Essay on Revealing the Ambiguious Black Theatre - 1766 Words

Finding the core of something as broad as black theatre is an ultimate task for one to take on. Black theatre is very complex in nature and structure and not everyone agrees on the exact components of what black theatre really is. How does anyone decide what black theatre is? Who has the right to decide what black theatre is? What are these decisions based on? It has been my privilege to explore these aspects of black theatre. Through extensive research and discovery, I plan to evaluate the perceptions of what black theatre is and develop a refined definition of black theatre. In attending a class the summer of 2002, I was posed the question of what black theatre is. I really could not give a clear definition because I had not†¦show more content†¦If one were to ask the public the same question, what is black art, the answers very well may be the same as mine were. I actually have asked several college students, young and old, what they thought Black theatre is and they gave blanks looks as to say, I dont know, or, I have never thought about it. The students that did answer, answered on the on the lines that the actors or actresses were Black and that was the extent. I encouraged them to think about whether the writer had to be black and the director had to be Black. At this point students for the most part did not want to finish the conversation or were unable to come up with their own opinion about the matter without thinking over the subject for a longer period. The feeling of ignorance and bewilderment that these students and I felt are some of the similar feeling Black artists had pre the Black Arts Movement. To clarify, there are still people that do not understand or have any idea of what Black theatre is, but the Black Arts Movement helped to lay some ground work and guides lines for what black theatre should be and is. W.E.B. Dubois coined four principles of theory of what black theatre should be. These principles were, and are still, openly accepted as guidelines for what black theatre is. Black art

Sentencing Paper - 1264 Words

Sentencing Paper Tushar Vincent Botlero 12 March 2012 CJ/A-234 Melissa Andrewjeski Sentencing Paper Punishment has been a subject of deliberate among philosophers, political leaders, and lawyers for centuries. Various theories of punishment have been developed, each of which attempts to justify the practice in some form and to state its proper objectives. The quantity and severity of punishments were reduced, the prison system have been improved. According to the Montgomery County Correctional Facility, Maryland, some of the major reasons for punishment are to reform, deterrence, rehabilitation, compensation, and retribution. Punishment for reform is intended to benefit the offender and society by changing the†¦show more content†¦According to the Law Reform Commission, the purpose of sentencing criminal offender by the court is â€Å"to ensure that the offender is adequately punished for the offence, to prevent the crime by deterring the offender and other persons from committing similar offences, to protect the community from the offender, to promote t he rehabilitation of the offenders, make the offender accountable for his or her actions, denounce the conduct of the offender, and recognize the harm done to the victim of the crime and the community†. Sentencing does not have to result in punishment. Just for theoretical purposes, we could have it result in the opposite, reward, if we were to give criminals a cash bonus or favorable recognition for each crime they committed. Punishment was something that was done of necessity to maintain balance and restore order in human relations or in the universe. Legal scholars agree that punishment in ancient societies was based primarily on retribution or retaliation for the harm done by the crime. One purpose of state punishment is obviously to rehabilitate the offender, to correct the offenders moral attitudes and anti-social behavior and to reform him or her, which means to assist the offender to return to normal life as a useful member of the community. Punishment can also be seen as a corporal punishment deterrent because it warns other people of what will happen if they areShow MoreRelatedSentencing Paper Individual1170 Words   |  5 Pagesï » ¿ Sentencing Paper Toska Reed Introduction of Corrections/CJA234 February 02, 2015 University of Phoenix Online Professor John Eckert Sentencing Paper In this paper will describe how the system analyzes the principal objectives of punishment within the United States correctional system. It will also describe how the state and federal systems goals of punishment. How does sentencing affect the state and federal corrections systems overall and I will explain and support my answer? AlsoRead MorePunishment and Sentencing Paper1278 Words   |  6 PagesPunishment and Sentencing Paper CJA/224 Garrett LeGrange September 17, 2010 There are many different philosophies that are in use in the court systems when determining what sort of punishment will be imposed on someone who is found guilty of committing a crime. These philosophies are in use in both the adult courts and juvenile courts. The juvenile court system is similar to the adult courts, but there are many differences between the two. Both court systems try and keep crime from happeningRead MoreLife Without Parole For Minors1869 Words   |  8 PagesAbstract Life without parole for minors has been ruled as a form of cruel and unusual punishment. There are multiple cases that will be talked about in the paper to explain why it is considered cruel and unusual, as well as the importance of each of these cases in relation to one another. Another important aspect that will be looked at is the resentencing of individuals who were sentenced to life without parole who now need to have their cases reviewed. These few important cases make a large impactRead MoreThe Mandatory Minimum Sentencing Laws1688 Words   |  7 Pagescriticized for its many problems and errors; one in particular that caught my attention was the mandatory minimum sentencing laws. These laws basically set minimum sentences for certain crimes that judges cannot lower, even for extenuating circumstances. The most common of these laws deal with drug offenses and set mandatory minimum sentences for possession of a drug over a certain amount. Sentencing procedures can vary from ju risdiction to Jurisdiction. Most of these laws are ineffective and causes unnecessaryRead MoreProblems With Mandatory Minimum Sentencing1802 Words   |  8 Pages Problems with Mandatory Minimum Sentencing Willuance Mesalien Nova Southeastern University Abstract Ben Whishaw once said, The criminal justice system, like any system designed by human beings, clearly has its flaws. For many years, the criminal justice system has been criticized for its many problems and errors; one in particular that caught my attention was the mandatory minimum sentencing laws. These laws basically set minimum sentences for certain crimes that judges cannot lowerRead MoreA Call for a Revision of Mandatory Minumum Drug Laws Essay2886 Words   |  12 Pagescommitters of minor drug offenses are receiving sentences too large and too severe for the crimes committed. Mandatory minimum sentencing laws affect many parts of the law and all parts of sentencing. The argument of Crack cocaine vs. powder cocaine is also prevalent and is a big issue in the legal community currently regarding mandatory minimums. There is a huge disparity in sentencing penalties for the different forms of this one drug. Powder cocaine is the kind portrayed in film as white powder and crackRead MoreMiller V. Alabama1421 Words   |  6 Pageschose to hear the case was their age and the mandatory minimum sentence each of them received at the lower level jurisdictional court. To highlight the significance, a review of the two respective cases is necessary. Additionally, after reading this paper the reader will have a better understanding of what accomplice liability and criminal liability are, and the differences between the various elements of crime, and how liability and the elements of crime relate to the reviewed case. Evan Miller Read MoreWriting Process Over The Past Years Essay1074 Words   |  5 Pageswriting papers. I have used college based websites, including BGSU,and new’s pages including WTOL and 13 ABC. I also have used a very helpful website named citation machine. This website helps me make sure websites are credible.These have helped me get useful and informative information that I can rely on being truthful.I now believe i have a great set of researching skills that will help me immensely with being successful with my career. Another way that I used to go through my papers is havingRead MoreMandatory Minimum Sentencing Laws For Drug Offences1089 Words   |  5 Pagesconsequences today, the most notable being mandatory minimum sentencing laws for drug offences. This issue has been extensively researched by Kieran Riley with an article in the Boston University Law Journal titled â€Å"Trial by Legislature: Why Statutory Mandatory Minimum Sentences Violate the Separation of Powers Doctrine†, Paul Cassell and Erik Luna with a peer-reviewed scholarly article titled â€Å"Sense and Sensibility in Mandatory Minimum Sentencing†, and the Families Against Mandatory Minimums organizationRead MoreMandatory Minimum Sentencing On Violent Crimes Essay1492 Words   |  6 PagesJ’son West Nov. 12. 2016 CJ 202 Canon Mandatory Minimum Sentencing on Violent Crimes Crime in America is growing at a substantial rate and repeat offenders are playing a huge roll in this growth. Mandatory minimum sentences, first established in Connecticut in 1969 and expanded throughout the 1980s and 1990s, exemplify a shift in public policy to impose a specific amount of imprisonment based on the crime committed and the defendant’s criminal history, and away from other individual offender characteristics

Katyn and Vinnytsia Essay Example For Students

Katyn and Vinnytsia Essay Katyn and VinnytsiaWorld War II, itself a source of immense crimes, revealed two Soviet crimes of hideous mass murder which might never have been discovered without German intervention. Ironically, the methodical Germans fully documented these two crimes perpetrated by Stalins Soviet Union. The better known one was in the forest near Katyn, a Russian village, where the Germans in 1943 reported finding the graves of 4,250 Polish army officers. They had been captured by the Soviet Army in 1939-40 during the occupation of Galicia and shot in 1940. Another 8,000 were killed elsewhere by the Russians. In 1989 the USSR formed a Commission to investigate and partly admitted this war crime was committed by the Soviet NKVD. Vinnytsia is a Ukrainian city 120 miles south-west of Kiev which had a population of about 100,000 in 1939. On May 25, 1943 a large German team of professors of forensic science and international experts started excavating three mass murder sites of 1937 and 1938 in Vinnytsia. The local population thought that about 20,000 people who had disappeared had probably been murdered there by the Soviet NKVD secret police on orders from Moscow. Procedures were systematically followed by the German investigators and everything was carefully documented. The victims had their hands tied behind their backs and were shot in the back of the head. From May to October 1943 there were 9,432 corpses, including 169 women, found in three burial places. Of these 679 were identified from their documents and garments by relatives. The Soviet government had hidden the graves in a pear orchard and by building a Public Park on top of the mass graves with swings and playground equipment. (Kamenetsky; Zayas p. 240-44, 204.) Words/ Pages : 284 / 24

