Justice or Free

Justice or Freedom of Speech Essay 1. When do the concerns of national security cross the line to infringing on personal freedoms in regards to activities such as data mining? 2. Are people prepared to give up certain civil rights in order to assure safety in the new age of terrorism? 3. Is the government being completely open about the various programs that are  being used under the â€Å"drift net?† 4. What is actual definition of the â€Å"targeted† part of society that is being observed  and tracked? 5. Should the government be able to â€Å"mine† personal data such as financial,  phone and related records? 6. Does the Patriot Act give too much power to the FBI and related government  agencies without judicial oversight? 7. Who is providing checks and balances to the agencies that have been given this  extra power under the Patriot Act? 8. What is the margin for error in defining who is a suspect and who is not? 9. Is there appropriate due process for those targeted by National Security letters  whose records have been requested? 10. Is racially profiling considered a violation of people’s civil rights, and does  the government have a right to use this as a basis for targeting civilians as  possible terrorists?

The Rhetoric of “Yes We Can” Essay Example for Free

The Rhetoric of â€Å"Yes We Can† Essay Darà ­o Villanueva outlines the history and significance of the rhetorical tradition and highlights the striking persistence of the power of the word in American politics. Even in our high-tech age, a three-word tagline -Yes We Can- carries devastating clout. The Greek sophists -the original masters of rhetoric, notorious for their appetite for influence rather than truth- would be both impressed by the abiding power of their art, and dismayed that, in the Gutenberg Galaxy, it has become a blunt instrument. Centuries before our time, the Greeks considered the question of how to speak so as to sway the hearers mind with the power of words. The first to examine the ways in which we relate to one another through language, the Greeks wrote detailed treatises laying bare the sinews of human communication, and their experience of language and the laws they inferred from it gave rise to Rhetoric, the art or science of the public speaker. The father of rhetoric was said to be Corax, who lived in the closing third of the fifth century BC in the Greek city state of Syracuse in Sicily; his disciple Thysias was credited with bringing his rhetorical discoveries to mainland Greece. Once there, rhetoric was appropriated by the so-called sophists. The history of the term is riven with self-contradiction. Etymologically, sophist means bearer of truth, but its modern meaning is the exact opposite: a sophistry-the stock-in-trade of politicians-is a plausible but spurious argument in support of a falsehood. True rhetoric, however ─Aristotle urges in the introduction to his Rhetoric─ is by no means sophistic. Discussing the uses of the discipline, Aristotle begins with the proclamation that rhetoric educates the common citizen and shapes his spirit, and is a useful way of advancing truth and justice, which in the natural course of things would prevail over their opposites if it were not because their advocates are sometimes inept.[1] Going back to the root of the matter, however, G.B. Kerferd, a scholar concerned with the earliest Greek sophists,[2] divided the school into three distinct types:  sages, such as Solon, whose wisdom was embodied as law; statesmen, who applied their pre-eminent talents to practical affairs, such as Pericles and Themistocles; and teachers of wisdom, skilled in passing on their learning and teaching eloquence, such as Protagoras, Gorgias or Socrates. If we view this classification in Montesquieus terms, the first group would stand for the legislative and judicial powers of the state, while the second group makes a good fit with the executive power. The third group, however, comprising masters of wisdom and oratory, embodies the time-honored marriage of interests and skills between scholars and rulers, sustained by the old but evergreen art of rhetoric. American rhetoric Leaving aside any objective or partisan judgment one might pass on his politics, which is irrelevant to our concern here, Barack Hussein Obama, a university academic, senator, and President of the United States, provides a fascinating example. He makes a perfect fit with a society as sharply characteristic as the American New World, the promised land where the political principles that were later to inspire the French Revolution of 1789 gave rise to an eclectic community, a melting pot of different ethnic origins-not all of them European-and open to all the innovations brought forth by the spectacular advance of science and technology from the Enlightenment to our own day. This was the New Democratic Nation that, ushering in modern poetry, Walt Whitman sang in his book, Leaves of Grass. One of the singular features of that New World is the somewhat astonishing survival, at some fundamental level, of the power of the word. The contrast may seem improbable, but in America the flourishing of technology and all its rich resources ─the central theme of a book that is in no way complacent, but in fact hypercritical, by Marshall McLuhan and his disciple Neil Postman[3]─ enables oratorical endeavor to thrive. Greek rhetoric, largely brought into being by the Sophists, who ─we must not forget─ were more interested in winning over the masses than the furtherance of truth, now has its promised land in the United States. A recent case in point is the impact of President Obamas Yes we can speeches. Again, it was Marshall McLuhan who reminded us that electric systems of communication ─radio and television particularly─ facilitated a revival of oral expression in human communication and cultural transmission after a period of relative tyranny of the eye over the ear: the written word, with the printing press as its handmaiden, had reigned supreme over the five centuries of what McLuhan dubbed the Gutenberg Galaxy.[4] Technopoly ─Postmans unflattering name for the United States of America─ is a locus particularly amenable to the use and development of new technologies, but, even in the twenty-first century, bears the hallmarks of a vast human community in which, as in the ancestral tribes discussed by McLuhan, the spoken word still harbors real power. An undeniable influence is exerted here by the religious bedrock that continues to underlie American society. Though fragmented and diverse, the Protestant churches visibly predominate, and in their communities the biblical and evangelical word breathes life into individual and collective spiritual experience, which draws further nourishment from the often impassioned eloquence of Protestant ministers. Barack Obama himself, a devout Christian, partakes of this culture of liturgical oratory; and, far from keeping this within the private sphere, he has no qualms about putting it on public show as one facet among many of his political personality. His beginnings as a Chicago activist in the late 1980s saw him as a leader of the Developing Communities Project, run by the Church Association on the South Side. Whats more-and this was the subject of a serious controversy, adroitly handled by Obama when his presidential campaign was in full swing-he was an active member of Chicagos Trinity Church, a congregation shepherded by the controversial Reverend Jeremiah Wright. The importance of rhetoric has been a feature of American democracy since the Founding Fathers. Its earliest master was Abraham Lincoln, the 16th President of the United States and first Republican President, who  proclaimed the Emancipation of black slaves in 1863. Obama brought this to the fore in his Victory Speech when he called upon his political adversaries, members of Lincolns own party. The man who in January 2009 became the 44th president started his campaign two years earlier in the state capital at Springfield, Illinois, where in 1858 Lincoln had delivered his landmark House Divided speech. Some political commentators have not hesitated to draw a parallel between the two by dint of their common gift for oratory. Lincolns most celebrated rhetorical legacy is a prodigious speech delivered on November 10, 1863, at Gettysburg. Running to only 246 words, what might have been no more than the close of a posthumous tribute to the heroes of a battle fought four months earlier on the fields of Pennsylvania became the historic proclamation that, after the Civil War, the American nation would be consecrated for ever as the realm of freedom: government of the people, by the people and for the people. The election campaign We can readily appreciate in Barack Obamas election campaign speeches-available at http://obamaspeeches.com-that these principles, and the more effective ways in which they have been put into words, survive today; more importantly, both the principles and the words retain their power to move and engage the citizenry. This is the power of words which Obama invoked at the end of his speech announcing that he was running for President at the same place where, 149 years before, Lincoln had spoken on a House Divided. It is accurate to point out that a decisive factor in his campaign was the recruitment of all the Internets rich resources: blogs, chat rooms, social networking and, above all, the availability on YouTube of some of the candidates key speeches, which I shall later be parsing from the rhetorical standpoint. Nevertheless, in the beginning, as in the biblical Genesis, was the Word, the foundation of the oral communication that marks us out as rational beings and as social animals. So one might say that Obama simply used the new technological possibilities offered by what some now call the Internet Galaxy,[5] just as one of his predecessors in the Oval Office had  done with what McLuhan called the Marconi Constellation. I am of course referring to Franklin D. Roosevelts fireside chats, a series of 30 radio talks broadcast from 1933 to 1944. Political scientists have claimed the chats played a vital role in getting the American public to understand two major presidential initiatives: first, the New Deal, which Roosevelt undertook to combat the Depression of the 1930s; secondly, Roosevelts decision to take America into the great war then afflicting Europe. Roosevelts radio talks have gone down in the history of communications as a great oratorical achievement. They would begin with an affable Good evening, friends, and went on for 15 to 45 minutes. 