The Elusive Concert essays

The Elusive Concert essays Be it the first flyer or the scalpers frenzy, the third encore or the first note to a lip synched live performance- a massive to do list has been prepared and is being checked off by concert goers, lighting crew, hot dog vendors, multimillion dollar rap superstars and every other homosapien who has anything and everything to do with the perparation leading up to concert night. First off, the record company executives, tour managers and the band/performer(s) have a power lunch to discuss the possibility of a tour. Appetizers, entrees and the whole bar lateR, dates, range (ex. A tour of Europe? South west Aasia?...), price, venues and every other aspect of a tour is battled and finally decided upon. Mind you, this decision (assuming a concensus is the ulimate goal) takes more than a few lunches, powerful as they may be. Big questions need to be answered, expensive decision need to be made. The size of the tour, has to be thought out, is/are the performer(s) going for an intimate club like feel, or is a multi million dollar world wide arena tour preferred? Venues need to be confirmed and booked, then lighting, sound, transportation, caterers, drug dealers, pimps, advertising reps, and the rest of the free world has to be chosen (within a set budget) and ultimately booked. After someone looses an eye, and probably a few limbs, the record companies spread a few rumours to local media outlets which leads to a buzz in the air of a possible concert (even after everyone has signed on the dotted line, presumably in blood). Finally, after months of word of mouth the shows are confirmed. Flyers, newspaper articles, radio/TV announcements fill the air. Now being an avid concert goer myself, this time is crucial. Plans, friendships and financial aids have to be carefully examined, and priorities need to be made. This is what it boils down to, you want to be the first person to ...

Expletives and Agents

Expletives and Agents Expletives and Agents Expletives and Agents By Mark Nichol Readers are more likely to engage with writing when it is active, direct, and vivid. To that end, avoid expletives and passive construction and emphasize agents, as described in the discussion and demonstrated in the revision following each example. 1. There are several ways to achieve the desired balance. This sentence begins with an expletive, a filler word such as there (or it) followed by a verb that- for better or worse- enables a writer to get started on a sentence without really saying anything other than supporting the notion that something exists. â€Å"The desired balance can be achieved in several ways† is an improvement because it states the proposition more directly and immediately introduces â€Å"desired balance,† the central concept. However, it is still passive, with no reference to who or what can accomplish the action. Better yet, introduce the agent: â€Å"We can achieve this desired balance in several ways.† 2. There should be increasing rigor applied.   A better rendering of this idea is â€Å"Increasing rigor should be applied,† but although the expletive has been eliminated, the sentence is still passive. One solution is to strip the wording down to an imperative, as in â€Å"Apply increasing rigor,† but this sentence, devoid of context, is likely too severe. Better yet, apply context- who should apply rigor? If the text pertains to management, say so: â€Å"Management should apply increasing rigor.† Simplifying the adjective and inserting an adverb renders the sentence less concise but perhaps more accurate: â€Å"Management should continuously apply more rigor.† 3. Over the last few years, there has been an increasing concern over the protection of individuals’ personal data in relation to lawfulness, security, and transparency of the data processing taking place. The modifying phrase that begins this sentence is appropriate, but the presence of that phrase and an expletive delays any substantive wording until about one-third of the way into this thirty-plus-word sentence. Placing a concept immediately after the introductory phrase improves the flow of the sentence: â€Å"Over the last few years, concern has increased over the protection of individuals’ personal data in relation to lawfulness, security, and transparency of the data processing taking place.† (Or â€Å"Over the last few years, concern over the protection of individuals’ personal data in relation to lawfulness, security, and transparency of the data processing taking place has increased.† Even better, begin with protection, rather than concern about protection, as the central concept: â€Å"Over the last few years, protection of individuals’ personal data in relation to lawfulness, security, and transparency of the data processing taking place has increasingly concerned government officials.† However, again, to make the sentence more direct, consider opening the main clause with a word or phrase describing the concerned entity: â€Å"Over the last few years, government officials have become increasingly concerned about protection of individuals’ personal data in relation to lawfulness, security, and transparency of the data processing taking place.† Want to improve your English in five minutes a day? Get a subscription and start receiving our writing tips and exercises daily! Keep learning! Browse the Grammar category, check our popular posts, or choose a related post below:5 Uses of Infinitives41 Words That Are Better Than Good6 Foreign Expressions You Should Know

