A Clamor for Women :: Puberty Health Medical Essays

A Clamor for Women A guy once told me that being female was very encouraging because I had something to look forward to every month—my period. Well, what he doesn't know is that this God-given blessing has become a curse to all men because they have to deal with a woman's every qualm. But since men are so clever and inventive they found a way to prevent pregnancy by controlling menstruation and therefore indirectly controlling women. Once a girl has her first menstrual cycle, she not only has to deal with PMS (premenstrual syndrome) which includes bloating, swelling of extremities, sensitive breasts, depression, social withdrawal, mood swings, irritability, anxiety, and confusion, but she also has to encounter non-sympathetic guys who just make her feel worse. And most importantly, she has to face the fact that she can become pregnant. But don't lose hope yet, girls, the men are going to save you from your naturally-occurring misery. They are going to invent a drug that will set you free of all the hassles of womanhood—the Pill! Carl Djerassi invented the modern birth control pill, which was originally advocated as a step toward freedom for women. With the introduction of the pill, women had the choice as to whether a pregnancy was desirable at the time. They could finally pursue careers and â€Å"plan† a family accordingly. However, the pill's original purpose has been skewed. Doctors are now urging younger and younger girls to use the pill but not for the purpose of birth control, even though that is always an underlying reason, but as a means of controlling PMS, blood flow, or acne. PMS is natural and healthy. It can be minimized, once recognized, through a healthy diet and exercise without the hormone-tampering caused by birth control pills. Nonetheless, more women are turning towards this man-made device to control the â€Å"hormonal† woman inside them. But did you ever stop to think why all these problems are solved by the pill? Or why the problems are â€Å"problems† in the first place? Men. They found women to be trying around that â€Å"time of the month† and they also wanted sex without the fear of another mouth to feed. So they solved their problem with the pill and tried to convince women that it was really her problem. Kottak, the author of Researching American Culture, writes, â€Å"The fact that the development of birth control pills and other contraceptive methods has been largely aimed at women is the result of a number of assumptions made by the largely male research establishment† (219).

The Coca-Cola Company Essay

The Coca-Cola Company (KO) is a beverage company that manufacturer and distribute coke, diet coke and other soft drinks worldwide. The company primarily offers nonalcoholic beverages, including sparkling beverages and still beverages. Its sparkling beverages include nonalcoholic ready-to-drink beverages with carbonation, such as carbonated energy drinks, and carbonated waters and flavored waters. The company’s still beverages comprise nonalcoholic beverages without carbonation, including noncarbonated waters, flavored and enhanced waters, noncarbonated energy drinks, juices and juice drinks, ready-to-drink teas and coffees, and sports drinks. It also provides flavoring ingredients, sweeteners, beverage ingredients, and fountain syrups, as well as powders for purified water products. In addition, the company licenses its technologies to suppliers and third parties. The company is currently employing 130,600 full time employees and is considered being the world leader in the bev erage industry. Financial Review of the company: A. Market value of equity & Book value of equity – Market value of the equity of the company is the current market capitalization rate and it measured through by multiplying current market value of the share into the total number of shares outstanding and he market capitalization of the company as on 2nd October, 2014 is $187.10 billion (source: finance.yahoo=KO=key statistics). While the book value of the equity is the current book value of the company share and it is determined as under: Book value of equity = Total value of the equity / shares outstanding Book value = $7.77 (source: finance.yahoo=KO=key statistics). It is important to note that the book value of the shares of the company has increased from $3.29 per share in 2004 to $7.77 per share uptill now (it was $7.54 per share in the year 2013) B. Market performance – Total Return C. Financial performance review – The financial performance review of the company is as under: Gross profit margin – The gross profit margin of the company was 65.2% as at year 2004 but it has decreased to 60.7% in the year 2013 indicating a decline of 5.5% over this review period. The decrease in the gross profit is due to the increase in the cost of goods sold ratio as  of revenue from 34.78% in the year 2004 to 39.32% in the year 2013. Operating profit margin – The same trend of the decrease in the profitability is noted in the operating profit margin of the company as it has decreased from 25.9% in the year 2004 to 21.8% in the year 2013. This decrease in profitability is an alarming sign for the company as despite the increase in the revenue, the company was not able to generate profitability in the same proportion as that of the increase in the revenue of the company. Payout ratio – The dividend payout has increased from 50% in the year 2004 to 58.8% in the year 2013 indicating higher proportion of income is being paid out to the shareholders of the company Asset turnover – The relative increase in the assets of the company has resulted in decrease of asset turnover as it has decreased from 0.75 times in the year 2004 to 0.53 times in the year 2013 indicating the poor management of assets with respect to revenue generation Return on assets – ROA has also decreased from 16.52% in the year 2004 to 9.74% in the year 2013 due to the decrease in the profitability and increase in the asset base of the company Return on equity (ROE) – ROE of the company has also decreased from 32.29% in the year 2004 to 26.03% in the year 2013 due to the decrease in the profitability of