LotsOfEssays.com

In Lucille Clifton's "Homage to My Hips," the poet provides an amusing poem that pays tribute to her hips that seem to have their own persona. Using personification, Clifton portrays her hips in ways that are relevant to relations between African American women and men and between African Americans and whites. The speaker is proud of her hips, both their ample size and their liberated nature: "these hips are big hips / they don't need space to / move around in. / they don't fit into little / petty places. these hips / are free hips" (Clifton 1). We see that the places the speaker's hips won't fit she finds "petty" anyway, what could be a veiled reference to blacks being excluded from equal rights with whites, a form of prejudice the poet finds petty. In a stand of independence, the

543

Probably the simplest definition of office politics is the elevation of personal agendas over the maximization of the organizational performance. The term has negative connotations, but it is based on an understanding of how to get co-workers and colleagues to work with you in achieving a goal. The key is the ability to influence others. Certain position can offer the opportunity to increase the ability of the position holder to influence the actions of others. At the same time the visibility of the office holder in the organization is enhanced. Visibility is the degree to which people, particularly superiors, see the person in the position. Jobs that "straddle" boundaries between functions are typically visible as are assignments to "task forces" or special committees. An example of a "politically desirable" job assignment is one that coordinates engineering and marketing. (Cohen, 2002) Michael and Deborah Singer Dobson who focus on the positive aspects of using office polit

1055

Introduction The following research paper explores the research question: Will there be a significant improvement of muscle endurance during a short time span by drinking energy drinks? Studies have shown that there may be some effects of energy drinks, but other effects are not substantiated. Literature findings also explore the safety of using these drinks. Paddock (2010) and Smit and Rogers (2002) reported that energy drinks are popular and college athletes use these drinks regularly. While some report positive effects of these drinks, outcomes are unproven and there may also be negative effects to consider. Alford, Cox, and Wescott (2001) reported on the effects of Red Bull Energy Drink compared to control drinks. Three studies with 36 volunteers were conducted to determine effects on psychomotor performance (reaction time, concentration, memory), subjective alertness, and physical endurance. Findings were subjects on cycle ergometers using Red Bull Energy

2596

Introduction In their most recent annual report, the Federal Bureau of Information (FBI,2009) informed that the good news was that crime is once again declining in America. However, the report also noted that the overall scope of crime in America remained large and of grave concern, and that more and stronger preventative actions needed to be taken. Of assistance in preventing crime is honing the behavioral and social sciences understanding of its nature. This paper seeks to contribute to this effort at honing understanding by a review of the literature related to the nature of crime. Specifically, the paper delineates and discusses the nature of crime using a review of the literature. This review is aimed at answering three questions specific questions. These questions are:: (1) What is Crime?; (2) What is Crime Against Property?; and (3) What is Crime against People? The paper ends with the formulation of conclusions based on the reviewed literature. What is Crime? Def

2119

The passage selected for analysis is taken from Chapter VI: "Pap Struggles with the Death Angel." It is a passage in which Huck Finn's attitude toward life is established. In brief, this attitude is one of lethargy and laziness, a determination to be free of social conventions and their restrictions and to live a life unhampered by the necessity of adhering to others' expectations (See attached passage). The attached passage reflects the attitude that Huck Finn truly has toward what is valuable about life, a life that is "lazy and jolly, laying off comfortable all day" without the necessity of reading, studying, bathing, combing your hair, or following the rules of society (Twain 457). Huck is expressing what Twain appears to believe is the most delightful ways that a young person can live. Such a life is without the necessity of going to school or moderating one's language. To emphasize this, Twain (457) uses stereotypical images of conformity to social norms s

661

In Chaucer's "The Wife of Bath's Tale," he suggests that there is a reciprocal relationship between desire and control in relationships. The greatest desire for another person occurs in a relationship where one has the least control, and the least desire occurs where one has the greatest control. Thus, we desire those most that we can control the least. In the prologue to the tale, the Wife of Bath recounts her marital history, detailing how she has been abused at the hands of her five husbands and pointing out that the one she loved the most was the one who loved her least and abused her the most. Her husbands wanted the freedom to have sex with other women but wanted her to remain chaste for themselves, to which she comments that the sexual organs were made for more than just passing urine. In other words, if people were not intended to enjoy sex, why are the sexual organs so constructed as to produce enjoyment? After recounting her many tribulations at the hands of her husbands, whose greatest desire was to control her while they remained free, the

