Blogs seem to be helping reorganize political debate along more Essay

Blogs seem to be helping reorganize political debate along more partisan lines - Essay Example Today, not only do those central to the leadership of America participate in the practice, including politicians like Howard Dean and Wesley Clark, but the mainstream media in an attempt to grow stronger connections with its audience, and give the news a seemingly interactive feel. Blogs allow individuals who otherwise would not have a voice to express their opinions and provide more effective feedback to their leaders. However, blogs, with their phenomenal success, have also created a situation where Americans are becoming more aware of their political views, and thus are becoming more polarized. In America’s liberal democracy, this may not be the best course proceeding forward into uncertain times. Ultimately, blogs which focus expressly on political matters have a greater power to polemicize and polarize than to unify and unite—making it questionable whether the benefits that blogs bring to political discourse are really worth the costs of such influence in the long run. Bloggers are regularly courted by politicians for endorsements for their ability to shape election news (Sappenfield). But given the enormous rise in the popularity of blogs, until recently there was surprisingly little information on those who actually use them. Lately, a study found that roughly thirty-four percent of Americans read blogs, with fourteen percent of those respondents saying that they have particular interest in political blogs. The study found the following facts about that subset of the population: that they (1) are more likely to have a college degree, (2) are more likely to identify with one side of the political spectrum, (3) are more likely to vote, and (4) are more likely to support candidates either monetarily or in conversing with others. Of that subset, almost nine-tenths of them read fewer than five blogs, and almost ninety-four read only blogs that come from one side of the political

