Interview with content editor Harrison Demchick Reedsy

Interview with content editor Harrison Demchick Reedsy â€Å"It’s about creating the very best version of your story†: An interview with Harrison Demchick It’s good to see indies and traditional authors brought together on what really unites them: the story, the craft, and offering great content to readers. And editors have a big part in that, one that is often untold. This is why we like to give them a spot on the Reedsy blog.Today, we interview one of these authors’ unsung heroes: a developmental editor. With 10 years experience both in-house and freelance, Harrison Demchick is one of the great editors we have brought to Reedsy, and one of our very first users. Plus, he has a great story to tell! For the lovers of the written word, I’ve transcribed most of it below.  But for those who want to take part in the discussion, you can directly join us on the hangout!Hi Harrison, good to have you here. You’re â€Å"the world’s most thorough content editor†, according to your Reedsy profile. Did you start out as a content editor or more as a copy editor or proofreader?At the time I started, I didnà ¢â‚¬â„¢t know the distinctions yet. When I was in high school and college I was doing copy-editing for several magazines or newspapers but when I started working in publishing, the publisher just gave me a manuscript and told me to â€Å"edit it†, and for me that inherently involved both the copy and the content.From the very first Summer I began in publishing (2005), I’ve been doing content (developmental) editing. It just took some time before I knew the formal term that was ascribed to it.Do you accept to work with authors who come to you with an unfinished draft? Or is there a particular at which you prefer authors to contact you (first draft, third draft, etc.)?Generally I do prefer working with a finished draft, that makes it much easier to provide overall feedback, especially when it comes to story or character arch, climax, etc. But as far as as polished that draft needs to be, I feel I can be very useful anytime from the first draft on. I personally like going through the whole developmental edit process and provide feedback relatively early, if not right after the first draft, so that the author is able to know what they need to do and have a plan of attack for the next draft.If you start working with an author on the first draft, generally how long does it take for you and the author to reach the final manuscript stage?Well that depends a lot on the context and how long I’m staying with a project. When in traditional publishing I was with a project from start to finish and that could be a process that could last anywhere from 6 months to two years, to make sure that the books that we put out were as strong as they possibly could be.On the freelance side it depends a lot on the author and their direction. I love to stick to projects when I can: I start with a developmental edit and do a smaller consultation afterwards. And if I look at when books happen to be published rather than when I’m finished working on them, it stil l often ends up being more than a year after we start.Obviously it really comes down in the end to how quickly and effectively the author works, and what they want from me afterwards.As you have worked both in-house for a publisher and freelance, do you see any big differences in how you work with authors in both cases? The differences, in my opinion, are not necessarily that vast. Well, the big difference for me as far as what I get to do for a living, is that I now get to focus entirely on the editing, and that’s one of the reasons I chose to go freelance. But as far as the authors, I work with both with authors who plan to self-publish and with authors who plan to start contacting publishers after they’re done working with me.And in either the case the goal is the same: it’s to identify what’s working, what’s not working, and how we can make it better and create the very best version of the author’s manuscript.One could make the case that when working with someone pursuing traditional publishing the focus could be more on how to best market it for publishers. And while I’m happy to give feedback on that, for me it doesn’t matter as far as the story itself is as good as it can be. For me it’s all about creating the best possible version, and that’s the same whether it’s for traditional or self-publishing.I definitely like your point there, it should always be about getting the quality of the writing as high as possible. I also think that some books, according to the genre, are actually more suited for self-publishing (because the target market is smaller, maybe). Do you try to advise authors on which publishing route they should take? Or do you adapt the adapt their writing and their story to the route they’ve chosen?I definitely advise, but I don’t recommend, necessarily. Every author has their own approach and my job is to help them achieve their goals. Of course if I see an issue with those goals or something that could make it easier I will let them know that.Self-publishing and traditional publishing both have their pros and cons, and I don’t see genre as one of them, necessarily, one of the distinguishing characteristics. Generally authors who have decided to self-publish or traditionally publish have done so for specific reasons and as long as those are valid I will do my best to advise them and work in that way. Fortunately, my experience is such that I can advise effectively no matter which direction they choose.Do you think a good editor can work with any author out there, or is there one perfect editor for every author?I certainly wouldn’t go that far. I think there are certainly cases where a particular editor’s personality or approach would work better for a particular author, that is no doubt true. But there are also a lot of disparities in quality among editors out there. A lot of the time it’s not so mu ch searching for the one that fits, than going through a lot of people who are not really fantastic at it before finding somebody who actually is.Fundamentally it comes down to being as effective as you can possibly be. I think that’s   more important than having a particular chemistry with the author you’re working with.I definitely agree with your point on the disparity of quality in editors out there, and that is part of the reason why we created Reedsy.Exactly, and one reason for that is that a lot of people assume that they can edit, because they love to read and they’d love to be helpful to authors. Also, because they don’t know fully what goes into it. And some start with that belief and actually become amazing, which is exciting to see.All this makes it very hard for the authors to know whether the person they’re talking with is someone genuinely skilled or just someone very enthusiastic who wants to believe they are going to be able to h elp the author. That’s why I, too, love what Reedsy is going for because it helps authors navigate that.You are yourself a published author with one book out there: The Listeners, and were also a screenwriter before that. What pushed you to publish? Did editing a lot of books make you want to put your own work out there?Actually, it’s just the opposite. The Listeners started out as a series of short stories I wrote in my last semester of college, around the same time I started my career in editing in a publishing company.This particular series developed in a screenplay, and the publisher I worked for expressed an interest in a novel version, which I wrote. But for a while, my experience in publishing actually made me not want to put the book out there, because I knew the marketing challenges. I knew I would be out there, front and center trying to build a readership, doing book signings, interviews, etc. These are all things that I know how to do, and that I recommend to authors, but things I don’t have a particular knack for myself. I’m not a great marketer or self-promoter, it’s not my nature.Fortunately, I had enough people around me telling me I was an idiot and that I should pursue publishing, so I did, and I’m very grateful for the opportunities I have had since thanks to that.I’d like to finish with an easy question: if you had one recommendation for indie authors out there, whether they’re traditionally published, self-published, or hybrid, what would it be?I suppose it would be to hire me, haha! But more broadly and less egocentrically than that, the thing that divides a writer from an author in my mind is the revision process: pushing forward, doing everything that’s in your power to create the very best version of your story. There is nothing more spectacular than taking an idea not only from concept to first draft but from first draft to final draft. So my advice would be: follow that r oad to the end, do not stop part way through.I agree, and I certainly second that advice. Thanks a lot for your time, Harrison!You can find Harrison Demchick, Ricardo and Reedsy on Twitter: @HDemchick, @RicardoFayet  and @reedsyhqDo you work with a developmental editor? If yes, tell us what he/she brings to your writing in the comments below! And if you have any question for Harrison, do use the same commenting space 🙂

Censorship of pornography essays

Censorship of pornography essays The censorship of pornography has been an issue under constant debate in our society. There are many arguments for and against the censorship of pornographic materials. Advocates for freedom of expression feel that increased censorship violates many basic human rights and consequently may harm our society. They believe in personal choice and that any action is lawful as long as it brings no harm to others. Supporters of an increase in censorship are rooted in the belief that such material may cause direct and/or indirect detriments to society. They believe that enabling people, primarily men, to view degrading and violent material to women, and sometimes children, will increase their likelihood of them acting out on women and children and make the world a more dangerous place for those groups to live. The purpose of this essay is to present the issues of those who are for censorship and those who are opposed to it and to present some of the arguments they put forth to support the ir position on the subject. Those groups who are opposed to censorship include Liberals and Feminists, more specifically radical libertarian feminists. Liberals oppose any abridgment of the freedom of speech through government censorship, regulation or control of communications, which includes books, magazines, movies, the internet and pornography. Liberals believe that the censorship of pornography is a violation of the liberty of expression and freedom of speech that every person is entitled to. Liberals believe that a person should be free to do whatever he or she chooses to do as long as it does not harm themselves or any other individuals. For Liberals, pornography is encompassed within this Harm Principle. They believe that those people who make pornographic videos should be able to do so as long has it is done in a lawful way and does not cause harm to others, stores should be able to rent and sell the pornographic videos without ...

