Learning the rules of snooker is not as difficult as some might think. This is a cue sport that requires thought, concentration, and strategy as well as a range of skills. Of course, it also requires you to know the rules of the game and part of this is knowing how many points the different balls are worth when playing snooker.

Snooker is played with a total of twenty two balls in total. Out of these, one is known as the cue ball, which is white, and this is not worth any points as it is the ball that is used to pot the other coloured ball on the table into one of the pockets of the snooker table.

The majority of the coloured balls that are used in the game of snooker are red one. There are fifteen red ones in total and these are worth just one point each. There are also six other coloured balls used in the game of snooker. The colours of these balls are as follows: yellow, green, brown, blue, pink and black. The point value for each of these coloured balls varies, ranging from 2 points through to 7 points depending on the colour. The point value for each of these balls is as follows:

The yellow is worth 2 points

The green is worth 3 points

The brown is worth 4 points

The blue is worth 5 points

The pink is worth 6 points

The black is worth 7 points

When you are playing snooker the initial aim of the game is to pot a red ball and then pot a coloured ball and the higher the value of the coloured ball the more points you will get. Each time a coloured ball is potted whilst there are still red balls on the table it has to be taken out of the pocket and returned to the table. However, once the reds have all gone the aim of the game changes slightly in that the aim now is to pot all of the colours in order of their value, starting from the lowest value ball, which is the yellow, through to the highest value ball, which is the black.

When playing a snooker match each of the games in the match is known as a frame and whoever has scored the most points, based on the balls that they have been potting, at the end of each game has won that particular frame.

One of the more inexplicable details in the movie version of The Phantom of the Opera consists of Christine confessing to her friend Meg that when she and Raoul were children, he nicknamed her Little Lotte. Lotte was a common diminutive nickname for Charlotte, not Christine. It seems that the dialogue was added simply to explain to the audience why they then sing a duet about Little Lotte.

So why does Andrew Lloyd Webber have a duet about Little Lotte in his musical, then? Simple. It’s in the original story by Gaston Leroux.

Now we get to the crux of the issue. In the 1980’s, when Phantom first debuted, no one knew who Little Lotte was. The offhand reference in the lyrics made no sense to most theatre-goers. But at the time when Leroux was writing his book, readers would have known exactly what he was referring to.

Little Lotte is a parlor game, similar to Twenty Questions, where one person knows the answer, and other people try to guess it. But in this case, the person lists three items, and the others must guess which of the three Little Lotte prefers. The secret is hinted at by the name of the game — Little Lotte prefers items with double consonants in their names.

So now, we have the lyrics: Little Lotte thought am I fonder of dolls or of goblins or shoes?

The correct answer should be dolls because it has the double-L. Since they both know the answer, they don’t bother answering, merely posing the next set.

Or of riddles or frocks? Or of chocolates?

Again, Lotte would prefer riddles, because of the double-D.

You can see why the game quickly fell out of favor. Once you know the secret, there’s no challenge. And that’s why modern theatre-goers needed an explanation for who Little Lotte was.

Poverty is a situation in which scarcity takes place, or it can be a state where individuals lack a certain amount of materials or money, depending on the phase they are living in. There are many different views, describing this circumstance. Especially, economists have tried to describe it in a definition, but there are different views of referring to the situation among the economists as well. Some describe it as a phenomena and a normal state that always should exist in the society. Others try to blame individuals for living in such a state. They think it is in human strength to decide and work to get out of the situation, while some other economists refer it as weakness of a state and blame the government for it. Poverty has been a part of most great economists’ books, modern and classical. Classical economists such as Adam Smith, David Ricardo and Malthus have had different opinions about poverty and its causes.

200 years ago, Adam Smith, the father of modern economists, wrote about poverty in his books. Smith defines poverty not just as a state where someone does not have accessibility of necessities of life, but defines it as disability of following customs of an existing society. In his popular book, Wealth of Nations, he draws a perfect example of this state, writing “A linen shirt, for example, is, strictly speaking, not a necessary of life. The Greeks and Romans lived, I suppose, very comfortably, though they had no linen. But in the present times, through the greater part of Europe, a creditable day-laborer would be ashamed to appear in public without a linen shirt, the want of which would be supposed to denote that disgraceful degree of poverty, which, it is presumed, nobody can well fall into without extreme bad conduct.” In recent days, Adam Smith’s “linen Shirt” might be a neat suit, a cellphone, proper shoes, and ability of interacting with technology. A person without these would be deprived in the society, and there will be many handicaps for him/her to get a proper job and live a standard life. That person still has food to survive and shelter to settle in, but he/she cannot follow costumes from which the society expects, which makes him/her feel inferior to others. In Adam’s world, poverty is the result of inequality. He thinks that poverty occurs in societies that include vast inequalities. Also in Wealth of Nations, he wrote, “Wherever there is great property there is great inequality. For one very rich man there must be at least five hundred poor, and the affluence of the few supposes the indigence of the many.” Smith has a distinguish answer to the question of, “What is the solution for poverty?” He sees the solution of this state within the poor person’s ability. He thinks that what is lacking in a poor person’s personality and distinguishes him from the riches is the aspiration, writing “The real tragedy of the poor is the poverty of their aspirations.”

