A common Misunderstanding of systems in airplanes Essay

A common Misunderstanding of systems in airplanes - Essay Example Nevertheless, the flight data recorders have been designed to withstand substantial hardships, high temperatures, and even violence such as one that occurs on impact of a plane crash. At most times, the boxes can withstand this and still be useful with regard to providing essential data to investigators. In spite of this, people should understand that at extreme temperatures that may be caused by aviation fuel fires, the boxes could be destroyed. In most instances, this damage is viewed from the point of recoverable data. The fires may destroy the data inside the data recorders making it unreadable. At such an instance, the black box was destroyed. Such a misunderstanding can be avoided in the future by educating people. If the people have prior information concerning the characteristics and behavior of a black box at certain circumstances, they would stop expecting too much out of the black box. There are usually two black boxes on commercial airplanes and their color is

Compare and contrast the management schools of Global Convergence and Essay

Compare and contrast the management schools of Global Convergence and Global Divergence - Essay Example â€Å"International management involves a number of issues not present when the activities of the firm are confined to one country†, - Armstrong says (2006, p.100). These issues comprise the variety of international organisational models, the problems of managing in different cultures and environments, the extent to which management policy and practice should vary in different countries, and the approaches used to manage these practices and processes. International management policies are considered taking into account there should be convergence or divergence in the management practice adopted in overseas companies. As Rowley and Benson (2000) assert: â€Å"Globalisation and international trade and finance may place substantial pressure on companies to force them to standardise practices and polices. †¦ [However], local customs, institutions, and labour forces do provide serious constraints on the degree of convergence and may lead to increasing levels of divergence (p. 2). In this paper we will compare and contrast the management schools of Global Convergence and Global Divergence so that to make a conclusion as to which school offers the most convincing explanation of the likely challenges faced by managers in international organisations in the future. In order to follow the Convergence versus Divergence debate it is necessary to understand a role of cultural diversity, which is a key issue in international business management. Armstrong (2006) emphasises that â€Å"managers in each country operate within a national institutional context and share a set of cultural assumptions. Neither institutions nor cultures change quickly and rarely in ways that are the same as other countries. †¦It follows that managers in one country behave in a way that is noticeably different from managers in other countries† (p102). Hofstede (1980) identifies five dimensions of culture, which has been adapted by Bento and Ferreira (1992) to

Employment Effects of the Minimum Wage

Employment Effects of the Minimum Wage 1. Introduction The question involving how minimum wage impacts employment remains among the most broadly studied as well as the most controversial topic in the labor economics, by a corresponding difference in the political domain. Minimum wage regulations are a perfect example of price control; price controls distort the quality of services and goods. And limit transaction volume in the market spot. In the scenario of minimum wage, costs are assumed to appear in the way of reduced output and employment; conversely, the gains accrue mostly to those who often retain their works at a relative high wage rate. Research findings have showed that minimum wages lessen the jobs vacant to low-skill workers. The potential advantage of imposing higher wages often comes from the greater wages for affected employees, and some percentage are in low-income or poor families. The potential shortcomings are that the higher minimum wage can discourage workers from utilizing the low-wage, low-skill employees that the minimum wage is anticipated to help. If in any case the minimum wages lessen employment of low-skill employees, then minimum wage is not a â€Å"free lunch† in which to help low-income and poor families, but as an alternative pose a tradeoff that is of benefit for several against costs for others. 2. Effects of the minimum wages on employment. According to Neumark and Wascher (1992), minimum wages lessens work for young adults and teens, with elasticity ranging from –0.1 to -0.2. Also, subminimum wages moderate misemployment effects. Conversely, some studies have shown that there is no direct relationship between minimum wages and employment, or even constructive effects. Card, Katz and Krueger (CKK) tries to reconcile these conflicting findings through challenging the results. Since study on minimum wages remains likely to affect policy decisions. Thus, the reconciling aspect is very vital. Imposing a minimum wage has contrasting effects on work creation. Though it lessens demand for labor through raising the marginal price of employing a fresh employee, a greater wage increases the gap between the expected employments to returns relative to unemployment, encouraging additional search effort, on unemployed employees. By aggregating the intensity of searching workers, the minimum wage increases the quality of competitions amongst employers and employees, thus generating the surplus. If employees extensive search effort significantly improves the employer firm match quality, then work creation may not be severely affected besides may even increase. Nonetheless, if the demand-side influence dominates, then raising the minimum wage causes declines in employment. 