The Power of Individualism Revealed in The Fountainhead Essay -- Fount

The Power of Individualism Revealed in The Fountainhead      Ã‚  Ã‚   Imagine power as a form of free flowing energy, a source found within every one and for each individual. Assume that to gain power, one has to tap this resevoir of immense proportions and relish upon the rich harvest to their hearts desires. Consequently, when there is such a dealing of concentrated materials, nature takes charge and similarly to other physical abstracts, rendering this package lethal, with the potential for untold destruction. In other words, power in the wrong hands or power without responsibility is the most harzardous weapon mankind can possess. To say that power is a medium out of control and pertaining to something with incredible destruction, is rather quite true. Assuming that every one and anyone has the potential to be entitle to a share of this universal medium. Then it would be justifiable to claim that like any other unmoderated activities, raging amibition for power uncontroled could wreak havoc and acts as a catalyst in the breakdown of a society. Similar to politics which deals with the static physical component of society, there must be a more formidable source of pervailance over the mystical realm of power. There fore, this form of guidance can only exist from the mind, and as product of thought, thus the ideas within a philosophy. The Ideals warp between the covers of, The Fountainhead, Ayn Rand’s philosophical revolution of Individualistic power, is her solution to society’s request for a cure. She believe that the highest order of power stands above all alternatives as the power belonging to an individual and her mission is to prove the greatness of individualist power within the hero she christain the name Roark. ... ... in life. The true heroes will know which he is to take and reamain above all others. Those who fail, will end up in the melting pot of society, their flame of freedom extinguished. Works Cited and Consulted Berliner, Michael S., ed. Letters of Ayn Rand. By Ayn Rand. New York: Dutton, 1995. Branden, Barbara. The Passion of Ayn Rand: A biography. New York: Doubleday, 1986a Branden, Nathaniel. My Years with Ayn Rand. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Publishers, 1999. Garmong, Dina. Personal interview. 2 Nov. 1999. Peikoff, Leonard. The Philosophy of Objectivism, A Brief Summary. Stein and Day, 1982. Rand, Ayn. The Fountainhead. New York: Plume, 1994. The Ayn Rand Institute. "A Brief Biography of Ayn Rand" [Online] available www.aynrand.org/aynrand/biography.html, 1995 Walker, Jeff. The Ayn Rand Cult. Carus Publishing Company, 1999   

Albania Essay -- essays research papers

Albania: The Development of a Developing Country Albania, a small country located in Southeastern Europe, is a nation that does not have a true identity – its people are Muslim and Christian, it is a country that is both and poor, it is as much urban as it is rural, and has evolved from monarchy to socialism and now to fledgling democracy. In other words, Albania and its people have seen it all. The extremes of Albanian society are vivid, and underlying tensions are evident. But Albania is not â€Å"another Yugoslavia† – there is no doubt that the internal environment of Albania has been and somewhat continues to be tense, although the breaking point has never been fully reached. Albania is a country with a fervently tense past (especially during the Cold War era), yet many people do not know about it, and few would be able to find the country on the map. Despite its beautiful during, its plentiful natural resources, and its extraordinary tradition of hospitality, Albania has always been â€Å"the most isolate d country in Europe and from World War II until very recently, one of the most isolated countries on earth† (â€Å"Real Adventures – Albania† 1). Amongst the booming economies of Europe, Albania is markedly poor, and is trying to make the difficult transition to a more modern open-market economy. In addition, the government is taking steps to encourage economic growth as well as trade. Albania, according to 2003 estimates, â€Å"has a GDP of $16.13 billion, with a per capita GDP of $4,500† (â€Å"Albania – CIA Factbook† 2) This is an improvement over the Cold War era, in which Albania’s economy was a complete disaster – still, however, Albania’s economy is considerably weak compared to its European neighbors. The economy is helped by â€Å"remittances from people abroad of $400-$600 million annually, mostly from Greece and Italy, and this money helps lower the sizable trade deficit† (â€Å"Real Adventures – Albania† 1). Agriculture, which accounts for half of Albania’s GDP, is frequently stifled because of recurring drought and the burden of having to modern ize their equipment and trying to make use of sparse land. What also complicates economic matters is that there have been severe energy shortages, and old-fashioned and highly inadequate infrastructure makes it difficult to attract large-scale foreign investment, which accounts for 18.7 % of Albania’s GDP (according to 2003 estimates... ...r† (Clunies 133). Homelessness and hunger are higher now than under the Communists Communications. Meanwhile, protests in Albania continued, leading to the removal of several hard-line Communists from the government and party Politburo.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Despite its isolation for decades and its ruling by a repressive regime that denied them their most elementary rights, the Albanians have undergone significant cultural, social, and economic transformations; they are no longer â€Å"a largely uneducated peasant education, characterized by a clan mentality, as often portrayed by the Western media† (Clunies 149). The majority of the Albanians evidently recognize that national reconciliation, a major aspect of the program of the Democratic Party, is the best way for the successful revival of their poverty-stricken country. Albania is endowed with considerable mineral resources and has a young, dynamic population, eager to join the rest of the world. Now as it enters the post dictatorship phase, it desperately needs the assistance and friendship of the outside world. Without that assistance, Albania’s fledgling democracy may be doomed for failure before it even begins to grow.

