The History Of Baseball Cards Essays - Trading Cards, Baseball Cards

The History of Baseball Cards Baseball cards have a very broad history. In the beginning, god made man. Then, man produced........ the baseball card. From 1887 to the present, billions of baseball cards have been produced. Some cards are valued at ten cents, while others, are valued at over one hundred thousand dollars. Since 1887, Baseball cards have been a major part of many people's lives. The Beginning of the baseball card collecting era would lead cards to a path of greatness and immortality. The first baseball cards were made of a cloth like material. Many of these cards were "home made" (SCD)*. No one but the creator of these cards, (there all dead) knows for sure what exactly was used to produce these early cards. This time period started on 1887 and continued on until 1901. The 1887 baseball cards were part of a unique set. Not only did this set contain baseball cards, but it also contained boxing. golf, and horse racing cards. These cards are very high in value because of their rarity and because they are some of the early baseball cards. The common card is worth around $800. All of these cards are common, considering that there were no star athletes back then. There were not many cards sizes during this time period. The only size that I could find was one and a half inches by two inches. There were many company's that manufactured cards during this time period. They were: Mayo Tobacco Works, Buchner, Kimball's, Old Judge, Allen & Ginter, and Goodwin (SCD). These cards are rare, but are not very difficult to obtain if you're willing to pay top dollar. What many collectors call "the golden years of baseball", took place from 1902 until 1935. One reason that collectors call this time period that is because cards took many different changes during this era. Cards were starting to be packaged with Chewing Tobacco, crackerjacks, and Chewing gum. The value of cards during this time period depends on many different factors. A large percent of these cards have misprints (flaws). Because of these misprints, a card may have a higher value than the exact same card because of a misprint. The reason there were so many misprints was because the card industry was just starting to experiment with the printing process (SCD). The most expensive baseball card of all time was produced during this era. That card was the Honus Wagner T-206 produced in 1909. The reason that this card is so expensive is because only 4 of these cards were ever produced. Honus Wagner didn't want kids buying tobacco for the Baseball cards. One of the Wagners sold at an auction recently for 451,500 to Wayne Gretzky (SCD). There were three main sizes of baseball cards during this time period. One of the sizes was the "tobacco" size cards. These cards were one and a half inches by two inches. The second card size was a rectangular sheet of three cards. These were about two inches by five and one fourth inches. The third and final size was a square about two inches by two inches. Cards were packaged with chewing tobacco, cracker jacks, chewing gum, and cigarettes (SCD). Many company's produced cards during this era. Some of the major manufactures were : Piedmont, Soverign, Ramly, Hassan, Mecca and Turkey Red. The T-2.. series is very common at card shows. With the exception of the Honus Wagner, most of these cards can be acquired for a reasonable price. From 1936 until 1960, not much happened in the card collecting era. Three major changes occurred during this time period. The cards themselves changed to a size that would carry them to present time. Also, two ground breaking companies would arrive and last until the 21st century. The value of the 30's and 40's cards is around forty dollars for a semi-star (BKM)*. The value of the 50's cards is a little higher at forty five dollars for the semi- star. Mickey Mantle's rookie is included in the 1952 Bowman set. It is valued at $9,000 . Also, another Mantle , his '52 Topps is worth $35,000 (BKM, SCD, TUFF*). The 60's common cards are worth between one dollar and five dollars. There were two main card sizes from 1936 to 1960.

