The Dangers Of Cyber Bullying

The Dangers Of Cyber Bullying Todays children and young people have grown up in a world that is very different from that of most adults. As mobile phones and internet use become increasingly common, so has the misuse of technology. Many young people experience the internet and mobile phones as a positive, productive and creative part of their activities and development of their identities; information communication technologies support social activity that allows young people to feel connected to their peers. This research will explore the various ways that cyber bullying has become prominent in todays youth. Bullying does not only prevail in schools now, but also in the Internet. Todays technology and internet play a major role in cyber bullying. Every day of our lives we are exposed to the benefits of technology; innovations such as mobile phones enable us to communicate, and collaborate more effectively than before. However, in the possession of those who wish to inflict harm upon others, these inventions can be leveraged for nefarious purposes. One severely dangerous and unfortunately obscure application of technology is cyber bullying. Cyber bullying is when a child or teen is threatened, humiliated, or harassed by another child or teen using the internet, mobile phones, or any other digital technology. Cyber bullying involves the use of information and communication technologies to support deliberate, repeated, and hostile behavior by an individual or group, intended to harm (Belsley). Cyber bullying has been used to augment bullying that is occurring in school. The major differences between cyber bullying and traditional bullying are that the bully does not have to see the victims reaction to the harassment, the victim can remain anonymous, the harassment can occur at anytime, and the audience has the potential to be worldwide. Parents are not currently familiar with cyber bullying, but this aspect of cyber bullying will change with time. Many of the strategies that were successful with traditional bullying could be applied to cyber bullying. If adults become involved in this kind of behavior, it is called adult cyber-harassment (YoungWomensHealth). This is a far cry from the bullying behavior from days gone by. I interviewed people from two different generations. Carrie was in high school in the late 1940s. Alana: Was your school setting similar to that of today? Carrie: No, we were all taught in a one room schoolhouse. Grades one to seven learned lessons together. Alana: Was there any bullying going on back then? Carrie: No. Just chiding or what some folks call doing the dozens. Children were accustomed to behaving. They cared about what their parents thought. They never wanted to embarrass their parents. It was respectful almost all of the time. Alana: Did any child kill themselves over being picked on? Carrie: No. Never. Alana: Thank you for your input. Aishah was in high school in the 1980s. Alana: How were children bullied when you were in school, and was there a lot of it? Aishah: Oh yeah. There was bullying back in those school days. It wasnt viscious like it is today, though. Alana: What did children do or say? Aishah: They would write ugly messages on bathroom stalls and student desks or pass ugly notes in class. Alana: Did anyone fight over rumors and name-calling? Aishah: They fought and were friends the next day. Alana: You all used computers. Who was bullied by computer? Aishah: Please, not too many people had a home computer. They were kind of expensive back then, and we played Space Invaders and one other game on them. Thats it. Alana: Did teens and pre-teens have cell phones or other electronic communication devices at that time. Aishah: Oh absolutely not. Those were very expensive back then, as were the charges. Only doctors, lawyers and drug dealers carried cell phones and pagers. Alana: Does it seems as though all of the new electronic forms of communication have contributed to cyber bullying. Aishah: I do. 100 percent! Numerous physical and mental ailments can ensue from online harassment in youth and adults all over the world. Whereas traditional bullying is confined usually within school boundaries, cyber-bullying can take place at any time or place, even in the privacy of ones home. Therefore, students who are electronically engaged can be cyber bullied at any time. Options for escape are extremely limited, with the principal options being either to cease using the Internet or ignore the harasser. Preliminary research by Willard suggests cyber-bullying may produce even more damage to youth, with such consequences ranging from low self-esteem, anxiety, anger, depression, school absenteeism, poor grades, an increased tendency to violate against others, to youth suicide (Willard). Examples of cyber bullying are sending threatening or offensive e-mails, instant messages, or cell phone text messages directly to the victim (WiredKids). Some cyber bullies berate their intended victims by sending mass e-mails, or text messages, to a large group of their peers to humiliate them. The appeal of using instant messaging, email or other communication platforms for bullies is the advantage of covert humiliation. Users can hide behind their IP address, which is little accountability for their actions, and the probability of the abuse being traced to an individual culprit being slim to none. Temporary email accounts and pseudonyms in chat rooms, instant messaging programs, and other Internet venues can make it very difficult for individuals to determine the identity of aggressors. The nature of much of this of this cruelty also prevents blame from being duly laid. The phenomena deals more with the ability to reach such a wide audience and humiliate, threaten, or virtually destroy the reputation of another with a single click of a mouse or the send button on a mobile phone. Although rumors spread fast with word of mouth, they are not able to reach as many people in such a short period of time as they would with text messaging. It is very difficult to defend oneself from cyber bullying when the audience is vast, and the perpetrator is often anonymous. Those who bully others seek to establish power and control over others that they perceive to be weaker than them (Belsley). The motivation of bullies is sometimes due to a lack of confidence and a desire for control. Bullying on the computer is quite cowardly, because the perpetrator wont confront their victim in person. The lack of face-to-face interaction in cyber bullying, reduces empathy in bullies and the fear of getting caught. Cyber bullying is strange thing. Although there is no physical violence, cyber bullying can be more frightening to the targets because there are, potentially, an unlimited number of witnesses. When bullying is anonymous, targets are unaware of whom to watch out for or respond to attacks; which can lead to feelings of helplessness. Over half of teenagers who are targeted by cyber bullies never actually report it. Cyber bullying often occurs away from adults. Therefore, witnesses or bystanders to cyber bullying have a very important role to play when it comes to putting an end to it. They represent social consensus and in this capacity, have an important role to play in stopping or supporting cyber bullying (BeWebAware). The latest technologies used by cyber bullies are camera phones, built-in digital cameras into the phones, add new dimensions to the problem. Cyber bullies use them to take pictures of a victim in the restroom or locker rooms and post them on the web or send them to others through e-mail or picture messaging on a cell phone. Violent fights at schools are captured by students on their mobile phones and then sent to others or posted on websites like YouTube, MySpace, or Face book for others to view and comment on, causing harm to the victims. Now school administrators and teachers are being asked to oversee students in cyberspace, which anyone can access just about anywhere, anytime, day or night (Franek). If the offending media is a video file of a schoolgirl in a compromising situation that is being shared from phone to phone, is everyone who has a copy of the file worthy of punishment? It is these issues, and many more that have prompted a timely increase in the awareness of cyber b ullying. On social networking sites, they allow you to tag the names of people who appear in a photo. This simple act can lead to cyber bullying, as these photos will appear in any search engine under the persons name, allowing the victims to be exposed. Children and teens write messages for all of their friends to see in blogs. However, kids sometimes use these blogs to damage one anothers reputations or invade their privacy (WiredKids). Sometimes teens set up fake profile pages, impersonating others, degrading them and saying things designed to harm and humiliate them. MySpace is the number one social networking site for high school age students and younger. Most kids use MySpace to set up profiles and share information about themselves, their favorite music, Hollywood stars and other interests with kids in their school or neighborhood. For most, MySpace represents a fun form of self-expression that utilizes the latest online technology. However it is executed, cyber bullying on MySpace remains a significant problem. While many chalk it up to kids being kids, more and more are starting to realize that a nasty post on someones MySpace page is as bad or worse that a taunt yelled across the schoolyard. Facebook is similar to MySpace except that it is geared towards a slightly older audience, the music and customization functionality is a lot less robust than found on MySpace, but is still being used by cyber bullies to harass their classmates and ex-friends. The rules of engagement are similar to those found in MySpace. People will either use their own profile to harass others, or create fake identities and build profiles to harass other people or dupe them into thinking another person is interested in them, romantically or as a friend. When on Facebook, sometimes you get requests from people you dont know through your friends. Many teens want to seem popular so they accept the unknown people, to expand their friends to try and get as many as possible. When a friend doesnt like something youve said or done, they can bad mouth you to the people that are on your friends list. One of the fastest growing social media enterprises, Twitter, allows people to follow one another by posting regular updates about their activities. Twitter is seeing a growing number of cyber bullying incidents as more and more kids figure out how to post hateful, harassing information about their friends and deliver it via Tweet to as many followers of the site as they can. In the most extreme cases of cyber bullying, many kids are going to the trouble of building entire websites from scratch in order to use them to humiliate another individual. A common method for doing this is to buy a URL from godaddy.com that humiliates the target such as: www.ambersisugly.com, then fill it with unkind postings and photos. Photoshopping a person into uncompromising positions is a highly used form of cyber bullying, then spreading word about the site to others via email, social networking, etc. Many kids today are playing interactive games on gaming devices such as X-Box Live and Sony Play Station 2 Network. Multiplayer online games and virtual worlds can be venues for harassment and cyber bullying. These gaming devices allows teens to communicate by chat and live Internet phone with anyone they find themselves matched with in an online game. Sometimes the kids verbally abuse the other kids, using threats and crude language. Sometimes they take it further, by locking them out of games, passing false rumors about them or hacking into their accounts (Willard). Yet, interactive gaming is what kids and teens enjoy the most. And what used to be a solitary and isolating activity is now a community and social activity. As entertaining as interactive gaming is, parents should be aware that their children can speak, using their own voice, with strangers online. Xbox comes with built-in parental controls, which prevent the child from using voice chat until the parent feels they are able to handle it safely. They need to be aware that networked gaming devices offer voice chat (WiredKids). They also need to understand that many other interactive voiced games can be accessed online using an ordinary headset. Some teens who get involved in cyber bullying dont realize the impact or consequence of what they say online or in a text message. They may feel that saying something online or via a text message is not as bad as if they said it in person. The bully then sits back and gains gratification from seeing others engage in destructive behavior towards each other (Field). It may even start out as a joke. Others use cyber bullying because they dont have the courage to say something face to face. Either way you look at it, cyber bullying is wrong because the remarks are usually untrue, very hurtful and can be damaging to the victim. If educators and administrators could create and use blogs to educate students about cyber-bullying in language that students can understand and to which they can relate, it may be a more appropriate medium for implementing guidelines as opposed to the more traditional and older-fashioned approaches. Web blogs represent a new medium for computer-mediated communication that may offer discernment into the ways of young peoples self-expression and relationships in peer groups. Schools need to educate students and parents about cyber bullying. They need to inform parents and students of acceptable computer use policies in writing at the beginning of the school year and strictly reinforce these policies throughout the school year. It is recommended that there be a clause in the policy allowing school officials to discipline students for violating the acceptable use policies when not using school computers under certain circumstances (COPS). The policies should be posted visibly in areas where computers will be used by students. A penalty for students violating any acceptable policy should be suspension of their computer privileges. All children and teens have a way of showing their emotions or signs that something is wrong. Parents and teachers sometimes mistake these signs as normal behavior. It is not until this behavior gets out of hand or creates problems, that someone grows concerned and begins to ask questions. Signs that a child is being cyber bullied can vary. A few things to look for are: signs of emotional distress during or after using the internet, withdrawal from friends and activities, avoidance of school or group gatherings, slipping grades and acting out in anger at home, or changes in mood, behavior, sleep, or appetite (KidsHealth). Children who are victims of cyber bullying normally do not tell anyone, because they feel afraid or are embarrassed. There have been many high profile and tragic incidents in the media in recent years which have linked adolescent suicides to experiences with cyber bullying. The connection between suicide and interpersonal aggression is certainly nothing new, as a number of studies have documented the association between bullying and suicide. Those who experience bullying, and those who bully, report higher levels of suicidal ideation and are more likely to have attempted suicide. Some people who end their lives or attempt suicide might be trying to escape feelings of rejection, hurt, or loss. Others might be angry, ashamed, or guilty about something. Some people may be worried about disappointing friends or family members. And some may feel unwanted, unloved, victimized, or like theyre a burden to others (KidsHealth). The following is an account of real-life examples. Thirteen-year-old Megan Meier of Dardenne Prairie, Missouri was, by all accounts, a sweet, loving young lady. Megans parents vigilantly monitored Megans Internet use, going so far as refusing to give Megan access to her own MySpace account unless one of them was there to input