Edward Scissorhands gives the idea

People always set a so called standard. We might not notice it but we lived with it. We can not deny the reality that we distinguished or categories everything; right music, beautiful, normal, etc. We set it as a standard or right thing because it is the common thing that we see and everything that does not belong to it said to be abnormal, ugly and the like.Did we ever ask what others say about these standards? Especially those that we think do not belong to us. If it is not the beautiful that we see today is set as â€Å"beautiful† then it will be the other one that we will be referring as beautiful. Well, it is planted already in our hearts. No mater what we do there our heart will still say and stick to what we usually see.Most often when we see people who do not belong to that standard we give them uncommon treatment. Why? It is because we think they are incapable of doing what we commonly did. Well, good for those treated with good but for others they were even denied wi th their rights as a person.Edward Scissorhands gives the idea or states what is happening to our society. When somebody saw him he was brought home but treated as a specials person. Well, he is incapable of doing some things that a what they called â€Å"normal people† do (just like what happened to the waterbed).People treat him with uncommon treatment because of his weaknesses. One example scene that gives an idea of the common reactions of people is that when Edward, even incapable of doing some things, had a hidden strength of ability.If they were not preoccupied with the thing that Edward is incapable they will never be amazed when they knew that Edward has a hidden artistry. They loved him since then. Well, we can not deny that fact that is a nature of man to show kindness to those who show him kindness.One man got envious with Edward. He blackmailed him and charged him with robbery. That plot starts to cause hi to be driven away. Although it was not at that moment but it was the start that some people think him negatively. The people did not examine every detail of the events and concluded directly.When they saw Edward with a blood on his scissorhands they postulated he was attempting to kill. They were preoccupied that because Edward is different from them he will commit a crime or he will do bad thing to them at anytime and by that they did not investigate. They drove away Edward.Edward’s social aspect did not develop fully because unexposed to other people. He grew in an isolated place. He wasn’t exposed because of the fear that the community might not like him and will not accept him. As we can see social integration is needed for human beings to be developed as a person. It’s not only because of that factor but it is because of the fact that every person is unique.No person is the same as the other. Because not all of us have the same weaknesses and strength e need to interact to fill up the voids of some aspects. If Ed ward grew up with the community, he will not be treated as such he will be common to their sight. Every person need also to know what is happening to his society for him to adjust with the community trend.One common reaction for a man who is not oriented with the community is watching himself not to be seen and notice by others as different. In other words he will try to be one of them. This rapid change of environment causes Edward to act abnormally; meaning he act not the same with the community.Even though the film did not verbally mentioned the thoughts of Edward I still see his inner feelings of being not oriented. He is like a sheep being put together with the pigs where he tried to be like pigs. He tried to do what the community is doing.This is unhealthy for human beings; a sudden change of environment. This often caused the person’s being to be crushed. For worse, it will lead only to the destruction of his personality. Because human beings can not adopt easily, ever ything need to be a gradual process. Everybody should help with one another to bridge the gap between them.

Are We Free Within Society Essay

For me, I find that there are two different answers to the question: â€Å"Are we free within Society? † – and that there are many variations, with thanks to culture, socialization, social interaction and social structure. For the most part I find freedom all around. I’ll give some examples of that and show some areas where I see other’s struggle with finding a sense of freedom, whether it be external or within. First, what is freedom? It’s an ambiguous term that can hold many different meanings to different people. Where a person comes from, their socio-economic status, their race, age, gender and other factors play a role in defining what freedom is. It’s used in many different senses, for example: is freedom being able to do as you like within society or is it free-will? Is it something you do or a way you feel? For me, it holds many different meanings pertaining to many different things. It isn’t the same for all matters and some hold-fast ideas I have on freedom, have or can quickly change or slide into a different meaning with new discoveries. Reading the news paper can be profound enough to shine a new light on something that changes me as a person. Isn’t education liberating?! Some people say we are free†¦ if we say we are. Some believe we are not free in society because we willingly give it power over us, thus we are not free. What about the laws that govern us? As a law abiding citizen, I don’t find any issues with the laws that are in place to protect us. Some people who smoke pot think it should be legalized and that it is just â€Å"The Man† infringing upon their freedom. Some think it should be legalized for other reasons such as medical purposes (in some states it is legal for those said, medicinal purposes. ). See the variation of reasons!! Culturally is one free†¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦ say, to change ones sex? Yes, but the individual should be comfortable enough to go forward knowing that for some, it causes fear, because changing one’s sex is seen as a threat to the â€Å"normal† way of life. I certainly don’t and never have had a problem with anyone’s sexuality or sex characteristics, being different from my own. I think in today’s society we are more open to change and difference. How much freedom does a homosexual person have when it comes to their sexuality? Certainly as much as anyone else but for the individual this varies drastically per their own learned ideals, their culture, their families outlook on it and the experiences they have had. For those that are homosexual, the risk of â€Å"coming out†, can either be very easy or one they hide all their lives. I see much younger generations now, unafraid of what people may think about their sexuality. Conversely I know families that have a homosexual father or mother, who didn’t make it known that they were gay, until the kids were much older. My childhood best friend has five brothers and sisters. They had the biggest house on the block. They were wealthy beyond all recognition and the parents seemed happy. When I was twenty, so about ten years ago, I heard her parents were divorcing. Dad moved out. The next thing I know, when she had her first child three years ago, was that Dad came with a male friend. Okay, I for some reason immediately knew it was his boyfriend. Never the less, I had questions of how life was for him living with a beautiful family, I’m positive he loved every moment of, but really wanting that family with a man, instead of a woman? Did he not feel free to choose a man thirty-five years ago? If not, what enabled him to feel free to be with the man he loves now? Did he impose certain restrictions on his own life at the time and eventually shake the feeling of being limited or fearful of what negative impact his lifestyle would have? I imagine the political and social strides, plus the acceptance homosexuals have present day, made quite a difference. It is possible that he was never bound by fear, but that his family life was full and homosexuality came to him later in life. I’m not positive as to when he knew he was homosexual but this is a random analysis. Oh yes, the family also had a strong faith in Christianity and the bible condemns homosexuality. His religious belief could have surely left him feeling as though he had no choice but to marry a woman. The bible says a lot against homosexuality. Back when we were children, homosexuals were not as widely accepted as they are now. Thankfully, our society as a whole dose not look to the bible for answers. In several states there are now laws giving marriage rights to same sex couples, just as a men and women can marry. There was a huge social calling for it. Also, homosexuals exists in all cultures across the world, including in nature. So sure, we are free in society but in some cases have cultural obstacles to overcome in order to get there. What does socialization have to do with freedom? I think if anything it allows us to understand what freedom is, it shapes how we feel about it. Without socialization we aren’t human. Socialization is essential for learning how to think, feel, reason AND how to interact with others. In an isolated environment where you have no grasp of self or society, there is no understanding of what boundaries are. There is no need. Through socialization we have social encounters that show us different ways of life and encourage us to find alternate ways of thinking. We meet with individuals that have other views of the world and so we too, are exposed to new ideas, feelings and can form our own thoughts and behaviors. Our formal socialization or ideas that have been imposed upon us, can be changed and discarded as we see fit. Some people are not as emotionally strong or too afraid to change things about themselves let alone confront social injustices. This could be a fear one blames on society. I mean where does one’s own fears and or learned behaviors come from? Who and or what is really standing as a hindrance to their freedom. It’s important for people to feel some sort of freedom within social structures. Is society a prison? NO! Imagine having the type of upbringing where it was ingrained in you that you are a slave. Imagine always feeling trapped, searching for a way to get out, but get out of what? I guess real freedom isn’t about that, real freedom is freedom from the past: from your own conditioning, from fixed sets of ideas inherited from others or yourself, from behavioral habits which turn you into a â€Å"machine† instead of a fully alive human. There are all sorts of discussions on morality going on in Japan right now, and that the nation is slave to materialism and climbing the socio-economic latter. That’s seemingly a norm here in the US. What really makes me think, is the polar opposite -the kind of freedom you can have anywhere, even in jail. Inmates being completely free in their minds. Imagining they can travel the world and learn different cultures from the confines of their physical space -a four foot by six foot cell. Social structures may limit you, to what you want to do anyway but most importantly, certain structures are in place to protect society as a whole. We are not free to kill or harm people! Sociology says individuals are actively involved in the construction of self -reasoning, personality, morality, emotion, gender. You are free to think whatever you want, follow whatever religion you want, vote for political candidates of your choice, wear you pants backwards, have expectations of the people around you etc. For some, that is not enough. Defining what freedom means to you will determine whether you are free within society or not. Some will find limits and other’s will find that freedom falls within a matter of degree that can vary. Culture, socialization, social interactions and social structures all play their role in the individuals creative definition of freedom. They say, free your mind and the rest will follow!

