Negligance: New Haverford Partnership Essay

Plaintiff 1 is Elizabeth Stroot, a 33 year old graduate student who has suffered from allergies and asthma since childhood. Stroot was a tenant at Haverford apartments. Plaintiff 2 is Joletta Watson, friend and roommate of Elizabeth Stroot and a tenant of Haverford apartments from 1990 to 1994. Defendant is New Haverford Partnership, the owner of Haverford apartments. Facts In August 1992, Elizabeth Stroot and a roommate, Joletta Watson, moved into an apartment on the third floor of Haverford Place. (Case Law) While living in this apartment with Watson, Stroot immediately discovered mold around the windows and bathroom. Upon this discovery, Stroot attempted to remove the mold with bleach, however, the mold keep returning. In addition to the mold, Stroot also discovered leaks in her bedroom ceiling and in the kitchen and bathroom sinks. About a year later, in September 1993, Stroot’s roommate, Watson, moved out and Stroot moved into a one bedroom apartment in a different building within Haverford Place. After moving in, Stroot discovered that the bathroom ceiling in the new apartment also leaked. After living there for a few months, the leaks had caused holes in the drywall and there was a black substance covering the edges of the holes. Whenever the shower was on in the apartment above Stroot’s, black water ran out of the holes. Stroot inf ormed management and some efforts were made to fix the upstairs shower. No repairs were made in Stroot’s apartment. The landlord stated that â€Å"the problem was caused by the upstairs tenants taking â€Å"sloppy† showers.† A few months later, on May 6 1994, Stroot called emergency maintenance because the hold in her bathroom ceiling was expanding and had become very large. It was no longer just a leak; she stated it was â€Å"raining†. Maintenance came to inspect her apartment and said that they would fix her apartment once the problem in the upstairs apartment was resolved. Ten days later, on May 16, 1994, Stroot’s bathroom ceiling collapsed and her bathroom floor flooded with water from the ceiling. The now exposed ceiling and also the debris from the drywall were covered with black, green, orange, and white mold. Stroot stated that the room was  filled with a strong and nauseating odor. Again, Stroot called emergency maintenance and they sta ted that they could not do anything until the following morning. Once morning came, Stroot could not breathe. Stroot contacted her doctor and he recommended that she get an ambulance and go to the hospital. After being released from the hospital that day, Stroot made the decision that she could no longer live at Haverford Place. Due to her suffering from allergies and asthma since childhood, while living at Haverford Place, Stroot was forced to go to the emergency room seven times from asthma attacks. Also, she had spent a total of nine days as an inpatient where she received intravenous steroids twelve times. Stroot incurred medical expense in the amount of $28,000. Stroot sued New Haverford Partnership to recover damages for their negligence in permitting the water leaks and mold to persist in her apartment for the cause of her medical issues. While Watson lived at Haverford Place, during the years of 1990 to 1994, she experienced many of the same issues as Stroot had in her apart ment. During the first few years of Watson’s residency at Haverford Place, she traveled frequently and was not home that often. However, the pipe under her sink burst and her kitchen was flooded with hot water. Maintenance did fix this pipe but the cabinets remained damaged by the water. She also had water issues in her bathroom. There was a gap in her tub between the tiles and the tub. Behind this gap was rotten drywall. Black mold was living behind the toilet, around the sink, on the ceiling and the windows were coated with a gummy substance. Watson attempted to remove the mold several times and it would continue to return. In 1993, Watson no longer traveled and was home more. During this time, Watson started to experience health problems. These problems included frequent headaches, sinus issues, chest pains, body aches, and fatigue. Watson went to he doctor and obtained medicine, however, she did not feel any better until she was no longer living at Haverford Place, six mo nths later. Watson had developed an allergy to Penicillium and suffered from permanent upper respiratory problems due to her exposure to the mold. Procedure The plaintiffs, Stroot and Watson, brought the appeal on three theories of tort liability: 1. Ordinary or common law negligence based on Landlord’s alleged failure to maintain safe and sanitary conditions in the apartments, 2. Negligence based on alleged violations of the New Castle County Code 3, 3. Negligence based on alleged violations of the Landlord Tenant Code. The jury of the trial courts found in favor of the plaintiffs on all three forms of negligence. The plaintiffs also offered testimony from several expert witnesses. The first expert witness is Dr. Yang, a mycologist and microbiologist. After inspecting Haverford Place, he stated that there was excessive and atypical mold growth in the apartment buildings caused by long term leaks. He opined the widespread mold contamination posed a health risk to tenants. The next, Dr. Johnanning, a physician board-certified in environmental and occupational medicine, also inspected and noted similar data from Haverford Place. He took blood samples from the plaintiffs and after analysis, he opined there was a high concentration of toxic mold at Haverford Place and this significantly and permanently increase the severity of Stroot’s asthma. He also st ated that Watson developed an allergy to Penicillium and suffered from permanent upper respiratory problems as a result to her exposure to the mold. Dr. Gordon, a neuropsychologist, another expert witness, studied the mental defects associated with the atypical molds. He evaluated Stroot and came to the conclusion that she suffers from significant cognitive impairment in the areas of attention, concentration, memory and executive functions. He opined these problems were permanent and were a result of her exposure to the mold. Dr. Rose, a physician board certified in pulmonary, occupational and environmental medicine also examined Stroot and opined that she had developed osteopenia as a result of her steroid use while living at Haverford Place. The last expert witness, Michael Lynn, an architect and partner in real estate due diligence firm performed a limited property condition assessment at Haverford Place. He opined that the deferred maintenance on the buildings was excessive and the landlord’s failure to maintain the property was the proximate cause of the unhealthy and unsanitary conditions observed. The jury awarded Stroot $1,000,000 for personal injuries and $5,000 for property damage. Watson was awarded $40,000 for personal injuries. Both Watson and Stroot’s awards were reduced by 22% for their level of contributory negligence. Issue Was New Haverford Partnership liable for negligence? Were the expert  witness’s testimonies reliable? Is the amount of the damage awards appropriate? Were the plaintiff’s partially at fault due to their own negligence? Holding The landlord filed an appeal to the trial court’s outcome with claims of error in the plaintiffs allegations of the three causes of action in tort liability of the landlord, the opinions of the expert witness were deficient in several respects, and that the amounts awarded to Stroot and Watson were excessive. The Supreme Court held that New Haverford Partnership was negligent and the amounts awarded to Stroot and Watson was supported. The Supreme Court affirmed the trial court’s judgment in favor of Stroot and Watson Reasoning There was no error found in the trial court’s decision to allow the plaintiffs to pursue an ordinary, or common law, negligence claim and the jury found the landlord negligent due to failure to maintain the property allowing for unsafe and unsanitary living conditions and breaching the Landlord Tenant Code. The landlord owed the tenants a duty of care and the landlord breached that duty and due and the breach was the proximate cause of the tenant’s injuries. The court finds that the experts’ opinions were within the realm of scientific reliability and that the trial court acted with their realm of discretion in allowing them. In Delaware, the presumption is that a jury verdict is â€Å"correct and just.† The court has the authority to grant a new trial if it believes that the verdict was based upon â€Å"passion, partiality, prejudice, mistake, or misapprehension on the part of the jury.† It also states that a verdict will not be set aside unless it is â€Å"so grossly excessive as to show the Court’s conscience and sense of justice; and unless the injustice of allowing the verdict is clear.† Therefore, given the permanent nature of the Plaintiff’s injuries as well as the physical and emotional suffering that Stroot and Watson will have to endure the remainder of their lives, the court does not find the amount of damage awards to be unreasonable. Case Questions Critical Legal Thinking – What is negligence? Do you think the landlord was negligent in this case? Negligence is the failure to take proper care in doing something. Yes, the landlord was negligent in this case. They were aware of the major water leaks and mold issues and did not do anything to attempt to resolve the issues. With knowing the condition of the apartment buildings, they are required as a landlord to make the proper repairs to insure the buildings have safe and sanitary living conditions for their tenants. They were also aware of these conditions for at least four years. Business Ethics – Did New Haverford Partnership act ethically in this case? Do you think Stroot was partially at fault in this case? No, I do not think New Haverford Partnership acted ethically in this case. Their appeal arguing that the were not negligent, that the expert witnesses didn’t have valid cases and that the damage awards were excessive goes to show that they do not have any sympathy for the damages they have caused and also that they are not responsible for the damages. Howeve r, I do believe Stroot is partially at fault. She continued to live at the apartments after she was aware of the conditions. She knew her health was at risk after her first visit to the Emergency Room. She ended up going an additional six times. Contemporary Business – Do you think the award of damages in this case was appropriate? Why or Why not? I agree with the court’s decision in the amount of award of damages. Stroot and Watson both will have to suffer from mental and physical issues for the remainder of their lives due to the exposure to the mold. They will have recurring medical expenses due to these issues and the amount of the award will allow for payment of their future medical expenses and for personal damages. I do agree with the court’s decision to reduce their awards by 22% for their own negligence. Watson and Stroot both lived in Haverford place for multiple years and were well aware of the issues and condition of the buildings. They chose to cont inue to live there even after the negligence of the landlord was well known after they did not repair the multiple issues they called in. Also, Stroot had to go to the emergency room seven times before she decided not to live at Haverford Place. Citations Cheeseman, Henry. Business Law: Legal Environment, Online Commerce, Business Ethics, and International Issues, 7th Edition. Pearson Learning Solutions. (Pg 772-773). New Haverford Partnerships v. Stroot and Watson, No. 549, 1999. Retrieved from http://courts.state.de.us/

