The Beast Fable and Romance in the Nuns Priests Tale Essay -- Nuns Pri

The Beast Fable and Romance in the Nun's Priest Tale Chaucer utilized many literary forms when composing his Canterbury Tales. Among these forms he utilized were the beast fable and romance. We find elements of both of these forms in the Nun's Priest's Tale. Yet Chaucer was a decidingly original poet. When he took these forms he made them his. He often diverged from the accepted norms to come up with stories that were familiar to the fourteenth century reader yet also original. First let us look at the use of beast fable and how Chaucer diverged from tradition. One significant difference is that there is almost no human interaction with the animals. We have a brief description of the human inhabitants of the farm and then they disappear until the end. The true "humans" are the animals themselves as they possess almost total human qualities. For example, Chauntecleer and Pertelote are a "married" couple and bicker as humans. They also "love" each other. "He loved hir so that wel was him terwith" (VII. 2876). Most striking is the logical analysis both chickens are capable...

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WASHINGTON (CNN/Money) - The government hammered away at Microsoft Corp. chairman Bill Gates in court Tuesday, attempting to portray him as an unreliable witness. And at one point Gates offered to alter his sworn testimony, landing a solid blow against Microsoft's position. The courts have found that Microsoft violated antitrust laws. The current hearings, under U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly, will decide what restrictions will be imposed on Microsoft as a remedy for that illegal behavior. Gates has repeatedly complained that the remedies under consideration would be technically impossible to comply with or would force Microsoft to withdraw its Windows operating system from the market and force widespread layoffs at the company. The Department of Justice and half of the states involved in the original antitrust case reached a settlement with Microsoft in November. But nine states -- California, Connecticut, Florida, Iowa, Kansas, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Utah and West V irginia, along with the District of Columbia -- broke with the Justice Department's remedy proposal, arguing that it wasn't strong enough. Judge Kollar-Kotelly will decide what sort of remedies are appropriate based on the hearings now in their sixth week. Steven Kuney, who represents the states, continued his cross-examination of Gates, who first took the stand late Monday morning. Gates spent much of Tuesday morning complaining that the language of the states's proposal was vague and ambiguous. But Kuney repeatedly walked Gates through his arguments, and several times got Gates to concede that he was interpreting the language in the proposed remedies literally, rather than reasonably, as a court would likely do. In fact, at one point in his testimony Gates told the court that a section of the proposed remedies "could be read to ban Microsoft from competing in any product category. I know such a ban would be unreasonable, and yet that is what the language of Section 8 appears to provide for." Gates argued that the restrictions in the proposal would do things like prevent his company from quickly offering a patch for a critical security hole before two months had passed. Kuney scoffed at such claims, suggesting that no reason able person would interpret the restrictions as forbidding emergency repairs for Windows users. Kuney turned to testimony from the original antitrust trial, which ran from 1998 to 2000, to impeach Gates as witness. For instance, Gates testified that Navigator was "supposedly" a threat to Microsoft's monopoly power in the market for desktop computer operating systems, suggesting that he did not believe that, although the courts concluded that was Microsoft's primary motivation for committing many of its illegal acts.

