Iliad as a war literature Essay Example for Free

Iliad as a war literature Essay Homer’s epic poem, â€Å"The Iliad,† is probably one of the best stories that tell us about war. In this poem, we see humans fighting with humans, gods fighting with humans, and even gods fighting with gods. Even though it was made some time around the 7th century BC, we can associate with our modern warfare. In Homer’s â€Å"Iliad,† we see how the gods manipulated the people in fighting their own wars, just like how political leaders of different countries manipulate their army to fight another country. We can also see that modern wars, just like the Trojan war in â€Å"the Iliad,† can be caused by small matters which were just blown up to huge proportions by those who manipulate these wars. The book can be seen as Homer’s perspective of war. It is somewhat an anti-war literature because it showed how wars usually end. Both sides lost great lives, including some of their respected heroes. In the Greeks’ side, they lost Achilles’ best friend, Patroclus (23. 1-7). On the Trojans’ side, they lost their prince, Hector (24. 21-23). Achilles eventually died some time after, when he was shot by Paris, Hector’s brother in the heel of his foot which was his weakness. It showed that no one really reigns victorious, even after winning the war. This is because both sides suffer great losses, not only in properties, but also the lives of those who are involved in the war, both armies and civilians. Some attitudes towards war that Homer depicted in Iliad were the possible motives of engaging in wars. The most evident motive in the Trojan War was to retrieve the wife of Menelaus, the brother of the Greek King Agamemnon. They decided to launch an all out war, deploying a fleet of more than a thousand ships in order to retrieve Helen (of Troy) who was abducted by a Trojan prince, Paris (3. 29-31). Another attitude towards war shown in this epic poem was the intervention by higher powers. With the intervention of the Olympian gods and goddesses, the war to regain Helen of Troy was blown up to greater proportions. It became a personal war for these gods and goddesses, especially when they chose to take sides between the Trojans and the Greeks. The gods and goddesses who took the side of the Greeks include Hera, Athena, Poseidon, and Hermes (4. 37-49). On the other hand, the gods who took the side of the Trojans include Aphrodite, Apollo, Artemis, and Leto (1. 10-15). They backed up the soldiers whenever they fight and are usually the ones who decide on how the fight would end. Only Zeus remained in the middle, wherein he forbade the intervention of these gods in the war. Homer was able to depict a war which is similar to our modern day warfare. His depiction of gods was like the political leaders of various nations who would encourage their people to engage in wars against other nations. These are the leaders who are not physically in battle, but are the ones who actually dictate how the wars would go. Also, the wars that they often start would usually mean great losses for both warring sides. The reasons for these wars were very much the same like that of Homer’s â€Å"the Iliad. † These are usually small things which could be solved by negotiations, but the pride of the leaders is usually the ones that fuel the war. Leaders like Menelaus and Agamemnon are the same as the political leaders that we have today, who prefers violent negotiations rather than peaceful means to solve conflicts. This usually leaves the country with great problems, like loses of lives and property and a bad economy. Works Cited: Homer. The Iliad. 2006. Spark Notes. October 15 2007. http://pd. sparknotes. com/lit/iliad/section2. html. Sienkewicz, Tom. The Gods in the Iliad. 2002. October 15 2007. http://department. monm. edu/classics/Courses/CLAS210/CourseDocuments/Epic/gods_in_the_iliad. htm.

