culture, since the way of life that is talked of, that makes up the story of the lives of the performers in a musical and rhythmic form, is already criminalised. Indeed what better way of saying the unsayable, of stating the illegal in a legal form, than bringing the reactions of those in poverty and those from minority groups forward through the carnivalesque qualities of hip-hop and rap. Because consumption is at its root a social process, it is enmeshed with the full range of social action from positive, altruistic expressions to destructive and violent outbursts. The realm of consumption offers ample space for people to find profound meaning in their worlds and existence, to integrate (rather than fragment) a sense of self, and to utter or to perform commentaries about what they see and feel in daily living. Children in hip-hop culture often turned the consumer sphere to their own expressive and prosocial purposes, using shopping as a way to create connections to their family and friends, as a sphere of creative play, or a realm in which they could construct critical assessments of the world around them. The consumer lives of these children show the complex ways in which forces of ideology, hegemony, and power can be bent—if only temporarily—into the contours of a particular life.    References    Belk, Russell. (1995). â€Å"Studies in the New Consumer Behaviour.† Acknowledging Consumption, ed. Daniel Miller. New York: Routledge. Carrier, James G., and Josiah McC. Heyman. (1997). â€Å"Consumption and Political Economy.† journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 3, no. 2: 355–73. Clarke, David B. (1999). The Consumer Society and the Postmodern City. Routledge: New York. Elliott, R. and Jankel-Elliott, N. (2002). â€Å"Using ethnography in strategic consumer research†, Qualitative Market Research: An international journal. Fromm, Erich (1976) To Have or To Be? New York: Harper Row. Huffman, Cynthia. (2000). The Why of Consumption: Contemporary Perspectives on Consumer Motives, Goals and Desires. Routledge: London. Marx, Karl (1977). Karl Marx: Selected Writings, ed. D. McLelland, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Morris B. (1999). Consumer Value: A Framework for Analysis and Research. Routledge: London. Schopenhauer, A. (1969) On the Basis of Morality, Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill.

