Communication and Direct Eye Contact

Where Do We Stand? O Lisa Davis Lisa Davis in this article focuses on cross-cultural difference in the use of personal space and on conflicts and misunderstanding that often arises from these differences. She maintains that with enough training and preaching. People can learn non-verbal habitat of other culture and minimize intercultural problems. She says the main cause of non-verbal conflict is the tendency for people to interrelate the non-verbal pattern of other culture in terms of the pattern within their own culture.These ethnocentric viewings of reality often result in misinterpretation negative value judgment and feeling of discomfort. 1) American use more direct eye contact than do Japanese (Para 6) 2) South American converse at a closet distant and establish more direct eye contact than do another European. (Para 7) 3) Men tend to converse at a greater distance than do women. (Para 8&9) 4) Women established more eyes contact than do men. (Para 9) ) Russians are a higher con tact, a people whereas establishes are a non-contact group. (para10) 6) Caucasians should view a student avoidance of eye contact as sign of deception whereas Asian teachers see such avoidance as sign of foreign. (Para 11) 7) An American who is used to standing on the corner of elevator and avoiding eyes contact with other people will feel that something is wearing if someone stand by a few inches away. (Para 17) 8) South Arabian men often hold hand while walking but American men don’t. t is important to follow the foreign country's ways when people go to foreign country because there are huge differences between own country and foreign country. Especially, the way of communication makes people  confuse. According to â€Å"Where Do We Stand† by Lisa Davis, people have different way of non-verbal communication, which depends on their cultural back ground and gender. As a result, people sometimes feel uncomfortable when they communicate with other people. In Japan, the re are some different communications styles, which make  foreigner  confuse.

Has EU aviation policy failed to meet its overall objective of producing safe, affordable, convenient and efficient services for its customers?

Introduction I don’t agree the EU aviation policy has failed to meet its overall objective of producing safe, affordable, convenient and efficient service for its customer. Mega-policy, according to De (2011, p.22) is master policy that deals with overall goals, certain basic assumption policy instruments and implementation strategies with the aim of typically large scale investments, and is divided as internal and external policy. In the EU aviation industry context, internal policy is meant to govern EU registered airlines whereas External governs non-EU registered airlines. The main aim of EU is to achieve a safe, affordable, convenient and efficient service for consumers. To provide a safe, affordable, convenient and efficient services1. Internal Policyi.Safety: EU established the European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) with the goal of ensuring civil aviation safety for its member countries (European Commission, 2009). The agency’s main task is to ensure air transport is safe as well as sustainable. To achieve this important goal, the agency has developed some of safety and environmental rules that must be adhered to by all stakeholders. In addition, it constantly monitors implementation of these standards through regular inspections of member states’ adherence to the rules, as well as offering technical support through training. Through EASA, EU regulates pilot and other crew member training as well as issuance of licences for European pilots. The establishment of single aviation market has been a huge success in enabling the EU agencies to collaborate in monitoring safety policy implementations. For example, European Commission, European Aviation Safety Agency and Eurocontrol have collaborated under the pillar of safe aviation services to the passengers through licensing regulations. Other agencies involved in safety regulation are national civil aviation authorities, and safety investigation authorities, who work to incorporate all stakeholders, including aircraft manufacturers and airline companies, in safety measures. The agencies operate under the common safety rules, which enable them to do random safety inspections at any European airport. Statistics show that, despite the rise in traffic over the last two decades, EU’s air safety initiatives have successfully maintained high standards in terms of aviation safety (EASA Annual Safety Review). It must, however, be noted that despite the raft of security measures, the notion of ‘zero risk’ in aviation does not exist, and occasional cases of accidents may occur. In such cases, EU advises that thorough investigations is the best approach, as studies show that accidents do not occur as a result of single event but a combination of multiple prior events (Ferroff et al., 2012). ii. Freedom to establish & provide services: EU’s establishment of a single European Aviation Market, from the initial 27 national air transport markets all over Europe, has created an atmosphere of success in terms of freedom to all markets. The initiatives were meant to: Increase market access top every European carrier, with no restriction on capacity; Ensure no discrimination in terms of license provision across Europe; Ensure freedom to provide services to the aviation industry Ensure operators’ freedom to pricing their product and services Ensure implement penalties on those who infringe on the procedures The increase in more choices has also seen the number of EU routes increase by 25 percent from 1992 to 2011. The increased competition has led to 420 percent rise in intra-EU routes with more than two carriers over the same period (Zamarreno, 2012). Finally, the EU initiative led to rise in new entrants, which facilitated competition thus the emergence of market for low-cost air services, which currently account for 40 percent of EU aviation market.2. External Policyi. Market Opening The external aviation policy has been an integral part of EU’s strategy in effort towards greater flexibility, consistency and transparency in matters international civil aviation. To achieve these goals, EU has been gradually and consistently making and ratifying bilateral and multilateral agreements with other international aviation bodies outside EU. As such, EU has been carrying out is horizontal mandate of bringing the existing bilateral and multilateral agreements into line with EU laws. They also identified the creation of a Common Aviation Area with neighbouring nations, including United States, Canada, Australia, Brazil and India among others as an important step towards realising sustainable growth. This realisation has led to: Over 117 non-EU states accepting EU designation; Close to 1000 bilateral aviation safety agreements have conformed to EU laws, which have translated into over 70 percent rise in EU air traffic; Some neighbouring countries willingly participate in a pan- European Common Aviation Area e.g. agreements with Morocco (signed in December 2006) and Israel (signed in July 2012) among many other nations; Comprehensive agreements with key partners such as United States, Canada and Brazil, which aims to open partners’ markets, removal of investment barriers, and converging regulations across borders; Increased level playing field through adoption of common rules and standards that ensures greater aviation safety, efficient infrastructure, consumer protection and lower prices due to competition (Zmarreno, 2012). ii. Affordability and Convenience An external policy has meant that EU citizens benefits from reduced prices and more travel offers resulting from competition between EU and international airlines. Moreover, every airline must up its game by offering better services in terms of quality and convenience to withstand competition. The European Union aviation industry employs more than five million people around the world and contributes ˆ365 billion to the European GDP (Sandbag, 2012). In spite of the current economic crisis, it is projected that global aviation industry will continue to experience an average annual growth of 5 percent till 2030. When EU emphasises its commitment to external partnerships through their external aviation policies, their goal is to ensure barriers to growth is eliminated through removal of any limiting factor of investment (e.g. airline ownership). It must be noted that initial ownership of airlines were highly regulated, with governments restricting foreign ownership in what was cited as national security measures. However, the discriminatory approach to ownership was removed, thanks to EU’s raft measures to increase fairness, allowing more openness in market access and competition. For example, EU has a general ownership rule that allows up to 49 percent foreign owne rship of a European aviation company (European Commission, 2009). This is much better than the United States’ 25 percent of voting stocks restrictions to foreign ownership. Arguably, this arrangement has made EU aviation industry more attractive to external investors, hence the region’s benefits from large economy of scale. iii. Environmental Safety Aviation industry is responsible for 2.5 percent of the total global carbon emission (Sandbag, 2012). This percentage rises to 4.9 percent of the total anthropogenic carbon effect if all the radiation components are included. Put to context, this would make aviation industry the seventh largest carbon emitting ‘country’ worldwide. The forecast from the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) indicates that by 2036 carbon emissions from the industry alone will hit 300% compared to 2011 levels (Bows, et al., 2010). European Union’s decision to include aviation industry into its carbon market, with the introduction of Emission Trading Scheme (ETS), signalled their desire to protect the global climate. More importantly, EU member countries ensured EU law has primacy over national law, hence giving the union broader power to control any form of environmental destruction that may emerge from a single country’s non-compliance. In December 2012, EU’s court of Justice made a major landmark decision when it ruled out that the decision by the EU to include the international aviation in the ETS did not contravene international law as claimed by many international airline operators (Sandbag, 2012). This meant that the court gave EU authority to implement the carbon emission policy. Although there is still an ongoing row that has escalated into a number of non-EU members joining forces together to challenge EU and its emission policy, the steps towards safer environment is on course, with EU leading the park towards realising this important milestone It is important to note that major EU airlines are in the process of adopting ETS to set pace for their international peers. This is an important step considering that 25 percent of the total aviation emission comes from the region’s airlines (Braun, 2008). Conclusion EU aviation policy has been hailed around the world as one that has achieved success amid the biting economic challenges facing many airline industry players. EU aviation industry has seen tremendous growth and development for the last two decades. One of reasons for this astronomical growth has been attributed to the union’s efforts to provide safe, affordable, convenient and efficient service for its customers. Policy formulation, research and implementation are some of the most important operational aspects of aviation sector the union has embraced. Despite the numerous challenges, some of which are cross-border related, various reports show that EU’s efforts have resulted into some measurable success that is not comparable to any other regional union around the world. The union’s mega policy on aviation, which consists of internal and external, has seen substantial changes in safety, freedom to establish and provide more choices, opening of more markets, incr eased affordability & convenience and environmental safety. These initiatives have also led to affordable pricing by the airlines, convenience, and safer environment. It’s no doubt the reason why EU is considered the world’s largest and the most successful regional market integration with the most liberalised air transport. References Bows, A., Mander, S. Randles, S., and Anderson K. (2010). Aviation emission in the context of climate change: a consumption- production approach. Final Policy Report. June 2010. Braun, M. (2008). The evolution of emission trading in the European Union- The role of policy networks, knowledge and policy entrepreneurs. Accounting Organisations and Society doi:10.1016/j.aos.2008.06.002: 1-19. De, P.K. (2011). Public Policy and Systems. New Jersey, NJ: Pearson Education. EASA Annual Safety Review: http://easa.europa.eu/newsroom-and-events/general publications European Commission. (2009). FWC Sector Competitiveness Studies- Competitiveness of the EU Aerospace Industry with focus on: Aeronautics Industry. European Commission Final Report, 15 December 2009. Ferroff, C., Mavin, T.J., Bates P.R. and Murray, P.S. (2012). A case for social constructionism in aviation safety and human performance research. Aeronautica, Issue 3, p. 1-12. Sandbag (2012), Aviation and the EU ETS: What happened in 2012 during ‘Stop the Clock’December 2012. Last retrieved on 14 May 2012 from http://www.sandbag.org.uk/site_media/pdfs/reports/Sandbag_Aviation_and_the_EU_ETS_2012_171213_1.pdf Zmarreno, C.M. (2012). EU aviation policy in terms of access market. Presentation for Euromed Aviation II: initial workshop on Market Access, Brussels, 17 December 2012.

History of Japanese Painting Odano Naotake Essay

Odano Naotake (1759 – 1780) was a painter from the Akita Ranga art school. This art school was a by-product of the ‘rangaku’, the ‘Dutch learning’. Rangaku was an important movement in eighteenth-century Japan. It is the study of Holland and the Dutch during the time that the Dutch trade post on Desjima the only connection was with the outside world and the west. Through this contact, Japan stayed informed about Western developments, such as health care and other technologies. This made Japan capable of fast modernization after the opening of the country in 1854. The Rangaku painters painted traditional Japanese themes with the use of Western techniques. The difference from the traditional paintings was the use of shadows, perspective and reflections. The painters also started using the color blue for the sky and sea. Naotake was also influenced by this new intellectual movement through Hiraga Gennai, a natural scientist and student of the Rangaky. He inspired Naotake to study these new Western painting methods as well. He moved to Edo (Tokyo) to continue his studies there. Through contacts with other painters, Naotake mastered the painting of ‘bird and flower’, which is a traditional Jananese style painting with the use of Western perspective and depth. These methods brought these paintings to a higher level, more than just decorations. Naotake also illustrated Japan’s first anatomy book, the Kaitai shinsho. This book was a Japanese translation of the Dutch book â€Å"Ontleedkundige Tafelen†, which was imported from Holland. Together with Gennai and Lord Satake Shozan (1748-85), Naotake started the Akita Ranga school of Art. When Gennai was arrested for killing a student and died shortly afterwards, Naotake was send away from his post in Edo. These developments made the school fall apart. ? Works Cited Johnson, H. Western Influence of Japanese Art: The Akita Ranga Art School. Amsterdam: Hotei Publishing, 2005.