Hans Arp Essay Example for Free

Hans Arp Essay We have already studied different artists from different fields throughout this course. By studying those artists, we have known their life and influences within the people around them, their followers, and also to the society. By knowing other artists from different fields and genre, this paper had come up into a new path of knowing one of the French painters during early 19th century. By knowing this artist, another knowledge and learning will be shared within the course. This paper will focus of Hans Arp’s life and influences. The main purpose of the paper is to show the works of Hans Arp throughout his career and how his influences influenced him and other artists by his sense of creativity and passion. Jean Arp also known as Hans Arp was born on September 16, 1887 in Strasbourg. He went through different places and countries in the world to find his self and sense. As the age of 17, Hans Arp went to Paris to explore his sense of art. Through his journey, he started to acquire the goodness of modern art. At this time, he started painting different artifacts during his inspired moments. At the age of 18 in 1905, he attended some courses of painting to Professor Ludwig von Huffman. After two years, he tried to enter Julian Academy to attend some other courses. After three years of obtaining knowledge, he went to Switzerland to start his journey as a painter. He met different painters whom he became part of. He founded the organization, which he named as â€Å"Moderner Bund† or the Modern League. Along with other painters, Arp went through different exhibits from 1911 to 1913 in different places of Switzerland and other countries. He met Apollinaire, Arthur Cravan, Max Jacob, Picasso, and Mondigliani whom became his colleagues and friends for many years. They all met in Paris. In 1911 he was influenced by the abstractions of Wassily Kandinsky (1866-1944) and participated in his Der Blaue Reiter exhibitions in Munich; later Cubism greatly impressed him. Then he was interested by the idea of spontaneous creativity of the human subconscious mind and this idea became dominant in his art. He created collages with torn paper, letting the pieces fall freely on a surface and then gluing them to the places where they fell down. Because of many influences coming from different painters during his younger years, his work of arts became patterns of those painters though pertaining to his own attack to his arts. He had gone through different painters that he thought would give him better knowledge and great impression of his future paintings and other creations. As he created different forms of canvass and other painting strategies, he was introduced to many other famous artists that gave him the courage to create more intensive art works that manifested within his paintings and other artworks. From 1915 to 1919, he became a well-known painter having different exhibits of his paintings in Zurich. Despite of the declaration of war during those years, he remained firm from all his works from different genres and ideologies. After many years of fulfilling his talents and skills, he married Sophie Teuber in 1922 who became his collaborator aside from being his wife. On the outbreak of the WWI, Jean Arp settled in Zurich, Switzerland, where he was involved in the emerging Dada movement. During the 1920s he produced many abstract reliefs in wood, but after 1928 he worked increasingly in three dimensions, making sculptures in the round. These sculptures are simple, abstract shapes suggestive of organic forms found in nature. Arps sculptures impressed the Surrealists, especially Joan Miro, and his influence is also evident in the work of Henry Moore. However, painting was not his only talent that many people have witnessed. He was also a sculpture and a poet. He sculptured the famous â€Å"Human Concretion† in 1935. He also wrote different poems that can be connected to his paintings and sculptures. Creating his poems was his way of creating an abstract of his paintings and sculptures. That is why along with the abundance of his paintings and sculptures are his free-verse poems. Based on his historical accounts, Hans Arp was not just a simple painter having simple dreams and purpose in life. He also showed his way of striving hard to perform changes within his environment. He was involved in the Surrealism – a movement showing their advocacy regarding the issues and conflicts within their society. It brought further idea of Arp’s identity as he put a new trend of liberalism through paintings, sculpture, and poetry. Finally settling in Paris, Arp became involved in the Surrealist movement. He joined the Cercle et Carre group in 1930 and helped to found the Abstraction-Creation group a year later. During World War II, Arp fled to Switzerland, returning to Meudon, outside of Paris after the war. He won the International Sculpture Prize at the Venice Biennale in 1954 and created a relied for the Unesco building in Paris in 1958. After a long journey of success, Hans Arp died at the age of 79 in Solduno, Switzerland on June 7, 1966. However, before he died, he was not just a painter, sculpture, and poet with amazing thinking and ideas but also a speaker of UNESCO through his paintings. He speaks for UNESCO’s building by painting it in a mural relief. Because of his creations coming from his own thoughts and ideas, he has influenced many other painters and sculptures during and after his generation until this present generation. He had opened a new way to convey the message of paintings and sculptures as well as poems. Because he had grown through other’s influences to his works and life, he also became one of the influences of many artists today because of his magnificent contribution in the world of art. It can be said that his paintings, sculptures, and poems are simple in a literal sense, but if we tend to analyze its meaning and essence, we could obtain further knowledge and learning from his work of arts due to its big impact especially to those who really know how to describe the meanings of his paintings and other creations. As a whole, Hans Arp’s life does not contain many struggles and pains. He was just a contented painter, sculpture, and poet during his time. Despite of his success, he remained firm to what he wanted and purpose in life. In contradiction from his paintings, sculptures, and poems, his life was not a complex situation. Though he had married two times, it was not became a problem on how he managed his life. Therefore, he knows how to create a line and path to what he wants to pursue with his life like the way he draw and mould his creations. Works Cited Abcgallery. com. Jean (Hans) Arp. (n. d. ) 1 December 2007. http://www.abcgallery.com/A/arp/arpbio.html

The Ancient City :: essays research papers

The Ancient City Pompeii 'How democratic was Pompeian politics?'; In order to answer the above question, it is first necessary to consider the exact meaning of the term 'democracy';. Whilst it is difficult to give an exact definition of the word, it is certainly possible to create a list of the implications of democratic government for a society and its citizens. Perhaps the most obvious of these implications, certainly when considered from a modern standpoint, would be that every full member of a society would be considered as being equal, and thus would have an equal say in the running and appointing of a government. Secondly, truly democratic government would also imply that every member of society would have an equal opportunity to be elected to a governmental position. Such an opportunity should at least, in theory anyway, not be reliant on social class or position, nor financial support. Finally, the existence of a truly democratic system of government would also imply that governments be periodically elected, and during any given term of gov ernment, politicians would be fully employed by the state in the running of the country. Given such implications of democracy, Pompeian politics would appear at first appraisal to hardly be democratic at all. Certainly, it can be said that the politics of Pompeii in particular and by extension the politics of Roman society as a whole do not meet the modern, Western ideas of a relatively liberal, democratic society. However, such a modern, Western idea of democracy was one that was entirely alien to the citizens of Pompeii and to the citizens of many ancient civilizations. Therefore, the nature of Pompeian politics must be considered not only from a modern political standpoint, but also from a standpoint more relative to the political ideals of Pompeian society and the Roman Empire, where a very different form of democracy was in existence. Whilst such a form of democracy is very different to that of today, it is certainly accurate to say that there was at least some element of democracy in Pompeian politics. Without such an