Dickens a Christmas Carol and Priestley’s Essay

By bragging about his knighthood and talking about his strong capitalist views; â€Å"A man has to make his own way,† â€Å"community and all that nonsense,† Birling makes himself unpopular to the audience which is Preistley’s intension when Birling talks about the â€Å"Titanic being absolutely unsinkable,† and the fact that, â€Å"nobody wants war,† this creates dramatic irony as the audience know that the Titanic would sink on its maiden voyage, there would be two world wars, depression and strikes however, the characters don’t know this and in this case they don’t know that Birling is completely wrong in what he is saying. All of this creates a negative diction in which Priestley creates this wealthy, prosperous almost perfect family that looks splendid but is the opposite as they are ignorant and the lowest of low, especially to Priestley who strongly disagrees with their capitalist views. Birling can be compared to scrooge in â€Å"A Christmas carol,† as they both are prosperous, both don’t play a part in their community and they are both set up by Dickens and Priestly to be unsympathetic by using the same techniques like negative diction and them both being ignorant. In the opening scene we also learn about Birling’s family; his wife Sybil Birling who plays little part in the opening act, his son Eric who seems shy and close to being drunk, his â€Å"pretty† daughter Sheila who â€Å"is very pleased with life,† and her light hearted conversation shows she is youthful and enthusiastic. There is also one visitor present, Sheila’s fianci Gerald who is, â€Å"attractive,† and â€Å"the easy well-bred young man-about-town. † His father owns a large business; Crofts Limited and when making his speech, Birling says that, â€Å"we may look forward to the time when Crofts and Birlings are no longer competing but are working together,† which means that Birling being the man we now know him to be, sees his daughters engagement as a clear opportunity for a business deal. However things seem unstable between Sheila and Gerald when she mentions, â€Å"last summer,† in a â€Å"half playful, half serious,† tone. Priestly does this to show that although they look perfect, they all obviously have problems creates unease in the atmosphere and causes conflict and anxiety. The Inspectors arrival instantly adds tension as the lighting is changed on stage to be, â€Å"brighter and harder,† which signals a change of mood in the play and also seems to add menace to the Birling family. Priestley describes the Inspector to be man who; â€Å"creates at once an impression of massiveness, solidity and purposefulness. † This tells the audience that this character is important and the fact that he speaks, â€Å"carefully, weightily, and has a disconcerting habit of looking hard of the person he addresses before actually speaking,† also gives the impression that he knows, hopefully as well as the audience, how ignorant and wrong the family is. The inspector speaks to each of them: â€Å"gravely,† â€Å"dryly,† â€Å"slowly,† â€Å"steadily,† â€Å"plainly,† â€Å"coolly,† â€Å"with authority,† â€Å"massively,† and â€Å"sharply,† which builds up a moralising tone. From this early stage Priestley presents him as a judge and jury of the family’s wrong doings and almost a philosopher and social observer rather than a policeman. For example â€Å"it’s my duty to ask questions,† and in the case of Eva Smith, â€Å"what happened to her then may have determined what happened to her afterwards, and what happened to her afterwards may have driven her to suicide,† comments like these would be out of place being said by a police man. In â€Å"A Christmas Carol,† Dickens voiced his opinions through different characters, in â€Å"An Inspector Calls,† Priestley voices his socialist views through the Inspector when he describes Eva Smith by; using the repetition of no; â€Å"No work, no money,† listing; â€Å"few friends, lonely, half starved,† and emotive language. He also uses biblical reference similar to Dickens, â€Å"we are members of one body,† which is part of a communion prayer which means that we are all equal in the sight of God and that he sees no class barriers. Another example is, â€Å"fire and blood and anguish,† which is a biblical reference to hell and links to World War 1 which Priestley fought in. Also like Dickens he unites the speaker and the audience by using the plural, personal pronoun, â€Å"we,† which emphasises his positive views on the idea of community. The Inspector, referring to Eva Smith says, â€Å"There are a lot of young women living that sort of existence in every city and big town in the country,† â€Å"If there weren’t, the factories and warehouses wouldn’t know where to look for cheap labour,† this is a general social point Priestley is making as well as the fact that there is no clear dividing line between different elements of society, for example, Gerald says, â€Å"we’re respectable citizens not criminals! † to which the Inspector replies, â€Å"Sometimes there isn’t as much difference as you think. † This brings out Priestley’s positive views on the community, that we are all responsible for each other, that we are all part of humanity and we need to share our problems. Also like Dickens’ â€Å"A Christmas Carol,† Priestley gives the Inspector the role of mystic, all knowing power; Shelia notices this when she says to him â€Å"I don’t understand you. † This can be linked to Ouspensky’s theory that existence is a cycle of lives, which we can only escape from if we change them with the help of a gifted or extraordinary person; in this case that person is the Inspector. Through the whole play the Inspector rids the Birling family of their respectability as the audience feel, with the persuasive techniques of the Inspector, that not only are they on trial but the whole of the people in their advantaged social position for treating people like Eva Smith badly; â€Å"Public men, Mr Birling, have responsibilities as well as privileges,† the antithesis in this emphasises Priestley’s just spoken message. Before the Inspector leaves he makes a powerful, prophet like speech, which summarises the play’s philosophy; â€Å"We don’t live alone,† and â€Å"We are responsible for each other;† a biblical message, shows Priestley’s sense for community and the antithesis of â€Å"if men will not learn that lesson they will be taught it in fire and blood and anguish. † represents the two World Wars to come as the play is set in 1912 and it was performed in 1945, to tell the audience that we haven’t learnt anything. The Inspectors speech is very compelling and is used to voice Priestley’s views to the audience. The repetition of â€Å"we,† is a persuasive technique that he uses as well as Dickens’ to captivate the audience and to make them realise that it also involves them. There is a huge difference in the older and younger generations of the family to the reaction of Eva smith. The eldest, for example Mr Birling is not nearly as effect by the story as Shelia who reacts emotionally. She also readily agrees that she has behaved badly and is prepared to admit her faults. She also is keen to change her behaviour; â€Å"I’ll never, never do it again. † Her brother Eric is also anxious to change his ways for the future and is deeply sorry for what he did, together they are also ashamed of their parents; Eric says to his mother, â€Å"You don’t understand anything. You never did. You never even tried. † She and her husband however are less remorseful, Birling in particular as he refuses to take any responsibility for Eva Smith’s death and seems to be more concerned about the money Eric stole from him than Eric’s treatment to Eva Smith. He is also concerned about keeping his ever so important social status when he says to his wife that, â€Å"It isn’t going to do us much good,† and, â€Å"The press might easily take it up,† this shows how ignorant he is and that he represents Priestley’s disgust of capitalist businessmen who are only interested in making money. From this it is clear that it is left up to the younger generation to learn from their mistakes and to change the future to which the Inspector adds, â€Å"They’re more impressionable. † Priestley makes crucial parts of the play more dramatic by using tension; before the Inspector arrives there is a slight unease as Sheila brought up, â€Å"last summer,† to Gerald, which tells us that something already isn’t quite right in the family, there is also irony as Gerald jokingly suggests that, â€Å"Eric has been up to something,† Eric is not amused and uncomfortable at this remark, Gerald insists it’s a â€Å"joke,† but we later find out he has been up to something. The Inspector enters straight after this and again there is more tension built up by him questioning Birling and Sheila but even more so when he begins to question Gerald who reveals that he was with Eva Smith â€Å"last summer,† the act then ends as the Inspector enters and says, â€Å"Well? † This leaves the audience in huge suspense and anticipating what will happen next. After questioning Gerald and Mrs Birling, which adds even more tension when she says that the boy who got Eva Smith pregnant should be, â€Å"compelled to confess in public,† not realising that this boy was her own son Eric, who enters after the Inspector tells her who the boy is. There is huge anxiety and stress now as the inspector has interrogated them all, he leaves with a compelling speech and after this the tension fades away as the family question the Inspectors presence. Was he an Inspector? Was Eva Smith real? They all start to relax apart from the youngest who are ashamed of their behaviour, the eldest seem to be, â€Å"amused,† and the word, â€Å"joke,† reappears, to which straight away the telephone rings, a moments silence creates worry and large amounts of anxiety build up. As Birling tells his family a police Inspector is on his way they all â€Å"stare guiltily and dumbfounded† as the curtain falls. Ending the play here would leave the play open for the audience to make their own decision on what would happen next again this would add tension. Priestley’s intention when adding tension at crucial parts in the play is to make them more memorable and for the audience to really think about the characters involved. It also highlights his message that he is trying to get across; we should all live as a community and see each other as equals. â€Å"A Christmas Carol,† and â€Å"An Inspector Calls,† are similar as they both contain the supernatural and the idea of fate. â€Å"A Christmas Carol,† involves ghosts and spirits, which give us the message that if we do not change our ways for the better we will be punished. This is also true for, â€Å"An Inspector Calls,† as it has a philosophical theme that society needs to change, however, the supernatural is only hinted at as the characters suspect that the Inspector wasn’t real and they have no proof that he was. The Inspector had a moralising almost prophet like presence similar to the spirits. Priestley’s play follows Ouspensky’s theory, as the Inspector is the extraordinary person who changes the lives of the Birling household. Even though Dickens did not know this theory it can be compared to it, as his novel is based on a very similar theme. In, â€Å"A Christmas Carol,† the gifted or extraordinary people who change lives are the spirits. Both texts also follow the concept that in our lives there are significant moments we make which can lead to disaster or salvation; in â€Å"An Inspector Calls,† the Inspector analyses these moments and tries to make the characters see where they have gone wrong. In, â€Å"A Christmas Carol,† Scrooge sees his past present and future and realises that he too has made the wrong decisions in life and plans to change them. The Characters in both stories can also be compared for their similarities; there are the villains; Scrooge and Birling, who are written to be disliked. Both are ignorant, arrogant and have no sense of community that both authors are for. They both symbolise the capitalist businessmen who turn a blind eye to everyone else. In both narratives there are also the victims of the villains behaviour and actions; Tiny Tim and Eva Smith. These characters symbolise the poor; Eva Smith represents the lives of many women of that time. We learn that even though she has been hard done to, she still has the highest morals; she didn’t accept the stolen money that Eric offered her and reclined his offer of marriage, as he didn’t love her. Preistly writes her this way to show that these women are not bad people and that they should not be judged on their social class. Tiny Tim symbolises the poor in, â€Å"A Christmas Carol,† as he creates sympathy for the reader; he is ill and still tries to enjoy life. In both texts, the victims die as part of the villain cruel and unjust behaviour. Both also have a theme of repentance; Eric and Shelia are deeply sorry and ashamed of how they behaved and plan to change their ways if possible. Marley also carries this theme of regret when he comes and warns Scrooge to alter. Each of these characters represents the authors beliefs that we should change become a stronger community and disregard each other’s differences. In both texts there are differences, the obvious being that one is a novel and one is a play. This variation effects how the messages are conveyed; â€Å"A Christmas Carol,† shows the message clearly, and goes into more detail about characters emotions. â€Å"An Inspector Calls,† illustrates the message in a less obvious way and leaves the audience thinking more about its message. The characters emotions can only really be displayed when acting which would give the audience a much clearer image. The more realistic of the two is, â€Å"An Inspector Calls,† because it contains less of the supernatural which makes it easier to believe. â€Å"A Christmas Carol,† could be called a fairytale, as the idea of ghosts and spirits is very unrealistic. Scrooge changes his attitudes through out the novel and is a totally different person from the beginning to the end. This can be said for the younger members of the Birling family; Sheila and Eric both feel wrong and guilty. They too, plan to change how they behave and act. Nevertheless, Mr Birling and Mrs Birling show no signs of changing their capitalist beliefs and they don’t plan to act any differently than before.