2.1 Pros of the effect of minimum wage on employment. Lots of low-wage, low-skill employees retain their jobs as well as earn higher salaries once minimum wages are amplified. Some research has not found that minimum wages result in fewer jobs. Living wage policies, for instance, those adopted by United States municipalities may help decrease poverty. In addition, targeted tax credit often does a great work of reaching the lowly than the minimum wages. 2.2 Cons of the effect of minimum wage on employment. Compelling evidence from various countries designates that imposing higher minimum wages leads to fewer jobs. Researchers that focus on unskilled employees find the stoutest evidence that imposing minimum wages lessens jobs. Low-paying jobs demanding level skills are jobs that are prone to decline with amplified minimum wages. In the United State, higher minimum wages does not help. 2.3 Discussion of cons and pros Studies of minimum wages depict an economic labor market, especially for a single job, through an upward-sloping curve of labor supply (S) plus a downward-sloping curve of labor demand (D). There is an impeccable equilibrium wage, w, as well as equilibrium quantity following labor employed, L. by a binding- minimum wage, mw that is greater than w, fewer employees are used, this is attributed to two reasons. First, employers subset away from the currently more expensive labor as well as towards other inputs for instance capital. Second, since costs are greater with this brand new input mix, product costs rise, which later lessens labor demand. As a result, these two effects lower employment- Lmw. Below is a graph of the effect of minimum wage on employment (Neumark Wascher, 2014). S Wage mw W D Lmw L employment The intersection of demand and supply curves defines the equilibrium real wage as well as the equilibrium level of the entire hours of work. When the prescribed legal minimum wage is beyond the equilibrium market clearance level, then the minimum is attributed to be binding. Thus, a minimum that is under the equilibrium market clearance level is not-binding besides has no significant impact on market equilibrium. Employers will often subset away less-skilled employees toward more-skilled employees following a minimum wage rise. This labor-labor replacement has inferences for the empirical indication of the employment influences of minimum wages., the employment decrease may not seem to be great, even if the misemployment effect among least-skilled employees is intense. There is a policy perspective stating that, the minimum wage is supposed to assist the least-skilled employees. If their employment lessens substantially, then the policy is self-defeating. 2.4 Evidence Some economist defines the impact of minimum wages by means of the employment elasticity: that is, the ratio of percentage change in employment to the percentage change in the legislated minimum wage. For instance, a 10% rise in minimum wage lessens employment of the unskilled and young workers by 1% if the elasticity is -0.1 as well as by 3% if elasticity is -0.3. Through the 1970s, most early researches on the effect of minimum wages on employment focused on the United States. These researches estimated the impacts of these changes in the country minimum wage on total employment of young persons, typically 16-19-year-olds or 16-24-years-olds, lots of who have very low skills. Later, the research showed that the elasticity for young employment clustered amongst -0.1 and -0.3 (Card Krueger, 2000). 3. How minimum wage reduces employment. Imposing minimum wages lessens the demand for inexperienced or skilled workers and young persons and upsurge the demand for other alternative resources, for instance, skilled workers. If at any point skilled employees are in inadequate supply, for example, when a union regulates entry into the market, thus their wages will rise significantly since the demand for their skilled services expands. Diffuse as well as poorly organized individuals of unskilled employees who lose their works, or new candidates to the labor market who do not acquire jobs, appear to bear the utmost costs. These groups may be unaware of the various sources of their challenges. Even if they are aware, their concern is moderated by a wide-ranging system of government well-being benefits (Card Krueger, 1994). An approximate of two-third researches reviewed approximated that, imposing minimum wage hides undesirable effects on employment. Only eight of the studies found desirable employment effects. 28 of the most credible studies pointed to undesirable employment effects. These comprised research on Colombia, Mexico, Canada, United State, Costa Rica, Portugal and the United Kingdom. In particular, the researchers focusing on unskilled employees find solid evidence of misemployment effects, with impact larger or near the consensus range of the United States data. Conversely, few-if-any-studies offer convincing evidence of desirable employment impact of minimum wages. Some economists, for instance the CKK group, criticizes these findings into five areas, enrollment rates in schools, the specification of minimum wage variables, the measurement of coverage rate, evidence of utilization of subminimum wages and the role of protected minimum wage effects. In enrollment rates, CKK raises the query, whether regression equations normally used to approximate minimum wage effects may include supply variables. They argue that, if at any case the minimum wages are not-binding for every of the observation of a data set, thus the supply variables may help determine employment. They argue that, it is partial evidence the eliminating school enrollment rates from employment equation is misspecification, then misemployment impacts of minimum wages are supposed to be stouter for teens as compared for