Earnings Management Essays

Earnings Management Essays Earnings Management Paper Earnings Management Paper At a basic level, it involves allocating the right inventory to the right customer at the right price. This is also known as yield management. In the Indian context application of revenue management can be seen In many fields: Travel and Tourism: * Advance purchase of tickets offered by airlines * Weekend discount by hotels Attack service by Indian Railways * Different tariffs charged by power generation and distribution companies * Software companies Revenue management has been named as the number one emerging business strategy by the Wall Street Journal. Application of management science models based on linear programming has Improved the contribution to profit for a major steel company (Data Steel) in India by $73 million in 1986-87 and given a cumulative Earnings Management It covers a wide variety of legitimate and illegitimate actions by management that affects the earnings of a company. It is strategy used by the management to deliberately manipulate the companys earnings in order to smooth earnings over two or more interim or accrual accounting periods or to achieve a designated earnings level to meet security analysts forecasts. Companies prefer to smooth earnings in contrast to having years of exceptionally good or bad earnings. It includes legitimate discretionary choices of when to enter into transactions that require accounting recognition, adding a product line, selling a division, decreasing expenditures. For example, implementation of a decision to enhance the entitys reedit and collection activities may legitimately support reducing the estimate of bad debt expense. Abusive earnings management is deemed by the Securities ; Exchange Commission to be a material and intentional misrepresentation of results. This is the case when the management circumvents GAP in an effort to influence reported earnings. Accounting records may be falsified, all the legal liabilities may not be reported, and fictitious transactions may be entered. In many cases, leadership is responsible for employing techniques to manage and smooth earnings. It should however, be noted that earnings management that constitutes read is distinctly different from earnings management perceived to reduce the quality of earnings. While the pure-fraud cases are to be dealt with through criminal law, issues such as earnings management are also to be dealt with through stringent provisions securities regulation and corporate governance norms. The current evidence indicates a greater incidence of the former type of cases rather than the latter, but beyond a point the distinction between the two gets somewhat blurred (as in Satyrs case) and hence caution must be exercised to prevent both types of occurrences. A major area of concern regarding practice of earnings management is the effect it has on destabilize the stock markets. Motives The major drivers which motivate the management to resort to techniques of earnings management may be discussed as follows: * Achieve targeted results * Emphasis on quarterly reporting * Analyst recommendations * High expectation of shareholders * Performance based pay and stock options * Pressure on Board of Directors and top management to showcase their leadership Instruments Some common techniques of revenue management are described below: * Vendor Financing Vendor financing occurs when a company loans money to a company to a customer to purchase goods from the company. The result is increase in sales revenue on the income statement and an increase in notes receivables on the Balance Sheet. The increase in revenues improves earnings and the related ratios that have operating Income Ana net Income In ten computation. I nee technique Is common to some industries such as telecommunications. For example, in early 2000, Motorola loaned more than $ 2 billion via vendor financing to Titles, a Turkish telecommunication company. Subsequent to the financing, Titles defaulted on the principal and interest payments, forcing Motorola to write off the receivable and recognize a loss. The concern here is that financial analysis and subsequent decisions made about a company based on the current period revenues and earnings are immediately distorted. * Booking a Sale before its time Another way of increasing revenues is to record sales in the accounting records before they are earned. One technique is stuffing the sales channel. Managers ship inventory to customers and recorded the corresponding revenues in spite of clauses f returning the goods without cause beyond year end. Another commonly used technique is to record the sale and leave the delivery date open for the customer. Not reducing sales for promised rebates is yet another instrument of revenue management. Revenue can also be increase by shipping and recording as a sale goods delivered on consignment. Companies in the service industry frequently resort to revenue management. Software support and maintenance contracts, engineering updates, equipment maintenance contracts, and other may call for a long term agreement between the service provider and customer. In order to increase revenues a service provider may record as revenue the entire or a substantial portion of the contract in the first year. Many internet retailers and advertising agencies use the gross method of recording revenues. Under the gross approach, revenues collected and the cost of the ticket are recorded separately, thus creating an appearance of high revenue business. Earnings are generally managed by selecting the amount and time period an expense is recorded on the income statement. Commonly used techniques may be describes as follows: * Cookie Jars This is a technique where managers selectively record or fail to record certain expenses on the income statement, using an offsetting Balance Sheet account (cookie jar) to absorb the impact on earnings. This technique is employed on one or more expense categories. Such as bad debt expense, inventory write downs, warranty expenses, sales return, depreciation and others. For example in periods of low earnings, the amount recorded as bad debt expense may be reduced and in periods of high earnings this amount may be increased. The cookie Jar, the allowance for doubtful accounts, simply floats up and down to accommodate the desired expense accrual. The company will rarely report the Justification for changes to the allowance account. This leaves open the allowance for a doubtful accounts cookie Jar for the executives to manage earnings. Non Recurring Charges and the Big Bath The use of non recurring charges is an extension of the cookie Jar concept. It is common for businesses to close plants, reposition operating units, reduce labor counts, outsource non core business functions, and more. The entire amount is recorded as an expense in the current period as a no recurring charge (also kn own as restructuring charge). A restructuring reserve account is established as a liability on the Balance Sheet to offset the actual cash payments for restructuring the business, which may occur over one or more subsequent accounting periods. Executives practicing earnings management underestimate these restructuring reserves to enhance current pergola earnings. A Log Damn occurs when overstated restructuring charges hit the income statement in the current year. Management uses the restructuring charge to establish a restructuring reserve cookie Jar on the Balance Sheet by overstating the current period restructuring expense, thus reducing earnings in excess for the current period. Off Balance Sheet Financing Off Balance Sheet financing is defined as debt obligations that are not recorded on the Balance Sheet. Although technically, they do not alter the earnings, they do affect they do affect the ratios that use debt in the numerator or denominator. Examples of off Balance Sheet financing include: * Operating Leases * Limited Partnerships Coin Ventures) * Pension Obligations * Receivables that have been factored (sold) Project Methodology Objective To identify the various factors affecting Revenue Earnings Management in the Indian IT Industry. Scope The scope of our study was the 85 listed Indian IT companies with data in the public domain for the last 5 years. Methodology The Discretionary accruals have been taken as a proxy of earnings management by a number of researchers. Discretionary accruals are calculated as the difference between total accruals and non discretionary accruals. Firms having high investments tend to report more discretionary accruals in their earnings. The nondiscriminatory component reflects business conditions (such as growth and the length of the operating cycle) that naturally create and destroy accruals, while the correctional component identifies management choices.