Personal Statement Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words - 1

Personal Statement - Essay Example My zeal to explore events that occurred throughout history has facilitated my learning curve. As a sophomore student, I plan to transfer to a university next fall. My goal is to obtain a position in corporate American post graduation in which I can implement the analytical, critical and social skills I have acquired. The main purpose of this club is to assist people in developing their keen interest in law enforcement and create channels that can enable them to have a fulfilling role in their respective fields. Commerce is one those fields that truly gives a person an enriching experience in their life. Working at a local restaurant enables me to micro manage employees, which is truly a wonderful opportunity for me to gain valuable experience. I firmly belief that my academic education along with engagement at a local restaurant is critical towards my pursuit to obtain my education that not only will harness my growth in professional development, but will enable me to gain a better sense of the commerce that govern society. As a dedicated student, my work ethics along with my superb leadership skills have become the catalyst for my academic success. Although I don’t possess a degree yet, I look forward to fresh set of challenges that I will have to overcome not only as a student, but as a young adult ready to explore the essence of real world.

Suicide in the movie What Dreams May Come Essay

Suicide in the movie What Dreams May Come - Essay Example Thus, she is assuming responsibility for the childrens' death, as if she herself had killed them. Similarly, Christy is killed while on a route home he took specifically to do a favor for her. Again, Annie "assumes" responsibility for Christy's death, given that it was because of her that he was on the route that ultimately led to his death. Annie's decision, conscious or not, to assume responsibility for her family's death is not an uncommon coping mechanism. For many, the idea that life can deal such unfair and random blows can be overwhelming. By believing she "did it," she avoids much worse pain, that of accepting the fact that life is sometimes cruel and incomprehensible. If she believes she was responsible for the deaths, it provides some semblance of structure and order to life to protect her from life's further cruel blows. Assessing what Annie bereaved prior to the suicide is inextricably tied to the latter issue of why she committed suicide. While the obvious driver to the suicide was the death of her children and her husband, Annie's suicide had another driver. In several instances after Christy had died and was attempting to communicate with Annie, it was evident that at the point when Christy came the "closest" to communicating with Annie, she became the most distraught. For example: When Annie was near the gravestone, and Christy kept saying "I still exist," she eventually broke down as he kept pushing her to acknowledge him When Christy was near the purple tree and Annie was near her painting of it, as he kept trying to "connect" with her, she eventually poured fluids on the paint realizing he would never be with her again As Annie was writing in her journal and Christy was trying to communicate, she was able to write until the point his "presence," which she knew was not real, was too much for her and she crumbled up the paper. It is likely that these moments brought her closest to the reality of her losses, that he would never be with her again, pushing her closer to suicide. Annie's grief and mourning were evident. First and foremost, it was evident she had made a prior suicide attempt by slitting her wrists, as evidenced by the scars on her wrists. In addition, she was psychiatrically hospitalized and there was a fleeting reference to her "not talking for a month." In addition, her normally well-done hair became limp and unkept and her skin color was grayish, reflecting that she was not caring for herself, a common grief response. In most of the scenes prior to her suicide, she was always shown alone; isolation is another hallmark of grief and mourning. It is difficult to say why Annie had a favorable attitude toward suicide. In the end, when she comments to Christy that he "never came to her side" (paraphrase), it appears that her suicidality was a function of feeling isolated - not just physically but psychologically. In making that comment, it is implied that she felt Christy did not "understand" her pain; he commented how he felt he needed to be strong and perhaps she needed company in having him "be with her" where she was in her pain. Perhaps she just wanted an end to the pain - Christy ended it by being strong, and she wanted an end too. The movie did not have any overt signs that would

Examine how nirvana might be said to be the goal of Buddhist mysticism Essay

Examine how nirvana might be said to be the goal of Buddhist mysticism - Essay Example It is mainly an enlightenment state, meaning that an individual who gets what he or she desires with no suffering. As scholars of religion would have it, Buddhism may not merely be a pact of religious doctrines, but also is seen as a pact expounding on the best of life. In this pact, it is seen as a whole civilization concerning its historical background in tandem with its literature, philosophy, and the art. The religion of Buddhism explores all the facets of human life3. To understand humanity, and the aspects of his socialization, his ethics, his intellectual, his spiritual and economic status as well as mental development, Buddhism religion seem to provide a promising state. The ultimate result of Buddhism leads to an enlightenment of the being and this is the core in experiencing the state of nirvana. The goal of Buddhism is the aspect and practice of nirvana. Everyone who understands Buddhism well, he, or she can agree that nirvana is one of the goals of the religion. According to how Buddha preached about nirvana in India, the human being comes to life from nowhere. This is due to a combination of elements and things. Human beings have no creator and most of Buddhism followers believe that. They believe that human beings just fall from nowhere to earth through a mysterious process and they find themselves in phenomenal universe that is full of inanimate and animate objects. Therefore, personality, beingness, and existence all manifest from an emptiness (sunya) state or nothingness or non-existence through an aggregation process. In its simplest terms, nirvana is the state of perfect peace and happiness that a follower of the religion actualizes as th e long-term goal. Nothing is above its experience. This noble realization of nirvana, makes the religion seem practical. As a result, many would agree that the Buddhism religion is more likely alive in understanding the complex nature of humanity. It helps humanity become more deeply

British Petrolium Exploration Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

British Petrolium Exploration - Essay Example Finally BP Explorations current strategies against future competitions they face are also discussed. According to Forbes (2004), BP was compared with, Shell, ExxonMobil and Total. The data were taken from the companies non-financial reports (CnFR), added on with more information on their CSR website. This data was made available at the time of the analysis (BP, 2005; ExxonMobil,2004; Shell, 2004; Total, 2004). The prime objective of the analysis was to get information on the actions which the companies attributed to CSR, what the inducements, aims, and targets for these actions were, and how they designed to attain this. A real study of the four companies reveals the fact that they are very similar in many respects. The table below presents some vital information about the 4 companies. Apart from the information presented in the above table all the companies possess a major part of the value chain of oil and gas resources. The four companies are concerned from extraction to retailing and they have a large petro-chemical activity. Corporate governance is a mode of the direction and control which the companies have on their operations. ... This term derived force only after the corporate scandals like Enron in which leaders profited themselves rather then the company. The companies deal with this issue by giving a description of proper assessment making procedure and the economic interests of those making these determinations, i.e. stock options, participation in other companies etc. Extended producer liability is regarding the responsibility for the products after they have been sold, generally for the use and removal phase of the life cycle. BP centers on modifying their customers to use their products safely (BP, 2001, BP Business Policies: What we stand for. Retrieved April 21, 2009 from www.bp.com). Smart technology moves Getting the right technology is vital for building a competitive energy business and for creating a sustainable future. The strategy which was instituted on tackling precise technologies in back up of clear business goals (Frontiers, December 2003), is now bearing fruit in the case of BP. The company is developing so that it faces to meet the challenge of the world's rising energy demand by discovering new ways of getting at more hydrocarbons from on hand and new resources. The company also believes in BPE 5 developing and delivering new products to customers. In a way by investing in technology the business in BP is shaping up and is opening up new alternatives. At present BP ranks as the number two oil and gas company and this company has achieved through its market capitalization.'Market Capital is nothing but the share price multiplied by the number of shares in issue, Rankings are normally done on a $ basis.' When calculating in dollars for BP the ADR price (American Depository Receipt - the

Science Development and Computers Coursework Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Science Development and Computers - Coursework Example This paper would also supplement to entailing the ethical reasons behind making use of computers as fast paced humanoids and also shedding some insight on the much growing artificial intelligence in the world today. Conclusively it might be imperative to reason out the differences in the working of a human brain in retrospect to a central processing unit and how both these entities are in effect the working of the same principal thinking. Science developments and computers With the rapid growth in the information technology industry it is an ever so imperative fact that fast and reliable data transfers are the key to enterprise success in the upcoming future. While organizations battle out for the highest gains and profits, all it comes down in the end is to the fact that which company pertains to the fastest solutions and outputs, whereas this being the age of the integrated technological advancements it is no wonder that a lot has been researched for necessitating new methods and w ays of providing fast data transfer and processing techniques. Before lunging into the technical specification of when and how an industry can optimize its information technological feats it is profoundly imperative that we seek the reasoning and logic behind as to what causes an uplift in most technological advancements. ... With time we have seen that those IBM personal computers have been effectively reduced into mere handheld smartphones today having more than four times the amount of memory and processing speed those early vintage personal computers could potentially offer. With this type of an increasing change in trend and usage we can establish the datum that size of the object has significantly affected the experience these computers provide today and with specification from the study of material science it can duly be distinguished that ascertaining to the working size in a technological development makes way to a much compacter solution to the same specifications while sometimes working on molecular level can yield great optimizing results. With such reasoning we can surly address that the three things imperatively necessary to influence any sort of material and integrated source are firstly the kind of atoms that embed the structure for example the use of silicon atoms as opposed to copper one s idealize the functionality of a microchip while subsequently how these particular atoms are bonded and arranged are the preceding qualities that are in close check with computational hardware development. The reactivity, density and malleability are also features that ascertain a physical influencing change but on a more fundamental aspect of modeling hardware the atomic size structure and behavior are the key material things that effectively model a wiser choice of technology. Coming back to the usage of silicon and how fast this tech seems to cater have fundamentally establishes that the developments in Silicon technology and the express

Job Search process Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Job Search process - Essay Example A curriculum vita offers a detailed portfolio that represents a wide-ranging achievements and competences of an individual. This enables an individual to provide an up to date account of his accomplishment, which explicitly portrays the areas that an individual is suited. This function allows the employer to evaluate and determine the salary of a particular person. A CV provides the pertinent ingredients that enable an individual to secure an interview slot. During the job searching process, the desire to get an interview appointment forms the inherent wishes in every individual. Curriculum vitae act as a tool that facilitates the process of securing a job as it forms part of the agreed rules in job searching process. A Curriculum vita depicts the educational background of an individual that employers gauge in order to determine a qualified workforce (Bunz, 2008). Employers use educational qualifications to classify the work force in various structures within a venture. The last function of a curriculum vita is that helps to augment the marketability of an individual. The portfolio indicates the skills an individual has acquired in history, the educational levels and competencies he or she has attained (Stevens, 1992). The amalgamation of these entire components represented in a concise and elaborate way act as a marketing tool that enables a person to secure a job. The three types of curriculum vitae includechronological, functional and combined curriculum vitae. Chronological curriculum vitae represent a history of experiences acquired in a reverse chronological order. The merits encompass its easier nature of preparation as it constitutes the recent account of experiences. This type provides an easy recount of job history of an employee that helps the employer to acquire the recent knowledge of an individual (Wise, 2013). Chronological curriculum vitae further ensure the marketability of a person as it reflects reputable organization a person

Reporting Practices and Ethics Paper Essay Example for Free

Reporting Practices and Ethics Paper Essay Financial management is very crucial in today’s health care financial procedures. It is one the most important aspects of the financial health care. There are many assessments made- based the financial records and the business transactions that occur within the health care organization. It is crucial the financial records are kept up- to -date and they follow specific guidelines. The books kept up- to- date and in order, this will show the amount of money being brought into the organization for profit and the amount of money the organization has lost in profit. One thing that may cause the honesty of the organization to be on the brinks is the organization financial management and the correctness of the financial books. This paper is about information that will address financial reporting practices and ethics. It will address four financial management functions, summaries that accept accounting principles by generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP). It will also give an example from an article that has reflected ethical standards of conduct and financial reporting. The basic four components of financial management are planning, controlling, organizing and directing and decision making. The preparation is responsibility for financial management to recognize the purposes of the health care organization. The planning step is to â€Å"set directions and allocates resources, the organizing step brings people and material resources together in working condition, the leading step inspires people to best utilize these resources, and the controlling step checks that the right things happen, in the right way, and at the right time† (Lombardi, Schermerhorn, amp; Kramer, 2007,). Controlling is the process of the financial management to ensure that each department of the organization are going by the procedures that was decided. The financial manager should have the reports available to study the most recent financial reports. The reports will help to select what department needs the most consideration to keep the organization going. Organizing and directing is the responsibility of the financial manager to decide in what way to make use of the funds of the organizations most efficiently. Resources such as assets will help the manager to ensure the goals of the healthcare organizations are accomplished. Directing is an everyday job provided that control and support. The final step in the element in financial management is decision making. Planning, organizing, and controlling is a correspondence with the decision making process. The choices will be by the financial manager based on evaluation, analysis and information. Generally accepted accounting principles is a set of financial recommendations used for financial accounting. The recommendations are for preparing financial statements and for setting standards for organizations accountants. According to Baker (2011), â€Å" One of the requirements of GAAP is that unrestricted fund balances be separated from restricted fund balances on the statements, so you see two appropriate line items (restricted and unrestricted) in the fund balance section† (p. 108). GAAP are the rules of accounting. Those guidelines are to arrange the reporting of financial statements that will include the cash flow statements, income statements, and the balance sheet. With the reply of these responsibilities, the Organization of Managing Bookkeepers declared principles of moral conduct for employees of managing bookkeeping and financial management. The principles take account for confidentiality, integrity, and competence. A person must maintain knowledge and the necessary skills is what includes competence. They must always maintain their professional responsibilities and duties in accordance with related rules, technical standards, and regulations. Confidentiality when one should not disclose confidential information, such as health records except when given the right authority to do so. Integrity has the responsibility not to engage in activities that would affect prejudgment, favors that will influence their actions and decision making. According to† Ethical Standards† (n. d),â€Å"Specialists of managing bookkeeping and monetarist managing partake an commitment to the community, their line of work, the institute they work for and themselves, to uphold the utmost principles of decent manner. Hewlett-Packard Company CEO, Mark Hurd turn out to be mixed up in the workplace. According to (Healthfield, 2012), â€Å"Mr. Hurd had failed to disclose a close personal relationship he had with a contractor that constituted a conflict of interest† . †Mr. Hurd also â€Å"failed to maintain accurate expense reports, and misused company assets. † This is an example that reflect ethical standards of conduct a nd financial reporting practices. Practicing accuracy end honesty will help continue the capacity to never misuse the financial systems, and abide by the laws laid out by GAAP. Organizations are providing their employees with the necessary training that will equip them as well as sustain the reporting practices operational but at the time use the similar procedures and show them new procedures. Fraud and abuse is something everyone know when being ethical. By using the GAAP guidelines, keeping the organizational ethics and policies would be free from abuse and fraud. By following the guidelines that comes from the GAAP, they can help prevent fraud and abuse from happening in the health care organization itself. These guidelines are there to help the organization benefit so they will always be ready in case there may come a time when they have to show their financial documents to a third party. Therefore in conclusion, it a major responsibility in financial reporting practices and ethics. Financial managers should implement the four elements of financial management in their reports to avoid fraud, abuse and the risk of breaking ethics. Managers should know how to plan, control, organize and directing and decision making. They should always incorporate the GAAP rules and regulations in order to avoid unethical rulings.

