HISTORY OF ROCK & ROLL FINAL EXAM Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

HISTORY OF ROCK & ROLL FINAL EXAM - Essay Example According to him, rock and roll lacked that. Mick’s assertion were reiterated by several rock and roll artists such as Lenny Kravitz, Swedish band- the Hellacopters, just to mention, but a few. There sentiments seemed to be a premonition of what was to come decades later. This is ascribed to the fact that fifty years down the line rock and roll is no more (Topping). It has slowly died and is soon being forgotten. In the year 2010, the number of rock music appearing in the chart fell to its lowest level in fifty years. This happened when only three songs managed to appear in the top one hundred best-selling hits in the United Kingdom. Additionally, the percentage of rock tracks plummeted from a sickening thirteen percent in 2009 to a terminal three percent in 2010. This was way far behind R n B/hip hop at forty seven percent, pop at forty percent and dance at ten percent, according to Music Week. Over time, rock had competed relatively with pop music in the singles chart. According to Music Week, in 2008, rock music acco unted for twenty seven of the one hundred best-selling singles; however, the number declined to three in 2010 (Topping). It is most likely that we are coming to an end of rock and roll. It is as if we have reached the limit of what bass, drums, keyboards, guitars and vocals can create; thus, music is slowly moving back to where it came from (being recycled). A post-modernism school of thought in the contemporary culture suggests that recent cultures are cannibalizing the past, and there is nothing new anymore; everything is same, but given a different look. Have a look at movies: Sequels, remakes, films and prequels based on TV shows (Topping). It is also a fact that the modern music appears stuck in the yesteryear groove since there are no scenes or movements coming from anti-establishment ideology. Rock and roll history is rebellion’s history. For instance, stories such as Elvis, King

THE ROLE OF THE TEACHING ASSISTANT(TA) Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

THE ROLE OF THE TEACHING ASSISTANT(TA) - Essay Example The role that a teaching assistant holds can be considered as the main essence of their presence in the education institutions. The qualifications then of teaching assistants should match the said role to be able to work efficiently and effectively for the optimum learning of the students. Thus, it is important to realize the role and responsibilities primarily to be able to present the personal qualities required of a teaching assistant. The main defining role of teaching assistants is the optimization of the learning process which is under the teacher’s command. For that matter, the TA’s main responsibility is to assist the teacher. Due to the wide variety of aspects pertaining to the needs of the students, teaching assistants can assume different responsibilities. In totality, along with the responsibilities of the teacher to attain optimum learning process, the TA’s helps in achieving such goal (Middlesbrough Teacher Learning Centre, 2008). The responsibilities and role of the teaching assistants can be categorized as support for the student or learners, the support for the teacher, the support for the school and that for the curriculum. The primary responsibility revolves on the provision of the support to the student. Based on the said role, the welfare of the students is of utmost priority. For that matter, the needs and methods of leaning are needed to given attention. Based on the needs, the presence of great variety in characters in a particular learning environment can pose a challenge to the learning process. The teaching assistant is required to make the learning process an ease by giving attention to the specific needs of the students specifically those who have special needs. In addition, based on the defined responsibilities of a TA, one of the requirements is supporting the learning needs of the students and managing their behaviours. Included

