Starbucks A Coffee Company - 1355 Words

Starbucks Report Management Date: 23rd November, 2014 Introduction Starbucks is a Coffee Company that was founded in 1971 as a coffee retails company by three partners known as: Jerry Baldwin, Zev Siegal and Gordon Bowker located in Seattle in United States. The chairman and CEO of the company: Howard Schultz in 1987 took over the company and reformed it into a global brand by focusing on creating strong interpersonal relationships with customers and providing them with a highest quality of coffee. At present, Starbucks has reached to a maximum level of excellence and possess a set of well-diversified portfolio of products like, confectionaries, espressos, tea and non-caffeinated products are to mention a few. Starbucks is a Coffee Company that is successfully renowned throughout the corners of the world. It has successfully won a great amount of loyal customers regardless of its high priced, coffee. Many investors are also interested in this business as they see Starbucks as a moneymaking investment. Starbucks is popular for its high priced and high quality coffee with an ambient of comfortable sofas and delightful music. It has advertised and promoted itself as the â€Å"Third Place† that means a place where people can visit beside their homes and jobs (Starbucks: A Strategic Change and Management Perspective, 2014). Business Model Key Partners: The key partners of Starbucks include the coffee suppliers. Some of the important partners that teamed Starbucks involve KFC,Show MoreRelatedStarbucks Coffee And The Coffee Company1215 Words   |  5 PagesEnthusiast coffee drinker or not, people of all generations have heard of the popular franchise Starbucks Coffee Company. Opened in 1971, Starbucks started off as a single store located in Seattle. Today the well-known coffee chain has spread their name almost all over the globe. With over 21,000 locations in 64 countries, Starbucks is by far the largest leading coffee company in the world. Starbucks Coffee has different values compared to other coffee corporations that do not see the importanceRead MoreStarbucks Coffee Company2302 Words   |  10 PagesStarbucks’ Company Profile Starbucks Coffee Company has established as its own market and artistry in the Coffee gastronomy line for more than 30 years. Providing over 60 types of coffee, Starbucks has kept the name and brand alive since 1987 where a small and friendly workforce aim to create national brand – The Starbucks Experience. Jerry Baldwin, Zev Seigl, Gordon Bowker and Zev Siegl were the ones who opened the first Starbucks in Washington in the year 1971. They sold high-quality coffeeRead MoreStarbucks : A Coffee Company1347 Words   |  6 PagesStarbucks is a Coffee Company that was founded in 1971 as a coffee retails company by three partners known as: Jerry Baldwin, Zev Siegal and Gordon Bowker located in Seattle in United States. The chairman and CEO of the company: Howard Schultz in 1987 took over the company and reformed it into a global brand by focusing on creating strong interpersonal relationships with customers and providing them with a highest quality of coffee. At present, Starbucks has reached to a maximum level of excellenceRead MoreStarbucks : Starbucks Global Coffee Company1100 Words   |  5 Pages Starbucks Global Coffee Company Robin Turner National University â€Æ' Starbucks Global Coffee Company Introduction Starbucks Coffee Corporation is not only of the leading companies that retails and markets coffee globally but one of the top companies overall in the world. There are approximately 7,300 coffee shops and kiosks in the United States and approximately 3,000 shops in 34 other countries. Starbucks products include coffee, coffee drinks, pastries, sandwiches, ice cream, espresso machinesRead MoreStarbucks : A Global Coffee Company930 Words   |  4 Pageson Starbucks by Avaniben Trivedi Subject: Managerial Economics Professor: Karen Spohn Term: Spring 2015 Introduction Starbucks is a global coffee company and coffeehouse chain based in Seattle, Washington since 1971. It is the largest coffeehouse company in the world ahead of UK rival Costa Coffee, with almost 21,366 stores in 63 countries. A recent survey says that in last 30 days 32 million people visited the store across the globe. Thus, it is a highly busy and in demand coffee shopRead MoreStarbucks : A Global Coffee Company1697 Words   |  7 Pages Starbucks is a global coffee company headquartered in Seattle, Washington. The company has been able to draw the attention of many customers, young and old, despite its overpriced coffee. The cafe is known for not only its quality of coffee and assortment of drink options but also the ambiance, including comfortable couches and soothing music. Last year, Starbucks generated revenues of $10.7 billion. That is a profit of about $1,760 per day for an average Starbucks coffee shop. In this paper, Porter’sRead MoreStarbucks Coffee Company ( Sbux )1563 Words   |  7 Pages â€Å"To inspire and nurture the human spirit one person, one cup and one neighborhood at a time† (Starbucks, 2017). In 1971, Starbucks Coffee Company (SBUX) was founded by three students; Jerry Baldwin, Zev Siegl, and Gordon Bowler in Seattle, Washington (Orta, Feigenblatt, Lemus and Rivero, 2015). The goal has been to serve the best coffee with delicious flavors of coffee beans, treating emplo yees as partners, and serving an inviting atmosphere to their customers. The new owner, Howard SchultzRead MoreStarbucks, An American Coffee Company1439 Words   |  6 PagesStarbucks, an American coffee company which was established in the year 1971. At that time it has only one store in Seattle’s Historic Pike Place Market, Washington. It covered a long journey from that single store to hundreds and thousands of stores in different countries. It has 9 stores in Seattle till 1987. The professional management and strategies used by Howard Schultz made the company globally successful. The result of his efforts lead to the expansion of stores from 400 in US to 4700 inRead MoreOverview of Starbucks Coffee Company2294 Words   |  10 PagesOverview of Starbucks Coffee Company SENIOR MANAGEMENT TEAM Howard Schultz Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer Cliff Burrows President, Starbucks Coffee U.S. Martin P. Coles President, Starbucks Coffee International Arthur Rubinfeld President, Global Development MISSION STATEMENT To establish Starbucks as the premier purveyor of the finest coffee in the world while maintaining our uncompromising principles as we grow. GUIDING PRINCIPLES †¢ Provide a greatRead MoreStarbucks : An American Coffee Company Essay1573 Words   |  7 PagesSUMMARY Starbucks is an American coffee company which is widely known as the representative of coffee and other beverage distributors globally. Alongside many other coffee companies all around the world, Starbucks has been able to distinguish itself from others by application of many customer friendly factors such as quality, taste and as well as good customer experience. These factors have successfully been able to raise it recognition in many parts of the world as well as popularizing darkly roasted

Global Warming and Human Population Essay Free Essays

string(73) " are the largest land-based mechanism for taking C dioxide from the air\." Forest loss is directly-associated with human population growing. In 1921 human population was 25. 13 crores and woods screen was 104. We will write a custom essay sample on Global Warming and Human Population Essay or any similar topic only for you Order Now 05 million hectares. By 1989. woods cover reduced to 64. 01 thousand hour angle. while human population in 1991 reached to 84. 39 crores. Deforestation is due to recreation of forest land to agricultural land. river valley undertakings. roads. industiy and urbanisation. transmittal lines and activities like switching cultivation. fuelwood and timber aggregation overgrazing fires and acid rains ( vide Rana. 2006 ) . Green wealth index ( GWI ) is an index of green wealth possessed by a State or Union Territory and Green Protection index ( GP1 ) is a qualitative computation of protection accorded analyzing woods cover. recorded forest country and protected country coverage. Andaman and Nicobar Islands are richest in their green wealth with GWI at 0. 747. while Sikkim for protecting its natural heritage ranks highest on GPI graduated table with 0. 903. All India GWI is a blue 0. 193 ( Ghosh. 2004 ) . A sum of 0. 397 m hour angle woods loss in Madhya Pradesh is recorded with tribal countries accounted for about 0. 219 thousand hour angle. And in Andhra Pradesh forest loss was about 0. 46 thousand hour angle in tribal countries. This tendency continues in Northeast including Assam ( State of the Forest study. 1999 ) . Assorted cultural groups pattern assorted signifiers of agribusiness as chief stay of economic system in NE part. Rice is major harvest though corn and millets are grown. Traditional agricultural systems are Zabo. patio building and jhum or switching cultivation. Zabo. an autochthonal agriculture system of Nagaland combines agro-forestry and animate being farming and is common to separately owned lands of approximately 2. 5 hour angle. For patio building. the country is cleaned by cutting and firing forest flora. Jhum cultivation is practiced approximately by 5 hundred thousand tribal households. A entire land country of 4. 36 thousand hour angle is being affected by jhum cultivation. out of which 2. 7 thousand hour angle is in NE part. Jhum rhythm has reduced to 4-5 old ages in Meghalaya. 5-10 old ages in Mizoram and Tripura. 6-15 old ages in Nagaland and Manipur and 5-10 old ages in Arunachal Pradesh. Such cultivation consequences in dirt eroding and loss of dirt birthrate. In countries. where bamboos are cut and burnt. K- rich ash accumulates for jhum harvest. This fallow land invites several weeds and it takes a really long clip for dirt. to back up harvest works growing. Modern agribusiness with longer rhythms of 10 or more old ages and agro-forestry system are suggested for control of jhum ( Sharma. 2004 ) . Problems associating to utilize and preservation of natural resources in developing states are qualitatively different than those of developed states. In developed states. the primary issue is protection of what remains in nature. but in India preservation of natural resources must needfully see the claims of human population on these resources for their nutriment and support. Such population is dependent on woods and is among the poorest. as woods form life support systems for them. Any legal and administrative government must take to judiciously use these resources for turn toing the concerns of support while guaranting sustainability of their usage ( Hazra. 2002 ) . Try on Global Heating: Causes. Effectss and Remedies Global heating is the greatest challenge confronting our planet. It is. in fact. the addition in the temperature of the earth’s neon- surface air. It is one of the most current and widely discussed factors. It has far-reaching impact on biodiversity and climatic conditions of the planet. Several current tendencies clearly demonstrate that planetary heating is straight impacting on lifting sea degrees. the thaw of ice caps and important worldwide clime alterations. In short. planetary heating represents a cardinal menace to all living things on Earth. Global mean temperature rose significantly during the past century. The predominating scientific position is that most of the temperature increases since mid-20th century has been caused by additions in atmospheric nursery gas concentrations produced by human activity. Most scientists agree that planet’s temperature has risen 0. degree Celsius since 1900 and will go on to increase at an increasing rate. As a consequence. the universe is acquiring heater. The twelvemonth 1990 was the hottest twelvemonth in the last century. Together with 1991. the old ages of 1983. 1987. 1988 and 1989 have been measured to be the warmest six old ages in the last hundred old ages. The twelvemonth 1991 was the 2nd warmest twelvemonth of the past century. The effects of the rise in temperature is being felt all over the Earth the findings of scientific research done in this field reveal that the temperature of the Earth is likely to lift from 1. 4 °C to 5.  °C within a period of 100 old ages. Unfortunately. the instability which we have created between our life and Earth is already demoing the marks catastrophes in the signifier of inundation. cyclones. landslides. tsunami. drouth. etc. If the instability continues to lift. one twenty-four hours this will present a inquiry grade on the being of this planet. Carbon dioxide ( C02 ) which is an of import component of environment is doing a warming consequence on the earth’s surface. It increases the vaporization of H2O into the ambiance. Since H2O vapour itself is a nursery gas. this causes still more warming. The warming causes more H2O vapor to be evaporated. The C02 degree is expected to lift in future due to ongoing combustion of fossil fuels and landuse alteration. The rate of rise will depend mostly on unsure economic. sociological. technological and natural developments. Other gases such as methane. Chlorofluorocarbons. azotic oxide. tropospheric ozone are besides responsible for planetary heating. Increases in all these gases are due to explosive population growing. increased industrial enlargement. technological promotion. deforestation and turning urbanisation. etc. Trees play a important function in the planetary C rhythm. They are the largest land-based mechanism for taking C dioxide from the air. You read "Global Warming and Human Population Essay" in category "Essay examples" Deforestation is look intoing these positive procedures. It is the 2nd rule cause of atmospheric C dioxide. Deforestation is responsible for 25 per cent of all C emanations come ining the ambiance. by the combustion and film editing of 34 million estates of trees each twelvemonth. Everyday over 5500 estates of rain forest are destroyed. As a effect of monolithic loss of woods. planetary CO. degrees rise about 0. 4 per cent each twelvemonth. the degrees non experienced on this planet for 1000000s of old ages. As we know the woods are the great absorbers of CO. There is a close relation between planetary heating and population growing. Today the big population on Earth is utilizing the engineerings which are destructive for the Earth. Approximately. 80 per cent of atmospheric C02 additions are due to man’s usage of fossil fuels either in the signifier of coal. gas or oil. A big part of C emanation is attributed to the combustion of gasolene in internal-combustion engine of vehicles. Vehicles with hapless gas milage contribute the most to planetary heating. Besides. the sulfur group gas is the most harmful for this. Its part is 30 per cent in planetary heating. This gas is besides emitted from the combustion of fossil fuels. Increase in planetary temperatures will do rise in sea degree. It will take to runing of glaciers. alterations in rainfall forms. increased strength and frequence of utmost conditions. As per the latest study report the rate of thaw of glaciers has seen crisp addition in recent times. Even those glaciers are affected from planetary warming which have been considered lasting. The shrinkage of glaciers is traveling to present a major job of imbibing H2O. The sea degrees as a consequence of thaw of glaciers have risen from 0. 35 millimeter to 0. 4 millimeter. Scientists have warned in their studies that most of the glaciers will vanish within a period of 15 to 25 old ages. It will make jobs of imbibing H2O and nutrient grains in most of the North American states. India is non unaffected from it. The Himalayan glaciers have shrunk about 30 per cent after 1970. The rise in sea degrees is a major cause of concern. A big figure of metropoliss located in coastal countries will submerse in the sea. Besides. many island states will finally â€Å"lose their being and will be washed off from the surface of the Earth. The harm of lifting sea degrees is diverse. Buildings and roads near to the H2O could be flooded and they could endure harm from hurricanes and tropical storms. Experts believe that planetary heating could increase the strength of hurricanes by over 50 per cent. In add-on. as the sea rises. beach eroding takes topographic point. peculiarly on steep Bankss. Wetlands are lost as the degree rises. Rise in atmospheric temperature will take to the eruption of airborne and water-borne diseases. It would besides lend to the rise in decease caused by heat. The job of drouth would be frequent. Consequently. malnutrition and famishment will present serious challenge before humanity. Global heating is a great menace to the vegetations and zoologies of the Earth. A big figure of species of them may go nonextant. The sweep of desert would increase. Low rainfall and lifting temperature could add to the strength and frequence of dust-covered storm. This in bend will vastly impact the quality of agricultural land. finally doing inauspicious consequence on agricultural green goods. It would hold far-reaching socio-economic impact. In Indian context. the impact of planetary heating is a affair of grave concern. As is good known. India is chiefly an agricultural state and agribusiness here is gamble of the monsoon. e. . mostly depending on rainfall. Though it is to impact the whole state. the worst likely impact would be on cardinal and northern India which is high-yielding parts of the state. These are the parts which produce the largest agricultural output. The rise in atmospheric temperature and autumn in rain would of course ensue in diminution in harvest production. Furthermore. it would hold great consequence on biodiversity every bit good. The turning concerns over planetary temperatures have led to the states. provinces. corporations and persons to pull out a program of action to debar the state of affairs. As a consequence the world’s primary international understanding on battling planetary heating was reached in Kyoto in 1997 which came to be known as Kyoto Protocol. However. ten old ages have passed ; the state of affairs does non look to be really changed. It seems that the member states are non really serious about its annihilating effects. In add-on. forestation can be of great aid in this respect. Planting more trees and cut downing lumber cuts worldwide will assist reconstruct the instability. Second. we must follow on environmental policy of ‘reduce. reuse. recycle’ . i. e. advancing the reuse of anything. Third. the usage of fuel-efficient vehicles should be promoted as these vehicles have lower emanations of harmful gases. Fourthly. every person should be cognizant of the importance of the protecting environment. Besides. eco- friendly engineerings must be promoted. and must be substituted with the engineerings which cause great emanation of planetary heating gases. Public awareness run can be of great aid in this respect because unless each and every person is cognizant merely governments’ consequence can non convey coveted difference. Wordss Essay on Corruption in India ( free to read ) Corruptness is non a new phenomenon in India. It has been prevalent in society since antediluvian times. History reveals that it was present even in the Mauryan period. Great scholar Kautilya mentions the force per unit area of 40 types of corruptness in his modern-day society. It was practised even in Mughal and Sultanate period. When the East India Company took control of the state. corruptness reached new tallness. Corruptness in India has become so common that people now are antipathetic to believing of public life with it. Corruption has been defined diversely by bookmans. But the simple significance of it is that corruptness implies perversion of morality. unity. character or responsibility out of materialistic motivations. i. e. graft. without any respect to honor. right and justness. In other words. undue favor for any one for some pecuniary or other additions is corruptness. Simultaneously. striping the truly meriting from their right or privilege is besides a corrupt pattern. Shriveling from one’s responsibility or delinquency of responsibility are besides signifiers of corruptness. Besides. larcenies. wastage of public belongings constitute assortments of corruptness. Dishonesty. development. malpractices. cozenages and dirts re assorted manifestations of corruptness. Corruptness is non a uniquely Indian phenomenon. It is witnessed all over the universe in developing every bit good as developed states. It has spread its tentacles in every domain of life. viz. concern disposal. political relations. government officials. and services. In fact. there is barely any sector which can be characterised for non being infected with the frailties of corruptness. Corruptness is rampant in every section and every subdivision of society. excluding the societal position attached to it. Cipher can be considered free from corruptness from a high superior officer. To root out the immorality of corruptness from society. we need to do a comprehensive codification of behavior for politicians. legislative assemblies. administrative officials. and such codification should be purely enforced. Judiciary should be given more independency and enterprises on issues related to corruptness. Particular tribunals should be set-up to take up such issues and rapid test is to be promoted. Law and order machinery should be allowed to work without political intervention. NGOs and media should come frontward to make consciousness against corruptness in society and educate people to battle this immorality. Merely so we would be able to salvage our system from being collapsed. How to cite Global Warming and Human Population Essay, Essay examples

