Services and Social Marketing assignment Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2250 words

Services and Social Marketing assignment - Essay Example elies on voluntary compliance rather than legal, economic, or coercive forms of influence†, and hence â€Å"in many cases, social marketers cannot promise a direct benefit or immediate payback in return for a proposed behaviour change† (Kotler, Roberto & Lee, 2002, pp.5), thereby making the domain highly challenging. In the light of the intrinsic facets of social marketing, as mentioned above and as has been observed in the case of Hindustan Unilever Limited (HUL), the current report will aim at elaborating the key elements of a successful marketing campaign and while doing so, it will take into account the target markets, the required promotional activities, and the incorporation of a marketing plan. While it is a known fact that â€Å"diarrhoea is the third-highest cause of death in the world in the category of infectious diseases, behind only acute respiratory infections and AIDS† and is responsible for an annual toll that surpasses 2 million, â€Å"the paradox of diarrhoeal disease†, according to Prahalad (2006) â€Å"is that the solution is known and inexpensive, but it is difficult to reach and educate the poor about the need to wash their hands with soap† (Prahalad, 2006, pp.235). Quite obviously, HLL has a huge target market because â€Å"India alone accounts for 30 percent of diarrhoeal deaths in the world† and it is a noteworthy fact that â€Å"in India, 19.2 percent of all children suffer from diarrhoea† (Prahalad, 2006, pp.235). India, being a developing country, is paralysed by certain societal factors such as poverty, illiteracy, and above all, â€Å"lack of sanitation facilities† (Prahalad, 2006, pp.236). It has been report ed that â€Å"up-to-date technology, bright packaging, and savvy marketing of tiny sachets of soap that sold for as little as 2 cents allowed Lever to dominate the market† and as a result, â€Å"investors, sensing the companys deep understanding of the Indian consumer psyche, saw its shares as a proxy for India† (Bloomberg, 2004). As the

Ethnography on Middle Class American Male Essay Example for Free

Ethnography on Middle Class American Male Essay Two centuries ago leading white, middle-class families in the newly united American states spearheaded a family revolution that replaced the premodern gender order with a modern family system. But modern family was an oxymoronic label for this peculiar institution, which dispensed modernity to white, middle-class men only by withholding it from women. The former could enter the public sphere as breadwinners and citizens, because their wives were confirmed to the newly privatized family realm. Ruled by an increasingly absent patriarchal landlord, the modern, middle-class family, a woman’s domain, soon was sentimentalized as traditional. It took most of the subsequent two centuries for substantial numbers of white working-class men to achieve the rudimentary economic pass book to modern family life a male family wage. By the time they had done so, however, a second family revolution was well underway. Once again middle-class, white families appeared to be in the vanguard. This time women were claiming the benefits and burdens of modernity, a status they could achieve only at the expense of the modern family itself. Reviving a long-dormant feminist movement, frustrated middle class homemakers and their more militant daughters subjected modern domesticity to a sustained critique. At times this critique displayed scant sensitivity to the effects our antimodern family ideology might have on women for whom full-time domesticity had rarely been feasible. Thus, feminist family reform came to be regarded widely as a white, middle-class agenda, and white, working-class families it’s most resistant adversaries. African-American women and white, working-class women have been the genuine postmodern family pioneers, even though they also suffer most from its most negative effects. Long denied the mixed benefits that the modern family order offered middle-class women, less privileged women quietly forged alternative child rearing. Struggling creatively, often heroically, to sustain oppressed families and to escape the most oppressive ones, they drew on traditional premodern kinship resources and crafted untraditional ones, lurching backward and forward into the postmodern family. Rising divorce and cohabitation rates, working mothers, two-earner households, single and unwed parenthood, and matrilineal, extended, and fictive kin support networks appeared earlier and more extensively among poor and working-class people. Economic pressures more than political principles governed these departures from domesticity, but working women like Martha Porter and Dotty Lewison soon found additional reasons to appreciate paid employment. Popular images of working-class family life, like the Archie Bunker, rest on the iconography of unionized, blue-collar, male, industrial breadwinners and the history of their lengthy struggle for the family wage (Stacey 30). But the male family wage was a late and ephemeral achievement of only the most fortunate sections of the modern industrial working class. Most working-class men never secured its patriarchal domestic privileges. Postmodern conditions expose the gendered character of this social-class category, and they render it atavistic. As feminist have argued, only by disregarding women’s labor and learning was it ever plausible to designate a family unit as working class. In an era when most married mothers are employed, when women perform most working-class job, when most productive labor is unorganized and fails to pay a family wage, when marriage links are tenuous and transitory, and when more single women than married homemakers are rearing children, conventional notions of a normative working-class family fracture into incoherence. The life circumstances and mobility patterns of the members of Pamela’s kin set and of the Lewisons, for example, are so diverse and fluid that no single social-class category can adequately describe any of the family units among them. If the white, working-class family stereotype is inaccurate, it is also consequential. Stereotype is moral stories people tell to organize the complexity of social experience. Narrating the working class as profamily reactionaries suppresses the diversity and the innovative character of many working-class kin relationships. The Archie Bunker stereotype may have helped to contain feminism by estranging middle-class from working-class women. Barbara Ehrenreich argues that caricatures which portray the working-class as racist and reactionary are recent (Handel 655), self-serving inventions of professional, middleclass people eager to seek legitimating for their own more conservative impulses. In the early 1970s, ignoring