Interrelation with exports in business Research Paper

Interrelation with exports in business - Research Paper Example Interrelation with exports in business This process then motivates increased purchasing by international vendors and consumers. This process has a varying impact on United States businesses. While one would assume that such processes would have a beneficial impact, this is not always the case. One concern is the impact of import costs. While one would assume that such processes would have a beneficial impact, this is not always the case. One concern is the impact of import costs. Oftentimes there are goods that are necessary for product that can only be purchased internationally (Rosenbush, 2012). The increase of prices for these products would negatively impact United States businesses. Another consideration is in terms of larger macroeconomic elements. While in the short-term a falling dollar can beneficially impact United States businesses, if the United States currency continues to depreciate over extended periods then this rising inflation can potentially result in rising unemployment rates (Hagerty, 2012). This unemployment would then have a negative impact on United States businesses for a variety of reasons. Still another consideration is that the falling United States dollar could potentially result in a situation where foreign and even domestic investors grow wary of investing in the United States (Hagert y, 2012). This lack of foreign investment or domestic spending would then result in economic stagnation within the United States, ultimately having a negative impact on business.

Deadly Unna Film Essay Example for Free

Deadly Unna Film Essay Australian Rules A comparative review by Anita Jetnikoff (QUT) for Australian Screen Education. Published as: Jetnikoff, Anita (2003) Australian Rules: a comparative review. Australian Screen Education(30):36-38. The title may mislead some viewers, as this is not a film about a football code, anymore than Bend it with Beckham is about soccer. This powerful, brave and rather brutal feature is the debut of Paul Goldman, who co-wrote the screenplay with the novelist Phillip Gwynne. Both the storylines and characters from Gwynne’s awardwinning novel Deadly Unna? nd its sequel Nukkin Ya, have been combined in the film, which was commissioned by South Australian Film Corporation for the Adelaide Festival of Arts 2002, and caused a furore with the local Aboriginal community. The film was screened after much deliberation over the objections against depictions of a character resembling a member of the Penninsular community. This certainly suggests collaboration with Indigenous communities could have been sought at earlier stages of the project. In my reading of the film, however, it is the white community who emerge the more brutal, bigoted and shameful. The Aboriginal community, on the other hand, represent solidarity, and sharing. The film was released and promoted by Palace, with the slogan ‘live by the rules play by the rules’. There is, however, an almost apartheid divide between the black [Nunga) and white [Goonya) communities in this film and the central character’s personal navigating between the two, means he must break unwritten rules. The film is based on aspects of two novels, the partly autobiographical novel Deadly Unna, and its sequel, Nukkin Ya, Nunga expressions for ‘Great hey’ and ‘See you later’. Both novels were easy to read and full of humour in spite of the serious subject matter of racism, interracial relationships, adolescent angst, death and revenge. The novels belong to the adolescent problem or coming-of-age genre and are being studied in secondary schools. The film has little of the novels’ lightness and the narrator’s ability to laugh at himself and his community’s foibles. This sometimes disturbing film’s tone is brutal, the landscape stark, sordid and in decay. Most of the characters occupying the saline, arid coastal town are nasty. The adult men are barflies, maggot breeders, fornicators and losers and the women are victims or sluts. This hopeless adult world offers nothing for the young in this fishing town. Viewers are invited to identify with the young, for whom hope lies in escape. The central figure of Blacky (Nathan Phillips), is an intelligent 14 year old caught between the literary world of his imagination and the literal world of his small towns’ bigotry. His mother, who encourages him to play football and to do well at school, is a battler, a victim of his father’s brutality. The dilapidated house the Black family occupy oozes poverty and neglect. These are white fringe dwellers. In the novel Blacky refers to what kind of chops the family will consume as indicative of the ‘pov metre’. They shop at the local op shop. Like many small rural Australian towns, this coastal community struggles to survive. The black and white communities in the region are divided, separated physically by a stretch of coastline, whites at the port and blacks at the point. Even the local pub segregates the Aboriginal drinkers from the white ones. The irony is that the local football team is only viable when the Aboriginal boys come over from the point to play. The sporting fixture allows the communities to merge, but the union stops there. Blacky crosses the racial divide to befriend Dumby Red (Luke Carroll) a talented Aboriginal Australian Rules Player from the Point and to romance Dumby’s sister Clarence (Lisa Flanagan). Whereas book built up the friendship through Blacky’s doubt and hesitation about Dumby, this