Older and younger generations Essay

Describe and explain the different responses of the characters to the Inspector’s visit; and explore Priestley’s reasons for showing a difference between the older and younger generations  The characters respond to the Inspector’s news in very different ways. You get the impression that Arthur Birling doesn’t care about the situation that has occurred with Eva Smith.  Ã¢â‚¬ËœAnd I don’t see where I come into this.’ This suggests that he thinks that he cannot do wrong but we find out that he is the one that sacked Eva Smith for wanting a pay rise. This started the sequence of events that led to her eventual death. Arthur Birling is moved to anger. He implies that he is a friend of the Chief Constable Colonel Roberts and that the Inspector cannot talk to him in such a way. He considers the talk as ‘uncalled for and officious’. Arthur tries to belittle the Inspector and is very hostile towards him. He reacts like this because he doesn’t want to ruin his reputation and blames the Inspector for the interruption of the celebration of Sheila and Gerald’s engagement. Arthur’s social position makes him react as he does. He thinks that he is superior and only looks after himself. Birling is presented to us as a character that thinks he is right and won’t be tolerant Birling’s daughter Sheila on the other hand is co-operative with the Inspector. She notes that no one told him anything that he did not already know. She is moved to tears of shock and guilt: the Inspector is successful in making her see the consequences of her actions. When she realises that she is the person that got Eva Smith sacked she thinks that she is responsible for her death. Sheila is more supportive to the enquiry. This shows that she is understanding and shows that she cares about the whole Eva Smith situation, unlike her father Mr Birling. Here we can start to see the different attitude that the younger and older characters play. Arthur Birling keeps insisting that Sheila should not be brought into this matter. Mrs Birling says to Sheila ‘I think you ought to go to bed’. She is trying to control Sheila and treats her like a child. Mrs Birling thinks that she is superior ‘Girls of that class -‘it is as though she is looking down on the girls. Regardless of the fact that Gerald, Mr Birling and Mrs Birling try to protect Sheila; she is the one that can actually face the truth. When the Inspector says that Eva Smith was also known as Daisy Renton, Gerald tries to hide his reaction because he played a part in Daisy Renton’s life. He is distressed by his realisation in Eva Smith’s/Daisy Renton’s life and death. Sheila tells him to tell the Inspector, implying that the Inspector knows the truth already. Gerald asks Sheila to leave the room because he doesn’t want to expose any more unpleasantness. Gerald tries to justify that he is a hero when he says:  Ã¢â‚¬ËœI became at once the most important person in her life†¦Ã¢â‚¬â„¢Ã‚  whereas he is also anxious that he has a shameful link to Eva Smith’s death. Mrs Birling remains entirely untouched by the Inspector’s questioning.  Ã¢â‚¬ËœI did nothing that I’m ashamed of or that won’t bear investigation.’  She feels no shame because she refuses to see how Eva Smith’s death can have followed as a consequence of her actions. Mrs Birling believes that a working class girl deserves all that she gets. She reveals her assumptions about people ‘make sure that he’s compelled to confess in public his responsibility’. She thinks this is the right thing to do but at the end she doesn’t do the right thing.  When the inspector confronts Eric, he reacts similarly to his sister, realising that he has done wrong. Eric is a complicated character. At the start of the play he is really immature. He believes that women are just there to be sexually used. When he gets Eva pregnant he tries to do the decent thing by giving her money. He steals the money from Birling’s office.

Human Impacts on the Sustainability of Groundwater Essay

The purpose of this lab is to show the sustainability of groundwater, if human development continues, at the same rate it has been, over the last few decades. Over the last 50 years our water demand has tripled, which is causing water tables all over the world to fail, and when these aquifers are depleted, worldwide food production will fall. I have looked over the data provided, and have come to the conclusion, that if we do not control our population, we will likely experience worldwide famine, maybe even have it as the catalyst for the next world war. Data collected from the M.U.S.E. in the virtual classroom, located at cut online, also researched on the internet, from the Google search bar, Nairaland forum, and WOA. Documentation, from these resources, and research, written in the following paragraphs. Stated in a 2009 report, that if the world population reached 7.5 billion, by 2020, 1.8 billion people, would be living in regions with extreme water scarcity. In a current report  as of December 1, 2014, our global population, has already reached over 7 billion, and futuristically, Africa is the only nation that is capable of self-sustaining. The Americans, Chinese, and Europeans, aspire to live a certain life style that will ultimately end in a survival of the fittest.  Several studies show that earth is currently capable of sustaining about 2 billion, at half the recourses, we currently consume. Each American, consumes about 20 acres, of biologically productive land, so if the worlds 7 billion people, consumed that of the average American, we would need about 5 earth’s resources, to be sustained. Obviously Earths 29.6 billion acres of biologically productive land, and water, support about 1.5 billion people. So we need to reduce the population by 80 %, or reduce our consumption by over 50%, and realistically, neither one is going to happen anytime soon. Which leaves our grandchildren, and so on, in serious risk of a grave global catastrophe? Resources: Politics,Lagbaja, taken from web address http://www.nairaland.com/2022950/current-world-population-three-time, on 1/05/2015 WOA!! Taken from web address http://www.overpopulation.org/water.html on 01/06/2015

MCA Museum Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

MCA Museum - Essay Example Altmejd’s artwork is way off the normal patterns of creativity. A new dimension of innovation and creativity reflects in the work of Altmejd. Painting 2: Changing Painting by Robert Gober (MCA Denver). Robert Gober’s artwork presents changing images. There can be various approaches to the way above figure can be interpreted. On the left part of the picture, there is the image of a man’s chest with hairs along the mid-line of the chest and around the areola. On the right half of the picture, the chest appears inflamed and there is no hair growth over it. Some viewers conceive the right half as the chest of a woman, while others refer to it as a male’s chest with the condition of gynecomastia, in which the excessive fat accumulation under the areola of males makes their chest look like that of women. In some cases, gynecomastia can appear in both sides of the chest. In other cases, a man may have gynecomastia in one side of the chest, as appears in the pictu re above. However, in regular gynecomastia, breast becomes enlarged but the hair growth remains the same on both sides, unlike the picture above. Overall, the picture is unique in subject and color theme. The picture above is one of the earliest paintings of Robert Gober. The artist transforms the canvas into a capacious and multifaceted platform full of contrasting themes. Painting 3: Butterfly wings (MCA Denver).

Health and Wellness in Saudi Arabia Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Health and Wellness in Saudi Arabia - Essay Example This paper tells that in Saudi Arabia they did not take a lot of medicines. Instead, they were served a healthy diet all the time. They also played a lot outside by running and playing sports and that served as their daily exercise. These basic things have shaped t beliefs about health and wellness. I once had a classmate in school who was very sickly. He would miss school often and when he came back, he would be very thin. I learned he had Cancer. My classmates and I were very surprised because we thought Cancer only struck old people. My teacher then had to explain that Cancer does not choose any age or gender or even status in life. She reminded us to take care of our bodies well so that there is less likelihood of contracting diseases. That got me more health-conscious. I kept myself clean all the time, made healthy choices in my eating and exercised every day. Coming to America, I realized just how different the culture is and how Americans regard health. I come from a country w here there is a limited choice of food as compared to here in the US where fast food restaurants abound. I look around me and see various kinds of diseases resulting from eating food loaded with calories and preservatives. On the other hand, I also discovered how fortunate Americans are because they are provided with health coverage from their government. Healthcare here is much more advanced than in Saudi Arabia. I also observed that children also play, but their kind of recreation is mostly done indoors, with video games. Television also plays a huge role in their lives that they spend so much time in front of it while munching on snacks. Thus, they do not get enough physical activity and become prone to being overweight or even obese. The adults, on the other hand, seem to be obsessed with fitness, as seen in popular shows like â€Å"The Biggest Loser†. Exercise videos and a whole lot of gadgets that promise a sexier and more fit body to abound in advertisements. Numerous diets have been developed such as the Atkins diet, South beach diet, the GM diet and so many more. Sometimes, these diets contradict each other in recommending which foods to eat or avoid that people get confused about what is the truth. Thinking about these things convince me that good health practices should start from childhood. If children have been trained to eat healthily, engage in exercise or more physical activities instead of just being entertained passively by electronic media, then they do not grow up to be adults who are obsessed to regaining their health and fitness. For me, health and wellness can easily be achieved by not only caring for the body with good food, exercise, enough sleep and maintaining one’s hygiene well. One should also consider caring for his mind and heart. This means feeding the mind with good thoughts, ideas, and information from books, shows or worthy and sensible and worthy conversations with people. Right now, I have no problems with tha t, being a student. I am learning so much from my courses as well as from discussions with my peers. In terms of caring for one’s heart, I do not mean just physically, but to keep the heart happy as well. This can be achieved by having harmonious relationships with others and keeping peace with them instead of drawing up negative emotions and stress. Having no enemies and keeping a positive outlook in life truly brings about wellness. My current perspective about health and wellness has been influenced by my parents and teachers in Saudi Arabia who all served to be good role models to me by living healthy lives and having positive dispositions. I am grateful to my parents, for raising me with good health practices, and my teachers for stressing the importance of good health.

