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I visited BHA Piano Center at 868 S. Patterson Blvd. in Dayton, Ohio. BHA is located in a large, warehouse-type building near the downtown area and not far from a local hospital. The outside of the store is cinder blocks painted white with red trim and black lettering spelling the store's name and the slogan "America's Largest Piano Store!" Inside, the store is less warehouse-like, although rather large. A handful of sales help, all male and dressed in shirts and slacks, roams through the showroom looking for people to help. In addition, a piano player entertains browsers with his own recital of piano melodies. BHA strictly offers pianos, organs, and their related accessories. No other musical instruments are available. The list of brands that they offer is impressive, however, and includes such well-recognized names as Weber, Baldwin, Kawai, Kimball, Steinway, Wurlitzer, and Yamaha, as well as more esoteric brands like Pearl River, Mason & Hamlin, Petrof, Schimmel, and Young Chang. The store offers a few digital brands as well as the traditional ones, Kurzweil, Roland, and Yamaha. Both grand and upright pianos are available, and

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Five different music product ads were evaluated for this assessment. The first was an ad for LeBlanc clarinets that shows a sketch of musician Buddy de Franco playing the clarinet, with a quote by him that explains why he enjoys playing on a LeBlanc and a notice at the bottom of an upcoming jazz festival where he will be playing as well as judging a competition (LeBlanc Corporation). This is an effective ad because of the celebrity endorsement, and the sketch is a perfect fit with the tone and image of jazz music. De Franco's high praise for the LeBlanc, "It has the most even scale of any clarinet...bar none" and "It gives me a new freedom of playing" creates a picture for the reader of what the LeBlanc could do for him (LeBlanc Corporation). The text at the bottom providing the details of the festival de Franco will be playing and his upcoming role as judge of a competition emphasizes his high level of expertise, and therefore his credibility as an advocate of LeBlanc clari

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The argument adduced in Alex de Waal's Famine Crimes posits that humanitarian agencies enable bad governments, occluding their own goals of advancing human rights and helping the poor. While de Waal is paranoid in his suspicion of agencies and non-governmental organizations (NGOs), his thesis holds water. De Waal begins by presenting a history of the impact of neoliberalism on African politics. He explains how neoliberal reforms encourage African states to shed their responsibility for famine prevention and welfare protection (De Waal, "Famine Crimes," 3). By prescribing privatized aid for famine crises, neoliberal advisors weaken "the forms of political accountability that underlie the prevention of famine" (4). Thus, by taking the onus away from local politics, governments are less likely to consider famine as a political issue. Furthermore, an influx of humanitarian aid does nothing to obviate African nations' tendency to violate their citizens' rights, which is what de Wa

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Kowaga's use of conflict in the development of theme and character change. The purpose of this essay to explain the use of conflict, together with the purpose of that use, by Joy Kogawa in Obasan (1-300). The first objective is to show how conflict was used to express theme. The second objective is to show how conflict was used to develop significant change in characters. There are many characters in Obasan. Some of these characters have active roles in the story. Other characters in Obasan, however, affect the story and the active characters via their overriding silence. The most important active characters are Naomi, Aya Obasan, Emily Obasan, Uncle (the husband of Aya Obasan), and Naomi's Grandmother. The most important silent characters are Naomi's mother and Naomi's father. Naomi and her family are Japanese-Canadians who lived in Vancouver, British Columbia prior to the start of the Second World War. They were relocated to a detention centre in Northern British

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Robert Towne, writer of the masterpiece Chinatown, knows pre-war Los Angeles. He recreates the pre-war Los Angeles of John Fante's 1939 novel Ask the Dusk in the 2006 film of the same name, starring Colin Farrell as Fante's alter ego, virginal writer Arturo Bandini, and Salma Hayek as the Mexican waitress he falls in love with. Fante's novel is a merciless portrait of an inexperience writer seeking fame and fortune in California while living in a seedy hotel with disenchanted Midwesterners. Despite Towne's respect for the author and the novel, his adaptation of the film attempts to be faithful to the novel but its switching of focus undermines the novel's original focus. Instead of showing us the tortured travels through Los Angeles that comprise the journey of Bandini, the film makes the romance between Arturo and Camilla the main story. The novel Ask the Dusk is an unsentimental look at the life of a struggling writer trying to exist in Depression-era Los Angele

