Investors Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Investors - Essay Example Monetary policy, in the broadest sense, includes all the tools enforced by the government to control the quantity of money in the economy. The quantity of money or the supply of money then affects the overall price level, exchange and interest rates, unemployment rate, and level of output. According to the Case and Fair (2007), U.S. monetary policy is formally set by the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC), which sets goals concerning the money supply and interest rates as it directs the Open Market Desk in the New York Federal Reserve Bank to buy and/or sell government securities or debt and equity instruments. The capital market then is a market for securities where the government can raise long-term funds to finance its own projects usually regulated by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to protect investors mainly against fraud. To give a quick summary of how monetary supply directly affects output or income, assume that there is an excess supply of money in the market. This will lead households, firms and buy bonds with their extra money so that it earns interest. This however will put downward pressure on the interest rate because many people will be investing their money in interest earning instruments. Investors, on the other hand, borrow money from the banks with the very same interest rate that households and firms determine. A low interest rate means more incentive for investors to borrow and put up their own businesses using their low-interest borrowings from banks. This, in conclusion, increases output and, in the long-run, stimulates output growth. According to Mankiw (2007), in recent years, the Fed has used the federal funds rate as its short-term policy instrument and when the FOMC meets every six weeks to set its monetary policy, it votes on a target for its interest rate and then directs the Fed Bond traders in New

John the Baptist Rewrite Essay Example for Free

John the Baptist Rewrite Essay Abstract John the Baptist practiced preaching and baptizing Jews in the river Jordan. He was the one who recognized Jesus as the messiah and baptized him. This baptism was the beginning of Jesus’ life as a teacher. But it is his death that is almost always how John the Baptist is remembered and studied. His teaching is the basis of Baptist today. His life is told in only the Gospels and not much is really known about the man who came before Jesus to preach the word of God and of Jesus’ coming. INTRODUCTION: John the Baptist practiced preaching and baptizing Jews in the river Jordan. He was the one who recognized Jesus as the messiah and baptized him. This baptism was the beginning of Jesus’ life as a teacher. But it is his death that is almost always how John the Baptist is remembered and studied. His teaching is the basis of Baptist today. The New Testament does not supply precise information about the dates of John’s or Jesus’ birth. Usually John the Baptist is associated with the Advent season. His Birth is celebrated on June 24th. In the third or fourth century the birthday of Jesus was assigned to Dec. 25th, around the time of the winter solstice, after what we call the shortest day of the year, when the time of daylight begins to increase. In John’s Gospel there is a saying from John the Baptist, referring to Jesus, that â€Å"he must increase; I must decrease† (3:30). And so the birth of John was assigned to June 24th, after the summer solstice, when the daylight begins to decrease, following the longest day of the year. The Scripture readings for the nativity of St. John the Baptist reflect the dynamics of Decrease and increase between John and Jesus. Today’s Old Testament reading is one of the servant songs from Second Isaiah. It was chosen for its reference to the servant having been named from his mother’s womb (Luke 1:60). But the passage also expresses important aspects of John’s career as a prophet to God’s people and a light to the nations. At the same time his status as servant makes him subordinate to Jesus. The selection from Paul’s speech in Acts 13 reminds us that John played a pivotal role in Salvation history and so won a place in the early Christian proclamation. Importance is given to John’s own recognition of his subordinate status with respect to Jesus, â€Å"I am not worthy to unfasten the sandals of his feet†. HIS HISTORY: John the Baptist was described as a man that walked among the Jews in animal’s hair that was not covered by his own skin and he was a savage. He came with a message that â€Å"God hath sent me to show you the way of the law, by which ye shall be freed from many tyrants. And no mortal shall rule over you, but only the highest who hath sent me. † He dipped them into the stream of the Jordan and let them go warning them that they should renounce evil deeds (Harrington, 2005, p. 25). In Luke’s early narrative there are many parallels and comparisons between John and Jesus, both in the announcements of their births and in the accounts of them. While John is great, Jesus is greater is the message given. The idea is not to critic John but rather to highlight Jesus’ greatness. The birth of John is presented by Luke as the fulfillment of God’s promises not only to his elderly parents but also to God’s people as a whole, Elizabeth and Zechariah, John’s parents, insists that the child be named John , a name whose Hebrew form, Yohana, celebrates God’s mercy and favor to his people . If there is any connections between Jesus ant the Dead Sea Scrolls, it is through John, who was â€Å"in the desert until the day of his manifestation to Israel† The child John grew up to become a herald of God’s coming kingdom, the messiah and the mentor of Jesus. The Gospel of Luke provides some of the chronological history of John the Baptist. According to Luke, John began to preach his baptism of repentance in the fifteenth year of Tiberius. Jesus was born sometime before the death of Herod the Great. This puts him at about thirty when he began to preach and died during the reign of Pontius Pilate, whose term was terminated shortly before the death of Tiberius in 37 c. e. Since in all three gospels Jesus’ ministry appears to last no more than about a year, the gospel of Luke places the death of Jesus between 25 C. E. and 29 C. E. with the latter being a range that would fit with Luke’s claim that John began preaching around 28 C. E. (Kraemer, 2006, p. 334). There is a period of John the Baptist life that is blank and because the gospels are the only mentioning of the man, speculation has given a possibility of where he was. They believed that John the Baptist was a recluse who spent a great amount of time with a group of people named the Essenes. These people lived in the desert awaiting the imminent arrival of the Messiah (Miller Scelfo, 2007). The Essenes had turned its back on the Herodian temples and its worship to withdrawal to the Judean desert. Their communities were created using monastic style communities, but also to