How might a constructionist approach to gay, lesbian, bisexual or Essay

How might a constructionist approach to gay, lesbian, bisexual or trans persons differ from both a biological essentialist and a - Essay Example This paper analyses three approaches used understand these sexual orientations, namely constructionist approach, biological essentialist and a religious essentialist. Sexuality is an instinct or a natural drive that becomes inevitable a person’s biological make-up and seeks fulfillment through sexual activity. All essentialist approaches take the view that all genders, both male and female, have an essential nature as opposed to differing by various contingent or accidental features that result from social forces. These include biological essentialist and a religious essentialist approaches. From the perspective of the essential nature of a person, it is taken that the sexual preference of a person is natural and important/essential to the personality of the person. The essential nature entails caring and nurturing. This means that being a gay, lesbian, bisexual or trans person is a sign of aggression and selfishness (Clare 28). Biological essentialists take sex as a natural i nstinct required for reproduction purposes. This means that there is a relationship between the biological sex/gender and the sexuality of a person. This approach therefore considers being heterosexual as normal but considers gay, lesbian, bisexual or trans persons as unnatural and deviant.

Critically compare and contrast the arguments of classical and modern Essay

Critically compare and contrast the arguments of classical and modern liberals regarding the role of the state - Essay Example Upholding individual rights and ensuring equality of opportunity are considered to be better than theocratic rules, absolutism and totalitarianism. This ideology arose in the Age of Enlightenment; out of dissatisfaction with the interference of the Church and â€Å"the comprehensive political control and regulation of economic affairs† (Balaam, 2007:7) that prevailed. A liberal state neither seeks to resolve the conflicts of people on various matters of faith and life, nor interfere in the market economy. Instead, it â€Å"provides a neutral framework within which citizens can pursue their diverse conceptions of the good life† (Honderich, 1995: 483) and live together. Classical liberals favour religious tolerance over a religious monopoly. All liberals seek â€Å"the best form of government which will permit the individual to pursue life as he or she sees fit† (IEP, 2006). Liberal ideas now dominate many parts of the world. The USA was founded on the very principles of liberty, freedom and equality. Freedom is considered an ideal, which is only possible if people are allowed to be autonomous. The value of freedom â€Å"has its roots not only in Rousseau’s and Kant’s political theory, but also in John Stuart Mill’s On Liberty†¦ [and is still] a dominant strain in liberalism† (SEP, 2007). Liberalism prefers a limited role of the state because the state is perceived to be abusive of individual liberties, which leads to tensions between the individual and the state. Liberals believe that the tasks performed by the government must be limited to â€Å"tasks that individuals cannot perform by themselves, such as establish a basic legal system, assure national defence, and coin money† (Balaam, 2007: 50). Adam Smith, concerned with state interference in the market system, was a proponent of this view when he stated that the government’s role should be restricted to only doing work that private

How Customer Service is provoded in business Essay Example for Free

How Customer Service is provoded in business Essay Costumer service is the ability of an organisation to recognise and consistently meet the costumers needs. Costumer service generally involves service teamwork and service partnerships so they can meet customer expectations and produce costumer satisfaction. Costumers contact an organisation when they need something, the main reasons are: * To complain * To request/ order a service/product * To obtain information * To ask for advice * To enquire about an order * To change an order or request * To report a problem to return and exchange goods * To ask for assistance or help The organisation I have chosen to study for this is the National Maritime Museum which consists of the Royal Observatory Greenwich, Queens House and National Maritime Museum. Together these constitute one museum working to illustrate for everyone the importance of the sea, ships, time and the stars and their relationship with people. A customer is anyone who has the right to ask or expect a service as part of a job role; this means there are two types of customers internal and external. Internal customers are all the colleagues who need assistance to fulfil their obligations to their own customers; these include the supervisors, staff, staff teams and managers. External customers are those who contact or visit the organisation because of what it provides or supplys as it is something they need. There are a wide range of external customers but only a few can apply to each business, some businesses have a wider range of external costumers compared to other businesses, such as a supermarket will have a wider range of external customers as it will sell a wide range of goods whereas a youth club or nursery will have a smaller rage of external customers as its only aimed at a certain age group. The National Maritime Museum has a wide range of customers and provides everyone access to its historical buildings and unique collectors; as a result the customers have a wide range of needs so they provide products and services to fit their needs. On any average day the museum staffs have to deal with * People wishing to research their family history in our archives * Ship model-makers wanting advice on details of a ship * Film companies wanting to use our buildings as a location for an advert or television drama * Domestic tourists wanting a fun day out * Foreign tourists wanting to experience British history * School and college groups wanting to investigate the Museum to help with their studies. The Museum has 7 main categories of customers which have their own special needs and interests and they are the following 1. Individuals Casual Visitors Special Interest Visitors Individual Researchers 2. Families Parents along with Young Children 3. Groups Mixed age groups Special Interest and Education 4. People from different cultures with different languages Foreign and Domestic Tourists People from Diverse Ethnic and Religious Communities 5. People with special needs Blind and Visually Impaired Deaf and Hearing Impaired Learning Difficulties Physical, Emotional or Mental Health Needs 6. Virtual users who access the Museum via our website People who access the museum via the website 7. Internal customers Members of Staff who Support the Work of Others The main three types of customers the National Maritime Museum focuses on are families, disabled visitors and groups. Families are an important target audience for the museum as it is a free family-friendly place to visit; it focuses of the key needs and expectations of family audiences which are: its free the price of tickets can be a barrier for many families, especially with the costs of travel and lunches its fun and educational with lots to see and touch, like the All Hands interactive childrens gallery theres lots to do such as special activity workshops, storytelling and treasure trails its easy to get to only 20 minutes from central London, with good transport links The Museum also has family-friendly events which bring the Museum galleries to life including practical activities for 2-to-6-year-olds (weekly); trails revealing the secrets of their vast collection of objects; action-packed art and science workshops, and actors performances for all ages. Their family-friendly facilities include areas for changing and feeding babies, clean and accessible toilets, cafe and picnic areas and online activities in the E-Library and on the website. The Museum aims to increase the number of families who visit the National Maritime Museum by expanding programs of events, activities and special exhibitions for families, especially during weekends and holidays. All this makes the Museum more appealing to families. Along with individuals the Museum has also built up experience in providing for different type of groups who each have a different set of needs. Foreign language students The Museum provides souvenir guides and essential visitor information on their website in different languages. This service targets both foreign tourists and domestic visitors with English as a second language. They also have non-Eurocentric displays and events which inform customers of the history of people and cultures from all over the world. Large Groups For large groups coach parking is easily attainable, there are special discounts given to access the charging exhibitions, pre booked tickets make it easier for large groups to book easily and guided tours and talks are especially available for larger groups. Special Interest Groups At the museum there are enquiry and research facilities accessible via the library, there are archives and online sources at hand and also special curator talks and tours for all the groups that have a special interest. Corporate and Private Hire Groups There is event planning and support available for Corporate and Private Hire groups including venue hire and catering for those who want to use the museum for private hires and corporate reasons. Educational Groups The museum provides curriculum recourses and educational talks along with support with visit planning and booking. They also have a lunchroom and cloakroom especially suited for school/ educational groups. Lastly the National Maritime Museum also focuses on developing access for all their visitors and users which includes those who are disabled. It continuously tries to exceed and improve the museums facilities to meet the basic requirements of those who are physically disabled, deaf and blind. They believe good, inclusive customer service is about understanding everybodys special needs. For visitors with disabilities, the Museum has a range of access facilities as part of its customer service. o Installing new lifts and ramps o The Road Train service o Providing detailed information for disabled visitors o Providing alternative ways to access the Museum o Maintaining a policy of welcoming assistance dog They have added lifts to improve physical access around the Museum site. Members of staff are always at hand to help. The new lifts and ramps that have been installed provide flat or wheelchair access to all levels and galleries. Visitors may also borrow manual wheelchairs from admission areas. Special bookings for those who are disabled are also available by calling the bookings unit who will make any special arrangements. There is also information available online such as the availability of disabled car-parking, mobility buses and the access facilities on all their sites. It is also important that the customer information also describes areas that are not accessible such as parts of the historic buildings of the Royal Observatory. This avoids frustration and disappointment on the day. Touch Sessions for Visually Impaired Visitors are also available. They have a number of alternative methods to accessing the Museum and its collections. For blind and visually-impaired visitors they provide: o Braille Guides o Raised drawing o Magnifying glasses o Large-print guides o Tactile maps o touch packs They also run a program of pre-booked touch talks and tours by Museum staff and guest speakers. The National Maritime Museum also has a sign-interpreted talk for deaf and hearing-impaired visitors. They have installed perimeter loops in the galleries, admission areas, information desks and key audio installations. They also run a program of pre-booked British Sign Language sign-interpreted talks and events. Customer service is important to the National Maritime Museum because without customers there would not be a business. Excellent customer service results in: * higher visitor numbers and greater customer diversity Visits to the sites are increasing each year provides a public service for groups of people who dont traditionally visit or use cultural or heritage organizations like museums Has an outreach community newsletter which has news and events for communities under-represented among the visitors * increased sales The Museum generates increased income through shops, cafes and charging for special exhibitions It also supplies hiring venues for corporate events and weddings and sales from the Picture Library. * increasing public image The Museum has to compete with other organizations for peoples leisure, by providing excellent customer service it increases public image they do this using their website and leaflets * survival in terms of competition Good customer service can give the Museum an edge over other tourist attractions or leisure facilities, as they compete for customers leisure time and money. * satisfied customers and greater job satisfaction for staff As well as asking for feedback from customers and monitoring visit numbers the Museum pays a market research company to conduct surveys, the customers are asked to rate their experiences and satisfaction levels, this helps knowing the customers needs and satisfying them. The staff also takes pride in being part of an organization which delivers high levels of customer service Job satisfaction is increased by positive feedback from the customers * repeat business and customer loyalty Museum donation box Analysis of feedback and visitor surveys indicates that 94% of visitors would recommend the Museum to their friends. Excellent customer service results in strong customer loyalty and increased visitor numbers especially repeat visits. The National Maritime Museum believes that to enjoy and learn from a museums collections, visitors must first feel welcome, secure and comfortable in their environment. Crucial factors include friendly staff to greet and help, clear signage, queuing systems, gallery plans and well-maintained washrooms and cloakrooms. Improvements to these areas can significantly increase word of mouth recommendations, repeat visits and time and money spent by visitors as competition for the publics time and attention is intense.