The Problem with Oliver by Maggie O’Farrell

Most teenagers have experienced that odd moment when their parents know what they are doing, even though they haven’t told them; and they certainly don’t like being compared to their parents. Young people consider themselves as individuals who have nothing in common with their parents – but in fact they might have more in common with their elders than they think. The latter might be the case for the main character in Maggie O’Farrell’s short story â€Å"The Problem with Oliver†, Fionnuala, who is a perfect, and almost stereotypical, example of a teenager of the kind mentioned in the sentences above.This short story covers some of the greatest problems and themes, we are all likely to encounter in our own life somehow. It is about the relationship between mother and daughter and about social heritage, how we all deal with growing up, falling in love – which is most likely to be kept secret by young people. What to do, when the one youâ €™re in love with comes from a culture that is despised by your closest family. When the mother is experiencing her first out-of-body experience and tells Fionnuala about it, Fionnuala is rather sceptical and is wondering if her mother has been smoking.She makes it clear to herself, that her mother has officially gone mad, and she is frustrated and tries to erase the possible similarities between Fionnuala and her mother. They don’t even look alike – not anymore. Not since Fionnuala has started straightening her hair. In which, you could say that Fionnuala will most likely not want to look like her â€Å"mad† mother. But the out of body experience made Grainne wonder if her daughter was going to make the same mistake by bringing Oliver along to the beach hut. She is laughing, probably trying to laugh it off and make Fionnuala understand it.She then says: â€Å"Then I realised it was you, and I was me, in here, in the house. † (l. 71) In which could me an that Grainne is willing to let her daughter manage it in her own way. Fionnuala may not repeat the mistake, because she could differ so much from Grainne. Fionnuala has an English boyfriend, Oliver. The mother haven’t heard about their relationship from Fionnuala, and Fionnuala is afraid of letting her know, because of her disliking of English men as equal to weak tea and amoebic dysentery (l. 49). The mother is exceedingly fond of Irish folklore and treasures the ancient traditions.And her fondness is clearly expressed in the name she has given her daughter; the name Fionnuala was, according to Fionnuala herself, an ancient Irish princess who turned into a swan. But it is obvious that Fionnuala is ashamed of her mother’s eccentric behaviour; when she first met Oliver, she introduced herself as â€Å"Finn†, unable to add the two last syllables in her name out of sheer embarrassment. The episode, where Fionnuala’s mother Grainne hides the key to the bea ch hut from her daughter, could very well be the result of a bad experience from Grainne’s younger years.We know from the text that Grainne moved to England to escape the fury of her family, and since Grainne is able to hide away the key to the beach hut, it could be a sign of her trying to avoid repeating the episode. This looks very much alike the episode, where Grainne sits on a bench and she spots a cat that is about to make it a run for the crumb-pecking finch. (ll. 25-33) Grainne is preventing the cat from getting to the bird by throwing a cloth towards a window.In the same way, she is attempting to scare Fionnuala or teach her a lesson, and maybe save her from something that could go wrong, like it did for Grainne, when she was younger. So Grainne knows, that there is something bothering Fionnuala, maybe that she haven’t done it yet, and almost the rest of the school has. In the text, Grainne warns Fionnuala about not giving in for peer pressure, and that would save a lot of trouble later. Right when Fionnuala had cancelled the date with Oliver and gone terribly mad at her mother, she founds the key on her bed, and her mother is gone.Grainne would maybe rather run away herself than run the risks of getting furious with Fionnuala’s boyfriend, so Fionnuala did not have to run anywhere. By growing up, your sense of realism is developing, the older you get. So as the dark, twisted branches of the hawthorn tree tap-tap against the side of the house, as if wanting to come in, could be referred to as the reality, wanting to come inside the house – her mind. Grainne knows what is going on, and therefore, things may get easier for Fionnuala in the future. She could maybe be torn between her mothers strong Irish standards and her boyfriends English ways.