is not dealt with in the film. The film opens with the two characters already mates, sitting together in the dilapidated shed of the red dirt football field, commiserating over the ineffectiveness of their coach, Arks (Kevin Harrington). Dumby’s spectacular football prowess has been spotted by a city talent scout, which sets up the need for him to win best Player in the final against a much stronger team. A contract to a city football team would mean a possible escape from the bigotry and emptiness of the Penninsular—his chance to be a sporting success. Blacky finds himself an unwitting hero and awarded best team man for winning the premiership game. He unwittingly collides with the toughest star player on the opposing team and is knocked unconscious, along with his gigantic opponent. The shooting sequences of the match were not especially riveting, but this was in keeping with the importance of the game to the story. The film is not about winning or losing, but the personal integrity of the play or the journey in the ongoing process of discovering identity. The medal for ‘Best on the Ground’, rightly belonged to Dumby Red. His ticket out of the hopeless community, however, was denied to him, because rather than kicking a sure goal, he had passed a ball to a cousin who had not handled the ball all day. The cultural code of sharing was stronger than the competitive need to win. In the film, the loss of the award to the coach’s son paves the way for Dumby’s tragic demise. He joins Pretty (Tony Briggs) in an armed robbery of the pub, perhaps to extract an alternative prize to the one he’d been denied. The publican, Mac, laid out in a drunken stupor on the pool table, is beaten even more senseless by Pretty. The noise rouses Blacky’s father (Simon Westaway) who shoots and kills his son’s friend Dumby Red in revenge for the publican’s beating. In the novel the publican was the murderer, but the film’s central villain is Blacky’s father, Bob, who represents fear, loathing and menace. His violent rages left his own family in fear of him. In one memorable scene they escape his menacing torment of their mother behind closed doors by escaping through the window and sleeping in the chicken coop. The feeling is that this experience was not new to them. Blacky is torn in the novel between his initial attraction to Clarence in Deadly Unna, which he conceals from his white ‘friends’ in order to attract the attention of a rich white ‘camper’ girl. In the sequel this relationship between Blacky and Clarence and Blacky and his father represent two kinds of coming of age. His masculinity is tested early on in a storm at sea and later when he was caught in the shed stealing paint to cover a racist slogan in the local boatshed. His intelligence means little to his father, and his good grades and scholarship to Kings College in Adelaide are ignored. In the sequel Nukkin Ya, the filial relationship seems almost mended when his father takes on the renovation of a ‘windjammer’ to bring potential tourism to the town. His father’s project becomes obsessive at the expense of putting food on the family’s table, but the male relationship seems to be temporarily repaired along with the boat, which becomes symbolic of rebuilding strength, unity and hope around the fantasy of the future. In the novels we experience Blacky’s angst at discovering his father’s infidelity to his mother. Blacky and his friend Pickles, stumble upon their adulterous fathers visiting the Aboriginal women at the point. The irony of this is that the entire community seemed set gainst the burgeoning love relationship between Blacky and Dumby’s sister Clarence. The fact that the cross-race relationship of the father is not dealt with in the film makes his violent reaction to finding Clarence innocently sleeping alongside Blacky in his bedroom connected more with his hatred of Aboriginal people, than it is to do with his guilt over murdering Dumby Red. It is a response reduced to racism alone, rather than his own guilt and hypocrisy, which in the novels is built up subtly through the two volumes. The antagonist in the second novel, having moved away from the father, is embodied by the figure of Lovely (Pretty, in the film) who menaces Blacky over his relationship with Clarence. Lovely sports a hate tattoo on his fingers and is a violent instigator in both book and film. The disclosure of the white men’s infidelity at the expense of the black women, who remain nameless and faceless, leads to the climax of the second novel. The boat is set alight, which symbolizes the death of the relationships between Blacky and his father and his community. Lovely is framed, Blacky absolves Lovely in court by taking the blame, but Pickles (Tom Budge ) was the real arsonist. This false confession, leads to Blacky becoming a cipher in his own town, where boats and the sea are peoples workplaces. He becomes a ‘boat burner’ in the cultural imaginary and is forced to leave. In the film this purging is less powerful and seems to emerge from some kind of corporate malice rather than revenge. Pickles manically sets alight rival maggot breeder Darcy’s breeding drums, which has less symbolic poignancy than the boat burning in the novel. Blacky’s central challenge in the film is to reaffirm his masculinity by standing up to his father, through the relationship with Clarence. Blacky is constructed by his father as a ‘gutless wonder. ’ Blacky’s painful journey to manhood, is much harsher in the film than the book. In the novel the father is a violent adulterer, but in the