80% of Roosevelts words were among the thousand commonest in the English language. Though he shares the gift of oratory with Lincoln and Roosevelt, in Obama we have a modern-day speaker addressing twenty-first-century citizens and using hitherto unthinkable technologies to enhance what, in the last instance, is little more than the outcome of applying the principles of rhetoric and its main genres of discourse: deliberative-i.e., political-discourse, and demonstrative, epideictic discourse. The epideictic mode includes the encomium, by which one describes a person, a pattern of behavior or a state of affairs with the aim of dispensing praise or censure; one of its characteristic figures ─of which, as we shall see, Obama is a consummate master─ is evidentia, a particularly vivid form of description. Obama was no stranger ─rather the opposite─ to the forensic rhetorical genre, having first majored in political science at Columbia and later progressed to a doctorate at the no less prestigious Harvard Law School. In fact, his media debut was a consequence of his being elected editor of the Harvard Law Review, the prelude to a distinguished career as a jurist which was later to elevate him to the chair of constitutional law at the University of Chicago. Communication strategies In the American system of higher education, even at the foundational level of training imparted at college up to the attainment of a bachelors degree,  much is made of communication strategies: students are urged to study and practice them, on the view that they are of crucial import for their proper development as citizens. The significance accorded to applied rhetoric is taken to an extreme in graduate study in the social sciences and, in particular, at law school. When I first experienced life in the United States, thirty years ago now, I was struck by how versatile and broad-ranging modern American rhetoric can be. In all facets of society rhetoric is close at hand, especially in the media; television has not yet lost its entrenched primacy, although it is doomed increasingly to share its viewership with the Internet. Tellingly, you can find sites on the web specifically concerned with this phenomenon, such as American Rhetoric (http://www.americanrhetoric.com), providing a selection of 100 major speeches, or Great Speeches Collection, at http://history places.com. Rhetoric is of course present in the political discourse of members of the executive and of congressmen and senators; rhetoric is heard in the courtroom, and Hollywood has built an entire movie genre on it; rhetoric even runs through the informal, jocular acknowledgements given at showbiz awards ceremonies, and provides the sinew of Jay Lenos and David Lettermans late-show spiels; to particularly striking effect, rhetoric animates church sermons, designed and produced as television spectaculars that have now cornered weekend morning prime time. It was in this culture of the revival of the word that todays President of the United States was born and bred, and this is where he still operates today. His university training refined a number of talents that are no doubt innate. These were qualities that also graced Ronald Reagan, for instance, whose acting career proved a good fallback in the face of communicative and political challenges (the same cannot be said of George W. Bush), such as his famous debate with Walter Mondale broadcast from Kansas City towards the end of the 1984 campaign. But commentators and biographers have unanimously hailed Obama for the further distinction of oratorical fire and literary talent. In 1995, after months of writerly seclusion in Bali, Obama published  an excellent autobiographical account that met with high critical acclaim: Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance.[6] On reading this memoir, one perceives that the author is touched with literary passion and possessed of wide and varied learning, ranging from Shakespeare, Melville and Emerson to Nietzsche and Saint Augustine, from Toni Morrison and Doris Lessing to the great novelist of the Deep South, the Nobel laureate William Faulkner, who merits mention in Obamas vibrant speech delivered at Philadelphia in March 2008, A More Perfect Union. Barack Obamas rhetorical flair is also in evidence in his ability to empathize with his audience by his skillful actio, the austere but forceful gestures with which he delivers his speeches. He displays fine judgment in his choice of speechwriters, and is able to convey to them the guiding ideas-the rhetorical inventio, or core content of the message-to which his writers must then give the right words-elocutio-arranged into the most effective structure, or dispositio, for the intended purpose of the address. Logographers, ghostwriters, negros The history of Greek rhetoric devotes a short paragraph to memorialize the modest but indispensable figure of the logographer: in the fifth century BC exemplars such as Antiphon or Lysias worked as mercenary speechwriters. Their modern counterparts find no shortage of work as members of the teeming campaign outfits put on the road by the typical American presidential candidate, whose frenzied activity and ethical quandaries were taken to the screen by Mike Nichols in the 1998 movie Primary Colors, starring John Travolta and Emma Thompson. Obamas leading logographer is Jon Favreau, a 27-year-old prodigy who devoted two months to write the twenty-minute speech that his boss gave at the Lincoln Memorial at the start of his campaign. In addition to writing the Victory Speech for November 4, 2008, Favreau also penned the words that would have been spoken if Obama had lost. The President and his logographer understand each other so well that Obama calls Favreau a mind-reader, crediting him with almost telepathic empathy. This is the key to being a  good ghostwriter, the English term for what we in Spanish call a negro, a writer on anothers behalf. The outturn of this fruitful partnership is a corpus of oratorical pieces that already deserves a place of honor in the canon of American rhetoric. These fine, poetic speeches are also sharply effective in stirring their hearers to action. Another matter-and this is the vital challenge standing in the way of rhetoric, an art shaped, we ought not to forget, by the Sophists-is whether these beautiful pieces have any performative force, as a linguist might say. Put another way, the tough reality is that a wide gap yawns open between saying and doing; as the Spanish adage goes, obras son amores y no buenas razones, good works, not fine words, are the stuff of love. How to Do Things with Words is the title of a series of papers given at Harvard (and published posthumously in 1962) by John Langshaw Austin, a linguistic philosopher concerned not so much with the descriptive capacity of language as with its ability to affect reality, to shape the facts. Hillary Clinton, in the heat of the primaries, mischievously said, My opponent gives speeches. I offer solutions. Obama risks being stigmatized as a purveyor of hot air in the wake of his winning the Nobel Peace Prize in October 2009. Rather than an accolade warranted by the laureates actions, the prize seems merely to recognize the esthetics of Obamas mentions of peace in his speeches, already acclaimed by some journalists as some of the most brilliant ever spoken by a President of the United States. The American canon of oratory also includes a number of pieces delivered by statesmen who never rose to the highest office. The oratory of Barack Obama is indebted, in my view, to one in particular. I have a dream I am of course referring to the dazzling address that Martin Luther King delivered in Washington on August 28, 1963, at the crowning moment of a march on the federal capital by black civil rights campaigners claiming entitlement to work and freedom. Luther Kings speech went down in the  annals of rhetoric under the title of its core phrase, which, by dexterous use of anaphora, operates as the central motif: I have a dream. Martin Luther King, like Barack Obama 44 years later, first turns his hearers attention to the figure of a great American, President Lincoln, whose Emancipation Proclamation came as a great beacon light of hope to millions of Negro slaves. But that promise of work and freedom-the orator then continues with vibrant diction-has been dishonored by the American nation, and the black community is now to raise its voice in protest, like a man given a bad check. Following this apt simile, so close to the heart of a money-driven society like America, the speaker offers a short but powerful list of demands with which the movement has come to Washington. He uses this moment to identify with his audience, as if he were no more than another participant in the march, and, addressing his brothers and sisters in the second person, he urges them, Let us not wallow in the valley of despair, I say to you today, my friends. And, as a proactive expression of his exhortation against discouragement, Martin Luther King then spoke the prophetic phrase that became the title of the entire speech, and that structures the final stretch of the oration by the figure of anaphora, the intermittent repetition of a single idea expressed in the same words: I have a dream. The speakers dream is rooted from the outset in the so-called American dream, the attainment of which is presented as still in the future. It is the dream of seeing realized Thomas Jeffersons proposition in the Declaration of Independence of 1776, that all men are created equal, as applied to the racial discrimination that at this time, 1964, still reigned. The dream is then particularized into a number of direct phrases that build up to a climax of hope propitiated by the repetition of the same form of words by a roused audience. And the first fundamental anaphora, I have a dream, several times repeated, now gives way to a second anaphora that will serve to end the speech. If America is destined to be a great nation, it will see that dream come true and liberty will prevail for all its children. To conclude his speech, the orator applies the figure of anaphora to the refrain of a popular song, written in 1832, titled America: Let freedom ring. This phrase is repeated no fewer than ten times. Martin Luther King then links up this phrase with another, drawn from a well-known black spiritual: Free at last. Almost half a century after I have a dream, the emblematic phrase of the leading figure of the Afro-American community-who tragically died in 1968, long before a black citizen reached the presidency of the United States-Barack Obama, in the speeches that were to raise him to the Oval Office, shared a number of features with Martin Luther King (who incidentally also won the Nobel Peace Prize). In the key speech on the New Hampshire primary night, the man who was to become Americas first black president had heartfelt words of reminiscence for the black preacher who took us to the mountaintop and pointed us the way to the Promised Land. Both