Poverty was different in David Ricardo’s eyes. He thought that poverty existed because the lack of food and resources. Since natural resources are limited, Ricardo expected poverty rates to increase. While resources get more limited, costs increase in the same rate. Therefore, more people lose ability of purchasing certain goods. According to worldpoverty.org, Ricardo has concluded that rich will end up using resources over and over, and poverty rates increase. For Ricardo, the solution of poverty was population control since the rate of food supply was not increasing with population growth directly. He accepted the idea of Thomas Malthus about population growth. Ricardo thought that if we stop the fast population growth of population, we can prevent poverty rates from increasing as well. His ideas differ from Adam Smith’s on poverty; they both blame society for it, but in different ways. Adam Smith thinks it is the inequality between individuals of society that causes poverty while David Ricardo thinks it is their over reproducing issue that causes poverty.

Thomas Malthus, well known for his Theory of Population, has talked about poverty as well. Malthus refers to poverty as a phenomenon, something natural that should happen to regulate societies. His ideas about poverty and famine fall in his Theory of Population. In An Essay on the Principle of Population, he wrote that population increases in a geometric ratio of 1, 2, 4, 8, 16… while food supply increases by doubling 1, 2, 4, 6… Overtime, when this continues, there will be a major part people in the world who lack of food because the increase food supply does not meet to the growth of population. Stopping the rapid increase of population growth, nature regulates itself continuously by checks, said Malthus. As he wrote in An Essay on the Principle of Population, “population, when unchecked, increased in a geometrical ratio, and subsistence for man in an arithmetical ratio.” In his opinion, positive checks that are natural causes of depopulation which are starvation, disease, and wars occur, regularly, and population growth drops. Malthus has not only talked about the issue, but its solution as well. Thomas had concepts that were alternative for the checks. Dr. Frank W. Elwell, in his article, ‘Malthus’ Social Theory,’ wrote, “Preventive checks, Malthus recognized, come in many varieties.” In Malthus’ opinion, societies can prevent these checks if they abstain from sex and promote late marriages. Without sex, there will not be reproduction and population growth stops, similar to late marriage which lowers the chance of pregnancy for women. Malthus’ ideas about poverty are totally different from Adam Smith’s. Malthus sees poverty as a natural thing that helps in regulating the problem of over populating whereas Adam Smith refers to poverty as a problem that is caused by inequality among classes and lack of aspiration of poor.

In conclusion, each of these economists tried to answer the question of ‘Why does poverty exist?’ Not only classical economists and thinkers have tried to answer the question, but modern economists do as well. Poverty existed in the past and exists today as well. It is not only about the amount of food that is produced; it is about how it is distributed. Tons of food are thrown away and burnt in different areas of the world while children in Africa are starving to death.

Works Cited

Adam Smith. An Inquiry of Understanding of Wealth of Nations. N.p.: n.p., n.d. Print.

Elwell, Frank E. “Malthus’ Social Theory*.” (n.d.): n. pag. Web. 4 Dec. 2016.

Malthus, Thomas. An Essay on the Principle of Population. London: J.M. Dent, 1914.

“World Poverty.” Economic Poverty. N.p., n.d. Web. 04 Dec. 2016.

The Family Crucible, by Napier and Whitaker (1978), reads like a novel while at the same time laying down some of the fundamental concepts of family systems therapy. It is a case study of one family’s experience in family therapy. While the therapy shifts from daughter to son and then to parent interaction to daughters and son, it is finally the couple’s marriage that must be treated if issues are to be resolved. Even the grandparents are brought into therapy to get at the family of origin issues.

The book opens with a quote from James Agee and Walker Evans: “The family must take care of itself; it has no mother or father; there is no shelter, nor resource, nor any love, interest, sustaining strength or comfort, so near, nor can anything happy or sorrowful that comes to anyone in this family possibly mean to those outside it what it means to those within it; but it is, as I have told, inconceivably lonely, drawn upon itself as tramps are drawn round a fire in the cruelest weather; and thus and in such loneliness it exists among other families, each of which is no less lonely, nor any less without help or comfort, and is likewise drawn in upon itself.”

Through the telling of the Brice family’s story, Napier and Whitaker illustrate underlying dynamics such as structural imbalances in the system and how child focus is a typical method used by unhappy couples to avoid dealing with their own marital and family of origin issues. Fusion, triangles, individual and family life cycle stages, family-of-origin themes, polarization, reciprocity, blaming, and the hierarchy and characteristics of living systems are among the concepts that are explained and illustrated through this family’s therapy experience. David and Carolyn, an unhappily married couple, are the parents of Claudia (the IP), Laura, and Don. The book is well written and hard to put down once you start reading it.