Is the current welfare system a problem Essay Example for Free

Is the current welfare system a problem Essay Poverty and inequality has always been the problem that confronts the many leaders of different nations. It was a long weary issue yet unfaltering. The many times we can behold it, the many times will I yell the grievances of the poor and the deprived. Hierarchy of classes occurs since time immemorial. The Biblical times even have account for that, but the most disgusting is the continuous perpetuation of the situation, the despicable and unfathomable exploitation of the poor by the elites and the growing wealth disparity. How many times did proposals were made and yet proposals remain as it is, it never attempt to address the basic needy of the poor. People grew weary and tired in of hoping that all their ails were to be address accordingly, but it was always a fancy illusion. When somebody toils for subsistence, the state always exploits him, his vulnerable soul. Heavy taxes and the cost of living were surging. How can he find fulfillment in a society, which he lives thereby/ it’s all useless. Even justice was at all naught. It favors those who live in luxury and never was fashioned to the marginal population. In every corners of the world, anvil is laid for the rich, and never for the poor. Sometimes, you cannot blame for their wrongdoings, for their transgression on the lives of others. The society pushes them to do so, and apparently, their body reacts. Even the figures published by the government were all falsely done. In a broader perspective poverty does not alleviate, it even upsurge. We need not to dig deeper on the and establish a methodology to measure a single family their capability or incapability to sustain their family to come up to a conclusive grounds that they are really belongs to the poverty line. It is more then enough to see their famished predisposition. But famish must be understood not on its context only. Everybody feels famish at times, anyway. Famish co-exist with duration. The longevity of being coiled to starvation is not a natural process of life. It is a disease inflicted by the society’s unsophisticated individuals. Thus, it is problems that need to be resolve before it’s too late to mend it. Enough for the hullabaloo’s of many politicians who intermittently exhibit their philanthropist being, because as quoted and which I have absorb the lot â€Å"those that are lavish in words are niggard in deeds†, it is undoubtedly true. We cannot deny the fact that we are inclined to let things bend over us, to satisfy our tiny whims or our desire to shower ourselves with gold. But let this not blind us. In the far end, we will become the victim of our addiction. For if we let the hurricane whirls on our surrounding and we keep still, we will sink in the center and drown out to death. The powerless and aimless vast number and keeps on expanding poverty-stricken families will one day, gain their leverage to unite in numbers and fight the oppressors of the world, to oust them in power and to establish a society devoid of injustices and inequality. The rise of modernism aggravated the plight of the poor; you cannot blame them to raise a couple of counter reactions against the elites; their rights and privileges were deprived and naturally, they were determined to assert it. Why should we wait for ‘Nature’s vendetta’ to come when we can make tiny reparations and adjustments to give what is due for our brothers and sisters. This about it, tomorrow will never become brighter, while the remnants of injustices are alive. Yet, we are looking forward to a brighter future. Let’s then mark an end to widening poverty line in our own tiny ways.