orators share a recognition of the legacy of Jefferson, Lincoln and the Founding Fathers; both use the language of the Christian community, gathered round the warmth of the Bible; both are masters of oratory, and successful rhetorical performers in front of their respective audiences. Obama even shares Kings recourse to the figure of anaphora, this time with a phrase which was likewise to achieve outstanding resonance: Yes we can. Yes we can One of the forms taken by the emergence of new communicative technologies now in the service of political discourse is exemplified by the fascinating way in which Obamas slogan was made into a song produced by Will.I.Am (William James Adams), a member of the hip-hop band Black Eyed Peas, who then broadcast his work via YouTube and dipdive.com in February 2008 under the username WeCan08. Obama and his speechwriters were not wholly original in coining the phrase. The direct precedent of the yes we can tagline was Hispanic. In 1972, the Chicano human rights leader Cesar Chavez, who with Dolores Huerta and Philip Vera Cruz founded United Farm Workers, used the slogan Sà ­, se puede, which translates into English as Yes, it can be done. The difference between these two phrasings in English, Chavez and Obamas, has vital rhetorical significance. Yes we can contains a veritable compendium of expressive virtues, from the standpoint of the core idea, or inventio, and in terms of its dispositio and elocutio. More, it is easy to remember, and the speakers actio or performance can readily arouse a collective response, as seen on YouTube: the entire audience put their voices together as a univocal chorus echoing the soloist. The crux, however, is that Chavez slogan was impersonal, whereas Obama transformed it into a form of words unambiguously encompassing the joint will of leader and people, united by that inclusive we. The illocutionary and perlocutionary impact of the slogan can be elucidated by looking back at the tagline used for Dwight Eisenhowers presidential campaign of 1952. A marketing expert, Peter G. Peterson, who later rose to be Richard Nixons Trade Secretary, crafted a phrase which, unlike Obama, Eisenhower for obvious reasons never included in his own speeches, but his followers chanted non-stop; it was touted relentlessly by the whole propagandistic armory of Republican billboards, rosettes, medals, flags, banners, signage and badges. Peterson, the mind behind all this, lighted on General Eisenhowers nickname: Ike. Playing chiefly with the rhetorical figure of alliteration, Peterson tied Ike to the first-person pronoun, I, thus eliciting the speakers full engagement with what he or she was saying. Finally, the third alliterative term, linking the subject-the I instantiating each potential voter-to the object-the candidates nickname, Ike, was a verb with a similar vowel sound: the present indicative of to like. I like Ike became a round declaration by whoever spoke the slogan of his preference in the presidential race. I like Ike: therefore, my vote for the Presidency of the United States goes to Dwight Eisenhower, and no other. Obamas slogan is doubtless more resonant than Eisenhowers, and even more compact. Its three monosyllables make it memorable and give it prosodic, rhythmic and perlocutionary force. In those speeches in which Obama actually spoke the phrase yes we can, his audience would echo the same words, the  meanings of which range over a mass of politically charged domains. The first monosyllable of the tagline has the robustness of the affirmative. The speaker starts with an affirmation, with all that that implies as a positive bid to mobilize. And that yes forthwith engages with an inclusive we, the first-person plural pronoun that embraces both speaker and hearer, unlike Cesar Chavez precedent, yes, it can be done, which, as we have seen, has an impersonal tenor. Finally, the verb can carries power, strength, determination. An audience thus roused by a leader partakes in the meaning of these three monosyllables, which they can readily chant. The import of this is to say, aloud and in unison: We affirm that together we shall achieve our aims, because our combined strength enables us to do so. Rhetorical figures The apostrophe is one of the figures classified in the art of rhetoric as pathetic, in the technical sense that these were devices appropriate to venting the passions. An apostrophe consists in expressly calling upon the audience, in a bid to create the climate for achieving the orators perlocutionary ends. With his yes we can, Obama peremptorily urged his followers to take on and successfully resolve the decisive challenges facing the health of the Republic. Yes we can burst onto the scene of Barack Obamas presidential campaign in the course of his speech at Nashua on January 8, 2008, the night after the New Hampshire Democratic primary, which Obama lost to Hillary Clinton, his main rival. From the standpoint of rhetorical analysis, however, we should look at the full sweep of the future Presidents twelve key speeches, from his candidacy announcement at Springfield on February 10, 2007, to the Victory Speech in Grant Park, Chicago, on November 4, 2008. The first speech to feature Yes we can, the New Hampshire address, was the third of a series that repays consideration as an integrated whole, in so far as, to different degrees and modulated in different ways, it contains the doctrinal message that Obama, as a presidential candidate, sought to convey to the American people. To this end, his speechwriters put in play a vast and powerful arsenal of rhetorical resources. The first text I have chosen ─Obamas announcement that he was to run for President─ is indisputably significant for its inventio, its content, its choice of venue (the Lincoln Memorial, erected on the site where the eponymous former president gave his famous House Divided speech) and its ingenious rhetorical design. Obama draws inspiration from the founders of the Republic to promise what all politicians promise at the start of their campaigns: change. He lists the grave challenges faced by the nation, and deplores the dearth of leadership and the pettiness of politics. In response to these blights and challenges, he ties together a chain of proposals, each starting with the anaphora, Lets be the generation that Lets be the generation that reshapes our economy to compete in the digital age that ends poverty in America that finally tackles our health care crisis that finally frees America from the tyranny of oil. There are no fewer than six uses of this same form of apostrophe, in which the leader stands shoulder to shoulder with his fellow citizens in the will to be the generation of change. One of these anaphoric devices engages another that already points to the main catchphrase with which we are concerned. We can control costs we can harness homegrown, alternative fuels we can work together to track terrorists down, the speaker continues. One can make out the outlines of the rhetorical blueprint of the whole campaign, which was soon to find its ideal slogan in the Yes we can phrase. At Springfield, when Obama was still one of eight Democratic candidates competing for nomination, he affirmed that there is power in words there is power in conviction. The anaphoric repetition of we can is the antidote to skepticism, of which the speaker is not unaware: I know there are those who dont believe we can do all these things. He, however, does believe it, and his faith is reinforced by the certainty that he is not alone. Hence he makes an urgent call to action: That is why this campaign cant only be about me. It must  be about us, it must be about what we can do together. We cannot know whether at that early stage on the long road that was to take Barack Obama to the White House the yes we can phrase was already in his and his speechwriters minds, but what was present was the belief that together, leader and people, they could. Sparks began to fly at the beginning of the following year. The second text with which we are concerned is Obamas speech on Iowa Caucus night, January 3, 2008. Before the party assembly at Des Moines, the candidate started his short but powerful speech with an announcement of imminent change, a change he was ready to lead. His belief is again expressed in a string of four anaphoric paragraphs: Ill be a President who finally makes health care affordable Ill be a President who ends the tax breaks for companies that ship our jobs overseas Ill be a President who [frees] this nation from the tyranny of oil Ill be a President who ends this war in Iraq. The speech concludes with a finely judged rhetorical and emotive gradation. Again using anaphora, the speaker prophesies the moment of change he is confident of achieving with his followers and the American people at large. This was the moment, he says, when America remembered what it means to hope. At this point, Obama and his logographer resort to the rhetorical figure of thought technically termed recriminatio: For many months, weve been teased, even derided for talking about hope, the candidate complains. But, turning the accusation against the original accusers, he reminds us that hope is the bedrock of this nation, an allusion readily grasped by the audience in that it looks to one of the founding myths of the United States. Obama himself embodies the truth of that foundational myth: Hope is what led me here today, with a father from Kenya; a mother from Kansas; and a story that could only happen in the United States of America. The leader uses his own self as a specific model of what he proclaims, enlisting another rhetorical figure already used in that same speech and featuring in several later orations. Hypotyposis or evidentia consists in a detailed description of a specific example that illustrates the speakers argument. Before using  himself as such an example, Obama had evoked several instances of hope for change, which he had read in the eyes of the young woman in Cedar Rapids, whose night shift was not enough to pay health care for her sick sister, or had heard in the voice of the New Hampshire woman whose nephew was fighting in Iraq. This same hope had inspired a handful of colonials to rise up against an empire, and driven the American civil rights movement, led by James Bevel and Martin Lut her King, to march from Selma to Montgomery, in the racist Alabama of the Ku Klux Klan and Governor Wallace. Given these precedents, everything was in place for the candidates third landmark speech, the New Hampshire address at Nashua on January 8, 2008, to bring to light the slogan that was to usher Barack Obama into the White House and become a motto of universal resonance. With admirable rhetorical skill, this speech lays out a range of political arguments-anticipated by