A global perspective on the social determinant of health Essay

A global perspective on the social determinant of health - Essay Example This has happened to the extent that these days the word globalization has become synonymous with efficiency, economic opportunity and overall human security. While such developments are partially true there is also another side to the story. While the advanced nations of hemispheric West have had benign consequences as a result of globalization, key human development parameters of most Third World countries have fallen proportionately. Hence, it is difficult to present a blanket view of the impact of globalization on public health. In light of this fact, this essay will attempt to attain a nuanced understanding of globalization’s overall effect on public health outcomes across the world. This is done by way of perusing authentic scholarship on the subject. The litmus test for the efficiency and effectiveness of any public health system is its performance in a crisis situation. Civil societies have come to expect basic protections at the time of these crises. Such emergencies also test a government’s true ability to act under pressure. In other words, â€Å"they define a states capacity to protect its population while exposing its vulnerabilities to political upheaval in the aftermath of poorly managed crises† (Gorin, 2002). In the context of economic globalization at the turn of the new millennium, more than ever before, the general public demand transparency and accountability in global public health systems during medical and natural disasters. To gauge the robustness of public health systems in this new globalization paradigm, we need to study recent cases of acute public health emergencies. The Indian Ocean tsunami of 2004 and Hurricane Katrina are particularly relevant to this analysis. â€Å"Hurricane Katrina was unique in that the U.S. government accepted bilateral and multilateral relief aid, a rare event in modern times. In the aftermath of the Indian Ocean tsunami, enough formal external resources prevented the public health emergency from

Sad - Online Grading System Essay Example for Free

Sad Online Grading System Essay Currently these are the problems that usually occurs in distributing the students’ report cards. What is the extent of the problems faced by the student in terms of the following? a) Accessibility of the student’s grades. b) Accuracy of the student’s grades given by their teachers. c) Disputes or discrepancies of the students with their grades. OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY In order to provide excellent distribution of student’s grades, Trinity Christian School needs to develop an online grading system with an easy to use interface for teachers, and also the students to see their grades. a) To be able to create a system that allows the students all-access to their grades at any given point of time and date. b) To provide a system that updates the data of the grades in real time if not then on a specific time. c) To create a system that notifies the teacher that his/her students has problems/disputes to their grades. SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY The following below are the users that would benefit greatly on the system: To the Students Students would benefit in using the Online Grading System for involving themselves to partake justifying their grades. Students can also use this system to access or view their grades if ever they took an early vacation and aren’t able to get their report cards. And most importantly is that the student will enhance their sense of responsibility. To the Teachers Teachers will benefit this system in regards to lessening the time distributing report cards to parents/ guardians. To the Parents/Guardians There are some cases that a student would lie about their grades and won’t show the report cards to their parents, this system  will make that situation impossible since the parents or the guardians will have access to the student’s grades and they would know if the student is lying or not. To the Researchers That the researchers would be able to create a fully functional system that would implement the lessons and theories that the researchers have learned. It would give the researchers an idea on how the information technology professionals do their works. To the Future Researchers That this Feasibility study would serve as guidelines. And give an idea to the future researchers in what are the basic needs of an online grading system. DEFINITION OF TERMS Terms here are conceptually and operationally defined for better understanding. Administrator a person who manages a computer system.  Information Technology It defines an industry that uses computers, networking, software programming, and other equipment and processes to store, process, retrieve, transmit, and protect information. Internet a vast computer network linking smaller computer networks worldwide. The Internet includes commercial, educational, governmental, and other networks, all of which use the same set of communications protocols. LAN local area network (LAN) consists of two or more computers connected together in a building or home using software and hardware. A LAN is contrasted to a wide area network (WAN) such as the Internet, which covers a large geographic area. Network Is a collection of computers and devices interconnected by communications channels that facilitate communications among users and allows users to share resources. Online connected to, served by, or available through a system and especially a computer or telecommunications system. SCOPE AND LIMITATIONS Trinity Christian School is one of the outstanding private schools in Bacolod City which is located at Villa Angela Subdivision, Phase 3, Bacolod City,  Philippines, 6100. They create, teach and provide high education standards that caters to the needs of their students, and also engraves the spirit of Christianity to their students, faculty and staff. Trinity Christian Schools offers a continuum of learning from nursery up to high school. Trinity Christian School believes in the importance of building a strong foundation in the learning experience of the student, and in building the values of self-discipline, diligence, and respect for self and others along with the students intellectual development. The study is only implemented for Trinity Christian School and can be networked through the internet by the administrator. The researchers are not liable to the changes of the grades made by the teacher.

Fire on the Home Front - The Possessive :: Possessive Essays

Fire on the Home Front - The Possessive  Ã‚        Ã‚  Ã‚   General Douglas Macarthur said that "the best time to meet the threat [of war] is in the beginning. It is easier to put out a fire in the beginning when it is small than after it has become a roaring blaze" (qtd. in Urofsky, part 9). The mother in Sharon Olds' "The Possessive" undoubtedly feels the same way. War is a terrible time between two or more nations that fight to part from each other or for some other reason; nations fight over property rights and independence. In "The Possessive," Olds uses powerful images of war, such as helmets, blades, and fires to show how her daughter is similar to a warring country that has pulled away from her.    Sharon Olds states "In her bright helmet / she looks at me as if across a great distance" (Olds, 506). The helmet exemplifies the imagery that Olds uses to show the warlike tone in her poem. In modern day wars people see pictures of Cruise missiles and Stealth Bombers on CNN. However, when asked what they envision when they think about war, some will talk about guns, knives, helmets, and fires. As Olds talks about her daughter, she realizes that there is an impending battle yet to come. This battle, too, will be about possession. When her daughter sits in the barber's chair, Olds realizes that her daughter will soon reach her teens. The teenage years are a time when parents battle over cars, boys, and other rights with there children. The children and parents will fight over haircutting rights. As Olds reports, her daughter "has been to the barber, that knife grinder, / and had the edge of her hair sharpened" (506). Knife grinding and sharp objects are another image of war. Soldiers must be sure that their instruments are perfectly sharp if they want to win the war. The first time Olds things about the upcoming battle occurs during the warlike image of the haircut. These first warlike images set the tone of the rest of the piece.    The most vivid and important warlike image that Olds uses in "The Possessive" is the image of fire. The fire imagery appears more than once in the piece. Olds writes that "Distant fires can be / glimpsed in the resin light of her eyes" (506).

Facebook is a necessary evil Essay

Facebook in simple terms can be defined as a social networking website that enables around a billion people worldwide to connect with each other via the internet. Following its initiation Facebook was labelled as an essential tool for communication whereas these days it has mostly been used as a tool for practising of evil deeds in the society. Recently Facebook has been used as a tool for unnecessary evil in the society with main examples social uprising to cyber criminals. This essay explores the evil deeds associated with Facebook as a social networking site which includes facilitation a room for phishing crimes and social unrest in the society, spreading of false and potentially unwanted information and lastly lacking of privacy and weighs their values versus the perceived advantages of using Facebook as a communication tool. Firstly, Facebook is a necessary evil as it facilitates room for phishing crimes and social uprising in the society. Recent protests in countries such as Tu nisia and Egypt were reported to be fuelled and organised through social networking sites such as Facebook (Lister, 2011). Facebook can also be used as a tool for hackers and burglars to conduct their social activities as it gives them room for easier access to people’s personal information. Two thirds of Facebook users unwittingly expose themselves to crime by revealing their personal details. Consequentially without proper regulation Facebook can all but be used as a tool for practising evil deeds in the society. Secondly, social networking sites such as Facebook are a necessary evil as they enable the spread of unreliable and false information in the society. Recent reports suggest that about half of Facebook users have heard or seen false news and information through Facebook. A recent notable event was in 2012 when false rumours of fires, shootouts, and caravans of gunmen in a Mexico City suburb spread via Facebook causing panic and temporary closing of schools (Rodrigue z, 2012).As a result of Facebook being freely available news outlets are therefore likely to pick up bogus information that can lead to confusion and panicking among the public. In addition to Facebook being used as a tool for spreading information it can also be said to be a necessary evil as it lacks privacy and expose its users to illegal and unwanted intruders. Due to lack of privacy settings or the  public being ignorant or unaware of these settings government and corporate agencies are likely to invade the privacy of these users (McCullagh 2012). Consequently users of Facebook are likely to be exposed to ill-motivated agencies in the absence of adequate privacy settings. Despite the evil deeds associated with Facebook, it can also be a good tool for spreading information faster compared to other Medias. According to Maria (2012) most people are likely to learn about breaking news through the use of Facebook. This can be important especially in times of natural disasters as it can connect rescue teams with victims thereby lessening the impact of these events. Facebook can also be used by students as a tool for discussing educational topics and this ca n be beneficial in this ever changing technological environment (Kressler, 2012). In spite of Facebook being labelled as lacking privacy law enforcement agencies can also use it to catch and prosecute criminals (Evon, 2012). This is especially useful in connection with cyber criminals. Community members can report suspected criminal activities through Facebook leading to quicker response to crime. In addition to it being used as a tool for catching criminals Facebook can be used in empowering individuals to make social change on a community level. In summary given the above stated advantages of using Facebook to the society as well as considering the evil deeds associated with it, it can be said with certainty that Facebook is clearly a necessary evil. With regard to pros such as a tool for communication these cannot outweigh the known effect of using Facebook without proper regulation which includes social unrest promotion and rise in cyber crimes. For this reasons the main point i s that Facebook is a necessary evil and its usage should be controlled through proper and strict regulations/ legislation. References Evon, D. (2011, August 10). NYPD adding Facebook tracking unit to police force. Social News Daily. Retrieved from http://www.socialnewsdaily.com Kressler, S. (2010). The case for social media in schools. Retrieved from http://www.mashable.com Lister, T. (2011). Tunisian protests fuelled by social media networks. Retrieved from http://www.cnn.com Maria, K. (2012). Social media: The new news source. Retrieved from http://www.schools.com McCullagh, D. (2012). Feds snoops on social network accounts without warrants. Retrieved from http://www.news.cnet.com Rodrigues, O. R. (2012, August 09). False shootout status causes pain in Mexico City. The World Post Retrieved from http://www.huffingpost.com

