Strategic management Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1750 words

Strategic management - Assignment Example In addition, an environmental analysis plays an important role in pointing out the potential opportunities or threats that a company may face in its external environment. The examples of external environment include the technological, political, environmental, and sociological trends that affect the business operations directly or indirectly. The main purpose of an environmental analysis is to aid in the development of strategies that helps in decision making within an organization in regards to the external environment (Caratti, 2004). An environmental analysis involves the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats during the development of a strategic plan. It is important for managers to conduct environmental analysis after a certain period of time depending on the nature of the business and be able to identify conditions or events in the external environment that help achieve a competitive advantage (Hitt & Ireland, 1999). Walmart is a multinational retail corporation founded in 1962 by Sam Walton. Their focus is to make a difference in people’s lives by selling their products at a discount thus making them save money and live better. The objectives of Walmart are to meet the needs of their customers at a value and treating people with dignity and depend on the associate partners for success. The company has implemented some environmental measures to increase efficiency and has grown to be the world’s largest and emulated retailer. A SWOT analysis represents an organizations core competency. Its framework is popular due to its ability and power to develop strategy. The analysis of the internal strengths and weaknesses of a company focuses on the internal factors that give it various advantages and disadvantages in meeting the needs of its target market. Strengths are the core competencies that provide a firm with the advantage of satisfying its customers. Analysis of an organizations strengths

Drug Use in Sports Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Drug Use in Sports - Research Paper Example Performance-enhancing drugs may come in the form of dietary supplements, prescripted medication, or illegal drugs (Gomez, 2005). Among the common ergogenic drugs use for to enhance athletic performances includes anabolic-androgenic steroids (AAS) a.k.a. â€Å"Dianabol† – commonly used to improve the physical structure of athletes’ body, steroid precursors like the androstenedione and dehydroepiandrosterone, creatine, ephedra or ephedrine alkaloids a.k.a â€Å"ma huang†, erythropoietin, and growth hormones among others (Wiefferink et al., 2008; Calfee & Fadale, 2006; Dhar et al., 2005; Gomez, 2005; McDevitt, 2003). These drugs are available in the market in oral or injectable form. Since a lot of our young athletes desire to improve their physical appearance and athletic abilities within the shortest possible time, a lot of them ends up being tempted to experiment with the use of ergogenic drugs (Wiefferink et al., 2008; Elliot et al., 2007; Calfee & Fadale , 2006; Gomez, 2005).The presence of ergogenic drugs can be traced through the athletes’ blood samples. Although there are medical ways that can be used in determining whether or not each of the sports athletes is taking ergogenic drugs, several authors explained that some athletes are aware on how they can receive a negative drug testing test after taking these drugs (Calfee & Fadale, 2006; Gomez, 2005). In line with this, Calfee & Fadale (2006) explained that it is difficult to detect the presence of steroids substances days before the Olympic game in case the athletes have taken the steroids during the off-season.

