Araby- Vanity Essays - Araby, Seven Deadly Sins, Vanity, Narration

Araby- Vanity The characters in Araby display a wide spectrum of vanity that encompasses a variety of people. The narrator of the story is the best example of vanity. He is obsessed with a girl that lives next door to him. He never remarks about her personality but does remark that her image accompanied me even in places the most hostile to romance. A mind that is only intrigued by images is the pinnacle of vanity. Another example of this vanity in the narrator is noted within other statements about the girl. The narrator remarks that her name sprang to my lips at moments in strange prayers. Her image and vision was now controlling his prayers and the girl is the only God that he now acknowledges within his narrow vanity filled view of the world. Also the narrator speaks about rarely thinking about the future, only present events are taken in due course. The narrator further states that his body was like a harp and her words and gestures were like fingers playing his emotions. This statement fully proves the amount of vanity that exists in the narrator. He is fully driven by beauty, and every aspect of beauty controls his life. The narrator conveys Joyce's view of vanity and displays this view with sinful intentions throughout the story. The pursued girl also displays this view of vanity in many instances. The girl is noted as twisting a silver bracelet while talking of the Araby bazaar. The girl was inadvertently displaying the richness of her life and hinting to the narrator to buying a gift for her. She may not even have wanted to go to Araby but points out her wishes as to get a free gift out of the ordeal. The narrator was obsessed with beauty and the girl was obsessed with materialistic beauty, which are both separate but equal vanity sins. The situational detail also displays vanity with examples of rash thought and selfish actions. The narrator decides to go to the Araby and purchase something for the girl. He notes that he cannot wait for the day of the festival and he chafed against the work of school. This rash decision shows how his vanity clouds his reason. Another example is noted when the narrator states that life stood between [him] and [his] desire. This displays a total shunning of hard work and decency; two things that are the foundation of good values and morals. A further example of selfish rash behavior exists within the narrator's anger in his uncle. The uncle accidentally forgets to hand the narrator money to go to Araby. Upon realizing this the aunt notices the narrator did not smile. The narrator is selfish for his own needs and is not in good spirits unless his selfish needs are met. He is totally driven to experience his sin of vanity and will not be stopped by a forgetful uncle or anything else th at could hinder his pleasure. Character traits and events that take place within Araby are used to portray the sin of vanity that is very dominant throughout the story. A predominant effect of vanity causes a degradation of the spirit and free thought. James Joyce provides the reader a glimpse into the selfishness of one boy's drive towards sin. English Essays

Free Essays on First Amendment

â€Å"You cheap ass hoe,† and â€Å"you *censored*ing ass hole,† are two of the many sayings you can hear on tabloid talk shows. All the profanity is usually beeped out, but should it be? We have freedom of speech rights, do we not? Technically, we do not have that right. So, producers are not going to let their guests use profanity, but when that is the case they should do a better job at censoring. The first amendment states, â€Å"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances. (U.S. Constitution.) Which means we do not have freedom of speech rights. It just means that Congress can not make any laws to prohibit speech as long as it does not hurt anyone else. However, producers can limit what their guests say. People on tabloid talk shows can use profanity as much as they want, but producers have every right to beep them out. People feel that profanity is bad for small children and is inappropriate. Producers will not ignore that because they want people to watch their show. If people will watch the show as long as profanity is beeped out, then they will beep it out because all they care about is ratings. People do not find profanity socially acceptable, so producers censor profanity or nudity. However, they do not do a good job censoring profanity. They miss the word by a second and you can hear the first part and only the other half is beeped out. If they want to censor things for the good of the people, they should also blur out their guest’s lips, but producers do not do this. They know that profanity will help keep their ratings up. It is entertaining to watch grown people cuss and fight on television. It is just inappropriate for impressionable minds. There are a lot of things that are sa... Free Essays on First Amendment Free Essays on First Amendment â€Å"You cheap ass hoe,† and â€Å"you *censored*ing ass hole,† are two of the many sayings you can hear on tabloid talk shows. All the profanity is usually beeped out, but should it be? We have freedom of speech rights, do we not? Technically, we do not have that right. So, producers are not going to let their guests use profanity, but when that is the case they should do a better job at censoring. The first amendment states, â€Å"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances. (U.S. Constitution.) Which means we do not have freedom of speech rights. It just means that Congress can not make any laws to prohibit speech as long as it does not hurt anyone else. However, producers can limit what their guests say. People on tabloid talk shows can use profanity as much as they want, but producers have every right to beep them out. People feel that profanity is bad for small children and is inappropriate. Producers will not ignore that because they want people to watch their show. If people will watch the show as long as profanity is beeped out, then they will beep it out because all they care about is ratings. People do not find profanity socially acceptable, so producers censor profanity or nudity. However, they do not do a good job censoring profanity. They miss the word by a second and you can hear the first part and only the other half is beeped out. If they want to censor things for the good of the people, they should also blur out their guest’s lips, but producers do not do this. They know that profanity will help keep their ratings up. It is entertaining to watch grown people cuss and fight on television. It is just inappropriate for impressionable minds. There are a lot of things that are sa...

