The Decline of the West Essay Example

The Decline of the West Essay Example The Decline of the West Essay The Decline of the West Essay fragile, and now when loans and debt are becoming more and more spread you can fall even harder. This is well illustrated in the story where Mike uses more money than he has, to satisfy his family, and then he suddenly loses his Job. Exactly this happened to lots and lots of people after and during the financial crisis which caused an obscure number of firings. One of the other negative aspects of capitalism being described is how Mike neglects being a role model for his sons and prioritizes making money to provide for his family by working many hours. The increased unemployment has also lead to more suicide cases over the past years, which goes through Mikes mind as well, on the day hes got fired: For a second he believed he was crashing onto his back and would break his neck. How easy it was to fall, and how tempting it was suddenly would be best to die! (T. 1, p. 3, Ill. 99-101). The text is very skeptical regarding capitalism, and of course it is not flawless, but the question is if the is an ideal ideology at all, I highly doubt it. There will always be lobal issues, and there will always be people criticizing the political system. Mistakes will be made, and the task is to learn from them and not make the same mistakes in the future. Concerning the individual families, there should be less focus on materialism, resulting in spending less money, taking fewer loans, less debt and therefore less pressure to make money. But that is highly unrealistic since most people today simply need materialistic improvement, and much of the economy depend on people consistently buying new products.

