Tuesday, November 26, 2019

Opium War as a Turning Point in World History essays

Opium War as a Turning Point in World History essays For hundreds of years before the nineteenth century, Westerners had been trying to gain a strong economic foothold in China. However, they were limited to one small, designated commercial outlet in Canton. The British were not satisfied with these arrangements and they yearned to reach a larger crowd. Despite negotiations with China through those such as Lord Macartney and Lord Almherst, new arrangements could not be made. The Chinese, who already had a self-sufficient economy, did not want their culture to be tainted by Westernization. In the 1800s, the British devised a scheme to commercialize in China. They would use opium, a highly addictive narcotic that produces a rush of euphoria followed by an intense dreamy state. Opium was grown in northeastern India, which was controlled by the British East India Company at the time, and sent to China, where it had been used for medicinal purposes for hundreds of years. Although the Chinese had officially prohibited the use of opium, the drug was in high demand and the British, who were known was leaders in the drug trade, wasted no time marketing and profiting from this lucrative venture. The Chinese, unfortunately, gradually became unable to balance their trade of tea and silk for opium and turned to smuggling. In 1839, Lin Zexu was appointed by the Chinese government to help stop the Opium Trade. He tried to appeal to Britains Queen Victoria through morals and practical grounds, but the British refused to hear him stating that if the Chinese didnt want the opium they wouldnt buy it. He even threatened to stop the trade of rhubarb, which Europeans used as a laxative. After negotiations with Queen Victoria failed, Lin Zexu began to impose penalties upon smokers, arrest dealers, and seize supplies from drug traffickers. Unluckily, when he tried to blockade the foreign factory area in Canton, the British retaliated and launched a naval attack that began the Opiu...

Friday, November 22, 2019

6 really smart answers to the toughest interview questions

6 really smart answers to the toughest interview questions You’re in a job interview, and have been rocking all the usual questions that come your way. What’s your five-year plan? Tell me about your last job. What brought you to this industry in the first place? Then there’s a question that stumps you a little, and you pause. Uh oh, they’ve hit a gap in your prep, or touched on an uncomfortable subject. How do you deal with questions that you didn’t anticipate? Let’s look at some of the toughest interview questions, and some sample responses.I know everyone has a go-to â€Å"weakness† in these job interviews, but what’s your real biggest weakness?I tend to take on too much myself, because I have high standards and get impatient when others don’t meet them. But I’m working on my delegating skills and learning how to let others do their jobs while I do mine.Why do you have so many jobs on your resume? Do you consider yourself a â€Å"job hopper†?No, I don’t thi nk of it that way. I have been very faithful to my vision when it comes to my career. I have very specific goals, long-term, and have taken advantage of growth opportunities along the way when certain jobs started to feel stagnant. For example, I left XYZ Corp because there was no room for professional development, no chance to be promoted. That’s why I was so excited to hear about your opening here. This is the kind of place I can see myself growing and evolving for a long time.Looking at your resume, you’re awfully senior for this junior-level job. How do we know you won’t jump ship as soon as something else comes along?I’m a big believer that you can’t always take a linear approach to your career, that it’s about the quality of experience rather than the quantity. This job appeals to me because it’s a chance to learn and grow in an area that interests me for the future, so to me that step back in seniority is an investment.It looks like you have a significant gap on your resume, and your cover letter mentioned that you took time off to start a family. Will you be having more kids in the near future?Taking time off was a choice that worked best at the time, but now I’m ready to move forward with the next phase, and focus fully on the next steps in my career. [Note: it’s illegal for interviewers to ask about your family status, so if you get a sneaky question like this one, it’s best to turn it into a general answer without giving specific information about your spouse, your family, your personal plans, etc.]Do you think you’ve peaked in your career?Oh jeez, I hope not! But seriously, I don’t think of a career as an uphill/downhill thing. I try to keep learning new things and finding new and better ways to do my job. So it’s less about being on the way up or on the way down, and more about keeping things moving forward, no matter what.How would you deal with a colleague who threw you under the bus for something that was their fault?Office politics are always fun, right? Seriously, though, I’d start by taking it up with the person directly. I don’t think there’s anything to gain from publicly humiliating anyone, even if they just tried to do it to me. I’d also make sure that my boss privately understands the reality of what went on- what my role was in the issue, whether I shared any of the blame, or what I did to help resolve the problem.If you’re facing challenging questions, don’t stress out too much, and don’t let yourself get that â€Å"deer in headlights† look. The most important thing is to pivot the question into familiar territory- especially if you can use it to highlight one of your strengths, or emphasize your goals.

Thursday, November 21, 2019

Forces Industry Analysis of the PC Industry Essay - 18

Forces Industry Analysis of the PC Industry - Essay Example As stated by Yoffie & Rossano (2012), in its early years during the 1990s, the industry was dominated by â€Å"Wintel†, which was a merged form of Windows OS brand and the Intel brand. However, with the increasing demands for internet and other technology developments, the PC industry has today become comparatively open and flexible to allow new entrants in terms of â€Å"no-name clone makers†. Nevertheless, the industry is regarded to be one of the most capital-intensive investment sectors encompassing rigid legal and trade norms which restrict the authentication of new players to gain a long-run sustainable foothold. High degree of innovation requirements to mitigate competitive barriers also tends to restrict the new entrants in the market lowering the risk of entry by potential competitors (Yoffie & Rossano, 2012). The consumption pattern and the quantity demanded by the buyers in the PC industry have been changing over the past few years, especially with the rising demand in emerging global markets. The buyers of the PC industry can be categorized into five sections comprising the household, the Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises (SMEs), large industry, governmental sectors and education sectors. Even though the numbers of buyers in each segment are increasing rapidly in the industry context, the household consumers of the PC market can be identified as the largest buying group in the industry. Additionally, with the availability of only a few large brands within the industry, the growing numbers of buyers tend to have the greater bargaining power to steer the industry competition (Yoffie & Rossano, 2012).