726

Current Situation Acquisitions have been an important part of Google's strategy during its first decade. dMarc Broadcasting (radio ads) was acquired in 2006 for $102 million; dropped in 2009 for lack of performance (Schonfeld, 2009). Writely was acquired in 2006 and formed the basis for Google Docs offering free document, spreadsheet and presentation and online collaboration. YouTube was acquired in 2006; as of 2010, it had not provided a profit to Google (Lawler, 2010). Postini, a security and co

347

African Slave Women in South Carolina: Analysis and Guide to Both Primary Sources and Resources to Primary Sources The purpose of this paper is to discover primary sources as well as resources to primary sources that provide information about African slave women in the South Carolina of the 15th to 17th century. The provided resources/primary sources are those that deal with gender issues related to slave women in Antebellum South Carolina. Library materials as well as online links are provided. Some primary sources are descriptions that were handed down verbally from generation to generation which are then backed up by supporting documentation. One such source can be found at the website, Priscilla's Homecoming (2009: 1-6), http://www.yale.edu/glc/priscilla/index.htm. This source is the official webpage of Mrs. Thomalind Martin Polite who is the 7th generation descendant of Priscilla, a 10 year old girl taken on the slave ship Hare from Sierra Leone to South Carolina in 1756.

1160

The United States of America is not only the richest nation in the world but also the most powerful. This combination of power and wealth places our country in the enviable position of being able to help the many nations that are less fortunate, particularly those affected by natural disasters such as earthquakes, hurricanes, tsunamis, and famine caused by drought. Yet a 2006 IMF working paper on the subject reported that of the donor nations around the world, the top four donor nations were the Netherlands and the three Scandinavian countries; the United States was among the three bottom nations (Gupta, Pattillo, & Wagh, 2006, p. 17). Should America contribute more? Indeed it should. According to NationMaster.com, a site that derives data from the CIA World Factbook, the United States is not only the number one

563

One threat to freedom of speech that has increased in recent years is that of religious censorship. The American public has become hypersensitive to the point that aspects of free speech that used to be taken for granted, such being able to wear one's faith on a sweatshirt, carry a Bible to school or work, or even say "God bless you" when someone sneezes are being challenged in the nation's courts. Even the time-honored tradition of celebrating Christmas has come under vehement attack by some groups, who contend that the holiday should be stripped of its religious significance and that the greeting "Merry Christmas" should be replaced by the generic "Happy Holidays." Of particular note is the case of judge Roy Moore, who ended up in a fierce legal battle over his practices of posting the Ten Commandments in his courtroom and opening court sessions with prayer (Cline, 2010). Some viewers have been up in arms over television programming with strong Christian content, yet no one protests programs featuring witches demonstrating to the audience how to cast a spell. Apparently, the only offensive religion to most Americans is the Christian one. Allowing citizens to sue

797

Introduction In Death Knocks, Woody Allen provides a one-act play featuring two characters. Nat is a bald kvetch who makes his living as a dress manufacturer in Brooklyn. One evening at midnight, he is visited by the other character, Death. As Allen personifies him, Death is on his first day at the job and is a bit of a bumbler. When we first meet Death, he is anxious and fearful because he almost broke his neck climbing in the bedroom window. Once Nat believes his visitor is death, he bargains with him. If Nat wins at gin rummy, Death must extend his stay of execution for another 24 hours. Death loses the game and, as he nearly falls on his way out, Nat proclaims Death is "such a schlep" (Allen, 1971, p. 7). In this portrayal of Death, Allen provides a satiric character we can laugh at despite his serious nature and intent. Unlike the revered respect paid to death by the Jewish religion; by mocking Death in this play Allen is able to undermine His typically fearsom

849

My personal background provides me with a great deal of cultural understanding, primarily because I am a South Korean national who migrated to Canada in my early teens. The disparity between cultures provided me with insight and understanding into how different cultures not only perceive things differently but respond differently to the same things. One of the first cultural differences I noticed was that all individuals from the East are lumped together by most Canadians as "Asians." This created some challenges in interacting at first. In some instances I knew my Canadian peers were not being racist or prejudiced, b

425

Freedom of speech is a more comprehensive legal right than is typically recognized. It involves more than just being allowed to say what one wants in a book or article. Now that technology has made cyberspace a widely used communication medium, free speech has become an issue online as well. Internet users who think that they are anonymous when communicating online and giving free expression to their opinions can be tracked down by law enforcement officials or other interested parties and identified. This is a violation of free speech. Sobel (2000) points out that "anonymity...plays an important role in fostering free expression" and that the Internet offers people "unprecedented opportunities to both publish and receive information." FBI Director Louis Freeh told a Senate subcommittee in 1998 that Internet Service Providers should capture information such as Caller ID data and computer users' IP addresses to help the government find child pornographers (Sobel, 20

