Wuthering Heights and The Color Purple Essay Example

Wuthering Heights and The Color Purple Essay Example Wuthering Heights and The Color Purple Essay Wuthering Heights and The Color Purple Essay you black, you pore, you ugly, you a woman. Goddam, you nothing at all. Each word here is delivered as an insult, growing in intensity, the crowning insult being that she is a woman. That is how black woman where treated. Men at those times wanted woman to be like their slaves, and this is reflected on Harpo, Mr-s son when he tries to make Sophia, his wife, mind by beating her. The funny part is that Sofia is much stronger than him and wins most of the fights. In this novel outsiders are often treated badly because of false impressions or false ideas on them. For example when Shug Avery became sick nobody in this town wants to take the Queen Honeybee in. Everyone is afraid of her because they believe that Shug has the nasty woman disease. This false statement was lead to be believed because everyone believed that Shug was a slut, hussy, heifer and streetcleaner. But still in the meantime the men love Shug because of her singing, but could not dare to take in a social outsider when she wanted help fearing of the shame that will fall on their family if they did. Again Celie is an outsider in her new home. She spent her wedding day running from the oldest boy, who laid my [Celies] head open. She has a brutal wedding life, being constantly in torment from Mr. , until Shug saves her from him. Social outsider were often black, and if you where a woman it would be worse. Sofia was brutally abused in prison because she punched the mayor and because she was a black woman. No one cared about the insult she received from the mayors wife, ordering her to be her maid. Blacks were treated infernally even with Mr. . Mr. is in good terms with the Sheriff because his son Bub if often on prison. Still because Mr. is back he is has a lower status just long as Mr. know he colored. . Another example of black infernality is Mary Agnes. She is raped by the warden because she was black, and no one could do anything about it. Another example of outsider is the Olinka tribe in Africa. The white people living there treats the Olinka as if they where outsider from a different world. They stole their lands and killed many of the people there. Tashi did not want to marry Adam because she feared when she goes to America she will be treated infernally because she thinks she is an outsider to them, and that the scares on her face will be her source of embracement. Both novels put emphasis on economic independence. Both novels find love as a powerful force and end with conquering and banishing the idea of outsiders, and the remaining character live in harmony learning from the mistakes of the older generation about treating outsiders cruelly. However, a lasting impression of both novels is a vivid sense of the cruelty and injustice suffered by social outsiders.

Battle of Malvern Hill - Civil War Battle of Malvern Hill

Battle of Malvern Hill - Civil War Battle of Malvern Hill Battle of Malvern Hill: Date Conflict: The Battle of Malvern Hill was part of the Seven Days Battles and was fought July 1, 1862, during the American Civil War (1861-1865). Armies Commanders Union Major General George B. McClellanBrigadier General Fitz John Porter80,000 men Confederate General Robert E. Lee80,000 men Battle of Malvern Hill - Background: Beginning on June 25, 1862, Major General George B. McClellans Army of the Potomac was the subject of repeated assaults by Confederate forces under General Robert E. Lee. Falling back from the gates of Richmond, McClellan believed his army to be outnumbered and hastened to retreat to his secure supply base at Harrisons Landing where his army could shelter under the guns of the US Navy in the James River. Fighting an inconclusive action at Glendale (Fraysers Farm) on June 30, he was able to gain some breathing room for his continued withdrawal. Retreating south, the Army of the Potomac occupied a high, open plateau known as Malvern Hill on July 1. Featuring steep slopes on its southern, eastern, and western sides, the position was further protected by swampy terrain and Western Run to the east. The site had been selected the previous day by Brigadier General Fitz John Porter who commanded the Union V Corps. Riding ahead to Harrisons Landing, McClellan left Porter in command at Malvern Hill. Aware that Confederate forces would have to attack from the north, Porter formed a line facing in that direction (Map). Battle of Malvern Hill - The Union Position: Placing Brigadier General George Morells division from his corps on the far left, Porter placed the IV Corps division of Brigadier General Darius Couch to their right. The Union line was further extended to the right by the III Corps divisions of Brigadier General Philip Kearny and Joseph Hooker. These infantry formations were supported by the armys artillery under Colonel Henry Hunt. Possessing around 250 guns, he was able to emplace between 30 to 35 atop the hill at any given point. The Union line was further supported by US Navy gunboats in the river to the south and additional troops on the hill. Battle of Malvern Hill - Lees Plan: To the north of the Union position, the hill sloped down across open space that extended from 800 yards to a mile until reaching the closest tree line. To assess the Union position, Lee met with several of his commanders. While Major General Daniel H. Hill felt that an attack was ill-advised, such an action was encouraged by Major General James Longstreet. Scouting the area, Lee and Longstreet identified two suitable artillery positions that they believed would bring the hill under crossfire and suppress the Union guns. With this done, an infantry assault could move forward. Deploying opposite the Union position, Major General Thomas Stonewall Jacksons command formed the Confederate left, with Hills division in the center astride the Willis Church and Carters Mill Roads. Major General John Magruders division was to form the Confederate right, however it was misled by its guides and was late in arriving. To support this flank, Lee also assigned Major General Benjamin Hugers division to the area as well. The attack was to be led by Brigadier General Lewis A. Armisteads brigade from Hugers Division which was assigned to move forward once the guns had weakened the enemy. Battle of Malvern Hill - A Bloody Debacle: Having devised the plan for the assault, Lee, who was ill, refrained from directing operations and instead delegated the actual fighting to his subordinates. His plan quickly began to unravel when the Confederate artillery, which was strung out back to Glendale, arrived on the field in piecemeal fashion. This was further compounded by confusing orders that were issued by his headquarters. Those Confederate guns that deployed as planned were met with fierce counter-battery fire from Hunts artillery. Firing from 1:00 to 2:30 PM, Hunts men unleashed a massive bombardment that crushed the Confederate artillery. The situation for the Confederates continued to worsen when Armisteads men advanced prematurely around 3:30 PM. This keyed the larger assault as planned with Magruder sending forward two brigades as well. Pushing up the hill, they were met by a maelstrom