Peter Tosh: a Pioneer of Reggae and Trailblazing Rastafarian

Peter Tosh: A Pioneer of Reggae and Trailblazing Rastafarian Peter Tosh was not only an incredible Reggae musician, but an incredible person as well. He had a history of doing his part to help those in need of help, fighting for those who were unable to fight for themselves. Tosh, a pioneer of the Rastafari movement, would lead the people of Jamaica through his selfless actions and his music. Peter Tosh, born Winston Hubert McIntosh, was born in Westmoreland, Jamaica on October 9, 1944 to parents, Alvera Coke and James McIntosh. Tosh’s father would have nothing to do with his upbringing or even acknowledge that Tosh was his son.In fact, they would not even meet until Tosh was ten years old. His mother, unable to care for Tosh herself, asked her sister to raise him, which she did in Savanna-la-Mar, Jamaica. Due to the feeling of rejection that this placed inside of him, Tosh grew up extremely self-reliant and independent, which would help him later on in his fight for his peopl e. During the time of his upbringing, life in Jamaica was extremely difficult. Jobs were scarce and money even more so. The majority of families were struggling to make ends meet, scrounging for money and building supply scraps to keep roofs over their heads.Jamaica’s government was extremely corrupt and the wealthier, land-owning class was taking advantage of those less fortunate. Tosh recognized this and would later become a modern day Robin Hood, using his presence in the public eye to his advantage by speaking on behalf of his fellow Jamaicans to raise awareness on the issue. Tosh began playing music at a very young age, keeping him away from gang life. He had no formal training of any instrument, aside from six months of piano lessons when he was in fifth grade. Music was his passion and he excelled in it.Tosh moved to Trenchtown with his uncle after his aunt grew very ill and nearly died. It was here that Tosh would develop his musical talents and go on to form the most influential band in reggae history. Trenchtown, named because of the many trenches that ran through it carrying sewage waste away from Kingston, was filled with music. While walking through town one day, Tosh came across a guitarist by the name of Joe Higgs, among others, singing and playing in the street. During the jam session, he met a couple who were looking for other vocalists to join a group. The couple was impressed by Tosh’s guitar playing and his baritone voice. Johnson) The couple, Bob Marley and Bunny Livingston, and Tosh, who taught Bob Marley how to play guitar, would hold jam sessions in Higgs’ backyard. These sessions became more and more serious and would eventually lead to the forming of the influential ska-style band called the Wailing Wailers in 1964. The Wailers went on to record twelve albums including One Love, When the Well Runs Dry, and Simmer Down and released groundbreaking singles including ‘Stir it Up’, ‘Get Up, Stand Upà ¢â‚¬â„¢, and ‘Trenchtown Rock’. (http://reggaediscography. blogspot. com/2009/10/peter-tosh-discography. html) By 1966, the band began to fall apart.Marley had moved from Jamaica to the United States to pursue a solo career and Tosh was arrested and served a short stint in jail. By 1972, the Wailers would slowly diminish until they finally broke up. It would be absurd to speak of Peter Tosh and not mention the Rastafari movement, which he had begun to get heavily involved in by this time. The movement was founded in the slums of Kingston, Jamaica in the 1920’s and 1930’s by a man by the name of Marcus Garvey. (www. religionfacts. com) Garvey taught that Africans are the true Israelis and that Ethiopia, referred to as Zion, is the real holy land.He further proclaimed that Africans were exiled to Jamaica and other parts of the world outside of Africa (the America’s and Europe are referred to as Babylon) as a form of divine punishment. (ww. religionfac ts. com) In the 1930’s, peaceful communities had begun popping up in Kingston and Rastafarians began to adopt their own culture to include a distinctive dialect and hair style, and developed their own style of art and music. It was their music that would help spread the ideology of the Rastafari movement across the globe. The music of Bob Marley and Peter Tosh would become messengers of Jah (God) spreading the word throughout