Leadership as One of the Important Factors in any Organization

Abstract Leadership is one of the important factors in any organization. Whenever there is a group of individuals in a place, there is always a need to have a leadership structure that would guide the team towards the desired destination. Scholars have given leadership a lot of attention due to its relevance in the current society. As a result of this, there has been a lot of theories put forth to help explain and enhance understanding of this topic.Advertising We will write a custom essay sample on Leadership as One of the Important Factors in any Organization specifically for you for only $16.05 $11/page Learn More Max Weber is one of the scholars who have come up with theories of leadership in the contemporary world. Transformational leadership and charismatic leaders are some of the most popular styles of leadership that have become very relevant today. Charisma has been defined as a gift that is divinely inspired. Charismatic leaders are therefore, those with the capacity to inspire followers through their actions and speech to act in a way that they believed was beyond their capacity. Transformational leadership was put forth by James McGregor. This leadership style appeals to the self-interest of the employees in order to influence their behavior in a specific way. The former chief executive of Apple Inc. Steve Jobs was a leader who exhibited both the characteristics of charismatic leadership and transformational leadership. This explained the success of this firm in the electronic industry. Richard Branson is another such leader in the current business world. Key Theories of the Nature and Exercise of Leadership in Organizations Leadership has attracted massive attention of various scholars around the world. According to Huy (2002, p. 77), a number of theories of leadership have been put forth by various scholars. Leadership is one of the most important factors that always dictate success or failure of an organization in th e world today. Leadership has been in existence for as long as the history of humankind can be traced. As Hong and Faedda (1996, p. 505) put it, a leadership goes beyond providing direction to followers. It entails going into details to discover the potential of the followers. It involves engaging the followers in a way that would make them discover themselves. It involves helping followers develop the urge to achieve. It is the art of making people realize that they have a potential to achieve beyond their current capacity. Leadership requires a leader to challenge the followers positively in a way that would make them feel that they need to rediscover themselves.Advertising Looking for essay on business economics? Let's see if we can help you! Get your first paper with 15% OFF Learn More According to Kouzes and Posner (2002, p. 89), the current corporate world has become very challenging. New firms are coming into existence with new strategies that never existed bef ore. Technology is changing the face of the earth. This poses serious challenge to firms operating in the current market. Firms are currently facing challenges from various corners. The customer in the contemporary market has access to vast information, thanks to the advanced means of communication through the mass and social media. These consumers know that they have an array of options to choose from when they want to make any purchase. They are therefore, very demanding. They are willing to pay less for a product whose quality has been improved. Huczynsky and Buchanan (2007, p. 67) say that customers are currently asking for more, but are willing to pay less. This reduces profitability of firms. On the other hand, suppliers are now demanding for more for the supplies they make to such organization. Such suppliers cite increased standards of living, inflation among other factors as a reason for increasing the prices of their supplies (Adair 1973, p. 78). The cost of maintaining a business is very high. Various input factors have increased in price. The environmental conditions for conducting business have also been subjected to various other bottlenecks making the entire process very complicated. All these challenges are always presented to the leaders of various organizations to deal with. A firm has to come up with means through which it can wade off these challenges and deliver quality products in the market in the best way possible (Drake Salter2007, p. 1980). This way, a firm would be able to come out as a successful business unit that can withstand market pressures. Firms share external environmental factors. Emerging technologies, good government policies, a promising market are factors that a firm cannot consider as a competitive advantage. They are factors that are shared by all the firms in that particular industry (Burns1978, p. 57). A firm must therefore develop its policies that will give it a competitive edge in the market. A firm should devel op mechanisms through which it can challenge the existing market threats in the best way possible. It should be able to stand out among the rest, as a firm that understands the market and is able to provide it with what it needs.Advertising We will write a custom essay sample on Leadership as One of the Important Factors in any Organization specifically for you for only $16.05 $11/page Learn More A firm must appear positively special. All this depends on the leadership of the firm and as Northouse (2010, p. 68) says, it is through leadership that a firm can appear unique in a market where various factors are shared by the competitors. This requires proper management of the workforce. According to Rollinson (2005, p. 117), this current delicate market conditions requires a strategy that will help it have the best workforce that can drive the changes required within the firm. This is what most firms have realized and are determined to achieve. They need t o go beyond simple management of the workforce. In the management, we need leaders (Goleman, Boyatzis McKee 2002, p. 75). This is because the current world has gotten increasingly democratic. Many organizations today have their employees being members of trade unions. They want to enjoy maximum benefits that their employer can afford to give them, and hate restrictions. They resent strict rules and prefer working without strict supervision. This new crop of employees may not be able to be managed using the conventional management approaches. They have to be managed from a different approach (Tannenbaum Schmidt1973, p. 87). They have to be managed in a way that would make them comfortable while at the workplace. This is what many firms are looking for in their management. This is what leadership offers to the management. This research is focused on understanding the essence of leadership in the current competitive world. Blake and Mouton’s Managerial Grid Black and Moutonâ₠¬â„¢s managerial grid is one of the most important leadership theories in the contemporary world. The grid is as shown below.As evidenced from the above grid, the theory gives emphasis on concern for people and concern for production. As a leader, there is always a concern to ensure that the organization functions effectively. This can be measured by increased productivity of the firm. Thistheory says that productivity should not be overemphasized at the expense of employees.Advertising Looking for essay on business economics? Let's see if we can help you! Get your first paper with 15% OFF Learn More Employees are very valuable to any organization, and their interest should be taken care of. The need for productivity should be balanced with the need to protect the employees. At (1, 1) is impoverished management where employees concern is not taken care of, and production is poor. At (9, 1), emphasis is laid on task, while taking middle ground (5, 5) would help the firm achieve its objectives moderately with moderately satisfied employees. At (1, 9), emphasis is given on concern for employees. The best grid is at (9, 9) always referred to as team management. Employees concern is emphasized while ensuring that production is put at maximum levels possible. House’s Path Goal Theory According to this theory, four leadership styles are important in ensuring success within an organization. The four include directive nature of the leader, supportive leadership, participative leadership and result-oriented leadership. These behavioral leadership characteristics will influence em ployee behavior, and manage environmental factors in order to achieve leadership effectiveness. Great Man Theory of Leadership There has been an argument that some leaders are just born great. Great man theory of leadership holds that some people are born with leadership characteristics that are exhibited even before ascending to power. Yukl and Lepsinger (2004, p. 78) say that such individuals would have an aura of influence whenever they are. Such leaders would have the ability to influence people who are around them. Such leaders as Alexander the Great, Abraham Lincoln, Julius Caesar, and Queen Elizabeth I are some of the leaders who have been viewed to have exhibited natural leadership characteristics. In the contemporary world, leaders such as Barrack Obama and Bill Clinton have also been thought to have such leadership characteristics that make them be seen as people naturally born leaders. Transformational leadership in Organizations Transformational leadership is defined by Yukl (2010, p. 117) as a type of leadership that uses motivation to enhance the performance of employees. Pielstick (1998, p. 75) defines leadership as a process where an individual (a leader) offers guidance to a group of individuals (followers) in an organizational structure. Leadership is one of the most important factors in any organization. Leadership and management share a number of attributes, but they differ in various fronts. Transformational leadership, as the name suggest, provides a completely new path to approaching various issues in an organization. It provides an insight the employees. One of the main aims of a transformational leader is to create a completely new approach in managing various issues within the organization. This is what the current world demands of a firm. Emerging technologies are changing various approaches of management. The emerging trends need new approaches that can be used to provide a way in which they can be managed differently. Transformatio nal leadership attempts to make employees discover themselves. According to Hacker and Tammy (2004, p. 46), a transformational leader will always make followers realize that they have untapped capacity which they can exploit to get better results in every activity they are doing. Unlike management, leadership takes the front line in bringing change that is needed. It involves making the followers realize that they are part of the change. It makes employees own the whole process. They feel that some changes that are proposed are part of them and are meant to make their work easier. This way, they develop the responsibility to ensure that these changes are accomplished successfully and within the specified time. Such leadership will evoke desires on the followers to see to it that specific desires are achieved within the specified time. It is an art of tying the objectives of a firm to that of employees. Nature and Relevance of Transformational leadership in Organizations Transformati onal leadership has some characteristics that make it unique from other forms of leadership. Transformational leadership cherishes authenticity. It encourages followers to act as natural as possible. People who act naturally always tend to give their best. Passion is another major characteristic of transformational leadership. A transformational leader must be passionate about every action they take. This way, it becomes possible for the followers to take this characteristic from the leaders. Followers will develop passion when they realize that their leader has passion in his or her actions. Transformational leadership should also embrace creativity. Creativity is very crucial in the contemporary world. A leader must be able to solve problems in a creative manner. They have to encourage the culture of creativity in their employees. This way, such an organization will be able to be creative in the market. Transformational leaders always have self-awareness. They understand what they stand for and are able to express this feeling to the followers. This way, it would be easy to avoid cases where a leader issues instruction, which he or she can change abruptly without a clear explanation for the same. Transformational leaders always have interpersonal intelligence. This is important to help bring people of different social backgrounds together. Organization brings together individuals from different backgrounds. It would require interpersonal intelligence to make these people reason in the same line and work as a unit towards achieving specific objectives. In managing organizations today, Conger (2006, p. 39) says that integrity is of utmost importance. A transformational leader always has integrity. It is important to note that transformational leadership aims at bringing a completely new approach of doing various activities in a better way. Integrity will be one of the main ingredients in that leadership. It will be possible to tell others to maintain integrity only if the leaders show the same in their actions. A transformational leader must also develop clarity of purpose. The leader must be sure of what he or she wants from the followers and from the leaders. According to Biswas (2011, p. 27), having a clear sense of purpose on what one does makes it possible to measure the level of success of an individual. This way, it becomes easy for such a leader to determine the rate at which objectives of the firm is being achieved. Finally, such a leader always has a global awareness of various factors in the environment. When the leader is managing a large multinational organization, understanding factors in the immediate environment may not make one formulate policies that can benefit all the branches of the firm. Such a leader must have global awareness of various environmental factors in order to transform employees and the firm in general towards desired direction. Besides the above characteristics, transformational leadership has four mai n elements that help in making it unique in the market. The four are discussed below. Intellectual Stimulation According to Bustin (2004, p. 28), a leader should be able to stimulate creativity in employee. This trait makes transformational leaders be able to challenge the current capacity of the followers with a view of making them achieve the best from them. Care should be taken to avoid scenarios where the standards set on employees are beyond their capacity. As a result, employees tend to strain in order to achieve these objectives. In this case, the challenge will come in the form of soliciting new ideas from the followers (Gill 2011, p. 67). This way, the leader will be telling followers that they are also important in developing policies that can help transform the organization. It involves engaging employees in coming up with creative solution to the challenges that they face in their daily routines. Individualized Consideration A leader handles various individuals from diff erent backgrounds. Although these individuals may share a number of characteristics, Halel (2000, p. 56) says that some differences make an individual unique. Individual A will have different needs from individual B, however much they may share some characteristic. Individualized consideration is the level at which a leader attends to individual follower’s needs. A transformational leader must be able to give personalized attention to the employees. They should try to make followers feel that they have a personal relationship with the leader. Such a leader is a coach and a mentor of the followers. He or she should therefore be able to talk to these people on an individual capacity. This trait is also important in charismatic leadership (Kotter 1990, p. 37). Inspirational Motivation As Pardey (2007, p. 46) says, in the current society, management requires some form of inspiration on the employees. Vision of an organization is always very important in achieving organizational g oals. Vision helps members of an organization see where the organization is headed. It helps in marking followers be sure of what the organization expects of them. A leader must be able to pass the organization’s vision in an inspiring and appealing manner. The vision must make sense to the followers and it should develop an urge to achieve specific results within a stipulated period. Followers should feel inspired (Conger 2006, p. 78). They should develop an urge to surge ahead and achieve some objectives within the confines of their ability. They should be motivated to go a step further in achieving specific goals within the organization. Followers should be made to be optimistic in their activities, and made to appreciate that they can achieve when they decides to delimit themselves (Goleman, Boyatzis McKee 2002, 98). Idealized Influence According to Kotter(1990, p. 78), a leader is always a role model. A leader always guides others towards achieving a common goal of the organization. A leader must therefore, be ethical in actions, and avoid cases that would lower his status among the followers. He or she should try to lead an ideal life, where preventable mistakes are avoided at all costs, especially in the face of the followers. Such a leader should instill pride in the followers. He or she should make followers be proud of him or her in their actions. Such a leader should gain respect of the followers. Above all, followers should develop strong trust of the leader. They should be convinced that the path taken by the firm is the right path that would lead everyone towards a common success. McGregor’s Theory X and Y The current society needs self-motivated employees. This would help in ensuring that they are able to work with minimal supervision. This can best be elaborated usingMcGregor’s theory X and Y. According to this theory, employees can either be viewed as lazy people who need heavy supervision to work appropriately, which is theory X. Theory Y holds that employees are self motivated and can deliver good work with very minimal supervision. Human resource management should always think positively of the employees, therefore should take theory Y in managing then. A leader should embrace theory Y. In the current society, leaders cannot afford to have a situation wherethey follow every action done by their followers. The best way to manage employees is to motivate them and make them feel responsible for every action they undertake. Evaluation of the Behavior of Leaders in Selected Organization Various organizations have had different leaders that have seen them excel in the market, or perform dismally. One of the firms that have attracted attention of many within the past one decade is Apple Inc. Apple had a troubled management in the mid 1980s and 1990s. Its market performance was considered average as it struggled to manage market competition in the electronics industry. The firm realized that