The Mayans, The Aztecs, And The Incas Essay Example for Free

The Mayans, The Aztecs, And The Incas Essay From 250 A.D. to the late 1500s A.D., three advanced civilizations, the Mayans, the Aztecs, and the Incas controlled Central America and South America. Each of them was different but all shared some of the same qualities. They all were civilizations that had a daily life than revolved around religion. Their religions also required a lot of human sacrifices to please the gods. Also, they all invented calendars that were surprisingly accurate compared to the calendars today. One of the calendars was less than a minute from being exact. Finally, they all declined for many different reasons but the Spanish conquistadors was one of the most common and deadliest, due to their advanced weapons and the diseases they brought. But even thought they all had mysterious declines, these ancient civilizations of Latin America were very advanced and had many great achievements. The earliest Latin American civilization was the empire of the Mayans. They controlled most of the Yucatan peninsula and part of southern Mexico. The Mayans were known for their advanced math skills. They invented the number zero and developed a sophisticated counting system; the Incas also had an advanced counting system like the Mayans. Mayans communicated through the use of hieroglyphics. They had over 800 symbols that represented things like words, syllables, days, and numbers. The Mayans were also well known for their new type of farming. They called it slash and burn farming in which they cut down all the trees in an area, then they lit the area on fire, so that the ashes from the trees would enrich the soil and make it better to grow in. the decline of the Mayan empire is a mystery still to this day. The most popular theories are that the soil became infertile, so they ran out of food. Another theory was that they just got up and left and walked into the jungles. The only other possible theory is because of constant warfare between the Mayan city-states. After the fall of the Mayan empire, the great civilization of the Aztecs came into power. The Aztecs centered themselves on Lake Texcoco, in the city of Tenochtitlan. The capital city of the Aztecs was built in the center of Lake Texcoco, with large causeways, which were large sturdy bridges, connecting the city to the mainland. The Aztecs advanced engineering allowed them to adapt to their environment just as the Mayans and Incas did. The written  language of the Aztecs was a combination of hieroglyphics and pictorial symbols. Like the Mayans, the Aztecs language was used for counting, which was more primitive in Aztec culture, days, records, and communication. The Aztecs expanded their empire through military strength. They conquered the nearby city-states, and forced them to pay tribute or face destruction. But later needed for sacrificial subjects led to less aggressive and less deadly military tactics, causing the strength of the Aztec army to diminish. Around the late 1400s into the 1500s, the power and vastness of the Aztecs began to fade. The once calm and under control city-states began to rebel, leading to less human sacrifice and less resources being collected. Also, the conquistadors came from Spain, brining along with them deadly diseases like smallpox, and far superior steel weapons, along with a lust for gold. They soon conquered and destroyed the Aztec empire with almost no effort at all. The Incas, down in the Andes Mountains, never came into contact with the Central American civilizations. They never borrowed any customs or traditions, yet their civilization was fairly similar. They had very advanced engineering skills, which led them to the building of extensive road systems. They also began the idea of terrace farming in which you carve out steps into a hill and farm on the man-made steps. Even though the Incas had no written language, they passed everything down through oral communications. But they did have a complicated counting system in which different sized beads and colored ropes were used to counts things such as military, crops, population, and many other things. The Incas, as did the other Latin empires, had invented a calendar that had 365 days and was kept accurate by looking at the position of the stars, the moon, the planets, and the sun. Due to the complex road system the Incas built, they had to devise a simple messenger system to communicate throughout the empire. Runners would have to travel over twenty-five miles a day to run a message to another runner, then the first runner would have to pass off the message to the second runner and then the first runner would rest. It works somewhat like a relay race only it isnt a competition. In the late 1500s civil war began to break out between the sons of the emperor after he had died. The empire then split into two halves, but it never became whole again and just slowly began to crumble until it was gone. In conclusion, these three civilizations were the most sophisticated in all of the Americas at the time. The Mayans were excellent astronomers and mathematicians, the Aztecs were experienced warriors, and the Incas were skilled engineers. Even though all of the empires had different strengths, they all had some similar qualities. They all built stone buildings, with the Mayans and Aztecs and their well-built pyramids, and they all were polytheistic cultures that practiced sacrifices daily. All of these sacrifices led to a large loss in resources both human and natural. The Aztecs alone would sacrifice a quarter of a million people a year. They all used gold and melted it and made figurines to give to the gods. Soon their empires fell apart and the people of the empire just walked away.