King Claudius within Hamlet Essay -- Shakespeare Hamlet Essays

King Claudius within Hamlet  Ã‚        Ã‚  Ã‚   William Shakespeare produced in Hamlet a pair of quite noble characters: One is the protagonist and the other, the antagonist. King Claudius is a close second to the hero in many ways, even superior to him in some. This essay will consider the truly fantastic creation of the character of King Claudius.    Salvador de Madariaga in â€Å"Rosencrantz and Guildenstern† discusses Claudius’ relationship with the two emissaries and former friends of Hamlet, who were escorting the prince to his execution in England:    The two young men receive from the King a commission which, whatever the King’s secret intentions may be, is honorable. Hamlet, the King in fact tells them, is not what he was. The cause of the change "I cannot dream of."    Therefore, I beg you so by your companies    To draw him on to pleasures, and to gather So much as from occasion you may glean Whether aught to us unknown afflicts him thus That opened lies within our remedy (n. pag.).    Like everyone else in the kingdom of Denmark, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are deceived by the king – and it costs them their lives. Just what sort of character do we find in the person of Claudius? Does the following critic misinterpret him? G. Wilson Knight in "The Embassy of Death" interprets him:    Claudius, as he appears in the play, is not a criminal. He is - strange as it may seem - a good and gentle king, enmeshed by the chain of causality linking him with his crime. And this chain he might, perhaps, have broken except for Hamlet, and all would have been well. (n. pag.)    The drama opens after Hamlet has just returned from Wittenberg, England, upon hearing the news of his fa... ..., Helena (Lady Martin). On Some of Shakespeare's Female Characters. 6th ed. London: William Blackwood and Sons, 1899.    Knight, G. Wilson. "The Embassy of Death." The Wheel of Fire. London: Methuen and Co., Ltd., 1954. p. 38-39. http://server1.hypermart.net/hamlet/wheefire.html N. pag.    Mack, Maynard. â€Å"The World of Hamlet.† Yale Review. vol. 41 (1952) p. 502-23. Rpt. in Readings on The Tragedies. Ed. Clarice Swisher. San Diego: Greenhaven Press, 1996.    Madariaga, Salvador de. â€Å"Rosencrantz and Guildenstern.† â€Å"On Hamlet.† 2nd ed. London: Frank Cass & Co., Ltd., 1964. p.14-16. http://www.freehomepages.com/hamlet/other/essayson.htm#demag-ess N. pag.    Shakespeare, William. The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark. Massachusetts Institute of Technology. 1995. http://www.chemicool.com/Shakespeare/hamlet/full.html No line nos.   

