History of Panama Canal Essay

Christopher Columbus was on his fourth voyage and he was looking for a way to China. That’s when he came across the country named Panama, which stretches only 60 miles, where he found Indians who had tons of gold. But he was looking for a way to China so he sent his brother Bartholomew to search for more gold. At first Indians were willing to lead the Spaniards to the gold, but eventually they got tired and led the Spanish back to the coast. When the Indians did this they were abused. Eventually the Indians fought back and drove of the Spanish. Balboa is one of the people who found tons of gold and sent it back to Spain, but saved a lot for himself. With his earnings he decided to Balboa decided to settle in Hispaniola as a planter. But after some time he ended up in debt and had to abandon his life as a planter. Trying to escape his creditors Balboa hid in a ship and tried to escape, from Santo Domingo to San Sebastian, and was successful. When they arrived at San Sebastian, they discovered that it had been burned to the ground. Balboa convinced the others to travel southwest with him to a spot he had seen on his earlier expedition. In 1511, Balboa founded a colony, the first European settlement in South America – the town of Santa Maria de la Antigua del Darien. Balboa married the daughter of Careta, the local Indian chief. Soon after, in 1513, he sailed with hundreds of Spaniards and Indians across the Gulf of Uraba to the Darien Peninsula. Balboa headed an overland expedition west through very dense rainforests. Along the way they fought many local Indians and destroyed one Indian village, killing hundreds of Indians. Balboa was the first European to see the eastern part of the Pacific Ocean. Balboa and his men then traveled to the ocean and claimed it and all the land that touched it for Spain. The building of the Panama Canal came to light during the 1530’s. As they began to transport their riches back to the Spanish homeland, they were always interested in more efficient routes. It was suggested to Spanish Ruler Charles V that Panama might serve as an ideal place to construct a water passage joining the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans. This would considerably cut the time it took to otherwise sail around the southern edge of South America. But wars back home put the idea on hold. In 1845 French company called the Compagnie de Panama wanted a railroad built by Colombia across Isthmus and administer it for 99 years. However in 1848 they couldn’t pay for it and lost their rights regarding the railroad. In 1848 the California gold rush occurred. This alone caused heavy traffic across the Isthmus of Panama. Later that year in December, U. S Company, the Panama railroad company negotiated a new contract with Bogota, Colombia to build the railroad across the Isthmus in 6 years. Part of the contract said that the trip would be guaranteed in less than 12 hours. The railroad was built and completed the journey in 4 ? hours. But Matthew Fontaine Maury, leading U. S. government scientist wrote to congress that the railroad Isthmus of Panama will lead to the construction of a ship canal between the two oceans, for a railroad can’t do the business which commerce will require it. Railroad was expensive it cost $250 in gold to ride the 47 miles. It cost 10-15 cents a pound to carry a passenger’s baggage. Express freight and merchandise was charged $1. 