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The film The MC: Why We Do It features insights from a number of rapper/MCs on the difference between an MC, or master of ceremonies, and a rapper, and the divergent definitions of these two terms can address some of the issues that Tricia Rose brings up in her book Hip Hop Wars. Because MCing is, among other things, an expression of black culture as well as an important component of Hip Hop, a study of the MC can explain not only the truth about the Hip Hop culture but also why confusion and negative responses to it come about. The film characterizes the difference between an MC and a rapper as the difference between someone who "moves the crowd" and someone who just performs a rap (Spirer, 2005). The MC is compared to black performers from the 1930s and 1940s like Cab Calloway, who used to "banter with the audience" and "engage the crowd" with his trademark "hidy, hidy, hidy ho" (Spirer, 2005). As one of the MCs in the film points out, "For that one moment, they fo

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1.0 Problem Background The problem of drug use, or more correctly drug abuse, in the workplace is both a moral and practical concern of the employer. Studies show that drug users are likely to be less productive, miss more workdays, more likely to injure themselves or cause injury to others and file more workers compensation claims than drug free employees. This does not even address the possibility of illegal drug related activities, purchase and sale of illegal substances in the workplace. It is clearly the interest of the employer, both morally and legally, to prevent such problem in the workplace. In addition there are hidden costs that result from diversion of supervisory and managerial resources, friction among personnel in the workplace, damage to equipment, and damage to the company's public image. This implies that workplace substance abuse can further cut profits and competitiveness. (Drug Testing Network) Over 80% of Fortune 500 companies have drug-testing pro

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Care quality and efficiency outcomes After reading through the information for this issue, a specific question to address never materialized. Thus, this response does not focus on a specific question. Rather, the focus is on whether the civilian healthcare delivery sector should move forward in the implementation of electronic medical record (EMR) technology. The various issues concerning cost, health outcomes, the potential for efficiency gains, physician reluctance to invest on the one hand and physician desires to possess the latest technology on he other hand, and fear of yet another technological innovation rendering EMR technology obsolete are real,

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A full-time tutor like Pangloss is in Candide would be highly influential in the life of my 13-year-old child, so I would want someone for the job who would exert a beneficial impact on my child. Of the three possibilities Cacambo, Pangloss, and Martin, I would choose Cacambo as my child's tutor. Since my child would undoubtedly look up to his tutor and try to emulate him, I want someone of impeccable character, and Cacambo is such an individual, moral and upright and with a strong sense of duty. Cacambo is practical, as well; when he and Candide are embarking on their journey, he plans ahead and packs a variety of foods to sustain them while they are on their way. Furthermore, Cacambo is free from the deceptions of any philosophy, which sets him far ahead of the other characters, such as Pangloss who subscribes to the ridiculous theory that we live in the best of all possible worlds. Cacambo does not always perceive situations entirely correctly, as when he tells Candide that the monkeys pursuing the naked girls could be their lovers, and he gets his facts wrong, as when he tells Candide that the monkeys are a fourth part human,

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Tennis History: Bjorn Borg and Jimmy Connors The purpose of this research is to explore the styles and legacies of two tennis champions: Bjorn Borg and Jimmy Connors. Bjorn Borg, born June 6, 1956, grew up in Sweden where he enjoyed playing ice hockey as a child. At age 11 Bjorn began taking tennis more seriously when he became a member of a hometown tennis club. By age 12 Bjorn had developed some antisocial behaviors on the court including throwing rackets and swearing. In response, the tennis club suspended Borg for six months. After three months, Borg returned begging to be allowed back on the court, but the club management held the suspension firm and told Borg to go home and wait another three months (Star Sports). Borg returned with a fresh attitude and with diligent practice competed in junior competitions, beating Sweden's best under-18 players. Though he received criticism for his bowlegged stance and rough and jerky strokes, Davis Cup captain Lennart Bergelin

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Reality therapy was developed by William Glasser as a response to his recognition that the therapeutic systems already in existence were not sufficient for generating change that was rapid enough and long-lasting enough (Prout & Brown, 2007, p. 332). In reality therapy, the individual accepts responsibility for his or her own behavior as a means of achieving success and happiness. Along with this responsibility comes personal participation in the therapy and growth processes (Prout & Brown, 2007, p. 332). The value of reality therapy is that it teaches the individual better ways of getting needs fulfilled and emphasizes the idea that the individual can learn more responsible and productive approaches within a supportive but confrontational atmosphere (Prout & Brown, 2007, p. 332). The major contributors to reality therapy were Glasser and G.L. Harrington, with whom he began developing reality therapy in 1962 while still working at a California Veterans Administra