2008 Presidential Campaign Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

2008 Presidential Campaign - Essay Example This essay discusses the 2008 presidential campaign and presidential election, in which Obama contested with John Mc Cain. This was the election in which Obama got the highest vote and he won with the highest vote count. It happened on November 4th of 2008 and Obama was an attractive personality even when he was campaigning for the election. Barack Obama was on the part of Democrats while John Mc Cain was with Republicans. Obama voted from Illinois while John was from the senate of Arizona. The highlight of this election was that in this election Obama won the highest number of votes any president has earned in the whole history of America. Here Obama received 365 electoral votes while John received 173 electoral votes. The researcher aims to analyze the question why Obama was so much popular and highly voted during 2008 election. One of the unique features of the 2008 election was that Black got a chance to vote for someone without having racial consciousness. The unique quality of Obama was that he had the innate characteristic of reviving something or a country which was shattered in pieces. Obama before his 2008 campaign completely studied the economical situation of the country and understood the problems of common men. He was not only preaching but also practicing in a positive manner. It is then concluded by the researcher of the essay, that it was Obama’s dedication, hard work, love and compassion to his country and country men which led to his presidency to be a success.

Contact Issues in Family Law Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 3750 words

Contact Issues in Family Law - Essay Example The increasing incidence of divorce has created custody battles and problems of access, which have proved to be detrimental to children. Studies conducted by Flouri and Buchanan have revealed that rancor among divorced parents and lack of contact with their father can lead to depression in children, especially girls and in the case of males, the absence of a father can also lead to criminal behavior. According to Matthew Stannard, one of the causes for violent criminal behavior in fatherless boys may be a â€Å"mother’s hostility† towards the father which deprives the child of contact with him, or because the father doesn’t take fatherhood seriously. Bob Geldorf, one of the most vocal activists for the rights of fathers, pointed out that fundamental changes are required in the law and the process in family courts, which tend to favor mothers in the battle for custody of children. The family Court system is based upon adversarial rules of litigation, and acrimonious divorce proceedings can often place the parents as bitter opponents in the Courts and cause child custody hearing to become scenes of power struggles. The family Courts have been ineffective in enforcing court ordered access to fathers, since they are reluctant to separate the children from their mothers and there is a lack of availability of middle ranking punishments and incentives to ensure cooperation from mothers – even when punitive fines and prison terms exist for breaching of contact orders, they may not be imposed in view of the danger of adverse consequential effect upon the child. Family cases take a long time to be processed through the court system, as a result of which fathers are denied access to their children for extended periods.

Web Literacy for Educators Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

Web Literacy for Educators - Essay Example URLs provide us with the ways in which the site is organized. Extensions such as .org, .com, .edu, and country codes such as .mx for Mexico suggest that the website is owned either by the government or any private organization. However, keenness and critical thinking are needed in discerning the accuracy and validity of the site because anyone can choose and buy their own domain names. In addition, reading URLs also gives the researcher the ability to â€Å"truncate† (November 12). By truncating, the researcher can go back to the home page by deleting sub domains in the address bar for easier navigation. November explains the importance and ways of reading URL (12). URLs provide us with the ways in which the site is organized. Extensions such as .org, .com, .edu, and country codes such as .mx for Mexico suggest that the website is owned either by the government or any private organization. However, keenness and critical thinking are needed in discerning the accuracy and validi ty of the site because anyone can choose and buy their own domain names. In addition, reading URLs also gives the researcher the ability to â€Å"truncate† (November 12). By truncating, the researcher can go back to the home page by deleting sub domains in the address bar for easier navigation. Knowledge of the rules and Internet grammar is very important in advancing literacy among children in today’s generation because admittedly, the Internet has now become the modern library.

