Public Health Policy and Society Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2500 words - 1

Public Health Policy and Society - Essay Example In April 2008, the Australian government increased Alcopops tax by seventy percent (Squires, 2008). Ever since, the government has been collecting these taxes and withholding them from the liqueur companies. By May this year, the government had collected more than four hundred million dollars (Squires, 2008). A bill was passed by the lower house of Australian parliament that allowed the government to keep that money. The bill was passed in the month of May (Skov, 2009). This bill is highly likely to be passed by the senate. Another bill allowed the government to go on collecting those taxes until May 2010. The aim is to bring to the floor of the house a bill that aims to make this taxation a permanent feature of Australian tax revenues. This taxation aims to cut down on the production and consumption of alcohol in Australia. This will be in line with other developed countries that charge the liquor companies higher taxes. The alcopop tax was introduced to curb the consumption of ready to drink alcohol. This kind of alcohol is what is referred to as alcopop (Skov, 2009). It includes those canned beers that are sold in the supermarkets, for example Smirnoff, vodka amongst others. It is not only aimed at those canned drinks but all form of alcoholic beverages that are ready to drink, excluding the spirits. This taxation has been informed by the issues of the health of the Australian public. This was a result of the realization that â€Å"social context and the health of the community and individuals are interlinked† (Macdonald, 2005: 53). Therefore alcoholism, a social aspect, affects the health of the public. Alcopop taxation has been welcomed by the Royal Australian College of Physicians (Skov, 2009). Though it has not yet been passed by the senate, the college believes that this is a step in the right direction. This is because alcoholism has been found to be a very important public health issue (Macdonald,

Why Stravinskys Rite Of Spring Is Revolutionary

Why Stravinskys Rite Of Spring Is Revolutionary The Rite of Spring is famously and perhaps infamously regarded as one of the most major turning points in the history of Western music. Furthermore, the notoriously catastrophic reception at the premià ¨re of Stravinskys 1912 composition has now come to be appreciated as an historical phenomenon in its own right of unmatched and, in all likelihood, unmatchable proportions. The social climate capable of spawning outrage of such violent and uncouth physical embodiment as evidenced in the theatre in Paris that fateful day of 29 May, 1913, betrays at its core an undercurrent of volatility which reaches its talons well beyond the scope of aesthetic opinion and pleasurable diversion into something much more sinister. The Rite of Spring sparked a revolution which may be considered truly political in nature; a sociological confrontation which elicited spontaneous combustion in the music world and from which point, nothing would ever be the same. The following study will expound upon the nat ure of this revolution and collate a survey of possible reasons for its extraordinary and unprecedented sociological impact. The Rite of Spring was the third in a triptych of ballets by Igor Stravinsky for Sergei Diaghilevs itinerant company the Ballets Russes, an initiative which travelled the continent to perform and met with particular success in Paris as the result of the citys large Russian exile population and its rooting in Neonationalistic Russian themes. The Rites predecessors The Firebird (1910) and Petrouchka (1911) achieved near unanimous positivity and celebrated critical acclaim. The Rite was written over the course of several months in late 1912 but the rehearsal season was considerably extended due to its choreographic complexity, not to mention the comparable inexperience of the young dancer-choreographer, Nijinsky, for whom the piece was intended as a primary collaborator. Although having presented the composition in its pianistic form to a veritable plethora of notable artistic and musical minds in the leadup to its orchestrally staged debut, Stravinsky is nonetheless purported to have had no indication whatsoever, nor reason to remotely conceive that the presentation of The Rite might provoke the scandal and outcry that ensued. Modris Eksteins provides a particularly colourful and somewhat exhaustive account of the circumstances of its premiere. In terms of historical data, reports from the premiere are conflicting, confused and wildly varying. Witnesses tell of catcalls, hissing, and a battery of screams; of howling, whistling, spitting, slapping and punching. The police were called and at least forty of the offending protesters were forcibly evicted, this doing little to lull those remaining, who continued their commotion. By all accounts, the performance elicited no less than a seismic response which has retrospectively become a thing of legend. The socio-cultural context of Paris at the time is of much import