Principles of Economics Essay

Suggest how an economist would approach the problem of alcohol abuse. Economics is about scarcity and choice. It is assumed that all human beings are rational thinkers hence would always choose to consume products that would give them maximum satisfaction or utility. Mankiw (2011, p. 6) argues that rational people ‘systematically and purposefully do the best to achieve objectives given available opportunity.’ Given a choice among alternatives and with scarce resources, one would evaluate the benefits and costs of consuming an extra unit of a product and would only take a decision only if marginal benefit is greater than marginal cost. In this case, to solve the alcohol abuse problem, one has to consider marginal benefits and marginal costs derived from consuming an extra unit of alcohol and since excessive drinking has more costs than benefits, one would refrain from alcohol. The opportunity cost foregone by choosing to abuse alcohol is too high compared to satisfaction derived; money spent on alcohol can do many other things such as feeding the family, education for children, and investments among others. Besides, the person may have health problems thus adding to the costs. By considering all these factors, a rational person would refrain from alcohol abuse. Heyne (2000) acknowledges the role played by incentives in directing behavior. For him, rational people usually respond to incentives or are induced to act by them. Assuming alcohol abusers are rational, imposing taxes on alcohol substances would eliminate the problem. This would follow the law of demand which states that other things being constant, if the price of a good increase, the quantity demanded of the good decreases. Taxes have the effect of increasing alcohol prices and this would automatically mean that the abusers would desist from alcohol consumption or cut their consumption. Analyze how prescription drugs affect the demand and supply of other products  and services in this country. Prescription drugs are drugs prescribed by a medical officer to a patient and are regulated by legislation unlike the over-the-counter drugs which can be old to anyone. If a patient is under prescription drugs, he/she buys the drugs despite the price of the drugs. An increase or decrease in price of the drugs therefore has little or no effect on the quantity demanded by an individual (McCarthy & Schafermeyer, 2007). The drugs are provided by the National Health Insurance and have no close substitutes. The increase in price of the drugs thus affects all the sectors of healthcare industry such as patients and private insurers. Due to increased costs, the private insurers are forced to increase the cost of their services in case they have to offer such drugs and this may lead to low demand for their services. The patients are also required to get medical prescriptions before obtaining the drugs thus the demand for the medicine may be low compared to over-the-counter drugs. Use of prescription drugs also has an effect on demand for other healthcare services such as hospitalization. The prescription drugs also affect supply of generic products as manufacturers have patents to supply the new drugs for some years. Formulate a reason why elasticity of demand is an important consideration when analyzing the impact of a shift in supply and why the elasticity of supply is an important consideration when analyzing the impact of shift in demand. The price elasticity of demanded which is percentage change in quantity demanded over percentage change in price shows consumers responsiveness to price changes. (McKenzie & Lee, 2006). It is an important consideration when analyzing the impact of a shift in supply and in determining if the firm should raise or lower its price. The supply curve is upward sloping showing a positive relationship between price and quantity supplied other things held constant. However, in long-run, those factors do change causing a shift in supply curve. Such factors include; input prices, technology, expectations and number of sellers in the market. For example, an increase in input prices such as labor would lead to a decrease in supply thus shifting the supply curve to the left. This results in low output which is  not able to satisfy the market demand thus pushing the prices up. An increase in prices according to the law of demand would lead to a fall in demand leading to excess supply and consequently fall in prices until an equilibrium is reached (Mankiw, 2011). However, the fall in quantity demanded will be determined by elasticity of demand. If the product has inelastic demand, an increase in price as a result of shift in supply would have no effect on demand thus suppliers would get more revenue. If demand for the product is elastic, an increase in price would lead to a massive reduction in quantity demanded and consequently lowering of prices and revenue. Shifts in demand curve are caused by other factors that affect demand except price. These include; income, price of related goods, tastes and preferences, expectations and number of buyers (Mankiw, 2011). Elasticity of supply shows the producers’ responsiveness to changes in price and is important in evaluating the impact of a shift in demand. For example, an increase in income would lead to an increase in demand depending on the type of the good thereby shifting the demand curve to the right. If it is an inferior good, an increase in income would lead to decrease in demand shifting the curve to the left. In this case, the good is normal. A shift in demand curve to the right would lead to an increase in price and quantity supplied. However, this is determined by elasticity of supply. If the good is elastic, a small increase in price would lead to a large increase in quantity supplied. This would in effect lead to excess supply forcing the prices to fall thus inducing an increase in quantity demanded but if the supply is inelastic, an increase in price would lead to a small increase in quantity supplied not enough to offset costs hence fall in revenue. Provide two examples of increasing-cost industries in your state and propose why they would have a positively sloped supply curve. According to McEachern (2010) increasing-cost industries occur as a result of entry of new firms due to increase in demand. An increase in demand results in high production costs and the average long-run average cost curve of each firm to shift upwards. The market is competitive and thus new firms enter the industry to share in the abnormal profits made by existing firms. However, as new firms enter, they compete thereby pushing up the production costs leading to low  profit or some firms are forced out of the market. This depends on how far the market supply curve shifts to interact with demand curve. The industry would have a positively sloped supply curve as an indication of the increasing costs. Examples of increasing-cost industries are housing construction and mobile companies which bid up prices for labor and raw materials. Suggest how, under certain conditions, a perfectly competitive market is economically efficient. A perfectly competitive market can’t innovate, because all products are homogeneous and can’t take advantage of cooperation. But if you define efficiency in a particularly useless way and choose only one definition of â€Å"economic efficiency† as well then there are certain conditions under which a perfectly competitive market is â€Å"economically efficient†.

Black People and African American Actors Essay

Stereotyping is the automatic/ exaggerated mental pictures that people hold about a particular racial group without taking individual differences into consideration. Examples of stereotyping would be the main characters of the movie Rio2, Jewel and Blue being voiced by white actors whilst their ‘wild’ relatives are voiced by ‘non-white’ actors implying sophistication as well as in the movie Despicable Me 2 where El Macho and his son are given a Spanish image portraying a smooth talker and an irresistible lover that is often stereotypes about Spanish people. [87] People seem oblivious to the racial content due to various distractions like visual stimuli such as 3D effects and the contrasting use of color, sound effects such as surround sound and the voices of the character and lastly the plot of the story. Most people are over stimulated by these ‘distractions’ that they rarely notice the stereotyping. Another factor would be that parents neglect the responsibility to screen the movies that their children are watching. In some instances the stereotyping may be instilled in some parents from birth resulting in children seeing stereotyping as normal behavior. [96] Subtle racial prejudices towards Hispanic and Black people in Rio2 were the implication that ‘wild’ Amazonian Macaws voiced by ‘non- white ‘actors are uncivilized. Songs sung by these Macaws are primarily voiced by African American actors accompanied by rhythmic beats and movements with catchy phrases primarily found in native song and dance. Roberto (wild Macaw) is voiced by the singer Bruno Mars who is from a mixture of Jewish and Hawaiian decent implying (help with that word). Pedro and Nico two rapping, gangster, music loving birds are voiced by two equally successful and famous rappers Will.I.Am and Jamie Foxx [99] From this passage I can conclude that even though warnings about stereotyping may be placed before animation movies, many parents would still allow their children to watch it. [31]

