Strategy for lisntening and speaking Term Paper

Strategy for lisntening and speaking - Term Paper Example Regardless of the problems with speaking, role playing engages all the students to interact using the new language and to build better conversational skills. Role playing is known to raise learners’ interest in the subject matter (Poorman, 2002) and assist in helping students to understand the concepts that have been taught associated with the foreign language. The role of the teacher in building interest in the role play cannot be understated, and the theory indicates that the educator should be asking a series of questions to help students to loosen their barriers and to set the theme of the role play exercises (Valimareanu, 2010). New language learners often find embarrassment and personal dishonour when they believe that their peers or others in the social environment have misunderstood their second language or failed to comprehend what was being discussed. Through role play, the educator can reinforce that such misunderstandings are normal and serve as a moderator to help with the comprehension process whilst also offering strategies to help better construct conversational skills. ... The strategy for the educator is to first identify the specific objectives to enhance listening development (Richards, 2008). Known as the metacognitive sequence, there is a step known as First Listen in which students are engaged with the instructor who is reading a text in a new language. Students follow along in their own texts where they will circle keywords or specific phrases that they have predicted accurately and are instructed to write down new information that they have heard, but are unfamiliar with (Richards, 2008, p.13). This helps students not only listen more effectively, but understand their own expertise or inability to comprehend as a part of metacognitive thinking. After identifying the strengths and weaknesses related to listening skills, the teacher then promotes a total in-class discussion to look through their failure to comprehend or to confirm their accuracy. This also builds a better self-confidence over the long term. References Lorch, R.F., Lorch, E.P., & Klusewitz, M.A. (1993). College students’ conditional knowledge about reading. Journal of Educational Psychology, 85, 239-251. Poorman, P.B. (2002). Biography and role-playing: Fostering empathy in abnormal psychology. Teaching of Psychology, 29(1), 32-36. Richards, J.C. (2008). Teaching listening and speaking: From theory to practice. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Valimareanu, E. (2010). Speaking strategies: Developing communicative skills in English. Dynamics of Specialised Languages. Common European Framework of Reference for Foreign Languages: Communication Proficiencies in Teaching and Learning Specialised Languages, 98-113. Retrieved from

Traditions of Western Religion Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Traditions of Western Religion - Research Paper Example All the world’s major religions contain sects within it; some comingle with ease while others seem to share only mistrust and disdain. Much as Catholics and Protestants fought bloody battles for centuries, Sunni and Shiite Muslims are fighting territorial and political battles throughout the Middle East. This discussion will first address the similar history of all Muslims then the circumstances of the split. It will concentrate on Sunni, Shia, the Druze, a Shiite off-shoot belief and Wahhabism, a derivative of Sunni. The final section explores the contemporary conflicts of Islam’s two main sects. The central belief of all Muslims is that the Prophet Muhammad, who died in 632 AD, was Allah’s (Arabic for God) messenger. His revelations are recorded in the Qur’an and are followed by Muslims of all descriptions who also look to sayings of Muhammad, hadith, for inspiration and guidance. The concepts of justice, goodness and piety are essential to Islamic practices and belief system. Furthermore, all Muslims are directed to live their lives according to the five pillars of Islam: â€Å"(1) shahada—recital of the creed â€Å"There is no God but Allah, and Muhammad is His Prophet†; (2) salat—five obligatory prayers in a day; (3) zakat—giving alms to the poor; (4) sawm—fasting from sunrise to sunset during the month of Ramadan; and (5) hajj—making a pilgrimage to Mecca once during a lifetime if one is physically and financially able.† (Blanchard, 2009) The chief role of Muslim religious leaders is to interpret shari’a, or Islamic law. There are no strict codes or wording of laws such as westerners are accustomed. Rather, for both Shiite and Sunni Islam, shari’a allows for wider legal interpretations to fit the circumstance and greater flexibility for sentencing. The Sunni/Shiite split occurred near the begin nings of the Islamic religion. The main disagreement concerns the Prophet Muhammad’s successor and the type of leadership that would guide Muslim society. The long-standing and significant dispute centers on whether the leader(s) should be a direct descendant of the Prophet or could be a qualified, virtuous and devout person who would adhere to the customs of Islam. This issue was initially decided when Abu Bakr, a friend of the Prophet, was selected by community leaders to be the successor, or Caliph. While most Muslims accepted Bakr, a minority supported Ali ibn Abi Talib, a cousin of the Prophet’s and his son-in-law. Bakr was married to Fatima, the daughter of the Prophet. The term Shi’at Ali translates to â€Å"Ali’s helper.† Another important distinction that relates to modern times is the amount of reverence paid to the respective leaders of the two Islamic sects. Sunni Muslims give exalted status only to the prophets of the Quran and not to present day leaders. Shiites bestow imams with this lofty status. The Sunnis religious hierarchy is not adorned as elaborately, as highly esteemed and is not as politically powerful as the Shiite leadership. Because of this distinction, Sunnis tend to be more accommodating in permitting lay people to serve as spiritual leaders. Sunni religious leaders, as opposed to Shiites, have historically been subject to control by the state. Shiite leaders have enjoyed greater autonomy. (Blanchard, 2009) The Druze is a fairly populous yet little known yet sect of Islam because they want it that way. This mysterious group, numbering nearly one million in Syria alone, has endeavored for many centuries to shield their cultural lives from outsiders and keep their religious views secret. Druze prefers to live in isolation. They are

The Genius of Alexander the Great Book Review Essay Example for Free

The Genius of Alexander the Great Book Review Essay Alexander III of Macedon, widely known as Alexander the Great, is opinioned by some people to have been a ruthless man who only had a thirst for conquest , but according to others he was a man of intellect and â€Å"statesmanlike vision† (Hammond Preface). In N.G.L. Hammond’s book The Genius of Alexander the Great, as stated in the preface, he tries to refrain from writing based on his own opinion of Alexander, and instead analyzes the few surviving narratives on Alexander’s achievements in an unbiased manner. He portrays the conquests, struggles, and greatest achievements of Alexander’s career, such as the building of his empire that stretched from the eastern Mediterranean coast through Asia Minor and the Indus Valley (Hammond Preface). Hammond’s main goal is to evaluate the life of Alexander and to write an account of him which is as close to the true facts of his profession as one can achieve. Hammond claims that Alexander did more than any other individual to shape the history of civilization, which led to the title of his book. (Hammond preface) But what was it that made Alexander the Great so ‘great’? In the early years of his life, he wanted to achieve glory and excellence, and that dream stuck with him until his death. His ability to establish his positions and to forge an empire like no other led to the creation of his legendary name. Alexander