Military force and promoting humanitarian values

Military force and promoting humanitarian values This essay will argue that military force is an ineffective instrument for the promotion of humanitarian values. However, this is qualified by also presenting reasons for discounting the effectiveness of non-military interventions. This essay will be structured as follows. The first sections will confront methodological issues that have to be addressed before the question can be answered. Following this we will embark on a comparison of military and non-military interventions. The essay will evaluate a paradigm case of a successful operation, Australia in East Timor. We will argue it is anomalous and can barely qualify as a genuine intervention. We then see a true case of an intervention, Afghanistan, and conclude that this constitutes a failure of a military promotion of humanitarian values. We will then move onto evaluate two cases of non-military interventions, UN Resolutions and economic sanctions. It will be argued that UN sanctions are impotent, with reference to the actions of Israel. The essay will then examine the sanctions placed on Iraq, and argue that they caused a greater humanitarian crisis than any hitherto encountered intervention. The essay will conclude with reasons why one should refrain from drawing methodological precepts from previous interventions, and advocates a case-by-case analysis. It is important to limit the scope of this debate. First of all, I will not be discussing issues such as the legitimacy of military force being used in national liberation movements with the discussion instead focusing on third party military intervention. There are questions that further need to be addressed: Firstly, what constitutes military force? Is it the mere presence of military personnel (e.g. UN Peacekeeping forces), or does it have to be active military participation? Secondly, what are humanitarian values? Thirdly, how does one measure the promotion of such values? Is there a quantifiable way to ask whether their promotion has been effective? Fourthly, are there case studies which can be turned to in order to address the question? If there has never been a genuinely humanitarian intervention, then it will be impossible to assess the success of such an endeavour. In response to the first question, it is simpler to treat all military interventions of the same ilk. Consider the criteria set out by the Red Cross (1997), arguing that a prerequisite for an intervention to be humanitarian it has to be neutral, impartial and independent. The position of the Red Cross is that no armed force could satisfy these requirements backed as they are by political governments with their own agenda. If one finds this cogent, then there is no prima facie reason for discerning between mercenary, state-backed and UN organisations[1]. In regards to humanitarian values, and how to measure their effectiveness, to find a view backed by consensus is almost impossible. We confront positions as diverse as simple, utilitarian measurements of the amount of people whose lives have been saved (Janzekovic, 2006: 144) to more specific positions such as Regan (1996: 341-342) who claims that an intervention can be deemed successful if it destabilises the region in such a way, so that it is more difficult for the oppressing-state to continue with its human rights violations. This position would not use a short-term measurement such as deaths to measure the success of an intervention. However, I shall err on the simpler measurement. This is simply due to that the measurement of injuries, fatalities and abuses in a conflict is a simpler tool of analysis, rather than a vague notion such as favourable destabilisation[2]. Finally, as to whether there has been a genuine humanitarian intervention, the answer seems to be negative[3]. Regardless of whether or not one agrees with the historical analysis in the books cited, there is an explanatory problem for believers in genuine intervention, which is the sporadic and inconsistent use of such interventions. This is what Paris (2014: 578-588) calls the inconsistency problem. The thrust of the problem is that such inconsistent use of military intervention in regards to humanitarian crises implies that there is more tha n just selfless means motivating the intervenors. Although other factors affect the ability to intervene (Binder: 2009), there is a strong motivation that, when combined with the historical record, humanitarian intervention is a misnomer. However, let us leave this issue to the side. What we shall discuss now is the following: Do military interventions for nominally humanitarian ends, save more lives than non-military means for the same ends? Let us examine some of the paradigmatic cases of successful military intervention. One often cited is the success of the Australian intervention in East Timor in 1999. The intervention was required due to the Indonesian governments oppressive measures used to quell an East Timorese population insistent on independence from Jakarta. During the referendum campaign, there was widespread use of militia intimidation to quell support for independence, accompanied by widespread human rights violations. The actions of the Indonesian forces resulted in the displacement of around 40,000 – 85,000 East Timorese (T. Seybolt, 2007: 88.)). The success of the Australian military has been praised by some, such as Wheeler and Dunne (2001) who took such success as totalling almost a paradigm shift on the effectiveness and new normative perspective of a humanitarian intervention (contrasting it with the collusion of the United States in the violent occupation of the East Timor in 1975 (Amnesty In ternational, 1985). However, although the Australian intervention is largely considered successful, unfortunately, it does not meet the criteria of a humanitarian intervention. Humanitarian interventions, under most definitions (Roberts, 2003:5) have to be a military action without the consent of the oppressing power, in this case, Indonesia. However, as is noted by Chesterman (2002), Australia sought the consent of the Indonesian government, before intervening. The Australian government of the 5th of September said that they would only consider intervention if four conditions were met: (i) there was a security council mandate, (ii) if the Indonesian government consented, (iii) if the endeavour was a short term one, and (iv) if the force had a strong regional component Wheeler and Dunne (ibid p.807). What makes the fact that consent was sought from Indonesia considerably stranger was the fact that, apart from Australia, the international community did not believe that Indonesia had any rights over East Timor, with East Timor being internationally considered to be an independent state. As Chesterman goes onto note as well, that, although it is often cited to be an example of successful intervention, the fact remains that the international community displayed great reticence in intervening (contrasted with their enthusiasm regarding Bosnia). Chesterman concludes that if Australia had not intervened, no one else would have (Chesterman 2002:181)) There are also significant reasons that the reason for Australian intervention were hardly impartial either, as Chesterman also notes that the Howard Government of Australia was probably more worried about the influx of refugees that would come from such a crisis (a point which is corroborated by Gonzalez-Forester (2004), who documents Australia and other countries previous ambivalences to violent Indonesian actions towards the East-Timorese.) This case study appears to support the question posed in the affirmative, as once the Australian forces intervened, the extent of the massacres and expropriations stopped considerably. Thus, there does appear to be some motivation for considering military intervention a useful technique. However, there are also other considerable problems by extrapolating from this example. First of all, the Indonesian forces consented to their intervention, so the Australians were entering a comparatively un-hostile environment, and secondly, this fact is bolstered by the generally warm relations between Australia and Indonesia. In order for us to extrapolate from this example, we would have to see how well interventions perform in a country which does not openly consent to the intervention from a third party. Such an example would be Afghanistan, a country that has twice been intervened by hostile forces supporting apparently humanitarian goals (both Russia (1979-1989) and the United States (2001- Ongoing)). Both of these interventions have had the nominal motivation of humanitarian ends, and both have, to some extent worked towards them. In the case of the Russian intervention, it seems to be that the attempt to intervene has failed, despite the attempt to implement progressive policies (Bennis, 2015). The report cited documents how their attempts to implement progressive policies in the rural areas of Afghanistan provoked widespread rebellion, thus making the humanitarian situation considerably worse. The United States intervention initially