American Literature :: essays papers

American Literature American literature during the first half of the nineteenth century took many forms and ideas that still effect our ever so changing society today. Henry David Thoreau was among the notable writers during this time, and his impact of American literature will not soon be forgotten. His perseverance, love for nature, and humanitarian beliefs helped to mold the ideas and values of early American history. He was born in Concord, Massachusetts on July 12 in 1817. His parents, both abolitionists of slavery, were John and Cynthia Thoreau. During his childhood years his parents, along with Henry’s older siblings John Jr. and Helen, often took the family on long walks though the valleys and hills of Concord. The seeds of Henry’s love for nature were planted during this time. As a young school boy, at the Concord public school and later at the Concord Academy, many of his peers sought after him as loner who took everything too serious. In 1833 Henry’s parents had save d enough money to send him off to college at Harvard University. Even though he barely passed the entrance exam, he would later become one of the top students in his graduating class. In 1836 financial and health problems forced Thoreau to postpone his studies at Harvard and seek a job. He taught school for a semester in Canton, Massachusetts and returned to Harvard in the Spring of 1837. He took a full load of classes that Spring and Summer semesters and graduated in August of 1837. After graduating Thoreau had no idea what he wanted to do with his education. After debating over many different careers he finally concluded that teaching would be his calling. He landed a position at Center School in 1837 in Concord, however he resigned two weeks later after many teachers and students complained of his teaching methods and strictness in the classroom. Over the next year he worked many small jobs around Concord, and also became friends with Ralph Waldo Emerson. The elder Emerson influe nced Thoreau in his belief in Transcendentalism. â€Å"Thoreau was indelibly marked by his mentor’s philosophy† (Sanborn 122). In 1838 Henry and his brother John started their own public school in Concord. John taught English and math, while Henry taught science and foreign languages. The brothers had completely different teaching methods and often times came at odds with each other.

After a Decade of Global War on Terror Essay

The exodus of Russians from Afghanistan, the megalomania of Iraq’s Saddam, the spread of Islam in the West, the domestic and external pressure on the American economy, the 9/11 historical event, and the voluminous studies of latter-day Dr Strangelove’s clones nurtured and financed by massively-funded American think tanks were all contributing factors in a series of initiatives undertaken by Washington that came to be known as the Global War On Terror. The rise of neo-Christian fundamentalists to counter the upsurge in militant Islamic forces gave strong support to the hype created by President Bush advisors and analysts that Saddam possessed weapons of mass destruction and enabled him to put in motion the grand plan to globally spread American influence. Pakistan got caught in this tornado for some understandable reasons. The only Islamic nation possessing the bomb, bordering Afghanistan, controlling supply lines to Kabul, with ethnic and religious camaraderie transcending the border, largely dependant on Washington-controlled financing agencies, with a ballooning population under 25 years old that may be swayed by extremist elements, and the docility of it’s political and military leadership to United States’ dictation. Thus the loud threat of â€Å"you with us or you against us† worked pronto and Pakistan was touted as the frontline state in GWOT. The decade of this GWOT has made Pakistan front-page news day in and day out. Every week some American high-up or some Congressional delegation comes to Islamabad and, while breathing down the neck of the political and military leadership, proclaims the mantra of â€Å"Do More†. This has put Pakistan in a precarious position and its impact has been widespread all across the country. Over this eventful and volatile decade, Pakistan has faced situations that have fundamentally changed its political, economic, and social landscape. The GWOT enabled the democratic forces to unite against a government controlled