instill a religious life for families. These religious instructions included a literary center and used exclusive rituals such as baptism and prayer. This is probably where the basis of John’s beliefs was founded. In an article in Newsweek it discusses how close John the Baptist, Jesus and possibly his family were to the Essenes community. The actual ritual of Baptism, that was the Essenes belief, symbolizes â€Å"the leaving behind the sinful life one has led until now and to start out on the path to a new, changed life (Ratzinger, 2007). A Professor of religious studies wrote a book in 20006 that gave a little different look at the historical life of John the Baptist. According to this author, James Tolson, Jesus with his cousin John were in partnership and saw themselves as the founders not of a new religion but of a worldly royal dynasty that would be fulfilling ancient prophecies. The dynasty had come down from King David and was to restore Israel and guide it through an apocalyptic upheaval that was growing in the Kingdom of God on Earth. All of this was supposed to happen not in the distant or metaphoric future but then and now. True their message was one of a peaceful change, but Jesus knew he had aroused suspensions of Herodian rulers of Palestine as well as the Romans. So, according to Tolson, Jesus had to establish a provisional government with 12 tribal officials and named his brother James, not Paul as his successor. Later James became the leader of the early Christian movement (Tolson, 2006). HIS DEATH: History remembers Archelaus’s brother, Herod Antipas, because of his interactions with the prophet John the Baptist. John would loudly condemn Antipas immoral behavior of having stolen his brother’s wife, who was also his niece. Antipas arrested and kept John in chains, unable to kill him yet unable to put him out of his mind. According to the Book of Mark, â€Å"When Herod heard John, he was greatly puzzled; yet he liked to listen to him† (Mark 6:20). Through a trick thought up by his wife and her daughter Salome, Antipas ended up executing John. Reports then filtered in of another prophet, and Antipas, perhaps plagued by remorse tried to see Jesus who avoided him, because of what he had done to his cousin. In both Mark and Mathew, the death of John the Baptizer is told in flashbacks. Jesus’ activities have attracted attention, and there have been speculation as to his identity, with some proposing that Jesus could be John the Baptist. Ross S. Kraemer of Brown University wrote an essay dealing with this subject. He also wrote that, â€Å"Herod Antipas too having heard the word of the prophet after John’s beheading, believes that Jesus is indeed John. Herodias, Herod’s wife, was the one who resents John and wishes to kill him but she was still prevented by Antipa’s fear of John’s righteousness and holiness. In Mark’s account at Antipas’s birthday meal was when an opportunity presented itself to Herodias. Antipas became entranced by his wife’s daughter dancing and offered this daughter anything she wished, even half of his kingdom. The daughter then goes and asks her mother what to request and her mother replies that she wants her to ask for the head of John the Baptizer on a platter. Antipas complies only in order to keep his oath and preserve his honor before his guests. In Matthew’s account there are some differences but still significant differences. Both agree that it is Antipas who orders John’s execution, but in Mark it is only because of Herodias that he does so, because Antipas has no desire to kill John. In Matthew Antipas himself desires to be rid of John, but has reservations because he fears the people who see John as a prophet. In Matthew’s account Antipas thought well of John and found his speeches pleasing. In Matthew, Herodias does not appear as a player until the end where like in Mark; Herodias capitalizes on Antipas’s offer. In Mark, Antipas has been totally manipulated by Herodias and her daughter, but in Matthew, he has merely been enabled to do what he had wished all along but was too weak to do. One more account from the book of Josephus tells that Herodias and her daughter played no role whatsoever. Josephus and Matthew actually concur in seeing Herod as always desiring John’s death, but with different motivations being that John was critical of Herodias for the way of flouting Jewish tradition by marrying Antipas and this was the motive for Herods ordering the beheading. But Josephus does cite that Antipa’s was fearful of John’s popularity and that could have started and uprising. HIS PROPHECIES: John the Baptizer was a prophet that preached with not so much words but with life. The words of the prophet ring true only because they carry with them the sweat, tears and blood of the prophet. According to Abraham Joshua Heschel, prophets are preachers whose lives are under siege, â€Å"The prophet is a man who feels fiercely. God has thrust a burden upon his soul and he is bowed and stunned at man’s fierce greed. Frightful is the agony of man; no human voice can convey its full terror. Prophecy is the voice that God has lent to the silent agony, a voice to the plundered poor, to the profaned riches of the world. It is a form of living a crossing point of God and man. God is raging in the prophet’s words†. (Dube, 2002, p. 42). The ministry of John the Baptizer was to challenge, provoke and call towards holiness. Because prophets are on the cutting edge of the call for repentance, their call is to shatter the comfort zones of sin and complacency. The conditions that call fourth prophets are conditions of idolatry, moral decadence and weak spirituality. This is why strict conditions are set up for any prophet who prophesies peace. The message of the prophet is one that calls for repentance, one that threatens us with its incarnated holiness, rages at us with God’s words as with John the Baptizers words of, â€Å"Repent, God’s rule is around the corner! † John’s whole life was directed towards one goal, one direction, to give witness to the transcendent reality of God, which now made near, our eyes can see it and our hands can handle it. In John’s own words, â€Å"I did not know Him, but that He should be revealed to Israel, therefore I came baptizing with water† (Dube, 2002, p.43). What this means is that, ultimately, every prophet has to let go. John the Baptizer has to let that which he has given witness to take its own shape and form. Letting go seems easy, a holy thing to do, but in its aftermath it is a very hazardous moment for the prophet. What is hazardous for the prophet is thinking about what has really taken place. The result is that this final movement of the prophetic life is bound by some kind of crisis such as doubt or a trouble in the mind. The prophet discovers that he or she is not the sound from the trumpet but just a reed. This realization requires a re-centering. In John’s case, the crisis is his doubts about the Messiah. But after John sends two of his disciples to ask Jesus a question if he was the one or whether they should