young grown-ups, conversely, these holds only if the enrollment rate is incorporated. Besides, CKKs claim that the enrolment rate is usually plus measurement error and is refuted by the sum of enrollment rate, moreover, employment rate is significantly connected to minimum wages as well as other labor market environments. More practically, there is a sizeable proportion of persons neither employed nor in school, besides this proportion is systematicall y negatively associated with minimum wages. They also note that, the assessments for younger adults is not sensitive to definition of enrollment rate, as well as that estimates correcting potential endogeneity of various enrollment depicts negative minimum wage impact on both young adults and teenagers specifications (Neumark Wascher, 2000). CKK criticize the traditional economists coverage rate on the basis that it does not measure coverage of young adults by state and federal minimum wage laws. The presented evidence that a rise in coverage in 1985 for government sector employees did not end in employment regressions relative to trend, that they interpret as proof that their coverage measure is faulty, or the minimum wages have nil effect. Nevertheless, they claim that this is a bad experiment, due to the following reasons; The real worth of minimum wage was decreasing over this period. Government sector employment of young people is considerably low, and It seems unsuitable to assess this competitive model of minimum wages by using workers working in the public sector. Furthermore, regressions at the national level, regulating for other variables that impact employment, and not limited to this specific coverage rise, it also indicates that greater coverage is related to the lesser employment of young people. 3.0 Possible Channels For the average the lowest pay permitted by law build, one or a greater amount of these option channels of alteration whether they are identified with gainfulness builds, cuts in benefits, diminishments in profit of higher workers, higher costs to purchasers, or different components must adapt to what are moderately little aggregate expense expands, when communicated as either an offer of the aggregate wages paid to the lowest pay permitted by law laborers or as an offer of the aggregate wages paid to all specialists. Reduction in hours met expectations The lowest pay permitted by law does not raise the expense of enlisting specialists – it raises the expense of employing an hour of work performed by those laborers. Indeed, even inside the aggressive structure, businesses may decide to react to a lowest pay permitted by law increment by diminishing specialists hours, rather by decreasing the aggregate number of laborers on finance. Reductions in preparing Another channel of conformity predictable with the aggressive structure is the likelihood that bosses may diminish their uses on occupation preparing for low-wage specialists. The exact confirmation is not decisive. In their survey of the late research on the lowest pay permitted by law and preparing, Neumark and Wascher (2007) compose: Summing up the greater part of the proof on preparing, we can just infer that the confirmation is blended. Our own particular research has a tendency to discover negative impacts of least wages on preparing; however the majority of the other late research discovers little proof of an impact in either bearing. Higher costs Executives may react to a higher the lowest pay permitted by law by going on the added expenses to buyers as higher costs. In a simply aggressive economy, where all organizations are encountering the same increment in the process of childbirth expenses in light of a lowest pay permitted by law increment, monetary hypothesis predicts that at any rate a part of the expense increment will be gone through to purchasers. â€Å"Productivity wage reactions from specialists A higher the lowest pay permitted by law might likewise spur laborers to work harder, autonomously of any activities by businesses to build gainfulness. As per productivity wage hypothesis, compensation over the aggressive business rate may evoke more prominent work exertion for a few reasons. As Card Krueger (1994) have contended, higher boosts in compensation the expense to laborers of losing their employment, conceivably prompting more prominent exertion from specialists with a specific end goal to diminish their possibilities of being terminated. Card David(2000), contending from a more sociological perspective, has proposed that specialists may see higher wages as a blessing from bosses, driving laborers to respond by meeting expectations harder. 3.1 The Katz index CKK contend that the typical coverage-adjusted relative wage variable used for most minimum wage researches is faulty since it is inversely correlated with young adults’ wage. However, the inverse correlation amongst the comparative minimum wage variable besides young-adult wage aligns suitably with the Katz index. For instance, if the nominal minimum wage was static, a fitting minimum wage variable ought to decline. If the mean young adults’ wage increases, because the actual worth of the minimum wage decreases. Therefore, the better test of Katz index is if it is directly correlated with the relative value of young-adult work and whether this direct correlation shoots from variations in minimum wage coverage. Therefore, the Katz index fulfills these conditions. CKK also state that retrogressing employment figures on minimum wage coverage, somewhat than on minimum salaries compared to wages of elder workers, delivers better estimations of minimum wage impacts, and they illustrate that such estimations are positive. Although, the main misemployment impact of minimum wages will probably result from the replacement of elder, higher-wage employees for younger, less-wage employees, and the applicable price driving this replacement is the relative cost of these kinds of labor. Furthermore, utilizing nominal minimum wage characteristic does not capture variations in the minimum wage linked to variations in the nominal mean young-adult wage, and indirectly adopts that labor demand curve disrupts standard homogeneity norms. Since, the data are mainly unhelpful with respect to the precise specification of minimum wage variable. 