A Comparison of Marxist and Functionalist Views on Society Essay

A Comparison of Marxist and Functionalist Views on Society There is a division between functionalists and Marxists over the functions of the society. Marxism was founded by Karl Marx. Marx saw society as divided into two major parts, the economic base otherwise known as the infrastructure and the super-structure. Functionalists see society as a set of parts which work together to form a whole. Functionalism is also called a consensus theory. Marxism and functionalism are similar in that they see that the way society is structured as an important part in determining the way people have relationships and behave between themselves. This is known as structural perspective. Both functionalists and Marxists believe that people are portrayed as creature within the social system. Functionalists believe that society operates to the benefit of everybody. They stress that societies continue to exist because a lot of the time there is consensus between various aspects of society. They believe that family, education, govern...

Successful Entrepreneur

Steve Jobs is one of the most successful entrepreneurs and was listed as Fortune Magazine’s Number One most powerful businessman of 2007 out of twenty-five other top businessmen. He is the co-founder, chairman and CEO of Apple Inc. and was the CEO of Pixar Animation Studios until it was acquired by the Walt Disney Company in 2006. Steve Jobs is currently the Walt Disney Company’s largest shareholder and a member of its Board of Directors. He is considered a leading figure in both the computer and entertainment industries. He is also widely credited as the inventor of the Macintosh, the iPod, the iTunes Store, and the iPhone, among other things. His history in business has contributed greatly to the myths of the quirky, individualistic Silicon Valley entrepreneur, emphasizing the importance of design while understanding the crucial role aesthetics play in public appeal. His work driving forward the development of products that are both functional and elegant has earned him a devoted and popular following. Steve Jobs passion was always technology from a young age, so he took his first job at Atari Inc. hich was a leading manufacturer of video games. He struck up a friendship with fellow designer Steve Wozniak. Steve and Steve developed a system with a toy whistle which made it possible to make free long distance telephone calls. Together with Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak, Steve Jobs helped popularize the personal computer in the late ‘70s, and in the early ‘80s. After losing a power struggle with the board of directors in 1985, Steve Jobs resigned from Apple and founded NEXT, a computer platform development company specializing in the higher education and business markets. NeXT’s subsequent 1997 buyout by Apple brought Steve back to the company he co-founded, and he has served as its chief executive officer since his return. A true example of a successful entrepreneur who strived with his passion to be the best. Life story of Steve Paul Jobs :- Steve Paul Jobs, was an orphan adopted by Paul and Clara Jobs of Mountain View, California in 24th February 1955. Jobs was not happy at school in Mountain View so the family moved to Los Altos, California, where Steven attended Homestead High School. His electronics teacher at Homestead High, Hohn McCollum. After school, Jobs attended lectures at the Hewlett-Packard electronics firm in Palo Alto, California. There he was hired as a summer employee. Another employee at Hewlett-Packard was Stephen Wozniak a recent dropout from the University of California at Berkeley. An engineering whiz with a passion for inventing electronic gadgets, Wozniak at that time was perfecting his â€Å"blue box,† an illegal pocket-size telephone attachment that would allow the user to make free long-distance calls. Jobs helped Wozniak sell a number of the devices to customers. In 1972 Jobs graduated from high school and register at Reed College in Portland, Oregon. After dropping out of Reed after one semester, he hung around campus for a year, taking classes in philosophy and immersing himself in the counterculture. Early in 1974 Jobs took a job as a video game designer at Atari, Inc. , a pioneer in electronic arcade recreation. After several months working, he saved enough money to adventure on a trip to India where he traveled in search of spiritual enlightenment in the company of Dan Kottke, a friend from Reed College. In autumn of 1974, Jobs returned to California and began attending meetings of Wozniak's â€Å"Homebrew Computer Club. † Wozniak, like most of the club's members, was content with the joy of electronics creation. Jobs was not interested in creating electronics and was nowhere near as good an engineer as Woz. He had his eye on marketability of electronic products and persuaded Wozniak to work with him toward building a personal computer. Wozniak and Jobs designed the Apple I computer in Jobs's bedroom and they built the prototype in the Jobs' garage. Jobs showed the machine to a local electronics equipment retailer, who ordered twenty-five. Jobs received marketing advice from a friend, who was a retired CEO from Intel, and he helped them with marketing strategies for selling their new product. Jobs and Wozniak had great inspiration in starting a computer