Diversity in Survey Methods Essay Example for Free

Diversity in Survey Methods Essay Introduction Before describing the implication of diversity in doing research, it is important to note that any research should be as specific as possible. For example, suppose the researcher intends to evaluate or find out whether women experience more automobile accidents than men, then the researcher should specify the variables to be used. Too many variables may make the study too general and invalid. One researcher may opt to approach this research by comparing women and men in terms of how easily they get distracted   and the number of accidents they face either gender. Another researcher may opt to just approach this research by analyzing accident   cases and counting which of the cases is caused by women and which is caused by men. The two researchers would have different survey questions. The first researcher will have a relatively diverse survey questions because he or she is considering two variables, whereas the latter researcher will have homogenous survey questions (Jackson, 2012).   When the variable survey questions are diverse, the significance and mean of the variables may be skewed to the right or left depending on the degree of diversity. If some of the values in the variables are extremely low, then the mean would be lower than the median and hence the results will be skewed to the right. Alternatively, if the diversity is made up of variables that are extremely high in value, then the mean will be more than the median and the results will be skewed to the left. Skewness may distort the true meaning of the results (Jackson, 2012). Consequently, the researcher needs to take into account a number of aspects. The first aspect is outliers. The researcher should remove any outlier as possible because it is the outliers that are responsible for the shift of the results (Jackson, 2012). In addition, the researcher should make the survey questions relatively specific. References Jackson, S. L. (2012).  Research methods and statistics: A critical thinking approach. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth Cengage Learning.

Communicating With People On The Internet

Communicating With People On The Internet The arrival of the internet has heralded a lot of new opportunities, created new markets, and afforded us new ways of interacting with each other. Meeting new people is no longer limited to talking to the person youre sitting beside on the bus, or keeping in touch with someone you met at a bar. Now we can find friends from continents away. The internet is a busy place, full of people, many of whom share your own passions and interests. And not just friends, its also a place where its possible to meet someone special. Naturally the hyper-connected youths of today use the internet as if its an extension of themselves. For them meeting new people online seems like a given. But the internet holds just as much promise for the rest of us. It has grown in popularity as a way to find friends, to chat among like minded people, and for finding love, sex, quick flings, soulmates, partners, husbands and wives depending on whos looking. Nowadays there are more and more people who are single enough to use it. The number of people getting divorced is higher than ever. The US, UK, Canada, Russia, New Zeland and Australia all in the top ten for highest divorce rates (per 1,000 people). Society has changed, and with it our values. It is no longer seen as socially unacceptable to leave someone. Why stay in an unhappy marriage? There are many women and men who have faced that very question. Of course there are still those who see it as a sign of a sinful society, or feminism run rampant, or the natural progression of a morally bankrupt western culture, or any number of fantasies that explain a trend in statistics they dont understand. In the past divorces were rare, but were the couples happy? Thankfully society is breaking free of old fashioned attitudes. Where it would have been seen as debauched and morally sinful for a woman to leave her husband, or a man to leave his wife, now individuals have an out. The modern world is about individual choice and personal freedom. Because of this, more people are single, and open to the possibility of meeting someone new. People are also working harder. A busy career can leave little time to build a social life and result in a stagnant love life. Success can often bring more work, and more money, at the expense of someone to share it with. Many successful individuals are even reticent when it comes to looking for love. Relationships can be a lot of trouble, and some people are content without them. Being far removed from our primitive origins, we are no longer slaves to biological imperatives. On the other end of the scale, its thought that as many as a third of the singles on the internet arent quite as single as youd think. But assuming we are single, free, and would like to find someone special, where do we look in the 21st century? Bars and clubs are naturally as popular as ever. Many people still meet through work and friends. Many people bump into that special someone through a random encounter a dropped batch of paperwork, getting stuck in a lift it could be clichà ©, but it