overcame hardships, such as nationalism and racism, to build his kingdom using intellect and personality. Even at a young age he showed independence and courage when he tamed the wild stallion Bucephalus (Hammond 2). And that was only the beginning of him proving his worth and his leadership qualities. He was an admirable public speaker (Hammond 27), and he showed great amounts of courage and independence in his life time. At his first battle, the battle of the river Granicus, the Persians placed â€Å"their excellent cavalry 20,000 strong on the level ground facing the river and their 20,000 Greek mercenary infantry on the hillside above the level ground† (Hammond 65) as a defense mechanism that could not be turned on either side (Hammond 66). This battle proved his characteristic speed and courage when he formed a line for frontal attack which included Greek Calvary, Thracian cavalry, archers, Paeonian cavalry, the lancers, and the Hypaspists (Hammond 66) and attacked the Persians, prevailing due to his â€Å"strength, experience, and lances of cornelwood against javelines† (Hammond 67). He was a military genius, and it was because of this that he was victorious at that first battle. In Hammond’s opinion, Alexander’s â€Å"immediate grasp of the tactical situation, his coordination of all arms in a coordinated attack, and his ingenuity in combining the initial assault with the extension of his line upstream to the right were all brilliant† (Hammond 68). But how had he learned to become so ‘brilliant’ when it came to military? According to the text, he became educated in his military matters when he turned fourteen and attended the School of Royal Pages in 342 B.C.E. (Hammond 4). He took a four year course where he learned liberal arts, horsemanship, and basic subjects of school until he graduated on his eighteenth birthday (Hammond 5). It is because of this education that he received the start of his admirable career. Hammond provides multiple points in his book that show Alexander’s ‘greatness’, such as the Balkan campaign, where he broke through the Haemus Pass, crossed the Danube, and led his army through Wolf’s Pass without losing a single man (Hammond 39); the revolt and capture of Thebes, where his march into Thebes was â€Å"so swift that the Thebans did not know of his approach† (Hammond 44); and the battle of Gaugamela, where he defeated Darius III Codomannus and afterwards was acclaimed ‘King of Asia’ by the Macedonians (Hammond 110). During 340 B.C.E., Alexander commanded the Macedonian forces and defeated the Maedi in the Strymon Valley (Hammond 6). He captured their city and renamed it ‘Alexandropolis’. This was the beginning of his conquering and renaming of cities after himself, adding to his empire. He was liked by many people due to his great gift of friendship (Hammond 5), allowing him to become admired and respected as a leader. There were many events that lead to the death of Alexander, one including the passing of his best friend Hephaestion, which caused Alexander to fast and lay in grief for two days (Hammond 196). Before he died, he believed that if he gave thanks to the gods and prayed, they would hear his thoughts and grant him salvation. Because of this, he did not arrange a transition of power (Hammond 200). However, Alexander did not have the gods on his side as much as he thought he did because on June 10th, 323 B.C.E. he died at the age of thirty-two (Hammond 198). He had obtained a fever and later lost his power of speech (Hammond 197). Soldiers came into his room and â€Å"as the men filed past he was unable to speak but greeted them with his eyes† (Hammond 198). It was suggested that he died of malaria tropica, and other reports said he died of poisoning or alcoholism (Hammond 198). Nicolas Geoffrey Lemprià ¨re Hammond, otherwise known as N.G.L. Hammond, was a professor of Greek University of Cambridge (N.G.L. Hammond: Professor†¦). He was born on November 15th, 1907 and died March 21st, 2001 (N.G.L. Hammond Bio†¦). He has written multiple books including his first book A History of Greece to 322 B.C.E., Alexander the Great: King, Commander, and Statesman and a three-volume collection titled History of Macedonia. He attended Fettes College and Gonville and Caius College in Cambridge (N.G.L. Hammond Bio†¦). In 1954, he became headmaster at Clifton College, and in 1962 he was appointed professor of Greek at Bristol University (N.G.L. Hammond Bio†¦). He was mainly recognized for his writing of books on Alexander’s life until his retirement in 1973 (N.G.L. Hammond: Professor†¦). Hammond’s works cited page was limited to books only in English and included Vergina: the Royal Tombs and the Ancient City by M. Andronicos, Coquest and Empire: the Reign of Alexander the Great by A.B. Bosworth, Alexander the Great by R. Lane Fox, and Alexander the Great and the Greeks of Asia Minor by A.G. Heisserer. He incorporated many of the books he himself wrote, such as The Macedonian State. Many of his secondary sources came from London and Oxford. He also used ancient narratives that dated between three and five centuries after Alexander’s career (Hammond preface). Hammond used writings from Arrian, whom received his information from Ptolemy and Aristobulus. They campaigned with Alexander and were considered to be trustworthy sources according to Hammond (Hammond preface). Hammond also obtained information from Plutarch’s reports, but Plutarch relied on accounts of information from Cleitarchus, a contemporary, which were considered to be untrustworthy because his books contained many errors (Hammond preface). In his opening paragraph, Hammond used an excerpt from Marsyas Macedon’s book The Upbringing of Alexander. Macedon was a contemporary of Alexander and an eyewitness to Alexander’s taming of the horse Bucephalus. One of his sources, Coins of the Macedonians by M.J. Price, was found in a British museum from 1974, and all of his English sources were created throughout the 1900s. His book includes an appendix in the back which allows the reader to access certain points of information in the text in an efficient way. Hammond does not cite his sources within his text, nor does his book contain any footnotes. He also refrained from using full dates, leaving out B.C.E. and instead just writing dates such as â€Å"342.† The author achieved his goal of presenting the evidence that supported Alexander’s goals and exposing his success. In the beginning of the book, as stated in the preface and in the introduction of this paper, Hammond wrote that he wished to not use bias against Alexander, but instead analyze the narratives. In the book, it appeared that Hammond thought very highly of Alexander, as evident by the title of the book The Genius of Alexander the Great. According to Hammond, Alexander is a genius in the ways he built his empire and fought his battles. He often used the word ‘brilliant’ to describe Alexander’s actions, such as the â€Å"brilliant victory† against the Scythians (Hammond 146) and the way he set up his army to win the battle of the river Granicus stating it was â€Å"all brilliant† (Hammond 68). Hammond cites all his sources and provides a well written book filled with a great amount of detail and description on Alexander’s life, his battles, his teachings, what he learned, and how he overcame his biggest challenges. He plays out his text in a fashion that is understandable and interesting. He does not drone on about a certain subject, but stays right to the point. Hammond does not display his evidence in a chaotic and confusing manner, but instead exhibits the information in a consecutive way. The book begins with his childhood and ends with his death. He labels each section with a title. For example: The Campaign and the battle of Gaugamela (Hammond 103) and Coinage and culture in 336-335 (Hammond 53). There are also illustrations in the text available to the reader such as maps – map of the Alexander city at Ai Khanoum (Hammond 158), sculptures, paintings, and gold medallions. All his pictures are cited on their own citation page (Hammond xii). Hammond provides