Climate Change and The Rise in Sea Level Essay -- Environment Environ

"On a recent afternoon, Scott McKenzie watched torrential rains and a murky tide swallow the street outside his dog-grooming salon. Within minutes, much of this stretch of chic South Beach was flooded ankle-deep in a fetid mix of rain and sea. â€Å"Welcome to the new Venice,† McKenzie joked as salt water surged from the sewers." ----- Michael J. Mishak, Associated Press June 7, 2014 at 4:24 PM EDT According to the World Bank Development Report 2013 there has been an increase in global surface temperature of 0.4 to 0.9 Celsius (C) in the past 100 years. This change in temperature largely caused, according to the IPCC, by the release of GHGs through human activities. There are several effects associated to the change in global temperature, mainly affecting ecosystems and populations worldwide. Among these effects or consequences are sea-level rise, drought, floods, loss of mangroves, and the intensification of storms and climate processes such as El Nino and La Nina. Recent studies have focused on sea-level rise and the global effects. Over the past 100 years, sea levels have increased by 10 to 20 centimeters (World Bank, 2003). Moreover, arctic sea-ice has continued to shrink up to 10 percent or more of its total mass and by 40 percent of its thickness. Glaciers and small ice caps are rapidly melting, causing several changes in the flows of rivers and ecosystems, as well as adding to the increase of sea levels. Sea level rise will most likely severely affect unprepared, developing countries and their populations. Concomitantly, developed industrial countries with higher levels of GDP are likely to cope more efficiently with the effects of sea level rise. This paper will focus on the prognosticated socio-economic costs of s... ... Policymakers Wembley, United Kingdom, 24-29 September 2001.    World Development Report 2013. Sustainable Development in a Dynamic World. Trnasforming institutions, growth, and quality of life. A copublication of the World Bank and Oxford University Press. New York, NY 2013.    Entering the 21st. Century – World Development Report 1999/2000. World Bank 2000. Oxford University Press. New York, NY 2000.    1998-1999 World Resources: A Guide to the Global Environment. Environmental Change and Human Health. A Joint Publication by the World Resources Institute, the World Bank, the United Nations Environmental Programme, and the United Nations Development Programme. Oxford University Press, New York, NY 1998. IPCC Report 2003 – Overview of Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability to Climate Change. 1 page 365 – IPCC report 2003 1[1] page 365 – IPCC report 2003

Comment Cuisiner Son Mari a L’africaine: How-to Manual or Cautionary Tale

De tous les arts, l'art culinaire est celui qui nourrit le mieux son homme. – Pierre Dac Calixthe Beyala was born in Cameroon in 1961. She was very disturbed by the extreme poverty of her surroundings. She went to school in Douala, and she excelled in Mathematics. Calixthe Beyala traveled widely in Africa and Europe before settling in Paris, where she now lives with her daughter. Beyala has published prolifically, and her most recent novel, which came out earlier this year, is called La Plantation.Beyala’s novel Comment cuisiner son mari a l'africaine appeared in the year 2000, published by Albin Michel. It is similar in structure to Laura Esquivel's Like Water for Chocolate, where the narrative is interrupted by the recipes which figure in the plot line. In her book, Beyala includes twenty-four of the recipes which her heroine Aissatou prepares to attract her neighbor and compatriot, Souleymane Bolobolo. In this way the book serves as a how-to manual, as its title sugg ests, on how to seduce, marry and keep a husband by cooking for him.The book begins with a prologue in the form of a legend where a woman arrives at the remote home of the recluse, Biloa. She announces that she has dreamed of him since she was a little girl, and that she has always known that they would marry. Biloa protests that he isn't the one she is seeking, repeating â€Å"Ce n'est pas moi†, but the woman tempts him with food so Biloa admits his identity, â€Å"C'est peut-etre moi,† and takes the woman and the basket of food into his house. This, according to the legend, is how Biloa came to be a member of the society of men.This prologue does, indeed, prefigure the struggles of Aissatou, our novel's heroine, who is a une dame-pipi28 caught between her identity as a Parisian and as an African. Fed up with romantic disappointments, she has chosen her neighbor Bolobolo to be her husband, though she hasn't really even met him. Aissatou, who habitually eats only three grated carrots for her dinner, and always takes her tea without sugar in order to maintain her slim