Byrons Depression Reflected in Manfred Essay -- Depression Manfred E

Byron's Swiss tour and Manfred hit close to home for me. Not because I have traveled Switzerland, but because at one time in my life, I also experienced feelings of alienation and hopelessness. Therefore, I was quite intrigued by Dr Miall's notion of trauma in Manfred. I think he makes a compelling argument, especially when he pairs the notion of trauma with Freud's theory on the causes of trauma, but I do not necessarily agree with him entirely. While Dr Miall's theory is sound, I do not think his definition of trauma is clearly defined. I think a better, but not nearly as interesting theory, is that of depression. Although the symptoms of both psychological disorders are almost indistinguishable, their sources are quite different. I will distinguish the differences and sources between posttraumatic stress disorder and depression. Then I will try to show how Byron suffers from depression, not the result of trauma. Trauma is "[a] psychic injury, esp. one caused by emotional shock the memory of which is repressed and remains unhealed; an internal injury, esp. to the brain, which may result in a behavioural disorder of organic origin. Also, the state or condition so caused" ("trauma," def. 2a). Trauma is often the cause of posttraumatic stress disorder, which although is not defined in Dr Miall's notes, did however come up in class. Posttraumatic stress disorder "involves enduring psychological disturbance attributed to the experience of a major traumatic event" (Weiten 544). By looking at that definition, Dr Miall's theory does apply; however, Weiten's textbook reveals that the types of trauma that lead to posttraumatic stress disorder, from the most prevalent to the least, for men (since the discussion is about Byron) are: w... ...ces of trauma and the sources of depression. Both lead to the same symptoms, but I think depression better represents Byron's state of mind. Freud's theory on trauma can work if one sees Manfred/Byron suffering from trauma, but it does not work if one sees him as suffering from depression. I must admit that I am biased in my conclusion. I am drawn to my theory based on my own personal experiences. Works Cited Byron, George Gordon. Manfred. Romanticism: An Anthology. 2nd ed. Ed. Duncan Wu. Malden, Massachusetts: Blackwell, 1998. 718-751. "trauma." Def. 2a. The Oxford English Dictionary Online. 1989. Oxford English Dictionary. 2nd ed. University of Alberta Library. Edmonton, Alberta. 3 April 2005. http://dictionary.oed.com.login.ezproxy.library.ualberta.ca/. Weiten, Wayne. Psychology: Themes and Variations. 5th ed. Toronto, Ontario: Wadsworth, 2001. Byron's Depression Reflected in Manfred Essay -- Depression Manfred E Byron's Swiss tour and Manfred hit close to home for me. Not because I have traveled Switzerland, but because at one time in my life, I also experienced feelings of alienation and hopelessness. Therefore, I was quite intrigued by Dr Miall's notion of trauma in Manfred. I think he makes a compelling argument, especially when he pairs the notion of trauma with Freud's theory on the causes of trauma, but I do not necessarily agree with him entirely. While Dr Miall's theory is sound, I do not think his definition of trauma is clearly defined. I think a better, but not nearly as interesting theory, is that of depression. Although the symptoms of both psychological disorders are almost indistinguishable, their sources are quite different. I will distinguish the differences and sources between posttraumatic stress disorder and depression. Then I will try to show how Byron suffers from depression, not the result of trauma. Trauma is "[a] psychic injury, esp. one caused by emotional shock the memory of which is repressed and remains unhealed; an internal injury, esp. to the brain, which may result in a behavioural disorder of organic origin. Also, the state or condition so caused" ("trauma," def. 2a). Trauma is often the cause of posttraumatic stress disorder, which although is not defined in Dr Miall's notes, did however come up in class. Posttraumatic stress disorder "involves enduring psychological disturbance attributed to the experience of a major traumatic event" (Weiten 544). By looking at that definition, Dr Miall's theory does apply; however, Weiten's textbook reveals that the types of trauma that lead to posttraumatic stress disorder, from the most prevalent to the least, for men (since the discussion is about Byron) are: w... ...ces of trauma and the sources of depression. Both lead to the same symptoms, but I think depression better represents Byron's state of mind. Freud's theory on trauma can work if one sees Manfred/Byron suffering from trauma, but it does not work if one sees him as suffering from depression. I must admit that I am biased in my conclusion. I am drawn to my theory based on my own personal experiences. Works Cited Byron, George Gordon. Manfred. Romanticism: An Anthology. 2nd ed. Ed. Duncan Wu. Malden, Massachusetts: Blackwell, 1998. 718-751. "trauma." Def. 2a. The Oxford English Dictionary Online. 1989. Oxford English Dictionary. 2nd ed. University of Alberta Library. Edmonton, Alberta. 3 April 2005. http://dictionary.oed.com.login.ezproxy.library.ualberta.ca/. Weiten, Wayne. Psychology: Themes and Variations. 5th ed. Toronto, Ontario: Wadsworth, 2001.

Can We Talk Essay

The article Can We Talk? Researcher Talks About the Role of Communication in Happy Marriages† gives us results as related to couples in marriages. In today’s society, many couples are too busy to stop, sit down, and have a meaningful conversation with their significant others. Terri Orbach, research scientist at the Institute for Social Research at the University of Michigan, has studied 373 married couples for more than 20 years. We will examine the findings and explore some of the roles of communication in happy marriages. After reading the text and the required article, I became more aware of what self-disclosure is and how it can affect relationships. Self-disclosure is defined as sharing aspects of yourself with other people. This can be a form of â€Å"showing your true colors†. Sharing areas of yourself that may have been misconceived, showing interest in others, and being more involved are ways that you can open up and form close bonds. In marriages, you assume that couples are already in-the-know about their mate. But this sometimes can be a part of a learning process in the relationship. I can relate to the article because I often find myself at a loss for words. I have been in a few relationships that were on different types of levels; professional, informal and social. Within each of these relationships, there were limited sharing on my part. I would agree that self-disclosure is important in a relationship because it allows you to recognize issues and feelings, and also can help you learn something about self that was unknown. Effective communication promotes a sense of trust, that holds marriages together. Orbach states that by using her 10-minute rule, couples have a good starting point to reconnect with each other. Just 10 minutes to talk about the interests of your mate, areas of conflict, or even about the job made many marriages happier. Because men and women express themselves differently, gender does have a role in communication in relationships. Many believe that some behaviors are masculine and others are feminine. It is often discouraged for men to cry, they are taught to be strong and heroic, while women are allowed to show emotions openly.

