Tea and Social Class Boundaries in 19th Century England

Matthew Geronimo Professor Haydu SOCI 106 12 March 2013 Tea and Social Class Boundaries in 19th Century England How did tea rituals, customs, and etiquette reinforce social class boundaries in 19th century England? This question is relevant, in that it asks us to reflect on how simple commodities such as tea can distinguish social differences between classes, both past and present; it also allows us to ponder on how tea was popularized into the daily-consumed beverage it is to this day with people of all class backgrounds. In her book A Necessary Luxury: Tea in Victorian England (2008), Julie E.Fromer discusses how in 19th century England â€Å"new identification categories and new hierarchies of status developed along lines stemming from consumption habits, creating moral guidelines based on what and when and how one consumed the commodities of English culture,† (Fromer, 6). After discussing some origins of certain tea rituals such as low and high tea, I will elaborate on how those rituals influenced and reinforced social boundaries between the lower and upper classes; furthermore, I will analyze how certain tea customs and etiquette shaped the practice of tea-time between the lower and upper classes.There are variations on the origin of the afternoon tea ritual. â€Å"The accepted tea legend always attributes the ‘invention’ of afternoon tea to Anna Maria, wife of the 7th Duke of Bedford, who wrote to her brother-in-law in a letter sent from Windsor Castle in 1841: ‘I forgot to name my old friend Prince Esterhazy who drank tea with me the other evening at 5 o’clock, or rather was my guest amongst eight ladies at the Castle,† (Pettigrew, 102).While tea was already a luxurious beverage at the time, when to drink tea during the day became a national cultural custom. â€Å"The Duchess is said to have experienced ‘a sinking feeling’ in the middle of the afternoon, because of the long gap between luncheon and di nner and so asked her maid to bring her all the necessary tea things and something to eat – probably the traditional bread and butter – to her private room in order that she might stave off her hunger pangs,† (Pettigrew, 102).Upper-class citizens caught on with this trend, participating in a ritual that would define a nation. Upper-class families would participate in low tea at a good hour between lunch and dinner. â€Å"Manners of Modern Society, written in 1872, described the way in which afternoon tea had gradually become an established event. ‘Little Teas’, it explained, ‘take place in the afternoon’ and were so-called because of the small amount of food served and the neatness and elegance of the meal,† (Pettigrew, 104).Consuming food with tea during the day between meals might have speculated the English people for growing accustomed to eating too much during the day, but according to Marie Bayard in her Hints on Etiquette ( 1884), afternoon tea was â€Å"not supposed to be a substantial meal, merely a light refreshment. † She adds, â€Å"Cakes, thin bread and butter, and hot buttered scones, muffins, or toast are all the accompaniments strictly necessary. † The upper classes during the 19th century were known more for drinking more expensive and refined teas, such as those from China, Ceylon, or Assam.The wealthy and privileged groups of 19th century England took pride in their customs; with the custom of tea, they spared no expense in staying true to their idealized rituals. Low tea was a daily practice for the upper classes. Martha Chute created a series of watercolor paintings that portrayed daily life at the Vyne in Hampshire in the mid-nineteenth century. This particular 1860 watercolor (Pettigrew, 99) depicts a dining room table prepared for breakfast with the tea urn in the middle of the table and the tea cups laid out.The painting’s setting takes place in a very upper class room with portraits of upper class citizens and scenery artwork hung all around the room. Published in 1807, Thomas Rowlandson’s Miseries Personal (Pettigrew, 65) illustrates powerful upper-class men and women socializing while consuming tea to the extent that the men are all practically drunk because of drinking too much tea. From the illustration, the audience can see that these powerful men have no cares, worries, or concerns at all; they’re not worried about getting food on the table for their families.They are only concerned with having a good time with the somewhat disgusted women in the painting while they consume heavy amounts of tea, symbolizing their refinery and high social class status. Published in 1824, Edward Villiers Rippingille’s The Travellers’ Breakfast (Pettigrew, 77) illustrates members of the literary circle that idealized Sir Charles Elton, including Coleridge, Southey, and Dorothy and William Wordsworth, as they have breakfast in an inn, with the tea urn focused in the middle of the table. According to Mrs.Beeton in the 1879 edition of her Book of Household Management, â€Å"’At Home’ teas and ‘Tea Receptions’ were large afternoon events for up to two hundred guests. Tea was laid out on a large table in the corner of the drawing or dining room, and servants would be on hand to pour and hand round the cups of tea, sugar, cream or milk, cakes, and bread and butter,† (Pettigrew, 107). Beeton reinforces the notion that these products were expected to be present at the tea table for afternoon tea with the upper classes. For the upper-classes, afternoon tea could be taken out to the garden.In an 1871 graphic artwork titled Kettledrum in Knightsbridge, (Pettigrew, 106) the artist displays men, women, and a child socializing in a garden, with trees and flowers surrounding them, while they enjoy their afternoon tea. According to Pettigrew, the caption reads â€Å"In this form of aft ernoon party, ladies and gentlemen can mingle . . . it is certainly much better to talk scandal in the garden than indoors,† (Pettigrew, 107). From this context, Pettigrew hints that scandalous gossip was common in between people in the upper classes during afternoon tea, and that it was better to gossip outdoors rather than indoors.While the etiquette and customs of low tea can be reflected in the mannerisms of upper class breakfast with tea, â€Å"In 1884, Marie Bayard advised in Hints on Etiquette that ‘the proper time . . . is from four to seven’, whereas others advised ‘about five’, or referred to ‘small 5 o’clock teas’, (Pettigrew, 108). Staying true to the specific hours with afternoon tea was significant to the upper classes in order to preserve the expectations that came with afternoon low tea. â€Å"Guests were not expected to stay for the entire time that tea was going on, but to come and go as they pleased during the allotted hours.Most stayed half an hour or an hour but ‘should on no account stay later than seven o’clock’, (Pettigrew, 108). The relationships between upper-class families and servants were distinguished with tea. â€Å"Families who employed servants very often took high tea on Sunday in order to allow the maids and butler time to go to church and not worry about cooking an evening meal for the family,† (Pettigrew, 112). Tea was so relevant during the 19th century that Pettigrew notes how upper-class families would rarely take a break from it.On Sundays, instead of eliminating tea from the day entirely, upper-class families would substitute their afternoon tea for high tea, which included heavier foods to replace dinner, all for the sake of allowing their maids and servants go to church. Servants of the Queen reference her liking of tea in the 19th century as well. â€Å"In London, Queen Victoria introduced afternoon receptions at Buckingham Palace in 1 865 and garden parties, known as ‘breakfasts’ in 1868,† (Pettigrew, 115). One of Her Majesty’s Servants† is quoted in The Private Life of the Queen (1897), â€Å"Her Majesty has a strong weakness for afternoon tea. From her early days in Scotland, when Brown and the other gillies used to boil the kettle in a sheltered corner of the moors while Her Majesty and the young Princesses sketched, the refreshing cup of tea has ever ranked high in the Royal favour. † Various forms of artwork captured the ritual of tea-time during 19th century England.A photograph from the 1880s presents a clear black-and-white image of what tea time looked like for the wealthy; in this particular case, for the Prince and Princess of Wales as they socialize with the Rothschild family at Waddesdon Manor in Buckinghamshire, (Pettigrew, 114). In the photo, we see a garden tea party taking place, both men and women well-dressed, all sitting down in a straight posture except for the single servant, the tea table set with the tea urn in the middle, a tent set up, and even an umbrella placed at an angle to prevent any discomfort from the sun.While consuming tea was popular in the 19th century, the art and strategy of selling it as a valuable commodity grew in trend. Advertisements in the 19th century for tea advocated certain product brands, claiming that that specific brand was better than the rest, even hinting that they were a brand for more sophisticated, upper-class tea drinkers. An advertisement for Lipton, Tea, Coffee and Provision Dealer (Fromer, 84) attempts to differentiate regular tea drinkers from Lipton tea drinkers: â€Å"On the left, an illustration depicts two women smiling as they drink their tea.Their features are smooth and regular, their cheeks are pleasingly plump, and they wear bonnets over their fashionably curled hair. Their dresses indicate their middle-class wealth and fashion sense; they wear modest, high-necked gowns without e xcess frills or ornaments, yet the designs of their dresses reveal up-to-date fashion, with curving bodices, bustles, and narrow waists,† (Fromer, 83). In the advertisement, the choice to drink other tea besides the Lipton brand is reflected on their mis-shaped bodies, poor etiquette, and disappointing behavior. Tea and its consumption reinforced social class boundaries in 19th century England.In Mary Gaskell’s North and South (1855), tea consumption serves as a statement of people’s social class and their standards. â€Å"Throughout the changes in the Hales’ financial and social status throughout the novel, their tea drinking continues unabated, and despite the economies that they are forced to observe after Mr. Hale gives up his living, they never mention giving up tea,† (Fromer, 132). Fromer comments on Gaskell’s North and South (1855), marking how tea for upper-class citizens, such as the Hales, it too valuable in social status worth to s acrifice.Fromer continues â€Å"†¦their [the Hales] identity within the industrial town of Milton derives from their consumption patterns, their participation in the market economy of the city, the amount of money they have to spend, and the ways in which they spend it. † Mr. Hale is caught off guard and is petrified by Margaret’s story of a mill worker who has come to join them for tea. Margaret â€Å"Told [the story] completely; and her father was rather ‘taken aback’ by the idea of the drunken weaver awaiting him in his quiet study, with whom he was expected to drink tea,† (Gaskell, 285). â€Å"’Oh dear! A drunken infidel weaver! ’ said Mr.Hale to himself, in dismay,† (Gaskell, 286). Mr. Hale cannot handle the idea of having a low-class worker in his home, participating in his family’s afternoon tea. The very thought of it is inconceivable to him, especially seeing how Margaret invited the mill worker for tea. The working class was distinguished by having less etiquette and being not nearly as strict with their tea rituals as the middle and upper classes. Tea for the poor was still cherished, was still valuable, but as far as how refined they could be, based on their social class status alone, they constantly went through hard times on a daily basis. During the working day farm workers and labourers generally drank beer,† but in the 19th century, there was a drastic shift from beer being the common beverage workers drank throughout the day to tea. â€Å"All around the country, workers refreshed themselves with hot or cold tea – in factories, mines, offices and farmers’ fields, on railways, roads and fishing boats. Tea had become the best drink of the day,† (Pettigrew, 125). The poor and working class participated mostly in high tea, which was substituted for dinner. Meals throughout the day for the working class included tea. The first National Food Inquiry of 1863 discovered that little had changed for the working classes since the late eighteenth century and that farm labourers and home workers, such as silk weavers, needlewomen, glover makers and shoemakers, throughout Britain, started the day with a meager meal of milk or water gruel or porridge, bread and butter, and tea,† (Pettigrew, 98). Every day was a struggle for the lower classes. Many working class families started each day still hungry. They would be â€Å"sent off in the morning after a meager breakfast of potatoes and tea to walk several miles to their place of work.Lunch was dry bread with perhaps a little cheese in good times, and more potatoes and tea at home in the evening,† (Pettigrew, 124). While daily meal intakes were simply meant to fuel laborers to get through the day, tea was always considered a luxury, something that still connected them to the upper classes, regardless of how less refined their etiquette was. â€Å"Dickens’s stories are full of poor families, young apprentices, social outcasts, and those who survived from hand to mouth, just about coping in very mean lodgings that contrast markedly with the sumptuous breakfast tables of the upper and middle classes,† (Pettigrew, 99).In Elizabeth Gaskell’s novel Mary Barton (1848), Gaskell conveys the thought-processing that went into listing what was needed for working-class meals and the importance of tea: â€Å"Run, Mary dear, first round the corner, and get some fresh eggs at Tippings . . . and see if he has any nice ham cut that he would let us have a pound of . . . and Mary, you must get a pennyworth of milk and a loaf of bread – mind you get it fresh and new – that’s all, Mary. † â€Å"No, it’s not all† said her husband. â€Å"Though must get sixpennyworth of rum to warm the tea . . . †A watercolor painting by Thomas Unwins (1782-1857) titled Living off the Fat of the Land, a Country Feast (Pettigrew, 111 ) illustrates â€Å"high tea in a country cottage,† with what is depicted as a lower class family eating hams, cheeses, and baked bread while drinking tea. The painting portrays many people filled in a small cottage having high tea in replacement of dinner, with children playing on the floor, vegetables fallen from a sack lying on the floor, cats and dogs sleeping and jumping around, a man sneezing close to the ham, a woman drinking her tea out of a saucer while tending to a child, etc. the whole illustration is a mess. While refined tea was mainly consumed by the upper classes, the working class still treasured tea as a luxury, its value and worth could be tasted even with just a little bit of sugar. â€Å"In 1853, the Edinburgh Review wrote: ‘By her fireside, in her humble cottage, the lonely widow sits; the kettle simmers over the ruddy embers, and the blackened tea-pot on the hot brick prepares her evening drink.Her crust is scanty, yet as she sips the