of case and canister shot from the Union guns as well as heavy fire from the enemy infantry. To aid this advance, Hill began sending troops forward, though refrained from a general advance. As a result, his several small attacks were easily turned back by the Union forces. As the afternoon pressed on, the Confederates continued their assaults with no success. Atop the hill, Porter and Hunt had the luxury of being able to rotate units and batteries as ammunition was expended. Later in the day, the Confederates began attacks towards the western side of the hill where the terrain worked to cover part of their approach. Though they advanced farther than the previous efforts, they too were turned back by the Union guns. The greatest threat came when men from Major General Lafayette McLaws division nearly reached the Union line. Rushing reinforcements to the scene, Porter was able to turn back the attack. Battle of Malvern Hill - Aftermath: As the sun began to set, the fighting died out. During the course of the battle, the Confederates sustained 5,355 casualties while Union forces incurred 3,214. On July 2, McClellan ordered the army to continue its retreat and shifted his men to the Berkeley and Westover Plantations near Harrisons Landing. In assessing the fighting at Malvern Hill, Hill famously commented that: It was not war. It was murder. Though he followed the withdrawing Union troops, Lee was unable to inflict any additional damage. Ensconced in a strong position and backed by the US Navys guns, McClellan began a steady stream of requests for reinforcements. Ultimately deciding that the timid Union commander posed little additional threat to Richmond, Lee began dispatching men north to begin what would become the Second Manassas Campaign. Selected Sources History of War: Battle of Malvern HillBlue Gray Trail: Battle of Malvern HillCWPT: Battle of  Malvern Hill

Theories of knowledge and different purposes of the curriculum Essay

Theories of knowledge and different purposes of the curriculum - Essay Example Epistemology, the theory of knowledge, has traditionally competed for the primary role in philosophical inquiry. Sometimes epistemology has won, and sometimes metapysics, depending on the methodological and substantiative presuppositions of the philosopher. The epistemologist asks what we know. Some philosophers have begun with an account of the nature of reality and then appended a theory of knowledge to account for how we know that reality. Plato, for example, reached the metaphysical conclusion that abstract entities, or forms, such as triangularity or justice, are real and all else is mere appearance. He also held that the, real is knowable, and he inquired into how we might know this reality. Aristotle, on the contrary, held that individual substances, such as individual statues or animals, are real, and inquired as to how we might have knowledge, especially general knowledge, concerning these substances. It is hardly surprising that Plato and Aristotle produced vastly different theories of knowledge when they conceived of the objects of knowledge in such different ways. Their common approach, starting with metaphysics, we might refer to as metaphysical epistemology. Other philosophers, most notably Ren Descartes, turned tables on the metaphysical approach by insisting that we must first decide what we can know about what is real and must remain skeptical about what is real until we have discovered what we can know. It is refer as skeptical epistemology. However, there is also a problem with this approach. When one once enters the den of skepticism, an exit may be difficult to find. Seeking to discover what he knew by following the method of doubting all that he could, Descartes imagined a powerful demon bent on deceiving us and thus found demonic doubt. It remains controversial whether such doubt admits of relief by reason. It seems natural to begin with skepticism with the hope of discovering what we know and what we do not, but if we first pretend to total ignorance, we shall find no way to remove it. Moreover, we shall lack even the meager compensation of knowing that we ere ignorant, for that too is knowledge. To indicate the information sense of the word 'know' as being the one in question is quite different from analyzing the kind of knowledge we have picked out. What is an analysis of knowledge An analysis is always relative to some objective. It does not make any sense simply to demand the analysis of goodness, knowledge, beauty, or truth, without some indication of what purpose such an analysis is supposed to achieve. To demand the analysis of knowledge without specifying further what you hope to accomplish with it is like demanding blueprints without saying what you hope to build. Many philosophers have been interested in the task of analyzing the meaning of the word 'know' (A. J. Ayer 1955, 76). Indeed, many would argue that there is no need for philosophical analysis once we have a satisfactory analysis of the meaning of the term 'know'. This restrictive conception of philosophical analysis is sustained by a dilemma: either a theory of knowledge is a theory about the meaning of the word 'know' and semantically related epistemic terms, or it is a theory about how people come to know what they do. The latter is not part of philosophy

Entrepreneurship-Creating a Business Opportunity Assignment

Entrepreneurship-Creating a Business Opportunity - Assignment Example Finally, the study will be concluded with the managerial capabilities required to manage the business in the production of PVC chemical by the author of the study. Polyvinyl chloride also known as PVC is highly used for its application in the construction business and is manufactured by polymerization of vinyl chloride monomer, which is used in the reactor and then condensed from the reactor so that gases are emitted. The PVC production is one of the most profitable businesses and is regarded as a significant contributor in the economy. The importance of PVC production increases with the growth in the construction industry and is widely used for manufacture of plastics. The worldwide PVC production is one of the most important businesses in the world economy, which requires the manufacture of polyolefins polypropylene and polyethylene. These business products have a large number of market shares, which includes high quality processing and production of plastics in bulk quantity (Vox, 2008). My company is already proficient in manufacturing high quality PVC chemical in South Korea and has been distributing the chemical to major medium and large sized enterprise of South Korea. It plans to expand further in Mumbai due to its easy availability of manufacturing sub parts, raw materials, and machinery and varied other materials. The major objective of my company would be to introduce my chemical in the Mumbai markets through innovation capabilities. It would be ensured that the chemical product would be highly compatible with the operational facilities and also with business environment of Mumbai. The market potential for the PVC chemical in India is quite high and is required mainly for water supply, tube well and land drainage schemes. The corrugated pipes are ideal for the drainage system of Mumbai and the requirement

