Band of Brothers, Easy Company

The young men of Easy Company were ordinary citizens turned soldiers. Some of them worked in agricultural farms or coalmines. Others lived in the mountain and few were sons of the Deep South. Some came from very poor families while others were raised from the middle class (Gerjevic 2006). These were just few of the brave men who composed the Easy Company, 506th Regiment of the 101st Airborne Division, U. S. Army. In 1942, the Easy Company was created and underwent basic training in Camp Toccoa, Georgia.The training included climbing the Currahee Mountain. They were the young volunteers seeking for thrill, honor, source of income and dreamed of attaining higher level than a draftee. The training was rigid and required great physical effort. After nine months of hard training, they prepared the invasion of Hitler’s fortress (Ambrose, Simon and Schuster 2006). At about 1 a. m. June 6, 1944, came D-Day, they silently smoked, talked in whispers and uttered short prayers as they boa rd the C-47s. Each man was in full battle gear.They were ready to fulfill their delicate mission (Gerjevic 2006). The Band of Brothers successfully did their assigned role in the D-Day invasion where they parachuted into Normandy, overpowered a German defense line on Utah Beach, head the force that entered into Carentan, led the fighting in Holland, captured an area in Bastogne, bravely led the counteroffensive in the Battle of the Bulge and finally overran Hitler’s Eagle’s Nest at Berchtesgaden (Webster 2006). The Easy Company suffered physical as well as mental casualties.Overall, the Band of Brothers successfully made it and they were proclaimed American heroes. The war was a story on how draftee citizen soldiers conquered well-trained German opponent such as the Wehrmach and S. S (Ambrose, Simon and Schuster 2006). The Band of Brothers, Easy Company was born in 1942. Their contribution in the success of America in their three years in the war cannot be underestimat ed. Their courage, endurance and dedication towards the interest of the nation have earned them a place in America’s great history.The Band of Brothers is worthy to be considered as one of the greatest military unit that the United States of America ever had. Work Cited Gerjevic, Sandi, â€Å"Band of Brothers†, accessed December 5, 2006, http://www. sandigerjevic. com/brothers. html Ambrose, Stephen, Simon & Schuster, â€Å"Band of Brothers†, accessed on December 5, 2006, http://www. bookreporter. com/reviews/0671867369. asp Webster, David Kenyon, â€Å"accessed December 5, 2006, http://www. davidkenyonwebster. com/

Free Speech in the Digital World Under Threat?

