Essay --

SET EDITION: U.S. INTERNATIONAL MÉXICO ARABIC TV: CNN CNNi CNN en Espaà ±ol HLN Sign up Log in Home TV & Video CNN Trends U.S. World Politics Justice Entertainment Tech Health Living Travel Opinion iReport Money Sports SHARE THIS Print Email More sharing Colin Powell Fast Facts By CNN Library updated 3:35 PM EDT, Tue August 20, 2013 (CNN) -- Here's a look at the life of Colin Powell, former Secretary of State and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Personal: Birth date: April 5, 1937 Birthplace: Harlem, New York Birth name: Colin Luther Powell Parents: Luther Powell, a shipping clerk Mother: Maud Ariel (McKoy) Powell, a seamstress Marriage: Alma Vivian (Johnson) Powell (August 25, 1962-present) Children: Annemarie Powell (May 1970); Linda Powell (April 1965); Michael Powell (March 1963) Education: City College of New York, B.S. in geology,1958; George Washington University, M.B.A.,1971; National War College, 1976 Military service: U.S. Army, 1958-1993, General Other Facts: Powell grew up in the South Bronx, the son of Jamaican immigrants. Powell participated in ROTC in college, leading the precision drill team and attaining the top rank offered by the corps, cadet colonel. Military awards include the Legion of Merit, Bronze Star, Air Medal, Soldier's Medal and two Purple Hearts. Civilian awards include the President's Citizens Medal, the Congressional Gold Medal, the Secretary of State Distinguished Service Medal, and the Secretary of Energy Distinguished Service Medal as well as receiving the Presidential Medal of Freedom twice. Powell was the youngest man and first African-American to be Chairman of t... ...ital firm of Kleiner, Perkins, Caufield & Byers as a "strategic limited partner." March 2006 - The National War College Foundation establishes the Colin Powell Chair for National Security, Leadership, Character and Ethics. Summer 2007 - Begins to speak out against the Bush administration's decision to go war against Iraq, the increase in troop strength in Iraq and the treatment of prisons at Guantanamo Bay. January 20, 2009 - Is one of the honorary co-chairs of President Barack Obama's inauguration. Powell had endorsed Obama during the 2008 presidential campaign. February 3, 2010 - Powell reverses his stance on gays and lesbians in the military; his opposition to homosexuals in the military helped lead to the original "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy of the 1990s. 2012 - Publishes a second memoir, "It Worked For Me: In Life and Leadership," with Tony Koltz.

Korn :: essays research papers

In the early '90s, heavy music looked to be going the way of the dinosaurs: Well-heeled Brit-pop and well-scrubbed pop-punk were thoroughly dominating the guitar-rock landscape, and the few surviving old-school metal acts seemed hopelessly unable to adapt. But somewhere within the vast, murky Southern California wasteland, a dynamic new species was being born, a forward-thinking beast that disregarded the mistakes of heavy bands past while meshing dark, urban rhythms and low-tuned guitar sludge with violent, expressionist blasts of hip-core noise. That and the wildly emotional vocals of JONATHAN, which alternated between a bourbon-smooth croon and a viscerally sharp howl, made for a revolutionary mix that redefined heavy rock better than anyone had in a decade. The result was a monster 1994 self-titled debut album that went solid platinum, and by the time 1996's Life Is Peachy was released, this beast had a fanbase over two million strong--and a legion of musical imitators so large it threatened to saturate the planet. It was time for a change of rules. Hence KORN's latest, greatest slab, aptly titled FOLLOW THE LEADER. From the broadened musical and emotional scope to the much beefier production values to the stunning cover art courtesy of Spawn-creator Todd McFarlane, FOLLOW THE LEADER is indeed an ambitious and deeply satisfying outing for the band. And while there is considerably more hype surrounding this rightly anticipated disc, JONATHAN is quick to put things in perspective. "Our only goal was to take our time on this album," he says. "Because I knew we had it in us to do something great. To full integrate both (previous) albums and put out a record we could be proud of...we wanted to do some phat shit." "I think working with a new producer and going into a new studio helped us grow musically as a band," adds guitarist MUNKY. "All of us really have that fire again about being excited about a record...We all feel like we grew, like when you grow out of some old shoes; your feet are all crammed in forever and you know you need to buy a new pair, but you need to save up the money to do it. We kind of saved up our confidence and made that leap into our new shoes." Fans of old-school KORN needn't despair--the new shoes kick just as much ass as the old pair. "Freak On A Leash" is a molotov cocktail of scathing, psychedelic guitar runs, hypno-groove bass grind, hip-hop jungle drumming, all sliced in two with an ingeniously placed scat line reminiscent of PEACHY opener "Twist." Then there's "Children Of The

