Football After School Essay Essay

What Parental feelings does McCarthy explore in the poem and how does she use language to present them to you? Football after school is a poem about a mothers, or the poets’, struggles in the harsh realisation of her son maturing, and having to experience school. Patricia is feeling powerless and worried about her sons inevitable future of him going to school which he has to endure. We observe the poet sharing her thoughts, and images, in each verse her view changes on how she thinks her son will combat â€Å"Football After School† . The theme of football fears her, as he â€Å"dribbles the sin about the place†, which conveys how she thinks the football as the â€Å"sun† will become his life, and will become his focus rather than his mother before. We see her worries change, from be concerned about how she can help him and how his attitudes will change when he matures into a teenager. The mother is caring for her son, but we don’t know how the son feels towards the mother. Insecurity is a key role in how the mother feels, as she becomes more distant to her f ragile son growing up. McCarthy explores the idea of growing up is inevitable, and insists to the son that he is going to mature and play football with the repetition of â€Å"You’ll† and â€Å"you† secures the certainty of her son having to grow up, and the mother is understanding this by empathising on it, particularly in the begining as the perfect rhyme empathises this imminent future, and how convinced McCarthy is that her son is going to grow up to be â€Å"common†. There is a continuous theme of worry that the world of school will be violent and aggressive. The use of alliteration produces an image of potential violence â€Å"stiff striped dagger†, the alliteration has harsh continents adding to the aggression of the â€Å"dagger†, as they are â€Å"stiff† is describing the harsh strength of the dagger and â€Å"striped† makes the imagery of the â€Å"dagger† pain. The image of â€Å"warpaint slicked over your face†, this imagery is symbolising battles within school, and how this paint makes you look stronger and confident. The use of harsh sounding images, and actions â€Å"butting it with your head† adds to the violence of the boys later life. Football, being a sport which is sometimes competitively aggressive, making the mother fear her sons teenage development, â€Å"with the premature swagger of manhood†, showing the bravado attitude, and false over confidence, along with â€Å"language jeers†, which describes the pretentious and arrogant teenage future mindset compared to now being young and having â€Å"porcelain skin†. The metaphor of â€Å"Dwarf a tree, stab a flower† illustrates the violent contrast of images, he does this by a â€Å"kick†, this is portraying how his actions reverse what they were previously were, which reflect how he is going to develop, transform and switch characters. As now he is fragile, and later he will have â€Å"premature swagger of manhood†, evoking him growing up and becoming a ‘man’, further to the point she adds that it is â€Å"premature†, which echoes the fact that she thinks he will be too young to mature, ripen and have â€Å"granite jowls†. The poet negatively looks on violence and aggression, doubting her sons ability as the poem moves on. In the 3rd and 4th verses we see the mother apprehending, which is contrasting with before as she expected her son to be involved in bullying, rather than now fearing her son will be the victim of bullying no longer having â€Å"stiff striped dagger†, as he would have to â€Å"tackle fouls with ink stained fists and feet†. The alliteration of the â€Å"f† is adding to the aggression of the language, and the voice sounds like it is struggling to overcome emotions along with the imagery conveying the boy as more of an academic child who had been studying, than being a football player. We can  see that he would â€Å"be clever enough†, which shows the mother has hope in her son, even if he is a ‘geek’. In the previous verses Patricia had started on positive comments, however as she sees the weaker side of her son she says, â€Å"Yet† and â€Å"not hooligan enough†, which are showing how she thinks her son may turn out to be skimpy and lacking in courage. This is a clear change in the tone of her voice as she begins to fear her sons vulnerability, reflecting how her son may turn out to be. This image of the boy having â€Å"to sample punches below the belt†, portrays the image of being bullied, and being an​  illegal ​  boxing move, it will still be allowed in schools,  and some children have to â€Å"sample† it, and put up with it as they can’t fight back, and usually â€Å"sample† means you are trying something because you want to rather than having to be forced, this juxtaposes . Patricia McCarthy successfully uses enjambment to convey her ideas running on as the lines progress, because her ideas are building up and becoming stronger in what she believes will happen. McCarthy says â€Å"punches below the belt from one you know†, the next line â€Å"Without flinching. I can’t prevent† , as she advances in the foreshadowing future, and her feelings are overflowing, which is stopped by the sudden caesura which make her ideas change, and she puts herself in to shelter her son. The mother is constantly trying to protect her sons future, as he would be exposed to the life of school. Patricia doesn’t want to imagine her child growing up as he has â€Å"porcelain skin†, showing he is delicate, precious and cant be touched or harmed, compared with â€Å"their granite jowls†, which are opposites, and show life can toughen you, and you will crack if you stay porcelain. Later on in the poem, Patricia uses juxtaposing ideas to, â€Å"turn bullies into cement†, the use of a more modern material later shows as time goes on the material becomes modern and he toughens up. The mother admits that she thinks her son is, â€Å"too vulnerable for living†, showing she â€Å"can’t prevent crossbones on your knees†, this creates an image of poison and evil on her sons knees which she wishes she could help, but  she can’t protect him at school, therefore he is defenceless. McCarthy is hoping for her son, to stand up for himself, and not â€Å"to trample into the sod your shadow that grows twice as fast as yourself†, because she doesn’t want him to be in the darkness that developes quicker around him and have no friends, and the violent gesture of ‘trampling’, shows her concerns for the constant aggression at schools if he is alone in gloom, people will be able to hurt him as he has nobody to protect him. She also says she can’t â€Å"confiscate the sun†, further repetition of the â€Å"sun† being the football or life, she is saying she can’t be liable for what happens at school, as it i not the end of life even if â€Å"they’ll punter and put out†. However she says â€Å"you’ll be picking scabs of kisses off your skin†, she is telling him that he will have to stand up for himself, but there is juxtaposing imagery of scabs and kisses, this maybe describing how he is growing up, no longer needing kisses son consequent get â€Å"picked off† as he gets â€Å"kicked†. Being oxymoronic plays with the comparison of changing images and how the mother is actually feeling inside as she still  anxious about the prospects of violence in the school, as using emotions of â€Å"kisses† reminds her of wanting to protect him. The rhyming pattern throughout the poem does not stay constant, as the poets feelings change and thoughts develop. The first verse is a confident perfect rhyme as she is projecting her certainty as to how her son will turn out to be. Her assurance changes as the rhyme stops being so constant in the rhyme, but still including two lines of perfect rhyme until the fourth verse when it isn’t as perfect compared to the first. this reflects how the mothers hope changes, until the last paragraph where it is perfect until she projects her own thoughts. Her realisation at the end has no rhyme, illustrating the change in her emotions. The poets has an insight into her concerns for her son as she has regrets in her school life, the poet reflects the mood of the mothers thoughts. She doesn’t want him to idolise her previous life at school, as she wants him â€Å"not to inherit her  fragility†, so he can stick up to bullies, as he will still be delicate with â€Å"porcelain skin†, which will break as he has not developed â€Å"granite jowls†. Overall McCarthy burrowed into all of her parental feelings, justifying her fears which many other parents understand and do not like to have to experience. Being a woman she expresses her emotions more, making the poem test her affection in the rhythm of the poem.

Love and Perfectly Good Children Essay

Wislawa Szymborska expresses a negative opinion towards love and lovers in her poem â€Å"True Love.† In the beginning, the speaker questions the value of love and appears to be very bitter towards the idea. Ultimately, she cleverly uses the lovers to show how one’s perception can be changed when they are passionate about their beliefs. Initially, the speaker questions the complete happiness of couples who seem to be in ‘true love’. The speaker states, â€Å"What does the world get from two people who exist in a world of their own? / place on the same pedestal for no good reason†¦Ã¢â‚¬  (3-5). Here, the speaker sarcastically implies: What does the world or those surrounding them (so to speak) get out of them being happily ever after in their own world, while placing each other on a pedestal for no apparent reason. These questions are intended to make the reader think about true love and its significance. â€Å"What does the world get from two people who exist in a world of their own? / Placed on the same pedestal for no good reason†¦Ã¢â‚¬  (Lines 3-5) Subsequently, the speakers discouraging statements towards love is shown through the choice of words in the questions asked. The speaker questions, â€Å"True love. Is it really necessary? /†¦Perfectly good children are born without its help. /†¦It comes along so rarely.† (27, 30 and 32). Here, the speaker suggests: Is true love even really necessary? For, perfectly good people exist without being conceived through love; as it happens almost ever. These statements are meant to convince the reader as to why true love should be an afterthought as it isn’t needed to bear children and life goes on just fine without it. â€Å"True love. Is it really necessary? /†¦Perfectly good children are born without its help. /†¦It comes along so rarely.† (Lines 27, 30 and 32) Lastly, the speaker’s contradictory choice of words in the final stanza tells us that s/he ratifies the idea of true love. She professes, â€Å"Let the people who never find true love/keep saying that there’s no such thing.† (33-34). Here, the speaker affirms that despite all of her negative point-of-views previously stated, the more one doesn’t need to believe in love†¦the stronger in reality they confirm its importance. This statement tells the reader that, regardless of her disparaging tone, if one believes that true love does not exist before experiencing it or due to a bad experience, they’ve only lost their chance or more less confirmed their worst fear of true love actually existing. So from this perspective, ignorance is bliss because it is possibly better to be happy and clueless about love than to be sad because of the irreversible pain it might cause. â€Å"Let the people who never find true love/keep saying that there’s no such thing.† (Lines 33-34) Confusing is the best way to describe Szymborska’s poem. The speaker’s tone is very critical and bitter, s/he uses harsh language such as â€Å"deceptive† (Line 18), â€Å"outrage† (Line 11†) and describes love as a â€Å"plot† (Line 21) to emphasize her argument. In this way, s/he leads the reader to believe that she does not believe in, nor support the idea of true love.