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Early, John D. The Maya and Catholicism: An Encounter of Worldviews. Gainesville, FL: Univ. of Florida Press, 2006. Introduction Baptism. The intervention of saints. The celebration of mass. These rituals and practices sound distinctly Roman Catholic. However, in The Maya and Catholicism, John D. Early illustrates how and why these practice and rituals are embedded in the religious system of the Maya, despite them rejecting the notion of Jesus Christ as savior. Spanish missionaries from the sixteenth to eighteenth century tried to create one culture of Christians, but Early explains that limited understanding (mainly from language difficulties) caused the Mayans to interpret elements of Catholicism in their own way while integrating it into their own preexisting religious system. Even in modern Mayan culture, Mayans demand that non-Mayan Catholic priests perform Catholic rituals that are virtually the same as those performed by Shamans. This review

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Introduction The poor in America today consist of the working poor, some 30 million Americans who make less than $8.70 per hour and who are marginally able to provide the necessities of life for themselves and their families. Unlike the poor identified in 1960 by Michael Harri

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Rational-emotive therapy, or RET, is an outgrowth of cognitive learning theory, which was popular in the 1960s and 1970s (Leahy & Dowd, 2002, p. 128). Albert Ellis adapted cognitive learning theory in 1962, basing his work on the assumption that emotional disturbances are the result of irrational, maladaptive thoughts (Leahy & Dowd, 2002, p. 130). Believing that experience is connected to rationality and cannot be separated from it, Ellis (1974, pp. 194, 195) asserted that people have both rational and irrational values and behaviors and that RET views some irrational emotions as appropriate when they are in response to negative stimuli. By implementing approaches designed to interrupt and regroup maladaptive thought processes, Ellis' use of RET therapy was a breakthrough for its time. A meta-analysis of 28 controlled studies on RET's efficacy found it to be as effective as other approaches and more effective than placebo or no treatment (Engels, Garnefski, Diekstra, 1993, p

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A great deal has been written about the subject of teamwork in the workplace. Much of the literature on this subject addresses the formation of teams, leadership on teams, the functions of teams, evaluation of teams, and the characteristics of effective teamwork. It is certainly likely that an effective team has many traits or characteristics that combine to ensure that it is able to reach its goals and objectives in a manner that is conducive to a high level of performance. In this essay, the argument will be advanced that one of the most significant characteristics of an effective team centers on communication skills. In the view of Joseph D'O'Brien (1994), communication may well be the most significant aspect of effective workplace interactions and, unfortunately, many managers and others have trouble developing strong communication skills. Consequently, effective teams will be those in which communication skills are both valued and present. Houze (2000) commented that on

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The United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is positioned within the Department of Homeland Security and is charged with "enforcing a wide array of laws, including those related to securing the border and combating criminal smuggling" (ICE 1). Immigration control is approached through several different measures including a partnership between ICE and a variety of federal, state, local, and foreign law enforcement organizations to create the Border Enforcement Security Task Force (BEST) initiative, "a series of multi-agency teams developed as a comprehensive approach to identifying, disrupting, and dismantling criminal organizations posing significant threats to border security" (ICE 1). BEST is a part of a broad strategy for preventing illegal immigration that includes such elements as the Secure Border Initiative (SBI). The Homeland Security Dep

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Introduction Eudora Welty is an American author born in Mississippi in 1909, considered a keen observer of manners of the South. According to one biographer, Welty's works' typically provide a "treatment of universal themes" (Eudora 1). In her short story "Clamorous to Learn," Welty treats the universal them of the terror of most school students confronted with stern teachers who brook no "frills" of any kind in the learning environment (Welty 434). This analysis will show how Welty uses characterizes to help readers experience the fear school children often feel. A conclusion will address how Welty's story applies to today's readers. Body Welty's narrator

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In the first chapter of his book Techniques of the Observer: On Vision and Modernity in the 19th Century, Jonathan Crary (1992) begins to shape for the reader the essence of the new vision and the formation of the modern subject. He notes that vision "had been taken out of the incorporeal relations of the camera obscura and relocated in the human body" and cites Foucault, who stated, "Our society is not one of spectacle but of surveillance...we are neither in the amphitheatre nor on the stage but in the Panoptic machine" (Crary, 1992, pp. 16, 17). These insights suggest that in the modern environment, the person no longer merely formulates vision as an exercise of the mind but recontextualizes it as part of himself. He is not on the outside of his vision but part and parcel of it. Formerly dependent upon his senses to tell him what he was seeing, he is now free from them and able to frame new points of reference that have nothing to do with the natural eye (Crary, 1992, p. 1