Masculinity in the Philippines Essay

In the imperial age, the military shaped society to suit its peculiar needs. Modem armies are complex, costly institutions that must ramify widely to mobilize the vast human and material resources their operations require. Since the armed forces demand the absolute obedience and, at times, the lives of ordinary males, the state often forms, or reforms, society’s culture and ideology to make military service a moral imperative. In the cultural encounter that was empire, colonial armies proved as surprisingly potent agents of social change, introducing a major Western institution, with imbedded values, in a forceful, almost irresistible, manner. As powerful, intrusive institutions, modem armies transformed cultures and shaped gender identities, fostering rhetoric and imagery whose influence has persisted long after colonial rule. Above all, these armies, colonial and national, propagated a culture, nay a cult of masculinity. Recent historical research has explored the ways that rising European states reconstructed gender roles to support military mobilization. To prepare males for military  service, European nations constructed a stereotype of men as courageous and women as affirming, worthy prizes of manly males. In its genius, the modem state-through its powerful propaganda tools of education, literature, and media-appropriated the near-universal folk ritual of male initiation to make military service synonymous with the passage to manhood. Not only did mass conscription produce soldiers, it also shaped gender roles in the whole of society. Modern warfare, as it developed in Europe, was the mother of a new masculinity propagated globally in an age of empire through colonial armies, boys’ schools, and youth movements. As a colony of Spain and America, the Philippines felt these global cultural currents and provides an apt terrain for exploration of this  militarized masculinity. Like the other colonial states of Asia and Africa, both powers controlled their Philippine colony with native troops led by European officers, an implicit denigration of the manliness of elite Filipino males. For the all-male electorate of the American era, Filipino nationahm thus came to mean not only independence but, of equal importance, liberation from colonial emasculation. Over time, a cultural dialectic of the colonial and national produced a synthesis with symbolism and social roles marked by an extreme gender dimorphism. When Filipino leaders finally began building a national army in the 1930s, they borrowed the European standard of military masculinity with all its inbuilt biases. By exempting women from conscription and barring them from officer’s training at the Philippine Military Academy, the Commonwealth exaggerated the society’s male/female polarities. Once set in 1936, these military regulations and their social influence would prove surprisingly persistent and pervasive. It would be nearly thirty years until the armed forces recruited their first women soldiers in 1963; and another thirty years after that before the Philippine Military Academy (PMA) admitted its first female cadets in 1993 (Hilsdon 1995, 48, 51, 89; Duque 1981, vii). If we accept what one historian has called â€Å"the emancipated status of Filipino women in the 19th century,† then the prewar nationalist movement, with its rhetoric of militarism and male empowerment, may have skewed the gender balance within the Philippine  polity. In a Malay society with a legacy of gender equality-bilateral kinship, matrilocal marriage, and gender-neutral pronouns-this aspect of nationalism seems socially retrogressive.’ Understandably, postwar historians have overlooked this glorification of masculinity and military valor in their sympathetic studies of prewar Filipino nationalism. Nonetheless, mass conscription shaped gender roles in the first half of the 20th century and fostered a rhetoric that pervaded Philippine politics in its second half. In deploying Europe’s cult of masculinity to support mass conscription, the Commonwealth introduced a new element into the country’s political culture. Indeed, this engendered social order-propagated through conscription, education, and mass media-fostered imagery that would shape Philippine politics at key transitional moments in the latter decades of the 20th century. For well over half the fifty plus years since independence, the Philippines has been ruled by presidents who won office with claims of martial valor and then governed in a military manner. COMMONWEALTH A N D MASCULINITY The Philippine acceptance of this Euro-American model of masculinity provides strong evidence of the paradigm’s power. The successful imposition of this Westernized masculinity, with its extreme gender dimorphism, upon a Malay society with a long history of more balanced roles, makes the Philippines a revealing instance of this global process. Within twenty years, the span of a single generation, mobilization and its propaganda, convinced a people without a tradition of military service to accept conscription and internalize a new standard 1 of manhood. When tested in battle during World War 1, the generation of Filipino officers formed in this mobilization proved willing to fight and die with exceptional courage. Models of Masculinity During the two decades of this extraordinary social experiment, prewar Philippine institutions used two complementary cultural devices to indoctrinate the young into a new gender identity: a mass propaganda of gender dimorphism and a militarized form of male initiation. Among the many schools that participated in this experiment, t w v t h e University of the  Philippines (UP) and, a decade later, the Philippine Military Academy (PMA)-would play a central role as cultural mediators in constructing this new national standard for manhood. To translate a foreign masculine form into a Filipino cultural idiom, the cadet corps at UP and the PMA appropriated local traditions of male initiation, using them as a powerfully effective indoctrination into modem military service. Scholars of the Philippine military have often noted how the ordeal of the first or â€Å"plebe† year serves to bind the PMA’s graduates into a class or â€Å"batch with an extraordinary solidarity. The half-dozen doctoral dissertations on the Philippine military argue, in the words of a Chicago psychologist who observed the PMA in the mid-1960~~ that cadets form â€Å"lifetime bonds. . . in the crucible of the hazing pro~ess.†~ What is the meaning of this ritual with its extreme violence? Hazing, seemingly a small issue, has embedded within it larger problems of masculinity central to armies everywhere. In fieldwork around the world, anthropologists have discovered the near universality of male i n i t i a t i ~ nAround the globe and across time, many societies view .~ manhood as something that must be earned and thus create rituals to  test and train their adolescent males. Observing these rituals in the remote Highlands of Papua-New Guinea, anthropologist Roger Keesing offers a single, succinct explanation for the prevalence of harsh male initiation: warfare (Keesing 1982,32-34; Herdt 1982,5741). Similarly, at the m a r p s of the modem Philippine state, young men have long been initiated into manhood through ritual testing of their martial valor. In the 20th century, Muslim groups in the south have formed all-male â€Å"minimal alliance groups† to engage in ritualized warfare, while the Ilongot highlanders of northern Luzon require boys to pass â€Å"severe tests of manhood† by taking â€Å"at least one head† in combat (Kiefer 1972; Rosaldo 1980, 13940). From an anthropological perspective, hazing becomes the central rite in a passage from boyhood to manhood, civilian to soldier. Filipino plebe and New Guinea adolescent pass through similar initiations to emerge as warriors hardened for battle and bound together for defense of the ir communities (Gennep 1960, vii, 11). Recent historical research has explored the ways that rising European states reconstructed gender roles to support mobilization of modern armies. By marrying anthropologists’ universals to the historian’s time-bounded specifics, we can see how European nation-states, by making military service an initiation ritual, primed their males for mass slaughter on the modem battlefield. After Britain’s dismal performance in the Crimean War of the 1850s, headmasters at its elite â€Å"public schools† began hardening boys for future command through sports. Indeed, Harrow’s head proclaimed that â€Å"the esprit de corps, which merit success in cricket or football, are the very qualities which win the day in . . . war.† A half-century later in South Africa, British troops faced difficulties subduing Boer farmers, raising questions about the military â€Å"fitness† of ordinary Englishmen. Responding to this perceived crisis, Lord Baden-Powell organized the Boy Scouts in 1908 â€Å"to pass as many boys through our character factory as we possibly can (Mangan 1987, 150-53; 1981,2241; 1986, 33-36; Rosenthal 1986, 1-6). In his study of the cult of war in nineteenth-century Europe, historian George Mosse asks: â€Å"Why did young men in great numbers rush to the colors, eager to face death and acquit themselves in battle?† Simply put, they volunteered because the modern nation-state, through its poets and propagandists, made the passage to manhood synonymous with military service. To become a man in Victoria’s England or Bismarck’s Germany, a young male had to serve. In the first months of World War I, this cult of war achieved a virtual florescence  as young idealists hurled themselves into the slaughter. After 145,000 German soldiers died at Langemarck in 1914, one poet wrote: â€Å"Here I stand, proud and all alone, ecstatic that I have become a man.† Recalling this battle in Mein Kampf, Adolf Hitler said: â€Å"Seventeen year old boys now looked like men.† Similarly, during World War 11, U.S. Army researchers found that American soldiers fought hard to avoid â€Å"being branded a ‘woman,’ a dangerous threat to the contemporary male personality† (Mosse 1990, 15, 72; Stouffer, et al. 1949, 131-32). Not only did mass conscription produce soldiers, it also shaped gender roles in the wider society. To prepare every male for military service, European nations constructed a stereotype of men as  courageous, honorable, and physically formed on â€Å"borrowed Greek standards of male beauty.