Essay on Eiffel Tower Essay Example for Free

Essay on Eiffel Tower Essay In 1889, Paris hosted an Exposition Universelle to mark the 100-year anniversary of the French Revolution. More than 100 artists submitted competing plans for a monument to be built on the Champ-de-Mars, located in central Paris, and serve as the exposition’s entrance. The commission was granted to Eiffel et Compagnie. Eiffel, an architect and metal expert, receives full credit for the monument that bears his name but it was one of his employees—a structural engineer named Maurice Koechlin—who came up with the concept. Several years earlier, the pair had collaborated on the Statue of Liberty’s metal armature. Originally intended as a temporary exhibit, the Eiffel Tower was almost torn down in 1909. City officials opted to save it after recognizing its value as a radiotelegraph station. Several years later, during World War I, the Eiffel Tower intercepted enemy radio communications. It escaped destruction a second time during World War II. Over the years, the Eiffel Tower has been the site of numerous high-profile stunts, ceremonial events and even scientific experiments. The Eiffel Tower has also inspired more than 30 replicas and similar structures in various cities around the world. Now one of the most recognizable structures on the planet, the Eiffel Tower underwent a major renovation in 1986 and is repainted every seven years. It welcomes more visitors than any other paid monument in the world—an estimated 7 million people per year. Fulgence Bienvenà ¼e, an engineer at Ponts et Chaussà ©es, created the project, which was adopted by the Municipal Council on 9 July 1897. Work started on 4 October 1898. Line 1, which opened on 19 July 1900, connected the Porte de Maillot to the Porte de Vincennes and provided a service to the summer Olympic Games organised in the Bois de Vincennes. Parisians immediately loved this new means of transport. In 1901, Fulgence Bienvenà ¼e planned an additional network of lines which would not leave any point in Paris more than 500 metres from a metro station. Work quickly began on lines 2 and 3 and then 4 and 5, etc. The first six lines were opened to the public in 1910. Immediately prior to the First World War, the 91km-long network included 10 lines and carried 467 million travellers. The following decade saw the network continue to grow, in particular through the extension of the lines to the suburbs (lines 1, 12, 9, 11, etc.). During the Second World War, several lines were exten ded despite the shortage of electricity.

Free Henry IV Essays: The Character of Falstaff :: Henry IV Henry V Essays

The Character of Falstaff in Henry IV The character of Falstaff, in Shakespeare’s play Henry IV Part One, serves as an emblem of frivolity and carelessness within a world filled with social and political significance. Falstaff scorns the world of politics and moral decisions in favor of existing from moment to moment. Though he dislikes this "other world", Falstaff realizes he must sometimes come in contact with it. Falstaff’s famous speech in lines 127-139 of Act V shows us how he regards the Prince’s world of honor and duty. Through this speech, Falstaff places himself firmly out of any moral world concerned with justice or honor, instead living for no other reason than life itself. Falstaff’s speech comes after the King and Prince Hal decide to war against the army of Hotspur. Though they wait on word from Worcester, the probability of conflict seems high. Falstaff knows that when the battle comes, he is going to be in the middle of it. Shortly before his speech on the nature of honor, Falstaff shows fear that he might be hurt. In lines 121-2 Falstaff asks Hal to protect him if he should fall during battle. The Prince’s rejection of the request shows his scorn for Falstaff’s desire to passively preserve only his own life. Throughout the last half of the play, as the Prince drifts away from Falstaff, Falstaff’s role in the action of the play as a whole diminishes. The importance placed upon the idea of honor allows Hal to assume his rightful position beside the King, while Falstaff dims into the background. Falstaff’s idea of honor is directly linked to his sense of time itself. In the opening lines of his speech, Falstaff says,"‘Tis not due yet: I would be loath to pay him before his day." (L. 127-8) In this example, God is being related by Falstaff to someone who has set a schedule determining the time and place of everyone’s death. For Falstaff, one’s role in life is not to stray from the path created by that higher Power. The notion of honor, as he later describes in this speech, is a belief through which one can transgress that natural order. He says,"Yea, but how if honor prick me off when I come on?" (L. 130) In order for one to gain honor, one must risk one’s life. This type of gambling is not for Falstaff, as he decides that his own life is more important than,"A word.