look for another his fears were relinquished (Yancey, 2007, p. 72). In Christian faith they believe that John the Baptist was ordained by God to preach and reveal the Messiah, they believe this to be Jesus. Prophecies that were foretold by John are in Luke 1:17, â€Å"And thou, child, shalt be called the prophet of the Highest, for thou shalt go before the face of the Lord to prepare His ways. † and also Luke 1:75. In the Book of Malachi John the Baptist is referred to as a prophet who is to prepare the way of the Lord, â€Å"Behold, I will send my messenger, and he shall prepare the way before me, and the Lord, whom ye seek, shall suddenly come to his temple, even the messenger of the covenant, whom ye delight in, behold, he shall come, saith the Lord. † (3:1). PROOF OF EXISTENCE: In recent times a cave was discovered not far from the traditional birthplace of John the Baptist, Ein Kerem, just west of Jerusalem on a Kibbutz. Where John the Baptist was born and also where churches and monasteries are built to commemorate his birth. The cave is of considerable size with genuinely puzzling feature such as a large amount of broken patter, some dating to the period when John was active, a pool used perhaps for ritual immersion, a stone with the imprint of a foot, apparently used for foot-anointing and pictures on the walls that could relate to John the Baptist that depicts an upraised arm with three crosses. But much speculation as to whether this is a representation of John or not is still up in the air (Scham, 2004). Caves have long been associated with John. In the bible, his mother, Elizabeth, flees with him to a cave to escape Herod’s massacre of male infants, and as an adult he frequently lives in caves, giving some weight to the cave findings mentioned earlier. After John’s beheadings cults formed around his memory and often held religious rituals in caves. The site was excavated by Shimon Gibson an Israeli archaeologist in 1999 and 2000. Around the perimeter he discovered the remains of walls with large dress stones which usually is a sign of an important place in the Near East. Although Gibson isn’t clear on their age, he still uses this to uphold his find. Another artifact is a unique water channeling system suggesting the presence of a reservoir from its earliest occupation, probably between 800 and 500 B. C. This, Gibson proposes, was used for baptism rituals. Along with these relics are thousands of pieces of pottery, dating from Hellenistic times. CONCLUSION: John the Baptist was a prophet of the coming of Jesus and as elusive in history as was Jesus. Not much information can be obtained about much of his life except for what is mentioned in the Gospel. The finding of the cave and if it is indeed where John the Baptist did work his miracles would be the first evidence to his existence. In all the information I found most focused on his death and the meaning of his sermons towards the end of his life. If the evidence at the excavations do prove to the existence of John than evidence on Jesus’ life will follow. I was most interested in the essay by Ross S. Kraemer that mentioned a possibility that John and Jesus could be the same. Whatever is true, it is easy to say that John the Baptist was a man that through his sermons changed the world and created a faith. Bibliography Bugge, J. (2006, April). Virginity and prophecy in the old English Daniel. English Studies. 87(2), 127-147. Dube, C. (2002). From ecstasy to ecstasies: A reflection on prophetic and Pentecostal ecstasy in the light of John the Baptizer. Journal of Pentecostal Theology, 11. 1 41-52 Gibson, S. (2004). The cave of john the Baptist. New York: Doubleday Harrington, D. (2007, June 18). Decrease and increase. America, 196(21), 38-39. Kraemer, R. S. (2006). Implicating herodias and her daughter in the death of john the Baptizer: A christian theological strategy? Journal of Biblical Literature, 125(2), 321-349. Miller, L. Scelfo, J. (2007, May 21). A portrait of faith. Newsweek, 14(21), n. p. Ratzinger, J. (2007, May 21). The meaning of baptism. Newsweek, 149(21), n. p. Scham, S. (2004, November). St. john’s cave. Archaeology, 57(6), 52. Tolson, J. (2006, March 17). The kingdom of Christ. News World Report, 140(14), n. p. Warrington, K. (2006, April). Acts and the healing narratives: Why? Journal of Pentecostal Theology. 14(2), 189-217. Yancey, P. (2007, January). A tale of five herods. Christianity Today, 72.

Wireless Networks :: Networks Telecommunications

Wireless services symbolizes a development of technology, and perhaps a new era of telecommunications, but these services have been used for over a century and remain identical with the "radio". The modest beginning of wireless services takes us back to the 19th century at time when Guglielmo Marconi, "the father of radio" made his mark in the world of wireless technology. When Marconi started experimenting with radio waves (Hertzian Waves) in 1894 his idea was to produce and detect radio waves over long distances. In 1896, Marconi was successful and obtained a patent and established the Wireless Telegraph and Signal Company Limited, the first radio factory in the world. In 1901, signals were received across the Atlantic and in 1905 the first wireless distress signal was sent using Morse Code. Wireless technology ultimately progressed as an invaluable tool used by the U.S. Military. The Military configured wireless signals to transmit data over a medium that had complex encryption, which makes unauthorized access to network traffic almost impossible. This type of technology was first introduced during World War II when the Army began sending battle plans over enemy lines and when Navy ships instructed their fleets from shore to shore. Wireless proved so important as a secure communications medium many businesses and schools thought it could expand their computing arena by expanding their wired local area networks (LAN) using wireless LANs. The first wireless LAN came together in 1971 when networking technologies met radio communications at the University of Hawaii as a research project called ALOHNET. The bi-directional star topology of the system included seven computers deployed over four islands to communicate with the central computer on the Oahu Island without using phone lines. And so, wireless technology, as we know it, began its passage into every house, classroom, and business around the world. Wireless network technology has been implemented for a number of things including cell phones, PDA's, and personal and business computers. There are three types of wireless networks, wide area networks (WAN), wireless local area networks (WLAN), and personal area networks (PAN). Wide area networks include the networks provided by the cell phone carriers. Wireless local area networks are networks set up to provide wireless connectivity within a certain coverage area. Personal area networks are networks that provide wireless connectivity over distances of up to 10m or so. Wireless networks have many advantages, but also has many disadvantages to.