† By the 1920s, w omen were, through this century-long process, â€Å"transformed into static immutable symbols in order to command the attention of truly masculine men.’I4 Rhetoric of Colonial Masculinity Although the American colonial regime eventually played a central role in the formation of a Filipino officer corps, the US Army was initially hostile to the idea. During its first decade in the islands, the US Army was absorbed in a massive counterinsurgency campaign, and, like colonial armies elsewhere, denigrated the masculinity of its subject society. In little more than two years after their landing in 1898, the U.S. Army learned the same colonial lessons that the British and Dutch had distilled from two centuries of using â€Å"native troops† in India and Indonesia. Asian soldiers were, from an imperial point of view, welladapted to withstand the rigors of service in their own country. But only a European had the character required of an officer. As the editor of England’s Statesman wrote in 1885, educated Indians were â€Å"wanting in the courageous and manly behavior to which we justly attach so high an importance in the culture of our own youth.† Colonials often found dominant lowland groups both â€Å"effeminate† and insubordinate. But certain â€Å"martial racesn-such as the Gurkhas, Ambonese, or Karens-were thought capable of great courage under fire and fierce loyalty to their white officers5 In effect, there was an imperial consensus that certain native troops, when drilled and disciplined by European officers of good character, made ideal colonial forces. From the outset, the American commander in the islands, General Elwell S. Otis, felt, like most Americans of his day, that elite Filipinos were unfit for command. In an essay for a U.S. military journal in 1900, one American officer dismissed the typical officer in General Emilio Aguinaldo’s revolutionary army as â€Å"a half-breed, a small dealer, a hanger-on of the Spaniards.† Thus, when the US Army formed its colonial forces, the Philippine Scouts, the soldiers would all be Filipinos, but their officers  were to be white Americans selected from â€Å"the line of the Regular Army† (Woolard 1975, 13, 225; Franklin 1935). In sum, America’s high colonial rhetoric celebrated the special bond between American officers and their Filipino troops, and, by implication, denigrated elite Filipino character and capacity for command. Writing from retirement at the end of the US rule, one American veteran, Constabulary Captain Harold H. Elarth, offered a succinct version of this rhetoric. â€Å"By fair dealing, unusual sagacity and confirmed courage,† young American officers, â€Å"pacified and controlled tribes that for 300 years had continuously warred with the Spaniards.† This success, he explained, came from â€Å"the psychology of the Malay† which inspired Filipino soldiers to follow their American lieutenants with â€Å"adoration† (Hurley 1938, 298-99; Elarth 1949, 14-15). Nationalist Response In the early years of American rule, Filipino nationalists rejected this emasculating colonial rhetoric and made the training of native officers a central plank in their campaign for independence. By demanding officer training, the all-male nationalist movement challenged colonial assumptions that native men were, by racial character, unsuited for command. In the political rhetoric of the day, military drill would advance the nationalist cause by training officers for a future army and hardening the fiber of the country’s youth. To assert their manhood, nationalist leaders seized upon any pretext for military drill, even service under the colonial flag. Only a few years after the Philippine-American War, certain colonials and nationalists began to cooperate in building a Filipino officer corps. In 1907, the fledgling Constabulary School at Manila graduated its first Filipino officers from a short, three-month training course and then moved to permanent quarters in the mountain city of  Baguio for a more rigorous six-month curriculum. A year later, the U.S. Congress authorized the admission of Filipinos to the U.S. Military Academy at West Point. In 1914, the h s t Filipino cadet, Vicente P. Lim, graduated with an academic rank of seventy-seven among 107 cadets-an event of such  significance that the Philippine Resident Commissioner, Manuel Quezon, made a special trip from Washington, DC.6 When America entered World War I, the Philippine Legislature voted overwhelmingly to raise a Philippine National Guard division and Senate President Quezon crossed the Pacific to lobby personally for Washington’s authorization. Even the War Department’s determined effort to block its mobilization until 11 November 1918, the very last day of war, could not dampen the Filipino enthusiasm for military service. Over 28,000 men volunteered. With bands playing and banners flying, the Philippine National Guard drilled for three months until it was disbanded in February 1919 (Woolard 1975, 170-84, 196). During the 1920s, the American colonial regime, in fundamental change of policy, began training Filipinos for command. After taking office as governor-general in 1921, General Leonard Wood, a career officer, mobilized the resources of the US Army to open officer training programs (Hayden 1955, 734-35). To train a first generation of Filipino officers, the US Army loaned instructors, rifles, and bayonets to the newly-formed military science departments at Manila’s colleges and universities. Along with the weapons, these programs also borrowed an American model of the military male. Though the program spread to many schools, the Reserve Officer Training Corps (ROTC) at the University of the Philippines (UP) remained, for over a decade, the largest and most influential. UP Cadet Corps Drill began at UP in 1922 when its Regents funded a Department of Military Science and Tactics, retained an active-duty U.S. Army captain as its chairman, and authorized an armory. Five years later, UP President Rafael Palma, a prominent nationalist, praised the Department for establishing â€Å"the nucleus of a future national military organization† (Panis 1925, 14-15; Palma 1924; Peiia 1953, 1-2). As Palma predicted, the ROTC program grew rapidly, adding field artillery in 1929 and machine guns six years later. After passage of the National Defense Act in 1935, the university acquired another 2,000 Springfield rifles and doubled its cadet corps to 3,304 trainee officers by 1938. Beyond drill and marksmanship, the program indoctrinated its cadets into nationalism. â€Å"We need to make . . . our youth . . . so proud of their race and their democracy that they will die fighting for it,† President Quezon told the UP cadets in 1937. â€Å"We have all been trained,† wrote the Corps’ cadet colonel a year later, â€Å"with patriotism ever so carefully engraved in our hearts by our military instructors, we are proud to say, as they would have us say, w e are ready.07 Other Manila universities followed these leads. While the publiclyfunded UP had the largest cadet program, the elite, Jesuit-run Ateneo de Manila was proud home to the country’s top drill corps. The 1923 Manila Carnival featured a drill competition by cadets from San Beda, the National University, and, of course, Ateneo and the UP. Along with basketball and baseball, close-order drill contests would remain a high point of inter-collegiate competition until the war. These parades, featuring what one UP cadet called â€Å"thousands of virile young blood[s]†¦rifles on their shoulders, gallantly marching to the time of their music,† drew large crowds and sparked school ~ p i r i t . ~ By the early 1930s, a decade of reserve-officer training had encouraged an ideal of military masculinity among cadets at Manila’s universities. At the UP, trainee officers articulated an ideology that equated masculine strength with national defense. â€Å"A nation stands or falls, succeeds or fails, just in proportion to the . . . manliness of each succeeding generation,† wrote a cadet in the 1931 yearbook (Viardo 1931, 381). Cadet sergeant Fred Ruiz Castro, a future Supreme Court chief justice, explained that military training helps â€Å"engender the proper citizenshipu-notably â€Å"courtesy to all especially to the old and to the weaker sex.† In the 1935 UP yearbook, Castro and his comrade Macario Peralta, Jr., a future defense secretary, co-authored an essay arguing that drill molded the masculine virtues necessary to build the nation: â€Å"From the Corps, graduate men steeped in patriotism . . . men who know their duties both to country and to God . . . men who are sound thinkers, strong hearted †¦These are the men the country needs to cope with new problems† (Castro and Peralta, Jr. 1935, 345). Reinforcing this gender dimorphism, UP’S all-male cadet companies barred women from drill but recruited them as â€Å"sponsors† to appear in formal, frilly gowns at full-dress parades. Illustrative of this imbalance, in the  late 1920s one of these sponsors gave the Corps a â€Å"colorful oration† titled â€Å"The Woman Behind the Man Behind the Gun† (Castro 1932; 355; Quirino 1930, 427). By 1936, the UP cadets had expanded their Corps of Sponsors to  forty coeds such as Miss Eva Estr ada, the muse of the Second Artillery Battalion and a future senator. On National Heroes Day, the UP cadets staged a mock battle in the city’s main park, the Luneta. â€Å"Planes sweep down from the clouds to drop their deadly bombs,† wrote the college yearbook, â€Å"men shoot, advance, fall . . . beneath the smoke the unseen drama of war with its horrors and victories.† As male cadets littered Luneta’s smoking battlefield, â€Å"the Nurses’ Corps recruited from the ranks of the Sponsors rush to the field to give aid to the wounded and the dying.† Among these all-male cadets, appeal to women, the defining opposite within this dimorphism, was deemed an essential attribute of future military leadership. â€Å"The girls go for him in a big way (very big way),† said the 1937 UP yearbook of cadet Major Ferdinand Marcos, â€Å"so much so that most of the time he has to put up the sign ‘Standing Room Only.’ Claims his heart is impregnable to feminine allure, and insists on calling guys who fall in love inebriated weaklings.