“Thy eternal summer shall not fade”: Flower of all Seasons in Shakespeare’s Sonnet 18 :: Literary Analysis, Shakespeare

Shakespeare intertwines two characteristics of beauty, while at the same time subtly showing their differences, showing that inner transcends outer beauty. Beauty is rare and true beauty even more so; true beauty is beauty that’s on the inside, and is lacking in many, yet Shakespeare was able to find a woman who is beautiful from the inside out. Shakespeare, in sonnet eighteen, uses descriptions of nature, and imagery to imply, and directly compare them to a girl with true inner beauty, one which surpasses even her own outer beauty. The poet compares the imperfections of summer to contradict the iridescent outer beauty of the girl he loves. Even though the summer seems like the best season, it is always undesirably â€Å"too short† (4) and nature always has its faults but the girl does not. Sometimes it’s â€Å"too hot† (5) and sometimes on a beautiful day its gold complexion is even dimmed, the clouds overcast which is believed, by some, to foreshadow bad luck. But her beauty is never overcast by something else nor her â€Å"gold complexion dimmed† (6). However, all these imperfections are not natural for her. She, he praises, is â€Å"more lovely† and â€Å"more temperate† than a summer’s day (2). In praising her beauty he even emphasizes the word â€Å"more†. Both lovely and temperate are words that show effective use of diction. While he does choose words that accurately express his feelings they also have strong connotations lovely could imply high at tractiveness and exquisite beauty and temperate could imply that she is by nature a very strong, yet mild and self controlled person. Shakespeare also shows all of summer’s imperfections through the imagery of flowers. Another instance where summer’s beauty is cut short by nature and therefore is incomparable to the girls’ beauty is when the â€Å"Rough winds...Shake the darling buds of May† (3), May is a time in the year when the weather starts to warm up and flowers are in full bloom, beautiful at the very beginning of summer. But sadly nature comes and snatches the beauty away, the image of the winds of May coming and blowing petals off the beautiful flowers shows the â€Å"Rough† behaviors, and shortcomings that nature has to offer. At the same time the wind is also a metaphor for adversities or problems in life and how he praises the one he loves because she is not affected by obstacles. The poet also expresses and emphasizes that even though the buds and the flowers may wither with the rough winds, her beauty still holds intact; especially her inner beauty, her temperate n ature that ever endures adversity.