by President General Pervez Musharraf and negotiate a new political order thru the notorious National Reconciliation Order. This paved the way for Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif to end their self-imposed and forced exiles. The assassination of Benazir Bhutto has been blamed on the terrorists and extremists that are the legacy of GWOT. The Liaquat Bagh Rawalpindi tragedy created a wave of sympathy and her party came into power with her tainted husband anointing himself as President. â€Å"Democracy is the best revenge† became the rallying slogan, but political instability, political expediency, and political distrust cast a glooming shadow on all imperative and crucial national decisions. The government hid its weaknesses, its insensitivity, and its in ability to undertake decisions by camouflaging it as outcome of its fulltime concentration and determination to weed out terrorism and extremism. On the social side, the nation has been horrendously affected by the ten years of intense involvement in the GWOT. The most sad and tragic outcome has been the death of over 35,000 citizens and military personnel. Scarce financial resources have been diverted to fighting this war at the cost of neglecting social sectors such as education and health. The track record of various governments has always been pathetic when it came to allocation for social sectors. No government has spent more that 3% of GDP on health and education and the GWOT also encroached on this allocation too. The rehabilitation and rebuilding of war-torn areas put a huge dent in the Treasury. Moreover, biased ethnicity, tribal rivalry, and parochial mindset all gained strength from the after-effects of this war and impacted on the decision making process of the government and the administration. Pakistan has been the worst sufferer in economic terms because of the GWOT. The Finance Ministry has estimated that the nation spent over US$ 68 billion during the past decade in fighting this war. This amount equals the combined 2010-11 import and export figure. In the past couple of years, the government has drastically cut down essential projects under the Pakistan Social Development Program while also arbitrarily raising electricity and gas rates. The GWOT, coupled with the annual floods, have also messed up the GDP rate which is less than 3% with scant chance of it crossing the 3.50% mark in the current fiscal year. Asian Development Bank has estimated an annual 7% growth rate to absorb the burgeoning labor force that is looking for meaningful employment. This is a tall order and there is no window of opportunity on the horizon. Pakistan’s image has been seriously tarnished due to the GWOT. This has put pressure on the development of new export markets and affected the comfort zone that importers of Pakistani products had in dealing with their suppliers. The law and order imbroglio, especially in Karachi, has also been detrimental to the progress of Pakistan’s economy. Notwithstanding the highest-ever exports in 2010-11, the fact is that it was more due to increase in world prices rather than additional increase in quantity. Today, unemployment is a major issue and it naturally induces the unemployed to succumb to the â€Å"sales pitch† of terrorist and extremist organizations. Pakistan’s defence bill is tremendously increasing inspite of the efforts of the military hierarchy not to open new military operation theatres to fight terrorism. Pakistan is not being timely compensated by America for the huge expenses incurred by the defence forces. Moreover, the Kerry-Luger-Bremen Act under which development aid would be forthcoming has also been a victim of the change in Washington’s perception of the Pakistan’s efforts. Even the International Financing Institutions, primarily IMF, also get their signals from Washington. Now, Pakistan is compelled to announce that it is abandoning the IMF program and not applying for a new initiative to tackle its economic requirements. All in all, with a limited financial base, with only about $200 billion GDP, with 185 million people, with tremendous competition in the global export market, with obvious political instability, with rise of extremist Islamic militants, with no signs of cessation of hostilities at the border, and with United States wanting Pakistan to â€Å"Do More†, Pakistan will not be the ultimate beneficiary of the Global War on Terror.