rising labor militancy as well as racial, ethnic, and gender diversity among working-class people, the media effectively imaged them as the new conservative bedrock of middle America. Thus, All in the Family, the 1970s television sitcom series that immortalized racist, chauvinist, working-class hero-buffoon Archie Bunker, can best be read, Ehrenreich suggests, as the longest-running Polish joke, a projection of middle-class bad faith. Yet, if this bad faith served professional middle-class interest, it did so at the expense of feminism. The inverse logic of class prejudice construed the constituency of that enormously popular social movement as exclusively middleclass. By convincing middle-class feminists of our isolation, perhaps the last laugh of that Polish joke was on us. Even Ehrenreich, who sensitively debunks the Bunker myth, labels starting the findings of a 1986 Gallup poll that 56 percent of American women considered themselves to be feminists, and the degree of feminist identification, was, if anything, slightly higher as one descended the socioeconomic scale. Feminist must be attuned to the polyphony of family stories authored by working-class as well as middle-class people if they are ever to transform data like these into effective political alliances. While the ethnographic narratives in this research demonstrate the demise of the working-class family, in no way do they document the emergence of the classless society postindustrial theorists once anticipated. On the contrary, recent studies indicate that the middle classes are shrinking and the economic circumstances of Americans polarizing. African-American has borne the most devastating impact of economic restructuring and the subsequent decline of industrial and unionized occupations. But formerly privileged access to the American Dream in the 1960s and 1970s, now find their gains threatened and not easy to pass on to their children. While high-wage, blue-collar jobs decline, the window of postindustrial opportunity that admitted undereducated men and women, like Lou and Kristina Lewison and Don Frankin, to middle-class status is slamming shut. Young white families earned 20 percent less in 1986 than did comparable families in 1980, and their homeownership prospects plummeted. Real earnings for young men between the ages of twenty and twenty four dropped by 26 percent between 1980 and 1986, while the military route to upward mobility that many of their fathers traveled constricted. In the 1950s men like Lou Lewison, equipped with VA loans, could buy homes with token down payments and budget just 14 percent of their monthly wages for housing costs. By 1984, however, carrying a median-priced home would cost 44 percent of an average male’s monthly earnings. Few could manage this, and in 1986 the U. S government reported the first sustained drop in home ownership since the modern collection of data began in 1940. Thus, the proportion of American families in the middle-income range fell from 46 percent in 1970 to 39 percent in 1985. Two earners in a household now are necessary just to keep from losing ground. Data like these led social analysts to anxiously track the disappearing middle class, a phrase that Barbara Ehrenreich now believes in some ways missed the least from the middle range of comfort. Conclusion The major arena to which expert turned in their examination of postwar masculinity was the American family, placing a spotlight upon men’s roles as husbands, fathers, and family heads. It was commonly noted by social scientist and delineators of American character that men had lost much of their former authority within the family. Indeed, the typical American male, as described by the anthropologist Geoffrey Gorer, was seen as having so completely given up any claim to authority that the family would constantly risk disintegration and disaster if not for the efforts of his wife (Reumann 66). On the other hand, commentators diagnosed an assault on middle-class manliness and warned of its effects on the nation and its culture. Obsessively rehearsing a narrative of nationwide decline, social disarray, and familial and gender collapse, they pictured a country in which masculinity had become a besieged and precious resource. Works Cited Handel, Gerald. and Gail, Whtchurch, The Psychosocial Interior of the Family, Aldine, Transaction, 1994 Reumann, Miriam. American Sexual Character: Sex, Gender, and National Identity, Berkeley, California: London University of California Press, 2005 Stacey, Judith, In the Name of the Family: Rethinking Family Values in the Postmodern Age; U. S, Beacon Press, 1996

Free Essays - All Quiet on the Western Front :: All Quiet on the Western Front Essays

All Quiet on the Western Front Erich Maria Remarque's All Quiet on the Western Front is one of the greatest war novels of all time. It is a story, not of Germans, but of men, who even though they may have escaped shells, were destroyed by the war. The entire purpose of this novel is to illustrate the vivid horror and raw nature of war and to change the popular belief that war is an idealistic and romantic character. The story centers on Paul Baümer, who enlists in the German army with glowing enthusiasm. But in the course of war, he is consumed by it and in the end is "weary, broken, burnt out, rootless, and without hope." Through Baümer, Remarque examines how war makes man inhuman. He uses excellent words and phrases to describe crucial details to this theme. "The first bomb, the first explosion, burst in our hearts." Baümer and his classmates who enlisted into the army see the true reality of the war. They enter the war fresh from school, knowing nothing except the environment of hopeful youth and they come to a premature maturity with the war, their only home. "We were eighteen and had begun to love life and the world; and we had to shoot it to pieces. We are not youth any longer." They have lost their innocents. Everything they are taught, "the world of work, duty, culture, and progress" are not the slightest use to them because the only thing they need to know is how to survive. They need to know how to escape the shells as well as the emotional and psychological torment of the war. The war takes an heavy toll on the soldiers who fight in it. The terror of death will infest the minds of soldiers and bring about horrible images of death and destruction until they break down and go to pieces. "Every hour and everyday, every shell and every death cuts this thin [line of sanity], and the years waste it rapidly." In these dangerous moments, anybody would have gone mad, have deserted their post, or have fallen. It takes a special kind of soldier to deal with this emotional abuse; a soldier who will not go to pieces at the sight of a mutilated body; it takes a soldier like Baümer. Baümer has "grown accustomed to it; war is the cause of death like influenza and dysentery.