company that would produce and sell computers. To start this company they sold their most valuable possessions. Jobs sold his Volkswagen micro-bus and Wozniak sold his Hewlett-Packard scientific calculator, which raised $1,300 to start their new company. With that capital base and credit begged from local electronics suppliers, they set up their first production line. Jobs encouraged Wozniak quit his job at Hewlett-Packard to become the vice president in charge of research and development of the new enterprise. And he did quit his job to become vice president. Jobs came up with the name of their new company Apple in memory of a happy summer he had spent as an orchard worker in Oregon. Apple Company and Steve Jobs : Jobs and Wozniak put together their first computer, called the Apple I. They marketed it in 1976 at a price of $666. The Apple I was the first single-board computer with built-in video interface, and on-board ROM, which told the machine how to load other programs from an external source. Jobs was marketing the Apple I at hobbyists like members of the Homebrew Computer Club who could now perform their own operations on their personal computers. Jobs and Wozniak managed to earn $774,000 from the sales of the Apple I. The following year, Jobs and Wozniak developed the general purpose Apple II. The design of the Apple II did not depart from Apple I's simplistic and compactness design. The Apple II was the Volkswagon of computers. The Apple II had built-in circuitry allowing it to interface directly to a color video monitor. Jobs encouraged independent programmers to invent applications for Apple II. The result was a library of some 16,000 software programs. For the Apple II computer to compete against IBM, Jobs needed better marketing skills. To increase his marketing edge he brought Regis McKenna and Nolan Bushnell into the company. McKenna was the foremost public relations man in the Silicon Valley. Nolan Bushnell was Jobs's former supervisor at Atari. Bushnell put Jobs in touch with Don Valentine, a venture capitalist, who told Markkula, the former marketing manager at Intel, that Apple was worth looking into. Buying into Apple with an investment variously estimated between $91,000 and $250,000, Markkula became chairman of the company in May 1977. The following month Michael Scott, who was director of manufacturing at Semi-Conductor Inc. , became president of Apple. Through Markkula, Apple accumulated a line of credit with the Bank of America and $600,000 in venture capital from the Rockefellers and Arthur Roch. Quickly setting the standard in personal computers, the Apple II had earnings of $139,000,000 within three years, a growth of 700 percent. Impressed with that growth, and a trend indicating an additional worth of 35 to 40 percent, the cautious underwriting firm of Hambrecht & Quist in cooperation with Wall Street's prestigious Morgan Stanley, Inc. , took Apple public in 1980. The underwriters price of $22 per share went up to $29 the first day of trading, bringing the market value of Apple to $1. 2 billion. In 1982 Apple had sales of $583,000,000 up 74 percent from 1981. Its net earnings were $1. 6 a share, up 55 percent, and as of December 1982, the company's stock was selling for approximately $30 a share. Over the past seven years of Apple's creation, Jobs had created a strong productive company with a growth curve like a straight line North with no serious competitors. From 1978 to 1983, its compound growth rate was over 150% a year. Then IBM muscled into the personal computer business. Two years after introducing its PC, IBM passed Apple in dollar sales of the machines. IBM's dominance had made its operating system an industry standard which was not compatible with Apple's products. Jobs knew in order to compete with IBM, he would have to make the Apple compatible with IBM computers and needed to introduce new computers that could be marketed in the business world which IBM controlled. To help him market these new computers Jobs recruited John Sculley from Pesi Cola for a position as president at Apple. Jobs enticed Scully to Apple with a challenge: â€Å"If you stay at Pepsi, five years from now all you'll have accomplished is selling a lot more sugar water to kids. If you come to Apple you can change the world. Jobs in 1981 introduced the Apple III, which had never fully recovered from its traumatic introduction, because Apple had to recall the first 14,000 units to remedy design flaws, and then had trouble selling the re-engineered version. Another Apple failure was the mouse-controlled Lisa, announced to stockholders in 1983. It should have been a world beater, because Lisa was the first personal computer controlled by a mouse which made it have a user-friendly interface, but had an un-friendly price of $10,000. The worst thing about Apple's development of computers was they lacked coherence. Each of Apple's three computers used a separate operating system. Jobs designed the Macintosh to compete with the PC and, in turn, make Apple's new products a success. In an effort to revitalize the company and prevent it from falling victim to corporate bureaucracy, Jobs launched a campaign to bring back the values and entrepreneurial spirit that characterized Apple in its garage shop days. In developing the Macintosh, he tried to re-create an atmosphere in which the computer industry's highly