seemed to be a more intelligent intervention, with there being a pronouncement of the military intervention being accompanied by humanitarian aid drops. However, as Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) note, the aid packages of food (which only occurred a round once a month) shared the same yellow packaging as cluster bombs, which led to a number of casualties (Calas and Salignon: 2004, p. 82.) Asides from that, there also seems to be strong reports that human rights are being abused by militant forces which the united states support. For example, the New York Times have reported on a massacre occurring in Dasht-E-Leili, where Afghan Soldiers killed Taliban POWs on their route to Sheberghen Prison (Gall, 2001).this directly violates Article 13 of the Geneva Convention regarding the treatment of POWs (ICRC, 1949). Incidents such as this are indicative of a failed intervention, in regards to the promotion of explicitly humanitarian values. Although the indefinite extension of the US-Afghanistan war means that any conclusion might seem premature, the track record of the past 14 years indicates that military interventions do not promote humanitarian ends if the members of the occupying country do not welcome it. We have thus encountered compelling reasons to dismiss the effectiveness of military means for promoting humanitarian ends. What is now necessary is to contrast this with the effectiveness of non-military interventions. We shall examine two such examples: UN declarations and economic sanctions. We shall conclude that both are ineffective: UN declarations are ineffective without military support, and economic sanctions can exacerbate already precarious situations. In regards to the first point, there does seem to be a strong case for this. Consider, for example, the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territory in the West Bank and Gaza, as well as their occupation of the Golan Heights in Syria. All of these violate international law, and violate UN sanctions (Hammon, 2010)). However, this does not seem to have deterred the Israeli government from refraining from the maintenance of such illegal activities, nor does it seem to have any force in preventing further breaches of internationa l law. Secondly, consider the economic sanctions that were placed on Iraq in response to the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait implemented by United Nations Security Council Resolution 661 (S/RES/661 (1990)) These sanctions are considered to have some of the most disastrous humanitarian results of recent history. The result of these sanctions have resulted in UNICEF reporting around 500,000 Iraqi children under the age of 5 dying (an increase of over 4,000 deaths a month compared to before the sanctions were enforced) (Edwards, 2000) In fact, the oil-for-food program has had effects that compelled the organiser of the program, Denis Halliday, to resign, calling the program genocidal. The fact that this resignation at such a senior level in the UN is almost unprecedented is remarkable in and of itself. What makes this fact more remarkable is due to the fact that the person assigned to replace him, Hans von Sponeck, also resigned from the post, citing similar reasons (ibid.) A counter-point co uld be raised here, to the effect that it was not so much the food-for-oil program itself that was the problem, but rather the insufficiencies of the program in light of the bombing campaign that almost crippled Iraqs infrastructure. For example, Eric Hoskins claimed that [the bombing campaign] effectively terminated everything vital to human survival in Iraq – electricity, water, sewage systems, agriculture, industry and health care (Curtis, 1995: 189). Thus, the point could be raised that this should be cited as a failure of military intervention, rather than non-violent. This point is a strong one, yet the cataclysmic consequences were not invoked by the bombing campaign, rather it was the sanctions which prevented the rebuilding which precipitated a humanitarian disaster. It is difficult to equate the success and failure of these positions, as they are often used in tandem, and it becomes difficult to dissociate what could be indications of mere incompetence, from the mor e malice invocations of the doctrine of realpolitik. In conclusion, it is difficult to ascertain the effectiveness of military force. This is because paradigmatically successful operations, such as East Timor do not qualify. The possibility of a further answer is complicated due to the fact that the Israel-Palestine conflicts demonstrates the impotence of non-military means without the possibility of an armed intervention. Yet, the fact that condemnations are powerless also does not help us answer the question: Afghanistan shows how a militarily backed campaign can make a military solution to legitimate grievances considerably worse, and yet Iraq shows us how economic sanctions also exacerbate precarious scenarios. It seems to be that to offer an answer regarding the effectiveness of this-or-that method is premature, and universal laws determining efficacy should be replaced with a case-by-case analysis. Footnotes 1 For a response to this, see Janzekovic (2006, p.130). For a more methodological reason regarding the difficulty of providing meaningful distinctions between forms of intervention, see Raymond (2015. p.295-298) 2 For example, did the UN sanctions against Iraq in response to their invasion of Kuwait destabilise Saddam? It is not obvious to say. 3 For why interventions previous to World War I were not humanitarian, see Losurdo (2014) For why interventions post- World War II were not humanitarian see Blum (2003) Bibliography Amnesty International. (1985) East Timor Violations of Human Rights: Extrajudicial Executions, Disappearances, Torture and Political Imprisonment, 1975–1984. London: Amnesty International Publications. Bennis, P. (2015) Afghanistan in: Assange, J. The WikiLeaks Files: The World According to US Empire. New York: Verso Books. Pp. 368-394 Blum, W. (2003) Killing hope: US military and CIA interventions since World War II. London: Zed Books Calas, F. and Salignon, P. (2004) Afghanistan: From Militant Monks to Crusaders. In: Weissman In the Shadow of Just Wars, Weissman, ed. London: Hurts and Co. Chesterman, S. (2002) Just War or Just Peace? Oxford: Oxford University Press Curtis, M. (1995) The ambiguities of power: British foreign policy since 1945. London: Zed books. Edwards, D. (2000) An Interview with Denis Halliday. Media Lens. [Online] 16th May. Available at: http://www.medialens.org/index.php/alerts/interviews/77-an-interview-with-denis-halliday.html. [Accessed 19th October 2015] Gall, C. (2001) Study Hints at Mass Killing by the Taliban. New York Times [Online] May 1st Available at http://www.nytimes.com/2002/05/01/world/study-hints-at-mass-killing-of-the-taliban.html [Accessed 19th October 2015] Gonzalez-Foerster, G. (2004). East Timor: Better Late Than Never. In: Weissman. Ed. In the Shadow of Just Wars, . London: Hurts and Co. 25-42. Hammond, J.R. (2010) Rogue State: Israels violations of UN Security Council resolutions Foreign Policy Journal. [Online] 27th January. Available at: http://www.foreignpolicyjournal.com/2010/01/27/rogue-state-israeli-violations-of-u-n-security-council-resolutions/. [Accessed 19th October 2015] International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (1997) Can Military Intervention and Humanitarian Action Coexist? World Disasters Report. Oxford: Oxford University Press International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) (1949), Geneva Convention Relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War (Fourth Geneva Convention), 12 August, 75 UNTS 287, available at: http://www.refworld.org/docid/3ae6b36d2.html. [Accessed 19 October 2015] Janzekovic, J. (2006) The use of force in humanitarian intervention: morality and practicalities. Hampshire: Ashgate Publishing, Ltd., Losurdo, D. (2014) Liberalism: a counter-history. London: Verso Books. Paris, R. (2014) The Responsibility to Protectand the Structural Problems of Preventive Humanitarian Intervention. International Peacekeeping 21.5: 569-603. Raymond, D (2015). Military Means of Preventing Mass Atrocities. In Rosenberg, S. Galis, T. Zucker A. eds. 2015: Reconstructing Atrocity Prevention. New York: Cambridge University Press. Pp.295- 320 Regan, P M. (1996) Conditions of successful third-party intervention in intrastate conflicts. Journal of Conflict Resolution 40.2: 336-359 Roberts, A. (2002) The So-Called Right of Humanitarian Intervention, in Yearbook of International Humanitarian Law 2000, 3. The Hgue: T.M.C Asser. Seybolt, T B. (2007) Humanitarian military intervention: the conditions for success and failure. Oxford: Oxford University Press. UN Security Council, Resolution 661 (1990) Adopted by the Security Council at its 2933rd meeting, on 6 August 1990, 6 August 1990, S/RES/661 (1990), available at: http://www.refworld.org/docid/3b00f16b24.html [accessed 25 October 2015] Wheeler, N. and Dunne, T. (2001) East Timor and the New Humanitarian Interventionism, International Affairs, 77, 4, pp. 805–27.