Haitian Culture and Society Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Haitian Culture and Society - Essay Example This paper outlines the origins of Haiti’s poverty in its geography, history and political evolution. There is then an outline of the main features of Haitian culture and a discussion of what culture is and how it is understood within Haiti and by outsiders looking on. Finally there is an explanation of the paradoxical â€Å"rich in culture but deep in poverty† paradox which both sustains Haiti’s sense of identity and inhibits its development in the future. Haiti’s geography is typical of the Caribbean region in so far as it is part of a larger tropical island. The Dominican Republic occupies the Eastern portion and Haiti has the smaller western portion. The terrain is mountainous in parts, and conducive to fruit and timber production, and the surrounding seas provide ample fishing possibilities. The climate is drier than in most surrounding islands which presents some problems for agriculture. Mineral resources are present, which made the island an attrac tive target for colonial activities from the 15th century onwards. The early history of Haiti is lost in the time before literacy and so it is impossible to tell exactly when and how the area was colonized and who set up the first settlements there. What is clear, however, is that the land was inhabited by an Amerindian people called the Tainos long before Columbus and the Spaniards arrived. The whole island was known as â€Å"Hispaniola† in deference to the European conquerors and it was quickly taken over and subjected to the exploitation of plantation and mine owners, using the local population as a convenient workforce. From this time onwards a pattern of emigration developed which still haunts the country to this day. The incoming Europeans brought with them many aspects of Western culture including the Roman Catholic faith, colonial architecture and incidentally also many diseases and vices which were unknown to the indigenous population. There are some records of local culture, including sporting and cooking practices, house designs and the â€Å"elaborate social structure organized around local chiefs or caciques.† (Girard: 2005, p. 19) Having taken what they wished from the part of the island which is present day Haiti, the Spaniards retreated to the far eastern tip of the island and left the west to return to its natural tropical jungle state. The next wave of conquerors were the French who added slavery to the list of exploitative practices that were used in Haiti. This brought huge changes to the island, such as the arrival of many thousands of captives from Africa and the building of western style cities and roads. It was at this point that one of Haiti’s most famous cultural practices was introduced: the tradition of voodoo. This was a loosely defined set of religious and cultural beliefs based on the polytheistic societies in West Africa. It existed alongside Catholicism, and the population often integrated elements of both religious traditions into their lives and practices. A combination of poorly educated priests and strong ties to ancestor and spirit worship from Africa ensured that this unusual combination was maintained into the present time. This syncretism is perhaps one of the most significant features of Haitian culture and it is carried through into its art, architecture, language, music and sports. Discrete

Taisho period Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1750 words

Taisho period - Essay Example (Minichiello S. (1998) Japan's Competing Modernities: Issues In Culture and Democracy, 1900-1930, p.3) It is also marked by serious pollution problems, resulting from Meiji industrial policy. Except for these tendencies, the health of a new emperor was weak and this fact led to the shift in political power from oligarchic clique to the parliament and democratic parties. It is customary to call this shift and the related events the Taisho democracy. (Minichiello S. (1998)) Large, Stephen S. (1983) states that at the beginning of the century a growing mass consciousness represented a main tendency in social life. Due to increasing taxation, people wished to play more significant role in social life, thus increasing a number of voting people. One of the most remarkable demonstrations of popular unrest was Hibiya Riot that occurred because oligarchs didn't inform people about the events of war. In the period between 1905 and 1918 economy of Japan changed from agricultural to industrial, while Japan was looking for export market for the new commodities. One of the most remarkable facts of social life during Taisho period was the growth of the population. The agricultural pattern remained the same, but industrial cities grew. This growth may be either a result of the migration from countryside to the cities or a natural growth of the urban population.( Minichiello S. (1998) Japan's Competing Modernities: Issues In Culture and Democracy, 1900-1930, p.7) The researches distinguish between agricultural and non-agricultural economy in prewar Japan. They point out the following reasons for this differentiation: the agriculture reached the top of its output, for greater income it should have changed to larger-scale agriculture but this process could conflict with the social structure; the economic consequences of imperialism, when colonies produced food, depressing agricultural prices in Japan; the power of landlords remained the same so the tenancy problem wasn't resolved. (Minichiello S. (1998) Japan's Competing Modernities: Issues In Culture and Democracy, 1900-1930, p.7) Large, Stephen S. (1983) writes that after the 1st World War the exports failed, and inflation grew. These circumstances aroused economic opposition to governing classes; a number of mass demonstrations grew, as well as the popular demand for participating in social life. In December 1912 collapse in the Cabinet of Saionji Kimmochi seemed to become a factor promoting the ideas of democracy, bringing broad political rights through universal suffrage and true parliamentarism. Yoshino Sakuzo was one of the representative thinkers (1878-1933), who invented the notion of minponshugi (people-centrism). Yoshino's idea of minponshugi enjoyed great publicity from 1916, and still is regarded as the ultimate liberal idea of prewar Japan. Yoshino's notion of minponshugi called for the redistribution of power and wealth in Japanese society by institutionalizing the political system of popular representation; and, by employing various social programs to protect the weak and poor. A new society - Shinjinkai appeared in December 1918. It based upon the dual platform - liberation of mankind and rationalistic reform of present day Japan. This organization was influenced firstly by English social democracy, and then it experienced the

