The mole people Essays

The mole people Essays The mole people Paper The mole people Paper In Jennifer Toths, The Mole People, the author ironically intends to dismiss the urban myth of animal-like underground dwellers by presenting her readership with the personal accounts of those who inhabit the tunnels beneath New York City. It is unfortunate that Toths lofty attempt to metaphorically resurrect the underground homeless bares more likeness to the 1956 movie monster series of the same name than to the perception of its ultimate purpose. Toths interpretation of life in the tunnels beneath New York City becomes the sensationalized voyage of a dichotomous nether world. By merely depicting the underground homeless as a dystopic or utopic subculture Toth proliferates the misrepresentations of homelessness, all the while inadvertently dehumanizing the mole people to be as visceral as their label suggests. In the 1956 Universal Studios release of The Mole People, intrepid archaeologists John Agar and Hugh Beaumont explore treacherous caverns only to discover an underground dwelling race of albinos who keep as their slaves the hunchbacked, clawed and bug-eyed Mole People. The films trailer contemplates whether or not these heroes can save themselves with only a flashlight for a weapon. (Rotten Tomatoes 1) The very nature of this seedy horror film is seemingly analogous to the way in which Toth, having strode beneath the heart of New York with only a can of Mace from her father, acts as our brave guide to the subterranean dystopia she has stumbled upon. The thrill of this adventure has obviously jaded Toths sense of objectivity, regardless of what her disclaimer (Authors Note) might offer as relevant proof against this arguement. Simply by naming her book, The Mole People, Toth has chosen to sensationalize the perplexities of the underground homeless. Toth is unhesitant to portray the dystopia of a menacing subculture of irrational activity and unpredictable emotion. The Dark Angel chapter contains the most redundant display of Toths overt voyeurism, comparable only to the final few pages of the books epilogue in which Toth escapes from the horror of the mole people entirely. The devil-like figure that Toth devotes an entire chapter to could easily be miscued as an accurate representation of the underground homeless population. More importantly, if Toth were truly trying to alter the public perception of the mole people why would she include such an extraordinary spokesperson? Perhaps Satan is right when he describes Toth as having a fascination with the darkness of the tunnel and the evil within it. (Toth 165) This fascination leads Toth to go so far as to despotically define the smells of homelessness: spoiled and soured food from scavenged dumpsters, stale sweat, and the excrement and urine of the streets. (Toth 78) In conjunction with the terrifying adventures of her personal narrative, the quotes Toth selectively employ lend themselves to support her dystopic image of a carnal subculture. Rob Buckley, the director of the All Saints Soup Kitchen on New Yorks Upper West Side, affirms, Once you go down there and see the way they live, like animals, you can surely say no human beings live like that. (qtd. in Toth 91) Harold Deamues, a volunteer with ADAPT (The Association for Drug Abuse Prevention and Treatment) attests to feeling their eyes and starting to wonder about the stories of cannibalism. (qtd. in Toth 160) Luckily, on the next page Toth goes on to state that Daniel Crump, a steward for the Transit Workers and Mechanics Union, is one of the first knowledgeable people to talk about the underground homeless with her. (161) Perhaps, her audience can momentarily refrain from peeing its pants; that is until she incessantly reminds them of a third rail that pulses with electricity, or of the hidden criminals, drug addicts, enormous rats and rushing trains that occupy the tunnels. However, just when it is reasonable to believe that the mole people are villainous creatures, doomed to the lifelessness of their underground dystopia, Toth strategically twists the plot and allows her audience to empathize with them. Once more, Toths work is reminiscent of the Universal Studios 1956 monster series of the same name; the only difference being that their mole people partook in terrible dance scenes when they grew tired of enforcing their reign of terror upon society. For obvious reasons, portraying the tunnels as an alternative utopia to the topside world becomes just as harmful to Toths cause as it is to depict the tunnels as a dystopia. This book craves for a common ground. Toths glorification of what she calls the homeless version of the sweet life is equally disturbing in the sense that it has the ability to tempt its audience into wanting to join the ranks of the underground homeless. Needless to say, the enchantment and hyper-reality of Disneyland cannot lie within a subway tunnel. One is lead to believe that Toth would have her mole people singing and dancing in a well-orchestrated chorus line if she could. Toth goes on to fantasize about Ghost Cliff, a ten-thousand-year-old standing forest buried deep under the Upper West Side, and a room with a piano and tiled floor with mirrors all around that is even known to have a fountain as part of its di cor. (234) Toth paints a lucid picture of hidden societies that consist only of those who believe in the human spirit, as is the case with J. C. s community. (209) Example after example of these utopic places insists that some of the underground homeless are free from any kind of outside pressure. There is no fighting or struggling to be someone; everyone is part of a community established to abide by a basic human religion. The only war the mole people wage in is an independent fight against society and its institutions. (Toth 178). As unrealistic and harmful as it may be for Toth to display the mole people as a strictly dichotomous subculture, whats more detrimental to Toths, The Mole People, and more specifically the goal it has set for itself, is the way in which she persistently dehumanizes the homeless throughout her work. There are at least 41 instances in the book in which Toth metaphorically compares the underground homeless to some sort of animal. Within the first few pages of the introduction Toth identifies the homeless as wild and frightening untamed and dangerous. (2) Perhaps one of the most obvious examples (of the way in which Toth undermines the goal of her book) can be found in her first impression of Bernard. Toth describes Bernard as gliding towards her over the tracks only to crouch when he reaches her in preparation to lash out. Bernard goes on to circle Toth, prowling silently, leading Toth to believe she has found a mole person. (97-98) Are these the best words for an author to use who is hoping to dispose of the animalistic images that illustrate underground homelessness? When Toth suggests that Teresa was once a teddy bear, all round and always laughing but now she moves like a colt, an angular body with loose skin over sharp bones, it becomes obvious that the mole people are to be viewed as animals. (86) She goes on to depict Joey as being seen as a useless parasite of an old man. (113) Toth can feel the eyes of the mole people in tunnel and often distinguishes them by way of their faint growls and reverse hisses. Toth admits that the Dark Angel personifies her visceral fears of the underground and the creatures that exist there. (169) She encounters gangs of youth who roam the tunnels for helpless prey, laughs at alien-like figures that resemble E. T. and compares the entryway of J. C. s community to the entrance of a good-sized dog house. (193) Throughout The Mole People, Toth continually stresses the importance of possessing a primeval instinct for survival when beneath the tunnels in New York City. (239).