† Marcos himself internalized this gendered duality to write, after the war, of sacrificing his manhood to defend a feminized nation he calls Filipinas. â€Å"We cursed ourselves . . . for having given up our arms and with them our manhood. . .,† Marcos wrote of their wartime surrender to Japan on Bataan. â€Å"Filipinas had welcomed us in spite of the disgrace of our defeat in Bataan. But it seemed that although she had smiled at us through her tears, she would not bind up our wound^.†^ Harsh male initiation also became part of officer training at UP. Cadet Sergeant Macario Peralta, Jr., the future defense secretary, noted in the 1932 yearbook that the Corps had faced difficulties in â€Å"breaking in the new cadets,† but made sure that troublesome plebes â€Å"receive sundry other polite attentions† (Peralta 1932, 358). Peralta’s yearbook biography, published two years later when he was cadet colonel, revealed the meaning of this euphemism. â€Å"O ne year after the Colonel sprouted in the University campus, he commenced hazing the plebes and beasts with unrelenting inhumanity. He is  still at it† (Philippinensian1934, 396). Commonwealth Army In 1935, national defense suddenly became the most critical issue facing the Fhpino people. In Washgton, President Franklin Roosevelt approved the creation of the Philippine Commonwealth as an autonomous, transitional government with a ten-year timetable to full inde-  pendence. Under the National Defense Act, President Quezon made mobilization his top priority and committed a quarter of the budget to building a national army that would, by independence in 1945, have 10,000 regular soldiers backed by reserves of 400,000. In April 1936, some 150,000 Filipino men registered for the country’s first draft and, nine months later, 40,000 reported for training. Within three years, over a million schoolboys were marching.I0 From its foundation in 1935, the Commonwealth, through military mobilization, intensified this process of gender reconstruction-encouraging a reinforcing array of national symbols, militarized masculinity, and domestic roles. With only a decade to prepare for independence and the burden of defense, the Commonwealth tried to fashion a masculinity that would sustain mass conscription. As it mobilized in the 1930s, the Philippines imported a Euro-American form of manhood along with the howitzer and the pursuit plane. To build popular support for a citizens’ army, the neophyte Philippine state deployed a gendered propaganda with men strong, women weak; men the defenders, women the defended. Just as the new nation was personified as the feminine â€Å"Filipinas† in currency and propaganda, so young men were conscripted to defend her and her defenseless womankind. The government, in this transition to independence, slullfully manipulated public rituals and symbols to make a polarized gender dimorphism central to a new national self-image. We do not have to read against the grain to tease gender out of the Philippine Army, as if from some recondite cultural text. The key actors+ezon, Army Headquarters, and the cadets themselves-were quite self-conscious in their use of such imagery. The impact of militarization upon gender roles was most evident at the Manila Carnival-a grand, pre-war festival celebrating the fecundity of the land and the glories of its people. Like other pre-Lenten festivals across the Hispanic world, Carnival was a mix of the serious and frivolous, of celebration and reflection. Located at the heart of Manila, the sprawling Carnival enclosure held elaborate displays of provincial products such as rope or coconut. The two-week whirl of spectacle, society, and sport culminated in the crowning of the queen and her court at an elaborate formal ball. With the Philippines on parade, elite actors gained a stage to project images of nation and society before a mass audience. Before conscription, the queen’s coronation had been a lavish, highsociety affair-with eligible bachelors as escorts, whimsical Roman or  Egyptian themes, and matching costumes for court and consorts. Since the city’s elites selected the carnival queen by jury or press ballots, winners were women of wealth, prestige, and intellect. At the 1922 Carnival, for example, Queen Virginia Llamas was escorted by her future husband Carlos P. Rom ulo, later president of the UN General Assembly. The queen’s consort at the 1923 Carnival was Eugenio Lopez, later the county’s most powerful entrepreneur, just as 1931 queen was Maria Kalaw, the future Philippine senator and UN delegate (Nuyda 1980, 1920, 1922,1931). With the launching of the Commonwealth’s army only months away, the 1935 Carnival saw revelry and whimsy giving way to military symbolism and a serious debate about gender roles. To accornmodate its greatly expanded display, the US Army occupied â€Å"an entire section of the Manila Carnival Grounds† for 400 linear feet of military exhibits and a replica of a World War I trench warfare complex (Tribune, 3,9 February 1935). The cadets of Manila’s universities were honored with a large military parade, treated to guided tours of the military exhibit, and featured as the queen’s escorts. In this martial spirit, gender was on the march. At her coronation ceremony, the Constabulary band played a march while Queen Conchita I-walked between â€Å"two files of University of the Philippines cadets with drawn sabers† to a throne where the US Governor General placed a crown of diamonds on her head and the â€Å"admiring throng applauds† (Tribune, 16, 21, 22 February 1935). On their night in this Carnival Auditorium, Far Eastern University students staged a  spectacular revue called â€Å"Daughters of Bathala,† with males forming an outer, protective circle while women in gowns whirled about in a â€Å"grand finale . . . symbolizing the types of modern Filipino women from the suffragettes and debutantes to the thrill-girls of the cabarets and the boulevards† (Tribune, 3 March 1945). Instead of the usual frivolous rhetoric about feminine beauty, the 1935 Carnival launched a national debate on women’s rights. Speaking before the convention of the Federation of Women’s Clubs, Senate President Quezon announced that the Constitutional Convention had just approved compulsory military service. He urged the nation’s women to assume â€Å"the duty to mould the character of . . . youth that we may build up here a citizenry of virile manhood capable of shouldering the burdens of our future independent existence.† And how was such a radical social reconstruction to be accomplished? Men would be called away for â€Å"training in patriotism,† but women,  Quezon said, should stay home to â€Å"bring up upstanding, courageous and patriotic youngsters.† Instead of being lulled by the â€Å"sentimental glow† of his oratory, the Federation’s president, Mrs. Pilar H. Lim, the wife of General Vicente Lim (USMA ’14), co nfronted Quezon, demanding that he redress â€Å"the injustice done . . . through the failure of the constitutional convention to insert a provision . . . granting the women . . . the right to vote.† Quezon assured Mrs. Lim that he has â€Å"always been in favor of granting this right to women.† Indeed, two years later, under his presidency and through Mrs. Lim’s leadership, a plebiscite on women’s suffrage passed by an overwhelming margin.† Over the next three years as mobilization intensified, each carnival accentuated the military symbolism and its supporting gender dimorphism. When President Quezon opened the towering gateway to the 1936 Carnival city, a full battalion of Philippine Army troops formed an honor guard while he â€Å"severed† the ribbons with a specially-made native sword. In its Carnival coverage, the Sunday Tribune Magazine juxtaposed photo-essays of the military review (â€Å"the steel helmets of the U.P. cadets glaring in the afternoon sun†) and the 1936 Fashion Revue (â€Å"models resplendent in shining silver and satin.†) For their night at the Carnival, the UP students  presented a richly engendered historical pageant, written by Dr. Carlos P. Romulo, featuring a cast of one thousand students (â€Å"including seven hundred girls†) and starring a woman student as â€Å"Filipinas,† the feminized symbol of the nation (Tribune, 15 February, 1 March 1936). Theme: After the establishment of the Republic, the nation will meet with difficulties and dangers, but it will overcome them all and thereby become stronger . . . Book of Time Revealed. Spirit of History ascends the stage from stage right and writes â€Å"Commonwealth.† 111. Trumpets. Filipinas enters from stage left followed by people, including agencies, soldiers, dancers . . . IV. Spirit of Prophecy ascends from stage left . . . and . . . writes â€Å"Republic.† V. People cheer, bells ring, salute of guns . . . VIII. Invasion-all to arms. Battle. XI. Mourning dance. Filipina rises from the center of the floor, flag over her. National hymn is sung by all. I. 11. Despite such military inroads, the coronation of Queen Mercedes I featured the usual â€Å"fantasy numbers† such as â€Å"Parisian Lace† and the â€Å"exotic South Sea Wastes.† Her escorts were still society bachelors in white-tie and tails. A year later, the military symbolism was triumphant. At the 1937 Carnival, the queen’s escorts were now uniformed ROTC cadets. The queen now became â€Å"Miss Philippines† and her coronation, as its libretto indicates, was a martial drama of male soldiers rising to her defense as the engendered symbol of the nation. Scene I Triumphal entrance of the Army of Miss Philippines, sovereign of our cultural and economic progress, composed of officers and soldiers who will stage a military exhibition. Scene I1 Entrance of the Drum and Bugle Corps which will go through some military evolutions. Scene 1 1 1 The Drum and Bugle Corps will announce the arrival of Miss Philippines and her Court of Honor . . . Miss Philippines will be preceded by a group of pages carrying the crown and other presents, and another group of pages carrying her train . . . Scene IV The Drum and Bugle Corps announces that all is ready for the coronation of Miss Philippines. Scene V Ceremonies of the coronation of Miss  Philippines, placing of the crown by His Honor, The Mayor of Manila . . . Scene VI Gun salute to Miss Philippines by her Army. Entrance of Foreign Envoys-Royal offering, etc. Scene VII Military evolutions by the Army of Miss Philippines and the Drum and Bugle Corps. Beyond the ballroom, the Carnival’s sporting contests and the ROTC drill competitions proliferated in celebration of a physical, martial masculinity. Before a crowd of 40,000, for example, the Schools Parade featured girls in gowns riding on flower-covered floats while high school boys stepped past in â€Å"uniforms and snappy marching [that] thrilled the watching t h o ~ s a n d s . † ~ ~ By the 1938 Carnival, the military parade had been transformed from a procession of students in their toy-soldier uniforms into an awesome spectacle of military might. With thousands of spectators packed along the boulevards, armed columns of Philippine Army, Philippine Scouts, and college cadets tramped past the Legislative Building as tight formations of bombers and pursuit planes â€Å"roared overhead† (Tribune, 15, 16 February 1938). After its establishment in 1936, the Philippine Army deployed a similar dualism to build support for conscription among a people without a tradition of military service. As the date for draft registration approached, the Commonwealth plastered public spaces with recruiting posters. One depicted a statuesque Filipina, neckline cut low and bare arms outstretched for the embrace, calling on â€Å"Young Men† to â€Å"Heed Your Country’s Call!