Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers explores the history and ethical dilemmas of postmortem human bodies being put to use by science. Each chapter delves into individual cases of cadavers being used to a specific end. In chapter 4, "Dead Man Driving," author Mary Roach pays a visit to Wayne State University to observe some rather forceful tests conducted on a cadaver known as UM 006. A group of scientists at the university wants to measure the impact of certain car crashes on the human body, namely how much impact a human shoulder can withstand before it is seriously injured. These are known as impact tolerance studies. The author uses this case study to elaborate the role cadavers play in our vehicular safety standards. Anatomical accuracy is extremely important when measuring the effects of a car accident on the human body. It logically follows that a human cadaver provides the most accurate test results, as a dummy or another cadaver (such as an ape) simply does not have the same composition. Current safety standards for our windshields, airbags, and steering wheels are a direct result of tests conducted with human cadavers.
Friday, February 16, 2018
How are the three types of irony used in Oedipus Rex?
Most texts, if they utilize irony, will use one or two types. Oedipus Rex, therefore, is unique because it implements all three types of irony in fundamental ways. The primary irony in the play is dramatic irony, which is when the reader is aware of something that characters in the story are not. The reader realizes Oedipus' true identity, his past crimes, and his incest much earlier than Oedipus himself and several other characters. Thus, when the reader sees moments such as Oedipus pronouncing death upon Laius' murderer and Jocasta stating that Oedipus favors Laius, he or she sees the tragedy of the story all the more clearly. In fact, this tragedy of ignorance is applied to every character in the play other than Teiresias, who is actually a prime example of verbal irony.
Verbal irony is usually characterized by if there is a difference between what is said and what is meant. In the story of Oedipus Rex, Teiresias is a "blind seer," which seems to be an paradox. Though Teiresias is physically blind, he has special insights into reality, which is how he knows that Oedipus is Laius' murderer. This irony between being blind and seeing is carried through the the end of the story when Oedipus brutally blinds himself only when he learns the truth and "sees" it for the first time. Thus, Sophocles plays with these motifs through verbal irony multiple times.
Situational irony, or when there is a difference between what is expected and what happens, also plays a heavy role in the text as a whole, especially as it relates to attempts to escape fate. When Jocasta and Laius slit the ankles of their three-day old son and leave him to die, they do not expect that their son could survive. Likewise, when Oedipus runs away from his adopted parents to avoid killing his father, he meets his birth parents and kills his father and marries his mother.
Sophocles wove all three types of irony into Oedipus Rex cohesively, and all three help to deepen this tragic tale.
When Sophocles wrote Oedipus Rex, he used three forms of irony: verbal, situational, and dramatic.
Sarcasm is a form of verbal irony when a person says something that means or is interpreted as something else, usually the opposite. We find verbal irony in the characters' speeches. Teiresias and Oedipus have a conversation in which Teiresias uses sarcasm. He refuses to “reveal the troubling things inside me, which I can call your grief as well.” Teiresias is trying to tell Oedipus that he will not divulge that Oedipus is the one who killed Laois. Oedipus does not understand this, and he thinks that Teiresias is withholding information about impending doom.
Another type of irony that Sophocles uses is situational or tragic irony, which involves the action in the play. Situational irony occurs when an unexpected event takes place. Oedipus runs away from his parents but ends up getting closer to his real parents. He blames others for the killing of Laios, but he finds out he is the one who murdered him.
Dramatic irony happens when the audience is privy to information that a character is not. In the case of Oedipus Rex, the audience is told in the introduction that he is the murderer, but Oedipus himself does not know this and blames others. The irony occurs when he learns that he is the actual murderer.
Sophocles uses irony throughout Oedipus Rex to both entertain and teach. He attempts to instruct the audience about the strength of fate and that one can never be too sure of oneself. He warns people to be humble because you never know when you could be in the wrong.
Who creates the Ice Garden / The Stargazer in the Night Circus?
In Erin Morgenstern's novel The Night Circus, a competition wages between two magicians, Marco and Celia, to create the best attractions for the circus. Throughout the novel, Morgenstern describes the numerous fantastical attractions that Le Cirque Des Reves (The Circus of Dreams) contains. Some of these attractions are rides, while others are tents that contain a magical show or experience.
Marco is the one who creates the Ice Garden attraction, which is a tent that contains an interior "garden" made entirely out of ice sculptures. The magic of the tent's interior helps it to seem bigger than its actual size.
Ethan Barris, the head engineer of Le Cirque Des Reves, is the one who creates the Stargazer. The Stargazer is a roller coaster that slowly moves up toward the sky at an angle so that patrons can view the stars while riding.
What are some unique things about Philadelphia's history?