earlier speeches-and naturally culminates with the emblematic phrase yes we can, three words which the speaker predicts will ring from coast to coast; from sea to shining sea. Those political propositions herald a change wrought by a new majority that desires to end unaffordable health care, end tax breaks for companies that ship [American] jobs overseas, end schools blighted by corridors of shame, and put a stop to pattern of energy use that harms the planet and humanity. By the figure of speech termed anadiplosis, Obamas oration at Nashua rounds out each of these propositions with a repeated urge that we can, always attributed to the new majority: we can do this with our new majority. His words flow like a cascade until a final apostrophe to the audience arouses the response of a chorus speaking with one voice. Returning to the figure mentioned earlier, recriminatio, the leader places blame on an opposing chorus, the chorus of cynics who insist we cannot do this. Those who deny the possibility of hope in a nation in which hope is never vain: But in the unlikely story that is America, there has never been anything false about hope. A number of domestic evidentias are then  mentioned: the struggle of the Spartanburg textile worker, the plight of the Las Vegas dishwasher, the hopes of the little girl who goes to a crumbling school in Dillon and the dreams of the boy who learns on the streets of LA. On this rugged foundation that befits the nature of the American people, Barack Obama raises his slogan like a standard, and with the choral approval of his audience he recites the phrase no fewer than nine times, before closing the speech with the final words: yes we can. Once the phrase was firmly coined, Obama did not actually utter it even once in his next speech, a long and closely argued address. This was A More Perfect Union, which Obama gave on March 18, 2008, in Philadelphia, the city which for Americans is something like Cadiz is for us [Spains first democratic constitution was proclaimed in 1812 at Cadiz], for Philadelphia was where the Constitution was enacted on September 17, 1787, twenty-five years before Spains La Pepa. The first sentence of its preamble gives Obamas speech its title, and expresses one of the core ideas of his whole campaign ─the union of all Americans─ but, in particular, it opens with an emphatic We, echoing Yes we can: We, the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect union do ordain and establish this Constitution of the United States of America. Obama again gives the lie to the naysayers who dismiss his candidature as a mere exercise in affirmative action, but he devotes the lions share of the address to a harsh recriminatio directed against his former pastor, the Reverend Jeremiah Wright, whose radical invective against the United States, as his reaction to the survival of racial discrimination, had compromised Obamas electoral outlook. The candidate makes use of this sensitive juncture to assert that, for him, too, amicus Plato sed magis amica veritas, [Plato is my friend, but truth is the greater friend]. He publicly professes his religious faith and at the same time evinces an outright rejection of extremism, always confident that America can change, and that only if we do as the Scriptures would have us do ─be brothers to our brothers─  Americans will bring truth to those words of the Constitution as to a more perfect union. To illustrate his argument, nothing could be better than a fresh evidentia: the homely heroism of Ashley Baia, a 23-year-old woman volunteer working for the Obama campaign in Florence, South Carolina. Obama acknowledges having already told this anecdote at an event commemorating Martin Luther King at the Baptist church of Ebenezer, Kings own parish in Atlanta. This display of religious faith-which would be unthinkable in a European politician, for instance-comes to the fore in the next piece I propose to examine: Obamas talk given on Fathers Day, June 15, 2008, at the Apostolic Church of God in Chicago. As though he himself were in holy orders, Obama begins his speech with a quotation from the Sermon on the Mount, as told by St Matthew. He follows this, again, with a mention of Martin Luther King, and then holds himself out as a statesman and father, advocating the education of his children as a responsibility not only of government officials but also of their own parents. He ends the address by characterizing his words as a prayer or call which he hopes will come true for his country in the years ahead. A specific, chiefly economic theme runs through the immediately subsequent speech, delivered by Obama at Kettering University in Flint, Michigan, on June 16. The title tells the story: Renewing American Competitiveness. This was not an occasion for the emotive force of a political harangue, but the candidate nonetheless refers to the Founding Fathers, who, having won independence, created a common market by fusing the economies of the first 13 states. He follows this up with a with a fierce attack on the neoliberal, militaristic and ultraconservative politics of George W. Bush and the Republican Party. In stark opposition to their approach, he proposes as pillars of an economy that is to become more competitive in the globalized world a reinvigorated school system, innovative energy strategies, a more efficient health system and new investment in fundamental research and infrastructure. His closing words, however, point back to the central theme of his campaign: Because when American s come together, there is no destiny too difficult or too distant for us to reach. Ich bin ein Berliner The second-to-last speech that Barack Obama gave in the year in which he won the presidency was also tightly focused on a specific subject, but for that very reason ─and, in particular, because of its venue─ it brings to mind another piece of oratory that has its place among the most memorable ever spoken by a President of the United States in the twentieth century. Obama only revealed his foreign policy blueprint on the occasion of his visit to Berlin, on July 24, 2008. Under the title A World That Stands as One, he sets out his understanding of cultural diversity, national interests, nations and the attitudes of all the worlds peoples. Facing a different audience-not his usual hearers, American electors-he presents himself as a citizen of the United States and fellow citizen of the world. He refers to the responsibility that attaches to global citizenship, and acknowledges that the United States closest ally is still Europe, placing on record his hope that Europe will remain united. In our continent, he says, it is likewise meaningful to invoke that yearning for a more perfect union, in the words of the preamble to the American Constitution, which Obama mentions here in Berlin. In a Berlin riven by the Wall, fraught with the intolerable tension of the Cold War and the partition of Germany, John Fitzgerald Kennedy had roused his German hearers when, on June 11, 1963, he opened his speech, delivered from the steps of the Rathaus Schoneberg, with a seeming paradox, spoken in German: Ich bin ein Berliner (nowhere in the speech was Kennedy to utter the English phrase I am a Berliner). The effect of these words was electrifying: the people of Berlin, besieged and alone in a redoubt of Western democracy behind the Iron Curtain ─an expression popularized by another great modern orator, Winston Churchill─ enthusiastically identified with the president of a power which only 18 years before had driven the Nazi regime to defeat. The audience gladly accepted Kennedys closing argument, in the manner of an epiphonema: All free men, wherever they may live, are citizens of Berlin. Therefore, as a free man, I proudly say these words: Ich  bin ein Berliner. This belated review of a small selection from the oratorical corpus of Barack Hussein Obama, brilliantly crowned by his Victory Speech of November 4, 2008, in Chicagos Grant Park, reveals, among other rhetorical features like those discussed earlier, a consistent theme, developed over the course of the entire process in response to the emerging circumstances of the campaign and the venues of Obamas rallies, in conjunction with an overarching strategy, which scholars of Baroque literature have often characterized as the coming together of two movements: first, the dissemination of arguments; secondly, a complementary gathering of arguments. This is precisely the characteristic tenor of this final oration, the Victory Speech. The President Elect opens with an affirmation of the continuing force of the dream of our Founders and other great men, such as Lincoln, Roosevelt, and Martin Luther King, a preacher from Atlanta. Those doubting the dream have finally been put right by American votes. To flesh out this concept of electoral vindication, Obamas logographer again resorts to the figure of anaphora, four times repeating the same clause: Its the answer The answer is change, still the true genius of America. The winning candidate, via the figure of apostrophe, then directly addresses his hearers- whether listening to him in Grant Park itself or by the medium of electromagnetic waves-as the you that has made all this possible. This apostrophe does not disclose a recriminatio, like that which even on this joyous occasion Obama has cast in the direction of the cynics, but a veritable encomium or panegyric of those who have raised him to office, with their donations, their supportive looks and applause, and their votes, which are decisive for Obama to take on challenges as vast as two wars, a planet in peril, the worst financial crisis in a century. To personify the unanimous people as an individual, he proposes a new evidentia, Ann Nixon Cooper, who that afternoon had stood in line to vote, 106 years of life behind her. The cold shower of reality nonetheless encourages Obama to rebuild the strong  bonds of alliance between President and people invoked by yes we can, the slogan which now, looking forward, takes on the shape of a rhetorical variatio: I promise you, we as a people will get there. YouTube provides a record of how Obamas promise was met by the audiences chorus of yes we can. This was precisely the closing phrase of the entire campaign, at the very moment at which the candidate was invested with the charisma of victory. His speech was again a masterpiece of that effective communicative technology that is none other than ancient rhetoric, as revived in the Internet Galaxy. Today, Obamas speechwriters continue to exploit all the resources of the art of rhetoric, including the play on words that contrasts the interests of Wall Street-the inner sanctuary of capitalism-with those of Main Street, which stands for American towns and small cities, the emblem of the common citizenry.