Effective Communication Skills Essay -- Message, Feedback

Introduction An important step to becoming an effective leader is to develop effective communication skills. Communication is the transmission of meaning from one person to another or to many people, whether verbally or non-verbally (Barrett, 2006). Effective communication enables leaders to lead. Effective communication occurs only if the receiver understands the exact information or idea that the sender intended to covey. As a leader, studying the communication process is important. Communication skills, including the ability to problem solve, work in teams, and adapt to various audiences, are critical in today’s workplace (Levy& Murname, 2004). Since the most successful leaders communicate well, understanding how your communication is working and how it might work better is critical to achieving similar success. The purpose of this paper is to assess my communication skills and develop a recipe for successful communication that other leaders can use to evaluate their communication skills. I will outline my approach to assessing my communication skills and describe my development plan for improving those skills. Methods According to Chambers (2001), communicating is a complex process. The ability to draft a message, deliver it to another, listen for feedback, process it, and continue to communicate in ways that are understood requires skills that take time to develop. The best place to start is to first understand which communication skills need development. The first tool I used to perform my self- assessment was a comprehensive communication evaluation tool developed by IHC Health Services (see Appendix A). I chose this instrument because I wanted to start my assessment by measuring my overall understanding of the... ... communicator. My second goal is to understand the different communication styles and adjust my communication style to the needs of others. This goal will be achieved once I have mastered the art of altering my behavior so that it fits better with another person’s style. This skill will need to be practiced and honed until it is perfected. It will take time to master this skill. Conclusion Improving communication skills should be a priority for all leaders. Becoming an effective communicator takes practice. Identifying communication skills to personally work on is the first step in becoming a better communicator and better leader. Great leaders recognize the importance of good communication. Responsible leaders work to prevent communication mishaps and keep the communication flowing throughout their organizations.