History of Standards Of Beauty

History of Standards Of Beauty We live in a consumer culture and we are bombarded with advertising, retailing and entertainment industry. It is forcing us to buy and consume products, promising us happiness and self-transformation. Media is ever present in our lives. We look to the media to help us define, explain, and shape the world around us (Kellner, 2003). We make comparisons of ourselves, those close to us, and situations in our lives after seeing images in the media. And as a result, after these comparisons we are motivated to try to achieve new goals and expectations. In the contemporary world, messages about goods are all pervasive- advertising has increasingly filled up the spaces of our daily existenceà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦ it is the air that we breathe as we live our daily lives (Jhally, 1990: 250). The important thing is that we cannot avoid comparisons of ourselves to the images which we are surrounded with from media and most of us will find ourselves inadequate when we do this (Kellner, 2003). How many times have we after seeing some beautiful woman in a magazine or on TV, thought: I want hair, lips, body, breasts or something else like she has?! Media is our most important information source. But I think we are not educated by it. We believe in everything that media serves us. This essay seeks to address so many women who feel they just dont measure up when it comes to their looks. Women who believe their thighs are too big, their breasts too small, their hair boring, their skin flawed, their body shaped funny, or their clothes outdated. We are surrounded with women who believe their life would improve if they could only lose 15 pounds; if they could afford contact lenses, that new perfume or anti-cellulite lotion; if they got a nose job, a face lift, a tummy tuck, etc, women who feel shame or unhappiness when they think about some part (or all) of their body. In other words, every day we see there is a great majority of women who feel this way. We all want to be beautiful. But I want to write about what lies behind that, behind that beauty myth. In this essay I will try to explore and to explain, how media plays a dominant role in influencing females perceptions of the world around them, as well as helping them to define their sense of self. I will try to examine the influences that media has on females feelings towards their place in society, sexuality, self-esteem and body image. I hope will give some answers to some questions. What media does in terms of imposing the beauty myth? How standards of beauty changed over time and yet beauty for women is still compulsory? What can we say about pressure on women as opposed to men when it comes to looks? How is beauty being sold to women and what the consequences of these issues are? I will try to show you who is getting the profit in this non-ending battle. In other words I will try to answer these questions that at one point we all should ask ourselves. STANDARDS OF BEAUTY THROUGHOUT THE PAST The cultural standard of beauty, when it comes to body shape, is always changing. Womens bodies is not what changed, it is the ideals (Kilbourne, 1995). Advertising, retailing and entertainment produce notions of beauty that change over time. These notions place pressure upon women who try to be in vogue (Wykes and Gunter, 2005). Between 1400 and 1700, a fat body shape was considered sexually appealing and fashionable (Attie and Brooks Gun, 1987). By the nineteenth century, the fat shape was replaced by voluptuous figure, centered at a generous breasts and hips and narrow waist (Fallon, 2005). The voluptuous shape for women persisted through the early part of the twentieth century, and eventually was replaced by the slender shape of the 1920s (Mazur, 1986). The curvaceous ideal continued through the 1940s and 1950s (Mazur, 1986). By the mid-1960s, however, fashions shifted once again towards the idealization of slender body shapes over curvaceous ness. Since then the only slight shi ft from extreme thinness as the feminine ideal was the muscularization of the still very thin body during the 1980s (Mazur, 1986). We are bombarded today with images of the perfect woman. She is usually a gorgeous blonde, although brunettes, redheads and exotic women of color are also shown. She is tall and skinny, weighing at least 20% less than an average woman weighs. She rarely looks older than 25, has no visible flaws on her skin, and her hair and clothes are always immaculate (Kilbourne, 1995). In other words, one perfect woman looks pretty much like the next. Like Kilbourne (1995) said in Slim Hopes it is likely that these women we see are not real. BEAUTY AND WOMEN The beauty myth tells a story: The quality called beauty objectively and universally exists. Women must want to embody it and men must want to possess women who embody it. This embodiment is an imperative for women and not for men, which situation is necessary and natural because it is biological, sexual, and evolutionary: Strong men battle for beautiful women, and beautiful women are more reproductively successful. Womens beauty must correlate to their fertility, and since this system is based on sexual selection, it is inevitable and