30 Quotes From Hemingways For Whom the Bell Tolls

30 Quotes From Hemingways For Whom the Bell Tolls Ernest Hemingways novel For Whom the Bell Tolls was originally published in 1940 and follows a young American guerrilla fighter and dynamiter named Robert Jordan during the Spanish Civil War as he plots to blow up a bridge during an attack on the city of Segovia. Along with The Old Man and the Sea, A Farewell to Arms, and The Sun Also Rises, For Whom the Bell Tolls is regarded as one of Hemingways most popular works, and is quoted in conversation and English classrooms alike across the United States, even to this day. The following quotes most exemplify the eloquence and ease with which Hemingway addressed the turmoil and strife of living the American dream during the 1920s through 40s. Providing Context and Setting Through Quotes For Whom the Bell Tolls relies heavily on Hemingways own experience reporting on the conditions in Spain during the Spanish Civil War as a journalist for the North American Newspaper Alliance, as he saw the brutality of the war and what it did to both domestic and foreign fighters for and against the fascist rule of the time. International soldiers helping overthrow the rulership had it especially hard - at least in terms of fearing for their lives, as expressed in Chapter 1 when Hemingway writes I would always rather not know. Then, no matter what can happen, it was not me that talked and again later in the chapter when he writes I dont like that sadness, he thought. That sadness is bad. Thats the sadness they bet before they quit or betray. That is the sadness that comes before the sell-out. Religion played a large role in Spain at the time (and currently, for that matter), though the protagonist of Hemingways piece grappled with the existence of God. In Chapter 3, Hemingway wrote But with our without God, I think it is a sin to kill. To take the life of another is to me very grave. I will do it whenever necessary but I am not of the race of Pablo. In the following quote from Chapter 4, Hemingway masterfully describes the details of Spanish life at the time, especially for foreigners like the protagonist. One cup of it took the place of the evening papers, of all the old evenings in cafà ©s, of all chestnut trees that would be in bloom now in this month, of the great slow horses of the outer boulevards, of book shops, of kiosques, and of galleries, of the Parc Montsouris, of the Stade Buffalo, and of the Butte Chaumont, of the Guarangy Trust Company and the Ile de la Cità ©, of Foyots old hotel, and of being able to read and relax in the evening; of all things he had enjoyed and forgotten and that came back to him when he tasted that opaque, bitter, tongue-numbing, brain-warming, stomach-warming, idea-changing liquid alchemy. On Loss and Ugliness In Chapter 9, Hemingway says that To make war all you need is intelligence. But to win you need talent and material, but this almost lighthearted observation is overshadowed by the following grief at experiencing the ugliness of wartime in Spain. In Chapter 10, the protagonist grapples with having to behold the horrors mankind is capable of committing: Look at the ugliness. Yet one has a feeling within one that blinds a man while he loves you. You, with that feeling, blind him, and blind yourself. Then, one day, for no reason, he sees you as ugly as you really are and he is not blind anymore and then you see yourself as ugly as he sees you and you lose your man and your feeling... After a while, when you are as ugly as I am, as ugly as women can be, then, as I say after a while the feeling, the idiotic feeling that you are beautiful, grows slowly in one again. It grows like a cabbage. And then, when the feeling is grown, another man sees you and thinks you are beautiful and it is all to do over. In the next chapter, Hemingway discusses dealing with loss itself: You only heard the statement of the loss. You did not see the father fall as Pilar made him see the fascists die in that story she had told by the stream. You knew the father died in some courtyard, or against some wall, or in some field or orchard, or at night, in the lights of a truck, beside some road. You had seen the lights of the car from down the hills and heard the shooting and afterwards you had come down to the road and found the bodies. You did not see the mother shot, nor the sister, nor the brother. You heard about it; you heard the shots; and you saw the bodies. A Reprieve Mid-Novel Halfway through For Whom the Bell Tolls, Hemingway allows the protagonist Jordan a moment of reprieve from the war in an unexpected way: the quiet cold of winter. In Chapter 14, Hemmingway describes it as almost as exciting as battle: It was like the excitement of the battle except it was clean... In a snowstorm it always seemed, for a time, as though there were no enemies. In a snowstorm the wind could blow a gale; but it blew a white cleanness and the air was full of a driving whiteness and all things were changed and when the wind stopped there would be the stillness. This was a big storm and he might as well enjoy it. It was ruining everything, but he might as well enjoy it. But even these moments are tainted in wartimes. Hemingway describes the idea of going back while the war is still raging on in Chapter 18 by saying Here it is the shift from deadliness to normal family life that is the strangest. This is largely because, after a while, soldiers get used to the mentality of battle: You learned the dry-mouthed, fear-purged purging ecstasy of battle and you fought that summer and that fall for all the poor in the world against all tyranny, for all the things you believed in and for the new world you had been educated into.