Tragic Failures PDF Download

Author: Evina Sistakou
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
ISBN: 3110480638
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 261

View

Book Description
This is the first study considering the reception of Greek tragedy and the transformation of the tragic idea in Hellenistic poetry. The focus is on third-century Alexandria, where the Ptolemies fostered tragedy as a theatrical form for public entertainment and as an official genre cultivated by the Pleiad, whereas the scholars of the Museum were commissioned to edit and comment on the classical tragic texts. More importantly, the notion of the tragic was adapted to the literary trends of the era. Released from the strict rules established by Aristotle about what makes a good tragedy, the major poets of the Alexandrian avant-garde struggled to transform the tragic idea and integrate it into non-dramatic genres. Tragic Failures traces the incorporation of the tragic idea in the poetry of Callimachus and Theocritus, in Apollonius’ epic Argonautica, in the iambic Alexandra, in late Hellenistic poetry and in Parthenius’ Erotika Pathemata. It offers a fascinating insight into the new conception of the tragic dilemmas in the context of Alexandrian aesthetics.

Author: Carl F. Cranor
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0190635762
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 256

View

Book Description
The world is awash in chemicals created by fellow citizens, but we know little to nothing about them. Understanding whether even the most prevalent ones are toxic would take decades. Many people have tragically suffered serious diseases and premature death, including children during development. Why has this occurred? Many factors contribute, but two important ones are the laws permitting this and the manner in which science has been used to identify and assess whether or not products are toxic. Both are the outcome of legislative, corporate, and judicial choices. Congress created laws that in fact keep public health officials and the wider population in the dark about the toxicity of virtually all substances other than prescription drugs and pesticides. Facing considerable ignorance about toxic substances, impartially motivated scientists seeking to protect the public health are constrained by the natural pace of studies to reveal toxic effects. Corporate pressures on public health officials and scientific obstruction substantially heighten the barriers to protecting the public. When people have suffered serious as well as life-threatening diseases likely traceable to toxic substances, judicial errors barring relevant science in the personal injury (tort) law can and have frustrated redress of injustices. Under both public health law and the tort law, there are possibilities for improved approaches, provided public leaders make different and better choices. This book describes these issues and suggests how we could be better protected from myriad toxic substances in our midst.

Author: Carl F. Cranor
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0190635754
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 265

View

Book Description
A world awash in little understood chemicals tragically harms adults and children alike. Laws keep health agencies in the dark about toxicants; slow, well motivated research hampers protections; and strenuous vested opposition exacerbates the harm. How science is used in the tort law can facilitate or frustrate redress of harm. This book recommends better approaches. -- Provided by publisher.

Author: Jonathan Shariat
Publisher: "O'Reilly Media, Inc."
ISBN: 1491923563
Category : Computers
Languages : en
Pages : 220

View

Book Description
Bad design is everywhere, and its cost is much higher than we think. In this thought-provoking book, authors Jonathan Shariat and Cynthia Savard Saucier explain how poorly designed products can anger, sadden, exclude, and even kill people who use them. The designers responsible certainly didn’t intend harm, so what can you do to avoid making similar mistakes? Tragic Design examines real case studies that show how certain design choices adversely affected users, and includes in-depth interviews with authorities in the design industry. Pick up this book and learn how you can be an agent of change in the design community and at your company. You’ll explore: Designs that can kill, including the bad interface that doomed a young cancer patient Designs that anger, through impolite technology and dark patterns How design can inadvertently cause emotional pain Designs that exclude people through lack of accessibility, diversity, and justice How to advocate for ethical design when it isn’t easy to do so Tools and techniques that can help you avoid harmful design decisions Inspiring professionals who use design to improve our world

Author: Mitchell Newton-Matza
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
ISBN: 1610691660
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 846

View

Book Description
From the Salem Witch Trials of 1692 to the Sandy Hook school massacre of 2012, this two-volume encyclopedia surveys tragic events—natural and man-made, famous and forgotten—that helped shape American history. Tragedies and disasters have always been part of the fabric of American history. Some gave rise to reactions that profoundly influenced the nation. Others dominated public consciousness for a moment, then disappeared from collective memory. Organized chronologically, Disasters and Tragic Events examines these moments, covering both the familiar and the obscure and probing their immediate and long-term effects. Unlike other works that concentrate on a particular type of disaster, for example, weather- or medicine-related tragedies, this two-volume encyclopedia has no such limits. Its entries range from natural disasters, such as hurricanes and tornadoes, to civic disturbances, environmental disasters, epidemics and medical errors, transportation accidents, and more. The work is a perfect supplement for history classes and will also prove of great interest to the general reader.

Author: Tom Wicker
Publisher: Harper Perennial
ISBN: 9780688155605
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 240

View

Book Description
For twenty-five years Tom Wicker wrote for The New York Times with passion and intelligence, educating a generation of readers on important social and political issues of the day. In Tragic Failure, this keen observer assesses the failure of racial integration in America. Thirty years after the landmark achievements of the civil rights movement in the 1960s, racial equality has made little progress and has, in fact, suffered setbacks as issues such as affirmative action, welfare reform, crime, and unemployment have made race the subtext for bitter political debate. Here, Mr. Wicker examines the current state of race relations and proposes some bold solutions-including major political realignment-to the disturbing and complex problems of race in America.