changeless. None of this is trueà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦ (Wolf, 1990: 12) In the near past as the new wave of feminism emerged women have broken trough many of the material and legal obstructions. And finally they got out of their houses and became emancipated. But then more strictly and heavily and cruelly images of female beauty have come to burden upon us (Wolf, 1990). And now we are in the middle of a strong reaction against feminism that uses images of female beauty as a political weapon against womens advancement and success. According to Wolf (1990) beauty is a money system. Like economy it is determined by politics. It is not about women at all, it is about institutional power. I will show you later where the money goes. It seems like we are a good way to make money. We are vulnerable when it is about our self-worth and self-esteem. The ideal of womens beauty contradicted womens freedom and power by moving the social limits to womens lives directly onto our faces and bodies ( Wolf, 1990). And the consequence is that we now ask the questions about our bodies, skin, hair, clothes etc, which women a generation ago asked about their place in society. After so many years fighting to get our rights to everything, we are now prisoners of our body. And beauty image presented in time is our tormentor. Once again we have to fight for our rights and freedom of choice. Throughout the years, there have been forces in culture that attempt to punish women who tray to succeed in their lives, in other words to get control over their lives and environment (Wolf, 1990). There is a strong cultural reaction against women that uses images of female beauty to keep women in their place. And we have to ask ourselves where men in that strong reaction against women are. MEN AND WOMEN Media pressures women to strive for the very thin look. For example, magazines for women celebrate the very thin look, but magazines for men do not do that. In fact, there are not so many that skinny women in mens magazines. Women have low self-esteem because they are surrounded with male idea of beauty that is linked with media representations. We all think that men want to possess the beautiful women we see every day in magazines or on TV. That is the thing that Wolf (1990) claims to be the beauty myth. We all have to strive for beauty because men want to possess women who have it. In other words women are being sold to themselves in order to achieve a self whom the men in the future might choose. But Loaded magazine said that women do not have the difficulty of living with the male idea of beauty shown on the catwalk. John Perry in Loaded magazine stated: No, men fancy models because they have beautiful faces, not because they look like theyve been fed under a door. Sleeping with a supermodel would be about as pleasurable as shagging a bicycle. The truth is it is women themselves who see these freaks as the epitome of perfection (2002: 79). We all think that men want to possess beautiful women like the ones shown on TV and in magazines. And the key point is that a womans sense of her body actually has not been hers but mans view of her body. Women see themselves trough mens eyes. But Berger (2005) notes that this is not an equal and opposite phenomenon. Men are pressured to be thin and well-toned too. But they can get away with imperfection as long as they have charm and humor (Gauntlett, 2002). Levels of skinniness are irrelevant. Almost all of the beautiful women in both womens and mens magazines are thin, not fat, and this must have an impact. Magazines impose us standard of beauty and women feel inadequate after seeing men longing for some perfect woman represented by media with flawless face, big breast, narrow waist, long legs, beautiful tan etc. Our culture teaches women they cant be happy unless they are beautiful, but I have to emphasize that it also teaches men they cant be happy unless they are rich and/or powerful (Wolf, 1990). But the difference is that rich and powerful men come in all shapes, sizes, and ages. Men can get away with every small imperfection. But when Julia Roberts was seen to have armpits at the premiere of Notting Hill in 1999, the worlds press went crazy with excitement over this (wholly natural)  ´outrage ´ (Gauntlett, 2002). So we have to face the fact that there is a difference between media representation of women and the one of men. We all are pressured because media does not just reflect our world but also shapes it. And it sells us all kind of solutions to improve ourselves. SELLING BEAUTY We are all bombarded every day with messages from television shows, movies, advertisements, magazine articles that we need to look a certain way in order to be accepted (Kilbourne, 1995). For many of us, these images are neither realistic nor achievable. The result is that we feel bad about ourselves if we dont measure up. This gives a sense of insecurity among women, and this drives sales in the beauty industry. In Slim Hopes Kilbourne (1995) argues that some could say we cannot blame only advertisements, but they are the most persuasive aspect of media power to influence us culturally and individually. Girls are extremely desirable to advertisers because they are new consumers, are beginning