Opera house public environment Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

Opera house public environment - Assignment Example We will invest 1000 million for each production. We will co-produce Andrea Chenier with Royal Opera House. We will share 30% production fee with Royal Opera House. The first performance will in Royal Opera House and will last one month. Then the scenery, lighting and crew will directly travel to our opera house. We will share 30% our ticket sales with Royal Opera House for every performance until meet their total 30% production costs. The last one is Carmen, it will provide a chance to students around Princeton area whose major is related opera to produce this production by themselves. We will offer our opera hall, all facilities and promotion to them but we don’t pay for director, cast. Also we will take 75% ticket sales. The reason why we opt these five productions is our opera festival aim to bring operas to younger age audience which means we will chose the most representative for every period and will include as much as features as that period meanwhile We’re not o nly to provide these shows but also have arrange of classes and activities to make opera get close to people. Our mission is to enable people to get enriched by operas which means we will do many things to let people who never watch operas feel associated with operas.According to the mission, the present goal is to attract more people.We have an agreement over that young people are more malleable so our specific goal is to attract young audience as much as possible.During the following part I will detailed analysis our target audience, here I want to emphasis that we have a clear goal of what kind of audience we’re going to focus.We do everything to make sure achieve the goal and also this goal will help us to check if we’re on the right path. Basically, when opera house plans to do the opera season, they will book conductor and principle cast first because for opera that high artistic value

Parenting and Support Needs of a Multi-Risk Family Case Study

Parenting and Support Needs of a Multi-Risk Family - Case Study Example There are several reasons that the Angela Greer family would request for services and referral. To begin with, the mother needed referrals to enable her to abstain from taking drugs since she was a drug addict. For instance, when their second child, Monique was born, she tested positive for cocaine and there were traces of other opiates in her body system as well. Angela needed referral and counseling to help her stop abusing drugs and take good care of the children from the children’s father was currently in prison serving fifteen-year sentence for weapons charges and drug trafficking. There was a need for her to abstain from taking drugs and focus on how to take care of the children because she was the only one to play this responsibility. In addition, another reason for referral and request for service of this family was to ensure that the children have an access to education and good care. This is because the two children were placed under the care of their grandmother Lor etta while Angela was under treatment and counseling. The grandmother lives under fixed income that is insufficient to take care of the children as well as paying school fees for Shantae. The grandmother, Loretta is also old and suffers from arthritis and high blood pressure and this makes her unable to take the children to school every now and then. Requesting for service has highly helped the children to continue with their education as well as catering for school fees the two parents are unable to pay for the fees.

Business Ethics Article Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words - 6

Business Ethics - Article Example The bank sold the securities to an investor who was unnamed and to the Zuni Indian Tribe. Stuck with $5.5 million in equity that it could not sell, through flashy moves the bank transferred the risk into CDOs marked at 52.7 cents to the dollar. They sold these CDOs to the investor and the Zuni Indian tribe for 95 cents on the dollar. The original property went into default and the purchasers were left with debt. Other fraud allegations were covered in the suit. Also, Wells Fargo had fired a whistle blower who had reported to the SEC in 2009 of these strange dealings at the bank. Is there a moral issue involved? Wells Fargo was fined a small percentage for the billion dollar chaos it helped created.It had probably obtained millions in income before the housing bubble bursted. Is uncontrolled greed a moral issue? Yes, it is. 2. In defense of Wells Fargo & Co., and Goldman Sachs who was mentioned in the article as being fined $550 million last year by the SEC for similar allegations, Mi lton Friedman, a worldly respected economist, in regard to corporate social responsibility is often quoted, "to make as much money as possible while con ­forming to the basic rules of the society, both those embodied in law and those embodied in ethical custom." Another defense would be to define the rules of society during the period of the spiraling housing prices as one that allowed speculation and rewarded it.

MGT ASSIGNMENT PART ONE Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

MGT ASSIGNMENT PART ONE - Essay Example one example, there exists many such examples around the globe whereby strategic planning can seek to anticipate and ameliorate many of the challenges to profitability and change that exist within the current business environment. Furthermore, an evidence of tactical planning can be seen in the way in which BP has sought to further improve upon its safety performance in the wake of the Deepwater Horizon Oil spill within the Gulf of Mexico. Although BP was only partly responsible for the Macando Blow Out, the fact of the matter was that the incident was able to focus a high degree of oversight and introspection into the means whereby wells were drilled, caps were placed, and safety procedures were followed within the industry. More than being the greatest oil spill in history, the Macando Blow Out has provided BP with an exceptional opportunity to implement tactical planning on all of its oil drilling operations as a means of ensuring such an eventuality does not again occur. Finally, for the aspect of contingency planning that BP engages in, one can understand such a determinant also through the lens of the Macando Blow Out. What was evidenced at the time that the explosions and subsequent leak was first evidenced was the fact that BP was wholly and completely unprepared for dealing with a situation such as this; both on the tactical front as well as upon the contingency planning front. Rather than integrating a belief or understanding with the shareholders within the arena of public opinion that the firm was in control and was capable of dealing with the situation, what unfolded for the world to see was a firm that seemed to be muddling its way through the greatest oil spill in recorded human history. This destroyed consumer confidence and has left a very biased taste within the minds of shareholders that has yet to be erased. Although the majority of the damage from Deepwater horizon has since dissipated, the pervasive memory of how the firm dealt wit h

Business forecasting Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2500 words

Business forecasting - Essay Example If the data is from the point of view of sales of the softwood supplier it indicates positive. The number of unfilled orders according to the data is going down. The analysis of the data, the methods which have been tried out and the reason behind trying these methods is given below. The papers also support the MS EXCEL sheet which has been prepared in order to analyze the data and forecast. The appropriate method is described below. The basis of choosing that particular method over the others is mentioned at the end of the paper. Data analysis is done in various ways. The data when a manager looks at it he might look for the major variations, drops or growths, units time line etc in the first look. The data is useful or not it is decided here. The second step is presenting data in a graph or chart which gives clearer picture of the changes over a period of time. The number of data and the variables present are the basis to analyze it for the further forecasting process. The data available has various factors in it which has been deciding factors of adopting a forecast method. The available when analyzed with Autocorrelation method, it has shown the following features in it. If a series has trend, Yt and Yt-1 are highly correlated. The auto coefficient lag 1 is often very large (close to 1). As we can see from the above analysis the value of r1 is 0.807 which is close to one. Not only this if have we observed the Graph of the unfilled orders over a period of time we find that it is decreasing. It can be inferred that the overall unfilled orders is decreasing over a period of time in the 110 observations. It shows a trend of decrease which is a positive impact for the organization or the industry. There are other factors which can have impact on this industry. These are various social, economic, technological and political factors which have been assumed to be constant over the period of time. It is based on the

Strategy and practise Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2500 words

Strategy and practise - Essay Example Strategic decisions are concerned with the issue of setting a direction for the organization to move or the course the organization will follow Though very crucial, yet preparing 'strategic moves' for future often is not based on hard fact, but on presumptions. It involves past experience, forecasting and 'surround-effect'. Strategic management can be described as what Bernard called 'maintaining the organization in operation'2. For any organization to function effectively; three main aspects are critical; Contribution from the concerned helps in widening the thoughts, assigning responsibilities helps in implementing and constantly monitoring the results and feedback helps in devising a still better strategy. It is said that organizations are not passive components. They are live, full of activity and environment-responsive like living beings. Organizations do acquire character and develop a typical personality with time and we tend to make an image of the employee depending on the organization he/ she works for. This very personality of the organization considerably influences the functions of the organization in the long run. For example we tend to remember some companies as employee friendly, as well paying, as investor friendly, as market friendly, as customer friendly etc. depending upon their past performances and behavior. To meet and exceed customer satisfaction, the business team needs to follow an overall organizational strategy. Traditionally 'maximizing' profits has been considered to be the objective of any organization. Not any more.This criteria has been discarded. Now organizations are supposed to have multiple objectives, monetary as well as non-monetary. There are short-term objectives as well as long-term ones. Strategists are supposed to prioritize all such objectives, so that there is clarity and ease of decision making in situations where there is an apparent clash of objectives. Situations like these at times present testing times for organization. Failure doesn't come with a one off decision, in fact it is the result of continuous interactions in a system. It has structure and sequence. John Martin, CEO, Taco Bell says, "When you are on the right road and the wind is behind you, you can make all kinds of mistakes."3 And the real test comes in overpowering these mistakes and taking corrective and preventive steps. Strategic intent cannot be planned all in advance. It has to be a continuous evolut ionary process depending upon the experiences. Henry Ford say, "Failure is the opportunity to begin again more intelligently"4 Basic Building Blocks of Strategy: 1. Environment Analysis 2. Doing a SWOT Analysis 3. Preparing a Business Policy. Environment Analysis: It involves studying and analyzing the surroundings to identify the competitors, the threats and opportunities. Maslow's hierarchy of needs argued that the driving force for human actions is the urge for satisfaction of one or the other need. These needs go on changing depending upon a number of factors. In fact the needs of consumer/ customer and those of the organization are inter-linked because organization too is an active component so needs of the

Nordstrom Rewards Its Customers Essay Example for Free

Nordstrom Rewards Its Customers Essay Nordstrom is a great place to go shopping and receive rewards while spending money. Nordstrom shoppers automatically become members of Nordstrom’s Fashion Rewards program when they people sign up for the store’s credit. When each person accumulates 2,000 points, then they receive a $20 Nordstrom Note, a gift certificate redeemable for Nordstrom merchandise or services. In the book one of the questions is â€Å"what are the design characteristics of an effective loyalty program.† The structure of their loyalty program and how they use the data collected through the program to make informed product, marketing and customer experience decisions are key to its success. The store’s frequent customers will be able to get perks like custom shopping parties and tickets to in-store fashion shows after shelling out just half as much as they used to spend to qualify for rewards. Loyalty marketing is and should always be much bigger than points, thresholds or incentives. It is about changing and influencing behavior in a proactive manner that creates long-term brand advocates who, in turn, enter into a dialogue with the brand. Nordstrom’s program is effective for a number of key reasons. First, even the lower levels of Nordstrom’s loyalty program are engaging because they offer meaningful soft benefits and because it’s aspirational, members remain engaged; they aspire to be at the higher tiers in the program so they can get the bigger rewards. Another question asks is the Nordstrom program worth what it spends to reward customers. I think it does because when you reward your customers then they would want to come into the store and buy their supplies to build up their points. When they do that then they get awards. Example would be I have a credit card and I receive points, the more I spend then the more money I get off from that store. I use my card all the time and I go and pay it off. I would get a credit card from any store I shop at if they reward me to use it.

Mastering Biology Suggested Answer Book Essay Example for Free

Mastering Biology Suggested Answer Book Essay The rate of reaction increases when the polyphenol oxidase concentration increases. 1m b Rate of reaction = 1/18 = 0.056 1m From the graph, the enzyme concentration is around 1.15%. 1m c Use boiled enzyme in the tube. 1m d The enzyme does not work in acidic medium. / The enzyme is denatured in acidic medium. 1m e The colour change becomes faster at start 0.5m as enzyme activity increases with temperature. 0.5m When temperature becomes too high, no further colour change will be observed 0.5m as the enzyme is denatured. 0.5m f The rate of reaction drops / stops if all active sites of the enzymes are blocked. 1m The inhibitor competes with normal substrate for active sites. 1m 11 HKCEE Biology 2003 I Q3b Essay (p. 4-23) 12 Enzymes are biological catalysts, speeding up metabolic reactions without being used. 1m Enzymes can be reused. Enzyme molecules return to its original form after completing the reaction. 1m Enzymes are required in relatively small amount because enzymes remain unchanged in the reaction. 1m Enzymes are proteins. They are easily denatured by high temperatures and extreme values of pH. 1m The actions of enzymes are specific. Each enzyme catalyses only one type of reaction. 1m Examples of enzyme application: Biological washing powder, papain in meat tenderizers, enzyme to coagulate milk to produce cheese, enzyme to modify the starch in bread, enzymes to break down plant cell wall in fruit juices, enzymes to remove hairs from hides 1m Advantages of using enzymes in the above applications: Enzymes are specific in action. This reduces the production of unwanted products. 1m Enzymes are efficient in small amounts. This lowers the cost of production.