it needed a leader who would steer the firm from registering looses, to a profit making firm. When Jobs was brought back to the firm in late 1996, he realized that the firm needed a radical shift from what it was practicing then (Rollinson 2005, p. 121). The leadership style of Steve Jobs brings both charisma and traits of transformational leadership. He realized that the firm was engaged in contracts that were hindering its performance in the market. He terminated the contracts, and signed new deals that would help generate the much needed change within the firm. This move surprised many employees within the firm, but after less than three months, the firm had started making profits. He won the trust of the employees, and then used this trust to transform their attitude while at work. According to Yukl (2010, p. 27), attitude is always very important in defining actions of employees. The difference between industrious and creative employee and a lazy one who lacks focus is the attitude. This i s what Jobs was aware of when he joined this firm. Attitude always dictates the way an individual would approach certain issues within the firm. When dealing with employees, one of the most important factors that one has to consider is developing a positive attitude that would help every member of the organization have the urge to move forward. As state above, attitude of employees is always determined by the actions of the management team. Instilling a positive attitude on employees towards what they do remains one of the key functions of leaders in the current society (Northouse 2010, p. 47). This is what Steve Jobs used to ensure that the firm achieves its objectives in the market. It is the same strategy he used to make Apple the most valuable brand in the world in 2010, and one of the most profitable companies. Steve Jobs has been keen on nurturing talents within the firm. In order to maintain creativity and innovativeness of this firm, Jobs has been keen on maintaining skilled employees within the firm. This is because of the clear understanding this manager has over the level of competition in the market. Jobs knew that the level of competition in this industry was very stiff, but it had to find a way of maintaining its lead in this industry. In had to increase its innovativeness, and this would only be achieved from its employees. He knew that he had to develop a pool of skills that will be involved in undertaking various innovative duties within the firm. These employees had to be made to realize that they had a special talent that could help transform this firm positively. To achieve this, Jobs applied charisma in motivating these employees. He would always insist that every employee had its worth, and the worth would only be made useful when it was exposed by doing something that was beyond the expectation of others. According to Rollinson(2005, p. 117), in an organization, there is always a pool of talents brought together to achieve a common goal. In this pool, skills vary from one individual to another depending on experience, level of educations, and individual capability. In many cases, firms fail to realize the existence of such variety of skills if it lacks leadership that can identify it in the employees. It is therefore, common to see a manager treating employees in a given departments as individuals with similar experience. This makes it impossible for the employees themselves to realize that they have some special characteristics that can make them achieve specific objectives within the firm. By appreciating the existence of this variation, it becomes easy to enhance creativity and innovation, because each employee would realize the extraordinary skill that he or she possesses and can use to create a differential change in the firm. The skills should be improved to match with the needs of the organization (Drake Salter 2007, p. 1985). Burns(1978, p. 49) says that leadership should understand followers and identify their skills that can make them create a difference within the organization. Skill variety refers to diversification of employees in terms of knowledge and understanding of responsibilities. In an organization, a number of skills are needed to assist in triangulation. This means that solutions to problems are easily crafted because employees are drawn from various professions. Skills play a critical role in the development of the organization because employees are the key asset of any firm. Having a variety of skills in an organization is important because employees are able to work in teams, with diversified dexterities.The leadership style of Jobs enabled him realize this. Richard Branson is another manager who has demonstrated capacity of a leader in his Virgin Foundation. A brilliant entrepreneur, Branson has managed to grow the Virgin Empire to capture various industries around the world. Despite his entrepreneurial, he has demonstrated leadership capacity that is beyond reproa ch. According to Bustin (2004, p. 67), Branson believes that the strength of the firm is bestowed in the employees. He has therefore maintained a cordial relationship with the employees, always making them feel that they are appreciated within the organization. One of the most important cultures he has developed within the organization is trust in peers. Employees spend much of their time with fellow employees. They interact with their peers when doing different activities geared towards achieving specific goals for the firm. Employees should therefore develop positive attitude towards their peers in order to ensure that the internal working environment is peaceful. They should trust on one another, and believe that their problems can be solved when they work as a team. They should share innovative ideas amongst themselves and develop a working environment where each team member is a protector of others.Trust in peers refers to the extent at which workers in similar job positions wo uld be willing to cooperate amongst themselves to accomplish certain tasks. In the organization, it is understood that peers interact with their work mates as far as accomplishment of tasks is concerned. An employee would be tempted to work hard after realizing that his colleague is committed to realizing certain goals (Kouzes Posner 2002, p. 56). For instance, peers choose certain models of performance once they notice that they have similar objectives. Therefore, trust in peers refers to choosing appropriate models meant for realizing high results. This has helped Branson build a very strong Virgin Atlantic Empire. Branson has also been keen on encouraging participation at work amongst all the employees. The workplace requires participation of all members of the organization. Employees should develop an attitude of collective participation at work. Bransonhas ensured that all cases of individualism are eliminated, and its place is a team spirit (Northouse 2010, p. 67). All the me mbers of the organization havebeen made to realize that they have a responsibility to participate in every activity that the organization undertakes. To achieve this, Bransonhas ensured that there is a clear separation of duties among various groups within the organization. Divisional of labor is important because it creates a sense of responsibility (Pielstick 1998, p. 120). Employees will feel that they have a role specifically meant for them. They will realize that failure of them to achieve the goals set for them would lead to a loss to the entire firm. Employees would feel guilty of carrying the blame for a possible failure of the entire firm. They will make an effort to accomplish their tasks to avoid blames coming of their side. Participation at work refers to the input that employees place while in their relevant stations in the organization. The level of participation differs from one employee to the other. Some employees are known to be active participators while others ar e dormant. This affects the productivity of the organization in a number of ways. Branson has come out strongly to motivate dormant employees and turn them into industrious employees within the firm. Participation is also defined as the level at which the organization involves junior employees in making decisions. This has a direct outcome to the performance of the organization in the market. An organization that involves employees in making decisions would have high employee participation at work while an organization that does not consider the views of employees would definitely have minimal participation of employees at work. Richard Branson has been keen on guiding the behavior of individuals, groups and teams within this organization. According to a report by Conger (2006, p. 59), Branson has been keen on determining the behavior of every single employee and teams within the organization. This scholar says that there is always need to shape the behavior of employees in order to ensure that they act within the expectations of the leader. To achieve this, Branson has created an organizational culture that is unique to this firm. Creating an organizational culture within the firm helps ensure that the behavior of individuals or teams formed within the organization can be predicted by the leader (Burns 1978, p. 113). A leader should be not be caught unawares by an action of an individual follower or a group of them because the leader is always expected to be on top of every situation within the organization. Being able to predict the behavior of the employees or teams gives the manager an upper hand in control it as would be desirable. At Virgin Group, Branson has been very keen on ensuring that employees embrace change. According to Rollinson (2005, p. 89), Branson is one of the contemporary managers who cherish change within their organization. He has been keen on influencing employees’ readiness for change by making change part of the organizational culture of this organization. According to Northouse (2010, p. 79), an organization always faces various instances that require it to change its strategies in one way or the other in order to remain competitive. An organizational willingness to change always depends heavily on the leadership strategies of the management of the firm. Age plays an important role in determining the willingness to change. According to Pardey (2007, p. 118), the elderly do not resent change. They find it difficult to adapt to radical changes that have characterized the current business environment. They like gradual changes that they can comprehend and benefit from before a new one can be introduced. However, the current changes taking place in the business environment are very radical. They happen so suddenly, and it requires people, who are flexible enough to adapt to them. This is a fact that Branson has realized in many of the industries in which, it operates. Readiness to change always depends on t he perspective with which, leadership and the followers view change. As Rollinson (2005, p. 117) says, changes cannot be ignored.However, change can be destructive if not well taken care of by the concerned authorities. The management has the responsibility to create an environment that cherishes change. This way, organizational willingness for change will be enhanced. For change to take place, an organization must have put in place mechanisms that would help in facilitating change. Organizational readiness for change refers to the level at which the organization is prepared to embrace change (Yukl 2010, p. 113). Some organizations are never ready to accept change due to the presence of change resistors. Therefore, change cannot be proposed without putting in place measures that would facilitate the new ways of doing things. This is what Branson has put in place in its leadership style in this country. Analysis of How Two Leaders Perceive Their Roles In the contemporary world, there are various leaders who have been viewed as great leader in the contemporary world. Adolf Hitler is one such leader. Born in humble family, Adolf Hitler believed that his country had potential to perform better than it was doing. According to Yukl (2010, p. 139), Hitler was one of the most inspiring leaders that ever lived. As a child, Hitler wanted to be a prominent painter. However, he realized that this ambition was misplaced. During the First World War, he actively participated in the war and in politics. He remains one of the greatest propagandists ever to live. After the First World War, he came up with Nazi party. He maintained that Germans did not deserve the fine imposed on it after the First World War. This leader came up with the propaganda that the Germans were the best race on earth. He viewed himself as a redeemer of the Germans, a leader who came to remind the Germans of their rightful position in the word. His propaganda worked magic, as people came to believe in hi m. Through him, Germans saw a redeemer who would rescue the country from all the suffering. Once in position, he asserted himself and became an absolute leader who did not tolerate opposition. Though elected to the office democratically, he became the greatest dictator that this country ever had. His influence on his country, and other world leaders brought the world into the Second World War. German soldiers and their allies performed well in their war due to his motivation. He was finally defeated not because of leadership skills, but because of the enemy which was stronger, larger, and included nations such as US that had refrained from the war, and therefore were stronger when they latter joined it. Another leader who has been considered as a great personality in the field of leadership is Barrack Obama. Born of an African (Kenyan) father and an American mother, president Barrack Obama started exhibiting leadership qualities while in school. While at Harvard Law School, he becam e the president of Harvard Law Review. He entered politics in 1997 as a representative of 13th District in Illinois. Obama finally won the senatorial seat in November 2004 to represent Illinois. During his campaigns, Obama amazed many people, both the civilians and leaders alike, with his oratory capacity. He would give speeches that would not only convince listeners, but inspire them to achieve success as individuals and as citizens of this country. He was a leader with the capacity to make the electorates believe that there was more to be done in this society. In 2007, he announced his intention to run for the presidency of this country. Many thought that the ambition was misplaced because no Black American had every ascended to that position. For many years, the United States had been known for its segregationpolicies, and not many people thought that this country was ready for a black president. Obama would prove them wrong when he trounced a powerful Hillary Clinton in the prim aries. Other critics still held that his victory was because of the fact that he was opposed by a woman and that the country was not ready for a woman presidency. They held that in the elections, he would be trounced by his opponent, senator McCain. He would prove them wrong again when he defeated McCain to become the first Black President of the United States. He beat Mitt Romney to win his reelection to the office. He has proven to be a transformational leader. Summary Leadership is very important in the current society. In the discussion above, it has been demonstrated that organizations can only succeed if they have leaders with the capacity to influence followers to act in a specific desirable way. As an aspiring leader, I clearly understand the fact that followers performance will always depend on the influence that they get from their leader. Leaders who use fear to make followers behave in a specific manner may not succeed in the contemporary world. In the current society, i nspirational leaders have the capacity to influence the performance and the general behavior of employees to suite a given condition. Employee’s performance will be influenced by the ability of the leader to convince them that they have a capacity to perform beyond their current levels. I have come to appreciate that management in the contemporary society needs some elements of leadership. Employees should develop trust in their leader, and believe that through the leader, they are capable of achieving their best performance. This would help a firm achieve its vision within the desirable time. As demonstrated above, motivated employees tend to work as a unit. They would want to see success achieved through teamwork because that is what transformational leadership demonstrates. Also important is the ability of the leaders to consider balancing between organizational goals and employees concern. Goals of the firm should not be prioritized at the expense of the well being of the employees. This will help create an environment of mutual respect. List of References Adair, J 1973, Action-Centred Leadership, McGraw-Hill, London. Biswas, S 2011, Commitment, involvement, and satisfaction as predictors of employee performance, South Asian Journal of Management, vol. 18 no. 2, pp. 92-107. Burns, J 1978, Leadership, Harper Row, New York. Bustin, G 2004, Take Charge: How Leaders Profit From Change, Tapestry Press, Irving. Conger, J 2006, The Practice of Leadership: Developing the Next Generation of Leaders, Wiley, New York. Drake, A Salter, S 2007, Empowerment, motivation, and performance: examining the impact of feedback and incentives on non management employees, Behavioral Research in Accounting, vol. 2 no. 3, pp. 1971-1989. Gill, R 2011, Theory and Practice of Leadership, Sage, London. Goleman, D, Boyatzis, R, McKee, A 2002,The New Leaders, Little Brown, London. Hacker, S Tammy, R 2004, Transformational Leadership: Creating Organization of Meaning. Milwaukee, Quality Press, Wisconsin. Halel, W 2000, Facing freedom, Executive Excellence, vol. 17 no. 3, pp. 13-42. Hong, S Faedda, S 1996, Refinement of the Hong psychological reactance scale, Journal of Applied Psychology, vol. 71 no. 1, pp. 500-507. Huczynsky, A, Buchanan, D 2007, Organisational Behaviour: An Introductory Text, Prentice Hall, New York. Huy, Q 2002, Emotional filtering in strategic change,Academy of Management Proceedings, vol. 6 no. 1, pp. 43-78. Kotter, J 1990, A Force For Change, Free Press, New York. Kouzes, J Posner, B 2002, The Leadership Challenge, Jossey-Bass, San Fransico. Northouse, P 2010, Leadership: Theory and Practice, Sage, New York. Pardey, D 2007, Introducing leadership, Butterworth-Heinemann, New Jersey. Pielstick, D 1998, The Transforming Leader, a Meta-Ethnographic Analysis, The Community College Review, vol. 4 no. 3, pp. 65-138. Rollinson, D 2005, Organisational Behaviour and Analysis: An Integrated Approach, Pitman, London. Tannenbaum, R Schmidt, W 1973, How to Choose a Leadership Pattern, John Wiley and Sons, New York. Yukl, G Lepsinger, R 2004, Flexible Leadership, Prentice Hill, New Jersey. Yukl, G 2010, Leadership in Organisations, Prentice Hall, New Jersey. This essay on Leadership as One of the Important Factors in any Organization was written and submitted by user Andrea Flores to help you with your own studies. You are free to use it for research and reference purposes in order to write your own paper; however, you must cite it accordingly. You can donate your paper here.

