Is swimming life or is life swimming free essay sample

My parents have always joked I was a fish in my previous life and I don’t doubt them for one minute. This is because of my love of the water. It is no coincidence that my passion is a sport that revolves around the water, swimming. For the past 6 years I have been gliding back and forth across the water clearing my head of the day’s drama and getting excited for the main set. For the past 6 years I have poured my heart, soul, energy and determination into the pool. For the past 6 years I have been working day in and day out for my two minutes of pure bliss; behind the blocks at championships. However, the reward for my hard work is priceless. No words in the world can describe that feeling when you thunder into the wall for the finish and look up at the scoreboard to see you have achieved a best time. We will write a custom essay sample on Is swimming life or is life swimming? or any similar topic specifically for you Do Not WasteYour Time HIRE WRITER Only 13.90 / page Of course, swimming also gives back to you, it whispers subtle teachings from each stroke—butterfly, backstroke, breaststroke and freestyle—and of course, no one can forget the officials. The most common stroke in swimming is freestyle. It is very basic and can be learned fairly quickly. However perfecting this stroke takes seasons and seasons of practice and is sometimes never even mastered by swimmers. Because freestyle is the simplest stroke, it also has the most variety. The catch in swimming freestyle is that you have to know how to pace yourself. There are sprint freestyle events, like the 50, 100 and 200 yard freestyle, there are middle distance events like the 500 yard freestyle and then there are the distance freestyle events like the 1000, 1500 and the mile. Each event within the freestyle category requires different race strategies and requires different pacing. Freestyle has taught me that there is more than one way to do things and to step back and assess the situation before I act or make any impulse decisions. I have made mistakes in freestyle events such as sprinting the first 500 of the mile or taking the 100 out too slow. Stepping back and really an alyzing the circumstances is really effective and may start off taking more time but ends up saving the most time because you make fewer mistakes. The second most popular stroke is backstroke. This stroke is more complex then freestyle and is swum on your back. In backstroke it is very important to keep your body in line with your head and to be fairly straight but not stiff. Backstroke also requires you to have fast arm rotation and a strong underwater pull. During my earlier swimming years I was a backstroker and I learned a lot from it such as perfect practice makes perfect. In order to succeed in the end, you have to be putting in good honest work, not â€Å"garbage yardage† or â€Å"busy work†. To cheat in practice only results in a poor end of season championship meet and all the work gone to waste. Another important lesson I learned from backstroke is to trust. Since you are swimming towards an unforgiving wall you have to trust your body and mind to know when to turn and that you won’t hit that wall. Backstroke has taught me to take a risk at times and just trust that my body or the people around m e won’t fail me. Breaststroke is the hardest stroke to nail hands down. The stroke is all about timing and knowing exactly at which moment to start your kick and throw you arms forward. The timing in breaststroke is often practiced using pacers. Pacers are bottle cap sized devices that provide a constant â€Å"tick tick tick tick† for the swimmer to use to know when to start the different parts of the stroke. This stroke has taught me time how important accuracy and time management are. I have learned to be efficient and manage my time so I can fit the rigorous demands of swimming into my academic and family filled schedule. The final stroke in swimming is butterfly. I look fondly upon this stroke because I am a butterflyer. Some say butterfly is the hardest of the 4 strokes. I beg to differ. I find fly to be amazingly powerful once you find the rhythm. The key in fly is not to lose technique. As a result you must have great endurance to keep swimming race pace and efficiently. Fly has taught me that things don’t come right away and that you have to work continuously towards a goal and not expect it to just appear at championships. My perseverance and earnest desire to excel in the stroke are the reasons why I placed 9th and 11th in the state in the 100 and 200 yard fly at championships this past March. Thanks to butterfly, I have learned that hard work pays off with determination and acceptance of the fact that rewards might not come as quickly as we’d like. Officials play a very important role in swimming. They are like the judges in a competition. They keep order and they make sure the sport is fair. Sometimes they make unfair calls and disqualify you for minor mistakes which can be devastating to your self esteem and psyche but overall they are fair. The judges have led me to be a stronger, more resilient person, capable of standing on my own two feet in the face of adversity. When I first started swimming back before I could walk, I never knew that I could learn so much from a sport that requires its athletes to swim seemingly mindlessly back and forth a 25 yard pool repetitively for two hours a day. I never expected the sport to emanate life lessons and character builders. Yet the lessons that have been taught by each stroke, the officials, and the overall sport have shaped the person I am and the person I will become. Whether it is pacing work, perfect practicing, time management, endurance training and maintaining a positive attitude despite my surroundings, I plan to use the teachings of swimming to aid me in leading a successful and fulfilling future.