First-hand narrative of a Gilded-Age Prostitute Essay

First-hand narrative of a Gilded-Age Prostitute - Essay Example The father’s joblessness ensured their discontinued education while her mother’s ill-timed pregnancy, sickly child and poor health rendered her incapable of doing much to help her family. It is in their neighborhood that Madeline got involved with the wrong company and came pregnant outside wedlock, a situation of often warranting phenomenal stigma at the time. Mrs James, a former servant in Missouri sends for her and she goes to work in a factory; however, due to her pregnancy she runs off with her saving to hide herself from the shame. This is when she realizes that surviving in the town without a job is next to is exceedingly difficult and getting a job without references and experiences is impossible. When her savings run out, she starts taking men to bed for money although it is not easy for her and she is at times â€Å"robbed† of her earnings. She tries picking clients in the streets, but she finds she lacks the â€Å"brass† for it and ends up being a kept woman for a man who looks after her In addition to infecting her with, a venereal disease and expects payment in sex. She finally entered a brothel and commenced, her career as a prostitute under the management of the owner of the â€Å"house† Miss Laura and it is here that she acquired the name Madeline. That was the beginning of her life as a prostitute and she went on to ply her trade, from Butte, Montana, and she later became the Madame of her own house in San Francisco. Life in the gilded age was characterized with aspects of acute social stratification distinct in the differences between members of different classes, with the gap between the upper and lower classes being predominantly based on financial prowess. For instance, one of the most brutal beatings she got form her father was because of playing with the child of one of the servants whose friendship was frowned against (Lindsey 6). Society was highly patriarchal and men in most institutions be it family or work had the last word, while women were often subject to harsh and unfair treatment and could not take control of even their own lives. After their father abandoned them, it is Madeline’s brother who takes up the responsibility of â€Å"Man of the House† evidently a house had to have a man to run properly. The moral condition in Kansas City according to the writer was abominable, there were vice flourished all over and there were many houses of pleasure not only in Kansas but also the other cities such as Texas. This was the period of industrialization, rural decline and urbanization; the rural decline is seen in the way her idyllic life in the country comes to an end due to her father’s failure and like many who failed to survive in the rural areas, her family moved to a town and she later moved to town and thus completed the cycle of urbanization. It is here that she comes face to face with the reality of industrialization urbanization and they significant ly affect her life, she works in the dressing factory as a check girl a job she didn’t dislike although the noise of machines haunted her for many nights. The rural urban migration inevitably leads to overcrowding in towns which as well as unemployment, and this hit her hard when she runs out of her job and tried to secure another one.

Division and Classsification Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Division and Classsification - Essay Example the wedding planners and participants such as the Groomsmen, best man, Bridesmaids, flower girls among others; however, these are not guests because of their roles. Decisively, most people have attended weddings and observed the type of different guests there based on their behavior, contributions in certain areas and their dialogue. There is certain group of guests that one can point out in almost every wedding ceremony no matter how carefully or executive the couple does the event planning. Some of the brides complain that most of these guests are from the groom’s side of the family but even some are from the bride’s side and there is no single person to blame. Comparatively, this essay focuses on evaluating and analyzing the different types of guests commonly found in weddings based on behavior, reception by the other guests, dialogue and other unusual traits. Relatives are probably the first people on the guest list of every wedding because they are the most supportive. However, in every group of relatives there is that one person who is either incongruous or random based on their dialogue around other guests and behavior around the couple. The random or inappropriate has very poor social skills because they say anything that comes to mind and to anyone. Additionally, they tend to sit around people that they have nothing or very little common with, which makes them inappropriate and weird; their conversations are out of place and generally painful, matter of fact, very people opt to sit the next to them, especially the relatives. The only time the inappropriate relatives are fun is when they meet with the group of the couple’s friends that likes to party; however, they are only hilarious to these friends when they are all drunk. Remember the only reason that they attend the ceremony is because they overheard people talking about the wedding and decided to attend. Most of the time, they are introduced to the couple during the

NanoGene Technologies, Inc Case Study Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

NanoGene Technologies, Inc - Case Study Example Without the founders the company would never exist and no one would receive equity or compensation. In the case it is described that typical founders only receive a certain percentage and salary. It is obvious that the founders have decided to make equity and compensation levels equal to avoid confrontation down the road. All though this may have been the idea, confrontation can still arise. When creating the company the founders were likely unaware that they may need to hire other employees. These other employees would likely require a percentage of equity and different salary than expected. For this reason, the founders should have kept with the idea of splitting the equity but allowing at least 20% of equity to go to outside sources. This would have allowed for the necessary hiring of other employees that may be needed. The founders were not prepared for further hiring and equity shares. The compensation level is said to be higher than normal for other scientist and lower than that of the average CEO. The difference in compensation is likely because the employee is not a typical employee but an actual founder. The CEO and scientist are all satisfied with the level of salaries and equity. Tompkins assumed the role of CEO because his abilities closely fit the description of a CEO over the other founders. Tompkins role was quite different than the other founders and each founder had an important role. Deciding to equally split was likely a fast and satisfying decision that was made so that other issues could be addressed. 2) Evaluate the size and composition of the founding team. What is the difference between being a founder and an early employee? The founding team is made up of five founders. Will Tompkins, Don Rupert, Mark Masterson, Ravi Rhoota, and Gary Garfield are the original founders of NanoGene Technologies, Inc. Having 5 founders is larger than usual for mos t. The teams came from AMSL and were all fellow scientists. Each had to quit their job in order to get NanoGene Technologies, Inc. where it needed to be. Will Tompkins new CEO of NanoGene was a former AMSL employee. The co founders equally agreed that Will Tompkins take on the role of becoming CEO since he had the strongest leadership capabilities. Don Rupert was an expert substrate surface tension and would be an important asset if NanoGene wanted to succeed. Don had many contacts to get the business moving and only wanted to work one day each week. Mark Masterson was a senior biophysics scientist. Ravi Rhoota was a general scientist and Gary was a post-doctoral fellow. Each founder had a different area of expertise and a good asset to the company. It was also important that each founder was willing to quit their current position and try to build NanoGene. Being a founder and being an employee has its differences. A founder is part of the creation of the company. A founder is with the company since the very beginning stages. Founders have the original say in the way the company should operate. An early employee such as the one Paige would be is there amongst the early stages of the company. Early employees can be just as important as founders but are not the original creators of the company. 3) Evaluate Paige Miller as an addition to the team, and assess her compensation demands. Would you hire her on the terms she seeks? Paige Miller appears to be strong women that can be a great addition to NanoGene. Paige has an impressive background with the ability to move a company to the level it needs to be. Paige seems to have the drive it takes to get where she needs to be and seems firm in her compensation demands. Each of the original founders does not have the level of experience that Paige has. Paige’s experience can organize the company in a way to make the

