Banking :: essays research papers fc

Banking So Much for That Plan "More than 70% of commercial bank assets are held by organizations that are supervised by at least two federal agencies; almost half attract the attention of three or four. Banks devote on average about 14% of their non-interest expense to complying with rules" (Anonymous 88). A fool can see that government waste has struck again. This tangled mess of regulation, among other things, increases costs and diffuses accountability for policy actions gone awry. The most effective remedy to correct this problem would be to consolidate most of the supervisory responsibilities of the regulatory agencies into one agency. This would reduce costs to both the government and the banks, and would allow the parts of the agencies not consolidated to concentrate on their primary tasks. One such plan was introduced by Treasury Secretary Lloyd Bentsen in March of 1994. The plan called for folding, into a new independent federal agency (called the Banking Commission), the regulatory portions of the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC), the Federal Reserve Board, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), and the Office of Thrift Supervision (OTS). This plan would save the government $150 to $200 million a year. This would also allow the FDIC to concentrate on deposit insurance and the Fed to concentrate on monetary policy (Anonymous 88). Of course this is Washington, not The Land of Oz, so everyone can't be satisfied with this plan. Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan and FDIC Chairman Ricki R. Tigert have been vocal opponents of the plan. Greenspan has four major complaints about the plan. First, divorced from the banks, the Fed would find it harder to forestall and deal with financial crises. Second, monetary policy would suffer because the Fed would have less access to review the banks. Thirdly, a supervisor with no macroeconomic concerns might be too inclined to discourage banks from taking risks, slowing the economy down. Lastly, creating a single regulator would do away with important checks and balances, in the process damaging state bank regulation (Anonymous 88). To answer these criticisms it is necessary to make clear what the Fed's job is. The Fed has three main responsibilities: to ensure financial stability, to implement monetary policy, and to oversee a smoothly functioning payments system (delivering checks and transferring funds) (Syron 3). The responsibilities of the Fed are linked to the banking system. Banking :: essays research papers fc Banking So Much for That Plan "More than 70% of commercial bank assets are held by organizations that are supervised by at least two federal agencies; almost half attract the attention of three or four. Banks devote on average about 14% of their non-interest expense to complying with rules" (Anonymous 88). A fool can see that government waste has struck again. This tangled mess of regulation, among other things, increases costs and diffuses accountability for policy actions gone awry. The most effective remedy to correct this problem would be to consolidate most of the supervisory responsibilities of the regulatory agencies into one agency. This would reduce costs to both the government and the banks, and would allow the parts of the agencies not consolidated to concentrate on their primary tasks. One such plan was introduced by Treasury Secretary Lloyd Bentsen in March of 1994. The plan called for folding, into a new independent federal agency (called the Banking Commission), the regulatory portions of the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC), the Federal Reserve Board, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), and the Office of Thrift Supervision (OTS). This plan would save the government $150 to $200 million a year. This would also allow the FDIC to concentrate on deposit insurance and the Fed to concentrate on monetary policy (Anonymous 88). Of course this is Washington, not The Land of Oz, so everyone can't be satisfied with this plan. Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan and FDIC Chairman Ricki R. Tigert have been vocal opponents of the plan. Greenspan has four major complaints about the plan. First, divorced from the banks, the Fed would find it harder to forestall and deal with financial crises. Second, monetary policy would suffer because the Fed would have less access to review the banks. Thirdly, a supervisor with no macroeconomic concerns might be too inclined to discourage banks from taking risks, slowing the economy down. Lastly, creating a single regulator would do away with important checks and balances, in the process damaging state bank regulation (Anonymous 88). To answer these criticisms it is necessary to make clear what the Fed's job is. The Fed has three main responsibilities: to ensure financial stability, to implement monetary policy, and to oversee a smoothly functioning payments system (delivering checks and transferring funds) (Syron 3). The responsibilities of the Fed are linked to the banking system.