film, he kills Blacky’s best friend. Blacky’s attendance at Dumby’s funeral represents a betrayal of familial solidarity in the eyes of the father. The relationship was not strong enough however, for Blacky to take his father’s side. At this point, Blacky abdicates from identifying with his father. He has begun to flee the emasculated self constructed by his father, towards a more potent, sexual self, embodied by his attraction and identification with the other through the literal ‘body’ of Dumby and the physical, sexual body of Clarence. What is morally worrisome is that the father, who both Blacky and the viewer see as a murderer, continues to live in the community with impugnity, the ‘common sense’ gap we fill is that he claims he shot Dumby in selfdefense. Blacky courageously resists his father’s imperative to stay away from the funeral. In the film’s powerful and moving climax, the battered, but united family in the background witnesses the final stand off between father and son. Blacky literally stands up to his father, not by competing in battle of fists, but resisting by sheer will and strength of character. The father leaves in a vicious rage and we can’t help feeling that the family will be better off with him gone. The second novel Nukkin Ya begins with hope of Blacky taking a scholarship at Kings in Adelaide. His girlfriend Clarence achieves a scholarship to art school and Blacky has a reason to follow her. The film ends with the two young lovers romantically swimming in the clear waters, symbolically cleansing themselves of the grime and grease of prejudice, which had tainted their relationship until that point. The film treats the romance in a much lighter way than the books. There is no stand off between the characters; in fact Clarence becomes Blacky’s bridge between the two cultures. In the film it is Clarence who stands up to Bob Black in Blacky’s bedroom with dignity and silent resistance. Lisa Flanagan’s performance was elegant and dignified. It was Clarence who gently cut through the wall of hostility from the Nunga boys at her brother’s funeral- allowing Blacky to mourn his friend’s death. It was Clarence who understood Blacky’s poetic allusions to dying stars- these two are cosmically connected and there is an almost Shakespearean sense of their fate. The love scenes provide the film’s only softness and the resolution, although moving, is not sentimental. The young people must leave the still-divided community, to survive together.

A Film Review On The Film Thunderheart

A Film Review On The Film Thunderheart In this film review Im going to discuss how the Native Indians and white Americans are presented in the film Thunderheart and the stereotypes within the film and in which extent it meets the overall purpose. Thunderheart is about an quarter Native Indian FBI agent called Ray Levoi that wont except his Native Indian background and considers himself to be a white American. However things changed when he was assigned to investigate murders that have taken place in the Badland South Dakota. Purely because of his background he was given this task, Ray wasnt keen on doing the task, his body langue said it all four minutes into the film he was very stiff all the way through the interview, small pauses when I was asked questions as well as denying that he knew his biological father who was half Sioux saying he died when he was a baby. Beside how he felt, to please the white man he thanks him and got on with it. Already made his mind up that these murders were done by the Sioux Indians, he go es to reservation area and looking for the prime suspect Jimmy who he believes is responsible for the murders because Frank Coutelle also an FBI agent who he admires told him so. However series of events that take place Ray starts to doubt that Jimmy is responsible, but Frank sidetracks him and makes him believe that the Native Indian police planed the evidence. The change doesnt come quickly 40 minutes into the movie Ray is still denying his heritage when he was asked by Maggie about his nationality he replied The United States this just shows the audience that he is willing to lie to everyone even to those that already know about it. But at some stage in the course of the story, Ray is freed from his stuck-up attitude to Indian culture with the help of spiritual journey that he experience, made to understand the many problems of the violence torn Indian community and forced to accept his own past (the film is set in the late 1970s). Inspired by real events that have took place on several American Indian reservations during the early 1970s, particularly the Wounded Knee incident in South Dakota. The aim of this film was to create a different version of the Wild West and not the Hollywood type where the American Indians are portrait to be savages, indigence and violent people that arent civilised. This film is trying to get away from that entirely and want to show what the American government has treated native Americans The opening scene of the film shows the Native Indians doing a Pow-wow dance, in the early hours of the morning just as the sun is rising. It is a beautiful setting with a blue sky and a tinted shade of light orange at the bottom of the horizon by the waking sun. This portraits them to be spiritual people that are connected to their culture and that they live a very simple life compare to the way the white Americans live. Pow-wow dance is about renewing thoughts of the old ways and to preserve a rich heritage and also that the community bond stays tight because