the company Interest coverage ratio – The company first interest coverage ratio was determined in the year 2008 and it was 17.98 times. It has increased to 25.79 times in the year 2013 indicating an improvement in the overall interest coverage of the company. Liquidity of the company – The liquidity of the company as being measured through current and quick ratios is indicating a positive trend as current ratio was 1.10 in the year 2004 and it has increased to 1.13 in the year 2013. On the other hand, quick ratio has increased from 0.81 in the year 2004 to 0.90 in the year 2013. Efficiency of the company – Days Sales Outstanding of the company has increased from 35.42 days in the year 2004 to 37.52 days in the year 2013. Also, the Days Inventory has also increased from 63.84 days in the year 2004 to 64.8 days in the year 2013. Payables Period has decreased tremendously as it has decreased from 199.3 days in the year 2004 to 38.66 days in the year 2013. Cash Conversion Cycle of the company has improved as it has increased from -100.04 days in the year 2004 to 63.66 days in the year 2013. D. References: finance.yahoo. (2nd October). Key Statistics. Retrieved October 2, 2014, from http://finance.yahoo.com/q/ks?s=KO+Key+Statistics Morning Star. (2nd October). Coca-Cola Co KO (Key Ratios & company performance). Retrieved October 2, 2014, from http://financials.morningstar.com/ratios/r.html?t=KO ®ion=usa&culture=en-US

Aspects of Literary History: Spring and Summer Terms 2008 Essay

Welcome to the Aspects of Literary History course. This is an ambitious course with a number of separate but interwoven strands: 1) The course will introduce you to some of the key concepts of literary history. 2) The course will enact literary history by examining the history of a particular mode of writing from its Greek origins through the seventeenth, eighteenth, nineteenth, twenty and twenty-first centuries. You will be asked to think in terms of specific literary historical periods. 3) The course will make you more familiar with the reading and interpreting of poetry, with particular attention to improving your skills in close reading. 4) The course will examine pastoral poetry from its origins in the Greek Idylls, its dissemination through Roman models and its diversification into many forms: the elegy, the country house poem, the love lyric, the poem of reflection, the philosophical poem, the nature poem and the satire. 5) The course will focus historically on the pastoral not simply because it provides the originating mode for these diverse forms but because it is the product of a specific political and social culture: an elite form produced originally in a slave culture (Greek) and disseminated through another slave culture (Roman). This will give you the basis for thinking about the historical contextualization of the pastoral as a form. 6) How have later English poets – from the seventeenth century onwards – made use of the political and social entailments of the pastoral form? How have they expanded it by the introduction of a Christian content? How have American poets made use of the form in response to the colonization of the New World, a process seen by many (at the time and subsequently) through the means of the pastoral? 7) The analysis of pastoral will enable you to undertake the most subtle intrinsic literary historical analysis, the most ambitious and the most ranging extrinsic literary historical analysis and the most effective combination of intrinsic and extrinsic modes. The Aspects of Literary History course will be taught by lecture and seminar in the spring term and the summer term. You will use the Aspects of Literary History course reader for preparation and for seminar discussion. The poems for discussion in the lectures and in the seminars are all printed in the course reader and the course supplement. The lectures for the course will be held in Chichester Lecture Theatre on Mondays 12-1. The seminars for the course will take place later in the week. Please check the timetable for your individual tutor and for the time of your seminar. There are four secondary texts we would also like you to read during this course: Paul Alpers’ What Is Pastoral?, Raymond Williams’ The Country and the City, Jonathan Bate’s The Song of the Earth and Chris Fitter’s Poetry, Space, Landscape. There are multiple copies of these in short loan and you should be able to read these during the vacation and during the spring and summer terms. You can borrow short loan books over the vacation and renew on-line. Essential secondary material is available in the Reserve Collection or in the Artsfac part of the Reserve Collection. [Ask at the Reserve Collection Counter: this material is stored under the name of the course convenor, Alistair Davies]. The seminar strand will support the lecture series by ensuring that you have grasped the literary historical topic of the week (definitions and information are set out in the reader). But it will function principally a) to improve your confidence and skill in reading poetry and b) to encourage you [if you wish] to explore your own creative response in poetry to the themes and topics of the course. We hope that you will become more proficient, more imaginative and more self-assured readers of poetry. Your written course work will be two 1000 word course work essays [20% each]. We are hoping to encourage you to be concise, focused and lucid in your writing. You will have the opportunity, if you wish, to submit one piece of creative writing out of two pieces of written work for the course. Remember to check your written work against the criteria set out in the ‘Feedback and How to Make Use of It’ document you were given last term. To underline the importance we attach to your creativity, we draw your attention to details of the Stanmer Prize on page 4 of the course reader. You can read the poems produced by previous winners on the English web-site. The course will also be examined by an unseen in the summer term [60%]. You will be required to comment closely on three poems or passages of poems in ways that reflect upon the literary historical topics covered in the course. You can consult