the secret password. Shortly before her fourteenth birthday, a cute boy name Josh sent Megan an electronic request to be added as a friend to her MySpace account. For the next six weeks, Megan and Josh exchanged on-line correspondence and Megan began to have a rosier outlook on life as there was now a cute boy who thought she was pretty; Megan had suffered for years with weight issues and depression. Suddenly, and inexplicably, Megan received a message from Josh ending their on-line relationship because he had heard that she was not nice to her friends. Josh had also shared some of the private content of their prior conversations with other classmates on MySpac e which led those classmates to launch an online attack against her, calling her vicious names. Later that evening, Megans mother found her hanging by a belt in her bedroom closet; she died the next day. Sadly, Megans story gets much worse. Weeks later it would be revealed that Josh was an imaginary persona, allegedly created by the mother of one of Megans former friends. The mother, the former friend, an eighteen-year-old employee of the mother, and several other of Megans classmates all took turns pretending to be Josh, writing messages and causing Megan to reveal personal and private information to an audience that she believed was a cute boy that liked her (Pokin). Eerily similar, is the story of thirteen-year-old Ryan Halligan of Essex Junction, Vermont. Ryan had struggled during his early years in school and had self-esteem issues as a result. Beginning in the fifth grade, he was bullied by another boy in school. The bullying persisted until seventh grade when Ryan was able to fend for himself during a physical altercation with the bully. After that, Ryan and the bully became friends and Ryan revealed potentially embarrassing confidences to the boy. The boy then revealed these stories to classmates via the Internet, starting rumors about Ryans sexual orientation. Later that summer, Ryan began chatting on-line with one of the most popular girls in school. Like Megan Meier, he felt comfortable enough with the girl to discuss topics that he would not necessarily want others to know about. When the school year began, Ryan approached the girl only to be rejected in front of her friends. She informed Ryan that the on-line relationship had been a joke, and that she had shared the contents of their chats with her friends. Unable to deal with the humiliation, Ryan committed suicide (Halligan). These are extremes but far from unique examples of devastation wrought by cyber bullying. Since Halligan and Meierss death, more and more children are logging onto the internet, so its likely that online bullying, including sending threatening messages, displaying private messages and posting embarrassing video and photos online, is also increasing. There are no laws that specifically address cyber bullying. Cyber bullying offences can fall under other laws depending on the state. Victims of cyber bullying should not respond to the cyber bully, as the situation can escalate into serious incidents offline. Keeping electronic and printed evidence to document incidents and reporting serious incidents to law enforcement officials is recommended. What can you do to protect yourself and your family from the consequences of cyber bullying? First, get involved with your childs online activities. Require that all passwords be divulged to you, and make it a policy to audit regularly. If your child has an online web page, such as those on MySpace, visit it often to see what he or she is posting. This includes both the parents of the bullies and the victims. Next, there needs to be frank talk to other parents about what is going on in your childs online life. You would be surprised how much other parents could tell you about your own child. Finally, if your child is bullying someone, make sure he knows the potential educational, criminal or financial consequences of such behavior. If you discover that your child is a victim of bullying, consider having her see a counselor to ensure that there are no issues that would cause her to crack under the pressure. Although most kids are able to live through the ordeal, there are some kids such as Megan and Ryan who may have underlying issues that need to be addressed (Curier). Finally, if your child is being ridiculed for an issue that could be easily improved with the proper attention, parents should not delay in getting help for the youngster. This issue is not going away, and begs for much more attention and a host of solutions to cease what is definitely one of the most troubling trends of our times.

Marketing Strategies: Bang Olufsen vs. Sony

Marketing Strategies: Bang Olufsen vs. Sony Marketing Strategies and Customer behaviors of High-tech products: Bang Olufsen vs. Sony Introduction The high-tech industry is experiencing furious competition in the global market, especially in the sectors of audio/video, loudspeakers and digital appliances. Bang Olufsen and Sony are both successful organizations offer examples of excellent strategies in their respective markets in the same industry. Compared to Bang Olufsen, Sony is a less expensive brand, which was founded in 1946 in Japan. It is one of the leading electronics and entertainment companies, offering quality digital and media products to the mass global market. Sony stands on a strong foundation of innovation, experience, talent, capital and desire (Sony 2008). Its products and services are available around the world. They are attached with strong design capability, good quality and high prestige. Bang Olufsen (BO) was founded in 1925 by two young Danish engineers, Peter Bang and Svend Olufsen. Known all over the world for spectacular, idea based, quality products (Christensen and Jà ¸rgensen 1997). It produces and develops a wide range of digital appliances as well as audio/video products. This report will assess the effectiveness of distinct marketing strategies of these two organizations, and then identify and analyze their key customer behaviors. Background of the companies 2.1 Sony With its commitment to quality and consistent dedication to customer satisfaction Sony is recognized as a benchmark for New Age technology. Sony adapts Digital Signage, which is a powerful tool to influence Customer behavior, both at point of purchase and at point of sale. Bang Olufsen: Bang and Olufsen have tied with e-commerce giant Amazon to influence their customer behavior, wherein products purchased by the customers will be provided with warranty registration forms which allows customer to register the purchased products for support throughout the life of the product. Key Customers Behaviors Jim Blythe (2006)says that many purchases are made without apparent conscious thought – people often buy as a result of unexplained impulses, or simply fall in love with a product for no apparent reason. In the market of high-tech products, the customer behavior follows the seven stages of CDP (Consumer Decision Process) model . First, they recognize that something is needed in their lives. Then they search for information. The information may be internal (remembering facts about products, or recalling experiences with them) or external (reading about possible products, visiting shops, etc). Based on the information, they conduct the pre-purchase evaluation of alternatives. During the process, they compare a number of factors (such as price, design, functions) of various brands to select the possible alternatives that best fulfill the needs (Yan 2008). Finally, they make the purchase, and then use the product for the purpose of fulfilling the need. The past-consumption evaluat ion will be carried out to consider whether the product actually satisfy the needs or not. They might dispose the product before or at the end of its life cycle (Blythe 2006). A simple goal hierarchy for buying a high-tech product might look like this: Find out which high-tech product best suit the individual needs. Find out which brand has the right product at the right price. Go and buy the product. Bang Olufsen targets the elite group, which can be explained as upper class customers who are educated, well-to-do, cultivated in their interests and highly individualistic and self-motivated. These consumers are normally wealthy with high income and good taste. Most of them have luxury houses/flats and cars. They would like to spend large amount of money to achieve the same quality for their audio and video equipment, long before design-widescreen TVs became fashionable. Bang Olufsen’s designs attract both men and women with a combination of high-end technology, spectacular and often audacious Danish modern styling, excellent performance and extremely functional integration into the typical upper middle class home (Austin and Beyersdorfer 2007). In addition to the luxury offers, Bang Olufsen had introduced a new range of smaller products (such as Serene) with relative lower prices to attract the wealthy fashion-conscious youth market. In a word, these customers are persons who are willing to sacrifice a lot to get the very best in some particular area. For this reason, the step 2 in the goal hierarchy might be missing from their purchasing process as they are wealthy and non-price sensitive, attracted only by the products featured with unique looking, high-end technology, personalization and customization (Dolbow 2002). Compared to Bang Olufsen, Sony’s customers have relatively lower standards of â€Å"lifestyle†, although Sony’s products still have higher prices and better qualities than the industry average. These groups of customers are price-sensitive. They totally follow the CDP and goal hierarchy estimated. Most of Sony’s products are marketed as value for money products with strong brand image and good design. Unlike Bang Olufsen, Sony does not want its products to be zero flaws, but meet the demands of the mass global customers. It limits the application of the high-end technologies such as finer art of design and frequency range to reduce the costs. Individualization is excluded from its production profile for the same reason. Therefore, its products may not be able to fully meet the expectations of one specific person. In such products one feature appeals to one type of person, other features to another, the price, but no features, to a third, etc. But on the whole, the consumer will pay for a number of features that he or she never really wanted and perhaps never will use (Ravasi 2004). Marketing Strategies and Tactics The Bang Olufsen specialist will represent the Bang Olufsen showroom located closest to the customers residence, and the specialist and showroom will then be available for customer services. The Competitive Approach Bang Olufsen always had a more high-brow approach. It competes for upper middle-class discretionary dollars. In the fact, there are no any direct competitors of Bang Olufsen in the high-end electronics industry, because it does not want to make mass-market products with a broad appeal like its competitors – products without any regard for the preferences and needs of the individual end-users. Bang and Olufsen locates the showrooms close to its potential customer’s residence. In addition to the normal working hours, all the services and showrooms are made available to customers by appointment. Resources are selectively employed to serve its end-customers intelligently. Bang Olufsen highlights customization and personalization. It charges premium price to makes individual products for individual people (Hendriksen 2001). Basically, all the products share the same Bang Olufsen qualities, but each of them has a specific design profile that works individually to serve th e end-customers in the market. The integration of unique designs and high qualities are notable selling points of each product. The Quality Approach In parallel with the design and quality, Bang Olufsen, therefore, developed a marketing and communication strategy a lifestyle oriented strategy aimed at a smaller, but more international target group. The targeting strategy was best encapsulated in the advertising slogan of the period: Bang Olufsen is for those who consider taste and quality before price. The products offered by Bang Olufsen are therefore regarded as ‘lifestyle’ products. Each of them is manufactured to the highest standards, and that last 15-20 years instead of the industry typical 24 months. Bang Olufsen conducts a niche marketing strategy by operating under a completely different margin scheme than any of the large, well-sourced players like Sony, Philips, Samsung, Matsushita, Thomason, who all need market share to be visible and profitable (Hendriksen et al., 2002). The Differentiation approach Bang Olufsen is not built on a low cost structure. The advantage of cost leadership does not exist. Each of the products from Bang Olufsen is unique in the market. Product lies not only in the way it looks, but also in the way it works. Intelligent technology, advanced features and unconventional solutions are what set Bang Olufsen apart. Under this strategy Bang Olufsen strengths and skills are used to differentiate the company’s electronic products from those of its potential competitors. The differentiation strategy creates, or emphasizes, a reason why the target customers should buy from Bang Olufsen rather than from its competitors. It also creates a market-based advantage. In this way, Bang Olufsen’s products can command higher prices and margins and thus avoid competing on price alone. In addition, this strategy of BO is hard for potential competitors to imitate, because the differentiation is integrative. All the products are integrations of design, qualit y, aesthetics, and functionality. Marketing Strategies of Sony From a general point of view, Sony conducts a segmentation marketing strategy by dividing products into three main categories: Electronics, Game, and Pictures. This report only highlights the marketing strategy of its electronics division. Sony always responds quickly to catch the popular lifestyle accepted by most of the people. Compared to Bang Olufsen, Sony is more likely to conduct a â€Å"One product for the many† marketing strategy, with mass production to serve the majority of the market. Except the quality, price is utilized as a tool for competing with rivals. In recent years, Sony outsourced most of its non-core businesses such as assembling, packaging to organizations in developing countries for further reductions of its operating costs. The Annual Report 2008 states that Sony successfully re-engineered the company by dramatically reducing operating costs, streamlining the operations. As a result, on an annual basis and compared to three years prior, sales and operating revenue rose 23% (Sony 2008). Marketing 4Ps The report applies a simple marketing mix of 5P’s to analyze the difference between Bang Olufsen and Sony. Product Bang Olufsen Product Strategy Bang Olufsen develops and markets a unique rang of audio/video, communication and multimedia products. All the products are integrations of design, quality, aesthetics, and functionality, which are easily differentiated from the products of other companies (Hendriksen et al., 2002). According to the feature of target customers, Bang Olufsen discovers that their clients usually do not know what they really want. They desire something that could stand out of the mass, or lasts and represents something appeals to them, but not just follow the fashionable style. Bang Olufsen always keep the concept to produce groundbreaking products to satisfy its customers’ needs and update their products more frequently in the dynamic environment. Ground-breaking products have been launched for the audiophile world, with BeoLab 5 named as one of the world’s finest loudspeakers, and within TV (Aigner et al., 2006). Over the past few years, the branded business has extended into new areas. BO has developed sound systems for, so far, six Audi models. These have attracted strong praise with BO being awarded the title of â€Å"Best Brand 2008† in the Car-HiFi category in the respected German auto magazine â€Å"Auto Motor