All the Kings Men :: essays research papers

The entire King’s Men   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  All the King’s Men, written by Robert Penn Warren, is set deep in the south during the 1930’s. This is a story of the rise and fall of a political titan. Willie Stark comes from poverty to become the governor of his state. He forces his enemies into submission by blackmails, repeated threats, and bullies them. He creates a series of liberal reforms that lay heavy tax burdens on the rich and lifts the money issue off of the poor farmers. His foil character Sam MacMurfee persistently searches for way to ruin the career of Willie Starks. Sam MacMurfee has thugs and powerful political allies deep in his pockets. The two characters remind the reader of corrupt figures in politics such as the famous Boss Tweed.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Willie Stark’s right-hand man is Jack Burden. He left his eloquent and polite family to work with Willie. Jack is an extremely intelligent historical researcher that uses his abilities to dig up dirt on Willie’s enemies. Willie uses the secrets to blackmail his enemies into his submission. Often corrupt political figures indirectly pay off other individuals to do the â€Å"dirty work† and blackmail their enemies. Although Willie Starks may have been acting corruptly for a good purpose it was still illegal and wrong.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Willie asks Jack to search for secrets on a father figure from his child hood. Judge Irwin was a father figure in Jack’s life as a child. In this situation, Jack’s motivation and responsibility to himself is questioned. Jack discovers that Judge Irwin accepted a bribe and Governor Stanton covers the bribe up. The blackmail influences the suicide of Judge Irwin, makes Adam Stanton accept the position as head of the hospital that Willie is building, and Anne Stanton begins an affair with Willlie. Adam murders Willie when he finds out about Willie and Anne. This horrific event lead to Jack’s retiring from politics forever.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  The death of Willie Starks and the circumstances force Jack to rethink the way he thinks. He rethinks a belief that no one can ever be responsible for the evil actions of another individual over time. In a way Jack feels responsible for Willie’s death. Jack eventually marries Anne Stanton and he feels orthodox about his decision to marry her. Jack restarts his long lost hobby of working on a book about Cass Mastern.

Talent Code

In The Talent Code, the process of building talent is described in depth. In order to create a talented basketball team I will use principles from this book. Talent is not entirely dependent on genes and you are not a finished product (talent wise) when you are first born. Growing talent in players requires three aspects that are described in the book. First, Deep practice is required to learn the skills necessary to become a skillful player. Deep practice is not about the amount of time spent practicing, but the concentration and effort given in the time while practicing.Second, Ignition is required in order to have the energy and passion required to practice and develop into a good basketball player. Ignition is the responsibility of the coach, because he/she must call on primal cues in order to ignite the players. Thirdly, master coaching is required in order to get the most out of each individual player. It is the responsibility of the coach to read each player and decide what st yle of coaching is most suited to inspire and teach that player. Deep practice is perhaps the most important aspect in developing talent.Deep Practice is the best way to produce myelin. Skill and talent is a result of nerve fibers firing fast and smoothly and myelin helps to make these firings happen faster and smoother the more times they are fired. Deep practice in basketball can be done in multitude of ways. The main idea of this practice should be targeted learning. What is the target? The target is to improve in every aspect of the fundamentals of basketball dribbling, shooting, and passing. Deep practice requires the player to be challenged enough to make mistakes, correct those mistakes, and keep improving.This is the most efficient way to create myelin and improve overall skill and talent. Practice should be held not with the idea to practice for as long and hard as possible, but with the idea to practice efficiently. Drills should be broken up into chunks in order to learn each specific movement . This will target each specific nerve firing required for the action. Secondly an idea would be to practice each drill in slow motion. This will help to make sure the movements are being done correctly so that the myelin is being used efficiently.Players should be one hundred percent focused on their drill. Deep practice requires a lot of energy that comes from ignition. Ignition is the motivation that comes from primal cues that players are largely unaware of. These primal cues mostly come from our distinctly human personality trait that gears us toward future belonging. It is our desire to be a part of groups of people who are accomplishing something worthwhile. In order to get ignition from a basketball team they must be inspired to want to be like a certain player or team. Videos should be shown of those teams and players.The challenge should be set forth that in order to be like those teams and players a lot of hard work will be required. This should ign ite the players into wanting to belong to that same exclusive group of players or teams. The coach has the most responsibility to inspire players into deep practice and ignition through Master Coaching. It is the coach’s responsibility to build myelin circuits for each player based on their individual personalities. The coach must tell the player how to practice in order to develop the skill circuit to fire the right way.The coach must know how to coach and interpret each players learning style. Each player may require a different style of coaching in order to ignite them and get them to fire the correct way. Once a skill is taught the coach should increase the level of difficulty quickly in order to shock the player. This is the fastest way to grow skill and challenge the player into deep practice. Coach should point out errors honestly and correct them in order for continuous improvement and in order to make sure myelin is being applied correctly to the nerve circuits.Good coaching should help support which circuit should be fired at the correct time. In short, myelin is the key to growing talent. The only way to grow myelin is deep practice that comes from ignition from primal cues. Talent is not a fixed thing for human beings and it can be learned. There is a lot of improving that can occur no matter what the starting skill level of the player is. Talent is more about commitment and concentration on the task being practiced. This is the best way to fire nerves quickly and grow myelin so that they keep firing that way.