figure goes to a marabout for advice on how to seduce Bolobolo, and is provoked by the other women that are also waiting there for advice.According to them, Aissatou's problem is that she is too skinny, and they lament the fact that â€Å"ces filles d'aujourd'hui ne savent meme pas cuisiner†¦.. et ca se veut des femmes. â€Å"29 Aissatou takes this all to heart and armed with the recipes she learned from her mother and grandmother, she attacks her neighbor on the culinary front. She begins by bringing â€Å"beignets aux haricots rouges† to Bolobolo's elderly mother who is suffering from a mental illness, and then continues tempting her neighbor with other exotic and spicy dishes.Aissatou is not unopposed, however, and deals with her rival, Bijou, by again eclipsing her performance in the kitchen. Eventually, Aissatou does seduce Bolobolo, and after his mother's death, t hey do marry. But the story doesn't end here. In an epilogue, the reader gets a glimpse of Aissatou and Bolobolo's marriage twenty years later. Aissatou admits that she cooks to save her marriage, which is constantly imperiled by her husband's infidelity.But, as her mother had told her, â€Å"There comes a time when one must prefer one's marriage to one's husband,† and so Aissatou sacrifices her pride and tends her relationship in the kitchen even though she realizes that her husband is an adulterous coward. The epilogue leaves a bitter taste at the end of such a delicious novel, but it keeps it honest, and doesn't allow it to seem like the simple re-telling of the legend of Biloa. Whereas the themes of food and cooking often serve as expressions of nostalgia in other novels, in Beyala's book, food is a language spoken by the different characters.Aissatou hears her mother's voice prescribing certain dishes to mend a broken heart and other dishes to soothe herself and her fami ly, for as she says, â€Å"Ventre plein n'a point de conscience. â€Å"30Her daughter, however, doesn't initially have the same reaction when feeling low and instead she makes herself a bowl of ‘veritable soupe chinoise en sachet. ‘ This means that prior to her decision to seduce Bolobolo by cooking for him, the only cooking that Aissatou undertakes is nothing more than adding water to a dried powder and heating it up.The fact that the dried powder is identified as ‘real’ and ‘Chinese’ point to the fact that it is really neither. Aissatou is not concerned with her food’s quality or ethnicity, and cares only about its convenience and calorie count. In the course of the novel, Aissatou will give up her proclivity for these ‘inauthentic’ foods and begin to enjoy the foods of West Africa prescribed by her mother and other African characters. In Beyala’s book, African food is imbued with nearly magical qualities. Yes, it does put meat on the bones of those who enjoy it, but it also excites the senses, and inflames the passions of those who eat it.Moreover, the true connoisseurs and sages of African food are all women. Even when Aissatou goes to consult a marabout about her love life, it is the women who actually reveal her ‘diagnosis. ’ Maimouna, who is known as ‘la cheftaine-reine des cuisines† amongst the women at the marabout’s apartment says that Aissatou’s problem is that she is too thin, and that a certain spicy shrimp dish will always attract a man. Once Aissatou decides to begin cooking African food in order to achieve her goal of seducing Bolobolo, she is also able to influence other situations through her cooking.She decides to provoke a macho response in her passive male best friend and prepares a jus de gingembre, a drink formulated to send him into a frenzy of desire, just to see what will happen. When confronted by her angry rival, mademoiselle Bi jou, she cooks a bouillie de mil for her to show that she is civilized and in control of the situation. Later, angered by Bijou's assessment of her relationship with Bolobolo, she also takes revenge on him by putting a laxative in a favorite dish of his. And of course, Aissatou's prime objective, clinched by her pepe-soupe aux poissons, is to arouse an appetite for passion within Bolobolo.Aissatou is speaking through her cooking, revealing her desires and fears, using food to express those things which she cannot explicitly state. In addition to its function as a way to provoke a physical response in the eater, food acts as an important cultural identifier in this novel. Through it we see the transformation of Aissatou from Parisian, back to African and from white, back to black. In other words, she effectuates a reverse migration, and food and cooking are the vehicle that she uses to bring herself back to her roots.Though this migration is easy to track, as she embraces her motherà ¢â‚¬â„¢s attitudes toward food, cooking and even marriage, it is more difficult to find Aissatou’s point of departure. In the beginning, Aissatou’s very racial and ethnic identity is called into question by Beyala’s own publisher’s blurb on the back of the novel itself. It describes her as  « une Parisienne pure black en proie au tourments de l’amour.  »31 But Aissatou claims that her self-imposed exile in France has made her forget the fact that she is black and that she doesn’t know when she became white.She admits that she has become white by imitating the thin, white Parisian women who are, as she is, completely caught up in the constant pursuit of beauty that is calculated to please men. She realizes that she has adopted a foreign mentality when it comes to her own body image and describes herself thus: â€Å"Moi, je suis une negresse blanche et la nourriture est un poison mortel pour la seduction. Je fais chanter mon corps en eplu chant mes fesses, en rapant mes seins, convaincue qu'en martyrisant mon estomac, les divinites de la sensualite s'echapperont de mes pores. 32It is interesting to note the use of the kitchen techniques, which indicate how previously her only cooking projects served to keep her thin. She combines these techniques where she literally scrapes her body until it is thin with words like martyr and divinity, playing into the idea that the denial of food in order to remain thin is a somehow sacred task. This is a long-standing dialectic, where women align divinity and asceticism when that same asceticism really represents a societal imperative to conform to ideals of beauty.This statement is a declaration of success; she has martyred her body in order to be desirable, and therefore white. Though Aissatou admits that she diets constantly and obsessively, like other Parisian women, she also lies about what she eats, just for the sake of being cruel. When asked about her diet by an apparently jealous overweight woman, Aissatou joyfully tells her that she has, since her birth, eaten, â€Å"le coq au vin, arrose d’un bon beaujolais nouveau; les epaules d’agneau aux champignon noirs, le ris de veau a la creme fraiche et le couscous mouton a la tunisienne. 33Of course, it is completely untrue that she ever indulges in such rich food, and certainly doubtful that she ate these traditional French dishes as a child in Cameroon. It is worth noting the inclusion of Tunisian couscous with the list of very traditional French food. Couscous has entered the repertory of French foods and is a common dish, despite its colonial origins. Though one may argue about the ‘authenticity’ of a Parisian â€Å"couscous a la Tunisienne† and how it plays on French ideas of exoticism, it is undeniably a part of French cuisine.This is in contrast to sub-Saharan African cuisine, which is much more difficult to find in the capital. Though you can eat couscous in every arrondissement, you would be hard pressed to find many restaurants that serve food from West Africa or the provisions necessary to make them at home. With this book, Beyala presents a fictionalized cookbook, and if the intrepid home cook should retrace the steps of the heroine, it could even serve as a guide for shopping for the ingredients in the recipes.As mentioned previously, this book’s structure is similar to other popular novels where recipes for the dishes prepared by characters are included, like Frances Mayes’, Under the Tuscan Sun, and Laura Esquivel’s, Like Water for Chocolate. But in these novels, the recipes are most often a part of the narration itself and sometimes are even recounted by one character to another, mimicking the traditional way that cooking recipes are transmitted, orally, from one cook to another, most often mother to daughter.In Beyala’s book, which features African characters who themselves benefited from the oral traditi on of passing down culinary knowledge, Beyala’s chooses to completely disconnect the recipes from the text, placing them on a separate page at the end of the chapter, and printing them like a traditional recipe that could be found in any cookbook or magazine article. Also, Beyala’s book differs from Mayes’ and Esquivel’s because their novels are both set in a time or place that is foreign to the reader.Esquivel’s novel is set during the Mexican revolution, and Mayes’ is set in Italy, and their settings automatically place them in a foreign and/or exotic locale. Despite this fact, the reader can easily recreate the recipes that their characters make, thereby exoticising themselves by their appropriation of the foreign meal. In contrast, Beyala’s book is both more accessible in its setting, and less accessible to the home cook. Comment cuisiner son mari a l’africaine is set in the present-day French capital and is completely reco gnizable in terms of its location and lifestyle.But re-creating the recipes that Aissatou makes is nearly impossible, because many of the