und Sport† (Anthony 2008). In the automotive area, Bang Olufsen has also entered into a strategic partnership with Aston Martin, the UK’s sports car maker, and latest, Mercedes-AMG. Through its Enterprise department, BO focuses on sales to hotels where the company’s products are currently represented in more than 200 five-star hotels across the world. In addition, BO Enterprise has initiated and expanded a number of partnerships with leading property developers for the supply of audio/video products for exclusive property projects (Vej 2007). To ensure that all the products are in the highest standards, Bang Olufsen only concentrates on fewer product categories. Sony – Product Strategy Unlike Bang Olufsen, Sony has a broad list of electronic products. In the fiscal year 2005-2008, it launched the BRAVIA brand of LCD television. It took a strong position in each major market, and became the first to bring to market organic light-emitting diode televisions (Russinovich 2005). Sony mainly focuses on the marketing development to increase the products variety to meet the demands from different customer groups. People at different levels of socioeconomic status may find their favorable products from Sony. Moreover, Sony’s products are normally with a short lifecycle, for example 12-24 months. New products are quickly imitated by the competitors. Therefore, Sony has to update its product lists frequently to catch sales. This typical marketing strategy is also adopted by most of its competitors, such as Apple, Samsung etc. Price In theory, price is really determined by the discovery of what customers perceive is the value of the item on sale. Pricing Strategy of Bang Olufsen According to an online research, the average BO purchase is  £2,800 (Underwood 2005). The prices are much higher than the industry average. The price reflects the product’s quality and brand image (Raun 2009). Customers regard price as one of the notable aspects of Bang Olufsen, which stands for the highest value of design, outstanding performance, durability, and long-term reliable services. Pricing strategy of Sony: Being a premium brand and known for its high quality products, Sony adapts premium prices for the products. It sells its products at comparatively higher price. Promotion Bang Olufsen – Promotion Strategy Bang Olufsen produces differentiated products to satisfy their elite customer group. Around 80% of its sales revenue is generated from between 800-1000 of its customers. It determines that the promotions are only available for a small amount of VIPs, which are especially used to establish the long term relationships with those important customers. Sony – Promotion Strategy Sony adapts dynamic promotion strategies through Marketing communication, Advertising, Sales promotion, Public relations and Direct selling. Place (Distribution) Bang Olufsen – Place (Distribution) Strategy By the end of May 2008, Bang Olufsen has 822 B1 shops across the world, which accounts for 81% of the total turnover. Bang Olufsen dedicates to provide the best services for its customers. Customers could make the appointment online for after working hour services. Because most of its products are very expensive, only small amounts of relatively cheaper products are sold via online dealers. Sony – Place (Distribution) Strategy Sony practices Selective distribution of its products through selective dealers. It distributes products in various channels (Zone-Level, One Level and Two-Level Channels). Sony also distributes through online facility which proved to be more effective and efficient way of distribution. People Bang Olufsen’s Strategy It motivates the people with their knowledge towards technology and provides greater opportunities to explore and carrier growth to achieve. Sony’s Strategy Sony is driven by its mission to offer an opportunity to create and fulfill dreams of all kinds of people, including customers, employees, share holders and business partners. Conclusion This report compares the marketing strategies and key customer behaviors between Bang Olufsen, the very expensive high-tech products provider, and Sony, a less expensive quality high-tech products provider. Although they operate in the same industry, there is no actual competition existing between them as they target different customer groups. Reference Aigner, G., Budzinski, O., and Christiansen, A. (2006). The analysis of coordinated effects in EU merger control: where do we stand after Sony, BMG and Impala, pp. 311–336. Anthony, S. (2008). Sony: Winning the DVD battle but losing the innovation war, Innovation Insights. Austin, R. and Beyersdorfer, D. (2007). Bang Olufsen: Design Driven Innovation, Harvard Business School Case. Blythe, J. (2006). Essentials of marketing communications, Prentice Hall. Christensen, S. and Jà ¸rgensen, J. (1997). Analysing Bang Olufsens BeoLink (R) Audio/Video System Using Coloured Petri Nets, Lecture Notes in Computer Science, pp. 387-406. Dolbow, S. (2002). Bang Olufsen Tunes Sales Channel for S20K Plasma-Based TV System, Brandweek, pp. 14. Hendriksen, O. (2001). Long-term Monitoring at Bang Olufsen Office Building, in Editor (ed)^(eds), Book Long-term Monitoring at Bang Olufsen Office Building, City, pp. Hendriksen, O., Brohus, H., Frier, C., and Heiselberg, P. (2002). Pilot Study Report: Bang Olufsen Head Quarter, Paris, France: International Energy Agency. Raun, H. (2009). Strategisk analyse og và ¦rdiansà ¦ttelse af Bang Olufsen pr 21. oktober 2008. Ravasi, D. (2004). Bang Olufsen A, S, Bocconi, Mailand. Russinovich, M. (2005). Sony, rootkits and digital rights management gone too far, Marks Sysinternals Blog, October, Vol. 31. Sony (2008). Sony Global Annual Report 2008, in Editor (ed)^(eds), Book Sony Global Annual Report 2008, City, Sony, pp. Underwood, R. (2005). The case for fanaticism. At high-end Danish electronics firm Bang Olufsen, design is king, Even if it means sacrificing revenue, FAST COMPANY, Vol. 101, pp. 84. Vej, P. (2007). Bang Olufsen Holding, International Directory of Company Histories: Volume 86, pp. 24. Yan, G. (2008). Sony Style in China,:, No. 010, pp. 22-23. Emergency Planning Techniques: Private and Federal Sector Emergency Planning Techniques: Private and Federal Sector Emergency Planning Abstract The basis of this paper deals with the emergency planning techniques of both the private and the federal sector. They each have their own way of writing and carrying out the emergency plans. There are similarities in each and there are differences in each. However, both have the same goal of protecting people and property. Thoroughly discuss how private planning may differ from governmental emergency planning. Should there be any difference? If so, when and how. Planning for a major disaster can take many different forms. On a governmental level, the federal, state, and local governments are responsible for the protection of its citizens. Emergency planning is designed specifically for this area and can come from such things as the use of intelligence gathering and even Congress passing laws like the USA PATRIOT ACT. On a private level, businesses are responsible for the protection of their employees and assets. More often than not, these emergency plans are also dubbed Business Continuity Plans (BCP). These plans help if a disaster like a tornado should strike their area. Even more narrowed down than that, there are even plans for families to help protect themselves in their home. From top to bottom it is kind of likened to a bulls-eye. The outer circle is the Unites States government all the way to the smaller middle part, the individual/family. The bottom line is that it is important to have some kind of plan in place in all levels to ens ure the utmost safety. On the governmental level, one of the main areas of planning and the one that is forefront in the event of a major national disaster is the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). The DHS was created in response to the terrorist attacks on the United States on September 11, 2001. This particular department heads numerous other agencies that assist in the event of a catastrophe of national significance. The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) which was created by Jimmy Carter by executive order on March 30, 1979. (Woolley, 2005) The main goal of FEMA is to put together a response plant to catastrophes that happen in the United States which surpass the resources and abilities of local and state jurisdictions. States also have their own emergency management agencies but when an incident is too much for them the governor of the state where the incident takes place must declare a state of emergency and make a formal request for assistance to the President of the United States that F EMA and the Federal Government respond to the disaster. Like most government agencies FEMA is under high scrutiny whenever a disaster occurs. In recent years the agency has not gotten very high marks for their efforts. Most notably are their responses to natural disasters like hurricanes. They are often criticized for their response times like in the cases of hurricanes Hugo in 1989 and Andrew in 1992. Most notably was the way FEMA (and the government as a whole) handled Hurricane Katrina in 2005. In the wake of Katrina, the United States Congress issued a scathing report on how it was handled noting that elements of the National Response Plan were executed late, ineffectively, or not at all. It cited, in part: DHS and FEMA lacked adequate trained and experienced staff for the Katrina response The readiness of FEMA’s national emergency response teams was inadequate and reduced the effectiveness of the federal response Long-standing weaknesses and magnitude of the disaster overwhelmed FEMS’s ability to provide emergency shelter and temporary housing FEMA logistics and contracting systems did not support a targeted, massive, and sustained provision of commodities (Congressional Select Committee, 2006) Get help with your essay from our expert essay writers FEMA is just one part of the National Plan for emergency readiness. Another agency in the mix is the Transportation Security Administration. This agency was also started as a direct result of the 9/11 attacks and is also under the umbrella of the DHS. As stated in their mission statement, â€Å"The Transportation Security Administration protects the Nation’s transportation systems to ensure freedom of movement for people and commerce.† (Transportaton Security Administration, N/A) This particular agency is most noted and seen at our nation’s airports but are also responsible for transportation of land and sea as well. Like FEMA, there have been criticisms of this particular department as well. There have been complaints of invasion of privacy, theft of airline passenger’s possessions, and wasteful spending in its hiring practices. FEMA and the TSA are just a couple of the many areas in which the federal government has set its emergency planning into motion. As stated before, the governmental agencies are under a microscope and when something fails (or appears to have failed) it will be put into the spotlight. Citizens often turn to their governments for answers and direction, as they should, when a disaster occurs. Some involved in security planning privately feel that there are those agencies that need to do more in the way of explaining emergency and security plans to employees. However they also believe that the government has come a long way in emergency planning since the 9/11 attacks on the Pentagon and World Trade Center. In the private sector, planning for an emergency becomes more focused. The emphasis is on a much smaller populace depending on the size of the entity whether it be a business, school, hospital, etc. No matter how much planning or preparation an entity does, there can never assurances that all crisis will be handled flawlessly. If a business fails to plan properly, the likelihood of problems during a disaster will greatly intensify. One issue that arises is that the managers of the business and public safety officials sometimes underestimate the issues that may arise during a crisis situation. Administrators normally don’t have experience or prior training with emergency management issues. That is where the area of the Director of Security would come into play. This person would be responsible for writing up the emergency plan (i.e. Business Continuity Plan). Business continuity plans are essential in helping companies stay afloat through any misfortune and aid them in coming back more quickly after the setbacks. Without the BCP companies could be in great danger of going out of business is a disaster occurs. This could not only impact the business itself but the people it employs and the economy of an area if the business is large enough. Mary Carrido, president MLC Associates stated, After the Oklahoma City bombing, 40 square blocks were barricaded off for weeks. This devastated 4,000 businesses; 210 are not in existence anymore. (Rodetis, 1999) Had there been some kind of back-up plan to help these companies more businesses could have been saved. It’s much easer to minimize a risk than to try and recover from a setback. A thorough plan can take a few months or even years to develop, depending on the size of the organization. Unfortunately a recent study by KPMG, LLP, found nearly 40% of respondents either lacked business contin uity plans or had not tested theirs within the last six months. (Rodetis, 1999) In this day and age, especially with the technology available, it is unbelievable that many businesses do not have proper planning. The old adage of not planning to fail but failing to plan comes to mind. The next part to discuss is the really whittled down part, family planning (not the kind where you want to have kids). This is extremely important on this level too because families should do things like practice regular fire drills so the whole family knows where to go or find exits from the house in the event of a fire. These plans should also involve making sure fire alarms are placed properly throughout the house and ensure that the batteries are in working order. Also if some sort of disaster should occur while the family is away, there should be different means as how to contact one another and have a known meeting place if the family is separated. One should determine the type of risk that is most likely to happen whether it be a hurricane, tornado, man-made disaster, etc. and prepare for those risks. According to the FEMA website, it is suggested that enough food, water, and other supplies are stocked up enough to last at least three days. As written in the paper, the governmental and private sectors are different in many ways but the one underlying similarity is the basic need for protection of life and property. The differences are in the way plans are carried out and how they are managed. The federal government would not have to go through the same processes as say a business would to receive assistance. Ultimately some plan needs to be in place on all levels to minimize the risks and if there are areas in the federal level that need to be changed so response times are better or relief aid gets to an area sooner or mandating that all companies have a document emergency plan, then these actions need to be taken. References Congressional Select Committee. (2006, N/A). Executive Summary of Findings. Retrieved July 16, 2007, from United States Congress: http://www.gpoaccess.gov/katrinareport/execsummary.pdf. Rodetis, S. (1999, February 1). Can your business survive the unexpected?(business continuity plans). Retrieved July 17, 2007, from Journal of Accountancy: http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1G1-53878194.html. Transportaton Security Administration. (N/A, N/A). Mission, Vision, and Core Values (Who We Are). Retrieved July 17, 2007, from Transportation Security Administration: http://www.tsa.gov/who_we_are/mission.shtm. Woolley, L. (2005, September 12). FEMA Disaster of an Agency. Retrieved July 17, 2007, from newsmax.com: http://www.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2005/9/12/102827.shtml.