809

A few generations ago "college" was an educational haven for the wealthy. The fees for prestigious universities were steep and, even when state colleges began the admittance project for local students, there was still a sort of mysterious choice which seemed to limit opportunities for enrollment and graduation. This elitism began to disappear at the end of World War II with the G.I. Bill which provided funding for veterans to attend the colleges of their choice. The various Civil Rights legislation then opened up the nearly all-=white preserve further for admitting students of various minorities. But, what has really ballooned the educational opportunities for even more millions was the advent of on-line "universities" which now offered courses and even degrees without having to leave one's home and actually attend "live" classes. There are many purists and academicians who still question the validity and the quality of such internet educational facilities. There are many

1106

Introduction Roberts and Fields (2002) define Domestic Abuse (also often called 'Family Violence') as a situation in which one member of a family, or a couple/partner relationship causes physical and/or emotional harm to one or more other family members or partners. The violence can include: slapping, hitting, kicking, punching, or burning as well as sexual forms of violence such as incest or rape. In some cases the violence can be emotional such as in the use of threats, harassment, and insult. Often there is also an element of isolation in which the abusive family member attempts to exert more control over victims by keeping the victim mostly at home, e.g., not allowing victims to see or talk to people outside the home. According to the Family Violence Prevention Fund (2010) almost 3.5 million violence crimes are committed against family members every year and, of these, 49 percent are committed against a spouse. About 84 percent of the time, spousal abuse victims are femal

1608

Large-Scale Outsourcing and "McDonaldization" In line with Ritzer's explanation of McDonaldization, this essay takes the position that the phenomenon of large-scale outsourcing of production of tangible goods by American manufacturers has the attributes of excessive rationalization. The perceived benefits of transferring factory production from the United States to such states as Mexico, Hong Kong, India, and--increasingly and most egregiously in the past 10 years--China since the 1980s began with trimming labor and day-to-day operating costs substantially and included such other advantages as more lenient regulatory customs in the outsourcing locale and domestic tax advantages. Overarching all was the objective of "turning core competencies into value" (Greaver 91). Corporations that outsourced production would benefit from keeping production offshore and would have to pay taxes only on revenues repatriated to the United States. Nor, indeed, was outsourcing confined to offshore production of tangible goods, such as automobiles, apparel, shoes, computers, televisions, stereos, radios, and toys. With the extraordinary advances in global telecommunications, tech

799

The United States is recognized worldwide as the richest nation in the world, and yet it is also known to be one of the world's poorest contributors to overseas aid. As Adelman (2003, p. 9) points out, other nations "blast the United States for being stingy." Should America contribute more? Although it is troubling to see people in other nations suffer for lack of aid, there are also a number of reasons that the U.S. should continue to provide aid at its current level. The first of these is that here in America we have our own poor. The streets of all of our major cities are littered every morning with homeless people sleeping in doorways, on park benches, and under bridges. There are far more homeless than can be accommodated at shelters, and most shelters only allow each person to stay there a few

554

Introduction In Poetics, the Greek philosopher Aristotle outlines his definition of tragedy and the tragic hero. The tragic hero must possess certain qualities or traits in Aristotle's view. Among these he must be "of high or noble character," as well as "one who chooses to act nobly" (Brown 3). The tragic hero is not human perfection; however. He is neither completely virtuous nor completely villainous. Instead, Aristotle maintains the best kind of tragic hero exists "between these extremes...a person who is neither perfect in virtue and justice, nor one who falls into misfortune through vice and depravity, but rather, one who succumbs through some miscalculation" (Brown 3). In this way the hero's downfall is tragic because it is based on some miscalculation, often referred to as hamartia or some flaw by Aristotle (Aristotle 1). Finally, the tragic hero's fall is not total loss, as he often learns something profound during the process. Sophocles' Oedipus the

1077

Introduction F. Scott Fitzgerald is considered one of the most characteristic authors of his time, the Jazz Age or Roaring Twenties in American history. As literary critic Heinrich Straumann (1965) argues, Fitzgerald is "usually looked upon as the most typical novelist of the first post-war generation" (110). It was a time of the Horatio Alger myth embodied within the American Dream, where hard work and upright behavior made millionaires of men like Andrew Carnegie, Henry Rockefeller, and other Americans. In The Great Gatsby, Fitzgerald shows his admiration of such men in the idealized self-made success of the character of Jay Gatsby, a "cool" and "collected" millionaire with a mysterious past who seems to embody the highest outcomes of the American Dream (Crawford, 2007, p. 1). Yet the immoral behavior and excess of the era also proved to show a darker side of the American Dream, one where the "haves" and "have-nots" compete for their slice of the pie and the "haves" ar