Is Mary the Theotokos?

Is Mary the Theotokos? Is Mary the Theotokos?  Does it matter? Without the Blessed Virgin Mary Christianity, would be meaningless. That Mary is Mother of God is rooted deeply in sacred scripture, and this Church doctrine has been confidently taught since the Council of Ephesus (A.D. 431), during which occurred a decisive intervention of the Churchs teaching authority on behalf of Marys divine motherhood and against the claims of Nestorius, Bishop of Constantinople who stated that Mary did not give birth to God, but to an ordinary baby, called Christ, who was in some way connected to God. Consequently, Mary did not deserve to be called by the title of Theotokos, or God-bearer, but rather the meeker title of Christotokos, or bearer of Christ. To get an idea of what was happening at the time we need to take a brief look at why this controversy began and at what was being said. So, to begin, it was the primary concern of the Council of Nicaea to make it plain beyond all possibility of misunderstanding that Jesus of Nazareth, while personally distinct from the Father, is God in the fullest sense of the word. As the Creed states, God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God, consubstantial with the Father; it was the Churchs determination to maintain this doctrine of derived equality without deviating into either modalism or tritheism, that led her on the long intellectual pilgrimage whose goal was full understanding of that mutual interpenetration of the three divine Persons, through their union with the one divine Essence, which is denoted by the word perichoresis. Only when the divinity of the Son had been firmly established could the Church give her full attention to the fact that the Son, being God, had become man. But can there be in Christ an unconfused union of Godhead and manhood? This was the question which was to exercise the minds of theologians and throw the life of the Church into turmoil from Constantinople to Chalcedon. What the orthodox Fathers were striving to do, and what was ultimately achieved at Chalcedon, was to preserve the doctrine of unconfused Godhead and manhood of Christ against tendencies which strove, on the one hand, to unite the two terms at the cost of confusing them with each other and, on the other hand, to keep them distinct at the cost of separating them. This today may not seem to offer any special difficulty; that this is so is a sign of the triumph of Chalcedon in theological thought, but, in the fifth century it was a notion that could only be achieved at the cost of bitter controversy and schism. So, when the theologically unimaginative but critically active Nestorius became Patriarch of Constantinople everything was ready for an explosion, which came when Nestorius openly supported his chaplain Anastasius in denouncing the application to the Blessed Virgin Mary of the title Theotokos. Nestorius was an Antiochene in Christology, deeply influenced by the ideas of Theodore of Mopsuestia, and it was his clumsy, clumsily articulated elucidation of the inferences of the position of the Antiochenes that was to set light to the controversy. Quite early on Nestorius was called upon to pronounce on the suitability of Theotokos as a title of the Virgin Mary, and ruled that its correctness was doubtful unless Christotokos was added to balance it. But in getting himself around this issue Nestorius used uncontrolled language which was calculated to provoke those whose approach was different to his own. He argued that no human being could be Gods mother and no human being could give birth to God; Mary gave birth to a man not God, the instrument of divinity. God could not have been carried for nine months in a womans womb, or have been wrapped in baby-clothes, or have suffered, died and been buried. Behind the description of Mary as Theotokos, he professed to detect the Arian theory that Marys Son was human or the Apollinarian concept that the manhood was imperfect. These flare-ups of Nestorius were calculated to be confrontational. But they played into the hands of Cyril of Alexandria, Nestoriuss bitter rival. Cyril claimed to see in them as a resurgence of the theory of two sons which was rejected in the fourth century. Alarmed by this claim that Marys son was just a man, Eusebius, later to become Bishop of Dorylaeum, quickly concluded that Nestorius was trying to re-establish the adoptionism of Paul of Samosata. By exploiting this interpretation Cyril was able to secure Nestoriuss condemnation as a heretic at the Council of Ephesus in 431. Based on these judgements the traditional picture of Nestorianism as a heresy which split God/man into two distinct Persons rapidly formed itself. When Divine Scripture is about to tell of the birth of Christ from the Virgin Mary or [his] death, in no place does it appear that it puts God but either Christ or Son or Lord, because these three are indicative of the two natures, now of this and now of that, now of the one and now of the other. For example, when the Book relates unto us the birth from the Virgin, whom docs it say? God sent his Son. It says not that God sent God the Word, but it takes a name which indicates both the natures. Since the Son is man and God, it says that God sent his Son and he was born of a woman; and therein thou seest that the name is put which indicates both the natures. Thou callest [him] Son according to the birth from the blessed Virgin, for the Virgin Mother / of Christ bare the Son of God. But since the Son of God is twofold in natures, she bare not the Son of God but she bare the humanity, which is the Son because of the Son who is united thereto (Nestorius, 450 AD). The first chapter of St Johns Gospel tell us quite simply that the Word became flesh and dwelt among us. Two points need to be noticed. The first is that in Hebrew flesh and blood means not just the material part of a man in contrast with his soul, but human nature as a whole. The second is that St John does not say that the Word united flesh to himself, but that he became flesh. St Athanasius was fundamentally clear on this point. In general, however, he was quite content to think of the Incarnation as taking place through the union of human flesh to the divine Word. He took upon him our flesh, as Aaron did his robe, and assumed a body like ours, having Mary for the Mother of his body (Athanasius, 356/360). Nestorius himself never drew from his premises the conclusions which Cyril believed him to have drawn and which were drawn by some of his followers. Nor is it to be supposed that the outlook of Antiochene theology logically implied the Nestorian heresy. What is true, however, is that, while the pluralistic emphasis of Antioch made it perfectly easy to preserve the distinction of the humanity and the divinity in Christ, it made it very difficult to provide for their real union. Apollinarius had maintained the union by removing from Christs humanity one of its constituents, the rational soul, and inserting the divine Word (Logos) in its place. No Antiochene could tolerate such a mutilation; the humanity must remain entire and complete. But how then is this unity of divinity and humanity to be effected? If the humanity is complete we shall surely have a complete human individual and it will be this individual and not the divine Word (Logos) who will be the subject of Christs life. No wonder, then, the Alexandrian will reflect, that these Antiochenes refuse to call Mary theotokos; they cannot help believing that he whom she bore was not God but a man, even if God came to dwell in him after she had borne him. Whatever they may say, they believe in two Sons, one the Son of God and the other the son of Mary, however close the relation of the two may be. The clash between these points of view was fierce at first. Cyrils intervention was quick when he heard of Nestoriuss mockery of Theotokos, in refuting what he deemed gross heresy. The patriarchs exchanged some quite prickly letters without with neither of them making any significant headway. So, Pope Celestine was contacted by Cyril, who send him a dossier of extracts from Nestoriuss writings and from the declarations made on the Incarnation by the reverend fathers of past generations. Nestorius also wrote letters to Celestine and in his third he stated: I have learned that Cyril, the most distinguished bishop of the city of Alexandria, has become worried about reports against him that we received, and is now hunting for subterfuges to avoid a holy synod taking place due to these reports. In the meantime he is devising some other disturbances over terms and has chosen [as a point of controversy] the term Theotokos and Christotokos: the first he allows, but as for Christotokos, sometimes he removes it from the gospels, and sometimes he allows it, on the basis of what I believe is a kind of excessive prudence. In the case of the term Theotokos, I am not opposed to those who want to say it, unless it should advance to the confusion of natures in the manner of the madness of Apollinaris or Arius. Nonetheless, I have no doubt that the term Theotokos is inferior to the term Christotokos, as the latter is mentioned by the angels and the gospels. And if I were not speaking to Your Worship who is already so knowledgeable, I would need to give a very long discourse on this topic. But even without a discourse, it is known in every way to Your Beatitude, that if we should think that there are two groups opposed to each other, the one using only the term Theotokos, the other only Anthropotokos, and each group draws [others] to what it confesses or, if they have not accomplished this, puts [others] in danger of falling from the church, it would be necessary to assign someone to such an affair if it arises who exercises concern for both groups and heals the danger of both parties by means of the term taken from the gospels that signifies both natures. For as I said, the term Christotokos keeps the assertion of both parties to the proper limits, because it both removes the blasphemy of Paul of Samosata, who claimed that Christ the Lord of all was simply a human being, and also flees the wickedness of Arius and