Herman Melville and Paul Tillich: An Ontological Interpretation of Billy Budd

The traditional approaches to Herman Melville\u27s Billy Budd focus upon the question of whether or not the story was Melville\u27s final statement of acceptance or irony. Both arguments are sociological in nature in that the different sides argue that Melville either finally accepts or continues to reject by irony, the forms of society. The acceptance critics contend that Melville ends by seeing value in the forms because of their use for maintaining order in society; the irony critics claim that Melville was taking a final satirical poke at society\u27s limiting forms and authority. My thesis differs from these traditional arguments because I treat the story and the actions of Captain Vere ontologically rather than sociologically. Using Paul Tillich\u27s description of man found in The Courage To Be, I interpret Vere according to Tillich\u27s three types of ontological anxiety. According to Tillich, all men suffer from the three types of anxiety due to a lack of an ultimate concern, though men find concerns that they take to be ultimate in spite of the fact that they are not. I argue in my thesis that Vere is a perfect example of a man who suddenly experiences ontological anxiety when he loses his spiritual center which is dependent upon a concern which is not ultimate. Vere, being a representative of 18th century, aristocratic society, places great faith in the order of the world. He manages to protect himself against threats to his faith until the innocent Billy suddenly kills the evil Claggart. The actions of Billy and the death of Claggart shock Vere\u27s faith and his spiritual center, and his actions which follow, including the drum-head court and the hanging of Billy, fit neatly the description of a man suffering from ontological anxiety. By using Tillich to interpret Billy Budd, I believe that the story is made artistically better because the reader is better able to understand Vere\u27s situation because his experience is existential, i.e., the experience of anxiety is one which we all face due to the fact that we all participate in being. Also, by using this interpretation, the story becomes a tribute to the insight of Melville and his ability to understand and to write about man\u27s state of being

The Effect of Art Therapy on Hospice and Palliative Caregivers

A quazi-experimental, one-group, pretest/posttest study was conducted with a group of 25 hospice workers employed by a medium sized county hospice organization in the southeastern United States that was experiencing rapid personnel turn-over. Participants in the study included a doctor, a physician’s assistant, a nurse practitioner, a massage therapist, a grief counselor, a licensed practical nurse, a certified nursing assistant, two clergy, three administrative staff, three social workers, seven volunteers, eight registered nurses and one other. The purpose was to investigate whether attending four 1-hour art therapy sessions could help reduce stress and thereby Burnout. Stamm’s (2010) Professional Quality of Life theory was utilized to frame the study and Stamm’s ProQOL-5 was used as both pretest and posttest. The ProQOL-5 tested three elements of Stamm’s theory which cannot be combined: Compassion Satisfaction, Burnout and Secondary Traumatic Stress, and a paired sample t-test were applied to each element. No statistical differences were found between pretest and posttest scores on the ProQOL-5 in the areas of Compassion Satisfaction and Secondary Traumatic Stress. Interestingly, posttest scores on the ProQOL-5 went up instead of down significantly, after participants received four 1-hour sessions of art therapy. No quantitative evidence was found to support the use of art therapy to reduce Burnout and increase Compassion Satisfaction and Secondary Traumatic Stress. There were some minor qualitative data to indicate art therapy was helpful in reducing stress at least temporarily. More investigation needs to be done in order to develop evidence-based interventions to relieve stress and reduce Burnout in hospice/palliative care workers as the field is growing rapidly

Analisis Yuridis Penjatuhan Pidana Oleh Hakim Dalam Tindak Pidana Korupsi(putusan Nomor : 2031 K/pid.sus/2011)

Korupsi adalah penyelewengan tugas dan penggelapan uang negara atau Perusahaan untuk keuntungan pribadi maupun orang lain. Korupsi senantiasa melibatkan lebih dari satu orang. Setiap tindakan korupsi mengandung penipuan dan biasa terjadi pada badan publik atau masyarakat umum. Penyebab adanya tindakan korupsi berasal dari aspek individu, organisasi, dan peraturan yang ada.Dampak dari tindakan korupsi dapat merusak perekonomian negara, demokrasi dan kesejahteraan umum. Lahirnya Undang-undang Nomor 31 tahun 1999 sebagaimana diubah dengan undang-undang nomor 20 tahun 2001 tentang Perubahan atas undang-undang nomor 31 tahun 1999 Tentang Pemberantasan Tindak Pidana Korupsi dengan adanya ancaman pidana minimum khusus, pidana denda yang lebih tinggi, dan ancaman pidana mati yang merupakan pemberatan pidana, pemberian ancaman pidana minimal khusus dalam UUPTPK adalah untuk memberikan efek jera kepada koruptor dan mencegah potensi terjadinya korupsi, oleh karena itu perimbangan Hakim dalam penjatuhkan putusan seyogyannya berpedoman dari ketentuan yang sudah di atur di dalam UUPTPK yang sudah memberikan ketentuan acaman pidana minimal khusus dalam pelaku tindak pidana korupsi

The Tunka Experiment: Towards a 1-km^2 Cherenkov EAS Array in the Tunka Valley

The project of an EAS Cherenkov array in the Tunka valley/Siberia with an area of about 1 km^2 is presented. The new array will have a ten times bigger area than the existing Tunka-25 array and will permit a detailed study of the cosmic ray energy spectrum and the mass composition in the energy range from 10^15 to 10^18 eV.Comment: 3 pages, 2 figures, to be published in IJMP

Discovery of an unusual bright eclipsing binary with the longest known period: TYC 2505-672-1 / MASTER OT J095310.04+335352.8

We report on the MASTER Global Robotic Net discovery of an eclipsing binary, MASTER OT J095310.04+335352.8, previously known as unremarkable star TYC 2505-672-1, which displays extreme orbital parameters. The orbital period P=69.1 yr is more than 2.5 times longer than that of epsilon-Aurigae, which is the previous record holder. The light curve is characterized by an extremely deep total eclipse with a depth of more than 4.5 mag, which is symmetrically shaped and has a total duration of 3.5 yrs. The eclipse is essentially gray. The spectra acquired with the Russian 6 m BTA telescope both at minimum and maximum light mainly correspond to an M0-1III--type red giant, but the spectra taken at the bottom of eclipse show small traces of a sufficiently hot source. The observed properties of this system can be better explained as the red giant eclipsed by a large cloud (the disk) of small particles surrounding the invisible secondary companion.Comment: 8 figures, 9 pages, Astronomy and astrophysics in prin

Primary Energy Spectrum and Mass Composition Determined with the Tunka EAS Cherenkov Array

New results of 300 hours of operation of the Tunka array are presented. An improved parametrization of the Cherenkov light lateral distribution function (LDF), based on CORSIKA Monte Carlo simulations and the experiment QUEST, has been used for the reconstruction of EAS parameters. The corrected energy spectrum in the knee region is obtained. The mean depth of the EAS maximum has been derived both from the analysis of LDF steepness and the FWHM of Cerenkov light pulse. The mean mass composition around the knee is estimated.Comment: 3 pages, 3 figures, to be published in IJMP