Kant and the Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysics

According to Kant metaphysics is the â€Å"occupation of reason with itself†. In more concrete terms, it is the mind making logical connections between a priori concepts and coming to an objective truth thereby, without reference to experience.[1] The question posed by him in the Prolegomena is whether such an objective truth is at all possible. The conclusion derived in the end is that there is indeed such an objective truth, which is effected through pure reason. But equally important in the assertion is that such metaphysics is beyond human understanding.The title â€Å"Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysics† suggests that Kant does indeed anticipate an irrefutable metaphysics to be in the grasp of men in the future, but he never makes such a claim in the text itself. The thing that Kant aimed for was clarity in the field of metaphysical endeavor, and this is the ‘future metaphysics’. ‘Future’ can be interpreted in two ways here. First in the sense already suggested, so that metaphysical thinking is founded on a scientific basis, in which the terms and strategies it employs are well defined. But it can also be hinting at transcendental possibility, that by which all contradictions are resolved through â€Å"pure reason†.Scientific clarity is the aim, and thus Kant justifies the labor involved in Critique Of Pure Reason (1781), of which the Prolegomena was a sequel meant to make more accessible. He is at pains to point out that there is a moral obligation involved here. People cannot surrender themselves to unreason, because reason is the very make-up of the human, so postulates Kant. The suggestion that reason be abandoned was made by David Hume, who had spelt out a comprehensive theory of empirical skepticism.All our knowledge is through sense perceptions, therefore are entirely subjective, and cannot be tied into an absolute whole through the application of reason. It is merely by the means of custom that we ac quire a coherent worldview, he maintained.[2] Kant saw this as a capitulation to unreason. It was not just Hume’s personal viewpoint that mattered. It was indeed a wider crisis in metaphysics that he was addressing.When Newton’s physics could not be subsumed under any metaphysics, this engendered an intellectual confusion, and Hume’s solution was that metaphysics be abandoned as impossible. Kant enjoined that it is impossible to abandon metaphysics, for man reasons by necessity. Instead of finality we must aim for metaphysical clarity, and this is absolutely contingent upon us, indeed a moral obligation. He made what seem to be boastful claims about the crucial importance of the Critique in the history of metaphysics, but a closer examination will show that it is not from conceit, but rather from moral outrage.The true nature of metaphysics is laid out with scientific clarity in the Critique and the Prolegomena, and this is the essence that Kant wants to convey, not the final outcome. He takes Hume to task in the very opening of the Critique:  Although all our knowledge begins with experience, it does not follow that it arises entirely from experience. For it is quite possible that our empirical knowledge is a compound of that which we receive through impressions and that which our own faculty of knowing (incited by impressions) supplies from itself.[3]When considering sensual perception he first makes the distinction between a priori and a posteriori, the first suggesting an innate facility of the mind, and the second is a facility borne after the event. The second distinction is between analytical and synthetic propositions. In an analytic proposition the predicate is contained within the subject, such as â€Å"the flamingo is a bird†. In a synthetic proposition the predicate adds something new to the subject, such as â€Å"the flamingo is pink†. The pinkness is not in the definition of flamingo, but rather has to be got from observation, and therefore it is also a posteriori.Synthetic a posteriori propositions are employed in the field of natural science. On the other hand all mathematical truths are innate, i.e. we ascertain their truth before sensory perception. They are also synthetic: when we say â€Å"3+4=7†, then ‘7’ is a new concept, not contained in either ‘3’ of ‘4’. Mathematics holds the key to metaphysics, according to Kant. It demonstrates that synthetic a priori propositions are possible, which is contrary to normal expectation. We feel that whatever is innate is necessarily analytical. We are what we are, separated from the objective natural world beyond us. Against this instinctive point of view, Kant contended that we are not passive observers of an external world separated from us, but that with our innate faculties we â€Å"synthesize† our own subjective reality.The first stage of this synthesis is when we intuit objects in our