to have significant disposable income, and are developing brand loyalty that might last a lifetime (Kilbourne, 1999: 259). Girls of all ages get the message that they must be flawlessly beautiful and thin. They get the message that with enough effort and self-sacrifice, they can achieve this ideal. And the result is that young girls from the early start to feel bad about them. Kilbourne (1999) argues that these images of perfect women that surround us would not influence us so much if we did not live in a culture that imposes us the belief that we can and should remake our bodies into perfect ones. These images play into the American belief of transformation and ever-new possibilities, no longer via hard work but via the purchase of the right products (Kilbourne, 1999: 260). Magazines represent a strong insistence that women of all ages must do their best, and that they must spend their money in order to look as beautiful as possible. Some of their content is the fashion and beauty material, which takes up many pages in the magazines. But womens magazines today construct women in a social way too. As Beetham and Boardman say, magazines not only address women as consumers but also as readers, as in search of entertainment or in need of instruction in various social roles ( 2005: 41). We can say that magazines for women took the task of defining what it meant to be a woman, or what it meant to be a particular kind of woman. Through advertising women are told clearly what women should be, and what particular product they could use/buy to help. Women are suggested an identity and told they are not good enough being natural. We can say that women are asked to buy themselves. As Berger puts it, the publicity image steals her love of herself as she is, and offe rs it back to her for the price of the product (2005: 43). A massive worldwide industry is eager to tell women that there are products for sale which can improve their looks. And we all buy them, dont we!? And the worst part is that identity is understood as something that could be reworked, improved upon, and even dramatically changed. There are so many magazines that promised every girl the chance to get a stylish and attractive look that fashion models and famous women have. Spending money on clothing, cosmetics, and accessories are presented as necessity if we want to construct a desirable self (Ouellette, 1999). How many times have we as we read some magazine or watch TV advertisement and thought I have to have that? We all have products in our homes that we bought because of some add on TV or magazine article that told us that it is the best product for our hair to be astonishing , for our face to be immaculate, our figure to be fit, our lips to be attractive etc. And the important thing is that it seems like women get the messages/promises from magazines full of articles telling us that if women use these product they will improve their looks and, theyll have it all-the perfect marriage, loving children, great sex, and a rewarding career. But actually there is no link between these things. I think that it does not mean that we will be happy in our life if we try to change our looks using some product. One of the most powerful disciplinary practices for women is that of dieting. By dieting women are disciplining their bodies to only consume a certain amount of food. By doing this women feel they are becoming more like the image of the perfect (properly feminine) woman. Media activist Jean Kilbourne concludes that, Women are sold to the diet industry by the magazines we read and the television programs we watch, almost all of which make us feel anxious about our weight (Kilbourne, 1995). Many women tend to over diet which leads to anorexia and women who dont diet are mocked by society or they feel guilty for not doing that. After filling up the women audience with images of super-thin models, television networks then proceed to show hours and hours of commercials on weight-loss, dieting and fitness programs (Kilbourne, 1995). We can se that this is a marketing strategy. Firstly, media makes us feel bad about ourselves by showing us stereotypes of beautiful women that we are not and then they offer us the best solution to improve ourselves, to change our looks into prefect commodities of beautiful women. Another disciplinary practice that is given by the media is that of skin care and make-up. A womans skin must be soft, hairless, and smooth and ideally it should not show any sign of wear, experience, age, or deep thought. Magazines can give you page upon page of makeup tips and skin care strategies that women should follow in order to conform to the universal feminine standard (Wykes and Gunter, 2005). Cosmetic products are being sold to women to achieve those attributes that makes a women desirable. An unwrinkled face, thighs without cellulite, and large breasts have become the metaphor for female success because reaching these female symbols needs a lot of sacrifice, hard work, and self-control ( Wykes and Gunter, 2005). But I have to mention one thing that could lead us women to a completely different era when it comes to beauty. Theres a very different approach from Dove with its revolutionary campaign for real beauty that has received enormous