The Sheltering Sky :: essays research papers

The Sheltering Sky Part One: My Vision   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  After reading the novel, The Sheltering Sky by Paul Bowles, it was difficult to imagine how one could transform the novel into a satisfying film. How could one imitate such descriptive settings and emotions without the advantage of Paul Bowles' wording? Also the novel does not have the plot of a typical movie, even an action or love story, and the ending is not conclusive. Could actors today play the deep and complex characters as they are portrayed in the book? These were some of the complications I considered when deciding how I would produce the movie.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  To start to picture the film, I began to think of the actors I would choose to portray the main characters of the movie. I pictured Kit as a rather frail, pretty, blonde character perhaps played by Gwyneth Paltrow. Port should be played by an actor who can generate a sense of strength and independence as shown by the character in the book. He should be a masculine individual, but definitely have a quiet, introspective side. I would like to see Harrison Ford or a similar actor play this part. Tunner should be portrayed with the right mix of good looks and charm combined with a devious underlying air which causes one to question his motives. Perhaps an actor such as Hank Azaria would be a good Tunner.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  I would try to shoot as many scenes as possible on location in the Sahara. By doing this, the viewer can gain a sense of the openness and vastness of the desert without the help of Bowles' descriptive wording. I would try hard to show the harshness of the heat and the burden of the dust which might cause one to react differently than in normal circumstances. I would enhance these sensations by using soft African music with flutes and horns.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  I think central to the plot should be the change that occurred in Port and Kit's relationship after the bike ride to the top of the dune. Before this, their relationship was shaky and they were not as dependent on each other. Afterward, though, their relationship deepened and this sets the stage for Port's traumatic death. Port's death would definitely be a turning point in my film and a very emotional moment. I would try to display the raw pain and emotion of death as Bowles' does so eloquently in the book.