Education Should No Longer Be Imparting of Knowledge Essay

â€Å"We must turn to the child as the key to the fate of our future life† (http://www. montessorisynergies. com/synergies/transformation/wisdom-of-montessori) [Accessed 5th May, 2013] The above quotation shall be explored & revealed in the further contents of this essay. To begin with, let us first start with a brief current scenario of education in our society. Current scenario of education â€Å"The school must mean something else than a place of instruction, where the one teaches the many, with pain on both sides, an effort carrying with it little success†. The schools today exist to transmit knowledge though teachers and the role of the students is to absorb this knowledge and get awarded as per their marks. The education today that we have in our society is primarily interested in defining the curriculum and establishing high standards. The focus on the needs of the individual learner is hardly seen. The issues such as how the children actually want to learn, how they need to be taught, what are they actually interested in learning about are considered irrelevant. Need of our society The need of our world today is a society that has peace, patience, tolerance, happiness, health, nonviolence, betterment of the mankind, safety, non-corruption, no poverty, and no racial discrimination. It needs a man who is active, attentive, confident, curious, expressive, helpful, honest, innovative, judgmental, observant, organized orientated, patient & socially active. Who is a human being? A human being is a unified personality who comes into being from a child through the years of infancy, toddlerhood, preschool & adolescence. Ultimately, child is the one who produces the man. The child before birth nside the mother’s womb grows only physically. After a child is born he starts developing mentally & completes his psychic growth outside the womb. When the birth of the child takes place; he has some hidden qualities in him which cannot be seen. As he continues to grow, he slowly starts revealing himself & starts showing these potentials/abilities. In order to have a society with attributes as mentioned earlier & which in turn needs a man with the required qualities, it is very important to focus ourselves on the development of the child to help him release his potentials since he is the maker of the man. Hence, there is an urgent need to focus on a new system of education based on the idea of freedom for the child within a carefully planned & structured environment. It is important to recognize the crucial importance of a child’s first years of development. It is during this time that a child’s power of absorption is the highest & permanent attitudes of learning are formed & which establish the person he will be in future. Dr. Maria Montessori, the great pioneering influential realized this need and developed the Montessori Education. As proposed by Dr Maria Montessori, it shall be now briefly discussed all the phases to be looked into to create this new system of education & how the focus on the right aids during each of these phases, help the child’s future development. The Absorbent Mind The child has a creative intelligence that exists in his unconscious mental stage. During the unconscious stage (0 to 3 years), he absorbs whatever is available in his environment. He learns to speak, to walk and gain control of his hands. Hence it is very much necessary to provide a carefully planned environment to the child since he will see and learn whatever is there in his environment. For e. g if we have an aggressive environment around him at home i. e. there is no calmness & peace, the child tends to develop as an aggressive personality since he absorbs that trait from his environment. After 3 years, the child enters into the period of conscious absorption. He starts applying now the functions that were created in the unconscious stage and has developed a will & memory. This helps him in developing his reasoning & concentration skills. He uses his hands & starts working and by means of work his ability develops to choose actions independently. He wants to do everything by himself. He starts developing an urge to become social & starts involving with peers as well which make him a good social being in the long run. Sensitive periods The child passes through a special time in which he is interested in one unique characteristic of his environment known as sensitive periods. He can easily develop this interest into ability if he is given the right environment & freedom. These periods are critical to a child’s self-development & interrupting a child while he is in the middle of a sensitive period can result in a powerful emotional response. He passes through the sensitive periods of order, movement, language, senses, small objects & social aspects. As we see further below, we realize that the right environment & freedom given to the child during each of these periods provide a strong base to lay the foundation of a well-developed human being. The child seeks order so he can adapt himself to his environment. For e. g. If a child who comes home from school, has a habit of seeing all the things at place & has his belongings are accessible to him & and one day the settings at home are changed completely, nothing is at the same place as earlier, the child starts showing a dislike. This disorder can be an obstacle to his development. The order helps him to orientate himself. He becomes organized & systematic which is a crucial requisite for his development. Another sensitive period that the child goes through is the sensitivity to five senses. The child is developing his senses & his attention is therefore directed towards the observation of the objects in his environment. In order to help him this development, Sensorial subject was introduced in the Montessori education to enable him to explore different attributes of the environment. By using all his basic five senses, the child is able to explore the qualities of the objects in his environment, with separate materials. For e. g. a child using his tactile(touch) & visual sense is able to explore the different dimensions of an object i. e. height, diameter etc. The usage of these materials develops in child the qualities of attention, experiment, observation, exploration, judgement & comparison. The sensitive period of movement is also very important for the child development. The child has started learning to crawl, walk, jump, climb, swing around & carry things and wants to perfect his movement. Hence it is important to provide the right environment & give freedom to develop his fine & gross motor skills for his life. He should be not stopped or provided help when he is able to do the activity himself. Foe e. g. if he is able to walk himself up till a point, we should not stop & pick him up just because we are not able to reach quickly to our destination. This makes the child frustrated & breaks his concentration. He does not gain the self-control & self-independence. The other sensitive period is to small objects. The child keeps observing all the small details around him. He focuses on the army of ants in the playground, the leaves, the flowers, everything around him which makes him to focus. He also wants to know the reason for all these activities which make him curious & intuitive. It is very important to answer his questions since discouraging his curiosity makes him less observant & lazy which will be followed till he becomes an adult. Sensitivity to language is another very important aspect. During this time the child is sensitive to the words around him & absorbs them. He takes in sounds, words to acquire language which is a pre requisite for the child to form into a man. The Montessori environment provides a rich vocabulary & right pronunciation to the child which helps him in refining his language. This makes him a good speaker, writer, reader & confident which develops his self-esteem. The Environment â€Å"Especially at the beginning of life must we, therefore, make the environment as interesting & attractive as we can† (The Absorbent Mind, Chapter 9, Page 103) Environment refers to the surroundings in which the child is growing. The environment needs to be very rich & it should provide all the things required for the child to develop since he has an absorbent mind & the sensitive periods. The Montessori environment includes the children, the teacher & the materials and offers the important elements for the optimal development of the child. Here is a brief discussion on these –  ·Beauty, order, reality & simplicity –The environment follows the concept of reality. The materials are real since the child has to ultimately face them in the real world later. Children are given freedom to work & speak with other children. This helps them to socialize. They are taught to respect the other children (should not disturb the other children), respect the material (should not destroy the material) and respect the the environment (should not hurt others and treat children/teachers with grace & courtesy).  ·The mixed age group children in a Montessori school encourage the social development & moral values of the children. The little ones learn from the older ones & the older ones learn by teaching the younger. I would like to state an example here from the observation I did for the child development. A younger child aged 2 1/2 years fell down from the swing in the play area. An older boy almost 4 years old quickly came to pick him up & consoled him not to cry. The mixed age group also removes competition. The Teacher The teacher is a growing person, always ready to learn new things & increase her self-knowledge. She should be mentally active & physically passive which means that she should have the capacity to observe that the child is in which state of development. The objects, not the teaching given by the mistress, form the principal agent, and it is the child who uses them, who is the active being, not the teacher† (The Discovery of the Child, Chapter 11, Page 179) Maria Montessori believed that the teacher’s duty is to let the child choose an activity himself by using the materials according to his own needs and interest. In this way, the materials become his object of development. She should not force the child to do a particular activity rather just act as a source of guidance & provide him the freedom to perform. Further to the above, a teacher must possess the following attributes in her – Respect for the child, should be able to channelize the potentials of the child in the right direction, clear all the obstacles in his development, social qualities such as friendly, understanding and tolerant. An addition, are the Laws of Development that are used by the child for revealing himself. These are described briefly as below – Law of work – Children start gaining all the qualities of patience, discipline & attention through the work with the materials. It is the magic of the work through the materials that enables them to use their energies in constructive development. Children keep on repeating the task till they achieve perfection. For e. g we can observe at home that if we give a small child a task of dusting a table, he will keep on doing it till he masters himself in cleaning the smallest particle of dust. Hence it is the work through the repetition & practice that he gains perfection. Law of independence – To be independent, a child should be allowed to work himself if he is able to, without the immediate help of others. The more he works himself, the more independent & self-confident he becomes. The independence can be given in the ways of – giving the opportunity to work with the materials (activities such as tie laces, button/unbutton, zip/unzip ), should be allowed to do things on his own for his personal care & hygiene like dressing, bathing, brushing hair & teeth and should be allowed to take decisions for himself for instance, for a club activity, we should let the child choose an activity as per his own interest rather than force him to choose something just for our own content. This will suppress the interest & affect the decision making ability of the child in the long run. Development of intelligence – Intelligence means application of knowledge. It is an ability to differentiate & make judgment. The sensorial materials are such that they help the child to focus on one quality. For e. g. the cubes in the pink tower are all of the same colors & concentrate only on the size. The focus of the child’s mind on one attribute leads him to make a comparison of the objects, thus helping him in developing his comparison & judgmental skills. Development of imagination & creativity –Imagination & creativity are inborn powers in the child that develop as he interacts with the environment. Imagination is based on something that we have experienced in the past. The cultural activities in a Montessori environment such as construction, technology, science, math, language, art & craft, music & imaginative play help to foster imaginative skills thus helping him in his future development. Development of emotional & spiritual life – A child needs a warm & loving environment to meet his emotional & spiritual needs. Through the daily life practical exercises in the Montessori environment, they are taught to be courteous & considerate. They learn how to share since there is only one single material for each activity & also develop patience since they need to wait for their turn once a child already working with the material finishes his activity. It was also observed that while working with the materials they undergo a stage where their physical & mental developments are both harmonized known as normalization. The prepared Montessori environment facilitates the process of normalization by offering materials. The normalised children have love of order, love of work, concentration, attachment to reality & nature, love of silence, obedience and self-discipline Dr. Maria Montessori was also able to identify the important tendencies (behavioral patterns) that compel the human beings to construct & refine themselves. These patterns are the ones that children isplay naturally and should be considered when preparing the environment – Exploration, order, communication, work, concentration, repetition, perfection, self-control, creativity & independence Children raised in environments prepared according to the basic human tendencies as above, tend to be secure, healthy, and happy children. The Parent â€Å"Parents have a very important mission. They are the only ones who can save their children by uniting & working together for the improvement of society† (The Secret of Childhood, Chapter 30, Page 215) Parenting is the most pleasurable & the most challenging job. Parents must protect their child & have a deep concern for him. They should take care of the below errors –  ·Showering with material goods – Should not equip their child with mobiles, videogames etc. as a substitute for the time & attention desired by him.  ·Unnecessary dependence on caretakers – Should not rely on caretakers since they themselves are too busy to devote time to their child.  ·Unrealistic praise – Should not offer unrealistic praise to their children in the form of compliments. When children fail to receive such compliments from the rest of the world, they become confused & lose their self-esteem. Paying more attention to negative behavior – Parents should not overlook their children’s good behavior & punish them for their bad behavior. Things such as not doing homework, poor marks, mess at home direct more attention of the parents. Thus children get more attention for being bad & hence try to keep on doing bad activities to get attention. This work will be an interest to parents, teachers & policy makers that attention to young children’s physical, emotional, social, moral development is very much important. A child is a mystery. He has the highest potentialities but we cannot make out that who he will be in future unless we help him in releasing these. He has his own natural powers to develop. His unknown energy within him can be utilized for the betterment of the mankind. Giving him the freedom and support to question, the child will become confident & enthusiastic. A method of schooling that will focus on personal development will produce more mature, creative and socially adept children. The verbal teaching as in today’s schools being substituted by Sensorial materials, which contain a control of error will permit the child o teach himself by his own effort. The actively & orderly prepared environment, sensorial materials and special ways of viewing & teaching the child in the Montessori education will help him to function independently. Children of different ages sharing the same classes will cooperate and help each other and learn how to live in a community and how to re-solve conflicts peacefully. Children will learn non-violence and conflict resolution. They will learn need to respect themselves, respect parents and respect other human beings . They will get a sense of their own ability to learn new things, master new skills & solve problems. This new way of education will provide a caring environment to the child’s learning & growing, focusing on his energy & understanding him, thereby enhancing his overall development. It will respect & honor the children. Through this nourishment of the new of education, he will become an adult with a commitment & strength to transform the society. This will help in providing peace & prosperity to the nation. This is a task of developing the inner potentials of a child in which everyone regardless of caste, creed & race must participate & share since it means bringing out a crucial element – the child, for the normal progress of mankind.