Millennial Generation

————————————————- Using the five paragraph essay format, please present your perspective on the following topic. Provide examples to support your response. Include the proper APA citation(s) in your essay. ————————————————- Topic: Organization, time management, and effective communication are key elements to online learning. Discuss how you can use each of these elements toward your professional career. ————————————————- ————————————————- Today’s young Airman comes from the Millennial Generation and believes they inherently understand three important skill sets; organization, time management and communication. In speaking with them, they all point back to their mastery of today’s technology and social media applications as the reason they believe these skill sets come so naturally to them. Leading, managing and training Airmen in today’s Air Force is not only complicated, it can be quite frustrating for those who did not grow up with the technology currently available. The millennial Airman not only grew up with a full range of technology, but considers it a requirement to daily life. Hartman and McCambridge (2011) citing references (Tyler, 2007) describe millennials as those individuals born between 1980 and 2002, characterized as technologically sophisticated multi-taskers, who are accustomed to working in teams and who rely on their parents for guidance as they struggle to make decisions independently. While technology and resulting social media sites can assist us in organizing, managing and communicating, there is no substitute for experience. ————————————————- The Air Force, like most companies, businesses and groups requires organization skills at every level. While military life is full of structure, leadership within internal groups cannot effectively manage without organizing the force. Of the three skill sets discussed, this is where the millennials seem to excel. They eagerly embrace and utilize available tools to quickly accomplish the mission. When grouped and tasked with a project, they will immediately seek out the best tool to map out the plan and track progress, regardless of whether that tool is a white board or Microsoft Office © applications. ———————————————— Unlike their organizing aptitude, time management skills are clearly lacking in the millennial Airmen. Constantly bombarded with text messages and Facebook © updates on their readily available smart phone, they will halt a task just to check updates and st atuses on any number of applications. Hansen and Hansen (n. d. ) in their quintcareers. com article recognized effective and timely project implementation as one of the skills sought most by today’s employers. Not only is timely project completion important, but so is managing daily tasks. Talk with a millennial and you find they place stock in multi-tasking, but get distracted easily, thus failing to complete projects in a timely manner. ————————————————- Finally, effective communication is by far the most important of the three discussed skill sets and where the millennial Airman requires the most training and education. After researching numerous studies, Hartman and McCambridge (2011) concluded that effective communication is directly linked to an organization’s success. While communication comes in many forms (spoken, written, gestured, etc), the millennial tends to fall short in many, if not all. Just review a short email and you will find misspellings and a complete lack of grammar similar to a phone text. The millennial will argue that text messaging is evolving with its own grammar and syntax. While this may be true, an office’s professional correspondence requires effective grammar in order to move the mission forward. ————————————————- The Air Force’s future relies on the many aptitudes its people possess. While the three discussed here are just a sampling, they represent some important areas leaders and managers must concentrate on remain effective. In the book Taking Charge: Making the Right Choices (Smith, 1993), the author has rank-ordered twenty fundamental skills that every leader must possess and continually improve upon. Communication, time management and organization are numbered two, five and nine respectively (pages 2-5). By building upon these and many other skills, an organization will ensure its success and continued growth. With regard to the discussed skill sets, the millennial Airman brings an impressive array of tools centered around online collaboration. While they do not lack enthusiasm, they do require leadership to fine-tune these skills and make positive changes. ————————————————- ————————————————- References: ————————————————- Hartman J. & McCambridge J. (2011). Optimizing Millennials’ Communication Styles. Business Communication Quarterly, 74, 22-43. ————————————————- —————————— ——————- Tyler, K. (2007, May). The tethered generation. HR Magazine, 41-46. ————————————————- ————————————————- Hansen R. & Hansen K. (n. d. ), What Do Employers Really Want? Top Skills and Values Employers Seek from Job-Seekers. Retrieved from http://www. quintcareers. com/job_skills_values. html ————————————————- ————————————————- Perry, S. (1993), Taking Charge: Making the Right Choices. Garden City Park, NY: Avery Publishing Group Inc. ——————————————â €”—- ———————————————— ————————————————- ————————————————- ————————————————- ————————————————- ————————————————- ————————————————- ————————— ———————- ————————————————- ————————————————- ————————————————- ————————————————-

Free Essays on Saddams Final Warning

Saddam’s Final Warning Any American with any type of television programming, whether it be the most advanced Satellite system, or the most basic local stations can turn on the news and see that Saddam Hussein poses a clear and present danger to the United States. Today November 11, 2002 is Veterans Day and instead of giving a speech on past wars President Bush gave Saddam Hussein his final warning. The President made it very clear that if Saddam does not comply with United Nations armistice laws by Friday November 15,2002 that the United States of America will lead a coalition of nations against Iraq forcing the armistice upon them. Saddam Hussein has been linked to the brutal murders of his own family members who did not agree with him. If a man can kill his own bloodline then what is stopping him from murdering millions of innocent civilians that he has never even met? To answer this question honestly, nothing is stopping him, he just has not made his move yet. If the rest of the world sits back and allows him to make the first move millions of innocent civilian lives will be lost. The men enlisted into the armed forces know from the start that they may die in battle one day. This does not make it okay to send them to battle and not worry about them because they always knew it might happen., the United States must fear for their troops as well as have faith in them. Guaranteed any soldier would rather die in battle than they would live to see another terrorist attack such as 9-11-02. Osama Bin Laden did not have the funding, resources, or the power over his country that Hussein does. Bin Laden killed over 3,000 innocent civilians by simply flying a few planes into buildings. With the technology and resources that Saddam owns he could murder millions of Americans by dropping a nuclear weapon on a large city such as New York, or Los Angeles. Unless America wants to bury millions and rebuild entire cities, a... Free Essays on Saddams Final Warning Free Essays on Saddams Final Warning Saddam’s Final Warning Any American with any type of television programming, whether it be the most advanced Satellite system, or the most basic local stations can turn on the news and see that Saddam Hussein poses a clear and present danger to the United States. Today November 11, 2002 is Veterans Day and instead of giving a speech on past wars President Bush gave Saddam Hussein his final warning. The President made it very clear that if Saddam does not comply with United Nations armistice laws by Friday November 15,2002 that the United States of America will lead a coalition of nations against Iraq forcing the armistice upon them. Saddam Hussein has been linked to the brutal murders of his own family members who did not agree with him. If a man can kill his own bloodline then what is stopping him from murdering millions of innocent civilians that he has never even met? To answer this question honestly, nothing is stopping him, he just has not made his move yet. If the rest of the world sits back and allows him to make the first move millions of innocent civilian lives will be lost. The men enlisted into the armed forces know from the start that they may die in battle one day. This does not make it okay to send them to battle and not worry about them because they always knew it might happen., the United States must fear for their troops as well as have faith in them. Guaranteed any soldier would rather die in battle than they would live to see another terrorist attack such as 9-11-02. Osama Bin Laden did not have the funding, resources, or the power over his country that Hussein does. Bin Laden killed over 3,000 innocent civilians by simply flying a few planes into buildings. With the technology and resources that Saddam owns he could murder millions of Americans by dropping a nuclear weapon on a large city such as New York, or Los Angeles. Unless America wants to bury millions and rebuild entire cities, a...

Prop 187 essays

Prop 187 essays This California proposition, also known as the Save Our State initiative, was put together as a way to help the failing state budget and curb the illegal alien problem. The proposition says that any aliens that are suspected of being in California illegally will be denied public, social, educational and health services. These individuals will have to show the proper documentation and participate in interviews to prove their status in the U.S. The proposition is also going to have the schools in California to investigate each suspected student or his/her citizenship status as well as the parent(s) or guardian(s) of that child. 1. The arguments against seem to be that the state will not save the estimated 200 million dollars a year in public services for illegal immigrants. The costs to maintain and investigate these suspected aliens will be much greater. The first year of the project will cost about 100 million dollars. Some estimates even project a possible 10 billion dollars the first year. The more important point, with regards to the money issue, is that Prop 187 will make California ineligible to receive up to 15 billion dollars in federal money. 2. Also, much of the money will be spent to find illegal students. There are a possible 400,000 students that will be displaced by the proposition. The money spent on these children could be used to support and benefit all of the students in Californias educational system. 3. Some argue that proposition 187 segregates the immigrants and makes them feel more separated from society. This will only worsen the situation and cause a greater gap between the groups. 4. In addition to the money problems many feel that the state economy will suffer due to the lack of migrant workers in agriculture. The arguments are that there will not be enough workers and the agriculture in California will collapse and damage ...

Battle of Pydna in the Third Macedonian War

Battle of Pydna in the Third Macedonian War Battle of Pydna - Conflict Date: The Battle of Pydna is believed to have been fought on June 22, 168 BC and was part of the Third Macedonian War. Armies Commanders: Romans Lucius Aemilius Paullus Macedonicus38,000 men Macedonians Perseus of Macedon44,000 men Battle of Pydna - Background: In 171 BC, after several inflammatory acts on the part of King Perseus of Macedon, the Roman Republic declared war. During the conflicts opening days, Rome won a series of minor victories as Perseus refused to commit the bulk of his forces in battle. Later that year, he reversed this trend and defeated the Romans at the Battle of Callicinus. After the Romans refused a peace initiative from Perseus, the war settled into a stalemate as they were unable to find an effective way to invade Macedon. Establishing himself in a strong position near the River Elpeus, Perseus awaited the Romans next move. Battle of Pydna - The Romans Move: In 168 BC, Lucius Aemilius Paullus began moving against Perseus. Recognizing the strength of the Macedonian position, he dispatched 8,350 men under Publius Cornelius Scipio Nasica with orders to march towards the coast. A feint intended to mislead Perseus, Scipios men turned south and crossed the mountains in an effort to attack the Macedonian rear. Alerted to this by a Roman deserter, Perseus sent a 12,000-man blocking force under Milo to oppose Scipio. In the battle that followed, Milo was defeated and Perseus was forced to move his army north to the village of Katerini, just south of Pydna. Battle of Pydna - The Armies Form: Reuniting, the Romans pursued the enemy and found them on June 21 formed for battle on a plain near the village. With his men tired from the march, Paullus declined to give battle and made camp in the nearby foothills of Mount Olocrus. The next morning Paullus deployed his men with his two legions in the center and other allied infantry on the flanks. His cavalry was posted on the wings at each end of the line. Perseus formed his men in a similar fashion with his phalanx in the center, light infantry on the flanks, and cavalry on the wings. Perseus personally commanded the cavalry on the right. Battle of Pydna - Perseus Beaten: Around 3:00 PM, the Macedonians advanced. The Romans, unable to cut through the long spears and tight formation of the phalanx, were pushed back. As the battle moved into the uneven terrain of the foothills, the Macedonian formation began to break down allowing the Roman legionaries to exploit the gaps. Surging into the Macedonian lines and fighting at close quarters, the Romans swords proved devastating against the lightly armed phalangites. As the Macedonian formation began to collapse, the Romans pressed their advantage. Paullus center was soon reinforced by troops from the Roman right which had successfully driven off the Macedonian left. Striking hard, the Romans soon put Perseus center to rout. With his men breaking, Perseus elected to flee the field having not committed the bulk of his cavalry. He was later accused of cowardice by those Macedonians who survived the battle. On the field, his elite 3,000-strong Guard fought to the death. All told, the battle lasted less than an hour. Having achieved victory, Roman forces pursued the retreating enemy until nightfall. Battle of Pydna - Aftermath: Like many battles from this period, exact casualties for the Battle of Pydna are not known. Sources indicate that the Macedonians lost around 25,000, while Roman casualties were over 1,000.  The battle is also seen as a triumph of the legions tactical flexibility over the more rigid phalanx. While the Battle of Pydna did not end the Third Macedonian War, it effectively broke the back of Macedonian power. Shortly after the battle, Perseus surrendered to Paulus and was taken to Rome where he was paraded during a triumph before being imprisoned. Following the war, Macedon effectively ceased to exist as an independent nation and the kingdom was dissolved.   It was replaced by four republics which were effectively client states of Rome.   Less than twenty years later, the region would formally become a province of Rome following the Fourth Macedonian War. Selected Sources Third Macedonian WarBattle of PydnaHistory of War: Battle of Pydna