multiple examples of his text, giving great detail of the actions Alexander partook in. For example, the revolt of Thebes, The war at sea and the siege of Halicarnassus, The crossing of the Oxus, the Branchidae and the failure of Bessus (Hammond 44, 73, 140). Paul Cartledge is a fan of Alexander, which led him to compose the book Alexander the Great. He starts his book out by saying, â€Å"He [Alexander] is one of those very few genuinely iconic figures, who have both remade the world they knew and constantly inspire us to remake our own worlds, both personal and more global† (Cartledge preface). Both Hammond and Cartledge present Alexander as a legendary figure. Cartledge states that â€Å"Alexander was in various countries and at various times a hero . . . but he was most famous of all as a conqueror† (Cartledge 1). Hammond agrees with the statement that Alexander was a conqueror by depicting his many battles and many victories as ‘geniuses’. Norman F. Cantor, author of Alexander the Great: Journey to the End of the Earth, also writes Alexander to be a â€Å"great figure in the ancient world† (Cantor). Both these men believe Alexander’s conquests shaped the world in a positive manner. Like Hammond, Cantor wanted to only write a critical assessment of Alexander and his world (Cantor). To all three of these authors, Alexander deserved his title ‘Alexander the Great’ because he had â€Å"extraordinary achievements† (Cartlidge), was a â€Å"hero of antiquity [that] led an army of Macedonians and Greeks on a route through the Middle East and Central Asia† (Cantor), and had â€Å"intellectual brilliance and statesmanlike vision† (Hammond). In an article written by Brooke Allen titled â€Å"Alexander the Great – or the Terrible?†, Brooke states that â€Å"though he has gone down in history as ‘the Great,’ he might just as easily have been known as ‘the Terrible’† (Allen). Allen talks about how Alexander was known by the Europeans as â€Å"the best in the west† because he helped the spread of Hel lenic culture, but to the Asians he was â€Å"a dispenser of death and destruction† (Allen). While Hammond describes Alexander as a successful, brilliant conqueror, Allen brings insight into the dark sides of Alexander the Great. According to her, his destruction of Thebes, where he killed all the men and captured the women and children for slavery, was an â€Å"atrocity† (Allen). In Hammond’s book, when it came to the death of Alexander’s father Philip, Hammond made Alexander out to be a victim. Hammond wrote that there was more than one intended victim and that â€Å"Alexander would surely have been one† (Hammond 29). But in Allen’s article she writes â€Å"Many contemporary sources believed Alexander to have been, if not the author of the crime, at least complicit in it† (Allen). All the battles that Alexander won and the people he had to killed were classified by Hammond as great and powerful, but Allen talks about how these were crimes, such as his massacre of the Branchidae or his execution of the governor of Gaza Batis, where he tied him to a chariot and dragged him around the city’s walls until he was dead (Allen). But whether or not Alexander was a ‘great’ or a ‘terrible’ man depends on who is classifying him. To any student wanting to compose a review or essay on Alexander the Great, this is a highly recommended book. It has a copious amount of information on Alexander (i.e. his first battle, how and where he learned, his childhood, his adulthood, and his death). Alexander was not just a man who fought in battles; he was a legendary figure whose name can be found as the title of many books and articles. Although he died at the age of thirty-two (Hammond 198), he managed to do more in those thirty-two years than most people could in eighty. He is the only man to conqueror most of the known Western world and his name will continue to live on for many centuries to come. Works Cited Allen, Brook. â€Å"Alexander the Great—or the Terrible?† Hudson Review; (2005), Vol. 58 Issue 2, p220-230, 11. Cantor, Norman F. Alexander the Great: the Journey to the End of the Earth. HarperCollins Publishers, 2005. Print. Cartledge, Paul. Alexander the Great. The Overlook Press, Peter Mayer Publishers, Inc. 2004. Print. Hammond, N.G.L. The Genius of Alexander the Great. General Duckworth and Co. Ltd, 1997. Print. N.G.L. Hammond Bio. www.in.com. N.p., n.d. Web. 20 Nov 2012.

Enigma and Lorenz Machines Their Contribution to Computing

Enigma and Lorenz Machines Their Contribution to Computing The purpose of this report is to understand the working of cryptography by studying the working of Enigma and Lorentz machines which were used by Germans during World War II. The report will also discuss the effect of the invention of this machines on modern day cryptography. Cryptography has been helping humans to transmit information in secured way but the popularity of cryptography was limited to certain individuals and it was not used widely. During World War II the demand of cryptography increased which resulted in invention of Lorentz and Enigma machine by Germans. The encrypted information was important to Britains to gain an edge over the Germans war strategies, hence a research center was constructed in Britains to decode the encoded information. The report discusses the working of Enigma and Lorentz machine and the various methods adopted by Britains to decode the encoded information. The report will conclude by studying the effect of the creation of the encrypting and decrypting machines on the modern-day computing. Cryptography play an important role in humans daily interaction with technological devices, with the advent of computing devices and internet it has become extremely important to hide private information. We often wonder how we can transfer money through internet or by using ATM cards. The sensitive personal information such as bank details are transferred securely through internet which is available to everyone. This paper tracks the events which contributed to the development of modern day cryptography and discusses the development in the field of cryptanalysis. Cryptography is the science of secretly transferring information from one point to another so that the information is reliably transferred from one point to another, which is unintelligible to all receiver of information except the intended user. The aim of the cryptography is to prevent eavesdroppers from understanding the message. (A. Eskicioglu and L. Litwin, 2001) The human want of secrecy of information has resulted in the invention of cryptography. Ciphers were created to hide personal information. The need to securely transmit information has increase with the advent of modern communication. Confidential information such as Business plan, financial transaction which are send over internet needs to be transferred in a secured way. Since, internet is available to everyone it important to encrypt the information which is being transferred (Zwicke, 2003). The basic working of encryption can be divided into three parts: Encryption: Cryptography works by modifies the original information (termed plain text in cryptography) which is in readable form to encrypted form (termed ciphertext in cryptography) which is not easily interpreted by unauthorized person. The encryption process scrambles the plaintext by combining it with a key which is a random sequence of letters or numbers and produces ciphertext. Transmission Once the information is encrypted it is transferred to the intended user by various methods. For example, it could be transferred by writing it on paper or can be send via complicated modern wireless system. Decryption: After the information is received by the intended person the person tries to decode the information with a key. The key is unique and usually only the receiver has the key to decode the information (An introduction to cryptography, n.d.). 