Trade Secret Law for Software and Technology - myassignmenthelp

Question: Discuss about theTrade Secret Law for Software and Technology Startups. Answer: Any information which can be regarded as confidential is known as confidential information. A trade secret is a subset of confidential information. Confidential information has to be protected and is not required to be registered. The protection of trade secrets is done through the creation of confidentiality agreements (Clarke, Sweeney Bender 2011). Confidentiality agreements function under the provisions of common contract law. Therefore in case confidentiality agreement is violated the aggrieved party is entitled to claim compensation for the wrongdoer under rules of damages in contract law (Milgrim, Roger and Bensen 2017). In the given situation in spite of presence of a confidentiality agreement between M and H ltd that the trade secret would be kept as confidential by the parties, the trade secret has been misused by H Ltd. This is a clear breach of contract under the rules of contract law. Therefore M is entitled to claim compensation for all the losses incurred by her in rel ation to the misuse of trade secrets by H Ltd. In the give situation it has been provided that Angela who is the marketing manager of Drinks Ahoy which specializes in manufacturing a special drink known as Liquifizz. In the given situation it has been provided that in order to meet the demand of the market she took Carl who is the MD of Boniface Bottling to a confidential room in the factory to provide him details about the formula of Liquifizz which is not patented and is protected through secret ingredients. it has been provided by the scenario that the Boniface have not signed the licensing agreement according to which had provisions for confidentiality. The company has produced an identical drink few years later and claims that they did not steel any formula. In the given situation through the application of copyright law provided through the Copyright Act 1968 Section 31 it can be provided that Drinks Ahoy owns the copyright on the drink. This is because a copyright need not be registered and is created automatically as soon as an idea is brought into existence (Halt et al. 2014). Thus as the drink manufactured by Boniface is identical which means that the copyright of Drinks Ahoy have been violated, Angela can make a claim under the Copyright Act. A restrictive covenant is imposed in an employee who has left the organization for the protection of business secrets and interest of the business. These terms are imposed on only if they are reasonably necessary for the purpose of protecting the interest of the previous employer. They can include terms like non completion and non dealing. However it is difficult to justify any covenant which is more than a period of 6-12 months (Menell 2017). In the given situation it has been provide that the manager was responsible for building the client base of the Wombat Ltd. He has access to all information in relation to the organization. Therefore the organization may impose the causes provided in the situation on the manager. However the clauses may not be possible to be imposed for a period of 12 months as the courts generally do not allow such long duration on covenants. References Clarke, B., Sweeney, B Bender, M. (2011). Marketing and the Law. Lexus Nexus Copyright Act 1968 (Cth) Halt Jr, Gerald B., Robert Fesnak, John C. Donch, and Amber R. Stiles. "Trade Secret Protection." InIntellectual Property in Consumer Electronics, Software and Technology Startups, pp. 25-32. Springer New York, 2014 Menell, Peter S. "Tailoring a Public Policy Exception to Trade Secret Protection."Cal. L. Rev.105 (2017): 1. Milgrim, Roger M., and Eric E. Bensen.Use of agreements to protect trade secrets in the employment relationship. Vol. 2. Milgrim on Trade Secrets, 2016.

Lady Day The Many Faces Of Billie Holiday Essays - Billie Holiday

Lady Day: The Many Faces Of Billie Holiday Lady Day: The Many Faces Of Billie Holiday The movie Lady Day: The Many Faces Of Billie Holiday paints an interesting, and thought provoking portrait of one of jazz and blues most charismatic, and influential artists. The incomparable talent of Billie Holiday, both truth and legend are immortalized in this one-hour documentary film. The film follows Holiday, also referred to as ?Lady Day? or ?Lady?, through the many triumphs and trials of her career, and does it's very best to separate the facts from fiction. Her autobiography Lady Sings The Blues is used as a rough guide of how she desired her life story to be viewed by her public. Those who knew her, worked with her, and loved her paint a different picture than this popular, and mostly fictional autobiography. Interview footage of her colleagues, fellow musicians, and friends such as Annie Ross, Buck Clayton, Mal Waldron, and Harry ?Sweets? Edison look back on their years of friendship and experiences with the woman they affectionately call ?Lady?. Their anecdotes, fond memories, and descriptive way of describing Holiday's unique talent and style, show the Lady that they knew and loved. The film also makes interesting use of photographs and orignal recordings of Holiday, along with movie footage of different eras. With the use of these devices, we get a feel for what Holiday's music meant for the audience it reached. The black and white footage from the thirties of groups of people merrily swing dancing, paired with a bumptious, and swingin' number Billie Holiday performed with Count Basie called ?Swing Me Count?, makes one wonder what it might have been like to actually be there. To wildly swing dance to the live vocals of Billie Holiday must have been an amazing experience, as this film demonstrates. The most enduring and alluring part of the film is the live footage of Holiday performing, either in a band with one of her idols, Louis Armstrong, or in her first film role as a maid, or in her later televised performances in the fifties. It was not Lady's vocal talent that made her what she was. It was her delivery, performance style, charisma, and impeccably beautiful dramatization of even the most banal little number that made an impression on audiences. The footage of her singing the song ?Strange Fruit? is one of the most amazing and alarming things in the film. As the audience looking in, we feel every word she sings, with a bit of awe, tinged with the horrid reality of what the song is about. This particular song was not recorded for many years due to the subject matter; lynching of African Americans in the South. This film shows Holiday as a enduring symbol of her art, a student of a life that was seldom kind or easy, a talented and alluring performer beloved by her audience, and a master of musical interpretation. I found the film to be highly enjoyable, and absolutely fascinating. I have always been a fan of Billie Holiday since I could remember, but it this particular film piqued my interest, and showed a true legend in both her prime, and the moments of her demise. It is done well enough to do justice to her work, as well as to her legend. I would definitely recommend it. Music Essays

Different historians views o essays

Different historians views o essays Different historians views on whether Henry VII was modern or medieval. The statement that Henry Tudor created a new monarchy is one that was even debated at the time. Throughout the years historians views have consistently contrasted and changed. The actual new monarchy theory is owed much to the historian J.R.Green and his reference to the events of 1471-1509 in his book Short History of the English People (published in 1876) as the emergence of a new monarchy. J.R. Green suggests this monarchy restored the power and authority to the crown after the events of the war of the roses. He also hinted at the start of tudor despotism an idea supported by several early 20th century historians. Albert Pollard was one of many historians to expand on J.R. Greens theory and move the beginning of the new monarchy to 1485. This is hardly surprising as the date coincides with the beginning of a new dynasty that lasted well over a century and is considered a period of great change and achievement. In particular Pollard emphasised the Tudors creation of the nation state. This way he could make parallels with modernising monarchies in France and Spain. Early 20th century historians historians look highly on the Tudor government as it was se en as creating the basis of the modern nation state. In the last 50 years the concept of Henry VII creating the new monarchy is greatly opposed. The majority of historians argue that no new monarchy existed or that 1485 marked only a dynastic change. J.D. Mackie was the first to challenge in The Earlier Tudors (1952): In England as elsewhere the new monarchy did not emerge fully developed in the year 1485 or in any other year. This factor was not always recognised. Geoffrey Elton preferred to shift the development of the new monarchy to the 1530s and the reforming of Henry VIIIs minister Thomas Cromwell. Elto ...

How to keep Your New Year’s resolutions

How to keep Your New Year’s resolutions This is the time of year where everyone’s optimistic about how much better they’re going to do once the calendar flips over to January 1. We’re all going to be healthier, more motivated, more focused, and more zen, right? Sure. For a little while. Then reality hits, and those resolutions start looking more like quaint relics of last month. But we could all stand to be healthier, more productive, nicer, etc., so how do you make those stick well into February and beyond? Let’s look at some tips you can use to help make better, more achievable, and more successful personal and professional goals for the coming year.Build in some accountability.Some of us are better than others at self-motivation and keeping ourselves on track. For others of us, well, the excuses mount. I’m so busy. I’ll deal with this later. I can’t do this because X, Y, and Z. The main problem here is that you’re the one monitoring yourself, and you’re the one both making and accepting the decision to slack off on the resolutions. If that sounds painfully familiar (and if it does, I hear you), that’s why you need someone else to help keep you accountable to yourself.In my own life, I find I’m much more successful at staying on track when I know I’m going to have to talk about it with someone else. For example, it helps me hunker down and read my book club’s current book when I know I still have 50 pages to go, but there’s an official date and time set to talk about it with my friends.So basically, find a resolution buddy- or several buddies, for different things. That can be as simple as finding someone to go with you to the gym, making it more of an appointment than a chore. Or it can mean having regular check-ins or coffee dates where you talk about your progress on a particular goal. At work, it can be a colleague who’s also interested in taking on more projects or arriving on time every da y. Having someone else who knows what you’re up to can motivate you to make time for your task (whatever it may be), and give you a sense of purpose.Start small- and specific.If you want to make a lasting change, you’re setting yourself up to fail if you set a task so overwhelming or complicated that you’ll get frustrated right away. A frustrating resolution is often a failed resolution, so what’s the point of using â€Å"go big or go home† as your guiding principle here? For example, weight loss is a pretty common resolution for the new year. It’s also very vague. Sure, you want to lose weight. How much, and over how much time? Setting smaller, specific goals will help you chip away at the larger one.If you want to lose weight, say you’ll lose five pounds by February. Then another five pounds by March. Setting these smaller, month-by-month goals gives you milestones that you can hit, and feel proud about reaching. Feeling successful will make you more likely to stick with your new weight loss regime. On the other hand, if you say â€Å"I will lose 50 pounds next year† without really breaking down how that will happen, you’re more likely to feel overwhelmed about the massive change you need to make, and let the whole thing lapse.At work, think along the same lines. Say you want to be more organized at work. What specific steps can you take to get there? Maybe the first step is downloading a productivity app that can help you manage your schedule and projects, and the step after that is tackling your email inbox and organizing it into folders. These are specific, manageable tasks that contribute to the larger goal, but are easy to accomplish in, say, an afternoon instead of languishing on a mental â€Å"when I have time† list.Use the whole year.Part of the reason resolutions are such a popular idea is that we have this sense that once the year changes, everything should be different and bette r, instantly. The reality is that this new you should be an all-year thing, not an â€Å"everything right now† thing. Set mini-goals throughout the year, or think about the milestones you want to hit before next December.For example, if your goal is to save more money, put specific dollar amounts to that goal throughout the year, so you’re not scrambling (or giving up on the notion) all at once to meet the goal late in the year. You can set up automatic deposits on a regular basis. Moving, say, $25 from your paycheck to savings every pay period is going to be a lot less painful than trying to move over thousands of dollars all at once from checking to savings. Use the calendar to figure out how often you’ll need to do something to make your goal for the year.Be flexible.Things change in life. And sometimes they change quickly. So flexibility is a key quality of any resolution. When you’re thinking about your resolutions for the next year, think about pote ntial â€Å"plan B† goals as well. If you can’t get to the gym four mornings a week like you want to do, what other times could potentially work as well?Feel free to revisit any resolutions throughout the year, too. Maybe you were too optimistic about the number of online classes you would have time to take to build skills. Maybe you had some unexpected costs that put a dent in how much money you can sock away toward your savings goals. If something’s not working, for whatever reason, modify it in a way that does work for you.Expect to fail sometimes.If you were already perfect at something, it likely wouldn’t be on your resolutions list in the first place, right? Embrace the imperfections of this process. This is about being a better self, not necessarily the perfect self. (Let’s face it: a perfect self would be pretty boring, no?) And that means treating this like a journey, and learning from any failures or mistakes you make along that journey.I f you’ve set a goal for yourself of getting promoted or finding a new job within three months and that doesn’t happen, it doesn’t mean you’ve totally failed at your goal and should walk away. It just means you should ask yourself what worked and what didn’t, and try again.Reward yourself.Fun fact: bribes work wonderfully well when it comes to motivation, whether you’re a kid or a seasoned adult. So build in your own personal rewards program for achieving your milestone goals, or completing a full year of resolution-ing. And be creative- if your resolution is to lose weight and your standard self-reward is, say, ice cream, then your reward is undercutting your progress. But you could sub in a fun activity that you don’t get to do often, or buying yourself something you’ve had your eye on for a while. #treatyoselfThe reward doesn’t have to be anything extravagant or even all that personal. It could be as simple as allowing yourself a take-out lunch for every two weeks’ worth of lunches you pack and bring to work, or a 10-minute break for every two hours you go without checking your social media during the workday. Deprivation without any kind of reward can get unappealing fast, so if you can give yourself something to look forward to in exchange, you’re more likely to keep going with your progress.Take responsibility for your goals.Remember, this whole thing is about you and what you think will make you a happier, wealthier, wiser, more productive, or more successful person. You already know what needs to be done (hence the resolutions)- but you also know yourself better than anyone else does, so you know what your pitfalls, distractions, and weaknesses are likely to be. Even if you find an accountability buddy or tell the world about your grand plan to apply to grad school, it’s entirely on you to make these goals happen. The more control you accept and the more confidence you h ave in your ability to take concrete steps toward those goals, the easier it will be to make choices that support your resolutions.By setting realistic, achievable goals for yourself, and doing some planning ahead to keep yourself engaged in your self-improvement plan, you’re already stepping up your resolution game. It’s easy to say, â€Å"I should do X.† It’s much harder to say, â€Å"Here are the 10 things I need to do to achieve X, and here’s the timeline I want to follow.† But that commitment is worth it, because the more work you put in up front, the more work you’re going to want to do over the next year to make sure you’re getting something out of this process. We don’t get to be entirely new people at 12:01 on January 1, but with a little effort, we can feel more accomplished when the next round of New Year’s resolution-making hits. Good luck!