Capstone Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 4000 words

Capstone - Research Paper Example Hence, the study is aimed at assessing the role of innovation in increasing the profitability level of travel and tourism industry in the UAE. In relation to this study, data would be collected with the help of accessing primary sources by the conduct of questionnaire survey and secondary sources comprising books and journals among others. Moreover, findings would be analyzed with the help of qualitative analysis tool of regression, which would be helpful to arrive at definite outcomes. In this globalization and technology driven era, the national economy of several countries is developing rapidly. With this concern, it is to be affirmed that the advent of globalization has certainly enhanced the travel and tourism industry in the global domain (Decelle, 2004). Thus, it can be inferred that after the imposition of globalization, the aforesaid industry has certainly become one of the most vital pillars of the economic development of the nations. There lay several countries whose economy mainly relies upon the travel and tourism industry. In this regard, United Arab Emirates (UAE) is recognized to be one of the most popular countries wherein such industry plays a decisive part in developing its economic position as per the desired level (OECD, 2006). With this concern, the research paper intends to analyze the role of innovation in increasing the profitability level of UAEs travel and tourism industry. While analyzing the above stated subject matter of the study, an attempt has been made to establish the relationship persisting amid innovation and profitability of the industry within the nation. The economic and social conditions of the UAE are undergoing huge transformations from the past few years. The strong economy of this nation is highly depending upon two different sectors such as oil and Tourism industry. It has been apparently observed that every year the

Business-Level and Corporate-Level Strategies Essay - 11

Business-Level and Corporate-Level Strategies - Essay Example Additionally, the merger and acquisition strategies that the company has adopted has made it to effectively meet the needs of its customers as well diversify its operations. Some of the notable companies that AT&T has acquired include America Movil and Direct TV among others. The company competitors are T-Mobile, Verizon, and Sprint. This paper seeks to discuss various levels and types of strategies adopted by AT&T as well as the comparison of its strategies with those of Verizon its main rival. For any company to succeed in a short-term and in the long-term, it must come up with unique business-level strategies. As a leader in the telecommunication sector, AT&T success has been achieved as the result of effective business level strategies. One of the notable strategies that the company has adopted is the master strategy. This implies that the company intends to be the only telecom provider that connects its small and large customers anywhere. Recently, the company management stated that AT&T plans to focus exhaustively on large customers. This will account for 75% of the company revenue an aspect that will save the $1 billion annually (Ausik, 2012). Another key strategy that AT&T embarks on is product differentiation. One of the major aspects that differentiate the company from its competitors is the exclusive agreement with Apple Corporation to sell iPhone. As a result, the company has benefited from strong customer loyalty based on the valuable products provided by Apple . The marketing strategies that AT&T adopts have a great impact on the profitability of the company. Geographically, the company is positioning itself as the leader in wireless coverage. Additionally, the company as noted earlier has embarked on diversification of its product line. Some of the wireless products that AT&T provides include PTT, video share, and voice-IP among others.

Overpopulation and Its Effects Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Overpopulation and Its Effects - Essay Example Death rate is the prime regulator of the growth rate in a country. Death rate is controlled by a number of factors that include but are not limited to the quality of health care, awareness of health and safety in the society, availability of healthy diet and general style of living of the people. The Japanese population underwent a rapid growth during the 18th and 20th century, which can be attributed to the measures taken by the government to combat epidemics, the situation of law and order implemented by the central government which prevented the continuation of conflicts among the various states in Java, and the food policy which maintained an adequate supply of food to the nation during famines. There occurred an epidemic of Variola in Java during the 18th and 19th centuries. â€Å"Since 1856 there had been a systematic method under the supervision of the medical inspector to prevent further variola epidemics† (Timmer). Accordingly, the spread of disease was controlled. Th ere has occurred a general improvement in the quality of health care all over the world in general and the technologically advanced countries in particular. Alongside, birth rate has increased which controls the growth of population at the other end of the continuum. Birth rate is controlled by a number of factors including the increase of influx of foreigners to fill the skill gaps in countries with low growth rate of the local population, and religion. There are several religions including Islam which encourage people to have more children. Also, governments of several countries around the world have started to take measures to increase population so that the shortage of skills can be eradicated, which emerged in countries with low population. Hence, the two-way effect of decline in death rate and increase in birth rate is the main cause of growth of population. Early marriage is one of the most important causes of overpopulation. Again, religion is the prime motivational source f or the people to marry early as most religions condemn the acts of fornication and appreciate marriage. The practice of early marriage is also an outcome of the modernization of the society. As the society has become more modern and the factors provoking sexual desire are omnipresent, people have started to marry their children earlier than they did before so that the children can have a legitimate means of satisfying their physical needs in the society. Advanced societies around the world have conventionally suffered a lot from the increase of teen pregnancies. Teen pregnancies not only put the pregnant girls and their families in distress, but also the future of the children born from such pregnancies is insecure. Single parents tend to be more irresponsible towards their children. On the contrary, the responsibility of the up-bringing and nurturing of a child born to a married couple is shared by both husband and wife. Therefore, there has been an increase in the emphasis upon th e importance of marriage. Accordingly, early marriages have increased in number. This means that young couples feel more secure in marriage and their tendency to have more children increases. Illegal immigration is an external factor that increases the population of specially the advanced countries. Hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants enter

Is Television-Broadcasting Policy Affected by Changing Media Research Paper

Is Television-Broadcasting Policy Affected by Changing Media Technology - Research Paper Example In 1952, the first cable television network started in Ontario due to the development of improved television broadcasting and supply technologies like the cable television, the first domestic communications satellite (1972), Direct-to-home satellite (1995), Community antenna television (1961)and the over the air television (2000). In addition, there was the inception of mobile television transmissions that allowed for portable television viewing through portable devices. Arguably, the changing media technology has affected television-broadcasting policies in Canada. Various policies formulated by the Canadian government influence the change in media technologies propelling the country in to international media standards. As such, this support the argument that television-broadcasting policy has affected by changing media technology. The policies formulated Essentially, policy formulation drew influence from technological advancements in the broadcasting and regulated structures for t he licensing of both the private and the public institutions of communication dissemination. On the contrary, the Canadian government formulated a policy regarding the ownership of broadcasting houses in Canada (Armstrong, 2010). The Act of 1964 also insinuated that the broadcasting stations within the country had to have effective ownership by Canadian nationals in order to safeguard the social, cultural, political, and economic attributes of Canada. The modification of broadcasting continued because of evolution in the technology industry that kept on constantly emerging. This evolution is still visible in the current times years after the first innovations in to the sector emerged. Remarkably, television broadcast has witnessed the PVR that allows for time shifting of television programming. It also allows for sending and reception of television programming over the internet, which makes television transmission easy. In this regard, viewers from across any continent are able to a ccess a wider international range of programming with relative ease. On the contrary, the Canadian government wishes to introduce Canadian programming that expresses their cultural and national identity through the emerged new technological forms. Essentially, this essay will delve on the whether the changing media has influenced television broadcasting policies. This will be in relation to Canadian television broadcasting with critical research in the past, present and estimated future. Influence by the American broadcast The rise in popularity of the reception of American broadcast stations contributed majorly in the development of television broadcast in Canada. In this regard, three main factors led to the memorable improvement on the television technology in Canada. For one, was the threat by the penetration of American media was a major influence on the stabilization of the Canadian television industry. This posed a great threat to them hence making the nation to accept the ne ed to advance technologically. Secondly, there was a language divide where a fraction of the Canadians spoke French or the third language. Subsequently, the Canadians had to improve in the media industry in order to target the different speaking populations and servicing their individual needs. Lastly, there was the government response to the above factors in which the government imposed certain policies that

Social responsibility in finance decision making Essay - 1

Social responsibility in finance decision making - Essay Example Further, Monsanto CSR initiatives, the influence they have had on stakeholders and company image, with recommendations provided for improvement of CSR at Monsanto. Monsanto failed to meet CSR needs in two instances that seriously affected the business and formed the platform for more CSR initiatives that have allowed the business to receive global recognition, win back the confidence of the consumers, and achieve success in environmental conservation. Monsanto is a leading seed company globally specializing in biotechnology and genetic manipulation of organisms for the development of cheaper and resistant food and crops. Monsanto inserts genes to existing plant genes as a measure of augmenting disease resistance and yields. The effect is the production of drought resistant, more productive, and disease resistant plants known as genetically modified organisms GMO. Monsanto has achieved global success in terms of the supply of Agent O, saccharin, vanilla flavouring, artificial sweeteners, petroleum, packaging Roundup herbicides, petroleum, and GMO seeds. Despite the success, Monsanto faced CSR issues that seriously affected the firm and realized the importance of CSR taking several initiatives in correcting the situation and making several gains in the end. Corporate social responsibility (CSR) at Monsanto was not at the forefront of the company’s operations in the past, as is the case in recent years. For example, there are instances where Monsanto inflicted harm on a number of stakeholders for the sake of the firm’s profits that was the main aim of the firm at the time. Monsanto was not very cognisant of the CSR it had on a number of stakeholders. Monsanto’s production of Agent Orange in 1970’s for the deforestation of Vietnamese jungles forms the case where the company neglected its CSR responsibilities in favour of profit making (Ferrel et al., 2013). Agent Orange, as it was later discovered, contained a carcinogenic