Management styles: Small and large businesses

Management styles: Small and large businesses The overall aim of the essay is to explore the difference between management styles of small and large business. All organisations large or small, are today struggling to develop in an external operating environment which is epitomised by turbulence and uncertainty. Within the small business context research shows that owner-managers view of management as one of their most important roles, and yet one of the task they find the most difficult (Hankinson 1997), while a multitude of theories, concepts and guiding frames of insight have emerged and are embraced the best management style knowledge but it can be argued that much of this knowledge has relevance to large organisations and fails to address the distinctive characteristics of the small business. Management of any business consists of internal and external management, internal management involves human resources management and managing organisational structure and functions where external management can include developing strategies for business growth and development and managing influence of change on business activities. Within the context of management, small and large businesses have different ways to managing business activities. The detail discussion of management differences below covers the management issues that both businesses come cross during its growth. 2. Discussion What is a small business? What is a large business? There are differing definitions for small versus large businesses, depending on the context of the discussion. As an example, the United States Small Business Administration has established a size standard for most industries of the economy (United States Small Business Administration, 2002). Under these standards, for instance, in the manufacturing and mining industries, a business is small if it has fewer than 500 employees, while fewer than 100 employees makes businesses in the wholesale trade industry small. For the discussion in this paper, we use the term â€Å"small business† to imply organizations with fewer than 100 employees. Therefore, a â€Å"large business† implies 100 or more employees. Small and large organizations typically differ in resources, money, and time. [www.sbaer.uca.edu- 19-11-07] 2.1 Management It is known that freedom of information and communication, the culture of trust and confidence, and management systems that support policy implementation are the organisational factors that affect middle manager activities (Hancock and Hellawell, 2003). It appears these issues closely relate to the size of an organization and its form of ownership. For instance, it is easier for small organizations to act as a coherent whole and provide better two-way communication, while this is a challenge for large organisations. The middle managers proactiveness appears to be related to the issues of firm size and ownership: they are more visible in small companies and they get more extrinsic incentives to be active. The organisations size and form of ownership as two separate variables have been the focus of prior studies (for review, Wu, 2006; Chen and Hambrick, 1995), but a combination of these variables in large state-owned enterprises and small private companies has not been a subject of res earch. The difference between the managerial environments of state and private companies is evident: state-owned enterprises are very sensitive to institutional constraints, while private firms have an adaptive ability (Hoskisson et al., 2000); the state sector prioritises income per worker rather than profit, whereas private-sector firms are profit maximizes (Meng and Perkins, 1998); employee participation in decision making is highest in employee-owned enterprises, compared to enterprises with state or mixed ownership (Russell and Callanan, 2001). As to the differences between small and large companies, small firms show a lower degree of visibility as well as a lower degree of responsiveness to competitive actions; they are slower to announce responses, but they execute faster than larger firms (Chen and Hambrick, 1995). Large enterprises have more procedures and regulations regarding employee and managerial operations, while managers of small companies have less feelings of secur ity. Two different managerial environments â€Å"private, small business management† and â€Å"state, large enterprise management† -influence the implementation of middle managers decisions. The possibility of such influence is even sharper in economies that are moving from central planning to market competition. Divergent factors, such as national ideology, culture, and government policy are significantly influential â€Å"in shaping the values of middle managers which in turn affects the interpretation and enactment of their managerial roles† (Holden and Roberts, 2004, p. 270). [www.emeraldinsight.com 23-11-07] 2.2 Business structure and functions Small and large organisations are structured in radically different ways ranging from relatively fixed structures with positions, rules, and established chains of communication to dynamic structures in which people belong to teams that are continually being formed and reformed for the duration of a project. [www.thetimes100.co.uk 24-11-07] Typical organisation structure [www.tutor2u.net accessed 28-11-07] Typical ways of organising people are: By function dividing the organisation up into groups with similar specialises e.g. marketing, finance and accounts, human resources, etc. usually seen in large scale businesses By product grouping people together according to the product they make. For example, BIC has three main divisions pens, lighters, and razors. By process grouping people together according to the processes that they are carrying out. For example retailing organisations like Argos and Travis Perkins will group employees according to whether they are involved in packing and display or customer service. By geographical area most large companies are widely dispersed. Companies like BIC, Gillette, Kelloggs, etc have European and North American divisions. Small and large firms can also be highly centralised or largely decentralised. In a highly centralised structure control will be tight from the centre or Head Office of the firm, mostly implies on large firms. In contrast, in a decentralised organisation power will be passed down to the various project managers and teams typically used in small firms where culture relies on informal management and employee relation and business activities . [www.thetimes100.co.uk 24-11-07] Managers of small and large firms need to learn to work with both formal and informal structures. A flexible manager will realise that elements of the informal structure can be formalised i.e. by adapting the formal structure to incorporate improvements which result from the day-to-day working of the informal structure. When managers nurture these informal groups and mould them into the formal structure this can lead to high levels of motivation for the staff involved. [www.thetimes100.co.uk 24-11-07] 2.3 Bureaucratic versus Pre bureaucratic management Bureaucracy is the structure and set of regulations in place to control activity, usually in large organizations and government. It is characterized by standardized procedure (rule-following), formal division of responsibility, hierarchy, and impersonal relationships. In practice the interpretation and execution of policy can lead to informal influence Pre- bureaucratic (entrepreneurial) structures lack standardisation of task, this structure is most common in smaller organizations and is best used to solve simple tasks. The structure is totally centralized. The strategic leader makes all key decisions and most communication is done by one on one conversations. It is particularly useful for new (Entrepreneurial) business as it enables the founder to control growth and development. [en.wikipedia.org 28-11-07] Regardless the size of the business management styles applies the same, management can be considered as leadership and leadership has various different styles to manage business as well as people working for it. Management of any business based upon the culture of the business and culture or basic assumptions, values, belief and attitudes. These elements are the basic of any management to consider before implementing any managerial styles on business. 2.4 Management and employee relation: All firms, small and large, should emphasize honesty, trust, fairness, and clarity in employee and labour relations. Employers and employees must take the time to build a cooperative relationship for the success of the organization and individual employees. Both non-unionised and unionised environments must emphasize communication, disciplinary action, and conflict and dispute resolutions to achieve harmony in the workplace. [www.sbaer.uca.edu- 19-11-07] A small business is often portrayed as close, friendly, and harmonious. Owner/manager and employee relationships are facilitated through informal communication and greater flexibility (Dundon, Grugulis, and Wilkinson, 1999). Communication takes place one-on-one and face-to-face that typically leads to increased cooperation and less formal policies. [www.sbaer.uca.edu- 19-11-07] Labour relations in a large unionised business are similar to that in a small unionised business. Communication, disciplinary actions, and conflict and dispute resolutions involve the union, employee, and management. One possible difference is that unionisation in a large business may be more desirable for employees than in a small business (Brown, Hamilton, and Medoff, 1990). [www.sbaer.uca.edu- 19-11-07] The small firm provides a better environment for the employee than is possible in most large firms. Although physical working conditions may sometimes be inferior in small forms, most people prefer to work in small groups where communication presents few problems. The employee in a small firm can more easily see the relation between what he is doing and the objectives and performances of the firm as a whole. Where management is more direct and flexible, working rules can be varied to suit the individual. Each employee each employee also likely to have more varied role with a chance to participate in several kinds of work, turnover in small firms is very low and strikes and other kinds of industry dispute are relatively infrequent. The fact that smaller firms offer lower earnings than larger firms suggests that convenience of location and generally the non material satisfactions of working in them more than out weigh any financial sacrifice involved.(Bolton report 1971), (Carter S, Jo nes D, 2000, p309) 2.5 Human resource management Substantial work has been undertaken in the field of human resource management (HRM) as it applies to large organizations. However, for small business these models frequently do not apply. The small business lacks adequate systems to ensure the efficient management of human resources. Further, most small businesses are the product of their owners, whose personality and personal involvement dominate. [www.sbaer.uca.edu- 19-11-07] Human resource management (HRM) is the performance of all the managerial functions involved in planning for recruiting, selecting, developing, utilizing, rewarding, and maximizing the potential of the human resources in an organization (Megginson, Franklin, and Byrd, 1995). Human resource (HR) personnel also support and advice managers, serve as employee advocates, resolve problems, and implement organization policies. Small and large businesses often develop and implement policies and procedures related to these functional areas differently, primarily due to the size and nature of the firms. [www.sbaer.uca.edu- 19-11-07] Small firms may have different HR practices than larger firms because of different workforce requirements and/or a lack of understanding of HRM issues by small business owners (Deshpande and Golhar, 1994). Regardless of size, employees are vital assets, and a well established and maintained HRM department, or just functional area for smaller firms, provides a strong structure which is an organizational asset and crucial to ultimate success. [www.sbaer.uca.edu- 19-11-07] HR planning is part of HRM, particularly the staffing process required by all types of organizations. In many instances, the owner of a small business handles the HRM function himself or herself because the firm only employs a few individuals (Hornsby and Kuratko, 1990). It is easier for the small business owner to make decisions and hire employees due to the owners single authority. In contrast, in a larger organization, this task is often handled by the HRM department, which employs fulltime personnel to recruit, hire, and fulfil the other HRM functions. Such a process may involve lengthy hiring procedures due to the number of individuals and departments who may be involved in the final hiring decision. [www.sbaer.uca.edu- 19-11-07] As a small business grows its owners must begin to increase their staff and learn how to develop and implement human resource management (HRM) policies. The faster the growth experienced by the small firm the more likely it will experience HR problems. For many fast growing small to medium enterprises the main problem is finding and retaining high quality employees (Fraza, 1998). As a firm grows and its employee numbers increase the complexity of its HRM deepens. The owner-manager is usually burdened with a variety of HR functions for which he/she is generally poorly equipped (Thatcher, 1996). Managing such issues as recruitment and selection, staff promotion and retention, wages and salary negotiations, compliance with government employment, tax and insurance regulations and training and development can severely tax the average small business owner. What is required is the development of suitable HR policy and procedure. Ideally this should be flexible and not a mere addition to the bureaucracy (Caudron, 1993). [www.emeraldinsight.com 20-11-07] For e.g. Marks and Spencer CEO Stuart Rose has given all new look to marks and Spencer at the stage where its growth has almost declined. Stuart Rose introduced a new strategy with the element of human resource management, he believed that any thing can save Marks and Spencer is a new effective human resource strategy. His, strategy built a new image of Marks and Spencer in market and enable it to compete with rivalries. 2.5.1 Human resources planning HR planningprocess makes assumptions and forecasting future HR needs of the organization. This involves issues concerning revenue, number of employees, and expansion or downsizing of the company. Both small and large businesses try to predict changes that may occur in the future. Small businesses may look to expand the venture through growth strategies. In this case, forecasting the need for additional employees is the first step. The company may also look at required employee skill levels, particularly when the business relies heavily on technology or other change elements. A large business often looks at cash flow and cost control when it comes to HR planning. It may or may not hire additional employees, provide raises, reduce employee pay, and expand or downsize the company. [www.sbaer.uca.edu- 19-11-07] As a small or large company evolves or grows, employees need proper training to help the company achieve its goals. Training is essential to improve skills and overcome deficiencies. Not only do employees benefit, but the company also benefits. Training and development is also essential to stay ahead of competitors, especially in the area of innovation and technology. Research suggests that the investment made by entrepreneurs in training their employees strengthens a firms technical excellence and innovative capabilities (Gundry, 1991). Small businesses usually do not have large training budgets like many large firms, but they can still get the most out of their training dollars. Smaller companies assess their training needs by finding out what is important to the organization and employees. The most serious challenges small firms face in terms of training and developing employees are restrictions on time, money, space, and staff (Cohen, 1998). Larger businesses typically have more time, space, money, and staff to train employees than smaller organizations. These firms may have training specialists who are responsible for setting training objectives, developing and presenting training materials, and following up on the progress to ensure that the training objectives have been achieved. [www.sbaer.uca.edu- 19-11-07] 2.6 Strategic management Strategic management involves developing a game plan to guide a company as its strive to accomplished its vision, mission, goals and objectives and to keep it from straying off its desired course (Zimmerer.T.W Scarborough N.M, 2005, pg. 69). The goal of developing a strategic plan is to create for the small business a competitive advantage- the aggregation of factors that sets a small business apart from its competitors and gives it a unique position in the market superior to its competition. [www.fm-kp.si- 20-11-07] [www.tutor2u.net accessed 28-11-07] When it comes to developing a strategy for establishing a competitive advantage, small businesses have a variety of natural advantages over their larger competitors. A small business has often narrower product lines, more clearly defined customer bases, and more specific geographic market areas than big businesses. Due to simplicity of organisational structures, small business owners are in touch with employees daily, often working together, allowing them to communicate strategic moves firsthand. Consequently, small businesses find that strategic management comes more naturally to them than to larger companies with their layers of bureaucracy and far flung operations. [www.fm-kp.si- 20-11-07] Strategic management can increase small business effectiveness, but entrepreneurs first must have a process designed to meet their needs and their businesss special characteristics. It is a mistake to attempt to apply a big businesss strategic development techniques to a small business because small business is not a little big business. Because of their size and their particular characteristics small resource base, flexible managerial style, informal organisational structure and adaptability to change; small businesses need a different approach to the strategic management process [www.fm-kp.si- 20-11-07]. The value of strategic planning for firm performance may lay more in the future orientation and planning practices than in the formal form of a strategic plan (Hunger and Wheelen 1998). Small firms in particular tend to plan informally and not on a regular basis. Strategic planning can be beneficial for small firm performance, because it forces the entrepreneur to think about open business questions and search for solutions, and also encourages the entrepreneurs learning and making improvements (Wickham 1998). Strategic planning is a process that helps to forecast the future and prepare for the future, and can be beneficial for firm growth (Zimmerer and Scarborough 1996); [www.fm-kp.si- 20-11-07] Successful small firms tend to a large extent to use advanced planning and activity analysis (Zimmerer and Scarborough, 1996). Strategic orientation can be considered a driver of strategy formulation; a strategically oriented entrepreneur will pursue opportunities regardless of resources under his or her control, whereas a strategically not-oriented entrepreneur will limit his or her activities by the resources that are currently under control (Sahlman et al. 1999).[ www.fm-kp.si- 20-11-07] 2.7 Change management: More than ever, organisations are being subjected to a host of pressures for change from elements in the environment, both internal and external. According to Churchill and Lewis (1983), there are five main stages of development in a businesss growth. These include existence, survival, success, take off, and resource maturity. As an organisation moves from one stage to another, it must adjust to the challenges of that phase. There is a need for continual renewal if the organisation is to maintain a sustainable competitive advantage which will ensure its survival in a turbulent business environment. Organisational change is the process by which the organisation moves from its current position and state towards some future position as a way of increasing its overall effectiveness (Jones, 2001). The management of change is a complex process, which according to Larkin and Larkin (1996) is something which many organisations get wrong. (Jenny Hayes, Managing Change, 2004) Although much has been written about managing change in large private and public companies, very little has been written about managing change in the unique context of small firms. Concerns particular to small firms include their relative lack of control over their environment, commingling of business and personal priorities, and lack of resources to carry out the magnitude of change that is appropriate to meet accurately diagnosed problems or recognized opportunities.. [www.smeal.psu.edu -27-11-07] Change occurs frequently in most large and small companies. The problem is that it is not always well planned, deliberately executed, and successful. It is also often reactive to events rather than proactive in anticipating or even creating them. The typical small firms has not invested much in planning, pursues change haphazardly, and adopts generic or packaged change initiatives (Smart et al., 2004). Owners and managers of small firms should engage their company and its environment in a proactive manner, which means they cause something to happen rather than wait to respond to it after it happens. Owners and managers are more likely to engage in generative learning when they are proactive because they have time to explore potential problems and opportunities. Small firms that are reactive do not have adequate time to explore problems and even less, if any, time to explore opportunities. Learning under these conditions tends to be adaptive. Problems can be solved in this manner, but this may not contribute to long-term survival or prosperity. [www.smeal.psu.edu -27-11-07] [www.managingchange.com accessed 28-11-07] 2.8 Organisational culture Culture is often deeply rooted within an organisation and results in formal and informal systems, rules, and shared expectations that govern attitudes, beliefs and behaviour. Organisational culture, or corporate culture, comprises the attitudes, experiences, beliefs and values of an organisation. It has been defined as the specific collection of values and norms that are shared by people and groups in an organisation and that control the way they interact with each other and with stakeholders outside the organisation. Organisational values are beliefs and ideas about what kinds of goals members of an organisation should pursue and ideas about the appropriate kinds or standards of behaviour organisational members should use to achieve these goals. From organisational values develop organisational norms, guidelines or expectations that prescribe appropriate kinds of behaviour by employees in particular situations and control the behaviour of organisational members towards one another. [en.wikipedia.org 21-11-07] In an owner managed business (small firms), the organisational culture typically reflects the personality traits and aspirations of the owner-manager that, in turn, help to shape the enabling and constraining forces affecting the firm. The pervading sets of norms and values and the ways of doing things and the freedoms afforded to different individuals are often reflected in informal structures, systems and processes which themselves often the personality traits of the main owner (Carter S, Jones D, 2000). To support the argument there is an example of well known entrepreneur the owner of Virgin group Richard Branson, he introduced a culture at the early stages on Virgin group in mid 1970s a blame free culture, in which Branson and management considered the mistakes made by any employee or manager as the implications for the growth of the business, purpose of this culture is to encourage and motivate innovation among the workforce to produce sufficient outcomes. 2.9 Job quality at small business versus large business: Small businesses create a significant share of new jobs; it is natural to ask how these jobs compare to those at large firms. Simply put, large firms offer better jobs and higher wages than small firms. Benefits appear to be better at large firms as well, for everything from health insurance and retirement to paid holidays and vacations. Finally, job turnover, initiated by both employers and employees, is lower at large firms. The lower rates of employee initiated turnover suggest that job satisfaction and mobility are relatively greater at large firms; lower rates of employer initiated separations suggest that jobs at larger firms are more stable. For e.g. multinational organisations such ICI limited, Unilever limited, Pfizer, these are the known companies around the world due to their quality of work life and effective management styles. [www.emeraldinsight.com 20-11-07] Large firms often have desirable working conditions, such as weaker autonomy, stricter rules and regulations, less flexible scheduling, empirical evidence can capture these differences, working conditions can not explain the firm size wage effect (Brown and Medoff). The expansion lies in the migration of firms across size classes from year to year. In any given year, some small firms will grow beyond 20 workers and join a large size class. Such migration trims the share of firms in the smallest class size, in the same way that small business failures trim the class size. Likewise, some large firms will contract, falling below the 500 employee level and dropping into a smaller size class. Also, new small businesses are born, increasing the share of jobs in the small firm class. [www.emeraldinsight.com 20-11-07] Brown and Medoff and other theories suggested that larger employers may make greater use of high quality workers. This might occur, for example, because larger firms are more capital intensive and require higher skilled employees to operate that plant and equipment. [www.emeraldinsight.com 20-11-07] The critical factor in greater labour turnover at smaller businesses is that the failure rate of small businesses is somewhat greater than that of larger businesses, which leads to higher rates of employer initiated separations (Dunne and others; Idson). Failure rates of establishments drop markedly as firm size increases to 100 employees, but then turn upwards again such that firms with 500 or more employees have larger failure rates those firms with 20-99 employees. Nevertheless, the failure rates for the smallest firms (one to four employees) generally are about one and one half times higher those of larger firms. [www.emeraldinsight.com 20-11-07] 2.10 Management Characteristics, Small businesses Versus Large business There are some characteristics of small and large firms, which may represent an advantage as well as a disadvantage. For instance while the presence of fewer hierarchical layers in smaller firms may on the one hand reduce bureaucracy, increase flexibility and result in less filtering of proposals, it also limits career opportunities for their employees. [www.emeraldinsight.com 20-11-07] Small firms Large firms Little bureaucracy Formal management skills Rapid decision making Able to control complex organizations Risk taking Can spread risk over a portfolio of products Motivated and committed management Functional expertise in staff functionaries Motivated labour More specialized labour Rapid and effective internal communication, shorter decision chains Time and resources to establish comprehensive external Science Technology networks Fast reaction to changing market requirements Comprehensive distribution and servicing facilities Can dominate narrow market niches High market power with existing products RD efficiency Economies of scale and scope in RD Capacity for customisation Better able to fund diversification, synergy Capable of fast learning and adapting routines and strategy Able to obtain learning curve economies through investment in production Appropriation of rewards from innovation through tacitness of knowledge Able to erect entry barriers (www.emeraldinsight.com) 3. Conclusion The relative strengths of large firms lie mostly in resources, while those of small firms are generally argued in terms of behavioral characteristics. It is however not either small firms or large firms which are the better innovators. Small and large firms are likely to play complementary roles in the process of technical advance, in the sense that they are better at different types of innovation. A challenge for management would be to find ways to combin