The advertising world Essay Example for Free

The advertising world Essay The youths are highly influenced when they hit their transitional period from adolescence to the teenage years. They are dealing with the changes in their bodies and minds. Businesses are cashing in on the ability to target these children with their products; companies have focused advertising their products to young girls. The advertising world is also using younger models to sell their products. They are using the youth to sell anything from candy to underwear for their companies. The federal government should ban advertisers from allowing young girls to model as grown women. Advertising companies has used women to model as early back as the 1890’s The ideal of a beautiful woman has changed over the decades. Women and young girls look at magazines, movies, and movie stars and they desire to look like them. This may not be a problem for some women, but it has become a problem for the young girls today. The advertising world should be limited to how the youths are used in advertising. The writer remembers a story, which was overseas, a young model about ten years old was hired to model underwear, and she had on so much make up that it made her look like she was in her twenties, and she was wearing underwear that was for a grown woman. Neither the make-up nor the underwear was appropriate for this young girl to wear and/or to be advertising for other young girls to want to purchase. Young girls should not be exploited in this manner. A lot of young girls have a negative body image of themselves. When they desire to be something or somebody, they are not can or will cause the girls to develop eating disorders such as anorexia, bulimia or binge eating. The young girls want to be beautiful and thin because of the ideal body image that the advertising world is demonstrating in their ads, this how they are supposed to look to be accepted within a glamorous world. The perception of a better life is you are beautiful and thin. Most people are aware of anorexia, and bulimia is eating disorders were a person eats food, and then they use laxatives or force themselves to vomit to become and stay thin. The person who has anorexia or bulimia sees themselves as fat, and they may be very thin. Most people, such as the writer have not heard of binge eating as an eating disorder. Our nation is concerned as being obese. The writer has not heard of binge eating being explained as a cause for some people may be overweight. On the House of Thin website, it talked about binge eating and suggested there is help for these people through a support group. Another eason why advertisers should not use young girls to model as grown women, they put all this make-up on a young girl and have them pose as if they are grown women. There are predators out in the world, and young girls are their targets. The writer believes young girls should look like young girls (youthful and innocent appearance) and should not look like grown women, there may be less of this problem. There are numerous website that is exploiting young girls in various ways. The writer was in disbelief while doing my research. The police are also online looking for these predators of the children. Advertising is big business, and our nation operates on a Capitalism system. The writer likes, the statement from our textbook, â€Å"Citizens are entitled to protection from harmful actions by others (Lunsford 2010). Using young girls to advertise merchandise like they are grown women is a harmful action. Body image and the media has become big business at the expense of the youth. The children are not happy with themselves, and parents are allowing this to happen. When is enough, enough? Stop exploiting our children for the price of a dollar. Adults have the responsibility to ensure children keep their innocence, and children don’t become an adult before their time. Children must be talked to about themselves, and children should be encouraged to increase their self- esteem. A positive and nurturing environment is what children need to help fight the advertising world. The writer knows that advertising to the young is not going to change overnight, just like the problem didn’t start overnight. Parents do have a voice and can make a change within our households. Parents also need to be aware of what their child is doing. Growing up back in the 60-70’s children was always watched by somebody, whether it was a teacher, parent, family member or just the neighbor. Somebody was involved with the children; parents need to become more involved. Today, adults lead a very busy life, demands on the job, making sure to work hard and not make mistakes for fear of losing a job. The time invested in the children will make difference. The influence of the television, magazines, movie stars or their peers on the youth we will have more and more youth with eating disorders and vulnerable to predators. The United States economic system is a Capitalistic and people will say that the advertiser has the right to make money. People can argue that the parents are responsible for managing their children spending habits. Base on a survey in 1994; found that 40% of 9 years old have been on a diet (Derenne, and Beresin). Parents should limit the amount of time children are exposed to various forms of media. Monitoring the children and talking about what the children are seeing is another method to use with media. Parents are not responsible, and the federal government needs to look out for the well-being of the youth. Every society has a way of torturing its, women, whether by binding their feet or by sticking them into whalebone corsets. The American culture has come up with its designer jeans (Derenne, and Beresin). Nothing else can say it better than this statement.