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In 1851, newspaper editor John Soule wrote an editorial containing the famous quotation, "Go West young man, and grow with your country." Soule and others saw the West as a wild place that could be tamed by resourceful American settlers. His words gave the West a mythic status in the minds of many. Less than a decade later, the American government would give citizens an incentive to follow Soule's instructions. The passage of the Homestead Act gave settlers 160 free acres of land in the frontier. The white population in Western areas exploded in the next few decades. Between 1865 and 1890, the number of residents in the Western territories increased nearly 400%. With such a large shift, stories and myths about the settlement of the West became a lasting part of American culture. These myths did not fully reflect the realities of western expansion. America's growth into the frontier did not wholly result from the efforts of white settlers. Instead, it relied on the contribu

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It will always be true to state that inherent to legislative action is the need for correction. The No Child Left Behind legislation is not perfect and has many elements that require correction if students are to attain the best education possible (Hess & Petrilli, 2006). However, keeping the pitfalls and difficulties of the legislation in mind, the fact is that its accountability measures have been working. Schools and students show marked improvement in performance (United States Department of Education, 2009). Math, History, and English scores are all higher than

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Rachels and Rachels (2009) states that a right is a universal that applies to all men and notes that in the United States, rights are derived from the Constitution. In this regard, our Constitution does not grant public education as a right; however, there are nonetheless good reasons to think of it as a right or a universal requirement for all men. First, educated citizens contribute to the productivity of any country, which is to say they make a country stronger in its performance output (Kowal & Thomas, 2002). Second, educated p

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There can be little doubt that America is providing families with greater choice in what schools their children should attend. As noted by White and Schwartz (2005), today families can choose between district public schools, magnet schools, charter schools, voucher plans, or private schools. Parents can even home school their children should they decide to do so. According to Wolfe (2003), the diversity of selection has shifted the nature of public debate. A few decades ago, Wolfe states, the

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One of the most important environmental issues affecting health care is the struggling economy, as the high unemployment rate and high prices mean that fewer people can afford health insurance today than before. Emerging health care legislation is another issue, and new president Barack Obama has ideas in the works for providin

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Causes of the Civil War The causes of the Civil War were diverse, despite the institution of slavery typically being viewed as the main cause of the war by a majority of Americans unfamiliar with other issues of the time. One of the biggest differences was the growing economic differences between the increasingly industrial North and the agrarian South. Even though the North relied on the cotton of the South for production, the plantation organization of Southern society relied on slave labor and undermined urbanization and maintained antiquated class divisions. Another cause of the Civil War stemmed from the evolution of a relatively new nation that was still determining the nature of power relations between the states and federal government. Some states still argued they should not have to accept federal acts if they chose not to do so, but the federal government would not permit states this right. Since states were denied the ability to nullify federal

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A distributor is a company that serves as an intermediary between manufacturers and retailers. Distributors are able to buy in bulk from manufacturers, and then make smaller quantities available to retailers. In this way, retailers do not need to buy entire pallets (for example), but can instead purchase smaller quantities ("Distributor," 2009). A retailer sells goods directly to consumers; specialty retailers sell a particular type of good ("Specialty Retailer," 2009). Target is an example of a mass-merchandise retailer; Guitar Center is an example of a specialty retailer. Net profit, or net income, is the difference between total revenue and total costs plus total expenses. Total costs include all costs associated with producing the good, while total expenses include general and administrative expenses, among other items. Companies need to maintain positive net profits to remain in business ("Net Income," 2009). NAMM is the National Association of Music Merchants founded in 1901 and now boasting more tha

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Bamboo Research Paper 1. Introduction 1.1 Topic The broad topic of this paper is environmental sustainability, and the narrowed topic is how environmental sustainability can be achieved with bamboo, particularly in comparison with traditional materials such as wood. 1.2 Rationale My rationale for researching this topic is to explore the ways that bamboo can be used to sustain the environment and its suitability for that purpose. Although other materials have been proposed in the past as environmentally sustainable, commonly no one can find a worthwhile use for them sufficient to induce the public to buy them or else the properties of the material have inherent weaknesses for the purposes of using them widely in place of traditional materials such as wood and metal. Bamboo has a number of attractive qualities that could help it to rise above the pack and become a cornerstone of environmental sustainability if its uses can b