Terror Human Rights

Terror Human Rights Has the â€Å"war on terror† enhanced or harmed human rights? In the words of Howard Zinn, historian, playwright, social activist: How can you make a war on terror if war itself is terrorism? The war on or against terrorism continues to wage as we talk about it and attempt to find solutions to the looming danger that threatens our civilization in itself. The war on terror has been used as a weapon by governments around the world to achieve selfish motives, to satisfy egos and secure futures. There is no tangible enemy, and it is unlikely that international terrorism can be brought to an end by means of war. Terrorism continues to be an unknown enemy, without a clear identity and that is why military invasion like the ones repeatedly brought about by United States on already ravaged countries is not a solution. Terrorism is a theatre where the acts of terror attract the attention of the public in a dramatic manner creating a sense of shock, awe and unprecedented grief. However it must be remembered that no war is correct, no war is worth the loss of our morals as human beings. In the present article, the argument that is to be presented is that the so called ‘war on terror has harmed the human rights of many all over the world. The phrase has been used to deprive millions of people of their dignity, assets and life itself. The article attempts to understand the question of how many rights can be given up for security of the nations that claim to have been attacked and have hence waged the war on terror. Terrorism in the modern sense is violence or other harmful acts committed (or threatened) against civilians for political or other ideological goals. Most definitions of terrorism include only those acts which are intended to create fear or ‘terror, are perpetrated for an ideological goal as opposed to a lone attack), and deliberately target or disregard the safety of non combatants. Any form of military action can be termed terrorism. The famous quote that, â€Å"One mans terrorist is another mans freedom fighter†, has been the basis of attempts to justify revolutionary movements which have been termed as acts of terror. It was during the French Revolution that the words terrorist and terrorism became popular. The word terrorism began in 1795 during the reign of terror by the revolutionary government during the French Revolution. Terrorist acts were committed in order to gain attention of the world. For example, in the Munich Olympics in 1972, 11 Israelis were killed by the Black September Organisation and even though the eleven killed were the immediate sufferers the true effect was felt by nearly 1 billion people watching the news in the world. Terror has been continuing over the ages in one form or another. What is seen as a crime by some is the act of protection of ones own identity and culture by the other. In this sense, the most recent event that completely stunned the world was the bombing of the two world trade centre towers on September 11, 2001. The world watched with disbelief as United States faced attack on its own soil. What followed and continues is an example of the â€Å"war on terror†, as specified and focused on by George Bush, President, United States of America. The use of the word war here is not only misleading but regressive. According to the US understanding, terrorism includes only the anti state violence acts like September 11, 2001. The question here that can be put forward is then what about state violence, what about the use of excess police force, the use of military/ paramilitary in an indiscriminate manner. The morning of September 11, 2001, was a day that will remain etched in our minds forever as the event killed 2973 innocent people whose human right to life had been curtailed. However the world must remember what followed and continues as you read this is also gross violation of human rights. In an attempt to fight the terror which caused September 11, United States government has been carrying out massacres on innocent civilians in both Afghanistan and Iraq. In attempting to find the enemy, and eradicate it, the US policies and arbitrary use of military force has not only killed many more people but has resulted in some of the worst human rights violations witnessed in human history. The immediate effect of September 11 was the widespread discrimination against Islamic Muslims especially young males. The world has remained a silent spectator to the steps taken by US which has used providing long denied â€Å"freedom† to civilians in Iraq and Afghanistan as an excuse to enter these countries. The reason provided for the invasion has been the emancipation or the upliftment of the people in these two countries. However, instead of upliftment these countries have been ravaged of all resources and are continued to be plundered. Human rights have become a latter issue with people attempting to stay alive amongst continuous bombings and military invasions. The world has been a silent spectator for nearly five years after the falling of the two towers to United States government that has been taking steps, using force to achieve illusioned motives and actions completely opposed to the basis of International Law. The right to fair trial is a basic human right, constructed to protect individuals from restriction or deprivation of basic rights and freedoms such as right to life and l iberty. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights provides for this right in Article 10. Along with this the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) provides for the right to fair trial in Article 14. The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), also includes the right to be free from arbitrary arrest and detention(Article 9), the right to be present at trial(Article 21), the right to be free from torture(Article 7) and the right to appeal(Article 26). The four Geneva Conventions of 1949, which protect civilian populations and those fighting in hostilities, principally during international armed conflicts but also during internal conflicts such as civil wars, contain provisions to ensure a fair trial. However legitimizing of the Patriot Act puts all this in a gaping question. This act is squarely against various rights protected and guaranteed by the Constitution of United States and various international documents such like the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, Convention against torture and All forms of Racial Discrimination. The Patriot Act allows non- citizens to be detained without charge without a right to fair trial and be held in prison indefinitely if convicted. This Act also allows the government in United States to look into details of the lives of the citizens in the country without prior permission. This includes, monitoring of emails, wiretapping, keeping an eye on property acquisitions, educational as well as financial records. This Act is clearly against the right to privacy and allows the government to arbitrarily interfere. The United States governments acceptance to the Military Commissions Act can be co nsidered a major step towards human rights violation in the ongoing â€Å"war on terror†. Acceptance of such documents which allow the use of uncensored force are opposed to the basic idea of International Law. Under the rubric of the â€Å"war on terror†, the United States government has detained thousands of people in their own territory and around the world. A majority of the detainees are denied access to a fair trial and are held without a charge. There is a clear violation of the basic fundamental right to due process, which is a clear right guaranteed by the US Constitution. Guantanamo Bay and Abu Ghraib tell a story of torture so evil that it shakes the foundation of human rights. There have been revelations of brutality in these prisons in the form of beatings, sexual humiliation and methods of torture which are almost surreal to a normal person. Guantanamo Bay, the famous prison outside territories of United States has given the world pictures of the torture within the â€Å"war on terror†. It has been and continues to be a lawless place. The circumstantial evidence of torture at Guantanamo Bay is cogent and well documented. The most discouraging revelation is the fact that the methods of torture were encouraged and propagated by the Military Commission which provided acceptance to such inhuman treatment. Though the detention at the Guantanamo Bay prison is clearly against the articles of the Geneva Conventions, and particularly Article 75 of the First Protocol Additional to the Geneva Convention of 1977 which states that coercing a prisoner to confess in unlawful, the defence of United States government to the detention remains that the definition of prisoners in Guantanamo Bay includes enemy combatants and not prisoners of war; hence the Geneva Convention does not apply. It is clear that Guantanamo was chosen as a base for torture so as to hold detainees beyond the reach of the United States as well as International Law, which clearly states that the use of torture and inhuman or degrading treatment is prohibited. No matter how one defines the prisoners at Guantanamo Bay, the fact underlying the whole scenario remains that sadism and humiliation are at work in every cell in this prison by one of the strongest governments in the world. Guantanamo Bay has become one of the strongest symbols of human rights abuse carried out in a planned manner by the United States government, and five years of such lawlessness and killing is too long a time to go unstopped. President Bush indeed confirmed the fact that there are secret prisons of the CIA in various countries away from the United States soil. The clear indication here is that somehow US wants to take its suspects beyond the reach of their own law and treat them in an inhuman manner. Another important thing to note here is that there are countries all over the world which have allowed United States to create such torture prisons on their own soil. Not only the United States but many countries in the world are losing sight of the basic human right to life, dignity and respect in the ongoing â€Å"war on terror†. United States Government also has policies under which individuals are transported to other countries for the purpose of interrogation. Among these countries are countries with records of torture. This policy is known as the policy of â€Å"extraordinary rendition† of detainees for the purpose of gathering information using forms of torture. â€Å"Extraordinary Rendition† is the illegal practice of abducting foreign nationals for detention and interrogation in secret overseas prisons. Recent accounts of rendition have a chilling pattern- black clad masked men grab foreign nationals, strip them, beat them and take them to the so called â€Å"black site† prisons, where these people are subjected to unspeakable horrors including no sleep, water boarding, beatings, isolation and mental torture. This often leads to false confessions. After the September 11 attacks, extraordinary renditions clearly involve kidnapping of persons the United States suspects to be a part o f the Al Qaeda network and transporting them to countries where torture is used to derive information on how to bring the â€Å"war on terror† to a successful end. On 18th December 2001, CIA operatives kidnapped two Egyptians, Ahmed Agiza and Muhammed al-Zery, who had sought asylum in Sweden. They were seized and conveyed by a US government-leased private jet to Egypt where both were subjected to, amongst other things, the use of electrodes to sensitive parts of the body. It transpired that the Swedish government cooperated after being assured that the exiles would not be tortured. Seymour Hersh in his book Chain of Command: the road from 9/11 to Abu Ghraib has revealed that the CIA confessed to Congress that before 2001 it there were about 70 extraordinary renditions, which were assigned the status of being absolutely urgent. However since 9/11 the Bush Government has refused to even discuss the forced return of such prisoners. The worldwide flow of prisoners in relation to the â€Å"war on terror† continues to grow and prisoners have been kidnapped and tortured not only from the war zones but also from contries like Sudan, Croatia, Albania, Malaysia and Pakistan. If the prisons of Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay represent what democracy means to countries like Iraq then the whole credibility of American leadership is under question. Across the country and the world racial discrimination has been faced by many, particularly the Muslims. Across United States, after the attacks on 9/11 individuals of Middle Eastern descent and racial minorities became targets of vicious racial discrimination. Thousands of Islamic men were taken into custody without a right to fair trial. Deportation of thousands of people belonging to religious minorities has taken place without any access to judiciary. Persons suspected of any connection with terrorist organizations have been detained without any notification to families for unspecified amount of time. The question that arises here is that is President Bush truly above the law, as he is authorizing torture on these thousands of detained individuals on the basis of suspicion, denying them the basic human rights. A sign of the fact that Bush considers himself above the International Law is the instance on December 5th 2007, when the US Supreme Court heard administration lawyers defe nd the indefensible: that the President can ignore the writ of Habeaus Corpus and hold people indefinitely, without charge and without question. The hearing challenges the judicial system of United States, and attempts to say that fear not freedom is guiding the judiciary in the US. This in itself questions the basic values of truth, justice and liberty which are the cornerstones of a just society. Article 3 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights clearly states that, â€Å"Everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of person.† This read along with Article 9(1) of the ICCPR provides everyone with a basic guarantee of protection of the right against arbitrary arrest and detention, a clause that United States government has been flouting for years now. International standards clearly talk about not only the grounds of arrest not being arbitrary but also specify that the arrest should be on definite grounds and procedures established by law. There is a clear fallacy concerning liberty and security. Today we face a trade off between national security which is pitted against civil liberties and human rights. The most important question as posed by David Luban in his article on eight fallacies about liberty and security is â€Å"How many of your ‘own rights are you willing to sacrifice for added security?† However this trade off seems rather dishear tening as there is no definite way off knowing how much added security is a person to gain at the loss of liberties. The future of human rights as minute increments for security looks bleak as there is a growing belief that basic rights of citizens ought to be abandoned or at least suspended in order to deal with the growing threat of terrorism. This means that if two or more people endanger property in any manner they can be termed a ‘terrorist organization by the Secretary of the State, individuals may be put behind bars for thinking of pro Islamic virtues, or teachers is school would be stripped of their headscarves as this a threat to security but not a threat to their religious way of life. In the words of Amnesty International, attacks by armed groups reached new levels of brutality and intensity in 2005 but insisted that the perpetrators should be brought to justice through fair trial, not torture or secret detention. The â€Å"war on terror† was failing, the report claimed, and would continue to fail â€Å"unless human rights and human security are given precedence over narrow security interests.† Civil liberties as we have known them are under severe attack now. One belief that threatens them is that the so called â€Å"clash of civilizations† has threatened the integrity of a nation to such an extent that exceptional and unprecedented actions are required to deal with the problem and this includes putting civil liberties at stake for national security. In todays world there are examples that governments world over cannot even provide the rudiments of human security in war torn areas like Sudan and Darfur to people facing hardships at the indigenous levels and to the one billion people who survive with less than one dollar a day. If security of life cannot be provided at such basic levels, even a discussion to gain security in return of liberties being suppressed seems like a lost cause. The question that can be asked is â€Å"Has the era of human rights come and gone?†, the answer to which may be that the era hasnt gone but human rights are challenged in order to respond to the concerns over human security in the world today. Maybe the restrictions on liberty are justified but only to the extent of preserving liberty itself and not for attaining order or security, which is what the world powers seem to be doing in the ongoing war on terror, with illegal deportations, use of torture and invading all boundaries of privacy of citizens; acts that are opposed to the basic beliefs of liberty and security to human beings. Is it correct to assume guilt, to frame people on beliefs of suspicion and to torture them indefinitely? In the case of Rasul v Bush, the US courts held that the detainees in Guantanamo Bay have a right to be heard. Everyone has a right to fair trial, a right to live with dignity and respect, with protection of privacy and related aspects of human rights. Addressing a Counter Terrorism Committee, the late High Commissioner for Human Rights Sergio Vieira de Mello said that: â€Å"[Such] measures must be taken in transparency, they must be of short duration and must respect the fundamental non- derogable rights embodied in our human rights norms. They must take place within the framework of the law. Without that, the terrorists will ultimately win and we will ultimately lose- as we would have allowed them to destroy the very foundation of our modern human civilization.† In conclusion as stated by the 9/11 Commission Report (2004:395), it can be said that: â€Å"We must find ways of reconciling security with liberty, since the success of one helps the other. The choice between security and liberty is a false choice†¦ our history has shown us that insecurity threatens liberty. Yet if liberties are curtailed, we lose the values that we are struggling to defend.†