Miles Davis contribution to African American music

Miles Davis contribution to African American music The history of African American music is long and rich in content. This is why the question about who qualifies as the greatest African American musician of all time always elicits big debates. When it comes to the greatest African American musician of all time, more than a dozen names come up. There are those who came earlier like Duke Ellington, Louis Armstrong, and Charlie Parker.Advertising We will write a custom essay sample on Miles Davis contribution to African American music specifically for you for only $16.05 $11/page Learn More Then there are later participants like Al Green, Jimi Hendrix, and Marvin Gaye. Both lists feature personalities of great talent. Most of these musicians qualify for the title of the greatest musician. However, when it comes to modern music, I believe Jazz musician Miles Davis deserves this title. Miles, a Jazz trumpeter has his origins in Missouri. This paper will trace Miles’ roots, his career, his contribution to African American music, and his influences. Unlike most African Americans of his time, Miles was brought up in a wealthy household. He was born in 1926 in Alton Illinois. His father Henry Davis was a successful dentist. His family owned a big town house as well as a 100-acre ranch. In his younger days, Miles frequented the ranch where he loved to ride horses. When he was young, Davis’ mother wanted her son to learn how to play the piano. However, when he was about thirteen years old, his father gave him a trumpet. After noting the young boy’s interest in the instrument, Miles’ father decided to hire a tutor for his son. Therefore, St. Louis’ musician Elwood Buchanan became Mile’s first trumpet teacher. Buchanan was the one who taught Miles how to play the trumpet without vibrato. Miles used this style throughout his career. Miles Davis was once quoted commenting on the role music played in his life. He said that music was â€Å"like a curse† to him because it dominated his every thought. However, as a young boy Miles dreamt of being a baseball player. This all changed when his father gave him his first trumpet. At Lincoln high school, Miles’ talent was well known. It is said that his first encounters with jazz were on St. Louis-Mississippi’s riverboats where artists were paid to entertain commuters.Advertising Looking for essay on art and design? Let's see if we can help you! Get your first paper with 15% OFF Learn More Miles showed great talent when it came to playing the Trumpet. By the time he was seventeen years old, Miles had already managed to penetrate the music society. When in high school, Miles used to follow the performances of Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie. Finally, the two musicians asked Miles to replace a sick trumpeter in their band. This incident marked Miles’ first appearance with a popular band. After a few gigs with Charlie Parker’s band, Mile s moved to New York to study music. This was right after he had graduated from high school and Miles thought that a chance to study classical music at the prestigious Juilliard Music School would help launch his career. After arriving in New York, Miles sought to continue his music relationship with Tony Parker. After he succeeded in doing so, Miles would be a student in the daytime and a professional musician at night. It was during these night jam sessions at Harlem nightclubs that he got the chance to interact with several musicians. Later in his career, he ended up collaborating with most of these musicians. Mile Davis is considered a pioneer of bebop style of jazz. However, this style was invented by Charlie Parker one of Miles’ earliest jazz influences (Gridley and Cutler 34). This style would later be one of the main influences of modern jazz. When studying music at Juilliard, Miles had a hard time adjusting to the school’s mostly European Classical music curric ulum. It is possibly the reason why Miles opted to drop out of the school with his father’s blessings. However, in his biography Miles admitted to benefitting greatly from the training he got during his stint at the music school. After dropping out of music school, Miles became a full time Jazz musician. The first band he worked with was Charlie Parker’s Quintet. Miles continued to work closely with Parker between 1945 and 1948. During the many times Davis recorded with Parker, it was becoming clear that he was already breaking out with a unique style. This style featured a deviation of Parker’s bebop style and it was later to be known as Cool Jazz (Meadows 98). When with Parker’s quintet band, Miles Davis had the chance of touring expansively across the United States. It was during one of such tours in Los Angeles that Parker suffered a mental breakdown and had to be hospitalized for a few weeks. Following Parker’s absence, Davis found himself wit hout a permanent band. It was during this period that Miles experimented and finally found his unique playing style.Advertising We will write a custom essay sample on Miles Davis contribution to African American music specifically for you for only $16.05 $11/page Learn More During this period, Davis teamed up with other jazz artists like Charles Mingus and Billy Eckstine (Stewart 197). After Parker came out of the hospital, his relationship with Miles began becoming more strained. Finally, the two parted ways in 1948. In 1949, Miles formed a band that featured his original ideas. The band incorporated extraordinary instruments such as the tuba. Using this band, Miles was able to make the first significant contribution to jazz music through his album â€Å"The Birth of Cool† (Meadows 45). His collaboration with composer and arranger Bill Evans was a significant development in the realization of this project. His band at the time consisted of musician Roach, piano player John Lewis, and Saxophone player Gerry Mulligan. Initially, there was controversy over the inclusion of white members in Miles’ band. Soon after, Miles moved on to another band that he co-lead with piano player Tad Dameron. However, Davis’ career hit a roadblock when a heroin addiction proved too hard to manage. By 1950, Miles’ recordings had become more haphazard mostly because of his drug problem. However, in 1951 he signed a