COMMENTARY Free Speech in the Digital World under Threat? Kirsty Hughes We are at a moment where the digital world can go either way – it can become a space of genuine free expression, one enjoyed by ever larger numbers of people or it can become a controlled and monitored space. Like any battle for free speech and fundamental rights, governments and other major players – in this case big web companies and internet service providers – must be held to account and challenged to defend our rights. T e digital world continues to open up huge opportunities for communication, interaction, sharing views and exchanging information across and within borders. It is even rather dated to say we are all our own publishers now, we can all be citizen journalists – though we are and can be. And as millions more people in the next couple of years join that digital world as the price of smart phones fall, the digital revolution is surely not over. Or is it? Are Governments Hardwired to Snoop and Censor? Kirsty Hughes ([email  protected] om) is with the Index on Censorship, London, United Kingdom. The ability of both governments and big corporations to monitor the internet, to gather data on us all, to determine what we can and cannot do or see on the web is another key but less welcome part of our digital world. And censorship and surveillance of digital communications is on the rise – not only in countries such as Iran, China and Russia, but also in India, the United Kingdom (UK) and the United States (US). While China’s â€Å"great ? ewall† and army of snoopers does its best to block a whole gamut of politically-sensitive topics and debates – sensitive that is to China’s authoritarian elites – the democratic world is increasingly looking at using the technological opportunities out there, either to block content, or to monitor their own citizens. Earlier this year, Indian authorities came top in Googleâ₠¬â„¢s transparency report – which shows government requests to Google to remove material and how many Google complied with – with the largest number of requests for Google to take down posts not backed by court orders.The US and Brazil had the highest number of takedown demands backed by court orders, while in Twitter’s similar transparency report, the US was the number one country demanding information on users. Google and Twitter also go along with many but not all of the requests NovemBER 17, 2012 they receive – private companies playing a crucial role in determining the extent of our free speech and our privacy. Meanwhile in the UK, a draft Communications Data Bill currently being scrutinised in Parliament, would, if it became law, lead to monitoring and retention of a vast array of digital data across the entire population.From tracking who our emails go to or come from, likewise our phone calls, to storing the data our mobiles give up on our locatio ns or our web searches, showing what topics we are investigating, the draft UK Bill certainly deserves its popular name â€Å"a snooper’s charter†. Iran is also aiming to develop its own intranet that would operate in a way detached from the wider world-wide web, and so be much easier to control by state authorities. But how can India or the UK or US stand up to Iran and pressure them not to cut their citizens off from the wider digital world, if they are not fully respecting basic rights of their own citizens online?What Is Driving the Urge to Control? Freedom of expression is a fundamental right – and without it democracies cannot function and power cannot be held to account. So why are so many governments increasingly looking at control of our digital lives? There are two overlapping justi? cations at the heart of this. Do we need protecting from being offended? Attempts to justify censorship often appeal to the protection of public order, or public morals, t ackling hate speech, or promoting national security.But unless highly limited, such censorship rapidly intrudes on open democratic debate, serious discussion, on art and entertainment, on all our communication and interaction. In the UK, a recent spate of cases indicate a deeply worrying trend towards criminalising speech – individuals have received jail sentences or community service orders for publishing sick or bad jokes online or on Twitter (or in one case for strong anti-police sentiments on a t-shirt). And while the â€Å"Innocence of Muslims† video was highly offensive to some (though not all had seen it) is it really vol xlviI no 46EPW Economic & Political Weekly 18 COMMENTARY the job of governments to decide what is offensive or not? And if they do, and all governments between them censor all that is offensive on the web, then there will be very little left for us all to read or debate or write. We will end up in the opposite of a digital world – in a c ontrolled and fragmented set of con? ned digital spaces. The other main justi? cation governments use for controlling the digital world is in order to justify monitoring and surveillance.We need it to tackle crime and terror, the authorities say with great urgency – the criminals are technologically leaps and bounds ahead of us. But do democracies really need to monitor and survey their entire populations just because digital technology makes it easy to do? Surely tackling crime needs a focused, targeted, intelligent approach – not a population-wide sledgehammer. And if democracies do mimic the mass snooping behaviour of the East German Stasi, or of today’s China or Iran, then they will be undermining their own democratic systems.Free speech does not prevail where everything is being monitored, or collected, or stored so one day it may be checked on. And while governments need to be challenged not to censor and monitor and undermine the global digital space we s hare, private companies have become an increasingly important part of the equation – but one less easily held to account. Facebook’s users hit the one billion mark this autumn. But not only does Facebook make a lot of money out of the private and public information that the one billion share on its pages, it also sets the rules for the conversations in its space.Fair enough you may say, so do plenty of clubs or newspapers or societies. But telephone operators do not set rules of what you can and cannot say on the phone; cafes do not ask you to sign up to what you can and cannot say at the door. And as Twitter, Google and others respond to governments’ requests to take material down – or stand up to governments (as they sometimes do) and defend what has been posted – we are witnessing a major privatisation of censorship in the digital world. Can We Defend the Digital Revolution?So have we lost the digital revolution while it is still in its infancy? Not necessarily. Some big web companies are issuing transparency reports, as Google and Twitter do, so we can all see and judge what they as companies are doing – though we cannot get that picture yet for any individual country. This is an important but partial step. Beyond this, some of the big companies, as well as many democratic governments, have made clear statements supporting an open, free digital space that respects human rights including the right to free expression.And the European Union (EU) and US are currently standing up to a push from China and Russia for top-down regulation of the internet. The next summit where this battle will continue is the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) meeting in Dubai in early December. Which way will India, or Brazil, or South Africa go at that summit – with the US and EU or with China and Russia? We are at a moment where the digital world can go either way – it can become a space of genuine free expression , one enjoyed by ever larger numbers of people, or it can become a controlled and monitored space.Like any battle for free speech and fundamental rights, governments and other major players – in this case big web companies and internet service providers – must be held to account and challenged to defend our rights. If democracies like India, the EU, the US or Brazil do not defend free speech in the digital world, and hold back from the temptation of censorship and surveillance almost at the click of a mouse, then we are on a dangerously slippery slope. It is a moment to stand up and defend our digital freedoms – for if we do not, who will?N EW The Adivasi Question Edited By INDRA MUNSHI Depletion and destruction of forests have eroded the already fragile survival base of adivasis across the country, displacing an alarmingly large number of adivasis to make way for development projects. Many have been forced to migrate to other rural areas or cities in search of work, leading to systematic alienation. This volume situates the issues concerning the adivasis in a historical context while discussing the challenges they face today.The introduction examines how the loss of land and livelihood began under the British administration, making the adivasis dependent on the landlord-moneylender-trader nexus for their survival. The articles, drawn from writings of almost four decades in EPW, discuss questions of community rights and ownership, management of forests, the state’s rehabilitation policies, and the Forest Rights Act and its implications. It presents diverse perspectives in the form of case studies specific to different regions and provides valuable analytical insights.Authors: Ramachandra Guha †¢ Sanjeeva Kumar †¢ Ashok K Upadhyaya †¢ E Selvarajan †¢ Nitya Rao †¢ B B Mohanty †¢ Brian Lobo Pp xi + 408 Rs 695 ISBN 978-81-250-4716-2 2012 †¢ K Balagopal †¢ Sohel Firdos †¢ Pankaj Sekhsaria â₠¬ ¢ DN †¢ Judy Whitehead †¢ Sagari R Ramdas †¢ Neela Mukherjee †¢ Mathew Areeparampil †¢ Asmita Kabra †¢ Renu Modi †¢ M Gopinath Reddy, K Anil Kumar, P Trinadha Rao, Oliver Springate-Baginski †¢ Indra Munshi †¢ Jyothis Sathyapalan †¢ Mahesh Rangarajan †¢ Madhav Gadgil †¢ Dev Nathan, Govind Kelkar †¢ Emmanuel D’Silva, B Nagnath †¢ Amita Baviskar ww. orientblackswan. com Mumbai †¢ Chennai †¢ New Delhi †¢ Kolkata †¢ Bangalore †¢ Bhubaneshwar †¢ Ernakulam †¢ Guwahati †¢ Jaipur †¢ Lucknow †¢ Patna †¢ Chandigarh †¢ Hyderabad Contact: [email  protected] com Economic & Political Weekly EPW Orient Blackswan Pvt Ltd NovemBER 17, 2012 vol xlviI no 46 19