Key Success Factors in Online Ventures

The chaotic development of the Internet has left many attempts to route commerce through it stranded. Icons of the brick-and mortar age have often been the most hapless victims, floundering in vain attempts to attract the attention of browsers, and to deliver value. This makes the eminent online success of Office Depot especially worthy of study.The business-to-business model has been especially difficult for middle-aged industrial and corporate buyers to comprehend. Those who have never learnt to write in code feel threatened by the very mention of a web site, and take refuge in the exaggerated risks of buying online (Tillinghast, 2002). The first key success factor of Office Depot lies in the simplicity of design of its web site, requiring no familiarity with computers or programming to place orders, pay for them, and to receive supplies.Office Depot, by virtue of the variety of products and services on offer, tempts customers to become frequent web site visitors (Office Depot, 200 6). Office supplies for coffee are positioned in the upper left quadrant where it is likely to catch first attention. The lay out is inviting, and is bound to generate curiosity and interest even in the minds of skeptical browsers. Overall, Office Depot scores through a web site, which is akin to the shop windows of the most popular retail outlet in the physical world.A third success factor is that Office Depot makes it easy to return goods purchased on incorrect impulses, even arranging to pick them up at the door (Johnson, not dated). This must alleviate natural fears about making buying decisions without seeing and feeling products, and meets most objections of electronic commerce head-on.Office Depot respects customer choice, emphasizing the availability of trusted brands (Office Depot, 2006). Generic products, new brands, and the most established ones such as Hewlett-Packard are offered with even prominence. This is in contrast to the online business forays of some others, whic h are blatant efforts to promote particular brands at the cost of customer degrees of freedom.Broadly, Office Depot has succeeded in online business, because it has put customer needs ahead of technological innovation in electronic communication, ensuring that the Internet serves business needs rather than dictate terms to it.Lessons from the Office Depot Online SuccessConventional marketing promoted the targeting of relatively narrow segments. This made sense as long as a business offered its products and services within the confines of a segregated area. An over-riding feature of the Internet is that the whole world becomes a single market place. Conventional marketing which is highly focused on a spatially limited segment pays the costs of existence on the World Wide Web, but without the attendant market potential and size benefits. We can learn from the success of Office Depot that online marketing has to address clusters (Payne, 2002) rather than narrow segments. Office Depot d efines its customers as enterprises of all sizes, from the small to large corporations, and has combined its Internet foray with international operations. It is therefore able to use the full power of the medium.The Internet makes the Process element of the Marketing Mix (Payne, 2002) a key determinant of success. Office Depot has a prominent promise on the web site of deliveries, without extra charge, within one business day. The enormous planning and investment efforts made to make this promise come true over incredibly large numbers of transactions everyday, has to be appreciated if anyone wishes to repeat the Office Depot success story. Perhaps the facility of the medium makes other enterprises offer commitments which they are not geared to meet, leaving customers disillusioned. There is a large and complex operation of logistics behind the Office Depot success, to keep adequate inventories of such a large number of items within a day’s reach of all customers.The sophisti cation of online business tempts many enterprises to segregate Internet operations from conventional business. A lesson from Office Depot is that the medium should be integrated in to the mainstream in manners which lend synergy (Johnson, not dated). Office Depot treats customers on its web site just as it would if some one walked in to one of their conventional stores.Finally, Office Depot enhances its physical and generic products with useful services (Johnson, not dated). The articles and discussions on small business and commercial resources must be particularly valuable for customers.Competitive Advantage in MarketspaceScale matters in marketspace (Johnson, not dated). Office Depot is successful because of the breadth of its product and service offers, because of the vast territory it serves, and the sheer weight of over a billion dollars of revenue, which is growing rapidly as well. These dimensions act as barriers to new entrants, and strengthen the company’s competiti ve strength from day to day.Marketspace is first about customer needs, and not about the elegance and creativity of software engineers. Other enterprises have web sites with flash, multi-media, and other features which delight programmers, but which take time to load, and can even scare away customers. Web sites should have clear objectives (Tillinghast, 2002), and serve the business, rather than drive it. It is important for enterprises to avoid being overwhelmed by the aura of the Internet, and to keep it tightly within the reins of customer needs.Limits to Online Business Success and the Office Deport ExperienceThere are 5 important limitations to online business in general, and to the foregoing account of the success of Office Depot in this regard: firstly, credit card and related payment frauds plague most electronic commerce ventures. The case does not mention the actual experience of Office Depot in this regard, and even if the company has not suffered any significant losses in this regard, it remains vulnerable for the future.Secondly, products such as copiers and facsimile machines may require considerable product demonstration and after-sales-service, which the online business model is not geared to provide. The decision-making for pins and staples is certainly not the same as for equipment such as filing cabinets: Office Depot runs the risk of building revenues faster in low value-addition lines, as opposed to modern office products of the future.Thirdly, Office Depot has tasted success during the halcyon years of a global economic boom. The serious fixed cost growth which it has encountered in terms of warehousing and logistics could become a serious drag on profitability during a future economic downturn.Fourthly, the practice of offering products in kiosks which are not available or offered online, may rebound on the company. Customers may move away from the company’s web site once they realize that more choice is available in real stores. Finally, the Office Depot experience lacks universal relevance. Many competitors, and companies in other lines of business may realize better returns from conventional business channels, and failures if they copy the high fixed cost and infrastructure-intensive online business model of Office Depot.ReferencesJohnson, W. C. (not dated) Case 13: Office Depot Goes Online-E-Service Quality, publication details not availablePayne, A. (2002) Services Marketing, Prentice-HallTillinghast, T. (2002) Tactical Guide to Internet Marketing, Xlibris CorporationOffice Depot, (2006) Company website, retrieved January 16th 2007 from: http://www.officedepot.com/

REPORT ON HIGHER EDUCATION IN QATAR4 (Part in green) Research Paper

REPORT ON HIGHER EDUCATION IN QATAR4 (Part in green) - Research Paper Example tion which comprise of schools, second is known as secondary education level which includes all colleges in country and top level is higher education that is known as tertiary education in which universities are placed. The Council was founded by Emir Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani along with his wife, SheikhaMozahbintNaseer Al-Missnad. All education related matters are handled by this Council and has even directing and controlling power to make decision from primary level to higher education level. It recently initiated Education for a New Era Reform with the aim of restructuring education system of the country (Supreme Education Council, 2012). However, education controlling power is shared in between Supreme Education Council and Ministry of Education; since funding to the Ministry is reduced to a greater extent, majority of schools, colleges and universities are under the control of the Council. The main aim of this Council is to offer its assistance to citizens so that they are encouraged and motivated to acquire higher education. Similarly, private institutions and foreign universities are being attracted to increase education level and offer varying degrees of programs to students that are compatible with job demands in the market (Coughlan, 2012). It has been given complete responsibility for designing of educational polices and also oversee its reforms; the Evaluation Institute has power of undertaking student assessment on periodical basis to provide details about performance of schools and the Education Institute assists in development of Independent Schools that are new and design curriculum standards that enhance education quality. In order to have access to information about the Council, the most effective way is to either call on their telephone lines, post a letter on P.  O Box 35111, Doha, Qatar, Communication Office, Phone:   Hot line 155 - 44044564 - 44044567- 44044371 - 4044370, fax on their number 44044571 - 44044572  or email to concerned

World View Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

World View - Essay Example In religious terms, humans are referred to as those individuals who have been awarded by god with qualities that no other beings, living or dead, consist. Only human beings are endowed with the power to practice spirituality and attain divinity. The goal of each human being is different. As such J. J. Valberg articulates the view that the path of each human being is different and it is not common for all human beings. (252) We are all part of the total power of the cosmos, just a spark! World is place which comprises of different components and these components exist to achieve a balance in the life of all individuals. World to me is a place where I have to stand and operate in such a manner where my individual interests are secure while making sure that my interests do not clash or become a hurdle with the interest of others. While achieving my interests, I will ensure that it will also serve the common interests of the people. The spiritual aspect of life: The correct living style for an individual is by giving importance to the secular and spiritual aspects of life. Of the two, spirituality is more important. Belief in God and in his style of administering the Divine Kingdom is the stepping stone for living a spiritually-oriented life. If we make a profound and critical study of the lives of Divine Personalities and the religious texts, the believers are liable to be further divided into two sections. The first section is those who only ‘believe’ in the existence of God, but does not ‘know’ Him. The second section is, along with ‘believing, knows’ Him as well. The first section does His worshipping and salutations, but has not met Him face to face. They have held discussions, done ritualistic practices, have lectured on the topic of God, but have not experienced Him in their inner world. This segment of believers is more in strength as compared to the second segment. The important reason for this outcome is the faulty a pproach prevalent in the society on God-related issues. Their firm conviction is, God-principle is the topic of the other world, and it is impossible to see Him here. God is invisible like the air. We can only feel His presence. Such wrong assumptions continue to be accepted and the kingdom of God, in societal terms, becomes the argumentative proposition and the bundle of emotions steeped in ritualistic worships. From time immemorial, the Divine Personalities have made an important proclamation relating to God—God is the subject for practical vision and to be experienced. He can be seen and experienced in the actual sense of the term. The Divine Personalities have guided in the past, and will continue to guide the inquisitives treading the path of spirituality, as to how practical vision of God, whose essential form is Light, is possible. The Secular aspect of Life: The secular aspect of life is also equally important. The technological advances and internet revolution have i mpacted the materialistic society and have a telling effect on humankind on the wrong side of life. Human values and morality are sacrificed for aggrandizement of wealth. Increased material prosperity has resulted in social disaster. For example, in America the divorce rates are more than 50% now. What does this mean? The family values like love, affection and respect to the elders have been relegated to the background and self-interest has become the domineering aspect of life. The concept of service has disappeared from the time-table of the individual. Some decades ago, helping others has been one of the domineering features of life. I have not made up my mind finally, as for the profession that I am