deal to record for Prestige Records. His work for this label continued for the next few years. Somewhere in the mid 1950s, Davis was able to overcome his addiction and focus solely on his music. The strongest indication that he had completely recovered was during his performance of â€Å"Round Midnight† during the Newport Jazz festival in 1955. This particular performance caught the eye of executives at Columbia Records a major recording label at the time. He then signed a very prestigious deal with the company. His financial security made it possible for him to form a permanent band. In 1955, his Quintet began work on the band’s debut album at Columbia. The album was titled â€Å"Round about Midnight†. This band included drummer Philly Joe, base guitarist Paul Chambers, Saxophonist John Coltrane, and Red Garland as the pianist. His previous contract with Prestige Records was however not over and he still had some work left. This meant he had to work with two recording outfits at the time. However, his new permanent band enabled him to finish his previous commitment with Prestige Records. This band also became one of Miles most recorded outfits. Later on, Miles again teamed up with Bill Evans to work on his second project for the new label. The album was called â€Å"Miles Ahead† and it included the flugelhorn as the lead instrument.Advertising Looking for essay on art and design? Let's see if we can help you! Get your first paper with 15% OFF Learn More This album was later inducted into the Grammy hall of fame. After the release of this album in 1958, Miles Davis went to Paris where he met Cannonball Adderley an adept saxophone player. He then made the saxophonist an addition to his band making it a sextet. This new band’s first project was the album â€Å"Milestones†. In July 1958, Miles collaborated with composer Bill Evans and an orchestra to record a compilation that was known as â€Å"Porgy and Bess†. By that time Miles had began experimenting with his sextet. He was trying to make his inventions based on music-scales as opposed to chord-changes. His next album â€Å"Kind of Blue† featured some of these experimentations and it went on to become one of the most influential jazz albums to date. The album is practically his most popular recording and it managed to sell over two million copies. This is quite a milestone especially for a jazz album. From that time onwards, Miles formed a pattern of alte rnating his releases between collaborations with Evans and work with his sextet. One of his collaborations with Evans was â€Å"Sketches of Pain† an album that featured traditional Spanish music. The album was quite successful. His subsequent works mostly featured Coltrane, the sixth member of his band, as a guest. His quintet was also involved in the recording of two LP sets in 1961. In 1963, Miles recorded the album â€Å"Seven Steps to Heaven† using a completely new outfit. He featured future jazz heavy weights like Tony Williams and Ron Carter. The album performed well in both the charts and the awards circuit managing to earn a double nomination at the Grammys. Using a saxophonist from his 1958 band and other players from his 1963 band, Miles was able to record back-to-back successful albums. These albums featured original compositions and they include â€Å"Miles in the Sky†, â€Å"Files de Kilimanjaro†, â€Å"Sorcerer†, and â€Å"Nefertitià ¢â‚¬  In the following years, Miles kept alternating between old and new band members. With his new album of 1969 â€Å"In a Silent Way†, Miles was able to come up with an original Jazz-rock fusion. â€Å"Bitches Brew† was the most successful album that featured this new genre. In 1971, he was able to record five albums using this popular genre. In the following year, Miles was involved in a car accident that rendered him inactive for the next five years. During this period, he fell back into alcohol and cocaine addiction. In 1980, he made a recovery from his drug addiction and made a successful comeback with â€Å"The Man with the Horn†. Thereafter, he went on a successful tour. However, by this time he was already an honorary jazz-musician godfather. The next years marked an extensive touring period for Miles. He however continued to record music. His last recording was a collaboration with the famous musician Quincy Jones. Miles Davis suffered from respirato ry complications that took his life in1991. Some of his music was released posthumously. He also managed to win a Grammy award in 1993. During his later years, Miles refused to perform his earlier recordings. When asked why he did not want to play them, he simply said that their influence was over (Iyer 56). Nevertheless, there were those who felt that his earlier work was more solid content-wise. Miles is undoubtedly one of the greatest musicians in the history of African American Music. His innovative approach to music has come to dominate modern music. The Rolling Stone magazine noted that Miles was influential in every change assumed by Jazz music from the late 1940s. His role in this change has always been controversial. There is no other musician in the history of Jazz music that came close to Miles in terms of influence. His â€Å"Kind of Blue† album is still the best selling jazz album to date (OMeally 135). The album was also recognized by the United States House of Representatives. Miles has influenced tens of jazz musicians. Many other musicians also rose to prominence after being members of Miles’ ensembles. One of the things that made Miles such a great performer was his incorporation of traditional African American Music into his work. For instance, his love for Blues was particularly great. Miles also managed to preserve some of the greatest elements of African American music in his recordings over the four decades he was active. Gridley, Mark and David Cutler. Jazz Styles, Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1978. Print. Iyer, Vijay. Microtiming in African-American Music. Music Perception 19.3 (2002): 387- 414. Print. Meadows, Eddie. Bebop to Cool: Context, Ideology, and Musical Identity, New York: Praeger Publishers, 2003. Print. OMeally, Robert. The Jazz Cadence of American Culture, New York: Columbia University Press, 1998. Print. Stewart, Earl. African American Music: An Introduction, New York: Schirmer Books, 1998. Print.

