Homework Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words - 5

Homework - Essay Example Recording the information of the transaction in a journal: After recording data chronologically in the source document, it is transferred to the general journal, which may have other specific journals such as sales and cash journals as suggested by Simplestudies LLC (2012). The journal information is transmitted relevant accounts in the ledger hence posting: The information from the general journal is transferred to ledger where information of all accounts in a business is maintained. Posting in accounting is the process of transmitting the details of financial transaction to the ledger. These transactions are initially found in the business journals. Posting is important in double entry accounts as it transfers the debit and credit aspects of a financial to relevant accounts. A trial balance in accounting refers to a statement, which has a conventional format of its own. It is not necessarily a ledger account. It provides a summary report used to check whether all financial transactions in the accounting system follow the double entry rules as suggested by Simplestudies LLC (2012). The trail balance is the sixth step in the accounting process and it can be prepared at anytime. However, it is mostly prepared before financial statements are prepared. The trial balance as opposed to the financial statement is prepared and applied by the internal accounting team. A trial balance is usually prepared in order to check the accuracy calculations used in accounting process. In accounting a trial balance is also used to ensure that the rules of double entry are followed during the recording of financial transactions done at a specific time. This is usually done by summing all debit balances found in the general ledger. It is also done by ensuring that the sum of debit balances is equal to the sum of all credit balances of the general ledger according to Simplestudies LLC (2012). A trial balance usually provides a list of all the accounts found in the

Ethics Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words - 17

Ethics - Essay Example Dogmatism is common in all religious settings where the scriptures are accepted and acknowledged as the truth without any questions. Once an individual is a dogma and invites these believes and let them control their whole being, he or she automatically become an absolutist and decides to take the belief as the only existing truth and let nothing interfere with what they have come to know as the only reality (Gurvitch 135). Dogmatism is usually followed by absolutism because once people have faith in something and recognize it as the only existing truth, then they absolutely encircles it without having any doubts about it. Dogmatism and absolutism are basically two sides of the same coin. Once an individual believes in the perfection of a certain belief, they are inevitably forced to accept it as it is. The human mind is narrow, and it is easier to accept than to take further steps to confirm the laid down opinion (Gurvitch 134). The mind likes simplified things; no wonder it does not go the distance to prove or confirm the truth. Dogmatic absolutism results to the formation of rigid individuals who only believe in what they know, and are not willing to accommodate further change. For instance, an individual may have a certain perspective about a family member who has been accused of a crime. The opinion of this person will not change even if the evidence uncovered suggests that he is guilty. Dogmatic absolutism is evident, in this case, as the rigidity is still manifested even after evidence contrary to the belief is uncovered (Gurvitch 141). Another point of view has no use because the mind of this individual is made up and nothing can alter this belief or opinion. In religious institutions, dogmatism always leads to absolutism. This is because once a person has accepted a certain faith as the only one and the true one, then it become hard to change their opinion. They are only dedicated to that particular faith and any

The Nurture And Nature Views Education Essay

The Nurture And Nature Views Education Essay As a matter of fact, the nature/nurture debate has dominated the thoughts of researchers for a long time as people have been trying to find out the origin of intelligence. Bee believed that this question could possibly be among the oldest theories debated in psychology. The nurture view holds that human mind was born without any knowledge. This view is supported by empiricists, and one of the major tenants of empiricists is John Locke, a seventeenth English philosopher, who thought that humans are born with a tabula rasa, or a blank slate, and that knowledge is learnt and gained through experience.   In the 19th century, Hermann von Helmhotz believed that the raw data of sensation were perpetually subject to judgements based on experience. (Gigerenzer, 63) His research was that there is a simple inverse relationship between distance and retinal image size. (Gleitman, 249). In He concluded that it is through experience which we gain the ability to understand our visual perceptions. Empiricism was adopted by educationalists. Jean Piaget, a Swiss psychologist examined physical knowledge in infancy using some experiments, and concluded that children under 18 months of age had no knowledge of physical laws of motion because they looked for hidden objects in places that were not possible. Further, John B. Watson and B. F. Skinner, came with behaviourism to argue that a child can be made into any kind of person, regardless of their heredity. However other researchers questioned those findings and came with a different view  : Innativism. Innativists claimed that a child was born with innate abilities which are actualised in context. This view was influenced by Plato, a Greek philosopher who thought that Children begin life with knowledge already present within them,; they do not learn anything new but merely recollect knowledge that has previously lain dormant. Nativism was later adopted by Immanuel Kant, a German philosopher of the 18th centry. Kant argued that the mind is born with a number of innate catergories, mainly space, time and causality, which enable people to understand their senses. It is these catergories, nativists say, that make perception possible. (Gleitman, 173) In other words, knowledge of these concepts is innate. Charles Darwin was also among those who offered evidence of inherited knowledge with his universality thesis where, after some cross-cultural studies, he observed that some facial expressions are universal to all people. Darwin finally explained that all people are born with an innate understanding of these facial expressions. (Gleitman, 477) One of the domains in which this debate has found implications in education is language acquisition. Despite the existence of several theories of language development, this essay limits only to three of them that have a close link with the nature/nurture debate. According to behaviourist theory, language is viewed as a kind of verbal behaviour, and based on this view they argue that children learn language through imitation, reinforcement, analogy, and structured input. This is  linguistic empiricism. Empiricists think that language is entirely learned. This is the nurture or external perspective. In this context, language and grammar become features of the organisms environment. Language is a cultural artifact. This is based on beviourism as the general theory of learning described by the psychologist John B. Watson in 1923. On the other hand, there is linguistic nativism, which holds that the basics of language and grammar are innate. This is the nature or internal perspective. In this context, language and grammar are built into every human being at birth. They are universals that all humans share, as language is in the genes. This is the theory advocated by the American linguist Noam Chomsky who argued for a universal grammar wired in every child brain. This position was also adopted by Jerry Fodor (1983) who studied the relationship between language and mind and viewed language as a modular process with implications for a theory of language acquisition, especially language acquisition as genetically predetermined. The third interesting theory is called interactionist theory, and states that there is a both a biological and a social aspect to language development. It states that language is developed through a childs desire to communicate his or her thoughts and feelings. The foundation of this view of language acquisition was laid by Vygotsky, a psychologist and social constructivist. Vygotsky argued that social interaction plays an important role in the learning process and proposed the  zone of proximal development  (ZPD) where learners construct the new language through socially mediated interaction. Thisn theory was later adopted by  Jerome Bruner  [2]  who laid the foundations of a model of language development in the context of adult-child interaction. In education, it can be argued that both nature and nurture are responsible for how someone is today. For that reason, the position advocated by Robert Plomin would help to put both empiricism and nativism together for the good of children. Actually, the American Psychologist, Robert Plomin has demonstrated that genetic factors can mediate the link between the environment and person outcomes such as intelligence.   Actually, nowadays, it is commonly accepted that most aspects of a childs development are a product of the interaction of both nurture and nature (Bee, 2004) This means that aspects such as the innate ability of the child which is the inherited aspect of his life, and the environmental factors such as effects of family, peers, schools, neighborhoods, culture, the media, the broader society, and the physical environment. Should be taken into account. Nurture affects childrens development through multiple channels-physically through nutrition and activity; intellectually through informal experiences and formal instruction; socially through adult role models  and peer relationships (McDevitt and Ormrod, 2004: 7). At this point, one can share Ganly (2007) position and argue that à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦ it is hard to completely distinguish between the two ideas. Nature will inevitably affect the classroom performance of a student because a student inherits certain traits that pertain to education. A student inherits the ability to do well in certain subjects and poor in other subjects. A student also inherits the certain psychological traits such as shyness or self confidence. The nature aspect is important as it helps to determine inherited possible disabilities such as reading disability, so giving making teachers proactive and intervene at earlier stages. Educators have therefore to make sure the inner nature of a child is respected, that a child feels wanted and put in a supportive environment to learn. There should be a balance between class time between acquisition activities and learning exercises.  

Parental Rights Essay -- essays research papers

  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Thoughts on the Parental Responsibility Act   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Eighteen cases, in 1990, resulted in a parent serving time in jail for crimes committed by his or her child. In my opinion, I feel that parents should not be held responsible if his or her child commits a crime. There are a couple of reasons why I feel this is not a good law. First, I believe no parent can keep track of their son or daughter 24 hours a day. In a real world parents have far more to do than to monitor their child every minute of the day to make sure he or she is not breaking the law of some sort. Parents are an important role in a child’s life but they also have to meet the demands of going to work, attending the house, and to have a free moments of relaxation. Besides this a adolescent does not want a nagging parent to know every detail and thought of what they are doing, with whom, why, when and where.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Secondly I feel that by setting the law that parents serve the time for their child’s actions goes against a valuable lesson that is taught to a youngster from when they were young. When I was growing up, I remember to this day that you are suppose to take responsibility for your actions. The parental responsibility law, goes against this valuable teaching. This law does not teach the adolescent that as becoming a adult they have to accept certain responsibilities. Instead, it shows that the blam...