past examination papers through the Sussex web-site. You will find below a detailed plan of the course. You will be able to see how lectures prepare you for seminars in each week; and you will be able to plan your work for the course from the beginning to the end of the course. We hope that you will find this course informative and enjoyable. If you have any queries, do not hesitate to contact your course tutor or the course convenor, Dr Alistair Davies [H.A.Davies@sussex.ac.uk] The course will be taught in the following order [the order in which it is set out in the course reader]: Week 1:Genre and Conventions The first lecture by Professor Norman Vance will focus on Milton’s Lycidas and Paradise Lost and will explore Milton’s use of classical genre(s) and conventions. Prepare for the lecture by reading the ‘Genre and Conventions’, ‘The Origins of the Pastoral’ and ‘the Pastoral Elegy’ sections of the course reader and the section of the Aspects Course Supplement. Week 1: Norman Vance: ‘Pastoral Genre and Convention: Milton’s Lycidas and Paradise Lost In your first seminar, you will focus on two poems — Herrick’s ‘To Daffodils’ (p.33) and Elizabeth Bishop’s ‘North Haven’ (p.5). What are the generic constituents of Herrick’s poem? What makes Bishop’s poem a) a pastoral elegy and b) how does it differ as a modern pastoral elegy from Milton’s Renaissance pastoral elegy? Paul Alpers’ study of pastoral cited in the course reader will be helpful here. You may wish to read Alpers’ discussion of Lycidas in What is Pastoral [there are copies of this in reserve and in short loan; copies too in Artsfac]. We begin with pastoral and we will focus on pastoral; but one presupposition we will explore in the course is that the pastoral idyll provides the matrix out of which the elegy, the love poem, the poem of philosophical reflection, the subjective lyric, the love poem, the satire and the nature poem are developed within the western and within the English traditio n. Week 2: Intertextuality. The second lecture will be given by Professor Andrew Hadfield and will focus on Jonson’s To Penshurst. Prepare for the lecture by re-reading Virgil’s first eclogue and Horace’s second epode in the course reader. You will find To Penshurst in the course reader (pp.29-31). Read the ‘Intertextuality’ section of the course reader, pp.26-32. Week 2: Andrew Hadfield: ‘Intertextuality: Ben Jonson’s ‘To Penshurst and the Country-House Poem’ For your seminar, read Yeats’ ‘Coole Park, 1929’ and Walcott’s ‘Ruins of a Great House’ in the course reader (pp.31-32). How does Yeats relate to Jonson; how does Walcott relate to Yeats (who was an important early influence)? What does it tell us about history and about the history of literature that a poet of the English renaissance, an Irish poet of the 1920s and a Caribbean poet of post-war period should use a form established by Roman poets in the first century BC. What are the links between pastoral, the country-house poem and empire? Week 3/: Literature and Social Change The third lecture of the term will be given by Dr Sophie Thomas on the topic of the eighteenth century prospect poem. Week 3: Dr Sophie Thomas: Politics, Poetics and Landscape For this lecture, Sophie Thomas will explore the changing modes of the prospect poem in works by Pope, Gray, Cowper and Smith printed in the course reader (pp.36-45) and Wordsworth’s Tintern Abbey printed on pages 47-48. Please read the section Literature and Social Change, pp.33-48 of the course reader. In her lecture, Sophie Thomas will explore the so-called prospect poem, raising questions about the class and the gender position of the viewer and about the different ways in which nature is re-presented. Will you please read carefully Gray’s ‘Ode on a Distant Prospect of Eton College.’ In your seminar, your tutor will either focus on one or more of the poems by Gray, Cowper and Smith in the reader. How important is it to take into account the gender of the poets discussed? Does a female writer have a different sense of the possession of a landscape to a male writer? Week 4: Literature and Social Change The fourth lecture of the term will be given by Dr Sophie Thomas. Please prepare by reading the poems by Wordsworth and Coleridge in the course reader, pp. 45-48. Week 4: Dr Sophie Thomas: The Landscape of the Imagination: Wordsworth and Coleridge In your seminar, you will read Wordsworth’s Tintern Abbey (p.47). How does the tradition of the pastoral poem enable the poet to write here a poem of psychology, a poem of philosophical reflection and a poem of relationship [remember it is addressed to the poet’s sister]. Even though it is written [for us] in heightened diction, this was written as an example of a form Coleridge and Wordsworth admired, the so-called conversational poem. Of course, The Prelude is one, very long conversational poem. Week 5: Research Break Week 5 will be a research break for your seminar (this will allow you to catch up with your reading and your writing). You will write your first assignment. Your first written assignment will be due in week 6 [check on Sussex Direct] : one 1000 word essay — 1) a reading of either a) Jonson b) Bishop c) Yeats or d) Walcott in the light of questions of genre, convention and intertextuality or 2) a reading of the prospect poem, with reference to Gray, Cowper, Smith or Wordsworth) or, if you wish, 3) you may write an account of George Herbert’s ‘Life’ and Andrew Marvell’s ‘The Garden’ in the supplement in relationship to ideas of melancholy and of loss, pp. 6-7. The poetry of the English renaissance provides the models from which the English poets of the Romantic period develop the religious, philosophical and psychological preoccupations of their verse. Your seminar tutor will set you specific titles for this assignment. Week 6: Literary History and Periodisation (pp.37-40) The fifth lecture will be given by Dr Alistair Davies on Goldsmith’s ‘The Deserted Village’ pp.53-58 of course reader). Please read this poem closely before the lecture. Week 6: Dr Alistair Davies: ‘Goldsmith’s The Deserted Village: Literary History and Periodisation. To prepare for the topic for week 6, read the section