MGMT 335 U4 DB Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

MGMT 335 U4 DB - Research Paper Example One of the main factors to look at when developing a compensation policy would be to create an incentive plan. The most crucial plan would be the pay-for-performance agreement that would have employees rewarded for their ideas, the goals attained and even service to the organization (Phillips & Gully, 2013). Side agreement compensations can also be arrived at when the employer wants results, which are monetary and tangible to the organization. This plan may increase the employees’ motivation and productivity, hence; eliminating all constraints that stand in the employees’ paths. The terms of agreement between the employer and employee may vary and be arranged depending on the effort and purpose of the incentives. Every employee would then have the opportunity to be made like they have an equal chance at compensation and organizational success (Phillips & Gully, 2013). These strategies and plans are meant to increase employee productivity, and in the long run; increase the organizational success. They (employees) may have or feel that they are receiving a non-discriminatory reward for their efforts in the organization, hence; perform to the best of their

Employment System in Middle East Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2250 words

Employment System in Middle East - Essay Example In the third section, a linkage is created between the poverty and employment. In the forth section, linkage of social welfare and employment is created and finally in the last section conclusion is given. Middle Eastern countries comprise of the following countries, i.e. Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Bahrain, Oman Qatar, Saudi Arabia, UAE, Yemen, Israel, Jordon, Lebanon, Syria, Turkey, Cyprus, Egypt, Gaza Strip and West Bank. Not all of these countries are well established but there is a good demand of employment in these countries, especially Africa and Dubai. The Growth level in this system is emerging with the passage of time but unemployment rate has not declined to a greater degree. There is still a large amount of population unemployed. This paper focuses on the linkage between the poverty and employment & social welfare and employment. The section three and four will emphasize the two concepts in detail. In 2004-2006 when all the rest of the world was going through a recession in the employment industry, some middle-eastern countries passed through the job creation phase. There was employment opportunity in these areas because the private sector showed major development. There were a lot of foreign and domestic investments made by the local and foreign companies that boosted, enhanced and created job opportunities for the unemployment class. These job opportunities catered well as not only were the demand of the young, energetic, talented and capable people met but also these unemployed workers now were provided with the platform where they could put their best efforts to achieve their potential goals. But it sad to state that apart from all the opportunities, the unemployment level in the Middle East was still very high and a major sector of the workforce still remains unemployed. Middle East is also faced with another disappointing workforce practice, i.e. discrimination has been observed in the middle-eastern countries, as women who are a foremost source still experience through a high level of unemployment rate. It has also been stated that middle-eastern women are more talented and educated than as compared to men but regardless of all the efforts made they are still lacking far behind. This discrimination is widely observed in Egypt. The Middle East is experiencing high economic growth rate and it has been stated that from 2004 to 2006, its real GDP per capita had a 4.0 percent annual increase. But despite all these growths, Middle East also suffers from 25 percent youth employment (which is the recorded as the highest among all regions). Among the employed the highest level are new job seekers of age range of 15- 24 years who account for 50 percent of the unemployment in the region. On the other hand young people with secondary and post secondary education are also faced with employment issues such as mismatching skills and long queues for

WITH REFERENCE TO THE UN MILLENNIUM DEVELOPMENT GOALS, CRITICALLY Essay

WITH REFERENCE TO THE UN MILLENNIUM DEVELOPMENT GOALS, CRITICALLY EVALUATE THE ASSERTION THAT HEALTH IS NOW TOP OF THE INTERNATIONAL AGENDA FOR DEVELOPMENT - Essay Example eover, the countries committed themselves towards reducing child mortality which is MDG number four, followed by a declaration to improve maternal health as the MD goal number five. This is followed by a promise to combat HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases while a commitment to ensure environmental sustainability became the MDG number seven. The last goal in the list is the declaration to develop a global partnership for development. To fast track the achievement of the MDG, UNDP (2010, p. 10) explains that in September, 2010 there was a UN conference in which the countries reaffirmed their commitment towards achieving the MDGs and promised to accelerate efforts towards their achievement. In reference to the Millennium Development Goals one can rightly assert that health is currently top of the international agenda for development. Looking critically at all the millennium Development goals shows that United Nations gives health top priority. All the eight goals contribute in one or the other in enhancing the health of global population. According to United Nations (2007, p. 23), giving each person a chance to enjoy a long and healthy life is both an essential goal of development and a means of enhancing the potential of a country to develop. Millennium Development Goal one committed nations to eradication of extreme poverty and hunger. If this goal is adequately addressed, it could lead to significant improvement in the health of the global population. Under this goal, United Nations (2007, p. 23), explains that the first target was to reduce by halve the proportion of people living on less than a dollar a day from what the population was in 1990. Reddy and Heuty (2005, p. 10) argues that poverty is a multi-dimensional phenomenon and defines it as lack of options to various dimensions of the quality of life. T here are many people living in absolute poverty in some parts of Asia and Africa as observed by Reddy and Heuty (2005, p. 10). Poverty deprives one a