An Amnesty Program

An Amnesty Program Introduction The number of immigrants into the United States of America has been increasing over the years. It is estimated that around 1.2 million people immigrate into America each year (Jacoby 509). Due to the proximity of Mexico to the United States, Mexicans form the largest group of immigrants in America.Advertising We will write a custom essay sample on An Amnesty Program specifically for you for only $16.05 $11/page Learn More However, due to the policies that have been implemented to regulate immigration, not everybody is able to access the visa that will enable them to settle in the U.S. Consequently, many people have resulted to illegal immigration through the sea and some through the porous borders especially the Mexican border. It is important to note that immigrants exert a lot of pressure not only on the national budget, but also on various social amenities. In the quest to deal with the problem of illegal immigration, many proposals have been forwarded including an amnesty program. Nevertheless, the effects of an amnesty program have not been fully addressed. Advantages of an Amnesty Program To begin with, an amnesty program will help in avoiding the movement of experts from America to other countries. Since most of the young people have been educated in the United States of America, it will be prudent to let them use the skills they have gained to build our economy. Educating people consumes national resources and sending these people away will be tantamount to wastage of resources (Rosenblum, Clare, William and Ruth 33). On the same note, sending all the illegal immigrants out of America is practically impossible because some of the people who have been deported have declared that they will try to come back (Passel, D’Vera and Ana par 2). Therefore, an amnesty program will give people an opportunity of securing jobs and thus reducing crime rates. Similarly, immigrants dominate the hard and dirty labor where Nat ive Americans are unwilling to work in. An amnesty program will enable this sector to continue having the crucial labor that is required. Moreover, America needs people who will take up the dirty manual jobs that natives are unwilling to accept. On the same note, immigrants are ready to get assimilated and an amnesty program will be very crucial in achieving this. It is important to note that this will help in reducing the ethnic tension in society (Douthat and Jenny 54). In addition, immigrants come with the aim of working. They know that their income directly depends on their hard work (Jacoby 511). Unfortunately, they find it hard to get jobs especially if they are illegal. Amnesty program will enhance their chances of getting better paying jobs thus increasing their contribution to the economy.Advertising Looking for essay on social sciences? Let's see if we can help you! Get your first paper with 15% OFF Learn More Disadvantages The numbers of immigrants especially from Mexico have reduced in the recent years partly due to the difficult economical conditions in America as well as increased deportations (Passel, D’Vera and Ana par 2). However, an amnesty program will send a message that the situation may change in the future thus encouraging immigration. As a result, amnesty will actually be against the government aim of reducing immigration. The program that offered amnesty to some illegal immigrants in 1986 is a good example (Rosenblum, Clare, William and Ruth 33). Moreover, amnesty will give powers to immigrants who will then dominate entrepreneurship. It should be noted that the number of immigrants in each sector of the economy is drastically increasing (Jacoby 510). Sooner or later, immigrants will be giving natives unfavorable competition. Personal Position It is important to note that illegal immigration cannot be dealt with by implementing an amnesty program. The problem of low incomes and lack of unemployment will e xist even after amnesty. In this regard, claiming that an amnesty program will in any way reduce criminal activities perpetrated by illegal immigrants is a lie. There are other ways through which the problem of illegal immigration can be dealt with including enhancing border security. Amnesty will just give illegal immigrants hopes that even if they suffer for long, one day the government will give them citizenship. Let us face the reality; amnesty will not solve the problem of illegal immigration. Therefore, amnesty should not even be a question of discussion. It should just be abolished from possible solutions of illegal immigration. Conclusion It is in every human being’s mind to advance economically. People everywhere in the world are always waiting for the slightest opportunity to better their lives. It is important to note that given the difference in economic capability of various countries, people will always be willing to move to developed countries where they believ e opportunities of advancement are many. Given the fact that America has highly developed infrastructure, enhanced education system as well as quality health care, many people are fighting for visas to enable them settle there. Much as illegal immigration is a problem in America, rushing to come up with a solution might not be the right way to go about it. The idea of an amnesty program should be well investigated before any step is taken. Douthat, Ross and Jenny Woodson. â€Å"The Border.† The Atlantic Monthly 297.1 (2006): 54-55. Print.Advertising We will write a custom essay sample on An Amnesty Program specifically for you for only $16.05 $11/page Learn More Jacoby, Tamar. â€Å"The New Immigrants and the Issue of Assimilation.† The aims of argument: Text and reader. Eds. Timothy Crusius, and Carolyn Channell. New York: McGraw-Hill Educational, 2010. 509-514. Print. Passel, Jeffrey, D’Vera Cohn and Ana Gonzalez-Barrera. â€Å"Net Migration from Mexico Falls to Zero and Perhaps Less. Pew Research Hispanic Center, 2012. Web. https://www.pewhispanic.org/2012/04/23/net-migration-from-mexico-falls-to-zero-and-perhaps-less/. RosenBlum, Marc R., Clare Ribando Seelke, William A. Kandel and Ruth Ellen Wasem. Mexican Migration to the United States: Policy and Trends. Washington: Congressional Research Service, 2012. Web. https://fas.org/sgp/crs/row/R42560.pdf.