† Another asked, â€Å"Which Would You Rather Be . . . this or that?†-and then showed a snappy soldier smiling at two admiring women while a civilian male skulks in the rear, hands in pockets-a universal sipifier.I4 Then, at 8:30 A.M. on 15 May 1936, each provincial governor supervised an elaborate ritual to select the first conscripts for basic training. Before the public, the governor, flanked by military guards, placed the registration cards for all twenty-year old men in two large jars. â€Å"Two young ladies, not over eighteen years of age, shall . . . make the drawing,† read the Philippine Army regulations. â€Å"These young ladies shall be blind-folded and shall wear  dresses with short sleeves-not reaching beyond elbow† (Commonwealth, Bulletin No. 17; Meixsel 1993, 301). So strong was the appeal of military training that four of the country’s leading legislators, including presidential aspirant Manuel Roxas, volunteered for the first Reserve Officers’ Service School (ROSS) in mid-1936. In this commencement address to this class in September, President Quezon explained that officers were to serve as the nation’s models for patriotism and new, virile form of citizenry (The Bayonet 1936, 94, 98). The good officer. . . , wherever he is, . . . spreads the doctrine of loyalty, of respect for law and order, of patriotism, of self-discipline and education, and of national preparation to defend our country. . . . Our whole nation will become more firmly solidified, more virile, more unselfishly devoted to promotion of the general welfare, as our officer corps grows in quality and strength, and the results of its efforts permeate to the remotest hamlet of our country. Philippine Military Academy Forming such an officer corps was the most difficult part of this mobilization. As Quezon put it, â€Å"the heart of an army is its officers.† Along with buying rifles and building camps, the creation of this army required, as the president was well aware, the construction of officers as exemplars for a new image of the Filipino as warrior. To form such leaders, the Defense Act provided for the establishment of a Philippine Military Academy at Baguio for the education of career officers. This academy was, in the words of the Commonwealth’s vice-president, â€Å"the foundation stone of the entire military establishment,† providing â€Å"the leadership necessary to knit together a scattered and loosely connected citizen army into one whole, living, pulsating, homogenous machine that can fight with courage† (Scribe 50; Osmefia 7-8, 10). In establishing his new academy, Quezon, through his military advisers Douglas MacArthur and Dwight Eisenhower, chose the US Military Academy at West Point as its model. Transporting the West Point system, with all of its peculiarities, from the bluffs of the Hudson to the mountains of Baguio entailed cultural adaptation. From the perspective of the PMA staff, the new academy would socialize the cadets through its formal  curriculum and a four-year progression from neophyte to command. To succeed, however, these formal processes rested upon rituals and symbols that would make the academy’s abstractions meaningful to teen-aged Filipinos. Drawing upon the country’s culture of masculinity, cadets used rituals of male initiation and group solidarity to reinforce the PMA’s institutional imperatives. Through a fusion of the West Point curriculum, faithfully reproduced by the PMA’s staff, and informal innovations by these Filipino cadets, an American academy became a viable model for a Philippine institution (Love11 1955, 316-21; Wamsley 1972, 399-41 7). To ensure that its cadets would be archetypes of masculine beauty, the academy barred applicants with â€Å"any deformity which is repulsive† or any who suffered from â€Å"extreme ugliness.† Medical examiners had to insure, moreover, that an applicant’s face was free from any â€Å"lack of symmetrical development† or â€Å"unsightly deformities such as large birthmarks, large hairy moles, . . . mutilations due to injuries or surgical operation† (Commonwealth of the Philippines 1937). To mould these exemplary males, the PMA became a total institution that would, like West Point, leave a lasting imprint upon every  graduate (Janowitz 138; Goffman 1961). The PMA’s 1938 yearbook thus described the Tactical Department and its drill instructors as â€Å"a veritable forging shop in which the raw and crude materials are . . . purified of their undesirable qualities.† In their song P.M.A. Forever, cadets celebrated their academy’s capacity to make men (Sword 1938, 46-48, 104). Within the walls of old and glorious P.M.A. They’re molded to the real men that they should beMen who can face the bitter realities of life With courage even in the midst of bloody strife. As centerpiece in the nation’s gender reconstruction, the PMA indoctrinated its Filipino cadets into a Euro-American ideal of military manhood. With its alien curriculum, the PMA, more than any Philippine institution of its era, aspired to a cultural transformation, a remalung of its cadets on a European model of mascuhity. The academy made its imprint through a program of moral formation through body movement, incessant supervision, and formal in doctrination. In its own words, the PMA taught â€Å"soldierly movements to inculcate prompt obedience† in  daily marching; â€Å"knowledge of ballroom ethics† with weekly waltz lessons; and â€Å"self-reliance, poise, initiative, judgment, enthusiasm, and discipline† in gymnastics (Commonwealth 1938,1619). Filipino cadets reshaped imported values through their own culture of masculinity, malung hazing the PMA’s central rite of passage-from civilian to soldier, from plebe to cadet. Entering plebes arrived at the academy from communities with their own rituals of male initiation and expectations for manhood (Rosaldo 1980, 35-37). In many lowland villages of the 1930s, adolescent males passed through an initiation, such as circumcision, and had elaborate codes for masculine friendship epitomized in peer groups called barkada. In the villages of Central Luzon, for example, Tagalog males who joined tenancy unions during this decade were tested in an elaborate midnight ritual that branded each on the upper arm with a poker plucked white-hot from a raging bonfire (Fegan 1995; See also Blanc-Szanton 1990, 350). Growing up in such poor communities, many future members of PMA’s Class of 1940, the first products of this new school, were familiar with these masculine rites of testing and bonding. One classmate, Francisco del Castillo, recalled in his autobiography for the class’s 50th reunion Golden Book, that he often missed class in high school to join â€Å"youth who did nothing but form gangs to fight other gangs for su-premacy in the municipality of Vigan.† In a later interview, he added that his reputation as â€Å"a local champion† in ritualized knife fights, attacking with the right hand and defending with a towel wrapped tightly about the left, made him the â€Å"leader† of the town’s west-side gang. Asked if his gang practiced any sort of initiation, del Castillo replied that â€Å"you let him do a certain errand and see how brave he is† (Mendoza 1986, 178; del Castillo 1995). For PMA cadets, hazing and the broader experience of plebe initiation served as a transformative trauma–coloring the subsequent academy experience for individuals and uniting a new class through shared suffering. During their first months, plebes were subjected to an unbroken regimen of running, recitations, and drill under nameless, powerful upperclassmen. Arriving during summer recess when the main activity was their initiation,  incoming plebes faced the harsh, unwavering attentions of the second-year cadets, or â€Å"yearlings†-still aching from their own humiliations that had ended only weeks before. After the initial â€Å"beast barracks,† the hazing subsided into a constant, low-level harassment that continued for another eight months until the upperclass â€Å"recognized† them as full members of the Corps. Surviving this abuse left cadets with a strong sense of personal pride and class identity. Writing in the Golden Book, Class ’40’s Cesar Montemayor recalled their plebe year as â€Å"a one-year initiation period full of rites, rules and requirements† that instilled â€Å"desirable manly and military qualities† (Batch 36 Golden Book, 110-11). In showing how the Commonwealth constructed a new masculinity at the PMA, we cannot ignore the impact that this mobilization and its prop aganda had upon â€Å"the whole order† of gender roles in an emerging nation (Morgan 1994, 169-70). Despite its isolation in the mountains of Baguio, the PMA’s training of these young males had lasting implications for the whole of Philippine society. The school served, in effect, as a social laboratory, a crucible for casting a new form of Filipino masculinity. Through hazing, study, and drill, the academy pounded young males into a foreign mold of military manhood. By parading before the masses in Manila and acting in Tagalog films, these prewar PMA cadets projected this image of masculinity into an emerging national consciousness. Only a year after the PMA opened, a Manila film crew shot a two-reel documentary, titled The West Point of the Philippines, which, the cadet yearbook reported, was â€Å"now being featured at the Ideal Theatre† and was â€Å"taking Manila by storm.†

