Native Essays (804 words) - Ethics, Native Son, Behavior, Literature

Native Son By Right Bigger Thomas has been shaped by various forces. Forces that have changed the life completely for Bigger Thomas. In Native Son, Bigger Thomas seems to be composed of a mass of disruptive emotions rather than a rational mind joined by a soul. Bigger strives to find a place for himself, but the blindness he encounters in those around him and the bleak harshness of the Naturalistic society that Wright presents the reader with close him out as effectively as if they had shut a door in his face. In the first book, Wright tells the reader "these were the rhythms of his life: indifference and violence; periods of abstract brooding and periods of intense desire; moments of silence and moments of anger -- like water ebbing and flowing from the tug of a far-away, invisible force" (p.31). Bigger is controlled by forces that he cannot tangibly understand. Bigger's many acts of violence are, in effect, a quest for a soul. He desires an identity that is his alone. Both the white and the black communities have robbed him of dignity, identity, and individuality. The human side of the city is closed to him, and for the most part Bigger relates more to the faceless mass of the buildings and the mute body of the city than to another human being. His mother's philosophy of suffering to wait for a later reward is equally stagnating -- to Bigger it appears that she is weak and will not fight to live. Her religion is a blindness; but she needs to be blind in order to survive, to fit into a society that would drive a "seeing" person mad. All of the characters that Bigger says are blind are living in darkness because the light is too painful. Bigger wants to break through that blindness, to discover something of worth in himself, thinking that "all one had to do was be bold, do something nobody ever thought of. The whole things came to him in the form of a powerful and simple feeling; there was in everyone a great hunger to believe that made them blind, and if he could see while others were blind, then he could get what he wanted and never be caught at it" (p.102). Just as Bigger later hides himself amidst the catacombs of the old buildings, many people hide themselves deep within their minds in order to bear the ordeal of life and the oppression of an uncaring society. But their blindness allows them something that Bigger cannot achieve: it allows these people to meld into the society that is the city, while Bigger must stand at the outside of that community alternately marvelling and hating the compromises of those within. Bigger is alone; he is isolated from every facet of human affection. Max tells the court that Bigger cannot kill because he himself is dead, and a person without empathy or sympathy, without the deep, steadying love of family or faith in anything. When he lashes out in violence it is in a way a search for what hurt him; he hurts others because it is a way of hiding that he is hurt and afraid.). If one considers life to be a period of growth and learning, recognition of self-worth and of the worth of others, then Bigger has not been given the chance to live. Book Three is called "Fate", and indeed Bigger seems to be controlled his entire life by ambivalent outside forces who could care less about him. He has been lied to until he believes the lies he tells himself. He has no place in society. His own mother believes in him no more than the billboard reading "you can't win" that he sees each day outside his apartment. He has grown up in an environment where enormous rats fester in holes and water is a maybe situation, where meals are precarious and money is almost nonexistent, and where he is told time and time again that he has no worth, no dignity, no intelligence or creativity. Is it any wonder that Bigger is violent? It seems more fantastic that all of the people around him are not. When he says, upon reading the paper "No! Jan didn't help me! He didn't have a damned thing to do with it! I -- I did it!" (p.283) he is clinging to the act of violence he performed as an affirmation of self. He is isolated by a blind society, he is loved by no