Descartes’ Epistemology Essay

Carefully explain Descartes’ cogito and his attempt to build his knowledge structure from the ground up. (Be as succinct as possible.) Does Descartes succeed or fail in that attempt? Justify your answer in full. Descartes’ Epistemology. This essay attempts to explain Descartes’ epistemology of his knowledge, his â€Å"Cogito, Ergo Sum† concept (found in the Meditations), and why he used it [the cogito concept] as a foundation when building his structure of knowledge. After explaining the concept I give a brief evaluation of his success in introducing and using this cogito as a foundation. Finally, I provide reasons why I think Descartes succeeded in his epistemology. The First Meditation began with Descartes deciding to employ radical scepticism in his quest of acquiring true knowledge and this lead him to conclude that he could not be sure of anything except that he knew nothing (Descartes, 1984:12-15). Meaning that Descartes discarded all his knowledge whether it was knowing that he had fingers, knowing that the physical world existed, knowledge of his studies etc. he began by acknowledging how everything that constituted his preconceived knowledge could be doubt worthy. This climax of doubt was rooted in one fact: Descartes felt that there was good reason to believe that a higher power could have deceived him into believing that his empirical and a priori knowledge was plausible. Since God is a higher power that Descartes believed to be all good and never deceptive, he named his deceiver the â€Å"Evil Demon† a complete opposite to his wholesome observation of God (Blackburn, 2001:19). Descartes established that the â€Å"Evil Demon† argument could wipe away any assurance of his prior knowledge except for one: his existence (Descartes, 1984:17). This was a good argument because it presented a well thought out reason to question his knowledge. Descartes argued that if an â€Å"Evil Demon† truly existed and is only focused on deceiving him then this proves that he [Descartes] exists†¦ â€Å"If he is deceiving me; and let him deceive me as much as he can, he will never bring about that I am nothing so long as I think that I am something†¦ I am, I exist, is necessarily true whenever it is†¦conceived in my mind† (Blackburn, 2001:20). It is possible to refute this definition of existence in the form  of: Do we suppose that a thinking thing exists because it has experienced thoughts? According to the Second Meditation Descartes’ response would be that ‘I am, I exist’ stands only for a thing that is doing the thinking now and if it were to cease thinking it would cease to exist altogether (Descartes, 1984:18). In addition it is not the thinking that lead to existence, but the existence lead to the thinking. Descartes was willing to be questioned about his knowledge of the world and to prove that he truly sought the correct answer to any objection that may be raised; he overlooked everything he knew and started to build an argument from scratch to assert the knowledge he would later accept as accurate. Thus, Descartes chose the cogito concept as a foundation that he could begin to enlarge his territory of understanding on. From observation it is clear that Descartes only began his Meditations to build a foundation of understanding and since he had discarded all his prior knowledge he needed a solid base to begin reconstructing on, hence the cogito concept emanates. â€Å"Cogito, Ergo Sum† is Latin for â€Å"I think, therefore I am†. The cogito argument is as follows: 1. An evil demon might be deceiving me into believing that I don’t exist. 2. If I believe that I don’t exist, then I exist. 3. I exist. This argument states that, â€Å"if I convinced myself of something then I certainly existed† (Descartes, 1984:17). This simply means that anyone doubting his or her own existence or presence indeed exists because in order for doubt to take place there has to be someone to do it. A proper understanding of the cogito concept means recognizing specifically the classification in which this ‘someone’ that is existing fits into and whether it is accurate to say that he or she exists. The argument, as Descartes presented, does not give a valid reason for the existence of the body or anything else in the physical world, so we cannot accept that bodies exist. Neither does the cogito account for the existence of other minds as that would entail knowledge of the physical world where other things exist. The cogito concept does however; give a valid argument for the existence of the mind or a thinking thing that exists independently of the body. In his  novel Think, Blackburn explains the cogito concept as a means of justifying the core of one’s existence as thinking, we accept that thought exists not a ‘self’ (Blackburn, 2001:20). I agree with Blackburn because his [Descartes’] concept serves well to prove that we exist as thinking things and even if we were to discard any a priori or a posteriori knowledge, we can still endorse the cogito. The cogito concept stands regardless of empirical knowledge because it suggests the existence of thought without actually linking it to the body (which constitutes a sort of empirical way of acquiring knowledge through the senses). In addition, it can be accepted without any a priori knowledge since Descartes only introduced it after concluding that he knew nothing, and could only accept knowledge of his own existence as vindicated. To assess Descartes choice of foundation I will raise some questions that implore an explanation regarding the cogito concept. Firstly, if we only exist when thinking and the â€Å"Evil Demon† is able to manipulate our knowledge of everything else, why are our thoughts not susceptible to his deception? In my perspective, the â€Å"Evil Demon† has the ability to deceive us to a certain point, that point is our existence, and we have established that our existence leads to thinking. Descartes supposed that the ‘Evil Demon† may have influenced our thoughts but the thought he [Evil Demon] could not alter is the thought of us thinking. For example, if I were to throw a plastic ball into a recycle bin and it were melted and reshaped into a mug, although the state of the ball may have changed it is still plastic and even if we discard its previous state its present state shows that it is indeed existing and I cannot convince the plastic that it never existed just because it is in a different state. This example explains how our definition of existence may have changed but the fact remains that we exist hence we think. My example is another way of stating Descartes’ wax example(Descartes,1984:20-21), which according to Blackburn, he [Descartes] uses to confirm that with the cogito we can solidify that our thoughts exist regardless of them being immaterial, various and not constrained to a physical body (Blackburn, 2001:21). A second question could be, if we know(or supposedly accept) that we are being deceived by the â€Å"Evil Demon†Ã¢â‚¬ ¦ wouldn’t that mean that we were aware of when we were not being deceived by him and so before we established our foundation(using the cogito concept), we had already accepted some knowledge which lead to the foundation? I think  Descartes would respond by saying that the fact that we can think of the â€Å"Evil Demon† and accept that he is deceiving us means that we already established the cogito before moving on to think of the actual idea of a deceiver, again we see that any thinking means something existed to do it(the thinking). This response seems to present some equivocation but unfortunately I think that any of Descartes’ responses may shift the burden of proof to the person who raised the question. His argument, as I would render it, may be that the question is going in circles and only raises doubt of his [Descartes] means of acquiring knowledge and not actually any objection to the cogito. This last response seems to credit Descartes success in establishing that the cogito is a concept that gives us the best potential start to gaining any knowledge. Even the knowledge of an â€Å"Evil Demon† would mean we have to start by accepting that we exist (cogito) in order to prove any of our knowledge as untrustworthy.  A third and final question is, what form of knowledge is the cogito and what other knowledge can we build on this foundation? The cogito is a form of a priori knowledge because we do not need to prove its validity by explaining anything or drawing on a previous experience to prove it. Descartes further used the cogito when acquiring the knowledge of Cartesian Dualism, which is his next step of building knowledge that is rooted in the cogito. Descartes said that Cartesian Dualism is justified by the cogito because we only have knowledge of an existing ‘thinking’ entity that has no body, hence the body and the mind should be viewed as separate and neither one has the ability to influence the other (Descartes, 1984:21). I think the cogito concept provokes a sense of identity that each of our thinking may contain and this identity entails that as much as the â€Å"Evil Demon† may try to take away our knowledge we still have that little something, as thinking beings, that can only be explained as an existence. This entity of our existence is immaterial, yes, but it leads us into thinking and thinking is our starting point of gaining new knowledge. Therefore Descartes succeeded in his epistemology by choosing â€Å"Cogito, Ergo Sum† as a base for his future knowledge. Once the cogito is accepted Descartes can acquire new knowledge. In conclusion Descartes’ processes of building a knowledge structure foundation was fruitful and ultimately leads to a successful epistemology. Bibliography Blackburn, S. 1999. Think: A Compelling Introduction to Philosophy. New York: Oxford University Press. Descartes, R. 1984. The Philosophical Writings of Descartes, Vol. II, Cottingham, Stoothoff and Murdoch (Translators).UK: Cambridge University Press. Lerm, J. 2013. [Descartes’ ‘Second Meditation’: The Cogito Argument] Lecture Slides. ——————————————– [ 1 ]. J. Lerm [Rebulding Begins] lecture slide 2 [ 2 ]. Lerm [The Cogito Argument] lecture slide 7

Sales Planning and Operations Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Sales Planning and Operations - Assignment Example This report is an effort to signify the importance of personal selling in the promotional activities and how they can be used by the Hendrix brothers to foster their sales and service. Significance of Personal Selling in the Promotional Mix â€Å"Promotion is persuasive communication. Companies rely on promotion to inform people about their products and services. Companies also use promotional techniques to enhance their public image and reputation and persuade people that their products are valuable† (Glencoe, n.d., p.362). Non-profit organisations rely on the promotional activities to make the public educated about an issue or to advocate for the changes in a regulation or a policy. The objectives of the promotional activities can be articulated by the phrase AIDA. In the process, the company must attract the attention, build the interest and desire and finally the company must ask for action. Promotion is a significant element of the marketing mix. In the absence of communi cation, the customers may not be aware of the product and its prospective their requirements and desires. A number of different communication tools form a significant part of communication mix. The organisations must decide which tools are required to be used for the larger sales and in specific proportion. There are four significant components of promotion mix including advertising, sales promotion, personal selling and public relations. Promotional mix is an organisation’s total communication a program consisting of various blends of its components and the mix is used to achieve the company’s marketing goals and objectives. â€Å"Personal selling refers to the personal communication with one or more prospective buyers for the purpose of selling a product or service† (NOS, n.d., p.28). Personal selling is one of the most effective tools to communicate with the consumers. Personal selling involves interaction at the personal level and that is why the feedback is received immediately. The communication through personal selling is quite flexible. The sales personnel can adjust the communication according to the understanding of the customers. The personal selling is more persuasive. The selling personnel can convince the consumers about the utility of the product. The efficiency of the impressive salesmen can leave an impression on the potential buyers which in turn would increase the sales in the coming future. There are a number of other forms of promotional mix. Personal selling can offer considerable contribution in the other promotional mix tools. Advertising is an impersonal and paid communication form in order to endorse a physical product or service. The promotional tool can be in the print form as in the newspapers and magazines, in the audio form or in the audio visual form as on the television or cinema screen etc. Personal selling can be used to flaunt the utilities and advantages of the products to intensify the advertisements. Sales promotion refers to the use of short term incentives such as discounts, free gifts, demonstration, store display, free sample coupons etc to encourage the immediate purchase of a product or service. The personal sales team can offer these incentives to the customers to increase the sales and revenue. To a certain extent the significance of personal selling depends on the nature of the product. As a general rule, merchandises which are

Mexican American War Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1750 words