Economic Analysis Essay

The enthusiasm, as well as the anxieties that is generated by the working of the economy of the United States is not just US economy generates is not just obvious but also easy to understand. The United States, with a GDP of 13. 2 trillion USD, and a population of 300 million (with an average yearly per capita income of more than 44,000 USD), is the largest economy of the world (CIA Factbook, 2008). Its currency, the US dollar, even in the throes of its greatest financial crisis, is the world’s preferred currency, and its markets the world’s biggest. In diversity and amount, the natural resources of the country are greater than those of most other countries. Many US industries are global leaders, and it remains the favorite marketing target for companies from across the world. With the US being the largest trading partner for numerous north and south countries, a large portion of the global economy relies upon US consumption for survival; significant changes in its pattern can lead to global euphoria or gloom. The performance of the US economy is influenced by an assortment of local and international factors. Distinguished by particularly low government control, a guiding principle that was first chosen by the founding fathers and followed painstakingly ever since (Oppenheimer, & Reddaway, 1989). Although the government stipulates regulations and ensures inviolability of contracts, most microeconomic decisions are taken by private firms and corporations. (Rowe & Silverstein, 1999) Governmental and Federal Reserve activities occur mainly through the modification of tax policies, changes in interest rates, and control of money supply; their endeavor being to push the economy in chosen directions rather than to compel it to take up preferred paths. (Oppenheimer, & Reddaway, 1989) The last two decades have been particularly turbulent for the economy, marked by sharp expansion, occasional slowdowns, and the occurrence, in 2008, of a slump of dimensions sharp enough to affect the economic fortunes of numerous nations and millions of people. This assignment aims to assess and analyze the performance of the economy from 1990 until the present day, taking up various economic developments, the reasons behind the same, and their local and global impact. Commentary Overview of 1990 to 2001 The economic performance of an extremely intricate and influential economy like that of the US relies upon various local and global developments like investments, agricultural, manufacturing and service activity, exports and imports, global and local commodity prices, currency strength, disposable incomes, and consumption patterns. It is also influenced by fiscal and monetary measures like changes in tax policies, interest rates on loans, and reserves of banks, as well as by ongoing developments like price rises, job levels, and induction of fresh participants into the work force. Whilst the United States is one of the leading exporters of coal, wheat, corn, and soybeans, its continuous and strong economic growth has increased its dependence upon other countries for oil and many other raw materials. In fact the country had become a leading consumer of practically every sort of raw material by the 1960s and growth continued to rise thereafter. The 1970s and the 1980s, the decades that preceded the 1990s, were difficult ones and were distinguished by slow economic growth and inflation. While the period was marked by the entry of Japanese industry onto the global stage, the oil price shocks, and the forced bailout of Chrysler, it also witnessed the emergence of the service industry and the numerous small businesses in the United States. Whilst the 1980s saw a reduction in inflation rates and the creation of millions of jobs, such developments were accompanied by drastic increases in military expenditure, Medicaid and Medicare costs, corporate debt and household borrowing (Julius, 2005). Thousands of banks failed because of a combination of reasons that included high inflation and interest rates, bad loans to developing nations and speculative real estate ventures. The total national debt reached a figure of 290 billion US dollars, the highest till then. The US economic recovery commenced in 1991 and continued for the rest of the decade; it was distinguished by a long period of constant growth and by strong performance in key economic indicators like growth, inflation, unemployment and interest rates. Real growth in GDP stayed at around 3 % for the whole period with a low of 2. 5 % and a high of 3. 9 % in 1998. Unemployment fell from a peak of 7. 5 % to 5. 6 % by the middle of the decade and to less than 5 % after 1997. â€Å"America’s labor force changed markedly during the 1990s. Continuing a long-term trend, the number of farmers declined. A small portion of workers had jobs in industry, while a much greater share worked in the service sector, in jobs ranging from store clerks to financial planners. If steel and shoes were no longer American manufacturing mainstays, computers and the software that make them run were. † (The 1990s and beyond, 2008) Inflation, which had reached dangerously high levels in the 1980s also moderated significantly and remained below 3 % for most of the decade. The only area that witnessed volatility was the stock market, with stock prices rising by more than 60 % in the closing years of the decade on the back of low unemployment and good growth figures. The Dow Jones Industrial Average, which had stood at around 1,000 in the late 1970s, went up to as much as 11,000 in 1999, adding substantially to the wealth of many Americans (Julius, 2005). Whilst Clinton, who occupied the Presidency from 1993 to 2000, declared the era of big business to be over in the United States, he worked to strengthen market forces in areas like long distance telephony, reduced the size of the federal work force and ensured the continuance of most of the New Deal innovations (The 1990s and beyond, 2008). The economy was also helped greatly by the collapse of the Soviet Union and the consequent enlargement of trading opportunities. Technological advances led to the introduction of a wide assortment of sophisticated new electronic products. Numerous innovations in telecommunications and computer networking led to the development of a vast IT industry and revolutionized the operating methods and ways of numerous industries. â€Å"After peaking at $290,000 million in 1992, the federal budget steadily shrank as economic growth increased tax revenues. In 1998, the government posted its first surplus in 30 years, although a huge debt — mainly in the form of promised future Social Security payments to the baby boomers – remained† (The 1990s and beyond, 2008) The Economy in the 21st Century Whilst such developments led a number of economists to believe that the United States was entering a period of sustained economic growth, economic growth came to a halt in the early 2000s. Much of this was due to the slowing down of the investment boom and the economy went into recession in the second half of 2001, cutting a ten year period of economic growth. Along with slowdowns in investment and the widespread crashing of dotcom organizations the economy was terribly hurt by the World Trade Center attacks worsened the economic situation. The recession was short lived and lasted for a period of 8 months and whilst the labor force continued to grow, its rate moderated significantly. Whilst the actual recession was short lived the following years were ones of slow growth. Growth in GDP, which was estimated at 2. 5 % in 2002 continued to be slow in 2003 and unemployment rose significantly in 2003 (Julius, 2005). Huge corporate scams, like the ones at Enron and WorldCom led to erosion of domestic confidence and the recovery process remained slow and sluggish. The downturn in the US economy, which had spurred global economic growth during the 1990s led to a worldwide economic downturn, not just in Europe but also in Japan, Latin America and Southeast Asia (Julius, 2005). Consumer spending increased only after the commencement of the war in Iraq and was accompanied by the improvement of most economic indicators. The movement of the economy in the 2000s can be broken up in three distinct sections, the recession of 2001 followed by sluggish growth in 2002 and 2003, sharp economic growth from 2004 to 2007 and financial crisis that enveloped the economy after the housing crash and the mortgage disaster of 2007 (The 1990s and beyond, 2008). The years following 2003 witnessed a recovery powered by consumer spending as the Federal Reserve lowered interest rates and the government reduced taxes. The economy grew at an average annual rate of 3. 1 % during this period, a rate not much lower than that achieved during the growth phase of the 1990s. The economy was also bolstered by a USD 500 billion spending on homeland security and the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, a jump of 4 trillion USD in household debt and a 50 % increase in prices of real estate (The 1990s and beyond, 2008). With the Fed engineering finance at low interest rates, consumer debt, credit card, and vehicle loans went up from 7. 9 trillion USD to 12. 2 trillion USD, and US consumers went on a spending spree that had no precedent. Inflation was fuelled not just by increasing demand but by sharp increases in oil prices, which went up from 28 dollars a barrel in 2001 to the mid 60s in 2006 and finally to USD 148 a barrel in 2007 before the current crisis brought it crashing down. â€Å"The rise in GDP in 2004-07 was undergirded by substantial gains in labor productivity. Hurricane Katrina caused extensive damage in the Gulf Coast region in August 2005, but had a small impact on overall GDP growth for the year. Soaring oil prices in 2005-2007 threatened inflation and unemployment, yet the economy continued to grow through year-end 2007. † (CIA Fact Book, 2008) Tragedy struck the US and global economy in 2007 in the form of the mortgage crisis when economists were predicting a boom the likes of which the world had never seen before. The majority of the problems impacting the US economy have come about because of the development of housing crisis. Whilst housing and construction activities had grown sharply since 2004, they slackened significantly in 2006 after successive interest rate increases by the Federal Reserve made monthly housing loan repayments substantially more costly for home mortgage holders. With loans having become far more expensive to service, the housing industry went into a slump in 2006 with far lesser home sales on a Year on Year basis. The continuation of this phenomenon into 2007 led to a sharp economic slowdown and was in many ways responsible for the precipitation of the mortgage crisis. The sub prime mortgage financial crisis in the USA first evidenced itself in 2006, and assumed global proportions in mid 2007. With a combination of a number of economic causes like increased monthly repayment figures and declining home values restricting the inability of mortgage holders to meet their repayment terms, mortgage lenders, who until the had ridden the wave of real estate expansion, were hit with huge cash deficits and the inadequate securities to make good their losses (Bernanke, 2007). The emergence of the sub prime crisis led to the opening of a virtual Pandora’s Box of wrong and risky banking practices, and the financial bankruptcy and mortgage foreclosures of thousands of borrowers. It also led to the bankruptcy of huge financial institutions like Lehman Brothers, the virtual collapse of a monolith like Citibank, the collapse of stock markets, the extinction of stock market fortunes of thousands of Americans and finally to a tremendous crunch in availability of funds and credit. Apart from creating havoc among financial institutions the crisis has also led to tremendous slowing down of economic activity, the loss of thousands of jobs, increasing unemployment, contraction of GDP and enormous economic uncertainty. The sub-prime crisis has put a huge doubt over broader economic functioning by choking spending and by impacting the progress of the building sector. Whilst most impartial observers are likely to attribute the sub prime crisis to the greed of borrowers and lenders, the lax policies of regulatory authorities is seen by many to be a major contributory factor for the development of this crisis. Laxity in the activity of the Federal reserve, which reduced interest rates in 2001 and kept them low for five years, is considered to be a major reason for the reckless borrowing and lending practices that finally led to the sub prime crisis. The collapse of major banks and financial institutions has led to the development of an enormous credit crunch, with banks unable to lend money to businesses and to individuals. â€Å"So far this year, 15 banks have failed, compared with three last year. And Wall Street’s five biggest investment firms were swallowed by other companies, filed bankruptcy or converted themselves into commercial banks to weather the financial storm† (Bush: Bailout Plan †¦, 2008). With losses not being confined just to mortgage lenders, many banks lost billions of dollars in the bad mortgage debts that they had bought from mortgage companies. This in turn led to sharp reduction in the money available with them and made them unable to engage in any further lending activity. Businesses across a wide spectrum of industry and service sectors find it difficult to obtain funds for operations and growth, a phenomenon that is seriously affecting their regular working, and leading to contraction of business activity, reduction in production and sales, and to reduction of workforce. Thousands of people have been laid off in the banking sector and job losses are now increasing across the spectrum of business companies, not just in the United States but across the world. Reduced employment figures, accompanied by lesser money availability with people who are fortunate enough to hold their jobs, is also leading to sharp drops in demand for a range of products, including automobiles and household goods, and leading to crisis conditions in various sectors of the economy. The US automobile industry, which has been going through a bad patch for the last few years, has been particularly badly hit, with mostly all companies announcing production cuts and job terminations. Conclusion The duration and severity of the current financial crisis has led many analysts to compare it with the events of the Great Depression, when 9,000 banks failed. Others however feel that while the current crisis is undoubtedly severe it is far away from reaching the levels of economic grief that characterized the depression of the 1930s. Contracting money supply, tax increases, and protectionist tariffs, factors that were associated with the Great Depression are not present today. Unemployment levels, while rising today are also far below the levels of 25 % that were breached in the 1930s. Today’s problem remains associated with the crisis of banking solvency, as is evident from the bankruptcies, forced takeovers and virtual nationalization of large private sector banks. Banks are desperate to first balance their banks and are looking for funds to stay afloat and manage their existing obligations rather than in providing fresh credit. The government of the United States has come out with a bailout plan that was first estimated at 700 billion US dollars and has now come up to nearly a trillion dollars, a figure equal to the GDP of many prosperous West European economies. The bailout plan envisages the provisioning of hundreds of billions of dollars that the treasury can use to for the purchase of distressed assets, particularly mortgage backed securities and for making capital injections into banks. The purpose of the bailout plan is to protect banks, stabilize the economy, improve liquidity, restore confidence in financial markets, and encourage consumption. The Federal Reserve has in recent weeks joined with other major central banks to reduce interest rates and the world’s top economic powers are getting together to take concerted action. Such efforts are yet to show significant results and stock markets continue to remain depressed. â€Å"Slowing consumer demand, labor productivity and, potentially, trade growth worsens the prospects of a mild recession. If the bailout does not soon restore financial stability-and many economists doubt that it will-bailing out the broader economy will require additional public funds and increase burdens on future taxpayers† (Gokhale, 2008) Economists also estimate unemployment to increase to hit 7. 5 % by next year and most are in agreement that while the current crisis may not prove to be as severe as the great depression, economic recovery does not appear to be immediately visible and that the economy will remain difficult even if financial markets were to stabilize. In the meanwhile Americans will most probably have to live with shrinking salaries and reducing net worth at least for 2009.