individualistic, talented, and often eccentric software and hardware designers could flourish. The Macintosh had 128K of memory, twice that of the PC, and the memory could be expandable up to192K. The Mac's 32-bit microprocessor did more things and out performed the PC's 16-bit microprocessor. The larger concern of management concerning the Macintosh was not IBM compatible. This caused an uphill fight for Apple in trying to sell Macintosh to big corporations that where IBM territory. â€Å"We have thought about this very hard and it old be easy for us to come out with an IBM look-alike product, and put the Apple logo on it, and sell a lot of Apples. Our earning per share would go up and our stock holders would be happy, but we think that would be the wrong thing to do,† says Jobs. The strengths of Macintosh design was not memory, power, or manipulative ability, but friendliness, flexibility, and adaptability to perform creative work. The Macintosh held the moments possibility that computer technology would evolve beyond the mindless crunching of numbers for legions of corporate bean-counters. As the print campaign claimed, the Macintosh was the computer â€Å"for the rest of us. † The strategy Jobs used to introduce the Macintosh in 1984 was radical. The Macintosh, with all its apparent vulnerability, was a revolutionary act infused with altruism, a technological bomb-throwing. When the machine was introduced to the public on Super Bowl Sunday it was, as Apple Chairman Steve Jobs described it, â€Å"kind of like watching the gladiator going into the arena and saying, ‘Here it is. † The commercial had a young woman athlete being chased by faceless storm-troopers who raced past hundreds of vacant eyed workers and hurled a sledgehammer into the image of a menacing voice. A transcendent blast. Then a calm, cultivated speaker assured the astonished multitudes that 1984 would not be like 1984. Macintosh had entered the arena. That week, countless newspapers and magazines ran stories with titles like â€Å"What were you doing when the ‘1984' commercial ran? † Jobs' invocation of the gladiator image is not incidental here. Throughout the development of the Macintosh, he had fanned the fervor of the design team by characterizing them as brilliant, committed marhinals. He repeatedly clothed both public and private statements about the machine in revolutionary, sometimes violent imagery, first encouraging his compatriots to see themselves as outlaws, and then target the audience to imagine themselves as revolutionaries. Jobs, like all those who worked on the project, saw the Macintosh as something that would change the world. Jobs described his Macintosh developing team as souls who were â€Å"well grounded in the philosophical traditions of the last 100 years and the sociological traditions of the 60's. The Macintosh team pursued their project through grueling hours and against formidable odds. A reporter who interviewed the team wrote: â€Å"The machine's development was, in turn, traumatic, joyful, grueling, lunatic, rewarding and ultimately the major event in the lives of almost everyone involved†. The image Jobs wanted the public to have of the Macintosh was young, wears blue jeans, and lives in an 80's version of the 60's counterculture. Macintosh was impatient, uncomfortable, and contemptuous of everything that was conventional or hierarchical. He/she was both creative and committed, believing strongly that his/her work ultimately matters. Even if we counted beans for a living, we secretly saw ourselves as Romantic poets. Jobs approach in developing the Macintosh was like the history of telephones. When the telegraph became popular for communication a century ago, some people suggested putting a telegraph machine on everyone's desk, but everyone would have had to learn Morse code. Just a few years later Alexander Graham Bell filed his first patents for the telephone, and that easy-to-use technology became the standard means of communication. â€Å"We're at same juncture; people just are not going to be willing to spend the time learning Morse code, or reading a 400-page manual on word processing. The current generation of personal computers just will not any longer. We want to make a product like the first telephone. We want to make mass market appliances. What we are trying to develop is a computer that can do all those things that you might expect, but we also offer a much higher performance which takes the form of a very easy-to-use product. † As the Macintosh took off in sales and became a big hit, John Sculley felt Jobs was hurting the company, and persuaded the board to strip him of power. John Sculley tried to change the discipline of the company by controlling costs, reducing overhead, rationalizing product lines to an organization that some in the industry called Camp Runamok. Sculley came to the conclusion that â€Å"we could run a lot better with Steve out of operations,† he says. Jobs tended to value technological â€Å"elegance† over customer needs which is a costly luxury at a time of slowing sales. And Jobs's intense involvement with the Macintosh project had a demoralizing effect on Apple's other divisions. Jobs was exiled to an office in an auxiliary building that he nicknamed â€Å"Siberia. † Jobs says he did not get any assignments and gradually found that important company documents no longer landed on his desk. He told