Tuesday, November 19, 2019

Collaboration Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Collaboration - Assignment Example However, this mission would never be achieved owing to the situation in the agency. Similarly, some internal factors are influencing the operations of the agency making it underperform in meeting its goals. EHSA is facing many challenges, which is emanating from the conducts of its employees. The challenges may hinder the agency from realizing the positive results which it wants to deliver to the people since employees are the agents. One of the issues affecting the organization is the lack of commitments among its staffs to serve the people. Customer care services are very poor making some clients to go back unattended. This is very dangerous for the existence of the agency. Secondly, the organizational staffs are breaching confidentiality of client information. In many cases, the workers have openly compared clients information; a practice that is unlawful and punishable. Therefore, the current stage of the agency is below in the inter-organizational process. Hence, there are much more that the agency management needs to do in order to rescue the situation. Many methods and strategies that the agency can use to improve its services and to realize success in all that it does exist and can be put to use. One of the methods is improving customer care service to the level of clients needs and expectations (Woodside & McClam, 2014). Currently, the agency frustrates clients, and most of them go back without being given the attention they demand. Hence, there is a need to restructure personnel who frustrate clients and inform them of the expectation. This may be done by offering training services in areas related to customer service and advising them on the importance of clients to the agency (Rosenthal, 2012). Secondly, the agency can develop a privacy policy aimed at cautioning its employees and giving guidelines in relation to privacy (Rosenthal, 2012). There are many laws that

Sunday, November 17, 2019

Capital One Case Study Essay Example for Free

Capital One Case Study Essay †¢ What is a case interview? The Case Interview †¢ What specific skills does it assess? †¢ How to prepare for a case interview? †¢ An interactive example. What is a â€Å"Case Interview† anyway? The Case Interview Simulation of a business problem. Similar to what our associates encounter every day. Series of open-ended questions. They’re designed to stimulate your conceptual, quantitative, analytical and – most importantly – creative abilities. The Case Interview There are several types of cases. Each is designed to assess different skills. Classic Case The Case Interview †¢ Should an organization add capacity? †¢ How should an organization react to a new competitor? †¢ Should an organization enter/exit a new/old market? Measures †¢ Your broad functional skills †¢ Your big-picture perspective †¢ Your comfort with detail and analysis Special Case The Case Interview †¢ Why are manhole covers round? †¢ What’s the estimated weight of a Boeing 747? †¢ What will interest rates do next? Measures †¢ Your comfort with ambiguous challenges †¢ Your level of creativity The Case Interview What are we looking for? †¢ Logical skills †¢ Analytical/reasoning skills †¢ Conceptual problem-solving abilities †¢ Critical path thinking †¢ Flexibility What do we mean by†¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦. . The Case Interview Problem-solving ability? Can you identify the key issues of the case while accurately and methodically reaching the solution? Critical path thinking? Can you use the clues that build on each other while staying on track and focusing on what’s relevant? Flexibility? . Can you adapt your answers to a changing situation? The Case Interview What do you need to bring? Your logical business sense The Case Interview †¢ How do decreasing marginal costs affect profitability? †¢ What effect will fixed costs have on the result? Your mathematical aptitude From basic mathematics to†¦. †¢ Algebra †¢ Probability †¢ Weighted averages †¢ Unit conversion Your strategic interpretation skills The Case Interview Can you†¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦ †¢ Interpret your answer’s impact? †¢ Assess alternatives? †¢ Keep a grasp on the â€Å"big picture† as well as the minor details? Your presentation skills Can you†¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦. †¢ Clearly state your thoughts and synthesize information? †¢ Explain how your answer changes in the face of changing variables? †¢ Defend your answer? The Case Interview Be prepared! Let’s work through a case together. Background Information The Case Interview †¢ You are a manager at a company that markets various products and services and that is looking to diversify †¢ You receive some information indicating magazine publishing may be interesting †¢ You are considering developing a new magazine but are not sure how profitable it might be What are some of the issues you must consider when evaluating the magazine business? Things to consider The Case Interview †¢ Defining the target market †¢ Competition – # of competitors, fragmentation, brand name †¢ †¢ †¢ †¢ †¢ Build off of core competencies Barriers to entry Business cycle stage Method of measuring viability Opportunity cost Our next step is to understand the economics of the business. What are the profit drivers in the magazine publishing business? The Case Interview Main profit drivers of the publishing business include †¦ Revenue Sources †¢ Subscriptions †¢ Newsstand sales †¢ Advertising †¢ Customer lists †¢ Internet Costs †¢ Printing †¢ Distribution †¢ Content Development †¢ Marketing/promotions The Case Interview Through some initial research you have been able to determine the following †¦ †¢ You can charge  £25 for an annual subscription of 50 issues †¢ You can generate  £1 in advertising revenue per issue for each subscription †¢ Printing and distribution costs are  £1 per copy per issue †¢ Content development costs run  £1 million per year †¢ Let’s ignore newsstand sales for now †¢ Let’s ignore marketing expenses for now How much profit will you  generate a year from one incremental subscription? Let’s figure it out together†¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦. The Case Interview Subscription revenue per year =  £25 Advertising revenue per year =  £50  £1/issue x 50 issues Yearly production and distribution costs =  £50 Profit from one incremental subscription =  £25  £25 +  £50  £50 How many subscriptions would we need to sell in order to breakeven on this venture? The Case Interview How many subscriptions do we need to sell to break even? Profit (contribution margin) =  £25 per subscription Magazine content development =  £1 million per year Breakeven =  £1 million/ £25 = 40,000 subscriptions Given you need 40,000 subscriptions to breakeven, do you move forward? What about marketing costs? The Case Interview Your company has expertise in direct mail solicitation so you decide to use that method to market your new magazine. Each piece of mail costs  £0.50. You are able to achieve a 2% response rate. How much does it cost you to sign up a subscriber? Cost per subscriber calculation The Case Interview Cost of mailing/response rate = Cost to sign up one subscriber  £0.50/2% =  £25 per subscriber Another way to calculate cost per subscriber: Assume you mail offer to 100 people Costs =  £50 ( £0.50 x 100 people) Responders = 2 (2% of 100) Cost per responder =  £50/2 or  £25 How will this affect your breakeven calculation? New break even calculation The Case Interview Old contribution margin Marketing costs New contribution margin New contribution margin =  £25  £25 =  £0 Ouch! What can we do to make this venture better? Some possible considerations: The Case Interview †¢ Raise subscription prices †¢ Raise advertising rates †¢ Reduce production costs †¢ Increase response rate †¢ Make each response matter more – Consider renewals and multi-year subscriptions The Case Interview Renewals look like an obvious avenue to explore†¦ †¢ In the best case scenario, zero cost to acquire with no drop in revenues How might you encourage renewels? Some possible options: The Case Interview †¢ Price promotion †¢ Competitions †¢ Marketing †¢ Free gifts The Case Interview Some market testing gives you 2 possible options 1) Do nothing: †¢ 50% of existing subscribers will renew each year 2) Offer a free second year subscription †¢ 75% of existing subscribers will renew each year