The Effect of Politics and Race on Identity of Puerto Ricans Essay

The Effect of Politics and Race on Identity of Puerto Ricans As is present in many articles we read about Spanish rule and American rule, there were always references to race, and the mix of races that the Puerto Ricans are, and how that has affected their identity. Kristen Moran hypothesized as to what was the origin of Spaniard's need to assert their clean lineage: "The attitude of the Spaniards concerning pure lineage, which can be traced back to the Muslim occupation of Spain, further complicated race interaction in Puerto Rico." The Ferrà © novel begins with Buenaventura's arrival to Puerto Rico from Spain, who is a member of a bourgeoisie family. Immediately there are references to the importance of a â€Å"clean lineage† and books which tracked marriages to make sure that families were remaining true to their roots. Families wanted to assert that there was no â€Å"bad blood† running through the family when another bourgeoisie family is ready to marry off their son or daughter. David Bernstein expands on this idea by writ ing that, "Buenaventura preaches his racial superiority and separation from others to his children, in the hope that this will ensure the 'purity' of future generation's white blood." This is why early on the citation by Gonzà ¡lez of â€Å"returning to Spanish era† as â€Å"returning to a society in which the white and property-owning part of the population has always oppressed and despised the non-white and non-property-owning part.†(Gonzà ¡lez, p4) was utilized in the conclusion of my first paper on early Spanish rule and has not left the schema I have created in my mind of how each set of rulers viewed Puerto Ricans. Ferrà © touches on an area that I had not connected myself, nor had read anywhere yet. This realization that... ...n the Twentieth Century. 2nd.ed. (Westport, Conn.: Praeger, 1996). Ferrà ©, Rosario. The House on the Lagoon (NY: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1995). Gonzà ¡lez, Josà © Luis, â€Å"Puerto Rico: The Four-Storeyed Country,† from Puerto Rico: The Four-Storeyed Country and other essays (Princeton and NY: Markus Wiener Publishing, Inc.), 1-30. Moran, Kristen. Home page- H378. http://frontpage.trincoll.edu/kmoran2/project.htm Morris, Nancy. Puerto Rico: Culture, Politics, and Identity (Westport, Conn.: Praeger, 1995). Pearson, Stacie. Home page. 10 December 1998. <http://frontpage.trincoll.edu/spearson/puerto2.htm>. Puerto Rico Herald Vol. 2 No. 25. <www.puertorico-herald.org> Rivera, Fabian. Home page-H378. http://frontpage.trincoll.edu/frivera/newpage3.htm Rodriguez, Richard. Home page- H378 http://frontpage.trincoll.edu/rrodrigu/h378p.htm

Contemporary Culture Seen Thru Post-War British Films

The British cinema of the Second World War has typically been exemplified in terms of its depiction of ‘the people's war’. The films which have attracted most crucial consideration are those which offered a picture of the British people at war, united regardless of class differences, and where the chronicles of individuals, heroic though they may be, were inspired into the greater story of the whole nation pulling together at a time of national crisis. Curran and Porter (1983) have identified, for the first time in British feature films, a genuine, true-to-life image of ordinary men and women.Roger Manvell (1947)considered that films such as Millions Like Us, San Demetrio, London, Nine Men, The Way Ahead, Waterloo Road and The Way to the Stars ‘showed pe ople in whom we could trust and whose experience was as genuine as our own’. The reason for this pristine realism, according to Aldgate and Richards (2002) is usually clarified through the impact of the docu mentary movement, the progressive left-wing sector of the British film industry, on the mainstream feature film producers. The British film industry endeavoured to open out overseas. J.Arthur Rank, of the Rank Organization, extended his world-wide distribution. The Associated British Picture Corporation or ABPC joined Warner Brothers to institute distribution in the United States. Perry (1988) noted that Alexander Korda acquired London Films and British Lion, the former from MGM. Korda's London Films had in 1933 created The Private Lives of Henry VIII. He established circulation of his films in the United States through Twentieth Century Fox. Green (1983) illustrates that unlike the aspirations of the highly financed studios, Ealing Studios focused its labours on a series of modest comic films.Teams of writer/directors made a series of remarkable films. The Boulting brothers, John and Roy, interchanged as director and producer of a series of films, including Brighton Rock (1947), Th e Magic Box (1951), Lucky Jim (1957), and I'm All Right, Jack (1959). The team of Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger, operating under the label of the Archers and supported by J. Arthur Rank, made two specials, The Red Shoes (1948) and Tales of Hoffman (1951). The first popularised ballet while the second popularised opera.Powell and Pressburger's Stairway to Heaven (also called A Matter of Life and Death, 1945) was the make-believe tale of a pilot who is mistakenly called to heaven so soon. One of the folklores that cropped up from war-weary Britain was a faith in the unity and equality of the community. The myth persisted for a brief time after the war, stimulated by expectations for the Labour government's experiment, when recuperating English society felt the likelihood of progressing the unity experienced in the â€Å"people's war† to decipher the nation's massive social problems.The myth, in which all elements of society, even those not normally associating with one another, pull together, played out in a number of films, such as the Ealing films of Hue and Cry, Whiskey Galore, Passport to Pimlico, and The Blue Lamp. Michael