Some unique things about Philadelphia history in the seventeenth and eighteenth century are the following:
1) The first and second Continental Congresses convened in Philadelphia. The Continental Congress served as the government of the thirteen colonies from 1774 to 1789. The first Continental Congress convened in response to England's Coercive Acts. Delegates of this Congress decided to stop importing British goods. They also threatened to end all trade with England if the Coercive Acts were allowed to stand. Meanwhile, the Revolutionary War began during the Second Continental Congress. A month after the Second Congress, the Continental Army (the military arm of the thirteen colonies) was created, and George Washington was named its commander-in-chief.
2) The first protests against slavery in the colonies began in Philadelphia. In 1688, four Quakers drafted the Germantown Quaker Petition. Today, Germantown is part of Philadelphia. The Germantown petition constituted the first American document to agitate for the abolition of slavery. At the time of its writing, the contents were so controversial that Quaker officials refused to institute any major changes within its body. So, the Germantown Quaker Petition was largely forgotten. It surfaced again in 1844, however, when it became a major catalyst for the abolition movement in America.
3) Benjamin Franklin (in collaboration with Dr. Thomas Bond) opened the first hospital in the United States in Philadelphia. The name of the institution was the Pennsylvania Hospital. During the Revolutionary War, the hospital treated both British and American soldiers.
Consider the implications of the Treaty of Versailles. How much impact do you think it had on subsequent events? Explain your answer.
The main subsequent event of the Versailles Treaty was WWII, which would happen twenty years later. The Versailles Treaty had a large impact on WWII as it punished Germany for the war. Germany had to pay large indemnities to the Allied powers after the war. Germany considered these to be unfair as Germany did not start the war. Germany also lost a great deal of territory including Alsace-Lorraine and what would become part of Poland. Alsace-Lorraine was not conquered in WWI; rather, it was taken during the Franco-Prussian War of 1871. This would further sow the seeds of anti-French sentiment in Germany as the nation claimed that France was out for revenge instead of searching for a just peace. Germany also claimed that the Allied desire for self-determination for Europeans was hypocritical as many German-speaking people were separated from their home country with the formation of Poland. When Hitler started annexing territory in 1936, he claimed that he was only bringing German people back to their native land. When he used this logic to annex the western part of Poland, it proved to be the start of WWII. The Soviet Union annexed the eastern part of Poland as part of a nonaggression treaty with Germany and to regain land it lost at the Versailles negotiations.
The Versailles Treaty also limited Germany's ability to make war by sharply cutting the size of its army as well as destroying the German navy and air force. Hitler was able to recreate the German armed forces as a way to provide jobs for Germans during the Great Depression and to restore German nationalism. It is hard to imagine WWII happening without the efforts the Allies made to punish Germany at the Versailles negotiations. The negotiations were not really negotiations at all as Germany was only consulted when it was time to sign the treaty and the nation was given the choice of either signing the treaty or resuming the war. Germany was also facing a blockade which kept food out of the starving nation during the armistice period. The nation was never invaded and many German citizens thought that the German army was actually successful. The abrupt end of the war with the punitive peace was too much of a shock. The treaty combined with the Great Depression led to the conditions which allowed Hitler to take power and start WWII.
Who is Yndio in The House of Broken Angels?
The House of Broken Angels, by Luis Alberto Urrea (published in 2018), is a novel about a Mexican American family with many ties and a rich multicultural history that brings together their origins in Mexico with their American lives in San Diego. The protagonist is Big Angel (Miguel) De La Cruz, a terminally ill man of 70 who wants to truly celebrate life on what he knows will be his last birthday party. He is married to Perla, and the couple still love each other deeply. Their children are Lalo and Minnie.
Perla, Big Angel’s wife, has two sons from a previous relationship, Braulio and Yndio. Yndio is somewhat alienated from the family, as he does not attend the funeral of Big Angel’s mother, Mama America, which takes place the day before the birthday party. We learn from a family anecdote that Yndio once dressed as Cher at a drag nightclub, shocking one of the relatives in attendance. Yndio is not close to his stepfather, Big Angel.
When a gunman comes to the house with plans to kill Lalo, Big Angel’s and Perla’s son, his half-brother Yndio disarms him. This brave act brings Yndio closer to his stepfather. He accepts Big Angel as a father, a wonderful event that helps bring a positive closure to Big Angel’s life.
Marketing theory places “Price” as the first P in the "4 Ps" theory. Costing theories in management accounting are built from this principle. Compare and contrast the “Target costing approach to pricing” with “Cost-plus pricing."
"Cost-plus pricing" and "target costing" are useful but distinct ways of generalizing how cost and price are related in a business model, and they are used to assign a unit price on a given product during the modeling stage.
Cost-plus pricing is the most basic method for determining the price of a product. In cost-plus pricing, the business sums up the cost of production of each unit and adds a profit mark-up to calculate the sale price.
Target costing, conversely, starts with the price at which the business wants to sell each unit. It usually involves market and competitor research to choose an optimal price for the product. After arriving at a price, it subtracts the profit the business wants to receive from each unit. The remaining amount is the maximum cost it can pay to achieve its desired profit margin.