Experience about film or video related art field Essay

Experience about film or video related art field - Essay Example On Saturday and Sunday, the timing for visit to DIA starts at 10am in the morning and continues till 5 pm in the evening. On Wednesday and Thursday, one can visit DIA between 10 am and 4 pm. Friday happens to be the longest day in which the visit to DIA can be made. On Friday, visitors can make a trip to DIA from 10am till 10 pm. I also visited the Museum on Friday so that I would have maximum time inside it. DIA’s collection of art is very vast. It has compiled art work from all over the world. This makes it extremely diverse in its collection. Number of artworks presently contained in DIA exceeds 60000 which came from different parts of the world. Among all forms of art, the two that I liked the most were the classic work and the cutting edge work. The perceptions of the visitors about art are enriched through a visit to the Museum. DIA has developed partnership with quite a lot of hotels in its vicinity so that the visitors can be fully facilitated in every way and the visi t can be made as enjoyable as possible. There are superb gadgets and accessories in the Museum Shop at DIA. Visitors can see few extremely nice and unique accessories in this shop, many of which are not easy to find elsewhere in the world. I found a wonderful clock in the Museum Shop at DIA, and could not help purchasing it. It cost me $90. Unfortunately I did not have membership with the Shop.

A Comparison of Hamlet by shakespears and One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Essay

A Comparison of Hamlet by shakespears and One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest - Essay Example Hamlet’s world changes when his father dies and his mother almost immediately marries his Uncle Claudius, the murderer of the old king. R.P. McMurphy is committed to the psychiatric hospital instead of a prison sentence and enters a world completely dominated by a masochistic nurse who sits â€Å"in the center of this web of wires like a watchful robot, tend[s] her network with mechanical insect skill, know[s] every second which wire runs where and just what current to send up to get the results she wants† (30). The common theme in each plot is a rise against tyranny in defense of honor in order to defeat the evil repressor.   Both Hamlet and McMurphy are presented as anti-heroes as neither one really possesses an abundance of traditional heroic characteristics, but each end up dying to defend justice. Each character is brought into their situation through their use of insanity to discover the truth. This is shown as Hamlet only acts insane around certain people, namely Polonius and Claudius, while he seeks the truth. He finds it by convincing the traveling players to perform the â€Å"Murder of Gonzago† that closely parodies the murder of the king by Claudius. â€Å"I prithee, when thou seest that act a foot, / Even with the very comment of thy soul / Observe my uncle. If his occulted guilt / Do not itself unkennel in one speech, / It is a damned ghost that we have seen† (III, ii). This is similar to McMurphy’s role as he feigns insanity to escape the hard work at the Pendleton Work Farm, â€Å"Don’t overlook the possibility that this man might be feigning psychosis to escape the drudgery of the work farm† (46), but discovers the truth of the ward and Nurse Ratchett’s controlling influence over it when he tries to follow her rules. Like Hamlet, McMurphy only displays himself as insane around certain people, but displays humane

Ontological Argument for Gods existence Essay Example for Free

Ontological Argument for Gods existence Essay To asses the strengths of the Ontological Argument for Gods existence, we firstly need to understand what it entails. The Ontological Argument looks at proof A Priori, which is Analytical truth, reason based proof. This can be explained by saying 1+1=2. We know this to be true, as it is based on reasoning, and is a logical statement. This can be seen as a strength of the Ontological Argument, the fact that it is logical and rational. It deals with knowledge gained independently of experience, innate knowledge. It does not use any external evidence, it simply uses the definition of the word God. It therefore claims that if you understand what God is, then you understand that he must exist. St. Anselm, an Archbishop of Canterbury, first proposed the Ontological Argument in his book Proslogian, according to Anselm, both theists and atheists have a definition of God, if only for atheists to dismiss his existence. Therefore, Anselm claims, God exists in the mind. This could be considered a strength of the Ontological Argument for Gods existence. The fact that if you use the word God, then you, yourself must have an understanding of the meaning of the word. To use the word we show we have an idea of God which exists in our minds. However, existing in the mind is one thing, but to exist in reality is another. Lord, not only are You that then which nothing greater can be conceived but you are also something greater than can be conceived St. Anselm, Proslogion. As Anselm states above, God is that which nothing greater can be conceived, therefore not only must he exist in the mind, but in reality. This is because it is greater to exist in reality than simply in the mind. There is strength in this point, as what Anselm is saying is true. It is greater to exist in reality, that in the mind alone. For example if we had not eaten for a week, it would be good to imagine a 3 course meal, however, to actually receive that meal, and make it a reality, would be even better. As God is described as the greatest, then this helps to prove his existence. Rene Descartes supported Anselms argument, he had strengths in his proposition in which he said that if your minds exists, then it is logical to assume that clear ideas which come into your mind are true. His proposition began with I have an idea of God and finished with Therefore  God, as the clear and distinct idea of supreme perfection must exist. He maintained that his idea of God is one of a supremely perfect being, and one of the attributes of perfection is existence. This is similar to Anselms argument, and bears the same assets of being logical and plausible.

Prevention for HIV/AIDS :: Diseases Health Medical Essays

Prevention for HIV/AIDS Although anti-viral therapy exists to support people coping with Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) and AIDS, the AIDS epidemic is not over. Though it is not prevalent in the Untied States, 2.1 million people died of AIDS by 1999. Half a million children under the age of fifteen are HIV positive, mostly infected through mother-to-child transmission or sexual assault (2). Ninety percent of HIV infections occur the developing countries, leaving the poor and struggling to cope with the epidemic (3). Heterosexual infection is the most common form of infection in Africa and Asia, especially in women. Elsewhere, infection through sex with a bisexual or drug infected partner, drug injection with dirty needles, blood transfusion and heterosexual sex are typical (2). Overall, the primary forms of transmission occur through unprotected sexual behavior, sharing needles, home tattooing, and through birth, from mother to child (5). An infectious disease, HIV must enter the blood stream of a person for transmission. It enters through bodily fluid, such as blood, semen, vaginal fluid, and breast milk. The disease infects cells in the body, especially CD4 cells, a type of white blood cells. Also known as T-cells, CD4 cells are crucial in maintaining the human immune system in protection from infectious diseases (5). By destroying the white blood cells, HIV causes a sever breakdown of the body's immune system, leaving the body vulnerable, fragile and unable to protect against any disease they are exposed to. When the immune system becomes severely damaged AIDS is diagnosed by the contraction of specific diseases such as tuberculosis and toxoplasmosis (5). Once diagnosed with AIDS, the virus never leaves the body, leaving the immune system to deteriorate until it is unable to fight off the diseases anymore, letting them take over the body. Major research and pharmaceutical companies continue to place precedence on the search for a vaccine or cure; it is estimated that it will take another ten to fifteen years to find a cure or vaccine for HIV/AIDS. Methods for HIV prevention need to be a priority in medical research; prevention is the first step to slowing an epidemic, and an interest in vaginal microbicides, a new form of female prevention, could result in having them on the market in a third of the time it would take to discover a vaccine (1).

Identify the Main Factors Shaping the Structure of an Organisation Essay

The structure of an organisation refers to the pattern of relationships that exists between different parts of the business and between the different people who work within it. Organisations are structured in a variety of ways, dependant on their objectives and culture. The wrong organisation structure will hinder the success of the business. Internal factors such as size, product and skills of the workforce influence the organizational structure. As a business expands the chain of command will lengthen and the spans of control will widen. The higher the level of skill each employee has the more the business will make use of the matrix structure to maximize these skills across the organization. A Matrix structure organisation contains teams of people created from various sections of the business. These teams will be created for the purposes of a specific project and will be led by a project manager. Often the team will only exist for the duration of the project and matrix structures are usually deployed to develop new products and services. The advantages of a matrix include – Individuals can be chosen according to the needs of the project. – The use of a project team which is dynamic and able to view problems in a different way as specialists have been brought together in a new environment. – Project managers are directly responsible for completing the project within a specific deadline and budget. In adopting a Matrix structure could entail some disadvantages which may include – A conflict of loyalty between line managers and project managers over the allocation of resources. If teams have a lot of independence can be difficult to monitor. – Costs can be increased if more managers (ie project managers) are created through the use of project teams. Organisational structures should aim to maximize the efficiency and success of the Organisation. An effective organisational structure will facilitate working relationships between various sections of the organisation. It will retain order and command whilst promoting flexibility and creativity

Down Goes Banking Up Comes Problem-Posing Essay

In the article â€Å"The Banking Concept of Education,† Friere claims that the teacher and student’s relationship is fundamentally narrative in which the students are somewhat being trapped in the system of â€Å"Banking Education†. Freire goes on to say that education is suffering from narrative sickness, which means that information is being repeated constantly to the point where it has no meaning to it or that it is lifeless. â€Å"Students are becoming alienated when learning time is being generated from the teacher,† Friere argues. Students are becoming machine-like-creatures because they are not engaged into the lesson. Friere writes that â€Å"four times four is sixteen†¦The student records, memorizes, and repeats these phrases without perceiving what four times four really means† p.318. Students are too simply just repeating what they are told, but they really do not have an explanation or an understanding as of why the answer is that specific answer. Also the student works on storing the information that they were given, this causes their critical consciousness not to develop at the normal pace. I agree with Freire on this issue. A solution to this issue would be the Jasperian â€Å"split.† Instead of students taking mental notes, they could wright questions in regards to the lesson. For example, if I am writing an essay I would not just being aware of the essay I am writing but also questioning, why I am doing so. Overall I believe that â€Å"The Banking Concept† is rendering our development as students as well as teachers. It has caused many students to not think outside of the box, but to make them become a receptacle to be filled with narrative information passed on from our teachers, Friere explains. Teachers also have grown to become the superior opposite to the absolute ignorance of their students, but just like how the teacher can teach a student, the student can educate the teacher as well. This concept has made much of our generation into the norm. We need to think outside the box and to transform our generation into what we want to become of it.

Decisions essays

Decision's essays What I Learned About My Decision Making Style When I was younger I had the tendency of letting my actions take over my thoughts. What I mean by this is that, I would perform actions before thinking about the outcome. I can recall a time when I made, in my opinion, the worst decision of my life. I stole a Smurf pendent from the corner stole. I wanted the pendent so bad, at that time I was in love with the Smurfs, and I thought that it was something that I really needed. My mother found out that I stole from the store. How she knew to this day puzzles, but she knew. She made me go back to the store and return the pendent and part of my punishment was to help around the store for a whole month that was really embarrassing. The other part of my punishment...well I won't get into detail. However, by maturing I have a better decision-making process. When it comes to critical thinking I always think about the outcome before I make anything final. The reason for this is because I think now as a person, in general, gets older their decisions affect their future in every way. For example having sex is a very important decision that two mature people have to contemplate. They have to really think about the outcomes, such as getting pregnant, catching a sexually transmitted disease etc... The only time when I don't think about the outcome is when I am shopping. I love to shop! Most importantly I love shopping for shoes. I am a shoe freak! If I see a pair of shoes that I like no matter how much they are I will bye them. As a result of this my funds run low and I am left with little or no money to get the things that I really need, like food toiletries and so forth. I know that this is a bad habit therefore to better myself I am working on it, I try not to go to the mall as much as I used to. However with time and patience I will get better about making that particular decision. ...