Beauty May Only Be Skin Deep

While many postulate that beauty is not the most important thing in a person's life, reality sometimes dealt people with a hard blow. New parents are always anxious that their child would look good not only for their sake but mostly for the child's sake. Society may well deny that beauty is not a hindrance to success and popularity but even as people are growing up, the good-looking girls and boys get more attention and are forgiven their mischiefs with the proper contrite looks on angelic faces. Relatives and friends would always remark on how beautiful a child is.Even if grown ups know that beauty is just skin deep, it is deeply entrenched in society that it becomes automatic and a point of conversation. In the job market, applicants try their best to look good because it could only be their edge against many others. The Economist says in an article that if appearance is not important in a job, why would people take the trouble of dressing up? Particularly in jobs that involve deal ing with people, employers would require, without including it in the requirements, that the candidates should be pleasing to the eyes.For instance, a flight attendant need not finish college but she must have perfect skin and teeth. For no apparent reason other than having perfect skin is good to look at, airline companies would prefer a college drop-out with stunning good looks rather than a comparatively more intelligent person whose physical appearance is not as flawless. In interpersonal relationships, people tend to gravitate toward beautiful people because they are generally thought to be more fun to be with. People who possess natural beauty could turn out fun and outgoing if they are not blinded and spoilt by too much adoration in their formative years.Many gorgeous celebrities are often caught behaving disorderly in public because their adoring public make sometimes make them blind to their faults. References Women's Health/Gynecology. (2008, August 19). America's Beauty O bsession Poses Serious Consequences for Women and Girls, Report Reveals. Retrieved October 7, 2008, from http://www. medicalnewstoday. com/articles/118588. php The Economist. (2007, December 19). To Those That Have, Shall be Given. Retrieved October 7, 2008, from http://results. myhpf. co. uk/framedresults. asp? Keyword=beauty+and+job+

Quality Management for Organizational Excellence

Quality Management for Organizational Excellence Quality management is a continuous organizational process which is aimed at meeting and exceeding the customers’ requirements through specific processes and an organization wide participation in planning and implementation. The elements of quality management include focus on the customer, strategy, teamwork, continual commitment and a scientific approach. Other elements are continuous improvement, training and education, control and obsession with quality (Hakes, 1991).Advertising We will write a custom essay sample on Quality Management for Organizational Excellence specifically for you for only $16.05 $11/page Learn More The customer is the most important aspect of an organization because all activities that the firm conducts are geared toward the supply of goods or services to the customer. The internal customer is just as important as the external customer. The internal customer refers to individuals that are members of an organization who contrib ute to the final product that is offered to the customer. Since processes are what determine the end product, it is necessary to continually improve them. When set objects are met, new objectives should be set for great levels of quality. Organizations that practice quality management are strategic in that they aim to be in line with set organizational objectives (Hakes, 1991). Quality management also takes into consideration the future of the organization and activities of competitors. The organization is obsessed with meeting the quality standards that are required by the customers. In this way, the employees desire to do their best all the time. The focus on quality is not just for the short term but for the long run as well. In order for the entire organization to be one-minded in quality, all employees have to be trained and educated on quality management. The quality management process requires that there be adequate control from top management, although autonomy is encourag ed. A scientific approach is used in setting targets, benchmarking and performance appraisal (Hakes, 1991). Kaoru Ishikawa was a pioneer in the subject of quality management. He emphasized on the quality management elements of customer focus and education of employees. His doctrine pointed to employee training as the basis for the commencement and maintenance of quality management in an organization. He came up with quality circles which enable employees to be involved in problem solving while increasing their ability to identify opportunities for growth (Hakes, 1991). The development of these elements made Kaoru Ishikawa successful because organizations have been able to increase revenue and deal with competition in the market.Advertising Looking for essay on business economics? Let's see if we can help you! Get your first paper with 15% OFF Learn More Quality management is very useful in today’s market environment. Competition is one of the biggest challenges facing firms. Market leader should employ quality market so as to maintain there position in terms of market share and profits. On the other hand, small organizations that are growing or trying to penetrate the market, would benefit greatly from quality management. Customers in the current market are very complex and knowledgeable. They know what they want and expect companies to provide goods and services which meet certain standards. Quality management would enable a firm to meet the customers’ needs thus ensuring that there will be repeat purchases and loyalty to the brand. The quality management field is likely to grow in future. More efficient and effective system will be developed so as to improve the position of the firm in the future market. The focus may be on external factors in the market such as changes in technology, globalization and environmental concerns. Reference List Hakes, C. (1991). Total quality management: the key to business improvement: a Pera International executive briefing. London: Springer.