1850-1860 :: Essays Papers

1850-1860 The decade of the 1850’s bought about an era of change for American citizens, which included economic revolutions and a rise in agriculture and manufacturing. This was largely due to a revolution in transportation. In 1851, a 483-mile Erie Railroad was completed which linked the Hudson River to Lake Erie (Brown 88). 1852 transformed the history of the Chicago railroad with the construction of Illinois Central. This proved to be very profitable. In fact, an 1852 report to Congress concluded "a farmer would save a large amount of money by shipping his goods by railroad, rather than by steamboat or ordinary roads" ("The City Transformed" 14). Trains raised the standards for the U.S. because it enabled people in our economy to transport cotton and wheat to European markets. Trains were able to ship material faster to different harbors, which helped the shipping industry. During this time, however, slavery and child labor were very common. Consistent with economic expansion, the na tion also began to expand communications. People had access to a mailing system, a daily newspaper and the use of the telegraph. However, most of the people in the country were unable to use these resources. For example, only 10 percent of the nation could afford the paper (Brown 51). These changes were not only facing America, but spread globally throughout this decade. Influential world events took place during these years. Many kings and emperors were replaced, and wars between foreign countries began. In 1851 President Louis Napoleon led a coup d’etat in France. Only one year later he proclaimed the Second Empire in France, and Louis Napoleon was named Napoleon III on December 2, 1852. During this time, Herbert Spencer, Karl Marx, and Auguste Comte wrote works on social class structure. In 1859, Charles Darwin published On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection (Brown 8). Religion was also an important issue during this time period. Catholic Bishops began to accept titles in Europe, and religious organizations began to form. Landscape painting was the major art movement during this period. Most of the paintings were depictions of the wilderness, but they also portrayed ideas such as mortality. Between the periods of 1850 to1870, a new era of artists introduced a greater sense of realism rather than the romantic style used by their precursors (Brown 27). Their work was more detailed because they used a style called luminism. This style relied heavily on the effects of light, the atmosphere and scenery (Brown 27).