Mexican American War - Research Paper Example The Mexican-American War, also known as the First American Intervention came with social, political and economic factors which impacted civilians in both the US, and Mexico. This particular war was an armed conflict between the US and Mexico, which began in 1846 and lasted until 1848. The war was caused because the US had just annexed Texas and added it to its states in 1845. Regardless of the Texas revolution, Mexico considered Texas to be part of its territory. Texas was admitted to the Union as the 28th state of the United States. Because of its admittance, the US inherited the Mexican boarder dispute by default. This became a problem therefore creating the current war at hand. Not only did the US connect only Texas, but they continued to capture more territory which extended the nation’s boarders all the way to the Pacific Ocean. This acquisition of more territory was known as the Mexican Cessesion which occurred back in1848. This Cession is currently known as the southwes tern region of the United States. This region can be divided into pacific time and mountain time. This Cession was ceded by Mexico during the Treaty of Guadelupe back in 1848. It was a peaceful treaty dictated by the United States and it eventually ended the Mexican-American war which lasted a daunting two years. ... It was torn apart by angry internal political mini battles that could have created a civil war. It had a lot of debt and so it started relinquishing its rights to different states to help pay off the massive debt acquired during other wars. Mexico decided that Texas had little value compared to California and its richness and so relinquishing its rights would not be so difficult. There were several negotiators which greatly affected the results of the war. Because the negotiations were done in a peaceful manner, they were referred to as â€Å"peace talks†. Nicholas Trist, the chief Clerk of the state department, accompanied General Winfield Scott as a diplomat and President Polk’s representative. They found no previous success in coming to an agreement so they reluctantly decided that they would have to view Mexico and their chief leaders as conquered enemies in order to get the job done. The special commission representatives were Don Bernardo Couto, Don Miguel Artrist an, and Don Luis Gonzaga Cuevas of Mexico. The war itself created social factors which lead to unity and unrest. Social factors impact people all over the world. During the Mexican-American war, a huge wave of immigrants permeated the United States. Several factors contributed to the wave of Mexican immigrants. The first was the Reclamation act of 1902 which expanded acres of farmland through new immigration projects. This pushed the need for agricultural workers. The Mexican revolution and the political and violent instability pushed people out of their country and into the United States. Possibly the most important social factor was the growth of the U.S. economy which attracted several thousand immigrants to its territory. Once moved to the US, most Mexican migrants

Adult Nursing Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

Adult Nursing - Essay Example This paper approves that the philosophy of the model states that the nursing care should be delivered using the nursing process. The patient under consideration in the area of focus for the purpose of ease in communication can be entitled as XYZ. The patient had 3 problems as related to physical and mental health. At the time of admission of the patient in the nurse one problem of a patient was identified. The nursing interventions were held in the area of identification and prescriptions on all care plans. It is crucial to understand here that though the care plan had a section for evaluation, it was not completed on the care plans studied. This essay makes a conclusion that the differences is between the practiced set of principles and the ones desirable for a quality service holds in the depth of its existence a suggestion that the nursing model used in the ward made no differences to the nursing care delivered. This is essentially so because attention to application of theory to the practical world was not made. From the procedure as followed in the hospital for the patient XYZ, we noticed that a written record of the patient ‘s problem was not made. Also, the current needs of the patient remained un-addressed. It was also noted that the medical reason for admission of the patient XYZ was recorded as the patient’s problem but the diagnosis reason for the same was not addressed. Thus, we conclude that the UK nurse is required to have in the boundaries of their knowledge a need to understand the concept of nursing diagnosis. This shall also enable the nurses to involve themselves actively and effectively in the validation of nursing diagnosis.

The Tadic Case Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

The Tadic Case - Essay Example Nonetheless, ICTY has brought about various issues regarding the legality of institution of the international tribunal and its authority. ICTY statutes give concurrent jurisdiction to the national courts as well as the international tribunals1. ICTY, Trial Chamber, Decision on the Defense Motion on Jurisdiction In the case of Prosecutor v. Dusko Tadic, the defense challenged the primacy of the ICTY because there was no basis in international law to give primacy to the ICTY and it generated an infringement upon state sovereignty. The appellant used three reasons to attack the tribunal: unlawful establishment of Tribunal, its illegal dominance over state courts and its lack of jurisdiction2. Tadic argued that the Tribunal was not lawfully established; those who drafted the UN Charter did not envision such a tribunal, the General Assembly did not take part in its creation, the Council did not act in relation to individuals, and there was no threat to peace. According to Tadic, the Tribu nal would not promote peace and a political body could not create a judicial organ. Tadic argued that in establishing such a Tribunal in accordance with the rule of law, the council should have the appropriate worldwide standards; it has to offer the assurances of justice, fairness, as well as evenhandedness in total compliance with international renowned human rights implements3. This led judges to dissent arguing that the ICTY did not have any competence to decide on the issue. ICTY, Appeals Chamber, Decision on the Defense Motion for Interlocutory Appeal After an appeal on the sentencing, the appeal chamber decided that the Tribunal had the authority to articulate the statement that challenged the legitimacy of institution of the Tribunal; it had jurisdiction to determine whether the ICTY was lawfully established (la competence de la competence). The judges also dismissed the challenge to International Tribunal dominance over state-run courts and decided that the Tribunal had jur isdiction of subject matter in the state. In defense to the legality of institution of the Tribunal, the trial chambers decided that there were evidently adequate jurisdiction issues that were open for the Tribunal to determine the issues of place, nature of the offence and the time committed. The chambers decided that the legitimacy of establishing the Tribunal was not a matter of jurisdiction; it was a matter of the lawfulness of its creation. The defense did not have any right to raise the matter of Internal Tribunal primacy over national courts since only a sovereign state that should raise issues related to sovereignty and a person should not put itself in the position of a state in order to challenge the jurisdiction of an international tribunal4. The state is the only one that has the exclusive right to plead violation of the state sovereignty5. Only a self-governing state can raise the appeal or not claim it; the accused did not have any rights to take over the state’ s rights in this case6.The most affected states in this case were the Germany where the accused lived and Bosnia-Herzegovina where the crimes were committed; the two states accepted the International Tri

The Similarities and Differences in Perceptions of a Thai Boutique Essay

The Similarities and Differences in Perceptions of a Thai Boutique Hotel Between Hoteliers and Guests - Essay Example The guests assert that a boutique hotel is distinguished by its size. It has less than a hundrded rooms and does not form part of a big hotel chain. Moreover, it is usually found in an urban setting, and are uniquely designed. On the contrary, managers emphasize the hotels uniqueness rather than its size. On the rationale for choosing such hotels, the response of the guests can be summarized into five main factors: (1) design; (2) services; (3) atmosphere; (4) location; and (5) price. The managers, on the other hand, emphasize the boutique hotels leverage on price. On attributes, it can be said that for majority of guests, the atmosphere is one very influential factor in helping them choose a hotel to check in.   Another variable that a guest considers important in the choice of hotels is the design, which is affirmed by the respondent managers, indicating that a unique concept is a strong selling point of boutique hotels.   Finally, all managers have the same opinion that the lo cation is also as important as the design and the atmosphere noting that the right location can be an advantage if the boutique hotels cannot compete with the prestige of the chain hotels. It may also be concluded that in terms of guest expectations, convenient location, radiant style, quality product offerings, available amenities and facilities, excellent customer service are among the services and/or attributes that a guest would expect the most from the boutique hotel. Boutique hotels originated in the United Kingdom in the early 1980s when Anouska Hempel designed the first boutique hotel called Blake’s located in London. However, there has been much debate going on regarding this issue, with some individuals arguing that the concept of boutique hotels started in 1984 thanks to a certain Ian Schrager and Steve Ribell, both of which opened Morgans Hotel in New York (Brights, 2007). In this chapter, the researcher would like to give a brief introduction about

Using Power in Achieving Different Goals Assignment

Using Power in Achieving Different Goals - Assignment Example Barack Obama's eloquence has been fundamental in establishing trust and influencing other people within the society. Such influence has been fundamental in winning elections throughout his political career. He has effectively utilized power to influence multitudes and gain essential support from different socio-cultural groups. He has used power in achieving different goals from promises made during the camping periods. Commitment and accountability have been fundamental traits in the utilization of power by President Obama. He always appears calm and relaxed despite the challenges facing the government in containing growing socio-economic issues, within the country. Effectively members of the government have been empowered to perform and make decisions regarding the state at the international level (Nye Jr, Rachman, Mead, & Mearsheimer, 2012). Many of the ambassadors perform their responsibilities independent of governmental influence. This has been an incremental approach to ensuri ng the passing of power and subsequently gaining positive benefits. Many international relationships have been established and restored following this careful transfer of presidential power to ambassadors. Within the real world, individuals become advised to refrain from hoarding power in seeking to ensure that power empowers others. The transfer of power must be undertaken carefully to eliminate the possibility of misusing such power. The element of communication remains incremental in ensuring power enhances social agendas and not personal benefits (Bal, Campbell, Steed, & Meddings, 2008). The language utilized in communications must, therefore, be clear and eloquent in delivering messages. This effectively results in insufficient understanding between communicating individuals or centers. Individuals can establish relationships based on an understanding of each other, and reflection of their situations and emotions. Fundamentally, individuals exhibit power through their capacity to transmit ideologies and perceptions  effectively, to other individuals.  