WEEK 8 DISCUSSION PART 1 Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

WEEK 8 DISCUSSION PART 1 - Essay Example In addition, the researchers used generalized themes to organize the data in a coherent manner (Branthwaite, & Patterson, 2011). Unlike Jacobson, Krause use a closed hypothesis by assuming that people engage in Medicare fraud for economic purpose only. On the other hand, Jacobson approaches the study through an all-inclusive hypothesis that assumes variation in the reasons for engagement in Medicare fraud. Both articles have similar approach in data representation. The two researchers rely on statistics to represent as the main segment of their data. Statistical facts and other numerical constants are the main numerical facts presented by the researchers. However, the two articles have a slight variation in their interpretation of data. Krause relies on limits to prove most of her arguments. For instance, she claims that the US government spent over $2.5 trillion on health care in 2009. The numerical values are not accurate but they represent the margin of the lowest or minimal value. To enhance accuracy or reduce workload, researchers are tempted to exclude some variables or restructure their variable space. Similarly, the two articles indicate a great deal of variable space shrinkage. For instance, Krause ignores the efforts of judicial system in cubing Medicare fraud. On the other hand, Jacobson consider time as the most significant variable in his analysis. Research constraints and the inability to apply all variables encountered in a given study is the main source of weaknesses or limitations in a research. For the purpose of future studies, researchers are encouraged to highlight some of the limitation in their studies. Both articles have significant limitation or disagreements between theoretical and actual inferences. However, both researchers have different approaches in reporting limitations encountered in their studies. Unlike Krause, Jacobson’s article has discrete statements that describe the limitations

Should narcotic be legal in America Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Should narcotic be legal in America - Essay Example In this paper, the issue of legalization of narcotics in America will be scrutinized having an ethical standpoint. If people can take drugs without harming the other people then these should be legalized. Just for the sake of argument, if we keep all the harms of drugs aside if we have a situation where drugs can safely be used without any chances of harm then it should be legalized. Human beings are pleasure seeking creatures and drugs are major source of pleasure in the life of Americans. In life the facilities like music, games literature, picnic and tourism are all for human pleasure. If pleasure is deducted from human life then only we are left with boring daily routine. Pleasure satisfies our mind and nerves system. Drug also give mental satisfaction and is a source of pleasure for many people in the world. Therefore when other pleasures of life are permitted then drug use should also be legalized (Fieser 2008). Moral duty of avoiding drug related harms to society are as strong as they were centuries ago. It is obvious that many Americans are behind the bars in jail in different American cities. Drug usage has adversely affected their social life. Another thing to consider is that a drug user gets access to drugs despite all hurdles. When alcohol and marijuana are used in a controlled quantity then harms on society are not visible. Drugs should be legalized in America as we see that people can control the use of recreational drug with out harming themselves and society (Fieser 2008). It should not be the moral duty of government and law makers to stop adults from using drugs. Similarly authorities do not have any moral obligation to stop a person drinking limited quantity of alcohol or other drugs. Use of force against willing drug user must be prohibited and this can only be possible after legalization of drugs (Friedman

Compare george yule's and andrew radford's generative grammar (my prof Coursework

Compare george yule's and andrew radford's generative grammar (my prof says they differ) - Coursework Example There are a number of various kinds of generative grammar most of which have their roots in the transformational grammar developed in the 1950s by Noam Chomsky, a linguist who tried to produce a certain type of grammar that has a very clear system of rules stipulating and verifying the combination of basic elements that would result out of a well-shaped sentence. Both George Yule and Andrew Radford have attempted to present a survey of all the information about a language particularly with regard to the internal structures of a language. Inspired by Noam Chomsky,Yule attempted to develop a generative grammar based on a system of rules that can effectively specify the combination of elements required to form sentences. Although both Yule (2006) and Radford (2006) were heavily influenced and inspired by Chomsky, there are a number of differences in their approach of generative grammar.This paper critically analyzes the similarities as well as the differences in George Yule’s and Andrew Radford’s generative grammar. ... The second aim makes use of minimalist concepts and assumptions as well, provides a description of a range phenomena in English syntax. It avoids the excessive complex technicalities in English syntax and intends to be appropriate for people with only minimal grammatical information, and those who have already done fairly with syntax but desire to be familiar with more about simplicity. It is neither comparative in orientation, nor assume knowledge of alternative models of grammar. An important similarity between the two approaches however is that the two proponents of generative grammar focus more on meaning brought about by the sentences other than the structural organization of the sentence. As such it does not focus more on correctness of the grammar but the overall meaning intended in the sentence therefore highlighting the importance of language as a tool of communication rather than structural organization of a given sentence. Radford believed that in making interrogative sent ences, preceding sentences can be easy to teach and learn. An important area of contrast is that Yule (2006) violated binary branching by attempting to produce a perfect description or ordering arrangements of elements in a linear structure borrowed from the original work of Noam Chomsky. On the other hand, Radford illustrates the syntax of a sentence using a tree diagram which is binary branching. It is however worth noting that Radford and Yule have used a similar approach while exploring on the rules of wh-movement in English in order to make interrogative sentences and relative sentences easier to demonstrate and learn. According to Yule, syntactic breakdown has taken rather a dissimilar approach and direction in trying to account for the types of

Position paper 1 Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Position paper 1 - Assignment Example Biologists hold that human embryos are human beings at an early stage of development. For Yelena and Yury, although the pregnancy was accidental, the mere fact that they are members of the human species dictate that they have the moral responsibility to facilitate rather than retard the internally directed development of the persisting human being. Whereas George and Lee (2005) claim that human beings are capable of consciousness and experience that empowers them to make greater claims than human embryos, such a claim is flawed and fallacious. Firstly, during the embryonic stage, our conscious and personality were already fully formed since character is shaped at this early stage. As such, we were not human non-persons but human persons with all the psychological attributes. The mere fact that human embryos lack experience does not reduce it to a nonperson. We possessed intrinsic worth and human dignity since then, a factor that gives the embryo the right to grow and develop. This di gnity is not dependent on inadvertent attributes such as IQ, age, size, or skin color but is rather intrinsic due to the entities we are. Hence, while Yelena and Yury undertook significant measures to prevent the abortion, but it still occurred, it is unethical to terminate the life of the developing individual. It must be accorded the respect and dignity that it deserves since we also want to be treated with respect and dignity; it is not a ‘lesser’ human being. Honourably, Callahan (1986) strives to condemn those who justify abortion by claiming that the fetus is a biological parasite that continuously takes resources from a female’s body. Evidently, this is a pro-choice feminist argument that overly exaggerates the fact that during the 9-month period, the mother’s energies and whole life will be actively involved in the development of the embryo to a baby. Callahan (1986) understands that such a

Business Economics Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

Business Economics - Essay Example In the mid-1960s, the international economy was prone to step away from protectionism and support more economical liberalisation; meanwhile during the next decade, quite an opposite tendency took place and various countries started to shut off from one another with the help of tariff and especially non-tariff barriers in order to secure their own inner market from foreign competition. Today’s conditions of tough competition stimulate governmental representatives to take the question of the state’s foreign-economic activity and its forms more seriously, making the right choice between two different policies that are able to exert influence on every area of government’s life. Advantages of Free International Trade The liberalisation of international economic relationships necessitates the transition to open economy having an antimonopoly character. As a rule, a lot of states are interested simultaneously in both liberalisation and protectionism. The theoretic justi fication of free trade policy, which is considered to be profitable for all states and nations, was formed by Adam Smith, Davis Ricardo, Francois Quesnay and others (Dunkley 2004). The movement of free trade proponents was founded in the last quarter of the 18th century in England, and it was connected with the industrial revolution. The position of English free traders was directed against agrarian duties, which supported high prices for farm commodities in the interest of large landowners (Schumacher 2012). In this respect, under the influence of customs reform, the free trade policy completely won in Great Britain in the mid-19th century and later on, the tendency and idea of free markets spread in France, Germany and Russia (Irwin 2009). In the 20th century, the principles of liberalisation were put into practice based on the performance of international organisations and regional economic unions. The policy of free trade supposes minimal governmental interference in foreign tra de, which develops on a basis of free market forces of demand and supply. The main methods of free trade are dumping, which means sales of products at artificially decreased prices, and non-tariff ways of regulation, which include reviewing and standardisation. The advantages of free trade are multifaceted and have been proved with theoretical aspects as well as practical results. First of all, free trade allows improving prosperity of trading nations because it opens opportunities for international specialisation of production and exchange based on the principle of comparative advantages. The gains of international trade can be measured with the difference between profits received in the conditions of international exchange and financial results obtained with the lack of foreign trade or, as Marshall suggested, comparative analysis of producers’ and consumers’ profit levels may also evaluate benefits of free trade policy. Secondly, such foreign economic attitude mitig ates the development of competition and stimulates innovations. Finally, all these consequences contribute to the improvement of product quality, which is a positive aspect for potential consumers.

Fast Food Essay Example for Free

Fast Food Essay ? A fast food restaurant is on every corner, but is actually good for you? Fast food became popular in the early 1900’s but it didn’t just take off. Fast food has made quite a journey in its development opening opportunities along the way. It has its advantages and disadvantages but being aware of them is very important. Fast food has made a huge impact on our nation’s health and economy. How was fast food developed? Burgers made at fairs, carnivals, and events were known as low quality. It took America a while to warm up to the idea of fast food. Many people mistakenly assume McDonalds was the first fast food chain but it was not. In the 18th century the convenience of eating away from home was becoming popular. As a result, White Castle was the first chain beginning in Wichita, Kansas. To make the idea of eating away from home more appealing they built their restaurants to show the customers the food being prepared. White Castle’s reputation for well-cooked burgers spread nationwide, making it easier for other fast food restaurants to move in. The McDonald brothers opened their redesigned restaurant in 1948. Soon after, Taco Bell and Burger King opened in the 1950’s and Wendy’s in 1969. Even though McDonalds is the name of fast food it has made a bad reputation in other countries because of its exaggerated marketing to children and unhealthy ingredients. Obviously, it took time for the United States to begin trusting fast food. Fast food can be hurtful to our bodies and the environment. The effects impact both children and adults. Within the food, the lack of some nutrients like Vitamin B and Omega 3 Fatty-Acids causes a person to become unhappy. This unhappiness leads to further problems like depression. Another major problem is the fatty foods sold in fast food restaurants cause a higher risk for Alzheimer’s. In 2009 the University of Berkley did a study that stated that the closer you live to fast food the higher the risk of problems with obesity. Obesity has swept this nation strongly and is one of the most impactful health problems today. Fast foods campaign directly towards children and tempt them with toys and playgrounds. Children obesity rate has tripled in the last 30 years alone as a result. Fast food has also contributed to our planet in a negative way. Livestrong. com states â€Å"To make 1 lb. of hamburger, for example, it takes 16 lbs. of grains and up to 2,500 gallons of water. † The New Community Project says if the people of the world ate more plant-based food we would be able to give food and clean water to the people who don’t have access now. Eating fast food often can be hurtful towards the body and the environment. After many complaints, the fast food industry is finally addressing the health problems. In 1965, the first Subway store was opened with its original title Pete’s Subway. Subway has addressed the issues of unhealthy living with their new spokesperson Jared Fogle who lost 245 lbs. after eating subway for a year. He began being shown in commercials and ads telling people his story. Subway then started adding the amount of calories in specific ingredients to the menu. They also started a new list to the menu called Fresh Fit that includes healthy options for every meal. Many fast food chains caught on to this idea and started showing healthier options and adding calorie counts to their menus. The fast food industry has only begun creating a healthier lifestyle option for people. The fast food industry hit this nation by storm. It has its advantages but do they outweigh the consequences? People of this nation need to watch how much fast food one consumes. Fast food can be good or bad, it all depends on what people choose. Cites Disadvantages of Fast Foods. LIVESTRONG. COM. N. p. , n. d. Web. 12 Sept. 2013. How Fast Food Works. HowStuffWorks. N. p. , n. d. Web. 12 Sept. 2013. Ashley Bruce 9/12/13.