80 per cubic foot. Railroad Company made more than $7 million. This was too expensive for normal people and Maury’s words of 1849 came true as men from around the world began to arrive to build the Panama Canal. The first country to try and build the canal was France. Ferdinand de Lesseps, who supervised the Suez Canal, was interested in building the Panama Canal. He joined several French businessmen to form a private company with an impressive name: the Societe Civile Internationale du Canal Interuceanique du Darien. The societe sent Lucien Napoleon- Bon parte Wyse, grandnephew of the 1st French emperor, Napoleon Bon parte to Panama in early November 1876, to survey the site for a canal and, more important, to secure the permission of Colombia for such a project. Colombian government and Wyse had an agreement. That for an initial payment of nearly $200,000 as well as yearly rental fee, societe was granted permission to build and administer a canal for 99 year lease. Colombia gave societe a belt of land 200 meter wide across the entire width of Panama. However at the end of 99 years the canal and land would be returned to Colombia. In 1873 U. S. had conducted surveys of a potential route across Panama, but had rejected it. Wyes never did surveys, and decided to use the notes of U. S. surveys instead. After that he left Panama for home to report to Lesseps. The French plan was simple a channel across the Isthmus at sea level. They would follow a route that ran close to the existing Panama railroad. They planned to use the railroad to transport supplies and haul away the excavated dirt. Once the excavation had reached sea level the canal itself would be dug another 27 ? feet deep, and 72 feet deep at its bottom. They planned to complete the canal in 12 years. However the idea of sea level canal was impossible to achieve. Charges river valley, through which and canal would have to go through stood at an altitude of 80-100 feet above sea level. Nobody including de Lesseps ignored this problem and said it was not serious. However the French never finished the sea level canal. 1000’s of men died of malaria, yellow fever and other diseases. Eventually in 1889 the French court also declared the French canal company was bankrupt. In 1903 Panama declared its independence from Colombia and wins it with the help of U.  S. Soon the Hay- Bunau – Varilla treaty was signed which gave U. S. the right to build a canal through Panama. At this time President Roosevelt was in charge. Roosevelt wanted to build the canal to increase America’s navy power, and it made the trip from the east coast to the west coast of the U. S. much shorter than the route taken around the tip of South America. 1904, the Americans’ first year in Panama, mirrored the French disaster. The chief engineer, John Findlay Wallace, neglected to organize the effort or to develop an action plan. The food was putrid, the living conditions abysmal. Political red tape put a stranglehold on appropriations. Disease struck, and three out of four Americans booked passage home. Engineer Wallace soon followed. The Americans had poured $128 million into the swamps of Panama, to very little effect. Wallace’s replacement was John Stevens. Stevens had built the Great Northern Railroad across the Pacific Northwest. In rough territory from Canada to Mexico, he had proven his tenacity. And his new plan of action would ultimately save the canal. Stevens began work not by digging, but by cleaning. Thanks to the work of WILLIAM GORGAS, the threats of yellow fever and malaria were greatly diminished. Then on February 12, 1907, a dispirited Chief Engineer Stevens resigned, and Goethals took over as the chief engineer. Colonel George Washington Goethals, an Army engineer with experience building lock-type canals, assumed the Chief Engineer’s post. Demanding and rigidly organized, Goethals quickly picked up where Stevens left off. America had to face a couple of problems. First they had to dig at the Culebra Cut, where 100,000,000 cubic yards of earth and rock would have to be removed. The workers there made ten cents an hour — moved as much as 200 trainloads of spoil a day. When mudslides filled the Cut repeatedly, Goethals simply ordered it dug out again. There were accidents of all sorts, lost equipment, and deaths, but there was progress. The engineering problems were enormous. Because the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans are at different elevations, a series of three sets of water-filled chambers, called locks, that raise and lower ships from one level to the next, had to be excavated and constructed.