- Chapter 18 The End of the Novel and Other Selected Quotes In Chapter 25, Hemingway writes In war cannot say what say what one feels, and in Chapter 26 he revisits the notion of self-awareness and governance: It is right, he told himself, not reassuringly, but proudly. I believe in the people and their right to govern themselves as they wish. But you mustnt believe in killing, he told himself. You must do it as a necessity but you must not believe in it. If you believe in it the whole thing is wrong. One character in Chapter 27 was described as not at all afraid of dying but he was angry at being on this hill which was only utilizable as a place to die... Dying was nothing and he had no picture of it or fear of it in his mind. and further expanded on the thought later in the chapter in his observation of life: Living was a hawk in the sky. Living was an earthen jar of water in the dust of the threshing with the grain flailed out and the chaff blowing. Living was a horse between your legs and a carbine under one leg and a hill and a valley and a stream with trees along it and the far side of the valley and the hills beyond. On soldiers, Hemingway wrote in Chapter 30 I guess really good soldiers are really good at very little else and again in Chapter 31 There is no finer and no worse people in the world. No kinder people and no crueler. But still, Hemingway applauds those who fight because, as he says in Chapter 34, It was easier to live under a regime than fight it.

Art Apprecition IP Week Four Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Art Apprecition IP Week Four - Essay Example This essay compares and contrasts three artworks from famous Baroque artists: Peter Paul Rubens’ â€Å"The Crucified Christ,† Michelangelo Merisi de Caravaggio’s â€Å"Flagellation of Christ,† and Rembrandt van Rijn’s â€Å"The Raising of the Cross.† These paintings are works of realism, where painters focused on using light, shadows, neutral colors, spatial composition, and vivid themes to depict dynamic spiritual actions in a religious event through somber dramatic effects. The artworks are similar in form because of the use of light, neutral colors, and shadows to interpret different aspects of the Crucifixion. Rembrandt painted images of mythology, religion and landscapes, using generally broad brushstrokes. He maximizes light, shadows, and spatial layout to portray his images and characters, enriching their emotions and personalities (Durham, 2004, p.115). â€Å"The Raising of the Cross† uses luminous light to focus on Christ†™s body. The whiteness of the light symbolizes his purity. The darkness around him conceals the people. Their shadows depict the heaviness of their sins, either as active or passive participants. The direction of the painting is slanting, and most of the lines slanting as well. The same slanting lines are seen in Caravaggio’s â€Å"Flagellation of Christ.† Caravaggio’s style of painting is known for his realism, intense chiaroscuro and the importance placed on co-extensive space. His portrayal of religious themes tends to be somber and dark, and his peers criticized his work for being too realistic, showing the grimmest of human features. In â€Å"Flagellation of Christ,† Christ’s body looks perfectly white, but the people who are crucifying him look like demons with their veined faces, arms, and legs. It seems that they are in extreme pain, when Jesus is the one being flagellated. They are concealed in dark shadows too, like in â€Å"The Raisin g of the Cross.† Aside from having the same light and shadow techniques, these paintings share the same neutral colors- white, black, and brown in different shades. â€Å"The Raising of the Cross† has some cool colors because of the color found in the dress of the white turbaned man and the man in blue beret. Rubens’ â€Å"The Crucified Christ† shows Christ in a vertical position, but his arms and legs are slanted too. Rubens is arguably one of the most central Flemish painters of the 17th century. His style defined the sensual and dynamic techniques of baroque painting. Rubens mixes bold brushwork, glowing colors, and play of light to depict vibrant energies (Spielvogel, 2012, p.480). In â€Å"The Crucified Christ,† the slanted lines connote human pain and misery. There are no people at the background, but the shadows of the clouds and faraway buildings are evident. Sunset presents itself in orange hues at the lower part of Christ’s body too . Like the other two paintings, the light is casted on Christ’s body in â€Å"The Crucified Christ.† His purity is highlighted against the darkness of the world. The luminous light highlights the humanity of Jesus and the pain on his face marks his human anguish. Aside from the same style used on light, color, and shadows, these three paintings maximize spatial layout for dramatic effects. In â€Å"The Crucified Christ,† Christ is put in the middle of swirling dark clouds. Beneath him are dark human structures. The main impact is that Christ is the