A Study On Space And Time Media Essay

A Study On Space And Time Media Essay The ability of humans to create, change, adapt to and enhance their surroundings, their interactions, and their lifestyle has been an incredible feat throughout mankinds existence. Even ancient inventions such as the wheel or the discovery of fire have propelled humans forward, enabling them to build tremendous, continuously developing infrastructures throughout the world. With these ever-developing infrastructures in place, the rapidity of movement and communication has been constantly increasing. They have effectively shortened the time it takes to cross a certain distance. Time and space are the main factors of being; our movements, daily routines and interactions are entirely based around them. However, with technologies ranging from telegraphic communication to the internet and the mobile phone, time is, in some aspects of social live, not only being shortened but is becoming detached from space itself causing us to reconsider how time and space are actually related to each othe r. The concepts and parameters of time and space are particularly hard to define due to their complexity as Harvey (1989: p.203) states: â€Å"the objective qualities of physical time-space cannot be understood, therefore independently of the qualities of material processes.† We have learned to measure them and therefore have given them a basic characterization, so that there is a certain logical feeling to time and space, a sense of passive control. Without matter, time and space have no importance. Modern existence has revolved around understanding and ultimately decreasing time in order to shorten space. Due to mobility inventions starting with the horse cart and ending with the jet plane, the space we move backwards and forwards in has become compressed, while the measurements of space itself has not changed. Time was until the invention of the clock, hard to pin down. Obviously individuals were able to make out periods of a day (morning, midday, night), but there were no pro per time periods, no sense of timely organization. With the clock, society became more structured. Employees were allocated work hours, social meetings could be allocated to a specific hour in the day and a clear timely division between work time and recreational time was put in place. During the industrialisation and even nowadays, this time control has put an exact time structure for allocated movements in an allocated space. It allowed bureaucratic systems to emerge, with which control and structure was implemented into social live. The clocks effect is immense, possibly just like the internet is having an effect on society in post modern society. Space on the other hand is more straightforward for individuals to perceive. Harvey describes space in a social context as â€Å"‘stations (places where certain activities like working, shopping etc. occur) and ‘domains where certain social interactions prevail† (Harvey, 1989: p.211) However, defining space as station s and domains, could also be seen as an oversimplification of space itself. This definition, as Harvey even states himself â€Å"makes no attempt to understand why certain social relations dominate others, or how meaning gets assigned to places, spaces, history, and time.† (Harvey, 1989: p. 212) This simplification and Harveys contradiction to it, shows that there is more to space than just simple stations or domains. Space is not necessarily easily definable. Space and our perception of it are under constant fluctuation, causing us to observe different spaces different. There are private spaces, public spaces, restricted spaces, spaces controlled by a specific group of people. Time and space are intertwined with our social actions and social statuses. There are two important theories of how time and space relations are changing throughout modernity and post modernity; Giddenss time-space distanciation and Harveys idea of time-space compression. Giddens refers to a development â€Å"which tears space away from place by fostering relations between ‘absent others, locationally distant from any given situation of face-to-face interaction† (Giddens 1990, 18) as well as â€Å"lifting out of social relationships from local contexts of interaction and their restructuring across time and space† (Giddens 1990, 21). Giddens calls this disembedding. This means that time and space distance themselves from each other, furthermore we ourselves are lifted out of time and space in a social and communicative context. The need for a physical space to communicate is becoming less central. Harveys idea of time-space compression on the other hand touches upon the fact that with a globalising world, individuals who live in very dista nt places are able to experience the same things at the same time. In essence, this means that they live in the same space, having the same experiences during the same time period. Harvey thus points out that due to our constant development of new communication technologies; the space we move around in and the way we communicate, becomes compressed because we are able to cover the same distance in less time or in no time at all. Both of these two theories about rethinking time-space relations state the fact that information and communication technological advances are central to creating a world that in all places is synchronized. However, a completely electronically synchronised world is far from becoming an actual reality. How can time and space be understood in a postmodern era, where due to new media technologies time and space have changed? As stated earlier, communication changed due to the emergence of immediate communication. The telegraph has changed the idea and concepts of real time. There no longer was the need for oral communication in the same space, and written communication was replaced by the immediate communication technologies. Written communication, took long periods of time to move from sender to recipient, while the telegraph was able to overcome these time ‘gaps. Capitalism, with its need for ‘speeding up time to thus reducing space to increase production and consumption, media technologies, such as the telephone, television, the mobile phone and ultimately the internet have all caused the diminishment and perception of space further than the telegraph, and increased production and consumption due to its increased outreach without the hindrance of space. Space, as state d before plays an integral role in shaping society, and with it constantly being challenged by new emerging media and technologies, the way we see space changes. In a modern capitalist society, companies, who at first were only capable of reaching people in a confined space, are able to advertise and reach targeted consumers globally. A perfect example of a diminishing space rift is Coca Cola. Due to a globalising world, and the achievement of immediate worldwide communication, they were able to market their product worldwide, produce it worldwide. We no longer perceive a person that lives halfway across the globe unreachable. We are able to communicate with them instantly with the new media mediums being put to use. A good example of this are the call centres based in India, who do not actually cater to the Indian public, but to the British, who often are not even aware of the fact that they are making a call across the globe. This is evidently a space and time reduction. â€Å"Sp ace appears to shrink to a ‘global village of telecommunications and a ‘spaceship earth of economic and ecological interdependencies† (Harvey, 1989: p.240) The more technological advances occur, the more are needed, thus the rate at which they are researched and put to use gradually increases, which also in turn causes time to speed up at the same rate. The capitalistic need of ‘instant noodle products constantly advances. Ultimately the internet, since its emergence has become an extension of our space, and a shortcut through time. The internet has replaced post mail, bulletin boards, shopping catalogues, libraries, video rentals, etc. It has not only replaced all these, it has reduced the time needed to access them and use them. Modern communication has become time based rather than space based. With mobile phones, instant messaging and social networking sites, we no longer have the need for space for communication. Our communication has made space, in a social context, physically redundant. In premodern society on the other hand, the need for space was vital for communication, due to the lack of communication technologies. Space and time in that case were equally important. Here it must be understood, that space itself is a hurdle that has to be overcome in order for human interaction to take place. Surveillance and new media technologies are closely interlinked. This idea touches upon Foucaults panopticon, where prisoners, workers, schoolchildren etc. are able to be watched and surveyed from a single point. The idea of this social control has taken a new turn. Society can now be under constant observance, CCTVs and other monitoring devices can be installed anywhere in a country or even abroad, and can be immediately be viewed hundreds of kilometres away. Thus the idea of social control in coordination with time and space has changed as well. Are the virtual spaces that we have created the same space as we occupy? Considering that these virtual spaces are not actually physical. We know that the space we occupy physically exists, because of our ability to sense (hearing, smell, touch, sight and taste). Social movements and interaction, has until recently been entirely confined to this ‘space. With the emergence of the electronic virtual space, we have created a dimension which we cannot touch or smell. However, we are able to see and hear it. We are able to use this virtual space from the space that we occupy. We create avatars, to represent ourselves in this virtual space. Or is this virtual space, actually part of our space? Has it caused us to understand time and space differently? While we cannot be physically present on the internet, we have used it to extend and at the same time change our social space. The internet, as well as other electronic media, changes our social surroundings. We no longer have to meet a friend, colleague or family member in a physical space; due to the internet we have the ability to not change our spatial location, but can simply contact them via social networking sites, instant messaging software or other internet or telecommunication based means. Furthermore, touching upon capitalism again, in reference to the internet, consumption is changing. The internet enables us to shop, without moving further than our doorstep to pick up a parcel delivery. We can order any item imaginable, ranging from groceries to electronics to cars to land. We can buy them directly from retailers or take part in auctions on eBay. Giddens asks the question â€Å"Why is the separation of time and space so crucial to the extreme dynamism of modernity?†(Giddens, 1990: p.20) Giddens then proceeds to answer the question and argues that the separation of time and space is the â€Å"prime condition of disembedding† (Giddens, 1990:p.20). Disembedding is not only the removal of individuals from the boundaries of time and space, but also the disembedding of entire institutions. This shows that time-space distanciation happens on a much larger scale. It is not only the communication between single individuals, but the communication of entire companies, institutions, and even entire countries. The disembedding that Giddens mentions, is the product of new media technologies. Furthermore, this affects the basis of contemporary social life. The societies we live in nowadays are highly globalised. This is not only due to the fact that people of different origins live in the same country, but that people can by t he click of a button, order products, programs, or receive information on and from any other country. The relations between time and space, has definitely changed with every communicative technology. Due to new media technologies such as the internet and the mobile phone, we are now able to communicate without having to be in a designated space. We can be in the most public of places, yet be able to talk to someone that was not even in that area. The internet allows us to receive information, communicate with literally anyone instantly, no matter where they are without having to be physically present. It has enabled the emergence of multinational corporations, the intertwining of cultures. Time and spaces relation however, has always been under constant change and will continue to change with every technological advancement we make.