Billy Mitchell: A Critical Analysis of His Leadership Essay

Billy Mitchell was a visionary airpower pioneer who demonstrated very effective leadership in field operations, but his inability to develop a guiding coalition limited his effectiveness in leading the major organizational change he so desperately desired. General Mitchell was a famous, some would say infamous, airpower thinker who some regard as the father of the United States Air Force.1 Born into a wealthy family and the son of a Wisconsin Senator, Mitchell could have chosen a life of luxury. But Billy sought great adventure and chose the military life instead. He joined the Army at the age of eighteen, six years before the Wright brothers made their first historic flight at Kitty Hawk. Once powered flight was proven, it wouldn’t take long for men to make it a weapon of war. For the U.S. Army, Mitchell found himself leading this effort in World War I and, by all accounts, he did so superbly. In this experience, he gained a vision for airpower so firmly embraced that he beca me America’s most outspoken supporter of air forces and the need for an independent Air Service. See more: how to write an analysis As he pursued this challenge, Mitchell’s leadership was both stirring and divisive – leading to heroic displays of airpower technology and also to courts martial for insubordination. Despite his efforts, General Mitchell was not able to drive the Army and the nation to the strategic change he desired for airpower. In the years, however, following his downfall, many of his concepts eventually won the day. Denied his dream in life, his contributions were rewarded six years after his death when he was posthumously promoted to Major General and awarded the Congressional Gold Medal. How could a man succeed so greatly in one phase of his life, but fail to achieve the same level of success in another, given the fact that history has proven his airpower tenants correct? To answer this, one must examine Mitchell’s leadership and explore how it affected his successes and failures. The Air War College leadership curriculum provides an environment to examine the underpinning s of leadership and how it may be defined and improved. As a core analytical framework, it utilizes the Right to Lead (RTL) Model. 2 This model allows one, given certain authority, obligations, and requirements, to assess leadership against the factors of competence, character, personality, and relevance. I use these factors to assess Mitchell’s field leadership and provide rationale for his operational successes. Mitchell possessed high levels of leadership competence, especially with regard to his knowledge and skills. He was very intelligent and dedicated himself to mastering the technical aspects of every military duty, which crossed a wide gamut from reading Morse code to flying aircraft. His assignments, from the jungles of the Philippines to the barren tundra of Alaska, provided him with great breadth of experience from which he polished the personal skills needed to lead his men. He leveraged this talent in the first world war, when he brought the power of his knowledge and experience to combat the ignorance of those who failed to understand how to employ airpower in the fight. 3 The one limiting factor in Mitchell’s competence related to his behavior, specifically in the wear of the uniform, where he was known to take â€Å"free reign in everything that adds a touch of picturesque to his personality.4 He would have been wise to remedy his behavior in this regard, as some of his actions drew outrage from his men, including the wear of more gold chevrons on his sleeve than he was authorized.5 Luckily for Mitchell, due to his strength of character, his men were mostly willing to overlook his behavioral faults. He was known as a man of integrity and was fiercely devoted to the well being of his men. Given that an honest effort was put forward, he was surprisingly tolerant of mistakes. Most importantly in the eyes of his troops, before ordering a subordinate to undertake a tough assignment, Mitchell would experiment with the task himself.6 Consider the following: Mitchell enlisted into the Army at eighteen despite his option of an easier life; he was th e first airmen to volunteer for assignment to France in World War I; and he was the first American officer to fly over the German front lines. 7 I argue that these examples all support the fine character of General Mitchell. Mitchell’s personality was well suited for leadership in a field environment. He was able to effectively utilize the coercive, authoritative, and pacesetting leadership styles that, according to leadership research, were well suited for executing his vision in stressful environments with highly motivated men.8 He engendered high levels of trust from those who worked under him and gained the respect of those who worked by his side, including the British, French, and Italian allied leadership.9 Relevance, the apex of the RTL model, is a direct result of a leader’s influence and occurs at the organizational, environmental, and personal levels.10 Mitchell showed relevance in all of these areas. First, from an environmental perspective, he brought together multiple organizations, air forces from Britain, Italy, and the United States, and integrated their personnel and equipment into a viable fi ghting force, which culminated in â€Å"the greatest concentration of air power that had ever taken place.† 11 He had high organizational relevance, changing the persona of his combined force from one solely focused on strategic attack, to one comfortable executing the additional tactics and techniques of air superiority, close air support, and interdiction.12 Finally, General Mitchell had tremendous personal relevance to the airmen fighting under his command. As America rushed to get into the European air fight, they suffered from long delays in producing aircraft and training pilots, so much so that the vast majority of Army airmen shipped to Mitchell had never seen an airplane.13 He took this force and trained them to fly, fight, and win – culminating in a decisive victory at the Battle of St. Mihiel. The RTL model proves a valuable tool to help understand why Mitchell was an effective leader in field operations, which culminated in his effective planning and execution of the European air campaign of World War I. His experiences there convinced him that airpower would be the domi nate force in future warfare and to effectively organize, train, equip, and employ it required the creation of an independent Air Service Department. 