Thursday, November 14, 2019

The Importance of Books in Fahrenheit 451 By Ray Bradbury :: essays research papers

One of the themes which happens to be the biggest one is burning books because they conflict with each other and the ideas of society. The firemen don't fight fires, they start them when they find books. Recollections and thoughts, writings and teachings from the greatest minds in history go up in flames because the government doesn't want people to fill their heads with it and develop an individual intelligence. The government is afraid of the books because they stimulate people's minds to think for themselves and away from the main track that the general public was expected to follow. The government covered up the problems of the world that still wore on, like war, and didn't let the people see it or have it affect them. They heard about it and that was all. In general, people's lives became better, but it was of no consequence because they didn't know what it was like to have things not go well and as planned. A candy cane is much sweeter after you think about eating oil. Another reason they burn books is because they don't agree and they aren't real. The government figures that there is no use in people thinking about things that don't exist, especially when each book's ideas conflict. I think that conflicting ideas helps us think for ourselves because we are forced to make decisions. Making a decision is a lot better when you have more food for thought to work with. Also, it would be boring not to have conflicting ideas. So many things that we value and we can be proud of in terms of the accomplishments of the human race went up in flames in the book. Everything from Socrates, Newton, the Bible, Thoreau, Hans Christian Anderson and Shakespeare was wiped out because they didn't go together fluently with

Tuesday, November 12, 2019

An Image of Africa: Racism in Conrad’s ‘Heart of Darkness’