Apollinaris. Now I have written these very things to the most distinguished bishop of Alexandria, as Your Beatitude can tell from the copies I have attached to this letter of mine, as well as from the copies of what he wrote to us. Moreover, with Gods help it has also been agreed to announce a world-wide synod in order to inquire into the other ecclesiastical matters. For I do not think it will be difficult to investigate an uncertainty over words, and it is not a hindrance for a discussion of the divinity of Christ the Lord (Nestorius, 430) It did not take to long for Celestine to make a decision, and he called a synod in Rome in August 430 which decided against Nestorius and voted in favour of the title Theotokos. Nestorius was given a warning that, within ten days he would be treated as excommunicate unless, after receiving the notification, he retracted his teaching. The implementation of this ruling was given to Cyril and he characteristically carried out his task. He held a synod at Alexandria, afterwards sending a letter to Nestorius requiring him to subscribe to twelve anathemas. These anathemas, which were intentionally confrontational, summarise in terms which were uncompromising the Cyrilline Christology, some of which I reference here: If anyone does not confess that Emmanuel is God in truth, and therefore that the holy virgin is the mother of God (for she bore in a fleshly way the Word of God become flesh, let him be anathema. If anyone does not confess that the Word from God the Father has been united by hypostasis with the flesh and is one Christ with his own flesh, and is therefore God and man together, let him be anathema. If anyone divides in the one Christ the hypostases after the union, joining them only by a conjunction of dignity or authority or power, and not rather by a coming together in a union by nature, let him be anathema. If anyone distributes between the two persons or hypostases the expressions used either in the gospels or in the apostolic writings, whether they are used by the holy writers of Christ or by him about himself, and ascribes some to him as to a man, thought of separately from the Word from God, and others, as befitting God, to him as to the Word from God the Father, let him be anathema. If anyone dares to say that Christ was a God-bearing man and not rather God in truth, being by nature one Son, even as the Word became flesh, and is made partaker of blood and flesh precisely like us, let him be anathema. If anyone says that the Word from God the Father was the God or master of Christ, and does not rather confess the same both God and man, the Word having become flesh, according to the scriptures, let him be anathema. If anyone says that as man Jesus was activated by the Word of God and was clothed with the glory of the Only-begotten, as a being separate from him, let him be anathema. If anyone dares to say that the man who was assumed ought to be worshipped and glorified together with the divine Word and be called God along with him, while being separate from him, (for the addition of with must always compel us to think in this way), and will not rather worship Emmanuel with one veneration and send up to him one doxology, even as the Word became flesh, let him be anathema. (Alexandria, 430). This union of two natures in the one divine Person of Christ is called the hypostatic or personal union. It is the mystery of the Incarnation of God; it is also the mystery of the divine Motherhood of Mary. Cyril also said in this letter: Therefore, because the holy virgin bore in the flesh God who was united hypostatically with the flesh, for that reason we call her mother of God, not as though the nature of the Word had the beginning of its existence from the flesh (for the Word was in the beginning and the Word was God and the Word was with God, and he made the ages and is coeternal with the Father and craftsman of all things), but because, as we have said, he united to himself hypostatically the human and underwent a birth according to the flesh from her womb. This was not as though he needed necessarily or for his own nature a birth in time and in the last times of this age, but in order that he might bless the beginning of our existence, in order that seeing that it was a woman that had given birth to him united to the flesh, the curse against the whole race should thereafter cease which was consigning all our earthy bodies to death, and in order that the removal through him of the curse, In sorrow thou shalt br ing forth children, should demonstrate the truth of the words of the prophet: Strong death swallowed them Up, and again, God has wiped every tear away from all face. It is for this cause that we say that in his economy he blessed marriage and, when invited, went down to Cana in Galilee with his holy apostles (Alexandria, 430). A letter was issued by Theodosius summoning a general council to meet at Ephesus at Pentecost 431, with an astonishing medley of rival meetings taking place before the event. Recognised as the Third General Council Ephesus was effective in that Nestorius was never rehabilitated, dying in exile in 451. Its more positive achievement was to canonize the Nicene creed as establishing orthodoxy. In the two years following Ephesus strenuous efforts were made to heal the divisions in the Church. The instrument of agreement, known as the Formula of Reunion, was contained in a letter sent by John of Antioch to Cyril, it ran as follows: We confess, therefore, our Lord Jesus Christ, the only begotten Son of God, perfect God and perfect man composed of a rational soul and body, begotten before the ages from the Father in respect of His divinity, but likewise in these last days for us and our salvation from the Virgin Mary in respect of His manhood, consubstantial with the Father in respect of His divinity and at the same time consubstantial with us in respect of His manhood. For the union(henosis) of two natures has been accomplished. Hence we confess one Christ, one Son, one Lord. In virtue of this conception of a union without confusion we confess the holy Virgin as Theotokos because the divine Word became flesh and was made man and from the very conception united to Himself the temple taken from her. As for the evangelical and apostolic statements about the Lord, we recognise that theologians employ some indifferently in view of the unity of person but distinguish others in view of the duality of natures, applying the God-befitting ones to Christs divinity and the humble ones to His humanity (Antioch, 433). Cyril greeted this formulary with enthusiasm in his letter to John Laetentur coeli. Which was read out at the Council of Chalcedon, part of which I now cite: à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦We confess, therefore, our Lord Jesus Christ, the Only Begotten Son of God, perfect God, and perfect Man of a reasonable soul and flesh consisting; begotten before the ages of the Father according to his Divinity, and in the last days, for us and for our salvation, of Mary the Virgin according to his humanity, of the same substance with his Father according to his Divinity, and of the same substance with us according to his humanity; for there became a union of two natures. Wherefore we confess one Christ, one Son, one Lord. According to this understanding of this unmixed union, we confess the holy Virgin to be Mother of God; because God the Word was incarnate and became Man, and from this conception he united the temple taken from her with himselfà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦ (Chalcedon, 451). After these early great councils of the Church feasts to The Blessed Virgin increased, lots of churches were dedicated to her and in the latter part of the seventh century four new feasts to Mary had started to be celebrated; the Annunciation, the Assumption, the Purification, and the Nativity of The Blessed Virgin Mary. With Pius IX promulgation of the Immaculate Conception in 1854 devotion to our Blessed Lady accelerated, and many appearances of the Blessed Virgin took place. And also at this time many Marian customs grew which included Maytime processions, the wearing of the Miraculous Medal and the Rosary. 1962 saw a major change which happened with Vatican II grounding more firmly in Scripture and liturgy devotion to Mary placing The Blessed Virgin securely in the mystery of the Church. The truth of the Blessed Virgin Marys divine Motherhood and its corresponding dignity are found in these words of the Second Vatican Council: The Virgin Mary, who at the message of the angel received the Word of God in her heart and in her body and gave Life to the world, is acknowledged and honoured as being truly the Mother of God and Mother of the Redeemer. Redeemed by reason of the merits of her Son and united to Him by a close and indissoluble tie, she is endowed with the high office and dignity of being the Mother of the Son of God, by which account she is also the beloved daughter of the Father and the temple of the Holy Spirit. Because of this gift of sublime grace, she far surpasses all creatures, both in heaven and on earth. At the same time, however, because she belongs to the offspring of Adam she is one with all those who are to be saved (Lumen Gentium, 53). The mark of our Blessed Ladys holiness is that she was filled with the grace of God. The Blessed Virgin is the pattern to follow. Giving herself completely with love she was filled with the life of God. Marys Yes to the angels message reveals her part in the work of salvation. And the Angel said: Fear not, Maryà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦ the Holy Spirit shall come upon you, and the power of the most High shall overshadow you, and therefore the Holy which shall be born of you shall be called the Son of God (Luke 1:26-35). These are the words of the great mystery of Marys divine motherhood heralded by the angel in Lukes Gospel, their straightforwardness is persuasive as they announce the origin of our religion. In the beginning, they inspired triumphant faith, the faith of the martyrs and the Saints. The faith which will continue to inspire all Christians to the end of time.