The Federal Court System :: essays research papers

The Federal Court System Chapter 18 Sections 3 and 4 I.  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  The Supreme Court A.  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  The supreme court of the United States is the only court specifically created in the constitution a.  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Chief Justice of the United States b.  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Eight associate justices II.  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Judicial Review A.  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  1st asserted its power of judicial review in the classic case of Marbury vs. Madison in 1803 a.  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  aftermath of the stormy election of 1800 b.  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Provision of the Judicial Act of 1789, in which congress had created the federal court system. Law gave the Supreme Court the right to hear such suits in its original jurisdiction (not on appeal from a lower court). 1.  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Court Refused Request B.  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Marshall’s powerful opinion a.  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  The constitution is, by its own terms, the supreme law of the land b.  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  All legislative enactments, and all other actions of the government, are subordinate to and cannot be allowed to conflict with the supreme law c.  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Judges are sworn to enforce the provisions of the Constitution and therefore must refuse to enforce any governmental action they find to be in conflict with it III.  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Jurisdiction A.  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Original and appellate jurisdiction a.  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  from lower federal courts and from the highest State courts b.  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Article III, Section 2 of the Constitution spells out two classes of cases that may be heard by the High Court in its original jurisdiction 1.  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  those to which a State is a party 2.  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  those affecting ambassadors, other public ministers, and councils B.  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Congress can implement the constitutional provision A.  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  The Court shall have the original and exclusive jurisdiction over 1.  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  all controversies between two or more States 2.  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  all cases brought against ambassadors or other public ministers, but not consuls IV.  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  How cases Reach the Court A.  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  6,000 cases are now appealed to the Supreme Court each year. Of these, the Court accepts only a few hundred for decision. 1.  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Chosen according to â€Å"the rule of four†: at least four of its nine justices must agree that a case should be put on the Court’s docket. B.  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Most cases reach the supreme Court by writ of certiorari 1.  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  an order by the Court directing a lower court to send up the record in a given case for review 2.  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Either party can petition the Court to issue a writ 3.  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã¢â‚¬Å"Cert† is granted in only a limited number of instances – typically, only when a petition raises some important constitutional question or a serious problem of statutory interpretation. 4.  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  When certiorari is denied, the decision of the lower court stands in that particular case. a.  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  All the denial means is that, for whatever reason, four or more justices could not agree that the Supreme Court should accept that case for review C.  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Few cases do reach the Court in yet another way, by certificate.

Renaissance in Middle Ages

In many eras, events happened as a reaction, and often an overreaction, to events of the prior era. In the Middle Ages, a proper education was extremely rare for the common people. As a reaction to the Middle Ages, in the early renaissance, there was a strong focus on a classical education consisting of Greek, Latin, the classics, and art. As the population and economy grew and books became more readily available, people became disillusioned with the impractical classical education, demanding an education leading to practical professions. In the early renaissance, emphasis was redirected from clerical to secular life. The secular humanist idea held that the church should not rule civic matters, but should guide only spiritual matters. The church disdained the accumulation of wealth and worldly goods, supported a strong but limited education, and believed that moral and ethical behavior was dictated by scripture. Humanists, however, believed that wealth enabled them to do fine, noble deeds, that good citizens needed a good, well-rounded education, and that moral and ethical issues were related more to secular society than to spiritual concerns. Humanists paid close attention to classical studies because most of the humanist philosophy was based on Greek and Roman ideas. In addition to the study of Latin and Greek, a classical education consisted of scientific matters, government, rhetoric, philosophy and art. In the Middle Ages, the church discouraged education to keep people under the control of the church. People were guided by the teachings of the church and had little opinion to what was being told to them. Books were also very costly and were mostly written in Latin, an unfamiliar language to the common people. People were taught Greek and Latin so that they could understand the books available to them. In 1445, Gutenberg invented the printing press, making books more plentiful and therefore affordable for the educated middle class. They also began printing books in European languages. By the late stages of the renaissance, the population started to rise dramatically and the economy started to boom. With a larger population, more merchants and tradesman and other people with practical skills were needed. With books more readily available, people demanded books in the many languages of Europe. As a result, the concentration in education focused on local languages, practical mathematics, science and trades. Although the renaissance reversed the practices of medieval times by restoring education in the classics and gave rebirth to independent thought, the masses demanded a redirection of education to practical and useful skills. The focus on humanism forced the Church to play a secondary role in peoples† lives. Despite the changes in education and philosophy during the renaissance, Europe eventually molded itself into a well-rounded society.