perception. â€Å"Things in themselves† can never appear to us; we only have subjective sensory data to work with. It is a meaningless jumble of light, sound, touch, taste and smell, but then our faculty of sensibility intervenes and creates order out of this chaos. This faculty is synthetic a priori, and makes use of pure intuitions. Space is one such pure intuition. Newton had maintained that space is an external, absolute and inviolable reality. Kant counters that, no, space is pure intuition. Time is another such.Through the faculties of sensibility we come to make a judgment of perception. Thus far it is an entirely subjective viewpoint, with no objective framework to relate to that would link our views with those of others. This is the function of our judgment of experience. It too is synthetic a priori, and links the objects of perception into a rational order that facilitates understanding. This is done through pure concepts of understanding, and causation is one of t hem. Through this faculty we know that one event is cause to another, and thus wise we have come across Hume’s impasse, where he could find no rational construct that could link a effect to a cause when confined to empirical sense data.[4] â€Å"Cause and effect† is thus a concept of human understanding. Such understanding is composed of components that are a priori and synthetic, and it is meant to make the world intelligible to us.Just because the world is made intelligible, it does not imply that we do not meet contradiction. When we think we do so discursively, i.e. we think by making propositions in terms of subjects and predicates. But each subject we introduce is the predicate of another subject in an infinite chain. Because the absolute subject is beyond our grasp, discursive reason naturally leads to fallacies. In fact each truthful proposition will be found to have an equally valid refutation, which together are described as pairs of antimonies. Kant cites fo ur cosmological antimonies, one of which places infinite space against a limited one. He goes on to show that there is no contradiction in essence. As originating in the judgment of perception space does indeed have a beginning. But as regards human understanding space is necessarily infinite. The conflict arises from metaphysics failing to distinguish the noumenal (thing in itself) from the phenomenal (as appears to human understanding).Thus far does metaphysics gain clarity, but not finality. The human mind cannot help ponder on the questions of metaphysics, but it must come to terms with the fact that it is ‘bounded’. Human understanding is meant to make the outer world intelligible, and thus proves inadequate when the focus is redirected to the inner essence of the mind, which is the object that metaphysics must study. But the overriding lesson of metaphysics is that pure reason subsumes all. One must not despair of human reason, for one must know that it originates in pure reason and is overcome by it in the end.Subservience to pure reason is indeed a moral obligation. Other than clarity in metaphysics, which is not suitable for all, Kant advanced his categorical imperative: â€Å"I ought never to act except in such a way that I could also will that my maxim should become a universal law.†[5] We cannot help noticing that this is only a rewording of the golden rule of Christianity: â€Å"Do unto others as you would they should do unto you.†[6] Thus through clarity in metaphysics Kant can be said to have arrived at religious doctrine too.ReferencesHume, David. An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding. Ed. Eric Steinberg. Boston: Hackett Publishing, 1993.Jeffrey, David L. A Dictionary of Biblical Tradition in English Literature.  Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing, 1992.Kant, Immanuel. Critique of Pure Reason. Trans. Werner S. Pluhar. Ed. Eric Watkins. Boston: Hackett Publishing Company, 1999.Kant, Immanuel. Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals. Ed. Mary Gregor. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998.Kant, Immanuel. Kant's Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysics. Whitefish, MT: Kessinger Publishing, 2005.[1] Immanuel Kant, Kant's Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysics, Whitefish, MT: Kessinger Publishing, 2005, p. 92.[2] David Hume, An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, Ed. Eric Steinberg, Boston: Hackett Publishing, 1993, p. 29.[3] Immanuel Kant, Critique of Pure Reason. Trans. Werner S. Pluhar, Ed. Eric Watkins, Boston: Hackett Publishing Company, 1999, p. 1. [4] Hume, Enquiry, p. 49. [5] Immanuel Kant, Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals, Ed. Mary Gregor, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998, p. 16. [6] David L. Jeffrey, A Dictionary of Biblical Tradition in English Literature,  Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing, 1992, p. 314.