Terrorism And Globalization

Terrorism And Globalization Defining terrorism The terrorist phenomenon has a long and varied history, punctuated by lively debates over the meaning of the term. The term itself has always been a difficult one to define. This is partly because the term has evolved over the years and in part because it is associated with an activity that is designed to be subjective. Generally speaking, the targets of the terrorists are not the victims who are killed or injured in the attack. The terrorists hope to engender a reaction such as fear, repulsion, intimidation, overreaction, or radicalization. Terrorism is intended to be a matter of perception and is thus seen differently by different observers. The problem of defining terrorism has hindered analysis since the inception of studies of terrorism in the early 1970s. One set of problems is due to the fact that the concept of terrorism is deeply contested. The use of the term is often polemical and rhetorical. Even if the term is used objectively as an analytical tool, it is still difficult to arrive at a satisfactory definition that distinguishes terrorism from other violent phenomena. Generally speaking, terrorism is deliberate and systematic violence performed by small numbers of people, whereas communal violence is spontaneous, sporadic, and requires mass participation. The purpose of terrorism is to intimidate a watching popular audience by harming only a few, whereas genocide is the elimination of entire communities. Terrorism is meant to hurt. Terrorism is preeminently political and symbolic, where as guerrilla warfare is a military activity. Repressive terror from above is the action of those in power, whereas terrorism i s resistance to authority. Yet in practice, events cannot always be precisely categorized. A few generalizations can be made about terrorism that differentiates it from the states use of force. First, terrorism always has a political nature. It requires the occurrence of outrageous acts that will lead to political change. Second, it is the nonstate character of terrorism that differentiates it from the many other uses of violence that are inherently political such as war among states-even when terrorists receive military, political, economic, and other means of support from state sources. States obviously employ force for political ends: When state force is used internationally, it is considered an act of war; when it is used domestically, it is called various things, including law enforcement, state terror, oppression, or civil war. Although states can terrorize, they are not defined as terrorists. Third, it is generally the innocent that become the target of terrorism. This also distinguishes it from state. In any given example, the latter may or may not be seen as justified but this use of force is different from terrorism. Finally, state use of force is subject to international norms and conventions that may be invoked or at least consulted. Terrorists, on the other hand, do not abide by international laws or norms. In fact, in order to maximize the psychological effect of an attack, the terrorist activities have a deliberately unpredictable quality. Thus, generally speaking, terrorism can be said to have the following characteristics: a fundamentally political nature, the surprise element (use of violence against seemingly random targets), and the targeting of the innocent by nonstate actors. Even within the terms of these general characteristics, the practice of terrorism is highly diverse. The conceptual category of terrorism encompasses a wide variety of phenomena, ranging from kidnappings of individuals (in order to pressure governments to agree to specific political demands) to indiscriminate mass-casualty bombings of high-profile symbolic targets. Terrorism occurs in widely different cultural settings. Origins Terrorism is as old as human history. Modern terrorism, however, is generally considered to have originated with the French Revolution. The term terror was first employed in 1795, when it was coined to refer to a policy systemically used to protect the French republic government against counterrevolutionaries. Modern terrorism is a dynamic concept, from the outset dependent to some degree on the political and historical context within which it has been employed. Although individual terrorist groups have unique characteristics and arise in specific local contexts, an examination of broad historical patterns reveals that the international system within which such groups are born does influence their nature and motivations. A distinguishing feature of modern terrorism has been the connection between political or ideological concepts and increasing levels of terrorist activity internationally. The broad political aim has been against (1) empires, (2) colonial powers, and (3) the U.S.- led international system marked by globalization. Thus it is important to understand the general history of modern terrorism and where the current threat is within an international context. David Rapoport has described modern terrorism as part of a religiously inspired fourth wave. This wave, according to him, follows three earlier historical phases in which terrorism emerged in relation to the breakup of empires, decolonization, and leftist anti-Westernism. Rapoport argues that terrorism occurs in consecutive if somewhat overlapping waves. The argument here, however, is that modern terrorism has been a power struggle along various scales: central power versus local power, big power versus small power, modern power versus traditional power. The key variable is a widespread perception of opportunity, combined with a shift in a particular political or ideological paradigm. Thus, even though the newest international terrorist threat, emanating largely from Muslim countries, has more of religious inspiration, it is more accurate to see it as part of a larger phenomenon of anti-globalization and tension between the have and have-not nations, as well as between the elite and underprivileged within those nations. In the nineteenth century, the emergence of concepts such as universal suffrage and popular empowerment raised the hopes of people throughout the western world, indirectly resulting in the first phase of modern terrorism. In Russia, for example, it was stimulated not by state repression but by the efforts of the czars to placate demands for economic and political reforms, and the inevitable disappointment of popular expectations that were raised as a result. The goal of terrorists was to engage in attacks on symbolic targets to get the attention of the common people and thus provoke a popular response that would ultimately overturn the prevailing political order. This type of modern terrorism was reflected in the activities of groups such as the Russian Narodnaya Volya (Peoples Will) and later in the development of a series of movements in the United States and Europe, especially in territories of the former Ottoman Empire. The dissolution of empires and the search for a new distribution of political power provided an opportunity for terrorism in the nineteenth and twentieth century. It climaxed in the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand on June 28, 1914, an event that catalyzed the major powers into taking violent action. World War I, the result of the assassination can be said to have ended the first era of modern terrorism. But terrorism tied to popular movements seeking greater democratic representation and political power from coercive empires had not ceased. For example, the Balkans, after the downfall of the former state of Yugoslavia. A second, related phase of modern terrorism is associated with the concept of national self-determination. It can be said to have developed its greatest predominance after World War I. It also continues to the present day. These struggles for power are another facet of terrorism against larger political powers and are specifically designed to win political independence or autonomy. Terrorism achieved an international character during the 1970s and 1980s, evolving in part as a result of technological advances and partly in reaction to the dramatic explosion of international media influence. International links were not new, but their centrality was. Individual, scattered national causes began to develop into international organizations with links and activities increasingly across borders and among differing causes. The 1970s and 1980s represented the height of state-sponsored terrorism. Sometimes the lowest common denominator among the groups was the concept against which they were reacting-for example, Western imperialism- rather than the specific goals they sought. The most important innovation, however, was the increasing commonality of international connections among the groups. After the 1972 Munich Olympics massacre of eleven Israeli athletes, for example, the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) and its associated groups captured the imaginations of young radicals around the world. AN EARLIER WAVE OF TERRORISM While globalization is for many a causal variable generating backlash and resistance, there also have been earlier waves of globalization. If terrorism and globalization appear together today, it is possible that terrorism and globalization co-appeared during an earlier period that ran from the 1880s to 1914. Associated with the idea of propaganda by deed, Russian, Italian, Spanish, French, American, Serbian, and Macedonian terrorists were involved in a period of assassination and bomb throwing from the Russian and Ottoman Empires to the east through the Austrian Empire and Western Europe to the United States in the west. In Serbia, there was the Black Hand; in Russia, Narodnaya Volya, or Peoples Will; among Slovenes, Croats, and Serbs, the Young Bosnians and the Narodna Obrana, or the Peoples Defense. Terrorists from one country also killed people from another. While the contemporary period is known as one of international terrorism, there are clear grounds for considering the anarc hist period as one that also had international or global aspects. Some scholars have made comparisons between figures like bin Laden and late 19th-century Russian terrorists. Similarities in the political religion of their ideologies, the diasporic-or transnational-nature of both sets of terrorists who often resided and planned attacks abroad, and the similarity of global political economic conditions at the end of the 19th and 20th centuries have been noted. If al-Qaeda is a reaction to American empire, as few scholars argue, then