Persepolis (Iran) - Darius the Greats Persian Empire

Persepolis (Iran) - Darius the Great's Persian Empire   Persepolis is the Greek name (meaning roughly City of the Persians) for the Persian Empire capital of Pà ¢rsa, sometimes spelled Parseh or Parse. Persepolis was the capital of the Achaemenid dynasty king Darius the Great, ruler of the Persian Empire between 522–486 B.C.E. The city was the most important of the Achaemenid Persian Empire cities, and its ruins are among the best known and most visited archaeological sites in the world. The Palace Complex Persepolis was built in a region of irregular terrain, on top of a large (455x300 meters, 900x1500 feet) man-made terrace. That terrace is located on the Marvdasht Plain at the foot of the Kuh-e Rahmat mountain, 50 kilometers (30 miles) northeast of the modern city of Shiraz and 80 km (50 mi) south of Cyrus the Greats capital, Pasargadae. Atop the terrace is the palace or citadel complex known as Takht-e Jamshid (The Throne of Jamshid), which was built by Darius the Great, and embellished by his son Xerxes and grandson Artaxerxes. The complex features 6.7 m (22 ft) wide double stairways, the pavilion called the Gate of All Nations, a columned porch, an imposing audience hall called Talar-e Apadana, and the Hall of a Hundred Columns. The Hall of a Hundred Columns (or Throne Hall) likely had bull-headed capitals and still has doorways decorated with stone reliefs. Construction projects at Persepolis continued throughout the Achaemenid period, with major projects from Darius, Xerxes, and Artaxerxes I and III. The Treasury The Treasury, a relatively unassuming mud-brick structure on the southeastern corner of the main terrace at Persepolis, has received much of the recent focus of archaeological and historical investigation: it was almost certainly the building which held the Persian Empires vast wealth, stolen by Alexander the Great in 330 B.C.E. Alexander used the reported 3,000 metric tons of gold, silver and other valuables to fund his conquering march towards Egypt. The Treasury, first built in 511–507 B.C.E., was surrounded on all four sides by streets and alleys. The main entrance was to the west, although Xerxes rebuilt the entrance on the north side. Its final form was a one-story rectangular building measuring 130X78 m (425x250 ft) with 100 rooms, halls, courtyards, and corridors. The doors were likely built of wood; the tiled floor received enough foot traffic to require several repairs. The roof was supported by more than 300 columns, some covered with mud plaster painted with a red, white and blue interlocking pattern. Archaeologists have found some remnants of the vast stores left behind by Alexander, including fragments of artifacts much older than the Achaemenid period. Objects left behind included clay labels, cylinder seals, stamp seals, and signet rings. One of the seals dates to the Jemdet Nasr period of Mesopotamia, some 2,700 years before the Treasury was built. Coins, glass, stone and metal vessels, metal weapons, and tools of different periods were also found. Sculpture left behind by Alexander included Greek and Egyptian objects, and votive objects with inscriptions dated from the Mesopotamian reigns of Sargon II, Esarhaddon, Ashurbanipal, and Nebuchadnezzar II. Textual Sources Historical sources on the city begin with cuneiform inscriptions on clay tablets found within the city itself. In the foundation of the fortification wall at the northeastern corner of the Persepolis terrace, a collection of cuneiform tablets were found where they had been used as fill. Called the fortification tablets, they record the disbursement from royal storehouses of food and other supplies. Dated between 509-494 BC, almost all of them are written in Elamite cuneiform although some have Aramaic glosses. A small subset that refers to dispensed in behalf of the king is known as the J Texts. Another, later set of tablets were found in the ruins of the Treasury. Dated from the late years of the reign of Darius through the early years of Artaxerxes (492–458 B.C.E.), the Treasury Tablets record payments to workers, in lieu of a part of or all of the total food ration of sheep, wine, or grain. The documents include both letters to the Treasurer demanding payment, and memoranda saying the person had been paid. Record payments were made to wage-earners of various occupations, up to 311 workers and 13 different occupations. The great Greek writers did not, perhaps surprisingly, write about Persepolis in its heyday, during which time it would have been a formidable opponent and the capital of the vast Persian Empire. Although scholars are not in agreement, it is possible that the aggressive power described by Plato as Atlantis is a reference to Persepolis. But, after Alexander had conquered the city, a wide array of Greek and Latin authors like Strabo, Plutarch, Diodorus Siculus, and Quintus Curtius left us many details about the sacking of the Treasury. Persepolis and Archaeology Persepolis remained occupied even after Alexander burned it to the ground; the Sasanids (224–651 