Patient Safety and Risk Management Essay -- Health Care

Patient safety and risk management should be intertwined in the organization. Patient safety is where the patient does not experience unnecessary harm or pain or other suffering during their treatment (Youngberg, 2011). Minimizing risk is to decrease unnecessary losses or improve or implement process that will decrease adverse event (Youngberg, 2011). The Samantha Jones adverse event is a perfect example to enhance patient safety through improved process or project. To understand the event a root analysis needs to be done and action items are created from this analysis. Taking time to conduct a proper analysis of the cause eliminates a premature conclusion that may lead to inadequate corrective actions (William, 2008). A root analysis is a systematic approach to collect information that may identify and evaluate hazards and risks (Williams, 2008). The root analysis provides a starting point on areas that may need changing. There are three areas to a root cause analysis of the adverse event which can enable the investigator to; 1) isolate the circumstances that increased the risk of an accident or incident from occurring; 2) determine who or what was involved in the situation; and (3) assess whether the facility might have control over the causes of the event (William, 2008). Using a report outline can help gather information consistency and completeness (Williams, 2008). The outline below evaluates the Samantha Jones adverse event. 1. Policy or Process (system) in Which the Event Occurred: a. The policy or process did not confirm the correct patient i. Nurses did not feel that they could voice their opinion about a proper time out b. Time out was not conducted thoroughly 2. Human Resources (factors and issues) a. No... ...004). Root cause analysis applied to the investigation of serious untoward incidents in mental health services Retrieved from. http://pb.rcpsych.org/content/28/3/75. Parker, D. (2008). Managing risk in healthcare: understanding your safety culture using the Manchester Patient Safety Framework (MaPSaF) Journal of Nursing Management; Mar2009, Vol. 17 Issue 2, p218-222. Ransom, E. R., Joshi, M. S., Nash, D. B., & Ransom, S. B. (2008). The healthcare quality book. (2nd ed.). Chicago, IL: Health Administration Press. Rooney, J.J. & Vanden Heuvel, L. N. (2004) Root Cause Analysis for Beginners. Retrieved from. https://servicelink.pinnacol.com/pinnacol_docs/lp/cdrom_web/safety/management/accident_investigation/Root_Cause.pdf Williams, L. (2008) The value of a root cause analysis. Long-Term Living: For the Continuing Care Professional, Nov2008, Vol. 57 Is

The Book That Really Did Change My Life Essay -- How Education Has Chan

Periodically while surfing the internet I encounter a page entitled "Books That Changed My Life", with a list of books that purportedly changed the life of the author. I am always irritated by these pages, because I never see any evidence that the books had actually changed the life of the author. In fact, for most of these pages a more appropriate title would have been "Books that I really, really liked a lot." Occasionally, it might have been called "Books that influenced my thinking," but I'm reluctant to refer to that as having changed one's life. I suppose I am irritated because I have my own list of books, and each one of them had effected a concrete, specific change in my life. It's not very long--maybe three books--but even that fact is interesting, since it shows how difficult it is for a book to change a reader, and consequently when it happens it is something worth pondering. How to Read a Book, by Mortimer Adler and Charles ... ...you how valuable those sessions were to me. They gave me the opportunity to apply his techniques diligently, enough for them to become habits, and to writings that were good enough to stand up under that kind of scrutiny. Nowadays I don't always apply the techniques; most books simply aren't worth the effort. But when I stumble onto something worthwhile, a pencil will magically appear in my hand and I will begin analyzing it before I'm aware of what I'm doing.

World Civilization Notes

HUM 1000: WORLD CIVILIZATIONS NOTES THE NATURE AND ORIGIN OF CIVILIZATION IN AFRICA Definition of key terms As we begin this course, it is crucial to first discuss our understanding of the concept ‘civilization’. This is a comparative term which is usually applied in comparison to such words as ‘barbarian’ ‘savage’ and ‘primitive’. In classical antiquity the Europeans used the word ‘barbarian’ to refer to a foreigner who was regarded as inferior (Ogutu and Kenyanchui, An Introduction To African History, 1991 p33). Do you think this is still the way we use the word barbarian?The Latin speakers referred to hunters, food-gatherers as savage. In the 17th century this term ‘savage’ referred to a person without art, literacy, or society who lived in fear of existence and death. ‘Primitive’ on the other hand, in Latin meant ‘the first or original’. Europeans used these words interchangeab ly when referring to non-Europeans while the word civilization was preserved to describe historical developments of European people (ibid). Now the term civilization is no longer confined to the above development but also extends reference to non-European communities.Attributes of civilization includes observance to law, belonging to an organized society, having a society of literate people with advanced developments in urbanization, agriculture, commerce, arts and technology. The French thinkers of the 18th century referred to a person of the arts and literature as cultured. But at the present the term is used to cover more fields than just the arts and literature. Sometimes, therefore the words ‘civilization’ and ‘culture’ are interchangeably applied. In this unit, however, more use is confined to the word ‘civilization’ especially in reference to human developments over time and in all continents.Another term that requires discussion at this stage is ‘prehistory’. Just like ‘civilization’,’prehistory’ is used in comparative terms especially in relation to history. Both terms refer to the past human activities. But whereas history as used by historians refers to the inquiry, investigation or research into a totality of human past experience, prehistory is rather confined to an inquiry or research into a totality of human past experience before the invention of writing. In our course-text (Anthony Esler, The Human Venture vol 1, 2004) this prehistoric period stretches between 5000 and 3500 BC.This period is also known as Stone Age period. Archeology plays a vital part in enabling us learn more about this prehistoric period. Through excavation and dating , a lot of prehistoric information is obtained. The Prehistoric or Stone Age Period There are two versions which explain the origins of human species. These are creation and biological explanation. The creation version exists in the Judaeo-Christian: Old Testament and its African counterpart. This Judaeo-Christian Old Testament is captured in the book of Genesis 2:6-7 in which it is written ‘But there went up a mist from the earth and watered the whole face of the ground. And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life and man became a living soul. There is more detail about the whole sequence of creation in Genesis 1. Indeed it is written that human beings were the last to be created specific in God’s own image. This is best explained in Genesis 1:27: ‘So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him, male and female created he them’. This creation story is vividly portrayed by Michelangelo on the ceiling of Sistine chapel in the Vatican at Rome .The pictures showing muscled, hugely bearded figure of Jehovah dividing light from darkness with a gesture rolling the sun and the moon into being, extending his powerful right hand to bestow upon Adam the ultimate gift of life attracts numerous tourists to the Vatican. There are various aspects of creation explanations in Africa. However we use the version in The Human Venture vol. 1 (p 7). According to this version, Doondari made humankind out of the five elements; fire, water, air, iron, and stone.The oldest of all creation stories, that of the Minnite Theology carved in stone at Memphis on the Nile almost five thousand years ago, calls the creator Ptah and says that he made the first sentient beings with weapons in their hands. Similar creation myths are found among other communities. This is because human beings are always concerned with understanding ‘first things’ and how they led to more complex ones. Such myths are reinforced by science which intimates that our earth developed from ‘a ring of glowing gases cooled and solidified into planets.Around the planet earth was water which spread over much of the world and above the earth was the atmosphere. HUM 1000: WORLD CIVILIZATIONS NOTES THE NATURE AND ORIGIN OF CIVILIZATION IN AFRICA Definition of key terms As we begin this course, it is crucial to first discuss our understanding of the concept ‘civilization’. This is a comparative term which is usually applied in comparison to such words as ‘barbarian’ ‘savage’ and ‘primitive’. In classical antiquity the Europeans used the word ‘barbarian’ to refer to a foreigner who was regarded as inferior (Ogutu and Kenyanchui, An Introduction To African History, 1991 p33).Do you think this is still the way we use the word barbarian? The Latin speakers referred to hunters, food-gatherers as savage. In the 17th century this term ‘savage’ referred to a person without art, literacy, or society who lived in fear of existence and death. ‘Primitive’ on the other hand, in Latin meant ‘the first or original’. Eu ropeans used these words interchangeably when referring to non-Europeans while the word civilization was preserved to describe historical developments of European people (ibid).Now the term civilization is no longer confined to the above development but also extends reference to non-European communities. Attributes of civilization includes observance to law, belonging to an organized society, having a society of literate people with advanced developments in urbanization, agriculture, commerce, arts and technology. The French thinkers of the 18th century referred to a person of the arts and literature as cultured. But at the present the term is used to cover more fields than just the arts and literature. Sometimes, therefore the words ‘civilization’ and ‘culture’ are interchangeably applied.In this unit, however, more use is confined to the word ‘civilization’ especially in reference to human developments over time and in all continents. Another term that requires discussion at this stage is ‘prehistory’. Just like ‘civilization’,’prehistory’ is used in comparative terms especially in relation to history. Both terms refer to the past human activities. But whereas history as used by historians refers to the inquiry, investigation or research into a totality of human past experience, prehistory is rather confined to an inquiry or research into a totality of human past experience before the invention of writing.In our course-text (Anthony Esler, The Human Venture vol 1, 2004) this prehistoric period stretches between 5000 and 3500 BC. This period is also known as Stone Age period. Archeology plays a vital part in enabling us learn more about this prehistoric period. Through excavation and dating , a lot of prehistoric information is obtained. The Prehistoric or Stone Age Period There are two versions which explain the origins of human species. These are creation and biological explanati on. The creation version exists in the Judaeo-Christian: Old Testament and its African counterpart.This Judaeo-Christian Old Testament is captured in the book of Genesis 2:6-7 in which it is written ‘But there went up a mist from the earth and watered the whole face of the ground. ’ And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life and man became a living soul. There is more detail about the whole sequence of creation in Genesis 1. Indeed it is written that human beings were the last to be created specific in God’s own image. This is best explained in Genesis 1:27: ‘So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him, male and female created he them’.This creation story is vividly portrayed by Michelangelo on the ceiling of Sistine chapel in the Vatican at Rome . The pictures showing muscled, hugely bearded figure of Jehovah dividing light from darkness with a gesture rolling the sun and the moon into being, extending his powerful right hand to bestow upon Adam the ultimate gift of life attracts numerous tourists to the Vatican. There are various aspects of creation explanations in Africa. However we use the version in The Human Venture vol. 1 (p 7). According to this version, Doondari made humankind out of the five elements; fire, water, air, iron, and stone.The oldest of all creation stories, that of the Minnite Theology carved in stone at Memphis on the Nile almost five thousand years ago, calls the creator Ptah and says that he made the first sentient beings with weapons in their hands. Similar creation myths are found among other communities. This is because human beings are always concerned with understanding ‘first things’ and how they led to more complex ones. Such myths are reinforced by science which intimates that our earth developed from ‘a ring of glowing gases cooled and solidified into planets.Around the planet earth was water which spread over much of the world and above the earth was the atmosphere. From these basic settings, life emerged from single-celled bacteria and gradually evolved into bigger creatures in the sea. And even continued evolving outside the sea. Such creatures outside the sea include birds and other beasts. Besides vegetations also developed from the moss and horsetails to such bigger plants like trees. All this took place before the hominids emerged. Herein lies the biological or evolution explanation.The