Carl Gustav Jung Essay Example for Free (#2)

Carl Gustav Jung Essay Choose cite format: APA MLA Harvard Chicago ASA IEEE AMA Carl Gustav Jung, (26 July 1875 – 6 June 1961), was a Swiss psychologist and psychiatrist, and the founder of analytical psychology. His work and influence extends way beyond understanding personality, and he is considered to be one of the greatest thinkers to have theorised about life and how people relate to it. However, for the purpose of this assignment I will concentrate on Jung’s theory of Psychological Types. In this essay I aim to demonstrate an understanding of Jung’s personality types by describing and evaluating his theory and to show how they might useful in helping a therapist to determine therapeutic goals. Jung (1990, p.531) states that’ from earliest times, attempts have been made to classify individuals according to types, and so bring order to the chaos. The oldest attempts known to us were made by oriental astrologers who devised the so-called trigons of the four elements – air, water, earth, and fire. The air trigon in the horoscope consists of the three aerial signs of the zodiac, Aquarius, Gemini, Libra; the fire trigon is made up of Aries, Leo, Sagittarius. According to this age old view, whoever is born in these trigons shares in their aerial or fiery nature and will have a corresponding temperament and fate.‘ In the same paragraph, Jung states that ‘the astrological type theory, to the astonishment of the enlightened, still remains intact today,’ which is true. Closely connected with the astrological type theory is the division into the four temperaments which corresponds to the four humors (Jung, 1990, p.531). A Greek physician, Claudius Galen (AD130 – 200), distinguished four basic temperaments: the sanguine, the phlegmatic, the choleric, and the melancholic. Galen’s theory goes back to the ancient Greek physician Hippocrates’ (460 – 370BC), who described physical illness as being caused by the balance of bodily fluids, or humors as he labelled them’ (Maltby, et al, 2007, p.159). These bodily fluids are blood, black bile, yellow bile, and phlegm. Galen expanded on Hippocrates’ theory and applied it to describe human personality, stating that when the humors were in balance, an equitable temperament was the result, however, if the humors were out of balance, then physical illness and mental disturbance occurred (Maltby et al, 2007, p.160). However, ‘by the time of the Middle Ages, scholars dismissed the idea that bodily fluids were directly implicated in personality traits. But the behavioural descriptions associated with the four humours lived on’ (McAdams, 2000, p.256). Galen’s four temperaments provided much inspiration and historical reference for Carl Jung’s theory of psychological types. According to Jung’s theory we are all different in fundamental ways and each psychological type has a different idea of what it means to achieve personal success. However, www.personalitypage.com states that, ‘so many people are hung up on somebody else’s idea of what it means to be successful, that they are unaware of what is truly important to them‘. I agree, because for many years, I wanted to be somebody else as that person’s life seemed so much better than mine, or so I thought at the time. Jung was one of the few psychologists in the twentieth century to maintain that development extends beyond childhood and adolescence through mid-life and into old age (Stevens, 2001, p.38). Jung insisted that ‘we never finish the process of self-examination and growth that charts our journey towards individuation.’ (Snowdon, 2010, p.86). In my case, I believe I am on that journey of accepting myself as I truly am, becoming my true ‘self‘. Stevens (2001, p.38) claims that ‘it could be brought to the highest fruition if one worked with and confronted the unconscious,’ and for me, it is and has been important to face the ‘monsters that lurk’ (Snowdon, 2010, p.86) in my unconscious, even when it has been uncomfortable to do so. According to Jung, like Freud, there are three levels of consciousness in the psyche (mind);- conscious, personal unconscious and collective unconscious. Snowdon (2010, p.56) states that ‘the individual psyche is always changing as it seeks growth and wholeness.’ Jung referred to the ego when describing the more conscious aspect of the personality, the part of the psyche that selects perceptions, thoughts, feelings and memories that may enter our conscious awareness. Stevens (2002, p. 62) states that ‘the ego is then centre of consciousness and is responsible for our continuing sense of identity.’ The personal unconscious comprises of ‘all the acquisitions of personal life, everything forgotten, repressed, subliminally perceived, thought, felt’ (Jung, 1990, p.485). This is an aspect of the unconscious that Freud also emphasized and these forgotten experiences are accessible to consciousness, and for both Freud and Jung, ‘the exploration of the unconscious is the key to personal insight’ (McAdams, 2000, p. 135). Conscious attitudes within the psyche should always be balanced by unconscious attitudes, and Snowdon (2010, p.56) claims that ‘if a conscious attitude grows too strong then the unconscious will always seek to restore equilibrium,’ by means of dreams, fantasies, slips of the tongue and so on. However, if the unconscious message is ignored, then ‘neurosis or even disease may result’ (Stevens, 2010, p.57). Where the personal unconscious is unique for each individual the collective unconscious is not an ‘individual acquisition but rather the functioning of the inherited brain structure, which in its broad outlines is the same in all human beings (Jung, 1954, p.117). Therefore, the collective unconscious represents the shared experiences, emotions and memories we have inherited from previous generations. Jung believed that we were born with a built-in human developmental programme, which is buried deep within the collective unconscious (Snowdon, 2010, p. 80). According to Jung, the personal unconscious contains various complexes, while the collective unconscious contains archetypes (see Fig 1) ‘Complexes are related groups of emotionally charged ideas, thoughts and images’ (Snowdon, 2010, p.61), and can exert a strong influence on the thoughts and behaviour of a person. Some complexes may be beneficial and others may be potentially harmful, and Jung (1990, p.529) states that ‘complexes do not necessarily indicate inferiority. It only means that something discordant, unassimilated, antagonistic exists, perhaps as an obstacle, but also as an incentive to greater effort, and so, perhaps to new possibilities of achievement.’ Therefore, a therapist may use this knowledge to bring to the forefront of the client’s consciousness, a situation which they may be finding difficult to overcome. Complexes can be related to a particular archetype, Stevens (2001, p.48) states that ‘complexes are personifications of archetypes; they are the means through which archetypes manifest themselves in the personal psyche.’ An archetype is a universal thought form or predisposition to respond to the world in certain ways (Jung, 1936), and Jung believed they appeared to us in dreams, myths, religions, art and symptoms. Engler (1991, p.86) claimed that ‘it is helpful for us to get in touch with them because they represent the latent potentially of the psyche.’ The widely recognised archetypes are the persona, the shadow, the anima and the animus, and the self. The persona archetype is the mask that a person wears to hide their true nature from society. The shadow is an unconscious part of the personality that contains weaknesses and other aspects of personality that a person cannot admit to having’ (Snowdon, 2010, p.68). The anima is the unconscious feminine aspect of a man’s personality, and the animus is the masculine aspect of a woman’s personality. The self is the central archetype and true midpoint of the personality (Engler, 1991, p.89). A criticism of Jung’s theory was his lack of empirical research, in which his theory has been attacked as being â€Å"non-falsifiable and unscientific† (Hergenhahn, 1994, p.93). Jung based his psychology on explorations of his own inner world, as well as his work with people ranging from ‘normal’ to those with neurotic problems and even those suffering from psychosis (Snowdon, 2010, p.XXVI). Eysenck (Engler, 2009, p.316) believed that from the point of view of science, Jung’s contribution to the study of personality types was primarily negative as he permitted mystical notions to override empirical data. However, Jung was unconcerned claiming that he ‘cannot experience himself as a scientific problem. Myth is more individual and expresses life more precisely that does science (Stevens, 2001, p.156).’ Jung’s description of personality states that in order to identify a psychological type, it is necessary to determine whether a person’s psychic energy (libido) is turned inwards towards the subject (introversion), or outwards towards the object (extroversion). Introverts are people who prefer their own inner world of thoughts and feelings, whilst extroverts prefer the external world towards external relationships and objects. According to Jung (1990, p.415) ‘the presence of two attitudes is extremely frequent,’ although one is generally dominant and conscious and the other is subordinate and unconscious. However, McAdams (2000, p.310) claims that ‘Eysenck, a British psychologist of German origin, rejected the idea that conscious extroversion is connected to unconscious introversion, and vice versa.’ Unlike Jung, Eysenck linked extroversion and introversion to differences in brain activity, however this theory is speculative and Eysenck acknowledged that his hypotheses ‘must stand and fall by empirical confirmation’ (Eysenck, 1965). Introvert and extrovert dimensions are now found in several theories, one of those being Hans Eysenck’s theory of personality. Although Eysenck expressed considerable disdain for Jung’s approach to psychological types, some of his ideas were rather similar, for example, ’both defined the concepts by making reference to the direction of a person’s approach to life’ (McAdams, 2000, p.309). However, in other ways Eysenck’s concepts were quite difference, for example, whilst Jung believed that a person can be classified as either extroverted or introverted, he believed that most people fall somewhere between the two attitudes, ‘combining qualities of both the extroverted and introverted poles’ (McAdams, p. 310). Like Jung, Eysenck examined historical approaches to personality as well as conducting various methods of research, to uncover the underlying structure of personality. Eysenck suggested that the basic dimensions of personality may be summarised in the diagram below (see Fig 2), which show the two main dimensions of extroversion-introversion and stable-unstable, with the traits associated with each personality type. The diagram also shows how the four temperaments are related to these types. Carl Gustav Jung. (2017, Feb 05).

Operations Managemen Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2500 words

Operations Managemen - Essay Example The challenge gets even worse with the great variety of products presented with every single wear vendor. Product lines vary in styles, cloths and sizes - the range of goods a vendor must produce to attract the attention of buyers is enormous. Minding the fact that only a small part (50% in the case of Jossey Menswear) of the whole stock is sold at full price it becomes clear that wear vendors put up with significant wastes. And because of what Because of inaccuracies and misconceptions of fashion forecasts. Since the production cycle of clothes is rather long (it takes 18 months from the first sketch of a designer) companies have wear in their stores, which were presumed to be popular a year and a half ago. Obviously, there are two ways a company can take to improve its chances of hitting the bull's eye of customers' popularity. The first one, extensive, lies in broadening its product range and increasing volumes of production. The second path is intensive, and tries to improve the accuracy of forecasts, which only can be made through shortening the production cycles. Of course, the second path is better for Jossey Menswear since it leads to full price sales proportion increasing, while keeping the production volumes the same, or even lower than before, which increases profits for the company. Meanwhile, the first way simply increases revenues along with manufacturing costs. Thus, the efficiency of forecasts falling over time and wastes associated with manufacturing of unpopular products are the main reasons behind the choice of quick response (QR) manufacturing system. The main driving factor between the strategies based on QR manufacturing is the reduction of lead time - this business concept is also known as 'agile manufacturing' (Suri, 2003). Another business concept, known as 'lean manufacturing' uses wastes elimination as the main driving factor. Despite the common opinion these two theories are not mutually exclusive and can be applied together (Martin and Towill, 2000). So the question for Jossey Menswear is not stated as "agile or lean approach" - both concepts should be used, because the main objectives of supply chain improvement for Jossey are both reducing lead time and eliminating wastes. Inevitably, every improvement action taken by the company should be monitored in order to learn lessons from it. The implementation of QR manufacturing requires to be monitored from several dimensions: informational, financial and external (customer). The informational perspective can be considered primary, as it reflects the main goal of improvement increase the speed of information flow between different segments of supply chain. Financial perspective can be analysed with the help of total cost analysis. TCA assessment offers a final statement reflecting not only the cost of improvement but all aspects in the further use and maintenance of inventory. For instance, TCA may show that while direct costs of the improvements may be high, a further reduction of material and inventory costs acquired from the increased velocity will be beneficial (Kauffman, 2004). The customer perspective may be reviewed through customer profitability analysis (CPA). This technique assigns revenues and costs to groups of customers rather than to organisational units, products, etc. By doing so, CPA gives its users the information, which customers are the most beneficiary for them, which in our case will show how helpful is the improved supply chain in adding revenue from customers. 2. It is

The Coca-Cola Company Financial Results Analysis Assignment

The Coca-Cola Company Financial Results Analysis - Assignment Example In this project second quarter’s financial results of 2011 have been analyzed. The analysis includes the overall growth of the group, growth in individual markets along with its long term goals and objective. A special analysis has been done on the growth and performance of North American market. Apart from various analyses a comparison has been done between the earning per share of the second quarter with the historic performance. A study has been made on the impact of emerging markets on the long term growth of the company. This project also includes a study on the profitability drivers of the company and their impact on the company’s objective. Accounting Policies The Coca Cola Company follows the US GAAP model for preparing its financial statements. With the information required by GAAP the company also records the non GAAP information which is used to measure the performance of the company more accurately (Coca-Cola Company, 2011, p.12). North American Market The C oca-Cola Company has a strong market in the North American region. In the second quarter of 2011 the company’s overall volume increased by 6%. The growth in volume in north America was 4% while the operating income increased by 46% which was highest compared to the percentage increase in other markets. The percentage increase in net operating revenue in North American market was also the highest compared to the increase in other geographical markets where the company operates. The organic volume that is the volume achieved from the company’s core operations was more or less same in the second quarter. In North American market the company acquired the bottler CCE which had a positive effect on the company. In North American market the company’s carbonated soft drinks’ volume grew by 6%. The company spent a lot of money in North American market for promoting carbonated soft drinks as result the its organic volume declined. In North American markets the comp any performed well in terms of volume. The Gold Peak tea itself grew by 38% where as the volume of Powerade and Smart water also grew. Hence in North America the company performed better in the quarter (The Coca-Cola Company, 2011, p.6). Profitability Drivers The Coca Cola Company achieved a higher profit than expected in the 2nd quarter of 2011. There are many reasons behind the increase in profits. The main drivers of profitability of Coca- Cola Company for the quarterly profits are overall growth in volume, price mix and different structural change. During the 2nd quarter of 2011 the company achieved growth in volume world wide. In every market whether it is European market or North American or Latin America or Pacific or Asian the volume grew in every market. Increase in sales volume automatically increases the sales revenue and hence their profits get increased. Some structural changes like the sale of Norway and Sweden bottlers help to reduce the expenses of the company. In No rth American market the company was able to increase its retail price by 3% to 4% in the 2nd quarter which in turn helped the company to reduce the high commodity costs. The increase in volume will definitely help the company to achieve its long terms goal. The structural changes were made to place the company in a better position in long run which will complement the company in its long term goals (The Coca-Cola Company, 2011, p.8). Comparison of EPS with Historic Results and Long Term Growth With increase in the volume and profits the earning per share of Coca-Cola

Do police reduce crime(Know how to use stata) Research Paper

Do police reduce crime(Know how to use stata) - Research Paper Example After a terrorist attack that took place in July 1994, Argentina, the main Jewish center in Buenos Aires, it led to all Jewish institutions receiving police protection. Hence, this hideous event initiated a police force geographical allocation that can be presumed exogenous in a crime regression. Using data on the car thefts after and before the attack, the study found out a significant effect of police on crime. The impact was observed to be local, with no impact outside the small area where the police were deployed. Introduction In the study a different approach has been presented to estimate the police on crime causal effect. Terrorists exploded a bomb on July 18, 1994 that brought down the Asociacion Mutual Israelita Argentina (A.M.I.A.), which is the key Jewish center in Argentina. This saw 85 persons dyeing and at least 300 were injured in the attack. The federal government had to assign police one week later in order to protect every Muslim and Jewish building in the country. These were done because the institutions’ geographical distribution was presumed to be ‘exogenous in a crime regression,’ this hideous event is composed of a natural experiment where the simultaneous determination of police presence and crime might be broken. The motor vehicle thefts number per block information was collected in 3 neighborhoods in Buenos Aires after and before the terrorist attack. The information includes a period of 9 month starting April 1 to December 31, 1994. Information on each Jewish institution location in these neighborhoods was also collected. There was then an estimation of the police presence effect on car theft. The estimates indicated that blocks which received police protection had substantially fewer car thefts as compared to the rest of the neighborhoods. There was no evidence that the presence of police in a certain block reduced car theft one or two blocks that was away from the buildings which were protected. There has been a major interest to identify the mechanisms where presence of police reduces crime. Is it that the presence of police results to criminal activity to be less attractive or is it that police men arrested criminals and few of them were left around to com- on car thefts? The total number of car thefts per block was used as the dependent Variable; this gave a panel with nine observations for every given block. This data on blocks without and with protected institutions enabled us to define a control and treatment group. Month fixed effects were included that controlled any aggregate shocks in the crime evolution. The main procedure utilized in this study was regression analysis. It was utilized to explain the total variation of the dependent variable, Car theft. The dependent variable was accompanied by 9 variables, which were tested against the dependent variable to determine how much of the total variation is explained. The analyses also discussed the comparison of the different regress ion models, and determine which model is the most effective. In regards to the regression analysis results, it is clearly evident that model 2 is the strongest. The independent variables including street, dummy Jews institution one block away, block distance to closest institution and dummy gas station were omitted and not included in the second model because there P value was greater than 0.05 implying the data collected was either not valid or there was no enough evidence to make