Black People and African American Actors Essay

Stereotyping is the automatic/ exaggerated mental pictures that people hold about a particular racial group without taking individual differences into consideration. Examples of stereotyping would be the main characters of the movie Rio2, Jewel and Blue being voiced by white actors whilst their ‘wild’ relatives are voiced by ‘non-white’ actors implying sophistication as well as in the movie Despicable Me 2 where El Macho and his son are given a Spanish image portraying a smooth talker and an irresistible lover that is often stereotypes about Spanish people. [87] People seem oblivious to the racial content due to various distractions like visual stimuli such as 3D effects and the contrasting use of color, sound effects such as surround sound and the voices of the character and lastly the plot of the story. Most people are over stimulated by these ‘distractions’ that they rarely notice the stereotyping. Another factor would be that parents neglect the responsibility to screen the movies that their children are watching. In some instances the stereotyping may be instilled in some parents from birth resulting in children seeing stereotyping as normal behavior. [96] Subtle racial prejudices towards Hispanic and Black people in Rio2 were the implication that ‘wild’ Amazonian Macaws voiced by ‘non- white ‘actors are uncivilized. Songs sung by these Macaws are primarily voiced by African American actors accompanied by rhythmic beats and movements with catchy phrases primarily found in native song and dance. Roberto (wild Macaw) is voiced by the singer Bruno Mars who is from a mixture of Jewish and Hawaiian decent implying (help with that word). Pedro and Nico two rapping, gangster, music loving birds are voiced by two equally successful and famous rappers Will.I.Am and Jamie Foxx [99] From this passage I can conclude that even though warnings about stereotyping may be placed before animation movies, many parents would still allow their children to watch it. [31]

Rttegng Essays - Free Essays, Term Papers, Research Papers

Rttegng Essays - Free Essays, Term Papers, Research Papers Rttegng Rttegng Jag valde att kolla p en rttegng dr mlet rrde sig om ringa narkotikabrott. Rummet dr rttegngen gde rum kallas frhandlingssal. Dr ska klagaren bevisa med hjlp av utredningen att den talade r skyldig. De som var med i rttegngen var tre nmndemn, en ordfrande, en protokolfrare och en klagare, den tilltalade var inte nrvarande vid rttegngen. Jag var med p rttegngen som hrare. Rttegngen brjade med att ordfranden kontrollerade med att de som kallats till rttegngen var med, men som sagt var inte den tilltalade dr, rttegngen stlldes dock inte in utan fortsatte. Sedan lste klagaren upp de brott som klagaren ansg att den tilltalade var skylidg till vilket var ringa narkotikabrott. klagaren gick drefter igenom bevisen som fanns, klagaren lste upp ett frhr frn polisen dr den tilltalade hade erknt. Efter det gick de igenom den tilltalades personliga frhllanden, belastningsregister, samt inkomster och skulder. klagaren gjorde sedan en sammanfattning och berttade vilket straff som ansgs lmpligt till den tilltalade, vilket d var bter. Efter det var det verlggning och vi fick lmna frhandlingssalen. Det var en rtt s snabb rttegng eftersom att den tilltalande inte var dr, och efter att ha kollat p andra ml som det hr och sett vad de har ftt fr straff s anser jag att det var ett rttvist straff som d var bter. Det var kul att kolla p en rttegng och se hur det gr till. Nader El Hage

Usage That Provokes Blackboard Moments

Usage That Provokes Blackboard Moments Usage That Provokes Blackboard Moments Usage That Provokes Blackboard Moments By Maeve Maddox The comments on my post about writing dates with or without terminals got me thinking about the way everyone who speaks English reacts strongly to at least one word or point of usage. The different ways that people write a date seem to excite curiosity without making anyone angry, but sometimes words or expressions evoke annoyance so intense as to constitute rabid aversion. (Im thinking of the responses provoked by my article on couldnt care less.) By a blackboard moment I mean a physical reaction similar to what we feel when the teachers hand slips and we hear a fingernail scrape against the board. Here are some of the words, pronunciations, spellings and expressions that produce blackboard moments of various intensities in me. (The preferred form is in parentheses.) standing on line (standing in line) light something on fire (set something on fire) Me and my friends swim. (My friends and I swim.) in hopes of (in the hope of) pronouncing the word pecan with a long e and a short a: /pee can/ (instead of with a schwa and the a of father: /pe kahn/) pronouncing the t in Bill Clinton (he pronounces his name with a glottal stop: /klin?n.) seperate (separate) dalmatien (dalmatian) shepard dog (shepherd dog) cemetary (cemetery) its tail (its tail) In that incidence he was right. (In that instance he was right.) Do you want some sandwich? (Do you want part of a sandwich?) How about you, Gentle Reader? What in the speaking or writing of English produces a blackboard moment for you? Want to improve your English in five minutes a day? Get a subscription and start receiving our writing tips and exercises daily! Keep learning! Browse the Expressions category, check our popular posts, or choose a related post below:The Yiddish Handbook: 40 Words You Should Know75 Idioms and Expressions That Include â€Å"Break†50 Tips on How to Write Good

Leadership Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words - 7

Leadership - Essay Example The manner in which he comes into contact with his sub-ordinates and even his peers is something that demands a change within his character for the boost in the environment which can only be regarded as a positive one. I believe such tactics of authoritative leadership use a great deal of negative power and influence and hence the end result is one of failure and distress for just about everyone in the organization. The employees start leaving their jobs because they feel they have been hard done by, by the leader as well as given constant negative vibes which have more or less affected the workplace in a very appalling manner. Thus morally these tactics have meant problems for the people and hence there would be no doubt in stating that such authoritative leadership regimes are wrong in all ways and means. These must be avoided in order to secure better productivity levels within the ranks of the organization. Effective leadership requires that the leader becomes a role model for his sub-ordinates and peers and gives exemplary performance under trying circumstances. This is a hallmark of effective leadership since its basis comes about with the significance of proper attention towards detail and the adequate handling of people at the workplace. Also an effective leader does not go back on his words and shows to his fellow colleagues that he puts his mouth where his actions speak louder than words. His practical demonstration of work ethos is thus manifested in the real sense of the word. Effective leadership requires commanding dignity within the sub-ordinates and the top bosses in the organization. It also means that the employees are treated with respect and given the space that they richly deserve. Similarly effective leadership comes about in full circle when the other departments within the same organization take such leadership domains as the role model and try to implement the same within their ranks as well. This is indeed a criterion

Ethical Viewpoints Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Ethical Viewpoints - Essay Example According to Dr. Tod Mikuriva , a former national administrator of the U.S. governments marijuana research programs, "After dealing with about 10,000 patents in the last 15 years, Id say about 200 different medical conditions respond favorably to cannabis". Of those diseases that responded favorably to marijuana treatment was Alzheimers disease, epilepsy, multiple sclerosis, glaucoma, arthritis, depression among the 200 diseases that it can possibly treat. Just recently, Uruguay legalized not only the distribution and selling of marijuana but also the growing of it. As expected, controversy arose from it but the move made other countries receptive to the debate of legalizing marijuana and away from the usual hardline stance of banning it. The debate may still be long and bitter but the mere fact that it is being debated indicates an openness of accepting marijuana as harmless and medically helpful that could be a good source of revenue for the government. The draconian measures imposed against the distribution and use of marijuana is not only pointless but economically costly as well. The most stringent law nor the broader use of the state’s police power have not deterred people from its used and this only manifests that the escalation of control and police enforcement is a wrong response and therefore pointless. It only pushed the industry into the black market which begets another set of problems. Worst, the medical benefit of the regulated use of marijuana is foregone by banning it as illegal. It only makes cartels rich just like what happened to alcohol when it was banned. It was the mafia who got rich. It is also economically costly because maintaining law enforcers to go after marijuana distributors and users needs funding which will be taken out from tax payers. In addition, there is also an opportunity cost associated in banning marijuana. The taxes that should have been collected in regulating marijuana was lost becau se