warm beverag e – little sweetened, it may be, with the produce of the sugar-cane – genial thoughts awaken in her mind; her cottage grows less dark and lonely, and comfort seems to enliven the ill-furnished cabin,’† (Pettigrew, 111). In an 1878 photo of a poor Victorian household during tea time (Pettigrew, 104), the audience can make out the small room in which they are all in, laundry drying on a clothesline, with some of the children not even being able to sit at the table, just sitting on a bench close to it against the wall.This photo demonstrates the difference in tea etiquette between the upper and lower classes, especially with what looks like the eldest daughter caring for the youngest infant on her lap at the table, this being unlikely at an upper-class tea table. Tea was just as imperative as a daily commodity as it was to the upper classes. â€Å"The poor household, therefore, represented a scaled-down version of the middle-class home, suggesting that ninet eenth-century histories of tea portray class as a matter of degree rather than kind.Working-class families aspired to the same values as the middle classes, responding to their smaller incomes by taking further measures of economy but not by sacrificing the consumer commodities that had become necessary to English everyday life,† (Fromer, 79). Tea served as a revitalizing commodity for all, even the elderly. According to Day from the Edinburgh Review in Tea: Its Mystery and History (1878), â€Å"It is not surprising that the aged female whose earnings are barely sufficient to buy what are called the common necessaries of life, should yet spare a portion of her small gains in procuring the grateful indulgence.She can sustain her strength with less common food when she takes her Tea along with it; while she, at the same time, feels lighter in spirits, more cheerful, and fitter for this dull work of life, because of this little indulgence, (Day, 75-76). While the wealthy upper c lasses had standards and expectations with their consumption of tea, the lower classes, even the poor elderly, perceived tea as a great luxury of worth that altered their everyday behavior. â€Å"Tea affected her (the poor aged female’s) demeanor, her manner, and her cheer, enabling her to accept her burden and work harder, being ‘fitter’ for the dull work life,† (Fromer, 83).Tea time for the working class wasn’t meant to be a socializing event, nor was it a strict ritual. â€Å"Tea drinking, according to nineteenth-century ads and histories of tea, replaced the vices that were typically found among the ‘humbler classes,’ including alcoholism, violence, and a lack of attention to domestic arrangements, with the values of domestic economy, respectability, good taste, thrift, and an appreciation for high-quality consumer luxuries associated with more-fortunate, middle-class economic circumstances,† (Fromer, 87).Within Gaskellâ€⠄¢s North and South, we get glimpses of Margaret Hale’s life as a younger girl. â€Å"She remembered the dark, dim look of the London nursery. . . . She recollected the first tea up there – separate from her father and aunt, who were dining somewhere down below an infinite depth of stairs; . . . At home – before she came to live in Harley Street – her mother’s dressing-room had been her nursery; and, as they had her meals with her father and mother,† (Gaskell, 38).Gaskell emphasizes the difference in settings in Margaret Hale’s life, contrasting the less refined and luxurious life she had â€Å"before she came to live in Harley Street,† to her now higher social status in Harley Street. Gaskell hints this with how tea was consumed between the two settings. More than simply differentiating the social boundaries created by tea through certain tea rituals, the etiquette of tea drinking of both the lower and upper classes reinforced these social class boundaries in 19th century England.English upper class etiquette did not just distinguish them from the poor, but also from other countries as well. A cartoon published in 1825 (Pettigrew, 84) points out the difference in manners and etiquette between the English and the French. The cartoon refers to the English custom of placing a spoon across or inside the teacup to express that the drinker does not need a refill, though the audience can see that the English characters in the cartoon have been refilling the Frenchman’s teacup multiple times in a humorous manner. Certain rules and expectations went into tea-time with the upper classes. Invitations to tea were issued verbally or by a small informal note or card,† (Pettigrew, 108). Many aspects and variations went into tea etiquette that defined the upper classes. For how to receive guests into one’s home, the Lady at Home and Abroad (1898) explains that for small tea gatherings â€Å"the host ess receives her friends in the drawing room as on any other afternoon . . . but when it is a case of a regular afternoon entertainment, she stands at the head of the staircase and receives as she would at a ball or a wedding reception. Like Gaskell’s North and South, novels such as Emily Bronte’s Wuthering Heights (1847) capture the norms and etiquette that come with upper class tea time and how those norms are broken and revealed through character reactions. â€Å"Within ‘Wuthering Heights,’ tea creates boundaries between characters, rather than erasing them. The rituals of the tea table cause Lockwood (and readers of the novel, to an extent) to feel isolated, unwanted, and threatened, rather than welcomed in and nourished as guests and as intimates,† (Fromer, 152-153).In a scene from Bronte’s Wuthering Heights, the character named Lockwood, an upper-class male, seeks refuge from an early snowstorm in Wuthering Heights. Young Catherine hesi tatingly admits Lockwood into Wuthering Heights and he accepts it as an ideal setting for tea. While Catherine attempts to attain a canister of tea leaves almost out of reach, Lockwood makes a â€Å"motion to aid her† (Bronte, 16), but she responds, â€Å"I won’t want your help . . . I can get them for myself. † Bronte continues with Lockwood’s narration: â€Å"’I beg your pardon,’ I hastened to reply. Were you asked to tea? ’ she demanded, tying an apron over her neat black frock, and standing with a spoonful of the leaf poised over the pot. ‘I shall be glad to have a cup,’ I answered. ‘Were you asked? ’ she repeated. ‘No,’ I said, half smiling. ‘You are the proper person to ask me. ’ She flung the tea back, spoon and all; and resumed her chair in a pet, her forehead corrugated, and her red underlip pushed out, like a child’s, ready to cry,† (Bronte, 16-17). Bronte use s this scene to underscore a significant aspect of upper-class tea tiquette: again, â€Å"Invitations to tea were issued verbally or by a small informal note or card,† (Pettigrew, 108). While to present day audiences of Wuthering Heights, Catherine’s behavior may have seemed rude, to Bronte’s audience in the 19th century, Catherine’s response to Lockwood probably seemed understandable because according to upper-class tea etiquette, in order to engage and participate in tea-time with someone, he or she needs to be invited first. In another scene from Wuthering Heights, Catherine plays hostess during tea-time with characters Edgar and Heathcliff at Wuthering Heights. The meal hardly endured ten minutes. Catherine’s cup was never filled; she could neither eat nor drink. Edgar had made a slop in his saucer, and scarcely swallowed a mouthful,† (Bronte, 97-98). Here the audience can see the difference in etiquette between the higher and lower class es, even if the difference in class is not too vast. â€Å"Edgar’s ‘slop’ in his saucer signals his unsteady hand†¦Ã¢â‚¬  (Fromer, 162). â€Å"This moment of tea, which is supposed to bring people together and erase boundaries, instead emphasizes those boundaries and signals the end of peace and familial happiness,† (Fromer, 162-163).Again, Bronte distinguishes the class differences reinforced through the tea ritual and form of etiquette. Like Bronte’s Wuthering Heights (1847), 19th century novels such as Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (1865) delineates social class boundaries reinforced by tea etiquette. The story of Alice adventuring into Wonderland is a reflection of facing elements people are not used to; for Alice, what she believed was her forte was etiquette. Carroll thus plays on the idea of expectations; he assumes that we as readers, like Alice, have certain expectations of what a tea party offers, an d he continually frustrates those expectations through his depiction of â€Å"A Mad Tea Party,† (Fromer, 169). During the infamous â€Å"Mad Tea Party† scene, Alice encounters the Mad Hatter, the March Hare, and the mouse at their tea party. Alice expects to be welcomed at the tea table, seeing how â€Å"the table was a large one, but the three were all crowded together at one corner of it . . . † (Carroll, 60).But as she approached the table, the Hare and the Mad Hatter cried out, â€Å"No room! No room! † (Carroll, 60). Both audiences of the 19th century and present day may have found the hosts to be incredibly rude exclaiming that there is no room while there obviously was, but, again, we must remember principle etiquette: that guests must be invited to tea. Both Bronte’s Lockwood and Carroll’s Alice encounter tea setting and expect to be invited; therefore, they approach the hosts and proceed to the tables, yet both characters are actual ly unwanted from both hosts in each novel.Lockwood and Alice are characterized as being of middle or upper class in their own storylines and they both invite themselves to these tea tables where they were never originally invited to; and when they are confronted about it, they both are shocked. â€Å"At any rate I’ll never go there again! . . . It’s the stupidest tea-party I ever was at in all my life,† (Carroll, 68). Carroll reinforces Alice’s stubbornness an inability to realize that she was the one who violated the etiquette and customs of tea time by inviting herself to tea instead of waiting for an invitation from the Mad Hatter and the March Hare.The exchange between Alice and the Mad Hatter and March Hare exceeds levels of rudeness that audiences of both 19th century and present-day England would be appalled by. â€Å"I don’t think – † then the Hatter cuts her off, â€Å"Then you shouldn’t talk. † â€Å"This piec e of rudeness was more than Alice could bear: she got up in great disgust, and walked off: the Dormouse fell asleep instantly, and neither of the others took the least notice of her going, though she looked back once or twice, half hoping that they would call after her,† (Carroll, 67).While Alice storms off believing that the Mad Hatter and March Hare are in the wrong, Carroll’s use of depicting Alice looking back conveys that in her heart, perhaps Alice knew that she was the one who violate the proper mannerisms and etiquette of tea time. From Fromer’s perspective, â€Å"After feeling adrift and confused during her travels through Wonderland, Alice has finally stumbled upon a setting where she feels at home and thinks that she knows what to expect and how to act – at the tea table . . .She expects the boundaries that so clearly separate her from all of the other characters she has met to finally be overcome, so that she can feel welcomed and nourished as an intimate guest rather than an unexpected and unwelcome intruder,† (Fromer, 170-171). Tea rituals, customs, and etiquette distinguish people from one another, they sort them into groups labeled either poor or wealthy. â€Å"Teatime functions, in countless novels, as a moment of highlighting the boundaries between self and other, inside and outside, day and night – boundaries both within outside of the intimate realm . . Part of what makes this particular tea party ‘mad’ is the fact that it violates the boundaries of time just as much as it destroys expectation of hospitality and civility,† (Fromer, 172). Both Alice and Bronte’s Lockwood assume that simply by being part of the upper classes of society that they are entitled to respect from others; but as Gaskell’s and Carroll’s audiences have realized, having respect for others defines social status and influences social mannerisms and proper etiquette. Within Gaskell’s North and South (1854-55), the image of the tea table functions as a crystallization of English national identity and the various social classes that make up that national sense of self,† (Fromer, 129). Fromer analyzes North and South as a novel that distinguishes the different social classes in 19th century England and how their social statuses are formed and reinforced by through tea rituals and etiquette.Furthermore, â€Å"based on circulating cultural expectations of the social manners and consumption rituals performed during teatime, the English ideal of the tea table served as shared experience upon which to base one’s identity and to gauge the social status of others,† (Fromer, 129). â€Å"Tea, as a fluid constant in English culture, with its accompanying social rituals, was flexible enough to accommodate – and to mark – subtle differences in social status, to mediate these differences between groups within the English nation,† (Fromer , 12).Members of both the lower and upper classes participated in tea rituals; depending on their social class statuses, they were more than likely to participate in one or the other. Quite simply, the middle and upper-class members of societies engaged in afternoon low tea the majority of the time because of its origin to English royalty and the purpose to keep hunger away between noon and dinner meals. On the other end, the poor and working class members of society engaged in high tea, combining their dinner meal with tea in order to alleviate the time and costs of tea time in the middle of the afternoon.The working class did not concern themselves with strict and traditional customs and etiquette like the middle and upper classes did. They participated in high tea for the practical purpose of fighting off hunger while retaining a sense of dignity and luxury with the value and worth of tea. As put by Fromer (11): â€Å"Nineteenth century representations of tea highlight the role of the tea table in forging a unified English national identity out of disparate social groups, economic classes, and genders separated by ideologically distinct spheres of daily life. Bibliography Bayard, Marie. Hints on Etiquette. Edited by Marie Bayard. London: Weldon & Company, 1884. Beeton, Mrs. Mrs. Beeton’s Book of Household Management. Edited by Nicola Humble. Abridged version of 1861 edition. NewYork: Oxford University Press, 2000. Bronte, Emily. Wuthering Heights. New York. Penguin Books, 1993. Carroll, Lewis. Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass. New York: Oxford University Press, 1982. Day, Samuel Phillips.Tea: Its Mystery and History. London: Digital Text Publishing Company, 2010. Fromer, Julie E. A Necessary Luxury: Tea in Victorian England. Athens: Ohio University Press, 2008. Gaskell, Elizabeth. Mary Barton & North and South. Edited by Edgar Wright. New York: Oxford University Press, 1987. â€Å"One of Her Majesty’s Ser vants. The Private Life of the Queen. Edited by Emily Sheffield. Gresham Books, 1979. Pettigrew, Jane. A Social History of Tea. London: National Trust Enterprises, 2001.