Character valor and dignity

Self-respect and Dignity Analysis of The movie Glory Glory, a 1989 film based on the personal letters of Colonel Robert Gould Shaw, the novel One Gallant Rush and Lay This Laurel. Robert Shaw trained and led the first black volunteer infantry in history during the civil war. The story line is full of racism, politics, corruption, loyalty, perseverance and identity. It is written as seen through the eyes of Officer Robert Gould Shaw and shows the valor and courage of a group of soldiers fighting against their own superior's racism to achieve their desire to serve heir country.I will reflect on the ethics and virtues of this film and compare the characters actions to Aristotle, Pictures and SST. Augustine philosophies. Captain Robert Shaw is injured in the Battle of Intimate and sent home to heal with his family. He meets abolitionist Frederick Douglass, a former slave. Shaw is offered a promotion to colonel and command of the first all black regiment in the union army. The 54th Massac husetts volunteer infantry. He accepts and recruits his childhood friend Major Cabot Forbes. Their first volunteers are Thomas Charles, Rawlins, Jupiter and Trip.Trip does not get along with Charles and Rawlins tries to step in to mediate. Shaw knows from the start that his troops may never get to see actual fire. AS they are the first troop of its kind, he believes they will be used primarily for general labor instead of true soldiers. In spite of his beliefs, he puts his troop through rigorous training to help them learn the importance of alertness, momentum and endurance. The confederacy issues an order to shoot any soldier in a union uniform that is black and any white commanding officer associated with the troop.The men of the 54th infantry are given the option of an honorable discharge, none do. Trip disappears and is believed to be ALLOW by Shaw. When Trip is found, Shaw orders him flogged in front of everyone until he sees trips scars, he hesitates, as he is an abolitionist himself. He finds out that Trip was Just away looking for shoes and socks as him and the other soldiers have been refused supplies due to their race. Shaw goes to bat for his troop as they have been being paid lower wages then the white soldiers as well. The 54th troop finishes training and is transferred to the command of General Charles Garrison Hearer.Hearer abuses his command and uses the soldiers to loot and burn a town, then as laborers. Shaw uses this as leverage to get his troop in to battle on James Island where Thomas is wounded but saves Trip, earning trips respect. The next battle is the Charleston Harbor. This will be a battle that will show the courage and dedication of the 54th infantry as they lead the charge knowing that they may suffer heavy casualties. The night before the battle, the black soldiers have a religious ceremony where each offers prayers during hymn singing. Trip and Rawlins make encouraging speeches and ask GOD for help and protection for all.The cas ualties are heavy and as Shaw encourages the troop to push forward, he's shot and killed. Trip lifts up the flag and rallies the soldiers after Shaw is killed, as they are shocked to loose him. Trip is shot but holds the flag until his last breath. The troop gets through the forts outer defenses but they are outnumbered. The next day the beach is littered with bodies as they confederate flag is raised. Although the union army never prevailed at Battery Wagner, the sacrifice of the 54th which lost nearly Alfa of its men inspired the union to recruit more black med for combat.This film reveals political and racial corruption through symbolism and actions. Aristotle believed that all actions have both excess and a deficiency. The goal is to find the middle ground that fits each individual. He believes that we have the ability to change whom and what we are if we believe what we have become is not our destiny. Shaw character refused to give up on his belief that no matter what his troop ended up doing, they needed to be prepared. This references Aristotelian ethic mean of pride. Shaw had pride for his military career.Shaw also shows vanity, the other end of the spectrum of pride. He takes up for the troop against the quartermaster for shoes and pay yet Jokes about his regiment not participating in combat. Shaw shows â€Å"large scale giving† when he goes against the quartermaster. Trip states that he doesn't believe the war will result in a better life for slaves, but he knows he must fight for the hope it might: Aristotle personal Virtue. Pictures : What upsets people is not things themselves but their Judgments about them. We should not blame others for our own choices.An uneducated person accuses others when he is doing badly, a partly educated person accuses himself, and an educated person accuses no one (Somers & Somers, 2010). Shaw being placed in command of the 54th may have not made him happy but he chose to rise up to the challenge. He does not sho w these emotions to anyone. He does what is needed. Thomas responds to his position with excitement even though his friends are not happy. Forbes responds without emotion at first but eventually shows his unhappiness. Forbes accepts his duty and honor over time.Trip lifts up the flag and allies the soldiers after Shaw is killed. Although Trip is shot several times, trip holds the flag up till the end. Pictures says this is inner strength. SST. Augustine believed our souls are restless and cannot find character, dignity and self-respect until they find the greater good, for SST. Augustine that would be knowledge of God (Somers & Somers, 2010). Trip has become one that by following after which the soul becomes possessed of virtue and wisdom. Shaw, Forbes and Thomas all believed in God. They read scriptures, thought they should live by Gods word.Shaw does his duty, never showing favor. Forbes bucks the system because he sees much injustice but believes Gods word that the circumstances are above his petty desires. Thomas blindly follows his faith in God. He questions his ideals when it comes to his own character, respect and dignity but finds peace in his strength and resolve to be a better soldier (Rachel & Rachel , 2012). This movie is about a time in history that is filled with questions, visions of freedom and expectations. The characters are strong in their belief that the world can be better with freedom for everyone.They struggle with their own duty to themselves and the others in their troop, yet as they get past each stumbling block, their group becomes tighter and more bonded to one another. Respect, dignity, faith and perseverance become the glue that takes the 54th into a battle that they know they may not win. As they fall, they do it together to achieve what they all believe,