Crohns Disease Essay examples -- Health, Chronic Inflammation

When someone first finds out they have Crohn’s disease, they will probably feel overwhelmed. There are so many questions. Will I be able to work, travel and exercise? Should I be on a special diet? Could my medications have side effects? How will Crohn’s disease change my life? The better informed they can become, the more equipped they will be to be an active member in your healthcare (Crohn’s & Colitis Foundation of America, 2009). Crohn’s disease is a chronic disorder of the digestive system. I can affect any area of the gastrointestinal system from the mouth to the anus. Its inflammatory process may spread to include skin, eyes, joints, mouth and sometimes the liver (Chang, 2008). Males and females appear to be affected proportionately. Crohn’s disease can occur in people of any age, but it is mostly a disease of adolescents and young adults. However, Crohn’s disease may occur in people over 70 years old and in young children (Crohn’s & Colitis Foundation of America, 2009). â€Å"Crohn’s disease appears to be caused by a dysfunctional inflammatory response in the gastrointestinal tract† (U. S. News, 2009). Inflammation is the body’s natural way to heal by sending immune cells to the site of the injury or invader. Researchers think that this immune system response may be triggered by bacteria or viruses, material in the intestinal contents, or a defective signal from the body’s own cells, called an autoimmune response. Inflammation results in pain, heat, redness, and swelling of the tissue. Chronic inflammation can harm the function of tissues and organs (U.S. News, 2009). Crohn’s disease also appears to affect certain ethnic groups more than others. American Jews of European descent are four to five times more likely to de... ...rica, 2009). Florida Gator P/ David Lerner was just recently diagnosed with Crohn’s disease. He was ready to start practice season when he was diagnosed. Lerner was about to become the starting punter for the Gators and he thought this would probably derail him. After consist treatment the disease was under control, but not gone. He was able to start for the team, and earn a scholarship. Lerner states, â€Å"Maybe I can’t eat a couple of things here and there that I want to eat, but at the end of the day, it’s really not the worst thing in the world†(Washington Post, 2011). People with Crohn’s disease accept their condition differently. Each person with the disease must adjust in their own way, but they must adjust. Even though there is no cure at this time, research is ongoing and promises to improve the health and quality of life for those with Crohn’s disease.

Diary of Lady Macbeth’s Psychiatrist Essay

I had often heard of the ‘Macbeth House† and of the heroic soldier Macbeth, by whom many a man had met with his death. At first I had little knowledge of Lady Macbeth, but subsequently as a result of our meeting today, I have embarked on one of the most riveting cases having ever to be dealt with. To begin with she tried to acquire and entirely different identity, but this did not prevail. When she entered my study the pretence faded and she assumed her natural personality. Firstly she produced a letter that she had received two weeks prior to this interview. The content of which contained personal issues. Lady Macbeth explained to me that Macbeth had just triumphed in battle against Norway, when he encountered three weird sisters. These sisters predicted that Macbeth would become Thane of Cawdor and King of Scotland, and Banquo’s descendents would also become king. This stirred Macbeth immensely because becoming king is his deepest, hidden ambition. Macbeth longed to know more, but the witches vanished before any relevant explanation emerged. Coincidentally, Macbeth was then actually made Thane of Cawdor. Macbeth then relates on how he feels by saying that the greatest is to come. That all he has to do now is to become King. I write this next sentence with my pen shaking and my heart beating so fast it hurts. Macbeth is actually considering murdering the king! I can’t believe that I’m involved with this. I can’t relate this to anyone because everything has to be kept confidential. Anyway, I don’t dare to tell a soul because Macbeth might see me as a threat and contemplate of disposing of me. If he were debating about removing the king, then getting me out the way would mean nothing to him. Anyway, getting back to more immediate things, he finally ends the letter by asking Lady Macbeth for advice on all that had happened and saying that he’ll be home soon. Lady Macbeth then suddenly grabbed the letter and apologized for being a burden to me. She told me to forget about everything that I had learned during the time that she had been there. Then she exited quickly looking upset. I feel that Lady Macbeth is hiding something more then what I already know. I could tell that her problems were much deeper then just a letter. She seemed extremely devoted to her husband Macbeth and I felt that she would do almost anything for him. But it was what she might actually do for him that worried me. Date – 3rd March 1051 Just as I had anticipated, Lady Macbeth was back to see me once again. She could not keep problems bottled up so she had to talk about them. She told me that she couldn’t discuss certain things with her husband because she didn’t want him to think that she was weak. She wanted to be the strong one so that Macbeth had some one to rely on. It was very apparent that she adored her husband and wanted him to have the best. If he had any goals then she wanted him to achieve them. She began by telling me that herself and Macbeth had arranged to actually murder Duncan. I could tell that she was trying to sound strong because of the continuous expression of anguish that was portrayed all over her face, and the way she avoided saying the word kill or murder. It was almost as if she was pretending that what she was going to do wasn’t that bad. As we continued talking her voice became more panicky and eventually she crumbled and told me her true feelings. Lady Macbeth said that she was happy the way everything was and that becoming the queen meant nothing to her apart from Macbeth’s happiness. She said this with such sincerity that I had no reason to doubt what she said. As she said before, she told me that she only wanted the best for Macbeth and wasn’t concerned about what might happen to her. Lady Macbeth told me that Macbeth had become full of doubt and didn’t want to go through with it any more. She told me that she had to use forceful language and conjure up images of horror. But it was when she questioned his bravery that she finally persuaded Macbeth to go through with the deed. Lady Macbeth then went on to tell me that Duncan was coming to their house ‘Inverness’ and that he was going to stay the night. She was going to drug the guards and ring a bell as a signal for Macbeth to kill Duncan with the guard’s daggers. The guards would then be smeared with blood and the daggers placed near them to make it look as if they killed the King. I just sat rigid in my seat. There wasn’t anything suitable that I could possibly reply with. Shortly after Lady Macbeth had blurted the entire story out, she told me that she trusted me not to repeat anything that I had heard and that she would see me again. Then she left abruptly. This really is a fascinating but at the same time petrifying case. I want to be able to stop the future events but I fear and value my own life too much to take such big risks. Date – 15th March 1051 Usually Lady Macbeth came to see me, but this time I was going to see her. A gentlewoman explained that Lady Macbeth had been sleepwalking regularly and that she was very worried. She asked me to come and observe and see if I could do anything to help Lady Macbeth. When I arrived the gentlewoman told me of some of the strange things that Lady Macbeth did whilst still asleep. During my discussion with the gentlewoman Lady Macbeth entered the room. Her eyes were open and she looked as though she was awake, but the gentlewoman assured me that Lady Macbeth was sound asleep. Ass I found out for myself, Lady Macbeth was truly unconscious. Lady Macbeth entered carrying a taper. I asked how Lady Macbeth had got hold of a light and the gentlewoman told me that Lady Macbeth had commanded that she continually had a light by her. This seemed to suggest that Lady Macbeth was scared of something. Darkness usually represents evil and I thought the light might be there to keep evil away. I think Lady Macbeth feels insecure and having a light by her was a kind of security. I also felt that Lady Macbeth’s fear of the Dark went deeper than it appeared. She seemed afraid of the dark in more senses than one. Next Lady Macbeth became obsessed with washing her hands. Whilst doing this she began to talk. I didn’t understand much of what she spoke of near the beginning. But eventually she began reliving events leading up to Duncan’s Murder. I recognized several parts of what she spoke of from what my previous knowledge of my sessions with Lady Macbeth had taught me. She mentioned about ringing the bell as a signal and that she couldn’t believe how much blood had actually come out of King Duncan. At this remark the gentlewoman looked at me and told me that she felt to scared to make a report or tell anyone about what she knew. I began to realize that Lady Macbeth was trying to wash blood off her hands. I don’t know whether the gentlewoman knew all of what I knew, but she obviously suspected that something was very wrong. I told the gentlewoman that I thought Lady Macbeth’s heart was heavily laden. I also told her that Lady Macbeth was not sick physically but mentally. Therefore I did not have a cure for Lady Macbeth. I did not wish to stay any longer after Lady Macbeth returned to bed, so I bid goodnight to the gentlewoman and left. Tonight I learned a great deal. I was horrified and shocked by the doings and happenings surrounding Lady Macbeth. I know that it is all right to think about what I know but not to speak about them. I think that maybe things have gone too far to be cured. As a psychiatrist all I can do is to help Lady Macbeth actually recognize her problems and help her solve them. Date – 27th April 1051 It has been a long time since I have talked to Lady Macbeth. I knew that Macbeth had become King of Scotland so I presumed that everything had worked out as planned. When Lady Macbeth entered my study once again, I immediately noticed a dramatic change. She had changed from looking bright and confident to looking weary, edgy and withdrawn. I asked her to tell me what was wrong and then she related the full story from when they had murdered King Duncan. After Macbeth had done the deed he had become a ‘wreck’. Lady Macbeth had a lot of trouble trying to calm him down and getting him to wash blood off his hands. They only just managed to get away with it. They were very nearly caught. Macbeth told everyone that he had been so angry with the guards for killing the King that he had killed them. This was a tricky moment because Macbeth got a bit carried away and Lady Macbeth told me that she had to faint to distract the suspicion put upon Macbeth. The fainting worked and things went fairly smoothly from then on. Everyone was very suspicious of the king’s sons because they had fled and nobody knew where. Most people thought that the sons had paid the guards to murder Duncan. This was convenient because it took blame away from Macbeth. Once Macbeth became King of Scotland he was all right and he actually became the one in charge instead of Lady Macbeth. Lady Macbeth then began to cry and I had to calm her down until she was ready to carry on. I suspected that something more than just the murder of Duncan was the problem. She told me that Macbeth wouldn’t talk to her. He was very pleasant to her but at the same time extremely cold. He was so wrapped up in being the King that he was treating Lady Macbeth like a child. Lady Macbeth said that she didn’t think he loved her any more and that he didn’t care. Lady Macbeth said that she had followed Macbeth several times and that she had actually overheard him hiring murderers to kill Banquo and his son. Lady Macbeth told me that Macbeth had changed. She said she felt responsible for pushing Macbeth to murder Duncan. And turning Macbeth into a monster. She said that Macbeth was a stranger and that she felt as if she didn’t know him any more. By this point I couldn’t calm her down. I made her leave and told her that she could come and see me any time that she wanted. She just nodded with tears rolling down her cheeks as she walked out. I am beginning to think that Lady Macbeth was never as strong as she had appeared to be. I think she made herself be strong just for Macbeth. But unlike Macbeth she had never killed anyone. I believe that the guilt of murdering Duncan is slowly eating away at her and because Macbeth is now rejecting her she can’t cope. I know she will see me again because she can’t cope and because she bottles her problems up and things are only going to become worse. Date – 2nd June 1051 Lady Macbeth was a deeply disturbed woman. After the murder she had to carry around all of her own guilt and Macbeth’s. The only person that she could ever confide in was Macbeth. But now he is cold towards her and it seems like he doesn’t care. Now she can’t discuss her problems with anyone. This is probably the reason that she came to me. She had no choice but to keep everything bottled up. She had to keep up pretence. She couldn’t be herself. Everything began to build up and Lady Macbeth was becoming buried underneath her huge pile of problems. I believe what hurt her most was the way Macbeth turned away from her. I knew she couldn’t cope and she obviously knew she couldn’t cope which is why she killed herself only two days ago. She was found dead in her bed with nothing but and empty cup lay on the fall to harm her. I believe along with many others that she poisoned herself. I don’t think that Lady Macbeth was a bad person. She was just someone who loved her husband so much that she was prepared to go to any lengths for him. As I said in the beginning, it was what lengths she might actually go to that worried me. Lady Macbeth would rather die than live with a stonehearted husband and the guilt of murdering one of Scotland’s greatest kings, King Duncan!