Construction of Information Engine

Construction of Information Engine Coiza Making sense of information   1. Introduction I more or less run my life directed by information from the Internet. I check the weather, check the traffic, look for places to go, look for reviews for the places, get updates from my friends and work and browse lots of information from many other sources. The information I am interested in depends on many factors including the time of the day, my location, whether it is a work day or a weekend, whether I am at home or on vacation. Indeed many times the information I am interested is prompted by information I have already discovered. For example, on a work day I might check the weather and, if it looks like rain, check the availability of trains to get me home (well I wouldnt want to get wet!). Technology like Google Now do a great job of automating information assimilation by guessing what information relevant is relevant to me. The challenge of this type of technology is that assimilation, particularly across many information sources, can be complex and not easy to guess. An alternative approach is to explicitly define the rules by which information is assimilated in a way that can then be automatically processed by what I call Information Engines. In this article I want to talk about an Information Engine that I have constructed called Coiza. Coiza is built around information channels that can be subscribed to and which display information as feeds like those used by Facebook and Twitter. Channels may display raw information, for example a news channel (like the BBC), or may display information resulting from combining information, for example location and Wikipedia summaries for that location. Channels can produce any information including context information like location and time of day. The most interesting feature of Coiza is that it allows the definition of new channels based on existing channels and rules on how the information from the existing channels gets used to produce information from a new channel. 2. Viewing Channels Channels can be subscribed to within Coiza. Depending on the channel it may be necessary to supply parameter values and/or authorisations for Coiza to access private information (e.g. Google Calendar) using the OAuth protocol. Once channels have been subscribed to then information is displayed from that channel in a feed like format where the feed is hidden if there is no information to display. 3. Creating Channels Viewing channels is where most users will spend the majority of the time, but the richness of channels available to view is enabled by ability to build new channels with relative ease. Any user within Coiza can create and publish channels by writing CoizaLang code. CoizaLang code consists of two primary constructs: Info A model of a piece of information that is either consumed or produced by a channel and can be rendered within feeds. Channel Consumes zero or more info flows, emits a single info flow, and defines rules for producing the output flow. Channels may be nested within each other. 3.1 Building Infos Here is an example of a CoizaLang info for Message illustrating the key features of infos. Firstly like all constructs, infos live within a namespace, or package, in this case coiza since it is supplied as part of the coiza platform. All infos (and for that matter channels) must live in a namespace beginning with the username of the coiza user that created it which in my case is jwillans. Infos can subtype, or extend, other infos which, as we shall see a bit later, allows the same instance of a type to play different roles depending on the channel using it. In this example Message subtypes TitledContent and, in addition to having the link and author fields defined locally, title and content fields are inherited through the sub type relationship. Fields can be typed using primitive values or other info types. A further important feature of infos is the optional render block which defines how infos are turned into html for display within a feed. When a subscribed channel is displayed (see the screenshot in Section 2) the supplied feed is a result of turning infos into html using the render block. Render blocks support a subset of html along with the ability to reference and navigate info fields using a small expression language. 3.2 Building Channels Channels are the bread and butter of coiza. A CoizaLang channel has zero or more input ports, a single output port, all of which are typed by infos. The job of a channel is to produce output infos often as a result of processing input infos. The resulting infos can then either be displayed as feeds, assuming the channel has being subscribed to, and/or used as the input to a further channel. In this way networks of channels can be created building on one another. 3.2.1 Getting the news Here is a simple example of a channel which does not do any processing directly but wraps the existing channel RSSFeedProvider to define a BBC news channel. I sometimes call these types of channels assembly channels. RSSFeedProvider is one of a number of channels that hook in to externally supplied data, in this case getting information from an RSS feed. Other example of external data channels in coiza includes Google Calendar, IMAP email, LinkedIn, current location, Wikipedia, currency converters à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦ and the list is growing all the time. From a coiza point of view these behave exactly like any other (user defined) channel. Like infos, channels are named and live within a package namespace. A channel can have zero or more parameters which are declared in the parenthesis after the channel name (line 5). In the case of the BBC News channel no parameters are required. However RSSFeedProvider does have a single string parameter defining the RSS feed location, and the URL of the BBC news feed is supplied as an argument to the RSS feed (line 7). This BBC News channel has no input ports but defines a single output port (line 9) which simply takes the output of RSSFeedProvider. By the way, although it cannot be seen from the above code, RSSFeedProvider produces infos of type Message which we covered in the previous section. 3.2.2 Filtering the news Lets get more adventurous and explore some of the other features of CoizaLang. Suppose we wanted to filter the news by title, we could define a further channel as follows: FilteredTitle demonstrates a parameterised channel, requiring a filter string, with both input (+) and output (-) ports and a body that does some processing. Note how the ports are typed as Titled infoswhich is the base type Message subtypes thereby enabling this channel to filter titles on any type that extends Titled including Messages. The body of the channel iterates over all the incoming infos from feed and filters them using a pattern (line 11) which essentially says that an info must be of type Titled and the title field must contain the value of filter. Any matching infos are emitted to the output port. Now that we have a filter channel we can create a new assembly channel to filter the BBC news leveraging the two channels we have created. Most of the features of this channel has been illustrated previously, the one new feature is the wire declaration (line 14) which, as you may guess, defines how output ports are connected to input ports. In this case how the output of the BBC news channel is the input of the filter title channel. The output of this channel is then the output of the assembly channel (line 12). 3.2.3 Publishing the news During developing a channel it is possible to test the channel in order to ensure it works as designed as shown below. For a user channel to be subscribable, and used outside of testing, then it is important to guarantee that it is not going to change. To do this, a channel must be published which then prevents change. Before publication can happen, all infos or channels that are referenced by the channel must also be published and the channel must not have any type checking issues (there is no sense in publishing a channel that wont work). Unpublishing can only take place if the construct being unpublished has no dependents either in the form of other constructs or user subscriptions. If a change is required to a published channel with dependents then the only approach is to create a new version of that channel (or indeed info). We have created a couple of channels BBC News and Filtered BBC News that once published can be subscribed to by any user. Rather than the user having to search for the CoizaLang channel name (i.e. BBCNews or FilteredBBCNews) it is possible to give the channel a user friendly name along with a description which are both used as part of the search for subscribable channels mechanism. 3.2.4 Tell me in the morning Youve probably got a handle now on how coiza works and how anyone can build channels and those channels once published can either be subscribed to or used as a basis of further channels. By way of a final example, if Bob Brown publishes a channel to filter based on the time of day, then we can create another BBC News channel which filters both on the title and the time of day. 4. Summary I have talked about how Information Engines can help bring information together into a form that is more appropriate to what the users is interested in knowing, and I have walked through an example of an Information Engine I have constructed called Coiza. Hopefully Coiza looks useful and you will consider becoming a subscriber to the rich array of channels that are beginning to be defined or indeed define one or more channel for yourself. Finally in case you were wondering why is Coiza called Coiza it comes from the Portuguese word coisa meaning thing!