Aramco and British Petroluem Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 5000 words

Aramco and British Petroluem - Essay Example Saudi Aramco or Aramco is the national petroleum and natural gas company in Saudi Arabia. As per the reports, the company holds the largest crude oil reserves as well as the highest daily oil production capacity in the world. Observing such large scale operations, in 2015, Forbes magazine has facilitated Saudi Aramco as the largest oil and gas company in the world. Considering British Petroleum Plc, it is one of the six largest oil and gas companies in the world. This vertically integrated London based company concentrates on all segments of oil and gas industry ranging from exploration of energies to its production, refining and distribution in the global markets. From the company brief, it is evident that these two holds a very important position among the few companies in global oil and gas industry. Therefore, analyzing the internal operational techniques as well as global strategies related to corporate governance and leadership is definitely considered to be a critical task. Th erefore, for the purpose of analysis, the value chain and strength-weakness, opportunities-threats of these two firms will be evaluated and the corporate and global business strategies of these two companies will also be examined. In the next segment, global operational strategies of Saudi Aramco and British Petroleum will be analyzed in terms of Value Chain and SWOT analysis. The value chain defines a set of activities as identified by eminent strategist Michael Porter, analyzing which the company can recognize those factors that have enabled it to gain competitive advantage in the industry segment. Such factors can be categorized under primary and secondary activities. SWOT analysis helps an organization to identify the internal strength and weakness of the company as well as the opportunities and threats lying in its external environment. Saudi Aramco holds a very strong value chain depending upon which the company enjoys huge

Chinese Modernist fiction Essay Example for Free

Chinese Modernist fiction Essay Chinese Modernist fiction is very complicated in terms of imagery and literary expression used by the author, as well as in terms of dual or multiple meanings of the works, but in general they express the mood of the epoch. Mu’s stories are to great extent experimental and vary between purely proletarian fiction and ‘dialect’ writings that express really deep thoughts through internal monologues and the use of dialogue as a tool of changing the characters’ self-perception or their impressions about their environment (MacDonald, 2004). Mu Shiying’s prose is often called â€Å"New Sensationist† (Xin ganjuepai) style of writing short stories whose plot often develops rapidly, whereas the picture the author has drawn at first remains unchengeable(MacDonald, 2004). â€Å"The name â€Å"New Sensationist† was derived from the Shinkankahu ha, a group of Japanese avant-garde writers from the 1920s and 1930s. However, the evidence is against the actual existence of a group of writers who called themselves â€Å"New Sensationist† in China† (MacDonald, 2004, p. 797). Nevertheless, Mu’s short story entitled â€Å"Five in a Nightclub† gives a number of sensational experiences, which this essay is designed to discuss. The first scene of the short story describes the intrinsic human need for material resources, the main drive of the business world: â€Å"Men with blood-shot eyes milled about the gold exchange. [†¦] The speculators devolved into brutes. The wind blew the reason from their minds and the steel from their nerves† (Shiying, 1992, p. 5), so that the first perception of Shanghai refers to the psychological tension between the people, who have suffered a lot from the adversities, brought about by life. The first episode represents the pace of Shanghai life: a person can lose their fortune or become rich in one moment, so the description of instability and nervousness refers to the lack of control over the situation, as if the participants were obedient marionettes in the hands of the powerful and malicious force. The second scene, depicting a young man, scornfully rejected by the girl he loves, also refers to the whims of fortune and more precisely –explains the sensation of hope; this feeling appears hovering or hanging over the place where Zheng Ping is waiting for his darling. The words he sent to the girl yesterday are, as he realizes, written to describe his today’s situation: â€Å"Stranger, O stranger! / Yesterday I was your slave. Today you say I’m a stranger†¦Ã¢â‚¬  (Shiying, 1992, p. 6). Importantly, there is a notable contrast between the first paragraphs, in which the author describes the character’s romantic thought, his illusionary closeness to the object of his strong feeling, and his disappointment and sorrow at the end, when â€Å"Zheng Ping’s hair turned white† (Shiying, 1992, p. 7). Fragments rapidly change one another. The short passage about a young woman, who has lost her beauty over the recent years, points to the perception of human body as machine that can be used: â€Å"Youth A – â€Å"Isn’t it Daisy Huang? She was the toast of the town five years ago! † Youth B – â€Å"Amen. She was quite a dish! †Ã¢â‚¬  (Shiying, 1992, p. 8). Accordingly, human beings do not belong completely to themselves, as they should always try hard to meet the requirements, imposed by society, especially those related to appearance and beauty. Ji Jie, the character, described in the next episode, is also lost in his self-identity and self-perception, so that he even fails to comprehend his real nature and the sense of his being in this world. Another character, battered cruelly by life, is Miao Zongdan, a clerk, who has been working hard for his career development and who receives a letter of dismissal. This episode is very similar to the first one, in which the sudden turning-point can ultimately change the individual’s life, destroy their desires, aspirations, ambitions – just like a high wave of tsunami that covers the person’s life. The first chapter of the short story therefore provides an overview of the psychological lives of certain dwellers of Shanghai, whereas the other people, surrounding them, remain indifferent, so that the average inhabitant of Shanghai is a ‘small person’, incapable of managing their fate. On the other hand, they should cope with their problems without any support from outside. The second chapter narrates about a typical Saturday night in Shanghai, or the bright underground life, heated by neon, alcohol and cigarettes: â€Å"Red streets, green streets, blue streets, purple streets†¦ City clad in strong colours! Dancing neon light – multi-coloured waves, scintillating waves, colourless waves – a sky filled with colour. The sky now had everything: wine, cigarettes, high-heels, clock-towers†¦Ã¢â‚¬  (Shiying, 1992, p. 10). Human mores become increasingly more relaxed at this time, and people are about to do unusual things, as such conducts are not likely to happen in the daylight. In the third chapter, Shanghai is described in merely two colors: black and white, that symbolize purity and dust, but flow together into a single glamour of the night club. In addition, one can note a mixture of different cultures in nightclub settings: the club itself is designed in European style, as the idea of night amusements in such settings derives from this continent, whereas the customers are Chinese; and the dancers who entertain the visitors are â€Å"Russian princesses† (Shiying, 1992, p. 11). This pre-arranged chaos influences the characters almost magically: their dreams seem to come true. The idea of saving night resembles the fairy tale theme: at daytime, the characters remain ugly beasts, whereas at night they turn into young and attractive princes and princesses, who become rich and are as a result surrounded by their admirers. In this sense, night is remedy against all daily troubles, as they all are resolved or fixed very quickly and naturally, as if the natural force that throws the characters into the depth of adversity and misfortune calms down at night – this magic conversion can be compared to black and white colors, which seem to be the major imagery in this place: â€Å"By the white tablecloths sit men dressed in formal evening attire: layers of black and white: black hair, white faces, black eyes, white collars, black ties, white starched shirts, black jackets, white waistcoats, black pants†¦black and white†¦Ã¢â‚¬  (Shiying, 1992, p. 10). The author seems to recognize only extremes, rather than the â€Å"golden middle† that balances the positive and negative forces and protects human psyche from excessively strong feelings and emotions. The city, in turn, also experiences a kind of transformation: whereas at daytime it looks like a huge technocratic monster that has only concrete and asphalt inside and is inhabited by people, who hurt each other with their apathy and indifference; at night it alters into a real paradise, filled with the radiance of happiness, kindness and friendliness. Noticeably, the characters in the night club interact with one another very dynamically and seem united by this atmosphere of common joy and relaxation. Nevertheless, this illusion of amusement seems unrealistic after the events, which took place in the afternoon; in spite of the miraculous healing of all human hardships, it contains the after-pains, which give the idea of the possible return of all daily problems once this wonderful night comes to its logical end. The depiction of the common excitement only reinforces the reader’s expectation of the future negative events, which will take place in the following morning or afternoon and shatter this positive emotional atmosphere. As for the characters in the nightclub settings, they are described as fragments, successfully integrated in an entity, as all of them manifest their self-confidence in almost the same way. For instance, Daisy re-gains her youth and beauty, so that nobody recognizes her, except her companion, Junyi, a gold baron: â€Å"†I’ve never been more sane in my life! † said Daisy, who had regained her composure. Suddenly she laughed again: â€Å"I will always be young. Oh, Junyi, let’s make a real night of it! † Daisy pulled Hu Junyi out onto the dance floor† (Shiying, 1992, p. 12). Later, Zheng Ping enters the club, looking drunk and happy because this time he has another girlfriend and therefore seems protected from the negative remembrances, which can be caused by Nina’s presence. Similarly to Daisy’s case, Zheng experiences a very short loss of nerves, but finally retakes self-control and focuses on his new girlfriend. Although Miao’s problem is not solved yet, he also joins the party and soon becomes drunk and happy. Whereas at first, Daisy and Hu’s joy seems natural, later the company is gradually falling into absolutely inhuman and unexplainable ecstasy that can be caused only by the overuse of spirits: â€Å"Everyone laughed with her – open mouths, open mouths, open mouth†¦ gaping holes that with every passing moment seemed less human† ((Shiying, 1992, p. 14). The characters have already joined to the nightclub atmosphere, primarily – because all of them have come with partners, so that they are no loner lonely and miserable. Ji Jie, despite the demonstrative happiness of the other four persons, is slowly sinking in the marsh of his own thoughts, in his hard mental work. Nevertheless, he is no longer depressed, as his visit to the club will probably allows him to find his identity and understand himself better. Moreover, he is described by the customers as a happy person: â€Å"Customer D – â€Å"He who has nothing to do after dinner and who can come here to break matchsticks is a happy man†. Customer C – â€Å" Even the drunkard with him is happy! He’s the guy who spilled the drink after badging in here. A while ago he was picking fights, now he’s telling jokes! † (Shiying, 1992, p. 18). Towards the end of the night the delight of the five characters begins to disappear, and the sensation of this night never seems to come again, as the problems, experienced by the five persons at daytime, are becoming more real. The sixth character, Jonny, later gets to know that her wife and newborn son are dead, but he is not allowed to leave the work and must continue entertaining the visitors with his music. The five personalities, who seemed cheerful to craze in the evening, are now described as â€Å"popped balloons† (Shiying, 1992, p. 20). All the characters later reconcile themselves to the fact that they are losers in this life, only Hu Junyi kills himself. His death is a milestone, after which the other characters open their true faces and confess to their tiredness of living. The night was nothing more than an attempt to repair the shattered lives, whose pieces turned out so small that it was impossible to paste them together. To sum up, the new perception of Shanghai is presented as never-ending rolling down, a journey through the severe daily reality and exaggeratedly euphoric night parties, which, however, quicken human degradation. Whiteness and blackness are never to mix together in Shanghai, so that its dwellers are fated to swinging between the two extremes, which are pain and delight. Either sooner, or later, the life of this small person will be shattered by the large city, as the short story narrates. Works cited MacDonald, S. The Shanghai Foxtrot by: Introduction. Modernism/modernity, Vol. 11 (4): pp. 797-807 Shiying, Mu. Five in a Nightclub, Renditions Spring 1992, pp. 5-22.