will still happen for some of us. With the advent of the internet, meeting people online has become yet another option. A natural one, in this connected world we live in. Personals and dating are big business, bringing in $503.4 million (US) in 2005 and showing consistent year after year growth. And in the UK, with its population of around 60 million, 7.8 million singles used some form of dating service in 2007 according to a press release by dating service PARSIHP. Meeting people on the internet doesnt have to be conducted through dating sites either. Many people who use the internet find people naturally as they wander the landscape of cyberspace. Nor is this a new phenomenon. The dawn of the internet saw the creation of crude bulletin boards and internet relay chat. People found each other using these services just as they do using Messenger clients and forums today. The technology has definitely advanced through, and this has brought people a large number of places to go on the internet. There are many different services that run on the internet, here are some of them: Internet relay chat One of the oldest services on the internet, internet relay chat (IRC) is a service that posts messages to the page instantaneously so that the users can have a conversation that flows naturally in real time. There are thousands upon thousands of chatrooms available through IRC servers, and most of them are free. They can be accessed by downloading an IRC client, though sometimes a bit of configuring is needed to make it work. IRC isnt the easiest thing in the world to pick up and learn, a throwback from its early origins. Messenger clients From Yahoo Messenger to MSN, and now more recently Skype (which can be used in much the same way as a messenger between calls), messenger clients allowed people to manage a list of contacts and then chat with those contacts just like in IRC. Unlike IRC, big improvements were made to the interfaces and ease-of-use that helped to explode the popularity of messengers until we find that most people use at least one. Messengers are also great for keeping in touch with business contacts, family, friends, among many other uses. One of the earliest messenger service called ICQ had a random chat button that would find you someone to chat to, or indeed allow them to find you. Social Networks Like them or loath them, social networks found their place as the heart of meeting people on the internet. At first they were places to link up with your friends and share information about you what you were doing, how you felt, where you were, or indeed where you werent (such as working). Social networks soon snowballed into a giant productivity eating monster. If you havent heard of social networks then hello, and greetings under-rock person. Some of the more well known include LiveJournal, MySpace, Facebook, and Bebo. LiveJournal mixes blogging and social networking, Facebook has become synonymous with social networks, MySpace synonymous with controversy and Bebo was huge in the UK then fell out of favour with users. The phenomena of keeping in touch with contracts led to new companies trying spinnoffs of the idea. One of these Twitter lets users post short messages of up to 140 characters. These tweets can then be read by followers. Like them or loath them, social networks app ear to be here to stay. Work Rather than have separate disjointed categories, lets lump everything thats done for the sake of work together. It can be emails, video conferencing, virtual conferencing, social networking, messaging. If your work requires you to liase with anyone at all over the internet then theres always the chance of meeting someone you hit it off with. It happens all the time. Friends Friends are always looking out for you. If youre single then you can guarantee that your friends are looking out for someone to hook you up with. On the internet this behaviour is no different. Dating services Dating services started off as simple catalogs of user-made profiles, that could be searched according to any criteria. Paying users could then contact the users they found interesting. Growing from these primitive early systems, they added features such as live chat, messenger services, social networking and so on in order to stay ahead of competing services. Their combination of the best ideas found on the internet to provide the optimal environment for users to meet each other, and maintained the value of the service so that people would continue to pay. Dating services have been one of the leading drivers of growth. Similarly theres also a lot of overlap between dating services and other internet services such as social networks. Online Universes Pushing internet interactions further into the futuristic vision of cyberspace, online worlds give us the Neuromancer vision of cyberspace. Gamers were among the first to explore online universes. The advent of massively multiplayer online games (or worlds/universes/spaces) collectively known as MMOs added a new dimension to the internet. The earliest were game worlds, where users had no set goals, other than lead a double (and supposedly exciting) life as a mage, wizard, ranger, space pilot or any number of alternative personas depending on the game. These evolved, and soon virtual universes