ingredients listed in these recipes are not translated or even described. Though it would seem that this cookbook is intended for other immigrant women to use in re-creating dishes from West Africa, the lack of information about ingredients or possible substitutions runs counter to other cookbooks with similar propositions. Therefore, the status of the book as a manual is questionable, since it is not clear that one can even follow the recipes.Beyala’s book may just be using the recipes as other novels use illustrations. They are glimpses of a foreign culture provided by the author in order to pique the interest of the reader, just as an illustration does. Beyala’s location of the text in Paris is key in the novel, because it allows her to set up a cultural dialectic between France and Cameroon. Her heroine must navigate the multicul tural space of the post-colonial capital to assess the compromises and concessions that white and black women make.Aissatou is caught between her Parisian reality where sexual value is based on how thin a woman is, and her memories of her mother's advice which promoted the importance of domesticity and especially culinary satisfaction in the life of a couple. â€Å"Un homme qui vous fait ressentir de telles emotions†¦.. merite le paradis,†34 she would say as she seasoned a dish to please her man. Aissatou imagines the questions that her mother would have asked her if her daughter had come to her after a failed love affair.Her mother would have asked if first, she had satisfied him sexually, second, if she had kept the house well, and third if she had prepared nice dishes for him. As Aissatou begins cooking savory dishes for herself her thin figure fills in with more womanly curves, eliciting pitying looks from some who think that she has let herself go, and approval from others. Race, beauty, food and sex are all locked into an uneasy correlation that she cannot accept. She gives up on the idea of maintaining a French, i. e. thin, ideal of beauty and trades it for the African ideal of sensual pleasure of food as a means to attract men.Interestingly, she does not trade her French beauty regimen for an African one. She even cites the methods that she is unwilling to follow and decides that braiding her hair, massaging herself with shea butter and pretending to be fragile is not for her: â€Å"Rien qu’a y penser, je m’epuise comme si c’etait deja a l’ouvrage. †35 This return to her roots is unquestionably problematical for Aissatou. She is torn between the two worlds constantly. For example, when she sees Bolobolo leaving the apartment building, she is struck by her sudden ‘African’ reaction: â€Å"Si j'etais sa femme, je serais restee a la maison a l'attendre. But just as quickly she asks herself, â₠¬Å"Mais pourquoi dans le partage des roles les femmes doivent-elles garder le foyer, cuisiner, allumer les lampes†¦. jusqu'a ce que mort s'ensuive? †36This is the same reaction that she has when she asks herself if she is capable of using African methods of seduction. Aissatou’s onerous task is to reconcile her African mother’s advice on how to seduce and hold on to a man with her French post-feminist questions about that role. She knows that her mother is right, and that she will be able to seduce this African man by appealing to his sensual desires and African identity.So, she picks at Bolobolo's sensibilities as an African man and critiques him for doing the marketing himself, saying: â€Å"Vous vous etes finalement bien adapte a l'Occident qui voudrait que l'homme soit une femme et l'inverse. †37In this way, she calls attention to the cultural difference in the French and African views on the traditional division of labor and highlights the fact t hat she and Bolobolo share a common culture, though they may be forced to adapt to French practices.Aissatou also seeks to call attention to their shared culture when she uses Bolobolo's mother's condition as an excuse to get involved, which she does with ulterior motives: â€Å"J'ai l'impression que mon discours est en decalage, espace et temps. Je sais que j'ai eu une reaction africaine ou tout le monde se mele des casseroles etrangeres. â€Å"38 This statement is telling because it shows that Aissatou knows that she is acting in bad faith.She knows that she has rejected certain aspects of African seduction and that she is not being honest about her intentions, but she nevertheless goes forward with her culinary seduction of Bolobolo and his mother. When Aissatou brings the beignets to Bolobolo's mother he mentions that she mustn't have anything better to do if she is cooking for others, but Aissatou reminds him: â€Å"Oui, parce que dans ce pays il faut etre vieux ou au chomag e pour se rendre compte qu'il est important que l'on s'occupe des autres,† again setting herself apart from the French and reminding