The Taiwan Straits Crisis of 1958 free essay sample

This paper examines the crisis in the Taiwan Straits in 1958 and focuses on U.S support after the incident. This paper describes the crisis that occurred in 1958 when Chiang Kai-Shek placed Nationalist Chinese troops on the islands of Quemoy and Matsu in the Taiwan Straits. It focuses on the support of the US and USSR for their respective all. From the paper: In 1958 at the Chinese communist party congress Mao Zedong proposed the implementation of the Great Leap Forward in an attempt to modernize China and disengage from Soviet economic control. At the time, he was voted down. However, Mao was able to get Lin Biao, one of his allies, appointed to the central committee, thus changing the votes on the committee in his favor. Soon Mao was able to begin a test phase of the Great Leap Forward, and even this beginning brought great social and economic upheaval to China. We will write a custom essay sample on The Taiwan Straits Crisis of 1958 or any similar topic specifically for you Do Not WasteYour Time HIRE WRITER Only 13.90 / page

Essay on human resource developement

Essay on human resource developement Essay on human resource developement The Aural Learner Sally is an aural learner. She noticed that she has to read aloud. Nakelya found out when she was young, probably during her elementary school years. To get ready for tests and or quizzes, she would have to read and write everything down and repeat aloud several times for memorizing purposes. Nakelya has taken online courses before and has done fairly well, even though aural learners have difficulty with this. The way she goes about it when writing is to read aloud what she writes, to see if it sounds good. Learning Strategies According to Fleming (2011), the aural learning style is when, â€Å"a preference for information that is "heard or spoken.† Students with this modality report that they learn best from lectures, tutorials, tapes, group discussion, email, using mobile phones, speaking, web chat and talking things through. It includes talking out loud as well as talking with yourself. Often people with this preference want to sort things out by speaking, rather than sorting things out and then speaking. Recommendations If you know which learning style you or a person you are working with have, can help be a better student, worker, or teacher. To learn and retain more information, it is important to use the learning style that that person has. For example according to Priddy (n.d.), â€Å"the aural learner could have more difficulty in an online class†. Research was made by Diaz and Cartal (1999), and their outcome was that the people that are more

Marketing concept Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words - 3

Marketing concept - Essay Example Distributional and promotional aspects should also be accounted for in pricing such that the end result of the process is consistent with all the variables in the company’s interests. The primary purpose of pricing strategies is to specify the role of price in the implementation of marketing strategies (Drummond & Ensor 180). The aim of any given company in business is to market its products in order to gather a sufficient market share, thereby enhancing its profitability and a diversified portfolio. In this regard, the applicability of pricing strategies at an individual level cannot be refuted. Pricing strategies in the marketing context have constituted my personal experiences in two ways. These ways relate to the actions engaged by companies and firms in a bid to satisfy their customers and remain profitable at the same time. One of such personal experiences in the context of pricing strategies relates to penetration pricing. A company undertakes such a move in order to stimulate demand for its products. This is done by offering the consumer or the buyer a low price, such that the buyer feels favored and therefore compelled to make purchases. Rational buyers seek to maximize their welfare, and do I, given the interests of the company. When a product whose quality is not compromised is provided at a cheaper price, its demand rises. I have made several purchases under this notion, thus the applicability of penetration pricing in several transactions that I engage in. Another pricing strategy that relates to my personal experience is that of premium pricing. This factor is based on the competitive nature of firms. Firm compete for the market share in order to reap the highest benefits at the minimum cost possible. Competition may necessitate that a firm set its price higher than the competitive price. However, this is only possible when the

Healthy Alternatives to Prescription Medications Term Paper

Healthy Alternatives to Prescription Medications - Term Paper Example    All these categories may be used complementarily with medical prescriptions or entirely on their own, as alternatives to western medicine. In general, the use of CAM does not imply the rejection of conventional medicine, but as a critical part of self-care management that shows ones responsibility for health and a pragmatic approach to managing the chronic condition in the best possible way (Moses 64). Notably, some cases require the use of the alternative medicine in place of prescription medication. For instance, a person may opt for physiotherapy instead of antidepressants to relieve stress. Of great importance is the need to ensure that the alternative medications are healthy since ensuring the safety of the patient is very important. The effectiveness of any alternative treatment should be accompanied by lack of adverse effects. The use of alternatives to prescription medication is healthy if undertaken under the principles of quality use of medicine, which calls for judiciousness, appropriateness, safety, and efficacy. Prescription medication is not always effective and in some instances, it does not work well enough as the alternative form of treatment. To begin with, the ineffectiveness of the conventional medication leads people to seek alternative medicine. For instance, biomedical treatment of chronic pain using long-term opioids, anticonvulsants, topical preparations, and tricyclic antidepressants is only marginally effective (Tan, Alvarez and Jensen 1420). For instance, Fibromyalgia Syndrome (FM), a chronically painful disorder of unknown origin that defies all clinical treatments is effectively managed by alternative treatments such as acupuncture, herbal and nutritional supplements, and massage  therapy (Sarac and Gur 48).  