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France is described by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) (2009) as having a population of 64,057,762 citizens. Its main imports consist of machinery and equipment, vehicles, crude oil, aircraft, plastics, and chemicals. The CIA (2009) states that France imports approximately $833 billion annually from partners such as Germany, Belgium, Italy, Spain, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, the United States, and China. Annually, France exports $761 billion. Its main export partners are Germany, Spain, Italy, the United Kingdom, Belgium, the United States, and the Netherlands. Main exports include machinery and transportation equipment, aircraft, plastics, chemicals, pharmaceutical products, iron and steel, and beverages (CIA, 2009). The political philosophy of France as described by Michael Sodaro (2004) centers upon French nationalism in which the state and the people's rights are paramount. France has e

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Italy is one of the most significant countries in the Mediterranean region of Europe. It has been characterized as an advanced developed country which is nevertheless troubled by quite dramatic differentials between the industrialized manufacturing regions of the north and the agrarian regions of the south where unemployment tends to be high and welfare dependency is common (Sodaro, 2004). Italy has enjoyed a long history as a center of the arts and at the same time has a history of near constant internal political conflict. As a developed economy, Italy is a major participant in importing and exporting activities. Italy's exports are $501.4 billion while its imports are $498.6 billion (Global Edge, 2009). Important exporting partners are Germany, France, Spain, the United States, and Great Britain. In terms of imports, Italy's primary partners are Germany, France, China, the Netherlands, Belgium, and Spain. Not surprisingly, most of its major import and export partners com

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The Rights of Women Vindicated: An Analysis of Three of Mary Wollstonecraft's Feminist Arguments Mary Wollstonecraft's Vindication of the rights of women represents the first of many feminist treatises in philosophical history. Her work makes a variety of compelling arguments for women's rights. This essay will examine three specific arguments found in the text, the argument that education cannot promote women's rights; the argument that reason can promote women's rights; and the argument that common courtesy degrades women. Mary Wollstonecraft discusses the low value of education and the high value of reason for promoting the rights of women in "The prevailing opinion of a sexual character discussed," the second chapter of her essay. Her first argument begins with the premise that every time period has a specific set of "popular" values "that [gives] a fami

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Books and films are at once persuasive and deceptive. This is possible in that if something is written down, or is shown in living color on the screen, it is easy to interpret those sources of information as "true" or "accurate." This is even more likely when the subject of the work is a real person or historical event. In the movie, A Beautiful Mind, based on a book by the same name, schizophrenia is shown through the life and work of Nobel Prize winner John Nash. The way in which the film portrays Nash's schizophrenia is considered here. Synopsis The film follows Nash from his first days as a graduate student at Princeton University. We meet Nash and his roommate, Charles, and see Nash develop his considerable talents as a mathematician. Nash is particularly gifted at identifying patterns in numbers and symbols that elude other people. This is the talent that the government seeks out when it hires him to conduct secret analysis of popular periodicals in which the Soviets have embed

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Charlemagne was one of the greatest leaders of the Middle Ages. He presided over the transition from a classical civilization to a medieval civilization and helped introduce what would become a European civilization during his 40 year rule. Charlemagne was a great warrior and an efficient administrator who was known for his patronage of the arts, the Church, and education. The Reign of Charlemagne Charlemagne was one of the most powerful and influential figures of the Middle Ages. Born around 742, Charlemagne assumed the throne of the Frankish kingdom in 771 and ruled until 814. Upon assuming power, Charlemagne immediately began expanding his kingdom, attempt

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In the medieval morality play "The Summoning of Everyman" the use of symbols and characters plays a salient role in the development of the story. In fact, understanding the way these two elements of fiction are used in the play is key to understanding the moral message it attempts to endue in the reader. The very obvious representation of the symbols as characters in the work helps in its role as a Christian teaching tool. The prominent way symbols are displayed in Everyman, via the names of its characters, hints at the thinly veiled sententious message the play seeks to convey. By not obscuring its message by using regular character names, the audience that would have heard this play would have received a more direct message. As the plot develops, we come to learn the theme that man must atone for his sins without relying on family, friends, beauty, discretion or strength (Halsall, Internet Medieval Source Book). The only things man can rely on are knowledge and his good deeds. By following the names of the characters, one follows the symbols at work in the messag