Linnaean Classification System (Scientific Names)

Linnaean Classification System (Scientific Names) In 1735, Carl Linnaeus published his Systema Naturae, which contained his taxonomy for organizing the natural world. Linneaus proposed three kingdoms, which were divided into classes. From classes, the groups were further divided into orders, families, genera (singular: genus), and species. An additional rank beneath species distinguished between highly similar organisms. While his system of classifying minerals has been discarded, a modified version of the Linnaean classification system is still used to identify and categorize animals and plants. Why Is the Linnaean System Important? The Linnaean system is important because it led to the use of binomial nomenclature to identify each species. Once the system was adopted, scientists could communicate without the use of misleading common names. A human being became a member of Homo sapiens, no matter what language a person spoke. How to Write a Genus Species Name A Linnaean name or scientific name has two parts (i.e., is binomial). First is the genus name, which is capitalized, followed by the species name, which is written in lowercase letters. In print, a genus and species name is italicized. For example, the scientific name for the house cat is Felis catus. After the first use of a full name, the genus name is abbreviated using only the first letter of the genus (e.g., F. catus). Be aware, there are actually two Linnaean names for many organisms. There is the original name given by Linnaeaus and the accepted scientific name (often different). Alternatives to Linnaean Taxonomy While the genus and species names of Linneaus rank-based classification system are used, cladististic systematics is increasingly popular. Cladistics categorizes organisms based on traits that can be traced to the most recent common ancestor. Essentially, its classification based on similar genetics. Original Linnaean Classification System When identifying an object, Linnaeus first looked at whether it was animal, vegetable, or mineral. These three categories were the original domains. Domains were divided into kingdoms, which were broken into phyla (singular: phylum) for animals and divisions for plants and fungi. Phyla or divisions were broken into classes, which in turn were divided into orders, families, genera (singular: genus), and species. Species in v were divided into subspecies. In botany, species were divided into varietas (singular: variety) and forma (singular: form). According to the 1758 version (10th edition) of the Imperium Naturae, the classification system was: Animals Classis 1: Mammalia (mammals)Classis 2: Aves (birds)Classis 3: Amphibia (amphibians)Classis 4: Pisces (fish)Classis 5: Insecta (insects)Classis 6: Vermes (worms) Plants Classis 1. Monandria: flowers with 1 stamenClassis 2. Diandria: flowers with 2 stamensClassis 3. Triandria: flowers with 3 stamensClassis 4. Tetrandria: flowers with 4 stamensClassis 5. Pentandria: flowers with 5 stamensClassis 6. Hexandria: flowers with 6 stamensClassis 7. Heptandria: flowers with 7 stamensClassis 8. Octandria: flowers with 8 stamensClassis 9. Enneandria: flowers with 9 stamensClassis 10. Decandria: flowers with 10 stamensClassis 11. Dodecandria: flowers with 12 stamensClassis 12. Icosandria: flowers with 20 (or more) stamensClassis 13. Polyandria: flowers with many stamensClassis 14. Didynamia: flowers with 4 stamens, 2 long and 2 shortClassis 15. Tetradynamia: flowers with 6 stamens, 4 long and 2 shortClassis 16. Monadelphia; flowers with the anthers separate, but the filaments united at the baseClassis 17. Diadelphia; flowers with the stamens united in two groupsClassis 18. Polyadelphia; flowers with the stamens united in several groupsClassis 19. Syngenesia; flo wers with 5 stamens having anthers united at the edges Classis 20. Gynandria; flowers having stamens united to the pistilsClassis 21. Monoecia: monoecious plantsClassis 22. Dioecia: dioecious plantsClassis 23. Polygamia: polygamodioecious plantsClassis 24. Cryptogamia: organisms that resemble plants but dont have flowers, which included fungi, algae, ferns, and bryophytes Minerals Classis 1. Petrà ¦ (rocks)Classis 2. Minerà ¦ (minerals)Classis 3. Fossilia (fossils)Classis 4. Vitamentra (possibly meant minerals with nutritional value or some vital essence) The mineral taxonomy is no longer in use. The ranking for plants has changed, since Linnaeus based his classes on the number of stamens and pistils of a plant. The animal classification is similar to the one in use today. For example, the modern scientific classification of the house cat is kingdom Animalia, phylum Chordata, class Mammalia, order Carnivora, family Felidae, subfamily Felinae, genus Felis, species catus. Fun Fact About the Taxonomy Many people assume Linnaeus invented ranking taxonomy. In actuality, the Linnaean system is simply his version of ordering. The system actually dates back to Plato and Aristotle. Reference Linnaeus, C. (1753). Species Plantarum. Stockholm: Laurentii Salvii. Retrieved 18 April 2015.