in setting the scene for such an upstanding brouhaha. Programmes being rehearsed and billed contemporary to The Rites premiere included Ravels Daphnis et Chloe and Debussys Jeux. The ballet audience was largely contingent on the lavish snobbery of both high society and the intelligentsia, comprising predominantly wealthy patrons with a desire for elegance and enchantment, and altogether typical of the common lightweight perceptions of French taste. Although exotica themes were very much in Parisian vogue, the passions and political motivations of Russia could hardly but remain distant in every respect. Enormous media hype surrounded The Rites premiere and in an effort to garner an underlying core of support, Diaghilev ensured a generous distribution of free tickets to his loyal supporters. The particularities of the newly unveiled layout of the Thà ©Ãƒ ¢tre des Champs-Élysà ©es held that this ring-in cheersquad, albeit a guaranteed endorsement, was situated in an area of the auditorium central to the masses, essentially circled by the opposing faction. Such provocative positioning of the Russians in itself was perhaps enough to instigate a brawl in the first place. With such explosive jeering and cheering, it is of exceptional logistical importance that according to numerous accounts, Stravinskys music was completely drowned out by the audience reaction. With the 100-piece orchestra inaudible, dancers have been said to have relied exclusively on Nijinsky shouting counts from the prompt. Whether this pertained to the metric complexity of the composition or the pervading inability to hear it remains questionable but either way, it was certainly the case. The abstract and absurd quality of a company dancing their euphoric tribal sacrifice to a chorus of insults and abuse was perhaps a telling premonition of the Dada sentiment which succeeded the event several years later. The lights in the auditorium were fully turned on but the noise continued and I remember Mlle. Piltz (the chosen maiden) executing her strange dance of religious hysteria on a stage dimmed by the blazing light in the auditorium, seemingly to the accompaniment of the disjointed ravings of a mob of angry men and women. If in fact the orchestra was itself inaudible, it follows in point that the public outrage expressed so vehemently at The Rites premià ¨re was not a response to the pitches, rhythms, structures and instrumental colourings of Stravinskys music, however bold his innovations, but to something else entirely. The inward turned feet and graceless jumping and pumping gestures of the dancers were certainly denounced as bad taste and grotesque caricature, with witnesses suggesting such blasphemy to the elevated art of ballet was received as a direct insult to the integrity of the cultivated audience. But while representing somewhat of an innovation in dance style, the propulsion for such outrage seems more deeply rooted in the commentary of stylistic change on the nature and sociological function of the arts, and the implications of this change in structuring socio-economic factions. As expressed so concisely by Ekstein, Is there not sufficient evidence to suggest that the trouble was caused more by warring factions in the audience, by their expectations, their prejudices, their preconceptions about art, than by the work itself? The Nature of Revolution Thus it can be seen that Stravinskys Rite of Spring generated a series of revolutions at various levels. I have taken the term revolution to refer both to an upheaval of policy which breaks radically from the past, as well as to the cyclic implication of the word revolution, the continual and somewhat meditative return to a point, each time with new outlook. In musical terms, The Rite brought a repudiation of the post-Romantic and Impressionistic ideals which permeated the Parisian scene. The typical French soundworld cut clearly by Debussy, Saint-Saà «ns, Ravel, Massenet, Faurà ©; but notably never adopted nor remotely assimilated by Stravinsky, was in this case so thoroughly replaced by the primacy of clustered chordal rhythms, uncharacteristic harmonic motivation, and intervallic asymmetry in melodic structures that the French government was effectively overthrown. Despite much retrospective dispute to be discussed in due course, the programmatic genesis of The Rite was an imagined prehistoric ritual of a sacrificial virgin dancing herself to death to entice the gods of the seasons. It is implicit that although a fabricated mythology, the essence is of a tribal Russian character. Thus not only does the work posses a haunting, if not definitively terrifying spiritual presence of extraordinary power, but makes a simultaneous nationalistic statement in doing so which can simply not avoid political implication due to the aggression with which it is asserted. The combination of such pounding rhythmic impetus and the breadth of the chords with which this ruthless impetuosity so compulsively drummed sends out the message of its all-encompassing rule in an urgent, brutal S.O.S. The combination of relentless rhythm and hard-edged, dissonant