Economics of Environment and Energy Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 3000 words

Economics of Environment and Energy - Essay Example This applies especially to those who only view environmental concerns, as anti-economic Transitioning to a low carbon economy is indispensable if the world is to continue uninterrupted by environmental degradation. Researchers have made a prediction that continued greenhouse gas emissions would result in a rise of temperature by 6Â °C before 22nd century. This temperature rise will result in problems such as drought and floods, global instability, public health related deaths and rampant migrations of people. All these problems will befall the world community including the UK. For the world to avoid these disastrous effects, global carbon dioxide emissions must fall to at least 50% below the levels of 1990 by the year 2050 (DECC, 2011,pp 3). This will ensure that world temperatures will not rise more than 2Â °C. In some past UN talks, the European Union promised to cut carbon dioxide emissions to 20% below the levels of 1990 by the year 2020. To reduce carbon dioxide emissions and fund emissions cuts in developing countries, the European Union has created the world’s largest emissions scheme (Leticia et al, 2012). The transition to reduce carbon dioxide emissions will happen but not without challenges. The UK will face the challenge of getting alternative energy sources that are environmentally friendly to run industries. Climate change needs urgent solutions to prevent ecological catastrophes, political and economic instability, and human suffering. According to Lund (2009, p.88), efforts to minimize greenhouse gas emissions will provide international security and improve energy, new economic opportunities, a fair society and a better environment. This paper will deal with energy consumption trends and prices in the UK, role of competitive markets in delivering the low carbon economy and government’s intervention in fostering the economy. The trends in energy consumption and prices have been on the rise in the whole world with the challenges of employing the use of environmentally sources of energy. Energy production of 2010 was down by 5.3% compared to the 2009 production in the United Kingdom (DECC, 2012, pp 2). Energy consumption normally becomes high during cold seasons, and thus in a cold year we expect a rise in energy consumption. This happens because people use lots of energy to keep warm their dwellings during cold times. In 2010, the final energy consumption rose by 4.4% while primary consumption of energy was up by 3.2%. However, the primary consumption on the temperature-adjusted basis fell down by 0.4 per cent. This happened because the average temperatures of the year 2010 were 1.1Â °C below those of 2009. The year 2010 saw the UK remaining a net energy importer, importing 28 per cent of its energy requirement. Because of reduced nuclear output due to outages, imports of liquefied natural gas increased. The tables below show the final energy consumption in the year 2010. By users Sector Percentage Transport 35.0 Domestic 30.5 Non-energy use 5.5 Iron and steel industry 1.0 Other industries 16.5 Other final users 11.5 By fuels Type of fuel Percentage consumption Natural gas 33.0 Electricity 17.5 Petroleum 45.5 Others 4.0 The final total energy consumption was 159.1 million tones of oil equivalent. From the tables, we can see that UK had increased dependency on fossil fuels, and the transport sector was the leading consumer of total energy consumption. In the fourth quarter of 2011, total energy production fell by 13% as compared to the productions in the