Parental Involvement in Education and its Effects on Student Academic P

Parental Involvement in Education and its Effects on Student Academic Performance Educational standards have recently become a controversial issue especially in secondary schools. One of the controversial issues surrounding educational standards is the lack of parental involvement. Various forms of parental involvement range from parental encouragement to parental partnership with the school. By examining parental involvement in secondary education, one can determine that positive parental involvement will have a profound effect on the students' academic performance. Defining parental involvement, family relationships and self-esteem, and relationships between parents and teachers can improve parental involvement. Defining Parental Involvement When dealing with the educational system and findings way to improve it, one cannot neglect that parental involvement is necessary. The question that arises from this is, what exactly is parental involvement? According to Catherine Hickmann, in "Future of High School Success: Importance of Parental Involvement," the various forms of parental involvement in secondary schools are parent as a communicator, parent as supporter of activities, parent as learner, parent as advocate, parent as decision maker, parent as volunteer/professional, and parent as home activities teacher. In the article, "Relationships between Parent Involvement and Student Achievement," Joyce Flood uses researchers to break down parental involvement into three categories; parent-child relationships at home, parent training or involvement in performance contracts, and parent-school- community partnerships. These categories can be further defined. Parent-child relationships at home allow... ...ties for students and parents to learn together, and offer community education classes to get parents to come to the school. In the article, "Promoting Parental Involvement," there are more ideas to advance the involvement of parents in education which lead children to excel academically. Conclusion This field of research covered parental involvement and its effects on student academic performance. The focus was on family relations at home and parental involvement at school. When researching this topic, a definition for parental involvement had to be established. The research was not time restricted, since the concern was the general effects of parental involvement in student academics. The research consists of several suggestions on parental involvement, rather than focusing on a specific method in which to involve parents in student education.

Dignity is Common Knowledge :: essays research papers

Dignity Dignity is not something that you find within everyone, it is a question of philosophy. Some say it is human nature to be undignified and it must be taught by parents or teachers. Others think that we are all born with the knowledge of proper behavior, and it is the law which makes some people act undignified. I myself believe that we are all born with a common knowledge about how to act around others, and we choose whether or not to abide by that sense. There are benefits of learning to behave tastefully within the public?s eye and disadvantages if we choose to not behave respectfully. We are all born with a sense of dignity, and as we grow older our action bring us gain or lose to that dignity and what others see within us. Human dignity is a sense of how we respect others and how respect ourselves. If you mistreat people and show no respect towards them, they will see you as a person with a low sense of dignity. If you treat people with the respect they deserve and act with a tasteful manner towards them, they will see you as a person with a high sense of dignity. When others see you as someone with low dignity, you are out casted. It is easy to dislike someone who is disrespectful, and who reacts without thinking. Not learning to act properly at a young age affects you as you get older. At a younger age it can be passed up as acting up and not knowing what you are doing. But with age, a more tasteful behavior will be needed. Without such behavior, it would be hard to keep a job which interacts with others, and it would be hard to find lifelong friends that would respect you as you are. When others see you as someone with high dignity, you are more likely to be accepted by others. Just like the old saying ?Treat others, like you wish to be treated?. If you act respectful towards others, they should treat the same. You must treat people as more then just objects, if you are respectful you would look them and the eye and see them as your equal. Learning to act respectfully is easy, simply think before you react. Think, would you say that to yourself, or would you do the following act to yourself.