chordal units has the tendency to give a sense of impulse associated with violence. Heavy and ultimately colourist ic percussion, brass and winds were featured, these being associated with outdoor, warring instrumental forces. However, as undoubtedly evidenced by ethnological studies, actions which may appear ferocious within a cultivated urban setting may hold completely different meaning within their own cultural context. That which we may observe as savage or defensive may in fact resonate with ecstasy and/or tribal belonging. A notable example of this is the distinct absence of clarity surrounding the nature of the virgins sacrifice; whether this pertains to a giving of her life or of her maidenhood. Either way, the surrender carries mixed emotions in its duality of horror with martyrdom, and equally for the Western listener, in its voyeuristic presentation. The mammoth scope and intensity of The Rite of Spring, dwarfing humanity and quashing everything in its path, is bigger than Paris, bigger than Christianity, bigger than social class structure, pearls and silks. The tribe is bigger than the individual. The Rite of Spring is bigger than artistic divertimento, The Rite of Spring is essentially bigger than the arts itself. Musical Modernism The Rite is widely considered to be the primary hallmark example of Modernism in music. It was praised and acclaimed primarily for its rhythmic innovation and asymmetry. The work is an informed but conscious reaction against the Germanic Romantic realism, French Impressionism and the generic urban industrialist mentalities which pervaded the compositional climate at the turn of the century. At the same time, through the recently discovered inclusion of abstracted folksong transcriptions, The Rite was a nod to Nationalistic tendencies, now on the rise with thanks to technological developments both in travel and the recording industry. This reactionary stance brought about by Modernism heralded the beginning of the current period of compositional production which encourages a multiplicity of styles for a multiplicity of audience tastes. Serialism and minimalism might coexist in the same cities; likewise Expressionism and Impressionism just across the border from each other. The major musical innovation of The Rite of Spring was a new and absolute denial of expectation in terms of meter and harmony. At the most basic level, Stravinsky instigated a complete regeneration of the conventions of functional pitch and rhythm in Western music. The works critical condemnation by Taruskin as anti-symphonic is certainly true in Schenkerian terms, in that pitch polarities in the scalic sense were radically abandoned: the leading note no longer led, the supertonic, subdominant and submediant no longer sought the triad. The same pertained to beat hierarchies within the bar and even the dominance of the downbeat. Established polarities and gravities which had evolved in due course over the history of Western music were at once relegated to something of the past. Instead, this music relaxed into a new and ultimately organic creation of expectation, allowing the music to breathe in every respect, through pause and rest, pace and weight, singing its strange new laments at whim of a deeper soul rather than stickytaped haphazardly onto someone elses framework. This is not to say that the concept of polarities became obsolete. To the contrary, organic weight and depth became the natural new order. Gravity and innate direction was now established through a more abstract tool of arched melodic contouring, essentially through patterning and figuration; if not in the primary melodic voice, then in the accompanying section. Whether or not the base of these arch structures held pitch significance to a tonicized, home or bassline pedal became irrelevant, as the weight of the fall was enough in itself to establish a root. In the works Introduction this is repeatedly evident: firstly in the clarinet section at Figure 1, bassoons after 3, flutes leading into Figure 7, etcetera. It is important to note that while harmonic motivations were annulled, homophonic motions continued to exist, primarily doing so in a polytonal setting: for example, intervallic relations at Figure 94 in The Mysterious Circles of the Young Girls, where the clarinets and later, first violin section, move languidly together at the 7th. As for rhythm, The Rite is perhaps most widely acclaimed for its eradication of meter as a polar tool and the subsequent introduction of the use of time signatures purely for organizational purposes. Its constantly shifting meters to the point of seasickness have retained their power of obscurity even to the present day. It has been mentioned that the undisputed reign of the downbeat had already been questioned. In Dance of the Adolescent Girls, the accentuation patterns in the string opening at Figure 13 are as good as anti-metric. Although the famous bassoon solo exists in somewhat of a dreamscape beyond the scope of meter, the weight of the downbows at the start of the second movement function effectively as a transition which is equally free