Balcon of Ealing Studios produced these films as â€Å"fantastic escape. † The fantasy created was of a sense of community prompted by the world war. The distraction was in fancy and departure from actuality. Hue and Cry was the first of what have become known as the Ealing comedies and it started the fantasy foundation of community.The setting in south London, an area devastated by the German blitz, was scheduled for enormous restoration in the years 1945-1953. In Hue and Cry, writer T. E. B. Clarke fixed on a London community of youths living and playing around a bombsite, who come together to overpower a gang of criminals. The young hero, Joe Kirby, spends time reading escapist pulp detective comics. Through a series of imaginary and strange encounters, Joe ascertains a criminal syndicate of black market operators using comic books as a code. Joe, with the help of the community of boys, suppresses the criminals, led by the evil Nightingale.Manvell (1947) said that at the end of the war, British film was trapped in a struggle between its realist, documentary tradition and a pull toward the fantastic and expressionism. The anthology film Dead of Night (1945), co-directed by Alberto Cavalcanti, Robert Hamer, Charles Crichton and Basil Dearden, caught some of this resistance. The film modifies from the factual to the Gothic. It makes use of expressionist techniques, such as a powerful mirror scene. Landy (1991) described that realism was a primary trait of British cinema during the war.Realism was acknowledged with black and white, straight-forward narrative and characters. It was profoundly influenced by Britain's documentary tradition. However, many post-war films were answers to realism. Of course, realism comes in many forms. Some films used realism seemingly to expand the story line, as in Michael Anderson's The Dam-Busters (1954), the Boulting brothers' Seven Days to Noon (1950) or Michael Powell's The Small Back Room (1949). The Boulting film involved a reconstruction of the evacuation of London when the city is endangered by a scientist with an atomic device.Powell's film integrated a long episode of the dismantling of a bomb. Ealing comedies, such as Hue and Cry and Passport to Pimlico, used realism as a framework for stories that were essentially non-realistic. In other films, such as Carol Reed's The Third Man or Odd Man Out, realism is used to heighten the drama and suspense. Other films used a documentary-style reconstruction, such as Charles Frend's Scott of the Antarctic (1948). The documentary-style opening of The Blue Lamp was an intentional device, although the story propagated the fantasy of community.The documentary opening and closing of Whiskey Galore were essentially significant to the film's satire. Realism, as a predominant style, resurfaced in the late Fifties, leading to â€Å"new cinema† or social realism. Dickinson and Street (1985) said that expressionism, rather than realism, dominated many of the British productions. Most of the literary were highly yet successfully stylized, including Lean's adaptations from Dickens, Olivier's Shakespearean films, and Dickinson's The Queen of Spades. Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger's The Red Shoes and Tales of Hoffman are examples of the stylization.The films represent the nexus of several strands of film and literary tradition, including German expressionism of the 1920's, romanticism, Gothic, the combination of the arts, and the reaction of realism. The Red Shoes was a story by Hans Christian Anderson, derived from a story by E. T. A. Hoffman (1776-1822), a German romanticist, and influenced by life of Russian ballet director Diaghilev and dancer Nijinsky. It is the story of a ballerina torn between the control of two men — her director, Lermontov, and her husban d, Julian, a conductor.Her husband wrote the score for a ballet just for her — â€Å"The Red Shoes. † Lermontov directed her in it. Although Vicki is tough at the start, able to return â€Å"the gaze† of Lermontov, she soon loses her capability to endure either man. The men, primarily Lermontov, are puppet masters, using manipulation to restrain the female to the male's domination. Geraghty (1985) stresses that the battle of the masters is carried out on several levels. At the core of the struggle are the highly stylized ballet scenes, using images of Julian conducting, Lermontov directing and Vicki soaring on stage and in the air.The shoe maker in the ballet is, likewise, a puppeteer. The expressionistic ballet, a combination of music, art, dance and film, is surrounded by the narrative, in which the dancer shifts loyalties between herself, Lermontov and Julian. Lermontov manipulates both dancer and conductor. Vicki finally escapes by injuring herself and endin g forever her ability to dance. Lermontov continues the final performance of the ballet without a dancer in the lead role. Green (1983) said that The Tales of Hoffman was based on an opera of the German expressionist Jacques Offenbach.It comprises film with little dialog. It recollects the universal visual language of the silent film. The various characters of the opera, which challenge and defy Hoffman, a nobleman/poet, include an array of manipulators — an eye glass maker, a master of souls, and a demonic doctor. The filmed opera originally had four episodes, though one episode, hence another manipulator, was cut from the film. The film represents creator as monster and tormentor as well as tormented victim. This theme, said to cast Hoffman as a metaphor for Powell, recalls Lermontov and his tries to gets in touch with Vicki.Both films utilise expressionist techniques such as the metaphors of the gaze and the mirror to symbolize and accentuate the struggle, which Werner Fas sbinder has called sadism in the creative act and creation in destruction. Williams (1991) describes Both Powell and Pressburger films