publicity by using women of all shapes and sizes wearing white bra and pants to advertise their products. The whole point is to make beauty more accessible, as accessible as it can be, explains Alessandro Manfredi, vice president of Dove. So by widening the definition of beauty, we believe that more women will gain the confidence, because they will see beauty is closer to them than the beauty of a supermodel that is so far, and people could give upà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦ à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦We dont want women to give up, we want to tell them; beauty, its at your reach (Austen, 2006). Dove is launching a major initiative in order to encourage discussion and debate about the nature of beauty. The Campaign for Real Beauty asks women to give serious thought about beauty issues such as societys definition of it, the quest for perfection, the difference between beauty and physical attractiveness, and the way the media shapes our perceptions of beauty.  [1]  Dove has established the Dove Self-Esteem Fund to raise awareness of the connection between beauty and body-related self-esteem.The Dove Self-Esteem Fund in the US helps build self-confidence in girls ages 8-14. The Dove mission is to make women feel more beautiful every day by challenging todays stereotypical view of beauty and inspiring women to take great care of themselves.  [2]  But we have to face the fact that Dove, is the No. 1 personal wash brand nationwide. One in every three households uses a Dove product.  [3]  That includes bar cleansers, body washes, face care, anti-perspirants/ deodorants and hair care. Dove is available nationwide in food, drug and mass outlet stores. So we must ask ourselves, is it really about women or again some beauty industry is manipulating us and making money from our pockets?! BEAUTY AS PROFIT All this beauty selling leads us to the question: who benefits from this beauty market! Is it really about women or are we tricked by those who have the power? Media and beauty industry including diet, surgery and cosmetic industry is manipulating us by making us throw our money on reworking our looks. That leads me to one conclusion that it cannot be about women, for the ideal is not about women but about money. We should ask ourselves how much money we spend on the best thing that will make us desirable and beautiful. The cosmetic surgery industry in the United States takes $300 million every year, and is growing annually by 10 percent (Wolf, 1990). One reason why media is so influential is that advertising is 130 billion dollar a year industry. The average American watches 30 hours of TV a week and spends 110 hours a year reading magazines (Wolf, 1990). It is very unfortunate that the media influences society to the point that it defines the ideal woman. Advertising is a powerful force in our culture that informs us but does not educate us. Economics is also a significant factor in the development of the ideal image. There is a wealth of businesses that depend upon the American desire for thinness to survive (Wolf, 1990). Exercise and diet companies are an example. In order to create a market for their product, they attempt to make women feel inadequate about their own bodies through advertisement. According to Wolf, the diet industry has tripled its income in the past 10 years from a $10 billion industry to a $33.3 billion industry. When we compare some results with UK we can see that there is also a lot of profiting going on. The UK beauty industry takes  £8.9 billion a year by selling products to women. Magazines are financed by the beauty industry (Greer, 2002). They start with young girls and teach them how to use the right product and they establish loyalty that lasts a lifelong (Greer, 2002). We all probably have one cosmetic product that we use for so many years. Cosmetics for teenagers are relatively cheap but within a few years more cultured market will persuade the most rational woman to throw her money on the right product that promises to defend women from their own weakness So we can see that the economy depends on manipulating consumers to buy as much as possible. And we can link the beauty industry and mass media, it is as Wykes and Gunter say symbiotic relationship, because beauty industry depends on mass media and vice versa. It seems there is no limit in how one can be beautiful, or how much money can we spend in order to feel beautiful, completely disregarding our health. And the consequences are harmful or sometimes even devastating. CONSEQUENCES OF MEDIA REPRESENTATION Women learn to reconstruct themselves. It is second nature to disguise them, dress them and decorate themselves with a huge range of materials. Over the past 30 years they have gone further than ever before in this process. They can re-arrange some of the organic material that is their body-sometimes without any harm, sometimes with devastating consequences.