of metric form. Melodic phrases are grouped into threes and fives, the bass at Figure 28, for example, delineating a broad 6/8+6/8 within a context where others are playing superficially in the notated meter of 2/4, but not within any kind of phrase arrangement sympathetic to the 3-bar base cushion. It follows that such freedom opens the floodgates for polymeters, and equally, polytonalities to coexist in true equality. A notational innovation particular to Stravinsky is the beaming of groups of notes such as quavers as they sound metrically, rather than the way they would ordinarily fit into a given duple or compound metric frame. This notational peculiarity makes the polymeters easy to identify from a visual standpoint. Structurally, much debate has ensued about the architecture of The Rite of Spring. The majority of critics of the period observed its construction as a series of independent dances in an almost Cubist-style pastiche. This reading supported the genesis of the work in the ballet tradition. The most vocal of these was Taruskin, who identified static blocks progressing, if at all, through repetition, alternation, and above all, sheer inertial accumulation Each chord or motif was so fixed that even transposition let alone transformation or transition were inconceivable. Such ideology has been recently challenged by the favoured notion of organic evolution at a more cellular level, essentially posing the possibility of through-composition. It seems natural and essentially implicit that the The Rite, by nature of its seasonal programmatic ties, should undergo a process of careful growth, cocooning and rebirth over of its visceral half hour in the ear. Revolutions of Appraisal The Rite of Spring also enjoyed what one might consider a series of revolutions of appraisal. Following the calamity of its original balletic premià ¨re, Stravinsky was quick to denounce the works tie to the stage so that it might exist independently in the concert hall in and of itself. It is no secret that he was disappointed in the product of Nijinsky and disenchanted with the production as a whole. Obviously there were also significant financial advantages to the works availability in concert version and this undoubtedly also played a role in its redefinition. Thus The Rites interdisciplinary conception was staunchly and quite strangely abandoned in favor of its musical construction insomuch as Stravinsky giving, over the course of his life, many dramatically differing accounts of factual events in an effort to disguise or distort the nature of its compositional origins. This somewhat mechanistic dissociation of the work towards an abstract, absolute and/or autonomous entity, wh ether or not it could possibly exist as such with its particular strength of character, was a telling precursor to Stravinskys Neoclassical mindset, a purging and reinvention of something heavy with baggage but which might then live on in its cleansed form. It is an inexplicable curiosity that in what van den Toorn describes as a complete reversal of the riot that had gone before, the 1914 premià ¨re performance of The Rite on the concert platform was an absolute unequivocal success; so much so that Stravinsky himself was hoisted to the shoulders of a few bystanders [and] led triumphantly from the hall of the Casino de Paris by an exuberant crowd of admirers. A further revolution in the works appreciation took place in the late 1960s based on the rediscovery of sketches, source materials and other evidence. Apparently this revisionist revival was equally enjoyed by the composer himself, who appeared equally interested to revisit the works origins in what was casually designated a r evisionist revival. As an aside, it is a curious multiplicity to note that the French version of the works title, Le Sacre du Printemps, identifies directly the character of the chosen maiden, Le sacre being the sacrificed one in question. In translation to The Rite, the work takes on a more holistic quality of process, ceremony and celebration. While originally conceived as a staged piece, the work is universally acknowledged for its complete bonding with dramatic vision, its honesty and rawness, unique in comparison with Stravinskys other work which is often heavy with satire and irony. In transferral to the concert platform, the intensity of the drama is so strong as to be able to hold its own even without an interdisciplinary accompaniment. The Rite is an existing and ultimately monumental fatalistic presence which, more surely than ever, needs no frame, no theatrical artifice. This is a work which seems perhaps more aptly suited to the genre of ceremonial theatre than to the stage or even the platf orm. Thus, the many revolutions, both instigated and undergone by Stravinskys Rite of Spring. The works historical evolution over the course of the 20th century as a pivotal compositional cornerstone has become modern-day folklore of its own, and of mammoth proportions; rousing freedom and preaching the Great Sacrifice for the sake of seasonal rebirth and newness of thought in a constantly revolving artistic climate.

