Humanities-Ancient Greece

Ancient Greece and Roman civilization comparison The first Olympic games were held in Olympia, Greece. These games were part of the â€Å"Panhellenic Festival, instituted in 776 B. C. E in honor of the Greek gods†. The Olympic games occur in an every â€Å"four-year periods beginning with the first games in 776 B. C. E. † The Greeks had many sports such as, â€Å"200-yard sprint, footrace, wrestling, long jump, and boxing. † Greek athletes competed nude. However, women were not allowed to compete in the Olympic games. The Greeks believed that a â€Å"true sport was that which gave athletes an opportunity to rival the divinity of the gods. In contrast to Greece, the Romans had a â€Å"variety of brutal blood sports. † Gladiator fights were â€Å"introduced in Rome in 264 B. C. E. † These games would symbolize the power of the emperors. In Rome, these events were held in the Coliseum. Gladiators fought wild animals. â€Å"Most Gladiators were crimin als, prisoners of war, or slaves. † They were trained in schools and were forced to take part in the events. The Olympic games and Gladiator fights are different because in Greece it was mostly sport festivals, while in Rome it was representation to honor the emperors.Greek architecture monuments were designed to serve the living. One of the many type of Greek architectural structures is the Parthenon. It is a temple dedicated to Athena, the goddess of war. Built in glittering Pentelic marble. The Parthenon represents the â€Å"apex of a long history of post-and-lintel temple building among the Greeks. † The functions of the Parthenon, was to â€Å"display statues of the gods, for the rulers to go and sacrifice and worship in as a recognition of the protection provided by the gods. In contrast, Roman architecture reflected the practical needs of the empire. The Romans are considered one of the greatest architects of ancient times. Also the Romans made good use of the à ¢â‚¬Å"aqueducts, arches, vaults and domes. † For example, the Pantheon is â€Å"a temple dedicated to the seven planetary deities. † Its exterior is covered with a â€Å"veneer of white marble and bronze. † The Pantheon has many features such as, â€Å"a portico with eight Corinthian columns originally elevated by a flight of stairs that now lie buried beneath the city street. Greek and Roman architecture are similar because Roman architecture was based on the knowledge of the Greeks. Although there’s a difference because Greeks used single row columns for actual structural support, while the Romans were progressing technologically and using rows of concrete columns for luxury purposes. The arts in Greek were based on Humanism, Realism, and Idealism. The Greeks used the abstract geometric methods in their paintings. For example, Greek artists painted their â€Å"ceramic wares with angular figures and complex geometric patterns arranged to enhance the sha pe of the vessel. Greeks painted mythology, literature, and everyday life in â€Å"waters jars, wine jugs, storage vessels, drinking cups and bowls. † In contrast, the Roman art was based in Pictorial Realism paintings. The Romans decorated their â€Å"meeting halls, baths, and country villas that were inspired by Greek murals. † Roman art was illustrated in mosaics. This is a technique by which â€Å"small pieces of stone or glass are embedded into wet cement surfaces or plaster surfaces. † Also Romans illustrated landscapes to show affection to their pleasure of nature.It’s clear that Greek art and Roman art are different because both civilizations used different techniques for their art and showed different interested in what they were trying to portray in their paintings. Roman art was based in Realism while Greek art was more Idealistic. Greek literature was based in the Classical Style in Poetry. This is a combination of the â€Å"arts prevailed in most forms of religious ritual and in public and private entertainment. † For example, Hellenic literature was filled with passion and tenderness written in lyric poetry. In contrast, Roman literature reveals a masterful use of Latin literature.Romans use literature for the purposes of â€Å"entertainment, instruction, and record keeping. † A Roman notable style of literature is the Roman Epic Poetry style. For example, â€Å"Rome’s foremost poet-publicist, Virgil wrote the semi legendary epic that immortalized Rome’s destiny as world ruler. † Virgil’s poems were not an oral tradition but a literacy epic. His work became the â€Å"monumental impact of Latin language. † Greek literature and Roman Literature are similar because they both include comedies, poetry and epics. Also Greek literature dealt with myths while Roman Literature was based on triumphs.