Go Ask Alice Essay -- essays research papers

Go Ask Alice Have you ever had a problem? I'm sure you have because everybody sometime in there life does. The book I read Go Ask Alice by an anonymous author is all about problems, conflicts, and how to deal with them. I would give a lot of information on the author if that was possible, but the author is anonymous so I can not do so. From the very first page I had a hunch that this book was about a drug addiction problem. "SUGAR & SPICE & EVERYTHING NICE; ACID & SMACK & NO WAY BACK" (page 1). That was a very moving quote for me. I am not sure exactly why but I guess because it shows how dangerous drugs can be. This book is based on a true diary of a young girl who got mixed up in the drug world. Alice bought a diary because she had a big secret that she could never tell any of her friends. It really only ended up being that a boy named Roger she was in love with stood her up and she would be to embraced to tell her friends. She makes a big deal out of it, I can already tell she is dramatic. Her birthday is only five days apart from mine, that is a weird coincidence. From September 19 through September 25 she goes on about how nothing every happens in her life. She does not enjoy her teachers, subjects and school. She thinks everything is losing interest and everything's dull. I think she just is going through the "teenager blues". Julie Brown had a party but she didn't go because she gained seven whole pounds. I don't think that seven pounds is a big deal. On September 30th her father was invited to be the "Dean of Political Science at --------- ". She says that she is gonna become a new person by time she gets her new house and that it is gonna be so great. Good maybe now she will quit crying about her dull life. She says that she is gonna exercise every morning, eat right, clean my skin (what she never had a bath before), be optimistic, cheerful and positive. Why couldn't she of just done all that in the house she lived in before she moved. Sorry I am being so negative, but this girl is a little cry baby and she... ...cter who wrote the diary was Alice. She buys a new diary symbolizing her getting a new life, a fresh start, another chance to succeed. She is clean and back at home and going to school. She met a boy named Joel that she falls in love with. Her grandmother died (July 16). School got out and there was a party where there would be drugs at but she didn't go. She was given acid in a peanut and she had a bad trip. It drove her insane so she started pulling out her hair, stabbing herself and mentally falling apart. She was put in a mental hospital. Later she was released. She decided that when this diary filled up she was not going to get another because is old enough and mature enough to be able to talk to other people instead of keeping it all bundled up in a little book. Epilogue: She died three weeks after deciding not to keep another diary of a drug overdose, it is not known if it is premeditated, accidental or what.