Art Analysis: Claude Monet

Painting Description Essay Humanities 110 There are many paintings in the world and as a modern society that is everyday evolving; we must be able to describe the paintings we see. In doing so we can extract the culture and value it represents and only then can we fully understand these different cultures and human values that are presented throughout history in the many arts that are created. In my eyes any type of emotional expression can be appreciated. Recently I came upon a painting by the Painter Claude Monet who was the basis for impressionism.This painting was awe inspiring and brought my mind to deeply fathom the pursuit of knowledge and power. In order to fully describe this painting I will use the formal elements of paint; texture, color, line and lastly composition. Let's start with composition: the placement or arrangement of visual elements or ingredients in a work of art, as distinct from the subject of a work. It can also be thought of as the organization of the eleme nts of art according to the principles of art. The composition of the painting was very unique and helps to rate an image that burns in your mind.The shapes of the painting are not very structured. It's impossible to look over that objects in the paining were close to real- life scale through eye perception thus being somewhat realistic. Another factor that made the painting close to realistic was the movement shown in the painting made by brush strokes to give an impression of wind through the field of grass that also went through the bushes and the tree. There is depth in the painting that is created by shadowing and balance of lighter areas.The bushes are asymmetrical and the tree is off to one side more specifically the middle right. There is big open space of green field to the middle left , top middle and bottom right and on the bottom of the middle left is where the bushes reside, furthermore the top left is where the blurred castle is placed and horizontal to that is what se ems to be a Classified that drifts to the ocean. Throughout the painting there is green everywhere which unifies the painting. It more predominately is unified with color in juxtaposition with shapes.Furthermore the red saturation that is presented in the shrubbery or bushes provides variety Another element to the painting is the texture which is very sloppy but it is an impressionist painting so that is expected which doesn't mean it's a beautiful and high skilled painting. The Sense provided leaves for the paint to be blended but also has many brush strokes which gives uniqueness to the texture. Most objects are barely visible but can be somewhat recognized. Other areas of the painting are smooth in order to provide rest to the eyes. Paintings Anton exist without color whether there is any color or none at all.In this painting we see more warm and complimentary colors. The very limited analogous colors helped to created subtlety in the painting which played off the complimentary c olors very well. Some of the colors used most included : red, orange, blue, and purple, green, yellow. The colors were also very natural and consistent with being realistic. The colors blended very well and contrasted making a very alive background that made you feel as if you were there in this big field and wind blowing in your face and he ocean being close off of the Classified.Lastly one element that brings in the painting together is line which provides many things to help create peace, action, and variety. In the painting the balance of having visible and implied lines help to truly evoke the emotion of the painting and as well as the representation that this is semi realistic but Just an impression and not a duplicate of the exact scene seen. The painting is not only painted but created by shapes that tie in the picture in that all at oneness a painting possesses. There are diagonal lines leading to the saturated red shrubbery creating action.The vertical line that the tree p resents counteracts the horizontal line of the Classified and horizon. This creates for an amazing painting that is pleasant to ones eye. The painting contains numerous amounts of blurred lines. The horizontal line helps to create the horizon which further creates depth and evokes the gradation presented which is the dark yellow sun setting and playing of the white of the sky and the sun disappearing . This also creates the distinctive path room the castle to the ocean and a depth perception that there is a beach off of the Classified.The horizontal lines in the ocean portray its mistiness. Open lines all blended in together. Lastly though we must consider line plays an important role in paintings, because this is a impressionist painting, color is placed in a higher role. All in all we must take in the culture of the world through art and history and anything else that helps understand each other and further evolve society maybe one day we will create or further improve the tools t hat help us describe paintings or anything else.