aim to create what Richard Wagner hoped to do with opera — the total art by combining the visual with the aural. The Red Shoes mediates ballet cinematically. It interprets ballet into film rather than record ballet on film. The Tales of Hoffman interprets opera into film rather than record opera on film.Adding to their stature, the creative collaboration of Powell and Pressburger combined the art tradition of European film and the technical advances of American film. Their films experimented with the new Technicolor technology. Low (1985) reports that the anti-realism traits of German expressionism, Gothic and fantasy even appeared in the Ealing comedies. At least twice in Hue and Cry — when the hero and his friend climbed the stairs to the writer's apartment, and in the final fight with the criminal master-mind in the bombed building à ¢â‚¬â€ the camera angles and shadows evoked images of German expressionist films such as The Cabinet of Dr.Caligari. The expressionistic device of the mirror appears in a number of films, such as Dead of Night, and The Blue Lamp. Likewise, the technique of â€Å"the gaze† appears in several films, including The Blue Lamp. Williams (1991) described the behaviour of the writer and the Victorian clutter of his apartment, and the passage of the children through the London sewers, both in Hue and Cry, evoked images of Gothic horror. Likewise, the Hammer horror films were a reaction to realism. Fantasy appeared in a variety of films, especially the Ealing comedies, including the fanciful idea of a sovereign Pimlico or Hue and Cry's children against crime.These communities were rooted in fantasy not reality. They were no more than a daydream. British cinema after the Second World War can be distinguished by a number of features. The films were generally comedies, melodramas, litera ry or horror films. Among the features coming out through these films were 1) attempts to preserve the nostalgic values, such as community of wartime Britain, and 2) the denunciation of the realism and documentary style of the World War II films, particularly through expressionism and stylization. Britain today is a richly mixed society and culture.Its residents typify a wide variety of national, cultural, racial and religious backgrounds and mixtures. That diversity is an outcome of a history, which has incorporated invasion, expansion, empire and Commonwealth, and Britain’s role as a retreat for people of all races. Murphy (2000) describes the British governments have taken measures to undertake problems of discrimination and disadvantage through pioneering such things as race relations legislation which makes racial discrimination an objectionable, and illegal practice, and through strategy to remedy disadvantage.Britain’s ethnic diversity, with its range of and uni que mix of cultural identities and heritages, describes and puts in worth to contemporary Britain. For instance, the Muslim society in Britain make a crucial and lively input to every facet of life from sports and the arts to business and even politics. This paper shall look into at least three film features created after the Second World War. First is Notting Hill which stars Julia Roberts and Hugh Grant. The film was a certified box-office hit not only in the United Kingdom but the world over.Next is Four Weddings and a Funeral written by the same writer of Notting Hill. The last movie is Chariots of Fire. Britain’s contemporary cultural diversity is being studied through these film features. Notting Hill Notting Hill has a reputation as an affluent and fashionable area popular for its attractive terraces of large Victorian townhouses and high-class shopping and restaurants. Residents are symbolised as young and affluent and many people who conform to such stereotypes are o ften referred to as â€Å"The Notting Hill Set†, â€Å"The Notting Hillbillies†, and â€Å"Trustafarians†.The area came to international attention with the release of the successful Hollywood movie of the same name. Notting Hill (1999) stars Julia Roberts and Hugh Grant use the characteristic features of the area as a backdrop to the action, including the Portobello Road antiques market and enclosed square gardens. Notting Hill is a 1999 romantic comedy film set in the Notting Hill district of London,. The screenplay was written by Richard Curtis who also wrote the movie Four Weddings and a Funeral. In Western culture, we are fixated by the notion of celebrity.This may be easily viewed with the enormous number of paparazzis everywhere that descend on public figures when they make appearances, or the popularity of gossip magazines and TV shows. Celebrities are treated like royalty – fascinating and untouchable, they become objects of unreasonable adoration . Perhaps one of the most common fantasies entertained by an average man or woman is what would happen if someone famous fell in love with them. And therein lies the premise of Notting Hill. Hugh Grant plays William Thacker, the owner of a small bookstore in London's Notting Hill.Grant’s character is just an average Joe – when he's not working, he spends time with his friends and his wacky Welsh flat-mate, Spike played by Rhys Ifans, but has no romantic life to speak of. One day, however, the foundation of his way of life changes when Anna Scott, played by Julia Roberts, a famous actress, walks through the door to his little shop. In London to publicize her new film, she's taking a break from the press and Notting Hill seems like a good place to lose them. Later, William literally runs into her in the street, spilling orange juice all over her. Annoyed and humiliated, he requests her to his place to clean up.Much to his surprise, she accepts his offer, and, after chang ing outfits, she gives him a lingering kiss on the lips. William is immediately smitten and so, apparently, is Anna. Thus begins a turbulent relationship that