began to appear which played down gaming aspects and played up its usage as an alternative universe. Second Life proved to be one of the most popular, and its name captures the spirit in which many of these new universes were formed. Others, such as Entropia Universe grew out of games, but diversified into a platform for delivering anything the partner company could imagine (by renting out world ). In these spaces, you can wander through virtual towns and meet peoples avatars as they in turn go about their business. Avatars are, to steal a description from the matrix films, the mental projection of your digital self. People customize their avatars and in doing so reveal a lot about themselves. Interestingly, people behave similarly to the way they do in real life, albeit with less inhibitions. Sociologists have a great time studying virtual worlds because of this, but that is a story for a different article. Virtual universes however are a little too gamelike for some of us. A more recent addition to the virtual universe landscape called IMVU cleverly combines messenger services with Virtual Universe services to create a hybrid that has found a more mainstream popularity than other virtual worlds. Users can keep in touch through a messenger like contact list, or use its social network-like website, and chat to users in virtual rooms. Unlike virtual worlds, there is no walki ng around. You can move your avatar around, but only to fixed locations called nodes. Standing nodes feature in all rooms, and adding furniture adds more nodes. A couch will come sitting nodes, and some furniture includes nodes for couples to sit snuggled together. Removing the ability to walk around, kept IMVU simple enough that the virtual universe features didnt overwhelm the chat features. Users can buy new rooms, furniture, clothes, pets. They can also buy streaming music to play in their rooms. People meet in virtual universes all the time. Sometimes they even get married in the online universe. Often they get married and then quickly split. Sometimes couples take their relationship further, and meet in real life. Does it work? Implications Dangers Anonymity Conclusion What are people looking for? When asked the question: For me, dating is mainly about.. ? in the top dating tips survey, the most popular answer was simply love, edging ahead of the rest with 21% of the votes. Surprisingly, next came Marriage and Sex with 19% each. 1. Love 21% 2. Marriage 19% 3. Friendship 8% 4. Partnership 6% 5. Sex 19% 6. Company 3% 7. Social life 3% 8. Romance 12% 9. Conversation 3% 10. Sharing 6% (Source: TopDatingTips.com)

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Basis Risk As discussed, Metallgesellschaft AG made use of the ‘stack and roll’ hedge strategy. This strategy brought about basis risk, the risk of no direct relationship between movements in the futures market and movements in the longer maturity contract. What Went Wrong? In 1993, oil prices began to plunge because of a bearish market signal. The value of the futures purchased decreased drastically and the market reversed from backwardation to contango. From Backwardation to Contango Another issue, which compounded MG’s problems, was the shift of the oil market from normal backwardation to contango. Refer to Figure I for a better understanding of these concepts. In normal backwardation, the strategy worked fine, however the contango market created losses that were unrecoverable and the longer the market stayed in contango, the losses continued to accumulate on the rollover. Had the market stayed in normal backwardation, MGRM hedging strategy would have been highly profitable, making a gain on all rollovers. MGRM’s main undoing was that the rollover loss was unrecoverable and not offset by another position. Although the contango market was not the only cause for MGRM problems, it did help to compound the cash flow crunch of the company. The main people responsible of such losses will be discussed later. The Company’s advisor, Deutsche Bank, convinced Metallgesellschaft AG to close all positions, taking $1.5 billion in losses, with the aim to prevent additional losses. As can be seen from the Figure II below, Deutsche Bank should have been calmer as the market rebounded with oil prices starting to soar in 1994, an increase of about $8 dollars per barrel in few months. This increase would have highly benefited the MGRM... ...vernance Metallgesellschaft AG should have ensured that the parent company’s traders and MGRM’s employees worked on behalf of the shareholders’ interests. Instead of undertaking a reasonable hedging strategy, Metallgesellschaft AG traders were motivated by big bonuses opportunities, resulting in a more reckless speculative strategy and as a result developing the company into a financial intermediary. Their users, such as employees, creditors, and supervisors, had to fully understand the purpose of the hedging strategy. This was highly important since the hedging program should not be separable from the business strategy. Conclusion To conclude, the main motive of the losses sustained was the minimal study made on the hedging strategy before adoption. Metallgesellschaft AG should have thoroughly analysed the market before entering into such a big hedging program.