without that they wont have much left. The Native Indians are shot in medium-close-up given them a sense of power and importance and not the outsider that isnt not part of the American dream. As it gets lighter the camera moves away giving a long shot of the whole ceremony that is surrounded by mounts which shows that they coexist with nature and that over the years nothing has changed in terms of the landscape. However this a lso shows how isolated they really are from the outside world and from the number of people that come to the ceremony it indicates that there arent many Native Indians left because normally large number of people would attend it. As the sun light gets stronger the Native Indian fade way, this is symbolic because it shows that the invasion of the white people happened so fast that feels like the change occurred over night and that the Native American become invisible as if they werent there anymore, just part of the history now. The background music that is played in this scene which consists of Shamanic drums, traditional Native American flute and people singing, is very peaceful, relaxing, makes you feel closer to natural life and gives the audience a flavour of what the native culture is like. Two minutes into the film the Extreme Long Shot, gives the audience the perfect view of the Badlands landscape, which shows that over the years there hasnt been any dramatic change, which in dicates that the Native Indians respect the natural habitat that they live in. In the next shot is depressing and mostly shocking to the audience because that last thing they expected. In this scene a Native Indian man is running from the distance, with windswept hair, clear sky, and the sun giving a warm feel and being in the middle of the screen enhances his beauty even more, giving the audience the impression that he is free as the wind, but the closer he gets you can hear that he is breathing heavily, tired and things arent what they seem. The audience were set to believe that everything was good like that American government tells them and all of sudden they witness someone being shot in cold blood. This just show that the white Americans are ruthless killers that have no remorse to what they are doing and are treating these people like animals, in which makes that white man the hunters and the Native Americans the prey. This shows that even the FBI agents that meant to restore order and peace are the same people that are committing these horrendous crimes . Even the people at the very top believe that the indigenous people dont fit into their society therefore they need to help these people that are caught in the illusion of the past to come to terms of the reality of the present. This just shows that the white man are there to change the indigenous people way of life, culture because they are burdening the image they are trying to sell to the rest of world, which consists of being on the move consistently and that hard labour pays. Indigenous This sense of place helps the movie with its weakest story element, the supposition that because the Kilmer character is a quarter Indian, he will somehow summon up his roots to help him decide between good and evil. An FBI agent at the time this film was shot would probably have had little difficulty in choosing between his roots and the rule book, and the rules would have won. Still, this is a movie, after all, and at the end there is a sense of rightness in the way everything turns out. There is also the sense that we have seen superior acting, especially by Kilmer.

Earthquake :: essays research papers

LEBANON, Oh. - A 7.0 earthquake shook millions awake early Saturday in the tri-state region and derailed an Amtrak train. The quake jolted residents out of their beds and shook buildings as far away as Pittsburgh. Over 90,000 people lost their power, and a highway bridge was cracked in downtown Cincinnati. This 2:46 A.M. earthquake was more than the ordinary and caused a little more than incidental damage. â€Å"Did you ever play a pinball machine and see the ball get stuck in there and go bam-bam-bam-bam? It just threw my body back and forth as I ran down the hallway,† Dick Dale said from his home. Four of the passengers on the Amtrak train suffered minor injuries. â€Å"I was sleeping. It felt like the train jumped off the track...and I fell out of bed,† said passenger Colleen Broome, who suffered a separated shoulder. The quake was centered 32 miles north of Cincinnati in a small town called Lebanon. After the main blow from the earthquake there were after- shocks that rolled through the region for hours. A 5.8 and a 5.3 were two of the dozen aftershocks recorded. Authorities in Cincinnati and in Columbus said that there were no serious damage or injuries reported. They received a few calls, but none of them were too serious. â€Å"It shook everything pretty good, but that was about it,† said Lt. Rich Paddock of the Warren County Sheriff’s Department. The effects of the earthquake were more serious near the epicenter located near Lebanon. John Fabian, a Lebanon visitor, did not know what it was. Fabian’s wife woke him in the middle of the morning and told him they had to get out of there. â€Å"The whole place was shaking like crazy,† Fabian said. Although the earthquake was powerful, it did not cause that much damage at all. The Hampton Inn in Mason, Oh., about 5 miles away from the epicenter just suffered a power outage and no sign of any type of damage. The owner of the motel later said that he got lucky no structural damage was done.