A separate peace movie Essay

A Separate Peace is one of John Knowles’ most acclaimed works and is based on Knowles’ stay at Phillip Exeter Academy in the early-to-mid 1940’s. It is set in a New England boarding school for boys known as Devon, and begins in 1958 but quickly flashes back to the years 1942 and 1943. In these years at the peak of World War II we follow through the eyes and mind of first-person narrator and protagonist Gene Forrester, as he copes internally with jealousy and hate, and externally with the oncoming draft. As is the fate of many great novels it quickly hit the big screen, and in 1972 a film version of A Separate Peace made its first debut, directed by Larry Peerce, and starring Parker Stevensen as ‘Gene’ and John Heyl as ‘Finny’. Though the movie conveyed the theme – Gene a misled and surreptitiously violent student at Devon makes peace with himself and the world – many symbolic elements, important aspects, and minor details a re lost in the transition from novel to film. The first noted difference between the movie and book is that an the novel, before the flashback while Gene is revisiting Devon he remarks that he wants to visit two places: â€Å"I reached a marble foyer, and stopped at the foot of a long white marble flight of stairs.† And: â€Å"There were several trees bleakly reaching into the fog. Any one of them might be the one I was looking for.† Strangely in the movie Gene only visits the tree, we can infer that the stair scene is omitted because it might give away the ending too soon. For instance seeing a tree doesn’t necessarily hint at the further content, while seeing stairs and a tree may result in someone making the connection of falling down which, would ultimately give away the story’s climax and ending. This is a fairly important scene and gets the reader interested through foreshadowing early on in the story but was left out of the film. As both the novel and movie progress many minor variations are noted, an example of such a trivial difference between the novel and film is that in the movie, Brinker is part of the summer session. This is most likely done to introduce major characters early on, and make it easier for viewers to keep track of key people and less confusing than having them introduced halfway through the movie. Then as the movie continues series of notably different events take place between Finny’s triumph over A. Hopkins Parker  and Finny and Gene’s return from their escapade to the Beach. Three of the most prominent changes in this segment are that Parkers swim record is replaced with a pole-vaulting record; Gene doesn’t need to be persuaded nearly as much to go to the beach, and much more detail is put into the beach/boardwalk scene in the movie than the book. A. Hopkins Parkers’ record is changed from swimming to pole-vaulting, which is most likely changed to save tim e and increase the action and interest level of the scene; pole-vaulting is much more exciting and captivating for the audience than swimming. The viewers can also see that the record has been beaten instead of having to take Gene’s word from a stopwatch. Next in the movie Gene instantly agrees to accompany Finny to the beach, while in the novel Gene inwardly contemplates the consequences before answering:†The beach was hours away by bicycle, forbidden, completely out of all bounds. Going there risked expulsion, destroyed the studying I was doing for an important test the next morning, blasted the reasonable amount of order I wanted to keep in my life, and it also involved the kind of long labored bicycle ride I hated. ‘All right,’ I said.†This gives us a sense of how persuasive a person Finny is; Gene gives excuse upon excuse and yet ends up giving in to Finny, in the movie Finny’s personality cannot be displayed nearly as prominently because of the fact that Gene doesn’t narrate during in the film, and therefore it is nearly impossible to include the amount of detail in the film as the book. Finally the beach scene unlike most of the movie has a lot of seemingly unneeded time put into it, and is perhaps the only scene that has more detail than its counterpart in the novel. The amount of time spent on this scene when compared to the amount of information left out of the movie is significant, and was perhaps made this way to make up for symbolism left out in the film. The lack of symbolism in most of the movie results in a tremendous loss of sensory details for the viewer and can result in a lesser understanding of the story. For example in chapter six Knowles entrances us in a symbolic representation of two rivers: the Devon and the Naguamsett. The Devon clean and pure directly relates to the boys life at school – secluded, peaceful, tranquil – while the harsh Naguamsett is ruthless and unsympathetic â€Å"It was ugly, saline, fringed with marsh mud and seaweed.† These represent the  dangers of life outside of Devon and the draft which is seen to the boys as â€Å"governed by unimaginable factors like the Gulf Stream, the Polar Ice Cap, and the Moon. This depth and complexity cannot be shown embodied in the movie because of the lack of first person narration. Yet another lack of significant imagery between movie and book is when Gene visits Leper after leaving the army, and is told of the madness that overcame him, Knowles creates a scene that directly reflects Leper’s insanity:†The crust beneath us continued to crack and as we reached the border of the field the frigid trees also were cracking with the cold. The two sharp groups of noises sounded to my ears like rifles being fired in the distance.†This is a much more visual showing then the movie in which Leper is pushed down, and rolls into a fetal position. In conclusion the movie is a good idea but is poorly executed, and unfortunately lacks the novel’s symbolism, many key features, and minor but helpful details. The movie inadequately portrays of the novel and would be difficult to interpret without first reading the book. That said it is not especially bad if one has read the novel prior to viewing the movie and they compliment each other well. A Separate Peace. Dir. Larry Peerce. Perf. Parker Stevenson and John Heyl. VHS. Paramount Pictures, 1972. Knowles, John. A Separate Peace. Secker and Warburg, 1959