Whitaker has been criticized in the field, because many people believe that he does not really have a theory. It is believed that it is only his charismatic personality that drives his treatment. I disagree. I believe that one has only to read his chapter in The Handbook of Family Therapy (1981) and see these concepts illustrated in The Family Crucible to realize the depth and breadth of his theory.

In the service of reviewing the book, it is useful to consider Whitaker’s background and key theoretical concepts. He began as an OB/GYN and had no formal psychiatric training. He became involved in treating schizophrenics after World War II. Whitaker was interested in understanding disturbed relationships in a familial context and in determining whether serious symptoms such as those in psychotics might be reinforced by dysfunctional family patterns and beliefs.

From 1946 to 1955, Whitaker (1981) became involved in treating schizophrenia with a type of aggressive play therapy. In fact, Whitaker’s most formative training was in a child guidance clinic where he learned play therapy (Whitaker, 1981). Whitaker used some outrageous methods, including learning to talk “crazy,” arm wrestling, use of a baby bottle, and rocking, all of which were rooted in his training experience.

At the same time that he developed these techniques, he developed a kind of pyknolepsy, wherein he would fall asleep in the middle of a session. He would dream about his relationship with the patient being treated, and then make his associations to the dream a part of the therapy session (Whitaker, 1981). In justifying his unique techniques, Whitaker emphasized that “Each technique is a process whereby the therapist is developing himself and using the patient as an intermediary, that is the therapist is interacting in a primary process model” (p. 188).

In 1946, Whitaker (1981) moved to Emory, where he became chair of the Department of Psychiatry. It was here that he developed dual co-therapy with Dr. Thomas Malone. In 1964, Whitaker worked with David Keith to develop a postgraduate specialty in MFT at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine. The development of symbolic-experiential methodology required students to “. . . take everything said by the patient as symbolically important as well as realistically factual” (Whitaker, 1981, p. 189).

Whitaker (1981) defined health as “. . . a process of perpetual becoming” (p. 190). He emphasized that what is most important in a healthy family is “. . . the sense of an integrated whole. . . The healthy family is not a fragmented group nor a congealed group. . . The healthy family will utilize constructive input and handle negative feedback with power and comfort. The group is also therapist to the individuals” (p. 190). Whitaker also defines the healthy family as “. . . a three to four generational whole that is longitudinally integrated. . . maintaining a separation of the generations. Mother and father are not children and the children are not parents” (p. 190). Whitaker also looked at the degree of volitional access parents and children have to outside support and interests. The families of origin in healthy families are on friendly terms.

Importantly, Whitaker looked to spontaneity as a marker of healthy communication in families. The healthy family allows each member to admit to problems and to identify competencies. Thus, it is emphasized that healthy families allow great freedom for the individual to be himself. Whitaker (1981) states that “. . . normal families do no reify stress” (p. 190).

Whitaker (1981) emphasized that a basic characteristic of all healthy families is the availability of an “as if” structure, which permits different family members to take on different roles at different times. Roles result from interaction instead of being rigidly defined. They are defined by various conditions, including the past, present, future, culture, and demands of the family at a given time. On the other hand, Whitaker defined the dysfunctional family as “. . . characterized by a very limited sense of the whole” (p. 194). Lack of flexibility at times of change, covert communication, intolerance of conflict, lack of spontaneity, lack of empathy, blaming and scapegoating, a lack of playfulness, and little sense of humor are all markers of unhealthy families from Whitaker’s perspective.

Whitaker placed heavy emphasis on the technique of co-therapy. In The Family Crucible, for example, the reader constantly witnesses Whitaker and Napier turn up the power. Whitaker and Napier’s process techniques illustrated in the book are designed to disorganize rigid patterns of behavior directly in session. The exposure of covert behaviors is considered to be the family’s misguided effort to stay in tact by submerging real feelings. There is a decisive here-and-now quality to symbolic-experiential interventions used in The Family Crucible, with a focus upon creating and then addressing en vivo emotional dynamics in therapy session.

Napier and Whitaker insisted that the entire Brice family be present in therapy. Indeed, Whitaker’s symbolic-experiential treatment model considered it crucial to begin the treatment process with the entire family (Napier and Whitaker, 1978). Whitaker (1981) has emphasized that “Our demand to have the whole family in is the beginning of our ‘battle for structure.’ It begins with the first phone call” (p. 204). He asserts that it is “. . . difficult to do process-focused family therapy without the children” and the “. . . experiential quality of family therapy requires the children’s presence” (p. 205). In the book, Napier and Whitaker (1978) frequently attempt change through playing and teasing, especially with Laura, Don, and Claudia. Members from David and Carolyn’s families of origin are invited to session. Whitaker (1981) states that in arranging for four generations to come to interviews as consultants that he is “. . . helping to evolve a large system anxiety” (p. 204). Experience is privileged over cognitive engagement throughout the treatment with the Brice family, as it is conceptualized that experience trumps cognitive growth in this theory.