Achebe, Chinua. â€Å"An Image of Africa: Racism in Conrad's ‘Heart of Darkness'† Massachusetts Review. 18. 1977. Rpt. in Heart of Darkness, An Authoritative Text, background and Sources Criticism. 1961. 3rd ed. Ed. Robert Kimbrough, London: W. W Norton and Co. , 1988, pp. 251-261 In the fall of 1974 I was walking one day from the English Department at the University of Massachusetts to a parking lot. It was a fine autumn morning such as encouraged friendliness to passing strangers. Brisk youngsters were hurrying in all directions, many of them obviously freshmen in their first flush of enthusiasm.An older man going the same way as I turned and remarked to me how very young they came these days. I agreed. Then he asked me if I was a student too. I said no, I was a teacher. What did I teach? African literature. Now that was funny, he said, because he knew a fellow who taught the same thing, or perhaps it was African history, in a certain Community College not far from her e. It always surprised him, he went on to say, because he never had thought of Africa as having that kind of stuff, you know. By this time I was walking much faster. Oh well,† I heard him say finally, behind me: â€Å"I guess I have to take your course to find out. † A few weeks later I received two very touching letters from high school children in Yonkers, New York, who — bless their teacher — had just read Things Fall Apart . One of them was particularly happy to learn about the customs and superstitions of an African tribe. I propose to draw from these rather trivial encounters rather heavy conclusions which at first sight might seem somewhat out of proportion to them. But only, I hope, at first sight.The young fellow from Yonkers, perhaps partly on account of his age but I believe also for much deeper and more serious reasons, is obviously unaware that the life of his own tribesmen in Yonkers, New York, is full of odd customs and superstitions and, li ke everybody else in his culture, imagines that he needs a trip to Africa to encounter those things. The other person being fully my own age could not be excused on the grounds of his years. Ignorance might be a more likely reason; but here again I believe that something more willful than a mere lack of information was at work.For did not that erudite British historian and Regius Professor at Oxford, Hugh Trevor Roper, also pronounce that African history did not exist? If there is something in these utterances more than youthful inexperience, more than a lack of factual knowledge, what is it? Quite simply it is the desire — one might indeed say the need — in Western psychology to set Africa up as a foil to Europe, as a place of negations at once remote and vaguely familiar, in comparison with which Europe's own state of spiritual grace will be manifest.This need is not new; which should relieve us all of considerable responsibility and perhaps make us even willing to l ook at this phenomenon dispassionately. I have neither the wish nor the competence to embark on the exercise with the tools of the social and biological sciences but more simply in the manner of a novelist responding to one famous book of European fiction: Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness , which better than any other work that I know displays that Western desire and need which I have just referred to.Of course there are whole libraries of books devoted to the same purpose but most of them are so obvious and so crude that few people worry about them today. Conrad, on the other hand, is undoubtedly one of the great stylists of modern fiction and a good storyteller into the bargain. His contribution therefore falls automatically into a different class — permanent literature — read and taught and constantly evaluated by serious academics. Heart of Darkness is indeed so secure today that a leading Conrad scholar has numbered it â€Å"among the half-dozen greatest short n ovels in the English language. I will return to this critical opinion in due course because it may seriously modify my earlier suppositions about who may or may not be guilty in some of the matters I will now raise. Heart of Darkness projects the image of Africa as â€Å"the other world,† the antithesis of Europe and therefore of civilization, a place where man's vaunted intelligence and refinement are finally mocked by triumphant beastiality. The book opens on the River Thames, tranquil, resting, peacefully â€Å"at the decline of day after ages of good service done to the race that peopled its banks. But the actual story will take place on the River Congo, the very antithesis of the Thames. The River Congo is quite decidedly not a River Emeritus. It has rendered no service and enjoys no old-age pension. We are told that â€Å"Going up that river was like traveling back to the earliest beginnings of the world. † Is Conrad saying then that these two rivers are very di fferent, one good, the other bad? Yes, but that is not the real point. It is not the differentness that worries Conrad but the lurking hint of kinship, of common ancestry. For the Thames too â€Å"has been one of the dark places of the earth. It conquered its darkness, of course, and is now in daylight and at peace. But if it were to visit its primordial relative, the Congo, it would run the terrible risk of hearing grotesque echoes of its own forgotten darkness, and falling victim to an avenging recrudescence of the mindless frenzy of the first beginnings. These suggestive echoes comprise Conrad's famed evocation of the African atmosphere in Heart of Darkness . In the final consideration his method amounts to no more than a steady, ponderous, fake-ritualistic repetition of two antithetical sentences, one about silence and the other about frenzy.We can inspect samples of this on pages 36 and 37 of the present edition: a) it was the stillness of an implacable force brooding over an inscrutable intention and b) The steamer toiled along slowly on the edge of a black and incomprehensible frenzy. Of course there is a judicious change of adjective from time to time, so that instead of inscrutable, for example, you might have unspeakable, even plain mysterious, etc. , etc. The eagle-eyed English critic F. R. Leavis drew attention long ago to Conrad's â€Å"adjectival insistence upon inexpressible and incomprehensible mystery. That insistence must not be dismissed lightly, as many Conrad critics have tended to do, as a mere stylistic flaw; for it raises serious questions of artistic good faith. When a writer while pretending to record scenes, incidents and their impact is in reality engaged in inducing hypnotic stupor in his readers through a bombardment of emotive words and other forms of trickery much more has to be at stake than stylistic felicity. Generally normal readers are well armed to detect and resist such under-hand activity.But Conrad chose his subject w ell — one which was guaranteed not to put him in conflict with the psychological predisposition of his readers or raise the need for him to contend with their resistance. He chose the role of purveyor of comforting myths. The most interesting and revealing passages in Heart of Darkness are, however, about people. I must crave the indulgence of my reader to quote almost a whole page from about the middle of the stop/when representatives of Europe in a steamer going down the Congo encounter the denizens of Africa. We were wanderers on a prehistoric earth, on an earth that wore the aspect of an unknown planet.We could have fancied ourselves the first of men taking possession of an accursed inheritance, to be subdued at the cost of profound anguish and of excessive toil. But suddenly as we struggled round a bend there would be a glimpse of rush walls, of peaked grass-roofs, a burst of yells, a whirl of black limbs, a mass of hands clapping, of feet stamping, of bodies swaying, of eyes rolling under the droop of heavy and motionless foliage. The steamer toiled along slowly on the edge of a black and incomprehensible frenzy. The prehistoric man was cursing us, praying to us, welcoming us — who could tell?We were cut off from the comprehension of our surroundings; we glided past like phantoms, wondering and secretly appalled, as sane men would be