Memory is deceptive because it is coloured by todays events Essays

Memory is deceptive because it is coloured by todays events Essays Memory is deceptive because it is coloured by todays events Essay Memory is deceptive because it is coloured by todays events Essay Essay Topic: Literature Woman of Colour Novel Literature is a constantly contested and revised term coined to separate the literary world into works of superior or lasting artistic merit and the ‘other’. This elitist nature used by literary ‘scholars’ created the foundation for all the teachings and ideals of the social, cultural and political thoughts of their times. The worth of literature and the means of classification have stemmed from a culmination of varying critique, seen by the changes in phase of perspective from Modernism; valuing the ‘grand narratives of truth’; to New Criticism; the objective evaluation of the ‘text’; and Post-modernism; the movement away from the hierarchy of literature. Thematics, messages, tropes, contexts and the social, cultural and political hierarchy of the time all contribute to the literary ‘worth’ of a text. This agglomeration of features develops texts consisting of the utmost textual integrity; the flow and connection between all the facets of texts. Gail Jones, ‘Sixty Lights’, set in Australia, India and England in the 19th Century, follows the multi-faceted life of the capricious and palimpsest Lucy Strange as she develops and uncovers her modernistic view of light and the world, through the tragedies that befall her and the opportunities that arise. Jones develops a highly intricate and polysensual novel enveloping multiple theories on light, exploring and presenting ideas around photography, memory, light, darkness, ghostliness and the non-linearity of time, through her ambiguity, lyrical lexicon, pre-emption, construction, content, language, binaries, intertextuality and manipulation of the forms and modes of narratives. This abundance of noted facets allow for the multiple interpretations and over-arching worth of ‘Sixty Lights’ as a beautifully composed and worthy text supporting its inclusion in the HSC Prescriptions List. What remade her world: The capture of light. ’(Pg. 139). ‘Sixty Lights’ is set in the 19th Century Victorian society, where the rise of photography becomes apparent and expands to become the ubiquitous form of memory in the 21st Century. Photography; ‘light writing’ is the central theme in the novel, it is ambiguous in the sense that not only does Lucy develop her love and appreciation of this ‘light writing’ but also Gail Jones lexicon choice is a form of ‘light writing’, creating whimsical images captured through her lexicon of image-laden words and light embedded words. Conical’ is repeated throughout the novel in order to both represent the act of photography, the flooding of light into a single image, and the co-working of photography and memory, ‘silver and conical; as seen in the opening scene. This ‘light writing’ is evident throughout, as each sentence; each paragraph can stand alone as an image, as a beacon of light. Photography has without doubt made her a seer; she is a woman of the future, someone leaning into time, beyond others, precarious, unafraid to fall’, there is constant reference to her ‘falling’ and ‘stepping’ into the future, instead of dwelling on the past, she moves on to the prospects of the future. This futuristic and unconventional thought process is in its essence modernist. Lucy, although from the Victorian era, is a modernist character, unhindered or swayed by the conventions of her social construct, searching, discovering and capturing the truths that are imbedded in the world. She travels the streets un-chaperoned at night; she tastes ‘pan-wallah’ in India and moves from the ‘science’ of photography into the aesthetic and omnipresent nature of the image. ‘Sixty Lights’ primarily mimics the action of memory, recurring and redoubling as a series of hallucinated images which re-member the Victorian period. With its sixty chapters that read as sixty snapshots, some apparently unrelated to the others, ‘Sixty Lights’ is equivalent to an album of photographs; a collection of memories, offering images that are partly shrouded by shadow, ‘flecked with time’, coloured by loss, following along with Lucy’s personal philosophy. The implication of the novels’ depiction of reading as the drawing off of other experiences is that ‘Sixty Lights’ offers the Victorian era as the seance of another experience, another time, into ourselves. Indeed, through the notion of embodied and inherited memory, they offer the Victorian era as part of our heritage, and inheritance; the Victorian period is written into our cultural memory. Thus, the Victorian past is offered to us, through a series of references to popular Victorian novels, photographs, fashion, events and landmarks, as an afterimage, a picture that we continue to see in ‘ghosted’ form. ‘Sixty Light’ is a repetition of the Victorian period, medium for its haunting presence. The exploration of Victorian photography and reading foregrounds memory’s discourse, both its loss and retrieval writing the Victorian period into our cultural memory, and suggesting that it has left myriad traces embodied in texts, images and other material, if transient, forms. Rather than focus upon the problematisation of historical representation, ‘Sixty Lights’ utilises the spectrality of the photograph as a means to explore the uncanny repetition of the Victorian past in the present, and to focus upon the possibility of recovery, the attempt at repayment, even if that which is restored amounts only to the aberrant presence of the ghost. Each posits the historical novel as one means through which the Victorian past can be remembered, if not restored, through the power of language. Thus, in ‘Sixty Lights’ literary text is depicted as an important medium for materialising the past and makes it a culturally worthy text to study. Her use of these theories of lights also intertwines with another exceptional feat she managed to engineer, the intertextualisation of numerous, novels, essays, myths etc. into her novel. Prominent throughout her novel is the Camera Lucida, Roland Barthes, a book with prolific ideas on the effect of photography and objects on memory. He explores two fundamental themes of photography, the studium; the desired message, and the punctum; that accident that disturbs the harmony of the studium. The contrast of Victor and Lucy as photographers: Lucy whom favours the ‘Maculare: stained, spotted, blemished’, the punctum as Barthes would say, whilst Victor favours the ‘immaculare: like the Holy Virgin’ or the studium. Not only does she use theoretical books to instil in the readers a broader sense of understanding to her purpose of the novel, to capture in itself the significance of lights, its effects on ‘seeing’ and its interstitial lucidity, but also adapts narratives and children’s stories in order to give a deeper insight into Lucy. The Princess and the Pea is used to reveal, almost overtly, the sensitivity of Lucy to the light and the world. ‘Lucy was enchanted by the magically sensitivity of princess†¦the felt the tiniest impressions’ (Pg. 27) this ‘enchantment’ of Lucy to some figure, or idea, is symbolic of a shift, or a revelation, of Lucy as she discovers this deep-settled facet of her own self, as her mother says ‘My princess’ (Pg. 31). This ‘sensitivity’ to the lucidity, the ‘subtle beyond’, carries with her throughout the novel. This intertextualisation of not only theoretical and subjective texts, but also the mythical and imaginative, makes a superiorly prepared and thought out novel, worthy of critical analysis. This broadly Bildungsroman text, following the birth to death development of Lucy, is not all that it seems, nor does it try to conceal it. Lucy in the present is in a ‘phantasmic dialogue with the past’, personifying this folding of the past into the present, synchronous with her viewing and ‘stepping into the future’. This folding and pleating of time, is portrayed through many forms in the text, photography, at its base, Lucy’s pre-emption of the future, the links between chapters and the recurring theme of ghostliness. ‘Sixty Lights’ raises the possibility of spectral visitations through both Thomas and the spiritualist Madam Esperance, the notion of the past as revenant is largely elaborated through the ghostliness of photography. Rather than the actual ‘ghost’, it is the ghostliness of photography that becomes a metaphor for this revenant past. In Sixty Lights Neville greets the spiritualist’s luminous image, supposedly the ghost of Honoria, with the whispered word ‘ectoplasm’ (Pg. 94). He believes ‘it is ectoplasm ghosts are composed of’ (Pg. 92), and which Madame Esperance can summon. Barthes deploys the same language to describe photography. This word, ectoplasm, entwines the ghostly image and the photograph as images of an abnormal, or haunting presence. In Sixty Lights the desire to make dead voices speak transforms into the desire to cheat the obliterating action of time and death by creating permanent images, through words and writing, as defences against forgetting. Thus, one of the period’s important technological inventions, the photograph, is proclaimed as ‘the future’ but is, paradoxically, entangled to the past through its yearning for memory-made-permanent. Lucy is wholly anachronistic, she ‘saw both the past and the future’, as ‘Photographs cracked open time’ (pg. 235). This is synonymous with the construction of the novel, connecting chapters to following and preceding chapters; the opening ‘Lucy’ takes us to page 157 where her and Isaac share a bed and he calls her name, the development of Honoria and James, pre-Honoria’s death, are juxtaposed to the development of Lucy and Thomas, post-death, and the seeming misplaced images from her own novel, ‘Special Things Seen’, all act as a metaphor and a medium for a past cyclic, both lost and, paradoxically, perpetuated, continuously repeated in the present. These ‘ruptures’ of time, are utilized by Jones to canvass the non-linearity of time ‘the false liveliness of clocks’, and especially the affect grief and mourning have on the pleating of time. Archetypal of this ‘multitemporal’ construction of ‘Sixty Lights’ is Micheal Serres ‘Conservations of Science, Culture and Time’, ‘the handkerchief represents†¦concept of time which distance and proximity are stable and clearly define; but crumpled in the pocket the handkerchief evokes a ‘topological’ concept of time in which previously distant points ‘become close or even superimposed’†¦ Modernity, can be imagine as pleated or crumpled time, drawing together the past, present and future. In essence, Lucy is symbolic of the anachronistic nature time, a handkerchief crumpled bringing together the lives of her mother, and the future of her child and all the light in-between. This intricate weaving of time, transforms the traditionally conservative and despotic Bildungsroman into a modernist text, it can be seen that this straying away from the mainstream of forms is unconventional and overwhelming, placing the reader in a state of confusion and ‘jump’ state, where time is juggled, but this not only deepens and supports the themes of the novel, but adds another layer, creating the ‘maculate’. Although the novel is based on a Bildungsroman structure, it is written in a post-modernist perspective. Post-modernism, fundamentally, is a move against modernism, its stems from a recognition that reality is not simply mirrored in human understanding of it, but rather, is constructed as the mind tries to understand its own particular and personal reality. For this reason, postmodernism is highly skeptical of explanations which claim to be valid for all groups, cultures, traditions, or races, and instead focuses on the relative truths of each person. In the postmodern understanding, interpretation is everything; reality only comes into being through our interpretations of what the world means to us individually. Postmodernism relies on concrete experience over abstract principles, knowing always that the outcome of ones own experience will necessarily be fallible and relative, rather than certain and universal. ‘Sixty Lights’ is a highly ambiguous title. The sixty chapters of the novel, sixty lights that resonate in her mind and the festival of lights, the birth of Emma, are all interpretable from the title. It is evident that this novel encompasses all things light. Thus, it is uncanny that the novel, so surrounded and encapsulated in light, begins the novel in darkness. This dark introduces two binary themes in the novel, light and dark, and life and death, which shall be explored furthermore. Light is constantly referred to, constructed and resonated throughout the novel. Lucy uses it to form her passion for photography and her sensitivity to the world. The opening scene opens in the darkness, broken first by sound, followed by a string of sensual chains. Insects struck at the mosquito net, which fell silver and conical, like a bridal garment around them’ introduces light to the novel and also light to Lucy ‘a small flare of light’. This light follows Lucy throughout her life, till her death bed, where she was ‘anticipating, more than anything, and abyss of light†¦Ã¢â‚¬â„¢ It is metaphorical of her ability to ignite like a ‘magnesium ribbon’ through the hardships that befall her, whilst being symbolic of the importance of ‘seeing’ in the world of the reader; it is as much an opening to the world of Lucy as it is to the personal lives of the readers. Alternatively, and equally as justifiable, Lucy is seen as a lighthouse, the light beneath the dark, ‘But the desert light’, she said, ‘is scintillating’†¦ Thomas too thought about it many years later†¦ [when he tried] To recover his dead sister’s face, drifting over the surface of the desert. ’ Although light fills novel, darkness fills the empty spaces creating a full-hearted, well-rounded novel. This opposing shade acts as a medium through which grief and mourning manifest and are expressed. In contrast to Lucy followed and enshrouded by light, Thomas is her reversal. This darkness encompasses Thomas from early in the novel, it is when his sleep-walking is betoken, and in has a pinnacle and lasting impression on him, ‘The impersonation of himself was more fearsome than his father’s face appearing on the hallway mirror. The dark around him was welling, as though it would swallow and cover him. Darkness in bucketsful†¦[it] was the hypnotic confirmation of a solitude that he would carry throughout his life’ (pg. 38-39). This epitomizes the grief that he ‘carries throughout life’ and is created by this ‘welling’ of the darkness around him. This dichotomy is not only used to be symbolic of the grief and mourning, but it also ties into her ‘light writing’ and helps to develop ‘snapshots in prose’, images layered into the construction of her sentences. This layering of light and darkness fashions the characters within the novel and adds another interesting layer to this tiered novel, although it can be seen as a highly cliche use of light and dark as forms of representing the inner aura of characters, it is sophistically executed and allows for the discovery of that extra inkling of light after multiple reads, making it worthy of critical study. Sixty Lights’ is everlastingly imprinted by life and death, juxtaposed to each other and evident as two of the only things certain in life; people will live and people will die. These two concepts are recurring in all her works and play a key role in each. The poignant fact of Lucy’s short life, presented to us at the beginning, ‘her own death – in a few years time, at