Personal Mandala of Health

Good health is considered important by many people. This is reflected in the way we wish each other ‘long live’ or ‘may you be blessed with good health’ during occasions or significant events and in the huge amount of resources spent on health and wellness maintenance. Unfortunately, ‘health’ has often times been mistaken to be limited to the absence of illness. More than the freedom from debilitating effects, however, good health   should give people the active capacity to engage in productive activities and enables human beings to achieve their fullest potentials. (Hancock 1982) Thus, far from the fixation over the physical and biological aspects, there has been increasing interest on a more holistic view of health that goes beyond curing sickness or preventing it from occurring, one that actually seeks to establish contexts and environments that let people and other species achieve and maximize all aspects of their being.(Vanleeuwen, et al. 1999; Earp & Ennet 1991; KnightThe development of better strategies for health promotion has also gained significance at a time when many of the diseases plaguing supposedly modern economies such as ours are traced to the influence of lifestyle and unhealthy environmental conditions. (Earp & Ennet 1991) Today, many people suffer not only from the variety of illnesses manifested biologically but psychosocially and psychologically.The state of our health is further reflected not only in the state of ecosystems within our immediate vicinity but with the entire world. Until recently, people did not care much on whether the next generation of human beings would survive to inherent the world until persistent environmental problems forced them to confront the trade-offs of industrialization. There is much evidence that we human beings are responsible for the unhampered degradation of natural ecosystems; this has come to haunt us in the global disaster called climate change which directly threatens this planet with impending doom.In the midst of these problems, one’s perspective of health and wellness must therefore evolve from the myopic sense of the individual into one that takes into account the entire relationship of beings and organisms in the planet. Today’s notions of health must not only focus on the promotion of practices and awareness that benefit the human population but must also account for the impact of human activities on environmental balance. (Hancock 1982, 1983; VanLeeuwen, et. al. 1999)Necessarily, this translates into a radical overhaul of many of our existing beliefs, habits, and practices and may even be considered revolutionary as such ideas challenge the status quo and mainstream culture (Hancock 1982, 1993). The Mandala of Health formulated by Hancock (1993), for instance, integrates the concept of health with human and community development that urges us to look at health as a function of the interrelationship between the envir onment, economic situation, and community development. These factors are seen as necessary spheres from which health concepts, practices and public policies for health promotion must be evaluated against.More than a prescription, the mandala of health urges us to question whether prevailing conditions within and around us would actually promote or hamper the attainment of humanity’s health goals and if existing conditions of the environment, of communities, and of the socio-economic status of majority of the populations. Upon reflection, therefore, the questions of class, race, environment and gender ultimately surface when we attempt to examine closely how the development of healthy individuals, communities, and environment is linked to social justice. (Knight) It is with this keen sense of critical awareness that we understand the limitations of existing public health promotion programs in addressing serious health problems.The Mandla of Health brings us out of our comfort zones and forces us to reevaluate not only our lifestyles but our attitude towards health, which has been largely influenced and molded by consumerist culture. It gives us a framework to analyze how, to a very large extent, we have often times been guilty of the reductionist tendency to view our personal health goals as an end in itself rather than as a process. It challenges the prevailing biomedical framework which solely relies on the thorough knowledge of the human body but does not address the environment where it is situated.Clearly, there are abundant ideas on how the concept of health may be approached and problematised but their impacts in practical life—or in how its audience have actually taken up such ideas and employed them to work remains to be seen. Undoubtedly, the greater challenge does not lie anymore in figuring out the framework from which health should be established but in taking courage to implement the practical ways from which the mandala of health ma y be realized.On a personal level, I would like to raise the mandala of health to the higher challenge of human aesthetic and value sense. I think that the mandala of health is actually about balance, simplicity, and respect which is demonstrated in the way the original version of the concept was illustrated by Hancock (1993). These three concepts are interrelated in many ways, and may be utilized not only to present a general idea of how health can actually be achieved but also to reiterate the things that people actually know already but either chose to ignore or simply shrug off as nonsense.I stress the importance of balance because it addresses the main problem of humanity’s penchant for excesses that lead to psychosocial, biological, physical, and behavioral stresses on the human constitution. It is no surprise that today’s biggest health trend is stress management and stress reduction, or that many people spend money on diet fads while neglecting physical activit ies and ignoring the development of healthy eating habits. It addresses the problem of social justice by stating the need for equality in resource distribution.Likewise, the concept of balance necessitate that we consider the impact of our decisions and activities on the scale of our families, communities and immediate environments, necessitates the conscientious approach to events, phenomena, and problems, and urges us to carefully weigh between the benefit and risks on both the macro and micro levels. The concept of balance is thus intimately related to the idea of simplicity: in many ways our needs are actually simple enough but in many instances we fail to acknowledge that indeed they are, and fall trap into thinking that we will be happy—and healthy—with having too many things all at once.Simplicity is a key to health not only because it gives us stillness and rest from want, on a pragmatic level it also reduces the energy consumption in this planet expended by th e need to produce more and more things than the human population can readily consume at any given time. Respect, on the other hand, stresses the need for the realization that we are not the center of the universe and that rights are not exclusive to human beings as a species.The concept of balance is related to respect in this aspect, all our decisions must take into account not only the benefit of our actions on the sustainable life of human beings in this planet but also those of other living beings. In the end, health is not only determined by the interrelationship of the concrete factors and systems that influence how we function physically, mentally, and spiritually but also by the highest ideals enshrined in the value systems of human beings that enable us to discern what is true, good, or just and makes us one with nature. While this is perhaps the simplest framework, yet is perhaps the hardest to practice in real life.Works Cited:Earp, J. E. & S.A. Ennet (1991). Conceptual m odel for health education research and practice. Health Education Research, 6(2):163-171.Knight, James. (  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   ). Models of Health.Hancock, T. (1982). Beyond health care: creating a healthy future. The Futurist, 16(4): 4-13.Hancock, T. (1993). Health, human development, and the community ecosystem: three ecological models. Health Promotion International, 8(1):41-47.VanLeeuwen, J. A., Waltner-Toews, D., Abernathy, T., & B. Smitt. (1999) Evolving models of human health toward an ecosystem context. Ecosystem Health, 5(3): 204-219.