How to Maintain Biodiversity

There are several important ways in which humans can slow biodiversity loss, although there is no way to bring back the species that have already gone extinct. Protecting Areas Creating protected areas where human activity is limited is the best way to prevent deforestation and exploitation of organisms and the resources they need to survive. In order to truly make a difference, much planning needs to go into the creation of a protected area. It needs to consider all elements of the ecosystem it is trying to protect, so that it isn’t too small.It needs to include all resources that are utilized by its inhabitants; for example, leaving out a stream where half of the mammals go to drink would not make a protected area very effective. Preventing Species Introductions It is often much easier and less expensive to prevent a problem from developing in the first place than to try to fix it once it occurs. This is the case with invasive species, which can wreak havoc when introduced t o ecosystems that aren’t prepared to deal with them.Many governments prohibit bringing foreign plants and animals into their countries without authorization; some even go so far as to disinfect landing planes and the shoe-bottoms of people on them. Informing / Educating Education is a powerful tool, and the more people know about biodiversity loss, the more they will be prepared to help slow it. Spreading the word about detrimental human effects on plants and animals can encourage people to change their ways and effect changes to preserve biodiversity.Slowing Climate Change Climate change is the documented cause of several extinctions that we know about, and has likely caused hundreds of species to go extinct about which we may never know. Any efforts as individuals, organizations, or governments, to slow current human-caused global warming is a step towards slowing biodiversity loss. Promoting Sustainability Sustainable agriculture is much better for the environment than gra zing and cropping that rely on clearing swathes of forest or field.

Advantages and Disadvantages of Children’s Use of Internet

Advantages and Disadvantages of Childrens Use of Internet Today children know how to use the internet, cell phone and know how to play video games. Technology is getting more advanced and children are becoming smarter. Children’s curiosity makes them want to know about everything, which is a good thing because this shows that children want to learn more with modern technology because it becomes natural to learn and understand easily. Childhood is about exploring and the internet changes the children’s learning and communication. From reading â€Å"How Technology Makes Kids Smarter†by Julie Ann, research has shown that children with access to computers early are more confident compared to the ones that used technology at a later age. The internet helps students work outside of their school and interact with others. It is important for students to have socializing skills because it helps them be more outgoing (Ann). It is important for children to spend time with their friends and family because when they need a job, the y need to learn to talk professionally, but they won’t know how. The internet can help, but it’s better to be opened minded and use the internet for a good cause. The internet is a fun environment, but it depends on how you use it because being smart and socialized is important as you get older. The internet offers fast communication, for example, emails, chat services and social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter, and more. The networking sites offer socializing, but it shouldn’t be necessary that people and children use the internet for socializing purposes only. Communicating through electronics continue to expand and it makes opportunities for the future.The internet is everywhere and everything is done online, for example, shopping or finding information. Many children are offering help to the elders on how to use the internet. After understanding how to use the internet, information on anything they need can be found. It is easy to access information and that has made this generation smarter than the children from the previous generations(â€Å"Are Social Networking Sites Good for Our Society?†). The internet is never-ending and is available 24/7. All data are available and it is well structured to make it easy to understand, which satisfies the child’s desire for knowledge without a teacher. Research studies have shown that children who use the internet are smarter and sociable compared to those who don’t use internet services. Technology has developed gradually since the last generation. Children are encouraged to use the internet for research because they understand it better and they can find detailed information on any topic. When they figure out how to use the search tools on the internet, they will be able to increase their knowledge on anything they want or need. Children today evolve fast and they are smarter than the children of the same age in the last generation and I believe that the internet is the cause of this. Computer are the best way to study because they are full of information and it is convenient for students (Ann). The internet has everything the children need to know, for example, homework, tutoring, educational videos, â€Å"how-to† videos and instructions on things that are difficult for us. The internet has everything that children need to know for education. If children didn’t understand something in class, they can look it up on Google. There are many reliable sites that help children learn and prepare them for tests, for example, Khanacademy.org, which is a popular website for world-class education for anyone. At school, teachers recommend students to look over specific sites to learn from. This shows that children are becoming smarter because of the internet because the internet can help with education and to help children learn what is happening around the world. All school have a computer system that is used as a research device. The inter net can answer questions for curious children, and they can search it easily.