Engineering vs. Engineering Technology Research Paper

Engineering vs. Engineering Technology - Research Paper Example Engineering technology can be described as being practice-oriented, stressing applications of engineering practice, laboratory experience competencies and engineering design. Looking at these two descriptions, one can note that a potential student will be confused by the overlap in these definitions. Therefore, students end up enrolling in one engineering program only to realize that they wanted to pursue the other. This paper seeks to compare engineering and engineering technology. Comparison First, let us examine the program guide characteristics. Engineering involves innovators while engineering technology involves doers or implementers. An innovator is an individual who is capable of interweaving knowledge of advanced math, natural and engineering sciences, and engineering principles and practices in solving an existing problem or to create a new product or system. On the other hand, a doer or implementer is an individual who applies the basic knowledge of mathematics, natural an d engineering sciences, current engineering practices and an understanding of economic principles in solving a design problem, operating and testing of engineering and manufacturing systems. Therefore, engineering technology is basically the implementation part of engineering. This means a person who pursues engineering technolog

Differences between the Articles of confederation and the new Research Paper

Differences between the Articles of confederation and the new constitution - Research Paper Example The articles created a feeble national government incapable levying taxes and regulating trade hence the quest for the new constitution that improved the stature of the government by increasing its powers (Wendel 768). The removal of the articles of confederation was due to their immense powers over the national government. The articles lacked a court system to impose the levying plus collection of taxes. The congress was incapable of making laws and therefore levying of taxes was difficult. In addition, the articles did not provide an atmosphere for enhancing trade regulation between the existing states and other countries (Young 1572). The articles could only allow only a vote per state and too many powers to states. It also performed the functions of appointing the delegates for every state, which was undesirable. It was difficult to impose changes to the articles of confederation because there were undesirable procedures. All the states had to make amicable decisions to enhance t he changes. Having all the thirteen states in agreement over changes that would affect the government was not an easy task. Nine out of thirteen states had to approve any motion put forward to enhance amendment of the articles. Another weakness evident in the articles was the lack of a specific army to guard the nation. Each state stood separately with own affairs (Wendel 760). Every state developed policies for their own governance, not even the passage of treaties was a responsibility of the central government. Since very state created their own money, there was a possibility of lack of acceptance to their currency by other states. This created an unfavorable environment for the states to participate in trade and improve their micro economies. The unicameral legislature present in the articles provided an atmosphere that there was no power separation hence the national government remained weak (Young 1570). The operation of the post offices was a responsibility of the states and n ot the central government. The articles of confederation developed immense powers to the states. In the articles there were sections supporting assertion of wars plus coining and borrowing of finances. The central government was incapable of making the states to abide by the laws. Despite the national government’s efforts to make a nationwide currency, the currency was valueless due to existing currencies from the states (Wirkner 13). The lack of effective common currency led to weak trade plus commerce that retarded the general economy of the United States. Vulnerability to attack by other countries plus pirates was evident due to the lack of a central army and army to safe gourd the entire populace. The articles were prevalent because of the fear instilled to the colonies by the colonial government. The authorities from the states with the fear instilled by the powers of the colonial government centrality of governance feared the same (Jensen 10). The articles thus provided sovereign states in terms of decision-making and freedom. The articles were an important law of the land before promulgation of the new constitution, which made a through way for changes in the government operations. The executive wanted the elimination of the articles to create room for most operations for the central government. For years, there was deprivation in the ability of the

Cheating in the Coca-Cola's advertisement Essay

Cheating in the Coca-Cola's advertisement - Essay Example One of the important skills in creating advertisement messages by companies is the use of a language that consumers are able to understand. This way, they are able to be convinced and persuaded to buy and test particular company products. This paper examines some of the language that is being used by Coca-Cola Company in advertising its products worldwide, it deconstructs the particular the language used, seeking to evaluate their effectiveness and impacts on customer behavior. In modern times, we live in a consumer world, the purchase patterns and behavior of consumers is not that they buy goods because they need them; rather, it is because of the utility its because of the pleasure and utility that is expected from them. In addition, the things that we purchase to portray the picture we are, in most cases, people link the things that have to what they do. Consumers spend most of their time desiring products that are perceived to have certain levels of utility. As soon as consumers get what they were longing to have, they have many other substitutes for them, for this reasons, consumers needs are usually described as being unlimited (Stachowski 67). On the other hand, producers are always aware of this phenomenon; they make products and do all they can to persuade consumers to buy as many goods as they can in order to make profits. Producers use a special language in order to inform, persuade and influence our buying patterns; this kind of communication that they use to influence consumers purchasing decisions is referred to as advertisement. Advertisement is a business on its own; it has to be creatively designed to engage customers in its communication. Advertisements are common on billboards, journals, internet and other forms of electronic platforms; they part of the consumers’ daily life. Successful companies are those that have clearly defined advertisements and

Company Valuation Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

Company Valuation - Essay Example On the other hand, non-merging firms had a strikingly better record than merging firms from the standpoint of the original shareholders. Further analysis suggested that firms engaging in pure conglomerate type mergers grew most rapidly, while firms engaging in pure internal growth grew most profitable, although growth by conglomerate type merger was more profitable than growth by other types of merger. Merger tends to be for growth, not for profitability. However, also merger is the result of the internal and external pressures and opportunities confronting the firm. Changes in the environment in which a firm has been operating may include merger by competitors and may cause the firm's managers to experience increased uncertainty. This increased uncertainty produces a desire to merge in order to reduce uncertainty. Merger occurs if the desire to merger is accompanied by managerial ability and willingness to carry through an actual merger. Two processes are at work. Mergers occur when the relationship between firms and their environment is disturbed by changes in latter. They have suggested that the amount of competition that is acceptable is limits. Aaronovitch and Sawyer have advocated an approach to merger that "the costs of rivalry" generated by the process of oligopolistic rivalry which fall on the firms involved and would be reduced if rivalry were reduced .The costs in question are those of undesired excess capacity, research and development and promotion and marketing. The major destabilising force to which Aaronovitch and Sawyer have drawn attention is the intensification of international competition. They have examined the relationship b-n indices of international competitiveness and merger activity. The expectation that there would be more mergers the worse the balance on current account and the higher the level of imports was confirmed. No generally agreed theory has been developed. The profit and growth maximisation hypotheses has been recast in terms of their effect on share prices and hence the probability of takeover. Interest on the effects of merger has for the most part been motivated by welfare considerations, although more recently their role in shaping the longer term evolution of the socioeconomic system. Cook and Cohen have pinpointed the general difficulty in the introduction to their detailed case studies: "mergers are a reaction to a changing situation. Judgement depends upon comparing the effects of what actually happened with the effects of what might have happened. Sensitivity analysis is the process of varying the assumptions underlying a decision to determine the decision's sensitivity to those assumptions. It enables managers to assess how responsive NPV is to changes in key variables that are used to calculate it (Drury 1996). Some of the factors that influence the NPV of multinationals are taxes, exchange rates, estimating the terminal value of a project using different methodologies, political risk and the real operating options (Buckley 2000). NPV is calculated using the estimated

Electromagnetism and Mind Control Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2500 words

Electromagnetism and Mind Control - Essay Example A changing magnetic field will induce a varying electric field and vice-versa—the two are linked both influence and control of the mind. These varying fields form electromagnetic waves (Beckley 18). Electromagnetic waves differ from mechanical waves in that they do not oblige a medium to propagate. This means that electromagnetic bearing can pass in the course of not only through air and solid materials, but as well through the vacuum of space. Electromagnetic waves has characteristics and this characteristics resolve the extent of ‘‘dangers’’ or effect of the waves and they include; wavelengths, velocity, amplitude, and Frequency. Frequency: The frequency of any waveform equals the velocity divided by the wavelength. The units of measurement are in cycles per second or Hertz. The wavelengths of electromagnetic waves go from extremely long to extremely short and everything in between. The wavelengths determine how matter responds to the electromagneti c wave, and those characteristics determine the name we give that particular group of wavelengths. The amplitude of electromagnetic waves relates to its intensity or brightness (as in the case of visible light).With visible light, the brightness is usually measured in lumens. With other wavelengths the intensity of the radiation, which is power per unit area or watts per square meter is used. The square of the amplitude of a wave is the intensity The velocity is a measure of the displacement per unit time. The standard value of velocity of an electromagnetic wave in a vacuum is approximately 300,000 kilometers per second, the same as the speed of light. When these waves pass through matter, they slow down slightly, depending on the size of their wavelength. Electromagnetic waveform All human thoughts, sensations and actions arise from bioelectricity generated by neurons and transmitted through complex neural circuits inside our skull. Electrical signals between neurons generate elec tric fields that radiate out of brain tissue as electrical waves that can be picked up by electrodes touching a person's scalp (Beckley 32). Measurements of such brainwaves present strong insight into brain principle and an important analytical tool for health center. In reality, so elementary are brainwaves to the internal mechanism of the mind, they have turn out to be the decisive, legal definition illustrating the thin line between life and death. Brainwaves modify with a healthy person's awareness and unconscious mental action and state of stimulation. It is probable to selectively control brain function by transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) (Evans 39). This method uses strong pulses of electromagnetic radiation grinned into a person's brain to jam or excite particular brain circuits. Possibility of Electromagnetic wave mind control: Although a cell phone is much less powerful than transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS), the question still remains: Could the electrical si gnals coming from a phone affect certain brainwaves operating in resonance with cell phone transmission frequencies? After all, the caller's cerebral cortex is just centimeters away from radiation broadcast from the phone's antenna. A study by Rodney Croft, of the Brain Science Institute, Swinburne University of Technology in Melbourne, Australia gives a degree of justification (Ceres 78) Rodney Croft tested whether cell phone transm