Melanoma :: essays research papers fc

The word melanoma comes from the Greek words, melas (black) and -oma (tumour). It is a very serious cancer that most often occurs in the skin and less frequently in the eye or in the lining of the nose, mouth, or genitals. Melanoma begins in melanocytes, cells that make a pigment called melanin. Both light- and dark-skinned people have melanin, which gives colour to the skin, hair, and parts of the eye. The skin is the largest organ in the body, so it isn’t surprising that skin cancer is the most common of all cancers. Melanoma is the least common form of skin cancer, affecting 4% of all cases but causing 79% of skin cancer deaths. The average age of people diagnosed with Melanoma is between 45 and 55, although 25% of cases occur in people under 40. About 10% of all people with melanoma have a family history of melanoma. You are at increased risk of developing melanoma if there is a family history of melanoma in one or more of your first-degree relatives like a parent, child, brother or sister. The major environmental risk factor for melanoma is overexposure to ultraviolet (UV) radiation from the sun. People who have fair skin that burns or freckles easily need to be especially careful in the sun as protecting yourself against UV overexposure is an important way you can help reduce your risk of developing melanoma. There are two common misconceptions about melanoma. The first is that melanomas develop only in sun-exposed areas of the body. In fact, melanomas can occur in areas not normally exposed to the sun, including the abdomen, genitals, and soles of the feet. The second misconception is that dark-skinned and Asian people are not at risk for the disease. In fact, one type of melanoma occurs most frequently in African American and Asian populations, developing on the palms, soles, and nail beds. The first sign of melanoma is often a change in the size, shape, or color of an existing mole or the appearance of a new mole. Men most commonly develop melanoma on the trunk, particularly the back, and women on the legs or arms. Melanoma develops in a manner similar to other cancer types. A cell's DNA genes, which control cell division and reproduction, become damaged. The damaged genes cause the cell to divide and grow without control or order, eventually becoming a malignant tumor. Melanoma :: essays research papers fc The word melanoma comes from the Greek words, melas (black) and -oma (tumour). It is a very serious cancer that most often occurs in the skin and less frequently in the eye or in the lining of the nose, mouth, or genitals. Melanoma begins in melanocytes, cells that make a pigment called melanin. Both light- and dark-skinned people have melanin, which gives colour to the skin, hair, and parts of the eye. The skin is the largest organ in the body, so it isn’t surprising that skin cancer is the most common of all cancers. Melanoma is the least common form of skin cancer, affecting 4% of all cases but causing 79% of skin cancer deaths. The average age of people diagnosed with Melanoma is between 45 and 55, although 25% of cases occur in people under 40. About 10% of all people with melanoma have a family history of melanoma. You are at increased risk of developing melanoma if there is a family history of melanoma in one or more of your first-degree relatives like a parent, child, brother or sister. The major environmental risk factor for melanoma is overexposure to ultraviolet (UV) radiation from the sun. People who have fair skin that burns or freckles easily need to be especially careful in the sun as protecting yourself against UV overexposure is an important way you can help reduce your risk of developing melanoma. There are two common misconceptions about melanoma. The first is that melanomas develop only in sun-exposed areas of the body. In fact, melanomas can occur in areas not normally exposed to the sun, including the abdomen, genitals, and soles of the feet. The second misconception is that dark-skinned and Asian people are not at risk for the disease. In fact, one type of melanoma occurs most frequently in African American and Asian populations, developing on the palms, soles, and nail beds. The first sign of melanoma is often a change in the size, shape, or color of an existing mole or the appearance of a new mole. Men most commonly develop melanoma on the trunk, particularly the back, and women on the legs or arms. Melanoma develops in a manner similar to other cancer types. A cell's DNA genes, which control cell division and reproduction, become damaged. The damaged genes cause the cell to divide and grow without control or order, eventually becoming a malignant tumor.

Sexual Harassment and Workplace Violence Essay -- Sexual Harassment in

Harassment has plagued the world for centuries. Why should the workplace be any different? Sexual harassment and workplace violence are not only of historical roots, but contemporary issues are still present in the workforce today. Managers are addressing and combating modern sexual harassment and workplace violence, however instances still occur (Robbins, Decenzo & Coulter, 2011). â€Å"Sexual harassment is defined as any unwanted action or activity of a sexual nature that explicitly or implicitly affects an individual’s employment, performance, or work environment† (Robbins, Decenzo & Coulter, 2011). According to the EEOC, â€Å"Harassment can include â€Å"sexual harassment† or unwelcome sexual advances, requests for sexual favors, and other verbal or physical harassment of a sexual nature.† Sexual harassment is not limited to the employee/employer relationship, but can included clients or customers. Harassment does not have to be sexual in nature, but can include harassment about ones gender in general (EEOC, n.d). Sexual harassment can be traced back for centuries. African-American slavery in the United States is an early example of situations that involved sexual harassment of workers by their superiors. African-American women imposed in slavery often succumbed to sexual advances. Late nineteenth and early twentieth female clerical workers were also often subjected to sexual harassment by their male superiors (Siegel, 2004). Publicly published articles and government hearings sparked interest in sexual harassment in the late nineteenth century. Interests in the problem of female sexual vulnerabilities during this time period lead to the composition of several books that embedded context of the subject within their pages. Helen C... ...(n.d.). Workplace violence, issues in response. Retrieved from website: http://www.fbi.gov/stats-services/publications/workplace-violence/workplace-violence/view United State Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics. (2010). Census of fatal occupational injuries summary. Retrieved from website: http://www.bls.gov/news.release/cfoi.nr0.htm United States Department of Labor, Occupational and Safety Administration. (n.d.). What is workplace violence. Retrieved from website: http://www.osha.gov/SLTC/workplaceviolence/ U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), (n.d.). Sexual harassment. Retrieved from website: http://www.eeoc.gov/laws/types/sexual_harassment.cfm U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission , (2011). Sexual harassment charges eeoc & fepas combined: fy 1997 - fy 2011. Retrieved from website: http://www.eeoc.gov/eeoc/statistics Sexual Harassment and Workplace Violence Essay -- Sexual Harassment in Harassment has plagued the world for centuries. Why should the workplace be any different? Sexual harassment and workplace violence are not only of historical roots, but contemporary issues are still present in the workforce today. Managers are addressing and combating modern sexual harassment and workplace violence, however instances still occur (Robbins, Decenzo & Coulter, 2011). â€Å"Sexual harassment is defined as any unwanted action or activity of a sexual nature that explicitly or implicitly affects an individual’s employment, performance, or work environment† (Robbins, Decenzo & Coulter, 2011). According to the EEOC, â€Å"Harassment can include â€Å"sexual harassment† or unwelcome sexual advances, requests for sexual favors, and other verbal or physical harassment of a sexual nature.† Sexual harassment is not limited to the employee/employer relationship, but can included clients or customers. Harassment does not have to be sexual in nature, but can include harassment about ones gender in general (EEOC, n.d). Sexual harassment can be traced back for centuries. African-American slavery in the United States is an early example of situations that involved sexual harassment of workers by their superiors. African-American women imposed in slavery often succumbed to sexual advances. Late nineteenth and early twentieth female clerical workers were also often subjected to sexual harassment by their male superiors (Siegel, 2004). Publicly published articles and government hearings sparked interest in sexual harassment in the late nineteenth century. Interests in the problem of female sexual vulnerabilities during this time period lead to the composition of several books that embedded context of the subject within their pages. Helen C... ...(n.d.). Workplace violence, issues in response. Retrieved from website: http://www.fbi.gov/stats-services/publications/workplace-violence/workplace-violence/view United State Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics. (2010). Census of fatal occupational injuries summary. Retrieved from website: http://www.bls.gov/news.release/cfoi.nr0.htm United States Department of Labor, Occupational and Safety Administration. (n.d.). What is workplace violence. Retrieved from website: http://www.osha.gov/SLTC/workplaceviolence/ U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), (n.d.). Sexual harassment. Retrieved from website: http://www.eeoc.gov/laws/types/sexual_harassment.cfm U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission , (2011). Sexual harassment charges eeoc & fepas combined: fy 1997 - fy 2011. Retrieved from website: http://www.eeoc.gov/eeoc/statistics