NBA and NFL Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

NBA and NFL - Essay Example A 17 weeks long season is run by the NFL starting from the week after the Labor Day to the week before Christmas. Each team in the league is allowed to have 53 players and only 46 of them are allowed to be active on the day of the game. Major differences exist between the NBA and NFL. First of all let’s start from the business perspective where the NFL is considered to be more profitable than the NBA. Although this may not seem important but it does give NBA’s owner some leverage. This may not make sense at first, however it is true. As the NFL is so successful, both the owners and the players may be missing huge profits, on missing every second season. However the NBA’s owner may not suffer much because the league is less profitable than NFL. Next is that the NBA’s player make more money than the NFL’s players. The calculated NBA’s player is 2.5 times more than the NFL’s player salary. This indicates that the NBA’s players are more desperate in getting their deals done, as they’ll me losing more money with every missed paycheck. When we combinethis leverage with the previous one, it seems that the owners are desperate to do anything for getting the dea l done for which the players sometimes need to make some major concessions. This is the reason why the NBA’s owner uses small tactics for ensuring their security in new NBA. There is no doubt about the fact that the average attendance of the matches of top five NBA’s team is 20,000 which is much more than the average attendance of NFL’s matches, around 4,000. This is the main reason that why the salaries of the NBA’s player is much more than NFL’s players. In fact the salaries of two average players at NBA may account for the salaries of all the NFL’s players. Another reason is that NBA is played in USA, therefore it grasp the attention of a much larger audience. Whereas, NBL is played in Australia; therefore its attendance are

Philosophy - Categorical Imperative Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Philosophy - Categorical Imperative - Essay Example So what is a ‘mere’ means? Is there a line, and when might we cross that line between a ‘legitimate’ means and ‘mere’ means? Let’s consider the workplace. It is quite clear that slavery is using someone as a mere means. Holding someone captive and working to another’s ends is certainly using him or her as a mere means. Slavery is one extreme. One might say that at the other extreme is the self-employed person who determines his or her own ends and purposes, who decides when and how much to work and at what projects. In between these two extremes are a vast number of different types of work situations. Kant says we use people as ‘mere’ means when we determine their ends and purposes for them. Would involving the worker more in the decision-making process of work transform using them as a ‘mere’ means to using them as a ‘legitimate’ means? Have you ever worked or are you working now for minimum wage? At the time of this writing, minimum wage in America is about $5.35 per hour, in other words, $856 per month, and $9844 per year (with small variations in some states). Is the kind of life the wage could provide for the worker a relevant matter in determining a case of ‘mere’ means? Does raising someone’s salary or giving them a Christmas bonus transform using them as a ‘mere’ means into using them as a ‘legitimate’ means? If yes, is there a salary level at which this transformation takes place? Think about the working conditions for many people earning a wage. It seems that some of the most repugnant jobs are actually the ones paid the least—standing over a hot, greasy French fry station, hard manual labor, cleaning up others’ waste, etc. Is the degree that a job is repugnant a meaningful determinant for ‘mere’ means? If poorly paid repugnant work is one of ‘mere’ means, and if we raise the wage for repugnant

Jury Nullification Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words - 1

Jury Nullification - Essay Example However, this is observed by those opposing the concept, as making certain crimes in the society acceptable, since the perpetrators of such crimes can go unpunished by the laws. Further, the concept of jury nullification appears to contravene the provisions of the law, regarding the roles and jurisdiction of the jurors. Jurors are supposed to identify and determine the facts surrounding a certain case, while determining the case based on such facts, and leaving the interpretation of the laws to the judges. However, under the concept of jury nullification, jurors perform both the roles of investigating the facts surrounding the case and determining whether the laws applicable to the case are valid. This is because, under the concept of jury nullification, the jurors can disregard the instructions given by the judges, as well as the laws applicable to the case, and instead apply their conscious to determine the case (Shari, 4). Nevertheless, in consideration of the benefits and the problems posed by the concept of jury nullification in the justice system, this discussion seeks to develop a comprehensive argument in favor of the concept of jury nullification. Most fundamental is the fact that Jury Nullification serves as a substantial and necessary defense against discriminative laws. The Jury system is enshrined within the concept of the public justice system. This works towards ensuring that the judgments offered by the jurors resonate with the public opinion, more than the laws. While the laws adapted by many countries are meant to ensure that justice is done to the aggrieved parties, there are some instances where the legislators enacts certain laws in total disregard of the public opinion or interest, but solely fashioning such laws to suit their interests (Keneally, 944). This leaves the general public exposed to the wrath of the legislators, who may be

Painting of Jackson Pollock Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

Painting of Jackson Pollock - Essay Example A new, interactive and creative activity catches my attention for nearly a half an hour. Finally I give up and sink deep into the exciting world of colors, dots, lines and circles. Think and thin, short and long, bright and dull†¦ These colorful shapes are seducing the mind by the opportunity of becoming expressive, independent and original for at lest a few fun moments.Thought the first impression is that the activity of painting on the computer is just another entertaining experience, a second look makes me realize how cool our age is – the age of advanced technologies that allow any average individual to become, for at least some minutes, an artist. It’s so strange – a seemingly simple computer application makes the tired brain think of such great things as world progress, global development and even the essence of being. Dots – large and small, lines – straight and wavy, shapes†¦ And an inexpressible joy of creation.

Memento - Christopher Nolan's Theme of Vengeance for the Death and Movie Review - 2

Memento - Christopher Nolan's Theme of Vengeance for the Death and Dishonesty - Movie Review Example This paper focuses on describing how the film is shot and how this affects audience perception of the action. It further discusses how this affects audience perception of short-term memory. This film is shot in a manner where it begins with the film’s end scene and ends with the characters describing or resolving events or issues presented, in the film, which is actually never explained fully. This unique non-linear narrative structure matches Shelby’s character and behavior. This is because he remembers events and issues in short increments of time, but continues with the pursuit for his wife’s murderers. In this context, the viewers perceive the film just like Shelby perceives life, which is broken and out of order, but later makes sense through Shelby’s restrictive narrations, multiple story plots and a number of close-ups of clues (Memento). Additionally, the manner in which the film was edited also disturbs audience understanding of the storyline. Thi s is because it is narrated in a backward direction with scenes flushing backward with the increments of the story time.   This trend continues and maintains until the film ends, where the audience meets the beginning of Shelby’s narration.Different scenes are also presented in different colors in a reverse order sequence plot with each signifying fifteen minutes of story time. These reverse order sequence scenes from the key plot of Shelby’s investigation to find John G. Additionally, main segments are separated by shorter segments, which are presented in black and white scenes in a sequential order that form one sub-plot where Shelby is continually conversing to a mysterious policeman through the phone (Memento). This sub-plot represents Sammy Jankis’s story, a man who has no short-term memory like Shelby. A chronological sequence cuts short the reverse order sequence after every few minutes. This is particularly done to make the film comprehensive. The prod ucer has managed to connect two reverse order scenes by including the first few seconds of a scene at the end of the subsequent scene.

History of Florence italy Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

History of Florence italy - Essay Example The popes encountered disagreements among themselves due to the difference in political alliances especially between the Italian and French popes who lived in Rome, and Avignon respectively. Any religious believer serving two popes, was intolerable and would be considered as a kin to being in hopeless/helpless passenger in an over speeding driverless automobile that would claim passenger’s life unsympathetically (Bonechi 43). The resolution to the pope issue was settled in a conference organized in 1409 which led to the appointment of a third pope, though the situation continued for a while till one pope settled on in 1417. The new pope led to resilience and creation of the papal state with the headquarters based in Italy. Due to the creation of a papal state all the tithes and funding directed to the church had to be channeled into one coffer, referred to as papal banker based in Florence (Bonechi 49). By the 15th Century Florence had already been famous and prosperous historically with fortunes in the banking industry and wool trades. However, the Black Death had wiped out the Italian population in the 14th century which resulted in bankruptcy of two banks. This led to occasional famine and civil unrest coupled with plague outbreak episodes and calamities which wobbled and shook Florence and its economy for a while (Bonechi 15). During the famine and economic strive, Florentines declined to be dominated by others, leading to repulsion of both Naples and Milan’s unwelcoming advancement. Due to the repulsion, Florence gained more power than it had during the pre- Plague forging ahead to secure Pisa as one of its port (this was a geographical item which Florence had not enjoyed previously) (Bonechi 38). During the third competition, the humanist believed that man was purportedly created in the image of God (Judea Christian) and given the ability to balance ideas in a meaningful manner.