Author: Charlotte Van den Broeck
Publisher: Other Press, LLC
ISBN: 163542318X
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 305

View

Book Description
A prize-winning Belgian poet explores the nature of creative endeavor—the godlike ambition, the crushing defeat of failure—through the stories of thirteen tragic architects. In thirteen fascinating chapters, Charlotte Van den Broeck goes in search of buildings that were fatal to their architects—architects who either killed themselves or are rumored to have done so. They range across time and space from a church with a twisted spire in seventeenth-century France to a theater that collapsed mid-performance in 1920s Washington, DC, and an eerily sinking swimming pool in the author’s hometown. Drawing on a vast range of material, from Hegel and Darwin to art history, stories from her own life, and popular culture, Van den Broeck brings patterns into focus as she asks, What is that strange, life-or-death connection between a creation and its creator? Threaded through each story is the author’s meditation on the question of suicide—what Albert Camus called the “one truly serious philosophical problem”—in relation to creativity and public disgrace. The result is a profoundly idiosyncratic book, breaking ground in literary nonfiction, as well as providing solace and consolation to anyone who has ever attempted a creative act.

Author: Charles L. Pritchard
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 0815772017
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 244

View

Book Description
North Korea's development of nuclear weapons raises fears of nuclear war on the peninsula and the specter of terrorists gaining access to weapons of mass destruction. It also represents a dangerous and disturbing breakdown in U.S. foreign policy. Failed Diplomacy: The Tragic Story of How North Korea Got the Bomb offers an insider's view of what went wrong and allowed this isolated nation—a charter member of the Axis of Evil—to develop nuclear weapons. Charles L. "Jack" Pritchard was intimately involved in developing America's North Korea policy under Presidents Clinton and Bush. Here, he offers an authoritative analysis of recent developments on the Korean peninsula and reveals how the Bush administration's mistakes damaged the prospects of controlling nuclear proliferation. Although multilateral negotiations continue, Pritchard proclaims the Six-Party Talks as a failure. His chronicle begins with the suspicions over North Korea's uranium enrichment program in 2002 that led to the demise of the Clinton-era Agreed Framework. Subsequently, Pyongyang kicked out international monitors and restarted its nuclear weapons program. Pritchard provides a first-hand account of how the Six-Party Talks were initiated and offers a play-by-play account of each round of negotiations, detailing the national interests of the key players—China, Japan, Russia, both Koreas, and the United States. The author believes the failure to prevent Kim Jong Il from "going nuclear" points to the need for a permanent security forum in Northeast Asia that would serve as a formal mechanism for dialogue in the region. Hard-hitting and insightful, Failed Diplomacy offers a stinging critique of the Bush administration's manner and policy in dealing with North Korea. More hopefully, it suggests what can be learned from missed opportunities.

Author: Ivan Morris
Publisher:
ISBN: 9784902075502
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 392

View

Book Description
Long recognized as a core book in any study of Japanese culture and literature, The Nobility of Failure examines the lives and deaths of nine historical individuals who faced overwhelming odds, and, realizing they were doomed, accepted their fate--to be killed in battle or by execution, to wither in exile, or to escape through ritual suicide. Morris then turns his attention to the kamikaze pilots of World War II, who gave their lives in defense of their nation in the full realization that their deaths would have little effect on the course of the war. Through detail, crystal-clear prose and unmatched narrative sweep and brilliance, Professor Morris takes you into the innermost hearts of the Japanese people.

Author: Glenn Greenwald
Publisher: Crown
ISBN: 0307395219
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 286

View

Book Description
What will be the legacy of President George Walker Bush? In this fascinating, timely book, Glenn Greenwald examines the Bush presidency and its long-term effect on the nation. What began on shaky, uncertain ground and was bolstered and propelled by tragedy, has ultimately faltered and failed on the back of the dichotomous worldview—good versus evil—that once served it so well. In A Tragic Legacy, Greenwald charts the rise and steep fall of the current administration, dissecting the rhetoric and revealing the faulty ideals upon which George W. Bush built his policies. On September 12, 2001, President Bush addressed the nation and presented a very clear view of what was to come—a view that can be said to define his entire presidency: “This will be a monumental struggle of good versus evil.” Based on his own Christian faith and backed by biblical allusions, Bush’s worldview was basic and binary—and everyone was forced to choose a side. Riding high on public support, Bush sailed through the early “War on Terror,” easily defining our enemies and clearly setting an agenda for defeating them. But once the war became murkier—its target unclear, its combatants no longer seen in black-and-white—support for Bush and his policies dropped precipitously. Glenn Greenwald brilliantly reveals the reasons behind the collapse of Bush’s power and approval, and argues that his greatest weakness is the same rhetoric that once propelled him so far forward. Facing issues that could not be turned into simple good versus evil choices—the disaster of Hurricane Katrina, his plans for Social Security “reform,” and, most ironic, the failed Dubai ports deal—Bush faltered and fell. Now, Greenwald argues, Bush is trapped by his own choices, unable to break out of the mold that once served him so well, and indifferent to the consequences. A Tragic Legacy is the first true character study of one of the most controversial men ever to hold the office of president. Enlightening, powerful, and eye-opening, this is an in-depth look at the man whose incapability and cowboy logic have left America at risk.