14 Enacting such a vision required strategic organizational change, which Mitchell attempted to lead. He proved less successful in this regard and I’ll look to experts on leading change in an effort to understand why. In his book Leading Change, John Kotter spells out the eight steps to create major change within an organization.15 The change process can be summarized in three phases: break the status quo; introduce many new practices; and ground the changes into the organizational culture.16 To break the status quo, post-war budget cutbacks provided the required sense of urgency to produce military change and Mitchell had a clear and articulate vision, but he failed to create a sufficiently powerful guiding coalition to support the change. Though he was able to create a large cadre of airpower advocates in the military, the congress, and in the public, Mitchell was never able to get Army and Navy leadership to buy into his vision. When the head of an organization is not an active supporter, major change can be impossible.17 Unable to break the status quo, Mitchell targeted the second phase of the change process by introducing new practices and empowering those under his command to take broad action in the development of new aircraft and more capable munitions. Mitchell hoped public demonstrations of these capabilities would force his leadership to buy into his vision. In an attempt to make this happen, he turned to dissent. Mitchell utilized the national press to campaign for support, publicly denouncing the policies and positions of his leadership.18 In more recent times, other famous leaders, including Generals Douglas McArthur and Stanley McChrystal, have been relieved for publicly espousing opinion in conflict with national leadership. But I believe Mitchell felt national security was at stake and that, as the Army’s top airpower strategist, his expertise was being overlooked. When these conditions are met, some argue that dissent is appropriate.19 Right or wrong, Mitchell’s public campaign won him a very public showing of airpower capabilities, where his men famously sunk the battleship Ostfriesland.20 His public success did garner support for aviation – Navy aviation. The public nature of his dissent offended leadership and made it impossible for him to build the guiding coalition required for his vision. Without this key ingredient, he was unable to drive the organizational change desired. General Richard Myers argues that successful strategic leaders must manage cognitive dissonance.21 Thus, successful management means maintaining relationships despite disagreement. Mitchell failed here when he went public. Remarkably, he wasn’t fired, probably because his views aligned with the public mood of the day. 22 However, he again enacted this approach three years later with even stronger criticism of national policy and leadership. This time, he’d experience the impacts of dissent as he was tried and convicted at court martial. Although this ended his military career, Mitchell regarded his trial as a necessary cog in the wheel of progress.23 Billy Mitchell was an extremely effective leader in field operations. He was also a visionary airpower pioneer who attempted, but failed, to lead organizational change due to his inability to build the requisite coalition. His ideas were valid and later implemented after his death. It took men with different leadership competencies, however, to eventually enact the changes Mitchell so deeply advocated. 1. Lt Col William Ott, â€Å"Maj Gen William â€Å"Billy† Mitchell: A Pyrrhic Promotion,† Air and Space Power Journal, Winter 2006, 27. 2. Gene Kamena, Col Mark Danigole, and CAPT Scott Askins, â€Å"The Right to Lead,† (working paper, Air War College, Maxwell, AL, 2012), 1. 3. Roger Burlingame, General Billy Mitchell (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, Inc., 1978), 78. 4. Ibid., 103. 5. Ibid., 79. 6. Ibid., 78-79. 7. Dr. Michael L. Grumelli, â€Å"Billy Mitchell’s Air War: Practice, Promise, and Controversy,† (lecture, National Museum of the United States Air Force Lecture Series, Dayton, OH, 16 Jan 2000), NPN. 8. Daniel Goleman, â€Å"Leadership That Gets Results,† On Point: Harvard Business Review, March-April, 2002, 11. 9. Burlingame, General Billy Mitchell, 103. 10. Kamena, Danigole, and Askins, â€Å"The Right to Lead,† 1-5. 11. Burlingame, General Billy Mitchell, 94. 12. Grumelli, â€Å"Billy Mitchell’s Air War,† NPN. 13. Burlingame, General Billy Mitchell, 73-74. 14. Alfred F. Hurley, Billy Mitchell: Crusader for Air Power (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1975), 40. 15. John P. Kotter, Leading Change (Boston MA: Harvard Business School Press, 1996), 20-22. 16. Ibid., 23. 17. Ibid., 6. 18. Hurley, Billy Mitchell: Crusader for Air Power, 62. 19. Don M. Snyder, Dissent and Strategic Leadership in the Military Professions, ASSI Publication 849 (Carlisle, PA: Army Strategic Studies Institute, February 2008), 6-7. 20. Hurley, Billy Mitchell: Crusader for Air Power, 64-69. 21. GEN Richard B. Myers, Ret. and Albert C. Pierce, â€Å"On Strategic Leadership,† Joint Force Quarterly, No. 54, 3rd quarter 2009, 13. 22. Hurley, Billy Mitchell: Crusader for Air Power, 90. 23. Hurley, Billy Mitchell: Crusader for Air Power, 105. Bibliography 1. Roger Burlingame, General Billy Mitchell (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, Inc., 1978), 1-94. 2. Daniel Goleman, â€Å"Leadership That Gets Results,† On Point: Harvard Business Review, March-April, 2002,1-15. 3. Dr. Michael L. Grumelli, â€Å"Billy Mitchell’s Air War: Practice, Promise, and Controversy,† (lecture, National Museum of the United States Air Force Lecture Series, Dayton, OH, 16 Jan 2000) 4. Alfred F. Hurley, Billy Mitchell: Crusader for Air Power (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1975), 1-105. 5. Gene Kamena, Col Mark Danigole, and CAPT Scott Askins, â€Å"The Right to Lead,† (working paper, Air War College, Maxwell, AL, 2012), 1-14. 6. John P. Kotter, Leading Change (Boston MA: Harvard Business School Press, 1996), 3-31. 7. GEN Richard B. Myers, Ret. and Albert C. Pierce, â€Å"On Strategic Leadership,† Joint Force Quarterly, No. 54, 3rd quarter 2009, 12-13. 8. Lt Col William Ott, â€Å"Maj Gen William â€Å"Billy† M itchell: A Pyrrhic Promotion,† Air and Space Power Journal, Winter 2006, 27-33. 9. Don M. Snyder, Dissent and Strategic Leadership in the Military Professions, ASSI Publication 849 (Carlisle, PA: Army Strategic Studies Institute, February 2008), 1-46. 10. Marybeth P. Ulrich, â€Å"The General Stanley McChrystal Affair: A Case Study in Civil-Military Relations,† Parameters, US Army War College Quarterly, Vol. XLI No. 1, Spring 2011, pp. 86-100.