asks whether a star can live happily ever after with somebody who has never had his face in the papers. Although Notting Hill is a pleasant enough motion picture, it isn't much more than that. It's a domesticated movie that takes few chances. Even the casting of Hugh Grant and Julia Roberts is an example of playing it safe, since both are proven box office draws.The comedy, while sporadically funny, occasionally feels forced and unnatural, as if screenwriter Richard Curtis was forced to ratchet up the level of humour at the cost of characters' integrity. Spike is a case in point. As portrayed by Rhys Ifans he's the constant butt of jokes but he achieves little purpose beyond that. He's a pure misrepresentation of a lewd lazy bone, and, whenever he comes on screen, he actually becomes a disturbance. Another problem with the fil m is that the romance is half-hearted. While there's a feeling of sociability and even affection between William and Anna, there was no passion felt between the two.They appear more like brother and sister than lovers broken up by an army of publicists and photographers. The plot pursues the ordinary beat of a traditional romantic comedy: boy meets girl, boy likes girl, boy and girl get to know each other, then complications interfere. In this case, those complications come in the form of Anna's off-again/on-again boyfriend and the media. Notting Hill is not without its enjoyable moments. The relationship between two of William's friends, Max and Bella, is touching. There's an exciting conversation between William and Anna about why men are attracted to breasts.And there's an appealing shot of William walking down a street in Notting Hill as the seasons change around him. The movie shows us how Britain has achieved tremendous changes after the war era. It is an attempt to penetrate the western movie market and this proved to be quite a difficult task at first. Four Weddings and a Funeral The simplest and most honest articulation of praise that can be presented to this Mike Newell's movie is that it epitomises two hours of solid movie magic. Four Weddings and a Funeral enjoys the extraordinary power to make an audience laugh and cry without ever apparent scheming or going desperately over-the-top.Another Hugh grant movie who plays Charles is a serial monogamist or someone who moves from girlfriend to girlfriend without ever falling in love. His friends have started down the matrimonial road, but not Charles. Feelings of spending the rest of his life with someone never went through his mind, until one day at a wedding when he encounters Carrie played by Andie MacDowell, an American fashion editor. And, although the two enjoy a brief rendezvous at an inn, Charles' typical British uncommunicativeness comes in, and Carrie is on her way back to America before he rec ognizes he should have said something.Here’s another movie that showcases cultural diversity in Britain were two individuals from different cultural backgrounds may have the possibility of ending up together despite their cultural diversity. Four Weddings and a Funeral is about four weddings and a funeral. While the central story of this delightful motion picture is somewhat common romantic comedy fare, it is structured by a plot packed with little twists and turns, lots of laughs, and a frothy, fascinating atmosphere. Mike Newell, whose recent directing credits include Enchanted April and Into the West, maintains to display a clever hand when it comes to good, escapist fun.Newell's direction is unassuming — he allows his actors and the script to carry the film, which results in an enjoyable mix of cheerful comedy with a dash of misery. Screenwriter Richard Curtis is fast to let the humour starts flowing, and once it starts, it never stops. The scenes most likely to ca use irrepressible laughter happen during the second wedding and centre on Rowan Atkinson as a somewhat confused priest. It's not a shock that Atkinson feels at home with a Curtis script, since the two have teamed up on the British TV show Blackadder.Four Weddings and a Funeral is a modern comedy with a very time-honoured theme. It mixes upright breeding and bad language; laughter and tears; and marriage and friendship into a thoroughly enjoyable whole. This movie showcases how Britain has become one of the world’s best movie producers. It was so popular across the globe which highlighted the greatness of Britain. Chariots of Fire Sporting events today have become vicious, angry affairs where the slogan, more frequently than not, is â€Å"win at all costs. † Demonstrations of good sportsmanship are about as rare as altruism.Everyone is out for themselves, and the displays of athletes like Albert Belle, John McEnroe, and Dennis Rodman can sit in the stomach like a large piece of heavy matter. So it's invigorating to look back at an era when triumph didn't command seclusion, resentment, and disgust of one's rivals. Chariots of Fire, the Oscar-winning 1981 film, delights us to the 1924 Olympics, and, in the process, highlights such laudable qualities as loyalty, determination, and fraternity. That's not to say that winning isn't important to the competitors in Hugh Hudson's film.On the other hand, for British track stars Harold Abrahams (Ben Cross) and Eric Lidell (Ian Charleson), it's a principal anxiety, but neither is so fixated by their ambition that they lose sight of the larger picture. Eric is a devout Christian who runs because he considers it venerates God. Harold is a Jew who struggles as a way of establishing his worth. Both are driven by an internal fire, and have nothing but reverence for their competitors. Chariots of Fire tells the story of the British triumphs at the 1924 Olympics, where the UK representatives took a number of medals over the heavily-favoured Americans.With Abrahams and Lidell leading the way, the British track team had one of their