Ethics: Utilitarianism Essay

Ask a passerby to describe his personal morality, and you’ll likely get a complicated explanation filled with ifs, ands, and buts. Ask a utilitarian, and he can give a six-word response: greatest good for the greatest number. Of course, utilitarianism is not that simple. Like any philosophical system, it is the subject of endless debate. Still, for the average reader who is unfamiliar with the jargon that characterizes most philosophy, utilitarianism can be a useful tool in deciding before an action whether or not to carry it out or, after an action, whether or not a moral choice was made. Most credit the economist Jeremy Bentham (1748-1832) as utilitarianism’s principal author. Bentham described his thinking as the â€Å"greatest happiness principle,† and his idea was elaborated upon in the nineteenth century by John Stuart Mill in his classic work, Utilitarianism (1863). In that book, Mill develops three critical components of utilitarianism: an emphasis on results, individual happiness, and total happiness (by which he means the happiness of everyone affected by an action). Results: Mill expanded Bentham’s definition of utilitarianism to argue that â€Å"actions are right in proportion as they tend to promote happiness; wrong as they tend to produce the reverse of happiness. †[1] This means that utilitarians care only about the results of an action. Other factors that we typically consider when making moral judgments about an action, including a person’s motive or his expectations about the results, do not matter in utilitarianism. A utilitarian would say that a man who shoots another by accident is guilty of murder, whether or not the shooting was an accident. Conversely, the man with â€Å"murder in his heart† who tries to shoot another but misses cannot be held morally accountable for the act. In utilitarianism, only the results matter. Individual happiness: The second component of utilitarianism is Mill’s idea of happiness, by which he means pleasure. As individuals making moral choices, we should seek to act in ways that maximize happiness and minimize pain (which Mill defines as â€Å"the reverse of happiness†). In promoting the maximum happiness, Mill is not advocating a life of food, sex and sleep. He specifically states that not all pleasures are created equal: â€Å"Few human creatures would consent to be changed into any of the lower animals,† he writes, â€Å"for a promise of the fullest allowance of a beast’s pleasures; no intelligent human being would consent to be a fool, no instructed person would be an ignoramus. †[2] For Mill, a hierarchy of pleasures exists, with human pleasures such as love rising to the top of the list. Falling in love or being moved by a song or poem are greater goods to a utilitarian than eating a delicious sandwich, not because love and music and poetry are different in kind than the physical pleasure of eating, but because these are especially profound pleasures. Total happiness: The third defining aspect of utilitarianism is its emphasis on the total happiness, by which Mill means the happiness of all people affected by an action. To decide if an action is moral, a utilitarian will conduct an accounting of the pleasure and pain associated with that act. If the sum total of pleasure outweighs the sum total of pain, the action is considered moral; if not, immoral. Take as an example the case of price-fixing, the government’s setting of minimum prices for goods such as milk to protect farmers from ruin. Is price-fixing moral? Utilitarians would think through this question as follows: When the government (as opposed to the free market) sets the bottom-line price for milk, every consumer suffers moderate pain since the government artificially raises the cost of milk above what the marketplace, operating according to the laws of supply and demand, would otherwise charge. Large consumers who depend on milk (for example, ice cream manufacturers) may suffer severely if the price is kept artificially high. And that increased cost would no doubt be passed on to millions of consumers in the form of increased costs for ice cream. But if the dairy farmers don’t get price protection, they may go bankrupt—in which case a far greater cost would be paid: no one would be able to buy milk or milk products. Price fixing, then, helps farmers stay in business at the expense of ice cream manufacturers and consumers. Is that expense justified? Utilitarians would answer on a case-by-case basis after a careful balancing of benefits to a few with the increased (though small) cost to the many. [3] Individuals as well as governments can be guided by utilitarian thinking. Take the question of organ donation. Is it moral for the family member of a recently (and perhaps tragically) deceased person to grant doctors permission to harvest their loved one’s organs? Utilitarianism’s â€Å"greatest happiness† principle demands any personal sacrifice in which the total amount of pleasure produced outweighs the costs in pain, even if the person making the choice receives none of the benefits. Other philosophers place a priority on individual liberty and object to using one person (even a dead person or dead person’s body parts) for another’s benefit. Utilitarians, by contrast, conclude that such actions are morally necessary. The emotional pain of a family that has lost a loved one is very real. But to utilitarians, the extra pain caused by organ donation is a measure of pain on top of the pain of having already lost a family member. That extra measure of pain must be less than the happiness that results when a life is saved through a transplanted organ. Thus, if the family uses the principle of greatest happiness to guide its decision, then they will agree to the harvesting of organs. A more controversial example of using utilitarianism to make moral decisions involves the ethics of torture. It is sometimes argued that utilitarianism would allow the torture of a prisoner if the torture induced a confession that could save lives, a practice that is strictly outlawed in international law. In a society where this interpretation of utilitarianism was widely accepted, police would be able to inflict any amount of pain on an individual in order to save even one life. This final example highlights one aspect of utilitarianism that is often criticized. Although the greatest happiness principle is easy to understand, its application can lead to some unsettling results. One can imagine a society’s interest in achieving the â€Å"greatest happiness† justifying all kinds of abuses in the name of morality. Utilitarians, in fact, cannot easily explain why torture is morally wrong. Still, in guiding people through more ordinary decisions, utilitarianism has remained popular among both philosophers and non-philosophers. All of us need help sometimes in deciding on the right course of action. Utilitarianism has provided that help for philosophers and common folk alike for two hundred years. ———————– [1] John Stuart Mill, Utilitarianism (Indianapolis, IN: Hackett Publishing Company, 2001) 7. [2] Mill, 9. [3] Robert W. McGee, â€Å"Some Thoughts on Anti-dumping Laws: Utilitarianism, Human Rights and the Case for Appeal,† European Business Review 96 (1996): 30.