Analysing The Compatibility Of Islam And Democracy Politics Essay

Analysing The Compatibility Of Islam And Democracy Politics Essay This chapter presents the arguments for and against the compatibility of Islam and democracy, not to Islamic states specifically per se but more to Muslim-majority states as a whole. By doing so, it encompasses the wide range of arguments that scholars have made on the issue and shows clearly what makes it possible for Islam and democracy to be compatible and what does not. Taking these arguments into consideration, this chapter then puts it into context for Islamic states and analyzes if it is possible for them to be democratic without essentially loosing what makes it an Islamic state. The relationship between Islam and democracy, its compatibility and the issue of the democratic deficit in the Muslim world is one that has been put in the spotlight especially after the catastrophe and repercussions of September 11 (Hasan 2007: 10) as well as the sustained potency of Islamic revivalism and the rise in involvement of Islamic movements in electoral politics (Esposito Piscatori 1991: 428). Although not all hope is lost for the Muslim world as there are Muslim-majority states such as Indonesia and Turkey that are recognized as democracies, there is still the problem of the non-existence of democratic Islamic states and that the majority of the Muslim world remains undemocratic. The relationship that Islam and democracy have in the contemporary world and modern-day politics is one that is rather complicated (Esposito Voll 2001). There are many perspectives regarding the coexistence of Islam and democracy. On the one hand, many prominent Islamic intellectuals and groups argue that Islam and democracy are compatible (Esposito Voll 2001). On the other hand, there are others who see the democratization of Islam as a threat, that it may promote an even more virulent anti-Westernism view or others who see the two as inherently antithetical due to the different beliefs that the two promote (Espositio Piscatori 1991: 428). Esposito and Voll present the idea that the Muslim world is not ideological monolithic and therefore presents a broad spectrum of perspectives ranging from the extremes of those who deny a connection between Islam and democracy to those who argue that Islam requires a democratic system (2001). In addition to this, they argue that there are pers pectives that lie in between the two extremes that consist of Muslims in Muslim-majority states who believe that Islam is a support for democracy despite the fact that their political system and governance is not overtly recognized as democratic (Esposito Voll 2001). Having laid out the range of different opinions and stances on the compatibility of Islam and democracy, it is important to note that this chapter will not deal with every single argument present in the ongoing debate of the relationship between Islam and democracy but rather focus on the main substantial points. Khan, in his book Islamic Democratic Discourse, identifies two main schools of thought of Islamic political theory. First there are the political Islamists who advocate the establishment of an Islamic state, an authoritarian and ideological entity whose central concepts are al-Hakimiyyah (the sovereignty of God) and Sharia (the law of God) (Khan 2006: 160). The second school of thought is that of liberal Muslims who advocate an Islamic democracy whose central themes are Shura (consultation) and Sahifat al Madinah (Constitutionalism a la the Compact of Medina) (Khan 2006: 160). It is significant to note that political Islamists do conceive the concept of Shura as a vital comp onent of their Islamic state, but for them consultative governance is not necessary for legitimacy, since legitimacy comes from the enforcement of the Sharia, regardless of the will of the people (Khan 2006: 160). For liberal Muslim scholars, on the other hand, Shura is a paramount and Sharia too must be arrived at through consultative processes and not taken as given (Khan 2006: 160). Therefore, it can be seen that political Islamists, according to Khan, do not see the need for democracy as the legitimacy democracy is meant to give to a states governance and politics is done through the implementation of the Sharia laws. El Fadl argues that for democracy to work inside the framework of Islam and its ideals, it must understand the centrality of Gods sovereignty in Islam and cannot eliminate the element of the Sharia laws as a whole but rather show how it respects and compliments it. However, El Fadls argument is not feasible as it is not possible to enforce Sharia without taking into consideration the will of the people because that already is considered undemocratic. Khan argues that the only way El Fadls Islamic state can be democratic is if the authority of those who interpret the Sharia are dismantled and interpreted by the people themselves (2006: 161). This in turn may jeopardize the quality of Islamic democracy within the state but according to Khan, it is a risk that should be taken for the sake of implementing democracy (2006: 161). Moving on to the second school of thought, liberal Muslims, who believe in an Islamic democracy centred on the ideals of Shura and the Constitution of Medina. Esposito and Picastori argue that Muslim interpretations of democracy build on the well-established concept of Shura (consultation), but place varying emphases on the extent to which the people are able to exercise this duty (1991: 434). They identify a perspective that claims that it is not only the notion of consultation that makes Islam intrinsically democratic, but it is also due to the concepts of ijthihad (independent reasoning) and ijma (consensus) (Esposito Picastori 1991: 434). The Constitution of Medina establishes the importance of consent and cooperation for governance and according to this compact Muslims and non-Muslims are equal citizens of the Islamic state, with identical rights and duties (Khan 2001). Khan argues that according to this constitution, which was the interpretation of the Quran by Prophet Muhamma d, the principles of equality, consensual governance and pluralism are integrated into the Islamic state (2001). He then goes on to point out the difference between Muhammads democratic and tolerant Islamic state to contemporary Muslims such as the Taliban, who interpret the Quran in a completely different and radical way (Khan 2001). Choudry backs up the liberal Muslim perspective by asserting that the fundamentals of democracy are present in Islam: Islam recognizes popular sovereignty, government is based on rule of law, political leaders are elected and accountable to the people and equality of citizens is ensure in the Quran itself (Choudry in Ehteshami 2004: 96). But if this were the case in all Muslim-majority countries, why are there so few democracies in the Muslim world? The answer is simple. Using Khans argument regarding the interpretation of the Quran, it can be argued that the compatibility of Islam and democracy depends on the interpretation of Islamic spiritual scriptures of the Quran by Muslims themselves. Khan argues along identical lines stating that all arguments that advocate Islamic democracies or the compatibility of Islam and democracy take the Quran as a revealed document, whose