Evidence Based Practice for Pain Assessment

Evidence Based Practice for Pain Assessment   Introduction: Pain is a sensation of discomfort that is subjective to each individual, and it is characterized by an unpleasant feeling that can be either physiological or psychological. Acute pain is a sudden feeling of pain, occurring for a short duration lasting less than 3 months and disappearing once the injury has healed. Nurses are the most health care providers present on the unit with patients; therefore, they are the main providers responsible to carry out pain assessment appropriately. Nurses are expected to intervene accordingly to a person’s self-reported pain, and work with the person to manage the pain appropriately. Hence, nurses are required to possess the competencies to assess and manage pain, including knowledge and skills in interviewing techniques, and the ability to do physical assessment and manage pain of individuals who don’t have the ability to self –report (Herr, Coyne, McCaffery, Manworren, Merkel, 2011, as cited in RNAO, 2013). It is evident that unrelieved or poorly managed pain is a burden on the person, the health care system and society (Lynch, 2011, as cited in RNAO, 2013). In fact, 50 to 75 % of postoperative patients do not attain sufficient pain relief (Huang et al., 2001; Chung Lui, 2003, as cited in Bell Duffy, 2009) and some providers underestimate the intensity of the pain for 50% of the cases (Helfand Freeman, 2009). Therefore, this observed nursing practice gives rise to a PICO clinical question. In adult patients with acute pain, does utilizing a standard pain assessment protocol, in comparison to the current practice, affect the pain relief process? Literature review: Effective pain management is a person’s right. Hence, assessing pain, implementing interventions to alleviate it, and prevent it are priorities while caring for a person (Jarzyna et al., 2011, as cited in RNAO, 2013). The article written by Bell and Duffy (2009) inspects two important barriers that serve as obstacles for appropriate pain assessment, which are the beliefs and attitudes of patients and nurses, and time management. Research done by Sloman et al. reinforced that pain can be perceived differently in various cultures (as cited in Bell Duffy, 2009). Regarding the nurses’ attitudes, a triangulated study performed by Schafheutle et al. found that 39.3 % of respondents stated that not having enough of time, enough staff on the units and being overwhelmed with work were major features contributing to unproductive pain assessment (as cited in Bell Duffy, 2009). Regarding time management, an observational study was performed for random nurses that showed that inte rruptions, such as answering the telephones, participating in the multidisciplinary rounds, assisting other nurses and looking for things contributed in poor pain assessment practice. In addition, it was noted that nurses’ priorities were to get all tasks and activities done before the end of their shift rather than allowing time to interact directly with patients to assess their comfort and pain level (Manias et al., 2002, 2005, as cited in Bell Duffy, 2009). While assessing acute pain in adults patients, nurses have to be aware of the routine pain assessment, the choice of measure and the protocols. According to Helfand and Freeman (2009) study, there has been an agreement among most of the institutions that routine assessment of self-reported pain is the best measurement for pain assessment, since some providers underestimate the intensity of the pain for 50% of the cases. According to Helfand and Freeman (2009) study, no evidence was found that directly linked the timing, frequency, or method of pain assessment with outcomes or safety in medical inpatients. It was also noted that instituting routine pain assessment along with an educational component improved rates of assessment and treatment. The protocols in the institutions tend to guide the assessment and the management of pain; hence the assessment should be unified and accurate in order to intervene accordingly. Pain is universal but it is a subjective experience. Hence, it is challenging to obtain adequate objective information about it. Many assessment tools are used to rate and assess pain, such as the Visual Analogue Scale, the Verbal Numeric Rating Scale, Verbal Description Scales, Facial Pain Scales, Brief Pain Inventory and McGill Pain Questionnaire (Helfand Freeman, 2009). For the choice of measure, it must be simple to use by the health care providers, and easy for the patients to understand and able to respond to it (Helfand Freeman, 2009). The Visual Analogue Scale for pain assessment is used universally, however its efficacy and reliability is put to question since it may bias the results. A randomized control trial was tested over forty healthy volunteers where they were induced by thermal laser stimulations. Pain was tested during different sessions using two different visual scales; the classical pain visual analog scale (unbearable pain/ no pain), and the pleasantness visua l analog scale (very pleasant/ very unpleasant). And at same time, somatosensory evoked potentials were measured. Results showed that the thermal laser stimulations that were of low intensity were reported as painful on the visual analog scale of pain, whereas they were rated as pleasant on the visual analog scale of pleasantness. Meanwhile, following the low intensity thermal stimulation, the cerebral responses indicated the activation of only C-fibers which indicate the warm sensations that are not painful. Therefore the somatosensory evoked potential results matched with the pleasantness visual analog scale and not with the classical pain visual analog scale. This signifies that when healthy individuals rate the â€Å"no pain† using the classical visual analog scale of pain, they are more likely to rate the intensity of the stimulation and not their pain perception (Kemp, Despres, Dufour, 2012) EBP Process: Observations In hospital X, Y, Z pain assessment was observed being performed by RNs. However, in hospital X, RNs were not using a pain assessment tool to assess the pain, some were just asking if the patient was in pain or not, even though the Visual Analogue Scale was available on the floor, others for sedated patients, were squeezing the patient’s skin to check response to pain, in addition to assessment of facial expressions and vital signs (heart rate), meanwhile in hospitals Y and Z, RNs were mostly using the Numeric Rating Scale to assess for pain by asking the patient to rate the pain between 0-10, where 0 was explained to be the absence of pain and 10 to be the worst pain. In hospital X, some RNs were observed documenting the pain assessment by filling a pain flow sheet, while others were only seen to document pain assessment on the pain flow sheet if the patient was on Patient-Controlled Analgesia, meanwhile in hospital Y, RNs were observed to document pain assessment per shift b asis, whereas in hospital Z, RNs documented pain assessment only after a pharmacological intervention. In hospitals X and Y, RNs were not reassessing pain after pharmacological interventions, while in hospital Z, RNs were observed to do so. In the three hospitals, RNs were observed to inform the physician if the patient was assessed to have pain. Hospital Protocols: Pain assessment protocols were taken from 3 hospitals: X, Y Z. It is important to note that the 3 hospitals were similar in the method/system that they adopted: The American system. That is, one of the references from which the pain assessment protocol of hospital X was taken, was JCR, J.Caho, Joint Commission Resources (USA), 2003. The protocol was issued on 15/01/2011 and updated on 15/01/2013. On the other hand, hospital Y has the followings as main references: Joint Commission International standards, Hospital standards, 4th edition, January 2011, Care of patient, and 2006 Lippincott Williams Wilkins, Inc., Volume 1 (4), August 2006, p. 20-28. The pain assessment protocol is issued on January 2011 and revised on March 2012. While the pain assessment protocol of hospital Z is based on the Joint Commission International Accreditation Standards for Hospitals-5th edition, JCAHO Pain Management Standards (CAMH 2002) and The Ministry of Public Health (MOH), (2003). The protocol was i ssued on December 2006 and revised on June 2014. We can note that some references are outdated thus the protocols should be often revised to keep them equivalent with the latest evidence based practice. 3 of the pain assessment protocols stress on that pain assessment should be individualized according to the patient’s age and beliefs, values and cultural considerations. Hospital Z adds that pain assessment should be part of patient handover report. Three of the protocols state that assessment of pain should be done: Post-procedure (or within 1 hour of admission), post pharmacological and non-pharmacological interventions, with routine vital signs assessment, at time of discharge, before any planned activities (physiotherapy, stress test, post-operative ambulation). Apart from the assessment of pain, reassessment is considered as a crucial aspect, to monitor the pain level, in the 3 hospital protocols. Hospital Y mentions that prior to reassessment nurses should always refer to the literature of the analgesic agent for its peak action period. In hospital Z when pain is identified (score 2 and above), DMS-MRM-Nursing Sheets-Scale is activated while in hospital Y when pain is i dentified (score three and above), pain assessment and interventions flow sheet is activated. The scales used to assess the pain of adult patients with acute pain common in 3 hospitals is the numeric scale, where the patient is instructed to choose a number from 1 to 10 that best describes his current pain, where 0 refers to no pain while 10 refers to the worst possible pain. Another common pain assessment scale among the three hospitals is the Visual Analogue Scale, where the patient points out his/her pain level across a continuum with the extremities of no pain and worst pain. The FLACC (Face, Legs, Activity, Cry, Consolability) scale is used for critically ill, sedated and paralyzed, intubated and ventilated patients in ICU in hospital Y while it is used for children up to 3 years old in hospitals X and Z. In addition, Adult Nonverbal Scale is used for patients unable to report pain in hospital Z. Similar to the FLACC and Adult Nonverbal scales used in the 2 hospitals, hospital X uses the Behavioral rating scale (components: Face, Restlessness, Muscle tone, Vocalization, Consolability) for patients unable to self-report pain. Wong Baker Facial Grimace is a common scale in the 3 hospitals for patients who cannot communicate their pain, recommended for patients of 3 years of age and older in hospital X, while up to 7 years of age in hospital Y. Guidelines: According to the guidelines mentioned in Assessment and Management of Pain Clinical Practice Guidelines (Registered Nurses’ Association of Ontario, 2013), nurses should screen for the presence, or risk of, any type of pain upon admission, after a change in medical status and prior to, during and after a procedure. Nurses should also perform a comprehensive pain assessment using a systematic approach and appropriate, validated tools and using appropriate tools for persons unable to self-report. The nurses should take into consideration the person’s beliefs, knowledge and level of understanding about pain and pain management. Then, document the person’s pain characteristics. After implementing pain relieving measures, the guidelines state that re-evaluation is important and should be done by reassessment of the pain characteristics, and accordingly documenting the outcomes. There are some validated assessment tools, recommended to be used by the guidelines, and are the following: Faces Pain Scale Revised, Numeric Rating Score, Verbal Rating Score, Brief Inventory Short Form, and Behavioral Pain Scale (See Appendices). Proposed Change/Recommendations: Most of the nurses in the three hospitals were observed to be unfamiliar with the pain assessment protocol. Hence, it is recommended to implement frequent sessions for all nurses to inform them about the criteria of the protocol, identify any gaps, and train them accordingly. Additionally, supervision is essential on each floor to evaluate the effectiveness of these sessions. It is recommended by the guidelines that health-care professionals should participate in ongoing education opportunities to improve their knowledge and skills to be able to knowledgeably assess and manage pain (RNAO, 2013). Apart from hospital setting, the guidelines recommend that educational institutions include guidelines, assessment and management of pain into their curricula for registered nurses, and all health care providers programs to indorse evidence-based practice (RNAO, 2013). It was noted that some of the hospitals’ pain assessment policies were established on outdated references. It is hence recommended that hospitals always update their policies and base them on up-to-date EBP guidelines. In addition, it is also recommended for hospitals to establish a model of care to support inter-professional collaboration for the active assessment of pain and declare pain assessment as a strategic clinical priority (RNAO, 2013). Another common observation was that the three hospitals still used the Visual Analogue Scale, which is not among the list of recommended validated pain assessment tools mentioned in the guidelines (RNAO, 2013) and research found it to be unreliable, since patients are more likely to rate the intensity of the stimulation and not their pain perception (Kemp, Despres, Dufour, 2012). The University of Zurich and ETH Zurich in Switzerland, invented a new method for accurate pain assessment: The Pain Mouse. It is an electronic pain assessment tool that offers credible evaluation, lessening missing data and unclear markings concerning pain. The device captures the clenching reaction to pain through a pressure sensor that is connected to a portable computer (Schaffner et al., 2012). PM is recommended to be used in the near future considering that it distinguishes different levels of pain, is less time consuming, more accurate and can be used for patients with limited physical activity and vision impairment compared to the Visual Analogue Scale (VAS) (Schaffner et al., 2012). References: Bell, L., Duffy, A. (2009). Pain assessment and management in surgical nursing: a literature review. British Journal of Nursing, 18(3), 153-156. Retrieved April 4, 2015, from http://web.a.ebscohost.com.ezproxy.lau.edu.lb:2048/ehost/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?vid=6sid=ff36c8fd-ed44-444c-8182-9487d39e913b%40sessionmgr4005hid=4104 Helfand, M., Freeman, M. (2009). Assessment and management of acute pain in adult medical ‎inpatients: a systematic review. Pain Medicine, 10(7), 1183-1199. Retrieved April 10, 2015, http://web.ebscohost.com/ehost/detail/detail?vid=3sid=7b1adb63-ced7-4486-94ef-4ecc54ddc64b%40sessionmgr111hid=123bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWhvc3QtbGl2ZQ%3d%3d#db=rzhAN=2010437732 Kemp, J., Despres, O., Dufour, A. (2012). Unreliability of the Visual Analog Scale in experimental pain assessment: a sensitivity and evoked potentials study. Pain Physician, 15(5), 693-699. Retrieved on April 10, 2015 from http://www.painphysicianjournal.com/2012/september/2012;15;E693-E699.pdf Registered Nurses’ Association of Ontario (RNAO). (2013). Assessment and management of pain (3rd Edition). Toronto, ON: Registered Nurses’ Association of Ontario (RNAO). Retrieved April 4, 2015, from http://rnao.ca/sites/rnao-ca/files/AssessAndManagementOfPain_15_WEB-_FINAL_DEC_2.pdf Schaffner, N., Folkers, G., Kappeli, S., Musholt, M., Hofbauer, G.F.L., Candia, V. (2012). A new tool for real-time pain assessment in experimental and clinical environments. PLoS ONE, 7(11), art. no. e51014. Retrieved on April 10, 2015 from http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0051014