Immigration law 2 Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Immigration law 2 - Essay Example Even though war may be seen as one of the simplest and commonest examples of scenarios whereby the lives of people are put at risk, there are actually several other means by which people dwelling in a country may be prone to threats to their lives even in the absence of war2. As a way of ensuring that people who live in their own countries are given enough and maximum protection against all forms of practices that possesses threat to their lives in their immediate environments, the Refugee Convention has been put in place to ensure that there is easy movement of all such people cross borders from their countries of residence to seek protection and shelter where they feel their lives will be better protected. The present essay analysis whether the definition of a refugee under the Refugee Convention is sufficient to protect victims of human rights abuses and subsequently protect the lives of these people. ... In R v SSHD4, a clearer and reflection meaning is given to what well-founded fear means when it was concluded that genuine belief cannot be a basis for one to receive any form of protection as long as fear is unfounded. This means that fear must be objective and founded5 and in case it will be subjective, it must be based on reality.6 The second provision, which is premises, defines circumstances under which well-founded fear must exist before they can be regarded as meriting for refugee status. Generally, the fact that there is a premise means that well-founded fear may exist alright but may not be a tangible reason to merit one to be a refugee7. In the definition, there are five clearly listed premises, which are ‘race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion’. Race and nationality generally give a premise of reason, for which a person may suffer acts of persecution, which arises mainly because the fellow is of a race that is different from the race of some other group of people who may be executing the torture, bring about the well-founded fear. Religion also gives its up with instances where there exist forms of controlled and mobilised acts of persecution against an identified religious group for the mere fact that people who are executing persecutions refuse to accept the opinions of the other religious group. Commonly, the aftermath of elections have resulted in situations where people, mostly those in opposition tend to become enemies of those winning power and therefore suffer forms of vendetta and victimisation due to their social and political opinions. In Gomez v SSHD8 we realize that "to qualify as political the