Report on setting up a mcdonalds franchise in UK

Report on setting up a mcdonalds franchise in UK McDonalds has been proved as successful business through the globe for quite some time now. This report aims at exploring the business potential in setting up a McDonald franchise by researching into its franchise structure. It gives information about the terms and conditions for becoming the McDonalds franchise along with the brief history of its business. It focuses on the strength and weakness of the business and discusses the macro environmental factors that may affect the franchise business. I had further focused on any problem that may arise during the functioning of the franchise and performed a VRIO analysis to check the sustainability of the business. The report end with a brief conclusion about the entire report suggestion whether it is beneficial to go ahead with the project. Introduction The fast food business is fast growing business in the UK and when talking about fast food most often the first name comes to the mind is the McDonalds. It has been a very successful business in its category for a long time now. This report discusses about setting up a franchise of McDonalds in UK and the pro and cons of owning a McDonald franchise. McDonalds has been making profits and is growing even in the current economic downturn. The figure below shows the growth of McDonald over the last year. Figure: McDonalds Historical stock chart (advfn.com, 2010) The above figure shows clear growth of the company selected to invest in getting franchise for. The growth also triggered an interest in researching for getting an franchise for McDonald and get good returns on the investment. This section is divided in to two where the first give a brief account of McDonalds business history while the later discusses the terms and condition for setting up a franchise. The data collection is majorly done from the McDonalds cooperate and associate websites. The later sections discuss the SWOT analysis and the VRIO and finally the report concludes with conclusion and recommendations. McDonalds brief history McDonalds was started by the Dick and Mac McDonald in 1940 in San Bernandino in California. It was a typical drive-in featuring a large menu and car hop services. It started as a barbeque restaurant but in 1948 the actual McDonalds was launched when McDonald brothers shut their restaurant for alterations. The menu was reduced to nine items and staple of the menu was the 15 cent hamburger. Within a year the potato chips were replaced by the world famous French fries. Through its history McDonalds kept on evolving and capturing the expectations of its customers. In 1954 a multi-mixer salesman Ray Kroc met Mc brother to sell his mixers but was fascinated by the operations. The following year in 1955 he opened the first franchise of McDonalds in Des Plaines, Illinois and by 1965 there were over 700 McDonalds restaurant through out United States. In 1958 McDonalds sold its 100 millionth hamburger and by 1959 the 100th McDonald restaurant was opened. In 1965 McDonald celebrated its 10th an niversary with its first public stock offering at $22.5 per share. 1966 saw the first TV commercial of McDonald featuring Ronald McDonald who became an instant hit. In 1967 first McDonald restaurant opened in Canada and Puerto Rico and at present it is having its presence in 118 countries. Over time McDonald kept launching products that gain individual brand images like the Big Mac, quarter pounder and happy meal. The first McDonalds restaurant in Britain opened in Woolwich, south-east London, in 1974 (mcspotlight.org, 2010). In 1978 5000th restaurant was opened in Japan and two years later it celebrated its 25th anniversary. In 1996 McDonald went online as its internet site macdonald.com was launched. McDonald has been evolving rapid in terms of product, technology and organisational strength over the years. McDonald Franchise operation The fast food industry has grown many folds in recent years with many new international and local chains competing with each other. Operating a fast food restaurant has many factors to be considered right from its competitors to the demographics and socio- cultural factors concerning its customers. In case of McDonalds the big brand name and massive advertising may help running the franchise but the most important is obtaining a franchise license. McDonalds people are very concerned about their customers and therefore very careful about whom they choose to serve their customers. The financial terms and conditions involving a McDonald franchise are as follows; The typical cost for owning a McDonalds restaurant ranges from  £125,000 to  £325,000. The investor are required to provide at least 25% of the value as unencumbered funds, the remaining 75% can be funded through a bank loan with favourable funding terms (mcdonalds.co.uk, 2010). Theres also a one-off franchise fee of  £30,000 and a training deposit of  £5,000 which is refunded when you complete your training (mcdonalds.co.uk, 2010). There are also ongoing fees. These include: Monthly rent on the premises, based on sales and profitability (usually ranging from 10% to 15%) Service Fee for use of the McDonalds system 5% of sales Contribution to the national marketing spend, currently 4.5% (mcdonalds.co.uk, 2010). And the returns? Cashflow (before debt repayment) typically ranges from  £95,000 to  £200,000 per year for each restaurant but this isnt guaranteed: it could be more, it could be less (mcdonalds.co.uk, 2010). Apart from the above terms and conditions the common questions arise about the benefit the investors get. The investors get equipment and license to operate from a location for a fix term and investors buy the profitability of the business. The McDonalds management expect its franchise owners to actively participate in the daily business of the restaurant and the franchise owners are not allowed to sell their ownership to other person without the managements permission. SWOT Analysis of McDonalds McDonalds has been a successfully evolving business since 1955 and almost half of the top corporate staff employees started as a restaurant level employee. Fortune Magazine 2005 listed McDonalds as the Best Place to Work for Minorities.(McDonalds fact sheet, 2007) The franchise owners and their staff are also required to undergo training in McDonalds. Moreover it invests around a billion USD in training its staff every year. Strengths McDonalds was ranked number one in Fortune Magazines 2008 list of most admired food service companies. One of the worlds most recognizable logos (the Golden Arches) and spokes character (Ronald McDonald the clown). Attractive McDonalds packaging are so popular among the children that according to the Packard Childrens Hospitals Centre research concluded that children age 3 to 5 prefer food given in McDonald packaging over the food without packaging. McDonalds bears a high corporate social responsibility value. They own Ronald McDonald House facilities providing very low cost room and board, food and sibling support for families with children needing extensive hospital care.They also sponsor Olympic athletes and local teams. It is global company that operates more than 23,500 restaurants in 118 countries. Their diversified presence gives them the ability to withstand economic fluctuations which are localized by country. They are very good in adapting to local cultural appeal and requirements. For example, they dont sell beef products in India and facilitate separate entranceto male and females in Middle East, as well serving Halal meat in Muslim dominated regions in UK as well. They are globally present in all major airports, and cities, along the highways, tourist locations, theme parks and inside shopping mall. Locations are selected with careful consideration and selecting the busiest locations possible. They have an efficient, assembly line style of food preparation. In addition they have a systemization and duplication of all their food prep processes in every restaurant (marketingteacher.com, 2010). McDonalds ensures strict compliance with the food quality used in its restaurants and invest producing fresh farm products. The external products used by McDonalds like cheese, yogurt, mayo etc are from top brands who ensure strict quality measures like Kraft Cheese, Nestle Chocolate, Dasani Water, Newmans Own Salad Dressings, Heinz Ketchup, Minute Maid Juice. McDonalds pioneered the provision of printed nutrition fact of its products on its packages. McDonalds offers salads, fruit, roasted chicken, bottled water and other low fat and calorie conscious alternatives. McDonalds has grown into a very big and trustworthy brand worldwide and especially in UK and US so opening a franchise in UK comes with the added advantage of the brand name which help getting the customers easily. McDonalds invests a large amount in advertising in print and motion media thus making life easier for its franchise. Weaknesses McDonalds venture into pizza making failed badly affecting their ability to compete with fast food pizza chains. They have yet to capitalize on the trend towards organic foods. McDonalds have problems with fluctuations in operating and net profits which ultimately impact investor relations. From the perspective of franchisee the problem they have to face is that they cannot use their owned property to run a franchise if it nota site of interest to McDonalds. In that case they have to bear an additional sum for renting place offered by McDonalds. Opportunities The current UK generation is more attracted towards healty or low calorie food thus McDonalds has a very good chance introduce healthy or low calorie hamburgers. Provide optional allergen free food items, such as gluten free and peanut free. It has a great scope in introduce hot beverages along with healthy breakfast option helping it compete with coffee shops and other fast food restaurants. Threats Their marketing to children often attracts criticism from parent advocate groups questioning their ethics. In Britain, McDonalds has infamously registered itself in to the record books for fighting the longest-ever libel suit in the country (mcspotlight.org, 2010). High food safety standards need to be maintained even a small contamination issue can land them in trouble. The other threats are from major international fast food restaurant chains like KFC, Burger King and Subway etc. Apart from the big names it faces potential threat from the local fried chicken chains. In order to decide on investing in the franchise a VRIO analysis of McDonald is done in the next section to test the sustainability of the venture. VRIO Analysis for McDonald franchise in UK VRIO stands for Value, rarity, Imitability and organisational support where Value is the firm ability to neutralise external threats using resources and capabilities. Rarity is control if resources in the hands of few while imitability is the difficulty to imitate in any way. Value: Mc Donald hold a high value in accordance to its brand image and exploitation of the available resources which had helped it evolved successfully for more than five decades. Rarity: The utility of the resource may be franchise oriented and spread through its breadth but the main control still remains in the hands of the top 50 management authorities. The franchisee has to follow the company rules strict to run a franchise of McDonalds. Imitability: McDonald may not be difficult to imitate in aspect of the product but its functionality is very difficult to achieve. Organisation support: McDonalds is always ready to exploit new resource and evolve and the organisation structure is well organised and provides a good support to its franchise operations. Value Rarity Imitability Organization Competitive implications Network infrastructure Yes Yes No Yes Temporary competitive advantage Diversified revenue base Yes Yes No Yes Temporary competitive advantage Leading market position Yes Yes Yes Yes Sustained competitive advantage The VRIO framework of McDonalds Looking at the above VRIO frame it can be said that McDonald has a sustainable competitive advantage and thus it seem to be vice decision to invest in the project. Conclusion The report deals with the franchise operation of McDonald and UK was selected as the location for the franchise. UK was selected on basis of the brand image and success of the franchise network of McDonalds. It has a very good customer base in UK which are very loyal as well. McDonald has good organisational support to its franchise in terms of training and publicity. It also operates a centralized recruitment drive which helps the franchise to get desired employees without having a headache to hunt for them. The SWOT analysis reveals a large number of strengths as well good opportunities to work on thus large scope to increase profitability. The VRIO analysis also indicates a competitive sustainability thus it is recommended to invest in the project.

What is Clinical Depression? Essay -- depressed mood, diminished press

What is depression? Depression is an illness that can take over a person’s life---it can take their happiness and their will to live. This illness can effect adults, teenagers, and even kids. â€Å"Depression is an equal opportunity disorder---- it can affect anyone of any group, any background, any race, any gender, and any age. It is the great leveler of all groups and can take the greatest and the smallest of us all and reduce us to the pain and nothingness that is depression (Nydegger 1)†. Depression is an emotion most people may feel they have experienced, but little do they know it’s just the basic emotions we feel. It is important to identify the symptoms of depression, the types of depression, who can get them and how they manifest, in other to be able to treatment them. The experience of depression has a profound effect on the lives and health of millions of people around the world. We all experience mood swing, and most of us think that we have experienced true depression and think they understand clinical depression and even know what it feels like; to be honest those emotions we feel are not half as much as what a depressed person goes through. Depression is more than experiencing a difficult day or event or being in a bad mood. Sometimes, people seek help even though they are not clinically depressed because they think they need the help they get from a psychologist. When speaking to a depressed individual, it is very important to know the occasion that lead to their emotional trauma. Depressed mood is not the same as a depressed disorder. According to Nydegger, â€Å"Depressed mood is a negative affective or emotional quality such as feeling sad, miserable, gloominess for a period of time. Depressive disorder refers t... ...oxepine) †¢ Surmontil (trimipramine) †¢ Toframil (imipramine) †¢ Vivactil (protriptyline) Depression is a serious and common problem that affects people of all social class and racial group throughout the world. They are good and affordable treatment for depression. Most people who have depression do not receive adequate treatment. We must do more and do better to take care of ourselves. It is not easy for any of us to tackle a problem of this magnitude, but by being responsible and taking care of our own health and mental well-being needs, we can also reach out to help others who are dealing with depression or other mental issues by sharing with them information’s and pointing them in the right direction to find the help they need. Work Cited Rudy V. Nydegger Understanding and Treating Depression: Ways to Find Hope and Help. Praeger, August 30, 2008

Technology, Human Beings and the Fate of the Earth: a Social Critique of Modern Life