3.1 Stream cipher Stream cipher is an encryption algorithm which encrypts one bit of data in one cycle of its operation. The stream cipher uses infinite stream of pseudorandom bits of key to encrypt the plaintext. The robustness of the stream cipher depends on the algorithm which is used to produce the key. Since, repetition in the key can cause the stream cipher to be easily predicted and the encrypted text could be easily decrypted (Villanueva, 2015). The working of the stream cipher is explained below: As discussed above encryption works by combining the plain text Xi with key Si to produce ciphertext Ci . The combining process uses modulo 2 operation which is the modulus between the bits of the plaintext and ciphertext. We can denote this mathematically as Ci = Xi à ¢Ã…  Ã¢â‚¬ ¢ Si To decrypt the message the same key stream is used which was used for encrypting the message. Mathematically this can be stated as Xi = Ci à ¢Ã…  Ã¢â‚¬ ¢ Si   (C. Paar, J. Pelzl) The diagram below summarizes the entire process: Figure 1 Encryption and decryption with stream cipher. Reprinted from Understanding cryptography, by C. Paar, J. Pelzl, (n.d.), Retrieved from http://bit.ly/2mEit9i Copyright by Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2010 Enigma machine eliminated the human effort of encryption by automating the process of encryption. The use of enigma machine during World War II was done to secretly transmit the classified information to remote military units. The enigma was electro-mechanical machine which encoded the character stream to cypher text. The simplest version of the enigma machine had three motors which are interconnected with each other. It also has a plug board which is a board to interconnect letters to improve the encryption of the enigma machine. A keyboard was used to input the characters to be encoded by the machine. A light board was used to display the encrypted letter of the plaintext character. Figure 2 Enigma How the machine worked. Reprinted from The guardian website, by Hern, Alex, (2014, Nov 14), Retrieved from https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/nov/14/how-did-enigma-machine-work-imitation-game Copyright Simon Singh. 4.1  Working The working of enigma machine was simple. When the operator types the letter on keyboard electric signal is generated. The signal then passes through the plug board which substitutes the letter per the connection of the plug board. The signal then passes through the three rotors with internal wiring. This is where the actual encryption takes places. As mentioned above each motor consists of 26 steps of rotation before making one complete cycle. The arrangement of the three motors was such that when the first motor completes a full rotation the second motor would move by one step. The same step is applicable for third motor. After passing through the connection of motors the signal is then reflected and again passes thorough the plug board. After passing through the plug board the signal lights up the appropriate letter on the light board providing the encrypted letter of the plain text character. The Lorentz machine was developed by C. Lorentz in Berlin. In 1940s Germans saw the need to establish secured communication between German high command in Wà ¼nsdorf close to berlin and German army throughout Europe. With the invention of mechanical machine and electronic boards it became possible to build a machine capable of encrypting the message which was send to remote army. The Lorenz machine was used for sending tactical information (Smart, n.d.). Lorentz machine uses Lorentz cipher which was based on Baudot code. Lets discuss about the working of Baudot code. Baudot Code: It used five bit of data to encode characters. Baudot code was a standard means of communication via teleprinter. Since five bits were insufficient to represent all the characters on the keyboard. Hence the code was divided into two states called letter shifts and figures shifts. To toggle between the two states a control character was used, there were other characters which had special functions such as space. To understand the working of Baudot code lets take an example of encrypting the word Hello. The first step is to fill the Paper tape with holes and insert the paper tape into telegraph to send the message. To punch holes in the paper tape the position of the holes needs to be determined which was obtained from the Baudot code table. These holes were converted to bits and then transferred by teleprinter. Figure 3 The Baudot printing telegraphy system. Second Edition. Reprinted from Circuitousroot website, by Pendry, H, W. (1919) Retrieved from http://www.circuitousroot.com/artifice/telegraphy/tty/codes/ 5.1 Lorenz Cipher The Baudot code is taken as input by the Lorenz cipher. The Lorenz cipher consisted of 12 motors which are separated into 3 pairs. Each motor had different number of pins on it as shown in figure below: Figure 4 An Enigma machine rotor. Reprinted from Plus magazine website, by Ellis Claire. (2005, Mar 1). Picture retrieved from https://plus.maths.org/content/exploring-enigma Copyright by Simon Singh Each pin could store either 0 or 1 based on the configuration of the machine. The configuration of the machine (setting the starting position of each motor) was performed by the operator of the machine and the same configuration of the machine was used at the receiving end to decrypt the message. The Lorentz machine was divided into three pairs of motors as shown below: Figure 5 The internal working of the Lorentz cipher machine. Reprinted from the Rochester institute website, by Payne, Japnce. (n.d.), Retrieved from https://people.rit.edu/japnce/payne/images/rotorsall.png The three pair of motors are termed as K, M, and S. The description of each pair of motors is discussed below: K motors: These consist of 5 motors with following pin configuration K1=41, K2=31, K3=29, K4=26, K5=23. This set of motors shift by one pin for every character which was encoded. M motors: These consist of 2 motors with following pin configuration M1=61, M2=37. This set of motors shift by one pin for every character which was encoded. Further the output of the M motors decided whether the S motors should be rotated by one pin or should remain unchanged. S motors: These consist of 5 motors with following pin configuration S1=43, S2=47, S3=51, S4=53, S5=59. This set of motors shift by one pin based on the output of M motors. Working The 5 bits of the characters are first X-OR with the 5 bits of K motor. The output is then again X-OR with the 5 bits of S motors to get the cypher text. At the receiving end since the Lorentz cipher is a symmetric cipher, the same configuration is used to set up the Lorentz machine at receiving end and the encrypted message is decrypted. The mathematical formula of the encryption and decryption process is as follows: Suppose Message = M, Cipher text = C, Cypher = E M à ¢Ã…  Ã¢â‚¬ ¢ E = C (Encryption) C à ¢Ã…  Ã¢â‚¬ ¢ E = M (Decryption) (Smart, n.d.) Most of the technology that was in existence during World War II was like that which was used in World War I. The telegraph, which was type-printed using a typewriter was widely used commercially and by military personnel. In the late 1800s an Italian scientist, Guglielmo Marconi discovered the radio communication. However, it wasnt until the early 1900s that this technology was adopted for military purposes. It was the year 1914 and most major military powers of the world has started relying extensively on this technology but there was a problem there were no security mechanisms in place for a wireless signal to hide the messages being transmitted. The U.S. soon used a more sophisticated version of this technology as soon as Frequency Modulation was invented in 1920. Figure 6 Soldier during World War II using telegraphic switchboard Another important element of communication technology invented before and during the World War II was the RADAR technology. Developed by the U.S. navy for military use, these were signals sent in the microwave wavelength. It was an entirely new way of surveillance that enabled the allies to see in total darkness and find out about enemy ships in the distant sea or air.   