Media Portrayal of Mental Illness in America Essay -- Media American S

Media Portrayal of Mental Illness in America The media in American society has a major influential impact on the minds and beliefs of millions of people. Whether through the news, television shows, or film, the media acts as a huge database for knowledge and instruction. It is both an auditory and visual database that can press images and ideas into people's minds. Even if the individual has no prior exposure or knowledge to something, the media can project into people's minds and leave a lasting impression. Though obviously people are aware of what they are listening to or watching, thoughts and assumptions can drift into their minds without even realizing it. These thoughts that drift in are extremely influential. The massive impact it can leave on America's perception leads to generalizations, assumptions, and stigmas. The media influence is not always negative, however. In most cases it has beneficial and positive aspects. Without the media, people would be drastically less informed and conscientious about major issues in t he world around us. In some cases, however, the way the media portrays an issue can twist one's perception, leaving an assumption instead of a factual concept. Mental illness is one of the biggest concepts that the media has distorted due to the majority of portrayals the media presents. Mental health is extremely important and plays a key role in every individual's life. Yet it is also has millions of misconceptions. Mental illness is more common that one would like to believe. In reality, one in five Americans will suffer from a mental disorder in any given year. Though that ratio is about equivalent to more than fifty-four million people, mental illness still remains a shameful and stigmatized topic (National Institute of Mental Health, n.d.). The taboo of mental illness has an extensive and exhausting history, dating back to the beginning of American colonization. It has not been an easy road to say the least. Due to the endless efforts and research of certain foundations and in dividuals, the ideas and functions of mental health have improved significantly. The advancements made in the field are impressive and without them humankind would not be the same. Yet then why do only fewer than eight million people who are in need of help seek treatment? (National Mental Health Association, 2001). The history, stigmatization, and perce... ...on.(2000,May 15). Negative Media Images of People with Mental Illness Impact America’s Perception: NMHA Survey Focuses on Entertainment and News Media. Retrieved June,16,2002, from http://mhnet.org/articles/nmha3.htm National Mental Health Association.(2001). Did You Know? Retrieved June,16,2002, from http://www.nmha.org/infoctr/didyou.cfm Star,S.A.(1952). What the public thinks about mental health and mental illness. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the National Association for Mental Health. Star,S.A.(1955). The public’s ideas about mental illness. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the National Association for Mental Health. Swindle,R.,Heller,K.,& Pescosolido,B.(1997,August). Responses to â€Å"nervous breakdowns† in America over a 40-year period: Mental health policy implications. Paper presented at the meeting of American Sociological Association, Toronto, Ontario. U.S. Public Health Service.(1999). The Surgeon General’s Report on Mental Health. Retrieved June,5,2000, from http://www.surgeongeneral.gov/library/mentalhealth/home.html Veroff,J.,Douvan,E.,& Kulka,R.A.(1981). Mental Health in America: Patterns of help-seeking from 1957-1976. New York: Basic Books.

Investigate how the concentration of hydrochloric acid effects the rate at which it reacts with calcium carbonate :: GCSE Chemistry Coursework Investigation

Investigate how the concentration of hydrochloric acid effects the rate at which it reacts with calcium carbonate Investigation Plan Aim === Investigate how increasing the concentration of the solution hydrochloric acid effects and alters the rate at which it reacts with marble chip, calcium carbonate. Rate of reaction is affected by six main factors * Temperature * Surface area of a solid * Concentration of a solution * Pressure of a gas * By using catalysts * Using biological catalysts called Enzymes As outlined above the rate of a reaction increases when temperature increases, the concentration of dissolved reactants increases, the pressure of gases increases, solid reactants are in smaller pieces and of greater surface area and also if a catalyst is used. For this experiment I have been asked to pay particular attention to the factor CONCENTRATION, and the ways in which it affects the rate at which a reaction takes place. We can measure the rate of reaction by measuring the time at which the products of the reaction are produced or the reactants used up and there are a few different ways of doing this such as: By measuring gas volume Here the marble chips and dilute hydrochloric acid are put in a conical flask. This is connected to a gas syringe, which collects and measures the volume of gas formed. At regular time intervals a measurement is then taken of the volume of gas collected. Another way to measure the volume of gas produced is to displace water from a measuring cylinder as per diagram below. We can also measure the rate of reaction by measuring mass loss here when a gas is lost the mass decreases, which can be measured by placing the flask on a balance. The last way is to note how long it takes for a precipitate to form such as in the chemical reaction "the thiosulphate reaction". I conducted a preliminary experiment and from this determined that the most reliable and accurate way to measure the release of carbon dioxide gas would be by using a measuring cylinder to see the displacement of water and therefore determining how much carbon dioxide has been produced. Hypothesis I predict that as time increases so will the amount of carbon dioxide produced however throughout the experiment the rate of reaction will slow because as time increases there will be less and less un-reacted particles present to take part in fruitful collisions and result in carbon dioxide water and calcium chloride being formed, this means that the time between fruitful collisions will increase because a particle will take longer to find another un-reacted particle with enough activation energy to collide and react with. I hypothesise that as the concentration of the hydrochloric acid

The Internet :: essays research papers

THE INTERNET   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  In the last decade the Internet has grown from a dream into the most advanced reality. You can find practically anything you want to on the world's fastest growing tool. Computers are now very advanced and affordable so the Internet is also one of the most widely used tools. Like anything in the world the Internet also has a few bad points, however I think that the good points of the Internet out weigh the bad ones.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  General information can be easily found on any subject with the simple click of the mouse. Many people use the Internet in genealogy research, or track down family or friends on a people search. The Internet can also take the place of a phone book with phone number search engines and yellow page directories. It can also be a great advantage when one is planning to travel; maps are easily accessed, and unlimited research can be done on a destination. One can easily find information on any hobby, and there is usually an Internet club for every hobby imaginable. If one is into games then there are demos for most computer games, or you could even play chess with someone overseas. There are also an unlimited number of personal ads to have fun with or maybe make a new friend. I am a music lover and there are an unlimited number of resources for all types of music. I have downloaded nearly 400 songs from the Internet, and it was all free and legal. If one does not have t ime to go shopping for Christmas there are millions of online stores for any type of gift; there are even online grocery stores. One can search huge databases of used or new cars until they find the one that is right for them. There are also thousands of classified adds to search through if the item one is looking for cannot be bought new or is discontinued. There are even online auctions where one can conveniently buy or sell new or used items. One can even pay their bills online. Of course if one wants to look into a product before they purchase it there are discussion forums on nearly every item. For the business man there are sites to buy, sell, research, or get quotes on one's stocks. All the top news groups have web sites, and there are even weather sites.

Historical Context Versus Human Behavior in “The Scarlet Letter”