50 Idioms About Legs, Feet, and Toes

50 Idioms About Legs, Feet, and Toes 50 Idioms About Legs, Feet, and Toes 50 Idioms About Legs, Feet, and Toes By Mark Nichol Here is a list of expressions that refer to one’s legs or feet or their parts, and the meaning of each idiom. 1. One’s Achilles’ heel is one’s weakness. 2. To be bound hand and foot is to be literally or figuratively tied up. 3. To bring one to heel is to subdue someone. 4. To go somewhere by or on foot is to walk or hike there. 5. To cool one’s heels is to pause to calm down or think before doing something rash. 6. To dig in one’s heels is to be obstinate. 7. One who doesn’t have a leg to stand on is unsupported by evidence or corroboration. 8. To drag one’s feet is to delay. 9. To find one’s feet is to become accustomed or oriented. 10. To be fleet of foot is to be fast. 11. To foot the bill is to accept financial responsibility. 12. To get down on your knees means to figuratively submit or ask for forgiveness. 13.–14. To get one’s feet wet is to have a modest or mild introductory experience; to put one’s toe in the water is to do so even more hesitantly. 15.–16. To get or start off on the right foot is to make a good first impression or to act productively soon after beginning an endeavor, and to get or start off on the wrong foot is to leave a poor first impression or act counterproductively soon after beginning an endeavor. 17. To get one’s sea legs to become accustomed to the pitch and roll of a marine vessel or, by extension, to become used to a situation. 18. To have a foot in the door is to have an advantage that will enable one to obtain a desired result. 19. To have foot-in-mouth disease is to habitually make awkward or inappropriate comments. 20. To have one’s feet in both camps is to be opportunistically sympathetic to two opposing viewpoints. 21. To have feet of clay is to have a hidden flaw or weakness (an allusion to the fragility of clay). 22. To have itchy feet is to be restless. 23. To have one foot in the grave is to be in poor health or near death. 24. To have two left feet is to feel clumsy. 25. To have the world at one’s feet is to be afforded an opportunity for rewarding experiences. 26. â€Å"Head to toe† means â€Å"entirely† or â€Å"thoroughly.† 27. To keep one’s feet on the ground is to remain realistic and responsible. 28. To keep someone on one’s toes is to do or say one or more things that cause the person to remain alert or attentive. 29. â€Å"Knee-high to a grasshopper† is a colorfully exaggerated expression referring to being a small child. 30. To land on one’s feet is to recover from a setback. 31. â€Å"My foot† is an idiom for expressing skepticism. 32. One who is on his or her last legs is in a state of exhaustion or near the point of giving up. 33. To pull someone’s leg is to deceive them for humorous effect. 34. To pull the rug from under one’s feet is to be deprived of support or disoriented by a sudden action; to have the rug pulled under one’s feet is to be the victim of such an action. â€Å"Have the ground cut out from under one’s feet† has the same meaning. 35. To put one’s best foot forward is to make a good impression. 36. To put one foot in front of the other is to begin a laborious undertaking. 37. To put one’s foot in it is to do or say something that gets one into an unfortunate situation, suggestive of stepping into an unpleasant substance. 38. To put one’s foot in one’s mouth is to say something awkward or inappropriate. 39. To put one’s feet up is to relax. 40. To put one’s foot down is to be insistent. 41. To put one’s foot to the floor is to suddenly hurry or increase one’s speed. 42. To set foot somewhere is to go into that place. 43. To shoot oneself in the foot is to do or say something disadvantageous to one’s own interests. 44. To stand on one’s own two feet is to act or live independently. 45. To step, or tread, on someone’s toes is to impinge on that person’s authority or responsibility or interfere with the person’s actions. 46. â€Å"The shoe is on the other foot† means that a situation has been reversed so that one who had been responsible for another’s misfortune is now suffering the same misfortune. 47. To think on one’s feet is to solve a problem reflexively or spontaneously. 48. To toe the line is to remain within the bounds of proper behavior or conduct. 49. To wait for the other shoe to drop is to be in expectation of receiving further developments or news. 50. To wait on someone hand and foot is to serve that person continuously. Want to improve your English in five minutes a day? Get a subscription and start receiving our writing tips and exercises daily! Keep learning! Browse the Vocabulary category, check our popular posts, or choose a related post below:20 Great Opening Lines to Inspire the Start of Your StoryFive Spelling Rules for "Silent Final E"Charles's Pen and Jesus' Name

12 Signs Youre Underselling Your Freelance Writing Services

12 Signs Youre Underselling Your Freelance Writing Services Youre living the dream as a freelance writerexcept its less like a dream and more like a nightmare. Barely scraping by, exhausted, resentful, hating writing even though you used to love it and at one tie thought that this would be the perfect job. What happened? Where did things go wrong? Chances are pretty good that it can be traced back to one simple cause: youre underselling your freelance writing services. Are You Underselling Your Freelance Writing Services? There are 12 signs youre underselling your freelance writing services and you might be surprised at how many you can identify with. If you find one that you know youre guilty of, tweet it and help out your fellow freelance writers. Maybe its time you considered raising your prices. 1. You havent raised your prices in a while. Are you still using those super-competitive 1970s prices? A year or two or five goes by quickly.  