City Life Beats the Small Town Essay Example for Free

City Life Beats the Small Town Essay 1. This essay is an essay of both comparison and contrast because the author points out the similarities while examining the differences. For example, having a cinema in both small town and big city is a similarity, but one cinema in small town showing three different movies at any one time, and a big city having more than one cinema, showing hundred different movies at once is a difference. 2. The writer uses the point-by-point method in writing this essay. 3. The writer provides an equal number of details that relate to the small town and big city in order to give to the readers a proper understanding of differences between the two life-styles. 4. The numerous resources and options available in the city, for the people coming from different parts of the world, to find a group or community similar to their own origin makes life little easier and comfortable for them, as well as they get the opportunity to learn about various cultures and ethnicities, which is the superior nature of the big city. 5. The thesis of the essay is, â€Å"Life is better in the big city, and it all comes down to one general reason: more choice†. 6. The topic sentence of paragraph #2 is, â€Å"One of the areas in which having choice can be extremely valuable is that of friends†. 7. I agree with the author because of my own experience of coming to the city of Toronto as an Immigrant. The resources, opportunities and comfort that a big city can provide in terms of education, work, health, or entertainment are very difficult to find in a small town.

Excel Spreadsheet Use and the Strategic Corporate Plan :: essays papers

Excel Spreadsheet Use and the Strategic Corporate Plan Introduction In years past, every well-run corporation undoubtedly had a written business plan. Oftentimes, these plans were considered by many to be an exercise in frustration, as they were laboriously considered, written, then stored on the company's library shelf until the next business planning cycle. The last few decades have seen a radical change in the way companies do their planning. More often than not, the "old" business plan - though still produced and of value in its own right - is given less attention than the newer Strategic Plan. Unlike the Business Plan, which tends to be a very short document, the Strategic Plan is likely to be much more substantial and detailed. The Business Plan provides the foundation and framework for the Strategic Plan.1 Senior business managers are often so occupied with immediate issues that they can easily lose site of the long-term objectives of the business - objectives upon which the business can thrive if attained or fail completely if not. Because of this, a Strategic Plan today is a virtual necessity. Most managers tend to see the Strategic Plan as a 'living' document; one that, with careful foresight, consideration and development is written at the start of a business planning period, then reworked as circumstances within the company and business climate change throughout the planning period.2 The writing and preparation of a Strategic Plan is an important effort, demonstrating that careful consideration has been given to the business's development; however, the ultimate goal of the Strategic Plan is its own realization. With the advent of the personal computer and spreadsheet development, the Strategic Planning process today is made easier with the many current spreadsheet programs available to aid in the Plan' A Short History of the Spreadsheet. The term "spread sheet" (nowadays "spreadsheet) has a long history, beginning with the non-computerized version, a reference to which was made in accounting books from the early 1950's to describe a worksheet providing a two-way analysis of accounting data (i.e. an accounting matrix in which the columns and rows constitute either debit and credit sides)3 In thinking about the history of the spreadsheet, two important men stand out. In the early 1960s, Richard Mattessich of the University of California at Berkeley pioneered computerized spread sheets for business accounting. As the forerunners of today's spreadsheet programs for PC's such as Lotus 1-2-3, Excel, etc., these spread sheets contained use of matrices, (budget) simulation, and, most important, the calculation to support each matrix cell."4 Although Mattessich's work was mentioned in economic and computer literature as well