Diversity Reflection Journal Essay

Powell addresses a number of stereotypes and one of them is that women lack male characteristics, which are much appreciated in management. They are less aggressive and more compassionate, which make them not as valuable as men in managerial positions. Even though female leadership becomes more and more common in the world, women still have to prove that their really deserve to have those positions. Moreover, they have to cope with various attitudes concerning their behavior and decisions. Most of them are quite different from traditionally male, ambitious, self-confident, straightforward managers cultivated in the world. They are perceived as to be milder more compassionate, less solid in their opinions, weaker as personalities. Even though I do approve the increase of women in business and management, reading this book it has become clear to me that in some way my opinions and attitudes are affected by this old and very widespread stereotype about female and male roles at work. This stereotype strongly influences my perception of diversity at work because it some way it shows that men are better at decision-making, planning, negotiations and management at all. Women receive the role of reformers, support and other roles, which are to follow someone at work. This stereotype also sends me back to the way of perceiving women as being weaker than men. Influenced by this stereotype, they are perceived as having less power to influence other people, control them. Also, there are seen as less respected that their male colleagues. Of course, in some cases when I know the background of a person I can assess him or her without reference to this stereotype, but when it comes to generalization, especially when I hear about misfortunes of the company, for me it is much better to blame management and refer to gender than to estimate the failure as coincidence. I am not poisoned by this stereotype and in most of the cases I catch myself thinking in this wrong way, but sometimes such thoughts still appear and I cannot remove them from my mind completely. This perception of females was formed under the classical thought that women are weaker than men. This thought is still common because most of world societies are patriarchal. I have formed my perception of gender based on my family. There is a clear gender stratification of mother’s work and father’s work. Mother was more likely to look after kids, cook and do all other things women usually did. Father did different male things like repairing the car, maintaining something in the house etc. In fact, I perceived mother’s work to be easier that father’s work and it made an impression and constant thoughts that mother could not do the same things my father did. This way of thinking is extremely difficult to overcome because it appeared when I was a child. When I was born, people used to think and behave in a bit different way they do now. Today parents tend to share their work around the house, pay equal attention to their children and participate in their upbringing equally. When I was a child, it was a common thing to look at everything through gendered prism. In this way, it is not surprising that I think in this way. Though, I think that this stereotype is dying in our society today. In order to reinforce my thoughts and perceptions, I can encounter several examples. First of all, it is the success of Apple. I cannot imagine any women who can organize the same company and become the same popular. I attribute most of the success of the company to Steve Jobs and his managerial skills. Other successful corporations like Google or Microsoft are founded and managed by men, which is not a surprise for me. However, recently I have found out that HTC founder and CEO is female, and that was a really great surprise for me. It is not a secret that the number of women obtaining top managerial positions is increasing day by day; roles of the best of the best managers are associated with male managing styles. In the world of technology most companies belong to men and the achievement of CEO if HTC achievement challenges my perception of women in business. The second thing is that there have been no female presidents in the history of the United States. People tend to rely on men more than on women. Mrs. Clinton wanted to change the situation but failed. It shows that most people still count on their stereotypical perception of females more than on objective reality, which clearly states that women already can do something to prove their ability to manage something starting from their own company to a huge business or the whole country. People do advocate that men and women have the same opportunities today, but, overall, there are many stereotypes, which work against women and cannot be removed at once. There are some world countries, where presidents are female, but they create a minority out of all world countries. These facts show that women still need to prove that they can achieve the same success because of societal pre-attitude to their abilities, performance and ideas. Biased attitude to gender at work is experienced by every person in the United States. In my life, I had many examples of biased attitude to women as well as men. For instance, once we were asked to move to the conference hall for meeting and there were not enough chairs for all of us to sit. It was clear that male employees were asked to bring more chairs because they were male. To add to the point, the stereotype â€Å"male equals strong† was not common at that case because most of female employees were into sports as outrageous followers of healthy lifestyle. The opposite things happened when all employees, as a part of team-building, decided to watch the movie after work. Everything was fine, but female employees were asked to prepare some snacks (order a delivery) because they knew better what was good for their company. These are minor things but they take place almost everywhere. People still follow old gender stratification model typical for patriarchal societies, where men get everything and women hide in the shadow of their success. America is moving to the acceptance of a new neutral model of gender stratification where both genders deserve equal treatment. Yet, people cannot forget their long history and change their attitudes practices by millenniums in 10 years. Even I, as a representative of a younger generation, cannot get rid of all the old stereotypes about gender at work. References: Powell, G. (2010). Women and Men in Management, 4th Edition By N. W.

The Code Of Conduct A Business For Personal Needs

Introduction Whenever you enter into a business, it can be for a wide range of reasons. Whether it’s a business for personal needs (i.e. a supermarket, clothing store or even a salon) or financial needs (bank can be used for a prime example), the businesses are aesthetically different, but the base is all the same. Their core contain a code of ethics and conduct that causes the business to run smoothly and efficiently. In this body of work, Cheesecake Factory will be the thoroughly examined. The examination will contain information about the organization’s Code of Conduct, the importance that it has on the business as a whole, the key steps that employees should follow and ways in which the restaurant can engage in socially†¦show more content†¦This is important because if the characters of the employees are in order, the company will be successful and the customers will have an enjoyable experience. Compliance with Laws are extremely important. It details that staff members and supervisors are to follow state, federal and local laws, as well as regulations, rules and regulatory orders at all times. The company also has a zero tolerance for harassment of any kind, drug and alcohol abuse as well as diversity and non-discrimination. This is extremely important because it goes hand and hand with the daily operations of the business. Anytime you have someone that breaks the law, whether it is sexual harassment, or abuse of any kind, it can cause a negative shadow to be cast on the organization as a whole and not on the individual. It can also become a legal liability. Manager and Personal Accountability go hand and hand. The code of conduct states that Supervisors should behave in a professional manner at all times, but it should also include staff members as well. The reason why this is vital and key is due to being a representation of the company when or when not on duty (on premises). Let’s provide an example, if John is the supervisor on duty and Jane and Susie are behaving in a childish and unprofessional manner, John should pull Jane and Susie to the side (not in front of customers) and address the issue at hand. When