best-ever showings. This film outlines the two principal athletes' paths to the Paris games, where their on-field victories form a astoundingly low-key climax. Chariots of Fire doesn't depend on worn-out sports film cliches; it's more fascinated in enthusiasm and character improvement. Yes, it's essential to know that Abrahams and Lidell win, but the real essence of the story is enclosed in what leads up to the races.Like in Sylvester Stallone's first Rocky, it's probable to claim victory before the competition begins — Lidell because he has holds fast to his beliefs and Abrahams because gives all he has to give. At the time when Chariots of Fire was first released, many of the major cast members, including Ben Cross, Ian Charleson, Nigel Havers, and Alice Krige, were relative unheard of. All give strong presentations, and each was remunerated with future part s in other productions. Some identifiable faces fill supporting roles, including Sir John Gielgud as the Master of Trinity College and Ian Holm as Abraham's mentor, Sam Mussabini.There's barely a trace of exaggerated scenes in Chariots of Fire, which makes the film-watching experience all the more effective — director Hugh Hudson shows respect for the veracity of his material and the cleverness of his audience. The deficiency of maudlin moments supplies the storyline with an authentic quality that supports its factual background. Not only do we care about the characters, but we admit that they really existed. In fact, the entire production declares that same sense of atmosphere. Most sports movies counts on melancholy and adrenaline — Chariots of Fire stands up on strong writing, direction, and acting.Approval of this picture doesn't require a love of sports, simply an understanding of human nature. Conclusion Immigrant, ethnic minority, asylum-seeker – slivers of intimation divide the meanings of each term in contemporary Britain. Ethnic minority, black and Asian, cultural diversity – clouds of confusion have distinguished contemporary arts in Britain over the past 30 years. Cook (1981) declares that notably, every liberal political measure undertaken so far to correct injustices – the Stephen Lawrence Inquiry into institutional racism being only the most recent – has proven ineffectual.Racism is not an intellectual failure that can be corrected by a greater dose of education. It is a moral value, however much one may abhor such a morality. It is an imaginative construct and so the engineers of the imagination – artists – find themselves in the frontline, their weapons being the pen or the hand or the body or the voice. Gilette (2003) discloses Post-war British film was both a response to the world war and a reaction to the film styles of the war and post-war periods. As a response to the war, post-war f ilms adopted a style of pseudo-realism to construct a post-war fantasy world.This fantasy, sometimes captured as a daydream, attempted to preserve the spirit of the war years, including the values of community and egalitarianism. This daydream or fantasy world also served as an escape from the memory of the war and the disappointment over the failure of a new society in post-war Britain. As a reaction to the war, post-war films revolted against the realism of the war-period films. They utilized and integrated strands of romanticism, expressionism, and the Gothic. References: Aldgate, A. and Richards, J. 2nd Edition. 1994. Britain Can Take it: British Cinema in the Second World War.Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press Barr, Charles; Ed. 1986. All Our Yesterdays: 90 Years of British Cinema. London: British Film Institute Aldgate, A. and Richards, J. 2002. Best of British: Cinema and Society from 1930 to the Present. London: I. B. Tauris Barr, C. Ealing Studios (London: Cameron & Tayl or, 1977). Cook, D. A History of Narrative Film (New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1981). Curran, J. and Porter, V. ; Eds. 1983. British Cinema History. London: Weidenfeld and Nicholson Dickinson, M. and Street, S. 1985. Cinema and the State: The Film industry and the British Government, 1927-84.London: BFI Friedman, Lester; Ed. 1992. British Cinema and Thatcherism. London: UCL Press Geraghty, Christine. 2000. British Cinema in the Fifties: Gender Genre and the New Look. London Routledge Gillett, P. 2003. The British Working Class in Postwar Film. Manchester: Manchester University Press Green, I. â€Å"Ealing in the Comedy Frame,† in British Cinema History, eds. , James Curran and Vincent Porter (London: Weidenfeld and Nicholson, 1983). Landy, M. 1991. British Genres: Cinema and Society, 1930-1960. Princeton University Press Low, R. 1985. Film Making in 1930s Britain.London: George, Allen and Unwin Rotha, Paul. 1973. Documentary diary; an informal history of the British docum entary film, 1928-1939, New York: Hill and Wang Swann, Paul. 2003. The British Documentary Film Movement, 1926-1946. Cambridge University Press Manvell, R. ‘The British Feature Film from 1925 to 1945’, in Twenty Years of British Film 1925–1945, eds M. Balcon, E. Lindgren, F. Hardy and R. Manvell (London, The Falcon Press, 1947), p. 85. Murphy, Robert. 2000. British Cinema and the Second World War. London: Continuum Murphy, R; Ed. 1996. Sixties British Cinema. London: BFIOrwell, G. â€Å"England, Your England† (1941), in A Collection of Essays (New York: Doubleday, 1954). Perry, G. 1988. The Great British Picture Show. Little Brown, 1988. Porter, V. â€Å"The Context of Creativity: Ealing Studios and Hammer,† in British Cinema History, eds. , James Curran and Vincent Porter (London: Weidenfeld and Nicholson, 1983). Powell, Pressburger and Others (British Film Institute, 1978). Shaw, T. 2001. British Cinema and the Cold War. London: I. B. Tauris Willi ams, T. various lectures, The Survey of Film History, fall semester, 1991, Southern Illinois University, Carbondale.