The Story of Edgar Sawtelle

A happy farm life, tragic heart break, traitorous family, and of course dogs: the marvelous components that make The Story of Edgar Sawtelle by David Wroblewski a true classic. Within this brilliant novel there are of course many memorable moments that leave the reader filled with shock, sympathy and deep sadness. The most intense moment in the novel to me, though, was the death of Edgar’s father, Gar.The strong relationship between father and son as well as Edgar’s muteness makes this moment a pivotal point in the novel, and the sympathy felt by the reader brands this part of the novel as the most memorable and influential moment in the book. First, Gar’s death is by far the most memorable moment in the novel because of how it affects Edgar. In the moment, Edgar is alone and finds his father lying motionless on the ground. He frantically tries to sign to him but there is no reply so he quickly runs into the house.There, he makes a very unsuccessful phone call to try and save his father, and while on the phone he tries to â€Å"force the sound from his mouth† (Wroblewski 123) by hitting himself repeatedly in the stomach. He finds there is nothing he can do and frustratingly smashes the phone to pieces and pounds furiously with his fists on the barn walls to get someone’s attention. During this part of the novel the initial reaction of the reader is pure shock and sympathy, the audience knows that his efforts are useless.It is by far the most important and memorable section of the book because Edgar now has to deal with life feeling that his flaw of being mute is the only reason his father died, and he is constantly feeling guilty and responsible for Gar’s death for the rest of the book. The scene is also very well written by the author, Wroblewski, and the descriptions of Edgar’s attempts at talking are completely impossible to read without feeling empathetic towards Edgar’s situation and wanting to help. Second, the scene of Gar’s death is a pivotal moment in the plot during this novel.Gar is a very influential character in the novel. He represents a strong, stable, life for his family, a role model for Edgar, and the good hero who keeps any evil forces, like Claude, out of their family’s lives. Also, his death is the beginning of a tumultuous fall of the farm and Edgar’s life. Once Gar’s protection is gone, it is just Edgar and his mother left, both broken and trying to figure out how to keep the farm running. Gar was in charge of paperwork and the business of raising the Sawtelle dogs, so without him not only the household, but the business slowly starts to crumble.This also sets off the need for Claude to come in to the story, whose presence causes many problems including ultimately the death of Edgar. Third, Gar’s death haunts Edgar throughout the novel. He always replaying the memory and feeling terrible that he couldn’t save his father , even though it was out of his control. Also, later Claude tries to blame Edgar for Gar’s death, saying it was â€Å"strange, the way [Edgar] just†¦found him† (Wroblewski 435). Gar’s death in the book has a great relationship to the novel because of how it affects the plot and characters throughout the rest of the story.This scene is very effective when being read because of its strong influence on the rest of the novel. First, there is a great amount of sympathy felt by the audience while Edgar makes his discovery and phone call. All the reader wants to do is reach out with their voice to help out this poor boy who can’t speak into the phone. Also, to watch such a traumatic experience unfold as an outside party is absolutely heart wrenching. Second, Edgar’s character flaw comes into play in this moment. This is the main part in the book where the fact that he is mute is a big factor to the novel’s plot.The whole center to the conflict of his father’s death is that he is alone and is left in a situation where his voice was the only hope of saving Gar’s life. Knowing this as a reader makes the scene so much more powerful and meaningful, as well as influential to the rest of the book. This scene is necessary to the plot, because without the conflict between Claude and Gar and Gar’s sudden death, there would be no reason for several other big moments in the novel. For example, Edgar later sees his father as a â€Å"figure in the rain† (Wroblewski 235).This is a major plot twist, because this is when he finds out that Claude is responsible for the murder of Gar. Also, Claude’s relationship with Trudy would not have kindled without the death of Gar. These other moments help to connect the main plot with the plot of Hamlet, a very important connection that Wroblewski wanted to make clear, as well as add the general conflict of the plot of the novel. The death of Gar is the most memora ble part of The Story of Edgar Sawtelle. It is the most pivotal part of the novel, the part where everything shifts and begins to go downhill.His death increases conflict in the novel and is necessary in order for other main parts to play a part in the plot. Edgar’s character development is also based on this death scene, and the moment ties his character flaw of being mute into the plot. When the actual moment in the book is being read, the audience is left in utter shock and sympathy for Edgar and the position the situation throws him in. The descriptive work of Wroblewski is powerful, and a permanent image of Edgar hitting himself in the stomach with the Sawtelle’s shattered phone lying on the kitchen counter will be forever embedded into any reader’s mind.