Affirmative Action Essay example -- essays research papers

Affirmative action is the nation’s most ambitious attempt to redress its long history of racial and sexual discrimination, however in modern times and approximately forty years after the establishment of this policy, society is plagued with the issues of whether affirmative action is necessary, whether it is a benefit or detriment to society, and why it incites rather then eases the nation’s internal dilemmas after so many years of having been in effect. In the following paragraphs the issues surrounding this debate, such as what is the definition of affirmative action, how and why affirmative action was established to begin with, who is affected by this policy, whether affirmative action is still necessary in today’s society or if such policy should be done away with, and, finally, possible resolutions to this dilemma, will be reviewed, beginning with the explanation of how affirmative action came about. In March l96I, less than two months after President John F. Kennedy took office, he issued an Executive Order (10925), which established the President's Committee on Equal Employment Opportunity. Its mission was to end discrimination in employment by the government and its contractors. The order required every federal contract to include the pledge that "The Contractor will not discriminate against any employee or applicant for employment because of race, creed, color, or national origin. The Contractor will take affirmative action, to ensure that applicants are employed, and that employees are treated during employment, without regard to their race, creed, color, or national origin." (QUOTE) Here for the first time the government called for "affirmative action." Soon, thereafter the Civil Rights Act of 1964 restated and broadened the application of this principle with the Title VI, which declared that "No person in the United States shall, on the ground Or r ace, color or national origin, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any program or activity receiving federal financial assistance." But within one year President Lyndon B. Johnson argued that fairness required more than a commitment to impartial treatment. In his 1965 commencement address at Howard University, he said: "You do not take a person who for years has been hobbled by chains and liberate him... ...us attempt to redress its long history of racial and sexual discrimination, however in modern times and approximately forty years after the establishment of this policy, society is plagued with the issues of whether affirmative action is necessary, whether it is a benefit or detriment to society, and why it incites rather then eases the nation’s internal dilemmas after so many years of having been in effect. In the following paragraphs the issues surrounding this debate, such as what is the definition of affirmative action, how and why affirmative action was established to begin with, who is affected by this policy, whether affirmative action is still necessary in today’s society or if such policy should be done away with, and, finally, possible resolutions to this dilemma. Affirmative Action is the bridge between changing the laws and changing the culture. The radical right wing would have us believe that women and people of color earn less because we don't work as hard or we're not as smart. That simply isn't the case. Laws have changed, but discrimination persists. Affirmative Action only opens doors, women and people of color have to walk through those doors by themselves. Affirmative Action Essay example -- essays research papers Affirmative action is the nation’s most ambitious attempt to redress its long history of racial and sexual discrimination, however in modern times and approximately forty years after the establishment of this policy, society is plagued with the issues of whether affirmative action is necessary, whether it is a benefit or detriment to society, and why it incites rather then eases the nation’s internal dilemmas after so many years of having been in effect. In the following paragraphs the issues surrounding this debate, such as what is the definition of affirmative action, how and why affirmative action was established to begin with, who is affected by this policy, whether affirmative action is still necessary in today’s society or if such policy should be done away with, and, finally, possible resolutions to this dilemma, will be reviewed, beginning with the explanation of how affirmative action came about. In March l96I, less than two months after President John F. Kennedy took office, he issued an Executive Order (10925), which established the President's Committee on Equal Employment Opportunity. Its mission was to end discrimination in employment by the government and its contractors. The order required every federal contract to include the pledge that "The Contractor will not discriminate against any employee or applicant for employment because of race, creed, color, or national origin. The Contractor will take affirmative action, to ensure that applicants are employed, and that employees are treated during employment, without regard to their race, creed, color, or national origin." (QUOTE) Here for the first time the government called for "affirmative action." Soon, thereafter the Civil Rights Act of 1964 restated and broadened the application of this principle with the Title VI, which declared that "No person in the United States shall, on the ground Or r ace, color or national origin, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any program or activity receiving federal financial assistance." But within one year President Lyndon B. Johnson argued that fairness required more than a commitment to impartial treatment. In his 1965 commencement address at Howard University, he said: "You do not take a person who for years has been hobbled by chains and liberate him... ...us attempt to redress its long history of racial and sexual discrimination, however in modern times and approximately forty years after the establishment of this policy, society is plagued with the issues of whether affirmative action is necessary, whether it is a benefit or detriment to society, and why it incites rather then eases the nation’s internal dilemmas after so many years of having been in effect. In the following paragraphs the issues surrounding this debate, such as what is the definition of affirmative action, how and why affirmative action was established to begin with, who is affected by this policy, whether affirmative action is still necessary in today’s society or if such policy should be done away with, and, finally, possible resolutions to this dilemma. Affirmative Action is the bridge between changing the laws and changing the culture. The radical right wing would have us believe that women and people of color earn less because we don't work as hard or we're not as smart. That simply isn't the case. Laws have changed, but discrimination persists. Affirmative Action only opens doors, women and people of color have to walk through those doors by themselves.