Reform Healthcare in America to a Socialized Model Essay -- Healthcare

Despite the best efforts to stay healthy, periodic problems with one’s health are an unavoidable part of life. While many of these injuries or illnesses will pass without problem even if untreated, every person will almost inevitably face the occasional health issue that demands attention. The appropriate response to this ailment may involve going to a hospital to consult a physician, and with this step, the situation can become very complicated, particularly for Americans. Current Significance of Healthcare Issues in the United States The significance of issues of healthcare in the minds of Americans was made especially clear this year with the recent presidential election. According to a survey taken between September 2003 and January 2004 by the nonprofit foundation The Commonwealth Fund, 57 percent of Americans classified the presidential candidates’ policies on reforming the healthcare system as â€Å"very important† in determining their vote for president (as cited in Mundell, 2004, para. 5). The large amount of concern regarding the issue of healthcare likely represents the widespread dissatisfaction with America’s current system. A 2004 Commonwealth Fund International survey indicates that citizens of the United States have significantly more negative feelings about their country’s healthcare system than any of the other industrialized nations that were surveyed, with one-third of adults in the U.S. calling for restructuring of the healthcare system (as cited in Gardner, 2004, pa ra. 8). Since so many people are calling for change and demonstrating serious concern, the importance placed on the issue is logical. Identified as the â€Å"single greatest problem confronting all Americans† on the cover of the Erik Eckholm’s analy... ...(2001). As sick as it gets: the shocking reality of America’s healthcare. Dunkirk, NY: Olin Frederick. Mundell, E. (2004, March 29). Poll: Health Care Key Issue in ’04 Election. Health Day News. Retrieved November 1, 2004 from http://www.healthday.com/view.cfm?id=518143. Nayeri, K. (1995). The Cuban health care system and factors currently undermining it. Journal of Community Health, 4, 321-334. Abstract retrieved November 2, 2004, from PubMed Central database. Raffel, M. and Raffel N. (1994). The U.S. Health System: Origins and Functions. Albany, NY: Delmar Publishers, Inc. Socialized medicine. (2003). In The Columbia Encyclopedia, 6th ed (www.bartleby.com/65). New York: Columbia University Press. Strosberg, M., Wiener, J., & Baker, R. (Eds.). (1992). Rationing America’s medical care: the Oregon Plan and beyond. Washington, DC: Brookings Institution. Reform Healthcare in America to a Socialized Model Essay -- Healthcare Despite the best efforts to stay healthy, periodic problems with one’s health are an unavoidable part of life. While many of these injuries or illnesses will pass without problem even if untreated, every person will almost inevitably face the occasional health issue that demands attention. The appropriate response to this ailment may involve going to a hospital to consult a physician, and with this step, the situation can become very complicated, particularly for Americans. Current Significance of Healthcare Issues in the United States The significance of issues of healthcare in the minds of Americans was made especially clear this year with the recent presidential election. According to a survey taken between September 2003 and January 2004 by the nonprofit foundation The Commonwealth Fund, 57 percent of Americans classified the presidential candidates’ policies on reforming the healthcare system as â€Å"very important† in determining their vote for president (as cited in Mundell, 2004, para. 5). The large amount of concern regarding the issue of healthcare likely represents the widespread dissatisfaction with America’s current system. A 2004 Commonwealth Fund International survey indicates that citizens of the United States have significantly more negative feelings about their country’s healthcare system than any of the other industrialized nations that were surveyed, with one-third of adults in the U.S. calling for restructuring of the healthcare system (as cited in Gardner, 2004, pa ra. 8). Since so many people are calling for change and demonstrating serious concern, the importance placed on the issue is logical. Identified as the â€Å"single greatest problem confronting all Americans† on the cover of the Erik Eckholm’s analy... ...(2001). As sick as it gets: the shocking reality of America’s healthcare. Dunkirk, NY: Olin Frederick. Mundell, E. (2004, March 29). Poll: Health Care Key Issue in ’04 Election. Health Day News. Retrieved November 1, 2004 from http://www.healthday.com/view.cfm?id=518143. Nayeri, K. (1995). The Cuban health care system and factors currently undermining it. Journal of Community Health, 4, 321-334. Abstract retrieved November 2, 2004, from PubMed Central database. Raffel, M. and Raffel N. (1994). The U.S. Health System: Origins and Functions. Albany, NY: Delmar Publishers, Inc. Socialized medicine. (2003). In The Columbia Encyclopedia, 6th ed (www.bartleby.com/65). New York: Columbia University Press. Strosberg, M., Wiener, J., & Baker, R. (Eds.). (1992). Rationing America’s medical care: the Oregon Plan and beyond. Washington, DC: Brookings Institution. Reform Healthcare in America to a Socialized Model Essay -- Healthcare Despite the best efforts to stay healthy, periodic problems with one’s health are an unavoidable part of life. While many of these injuries or illnesses will pass without problem even if untreated, every person will almost inevitably face the occasional health issue that demands attention. The appropriate response to this ailment may involve going to a hospital to consult a physician, and with this step, the situation can become very complicated, particularly for Americans. Current Significance of Healthcare Issues in the United States The significance of issues of healthcare in the minds of Americans was made especially clear this year with the recent presidential election. According to a survey taken between September 2003 and January 2004 by the nonprofit foundation The Commonwealth Fund, 57 percent of Americans classified the presidential candidates’ policies on reforming the healthcare system as â€Å"very important† in determining their vote for president (as cited in Mundell, 2004, para. 5). The large amount of concern regarding the issue of healthcare likely represents the widespread dissatisfaction with America’s current system. A 2004 Commonwealth Fund International survey indicates that citizens of the United States have significantly more negative feelings about their country’s healthcare system than any of the other industrialized nations that were surveyed, with one-third of adults in the U.S. calling for restructuring of the healthcare system (as cited in Gardner, 2004, pa ra. 8). Since so many people are calling for change and demonstrating serious concern, the importance placed on the issue is logical. Identified as the â€Å"single greatest problem confronting all Americans† on the cover of the Erik Eckholm’s analy... ...(2001). As sick as it gets: the shocking reality of America’s healthcare. Dunkirk, NY: Olin Frederick. Mundell, E. (2004, March 29). Poll: Health Care Key Issue in ’04 Election. Health Day News. Retrieved November 1, 2004 from http://www.healthday.com/view.cfm?id=518143. Nayeri, K. (1995). The Cuban health care system and factors currently undermining it. Journal of Community Health, 4, 321-334. Abstract retrieved November 2, 2004, from PubMed Central database. Raffel, M. and Raffel N. (1994). The U.S. Health System: Origins and Functions. Albany, NY: Delmar Publishers, Inc. Socialized medicine. (2003). In The Columbia Encyclopedia, 6th ed (www.bartleby.com/65). New York: Columbia University Press. Strosberg, M., Wiener, J., & Baker, R. (Eds.). (1992). Rationing America’s medical care: the Oregon Plan and beyond. Washington, DC: Brookings Institution.

Definition Essay - The Word Private -- Definition Essays

Definition Essay - The Word 'Private' Private is a word with a multitude of meanings, some known and others not so known. When searched for in a dictionary, it can be found that the definitions don't vary much between the three dictionaries, although the dictionary from 1913 had a few dissimilar terms. The word private was looked up in Webster Dictionary from 1913,   The American Heritage ® Dictionary of the English Language: Fourth Edition, and the Oxford English Dictionary: Second Edition. Many people think of private as meaning something in solitude, or secretive. Reading these dictionary entries revealed the labyrinthine meaning of the word private. Some of the definitions seem very similar to the way private is used in every day life, however others seem hidden as though they were private definitions themselves. Most freshmen at Michigan State University and students at Waterford Mott High School don't use that word commonly in every day conversation but when we do use it, the context in which it is used usually gives the implied meaning of being secretive or sheltered fro...