every member of the executive staff that he wanted to be helpful in any way he could, and he made sure each had his home phone number. Few ever called back. â€Å"It was very clear there was nothing for me to do,† he says, â€Å"I need a purpose to make me go. † He soon came to believe that he would find no purpose within Apple. In July, Sculley had told security analysts in a meeting that Jobs would have no role in the operations of the company â€Å"now or in the future. † When Jobs heard of the message he said, â€Å"You've probably had somebody punch you in the stomach and it knocks the wind out you and you cannot breathe. The harder you try to breathe, the more you cannot breathe. And you know that the only thing you can do is just relax so you can start breathing again. † The Next Step Steve’s Come back to Apple : Jobs sold over $20 million of his Apple stock, spent days bicycling along the beach, feeling sad and lost, toured Paris, also goes on a spiritual trip to India with his friend. The Mr. Nobody, Steve, started again once he was out of his super rich, super successful period. After three years, he founded a new company, ‘Next’. He launched Next Cube. It was an extremely powerful and much expensive machine at that time and probably, an offering to an immature market. It failed miserably. Then Steve and his company, Next, moved to the making of softwares and operating systems. His money and property were not with him, but his creative mind was. He showed an interest in George Lucas’ company, the Pixar Animations. George Lucas is considered the father of modern special effects in the films. Lucas was not interested in Pixar, so Steve took charge of the company in 1986. He entered into a contract with Disney in 1990. Pixar made the animations and Disney did the marketing and distribution of the animation films. Steve could read the future five years ahead. In 1995, the ‘Toy Story’ proved to be the huge success in Hollywood and Pixar never looked back. But now this Steve was not the Steve of 1080s. He gradually became Zen Buddhist. Meanwhile, he saw Bill Gates climbing the success ladder with sheer business techniques and not with orthodox ideologies. By the way, the flagship product of Microsoft, the Windows operation system, is nothing but an adaptation of the ideas of Steve’s Macintosh computer. Bill Gates proves to be an extremely practically businessman who along with working for Apple also copied the technologies of Apple Macintosh! Oh! You would ask what happened to Apple after Steve’s exit! Imagine a body without its soul! This is no exaggeration. After leaving its soul, the company instead of running, started crawling. Without Steve, the entire computer business in the world changed in the decade of 90s. Nobody could match the steps with the changing times. Apple Corporation was about to announce bankruptcy and it was about to become insolvent. At that time, the then Apple’ boss, Mr. Gil Emilio took an unprecedented decision. He decided to buy a new operating system for the Mac computers. And the best and advanced operating systems were made by only one company in the vicinity, and that was Steve Jobs’ company, ‘Next’†¦! As per the contract between the Apple and the Next, Steve re-entered his own company after 12 years†¦.! And that too, just for a salary of $ 1 a year†¦! But this time the new Steve was different from what he used to be back in 1980s. This Steve came with a lot of learning from life. Now it was his turn to stage the boardroom drama. In 1997, in the board meeting Steve once again was elected the CEO of the Apple Corporation. The new all-powered Steve created ‘Ometra’, the contract; wherein all the employees were made to agree to the term that the boss’ decision is final in any matter! Steve had already tasted the fruits of being the ‘ideologist’. Now he was a shrewd businessman, with a lot of practical mind setup. He knew that Apple did not have enough funds to carry out its research projects. So he played one big master stroke. He invited none other than, Mr. Bill Gates to invest in Apple†¦! Bill Gates was more than ready to invest in Apple, because the person, who copied the technologies of Steve, had to have the greatest trust in his capabilities! Apple was now on track again. Steve was still purist and idealistic as far as the technological innovations and the aesthetic looks are concerned. He made the new ‘OSX’ operating system, which was a huge success in the market (In OSX, we already have different versions like, Chitah, Puma, Jaguar, Panther, and Tiger. Recently we have seen the successful launch of its Leopard & Snow Leopard version in 2007). Steve also launched the transparent computers in the market for the first time in the name of iMac. Then, we got the super finely designed, iBook laptop from Apple. In 2001, Steve made portable digital music player called, the iPod. Steve always considered the Windows operating System an inferior product as compared to the Macintosh products (which to a large extent is even true). He always called Windows as ‘Working in Hell’. But this Steve was ready to compromise with his beliefs for the success of his company. He, eventually, started making the Windows enabled Macintosh computers. The unimaginable success of iPode literally scrambled the pillars of world music industry! Just two years ago, he sold out his animation studio Pixar to Disney