evolution process which continued resulted in great geographical features such as grassland, forest, desert among others. More than two thirds of the earth was covered with water. The protruded expanse of dry land formed the seven continents. They included Europe, Asia, Africa, Australia, North and South America and Antarctica. Each continent and the islands that lay between them had a range of climate and topography which provided a variety of human beings. Human Developmen t Through the excavations of Mary and Louis Leakey at Olduvai Gorge in Tanzania, it was established that Africa is the origin of human species.The skeleton of Don Johansson’s Lucy found scattered over a hillside in Ethiopia pushed prehuman origin back several years. Hominids or hominid like bones from more recent times include those of Cro-Magnon and Neanderthal type first found in France and Germany and their kin Peking Man and Java Man discovered in Asia. Together with theses finds were also crude stone tools, later pots, pictures and bits of clothing were unearthed. The discovery of the ‘ice man’ an intact human corpse, discovered frozen in the alpine ice in 1991came complete with deerskin coat, fur hat, stone dagger, bow and arrows and a crude copper axe.The biological evolution of human beings dates back to tens of millions of years when small fury creatures with huge eyes and long tail lived in forests, balanced on high branches and snatched at insects. Fro m these there developed primates from who emerged as long as five million years ago the line of development known as hominids of which the humans are the only surviving descendants. There were various changes that the human ancestors underwent to adapt to the environment. For instance eyes of the tree dwellers changed and developed stereoscopic (depth) vision and color sightedness, very useful capacities for leaping from branch to branch.When these ancestors moved from forests to open grassland five million years ago more changes followed. Their legs and feet changed to permit erect bipedal walking on the African savanna. The posture in turn freed the hands for carrying game and foraged nuts and berries back to the family circle. The hands developed producing the most efficient thumb for the manipulation of any primate’s. The hominid brain grew, doubling and tripling in size and evolving a capacity that enabled human beings develop culture. Gradually, a number of hominid spec ies developed, flourished for a time then died out.The Australopithecines of three and a half million years ago were perhaps four feet tall and had brain about a third of modern human’s. Hominids of the Neanderthal line were closer to us. Hominids who survived made stone tools, buried their dead with ceremony and decorated the walls of their caves with paintings of the animals they hunted. These survivors who emerged approximately thirty-five thousand years ago were the Cro-Magnon people, a subspecies of the hominid family called Homo sapiens (wise people). They were the last of the hominid line and biologically indistinguishable from us. Prehistoric MigrationsAs is established the homeland of human beings is in Africa. Around two million years ago, the ancestors began migrating to other continents of Europe and Asia. A skull found in China indicates that these ancestors reached East Asia two hundred thousand years ago. Between 70,000 and 40,000 BC human beings reached Austra lia between 40,000 and 20,000 BC they reached the Americas. Thus in about half a million years, prehistoric ancestors spread around the world. They evolved various cultures and ways of life which kept improving through the various ages. It is to these civilizations that we now turn. The Ancient Civilization of EgyptIn this topic we will look at the factors behind the rise of the ancient Egyptian civilization, the growth of the Egyptian Kingdom and its contribution to the ancient world. The Factors for the Rise of Ancient Egyptian Civilization Its appropriate to state that ancient Egypt was directly linked to the rest of Africa. Unlike at present, the Sahara desert had not developed. Hence movement between the northern and the southern parts of Africa were possible. This fact is true because some African communities in both East and West Africa argue that their ancestral homelands were in Misri which roughly refers to Egypt. 1)Egyptian civilization owes its origin and development lar gely to the water from River Nile whose Source is in the South especially in Lake Victoria. In addition, the Blue Nile which is a tributary of the White Nile flows from the Ethiopian Highlands. The heart of the land was that part of the river from the first cataract at Aswan to the fan shaped delta where it flowed into the Mediterranean Sea. The river winds six hundred miles from the cataracts to the delta. The Nile Valley is hardly more than a few miles wide, but for the last hundred miles the valley opens up into the flat triangular delta spread along the sea.It is because of this river that Egypt was described as ‘the gift of the Nile’. The river’s annual rise and fall were crucial for the life of Egypt. On its way from the south, the Nile on reaching Upper Egypt overflowed its banks and deposited over the narrow valley a layer of rich black mud, alluvium picked up along its way from the south. (2)The human resource was yet another factor. Perhaps as early as the fifth millennium BC the hunters and nomadic pastoralists who had moved to the Nile Valley realized the agricultural potential of the fertile valley. They settled into agricultural villages and planted wheat and flax for clothing.They organized themselves into clans having animal totems such as crocodile or the hippopotamus. Sometime between 3500BC and 3000BC cooperative economic effort appeared as the Egyptians began to attempt at controlling the Nile with dikes and catch basins. Copper was used more widely. The population grew. (3)There was influence from outside, for instance, there were the Mesopotamian style cylinder seals found in Egypt. Besides Sumerian pictograms appear among the earliest Egyptian hieroglyphics. In the growth of the Egyptian civilization, there was an intermediate stage rom the villages to the centralized Monarchial state. After the villages, there were the two lands of upper and Lower Egypt. The vulture of the goddess Nekhbet was sacred in Upper Egypt wh ile the cobra of Wadjet sacred in Lower Egypt. The kings of the upper valley wore white crown while those of the delta a red one. People in the upper and Lower Egypt often fought each other. The Old Kingdom This area covered approximately ten thousand square miles. In 3000 BC, this Old Kingdom was the largest or most centralized state in the world. The Pharaoh was officially the king of upper and Lower Egypt. The Lord of the two lands’ and as such was crowned and symbolically buried in each of the two lands. There were separate treasures for the two halves of his kingdom and much duplication of officials. The tendency toward fragmentation embodied in the nomes, the provinces of pharaonic Egypt posed challenge to the unity of the state. Independent totemic communities or clans prior to unification, the nomes could become centers of disunity under ambitious governors. To hold the nation together, the early pharaohs forged a powerful alliance with the temples and the priests.Thi s is because the pharaohs claimed that they themselves were incarnations of divinity. The pharaoh was believed to be the son of the sun god Re. The reigning pharaoh was also Horus, the sky god-symbolized by falcon. On his death, the Falcon flew to the horizon, and the dead pharaoh became Osiris, King of the Underworld. Therefore the Pharaoh among the ancient Egyptians was semi-divine. Every year the pharaoh performed religious ceremonies that guaranteed the rising of the river. He and his officials ruled the land in the spirit of Ma’at, a combination of truth, justice and order that was for the Egyptians the highest of virtues.In the underworld, the souls of the dead were weighed against Ma’at. In this world the pharaoh himself was its living embodiment and the guarantee that the land would be ruled in its spirit. The Egyptians developed an elaborate administrative system. The chief administrative officer under the pharaoh was the vizier whose roles included chief judg e, superintendent of public works and right hand to the king. Under the vizier were such offices as those of treasuries, agriculture, officials in charge of irrigation systems and a secretariat. There was also a provincial administration charged with governing the nomes.The rulers of these provinces, the nomarchs exercised considerable local authority. They controlled the local militia, the source of most of the military strength of the kings of Upper and Lower Egypt. The Egyptian bureaucracy was staffed by scribes . Scribes conducted census of land and people, estimated size of the harvest and calculated taxes in kind. They supervised the vital irrigation system, organized the care and feeding of the pharaohs and the building of the royal tombs. Old kingdom Egypt was an ordered state and the society was organized hierarchically .At the top was the pharaoh while at the bottom were the slaves . See the diagram on the next page. Pharaoh v Pharaonic family, Relatives and Courtiers v Th e vizier (PM) and his circle v The Priests v The Scribes v Soldiers v Workers v Peasants v Foreigners v Slaves Source: Ogutu & Kenyanchui, An Introduction To African history,1991 p. 35 The hierarchy was symbolized most massively by the pyramid tombs of the pharaohs of the fourth dynasty; the dynasty of Khufu (also known as Cheops) builder of the great pyramid at Giza, around 2550 B. C The Middle KingdomThis period which stretches from around 2200 BC to the emergence of the New Kingdom about 1550 BC is considered as a transition period between the two worlds. The period was characterized by political turbulence, famine and the invasion of marauding desert Bedouin in the delta. Egyptians longed for a return to the immemorial order of past centuries. What they got, however, was not a return to the past but a dynamic new direction to national life . Ambitious dynasts from Thebes City in Upper Egypt snatched the kingdom from the last royal house to rule in Memphis.During the twentieth an d nineteenth centuries BC, the powerful 12th dynasty restored prosperity and order along the Nile. Pharaohs during this period expanded their kingdom and trade . Egyptian merchants traded with Syria, Palestine, Mesopotamia and Minoan Crete. Egyptian military pushed south along the Nile into Nubia and on into The Sudan . Egypt for the first time became involved in a large scale with regions in North-East Africa and the Near East However the pharaohs who succeeded those in the 12th dynasty were weak and did not continue the firm hold on the expanded kingdom .Before 1700 BC the Hyksos, an Asiatic speaking group seized power . Because they were less sophisticated than the ancient Egyptians ,the Hyksos were culturally assimilated ,adopted Egyptian names , worshipped Egyptian gods and followed other traditional royal rites.. The Hyksos introduced the use of bronze instead of softer copper . In addition they also introduced the two wheeled horse-drawn war chariot. After about one and a hal f centuries their rule was ended and more powerful pharaohs from Lower Egypt took over and established the New Kingdom. The New KingdomKing Ahmose was hailed by posterity as the father of the new kingdom and the founder of the eighteenth dynasty (Abu Bakri, ‘Pharaonic Egypt’ in G . Mokhtar, ed General History of Africa vol 2(Abridged Edition) 1990, 73) Around 1550 BC Ahmose attacked, defeated and expelled the Hyksos from Egypt to Palestine . He even followed them there and destroyed their base . Back at home he put down the rebellious nobility and Nubian princess who collaborated with Hyksos. All the loot from Ahmose’s victories, he heaped them at the feet of Amon, the sun god of Thebes .The priesthood of Amon thus became the most powerful in Egypt and Thebes the new capital. Pharaoh Hatshepsut (1490-1468BC) who married each of her half brothers in turn was, however, in her fifth year powerful enough to declare herself supreme ruler of the country. She declared h erself the child of Re; and the god’s designated ruler, had herself crowned with double crown and seated herself on the golden throne of pharaohs. The two peaceful decades of her reign were prosperous for Egypt . She concentrated her attention upon the country’s internal affairs and upon building enterprises, mainly her magnificent temple at Western Thebes .The two achievements of which she was most proud were:- 1. The expedition to punt where the Egyptian fleet obtained ebony and ivory perfumes and spices, apes ,monkeys ,leopard skins, slaves and thirty-one live myrrh trees which were ceremoniously replanted at the queen’s temple at Deir el Bahari. 