on Literary History and Periodisation (pp. 49-58) in the course-reader and the section on Literary History and Periodisation in the course supplement. The lecture will set the poem in the context of the construction of an eighteenth century landscaped estate and house. The University of Sussex is built in the eighteenth-century country-park of Stanmer House. Please take a stroll around this park (or its remnants) and have a look at the Palladian-style Stanmer House (see final page of course reader). In your seminar, you will discuss the Virgilian and Horatian intertexts of The Deserted Village, relate the poem to questions of globalisation and migration, and explore the links between Goldsmith’s poem and the English landscape and pictorial tradition of the eighteenth century represented by Gainsborough’s painting in the course reader and on its back cover. Please also read the account of Michael McKeon’s article ‘The Pastoral Revolution’ cited in the course reader. There is a brief prà ©cis in the course reader but you should make every effort to read the whole of this important article in Kevin Sharpe and Steven N.Zwicker (eds): Refiguring Revolutions. You would also benefit, if you have not yet done so, from reading the recommended chapters in Raymond Williams’s indispensable The Country and the City [there are many copies of this in reserve and in short loan] and Jonathan Bate’s The Song of the Earth. Week 7. Literary History: Politics and the Subject of Modernity The sixth lecture of the course will be given by Dr Alistair Davies on The Prelude. Week 7: Dr Alistair Davies: ‘Wordsworth’s The Prelude: Politics and the Subject of Modernity’ For your preparation, please re-read The 1805 Prelude, with particular reference to Books 1, 6, 7, 8, 11, 12, 13. For the seminar, we want you to read A.R.Ammons’s ‘Corsons Inlet’ (pp. 77-8). In what ways can you read Ammons’s poem as a post-Romantic rejoinder to ‘Tintern Abbey’? In what way is twentieth century American poetry, as we find it instanced in Ammons’ poem, a critique of the English Romantic tradition and of the American nineteenth century transcendental tradition it helped to shape? Remember that Wordsworth is a fundamental precursor figure for the modern American lyric poet as he is for the modern English lyric poet. Remember too that the pastoral is a fundamental form in American self-identification in the founding and settling of the New World. Sylvia Plath’s has written wonderful and little known sonnet ‘Mayflower’ on this topic, which you will find on page 49 of the course reader. Week 8. Feminist Literary History. The seventh lecture will be given by Dr Jenny Taylor on Christina Rossetti, concentrating on ‘Goblin Market’, pp. 66-71 of the course reader. Please prepare for the lecture by reading Goblin Market and the section on Feminist Literary History in the Aspects course reader, pp.63-71. Week 8: Dr Jenny Taylor: ‘Christina Rossetti and the Question of Feminist Literary History’ For your seminar, we want you to work through the three poems by Rossetti in the course reader in the light of the questions raised by the lecture and to compare them to the contemporaneous poems by Emily Dickinson in the Atlantic Studies and American pastoral section of the course reader, pp. 96. Second assignment for delivery in week 2 of the summer term. [see Sussex Direct]. What we want you to do for your second essay is to explore the idea of loco-descriptive verse and the walking or ‘ambulatory’ poem, examining the ways in which Wordsworth and Ammons have used these forms for metaphysical and religious explorations. You may write a walking poem for your final submission (no more than 30 lines) but with an auto-critique or justification amounting in total to 750 words. Or you may write a sonnet in the same on the building a) of Stanmer House in the 1700s or b) the University of Sussex in the 1960s — to explore a moment of profound historical transition. It would be useful to re-read Goldsmith’s The Deserted Village and the material on Enclosure and Emparking in the course reader before you embark on this (pp.53-58). You might take Sylvia Plath’s ‘Mayflower’ on page 49 as your model. Otherwise, you may write a comparative analysis of Wordworth’s ‘Tintern Abbey’ and of the Ammons poem. Or your tutor may set you an exercise which has arisen from discussions in your final seminar on Hardy. This exercise is 1000 words long. Week 9. Literary History: Transmission and Dissemination The eighth lecture will be given by Professor Norman Vance on pastoral and the loss of faith reflected in and through attitudes to nature in Romantic and post-Romantic poetry, focusing on the poems by Wordsworth, Shelley and Hardy in the course reader, pp.72-77. Please read the section on Literary History and Dissemination in the course reader, pp.47-51. Week 9: Prof Norman Vance: ‘The Decline of Nature: from Wordsworth to Hardy’. For your seminar, you will read the series of poems about birds and bird-song in the course supplement, [as well as poems by Hardy and Yeats in the course reader] linking the poet’s concerns with bird song and with flight to the possibility [or impossibility] of preserving the poetic tradition. How do scientific ideas – particularly those of Darwin – affect nineteenth century poetry? You will also consider the links between literary and intellectual history. Q. What do you think are the relationships between the Samuel Palmer ‘Pastoral Scene’ (1835) on the front cover of the course reader and nineteenth century preoccupations with secularisation? The Jo Francis essay cited in the course reader is useful for reading ‘Mont Blanc’; the Picot essay (like Francis’s essay in Artsfac in the Reserve Collection) is also very helpful. Summer Term: 2008 We expect you to undertake some preparation for the summer term by reading the ‘Atlantic Studies and American Pastoral’ section of the course reader and the ‘Atlantic Studies and American Pastoral’ section of the course supplement. The lecture titles for the summer term are as follows. You will be given details about the work to be undertaken during the vacation and in your term-time seminars at the end of the spring term.