Is Television-Broadcasting Policy Affected by Changing Media Research Paper

Is Television-Broadcasting Policy Affected by Changing Media Technology - Research Paper Example In 1952, the first cable television network started in Ontario due to the development of improved television broadcasting and supply technologies like the cable television, the first domestic communications satellite (1972), Direct-to-home satellite (1995), Community antenna television (1961)and the over the air television (2000). In addition, there was the inception of mobile television transmissions that allowed for portable television viewing through portable devices. Arguably, the changing media technology has affected television-broadcasting policies in Canada. Various policies formulated by the Canadian government influence the change in media technologies propelling the country in to international media standards. As such, this support the argument that television-broadcasting policy has affected by changing media technology. The policies formulated Essentially, policy formulation drew influence from technological advancements in the broadcasting and regulated structures for t he licensing of both the private and the public institutions of communication dissemination. On the contrary, the Canadian government formulated a policy regarding the ownership of broadcasting houses in Canada (Armstrong, 2010). The Act of 1964 also insinuated that the broadcasting stations within the country had to have effective ownership by Canadian nationals in order to safeguard the social, cultural, political, and economic attributes of Canada. The modification of broadcasting continued because of evolution in the technology industry that kept on constantly emerging. This evolution is still visible in the current times years after the first innovations in to the sector emerged. Remarkably, television broadcast has witnessed the PVR that allows for time shifting of television programming. It also allows for sending and reception of television programming over the internet, which makes television transmission easy. In this regard, viewers from across any continent are able to a ccess a wider international range of programming with relative ease. On the contrary, the Canadian government wishes to introduce Canadian programming that expresses their cultural and national identity through the emerged new technological forms. Essentially, this essay will delve on the whether the changing media has influenced television broadcasting policies. This will be in relation to Canadian television broadcasting with critical research in the past, present and estimated future. Influence by the American broadcast The rise in popularity of the reception of American broadcast stations contributed majorly in the development of television broadcast in Canada. In this regard, three main factors led to the memorable improvement on the television technology in Canada. For one, was the threat by the penetration of American media was a major influence on the stabilization of the Canadian television industry. This posed a great threat to them hence making the nation to accept the ne ed to advance technologically. Secondly, there was a language divide where a fraction of the Canadians spoke French or the third language. Subsequently, the Canadians had to improve in the media industry in order to target the different speaking populations and servicing their individual needs. Lastly, there was the government response to the above factors in which the government imposed certain policies that

Making a Choice in US News Media's Top Stories Essay

Making a Choice in US News Media's Top Stories - Essay Example Each news network must present what the viewers like hearing thus, Fox presents more of Iraq success than CNN and MSNBC. This is because many of the republicans do not like stories that pertain to the Iraq war. The US media is facing blames for its lack of consistency and validity. True to mention, celebrities are what the growing generation likes to hear. There are issues that every citizen should be aware of. It is the duty of news media to present and use their time appropriately, as they present what is of essence to the citizens. The book written by Schechter Danny and Dadge David tells a story of a war that should have been presented to the citizens but instead has been abetted by what the authors refer to as the nominally â€Å"free† media. It appears that the government has power to limit what the US citizens should here. Instead of allowing for the presentation of the news, it turned to be a place of bullying of the representatives of the news media to disrupt any cri tical reporting. Since the administration well understood how the media operates, it put in place strategies that disrupted any counter-narrative that emerged with the aim of challenging the storyline presented by the administration. This shows how citizens are hindered from receiving stories that would be beneficial to them. As Schechter and Dadge wrote their book, the Iraq war was still in progress and believed that the coverage leaves so much that citizens can desire. The authors wish for an opportunity through a campaign to tell the truth as pertain to the war. This book shows how news media are denied the opportunity to present the truth to the citizens. The authors, in introducing their book... Today's news media refers to all forms of mass communication ranging from television, newspapers, radio, magazines, and the internet. It is through these forms that people gain access to information and news. It is evident as times change that media plays a bigger role in the lives of people all over. As media performs these roles and technology advancing so fast, there are numerous issues surrounding the efficiency, integrity, and limits of media. An understanding of the issues will help every nation to regulate news media effectively. This essay focuses on criticizm, that the today's media faces for its inefficiency in addressing issues and failure to uphold integrity, with each type of media working tirelessly to compete effectively in the market. With the uneven distribution of technological advancement, news to citizen varies with the news network. With more concern directed to what news media refer to as â€Å"hot stories†, citizens in the US are denied access to importa nt happenings that they should be aware of. In conclusion of this essay, the researcher used a few articles to prove that it is crucial for citizens to make right choice of news media depending on the news they would like to hear. This is because each media has its target. News media must understand that US citizen need to stay informed of local and foreign news. Therefore, addressing top stories helps in keeping citizens updated. Implementation of these issues will see the media go a long way towards realization of its goals.

Judith Beveridge Essay Example for Free

Judith Beveridge Essay Judith Beveridge challenges our understanding of the world by revealing hidden sides of our society through confronting images throughout her poems. The reader is revealed with number of issues such as animal cruelty and psychological torture. These issues are related to the gender of the character with the cruel attitude toward nature and the society. This is evident in the poems â€Å"The Two Brothers† and â€Å"Fox in a Tree Stump†. â€Å"The Two Brother† is a poem which uses natural speech rhythms, tone and informal language is used to create an understanding with the reader. Reader is shown the brother’s cruelty but is also shown their brittleness and insecurity. The brothers’ cruelty is connected with their gender. This is shown in line 3-5 which says, â€Å"Had shown me themselves, grinning queerly as when they’d shown me lizards they’d killed, or sparrows they’d slowly bled with a needle. † These lines show vivid and disturbing images of boys’ violence, this is then enhanced by alliteration of the word ‘S’ in â€Å"sparrows they’d slowly bled. † In the lines, â€Å"shown me themselves† implies that such violence is a characteristic of being a male in our society. This idea of cruelty being a part of male’s characteristic in our society is shown again in line 13 which says, â€Å"Would dare each other any taste, any soft clot, any ugly act. † This line tells the reader that the brother’s would do anything and challenge each other for dominance which also implies that these characteristics of challenging each other for dominance is a part of a male’s life. In the last stanza the reader is given the idea that the brothers haven’t achieved anything and that the reader should feel pity for the brothers rather than looking at them as wrong, heartless human beings. This is shown by persona saying â€Å"Touched themselves through the emptiness of their pockets, scared they’d find the prize of nothing. † This quote evokes sympathy for the brothers through the word choice â€Å"emptiness† and â€Å"prize of nothing†. She also suggests that masculinity to cruelty is ultimately a hollow power. Just like â€Å"The Two Brothers†, â€Å"Fox in a Tree Stump† is a poem with a creature commonly thought of as a pest is projected as the innocent victim of male cruelty. This poem is about an unwanted intruder on the farm. The poem records the memory of a painful loss of innocence for a sensitive nine- year old, who must choose between invoking her uncle’s anger and going against her own mortality. In this poem the uncle has taken it upon himself to teach the child some of the harsher realities in life. Uncle leaves the child to smoke out the unfortunate fox and kill it with a tree branch. Therefore, the child is forced to shed its innocence. The uncle’s dominance is shown over both the girl and the fox. The dominance is linked to the uncle’s gender. Even though the uncle is domineering and cruel, yet Beveridge does not blame him for his act, the poet blames the uncle’s nature as shown in stanza 2 by a quote which says, â€Å"His voice harsh, kelpie- cursing would not understand if I let the fox run to the bush. † This was also shown in The Two Brothers as at the end of the poem the brothers were not blamed for their action but instead were felt pity for. Fox in a Tree Stump ends with â€Å"I was a child praying for the dark each time the sun caught my uncle’s eye. † The persona prays for something like this to never occur in her life again. Children are usually afraid of the dark and hope for sunrise but in this quote dark means release from uncle’s domination and from the fear of further killings. Judith Beveridge has challenged the understanding of the world in which we live. â€Å"The Two Brother’s† and â€Å"Fox in a Tree Stump† both show male dominance over neglected creatures in the society and over females. Beveridge has also challenged my understanding of the society which we live in by raising issues such as physiological torture, animal cruelty, homosexuality and rape throughout most of her poems.