Radar used small-short signals that were sent into a direction using an antenna. This would return the position and speed of an object which would serve as a critical early warning tool. Radar navigation implementation by the German bombers meant that the previous tactics of indiscriminate, area-based bombing was now replaced by more accurate precision targeting. Then there were the German fire control radars, Lichtenstein SN2 was mounted on top of airplanes and had an effective range of 2.5 miles. A methodology that had been in existence for a quite a while but was found of prime use during the World War II was Cryptography. Cryptography emerged as the saving grace to answer all questions about the immense need of secrecy. Cryptography had been in existence for over a thousand years but it wasnt until the early 19th century that mathematicians came together to build a machine that would be used for a very specific purpose send messages during times of war. During this period, Cypher machines were developed under extreme secrecy. These machines were of the mechanical and electromechanical kind. Out of the two, the later were developed by Germans into what they called the Enigma machine Allies and enemies developed and adopted the use of cryptographic communications of all sorts during this period. While Germans were focusing on techniques to build machines for encryption, the UK was busy trying to perform cryptanalysis on these machines. Numerous machines came out of Germany that used cryptography in its own unique way. FISH, as the UKs Bletchley Park codenamed them, were a series of German stream ciphers developed during the World War II era. The enigma in the early 1920s which was of the electro-mechanical sort that used a keyboard, rotors and a spindle to do the tricks. Another machine known as the Lorenz cipher was simultaneously developed as a form was a rotor stream cipher and started its use in military since 1941 in a SZ form. The tunny cipher as it was called was used for wireless telegraphy which eventually and unfortunately for the Germans, quite soon led to the interception of its messages. Poland came up with its own cryptographic machine called Bomba, which meant cryptographic bomb in Polish. While there is less information available about why it was named so, Bomba was a glorified Enigma machine in more ways than one. It was developed after the mathematician and its creator, Marian Rejewski studied by breaking apart an Enigma. Put simply, it was a multiple Enigma machine that used an electrical power aggregate of six Enigmas. Most countries like Poland, United States and the UK devoted their time and resources in cryptanalysis of these machines. Bletchley Park in England was extremely instrumental in bringing about a new era with the cryptanalysis or code breaking of messages that were being transmitted by the Germans during the World War II. The Lorenz machine was a stream cipher that encoded/streamed electrical pulses over a telephone line. The technique used was something we call XOR today which is an addition operation. A key property of XOR is that if one was to run the Ciphertext through the same key again, the original message could be found. The exploitation of this very concept of the Lorenz cipher led to its success cryptanalysis. One day after a 4000-letter message was sent out to Vienna, the sender who encodes the message received a response from the receiver asking to resend the message since they had not received the message. The sender reset the Lorenz machine and started to abbreviate a few words to make the process quicker. At this time, Bletchley Park had two copies of the same message and the prime mistake was that both were sent using the same key. The folks at Bletchley park were not just great mathematicians, but they also had an exceptional sense of awareness. They proceeded to add the two messages together, essentially cancelling out the keys. They were now left with two messages added together and then John Tiltman, an experience code breaker who not just able to figure out the message, but also figured out the key. John Tiltman gave this key to Bill Tutte, a young graduate from Cambridge who liked solving puzzles. He was able to out the length of the key by writing it down in rows with the aim to find out patterns. Bill Tutte found that the pattern of the wheel on the right had a period of 41. However, the pattern was not perfect and had an element of randomness which suggested that a wheel on the left was used that moved only sometimes. This information was enough for other mathematicians to jump onboard and fully figure out the Lorenz machine. The Enigma on the other hand had multiple variations in the structure of the machine throughout its useful life to be cracked at one go. The earlier versions of the Enigma were using a 3-rotor structure which was used as the main subject by the Polish Cipher Bureau. Marian Rejewski who worked for the bureau made significant developments in breaking the Enigma, without having much access to any of the official information about its inner workings. Rejewski developed a bomba machine in the process, this cryptanalysis machine was build using the observations Rejewski gathered that showed that the first three letters of a message were the same as the second three. Rejewskis method failed when in 1938 the Germans increased the rotors to include two additional ones. It was Alan Turing who developed a sophisticated Bombe that used statistics and the Bayes law for calculating the probability to narrow down on the number of possibilities. The bombe machines were also quickly updated to test the hypothesis. Figure 7 The British Bombe currently in display at the Bletchley Park Alan Turings Bombe was composed of drums which together simulated an enigma and each drum replicated the functioning of one rotor of the machine. The objective of the Turings bombe was to find out the key used by the Enigma, the starting position of the rotors and the steckers or plugs. The drums were designed to move from a set starting position every time. The movement was designed with the help of statistics and the Bayes law, hence the key space was greatly reduced thereby reducing the run time. Alan Turing has been regarded as one of the biggest contributors to defeating the German navy by helping the Allied Forced during the World War II. It is believed that the British employed 200 Bombes during the Second World War and collectively these Bombes decoded 4000 messages on any given day. The cryptanalysis of the Enigma is believed to have contributed to saving millions of lives and is identified as a prime reason why the war ended years before what it couldve lasted. Britains World War II codebreakers were centrally located at Bletchley Park, a code-breaking center run by the United Kingdom Government Code and Cypher School (GCCS). They primarily focused on deciphering German Enigma and Lorenz communications and producing Ultra intelligence (Hinsley, 1996). Ultra was the designation for high level encrypted Axis-power intelligence the codebreakers intercepted and decrypted (Hinsley, 1993). Ultra-intelligence generated by decrypted Enigma and Lorenz signals is credited with shortening the war, and without it the outcome of the war may have been different (Hinsley, 1996). The Enigma machine was the Germans primary encryption method during the war. Alan Turing, working at Bletchley Park in 1939, created the Bombe, which was an electromechanical machine used to decrypt Enigma ciphers (Smith, 2007). Gordon Welchman refined the Bombe in 1940 with a diagonal board, increasing the Bombes efficiency (Budiansky, 2000). Welchmans diagonal board addressed the plug board vulnerability in the Enigma. The Bombe was based on the Bomba, a Polish machine designed to break Enigma ciphers, which was created by Marian Rejewski (Kozaczuk, 1984). The creation of the functional Bombes led to Allies deciphering of Enigma signals. Beginning in 1940, Germany started developing more advanced machines that used the Lorenz cipher. The first was called the SZ40 machine, which was codenamed Tunny by the British codebreakers at Bletchley Park, and