The death penalty and its violation of the Eighth Amendment of the US Research Paper

The death penalty and its violation of the Eighth Amendment of the US Constitution - Research Paper Example As a form of punishment, some justice systems death penalty punishes a collective number of capital offenders who are guilty. Whereas, the definition of capital offenders differs, many offenders who are guilty of taking the life of others fall into the category of capital offenders. Despite that fact that capital offenders attract capital judgment decisions such as the death penalty, there are strong arguments that people have raised against this practice. Some people view that the death penalty is barbaric, expensive, and executed in an arbitrary way. Some people also cite death penalty as a cause of psychological burden to the executers, prone to errors, and a mark of death and not life. Death penalty also causes sorrow to the families of victims, create unfairness, and fails as deterrence. With better ways of punishing capital offenders, there are many reasons justice systems should stop practicing death penalty, but employ other humane alternatives. Discussion Death penalty is a barbaric act of punishing capital offenders as compared to other options like life imprisonment (Banner 169). The practice of the death penalty is a cruel form of ending the life of capital offenders, because justice systems take their life with no thought about it. Today, it is true that the death penalty has evolved from severe brutality to more decent forms of taking the life of those sentenced to death. However, that notion that justice systems can end the life of a capital offender makes the practice brutal and barbaric. Some decades ago, this practice was a key attraction for all people in society, particular those who were interested in seeing others being shot or hanged. Despite the public attention to such events, the practice still displays the brutality that offenders receive when justice systems subjects them to this practice. With the society embracing a peaceful society where brutality is outdated, there are many reasons why justice systems should abolish the death pen alty. Indeed, the end of the death penalty will indicate the lack of brutality in justice systems and a willingness to end brutal indicates an approach aimed at providing justice. The practice of the death penalty cost justice systems needs a lot of money as compared to other forms of punishments (Ann 7). Justice systems that practice the death penalty always follow a long and stringent process to verify that suspects for capital crimes are genuinely guilty or not. The process of determining whether capital offenders are guilty or not often takes a long time and involves many jurors or lawyers working on the case. As a result, the entire process become expansive and a significant vote head that requires excessive fund (Pojman and Reiman 62). The cost of delivering capital punishment is a source of the extra burden to justice systems that may be grappling with limited funds to address their needs (Death Row in Pennsylvania 14). With more States looking for ways of saving on cost, end ing capital punishments remains as one of the best options to reduce the cost of this capital punishment. In addition, ending capital punishment will also reduce the cost that families of offenders who have to contend with while hoping for the release of the loved ones Death penalty is a significant cause of psychological burden that

Tanglewoods recruiting methods Case Study Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Tanglewoods recruiting methods - Case Study Example Measure of staffing quality Quality customer service is a decisive aspect in determining the success of a retail business. This fact is well known by the management of the Tanglewood stores. Businesses nowadays realize the importance of a talented staff. This has led to organizations keeping track of their valued human resource capabilities. This capability is bolstered by the hiring of skilled individuals, who increase the value of human resources in a company. In the case of Tanglewood stores, they needed to find the best way for staffing, while keeping the costs considerably low. They need to establish â€Å"The Quality of Hire†. This makes it possible to determine how a hired individual’s performance varies from the hiring requirements. It is paramount that the hired staff meets the conditions set prior their employment. This will ensure that the stores get the expected output from the staff. Criterion-Related Validation Test Tanglewood store will have to conduct a Criterion-Related Validation Test. This will be carried out using the benchmarking process whereby, the success of a job will be measured by comparing the individual result of a new employee to the sample of a successful employee currently holding the position, who will be used as the benchmark for success. This will be useful in determining if the employee is striving for excellence, is average or even poor. Through these results Burkholder, et al, 203), Tanglewood stores will know how was effective was their recruitment.