Performance Evaluation Task Essay Example for Free

Performance Evaluation Task Essay All employees want a fair and accurate performance evaluation. It’s it important that an evaluation reflect each employee’s job duties and how well they have performed. In this scenario, the engineer’s first performance review ended with him being angry over the way in which he was being evaluated. There were three main issues with the engineer’s evaluation. The engineer felt that no one in the company, including the plant manager was qualified to complete his annual review. He felt this way because he is the only trained engineer in the company. As a result, the engineer had little confidence in the way that he was being evaluated and was upset that most of his review was based on relationships with other co-workers and his own personal characteristics. For the second annual review the plant manager is exploring other options when it comes to evaluating the engineer. The three most commonly-used sets of evaluation criteria which should be used in evaluations are individual task outcomes, behaviors, and traits. In this scenario, the engineer could be judged on what he was able to accomplish. For example, the changes that the engineer suggested resulted in considerable savings on manufacturing energy cost and eliminated a significant safety hazard that had been previously overlooked. Behavior refers to not only how the employee works with others but also organizational performance, promptness, and suggestions for improvements. In the scenario, the engineer clashes with other employees and has a poor attitude towards co-workers. However, the engineer’s suggestions have led to positive changes with the company. Traits are referring to the engineer’s attitude, showing confidence, and being dependable. In this scenario, the engineer demonstrates a poor attitude towards co-workers and does not pay close attention when the manager is speaking. When you compare the most commonly used sets of criteria of claim evaluation the manager needs to determine the importance or weight of each category. Is what the employee achieved as important as how the tasks were done or that they got along with the other members of the team? What the engineer achieved is something that can be measured though the completion of tasks.  Behaviors and traits can be more subjective. It could be the engineer’s personality to be standoffish or he doesn’t socialize well with others. This doesn’t necessarily mean the engineer is not a successful employee. In the annual review, the manager should consider the outcome of his tasks as the highest priority. Behaviors should be the next factor, and finally traits. In an effort to get more buy in of the performance evaluation process, the plant manager can include the opinions of supervisors, peers, and subordinates. This is an example of a full 360-degree program. There are advantages and disadvantages to this process. The advantages include the hope to give everyone more of a sense of participation in the review process and gain more accurate readings on employee performance. The use of multiple sources is more likely to capture a variety of behavior more accurately. It also provides employees with a wider perspective of their performance. Some of the disadvantages of the 360 degree evaluation are that it has the potential to be misused. Some corporations allow employees to choose the people who evaluate them which can provide some inaccurate feedback. There can also be issues in handling disagreements and contradictions between those who complete the evaluations. (E-textbook) The plant manager will also need to consider how the engineer would be evaluated. There are several options when considering how to evaluate an employee. The first method that can be considered is a written essay. This is a written narrative describing an employee’s strengths, weaknesses, potential, performance, and suggestions for improvement. The success of this method can be determined as much by the evaluator’s writing ability as by the employee’s level of performance. Another method of evaluation is critical incidents. In this type of evaluation, the evaluator focuses on the behaviors that make the difference between performing a job effectively or ineffectively. It provides an example of what behaviors are wanted and those that are opportunity areas. The third and one of the most popular methods of evaluation is the use of graphic rating scales. In this evaluation method, a set of performance factors such has quality of work; cooperation, attendance, and initiative are noted. The evaluator rates each of the factors on incremental scales. One of the advantages to this method is that  they are less time consuming to complete. They also provide for easy analysis. However, evaluation methods can be biased and have as much to do with the evaluator as with the employee being evaluated. For example, the evaluator unintentionally can inflate an evaluation or even undervalue the evaluation. The evaluator can also be influenced by the assessment of one characteristic. Some evaluations can be biased by the evaluator favoring employees who have similar qualities to their own. Or in some cases, the evaluator can see the process as an opportunity to reward or punish employees. While the evaluation process at times is not perfect there are ways that it can be improved. In the scenario, the engineer feels that no one is qualified to complete his evaluation including the plant manager. He has little confidence in the evaluation process and that the rating themselves focus on personal characteristics and relationships with co-workers. One way to improve the evaluation process is to train evaluators. If no one is qualified then the company needs to make a qualified evaluator. Training someone to be an evaluator can make for more accurate ratings of an employee. This can help to build confidence that the evaluations are accurate and fair. Another alternative is to use multiple evaluators such as in the 360-degree method. This provides an opportunity to achieve more accurate evaluations. The evaluators can review different areas of job performance such as evaluating suggestions for improvements and personal characteristics. A third option is to evaluate selectively. In the scenario, the evaluation would only be done by someone who has some expertise in the area in which they are evaluating. This again can help the engineer have confidence in the evaluations that are being completed. In conclusion, the engineer wants a fair and accurate evaluation. He wants to have confidence in the people who are completing that evaluation and that he is being evaluated on criteria such as improvements to company and how timely and effectively his tasks are completed.