Learning Team Reflection Essay

Alan Litchman and Laura B. Trust, Co-Presidents of Finagle a Bagel, own a bagel business in Boston (Parrino, Kidwell, Bates, 2012). Alan and Laura met in business school and after gaining business experience in other industries they purchased the bagel business with the intent of growing it as much as possible. They have two primary target markets: 1) retail stores and 2) wholesale accounts with large institutions. In this paper, we will briefly discuss a few of the strategies they used to manage their working capital. The owners of Finagle a Bagel were tired of working for other people so they decided to buy one new business. They have used several financial concepts to manage the financial accountability of their small business. They have controlled costs from the beginning of the process to the delivery of the product, as well as the administrative costs. Other items that have been highlighted are the management of cash flow, payback, and the schedule of cash entries, which has allowed the company to pay its debts. They have established a good relationship with the banks in order to negotiate the time frame for payments and rate. Suppliers are also a key success factor for the company, as the payment terms are negotiated to match the flow cash. The company’s focus is to maintain its financial management so that the business may grow and return large profits. The Finagle a Bagel also has a policy of recognizing the hard work of their employees. The owners believe that managers and employees are responsible for the success of the company. Together, the company is growing in a sustainable and financially healthy way. According to Alan Litchman, when making any investment, first one has to understand what the demand for the new product is going to be, and what kind of product can be made with the new equipment (Parrino, Kidwell, ba tes, 2012). Alongside his wife, Mr. Litchman explained how important it is to understand the company’s performance and opportunities to better apply capital investment in the company. They both explained, in their own words, the importance of setting up strategies and planning before putting a new product on the market. The couple also spoke about debt. Laura Trust said that debt is ‘a necessary evil’ and sometimes taking debt has its benefits if compared to finding capital through other means, such as pursuing a partner (Parrino, Kidwell, Bates, 2012). In this case they did not want to take a venture capital partner because the owners wanted to have authority  when making business decisions, thus avoiding ‘working for someone else’ (Parrino, Kidwell, Bates, 2012). This shows that the owners prefer a business structure like a sole proprietorship. Lastly, the fact that interest rates have been dropping for small business also supported their decision to take on debt to invest in the company. The couple is very educated when making business decisions, as they understand that even when a company has financial resources, the business gains more by obtaining financial resources from banks with small interest rates, while allowing the resources they have to generate dividends with higher interest rates. This is generally called borrowing ‘cheap money’ (Investopedia, 2014). Finally, credit is also discussed. They mentioned trade credit, which is the amount of time given to pay back vendors for the products bought. The longer the term, the better, as it allows time to receive revenue before having to pay the debt. This is another very important recommendation on how to properly use cash flow and avoid taking on debt. Overall, Alan Litchman and Laura B. Trust demonstrate a thorough understanding of how to manage their capital so that their small business continues to grow and increase their net profits, despite economic challenges in the community and the country. References Investopedia. (2014). Cheap Money. Retrieved from http://www.investopedia.com/terms/c/cheap-money.asp Parrino, R., Kidwell, D., Bates, T. (2012) Fundamentals of Corporate Finance, (2nd Ed) John Wiley & Sons Inc.

Corruption of Culture Essay

In Yukio Mishima’s â€Å"Swaddling Clothes† we see a great deal of symbolism portraying the corruption of the Japanese culture. The times are changing and with that change, culture is adapting to it. Some of the Japanese feel threatened and that the changes that are being made are corrupting their moral values. The story is told through Toshiko, a lonely and seemingly oppressed wife and mother. She shows how this corruption is leading to decay. The story depicts the corruption of Japanese culture by western modernization. Japanese culture is becoming more westernized, â€Å"unhomely with its Western-style furniture†¦Ã¢â‚¬  (366). The air of the room being unhomely because some Japanese thought that Western-style was corrupt. Toshiko’s husband is accepting these changes, â€Å"sitting there in his American-style suit, puffing at a cigarette† (366). The city they live in is changing as well, â€Å"dotted with bars and then by a theatre† (368). The park that Toshiko visits had also changed, â€Å"The paper lanterns that hung from wires between the trees had been put out; in their place electric light bulbs†¦that shone dully beneath the blossoms† (369). The word dully being used to show that western-style is dull and dreary. Violence is one of the concepts Toshiko relates to western culture. Toshiko believes western style is violent, â€Å"his frail body was wrapped in bloodstained newspapers† (367), showing the degradation of moral values in this westernized society. When Toshiko’s husband is sitting there talking with his friends he jokes about the incident and stating â€Å"I rescued our good rug†¦ (367), this showing that his mind is corrupt with the western culture because he did not care about the well being of the nurse and the blood did not faze him. The baby is a symbol of the violence in the western culture as well. The way the baby was born was out of wedlock, â€Å"Even if that baby should grow up in ignorance of the secret of his birth, he can never become a respectable citizen† (368). Toshiko worries that the baby â€Å"who has been sinned against† (368) may come in contact with her son one day and, â€Å"savagely stab him with a knife†¦Ã¢â‚¬  (368). All because the baby was born out  of wedlock, due to Western mod ernization, Toshiko thinks of him as violent and evil. Western culture is not only seen as violent but as polluted as well. Western-style is also polluting their society. While walking in the park Toshiko notices that the people â€Å"would automatically kick aside the empty bottles or crush the waste paper beneath their feet† (369). Waste pollution not only being the kind of pollution polluting their society but moral pollution as well. Toshiko sees a homeless man and wonders â€Å"was it one of those miserable drunks often to be seen sleeping in public places?† (369). The homeless man in the park is a symbol of the baby that will grow up to be in crime and poverty, though what is most significant is the way that he is dressed, â€Å"his khaki trousers had been slightly pulled up† (370), this showing that he is westernized just like Toshiko’s husband. Toshiko is saddened by this westernized lifestyle. This story shows through many elements the degradation of moral values in the modern westernized changes that are taking place. Through the moral changes, the violence of the western culture, and the pollution we have seen that Toshiko believes that her society is corrupt. There are many symbols showing these changes; through the baby, Toshiko’s husband, and through the homeless. She continually contemplates the loss of their moral values and is saddened. Ultimately this story is trying to depict the corruption of Japanese culture by western modernization.

Effects of Corruption on Economic Growth Essay

Corruption has been around for a very long time and will be around in the future unless governments can figure out effective ways to combat it. This is not going to be easy. Corruption in any form is treated as an incurable disease cause of many social and economic evils in the society and it damages the moral and ethical fibers of the civilization .Indisputably, it is correct that corruption breeds many evils in the society & once corruption start take place ,slowly and gradually whole country passes through its net and it becomes after some time incurable diseases .from the economic point of view ,there seem to be no clear cut correlation between corruption and the economic growth of a country. There may be some social maladies like inequality of income among the people ,moral degradation of people due to the prevalence of corruption ,the parameter of economic growth which are taken on percentage or an average basis are entirely different To begin with, in the presence of corruption, businessmen are often made aware that an up-front bribe is required before an enterprise can be started and that afterwards corrupt officials may lay claim to part of the proceeds from the investment. Businessmen therefore interpret corruption as a species of tax–though of a particularly pernicious nature, given the need for secrecy and the uncertainty that the bribe-taker will fulfill his part of the bargain–that diminishes their incentive to invest. Empirical evidence suggests that corruption lowers investment and retards economic growth to a significant extent. Moreover, when it takes the form of tax evasion or claiming improper tax exemptions, corruption may bring about loss of tax revenue. What is more, the allocation of public procurement contracts through a corrupt system may lead to lower quality of infrastructure and public services. Then, Corruption may distort the composition of government expenditure. Corruption may tempt government officials to choose government expenditures  less on the basis of public welfare than on the opportunity they provide for extorting bribes. Large projects whose exact value is difficult to monitor may present lucrative opportunities for corruption. A priori, one might expect that it is easier to collect substantial bribes on large infrastructure projects or high-technology defense systems than on textbooks or teachers’ salaries. So far Indian economic is concerned the slow progress is the result of lack of decision making at higher level .Many politician who take money but could not enforce their will because of powerful lobby of bureaucrats at many place and a democracy like India ,voice of media ,voice of opposition could suppress the wish of the leader . India’s economic growth on an average 6 % GDP despite considerable corruption is because of the stability and the liberalized measure taken by the present govt., gradual privatization of various sector, reducing bureaucratic intervention in routine work & other measure adopted by govt. In brief it can be concluded that corruption and economic growth has no clear correlation .strong institution, political stability, fast and reasonability in decision taking are some of the requirement for fast economic growth.