2. The raising of two great obelisks at the temple of Karnak. At her death/ Thutmose the 3rd (1486-1436 BC) took over. He was a skilled archer and charioteer. The militaristic elements among the aristocracy who longed for more aggressive foreign policy loved him. He fought seventeen campaigns gainst a coalition of ci ty states of Palestine-Syria-Lebanon/region. The coalition had been plotting at Megiddo to revolt against Egypt’s domination. Consequently, the whole country as far as the southern Lebanon came under Egyptian control. Egypt was therefore firmly established as a world power with a far reaching empire (A. Abu Bakr/1990, 73). It stretched over much of the ancient Fertile Crescent, from the Euphrates to the forth cataract of the Nile. Thutmose the 3rd had well equipped army supplied with the latest swords, bows and amour of the late Bronze Age. The army also used well constructed chariots.He established garrison towns, local governors and a sophisticated system of puppet kings to control what he had conquered. He raised obelisks as far south as the fourth cataract to signify his imperial expanse. These obelisks were looted and are found in Rome, Istanbul, London and New York’s Central Park. Another outstanding pharaoh was Akhenaton (Amenhotep the 4th/ 1364-1347 BC) who was also described as heretic pharaoh, a religious visionary or the doom of his dynasty(Esler A, The Human Venture, 2004, 54). He was physically weak with a frail effeminate body with hardly the makings of soldier or statesman.He was mostly concerned with matters of the mind and spirit. In his youthful fascination, Akhenaton instituted a radical change of policy which led to the direct attack on the priesthood of Amon. Initially he continued to live at Thebes where he had a great temple to Aton (the sun disk erected east of Amon†s temple at Karnak. Later, because of resistance to his reform in Thebes Akhenaton withdrew from the city. He founded a new residence at El-Amarna in Middle Egypt which he called Akhetaton (the horizon of Aton) where he lived until his death.It was here that he changed his name from Amenhotep (Amon is satisfied to Akhenaton (He who is serviceable to Aton or spirit of Aton). Akhenaton proclaimed Aton as the sole true god to be worshipped throughout Egypt. He launched campaigns to destroy all the other cults and replaced them with the worship of Aton. Hence Akhenaton was the first ruler to advocate for monotheism thirteen and a half centuries before Christ. Aton was represented not in human form like other gods but simply by the solar disk. Rays spread down from it and at the ends of the rays there were hands.Temples of Aton were built without roofs so that the worshipper might commune directly with the god and feel his power in the sky above. The Atonist revolution did not survive the death of Akhenaton. His second successor Tutankhamun returned to the faith of his ancestors and became a worshipper of Amon. However it was not until the reign of Horemheb as the last king of the Eighteenth Dynasty that the persecution of Aton began with the same persistence that had formerly applied to Amon (Abu-Bakr, 1990, 75). The Decline of Ancient EgyptIts decline could be attributed to the following factors; 1. The empire had grown so big that it was not easy to hold it together against external attacks. The Hittites and the sea people (biblical philistines) constantly attacked the delta. 2. The weak kings undermined the state especially in the face of invaders. During the thousand years that followed the end of the New kingdom in the eleventh century/ Theban priests, Libyan mercenaries, Nubian kings, Assyrians, Persians, Macedonians and Romans ruled Egypt in turns. The Art, Thought and Achievements in Ancient EgyptSome of the art, thought and achievements are already discussed under the previous topics. For instance the roles of art and religion as well as the establishment of empire have been discussed. Perhaps what follows is to briefly itemize others; 1. The discovery of the art of writing in Egypt began as picture writing i. e. hieroglyphics carved with reed pens on papyrus. As a working script therefore, hieroglyphic writing evolved over centuries into a cursive script called hieratic. The latter looked more like moder n Arabic. 2. Scientific knowledge; Astronomy, Egyptians divided the night sky into eparate constellations, compiled detailed records of the nightly positions of some heavenly bodies and constructed on this basis a calendar that is close to the solar one in use today. Mathematics: Ancient Egyptians used mathematics to survey and re-establish boundary lines after the annual inundation had washed out the line markers up and down the Nile. They also used measurement and calculation for architecture and engineering, for predicting harvests and totaling royal tax receipts. Medicine: Ancient Egyptian medicine operated on the basis of experience and rules of the thumb.Egyptian doctors indeed showed genuine clinical concern with symptoms, diagnosis and treatment. Some of the prescribed remedies include drugs, such as castor oil that may even have done the patient some good. 3. Construction; Ancient Egyptians were great builders. They built in stone. The old kingdom pyramids still stand out a s some of the wonders of the world. The forty five hundred years and the two and a half million cubic yards of solid stone in the great pyramid of Khufu is one example of human engineering feats. Obelisks were another Egyptian architectural specialist.They often stood almost a hundred feet high. Their hieroglyphic inscriptions described the achievements of the pharaohs who erected them i. e. Hatshepsut or Thutmose the 3rd. Other architectural feats include temples, tombs and sarcophaguses (stone coffins) 4. Polytheistic Religion; The sources of religion include ancient Egyptians need for supernatural help to ensure a supply of game, growing herds or desire for human support when dealing with life transition and with specific afflictions i. e. wars, pestilence, famine and oppression. 5. To express the inexpressible religious leaders turn to metaphor.This experience has brought religious discourse from the historically conditioned realities of a particular time and place i. e. the sun god sails down a celestial Nile in the mind of the Egyptian. 6. Egyptians worshipped many gods i. e. Amon-Ra, Osiris, Horus. The Origin of Civilization In The Rest Of Africa Since it is established that the earliest human species is in the land of the great lakes of East Africa, it becomes clear that the Egyptian civilization was not isolated from the areas where the earliest forms of human origins are situated. Hence there was a lot of interconnectedness between the north and the south.We use Kush and Nubia to illustrate this point. The Nubians supplied ancient Egypt with gold, ivory, ebony, ostrich, feathers and slaves. It also supplied cattle, grain, leopards (and their skins), giraffes (whose tails were used as fly whisks, oils and perfumes among others. During the Egyptian decline, Nubian army went into Egypt and even took control of the Egyptian throne. Between the 11th c. BC and the 4th c. AD, the Nubian territory constituted the state of Kush. This area generally stretches from the first cataract of the Nile and the confluence between the Blue Nile and the White Nile.The region is currently between Egypt’s Aswan Dam and the Sudanese capital of Khartoum. During around 1500 BC, the area fell under the expansionist New Kingdom of Ancient Egypt. Egyptian Governors and garrisons, priests and artisans influenced Kush greatly. Sons of Kushite kings were educated at the Egyptian royal court at Thebes. Egyptian temples and gods royal rituals and hieroglyphics were all transplanted to the Sudan. The Egyptian religious complex at Napata in particular became a centre for the spread of the Egyptian culture among the Africans beyond the cataracts.During the decline of Egypt from around 1100 BC, the kingdom of Kush regained its independence and flourished, none the less; the Kushite kings still followed Egyptian ways and worshipped Egyptians gods. They recovered their deeds in hieroglyphics inscriptions and buried their dead under the pyramid like those of th e old kingdoms. Around 750 BC the Kushite kings Kashata and Piankhi marched north and liberated Egypt from Libyan rulers. For more than half a century later the Kushite pharaohs of the 25th Egyptian dynasty ruled a dual kingdom that stretched around 1400 miles from the Blue Nile to the shores of the Mediterranean.The Assyrians expelled the 25th dynasty and replaced the Kushite kings in Egypt. The golden age of Kushitic civilization was during Meroe’s ascendancy. Meroe built its cities in sun-dried bricks like Egyptians. Kushitic rulers’ succession was by consensus among the royal princes. The queen mother was uniquely powerful. Egyptian priesthoods i. e. the sun god was influential. But later it was replaced by the Kushite lion god Apedemek. The wealth of Kush lay in the location of its fertile land and its dynamic people. Kushite capital, Meroe was watered not only by the Nile but also by a significant annual rainfall.Hence there was expansive pasture and cropland. Th ere were such minerals as gold and iron. Kushite artisans exploited the iron ore so industriously that Meroe became one of the centers for the production of iron in Africa. Later Kush developed its own writing. The first centuries of Christian era witnessed the decline of Kush. Reasons could include limited land that ended up being overgrazed, the drying out of the land due to creeping of the Sahara southwards and the loss of its northern customers, Egypt. Trade in the east was taken over by Axum which destroyed the kingdom of Kush finally.THE ORIENTAL CIVILIZATION Introduction The oriental as an adjective derives from the ‘noun’ orient’ which refers to the ‘East’. The concept of ‘East as used in reference to countries in Asia was given by the Europeans. Therefore in our discussion, we will look at such civilization as those of Mesopotamia, Hebrew, Persia, India and China. THE ANCIENT CIVILIZATION OF MESOPOTAMIA Ancient Mesopotamia was situated between River Tigris and River Euphrates. Indeed it was because of these two rivers that the Greeks called the land Mesopotamia to mean land between the rivers. Between 3,500 and 539 B.C cities and temples emerged first in Sumeria in the delta at the head of the Persian Gulf. This was followed by more cities and temples in Akkladian, Babylon and climaxed in Assyria. All these constituted Mesopotamia. Gradual drying out of the sea covered delta at the mouths of the two rivers exposed the fertile side that may have attracted Neolithic farmers to migrate from the hilly areas and moved to settle in the villages at summer or Sumeria. These early inhabitants built reeds houses in the delta and hunted birds and speared fish. They were also farmers much as they hunted and gathered wild fruits.From this area, the ancient Sumerians built over centuries a type of civilization that was later emulated. The Sumerians first discovered how to tame the flooding waters of the Tigris and Euphrates. T hey constructed dykes, canals and irrigation ditches that converted the water from destructive actions to more productive uses like enabling the community to produce enough foods stuffs. The Sumerians planted barley and wheat. They cultivated date palm for fruit and palm wine. Sumerians reared sheep and goats from which wool and hair clothing was made.They used oxen to pull, plough, donkeys were beasts of burden, horses and camels were domesticated later. These latter animals were obtained during the Sumerian war encounters against their neighbouring foreigners. Mesopotamia developed such crafts as textiles, pottery and stone carving, smelting of copper and alloy of bronze. They also invented the wheel solid and spoked (The human venture vdl) P. 37) To go along with the wheel, the Sumerians invented the carts and wagons. It is assumed that they were the first to invent writing. However, their most important invention was city itself. The city became the centre of civilization.In Mes opotamia, cities had high and thick walls with special gateways. Inside the walls, the town was divided into four quarters by main streets that entered the city through four main gates. Dominant features in the city-state were king’s palace, the temple of gods, and large houses of leading citizens. Temples or Zigguarats were pyramidal, terraced towers visible from far beyond the city walls. Streets were mostly narrow and winding, crowded with shopkeepers, artisans, slaves, citizens and even priests. The city had the aristocrats who included royal officials, members of the royal family and the chief priest of the major temples.The middle class included textile manufacturers, metal work manufacturers in copper and bronze, and merchants. In the fields outside the walls were peasant, serfs and slaves. Among this lower cadre of society, very few peasants were free citizens. Most were tenant farmers holding their land in return for payment in kind to absentee landlords, serfs and s laves worked on land owned by the royal family and the chief gods of the city state. These cadres of lower members in society were subjected to strict rules enforced by supervisor who made sure that the workers irrigated farms to sustain city –life.The shadoof method was widely employed in irrigation. A shadoof was a long pivoted pole with a weight at one end and a bucket at the other. The tool was used to lift water from larger channels into the furrows where the seeds were planted. Other methods of irrigation included levees which were constantly strengthened, canals and ditches as irrigation methods were redredged to prevent silting up. Hence a good deal of cooperation was necessary for the success of the said group work. Mesopotamia women worked as weavers, pottery makers, farm workers and manual workers.In summer and Babylon, women could own property, sign legal contracts and engage in business themselves. Monarchies and cults of gods were central institutions in Sumeria n society. Temples came first. The pyramidal Ziggurats and broad temple complexes of gods and goddesses – Anu, Enhil, Enlil, Ninhursag and Imana (the last was also known as Ishtar) dominated the skyline of the Sumerian city. Each city had its own patron among the heavenly assembly, who was believed to bring rising rivers and rich harvests to keep misfortunes at bay and to maintain law and order.MESOPOTAMIAN EMPIRE An empire was the most common larger form of political organization beyond the city states. Several efforts were made at this empire building by such rulers as Sargon of Akkad, Hammurabi of Babylon and Nebuchadnezzar in the New Babylonian empire. However Persians reduced these efforts by making Mesopotamia as a Persian satrapy or province. Several factors frustrated the Mesopotamia efforts at uniting. They included i. Attacks from the outsiders who included Akkadians Gadians, Kassites and Persians. ii. The existence of fragmented feudal order in Mesopotamia.This led to division