Best Practices and the SDLC

It has long been accepted that constant change is fundamental to IT. While most IT managers understand that change is part of the norm, the organizations that employ them often resist it. Successful IT development calls for having a clear blueprint for proper IT direction of an organization. By using a System Development Life Cycle (SDLC) model and sound best practice methods, an IT manager can define that blueprint and make the best possible IT decisions. According to http://www. bigpedia. comthe SDLC relates to models or methodologies that people use to develop systems, generally computer systems.A number of SDLC models have been created: waterfall, fountain, spiral, build and fix, and rapid prototyping. There is not a definitive correct model, but most models will include the following steps or at least a variation. The first step is the projects planning stage, in this stage the project manager (PM) decides which SDLC model to use. The PM will also survey and gather information i n regards to the current team’s skill and experience, any concerns or issues perceived by upper management, such as cost, and a process for following up the work agreement. The next step is the analysis of the system.During the system analysis the PM breaks down the entire project in to small pieces and assigns each department their applicable tasks. This step is where the plan is finalized and the PM begins to move onto the systems design. Understanding the systems design is essential to developing the system. At this step, each department head devises a plan on how their section can help develop the system. In the third step, the architectural design, these individual plans are spliced together to form the completed plan. Also during this step the work of building the system takes place.The PM’s focus shifts from planning the project to managing the development of the project. During the next step, the testing of the system takes place. This will ensure that all the bugs and flaws are removed before the deployment of the system. During the deployment step the system is used for its intended purpose. As with all systems the final step, is the maintenance of the system, which last for as long as the system is used. During this step, routine maintenance is performed to include updates. Either during or after the development of a system, certain methods or techniques are discovered to be better than other nes. In the IT industry, these ideas are sometimes called best practices. In a book titled â€Å"Electronic Government† by Jack Rabin best practices are described as an idea that suggests that there is a technique, method, or process that is more effective at delivering a desired outcome. The idea is that with proper processes, procedures, and testing, a desired outcome can be delivered with fewer problems. Best practices can also be defined as the most proficient and effective way of accomplishing a task, based on principles used repeatedl y by numerous people.Best practices are a way for a company to create standardization within their operating procedures. A great example of a best practice was displayed by Sprint recently. In August of 2008, Sprint created a guide to the infrastructure management layer to automate and speed the production of resources from within their data centers. By creating this guide, they were able to quickly manage, back up, and produce their data sets associated with each test environment build. As a result, Sprint has improved customer satisfaction, reducing the time it takes to fill requests.Another example of a best practice was in 2004 the Air Force decided that it need it network administrators (admins) to pass quality checks before allowing them to operate on Air Force domains. Each Air Force base decided to test their network admins differently. This created a lot of confusion and large amounts of money for each Air Force base because they acted independently. Therefore, the Air Forc e decided to open a best practice suggestion program, which allowed each Air Force base to submit their procedures for quality checking their network admins.Less than six months after the process started, the best practice tag was awarded to Eglin Air Force Base in Fort Walton Beach, Fl. They were allowed to implement their procedures Air Force wide. In the end, Eglin saved the Air Force six million dollars with its best practice procedures. As the term best practice has become more popular, some organizations have begun using best practices to refer to what are in fact rules, causing creativity to hamper. This will never be the case with Google.Google believes that giving their employees freedom to move about the company without middle management following them around has actually prompted creativity. In a interview with CBS News Sunday Morning, Google CEO Sergey Brin explained that Google provides free gourmet breakfast, lunch and dinner—all prepared by gourmet chefs. They get free medical care, daycare, and there is even a massage chair in the lobby. All of these benefits spur creativity, which has made Google one of the World Wide Web pioneers.Google does not use best practice because they are too rigid and do not allow employees to â€Å"think outside the box†. Some best practices are needed though. This was the case with Microsoft and Netscape. They used a synchronize and stabilize method created by David Yoffie and Michael Cusumano to orchestrate a massive overseeing and managing of source code. This method allowed the two corporations to work efficiently in a parallel. During their research, they found that both companies were doing very similar tasks nightly.By creating a best practice model both companies could use they reduced production time by 15 %. Best practices along with the SDLC can help lay a great foundation for IT development. There are no set rules or guidelines for IT development. However, there is a certain structure that most successful IT projects have in common. The first step to planning a good IT project is the project selection. During this process the PM must analyze if there is a need for the system. Does someone already have a system similar that the team could use or buy?After this step if the justification for the system is still necessary, then the team must move onto the next step, which is the planning of project controls. According to the paper Indentifying Best Practices in Information Technology Project Management, project controls are defined as an estimate, estimating, and budgeting. The estimate considers how many resources are needed to accomplish this project, the act of estimating is combining the results of post project reviews, metrics, consultation, and informed assessment to arrive at time and resource requirements for an activity, and budgeting is the total cost of the project.Following this evaluation, you should assemble the team. It is important to compile a team that w ill be effective to the specific project. The team must understand the project goals and expectations. The next step is accessing the stakeholder’s involvement in the project. The stakeholder can be anyone from the management of the company to an actual customer. Some stakeholders will want as much control as the PM while other, will be hands off allowing the PM to make all the decisions.These guidelines are not all inclusive but they are a start to developing a successful IT project. Designing a good IT development project takes time and an excellent PM. There are many good models to follow, like the Arkansas best practices model. These models give a small or unorganized company the structure it needs to develop a good plan. If you follows these models along with a good SDLC you will be well on your way to creating a solid project. These two models can lay the foundation you need for a successful blueprint.