before an enthusiastic outbreak in a madhouse. We could not understand because we were too far and could not remember, because we were traveling in the night of first ages, of those ages that are gone, leaving hardly a sign — and no memories. The earth seemed unearthly. We are accustomed to look upon the shackled form of a conquered monster, but there — there you could look at a thing monstrous and free. It was unearthly and the men were †¦. No they were not inhuman.Well, you know that was the worst of it — this suspicion of their not being inhuman. It would come slowly to one. They ho wled and leaped and spun and made horrid faces, but what thrilled you, was just the thought of their humanity — like yours — the thought of your remote kinship with this wild and passionate uproar. Ugly. Yes, it was ugly enough, but if you were man enough you would admit to yourself that there was in you just the faintest trace of a response to the terrible frankness of that noise, a dim suspicion of there being a meaning in it which you — you so remote from the night of first ages — could comprehend.Herein lies the meaning of Heart of Darkness and the fascination it holds over the Western mind: â€Å"What thrilled you was just the thought of their humanity — like yours †¦. Ugly. † Having shown us Africa in the mass, Conrad then zeros in, half a page later, on a specific example, giving us one of his rare descriptions of an African who is not just limbs or rolling eyes: And between whiles I had to look after the savage who was fireman. He was an improved specimen; he could fire up a vertical boiler.He was there below me and, upon my word, to look at him was as edifying as seeing a dog in a parody of breeches and a feather hat walking on his hind legs. A few months of training had done for that really fine chap. He squinted at the steam-gauge and at the water-gauge with an evident effort of intrepidity — and he had filed his teeth too, the poor devil, and the wool of his pate shaved into queer patterns, and three ornamental scars on each of his cheeks. He ought to have been clapping his hands and stamping his feet on the bank, instead of which he was hard at work, a thrall to strange witchcraft, full of improving knowledge.As everybody knows, Conrad is a romantic on the side. He might not exactly admire savages clapping their hands and stamping their feet but they have at least the merit of being in their place, unlike this dog in a parody of breeches. For Conrad things being in their place is of the utmost importance. â€Å"Fine fellows — cannibals –in their place,† he tells us pointedly. Tragedy begins when things leave their accustomed place, like Europe leaving its safe stronghold between the policeman and the baker to like a peep into the heart of darkness.Before the story likes us into the Congo basin proper we are given this nice little vignette as an example of things in their place: Now and then a boat from the shore gave one a momentary contact with reality. It was paddled by black fellows. You could see from afar the white of their eyeballs glistening. They shouted, sang; their bodies streamed with perspiration; they had faces like grotesque masks — these chaps; but they had bone, muscle, a wild vitality, an intense energy of movement that was as natural and hue as the surf along their coast.They wanted no excuse for being there. They were a great comfort to look at. Towards the end of the story Conrad lavishes a whole page quite unexpectedly on a n African woman who has obviously been some kind of mistress to Mr. Kurtz and now presides (if I may be permitted a little liberty) like a formidable mystery over the inexorable imminence of his departure: She was savage and superb, wild-eyed and magnificent †¦. She stood looking at us without a stir and like the wilderness itself, with an air of brooding over an inscrutable purpose.This Amazon is drawn in considerable detail, albeit of a predictable nature, for two reasons. First, she is in her place and so can win Conrad's special brand of approval and second, she fulfills a structural requirement of the story: a savage counterpart to the refined, European woman who will step forth to end the story: She came forward all in black with a pale head, floating toward me in the dusk. She was in mourning †¦. She took both my hands in hers and murmured, â€Å"I had heard you were coming. â€Å"†¦ She had a mature capacity for fidelity, for belief, for suffering.The differ ence in the attitude of the novelist to these two women is conveyed in too many direct and subfile ways to need elaboration. But perhaps the most significant difference is the one implied in the author's bestowal of human expression to the one and the withholding of it from the other. It is clearly not part of Conrad's purpose to confer language on the â€Å"rudimentary souls† of Africa. In place of speech they made â€Å"a violent babble of uncouth sounds. † They â€Å"exchanged short grunting phrases† even among themselves. But most of the time they were too busy with their frenzy.There are two occasions in the book, however, when Conrad departs somewhat from his practice and confers speech, even English speech, on the savages. The first occurs when cannibalism gets the better of them: â€Å"Catch ‘im,† he snapped with a bloodshot widening of his eyes and a flash of sharp teeth — â€Å"catch ‘im. Give ‘im to us. † â€Å" To you, eh? † I asked; â€Å"what would you do with them? â€Å"Eat ‘im! † he said curtly. . . . The other occasion was the famous announcement:†Mistah Kurtz — he dead. † At first sight these instances might be mistaken for unexpected acts of generosity from Conrad.In reality they constitute some of his best assaults. In the case of the cannibals the incomprehensible grunts that had thus far served them for speech suddenly proved inadequate for Conrad's purpose of letting the European glimpse the unspeakable craving in their hearts. Weighing the necessity for consistency in the portrayal of the dumb brutes against the sensational advantages of securing their conviction by clear, unambiguous evidence issuing out of their own mouth Conrad chose the latter. As for the announcement of Mr.Kurtz's death by the â€Å"insolent black head in the doorway† what better or more appropriate finis could be written to the horror story of that wayward ch ild of civilization who willfully had given his soul to the powers of darkness and â€Å"taken a high seat amongst the devils of the land† than the proclamation of his physical death by the forces he had joined? It might be contended, of course, that the attitude to the African in Heart of Darkness is not Conrad's but that of his fictional narrator, Marlow, and that far from endorsing it Conrad might indeed be holding it up to irony and criticism.Certainly Conrad appears to go to considerable pains to set up layers of insulation between himself and the moral universe of his history. He has, for example, a narrator behind a narrator. The primary narrator is Marlow but his account is given to us through the filter of a second, shadowy person. But if Conrad's intention is to draw a cordon sanitaire between himself and the moral and psychological malaise of his narrator his care seems to me totally wasted because he neglects to hint however subtly or tentatively at an alternative frame of reference by which we may judge the actions and opinions of his characters.It would not have been beyond Conrad's power to make that provision if he had thought it necessary. Marlow seems to me to enjoy Conrad's complete confidence — a feeling reinforced by the close similarities between their two careers. Marlow comes through to us not only as a witness of truth, but one holding those advanced and humane views appropriate to the English liberal tradition which required all Englishmen of decency to be deeply shocked by atrocities in Bulgaria or the Congo of King Leopold of the Belgians or wherever.Thus Marlow is able to toss out such bleeding-heart sentiments as these: They were dying slowly — it was very clear. They were not enemies, they were not criminals, they were nothing earthly now, nothing but black shadows of disease and starvation lying confusedly in the greenish gloom. Brought from all the recesses of