and in return, got the life-time directorship on the Disney’s board. Steve re-entered Apple by playing the gimmick of taking a salary of $ 1 per year. But he, after getting into his company again, proved very influential and last year he was the highest-paid CEO of America! But amidst such an entire scenario, the time and life struggles had taken their toll on Steve’s health. He was diagnosed with Pancreas cancer. He fought with his cancer also and came back victoriously. He sensed that the mobiles with music player were giving tough competition to his iPod. So, he decided to enter an entirely new market segment for Apple, the mobile market. And the result is in front of us ! The iPhone ! Apple’s creativity has got a support in the face of a ruthless, hardcore, practical businessman. The Apple Corporation, today, is valued at more than $120 billion. Bill Gates has failed to proceed further from Windows. And Steve, with his mind power, has gifted us with some of the greatest innovations of our time. When the ever struggling and always winning Steve recently, in a function, told Bill Gates that ‘we have more past moments to cherish than deciding on the future road map’, everybody around could easily see tears in the eyes of both long time friends! He gave a very emotional, touching and quite inspiring speech to management students on their Commencement in the Stanford University in 2005. This story of successful entrepreneur is much more exciting than watching a fantasy film, isn’t it? The story is of a young man getting all the glitz and glories in his heydays, losing everything because of dirty corporate games, and again through his own intelligence, coming back to the top! Achievements of Steve Jobs: Year after year and event after event, Steven Paul Jobs, popularly known as Steve Jobs has won countless accolades and laurels for his work and dedication to the revolutionize the IT industry. Whether it was the formal ntroduction of Mac computers to the world in the 70s or the inception of the universal revolution called iPhone in 2007 or the most recent revelation of iPad, Steve Jobs has been iconic in the contributions he has made to computer and internet technology – every reason why he has been ruling the roost as one of the most admired CEOs of the industry. The primary reason being the impeccable success of the Apple iPad tablet that launched early this year which has sold millions of units world-wide till date. The Apple iPad still continues to make waves and is no doubt, treated as a culture medium of comparison for other competing tablet PCs

Food Intake 3 Days

During my three day food intake I discovered that I only consumed 88 grams of protein. In these three meals I spent almost 40 dollars and I was short almost 100 grams of protein required for my weight. Four slices of pizza, and two double cheeseburgers produced the most protein. Oatmeal, beer, and coffee only counted for less than 10 grams. All six items consumed over the 3 day stretch accounted for carbohydrates. The items ranged from 10g to 100g of carbs. The only item with enough lipids was the McDonald’s oatmeal. The rest of the meals were relatively low. I need to make better planning to include more lipids into my health plan. According to the recommendation of the DRI and compared to my intake of protein, carbs, and lipid I failed to meet 100% percent of the minimum standards. I was less than 50% DRI for most of the nutrients. In fact only one out of the 35 nutrients only surpassed or reached 50%. I personally think that I need to consume more meals with adequate healthy nutrients. I would need to add more vegetables, fruits, and oils to my diet so I can achieve my goals. My calorie DRI was almost 4,000 and I just consumed 18% or almost 700 calories. I almost did good with carbohydrates meeting my DRI, but with protein I was at 17%, and with fat total I was at 33%. I was surprised that the numbers were not even close to my expectations. I understand that during these three days I didn’t meet my required DRI because I changed my diet for this assignment. I tried to limit my food intake and changed from healthy food to fast food, but nonetheless during some days this is what I have consumed during some occasions. It demonstrated that I was not anywhere near be healthy. I will need to increase my protein intake achieve my gym goals. If I was to eat little protein the muscle mass would turn to stored fat and have low energy. If I was to lose weight and I would stop exercising my fat would come back to the same level as before. For example my protein intake should be 62 grams according to my weight, but I didn’t consume any. I am very displeased to say that my fiber intake was at 0% percent. I did not consume any fruit or vegetables. When I was ordering my fast food I could have add vegetables and fruit to my pizza, oatmeal, but I didn’t. During my average day I would eat plenty of fruits such as apples, bananas, and oranges to cover my six meals. I would also eat vegetables in salads or with main meals. My favorite vegetable is spinach which is a great source of fiber. I try to stay away from fibers such as breads and such. According to the iprofile eating bananas and apples also produce great amounts of fibers which cover me in the fiber intake. Insufficient or excessive amounts of proteins, carbohydrates, fats, or fiber contribute a lot my health