3.2. Lagged Minimum Wage Effects CKK also address analysis of Cards (1992) research that uses the regional difference to research on minimum wage impacts. Particularly, it is argued that the existence of lagged minimum wage impacts biases the one-year first-difference approximations away from discovering misemployment effects. CKK state that by using two-year variances do not change the results. They point out, that using two-year variances is not same as presenting lags. And they show that, two-year differences obscure lagged Undesirable minimum wage effects. 3.3 Subminimum Wage Usage CKK enquiries the conclusions concerning subminimum wages. They accrue that their plots of the wage circulation recording usage of subminimum salaries are misleading since the five-cent range is used as compared to exact figures. Nevertheless, the evidence recommends that this procedure do not give the unambiguous impression since maximum CPS respondents report hourly wage rates and are multiples of 5 cents. Conclusion While low wages lead to the direct financial straits of numerous poor as well as low-income People, the dispute that a greater minimum wage is a desirable way to increase their economic conditions is not reinforced by the evidence. Mainly, a greater minimum wage often discourages employers from utilizing the very low-wage, unskilled employees that the minimum wage is intended to help. References Card, David and Krueger, Alan B., â€Å"Minimum Wages and Employment: A Case Study of the Fast-Food Industry in New Jersey and Pennsylvania: Reply,† American Economic Review, December 2000, 90, 1397-1420, http://www.nber.org/papers/w6386 Card, David, Katz, Lawrence F. and Krueger, Alan B., â€Å"Employment Effects of Minimum and Subminimum Wages: Panel Data on State Minimum Wage Laws: Comment,† Industrial and Labor Relations Review, April 1994, 47, 487-96, http://www.nber.org/papers/w4528 Neumark, David and Wascher, William L., â€Å"Employment Effects of Minimum and Subminimum Wages: Panel Data on State Minimum Wage Laws,† Industrial and Labor Relations Review, October 1992, 46, 55-81, http://www.nber.org/papers/w3859 Neumark, David and Wascher, William L., â€Å"Employment Effects of Minimum and Subminimum Wages: Panel Data on State Minimum Wage Laws: Reply,† Industrial and Labor Relations Review, April 1994, 47, 497-512, http://www.nber.org/papers/w4570 Neumark, David and Wascher, William L., â€Å"Minimum Wages and Employment: A Case Study of the Fast-Food Industry in New Jersey and Pennsylvania: Comment,† American Economic Review, December 2000, 90, 1362-96, http://www.nber.org/papers/w5224 Neumark, David and Wascher, William L., â€Å"Minimum Wages and Employment,† Foundations and Trends in Microeconomics, 2007, 3(1-2), 1-182,http://www.nber.org/papers/w12663 Neumark, David, Salas, J. M. Ian and Wascher, William L., â€Å"More on Recent Evidence on the Effects of Minimum Wages in the United States,† NBER Working Paper No.20619, National Bureau of Economic Research, Cambridge, MA, October 2014, http://www.nber.org/papers/w20619?utm_campaign=ntwutm_medium=emailutm_so the Fast-Food Industry in New Jersey and Pennsylvania,† American Economic Review, September 1994, 84, 772-93, http://www.nber.org/papers/w4509urce=ntw

We Need Gun Control Laws to Ensure Public Safety Essay -- Argumentativ

We Need Additional Gun Control Laws to Ensure Public Safety On April19, 1999, 7-year-old Nafis Jefferson was shot and killed with a .44-caliber revolver, a Rossi Model 720, while playing with friends along a street in his South Philadelphia neighborhood. Children found the gun stashed under an abandoned car parked along the street. One of the children, also a 7-year old boy, picked up the gun and fired it, hitting Nafis in the head. Nafis died six hours later at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia.  Ã‚   This is an excerpt from a press release on 4/17/2001 (www.gunlawsuits.org).   Ã‚   Our world today has altered immensely since the days of Adam. It is a perfect example of the maxim "survival of the fittest.'' Due to the captivating media, the revolutionary Internet and the cutthroat competition for winning the rat race, human contact is diminishing rapidly. The center to prevent handgun Violence filed a suit on 18/4/2001 against Amadeo Rossi manufacturers and others who were involved with the sale and distribution of the weapon. The lawsuit contends that the weapon possessed inadequate safety measures and that the gun was illegally distributed. The question arises will this measure bring Nafis back to life? Will this alleviate Tennille Jefferson's pain of her son's untimely death? Laws are structured and implemented to benefit the masses. Unfortunately this objective is  Ã‚   not always achieved. The constitution of the states is considered the best work of law yet it is unable to save the life of a child. Clearly the problem of violence is turning more into a socio-cultural and psychological problem than a legal one. However laws still need to be implemented justly in order to preserve the freedom and rights of me... ...cts) * Since 1992, the number of criminals sentenced for state and federal offences has increased from 20,681 to 25,186 over 25% increase. * The number of higher-level offenders has gone up from 1049 to 1345. * The number of inmates in Federal prisons on firearm or arson charges has increased by 51% The statistics and the stated facts are evidence that more gun control measures are required for the safety and peace of the society.   Law abiding citizens do not need arms.   For them the rule of law and justice is enough. Works Cited Retrieved from the World Wide Web (April 28, 2001) www.gunlawsuits.org Retrieved from the World Wide Web (April 28, 2001) www.handguncontrol.org/facts Retrieved from the World Wide Web (April 28, 2001) www.handguncontrol.org/press Retrieved from the World Wide Web (April 28, 2001) www.nraila.org/grassroots