Sex / Gender Identity Moving Beyond Fixed And Natural...

In the journal article, â€Å"Sex/Gender Identity: Moving Beyond Fixed and Natural Categories† written by Maria Victoria Carrera, Renee DePalma, and Maria Lameiras, I will be analyzing what issues and complications in which the authors have presented. I also will be critically critiquing the methods the authors used and what evidences or data was presented to support their arguments in this article. Along with, was the article persuasive on proving their argument and what steps needed to be put in to place to achieve a better outcome within their argument. In the article, it examines heteronormativity and transgender as well as how society has constructed them through culture, legal polices and education. It also mentions what steps need to be implemented to change the outlook on the patriarchal system in societies. The problems the authors have address and brought awareness to is that society often times ignores the fact that other genders may feel the need to change their identity without being prosecuted by society and should have the right to as human beings (Carrera, M., DePalma, R., Lameiras, M., 2012). Many people have different concepts of what gender, and sexuality means to them. In the article the authors discus that facts such as gender and sexuality are social constructed in schools, legal systems and other sub systems (Carrera et al., 2012). Within the article it presents empirical evidence that supports some of their arguments. TheShow MoreRelatedHistory of Transgender9448 Words   |  38 PagesA time-line o f transgender identities.  © 1999 Drs. 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As part of the larger field of cognitive science, this branch of psychology is related to other