Pulp Fiction By Quentin Tarantino | Analysis

Pulp Fiction By Quentin Tarantino | Analysis If you take no pleasure in popular culture, with all its manic excesses, then you are likely to be bewildered and even offended, by Quentin Tarantinos extraordinary film, Pulp Fiction. Tarantino unapologetically enjoys popular culture at the same time that he satirizes it. Unfortunately, he also seems to specialize in violence. Still, taken on its own terms, Pulp Fiction is a rare accomplishment; it opens a new aesthetic horizon in film. Like Van Goghs sunflowers, the ordinary suddenly takes on a striking vibrancy; from the dazzling title colors on, it is easy to recognize the artist, but almost impossible to imagine how one could imitate him. Tarantino, a one-time video store clerk, now the hottest director in Hollywood, has memory banks packed with movies and he draws on some of the most ordinary to create something brilliantly original. This is no experimental film of intellectual pretensions and high-brow obscurantism. Pulp Fiction has built a cult following, even as its mother-f reaking language and graphic violence offends others. Violence in film is a serious matter, and for some people an inexcusable offense. They can see no justification for the scene in which John Travoltas character accidentally blows a young mans brains out. Even worse for those concerned about film violence, most of the audience laughed despite the spatter of blood and brain tissue and with spontaneous amusement, not the nervous hysteria often heard at horror films. The violence of Pulp Fiction is essential to its aesthetic; though he knew that many would complain, Tarantino meant the audience to laugh. Deliberately violating the conventions of action-violence films, Tarantino re-imagines stylized moments of violence and exaggerates them until they are almost surrealistic. Then he creates dialogue that leads up to the violence and then away from it. When most directors would be building tension and suspense, Tarantino has his killers chatting. When most directors would cut away from the violence, Tarantino stays with the aftermath. And he has achieved something I would have thought impossible; he has made violence humorous by doing it tongue-in-cheek and the tongue has a stud in it. Tarantinos film garnered top honors at the Cannes Film Festival but will probably pay for its punkness at the Oscars. Its box office success, however, should comfort the many aspiring Hollywood directors who dream of doing something different. But they will not find it easy to follow in Tarantinos tracks. His film is put together with touch, spin, and nuance, and then goes off in your face like a letter bomb. What Tarantino has crafted in this film can be best appreciated in the performance he has extracted from John Travolta. In 1977, Travolta gave his unforgettable portrayal of the cock-of-the-walk dancer in Saturday Night Fever. Far from a natural dancer, he nonetheless gave a heart-winning performance. Ever since then, he has been fighting the battle of the bulge and trying with less and less success to prove that he can act. One might have concluded that he was too old, too fat, and too far over the hill for Pulp Fiction. But it turns out that he is brilliantly cast in the film; everything wrong about him is right for this part. In his early-forties he still has a teenagers winning vulnerability. His broad mouth and high cheek bones are now bejowled but there is still a promise of sensuality in that ruined face. His appealing and familiar presence brings just the feel of movie nostalgia Tarantino wanted. Travolta plays a laid back, get-along kind of guy who is living a depraved and drug-addicted life as a paid killer, but has an astonishingly innocent soul, as do most of Tarantinos low-life characters. This innocence in depravity is Pulp Fictions central theme. It keeps the film from being an exercise in sado-masochistic perversity; it is the source of its humor and its creative energy. The film title Pulp Fiction harks back to the 30s and 40s when newsstands featured an array of monthly short story magazines. Among the most popular were those about hard-nosed private investigators. Written by such authors as Dashiell Hammet, Raymond Chandler, and James M. Cain, these stories were the forerunners of dark, city crime movies that became film noir. Pulp fiction stories typically began in the front of the magazine, competing for the readers attention, and were then continued in the back. Tarantino, though not old enough to remember this genre of pulp fiction, has put his film together as if he had that structure in mind. We begin with one short story: a hopped-up British couple (Amanda Plummer and Tim Roth) deciding to rob the coffee shop where they are having breakfast. Before they do, we turn the page a dark screen to the next story of Travolta and Jackson going off to retrieve a mysterious briefcase and to kill some drug dealers who didnt pay off their boss. Then another dark screen to the childhood of the Bruce Willis character who grows up to be the boxer who refuses to throw the fight. Unlike the old pulp fiction magazines, the triptych of stories eventually comes together as the seemingly disparate plots are interwoven by coincidence and by Tarantinos central theme. Because the film is set in Los Angeles, its anthology structure may of course owe much more to Robert Altmans Shortcuts or to his brilliant Nashville than to pulp fiction magazines. But Tarantinos borrowings are no defect. He is winking at his audience; he wants them to be aware of his references. The more they recognize the more they will enjoy the texture of his tapestry. It is because John Travolta carries so much baggage that he is so wonderful in this film. Moreover, everything Tarantino borrows is a clichà © that has been given an original spin. Pulp Fiction takes the dead genre of film noir and gives it new life. Finally, Tarantinos startling humor takes his film beyond anything he has drawn from others. Tarantinos interweaving of his three stories complicates the linear time structure of each plot. The most surprising result is that the Travolta character is killed only to reappear in the final scene of the movie, which took place earlier and is presented out of sequence. Once you figure out the puzzle, it becomes clear that Tarantino is playing with convention rather than rejecting or deconstructing it. Tarantinos entire film is playful, but he is playing with the imaginary world of film, not with reality itself. There can be no doubt that the self-taught Tarantino intends to shock his audience. The many scenes of graphic violence testify to that. European film-makers are concerned that violence in American film is pornography that appeals to the lowest common denominator and, like American fast food, is destroying the taste for better things. Some psychologists believe that film and TV violence teach Americas young people to be violent, or at the very least, inure them to real-life violence. Perhaps most troubling is the idea that graphic violence, like pornography, exploits an appetite in our basest instincts that degrades rather than edifies. Many people are refusing to see this film and a surprising number of my middle-aged friends report that their teenage children love it but have warned them they will hate the film. These reactions to the violence are too important to be dismissed, but I do not believe that Tarantino has dismissed them. His film exploits violence but as the jury at Can nes recognized he is neither lacking in moral sensibility nor, even though he wallows in popular culture, is he a Philistine. If violence is a form of pornography, then like pornography it presents the same problem of line-drawing between exploiting our passions and edifying them. But as our modern courts have recognized, it is necessary to go beyond that simple categorical distinction and ask whether an admittedly exploitive work of art has redeeming social value. When Shakespeare wrote Hamlet and King Lear, he intended to exploit his audiences violent passions as well as to edify them. There is, after all, a great deal of violence, even graphic violence, in Lear remember out vile jelly as Cornwall gouges out Gloucesters eyes on stage. The greatest works of Western Civilization mock those who count graphic violence as ipso facto unredeemable exploitation. This is not to say that Tarantino intends to redeem the violence; if anything, he seems to be mocking the arbiters of good taste with his wicked humor. This is most blatant, not in the scenes of violence, but in the quirky introduction to the Bruce Willis/boxer story. Christopher Walken, an actor who will be remembered for his Oscar-winning performance in Deer Hunter (a Vietnam war-film), makes a brief appearance in Pulp Fiction as a former Vietnam POW. He has come to deliver his dead cellmates gold watch to the young boy who never knew his father. The Walken character begins to tell the boy what happened to his father in standard heroic pulp fiction rhetoric, but then veers perversely into a description of the intestinal orifice where the father hid the watch, and the intestinal disorders that complicated its concealment. It is an account that no sane adult would give a child and a scene right out of a graffiti imagination. Other directors are capable of imagining such graffiti, but Tarantino was brash enough to keep it in his film. Like all toilet graffiti it can be understood as an example of adolescent bad taste and Tarantino knows that. It is gross, it is inappropriate, it is irreverent, and one can understand why the younger generation would be warning off their fuddy-duddy parents. Yet even this heavy-handed moment belongs in the film. The scene begins as a patriotic-die-for-your-country clichà © in which the reality of how the gold watch survived would have been unimagined. Tarantinos script takes up the challenge of an explanation and as he veers into scatology, he gives the finger to the false norm of noble death in all such war clichà ©s. But Tarantino is interested less in making an anti-war gesture than in doing a send-up of a movie clichà ©. Similarly, this is not an anti-violence film . It is a send up of movie violence. One astute teenage critic remarked that Tarantino learned something from his first film, Reservoir Dogs. All the guys in her high school loved the macho violence but there was not much in this male-oriented film for her and her female friends. Despite its violence and male orientation, Pulp Fiction has something for the female gender, particularly the scenes between Travolta and Uma Thurman. This teenage critic and her girl friends especially enjoyed the episode in which the Travolta character is required to entertain the black crime boss white wife (Uma Thurman). The previous man charged with this task had given her a foot massage; the boss took umbrage and had the massager thrown out of a four-story window. The Travolta-Thurman episode quickly turns into an over-the-top parody of a blind date. Travolta prepares himself by going to his drug dealer for a batch of the ultimate hit a mixture of cocaine and heroin that only a seasoned addict could tolerate. Travolta mainlines the stuff the way a nervous guy might take a drink to boost his confidence before a date. Meanwhile, Uma Thurman is sniffing cocaine, not because shes uneasy, but because she is a man-eater whetting her appetite. Thurman takes Travolta to a dance contest where they do the twist, to the delight of Saturday Night Fever fans. Tarantinos elaborate set features vintage 50s convertibles as booths, pop culture look-alikes as servers, top-of-the-charts music, all of it so extravagant in its evocation of nostalgia as to be unreal. The scene is somehow true to the spirit of Pulp Fiction, a film that parodies popular culture without ever condescending to those who take pleasure in it. The Travolta/Thurman blind date has clever dialogue, the twist is a trip, and the sexual tension escalates as they tango back into her home at the end of the evening. But while Travolta is in the toilet (it turns out he is always in the toilet at critical moments) Thurman finds his drug stash, snorts it, and overdoses. Instead of a sexual conclusion, the evening ends with a slapstick resuscitation involving a huge syringe stuck in her sternum. In this funny and surreal scene it becomes clear that Travolta and his low-life friends are playing overaged adolescents. Indeed the whole film has the spirit, energy, and sensibility of adolescence. No wonder teenagers love it. Although Tarantino wants to shock us with violence, his film is politically correct. There is no nudity and no violence directed against women; in fact a man, the crime boss, gets raped and the only essentially evil people in the film are two sadistic honkies straight out of Deliverance who do the raping. The film celebrates interracial friendship and cultural diversity; there are strong women and strong black men, and the director swims against the current of class stereotype. It is the British couple who, out of place in Los Angeles in the very first scene, fill the sound track with British-accented mother fuckers. Amanda Plummer, who was born to play Ophelia, does a crazed Honey Bunny to Tim Roths Pumpkin. They are two waifs holding hands in the storm of their strung-outness on drugs and their hare-brained career of sticking up liquor stores. The juxtaposition of their lost teddy bear attachment to each other with their nervous trigger-finger desperation establishes Tarantinos tone of innocence in depravity. Samuel Jackson, who will best be remembered as the drug-addicted older brother in Spike Lees Jungle Fever, sustains that tone as Travoltas hit-man partner. His presence on the screen is a match for Travolta; he has a face that looks different in every camera angle and he radiates strength. These professional killers engage first in an earnest discussion about the European nomenclature of American fast foods and then a subtle analysis of the sexual si gnificance of the foot massage as they make their way to the apartment where they will kill three men. The Jackson character miraculously eludes a point-blank fusillade of bullets. As they leave, they debate whether he was saved by divine intervention or simple luck. Jackson, who quotes from Ezekiel to spellbinding effect when he kills people, suddenly understands his Biblical text in a quite different way. As it turns out, his life and perhaps if it is possible for a killer his soul will be saved by this epiphany. This theme of redemption is present in each of the three stories. Willis as Butch the boxer rescues his would-be killer, the black crime boss, from the honkey rapists. Butch, who was to be their next victim, has the opportunity to escape, but goes back. Redeemed by this act of solidarity, he is forgiven by the crime boss for not throwing the fight and is sent on his way. The British couple are also saved. They try to rob Jackson who has ended up in the restaurant where the film began. He has drawn his gun under the table and could easily blow them both away. Instead, in the spirit of justice and honor that prevails among the low-lifes in this film, Jackson does the right thing. He stares the amateur criminals down, letting them take his own money but not the mysterious briefcase that he is dutifully returning to the crime boss. We believe that the strung-out British couple are capable of a killing rampage in the restaurant Amanda Plummer is a remarkable sight standing on a restaurant table screaming obscenities and waving a Saturday-night special. We also know that the day before Jackson would have killed them without blinking an eye, and that he will have to kill them today if they try to take the boss briefcase. Instead Jackson sends the couple peacefully out of the restaurant clutching each other and a trash bag filled with stolen money. But the best scenes involve Jackson and Travolta. When they are not killing, they are like college sophomores, one black, one white both amateur philosophers eager to share their ideas and experiences. Tarantinos ingenious dialogue humanizes their homocidal partnership. The improbable juxtaposition of their earnest dialogue and the violence is the stylistic twist that allows us to laugh at the spatter of brains and blood in the backseat of their car. Travolta reacts like a teenager unjustly blamed by his buddy for accidentally spilling the beer. And like children of over-indulgent parents, they have no idea how to clean up the mess. Yes, they seem oblivious to the fact that a person has been killed. In that light their conversation is ludicrous. But this absurd dialogue unexpectedly transforms the meaning of the violence clichà ©. If Tarantino wanted to defend his film, this is where he could make his strongest arguments. Pulp Fiction unmasks the macho myth by making it laughable and deheroicizes the power trip glorified by standard Hollywood violence. But Tarantino is irreverent, not didactic. He goes from Road-Runner cartoon-violence humor in the Bruce Willis segment to whips and chain homosexual rape that silences the laughter. Tarantino will stop at nothing and yet never loses control. He dives into a nightmare and comes up with something funny, taking his audience up and down with him. Though Tarantino thinks his screenplay is funny, and would be disappointed if no one laughed, he doesnt consider Pulp Fiction a comedy. He is quite right; but if you dont get the studded tongue-in-cheek humor, you may not li ke this extraordinary movie.