George Orwell – “Shooting an Elephant” (1936)

â€Å"Shooting an Elephant†, by George Orwell, is a highly effective piece of non-fiction. Although written about an event many years ago, in a society that no longer exists as it did then, the essay still holds relevance in the ideas it contains. It is how Orwell puts across his views on colonialism and human nature that I intend to investigate. The essay revolves around Orwell recounting an incident which he experienced as a policeman in colonial Burma, in the 1920's. Orwell was called to act when a tame elephant went ‘must' and started ravaging a bazaar, killing one of the indigenous Indians. However, by the time he had located the elephant, the attack seemed to have passed, so there was no need to destroy it. Yet such was the pressure from the local populace, and Orwell's fear of being mocked, that he shot the elephant. When he first introduces himself to the reader, Orwell seems to be a fairly level-headed person, with his self- depreciating tone showing that he doesn't take himself too seriously in the ‘great scheme' of things; drawing the reader to sympathise with him. This sympathy is extended further when the reader is made privy to the ambivalence of Orwell's feelings towards his position in Burma. In direct contrast to the majority of Westerners in the East at that time, Orwell was very conscious of the hypocrisy of his position and conflicting opinions, and found it all â€Å"perplexing and upsetting†. â€Å"Perplexing† because he felt sympathetic towards the Burmese, and was against the Western domination of the colonial territories, and sided with the â€Å"evil thing† that was imperialism. Yet at the same time the Burmese took great delight in treating him like dirt, in petty revenge for their situation – making his job and life hell. These conflicting feelings are echoed in the register and style of Orwell's writing; the high-flowing language of â€Å"Imperialism was an evil thing† contrasts with the slang of â€Å"The sooner I chucked my job†¦the better†, to bring out Orwell's intense dislike of his duties, doing the â€Å"dirty work† of the â€Å"Empire†. Yet despite the highly emotive language used to describe his job, the â€Å"wretched prisoners† and â€Å"intolerable† sense of guilt, Orwell still found himself hating the Burmese. The sheer pettiness of the â€Å"evil spirited little beasts†, their cumulative bitterness making it impossible for him to help them, led to a feeling that it â€Å"would be the greatest joy in the world† to â€Å"drive a bayonet into a Buddhist Priest's guts†. Even the word choice and sentence structure indicate the extent to which Orwell was in two minds about the Burmese; the contrast between the â€Å"British Raj as an unbreakable tyranny†¦ in soecula soeculorum† – lapsing into Latin, formal language – with the informality of â€Å"drive a bayonet into a Buddhist Priest's guts†. In addition, the sentence structure adds to this idea of being pulled in two directions; the differing statements are separated by a semi-colon, balancing the one against the other, neither dominant. Once the extent of his feelings towards the job and the Burmese have been established, Orwell starts to recount the incident involving the elephant. Originally Orwell introduces it as a â€Å"tiny thing† in itself, using understatement and irony to begin the narrative. He first refers to it as something which â€Å"in a roundabout way† was â€Å"enlightening†. Yet at the same time, ‘it' was an insight for him into the â€Å"real motives for which despotic governments act†. Human nature and the reasons for our society's structure – not important? However, after this hidden intensity, Orwell then continues in a fairly congenial manner, of how he was informed – through polite, unstressed telephone call – that there was an elephant gone ‘must' and escaped, and â€Å"would I please come and do something about it?† At which point Orwell does go out â€Å"to see what was happening† – but out of curiosity, not duty. When a list of things that the elephant has done is presented, some of them fairly serious, they are ordered in such a way as to make them seem irrelevant, through anti-climax. Rather than working his way through progressively more serious offences, Orwell begins the list with destroying someone's house, killing a cow†¦ then working ‘down' to stealing some fruit – and finally, overturning the rubbish bin van and â€Å"inflicted violences† on it. The hyperbole of â€Å"inflicted violences†, the exaggerated anti-climax, leads to a light-hearted, unstressed mood. However, at this point Orwell constructs the first of several pivotal points in the narrative, bringing about an abrupt contrast in mood. At the beginning of this paragraph, Orwell is unsuccessfully searching for the elephant, and even beginning to doubt its existence, starting with â€Å"questioning†¦ failed to get any definite information†¦ vaguer†¦Ã¢â‚¬  until the existence of any elephant was denied. Yet then this carefully constructed conclusion is shattered by the painful death of a Coringhee native Indian, ground into the mud by the elephant. To add to the effect of this sudden seriousness and shock, Orwell uses extremely emotive imagery and word choice to detail the obvious pain of man's death. With the description of â€Å"arms crucified† there is the connotations of one of the most excruciating deaths; being crucified. Also, this idea would have been imaginable to a primarily Christian Britain of 1936, when Orwell wrote the essay. A British readership would also have