Organizational Strategy and Structure of Unilever Essay -- Business St

Organizational Strategy and Structure of Unilever Introduction Unilever is one of the largest packaged consumer goods companies specializing in hundreds of different brands. Unilever is based in Holland and the UK and is jointly owned by Unilever N.V and Unilever PLC. Both companies have the same board of directors but operate as a single entity and list there stock separately. In 2000, Unilever restructured their board of directors by electing new faces to the board and seeing other key members retire, like Jan Peelen and Robert Philips. Miles and Snow stated that there are four types of organizational strategies pursued by companies; Defenders, Prospectors, Analyzers and Reactors. Unilever are a company that uses the â€Å"Prospectors† organization type. Prospectors are organizations which almost continually search for market opportunities, and they regularly experiment with potential responses to emerging environmental trends, in particular when Vis was appointed to the Food Executive committee and began to emphasize more on environmental and sustainable development in response to changing trends and demands by consumers giving these consumers greater confidence. (Miles & Snow; pp29) In my discussion, the main types of organizational strategies and structures will be listed and how they have impacted on Unilever’s improved performance and growth in recent years. Organizational strategies and structures, and there impact on Unilever’s performance †¢ Restructured Approach: 1. Identifying market opportunities: A key part of an organizational strategy is to identify market opportunities by finding a niche or a gap in the marketplace that they can pursue to take their company ahead of all their competitors. An organiz... ...ification as we move towards our destination IT architecture, and further strengthen our global market presence† said Neil Cameron, chief information officer at Unilever. Unilever’s steady underlying improvement in Europe has continued, with 2.8% growth in the year. The fourth quarter was particularly strong, at 5.5%, against a weaker comparator. The Americas were up by 4.1% in the year, with Brazil and Mexico improving through the year, while the US grew solidly at 3.2%. Asia Africa has shown consistent, broad-based growth across countries and categories throughout the year, up by 11.1%. This demonstrates that merging with globalised technologically advanced companies such as SAS, and using their expertise, is paying dividends for Unilever. (Unilever’s Annual Report, 2007) (Drinks Business Review, â€Å"Unilever selects SAP as standard for global IT Strategy†, May 2007)

History of Volleyball Essay

The sport of volleyball was created by a man named William G. Morgan of Holyoke, Massachusetts in 1895. Morgan was a physical education teacher at the YMCA and called it â€Å"Mintonette†. It was an indoor or outdoor pastime that had characteristics of both handball and tennis. The first rules were written down by Morgan himself. He wrote that the game called for a 6 foot 6 inch net and a court of 25Ãâ€"50 feet. A match composed of 9 innings and 3 serves for each team in each inning. In case of a serving error they got a second chance just like in tennis. If the ball it the net on a serve it was considered a foul and it caused a side out or a point was taken away. In 1896 after a demonstration at the YMCA in Springfield and the name â€Å"Mintonette† was replaced with the name â€Å"Volleyball†. In 1900 the rules were modified and the height of the net went up to 7 feet 6 inches. A match length was set at 21 points. In 1900 Canada was the first foreign country to adopt the game of Volleyball. Cuba discovers â€Å"6 Volleyball† in 1906, thanks to a North American army officer, Agusto York, who takes part in the second military intervention on the Caribbean island. In 1908 Volleyball reaches Japan. It is Hyozo Omori, a Springfield College graduate in the United States, who first demonstrates the rules of the new game on the YMCA courts in Tokyo. In 1910Volleyball officially lands in China, thanks to Max Exner and Howard Crokner. Up until 1917, play is between 16-man teams and goes to 21 points. The Philippines also got to know the new game. It is imported by Manila YMCA director Elwood Brown. In a very short space of time, there are 5,000 public and private courts. In the USA, decisive impetus is given to the game by Prevost Idell, YMCA director in Germantown. In 1912the court size is changed, becoming 35Ãâ€"60 feet. A uniform size and weight of the ball is established, calling for a circumference of 26 inches and a weight of between 7 and 9 ounces. Two other important innovations: the number of players on each team is set at six and it is decided to rotate players before service. In 1913 Volleyball is put on the programme for the first Far Eastern Games held in Manila. Teams are made up of 16 players. In 1914 George Fisher, secretary of the YMCA War Office, includes Volleyball in the recreation and education programme for the American armed forces. In 1915 The number of players on court again becomes variable, anything