Learning English as 2nd language Research Paper

Learning English as 2nd language - Research Paper Example Many of the important educational innovations in current practice such as untracking and mixed-age grouping--are the direct result of teachers adapting their teaching to the challenge posed by children from culturally diverse backgrounds (Barry Mclaughan, Online Article, 1992). Culture, social identity, ethnicity, religion, and perceived class status, all need to be taken into consideration in language learning, and all have differing causes and affects in both the teaching and the learning of a second language. A clear teaching perspective, which is based on a solid theoretical foundation, is of vital importance to both the successful application of language learning, and for that of the well-being of the student, if language learning is to be both effectively taught and learnt. An understanding of the variations and diversities within cultures needs to be respected, encouraged, and accepted within the classroom setting, which will then lead to a suitable, and comfortable, learning environment, where students can relax and concentrate without feelings of inferiority. And methods of teaching need to be carefully considered, with an emphasis on a good teacher/student relationship that leans towards creating confidence within the student. In this chapter, we will be to analysing the language awareness/self concept of two groups of children by class analysis. The available interviews will be examined and analysed in order to understand how do the children feel about learning English as a second language and how, or if, this is affecting them in general. Interview Procedures. The interviews were conducted in an open plan setting, in order to put the children at ease, and therefore helping them to feel comfortable when responding. There were seven interview groups, with 5-6 children within each group, making a total of approximately forty children. Three of the groups were from Germany and four were from Greece. Differing questions were posed to each group, through which an understanding of the children's perceptions of language learning, and the affect upon the child will be determined. The Group A interviews were conducted with Greek attending children, learning English as a second language, in a German school, and those of group B, concerned children learning English in a Greek school. This first section of this chapter will determine what the students thought in terms of their teacher's ability to teach, their view of how s/he treated them in the academic environment, and how this affected the self of the group. The second section will establish how the behaviour in the classroom can be translated as strong or weak self-expression, and consequently interpreted as either a strong or weak self. And the third section will be dealing with how children feel about academic excellence, classroom performance, and their different cultural attitudes towards diverse minorities. Students' interview questions regarding teachers. In this section we will be

Endangered Species Essay Example for Free

Endangered Species Essay There are currently only 30 individual Amur leopards left in the world, the hawksbill turtle has been deemed â€Å"critically endangered†, the black-footed ferret who was once thought to be globally extinct has only a population of 1000, the black rhino was said to be â€Å"doomed to disappear from the face of the earth† in 1961, and the Saola deer has an estimated population of a few hundred at a maximum, or possibly only a few dozen at a minimum. There are many more animals who are endangered, some who are even worse off than the ones I mentioned. If we continue to abuse our power and ignore the plight of these endangered species, one day even common animals like cows or frogs will be hard to come by. These beautiful creatures are extremely important to our eco-system and food-chain and need desperately to be preserved. If we continue to refuse to acknowledge this and disregard the issue intentionally, our ecosystems will begin to collapse and we will no longer have the variety we currently do of food, medicine, animals and thousands of products will not be available to us because so many companies use materials that contain animal by-products. Also, I will give you more insight on what it means to be endangered as well as give some examples of animals who are. Firstly, we ask the question â€Å"How does the loss of animal species impact ecosystems?† There are several factors that play a role in this. All animal and plant life is part of a complex ecosystem that includes our lands and waters. Remove one or more of these parts and you damage the entire environment, sometimes beyond restoration. These ecosystems provide clean water, breathable air, fertile soils, climate control, food, medicine, energy, building materials, transportation, as well as recreational and spiritual uses. An example of an ecosystem that is suffering from a loss of biodiversity is the ocean ecosystem. It is predicted that by 2050, all species of wild seafood that are currently being fished could be collapsed, which is defined as 90% depleted. If these species collapse it would not only affect humans but other ocean species that depend on these fish as a food source. Ecological collapses like this are very serious and often cannot be fixed once destroyed without enormous amounts of effort, or not at  all. Destructive human activities have increased the rate of species extinction for 100 to 1000 times the natural rate studies done by the WWF show. According to the US fish and wildlife service, 415 species in the United States are endangered at the moment and 164 are threatened. As well, they tallied that 541 species in other countries are endangered and 50 are immediately threatened. These numbers are much too high. This loss of species will affect our ecosystem’s stability and put our entire way of life off balance, as the animals run out of resources, so will we. Moreover, this lack of biodiversity affects many aspects of our own lives, the four most affected areas are our food sources, our medicine supply, our diversity in animal species and the variety of available products. The effect on our food source is obvious. No more cows, no more BigMacs. More so than that though, even our fruits and vegetables are being affected, there are many things needed to have healthy crops, one thing is good soil for example. Worms are needed to enrich the soil and add essential nutrients to it that help plants grow. Worms are part of an intricate food-chain that is connected to humans. Even those junk foods that seem to have nothing natural in them actually do. Nearly everything at some point was a plant or an animal, it’s a cycle. Our medicines are also made from plants, especially in certain cultures. A few medicines created from plants are the bark of a white willow, which contains acetyl salicylic acid, commonly known as aspirin. It has been used for pain relief for 2,000 years. Galantamine hydrobromide, a compound derived from daffodil bulbs, is being used to treat Alzheimer’s disease. Digitalis has been used since the 16th century to treat heart disease and its derivatives are still used in modern medicine, this comes from foxglove. For the third point, even farm animal diversity is declining as accelerating species loss threatens humanity. â€Å"The accelerating disappearance of Earths species of both wild and domesticated plants and animals constitutes a fundamental threat to the well-being and even the survival of humankind†, warns the founding Chair of a new global organization created to narrow the gulf between leading international biodiversity scientists and national policy-makers. Dr. Zakri, a national of Malaysia who co-chaired 2005s landmark Millennium Ecosystem Assessment and serves also as science advisor to his countrys prime minister, cited  fast-growing evidence that we are hurtling towards irreversible environmental tipping points that, once passed, would reduce the ability of ecosystems to provide essential goods and services to humankind. Some scientists have termed this the sixth great extinction episode in Earths history, according to Dr. Zakri, noting that the loss of biodiversity is happening faster and everywhere, even among farm animals. Lastly, do you think your home is free of items that have been tested on animals and contain animal by-products? You would be surprised how many companies make their merchandise like this, using these harsh techniques. A few items I’ve found to use these techniques are Jell-O, Windex, Trojan condoms, post-it notes, mars candy bars, Band-Aids, Kleenex, Iams pet food and Vaseline. These animals can’t do a thing to better their situation. They are becoming more and more endangered, threatened and vulnerable each day, do you know what that means? To be endangered means to be threatened with a danger or by extinction. To threaten means to utter a threat against, to be a menace or source of danger to, to offer a punishment to by way of a threat, to give an ominous indication of, or indicate impending evil or mischief. Endanger is also a synonym of threaten. Lastly, the definition of vulnerable is; capable of or susceptible to being wounded or hurt, as by a weapon, open to moral attack, criticism, temptation, etcetera, open to assault; difficult to defend, or exposed to disease, disaster, or attack. We have placed hundreds of thousands of animals in a position where they are any one of those three things or worse, extinct. Meaning no longer in existence; that has ended or died out. Like the thylacine, the pig-footed bandicoot, the Steller’s sea cow, the tule shrew, the Malagasy hippopotamus, the Portuguese ibex, the Hokkaido wolf, the Syrian wild ass, as well as multitudes more. We, in a large part, are responsible for these disappearances, for the deaths of the innocent. We invade this pristine world, claiming it as our own simply by our presence. We slaughter innocent animals for their hides and their flesh. We devastate the landscape and gouge out the earth to build our monuments to vanity. Yet, still, we have the audacity to wake up in the morning and  complain about it all. Humans are a vain and horrendous species when it comes down to it, and some days, I’m ashamed to be a part of it. It’s time to clean up the mess we’ve made, time to stop ignoring everything, and time to start preserving the earth and its inhabitants, all of them, the way it should’ve been since the beginning.