Medical Assistant

The main person that has shaped my personality has been my mother. She has show n me how to conduct myself as a woman, a professional, and as a mother. She has always worker d and shown me and my sister the value of work. Her hard work Instilled In me the desire to succeed. My mother has always been my Inspiration. At a young age my mother came to the US, she had no knowledge of the language mum chi less of the way of life out here. Although the language barrier she managed to meet and ma r rye my dad.My mother quickly found out that America wasn't all It seemed. She married and the n struggled to provide for me and my father. He was a spoiled American kid, In my mothers word s, with opportunities only dreamed of by my mother. She stuck it out and had me and my sis term. Later she divorced from my dad and provided for us all by herself. She started working at South Chicago hospital as a housekeeper when I was only 6 wok s old. Since then she has held her Job and worked two, even thre e Jobs to provide for me an d my sister. The road has been long but she tells me she never regrets it.She has been sat bled and living proof that it can be done. My mother did it without any education and it was a f reign land to her. She now has bought and paid for her home and a condo in Florida, and has law yes helped and provided for me, my sister, and her grandchildren. My mother is my idol. I wish she could see the impact and structure she has instilled on my life. I am so proud to have such a dedicated and hard working mother. She inspires me to do the Impossible. If she can overcome all the odds then I can at least try to.

Advantages and disadvantages of internet Essay

Nowadays internet is the most common form of communication. It is a worldwide connection of computer systems over a massive network. There are certain advantages and disadvantages to the Internet. First of all internet has made communication very simple, easy and convenient. It is possible to stay in touch with people that you hardly ever see. Moreover internet is a source of knowledge. Anyone could simply open internet and get many information about anything. In other words it is a small encyclopedia about everything in the universe. Nothing online is trustworthy. Websites that are supposed to be trusted and are supposed to be reliable are not full of reliable information. Even major websites that are run by big and trusted companies are using writing firms to write their websites and the writing firms are simply hiring the cheapest freelancers to do their work for them. It is true that the Internet has made it easier to find out basic facts such as the location of places, but even that information is commonly incorrect. Also some people use the Internet too much and forgot real life contact. It may now be easier to keep in contact with people you know, but it has removed any incentive to visit people. In other words it can be addictive and a waste of time and even money. Two angles have been compared in both a positive and negative light. Internet can be useful and dangerous at the same time. In my opinion, Treat the information you read online with a high degree of skepticism and you will be alright. It is also a good idea to use the Internet in order to stay in contact with people, as it is easy and convenient. However, do not allow online contact to start replacing physical contact. It is important to strike a balance between the two.

The importance of Rossi work to understanding the city Essay

The importance of Rossi work to understanding the city - Essay Example The development of a city in relation to these manmade features is what makes up the city’s nature and morphology and from this reference Rossi is able to define urbanism. The city’s nature can be examined using massive structures, engineering works, and structures that are characteristic to their own history. Failure of connecting these two shows the sophisticated reality that has to be addressed for the future of the city. The history is the very important for the city’s development. Its favorable character and good moments of life, is very necessary in the city life. The man made features is work of art while the city is viewed as a human achievement and these achievements have the biggest contribution for the overall individuality of the city. Rossi believes that only the historian can give the complete picture of a city because they are the only ones who are totally concerned with defining the urban manmade features and their gradual development in different eras. History provides to urban science making it very important. This statement is related to the theory of remaining unchanged. The city is an object that is manmade and we will always feel the past and it will give meaning to the state of being permanent. This permanence can be felt in nature’s existence and the way towards which the city is headed. Rossi defines urban manmade features as the main elements because they have provided for the cultural and morphological of the city’s evolution. A good example is the changing of the amphitheatre at Nimes was changed in a fortress to become a little functional city of inhabitants of around two thousand. Outside the wall, it grew with a shape of amphitheatre as the main element. A city is a collection of the memory of those who belong there and the same with memory, it has to be associated with places and objects. It is a point of memories that are collected. Locus and citizenry