Barriers to Learning Essay

The main object of any educational system is to create equal opportunities to provide quality education and effective learning so that all learners can reach their full potential and make a meaningful contribution to their future and participate in our society throughout their lives. It is imperative that the educational system is able to prevent learning breakdowns and exclusions. Barriers to learning can be found within the learner, be located within the centre of learning, found within the educational system or located within a broader social, economic or political context. Sometimes it is possible to identify these barriers which can then be addressed appropriately. The key to preventing barriers from occurring is the effective monitoring and meeting of the different needs amongst the learner populations and within the educational system as a whole. But the current focus of school improvement policies and practices are too limited to ensure that all students have an equal opportu nity to succeed at school. Socio-Economic Barriers Effective learning is influenced by the availability of educational resources to meet the needs of all the learners in the educational system. The lack of numbers of learning centres does not meet the learning population number. Inadequacies in resources and inequalities of discrimination in gender, race and disability found in our society result in forming barriers. The discrimination of the race factor was influenced by the apartheid era where the black population received a poor quality of education and even today non-urban districts are more marginalised with the educational system then urban-based districts that achieve higher exam marks. The inability to pay school fees will lead to the total exclusion of learners from the educational system due to the socio-economic barriers that further include; serve disabilities, living in poor communities and high areas of violence and crime. Basic Services With the inability of learners to access services or the non-existent services that are linked to educational provisions that contribute to the  learning processes, learners can not gain anything from the educational system. If learners are unable to reach the learning centres due to there being inadequate transport facilities, the roads being poorly developed or the learners are disabled and the transport is unwilling to transport them to the learning center, they will be excluded from the educational system. Clinics also affect the learner being involved in the educational system as the learners either have to get regular treatment that will leave the learner experiencing long periods of absence or if learners are unable to acquire the necessary treatment, will decrease their concentration, their capacity to learn and increase impairment. The lack of access to other services such as communication services and welfare also hinders the learning process. Educational systems are also largely inaccessible to deaf learners due to the lack of sign language interpreters. The lack of and distribution of different resources creates barriers to learning. With no money; no books, no human resources or writing material, the learners will not benefit from the educational system. Poverty and Underdevelopment The inability of families to meet their basic needs such as shelter and nutrition, effect the learning process of learners as there is increased emotional stress and under-nourishment that leads to a lack of concentration. Communities in poverty are also poorly resourced with limited educational centres and the learners are more likely to leave school and find a job to provide an income for their family. Disable learners are more easily excluded from the educational system and labour markets as able-bodied siblings have been accommodated first. Environment conditions can form barriers to learning through economic deprivation, community disorganization, violence, drugs and the rural people being in the minority. Attitudes Negative and discriminatory attitudes on the basis of prejudice towards gender, race, class, culture, disability, religion, ability; remain a critical barrier to learning. The negative attitudes and the stereotyping of learner’s differences due to poor knowledge as well as from fear and lack of awareness are easily picked up by other children who further alienate other learners. These attitudes result from traditional and religious beliefs. Disturbances Disturbances that arise within a social, economic and political environment can affect the social and emotional well-being of learners. A learner who is abused emotionally, physically or sexually, can be physically and emotionally damaged. Other factors that influence learners are substance abuse, conflict within the family, young girls being raped and falling pregnant, the lack of a support system and the lack of infrastructure that could lead to the learner’s breakdown or dropout of the educational system. In the wider parts of the African society, civil war and other forms of political violence can lead to trauma and emotional distress in learners. Some families that are evicted become refugees and the learning process is disrupted while the family seeks a safer environment. A safe environment for the educators and the learners cannot be guaranteed and this can prevent effective teaching and learning taking place. An unhealthy environment with a lack of electricity and toilets places learners at risk to diseases. Natural disasters and epidemics such as HIV/AIDS result in the learners having to deal with the loss of family members and making them vulnerable because they might have to fend for themselves. School and Peer Influence Learners who drop out or who are going through a learning breakdown can further manifest their negative behaviour to become disruptive and self-destructive. This negatively influences the other learners and may result in resistant and harmful attitudes in the classroom. Learners may have a negative encounter with a teacher or their peer and a mental block can be formed towards the educational system. Inappropriate teacher and peer role models cause a critical barrier in the learning process. Curriculum The curriculum itself creates barriers by being inflexible in the style and tempo in which teaching and learning takes place, the way in which the classroom is organised and managed as well as the availability of materials and equipment as it prevents, the needs of the diverse learners, from being met. The way in which assessments are designed can form a barrier between the learners who can memorise a certain amount of information and the learners who understand the concepts that are involved. The teachers need to  be enthusiastic about their teaching subject and get the learners more engaged and active in their lessons. Language and Communication Barriers to learning arise when the medium of teaching and learning takes place through a language that is not the learner’s first language. It places the learners at a disadvantage. Different Abilities Learners with disabilities may not be able to have effective learning taking place nor have their particular needs met due to the fact that their impairments may prevent them from learning and developing which results in barriers being met. Some learners will more easily experience a learning breakdown. Unsafe Environment The majority of learning centres are physically inaccessible to a large number of learners. The amount of learners in an area compared to the amount of schools is a shocking comparison, creating a barrier for learners to eventually get accepted into a school or to go to a school with many learners in the one class and have no one-on-one attention and it becomes difficult to meet the different needs of the diverse learners. Many schools are not built for the accessibility of blind, deaf and wheelchair bound learners, with these disabilities, and the environment becomes unsafe. Lack of Family Care and Involvement The parents and community’s active involvement is central to the effectiveness of learning and developing. Learners need to get recognition from their parents because without support and encouragement learners become insecure, have a low self-esteem and lack innovation that leads to the learning process being hindered. Individual Conditions All learners come from different backgrounds and have grown up in different environments but in the African context we have generalized their situation. An individuals barriers could include; medical problems, inadequate nutrition, underdevelopment, psycho-physiological problems and having a difficult temperament and adjustment problems. â€Å"If the education system is to promote effective learning and prevent learning breakdown, it is imperative that mechanisms are structured into the systems to break down existing barriers.† These mechanisms must be able to recognise the different barriers, overcome the barriers that occur, prevent barriers from occurring and promote the development of effective learning and teaching environments. It is important to have the ability to recognise, identify and understand the nature of the barriers at hand. There must be dedicated commitment to develop those mechanisms which will then allow diversity to be accommodated in the educational system. The enforcement of positive behaviour as well as the challenge to overcome negative attitudes must be effectively monitored to ensure that there are results. The promotion of mental and physical health to all the learners will help them become more aware to how they can improve their learning process. These mechanisms include: the improvement of protective legislation and policies, innovative practices for recognising and accommodating the continent’s diversity, government and non-government owned organizations aimed at including learners that were previously excluded from the educational system, activities that challenge attitudes against discrimination and curriculum restructuring. It is most important to work towards the involvement of the learners, parents, educators and community members, in the process to govern centres of learning and create training programmes that are equipped to deal with diverse needs. These mechanisms need to be supported in order to organise and d evelop teaching and learning environments as well as to help transform the economic, political and social environments.