one could see earlier terrorist resistance in the form of pre-1914 terrorist groups attacking the empires of their day (the Serbian Black Hand versus the Austrian Empire; Inner Macedonian Revolutionary Organization versus the Ottoman Empire; and the terrorists of Narodnaya Volya versus the Tsarist Russian Empire). In the case of fundamentalist Islamic terrorism, a comparison with the Sudanese revolt of the Mahdi in the 1880s against the British Empire and bin Laden against the United States has been made. Some note a sim ilarity between the hatred of London as the financial center of world capitalism at the end of the 19th century and the hatred by fanatical Muslims today of the dominance of Wall Street and the Pentagon. Since the September 11 attacks, the world has witnessed the maturation of a new phase of terrorist activity, the jihad era, spawned by the Iranian Revolution of 1979 as well as the Soviet defeat in Afghanistan shortly thereafter. The powerful attraction of religious and spiritual movements has overshadowed the nationalist or leftist revolutionary ethos of earlier terrorist phases (though many of those struggles continue), and it has become the central characteristic of a growing international trend. Religious terrorism is not new; rather it is a continuation of an ongoing modern power struggle between those with power and those without it. What is different about this phase is the urgent requirement for solutions that deal both with the religious fanatics who are the terrorists and the far more politically motivated states, entities, and people who would support them because they feel powerless and left behind in a globalizing world. Thus if there is a trend in terrorism, it is the existence of a two-level challenge: the hyper religious motivation of small groups of terrorists and the much broader enabling environment of bad governance, nonexistent social services, and poverty that punctuates much of the developing world. Al-Qaeda, a band driven by religious extremism, is able to do so much harm because of the secondary support and sanctuary it receives in vast areas that have not experienced the political and economic benefits of globalization. There are four types of terrorist organizations that can said to be currently operating around the world, categorized mainly by their source of motivation: left-wing terrorists, right-wing terrorists, ethno nationalist/separatist terrorists, and religious or sacred terrorists. All four types have enjoyed periods of relative prominence in the modern era, with left-wing terrorism intertwined with the Communist movement, right-wing terrorism drawing its inspiration from Fascism, and the bulk of ethno nationalist/separatist terrorism accompanying the wave of decolonization especially in the immediate post-World War II years. Currently, sacred terrorism is becoming more significant. Although groups in all categories continue to exist today, left-wing and right-wing terrorist groups were more numerous in earlier decades. Of course, these categories are not perfect, as many groups have a mix of motivating ideologies-some ethno nationalist groups, for example, have religious characteristics or agendas-but usually one ideology or motivation dominates. NEW TERRORISM Following incidents such as the bombing of the WTC in 1993, U.S. embassies in Africa in 1998, and the attacks on the Pentagon and WTC in 2001, the conventional belief of researchers and commentators on terrorism was that the world had entered a new phase since the 1990s that departed dramatically from what had gone before. It variously was called the new terrorism or spoken of as involving new types of post-cold war terrorists or a new breed of terrorist or new generation of terrorists; or terror in the mind of God or a clash of fundamentalisms or simply a new wave of terrorism. In these analyses terrorism seemed to be changing in some of the following ways. Several recent works focus on a new terrorism that is motivated by religious belief and is more fanatical, deadly, and pervasive than the older and more instrumental forms of terrorism the world had grown accustomed to. This emerging new terrorism is thought to differ from the old terrorism in terms of goals, methods, and organization. The comparison goes roughly as follows. Whereas the old terrorists sought short-term political power through revolution, national liberation, or secession, the new terrorists seek to transform the world. Motivated by religious imperatives, they are thought to lack an earthly constituency and thus to feel accountable only to a deity or to some transcendental or mystical idea. Conventional left-right ideological distinctions are not applicable. Because they do not want popular support, they are unlikely to claim public credit for their actions. Also, new terrorists are thought to be more inclined to use highly lethal methods in order to destroy an impure world and bring about the apocalypse. The strategies of the old terrorists were discriminating; terrorism was a form of communicating a specific message to an audience. In the new terrorism, unlimited ends lead to unlimited means. Thus the new terrorists seek to cause high numbers of casualties and are willing to commit suicide or use weapons of mass destruction in order to do so. Finally, whereas traditional militants were linked in tight, centralized, structured conspiracies, the organization of the new terrorists is decentralized and diffuse. Adherents are united by common experience or inspiration rather than by direct personal interaction with other members of the group and its leaders. Institutions and organizations are less important than beliefs. An earlier and more violent historical antecedent of the conception of a new terrorism is anti-Western terrorism originating in the Middle East that is linked to radical or fundamentalist Islam. This concern dates from the 1980s and terrorism attributed to the Shiite Hezbollah action in Lebanon. Alarm over the emergence of radical Islam (which is a small minority of the Muslim world) was heightened by a combination of factors: the resort to suicide bombings in Lebanon and Israel, a general willingness to inflict mass civilian casualties, and anti-Americana and anti-Western targeting patterns. The bombing of th e World Trade Center in 1993 as well as the bombings of the American embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998 further increased the American sense of vulnerability. Trends in Modern Terrorism By the late 1990s, four trends in modern terrorism were becoming apparent: an increase in the incidence of religiously motivated attacks, a decrease in the overall number of attacks, an increase in the lethality per attack, and the growing targeting of Americans. Statistics show that, even before the September 11 attacks, religiously motivated terrorist organizations were becoming more common. The acceleration of this trend has been dramatic: According to the RAND-St. Andrews University Chronology of International Terrorism, in 1968 none of the identified international terrorist organizations could be classified as religious; in 1980, in the aftermath of the Iranian Revolution, there were 2 (out of 64), and that number had expanded to 25 (out of 58) by 1995. Another important trend relates to terrorist attacks involving U.S. targets. The number of such attacks increased in the 1990s, from a low of 66 in 1994 to a high of 200 in the year 2000. This is a long-established problem: U.S. nationals consistently have been the most targeted since 1968. But the percentage of international attacks against U.S. targets or U.S. citizens rose dramatically over the 1990s, from about 20 percent in 1993-95 to almost 50 percent in 2000. In addition to the evolving motivation and character of terrorist attacks, there has been a notable dispersal in the geography of terrorist acts-a trend that is likely to continue. Although the Middle East continues to be the locus of most terrorist activity, Central and South Asia, the Balkans, and the Transcaucasus have been growing in significance over the past decade. International connections themselves are not new: International terrorist organizations inspired by common revolutionary principles date to the early nineteenth century and complex mazes of funding, arms, and other state support for international terrorist organizations were in place especially in the 1970s and 1980s. Terrorism Becoming Global Newer terrorist organizations seemed to have moved away from the earlier model of professionally trained terrorists operating within a hierarchical organization with a central command chain and toward a more loosely coupled form of organization with a less clear organizational structure. Similarly, whereas from the 1960s through the 1980s groups more clearly were bound nationally (German, Japanese, Italian, Spanish, Irish, Palestinian, and so forth), more recent organizations like al-Qaeda have members from multiple nationalities and organizational sites outside the leaderships country of origin. The identities of terrorist organizations have become more difficult to identify. Terrorist organizations also seem to identify themselves or to claim responsibility for specific acts less often, such as the bombing of the U.S. embassies in Africa or the events of September 11, which while purportedly organized by bin Laden and al-Qaeda, never clearly were claimed by that organization. This is in contrast with earlier terrorist organizations, which were much clearer in taking responsibility for their actions and defining who they were, often with elaborate radical political ideologies. Terrorist ideologies have become more religious. What has been called the new religious terrorism or holy terrorism reflects the increasing prevalence of religion in the ideology of terrorist organizations, with the most notable being Islamic fundamentalism, or political Islam, and also including Christian fundamentalism or the religious sect Aum Shinrikyo, a Japanese terrorist group that released poisonous gas in a Tokyo subway in 1995. There also seems to be an increase in groups with more vague and religious ideologies than earlier radical groups such as the German Red Army Faction, the Italian Red Brigades, or the Japanese Red Army. Terrorist violence becomes more indiscriminate. Along with a geographical dispersion of targets, there seems to be a move away from specific targets, for instance as when hundreds of civilian Kenyan and Tanzanian embassy employees and passersby were killed to achieve the objective of bombing the U.S. embassy. The 1993 and 2001 attacks of the WTC