Chilli Peppers and the Southeast Asian Identity

Chilli Peppers and the Southeast Asian Identity Introduction Chilli peppers are an integral part of Southeast Asian cuisine today. Many people associate chilli so closely with Southeast Asian cuisines that some shops in Western countries selling Southeast Asian food have had to add excessive amounts of chilli to their food in order to cater to what foreigners think is Southeast Asian food. However, chilli peppers were actually introduced into Southeast Asia a little less than 500 years. Therefore, they are not an indigenous aspect of Southeast Asian cuisine but rather a product of globalisation. Yet today, Southeast Asian cuisines display a penchant for chillieswith almost every cuisine claiming a variation of a chilli condiment (Williams, 2010, p. 41). In this essay, the key issues will be to explore why chillies became so popular in Southeast Asian in the first place and how their importance has evolved over the years to make them an integral part of Southeast Asian identity through the means of cuisine. Firstly, we will look at the history of chilli peppers and how they were brought into the Southeast Asian region. Secondly, we will see what Southeast Asian cuisine was like before chilli peppers became such an integral part of it. Thirdly, we will explore why chilli peppers caught on so quickly as part of the indigenous cuisine. Lastly, I will argue that the role of chilli has evolved in Southeast Asian cuisine and today, its popularity transcends culinary trends to form an integral part of Southeast Asian identity. The History of Chilli The colonial powers and the prevalence of trade in the Southeast Asian region were the key factors in introducing chilli peppers to the cuisines of Southeast Asian. Chilli peppers were the indigenous plants of the Americas from 6000 BC. SEA Cuisine before Chilli Southeast Asian cuisine before the introduction of chilli already indicated a local preference for spicy food. In Thailand, people were seasoning their food with ginger and peppercorns. This preference for spicy food might be an indication of local conditions that made the region more susceptible or accommodating of spicy food. Unsurprisingly, when the Portuguese introduced chilli peppers to the regions in the 1500s, the Thai were the quickest to adapt them into their food. The Prevalence of Chilli in SEA Cuisine The prevalence of chilli in SEA cuisine after its introduction to the region less than 500 years ago is the result of a combination of factors that include sociological reasons, culinary reasons, scientific reasons and geographical reasons. It is hard to explain the popularity of chilli in the region due to biology. Recent studies have indicated that Asians 25% more likely than people of other races to be supertasters. Supertasters are more sensitive to certain tastes and Asians would therefore be more prone to experiencing the burn of capsaicin through chilli consumption. Yet despite this ethnic trait, the prevalence of chilli in SEA cuisine exceeds that of European or American cuisine. I argue that the popularity of chilli in the region can be explained by a confluence of factors exclusive to SEA countries. Firstly, rice is a staple food in all the SEA countries. SEA countries today are responsible for a larger than proportionate share of the global rice export market, with countries like Thailand and Vietnam being famous for rice planting. In the past, many people in SEA countries survived through subsistence farming and rice was a staple food because it was cheap and filling. Even when rice was not eaten, people substituted it with rice-based products like rice noodles. By making rice a staple part of the SEA diet, people could reduce their consumption of expensive meats and vegetables and therefore, lower the cost of their meals. With the introduction of chilli in the region, people began adding it into their meats and vegetables to give it extra spiciness. The extra spiciness of the meats and vegetables meant that the amount of meat and vegetables for meals could be further reduced since people ended up eating more rice to reduce the burn of the capsaicin from the chillies. By addin g a relatively cheap ingredient like chilli to their dishes, SEA people could therefore reduce their consumption of more expensive foodstuffs, thus explaining the prevalence of chilli in the cost-conscious SEA region. Secondly, chillies were adapted into a region which was already trying different methods to deal with food spoilage. In countries with landlocked areas and muddy rivers, it was not always easy to obtain the freshest of ingredients for the preparation of food. Vegetables grown in certain areas took on a weird taste and often contributed to what many people would consider unpalatable dishes in a meal. In a time with no refrigeration, it was not always possible to consume food before it started going bad in the hot and humid weather, which meant that rotting food was always a possibility during meals. To reduce food spoilage, fermentation of food (like shrimp paste) and sun drying ingredients (ie fish) had become a popular aspect of SEA cooking during this time. However, the resulting dried ingredients were more pungent and had a stronger taste than before and when added back into cooked food, could make it taste less palatable. With the introduction of chilli peppers into food cooked w ith dried ingredients, Southeast Asian cooks were able to Thirdly, recent studies have shown that chilli-based cuisine is popular because it promotes the release of endorphins. The capsaicin in chilli peppers have been found to promote endorphin release in the human brain in order to deal with the burn of spicy food, thus making a torturously spicy meal paradoxically pleasurable. In Britain, researchers were looking into the popularity of curry in the United Kingdom and they concluded that the reason curry had grown so popular was because the spice in the curry caused peoples hearts to beat faster after consumption, mimicking the after-effects of sex. Assuming that these findings of Western researchers can be applied to Southeast Asians, we can thus see that there is a scientific reason to explain the popularity of chilli-based cuisine in the region. Finally and most importantly, the popularity of chilli can be attributed to a self-perpetuating cycle of cultural transmission through immigration in a geographically connected area. Southeast Asian is a region of diverse cultures and religions and this regional trait expresses itself most clearly in the varied dietary restrictions among the different SEA countries. The Muslims abstain from pork, while the Hindus do not consume beef and the more religious Buddhists avoid meat altogether. However, chilli peppers are a plant-based cooking ingredient and do not violate any culinary restrictions of various SEA ethnic and religious populations. Being a geographically connected area that has long been involved in trade, SEA was exposed to the cultural transmission of chilli-based cuisines through local and foreign traders who eventually settled down in these lands as immigrants. As chillies became more widely used in local cuisines due to its culinary adaptability, more chillies were grown within the region itself and this resulted in a self-perpetuating cycle that cemented its place in Southeast Asian kitchens. A combination of these factors explains the prevalence of chilli in the Southeast Asian region and it also accounts for why Filipino and Northern Vietnamese cuisines incorporate less chilli in their food compared to their neighbours. For the Philippines, The Role of Chilli in Shaping SEA Identity Due to their popularity in Southeast Asian cuisines, chilli peppers have transcended culinary traditions and come to occupy an exalted role in shaping Southeast Asian identity today. Spicy food is now part of the identity of the region while the ability to tolerate and even relish chillies is now seen as an informal rite of passage among SEA communities today. Spicy food is now closely associated with the identity of the region in a globalised world. Southeast Asian cuisine seen in the eyes of non- Southeast Asian people is determined by the spiciness of the food and the excessive use of chillies in cooking. With the increasing influx of SE immigrants to Western countries, Westerners are exposed to Southeast Asian cuisine and because Southeast Asians use more spices and chillies as opposed to salt and pepper, Westerners have come to view chillies as a defining aspect of Southeast Asian cuisine. If you visit any hawker centre in Singapore today, an order of almost any dish will invariably be accompanied with chilli condiments ranging from chicken rice chilli to sambal goreng to the freshly cut chilli peppers soaked in soya sauce. Due to cultural perceptions of Southeast Asian food, more hawkers are inclined to include a chilli condiment with the kind of food they serve and this in turn exposes more people to chilli-based food that they come to see as normal or even synonymous with Southeast Asian cuisine. In many Southeast Asian communities, the ability to tolerate chilli-based food or even relish the taste of chilli peppers is the ultimate, albeit informal, rite of passage to adulthood. The irony of associating chillies with regional and personal SEA identity is that not all Southeast Asians embrace chilli as part of their diet. As mentioned earlier, Southeast Asians are supertasters and theoretically more sensitive to capsaicin. The absence of chilli in certain SEA based cuisines (Northern Vietnam Philippines)

An Analysis of Frosts Poem Once by the Pacific :: Once by the Pacific Essays

An Analysis of Frost's Poem Once by the Pacific Although "Once by the Pacific" is not one of Frost's most commercial poems, that does not mean that it is not one of his best. It appears quite obvious to me by one read through of the poem that it has an apocalyptic theme to it. Frost uses the first four lines of the poem to give us a mental image of how powerful the ocean water is: The shattered water made a misty din. Great waves looked over others coming in, And thought of doing something to the shore That water never did to land before. We imagine water crashing down upon the shore line wave upon wave, getting bigger and bigger as they continue. Frost personifies the water in line 3 by giving us the idea that the water has an actual mind and can do as it wishes. That we are at the mercy of the ocean as it stands there in its threatening tone and demands respect from us. I think that line 4 is ironic because if we look at biblical history, water has covered the entire earth before (Genesis 7:17-24). Yet Frost approaches this as if it is a new idea, perhaps because we have a hard time comprehending such an unimaginable occurrence as the Great Flood. The next 3 lines use the image of the clouds in the sky concealing what is to come: The clouds were low and hairy in the skies, Like locks blown forward in the gleam of eyes. You could not tell and yet it looked as if .