the coast in all the legality of time contracts , lost in uncongenial surroundings, fed on unfamiliar food, they sickened, became inefficient, and were then allowed to crawl away and rest.The kind of liberalism espoused here by Marlow/Conrad touched all the best minds of the age in England, Europe and America. It took different forms in the minds of different people but almost always managed to sidestep the ultimate question of equality between white people and black people. That extraordinary missionary, Albert Schweitzer, who sacrificed brilliant careers in music and theology in Europe for a life of service to Africans in much the same area as Conrad writes about, epitomizes the ambivalence. In a comment which has often been quoted Schweitzer says: â€Å"The African is indeed my brother but my junior brother. And so he proceeded to build a hospital appropriate to the needs of junior brothers with standards of hygiene reminiscent of medical practice in the days before the germ theory of disease came into being. Naturally he bec ame a sensation in Europe and America. Pilgrims flocked, and I believe still flock even after he has passed on, to witness the prodigious miracle in Lamberene, on the edge of the primeval forest. Conrad's liberalism would not take him quite as far as Schweitzer's, though. He would not use the word brother however qualified; the farthest he would go was kinship.When Marlow's African helmsman falls down with a spear in his heart he gives his white master one final disquieting look. And the intimate profundity of that look he gave me when he received his hurt remains to this day in my memory — like a claim of distant kinship affirmed in a supreme moment. It is important to note that Conrad, careful as ever with his words, is concerned not so much about distant kinship as about someone laying a claim on it. The black man lays a claim on the white man which is well-nigh intolerable. It is the laying of this claim which frightens and at the same time fascinates Conrad, â€Å"†¦ he thought of their humanity — like yours †¦. Ugly. † The point of my observations should be quite clear by now, namely that Joseph Conrad was a thoroughgoing racist. That this simple truth is glossed over in criticisms of his work is due to the fact that white racism against Africa is such a normal way of thinking that its manifestations go completely unremarked. Students of Heart of Darkness will often tell you that Conrad is concerned not so much with Africa as with the deterioration of one European mind caused by solitude and sickness.They will point out to you that Conrad is, if anything, less charitable to the Europeans in the story than he is to the natives, that the point of the story is to ridicule Europe's civilizing mission in Africa. A Conrad student informed me in Scotland that Africa is merely a setting for the disintegration of the mind of Mr. Kurtz. Which is partly the point. Africa as setting and backdrop which eliminates the African as human fa ctor. Africa as a metaphysical battlefield devoid of all recognizable humanity, into which the wandering European enters at his peril.Can nobody see the preposterous and perverse arrogance in thus reducing Africa to the role of props for the break-up of one petty European mind? But that is not even the point. The real question is the dehumanization of Africa and Africans which this age-long attitude has fostered and continues to foster in the world. And the question is whether a novel which celebrates this dehumanization, which depersonalizes a portion of the human race, can be called a great work of art. My answer is: No, it cannot. I do not doubt Conrad's great talents.Even Heart of Darkness has its memorably good passages and moments: The reaches opened before us and closed behind, as if the forest had stepped leisurely across tile water to bar the way for our return. Its exploration of the minds of the European characters is often penetrating and full of insight. But all that ha s been more than fully discussed in the last fifty years. His obvious racism has, however, not been addressed. And it is high time it was! Conrad was born in 1857, the very year in which the first Anglican missionaries were arriving among my own people in Nigeria.It was certainly not his fault that he lived his life at a time when the reputation of the black man was at a particularly low level. But even after due allowances have been made for all the influences of contemporary prejudice on his sensibility there remains still in Conrad's attitude a residue of antipathy to black people which his peculiar psychology alone can explain. His own account of his first encounter with a black man is very revealing: A certain enormous buck nigger encountered in Haiti fixed my conception of blind, furious, unreasoning rage, as manifested in the human animal to the end of my days.Of the nigger I used to dream for years afterwards. Certainly Conrad had a problem with niggers. His inordinate love of that word itself should be of interest to psychoanalysts. Sometimes his fixation on blackness is equally interesting as when he gives us this brief description: A black figure stood up, strode on long black legs, waving long black arms. . . . as though we might expect a black figure striding along on black legs to wave white arms! But so unrelenting is Conrad's obsession. As a matter of interest Conrad gives us in A Personal Record what amounts to a companion piece to the buck nigger of Haiti.At the age of sixteen Conrad encountered his first Englishman in Europe. He calls him â€Å"my unforgettable Englishman† and describes him in the following manner: â€Å"(his) calves exposed to the public gaze . . . dazzled the beholder by the splendor of their marble-like condition and their rich tone of young ivory. . . . The light of a headlong, exalted satisfaction with the world of men. . . illumined his face. . . and triumphant eyes. In passing he cast a glance of kindly curios ity and a friendly gleam of big, sound, shiny teeth. . . his white calves twinkled sturdily. Irrational love and irrational hate jostling together in the heart of that talented, tormented man. But whereas irrational love may at worst engender foolish acts of indiscretion, irrational hate can endanger the life of the community. Naturally Conrad is a dream for psychoanalytic critics. Perhaps the most detailed study of him in this direction is by Bernard C. Meyer, M. D. In his lengthy book Dr. Meyer follows every conceivable lead (and sometimes inconceivable ones) to explain Conrad. As an example he gives us long disquisitions on the significance of hair and hair-cutting in Conrad.And yet not even one word is spared for his attitude to black people. Not even the discussion of Conrad's antisemitism was enough to spark off in Dr. Meyer's mind those other dark and explosive thoughts. Which only leads one to surmise that Western psychoanalysts must regard the kind of racism displayed by Co nrad absolutely normal despite the profoundly important work done by Frantz Fanon in the psychiatric hospitals of French Algeria. Whatever Conrad's problems were, you might say he is now safely dead. Quite true. Unfortunately his heart of darkness plagues us still.Which is why an offensive and deplorable book can be described by a serious scholar as â€Å"among the half dozen greatest short novels in the English language. † And why it is today the most commonly prescribed novel in twentieth-century literature courses in English Departments of American universities. There are two probable grounds on which what I have aid so far may be contested. The first is that it is no concern of fiction to please people about whom it is written. I will go along with that. But I am not talking about pleasing people.I am talking about a book which parades in the most vulgar fashion prejudices and insults from which a section of mankind has suffered untold agonies and atrocities in the past a nd continues to do so in many ways and many places today. I am talking about a story in which the very humanity of black people is called in question. Secondly, I may be challenged on the grounds of actuality. Conrad, after all, did sail down the Congo in 1890 when my own father was still a babe