Urban legends Essay Example for Free

Urban legends Essay According to Tom Harris, urban legends are modern fictional stories or myths passed from person to person and frequently have the elements of caution, horror or humor. Most of the urban legends are always false though some have proven true. They are mostly always inspired by a true story but tend to change in the course of transmission from one person to another. Moreover, it is hard to follow back an urban legend to its source, this is because it seems to come from everywhere with slight variation each time. James M. Henslin, on the other hand describes an urban legend as â€Å"a deliciously entertaining tale† the truth of which is unverifiable. Thematically, they are characterized by some elements of horror, warning embarrassment, humor, appeal to empathy and morality. Their unexpected twists though always weird, are sometimes so reasonable enough to be taken as the truth. One example of an urban legend is that is exemplified by Harris is called the Vegas organ harvesters†. In this legend, it is reported that a man meets a woman in an Vegas pub and have a drink together, the observer apparently relates how the two hit it off but at one time the man passes out. The story adds that the man later wakes up to find himself in a bathtub covered in ice. There is a phone near him and a note telling him to â€Å"call 911 or you will dies. † When he is taken to hospital, he the doctor tell him that he had a major surgery and one of his kidneys had been taken. This story, though not true has the basic elements of an urban legend. First it has an element of horror in it; the man realizing that his kidney has been harvested. It also encompasses an element of caution. Vegas being among the most widely visited places on earth; the caution is to avoid meeting people you do not know so well. Of the two authors, Thomas Harris is clearer and I agree with him in most of his dissection of urban legends. His simple examples and method of following back a legend to its most probable source is interesting. In my own perspective, urban legends are beneficial in some ways. One is that by cautioning people on what to do and what not to do, they make people careful about what they do. Moreover they also entertain. References Henslin, James M. Sociology: A Down-to-earth Approach. Allyn and Bacon, 1993 Harris, Thomas E. Applied Organizational Communication: Perspectives, Principles, and Pragmatics. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 1993.

Negative Impacts of an Ageing Population

Negative Impacts of an Ageing Population What problems might governments face with an ageing population? Discuss what can be done to alleviate these problems? Nowadays, the issue of ageing population is a subject of much attention in all over the world. Population ageing is a shift in the distribution of a countrys population towards older ages. This is usually reflected in an increase in the populations mean and median ages, a decline in the proportion of the population composed of children, and a rise in the proportion of the population that is elderly. It is predicted that the trend for an older population will continue during the first half of this century at least. What this means is that we now have more elderly people than ever. The ageing of the population presents a major fiscal challenge for the government. Currently, it is a serious problem for governments in terms of what the effects will be on healthcare, care services, pensions and future labor supply. One of the major worries about the growing number of elderly people in our society is how the system can afford to support them all. Ageing populations are likely to put significant pressure on public spending programs, such as health care and pensions. Health care is the area that is particularly affected by the changing age structure of the population in favor of older age groups. The health care system through out the world is already overly stretched and the rise in this sector of population can make the health system go further haywire. Cost of health insurance is on hike and if this is the case many people will not be able to afford the costly insurance after a certain point in their lifetime. The pattern of health-care costs at different stages in the average life-cycle has been established in a number of researches, and it implies that as the numbers of elderly increase, total health-care costs are also likely to rise, although the effect of increased life expectancy on per c apita health-care costs is more difficult to establish because it depends, in part, on the physical dimensions of the ageing process. In order to isolate and examine the effects of demographics on health-care spending, per capita real public health-care spending on people under 65 year-olds and on those 65-years and older is assumed to grow in line with productivity growth. The per capita expenditures were then applied to the population projections for their corresponding age groups. The scenarios of health-care costs indicate that in the United States and Canada, whose populations are growing as well as ageing, public spending on health care as a per cent of GDP (Gross Domestic Product) would rise significantly. In the United States, the effects of ageing are exacerbated by the particularly high share of public health spending which is spent on those over 65 compared with the under 65 year-olds. Moreover, The Government has given a lot consideration to adapting the design of new builds to ensure they are suitable for the ageing population. Its national strategy, called Lifetime Homes; Lifetime Neighborhoods sets out the challenge and the governmental plan of response. The plan sets out sixteen design features that should be incorporated into all new homes, such as level access, wide corridors and doorways, ground floor bathroom facilities, and sockets and light switches at a convenient height.   Besides, ageing population also affect on the demand for these social services, especially for pensions. The underlying reason is that medical advances over the last few decades have greatly prolonged our life span, forcing the pensions industry to support a greater number of pensioners for longer periods. But the problem has been exacerbated in recent years by dwindling stock market returns. Pension funds depend on steady stock market returns to pay policyholders. And when share prices fall as they have been doing for the last two years it becomes harder for funds to meet their obligations. Lower returns have forced most of the big company-run pension funds to suspend generous schemes which guarantee employees a fixed proportion of their final salaries on retirement. A large proportion of firms have now set up defined contribution or money purchase schemes, which do not guarantee the final pension sum and are therefore less risky for companies. An additional gripe, as far as employers are concerned, is the 10% tax on dividends earned by pension schemes, which was imposed by the chancellor shortly after the present government was elected in 1997. Dividends play an important part in the long-term health of pension schemes. Any tax on them increases the possibility that the scheme will not have sufficient assets to meet liabilities. Another problem is that ageing population means fewer youth who is the main labors in almost factories and companies; the decreasing in number of young people may lead to the shortage of labor in near future. In many countries, expected demographic developments will lead to significant declines in the growth of the labor force and aggregate participation rates over the next decades. The overall participation rate could fall by some 4-5 percentages on average between 2000 and 2025. This will be accompanied by an increasing share of older workers in the labor force and a significant increase in old-age dependency ratios. The ageing also will have a serious affect on the industry, as essential skills will be lost when employees retire (given that there are fewer young professionals coming into the industry to replace those retiring). This is exacerbated by the fact that the number of new recruits is declining and there will be nobody available to replace those retiring. This would also mean that the industry is losing a valuable teaching resource, as older workers often use their expertise and experience to help develop new entrants. This issue is closely related to the industrys dilemma of skills shortages and its problems in recruiting enough new employees. While the industrys older members are acknowledged for their significant expertise and experience, it was suggested that a fresher perspective from younger employees is important to drive innovation in the industry. These respondents believe that developing new ideas and innovative ways of working will help to strengthen the industrys future. Cur rently, theres no balance between these different aspects of the industry workforce, causing important skills to be lost and innovation to be constrained. In order to solve these problems above, the governments should have some solutions to prevent the economy getting worse and improve the living standard for all people. Some of main policy options which are governments should do for adjusting pension systems to future challenges are delaying retirement, lowering pension payments (including replacement rates) and undertaking welfare reform. The combined effects of the falling the numbers of working people and the rising numbers of pensioners mean that even quite major increases in contribution rates or reductions in pension payments would be insufficient to balance those projects that face the greatest problems. Increasing contribution rates can be seen as simply a means of raising overall tax revenues and would need to be assessed against other revenue-raising options but it does focus directly on the problem. Increasing the retirement ages (delaying retirement) to the extent that it does actually lead to people working for longer, al so helps to avoid one rather awkward aspect of many of the other changes suggested. Raising retirement ages also provides the decreasing in the number of pensioners. In order to delay retirement, government should ensure all state workplaces are conducive to older workers remaining in employment or encourages retirees to return to the labor force. Besides, government should relax the process for obtaining exemptions under the act for those employers who wish to target specific disadvantaged groups for recruitment. Those countries with the lowest retirement ages, after current reforms are implemented, France and Italy, also face the largest pension pressures and raising retirement ages significantly would seem to offer the most scope for easing the pressure, especially as experience elsewhere indicates that raising retirement ages is a practical and feasible policy option. Another solution which the government should do to balance the ratio between the number of old people and young people are reducing the cost of raising children, even the education cost. On the other hand, these days many parents can not be able to pay for raising children. For example, in UK there are two sets of people paying the costs of raising children: their parents and taxpayers. The costs of raising a family are high for parents, even those who send their children to state schools. According to a December 2007 survey by the Liverpool Victoria Friendly Society, parents can expect to spend about  £186,000 (up from  £180,000 from a year before) on bringing up a child from birth to the age of 21. A typical family spends  £50,538 on childcare and  £47,310 on education, even assuming a state education through primary and secondary school. The costs for taxpayers are high too. With state education paid for by the taxpayer, those under 18 incur costs to the public sector as w ell as the older people who receive state pensions and people of all ages who receive other state benefits. Young dependants funded by the taxpayer receive state-supported childcare or nursery education from ages 0-5; primary school education from 5-11; and secondary education from schools from 11-16. Many go on to receive further education from 16-18; with some 43% of those aged 18-21 continuing in full-time higher education at universities and colleges and the government aiming to raise participation to 50%. In 2004-2005 state education cost taxpayers  £63.7 billion, of which  £4.2 billion was spent on under-fives,  £36.5 billion on schools,  £7.4 billion on further education and  £7.8 billion on higher education. With 9.3 million pupils in 34,600 schools, the average school place cost the taxpayer  £3,924 a year. Therefore, there are a lot of people do not want to have children because they can not afford to bring up them. In order to increase the number of young chil dren government should have policies to help young people. Furthermore, immigration should be another cure for failing birth rates and ageing population. Because, immigrant can get employed to simulate economic growth. However, the proportion of low-skilled immigrants in the total number of immigrants should not be higher than the proportion among natives to prevent unemployment from rising. Thus to stimulate investments and economic growth it is of utmost importance that immigration policy as a means to mitigate the ageing problem should not only focus on the number of immigrants, but also on their employability by keeping the skill structure in line with the skill distribution of domestic labor market entrants. Overall, older people are a significant and growing part of local communities. This inexorable trend presents both daunting challenges and real opportunities for local government. Older people offer rich life experience, well honed skills, knowledge and wisdom, qualities that significantly contribute to the social fabric of local communities. But our ageing population will also impact on planning and service delivery due to the slowdown in the growth of workforce and the increase in spending on caring old people.