Self-Made Misery in Blake’s London Essay -- Blakes London Essays

Self-Made Misery in Blake’s London  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   The poet William Blake paints a picture of the dirty, miserable streets of London in his poem, "London". He describes the wretched people at the bottom of the society, the chimney-sweeps, soldiers, and harlots. These people cry out from their pain and the injustices done to them. The entire poem centers around the wails of these people and what they have become due to wrongs done to them by the rest of society, primarily institutions such as the church and government. Are these people really wronged, however? The poem seems to suggest that the injustices they have been subjected to are of their own making. In Blake's poem he says that as he passes through London he sees a "mark in every face [he] meet[s]/ Marks of weakness, marks of woe." (3-4) He talks about how everywhere he hears cries of fear and suppression. The church seems to be ignoring the cry of the poor chimney-sweep in lines nine and ten. The soldier dies on the palace walls with a sigh. These are examples of the wretchedness of the lives that people lead. The central ide...

Emi Group Plc In The Music Publishing And Recording Industry Essay

Music and recording industry present interesting development due to the introduction of new artists and the development of new music genre, to name a few. In addition, the industry also experiences significant challenge due to the advancement in digital technology that drives the industry to find appropriate ways in winning the competition. The challenge occurs since there is a difference circumstances in the competition of media industry where previously the existence of new media does not eliminate the old media. The existence of commercial radio, for example, does not kill the print media like magazines and newspaper. Similarly, the existence of television broadcasting also does not eliminate the existence of radio and newspaper. In many cases, the television broadcaster also owns radio and newspapers companies to complement their media business. However, the situation may be completely different in the digital age where the existence of internet and the development of digital technology like file compression (MP3, mpeg, and file-sharing technologies etc) could completely kill the old model of music distribution such as compact disc. The so-called MP3, often refers to MPEG-1 Audio Layer 3, is an audio encoding format that reduce the file size from tens of megabyte (when using WAV or compact disc format) into less than 5 Megabyte (MB) in MP3 format for one same song. Audio Galaxy and Napster are two companies that employ file-sharing technology that enables their members/customers to exchange their music or video with others members/customers (Karp, 2007). Immediately, the invention of new audio encoding format increases the sales of portable digital music players like iPod. Coupled with the increased international internet bandwidth, the exchange of MP3 files rises significantly. A number of websites that enable users or music lovers to download the desired songs in MP3 format also rises. Despite the attractiveness of MP3 technology for audio, MP4, and MPEG for video, the technologies causes severe violation of copyright as downloading music and video without paying royalties to the owners/singers of the music is considered as piracy in digital world/domains. Concerning the challenges in the music and recording industry, this paper will discuss about Emi Group plc, a giant in music and recording industry. In particular, there are several issues including the identification of strategic choices that EMI performs, EMI and its critical success factors in competing in the industry within the last five years, and the use of appropriate management concepts in evaluating the suitability of EMI’s current strategies to deal with future competition. 2. Aim and Objectives The objectives of this paper are to analyze current and future positions of EMI Group plc in the music publishing and recording industry. Systematically, we can derive the objectives into four points. First is to analyze the strategy of EMI Groups plc that positions the company in the music and recording industry. Second is to use the appropriate research methodology, this paper is to assess EMI Group plc and its critical success factor in the last five years. Third is to use the relationship of research approach, deductive, quantitative to explore key resources and capabilities of EMI in the next five years and assess whether they can create sustainable competitive advantage. And fourth is to use the non-participant observation method, collecting data and analyzing qualitative information from journal, books, magazine and online materials, this paper is to adopt the management concepts to evaluate the appropriateness of EMI’s current strategies for the future. 3. Porter’s Five Forces This section will discuss Porter’s five forces on EMI Group the recording industry which details the threat of new entrants, power of buyers, power of suppliers, rivalry among existing competitors, and the threat of substitute products for market place organizer or transaction service provider industry satisfy following diagram: Figure 1 Diagram of Porter’s Five Forces Source: Porter, 1998 3. 1 Rivalry In music publishing and recording industry, competitive advantage plays a significant role in winning a competition. This is because it represents not only the greater benefits in terms of products but also in other Ps of marketing mix (place, promotion, and price). The possession of specific competitive advantages increasingly important since nowadays, customers use emotional side than rational side when decide which products or services they want to use (Manjoo, 2003). The rivalry in recording industry is quite intense since EMI Group does not only compete with similar company like Universal Music Group, Sony BMG, and Warner Music Group but also illegal distribution both in traditional and web-based distributors through several kinds of file-sharing program like Napster. Napster becomes the catalysts of online music service (Rupley, 2003). In order to prevent the distribution of illegal copy of music, Hodges Shaw and Brian B Shaw (2003) says that government has persuaded users regarding importance of not using file sharing for copyrighted materials over the Internet by considering it as illegal actions. 