How God Can Help to Understand the Presence of Natural Evil

How God Can Help to Understand the Presence of Natural Evil Thousands have died in the last 12 months as a result of adverse weather conditions, hundreds of thousands as a result of earthquake and volcanic activity, and millions through cell mutation leading to diseases such as cancer. Explore how models of God can help or hinder an understanding of the presence of such natural evil in the world. Generally when you think of the word evil, your first reaction will be to think of moral evil evil committed by human beings. Three examples of such evils are murder, rape, and terrorism. In Christian tradition, evil consists of breaking the rules given by God to man, and suffering is Gods punishment for breaking those rules. Theologian Henri Blocher depicts evil, when looked upon as a theological concept, as an unjustifiable reality. In common parlance, evil is something that occurs in experience that ought not to be.[1] The focus of this essay however, is natural evil. This is evil in the world that arises from what we call natural events. This would include earthquakes, floods, tornadoes, disease, birth defects, and other aspects of our world that cause suffering and death, e.g. cancer. These create a problem for us in how we think about God, because such events inflict evil on victims, but with no human perpetrator to blame for it. Now that the actual issue of evil has been addressed, we can begin to look at how models of God can help or hinder an understanding of the presence of such evil. Evil poses a big problem to Christianity, because they propose the existence of a deity who is omnibenevolent (all loving), while simultaneously also being omnipotent (all powerful), and omniscient (all knowing)[2]. This is arguably the most obvious problem caused by models of God with regard to natural evil, yet also the biggest, and it still has not been solved. If God is omnipotent, then God has the power to eliminate all evil. If God is omniscient, then God knows when evil exists. And finally, if God is omnibenevolent, then God has the desire to eliminate all evil. If God is all powerful, then he must have the power to stop such events. If he has the power to stop them, but chooses not to, then he isnt omnibenevolent. If he doesnt stop such events even though he wants to, then he is not omnipotent. This would then insinu ate that God, or at least the Christian image of God, does not exist. This is obviously a model of God causing great hindrance to getting anywhere near to understanding natural evil. In God and Evil, McCloskey examines five popular solutions to the problem of understanding natural evil. In this article natural evil is referred to as physical evil. The five solutions proposed are; physical good (pleasure) requires physical evil (pain) to exist at all; Physical evil is Gods punishment of sinners; Physical evil is Gods warning and reminder to man; Physical evil is the result of the natural laws, the operations of which are on the whole good; and finally, Physical evil increases the total good.[3] With regard the first solution offered, McCloskey is quick to shoot it down. It doesnt cover all natural goods and evils. He says that Disease and insanity are evils, but health and sanity are possible in the total absence of disease and insanity.[4] He goes on to describe how the argument is unsound in respect of its main contention, and hence seriously limits Gods power. This solution would maintain that God cannot create pleasure without pain, and as McCloskey shows, the y are not correlatives. Next, McCloskey considers the solution that natural evil is Gods way of punishing sin. This was the idea used to explain the terrible Lisbon earthquake in the 18th Century, when tens of thousands of Portuguese citizens were killed. Voltaire replied to the argument that it was a punishment by asking if God chose the people he felt were least virtuous in society, which clearly is not the case. For this argument to help us understand natural evil, it would require every single human being to have sinned so badly that we all deserve severe punishment from God; such is the uneven distribution of the punishment if it is so. McCloskey argues that even if it were the case that we all deserve punishment, why is there the issue of birth defects such as blindness or mental disabilities what have the children then done to deserve punishment? In fairness he does concede that this argument has dropped out of the theological sphere, but it is one that is still used at the popular level.[5] Thirdly, the issue of natural evil as a warning to men is considered. Again this explanation comes no closer to helping us understand natural evil. Joyce, cited in God and Evil puts forward that natural evils inspire a reverential awe of the Creator who made them.[6] McCloskey goes onto describe evil as the main reason why people turn away from religion and so if God is using it to try and inspire veneration, then he is a bungler'[7]. Also the use of evil for this reason wouldnt be something youd expect from a benevolent deity. Penultimately, evil as the result of the natural laws is considered. McCloskey summarises the argument by saying This fourth argument seeks to exonerate God by explaining that He created a universe sound on the whole, but such that he had no control over the laws governing His creations, and had control only in His selection of His creations.'[8] This would then indicate three of the main arguments used by theists contradict each other and in turn make it more difficult for us to understand natural evil. It also asks questions of Gods omnipotence. The previous two arguments attribute the detailed results of the operation of these laws directly to Gods will. Therefore it is not without significance that they betray such uncertainty as to whether God is to be commended or exonerated.[9] The solution considered lastly is that the Universe is better with evil in it. This type of argument portrays evil as a means to a greater good. McCloskey again discredits it by saying even if the general principle of the argument is not questioned, it is still seen to be a defective argument. On the one hand, it proves too little it justifies only some evil, and not necessarily all of the evil in the universe; on the other hand it proves too much because it creates doubts about the goodness of apparent goods.[10] While we must take into account that McCloskey is a firm atheist, it is difficult to prove any of his arguments against these explanations as wrong. Only the last argument does not conflict with the theist model of God, and even then it only shows that natural evils that occur may have a justification. This is hardly an argument that helps understand the presence of natural evil in the world. Perhaps a model of God that can help us to understand why natural evil is existent in the world is the theodicy of Augustine. A theodicy is an answer to the problem of evil. The biblical story of The Fall in the book of Genesis is fundamental to Augustines theodicy. According to Genesis, Adam was created perfect in a flawless world but then sinned consciously by eating from the forbidden tree. Mans original wholesomeness was lost and all his descendants inherited original sin and original guilt. Augustine puts forward that our punishment for Adams moral evil, which we have inherited, is natural evil.[11] Augustine argued that God is entirely good and cannot be held responsible for creating evil. He would say that Man deserves to be punished and therefore it is right that God should not intervene and put a stop to suffering because we created evil by misusing our freedom. Evil, therefore, is not a thing in itself but rather a privatio boni, that is a lack of goodness or a falling short of the perfection which God intended for us, since God only creates good and it makes no sense to talk about creating a deprivation. Evil only happens where good goes wrong and it is always man who causes this to happen.[12] If evil is a lack of goodness or perfection (privatio boni) rather than a substance in itself, how do we know what perfection is? In order, for example, to distinguish between what is good in man and what is bad we would need to understand what perfect human nature is. There is a logical contradiction in maintaining that a perfectly created world has gone wrong, because this would mean that evil must have created itself out of nothing, which is not possible. In other words, whether evil is considered to be a substance or a lack of goodness responsibility for it must lie with God. Either the world was not perfect in the first place or God allowed it to go wrong (by allowing Satan to tempt Adam to eat the apple). If, in the Garden of Eden, before the Fall (i.e. in the perfect world) there was no knowledge of good and evil, how could there have been the freedom to obey or disobey God? Adams initial capacity to choose evil must still be attributed to God. For scientifically minded critic s the main weakness of Augustines theodicy is, again, that it is derived from Genesis and the story of the Fall. It does not take account of evolutionary theory. The idea that a perfectly created world was damaged by humans (and that this is how evil and suffering came into the world) is not borne out by evolutionary theory. According to this view of the world, evil and suffering must have existed long before homo sapiens appeared on earth. According to Darwinian theory, for example, evil and suffering are the inevitable consequence of the struggle for survival in which all creatures have been engaged. So, again, if Gods world contained flaws (in the form of evil and suffering) before man existed, God must bear responsibility for them. Augustines theodicy begs the question of whether God could have created free beings who always choose what is morally right. All the most recent scientific evidence suggests that the human race is not descended from one ancestor (Adam) as Augustine cl aims, but grew up across the globe from a number of different forebears and before that from apes. Therefore we cannot be thought to have inherited Adams original sin. Nor, therefore, is God just in punishing us for someone elses sin. Hell appears to be built into the design of the universe in Augustines theodicy. It would seem, therefore, that God was expecting things to go wrong, and chose to do nothing about it. How can we believe in Gods justice when some have been granted His grace and others not , on an apparently arbitrary basis? And why would a benevolent God have wished any of his creatures to suffer eternal torment in hell? Blocher, H. 1994. Evil and the Cross. p.10 Tooley, M. 2002. The Problem of Evil. Stanford Encyclopaedia of Philosophy. [Online] Available at: http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/evil/ [Accessed on 26/04/2010] McCloskey, H. J. 1960. God and Evil. The Philosophical Quarterly (10)39. pp.97-114. Ibid. Ibid. Joyce cited in McCloskey, H. J. 1960. God and Evil. The Philosophical Quarterly (10)39. pp.97-114. McCloskey, H. J. 1960. God and Evil. The Philosophical Quarterly (10)39. pp.97-114. Ibid. Ibid. Ibid. Birnbaum, D. 1988. God and evil: a unified theodicy/theology/philosophy Birnbaum, D. 1988. God and evil: a unified theodicy/theology/philosophy