It’s both funny and sad that as soon as people leave their familiar comfort zone, when they are alone, say at a coffee shop or waiting in line for a bus, they automatically, almost reactively, reach for the cell phone to call or text someone who will reconnect them with the safe and familiar world from which they have momentarily wandered away.The average persons’ lack of ability, or willingness, to encounter an unknown situation or territory reveals their lack of tolerance for being alone, as well as their lack of curiosity or propensity to simply notice and appreciate their surroundings – as if their bodily senses had been nullified into a potential danger zone in which their very stability of self would quickly fragment should they let go a little, observe and potentially interact with the unfolding world around them.Yes, we’ve learned to live in little bubbles of safety which cut us off from our fellow-humans – we no longer live in the actual wo rld, but in our own self-created worlds, via the latest form of technology. I suspect that our modern sense of security has been entrained to operate in collusion with these technological devices that have slyly entrapped our minds even as they have offered us incredible new possibilities.Our reliance on new and ever-advancing technologies, such as the mobile phone – which in a few short years has also become a mobile photo album, mobile internet, camera, video machine and multi-media entertainment center – has developed into quite a habit, an unconscious addiction that is shaping the very nature of our personalities, both personal and collective, and even, God forbid, our souls. What need have we, the general public, for an imagination when so many limitlessly stimulating devices are available in our world?Who needs an inner world at all when the outer world of our own creations has become so evocative, so seducing, so ever-demanding, evasive and totalitarian? We are continually inundated with advertisements and societal pressures to acquire new technological distractions and modes of external stimulus. Living under such conditions, how is it possible for us to maintain or cultivate much of an inner world, or a soul, whatsoever?The underlying message of our media is commercial; in enforcing the demands of commerce upon us, we are defined primarily as consumers, persuaded not to think for ourselves, but to join in the latest collective frenzy of technological adventures that continually reinterpret the purpose of our lives. This never ending flood of media proclamations, while appearing as a material liberation, serves as a psychological oppression of the individual soul. Capitalism sells new versions of reality that may have nothing to do with one’s own true needs or sensibilities. However, it is the advertisers’ job to convince us otherwise.So far they are doing a pretty good job! The natural world, the earth itself; the air, the trees, the vast realms of animals, plants, oceans, deserts and mountains are increasingly losing meaning and value in the self-hypnotized, narcissistic lives of mechanized human beings. Although it is certainly an abomination of our essential heritage, we are ever-entrained to focus less and less on the natural world in which we live, and of which we are but one aspect – lest we forget – and more and more to focus on the world as fashioned through the minds and hands of men.It’s sad indeed when we ignore what is right before our eyes, i. e. our actual surrounding environment, and instead remain culled to a collective techno-vision of the ideal man-made life. It’s also sad when we ignore those human beings who are standing right in front of us because we’d prefer to text or talk with someone miles away, when we must remain overly-attached to those we know because we’ve lost our human capacity for interrelationship with our expanded world of f ellow citizens who we now dismiss as strangers.Our advance in technology has engendered a compensating inversion in our capacity for compassion and community – which is to say, the further we develop our technology, the less we appear to maintain the qualities of a loving, caring and attentive human society. Being aware in the mystery of the present moment, tolerating the unknown, and tolerating states of non-stimulation is the first phase in moving towards a more attuned state of openness and potential interaction with the actual, non-virtual, world around us.However, we have been so conditioned by a perpetual bombardment of electronic stimuli – radio, television, computers, video games, mobile phones/entertainment centers, etc – that it has become difficult, albeit unappealing, for us to re-focus our attention on our actual physical, natural environment. A parallel outcome of our desensitization to the physical, natural world in which we live, is the subsequen t degradation of our ecology, which entails our lack of emphasis or awareness on its living/breathing/fragile/organic nature.The danger of this, as many of us recognize, is potentially catastrophic; as we create and live in an increasingly human-made and virtual reality – wherein we believe we are safer, happier, more satisfied, etc – we also increasingly ignore the actual and natural reality in which we are encompassed, and risk the extinction of the environment through the excessive pollution, raiding and deforestation of the planet that we have witnessed since the rise of the industrial-technological age.The degradation of the natural world is problematic in many ways. Firstly, it appears to be morally and ethically wrong – at least to those of us whose ethics and morals outweigh our imperialistic drives – to destructively impact the earth, its ecosystems, i. e. rivers, oceans and forests, as well as animals, plants, trees, etc. One might ask, â€Å"W hat right have we humans to destroy the earth, simply for our own benefit? Is this not selfish and unnecessary? Many of us have asked this question, though it seems that the overall progress of our technologically based capitalism remains unwilling to curtail its invasions and usurpations of nature, or to halt its path of destruction for the sake of morals or ethics. Where the dollar bill is concerned, questions of right and wrong become thin and ineffectual, nearly meaningless. Secondly, the degradation of the natural environment is increasingly affecting the balance of the planet itself, which in turn contaminates our own quality of life.For a thorough overview of how human technology is damaging the planet, one has only to search through a plethora of books, TV specials, or movies on this topic (i. e. â€Å"An Inconvenient Truth†, by Al Gore). I will here mention only a few ways in which planetary degradation affects human life. In a recent trip to Lima, Peru I learned tha t Peruvians predominantly drive older used cars, from the 80s or 70s, which emit high levels of visible exhaust fumes making the air both toxic and putrid to breathe.Driving around town there is often no escape from these fumes which pour out of the car just in front of you. The situation is just as bad in many other developing â€Å"third world† countries around the globe. Even here in the United States, where we have increasingly stricter emissions controls on our vehicles, the air quality in some cities is very poor, and on certain days people are advised to avoid going â€Å"out of doors,† or allowing their children to play outside at all.In many countries, air pollution is severe and debilitating, and only getting worse. In addition to increasing the risk of respiratory disease, the eroding of the ozone layer has also increased the risk of skin cancer, and it’s become customary to slather on gobs of sunscreen lotion before going outside on a sunny day for a ny length of time. Industrial pollution has made our water supplies dirty, so they are zapped with chlorine, making our water not really enjoyable, or many would say, healthy to drink.As for our food, as genetic engineering takes hold, what we eat becomes increasingly tasteless and less nutritious. Although these are only a very few examples of the many problems made by technology, there is no denying that the degradation of the natural world leads to our own degradation. The third major impact of the degradation of nature is spiritual. As we become less attuned to the world of nature, which is gradually breaking down, our inherent connection to the earth dissipates.We become less the â€Å"caretakers of the earth,† or participants in Her splendor of glory, and moreover the survivors of a man-made holocaust inflicted upon nature. We rationalize our disconnect from nature – those of us who are aware of it – with the heralding of a new age of technological transce ndence. In comparison with all our own amazing discoveries, inventions and developments, we cannot believe that the earth is all that important. How can a handful of dirt compare to the glory of an I-phone?Our attitudes reveal a consensual belief that we are superior to and above the earth – as also evidenced by our scientific investigations into creating hospitable conditions on other planets, as well as expanded, city-size space stations in which we could begin to populate the greater universe, where we would, even more so, live in human-made, virtual reality realms. The bigger question is whether our spirits can survive – or thrive – in states of stark disconnection from the earth, our origin and planetary source of being†¦ This sort of fantastic and futuristic evolution is in line with our reigning eligion of Christianity, in which our sinful earthbound lives are to be potentially transformed through belief in Christ, when, upon the moment of our death, we are to ascend high into the heavens, into a cloud-like dimension above and beyond all the messy entanglements of this planet earth. With such a cosmo-vision, such a context of the goal of life, it’s no wonder the sanctity of the earth has lost its power to impel our actions. It seems only the portended threat of our own extinction will suffice to encourage us to behave differently.For if we are only to inhabit this earth for such a brief span of time – until our transcendence into a perfect eternity in another dimension – then what’s the big deal if we just abuse Her until we’re gone, because in the grand scheme of things She doesn’t matter much anyways. Christianity also teaches that, of all the creatures and life-forms upon this planet, only human beings have souls â€Å"that can be saved,† and thus make the transmigration beyond a mortal death into an immortal and eternal after-life.Since, in the Christian view, nothing else up on this planet has a soul, or is capable of redemption, we justify our own paramount importance, and it becomes completely plausible to view all things as merely our own resources. In this way, we lose a perspective of value and veneration for the natural world around us while worshipping our own agendas. It becomes evident that many areas of our lives – our economy, our technology and industry, our religion, and our general philosophy of living – depict our own implicit superiority complex over the natural world of creation.And yet, by and by, we get glimpses of the truth that it is impossible for humanity to become superior to nature, because we are really an intrinsic part of the earth which we seek to dominate and control. In actuality, the world of nature is indeed superior to humankind, as we are merely one aspect of its grand panorama. However, we continue to ignore our interconnectedness with nature, our true identity as an outgrowth or expression of nature, an d behave as if we have the right and ability to continue dominating the earth without eventually destroying ourselves.But â€Å"what goes around comes around,† and sooner or later you get what you give, or to put it in technological terms: you â€Å"input† what you â€Å"output. † Why have we continued on in this, less than intelligent, manner? You could say that we modern-day humans are simply dumb and indifferent, which is partially true from a holistic perspective. But beneath that we are really out of control, so fascinated by our own invented civilization that we fail to recognize the greater organic and historical context in which we live.Over the past 500 years or so, the peoples of Europe have invaded, conquered, colonized and converted virtually every other continent, people and culture upon the planet – we’re currently working steadfast on the Middle East – with our imperialistic inquisitions, our Christianity and our capitalism. I n the words of Martin Prechtel, author of Secrets Of The Talking Jaguar, and an initiate of the Mayan shamanic mysteries: Over the last two or three centuries, a heartless culture-crushing mentality has incremented its progress on the earth, devouring all peoples, nature, imagination, and spiritual knowledge.Like a big mechanized slug, it has left behind a flat, homogenized steak of civilization wherever it passed. Every human on this earth – African, Asian, European, Islanders, or from the Americas – has ancestors who at some point in their history had their stories, rituals, ingenuity, language and lifeways taken away, enslaved, banned, exploited, twisted or destroyed by this force. Our modern technological way of life is a vast and dramatic change from the vastly more earth-friendly modes of human existence that preceded this rapid â€Å"global development† for thousands of years.It is a sad and unpopular fact that, as Western civilization has progressed, cou ntless other civilizations have regressed, have indeed been ravaged and undone by the coercion of our own ideas and powers upon them. To this day, we either disregard their suffering and continue on our own path to global domination, or we view them through the eyes of sympathetic charity, regarding ourselves, our own culture, as the superior and dominant people who will now help, aide and assist these less fortunate people – whom we devastated in the first place – to acquire the modes of our own elevated survival and sustenance.The deceptive hypocrisy of our impact upon, and subsequent response to, â€Å"third world† countries is confounded by our own apparent lack of responsibility for our actions, both past and present, that debilitate these people. For instance, in the countries of Central & South America, our oil production facilities lead to massive destruction of both the land and the lives of the indigenous peoples. In the mid 1990? s, author Joe Kane do cumented the horrific impacts of corporate oil companies upon native cultures and the pristine Amazonian rainforest of Ecuador in his superbly written book, Savages.In the book, Kane describes the struggle of one of the last remaining indigenous tribes – the Huaorani – who consider themselves to have not been conquered by modern Western culture, against the impending invasion of corporate oil. Referencing his colleague Judith Kimerling from her book Amazon Crude, Kane states: â€Å"In 1967 Texaco discovered commercial oil in the Oriente [the Ecuadorian rainforest]. In 1972 it completed a 312-mile pipeline from the Oriente to Ecuador’s Pacific coast. From its inception until just 1989, â€Å"the Texaco pipeline had ruptured at least twenty seven times, spilling 16. 8 million gallons of raw crude †¦ most of it into the Oriente’s delicate web of rivers, creeks and lagoons. † As a witness himself to a colossal oil spill into the native Ecuadorian rainforest, Kane writes, â€Å"While I was in Tonampare a valve in an oil well near the Napo broke, or was left open, and for two days and a night raw crude streamed into the river – at least 21,000 gallons and perhaps as many as 80,000, creating a slick that stretched from bank to bank for forty miles. Due to this oil spill, a state of emergency was declared downstream in both Peru and Brazil, although, according to Kane, the oil company responsible for the spill disregarded the incident and did nothing to improve the situation. While in Ecuador, Kane visited various Huaorani communities and received further firsthand reports of extensive and extreme contamination, via oil spills, of their water supplies resulting in unruly health epidemics, severe illnesses and deaths.However, the problems of oil drilling extend beyond the awful impacts upon Huaorani and Indian health in general, as the settlements made by the oil companies result in drastic disruption, deviation and dese cration of traditional Indian culture. It is a complicated process, because the imperialistic thrust of big oil coincides with all sorts of modern Western byproducts including colonization, conversion to Christianity, and ‘re-education’ of native Indians – in which â€Å"no element of Huaorani culture was allowed to enter the curriculum. This enforced process of acculturation to Western ways results in the obliteration of the value, the history, and the very existence of traditional culture for all Indians affected. During the months that Kane spent roaming through Ecuador, mainly with the Huaorani tribe, he experienced the traditional self-sufficient way of life that the Huaorani – as well as many other indigenous South American tribes – have lived for millennia. After visiting colonized areas as well, he reports that Indians who have succumbed to a conversion to Western ways appear much worse off than those who have held to their traditional ways .Of these colonized Huaorani, Kane writes â€Å"the people were dependent on goods brought in from outside, and many of them had become wage slaves to a culture they could never hope to be truly a part of – to a culture that, in fact, considered them little more than animals. † The convergence of the diverse aspects of capitalism, colonization and conversion to Western ways and Christianity upon the various Indian tribes who are impacted all amount to ethnocide.The fact that such corruption – initiated by Western imperialistic drives based on capitalistic gains – is still going on, only reveals that we have not progressed very far, at least globally speaking, in our path to becoming a more humane society. But the typical modern world citizen doesn’t care about any of this and has very little knowledge of the historical European conquests that have transformed spiritually and functionally intact cultures into materially indigent, chaotic and violent third world countries. Most of us are more or less plodding along our own enlightened paths of self-serving materialism.When we do give any consideration to cultures of a lesser material status, we judge and compare their â€Å"shabby† way of life to ours, in which running water, electricity, cars, central heating, air conditioning and 24 hour grocery stores are essential. We devalue their modes of living through our own ignorance and ingrained sense of superiority, as we seek to save them, not by helping them to regain their own valued way of life, but by converting them to ours – which only reinforces our own paradigm of economic, technological and religious superiority. We frequently fail to realize that not every human being on this planet wants r needs to be hooked into the wave of technological progress with which we are so completely mesmerized. Not only does our enchantment with technology threaten our humanity, our society, and our planet, it also – th rough our continued pressures upon non-Western, non-technologically-based cultures to convert to the ways of the modern Western world – threatens to destroy the few remaining earth-based, indigenous peoples on this planet who would rather not be bothered by us or our materialistic ways. Do we really need to continue to conquer the earth with our capitalism until there is a 7-11 and McDonalds in every corner of the world?Until there are freeways chomping through every area of pristine land? Until all the forests have been chopped down and transformed into urban and industrial sprawl? Can’t we contain ourselves with a little respect for the rest of the world? There are still people on this planet who enjoy living in the organic environment of nature, where electricity, motor vehicles, cells phones and I-pods aren’t a necessary aspect of life. They are able to survive, and thrive, quite well without all the modern accoutrements of modern life that we so desire, and many of them would like to remain as they are.And yet our attitude reveals an inner