Webonomics essays

Webonomics essays Webonomics, by Evan I. Schwartz, is a practical, strategic tool for positioning and growing your business in the todays exploding World Wide Web economy. Schwartz addresses the unique problems and rewards businesses can expect to encounter when conducting business in cyberspace. He also dispels some of the most common misconceptions about doing business on the Web. More importantly, Schwartz targets the key to business success on the Web: understanding consumer behaviors and expectations. From scores of case studies, Schwartz has formulated nine guidelines for growing your business on the Web. Schwartzs analysis of these cases clearly explains why some businesses thrive and others fail miserably on the Web. To illustrate Schwartzs nine principles of Webonomics, this synopsis includes only a handful of his case studies. To apply his nine principles, Schwartz warns that we must first understand the motivations behind four main groups involved in the Web economy: The consumers, the content creators, the marketers, and the infrastructure companies (3). The consumers are in the drivers seat. They expect to make the Web a place of their own, a place of customized information and relationships. The content creators are those ventures that inhabit the Web and attempt to inform and amuse visitors. Content creators attempt to enhance their brand image and somehow make their Web sites profitable ventures. The marketers represent the thousands of companies that are promoting and selling products and services. The marketers who use a traditional approach to advertise, market, and sell their product on the Web will fall short of success. Finally, the infrastructure companies are selling the tools (hardware and software) to reach this digital landscape. Keeping these four main groups in mind, we now ex amine Schwartzs nine principles of Webonomics. Principle 1: Quality of Experience, Not Quantit...

September is Update Your Resume Month!

September is Update Your Resume Month! September is Update Your Resume Month and I am taking this opportunity to encourage YOU to update your resume! You never know when you will need to provide your resume to someone on short notice, so it’s a good idea to keep it as current as possible. Even if your job is secure, you could receive a sudden opportunity to step into a position with more responsibility. Or perhaps your boss will ask you for your resume to include in a contract proposal. I have many clients who end up paying rush fees unnecessarily because they did not prepare for unanticipated resume requests! Here are my top 10 recommendations to avoid the panic of a last-minute scramble to update your resume: Check your contact information. Are your address and phone number accurate? Is your LinkedIn Profile URL included on your resume? Read your Summary statement. Does it reflect your most current capabilities and achievements? If not, update it! Use specifics about yourself rather than overinflated â€Å"resume speak.† Add any skills / core competencies that you have added to your tool kit. Review the dates of all your employment positions and confirm that they are correct. List your most current position on your resume! (Perhaps you got a promotion that you haven’t gotten around to listing yet?) Include a result or impact in every bullet if at all possible. Companies care about what you achieved much more than they do about your job duties! Don’t ignore your duties and skills, but relate them to an achievement. If you have achieved something notable since you last updated your resume (and if it’s been more than a few months, I hope you have), add it to your current position’s bullets! Keep a running list of your metrics and achievements so that you can easily insert this information into your resume! Search and strip out any redundant or irrelevant information on your resume. If a past achievement or skill is not relevant to where you’re headed now, there’s no need to include it. Check your formatting with an eagle eye. Is every bullet consistently formatted? Are the fonts cohesive throughout? Have you printed the document to make sure it looks good on paper? Don’t risk being judged as detail-UNoriented! Create a version of your resume that meets the requirements of ATS systems (computer systems that read your resume). If you’re not familiar with how to do this, read Tip #43 in How to Write a WINNING Resume. For more detail on how to accomplish these 10 resume update recommendations, you might want to look at my e-books How to Write a WINNING Resume or How to Write a STELLAR Executive Resume. You can receive a free excerpt of both How to Write a WINNING Resume and How to Write a STELLAR Executive Resume by signing up for The Essay Experts job search e-list right here. Do you have other ideas on how to use Update Your Resume Month to its fullest advantage? Please share in the comments! Category:Resume TipsBy Brenda BernsteinSeptember 8, 2014

The Theory of Comparative Advantage Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