Hamlet vs Agamemnon Essay

In my opinion, the play Hamlet is more tragic than Agamemnon. They are both tragedies as they both fulfill Aristotle’s definition of tragedy as they both depict the downfall of a basically good person through some fatal error or misjudgment, which produces suffering and insight on the part of the protagonist and arousing pity and fear on the part of the audience. They also have all the elements of Greek tragedy such as hubris, catharsis, peripeteia, anagnorisis, and hamartia (â€Å"Ancient Greek Tragedy†). The most important reason that Hamlet is more tragic, in my opinion, is because the protagonist, Hamlet, is an integral part of the play and his character is much more developed. In Agamemnon , the protagonist, Agamemnon, is a secondary character to his wife who, in my opinion is the main character. Hamlet is a tragic hero, as is Agamemnon, following Aristotle’s criteria for the elements of a tragic hero. For example, they both evoke the audience’s pity and fear, have a major flaw of character and are destined to fall in some way (â€Å"Tragedy in Drama†). However, because Hamlet is the main character, we see, hear and understand more of his character. When Hamlet delivers his many dramatic soliloquies about mortality, betrayal, and the futility of life, he shows us his tortured world and the anguish, grief, and uncertainty which eventually takes over his life, leading to his death (â€Å"Hamlet Tone†). As the reader, I felt so much sympathy for Hamlet and this made the play more tragic. On the other hand, the reader knows more about Agamemnon from the Chorus and other characters, rather than from the character himself. The reader has much less insight into his personality and feelings and I found that, as the tragic hero, he lacked the emotion of Ham let.