(Wykes and Gunter, 2005:48) A research by the British Medical Association has shown that eating disorders have one of the highest mortality rates of all psychological illnesses, and that the level of skinniness enforced by fashion models is both unachievable and biologically inappropriate and gives a wrong picture of an ideal body to young women (Gauntlett, 2002). However, we cannot blame media influences to directly cause eating disorders. There are some others components that play an important role with these consequences. Report notes that eating disorders are caused by genetics, family history and cultural environment (Gauntlett, 2005). But for those who are psychologically and genetically predisposed to anxiety when it comes about body image, media plays an unhelpful role. The American research group Anorexia Nervosa and Related Eating Disorders, Inc. reports that one out of every four college-aged women uses unhealthy methods of dieting, including fasting, skipping meals, extreme workouts, laxative abuse, and self-induced vomiting.  [4]  The Canadian Fitness and Lifestyle Research Institute notes that girls even at age of nine are trying to control their weight. Research in the US gives similar results. In 2003, Teen magazine reported that 35 per cent of girls aged 6 to 12 are using at least one kind of dieting, and that 50 to 70 per cent girls of normal weight girls think they are overweight.  [5]   Cosmetic surgeons are making a lot of money with women doing cosmetic surgeries for every imperfection that we can imagine (Wolf, 1990). Women get the message that normal, round womens bodies are too fat; that soft womens flesh is really cellulite; that women with small breasts arent sexy; that women who dont have the perfect face arent attractive; that a women over 30 who in their faces have sings of their ageing are ugly. No wonder women are thinking about or doing cosmetic surgeries in order to be beautiful. In conclusion, what is the result of this sought for perfection? One out of every 4 college girls has an eating disorder. A psychological study in 1995 found that 3 minutes spent looking at models in a fashion magazine caused 70% of women to feel depressed, guilty and shameful. 50% of American women are dieting and 75% of normal weight women think they are too fat (Wolf, 1990). All these arguments lead us to one conclusion: to view ones body from the outside, that is, to put center onto physical attractiveness, sex appeal, measurements, weight, face characteristics has many harmful effects- feelings of shame, anxiety, depression, low self-esteem, development of eating disorder. CONCLUSION The traditional definition of beauty, based only on physical appearance, is powerfully communicated through the mass media and has been assimilated through popular culture. It is this ideal that many women measure themselves against and aspire to attain. According to the narrow-minded society we live in, there just doesnt seem to be a limit on how beautiful one can become.Well, someone has given us a definition of beauty that is superior to our mind. Can we hope for a day when mind in body will be a notion of beauty? I hope I have showed that by media presentation of an ideal difficult to achieve and maintain, the cosmetic and diet product industries are assured of growth and profits. I hope I have proved that in our society media has created an environment so image obsessed that those with power( and by those I mean beauty industry and media) have caused emerging of a generation of women so self conscious about their body image, that it is affecting their health. However, women around the world would like to see media change in way it represents beauty. We have to face the fact that wearing makeup, losing weight, having surgeries, dressing up etc, will not change who we are. Our identity is what makes us unique. We should not want anymore to look like someone else. There is nothing wrong in doing things that makes a woman feel good about her as long as we have a choice of doing that because of ourselves not because someone told us it is proper thing to do for a woman in order to be beautiful. So I have to emphasis that I in this essay I did not try to attack wearing make up, having surgeries, working out, dieting etc, as long as we do not feel shame, guilt or anxiety when we dont do these practices. We have to speak out for ourselves. It is wrong to use our looks as our voices. It is not the look that should do the talking. Beauty shouldnt be our weapon for success in life, but also it shouldnt be media and beauty industry weapon against women themselves. Media is always going to be present in our lives, but we have to realize that not everything we are exposed to by the media is real. So what can we do? We can take their power. We can reject political manipulation. Like Wolf (1990) said, we should turn away from them, and look directly at one another. We should look for the beauty in female subculture; try to find music, films, biographies, plays that illustrate women in three dimensions. And perhaps then we will unveil the beauty myth and find the truth about beauty.

The Issue Of Sport :: essays research papers