in arms. How could I stand up more than fifty years after his death and purport to contradict him?My answer is that as a sensible man I will not accept just any traveler's tales solely on the grounds that I have not made the journey myself. I will not trust the evidence even off man's very eyes when I suspect them to be as jaundiced as Conrad's. And we also happen to know that Conrad was, in the words of his biographer, Bernard C. Meyer, â€Å"notoriously inaccurate in the rendering of his own history. † But more important by far is the abundant testimony about Conrad's savages which we could gather if we were so inclined from other sources and which might lead us to think that these people must have had other occupations besides erging into the evil forest or materializing out of it simply to plague Marlow and his dispirited band. For as it happened, soon after Conrad had written his book an event of far greater consequence was taking place in the art world of Europe. This is how Frank Willett, a British art historian, describes it: Gaugin had gone to Tahiti, the most extravagant individual act of turning to a non-European culture in the decades immediately before and after 1900, when European artists were avid for new artistic experiences, but it was only about 1904-5 that African art began to make its distinctive impact.One piece is still identifiable; it is a mask that had been given to Maurice Vlaminck in 1905. He records that Derain was ‘speechless' and ‘stunned' when he saw it, bought it from Vlaminck and in turn showed it to Picasso and Matisse, who were also greatly affected by it. Ambroise Vollard then borrowed it and had it cast in bronze. . . The revolution of twentieth century art was under way! The mask in question was made by other savages living just north of Conrad's River Congo. They have a name too: the Fang people, and are without a doubt among the world's greatest masters of the sculptured form.The event Frank Willett is referring to marks the beginning of cubism and the infusion of new life into European art, which had run completely out of strength. The point of all this is to suggest that Conrad's picture of the people of the Congo seems grossly inadequate even at the height of their subjection to the ravages of King Leopold's lnternational Association for the Civilization of Central Africa. Travelers with closed minds can tell us little except about themselves. But even those not blinkered, like Conrad with xenophobia, can be astonishing blind.Let me digress a little here. One of the greatest and most intrepid travelers of all time, Marco Polo, journeyed to the Far East from the Mediterranean in the thi rteenth century and spent twenty years in the court of Kublai Khan in China. On his return to Venice he set down in his book entitled Description of the World his impressions of the peoples and places and customs he had seen. But there were at least two extraordinary omissions in his account. He said nothing about the art of printing, unknown as yet in Europe but in full flower in China.He either did not notice it at all or if he did, failed to see what use Europe could possibly have for it. Whatever the reason, Europe had to wait another hundred years for Gutenberg. But even more spectacular was Marco Polo's omission of any reference to the Great Wall of China nearly 4,000 miles long and already more than 1,000 years old at the time of his visit. Again, he may not have seen it; but the Great Wall of China is the only structure built by man which is visible from the moon! Indeed travelers can be blind. As I said earlier Conrad did not originate the image of Africa which we find in h is book.It was and is the dominant image of Africa in the Western imagination and Conrad merely brought the peculiar gifts of his own mind to bear on it. For reasons which can certainly use close psychological inquiry the West seems to suffer deep anxieties about the precariousness of its civilization and to have a need for constant reassurance by comparison with Africa. If Europe, advancing in civilization, could cast a backward glance periodically at Africa trapped in primordial barbarity it could say with faith and feeling: There go I but for the grace of God.Africa is to Europe as the picture is to Dorian Gray — a carrier onto whom the master unloads his physical and moral deformities so that he may go forward, erect and immaculate. Consequently Africa is something to be avoided just as the picture has to be hidden away to safeguard the man's jeopardous integrity. Keep away from Africa, or else! Mr. Kurtz of Heart of Darkness should have heeded that warning and the prowli ng horror in his heart would have kept its place, chained to its lair. But he foolishly exposed himself to the wild irresistible allure of the jungle and lo! he darkness found him out. In my original conception of this essay I had thought to conclude it nicely on an appropriately positive note in which I would suggest from my privileged position in African and Western cultures some advantages the West might derive from Africa once it rid its mind of old prejudices and began to look at Africa not through a haze of distortions and cheap mystifications but quite simply as a continent of people — not angels, but not rudimentary souls either — just people, often highly gifted people and often strikingly successful in their enterprise with life and society.But as I thought more about the stereotype image, about its grip and pervasiveness, about the willful tenacity with which the West holds it to its heart; when I thought of the West's television and cinema and newspapers, a bout books read in its schools and out of school, of churches preaching to empty pews about the need to send help to the heathen in Africa, I realized that no easy optimism was possible. And there was, in any case, something totally wrong in offering bribes to the West in return for its good opinion of Africa. Ultimately the abandonment of unwholesome thoughts must be its own and only reward.Although I have used the word willful a few times here to characterize the West's view of Africa, it may well be that what is happening at this stage is more akin to reflex action than calculated malice. Which does not make the situation more but less hopeful. The Christian Science Monitor, a paper more enlightened than most, once carried an interesting article written by its Education Editor on the serious psychological and learning problems faced by little children who speak one language at home and then go to school where something else is spoken.It was a wide-ranging article taking in Spanis h-speaking children in America, the children of migrant Italian workers in Germany, the quadrilingual phenomenon in Malaysia, and so on. And all this while the article speaks unequivocally about language. But then out of the blue sky comes this: In London there is an enormous immigration of children who speak Indian or Nigerian dialects, or some other native language. I believe that the introduction of dialects which is technically erroneous in the context is almost a reflex action caused by an instinctive desire of the writer to downgrade the discussion to the level of Africa and India.And this is quite comparable to Conrad's withholding of language from his rudimentary souls. Language is too grand for these chaps; let's give them dialects! In all this business a lot of violence is inevitably done not only to the image of despised peoples but even to words, the very tools of possible redress. Look at the phrase native language in the Science Monitor excerpt. Surely the only native language possible in London is Cockney English. But our writer means something else — something appropriate to the sounds Indians and Africans make!Although the work of redressing which needs to be done may appear too daunting, I believe it is not one day too soon to begin. Conrad saw and condemned the evil of imperial exploitation but was strangely unaware of the racism on which it sharpened its iron tooth. But the victims of racist slander who for centuries have had to live with the inhumanity it makes them heir to have always known better than any casual visitor even when he comes loaded with the gifts of a Conrad.