Why Get an Economics Ph.D

Ive been getting quite a few e-mails lately from people asking me if they should consider doing a Ph.D. in Economics. I wish I could help these people more, but without knowing more about them, Im not at all comfortable giving career advice. However, I can list a few types of people who should not do graduate work in economics: Types of People Who Have No Business in an Economics Ph.D. Program Not a superstar in mathematics. By mathematics, I do not mean calculus. I mean, the theorem - proof - theorem - proof type mathematics of real analysis. If you are not excellent at this type of mathematics, you will not make it to Christmas in your first year. Love applied work but hate theory. Do a Ph.D. in Business instead - it is half the work and when you leave you to get twice the salary. Its a no-brainer. Are a great communicator and teacher, but bored by research. Academic economics is set up for people who have a comparative advantage in research. Go somewhere where a comparative advantage in communication is an asset - such as a business school or into consulting. A recent blog post by GMU Economics Prof Tyler Cowen, titled Trudies advice to would-be economists that is an absolute must-read for anyone considering attempting a Ph.D. in Economics. I found this part particularly interesting: Types of People Who Succeed As Academic Economists Cowens first two groups are relatively straight-forward. The first group includes exceptionally strong students at math who can get into top-ten schools and are willing to work long hours. The second group is those who enjoy teaching, do not mind the relatively low pay and will perform a little research. The third group, in Prof Cowens words:3. You do not fit either #1 or #2. Yet you have climbed out of the cracks rather than falling into them. You do something different and still have managed to make your way doing research, albeit of a different kind. You will always feel like an outsider in the profession and perhaps you will be under-rewarded... Sadly, the chance of achieving #3 is fairly low. You need some luck and perhaps one or two special skills other than math... if you have a clearly defined Plan B your chance of succeeding at #3 diminishes? It is important to be fully committed.I thought my advice would be a great deal different that Dr. Cowens. For one thing, he completed his Ph.D. in Economics and has a pretty successful career at it. My situation is a great deal different; I transferred from doing a Ph.D. in Economics to a Ph.D. in Business Administration. I do just as much economics as I did when I was in Economics, except I now work shorter hours and get paid a great deal more. So I believe Im more likely to discourage people from going into Economics than Dr. Cowen. High Opportunity Costs Destroy Grad School Completion Rates Needless to say, I was surprised when I read Cowens advice. I always hoped to fall into the #3 camp, but hes correct - in economics, its very, very tough to do. I cant stress enough the importance of not having a plan B. Once you get into a Ph.D. program, everyone is very bright and talented and everyone is at least moderately hard working (and most could be described as workaholics). The most important factor Ive seen that determines whether or not someone completes their degree is the availability of other lucrative options. If youve got nowhere else to go, youre a lot less likely to say to heck with this, Im leaving! when things get really tough (and they will). The people that left the Economics Ph.D. program I was in (University of Rochester - one of those Top Ten programs Dr. Cowen discusses) werent any more or less bright than those who stayed. But, for the most part, they were the ones with the best external options. Opportunity costs are the death of graduate school careers. Economics Graduate School - Another Point of View Prof. Kling also discussed the three categories on the EconLib blog, in an entry titled Why Get an Econ Ph.D.?. Heres a snippet of what he said:I see academics as very much a status game. You worry about whether or not you have tenure, the reputation of your department, the reputation of the journals in which you publish, and so on... Economics as a Status Game I would agree with all that as well. The idea of academia as a status game goes well beyond Economics; its no different at business schools, from what Ive seen. I think an Economics Ph.D. is a terrific option for many people. But before you dive in, I think you need to ask yourself if the people described as succeeding at it sound like you. If they dont, you might want to consider a different endeavor.