Knowledge Based Expert System in Transportation Engineering and Traffic

Knowledge Based Expert System in Transportation Engineering and Traffic Adaptive Signal Control System I. Abstract Advances in computer technologies have been changing transportation field. Based on those, Intelligent Transportation System has been proposed and being developed for the next generation transportation system. This system requires more utilization of Artificial Intelligence, such as Knowledge Based Expert System, than current one. Although Knowledge Based Expert System has not been robustly studied in the field of transportation, it is suggested to be implemented in Traffic Adaptive Signal Control System as a part of Intelligent Transportation System. Therefore, it is fundamental to overview that what the current position of Knowledge Based Expert System in transportation is. It will help to construct a specialized knowledge on and understand that system in Transportation. Previous applications of Knowledge Based Expert System in transportation field are briefly reviewed, and potential implementations are discussed by focusing on Traffic Adaptive Signal Control System in this paper. Key words: Knowledge Based Expert System, Intelligent Transportation System, Traffic Adaptive Signal Control System. II. Introduction Advances in computing have dramatically changed the transportation field in the last decades. These enhance the speed and credit of traffic analysis and allow transportation engineers to study various problems that would not be possibly answered without computer techniques, such as simulations. On the other hand, transportation system have been experienced congestion during its peak hours. To solve this, its facilities have been expended in order to increase their capacity by means of adding addit... ...ion Support Architecture For Advanced Traffic Management" Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering and Institute of Transportation Studies, University of California, Irvine, CA September 1989. 6. Dell'Olmo P. and Mirchandani P. "An Approach for Real-time Coordination of Traffic Flows on Networks", Paper No 950837, Transportation Research Board's 74th Annual meeting, Washington D.C., January 1995. 7. Stack R. and Ritchie S.G., "Real-Time Expert System for Freeway Incident Management" Institute of Transportation Studies, University of California, Irvine, CA, December 1993. 1. These are SCEPTRE (Surface Condition Export for Pavement Rehabilitation), OVERDRIVE (Overlay Design Heuristic Adviser) and Network Optimization. 2. In addition, it has resulted that each method from those five research centers is applicable in different traffic condition also.

Macbeth: Kingship

In Shakespeare’s time a King was considered to be god’s representative on earth. He was looked upon as equal to god. Shakespeare’s ideas towards kingship can be seen throughout the play. He shows that a king should be chosen by divine right and shows the character and attributes of what is takes to be a good king. The character of the king was also a matter of importance. If the king was just and good, the state thrived. If the king was unjust, cruel and self motivated, then the state suffered.In Macbeth we see how the kingship, with its potential for good or evil, is a major theme of the play. Macbeth is seen as a hero in the eyes of all, a man worth and significance the saviour of his country, noble and brave: â€Å"Brave Macbeth†, â€Å"Valour’s Minion†. In his first appearance, King Duncan performs two of the basic duties of a king: punishing the bad and rewarding the good. Upon learning of the treachery of Cawdor and the heroism of Macbe th, he says, â€Å"No more that thane of Cawdor shall deceive / Our bosom interest: go pronounce his present death, / And with his former title greet Macbeth†.The phrase â€Å"bosom interest† means â€Å"vital interests,† but â€Å"bosom† suggests that a relationship of love should exist between a king and his subject. Cawdor, for his treason, is sentenced to death, but Macbeth and Banquo are rewarded for their loyalty. Macbeth is rewarded with the title of the Thane of Cawdor and is showered with the praise and promise of future glory. Therefore, there is much potential for good. The play provides us with a definition of the qualities required for kingship. In the course of his conversation with Macduff, Malcolm lists the ‘king-becoming graces’.Duncan is the lawful king of Scotland, and is portrayed as virtous, strong and just. At the start of the play he has defeated his enemies. Duncan’s murder is greeted with dismay and horror beca use it is attack against God and an attack on the whole notion of order. It is an act of extreme evil and this is reflected in the disorder that results in nature. The world itself is shaken and thrown into confusion by such an evil deed. A good king has been more cruelly murdered: â€Å"most sacrilegious murder†.Desperate and helpless, Macduff arrives in England to see Malcolm, the legitimate successor to Duncan's throne. Malcolm is almost an embodiment of all the positive qualities of kings. He, along with his brother, immediately decides to rely on themselves to preserve their dynasty by leaving Scotland despite the obvious and inevitable suspicion that it raises and their own bereavement. They handle the situation with wisdom and courage, all for the sake of their kingdom. When Malcolm meets Macduff we see more of his wisdom. He adopts the personality of a man who is â€Å"not fit to govern and not even to live.† Malcolm makes sure to not jeopardise his own life an d the welfare of Scotland by â€Å"testing† Macduff. Malcolm, unlike Macbeth, is able to tell appearance from reality in his superiority as king. Macbeth’s reigns regenerates into the bloody tyranny. In order to silence his conscience and ensure his safety, he has Banquo murdered. â€Å"There’s not a one of them but in his house / I keep a servant fee’d†. he seeks information from the instruments of darkness and has Lady Macduff and her children slaughtered to satisfy his blood-lust.The whole state convulses in pain- â€Å"It weeps, its beeps, and each day a gash is added to her wounds†. The main aspects highlighted by Malcolm that are absolutely incompatible with a decent king are lying, voluptuousness and greed. He plans to â€Å"cut the nobles of their land, desire his jewels and this other's house†¦ your wives, your daughters, your matrons and your maids may not fulfil the cistern of my lust. † Satisfied with Macduff's reacti on Malcolm opens up: â€Å"All I am is thyne and mine country to command† and admits that he is not ridden with vices are he pretended.We find out Shakespeare's vision of king-becoming graces: â€Å"Justice, Verity, Temp'rance, Stableness, Bounty, Perseverance, Mercy, Lowliness, Devotion, Patience, Courage, Fortitude† The return of the rightful king is marked by the delight of the army. Nature reacts positively when Malcolm returns. Macbeth, on the contrary, is full of bravado and feels invincible one minute and then left thinking about â€Å"all our yesterdays have lighted fools the way to dusty death†¦ a poor player that struts and frets his hours upon the stage† as Scotland, Lady Macbeth and his soul are all deteriorating around him.In conclusion, the theme of kingship is well developed in the play, with illustrations of the difference between a noble king and a noble man turned incompetent tyrant and the principles behind kingship. The stability of the state depends on the king. The virtuous king rules over a strong and contented state. True kings like Duncan, Malcolm and Edward are associated with â€Å"renown and grace† because they rule by the grace of God and possess king-becoming graces. On the other hand, Macbeth, the usurper, destroys order and plunges his country into chaos unleashing fear, murder and evil.