the age of twenty-two. ’ (Pg. 42), is an introduction to the novel and to the steadfast nature of death. There are two key juxtapositions that occur in the book, in terms of life and death. The opening introduces us to Lucy, and the growing life within her, the ‘tiny baby hand in the darkness’, which is then juxtaposed to the revealing of her death at the ‘age of twenty-two’. Secondly and more strongly presented is through the death of Honoria as she harbours new life. This cogent juxtaposition forms the foundation of the novel, the unescapable nature of life and death. In many ways, Lucy and Thomas are binary oppositions; they oppose each other in terms of the era they reflect. Firstly, their rituals are unanimous but their sense and reaction to grief are in stark contrast, ‘bereavement settled as an abstract quality of distortion’. Lucy’s reaction to grief stems to that of distraction in the form of destruction, converting any bereavement into a form of relinquishing her humanity and inflicting damage, becoming in a sense the cause of death. Thomas, on the other hand, follows the endemic form of grieving and ‘burst into tears†¦[and] disappeared for a whole day. These contrasting forms of grief swathe, which Jones values, the multiple ways in which ‘bereavement settles’. This broader understanding and acceptance of life and death create a sense of consciousness within the novel, one, which speaks to the reader in ways of the personal and social, moulding this novel to that beyond the norm, making it of superior worth, a novel worthy of inclusion of the HSC Prescriptions List. Stand alone, each of these layers in t he novel work as ultimately simplistic and used themes, although they do stand out as original in their representation. The success of ‘Sixty Lights’ as a worthy text does not simply come down to the quantity and quality of the themes, these are all in great quality and numerous quantities, but as many argue, for quantity, more is less, if the quality is superior. But one cannot simply say, the novel is not worthy of text due to the vast amounts of knowledge it holds, due to the fact that it is so intricately, delicately and sophistically interwoven and interconnected that it is of supreme worth, its punctum does not disturb the harmony of its studium, but give it the greatest level of exposure, falling together with the utmost textual integrity. Sixty Lights’ is a modernist text, of a Victorian lady, from a post-modernist perspective. The only way such a feat, such a mesh of the three vastly differing literary forms, could only have been achieved by the textual integrity of Lucy, the conduit between the three. She is a woman, living in the present, viewing the past and future simultaneously through the lens of her perspective, motivated by the light beneath the lampshade (Lampshade: a hoop around an untellable story), a palimpsest unveiled.

Child Thinking and Learning New Skills

Child Thinking and Learning New Skills Introduction It seems that the way in which children learn new skills is still a controversial issue in modern psychology. The question has been approached from two different angles.Advertising We will write a custom report sample on Child Thinking and Learning New Skills specifically for you for only $16.05 $11/page Learn More One view holds that development happens before learning and that once children reach a certain level of psychological and neurophysiological development they start to identify problems in their earlier worldview and then acquire skills to resolve those problems. This is a view held by one of the most famous psychologists in history – Jean Piaget (1977). One the other hand, Leo Vygotsky proposed a view that learning comes before development. Vygotsky argued that children acquire new skills through interaction with other people. On this view, it is crucial that the child be in interaction with an instructor who can point to flaws in the concepts a child has about the world and incite him or her to try to resolve the problems. The ontogenesis is, thereby, triggered by learning and problem solving (Vygotsky Cole 1978). This issue has, for a long time, been regarded as philosophical in nature. However, in recent years experiments have been designed to try to accumulate enough evidence to conclude which of the theories accounts for the observed data more adequately. Professor Nunez has been the author of one such experiment. Her idea was to see whether proper instruction could trigger learning in young children at a point in the development at which they are usually not able to solve a problem of that particular type. If that turned out to be the case, we would have a good reason to believe that Vygotsky’s theory is the correct one.Advertising Looking for report on psychology? Let's see if we can help you! Get your first paper with 15% OFF Learn More On the other hand, if it happ ened that young children simply were not able to give a solution to the problem at hand, no matter the instructions, and the older ones were then those facts could be used to support Piaget’s theory very well. Method Professor Nunez’s experiment involved six children whose ages were between 7 and 12. Since the goal of the experiment was to see whether the developmental stage of children had impact on their ability to think in a scientific way, she divided the children into the younger and the older group. The children in the younger group were 7 or 8 years old and those in the older group were between 10 and 12 years of age. All of the children were interviewed and videotaped by Nunez and her colleagues. During the interview, the subjects were shown several objects and were asked to predict whether an object would float or sink. After making a prediction, the children had to give a reason on which they based their assumption. After all the objects were sorted out as â €Å"floaters† or â€Å"sinkers†, each of them was put into a tank of water to test if the predictions were correct. If they were not, the subjects were asked to give an explanation of why that is the case. In the final stage of the experiment, the instructor tried to give hints to the children in order to help them spot problems in their theories so that they could solve them more easily and in the end provide an adequate theoretical explanation that could predict outcomes of further trials.Advertising We will write a custom report sample on Child Thinking and Learning New Skills specifically for you for only $16.05 $11/page Learn More The team predicted that children would have no problems giving different explanations for different objects and involving various factors so the final step of the experiment was to have the subjects take one final look at all the objects and try to generalize about the relevant properties which make the floaters float and sinkers sink. The aim of this step was to test the children’s ability to generalize in a scientific way. By conducting the experiment in this way, Nunez and the team were able to test how capable the children were of scientifically analyzing the data but more importantly the experiment was an attempt at establishing the correlation between development and learning. That way, the decades-long debate between the followers of Vygotsky and Piaget could finally be resolved or at least steered towards one of the directions. This paper will present results for one younger and one older child together with further theoretical explanations of those results. Results The number of items used with both children was 16. Daniel, a child from the younger group, was a boy aged 7 and the following results were obtained from the interview with him. First off, the initial criteria he used when making a prediction about whether an item would sink or float were related to material, wei ght or shape. Weight was the predominant criterion and he mentioned it 12 times; shape was