Brady Bill And Its Passage Essay Research

Brady Bill And Its Passage Essay, Research Paper Brady measure and its passageIntroductionThe legislative procedure in the United States Congress shows us an interesting play inwhich a measure becomes a jurisprudence through via medias made by diverse and sometimes conflictinginterests in this state. There have been many controversial measures passed by Congress, butamong all, I have taken a peculiar involvement in the transition of the Brady measure. When the Bradydebate was in full swing in Congress about three old ages ago, I was still back in my state, Japan, where the ownership of guns is purely restricted by Torahs. While watching televisionnews studies on the Brady argument, I wondered what was doing it so hard for this gun controlbill to go through in this gun force ridden state. In this paper, I will follow the measure # 8217 ; s seven yearhistory in Congress, which I hope will uncover how partizan political relations played a important function in theBrady measure # 8217 ; s transition in this policy doing subdivision. The Brady measure took its name from Jim Brady, the former imperativeness secretary of PresidentReagan, who was shot in the caput and partly paralyzed in the blackwash effort on thepresident in 1981. This measure was about a waiting period on pistol purchases leting constabulary tocheck the backgrounds of the prospective purchasers to do certain that guns are non sold toconvicted criminals or to those who are mentally unstable. Even the advocates of the measure agreedthat the consequence of the measure on controling the gun force might be minimum sing the fact that themajority of guns used for condemnable intents were purchased through illegal traders. However, the Brady Bill represented the first major gun control statute law passed by Congress for morethan 20 old ages, and it meant a important triumph for gun control advocates in their manner towardeven stricter gun control statute law in the hereafter. Gun Rights V. Gun ControlThe Brady measure, the Brady Handgun Violence Preventi on Act, was foremost introduced byEdward F. Feighan ( D-OH ) in the House of the100th Congress as HR975 on February 4,1987. The measure was referred to the Judiciary Committee, and the argument began. Throughout thedebate on the Brady measure, there was ever a clear partizan split ; most of the Democrats, exceptfor those from the Southern provinces, supported the measure while most of the Republicans were in theopposition. For illustration, when the foremost introduced Brady measure lost to an amendment by BillMcCollum ( R-FL ) for a survey of an instant cheque system ( 228-182 ) , most Republicans votedfor the McCollum amendment ( 127 for and 45 against ) while the bulk of the Democratsvoted against it ( 127 for and 137 against ) . The exclusion was the Southern Democrats most ofwhom joined the Republicans to vote for the amendment. This party division was non sosurprising, nevertheless, sing the immense run parts made by the main gun anteroom, the National Rifle Association ( NRA ) , directed largely to the Republicans, and the exclusion ofthe Southern Democrats could be explained by the gun right supportive nature of theirconstituents. In the 1992 election for illustration, this organisation made $ 1.7 million contributionto its sympathetic congressional campaigners and spent another $ 870,000 in independentexpenditures for congressional races.1 The influence the NRA exercised on the statute law wasenormous since the concluding measure passed in 1993 was a via media version reflecting some of theNRA-sought commissariats. I could state that it was because of this relentless anteroom that the Bradybill took every bit long as 7 old ages to go a law.On the other side, the advocators of the measure enjoyed a broad support from the populace aswell as from the Handgun Control Inc. , the main gun control anteroom led by Sarah Brady, the wifeof James Brady. The consistent public support for the measure from the debut through thepassage of the measure was manifested by many polls. One of the polls conducted by NBC Newsand Wall Street Journal on the passage of the measure said that 74 per centum of the 1,002respondents agreed that # 8220 ; the jurisprudence is good but more is needed. # 8221 ; 2 It is without inquiry that thispublic support played a important function in the eventual transition of the bill.The Brady measure passed the House in the 102nd CongressAfter about four old ages from its first debut to the Congress, the Brady measure wasreintroduced to the House in the 102nd Congress as HR 7 on January 3, 1991, sponsored by76 representatives including Feighan, William J Hughes ( D-NJ ) , and Charles Schumer ( D-NY ) .The measure was referred to the Judiciary Committee, and the hearings began in the JudiciarySubcommittee on Crime on March 21, 1991. As written, this measure required a weeklong waitingperiod on the pistol purchases. Schumer, the president every bit good as the head patron of the measure, explained before the Subcommittee that the Brady measure # 8220 ; has a really simple intent: to maintain lethalhandguns out of the custodies of people who shouldn # 8217 ; Ts have them.3 # 8243 ; Aside from the house supportfrom the populace, the measure besides gained the backup from the former president Reagan who, in atribute to James Brady, said that it is # 8220 ; merely kick common sense that there be a waiting period toallow local jurisprudence enforcement functionaries to carry on background cheques on those who wish to purchase ahandgun. # 8221 ; 4 This Reagan # 8217 ; s comment was important since he had long been a member of theNRA. On April 10, the Subcommittee approved to direct the measure to the Judiciary Committee bythe ballot of 9-4. The ballots were clearly divided along the party line with the exclusive exclusion ofF. James Sensenbrenner Jr. ( R-WI ) , one of the few GOP protagonists of the measure, who joined theDemocrats to vote for it. In the interim, the lobbying by both sides had inten sified. The NRAclaimed that the measure went against the rule of the Constitution, indicating out the SecondAmendment which says: # 8220 ; A good regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to maintain and bear Weaponries, shall non be infringed. # 8221 ; They argued that it wasnot the guns but the people who committed offenses, stating that tougher sentences for thecriminals would work better than the waiting period in cut downing offenses. On the other manus, James Brady was buttonholing intensely in his wheelchair supported by his-wife-led HandgunControl Inc. , which had an emotional entreaty to other members of Congress.In the Judiciary Committee, Harley O. Staggers Jr. ( D-WV ) , pushed by the NRA, proposed a replacement measure ( HR 1412 ) which would necessitate provinces to put up an instant checksystem so that gun traders could happen out instantly on a telephone call whether the purchaserhad a condemnable record without any delay. The Staggers # 8217 ; alternate, nevertheless, reminded many ofthe McCollum amendment that wrecked the Brady measure in 1988. With the recognition ofthe Attorney General, Dick Thornburgh, that the practical usage of such instant cheque systemwould be old ages away,5 the Staggers # 8217 ; replacement was rejected by the Committee by the ballot of11-23. The commission so proceeded to vote on the Brady measure ( HR 7 ) , O.K.ing it by the 23-11 ballot. On May 8, the Staggers # 8217 ; amendment was rejected once more ( 193-234 ) on the floor. TheHouse went on to O.K. the weeklong waiting period Brady measure by the ballot of 239-186, puting it on the Senate calendar on June 3. Argument in the SenateIn the Senate, the advocates of the Brady measure, including the Majority Leader George J. Mitchell ( D-ME ) , were working hard to maintain the Brady linguistic communication portion of the omnibus crimelegislation ( S-1241 ) which had already been passed by the House-Senate confe rencecommittee. Ted Stevens ( R-AK ) proposed an amendment to replace the waiting period with aninstant-check system. This amendment was really much similar to the Staggers # 8217 ; proposal made inthe House, guaranting that the possible purchasers who were eligible for the purchase would non haveto delay to purchase a gun. Stevens and other GOP oppositions argued that the waiting period wouldnot cut down the offense rate since it would non impact the bulk of felons who could purchaseguns illicitly while impacting the observant citizens # 8217 ; Second Amendment right to buy a gunfor athleticss and runing intents. In response to this statement, Mitchell and his other pro-BradyDemocrats maintained that developing a package for a national blink of an eye background checksystem would take old ages, and even if it was available, instant cheques would non work every bit adeterrent to hot-blooded offenses by those without condemnable records. Mitchell called the Stevens # 8217 ; progra m # 8220 ; a transparent attempt to extinguish the waiting period, # 8221 ; 6 stating that it was merely a pretense tothe populace to back gun command while really barricading it. On June 28, the Senate rejected the Stevens # 8217 ; amendment by the ballot of 44-54 with allbut nine Democrats, all from Southern or rural provinces, voting against it. The 54 ballots, nevertheless, were non plenty for the Brady advocators since they would necessitate 6 more ballots to halt a possibleGOP filibuster. On the other manus, filibustering was non the best solution for the GOPopponents neither, since in making so, they would hold to give the offense measure they wanted. Resulting from this state of affairs was a via media by Mitchell, Metzenbaum, and the GOPleader Bob Dole ( R-KS ) . In this via media, the length of the waiting period was changedfrom seven yearss to five concern yearss, and a new proviso was added which would stop thewaiting period in two and a half old ages upon the Attorne y General # 8217 ; s verification that the instantcheck system met certain criterions. However, it was the six ballots that determined the fateof the Brady measure in the 102nd Congress. The Senate failed to take concluding action before the terminal ofthe 1991 congressional session, and even with the transition in the House, the Brady measure still hadto wait two more old ages for its concluding transition. In the 103rd Congress ( House ) In 1993, the twelvemonth in which the Brady measure got enacted, there was a turning national tidefavoring stricter gun control. The Brady advocates were cheerful with an outlook that thelong-debated measure would eventually go through that twelvemonth. The rush in the public support was assuring ; aCNN/USA Today/Gallup Poll conducted during March 12 through 14 showed that 88 percentof their 1,007 respondents favored the bill.7 The gun control advocates besides had two significantvictories in two States ; in Virginia, a statute law was passed cur tailing pistol purchases to onegun purchase per month, and in New Jersey, the NRA and other gun rights advocates lost intheir attempt to revoke the province # 8217 ; s prohibition on selling assault rifles. Furthermore, the 103rd Congresshad a pro-Brady president. In contrast to Bush, a longtime NRA member, President Clintonopenly expressed his support for the measure ; in his address to Congress on February 17, he said: # 8220 ; Ifyou pass the Brady measure, I # 8217 ; ll certain mark it. # 8221 ; Confronting this countrywide pro-Brady tide, Even the NRAshowed a little alteration in its linguistic communication ; James Jay Baker, the top NRA lobbyist, said that hisorganization might be able to O.K. certain version of the bill.8 In this favourable ambiance, the Brady measure was introduced in the103rd Congress in theHouse as HR 1025 on February 22, 1993 by Schumer and 98 other cosponsors, referred to theJudiciary Committee. The president of the Committee, Jack Brooks ( D-TX ) ag reed to maintain thebill separate from his other overall offense statute law ( HR 3131 ) , promoting the Bradysupporters with a hope to go through the measure before the scheduled Thanksgiving dissolution. By thedirection of the Rules Committee, the House voted on the House Resolution 302, a ruleproviding for the floor consideration of the Brady measure, O.K.ing it by the ballot of 238-182. Aswritten, the measure provided for a five-day waiting period upon pistol purchases every bit good as theestablishment of a national instant felon background cheque system. The measure besides had aprovision necessitating that the waiting period stage out upon the Attorney General # 8217 ; s blessing of theviability of the countrywide instant cheque. The measure by so already represented a compromisebetween the Brady waiting period and the NRA blink of an eye check.On the floor, the GOP oppositions proposed a series of amendments. George W. Gekas ( R-PA ) offered an amendment stoping the waiting period after five old ages from its enforcementregardless of the viability of the replacement instant cheque system. Schumer argued that the Gekas # 8217 ; alleged sundown proviso was an unrealistic deadline, indicating out the changing condemnable recordkeeping of each States. However, Gekas and other advocates of the amendment insisted thatthe sundown proviso was necessary in order to coerce the Justice Department to set up the computing machine cheque system quickly. The Gekas # 8217 ; amendment prevailed on a 236-98 ballot. McCollum proposed an amendment which would revoke the bing State waitingperiods on the installment of the national blink of an eye cheque system. Some States had alreadyadopted waiting periods, and the Brady bill would not affect those states having a waiting periodof more than five days. McCollum claimed that his proposal would make the bill much fairerand more balanced, and assured that it would not affect other State gun laws such as Virginia’sone gun purchase per month legislation. However, meeting with strong opposition fromSchumer and others, this amendment preempting State laws was rejected 175-257. There wasanother amendment proposed by Jim Ramstad (R-MN) requiring the police to provide within 20days a reason for any denial of a handgun purchase. This amendment was accepted bySchumer, and was adopted easily by the vote of 431-2. The House proceeded to voted on the Brady bill on Nov. 10. Just before the vote, thechief sponsor Schumer encouraged other Representatives on the floor to vote for the bill, saying:†today’s votes gives the House of Representatives a real chance to stem the violence on our streets and calm the fear of our citizens.