him that they are compatriots.She finally gains access to his house with this plate of food. Once inside, she professes that she loves to cook and he answers that he loves to do dishes, seeming indicating that they are ideally suited for each other, but also indicating that he may be an African man, but he has adapted to a non-African setting. And this is the prime reason that Aissatou cooks, and especially why she cooks African food, to spark Bolobolo's passion for her. Aissatou cooks constantly, and she cooks the most exotic dishes and uses ingredients that she must search for in all the African boutiques of the capital.Her apartment building is infused with the heady aromas of African cuisine, which causes different reactions among her French neighbors. The concierge battles the smells of cooking with the Airwick spray, but the old lady who li ves on the first floor creeps up the steps to hover on the landing while Aissatou is cooking. Aissatou’s cooking, because it is foreign and strange smelling, makes her black in the eyes of the racist concierge and Bolobolo’s metisse girlfriend, Bijou.Aissatou decides to invite Bolobolo and his mother to dinner at her apartment, where she intends to win him over with her prowess in the kitchen, but when she goes downstairs to invite him, another woman is in the apartment with him. Unfazed, she announces that she would be happy to bring dinner down to them to enjoy together. The dinner is a success with Bolobolo but his girlfriend, a lovely metissse named Bijou, doesn't enjoy herself at all: â€Å"Je n'ai jamais aime la cuisine africaine†¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦ Parait qu'ils mangent des singes, ces Negres! † To which Aissatou responds: â€Å"Du serpent boa egalement†¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦.C'est excellent, n'est-ce pas†39Again, the food has served to bring together the African s and place them in opposition to a separate group because they share a taste for a dish that others find objectionable. Aissatou even goes further in invoking their taste for boa constrictor, because she knows that Bijou will be disgusted by this prospect. Since Bijou is mulatto and not just French, Aissatou and Bolobolo’s shared food preference places emphasis on the fact that they are from the same country in Africa and therefore share a distinct culture, and should not be lumped in with other ‘people of color. But Aissatou's main goal for her fabulous dinner is achieved after Bijou's departure when Bolobolo starts kissing and caressing Aissatou while she is cleaning up the kitchen. This woman, who previously denied herself any sensual pleasure at all from food, is altered by her dinner with Bolobolo. With her seduction of Bolobolo she acquires a new language, where food metaphors dominate the description of sex and the body. Nicki Hitchcott sees the narrator’ s almost over the top references to food to be a demonstration of cliches on which Western advertising depends. 0But at the same time, this dinner is evocative of the traditional polygamous African family dynamic, where the wife who cooks for the husband is the one who sleeps with him that night. Although Aissatou must still deal with her more powerful rival, Bolobolo's mother, she is eventually successful in seducing and keeping him with her culinary talents. By the end of the novel, Aissatou's transformation is complete. She does experience uneasiness when it comes to her own motives and doubts regarding her role in what Hitchcott calls ‘postnational’ France, but Aissatou settles on using cooking in order to maintain her relationships.She has gone from being a self-described white woman who viewed food as a ‘fatal poison' in the matter of seduction, to using food as a tool to accomplish her goal of seducing Bolobolo. She now sees food as a positive, unifying for ce: â€Å"La nourriture est synonyme de la vie. Aujourd'hui elle constitue une unite plus homogene que la justice. Elle est peut-etre l'unique source de paix et de reconciliation entre les hommes.  »41And in this novel, cooking can also reflect passion, love, comfort, anger and civility.Food and Aissatou's deft manipulation of people through her cooking give her power that she doesn't have otherwise in French society. As Bolobolo’s mother says in the novel, cooking is indeed becoming a rare skill especially in large capital cities like Paris because women are increasingly working outside the home, and don’t have the time or even talent to cook, since they never really learned the skills from their mothers. Even though France may be a center for haute cuisine technique, it suffers the same problems of all modern countries where there has been a redistribution of domestic tasks from inside to outside the home.Women don’t cook as much as they used to, and more a nd more people