mentioned 5 times and material only 3 times. The boy also mentioned that he had been taught that things that are light or are shaped like a boat tend to float. After checking his predictions his explanations included many additional factors.Advertising Looking for report on psychology? Let's see if we can help you! Get your first paper with 15% OFF Learn More Symmetry, having holes, height, being painted, having sharp end were all mentioned once and David even thought that it mattered in which way an object likes to float. Of course, shape, weight and material were used most of the time. Shape and weight were used 11 times and material 3 times. The older child, Jessica, was 12 years old and she gave the following results. Initially she cited 8 themes as her criteria. These were: weight, which was mentioned 7 times, shape, having air inside, density, material, solidity and size which were all mentioned once. In addition, there were 3 other reasons like pure guessing and having already tested the item in question. After having seen whether her predictions were correct, Jessica gave much more diverse explanation. She used 12 different themes as explanations. This time material was the most frequent one and was mentioned 7 times; Mass, having water inside, being natural, having holes and shape were all cited as explanations once; Having air inside, density, solidity and size were all used 2 times and weight was used 3 times. Discussion Results obtained in this experiment certainly demand a lot of interpretation and involve many different factors. To start, it is crucial to mention that both of the children had some instruction in the domain of physics covered by the experiment. This fact is relevant because children obviously tried to rely on the knowledge they had. Surprisingly, Daniel, even though he was younger, adhered much more firmly to the theoretical concepts he had acquired and constantly repeated that there were two features that make things float: light weight and being shaped like a boat. Judging from Selley’s (1993) gradation of scientific hypotheses, he was somewhere at the beginning of the scale since he knew that weight and shape, that is the distribution of weight, have something to do with whether the object in question will float. On the other hand, Jessica at one point almost gave Selley†™s third hypothesis word for word. She said that things floated if they are less dense than water. It is obvious that she had an explicit knowledge of the physical law; however, she later confessed that she did not know what density is, so her knowledge was of no use and she basically roamed through different explanations without a firm theoretical background. Daniel evidently adhered firmly to his theory even though it was proven to be insufficient by Professor Nunez. Another thing that has to be mentioned is that both of the children had a significant number of correct predictions despite their obvious lack of theoretical knowledge. This fact is compatible with the claim that intuition plays significant role in our functioning in the physical world and can be much more powerful than our theoretical knowledge, provided that we have little education in concepts of physics (Lakoff Nunez, 2000, p. 281). We can also notice that both subjects introduced new themes in explaining why t heir initial predictions failed. It is interesting to note that the older girl introduced only 4 new explanations while the boy introduced 6 new themes. As a predominant impression, one can single out the fact that a girl always seemed to be on the verge of making a discovery and on several occasions even said that an item sank if there was more of it in less space which is quite close to the definition of density. On the other hand, even though he exhibited consistency in his claims about the relation between floating and weight, material and shape, Daniel was by all means less scientific in his way of thinking. He would often say contradicting things and he even used explanations like a thing floated when placed in a certain way because it liked to float that way and that otherwise it sank, which is a very unscientific mode of reasoning. Even though the results presented here are far from conclusive, I am tempted to claim that they are, nonetheless, leaning towards Piaget’s view. First off, even though the conditions were the same the older child performed a lot better as she was at the end quite close to giving the exact definition of the physical law governing sinking and floating of objects. However, she was not able to give an explicit formulation. This suggests that it is, in fact, the age of the child that plays a decisive role in their ability to solve scientific problems. Furthermore, according to some authors who support Vygotsky’s theory children develop their logic in a dialogue with an adult who talks in a systematic and logical way (Santrock, 2008, pp. 226-230). The data from this research prove that this is not a sufficient explanation since the older subject was much more logical in her thinking both at the beginning and at the end of the interview. Finally, Scaffolding as an important technique in Vygotsky’s theory is supported by some researchers who claim that the quality of the instructions given to the children can be crucial for their learning process (Landry et al., 2002). These data undermine this assumption as well, since Professor Nunez gave instructions in an informative and very patient way, with a lot of useful hints. Nonetheless, none of the children was able to give the necessary and complete formulation. This is also suggestive of the possibility that children simply were not at the necessary level of development. As a closing remark, it is worth mentioning that Piaget did not address the problem of transition between stages. Some scholars, who are now referred to as post-Piagetian, have worked on this issue and proposed their solutions. Pascual-Leone (1970) has suggested that the increase in the number of items that the human working memory can process resulted in the ability to resolve problems of growing complexity. Case (1985), on the other hand, suggests that the processing capacity in each individual changes its structure in between two stages so the individual becomes able to r esolve more complicated tasks. Conclusion In conclusion, despite the fact that the results obtained in the study are not decisive it can be said that they are better captured on Piaget’s view. This is based on two main grounds. First, the older student showed stronger abilities at problem solving which conforms to Piaget’s theory of development preceding learning. Secondly, even though the older child was approximately at the age where scaffolding could help her to give the correct answer, that did not happen. Finally, it should be stated that Piaget’s theory is not without gaps and proposed alternatives have to be considered. References Case, R 1985, Intellectual development. Birth to adulthood, Academic Press, New York. Lakoff, G NuÃŒ nÃŒÆ'ez, R E 2000, Where mathematics comes from: how the embodied  mind brings mathematics into being, Basic Books, New York, NY. Landry, S H, Miller-Loncar, S L, Smith, K E, Swank, P R 2002, ‘The role of early parenti ng in children’s development of executive processes’, Developmental Neuropsychology, vol. 21, pp. 15-41. Pascual-Leone, J 1970,’ A mathematical model for the transition rule in Piaget’s developmental stages’, Acta Psychologica, vol. 32, pp. 301-345. Piaget, J, Gruber, H E VoneÌ€che, J J 1977, The essential Piaget, Basic Books, New York. Santrock, J W 2008, Life span development: a topical approach to (4th ed.), McGraw-Hill, New York. Selley, N 1993, ‘Why Do Things Float?’, School Science Review, vol. 74, pp. 55-60. Vygotsky, L. S Cole, M 1978, Mind in society: the development of higher psychological processes, Harvard University Press, Cambridge.