Stomp The Yard Review Professor Ramos Blog

Stomp The Yard Review Stomp the Yard is by far one of the best captivating and entertaining movies I have ever watched. If there is a movie which I can vote for completely, then it is the movie stomp the yard. This movie is about an inner city krump dancer, DJ, who moves to Atlanta, Georgia for a fresh start. In the movie, DJ’s role is arrogant, over-confident, and determine to win the heart of April Palmer. The plot of the movie is so entertaining and touching that I could watch it everyday. This is my favorite movie because it focuses on responsibility and determination, it also shows how one person can not be above everyone else, it takes teamwork. Lastly, the movie shows how a man is to appreciate and treat the lady he loves. Stomp the yard focuses on competing fraternity steppers at fictional Truth University. DJ channels his anger at the system though crunk dancing, and his innovative moves make him a crowd favorite. But when a fight with a rival team leads to his brother Durons murder, DJ feels guilt and despair, which turns, no surprise, into more anger. Shipped off to Atlanta to live with his uncle and aunt, DJ finds new athletic, dance, and competition possibilities in stepping. At Truth, DJ is recruited by two fraternities who think his skills will help them win the national championship. He selects Theta Nu Theta because its leader, the one and only, Ernest Sylvester extols the virtues of brotherhood more than winning the title which of course, everyone focuses on winning. I give full credit to the director, producer and editors of this film. They really kept their brains working when they were coming up with all the ideas composed of the film. Such ideas as stepping, DJs love for April, Grants rivalry with DJ, April fathers grudge against DJs uncle for having stolen his girlfriend back in the day and the Pythons dream to beat The MU Gamma at the National championships. This film is well directed. For instance, when DJ moves to Atlanta and joins The Truth University, he discovers, stepping, the dancing technique which is traditionally done in African-American fraternities. It is here where teams demonstrate their complex moves and create rhythmic sounds by the use of their bodies. For example DJs talent sees him at the peak of hip-hop between rivalry of the two fraternities (Pythons and MU Gamma), the winner of which will be determined in front of a sold-out-arena at the annual championships, nevertheless, DJ has to overcome his own ego and learn the true meaning of brotherhood. The films nature has its audience fully involved. The editing of this movie was done with the highest perspective. Its rhythms are well edited, they are captivating and entertaining. In depth Stomp the Yard demonstrates responsibility and determination that makes this movie so real and interesting. The costumes and make-up directors did a marvelous job. The fact is that the costumes used in the movie were captivating. The costumes added relevance to the motion and main ideas in the film. For example, at the last stage of the movie, The MU Gamma fraternity presented a show that incorporated wolf sounds. This was further enhanced by the fact that the group had worn torn clothes. The use of different costume by the different fraternities brought out their sophistication. The director selected costumes that are widely used by todays generation of dancing artists. This film has a significant impact on its audiences. There are several aspects that have been tackled in the movie. The movie develops and improves on the dancing skill of those interested in dancing. It also urges the individuals (specifically the youth) to fight for what they want through dedication and commitment. For example, DJ has to overcome so many obstacles in order to accomplish the goals he has. The movie also shows the importance of standing by friends and family. This is shown when DJ is taken in by his uncle and also when April stands up to her father in order to defend DJ. April also comforts and encourages DJ when hes just about to quit and she manages to convince him to keep going. Â  Furthermore it portrays the consequences of hatred among individuals. For instance, the hatred that Aprils father has for DJs uncle is immense such that he does not want DJ to be with his daughter. The hatred between DJ and Grant also causes DJs suspension (when grant investigates abou t DJs past and finds that he had a criminal record). For those people that love dance movies, stomp the yard brings new ideas and moves to the screen. The movie unlike other many dance films enhances the importance of uniformity when performing as a crew. It is a truly captivating film that is fun and educative to watch. Heavy-handed and well- intentioned, Stomp the Yard proposes that step groups (and similar organizations) provide structure and inspiration for students in need of guidance and a sense of belonging. Its a decidedly masculine melodrama. Not only does DJ contend with paternal dis approvals (his uncle thinks stepping is a waste of time, and Aprils dad warns him that My daughter is not some shorty for you to mess with!), but he must also come to terms with his own competitive hostility and Durans death. At the same time, he has to come up with a killer step routine for the group. Luckily, DJ is inspired by Truths amazing array of sorority and fraternity alumni, who are enshrined in Heritage Hall, Â  the list includes Esther Rolle, Hines Ward, Michael Jordan, Rosa Parks, and Coretta Scott King, among others. Â  Stomp the Yard, as its’ predecessors, offers the hope that there is indeed a better life out there to those who wish to grab a hold of it. It provided to me a good feeling when DJ entered Heritage House and paid respect to all the Civil Rights leaders and influential people who paved the way for him to succeed. More movies need to focus on uplifting people rather than portraying their stereotypes and continuing the circle of despair. Yes, its a strained conceit, but Sylvain Whites movie does well to remind all of us of these powerful embodiments of resistance, motivation, and truth.