Sports Psych Evaluation on” We Are Marshall”

We Are Marshall We Are Marshall is movie about the Marshall University football team of 1970, who almost all died in a plane crash coming home from an away game. The only members of the team that remained were the players left at home because of injuries, and one coach who drove home because of a recruiting trip. Normally Sports Psychologist could find things to work on with any team but with a new coach coming in to rebuild the program who just suffered an unruly loss the issues are heightened by the pain, struggle, and stress to win for those who could no longer play.The Marshall Heard struggled with adapting and accepting different leaders, having the motivation to win even though they were all mainly freshman playing against teams of mostly juniors and seniors, the new and old players working together to have a common goal , sticking together and developing team cohesion and, honoring the other players. There were so many things this team had to overcome to find the common will t o win. Cooperation was a main concept that the Heard had to achieve in order to have success at anything after this tragedy.Not only did they have to get their teammates to cooperate with each other and the new coaching staff, they also had to get cooperation from the student body and the school board. After the plane crash the school board decided that it will be best for everyone if they suspend the following season and give the school time to grieve and get back to normal. When the remaining players heard about this they decide to rally the school together to get the board to allow them to play the following season.They got the student body to chant, â€Å"We are Marshall,† outside of the meeting of the school board when the final decision was being made to not have a season. With the cooperation of all of their peers the Heard was allowed to continue on with the season as previously planned. Before we even get in to cooperation with the entire team these few players remai ning had to present a common goal to the student body and organize an event so that they school would allow the team to have a season so they could honor their teammates in the following season.A big struggle with this program was having strong leadership, and following the leadership. The players who were left had to deal adjusting from being just part of a team to leading a new team of freshman. They had their times when leading was tough for them, Ruffin a player who was left at home because of a shoulder injury stepped up and became the main captain and leader of the team. Ruffin had times where he didn’t lead by example and because he felt like the new players did not respect his former teammates he blew up and picked a fight.Later on in the movie Ruffin’s shoulder injury returns and worsens, he is told that he cannot play the second half of the game. Although many players would sulk in there injury Ruffin showed his true colors and his leadership ability when he went out in the second half and was his team’s biggest cheerleader. He did everything he could to help his team out even though he would not benefit from it. Ruffin led his team with pride and he expected the team to play to the best of their ability to honor the players from the previous year who could no longer play.Also in We Are Marshall the president filling in since the true president of the University also died in the plane crash as well, lead the school and had faith in the new coach and the team to turn things down although he was getting criticized for it. He approved hiring a new coach and for the recruiting to start, he got the NCAA to make an exception to the rules stating that freshmen could play so they could have a team. He lead by example and did everything he could to help the football program. When the town and some board members questioned his decisions he stood by them and did what he believed to be the right thing to do.Motivation was very important for this team. The players who remained from the year before were motivated by their friends, coaches, and teammates they lost. These players felt a sense of duty to these players that they needed to play well and get things back together for their teammates who could no longer play. These upper classmen and the coaching staff had a hard time getting this type of motivation in to the new players. Ruffin and other returners had times where they tried to get the freshmen to understand what they were working towards but the freshmen just didn’t have the same loyalty and connection to the old team. According to Vlachopoulos, athletes with high intrinsic motivation have better self-appreciation and are more successful in their activities compared with their intrinsically less motivated mates† (Bollok, Takacs, Dobay & Kalmar, 2011)You could see this, because Ruffin had an internal motivation to play to the best of his ability to honor his teammates who died, he had more of a driv e to do well and he expected everyone else to do their best too. The coaching staff saw this struggle as ell, they could see that the whole team was not motivated to get the job done. Before one game the coaches had the team meet them at the memorial of six players who lost their lives and were too badly deformed after the crash to identify who they were who had been buried together because â€Å"They are still a team,† said Dr. Aldred P. Wallace in an article from The Herald newspaper after the accident . There he talks to them about what happened and how those players literally gave their lives to do what rest of them were doing.This pep talk stirred up something in the boys and that night they won their very first game. Along with the trip to the cemetery also came group cohesion. When the coaches talked to the team about what happened with the team before them and got the new players to have respect and feel a tie to the players who were no longer alive the group gelled b etter. Once the whole team respected the passed players and coaches they found a common goal. Watching this film the game after the trip to the cemetery was so different than what had been shown previously.Once this group found their cohesion and common goals they succeeded. The dynamics of this team differed from any other team in the NCAA at the time. At this time it was against NCAA rules to allow freshmen to play. As if being the youngest team competing in the NCAA at the time wasn’t enough of a challenge, as previously stated they had some players who had a lot of respect for the former players and those who figured they didn’t know them so they didn’t really matter. Team members and team dynamics have to depend on and support each other to accomplish a shared goal†(Chandel 2) without good team dynamics it makes it a lot harder to get your goal achieved. Obviously every team has differences on it but usually not things that could set them back as bad as these could. Being the youngest team to take the field came with all sorts of challenges, lack of experience, smaller players, and less maturity. At the beginning these new kids had little respect for others and what had happened, this caused a divided team.Once the team was all on the same page and they got their differences sorted out they performed well, better than anyone expected. Communication is key in any team sport, but when players have baggage and built up frustration and aggression it is even more important. The remaining players had some held in frustration for a number of different reasons resulting from the plane crash. This came out at random times such as, during practice, in the locker room, and even in the dorm.Not only was communication needed on the field it was needed outside of football. If the remaining players could have better communicated their feelings about the crash with their new teammates and got them to understand what they were going through they may not have had so many problems becoming a team as they did in the beginning. Once the importance of the players of the 1970 team was understood by the freshmen they worked with their upperclassmen better. They had a mutual understanding of what needed to be done and why and this helped them succeed.In the movie We Are Marshall a team must overcome the challenges of having a completely new team and coaching staff as well as the challenges a coach and a few players have in dealing with the loss of the rest of the football program. Every sports team has to adjust each year to maybe a few coaching changes or new freshmen coming in but to have to rebuild an entire new program is completely different. The Heard of Marshall faces issues anywhere from team cohesion to leadership changes. New players have to step up to help the new coach out and the coaches have to try everything they can think of just to keep the team from killing each other.This movie is one of the greatest stories of a team overcoming adversity and coming together. ASHVIN M. CHANDEL Role of Group Dynamics in Team Sports, : Indian Streams Research Journal (June ; 2012) Bollok, S. , Takacs, J. , Dobay, B. , & Kalmar, Z. (2011). External and internal sport motivations of young adults. Biomedical Human Kinetics, 3(1), 102. Retrieved from http://versita. metapress. com/content/J27L830PG4223742 Withers, B. (1970, November 16). The crash. The Herald- Dispatch. Retrieved from http://media. herald-dispatch. com/mucrash/index. php? p=1_61