Ap European History Chapter 12 Review

Week 6 Chapter Review Important People: Sir Peter Paul Rubens was a Flemish Baroque painter, and a proponent of an extravagant Baroque style that emphasised movement, colour, and sensuality. He is well-known for his Counter-Reformation altarpieces, portraits, landscapes, and history paintings of mythological and allegorical subjects. In addition to running a large studio in Antwerp that produced paintings popular with nobility and art collectors throughout Europe, Rubens was a classically educated humanist scholar, art collector, and diplomat who was knighted by both Philip IV, King of Spain, and Charles I, King of England. In 1621, the Queen Mother of France, Marie de' Medici, commissioned Rubens to paint two large allegorical cycles celebrating her life and the life of her late husband, Henry IV, for the Luxembourg Palace in Paris. The Marie de' Medici cycle (now in the Louvre) was installed in 1625, and although he began work on the second series it was never completed. Marie was exiled from France in 1630 by her son, Louis XIII, and died in 1642 in the same house in Cologne where Rubens had lived as a child. After the end of the Twelve Years' Truce in 1621, the Spanish Habsburg rulers entrusted Rubens with a number of diplomatic missions. In 1624 the French ambassador wrote from Brussels: â€Å"Rubens is here to take the likeness of the prince of Poland, by order of the infanta. † Between 1627 and 1630, Rubens's diplomatic career was particularly active, and he moved between the courts of Spain and England in an attempt to bring peace between the Spanish Netherlands and the United Provinces. He also made several trips to the northern Netherlands as both an artist and a diplomat. At the courts he sometimes encountered the attitude that courtiers should not use their hands in any art or trade, but he was also received as a gentleman by many. It was during this period that Rubens was twice knighted, first by Philip IV of Spain in 1624, and then by Charles I of England in 1630. He was awarded an honorary Master of Arts degree from Cambridge University in 1629. Rubens was in Madrid for eight months in 1628–1629. In addition to diplomatic negotiations, he executed several important works for Philip IV and private patrons. He also began a renewed study of Titian's paintings, copying numerous works including the Madrid Fall of Man. During this stay, he befriended the court painter Diego Velazquez and the two planned to travel to Italy together the following year. Rubens, however, returned to Antwerp and Velazquez made the journey without him. His stay in Antwerp was brief, and he soon travelled on to London where he remained until April 1630. An important work from this period is the Allegory of Peace and War. It illustrates the artist's strong concern for peace, and was given to Charles I as a gift. While Rubens's international reputation with collectors and nobility abroad continued to grow during this decade, he and his workshop also continued to paint monumental paintings for local patrons in Antwerp. The Assumption of the Virgin Mary for the Cathedral of Antwerp is one prominent example. Rubens's last decade was spent in and around Antwerp. Major works for foreign patrons still occupied him, such as the ceiling paintings for the Banqueting House at Inigo Jones's Palace of Whitehall, but he also explored more personal artistic directions. In 1630, four years after the death of his first wife, the 53-year-old painter married 16-year-old Helene Fourment. Helene inspired the voluptuous figures in many of his paintings from the 1630s, including The Feast of Venus, The Three Graces and The Judgment of Paris. In the latter painting, which was made for the Spanish court, the artist's young wife was recognized by viewers in the figure of Venus. In an intimate portrait of her, Helene Fourment in a Fur Wrap, also known as Het Pelsken, Rubens's wife is even partially modelled after classical sculptures of the Venus Pudica, such as the Medici Venus. In 1635, Rubens bought an estate outside of Antwerp, the Steen, where he spent much of his time. Landscapes, such as his Chateau de Steen with Hunter and Farmers Returning from the Fields, reflect the more personal nature of many of his later works. He also drew upon the Netherlandish traditions of Pieter Bruegel the Elder for inspiration in later works like Flemish Kermis. Rubens died from gout on 30 May 1640. He was interred in Saint Jacob's church, Antwerp. Lord Michel Eyquem de was one of the most influential writers of the French Renaissance, known for popularising the essay as a literary genre and is popularly thought of as the father of Modern Skepticism. He became famous for his effortless ability to merge serious intellectual speculation with casual anecdotes and autobiography—and his massive volume Essais (translated literally as â€Å"Attempts†) contains, to this day, some of the most widely influential essays ever written. Montaigne had a direct influence on writers the world over, including Rene Descartes, Blaise Pascal, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Friedrich Nietzsche, Stefan Zweig, Eric Hoffer, Isaac Asimov, and perhaps William Shakespeare. In his own time, Montaigne was admired more as a statesman than as an author. The tendency in his essays to digress into anecdotes and personal ruminations was seen as detrimental to proper style rather than as an innovation, and his declaration that, ‘I am myself the matter of my book', was viewed by his contemporaries as self-indulgent. In time, however, Montaigne would be recognized as embodying, perhaps better than any other author of his time, the spirit of freely entertaining doubt which began to emerge at that time. He is most famously known for his skeptical remark, ‘Que sais-je? ‘ (‘What do I know? ‘). Remarkably modern even to readers today, Montaigne's attempt to examine the world through the lens of the only thing he can depend on implicitly—his own judgment—makes him more accessible to modern readers than any other author of the Renaissance. Much of modern literary non-fiction has found inspiration in Montaigne and writers of all kinds continue to read him for his masterful balance of intellectual knowledge and personal story-telling. His fame rests on the Essais, a collection of a large number of short subjective treatments of various topics published in 1580, inspired by his studies in the classics, especially Plutarch. Montaigne's stated goal is to describe humans, and especially himself, with utter frankness. Montaigne's writings are studied within literary studies, as literature and philosophy. Inspired by his consideration of the lives and ideals of the leading figures of his age, he finds the great variety and volatility of human nature to be its most basic features. He describes his own poor memory, his ability to solve problems and mediate conflicts without truly getting emotionally involved, his disdain for the human pursuit of lasting fame, and his attempts to detach himself from worldly things to prepare for his timely death. He writes about his disgust with the religious conflicts of his time, reflecting a spirit of skepticism and belief that humans are not able to attain true certainty. The longest of his essays, Apology for Raymond Sebond, contains his famous motto, â€Å"What do I know? † Montaigne considered marriage necessary for the raising of children, but disliked strong feelings of passionate love because he saw them as detrimental to freedom. In education, he favored concrete examples and experience over the teaching of abstract knowledge that has to be accepted uncritically. His essay â€Å"On the Education of Children† is dedicated to Diana of Foix. The Essais exercised important influence on both French and English literature, in thought and style. Thinkers exploring similar ideas include Erasmus, Thomas More, and Guillaume Bude, who all worked about fifty years before Montaigne. Since Edward Capell first made the suggestion in 1780, some scholars believe that Shakespeare was familiar with Montaigne's essays. John Florio's translation of Montaigne's Essais became available to Shakespeare in English in 1603. It is suggested that Montaigne's influence is especially noticeable in â€Å"Hamlet† and â€Å"King Lear†, both in language and in the skepticism present in both plays. For an example, compare Shakespeare's Hamlet to Rosencrantz, at Hamlet Act 2, scene 2, about line 240, with an earlier quote of Montaigne. â€Å"†¦ for there is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so. To me it is a prison. â€Å". â€Å"Whether the events in our life are good or bad greatly depends on the way we perceive them. † Much of Blaise Pascal's skepticism in his Pensees was a result of reading Montaigne. Ralph Waldo Emerson chose â€Å"Montaigne; or, the Skeptic† as a subject of one of his series of lectures entitled Representative Men, along side other subjects such as Shakespeare and Plato. Friedrich Nietzsche judged of Montaigne: â€Å"That such a man wrote has truly augmented the joy of living on this Earth† Valentin Weigel was a German theologian, philosopher and mystical writer, from Saxony, and an important precursor of later theosophy. In English he is often called Valentine Weigel. He was born at Hayn, near Dresden, into a Catholic family. He studied at Meissen, Leipzig, and Wittenberg. In 1567 he became a pastor at Zschopau, near Chemnitz. There, he lived out a quiet life, engaged in his writings. Weigel was best known for his belief that the Virgin Mary was herself the product of a virgin birth. He based his belief on the idea of the immaculate conception, which required that Mary must also be sinless in order to bear God in the flesh. He kept his ideas secret, entrusting them only to personal friends (in contrast to Jakob Bohme). He carried out his parishioner duties and kept a low profile. He left around 6000 pages in printed or manuscript works. His ideas on human nature were only gradually and posthumously published. Johann Arndt, Gottfried Arnold, and Gottfried Leibniz helped to spread Weigel's ideas. His mysticism was marked by that of Johannes Tauler and by doctrines of Paracelsus; he was also a follower of Sebastian Franck and Caspar Schwenckfeldt. Like these two latter, he emphasized the inner life. John Calvin was an influential French theologian and pastor during the Protestant Reformation. He was a principal figure in the development of the system of Christian theology later called Calvinism. Originally trained as a humanist lawyer, he broke from the Roman Catholic Church around 1530. After religious tensions provoked a violent uprising against Protestants in France, Calvin fled to Basel, Switzerland, where he published the first edition of his seminal work The Institutes of the Christian Religion in 1536. In that year, Calvin was recruited by William Farel to help reform the church in Geneva. The city council resisted the implementation of Calvin and Farel's ideas, and both men were expelled. At the invitation of Martin Bucer, Calvin proceeded to Strasbourg, where he became the minister of a church of French refugees. He continued to support the reform movement in Geneva, and was eventually invited back to lead its church. Following his return, Calvin introduced new forms of church government and liturgy, despite the opposition of several powerful families in the city who tried to curb his authority. During this time, the trial of Michael Servetus was extended by libertines in an attempt to harass Calvin. However, since Servetus was also condemned and wanted by the Inquisition, outside pressure from all over Europe forced the trial to continue. Following an influx of supportive refugees and new elections to the city council, Calvin's opponents were forced out. Calvin spent his final years promoting the Reformation both in Geneva and throughout Europe. Calvin was a tireless polemic and apologetic writer who generated much controversy. He also exchanged cordial and supportive letters with many reformers, including Philipp Melanchthon and Heinrich Bullinger. In addition to the Institutes, he wrote commentaries on most books of the Bible, as well as theological treatises and confessional documents. He regularly preached sermons throughout the week in Geneva. Calvin was influenced by the Augustinian tradition, which led him to expound the doctrine of predestination and the absolute sovereignty of God in salvation of the human soul from death and eternal damnation. Calvin's writing and preachings provided the seeds for the branch of theology that bears his name. The Reformed and Presbyterian churches, which look to Calvin as a chief expositor of their beliefs, have spread throughout the world. After the deaths of Calvin and his successor, Beza, the Geneva city council gradually gained control over areas of life that were previously in the ecclesiastical domain. Increasing secularisation was accompanied by the decline of the church. Even the Geneva academie was eclipsed by universities in Leiden and Heidelberg, which became the new strongholds of Calvin's ideas, first identified as â€Å"Calvinism† by Joachim Westphal in 1552. By 1585, Geneva, once the wellspring of the reform movement, had become merely its symbol. However, Calvin had always warned against describing him as an â€Å"idol† and Geneva as a new â€Å"Jerusalem†. He encouraged people to adapt to the environments in which they found themselves. Even during his polemical exchange with Westphal, he advised a group of French-speaking refugees, who had settled in Wesel, Germany, to integrate with the local Lutheran churches. Despite his differences with the Lutherans, he did not deny that they were members of the true Church. Calvin’s recognition of the need to adapt to local conditions became an important characteristic of the reformation movement as it spread across Europe. Due to Calvin's missionary work in France, his programme of reform eventually reached the French-speaking provinces of the Netherlands. Calvinism was adopted in the Palatinate under Frederick III, which led to the formulation of the Heidelberg Catechism in 1563. This and the Belgic Confession were adopted as confessional standards in the first synod of the Dutch Reformed Church in 1571. Leading divines, either Calvinist or those sympathetic to Calvinism, settled in England (Martin Bucer, Peter Martyr, and Jan Laski) and Scotland (John Knox). During the English Civil War, the Calvinistic Puritans produced the Westminster Confession, which became the confessional standard for Presbyterians in the English-speaking world. Having established itself in Europe, the movement continued to spread to other parts of the world including North America, South Africa, and Korea. Calvin did not live to see the foundation of his work grow into an international movement; but his death allowed his ideas to break out of their city of origin, to succeed far beyond their borders, and to establish their own distinct character. Theodore Beza (Theodore de Beze or de Besze) was a French Protestant Christian theologian and scholar who played an important role in the Reformation. A member of the monarchomaque movement who opposed absolute monarchy, he was a disciple of John Calvin and lived most of his life in Switzerland. As Calvin's successor, Beza was very successful, not only in carrying on his work but also in giving peace to the Church at Geneva. The magistrates had fully appropriated the ideas of Calvin, and the direction of spiritual affairs, the organs of which were the â€Å"ministers of the word† and â€Å"the consistory†, was founded on a solid basis. No doctrinal controversy