text is absolute but meanings are open to interpretations (2006: 158). This is a very important piece of informat ion as it highlights the fact that when the Quran is interpreted differently by different Muslims it would result in different understandings of what the Quran encompasses. This would explain why not all Muslim-majority states, Islamic states in particular, are similar in the extent to which Sharia law is implemented in aspects of governance, economics and everyday life. Additionally, Khan uses the theologian perspective to back up liberal Muslim scholars as theologians go to Islamic roots and identify and exemplify those elements that correspond to liberal democratic principles (2006: 158) thus specifically looking for democratic ideals present in Islam. In his book, The Islamic Roots of Democratic Pluralism, theologian Sachedina relies solely on Quranic sources and eschewing other socially constructed discourses, how Islam strongly advocates pluralism (Khan 2006: 158). However, just because Islam promotes pluralism, does not instantly make it democratic. Liberal Muslims and theologians make the mistake of being complacent with the fact that just one or two aspects of democracy are found in Islam, namely Shura and aspects of pluralism, hence automatically making Islam and democracy compatible. If this were the case, democracy would be more prevalent in the Muslim world. Maududi uses the theologian perspective when studying Islam as he also argues that whatever aspect of the Islamic ideology one may like to study, he must, first of all, go to the roots and look at the fundamental principles (1977: 119-120) emphasizing the importance of having to study Islam from the inside out and not just take it at face value. However, Maududi takes a step further than theologians and coins the idea of a theo-democracy, the mixture of theocracy and democracy in Islamic states (1977: 133). According to theo-democracy, God is equally sovereign as the people represented by an elected assembly that is controlled by religious leaders (Maududi in Lane Redissi 2004: 171). Nevertheless, this concept of theo-democracy, as argued by Lane and Redissi, does not fulfil the essential requirement of democracy as the legitimacy of the Mullahs is not derived from the people but from their insight into the Quran (2004: 171). Maududi himself points out that a democratic Islamic stat e would be a fallacy as the sovereignty of God and sovereignty of the people are mutually exclusive and that an Islamic democracy would be the antithesis of secular Western democracy (Maududi in Bukay 2007). The issue of sovereignty of God and the people is what distinguishes Islam and democracy. The two are completely different sets of ideals that cannot be combined together as only one can take precedence over the other, and when this is done, a country either is a democracy or an Islamic state. Going back to the concept of Shura, many scholars use this concept to show that Islam has similar values to those of democracy. Shura can be defined as the obligation for Muslims in managing their political affairs to engage in mutual consultation (Esposito Voll 2001). Lane and Redissi argue that the effort to find the missing link between Islam and modern democracy is focused upon the possibility of finding a link between the concept of consultation Shura and the key institutions of modern democracy the vote and the participation of the people in relation to the religious elite including the caliph (2004: 170). Ahmad uses the Islamist perspective to argue that the Quran allows Muslims to use Shura and the opportunity of Gods vicegerency to select a Muslim ruler based on the free will of the Muslim masses (2002) pointing out the democratic aspects of the Quran when it comes to choosing a ruler. However, it seems that despite the fact that Shura is the so-called democratic compone nt of Islam, majority of the Muslim world are not democratic thus proving that it is easy to correlate the two (Shura and democracy) as similar entities in theory but in practice, it is not enough to ensure a democratic Muslim-majority state, let alone an Islamic state. As Khan puts it: a democratic theory cannot just emerge by itself from a part of a verse (2006: 158). Apart from Khans two main schools of thought, there is another perspective where in which scholars believe that Islam and democracy are intrinsically incompatible. Sivan suggests that Islam has very little to offer in the realm of politics as after Muhammads death, political history was shaped by circumstances Islamic law had little to no say on constitutional matters (Sivan in Ehteshami 2004: 96). According to Sivan, Sharia does not stand a chance of being the superior law of the land when democracy is implemented thus implying that Islamic fundamentals of politics and democracy cannot coexist without one being more superior to the other thus determining whether a state is either Islamic or democratic, they cannot be both. Furthermore, Maududis argument supports that of Sivans as he claims that an Islamic democracy would be the antithesis of secular Western democracy (Maududi in Bukay 2007). Despite the fact that numerous Muslim activists have rejected the concept of democracy as a western import designed to destroy Islam and the Sharia, there are Muslim and non-Muslim scholars alike that strongly argue that there is no contradiction between Islam and democracy (Ehteshami 2004: 94). Ehteshami claims that Muslim teachings and practices of collective debate, consensus, accountability and transparency, if followed properly, will produce Muslim versions of democratic rule (2004: 94). Nevertheless, he argues that if Islam and democracy were to be seen as two different systems, one of the main differences between an Islamic state and a democracy is the sphere of sovereignty, where in a democratic society sovereignty lies with the people, and in an Islamic state it resides in God (2004: 94). Ahmad argues along the same lines as Ehteshami but uses the Islamist approach claiming that a fundamental difference between the Western and Islamist concept of democracy: the sovereignty o f the people vs. the sovereignty of God or the Shariah (2002). That being said, it is not possible to remove the sovereignty of God and the Sharia and move them to the sidelines of politics within an Islamic state with democracy at the top, because when that happens, an Islamic state is no longer an Islamic state for the reason that the core essence of it has been removed and replaced. When put in this context, it is not feasible for an Islamic state to be democratic. Bukay brings up an interesting argument in relation to the compatibility of Islam and democracy. He claims that some Western scholars maintain the Islamist argument that not only are parliamentary democracy and representative elections congruent with Sharia, but that Islam actually encourages democracy (Bukay 2007). Bukay identifies two ways in which these scholars maintain the above claims: either they twist definitions to make them fit the apparatuses of Islamic government terms such as democracy become relative or they bend the reality in Muslim countries to fit their theories (2007). He points out the phrases used by Esposito and his different co-authors such as democracy has many and varied