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Introduction In William J. House's (2000) article The History of Psychology, the author makes a fundamental assumption about the nature of psychology where history is concerned. As House (2000) asserts, "Though psychology is relatively new as a formal academic discipline, scholars have pondered the questions that psychologists ask for thousands of years" (p. 32). This assertion reinforces my own world view that the nature of man is a developmental learning experience. House (2000) also makes the assumption that psychology has arisen from two disciplines also as old as Ancient man, including philosophy and physiology. This analysis will discuss and critique some of House's ideas regarding these assertions and the history of psychology. Body House (2000) uses his chief assertion as the main organizing principle of his article. After an introduction in which he makes his assertion that psychologists focus on the same questions asked by humans for thousands of yea

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In war as in every other human endeavor, the influence of human feelings, perceptions, and attitudes is an ever-present undercurrent. While on the surface, military alliances are made for logical and strategic reasons, under the surface are real people whose responses to each other can work at cross-purposes to what might otherwise be a successful military strategy. In the German-Italian alliance of World War II, these human factors played a significant role in undermining the Axis strategy. Although allies in name, the Germans and the Italians found themselves at cross-purposes ethically, theologically, and philosophically because their cultures were so divergent. Moreover, since these considerations were inextricable from their military strategy, they were at least covertly, if not overtly, conflicted over strategy. As Abraham Lincoln (1858) famously stated in a speech to the President and the Convention, "A house divided against itself cannot stand." This brief but pith

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If there is a salient element in Jack Kerouac's On the Road, it is freedom. Freedom beckons the characters in much the same way that a gambling casino beckons those starved for an engrossing and possibly addicting pastime; it provides the opportunity to experience something more wonderful than the mundane existence of everyday life. The essence of freedom in On the Road is that it enables the characters to explore the world and look for what is exhilarating and enjoyable-better than the everyday life that they have experienced to date. Early in the book, the irrepressible Dean watches over Sal's shoulder as he writes and exclaims, "Man, wow, there's so many things to do, so many things to write!" (Kerouac 4). Dean's exuberance characterizes the allure of freedom in the book by highlighting the sense that the world is rife with opportunities to experience life more fully but that only through freedom can they be enjoyed. At this early point in the book, freedom is an ideal.

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As a teacher that has assigned my students a writing assignment to share what they most enjoyed during their recent field trip, I would be using this activity to facilitate the memory functions of attention, category knowledge, and elaboration. Capturing their attention is much easier when the assignment is personalized to them, so allowing them to write about their own experience of a field trip will provide an attention benefit. To maximize learning, "Teachers must immerse learners in complex, interactive experiences that are both rich and real," and a field trip to an interesting place fulfills both criteria ("Brain-based Learning," 2008). Moreover, "Students must have a personally meaningful challenge," because "Such challenges stimulate a student's mind to the desired state of alertness" ("Brain-based Learning," 2008). Samuelson and Smith (1998, p. 97) point out that "attention is generally grabbed by novelty-by events that fail to match (and fail to be predicted by) events in memory," so again, an essay about a field trip and the student's personal experiences on that field trip is unique and novel enough to gain his attention.

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For centuries, the pursuits and perils of love have been widely documented in literature and the arts. Around the world, people pursue relationships that embody the intense and beautiful emotions associated with romance. But such highly desirous romantic relationships are difficult to find and require some unattractive work. Oftentimes, the vanity and self-adoration that originate from a momentary love of youthful beauty are so strong that beholders become unable to recognize the lifelong romance of true love. William Butler Yeats' poem, "When You Are Old," serves as a warning against the youthful lust for love and immature vanity that can lead to an empty and lonely adulthood. As the poem's first line indicates, old life awaits the vane individuals who fore-go romantic love and instead opt to revel in their own lovely beauty. Although Yeats does not specifically state that his subject is single, the scenario he first describes implies that the person "nodding by the fire," in ag