C.E.) used it as an important city. After that, it fell into obscurity until the 15th century, when it was explored by persistent Europeans. The Dutch artist Cornelis de Bruijn, published the first detailed description of the site in 1705. The first scientific excavations were conducted at Persepolis by the Oriental Institute in the 1930s; excavations were thereafter conducted by the Iranian Archaeological Service initially led by Andre Godard and Ali Sami. Persepolis was named a World Heritage Site by UNESCO in 1979. To the Iranians, Persepolis is still a ritual space, a sacred national shrine, and a potent setting for the spring festival of Nou-rouz (or No ruz). Many of the recent investigations at Persepolis and other Mesopotamian sites in Iran are focused on preservation of the ruins from ongoing natural weathering and looting. Sources Aloiz E, Douglas JG, and Nagel A. 2016. Painted plaster and glazed brick fragments from Achaemenid Pasargadae and Persepolis, Iran. Heritage Science 4(1):3.Askari Chaverdi A, Callieri P, Laurenzi Tabasso M, and Lazzarini L. 2016. The Archaeological Site of Persepolis (Iran): Study of the Finishing Technique of the Bas-Reliefs and Architectural Surfaces. Archaeometry 58(1):17-34.Gallello G, Ghorbani S, Ghorbani S, Pastor A, and de la Guardia M. 2016. Non-destructive analytical methods to study the conservation state of Apadana Hall of Persepolis. Science of The Total Environment 544:291-298.Heidari M, Torabi-Kaveh M, Chastre C, Ludovico-Marques M, Mohseni H, and Akefi H. 2017. Determination of weathering degree of the Persepolis stone under laboratory and natural conditions using fuzzy inference system. Construction and Building Materials 145:28-41.Klotz D. 2015. Darius I and the Sabaeans: Ancient Partners in Red Sea Navigation. Journal of Near Eastern Studies 74(2):267-280.

Case Study on Hr Planning

It is the country†s best recognised energy brand. Centrica is a multinational company, with businesses in many countries. Centrica was formed in 1997 and consists of eight separate energy-related businesses, ranging from the supply of gas and electricity to consumers and organisations in the UK and Europe, to storage of gas for other providers, and drain and pipe work maintenance. The UK energy market is highly dynamic. Customers look for the best deals and are increasingly prepared to switch suppliers. In 2007, 900,000 customers switched energy providers. An energy company needs to show it is not just competitive on price, but that it can also provide the right levels of customer service to attract and retain customers. British Gas does not only supply gas but also deals with the installation and maintenance of domestic central heating and appliances. It provides a maintenance and breakdown service for electrical white goods and home wiring. Through the Dyno brand, British Gas also offers drain clearing services, plumbing and home security services. To deliver these services, British Gas needs high calibre staff. It employs more than 9,000 trained gas engineers to install and maintain central heating and gas appliances. This case study explores how British Gas manages the recruitment and selection of new employees. Page 2:  The role of human resource management Managing a successful large business involves acquiring, developing and maintaining a wide range of resources. These resources include materials, buildings, land, equipment, technology and, crucially, people. Any organisation needs good employees who have the right skills to achieve the company†s aims and objectives. Human resource management (HRM) is the business function that focuses on the people aspects of an organisation. It ensures the efficient management of people in the business. It is responsible for ensuring that an organisation has the right people to deliver its overall business plan. Meeting customer needs Centrica, the parent corporation of British Gas, has to deliver long term profitability. Its shareholders expect the business to show a return on their investment by making profits, now and in the future. British Gas needs to contribute to these profits. This means consistently meeting the needs of its customers with competitively priced products and services that give good returns to the company. Residential consumers across the country are the core customer base of British Gas. These customers expect top-class service at keen prices. If British Gas does not meet this standard, the company may lose business to competitors. To ensure customer satisfaction, British Gas engineers must have the technical skills to undertake work to the required standard and the people skills to deliver good customer service. Through its engineer recruitment team, the British Gas Academy must therefore ensure that the company attracts and retains the best engineers. This involves several complementary tasks. It requires planning to assess the future needs for skilled employees at British Gas. It requires a recruitment and selection programme to bring new people into the business. It requires a training operation to equip new recruits and