René Descartes Does Not Reject Sense Perception Essay -- Philosophy Re

Renà © Descartes Does Not Reject Sense Perception Some have suggested that Renà © Descartes argues that sense perception relies on the mind rather than on the body. Descartes asserts that we can know our mind more readily than we can know our body. In support of this idea he gives the example of a piece of wax which is observed in its solid form and its liquid form. After pointing out the difficulties of relying on the senses of the physical body to understand the nature of the wax he makes this claim: [P]erception ... is neither a seeing, nor a touching, nor an imagining. ... [R]ather it is an inspection on the part of the mind alone (Section 31). 1 This quote is perhaps the most direct statement of the author's thesis on this subject. I contend that, based upon the arguments presented in the Second Meditation, Descartes shows that we can use our senses to help us understand the true nature of things, but the senses alone are inadequate to determine truth (since they are often deceived), and that all that may be known with certainty (truth) are those things we know by our judgment, thinking, and understanding of them in our minds. Descartes' argument does not necessarily reject any role of the senses in the process of understanding. Steps of the Argument: Descartes began his argument in the First Meditation by questioning or calling into doubt everything that he knew. After examining all the things he thought he knew about himself and the world he concluded (the details of that argument are beyond the scope of this essay) that the only thing he knew with absolute certainty is that I am, I exist (Section 25). Having established the fact that he has a real existence of some kind he then said But I do not yet understand... ...y some shape, of being enclosed in a place, and of filling up a space in such a way as to exclude any other body from it; ..." [followed by other features not related to extension]. (Section 26) [5] Perceptio : a related word perceptione in I:11 is translated as knowledge, or perception. In II:5 vel odoratu percipi is translated as [the sense of] smell. In II:7 percipiat is translated perceive or know. In II:11 perceptiones is translated perceptions, notions, or ideas. In II:12 solà ¢ mente percipere is rendered "it is the mind alone which perceives it" (Veitch), "it is my mind alone which perceives it" (Haldane), "I perceive it through the mind alone" (Cress). In II:14 perfectius evidentiusque percipiebam is translated "evident and perfect conception" (Haldane), "clearer and more perfect perception" (Veitch), and "perceived more perfectly and evidently" (Cress).

Bass Fishing 101 :: essays research papers fc

Tight Lines The fog drifts lazily above the murky swamp water as I slowly ease my boat toward an ancient, moss covered cypress tree. A bullfrog croaks its early morning greeting and somewhere off in the distance an unknown creature screeches as the hair on the back of my neck stands on end. The old tree was the site of a recent battle between a monstrous black bass and me. A battle in which the big bass taught me a valuable lesson in humility. I have a lot more respect for her and her kind. She never gave up the fight at any time during our encounter. Her fierce determination eventually paid off and she swam away in victory. So now, I visit that spot now and then, not really wanting to catch her, but perhaps just to say hello. Bass fishing has been a part of my life for as long as I can remember. Some of my earliest memories are of my family and me out at a local pond. We learned about fishing, nature, and a lot about each other at that old water hole. I think fondly of my childhood and I am grateful that I was able to experience those things. With that in mind, it comes as a surprise when I’m asked for my opinion on a certain technique or even something as simple, or complex, as tying a knot. I’ve always assumed everybody knew how to fish. Dautreuil 2 Before we go out and tackle that feisty old bass that lives under the cypress tree, here are a few basics that we should keep in mind. Bass fishing can be a very relaxing sport as well as a great way to learn about our environment. What is a bass? A bass is a member of the perch family; just on the larger side. There are striped bass, sand bass, hybrids and smallmouth, but the fish we are going after is my favorite. The largemouth bass, or black bass. This is the most pursued freshwater fish in the southern United States. The black bass can be broken down into several different strains. Here in Louisiana, we are most likely to encounter the spotted bass, Florida bass and Kentucky bass. The latter two have been introduced into our waters to enhance fish population and size. The black bass has a very large mouth. A grapefruit would easily fit into the mouth of a five-pound fish.