the world.After the Wailers went their separate ways, Tosh focused on a solo career. His first album, Legalize It, went public in 1976. The name of the album, as well as the title track, refers to his stance on the legalization of marijuana. Tosh believed that smoking marijuana was a path to enlightenment. It was a way for the working class of Jamaica to get relief from the stresses of life. He further believed that the government made marijuana illegal as a way of oppressing Jamaicans and keeping them in order. Tosh only wrote songs after he had smoked marijuana because he felt he could see clearly. (www. thetalkingdrum. com)By the time of the One Love Peace Concert of 1978, Jamaica was in the midst of a political civil war. The concert was held in an effort to set aside the differences of Jamaicans and promote peace, love, and harmony. Tosh took this concert, at which Bob Marley and the Wailers were headlining, as an opportunity to speak to the audience. Tosh bluntly put the government down, accusing them of using Jamaica and the people that lived there for their resources with little regard as to what would happen to them. He spoke his mind, as always, without caring who would hear. He spoke for the rights of his brothers and sisters of Jamaica.That concert was the first time that a person held in such high regards amongst the public had spoken out against the Jamaican government. It was at this moment that Peter Tosh became a heroic figure and a public rights leader. The high regard in which he was held by his peers would turn out to be a blessing and a curse. Four months after the One Love Peace Concert and his lecture against the Jamaican government, Tosh was brutally attacked by up to ten police officers and nearly died. This was the first of many attacks, both verbal and physical, but this is where Tosh wanted to be.He wanted to be the center of attention, not for his own ego but to be in a position to speak on behalf of his people. It was a way for him to voice their concerns and demand corrective action. The One Love Peace Concert not only boosted Tosh in the political eye, but would end up boosting his American musical career as well. Mick Jagger, of the Rolling Stones, was in the audience at the concert and would go on to sign Tosh under the Rolling Stones’ record label. Tosh would go on to release two albums under the label, Bush Doctor and Mystic Man. The short life of this relationship ended when Tosh felt he was not being promoted properly. www. talkingdrum. com) Two years after releasi ng Wanted Dread or Alive, Tosh had hit the pinnacle of his career in 1983, which was the time of his European tour promoting Mama Africa. These two albums would go on to become known as Tosh’s best work. (www. talkingdrum. com) While on this tour, Tosh appeared on stage with his signature M-16 [military assault rifle] guitar. The guitar was significant in the fact that it was a symbol for Tosh’s music being his weapon against the corrupt politicians and evils in the world. (www. talkingdrum. com) His concerts were more than just music. They were spiritually enlightening and informative.It was not uncommon for Tosh to set aside some time during a show to talk to the audience about his views on the evils of the world. Despite the public being supportive of Tosh and his cause, he was murdered by three assailants on September 11, 1987. Record has it that three men, one of whom Tosh knew and tried to help find work after a term in jail, had approached him at his home demand ing money. When Tosh replied that he had none, he was shot three times. The assailant that Tosh knew turned himself in to the authorities, while the other two were never found. The story of the robbery, however, remains under scrutiny.According to reports, nothing from Tosh’s home was missing. The three men who went there to rob him took nothing. Many speculate that it was a hit to forever silence Tosh and his outspoken ways. From the moment he was born, it seems Peter Tosh was destined to live the life he did. He was a man with many admirable qualities, most importantly the courage to speak up for those who were not in a position to do it themselves in effort to better the lives of his fellow Jamaicans. He was a pioneer for the Rastafari movement and a prominent figure in the development of Reggae music, forming it into the shape it holds today.  