were also examples of more indiscriminate targets, as opposed to earlier skyjacking of a national airlines plane in order to attain specific demands or the kidnapping a particular politician. On reflecting upon these changes, many of them suggest the process of globalization raising the question of whether terrorism, like other economic, cultural, and political aspects of life also is globalizing. Arguments about a growing dispersion and indiscriminateness of terrorist violence also express a disregard for national boundaries and, as such, a growing global, as opposed to national, character of terrorism. GLOBALIZATION AND TERRORISM Some scholars interpret the link between globalization and terrorism in a causal fashion: globalization generates a backlash or resistance that can take the form of terrorist attacks on national powers in the forefront of the globalization processes. In this regard, some see terrorism as a defensive, reactionary, movement against global forces of cultural and economic change. Industrialization then and globalization now involve integration into a larger web of economic transactions that threatens local authority and sense of place. The result is defensive, reactionary mobilization, manifested in European food riots then and Middle Eastern terrorism now. In their article, International Terrorism and the World System, Albert J. Bergesen and Omar Lizardo have formulated a number of theories and bring forth the links between globalization and terrorism. World-System Theory While world-system theorists normally are concerned with questions of development and underdevelopment, they have advanced similar ideas regarding globalization and terrorism. Chase-Dunn and. Boswell in Transnational Social Movements and Democratic Socialist Parties in the Semiperiphery speak of the reactionary force of international terrorism as an anti-systemic element or globalization backlash; M,Jurgensmeyer in Terror in the Mind of God: The Global Rise of Religious Violence links the disruption of globalization with defensive reactions that often take a religious character, and when that reaction is terrorism, it can take the form of fundamentalist Arab-Islamic terrorist organizations. World-Society/Polity Theory While world-society theorists have not addressed the issue of international terrorism directly, they have documented the continued expansion of Western originated cultural models of rationalized action and universal standards during the same period that a rise in international terrorism has been observed. To the extent that there is a possible causal relationship, world-society theorys top-down model of the intrusion of the world-politys global standards, expectations, norms, and definitions of reality also might generate defensive backlash that might, under some circumstances, take the form of international terrorism. It would seem that the growth in world society provides a generalized empowerment for international action on the basis that social existence is global existence and that social problems are global problems. The expansion of global society should empower action across the globe as a distinctly glob logical effect, which means that individuals in Latin America suffering from the side effects of economic globalization should feel just as globally empowered to engage in international backlash terrorism as those of the Arab-Islamic Middle East. But this does not seem to be the case; there is not as much international terrorism emanating from Latin America as from the Middle East, yet both are or should be globally empowered (world-society effect) and angry (globalization creates resistance effect). But the anger seems to be turned inward in Latin America and outward in the Middle East. What accounts for differences of response? Relative openness, democracy, representational institutions, and levels of functioning intermediary social organization may absorb, channel, or somehow provide outlets for the tensions and anger set off by globalization. Their anger is channeled into electoral politics, demonstrations, social move-mints, and domestic terrorism; in the more autocratic Arab-Islamic regimes, dissent is suppressed more often, and there are fewer o pportunities for its expression within the institutionalized political opportunity structures of those states. As a result, given the same level of global empowerment, the anger is turned outward to take the form of international terrorism more often than in Latin America. There is also no doubt something of a curvilinear effect with linkages to world-society. They empower and, given grievances, would have a positive effect upon contentious acts like international terrorism. But continued linkage into world-society also would seem to have an integrative effect and thereby would dampen terrorism rates, yielding an overall curvilinear relationship between linkages to world-society and rates of international terrorism Blowback Theory M.Crenshaw in Why America? The Globalization of Civil War argues that terrorism should be seen as a strategic reaction to American power, an idea associated with Johnsons blowback thesis. In this view, the presence of empires-both at the end of the last century and today-and the analogous unipolar military position of the United States today provoke resistance in the form of terrorism. Johnson notes that the Russian, Ottoman, and Habsburg Empires-which controlled multiple ethnic, religious, and national peoples-led to a backlash, or blowback, by Serb, Macedonian, and Bosnian terrorist organizations . By analogy the powerful global position of the United States, particularly in its role of propping up repressive undemocratic regimes, constitutes something of a similar condition with Arab-Islamic terrorism as a result. The Center for Strategic International Studies (2002) attempts to precisely define globalization, calling it a process of interaction and integration among the people, companies, and governments of different nations, a process driven by international trade and investment and aided by information technology. Some aspects of globalization facilitate terrorism. At its basest meaning, globalization means internationalization. Something is taken from a national setting and projected across the world. Certain nations adopt this, others reject it. When most nations do accept it and adopt it, globalization is taking place. A K Cronin in Behind the Curve suggests that terrorism cemented itself as an international phenomenon in the 1970s and 1980s, evolving in partà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦ in reaction to the dramatic explosion of international media influence. At this point in time, news media was truly becoming international in scope. Many broadcasting companies maintained correspondents or sister stations in other nations, sharing information back and forth. This would lead to the first visions of terrorism for many peoples who had never seen it. Presently, the media can be responsible for perpetuating the climate of international terror. Another aspect to this concept is that the media can be used by terrorists for their purposes. Osama bin Laden released his now-infamous recorded statements using instruments of globalization. Many have seen video of bin Laden on American media outlets even though it was originally released to regional network Al-Jazeera. International media certainly is not the main byproduct that facilitates terror. Perhaps the main facilitator stemming from globalization is communications technologies. There are many devices taken for granted in Western society that changed the way terrorists operate, especially digital communications device. Clansmen fighting Americans in Somalia in the early 1990s used digital phones that could not be tapped. The internet, mobile phones, and instant messaging have given many terrorist groups a truly global reach. Leading up to the September 11 attacks, al-Qaeda operatives used Yahoo e-mail, while the presumed leader made reservations online and other members researched topics such as using crop dusters to release chemical agents Perhaps even more troubling is that these technologies can be used to disperse terrorists to different locations yet stay connected. Cells can stay in touch through internet communications while websites spread ideologies. It is estimated that al-Qaeda op erates in over sixty countries now as a result of using technologies inspired by globalization Globalization makes CBNR weapons increasingly available to terrorist groups. Information needed to build these weapons has become ubiquitous, especially through the internet. Among the groups interested in acquiring CBNR (besides al-Qaeda) are the PLO, the Red Army Faction, Hezbollah, the Kurdistan Workers Party, German neo-Nazis, and the Chechens. Globalization has enabled terrorist organizations to reach across international borders, in the same way (and often through the same channels) that commerce and business interests are linked. The dropping of barriers through the North American Free Trade Area and the European Union, for instance, has facilitated the smooth flow of many things among countries. This has allowed terrorist organizations as diverse as Hezbollah, al-Qaeda, and the Egyptian al-Gamaat al-Islamiyya to move about freely and establish cells around the world. Movements across borders can obviously en-able terrorists to carry out attacks and potentially evade capture, but it also complicates prosecution if they are apprehended, with a complex maze of extradition laws varying greatly from state to state. The increased permeability of the international system has also enhanced the ability of nonstate terrorist organizations to collect intelligence. States are not the only actors interested in collecting, disseminat ing, and/or acting on such information. In a sense, then, terrorism is in many ways becoming like any other international enterprise. Terrorist organizations are broadening their reach in gathering financial resources to fund their operations.. The list of groups with global financing networks is long and includes most of the groups identified by the U.S. government as foreign terrorist organizations. Sources of financing include legal enterprises such as nonprofit organizations and legitimate companies that divert profits to illegal activities and illegal enterprises such as drug smuggling and production. Websites are also important vehicles for raising funds. Although no comprehensive data are publicly available on how lucrative this avenue is, the proliferation of terrorist websites with links or addresses for