1143

In Elements of Mentoring, W. Brad Johnson and Charles R. Ridley provide a guide for professionals to serve as mentors to young proteges in the corporate environment. Mentoring relationships are complex and require inward and outward awareness and understanding. Such relationship are dynamic, reciprocal, and personal; ones where the mentor serves as a guide or teacher to a less experience coworker. As Johnson and Ridley define them, "Mentors provide proteges with knowledge, advice, counsel, support, and opportunity in the proteges pursuit of full membership in a particular profession" (p. xv). The benefits of the mentor relationship for proteges include higher wages, more promotions, fast-track career movement, greater professional competence and others. The authors provide a review of professional research on mentoring and identify a number of main elements for effective mentoring that they group into six categories: 1) Matters of skill; 2) Matters of style and personality; 3) Matters of beginning; 4) Matters of integrity; 5) matt

712

Introduction In Oscar Casares' Brownsville, a collection of short stories, "Yolanda" revolves around an adolescent narrator's interaction with the beautiful woman next door. Married to an abusive and controlling husband, the beautiful neighbor takes refuge in the boy's home on many occasions. The narrator often hears the lovemaking noises of his neighbors, but mistakes Yolanda's passion for pain. Surrounded by sexual activity and enduring a failed opportunity to get into bed with Yolanda; Yolanda serves as the narrator's initiation into adult sexual awakening. Body The young male narrator in "Yolanda" is taken with the gorgeous wife of his next door neighbor. There is little denying she serves as his initiation into his awakening sexual longings. He seems obsessed with her. As the story opens, she is the first thing he tells us about: "When I can't sleep at night I think of

621

The following paper presents the topic of the negative effects of interactive video games on children. Issues discussed include a brief discussion of game use and positive effects of these games. This is followed by a discussion of the negative effects that lead to related parental caution recommendations. Home video games are not a new commodity and have been around for more than 30 years. However, what is new is the degree that computer technology has improved video games and the notions that girls now play more video games than in the past, and children now play these games at earlier ages. Studies show that among elementary and middle school ages, female adolescents play video games an average of five hours per week and boys play for 13 hours per week for boys. Preschoolers now play an average of 28 minutes per day. The time spent playing interactive video games is now increasing for all ages (Gentile 1). Interactive video games have positive and negative effects on chil

680

Our firm makes decisions based on rational problem solving and democratic decision making. In theory this leads to a logical solution that pleases the greatest number of people. In practice it makes some decision-making processes so long that the original problem is occasionally lost. The CPA firm for which I work lost a very large account recently. The reason was not bad. Companies are required to switch CPA firms occasionally. But it lead to a decrease in revenue significant enough that the company was in danger of running a loss for the following year. The senior partners began to take an informal pole to see how the company would take a postponement of any raises to the following year when, hopefully, the partners could drum up more business. This might have worked at a company not based on economics. However, most employees saw a lack of at least a cost-of-living raise as a pay cut, despite very low inflation rates these days. General discord began to run through the com

897

The rational decision making model is the one I prefer. It is very important to me to have all of the information necessary to make an informed decision. Working in the accounting industry has a lot to do with it. It is not enough to make a decision, we need to be able to back it up if asked. There are many stake holders when dealing with clients, particularly if those clients are com

262

Transactional analysis was unlike most other types of psychotherapy in that it was not developed through intensive observation and work with patients. Instead, it was the brainchild of California-based psychiatrist, Dr. Eric Berne, a practicing Freudian psychiatrist in the 1950s who suddenly had an epiphany when a patient declared one day, "I'm not really a lawyer, I'm a little boy" (Schweigerdt, 2004, p. 54). Following this outburst, Berne developed his transactional analysis, or TA, theory and capitalized on it by writing a top-selling book, Games People Play (Schweigerdt, 2004, p. 54). He developed a three-factor personality model that centered on the adult, parent, and child and subsequently identified more than 100 games that people play in their interpersonal relationships (Schweigerdt, 2004, p. 54). Berne acknowledged that he had learned TA from his patients (Schweigerdt, 2004, p. 54). Berne's goal for TA was to develop an affordable method of therapy featuring eclec

957