The Theme of Failure as Presented in Das Boot :: Das Boot Essays

The Theme of Failure as Presented in Das Boot      Ã‚  "When 'Das Boot' was first released in the United States, its running time was 145 minutes, and it won huge audiences and no less that six Oscar nominations-unheard of for a foreign film." The genius of Wolfgang Petersen's "Das Boot" is that to Americans it is considered a foreign film indeed; not only in the sense that the film is from Germany, but because the film offers a unique perspective of World War Two, the German perspective. This point of view allows American audiences to walk away from theaters and be impacted by themes which are common in the cinematic industry. However, because the film is the story of a German submarine, the effect is different than anything American audiences have previously experienced. One of these themes is failure. "Das Boot" presents German forces as being able to overcome failure in a victorious manner, while the Allies are shown to be a rather unsuccessful military force.    The Captain of the U-boat serves as a symbol for German warfare. He is first introduced in his full uniform, immediately it is known this man is a figure of authority. In the film's chaotic opening scene, he is one of the few sober soldiers at the bar, illustrating that he is in control at all times. While many are frightened when he pushes the boat twice beyond the recommended depth to test its sturdiness, no one challenges his decision. He is stern, powerful, and respected. As Roger Ebert writes about a scene later in the film: "He's capable of shouting 'I demand proper reports!' even as the boat seems to be breaking up." On several occasions while under attack from depth charges, only the veteran Captain's knowledge is the only thing which keeps the sailors of U-96 from the grave. Because the Captain serves as a human link to Germany's war effort, his characterization shows Germany's relative success in the war. When the Captain is triumphant, so too is Germany.    Under no circumstances can the men onboard the U-96 fail. They are literally trapped in the boat, and all mistakes quickly lead to the same fatal end. Whether the Captain mistakenly surfaces and has the periscope spotted by an enemy ship, or Johan abandons his post in the engine room, the consequence each time is disastrous. Every sailor on the boat depends on one another to perform his duties satisfactorily.