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Alaa Al Aswani's novel The Yacoubian Building weaves the lives together of residents of the titular building where wealthy residents live below the ramshackle units for the destitute on the roof. Summing the novel up in one sentence, I would say its characters' lives show that the deterioration of quality of life in Egypt stems from corrupt dictatorships and the absence of democracy. Living in an oppressive society where corruption and violence characterize the ruling regime and governmental authorities seems to create corruption and brutality among Egyptian citizens in the novel. From the brutalization of Taha by Egyptian authorities, to the corruption of Haj, who seeks political position, we see that The Yacoubian Building is a story that illustrates the harsh impact of dictatorship and corruption on citizens of all classes. This analysis will discuss this theme, along with a discussion of corruption in the novel and how it impacts the lives of the characters. T

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Sara Corporation is a pharmacy and drugstore chain in Saudi Arabia that is known for its entrepreneurial culture and employees. The firm has recently transformed its cosmetic counters in current stores into full-scale, luxury market cosmetics boutiques, after one of its entrepreneurial employees reported that with $1.3 billion in revenues annually, Saudi Arabia is one of the world's largest markets for cosmetics and toiletries (Sara 2009). This analysis will discuss how Sara Corporation rewards and motivates its entrepreneurial employees, critiquing its methods based on current research related to the topic. Sara Corporation understands the importance of entrepreneurial spirit and entrepreneurial employees for competitive advantage and ongoing, sustainable success. Having self-motivated, high performing, innovative employees led to the opening of luxury apparel stores (Sara 2009). One of the ways Sara Corporation motivates entrepreneurs is by permitting them to design their workspaces in whatever way that fuel

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Stephen Baker (2008), in a book titled The Numerati, makes the case that workers have become little more than a commodity that functions to generate data, manipulate and store data, transmit data, and use data in a manner that drives business models forward. Indeed, it is Baker's (2008) contention that companies like IBM are building mathematical models of their own employees with the goal of increasing productivity, automating management, and allowing technology to drive managerial decisionmaking. This particular approach to business strategy is being used in places other than IBM although as Baker (2008) is quick to note, IBM may be at the epicenter of this transformation because it has long been a leader

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Globalization and Unemployment Outline I. Globalization improves the economy A. Via trade, financial flows, FDI B. Changed the way economies work C. Free trade-richer nations II. Globalization linked to rising unemployment A. Must compete in globally integrated markets B. Avoiding increase in wage inequality raises unemployment rate C. Skilled worker favored over less-skilled worker III. Globalization opens up new entrepreneurial opportunities A. Access to Internet B. Cheaper labor rates in emerging nations make their goods more marketable Globalization refers to "the increasing linkage of national economies through trade, financial flows, and foreign direct investment (FDI) by multinational firms" (Gilpin 61). As such, globalization has had a substantial effect on the world economy and has been blamed by many for subsequent econ

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In Amitav Ghosh's In an Antique Land: History in the Guise of a Traveler's Tale and Lila Abu-Lughod's Dreams of Nationhood: The Politics of Television in Egypt, each authors provides an ethnography of a distinct kind. Ghosh's work combines a mystery story in his search for an Indian slave who lived nearly 1000 years ago; a depiction of life in twelfth century India, Egypt, and other locations; and an examination of life in contemporary rural Egypt based on Ghosh's own observations of two farming communities while earning his doctoral degree. Abu-Lughod's ethnography provides a content analysis of popular Egyptian melodramas and the reaction to them of two different classes of women in her examination of how media shapes, but is also shaped by, national identity. This analysis will examine how Ghosh and Abu-Lughod observe difference, how they manage their jobs as ethnographers, their methods and tools, and provide a discussion of whether gender seems to affect the approach of

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Introduction Both conflict theory and labeling theory play into society's efforts to respond to criminal behavior in terms of prevention and punishment by serving as an explanation for the cause of crime. Each of these theories also overlaps criminology, sociology and psychology in its explanation of the cause of crime. Historically, sociological theories of crime that view crime as the result of social forces "have dominated American criminology since the 1920s" (Brown, Esbensen, & Geis, 2001, p. 283). Despite this similarity, conflict theory and labeling theory are vastly different. The former maintains that a small number of wealthy and powerful individuals control a disproportionate share of society's resources and control the institutions that reinforce their own power and wealth. This causes marginalized groups that are denied access to such resources to turn to crime seeing no route of conventional access to upward mobility. In contrast, labeling theory

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