How nature of crime presented by the media Essay

_INTRODUCTION_ A considerable amount of literature consistently argues that the way crime is portrayed in the media significantly differs from what official records and research tell us, that is to say, that the media is said to misrepresent the crime problem. Five main arguments are presented demonstrating that the media distorts the crime problem. First, the media tend to report on crimes that are considered `newsworthy.’ Second, it is argued that the media’s role is that of an agenda-setter. Third, media reporting on crime is supportive of law enforcement agencies but is negative towards courts. Fourth, the media reports on crime that escalates public anxiety to such an extent that it can lead to moral panic about particular crimes. Fifth, stereotypes of both victims and offenders dominate media representations of crime. It is believed that the media is the public’s primary source of knowledge about crime and it has exploited this by inaccurately presenting the nature of cri me to our society. _DISCUSSION_ The first argument supporting that the media distorts the crime problem is that the reporting of crime is selective and the types of crimes reported in the media are those deemed `newsworthy.’ Media compete in a marketplace to attract as large an audience as possible as they are profit orientated organisations. Consequently, crimes are selectively reported and are generally reported in ways that conform to news values of the immediate, the novel, the dramatic, and so on, which reinforce already established images of threat from crime. The assumption that the volume of crime is high and rising is one of the main arguments advanced by society. In Australia, studies have shown that a substantial proportion of the population incorrectly believe that crime rates are increasing when, in fact, they are  stable or declining (Indermaur D & Roberts L, 2005). The discrepancy between the crime rate and the public’s perceived crime rate has been commonly attributed to the expansive media coverage of crime, especially violent and more sensationalised crime (Duffy B, 2008). The media is the primary source of indirect knowledge of the crime problem and by selectively presenting crime to society in a dramatised and sensationalized manner; it has lead to the myth that the volume of crime is high and rising. The second line of reasoning is that some contend that the media’s construction of crime is more than just selective, it is that of an agenda-setter (Surette R, 1996). As an agenda-setter, the media defines the problem of crime in a way that sets parameters of discussion and debate. The impact of agenda-setting is that only some types of crime are brought to the public’s attention and in the same way, only some kinds of criminal justice responses are presented as solutions to control crime. Research has found that the media reports the nature of crime in a way that brings crime and its control to the foremost issue of policy-makers’ assessing imperative social problems (Teece M & Makkai T, 2000). The assumption that sentences are too lenient is one of the main arguments advanced by society and a perfect example of the media pushing its own agenda. The public depend on the media almost exclusively for their information about sentencing and recent data from the Australian Survey of Social Attitudes show that 70% of respondents agreed that `people who break the law should be given stiffer sentences’ (Indermaur & Roberts, 2005). However, most criminal matters proceeding to court are finalised at the Magistrates Court, i.e. without a jury. With this in mind, it shows that the media have a great impact on setting the public agenda and initiating discussion and debate by inaccurately presenting the crime problem. The third argument correspondingly elucidates that the media’s reporting on crime is often deceptively supportive of police or law enforcement agencies but is negative towards courts. This is due to the media depending largely on limited, easily accessible sources – often authorities such as police, and therefore presents a one-sided picture (Teece M & Makkai T, 2000). Police are privileged sources to the media and therefore the police-media  relationship is mutually rewarding as it generates an effective and successful image for the police, as well as providing information to the media about crime. This substantiates the grounds of the support devoted to law enforcement agencies by the media. Furthermore, as previously verified, the fact that the media pushes its own agenda and as a result the public view in regard to sentencing is that sentencing is too lenient evidences the fact that the media discourage the courts. In this way, the media distorts the nature of cri me presented to our society and leads society to obtain high confidence in services provided by police and minimal support towards courts. The fourth argument is that violent crimes that induce feelings of anger and panic in the public are generally the only types of crime that the media present to us and are reported in such a way that they seem the most common types of crime committed in society. Public anxiety about crime can be escalated to such an extent that it can lead to a moral panic about a particular crime, specifically violent crime. The assumption that a large proportion of crimes involve violence is one of the main arguments