meanings; every culture will mold an independent model of democratic government; and there can develop a religious democracy (Bukay 2007) proving his above statement true. Having exhausted all the prominent arguments in the general sphere of democracy and Muslim-majority countries, this chapter will now put these arguments into the context of Islamic states specifically. The arguments of political Islamists is one of the few realistic argument that keeps what essentially makes Islamic states Islamic as it does not disregard Sharia as unimportant or unnecessary when it comes to the governance of a Muslim country. Rather it argues the point that for democracy to work within an Islamic state, it is the responsibility of democracy to show that it encompasses Islamic ideals rather than the other way around. The liberal Muslim school of thought is also useful in finding the possibility of Islamic states being democratic as they argue from the point of view that the interpretation of the Quran is what is essential. However, no matter how evident it is in theory that there are possibilities of Islamic states becoming democratic, there is no denying that in pra ctice, not a single Islamic state exists. The non-existence of democratic Islamic states raises a number of important questions: Why are there no democratic Islamic states? Why is it possible for Indonesia and Turkey to be democratic but not Pakistan, Iran or Bahrain? Is Islam the sole, main reason why there are no democratic Islamic states? These questions will be answered in the next two chapters as the next chapter focus primarily on specific case studies of Islamic states, namely Pakistan, Iran, Yemen and Bahrain, where as the fourth chapter deals with democratic and semi-democratic Muslim-majority states, such as Indonesia, Turkey, Malaysia and Bangladesh.

Risk Management Failures of British Petroleum

BP is a British global energy company which is the third largest energy company and the fourth largest company in the world. As a multinational oil company, BP is the UK's largest corporation, with its headquarters in St James's, City of Westminster, London. BP America's headquarters is in the One Westlake Park in the Energy Corridor area of Houston, Texas; the company is among the largest private sector energy corporations in the world, and one of the six leaders.In order to project social responsibility and improve its image British Petroleum changed its name into BP in year 2000 with a logo of green and yellow sunflower patterns. Paradoxically the same company symbol is now under derision and the object of controversial attacks from environmentalists and damaging court cases. The company’s predicament further worsened when it was listed as one of the â€Å"ten worst corporations† during the year 2001 and 2006. In fact, BP and its competitors Royal Dutch-Shell were co nsidered by activists to be responsible with the threatening phenomenon of climate change.BP was warned before the oil pipeline leak happened in Alaska, but no action was made by the higher officials to mitigate its possible occurrence and reduce damages. In March 2005, BP's Texas City, Texas refinery, one of its largest refineries, exploded causing 15 deaths, injuring 180 people and forcing thousands of nearby residents to remain sheltered in their homes. A large column filled with hydrocarbon overflowed to form a vapor cloud, which ignited. The explosion caused all the casualties and substantial damage to the rest of the plant.The incident came as the culmination of a series of less serious accidents at the refinery, and the engineering problems were not addressed by the management. Maintenance and safety at the plant had been cut as a cost-saving measure, the responsibility ultimately resting with executives in London. The fall-out from the accident continues to cloud BP's corpor ate image because of the mismanagement at the plant. There have been several investigations of the disaster, the most recent being that from the U. S. Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board which offered a derisive evaluation of the company.The US Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) found organizational and safety deficiencies at all levels of the BP Corporation and said management failures could be traced from Texas to London. The company pleaded guilty to a felony violation of the Clean Air Act, was fined $50 million, and sentenced to three years probation. On October 30, 2009, OSHA fined BP an additional $87 million— the largest fine in OSHA history— for failing to correct safety hazards revealed in the 2005 explosion. Inspectors found 270 safety violations that had been previously cited but not fixed and 439 new violations.BP is appealing that fine. In August 2006, BP shut down oil operations in Prudhoe Bay, Alaska, due to corrosion in pipe lines leading up to the Alaska Pipeline. The wells were leaking insulating agent called Arctic pack, consisting of crude oil and diesel fuel, between the wells and ice. BP had spilled over one million liters of oil in Alaska's North Slope. This corrosion is caused by sediment collecting in the bottom of the pipe, protecting corrosive bacteria from chemicals sent through the pipeline to fight this bacteria.There are estimates that about 5000 barrels (790 m3) of oil were released from the pipeline. To date 1513 barrels (240. 5 m3) of liquids, about 5200 cubic yards (4000 m3) of soiled snow and 328 cubic yards (251 m3) of soiled gravel have been recovered. After approval from the DOT, only the eastern portion of the field was shut down, resulting in a reduction of 200000 barrels per day (32000 m3/d) until work began to bring the eastern field to full production on 2 October 2006.In May 2007, the company announced another partial field shutdown owing to leaks of water at a separation pl ant. Their action was interpreted as another example of fallout from a decision to cut maintenance of the pipeline and associated facilities. On 16 October 2007 Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation officials reported a toxic spill of methanol (methyl alcohol) at the Prudhoe Bay oil field managed by BP PLC. Nearly 2,000 gallons of mostly methanol, mixed with some crude oil and water, spilled onto a frozen tundra pond as well as a gravel pad from a pipeline.Methanol, which is poisonous to plants and animals, is used to clear ice from the insides of the Arctic-based pipelines. From January 2006 to January 2008, three workers were killed at the company's Texas City, Texas refinery in three separate accidents. In July 2006 a worker was crushed between a pipe stack and mechanical lift, in June 2007, a worker was electrocuted, and in January 2008, a worker was killed by a 500-pound piece of metal that came loose under high pressure and hit him.On April 1 2009, a Bond Offshore He licopters Eurocopter AS332 Super Puma ferrying workers from BP's platform in the Miller oilfield in the North Sea off Scotland crashed in good weather killing all 16 on board. On April 20, 2010, a semi-submersible exploratory offshore drilling rig in the Gulf of Mexico exploded after a blowout and sank two days later, killing eleven people and causing a massive oil spill threatening the coast of Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Texas, and Florida. The rig is