â€Å"The Scarlet Letter† was set in Boston, Massachusetts in the mid 1600’s and follows the backlash of the sinful act between Hester Prynne and Boston’s own Reverend Arthur Dimmesdale. In an ironic and masterfully executed red-herring type twist, Dimmesdale himself publically calls for Hester to name her sinner-in-crime in the beginning of the story, which she adamantly declines to do. The reader, at this point, does not know that Dimmesdale is her adulterer, but knows that the game is afoot. Hester is given a scarlet â€Å"A† to wear upon her chest for her sin and bears the â€Å"A† with a sense of purpose and dignity, even embroidering it with gold thread. Hester and her daughter of sin, Pearl, end up living in a small cottage where Hester earns a living with her skillful needlework. And, in an attempt to show her shame, yet revel in it, Hester only dresses Pearl in scarlet dresses. Hester’s long-lost and presumed dead husband, Roger Chillingworth, returns to find Hester in prison for her deed and informs her that she is to tell no one of his identity. Much later, once he establishes himself in society with a false identity as a physician, he is summoned to help the ailing Dimmesdale. Chillingworth begins to believe that Dimmesdale might be suffering from a malady beyond the physical which brings him to discover that Dimmesdale is an adulterer and Pearl’s father. Enraged and seeking revenge, Chillingworth plots to destroy Dimmesdale. Dimmesdale is so fraught with guilt at this point that he punishes himself physically, fasts, and staves off sleeping for a constant vigil. He feels a deep sorrow and horror for what he has done to Hester’s husband and tells Hester, at which point she begins to see that Chillingworth must be behind Dimmesdale’s quickly declining health. Hester and Dimmesdale have a moment in the woods where she confesses that Chillingworth is actually her husband. Dimmesdale is willing to face the truth. They plan to set sail for the Old World immediately, and in an act of freedom, Hester removes her â€Å"A† and lets down her hair. Pearl becomes so distraught that Hester has to once again don her shame, and this time it is with true sadness. They must wait until after Election Day to set sail and Dimmesdale eagerly begins his final, enlightening, sermon. At the end, he brings Hester and Pearl up on stage and confesses everything to the town. This, of course, ruins Chillingworth’s plan to destroy Dimmesdale as he watches with fury while everything is revealed. As the story ends, Dimmesdale dies on the public platform after his confession, Chillingworth dies a year later, and Pearl inherits his fortune. Years later, Hester is buried next to Dimmesdale in the town cemetery. In 1841, Hawthorne wrote a letter confessing that he was beginning to despise life in Salem and asks, â€Å"dost thou not think it really the most hateful place in all the world? My mind becomes heavy†¦nothing makes me wonder more than that I found it possible to write all my tales in this same region of sleepy-head and stupidity† (Moore, 2). He wrote this letter to Sophia, his wife, and it represents very clearly what he thought of his town of Salem and his Puritanical upbringings. It is from this resentment that â€Å"The Scarlet Letter† was born. Going further back in Hawthorne’s life, his â€Å"father died†¦when he was four, an age at which, according to Freud, the male child forms a crucial attachment to his mother†¦consequently, he was able to supplant his father in his mother’s affections. His attachment to his mother became an impediment to his psychological maturation†¦especially when [she died]† (Kennedy-Andrews, 107-108). According to this information, â€Å"The Scarlet Letter† becomes an easy and remarkable parallel to Hawthorne’s own personal life. Hester’s husband dies while at sea, leaving her to believe him dead and free to seek new male companionship. A reader could parallel this to Hawthorne’s life in which his father died and his mother was left to seek new male companionship, albeit, with her own son. This parallel can be defined even further as â€Å"throughout the story Hawthorne continually defines Hester in terms of motherhood†¦and in the very beginning of the narrative, Hawthorne establishes Hester’s relation to the Oedipal underpinnings of the story† (Kennedy-Andrews, 108). As the Oedipal complex goes, the son seeks to supplant his father for his mother’s affections. In most cases, as Kennedy-Andrews remarks, the son is forced to contend with a very real father figure for these affections and becomes fearful and backs down (107). In Hawthorne’s case, without a father figure from such a young age, he became the man in his mother’s life and the Oedipal complex became fulfilled. In fact, Hawthorne’s work â€Å"aims to produce an invisible change, an internal deepening like that which transforms the letter even as its form remains identical† (Kennedy-Andrews, 81). Hester’s attitude towards the â€Å"A† is to wear it, not with resignation, but accepting it as part of her life. Embroidering it with gold and crafting scarlet dresses for Pearl to wear signify this transformation externally. It is internally, in Hester’s character, that the letter changes much more significantly. She wears it as part of her life, accepting what she did, but the shame she feels slowly transforms Hester into a woman respected within the community. And the shame she once felt for Pearl is transformed into pure, satisfying love for a creation—despite the fact that Pearl was consummated through sin. In the 1600’s the act of sin and breaking from religion became the greatest crime and the basis for Puritanical beliefs. In this, and perhaps only this, Hawthorne follows history and makes a poignant mockery of the human condition—most precisely, the value stripped from women when they fall so far from grace as to partake in human desires. The fact that Hester’s human desire happens to be a religious leader of the community only serves to highlight this point more. Hawthorne’s use of symbolism throughout further demonstrates how the mores and ideals of the Puritanical community practically destroyed the very reason that the Puritans came to America in the first place—for freedom, as we are taught in history, without persecution or tyrannical leadership. Instead, the characters within â€Å"The Scarlet Letter† created their own sense of justice: persecuting women who are not obedient and compliant, like Eve from Biblical lore (before she forces Adam to eat the cursed apple, of course). As a historical work, â€Å"The Scarlet Letter† cannot be trusted as to the accuracy of events or people involved. Hawthorne â€Å"attempts to undermine the Puritan community’s judgment of Hester by employing a sentimental nineteenth-century narrator, uninformed about the spiritual complexities of the story he tells† (Thickstun, 133). This is where Hawthorne’s work loses all credence as a historical work of the 1600’s. His narrator is fully nineteenth-century, exposing views that simply did not exist within society until Hawthorne’s own time. While his views make for a compelling and entertaining story, they falter in historical truth. However, if this work is looked at closely, it becomes clear that Hawthorne’s life in the mid 1800’s actually serves as a greater historical reference for the morals and attitudes presented in the story. Historically, it can be said that yes, there were inhabitants in Massachusetts during the 1600’s, and they did profess Puritanical beliefs, much like the inhabitants of Boston where â€Å"The Scarlet Letter† takes place. However, the story within â€Å"The Scarlet Letter† is not that of history, it is that of human behavior and is better studied for a glimpse into humanity than for historical truths. In fact, â€Å"The Scarlet Letter† should not be read if the reader is hoping to find strong roots in historical context, but can be studied, to great reward, if a reader is in search of a tale inspired by true human emotions brought on by the politics enforced by a strong Puritanical society. Hawthorne used the politics and resulting changes in humanity from his own time period to form the characters and interactions in his work. In looking at the characters, Hawthorne â€Å"penetrates their subconscious minds and grapples with the secrets and compulsions he finds there. He too, plays master to his fictionalized slaves. And in recognizing this, he too, saw himself as a kind of spiritual villain, a marauder of the mind, and this perspective endows all of his work in both its technique and creation with an air of brooding and ineradicable guilt† (Reynolds, 50). It cannot be said that he ignored events from history or took a specific view on them; however he created his own history with the lives of Hester Prynne, Reverend Arthur Dimmesdale, their resulting daughter, Pearl, and the lives of those they touched. Historically, in an effort to determine whether Hawthorne’s descriptions are accurate, one can look at the values of the Puritans as a basis for study. Beyond the social, cultural, and actions of the characters, however, â€Å"The Scarlet Letter† leaves much to be desired for historical accuracy. In truth, Hawthorne based the story upon his own cultural times, placing his characters into a time period in which he knew prejudices against sin would make a marvelous tale. By his time, the Salem witch trials were well known, and his background in Puritanical beliefs would have made inserting characters into that background an easy feat. Hawthorne, it can be decided, focuses on the story within the backdrop—how the characters themselves shape history—and seems unconcerned with literal historical events within his tale. As to my opinion about historical events, no, Hawthorne did not change them. What he did was to make me see, very clearly, how easy it is for one person to become the focal point of sin within a community. To paraphrase Gary Scharnhorst’s â€Å"The Critical Response to Nathaniel Hawthorne’s ‘The Scarlet Letter’, the word â€Å"adultery† is never actually used within â€Å"The Scarlet Letter,† yet a reader understands very clearly by the attitudes of the characters that Hester has committed the worst of all sins and has to be physically, outwardly punished for all time. The one thing that separates humans from the other animals of this world is the ability to choose between right and wrong. Animals are unable to make this rationalization. But, as Hawthorne has so adeptly shown, the choice is often a non-issue when swept away by the driving force of a larger crowd. On their own, humans can choose between right and wrong without consequence. In a group, a dissenter would be punished just as Hester was—marked publically for all to see. In this, Hawthorne is a master. The fact that he based his work in a well-known time period serves no greater purpose than for dramatic effect. His story would be the same if set in any other time period, with any other sin. Imagine if Hawthorne had written about a young servant girl during the reign of King Henry VIII. She could have born his child or spoken out against Catholicism and been given the same fate. Her fate probably would have been death, and in his punishment, Hawthorne was delicate—if anything he is historically inaccurate here. Witches and women of less than perfect repute were often put to death, not degraded by wearing a public symbol. In this he was kind, but from the outcome of the story we know why. He wanted Pearl to grow up through the castigation of her mother and still prosper in the end. The object of sin became the reason for Hester’s being, and a powerful symbol of a different kind of justice. A pearl, after all, within a dark sea that appears to be full of tragedy and strife, can still become a most beautiful jewel. Truly, â€Å"The Scarlet Letter† is a work of fiction. The characters are not real and their lives did not play out in known history; however, what Hawthorne presents, and which I feel is more important, is what could have happened. The moral of his work is not to retell an unfortunate act, but to show the nature of human character and how there is a moment where a choice must be made between good and evil. The fact that Hawthorne was raised with Puritanical beliefs only seems to lend more weight to this theme. And this is what I enjoyed about â€Å"The Scarlet Letter. † Hawthorne’s life fills the pages of his work with a profound message for humanity. The scenes could have played out in any society, based upon any sin. Hawthorne even leaves a bit for the reader to infer about humanity with the final line of the book, â€Å"on a field, sable, the letter A, gules [or, is stained red]† (Hawthorne, 201). From this, we can ask: â€Å"does the scarlet letter stand for sin or for cleansing? Is the epitaph a word of despair or hope? In what direction did Hawthorne intend to lead our thoughts? If asked, he would have said, ‘read out of your own heart’ † (Scharnhorst, 131). And this, I think, is what readers should remember when studying his work. Being human means making choices based not only on who we are, but who others around us are and how they choose. Following the crowd, while most do so without thinking, is not always the best choice and does not, as in the case of Hester, serve the right kind of justice. In the end, once the truth is revealed, Hester finally finds peace, and the fact that her peace was granted, not by the town that punished her, but by her adulterer, is most striking of all.