of power among land owning aristocracy. iii. The tendency of a number of regions to break up into middle sized states which enjoyed their own hegemonies and resisted efforts from outside that aimed at imposing larger order on the entire Mesopotamia. iv. Polarization among rival Mesopotamian city –states frustrated efforts by any that aimed at uniting Mesopotamia. v. The unity which occurred temporarily was due to successful confrontations accompanied by losses in human lives and destruction of property. The following are some of the successful attempts.Sargon of Akkad king of Sumerian founded a dynasty around 2300 BC His dynasty governed most of Mesopotamia for about a century. From a lesser Sumerian city – state, Sargon replaced his royal master on the throne, overthrew the dynasty of Uruk and conquered most of the Tigris and Euphrates valley. He garrisoned his conquests with Akkadian troops and built himself a new capital at Agade. Sargon’s son an d grandson ruled after him. However, a volcanic eruption may have brought drought to the region. The violent Gatians swept down from neighbouring hills destroyed Agade and its imperial Mesopotamian domain.Sargon is thus remembered as the world’s first empire builder. Hammurabi, also known as the lawgiver of Babylon (1792 -1750 BC) was born king of Babylon. The sixth in the line of Amorite rulers, Hammurabi governed Babylon for about thirty years before embarking on his expansionist venture into the rest of Mesopotamia. Employing shrewd statecraft, good timing and military force, Hammurabi expanded his empire far beyond the confines of his predecessors. For a brief [period, he and his successors had authority over all the people of Mesopotamia (Human Venture, 42)Hammurabi the law-giver introduced a code of laws covering a range of civil and criminal matters. They tackled family relations, land laws, business laws, personal injury, military service, matters touching on witchcra ft and taxes. Some of his laws are harsh seen from the present times. For instance, a principle of ‘an eye for an eye’ ‘a life for a life’ is cited for being extreme. But looked at with knowledge about our present judicial system, would you consider them strange? Hammurabi’s code observed some social hierarchy. There were laws for slaves and laws for their masters.For example, a noble was punished more harshly for the same offence than his social inferiors. Here one gets the impression that ‘might is not always right’ Does it operate in our society? At his death, Hammurabi had built so expensive an empire that his successors were unable to hold together. Attacks from enemies like Kassites, from the east weakened the empire. Within a century and a half, the empire had crumbled away. It took some time before other unifiers, this time from Assyria emerged. As the Babylonian empire declined, the Assyrians emerged as a military power right fr om the fourteenth century BC.By the later part of the eighth century BC, they were incorporating their victims into a large and growing empire. In the seventh century BC under Sennacherib and Assurbanipal, Assyrians conquered Egypt and most of Mesopotamia. Thus under Assurbanipal Assyrian empire briefly ran from the Nile valley to the Persian Gulf. However, in the last part of the seventh century BC, chaos bedeviled the Assyrian empire. In 612 BC, an allied force of Chaldeans from Babylon and Medes from the eastern mountains attacked Assyria, defeated it and destroyed its city Nineveh.One lasting legacy the Assyrians were known for was savage brutality. The Assyrian decline prepared room for the rise of New Babylonian Empire. During the New Babylonian empire, Nebuchadnezzar II (605 -562) was a dominant figure. Soon after the fall of Nineveh, while still prince of Babylon, Nebuchadnezzar commanded the Babylonian army which had defeated the Egyptian forces at (carchemish in 605 BC. As king, he repeatedly attacked Palestine, destroyed Jerusalem and forced Judeans into exile At its peak, the new Babylonian empire compared in size with the Assyrian empire at its climax.It thus stretched from the Persian Gulf to the Mediterranean Sea during the sixth century BC. Nebuchadnezzar II was a great builder of canals and caravan roads as well as temples and palaces. He raised huge new walls around his capital, eleven miles long and very wide. He opened the broad processional way through the heart of the city to the Ishtar gate. He built the Hanging Gardens of Babylon, towering Ziggurat featuring terraces planted with trees and exotic plants. It is said he did this to please his Median wife who missed the hills of her mountains home.Nebuchadnezzar’s successors were not able to keep the huge empire safe from external attacks. Hence in 539 BC, the Persian conqueror, also known as ‘Cyrus the Great defeated the rulers of the New Babylon Empire and ushered in a new e ra. THE HEBREW CIVILISATION Introduction In this section, we look at the Hebrew (or Jews) as a people, their efforts at establishing their Jewish Kingdom and the lasting legacy to posterity. It is at their legacy that the aspect of monotheism is critically discussed. It is also worthy noting that Hebrew history is intertwined with the Old Testament story.. The Hebrew peopleAt the beginning of the second millennium BC the Hebrews were part of the nomadic population of Semitic speakers who wandered and settled along the shores of the Arabian Desert between Mesopotamian and Egyptian civilizations. Abraham, the founder or patriarch of the Hebrew community moved from Ur with his wives and children, servants, shepherds and flocks around him and settled for a time in Palestine (Canaan) situated around Jordan River. A section of the community moved into Egypt where tradition states they were oppressed in the New Kingdom of Egypt. Hence in the thirteenth century BC, these Hebrews resumed the ir wanderings.Their liberator, Moses held them together for forty years in the wilderness of Sinai. Moses rallied them behind a single God, Yaweh. Hence by the 1200’s BC, the Hebrews had become monotheists (The Human Venture, Vol. 1, p. 67) and promised to obey his commandments. It is believed, God’s messenger to the Hebrews, Moses wrote the Torah, also known as Pentateuch. These were the first five books of the Bible. Thus, through these books, Moses the liberator and law giver became a world historical figure. The Hebrews had some of their sections also known as Yehudim which when translated into English became Jews.Hence the genesis of the name that mostly refers to the present descendants of the Hebrews. The Hebrew Kingdom When the Hebrews ultimately settled at Palestine, all the twelve ethnic groups evolved into a kingdom. Earlier, before making this decision, the Hebrew communities were divided and disunited along clan and ethnic lines. Their leaders were called judges. At times they were also guided by charismatic prophets. Shortly before 1000 BC, however, all the twelve ethnic groups resolved to follow a single king who was to be also a war leader capable of winning wars against their enemies.Saul, David and Solomon were some of the first kings of the Hebrews. David (1010-960 BC) a gifted military leader defeated the Philistines and completed the conquest of Canaan. He cemented the political unity of the twelve ethnic groups, established a Hebrew state and began to build a Hebrew capital at Jerusalem. Generally regarded as the strongest of Hebrew rulers, David is reputed for founding a centralised kingdom of Israel in the tenth century BC. Indeed Soul, the first ruler made effort but could not score definitive victory against enemies of the Hebrews. Hence when he fell in battle, he was replaced by David.David was later succeeded by Solomon (960-920 BC), his son, reputed for his wisdom. Solomon was a shrewd diplomat and a great builder. He married many wives and kept many concubines, he built a magnificent palace for himself and a great temple for Yaweh. Solomon further strengthened and equipped his army with chariots and new iron-age weapons. Furthermore, he built, rebuilt and fortified a number of cities. Solomon also constructed ships and traded with the Phoenicians and even down the Red Sea. Hence, Solomon in a way symbolized the governmental ideals of wisdom and power in the service of the people.In his effort to ensure that the Hebrew Kingdom remained powerful in the region, Solomon employed huge amounts of labour and money. He used oppressive taxation, forced labour and other harsh measures that made him unpopular among his people. Differences among the urban and commercial northerners and the pastoral, agricultural and more religious southerners of his kingdom weakened the monarchy. The emerging rebellion split the kingdom after Solomon’s death. The Fall of the Hebrew Kingdom The split of the Hebrew Ki ngdom into Judah in the South and ruled from Jerusalem and Israel in the North marked the fall of the kingdom.The nation of Judah was made up of two of the Hebrew communities while Israel had ten of the original twelve ethnic groups. Neither of the two could withstand attacks from more powerful enemies who included the Assyrians and Babylonians. Hence in the eighth century BC, Israel was conquered by the Assyrians while Nebuchadnezzar II of New Babylonian empire defeated Judah in the sixth century (586) BC. Jerusalem and Solomon’s great temple were destroyed. Many Hebrews were held captive in Babylon. Others fled to Egypt and beyond, beginning the diaspora or dispersal of the Jewish people.Some captives escaped and returned to rebuild the temple of their Lord, Yaweh, before the end of the sixth century BC. But such short-lived Jewish states as what emerged in later periods could not withstand attacks from Persians, Macedonians, Romans, Arabs and Turks. It was not until 1948 t hat a new nation of Israel, approximating the size of the one ruled over by David, was declared. That nation of Israel is still busy fending off attacks from Arabs. The Birth of Monotheism The earliest Hebrews were organised along family, clan and ethnic lines.As earlier argued, the twelve ethnic groups were believed to have descended from the twelve sons of Abraham. Within the family, patriarchy prevailed. Male heads of families had power over wives and children. Polygamy was allowed for men wealthy enough to support several wives. Only sons could inherit property because daughters could marry away from the families. A wife retained control of the dowry she brought with her to her marriage. But she had few other property rights. Divorce was easy for men but difficult for women to secure. How does this compare with our present circumstances?There were exceptions though. Some women stepped outside the family centred system entirely. Some exercised political power – as judges, or religious authority as prophetesses e. g. Deborah. Some like Judith who slew the commander of an invading host (The Human venture, Vol. 1, p. 71) were hailed as national heroes for their deeds. Religion played a central role in Hebrew life. In fact, the many ancient Hebrew laws recorded in the Old Testament had a deep religious touch much as they also reflected the traditional Hebrew values. One such law was the principle of ‘an eye for an eye’.Other Hebrew laws also prescribed kinds of foods to be eaten, persons and communities from which to marry or be married among, or what punishments to be given out against violations of these taboos. Hebrew prophets carried the words of their god, Yaweh, carved on two stone tablets in a chest as they preached to their people. They proclaimed their divinely ordained rule in a promised land in Palestine. Over a millennium and half between Abraham and the return to Jerusalem from Babylon, the Hebrews evolved a unique conception of divinity and of humanity’s relationship to it.During Abraham’s time, the Hebrew worshipped their own god without interfering with the other community’s way of worship. But by Moses’ time, Hebrew spiritual leaders began to insist that Yaweh demanded exclusive worship in return for his special patronage. The spiritual leaders further insisted that Yaweh was the only real God in the universe. During the second millennium BC, the Hebrew began believing that Yaweh demanded exclusive devotion from Hebrews. They believed that Yaweh was a jealous god and would tolerate no others. Over the centuries, Hebrews believed that Yaweh could not tolerate any images of himself.He thus remained a purely spiritual presence. He remained an incarnation of such superhuman qualities as all knowledge, absolute power and benevolent caring who had miraculously selected the ancient Hebrews as his chosen people. Yaweh’s prophets of the first millennium BC preached ethical mon otheism, stressing the moral dimension of the worship of one God. In sermons to the Hebrews, preachers like Samuel, Jeremiah, and Isaiah insisted that Yaweh demanded believers to obey the commandments that forbade murder, theft, lying, covetousness and many other sins.The prophets also preached that Yaweh demanded social justice from his people. The rich were not to oppress the poor, nor the mighty oppress the weak. The prophets preached that God had made a Special Covenant with the Hebrews. Whenever they sinned, God punished them severely i. e. by having them enslaved in Egypt or held captives in Babylon. But if they remained loyal to him alone and kept his commandments, they would get a promised land where they would have respect among nations. It is this monotheistic legacy that the Hebrews have bequeathed to posterity.For instance, in the first century AD, Jesus Christ, born and raised in the Jewish community of Northern Palestine, became the founder of the Christian faith, a fa ith that later spread around the world. In the Seventh Century AD, the Prophet Muhammad, an Arabian merchant conversant with both Judaism and Christianity, founded the third major world religion, Islam. Down through the centuries Hebrew leaders like Moses and Solomon would be honoured not only in later Judaism, but