was followed by subsequent versions (SZ40A, SZ40B, and SZ42 (Copeland, 2006). These machines produced more complex ciphers than the Enigma, and were ultimately defeated by the 1+2 break in method created by Bill Tutte (Copeland, 2006). Multiple advanced decryption machines were designed to combat the Lorenz ciphers. First was the British Tunny Machine, which replicated the functions of the SZ40 machines. With the proper cam settings, it was able to produce clear text from cipher text that was input into it (Hinsley, 1993). Built on the Tunny machines, the Heath Robinson, or Robinsons, were created to automate the 1+2 break in (Copeland, 2006). They ran paper tapes to find the wheel settings of the Lorenz machine. Although they were functional, issues with keeping the paper tapes synchronized and slow processing speed limited their effectiveness (Copeland, 2006). Working on the Robinsons at Bletchley Park, Tommy Flowers was instrumental in the advancement of the Colossus computer. Colossus was capable of faster processing than the Robinsons due to processing electronically. This also allowed for only one paper tape, which did not have to be synchronized with another and could be run at a faster speed, around 5,000 characters per second (Copeland, 2006). Although the Colossus computer was created first, the American ENIAC was often credited for being the first electronic digital computer ever made. This was caused by Colossus being shrouded in secrecy after World War II. The term computer originally referred to a human operator who performed mathematical computations. As the need for more demanding and complex computations increased, a push for electronic or digital computing began (Copeland, 2006). Computers like Colossus and ENIAC were called program-controlled computers, in which programs each computer was to process were not stored in the computers memory they had to be manually programmed. For Colossus and ENIAC, this involved modifying wiring by hand using plugs and switches. Modern computers utilize a stored-program concept, in which the programs a computer runs are stored in that computers memory (Copeland, 2006). The concept of the modern computer started with Alan Turing in 1936. He described a universal computing machine, containing limitless memory that stored both data and programs. A scanner would process the data based on the selected program. The use of any program with the data allowed the computer to process any calculation a human could, making it universal. Being universal allowed the computer to switch from one task to another, as opposed to a completely different and unique machine needing to be created for each individual task (Copeland, 2006). Turings concept can be seen in modern computing today, where personal computers and mobile devices (smartphones, etcetera) store both data and programs, and can easily switch between different tasks based on the users needs. Programming to achieve a particular task is relatively simple in comparison installing a program in a modern computer is much less complex compared to rewiring something like the Colossus computer or creating a completely new machine entirely. As discussed, the Germans and Axis powers used Enigma and Lorenz ciphers heavily for their encrypted communications in World War II. The decryption of Enigma and Lorenz was key for the Allies and the development of Ultra intelligence, which likely shortened the war by years. In the end, the need for decrypting Enigma and Lorenz was the initial catalyst the eventually led to modern computing. Colossus, being the first electronic computer, spearheaded the push into the modern stored-program concept that computers and modern devices use today. Without this need for computing power, the world may well have progressed in a much different way. References Budiansky, S. (2000). Battle of Wits: The Complete Story of Codebreaking in World War II. Free Press: 1734. Cooper, S., Leeuwen, J. (2013). Alan Turing: His Work and Impact. Saint Louis, U.S.: Elsevier Science. Copeland, B., ed. (2006). Colossus: The Secrets of Bletchley Parks Codebreaking Computers. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Enigma Machine. (2006). In J. Merriman J. Winter (Eds.), Europe Since 1914: Encyclopedia of the Age of War and Reconstruction (Vol. 2, pp. 964-966). Detroit: Charles Scribners Sons. Retrieved from http://go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?p=GVRLsw=wu=csuf_mainv=2.1it=rid=GALE%7CCX3447000319sid=exlibrisasid=50a327ace003888aadf98172a87c0eb6 Eskicioglu, A., Litwin, L. (2001). Cryptography. IEEE Potentials, vol. 20, no. 1, pp. 36-38. doi: 10.1109/45.913211 Hinsley, F. H. (1993). The Influence of ULTRA in the Second World War. Retrieved from https://web.archive.org/web/20120706194507/http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/research/security/Historical/hinsley.html Hinsley, F. H. Stripp, A. (1993). Codebreakers: The Inside Story of Bletchley Park. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Kidwell, P. (2007). Technology and Culture. 48(3), pp. 663-664. Retrieved March 9, 2017, from JSTOR database. Kozaczuk, W. (1984). Enigma: How the German Machine Cipher Was Broken, and How It Was Read by the Allies in World War Two. Frederick, MD: University Publications of America. Paar, C., Pelzl, J. (2010). Understanding Cryptography. Dordrecht, London, New York: Springer-Verlag. Smart, N. (n.d.). Cryptography: An Introduction. Retrieved from http://www.cryptocellar.org/files/NP_Smart_Cryptography.pdf Smith, M. (2007) [1998]. Station X: The Codebreakers of Bletchley Park. London: Pan McMillan Ltd. The Ohio State University Fisher College of Business. (n.d.). An Introduction to Cryptography. Retrieved from https://fisher.osu.edu/~muhanna.1/pdf/crypto.pdf Villanueva, J. (2015). An Introduction to Stream Ciphers and Block Ciphers. Retrieved from http://www.jscape.com/blog/stream-cipher-vs-block-cipher Welchman, G. (2005). The Hut Six Story: Breaking the Enigma Codes. Cleobury Mortimer, England: MM Baldwin. Zwicke, A. (2003). An Introduction to Modern Cryptosystems. SANS Institute. Retrieved from https://www.giac.org/paper/gsec/2604/introduction-modern-cryptosystems/104482

The Civil War In Sri Lanka

The Civil War In Sri Lanka The Sri Lankan civil war by definition started in 1983 when two pronounced groups began to rival, the Sri Lankan government and the Liberation Tigers of the Tamil Eelam, a separatist group that was formed seeking to represent the Tamil minority in Sri Lanka (Clarance, 2002). However civil war on an emotional level between the two ethnic groups, Sinhalese and Tamils started in 1948, when Sri Lanka was granted independence from the British (Clarance, 2002). Sri Lanka first encountered colonialism in 1505 when the Portuguese arrived in search of valuable natural resources such as cinnamon, tea, and the most valuable, land (Clarance, 2002). The Portuguese conquered regions of Kotte, Sitavaka and Jaffna. They also aimed to conquer Kandy as well but failed through several attempts (Clarance, 2002). Next were the Dutch, in 1638 King Rajsinha who ruled Kandy at that time turned to the Dutch to fight over the Portuguese, the Dutch conquered everything except Kandy (Clarance, 2002). Last to colonize Sri Lanka was the British, they set foot in 1796 when the Dutch rule gave away to the British (Clarance, 2002). The British conquered the entire island, and built coffee and tea plantations and imported laborers from India mainly Tamils to work in these plantations (Clarance, 2002). In 1947 Sri Lanka requested to become an independent nation, and in 1948 Sri Lanka gained independence (Clarance, 2002). On the surface, colonialism can be viewed as har mless and in most areas beneficial as it guided Sri Lanka into development. Even though colonialism brought forth an identity for Sri Lanka in relation to trade and international exporting, it also brought separation, discrimination, and a hunger for dominance amongst the citizens of Sri Lanka. Being a Canadian born Sri Lankan Tamil this topic brings great importance and relevance to me. My