The Theory of Comparative Advantage - Essay Example 47). The terms like comparative or relative advantages have often failed to create same impression as that of absolute advantage and hence this concept of comparative advantage has often been misunderstood. The concept of absolute advantage as described by Adam Smith suggests that a commodity produced cheaper by a foreign nation should rather be bought from that nation and the resources available should be employed in a way which we have some advantage (Bromley et al., 2004, p. 46). This simplicity of absolute advantage has made the concept very popular and easy to comprehend. Moving on to the concept of comparative advantage given by David Ricardo; the concept is not at all intuitive at first go and will require explicit numerical examples for better explanation. To begin, we consider two nations "Nation A" and "Nation B" and both producing two goods, cloth which is a manufactured good and fruit wine which can be considered as an agricultural product. Both the products are produced in these countries. As Ricardo had assumed, we start with Nation A which can produce fruit wine efficiently while Nation B is considered more productive and can produce both cloth and fruit wine efficiently. ... A country is said to have a comparative advantage in the production of cloth if it can produce it at a lower opportunity cost. The opportunity cost in the given business scenario of cloth production is the amount of wine that must be given up to produce for producing a unit of cloth. If Nation A is in comparative advantage in the production of cloths then the fruit wine production it is giving up to produce another unit of cloth is less than that of Nation B. The theory of comparative advantage when applied to modern business scenario, we consider two countries producing two goods using labor as the only factor of production. Here the goods have been considered as a homogeneous output and at the same time labor is also a homogeneous entity within the same nation. But the same labor is heterogeneous across different countries. Other factors like goods transportation between countries and labor relocation within country are all been considered costless. Relocation of labor across countries is not possible. Labor is fully employed and it's the labor productivity parameters according to which production technology are being reflected (Bromley et al., 2004, p. 56). The business model based on this theory actually gives an overview of what exactly will happen when a country moves from a state of economic island to a free trade to the other country. The main things which require care are trade's effects on the prices of the goods in each country , the production levels of the goods, employment levels in each of the nation involved, the trade pattern, consumption level and national as well as individual welfare. The liberated trade and

Prions Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Prions - Essay Example Clinical signs among others include personality changes, psychiatric problems, lack of coordination, steady gait, involuntary jerking movements, unusual sensations, insomnia, confusion and severe mental impairment in the later stages. Those known to infect other vertebrate animals include scrapie in sheep, bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) in cows, chronic wasting disease in American elk and deer, transmissible mink encephalopathy in mink and feline spongiform encephalopathy in cats (Jeffrey, Goodbrand & Goodsir 1995). One of the primary risk factors identified in relation to prion diseases is age. Studies suggest that a general mechanism might produce the remarkable reduction in disease risk as age increases. For example, in a study of scrapie outbreaks, it is observed that incidence of clinical cases peaked in sheep with age ranging from 2 to 3 years. The same age range has been noted in cattle with mad cow and deer with chronic wasting disease (Heisey 2004). In terms of its prevalence in the human population, it is estimated that 1 in 10,000 people are infected with CJD at the time of death. The actual prevalence of prion diseases are very difficult to ascertain due to overlapping symptoms that may lead to misdiagnosis. (Heaphy 2003) Research pertaining Research pertaining to prion diseases is deemed limited by the fact that studying them is substantially hampered by the unconventional properties of the presumed etiologic agent. Moreover, the long incubation period ranging from 34 to 41 years ("Mad cow could be dormant in people" 2006) of the diseases make them more difficult to detect. Moreover, the standard laboratory methods utilized for studying viruses and bacteria may not be applicable in this case (Belay & Telling). However, following reports of the outbreak of BSE, commonly termed as "mad cow" disease, in many European countries coupled with the estimated economic and medical implications of the said epidemic, the scope and nature of research on prion diseases has developed rapidly. This paper focuses on the current advancements in the study of prion diseases specifically in terms of modes of transmission, diagnosis methods, possible treatment and prevention. Modes of Transmission The manner of transmission of prion diseases is of primary concern in view of the protein nature of the prions. Note that unlike other types of infectious diseases which are spread by microbes, prion diseases are caused by misshaped protein, dubbed as prion protein, which transmits the disease between individuals causing brain deterioration (Belkin 2003). Based on recent studies, prion diseases have been considered unique as these can be inherited, sporadically occur or spread through infection. Majority of the prion disease cases are said to occur spontaneously, hence, animals with no prion protein mutation were observed infected. (Collinge 2001) On the other hand, inherited prion disease occurs in animals carrying a rare mutant prion allele. The disease is transmitted when healthy animal consume tainted tissues of other infected animals. The "mad cow" epidemic has been attributed to this mode of transmission as practice of feeding the cattle with processed remains of other cattle, which may have been infected already, became common. (Weissmann 2004) In humans, as in the cases of CJD, the