A Brief History of Heineken – Company Analysis

A Brief History of Heineken Company Analysis Heineken is one of the global leading brewers. The company is headquartered in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, and spreads its business all over the world. In this report, we have taken a deep look into the Heineken Company. We will generally display the company portfolio, and then followed by the company’s past 5 years performance. Afterwards, the report will focus on Heineken’s international marketing activities with detailed explanations of its international marketing strategies. Ultimately, the report will extend to discuss miscellaneous topics of Heineken Company, and ends up with an exhaustive conclusion. Introduction Heineken is one of the world’s biggest brewers and is committed to remaining strong and independent. The brand is named after the founder’s name – Heineken -can be found all around the world. Heineken has become one of the most valuable international premium beer brand since last century and it is still growing stronger. Heineken is also one of the experts of beer brewing and has built quite a number of specialty beers around the globe. In addition to the Heineken brand, there are more than 170 specialty beers which meet a variety of consumers’ needs from every corner of the world. The famous brands include AmstelÂÂ ®, Europe’s third-largest selling beer, CruzcampoÂÂ ®, TigerÂÂ ®, ZywiecÂÂ ®, Birra MorettiÂÂ ®, OchotaÂÂ ®, Murphy’sÂÂ ® and StarÂÂ ®. Heineken has wide international presence through a global network of distributors and breweries. Heineken owns and manages one of the world’s leading portfolios of beer brands and is one of the world’s leading brewers in terms of sales volume and profitability. History The Heineken story began more than 140 years ago in 1864 when Gerard Adriaan Heineken acquired a small brewery in the heart of Amsterdam. Since then, four generations of the Heineken family have expanded the Heineken brand and the Company throughout Europe and the rest of the world. Employees In 2007, the average number of employees employed was 54,004 170 brands Heineken’s leading brand portfolio includes more than 170 international premium, regional, local and specialty beers. Our principal brands are HeinekenÂÂ ® and AmstelÂÂ ®. We continually seek to reinforce our brands through innovations in production, marketing and packaging. 139.2 million hl The Heineken brand is available in almost every country on the planet. We own more than 119 breweries in more than 65 countries brewing a Group beer volume of 139.2 million hectolitres. Segments Heineken applies typical Global Area Structure to their organizational strategy. Global area structure is an organizational arrangement in which primary operational responsibility is delegated to area managers, each of whom is responsible for a specific geographic region. (International Business, 5th edition, Rugman & Collinson). Heineken distinguish es the following geographical segments: Western Europe Central and Eastern Europe The Americas Africa and the Middle East Asia Pacific Head Office/eliminations. Segment information is presented only in respect of geographical segments consistent with Heineken’s management and internal reporting structure. Heineken runs its business in five regions, which is in charge of regional presidents. Regional subsidiaries, which remain high responsiveness to the group departments,are responsible for management, risk assessment and operation efficiency. The distribution models of Heineken’s is of a big variety. Goods are delivered in multiple ways in every country, depending on the countries’ conditions, usually direct to the wholesalers or via third parties. Hence, distributions diverse. The various distribution models are taken in charge by regional subsidiaries as well. In such a circumstance, no secondary segment information is in hand.

ON THE BUS WITH ROSA PARKS RESEARCH PAPER Essay

ON THE BUS WITH ROSA PARKS RESEARCH PAPER - Essay Example y cello in her high school band and visit the White House for the first time in her senior year of high school as a Presidential Scholar (â€Å"Rita Dove†, 2005). Her education included graduating summa cum laude from Miami University in Ohio, two years studying in Germany, taking a Master’s from the University of Iowa and then moving on to teach creative writing at Arizona State University. She had already gained some public recognition through magazines and anthologies before she published her first collection of poetry in 1980. Her third collection won the Pulitzer Prize in 1987. Her career has also included short stories, plays and text for orchestral music (â€Å"Rita Dove†, 2005). Although prolific in her writing, Dove says she doesn’t derive inspiration from any one thing. â€Å"If you wait for inspiration, inspiration’s going to go away and look for more fertile ground to work with† (â€Å"An Online Interview†, 1994). Asked in the same interview for advice for budding writers, Dove adds, â€Å"they can only write what they feel. That doesn’t mean they have to experience it, but to write something because someone else thinks its right, to write for PC reasons, to write because you think you ought to be dealing with this subject, is never going to yield anything that is really going to matter to anyone else.† To understand Dove’s inspirations for poems such as those found in her collection On the Bus with Rosa Parks, it is thus necessary to examine the poems themselves. On the Bus with Rosa Parks is a collection of free verse poems that are loosely connected by the characters featured and the experiences shared. The book has a logical progression. It starts with the individual Lucille as she struggles to give birth alone in her Depression-era home after having been abandoned (temporarily) by her husband Joe. As it develops, Dove increasingly brings in greater involvement with the external world as the children of Lucille and Joe increase