conviction that we have discovered â€Å"the way of the future† and must deliver this message in force to the rest of the world. Rather than continuing on our present course of a global takeover, we need to ask ourselves what we can learn from non-Westernized cultures that still live in ancient and earth-honoring ways, cultures that we tend to brutalize and greedily destroy. We need to learn to interact with these other cultures respectfully and humanely, allowing them their own way of life and sustenance upon this planet without interfering and coercing our interests and values upon them.Not everyone needs to drive a car on a freeway, to work in an office and live in a house in the city – if the 7,000,000,000 human beings now alive on the planet lived like this, our environmental devastation would likely expand exponentially. To expect a global conversion of all peoples in all places into an assimilation of our unique modern, technological way of life is stupid, insane and supremely unreasonable. However, like a big, proud, arrogant peacock strutting itself all over the planet, the United States continues making moves to engulf the globe with the gluttony of our own capitalistic enterprises, all the while disregarding nd disrupting the dignity of other countries, cultures and peoples. Reflecting upon the impact of our very recent civilization upon other, much older, traditional and earth-based civilizations, as well as the planet itself, we should notice and consider the damages we have done, the violences we have perpetrated, and the miseries we have created †¦ We need to move beyond the Christian fantasy that we are a completely good and benign presence on the planet, that we are somehow â€Å"God’s chosen people† with a free pass to do whatever we want regardless of the consequences.We should think about how we can be less ego-centric, and seek to balance our technological advances with tending to the well-being of the earth, other cultures and one another. We should consider how to create more harmony in the world, and a little less profit. Indeed, many individuals and organizations are becoming increasingly devoted to a greater consciousness of how to live in ways that are â€Å"earth friendly. The overall pro-environmental movements are coming to be known as â€Å"green† movements, and they provide good and necessary developments toward a future in which humans could be of greater benefit than detriment to the planet. However, very much work and change remains to be done in this area. One problem inherent with these movements is that when we think about â€Å"saving the planet,† or â€Å"saving the polar bears,† we are still thinking abstractly. In truth, the planet was doing just fine before the advent of modern industry and technological society. Save the planet! † really means â€Å" Stop the humans from destroying the planet! † because we are only saving the planet from ourselves. Living our urban, fast-paced and machine-based lives, very few of us have time, energy or ability to keep gardens, raise livestock, hunt for our sustenance or otherwise live in any kind of experiential symbiosis with the planet. We live in suburban and citified concrete jungles where the animals have become cars, and the trees and forests are now banks, department stores and high rise apartment complexes.Because we have created our own processed environment of roads, cars, industry, buildings, malls, homes: an endless â€Å"urban sprawl† that houses an endless supply of manmade things; because we live in a world designed by capitalism, a world of incessant advertising, sales and the desperate, frantic pursuit of material things – of production and products – a world molded and defined by television, radio and the chronic bombardment of salesmen; we rarely, i f ever, experience an intimate connection with the natural world, with â€Å"the planet† we are hoping to save.Sure we can learn all about the planet, discovering the marvels of the earth in science magazines or through viewing compelling video footage of nature, we can learn all about the planet in schools, in laboratories or other second hand means, but until we have a sustained, direct encounter with the earth and nature itself, how can we truly know it, and what will it ever really mean to us? And how few of us will ever accomplish this?Indeed, as it now stands our â€Å"civilization† is composed of a people, and a culture, that have moved out of nature into man-created worlds based upon the destruction of nature †¦ and they call this evolution. Ultimately, it’s up to us to change the story, to write a new script, to realize who we are, what we have become, and to simply wake up to the realization of how we want our lives, and the life of our entire pla net, to unfold †¦ So think about it, and let your thoughts permeate all that you do, for the existence of yourself and every other being around you may depend upon it.It’s both funny and sad that as soon as people leave their familiar comfort zone, when they are alone, say at a coffee shop or waiting in line for a bus, they automatically, almost reactively, reach for the cell phone to call or text someone who will reconnect them with the safe and familiar world from which they have momentarily wandered away.The average persons’ lack of ability, or willingness, to encounter an unknown situation or territory reveals their lack of tolerance for being alone, as well as their lack of curiosity or propensity to simply notice and appreciate their surroundings – as if their bodily senses had been nullified into a potential danger zone in which their very stability of self would quickly fragment should they let go a little, observe and potentially interact with the unfolding world around them.Yes, we’ve learned to live in little bubbles of safety which cut us off from our fellow-humans – we no longer live in the actual world, but in our own self-created worlds, via the latest form of technology. I suspect that our modern sense of security has been entrained to operate in collusion with these technological devices that have slyly entrapped our minds even as they have offered us incredible new possibilities.Our reliance on new and ever-advancing technologies, such as the mobile phone – which in a few short years has also become a mobile photo album, mobile internet, camera, video machine and multi-media entertainment center – has developed into quite a habit, an unconscious addiction that is shaping the very nature of our personalities, both personal and collective, and even, God forbid, our souls. What need have we, the general public, for an imagination when so many limitlessly stimulating devices are available in o ur world?Who needs an inner world at all when the outer world of our own creations has become so evocative, so seducing, so ever-demanding, evasive and totalitarian? We are continually inundated with advertisements and societal pressures to acquire new technological distractions and modes of external stimulus. Living under such conditions, how is it possible for us to maintain or cultivate much of an inner world, or a soul, whatsoever?The underlying message of our media is commercial; in enforcing the demands of commerce upon us, we are defined primarily as consumers, persuaded not to think for ourselves, but to join in the latest collective frenzy of technological adventures that continually reinterpret the purpose of our lives. This never ending flood of media proclamations, while appearing as a material liberation, serves as a psychological oppression of the individual soul. Capitalism sells new versions of reality that may have nothing to do with one’s own true needs or s ensibilities.However, it is the advertisers’ job to convince us otherwise. So far they are doing a pretty good job! The natural world, the earth itself; the air, the trees, the vast realms of animals, plants, oceans, deserts and mountains are increasingly losing meaning and value in the self-hypnotized, narcissistic lives of mechanized human beings. Although it is certainly an abomination of our essential heritage, we are ever-entrained to focus less and less on the natural world in which we live, and of which we are but one aspect – lest we forget – and more and more to focus on the world as fashioned through the minds and hands f men. It’s sad indeed when we ignore what is right before our eyes, i. e. our actual surrounding environment, and instead remain culled to a collective techno-vision of the ideal man-made life. It’s also sad when we ignore those human beings who are standing right in front of us because we’d prefer to text or talk with someone miles away, when we must remain overly-attached to those we know because we’ve lost our human capacity for interrelationship with our expanded world of fellow citizens who we now dismiss as strangers.Our advance in technology has engendered a compensating inversion in our capacity for compassion and community – which is to say, the further we develop our technology, the less we appear to maintain the qualities of a loving, caring and attentive human society. Being aware in the mystery of the present moment, tolerating the unknown, and tolerating states of non-stimulation is the first phase in moving towards a more attuned state of openness and potential interaction with the actual, non-virtual, world around us.However, we have been so conditioned by a perpetual bombardment of electronic stimuli – radio, television, computers, video games, mobile phones/entertainment centers, etc – that it has become difficult, albeit unappealing, for us to re -focus our attention on our actual physical, natural environment. A parallel outcome of our desensitization to the physical, natural world in which we live, is the subsequent degradation of our ecology, which entails our lack of emphasis or awareness on its living/breathing/fragile/organic nature.The danger of this, as many of us recognize, is potentially catastrophic; as we create and live in an increasingly human-made and virtual reality – wherein we believe we are safer, happier, more satisfied, etc – we also increasingly ignore the actual and natural reality in which we are encompassed, and risk the extinction of the environment through the excessive pollution, raiding and deforestation of the planet that we have witnessed since the rise of the industrial-technological age.The degradation of the natural world is problematic in many ways. Firstly, it appears to be morally and ethically wrong – at least to those of us whose ethics and morals outweigh our imper ialistic drives – to destructively impact the earth, its ecosystems, i. e. rivers, oceans and forests, as well as animals, plants, trees, etc. One might ask, â€Å"What right have we humans to destroy the earth, simply for our own benefit? Is this not selfish and unnecessary? Many of us have asked this question, though it seems that the overall progress of our technologically based capitalism remains unwilling to curtail its invasions and usurpations of nature, or to halt its path of destruction for the sake of morals or ethics. Where the dollar bill is concerned, questions of right and wrong become thin and ineffectual, nearly meaningless. Secondly, the degradation of the natural environment is increasingly affecting the balance of the planet itself, which in turn contaminates our own quality of life.For a thorough overview of how human technology is damaging the planet, one has only to search through a plethora of books, TV specials, or movies on this topic (i. e. â€Å"A n Inconvenient Truth†, by Al Gore). I will here mention only a few ways in which planetary degradation affects human life. In a recent trip to Lima, Peru I learned that Peruvians predominantly drive older used cars, from the 80s or 70s, which emit high levels of visible exhaust fumes making the air both toxic and putrid to breathe.Driving around town there is often no escape from these fumes which pour out of the car just in front of you. The situation is just as bad in many other developing â€Å"third world† countries around the globe. Even here in the United States, where we have increasingly stricter emissions controls on our vehicles, the air quality in some cities is very poor, and on certain days people are advised to avoid going â€Å"out of doors,† or allowing their children to play outside at all.In many countries, air pollution is severe and debilitating, and only getting worse. In addition to increasing the risk of respiratory disease, the eroding of the ozone layer has also increased the risk of skin cancer, and it’s become customary to slather on gobs of sunscreen lotion before going outside on a sunny day for any length of time. Industrial pollution has made our water supplies dirty, so they are zapped with chlorine, making our water not really enjoyable, or many would say, healthy to drink.As for our food, as genetic engineering takes hold, what we eat becomes increasingly tasteless and less nutritious. Although these are only a very few examples of the many problems made by technology, there is no denying that the degradation of the natural world leads to our own degradation. The third major impact of the degradation of nature is spiritual. As we become less attuned to the world of nature, which is gradually breaking down, our inherent connection to the earth dissipates.We become less the â€Å"caretakers of the earth,† or participants in Her splendor of glory, and moreover the survivors of a man-made holocaus t inflicted upon nature. We rationalize our disconnect from nature – those of us who are aware of it – with the heralding of a new age of technological transcendence. In comparison with all our own amazing discoveries, inventions and developments, we cannot believe that the earth is all that important. How can a handful of dirt compare to the glory of an I-phone?Our attitudes reveal a consensual belief that we are superior to and above the earth – as also evidenced by our scientific investigations into creating hospitable conditions on other planets, as well as expanded, city-size space stations in which we could begin to populate the greater universe, where we would, even more so, live in human-made, virtual reality realms. The bigger question is whether our spirits can survive – or thrive – in states of stark disconnection from the earth, our origin and planetary source of being†¦This sort of fantastic and futuristic evolution is in line wit h our reigning religion of Christianity, in which our sinful earthbound lives are to be potentially transformed through belief in Christ, when, upon the moment of our death, we are to ascend high into the heavens, into a cloud-like dimension above and beyond all the messy entanglements of this planet earth. With such a cosmo-vision, such a context of the goal of life, it’s no wonder the sanctity of the earth has lost its power to impel our actions.It seems only the portended threat of our own extinction will suffice to encourage us to behave differently. For if we are only to inhabit this earth for such a brief span of time – until our transcendence into a perfect eternity in another dimension – then what’s the big deal if we just abuse Her until we’re gone, because in the grand scheme of things She doesn’t matter much anyways. Christianity also teaches that, of all the creatures and life-forms upon this planet, only human beings have souls â€Å"that can be saved,† and thus make the transmigration beyond a mortal death into an immortal and eternal fter-life. Since, in the Christian view, nothing else upon this planet has a soul, or is capable of redemption, we justify our own paramount importance, and it becomes completely plausible to view all things as merely our own resources. In this way, we lose a perspective of value and veneration for the natural world around us while worshipping our own agendas. It becomes evident that many areas of our lives – our economy, our technology and industry, our religion, and our general philosophy of living – depict our own implicit superiority complex over the natural world of creation.And yet, by and by, we get glimpses of the truth that it is impossible for humanity to become superior to nature, because we are really an intrinsic part of the earth which we seek to dominate and control. In actuality, the world of nature is indeed superior to humankind, as we are merely one aspect of its grand panorama. However, we continue to ignore our interconnectedness with nature, our true identity as an outgrowth or expression of nature, and behave as if we have the right and ability to continue dominating the earth without eventually destroying ourselves.But â€Å"what goes around comes around,† and sooner or later you get what you give, or to put it in technological terms: you â€Å"input† what you â€Å"output. † Why have we continued on in this, less than intelligent, manner? You could say that we modern-day humans are simply dumb and indifferent, which is partially true from a holistic perspective. But beneath that we are really out of control, so fascinated by our own invented civilization that we fail to recognize the greater organic and historical context in which we live.Over the past 500 years or so, the peoples of Europe have invaded, conquered, colonized and converted virtually every other continent, people and cult ure upon the planet – we’re currently working steadfast on the Middle East – with our imperialistic inquisitions, our Christianity and our capitalism. In the words of Martin Prechtel, author of Secrets Of The Talking Jaguar, and an initiate of the Mayan shamanic mysteries: Over the last two or three centuries, a heartless culture-crushing mentality has incremented its progress on the earth, devouring all peoples, nature, imagination, and spiritual knowledge.Like a big mechanized slug, it has left behind a flat, homogenized steak of civilization wherever it passed. Every human on this earth – African, Asian, European, Islanders, or from the Americas – has ancestors who at some point in their history had their stories, rituals, ingenuity, language and lifeways taken away, enslaved, banned, exploited, twisted or destroyed by this force. Our modern technological way of life is a vast and dramatic change from the vastly more earth-friendly modes of huma n existence that preceded this rapid â€Å"global development† for thousands of years.It is a sad and unpopular fact that, as Western civilization has progressed, countless other civilizations have regressed, have indeed been ravaged and undone by the coercion of our own ideas and powers upon them. To this day, we either disregard their suffering and continue on our own path to global domination, or we view them through the eyes of sympathetic charity, regarding ourselves, our own culture, as the superior and dominant people who will now help, aide and assist these less fortunate people – whom we devastated in the first place – to acquire the modes of our own elevated survival and sustenance.The deceptive hypocrisy of our impact upon, and subsequent response to, â€Å"third world† countries is confounded by our own apparent lack of responsibility for our actions, both past and present, that debilitate these people. For instance, in the countries of Centra l & South America, our oil production facilities lead to massive destruction of both the land and the lives of the indigenous peoples. In the mid 1990? s, author Joe Kane documented the horrific impacts of corporate oil companies upon native cultures and the pristine Amazonian rainforest of Ecuador in his superbly written book, Savages.In the book, Kane describes the struggle of one of the last remaining indigenous tribes – the Huaorani – who consider themselves to have not been conquered by modern Western culture, against the impending invasion of corporate oil. Referencing his colleague Judith Kimerling from her book Amazon Crude, Kane states: â€Å"In 1967 Texaco discovered commercial oil in the Oriente [the Ecuadorian rainforest]. In 1972 it completed a 312-mile pipeline from the Oriente to Ecuador’s Pacific coast. From its inception until just 1989, â€Å"the Texaco pipeline had ruptured at least twenty seven times, spilling 16. 