How to Write a Reflective Essay on Communication

How to Write a Reflective Essay on Communication Reflective Essay on Communication How to start off How to write the introduction How to compose body paragraphs How to finish the essay: Conclusion writing Essay revision Outline sample A reflective essay on communication (Sample) A reflective essay on communication revolves around the writer’s reflection on communication per se, how they perceive it with regard to their personal experience and viewpoint. Hence, its main purpose is to inform the audience about perspectives, attitude, and impression towards the topic at hand. One important objective behind such an essay is to shed light on the widely-varied angles of communication and how they all contribute to shape our life and harmonize it in a way that makes understandability and intelligibility omnipresent. How to start off What do I know about this topic? Before you start writing a perfect essay, it would be useful to ask yourself about your knowledge about the topic. In this context, I might ask myself: â€Å"What is communication? How can I define it? Does it have only one definition? How does it relate to my personal experience? In few words, I should ask myself the following question: Does this concept apply to my life experience and skills? Does it have anything to do with my actual behaviors? Be mindful not to ignore those instant answers that come to your mind once your ask the very simple questions because they will be needed later on. What could the educational purpose behind this topic be? One could think about the communicative skills they have acquired from different social contexts so as to help the reader benefit from valuable and authentic tips. How to write introduction and thesis statement The following are useful tips on how to master the writing of a full introduction on communication: Relevance It’s true that we should start from the general to the specific, yet this does not mean that we should start with how delicious Italian ice-cream is without showing any relevance to our topic- communication. Thus, start from the relevant general to reach the relevant specific. Respect the commitment Writing a thesis statement is a sort of engagement or commitment. Upon writing it, the essay writer should be committed to the explanation and illustration of the focal points mentioned at a later stage. Mention your focal points In the thesis statement, I should announce that I am going to tackle the means of communication in the first part, communication from a social perspective in the second, and insight into the optimal ways for the acquisition of communicative skills useful for various life tasks in the third. How to compose body paragraphs Body paragraphs in a reflective essay on communication should be based on the following tips: Format When the reader skims the essay before reading, they have to notice that the paragraphs are well-balanced, no one should be too long or too short than the other. Coherent content All body paragraphs should be explained equally; ideas have to be illustrated thoroughly. That is to say, no paragraph should be given more focus than the others. Congruity and applicability Make sure not to leave out information about how the topic applies to your experience. The balance in the reflection on the topic using personal experience would add to the congruity of the essay. How to finish the essay: Conclusion writing In order to finish a reflective essay in a correct way, one has to observe these three rules: Look back . Have a look at what you have already written in each body paragraph to make sure that nothing important is missing. Summarize . The writer should provide a brief summary that puts together all the main points dealt with in the body without having to fall into details and examples. Link the topic to your personal development. In the conclusion, you should mention how the communication means you have used have honed your communicative skills and shaped your personal development. Essay revision Another pair of eyes is useful to have a look at your work. Thus, it could be a good idea to ask one of your classmates to verify if it contains any spelling or grammar mistakes. Re-read the whole essay so that you make sure that you did not miss the crux of the matter. Give yourself a break, and read the essay a second time with a fresh pair of eyes; you might want to edit some structures consequently. Outline sample I.Introduction General introduction Thesis statement II. Body Paragraph 1: means of communication Paragraph 2: communication from a social perspective Paragraph 3: insight into the optimal ways for acquiring communicative skills III. Conclusion Brief summary that links all three body elements. A reflective essay on communication (Sample) Communication is the transmission of messages. It could manifest itself in various fashions; it could be verbal, non-verbal, or written. That said, the present essay is going to focus on the means of communication, communication from a social perspective, as it will give insight into the optimal ways for the acquisition of communicative skills. The means of communication have evolved to a great extent recently. In this line of thought, one could not turn a blind eye to language as a body of complex linguistic systems wired in the human brain or in database management systems enabling comprehensible interaction. Languages could be natural or constructed; they all allow the transmission of ideas for different purposes. The development of technology and the dying out of some natural languages have given rise to many technological devices that corroborated the human-human interaction and the human-machine interface. Nowadays, computers, smartphones, and tablets have reached their zenith, as the flow of communication has become smoother and easier. The modern means of communication, mainly the wide array of applications such as Facebook and Skype have grown into most useful tools that help us keep up with the pace of the 21st century. Communication is the means by which interactants manage to voice their ideas and articulate their concerns within a social context. Once socialization is brought to the scene, language seems to be called into play, eventually. People, as social members, tend to communicate face-to-face, verbally, non-verbally, or through writing. Thus, in a real social context, ideas could also be shared through paralinguistic cues such as silence, pitch, tone, gestures, postures, and facial expressions. I have once told my friend that her brother’s fiancà ©e is beautiful. Her response was as follows: â€Å"Yeah, she is!†; once you read this answer, it might seem like a confirmation on her part. But, digging down into the social, linguistic, and human mechanisms of communication, with the consideration of the context, one could understand that it was a sarcastic answer thanks to the paralinguistic features used. So, communication as a social instrument helps us uncover the real meaning intended. Communication skills could be acquired. Personally, I have learned a lot from classroom presentations. When the teacher used to ask us who would like to take the next Powerpoint presentation, I have always had the courage to accept. I noticed that many of my classmates avoided those presentations because they did not possess conversational skills that would allow them to communicate their ideas in an informative way. What I am driving at is the idea that if you do not communicate more often in different social contexts, you will never sharpen your communicative skills. If you do not train yourself to adapt to different conversational situations, you will not overcome your shyness and embarrassment. I also used to ask questions in international conferences, which fortified my self-esteem and made me improve my academic communicative abilities. To wrap up, today’s world has brought to life numerous means of communication that are all related to language as the backbone of communication. It is also worth mentioning that communication as a social tool could be performed differently in various contexts. However, honing one’s social communication skills could only be done through continuous practice in various speech events, such as conferences and workshops.