Aubade Poem

Analysis of Aubade He is lonely and depress with the world. He drinks every single, work to support himself and stay up all night rethinking about his useless life. He is dark outside and cold from the inside, no one can see him. He is afraid of what might happen if he takes another step into life. He begin to describe his emotional feelings on paper, thinking about the time that he will be the next one laying in the grave, he is fearing death.In the poem, â€Å"Aubade,† Philip Larkin take the reader into his pathless journey, letting his audience know what he does and what will happen. He accomplished this through the use of imagery, poetic devices, and organization of the poem. Throughout this poem, the narrator uses imagery by describing his fear of death and the unexpected of death. In the first stanza, lines 1-2, â€Å"I work all day, and get half drunk at night, waking at four to soundless dark,† show what he does on his daily basis.He tell people what he is doing without feeling shame, â€Å" work all day† you can picture him working at factory doing the same thing all over again, meanwhile he come and get â€Å"half drunk. † It seem like the narrator can’t sleep and he is depress. His depressing phrases, he begins to describe what is outside of his house when stepping into the society of death. In lines 3-4, â€Å"In time the curtain†¦till then I see†¦ Unresting death,† he goes from light behind his curtain, the brightness he faces in the morning when going to work and the death road along the way.He emphasizes the â€Å"unresting death,† explaining that he will soon die and he makes all thoughts impossible. â€Å"The mind blanks at the glare. Not in remorse- The good not done, the love not give,† is the mephator Philip uses to establish the meaning of the title. Aubade is the lovers separate at dawn, so other words it doesn’t mean two couples, it is the relationship between death and the narrator. The death can be seen as a lover; because the narrator spends the whole time in bed thinking of what will happen to him if he start another day.The lover can be dawn, â€Å"the love not give,† walk away when light hit. With his tone of fear, he describe the â€Å"emptiness,† when dying you feel nothing but knowing that you are alone in the grave. The sentence â€Å"not to be anywhere† exist on its own line, this where we see the narrator create a connection with death by using the context, line is says, and form, the sentence is all by itself. The narrator is trying to make you feel that death is the one that can separate you from your own life and keep you lonely forever.The organization of â€Å"Aubade† is rather linear. Philip begin with all the negatively, what he does every single day and the fear he has inside of him, death. In the second stanza he show an emotional appeal letting his audience know that he is unable to do anything because death will soon arrive to him. In the third stanza, he tell his opinion about religion, he has no trust with god to save his life, he believe it is a trick as mention in lines 22- 24, â€Å"No trick dispels. Religion used to try.. reated to pretend we never die,† to him he has no belief in savor. As we scroll down to the next two stanza, he tell the readers that even if we want to step away from death, there is no way to overcome and he says in rhyming way, â€Å" Being brave, Lets no one off the grave. † He knows that death is one of the top ten lists of fear. We can feel what he is trying to getting across. We know that he fears death and he speak about what will be expected and the moments that he wished that he could of created. With the journey he took his readers

Mediating Morality Essay

This case has lots of different goals by each person and different feelings about what needs to be done. Syl priority is to get the project completed while Daniel is more focused on his belief that he is being discriminated against. Robert also wants to get the project completed but does not want to work with Daniel the same way his was before he discovered Daniel is in a homo-sexual relationship. Syl did a good thing having separate conversations with both Daniel and Robert on a way to still complete the project but when she brought them together to discuss how they would precede it fell apart. I believe when things became heated she should have ended the meeting. Allowing the guys to argue back and forth created more tension in the situation. I also believe that she should have been more commanding of here statements and not allow Robert to spread his bias to other employees. Daniel is worried about Robert spreading rumors and dislike for him to other employees. This is especially true because Robert is bringing two other employees into the project to replace Daniel because of he doesn’t like Daniel’s lifestyle. I also agree with Syl about Daniel not having a discrimination lawsuit because this situation is not hurting Daniel’s work life unless they do not complete the project. He may become uncomfortable with certain co-workers because of them listening to Robert but his work position and being able to advance it will not be affected. Robert’s priority is to also complete the project but he does not want to complete it with Daniel. He believes moral standards should be upheld in the workplace and this is important. The only thing I have against this is that this company already has a benefits process in place for same sex spouses. Knowing the company has this if Robert does not believe in same sex marriage and does not want to be around it he should consider finding a new job. This is a hard case to digest and deal with but well placed mediation and goal setting can help the process. Robert should consider a new job or counseling to help deal with his dislike of same sex marriage. Daniel should not let this affect his priorities of completing the project.