eat outside the home. Therefore, we must ask ourselves for whom the didactic element of this book is intended. As stated above, it is not descriptive enough to satisfy a food adventurer in search of the exotic and by virtue of the fact that it is written and published in France, it is clearly not intended to be used by African women. Perhaps the reader who would find Beyala’s recipes to be the most accessible are women like herself, immigrant women who might need to be tempted back to the kitchen.When this is considered along with Beyala’s problematical portrayal of marriage, the book appears as an invitation to take up cooking, not as a way to experience the exotic, but as a way to reject the Western ideal of beauty and to appropriate some power within the community. Aissatou returned to this aspect of her African heritage, because she had a specific goal in mind and felt that this would allow her to achieve it. She questions herself, her methods and he r motives all along the way, and ultimately accepts the limitations of â€Å"un bon pepe-soupe† and her husband’s monogamy.Just as she advises her neighbor whose husband has begun to stray from the conjugal bed, she doesn’t reproach Bolobolo and accepts his infidelity, knowing that eventually, he will return to her. She rejected the literal and figurative hunger that she experienced as a ‘negresse blanche† and chose the culinary tools that allow her to make her husband happy, even though she knows that he will sometimes hurt her. Beyala’s heroine fully understands the limitations that she faces in a Paris, and negotiates an identity through her cooking that she can live with.

Madcap CraftBrew and Bottleworks Company Case Analysis

As this case study begins, Madcap Craftbrew & Bottleworks, Inc. finds itself at the crossroads of having to make critical strategic marketing and promotional decisions regarding its Zebra beer brand.   In this paper, the situation will be evaluated in-depth, and courses of action will be chosen based on the analysis of the available data Problem Statement The problem facing Madcap at the present time is the fact that despite positive consumer feedback and strong results in test markets, the Zebra brand is not as profitable as it could/should be in order to generate sufficient revenues (Rosenthal & Twells, 1999). Primary Critical Issues Madcap has to contend with several primary critical issues, some of which are inherent in the craft brewing industry, as well as some that are unique to Madcap itself.   In summary, these issues are as follows (Rosenthal & Twells, 1999) : Microbrew drinkers are typically not brand loyal, making the development of a strong core market difficult Only a small percentage of beer drinkers are microbrew drinkers Beverage distributors usually do not like to stock large quantities of craft/microbrews in their retail locations, which results in less product available for sale, which keeps volume sales low The Zebra brand is not widely recognized, nor does a large marketing budget exist Current packaging characteristics (the painted bottle, imported from Mexico) have been causing production delays and prompting concerns from retailers who place a higher value on beers with paper labels on the bottles Zebra is priced lower than competitors such as Sam Adams, placing it in a lower perceived value category than competitors’ brews Evaluation of Alternatives Given the challenges posed by the microbrew industry itself, as well as the practical options available to Madcap, the following alternatives, and the viability of each, are as follows: Employ the new marketing strategy that has been successful in Bloomington test marketing efforts, which includes lower product pricing, more distributor incentives, and more advertising expenditures Continue with the current positioning and marketing strategy Proposed Course of Action The course of action that Madcap should take in this situation, from a strictly strategic point of view, is the employment of the Bloomington plan, with the exception of price adjustments.   This choice was made for several key reasons: first, the unconventional and volatile nature of the microbrew industry demands forward thinking and creative marketing; second, price point should be evaluated to avoid pricing the product in such a way as to lower its perceived value in the eye of the consumer.   These strategies hold the potential to achieve the desired goals of Madcap in the short and long term. References (Rosenthal & Twells, 1999) (Rosenthal D W Twells R W 1999 Madcap Braftbrew & Bottleworks Inc: Zebra Beer-It's Not All Black and White)Rosenthal, D. W., & Twells, R. W. (1999). Madcap Craftbrew & Bottleworks Inc: Zebra Beer-It's Not All Black and White. Richard T. Farmer School of Business Administration, North American Case Research Association.      