Satellites :: essays research papers

Satellites Satellite is probably the most useful invention since the wheel. Satellites have the capability to let you talk with someone across the nation or let you close a business deal through video communication. Almost everything today is heading towards the use of satellites, such as telephones. At&t has used this communications satellite (top right) ever since the late 1950s. TVS and radios are also turning to the use of satellites. RCA and Sony have released satellite dishes for Radio and Television services. New technology also allows the military to use satellites as a weapon. The new ION cannon is a satellite that can shoot a particle beam anywhere on earth and create an earthquake. They can also use it's capability for imaging enhancement, which allows you to zoom in on someone's nose hairs all the way from space.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Robert Gossard (left) was one of the most integral inventors of the satellite. He was born on October 5, 1882. He earned his Masters and Doctoral degree in Physics at Clark University. He conducted research on improving solid- propellant rockets. He is known best for firing the world's first successful liquid-propellant rocket on March 16, 1926. This was a simple pressure-fed rocket that burned gasoline and liquid oxygen. It traveled only 56m (184 ft) but proved to the world that the principle was valid. Gossard Died August 10, 1945. Gossard did not work alone, he was also in partnership with a Russian theorist named Konstantin Tsiolkovsky. Tsiolkovsky was born on September 7, 1857. As a child Tsiolkovsky educated himself and rose to become a High School teacher of mathematics in the small town of Kaluga, 145km (90mi) south of Moscow. In his early years Tsiolkovsky caught scarlet fever and became 80% deaf. Together, the theoretical work of Russian Konstantin Tsiolkovsky and the experimental work of American Robert Gossard, confirmed that a satellite might be launched by means of a rocket.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  I chose the satellite to research because many things such as computers, TVS and telephones are using satellites, and I thought it would be a good idea to figure out how they work and the history behind them before we start to use them more rapidly. I also picked the satellite because I think that my life would differ without it. For instance, The Internet or World Wide Web would run very slowly or would cease to exist altogether. We wouldn't be able to talk to people across the world because telephone wires would have to travel across the Atlantic, and if they did, the reception would be horrible. We wouldn't know

Merchant of Venice Essay: Antonios Love for Bassanio -- Merchant Veni

Antonio's Love for Bassanio in The Merchant of Venice  Ã‚     Ã‚  Ã‚   Antonio feels closer to Bassanio than any other character in The Merchant of Venice. Our first clue to this is in the first scene when, in conversation with Antonio, Solanio says, "Here comes Bassanio, your most noble kinsman, / Gratiano, and Lorenzo. Fare ye well: / We leave you now with better company" (i. i. 57-59). Once Antonio is alone with Bassanio, the conversation becomes more intimate, and Antonio offers an indebted Bassanio "My purse, my person, my extremest means" (137). We find out later that Bassanio needs money to woo Portia, a noble heiress who Bassanio intends to marry. And though Antonio is not in a position to loan money at the time, he does not disappoint Bassanio: Neither have I money, nor commodity To raise a present sum; therefore, go forth; Try what my credit can in Venice do: That shall be racket, even to the uttermost, To furnish thee to Belmont, to fair Portia. (124-128) Antonio does not make these offers to any other character in The Merchant of Venice. In fact, there is only one scene in which Antonio is present and Bassanio not; in act 3 scene 3, and even then Antonio ends the scene with a plea for Bassanio: "Pray God, Bassanio come / To see me pay his debt, -- and then I care not" (iii, iii, 35-36). Antonio expresses love for Bassanio to him several times throughout the play ("You know me well, and herein spend but time / To wind about my love with circumstance" [i, i, 154]; "Commend me to your honourable wife: / Tell her the process of Antonio's end; / Say how I loved you" [iv, i, 273-275]). But whether the love Antonio holds for Bassanio is either sexual or platonic is never overtly answered, which leaves speculation ... ...of Venice." Shakespeare Quarterly 37 1: 20-37. Granville-Barker, Harley. "The Merchant of Venice." Shakespeare: Modern Essays in Criticism, Leonard Dean, ed. New York: Oxford University Press, 1967. Kahn, Coppelia. "The Cuckoo's Note: Male Friendship and Cuckoldry in The Merchant of Venice." Shakespeare's "Rough Magic", Peter Erickson & Coppelia Kahn, eds. Newark: University of Delaware Press, 1985. Patterson, Steve. "The Bankruptcy of Homoerotic Amity in Shakespeare's Merchant of Venice." Shakespeare Quarterly 49, 1: 9-32 Shakespeare, William. "The Merchant of Venice." The Complete Works of William Shakespeare. Oxford: Shakespeare Head Press, 1998. Sinfield, Alan. "How to Read The Merchant of Venice Without Being Heterosexist." Alternative Shakespeare Volume 2, Terrance Hawkes, ed. New York: Routledge, 1996   

Poking the Parts :: Women Sexuality Society Masturbation Essays

Poking the Parts While sex and sexuality are considered to be two of the most intensely private parts of a person’s existence, a woman's personal sexuality and experience of the sexual in the context of the greater society is not always her own. "[Women] are being imprinted with a sexuality that is mass-produced, deliberately dehumanizing and inhuman"(Wolf, 162). Our sexuality is being created for us before we even have the knowledge that we have something to fight for. Very often, we do not get to decide what our sexuality means, the world has already decided for us. And one aspect of female sexuality that has had been most intensely labeled is masturbation. So my questions are, what cues are women really picking up about their sexuality? How do women create their own sense of sexuality independent of these cultural norms and dictations? My goals in exploring female masturbation as a symbol of female sexuality and its relationship to women and to society are multi-layered. In this pap er, I plan to outline the theoretical history of the taboo on female masturbation as it relates to female sexuality as a whole. I also plan to discuss the way that several women are experiencing and negotiating their sexuality now. In addressing each of these issues, I hope to present a better understanding of how the sexuality of women is affected and the way that women then manage the internalization of these cultural expectations and how they experience and conceive of their sexuality as a result. Those who fear and disapprove of female sexuality and masturbation have taken several standpoints throughout history. It is clear, however, after looking over the propaganda issued on the horrors of female masturbation, that much of it was the work of the self-serving and insecure male. One of the first standpoints taken is the notion that women are inherently insatiable when it comes to sex and that masturbation is simply encouraging sinful and inappropriate behaviors. Another is that due to the nature of female sexual arousal and response, men have the potential to become effectively obsolete as sources of sexual satisfaction, and if it is accurate that women are both unsatisfied by heterosexual encounters and sexually insatiable, they will clearly then resort to masturbation even more. And finally, the general belief that any form

Genocide History Essay

When it comes to violence and murder, no excuse can be made. Acts of heartlessness can never be justified. Genocide, or mass murder, has no other purpose but to destroy a nation. Netherlands, in this case, has suffered its ordeal because of the rising tensions in Europe during the Second World War. German troops took over the Netherlands on May 10, 1940 and the people suffered for five long years. Germany took interest in invading the Netherlands because 75% of the Netherlands’ population during that time was Jews. In fact, the Nazis deported hundreds of thousands of Jews, where only 5000 people were able to reach their homes. The people left in the Netherlands had to hide, and there were 30,000 who tried to survive (Laub, 2008). The Netherlands suffered the most number of deaths during the Holocaust, and this country surely knows what genocide means for a country, be it a nation of power or a nation of helplessness. Aside from that, the Netherlands was an interest for the Germans and genocide was something they did not have second thoughts of, because the Netherlands is easy to invade considering its cultural and geographic features (Laub, 2008). To make the picture clearer, anyone who tries to escape the Netherlands will surely fail because the countries surrounding this nation are all controlled by Germany. If not, the Netherlands is surrounded by bodies of water in its Northern side. Anyone who tries to escape safely into the waters will find danger along the way, because the waters were controlled by the Germans, too. That being said, genocide was at its worst, and everyone was there to kill or get killed. Because of the unlikely behaviour of humans that time, the Dutch people learned to regain their independence. They focused on their own nation, nationality and of course, freedom. Fighting hand in hand was not too bloody, because the Netherlands thought that the Germans will outlast the situation in the sense that they may get tired of causing chaos (Julius, 2000). The Netherlands did not use blood to counterattack the power of Germany, but they had campaigns and policies to live by, which can be shown with how the butch wore orange carnation or how they designed their postage stamps with orange colours, or how they wore orange to symbolize Dutch ruling family. Some of them rushed into hiding because they did not want to sign an oath that calls for loyalty to the Germans. The Netherlands succeeded without the use of weapons. Publishing and speaking were their means of survival and resistance, which can clearly be seen with how Anne Frank spread peace, honesty and awareness on genocide, and the Holocaust in general, through her diary (Julius, 2000). However, because of too much fear of being killed from the genocide taking place in the Netherlands, the Dutch slowly forgot about the Dutch Jewry in which small oppressive situations took place. While the Dutch Jewry enjoyed the equal citizenship, they started feeling out of place in a country they considered home because the some of the real Dutch put the blame on the Jews. After all, the Germans went after the Jews for killing (Julius, 2000) Genocide took away lives, but it also took away the more important things that keep nations alive and the world peaceful, like equal rights and plain peaceful coexistence. Jews were soon banned from serving as air-raid wardens. It was not too long ago when they were asked to leave the coastal towns of the Netherlands like the Hague. Changes were too extreme to the point that the Jews were no longer welcome in civil service (Amnesty International, 2008). The evil, here, is not the Dutch. It may not even be the Germans, but it is especially not the Jews. We can not simply erase a race to give rise to a new and expectedly better one. We can not support genocide and choose who to exist in this planet. The culprit of disorder and social unrest is the desire and greed of humans, and genocide in general. Genocide has, in a way, changed the Dutch not exactly in the way they wanted because they didn’t have a choice. References Amnesty International.2008. The Netherlands: The Detention of Irregular Migrants and Asylum Seekers. Amnesty International. Retrieved August 26, 2008 from http://www. amnesty. org/en/library/asset/EUR35/002/2008/en/4c629481-482d-11dd-a377-f5461cc8d4de/eur350022008eng. pdf. Julius, A. (2000). Combating Holocaust Denial Through Law in the United Kingdom. Jewish Policy Research. Retrieved August 26, 2008 from http://www. jpr. org. uk/Reports/CS_Reports/no_3_2000/index. htm Laub, D. (2008). Holocaust Trauma Project. Genocide Studies Program, Yale University. Retrieved August 26, 2008 from http://www. yale. edu/gsp/trauma_project/index. htm