Comparative Analysis, Haroun and the sea of stories and Inanna Essays

Comparative Analysis, Haroun and the sea of stories and Inanna Essays Comparative Analysis, Haroun and the sea of stories and Inanna Paper Comparative Analysis, Haroun and the sea of stories and Inanna Paper Essay Topic: Back in the World Stories Literature I will be comparing and contrasting The decent of Inanna which is part of the cycle of many other stories in this book which date back to around 5000 years. Wolkstein and Kramer take us back to these years when humans found different ways to communicate before language was introduced; through sound, like the repetition in Inanna which brings a musical beat into mind, body gestures, like the shadow warrior Mudra, and pictures, like the cuneiforms shown in Inanna. This book was interpreted by a folklorist who collected and recorded the tales, legends and songs of modern contemporary societies and a cuneiformist who has restored and translated the written tales, legends and songs from the Sumerians times. On the surface, Haroun and the Sea of Stories appears to be a simplistic, light-hearted novel that reads almost like a childrens tale. Beneath the surface, however, something much more profound is stirring, which brings us on an adventure where stories have been passed on and interpreted to create a mythical allusion of a sea of stories as Salman Rashdie wrote. This allusion is shown on page 72. He looked into the water and saw that it was made up of a thousand thousand thousand and one different currents, each one a different colour, weaving in and out of one another like liquid tapestry of breath taking complexity; and Iff explained that these were the streams of story, that each colored strand represented and contained a single tale. Different parts of the Ocean contained different sorts of stories, and as all the stories that had ever been told and many that were still in the process of being invented could be found here, the Ocean of the Streams of Story was in fact the biggest library in the universe. And because the stories were held here in fluid form, they retained the ability to change, to become a new version of themselves, to join up with the other stories and so become yet other stories. Both passages, the decent of Inanna and the dark ship play an important part in Inannas and Harouns character development. Inanna wants to open her wisdom to the great below, since this is the place where Inanna can obtain the knowledge of death and rebirth, life and status that will make her honorable and a guide to the land. From the great above she opened her ear to the great below. Her ear refers to wisdom since it is coiled like a labyrinth which takes in sound and begins to transform the imperceptible into meaning shown on page 52. Haroun also has to descend to the South Pole to fight the antagonist Khattan-Shud (who personifies censorship) to save his father and everyone else from having story droughts. This can be compared to Inannas decent since they have the same environment on their journeys both having dry, dark and cold atmospheres. The waters of the ocean were growing thicker by the mile, thicker and colder; many of the streams of story were full of a dark slow moving substance that looked like molasses. In both stories there is a motif of light and dark which are always being brought into perspective, usually through the characters or places. They often complement each other to form a whole, like the ying-yang symbol. For example, Inanna who is Queen of Heaven and earth does not have knowledge about the underworld; she therefore descends to come in contact with the unconscious, rejected dark side of herself who can be considered a witch since she has been unloved, abandoned, forced to rule the underworld which causes her to be very lonely, angry and greedy. Ereshkigal then takes all of Inannas accomplishments to show her what it is like to have nothing. When she entered the seventh gate, from her body the royal robe was removed. Inanna asked: what is this? She was told: quiet, Inanna, the ways of the underworld are perfect. They may not be questioned. Naked and bowed low, Inanna entered the throne room. (60) Ereshkigal, the darker side of Inanna can be compared to Harouns shadow, which can represent the loss of his mother. Once Haroun makes the connection that Mr. Sengupta has taken the form of the antagonist Khattan-Shud it creates a foreshadowing of a realisation that implies not merely that stories mirror reality but expose truth and shape of opinion. This gives Haroun the strength to fight the Cultmaster due to the fact that Mr. Sengupta was the reason his mother left. I know you, Haroun shouted. Youre him. Youre Mr. Sengupta and you stole my mother and you left the fat lady behind and youre a sniveling, driveling, mangy, stingy, measly, weaselly clerk. Where are you