3. 2 Barriers to Entry One of common barriers to enter a new market is brand loyalty or in terms of multinational business, the main barrier could be the nationalism. In music industry, one significant challenge that continues gains popularity is iTunes, a legal web-based music distribution from Apple Company. In music industry, especially regarding the competition between EMI Music and p2p companies and iTunes, the brand loyalty is obvious since the fever for iPod products has driven the use of iTunes to download legal music (Manjoo, 2003). The entry to some markets like educations gets fiercer as Jason E. Lane and Margaret A Healy (2005) revealed in their article File Sharing, Napster, and Institutional Responses: Educative, Developmental, or Responsive Policy that file sharing (including music, video, and file sharing) has been parts of students activities. They usually use the internet to share their favorite music and movies illegally. In addition, Scott (2001) and Dong et. al (2002) reveals that file sharing remains a popular services due to their offering free downloading music and video. 3. 3 Products Substitution Impact of product substitution is possibly the most overlooked factor although its impact is damaging. Therefore, it is imperative that business must not only look at what the company’s direct competitors are doing, but what other types of products people could buy instead. The products substitution for EMI Group is the introduction of various digital formats like MP3 and MP4 that easily downloadable that enables customers to convert the CD format to MP3 and distribute it by e-mail. This is because EMI Group mostly still relies on the distribution of music in CD format that they believe is still better than others do. Figure 2 Music Format Source: RIAA, 2006 3. 4 Buyer Power In music distribution and recording industry, there are some factors that influence buyer power including size of buyer (larger buyers will have more power over suppliers), number of buyers (when there are a small number of buyers, they will tend to have more power over suppliers), and purchase quantity. 3. 5 Supplier Power Concerning the supplier power in recording industry, we find that digital format developer that invent MP3 and p2p technology continue gain popularity that further drive the customers to increasingly avoid the use of products distributed by recording companies (Manjoo, 2003). 4. EMI Groups plc Strategic Position in Music Publishing and Recording Industry Realizing the fierce competition that occurs in the music and recording industry, EMI Group develops several strategies such as the selection of new talents that will hit the market and develop sustainable distribution strategy to speed up the existence in new market. Among the distributions system, EMI Group appropriately conduct joint venture with foreign companies in order to smooth their distribution. One of them is with EMI Televisa joint venture that helps EMI Group to distribute Celestial and other English language album (EMI Group, 2006). The decision to conduct joint venture is a good strategy to be implemented for EMI Group since it is a model in business that composes of two or more enterprises that join hand-in-hand to increase their competitive advantages. In this scheme, joint venture is somewhat similar to partnership but joint venture is derived from one business transaction. Joint venture is preferred because it can help companies to divide potencies, reduce threats, and raise competitive advantages in the market. Joint ventures can be formed as separate business units or cooperation between businesses (â€Å"Corporate Venture Strategies†, 2001). Developing a joint venture properly can obtain many benefits and advantages, such as dividing expenses and risks, enhancing right of entry to monetary resources, admission to innovative knowledge and consumers, and admission to new decision-making performs. Moreover, companies are able to have some bearing on structural development of the business. Conduction of knowledge and skills are also accomplished easily (â€Å"Corporate Venture Strategies†, 2001). 5. EMI Strategic Choice EMI Group plc is a well-known company in music and recording industry. The company is currently perceived as the fourth largest recording company in the world behind Universal Music Group, Sony BMG, and Warner Music Group. The company main business is the distribution of compact discs, videos, and other formats under the auspices of their subsidiaries and partners including EMI Records, Capitol, and Virgin (Yahoo Inc, 2008). The label company is behind the success of many famous artists such as Norah Jones, Lenny Kravitz, and The Beastie Boys. Currently, the company also handles more than one million songs. The strategic position of the company has attracted many larger companies such as Warner Music Group (WMG) to takeover EMI Group plc. Although many acquisition attempts, the company finally bought by Terra Firma, a private equity firm, for $4. 9 billion in 2007 (Yahoo Inc, 2008). 