Femme Fatale in Victorian Literature Essay

INTRODUCTION Victorian Era was the big step in the overall cultural development of England. Many, presently famous novels and poems came to light during this period. Mainly writers, who (in their style of writing) openly manifested their opposition to the strict moral law which was significant those days. Universal etiquette of behavior, wealth and the family name in the social hierarchy ladder were very important to be perceived as aristocracy. Class division within the society was clearly marked. The pattern of a female character in Victorian novel which gained popularity very fast that time was Femme Fatale pattern which is also known as deadly woman. I have chosen such topic, because I am of opinion that femme fatale type of character is the most interesting of all female identity types. Furthermore, Victorian period is a time of a changing role of the women in the British society, which gives us very contrastive background, in which behavior of such woman was something immoral, controversial but also brave. Charles Dickens is widely perceived as the greatest novelist of the Victorian Era. He is the creator of fictional characters, which are known all over the world and are used as universal patterns through centuries till now. Ch. Dickens in his work described in a perfect way English Victorian society as well as its rules. Dickens, through his life experienced many difficulties, which shaped his identity and had immense influence on his own, specific style of writing. His thirteenth novel Great Expectations was one of the greatest among Victorian Era works. The main character Pip, is growing and developing through the whole story which is why the novel belongs to the Bildungsroman genre. What is more, Great Expectations novel was firstly published in the serial form in weekly magazine All the Year Round so it can be also defined as serialized novel. The plot of this story is quite complicated, bringing the reader much of surprise because of unexpected turns of action and character, like the most significant change in the story is when the main hero suddenly becomes rich person and his life has been rapidly changed. But it is not main hero on whom I am going to focus in the first chapter of my diploma paper. It will be the woman of his dreams. The woman, who was unable to return a feeling back to him, as well as to anybody else. Her name is Estella Havisham and she is the first example which I am going to analyze in my work. The second writer from Victorian era whose fictional character I am going to analyze is William Thackeray. William Thackeray, the next one of the greatest writers in Victoria Era, was born into British high society in 1811. He experienced mostly comfortable and easy life until he reached 22 years old. Till that time he managed to squander most of his fortune. The main reasons which led to that situation were gambling and the Indian Banking Crisis. We can say that during his life he experienced on his own what is like to be rich and poor. That is why he could objectively depict the view of British society of his times. This is exactly what he had done in his famous work entitled Vanity Fair. In 1847 He started publishing short stories in Punch Magazine, which means that similarly to Great Expectations, it was also serialized novel. Although first chapters of this novel were written years before, they were not available for the wide audience. The whole story was completed and published as a book in 1848. That time also it received the subtitle A Novel Without a Hero. Very soon it became successful. CHAPTER ONE: FEMME FATALE AND VICTORIAN SOCIETY 1Victorian Period – Overall information The period 1837-1901 is named Victorian after Queen Victoria who ruled English country that time. It was a time of a big change when English Victorian Society was divided into three main classes: upper, middle and lower which was also called working class. Each class is characterized by various occupations, ways of life and etiquette. The upper class consisted of the nobility, such as dukes, earls, and viscounts. They were often related to the royal families of Britain and Europe, and their society was distinct and separate to the other two classes – certain expectations had to be met by everybody. Most of these ‘aristocrats’ did not have a profession, as their families had sufficient funds to live in affluence. However, many were captains of industry, especially mining or ship building. The middle class consisted of rich families who were respectable, but lacked a â€Å"title†, and often had skilled professions, such as a doctor, or a teacher. At the beginning of the Victorian times, they were a small proportion of the population. However, the effects of the Industrial Revolution meant that more people could be defined as ‘middle class’, because of improvements in education and more opportunities of leveling from the lower class to upper one. The lower class (working class) were made up of the rural and urban poor, who had often low skilled, dangerous, dirty and boring jobs (often all four) that they had to take because of the lack of education. A handful could actually be defined as ‘lower middle class’, but because they often lived in terraced housing areas, they were defined as working class. There was also a class below the working class – paupers. They lived in extreme poverty, often because of old age, unemployment, illness or strained resources. Sally Mitchel in her book clearly points out that Most working people earned just enough to stay alive, and could be thrown into poverty by illness, layoffs, or a sudden misfortune such as a factory fire that caused even short-term unemployment. People in unskilled and semiskilled jobs generally needed additional income from several members of the family. (Mitchel 19) Etiquette was one of the most significant thing that time. Education of the woman would not be completed without teaching rules of proper behavior. Not only women but also men had to obey this set of rules during many daily activities even the simplest one. What kind of jewelry as well as when and where one should wear, who to walk with, who to dance with, how and when to speak to a stranger, were all very critical knowledge. For men, there were rules about bowing, where to sit and next to whom, even about the circumstances in which it was appropriate or not to smoke or drink in front of ladies. Running a house without servants was almost impossible. The number of servants one could afford was a sign of one’s wealth. The bigger house, the more servants were hired. They were usually divided into two groups: indoor (butler, housekeeper, maids) and outdoor: (coachman, groom, a gardener). Being a servant wasn’t well-paid job but thanks to tips, a servant could earn extra money. Next, very significant thing which was obligatory mainly in upper class society was dance. It was the essence of every ball which was one of the greatest entertainment that time in English society. Balls were organized on many occasions and created opportunity to know noble men and women from upper class. In Victorian Britain the ideology of separate private sphere to the woman and sphere of business and politics to the man was clearly marked. The home was regarded as a haven from the busy and chaotic public world of politics and business, and from the harsh life of the factory. In Victorian times, you could travel one of three ways: by train, by horse, or by foot. The most common means of transportation was by far the horse. It was used by rich and poor. The rich owned fancy coaches that had every accessory one could ever need for living on the road, and the poor would go about town on the cheap omnibuses that carried twenty people at a time. 2Femme Fatale The term femme fatale comes from French and it states mainly in the opposition to another popular image of a Victorian woman called Angel in the House. ‘Femme Fatale is a woman who is sexually attractive but cruel and dangerous to men who have a relationship with her’ (Macmillan Dictionary, Femme Fatale definition). There were many famous female characters in the history who suit very well to this image even before the term Femme Fatale has been created. To the most famous examples belong: The femme fatale has always been a well-known archetype in literature, art and movies. The tradition of the femme fatale is long and versatile and can be traced back as far as ancient Egypt, with its iconic Cleopatra. Especially in the fine arts, the femme fatale has been portrayed in many metaphorical ways: as a vampire, nymph, fallen angel or sorceress. She flourished in the 1940’s century film noir, where the combination of aggressiveness and sensuality in women was a central topic (Place, 1998: 57). We can find many examples not only in written form but also in movies, where tempting and lethal women can be found as well: Sharon Stone in BASIC INSTINCT (1992), the Bond Girls or Renee Zellweger and Catherine Zeta-Jones in CHICAGO (2002) were all very seductive, but dangerous. Hence, based on van Dijkstra’s extensive historiography, the femme fatale can be defined as a woman who is mysteriously seductive and uses this quality to outsmart men. Her resistance against male domination exists of beauty, charm and sexual allure: she tempts the male target and drives him crazy by denying him her affection. (1986, 237) To summarize: key aspects of the femme fatale are mystery, beauty, seduction and, most importantly, danger. The most conventional image of the perfect Victorian woman who states in opposition to Femme Fatale woman can be found in the title of a long poem written by Coventry Patmore: The Angel in the House. The pure woman’s life was supposed to be entirely centered on the home. She preserved the higher moral values, guarded her husband’s conscience, guided her children’s training, and helped regenerate society through her daily display of Christianity in action. If she successfully made the home a place of perfect peace, her husband and sons would not want to leave it for an evening’s (morally suspect) entertainment elsewhere. (Mitchell 266) 3 William Makepeace Thackeray – Vanity Fair William Makepeace Thackeray was born in Calcutta, India, in 1811. He was son of Richmond Thackeray, an Indian Civil Servant, and his wife Anne. Just a few years later his father died, his mother remarried, and the shy and young William was sent to England where he would deal with the harsh realities of isolation at Charterhouse, a private school in London. He then went on to attend Trinity College, Cambridge. Thackeray abandoned his studies without taking a degree, having lost some of his inheritance of twenty thousand pounds through gambling. During 1831-33 Thackeray studied law at the Middle Temple, London, but had little enthusiasm to continue his studies. Soon after He went to Paris to unsuccessfully try his hand at painting. It was in Paris that he met and married Isabella Shawe (1816–1893) in 1836, with whom he would have two surviving daughters, Anne Isabella and Harriet Marian. Back in England he suffered massive financial losses, which is why he had to start writing articles, reviews, essays and sketches as a journalist. Travel articles about France such as his Paris Sketch Book (1840) and The Yellowplush Correspondence (1841) were among his first efforts appearing in various magazines and journals including Fraser’s, Punch, and The Times. He also illustrated many of his own works. After the birth of Harriet, Isabella started on what was to be, until her death, numerous bouts of depression, an extensive search for a cure, and ultimately a slow spiral to insanity. She would live apart from William, rarely seeing him or her daughters. Thackeray remained close to his daughters all his life. Anne was his secretary for a while and they both lived with him at his house in London before marrying. The disintegration of his marriage however would have a profound effect on his life and was reflected in the characters of his novels, including the loveless marriage between Rachel and Frank Castlewood in The History of Henry Esmond, Esq. (1852) and its sequel The Virginians (1857). Haunting the Literary Clubs of London including the Garrick Club, Thackeray also travelled the Mediterranean, A Journey from Cornhill to Grand Cairo (1846) the result. Book of Snobs (1848) and Vanity Fair (1848) followed soon after, but it was not until The History of Pendennis (1850), his semi-autobiographical novel that Thackeray’s success as a humorist was confirmed. He then embarked on a series of lectures published as English Humorists of the Eighteenth Century (1851) and Four Georges (1860), based on the Hanoverian Kings, from his tours of the United States in 1852-53 and 1855-56. In 1860 Thackeray became editor of the monthly literary journal Cornhill Magazine, but died suddenly three years later, in 1863, at the age of fifty two. He lies buried beside his mother in the Victorian Garden cemetery Kensal Green in London, England. Charles Dickens wrote a glowing tribute to him in Cornhill Magazine. William Thackeray is mostly known for his great novel â€Å"Vanity Fair†. The novel was written in 1848. The book brought Thackeray prosperity and made him an established author and popular lecturer in Europe and in the United States. Vanity Fair with its second title A Novel without a Hero is a novel published in 1847–48, satirizing society in early 19th-century Britain. The book’s title comes from John Bunyan’s allegorical story The Pilgrim’s Progress, first published in 1678 and still widely read at the time of Thackeray’s novel. â€Å"Vanity Fair† refers to a stop along the pilgrim’s progress: a never-ending fair held in a town called Vanity, which is meant to represent man’s sinful attachment to worldly things. The novel is now considered a classic, and has inspired several film adaptations, the most recent being the 2004 film starring Reese Witherspoon. In 2003, Vanity Fair was listed on the BBC’s The Big Read poll of the UK’s â€Å"best-loved novel†.[1] 4 Charles Dickens – Great Expectations Charles Dickens is widely perceived as the greatest novelist of the Victorian Era. He is the creator of fictional characters, which are known all over the world and are used as universal patterns through centuries till now. Ch. Dickens in his work describes in a perfect way English Victorian society as well as its rules. Dickens, through his life experienced many difficulties, which shaped his identity and had immense influence on his own, specific style of writing. Charles John Huffam Dickens was born on 7 February 1812 in Portsmouth. He was son of John and Elizabeth Dickens. Until he finished 11 years he and his family moved two times. He was very clever boy. When he was young, he read many novels, especially the picaresque novels of Tobias Smollett and Henry Fielding. From the early stages he took private lessons, first in dame school, and then at a school run by William Giles, a dissenter, in Chatham. In 1822, the Dickens family moved to Camden Town, a poor neighborhood in London. By then the family’s financial situation had grown dire, as John Dickens had a dangerous habit of living beyond the family’s means. Eventually, John was sent to prison for debt in 1824, when Charles was just 12 years old. In 1860 Dickens started to publish short stories for the weekly magazine â€Å"All The Year Round†. Although intended for weekly publication, Great Expectations was divided into nine monthly sections, with new pagination for each. At the beginning, his serialized story was not so famous as A Day’s Ride by Charles Lever, which was published in the same magazine but soon lose favor with the public. Dickens, during one year of publication (1860-1861), wrote thirty six episodes. The novel gained title Great Expectation and became very successful among works of Victorian era, showing simultaneously Dickens’ peak and maturity as an author. Nowadays, novel is regarded as very important and is taught in many English classes. The main character Pip, is growing and developing through the whole story which is why the novel belongs to the Bildungsroman genre. In many respects, it contains themes and emotions directly related to the author’s experience. For instance, the description of Pip’s childhood has some affinity with Dickens own life. Also, Estella seems directly inspired from Maria Beadwell, a lady whom Dickens loved; Beadwell snubbed him coldly because of his low social status. The plot of story is complicated, bringing the reader much of surprise because of unexpected turns of action as the most significant change in the story when the main hero suddenly becomes rich person and his life has been rapidly changed. But it is not main hero on whom I am going to focus in the first chapter of my diploma paper. It will be the woman of his dreams. The woman, who was unable to return a feeling back to him, as well as to anybody else. Her name is Estella Havisham and she is the first example which I am going to analyze in my work.