Canadian birth is a result of this civil war in which my parents found the desperate need to emigrate from their greatly loved motherland. This topic is extremely important to me because I believe in peace and safety for the innocent and vulnerable, violence and death for the individuals who choose to fight is equally remorseful however inevitable. I lost both my grandfathers as innocent civilians to the civil war in Sri Lanka likewise many Sinhalese families were destroyed. All due to the separation caused by language, as everything else between a Tamil and a Sinhalese was identical. There are great faults on both sides, with regards to the actions of both opposition parties. However when pinpointed, the foundation for this violent desire for domination, can be seen as colonization as the main cause if not the only cause for this fight for power and equality. Theoretical Backing: Colonialism has given Sri Lanka a negative impact rather than the positive outcomes it has provided the global north with. Through what can be seen as an immature rivalry between European states to gain land, and other valued goods, it is proven that lack of structure and democracy when granting independence to a colony can shatter an entire nation. The development theory that supports the argument of colonialism being the main cause of the civil war in Sri Lanka would be the post-development theory. The post-development theory believes that only with relation to the global south, colonialism has been destructive on several levels: culturally, economically, socially, and psychologically. Sri Lanka is not the only former European colony that is facing the aftermaths of colonialism; several other countries in Asia have been robbed of their full potential to run as a developed nation, especially in the Middle East. Another prime example would be in Africa, where even in the present day, systems that were brought in by the European states are still being used, such as monarchy. Another more specific theory that would back up this argument would be the postcolonial theory, the postcolonial theory investigates the effective and legacy of European invasion on global south. Postcolonial theorist, Franz Fanon states And it is clear that in the colonial countries the peasants alone are revolutionary, for they have nothing to lose and everything to gain. The starving peasant, outside the class system is the first among the exploited to discover that only violence pays. For him there is no compromise, no possible coming to terms; colonization and decolonization a simply a question of relative strength. Fanon pinpoints the exact fate that Sri Lanka has overcome with its decades long civil war, the need for violence to achieve goals, in this case justice and equality. Research and Analysis: Colonialism is the leading cause for the now silent, yet on-going civil war in Sri Lanka. When the British left Sri Lanka in 1948, they built a government and left power to mainly the wealthy Sinhalese landowners (Lange, 2009). These powerful Sinhalese landowners had nothing in common with the rural areas or the minorities in Sri Lanka. Thus, taking rule and advantage of the nation to their liking. They made Sinhala as the official national language and also making Buddhism as the official national religion in Sri Lanka. This created great tension amongst the Tamil community as opportunities were not made equal, Tamils were not permitted nor able to obtain a higher level education or work for the government due to the fact they were not able to speak the national language (Lange, 2009). This created massive riots and rage throughout the Tamil community, which eventually ended in the creation of a separatist group the Liberation Tigers of the Tamil Eelam seeking to gain land separate from the Sinhalese population for the Tamils called Tamil Eelam. This was the beginning of a two-decade civil war for the Tamils to both gain equal rights and dignity or to gain a separate Tamil region. Histories of Sri Lanka prior to British colonization are important aspects when examining cause of conflict, in this case the cause of civil war in Sri Lanka. According to research of DeVotta (2000) archeological analysis can prove that Sri Lanka was physically part of India, and was separated through plate movement caused by slow, natural causes. The southern regions of India, specifically Tamil Nadu, are concentrated with a Tamil population, and the northern regions of Sri Lanka are also concentrated with Tamils. Such relations and connections cannot only be seen through language but also through religion and way of life. Clarance (2002) states that reoccurring enslavement caused by colonialism creates a need for finally holding the dominant, leading post. Both the Tamils and the Sinhalese were faced with great amounts of mental and physical damage when the Portuguese, Dutch, and the British colonized Sri Lanka, however the Sinhalese were faced with a greater level of damage becaus e it was mainly Sinhalese regions that were fought for, such as Katte, Kandy, Sitavaka, Colombo and Anuradhapura (Clarance, 2002). Therefore the Sinhalese psychologically developed the need for control, power, domination (Duncan, 2002). Wickramasinghe (2006) expands on the roles that each colonizing groups had. The Portuguese conquered Colombo on arrival which caused the Sinhalese population to move into the Kandy region of Sri Lanka. The Portuguese also forced religious conversion, Christianity, Buddhists and Moors a term used for Sri Lankan Muslims were impeached. Wickramasinghe (2006) argues that such invasion of the Sinhalese caused them to make Buddhism as their national religion when independence was gained. Clarance (2002) makes a diverse point in stating that with the colonization of the Dutch it was greatly the fault of the Sinhalese. Rajasinghe II who was the king of Kandy in 1638 requested the help of the Dutch to fight against the Portuguese, the Dutch however defeated t he Portuguese and overruled what Portuguese had conquered and everything else on the island except Kandy. They also promoted protestant views and demoted Catholicism, and to keep their legacy they mixed themselves with the Sinhalese, now known as Burgher peoples. This later on was a another major cause of great discrimination and violence. The British were the last rulers in Sri Lanka they take the majority of the blame for the current effects of colonization and the civil war in Sri Lanka today. According to Lange (2009) the Tamils and the Sinhalese were in peace living together, reason being that different regions were ruled by Kings that were associated with the citizens of that particular region, therefore conflict with other regions were minimal. When the British entered Sri Lanka in fear of the French gaining power of Sri Lanka in 1796, they started off by merely occupying the coastal areas, to remove the Dutch from the picture, through the Treaty of Amiens, the Dutch ruled areas of Sri Lanka was conceded to the British. Since the Dutch had conquered the entire island excluding the Kandy region, the British only had to fight for Kandy. Jones (2008) states that there were two Kandyan wars in which both were defeated by the Kandy. Jones (2008) clarifies that this was the real cause of independence in Sri Lanka, lac k of British gaining the most resourceful region in Sri Lanka. However Duncan (2002) elaborates on the beneficial aspects of the British rule in Sri Lanka, the British despite failing to conquer Kandy, built massive, national standard plantations for coffee which later became tea production, which was the money making resource in Sri Lanka at the time. The Sinhalese were reluctant to work on tea plantation as they were used to the working on the paddy farm. Wanting to expand the industry thousands of Tamils were shipped from India into Sri Lanka to work on these plantations. Duncan (2002) states that this was also a great cause in the separation between the Tamils and the Sinhalese. As working on a plantation was considered a job of the members of the lower castes, because the desperate