“Father Returning Home” by Dilip Chitre Essay

Dilip Purushottam Chitre was one of the foremost Indian writers and critics of the post Independence India. Apart from a being a writer, he was also a painter and a filmmaker. Father Returning Home is a short and appealing poem about an old man in a cosmopolitan city where his own sons and daughters treat him as an alien. He himself is estranged from the man-made world. Through this poem, Chitre has denounced the urban rootlessness and alienation. The first stanza of Father Returning Home describes the train journey of his father while returning home one evening. The father stands among commuters in the yellow light of a local compartment. The poet describes his father’s reaction against the sights of the suburbs that pass by. His father remains unmoved by the sights because they are too familiar to him. That is quite normal, isn’t it? We hardly pay attention to those places where we travel every day, unless the place has something interesting to offer. Same was with the poet’s father. The poet then describes his father’s pathetic condition, as he travels during the rainy season. His clothes become damp and dirty. The black raincoat that he wears becomes stained with mud. His bag crumbles with the heavy load of the books. Due to old age, the poet’s father’s eyesight has become poor and therefore he finds difficulty to move about in the dark. The poet says that he can see his father getting down the train ‘like a word dropped from a long sentence.’ The sentence is highly unique and it provides an evocative image of an old man who gets down from the train as if he is no longer relevant to it. The poet then sees his father hurrying through the long, grey platform. The man seems to be as old as the platform, who has been using it as a part of his routine. He crosses the railway tracks and hurries home through muddy lanes on a rainy day. This is indicated by his chappals which are sticky with mud. This stanza portrays the monotonousness of the old man, who sustains the vagaries of weather as well as the estrangement from the man-made. The second stanza, the poet represents the alienation of his father that he experiences in his own dwelling.

Bespoke

Bespoke Bespoke Bespoke By Maeve Maddox A reader has asked for a discussion of the word bespoke: I keep reading it in articles, and at least half the time I see it I end up looking it up because it just doesn’t seem correct to me. Bespoke is an adjective that comes from the archaic English verb bespeak. One of the meanings of the prefix be- is â€Å"about.† When miserly Samuel Pepys dreads that a man wants him to be his son’s godfatheran honor that would require some outlay of cashhe says, [The man] who I feared did come to bespeak me to be godfather to his son. That is, â€Å"who he feared had come to speak to him about the prospect of his standing godfather.† In early usage bespeak could also mean â€Å"to speak out,† â€Å"to ask for,† â€Å"to tell about,† and â€Å"to predict,† as well as the meaning that has survived in the bespoke of the reader’s question: â€Å"to engage beforehand; to order goods.† Bespoke and bespoken are past forms of bespeak. For example, A new set of chains was bespoke. (A new set of chains was ordered.) She had arranged or bespoken to have him killed. (She had talked about a hit.) In its current use as an adjective, bespoke refers to custom-made goods in contrast to goods that are ready-made. The adjective can also refer to a person who provides such goods, (e.g., â€Å"a bespoke tailor†). In England the expression â€Å"bespoke suit† is a common way of referring to a tailor-made suit. In the context of conspicuous consumption, bespoke seems to have something to do with the desires of hedonists who don’t know what to do with their money. Watchmakers look to bespoke design to court the super-rich: We will offer a bespoke service where the customer has a say on everything: the material, the case, the dial, the hands, said Thierry Andretta, president of the firm where prices for custom-made watches start at 100,000 Swiss francs ($113,000). Gourmet dining, private flights, bespoke safaris, slimming clinics and art auctions emerging as top status symbols The Privileged World City: Private Banking, Wealth Management and the Bespoke Servicing of the Global Super-Rich American speakers of less extravagant means and tastes are more likely to refer to the things they special-order as â€Å"custom-made.† 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 Expressions category, check our popular posts, or choose a related post below:75 Contronyms (Words with Contradictory Meanings)The Possessive ApostropheParticular vs. Specific