8 million gallons of raw c rude †¦ most of it into the Oriente’s delicate web of rivers, creeks and lagoons. † As a witness himself to a colossal oil spill into the native Ecuadorian rainforest, Kane writes, â€Å"While I was in Tonampare a valve in an oil well near the Napo broke, or was left open, and for two days and a night raw crude streamed into the river – at least 21,000 gallons and perhaps as many as 80,000, creating a slick that stretched from bank to bank for forty miles. Due to this oil spill, a state of emergency was declared downstream in both Peru and Brazil, although, according to Kane, the oil company responsible for the spill disregarded the incident and did nothing to improve the situation. While in Ecuador, Kane visited various Huaorani communities and received further firsthand reports of extensive and extreme contamination, via oil spills, of their water supplies resulting in unruly health epidemics, severe illnesses and deaths.However, the problems of oil drill ing extend beyond the awful impacts upon Huaorani and Indian health in general, as the settlements made by the oil companies result in drastic disruption, deviation and desecration of traditional Indian culture. It is a complicated process, because the imperialistic thrust of big oil coincides with all sorts of modern Western byproducts including colonization, conversion to Christianity, and ‘re-education’ of native Indians – in which â€Å"no element of Huaorani culture was allowed to enter the curriculum. This enforced process of acculturation to Western ways results in the obliteration of the value, the history, and the very existence of traditional culture for all Indians affected. During the months that Kane spent roaming through Ecuador, mainly with the Huaorani tribe, he experienced the traditional self-sufficient way of life that the Huaorani – as well as many other indigenous South American tribes – have lived for millennia. After visiting colonized areas as well, he reports that Indians who have succumbed to a conversion to Western ways appear much worse off than those who have held to their traditional ways.Of these colonized Huaorani, Kane writes â€Å"the people were dependent on goods brought in from outside, and many of them had become wage slaves to a culture they could never hope to be truly a part of – to a culture that, in fact, considered them little more than animals. † The convergence of the diverse aspects of capitalism, colonization and conversion to Western ways and Christianity upon the various Indian tribes who are impacted all amount to ethnocide.The fact that such corruption – initiated by Western imperialistic drives based on capitalistic gains – is still going on, only reveals that we have not progressed very far, at least globally speaking, in our path to becoming a more humane society. But the typical modern world citizen doesn’t care about any of this and ha s very little knowledge of the historical European conquests that have transformed spiritually and functionally intact cultures into materially indigent, chaotic and violent third world countries. Most of us are more or less plodding along our own enlightened paths of self-serving materialism.When we do give any consideration to cultures of a lesser material status, we judge and compare their â€Å"shabby† way of life to ours, in which running water, electricity, cars, central heating, air conditioning and 24 hour grocery stores are essential. We devalue their modes of living through our own ignorance and ingrained sense of superiority, as we seek to save them, not by helping them to regain their own valued way of life, but by converting them to ours – which only reinforces our own paradigm of economic, technological and religious superiority.We frequently fail to realize that not every human being on this planet wants or needs to be hooked into the wave of technologic al progress with which we are so completely mesmerized. Not only does our enchantment with technology threaten our humanity, our society, and our planet, it also – through our continued pressures upon non-Western, non-technologically-based cultures to convert to the ways of the modern Western world – threatens to destroy the few remaining earth-based, indigenous peoples on this planet who would rather not be bothered by us or our materialistic ways.Do we really need to continue to conquer the earth with our capitalism until there is a 7-11 and McDonalds in every corner of the world? Until there are freeways chomping through every area of pristine land? Until all the forests have been chopped down and transformed into urban and industrial sprawl? Can’t we contain ourselves with a little respect for the rest of the world? There are still people on this planet who enjoy living in the organic environment of nature, where electricity, motor vehicles, cells phones and I-pods aren’t a necessary aspect of life.They are able to survive, and thrive, quite well without all the modern accoutrements of modern life that we so desire, and many of them would like to remain as they are. And yet our attitude reveals an inner conviction that we have discovered â€Å"the way of the future† and must deliver this message in force to the rest of the world. Rather than continuing on our present course of a global takeover, we need to ask ourselves what we can learn from non-Westernized cultures that still live in ancient and earth-honoring ways, cultures that we tend to brutalize and greedily destroy.We need to learn to interact with these other cultures respectfully and humanely, allowing them their own way of life and sustenance upon this planet without interfering and coercing our interests and values upon them. Not everyone needs to drive a car on a freeway, to work in an office and live in a house in the city – if the 7,000,000,000 human beings now alive on the planet lived like this, our environmental devastation would likely expand exponentially.To expect a global conversion of all peoples in all places into an assimilation of our unique modern, technological way of life is stupid, insane and supremely unreasonable. However, like a big, proud, arrogant peacock strutting itself all over the planet, the United States continues making moves to engulf the globe with the gluttony of our own capitalistic enterprises, all the while disregarding and disrupting the dignity of other countries, cultures and peoples.Reflecting upon the impact of our very recent civilization upon other, much older, traditional and earth-based civilizations, as well as the planet itself, we should notice and consider the damages we have done, the violences we have perpetrated, and the miseries we have created †¦ We need to move beyond the Christian fantasy that we are a completely good and benign presence on the planet, that we are someho w â€Å"God’s chosen people† with a free pass to do whatever we want regardless of the consequences.We should think about how we can be less ego-centric, and seek to balance our technological advances with tending to the well-being of the earth, other cultures and one another. We should consider how to create more harmony in the world, and a little less profit. Indeed, many individuals and organizations are becoming increasingly devoted to a greater consciousness of how to live in ways that are â€Å"earth friendly. The overall pro-environmental movements are coming to be known as â€Å"green† movements, and they provide good and necessary developments toward a future in which humans could be of greater benefit than detriment to the planet. However, very much work and change remains to be done in this area. One problem inherent with these movements is that when we think about â€Å"saving the planet,† or â€Å"saving the polar bears,† we are still thinking abstractly. In truth, the planet was doing just fine before the advent of modern industry and technological society. Save the planet! † really means â€Å"Stop the humans from destroying the planet! † because we are only saving the planet from ourselves. Living our urban, fast-paced and machine-based lives, very few of us have time, energy or ability to keep gardens, raise livestock, hunt for our sustenance or otherwise live in any kind of experiential symbiosis with the planet. We live in suburban and citified concrete jungles where the animals have become cars, and the trees and forests are now banks, department stores and high rise apartment complexes.Because we have created our own processed environment of roads, cars, industry, buildings, malls, homes: an endless â€Å"urban sprawl† that houses an endless supply of manmade things; because we live in a world designed by capitalism, a world of incessant advertising, sales and the desperate, frantic p ursuit of material things – of production and products – a world molded and defined by television, radio and the chronic bombardment of salesmen; we rarely, if ever, experience an intimate connection with the natural world, with â€Å"the planet† we are hoping to save.Sure we can learn all about the planet, discovering the marvels of the earth in science magazines or through viewing compelling video footage of nature, we can learn all about the planet in schools, in laboratories or other second hand means, but until we have a sustained, direct encounter with the earth and nature itself, how can we truly know it, and what will it ever really mean to us? And how few of us will ever accomplish this?Indeed, as it now stands our â€Å"civilization† is composed of a people, and a culture, that have moved out of nature into man-created worlds based upon the destruction of nature †¦ and they call this evolution. Ultimately, it’s up to us to change the story, to write a new script, to realize who we are, what we have become, and to simply wake up to the realization of how we want our lives, and the life of our entire planet, to unfold †¦ So think about it, and let your thoughts permeate all that you do, for the existence of yourself and every other being around you may depend upon it.It’s both funny and sad that as soon as people leave their familiar comfort zone, when they are alone, say at a coffee shop or waiting in line for a bus, they automatically, almost reactively, reach for the cell phone to call or text someone who will reconnect them with the safe and familiar world from which they have momentarily wandered away.The average persons’ lack of ability, or willingness, to encounter an unknown situation or territory reveals their lack of tolerance for being alone, as well as their lack of curiosity or propensity to simply notice and appreciate their surroundings – as if their bodily senses had been nullified into a potential danger zone in which their very stability of self would quickly fragment should they let go a little, observe and potentially interact with the unfolding world around them.Yes, we’ve learned to live in little bubbles of safety which cut us off from our fellow-humans – we no longer live in the actual world, but in our own self-created worlds, via the latest form of technology. I suspect that our modern sense of security has been entrained to operate in collusion with these technological devices that have slyly entrapped our minds even as they have offered us incredible new possibilities.Our reliance on new and ever-advancing technologies, such as the mobile phone – which in a few short years has also become a mobile photo album, mobile internet, camera, video machine and multi-media entertainment center – has developed into quite a habit, an unconscious addiction that is shaping the very nature of our personalities, both persona l and collective, and even, God forbid, our souls. What need have we, the general public, for an imagination when so many limitlessly stimulating devices are available in our world?Who needs an inner world at all when the outer world of our own creations has become so evocative, so seducing, so ever-demanding, evasive and totalitarian? We are continually inundated with advertisements and societal pressures to acquire new technological distractions and modes of external stimulus. Living under such conditions, how is it possible for us to maintain or cultivate much of an inner world, or a soul, whatsoever?The underlying message of our media is commercial; in enforcing the demands of commerce upon us, we are defined primarily as consumers, persuaded not to think for ourselves, but to join in the latest collective frenzy of technological adventures that continually reinterpret the purpose of our lives. This never ending flood of media proclamations, while appearing as a material liberat ion, serves as a psychological oppression of the individual soul. Capitalism sells new versions of reality that may have nothing to do with one’s own true needs or sensibilities. However, it is the advertisers’ job to convince us otherwise.So far they are doing a pretty good job! The natural world, the earth itself; the air, the trees, the vast realms of animals, plants, oceans, deserts and mountains are increasingly losing meaning and value in the self-hypnotized, narcissistic lives of mechanized human beings. Although it is certainly an abomination of our essential heritage, we are ever-entrained to focus less and less on the natural world in which we live, and of which we are but one aspect – lest we forget – and more and more to focus on the world as fashioned through the minds and hands of men.It’s sad indeed when we ignore what is right before our eyes, i. e. our actual surrounding environment, and instead remain culled to a collective techno -vision of the ideal man-made life. It’s also sad when we ignore those human beings who are standing right in front of us because we’d prefer to text or talk with someone miles away, when we must remain overly-attached to those we know because we’ve lost our human capacity for interrelationship with our expanded world of fellow citizens who we now dismiss as strangers.Our advance in technology has engendered a compensating inversion in our capacity for compassion and community – which is to say, the further we develop our technology, the less we appear to maintain the qualities of a loving, caring and attentive human society. Being aware in the mystery of the present moment, tolerating the unknown, and tolerating states of non-stimulation is the first phase in moving towards a more attuned state of openness and potential interaction with the actual, non-virtual, world around us.However, we have been so conditioned by a perpetual bombardment of electronic stimuli – radio, television, computers, video games, mobile phones/entertainment centers, etc – that it has become difficult, albeit unappealing, for us to re-focus our attention on our actual physical, natural environment. A parallel outcome of our desensitization to the physical, natural world in which we live, is the subsequent degradation of our ecology, which entails our lack of emphasis or awareness on its living/breathing/fragile/organic nature.The danger of this, as many of us recognize, is potentially catastrophic; as we create and live in an increasingly human-made and virtual reality – wherein we believe we are safer, happier, more satisfied, etc – we also increasingly ignore the actual and natural reality in which we are encompassed, and risk the extinction of the environment through the excessive pollution, raiding and deforestation of the planet that we have witnessed since the rise of the industrial-technological age.The degradation of the natural world is problematic in many ways. Firstly, it appears to be morally and ethically wrong – at least to those of us whose ethics and morals outweigh our imperialistic drives – to destructively impact the earth, its ecosystems, i. e. rivers, oceans and forests, as well as animals, plants, trees, etc. One might ask, â€Å"What right have we humans to destroy the earth, simply for our own benefit? Is this not selfish and unnecessary? Many of us have asked this question, though it seems that the overall progress of our technologically based capitalism remains unwilling to curtail its invasions and usurpations of nature, or to halt its path of destruction for the sake of morals or ethics. Where the dollar bill is concerned, questions of right and wrong become thin and ineffectual, nearly meaningless. Secondly, the degradation of the natural environment is increasingly affecting the balance of the planet itself, which in turn contaminates our own quality of life.For a thorough overview of how human technology is damaging the planet, one has only to search through a plethora of books, TV specials, or movies on this topic (i. e. â€Å"An Inconvenient Truth†, by Al Gore). I will here mention only a few ways in which planetary degradation affects human life. In a recent trip to Lima, Peru I learned that Peruvians predominantly drive older used cars, from the 80s or 70s, which emit high levels of visible exhaust fumes making the air both toxic and putrid to breathe.Driving around town there is often no escape from these fumes which pour out of the car just in front of you. The situation is just as bad in many other developing â€Å"third world† countries around the globe. Even here in the United States, where we have increasingly stricter emissions controls on our vehicles, the air quality in some cities is very poor, and on certain days people are advised to avoid going â€Å"out of doors,† or allowing their children to play ou tside at all.In many countries, air pollution is severe and debilitating, and only getting worse. In addition to increasing the risk of respiratory disease, the eroding of the ozone layer has also increased the risk of skin cancer, and it’s become customary to slather on gobs of sunscreen lotion before going outside on a sunny day for any length of time. Industrial pollution has made our water supplies dirty, so they are zapped with chlorine, making our water not really enjoyable, or many would say, healthy to drink.As for our food, as genetic engineering takes hold, what we eat becomes increasingly tasteless and less nutritious. Although these are only a very few examples of the many problems made by technology, there is no denying that the degradation of the natural world leads to our own degradation. The third major impact of the degradation of nature is spiritual. As we become less attuned to the world of nature, which is gradually breaking down, our inherent connection t o the earth dissipates.We become less the â€Å"caretakers of the earth,† or participants in Her splendor of glory, and moreover the survivors of a man-made holocaust inflicted upon nature. We rationalize our disconnect from nature – those of us who are aware of it – with the heralding of a new age of technological transcendence. In comparison with all our own amazing discoveries, inventions and developments, we cannot believe that the earth is all that important. How can a handful of dirt compare to the glory of an I-phone?Our attitudes reveal a consensual belief that we are superior to and above the earth – as also evidenced by our scientific investigations into creating hospitable conditions on other planets, as well as expanded, city-size space stations in which we could begin to populate the greater universe, where we would, even more so, live in human-made, virtual reality realms. The bigger question is whether our spirits can survive – or th rive – in states of stark disconnection from the earth, our origin and planetary source of being†¦This sort of fantastic and futuristic evolution is in line with our reigning religion of Christianity, in which our sinful earthbound lives are to be potentially transformed through belief in Christ, when, upon the moment of our death, we are to ascend high into the heavens, into a cloud-like dimension above and beyond all the messy entanglements of this planet earth. With such a cosmo-vision, such a context of the goal of life, it’s no wonder the sanctity of the earth has lost its power to impel our actions.It seems only the portended threat of our own extinction will suffice to encourage us to behave differently. For if we are only to inhabit this earth for such a brief span of time – until our transcendence into a perfect eternity in another dimension – then what’s the big deal if we just abuse Her until we’re gone, because in the grand scheme of things She doesn’t matter much anyways. Christianity also teaches that, of all the creatures and life-forms upon this planet, only human beings have souls â€Å"that can be saved,† and thus make the transmigration beyond a mortal d