British Airways Essay

I remember going to parties in the late 1970s, and, if you wanted to have a civilized conversation, you didn’t actually say that you worked for British Airways, because it got you talking about people’s last travel experience, which was usually an unpleasant one. It’s staggering how much the airline’s image has changed since then, and, in comparison, how proud staff are of working for BA today. British Airways employee, Spring 1990 I recently flew business class on British Airways for the first time in about 10 years. What has happened over that time is amazing. I can’t tell you how my memory of British Airways as a company and the experience I had 10 years ago contrasts with today. The improvement in service is truly remarkable. British Airways customer, Fall 1989 In June of 1990, British Airways reported its third consecutive year of record profits,  £345 million before taxes, firmly establishing the rejuvenated carrier as one of the world’s most profitable airlines. The impressive financial results were one indication that BA had convincingly shed its historic â€Å"bloody awful† image. In October of 1989, one respected American publication referred to them as â€Å"bloody awesome,† a description most would not have thought possible after pre-tax losses totalling more than  £240 million in the years 1981 and 1982. Productivity had risen more than 67 percent over the course of the 1980s. Passengers reacted highly favorably to the changes. After suffering through years of poor market perception during the 1970s and before, BA garnered four Airline of the Year awards during the 1980s, as voted by the readers of First Executive Travel. In 1990, the leading American aviation magazine, Air Transport World, selected BA as the winner of its Passenger Service award. In the span of a decade, British Airways had radically improved its financial strength, convinced its work force of the paramount importance of customer service, and dramatically improved its perception in the market. Culminating in the privatization of 1987, the carrier had undergone fundamental change through a series of important messages and events. With unprecedented success under its belt, management faced an increasingly perplexing problem: how to maintain momentum and recapture the focus that would allow them to meet new challenges. Crisis of 1981 Record profits must have seemed distant in 1981. On September 10 of that year, then chief executive Roy Watts issued a special bulletin to British Airways staff: British Airways is facing the worst crisis in its history . . . unless we take swift and remedial action we are heading for a loss of at least  £100 million in the present financial year. We face the prospect that by next April we shall have piled up losses of close to  £250 million in two years. Even as I write to you, our money is draining at the rate of nearly  £200 a minute. No business can survive losses on this scale. Unless we take decisive action now, there is a real possibility that British Airways will go out of business for lack of money. We have to cut our costs sharply, and we have to cut them fast. We have no more choice, and no more time . Just two years earlier, an optimistic British government had announced its plan to privatize British Airways through a sale of shares to the investing public. Although airline management recognized that the 58,000 staff was too large, they expected increased passenger volumes and improved staff productivity to help them avoid complicated and costly employee reductions. While the 1978-79 plan forecasted passenger traffic growth at 8 to 10 percent, an unexpected recession left BA struggling to survive on volumes, which, instead, decreased by more that 4 percent. A diverse and aging fleet, increased fuel costs, and the high staffing costs forced the government and BA to put privatization on hold indefinitely. With the airline technically bankrupt, BA management and the government would have to wait before the public would be ready to embrace the ailing airline. The BA Culture, 1960-1980 British Airways stumbled into its 1979 state of inefficiency in large part because of its history and culture. In August 1971, the Civil Aviation Act became law, setting the stage for the British Airways Board to assume control of two state-run airlines, British European Airways (BEA) and British Overseas Airways Corporation (BOAC), under the name British Airways. In theory, the board was to control policy over British Airways; but, in practice, BEA and BOAC remained autonomous, each with its own chairman, board, and chief executive. In 1974, BOAC and BEA finally issued one consolidated financial report. In 1976, Sir Frank (later Lord) McFadzean replaced the group division with a structure based on functional divisions to officially integrate the divisions into one airline. Still, a distinct split within British Airways persisted throughout the 1970s and into the mid-1980s. After the Second World War, BEA helped pioneer European civil aviation. As a pioneer, it concerned itself more with building an airline infrastructure than it did with profit. As a 20-year veteran and company director noted: â€Å"The BEA culture was very much driven by building something that did not exist. They had built that in 15 years, up until 1960. Almost single-handedly they opened up air transport in Europe after the war. That had been about getting the thing established. The marketplace was taking care of itself. They wanted to get the network to work, to get stations opened up.† BOAC had also done its share of pioneering, making history on May 2, 1952, by sending its first jet airliner on a trip from London to Johannesburg, officially initiating jet passenger service. Such innovation was not without cost, however, and BOAC found itself mired in financial woes throughout the two decades following the war. As chairman Sir Matthew Slattery explained in 1962: â€Å"The Corporation has had to pay a heavy price for pioneering advanced technologies.† Success to most involved with BEA and BOAC in the 1950s and 1960s had less to do with net income and more to do with â€Å"flying the British flag.† Having inherited numerous war veterans, both airlines had been injected with a military mentality. These values combined with the years BEA and BOAC existed as government agencies to shape the way British Airways would view profit through the 1970s. As former director of human resources Nick Georgiades said of the military and civil service history: â€Å"Put those two together and you had an organization that believed its job was simply to get an aircraft into the air on time and to get it down on time.† While government support reinforced the operational culture, a deceiving string of profitable years in the 1970s made it even easier for British Airways to neglect its increasing inefficiencies. Between 1972 and 1980, BA earned a profit before interest and tax in each year except for one. â€Å"This was significant, not least because as long as the airline was returning profits, it was not easy to persuade the workforce, or the management for that matter, the fundamental changes were vital. Minimizing cost to the state became the standard by which BA measured itself. As one senior manager noted: â€Å"Productivity was not an issue. People were operating effectively, not necessarily efficiently. There were a lot of people doing other people’s jobs, and there were a lot of people checking on people doing other people’s jobs† . . . As a civil service agency, the airline was allowed to become inefficient because the thinking in state-run operations was, â€Å"If yo u’re providing service at no cost to the taxpayer, then you’re doing quite well.† A lack of economies of scale and strong residual loyalties upon the merger further complicated the historical disregard for efficiency by BEA and BOAC. Until Sir Frank McFadzean’s reorganization in 1976, British Airways had labored under several separate organizations (BOAC; BEA European, Regional, Scottish, and Channel) so the desired benefits of consolidation had been squandered. Despite operating under the same banner, the organization consisted more or less of separate airlines carrying the associated costs of such a structure. Even after the reorganization, divisional loyalties prevented the carrier from attaining a common focus. â€Å"The 1974 amalgamation of BOAC with the domestic and European divisions of BEA had produced a hybrid racked with management demarcation squabbles. The competitive advantages sought through the merger had been hopelessly defeated by the lack of a unifying corporate culture.† A BA director summed up how distracting the merger proved: â€Å"There wasn’t enough management time devoted to managing the changing environment because it was all focused inwardly on resolving industrial relations problems, on resolving organizational conflicts. How do you bring these very, very different cultures together?† Productivity at BA in the 1970s was strikingly bad, especially in contrast to other leading foreign airlines. BA’s productivity for the three years ending March 31, 1974, 1975, and 1976 had never exceeded 59 percent of that of the average of the other eight foreign airline leaders. Service suffered as well. One human resources senior manager recalled the â€Å"awful† service during her early years in passenger services: â€Å"I remember 10 years ago standing at the gate handing out boxes of food to people as they got on the aircraft. That’s how we dealt with service.† With increasing competition and rising costs of labor in Britain in the late 1970s, the lack of productivity and poor service was becoming increasingly harmful. By the summer of 1979, the number of employees had climbed to a peak of 58,000. The problems became dangerous when Britain’s worst recession in 50 years reduced passenger numbers and raised fuel costs substantially. Lord King Takes the Reins Sir John (later Lord) King was appointed chairman in February of 1981, just a half-year before Roy Watts’s unambiguously grim assessment of BA’s financial state. King brought to British Airways a successful history of business ventures and strong ties to both the government and business communities. Despite having no formal engineering qualifications, King formed Ferrybridge Industries in 1945, a company which found an unexploited niche in the ball-bearing industry. Later renamed the Pollard Ball and Roller Bearing Company, Ltd., King’s company was highly successful until he sold it in 1969. In 1970, he joined Babcock International and as chairman led it through a successful restructuring during the 1970s. King’s connections were legendary. Hand-picked by Margaret Thatcher to run BA, King’s close friends included Lord Hanson of Hanson Trust and the Princess of Wales’s family. He also knew personally Presidents Reagan and Carter. King’s respect and connections proved helpful both in recruiting and in his dealings with the British government. One director spoke of the significance of King’s appointment: â€Å"British Airways needed a chairman who didn’t need a job. We needed someone who could see that the only way to do this sort of thing was radically, and who would be aware enough of how you bring that about.† In his first annual report, King predicted hard times for the troubled carrier. â€Å"I would have been comforted by the thought that the worst was behind us. There is no certainty that this is so.