been able to conceive what the man's back looked like, as Orwell describes the friction from the elephant's foot as having â€Å"stripped the skin from his back as neatly as one skins a rabbit†. Most Britons of the time would have prepared, or seen prepared, a rabbit skinned and cooked, so this imagery brought a potentially unimaginable event to an understandable level. It is at this point that Orwell goes on to work through the implications and factors behind shooting the elephant, and upon discovering the creature, apparently calm and past it's attack of ‘must', he decides not to shoot it. Elephants were expensive to buy, keep and train, and as such, worth a lot of money alive – dead, they were worth only the value of their tusks. In addition to the financial complications, the elephant no longer seemed to be a danger; away from people, â€Å"peacefully eating† in a field – there was no need to shoot it. Lastly, and perhaps most importantly, Orwell himself did not want to shoot the elephant; a moral choice, that he felt it was ‘wrong'. However, throughout this decision making process, Orwell was becoming increasingly conscious of the growing crowd of Burmese at is heels; and this became another pivotal point in the passage. Initially Orwell mentioned feeling â€Å"vaguely uneasy† about the growing size of the crowd, intensifying to â€Å"looking and feeling like a fool†. He describes the crowd as looking at him as a â€Å"conjuror about to perform a trick†. The ‘magician', the centre of attention, if not the object of respect, at a show, usually with an audience half hoping he will fail; clear parallels to Orwell, surrounded by the mocking Burmese. Perhaps the comparison is also apt because many people – especially in the time when Orwell was writing – view those who work in the ‘occult' as not having a proper job, aren't really important at all, despite the glitter and attention. Mere amusement for others – an echo of British colonialism? Orwell's growing feeling of helplessness is summed up in the theatrical language and imagery which he uses in this point in the passage. He refers to himself as â€Å"seemingly the leading actor of the piece†¦ in reality, I was only an absurd puppet†. Puppets have no control over the actions they act out – inanimate, passive, subjected to the will of the puppeteer. Who's actions, in turn, are dictated by the audience – else how could the puppeteer survive, without a livelihood? Similarly, it was the will of the crowd that was beginning to control Orwell's actions – a puppet. This image is then furthered by Orwell drawing parallels to a â€Å"Hollow, posing dummy†, holding many of the same connotations, posed into the positions that its owner or dresser dictate. No choice, subjugated to the will of others completely. This position which Orwell find himself in is summed up in his chilling conclusion; â€Å"I perceived at this moment that when the white man turns tyrant it is his own freedom he destroys†. Seemingly paradoxical, for a â€Å"tyrant†, by definition, sacrifices others freedom for personal gain – so why should they lose freedom as a result? Yet in the context of Orwell, and Britain's situation at this time, the concept begins to make sense. Once people expect a given set of actions or set behaviour, the ‘peer pressure' can compress those it is aimed at into the mould; so British citizens in the colonies, including Orwell, ended up losing their freedom as individuals, in order to conform to stereotypes they otherwise might not have followed. In Orwell's case, having sent for the rifle, the Burmese expect him to use it, else seem weak and indecisive – and â€Å"my whole life, every white man's life in the East, was one long struggle not to be laughed at†. The ultimate sign of derision – laughter. The only other option for Orwell was to walk up to within 25-odd yards of the elephant, and see if it charged him; if not, then he had proved the attack of ‘must' had passed, and would be justified in the eyes of the Burmese in not shooting the creature. However, if still in ‘must' then the elephant would charge Orwell – and at that distance, he would only get one chance to shoot before being trampled into the earth in the same painful death the Coringhee Indian had experience. Yet it is not the pain that Orwell was so anxious to avoid, but the fact that such a death would be incredibly humiliating – and â€Å"if that happened it was quite probable that some of them would laugh. Tha t would never do.† It is this that led Orwell to conclude â€Å"There was only one alternative. I shoved the cartridges into the magazine and lay down on the road to get a better aim.† This paragraph is clearly another pivotal section; previously Orwell had thought he was the one in control of the situation, and could therefore follow a logical train of reasoning to decide not to shoot the elephant; yet is here that he realises he does not control his own actions. All Orwell cares about at this point is saving face in front of the ‘natives' – realises this obsession, and doesn't care, so deeply is he concerned with the idea of being laughed at. This leads to the true climax of the narrative – the shooting of the elephant. By this point the author skilfully manipulates the word choice and language to convey how, when the bullet hits, a â€Å"mysterious, terrible change came over the elephant.