The Hegemony Of Imperial Rule English Literature Essay

The Hegemony Of Imperial Rule English Literature Essay It shall be prudent to begin by giving a brief definition of what is meant by colonial discourse before looking at the texts. Colonial Discourse the way in which the hegemony of imperial rule is conveyed within the text as a set of values, representations and beliefs that reinforce the ideology. It is a term brought into currency by Edward Said who saw Foucaults notion of a disclosure as valuable for describing that system within which that range of practices termed colonial come into being.  [1]   George Orwells Burmese Days has an array of imperialistic views which are held in opposing views with the main character, Flory, branding it the lie that were here to uplift our poor black brothers rather than rob them. Flory describes imperialism as the lie that were here to uplift our poor black brothers rather than to rob them  [2]   Colonial discourse is key within the novel which as a result raises the question of identity and binary oppositions. None more so than in the case of Flory, in one breathe an honourable english gentleman enjoying the riches his new cultures has to offer and in the next berating the dirty nigger and bathing in the relief of being out of the stink for a time.  [3]   Flory is a contradiction who is torn between his British roots and his love of the Burmese culture, this love is shown via his friendship with Dr Veraswami. Flory is the personification of Gramscis idea of Imperial ideology as he believes that the discourse providing the hegemony is right yet he faces an ideological struggle within himself due to his love of his new culture. It can be argued that due to his steadfast dedication to the British Empire, for whom he works, he is a loyal imperialist and is comfortable using and exploiting the Burmese for his own gain aswell as trying to impose his superior worth and colonise the Burmese. With his desire to do this along with integrating himself into the Burmese way of life he succeeds merely in creating a juxtaposition coupled with binary opposition that ultimately leads to his demise. Heart of darkness Heart of Darkness is part of a colonial discourse in which the African is represented by the European as savage, exotic, cannibal, primitive they did not eat each other before my face page 93 critics such as Chin Achebe in his essay An Image of Africa looked upon Conrads Heart of Darkness as a racist novel. He believed Conrad was using Africa as a prop in order to create a foil for Europe (always viewed through Europeans eyes). Achebe believed that Conrad was making generalizations about Africa, therefore also assuming that Conrad was the character of Marlow in the novel (through Marlows narration). In the novel, Achebe believed Europe came across as well developed, industrialized, and articulate while Africa was uncivilized, underdeveloped, unintelligible and animalistic The term colonial discourse was coined by Edward Syiad, it is the habit of representation as colonial posers represent cultures they encounter through imperialism. The men who work for the Company describe what they do as trade, and their treatment of native Africans is part of a benevolent project of civilization.Kurtz, on the other hand, is open about the fact that he does not trade but rather takes ivory by force, and he describes his own treatment of the natives with the words suppression and extermination:he does not hide the fact that he rules through violence and intimidation. Kurtz on the other hand shows no remorse whatsoever. He holds the absolute essential view to exterminate all the blacks. He holds the ideology of making the black race extinct. Hes a ruthless ivory trader, and arranges for the dead heads to displayed on poles. The white race use crude violence, and brute force. Very occasionally the natives show resistance, but their left largely helpless against the overpowering military control of the Europeans. They have no authority or voice. The colonists have become corrupted. They are blinded by the notion that this is their sacred duty to uphold the superiority of the colonial empire and white heritage. Through Marlow disapproval, he shows and exposes the Europeans, is equally deameaning, offensive, and undermines their superiority. flabby white devils.. Critiques immoral European behaviour. Transcends such prejudice, shows him to rise above racism. Ridicules benevolent project of civilisation. Uses an ambivalent tone to show the violent colonial enterprise. Kurtz the ultimate satanic, racist. Has the heart of darkness. However if he is showing Africa to be the reason for the deterioration of the European mans morale, it merely becomes a backdrop which eliminates the African as human factor. They have become marginalised. This marginalisation shows further through Kurtz mistress. He is racist towards her, but not so to his white woman. It can be argued that Heart of Darkness participates in an oppression of nonwhites that is much more sinister and much harder to remedy than the open abuses of Kurtz or the Companys men. Africans become for Marlow a mere backdrop, a human screen against which he can play out his philosophical and existential struggles. Their existence and their exoticism enable his self-contemplation. This kind of dehumanization is harder to identify than colonial violence or open racism. While Heart of Darkness offers a powerful condemnation of the hypocritical operations of imperialism, it also presents a set of issues surrounding race that is ultimately troubling. The noble and idealistic Kurtz situated in darkest Africa submits to alcohol, isolation and megalomania and ends up radiating darkness.  [4]   It seems improbable that a rule which now rests on avowedly upon force can endure.  [5]  E.M. Forster Critics have debated whether Conrads novel perpetuated colonialist views of the alleged inferiority of other peoples, or it questioned the entire colonial project, dissenting from colonial discourses.  [6]   In 1975 Chinua Achebe controversially denounced Joseph Conrads Heart of Darkness on the grounds that it proved how Conrad was a throughgoing racist.  [7]   Fin de sià ¨cle as Marlow links britains contemporary imperialist drives to the uncivialised.  [8]  

Fight Club Analysis

Fight Club Analysis Thesis Statement: An analysis of the movie Fight Club reveals the ambiguity of its themes about modern life, masculinity and nihilism. Ambiguity and Hope in David Finchers Fight Club A decade after its release, David Finchers cult classic Fight Club still invites strong discussion among critics, moviegoers and cultural pundits. Released in 1999, the film chronicles the story of Edward Nortons insomniac white collar worker as he gets drawn to the ultra-violence, uber-masculinity and outright nihilism promoted and practiced by Tyler Durden, played with iconic swagger by Brad Pitt. Few recent films have elicited as much strongly opposing opinions as Fight Club has, with various camps proclaiming it as a post-modern masterpiece that documents the brutal emasculation of the human male by a modern consumerist culture and the ways a man can fight back. Others condemn it is a faux-intellectual and hypocritical attempt by the Hollywood machinery to appeal to mens baser impulses while tacking on a moralist lesson at the end. Make no mistake, Fight Club attempts to raise a mirror at societys face and invites careful interpretation. It is above all, a message film. One that aims to say something as much as it wants to entertain. From this vantage point, it can be argued that the film does not fall easily within either the interpretations mentioned above. Fortunately and frustratingly the film is an ambiguous exercise. It offers very few clean thematic elements from which an easily digestible interpretation can be gleamed from. What of its message then, and does its ambiguity undermine or emphasize this message? The films narrator is a dead-eyed cog at a dead-end job for a car manufacturer. He lives in a condo spare of personality and filled with IKEA furniture. He is empty of feeling, seemingly overwhelmed by the demands of an outside world to buy more, consume more in order to be more. It is therefore no surprise that hes also an insomniac. To cure this, he goes to nightly meetings of various support groups for serious ailments. For a while this seems to work, as he himself notes, Every evening I died, and every evening I was born again, resurrected. These early scenes clearly illustrate a man lost in the wilderness of modern society, one who has to co-opt other peoples real pain so he can feel something for himself. Without pain, he is dead; with it he feels alive. His attempts at relative normalcy are disrupted by two major events. The first one involves meeting Marla Singer, another poser at group meetings who becomes the only major female presence in the film. The second event is the first halfs most important one the narrator meets the brash soap maker Tyler Durden. They strike an uneasy friendship and business relationship making soaps and living together in Durdens dilapidated house at the outskirts of town. For the rest of the first half, the film focuses on the establishment of the titular fight club one that sprang from a drunken brawl where Durden asks the narrator to hit him. Pretty soon, underground fight clubs are established all over the country, filled with lost men who voluntarily subjected themselves to fighting and physical harm. With Tyler as their leader, and the narrator as the second-in-command, these men and saw the possibility of regaining their masculinity taken away from them by their nine-to-five jobs, family responsibilities and societal pressures to be successful. Rebel against modern societys emasculation, the film seems to say. It is with the events of the second half that things get even more manic, as Durden orders a series of attacks against corporate America via his Project Mayhem, starting with relatively harmless pranks and culminating in a full-blown act of terrorism which involves blowing up the citys credit banks. The narrator watches in horror as otherwise reasonable men are converted into a mindless cult bent on following Durdens every proclamation. He is the audiences surrogate at this point, one that recognizes that the events in his life are getting out of hand, and knows he must stop it if he is to salvage whats left of it. On the surface level, the film is an entertaining, often humorous and violent depiction of masculinity. It employs voiceover narration, flashy camerawork, quick editing and sharp dialog to create a fast-paced, edge-of-your-seat experience that shows a mans increasingly dark journey to escape his humdrum and meaningless existence only to be caught up with the schemes of a dangerous, messianic terrorist. The story is gripping, the images stylized, and the direction superb. Because of these factors, the movie largely succeeds as a popcorn movie. It is with its deeper themes, and the decisions the movie makes to attend to these themes, that the ambiguity is most apparent. The film wears its nihilism proudly, and yet it also shows that nihilism has to have its limits. That the fun has consequences. The film explicitly shows an innocent man being killed as a direct result of Project Mayhems actions. That is as much a condemnation of the characters and the audiences who might have rooted for them. It also suggests that modern life, and by extension the modern man, is less and less alive and an individual and more of a long-running commercial for goods that have led us, in the words of Tyler Durden, chasing cars and clothes, working jobs we hate so we can buy shit we dont need. But Fight Club is itself, a product. One thats marketed, distributed and obviously created to sell and gain profits. At worst, this suggests a highly hypocritical intention on the filmmakers part. At best, though, it can be seen as a dangerous risk for its makers to bite the hand that feeds it. No discussion about Fight Club is complete without mentioning its famous twist. By showing the narrator and Tyler Durden as two sides of one broken individual, the film makes a powerful statement about identity and how it can be destroyed by modern life. The films final shot shows the narrator resurrected as one man, holding Marla Singers hand. A woman who, via his Tyler Durden persona, he almost attempted to destroy. This seems to be films true and final point, that the cost of nihilism as a means to rebel against modern societys excesses does not equal the hope that can be found in real human relationships.

Energy Bars: Glycemia and Insulemia Essay -- Health Nutrition Diet Ex

Energy Bars: Glycemia and Insulemia   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Today many people are substituting normal meals with energy bars in hopes of losing weight. These energy bars seem to be an easy way to diet without having to hunt down the proper nutritional meals; the meal is already prepared for you in the bar. There are a few questions being raised about this method of dieting however. The issue addressed in this paper is the use of energy bars that either have low carbohydrate levels or that use lower glycemic index carbohydrates. The idea behind using an energy bar of this type for dieting is to lower the levels of insulin in the blood, reduce cholesterol levels, and prevent the drop in blood glucose that is thought to be associated with feeling hungry. Insulin is a hormone that is produced by specialized cells on the surface of the pancreas called pancreatic islets or Islets of Langerhans. It causes changes to occur in the plasma membrane of the cell that cause the cell to pull in glucose from the blood stream. The hormonal counterpart of insulin is glycogon, which serves to promote the rele...