The Donner Party and the American Character :: essays research papers

According to the thesis of Fredrick Jackson Turner, the frontier changed America. Americans, from the earliest settlement, were always on the frontier, for they were always expanding to the west. It was Manifest Destiny; spreading American culture westward was so apparent and so powerful that it couldn’t be stopped. Turner’s Frontier Theory says that this continuous exposure to the frontier has shaped the American character. The frontier made the American settlers revert back to the primitive, stripping them from their European culture. They then created something brand new; it’s what we know today as the American character. Turner argues that we, as a culture, are a product of the frontier. The uniquely American personality includes such traits as individualism, futuristic, democratic, aggressiveness, inquisitiveness, materialistic, expedite, pragmatic, and optimistic. And perhaps what exemplifies this American personality the most is the story of the Donner Pa rty.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  When their journey began in 1846, the members of the Donner and Reed families had high hopes of reaching California, and they would settle at nothing less. Their dream of making a new life for themselves represented great determination. When their packed wagons rolled out of Springfield, Missouri, they thought of their future lives in California. The Reed family’s two-story wagon was actually called the â€Å"pioneer palace car†, because it was full of everything imaginable including an iron stove and cushioned seats and bunks for sleeping. They didn’t want to leave their materialistic way of life at home.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  However, the Donner Party also possessed the American trait of expediency, which ultimately caused their party many deaths. Taking the advice of Lansford Hastings, the author of The Emigrants’ Guide to Oregon and California, the Donner Party took the supposed new and faster route that cut under the Great Salt Lake to California. However, even when they were trapped under several feet of Sierra Nevada snows, they didn’t give up; perseverance and optimism prevailed. Soon after many days trapped in makeshift shelters beneath the mountains, the emigrants ran out of food. With their pragmatic minds, they ate every bit of their oxen they could including boiled hides and charred bones. Being practical, they also ate bark, twigs, and leaves. They had to eat something; it was still survival of the fittest.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Some members of the Donner Party were courageous and determined enough to venture over the mountains to California to get relief. A small group set out, along with two Indian guides.

Factory Farms and Animal Cruelty Essay -- Religion Morals Animal Right

Factory Farms and Animal Cruelty Imagine that Christ meant these words literally. Imagine that accepting Christ as your personal savior required lunching with him. Of course, if Christ were coming over today for lunch, you would probably dust, vacuum, adjust the pictures on the walls, pick your best outfit, comb your hair, jot down a few questions about heaven. But what would the two of you eat? Would you serve Christ fried chicken? How would you feel about setting a plate of steaming, sizzling pork chops in front of your savior? A few hard-boiled eggs wouldn't hurt, right? Maybe a glass of milk to wash it all down? For many Christians, faith has little to do with what's in the fridge. Lunch with Christ would raise issues far more problematic than choice of food. However, I propose that if the above-mentioned foods came from modern factory farms, Christ would not eat or drink them. I will argue that Christians are obligated to be morally concerned about animals, and that this obligation brings Christians into moral conflict with modern factory farms. Furthermore, I will argue that Catholic Social Teaching (hereafter "CST") should emphasize a theocentric basis for such obligation and conflict. Rethinking Aquinas: Why Animals Matter Some Christians think the words "animal rights" smack of wacky liberalism or of sentimentality. Such thinking presupposes that animals are not proper objects of moral concern. After all, in Genesis God commanded Adam to rule over creation. God gave Noah "everything that lives and moves" for food (Gen. 1:28). Therefore, according to this way of thinking, animals exist exclusively as means to human ends. This position, which I call the Utility Thesis, does agree with some traditional Ca... ...nson, Andrew. Factory Farms. Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1991. Linzey, Andrew. Introduction. Animals on the Agenda. Ed. A. Linzey et al. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1998. ---."The Theos-Rights of Animals." Animals and Christianity. Ed. A.Linzey et al. New York: Crossroad, 1990. Paape, Max. "Researchers Develop Effective Mastitis Treatments." Agricultural Research Service. 14 Jul. 2005. United States Department of Agriculture. 1 Nov. 2004 http://www.ars.usda.gov/is/np/ha/han15.htm Regan, Tom. Introduction. Animal Rights and Human Obligations. Ed. A. Linzey et al. New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, 1976. Regan, Tom. "A Reply to Griffiths." Animals and Christianity. Ed. A. Linzey et al. New York: Crossroad, 1990. Wojtyla, Karol. "On Social Concern." Catholic Social Teaching. Office For Social Justice. 1 Nov. 2004 www.osjspm.org/cst/srs.htm

Analysis of The Sport of the Gods by Paul Essay -- The Sport of the Go

Analysis of The Sport of the Gods by Paul The book "The Sport of the Gods" by Paul is about an African American servant named Berry Hamilton who lived with Fannie and two kids, a son named Joe and daughter named Kit. They lived in a little cottage that sat in the back of the mansion of his employer Maurice Oakley. Berry had been a butler for Mr. Oakley for twenty years. Berry was a loyal and hard working man for Mr. Oakley. Mr. Oakley treated him with so much respect and gave him so much that Berry felt that he had no choice but to serve him the way he did. Mr. Oakley could always depend on Berry Hamilton, until the day that Francis Oakley noticed that he hadn't locked up the drawer where he hide his money. When he opened the drawer, praying that no one had took the money, to his surprise it was gone. Francis told his brother Maurice and after the party was over and everyone was gone they called a detective to find the missing money. While walking around the room the detective noticed Berry's cottage out of the window. He sa id that it was a possibility that Berry was the thief. Mr. Oakley couldn't believe what he was hearing. He had always trusted Berry and thought that he would never steal from him, especially after all that he had done for him. The next day the detective was at Mr. Oakley's home waiting to speak with him about his case of the missing money. The detective reported that the same day the money was missing Berry had deposited over eight hundred dollars, the...

Practicability of Feng Shui

Practicality of Feng Shui by : Ricci Rodriguez Feng Shui is the ancient Chinese art of placement. It is also considered an art that hosts knowledge on how to balance worldly energies, also known as â€Å"Chi† in China. The surrounding landscape as well as the objects, layout and emotions in an environment affect this flow of energy. When a space is filled with positive energy and symbols, an individual will feel happy and motivated. Feng† and â€Å"Shui† means â€Å"wind† and â€Å"water† respectively. Wind and water are, first and foremost, natural elements (two of the five elements that comprise all of nature). Wind is the earth’s breath, and water is the invigorating lifeblood of everything that exists on our planet. Both wind and water have tremendous energy that drives Feng Shui's practices and techniques to fill life with positive energies.Feng Shui, at its very core is a means of arranging the basic elements of life—and all the t hings that an individual surrounds himself with on a daily basis— to create the optimal and harmonious flow of vital life energy, just like the flow of water and wind. Feng Shui is not only popular in China, but also in the Philippines. Teresita Ang See, a Filipino-Chinese leader and scholar, said that relations between the Philippines and China date back to pre-historic times, and many Chinese influences have long been integrated into Philippine culture.See, born and raised in the Philippines, said the impact can be seen in various aspects of Philippine life – from names of common household items and food served during festive celebrations, to business practices and even farming techniques, â€Å"Chinese influences have been embedded into the tapestry of Philippine culture so much so that some often could no longer distinguish it as Chinese, and there's no need to distinguish it as Chinese,† she added. Joy Lim, one of the most sought-after Feng Shui consultants in the Philippines, said Filipinos have become more aware of the usefulness of FengShui – the ancient Chinese practice of placement and arrangement of space to achieve harmony with the environment – and its application in their daily lives. â€Å"Maybe because they see successful Chinese businessmen practicing Feng Shui and they see there's really no harm in trying to have a better life by practicing Feng Shui,† she said. Feng Shui is no magic. It is a collection of practical, time-tested solutions based on the fundamental properties of elements that are used to change the negative aspects and introduce the positive aspects of each element to your living environment—and change your life for the better.I will base the practicality of Feng Shui on three categories: Practicability, Usefulness and Effectiveness. First is practicability, how is something practicable? By definition, something is practicable if it is capable of being done or put into practice. A lot of Feng Shui’s practices commonly involve things we usually do in our everyday life and are easy to follow. For example, merely cleaning our surrounding, such as bedrooms or workplaces and organizing our things are already practices used in Feng Shui.Most of the tips or advices given by Feng Shui are being done in our daily life anyways, so it becomes easy to apply and can be done naturally. So therefore, yes, Feng Shui is practicable. Second is usefulness. Feng Shui is useful since not only does it help improve our surroundings, but also helps improve our health and our environment’s appearance. For instance, throwing out the garbage and things we don’t really need, this itself is already a first-step to maintaining a healthy household.As for the environment’s appearance and well-being, Feng Shui helps improve it through maximizing space, resources and by â€Å"bringing life† into the room. The teachings include how to position the furniture s, how to pick colors to suit the location, which colors go with each other, what lighting to use, and even to incorporate plants in the room. Example of these are that Feng shui followers are encouraged to refrain from having objects on view in their homes which may disturb and unsettle their subconscious.Hence sharp angled objects, like plants with pointed leaves and the corners of square tables, are not suitable for individuals who want to create a harmonious place to live or work. Another feng shui rule that makes sense is to do with clocks and time. If you follow feng shui you’re not supposed to have a clock in your dining room. Being able to see it frequently will spoil the experience of eating and relaxing with your fellow tablemates as you keep checking to see how much time has passed. These practices make a house more livable and healthier to live in.So, in these terms, yes, Feng Shui is useful. Third and the last, effectiveness, Feng Shui can be said to be effective if it has produced the intended or expected effect. So, is it effective? A Feng Shui business consultation may enhance a company's goals, growth, wealth, and prosperity while creating a pleasant working environment that supports staff members. Again, adjustments are usually easy and cost effective. Perhaps a plant or a fountain would be added in the proper locale to increase wealth and prosperity.The location of the CEO's office, positioning of desks and/or cash registers, and the shape of the overall office or building are some factors to evaluate. And according to Ann Bingley Gallops, a Feng Shui consultant and expert, â€Å"I started my Feng Shui career because I wanted to transform other people’s lives as mine had changed over 14 years ago, thanks to Feng Shui. I’d just gotten divorced, wasn’t happy at work, and generally felt that things weren’t going so well in my life.At this critical moment I enrolled in a Feng Shui course at  New York’ s Open Center. It was the first of many synchronicities I was about to experience, thanks to Feng Shui. I made changes like, rearranging furniture, clearing clutter and changing colors and artwork. My apartment looked and felt like a completely different place: nourishing, welcoming, energized. I discovered that the power of Feng Shui is the power of Intention, with visible and physical energies to back it up. And that’s how I arrived at the point I’m at today.Basing on these experiences and many other personal stories, then yes, Feng Shui is effective. Once again, Feng Shui is an old, ancient art that can affect a person’s life whether for the better through applying it’s practices, Feng Shui not only relies its â€Å"powers† on luck, but also on scientific reasoning and common sense and finally, Feng Shui is practical because it is practicable, useful and effective. Reference: Barett, Jayme. â€Å"Feng Shui: What Is It and Where Does It Come Fro m?. †Ã‚  MindBodyGreen. MindBodyGreen, 17/03/2010.Web. 1 Oct 2012. Gallops, Ann. â€Å"How Feng Shui Changed My Life. â€Å"openspacesfengshui. Open Spaces Feng Shui, 07/10/2010. Web. 6 Oct 2012. ;http://openspacesfengshui. com/feng-shui-tips/2010/07/how-feng-shui-changed-my-life/;. Nation, . â€Å"Feng Shui grows among Chinese influences in the Philippines. †Ã‚  The Feng Shui Society. Society News, 01/10/2011. Web. 1 Oct 2012. Ruston, Sheri. â€Å"Feng Shui Will Change Your Life!. â€Å"Healthy Space. N. p. , 07/2001. Web. 6 Oct 2012. Wang, Mike. â€Å"What is Feng Shui?. †Ã‚  The Spiritual Feng Shui.Eternal Sunshine, n. d. Web. 1 Oct 2012. ;http://www. thespiritualfengshui. com/what-is-feng-shui. php;. Webber, Bridget. â€Å"The Psychology of Feng Shui: Is Feng Shui Really an Effective Remedy?. †Ã‚  green-building. Knoji, 05/25/2011. Web. 6 Oct 2012. Yap, Joey. â€Å"What Is Feng Shui – A Science or Belief?. â€Å"ezinearticles. Ezinearticle s, 04/08/2011. Web. 1 Oct 2012. . â€Å"What is Feng Shui?. †Ã‚  Indobase Feng Shui. indobase, n. d. Web. 1 Oct 2012. ;http://www. indobase. com/fengshui/what-is-feng-shui. html;.