How a City Slowly Drowned Essay

This case summarizes events preceding the Hurricane Katrina, which was one of the worst natural catastrophes in the modern history of the USA. It raises questions about the lack of reasonable prevention and preparation actions due to flimsy structure and management of the responsible organizations and persons, invalidity and inconsistence of their actions and incapability of making the decisions in a timely manner. As a result of the unstructured and incoherent activities, we could observe several ineffective and costly attempts to mitigate floods and hurricanes. In the beginning the local officials, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and â€Å"White Houses past and present always seem penny-wise and pound-foolish† because of the chain of the wrong decisions, which is indicated by Republican Sen. David Vitter’s words â€Å"Instead of spending millions now, we are going to spend billions later† (Grunwald and Glasser). One of the key actors in this case who made the most important decisions was the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. The agency had a budget formulated by the earmarks. The Corps in Louisiana were getting more money for the protection from hurricanes than any other state, yet, the actions were not taken care of until the very last moment. In the late 19th century the Corps, were holding to â€Å"levees-only† policy. So it is not surprising, that the U.S. Army Corps have implemented the Mississippi River Gulf Outlet project in 1965, which increased the storm wave when Katrina hit New Orleans (Grunwald and Glasser). This is an evidence of poorly thought-out decision made by this agency. The Corps haven’t been interested in hurricanes until Betsy hit the city. No wonder that evaluation of the threats was again commissioned to the Corps instead of another research institute or agency. It becomes obvious that the Corps had failed their mission, but still had the authority for the implementation. Other key actors of the case are politicians, particularly the local officials and the Congress. Local officials didn’t want to spend money on expensive but effective projects, which could have saved the lives and infrastructure of the city if implemented on time. It is though surprising that there has been shown no considerable interest of the local population or non-governmental organizations in prevention and mitigation of the disasters. However, it is important to mention the concern of the local scientists who tried to warn the officials about the approaching danger. LSU professor Joe Suhayda tried to push the Corps to upgrade the city’s  defenses, but was told to choose the â€Å"stepwise process† which put up the solution of the problem on the shelf (Grunwald and Glasser). On the other side, the community and its leaders should have put greater pressure on the local officials and the federal government to make changes in the law and take actions before the hurricane hit New Orleans, make them take care of the worst case scenario, not the Category 3 hurricanes. It would also be a good option if NGOs could make an independent analysis of the environmental situation in the area, involve the experienced specialists from other countries to the projects, and get their advice before letting the Corps implement anything in the area. There was no performance measurement of the problem handling. In my opinion, there should have been some agencies or private companies hired by the government to check and follow up the actions taken by the Corps. Local population was not getting information on how efficiently tax payers’ money was spent. No visible actions had been taken by the city mayor, who was responsible for the social welfare and protection of human l ives. The main problem of the politicians and the governmental agencies in this case was the model they chose to make their decisions. In fact, they chose incremental (branch) method instead of the root method described by Lindblom in his article (â€Å"The Science of â€Å"Muddling Through†). Branch method does not give opportunity to look for alternative solutions; decisions are made based on assumptions, and there is no overall strategy. The decision can be made even without an agreement on objectives. On the contrary, the root method that is although more for an ideal world would make a better effect. It combines such positive features like being more theory oriented and assuming complete knowledge. It gives possibility of making a choice among several alternative solutions, not the first available and etc. One good example of the decision made according to the branch method in this case, would be the construction of the lock for the New Orleans Industrial Canal. This project was justified only economically, â€Å"without prior values or objectives† (Lindblom) and would never be approved by the â€Å"regular decision process† (Grunwald and Glasser). This suggests that if the root method was implemented, the decision would not be accepted, because, the par ticipants of the discussion had some agreement, which made it possible to make a decision in favor of approval of the shipping lock to be built. However, if the root method was applied, there