A biography of Ralph Waldo Emerson essays

A biography of Ralph Waldo Emerson essays One of Americas most influential thinkers and authors was Ralph Waldo Emerson. Ralph Waldo Emerson was born in Boston on May 25, 1803. Emerson's dad died when he was only eight, which forced his mom to take in boarders to support the family's needs. When Emerson was only 14, he entered Harvard, where he ran became a sort of secretary for the president of the university. When he graduated Harvard, at age 18, he became a teacher. When he got tired or teaching, he enrolled in the Divinity School, in Cambridge, Massachusetts, to become a preacher. After his graduation of the Divinity School, he started his minister career as a guest speaker at local churches. Three years after his graduation, he was appointed minister of the Second Church of Boston. Because of personal doubts about the Church doctrine, he felt he could no longer administer the Lord's supper, he quit as minister of the Second Church of Boston. After Emerson left his career as a minister, he sailed to Europe, where he met many prominent European writers. A year later, he returned back to the United States, where he settled in Concord Massachusetts. At an oration at Harvard, he gave one of his most famous, if not his most famous speech, "The American Scholar." "The American Scholar," was a speech about being intellectually independent. Intellectually Independent simply means that everyone should think for themselves, and not become a "parrot of other mens thinking." This speech was very important in Emerson's life, because he was able to mention his theory of Transcendentalism to an open audience. Emerson's most popular written work, was probably "Nature." "Nature," was an essay on the theory of Transcendentalism, and his personal views of nature. Although Emerson wrote many famous works, his main source of income was being a public speaker. Among the places Emerson spoke were lyceums, and universities. Although Emerson mainly spoke at l ...

Assignment Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

Assignment - Essay Example The mayor of London was bestowed with the authority to take over the strategic roles and responsibility that would oversee the performance of different departments. In this consultative agreement, the mayor was assigned a major role to stimulate socio-economic expansion and development of the environment (Imrie, 2009). Moreover, the mayor was endorsed with the role of setting legislative strategies on various sectors in London such as transport, planning, and waste management. The aim of the statutory strategies was to improve the welfare of the people of London city as well as increase the power of the mayor of London. Moreover, the mayor was made responsible for setting up the budget of the city and the entire Greater London Authority. Moreover, the mayor was to oversee the budget planning of the subsidiaries of Greater London Authority such as the London Development Agency (LDA), the Metropolitan Police Authority (MPA) and London Fire and Emergency Planning Authority (LFEPA), Tran sport for London (TfL). In this agreement, the mayor was also responsible for appointing boards for the TfL, and LDA (Allmendinger, 2006). Literature Review Following the agreement, the mayor formulated policies that gave support to the development of sustainable environment. The aim of these policies was to facilitate well-organized age group use, and supply of energy in London. In addition, the aim of these policies by the mayor was to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and to deal with issues of climate change. Change of climate has been one of the most daring threats for the lives of the people of London city. Furthermore, London is challenged by lack of fuels therefore necessitating the formation of policies which would that would emphasis on the environment especially the issues that facilitate preservation of the surroundings for better well-being among the people (Greater London Authority, 2010). In his policy, the mayor of London was supposed to develop a legislative responsib ility that permits formulation of strategies that favor energy policies that are auspicious to the environment. The policies would achieve this through distribution of energy efficiency expenses to meet the wants of diverse individuals in the city. Recent research has predicted that water will be an unavailable resource in London owing to climate change and the growth of population in the region. The policies have led to the formation of Mayor’s Water Action Framework that is accountable for the regulation of water price limits in London (Greater London Authority, 2010). According to The Greater London Authority (2010), the framework molded would function under the leadership of environment agency. It is mandatory that all issues related to energy sources and water distribution be environmentally friendly in order to safeguard the well-being of the people of London is enhanced. It is imperative to take into consideration that manufacturing firms can easily contaminate the env irons through emission of fumes such as Carbon IV oxide, which destroys the ozone layer. Furthermore, discarding waste products such as chemical compounds, which are by-products of manufacturing processes, can also contaminate the surroundings through pollution of water particularly in the

How a Sports Coach Could Motivate the Athletes Term Paper

How a Sports Coach Could Motivate the Athletes - Term Paper Example Mere physical strength and athletic skill are not enough; the will to win and perform is crucial, and it needs to be inculcated within the performers. Many scientific theories purport the same and will be discussed hereunder. However, some, like the trait theory may present facts which go in the other direction. It focuses on the intrinsic traits of people which are inherently different. Nonetheless, as the development of the other theories will go on to show, a potent show of motivation by the coach can increase performance beyond expectations. Motivation intrinsically charges and individual, and becomes the intangible source of energy that directs a person towards his/her goal. This is the human fuel which basically separates the achiever from the adversary. All this goes beyond verbal whims. There is more than enough scientific evidence that supports the above-mentioned proposition. With recent examples of researches from sports journals, four such theories of motivation will be cited hereunder, namely achievement motivation theory, attribution theory, cognitive evaluation theory, and goal-setting theory. What're more, specific motivational theories fit right into the existing practices within sports, thereby clearly identifying the link between motivation and sport from the context of a coach. Three important needs surface in this context. The need for achievement comes first, wherein there is an urge to accomplish something difficult. Then is the need for affiliation, in which a person wishes to form close personal relationships. Finally, there is a need for power, in which one seeks to have control over others. Understand of the patterns of these needs is very important, as more often than not, a sportsman is making all the effort in order to accomplish one or more of these needs.