† Previously the creature had been tall and strong, full of life and power; now he seemed â€Å"stricken, shrunken, immensely old†¦paralysed† – the impression of life seeping away with such speed that the elephant was left reeling in shock at the alteration, not ‘merely' the pain of the bullets. The sheer force of language shows the intense pain of the elephant's drawn out death; from the â€Å"frightful impact of the bullet†¦ agony†¦ jolt his whole body† until the creature finally â€Å"collapsed†, to lie with â€Å"tortured breathing†¦gasps†. The implications behind â€Å"tortured† are clear, yet there is also the angle of the guilt Orwell felt coming through here; â€Å"tortured† implies a deliberate act inflicted on the undeserving, as Orwell had inflicted his fears on the elephant. Yet despite – or perhaps because of – this guilt, Orwell still seems to convey a strange sort of dignity to the elephant's death; as it lay there, â€Å"Powerless to move and yet powerless to die†. He was dying, yes, an excruciatingly drawn out death, yet he seemed to be â€Å"in some world remote from here† – there is a surreal quality to Orwell's description of the death and dignity of the beast, removed in some way from this world. The elephant is in direct and superior contrast to Orwell's frantic efforts to kill it and end its suffering, and the Burmese as they swarmed around the body, stripping the flesh and hide even before it was dead, while it lay there, passively accepting the pain and death. Orwell also highlights his reaction to this change, first of his frantic activity, then, in the face of his inability to help the creature he had fatally wounded, his intense guilt. He writes of how â€Å"In the end I could not stand it any longer and went away†; the overwhelming guilt at having caused such pain merely to avoid being laughed at, and then his underlying guilt at ‘running away'. Looking back on the events of this incident, which occurred ten years previous to Orwell writing the passage, it is clear that Orwell's own opinion of his actions is not a positive one. This feeling of self-discrimination and regret is brought out in his extended description of the elephant's death, portraying it as possessing a quiet dignity; while portraying his younger self as ‘unworthy' and weak, uncertain in himself as to who he really is, or what he believes in. It is this disgust that Orwell tries to instil in his readers, towards his actions. After the death of the elephant, he writes how â€Å"I was very glad that the Coolie had been killed; it put me legally in the right and gave me a sufficient pretext for shooting the elephant.† Seemingly uncaring as to the death of the ‘Coolie' – through this shock tactic, attempting to persuade others to condemn him as Orwell condemns himself. Orwell even goes so far as to make several racist comments – even though the author of 1936 was not racist, and his younger self only conforming to the accepted mould of his times, in order to survive – to prompt the reader to judge him harshly. With his extended, detailed description of the elephant's death, Orwell condemns his own actions, in a tone of bitterly ironic self-derision. Orwell might seem to be being racist in the last paragraph, but in fact, this racism is dramatised to show just how integral to the colonial system it was. Orwell is not excusing, or even denying the fact that he was racist while in Burma. The point is that, in his descriptions of his younger self as â€Å"young and ill-educated† – ironic, as he attended Eton – he was forced to â€Å"think out (his) problems in the utter silence that is imposed upon every Englishman in the East†. Expensive education had failed to prepare him for real life, so Orwell resorted to the customs and conventions of his peer grouping, or risk complete isolation from society. In the final paragraph, Orwell puts forward two arguments concerning his reasons for shooting the elephant. When he talks about being â€Å"legally in the right† in shooting a creature that could be mad and a danger, it seems as if Orwell is going to use a deontological reasoning. He was following the law, and his actions were required by virtue of his position, so he morally did the ‘right' thing. The other approach to an argument for a set of actions, rather than the backwards looking deontological reasoning, is the forward looking consequentialist approach, of the ends justifying the means. However, it is in the last sentence that Orwell shatters all charade of having been following a deontological reasoning; â€Å"I often wondered whether any of the others grasped that I had done it solely to avoid looking a fool†. When Orwell states that he was â€Å"very glad† that the man had been killed by the elephant, in that through it he could ‘justify' his preservation of ‘dignity', it might seem callous to some. Yet this desperation, this willingness to sacrifice anything also elicits a sort of sympathy in the reader, at how pathetic the situation has become – perhaps reflective of the mixed feelings of contempt and pity that the Orwell of 1936 seems to feel towards his younger self. There are several possible themes to this essay; the condemnation of the colonial system – perhaps seemingly without significance in today's post-colonial world. Yet there are possible parallels to modern day ‘superpowers' and dictatorships, conforming to stereotypes, unwilling to back down from, say, war, for fear of changing perceptions. People still discriminate, still conform to other's standards against their will. There is also the idea that if you hate an enemy viciously enough, you demean yourself to the same level as them. Even if originally ‘justifiably angry', following reasonable logic, in hatred, you degenerate into conforming to the same behavioural patterns as your enemies; hatred contaminates. Orwell himself is an example of this; he seemed reasonably level headed, yet as his hatred for the Burmese grew, he gradually degenerated to similar levels of cruelty. Perhaps because he was formed by their perceptions, and the Burmese seemed to have had a cru el streak in them – which coloured their expectations? Either way, it is clear that while world situations have changed radically, there are still many relevant issues that are demonstrated in Orwell's â€Å"Shooting an Elephant†. Perhaps it would be fair to say that it is not so much Orwell's views on Colonialism that are shown in this essay, but his uncannily accurate observations of human nature.