Napier and Whitaker (1978) describe their co-therapy as symbolic of a professional marriage. Early treatment of the Brice family involved the co-therapists making decisions. Symbolically, they viewed the family as a baby taking its first steps. As such, the family required structure, so it follows that the therapists made unilateral decisions. Once Napier and Whitaker had won the battle for control, the therapists, like parents raising children, soften considerably. In the middle phase of the Brice family’s treatment, decisions about treatment were made more collaboratively. Again, the model for this process is increasing differentiation of the family. As therapy proceeded, the therapists took increasingly smaller roles, watching like proud parents as the Brice family became more integrated into changing themselves independent of the therapists. Whitaker (1981) clarifies that the therapy process “. . . begins with infancy and goes to late adolescence, where the initiative is with the kids, who then bear responsibility for their own living” (p. 107).

Throughout the book, it is implicitly and explicitly emphasized that the self-development of the therapists is the most important variable in the success of therapy. Napier and Whitaker (1978) acted as coaches or surrogate grandparents to the Brice family as therapy progressed. They were active and considered themselves to be the forces for change. Rather than a blank screen, they acted as allies of the family system. Especially in the beginning, Napier and Whitaker were directive. They used silence, confrontation and other anxiety-building techniques to unbalance the system. They acted as catalysts, who picked up on the unspoken and discovered the undercurrents represented by the family’s symbolic communication patterns. The co-therapists privileged their subjective impressions.

More than anything else, Napier and Whitaker (1978) had the courage to be themselves. They knew how to meet the absurdities of life and how to bring out people’s primary impulses. They believed strongly in the healing power of the human being, and, even more, of the family. They insisted that the family be in contact with its own craziness, play, and honor the spontaneous through their own modeling and directing.

The reader could observe how this symbolic-experiential therapy team moved through several stages. In the early part of treatment, the co-therapists battle for structure and they are all-powerful. In the mid-phase, the parental team functioned as stress activators, growth expanders, and creativity stimulators. Late in treatment, the co-therapists sat back and watched, respecting the independent functioning of the family. Whitaker (1981) holds that the “The sequence of joining and distancing is important. It is a lot like being with children. A father can get furious with his kids one minute, then be loving the next. We take the same stance with families” (p. 205). Thus, the role of the co-therapists was dynamic over the course of treatment with the Brice family.

Whether as a training therapist or a lay reader, it is inspirational to study the therapy offered by Napier and Whitaker (1978) in The Family Crucible. Self-disclosure, creative play, teaching stories, spontaneous interpersonal messages, the use of metaphor, and the sharing of parts of the therapists’ lives that reflect a working through in their own living are used generously. Process techniques intended to activate confusion around Claudia, the identified patient, unbalance the system, and open up authentic dialogue between marital partners and between the generations of extended families are used. It is emphasized, however, that it is not technique, but personal involvement that enabled Whitaker and Napier (1978) to do their best. It is continually illustrated how symbolic (emotional) experiences are fundamentally formative in the treatment of families, illustrated poignantly with the Brice family. Therefore, such experience should be created in session. To expose the covert world beneath the surface world is the most curative factor for the Brice family, is it is for all families. By getting inside the Brice family’s unique language and symbolic system, the therapists were able to move the family’s awareness from the content level to the symbolic level.

In THE FAMILY CRUCIBLE, Napier (1978) describes the curative process of Whitaker’s family therapy from the perspective of the co-therapist. The courage to embrace life’s absurdities involves the courage to be oneself, to the point of even sharing your free associations and thoughts with families. Daring to participate in the lives of the families, or even inviting them to share in your own life in order to get them in contact with submerged associations, helps families to get to the primary process level. In fact, the book underlines that the force of the therapist is central to treatment, so that the family’s encounter with the therapists is the primary curative agent. The goal of psychotherapy with the Brice family, as with all families, is to provide therapeutic experiences, and questions should be fired off in ways to unbalance the family. When Whitaker asks Carolyn, “When did you divorce your husband and marry the children?” he acts as an agent of change. He does not care whether the client likes him. And it is here that one realizes that the success of the psychotherapy depends on the emotional maturity of the therapist. The person of the therapist is at the heart of what good psychotherapy is all about. Since Whitaker states that therapy for the therapist is crucial, experiential training is essential for the therapist who would provide his/her clients with experiential treatment. In conclusion, this highly readable, inspirational, and useful book deserves a central place on every therapist’s bookshelf.

References

Whitaker, C. A. (1981). Symbolic-experiential family therapy. In A. S. Gurman & D. P.