6. EMI and Its Critical Success Factor The winning strategy of EMI Group exists since the company is suitably conducting several strategies that benefit the company in the long term. One of popular strategy is the decision to outsource their CD manufacturing in Australia. This decision occurred in 2004 where EMI Music and Warner Music conduct agreement with Summit Technology Australia Pty Ltd to own CD Manufacturing business together (EMI Group, 2006). This strategy provides great benefits for EMI Group since the company significantly obtains costs reduction and helps the company to insulate the business from the effects of changing volumes. Figure 3 Reasons of Outsourcing Source: Outsourcing World Summit This is in line with the general benefits of outsourcing where costs reduction becomes the main issues that companies perceive. When discussing the outsourcing business model, the images refer to advantages that organizations obtain, especially refers to costs reduction. However, the benefits of outsourcing do not merely the cost reduction. Figure 3 shows six main reasons of carrying out outsourcing in an organization like EMI Group according to Outsourcing World Summit. Similarly, to costs reduction, outsourcing also provides benefits of helping the company to focus on core competencies. In theory, outsourcing is only used for delegation of non-core activities concerning the mission statement of the company. Nevertheless, many corporations outsource some of their core functions to gain more value in competitive advantage. Furthermore, many if an organization is able to develop a good relationship with its outsourcing partner, the long-term effect would be a sustainable competitive advantage. Another critical success factor is the decision of EMI Group to take benefits of digital technology. Previously, the company relies on tradition supply chain as shown in the Figure 4 below. In traditional supply chain (figure 4), we witness that recording companies make huge revenue and thus the profits from the two elements (in blue boxes). However, this model soon changes considering technology advancement in music like MP3 that immediately spawned illegal peer-to-peer music download over the Internet. Concerning the issue, coupled with wide coverage of high-speed Internet access, recording labels realize that they should change their supply chain to adopt the advancement in information technology as described in the following section. However due to the benefit that digital distribution provides, the company also offers the digital option for the supply chain (Figure 5). By developing the digital distribution, the company starts receiving significant growth on digital revenues. In 2006, digital revenue contributed about 8. 5% of total Group revenues. In addition, digital revenues also experienced significant growth by 78. 2% in 2006, providing more opportunity to receive more revenue from this technology (EMI Group, 2006). In this web-based supply chain model, we witness that recording labels are massively legalize licensing strategy that significantly fire up a legal digital music subscription (in contrast to Napster that was illegal). 7. Key resources and capabilities of EMI in the last Five Years and Suitability, Feasibility, and Acceptability Concepts There are several key advantages and resources the company possessed within the past five years. First is EMI Music keep finding new talents that bear success in UK and North America, in particular, and in the world, in general including Letoya, 30 Seconds to Mars. This strategy represents the feasibility of strategy taken by EMI Group since competitions between recording industries is mainly regarding the artists that the company manages their music creation. Second is the success of current managed artists including popular artist such as All Saints, Keith Urban, Norah Jones, Robbie Williams, and Depeche Mode. This artist management represents the suitability to manage the popular artists and release the unpopular one. Meanwhile, EMI Music Publishing successfully finds songwriting talent that result in the attractive performance revenues that represents the acceptability (EMI Group, 2006) 8. Conclusion In the basic marketing management study, four factors characterize the successful marketing; they are product, place, promotion, and price. In the recording industry while product represented by the artists, distribution or place factor also provides significant contribution to the company. This is in line with O’Brien and Springman (2004) suggestion that say companies should balance supply and demand since focusing entirely on the supply side may result in unnecessary capital expenditures, inventory investments or suboptimal solutions. Concerning the challenges in the music and recording industry, this paper has discussed about Emi Group plc, a giant in music and recording industry. In particular, there are several issues including the identification of strategic choices that EMI performs, EMI and its critical success factors in competing in the industry within the last five years, and the use of appropriate management concepts in evaluating the suitability of EMI’s current strategies to deal with future competition. Reference: Carlson, Scott. (2001). Napter Was Just the Start of the Bandwidth Invasion. Chronicle of Higher Education, v47 Corporate Venture Strategies’, [Online] Available at: http://www. 1000ventures. com/business_guide/venture%20strategies. html Daugherty, Tyson. 2002, ‘Creating a Digital Music Marketplace’, [Online] Available at: elab. insead. edu/publications/mbareports/ Creating%20a%20digital%20music%20marketplace. pdf Elizabeth Scott, M. S. 2008, ‘Music and Your Body: How Music Affects Us and Why Music Therapy Promotes Health’, [Online] Available at: http://stress. about. com/od/tensiontamers/a/music_therapy. htm EMI Group Limited. 2005, ‘EMI Group Overview’, [Online] Available at: http://www. emigroup. com/About/Overview/Default. htm EMI Group. 2004, ‘EMI continues manufacturing outsourcing strategy with agreement to sell Australian CD plant’, [Online] Available at: http://www. emigroup. com/Press/2004/press18. htm —. 2006, ‘EMI Group plc results for the six months ended 30 September 2006’, [Online] Available at: http://www. emigroup. com/Press/2006/press70. htm Forness, Megan J, ‘Copyright and Fair Use’, [Online] Available at: http://lrs. ed. uiuc. edu/students/forness/copyright. html Freeman, Jillian S. 2005, ‘The Pros and Cons of Sharing Music on the Internet’, [Online] Available at: http://www. angelfire. com/de3/jfreeman/termpaper. htm Harcourt, Robert H. and Robert W. Hutchinson. 2004, ‘Sup