hiding her? Maybe shes a prisoner on this ship! Come on hand her over. ( 155) The Cultmaster personifies censorship and evil and it is inherited in his characters tone (monotone) which is ironic since his name, Khattan-Shud means end giving an impression that stories are ending and starting all the time during this book. He has good reason to try and put an end to stories which is thats stories have too much power, they can create many disasters and cause disruption due to the fact that one person could have mingled with a story instead of sticking to the facts. The Cultmaster came over and peered into Harouns face. What brought you up here eh? He asked in his dull dull voice. Stories I suppose. He said the word stories as if it were the rudest, most contemptible word in the language. What starts with stories ends with spying, and thats a serious charge, boy, no charge more serious. Youd have done better to keep your feet on the ground but you had your head in the air. Youd have done better to stick to facts, but you were stuffed with stories. Youd have done better to have stayed home, but up you came. Stories make trouble. An Ocean of stories is and Ocean of trouble. (155) Time is important in both stories, half of the year Inanna and Dumuzi will be united, trees will blossom but as the seasons change, Dumuzi will enter a period of inactivity, quietude and meditation due to the times of harvest. You will go to the underworld half the year, your sister, since she has asked will go the other half. On the day you are called, that day you will be taken. On that day Geshtianna is called, that day you will be set free. (87) In Haroun and the sea of stories, seasons differentiate between the guppies which symbolize spring since it is always dry, hot and sunny in their land and the chupwalas symbolize winter due to the rain and darkness. Also the cycle of life is shown since the story starts and ends almost the same way as if none of it had ever happened as if it were a dream. In the north of the sad city stood mighty factories in which (so Im told) sadness was actually manufactured, packaged and sent all over the world, which never seemed to get enough of it. Black smoke poured out of the chimneys of sadness factories and hung over the city like bad news. (15) At the end of the novel, as the citizens of the city Kahani rejoice over their newfound name, water pours from the sky, suggesting the lasting happiness that language can bring. Showing the memory of the name Kahani, which happens to mean story, as the one thing that can make a sad city happy, Rushdie implies the vast importance of freedom of speech and words. Looks like the old city finally learnt how to have fun, Rashid grinned. But why? Haroun asked. Nothings really changed, has it? Look, the sadness factories are still in production, you can see the smoke; and almost everybody is still poor has something happened while weve been away? A miracle for example? Its just the rain, replied the old bird. Its making everybody happy. (208) Marginalization is seen in both books, the norm in Inanna is the male, for example Enki and Ereshkigal compliment each other. Enki is conscious, has the power of life and light whereas Ereshkigal is unconscious, has the power of death and darkness. The human race obviously is more comfortable in the daytime then at night due to the fact that we are not nocturnal, we cannot see very well in the dark which brings a sense of insecurity. The male has been the norm in our society since the beginning of human life. The man is seen as the one with reason, authority and strength whereas the woman is seen as the one with emotion, mercy and weakness which makes her inferior. In Haroun and the sea of stories, story tellers and speech are the norm and silence, shadows and repression are the other. Once Rashid has his story telling drought, there is a power shift and silence, shadows and repression become the norm. The shadows still have a life of their own; however it is no longer regarded as the bad side of a person. This transition can even be seen in Harouns thoughts in which gruesome combat turns into something as beautiful as a dance. And as they fought each other, standing toe to toe, Haroun began to think of their combat as a dance of great beauty and grace, a dance danced in perfect silence because the music was playing inside the dancers heads (124). Haroun explains this a little further, he dance of the Shadow Warrior showed him that silence had its own grace and beauty (just as speech could be graceless and ugly); and that Action could be as noble as Words; and that creatures of darkness could be as lovely as the children of the light (125). Haroun connects two opposite things, such as Action and Words and connect them with could be, indicating that he generally does not associate these actions with being noble. Haroun is only able to make these connections due to the shadow warrior, just a couple of pages before, shadows were seen as doom, however this idea subverts itself and turns the idea into grace and beauty. In conclusion, both stories have many similarities however they are portrayed in different ways to express different meanings. Inannas stories were some of the first stories ever told over 5 000 years ago, however since then many stories have been introduced and mixed together. Representing stories by an ocean is no mistake on Rushdies part, since water is essential for life, and oceans flow and mix together in much the same way that stories do.