Knistern (Eds.), Handbook of family therapy (pp. 187-225). New York: Brunner/Mazel.

Napier, A. Y., & Whitaker, C. (1978). The family crucible: The intense experience of

therapy. New York: HarperCollins.

Your intense desire to succeed cause you to change the status quo. It helps you start and motivates you to endure in the face of obstacles. it’s what permits one to beat overwhelming odds. Once you create that burning obsession, you’ll do whatever it takes to realize that goal. You’ll invest all of your time, energy and self into attaining what you want.

The number one reason why people are stuck and unable to progress is due to fear for failure and not wishing one thing badly enough. Once you wish to succeed as unhealthy as you wish to breathe, then you’ll achieve success. Knowing the explanation behind your desire is that the key to understanding however way you’ll go.

You heard people achieving bigger success after going through a lot of odds. These people walked aloof from their trials and tribulations understanding what they truly desired because they knew their purpose.

When the going gets rough, the sole factor that keeps you going is your will to succeed. Sometimes people end up quitting the instant they encounter resistance. Conversely, you’ll be ready to overcome any obstacle if your desire is strong enough to beat all odds.

When it involves being eminent, success mostly comes right down to fixing time and energy in order that once a chance arises, you are able to give your best. Having the will to organize is as vital as the will to win.If you wish to seek out success, target developing the need for preparation. simply do not let preparation overtake you.

In fact, there’s no such issue as failure, there is solely feedback and the feedback we get ultimately verify however prosperous we’ll be. When we fail we’ve got 3 options: opt to quit, that is that the solely real failure; opt to ignore the feedback and check out once more; or we will learn from our failure, adapt our approach, and check out once more.

Every major success is built on a solid bedrock of previous failures. You utilize failure as a stepping stone. Shut the door on the past. It doesn’t mean that you attempt to forget the mistakes, however, it means that you do not linger over it. You do not let it drain your energy, or weaken your resolve.

Only those who dare to fail greatly will reap success. If you are not ready to fail, you will ne’er come back up with something.Our greatest glory is, not in ne’er falling, but in rising anytime we tend to fall. A man should be sufficiently big to admit his mistakes, sensible enough to cash in on them, and powerful enough to correct them.

When you take risks, you learn that there’ll be times after you succeed, and there’ll be times after you fail, and each learning experience is equally vital. It’s failure that offers you the correct perspective on success. It’s fine to celebrate success however it’s necessary to learn from failure. In fact, the most important risk isn’t taking any risk. at all. As a matter of fact, the only factor that’s bound to fail isn’t taking risks.

The more you fail and recover and improve, the higher you become as an individual. The best mistake you’ll be able to create in life is the fear you’ll create one. Success is staggering from failure to failure without losing enthusiasm. A part of being a person is learning to require responsibility for your successes and for your failures. Do not blame others or be jealous of others accomplishment. Seeing someone else’s success as your failure could be a cancerous way to live.

Failure ought to be our teacher, not our funeral director. However our will to succeed should be as important as our will to prepare for committing mistakes along the road to success. Failure are a few things we will avoid solely by nothing, doing nothing, and being nothing. We just have to accept that we cannot always make the right decisions in life.

Many of us can remember our parents dressing us up in new clothes every Easter so we could parade around the neighborhood in our finest. It was a fun tradition to look forward to (or avoid, as some fashion-phobic children were known to do), whether we went to church or not. But where did this tradition come from? A look through history shows that its origins are not what we might expect. And examining the custom from a fashion school point of view, we see how changing retailing patterns have altered its significance.

Origins in other cultures. Although we associate wearing new clothes in spring with the Easter holiday, the tradition dates back to ancient times. Pagan worshipers celebrated the vernal equinox with a festival in honor of Ostera, the Germanic Goddess of Spring, and believed that wearing new clothes brought good luck. The Iranian new year, celebrated on the first day of Spring, has traditions rooted in the ancient pre-Islamic past. These traditions include spring cleaning and wearing new clothes to signify renewal and optimism. Similarly, the Chinese have celebrated its spring festival, also known as Lunar New Year, by wearing new clothes. It symbolized not only new beginnings, but the idea that people have more than they possibly need.

Christian beginnings. In the early days of Christianity, newly baptized Christians wore white linen robes at Easter to symbolize rebirth and new life. But it was not until 300 A.D. that wearing new clothes became an official decree, as the Roman emperor Constantine declared that his court must wear the finest new clothing on Easter. Eventually, the tradition came to mark the end of Lent, when after wearing weeks of the same clothes, worshipers discarded the old frocks for new ones.

Superstitions. A 15th-century proverb from Poor Robin’s Almanack stated that if one’s clothes on Easter were not new, one would have bad luck: “At Easter let your clothes be new; Or else for sure you will it rue.” In the 16th Century during the Tudor reign, it was believed that unless a person wore new garments at Easter, moths would eat the old ones, and evil crows would nest around their homes.