Gate control theory essays

Gate control theory essays The Gate Control Theory acknowledges that some nerves exclusively transmit pain signals and that pain is partially determined sometimes by the pattern and sum of signals sent by these fibers and permits the role of psychological processes in pain perception. Pain impulses do not go directly from nerve endings to the brain but flow from the peripheral nervous system to the central nervous system. (example) There is a imaginary neural gate in the central nervous system that alters the pain signals. Certain things open the gate; certain things keep it closed. When the gate is open, messages are sent to the brain that are perceived as pain. If the higher centers of the brain interpret an event as painful, the gating mechanism will open, and the sensations of pain will be transmitted to the brain. Some things that open the gate may be: the ratio of pain-fiber activity (high A-delta and C-fiber activity, low A-beta fiber activity), stress, anxiety, depression and attention to pain. Some things that may close the gate: higher A-beta activity from acupuncture, massages and medicine, relaxation, increasing and sustaining positive emotions. In a recent review women are found to have slightly lower pain thresholds, lower pain tolerance, and greater ability to make fine discriminations among painful stimuli (more aware of the pain). In general, women report more pain than men, different manners in coping with the pain and different responses to treatment. In fact, in a 1998 study, they found that ibuprofen (an anti-inflammatory drug) did not reduce the pain for women, although it did for men. In turn, many painful diseases for which ibuprofen are typically prescribed are more common in women. Men and women have estrogen, progesterone, and testosterone, the levels of each hormone differ between them, and while they tend to remain somewhat steady for men, they vary monthly for women. Also, the brains of males and females ...