Face Recognition Technology To Augment Security Measures At The Sporting Event Essay

Facial recognition technology refers to a computer driven application that automatically identifies an individual from his or her digital image by a comparison of particular facial features in a facial database and in the live image (â€Å"Face Recognition,† 2007). The technology creates a template of people’s facial configurations, such as the lengths of their noses and the angles of their jaws. It thereby functions like the other biometric technologies (e. g. iris scanning) that use biological features for the purposes of recognition. According to Visionics, a manufacturer of face recognition technology, this technology is capable of finding human faces â€Å"anywhere in the field of view and at any distance, and it can continuously track them and crop them out of the scene, matching the face against a watch list† (Kautzer). While iris scanning and other kinds of biometric technologies are known to be far more accurate than the face recognition technology, it is believed that the latter would be more widely accepted because it is least intrusive. The technology also does not require users to push, click, or insert anything into the system. Moreover, companies using the face recognition technology do not require the installation of anything except the new software application. The cameras in place as well as the pictures of their employees on file are enough for companies that use the technology. Hence, face recognition technology is cheaper for organizations than the iris scanning, for instance, which requires reading setups. According to Frances Zelazney of Visionics, yet another advantage of facial recognition technology as compared to the other biometric technologies is that â€Å"[unlike] other biometrics, facial recognition provides for inherent human backup because we naturally recognize one another†¦ If the system goes down, someone can pull out an ID with a picture as backup, something you can’t do with fingerprint devices (Rutherford, 2001). † Unsurprisingly, facial recognition technology is known as the fastest growing biometric technology in our day. Law enforcement agencies and the military have been using the technology successfully for many years without the public being aware of it. In the year 1988, the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department (Lakewood Division) began using composite sketches of suspects, as well as video images, in order to conduct searches on a database of digital facial shots. The department also has a photo database of sex offenders, and plans to find suspects on this database. Then there is the Gang Reporting Evaluation Tracking system that can be searched with the use of photos of suspects in order for law enforcement to circumvent false identification cards as well as information that has been presented by gang members (Jarvis). There are numerous United States embassies around the world that are already using the face recognition technology to keep criminals from entering the country. The Israel-Palestine border control is similarly equipped with the technology to reduce crime across the border (Jarvis). IQ Biometrix, established in 2001, is a company providing help to thousands of law enforcement agencies around the world with the FACESTM, which is a groundbreaking software tool allowing for the â€Å"creation and recreation of billions of facial images, as well as their encoding, cataloging and transmitting. † The technology incorporates a facial composite tool that the FBI and the CIA also use. The United States Department of Defense, the U. S. Navy, and various local as well as state police agencies have similarly opted for this groundbreaking system of facial recognition (IQ Biometrix, 2004). Given the importance of putting a name to a face, whether it is to solve crimes, protect the public, or to ensure security in jails, face recognition technology is proving itself to be of tremendous value. Sheriff Everett Rice along with the Pinellas County Sheriff’s Office in Florida employs the Viisage face recognition technology to â€Å"positively identify and verify individuals. † Some of these individuals have just been recently arrested, while others are about to released. The face recognition technology is also of use with people that visit the courthouse. So far, the application of the technology has been successful, and users of the technology believe that it would have a greater impact on crime control in the years to come (â€Å"Facial Recognition,† 2007). The United States Department of Defense, with its focus on perfecting the face recognition technology to spot criminals at the borders of the nation, had been funding scientists’ research on the technology for more than decade. Private companies were similarly convinced that the face recognition technology could help dramatically in combating crime within the borders of the United States. Because of their belief, the marketing of the technology became widespread during the mid-1990s (Rutherford). Then came 9/11 – the day that changed the security concerns of the entire world in the matter of only a few hours. There was increased interest in face recognition technology following the terrorist attacks on the American soil. Although the Americans had viewed the face recognition technology with skepticism before the attacks, they became confident that widespread use of the new technology in security as well as public safety would help protect them from similar attacks in future. Indeed, the face recognition technology could play an important role in the prevention of tragedies. All the same, law enforcement agencies have discovered that in the areas covered by the new technology, no terrorist has ever been identified. What is more, despite the redoubling of efforts to create dependable face recognition systems after 9/11, the technology suffers from problems. The facial recognition technology faces a difficulty, for example, in the recognition of the effects of aging. Digitally compared photos of individuals that had been taken eighteen months apart produced untrue rejections by the software application at least forty three percent of the time. Furthermore, it has been found that the technology is more successful when used by casinos to identify cheaters; in welfare offices; and by driver’s license bureaus, given the uniformity of lighting and the use of the same cameras in these places (Jarvis; O’Harrow, 2001). Seeing that the face recognition technology is not fool proof, albeit useful – and security experts have confirmed this – it is best to use it at the sporting event only to augment security measures. The new technology can help security personnel at the sporting event to spot terrorists, for instance. However, face recognition technology should not be considered a replacement for traditional security measures by any means. What is more, this technology is easy to use, and security personnel would not have a difficult time installing and working through the system. Hence, the use of face recognition technology at the sporting event is definitely recommended as a boost to the traditional security measures. References Face Recognition System. (2007). Wikipedia. Retrieved 25 August 2007, from http://en. wikipedia. org/wiki/Facial_recognition_system. Facial Recognition in Action. (2007). Penton Media. Retrieved 25 August 2007, from http://govtsecurity. com/current/. Jarvis, A. Are Privacy Rights of Citizens Being Eroded Wholesale? Forensic Evidence. Retrieved 25 August 2007, from http://forensic-evidence. com/site/ID/facialrecog. html. Kautzer, C. Face Recognition Technology. ZMAG. Retrieved 25 August 2007, from http://www. zmag. org/ZMag/articles/march02kautzer. htm. O’Harrow, R. (2001, August 1). Matching Faces With Mug Shots. Washington Post, p. A01. Rutherford, Emelie. (2001, July 17). Facial Recognition Tech Has People Pegged. CNN. Retrieved 25 August 2007, from http://www. cnn. com/2001/TECH/ptech/07/17/face. time. idg.