Understanding Owner vs. Parent in Delphi Applications

Understanding Owner vs. Parent in Delphi Applications Every time you place a panel on a form and a button on that panel you make an invisible connection. The Form becomes the owner of the Button, and the Panel is set to be its parent. Every Delphi component has an Owner property. The Owner takes care of freeing the owned components when it is being freed. Similar, but different, the Parent property indicates the component that contains the child component. Parent Parent refers to the component that another component is contained in, such as TForm, TGroupBox or a TPanel. If one control (parent) contains others, the contained controls are child controls of the parent. Parent determines how the component is displayed. For example, the Left and Top properties are all relative to the Parent. The Parent property can be assigned and changed during run-time. Not all components have the Parent. Many forms do not have a Parent. For example, forms that appear directly on the Windows desktop have Parent set to nil. A components HasParent method returns a boolean value indicating whether or not the component has been assigned a parent. We use the Parent property to get or set the parent of a control. For example, place two panels (Panel1, Panel2) on a form and place one button (Button1) on the first panel (Panel1). This sets Buttons Parent property to Panel1. Button1.Parent : Panel2; If you place the above code in the OnClick event for the second Panel, when you click Panel2 the button jumps from Panel1 to Panel2: Panel1 is no longer the Parent for the Button. When you want to create a TButton at run-time, it is important that we remember to assign a parent - the control that contains the button. For a component to be visible, it must have a parent to display itself within. ParentThis and ParentThat If you select a button at design time and look at the Object Inspector youll notice several Parent-aware properties. The ParentFont, for example, indicates whether the Font used for the Buttons caption is the same as the one used for the Buttons parent (in the previous example: Panel1). If ParentFont is True for all Buttons on a Panel, changing the panel’s Font property to Bold causes all Buttons caption on the Panel to use that (bold) font. Controls Property All components that share the same Parent are available as part of the Controls property of that Parent. For example, Controls may be used to iterate over all the children of the windowed control. The next piece of code can be used to hide all the contained components on Panel1: for ii : 0 to Panel1.ControlCount - 1 do   Ã‚  Panel1.Controls[ii].Visible : false; Tricking Tricks Windowed controls have three basic characteristics: they can receive the input focus, they use system resources, and they can be parents to other controls. For example, the Button component is a windowed control and cannot be the parent to some other component - you cant place another component on it. The thing is that Delphi hides this feature from us. An example is the hidden possibility for a TStatusBar to have some components like TProgressBar on it. Ownership First, note that a Form is the overall Owner of any components that reside on it (positioned on the form at design-time). This means that when a form is destroyed, all the components on the form are also destroyed. For example, if we have an application with more that one form when we call the Free or Release method for a form object, we do not have to worry about explicitly freeing all of the objects on that form- because the form is the owner of all its components. Every component we create, at design or run time, must be owned by another component. The owner of a component- the value of its Owner property- is determined by a parameter passed to the Create constructor when the component is created. The only other way to re-assign the Owner is using the InsertComponent/RemoveComponent methods during run-time. By default, a form owns all components on it and is in turn owned by the Application. When we use the keyword Self as the parameter for the Create method- the object we are creating is owned by the class that the method is contained in- which is usually a Delphi form. If on the other hand, we make another component (not the form) the owner of the component, then we are making that component responsible for disposing of the object when it is destroyed. As like any other Delphi component, custom made TFindFile component can be created, used and destroyed at run time. To create, use and free a TFindFile component at run, you can use the next code snippet: uses FindFile;...var FFile : TFindFile;procedure TForm1.InitializeData;begin //form (Self) is the Owner of the component   //there is no Parent since this   //is an unvisible component.   FFile : TFindFile.Create(Self) ;   ... end; Note: Since the FFile is created with an owner (Form1), we dont need to do anything to free the component- it will be freed when the owner is destroyed. Components Property All components that share the same Owner are available as part of the Components property of that Owner. The following procedure is used to clear all the Edit components that are on the form: procedure ClearEdits(AForm: TForm) ;var   Ã‚  ii : Integer; begin   Ã‚  for ii : 0 to AForm.ComponentCount-1 do   Ã‚  if (AForm.Components[ii] is TEdit) then TEdit(AForm.Components[ii]).Text : ;end; Orphans Some controls (such as ActiveX controls) are contained in non-VCL windows rather than in a parent control. For these controls, the value of Parent is nil and the ParentWindow property specifies the non-VCL parent window. Setting ParentWindow moves the control so that it is contained in the specified window. ParentWindow is set automatically when a control is created using the CreateParented method. The truth is that in most cases you do not need to care about Parents and Owners, but when it comes to OOP and component development or when you want to take Delphi one step forward the statements in this article will help you to take that step faster.

Do the requirements of IFRS 8 Operating Segments enhance the quality Assignment

Do the requirements of IFRS 8 Operating Segments enhance the quality of information available to financial statement users - Assignment Example IFRS 8 states that an operating segment is a component of any organization that engages in business activities that earn revenue. The entity’s operating results must also be regularly reviewed by the chief operating decision maker. In addition, the entity must have discrete financial information. In business, an operating segment is that an independent unit that produces discriminated revenue thus necessitating preparation of separate books of transactions. It helps companies to track their performance in different areas of the market (IFRS 8 website). The paper discusses the reasons why the provision of segmental information is useful, current requirements of IFRS 8 and how they differ with other past and present accounting standards. It also presents the evidence as to whether the current requirements increase the quality of information available to users of financial statements. A good number of market participants and stakeholders are usually interested in the disclosures of information regarding the operating segments of the company. The provision of segmental information ensures that users of financial statements access information relating to the firm’s past performance, their risks and returns so as to be able to make informed decision or judgment about the entity in entirety (Christian & LüDenbach, 2013, p. 451). It ensures that users of information easily access the information regarding performance and prospects of the particular part of the entity that which they are interested. The stakeholders need to consider separate prospects and performance of each sector so as to be able to estimate the performance of the entire enterprise fully. Provision of segmental information ensures transparency. Transparency is the cornerstone of any corporate financial reporting because analysts and other stakeholders require complete and accurate information to assess the growth and

Bussines writing Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

Bussines writing - Essay Example In fact, spending thousands of dollars on leases can be cut off already because one can use his own home to sell whatever products or services one has to offer through social networking sites or blogs. People venturing into business sure have a great advantage with the wide use of the internet these days. More and more people are advertising to their friends the products they have, for free over social networking sites like facebook and twitter, send the orders via express delivery and get paid through the bank. Such manner saves a lot of money on the part of the seller with the advantages mentioned earlier and on the part of the buyer, the time and money spent on travelling to malls to get the desired product. The internet also widens the area a business can cover because friends around the world could know and buy the products and services offered online and can also tell other friends about it if they are satisfied, which saves and earns more money to the businessman. With this circumstance, it would be very logical for a business person to engage in business through the internet not only because of the prospect of cutting expenses on renting a space but more importantly the la rge number of possible