Business Model of Total Essay

1 Introduction There is no special and particular slogan used by transmit through its products. Total is using different slogans for their several kind of product lines in the countries, where they sale the products. â€Å"Winners fill up with TOTAL!† is the slogan in Germany for the B2C segment for their filling stations. 2 Company Profile – TOTAL The former â€Å"Compagnie francaise des pà ©troles†, now TOTAL S.A., is founded on March 28th in 1924, together with its subsidiaries and affiliates. The history of TOTAL began in the Iraqi sands in the 1920s. TOTAL began its Upstream in the Middle East in 1924. Over the past decades the company grew up, developed and expanded its presence throughout the world. Since 1999, the company has strengthened itself by merging with PetroFina and, at the beginning of 2000, with Elf Aquitaine, so as to join the small club of oil and natural gas majors. Today TOTAL is one of France largest corporations and the world ´s fifth largest publicly-traded integrated international oil and gas company.3 TOTAL is committed to meeting growing energy demand while consistently acting as a responsible corporate citizen.4 The company is registered in office 2, place Jean Miller, La Dà ©fense 6, 92400 Courbevoie, France. Up to and including the fiscal year 2011, TOTAL, with all its subsidiaries and affiliates, employs 96.104 people. 3 Business Model Canvas – applied by TOTAL â€Å"A business model describes the rational of how an organization creates, delivers and captures value.†5 The Business Model Canvas uses nine different perspectives, in order to portrait where the value of a company is created. It focuses on customer segments, value propositions, distribution channels, customer relationships, revenue streams, key resources, key activities, key partnerships and cost structure.6 The following sections are going to elaborate the theoretic basis of the Business Model Canvas and how it is practically applied by TOTAL. 3.1 Customer Segments Customers are the heart of every business or commercial model. Therefore they are one of the most important stakeholders of a company and to have them is the basis requirement for an economic venture. In order to be successful on the market, products should be designed according to customers ´ needs. Those needs can either be common or rather specific. Customers should be segmented. This depends on different expectations towards profitability, distribution channel or especially the price. Those segments are also divided in groups like common needs, common behaviors or other characteristic features. Kinds of customers segments can be the mass market or the alcove market. 7 As general definition customer segmentation is understand as the act of separating a group of clients into sets of similar individuals that are related from a marketing or demographic perspective. For example, a business that practices customer segmentation might group its current or potential customers according to their gender, buying tendencies, age group and special interests.8 Due to the fact that TOTAL is a company in the sector of power production, they are purchasing the strategy of customer segmentation to fulfill the different expectations at a best possible rate. On account of the spheres of business TOTAL operates in the area of the mass market, if you would lay a focus on the petrol production. Therefore TOTAL is one of the biggest suppliers in the transportation sector. But the company’s products are segmented by the different market segments. The business segment mainly focuses on 3 different branches: upstream, downstream and the energy sector. These branches are divided as follows9:  · Upstream: oil and gas transportation, development and production, liquefied natural gas  · Downstream: refining, petrochemicals, specialty chemicals, marketing and the trading and shipping of crude oil and petroleum products  · Energy sector: equity stakes in coal mines, operations in the power generation and renewable energy 3.6 Key Resources Depending on the field of business companies need different resources. According to Canvas ´ describes the component of the key resources the most economic goods which are necessary for functioning a business model.26 According to Canvas` TOTAL has the four from Osterwalder/Pigneur mentioned key resources. Physically, intellectually, humanly and financially. To bore after oil and gas and to produce fuel, lubricants and other goods from that, it ´s necessary to have appropriate production plants and equipments. Because these are capital-intensive the financial resource arises from that. To open pools or to allow constructing new offshore construction works the enterprise needs the necessary financial items. Among other things these were gained in the course of the company ´s history. Chemicals and special fluids, also the different fuels, need the humanly and intellectually resources. The mixture of all these four resources gives TOTAL the possibility to handle its operations in 150 countries. That there ´s a dependence between the key resources is visibly with the fact that TOTAL invested â‚ ¬ 776 million for R&D in the year 2011. It ´s necessary to have a good combination between all key resources to get benefits of these investments. 3.7 Key activities The component of the key activities describes the most important things which an enterprise must do, so that its commercial model functions.27 In combination with key resources, key activities are responsible for creating unique products and services to carry out the value of the enterprise. The promotion of oil and gas, as well as the production of fuels belongs definitely to the key activity of the company. Secondly a very important one is the know-how and the ability to create a functioning logistics network to operate through the countries all over the world with the different suppliers and customers. 26 Osterwalder/Pigneur (2011) p.38 27 Osterwalder/Pigneur (2011) p.40 10 3.8 Key partners Key partners are the network of suppliers and partners who contribute to the success of the commercial model.28 First of all TOTAL endeavors to use local suppliers of goods and services as often as it ´s possible. This action contents to the local content programs. TOTAL stands for using local resources. Programs are aligned with the project ´s technical characteristics and local industry. Special key partners are not able to indentify. TOTAL mentioned by itself, that the company purchased â‚ ¬ 27 billion of goods and services from roughly 50,000 active suppliers worldwide. 3.9 Cost structure The cost structure describes all expenses which result by the execution of a commercial model.29 This is the definition within the Canvas` model. In general a cost structure is a method to determine how much it will cost a company to manufacture a product and how much profit will be recognized from manufacturing the product.30 TOTAL has a mix of cost-driven and value-driven business model. Covered to the limited reserves of the fossil raw materials TOTAL invests millions of Euros into Research and Development. It is for developing unique and innovative products for helping to reduce energy consumption but also to find new resources of raw material like oil and gas or coal. Secondly a great part of the R&D portfolio goes to the sector of renewable energy like solar and photovoltaic. The biggest part of the Total expenses falls to the production of the several economic goods. 4 Conclusion The TOTAL ´s business model is very effective. According to the several different economic goods TOTAL is producing, the customers are focused by creating value added processes that are fulfilling their basically needs along with a comprehensive growth of revenue. With production plants and service 28 Osterwalder/Pigneur (2011) p.42 29 Osterwalder/Pigneur (2011) p.44 30 http://businessdictionary.com/definition/cost-structure.html 11 stations in 150 countries, a sales of about â‚ ¬ 184,693 billion, purchasing goods & services of â‚ ¬ 27 billion from about 50,000 active suppliers worldwide TOTAL is the fifth biggest oil and gas production company of the world. In order to the growing markets in Asia, especially the Chinese market, TOTAL could be able to increase their sales because of the increasing energy consumption in this area. It is not easy to imagine, that they are able to enter new markets, because they are operating worldwide and satisfy the energy needs of the private and business customers all over the world. Taking into account of the dropping reserves of fossil fuels it becomes inevitably furthermore to engage very intensively in sector of the renewable energy.