arose after 1564. The discussions concerned questions of a practical, social, or ecclesiastical nature, such as the supremacy of the magistrates over the pastors, freedom in preaching, and the obligation of the pastors to submit to the majority of the campagnie des pasteurs. Beza obtruded his will in no way upon his associates, and took no harsh measures against injudicious or hot-headed colleagues, though sometimes he took their cases in hand and acted as mediator; and yet he often experienced an opposition so extreme that he threatened to resign. Although he was inclined to take the part of the magistrates, he knew how to defend the rights and independence of the spiritual power when occasion arose, without, however, conceding to it such a preponderating influence as did Calvin. His activity was great. He mediated between the compagnie and the magistracy; the latter continually asked his advice even in political questions. He corresponded with all the leaders of the Reformed party in Europe. After the St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre (1572), he used his influence to give to the refugees a hospitable reception at Geneva. In 1574 he wrote his De jure magistratuum (Right of Magistrates), in which he emphatically protested against tyranny in religious matters, and affirmed that it is legitimate for a people to oppose an unworthy magistracy in a practical manner and if necessary to use weapons and depose them. Without being a great dogmatician like his master, nor a creative genius in the ecclesiastical realm, Beza had qualities which made him famous as humanist, exegete, orator, and leader in religious and political affairs, and qualified him to be the guide of the Calvinists in all Europe. In the various controversies into which he was drawn, Beza often showed an excess of irritation and intolerance, from which Bernardino Ochino, pastor of the Italian congregation at Zurich (on account of a treatise which contained some objectionable points on polygamy), and Sebastian Castellio at Basel (on account of his Latin and French translations of the Bible) had especially to suffer. With Reformed France Beza continued to maintain the closest relations. He was the moderator of the general synod which met in April, 1571, at La Rochelle and decided not to abolish church discipline or to acknowledge the civil government as head of the Church, as the Paris minister Jean Morel and the philosopher Pierre Ramus demanded; it also decided to confirm anew the Calvinistic doctrine of the Lord's Supper (by the expression: â€Å"substance of the body of Christ†) against Zwinglianism, which caused a very unpleasant discussion between Beza and Ramus and Heinrich Bullinger. In the following year (May, 1572) he took an important part in the national synod at Nimes. He was also interested in the ontroversies which concerned the Augsburg Confession in Germany, especially after 1564, on the doctrine of the Person of Christ and the sacrament, and published several works against Westphal, Hesshusen, Selnecker, Johannes Brenz, and Jakob Andrea. This made him, especially after 1571, hated by all those who adhered to Lutheranism in opposition to Mela nchthon Jeanne d'Albret, also known as Jeanne III or Joan III, was the queen regnant of Navarre from 1555 to 1572. She married Antoine de Bourbon, Duke of Vendome, and was the mother of Henry of Bourbon, who became King of Navarre and of France as Henry IV, the first Bourbon king. She became the Duchess of Vendome by marriage. She was the acknowledged spiritual and political leader of the French Huguenot movement, and a key figure in the French Wars of Religion. The power struggle between Catholics and Huguenots for control of the French court and France as a whole, led to the outbreak of the French Wars of Religion in 1562. Jeanne and Antoine were at court, when the latter made the decision to support the Catholic faction, which was headed by the House of Guise; and in consequence, threatened to repudiate Jeanne when she refused to attend Mass. Catherine de' Medici, in an attempt to steer a middle course between the two warring factions, also pleaded with Jeanne to obey her husband for the sake of peace but to no avail. Jeanne stood her ground and staunchly refused to abandon the Calvinist religion, and continued to have Protestant services conducted in her apartments. When many of the other nobles also joined the Catholic camp, Catherine had no choice but to support the Catholic faction. Fearing both her husband's and Catherine's anger, Jeanne left Paris in March 1562 and made her way south to seek refuge in Bearn. When Jeanne had stopped for a brief sojourn at her husband's ancestral chateau in Vendome on 14 May to break her lengthy homeward journey, she failed to prevent a 400-strong Huguenot force from invading the town. The soldiers marauded through the streets of Vendome, ransacked all the churches, maltreated the inhabitants, and pillaged the ducal chapel, which housed the tombs of Antoine's ancestors. In consequence, her husband adopted a belligerent stance with her. He issued orders to Blaise de Lasseran-Massencome, seigneur de Montluc to have her arrested and returned o Paris where she would subsequently be sent to a Catholic convent. She resumed her journey after quitting Vendome and managed to elude her captors, safely passing over the frontier into Bearn before she could be intercepted by the seigneur de Montluc and his troops. At the end of the year, Antoine was fatally wounded at the siege of Rouen and died before Jeanne could obtain the necessary permission to cross over enemy li nes, in order to be at his bedside where she had wished nurse him. His mistress instead was summoned to his deathbed. Jeanne henceforth ruled Navarre as the sole queen regnant; her sex being no impediment to her sovereignity. Her son Henry subsequently became â€Å"first prince of the blood†. Jeanne often brought him along on her many progresses through her domains to oversee administrative affairs. Jeanne haughtily refused an offer of matrimony issued by King Philip II of Spain who had hoped to marry her to his son, on the condition that she return to the Catholic faith. Jeanne's position in the conflicts remained relatively neutral in the beginning, being mainly preoccupied with military defences, given Navarre's geographic location beside Catholic Spain. Papal envoys arrived and tried to coerce and threaten her into returning to Catholicism and abolishing heresy within her kingdom. Her response was to coldly reply that â€Å"the authority of the Pope's legate is not recognised in Bearn†. At one stage there was a papal plot led by Pope Pius IV to have her kidnapped and turned over to the Spanish Inquistion. Jeanne was summoned to Rome to be examined for heresy under the triple penalty of excommunication, the confiscation of her property, and a declaration that her kingdom was available to any ruler who wished to invade it. This last threat alarmed King Philip, and the blatant interference by the Papacy in French affairs also enraged Catherine de' Medici who, on behalf of Charles IX, sent angry letters of protest to the Pope. The papal threats never materialised. During the French Court's royal progress between January 1564 and May 1565, Jeanne met and held talks with Catherine de' Medici at Macon and Nerac. When the third religious war broke out in 1568, however, she decided to actively support the Huguenot cause. Feeling that their lives were in danger from encroaching French Catholic and Spanish troops, Jeanne and Henry sought efuge in the Protestant stronghold of La Rochelle. As Minister of Propaganda, Jeanne wrote manifestos and composed letters to sympathetic foreign rulers, requesting their assistance. Jeanne had visualised the province of Guyenne as a â€Å"Protestant homeland† and played a leading role in the military actions from 1569 to 1570 with the aim of seeing her dream come to fru ition. Whilst at La Rochelle, she assumed control of the fortifications, finances, Intelligence gathering, and the maintaining of discipline amongst the civilian populace. She used her own jewellery as security in a loan obtained from Queen Elizabeth I of England, and oversaw the well-being of the numerous refugees who sought shelter within La Rochelle. She often accompanied Admiral de Coligny to the battlefield where the fighting was at its most intense; together they inspected the defences and rallied the Huguenot forces. Jeanne also established a religious seminary in La Rochelle, drawing the most learned Huguenot men in France within its walls. Following the Huguenot defeat on 16 March 1569 at the Battle of Jarnac where Jeanne's brother-in-law, Louis I de Bourbon, Prince de Conde was killed, Gaspard de Coligny assumed command of the Huguenot forces nominally on behalf of her son Henry and Conde's son, Henri I de Bourbon, Prince de Conde. Jeanne had established them as the legitimate leaders of the Huguenot cause. After her funeral, which was conducted according to the rites of the Protestant Church, a cortege bearing her body travelled through the streets of Vendome. She was buried beside her husband at Ducal Church of collegiale Saint-Georges. The tombs were destroyed when the church was sacked in 1793 during the French Revolution. Her son Henry succeeded her, becoming King Henry III of Navarre. In 1589, he ascended the French throne as Henry IV; founding the Bourbon line of kings. Don Fernando Alvarez de Toledo y Pimentel, 3rd Duke of Alba was a Spanish general and governor of the Spanish Netherlands, nicknamed â€Å"the Iron Duke† in the Low Countries because of his harsh and cruel rule there and his role in the execution of his political opponents and the massacre of several cities. In 1567, Philip, who was a zealous opponent of Protestantism, sent Alba into the Netherlands at the head of an army of 10,000 men, with unlimited powers for the extirpation of the heretics. Alba quickly erected a tribunal, the Council of Troubles, which soon became known to the Calvinists as the â€Å"Council of Blood,† to try all persons who had been engaged in the late commotions that the rule of Philip had excited. During the ten years it operated, thousands of people were executed. The precise number is disputed: Dutch sources cite 18,000 victims, while Spanish accounts mention only a few hundred. About 12,000 casualties can be considered as the most accurate estimate, of which 1,083 were executed. Alba imprisoned the Count of Egmont and the Count of Hoorn, the two popular leaders of the dissatisfied Dutch nobles, and had them condemned to death even though they were Catholics. Alba attempted to raise money by imposing the Spanish alcabala, a tax of 10% on all sales (â€Å"tenth penny† tax) on the Low Countries, and this aroused the opposition of many Catholic residents as well. The exiles from the Low Countries, who called themselves Geuzen (French gueux, â€Å"beggars†), encouraged by the general resistance to his government, fitted out a fleet of privateers, and after strengthening themselves by successful depredations, seized the town of Den Briel (Brielle). Thus Alba, by his unrelenting harshness, became the unwitting instrument of the future independence of the seven Dutch provinces. On 22 August, Alba, accompanied by a body of select Spanish troops, made his entry into Brussels. He immediately appointed a council to condemn without trial those suspected of heresy and rebellion. On 1 June 1568, Brussels witnessed the simultaneous decapitation of twenty-two noblemen; on 6 June followed the execution of the Counts of Egmond and Hoorne. The fleet of the exiles, having met the Spanish fleet, defeated it and reduced Holland and Mons. The States of Holland, assembling at Dordrecht in 1572, openly declared against Alba's government, and marshaled under the banners of the prince of Orange. Alba's preparations to defeat the gathering storm were made with his usual rapidity and vigour, and he succeeded in recovering Mons, Mechelen and Zutphen, under the conduct of his son Don Fadrique. All three cities were sacked and many civilians killed. With the exception of Zeeland and Holland, he regained all the provinces; and at last his son stormed Naarden, massacring every man, woman and child, proceeded to invest the city of Haarlem, which, after standing an obstinate siege, was taken and pillaged. Their next attack was upon Alkmaar; but there they were met with such desperate resistance that Alba was forced to retire. William II, Prince of Orange was sovereign Prince of Orange and stadtholder of the United Provinces of the Netherlands from 14 March 1647 until his death three years later. William II, Prince of Orange, was the son of stadtholder Frederik Hendrik of Orange and Amalia of Solms-Braunfels. William the Silent had been succeeded in the position of stadtholder and as commander of the Dutch States Army by his son Maurits of Nassau, who in turn was followed by his brother Frederick Henry. William II’s ancestors governed in conjunction with the States-General, an assembly made up of representatives of each of the seven provinces but usually dominated by the largest and wealthiest province, Holland. On May 2, 1641, William married Mary Henrietta Stuart, the Princess Royal, the eldest daughter of King Charles I of England and Queen Henrietta Maria in the Chapel Royal, Whitehall Palace, London. In 1648 he opposed acceptance of the Treaty of Munster, despite the fact that it recognized the independence of the Netherlands. Secretly, William opened his own negotiations with France with the goal of extending his own territory under a centralized government. In addition, he worked for the restoration of his brother-in-law, Charles II, to the throne of England. In 1650 William II became involved in a bitter quarrel with the province of Holland and the powerful regents of Amsterdam, like Andries Bicker and his cousin Cornelis de Graeff over troop reduction following the Treaty of Munster. William opposed the reduction in the size of the army which would diminish his powerbase. This resulted in William putting eight members (oa. Jacob de Witt) of the provincial assembly in prison in the castle of Loevestein. In addition he sent his cousin Willem Frederik of Nassau-Dietz with an army of 10 thousand troops with the aim of taking Amsterdam by force. Bad weather foiled this campaign. After having served as stadtholder of Holland, Zeeland, Utrecht, Guelders and Overijssel for only three years, he died of smallpox in 1650. His son William was born one week after his death. This was the beginning of the First Stadtholderless Period for the provinces Holland, Zeeland, Utrecht, Guelders and Overijssel. His son succeeded him in 1672 as stadtholder and later, in 1689, also became king of England. Pope Saint Pius V, born Antonio Ghislieri, was Pope from 1566 to 1572 and is a saint of the Catholic Church. He is chiefly notable for his role in the Council of Trent, the Counter-Reformation, and the standardization of the Roman liturgy within the Latin Church. Pius V declared saint Thomas Aquinas a Doctor of the Church and patronized prominent sacred music composer Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina. As Cardinal Ghislieri he gained a reputation for putting orthodoxy before personalities, prosecuting eight French Bishops for heresy. He also stood firm against nepotism, rebuking his predecessor Pope Pius IV to his face when he wanted to make a 13-year old member of his family a cardinal and subsidise a nephew from the Papal treasury. In affairs of state, Pius V excommunicated Elizabeth I of England for schism and persecutions of English Catholics during her