The 5 most important ideas of politics and US government Essay

The 5 most important ideas of politics and US government - Essay Example An individual has the innate tendency to resist all that obstruct one’s liberty. The connotation of liberty is so vast that it defies definition. Each one sees a new horizon of liberty. For the American people the concept of liberty is supreme as it stands to protect the essential dignity of an individual. Dr. Rabindranath Tagore, the Nobel Prize winning poet, describes the concept of liberty in his beautiful poem â€Å"Where the Mind is Without Fear.† He writes, â€Å" Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high, where knowledge is free, where the world has not been broken up into fragments by narrow domestic walls, where words come out from the depth of truth, where tireless striving stretches its arms towards perfection, where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way, into the dreary desert sand of dead habit, where the mind is led forward by thee into ever-widening thought and action, into that heaven of freedom, my Father, let my country awake. † (Tagore, n. p.) This is fantastic explanation about the concept of liberty. In the context of American history, the concept of liberty has undergone many changes as per the demands of time. Each advocate of liberty takes a different line of argument as to its potency and desires to outsmart the previous definitions. Ernest Hemingway in his Autobiography writes â€Å"[†¦.] the loss of liberty anywhere in the world is a threat to liberty everywhere† (Hemingway†¦).... They are born in poverty. Live in poverty and just walk up to the grave in poverty. The African-Americans(slaves) survived only because they had a chance to work(just one aspect of liberty) though on a meager or no salary. Schumacher, E.F in his book â€Å"Small is Beautiful† writesâ€Å"[†¦]the chances to work is the greatest of all needs, and even poorly paid and relatively unproductive work is better than idleness†( 161).This was the position when the practice of slavery was legal in America. After the abolition of slavery, when African-Americans took to education, they began to comprehend the meaning of liberty. Prior to that, in the land of tyranny how could the African American think of equality? Isaiah Berlin in his book â€Å"Liberty: Incorporating Four Essays on Liberty† writes â€Å"It is interesting, but perhaps irrelevant, historical question at what date, and in what circumstances, the notion of individual liberty in this sense first became exp licit in the West†(p.32, 33).Liberty does not mean people should do what they want to do, but they should do what they are expected to do. Liberty is an individual prerogative subject to the liberty (rights) of others. It is a carefully balanced walk and not a carefree race. It is to act with caution, always minding the fact that rights go with duties and responsibilities. Limited Governance The source of the power for the government is the willingness of the people to make and unmake it. The people cannot dethrone the government in power at will, and yet the people of America are supreme and the government itself is limited to the power given to it by them. The Government of

NURSING Personal Statement Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

NURSING - Personal Statement Example Concurrently, from a reflective stance, I realized that nursing is a career with vast opportunities for growth. As people get older, there would always be a need to address various ailments through their lifetime. As such, one could never be bored in this profession as it is seen to pose varied challenges through meeting diverse people with unique and distinct health conditions; yet, it also provides opportunities for personal fulfillment and uplifting rewards. The graduate specialty track that I have selected is the Dual Family Nurse Practitioner/Advanced Public Health Nursing Program. I have always had the interest to gain specialization in the provision of primary care services, not only to individuals; but more so, to family members, and even local community residents within a defined population. I am interested to pursue higher education in this field to gain advanced theoretical frameworks on the provision and delivery of holistic care to a wider range of clientele. Through research in the online medium on this field of specialization, I strongly believe that by pursuing advanced courses and modules through the program, I would be accorded with the opportunity to develop the skills required for addressing health care issues within the community level that requires services such as addressing chronic illness, educating members on preventive care, as well as effectively focusing on interventions for acute care, as needed. A situation that could be remembered regarding taking a leadership role was when I was elected the leader of a group in terms of complying with an academic project. As the leader, I assumed a proactive stance at discerning the need to delegate tasks; effectively identify the roles and responsibilities of each of the member according to their competencies and skills; as well as regularly monitoring the performance of each member to ensure that tasks were appropriately accomplished according to schedule. Through