Mideival Cooking essays

Mideival Cooking essays Cooking in the medieval times was performed on very big scale, and food was cheap and plentiful. Foreign goods had to be bought at the nearest large town. Food trade was a primary business. It was also a way of determining class. The nobles would eat meat, white bread, pastries, and drink wine. This sort of diet caused many health problems, such as skin troubles, digestive disorders, infections from decomposed proteins, scurvy, and tooth decay. A peasant would eat porridge, turnips, dark bread, and in the north they would drink beer or ale. Women were the expert cooks, and they seasoned their food heavily with pepper, cloves, garlic, cinnamon, vinegar, and wine. They paid close attention to the appearance of their meal. For instance, they might spread the feathers of a peacock that they are serving. Also, if a the eggs of a batter didnt make it yellow enough, they would add saffron (saffron is orange of yellow powder obtained from the stigmas of the saffron flower). Meat was expensive, so it was considered a luxury. This made butchers prosperous. The most common and least expensive was sheep. They would also eat birds: gulls, herons, storks, swans, cranes, cormorants, and vultures, just to name a few. Animals were cut up immediately after killing and salted to be preserved. Most meat was boiled because it the animals were wild, and the meat was sure to be tough. Also, almonds were often cooked with the meat for flavor. Fish was also popular. Part of this was because the church required that you eat fish on Fridays. Fish was often cooked in ale. People spent more on bread and grain then anything else, even though England had a national bread tax, which fixed the price of bread. Pastries were expensive because sugar was an import. Because medical opinion advised that fruit shouldnt be eaten raw, it was preserved in honey and cooked into pastries. Almonds were often cooked into pastries as well. Fruit was more wild back ...

Overview of Political Geography

Overview of Political Geography Political geography is a branch of human geography (the branch of geography concerned with understanding the worlds culture and how it relates to geographic space) that studies the spatial distribution of political processes and how these processes are impacted by ones geographic location. It often studies local and national elections, international relationships and the political structure of different areas based on geography. History of Political Geography Politische Geographie Another early theory in political geography was the heartland theory. In 1904, Halford Mackinder, a British geographer, developed this theory in his article, The Geographical Pivot of History. As a part of this theory, Mackinder said that world would be divided into a Heartland consisting of Eastern Europe, a World Island made up of Eurasia and Africa, Peripheral Islands, and the New World. His theory said that whoever controlled the heartland would control the world. Both Ratzel and Mackinders theories remained important before and during World War II. By the time of the Cold War, their theories and the importance of political geography began to decline and other fields within human geography began to develop. In the late 1970s however, political geography again began to grow. Today political geography is considered one of the most important branches of human geography and many geographers study a variety of fields concerned with political processes and geography. Fields within Political Geography European Union Modern political trends also have an impact on political geography and in recent years sub-topics focused on these trends have developed within political geography. This is known as critical political geography and includes political geography focused on ideas related to feminist groups and issues gay and lesbian as well as youth communities. Examples of Research in Political Geography Ellen Churchill Semple Today political geography is also a specialty group within the Association of American Geographers and there is an academic journal called Political Geography. Some titles from recent articles in this journal include Redistricting and the Elusive Ideals of Representation, Climate Triggers: Rainfall Anomalies, Vulnerability and Communal Conflict in Sub-Saharan Africa, and Normative Goals and Demographic Realities. To learn more about political geography and to see topics within the subject visit the Political Geography page here on Geography at About.com.