Comment Cuisiner Son Mari a L’africaine: How-to Manual or Cautionary Tale

De tous les arts, l'art culinaire est celui qui nourrit le mieux son homme. – Pierre Dac Calixthe Beyala was born in Cameroon in 1961. She was very disturbed by the extreme poverty of her surroundings. She went to school in Douala, and she excelled in Mathematics. Calixthe Beyala traveled widely in Africa and Europe before settling in Paris, where she now lives with her daughter. Beyala has published prolifically, and her most recent novel, which came out earlier this year, is called La Plantation.Beyala’s novel Comment cuisiner son mari a l'africaine appeared in the year 2000, published by Albin Michel. It is similar in structure to Laura Esquivel's Like Water for Chocolate, where the narrative is interrupted by the recipes which figure in the plot line. In her book, Beyala includes twenty-four of the recipes which her heroine Aissatou prepares to attract her neighbor and compatriot, Souleymane Bolobolo. In this way the book serves as a how-to manual, as its title sugg ests, on how to seduce, marry and keep a husband by cooking for him.The book begins with a prologue in the form of a legend where a woman arrives at the remote home of the recluse, Biloa. She announces that she has dreamed of him since she was a little girl, and that she has always known that they would marry. Biloa protests that he isn't the one she is seeking, repeating â€Å"Ce n'est pas moi†, but the woman tempts him with food so Biloa admits his identity, â€Å"C'est peut-etre moi,† and takes the woman and the basket of food into his house. This, according to the legend, is how Biloa came to be a member of the society of men.This prologue does, indeed, prefigure the struggles of Aissatou, our novel's heroine, who is a une dame-pipi28 caught between her identity as a Parisian and as an African. Fed up with romantic disappointments, she has chosen her neighbor Bolobolo to be her husband, though she hasn't really even met him. Aissatou, who habitually eats only three grated carrots for her dinner, and always takes her tea without sugar in order to maintain her slim figure goes to a marabout for advice on how to seduce Bolobolo, and is provoked by the other women that are also waiting there for advice.According to them, Aissatou's problem is that she is too skinny, and they lament the fact that â€Å"ces filles d'aujourd'hui ne savent meme pas cuisiner†¦.. et ca se veut des femmes. â€Å"29 Aissatou takes this all to heart and armed with the recipes she learned from her mother and grandmother, she attacks her neighbor on the culinary front. She begins by bringing â€Å"beignets aux haricots rouges† to Bolobolo's elderly mother who is suffering from a mental illness, and then continues tempting her neighbor with other exotic and spicy dishes.Aissatou is not unopposed, however, and deals with her rival, Bijou, by again eclipsing her performance in the kitchen. Eventually, Aissatou does seduce Bolobolo, and after his mother's death, t hey do marry. But the story doesn't end here. In an epilogue, the reader gets a glimpse of Aissatou and Bolobolo's marriage twenty years later. Aissatou admits that she cooks to save her marriage, which is constantly imperiled by her husband's infidelity.But, as her mother had told her, â€Å"There comes a time when one must prefer one's marriage to one's husband,† and so Aissatou sacrifices her pride and tends her relationship in the kitchen even though she realizes that her husband is an adulterous coward. The epilogue leaves a bitter taste at the end of such a delicious novel, but it keeps it honest, and doesn't allow it to seem like the simple re-telling of the legend of Biloa. Whereas the themes of food and cooking often serve as expressions of nostalgia in other novels, in Beyala's book, food is a language spoken by the different characters.Aissatou hears her mother's voice prescribing certain dishes to mend a broken heart and other dishes to soothe herself and her fami ly, for as she says, â€Å"Ventre plein n'a point de conscience. â€Å"30Her daughter, however, doesn't initially have the same reaction when feeling low and instead she makes herself a bowl of ‘veritable soupe chinoise en sachet. ‘ This means that prior to her decision to seduce Bolobolo by cooking for him, the only cooking that Aissatou undertakes is nothing more than adding water to a dried powder and heating it up.The fact that the dried powder is identified as ‘real’ and ‘Chinese’ point to the fact that it is really neither. Aissatou is not concerned with her food’s quality or ethnicity, and cares only about its convenience and calorie count. In the course of the novel, Aissatou will give up her proclivity for these ‘inauthentic’ foods and begin to enjoy the foods of West Africa prescribed by her mother and other African characters. In Beyala’s book, African food is imbued with nearly magical qualities. Yes, it does put meat on the bones of those who enjoy it, but it also excites the senses, and inflames the passions of those who eat it.Moreover, the true connoisseurs and sages of African food are all women. Even when Aissatou goes to consult a marabout about her love life, it is the women who actually reveal her ‘diagnosis. ’ Maimouna, who is known as ‘la cheftaine-reine des cuisines† amongst the women at the marabout’s apartment says that Aissatou’s problem is that she is too thin, and that a certain spicy shrimp dish will always attract a man. Once Aissatou decides to begin cooking African food in order to achieve her goal of seducing Bolobolo, she is also able to influence other situations through her cooking.She decides to provoke a macho response in her passive male best friend and prepares a jus de gingembre, a drink formulated to send him into a frenzy of desire, just to see what will happen. When confronted by her angry rival, mademoiselle Bi jou, she cooks a bouillie de mil for her to show that she is civilized and in control of the situation. Later, angered by Bijou's assessment of her relationship with Bolobolo, she also takes revenge on him by putting a laxative in a favorite dish of his. And of course, Aissatou's prime objective, clinched by her pepe-soupe aux poissons, is to arouse an appetite for passion within Bolobolo.Aissatou is speaking through her cooking, revealing her desires and fears, using food to express those things which she cannot explicitly state. In addition to its function as a way to provoke a physical response in the eater, food acts as an important cultural identifier in this novel. Through it we see the transformation of Aissatou from Parisian, back to African and from white, back to black. In other words, she effectuates a reverse migration, and food and cooking are the vehicle that she uses to bring herself back to her roots.Though this migration is easy to track, as she embraces her motherà ¢â‚¬â„¢s attitudes toward food, cooking and even marriage, it is more difficult to find Aissatou’s point of departure. In the beginning, Aissatou’s very racial and ethnic identity is called into question by Beyala’s own publisher’s blurb on the back of the novel itself. It describes her as  « une Parisienne pure black en proie au tourments de l’amour.  »31 But Aissatou claims that her self-imposed exile in France has made her forget the fact that she is black and that she doesn’t know when she became white.She admits that she has become white by imitating the thin, white Parisian women who are, as she is, completely caught up in the constant pursuit of beauty that is calculated to please men. She realizes that she has adopted a foreign mentality when it comes to her own body image and describes herself thus: â€Å"Moi, je suis une negresse blanche et la nourriture est un poison mortel pour la seduction. Je fais chanter mon corps en eplu chant mes fesses, en rapant mes seins, convaincue qu'en martyrisant mon estomac, les divinites de la sensualite s'echapperont de mes pores. 32It is interesting to note the use of the kitchen techniques, which indicate how previously her only cooking projects served to keep her thin. She combines these techniques where she literally scrapes her body until it is thin with words like martyr and divinity, playing into the idea that the denial of food in order to remain thin is a somehow sacred task. This is a long-standing dialectic, where women align divinity and asceticism when that same asceticism really represents a societal imperative to conform to ideals of beauty.This statement is a declaration of success; she has martyred her body in order to be desirable, and therefore white. Though Aissatou admits that she diets constantly and obsessively, like other Parisian women, she also lies about what she eats, just for the sake of being cruel. When asked about her diet by an apparently jealous overweight woman, Aissatou joyfully tells her that she has, since her birth, eaten, â€Å"le coq au vin, arrose d’un bon beaujolais nouveau; les epaules d’agneau aux champignon noirs, le ris de veau a la creme fraiche et le couscous mouton a la tunisienne. 33Of course, it is completely untrue that she ever indulges in such rich food, and certainly doubtful that she ate these traditional French dishes as a child in Cameroon. It is worth noting the inclusion of Tunisian couscous with the list of very traditional French food. Couscous has entered the repertory of French foods and is a common dish, despite its colonial origins. Though one may argue about the ‘authenticity’ of a Parisian â€Å"couscous a la Tunisienne† and how it plays on French ideas of exoticism, it is undeniably a part of French cuisine.This is in contrast to sub-Saharan African cuisine, which is much more difficult to find in the capital. Though you can eat couscous in every arrondissement, you would be hard pressed to find many restaurants that serve food from West Africa or the provisions necessary to make them at home. With this book, Beyala presents a fictionalized cookbook, and if the intrepid home cook should retrace the steps of the heroine, it could even serve as a guide for shopping for the ingredients in the recipes.As mentioned previously, this book’s structure is similar to other popular novels where recipes for the dishes prepared by characters are included, like Frances Mayes’, Under the Tuscan Sun, and Laura Esquivel’s, Like Water for Chocolate. But in these novels, the recipes are most often a part of the narration itself and sometimes are even recounted by one character to another, mimicking the traditional way that cooking recipes are transmitted, orally, from one cook to another, most often mother to daughter.In Beyala’s book, which features African characters who themselves benefited from the oral traditi on of passing down culinary knowledge, Beyala’s chooses to completely disconnect the recipes from the text, placing them on a separate page at the end of the chapter, and printing them like a traditional recipe that could be found in any cookbook or magazine article. Also, Beyala’s book differs from Mayes’ and Esquivel’s because their novels are both set in a time or place that is foreign to the reader.Esquivel’s novel is set during the Mexican revolution, and Mayes’ is set in Italy, and their settings automatically place them in a foreign and/or exotic locale. Despite this fact, the reader can easily recreate the recipes that their characters make, thereby exoticising themselves by their appropriation of the foreign meal. In contrast, Beyala’s book is both more accessible in its setting, and less accessible to the home cook. Comment