existing employees with the right skills. Retaining people Importantly, British Gas must also ensure that it retains its best people. It is much more cost effective to retain trained and highly skilled staff than recruit and train up new people. British Gas seeks to retain people by offering a mix of financial and non-financial benefits. As well as good pay and a pension scheme, the company provides employees with the opportunity to buy shares in Centrica and it offers a great place to work and high-class training. Page 3:  Training As an expanding business, British Gas needed to increase its workforce to meet customer demand. At the end of 2002, British Gas established the British Gas Academy. The Academy has helped to develop and refocus training facilities to handle the extra training requirement in recruiting an additional 5,000 employees into the engineering workforce. * British Gas runs an intensive apprenticeship programme. This is delivered in training centres. Trainees should expect to qualify by year five. All domestic gas engineers become fully acquainted with the latest computer-aided diagnostic technology. There are also traineeships, which provide a way for new recruits to learn about the gas industry and gain relevant skills and qualifications. British Gas provides technical training for all its engineers throughout their careers. This ensures that its employees are kept up-to-date with new information and technologies to enable them to provide the best service possible. Training does not simply focus on technical skills and knowledge. Most employees have direct contact with customers, so it is important that they have good people skills. Awareness training is provided for employees across British Gas through an online learning package. Another programme is improving staff†s cultural awareness, particularly to support the growing international operations at British Gas. Page 4:  Workforce planning Workforce planning is the process of assessing a company†s current and future labour needs. The British Gas Academies must consider not just overall employee numbers but also the skills that will be required within the business. Workforce planning also involves managing any training and recruitment process to ensure the organisation has the right staff in place. Managers at British Gas conduct a programme of forecasting to predict how much the UK market for domestic gas engineering services will grow. This helps the company decide how many additional engineers it will need in the future. British Gas makes detailed forecasts of its demand for engineering personnel for one year in advance and makes more general estimates for a further two years into the future. Factors affecting workforce planning At British Gas, workforce requirements are driven by two different demands. First, there are contract customers that have service agreements with the company. Second, there are customers who call for one-off assistance if they have a specific problem. Demand for both these services has grown. In the last three or four years, the need for engineers has expanded accordingly. This has meant that it has had to recruit more staff. There are several other factors that influence workforce planning for British Gas. Engineering skills need to be constantly updated. Health and safety issues are also critically important in the gas industry. Health and safety regulations are changing all the time and EU regulations must also be considered. Apart from regular formal training to close skills gaps to ensure engineers stay up to date with technical matters, British Gas can alert engineers about technical changes via field radio or text messaging. Engineers can work all their careers in the field until they retire. Qualified engineers may spend up to 10 years gaining their skills, qualifications and experience. They have valued practical skills that are needed to deal with equipment and customers. However, British Gas also needs suitable people for promotion to higher roles, such as management jobs. It needs managers to plan, organise and co-ordinate the teams of engineers. It therefore needs to attract and recruit a wide range of people into the organisation. Page 5:  Recruitment As part of its workforce planning, British Gas implements a diversity and inclusion strategy using tailored action plans. This means it actively seeks new recruits from a wide range of backgrounds. The need to recruit a diverse engineering workforce is seen as critical by British Gas. It plans recruitment to ensure it has a socially inclusive workforce. This is important as it will enable British Gas to reflect the diversity of its customer base. For example, it is useful to have employees from different nationalities and backgrounds to communicate with customers that do not speak English as a first language. Recruiting more women engineers may help to attract female customers. British Gas has won a national award from the Council for Registered Gas Installers (CORGI) for its efforts to encourage and attract women into the engineering workforce and into plumbing and