A Doll’s House by Henrik Ibsen

The play â€Å"A doll’s house† is written by Henrik Ibsen and was adapted into a film in 1973. It deals with gender discrimination in the Victorian age. It highlights specifically the paths women of the West have treaded to find respect and equality. Ibsen makes it possible to imagine the barbarities that existed within the law and society of those times. Through the years, controversial writings like these, have intentionally or unintentionally forced women to rise up and reclaim their rightful legal and civil rights. In the Victorian Period law dictated that property; children and income belonged solely to men. Divorce or Separation was unthinkable. Women who worked were frowned upon by society. Their status was equivalent to the slaves, criminals or the insane. The main role of a woman was to reproduce children, keep the house clean, and feed the children while their husbands worked. It is sad that although women in the developed world have found equal rights in this century through various equal rights acts and amendments however the women of the developing world still lack basic rights and struggle everyday between gender power relationships. The entire film takes place at Mr. and Mrs. Torvald Helmer’s Apartment. The film is set in Norway in the late 1800’s during Christmas time. This one room shows various shades of hypocrisy, discrimination, arrogance and dishonesty exhibited by society. The room is a microscopic vision of the world. It shows the plight and suffering of every woman in every household all around the world. The fact that Nora does not leave the room throughout the film shows how she is entrapped in this Victorian Doll House. The protagonist of the film is Nora, a Victorian middle class woman. She is ruled by her husband and complete oblivious to her state of unfulfillment. She is thrown into a difficult situation and to protect her husband and family commits forgery. Unaware of the legal consequences she tries dishonestly to obtain a loan. She sits on a puffy pink cloud thinking that her special status would always protect her and her kids in the eye of the state. However, the law expects her to know better. The hypocrisy of the system hits Nora and she tries to break out of her Victorian Doll like shell. She desires a life less frivolous, so she decides to work independently and earn money. She starts enjoying this new found freedom. Her relationship with her husband also spirals downwards and sows the seed of doubt and self reflection. Ibsen broke boundaries when he ended the original play with Nora rebelling against her husband, her father and ultimately the patriarchal society. However, the controversial ending caused shock and disagreement and forced him to change the ending. He later on lived to regret the change. The theme of the play made audiences agree that women should get equal pay for equal work; equal rights to enjoy an independent self sufficient life; rights to child custody and divorce; equal stature in legal matters; Equal access to knowledge. It is unfortunate that Victorian times were so suffocating that Nora had to leave her husband or she would continue to be treated as nothing more than a mere rag doll. She was just an inanimate object, dispensable by others and deserved no respect, rights or esteem. Works Cited Page: Johnston, Ian. (July 2000). On Ibsen's A Doll's House. Johnstonia. Retrieved April 3rd 200. http://www.mala.bc.ca/~johnstoi/introser/ibsen.htm Gillis, G. J. and Westhagen, Jen. SparkNote on A Doll’s House. 2 Apr. 2007 .          A Doll’s House by Henrik Ibsen The play â€Å"A doll’s house† is written by Henrik Ibsen and was adapted into a film in 1973. It deals with gender discrimination in the Victorian age. It highlights specifically the paths women of the West have treaded to find respect and equality. Ibsen makes it possible to imagine the barbarities that existed within the law and society of those times. Through the years, controversial writings like these, have intentionally or unintentionally forced women to rise up and reclaim their rightful legal and civil rights. In the Victorian Period law dictated that property; children and income belonged solely to men. Divorce or Separation was unthinkable. Women who worked were frowned upon by society. Their status was equivalent to the slaves, criminals or the insane. The main role of a woman was to reproduce children, keep the house clean, and feed the children while their husbands worked. It is sad that although women in the developed world have found equal rights in this century through various equal rights acts and amendments however the women of the developing world still lack basic rights and struggle everyday between gender power relationships. The entire film takes place at Mr. and Mrs. Torvald Helmer’s Apartment. The film is set in Norway in the late 1800’s during Christmas time. This one room shows various shades of hypocrisy, discrimination, arrogance and dishonesty exhibited by society. The room is a microscopic vision of the world. It shows the plight and suffering of every woman in every household all around the world. The fact that Nora does not leave the room throughout the film shows how she is entrapped in this Victorian Doll House. The protagonist of the film is Nora, a Victorian middle class woman. She is ruled by her husband and complete oblivious to her state of unfulfillment. She is thrown into a difficult situation and to protect her husband and family commits forgery. Unaware of the legal consequences she tries dishonestly to obtain a loan. She sits on a puffy pink cloud thinking that her special status would always protect her and her kids in the eye of the state. However, the law expects her to know better. The hypocrisy of the system hits Nora and she tries to break out of her Victorian Doll like shell. She desires a life less frivolous, so she decides to work independently and earn money. She starts enjoying this new found freedom. Her relationship with her husband also spirals downwards and sows the seed of doubt and self reflection. Ibsen broke boundaries when he ended the original play with Nora rebelling against her husband, her father and ultimately the patriarchal society. However, the controversial ending caused shock and disagreement and forced him to change the ending. He later on lived to regret the change. The theme of the play made audiences agree that women should get equal pay for equal work; equal rights to enjoy an independent self sufficient life; rights to child custody and divorce; equal stature in legal matters; Equal access to knowledge. It is unfortunate that Victorian times were so suffocating that Nora had to leave her husband or she would continue to be treated as nothing more than a mere rag doll. She was just an inanimate object, dispensable by others and deserved no respect, rights or esteem. Works Cited Page: Johnston, Ian. (July 2000). On Ibsen's A Doll's House. Johnstonia. Retrieved April 3rd 200. http://www.mala.bc.ca/~johnstoi/introser/ibsen.htm Gillis, G. J. and Westhagen, Jen. SparkNote on A Doll’s House. 2 Apr. 2007 .         