also in the Christian Old Testament and the Muslim Quran. ANCIENT PERSIA Ancient Persia is situated in the Middle East.A region known to have given rise to many civilizations including Mesopotamia. During the millennium of the Christian era, the broad diversified Middle Eastern region had intermittent unity under a series of Persian dynasties. Some of the leading Persian unifiers include the Achaenemids (550-331 BC). The Achaenemids are a royal house which was founded by Cyrus the Great. The Persians were Indo-European descendants who had migrated into the Iranian Plateau hundreds of years earlier. In the 6th C BC, Persians were still a war-like semi-pastoral people livin g in the mountains of what is present day Western Iran.There they were within easy reach of the Euphrates and Tigris valley. Cyrus the Great, also known as Cyrus the Shepherd was a self made emperor. He was merciful with defeated enemies, tolerant of all religions and very courageous. He was a brave fighter. By the middle of the 6th C, the Medes who had participated in the destruction of the Mesopotamian Empire were weak. This enabled Cyrus, a hereditary chief of the Persian people who were tributary to the Medes to rise. In 550BC, Cyrus invaded and overthrew the last Medean king of the Medes and crowned himself king of the Medes and Persians.For the next twenty years, Cyrus waged many victorious campaigns. Cyrus’ horse soldiers wore leather breeches and heavy felt boots, sat on their rugged mountainous ponies and were armed with compound bows. In his reign and that of his successors, Persia expanded to become the largest empire in the 6th century. About three years after sei zing control of the Median confederacy, Cyrus crossed the Taurus Mountains into present day Turkey and overthrew king Croesus of Lydia. Using the wealth acquired from Croesus, Cyrus marched eastwards subduing residents of present day Iran and Afghanistan.In the process of expanding Persian Empire, Cyrus also expanded his troops so that by the time he invaded the New Babylonian Empire, the weaker and disunited Babylonian leaders were no match for him. About 539 BC Cyrus easily occupied Babylon, bringing to an end the Mesopotamian independence. Persia became the greatest power in the Middle East. About nine years later, Cyrus was killed in war in eastern part of today’s Iran. Cambyses, his son succeeded him and conquered Egypt. Cambyses’ successor, Darius 1(522-486) further extended Persian Empire into northern India and Macedonia, on the northern frontier of Greece.Darius 1 also known as Darius the Great thus governed over a huge empire, from the Egyptians, Babylonians, Lydians, Greeks, Persians and Medes among others. To administer the expansive empire effectively, it was divided in provinces (satrapies). Each satrapy was under a Satrap (governor) who was often a member of the imperial family or a leading local nobleman. The satraps were granted political, military and financial autonomy on a large scale. As long as a satrapy paid its tribute on time and provided its share of recruits for the army, the province could be left on its own in local matters.But to avert any rebellious satrapies, garrisons of royal troops were strategically situated across the huge empire. In addition, there were also royal agents (the king’s eyes and ears) who monitored on the satraps and regularly briefed the rulers of the empire. Darius formulated a single imperial code of laws based on the Mesopotamian model. He also borrowed the idea of minted coinage from the Lydians and began minting gold and silver coins. Besides he established a common set of weights an d measures, a system of royal couriers and mail, a common calendar borrowed from Egypt and Aramaic, as a lingua franca.Aramaic was already widely used by business people in the general area. Darius was also a builder. He set up a network of hundred of miles of roads linking the far removed places of Persian Empire. Some ran from the capital at Susa to the Western City of Sardises Darius and his successors loved relaxing in gardens which they called ‘Paradises’ and in great palaces at Susa, Bablylon and Persepolis. From the fifth century B. C. some Satrops began revolting against the Persian rule. For instance, the Ionian Greek City-states revolted and were supported by Athens. Gradually palace intrigues undermined the power of the empire.Even women were ruthlessly conspiratorial and by the fourth century B. C. Alexander the Great, King of Macedonia attacked and destroyed Achaemenid Empire. Attempts to revive the empire by such groups as the Seleucids (323-250 B. C. ) an d the Parrthians (250 B. C. -224A. D. ) could not succeed. The two were not Persians and from 224 A. D. , the Sassanids, an Iranian group took over and ruled Persia until 641A. D. The four hundred year reign of the Sassanids is thus viewed as a restoration of the Achaemenid rule (Esler, A. , The Human Venture Vol. 1 p. 153). The Sassanids constructed an elaborate system of power.The bureaucracy, the Iranian barons and the Magi (Priests of Zoroaster) were most influential. The Grand Visier, was the King’s right hand man and operational head of the state. Other powerful officials included the chief priest, head scribe, and general of the armies. Iranian barons granted estates along the frontiers of the empire and provided a flexible border defense. While defending their own lands, the barons by the same means also protected the Sassanid Empire. The Magi collected the peasant land tax on which the government depended and also provided religious sanction for Sassanid imperial pow er.Indeed under the Sassanids, Persian Empire emerged to the expansiveness of the earlier Achaemenid Empire under Darius and Xerxes. During its greatest the empire reached today’s Pakistan in the east and Egypt in the west. In the north the empire reached Central Asia upto the suburbs of Constantinople. The expansion of the empire made it fall into conflict with such western powers as Ancient Rome and Medieval Byzantine Empire. At one time the struggle took on a religious overtone between Zoroastrianism (Persia) and Christianity (Rome and Byzantium).Finally the Sassanid Empire was overwhelmed by the Muslim conquerors. The Persian Society and Culture Ancient Persian Empire was a class based society. The classes included the aristocrats, officials, priests, merchants, artisans, peasants, workers and slaves. In terms of gender relations, it depended on regions. In Mesopotamia women worked in handicraft industries while in Egypt women enjoyed legal rights. For example, a marriage contract guaranteed the bride to return her dowry in the event of the marriages dissolution and also receive a third of the husband’s earnings. The Faith of ZoroasterInitially, Persians were polytheists. They worshipped Anahita, goddess of the life-giving waters and Mithra, god of the Sun. Sacrificial fire played a central part in the religion of the early Persians. But from the sixth century, Prophet Zoroaster founded a new religion, Zoroastrianism. Six hundred years before Christi, Zoroaster preached a faith that resembled present day Christianity. He preached belief in one god, Ahura Mazda, the Wise Lord, god of light, goodness and truth. Ahura Mazda was the creator of all things, the judge of all people, and the rewarder of virtue with spiritual blessings.Zoroastrianism proclaimed Liar as the prince of darkness. Liar was also known as Abriman. He preached that the universe was the battle ground between Ahura Mazda and his agent Mithra on the one hand against Abriman on t he other. Zoroaster urged all human beings to take a stand in the struggle between the two forces. He predicted victory for Ahura Mazda and his followers would enter paradise while those who served Liar (Abriman) will be cast into the bridge of judgment into a pit of darkness and torment. The faith became a faith of the royal family and nobility in Persia.Ahura Mazda was symbolized in a small human figure at persepolis. Zoroastrianism was largely a religion, therefore of the aristocrats given that Persians seldom sought converts to it. Nonetheless Zoroastrianism spread eastwards to India where the Parsi sect comprises the largest body of Zoroastrians in the world today (Elser, The Human Venture, p. 156). The cult of Mithra the sun god, champion of light against darkness spread westwards into Rome. Even Liar found a place in foreign pantheons such as Satan of the Christians. The Indian Civilization IntroductionIn this sub-topic we look at the general overview of the Indian subcontine nt, its earliest organization, and invasion from outside before eventually discussing the evolution of the empire. There after we will examine the major philosophical and religious contribution of India to the rest of humankind. The Indian Subcontinent Indian subcontinent is made up of raised areas such as the Hindu Kush and the Himalayas as well as the river valleys and coastal plains. It is in these valleys that the Indian civilization was born and later expanded to cover the entire sub continent.It is argued that the subcontinent is about two thousan

Policing in America Society Paper

Individual Paper (Policing in America Society Paper) Jesus K. Martes Santos CJA/214 February 27, 2013 Jon Holman Individual Paper (Policing in America Society Paper) In the following paper I will be discuss the Policing in America Society, This paper examines the changing relationships between police and other government agencies, in the context of recent experience between State, Federal and local government departments. The police in the United States forms part of the law enforcing agencies according the Federal law. Apart from the national police force, there are a number of policing organizations.There are two levels of police in the United States namely the Federal police and the State police. The policing organizations that serve at the Federal level include Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the Immigrations and Customs Department (ICE), the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) and many other Federal Law enforcement agencies. (Betchtel, 1995)   Criminal Justice is the system of practices and institutions of governments directed at upholding social control, deterring and mitigating crime, or sanctioning those who violate laws with criminal penalties and rehabilitation efforts.Those accused of crime have protections against abuse of investigatory and prosecution powers. The Federal Law enforcement agencies hold their power from the constitution of the United States in Article 1 section 8. Their operations extend beyond the State borders, for instance, the FBI have the authority to apprehend an offender who has gone beyond the boundaries of the State and the country. The State level policing organizations are divided into three basic categories: State Troopers, who are sometimes referred to as the State police, county sheriffs and the city police.State police, under the laws that govern the State have the policing authority across the whole of the State (Wadman, 2009). However, their jurisdiction is only limited to patrol areas and facilities that a re under the State level authorities. Such areas include government buildings within the State and highways. County sheriffs are limited to operating within unincorporated areas, but are they have no policing authority within the city.City police have the power to serve within the cities and they are restricted to only serving in the cities (Marks, 2009). The relationship between the police and government is determined by the level of the police organization. Federal policing organizations are subject to being controlled by the congress and have the responsibility of going after tax-related laws and criminals who operate between the States. State policing organizations are under the control of the State government. They are subject to the limitations of the State law.This implies that the State policing organizations are under the Federal police organizations (Marks, 2009). The sovereignty of the State and the sovereignty of the Federal government play a significant role in determin ing the relationship between the policing organizations in the US and the government. Despite limitations in the constitution in terms of State sovereignty, there have been scenarios whereby the different policing levels have clashed due to a different State and Federal interests (Walker, 2010).Grouping policing organizations basing on Federal and State levels questions the unity between the State government and the Federal government. The restrictions in terms areas of operation by the policing organization does not enhance efficiency in policing. This poses the risk of increase of criminal activities, being attributed to the inefficiency of the policing organizations. State priorities can be different from the Federal priorities in one way or another. Such differences can be extended to the policing organizations.Such conflicts are not health in law enforcement practices (Kelling, 2002). Usually, the division that exists between the State law and the Federal law is confusing, the gravity of the crime is usually downplayed on grounds of interstate crime, an instance is a murder crime which occurs within the state can be considered as state crime, on a similar account, petty crimes involving the crossing of the state boundaries can be termed as state crime. The divisions are also making the government to focus more on interstate crime than local crime.The government is concentrating more on the Federal Law enforcement agencies at the expense of local police who play a pivotal role in combating crime at the grass root (Betchtel, 1995). That means the relationship between local and federal authorities combating the crime bring only division and focus only in budgets and no the real problem. References http://www. bechtel. com/BAC-Chapter-7. html www. justice. gov/archive/†¦ /principlesofgoodpolicingfinal092003. pdf en. wikipedia. org/wiki/Posse_Comitatus_Act