Michael Phelps Bong Incident Personal Statement

Michael Phelps Bong Incident - Personal Statement Example This is what I enjoyed the most about David Harsanyi's article - that it offers a broad view on both the Michael Phelps scandal and the contemporary repression of Cannabis. In my reply to the article, I aimed to express my opinion concerning the real issues that oftentimes get concealed behind the shiny, hyped up issues the mass media seem to consistently adopt. I very much agree with the author's overall opinion on the subject matter, so essentially this letter was written as an elaboration of the theme of stupidity: that expressed by Phelps himself, and that which sometimes looks inextricable in our modern society. After reading on "Michael Phelps' public stoning", I was compelled to express how I wholeheartedly agree with your central point: Phelps is an idiot; but then again, so is the war on cannabis. It's discomforting to realize how in full on XXI century, our society is still so easily deceived into supporting the enforcement of such blatant and outrageous witch hunts. In this day and age we're living, one might have supposed that the news a 14-times gold medalist is also a pot smoker could help people realize how the rumors concerning the dangers of marijuana might have been grossly exaggerated; but no, as it turns out all that conservative people focused on was how Michael Phelps no longer had a place among the pantheon of positive role models their children should strive towards. Just goes to show how our opinions are so heavily influenced, and our perspectives so easily shifted. I think you said it best when you stated how "In reality, the most startling aspect of the Michael Phelps incident is that we produced an Olympic superstar dumb enough to place his gargantuan paws around a bong in full view of dozens of partygoers equipped with cell phone cameras." Granted, most pot smokers understand the aggressive prejudice they're still subject to in our society, and some of them choose to keep their smoking habits in private. But not many of them have such high stakes as Phelps, and still he went ahead and exposed himself like that. He should have known better, and he should have thought before grabbing a bong in a college party (where someone was bound to snap a picture), but then - well, then he got high... and the rest is history. In my opinion, Phelps committed two coarse errors: the first one was getting caught in public with a bong, and the second (possibly worse) was making a public statement telling how much he was sorry for his reckless, juvenile behavior. As you've written in the final portion of your article, most Americans who have smoked marijuana are unlikely to feel regrets about doing so - and Phelps himself, there's a good chance he's actually sorry only of getting caught. His judgment failed, all right: not necessarily by smoking pot, but absolutely by doing so in a scenario that would be likely to bring about repercussions that might compromise his career. All in all, it goes without saying: Michael Phelps is an idiot. But all the while, he's also a prodigious swimmer who has consistently displayed off-the-charts skill and capacity. So what if he smokes pot If nothing else, that just goes to show that pot smokers can become something other than slackers and parasites, as maintained by our dearly uptight cultural stereotypes. Regardless (and as far as I'm aware)- marijuana isn't

International Management paper Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

International Management paper - Essay Example On the other hand, during Jurgen Dormann's tenure, the company's key aims were rationalization, redesigning of the company, saving money, avoidance of non-core business and simplicity (Burham et al, 1998). ABB needs to formulate its organizational structure on account of its product lines, competition, market coverage and location. To remain a key player in the industry, ABB needs to, among other things, treat internationalization and global diversifications with care and not rush it, fill its leadership gaps and address its performance issues. Moreover, the company can do itself a favor by making use the East Asian financial crisis to their benefit, addressing its pension benefits issues, minimizing its asbestos-related liabilities and adapting to the changing global competition (Bergrenn, 1996). A complex organization structure is not healthy for a company since it could lead to a financial downfall that can end up affecting its global operations, growth and market value. It could also lead to corporate retrenchment, loss of market share and a negative image for the company (Bergrenn, 1996). If I were Fred, I would make an effort to learn more about the Japanese culture, their social life and how they relate to other people, especially foreigners. I would also try to get their perception of Americans and generally try to put them at ease by encouraging them to open up at give their views on opinions. I would encourage my wife to do the same and try making friends with them. What should have been done differently The company management should have given Fred more time to study and find more information about Japan. If possible, the company should have given them some tour of Japan to make them make informed decisions. The family, on its part, should not have had too many expectations about their new location, and instead have realistic ones, and the flexibility to adapt. Case 3: Avon in Global Markets in 2007 Avon's operations in global markets Avon lays its emphasis on managerial skills; as opposed to technical skills, multiple management perspectives, tolerance for ambiguity and ability to manage and work with others. The company also has several global management teams that consist of managers in several countries and regions, relying on group collaboration, aimed at achieving optimum success and attainment of the company's goals. Dealing with a culturally diverse workforce and a multicultural marketplace in the coming years Since 70 percent of Avon's revenues are generated outside the United States, the