advanced by society. However, research consistently finds that in western countries the media over-reports violent crimes, especially murder, sexual-assault and assault (Hayes H & Prenzler T, 2009). A study of public perceptions in Australia by Indermaur (2005) found that three in four people overestimated by a large margin the proportion of crimes involving violence. In fact, violent crime statewide declined 6 per cent in 2004 to continue a downward trend that began in the early 1990’s (Bavis B & Dossetor L, 2010). The media has presented the nature of crime in our society exceedingly inaccurately to the point that it has led our society to deem that most crimes involve violence. The fifth line of reasoning is that the media’s representation of crime, predominantly violent and sexual offences, is _stranger danger._ This depicts that victims are selected at random by offenders they do not know. The media constructs images of risk and these images lie in line with conceptions of _stranger danger_ rather than _fear of the near_. The assumption that offenders do not know their victims is one of the main  arguments advanced by society. Contrary to popularised media reporting, research evidence shows that most victims are not victimised by strangers (Tiby E, 2009). In fact, females are more likely to become the victims of violence from someone they know, e.g. a partner or family member (Hayes H & Prenzler T, 2009). Accordingly, the media’s inaccurate representation of _stranger danger_ has distorted the nature of crime presented to our society, leading to the myth that offenders usually do not know their victims. _CONCLUSION_ The nature of crime in our society is not accurately presented by the media. The evidence is clear that the media is society’s primary source of knowledge about crime and has outlined some key elements about the influence of media reporting that shapes how society accept, relate and react to the nature of crime. Most media are businesses operating for profit and therefore they compete in a marketplace to attract as large an audience as possible, therefore the media report on crimes that are deemed `newsworthy,’ conforming to news values. Its role is that of an agenda-setter and in this way deceivingly supports law enforcement agencies and criticises courts. Media has the capacity to escalate public fear of crime by selectively focusing on a particular crime as more prevalent and stereotyping both victims and offenders. For these reasons, it is evident that the nature of crime in our society is not accurately presented by the media as it has lead society to believe vario us myths. _REFERENCES_ Bavis, B & Dossetor, L. (2010). Misperceptions of crime in Australia. _Trend and Issues in Crime and Criminal Justice (396)._ Retrieved from http://search.informit.com.au.libraryproxy.griffith.edu.au/fullText;dn=20103330;res=AGISPT Duffy, B. Wake, R. Burrows, T. Bremner, P. (2008). Closing the gaps-crime and public perceptions. _International Review of Law, Computers &_ _Technology Vol._ _22_: 17-44. London: UK. Retrieved from http://web.ebscohost.com.libraryproxy.griffith.edu.au/ehost/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?sid=19b4d519-d160-4062-a7d9-20ea3ba483ee%40sessionmgr13&vid=6&hid=106 Hayes, H. Prenzler, T. (2009). _Introduction to crime and criminology 2__nd_ _ed._ Australia: Pearson Australia Group. Indermaur, D. & Roberts, L. (2005), `Perception of Crime and Justice,’ in _Australian Social Attitudes,_ UNSW Press, Sydney. Surette, R. (1996). `News from Nowhere, Policy to Follow: Media and the Social Construction of Three Strikes and You’re Out.’ _Three Strikes and_ _You’re Out: Vengeance as Public Policy_, Thousand Oaks. Teece, M. & Makkai, T. (2000). Print Media Reporting on Drugs and Crime, 1995 – 1998. _Trends and Issues in Crime and Criminal Justice (158)_. Retrieved from http://search.informit.com.au.libraryproxy.griffith.edu.au/fullText;dn=20010687;res=AGISPT Tiby, E. (2009). Stranger-Danger or Fear of the Near? Accounts on Fear of Sexual Abuse. _Journal of Scandinavian Studies in Criminology and Crime Prevention_. Retrieved from http://pdfserve.informaworld.com.libraryproxy.griffith.edu.au/999873_751313171_917284778.pdf

History of Western Society Essay

Histories of ancient civilizations, namely those of Mesopotamia, Egypt and Greece—covering both the Hellas and the Hellenistic periods, reveal that religion and philosophy were invariably tied to the kind of geography where these civilizations have been founded. Sumerian and Egyptian civilizations, prospering mainly because of nearby large water tributaries, took a different path in their development than that taken by the Greeks. While the former took advantage of rivers to centralize tribes and villages, and therefore fashioned the brand of religious ideologies and philosophy to unify the peoples, the latter leaned more towards philosophy to bring different cultures together. In addition, unlike the religions of Mesopotamia and Egypt, the Greeks had to strike a balance among a variety of gods and idols. As such, Greek mythology was a result of combining gods of individual tribes into one literature so that each tribe had its own representative in a belief system shared universally in every city-state (McKay, 2002). Mesopotamia lies between two great rivers, the Tigris and the Euphrates. It has been home to one of the earliest and most influential civilizations in