Essay on Plants on Earth

Plants and humans are perhaps the most important organisms, however, us humans, have caused the death of thousands of plants by starting fires and by cutting down trees for things such as paper and furniture. Plants make oxygen which is very important for our survival; we can't live without it. In the year 2003 alone, 774500 acres of land, that contained not only threes but animals too, were burned in California (Jane Strong, 2003). Some of this land was burned due to natural fires but some of it was probably cause by humans that weren't careful enough.These fires do only kill threes and animals sometimes even other people are harmed. People also cut down threes to make furniture and other things needed for construction. As I look around my house I can see that a lot of the things I have, are made of wood. The chair I'm sitting on, the pencils I use to write, the dining table, and even the house is made of wood. It was then that I thought about how many threes had to be cut down just to make my house. How many threes had to be cut down to make all of the houses in Arlington.People also waste a lot of paper without thinking that they are killing threes; people should recycle and think twice when they waste paper. As the number of people in the world increases, the need for wood increases too. Food companies as well as the companies who cut down threes need to look for ways to make plants grown faster in order to satisfy the need for wood. People have to grow a higher number of plants than the number they cut down. This is necessary because if they number of plants in the world is too low there would be too much carbon dioxide in the atmosphere; this would be harmful to us because they air would be contaminated.Many food companies use chemicals to make their plants grow faster; they also use chemicals to make their plants stronger against insects and some diseases. Some people do not want to buy these products because they think that they do not have as many nutr ients and vitamins as they would have if they would have been water with normal water. Plants have to be watered with water that has no chemicals. This is good because it ensures that the water doesn't have any chemicals that could harm the consumers and that they would be natural.These chemicals sometimes change the taste of the vegetables or fruits. Plants need water so they can grow. It's very possible that the type of water that is used to water the plant may affect the growth rate of the plants. Finding the appropriate type of water would be a great help for farmers who want their plants to grow as fast as possible. The type of water that is used to water a plant is an important factor. This may be what the companies that make vegetables and the companies that cut down threes might want to change, in order to make all of the plants grow faster.This would be a great help for them because it would give them the opportunity to produce more threes without harming the environment. F inding a way to make plants grow faster without using chemicals is something people should be concerned about, because its plants that give us the air we breathe. Plants are also a very important source of food. If the right type of water is be found the plant growth would be increased, therefore the number of plants would increase and the food as well as the wood companies wouldn't have to worry bout the number of threes.