International Debt Essay

a) What is meant by the problem of ‘ international debt’? (6 marks) b) Discuss the main policies that a country can use to reduce the problem of international indebtedness (i) in the short run and (ii) in the long run (7 marks + 7 marks) a) The Balance of Payment account shows all monetary transactions between our country and the rest of the world over a period of time. It is made up of the current account (trade in goods and services), capital account (Investments, Saving, Borrowing) and the balancing item, which represents the total of all errors and omissions from the above values, which are estimates. When a country spends more than it earns i.e. it imports more than it exports (Current account), or it saves and invests more abroad than other countries save and invest in that country (Capital account), it is said that the country has a current account deficit and a capital account deficit respectively. The country facing a BOP deficit must take actions to rectify it. It usually borrows money from other countries or international financial institutions. The accumulation of debt from loaning from abroad because of a recurring BOP deficit is known as international debt. International debt developed into a problem for many developing countries, Third world countries, which are the poorer countries of the world. These are countries in Africa, Asia and South America and they represent the largest group of countries in the world both in area and population, but the lowest in income and wealth. The cause of the international debt in LDCs is their chronic balance of payments problems. They owe huge sums of money and they need to pay large sums in interest. As a result, in the world as a whole, there is a net transfer of funds from the poor countries to the rich. b) i) The Balance of Payment account shows all monetary transactions between our country and the rest of the world over a period of time. When a country spends more than it earns i.e. it imports more than it exports (Current account), or it saves and invests more abroad than other countries save and invest in that country (Capital account), it is said that the country has a current account deficit and a capital account deficit respectively. The government of a country may take actions to rectify this deficit. In the short run a country can borrow from financial institutions and other countries to correct its Balance of Payments deficit. An alternative would be to use its reserves (Gold and foreign currencies) to correct its deficit. These are temporary ways to correct the deficit and do not fight the source of the problem, they do not stop it from occurring the following year. ii) In the long run the country can take actions that would eliminate the problem that cause the BOP deficit. A country can use many different policies to correct and reverse the deficit. If the government increases taxes and, or, decreases public expenditure, there will be less money circulating in the economy and the aggregate demand would decrease. People will have less money to spend on imports, imports would decrease and the BOP deficit will be corrects. Nevertheless, a decrease in aggregate demand also affects the domestic industries. Less of their products would be demanded, they will produce less and as a result they will cause unemployment. The government can also decide to increase interest rates. This will attract inflows of Hot money (Short term investments of large sums of money that investors move from country to country in search for the best interest rates) into the country correcting the BOP deficit. The downside of this will be that the high interest rates will make borrowing more expensive and as a result consumers will borrow less for consumption and firms less for investment. Protectionism policies may be applied. These are policies to prevent trade between countries and decrease imports so that the BOP deficit is corrected. Unfortunately some protectionist policies such as import tariffs or imports quotas are usually not in the disposal of countries members of custom unions such as the European Union. A devaluation in the country’s currency will lower its value and make the country’s exports cheaper for foreign countries to buy and at the same time the imports into that country will be more expensive. As a result exports will increase and impost will decrease, thus the BOP deficit will be corrected. This is not possible for members of the ERM of the EU. In the long run a country may decide to improve the competitiveness of its Industries through supply side measures such as regional policies. Nevertheless, these policies are very time consuming and will take a lot of time to work. The country can also demand through the IMF a debt rescheduling and or new loans. This involves lowering the interest rates on existing loans, lengthening the repayment period and, or, canceling part of the debts. The IMF can provide additional loans or arrange so that financial institutions do it, with a guarantee from the IMF. In order for the IMF to do these it sets certain conditions and structural adjustment programmes that the country must follow. These conditions and programmes involve most of the policies discussed above. A further, policy would be to encourage commercial banks to finance private sector development. If governments spend too much they have a budget deficit and their income is less than their expenditure. This deficit is financed by borrowing large amounts from commercial banks and as a result not many funds are left to lend to the private sector. The IMF wants commercial banks to lend more money to the private sector, which is expected to make better use of the funds for development projects.