Its Time for Education Reform :: Education Reform Essays

  In "Basic Principles of Curriculum and Instruction," Ralph Tyler stated that we should determine what our children need to learn through analysis of contemporary society (1949). I argue further that we must teach beyond today's situation to prepare our students for an uncertain future. All things considered, students' minimal exposure to technology in schools is mystifying. How can we prepare our students for tomorrow's world when we continue to teach with methods and materials from yesterday? My early experiences as a teacher and in my Master's degree program have inspired me to work to integrate technology into the inquiry and constructivist models of science education. I have proven the value of both my instruction methods and curriculum design abilities in my own Biology classroom, at conferences, and while working with other teachers; however, I find the change I initiate to be frustratingly localized. I want to assume a leadership role outside of the classroom so that my ef forts will influence more teachers and students and, perhaps, make a difference on policy and practice in science education.    Computers naturally engage students, so we must embrace and exploit this powerful bond as a means to serve our goals as educators. Yet throughout my experience in educational settings, the role of technology seems to have been reduced to a flashy, colorful way of reinforcing ineffective and outdated teaching strategies. I have focused my talents as a teacher and curriculum designer on the role of technology in the science classroom. I initiated this work during my Master's degree program, which was focused on technology in education, and began to adapt various computer programs and other devices to my Biology curriculum. During my first year of teaching I worked to bridge the gap between such technologies and my constructivist ideology, not only in Biology but also in Earth Science. I knew that if these amazing resources were to advance the mission of science education, they would have to work with the model, not against it.    Through research programs, curriculum development, and specialized training, I have excelled at the integration of multiple forms of technology with research-supported methods of science instruction. In the summer of 2001, I participated in the E-2020 program, affiliated with the University of Colorado at Denver, which matches teachers with scientists for summer research accompanied by workshops in inquiry instruction. My research took place in the Surface Optical Spectroscopy Laboratory at the Colorado School of Mines, where I learned to perform Raman Scattering.

Police Public Relations vs. Community-Police Relations Essay

Differences Between Police Public Relations Programs and Police-Community Relations Programs Police-Community Relations programs and Police Public Relations programs are similar in many ways, but not are not identical or interchangeable, according to Barker, and Hunter in 2011. Police-Community Relations is a philosophy of police administration, which seeks to involve community and police in ongoing decision making concerning policies which impact both. Police Public Relations programs involve broader and more complex goals than Police-Community relations programs. One purpose of public relations programs is to develop and maintain a productive working environment for police departments to operate within, through informing the public about why officers and departments do what they do, and by enhancing their own public image as primarily community helpers and first responders, worthy of the public respect and cooperation that is necessary for police operations (Barker & Hunter, 2011). Programs strive to influence the following factions: the pubic in order to gain support; politicians, in order to gain funding; and staff, in order to gain consistency in operations (Barker & Hunter, 2011). Police-Community Relations programs, however, are aimed towards integration of community groups and police organizations into partnerships focused on combating both criminal and social problems (Barker & Hunter, 2011). These programs determine types of services, implementation of programs, potential problem areas, and problem solving mechanisms (Barker & Hunter, 2011). Activities and processes of Police-Community Relations programs and Police Public Relations programs contrast as well. Police Public Relations program activities are standardized, repetitive, predictable, controllable, routinized, specialized, and agency oriented (Barker & Hunter, 2011). Information flows toward public only. Police-Community Relations programs must be flexible, reflexive, adaptable, and community oriented (Barker & Hunter, 2014). Extent of departmental involvement varies with both, however, agency breadth is narrow, compartmentalized, and specialized with Police Public Relations programs, and cross divisional with Police-Community Relations programs. The City of Durham Public Relations Office in North Carolina, through a senior public affairs specialist, provides information to citizens about departmental activities , functioning through â€Å"community relations/special events, media relations, employee/internal communications and marketing  communications†, and offers National Night Out Observance, a Ride Along Program, a Citizens Academy, and external projects, which educate the public and enhance community-police relations, according to the City of Durham website. It meets the definition for a Police Public Relations program, since information flows in one direction, and the program is agency-oriented, specialized, and has events that repeat annually, according to the following website : http://durhamnc.gov/ich/op/DPD/Pages/PRUnit.aspx Charlotte-Mecklenburg Community Relations, according to the Charlotte website, seeks â€Å"to develop trust and communications between officers and citizens†, working closely wi th Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department, utilizing a Police Complaint Review program, which addresses police misconduct and a Police-Community Relations Award program, recognizing 32 citizen groups and officers, who have made significant contributions to police-community relations. It meets the definition for a Police-Community Relations program, since information flows both towards, and from citizens, and the program focuses on the police-community relationship, and is community-oriented. References: Barker, T., Hunter, R.. ( 2011). Police Community Relations and the Administration of Justice, 8th ed, Prentice Hall: Saddle River.

Importance of Integrated Marketing Communications

By definition, integrated marketing communications is a concept of marketing communications planning that recognizes the added value of a comprehensive plan. Such plan evaluates the strategic roles of a variety of communications disciplines and combines these disciplines to provide clarity, consistency, and maximum impact through the seamless integration of individual discrete messages. Considering that (a) the mass market can be fragmented into a multitude of mini-markets (with each mini-market requiring its own approach), (b) there is continuous proliferation of new types of media, and (c) there is growing sophistication of consumers, it is clear that there is definitely a need for marketers to utilize a wide range of communication tools to efficiently deliver messages to specific audiences. Marketers should therefore combine personal and non-personal communication channels to achieve maximum impact (i.e., employing multiple-vehicle, multiple-stage campaigns). Hence, it is clearly imperative for companies to move toward integrated marketing communications, and the absence of which results in uncoordinated communications and image diffusion. A comprehensive integrated marketing communications plan can produce stronger message consistency. It can also help to build brand equity as well as create greater sales impact. Furthermore, it can unify the company's brand images and messages as they come through multiple company activities. In simpler terms, IMC improves the company's ability to reach the right customers with the right messages at the right time in the right place.