Private Schools in Westchester County, New York

Private Schools in Westchester County, New York Westchester County, north of New York City, is home to several private schools. This list concentrates on non-parochial college-prep private schools. Hackley School Founded in 1899Located in Tarrytown840 Students, Grades K-12 Hackley School was founded in 1899 by Mrs. Caleb Brewster Hackley, a Unitarian leader who dedicated the mansion where she summered to start the school. The school was originally a boarding school for boys from a broad variety of economic, ethnic, and religious backgrounds. In 1970, the school became co-ed and, from 1970 to 1972, added a K-4 program. The boarding program is now a five-day program. The school, which now enrolls 840 students K-12, has a rigorous academic program and 62 sports teams, building on the schools tradition of having an early football team. The school has always valued community and the power of friendship. The schools mission reads as follows, Hackley challenges students to grow in character, scholarship, and accomplishment, to offer unreserved effort, and to learn from the varying perspectives and backgrounds in our community and the world. Students tend to score well on Advanced Placement (AP) exams, and the middle 50% of a recent graduating class ranged from 1280-1460 on the Math and Critical Reading sections of the SAT (out of a possible 1600). According to the headmaster, Diversity is fundamental to our understanding of what good education is and one of the hallmarks of our communitys culture. Masters School Founded in 1877Located in Dobb Ferry588 Students, Grades 5-12 Located in Dobbs Ferry, 30 miles from New York City, Masters School was founded in 1877 by Eliza Bailey Masters, who wanted her students, who were girls, to have a serious classical education and not just the education provided by a typical finishing school. As a result, the girls at the school studied Latin and math, and by the turn of the century, the curriculum became college-preparatory in nature. The school attracted boarding students from across the country. In 1996, the school became co-ed in the Upper School, and an all-boys middle school was created to exist alongside the all-girls middle school. The Upper School also started to use oval-shaped Harkness tables and their attendant discussion-based teaching style, which originated at Phillips Exeter Academy. The school also began the CITY term , a semester program that uses New York City as a learning laboratory. The school now enrolls 588 students from grades 5-12 (boarding and day) and recently built a new science and technology center. Twenty-five percent of students receive financial aid. The schools mission reads, The Masters School provides a challenging academic environment that encourages critical, creative, and independent habits of thought and a lifelong passion for learning. The Masters School promotes and celebrates academic achievement, artistic development, ethical action, athletic endeavor, and personal growth. The School maintains a diverse community that encourages students to participate actively in decisions affecting their lives and to develop an appreciation of their responsibilities to the larger world. Rye Country Day School Founded in 1869Located in Rye850 Students, Grades PK-12 RCDS was founded in 1869 when local parents invited a schoolmaster named Reverend William Life and his wife, Susan, to Rye to educate their daughters. Opened as the Rye Female Seminary, the school began to concentrate on preparing girls for college. In 1921, the school merged with the all-boys Rye Country School to form the Rye Country Day School. Today, 850 students in grades Pre-K through 12 attend the school. Fourteen percent of its students receive financial aid. The schools mission reads as follows, Rye Country Day School is a coeducational, college preparatory school dedicated to providing students from Pre-Kindergarten through Grade 12 with an excellent education using both traditional and innovative approaches. In a nurturing and supportive environment, we offer a challenging program that stimulates individuals to achieve their maximum potential through academic, athletic, creative and social endeavors. We are actively committed to diversity. We expect and promote moral responsibility, and strive to develop strength of character within a respectful school community. Our goal is to foster a lifelong passion for learning, understanding, and service in an ever-changing world. Rippowam Cisqua: A PreK-9 School Founded in 1916Located in Mount Kisco (the Lower School campus)Located in Bedford (the Middle School campus)521 Students, Grades PK-9 Rippowam was founded in 1916 as the Rippowam School for Girls. In the early 1920s, the school became co-ed, and it later merged with the more progressive Cisqua School in 1972. The school now has an average class size of 18 students, and a faculty-to-student ratio of 1:5. Many of the schools graduates go on to attend top boarding schools and local day schools. The schools mission reads as follows: The mission of Rippowam Cisqua School is to educate students to become independent thinkers, confident in their abilities and themselves. We are committed to a dynamic program of academics, the arts, and athletics, and support an engaged faculty to challenge students to discover and explore their talents to the fullest. Honesty, consideration, and respect for others are fundamental to Rippowam Cisqua. In an atmosphere that promotes intellectual curiosity and a lifelong love of learning, Rippowam Cisqua strives to instill in students a strong sense of connection to their community and to the larger world. We, as a school, recognize the common humanity of all people and teach understanding and respect for the differences among us.

MGT 401 Case 5 Leadership and Change Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

MGT 401 Case 5 Leadership and Change - Essay Example Berkshire Hathaway Incorporation is operating in the conglomerate industry since 1955. Since then, the company is thriving and running its successful ventures in the industry. Warren Buffet built an amazing record in the company with his remarkable leadership skills that does not only gave the direction but also ensured that the employees and other staff members are following his direction along him. At the time when Warren Buffet took control of Berkshire Hathaway, the company was only dealing in the textile business, the strategies of savvy deal making by Warren led the company to a great success and converted the textile industry into conglomerate industry in the next 50 years. In recent times, Warren Buffet is looking to convey his succession plan to other eligible members of the company. Undoubtedly, as a CEO, Warren alone with his leadership skills has developed and brought the company to a stage where several minds could think to reach. The company must bring changes in its leadership roles with time after reaching a certain level of success, one succession plan could be helpful and entertaining till a certain period, and then the company has to adopt some changes in its leadership management and its succession plan. Berkshire Hathaway was living on a succession phenomenon where the company was afraid to release a title icon from a seat. It is also a fact that new and fresh minds could bring more succession plans by combining their minds with the experienced mind. Berkshire Hathaway has also implied the same formula for its giant venture (Rothwell, 2010). In my opinion, Berkshire Hathaway has performed an outstanding and remarkable job in the industry. The whole industry and management teams are now in the resonance of the company’s success. It is the right time for Berkshire Hathaway to prepare for the succession. Warren Buffet is now 80 years of age, and his great experience, the internal position holders should adopt strong

Primary Source Analysis Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words - 4

Primary Source Analysis - Essay Example The report was written to prove that the riots were real and that they targeted the Negro community. The motivation for writing this document was the pain that was associated with the experiences and the treatment that black people went through. The unspoken assumption in this document is that, the audience can deduce that the author is addressing the terror the Negro community underwent during the riots. There lacks any detectable bias in this document. It is left out how the riots came to end. The document has a great deal of historical significance that reminds us of the trouble that the black people have gone through to become acceptable members of the American community. It gives the real picture of the anti-negro riots period where prejudice took place, and lots of innocent black people lost their lives. It also tells of the brutality the Negro community was put through all in the name of an inferior race. It depicts how far the black community in America has come to enjoy the equal right just like other American. In a kind of collusion, we can say that, that was the darkest hour for the black race. The document brings out the fossil idea in America that the white people are more equal than the blacks. The report brings out the old idea of revolution where the black community has stepped up to make a difference in the angle from which the white folks use to view them at. It will be so prudent to mark the significance of this document in bringing out the past inhumane actions that have been carried against black population American society. The document steps up as an evidence of the historical idea that all people should be considered equal despite the differences in skin race and color. The reports also bring out rich history about America’s biggest city and how far it has come to a point where the African American population and the white folks can share neighborhoods. The most

Mary Shelley tell us about the education Essay Example for Free

Mary Shelley tell us about the education Essay Nothing could exceed in beauty the contrast between these two excellent creatures has also learnt to think logically, to reason, given very well laid out reasons as to why they are so beautiful, backing up his argument. The next thing is one of the most important things which VC learns it is a lesson of morals. He sees several times [the younger cottagers] placed food before the old man when they reserved none for themselves I had been accustomed to steal some of their store, but when I found that in doing this I inflicted pain on the cottagers, I abstained. This shows that he understands and acts out of compassion. He also observes with pleasure when he sees he has been of help. Still to come are the most important facets of VCs education; the ability to read, to appreciate the highs and lows of human capability and to appreciate emotion as key to humanity. It is from Sorrows of Werter that VC learns about the importance of emotion to any definition of humanity (the English Review). This is complimented with the violent but apparently glorious history of man which Lives provides, giving VC a varied and balanced view of what beauty there is in human nature, and what horror there is, too. Paradise Lost is another book which VC stumbles upon; though this teaches him little in it self, the parallels which VC draws between its key characters and himself are important; he can see different aspects of each in himself. This shows the how VC has learnt to take something from a book and place into a real-life situation (I ought to be thy Adam, but I am rather the fallen angel, whom thou drivest from joy for no misdeed). By far the most important part of VCs education is his learning to speak. Though it has been proved that it is impossible to learn language in the fashion that VC does, we must remember that this is just a novel. In his learning to speak, VC gains the ability to articulate the feelings inside him, the ability to read and the ability to communicate his dreams. He learns as Safie learns, being taught by Felix. Being taught to speak and listen to speech opens the door to all other avenues of Frankensteins learning; his learning about humanity is increased tenfold after this. Whether this is a curse or a blessing, however, is left for us to decide after learning how to speak and read, VC sees just how outcast he is, just how far outside the circle of love that is there between Safie, Felix, Agatha and the old man. Once he can see the extent of his loneliness, and can grasp what potential there is once he learns that there is more to life than suffering he is gripped by an insatiable desire to be a part of society. Societys rejection of him, it can be argued, is what turns him from a noble savage to an educated murderer. b Show preview only The above preview is unformatted text This student written piece of work is one of many that can be found in our GCSE Mary Shelley section.