Free Essays on Celebrating Our Veterans Service

â€Å"CELEBRATING OUR VETERANS SERVICE† â€Å"Veterans service.† How do we celebrate our veterans service? Are we to take a day off of work to celebrate veterans day? I dare say that day has lost its meaning. Many people use it as a day to do chores or ketch up on sleep. Never stopping once to think of what the day symbolizes. I say to celebrate veterans service we need to remember, honor, respect, and stand by those veterans. Not only veterans of the past but also the solders of today â€Å"our veterans of tomorrow.† When I think of veterans of the past I think of are great Vietnam vets. These are the men and women that we still honor today. Sadly though we did not always honor them. When our solders returned home from Vietnam they were met by a nation against them. A nation that had no appreciation for them. This sad but true fact led many good men to drugs, insanity, and even suicide. Imagine what it must have felt like to have given your life, to have to watch your best friend die in your arms. Dieing for a cause you both believed in, yet you returned home to find the people you were fighting for have disgraced your flag and abandoned your cause. You were spit upon, called a murderer, and publicly disgraced. Now, we have replaced that disgrace and abandonment with statues and memorials in their honor. But, can monuments of stone, and metal displace emotional wounds? Are stone statues capable of erasing human mistreatment and emotional scaring? Today we are faced with an entirely different set of problems. We say we support our troops and veterans â€Å"We just don't support the President†. It would be considered a fauxpas now days to slander our military men and women during a time of war. So what makes our president, the man we elected to lead our country and make the decision to fight if needs be, such an open tar... Free Essays on Celebrating Our Veterans Service Free Essays on Celebrating Our Veterans Service â€Å"CELEBRATING OUR VETERANS SERVICE† â€Å"Veterans service.† How do we celebrate our veterans service? Are we to take a day off of work to celebrate veterans day? I dare say that day has lost its meaning. Many people use it as a day to do chores or ketch up on sleep. Never stopping once to think of what the day symbolizes. I say to celebrate veterans service we need to remember, honor, respect, and stand by those veterans. Not only veterans of the past but also the solders of today â€Å"our veterans of tomorrow.† When I think of veterans of the past I think of are great Vietnam vets. These are the men and women that we still honor today. Sadly though we did not always honor them. When our solders returned home from Vietnam they were met by a nation against them. A nation that had no appreciation for them. This sad but true fact led many good men to drugs, insanity, and even suicide. Imagine what it must have felt like to have given your life, to have to watch your best friend die in your arms. Dieing for a cause you both believed in, yet you returned home to find the people you were fighting for have disgraced your flag and abandoned your cause. You were spit upon, called a murderer, and publicly disgraced. Now, we have replaced that disgrace and abandonment with statues and memorials in their honor. But, can monuments of stone, and metal displace emotional wounds? Are stone statues capable of erasing human mistreatment and emotional scaring? Today we are faced with an entirely different set of problems. We say we support our troops and veterans â€Å"We just don't support the President†. It would be considered a fauxpas now days to slander our military men and women during a time of war. So what makes our president, the man we elected to lead our country and make the decision to fight if needs be, such an open tar...

Radiation Definition and Examples

Radiation Definition and Examples Radiation and radioactivity are two misunderstood concepts. Here is the definition of radiation and a look at how it differs from radioactivity. Radiation Definition Radiation is the emission and propagation of energy in the form of waves, rays or particles. There are three main types of radiation: Non-ionizing radiation: This is the release of energy from the lower-energy region of the electromagnetic spectrum. This includes light, radio, microwaves, infrared (heat), and ultraviolet light.Ionizing radiation: This is radiation with sufficient energy to remove an electron from an atomic orbital, forming an ion. Ionizing radiation includes x-ray, gamma rays, alpha particles, and beta particles.Neutrons: Neutrons are particles found in the atomic nucleus. When they break off the nucleus, they have energy and act as radiation. Examples of Radiation Radiation includes emanation of any portion of the electromagnetic spectrum, plus it includes the release of particles. Examples include: A burning candle emits radiation in the form of heat and light.The Sun emits radiation in the form of light, heat, and particles.Uranium-238 decaying into Thorium-234 emits radiation in the form of alpha particles.Electrons dropping from one energy state to a lower state emit radiation in the form of a photon. Difference Between Radiation and Radioactivity Radiation is the release of energy, whether it takes the form of waves or particles. Radioactivity refers to the decay or splitting of an atomic nucleus. A radioactive material releases radiation when it decays. Examples of decay include alpha decay, beta decay, gamma decay, neutron release, and spontaneous fission. All radioactive isotopes release radiation, but not all radiation comes from radioactivity.