Wall-Mart Case Study Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Wall-Mart - Case Study Example Wal-Mart, Target and Kmart are the top retailers in the present American market. Each of them is having more than 1000 stores. Wal-Mart is the king of the ring. It's the number one retailer in United States of America. Target is slowly moving closer to Wal-Mart and has become a tough competitor to Wal-Mart. Kmart has a long history; recently it is trying to emerge from bankruptcy reorganization. Kmart is slowly losing its customers to Wal-Mart. Their strategies include low price and highly qualified customer care service. This factor played an important role in the long-term development of the Hotel. The cheaper prices with high quality service and further free goodies attracted many. Another factor is the customer service. Customer plays an important role in the development of the company because it is the customer who uses the product that was developed by the companies was good at it. Before being bankrupted Kmart was the second best retailer after Wal-Mart. Both companies used different strategies to outsmart each other. They tried different strategies to woo the customers. After coming out from bankruptcy Kmart found that it has lost most of the customers to Wal-Mart and other retailers like Target. Its total net profit also declined considerably. Target took this opportunity to its full advantage and started aggressive campaigning. Though the think tank of Target knew that most of Kmart's customers would go to Wal-Mart rather than coming to Target's stores, they started slashing the prices of the products and announced heavy discounts on them. They used innovative ideas to woo the customers. To maintain its top position Wal-Mart used to slash the rates so that when customers come to purchase the items would buy other products also. These items were termed as loss leaders. Most of the middle class families are Wal-Mart's customers. Target aimed at upper middle class. Because of this stiff competition between Wal-Mart, Kmart, Target, Costco, etc., customer has wide range of choices to choose. Customer can buy products at discount rates. The companies are employing every possible method to woo the customers to their stores. Due to the bankruptcy Kmart lost its most of the investors to other retailing companies. The company that largely profited by this was Wal-Mart that was so much preoccupied of defeating Kmart. Most of the investors purchase bonds. A bond is nothing but a promissory note that the company would repay the sum over a certain period at a certain interest rate. Bonds are also called as debentures. If the company is in trouble and has to be dissolved, bondholders must be paid in full before paying the stockholders.Experts advise the investors to buy both Wal-Mart and Target stock. Both the companies had seen upswing of their net profit in the recent past. In the present market everything sells by brand names, the marketers are expected to put up good brand name products for sale. The purchaser desires to have or own a good brand name product and material with good quality at reasonable and cheaper rate. If the marketers were able to meet this demand of people of the society, definitely there would be a souring business for their product. Wal-Mart from its good service,

The Sustainability of Extreme Sports as Businesses in Todays Society Research Paper

The Sustainability of Extreme Sports as Businesses in Todays Society - Research Paper Example For the extreme sports, there are no specific market boundaries and hence the market segment for these sports cannot be measured. It has been assumed that the market segment for extreme sports holds approximately 5 percent of the market for adventure trips (â€Å"Extreme Sports† 34). In the present times, extreme sports have a significant role to play in business and the sportspersons are being utilized for the purpose of marketing of different products. Extreme sports in marketing are more common among the youth. Considering the leisure market in the United States and other countries across the world, the use of extreme sports in businesses has been found to be increasing particularly targeting the youth who are the usual viewers of sports and sports-related programs on television. However although there are regular viewers of the extreme sports and hence products can be well marketed with the use of such sports, yet the sustainability of the extreme sports in businesses cann ot be realized. It has been observed that the viewers of such extreme sports are in most cases fickle minded that make them suspect the conventional methods of marketing and they are also more concerned about their status. All these factors make it difficult for the marketers creating challenges for their successful marketing approaches (Summers, Morgan and Summers 30). Aim and Objectives of the Research: Aim: The aim of the research is to focus on the use of extreme sports in businesses trying to determine the sustainability of the extreme sports in business in the near future. Objectives: Considering the above aim of the study, the following objectives have been decided: To understand the use of extreme sports for the purpose of businesses. To learn about the implications of the use of extreme sports in marketing on the prospective or targeted consumers. To determine the sustainability of the use of extreme sports in businesses in the near future. Literature Review: The concept of extreme sports has become highly significant and popular in the recent times with more and more individuals trying to take part in sports that are highly risky. These include the risky activities undertaken by the body in order to perform sports (Estivalet and Brisson 552). As Heggie and Caine (2) mentioned in their studies, the extreme sports have become a very important part of the lives of the Americans in particular who consider these sports as an option for recreation and athletics. Different sports that are included in the definition of extreme sports are motorcycle racing, rock climbing, and base jumping (Heggie and Caine 2). The popularity of extreme sports has increased in the recent times with new clubs and associations being developed. Television programs, magazines, and pages on the web are also been developed considering the growing attractiveness of extreme sports (Estivalet and Brisson 552). One of the most important reasons owing to which people are more attracted t owards extreme sports is that the participants do not have to follow the strict rules and regulations that are otherwise associated with other sports in general. However, in the present times, commercialization and standardization of extreme sports have also been considered proving it to be inopportune for such participants (Madigan and Delaney 47).  Ã‚  