Free Essays on The Ultimate Dream

The Ultimate Dream A dream is defined in the Webster’s New World Dictionary as: a fanciful vision of the conscious mind; a fond hope or aspiration; anything so lovely, transitory, etc. as to seem dreamlike. In the book, The Great Gatsby, Jay Gatsby has the ultimate idealistic dream that was later disintegrated. Jay Gatsby is a crook and a bootlegger who involves himself with some rather shady characters. He committed crimes in order to achieve a rich lifestyle. Ironically, he didn’t work hard for himself but for Daisy, his ultimate dream. Daisy represents a dreamlike, heavenly presence, which was all that Gatsby devoted his life to. Daisy was the one girl that every girl wanted to be like and every guy wanted to be with. For Daisy, money was everything. That was the factor that made Daisy unattainable to Gatsby, earlier in the novel. As Daisy saw it, â€Å"rich girls don’t marry poor boys.† So, Daisy left Gatsby and married someone richer. Poor old Gatsby was heartbroken and would do anything to her back. It was then that Gatsby sought to become a self-made millionaire and became absolutely faithful in his vision of changing the past and making Daisy fall in love with him. Gatsby’s faith is so distorted that he isn’t even aware is dream lacks any sense of realism. On the other hand, Daisy was much more realistic. She knew how much money meant to society. Gatsby refused to see that side of her. That fact would’ve destroyed his understanding of Daisy. Thomas Park d’Invilliers puts it perfectly when he said: â€Å"Then wear the gold hat, if that will move her; If can you bounce that high, bounce for her too, Till she cry lover, gold-hatted, high bouncing lover, I must have you!† Gatsby had symbolically worn the gold hat; he had bounced high by aquiring all the wealth and possessions he had, so that Daisy cries out â€Å"gold-hatted, high bouncing lover. I must have you!† Dedication separates Gatsby from ever... Free Essays on The Ultimate Dream Free Essays on The Ultimate Dream The Ultimate Dream A dream is defined in the Webster’s New World Dictionary as: a fanciful vision of the conscious mind; a fond hope or aspiration; anything so lovely, transitory, etc. as to seem dreamlike. In the book, The Great Gatsby, Jay Gatsby has the ultimate idealistic dream that was later disintegrated. Jay Gatsby is a crook and a bootlegger who involves himself with some rather shady characters. He committed crimes in order to achieve a rich lifestyle. Ironically, he didn’t work hard for himself but for Daisy, his ultimate dream. Daisy represents a dreamlike, heavenly presence, which was all that Gatsby devoted his life to. Daisy was the one girl that every girl wanted to be like and every guy wanted to be with. For Daisy, money was everything. That was the factor that made Daisy unattainable to Gatsby, earlier in the novel. As Daisy saw it, â€Å"rich girls don’t marry poor boys.† So, Daisy left Gatsby and married someone richer. Poor old Gatsby was heartbroken and would do anything to her back. It was then that Gatsby sought to become a self-made millionaire and became absolutely faithful in his vision of changing the past and making Daisy fall in love with him. Gatsby’s faith is so distorted that he isn’t even aware is dream lacks any sense of realism. On the other hand, Daisy was much more realistic. She knew how much money meant to society. Gatsby refused to see that side of her. That fact would’ve destroyed his understanding of Daisy. Thomas Park d’Invilliers puts it perfectly when he said: â€Å"Then wear the gold hat, if that will move her; If can you bounce that high, bounce for her too, Till she cry lover, gold-hatted, high bouncing lover, I must have you!† Gatsby had symbolically worn the gold hat; he had bounced high by aquiring all the wealth and possessions he had, so that Daisy cries out â€Å"gold-hatted, high bouncing lover. I must have you!† Dedication separates Gatsby from ever...