Its easy to forget that you need to revisit your pricing and consider upping it to meet current industry levels. You need to make a living in the 21st century, not the 20th. Your prices must reflect that. Of course, maybe you already know this but you hate to inform current clients of price increases because youre afraid to lose them, or dread their response. How do you go about raising prices and setting your minimum acceptable rate? Youll need information. Whats the going rate in your area for what youre doing? How much money do you need to live? What are your business expenses? How much work do you currently have? Is more available? Knowing your clients, how many do you think will go away after a price raise? How many will stay? Once you know the facts (with #4 being an educated guess), uniformly raise your prices to be competitive and contact all of your clients. Be careful about giving one client a deal and not another; word gets around. Consider this strange thought: sometimes higher prices bring you into a new bracket of clients and can actually open doors for you that your lower prices would not. Mistake 1: You havent raised your prices in the past two years. 2. You are overloaded and overwhelmed with work. Youre working more than you ever did andmaking less. You could write a magazine article for $500 or you could write 25 blog posts for $20. While the magazine article will take hard work, it is one project, one client, one deadline, and one (if you want to think of it this way) headache. 25 blog posts means 25 deadlines, 25 clients, and a lot more management time as well as topics you need to write about. Its your choice: take every little low-priced piece of work that comes your way, or draw a line in the sand as a standard that you wont go below and stick by it. And that line? It has to be a livable line, i.e. enough money to live off of with a reasonable amount of time left for enjoying life. Mistake 2: Youre working more, but earning less. 3. Your clients dont even attempt to negotiate. Were not saying you should pick prices that are high enough to make your clients stop breathing when you announce them, but if you notice that your prices dont even make them pause and try to negotiate, maybe youre aiming too low. Negotiation isnt a sign that someone thinks youre trying to rip them off and that they need to get your pricing back in line. Instead, its a sign that they actually want your product, and are willing to do a little work to see if they cant get it on their terms. Negotiation is sometimes the sign of someone sticking around, not someone leaving. Dont set prices low so as to avoid negotiation. Set them higher to be in a better position for it. Mistake 3: Your clients dont attempt to negotiate. 4. Youre satisfied with less money and think exposure will pay the bills. Well sure, money sounds great. But if you lower the bar so that we can only pay you $10 dollars for your magazine article but youll get exposure doesnt raise alarm bells, you arent going to be freelancing for long. Youll be working a regular job and writing on the side. Small (or no) payment writing is often tagged with the promise of exposure. What is the price on that? Can you put exposure in your savings account? Evaluate just how valuable exposure is, and if the exposure a client promises can actually benefit you. Freelance writing will cover many topics. Many of the things youll write about will be wholly unrelated to each other, and to you as a writer. Exposure in that genre doesnt mean much. The clients audience probably doesnt care about you.  Is the audience of this client interested in finding a freelance writer, or are they interested in the topic? If its the latter, they dont care who you are and what you do, and never will. They are the clients fans, not your fans. Dont forget youre the hired pen. The client needs your output, not you personally. Letting their audience know about your output is a nice ego boost, but it wont bring much back to you. That sounds harsh, but when you are earning your living, you dont have time for ego boosts. Rethink how you think about money. Understand the difference between a pittance and a paycheck. Mistake 4: Youll take less money and bank on exposure to pay the bills. Your time has value. Stop giving it away for free. 5. You have yet to equate time with money. Time = money. You have limited time. You determine what that time is worth. If you dont understand this, youll never appreciate how those low-priced freelance projects are actually a loss, and not real income. Youll only make a success out of taking low-paying jobs if you never sleep and have discovered a 30-hour day. For the rest of us, we must look at projects not only in terms of the money, but the time it is going to take us to earn that money and if it is worth it. How much time do you need for your family? How much time do you need for yourself to recharge? How much time do you have available if youre working a part-time job? Its all an equation, and youd better do the calculations because your time is definitely limited. Itd be a shame to trade an hour for $15 when someone else would have given you $50. If you dont understand that time equals money, youll get to know sleep-deprived exhaustion well, and mistake it for earning a living. Mistake 5: You dont equate time with money. 6. You dont think youre an expert. Ever thought anything like this? Im not good enough to write about that. I dont know enough. That other writer probably knows more than I do. No one would care what I had to say. You think youre a fraud. In some ways, expertise is a form of confidence, not knowledge. It is always just beyond our reach, and that means we operate one step out of our comfort zone and have to gather the courage and confidence to project a landing on the other side. Maybe you cant write detailed magazine articles about brain surgery, but you can grab at those topics youd never considered that dont require specialist knowledge. That gap between what you comfortably know, and what you are supposed to produce, is often closed by research, practice, and a proven system involving drafts and editing. Take the small leaps and become an expert when you stick the landing. Thats how you keep growing as a writer. Mistake 6: You dont think youre an expert. 