† The bill was passed by the House. It was the secondtime for the House to pass the Brady bill, and this time, the vote was 238-189. Passage in the SenateIn the Senate, the Brady bill was introduced as S 414 by Metzenbaum on February 24,1993, referred to the Judiciary Committee and placed on the calendar on March 3. The bill wasalmost identical to the Dole-Metzenbaum-Mitchell compromise approved by the Senate in June1991, requiring a five-day waiting period on handgun purchases which was to be removed oncean instant check system became operational. After a long negotiation, the Senate agreed to takeup the bill separately from the overall crime bill,9 which paved the way for the floor considerationof the bill on November 19. However, the threat of the unsatisfied GOP opponents to block the bill led to anagreement between the Majority Leader Mitchell and the Minority Leader Dole. Under thisagreement, the two leaders was to offer a substi tute, and the Senate would then vote on theHouse-passed version of the Brady bill (HR 1025) with the text of the substitute inserted in lieuthereof. The Mitchell-Dole substitute included two new provisions: the sunset provision and thepreemption provision, both of which had been sought by the NRA. The sunset provision wasidentical to the Gekas amendment passed by the House which would end the waiting period fiveyears, and the preemption provision was the same as the McCollum amendment rejected by theHouse. At the beginning of the debate on November 19, Mitchell made it clear that he hadagreed to cosponsor this bipartisan compromise as a procedural means to move the long-debated Brady bill through the Senate. The Majority Leader then declared that he would nowmove on to eliminate those two provisions with which he totally disagreed. The Mitchell-Doleagreement provided, however, that if either or both of those provisions were to be stricken, theRepublican opponents would then block th e bill, which meant that the Brady proponents wouldneed at least 60 votes to stop the GOP filibuster to pass the bill and send it to the House.Mitchell and his other Democratic proponents succeeded to pass an amendment striking thepreemption language of the Mitchell-Dole substitute on a vote of 54-45. The other amendmentproposed by Metzenbaum to strike the sunset provision, however, was defeated 43 -56. TheSenate then moved on to the consideration of the Mitchell-Dole substitute with one provisionthus amended. Throughout the debate, the proponents spoke fervently in support of the bill. EdwardM. Kennedy (D-MA) argued that it was time to take action against the epidemic of gun violencein the country, showing shocking statistics which demonstrated the increasing number of gun-related crimes and deaths. He claimed that the waiting period would not only curb the spread ofguns by keeping the lethal weapons out of the hands of convicted felons, but it would alsoreduce the crimes committed in the heat of the moment by providing a cooling off period. Senators whose States had already adopted waiting periods demonstrated with data that thewaiting period had already been proven to work in stopping a significant number of handgunpurchases by convicted felons. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) showed that her State’s 15-daywaiting period stopped 8,060 convicted felons, 1859 drug users, 827 people with mentalillnesses as well as 720 minors from purchasing a gun during January 1991 and September1993. The freshman Senator from California maintained that even though her State’s crime ratewas â€Å"unacceptably† high, it could have been much worse without the legislation. Dole and other GOP opponents, however, insisted that they would continue their effortsto thwart the passage of the bill unless the preemption language was included. Mitchell promptlyrejected the GOP demand, criticizing the double principles of those who, having once insistedthat they could not supp ort the Brady bill because it was the Federal Government telling theStates what to do, turned around and said that they now liked the preemption. Metzenbaumjoined in the argument against the GOP opponents, saying they were blocking the bill â€Å"becausethey were scared to death of the National Rifle Association,† and calling their demand for thepreemption provision â€Å"an effort to kill the bill.† Both sides did not yield, and with two cloturemotions having failed to quash the Republican-led filibuster, one in the afternoon (57-42) and theother at 11 o’clock at night (57-41), the Brady bill was thought by many dead again in theSenate. It was the dissatisfaction of a handful of Republicans with the outcome and their dread ofbeing blamed for killing this popular legislation that saved the life of the Brady bill. The followingday, the discontent of those Republicans who decided to cast a straight vote sent Dole to thenegotiating table again, where he was forced to settle down with a new compromise whichcarried no preemption language. It was actually identical to the one that he and other GOPopponents had filibustered the day before except for the change in the sunsetting period; thecompromise bill would end the waiting period four years after its enforcement, instead of fiveyears, with a possible extension for another year upon the Attorney General’s request. Consequently, by unanimous consent, the Senate agreed to vote on the House-passedversion of the Brady bill (HR 1025) with the text of the compromise inserted in lieu thereof, andalso to request a conference with the House to reconcile the differing versions of the Brady bill.The Brady bill (HR 1025) as amended was passed easily on a vote of 64 to 36, and sent backto the House with a request for a conference. Toward the passageOn November 22, the House agreed to the request of the Senate for a conference uponthe adoption of House Resolution 322 by the vote of 238-187. The confer ees were appointedby the Chairs of each chambers: Brooks, Hughes, Schumer, Sensenbrenner, and Gekas fromthe House and Joseph R. Biden. Jr. (D-DE), Kennedy, Metzenbaum, Orrin G. Hatch (R-UT),and Larry E. Craig (R-ID) from the Senate. Later, Senate Republicans replaced Hatch andCraig with Stevens and Dirk Kempthorne (R-ID). The outcome was a conference report whichpreserved the House 5-year sunset of the waiting period with no provisions for the AttorneyGeneral to replace it with the instant check system before then. Several Senate-passedprovisions had also been dropped: the provision expanding the definition of antique firearmsexempt from gun restrictions to include thousands of functioning World War era rifles, and theone allowing gun sales between dealers from different states. A new provision was added in thereport which would require that the police be notified of multiple purchases.Soon after the conference, the chief Senate negotiator Biden explained how they got tothe conferen ce report. According to his statement, at the beginning of the conference, Stevens,a member of the NRA board of directors, announced that the only acceptable outcome for theSenate Republican conferees, Kempthone and himself, would be the Senate-passed version ofthe Brady bill unchanged. The Senate bill had a provision ending the waiting period as early astwo years after the enforcement if the instant background check met certain standards. All ofthe House conferees including the House Republican conferees rejected that demand, which ledto the adoption of the conference report accepted by all the House conferees, Republicans andDemocrats alike, and the Senate Democratic conferees. Thus, the conference report was madewith Stevens and Kempthorne casting dissenting votes.The House approved the conference report (H. Rept. 103-412) easily on a vote of238-187. In the Senate, however, after the explanation on the conference report, Dole andother Republican opponents fired at Biden with accu sations that he and other DemocraticSenate conferees completely ignored the wishes of the Senate in the conference. Dole said, â€Å"Idon’t think that under these conditions, cloture will be invoked this year or next year.†10 Throughout the day November 23, the hostile atmosphere occupied the Senate floor asthe debate continued. Majority Leader Mitchell declared that he was determined to force theissue to another vote during the year even though it would mean the post-Thanksgiving sessionwhich nobody wanted. Later in the day, he presented two cloture motions for November 30and December 1.The breakdown of the impasse came the following day, November 24, when Doleagreed to accept the terms of the conference report under a compromise that he would submit aseparate bill with the Senate-passed provisions, which was to be considered and votedimmediately in January as soon as the Senate returned to business. Obviously, this solution wasprompted by the loathing of most senator s to come back from their respective States toWashington after Thanksgiving break as well as by the pro-Brady public pressure.Consequently, the Senate approved the conference report by unanimous consent. After seven years of debate, the Brady bill was finally passed by the 103rd Congress.President Clinton, as he had promised, signed the bill into law on November 30, and the Bradybill became Public Law 103-159. Beyond the passageThree years have passed since the passage of the Brady bill, but the fight of Jim andSarah Brady and other gun control advocates still continues for stricter gun control legislation. Inearly 1994, they succeeded in passing the assault weapons ban with the Brady momentum, butsince then the NRA has intensified its lobbying, declaring to repeal the gun control legislation. In1994 elections, for example, the NRA spent $3.2 million to get its supporters elected.11 The last1996 election was also a victory for the NRA in that many of its supporters got re-elected ev enthough their member Dole was defeated by Clinton in the Presidential race. Their most powerfulsupporter in the Congress is probably the House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-GA), who oncewrote in his letter to the NRA chief lobbyist Tanya Metaksa: â€Å"As long as I am Speaker of thisHouse, no gun control legislation is going to move in committee or on the floor of this House.†12Even with the GOP majority in Congress, however, it is sure that NRA supporters will face amajor obstacle in the newly-reelected President Clinton, who has declared: â€Å"For all the thingsthat will be debated, you can mark my words, the Brady law and the assault weapons bill arehere to stay. They will not be repealed.13? Currently, the Supreme Court is hearing a lawsuit filed by NRA-backed gun controlopponents. They claim that the Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act violates the 10thAmendment of the Constitution which protects state and local government from certain federalinterference. The NRA says i t wants to repeal the waiting period as well as the backgroundchecks,14 which reveals the organization’s true intention when it supported the backgroundchecks in its fight against the passage of the Brady bill. The battle between the NRA and theHandgun Control Inc. will continue with the NRA supporters leading the Congress andPresident Clinton challenging them with the veto power. Nevertheless, the Brady bill, with itsunwavering public support, will be the hardest bill to repeal. The passage of the Brady bill of 1993 is one of the best case studies of the legislativeprocess in the U.S. Congress. The seven year history of the bill demonstrated how partisanpolitics played a crucial role in the outcome of the bill, and how difficult it was to make bipartisancompromises to move the bill through Congress. In concluding this research report, I would like to express my deepest respect for thosewho worked hard for the passage of the Brady bill, including Jim and Sarah Brady.