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Introduction In Martin Blumenson's biography of General George Patton, Patton: The Man Behind The Legend, the author focuses more on the personal character and foibles of the celebrated military subject more than his military conquests. Blumenson maintains that Patton was a military genius but the ideals, values and behavior he personified in public served as a façade for a highly insecure and often shallow individual. As Blumenson, author of The Patton Papers and a former member of Patton's staff with unprecedented access to the subject's personal papers, sums up his assessment of Patton as a "sublime irony," painting Patton as a man whose "self-confidence was an act, forced and assumed, put on, riveted to his exterior" (307). This analysis will explore key events in Patton's life related to sociological concepts and socialization, including a comparative analysis of his interaction with varied ethnic, social and political groups. The cultural values and morals

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A number of problems have been identified with respect to the causes of water pollution negatively affecting the Mississippi River. The loss of coastal wetlands, altered hydrology, agricultural runoff introducing pesticides and other toxins into the river, waste from industrial installations that is dumped into the Mississippi River, and nutrient pollution or eutrophication are among those problems ("Mississippi River Water Quality" 1-2). Interviews conducted with government agencies and instructors at Louisiana State University indicate that agricultural waste runoff all along the entire expanse of the Mississippi River is a major problem contributing to water pollution. Consequently, it is this issue that is at the heart of the present proposal. There is a large body of support for eliminating agricultural and industrial runoff into the Mississippi River ("Mississippi River Water Quality" 2). Eliminating the older, banned pesticides has provided a reduction in the presen

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Title: Stem Cell Research: A Medical Breakthrough For Everyone Strong Start: How many of you have friends and family members who have serious diseases? These diseases could be treated in the future with stem cell therapy. [Background explaining stem cell research.] The American Heart Association estimates that about 128 million people have diseases that could be treated in the future by stem cell therapies. President Obama has just approved the first taxpayer-funded embryonic stem cell studies. Transition to the body: There are two things that may make you doubt the validity of embryonic stem cell research. I'm going to explain to you why neither of these ideas is logical. 1st seminal point: Some people think that using embryonic stem cells means taking cells from live human beings and is thus immoral. This is untrue

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The notion of someone 'having morals' or of being 'morally responsible' is, I hope, one of the most ridiculous things you have ever heard of. The problem occurs when philosophers begin to formulate criteria for their ethics. Most of the time, philosophers begin by laying out their metaphysics and then having established this base proceed to formulate their ethics by reasoning from particulars up to universals. In this respect, nearly all of western philosophy has been a series of footnotes to Plato, who insisted on reaching from this world to the world of forms as though there was a Truth "out there" that could be reached. Kant stands as an interesting exception who preferred to reason down from universals to particulars in formulating his ethics. For this reason, the critic Richard Rorty has labeled Kant an inverted Platonist, a philosopher who has essentially replicated Plato's philosophical paradigm but flipped it over (Rorty, 32). In any case, the Platonic paradigm fai

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Introduction The debate over the nature of reality, especially human reality, often pits idealism against materialism where philosophical explanations are concerned. Idealism is associated with Plato's beliefs that the essence of human existence is of a higher realm and cannot be deduced by human reason. As Ackendorf (2010) defines it, idealism is "the belief that reality is essentially idea and mind rather than matter" (p. 1). Materialists view the nature of human life as caused by material properties or elements that are readily discernible through rational or scientific study. Ackendorf (2010) defines materialism as "the belief that matter is the ultimate constituent of reality" (p. 1). This analysis will provide a comparison and contrast of materialism versus idealism. A conclusion will address the author's opinion of which view is more satisfactory as an explanation for the nature of human existence. Body One of the most significant differences between idealists and materialists is that the former views the true nature of human exis

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Introduction The United States did not become a world leader in trade until the Great Depression of the 1930s. However, international trade is as old as the founding of the American Colonies. There is a significant reference to trade in the U.S. Constitution, in Article I, Section 8: "The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts and excises...but all duties, imposts and excises shall be uniform throughout the United States; To regulate commerce with foreign nations, and among the several states, and with the Indian Tribes" (U.S., 1787, 2). As with many nations, the history of American international trade policy is one that veers between free markets and protectionism to varying degrees. Numerous factors shape the degree to which markets remain "free" and the level of protectionism put in place. Through various eras of history and industry, U.S. trade policy has varied dramatically. Nevertheless, as a developed nation the U.S. continu

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The decision in a choice among pairs of casino gambles is determining which will be the most likely winner. An important personal decision that could serve as an analogy with the gambles is my choice of where to invest my savings. There are three ways that this decision is similar to a gambling decision. First, it could be a win-or-lose decision; if I choose wrongly, I coul

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