Psycho Motifs :: essays research papers

PSYCHO MOTIFS   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Have you ever seen Psycho? I have, and in my opinion this movie is one of the best horror flicks ever. Part of the reason I think this because of the motifs Hitchcock added to the movie. Some of these motifs are the motion down, eyes, and circles.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  What is a motif? Better yet, what is the motif I’m about to tell you about? Well, let me start by giving you a definition of the word.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Motif : A recurrent thematic element used in the development of an artistic or literary work. (In this case, a movie.) One motif in this movie could be circles. For example, the eyes of all the characters, and the Norman’s birds. How about the police man’s sun glasses, they were also circular. Here’s a creepy one, the peep hole that Norman spies on Marion with. Another example could be the drains, which in two cases both had blood being washed down. Eerily, there is the empty eye sockets of Norman’s dead mother. There is even the letter O in Norman’s name. To sum this set of motifs up, circles are shown throughout this film, and to find these really shows the extent Hitchcock would travel to set his movies above the rest.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Throughout the movie PSYCHO, I noticed several points where it seemed that an object or person was going downward. For instance, the rain descending for quite a long period of time in the beginning when Marion left town with the stolen money. Then there’s the water flowing down the sink drain and the bathtub drain. Also, the way everyone seems to be looking down on Marion. Then there’s Norman, and how the you see him always coming down his steps, but rarely up them. For my last spotted example, the bodies and their cars sinking into the swamp is one creepy instance of the downward motif. I don’t know the point of these motifs, this one included, except for the extra spice it just gives to the watchers who plan on picking through the movie to find these â€Å"Hitchcock bonuses†.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Do you ever feel like you’re being watched? Well, in Psycho another motif is eyes. One example I used earlier is the police man’s sun glasses. You can’t see his eyes, but you know he’s watching or more likely inspecting Marion for any trace of trouble. Later in the film, Marion pulls into to a car dealership to trade in her car.