Post Civil War. Easter traditions as we know it were not celebrated in America until after the Civil War. Before that time, Puritans and the Protestant churches saw no good purpose in religious celebrations. After the devastation of the war, however, the churches saw Easter as a source of hope for Americans. Easter was called “The Sunday of Joy,” and women traded the dark colors of mourning for the happier colors of spring.

The Easter Parade. In the 1870s, the tradition of the New York Easter Parade began, in which women decked out in their newest and most fashionable clothing walked between the beautiful gothic churches on Fifth Avenue. The parade became one of the premier events of fashion design, a precursor to New York Fashion Week, if you will. It was famous around the country, and people who were poor or from the middle class would watch the parade to witness the latest trends in fashion design. Soon, clothing retailers leveraged the parade’s popularity and used Easter as a promotional tool in selling their garments. By the turn of the century, the holiday was as important to retailers as Christmas is today.

The American Dream. By the middle of the 20th Century, dressing up for Easter had lost much of any religious significance it might have had, and instead symbolized American prosperity. A look at vintage clothing ads in a fashion school library shows that wearing new clothes on Easter was something every wholesome, All-American family was expected to do.

Attitudes today. Although many of us may still don new clothes on Easter, the tradition doesn’t feel as special, not because of any religious ambivalence, but because we buy and wear new clothes all the time. At one time in this country, middle class families shopped only one or two times a year at the local store or from a catalog. But in the last few decades, retailing options have boomed. There’s a Gap on every corner, and countless internet merchants allow us to shop 24/7. No wonder young people today hear the Irving Berlin song “Easter Parade” and have no idea what it means.

It’s interesting to see where the tradition of wearing new clothes on Easter began, and how it’s evolved through the years. Even with changing times, however, the custom will surely continue in some form. After all, fashionistas love a reason to shop.

Every piece of writing that is judged to be good must have these four cardinal factors; otherwise the writing will fall flat regardless of its intended purpose. Remember the intent of your writing should be to inform, instruct, entertain, solve a problem or show how to achieve a goal or objective. Always write for your target audience and not the internet or the search engines. When you connect to your audience, the rewards come back to you. The four factors are: Expression, Content, Organization and Mechanical Accuracy.

Expression: This is how you project your writing for the world to see, read and evaluate. Good writing is a craft. That’s why writers are called wordsmiths. A picture may be more than a thousand words but it also takes words to create pictures in your reader’s mind. This is the first factor that attracts audience to your writing just as bees are attracted to nectar. You may have heard that you must write to express and not to impress. Don’t write for ego; write for your audience with clarity and simplicity–so that everybody can understand your perspective and subject matter. People don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care. Expression is an art form. You must use your words to connect and create vivid images in your reader’s mind. People only apply what they understand. It all boils down to your choice of words, style, personality and overall thinking process. You must use powerful words and emotional triggers. Eliminate boring adverbs and dangling modifiers as much as you can. Use active verbs instead of helping verbs or adjectives. Active verbs make your writing to be more alive and dynamic. Realize that movement generates pleasure. Use active voice rather than passive voice. Thus expression is not just what you say but how you say it. However, what you say is also important.

Content: This is the factor that separates the mediocre from the masters. “Either you write something worth reading or you do something worth writing,” said Benjamin Franklin. Content is the substance and the essence of your writing. In short, content is the heart-beat of any great writing. It is the value you brought to the marketplace. People are value and quality shoppers. They want the best for the least amount of money. You have heard it said that in the internet, content is king. The story is the same everywhere. Content is the quality of the material you put out. This has to do with the key benefits the readers will extract from your writing to solve their problems or achieve their goals. As a writer, you must always ask yourself: “how can my writing solve problems or change lives?” A good writing that sells itself is writing with great content. Search engines love content. Therefore, put out good content that people love and seek. Then the search engines will locate you naturally and people will seek your offers. Let your content be fresh and original instead of recycled materials that flood the internet. Content is what search (and research) is all about. Having said that, you must also know how to arrange and organize your content so that the information is readable and digestible.

Organization: One of the most difficult things about writing is how to organize and arrange your thoughts. “Most writings are a few good thoughts drifting about in a sea of words,” said Jamie Buckingham. Organization is a product of coherence and consistency. How does your thoughts flow logically as in a flower? One idea must lead and link to the next. To be consistent, you need style manual as a guide. Therefore, try to plan your writing. Outline the key points or bare bone essentials you may want to develop before you put the flesh as you go. Let each paragraph contain a theme or one main idea. The flesh can be the description, examples or anecdotes to buttress your points. Organization is a process. It comes with practice, experience and writing intuition. You get better as you keep on writing. Formatting is a very important part of your organization. Arrange information in chunks.