† Upon Watts’s announcement in September of 1981, he and King launched their Survival plan— â€Å"tough, unpalatable and immediate measures† to stem the spiraling losses and save the airline from bankruptcy. The radical steps included reducing staff numbers from 52,000 to 43,000, or 20 percent, in just nine months; freezing pay increases for a year; and closing 16 routes, eight on-line stations, and two engineering bases. It also dictated halting cargo-only services and selling the fleet, and inflicting massive cuts upon offices, administrative services, and staff clubs. In June of 1982, BA management appended the Survival plan to accommodate the reduction of another 7,000 staff, which would eventually bring the total employees down from about 42,000 to nearly 35,000. BA accomplished its reductions through voluntary measures, offering such generous severance that they ended up with more volunteers than necessary. In total, the airline dished out some  £150 million in severance pay. Between 1981 and 1983, BA reduced its staff by about a quarter. About the time of the Survival plan revision, King brought in Gordon Dunlop, a Scottish accountant described by one journalist as â€Å"imaginative, dynamic, and extremely hardworking,† euphemistically known on Fleet Street as â€Å"forceful,† and considered by King as simply â€Å"outstanding.† As CFO, Dunlop’s contribution to the recovery years was significant. When the results for the year ending March 31, 1982, were announced in October, he and the board ensured 1982 would be a watershed year in BA’s turnaround. Using creative financing, Dunlop wrote down  £100 million for redundancy costs,  £208 million for the value of the fleet (which would ease depreciation in future years), even an additional  £98 million for the 7,000 redundancies which had yet to be effected. For the year, the loss before taxes amounted to  £114 million. After taxes and extraordinary items, it totalled a staggering  £545 million. Even King might have admitted that the worst was behind them after such a report. The chairman immediately turned his attention to changing the airline’s image and further building his turnaround team. On September 13, 1982, King relieved Foote, Cone & Belding of its 36-year-old advertising account with BA, replacing it with Saatchi & Saatchi. One of the biggest account changes in British history, it was King’s way of making a clear statement that the BA direction had changed. In April of 1983, British Airways launched its â€Å"Manhattan Landing† campaign. King and his staff sent BA management personal invitations to gather employees and tune in to the inaugural six-minute commercial. Overseas, each BA office was sent a copy of the commercial on videocassette, and many held cocktail parties to celebrate the new thrust. â€Å"Manhattan Landing† dramatically portrayed the whole island of Manhattan being lifted from North America and whirled over the Atlantic before awestruck witnesses in the U.K. After the initial airing, a massive campaign was run with a 90-second version of the commercial. The ad marked the beginning of a broader campaign, â€Å"The World’s Favourite Airline,† reflective of BA’s status as carrier of the most passengers internationally. With the financial picture finally brightening, BA raised its advertising budget for 1983-84 to  £31 million, compared with  £19 million the previous year, signalling a clear commitment to changing the corporate image. Colin Marshall Becomes Chief Executive In the midst of the Saatchi & Saatchi launch, King recruited Mr. (later Sir) Colin Marshall, who proved to be perhaps the single most important person in the changes at British Airways. Appointed chief executive in February 1983, Marshall brought to he airline a unique resume. He began his career as a management trainee with Hertz in the United States. After working his way up the Hertz hierarchy in North America, Marshall accepted a job in 1964 to run rival Avis’s operations in Europe. By 1976, the British-born businessman had risen to chief executive of Avis. In 1981, he returned to the U.K. as deputy chief and board member of Sears Holdings. Fulfilling one of his ultimate career ambitions, he took over as chief executive of British Airways in early 1983. Although having no direct experience in airline management, Marshall brought with him two tremendous advantages. First, he understood customer service, and second, he had worked with a set of customers quite similar to the airline travel segment during his car rental days. Marshall made customer service a personal crusade from the day he entered BA. One executive reported: â€Å"It was really Marshall focusing on nothing else. The one thing that had overriding attention the first three years he was here was customer service, customer service, customer service—nothing else. That was the only thing he was interested in, and it’s not an exaggeration to say that was his exclusive focus.† Another senior manager added: â€Å"He has certainly put an enabling culture in place to allow customer service to come out, where, rather than people waiting to be told what to do to do things better, it’s an environment where people feel they can actually come out with ideas, that they will be listened to, and feel they are much more a part of the success of the company.† Not just a strong verbal communicator, Marshall became an active role model in the terminals, spending time with staff during morning and evenings. He combined these a ctions with a number of important events to drive home the customer service message. Corporate Celebrations, 1983-1987 If Marshall was the most important player in emphasizing customer service, then the Putting People First (PPF) program was the most important event. BA introduced PPF to the front-line staff in December of 1983 and continued it through June of 1984. Run by the Danish firm Time Manager International, each program cycle lasted two days and included 150 participants. The program was so warmly received that the non-front-line employees eventually asked to be included, and a one-day â€Å"PPF II† program facilitated the participation of all BA employees through June 1985. Approximately 40,000 BA employees went through the PPF programs. The program urged participants to examine their interactions with other people, including family, friends, and, by association, customers. Its acceptance and impact was extraordinary, due primarily to the honesty of its message, the excellence of its delivery, and the strong support of management. Employees agreed almost unanimously that the program’s message was sincere and free from manipulation, due in some measure to the fact that BA separated itself from the program’s design. The program emphasized positive relations with people in general, focusing in large part on non-work-related relationships. Implied in the positive relationship message was an emphasis on customer service, but the program was careful to aim for the benefit of employees as individuals first. Employees expressed their pleasure on being treated with respect and relief that change was on the horizon. As one frontline ticket agent veteran said: â€Å"I found it fascinating, very, very enjoyable. I thought it was very good for British Airways. It made people aware. I don’t think people give enough thought to people’s reaction to each other. . . . It was hardhitting. It was made something really special. When you were there, you were treated extremely well. You were treated as a VIP, and people really enjoyed that. It was reverse roles, really, to the job we do.† A senior manager spoke of the confidence it promoted in the changes: â€Å"It was quite a revelation, and I thought it was absolutely wonderful. I couldn’t believe BA had finally woken and realized where its bread was buttered. There were a lot of cynics at the time, but for people like myself it was really great to suddenly realize you were working for an airline that had the guts to chan ge, and that it’s probably somewhere where you want to stay.† Although occasionally an employee felt uncomfortable with the â€Å"rah-rah† nature of the program, feeling it perhaps â€Å"too American,† in general, PPF managed to eliminate cynicism. The excellence in presentation helped signify a sincerity to the message. One senior manager expressed the consistency. â€Å"There was a match between the message and the delivery. You can’t get away with saying putting people first is important, if in the process of delivering that message you don’t put people first.† Employees were sent personal invitations, thousands were flown in from around the world, and a strong effort was made to prepare tasteful meals and treat everyone with respect. Just as important, BA released every employee for the program, and expected everyone to attend. Grade differences became irrelevant during PPF, as managers and staff members were treated equally and interacted freely. Moreover, a senior director came to conclude every single PPF session with a question and answer session. Colin Marshall himself frequently attended these closing sessions, answering employee concerns in a manner most felt to be extraordinarily frank. The commitment shown by management helped BA avoid the fate suffered by British Rail in its subsequent attempt at a similar program. The British Railway program suffered a limited budget, a lack of commitment by management and interest by staff, and a high degree of cynicism. Reports surfaced that employees felt the program was a public relations exercise for the outside world, rather than a learning experience for staff. About the time PPF concluded, in 1985, BA launched a program for managers only called, appropriately, Managing People First (MPF). A five-day residential program for 25 managers at a time, MPF stressed the importance of, among other topics, trust, leadership, vision, and feedback. On a smaller scale, MPF stirred up issues long neglected at BA. One senior manager of engineering summarized his experience: â€Å"It was almost as if I were touched on the head. . . . I don’t think I even considered culture before MPF. Afterwards I began to think about what makes people tick. Why do people do what they do? Why do people come to work? Why do people do things for some people that they won’t do for others?† Some participants claimed the course led them to put more emphasis on feedback. One reported initiating regular meetings with staff every two weeks, in contrast to before the program when he met with staff members only as problems arose. As Marshall and his team challenged the way people thought at BA, they also encouraged changes in more visible ways. In December 1984, BA unveiled its new fleet livery at Heathrow airport. Preparations for the show were carefully planned and elaborate. The plane was delivered to the hangar-turned-theater under secrecy of night, after which hired audio and video technicians put together a dramatic presentation. On the first night of the show, a darkened coach brought guests from an off-site hotel to an undisclosed part of the city and through a tunnel. The guests, including dignitaries, high-ranking travel executives, and trade union representatives, were left uninformed of their whereabouts. To their surprise, as the show began an aircraft moved through the fog and laser lights decorating the stage and turned, revealing the new look of the British Airways fleet. A similar presentation continued four times a day for eight weeks for all staff to see. On its heels, in May of 1985, British Airways unveiled its new uniforms, designed by Roland Klein. With new leadership, strong communication from the top, increased acceptance by the public, and a new physical image, few on the BA staff could deny in 1985 that his or her working life had turned a new leaf from its condition in 1980. Management attempted to maintain the momentum of its successful programs. Following PPF and MPF, it put on a fairly successful corporatewide program in 1985 called â€Å"A Day in the Life† and another less significant program in 1987 called â€Å"To Be the Best.† Inevitably, interest diminished and cynicism grew with successive programs. BA also implemented an â€Å"Awards for Excellence† program to encourage employee input. Colin Marshall regularly communicated to staff through video. While the programs enjoyed some success, not many employees felt â€Å"touched on the head† by any successor program to PPF and MPF.