Saturday, November 9, 2019

Africans in the Berlin Conference

Africans in the Berlin Conference The Berlin Conference of 1884-1885 established most of the borders of contemporary nation-states on the African continents today. The Conference set in motion the â€Å"scramble for Africa. † Out of the 14 African states no African leader was present at the conference to assert claims to territory and to agree to regulations on trading. Five of the states at the conference did not even end up with any colonies but had more of a say than all the African leaders. The boundaries in Africa, drawn during the Berlin Conference, greatly attributed to the political unrest in Africa.During the Berlin Conference all the participants signed a notion that said they could not have colonies unless they have full control of the territory they encompassed. The European powers had to send expeditionary forces to pacify what were called their African â€Å"spheres of influence. † This process was bloody and ugly due to the amount of Africans fighting bac k. These pacifications lasted all the way up to World War 1. These uprisings caused anarchy in some places in Africa. Only Ethiopia successfully kept their freedom militarily. But all across Africa, hundreds of polities large, and small fought to destroy these superimposed boundaries.Pre-existing political entities found themselves arbitrarily or deliberately divided in two, three, or even four parts. The main Hausa territories were split between French Niger and British Nigeria, the Maasai suddenly had to practice nomadic pastoralism across a line between German and British East Africa. Conflicts in Africa could definitely were partly caused by boundaries drawn during the Berlin Conference. Uganda’s numerous civil conflicts are pure evidence. Also the Nigerian Civil War of 1967-1971 can partly be traced back to the Berlin Conference.Conflicts between states also can be traced to the Conference because of the ridiculous political geography they put in place. Examples of these conflicts are Cameroon and Libya’s with Chad. The finger of Namibia that sticks out across the top of Botswana, known as the Caprivi Strip has been a geopolitical hotspot ever since it appeared on the map. The Berlin Conference was a very unjust and unethical. They drew out boundaries for Africa without the African leaders consent and then took over all of the nations. The Berlin Conference was definitely connected to the political unrest in Africa.

Thursday, November 7, 2019

Ida B. Wells and her crusade against lynching. Includes information about the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments and the Enforcement Acts.

Ida B. Wells and her crusade against lynching. Includes information about the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments and the Enforcement Acts. Ida B. Wells and the Crusade against LynchingDuring the beginning of the 1880's, a series of laws known as the Jim Crow laws were passed. These laws legalized segregation between blacks and whites. When the blacks tried to stand up to the oppression they were threatened and in some cases killed. During this time, there were many lynchings and unfortunately, it was very common then. Frederick Douglass once said in a speech, "If there is no struggle there is no progress.... This struggle may be a moral one, or it may be a physical one.... But it must be a struggle."The 13th Amendment freed the black slaves, the 14th granted them citizenship and the 15th allowed them to vote, but even though they were free, they were still treated differently. Whenever they tried to rise up against the white, they were challenged with violence. The Ku Klux Klan was formed with no intentions of becoming a terrorist organization, but it grew into one quickly.Open-air Initiation of K.K.K. under the Light o f t...Many people joined, from many the Southern states, the members were white and some even held honorable positions in the community. They dressed in white robes, masks, and wore cone shaped hats. They beat and murdered thousands, not caring if the people they hurt were men, women, children, or old, as long as they were black they were in danger of being victimized by the Ku Klux Klan. However, some states fought against the Ku Klux Klan. In Texas, Governor Edmund Davis organized a crack state police unit, and arrested 6,000 members. The Enforcement Acts of 1870 and 1871 issued by the federal government also lead to the fall of the Ku Klux Klan.The Enforcement Acts were also known as the force bills. They were a series of laws that...

Tuesday, November 5, 2019

Dont Overdo Do

Dont Overdo Do Dont Overdo Do Dont Overdo Do By Maeve Maddox Walking past a bank the other day I noticed a sign that said We do loans. Ive known for some time that some people do lunch, but I missed the transition from making loans to doing loans. This usage of all-purpose do in a multitude of expressions is nothing new in English. Ask Bessie to do the flowers for church. Mr. Ping does our garden. The stable boys do the horses. When is the painter going to do this room? I plan to do the room in red and gold. I can do you now, Sir, said the barber. Even the word do-able which sounds so modern and breezy to my ear has been around since 1449. c1449 PECOCK Repr. I. vii. 37 A lawe..which is doable and not oonli knoweable. (OED) No doubt about itdo is a handy word that serves us well. Professional writers, however, may want to add do to their list of words to cull in a final revision. Hair and flowers may be arranged, gardens tended, and rooms decorated. And banks make loans. (At least, theyre supposed to.) Want to improve your English in five minutes a day? Get a subscription and start receiving our writing tips and exercises daily! Keep learning! Browse the Vocabulary category, check our popular posts, or choose a related post below:Running Amok or Running Amuck?If I Was vs. If I Were

Sunday, November 3, 2019

How sustainable is hydroelectricity generation Assignment

How sustainable is hydroelectricity generation - Assignment Example The turbine is connected to an electric system which through its rotation, an electric field is created which in turn creates an electric force that is harnessed and stored in grids to be distributed and sold to customers during peak times when there must be additional sources of energy. From Interview: According to Ron Taylor who is an experienced electrical engineer, hydroelectric power is sustainable. Experts need to establish the climatic shifts of the area where the project is to be built. Proper planning should also be done to ensure sustainability of the project. From Research: Through technological advancement, the industrial sector has achieved equipments which consumes low power so that the generated power would be economically viable to enhance high productivity in the long run. However, through enhancement of power storage systems by the establishment of digital capacitor banks which are responsible for both power correction and stability, adequate power is generated and used economically to reduce resource wastage (Huggins, 2010). It is recommended that cost effective power plants like hydroelectric plants should be constructed to lower the level and rates of ozone layer depletion which negatively impacts on the global climatic change. From Interview: Ron Taylor further states that, contrary to wind energy which is difficult to maintain, hydroelectric power is easier to maintain since it has a longer maintenance window. It is ranked among the worlds’ preferred power source with low effects on the environment; for instance, the global warming influenced by gas emissions (Huggins, 2010). The most expensive part of the project is the initial cost of installation, which is high as compared to the other sources of power, which are less costly to install but difficult to maintain. From Research: The ability to spend much money on maintenance entirely depends on the procedure involved in the maintenance process especially when