and illnesses. To induce rapid weight loss the easiest way to do it is to eliminate carbohydrates for many people who are in a diet. Without carbohydrates people will be more moody because it loses serotonin. If I was to drink fruit juice instead of whole fruits I would lose all of the fiber. For example to produce 8oz of apple juice I would need 3-4 apples producing about 15grams of fiber, but all the fiber is taken out when its mixed into juice. Any fruit juice that will replace soda pop or you retain the skin or pulp than is ok too. Consumers just need to be careful when they are shopping for fruit juice. Sometime is better to juice it at home because the sugar level will be lower and you will still maintain all the nutrients. The more I read about nutrition the more I get interested about maintain myself healthy be eating healthy and rigorous training. This iprofile has opened my eyes to understand the nutrients I’m lacking or I am over consuming

Carol Anne Duffys Adultery Essays - Duffy, Adultery, Poetry

Carol Anne Duffy's Adultery Essays - Duffy, Adultery, Poetry Carol Anne Duffy's Adultery FORM AND STRUCTURE Carol Anne Duffys poem Adultery is structured in a traditional and straightforward way. It is comprised of eleven verses - each with the common four lines, which consist of between four and nine words. This makes the poem not particularly striking at the first look, before it is read. The typography does not attract the readers attention, this is probably because Duffy wants the reader to concentrate on the language, and is not concerned with the shape that the lines form, or how they relate to the themes of the poem. RHYME AND RHYTHM Duffy does not seem particularly interested in rhyme in this poem, and probably decided before writing it that she did not want any. Therefore rhyme has been avoided, as has a regular, repetitive rhythm. I think that Duffy wants to allow the language to speak for itself, without getting tangled up in rhyme and rhythm schemes, and having to change what she wants to say in order to make it fit these limitations. She also wants to avoid losing the impact of the poem. This has much to do with the language used, poetic devices, and very often, the lack of rhythm, seen clearly in the first verse when she writes: Guilt. A sick, green tint The caesura breaks up the line, splitting it into two. If she were writing within the barriers of a specific rhythm, she would probably be tempted, and perhaps compelled to, split this line exactly in half, in order to balance it and keep the structure. This would not have the same effect. The caesura is used as dramatic device, implying that the poem is intended to be read out loud. The break makes the reader pause, giving the first word a larger impact as it is isolated from the rest of the text. It also does the same for the following sentence, and as it is on the end of the verse, there is a natural pause here as well, giving this line impact and power. Seeing as it also highlights a key theme in the poem, guilt, it is also an important line as it tells the reader a little about what to expect, and also raises their interest and expectations, Guilt? Why? Who? LANGUAGE Duffy uses language very effectively in this poem. She wants to create a specific atmosphere and then build on it, creating characters, situations and emotions as she does so. She wants an atmosphere of sleaziness and seediness, but wants it to sound exciting, dangerous and seductive. She also examines the harm that the situations cause. The first verse (or stanza) is packed with intrigue, mystery, excitement and questions. Wear dark glasses in the rain, demands the first line, and the reader gets ideas of disguise. It goes on to mention unhurt and bruise - dark glasses to hide a black eye? Maybe not, another glance at the title, Adultery, suggests something else - sado-masochism? Then comes the guilt, as mentioned above, and reader knows she is talking about a sexual affair - but who? What? Where? We want to know more. The second verse builds on the sexual intrigue with mentions of hands can do many things, and money tucked in the palms suggests prostitution, as well as wash themselves maybe implying that they feel dirty? Duffy is building an atmosphere which is sexually charged and filled with riddles and ambiguous comments, daring the reader to assume a sexually link. The next verse features the line: You are naked under your clothes all day..., another sexual connotation, perhaps implying that the clothes are a disguise, and all day the character does something which is not really them, and underneath they are different, naked suggests vulnerability. There is also ...brings you alone to your knees... and ...more, more..., which could suggest oral sex, while the repetition shows that Duffy considers this the most important word of the line, demanding it stands out, and it could suggest an unsatisfied sexual appetite, or description of the frequency of the couples meetings. Dishonesty is mentioned with deceit and Suck a lie with a hole in it. This could be a more explicit reference to oral sex, or more obscurely, Polo mints, the mint you suck with a hole in it. Duffy could be saying that the lies are sweet, addictive and refreshing compared with a mundane life, like Polo mints; she could mean that the lies come as easily as sweets from a packet, although probably not.