Martin Luther King Junior is a giant in American History

Martin Luther King Junior is a giant in American History. He was a famous leader within the American Civil Rights movement of the 1950’s and 1960’s and helped lead the way for many improvements for African Americans as they sought to realize their human and civil rights which were guaranteed them under the Constitution of the United States. In trying to secure his civil rights and the rights of all peoples of the United States, he succeeded where other factional parties failed.   While the Black Panthers, Marcus Garvey and Malcolm X preached separatism and sometimes hate, Martin Luther King, building upon the teachings of Jesus Christ and his own background as a Baptist minister, taught love and to turn the other cheek, but at the same time, never giving up on what they knew to be right.Martin Luther King’s political life began in 1955 with his leadership in the Montgomery Bus Boycott. On December 1, 1955, Rosa Parks was arrested for refusing to comply with the Jim Crow law which prohibited blacks from sitting anywhere on a bus other than in the back. Also, within these Kim Crow laws, an African American would be forced to give up that seat to a white man if there was limited room on the bus.The Montgomery Bus Boycott soon followed. Incidentally, earlier that year, the same thing had happened to a 15 year old girl named Claudette Colvin but King was not prompted to get involved in this case, instead opting to concentrate on the running of his church. But this time, King felt that it was necessary to take a stand. And a stand would be required. The bus system was patronized by African Americans to a great degree. And with there being no set date on when the boycott would end and if it would be successful at all, a great sacrifice was going to have to be made. The boycott ended up lasting 382 days.[1] It was only then that the bus system of Montgomery, almost bankrupt by their sharp decline in revenue, decided to integrate all of their buse s. The boycott had become a success and with it, the name of Martin Luther King had become a household name within the African American community.Dr. King was also instrumental in the Southern Christian Leadership Conference or the SDLC. This group, popular among both white and black college students, harnessed the moral authority and organized black churches to conduct non-violent protests in the service of civil rights reform. The key to this method was the use of non violence. Dr. King was always insistent on this tactic be kept as central to their methods.The main target of these non violent protests was the Jim Crow laws which had attempted to keep African Americans in a quasi state of slavery after the Civil War and which had been very hesitant to yield any power over o the black community within the Southern States. Dr. King also knew that these methods, especially on a large scale, would yield a fair amount of press coverage which would work in their favor within the country as a whole. Newspaper, radio and television accounts of the deprivations and inequalities suffered by African Americans helped to shed light on a subject that a good portion of the white community was not fully aware of and needed to be reminded if they were ever going to get involved themselves or at the very least, be sympathetic about the cause.This involvement hit its peak on an August day in 1963 when it was later estimated at over 250,000 people came to march on Washington.[2] The main speaker of the day was Martin Luther King Junior in what contemporary historians have finally come to recognize as one of the most important speeches in not only American History but also world history as his words that day have been quoted by leaders of any country or group that have sought to secure their civil rights. In that speech, Dr. King spoke on the need for people to be judged on the content of their character and not on the color of their skin. As it was too often the case, African A mericans would be met with a great deal of assumptions about every aspect of their life by white people who had never really known a   black person and therefore, their judgment was based upon ignorance rather than on facts.Dr. King wished to change this impediment into successful race relations and harmony among all of God’s peoples on this earth. The title of the speech was â€Å"I Have a Dream.† It was a theme that he had spoke on before. He never said it better than on that day. It was the realization that proper race relations could be realized in the future if people came to the realization that they could work together, play together, cry together and pray together and that each person had similar wants and dreams within their own life and for the life of their children. It was this speech, along with his efforts to pass the 1964 Civil Rights Act and the 1965 Voting Rights Act, the most important civil rights bill in a hundred years, since the passage of the 1 3th amendment, ending slavery in the United States.[3] These rights helped to close the gap between what was promised to African Americans and the rights that they actually received. Chief among them: the right to vote which had been greatly curtailed with the implementation of the oppressive Jim Crow laws.Civil rights for any people cannot be discussed when there is a major difference in the amount of monetary compensation that one receives which is much less than is paid out to somebody of another race. The march on Washington in August of 1963 did not just talk about an idealistic hope of the future but also dealt in some hard facts. Within that speech, were a number of specific demands. One of these demands called for the end of racial discrimination in employment.[4]There was no affirmative action and employers were not pressured to hire African Americans, let alone hire African Americans because they felt that the individual was the most qualified. If the hiring was against th e wishes of the employer or if he thought that such a hiring would decreased his business by inciting reprisal from his area, the African American would not be employed. This kept the possibility of African Americans pulling themselves out of poverty and menial jobs, to a minimum and frustration to a maximum. The SDLC was instrumental in setting up protests in the city of New York with signs that read â€Å"Don’t buy where you can’t work.†[5] If there were not laws that helped end employment discrimination, then the next logical step was to his these businesses, King thought, in the pocket book as was done during the Montgomery Bus Boycott.Economic problems for the African American was a source of concern for Dr. King and many of his speeches are concerning this. King had read Karl Marx while at college and while he could not support the link to atheism that communism has, he rejected traditional capitalism and sometimes, spoke of his support for a democratic fo rm of socialism. The distribution of wealth for the African American was definitely an impediment to their success. Dr. King spoke to this problem: You can’t talk about solving the economic problem of the Negro without talking about billions of dollars.You can’t talk about the ending of the slums without first saying profit must be taken out of the slums. You’re really tampering and getting on dangerous ground because you are messing with folk then. You are messing with captains of industry†¦ Now this means that we are treading in difficult water, because it really means that we are saying that something is wrong with capitalism†¦ There must be a better distribution of wealth and maybe America must move toward a democratic socialism.†[6]   Dr. King often said that the United States was on the wrong side of revolution in the world. The United States would support the revolt of â€Å"the shirtless and barefoot people† of the world but seem ed to turn a blind eye towards the problems that a large segment of their own population was enduring right here in America. Economic problems for the African American, Dr. King recognized, was at the center of the frustration that black people felt and the disillusion that they felt in America’s democratic and economic success.This press towards economic equality was part of Dr. King’s passion until the end of his life. Dr. King also pushed for the passage of what was known as the Poor People’s Bill of Rights. This called for a massive increase in government jobs programs which would be designed to rebuild America’s inner cities and to finally do away with the slums of America which were serving as an impediment to the success of the African American as it could only breed more poverty as well as disunion within one’s own country.[7] Dr. King saw the need as well, to confront Congress’ hostility to the poor and the fact that billions of dol lars were being spent to fund the war in Vietnam but only a small percentage of that money was actually being used to rebuild the infrastructure of cities right here in America. King saw a vision for change that engulfed many aspects of life and sources of trouble and pain for the African America. Poverty, racism, the government’s importance on militarism and materialism as well as the need to reconstruct society were all passions of Dr. King which he felt was worthy enough of becoming his life work.Dr. King was a man who became famous and more importantly influential, because of his mind and heart acting as one. There have been smarter people that Dr. King but none have been as affective because they could spark the passions of a country in the way that Dr. King did. Dr. King was the recipient of the 1964 Nobel Peace Award to which he told his friends and family, he was mot proud of receiving this award. He also won the 1965 American Jewish Committee award for exceptional ad vancement of the principle of human liberty. Dr. King was not the first person to recognize the inequality that was present in the lives of African Americans but there were none that put that pain into the series of effective sentences and themes to which he was able to formulate.This takes a mind that is able to encompass a wide range of ideas and theories. Dr. King took his inspiration from the Bible and the teachings of Jesus as he was a Baptist preacher before he was a civil rights leader. But he also read Marx and was inspired by the non violence tactics of Handy as he led India against British colonist in the 1940’s. This makes an intellectual: â€Å"one who gathers among himself, a wide range of ideals and motivations and through a careful study of a specific problem, learns to use what he will to his advantage and the advantage of his people for the greater good of society.†[8] The Black Panthers certainly didn’t do this and Malcolm X did to a degree but not in the way and not to the degree that Martin Luther King did. And that made all the difference.King also received a long list of other prestigious awards. In 1971, he won a Grammy for the Best Spoken Word in Why I Oppose Vietnam and was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom. He is also the author of a number of important and influential books as well which he wrote during his time as the leader of the American Civil Rights Movement. Some of these were The Stride Toward Freedom (1958) which detailed the Montgomery Bus Boycott. Where do we go from here: Chaos or Community? (1967) This book answered some his critics, including influential Black Panther leader Hoagie Carmichael, in why violent tactics in the attempt to gain civil rights would only lead to chaos and a step back within the civil rights movement.However, in later years, his intellectual skills within his writings and books have come under scrutiny. Beginning in the 1980’s, questions were being raised as to the authenticity of King’s writings as there was suspicion of plagiarism within some of his speeches. Even his doctrinal dissertation which he wrote while attending Boston University was examined and it was asserted that a sizable portion of his writings (25%) had under them a suspicion of plagiarism.University officials within Boston College came to that conclusion after a lengthy investigation. It was also recognized that Dr. King got his material from a number of black as well as white preachers on the radio and was accused of passing of those words and ideas as his own. But it has also been pointed out that within African American folk preaching and the oral traditions, that often times the ideas of one are fine tuned and changed slightly in order to fit the audience to which Dr. King was speaking. Despite Boston University’s own opinion about these speeches, Dr. King’s degree was not revoked because the officials still believed that the speeches still made an important contribution to the academic world.Dr. King was an intellectual but also a man of the people. Dr. King had a keen understanding of the plight of the African America because he was black, but more importantly he was able to transpose himself into the life and troubles of a garbage worker in Memphis or an elderly lady going home after a hard day at work and simply not wanting to give up her seat to a man simply because he is white. Even with all of the awards that he won and the books that he wrote, this still remained the case until his death in 1968.Dr.   King, by the very nature of his work, was a man that possessed a great social consciousness. Always on the side of the oppressed, Dr. King still continued to recognize the importance of continuing his stance on non violence in order to obtain civil rights for African Americans. This, along with his superior ability as an orator, helped to make him so effective. He knew that he would never be taken seriously and his m essage would never be able to resonate within the white majority of he had preached separatism or the idea that all white people were devils as Malcolm X did for a good portion of his time as the leader of the Nation of Islam.King knew, and genuinely felt, that it was not the race of an individual but rather racism discrimination and inner prejudice which served as the chief impediment towards one being able to love and respect their fellow human being. Setting the civil rights problem as a moral issue, was able to resonate among many more people than if he had listened to the Black Panthers or angry Africa American young people who chided him for what was seen as he weakness of non violence. Due to this, many young people as well as students, professors and others who perhaps had never before been motivated to take a stand for anything before in their lives, flocked to King’s speeches, protests and marches. This is the work of a man who knew how to use the crowd and their un derlining sense of morality, to aid in the securing of civil rights for all peoples within America. The Civil Rights Movement centered on the social injustices that many African Americans were facing in every pocket of the United States.But it would also be Dr. King’s feelings on Vietnam that would prompt him to alienate himself from a large majority, the silent majority† as President Nixon labeled them, that was in support of the War in Vietnam and therefore, against the harsh criticism that Dr. King levied against the government’s role in that conflict. To be socially conscious does not necessarily mean that one is only aware of what is happening within one’s own town, state or country but the injustice that are occurring anywhere in the world. Not since The Civil War has a conflict polarized the country to the degree that The Vietnam War was able to place upon the country. â€Å"And by 1965, Dr. King was vocal in his opposition to the war and Americaâ €™s heavy involvement in that conflict in which he saw thousands of poor African Americans, unable to secure a seat in a college university and escape the draft, be sent to the front lines and fight and die for a country that has treated them often times, as second class citizens.†[9]This at a time when billions of dollars are being spent to fund this war, when Dr. King saw dozens of other more worthy projects in which the money could be spent to better the lives of not only African Americans but poor whites and Latinos within America’s poorest cities. And Dr. King was all to aware of the fact that these poor cities and the lack of opportunities for the above mentioned only breeds frustration which often times lead to crime and a cyclical effect upon the next generation is often times too strong to avoid. It is this level of social consciousness that helped endear Dr. King to the masses of African Americans, not only during his short time as leader of the civil righ ts movement but which continues to this day as well. He often times makes the list of the most important and revered figures in American history. His ability of being consciousness of the social ills that befell many African Americans and being able to put those struggles into words is one of his most enduring qualities.Dr. King was so effective a leader of the civil rights movement because he was a great orator. If the masses, both then and now were not inspired by his speeches and written word, Dr. King would have become as successful at Ralph Abernathy or Jesse Jackson. Anyone in a leadership position at such a crucial time within the civil rights movement would have gained some degree of recognition but Dr. King would never have reaches the level of greatness that he did if we was a poor orator or writer.His Letter from a Birmingham Jail   as well as his I Have a Dream Speech† are seen as masterpieces to be studied in history as well as political science and English clas ses all over America and the world. The success of his academic works comes from the fact that he writes and speaks with such passion, During his I Have a Dream Speech, King knew exactly the right time to increase the volume of his diction and when to speak in a calm yet assertive way. If he had shouted the entire speech or had given a meeker version of the speech, it still would have been regarded as important but it could never have risen to the level of greatness which that speech has enjoyed these past forty years.His text as well as his diction and delivery were all flawless. Great orators are also great writers on many occasions. Both Abraham Lincoln and Winston Churchill were methodical in the preparation of their speeches and would practice each speech numerous times as they debated over each and every word within their speech.[10] This was the case with Dr. King. Each speech, especially his I Have a Dream Speech as well as his acceptance speech at the Nobel Peace Prize cere mony, had within its pages, every word in its specific order, the way in which Dr. King felt his messages would be most effectively portrayed to his audience.And also, speeches whose contents were not practiced to the same degree and repetition are also wonderful as well because Dr. King spoke from the heart, from his experiences and he knew his crowd. This was never seen better than in the last speech he would ever make. On April 3rd, 1968 at Mason Temple, King have a prophetic speech: it doesn’t really matter to me now†¦.Like anybody, I would like to live a long life. Longevity has its place, but I’m not concerned about that now. I just want to do God’s will. And he’s allowed me to go to the mountain! And I’ve looked over, and I’ve seen the Promised Land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people, will get to the Promised Land. And so I’m happy tonight. I’m not worried about anyth ing. I’m not fearing any man. My eyes have seen the Glory of the coming of the Lord†[11] Such a speech, if anyone has had the pleasure to view it, cannot help but be moved. But the fact that Dr. King was assassinated the very next day, makes the speech that night as well as what makes up the body of his works, that much more important to be saved and remembered.Dr. Martin Luther King Junior was an essential figure in American History and specifically, the Civil Rights Movement. His speeches have been repeated by every leader of every   movement that has sought to secure for its people, equal rights and equal treatment under the law. His importance cannot be underestimated as he took his political, social, economic, intellectual and artistic understandings and molded them together to form a man who was aware of the plight of the poor and oppressed and was able to capture that pain and put it into words in order than the nation as a whole might understand that pain, in a more real, human and affective way than perhaps anyone in American history. And those are the reasons why Dr. Martin Luther King Junior is the great man that he was and which makes him motivate people forty years after his premature death.WORKS CITEDBurns, Ken. New York. Boston: PBS Video 1999.Beltry, Mark . The March on Washington. Chicago: Life Magazine. August 30, 1963   p. 24-28Gordon, Terrance  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   The Life of Martin Luther King. Chicago: Life Magazine.   April 8, 1968   p. 16-22.McMillian, Joan.   Martin Luther King.: I Have a Dream.   Sacramento: School House Educational Films 197[1] McMillian, Joan.   Martin Luther King.: I Have a Dream.   Sacramento: School House Educational Films 1971.[2] Beltry, Mark . The March on Washington. Chicago: Life Magazine. August 30, 1963   p. 24-28 [3] McMillian, Joan.   Martin Luther King.: I Have a Dream.   Sacramento: School House Educational Films 1971. [4] Beltry, Mark . The March on Washington. Chicago: L ife Magazine. August 30, 1963   p. 24-28 [5] Burns, Ken. New York. Boston: PBS Video 1999. [6] McMillian, Joan.   Martin Luther King.: I Have a Dream.   Sacramento: School House Educational Films 1971 [7] Ibid. [8] Gordon, Terrance  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   The Life of Martin Luther King. Chicago: Life Magazine.   April 8, 1968   p. 16-22. [9] Gordon, Terrance  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   The Life of Martin Luther King. Chicago: Life Magazine.   April 8, 1968   p. 16-22. [10] Manchester, William. The Last Lion.   Harper Collins.   New York, 1988. [11] Gordon, Terrance  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   The Life of Martin Luther King. Chicago: Life Magazine.   April 8, 1968   p. 16-22.