Lego

Lego Lego is a line of plastic toys that can be constructed into specific sets, characters from movies or books, and anything you want it to be. The Lego Group started out in 1932 and today it's one of the world's leading toy companies, In 2016 alone, Lego made 12.4 billion dollars from only lego sets. Today they also have amusement parks with lego rides, stores, and statues made out of legos, such as a pirate ship, Hulkbuster, and Hulk. The man who started the lego group was known as Ole Kirk Kristiansen, who grew up with five brothers and five sisters. By the age of seven he was working for a local smallholder, then a few months later he began to work at a nearby farm. In the year 1903 he was apprenticed as a carpenter with his brother, and worked hard until 1911 when he completed his training. Ole Kirk Kristiansen buys Billund Maskinsnedkeri for DKK 10,000 when the area is just a bunch of small farms and store fronts. This factory manufactures doors, windows, kitchen cabinets, cupboards, coffins, chests of drawers, and tools for digging peat. They also contributed for larger projects, such as fixing farm machinery or constructing buildings, such as the local church. With this skill set and the help of a local architect, he built a new house for him, his wife, and his kids all while paying little to nothing.During the great economic crisis, Ole Kirk Kristiansen was still trying to sell carpentry, but almost nobody could afford his works, forcing him out of work. After that, his wife left him with 4 kids and no money to take care of them. To make easy money during the crisis, Ole Kirk Kristiansen began to make toys, first wooden cars, then airplanes and yoyos. After that he began to make ironing boards, ladders, and christmas tree stands. This did get him through the crisis, but he doesn't make any real profit and his family doesn't think his store is very important. Kristiansen asked his brothers and sisters to be guarantors for a loan that would secure his company's future, they asked him,† Can't you find something better to do?†Ole Kirk Kristiansen ended up having kids during the 1920s, but the kid who had the most effect on the family company was the third son, Godtfred Kirk Christiansen. He was helping his dad in the shop when he was only four years old. He always said his first memory in there was when they turned on the glue heater, and some wood shavings caught fire and burned the whole place down. The reason Ole Kirk Kristiansen and Godtfred Kirk Christiansen have different beginnings to their names is because people pronounced the name with the â€Å"Ch† and when casually spelling out the name they would use the â€Å"Ch† as well. Ole Kirk Kristiansen never minded the confusion but Godtfred was bothered by it so he had it legally changed to Christiansen.After World War II, Ole Kirk Kristiansen noticed that a new material for making toys was becoming more and more popular; plastic. Plastic was less more malleable than wood and could be acquired easier. Ole Kirk Kristiansen and other Danish toy manufacturers attended a demonstration of an injection-moulding machine in June of 1946, and the machine impressed Kristiansen so he made an order for an injection-moulding machine for his own shop. Ole Kirk Kristiansen's sons, who were all involved in the family company at the time, collectively disagreed with their fathers decision to invest money into this new technology. They thought while plastic could be used to make prettier toys, wood was the better material because it was the stronger of the two. Their father argued that if they got it right; they could produce toys for the whole world.In 1949, the first of the plastic lego bricks had begun production. They were known as Automatic Binding Bricks, but in 1951, Godtfred Kirk Christiansen changed the name to LEGO Mursten, or LEGO Bricks to further spread popularity of LEGO.By 1953 the LEGO company was ready to go international, starting with the Nordic countries, such as Sweden and Iceland. After that they turned to Europe; starting with Germany. At the time, Germany was the world's epicenter of toy production. Godtfred Kirk Christiansen during this time often said, â€Å"If we can conquer Germany, we can conquer the world!† In the end they did get to the whole world, but it did take them a while. In 1961, LEGO finally licensed an American company which would begin to sell around the country and in Canada. Once LEGO began to make a name for itself across the entire world, other people and companies started competition with LEGO, giving them a hard time. In 1960. Godtfred Kirk Kristiansen laid down the company rule: following the crucial decision to concentrate all efforts into the LEGO system, saying â€Å"No one must be able to do this better than us.† He also outlines all of their development so far, like this,†We know our idea is a good one. We want only the best †¦ we must make better bricks from even better material on even better machinery. We must get the best people that money can buy for our company.† In 1962, Godtfred Kirk Christiansen's cousin, Dagny Holm, joined the company and showed a very immense potential for model building with a skilled eye that seemed like it could make anything out of those bricks. She made buildings, castles, animals, people, and furniture. Her skill attracted the public eye and inspired anybody who worked with the LEGO product, making the company's golden age. Godtfred Kirk Christiansen came up with the idea to use his cousin's skill to make a display of LEGO models and contacted a few friends to startup the first LEGOLand. Thousands of pounds of earth and vegetation were removed to make ever-changing landscapes in the Miniland. The final product included a train, puppet theater, Native American camp, driving school, neighborhood, windmill, and church, all created by Dagny Holm and her creative team. Within the year of the first LEGOland's opening, around 625,000 people visit it to see the models or play with the thousands of LEGO bricks around the property.The LEGO company continued to expand and grow until today, where it is still achieving new things and breaking records every day. Almost everybody grew up playing with legos, either building the sets that they sell, playing with friends or making their own creations just for fun. You can ask almost anyone and they can tell you a few memories they have of playing with legos, whether it's going to Legoland to stepping on them getting out of bed. Today LEGO makes things called Lego Sets. They are meant to be little figurines or models from real life, movies, books, TV shows, and video games. Some examples of these Lego Sets are: hospitals, The Millenium Falcon, Helms Deep, The Death Star, and Space Ships. These sets are sold in boxes, which contain bags of pieces, big and small. Some of the are just meant to be walls, but some of the pieces are doors, stairs, cups, and windows. The sets always have a different number of pieces, depending on the size of the set. Sometimes the piece count is 50, other times it is over 1000. The box also contains a book of instructions, telling the builder where to put the pieces and when to move to other parts. People use these sets for many things. Some people put them up for observation in their rooms, other people play with them until they break, and a very special few people wait several years until that specific set isn't sold anymore and they sell it for a big price.

Free sample - Spatial architecture of underground design. translation missing

Spatial architecture of underground design. Spatial architecture of underground designFollowing the submission of the abstract on the creation of an underground construction, the following thesis will mainly deal with the designing of a sub-surface space. The creation of extensive underground complexes and even the idea of entire futuristic cities therefore warrant the need to provide near natural conditions for the survival of the inhabitants. This program will generally be based on the precedent-based research on underground space both the vernacular and existing underground developmental projects. The program is therefore dubbed Korean War Memorial with artificial lighting and aeration, aimed at going down memory lane, for rediscovering purposes.[1] The site of this architectural design will be Seoul, the capital of South Korea which was once the heart of the Korean War, and which is up to now being targeted by the North Korea. The thesis program is namely Koran War memorial. With this program, I look forward to pursuing an architectural spatial project with innovative planning in mind. In this program such aspects as air ventilation and light penetration, will be considered and also culture and inhabitable conditions.[2] This will mainly focus on the designing of an artificial aeration and lighting system that will be likened to the natural system. Focus will be on the spatial arrangement of these aspects. In the past, underground space was associated with death, that is burial, and also in war, where soldiers would hide in bunkers. However, current development has since changed that notion and underground dwellings are being designed. And since the natural light and aeration do not penetrate underground, there is therefore need to provide an artificial one that would supplement, and in order for this to happen, there is a reason to study spatial arrangement of the design building. This is in order to bring out maximal output of the underground setting for maximum comfort. The Korean War Memorial with artificial lighting would therefore take people into the past and bring out a feeling of the past in the future.[3]