Othello’s Universality of Appeal :: Othello essays

Othello’s Universality of Appeal  Ã‚        Ã‚  Ã‚   The Shakespearean play Othello has enjoyed popularity on the stage and in print for 400 years. What are the features which enhance this quality among readers? And what detracts?    Does the playwright’s use of â€Å"double time† contribute to its universality of appeal? In The Riverside Shakespeare Frank Kermode explains the advantages of â€Å"double time† to Shakespeare:    â€Å"Double time† is a classical topic of Othello criticism; one of its uses is to remind us that the play, more largely considered, is characterized by a kind of imaginative duplicity. Thus one can isolate a plot of monumental and satisfying simplicity without forgetting that the text can be made to support very different interpretations. The richness of the tragedy derives from uncancelled suggestions, from latent subplots operating in terms of imagery as well as character, even from hints of large philosophical and theological contexts which are not fully developed. (1200)    Additional reasons exist for such a broad appeal. Kenneth Muir, in the Introduction to William Shakespeare: Othello, explains in broad terms the basis for the play’s universality of appeal:    If, however, the interpretation offered above is sound, Othello is clearly not without universal significance, for, apart from its dramatization of the difficulty of discovering reality behind appearance, its two main characters exemplify opposing principles which together constitute the human psyche. Othello believes in love, in complete commitment, in nobility, in vocation, and in absolutes. Iago believes in nothing, and least of all in other human beings. (39)    More reasons for the play’s popularity appear. A. C. Bradley, in his book of literary criticism, Shakespearean Tragedy, describes the modernity of the drama as a reason for its popularity:    One result of the prominence of the element of intrigue is that Othello is less unlike a story of private life than any other of the great tragedies. And this impression is strengthened in further ways. [. . .] But Othello is a drama of modern life; when it first appeared it was a drama almost of contemporary life, for the date of the Turkish attack of Cyprus is 1570. The characters come close to us, and the application of the drama to ourselves (if the phrase may be pardoned) is more immediate than it can be in Hamlet or Lear. Besides this, their fortunes affect us as those of private individuals more than is possible in any of the later tragedies with the exception of Timon.

Gender Disparity a Menace in Society Essay

Gender Disparity a Menace in our society. â€Å"All men were created equal.† How about women then? It is a sad reality that gender is still a basis for inequality in many parts of the world, especially in our nation. India remains the lowest ranked among BRIC countries in the Global Gender Gap index. It ranks 105 out of 135 countries. Health, Education, and Economic participation of women have India at its worst among BRIC countries. It ranks among the lowest when it comes to infant mortality and malnutrition among girls. Almost 8 million and more missing girls with demographers projecting that by the year 2020 there would be 28 to 31 million surplus males in the 15 – 35 age group. The roots of this lie in the very ego men have been holding since the dawn of civilization. Women are equated with sensitive, nurturing, cunning or wily and men with strength, courage, aggressiveness and Dominance amongst others. At least in India, a woman still needs the anchor of a husband. India has witnessed gender inequality from its early history due to its socio-economic and religious practices that resulted in a wide gap between the position of men and women in the society. Clearly, then gender gaps that are widespread in access to basic rights, access to and control of resources, in economic opportunities and also in power and political voice are an impediment to development. There are so many Crimes happening against Women and yet they are to be blamed for the crimes. Rape, sexual harassment even extreme violence is blamed on the woman, for travelling alone, for wearing â€Å"inappropriate† clothes, for daring to cross invisible boundaries. Women have always been considered to carry on the domestic work in our society. From cooking food to caring for the children and old of the house, from washing clothes to cleaning the house†¦. these are the things that our society expects and has been expecting from women. The men are considered the â€Å"Alpha† of the house, they are the only one fit to earn, step out of the doorsteps and experience the â€Å"Masculine† world as we say. But there is another side of the coin, well not so severe as with the women but still, nowadays even men fall prey to this gender disparity. Here are some examples, ridiculing of Male nurses, Stay at home dads, Male domestic servants etc. All of this just makes me think, what have we actually become? Is this what God created us for? To discriminate and subjugate women under such orthodox beliefs, Can women never enjoy the same freedom and security that men have? What we need today are trends where girls are able not only to break out of the culturally determined patterns of employment but also to offer advice about career possibilities that look beyond the traditional pail of Jobs. It is surprising that in spite of so many laws, women still continue to live under stress and strain. To ensure equality of status for our women we still have miles to go, but as it’s said, â€Å"A spark is all that’s needed to ignite a fire, to ignite a revolution of change†. Thus, it is rightly said – Man and Woman are like two wheels of a carriage. The life of one without the other is incomplete.