associated trades. To dispel the myth that only men can be good engineers, British Gas runs a Georgina and the Dragon campaign for children. What British Gas recruitment programmes  have achieved  is demonstrated by various awards during 2009: * British Gas  won awards from the Local Employment Partnership in the East Midlands. The awards for â€Å"Unlocking Talent†Ã‚  and the  Ã¢â‚¬Å"Outstanding LEP Achievement Award†Ã‚  recognise  the companys recruitment work with the LEP and Jobcentre Plus in the region. * British Gas has been named in the 2009  Sunday Timess 20 Best Big Companies to Work For. * The British Gas Academy won an award from Women into Science and Engineering (WISE). The award Investor in WISE   rewarded the efforts British Gas makes  to promote science,  engineering and construction  to girls and young women. Advertising British Gas tries to appeal to a varied and diverse audience when promoting its apprenticeships. To advertise opportunities widely, British Gas uses specialist Sky channels like Parliamentary Projects TV, which focuses on careers, and Passion TV, which is aimed at the black community. In print media, it uses womens magazines, publications targeted at ethnic minorities such as The Muslim Weekly as well as other careers directories for the same reason. Other channels include radio, newspapers,  British Gas website  (www. britishgasacademy. co. uk) and a DVD for schools. Recruiting gas engineers of the right level is important. Candidates for a British Gas apprenticeship must be at least 16 years old, and have a minimum of four GCSEs at grade C or above or equivalent (e. g. NVQs). However, they need more than academic qualifications, they must be able to show some aptitude for customer service, such as being able to listen to customers and understand their requirements. Application British Gas uses an online application form. To help British Gas decide an applicants suitability, this includes a value-based questionnaire. This requires responses to a series of statements about attitudes to work. There are 90 statements in all, and an applicants overall responses are rated green, amber or red. The colour reflects the attitudes the applicant has about work and people. This helps to show which roles a person is best suited to. British Gas does not take applicants with red ratings further as they may not show a fit with the company requirements. However after an initial screening, green and amber applicants are invited to an interview and assessment centre for the final selection process. Here, candidates must show evidence of qualifications, ID and driving licence. Page 6:  Selection At the British Gas assessment centre the emphasis is very much upon core competencies and life skills. Life skills are personal skills that are likely to affect the customer experience when someone is working in the field. British Gas engineers needs to show courtesy and politeness, for example. These are personal qualities that have a direct impact upon customer perception. Core competencies involve team working, interpersonal skills (such as dealing with people), motivation and responding to change. These are crucial skills that can affect the way an individual fits in and works within an organisation. Candidates attend the centre for a half-day assessment. This has three elements. The total scores from the three-part assessment help British Gas to decide who receives a job offer. Candidates are notified of the outcome within 14 days. All candidates can receive feedback. For those candidates offered a job, British Gas provides the usual job benefits including a van from the outset and a competitive starting salary. The new recruits then go on to benefit from the comprehensive programme of training through its Academy. This ensures that they are given the best start in their new careers. It also builds employee motivation and commitment to the company. Recruiting and selecting staff is an expensive process. By following a robust selection programme in this way, British Gas is able to ensure it gets the right people with the right skills. It also means it maximises the benefit from its investment. Page 7:  Conclusion Recruitment and selection at British Gas is driven by the need to maintain the competitive position of the company within the energy market. Domestic gas customers demand the very highest standards of service. They can be assured that British Gas engineers have high-level skills and expertise through its careful specification of entry qualifications followed by top quality training. British Gas also assesses the personal attributes of staff through role play and questionnaires as these influence customers perceptions of the service and the company. Great care is taken in determining the organisations future staffing needs. This drives the recruitment and selection process to ensure British Gas is seen as offering dynamic and exciting career paths for people of all backgrounds. By developing and nurturing its people, British Gas ensures that new recruits have the right qualities to help the business to compete.