Stone Tools Then and Now

Stone Tools Then and Now We all know the cartoon of the cave man bearing his stone axe. How crude life must have been, we may think, when there was no metal. But stone is a worthy servant. In fact, stone tools have been found that are more than 2 million years old. This means that stone technology is not something Homo sapiens invented- we inherited it from earlier hominid species. And stone tools are still around. I dont mean stone used for construction, but things you can hold in your hand and do stuff with. Stone Grinding Tools Start with grinding. One stone tool thats still in common kitchen use is the mortar and pestle, better than anything for turning things to a powder or paste. (Those are made of marble or agate.) And maybe you seek out stoneground flour for your baking needs. (Grindstones are made of quartzite and similar rocks.) Perhaps the highest use of stone today along these lines is in the tough, heavy granite rollers used for grinding and conching chocolate. And lets not forget chalk, the soft stone used for writing on blackboards or sidewalks. Edged Stone Tools But what makes me light up is edged stone tools. If you spend enough time in suitable country, one day youll pick up an ancient arrowhead. The utter coolness of the technology really comes home when you look at one of these stone tools close up, like some of the delicate points at arrowheads.com. The technique of making them is called knapping (with a silent K), and it involves striking stones with harder stones, or highly controlled pressure flaking with pieces of antler and similar materials. It takes years of practice, and you cut your hands a lot until you become an expert. The type of stone used is typically chert. Chert is a form of quartz with an exceedingly fine grain. Different types are called flint, agate, and chalcedony. A similar rock, obsidian, forms from high-silica lava and is the best knapping stone of all. These stone tools- points, blades, scrapers, axes and more- are often the only evidence we have from archaeological sites. They are cultural fossils, and like true fossils, they have been collected and classified for many years around the world. Modern geochemical techniques like neutron activation analysis, coupled with growing databases  of the sources of toolmaking stone, are allowing us to trace the movements of prehistoric peoples and the patterns of trade among them. Stone Tools Today Another thing that makes me light up is knowing that this technology is being revived and preserved by a bunch of fanatic knappers. Theyll show you how at a local knap-in, theyll sell you videotapes and books, and of course theyll put their passion on the web. The best knapping websites, I think, are Knappers Anonymous and flintknapping.com, but if you want to follow the arrowhead trail to the scientific end of things, start with the lithics page from Kris Hirst, the About Archaeology Guide. The knapper/artist Errett Callahan has devoted his career to reproducing all the ancient tools, then moving beyond them. He and other practitioners have brought this technology into what he calls the Post-Neolithic period. His fantasy knives will make your jaws drop. PS: Obsidian scalpels are the sharpest in the world, and plastic surgeons rely on them more and more for operations where scarring must be minimized. Truly, the stone edge is here to stay.

Analyze Stereotypes in the Classroom (7) Coursework

Analyze Stereotypes in the Classroom (7) - Coursework Example One such factor is stereotyping which depicts a situation by what a set of people exhibit a strong belief on one set of roles, values, and responsibilities. According to a study performed by the University of Michigan and Harvard University, performance of children is determined by both positive and negative stereotypes. The study concluded that positive stereotypes aid performance while negative stereotypes slow down performance (Ambady, Shih, Kim & Pittinsky, 2001). The most common stereotypes among children in the United States are gender stereotypes, ethnic stereotypes and stereotypes associated with persons with disability. Children are conscious of gender, ethnic and physical differences from as early as first grade. As compared to adults, children are less flexible when it comes to understanding stereotypes (Ambady et al., 2001). Stereotypes can be triggered by Influences that knowingly or unknowingly lead to cultural biases that are based on ethnocentrism and eurocentrism. People tend to ignore the difference between cultures. Instead, they differentiate other cultures based on the study of one culture. The outcome may be consciously or unconsciously steered (Junior University, 2015). Cultural biases also have a place in learning environment. To support an anti-bias curriculum for early learners, two methods should be integrated. First, visibility regarding elements that make up for cultural identity should be embraced. For example, both pictures and text should clearly bring out different socio-cultural backgrounds such as places of worship and the way of life. Secondly, controversial topics such as those relating to discrimination and racism should openly be discussed rather than shying away from them. This will provide learners with an open mind to addressing daily life issues. Avoiding topics such as those of religious diversity not only confuses them, but also limits their exposure to reality and understanding of the world.