cuisiner son mari a l’africaine is set in the present-day French capital and is completely reco gnizable in terms of its location and lifestyle.But re-creating the recipes that Aissatou makes is nearly impossible, because many of the ingredients listed in these recipes are not translated or even described. Though it would seem that this cookbook is intended for other immigrant women to use in re-creating dishes from West Africa, the lack of information about ingredients or possible substitutions runs counter to other cookbooks with similar propositions. Therefore, the status of the book as a manual is questionable, since it is not clear that one can even follow the recipes.Beyala’s book may just be using the recipes as other novels use illustrations. They are glimpses of a foreign culture provided by the author in order to pique the interest of the reader, just as an illustration does. Beyala’s location of the text in Paris is key in the novel, because it allows her to set up a cultural dialectic between France and Cameroon. Her heroine must navigate the multicul tural space of the post-colonial capital to assess the compromises and concessions that white and black women make.Aissatou is caught between her Parisian reality where sexual value is based on how thin a woman is, and her memories of her mother's advice which promoted the importance of domesticity and especially culinary satisfaction in the life of a couple. â€Å"Un homme qui vous fait ressentir de telles emotions†¦.. merite le paradis,†34 she would say as she seasoned a dish to please her man. Aissatou imagines the questions that her mother would have asked her if her daughter had come to her after a failed love affair.Her mother would have asked if first, she had satisfied him sexually, second, if she had kept the house well, and third if she had prepared nice dishes for him. As Aissatou begins cooking savory dishes for herself her thin figure fills in with more womanly curves, eliciting pitying looks from some who think that she has let herself go, and approval from others. Race, beauty, food and sex are all locked into an uneasy correlation that she cannot accept. She gives up on the idea of maintaining a French, i. e. thin, ideal of beauty and trades it for the African ideal of sensual pleasure of food as a means to attract men.Interestingly, she does not trade her French beauty regimen for an African one. She even cites the methods that she is unwilling to follow and decides that braiding her hair, massaging herself with shea butter and pretending to be fragile is not for her: â€Å"Rien qu’a y penser, je m’epuise comme si c’etait deja a l’ouvrage. †35 This return to her roots is unquestionably problematical for Aissatou. She is torn between the two worlds constantly. For example, when she sees Bolobolo leaving the apartment building, she is struck by her sudden ‘African’ reaction: â€Å"Si j'etais sa femme, je serais restee a la maison a l'attendre. But just as quickly she asks herself, â₠¬Å"Mais pourquoi dans le partage des roles les femmes doivent-elles garder le foyer, cuisiner, allumer les lampes†¦. jusqu'a ce que mort s'ensuive? †36This is the same reaction that she has when she asks herself if she is capable of using African methods of seduction. Aissatou’s onerous task is to reconcile her African mother’s advice on how to seduce and hold on to a man with her French post-feminist questions about that role. She knows that her mother is right, and that she will be able to seduce this African man by appealing to his sensual desires and African identity.So, she picks at Bolobolo's sensibilities as an African man and critiques him for doing the marketing himself, saying: â€Å"Vous vous etes finalement bien adapte a l'Occident qui voudrait que l'homme soit une femme et l'inverse. †37In this way, she calls attention to the cultural difference in the French and African views on the traditional division of labor and highlights the fact t hat she and Bolobolo share a common culture, though they may be forced to adapt to French practices.Aissatou also seeks to call attention to their shared culture when she uses Bolobolo's mother's condition as an excuse to get involved, which she does with ulterior motives: â€Å"J'ai l'impression que mon discours est en decalage, espace et temps. Je sais que j'ai eu une reaction africaine ou tout le monde se mele des casseroles etrangeres. â€Å"38 This statement is telling because it shows that Aissatou knows that she is acting in bad faith.She knows that she has rejected certain aspects of African seduction and that she is not being honest about her intentions, but she nevertheless goes forward with her culinary seduction of Bolobolo and his mother. When Aissatou brings the beignets to Bolobolo's mother he mentions that she mustn't have anything better to do if she is cooking for others, but Aissatou reminds him: â€Å"Oui, parce que dans ce pays il faut etre vieux ou au chomag e pour se rendre compte qu'il est important que l'on s'occupe des autres,† again setting herself apart from the French and reminding him that they are compatriots.She finally gains access to his house with this plate of food. Once inside, she professes that she loves to cook and he answers that he loves to do dishes, seeming indicating that they are ideally suited for each other, but also indicating that he may be an African man, but he has adapted to a non-African setting. And this is the prime reason that Aissatou cooks, and especially why she cooks African food, to spark Bolobolo's passion for her. Aissatou cooks constantly, and she cooks the most exotic dishes and uses ingredients that she must search for in all the African boutiques of the capital.Her apartment building is infused with the heady aromas of African cuisine, which causes different reactions among her French neighbors. The concierge battles the smells of cooking with the Airwick spray, but the old lady who li ves on the first floor creeps up the steps to hover on the landing while Aissatou is cooking. Aissatou’s cooking, because it is foreign and strange smelling, makes her black in the eyes of the racist concierge and Bolobolo’s metisse girlfriend, Bijou.Aissatou decides to invite Bolobolo and his mother to dinner at her apartment, where she intends to win him over with her prowess in the kitchen, but when she goes downstairs to invite him, another woman is in the apartment with him. Unfazed, she announces that she would be happy to bring dinner down to them to enjoy together. The dinner is a success with Bolobolo but his girlfriend, a lovely metissse named Bijou, doesn't enjoy herself at all: â€Å"Je n'ai jamais aime la cuisine africaine†¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦ Parait qu'ils mangent des singes, ces Negres! † To which Aissatou responds: â€Å"Du serpent boa egalement†¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦.C'est excellent, n'est-ce pas†39Again, the food has served to bring together the African s and place them in opposition to a separate group because they share a taste for a dish that others find objectionable. Aissatou even goes further in invoking their taste for boa constrictor, because she knows that Bijou will be disgusted by this prospect. Since Bijou is mulatto and not just French, Aissatou and Bolobolo’s shared food preference places emphasis on the fact that they are from the same country in Africa and therefore share a distinct culture, and should not be lumped in with other ‘people of color. But Aissatou's main goal for her fabulous dinner is achieved after Bijou's departure when Bolobolo starts kissing and caressing Aissatou while she is cleaning up the kitchen. This woman, who previously denied herself any sensual pleasure at all from food, is altered by her dinner with Bolobolo. With her seduction of Bolobolo she acquires a new language, where food metaphors dominate the description of sex and the body. Nicki Hitchcott sees the narrator’ s almost over the top references to food to be a demonstration of cliches on which Western advertising depends. 0But at the same time, this dinner is evocative of the traditional polygamous African family dynamic, where the wife who cooks for the husband is the one who sleeps with him that night. Although Aissatou must still deal with her more powerful rival, Bolobolo's mother, she is eventually successful in seducing and keeping him with her culinary talents. By the end of the novel, Aissatou's transformation is complete. She does experience uneasiness when it comes to her own motives and doubts regarding her role in what Hitchcott calls ‘postnational’ France, but Aissatou settles on using cooking in order to maintain her relationships.She has gone from being a self-described white woman who viewed food as a ‘fatal poison' in the matter of seduction, to using food as a tool to accomplish her goal of seducing Bolobolo. She now sees food as a positive, unifying for ce: â€Å"La nourriture est synonyme de la vie. Aujourd'hui elle constitue une unite plus homogene que la justice. Elle est peut-etre l'unique source de paix et de reconciliation entre les hommes.  »41And in this novel, cooking can also reflect passion, love, comfort, anger and civility.Food and Aissatou's deft manipulation of people through her cooking give her power that she doesn't have otherwise in French society. As Bolobolo’s mother says in the novel, cooking is indeed becoming a rare skill especially in large capital cities like Paris because women are increasingly working outside the home, and don’t have the time or even talent to cook, since they never really learned the skills from their mothers. Even though France may be a center for haute cuisine technique, it suffers the same problems of all modern countries where there has been a redistribution of domestic tasks from inside to outside the home.Women don’t cook as much as they used to, and more a nd more people eat outside the home. Therefore, we must ask ourselves for whom the didactic element of this book is intended. As stated above, it is not descriptive enough to satisfy a food adventurer in search of the exotic and by virtue of the fact that it is written and published in France, it is clearly not intended to be used by African women. Perhaps the reader who would find Beyala’s recipes to be the most accessible are women like herself, immigrant women who might need to be tempted back to the kitchen.When this is considered along with Beyala’s problematical portrayal of marriage, the book appears as an invitation to take up cooking, not as a way to experience the exotic, but as a way to reject the Western ideal of beauty and to appropriate some power within the community. Aissatou returned to this aspect of her African heritage, because she had a specific goal in mind and felt that this would allow her to achieve it. She questions herself, her methods and he r motives all along the way, and ultimately accepts the limitations of â€Å"un bon pepe-soupe† and her husband’s monogamy.Just as she advises her neighbor whose husband has begun to stray from the conjugal bed, she doesn’t reproach Bolobolo and accepts his infidelity, knowing that eventually, he will return to her. She rejected the literal and figurative hunger that she experienced as a ‘negresse blanche† and chose the culinary tools that allow her to make her husband happy, even though she knows that he will sometimes hurt her. Beyala’s heroine fully understands the limitations that she faces in a Paris, and negotiates an identity through her cooking that she can live with.