and the poor were eager to gain a job at the these plantations for a fraction of what was considered a minimum wage back then. And since thousands of Tamils were imported from India by the British, t his caste was automatically generalized for the Tamils, creating a hierarchy between the Tamils and the Sinhalese. Winslow (2001) expands on the final gestures of the British that caused a long term effect on the future of the nation. When Sri Lanka was granted independence the British unconcerned and naively transferred most if not all the power to the Sinhalese, maybe not intentionally by ethnicity but intentionally by who held the most power, the Sinhalese at the time had most of the islands land, business, and wealth, in comparison to the Tamils. According to Erritiouni (2010) it was this particular mistake that is until today the leading cause of the civil war between the Tamils and the Sinhalese. Effects of colonialism in Sri Lanka still take in effect today. Errotiouni (2010) proceeds to state the following occurrences that fed this hunger for war. When the Sinhalese gained power for the entire island they omitted the existence and importance of the Tamils, they made the Sinhala the national language of Sri Lanka, and they made Buddhism the national religion of Sri Lanka. This as a result lead to the discrimination of the Tamil population, not being granted access to a higher level of education such as university or college, and not being granted to opportunity to hold a government job, therefore forbidden to gain a position in the government to have a say in the rights that Tamils are given. Jacoby (2006) elaborates on the separatist group Liberation Tigers of the Tamil Eelam that was formed, as a result of discrimination this group that represented a majority but not the entire Tamil population demanded a separate region for the Tamils, namely, Tamil Eelam. The quest for T amil Eelam was at a cost of hundreds of thousands of lives over the past two and a half decades. A member of the Liberation Tigers of the Tamil Eelam was the convicted suicide bomber in the assassination of Rajiv Gandhi, Indias Prime Minister at the time, in a deadly, sinful quest to gain international attention on Indias partnership with Sri Lankas war against the Tamils. Sri Lanka has lost a great deal as result of this war, the most important, innocent lives. Effects of colonialism are causing major issues in the present time. The recent crisis that occurred in Egypt where nearly the entire population of Egypt protested against the presidency of former President Mubarak. The fight to start a democratic government, and to end a monarch government (Pakistan article warns against struggle for power after Egypt unrest, 2011). According to Burke (1998) Europeans set up boundaries around Africa that split up tribal areas and groups of Africans, so Africans who spoke the same dialect or practiced the same traditions would be split between two different European territories. This also was the cause of monarchies that continue today within countries in Africa. This has caused many civil wars across Africa, and more importantly the mass level of poverty that was caused that even until this day is unsolvable. Power is a vital tool that needs to be transferred and received wisely. Colonialism is a prime example of how power should not be gained and withdrawn from. Sri Lanka has been greatly victimized by colonialism and has been ripped from its great potential as a nation. Through the unprofessional use of power by the European states power was distributed unequally to the people in Sri Lanka at the time of decolonization, which has caused a great deal of destruction and death for tens of thousands of people. Hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians lost their lives due to the crossfire between the Liberation Tigers of the Tamil Eelam and the Sri Lankan government, they were slaughtered, shot, molested, violated, and tortured solely because they were born either Tamil or Sinhalese. As there were positive effects to colonization in Sri Lanka, they will never out weight the negative effects that have caused a greatly unstable nation even today. Power at any level is a position with immeas urable value especially when it is in relation to people. The Europeans help immense power, but childishly overthrew that power to distribute power in a nation. They thought for the better of themselves and failed to think for the better good of the nations people. Their decisions that were made carelessly have caused great damage and will continue to cause difficulty in the far future.

Commentary Against Absurdity in Goethes Faust Essay -- Faust Essays

Commentary Against Absurdity in Faust Goethe's "Faust" could be called a comedy as readily as it is subtitled "A Tragedy." In the course of the play, the author finds comic or ironic ways to either mock or punish religionists, atheists, demons, and deities. Despite the obvious differences between these, Goethe unites them all by the common threads of ego and ridiculousness. Thus, the play as a whole becomes more of a commentary against absurdity than against religion. The first victims of satire in Faust are Satan and God, who appear in somewhat small-scale form in an early scene that parallels the Book of Job. In Goethe's Heaven reigns "The Lord," to whom a trio of archangels ascribe creation. Enter Mephistopheles, and all semblance of seriousness is lost. Introduced as a demon, and arguably THE Devil, he is witty, cynical, and in general a caricature of what religionists throughout the ages have labeled pure evil. The Lord proceeds to give Mephistopheles permission to go to his "good servant" Faust,...

The Government Census Should NOT Focus on Race :: social issues

The Government Census Should NOT Focus on Race Lets be honest, does it really matter what race you are? I mean does it really matter where you come from? The color of your skin, the culture and value you carry. Unless you are oppressing one race to feel good about yourself, Why should race matter. The fact is, It shouldn’t matter as long as you are honest and is respectful to others. I’m sure that some of us have experienced this to some extent: When you make a friend who is from a different race, do you still classify him or her as black, white, tall or short, Fat or skinny, someone with long hair or short, Or someone with no legs on a wheel chair, Old or young? No! You don’t, although you might think of these every now and than, you don’t constantly think about these things. If someone constantly thinks about them, for me it means that there is something I dislike about it, and in either case I would probably end the relation anyway. It is for this exact reason that I don’t believe that race should not play a huge role, if any, in our society. When the Government Census is surveying Americans, although this is not the intention of the survey, its definitely not doing me the favor of having to categorizing me â€Å"race†. Many assumption and problems can arise from categorizing society by race, such as stereotyping, obstacles to job qualification and disruptions of peace in society. I realize the need for differentiation and diversity; after all it is what makes each and one us very unique and fascinating. However, I’m not suggesting that we should all fall for the â€Å"melting pot† ideology either, But simply to have an open mind and see our selves as an American, and not categorize each other for any reason. For instance, if something is forgotten we wouldn’t think about it right! Discrimination works somewhat the same way; if the issue of race is constantly being raised as factor to everything we do in society, then people will instinctually differentiate or learn to discriminate against one another. Since discrimination is something taught or experienced and not inherited, society can learn to avoid stereotyping and discrimination among each other- by letting go of old ideals and mythology. For instance, when I came to America years ago. I could go anywhere and talk to anyone I pleased in the whole city.