history. At around 3000 B. C. , small villages and tribes founded a number of cities which grew and combined later to form the large Sumerian society and thus made Mesopotamia the â€Å"cradle of civilization† (McKay, 2002). Precisely because of these two great rivers, commerce and free exchange of ideas and goods were possible. Its geographical advantages allowed the civilization to thrive as a distinct society for the longest time. Early forms of pictograph writing enabled its citizens to develop crude educational institutions, literature, religion, mathematics and philosophy. Sumerian cuneiform, as it is commonly referred to, evolved from such pictographic system to â€Å"an ideogram system and then later, a phonetic system† (McKay, 2002). Likewise, scribal schools used writing to preserve and cultivate thought, and as such, became centers for learning and culture. In terms of religious ideology and thought, Sumerian civilization believed in spirits and created a mythological system to explain natural events. Later, religion was incorporated in its laws to govern the actions of men. They also employed myths to describe how the universe began (McKay, 2002). For instant, the ancient epic of Gilgamesh was used to explain the origins and mystical history of Earth. Sumerian civilization had developed a field in mathematics as a practical tool for construction and free market as well (McKay, 2002). On the same note, Egyptian civilization flourished because it was situated near the Nile which had a significant impact on Egyptian life, society and history (McKay, 2002). Egypt subsisted and prospered agriculturally from the seasonal flooding of the river (McKay, 2002). They had little need for irrigation since they only had to time crop rotation to fall within the fertile seasons of the land. Other than the agricultural benefits that Egypt derives from the Nile, it has also benefited from the fact that the river spanned the whole extent of the land thereby making it easier to unify the entire citizenry under one rule. In other words, the Nile became the super nautical highway of business, politics and culture (McKay, 2002). Consequently, inasmuch as the problem of distance was immediately solved by the presence of the great river, the kings or â€Å"Pharaohs† were able to bring together different tribes in Egypt under one leadership (McKay, 2002). This political and cultural unification paved the way for the establishment of the old kingdom of Egypt at around which time the land was bountiful and prosperous (McKay 2002). The kingdom of Egypt heavily relied on the seasons for their harvest. This explains the reason why the civilization had learned to use mathematics to predict the seasons. Likewise, they developed means to map out the stars in order to understand changes in the season. They also studied geometry and construction to be able build storehouses to hold the fruits of their harvest as well as religious monuments to appease the Gods to give them a good year for harvest (McKay 2002). However, in contrast to the geographical advantage enjoyed by Sumerian and Egyptian civilizations, Greeks and the Hellenistic civilization, which came later, had little patches of fertile and arable lands suitable for agriculture (McKay, 2002). Chains of mountains isolated the tribes which came down from northern parts of Europe to settle down (McKay, 2002). Unification of different city-states was a big challenge to overcome. Consequently, the city-states were either constantly at war with each other to unite the land or politicians, orators and philosophers took the charge of solidifying the Greek culture by means of a painstakingly gradual amalgamation of the tribes through education and thought (McKay, 2002). At any rate, the Greeks and the Hellenistic civilizations learned how to navigate the seas as an alternate route to reach other city-states and trade with their neighboring nations. Religion and philosophy, examined under closer scrutiny, describe the spread of a particular culture among civilizations where its tenets are compatible. The spread of Christianity, for instance, had been more successful in late Rome than it had been in other places. Notwithstanding the perilous routes early Christians had to traverse to reach Egypt and Mesopotamia, Christianity merged with Hellenistic culture much faster than any other nation (McKay, 2002). Hellenistic civilization welcomed Christianity as a change in their belief system simply because the extant mythological ideologies at this time were more divisive than they were helpful. Going back to the thesis that Greeks had to have several representative gods from different states, the motley Greek mythology no longer suited its political and social purpose when Rome was on the verge of collapse (McKay, 2002). The religion and philosophy of Egypt and Mesopotamia were firmly established as a way of life among its peoples, quite in contrast with the Greeks, where both were used to diffuse several ideas in one body of literature as a flimsy unifying factor. In other words, religion and philosophy for Egyptians and Sumerians were easily identifiable to a single ruling power in the kingdom, while these same ideologies are jointly and severally diffused in the consciousness of the Greeks (McKay, 2002). References McKay, J. , Hill, B. D. , & Buckler, J. (2002). A history of western society (7th ed. ). New York: Houghton Mifflin Company.