The Odyssey Essay

The Odyssey Essay The Odyssey Essay The Odyssey is characteristically classified as an epic though not all readers may find this book an epic. This book is certainly an epic since it is a heroic tale that is filled with many obstacles which the hero concurs. Also the tone that is used in the book is one of admiration which goes to increase the worthiness of the hero. This book is also full of supernatural powers that influence what is happening in the book. In this essay each of these three characteristics will be proved thus proofing that the odyssey is indeed an epic. Book one of the Homers Odyssey foretells what is going to happen in the next twenty three books of the Homer’s Odyssey after the incantation of the Muse, the book then vividly shows the events leading to Athena’s appearance before the council of gods to seek their assistance in bringing Odysseus safe and sound back to his kingdom of Ithaca. After Troy is destroyed, the Greeks try to go back home but are unable after they were cursed by the gods. The ones who make it are met by death upon their return. However, Odysseus is left alone on the island of Ogygia and is held captive for eight years by the beautiful goddess Kalypso. Odysseus tries to go back home but his journey is blocked by Poseidon the sea god as Odysseus had blinded his son the Kyklops Polyphemos. However, all the other gods apart from Poseidon are in support of Odysseus return home. Poseidon goes on vacation and the gods finally, in support of Athena, send out a messenger Hermes to instruct Kalypso to release Odyssyus after detaining him for seven years. â€Å"But now that god had gone off among the sunburnt races, most remote of men, at earths two verges, in sunset lands and lands of the rising sun, to be regaled by smoke of thighbones burning, haunches of rams and bulls, a hundred fold†.( Demilio) In the intervening time, Athena arranges to influence Telemachus to take action. She does this by Disguising herself as a loyal friend of the family, Mentes, she descends to Ithaca to convince Telemachus to hold an meeting, reprimand the suitors, and commission a boat with crew to journey all the way through Hellas seeking news of his father. The gods feast as they discus Aegisthus, Agamemnon and Orestes. This is due to the fact that Aegisthus had made love to Agamemnon’s wife unlawfully and after that he went out and killed Agamemnon. The gods found this a great folly on Aegisthus as Hermes had been sending to warn him of his actions though he Aegisthus would not listen. His unlawful actions caught up with him when Agamemnon’s son Orestes killed him for the death of his father. This assists Agamemnons son to evolve to manhood and he then wins himself his patrimony. â€Å"Dont kill the man, dont touch his wife or face a reckoning with Orestes the day he comes of age and wants his patrimony.†(Demilio) Telemachus had to obtain the support of the Ithacan elders the same way Athena held a meeting of the gods before she was able to get her plan underway. Athena said she will go to Ithaca to rouse Odysseus son to action. Telemachos complains to the congregation about the demeanor demonstrated by the suitors upon which he requests them to retreat to their dwellings. Two of the most important suitors, Antinoos and Eurymachos, are the potential candidates in this course. Antinoos whines about the way Penelope tricked them while she delayed her promise of choosing her husband. With Athenes assistance, Telemachos heads to Pylos, or the the city of Nestor. At Pylos, Telemachos is welcomed received by the king Nestor who narrates him stories of the leaving from Troy, the assassination of Agamemnon and the return of Menelaos. Encouraged by Telemachos’, Nestor narrates in more detail the tale of Klytaimestra and Aigisthos their scheme not in favor of Agamemnon, and Orestes’ avenging of his father’s murder. Telemachos and Peisistratos reach Menelaos palace and find king celebrating having a celebration. The following day, Menelaos narrates his close-up with Proteus, the Sea. Helen remembers how happy she was when Odysseus slayed many Trojans before he left. The Trojan women raised a cry but my heart sang for I had come round, long before, to dreams of sailing home, and I repented the mad day Aphrodite drew me away from my dear fatherland, forsaking all child, bridal bed, and husband a man without defect in form or mind. (Demilio) Odysseus is released by the nymmpho Kalypso and he goes to the land Phaiakians. When odessyeus disembarks at the fortress of Alkinoos he is accorded a place at the banquet and the king promises him that he will assist him to get back to his home. Odysseus narrates his return to Circes’ Island and how she alerted him of the threats they would get ahead. After he ends his story, Nestor starts to sum up the events of the Trojan warfare involving Telemachos, Odysseus son, but he gives up somewhere along the way, exclaiming: Odysseus and his son return to, though separately, to Ithaka. Odysseus makes himself known to his son and planned revenge on the suitors. He then returns to his palace. He returns dressed as a beggar. Penelope comes up with a contest to figure out the suitor she will marry. Each of them fails to shoot the mark with Odysseus bow. Disguised Odysseus is however, able to shot the mark and he reveals himself to the suitors. All of them are killed while the servants who were disloyal are punished. Finally, Penelope and Odysseus are reunited. ______________ is a professional essay writing service which can provide high school, college and university students with 100% original custom written essays, research papers, term papers, dissertations, courseworks, homeworks, book reviews, book reports, lab reports, projects, presentations and other assignments of top quality. More than 700 professional Ph.D. and Master’s academic writers. Feel free to professional essay help on The Odyssey from our professional essay writing service.