The Outsiders :: essays research papers

"The Outsiders" is a story that deals with a conflict between two gangs, the "Greasers" from the East Side of town and the "Socs" from the east-side of town. This is a story that is told in the first person. Ponyboy Curtis is the one telling the story. Here is a summary of the story. Ponyboy has a dispute with his brother Darry and ends up running away to the park with Johnnycake. There, Ponyboy and Johnnycake get into a fight with Randy, Bob, and three other members of the Socs. The Socs try to down Ponyboy, so Johnnycake stabs Bob with a knife and ends up killing him. Ponyboy and Johnnycake run to a party where they meet up with Dallas, one of their close friends. He gives them a gun, money, and tells them to get a train out of town to an abandoned church. They are told to stay there until Dallas comes to get them. When Johnnycake and Ponyboy get the church they go right to sleep. When Ponyboy wakes up, he finds that Johnny has gone to the store to get them food. While there, they both decide to disguise themselves by cutting their hair. Ponyboy decides to bleach his hair with peroxide. Dallas finally shows up to get them. They all go to town to get something to eat. When they return to the church, it was on fire. Ponyboy and Johnnycake went in to save the children from the burning church. Johnnycake is trapped inside. Dallas goes into save him. Then, the church collapses. They are rushed to the hospital. Ponyboy and Dallas are okay, but Johnny is severely injured. Ponyboy talks with one of the Socs and they both discuss about how they are tired of fighting. Everyone should be equal. Later, the Greasers and Socs get into an enormous brawl , but in the end the Greasers win. Ponyboy and Dallas rush to the hospital to tell Johnnycake they won the brawl. Johnnycake tells Ponyboy to stay gold. Those are the last words Johnny spoke before he died. Darry goes crazy over Johnny's death and decides to rob a convenience store. The cops chase him, Dallas fires a few shots at them with his gun.

Fighting for Hunger

In this topic, we will see how Filipinos fighting for their hunger. We can see that there are so many people who starve to death, and the government didn't do anything about this problem. I hate how the government didn't do anything to solve this problem. There are many Filipinos who begging for food for them to live. My opinion here is we should help the others, if we help the others we can save a life. Starvation is not a joke we we're talking about million lives here. The government should take an action to this issue. There are so many cases that people die because of the hunger or starvation, they die because they can't do anything to stop their hunger, they just wait for someone to give them a food. So my opinion here is let's stop this problem now let's push the government to do something in this problem. If they can't do anything then let's encourage other people to help the people who's in need. If the government can't help them, I guess it's time to help the other people for them to have a longer life. The main problem here is the government didn't do anything to solve this problem. Many Filipinos died because of hunger or you can call it starvation. The rate of starvation in our country is increasing every year and every year the number of deaths in our country is increasing as well, it is all because of the starvation. I guess we are all aware that our country is rich in street people or you can call it as a homeless people, they are the one who experienced this problem, they can't do anything because they don't have any job or any money to buy their foods. We can help the by giving them a food or at least a small amount of money. In this way, we can help the others in a simple way. The problem here is why the government didn't do anything to solve this problem, they didn't do anything to save the others life. The fact that the government didn't do anything, we should help the one who's in need. If we have extra food or extra money we should give it to the people who can't afford to buy foods. We can always start a feeding program for the hungry people. I think there are many feeding program in our country.In this way we can help others, we can save the others by giving them a food or a money. There are many ways to help the people who's in need. If the government can't take any action to this then I guess it's time for us to make a move. We can help by starting a feeding program, giving a small amount of food and money to the people who's in need. We can help others in a small way if we want to I think it's time to help and care for the other people. Always remember that sharing is caring.

Ivan Ilyitch and Wasted Lives Essay

The stories dealt with in this paper seek happiness in the wrong places. They stress the failures of modern life, the falsity of success and the elusiveness of happiness when it is not grounded in virtue. Virtuous and simple living are the last things to be discussed in these stories, but happiness is searched for according to the easiest and most sensual manners possible. Modern society has failed to bring happiness and fulfillment, and these stories speak as to why. What is terrible about modern life is the definitions of happiness and fulfillment based on money and social standing. It is roundly condemned by journalists and moralists, but remains as powerful as ever as motivating factors in behavior. In Tolstoy’s famous Death of Ivan Ilyitch, the film’s hero, Ivan, is a lawyer, a member of the prestigious judicial council (127) who has recently taken ill, as lies in his last few hours considering his life. His main concern throughout his life is what Tolstoy calls comme il faut, that is, the maintaining of appearances regardless of circumstances. Even his marriage was based on social standing and on the opinions of high society, rather than love (130). In â€Å"The Necklace,† the young woman wants the necklace that nearly destroys their life solely so that she will look like a successful person at the party given by the Ministry of Education. It ends in disaster as the necklace is lost. After being passed over for several promotions, Ivan was sent to a remote outpost in â€Å"the country,† where he quickly fell into boredom and ennui. He then left his family to go back to his Petrograd post, because high society is the only place he felt comfortable. His social cues came from that society. After falling while decorating his house–decorating solely for the approbation of the same society–he developed what appears to be cancer, and quickly died, mirroring the life and death of Aurora in Terms. The will cannot bring happiness and human life often has a rhythm of its own that cannot be controlled by the state, social institutions or an overprotective mother. It is in this interval that he meets Gerasim, a simple peasant without pretense or guile, the opposite of Ivan (148). Gerasim was Ivan’s assistant when he was ill. Gerasim cared not for society, but for the simple hard work that typified the peasant. He was a â€Å"natural† man rather than Ivan, the â€Å"artificial† one. But in Chapter IX is where a â€Å"voice† begins to speak to Ivan, speaking to him about life. Happiness is based on simplicity, not on the worship of the status quo and the domination of social norms. The artificial world of high society was not joyous, but merely a set of obligations. â€Å"And that deadly official life, and anxiety about money and so for one year, and two, and ten, and twenty, always the same thing† (157). But this was the life of success, of high society, of the elite: and it failed to make Ivan happy. The move from childhood, with its simple joys, to that artificial world of elite adulthood was correlated with the falsity of his happiness and the deadening of joy. This is also to be seen in â€Å"Araby,† where children are the only ones left with imagination as they come of age. The complex and hypocritical world of high society deadened him and his life. This story about a dying man looking at his life seems to be well read, but never heeded. Ivan is all of us who equate success with money and social standing, who view childhood as â€Å"trivial† and the approbation of institutions as central. Ivan conformed his entire life, from his marriage to political views, around what was dominant in high society. In this process, he was successful, but not happy. If anything, the two concepts exist in an inverse relation. Success in modern life is not a happy life. It is unhappy because ultimately, it is one set of obligations after another. Money is always a problem–investments, the market, inflation, taxes, economic cycles all contribute to the anxiety of all but the most wealthy of moderns. Social life, as in Ivan, is a bore, with a set round of obligatory social relations and gatherings, all of which seem to set the â€Å"success† class apart from the commoners. But Ivan, through the example of Gerasim, sees that the simple peasant, the agriculturalist, without the social obligations of the Petrograd lawyer, is happy, joyful and finds a great deal of satisfaction in labor and its invigorating aspects so common in farm work. But labor, in modern life, is something to be avoided rather than embraced and farm work is seen as â€Å"backward† in the prejudice of moderns. In the film Terms of Endearment, the parallels are subtle, but present. Aurora is the protective mother, always concerned for the ultimate happiness of her daughter, Emma. Once’s Emma’s first romance fails, and Aurora seems pushed out of her life, the latter finds romantic comfort with a married, â€Å"successful† man, a banker, Sam Burns. At the same time, Aurora, after remaining sexless for many years, has a whirlwind relationship with an ex-astronaut, Garrett Breedlove. It is hard to see the placement of the false society here, as is the case with The Necklace and A Good Man. Both Emma and her mother live within the false society of modern life, believing that sex and finding the â€Å"right† man will bring happiness. Virtue is not mentioned, nor the life of the mind, but happiness is defined solely in respect of an other, a romantic, sexual relationship that is supposed to make people happy. Both characters, Aurora and Emma, are trapped and the free sex that exists throughout the movie is a conformist device, not a rebellious one. If anything, the fact that Aurora dies of cancer tells her that happiness cannot be found in this life, for even if Aurora was right all along, and Emma was her best friend, she still would have died a miserable death. Having sex with the drunken Breedlove has changed nothing. This film seems to be a set of negative examples: overprotection does not lead to protected children, and sex does not lead to happiness, nor does romance. If anything, it is a veiled attack on the modern obsession with the sexually carnal, that promises pleasure and happiness but usually ends with emptiness. Such is also the final scene in â€Å"Araby,† where the fair itself, symbolizing all sexual and sensual, is a disappointment. The build up the young boy has created in himself was far too high for actual reality. Sex is modern life is often considered this Holy Grail of acceptance that often leads to disappointment. The Necklace, a short story by Guy de Maupassant, has far more parallels with Tolstoy than Terms. The single reality is that the necklace is part of the world of falsity within which Ivan and his ilk live. The very fact that the necklace itself is a cheap fake is part of the scheme–it matters not if the object is genuine, it does its job of making the world think that you belong and that you’re part of the â€Å"successful† club. The obligation that Ivan finds in his life is mirrored in the couple’s having to work for a decade to repay the alleged price of the genuine necklace, which never even existed. The necklace is the ultimate attack on the falsity of â€Å"successful† life–the necklace exists solely to convince others of something, but it is not even real. At the same time, the labor that has gone into paying for the non-existent real necklace speaks of the waste and profligacy of the wealthy, who normally pay huge sums for such trinkets, and call it happiness or success. The young boy in â€Å"Araby† though that his love interest and the fair at Araby would provide this. All these sorts of things provide is emptiness. â€Å"A Good Man is Hard to Find† is a far more subtle work, centering around a self-centered grandmother that speaks of The Misfit, a killer who is allegedly making his way though to Florida, where her family wants to go on vacation. The family eventually makes their way to Tennessee where, in an accident caused by a hidden cat, the disabled car is sat upon by the Misfit and his group, who eventually murders the entire family when the grandmother yells out that the Misfit is here, hence, necessitating the Misfit’s murder of his identifiers. There is a hint that the Misfit is in fact the grandmother’s son, and the grandmother, possibly attempting to save her own life, attempts to calm of Misfit by touching him, which leads to a scene where the murderer hesitates, but soon steps back to shoot her. It seems that Terms and Good man are highly parallel, showing an overprotective parent seeking happiness in all the wrong places. Where The Necklace and Ivan are centered around the concept of falsity and the lies and hypocracy of modern life and its arbitrary definition of â€Å"success. † All four are concerned with happiness broadly speaking, but only Tolstoy holds out the hope for any real happiness, a happiness that can only be gained by simplicity and a return to the land. Modern behaviors cannot understand this.