A comparison between Jean Rhys and Una Marson Essay Example for Free

A comparison between Jean Rhys and Una Marson Essay Poetry (1289) , The Tempest (71) , Prospero (66) , Caliban (36) , Jean Rhys (6) ? Exile in the Works of Jean Rhys and Una Marson. In Jonathan Miller’s 1970 production of Shakespeare’s â€Å"The Tempest† the character of Caliban was cast as black, therefore reigniting the link between the Prospero/Caliban paradigm as the colonizer/colonized. It was not a new idea, indeed Shakespeare himself envisaged the play set on an island in the Antilles and the play would have had great appeal at the time when new territories were being discovered, conquered, plundered and providing seemingly inexhaustible revenue for the colonisers. What is particularly interesting, however, is how powerful the play later becomes for discourse on colonialism. This trope of Caliban is used by George Lamming in â€Å"The Pleasures of Exile† where he likens Prospero in his relationship with Caliban, to the first slave-traders who used physical force and then their culture to subjugate the African and the Carib, overcoming any rebellion with a self righteous determinism. In â€Å"The Pleasures of Exile† Lamming sees Caliban as: â€Å"Man and other than man. Caliban is his convert, colonized by language, and excluded by language. It is precisely this gift of language, this attempt at transformation which has brought about the pleasure and the paradox of Caliban’s exile. Exiled from his gods, exiled from his nature, exiled from his own name! Yet Prospero is afraid of Caliban. He is afraid because he knows that his encounter with Caliban is, largely, his encounter with himself.† 1 The Prospero/Caliban paradigm is a very relevant symbol for the colonizer/colonized situation of the West Indies but it nevertheless remains a paternalistic position. Where does that leave women of the Caribbean? It could be argued that the Caribbean woman has been even further marginalized. That in making Caliban the model of the Caribbean man it is therefore providing him with a voice. Yet nowhere in the Tempest is there a female counterpart, rendering the Caribbean woman invisible as well as silent and ignoring an essential part of their historical culture. Another issue raised here, is that Caribbean literature has for many years been male dominated. Just as the colonizer sought to ignore and marginalize their savage ‘Other’ so the Caribbean male has ignored their female counterpart. Opal Palmer Adisa, in exploring this issue, believes that it is â€Å"out of this patriarchal structure, designed to make her an object, part of the landscape to be used and discarded as seen fit by the colonizer, that the Caribbean woman has emerged.†2 It was out of such a ‘patriarchal structure’ that Jean Rhys and Una Marson emerged. The writing of both women revise and expand theme and personae, subverting a colonial and patriarchal culture. Both women â€Å"may exist in different ethnological and ontological realms but they both exist in worlds which have, at one time or another, attempted to censure, silence or ignore the ideals and interests of women†3 Like many of their male Caribbean counterparts to succeed them, their writing was greatly influenced by voyaging into the colonial metropolis and living in exile. In this essay I will discuss the importance of that journey in seeking to find a voice, an identity, and even a language to challenge established notions of Self, gender and race within the colonial structure. But essential to their experience is their struggle. Naipaul recognised, in Rhys, the themes of â€Å"isolation, an absence of society or community, the sense of things falling apart, depende nce, loss†.4 This could also be said of Marson. Jean Rhys was born Ella Gwendoline Rees Williams on 24th August 1890, in Roseau, Dominica to a Creole mother of Scottish descent and a Welsh father who was a doctor. Rhys left Dominica in 1907, aged sixteen and continued her education in a Cambridge girls’ school and then at the Academy of Dramatic Art which she left after two terms. Rhys experienced feelings of alienation and isolation at both these institutions and these feelings were to stay with her for much of her life. Upon pursuing a career as a chorus girl under a variety of names Rhys embarked on an affair with a man twenty years older than herself and which lasted two years. It is broadly accepted that this early period of her London life formed the structure for Voyage In The Dark, and like all of Rhys’s novels, explores homelessness, dislocation, the marginal and the migrant. The character of Anna, like most of her female protagonists exists in the demimonde of city life, living on the wrong side of respecta bility. What Rhys does effectively in this novel is to centralize the marginalized, those subjects â€Å"who belong nowhere, between cultures, between histories.†5 Una Marson was born in rural Jamaica in 1905. Her father was a well respected Baptist minister and as a result of his standing within the community Marson had the opportunity to be educated on a scholarship at Hampton High School, a boarding school for mainly white, middle class girls. After finding employment as a stenographer, Marson went on to edit the ‘Jamaican Critic’, an established literary publication, and from 1928-1921, her own magazine ‘The Cosmopolitan’. Having established herself as a poet, playwright and women’s activist Marson made the decision to travel to Britain. Her achievements in London were impressive; a social activist within the League of Coloured Peoples which led to her taking a post as secretary to the deposed Emperor Haile Selassie and later she was appointed as a BBC commentator. In reality, however, Marson, like Rhys found the voyage into the Metropolis very difficult. Facing blatant racial discrimination like ‘so many West Indian women migrants of the 1950s, Una found herself blocked at every turn. She complained and cried; she felt lonely and humiliated,’. 6 In spite of many literary and social connections she remained an isolated and marginal figure. Her poetry displays the uncertainty of cultural belonging where her language ties her to colonialism yet also provides her with a powerful tool with which to challenge it. In placing Rhys alongside Marson as pioneering female writers, it is important to explore the notion of nationality, of being Caribbean and to question the grounds upon which such ideas are constructed. Both women were writing at the same time, having been born and educated in the British colonies. Both these writers, whose lives span the twentieth century, are situated at the crossroads of the colonial and post-colonial, the modern and post modern, where the threat of fascism and war result in anti colonial struggles and eventual decolonisation across the world. Their voyages from the colonies into the metropolitan centre generate similar experiences. What is clear with both is that by journeying into the metropolis, as women, they occupy a double marginal position within an already marginalized community. Their journey can be seen as an exploration of displacement where, according to Edward W. Said, the intellectual exile exists ‘in a median state, neither completely at one with the new setting nor fully disencumbered of the old, beset with half involvements and half attachments, nostalgic and sentimental at one level, an adept mimic or a secret outcast on the other.’7 Rhys and Marson, having left the Caribbean are asking us to consider what it means to write from the margins. Within their work, both women challenge notions of women’s place within society and women’s place as a colonized subject in the metropolitan centre. The protagonist, Anna Morgan, in Voyage in the Dark, reflects Rhys’s own multi indeterminate, multi conflicted identity. Anna, like Rhys is a white descendent of British colonists and slave traders who occupy a precarious position of being â€Å"inbetween†. Hated by the Blacks for their part in oppressing the slaves and continuing to cling on to that superior social position, they are also regarded by the ‘mother country’ as the last vestiges of a degenerate part of their own history best forgotten. Moreover, 1930s England, still under the shadow of Victorian moral dicta, continued to judge harshly a young woman without wealth, family, social position and with an odd accent. Throughout the novel Anna is identified with characters who are â€Å"usually objectified and silenced in canonical works: the chorus girl, the mannequin, the demimondaine.†8 Much has been made of her reading of Zola’s Nana and indeed there are many parallels between the two characters. Anna, like Nana becomes a prostitute and in the first version of Voyage in the Dark Anna like Nana dies very young. There is of course the obvious anagram of her name but, as Elaine Savory highlights, some interesting revisions by Rhys. Whereas Zola, in Nana, creates a character who brings about the downfall of upper class men not through power but â€Å"with only the unsophisticated currency of youth and raw female sexuality†9 Rhys, in Anna, creates a character who is herself destroyed by men. â€Å"In Rhys’s version the men who use her youth and beauty are for the most part evidently cowardly or downright disreputable: Anna herself begins as naively trusting, passes through a stage of self destructive hopelessness and passivity and ends, in Rhys’s preferred, unpublished version, by dying from a botched abortion.†10 If we are to see Walter Jeffries as the original European, existing in a world viewed certainly by himself as principally ordered and reasonable then Rhys is, through this character, highlighting the degenerate aspect of using power to commodify and even destroy, thereby subverting the colonizer’s position in relation to the colonized. Through the character of Anna, Rhys explores those oppositions of â€Å"Self† and â€Å"Other†, male and female, black and white. Even though she outwardly resembles the white European, enabling her, unlike Marson, to blend visually within London, her association with the Caribbean sets her apart as between black and white cultures and as an exotic â€Å"Other†. This ambiguity of Anna’s position results in â€Å"slippage†. Anna and her family would have been regarded in the West Indies as the white colonizers. In England and in her relationship with Jeffries she becomes the colonized â€Å"Other†. In being read as the colonized subject Anna is continually having to adapt her world view and sense of identity to the perspective being imposed on her. A good example of this is the chorus girls’s renaming her as the â€Å"Hottentot† aligning her more with the black African and demonstrating the homogenizing of the colonized peoples b y the colonizers. This is similar to Spivak’s belief that ‘so intimate a thing as personal and human identity might be determined by the politics of imperialism.’11 Interestingly, â€Å"Hottentot† is the former name for the Nama, a nomadic tribe of Southern Africa. A somewhat apt comparison which reflects Anna’s own nomadic existence as she moves from town to town as a chorus girl and from one bed sit to another. The term â€Å"Hottentot† developed into a derogatory term during the Victorian era and became synonymous firstly with wide hipped, big bottomed African women with oversized genitals and then with the sexuality of a prostitute. Jeffries is fully aware of the implications of the name â€Å"Hottentot†. In response to hearing Anna’s renaming he says, â€Å"I hope you call them something worse back.†12 Elaine Savory makes a strong connection between Anna’s renaming and her relationship with Jeffries, her eventual seducer. Whilst â€Å"not looking at Anna’s body in an obvious way, eventually the transaction between them is understood fully on his side to be a promise of sexual excitement from a white woman whom he perceives as having an extra thrill presumably from association with racist constructions of black females in his culture.†13 Franz Fanon, in his book Black Skin, White Masks perceives these complex colonial relations as being in a state of flux rather than fixed or static. In his introduction to Fanon’s text, Homi Bhabha highlights this point, stating that the ‘familiar alignment of colonial subjects†¦Black/White, Self/Other†¦is disturbed†¦and the traditional grounds of racial identity are dispersed.’14 So it is in the relationship between Jeffries and Anna. In transposing the colonizer’s stereotypical images of a black woman onto Anna he is disrupting and dispersing those ‘traditional grounds of racial identity’. Moreover, Anna is subconsciously enacting a mediated performance, aware of her impact upon him and the implications of her actions, in an attempt to adhere to his preconceptions of her. The relationship cannot be sustained on these fundamentally unstable preconceptions. Anna, both as a female and racial â€Å"Other† is penetrated by Jeffries and with the exchange of money is commodified. Without independent means Anna becomes that purchasable girl who is at the mercy of and eventually becomes dependent upon the upper middle class Jeffries. The relationship between these two characters reflects Rhys’s own location in the world where the West Indies was at the time still a commodity of the British Empire. In another analysis of the colonial stereotype, Homi Bhabha challenges the ‘limiting and traditional reliance of the stereotype as offering, at any one time, a secure point of identification on the part of the individual,’15 in this case Jeffries and Hester. Bhabha does not argue that the colonizer’s stereotyping of the colonized ‘Other’ is as a result of his security in his own identity or conception of himself but more to do with the colonizer’s own identity and authority which is in fact destabilized by contradictory responses to the Other. In order to maintain a powerful position it is important, according to Bhabha, for the colonizer to identify the colonized with the image he has already fixed in his mind. This image can be ambiguous as the colonized subject can be simultaneously familiar under the penetrable gaze of the all seeing, all powerful colonial gaze and be incomprehensible like the ‘inscrutable Oriental’. The coloni zed can be â€Å"both savage†¦and yet the most obedient and dignified of servants†¦; he is the embodiment of rampant sexuality and yet innocent as a child; he is mystical, primitive, simpleminded and yet the most worldly and accomplished liar , and the manipulator of social forces.