Design Test Rig Coursework Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2500 words

Design Test Rig - Coursework Example In some cases, test rigs are designed depending on the equipment to be tested. One example of a commercial test rig is the Crash Test Rig designed and fabricated by JK Controls Limited. The apparatus comprises of a trolley that hauls the sample being tested. The trolley, which moves along a track by rotating rubber cords, is stopped abruptly by applying a decelerating force using a solid beam (JK Controls Limited, n.d). The test rig facilitates the determination of the required braking force of equipment, which is dependent on the weight of the equipment, braking materials and the speed. Another example of a commercial test rig is the Aircraft Wing Brake Test Rig designed and fabricated by JK Controls Limited. The rig tests the braking system of an aircraft by subjecting a rotating shaft (of a prototype) to a brake that is electrically operated. The shaft, which rotates at 1500 rpm, has to be halted by the brake within 40ms (JK Controls Limited n.d). The test rig being designed will operate on the same basic principle, the application of a braking force to a rotating disk to prevent it from rotating. At equilibrium state, the braking beam will be in contact with the surface of the disk (stationary). The contact action will be achieved through a locking mechanism. Once the operator applies a force on the braking beam, at the contact patch, the braking beam retracts from the disk, which allows the disk to rotate. The test rig will be used for determining braking force required to stop a rotating disk within a given time. Therefore, the applied force will be used to disengage the braking system to allow the disk to rotate. Once the operator withdraws this force, the braking system will be engaged. The basic operation principle of the test rig is similar to the Crash Test Rig and the Aircraft Wing Brake Test Rig presented above. However, the rig will contain several other components that will work together to achieve the ultimate goal, braking action. Concept

Post-Structuralism Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 3000 words