The Issue of Sport The material I have studied for the Issue of Sport has helped me understand more about living in our contemporary world. The film and the screenplay "Strictly Ballroom" along with newspaper articles and the television documentary on Sport made me understand why sport is important in our society. Sport involves many things such as competition, dirty tactics, personal achievement and sport officials. Firstly, whenever there is sport, there is competition. There is competition for all levels of sport. Some people thive on competition while others are just testing their own limitations. Competition is both good and bad for our society; it brings out the best and the worst in people. If there is competition it makes people strive harder to do the best they can. But it can also lead to dirty tactics, drugs or violence. In the screenplay "Strictly Ballroom", dirty tactics were used due to the competitive pressure. At the State Final Championship Scott and Liz were blocked by Ken Railings and Pam Short. It was also unfair competition, Barry Fife (The Dance Ferderation President) was being dishonest. Wayne overheard Barry setting it up so that Scott didn't win the Pan Pacific Grand Prix. The Sport weekly magazine article " Shirley knows her tables" printed on 14th May, 1996 dicusses her determination and preparation for the competition in the 2000 Olympics game. Every game have different levels of competion and also the bigger the prizes, the more competitive. Shirley trains very hard and knows it is very competitive at the Olympics. Secondly people can personal achievement from sport. Sportspersons are satisfied that is they have performed to their expectations. Personal achievement is doing the best you can or setting up goals and fulfilling them by winning. It helps to lift the spirits and the motivation of a person's mind. Family support is also important to a person's success. In "Strictly Ballroom", Scott and Fran achieved some goals such as the time Fran asked Scott to dance with her and he eventually agreed. They showed their individuality and are very determined non- conformists. They dance for the enjoyment of it. Both of them have the same dreams. But Scott's personal achievement is different from Fran's. He grew up expecting to win the Pan Pacifics. Fran and Scott fulfilled their ambition and are satisfied by merely being able to dance their own steps. The newspaper article "Straight into the record books" from The Sydney Morning Herald published on 6th Febrary 1996 demonstrated personal achievement of Tammy van Wisse, the first person to swim Bass Strait. Her individuality and

Harivansh Rai Bachan Essay

Harivanshrai Srivastav (November 27, 1907 – January 18, 2003) was a Hindi poet. He born in an ordinary Kayasth family in a small town near Allahabad. He was called â€Å"bachchan† at home, which means â€Å"child.† He received his formal schooling in a municipal school and attended Kayasth Paathshaalas to learn Urdu, which was the family tradition so as to help getting jobs in court. He completed his later education both at the Allahabad University and Banaras Hindu University. Since he gave up his university education to participate in the great upsurge of nationalism that began in 1930. Realizing that this was not the path he wanted to follow, he went back to university. However from 1941 to 1952 he taught in the English Department at the Allahabad University and after that he spent the next two years at Cambridge University doing his doctoral thesis on W.B. Yeats. It was then, that he used ‘Bachchan’ as his last name instead of Srivasta. Harivanshrai’s thesis got him his PhD at Cambridge. He however is the second Indian to get his doctorate in English literature from Cambridge. After returning to India he again took to teaching and also served at All India Radio, Allahabad. In 1955, Harivanshrai shifted to Delhi to join the External Affairs Ministry as an officer on Special duty and during the period of 10 years that he served he was also associated with the evolution of Hindi as the official language. He also enriched Hindi through his translations of major writings. As a poet is famous for his poem Madhushala (a bar selling alcoholic drinks). Besides Omar Khayyam’s Rubaiyat, he will also be remembered for his Hindi translations of Shakespeare’s Macbeth and Othello and also the Bhagvad Gita. However in Nov 1984 he wrote his last poem ‘Ek November1984’ on Indira Gandhi’s assassination. He got married to Shyama his first wife in 1926. She was just 14 yrs old. But she died 10 yrs later after suffering from a long spell of TB. Shortly after her death Harivanshrai married Teji Suri in 1942. The birth of his two sons Amitabh and Ajitabh changed the course of his life as his days of hardship ended when both his sons did extremely well in their careers – Amitabh became a superstar and a multi billionaire and Ajitab turned out to be a successful business magnate in England. Harivanshrai was nominated to the Indian Rajya Sabha in 1966 and received the Sahitya Akademi award three years later. In 1976 he was honoured with the Padma Bhushan for his immense contribution to Hindi literature. He was also honoured with the Saraswati Samman, the Sovietland Nehru Award and the Lotus Award of the Afro-Asian writers’ conference, for his unique contribution to the world of letters. But if ever asked to introduce himself, he had a simple introduction: Mitti ka tan, masti ka man, kshan-bhar jivan — mera parichay. (A body of clay, a mind full of play, a moment’s life – that is me.). Dr. Harivanshrai Bachchan’ passed away on January 18, 2003, Dr Bachchan was 94 years old and had been suffering from serious respiratory ailments.