The Tragedy and Lessons of Vietnam

Robert S. McNamara's memoir ‘In Retrospect: The Tragedy and Lessons of Vietnam' offers an explanation of McNamara's handling of the Vietnam War as Secretary of Defense during the Kennedy and Johnson administrations. McNamara's goal directed as well as logico-mathematical approach to decision-making must be blamed for the failure of the US to stop North Vietnam from winning the war. Bloodshed would have been evaded if merely McNamara had looked at the probable outcome of his decisions on Vietnam. What appears from pages of this book are mechanics of a machine closed in on itself.It digested just the information that suited its version of reality or served its bureaucratic interests. It unnoticed discordant views, reorganized unlikable facts as well as, when proved wrong, simply redoubled its efforts. It was a machine suited to a military colossus whose directors never doubted their premises or their capability to make reality symbolize the exercise of their power. The book is wr itten down in a manner that brings joy particularly to the hearts of the pacifist crowd even while they criticize him, as its confessions appear to justify their opposition to the war.That was Bill Clinton's self-satisfied response. Thus far the book is extremely superficial in its political analysis — signifying how far in over his head McNamara was in that job from the start. Certainly, it's high time that someone inquired our country's inclination of picking big-time industrialists for defense secretary on the theory that it's just a big management work. Sometimes the job needs a lot more than management talent: deliberate understanding and judgment, which McNamara without a doubt never had.In justice to McNamara, his long silence had an admirable cause. Given the national shock that Vietnam brought, he feared that any apologia would be expedient and inappropriate. This caginess renowned McNamara from egregious former colleagues for instance Clark Clifford, Averell Harrima n, as well as Cyrus Vance, who within months of leaving office were attacking the Nixon Administration with peace proposals also demands for concessions to the North Vietnamese.The end of McNamara's book in brief touches non-Vietnam matters — particularly the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis and the Harvard conferences he has lately attended, which brought together Soviet, American, as well as Cuban veterans of that crisis. The malice of such conferences is established by the breast-beating wrapping up of McNamara and some further Americans that it was our entire fault: Khrushchev put missiles in Cuba for the reason that he feared we were planning one more Bay of Pigs.Suffering regarding that brush with nuclear tragedy has led to another of McNamara's recantations his vigorous anti-nuclear activism, proceeding proposals for disarmament and no-first-use of nuclear weapons. He has championed this reason with the same sanctimonious obstinacy with which he once sold us the body counts a nd wunderkind strategizing in Vietnam, and with which he at present proclaims his confessions of our Vietnam errors. He possibly will never get it right. (Kevin Hillstrom, Laurie Collier Hillstrom, 1998). DEVELOPMENT OF THEMEThis book â€Å"In Retrospect: The Tragedy and Lessons of Vietnam† is barely likely to assuage that cynicism. Certainly, it will most likely reinforce it. For what it exposes is a leadership class so in thrall to power, so persuaded of its own intellectual superiority, so cut off from, and even disdainful of, the wider society it has been empowered to serve, that it was eager to sacrifice virtually everything to evade the stigma of failure. The usefulness of McNamara's book is in the description of that trickery and of that failure.Much of the documentation has long been accessible in the Pentagon Papers, which he commissioned soon before leaving office, and which were leaked to the press by Daniel Ellsberg in 1971. However there is something to be erudit e in hearing it from such a highly placed participant. Nevertheless, no one else, at such a level of influence–not Johnson, or McGeorge Bundy, or Walt Rostow, or Henry Kissinger or Richard Nixon–ever openly admitted error or accepted blame. McNamara has at least broken the wall of silence.And even though he remains protective and largely uncritical of his colleagues, including the most imperceptive, the picture that appears is not one to motivate confidence. What this account noticeably discloses is that at no time did officials in either the Kennedy or Johnson administrations ever seriously think about anything less than an enduringly divided Vietnam with an anti-communist government in the south. The North Vietnamese, for their part, never measured anything less than a unified nation under their, i. e. communist, control. No one was in any doubt about this.The problem was that the Americans were persuaded that by inflicting unbearable pain they could force Hanoi to d esist however they were wrong. It was their country, not ours. In the end it was we who withdrew in the face of unbearable pain. Why did three successive administrations think that Vietnam was so imperative? First, there was the domino theory, which decreed that if Saigon fell to communism, the rest of Southeast Asia would shortly follow. Kennedy himself authorized it. When asked in 1963 by a television interviewer whether he doubted the correspondence, he answered, â€Å"No, I believe it. â€Å"Second, there was confronting of communist-led â€Å"wars of national liberation. † As nuclear weapons had made war too risky between America and Russia, the conflict transferred to the Third World, where a host of impecunious, ex-colonial nations looked up for grabs. Did it matter whether these were communist or anti-communist despotisms? Almost certainly not. Although there was nowhere else the competition could occur, and so there it raged. Vietnam turned into a test case. Third, there was the well-known supposition that Beijing was taking its marching orders from Moscow, and calling the shots in Hanoi.The truth that China and Russia were already disputing publicly and that the Vietnamese had historically viewed the Chinese as their greatest enemy made no impact whatever on U. S. policymakers. It did not fit into their worldview. Fourth, the world's greatest military power was not going to confess failure, least of all against what Johnson once mentioned as a â€Å"piddling, piss-ant little country. † It was too mortifying even to contemplate. Beyond all this there was one more reason that neither Kennedy nor Johnson, once the United States so carelessly slid into Vietnam, could easily get out.The Democrats were the party, in accordance with the Republicans, who had â€Å"lost† China to communism. They were definitely not going to offer more fodder for their foes in Vietnam. As Truman had pushed above the thirty-eight parallel in Korea to illu strate that he was tougher on communism than the Republicans, so Kennedy and Johnson felt they dare not lose Saigon to the Reds. This is why the assumption, here thoughtfully echoed by McNamara, that Kennedy would have pulled out of the war had he lived, appears wishful thinking.Kennedy fans, including McNamara, time and again cite the president's much-quoted September 1963 statement regarding Vietnam that â€Å"in the final analysis, it is their war. There were, certainly, ways out all along, had anyone wanted to follow them. One opened up in the fall of 1963, when Ngo Dinh Nhu, Diem's influential brother, started secret contacts with Hanoi. Sensing a possibility for a deal akin to the arrangement previously worked out over Laos, French President Charles de Gaulle suggested the amalgamation and neutralization of Vietnam.However the Americans saw this as an intimidation somewhat than an opportunity. Second-level officials in Washington plotted with the Saigon embassy and South Viet namese army officers to conquer Diem and replace him with a government more resolute to fight the war. Kennedy could not make up his mind whether or not to endorse the coup. It came anyway in November, ending in the assassination of Diem and Nhu. Three weeks later Kennedy himself was murdered. McNamara now articulates that would have been a good moment to leave.However at the time he recommended the newly installed Johnson that impartiality was unthinkable for the reason that â€Å"South Vietnam is both a test of U. S. determination and particularly a test of U. S. capacity to deal with wars of national liberation. † This was our war and the Vietnamese were not going to be permitted to get in the way. At present McNamara confesses that â€Å"we erred seriously in not even exploring the neutralization option. † Although at the time there was no way officials would have discovered it, given their view of the stakes at issue.This was a war they were resolute to win, even against their reputed South Vietnamese allies. So far McNamara cannot bring himself to accept the noticeable insinuations of what he is so undoubtedly saying. He wants to convince us, and conceivably himself, that it is all a problem of management. In other words, he is still the bureaucratic organizer who thinks that all troubles can be reduced to flow charts and statistics McNamara informs us that as early as the fall of 1965 he had doubts regarding the value of the bombing in breaking Hanoi's will or reducing the flow of supplies into the south.Sporadically he espoused bombing pauses with the argument that this might influence Hanoi to negotiate. This was a wan expectation, as he was never ready to negotiate what Hanoi sought: a withdrawal of the United States from South Vietnam and communist representation in Saigon. By the fall of 1967 he had lost his value: the Joint Chiefs and the hawks in Congress were infuriated by his antagonism to sending more troops and extending the bom bing, whilst Johnson considered him undependable and feared that he might join Robert Kennedy's camp.He was pushed out the door with a golden handshake as well as the presidency of the World Bank. However it was all done in a spirit of good fellowship and mutual congratulation, together with an overenthusiastic letter of appreciation he wrote to Johnson that he here reproduces. â€Å"I do not know to this day whether I quit or I was fired,† he says of his departure. This was consistent with his not knowing whether he measured the war to be wrong or just badly organized. Certainly he left silently. Almost all of them do. If he felt the war was so â€Å"awfully wrong,† why did he not leave in protest and take his case to the public?20,000 Americans died in Vietnam on his watch, and almost another 40,000 died, along with millions of Vietnamese, after his departure. Did he be in debt something to them? Not it seems that as much as he owed to Johnson, and most probably to N ixon too. It â€Å"would have been a violation of my responsibility to the president and my oath to uphold the Constitution† to have publicly protested the war, he explains. Whereas the Constitution says not anything regarding muzzling public officials after they leave office, it is right that complainers are hardly ever asked to come back and play one more day.Would it have made a difference if McNamara had openly turned against the war? One cannot be certain. It might or might not have ended the war sooner. However it would have justified those who protested against or refused to battle in a war they considered morally wrong, and it might have saved the lives of some of those who went to Vietnam for the reason that they thought that their country wanted to send them there for fine reason. Regardless, the assurance of making a difference is not the issue. We often cannot be certain of the outcome of our actions when we undertake them.We either do something since we think it is right, or we decide not to do it. McNamara privileged what he supposed to be his duty to Johnson above what many others, but in fact not he, would consider his responsibility to his country. He can live with that, although he must not expect our appreciation. We can be glad that McNamara wrote this book without admiring the man or sanctioning his elusions. He had an opportunity to redeem himself for a war he felt to be wrong. However those opportunities came almost 30 ago, and at present it barely matters.What is constructive regarding this elusive book is the terrible picture it represents of men caught in the prison of their own narrow suppositions and of their bureaucratic roles. These were men who knew that their strategies were not working, that their actions were driving ever-deeper divisions within the country that they were losing the admiration of several of those whose opinions they most appreciated. And thus far they persevered. Or else they shuffled out without a soun d, like McNamara, and found other ways of trying to change the world and of trying to redeem themselves.McNamara was not unaware to what was happening. In his memo to Johnson of May 1967 quarrelling against a planned major intensification in the war, he wrote: There may be a boundary beyond which several Americans and much of the world will not allow the United States to go. The picture of the world's utmost superpower killing or critically injuring thousands noncombatants a week, whilst trying to pound a tiny backward nation into submission on a subject whose merits are fiercely disputed, is not a pretty one.He was sensitive at least to the bad public relations of the killing, and he acknowledged that the supposed merits of the war were â€Å"hotly disputed. † Nevertheless within the hothouse where Johnson and his advisers met to orchestrate the war, it was merely methods, never eventual aims that were questioned. There was fighting in the streets and good manners in the war room. McNamara's book presents a sense of how divorced the two realms were from one another. The planners were locked into the academic concepts of â€Å"credibility† and the mechanics of graduated intensification.Although he had doubts regarding the effectiveness of the methods, he never questioned the assumptions. In his defense McNamara makes the amazing complaint that, because of the McCarthy hysteria of the early 1950s, â€Å"our government lacked experts for us to consult to recompense for our unawareness† of Southeast Asia. True, numerous Asian experts had been driven from the government for envisaging that Chiang Kai-shek was doomed. However they had not moved to Mars. There were telephones then. They were keen to talk to anyone who would listen.Hence were other considerate and outspoken critics of the war: scholars for instance John Fairbanks and Hans Morgenthau, columnists for example Walter Lippmann, former diplomats for instance George Kennan. In 1966 Sena tor Fulbright, smarting at having been snookered by Johnson over the Gulf of Tonkin, sponsored weeks of hearings in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, offering a forum for a broad range of experts to inspect the premises and outcomes of American policy. Nowhere in his book does McNamara make reference to these hearings, and hardly at all to outside critics.The delirious arguments over Vietnam all the way through the country appear never to have infiltrated the glass bubble of the war room. EVALUATION OF THEME McNamara stayed silent regarding Vietnam, repudiating all interviews until 1994, when he wrote his memoirs. The book–In Retrospect: The Tragedy and Lessons of Vietnam–ignited a firestorm of argument upon its release and turned into a national bestseller. Even though McNamara confessed in the book that he had been wrong on the subject of Vietnam, that the United States should never have become involved there, his belated confession did little to endear him to the American people.The book elevated the ire of veterans' groups, who blamed McNamara of trying to profit from a war that, in their minds, he had started and that had caused so much anguish. Too much blood was on his hands, they said, for him to try to make money off the war. McNamara's assertion, in his memoir In Retrospect: The Tragedy and Lessons of Vietnam, of having been â€Å"terribly wrong† regarding rising the war revive an old query often on the minds of young people at present: Would the U. S. have lost the war in Vietnam had Kennedy lived? The easiest answer is: We cannot know; history happens merely one way.The more intricate answer is: most likely not. We must not forget the significance of the Cold War and containment. Just as Kissinger's predictions that the United States would split itself apart over Vietnam did not come to pass, the cause behind American involvement in the war turned out to have been intensely flawed. The position of the United States in the world was not so shaky and that of the Soviet Union and other revolutionary movements not so prevailing that an earlier communist victory in Vietnam would have altered the effect of the Cold War.We are familiar with this now, and many people came to doubt the significance of U. S. involvement in Vietnam as the war went on. Thus far given the depth of leaders' commitment to the principles of suppression, it is hard to think that the United States would not have contributed the way it did in Vietnam, at least until 1968. (Kevin Hillstrom, Laurie Collier Hillstrom, 1998). Without a doubt the enthusiasm with which people long for a hero to have lived and saved them from the tragedy of Vietnam makes known how poignant a wound the war left.When McNamara spoke at Harvard University in the spring of 1995, observers noted how Vietnam appeared to have taken place merely yesterday for the people in the audience over forty. Their feelings were raw. For many, McNamara was a figure out of the pa st. Ernest May, one of the country's leading diplomatic historians, gave the most dispassionate elucidation of why he thought McNamara was wrong to have asserted that Kennedy would not have become as intensely involved as Johnson.McNamara appeared to have forgotten the influential spell of the Cold War. It was as if, May noticed, a Crusader wrote his memoirs without mentioning Christianity. However McNamara maintained his usually cool reserve all through the entire controversy. Reference: Kevin Hillstrom, Laurie Collier Hillstrom (1998). The Vietnam Experience: A Concise Encyclopedia of American Literature, Songs, and Films; Greenwood Press