Argentavis - Facts and Figures

Argentavis - Facts and Figures Name: Argentavis (Greek for Argentina bird); pronounced ARE-jen-TAY-viss Habitat: Skies of South America Historical Epoch: Late Miocene (6 million years ago) Size and Weight: 23-foot wingspan and up to 200 pounds Diet: Meat Distinguishing Characteristics: Enormous wingspan; long legs and feet About Argentavis Just how big was Argentavis? To put things in perspective, one of the largest flying birds alive today is the Andean Condor, which has a wingspan of nine feet and weighs about 25 pounds. By comparison, the wingspan of Argentavis was comparable to that of a small planeclose to 25 feet from tip to tipand it weighed anywhere between 150 and 250 pounds. By these tokens, Argentavis is best compared not to other prehistoric birds, which tended to be much more modestly scaled, but to the huge pterosaurs that preceded it by 60 million years, notably the giant Quetzalcoatlus  (which had a wingspan of up to 35 feet). Given its enormous size, you might assume that Argentavis was the top bird of Miocene South America, about six million years ago. However, at this time, terror birds were still thick on the ground, including descendants of the slightly earlier Phorusrhacos and Kelenken. These flightless birds were built like meat-eating dinosaurs, complete with long legs, grasping hands, and sharp beaks that they wielded on their prey like hatchets. Argentavis probably kept a wary distance from these terror birds (and vice-versa), but it may well have raided their hard-won kill from above, like some kind of oversized flying hyena. A flying animal the size of Argentavis presents some difficult issues, chief of which is how this prehistoric bird managed to a) launch itself off the ground and b) keep itself in the air once launched. Its now believed that Argentavis took off and flew like a pterosaur, unfurling its wings (but only rarely flapping them) in order to catch the high-altitude air currents above its South American habitat. Its still unknown if Argentavis was an active predator of the huge mammals of late Miocene South America, or if, like a vulture, it contented itself with scavenging already-dead corpses; all we can say for sure is that it was definitely not a pelagic (sea-flying) bird like modern seagulls, since its fossils were discovered in the interior of Argentina. As with its style of flight, paleontologists have made a lot of educated guesses about Argentavis, most of which, unfortunately, are not supported by direct fossil evidence. For example, analogy with similarly built modern birds suggests that Argentavis laid very few eggs (perhaps an average of only one or two per year), which were carefully brooded by both parents, and presumably not subject to frequent predation by hungry mammals. Hatchlings probably left the nest after about 16 months, and were only fully grown by the age of 10 or 12; most controversially, some naturalists have suggested that Argentavis could attain a maximum age of 100 years, about the same as modern (and much smaller) parrots, which are already among the longest-lived vertebrates on earth.

Written History is Never Valid Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Written History is Never Valid - Essay Example Scholars denote that written or documented history is not a valid form of historical preservation. According to these scholars, documented history has a number of disadvantages, and hence, it cannot qualify as an effective means of preserving a particular historical event. For example, these scholars denote that historians who use these forms of historical preservation can have a bias on what they record . Take for example, the emergence of the Second World War. During this war, Hitler, the President of Germany was the villain. However, his activities will be recorded differently, depending on which side the historian is. Those who supported the activities of Hitler might record his activities on a positive note, while those who were against the policies of Hitler, might record them on a negative note . On this basis, recorded history does not give accurate information on what really happened because of bias. However, there are a number of scholars who believe that written history is a valid method of historical preservation . These same scholars denote that the information that is contained in the written records is adequate, and reliable. This is because important dates of the historical event are recorded. On this basis, historians are able to know the time period in which an event occurred, the circumstances of the occurrence . Written records are able to capture in detail, making sure that all the necessary and important information are captured and documented. Documented history has been used since the invention of writing in the 4th millennium.... However, his activities will be recorded differently, depending on which side the historian is. Those who supported the activities of Hitler might record his activities on a positive note, while those who were against the policies of Hitler, might record them on a negative note4. On this basis, recorded history does not give accurate information on what really happened because of bias. However, there are a number of scholars who believe that written history is a valid method of historical preservation5. These same scholars denote that the information that is contained in the written records is adequate, and reliable. This is because important dates of the historical event are recorded. On this basis, historians are able to know the time period in which an event occurred, the circumstances of the occurrence6. Written records are able to capture in detail, making sure that all the necessary and important information are captured and documented. Documented history has been used since th e invention of writing in the 4th millennium. On this basis, recorded history is a very important and effective mechanism of preserving historical information. Scholars denote that in the 19th, 20th, and 21st century, the most dominant method of historical preservation is the use of written history. For instances, the exploits of Napoleon Bonaparte, the emergence of the first and the Second World War, the American Civil war, are all documented, and stored in the library archives of the various states in the world. These important historical events are documented, and a specific date given on their occurrences, and factors that triggered their occurrences7. However, in as much as these important historical; events are written, it is important to denote that the