†16 In short, for Bhabha, the relationship between the colonizer and the colonized is riddled with contradictions and inconsistencies which, when imposed upon the colonized ‘Other’, cause a crisis of identity. So it is with Anna. Jeffries upon first meeting with the very young Anna can see that she is as ‘innocent as a child’ and is ‘most obedient’ sexually, but by her association with the Caribbean and the Hottentot as I have previously explored, she is subsequently attributed with being ‘the embodiment of rampant sexuality’ resulting in his taking of her virginity, abandoning her to prostitution but also leading to as Veronica Clegg observes ‘a loss of temporal referents’17 Anna’s stepmother, Hester, also attempts to impose an identity upon Anna which not only conflicts with Anna’s own sense of identity but is also based around stereotypical perceptions. . Hester, whose ‘voice represents a repressive English colonial law’18 believes that Anna’s father’s troubles resulted from his having lost ‘touch with everybody in England’19 and that these severing of ties with the Imperial motherland is a signal to her that ‘he was failing’,20 losing his identity, reduced to the level of the black inhabitants of the island. This idea of contamination and racial reduction is explored by Paul B. Rich who explains that there was a belief in the early twentieth century that white people in the tropics risked ‘in the absence of continual cultural contacts with their temperate northern culture, being reduced to the level of those black races with whom they had made their â€Å"unnatural home†Ã¢ €˜.21 In Hester’s eyes this apparent loss of identity is also experienced by Anna. She continually criticizes her speech, her relationship with Francine the black servant, and also insinuates degenerative behaviour on the part of her family, particularly Uncle Bo. Hester’s views reflect the growing disapproval in England at that time, of relationships between white people and the black population in the West Indies. Inter-racial relationships were discouraged for fear of contamination of the white ‘Self’. In voicing her disapproval of Anna’s friendship with Francine along with her continual use of the racist and derogatory term â€Å"nigger†, Hester is alluding to the fact that, in her opinion, Anna, especially through her speech, has indeed been contaminated and reduced racially and that Anna’s association with Francine thwarts her attempts to reconnect her with the colonizer’s ‘cultural contacts’. Hester rails that she finds it ‘impossible to get you [Anna] away from the servants. That awful sing-song voice you had! Exactly like a nigger you talked†¦and still do. Exactly like that dreadful girl Francine. When you were jabbering away together in the pantry I never could tell which of you was speaking.’22 Hester’s constant criticism only serves to undermine Anna’s real identity and dislocate her further from the Caribbean world she once inhabited and the alienating London world she is now experiencing. Her accent sets her apart, drifting between two worlds. Anna’s difficulties in negotiating these two worlds is a result of the ‘return of the diasporic’ to the metropolitan centre where ‘the perplexity of the living is most acutely experienced.’23 This can certainly be seen in her response to the weather which, according to Bhabha, invokes ‘the most changeable and imminent signs of national difference’24 The novel opens with; â€Å"It was as if a curtain had fallen, hiding everything I had ever known. It was almost like being born again. The colours were different, the smells different, the feeling things gave you right down inside yourself was different. Not just the difference between heat and cold; light, darkness; purple, grey. But a difference in the way I was frightened and the way I was happy. I didn’t like London at first. I couldn’t get used to the cold.†25 And later upon arriving in England with Hester she describes it as being ‘divided into squares like pocket-handkerchiefs; a small tidy look it had, everywhere fenced off from everywhere else’ 26and then in London where the ‘dark houses all alike frowning down one after another’27 Throughout the novel Anna continually experiences feelings of being enclosed. Many of the bedsits are restricting and box-like. On one occasion she remarks that ‘this damned room’s getting smaller and smaller†¦And about the rows of houses outside gimcrack, rotten-looking and all exactly alike’.28 The many small rooms between which Anna moves emphasize her disempowerment through enclosed spaces. These spaces, in turn, serve as metaphors for the consequences in voyaging into the metropolitan centre. She is at once shut inside these small monotonous rooms and shut out from that world which has sought to colonize her. It is perhaps ironic that the further she mo ves into the centre of the city, ending up as she does on Bird Street, just off Oxford Street , the more she is shut out and marginalized by that imperialist society. Her memories of the West Indies are in sharp contrast to her impressions of England. The images of home are always warm, vivid and exotic, ‘Thinking of the walls of the Old Estate House, still standing, with moss on them. That was the garden. One ruined room for roses, one for orchids, one for ferns. And the honeysuckle all along the steep flight of steps’.29 When comparing the two worlds she remarks to herself that ‘the colours are red, purple, blue , gold, all shades of green. The colours here are black, grey, dim-green, pale blue, the white of people’s faces – like woodlice’. 30 Her memory of home is experienced sensuously as she recalls the sights and smells: â€Å"Market Street smelt of the wind but the narrow street smelt of niggers and wood smoke and salt fishcakes fried in lard’ and the sound of the black women as they call out, â€Å"salt fishcakes, all sweet an’ charmin’, all sweet an’ charmin’.'†31 Anna attempts to convey this richness to Jeffries. His failure to appreciate the beauty she describes merely underlines the differences between the two. He expresses a preference for cold places remarking that ‘The tropics would be altogether too lush’.32 Jeffries’s reaction to the West Indies in fact reflects the colonizer’s view that the ‘ruined room for roses’ and ‘orchids’ portray a disorder, a garden of Eden complete with its implications of moral decay and as Bhabha states, a ‘tropical chaos that was deemed despotic and ungovernable and therefore worthy of the civilizing mission.’33 Anna’s association with this world sets her up, in Walter’s eyes, as a figure representing a secret depravity promising forbidden desires. Anna, like the West Indies is something to be overpowered, enslaved and colonized, where the colonizer seeks to strip their identity and impose their own beliefs and desires. It is significant, therefore, that following this scene Anna loses her virginity to Jeffries and recalls the memory of the mulatto slave girl, Maillotte Boyd, aged 18, whose record Anna once found on ‘an old slave list at Constance’.34 Like Maillotte Boyd, Anna is now merely a commodity and Jeffries has no intention of ever seeing her as an equal. Her purity, in his eyes isn’t worth preserving as he already considers her the contaminated ‘Other’. By his actions he succeeds in maintaining that patriarchal imperialism which relies on institutional forms of racial and national separateness. Anna, as a twentieth century white Creole, is no freer than the nineteenth century mulatto slave. Just as Maillotte Boyd is, as racially mixed, suspended between two races, so Anna as a white Creole is suspended between two cultures, leaving her dislocated. Anna’s voyage into the imperialist metropolis leads to boundaries and codes of behaviour, language and dress being constantly imposed upon her. She is aware for example of the importance of clothes as a means of controlling her social standing and also her standing as a woman. Through her dress Anna almost becomes that elegant white lady, mimicking London’s female high society. For Jeffries, Anna represents the ‘menace of mimicry’, which , according to Bhabha is ‘a difference which is almost nothing but not quite’ and which turns ‘to menace- a difference that is total but not quite.’35 This mimicry serves to empower Anna as it ultimately destabilises the essentialism of colonialist ideology, resulting in Jeffries imposing upon Anna the identity of the West Indian ‘Other’ This in turn leads to feelings of loss, alienation and dislocation, a rejection of being white and a desire to be black. ‘I always wanted to be black. I was happy because Francine was there†¦.Being black is warm and gay, being white is cold and sad.’36 Anna’s association with Hester meant that she ‘hated being white. Being white and getting like Hester, †¦old and sad and everything.’37 Yet the warmth she expresses in her memories of Francine are always tempered by her realisation that Francine disliked her ‘because I [Anna] was white.’38 Her feelings of being between cultures and feeling dislocated are never fully resolved. Anna’s voyage in the dark, reflects Rhys’s own sense of exile and marginality as a white West Indian woman. Teresa O’Connor remarks that ‘Rhys, herself caught between places, cultures, classes and races, never able to identify clearly with one or the other, gives the same marginality to her heroines, so that they reflect the unique experience of dislocation of the white Creole woman.’39 The language used to express feelings of exile and loneliness, destitution and dislocation is both sparse and economic. It is neither decorative nor contrived, devoid of sentiment or without seeking sympathy. In commenting upon an essay written by Rhys discussing gender politics, Gregg writes that ‘It is important to note her [Rhys’s] belief that writing has a subversive potential. Resistance†¦can be carried out through writing that exposes and opposes the political and social arrangements.’40 Helen Carr, in her exploration of Rhys’s language believes that: â€Å"Rhys in her fictions unpicks and mocks the language by which the powerful keep control, while at the same time shifting, bending, re-inventing ways of using language to open up fresh possibilities of being.†41 Una Marson, another Caribbean to voyage into the metropolis, also experienced loneliness, isolation and a struggle with the complexity of identity. Like Rhys, Marson fought with these feelings throughout her life, resulting in long periods of depression. Her belief in women’s need for pride in their cultural heritage established Marson as ‘the earliest female poet of significance to emerge in West Indian literature’.42 She not only ‘challenged received notions of women’s place in society’ but also raised questions about ‘the relationship of the colonized subject to â€Å"the mother country†Ã¢â‚¬â„¢43 There was a considerable amount of poetry emerging out of the West Indies around this time but most of it was dismissed as being ‘not truly West Indian’,44 the reason for this being partly because many of the writers were English but also because many of the styles used by these writers mimicked colonial forms. Many of Marson’s early poetry reflects this mimicry showing a reliance upon the Romantics of the English poetic tradition, particularly Shelley, Wordsworth and Byron. The poem Spring in England reveals this indebtedness to the Romantics, including as it does a stanza where, having observed the arrival of Spring in London, the poet asks: Daffodils that Wordsworth praised?’ Wait for the Spring,’ the birds replied. I waited for Spring, and lo they came, Clearly there are echoes of Wordsworth’s Daffodils throughout the stanza, reflecting the drive by colonialism through education to eradicate the West Indian selfhood. Yet for Marson this harnessing of English culture not only posed few problems but indeed was, I would argue, a necessary step in her voyage of self discovery. As seen with Rhys, mimicry was a subversive threat to colonial ideology, especially through language. Homi Bhabha’s notion of mimicry seeks to explore those ambivalences of such destabilizing colonial and post-colonial exchanges. â€Å"The menace of mimicry is its double vision which in disclosing the ambivalence of colonial discourse also disrupts its authority. †¦The ambivalence of colonial authority repeatedly turns from mimicry – a difference which is almost nothing but not quite – to menace – a difference that is almost total but not quite. And in that other scene of colonial power, where history turns to farce and presence to a ‘part’ can be seen the twin figures of narcissism and paranoia that repeat furiously, uncontrollably.†46 Bhabha’s essay in recognising the power, the play and the dynamics between the colonizer and the colonized offers an alternative to the pessimistic view held by V.S. Naipaul who believed that West Indian culture was doomed to mimicry, unable to create anything ‘original’. Marson’s mimicry of the Romantics could be seen as a preparation to enter the colonizer’s metropolis, and to attempt to assimilate into the colonizer’s world. In making that voyage to the metropolis, Una Marson succeeds in taking that step from ‘the copy’ to the ‘original’. By remaining in Jamaica Marson risked remaining in an environment too rigidly ingrained by colonial prescriptions. Una Marson’s voyage into ‘the heart of the Empire’, however, resulted in intense disappointment. For the first time, Marson experienced open racism and according to Jarrett-McCauley ‘The truth was that Una dreaded going out because people stared at her, men were curious but their gaze insulted her, even small children with short dimpled legs called her â€Å"Nigger†Ã¢â‚¬ ¦She was a black foreigner seen only as strange and unwanted. This was the ‘Fact of Blackness’ which Fanon was to analyse in Black Skins, White Masks(1952), that inescapable, heightening level of consciousness which comes from â€Å"being dissected by white eyes†.’ 47 Unlike Rhys, Marson was finding it impossible to blend visually within London. Consciousness of her colour made Marson conscious of her marginality. This consciousness led her seriously to question the values of the ‘mother country’. Marson’s work moved from mimicry to anti-patriarchal discourse, seen in her poem Politeness where she responds to the William Blake poem Little Black Boy with: The poem demonstrates Marson’s growing resentment at being alienated by the colonial power. There is an uncertainty in her desire to both belong and to challenge, echoing Rhys in her sense of cultural unbelonging. Those anti-patriarchal feelings are present once more in her poem Nigger where she communicates the anger she feels at being abused and marginalized as the racial ‘Other’. She retorts to this abuse furiously with: My people’s flesh and now you still Add fierce insult to vilest injury.48 In its repetition of the shocking term ‘Nigger’, Marson is confronting the white colonialist’s use of the word to exert power over and oppress the colonized. The violence of its use reflects the violence of their shared history where ‘Of those who drove the Negroes / To their death in days of slavery,’ regard ‘Coloured folk as†¦low and base.’49 In highlighting this history of violence, oppression and slavery, Marson is attempting to invert this oppression and dislodge the notion of white supremacy, whilst attempting to negotiate a position from West Indian to African and in doing so, fashion an identity. By writing the poem in the first person singular and moving from ‘They’ to ‘You’ when addressing the white colonizers, Marson succeeds in centralizing herself and reversing the binary system of ‘Self’ and ‘Other’. Nigger marks Marson’s sharpened perspective on issues such as racism and identity. Her voyage into the metropolitan centre triggers those ’emergent identifications and new social movements†¦[being]†¦played out’.50 It was a time in Marson’s life where she was made to feel inadequate, lonely and humiliated but it also roused her to ‘resist the corrosive force of her oppressive world.’51 Nigger reveals this sense of belonging and not belonging felt by Marson, of being part of the empire but never part of the Motherland, yet it simultaneously challenges the very essentialism in which the colonial Self is rooted. Moreover, the hostility she experiences in many ways acknowledges the success of Marson’s performance as a hybrid. Marson’s frustration and anger was compounded by the fact that in being middle class and educated she possibly saw herself as ‘a notch above the poor, black working class women from the old communities in Cardiff, Liverpool and London’52 Marson explores this question of how middle class West Indians negotiate being educated and yet marginalized and even considered inferior in her play London Calling. The play, based on the experiences of colonial students in London charts the story of a group of expatriates who, upon being invited to the house of an aristocratic English family, dress up in outlandish native costume and speak in ‘broken’ English. The play, a comedy, takes a light hearted look at the stereotypical images held by the British, at the same time countering the myth of black inferiority. There is, in the play, a curious twist as the students from Novoko are presented as black versions of the British in their dress and behaviour, ‘mimic men’ and yet they themselves attempt to ‘mimic’ their own folk culture. They are eventually discovered by one of the family, Larkspur, who then proposes marriage to Rita, one of the Novokans. The play ends with Rita declining Larkspur’s proposal in favour of Alton, another Novokan. This rejection of Larkspur places Rita in a powerful position. Rita is no longer the undesirable ‘Other’, she has resisted the oppressive world of the colonialists and placed herself as the centralised ‘Self’. Rita is Marson’s fantasy where the black woman is recognised as beautiful and an equal. Marson’s activities in the League of Coloured Nations gave her purpose, direction and the opportunity to advance her political education whilst introducing her to the Pan – African movement ‘a sort of