Masculinity in “A View from the Bridge” Essay

Arthur Miller wrote this play in 1955. He has written many other plays including All My Sons, which was a success at Broadway. Miller was born in 1915, in New York City, but both his parent had emigrated to the US. This play revolves around emigration, so Miller has had a lot of personal experience. This play is based in the late 1940’s, just after the Second World War, when many people were emigrating to the US, looking for a better life. In the play, which is located in Brooklyn, which is a community full of dockworkers, we have a picture of Eddie, Beatrice and Catherine’s lives when Rodolfo and Marco illegally emigrate to the US from Italy. When Catherine (Eddie’s niece) falls in love with Rodolfo, Eddie loses his cool, and reports Marco and Rodolfo to immigration. The drama ends with the death of Eddie, as he tried to kill Marco; Marco turned the knife, and stabbed Eddie. There are three leading male characters in the play; Eddie, Rodolfo and Marco, and each of them play different roles and have different types of roles. The first of these men we meet is Eddie. The first impression of any character is very important, and the first impression we get of Eddie is that he is a real family person. He talks very complimentarily towards Catherine, â€Å"Beautiful! Turn, around, lemme see in the back. Oh if your mother was alive to see you now! She wouldn’t believe it.† This gives the reader the impression that he is a family person, who is close to his niece. Then when he hears that Beatrice (his wife) is cousins have arrived he tells her â€Å"Don’t worry about it B., there’s nothin’ to it. Couple of hours and they’ll be here.† This gives us the impression that he is also very caring towards B’s family, even though they come in illegally. This also enhances the impression that he is a family man. We are made to believe generally that he’s a good man, who values his family very high. When we hear that Catherine has got a job, she wanted to ask Eddie if it was all right with him if she took it. This shows us that he has a lot of status in the house. If he hadn’t any status, Catherine would have gone  behind his back, and wouldn’t have asked permission. Eddie then replied by saying â€Å"Sure she’s the best.† This shows us that he cares for his family and wants the best for his niece. A little later we hear from a lawyer called Alfieri. We are believed to trust him because of his wisdom, and position in the community. He is the voice of the community. He then tells his thoughts towards Eddie. â€Å"He was a good man as he had to be in a life that was hard and even.† The important word here is â€Å"was†, this shows us that Eddie’s personality is on the verge of changing. When we are introduced to Rodolfo and Marco, there is a huge difference between them, first there is their appearance. The impression that we get of Marco is that he’s a strong man, and is focused, because Miller describes him as â€Å"Square-built peasant of thirty-two, suspicious, tender and quiet voiced.† when he is first introduced. This gives us the impression that he is a very quiet person, but his awareness is very good, he is very alert of what’s around him. During the first scene where he’s introduced, when he talks it’s usually very short answers, e.g. â€Å"Thank you† and â€Å"Are you my cousin?† On the other hand, Rodolfo’s manliness is totally different to Eddie’s and Marco’s. Rodolfo is an extremely attractive young man, who is very sensitive. Where Eddie and Marco are much more macho than Rodolfo, unlike Eddie and Marco, Rodolfo sees sewing, cooking and singing as manly. We are made to believe that Rodolfo is quiet intelligent, because the language he uses is very flowery, â€Å"The horses in our town are skinnier than goats.† One of the most notable features that Rodolfo has is his â€Å"so blond† hair. Immediately Eddie goes on the defence, and say’s that is hair is like a â€Å"chorus girl or sump’m.† Then Eddie goes on to imply that he dyes his hair, which in Eddie’s eyes is unacceptable. Without ever saying it, Eddie’s implying that Rodolfo is gay. Another factor that goes against Rodolfo is that he is a very keen singer, and we hear his version of â€Å"Paper Doll†, and in Eddie’s eyes, only homosexuals sing. Due to the difference in physique between both characters, it was inevitable that they wouldn’t be able to work effectively. Marco is full of muscle, so he is adapted very well to work in a shipyard, but because of his slight physique, Rodolfo is not as well adapted. In my view, he would have been much better in the entertainment business, because he is a natural joke teller. However, Eddie tells Rodolfo that â€Å"But as long as you owe them money, they’ll get you plenty of work† that tells us that there are plenty of work in the docks, and Rodolfo is very clever and takes the work just to get some money in. This shows us that Rodolfo has a good brain, and is more concerned so he can get some money in to establish himself as an American. After coming home from work, Eddie goes on the attack, and undermines Rodolfo’s work rate, because he hasn’t taken at all to Rodolfo, He doesn’t see things like sewing, cooking and singing as manly. First of all he complains that â€Å"he sings.† Eddie is very embarrassed of this, because many of his friend e.g. Louis work there, and knowing that Eddie gives a roof to the â€Å"Canary† might under mind his street cred, because it’s like Rodolfo’s giving out â€Å"regular free shows†. Even at home Rodolfo sings, and this really goes under Eddie’s skin, as he says â€Å"if you came in the house and you didn’t †¦ know who was singin’, you wouldn’t be lookin for him you be lookin’ for her.† This shows us that Rodolfo isn’t shy about singing. He wants to make the most of his magical voice. Nevertheless, Eddie realises if someone was to come to the house, to ask, â€Å"who was singing?† he would be extremely embarrassed to say it was a man’s voice. This is extremely ironic, because most of the famous Italian singers are tenors. Although by now a man singing tenor is totally acceptable, back in the time that this play was written, people were less sophisticated, and in my opinion much more prepared to stereotype people. Although Eddie isn’t the biggest fan of Rodolfo, we learn at the end of the first act that Rodolfo is the kind of man that Beatrice and Catherine are looking for. When Marco says that â€Å"everybody gets fat† when Rodolfo’s cooking, Eddie tries to make this count against Rodolfo, but the girls see  through this. Catherine then goes on to glorify the fact that he could cook, and say’s that â€Å"all the big hotels (chefs) are men†. This shows that she thinks that there’s different ways to be a man, either through cooking or dancing. Straight afterwards, in my opinion Eddie feels very vulnerable because two men have arrived, and he’s afraid he would be toppled as king of the castle. So Eddie goes out to win some honour back, and tries to humiliate Rodolfo and Marco. His first target was Rodolfo. He went for one of Rodolfo’s weaknesses, in his opinion his manliness; he isn’t strong enough in Eddie’s view so he decides to teach Rodolfo how to box. Eddie encouraged Rodolfo to â€Å"put sump’m behind it, you can’t hurt me.† and â€Å"Come on show me! What’re you gonna be? Show me!† In my view, Eddie is trying to show that he’s a better and stronger man than Rodolfo; he wants to prove to Beatrice and Catherine, that Rodolfo isn’t the man they think he is. Just to rub the salt into the wound, Eddie â€Å"feints with his right and lands with his right.† Afterwards he asks Rodolfo â€Å"Did I hurt you?† In my opinion, Eddie is waiting for Rodolfo to reply â€Å"Yes†, so Catherine and Beatrice sees such a weak person he is, but Rodolfo replies â€Å"No, no.† This shows the toughness that belongs to Rodolfo that we haven’t seen before in the play. This shows the reader that Eddie hasn’t succeeded in humiliating Rodolfo, but rather he succeeded to humiliate himself. Just to make the situation worse for Eddie, Rodolfo and Catherine continue with their lives and go to dance, they didn’t dwindle on the situation. After seeing his younger brother being treated so horrid by Eddie, Marco decides to challenge Eddie’s masculinity, and bring him back down to earth with a bang. All Marco asked is â€Å"can you lift this chair?† It sounds like a pretty easy thing to do. When Eddie went down on his knees to pick it up, he fails. â€Å"He tries again, and again fails.† Then when Marco goes down to pick it up, he â€Å"raises the chair over his head.† He raised the chair as it was a weapon, and as a word of warning to Eddie. This shows us that Marco is looking after his close family, and wants to make sure that nobody gets the better of them. This lift was more of a warning to Eddie not to mess with Rodolfo, than anything else in my opinion. He did this as his felt  quite a strong responsibility towards Rodolfo. This is a clear sign that Marco is looking for justice, and he isn’t as quiet a character as Miller first portrays him. This is a clear similarity between Marco and Eddie, because both want to protect their families. Although Mike does portray him as a â€Å"regular bull†, that shows that Marco’s strength has been seen through out the community. Catherine is extremely important to the whole plot of the drama, because it’s because of her that the entire feud between Eddie and Rodolfo has erupted. At the beginning of the play we get the idea that Eddie’s extremely protective towards Catherine because he says â€Å"I promised your mother in her deathbed. I’m responsible for you.† At this point we get the idea that Eddie’s like any other caring uncle, but as the drama unfolds, we are made to think that Eddie’s is becoming overly attached to Catherine. When Eddie learns that Rodolfo has extremely strong feelings towards Catherine, he quickly tries to distance Catherine away from him, by saying that â€Å"He don’t respect you.† This is a cry of a desperate man, it’s as if he doesn’t want her to grow up, this is a very strong weakness of Eddies. We learn earlier on in the play that Eddie isn’t a good husband, because Beatrice asks, â€Å"When am I gonna be a wife again, Eddie?† I think that Eddie is confused with the state of his relationship with Catherine as she’s growing up, and because of this it’s stopping him from completing his duties with Beatrice. When Rodolfo sing or dances with Catherine, the song â€Å"Paper Doll† is often used e.g. When Rodolfo tells Catherine to â€Å"Dance† the phonograph â€Å"plays ‘Paper Doll’†. In my opinion this is a very clever use of song because it describes the nature of Rodolfo, he like a news paper. First of all Rodolfo isn’t extremely strong, nor is paper. One of the similarities between Marco and Eddie’s that they’re both very strong. Also you can read Rodolfo’s thoughts by looking at his face, just as if you’re reading a newspaper. One of the differences between Eddie and Marco is that Marco cares for his wife. In my opinion, to be a good man you must look after your wife. Where Eddie forgets to do his duties in bed, Marco sends some of the money he has  won back to his family in Italy, so they can have a better life. As I’ve said, both men want to look after their families, but both do this is different ways. Marco is prepared to leave his family to earn money, whereas Eddie hangs on to his family too tight in my opinion. One of the turning points is the drama, is when Eddie goes around kissing everybody. When Eddie sees Rodolfo and Catherine together, Eddie â€Å"suddenly, draws her to him, and as she strives to free herself he kisses her on the lips.† This is Eddie getting what he wants, that is Catherine, because we know that Eddie doesn’t want Beatrice. Although Eddie gets Catherine in a very brutal way, it shows his dominance in the house. Not just content with this, â€Å"Eddie pins (Rodolfo’s) arms, laughing, and suddenly kisses him.† This is a rather odd gesture, because many times during the play Eddie describes Rodolfo as â€Å"The guy ain’t right.† He uses it many times either because he feels that this is true, or even because he is trying to convince himself that this is right. This kiss doesn’t follow with Eddie’s behaviour during the rest of the play, because by kissing him, he brings himself down to the same masculinity as gays. During the end we learn a lot about the characters real thoughts and feelings, and what sort of men they really are. There is a lot of discussion during the play, asking is Rodolfo just looking after himself, by wanting to marry an American. This is thrown more into doubt when Catherine asks him telling him â€Å"Suppose I wanted to live in Italy. At first he tries to push away the idea by replying â€Å"Forever?† At this point you start to believe that he’s a selfish little Italian that just wants to be an American. But then he goes on and says that â€Å"there’s nothing†¦I would be a criminal stealing your face†. This tells us that he’s as caring as Marco, he only wants the best for Catherine, and that all of Eddie’s doubts seem wrong. As the plot unfolds, Eddie’s masculinity seems to grow weaker and weaker. He has finally cracked when he â€Å"wants to report something†. Illegal immigrants. Two of them.† This shows us that Eddie has finally gone for  the big one. He isn’t enough of a man to throw Rodolpho and Marco on to the street; he phones to get others to do his dirty work. This is a sign of a coward. Although he thinks it’s the right thing to do, because he is protecting Catherine. After two officials catch the illegal immigrants, â€Å"Marco suddenly breaks from the group and dashes into the room and faces Eddie†. This shows us that Marco is a growing threat during this play. He’s becoming more and more important as the plot unfolds. By standing up to Eddie it shows that he’s ready to match him. But instead of attacking him verbally or physically, he â€Å"spits into Eddie’s face†. This is the point where Eddie loses all his dignity and manliness. The Italian community in Brooklyn is extremely close together, and they watch out for each other, and having one of their own betraying them is a sin, so Eddie will be looked down at now by the rest of the community. Not even Louis, one of Eddie’s close friends turn around to look at him when Eddie shouts, â€Å"Louis! Louis!† Even Catherine his own niece says that â€Å"he bites people when they sleep!† This shows us now that nobody will ever be able to trust him again, not even his own family. Just to rub the salt into the wound, Marco shouts, â€Å"That one! He killed my children! That one stole the food from my children!† This shows that the relationship between Eddie and Marco has hit an all time low. This also throws away the scraps of dignity that Eddie had left. It also enhances the fact that Marco is a loving father, who’s desperate to help his family back in Italy. In the very last scene, we start by seeing Catherine one again stealing his manliness away from him, by saying that â€Å"he’s a rat! He belongs in the sewers!† This shows us by now, not even his closest family can bear to be close to him after the unforgivable sin that he’s done. Only one character keeps faith in Eddie, and that’s Beatrice. She ironically stands by him all the time. But when Eddie sees Marco, he loses his mind, and starts to attack him verbally and physically. Eddie is blind to the fact that he is wrong, he isn’t enough of a man to face up to the fact, so he Marco to tell the people  that â€Å"what a liar you are!† This shows that Eddie is confident that he can have one successful blow at Marco, but he is wrong. Marco attacks back by calling Eddie an â€Å"†Animal! You go on your knees to me!†!† And he does this twice. This is one of the worst insults that a man in that time could call another. It shows us that Eddie is below the level of dignity shown by human beings, and is down there in the dumps, and by going on his knees shows that he’s at the same level as animals. Then both of them get ready to fight. Eddie at this point has nothing to lose, so he takes out a knife and at this point and â€Å"Louis (Eddie’s friend) halts and steps back from trying to stop the fight. This shows the power and status Eddie has just won by cheating. But in the end, Eddie had no chance of beating Marco, due to his strength. Marco managed to turn the blade around and stabbed Eddie. Eddie died, as a cheat, but he regains some dignity as he dies in Beatrice’s arms. This shows although all the horrid remarks and actions Eddie has made, Beatrice is there until the very end. Marco’s manliness during the play just grows and grows until this climax. Without a doubt, Miller has many different views on masculinity. You have Eddie and Marco, who are two extremely strong men, and you have Rodolfo, who is extremely keen on more feminine activates. In my opinion, there isn’t a lot of difference between these. All three are men in their different ways, but one thing in my view is a must is respect. And Eddie had lost it, all of it by the end. He used to be the king of the household before Marco and Rodolfo came along, and during that time, he was losing his respect due to the treatment he gave them, an example of this is when Eddie phoned the immigration office. In my opinion, Eddie knew he was losing respect from Beatrice because he demanded her â€Å"I want my respect, Beatrice.† This shows us that he worries what people think of him.