Essay to Howard University Personal Statement Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Essay to Howard University - Personal Statement Example In my opinion, medical laboratory science provides this opportunity to strike the best balance thus validating my eagerness to be a medical laboratory practitioner. I have served as a laboratory assistant where setting up the experiments is a core duty. The skills obtained have led to a vast knowledge in microscopic practices and experiments. Out of school, I engage in activities like drawing and hospital-based voluntary services. These activities motivate my interests and allow me to think in a broader perspective. They also expand my thoughts needed in a medical field leading for diversity in ideas. The community service helps me to interact with people thus improving my communication skills, which assists in modeling a trustworthy and reliable person. Both my school and out of school activities have had a gradual impact in the improvement of time management skills, which I believe is a fundamental requirement for medical laboratory science study. The personal desire to interact with other people to understand their ideas and experiences has originality from medical setup. My exposure to medical laboratory environment gives a fascinating advantage for career enhancement. Having spent some good time in a medical setting, I have had a chance to interact with various professionals in the medical laboratory. I am also an independent individual with precise, observant and good problem-solving skills, which serve as a booster for a successful career in the rapidly growing medical laboratory field of profession. I am informed of the excellent Howard University reputation through research and personal conversation with some of the alumni. This has concisely served in deepening my interest in the choice of your prestigious University for my career advancement. In addition to excellent university setup, the presence of the medical laboratory tools in Howard University will equip me with the best experimental practice to

Indian religion Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

Indian religion - Essay Example Especially the Indian women always try to preserve their practice in a pure Indian traditional way. Indian women have very important role in maintain puja which Hindus name it as Dharma (University of California). In Indian religion Rajput women are famous when it is about regular religious practices especially â€Å"home puja†. Rajput women main objective is to become a good wife, a wife which is protector of her husband, as this is one major religious consideration which Indian women maintain specifically. In Indian religion especially in Hinduism women maintain entail fasting, which is to gain Shiv’s blessing. This is weekly activity which unmarried women perform to attain a holy partner under the blessing of Shiv. This is also maintained by married women to serve their husbands in pious manner. A special fasting is maintained on Monday, which is an important religious day in Hinduism consideration (University of California). University of California. "Religion and Protection." 2004. www.publishing.cdlib.org. 26 September 2012

Early Ages Essay Example for Free

Early Ages Essay The Middle Ages is a catchall phrase often used by historians alluding to the thousands of years between the fall of the Roman Empire and the period of discovery and reawakening. The term Middle Ages was coined during the period that followed it, which was the Renaissance (Roseinwein, 2008). Since people from the Renaissance period thought of themselves as â€Å"advanced and civilized,† they deemed the time between them and the earlier world as the â€Å"Middle Age† (2008). The term derived from the Latin medium, which means middle and aevium, referring to age (2008). The Early Middle Ages, which occurred from 5th – 8th centuries, was dominated by Christianity which eventually became the rationale for uniting Europe culturally and linguistically (Herrin, 2002, p. 609). It was also a period marked by distinctions of social classes- the noble, the peasants and the clergy, with peasants populating more (Kamien, 1998, p. 62). This was the reason by medieval society was often described as a period with lack of food supply, poor agriculture, and poor economic conditions (p. 612). As aforementioned, the Early Middle Ages brought forth the importance of religion, specifically that of the Roman Catholic Church. It was during this time when the Holy Roman Empire was established. . One outstanding work from this period and perhaps had the earliest record was medieval music, particularly the Gregorian chant. The Gregorian chant was the official music of the Roman Catholic Church (Kamien, 1998, p. 65). Although the Gregorian chant was named in honor of Pope Gregory I, it was said that the pope was in fact not its creator (p. 65). Historians accounted the existence of Gregorian account or what they believed was its evolution to psalm singing in Jewish synagogues in the first centuries after Christ (p. 65). However the case may be, Pope Gregory could still be held responsible for the popularity of the Gregorian chant. The Gregorian chant is actually a body of unaccompanied vocal music. It was meant to set the mood for certain religious services (Kamien, 1998, p. 65). Set in Latin, Gregorian chants swept the music of the Early Middle Ages. Gregorian chant is like no other music for has no meter nor regular rhythms (p. 65). However, it is this distinct characteristic that makes the Gregorian chant a somewhat free-flowing disposition. Listening to a Gregorian melody invokes serenity, as if disengaging the listener from any anxieties. It is considered monophonic since it is music for one line and is sung in unison. It is said that there are only few names of Gregorian chant composers. This is because composers did not think of themselves as composers but as conduits of the voice of God. One of the most known contributors of the Gregorian chant was Hildegard (p. 68). A nun, Hildegard composed O Successores (You Successors), a chant intended to give praise to the â€Å"holy confessors who are successors of Christ† (p. 68). In the period that followed the Middle Ages, the Renaissance, the predominant sound continued to be unaccompanied vocal music. However, the dawn of the Baroque period saw the musical style embracing the use of musical instruments like the harpsichord, violin and viola (Kamien, 1998, p. 104). Likewise, the melody has become wider instead of the narrow range that accompanied the Gregorian chant. While the Renaissance period still had Mass music, the Baroque period ushered in opera, sonata and concertos (pp. 100-115). Church music, especially the Lutheran service, was called a church cantata (p. 129). Whereas the Middle Ages was limited to the culture of the Church, the succeeding periods created new attitudes- that of showing that people have the capacity to create and shape their world instead of merely serving as conduits. The Gregorian chants, which was passed on by oral traditions, ebbed away slowly until a 1994 release of ‘Chant† by the Benedictine monks of Santo Domingo de Silos. This made Gregorian chant popular again due its similarity with New Age Music- smooth, uniform and non confrontational. The Early Middle Ages may have focused on sublime spirituality but the beauty of it has emanated throughout the centuries. Listen to a church hymn and feel how it has evolved from a simple, monophonic music to the finely crafted yet polyphonic texture of today. References Herrin, J. E. (2002). Early Middle Ages. In The new encyclopedia Britannica (Vol. 16, pp. 609-612) USA: Encyclopedia Britannica, Inc. Kamien, R. (1998). Music an appreciation 3rd ed. USA: McGraw-Hill. Rosenwein, B. (2008). Middle Ages. Retrieved February 5, 2009, from Microsoft Encarta Web site: http://encarta. msn. com/text_761578474___0/Middle_Ages. html

Trumans Domestic Policy :: American America History

Truman's Domestic Policy Despite strong opposition from a Republican congress, Truman attempted to extend Roosevelt's New Deal policies by strengthening social security, conservation, implementing rent controls, and providing housing to low-income families. At times, however, Truman was inconsistent with his own party's beliefs and the ideal of the New Deal in order to suit the immediate situation and retain public support. Furthermore, Truman supported civil rights actions and for the first time, increased the political status of African American citizens. Truman's various other reforms were much like the proposals of Roosevelt, but the mood of the nation due to its affluence and that of Congress opposed his efforts and the changing times proved that Truman's Fair Deal was not as necessary as FDR's New Deal. Truman's organized policy to elaborate on the New Deal was termed the Fair Deal and aimed to improve social conditions like Roosevelt's plan had done previously. His immediate goals were full employment and an improved economy, as well as to provide for the common good. The Fair Labor Standards Act increased the minimum wage from 40 cents to 75 cents and the Social Security Act increased benefits to the elderly by 77.5%. Also, to the advantage of those who lived in rented homes and apartments, Truman lengthened rent controls to March 1951, and in addition, the Housing Act vowed to eliminate slums and established 810,000 low-income houses, thus providing a good amount of citizens with affordable housing. The president also implemented the Employment Act in 1946 to help stabilize the postwar economy. The act created a three member council of economic advisors and a joint committee to study and propose stabilization measures. Moreover, Truman attempted to establish a Missouri Valley Aut hority while extending the power of the Tennessee Valley authority, but was unsuccessful. However, the president did obtain increases in hydroelectric, water control, and irrigation projects in the west. Like Roosevelt, Truman was concerned about the welfare of farmers and encouraged the Brennan Plan to maintain farm income standards through price supports, loans, and storage of nonperishable commodities. Although the plan failed , the Agriculture Act of October, 1949 continued price supports at 90% parity through 1950 and then at 75-90% afterwards. This act was consistent with New Deal farm policy. Truman made other New Dealish attempts, like National Health Insurance and federal aid to education, but both were defeated with the help of protests by interest groups, namely the American Medical Association and the Roman Catholic Church.