owned and operated by Transocean Ltd on behalf of BP, which is the majority owner of the oil field.The company originally estimated the size of the leak at about 1,000 barrels a day but later accepted government estimates of a leak of at least 5000 barrels per day. On April 30, BP stated that it would harness all of its resources to battle the oil spill, spending $7 million a day with its partners to try to contain the disaster. BP was running the well without a remote control shut-off switch used in two other major oil-producin g nations, Brazil and Norway, as a last resort protection against underwater spills. The use of such devices is not mandated by U.S. regulators. The U. S. Government gave the responsibility of the incident to BP and will hold it accountable for costs incurred in containing the situation. On May 11, 2010, Congress called the executives of BP, Transocean, and Halliburton to a hearing regarding the oil spill. When probed for answers regarding the events leading up to the explosion, each company blamed the other. BP blamed Transocean who owned the rig, who then blamed the operators of the rig, BP. They also blamed Halliburton, who built the well casing.Coming to analyze BP's risk management, it is noted first that BP organization employs the systems of centralized direction and decentralized implementation. The centralized direction system was designed to attain business goals and objectives. The company unifies the corporation by implementing strategic objectives, values, behaviors and standards to be performed and easily understood by their people. On the other hand the systematic objective of BP is decentralized implementation of its operations in order to deliver the best quality of products or services and satisfy the needs of the consumers.The decentralized implementation covered three business segments namely: Exploration and Production, The Gas, Power and Renewable and Refining and Market. As is well known, procedures and controls are a necessary condition for effective risk management, but not a sufficient one. A company’s standards and processes will fail if employees do not feel empowered to follow the standards during times of stress or they fear retaliation for reporting â€Å"unwanted† information. Reading the report of BP and other esources at my disposal I have found that how parts of BP’s culture may have tolerated shortened safety procedures as they fell behind investment schedules and other deadlines. For example, the compan y cut short a procedure involving drilling fluid that is designed to detect gas in the well and skipped a quality test of the cement around the pipe (another buffer against gas) despite BP’s report finding that there were signs of problems with the cement job and despite a warning from the cement contractor company.The experts also concluded that there was not a strong culture of communication across its own team leaders and partner companies. Having multiple players can restrict access to critical knowledge and slow decision-making processes to a dangerous point. Nor did there appear to be a culture where managers were expected to seek out or share contrary information from a different perspective. These cultural elements allowed issues to continue without the application of comprehensive expertise.It seems to be necessary adding more controls, more checks and balances, with auditable risk management processes new minimum standards, and increased self-audits. While some crit eria and thresholds did not exist prior to the accident, it is unclear whether the lack of these controls and audit mechanisms directly caused the accident itself Companies are not able to entirely shift operational or reputational risk to a partner, subcontractor, or supplier. Presumably, BP had in place significant and comprehensive controls and contractual requirements for its contractors and other service providers.However, questions remain about whether these contractual requirements were actually implemented, assessed, and monitored by BP. Anyway, risk management referred to in this paper are the activities related to managing an organization that integrates recognition of risk, risk assessment, developing strategies to manage it, and mitigation of risk using managerial resources. Its primary objective is to reduce the different risks related to threats caused by environment, technology, humans, organizations and politics.Firms usually formulate strategies in order to manage o r mitigate risk by transferring the risk to another party, avoiding the risk, reducing the negative effect of the risk, and accepting some or all of the consequences of a particular risk. BP must apply risk management in its corporate financing as the technique for measuring, monitoring and controlling the financial or operational risk on the firm. The commonly used framework breaks risks into market risk (price risk), credit risk and operational risk and also specifies methods for calculating capital requirements for each of these components.In enterprise risk management, a risk is defined as a possible event or circumstance that can have negative influences on the survival of a company. Its impact can be on the very existence, the resources (human and capital), the products and services, or the customers of the enterprise, as well as external impacts on society, markets, or the environment. In a financial institution, enterprise risk management is normally thought of as the combin ation of credit risk, interest rate risk or asset liability management, market risk, and operational risk.All risks can never be fully avoided or mitigated simply because of financial and practical limitations. Therefore all organizations have to accept some level of residual risks. In the case of BP, the following must also be undertaken in addition and consideration of those discussed above. Firstly, it is of major importance to planning how risk management will be conducted must be undertaken: in this regard the plan must include risk management tasks, responsibilities, activities and budget.Secondly, managers responsible for BP will assign a risk officer who will be responsible for foreseeing potential problems. In this respect, it is important also to maintain the risk database and each risk should have an opening date, a title, a brief description, a probability and a suggestion of importance. Once potential sources of risk have been identified, it will also need preparing a p lan for reducing the risk (mitigation plan) for risks that are chosen to be mitigated.In this regard, it is well known that the purpose of the mitigation plan is to describe how this particular risk will be handled what, when, by who and how will it be done to avoid it or minimize consequences if it becomes a liability. BP, in a perspective of reducing the risks described above in the long run as well as in order to optimize and reduce the resources used for that purpose, must eventually summarizing planned and faced risks, effectiveness of mitigation activities, and effort spent for the risk management. Risk Management Failures of British Petroleum BP is a British global energy company which is the third largest energy company and the fourth largest company in the world. As a multinational oil company, BP is the UK's largest corporation, with its headquarters