Ojibwe Tribe essays

Ojibwe Tribe essays The Little Engine That Couldnt In 1837 and 1842, the Ojibwe tribe of Northern Wisconsin reluctantly signed over land to the United States of America. However, in both respective treaties, the Ojibwe tribe managed to preserve certain rights for future generations, or so they thought. In these treaties, they clearly reserved the right to hunt, fish, and gather on the land they ceded to the United States government. (Lowe 2001, 61). Nevertheless, over one hundred years later, these rights would be aggressively refuted by local citizens of Northern Wisconsin as well as by the State of Wisconsin. An intense debate concerning the rights of the Ojibwe to spearfish escalated between the Ojibwe, local citizens in Northern Wisconsin, and the State of Wisconsin. The State of Wisconsin questioned treaties and the power of the state eradicating the Ojibwe tribes right to fish in Northern Wisconsin. The controversy originated from the wording of the treaties that specified the Ojibwes right to hunt and fish on ceded lands. The State of Wisconsin felt that despite the treaties, it had the right to regulate fishing throughout state boundaries. The Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources began to put restrictions on these rights after 1854. In 1879, the Wisconsin State Court maintained state authority on reservations. In State v. Doxtater, the WSC affirmed that Wisconsin possessed legal authority over tribal members who violated Wisconsin law on reservations. (Commentary, Issues Hoop: Target 1). Bythe late 1800s Wisconsins forests, rivers, and lakes suffered from dumping of waste and pollutants, and the states wildlife was disappearing. In response to the diminishing wildlife and natural resources, the state began enacting conservation l aws which included regulating fishing and hunting. These regulations however angered Ojibwes when they stood in the way of their right...

How to Monotask Your Way to Writing Productivity

How to Monotask Your Way to Writing Productivity How to Monotask Your Way to Writing Productivity Jane Harkness is a freelance writer for Freedom. Freedom blocks distracting websites and apps across your devices so you can focus on what matters most.It’s easy to assume that multitasking will allow you to do double the work in half the time - after all, if you’re doing two things at once, your productivity must skyrocket, right?Not quite. Unfortunately, while we may feel that our productivity increases when we multitask, practical results and countless studies tell us otherwise.When you multitask, you’re not working on two tasks at the same time - you’re actually rapidly switching between tasks without giving your brain the time it really needs to completely focus on each one. Bouncing from one task to another and back again results in â€Å"attention residue,† clouding your concentration. Learn how to monotask your way to writing productivity âÅ"… Multitasking: a habit to breakIn our age of digital distractions, it’s tough to avoid multitasking, and many of us have made it a habit. Pausing your writing session to check your email, looking at a text in the middle of a paragraph, or talking on the phone with a freelance client while researching a separate project all qualify as multitasking.But because these tasks seem so basic and unavoidable, we rarely stop to consider that this could be having an impact on the quality of our work or our productivity.Multitasking and switching between screens can make you feel more productive in the moment, but in the long run, it’s eating up time that you could  be spending on your hobbies, creative projects, or relaxing with family and friends.If you want to step up your performance and reclaim your time to have more opportunities to do what you love, it’s time to say goodbye to multitasking and get familiar with the concept of â€Å"deep work† and the practice of monotasking.Have you ever tried monotasking? If not, will you try it now? Tell us in the comments below.

Relate Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Relate - Essay Example There have been must studies of the price of gasoline in the United States for the past decades. Espey in the Journal on energy says that the cost of gas largely depends on the elasticity of demand for gas. In a period of less than a year Espey established, the elasticity was negative 0.26%. Therefore, an increase in the cost of gas by $1 reduces the demand by 2.6%. In the long term, the elasticity changed to negative 0.58%. Therefore, price elasticity of demand can explain low prices of gas in the U.S. According to Espey increase in price of gas reduces the demand for gas among consumers. For producers to realize increased revenue over a short run and in the long run, the price of gas ought to low (Espey 52). Given that the U.S consumers changes their demand for gas due to increase in price, taxing gas by the government will have the same effect of lowering the demand for gas consumption. Gratch in his study found that the tax on gas in United State of America differed from that of Britain, France and Norway. These countries had high taxes on gasoline than the U.S. Saudi Arabia and Venezuela pay for 12 cents per gallon, but they are leading producers of gas in the world. The discrepancies on the prices can be explained by tax rates in different countries. The U.S tax rates are 15-20% while the European nation taxes at a value higher than 20%. Elasticity, therefore, is a determinant of gas price in the U.S. Gas has positive and negative externalities. It has by products are used in many sphere of life including jet fuels, to heavy machine diesel. Nonetheless, it has the negative externalities of gasoline that affects negatively the cost of gas. In the U.S and even other developed nations, the public is now turning to clean energy. Consequently, less gas is used in the manufacturing. Nuclear powered electricity has substituted gas consumption decreasing its demand and negatively

Advertising in the 21st century Unit 9 Project Essay

Advertising in the 21st century Unit 9 Project - Essay Example This piece of research work addresses the relevance of IMC in today’s business world and examines how this can be implemented as a strategic step for advertising campaign. This paper identifies three companies at different levels, one from the Fortune 500 lists, one form the INC lists and one from the major online shopping companies and describes how these companies can effectively use IMC as basic strategy for their marketing. Lamb, Hair and McDaniel (2004) described that integrated marketing communication is a careful combination of all promotional messages like traditional advertising, sales promotion, personal selling, event marketing, public relation, interactive marketing and so on so as to assure consistency in whatever messages being communicated to the targeted markets (p. 413). Belch and Belch (2007) emphasized that IMC is a marketing process of planning, designing and developing brand communication program with customers, employees and associates in order to build short term financial benefits and long term brand value (p. 11). Various communication tools are effectively coordinated based on company’s goal to reach different target market more effectively and thus to create short term profitability and long term brand equity and brand loyalty among the customers. IMC is a process in which companies accelerate its revenues and returns by aligning communication objectives with business goals (Schultz and Schultz, 2004, P. 3). Business goals normally include profitable operation as well successful marketing of goods or services being offered to the customers. IMC helps companies achieve their objectives by aligning and coordinating various elements of communication including advertising, sales promotion, direct selling, public relation etc. IMC has become relevant in today’s business because it not only

Please see in other instructions Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2500 words

Please see in other instructions - Essay Example One of their more recent forays happened to be one into the financial industry, specifically in the form of Virgin Money plc which, at 17 years old, is still relatively new to this industry. Regardless, it was able to achieve a respectable level of success, if its global expansion in the turn of the millennium is anything to go by. Whatever complaints people might have about the level of customer service, Virgin Money plc must have at least halfway decent services if it has managed to go on operating for the past 17 years. have been getting mixed reactions from clients. Indeed, there are firsthand accounts on various forums and review sites on the internet that tell of the quality of Virgin Moneys services, not all of which are flattering. This being the case, it may be worth examining the customer service management approach taken by Virgin Money. The paper shall first provide a brief, 2-page history of Virgin Money, before introducing the concept of customer relations management - sometimes called customer services management - and how it applies to this firm. An explanation on the groups findings on the matter comes next, as well as on the methods used to obtain data. Rounding the study off is the conclusion, which includes recommendations as to how Virgin Money can improve on its customer service. Virgin Money was established as Virgin Direct by Richard Branson in 1995, and has always been owned by the Virgin Group. Based in the UK, this company deals primarily in banking and other financial services, and has been known as a pioneer of index tracking in its introduction of Personal Equity Plans at relatively affordable prices. Since it expanded its services worldwide early on in the past decade, the company went on to achieve even greater levels of success (BBC News, 2011). As with all companies, Virgin Money had tender beginnings of its own, having first been launched in partnership with Norwich Union in 1995 as Virgin Direct Personal Financial