Developmental Interview

In the gift of life, we tend to explore a lot of things and we are bound to experience several instances that will truly build the persona that we have. Technically as we grow older and become more mature, we face abundance of lessons which will truly define our personality. There were circumstances that we excel in our fields and on the contrary, there were times also that we become unsuccessful in our craft. At any rate, the positive response to this fact was that in any point in our lives we get a message that will truly shape our hearts and minds – this is what our transition in life can put forward to us.Given all the facade of what changes in our lives may bring, it is on a positive note that we go in depth with the facts and analysis that we have as of the moment, and by doing so, it is essential to have some grip with the matter by means of interviews. I conducted a dialogue with three people having the age group of young adulthood, 18 yrs old to 40 yrs old and certain ly, I’ve learned a lot of interesting things about getting mature as well as the changes that maturity can offer, â€Å"changes linked to age in some way and shared by most or all adults in every generation† (Bee and Bjorklund, 2007).By giving a brief background of the people that I have talked to, one of them is a female having the age of 18, another one is 24 who is a male and the last one is 38 years old which is a female as well. We can never deny the fact that they have different approach with their lives given that they have different age brackets and at the same time they have their own sets of individuality. There were a lot of changes that occur in my life as I become more mature and face the corporate world, male 24 years old said.It’s a totally different package after school because you are bound with a lot of responsibilities and most of all you have already a grasp of what you really wanted in your life, and that entails the consideration of having your own family, â€Å"one of the most significant elements in age stratification and age norms in virtually all cultures is the pattern of experiences associated with marriage and family life† Bee and Bjorklund, 2007). It has been exemplified that at this age, you are anticipating your future.On another account, when you are still in the age of exploring things which is mostly during your teenage years, you are just apt to the happenings in your life at the present. Technically, you are just bound studying and having fun, said the 19 year old interviewee. In the case of the 38 year old female who have already her own family, the concentration is mainly on rearing the children and taking good care of the entire family needs. Practically, when we deal with change, it is absolutely on different criteria on a given maturity levels and this is what was epitomized by my interviewee.The consideration as regards to physical changes are different as we compared it with our interview, however, the physical built was not so emphasized aside from the fact that the body per se matures. Physical outlook was not emphasized superbly since the age limits in this facet was not that old already and the changes physically are not shown at this point primarily. Accordingly, as the body becomes full-grown there are health habits considerations as well. For the reason that as you encounter transition in your lives, the transformation of lifestyle also follows.In the lead of expanding your horizon, you develop certain habits which truly concern your health. Take for instance the scenario of the 24 years old, male; he utters that upon socializing wherein his work requires he established within himself the habit of drinking which he knew that in his latter life there is a consequence. On the other hand, there are additional considerations towards the habits when you are on your way to truly getting old, 38 years old interviewee claimed.Practically, health issues are serious mat ter since it will contribute to our lives when we are about to face older adulthood. It is imperative to mull over on what we desire doing even when we are younger because it will certainly have a pound in the succeeding years of our lives. Indeed, no one in my interviewee wanted to have a long term care scenario and positively, they are on their way to exploring life’s changes in a brighter side of the angle – that is giving importance of their health

Essay on Homless To Harvard

Essay on Homless To Harvard Essay on Homless To Harvard Hello today im going to talk about the book I read HOMLESS TO HAVARD . THE MAIN CHARACTER WAS LIZ SHE WAS WATCHING HER PARENTS TAKE DRUGS . SHE WAS ALWAYS EATING OUT THE DUMPSTERS AND NEVER WENT TO SCHOOL. WHEN HER MOM DIED ALL THAT CHANGED SHE INROLLED INTO A SCHOOL AND WENT EVERYDAY.SHE ENTED INTO A WRITING CONTEST AND WON A SCHOLARSHIP TO HARVARD.LIZ AND HER OLDER SISTER MOVED OUT BUT THE OLDEST DIDNT GO TO A GROUP HOME. WHEN SHE WAS Only FIFTEEN WATCHING HER MOM AND DAD GET HIGH OFF OF HERION . SHE WOULD GOTO SCHOOL SOMETIMES BUT MISSED ALOT OF DAYS . SO ONE DAY WHEN SHE CAME BACK HOME CHILD SERVICES CAME AND TOOK HER TO A GROUP HOME. SHE was STARTING TO ACT RIGHT BUT WHEN HER MOTHER DIED THAT ALL CHANGED. SHE WAS VERY SAD WHEN SHE SEEN WERE HER MOTHER WAS BEING BIRED SHE HAD TO CHANGE HER LIFESHE WANTED TO MAKE SOMETHING OUT OF HERSELF. HER MOM HAD NO TOMB STONE SHE WAS JUST BEING BURRIED ONCE SHE WAS BURRIED THERE WAS NO TRACE OF HER . THIS IS WHAT TURNED HER LIFE AROUND. TO CHANGE HER LIFE SHE STARTED BY INROLLING BACK INTO SCHOOL SHE WAS 17 . AFTER MANY REJECTS SHE FINALY FOUND A ALTERNATIVE SCHOOL. CALLED HUMANITIES PREPERATORY ACADEMY IN CHELSA MANHATTAN.SHE WAS A SMART GIRL JUST DIDNT GO TO SCHOOL . WHEN SHE USE TO LIVE WITH HER MOTHER AND FARTHER SHE READ THE WHOLE ENCYCLOPEDIA. SO SHE HAD A GOOD READING COMPREHENSION SHE NEvER WENT TO SCHOOL BECAUSE SHE WAS HOMLESS . SHE WON A ESSAY CONTEST THE ESSAY WAS ALL ABOUT HOW HER LIFE WAS AND SHE WON A SCHOLARSHIP.