in St James's, City of Westminster, London. BP America's headquarters is in the One Westlake Park in the Energy Corridor area of Houston, Texas; the company is among the largest private sector energy corporations in the world, and one of the six leaders.In order to project social responsibility and improve its image British Petroleum changed its name into BP in year 2000 with a logo of green and yellow sunflower patterns. Paradoxically the same company symbol is now under derision and the object of controversial attacks from environmentalists and damaging court cases. The company’s predicament further worsened when it was listed as one of the â€Å"ten worst corporations† during the year 2001 and 2006. In fact, BP and its competitors Royal Dutch-Shell were co nsidered by activists to be responsible with the threatening phenomenon of climate change.BP was warned before the oil pipeline leak happened in Alaska, but no action was made by the higher officials to mitigate its possible occurrence and reduce damages. In March 2005, BP's Texas City, Texas refinery, one of its largest refineries, exploded causing 15 deaths, injuring 180 people and forcing thousands of nearby residents to remain sheltered in their homes. A large column filled with hydrocarbon overflowed to form a vapor cloud, which ignited. The explosion caused all the casualties and substantial damage to the rest of the plant.The incident came as the culmination of a series of less serious accidents at the refinery, and the engineering problems were not addressed by the management. Maintenance and safety at the plant had been cut as a cost-saving measure, the responsibility ultimately resting with executives in London. The fall-out from the accident continues to cloud BP's corpor ate image because of the mismanagement at the plant. There have been several investigations of the disaster, the most recent being that from the U. S. Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board which offered a derisive evaluation of the company.The US Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) found organizational and safety deficiencies at all levels of the BP Corporation and said management failures could be traced from Texas to London. The company pleaded guilty to a felony violation of the Clean Air Act, was fined $50 million, and sentenced to three years probation. On October 30, 2009, OSHA fined BP an additional $87 million— the largest fine in OSHA history— for failing to correct safety hazards revealed in the 2005 explosion. Inspectors found 270 safety violations that had been previously cited but not fixed and 439 new violations.BP is appealing that fine. In August 2006, BP shut down oil operations in Prudhoe Bay, Alaska, due to corrosion in pipe lines leading up to the Alaska Pipeline. The wells were leaking insulating agent called Arctic pack, consisting of crude oil and diesel fuel, between the wells and ice. BP had spilled over one million liters of oil in Alaska's North Slope. This corrosion is caused by sediment collecting in the bottom of the pipe, protecting corrosive bacteria from chemicals sent through the pipeline to fight this bacteria.There are estimates that about 5000 barrels (790 m3) of oil were released from the pipeline. To date 1513 barrels (240. 5 m3) of liquids, about 5200 cubic yards (4000 m3) of soiled snow and 328 cubic yards (251 m3) of soiled gravel have been recovered. After approval from the DOT, only the eastern portion of the field was shut down, resulting in a reduction of 200000 barrels per day (32000 m3/d) until work began to bring the eastern field to full production on 2 October 2006.In May 2007, the company announced another partial field shutdown owing to leaks of water at a separation pl ant. Their action was interpreted as another example of fallout from a decision to cut maintenance of the pipeline and associated facilities. On 16 October 2007 Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation officials reported a toxic spill of methanol (methyl alcohol) at the Prudhoe Bay oil field managed by BP PLC. Nearly 2,000 gallons of mostly methanol, mixed with some crude oil and water, spilled onto a frozen tundra pond as well as a gravel pad from a pipeline.Methanol, which is poisonous to plants and animals, is used to clear ice from the insides of the Arctic-based pipelines. From January 2006 to January 2008, three workers were killed at the company's Texas City, Texas refinery in three separate accidents. In July 2006 a worker was crushed between a pipe stack and mechanical lift, in June 2007, a worker was electrocuted, and in January 2008, a worker was killed by a 500-pound piece of metal that came loose under high pressure and hit him.On April 1 2009, a Bond Offshore He licopters Eurocopter AS332 Super Puma ferrying workers from BP's platform in the Miller oilfield in the North Sea off Scotland crashed in good weather killing all 16 on board. On April 20, 2010, a semi-submersible exploratory offshore drilling rig in the Gulf of Mexico exploded after a blowout and sank two days later, killing eleven people and causing a massive oil spill threatening the coast of Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Texas, and Florida. The rig is owned and operated by Transocean Ltd on behalf of BP, which is the majority owner of the oil field.The company originally estimated the size of the leak at about 1,000 barrels a day but later accepted government estimates of a leak of at least 5000 barrels per day. On April 30, BP stated that it would harness all of its resources to battle the oil spill, spending $7 million a day with its partners to try to contain the disaster. BP was running the well without a remote control shut-off switch used in two other major oil-producin g nations, Brazil and Norway, as a last resort protection against underwater spills. The use of such devices is not mandated by U.S. regulators. The U. S. Government gave the responsibility of the incident to BP and will hold it accountable for costs incurred in containing the situation. On May 11, 2010, Congress called the executives of BP, Transocean, and Halliburton to a hearing regarding the oil spill. When probed for answers regarding the events leading up to the explosion, each company blamed the other. BP blamed Transocean who owned the rig, who then blamed the operators of the rig, BP. They also blamed Halliburton, who built the well casing.Coming to analyze BP's risk management, it is noted first that BP organization employs the systems of centralized direction and decentralized implementation. The centralized direction system was designed to attain business goals and objectives. The company unifies the corporation by implementing strategic objectives, values, behaviors and standards to be performed and easily understood by their people. On the other hand the systematic objective of BP is decentralized implementation of its operations in order to deliver the best quality of products or services and satisfy the needs of the consumers.The decentralized implementation covered three business segments namely: Exploration and Production, The Gas, Power and Renewable and Refining and Market. As is well known, procedures and controls are a necessary condition for effective risk management, but not a sufficient one. A company’s standards and