Development of Autism Research

Development of Autism Research Fighting the Monster By writing a book called Infantile Autism, a Navy psychologist named Bernard Rimland established autism as an inborn condition rather than bad parenting. The books popularity inspired him to launch the National Society for Autistic Children (NSAC). By forming an alliance and reaching out to parents, he gave the parents in his network a sense of hope and progress at a time when there was virtually no research in the field, setting the stage for the surge of interest in autism research. Bernard Rimland was born in Cleveland in 1928, the son of Russian Jewish parents who emigrated after World War I. When he was twelve, his family relocated to San Diego, California. He got a bachelors degree in experimental psychology from San Diego State University in 1950 and earned his masters degree a year later. He met Gloria Alf, a Jewish girl from the neighborhood, and got married before heading east to Penn State to earn his doctorate. After completing his degree at Penn State, Rimland was hired as the director of research at the new naval base in San Diego. Their son, Mark, was born in the spring of 1956. But something was drastically wrong with Mark and it was only much later that his condition was determined to be early infantile autism. Besides reading everything he could on the subject, Rimland wrote a letter to Kanner in 1959 describing his sons behavior and announcing his intention to write a paper on the subject. After five years of research, Rimland published his book Infantile Autism: The Syndrome and Its Implications for a Neural Theory of Behavior in 1964, featuring an introduction by Kanner. The crux of the book was that autism is primarily a product of genetic inheritance rather than family dynamics. At one point, he even referred to Asperger syndrome without explaining it. He suggested that in some cases the syndrome was caused by unknown environmental factors acting upon a genetic predisposition. He speculated that parents who tend to be gifted in certain fields pass this vulnerability down to their children along with the genetic factors for high intelligence. This hypothesis would fall into disrepute in the 1970s as studies by Michael Rutter and others proved that autism does not discriminate by IQ or educational level and is equally prevalent across all socioeconomic strata. Rimland wanted the diagnosis to be strictly defined so that autism would turn out to be a metabolic dysfunction akin to phenylketonuria (PKU) that could be averted with a dietary intervention. PKU is a rare genetic disorder due to a gene mutation that impairs the metabolism of the amino acid phenylalanine. Untreated PKU can lead to behavioral problems, seizures, intellectual disability, and mental disorder. To facilitate autism research, Rimland included in the book a questionnaire called the Diagnostic Check List for Behavior-Disturbed Children (Form E-1), designed as a template for clinicians to copy and give to parents. After the book came out, Rimland unexpectedly received piles of completed E-1 forms. He followed up with the parents by telephone after scoring the checklist with a proprietary algorithm. He was so gregarious and empathetic to the parents that he became Uncle Bernie to a generation of families. In the second edition of his book, he included a revised version of the checklist called the E-2 designed for the parents to send to Rimland directly. His questionnaires had planted the seeds of a revolution. *** In the 1960s, most psychologists in America were still convinced that autistic kids were constitutionally incapable of learning. But a professor in the Psychology department of the UCLA named Ole Ivar Lovaas thought otherwise. Ole Ivar Lovaas was born in Norway in 1927. He and his family were forced to work as migrant laborers when the Nazis occupied Norway in June 1940. After the war ended, Lovaas was allowed to immigrate to the United States on the strength of his violin playing. He got a music scholarship at Luther College in Iowa and earned his bachelors degree in a year. Then he talked his way into the graduate program in psychology at the University of Washington in Seattle. He didnt want to become a psychoanalyst because he had lost patience with the speculations of theory-based psychiatry, so he focused on lab research. After earning his doctorate at the University of Washington, Lovaas stayed in Seattle, teaching and conducting research at the Child Development Institute near the university. At the institute, he experienced that improving the language skills of children with developmental delays might help them control their problematic behavior. He was also influenced by a psychologist at Indiana University named Charles Ferster who proposed that parents had inadvertently conditioned their children to be more and more autistic by rewarding their misbehavior with doting attention. In 1961, he accepted a position as an assistant professor in the psychology department at UCLA. In his first year on the job, the Clinic referred only one child to his lab: a nine-year-old girl named Beth who spoke mostly in echolalia and bore scars all over from banging herself against walls and furniture. Luvaas outfitted a suite of rooms with one-way mirrors, hidden microphones, and a push-button device that enabled his assistants to record the frequency and duration of her behaviors. He called this style of intensive intervention applied behavioral analysis, or ABA. Rimland was skeptical of the Lovaas method when he first heard about it. But he set his doubts aside and began to use the technique in training his eight-year-old autistic son. Lovaas had been thinking about inviting parents into the process because the lessons learned in ABA often didnt generalize beyond the artificial situation in the lab. The best hope for stimulating lasting behavior change was to train the children in their natural environment at home. Rimland arranged a dinner with Lovaas and a few of the couples from his network of autistic parents. Before the meal was over, they were begging Lovaas to train them in his method. By forming an alliance and reaching out directly to parents, Rimland and Lovaas had just built a shadow infrastructure for autism research in which parents, rather than medical professionals, were the ultimate authorities on their childrens well-being. *** In the fall of 1965, Rimland received a letter from Ruth Christ Sullivan, a young nurse and mother of an autistic son. Sullivan proposed forming a national group to advocate for the needs of autistic children. On November 14, 1965, Sullivan, Rimland and 60 other parents formed the National Society of Autistic Children. In the coming years, parents would launch hundreds of local NSAC chapters all over the country. By the mid-1970s, the NSAC launched a number of legislations aimed at protecting the rights of individuals with autism and mandating services for them, especially education. Autism was also included in the Developmental Disabilities Act of 1976. In 1974, by conducting thorough examinations of 78 children brought to the Childrens Brain Research Clinic in Washington by NSAC members, the clinics researchers theorized that autism is not a single clinical entity but is composed of multiple distinct subtypes. Rimland also did a groundbreaking study on savant skills based on data from his questionnaires, rediscovering the same clusters of enhanced ability in music, memory, art, science, mathematics, and technology that Asperger called autistic intelligence. Over time, the two paths represented by NSACs founders Sullivans focus on services and Rimlands search for a cure would diverge, resulting in Rimland being voted off the board of his own organization. *** Meanwhile, Lovaas was experimenting with alternating rounds of acquisition (reinforce proper behavior) and extinction (extinguish self-injurious behavior) trials on Berh. He found that she was responsive on acquisition trials, but not on extinction trials. So Lovaas sought a more expeditious solution, which was the use of punishment. Concerned that some of his techniques might seem unorthodox, Lovaas invited members of the press down to the lab to watch him in action. When the articles came out, members of the NSAC were concerned about how brutally kids were being treated at UCLA. Despite Rimlands tireless cheerleading for aversives, many NSAC parents refused to use them. Meanwhile, state hospitals across the country embraced the harsh techniques promoted by Lovaas at UCLA as a way of keeping problem patients in line. In 1988, the NSAC (now changed the name to the Autism Society of America) has passed a resolution calling for a ban on aversive techniques. But painful electric shocks are still employed to punish autistic children at an institution called the Judge Rotenberg Educational Center in Massachusetts, even in the face of a public outcry against their use. In the 1970s, Lovaas lent his expertise to a series of experiments called the Feminine Boy Project. The projects most celebrated success story was Kirk Andrew Murphy. Kirks was enrolled into the program at UCLA when he was five because his parents were concerned that he was exhibiting behavior that was too feminine. Lovaas worked with a graduate student named George Rekers who was Kirks behavioral therapist. Rekers and Lovaas devised a program of total immersion based on Lovaass work on autism. After sixty sessions in the lab, Rekers and Lovaas declared victory over Kirks sissy-boy behavior. Rekers went on to build a career based on the premise that homosexuality can be prevented. He became a founding member of the Family Research Council, a faith-based organization that lobbies against gay-rights issues. In the meantime, Kirk committed suicide in 2003 at age thirty-eight, following decades of depression. His parents claimed that Kirks earlier therapy had contributed to his suicide. In 2010, Rekers days as an anti-gay champion came to an end when two journalists ambushed him at the Miami airport returning from a holiday in Madrid with a hired male escort. In 1987, Lovaas claimed that nearly half of the children in an experimental group at UCLA had achieved normal intellectual functioning by undertaking intensive ABA starting at age three. Lovaass study was the breakthrough that many parents had been waiting for: empirical proof that their children could become normal given enough devotion, effort, and expense. *** In 1964, Rimland received an invitation from the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences at Standford University for a years fellowship in Palo Alto. There he fell under the spell of Linus Pauling, who had won two Nobel Prizes, a Nobel prize in Chemistry, and a Nobel Peace Prize. Pauling was the most prominent advocate of the notion that megadoses of Vitamin C could avert the common cold, slow the aging process, and improve mood. Paulings concept of orthomolecular psychiatry meshed perfectly with Rimlands thoughts on PKU and autism. Meanwhile, Rimland had started getting letters from parents claiming that their sons and daughters had become more calm and engaged after taking megadoses of certain nutrients, particularly vitamins B and C. After talking with doctors convinced of the therapeutic value of the megavitamin regimen, Rimland established the Institute for Child Behavior Research, later renamed the Autism Research Institute in San Diego to launch a study. But he di d not use the so-called double-blind placebo-controlled trial model in his study. Instead, he developed a home-brewed form of data analysis that he called computer clustering, an algorithmic search for clinically significant ripples in a sea of big data. With 45 percent of parents reporting that the vitamins definitely helped their children, Rimland was thrilled with the results of his experiment. But three independent analyses of his dataset revealed more problems with his design. The design of the experiment with parents as evaluators of changes in their childrens behavior was anything but blind in the statistical sense. A Navy statistician with access to the raw data concluded that no reliable information about the reaction in the vitamins by various subtypes in the sample population could be obtained by using Rimlands computer clustering scheme. Rimland was bugged by the disappointing response of his peers to his megavitamin experiment. Noting the serious side effects caused by prescription drugs, Rimland concluded that the future of his work was not to be found in conventional medicine. He would eventually encourage his parent-experimenters to try several treatments at once, making it nearly impossible to tease out the benefits and side effects of any single one. This try-everything-at-once approach gave the parents in his network a tremendous sense of hope and momentum at a time when the mainstream science of autism was at a standstill. From his office in Kensington, a suburb of San Diego, Rimland forged a productive alliance with the nineteen-year-old Steve Edelson, a psychology/sociology major in Lovaass lab. Together they wrote a book called Recovering Autistic Children that became one of the bibles of the biomedical movement. In the 1990s, they launched Defeat Autism Now! (DAN!), the network of clinicians and alt-med practitioners that Shannon Rosa turned to for advice on the GFGC diet and other treatments after Leo was diagnosed in 2002.