from 2 to 6 for each team. Official game time is introduced and it is decided that the team losing a game has the right to begin serving in the next game. And In Europe, Volleyball arrives on the French beaches of Normandy and Brittany with American soldiers fighting in the First World War. Its popularity grows rapidly, but the game takes root especially in Eastern countries, where the cold climate makes gym sports particularly attractive. In 1916 Many new rules are established. The score for a â€Å"game† drops from 21 to 15, and it is determined that to win a match a team has to win two out of three â€Å"games. † The ball can now be hit with a player’s feet. Net height rises to 8 feet, while ball weight climbs from 8 to 10 ounces. It is decided that holding on to the ball is a foul and that a player cannot have contact with the ball a second time until after it has been played by another athlete. Volleyball becomes a part of the programe of the NCAA, the body that oversees college and university sports in the USA. In 1917 at the Allied Forces air base in Porto Corsini, where Ravenna’s sports palace is now located, American airmen introduce the virus of Volleyball into Italy. In 1918 The number of players per team is set at six. In Japan, the first High School Championship is played. In 1919 During the First World War, Dr. George J. Fisher, as Secretary of the YMCA War Work Office, makes Volleyball a part of the programe in military training camps, both in the USA and abroad, in the athletic handbooks written for those responsible for sport and recreation in the Army and Marines. Thousands of balls and nets are sent overseas to the U. S. troops and also presented to the Allied Army’s sports directors. More than 16,000 volleyballs are distributed in 1919 to the American Expeditionary Corps Forces only. The Inter-Allied Games are organized in Paris (but Volleyball is not included since the game is not yet known sufficiently well known in the 18 participating Allied countries to allow for a balanced competition). Moving through history volleyball has changed. In 2001 Beach Volleyball is confirmed as a full Olympic program sport. And in 2002 the FIVB World Congress in Buenos Aires adopts a Code of Conduct and rules against conflicts of interest and introduces height limit competitions (185 cm for men, 175 cm for women). In 2009Brazil won their eighth World League as they defeat Serbia in Belgrade in a pulsating match watched by a crowd of 22,000 spectators whilst Brazil also pick up the World Grand Prix, finishing above Russia and Germany. Italy’s women follow up their 2007 World Cup win with claim their first FIVB World Grand Champions Cup in Japan as Brazil won the men’s competition.

Trail of Tears

Reading Analysis Guide: Trail of Tears Part A The author, Dee Brown, gives a brief description about Andrew Jackson’s policy on Indian removal in order to gain popularity and power. The purpose of this chapter is to discuss the cause and effects of â€Å"Indian Removal† during Jackson’s terms, ultimately creating the â€Å"Trail of Tears. † As early as the colonial period Indian removal was evident, Brown claims. Indians never really got along with white settlers, and even if they tried to resolve the conflicts, it would fail.Indian Removal calmed down over time but in 1828, Andrew Jackson ran for president and immediately knew he would have to wipe out the frontier states. He made a treaty in which the Indians had to remove themselves from the states and move west toward the Mississippi. On there â€Å"trip† to the Mississippi, Indians faced many hardships that included starvation, death, and disease. Part B I feel that all the information given wa s germane and strengthened the chapter as a whole.The strongest points are found when the author talks about the history of Indian Removal. He states that mistreatment of Indians was evident as early as the Colonial Period. I think starting from the historical view of Indian removal made the story flow well and did a good job at catching the reader’s attention. Brown also tells about how the Indians were in America first, and over the years they began ceding their land and adapting to the â€Å"white man’s way. † Part CThe Trial of Tears reminds me of the Taiwan and China during the domination of Chiang Kai-Sheik and Mao Zedong. Chiang Kai-Sheik was apart of the Kuomintang (KMT), while Mao was apart of the Communist Party of China. This can be compared to the Trail of Tears , because neither Chiang nor Mao would accept each other, which reflects the relationship of the Indians and the white settlers in the states. As a result , Chiang moved to Taiwann and declar ed independence from China causing the ROC, while Mao ruled just the mainland of China.Some of the same aspects occurred during this time period as in the Trail of Tears. Chiang are like the Indians, while Mao is like Andrew Jackson (along with the white settlers). Although Chiang and Mao had conflicts, no major violence occurred, however during the Indian Removal period you had the Black Hawk War and rebellions by the Indians. Also, Mao did not force Chiang to move, but Andrew did force the Indians.