That’s how the human brain process information. That’s why it’s called bites and bytes. Formatting is about headings, paragraphing, bullets, lists, typography, lines and spacing to create visual appeal for your readers. You don’t need to be a graphic artist to develop a good sense of organization. Did you notice that majority of HTML tags are formatting tags? Any good content and expression can fall flat without good formatting–it is a key part of your organization. The best way to learn this art is to glean from other good writings. After trial and success, it comes together with practice. Either you keep writing or you become a write-off. My watch word is: “Persistent practice prevents poor performance.” The more you write the better you grow as a writer. Practice does not make perfect; practice makes improvements and improvements make perfect.

Mechanical (Technical) Accuracy: This is fancy way of saying that your writings should be free of errors. Mechanical Accuracy is the Achilles tendon of most writers. They worry too much about the difference between colon and semi colon–causing paralysis analysis. This is the key reason why many people dread writing. Mechanical accuracy has to do with your typographical errors, spelling, punctuation and syntax. This is why you must have your writing tools: spell checkers, dictionary, encyclopedia and other reference materials. Remember that no writing is readable until it is free of errors. It is also a smart idea to give your writing to someone else to proofread and edit because of human factors. Overall most good writers are made in rewriting. The key lies in the principle of the 3Rs: revise, review and rewrite.

Your writing process is like preparing a good meal. All four ingredients must be present in your recipe before you create a balanced food for thought.

Type I and Type II supernovae have some characteristics in common while others are vastly different.

Type I supernovae consist of explosions of white dwarf stars composed primarily of oxygen and carbon. The white dwarf absorbs the mass of a colliding nearby neutron star to increase to a mass of 1.4 times our sun. Ensuing density and temperature conditions result in the carbon beginning to burn explosively. Within one second, a nuclear fireball is created and the entire star is blown to kingdom come. No remnant is left. All of the star’s mass is ejected into space at speeds from 6,000 to 8,000 miles per second. These projectiles primarily consist of heavier elements resulting from the nuclear fusion process, in addition to some small amount of oxygen and carbon. White dwarves contain almost no hydrogen and post-explosion measurements have been consistent with this. Very little presence of hydrogen has been found in the spectrum of Type I supernovae.

This is not true of Type II supernovae. Type II supernovae occur when stars with masses greater than eight solar masses run out of nuclear energy and implode upon themselves in an asymmetrical fashion. The exact causes of the Type II explosion remain undetermined. The ejection of neutrinos from the condensed core is known to be a factor as the neutrinos contain hundreds of times the energy necessary to cause the explosion. However it has been speculated that the neutrinos may actually carry too much energy away from the star. The core is left with too little energy for the necessary combustion. Theories have been proposed in which either emission of mass-energy streams known as “jets” or the creation of acoustic shock waves is responsible for the blast. Computer simulations hope to shed more light on these theories in the future.

Another known difference between Type I supernovae and Type II supernovae lie in the characteristics of the light specta emitted during the explosion. Type I supernovae always have a brightness of nearly 4 billion times our sun at the time of the explosion. A steadily decreasing light pattern follows. The subsequent light decrease at this constant rate is due to the radioactive decay of the heavier elements mentioned previously. Radioactive decay follows the universal time law of half-lives, with different elements having different half-lives as one of their properties. This can be used to measure the distance to nearby stars by considering Type I supernovae as so-called “standard candles”.

In Type II supernovae the “lightcurve” increases to a plateau a few months after the explosion. This comes from the expansion and cooling of the outer limits of the resulting ball of gas. Computer simulations verify this through the presence of large amounts of helium and hydrogen in the Type II light spectrum, gases which would be expected to be found after the breakdown of star materials from this type of explosion.

Type II supernovae are never found in elliptical galaxies. Rather their stars are usually found in the disks of spiral arms of galaxies. For this reason, thse are thought to be Population I stars. Population I stars form about two percent of stars and tend to be formed from heavier elements from previous giant stars. They are young, hot and luminous.

Type I supernovae on the other hand, usually occur in the core of elliptical galaxies. They are believed to be from Population II Stars. Population II stars are older, cooler, less luminous and composed of lighter elements.

Although the differences between Type I and Type II supernovae make them appear as different as apples and oranges, they both have their origins in explosions of super massive stars due to the collapse of their core and their ensuing fusion processes. Thus they lie in the same class of natural phenomena. Both play critical roles in stellar evolution and both contain enough unanswered questions to keep astrophysicists curious for the unforeseeable future.

Negotiating outcomes are the types of results that can happen at the end of a negotiation. All negotiations end up with one out of four possible outcomes: one party wins and the other loses, both parties lose, they get stuck in a stalemate, or both end up winning. Obviously, the goal in a cooperative negotiation is for both parties to walk away with their needs being satisfied. Familiarize yourself with the four different negotiating outcomes and make it your goal to aim for a mutually-beneficial outcome.