boomerang from the horrors of slavery and colonialism, to which Una, like many of her generation, was being steadily drawn.’53 Marson’s work around this time reflects a desire to reclaim and restore that ‘Other’ cultural tradition, a difficult task as the Caribbean was not an homogeneous agency and it was not easy to establish a pre-colonial culture. The ethnic mix was large and hybrid making the notion of ‘Caribbeanness’ less easy to define. The Pan-African movement provided links with an alternative body to European colonialism and offered Marson a platform to renegotiate and redefine her idea of ‘Caribbeaness’ and race, an option not offered to Rhys. Having established a sense of being a black person in a white imperialist centre, she now needed to make sense of being a black woman within this paternalistic centre. The poem Little Brown Girl attempts just this, constructing a dialogue of sorts between a white Londoner, whose gender is unclear, and a little brown girl. The poem begins with a series of questions put to the child: The questioning of the little brown girl’s presence in London suggests a linguistic imperialism. It may be construed as the speaker challenging her right to be in the city, establishing her as the nameless, black ‘Other’. Her feeling of difference is emphasized in the repetition of the word ‘white’ on the final line of the second stanza. The third stanza plays out an interesting reversal in notions of blackness. The speaker asks why she has left the ‘little sunlit land / where we sometimes go / to rest and get brown’54 alluding to the desire of white skinned people to tan which for the white colonialist signifies wealth, for the black ‘Other’ being inferior and uneducated. From here there is a subtle shift of speaker and London is seen through the eyes of the little brown girl. Her perception of the city is distinctly unattractive where ‘There are no laughing faces, / people frown if one really laughs’ and: If the poem began with the strangeness of the brown girl to the white gaze, here it teases out those feelings of alienation felt by the little brown girl at being in such a cold, drab place, so different from her own home. Once more Marson creates a reversal in the stereotype as she seeks to objectify white people observing that ‘the folks are all white -/ White, white, white, / And they all seem the same.’55 In homogenizing the colonizers, the hybridity of the West Indians are then celebrated in the many varied skin tones of ‘black and bronze and brown’ which are themselves homogenized by the label ‘Black’. The vibrancy, colour and friendliness of ‘back home’ where the folks are ‘Parading the city’ wearing ‘Bright attractive bandanas’ contrasts with the previous stanza of the dour images of London. The dialogue is handed back to the white speaker who attempts to establish the origins of the little black girl but succeeds in once more re-establishing the homogeneic white gaze indicated in the speaker’s inability to distinguish between many distinct nations : More than anything the poem conveys that sense of isolation felt by the little brown girl in the city. She never answers the white speaker directly and is positioned in the middle of the poem, again centralizing the colonized. In asking the question ‘Would you like to be white/Little brown girl?’ there is a sense of the colonizer attempting to manipulate and dominate the colonized, to Europeanise, ultimately leading to mimicry. Yet the questioner responds himself with ‘I don’t think you would / For you toss your head / As though you are proud / To be brown’. 56 Marson, here, signals a move away from being a ‘mimic man’ seeking to challenge that whole Eurocentric paternalistic world and centralise the black women, the most marginalized figure in society. The themes central to Little Brown Girl’s themes echo Rhys’s own negative reactions to London seen in the opening page of Voyage in the Dark. Like Rhys, Marson succeeds in capturing that colour and warmth of the West Indies contrasting greatly with the misery of London, experienced by both and which reinforce that racial and national separateness. Those differences prove for both to be irreconcilable, making it impossible for both Rhys and Marson to integrate, leaving both women dislocated from the metropolis. Little Black Girl serves as a useful reminder that many immigrants were women. This encounter between the city and a woman (in Marson’s case, a black woman) echoes Anna’s encounter in Voyage in the Dark albeit as a prostitute. Both walk the streets of the city and as women-as-walkers encounter the metropolis, negotiating its spaces. Denise deCaires Narian suggests that certainly Marson could be considered as a flaneuse.57 Neither Rhys nor Marson, however have the confident panache of the flaneuse and neither fulfil the requirements of flanerie originally set out by Baudelaire. The flaneur, he asserted, saw the ‘crowd as his domain, †¦ His passion and his profession is to merge with the crowd’.58 The flaneur and therefore the flaneuse is engaged in strolling and looking but most importantly merging ‘with the crowd’. For Marson this is impossible as she is a black woman in a white city. Moreover, Baudelaire expands upon the idea of the flaneur as having ‘the ability to be away from home and yet to feel at home anywhere, to be at the centre of the world, and yet to be unseen of the world’.59 Again this is problematic for both Marson and Rhys as their wanderings around the metropolis seek only to reinforce those feelings of ‘Otherness’, isolation and marginality. For Marson these feelings of alienation gained her the reputation of being a ‘true loner who didn’t exactly seek out company’60 leading to a ‘heightened level of bodily consciousness’ which comes from ‘being dissected by white eyes’.61 In her struggle with being marginalized as a black women always at the mercy of the white metropolitan gaze, Marson was always aware of that Europeanised sense of beauty being white. This idea of beauty was so entrenched, even within the black community that they themselves set beauty against the paleness of their own skin. The importance of popularly disseminated images is tackled in Cinema Eyes where a black mother in addressing her daughter attempts to challenge the idea that ‘Europeans still provide the aesthetic reference point’.62 The speaker urges her eighteen year old daughter to avoid the cinema fearing that it might reinforce the idea that white is beautiful causing the girl to lose sight of her own beauty: By growing up with a ‘cinema mind’ the mother has allowed herself to be at the mercy of those tools used by the colonizer to marginalize and indoctrinate, promoting their own superiority. Once again the ‘mimic man’ re-emerges when black women reject their own in seeking an ‘ideal man’. ‘No kinky haired man for me, / No black face, no black children for me.’63 This rather melodramatic narrative within the poem tells of the mother’s ‘fair’ husband shooting her first suitor whom she had initially rejected for being too dark, and then committing suicide. The shooting scene, a re enactment of a gun fight in a western, presents the cinema as a racist and degenerate institution. By the end of the poem, the speaker acknowledges her mistake in rejecting the first lover and finds a sense of self, previously denied by the saturation of cinematic images. In shaking off the colonizer’s indoctrination, which seeks to marginalize her, she addresses the question posed by Franz Fanon which is ‘to what extent authentic love will remain unattainable before one has purged oneself of that feeling of inferiority?’64 Black invisibility in the cinema results in white ideology being forced upon a black body and essentially commodifying it and it is this which Marson seeks to deconstruct. Another poem which tackles the reconstruction of female identity is Black is Fancy, where the speaker compares her reflection in the mirror with a picture ‘Of a beautiful white lady’.65 The mirror serves to reclaim the idea of black as being beautiful and a rediscovery of self: The speaker eventually removes the picture of the white woman suggesting that black worth and beauty can only really exist in the absence of white colonialism. The poem ends in a victory of sorts as she declares that John, her lover has rejected the pale skin in favour of ‘His black ivory girl’.66 Kinky Haired Blues represents Marson’s quest for a more effective and authentic poetic voice in its use of African American speech.. The poem explores the rhythms and musical influences found in Harlem and gathering momentum about this time. Kinky Haired Blues like Cinema Eyes and Black is Fancy criticizes the oppressive beauty regime of white colonialism which seeks to disfigure and marginalize the black woman. The poem opens with the speaker attempting to find a beauty shop: The speaker seeks to Europeanise her black features in an attempt to make herself more attractive. Male indifference experienced in the metropolis forces the speaker to see herself as an aberration, thrusting her onto the margins of a society which is continually projecting the idea that ‘white ‘is ‘right’. The beauty shop contains all the trappings of the colonizer’s idea of beauty, ‘ironed hair’ and ‘bleached skin’. Yet she is caught between being left to ‘die on de shelf’ 67 if she doesn’t change herself, or eradicating her ethnic features and therefore her inner self if she does. By using blues within the poetry she is able to communicate this misery felt within her, that male perceptions of beauty projected by the colonizers dictate that she must distort her own natural beauty in order to fit in and conform. The poem highlights the struggle Marson experiences in trying to preserve her selfhood against such oppressive cultural forces. Marson defiantly attempts to stand against this patriarchal order. She proudly announces that ‘I like me black face / And me kinky hair.’ Inspite of this brave stand Marson eventually succumbs and admits that she is ‘gwine press me hair / And bleach me skin.’ She, like Rhys can only resist internally to the colonialist’s ideals imposed on them. As writers voyaging into the metropolis both Rhys and Marson share in their writing a pervasive sense of isolation where, from the location of London, their particular voices and concerns are, at the time, not recognised. Both writers, from this isolated position on the periphery of the centre. explore issues of womanhood, race and identity,. Marson’s experiences bring about an acute awareness of her difference and ‘Otherness’ as a Black woman. Her work is a defiant voice against this marginalisation and isolation. She was, as Jarrett MaCauley claims ‘the first Black feminist to speak out against racism and sexism in Britain.’68 She was a pioneer in a growing literary culture which was to become the new postcolonial order. Rhys, by contrast, a white West Indian from Dominica was experiencing a declining white minority status against a growing black population, itself an isolating factor both at home and within the metropolis. Kenneth Ramchard suggests that the work of white West Indian writers is characterized by a sense of embattlement: â€Å"Adapted from Fanon we might use the phrase ‘terrified consciousness’ to suggest the White minority’s sensations of shock and disorientation as a smouldering Black population is released into an awareness of power.†69 It is this ‘terrified consciousness’ which contributes to the struggle experienced by Anna in Voyage in the Dark . Located simultaneously both inside and outside West Indian socio cultural history, her journey to the ‘mother country’ seeks only to exacerbate these feelings of ‘in-betweenness’ and to suffer feelings of dislocation and alienation. Both writers, therefore, in their voyage into the metropolis endure different kinds of anxieties in their sense of ‘unbelonging’ to either or both cultural worlds. Both use their writing to speak for the marginal, the hegemonic, the dispossessed, the colonized silenced female voice situated as they were within the cold, oppressive, hierarchical colonial metropolis attempting to impose an oppressive identity upon the exiled women. 1 George Lamming The Pleasures of Exile (London: Alison, 1960) p15 2 Palmer Adisa De Language Reflect Dem Ethos† in ‘The Winds of Change: The Transforming Voices of Caribbean Women Writers and Scholars’ ed. By Adele S. Newson and Linda Strong Leek. (New York: Peter Lang 1998 p23) 3 ‘The Winds of Change: The Transforming Voices of Caribbean Women Writers and Scholars’ ed By Adele S. Newson and Linda Strong-Leek. (New York: Peter Lang 1998 p6) 4 V.S. Naipaul New York Review of Books 1992. Quoted in Helen Carr Jean Rhys (Plymouth: Northcote House Publishers Ltd., 1996) p15 5 Helen Carr Jean Rhys (Plymouth: Northcote House Publishers Ltd., 1996) p. xiv 6 Delia Jarrett-MaCauley The Life of Una Marson (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1998) p51 7 Edward W. Said Representations of the Intellectual (London: Vintage 1994) p49 8 Molly Hite The Other Side of the Story: Structures and Strategies of Contemporary Feminist Narrative Quoted in Joy Castro ‘Jean Rhys’ in The Review of Contemporary Fiction Vol. 20, 2000. www.highbeam.com/library/doc.3.asp p6.Accessed 1 December 2005. 11 Gayatri Spivak ‘Three Women’s Text and a Critique of Imperialism’ in Henry Louis Jr. Gates Race, Writing and Difference (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1987) p269 12Jean Rhys Voyage in the Dark (London: Penguin Books 1969) 13 Elaine Savoury Jean Rhys (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 1998) p 95 14 Homi Bhabha ‘Remembering Fanon’, forward to Franz Fanon ‘s Black Skin, White Masks (London: Pluto, 1986) p ix 15 Homi Bhabha ‘The Other Question’ Location of Culture (London: Routledge 1994)p69 17 Veronica Marie Gregg Jean Rhys’s Historical Imagination: Reading and Writing the Creole (North Carolina: The University of North Carolina Press, 1995) p115 18 Sue Thomas The Worlding of Jean Rhys ( Westport: Greenwood Press 1999) p106 19 Jean Rhys Voyage in the Dark p53 21 Paul B. Rich Race and Empire in British Politics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986) p19 24 Homi Bhabha â€Å"DissemInation: Time, Narrative and the margins of the Modern Nation† The Location of Culture p319 33 Homi Bhabha The Location of Culture p319 35 Homi Bhabha Location of Culture p85 39 Teresa O’Connor The Meaning of the West Indian Experience for Jean Rhys (PhD dissertation, New York University, 1985)cited in Caribbean Woman Writers; Essays from the first International Conference. p19 40 Taken from Rhys’s non fictional analysis of Gender Politics. Veronica Gregg, Jean Rhys’s Historical Imagination p47 41 Helen Carr Jean Rhys, (Plymouth: Northcote House Publishers Ltd, 1996) p 77 42 Lloyd W. Brown, West Indian Poetry (London: Heineman, 1978) p 38 43 Denise deCaires Contemporary Caribbean Women’s Poetry: Making style (London: Routledge, 2002) p 2 45 Una Marson The Moth and the Star, (Kingston, Jamaica: Published by the Author, 1937) p24 46 Homi Bhabha The Location of Culture, (London: Routledge, 1994) pp85-92 47 Delia Jarrett-MaCauley The Life of Una Marson pp 49, 50 48 The Routledge Reader in Caribbean Literature ed. Alison Donnell and Sarah Lawson Welsh (London: Routledge, 1996) p140-141 50 Homi Bhabha Location of Culture p 320 51 Jarrett-MaCauley The Life of Una Marson p51 54 Una Marson ‘Little Brown Girl’, The Moth and the Star. (Jamaica: The Gleaner. 1937) p11 57 deCaires Narain puts forward an interesting link between Marson and Sam Selvon’s The Lonely Londoners highlighting external identity in her book Contemporary Caribbean Women’s Poetry p 21 58 Baudelaire The Painter and the Modern Life cited in Keith Tester The Flaneur (New York: Routledge, 1994), p 2 62 Laurence A. Brainer An Introduction to West Indian Poetry (Cambridge: CUP, 1998), p154 63 Una Marson ‘Cinema Eyes’ The Moth and the Star. (Jamaica: The Gleaner.1937) p87 64 Franz Fanon Black Skins, White Masks (London: Pluto, 1986), p4 65 Una Marson ‘Black is Fancy’ The Moth and the Star p75 67 Una Marson ‘Kinky Hair Blues’ The Moth and the Star p91 69 Kenneth Ramchard The West Indian Novel and its Background (London: Faber, 1870), p225 A comparison between Jean Rhys and Una Marson. (2017, Oct 17).