Michelle Obama Speech NAACP Essay

In Michelle Obama’s speech â€Å"Remarks to the NAACP National Convention,† she laments that childhood obesity is a serious issue in America today, back when she was young children were always out playing and being active, nowadays children would rather sit inside and play video games then do anything else. Since most children are seldom most of the time and spend hours upon hours watching television â€Å"every extra hour of TV they watch is associated with the consumption of an additional 167 calories.† (423). Children aren’t just becoming lazier, they’re actually becoming more and more unhealthy as time goes on developing â€Å"diabetes and cancer, heart disease, asthma.† (420). In an effort to try and help fix childhood obesity Obama launched the â€Å"Let’s Move† campaign, which even features commercials on Disney Channel showing the Disney celebrities outside playing some kind of physical activity. The four main points to this campaign are; The first one consists of giving parents knowledge to give their children healthy food not fast food. The second point states that the government is attempting to replace fatty foods in schools with healthier options, regardless of how the children will feel about it. The third part of the campaign is just trying to show children that being active actually is fun, it doesn’t just have to be challenging. The final point Obamas’ campaign states is that all families no matter what their income is, wealthy or struggling, should have the ability to get fresh and healthy food without breaking the bank. Works Cited Page Obama, Michelle. â€Å"Remarks to the NAACP National Convention.† They Say / I Say with Readings. Ed. Gerald Garaff, Cathy Birkenstein, Russel Durst. 2nd ed. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2012. 417-433. Print.

Makayla Fails Essays - Racism, Americas, Free Essays, Term Papers

Makayla Fails Essays - Racism, Americas, Free Essays, Term Papers Makayla Fails Dr. Carr Intro to African American Studies February 2, 2017 How Do We Undertake the Study of African Experiences? Abstract: So what does this big question mean? "How do we undertake the study of African Experiences?" What we basically have here is a simple question asking, "Where do we start when learning about African experiences?" Where we start is one of the most important factors of this subject. Dr. John Henrik Clarke once said, "If you start your history with slavery, everything since then looks like progress (Lecture)," and that is exactly what I believe most of us in this world have done. We all think that just because we aren't considered "slaves" anymore, and that we are now "free", this means that our lives and the condition of our lives have gotten better, but that is not completely the case. I think visually, the world may have gotten slightly better, but that is about it. By this I mean that we do not always visually see how blacks are treated. The thoughts that go through the minds of white people could very well be the same as they were back in the 1700s, and some of them still openly expr ess these thoughts. The only difference now is, there are laws and regulations that "all" Americans are "supposed" to follow, which does not allow for every one of their thoughts to be made publicly acceptable. So now we ask again, "Where do we start?" We need not to start before slavery, but right when slavery started. We need to look at all that was experienced at that time in order to really understand the entire process that Africans went through. We need to understand what really happened. Critical Review of Scholarship: We have reviewed a number or readings for this first framing question, one of them being, Something Torn and New by Ngugi Wa Thiong'o. This book talks about how the main goal of Europeans was to overpower the African culture by imprinting their culture and ways of living into the souls of the Africans. When discussing this book in class, we basically came up with the conclusion that the Europeans took everything away from the Africans. So not only did they take their freedom, they took their languages, their memories, and their culture. So when I say the Europeans wanted to "overpower" the African culture, they wanted to completely wipe it out as if it never existed. This book helps you to realize how much the Africans value their language, memories, culture, and their identity as a whole. The next reading that I will be using to answer the first framing question is, What Black Studies is Not: Moving from Crisis to Liberation in Africana Intellectual Work by Greg Carr. Overall, this reading helps to teach us that what most of us think would fall under the category of African American Studies are wrong. It helps eliminate the things in which people believe Africana studies to be, allowing room for new knowledge and a deeper understanding of the topic. These things help individuals to begin to grasp the African experience as a whole, not just the things society wants to showcase which goes along with the "progression" we "seem" to see in America. Lastly, I will be using content mentioned during lecture to help further answer this first framing question. Discussion: Within this discussion, I will be using the six conceptual categories to further help explain my answer to the question, "How do we undertake the study of African Experiences. The first conceptual category is Social Structure, which helps to understand how the citizens were organized. I am not sure if there is a specific name for the social structure that existed during slavery, so I am going to explain how I visualize it the best can. I feel like most social structures can be explained through the separation of a pyramid, therefore I will explain accordingly. I can see the pyramid only being separated with 4 parts. At the bottom of the pyramid, we would have the slaves that worked out in the fields under such harsh conditions. Then on top of them we would have the slaves that were considered to be "the help". Next would be all