Gregory Jarvis, Challenger Astronaut

Gregory Jarvis, Challenger Astronaut Gregory Bruce Jarvis was an American astronaut who brought an extensive background as an engineer to his work with NASA. He died in the Challenger disaster on January 28, 1986, on his first and only trip to space. Fast Facts: Gregory Jarvis Born: August 24, 1944 in Detroit, MichiganDied: January 28, 1986  in Cape Canaveral, FloridaParents: A. Bruce Jarvis and Lucille Ladd (divorced)Spouse: Marcia Jarboe Jarvis, married June 1968Education: B.S. degree from the State University of New York at Buffalo and M.S. degree from Northeastern University, both in electrical engineeringMilitary Career: United States Air Force 1969-73Work: Hughes Aircraft from 1973 to 1986, selected as an astronaut candidate in 1984 Early Life Gregory Bruce Jarvis was born in Detroit, Michigan, on August 24, 1944. Growing up, he was heavily involved with a variety of sports and was also a classical guitarist. His father, Greg Jarvis, and mother, Lucille Ladd, divorced when he was in college at the State University of New York. He studied electrical engineering and received his bachelors degree in 1967. He then pursued a Masters degree in Electrical Engineering at Northeastern. After graduation, he served in the Air Force for four years, attaining the rank of captain.   Work at Hughes Aircraft In 1973, Jarvis joined Hughes Aircraft Company, where he worked as an engineer on various satellite programs. Over the next few years, he served as an engineer for the MARISAT Program, which consisted of a set of maritime communications satellites. He then went on to work on communications systems for military use before joining the Advanced Program Laboratory to work on the LEASAT systems. The technology provided synchronous communications for a variety of applications. In 1984, Jarvis, along with 600 other Hughes engineers, applied to become payload specialists for NASA flights. Work With NASA Gregory Jarvis was accepted for training by NASA in 1984. He was listed as a payload specialist, a category including people trained by commercial or research institutions to do specific space shuttle flights. His main interest was the effect of weightlessness on fluids. Jarvis was put on flight status and slated to go into space in 1985. However, his place was taken by Jake Garn, a U.S. senator who wanted to fly into space. Another senator, Bill Nelson, stepped in and also wanted to fly, so Jarvis flight was postponed until 1986.   Jarvis was assigned as a payload specialist on STS-51L aboard the Challenger shuttle. It would be the 25th shuttle mission carried out by NASA and included the first teacher in space, Christa McAuliffe. Jarvis was tasked to study fluids in space, in particular, the effects on liquid-fueled rockets, as part of a fluid dynamics experiment. His specific duties were to test the reaction of satellite propellants to shuttle maneuvers. Gregory B. Jarvis during training for his shuttle mission. NASA   For 51L, Challenger carried a tracking and data relay satellite (TDRS), as well as the Spartan Halley shuttle-pointed tool for astronomy. Jarvis and the others would be responsible for their deployment, while colleague Christa McAuliffe would teach lessons from space and attend to a set of student experiments carried into space aboard the shuttle. Although not specifically in the mission plan, astronaut Ronald McNair had brought along his saxophone and had planned to play a short concert from space. The Challenger Disaster The space shuttle Challenger was destroyed in an explosion 73 seconds after launch on January 28, 1986. In addition to Gregory Jarvis, crew members Christa McAuliffe, Ron McNair, Ellison Onizuka, Judith A. Resnik, Dick Scobee, and Michael J. Smith were killed in the disaster. After Jarvis remains were recovered, he was cremated and scattered at sea by his widow, Marcia Jarboe Jarvis.  Ã‚   Personal Life Gregory Jarvis married Marcia Jarboe in 1968 after they had met in college. They were active in sports, particularly long-distance cycling. They had no children. Marcia worked as a dental assistant.   Honors and Awards Gregory Jarvis was awarded the Congressional Space Medal of Honor posthumously. There is an engineering building at the State University of New York, Buffalo, named for him, as well as a dam in New York state.   Jarvis, along with other crew members, was the subject of a film called Beyond the Stars and a documentary called For All  Mankind, dedicated to the sacrifice made by the Challenger crew. Sources â€Å"Gregory B. Jarvis.† The Astronauts Memorial Foundation, www.amfcse.org/gregory-b-jarvis.Jarvis, www.astronautix.com/j/jarvis.html.Knight, J.D. â€Å"Gregory Jarvis - Challenger Memorial on Sea and Sky.† Sea and Sky - Explore the Oceans Below and the Universe Above, www.seasky.org/space-exploration/challenger-gregory-jarvis.html.Nordheimer, Jon. â€Å"GREGORY JARVIS.† The New York Times, The New York Times, 10 Feb. 1986, www.nytimes.com/1986/02/10/us/2-space-novices-with-a-love-of-knowledge-gregory-jarvis.html.

International Business Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 3000 words - 24

International Business - Essay Example An international firm implements various strategies such as Geocentric, regiocentric and ethnocentric in addressing challenges faced by them in managing their diverse workforce. Many challenges are faced by MNCs in addressing global workforce management issues. These issues are found related to ethnocentrism, expatriation and poor knowledge transfer. MNCs are finding out ways to manage complex global structures in the context of international HRM and knowledge management. International human resource management (IHRM) wholly spotlights on controlling human resources in the global organizations. It is understood to be the process of performing HRM activities such as recruiting, compensating, organizational expansion, performance evaluation, employee motivation in the global context (Dowling, Festing and Engle Sr, 2008). IHRM is considered to be a complex procedure in many MNCs. The international operations of MNCs have many complexities which are often underestimated by the firms and hence it can be gathered that firms tend to overlook the relevance of IHRM. The failure of the business in global environment is a result of faulty human resource management practices. Increasing international competition among the organizations has led to the increasing importance of developing IHRM practices. There is a shortage of international managers which serves to be a problematic situation for the international firms (Quintanilla and Ferner, 2003). The MNCs fails to realise that the success and failure of the firm depends on how efficiently a firm applies its human resource management strategies. In order to achieve organizational goals, the MNCs need to fabricate integration among the human resource practices of its subsidiary firms located in different parts of the world (Tsai, 2001). The MNCs requires ensuring a considerable amount of flexibility in their IHRM