would have to be an  overall agreement based on in depth analysis. Another reason not to choose the branch method is that it does not sufficiently rely on theory. We can observe that in the case when the Corps decided to build the shipping canal to the Port of New Orleans. Nobody thought of the consequences of this decision. The construction only aggravated the situation when Katrina hit Louisiana, because there hadn’t been any research or experiments carried out. The politicians were choosing this method, because it seemed safer for them. They did not have to take a big responsibility and could delegate it to the lower-level agencies. In the branch method there is a â€Å"watchdog† system that should keep the values in balance (Lindblom). For example, Former Democratic senator Bennett Johnston Jr. was criticizing the Corps for spending too much money. But later on, we see that he had his own pet project, a $2 billion eff ort to subdue the Red River between the Mississippi and Shrevport, LA which he pushed through the Congress. This method is more adaptive to internal and external changes, so the Corps and the politicians could make any micro changes they wanted. â€Å"In 1982, the Orleans Levee District urged the Corps to lower its design standards to provide more realistic hurricane protection and also switched to 100-year storm protection from 200-year plan to save money† (Grunwald and Glasser). The whole tragedy can be described just by the quote of Vic Landry, a Corps engineer â€Å"Let’s hope it doesn’t come on our watch† (Grunwald and Glasser). This was the overall point of view of the responsible parties of this case. Basically, nobody wanted to soil himself and take a responsibility to solve the problem as one unit. Essentially, if the root method had been chosen for making decisions, it would have a more positive effect on the situation. When the cost is the human lives you should look for the best opportunities to prevent the problem, not the first satisficing solution available, you should find the most efficient ways to get a result, not the cheapest. You need a deeper view of the problem. You need to be able to see the whole picture, identify the problem and find the alternative solutions to the problem. Congress was well informed that the US did not have a water resources policy and could actually pass the law or the bill to have it. If there was a water resources policy for prevention of natural disasters, that would also decrease the caused damage. In this case, the Corps would have to come up with a better plan to prevent or at least to mitigate the disaster.  The Corps had already faced a tragedy of previous hurricanes and should have been more prepared to this situation. If there was better research, it would be clear, that if the Category 3 or higher hurricane happens, the lakes in the area would flood New Orleans. That would expose the problematic issues and give an opportunity to establish fiscal responsibility, so there wouldn’t be any over limits of the budget. Beyond all doubt, if there was one center to control the processes, to plan the mitigation actions and etc. there wouldn’t be any projects that contradict each other. The structures built for flood w ere not corresponding to the structures built for storm and vice versa, only worsen the consequences. Obviously, it takes too long for the politicians to make any decision and it takes even longer to change laws. Besides, some decisions were made blindly, without any forecasts for future. For example, there was a cut in budget of the Corps in 2002 by President Bush which as a result impacted New Orleans hurricane defenses. However, this kind of decision should have been made only after in depth analysis. What is really demanded is the change in the structures of the governmental agencies. Their actions should not depend on the decisions of the certain politicians that want to pass the particular projects for their own advantage which is not necessarily something positive for the social welfare. â€Å"The lock for the New Orleans Industrial Canal which cost $750 million was justified by predictions of increasing ship traffic, but traffic rapidly declined† (Grunwald and Glasser). The process of getting funding from the government should be more complicated to stop squandering money of the tax payers. As French composer Hector Berlioz once said, â€Å"Time is a great teacher, but unfortunately it kills all its pupils† (Berlioz). I hope that the experience of lost time will teach the government and all responsible people to manage their resources properly and wisely, not to let American nation stay red-faced and homeless because of the wrong decisions and ambitions of certain people. Reference list: 1. Michael Grunwald and Susan B. Glasser / How a City Slowly Drowned. The Washington Post, National Weekly Edition, October 17 to 23, (2005) pp. 6-10 2. Charles E. Lindblom â€Å"The Science Of ‘Muddling Through† (1959) 3. Letter written in November 1856, published in Pierre Citron (ed.) Hector Berlioz. Correspondance gà ©nà ©rale (Paris: Flammarion, 1989) vol. 5, p. 390; Paul Davies About Time: Einstein’s Unfinished Revolution (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1996) p. 214.