7. You prefer to be safe above anything else. Theres nothing wrong with being safe. Preferring safety above all else, though, means youll grab any low-paying job that floats by. Its money. You need money. Not having money is scary. Its safe to take on anything that brings in money.  Youd never consider turning down a chance to earn money, youd never gamble that something bigger and better is out there, because that is most certainly unsafe. I cant make promises and say that if you refuse the jobs that are priced to low, refuse the almost-free jobs that promise some form of exposure, that the Big One will land in your lap. It might not. Thats why its called a gamble: you sometimes take a chance and turn down those safe choices and set yourself up for the larger opportunities. Youll never land the Big One if you dont plan for it, and that planning wont happen when youre juggling endless low-paying jobs. Mistake 7: You prefer to be safe more than anything. 8. Youre terrified of confrontation. Youd rather do anything–ANYTHING–than deal with confrontation. But you know what negotiation is? Confrontation. And you know what asking for a livable rate is? Confrontation. Youre confronting the clients sincere desire to save money with your sincere desire to make a living. The best thing to do to get over being afraid of confrontation is to confront. You dont have to be aggressive, but letting your freelancing work be ruled by a fear of confrontation turns you into a doormat. Oh, how tempting it is for a client to use that fear of confrontation to get you to write a few extra draft ideas or give us some options or throw in a few hundred more words at the last minute before you get paid. Not all confrontation is angry, but it should be about fairness towards you and the client. And yes, some confrontation might lead to the end of a client account. Accept it and move on. Mistake 8: Youre terrified of confrontation. Learning to say no to clients is terrifying, but will help you get your work-life balance back. 9. The word no has yet to enter your vocabulary. Saying the word no is the only way youll keep your sanity, your health, and your abilities. Saying yes to everyone and every project is definitely going to lead to writer burnout and resentment. No, you dont have to take every project. No, being desperate is not always a good reason. No, you dont have time for that project though that doesnt mean the project isnt worthwhile for someone else. And  yes, its OK to ask to get paid some or all up front. Mistake 9: You dont know how to say no. 10. Your only goal is paying rent. What kind of goal do you have with your writing? Is it merely to cover this months bills, or to pay off debt that controls your life? Hopefully, you have something larger in mind for your lifes work. While you may not want to write down a comprehensive business plan, it certainly helps you to write down what you want to see happen with your writing, and then give it a timeline. For example,  if you have considerable debt or financial obligations that are driving you to take any and all jobs out of desperation, it might not hurt to get a side job for a while. Put debt reduction on the timeline and plan it out so you have an end goal to look forward to as you move on to the next step. Your writing should have a bigger goal than keeping you out of the hangmans noose. Hopefully, you want to achieve something more from your writing, such as being a published author with a book, or having a blog with X amount of daily traffic that you can live off of. Until you are out of the grip of financial terror, you wont even consider such goals and you wont take any steps to choose clients that can help you reach those goals. Youll take whatever you can get before the next bill is due. Your writing deserves to be more than insurance from debtors prison. Mistake 10: Your only goal is paying rent. 11. You are embarrassed to talk about yourself. Humility is in short supply these days, unfortunately, but when it comes to finding work and promoting yourself to a potential client, you need to be able talk about yourself realistically. For some people, talking about themselves, and talking themselves up is natural. But for some artists and writers (myself included), talking about your abilities in even mildly positive terms is very challenging because it feels like bragging. When asked, you dont have to say I am the greatest writer ever! but you should be able to say I have the experience and I can write this for you. If you find yourself quickly getting used to self-promotion, a word of caution: Dont over-promise and find yourself in a mess later because you actually dont have the chops to deliver what you promised. Be honest about what your abilities are. This includes things like: How quickly you can work. How many projects you can manage at once. What topics you are able to write on. Whether you can work with other writers or designers on a project. Technological capabilities. Do you know how youd answer if asked any of these? If not, this is a good time to take stock of what you can do, and be ready to answer confidently. Be confident, not cocky, about yourself. Theres no shame in that. Mistake 11: You are embarrassed to talk about yourself. 12. You think pricing is the only reason clients come back. A low price might be the only reason clients come back if their sole goal is saving a buck. (Do you really want those clients?) You forget that amazing service, fantastic writing, and an overall slice of awesome will trump cheap every time for clients worth your time. When you know you have the skills and the ability to deliver a great product, you can confidently ask for higher rates. And, when you deliver, your clients will have no problem the next time they come back for additional writing services. Clients who come back because you have cheap prices are clients that are going to make your life miserable. They arent there because of what you can do, theyre there because of what they plan to do. Theyre bean counters and are going to wring every last free drop out of you that they can. There is a strange inverse connection between the amount a client pays and the noise level they make. Clients that are at the level where they understand legitimate pricing also are professional enough to not bother or micromanage you. They trust your skills, as a professional. Cheap is cheap.