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Budget cuts on education in california - Research Paper Example Now one might ask why this would be caused. Budgets cuts are affecting students the most. They are paying for less and because of the cuts campuses are stretching their resources. As the state continues to reduce funding levels, the system will most likely continue to raise fees for the operational costs of the schools. (Newell) The combination of rising unemployment, declining consumer spending, declining asset values, and foreclosures has led to declining state revenues. And the number of people in poverty is growing, adding costs to state budgets for programs such as Medicaid and social services. Education is by far the largest component of state budgets. Some 46 percent of all state general fund expenditures is devoted to elementary, secondary, and higher education.(Johnson) According to Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, California is reducing funds towards K-12 education as well as reducing the length of the school year. Doing this is thought to lower the misfortunes of the recession, as well as giving us a kick start in improving our debt. Now this is an argument for why cutting school will be beneficial to the state of California. Unfortunately, what also goes along cutting education is the money given to students who are unable to fully pay tuition. Therefore, the state of California has also decided to cut grants which in turn will lower the chances of many intelligent individuals who suffer from poverty to enroll in a well known University. Both of Californias public college systems raised their fees recently. California State University trustees approved a 5 percent increase for next semester, and University of California regents passed an 8 percent increase for fall 2011.Those hikes are on top of repeated increases over the past few years (Guerra). With all these cuts and rising tuition this will cause a major downfall in the uprising of many intelligent individuals. California will fall back on education and this will

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