Columbus vs. de Las Casas

In the textbook of Bartolome de las Casas From The Very Brief Relation of the Devastation of the Indies, de la Casas said â€Å"This was the first land in the New World to be destroyed and depopulated by the Christians, and here they began their subjection of the women and children, taking them away from the Indians to use them and ill use them, eating the food they provided with their sweat and toil. Base on this saying we can guest his thought about the New World and its inhabitants, he explains how the Spaniards have behaved and acting, killing, terrorizing, afflicting, torturing, and destroying the native peoples, doing all this with the strangest and most varied new methods of cruelty, never seen or heard of before. De las Casas think this new world was the first one to be devastated destroyed and conquered by imperialist and colonialist Spaniards. Columbus’s letters we can see the arrogance he possessed in claiming the islands he found. In his letter describing his findings to his king, he wrote, â€Å"And there I found very many islands filled with people innumerable and of them all I have taken possession for their Highnesses. †¦Ã¢â‚¬  Columbus never stopped to consider that these islands were not his to take, nor were the people that inhabited them. He simply took over these lands, even going so far as to rename them all. His first sight of what he termed â€Å"Indians† was of a group of attractive, unclothed people. Speculation is that, to him, their nakedness represented a lack of culture, customs, and religion. Columbus saw this as an opportunity to spread the word of God, while at the same considering how they could possibly be exploited. He believed that they would be easy to conquer because they appeared defenseless, easy to trick because they lacked experience in trade, and an easy source of profit because they could be enslaved. It obviously did not occur to Columbus to consider these people in any terms aside from that of master and slave. Columbus thinks that New World could be well adapted for the working of the gold mines and for all kinds of commerce.

How and when the orginal 13 colonies was founded Essay

How and when the orginal 13 colonies was founded - Essay Example Massachusetts was next, founded in 1620, followed by New Hampshire, Maryland, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Delaware, North Carolina, South Carolina, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania and, finally, Georgia, which were founded in 1623, 1634, 1635, 1636, 1638, 1653, 1663, 1664, 1664, 1682 and 1732 respectively. Thus, Virginia was first of the colonies to be founded, and Georgia the last. Of course, during this time other colonies were also founded, which now are part of Canada and West Indies, however, this paper shall only talk about the original thirteen colonies established in what is now the United States. Originally, there were many different European countries from where all these immigrants came to establish these colonies, and there were many a war fought as a result of disputes of land and property, however, soon only England and France had the most presence here. The people who originally came here in the newly founded colonies wanted to be free to practice their own religion, and wanted to be independent from their respective governments (mostly European), to form their own form of government and be free to trade as they wanted to. Originally, most of the people who came over were basically running away from religious persecution, however, later on a lot of people came to work here and to make money. Those who came here to work normally came alone, without their families and worked in shipyards and ironworks. Those who came here to make money also bought plantations, and such people brought their families with them so that they could settle here and start their lives here. There were many laws made that reflect on the mindset of the people who came to settle here in the new colonies. The Pilgrims and the Quakers, for instance, had come from England to flee from religious persecution that they faced back in England, that is why, when they came

Haiti earthquake Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

Haiti earthquake - Essay Example Haiti has seen many natural disasters in the past. The next section of the article talks about the deaths of UN personnel in the UN headquarters in Haiti. The number of deaths and missing personnel was not known. The head of the UN mission in Haiti, Hedi Annabi, was also inside the building. Haiti’s ambassador in US reported that many buildings including the presidential palace, the tax office, the ministry of commerce, the foreign ministry, and the local offices of the World Bank were destroyed. The President was reported to be safe. The airport was fine. US President Obama delivered his wishful thoughts and prayers. Emergency food aid and relief came from the Red Cross, the UNs World Food Programme, The Inter-American Development Bank, UK, Canada, Australia, France, and Latin America. The last section of the article talks about Henry Bahn, a visiting official, who reported his experience. The Tsunami watch was lifted when the danger of Tsunami