Brand Marketing Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 3250 words

Brand Marketing - Essay Example According to the report findings a mass-market product has little differentiation, and is often marketed as a generic, low cost alternative. Of course, no marketing would exist without two driving forces to sustain it. These forces are the consumer and the competition. The consumer can be generally placed into two categories, a hedonic or utilitarian purchaser. Competition is based solely on brand ownership and product differentiation as they are marketed towards the customer. As the paper declares consumer’s can be identified as hedonic and utilitarian. This is an important concept of product and brand marketing, because consumers perceptions of a purchase based on their personal desire to fulfill a need or fulfill a self-indulgence has a strong bearing on why there are different types of products. To better understand the branding of products as prestige, masstige, or mass-market, a short background of the average customer is presented here. The traditional concepts of cost and benefit values are perceived as having characteristics of exclusively product and price, the standard economics of supply and demand where the consumers experience is exclusively based on the products quality and price evaluations to control consumption choices and demands, and yet this does not define the reasoning of consumers emotional connections, where "A fourth definition equates value with an overall assessment of subjective worth considering all relevant evaluative criteria" (Babin and Darden p 645 1994), in a sense the overall assessment is the consumers emotional constructs, the sociological and psychological desire to feel rewarded in more than the physical sense of achievement. Babin and Darden analyze that shopping has both utilitarian and hedonic traits, where a methodology only encompasses the consumable and its dimensional and monetary values lacks the ability to fully measure the shoppers' experience, a concept expressed as having importance in other research, although "Far less research has been conducted to examine whether contrast effects occur among hedonic experiences (i.e., experiences of pleasure or pain)" (Novemsky and

Social policy Case Study Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Social policy Case Study - Assignment Example They can seek help from programmes or organisations such as Childline, Sane, Supporting people, Refugee council, The Children's society, Housemate, NCH, De Paul Trust, Crisis, Scottish Churches Housing Action etc.that are specifically dealing with problems like those of Jake's. These social work organisations do help people as much as possible but after a point, they find difficult to move further as different policies prove to be a setback to their efforts of improvement. The current white paper that propagates the idea of 'valuing people' is the first of its kind since the last 30 years. So it is quiet evident that not much has been done for the improvement of this sector in the past. According to Department of Health the programs for improving services are based on the key principals; civil rights, independence, choice and inclusion. It stated, "Valuing people takes a life-long approach beginning with an integrated approach to services for disabled children and their families and then providing new opportunities for a full and purposeful adult life." (para.3) From this it appears that all are welcome for support and assistance but if we study the white paper in detail some other facts come into light. The National Austic Society has rightly pointed after observing the definition of 'Valuing people' that "the definition goes on to say that IQ below 70 is not in itself a sufficient reason for deciding whether an individual requires support. An assess ment of social functioning and communication skills should also be taken into account when determining need." (para.7) So the discussed white paper brings both; a ray of hope and a situation of dilemma to people like Jake. All this affects the social work professionals' attitudes too. The Independent Living Bill of disabled persons states that the disabled people are equal in freedom, choice, dignity and control to others and have the right to assistance and support. This automatically implies that Jake and his family can expect an independent and decent life for him. The current white paper also has set an objective to provide choices of housing to people like Jake so that they can live independently. According to Twigg, NHS and the Community Care Act 1990, "established the current arrangements for community care, introducing care management and according primary responsibility for community care-lead agency status-to social services." (1999, p.370). Sadly the housing policy is not aimed at those who need it badly. The housing policy that greatly follows the key legislation like the 1972 Housing Finance Act, 1977 Homeless Act, and 1996 Housing Act etc. is not completely a social policy. Of late it has taken a social character, which does not enable the social workers to fully utilize it for the betterment of the needy. Still the social policy is an indicator for the social workers to decide upon their plan of action. (Pahl, 1999, p.173) stated: 'social policy is now beginning to recognize the contribution which carers make to individualsThe National Health Service and