Pakicetus Facts and Figures

Pakicetus Facts and Figures Name: Pakicetus (Greek for Pakistan whale); pronounced PACK-ih-SEE-tuss Habitat: Shores of Pakistan and India Historical Epoch: Early Eocene (50 million years ago) Size and Weight: About three feet long and 50 pounds Diet: Fish Distinguishing Characteristics: Small size; dog-like appearance; terrestrial lifestyle About Pakicetus If you happened to stumble across the small, dog-sized Pakicetus 50 million years ago, youd never have guessed that its descendants would one day include giant sperm whales and gray whales. As far as paleontologists can tell, this was the earliest of all the prehistoric whales, a tiny, terrestrial, four-footed mammal that ventured only occasionally into the water to nab fish (We know that Pakicetus was largely landbound because its ears werent well adapted to hearing underwater; in fact the structure of its inner ear is what gives it away as an early cetacean). Perhaps because even trained scientists have a hard time accepting a fully terrestrial mammal as the ancestor of all whales, for a while after its discovery in 1983, Pakicetus was described as having a semi-aquatic lifestyle. (Matters werent helped by a cover illustration on the journal Science, in which Pakicetus was depicted as a seal-like mammal diving after fish.) The discovery of a more complete skeleton in 2001 prompted a reconsideration, and today Pakicetus is deemed to have been fully terrestrial- in the words of one paleontologist, no more amphibious than a tapir. It was only over the course of the Eocene epoch that the descendants of Pakicetus began to evolve toward a semi-aquatic, and then fully aquatic, lifestyle, complete with flippers and thick, insulating layers of fat. One of the odd things about Pakicetus- which you can infer from its name- is that its type fossil was discovered in Pakistan, not normally a hotbed of paleontology. In fact, thanks to the vagaries of the fossilization process, most of what we know about early whale evolution derives from animals discovered on or near the Indian subcontinent; other examples include Ambulocetus (aka the walking whale) and Indohyus.

MGM465-0801A-05 Business Strategy - Phase 1 Individual Project Essay

MGM465-0801A-05 Business Strategy - Phase 1 Individual Project - Essay Example Warden International, Incorporated is a conglomerate international firm is in the process a merger & acquisition deal to purchase Able Corporation. The target investment, Able Corporation, is a company dedicated to manufacturing portable and electric power tools. This report provides a qualitative analysis of different aspects that the newly formed management team of Walton & Able must consider in the planning process to develop a strategic plan for Able Corporation by the stipulated deadline of June 11, 2008. Able Corporation has been in business for a while and has lots of experience in their industry. The human capital that has been developed in-house in this firm are hold valuable information which can not be reproduced by any other means other than directly retrieve the information directly from the source. The employees of the company at all levels are the first place to look in order to build a new mission statement for the newly acquired subsidiary of Walton International. The employees should also be part of the strategic planning process since the data needed to create alternative solutions concerning important business functions such as risk management and corporate social responsibility strategies within their minds. The identity of the company was defined through years of harmony and synergies that was lived by the employees of the company who determine the corporate culture of the company. A corporate culture is a system of shared actions, values, and beliefs that develops within an organization and guides the behavior of its members (Schermerhorn & Hunt & Osborn, 2003). During the initial phases of the negotiation process between the board of directors of Able and the executive management team the topic of organization cultural integration had to be discussed. As the merger moves forward the company needs to determine the best exploit the competitive advantages that can be achieved with the union of two workforces. A way to initially

Managing Environmental Issues Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Managing Environmental Issues - Essay Example Fryxell and vryza (2007) assert that the simulation focuses on three major environmental philosophies on human responsibility towards the environment. Examples of simulation put in place in order to manage environmental issues include the anthropocentric view, biocentric view and ethical extensionism. The model explored by Fryxell and vryza (2007) explores on how human being inter and intra relates to the natural world and therefore assesses how human activities impacts on the natural environment. Therefore, this discussion contributes to the critical study of the mankind responsibility in protecting and managing the nature and his role in the environment. Environmental justice refers to the fair treatment that explores the meaningful involvement of people especially the minority and low-income populations into the development, implementation and enforcement of the environmental laws, regulation and policies as asserted by Fryxell and vryza (2007). Consequently ensuring coverage of adverse and desperate health impacts that are a burden to the environment and affect also affect the people. Environmental justice is achieved when everyone within the environment can enjoy the same degree of protection from the environment and from health hazards activities of the population. Environmental simulation aims at accessing the decision making process by the stakeholders to have a healthy environment in which all the people can live, learn or work comfortably without any disturbances (Fryxell & vryza, 2007). This is achieved by facilitating open dialogues among many stakeholders involved in managing the environment. In doing this, fair treatment is achieved in involving all kinds of people from different part of the world regardless of their race, color, originality or income with an aim of achieving a healthy environment for the benefit of all. There are many stakeholders involved in the management of environmental