processes will fail if employees do not feel empowered to follow the standards during times of stress or they fear retaliation for reporting â€Å"unwanted† information. Reading the report of BP and other esources at my disposal I have found that how parts of BP’s culture may have tolerated shortened safety procedures as they fell behind investment schedules and other deadlines. For example, the compan y cut short a procedure involving drilling fluid that is designed to detect gas in the well and skipped a quality test of the cement around the pipe (another buffer against gas) despite BP’s report finding that there were signs of problems with the cement job and despite a warning from the cement contractor company.The experts also concluded that there was not a strong culture of communication across its own team leaders and partner companies. Having multiple players can restrict access to critical knowledge and slow decision-making processes to a dangerous point. Nor did there appear to be a culture where managers were expected to seek out or share contrary information from a different perspective. These cultural elements allowed issues to continue without the application of comprehensive expertise.It seems to be necessary adding more controls, more checks and balances, with auditable risk management processes new minimum standards, and increased self-audits. While some crit eria and thresholds did not exist prior to the accident, it is unclear whether the lack of these controls and audit mechanisms directly caused the accident itself Companies are not able to entirely shift operational or reputational risk to a partner, subcontractor, or supplier. Presumably, BP had in place significant and comprehensive controls and contractual requirements for its contractors and other service providers.However, questions remain about whether these contractual requirements were actually implemented, assessed, and monitored by BP. Anyway, risk management referred to in this paper are the activities related to managing an organization that integrates recognition of risk, risk assessment, developing strategies to manage it, and mitigation of risk using managerial resources. Its primary objective is to reduce the different risks related to threats caused by environment, technology, humans, organizations and politics.Firms usually formulate strategies in order to manage o r mitigate risk by transferring the risk to another party, avoiding the risk, reducing the negative effect of the risk, and accepting some or all of the consequences of a particular risk. BP must apply risk management in its corporate financing as the technique for measuring, monitoring and controlling the financial or operational risk on the firm. The commonly used framework breaks risks into market risk (price risk), credit risk and operational risk and also specifies methods for calculating capital requirements for each of these components.In enterprise risk management, a risk is defined as a possible event or circumstance that can have negative influences on the survival of a company. Its impact can be on the very existence, the resources (human and capital), the products and services, or the customers of the enterprise, as well as external impacts on society, markets, or the environment. In a financial institution, enterprise risk management is normally thought of as the combin ation of credit risk, interest rate risk or asset liability management, market risk, and operational risk.All risks can never be fully avoided or mitigated simply because of financial and practical limitations. Therefore all organizations have to accept some level of residual risks. In the case of BP, the following must also be undertaken in addition and consideration of those discussed above. Firstly, it is of major importance to planning how risk management will be conducted must be undertaken: in this regard the plan must include risk management tasks, responsibilities, activities and budget.Secondly, managers responsible for BP will assign a risk officer who will be responsible for foreseeing potential problems. In this respect, it is important also to maintain the risk database and each risk should have an opening date, a title, a brief description, a probability and a suggestion of importance. Once potential sources of risk have been identified, it will also need preparing a p lan for reducing the risk (mitigation plan) for risks that are chosen to be mitigated.In this regard, it is well known that the purpose of the mitigation plan is to describe how this particular risk will be handled what, when, by who and how will it be done to avoid it or minimize consequences if it becomes a liability. BP, in a perspective of reducing the risks described above in the long run as well as in order to optimize and reduce the resources used for that purpose, must eventually summarizing planned and faced risks, effectiveness of mitigation activities, and effort spent for the risk management.

Victorian Societys Treatment of the Poor in Oliver Twist...

How does Charles Dickens expose Victorian societys awful treatment of the poor? In my essay I am going to talk about the way Charles Dickens uses Oliver Twist to expose the maltreatment of the poor, by analysing the text. In the early 19th century the industrial revolution started (the building of lots of factories and mills) which drew many countryside paupers into the towns. They hoped for a better life and job, but this was seldom the case because conditions were bad and wages were a pittance even if they were lucky enough to be employed. The owners of the factories got very rich and the workers were extremely poor. The desperately poor unemployed people were rounded up and put into an institution called the workhouse.†¦show more content†¦A bad attitude is directed at Oliver by the workhouse staff immediately. The surgeon thinks that its very likely that it will be troublesome and his solution for this would be to give it a little gruel This is not really very fair considering that Oliver has not yet had a chance to develop a character. Dickens also ridicules the clothes that Oliver was assigned. They are describe d as old and robes and to have grown yellow in the same service. This tells us that they have wrapped up many a child before which in turn tells us that the workhouse did things as cheaply as possible. Mrs Mann is the boss of the workhouse that Oliver was farmed to a little after his birth. When she sees Mr Bumble at the gate she realises that he wants to see Oliver because it is his 9th birthday today so she immediately reacts: Susan, take Oliver and them two brats upstairs and wash them directly She referrers to them as dear children when speaking to Bumble which is obviously not what she reallyShow MoreRelatedThe Upbringing Of Orphans By Charles Dickens And Jane Eyre1714 Words   |  7 Pagesupbringing of Orphans in a time of social injustice. The 19th century Victorian era contrasted of different social classes; the wealthy, the working and the poor classes, which led to the forms of social order in society. It also encompassed some of the most famous literary works that till today impact the lives of many, and leads readers to wonder about the injustices of the conditions of the orphans. 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