reign. He also arranged the formation of the Holy League, an alliance of Catholic states. Although outnumbered, the Holy League famously defeated the Ottomans, who had threatened to overrun Europe, at the Battle of Lepanto. This victory Pius V attributed to the intercession of the Blessed Virgin Mary and instituted the feast, Our Lady of Victory. St Pius V recognized attacks on papal supremacy in the Catholic Church and was desirous of limiting their advancement. In France, where his influence was stronger, he took several measures to oppose the Protestant Huguenots. He directed the dismissal of Cardinal Odet de Coligny and seven bishops, nullified the royal edict tolerating the extramural services of the Reformers, introduced the Roman catechism, restored papal discipline, and strenuously opposed all compromise with the Huguenot nobility. Pius V died on 1 May 1572. He was succeeded by Pope Gregory XIII. In 1696, the process of Pius's canonisation was started through the efforts of the Master of the Order of Preachers, Antonin Cloche. He also immediately commissioned a representative tomb from the sculptor Pierre Le Gros the Younger to be erected in the Sistine Chapel of the Basilica di Santa Maria Maggiore. The pope's body was placed in it in 1698. St Pius V was beatified by Pope Clement X in the year 1672, and was later canonized by Pope Clement XI on 24 May 1712. Pope St Pius V also helped financially in the construction of the city of Valletta, Malta's capital city by sending his military engineer Francesco Laparelli to design the fortification walls. Albrecht Wenzel Eusebius von Wallenstein, actually von Waldstein, was a Bohemian soldier and politician, who offered his services, and an army of 30,000 to 100,000 men during the Danish period of the Thirty Years' War, to the Holy Roman Emperor Ferdinand II. He became the supreme commander of the armies of the Habsburg Monarchy and one of the major figures of the Thirty Years' War. A successful generalissimo who had made himself ruler of the lands of the Duchy of Friedland in northern Bohemia, Wallenstein found himself released from service in 1630 after Ferdinand grew wary of his ambition. Several Protestant victories over Catholic armies induced Ferdinand to recall Wallenstein, who again turned the war in favor of the Imperial cause. Dissatisfied with the Emperor's treatment of him, Wallenstein considered allying with the Protestants. However, Ferdinand had the general assassinated at Eger (Cheb) in Egerland by one of the army's officials, Walter Devereux. Wallenstein's particular genius lay in recognizing a new way for funding war: instead of merely plundering enemies, he called for a new method of systematic â€Å"war taxes†. Even a city or a prince on the side of the Emperor had to pay taxes towards the war. He understood the enormous wastage of resources that resulted from tax exactions on princes and cities of defeated enemies only, and desired to replace this with a â€Å"balanced† system of taxation; wherein both sides bore the cost of a war. He was unable to fully realize this ambition; and in fact his idea led to the random exploitation of whole populations on either side, until finally, almost fifteen years after his death, the war had become so expensive that the warring parties were forced to make peace. In any case, Wallenstein's idea inspired many, among them, Colbert, to â€Å"pluck the goose with a minimum of screeching†. Chapter Review Questions: 1)During the Wars of Religion, politics played an important role in the stances of French leaders. French leaders were persuaded to stand by the religion that would give them the most powerful political stance; they had no interest in the true goals of the religions. Catherine de' Medici, a relative of Pope Clement VII, married the duke of Orleans at age 14; he would become King Henry II of France. But Henry died after about six years of rule, and his successor, Francis II, died the year after that, leaving Catherine as regent for the 10-year-old Charles IX. Catherine let the Jesuits back into France and, seeing the alarming probability that the Reformation might gain a toehold in France, the Jesuits began circulating provocative rumors (1567) of a Huguenot plot to sack and burn Paris. The Huguenot leader, Admiral Coligny, began to exercise more influence over Charles in matters of state than Catherine, so she used the occasion of a political marriage designed to make peace between Protestants and Catholics — the marriage of Henry of Navarre to Marguerite de Valois — to have Coligny assassinated. The plot failed and Coligny was only wounded, but the Huguenot leaders, assembled in Paris in great numbers for the wedding, were infuriated. Charles vowed punishments for the plotters, but with all the important heretics in one place, Catherine saw her final solution to the Huguenot problem: She browbeat the young King into approving a massacre — for reasons of national security. On Sunday, 24 August 1572, at daybreak, French Catholic troops and Catholic citizens drew blood. An eyewitness described the scene: The slaughter in Paris lasted until 17 September, but spread to the provinces, where it continued until 3 October. Admiral Coligny was among the dead. In all of France about 50,000 were slain — more than twice as many people killed over religion in 40 days, as French revolutionaries killed over politics in three years! When news of this holocaust of French Protestants reached the world, Catherine de' Medici received the congratulations of all the Catholic powers, and Pope Gregory XIII ordered bonfires lighted and the singing of the Te Deum. Indeed, the Pope's joy was so great that he commanded a gold medal to be minted, with the inscription, â€Å"Slaughter [strages] of the Huguenots. He then had Giorgio Vasari paint pictures in the Vatican of â€Å"the glorious triumph over a perfidious race. † An ecclesiastical annalist named Strype suggested that the comet of 1572 was a token of Divine wrath provoked by the massacre. But if God was watching, he made no move to turn the events begun on St. Bartholomew's Day, 1572. The realization that a solution was needed was finally realised. 2 )Spain became the dominant power in Europe in the 16th century because of the countless gold and treasure from its New World territories. This era is known by the Spanish as El siglo de oro, â€Å"the golden century†. All this money allowed Spain to purchase and develop the best military technology of the time. However Spain's greatest weakness with all this money was how it ran its very society. Spain had a very feudal society. One's place in it was determined by your birth. Spain's nobilty looked down on any labour as beneath them. Any labour or business was viewed as tasks for commoners. As a result, Spanish nobility was expected to live a life of leisure. When the highest and wealthiest portion of your society doesn't work, all they're doing is spending money, but not generating any new funds. It was only a matter of time before Spain burned through all its wealth. Spain was also exceedingly intolerant towards other religions. Spain's period of wealth and dominance corresponded with the Protestant reformation in Europe. The Spanish king Philp II was a very devout Catholic, who viewed the Reformation as heresy and the work of the Devil. Philp made it the goal of his entire reign to suppress the spread of Protestantism. He was only successful with this goal somewhat. Under Philip's reign Spain became its most powerful, but also started its decline. During his reign the Netherlands revolted against the Spanish Hapsburg crown, Spain experienced costly wars against France and England, and Portugal gained its independence from Spain. Philip II was also successful in that he consolidated Spain's overseas empire, succeeded in massively increasing the importation of silver in the face of English, Dutch and French privateering, and ended the major threat posed to Europe by the Ottoman navy. During his reign, Spain became the greatest naval power in the Mediterranean. 3)A politique is a ruler who focuses more on what is good for their country than on religion. Also, I don't know if Henry of Navarre can be called a politique, because the entire reason he became king came from a power struggle between the Huguenots(french protestants) and french Catholics. The same goes for William of Orange, as he was significant as a result of the revolt in the Netherlands against their Spanish rulers. The Spanish attempted to convert the Netherlands, which were largely Protestant, to Catholicism, which was the established religion in Spain. Elizabeth I, on the other hand, was definitely a politique. Elizabeth took the throne after her sister, Mary I died in 1558. Mary had been a staunch Catholic like her mother, Catherine of Aragon, who originally came from Spain. Mary herself took the throne after their younger brother Edward VI died young due to lifelong poor health. Their father, Henry VIII, had established the Church of England, in order to no longer have to answer to the Pope so that he could divorce Catherine and marry Elizabeth's mother, Anne Boleyn. Mary did not like the Church of England, and so when she took the throne in 1553, she reinstated the Catholic church and had those who refused to convert executed. Elizabeth, by comparison, concentrated more on her foreign relations than on religion, although she did make the Church of England the official religion of England. 4)In 1534 King Henry VIII separated the English Church from Rome. A theological separation had been foreshadowed by various movements within the English church such as Lollardy, but the English Reformation gained political support when Henry VIII wanted an annulment of his marriage to Catherine of Aragon so he could marry Anne Boleyn. Pope Clement VII, considering that the earlier marriage had been entered under a papal dispensation and how Catherine's nephew, Emperor Charles V, might react do such a move, refused the annulment. Eventually, Henry, although theologically opposed to Protestantism, took the position of Supreme Head of the Church of England to ensure the annulment of his marriage. He was excommunicated by Pope Paul III. Henry maintained a strong preference for traditional Catholic practices and, during his reign, Protestant reformers ere unable to make many changes to the practices of the Church of England. Indeed, this part of Henry's reign saw the trial for heresy of Protestants as well as Roman Catholics. Under his son, Edward VI, more Protestant-influenced forms of worship were adopted. Under the leadership of the Archbishop of Canterbury, Thomas Cranmer, a more radical reformation proceeded. A new pattern of worship was set out in the Book of Common Prayer (1549 and 1552). These were based on the older liturgy but influenced by Protestant principles. The confession of the reformed Church of England was set out in the Forty-two Articles (later revised to thirty-nine). The reformation however was cut short by the death of the king. Queen Mary I, who succeeded him, returned England again to the authority of the Pope, thereby ending the first attempt at an independent Church of England. During Mary's reign, many leaders and common people were burnt for their refusal to recant of their reformed faith. These are known as the Marian martyrs and the persecution has led to her nickname of â€Å"Bloody Mary†. Mary also died childless and so it was left to the new regime of her half-sister Elizabeth to resolve the direction of the church. The settlement under Elizabeth I (from 1558), known as the Elizabethan settlement, developed the via media (middle way) character of the Church of England, a church moderately Reformed in doctrine, as expressed in the Thirty-nine Articles, but also emphasising continuity with the Catholic and Apostolic traditions of the Church Fathers. It was also an established church (constitutionally established by the state with the head of state as its supreme governor). The exact nature of the relationship between church and state would be a source of continued friction into the next century. 5)Thirty Years' War , a series of European conflicts from 1618 to 1648, fought primarily in Germany. The war started in Bohemia with a Protestant revolt against the Holy Roman Empire and eventually involved almost all of the countries of Europe. By its final years, religious issues had been submerged and it had become a struggle for power between Austria and Spain on one side and France on the other. Politics determined the outcome of the ar greatly. The Thirty Years' War rearranged the European power structure. The last decade of the conflict saw clear signs of Spain weakening. While Spain was fighting in France, Portugal — which had been under personal union with Spain for 60 years — acclaimed John IV of Braganza as king in 1640, and the House of Braganza became the new dynasty of Portugal (see Portuguese Restoration War, for further information ). Meanwhile, Spain was forced to accept the independence of the Dutch Republic in 1648, ending the Eighty Years' War. Bourbon France challenged Habsburg Spain's supremacy in the Franco-Spanish War (1635-59); gaining definitive ascendancy in the War of Devolution (1667–68), and the Franco-Dutch War (1672–78), under the leadership of Louis XIV. The Peace of Westphalia was a series of peace treaties signed between May and October 1648 in Osnabruck and Munster. These treaties ended the Thirty Years' War (1618–1648) in the Holy Roman Empire, and the Eighty Years' War (1568–1648) between Spain and the Dutch Republic, with Spain formally recognizing the independence of the Dutch Republic. The Peace of Westphalia treaties involved the Holy Roman Emperor, Ferdinand III, of the House of Habsburg, the Kingdoms of Spain, France, Sweden, the Dutch Republic, the Princes of the Holy Roman Empire, and sovereigns of the free imperial cities. The war needed to reach the point of great unrest before it could be resolved with a treaty. 6)It seems â€Å"meaningless† only because the European conflagration lacked a clear point of dispute, not that it lacked any purpose. On the contrary, there were too many points of contention or flash points, far too numerous to even list in a short essay. Once the breaking point was reached on one or some of them, it set off a chain reaction of other open conflicts of long simmering divisions, mostly religious, but those caused by changing balance of powers. This is far from unusual. World War II ended up being a war between two major European alliances for complicated broken treaties and border violations, but was started by a single assassination of an Austro-Hungarian archduke. There was no single principle or cause being fought for in either case. World War II has a simpler narrative, totalitarian states like Germany and Japan attempted to conquer the world, and the good guys resisted and beat them back, but even that belies a deeper complexity in the reasons and chain of events that led to it. The Thirty Years War was fought not for any simple cause, but for too many different reasons, so that for the modern generations, it seems altogether too obscure and frivolous. Nothing could be further from the truth. It was in fact a major realignment of European powers in the aftermath of the battles of the Reformation movement as well as the decline of Spanish Power and the eventual breakup of the Germanic Holy Roman Empire. In fact, the consequences of this breakup has historically lead to both World War I and World War II. In order to fully understand the causes of those major world wars, a thorough understanding of the Thirty Years War is a must.