Post-Structuralism - Essay Example Along with Lvi-Strauss, three of the most prominent post-structuralists were first counted among the so-called "Gang of Four" of structuralism par excellence: Jacques Lacan, Roland Barthes, and Michel Foucault. The works of Jacques Derrida, Gilles Deleuze, and Julia Kristeva are also counted as prominent examples of post-structuralism. Legal theory is necessarily involved with question of language, meaning and interpretation. Language has increasingly become a major object of inquiry within diver's range of legal theory. This is partly due to the work of J.L. Austin and his speech language theory, between 1962 and 1973. 2 At that time discussions were very passionate, then, after a less popular period, it re-finds a great interest at the beginning of the eighties. In France, it has penetrated philosophy thanks to the works of Ducrot and Ricoeur. The first publication on this subject dates from 1974. In Europe the situation is quite similar with one remarkable exception in 1962 with the Swedish K. Olivecrona and the Finish G.H. von Wright3. But in 1972, Alf Ross published an article with a signification title:" The Rise and Fall of the Doctrine of Per formatives ", in one hand he rejected following Austin's first distinction between per formatives and constatives, or more generally, between "saying something" and "doing something", but on the other hand, he didn't accept the second version of the theory, with the distinction between the elocutionary, illocutionary, and perlocucionnary act. Alf Ross distinguished only two main types of speech act: indicative and directive, in his book "Directives and N orms". Each of these acts had one or several norms behind to determine its normative consequences. These norms were called "norms of competence". Contribution to the question of the legal language specificity: a frontal attack against basis of the pure theory of law. The theorical reason of the language theory attraction exercised on jurists is that in the sixties legal theoricians and philosophers went to a saturation point caused by kelsenien theory. Thus per formative theory allowed a frontal attack against the bases of pure theory by suppressing grnd norm "hypothesis". In admitting existence of per formative speech acts, which didn't ask existence of superior norms, we could denounce what Mc Cormick called "the imperativist fallacy". But it is also important to stress that speech act theory allowed to oppose oneself to the epistemological rupture, inherited from Hume and Kant applied in our field by Kelsen between Sein and Sollen, Is and Ought. Some jurists had this deep intuition that this radical scission which closed them in the "swollen world", the one of signification of will act, cut them from reality, and deprive legal reasoning from perception foundations signing by its irrationalism. Though, doctrine of per formatives by its theory o f presuppositions reinaugurates the link between speech act and its factual presuppositions. It is the reason why the speech act theory has

Apology by Plato Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Apology by Plato - Essay Example However, their works are written during the years witnesses of this trial were still alive, so it is likely Plato was trying to give a fairly accurate picture of what had happen during the trial. Historians are still puzzled by the reasons Socrates was executed. Athens, the city philosopher lived at the time, enjoyed many liberties, the freedom of speech and democracy, and was favoring wise man and philosophers. Socrates was often outspoken of his critiques on the society and governance of that time. He was often found speaking in the market squares and workshops, where he would discuss moral issues and views that were in odds with his set of values – thus was putting himself in odds with other people. He developed his own set of views which he was following regardless of the circumstances. He dared to refuse follow the orders of bringing a man to a trial, however, he did nothing to change the order – he simply went home. Some of his teachings appeared antidemocratic, e .g. he was speaking against a right of any free citizen to speak in Athenian assembly. He was a famous educator of the young people, however he was doing it free of charge, and he was very poor himself. Being so outspoken, finally he was officially charged with "refusing to do reverence to the gods recognized by the â€Å", and also of corrupting youth. However, the real reasons, most likely, were political – he was very vocal with his critics. In modern times, Socrates’ death has generally been seen in two ways: as the conflict of the individual with the state and as the downfall of rational, talkative man. (Wilson, 2007, p.192) The whole trial and conviction is a sample of ethnocentrism. Society at large, or, better yet, the influential people of Athens, had certain views they were comfortable with and, therefore, considered them being right one. Socrates’ views came into opposition with this mainstream opinion. He was stigmatized, and then punished for being so different. His death had to give Athenians sense of being right, and him – being a criminal and the one, worth of punishment. So his views, measured against the mainstream society’s opinions did not stand the ground. And, as it is often done, those who speak differently are often reprimanded, persecuted and punished. It is not the same as in the case with someone being a real criminal. Even though there is no clear evidence of either Socrates’ guilt or innocence, according to him, he did not do anything that would merit such severe punishment as death. To the contrary, he was trying to serve his fellow citizens to his own hurt. He did not have any gain from his services; to the contrary, he was very poor, which was documented by several historians. He often neglected his family to be of the service to his students. So the outcome of his trial is a clear and extreme example of ethnocentrism. â€Å"Silencing dissent in times of conflict results from equating criticism of society with disloyalty†, as Joel M. Charon put wisely in â€Å"Ten Questions†. This is exactly what was happening. Socrates’ prosecutors had to have justification for their action – they wanted to rid themselves of the man they could not stand any longer. So they had to fabricate accusations – which Socrates answered in the â€Å"Apology†, and refuted as being false and inconsistent. However, it seems that Socrates himself took this trial as a