The Ethnic Groups in Southeast Asia Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

The Ethnic Groups in Southeast Asia - Essay Example But there are oral accounts in the form of folk tales, out of which some suggest that Burma is indeed their original home, but there are some folk tales which point towards their origin being China. The Karens have script of their own as well, which is often termed as 'chicken scratch script' because the script resembles the scratches made by the movement of a chicken when it moves on sand or soft soil. Smith (2003) stated that, "until the annexation of Burma in the nineteenth century, the Karens were largely a hill of forest-dwelling people without a written literature.as a result, the Karens appear as an ethnic group very much on the fringes of the recorded history." Myanmar has at least 15 major ethnic groups with Burman (Bamar) comprising about half the population. The population of Karen is the next highest with 6-7 million people. The last comprehensive census with ethnicity count was held in the year 1931, under the British Colonial government. Thereafter the Burmese government avoided the questions about separate ethnic identity (Bowles, 2000). Basically, the Karen tribe is known to be agriculturists, with Buddhism being the predominant religion amongst the tribe. A belief amongst the Karen tribe is that historically they have come from a place called "Thibi Kawbi". This is termed as their representation of Tibet and southern Gobi desert. As time passed, gradually during the 18th century, Karen began to move down south towards Thai Payap (old northern kingdom of Siam)1. The Karen tribe have been demanding an independent identity and land for them since early 1880s, with the formation of Karen National Association. At that time, Burma was under the colonial rule of Britain. After independence of Burma in January 1948, they tried to have a peaceful existence under the banner of Karen National Union (KNU), with some important posts in the government offered to Karen people. Situation started changing after the Military junta took over the country in 1960s. Subsequently, the demand for a separate land for Karen became more voc al. The military junta started adopting oppressive measures after it took over. As a result, a large number of Karen people were forced to leave their homes and fled into bordering Thailand with the result that many thousands of Karen are now living in Thailand, Australia and elsewhere as refugees. The strength of Karen fighters depleted with Burmese army declaring a full scale war against them in early 1990s and by 1995 the KNU headquarters at Manerplaw fell to Burmese army. Culture and Religion The brass rings around the necks of Karen tribe people are stated to be because of a number of reasons2. Some say it is done to prevent tigers from biting them; appears to be a credible defense, because the tiger prefers to pull the life out of a human being with a firm grip around the neck. Another version is that it is practiced to make women less attractive, so that there is less likelihood of them being captured by the slave traders. But, there is still another version which finds that this is being practiced to make women for attractive, so that they are able to attract a better husband. Besides the neck ring, large sized ear-rings also make an important component of the beauty products of the womenfolk. As the age of young girls increases the size

Westpac Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Westpac - Essay Example Not only the net income of the bank has been improving but the total assets of the bank have increased to $670,228 million in the year 2011 from a figure of $618,277 million in 2010. Therefore the bank has been prospering and improving its profitability with the passage of time. This report analyzes the performance of the first Australian Bank, Westpac and the environment in which the bank has been operating. The report first analyzes the conditions and pressures that would impact the performance of the bank and then the report examines the effectiveness of the response and progress of the company towards the sustainability strategies. Moreover, the report analyzes the competitive positioning and then highlights the unique internal capabilities that the bank has which have helped in making the bank successful over the years. Financial indicators have been examined of the bank that have helped in analyzing how profitability the company has been from its past years. After the financial crisis, the banking industry has observed several changes. Banks throughout the world including in Australia did not observe good time period after the financial crisis. Several banks became more cautious and implemented different strategies to minimize their risk and to improve their profitability. With the passage of time, several banks have been able to recover from the impacts of recession; however there are still some banks that have still been struggling to find their footstep back on the right track after being hit by the financial crisis. Westpac can be considered as one of the banks that have been able to achieve profitability after being hit by the great financial crisis and therefore the strategies adapted by the bank need to be examined and discussed. Different banks have adapted different kinds of strategies to improve their profitability. One of the strategies that have been successful to a certain extent has been to merge or acquire