Customer Service

Customer Service Free Online Research Papers Good customer service is the fuel of any business. Offering promotions and slashing prices could bring in lots of new customers, but it’s the customer service that brings them back again. Businesses will never be profitable in the long run unless the business has efficient customer service. Customer service is a phrase that is used to describe the process of taking care of customers in a positive manner. When the customers are taken care of in a positive manner, the customer usually leave happy. When the customer leaves happy they usually return. When the customer is sent away happy this is probably the biggest reward for the business. The customer most likely passes the positive feedback about the business to others, who might also come to try the product or service for themselves and in turn become repeat customers as well. Customer service is the ability to provide a service or product in the way that it has been promised. In other words, don’t say it unless it can be done. This happens all the time in most businesses. Customers get false hope from an employee whom even knows what they are promising can’t be done and yet offers it anyway. Everyone has been in some sort of situation like this. Whether it is a cable salesman who promises free movie channels for a month or a restaurant employee who offers a free meal on your next visit. There are many ways to keep a customer without offering free stuff, promising to do something and not following through is a sure proof way to lose a customer for good along with many others. Customer service is about treating others as you would like to be treated yourself. Regardless of their age, sex, marital status, economic status, national origin, ethnic background, sexual orientation, political beliefs, religion, race, or any other category whatsoever, all customers shall be treated equal. If they are discriminated or are handled inappropriate the customer and friends and family of the customer will never return. It all comes back to the golden rule; treat others as you would like to be treated. Customer service is a businesses ability to supply their customers’ wants and needs. The customer comes to the business with expectations. The customer may ask themselves if the food is good or not. He or she may ask what the service will be like. The most important question he or she may ask is when they have had the overall experience, will I ever return? The most important answer for the business of course is yes. When that customer enjoys their overall experience, whether it is from a phone call, face to face, or even technical support online, the business has achieved their goal in customer service. The customer will always remember the way he or she was treated and now they can be considered a customer. According to an online article on about.com customer service can be broken down into 8 good rules: 1) Answer your phone, make sure that someone is picking up the phone when someone calls your business. 2) Don’t make promises unless you will keep them, Reliability is one of the keys to any good relationship, and good customer service is no exception. 3) Listen to your customers, Let your customer talk and show them that you are listening by making the appropriate responses, such as suggesting how to solve the problem. 4) Deal with complaints, if you give the complaint your attention, you may be able to please this one person this one time. 5) Be helpful-even if there’s no immediate profit in it, the customer will always remember your graciousness. 6) Train your staff (if you have any) to be always helpful, courteous, and knowledgeable, talk to them about good customer service and what it is. 7)Take the extra step, people notice when people make an extra effort and w ill tell other people. 8) Throw in something extra, whether it’s a coupon for a future discount, additional information on how to use the product, or a genuine smile, people love to get more than they thought they were getting. It all comes back to taking care of the customers in a positive manner. If you aren’t taking care of your customers, your competition will. The customer should always be taken care of for the business to ever profit. Good customer service is the first and last step for assuring this happens. Research Papers on Customer ServiceAnalysis of Ebay Expanding into AsiaNever Been Kicked Out of a Place This NicePETSTEL analysis of IndiaMarketing of Lifeboy Soap A Unilever ProductOpen Architechture a white paperBionic Assembly System: A New Concept of SelfThe Project Managment Office SystemInfluences of Socio-Economic Status of Married MalesTwilight of the UAWRelationship between Media Coverage and Social and

British petrolioum case study for corporate goverance & ethics course

British petrolioum for corporate goverance & ethics course - Case Study Example (BP) has approximately 80,000 workers and produces roughly 3.8 million barrels of natural gas as well as crude oil, with revenue of around 386 billion. This attests that indeed the BP is one of the largest multinational corporations. However, it is not a stranger to some of the environmental hazards and over the past years, it has found itself in various unethical cases and decisions that have damaged its reputation (Warren, 2012). The goal of any organisation is to maximise profits and its activities ought to be accepted by the society. However, some firms focus on making profits without caring about the interest of the society; hence, resulting to the businesses making ethical dilemmas. The British Petroleum has been involved in various scandals such as the 2005 explosion, which has had a major impact on the stakeholders and has raised important corporate social responsibility questions. The BP has various ethical obligations such as ensuring that they provide the consumers with the right products, conducting honest transactions with the suppliers, guaranteeing safety, and complying with the stipulated environmental laws among others (Mauer & Tinsley, 2010). However, following its unethical practices, it has failed to live up to its expectations. Therefore, it is imperative to deliberate on some of the scandals that it has been involved in and their impact. The BP has faced difficult decisions in the past that has damaged its reputation. The company had a social responsibility towards the society but because of its unregulated safety measures, it failed. It is obvious that it took decisions and risks that were not socially reasonable and its culture of safety was compromised and focused more on maximising profits rather than caring about the wellbeing of the people. It also came up with unreasonable measures to ensure safety such as cutting on the costs and failing to invest; hence, leading to grave safety issues (Richard Ivey School of Business, 2008). This

Risk Management and Policy Decision-Making Essay

Risk Management and Policy Decision-Making - Essay Example It inculcates â€Å"planning of the risks, identifying the risks, analysing the risks, developing risk response strategies and controlling and monitoring risks to determine how they have changed.† 1 in large and complex, multinational financial organizations like MF Global, several players play an integral role in the risk management in the firm as well as oversight role that is played by the regulator. Diagnosis of the situation leading to the filling of bankruptcy on Halloween, October 31, 2011, by futures and options broker MF Global, reveals lapses of key players in the risk management process, which led to the giant company going under with reportedly over $ 1.2 Billion of customer money missing.2 2.0. MF GLOBAL: FAILURE OF KEY PLAYERS Various players had a role to play in the risk management processes. They included the management, regulators, investors and credit rating agencies. The management led by the CEO Jon Corzine had the primary role to identify, analyse and pla nning for the risks, as well as developing risk response strategies and constantly monitoring them to ensure their effectiveness as well as adherence to the legal and regulatory framework. Within the organization, these duties are spread within several departments, and individuals to ensure an internal control mechanism. Consequently, the CEO, directors and risk managers had a direct role to play in risk management processes. On the other hand, the regulators role prior to the filling of the bankruptcy was one of oversight to ensure that MF Global complied with the legal framework including accounting, and disclosure requirements. Following the disclosure that the firm had problems, the regulators intervened, and when it was clear that the damage had been done, a decision was reached that to protect the customers; it was paramount for the company to liquidate.3 With regards to the investors, the panic in taking their money from the company put the company in cash strapped position t hat led it to engage in panic selling of its assets. Credit rating agencies such as Moody’s and standard and poor’s also contributed to the downfall. They were under fire for waiting, until the last few days, to flag MF Global’s exposure to European debts even though disclosure had been made in May.4 By the time the agencies worked, there were serious doubts among MF Global trading partners and the downgrading the rating agencies only accelerated the downfall of the firm. 3.0. BEGINNING OF THE END: DEFECTS, WEAKNESS IN RISK MANAGEMENT AND EMERGENCE OF THE PROBLEM Upon the appointment as the CEO, Corzine embarked on an aggressive European strategy,5 investing heavily in sovereign debts of other countries such as Spain, Italy, Portugal, and Ireland (which, at the time, were thought to be super -safe.6) The uncertainty of these debts made their yield even more than that of the U.S treasuries. Under his watch, MF Global discovered means to twist the accounting rules . The rules made it to be legitimate for a firm, say MF Global, to purchase an asset, for example, the debts of Spain paying for it using a loan that was secured by the asset. MF Global would derive its earnings from the difference between the interest rate it was earning on the Spain debt and