See requirements Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2500 words

See requirements - Essay Example llying with his wife lovingly during their separation on raising a son just like his father who wanted to get rid of the suitors who harassed his life and mothers life and wifes life, Odysseus has lead the life of a Greek warrior who believed that fighting wars is just a manner of appreciating the powers given to man by the gods and a way of showing himself that he lead the life of a decent man who showed perfect control of his lifes wisdom of existence and mentality, although the gods did not appreciate his believing that he had won the wards because he was fit to and not because he was backed up by the gods. The adventure is a way of saying to him that giving up in front of unjust gods would lead humanity to suffering. This is the case that portrayed the adventures he went through to his home from Troy. He lived and was alone for the rest of the journey since he left the oceans which killed his friends and warriors at sea by sea monsters, Odysseus grows to appreciate his life more throughout the journey as he knows that his wife and son are awaiting him, which is a way of believing in the reason to exist and appreciate ones own intellectual powers to face his own fate even if it means standing up in front of gods who do not appreciate mans believing in himself and his own freely willed powers of himself which are given to him by them and that they had nothing to do with his victories. Odysseus proves throughout the journey that madness is not in going to hell to ask for directions to find his way homewards with a sacrificial goat for the dead but in not taking such a step to free men who had nothing to do with the fate he had been put in but because of a personal opinion he has given which has put him in the fate and put others fates in his hands. He was given the position of a god deciding in front and against gods of what hed do with his wisdom to free or kill his companions and end his treasured memory of life with his wife and child before going to war wh ich

Energy Sources Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Energy Sources - Essay Example Surprisingly enough, the number of supporters of this source of energy was still high among the American participants of the McRumours forum that discussed the pros/cons of the nuclear energy use a few days after the Fukushima disaster.Apart from financial benefits, it is often said that nuclear power is environmentally friendly. For example, Steven Kerekesfrom the U.S. Nuclear Energy Institute believes that nuclear power generation plays a prominent role in the reduction of carbon emissions around the world. However, the arguments in favor of the nuclear energy use seem lame if one considers the arguments against it.The financial benefits are evidently outweighed by health risks associated with dealing with nuclear power waste and meltdown. While a generation of power seems relatively clean if compared to fossil fuels, the by-products need to be stored for hundreds of years in secluded facilities, some of which are situated â€Å"deep inside the mountains†. Given the fact tha t high-level radioactive waste has to be kept for hundreds of thousands of years till it is recognized safe to be released into the environment, opponents of nuclear waste rightfully contend that in reality there does not exist a place in the world which is truly safe. Indeed, as Jim Riccio, Nuclear Energy Campaign Director for Greenpeace, says â€Å"nothing you put the waste in will last longer than the waste itself, so burying it basically acquiesces to the fact that it will eventually leak†¦.just like every other radioactive dump site.†... participants of the McRumours forum that discussed the pros/cons of the nuclear energy use a few days after the Fukushima disaster (â€Å"McRumors Forum†, 2011, [online]).Apart from financial benefits, it is often said that nuclear power is environmentally friendly. For example, Steven Kerekesfrom the U.S. Nuclear Energy Institute believes that nuclear power generation plays a prominent role in reduction of carbon emissions around the world. It does not affect the climate, therefore it is quite clean and safe, Kerekes said in his interview to Earth Techling back in 2010 (DeFreitas, 2010, [online]). However, the arguments in favor of the nuclear energy use seem lame if one considers the arguments against it.The financial benefits are evidently outweighed by health risks associated with dealing with nuclear power waste and meltdown. While generation of power seems relatively clean if compared to fossil fuels, the byproducts need to be stored for hundreds of years in secluded fac ilities, some of which are situated â€Å"deep inside the mountains† (â€Å"Nuclear Power: Risks and Rewards†, 2012, [online]). Given the fact that high-level radioactive waste has to be kept for hundreds of thousands of years till it is recognized safe to be released into the environment, opponents of nuclear waste rightfully contend that in reality there does not exist a place in the world which is truly safe. Indeed, as Jim Riccio, Nuclear Energy Campaign Director for Greenpeace, says â€Å"nothing you put the waste in will last longer than the waste itself, so burying it basically acquiesces to the fact that it will eventually leak†¦.just like every other radioactive dump site.† (DeFreitas, 2010, [online]). Apart from this, the aftermaths of nuclear accidents that occasionally happen throughout