Knightia - Facts and Figures

Knightia - Facts and Figures Name: Knightia; pronounced NYE-tee-ah Habitat: Rivers and lakes of North America Historical Epoch: Eocene (55-35 million years ago) Size and Weight: About six inches long and a few ounces Diet: Small marine organisms Distinguishing Characteristics: Small size; herring-like appearance    About Knightia Most fossils from the Eocene epoch are well out of the reach of ordinary consumers, but not so the small prehistoric fish Knightia, thousands of specimens of which have been discovered in Wyomings Green River formation (in fact, Knightia is Wyomings official state fossil). Thanks to their abundance, its possible to buy a well-preserved Knightia fossil for under $100, a bargain compared to the average dinosaur! (Buyer beware, though: whenever you purchase a fossil, especially online, its essential to check its provenancethat is, whether it really is a genuine specimen of Knightia or simply a baby salmon that has been crushed between two bricks.) Part of the reason there are so many Knightia fossils is that there were so many Knightiathis six-inch-long fish assembled in vast schools throughout the lakes and rivers of Eocene North America, and lay near the bottom of the aquatic food chain (meaning that these huge populations of Knightia sustained larger, scarcer predators, including the prehistoric fish Diplomystus and Mioplosus). Befitting its small size, Knightia itself fed not on fish, but on tiny marine organisms like plankton and diatoms, and it was very herring-like in its appearance and behaviorso much so that it was originally classified as a species of the herring genus Clupea.

Rhetoric Analysis of a Music News Website Essay

Rhetoric Analysis of a Music News Website - Essay Example In order to understand why this target audience continues such criminal activity, their assumptions about the record industry must be examined. Music United is one website that analyzes and addresses these assumptions. A coalition group of many different organizations committed against online music piracy, Music United strives not only to disprove college students' assumptions about the record industry, but also to persuade college students to abide by the law when obtaining music. In order to accomplish these goals, the Music United site utilizes textual and technical features to establish a direct communication with its targeted audience of college students. These features are functions of appeals to guilt, fear, empathy, and the law that are embedded within the content and the purpose of the site. College students view the internet as a place of public freedom, where people can come and go, sharing their ideas, pictures, and pages along the way. A basic knowledge of web designing is all that is needed to post material on the internet for the world to see. Over time, users view the internet as a "marketplace" where everyone is entitled to every page, picture, and idea posted. College students adopt this kind of public-sharing sentiment when they download mp3s without paying. ... ree for the taking in much the same way reading a newspaper article online is free (as opposed to paying $0.50 to read the same article on a hard copy). Music United disagrees with this "free for all" spirit of college students who participate in the sharing and downloading of illegal mp3 files. Not everything on the internet is for free, certainly not music. This is one of the college students' assumptions the site refutes. Music United accomplishes this goal through the use specially designed text-graphics, which appeal to guilt and fear. The home page provides an example of these text-graphics. Although they may look like regular text, these special headers and key quotations are actual graphics (clicking on them reveals they are gif files) that were most likely created in some photo editing program like Paint Shop Pro. The combination of red and white colors functions the same way a "stop" sign functions: it awakens the senses by signaling a warning. When college students see this graphic, the colors indicate that something of greater importance is being said here, as opposed to the regular black-colored text found throughout the site. The colors catch their eyes, compelling them to read the text. The font type is different and larger from the standard Verdana text found throughout the site, further emphasizing the importance of the message. The capitalization of the number ("2.6 million") and the cr ime ("illegally downloaded") not only stresses the importance of the text, but also accentuates the guilt the phrases elicit from its audience. When college students who engage in illegal mp3 trading read the text, they are struck with guilt. They immediately identify themselves as illegal downloader's who partake in the distribution of those 2.6 billion files each

The Role of Political Parties in Mobilizing Electoral Participation in Essay

The Role of Political Parties in Mobilizing Electoral Participation in the U.S - Essay Example First, political parties provide funding and support of candidates that run for political positions. This is the most important support role of a political party is provision of a candidate with the party nomination. Other kinds of support also come in the form of money that goes into conducting political campaigns. in cases where the money does not come directly from political parties, parties still provide important strategy, logistics and organization information that make additional funding and smooth running of the whole operation possible (Ginsberg et al., p. 123). In the period leading to elections, parties help organize fundraisers to help meet budget deficits, they also provide workers for the campaign team of the candidate and monitors the opposition for any election irregularities. The last but most important support role of any political party to its candidate is to instill confidence in him or her of a fair election process. The other role of political parties is to act as political educators. In this role, they provide the necessary literary materials to enlighten voters on the issues that they need to know (Ginsberg et al., p. 223). These issues may range from civic rights to duties and responsibilities of voters towards their country. Part of this role involves instilling on the electorates the importance of casting their vote on the election date. As political educators, mobilizing candidates and educate them on the electoral process and possible outcomes, like their likelihood of being elected. Further, political parties provide information to the public concerning their stand on issues of the day. As part of their role as educators, parties have to periodically reminding members and voters on the importance of casting their vote, since if members do not go out and vote their candidates will lose the elections.