Chinese Legal System essays

Chinese Legal System essays One of the most interesting forces in modern world trade and globalization is China. Indeed, while its presence in the world market is not a recent phenomenon, the globalization effect has necessitated recent changes in Chinas trade system, specifically in the private enterprise sector. In this, the greatest challenge China faces is realizing its goal of encouraging enterprise and trade while at the same time retaining the centuries-old traditions on which the country has historically thrived. China appears to be thriving on several arenas of the global trade paradigm. In terms of imports, the countrys membership in the World Trade Organization since 2003. In the same year, it was listed as the third largest commodities importer. This, along with the countrys willingness to open its policies to create a more friendly environment for foreign traders, has rapidly expanded the countrys total foreign trade volume. However, the country also faces several challenges in terms of its WTO membership commitments. One of these is its non-market economy status. This means that within the first 15 years of its membership, China is obliged to calculate its product prices in reference to other countries, rather than on the basis of its own production costs. This could mean significant losses in the countrys exports. Another challenge is the safeguard mechanism for specific products. This means that any member country could request a consultation with China if one of its export product prices increased dramatically. In terms of its domestic products, China also appears to experience a period of great prosperity. Several factors are responsible for this. These include political, cultural and economic factors that affect domestic product manufacture. A political and cultural factor relates to the improvement of private enterprise climate via offering membership in the Communist Party of China to ...