Lose-Lose

In this type of outcome, ego’s come into play which thwart the negotiating process. Both sides dig into their positions and are unwilling to compromise with each other. In the end, both parties end up losing in the deal. Resentment exists between both parties as a result of the outcome and it is unlikely that they will ever negotiate with each other again.

Example

A labor union refuses a contract offer and goes on strike until demands are met. The company refuses to give into to this bullying-type technique and digs into their position of not budging. In the end, the strikers go back to work without a raise and with lost income and the company loses a large amount of sales revenue, and the consumer loses because the company must raise prices to pay for its losses.

Win-Lose

In this type of outcome, one side wins and the other side loses. There is no compromise with a win-lose outcome. It’s a one-side takes all battle with one side getting all their needs satisfied and the other side getting nothing. While the side that wins may be very happy about the outcome; the losing side has a high level of resentment over the deal because they did not have any of their needs met. This usually results in a end to any future negotiations and a termination of the relationship.

Examples

A street brawl is the ultimate in win-lose negotiations. One side wins by use of physical violence and the losing side has no choice but to submit to defeat.

A civil court battle is win-lose. A judge or jury decides winner and loser based on available evidence. One side wins punitive or compensatory damages and the other side loses that money.

Stalemate

In this type of outcome, neither side wins or loses and after a long negotiating session, both sides are at the exact same place that they started off at. This is a result of not being able to deal with interests and only positions. Stalemates happen when both sides aggressively defend their positions and neither side is able to make the other side budge.

Example

You go to buy a car and the salesman quotes you a price that is too high. You are unwilling to budge on your price and the salesman is unwilling to budge on his quote. You then walk out of the dealership and go find another one to deal with and the salesman moves on to the next customer.

Win-Win

This is the type outcome that you strive to achieve when you Street Negotiate. In this type of outcome, both sides walk away with their interests and needs being met. Both sides leave the negotiating table satisfied because they came out of the negotiation with more than they had started with. Relationships are preserved because both parties cooperated with each other in determining a fair solution to the problem. This outcome also bolsters trust for future negotiations between the two parties because they have established a positive relationship.

Example

A hostage taker agrees with the police negotiator to surrender and release his hostages. In return, the negotiator agrees that the SWAT team won’t bust through the doors and kill the hostage taker. In this example, the hostage taker gets his needs of survival taken care of and the negotiator gets his needs of ending a potentially deadly confrontation without any bloodshed satisfied.

Key Points

The four possible outcomes to a negotiation are: lose-lose, win-lose, stalemate, and win-win.

Set your goals on having a win-win outcome in all of your negotiations. A win-win outcome is where both negotiating parties walk away with having both of their needs met.

You left me, sweet, two legacies, –

A legacy of love

A Heavenly Father would content,

Had He the offer of;

You left me boundaries of pain

Capacious as the sea,

Between eternity and time,

Your consciousness and me.

“You Left Me” is an amazingly concise poem. It communicates two immense ideas in the short space of two four-line stanzas.

Clearly, Emily Dickinson wrote the poem about somebody that was dear to her. It’s not clear whether the poem is about somebody who is far away or is about somebody who has died. Both were common in her life. The enduring nature of the poem is such that its meaning is consistent with either case and also consistent with additional cases where there is a physical or emotional separation between two people.

Chronologically, the poem was probably written in 1862, during the period of Dickinson’s most intense writing. In 1862 she wrote about 366 poems.

Her dear friend, Reverend Charles Wadsworth, left for San Francisco in 1862, and he is most likely the subject of the poem. Dickinson met him in Philadelphia in 1855 and only met him in person on two other occasions, including his visit to see her just before he left for San Francisco. However, her emotional attachment to Wadsworth remained strong for the rest of her life and she wrote him many letters. She called him her “dearest earthly friend.” Unfortunately, most of her letters to Wadsworth have not survived, and his letters to her were burned, at her request, after her death.

The first stanza of the poem, “You Left Me,” tells of being left with a deep love, one that even the Heavenly Father would be content with. That’s an impressive statement and makes any further description unnecessary.

The second stanza talks about an emptiness that has been left. It’s obviously a huge pain, as big as the sea and compared to eternity. This legacy stands as a significant contrast to the legacy described in the first stanza.

A third stanza to tie everything together into a conclusion was not written. The last line of the second stanza, “Your consciousness and me,” seems to sufficiently bring the reader back from the two huge ideas just presented to the groundedness of the consciousness of two real people.

The stanzas are written very formally with a ballad meter, iambic tetrameter followed by iambic trimeter. The rhyme is also very precise in the second and fourth lines of each stanza. There are no near rhymes in this poem. Also, the use of anaphora, the repetition of “You left me” to start each stanza, helps to create a very formally designed poem.

As a result of these poetic features, Dickinson was able to create an easily understandable yet highly meaningful short poem. The skill and the insights are both impressive.