But These Things Also Essay

‘But these things also’ brings â€Å"to the centre of attention what has previously overlooked†, as Judy Kendall writes. Thomas explores his fascination with the unimportant in this poem and looks at the connection and merging together of Spring and Winter. Much like his other poetry, here, Thomas struggles to put his finger on precisely what he means. This is shown by his inability to separate and distinguish between the two seasons. The poem begins with the first two lines focussing on Spring, however, by following this with two lines focussing on Winter, Thomas explodes our first expectations of usual ‘spring poetry’ of bright and beautiful images. Instead, he catches the limbo between the two seasons and we are presented with the idea of the grass being ‘long dead’ and ‘greyer now’. This pessimistic tone is not what one usually connotes with springtime, but with the cold and bleak winter. By putting the images of the two seasons so close together in this stanza, Thomas reinforces his presentation of their connection. The last line of the stanza, ‘than all the winter it was’, changes the natural syntax of the words. The stress focuses of ‘it was’, emphasising what has past, which creates a sense of longing, introducing the idea that, like in ‘March’, Thomas is desperate to find ‘the key’ the last two lines of the first stanza finish with the words ‘now and ‘was’, bringing together images of the movement of time and emphasising the gap between the present and the past and importantly, Thomas’s focus on that gap. The second stanza uses inscape to look at things, which are seemingly unimportant. These things show the remains of winter, therefore connecting the seasons further. Once again, Thomas alters the syntax of the words to create a more beautified image.’ The word ‘bleached’ would usually have a much more negative connotation of fading and perhaps even the loss of hope, however By placing the word at the end of the first line and after the word ‘little’ he takes away the harshness of the sound and makes it more delicate and gentle. As well as this, Tomas’s use of enjambment stresses the soft ‘L’ sounds in ‘the shell of the little snail’, which further emphasises the smoothness of the words. Following this, the sexural pause halfway along the  second line, highlights the plosive sounds on the image of the ‘chip of flint’. This draws our attention to the minute details, which Thomas considers and accentuates the signs that spring is not quite here yet. By observing nature in this much detail, we see how valuable Thomas considers it to be, it creates a sense that although these things are small and often overlooked, they are significant. The final image in this stanza is of the ‘purest white’ bird dung. At first it appears odd to be beautifying such a thing as bird dung, but by following it with the words ‘purest white’, Thomas introduces an idea of innocence and positivity, as well as a contrast with the previous image of something ‘greyer now’. This brief glimmer of hope however, is shattered in the next stanza. In stanza three, the image of ‘white’ no longer has positive connotations, but it feels as if Thomas could be referring to the relationship between the colour white and death. This instantly darkens the tone and the notion of mistaking bird dung for violets presents the idea that Thomas is truly desperate for any indication of spring’s arrival. The following violent images of ‘winter’s ruins’ and ‘winter’s debts’ create an oppressive feeling which moves further from the previous idea of hope. Continuing the pattern of Thomas’s other poetry, the word ‘something’ appears ambiguous and vague, creating a sense that Thomas still isn’t quite clear on what it is we are paying ‘winter’s debts’ with. The final stanza of ‘But these things also’ begins to fill us with hope once more. The ‘chattering’ birds create a sense of rising morale and the idea of keeping their ‘spirits up’ sounds optimistic. Despite this, when we eventually think that Thomas is going to make a definitive statement, ‘spring’s here’ he reintroduces the feeling of ambiguity with the words ‘winter’s not gone’. This leaves the poem with a sense of not knowing and uncertainty. This reminds us of Thomas’s tendency to never give absolutes and that he likes balancing a positive idea with a negative. This paradox leaves us with the idea that the winter is preventing the spring from arriving. Throughout the poem, there is a regular rhythm, given by the Iambic  Tetrameter, which is occasionally shortened to show the indecisive and unclear seasons. There is never a climax during this poem due to it all being one long sentence. Robert’s talks about Thomas’s use of enjambment and fluidity, which gives a sense of him thinking and working through his thoughts.

Applying Problem Solving Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Applying Problem Solving - Essay Example There are many methods, which can be used to find a perfect solution to any specific problem. Two of the most widely used methods are persuasive thinking and scientific thinking. In this paper, I will show how I made use of these methods to solve some problems, which occurred in my life. After I got my graduation degree from a university, I decided to do job to earn some money and get professional experience. I applied in a number of companies for the job but did not succeed to get a suitable job in accordance with my educational qualifications. Some companies called me for interviews. Wherever I went for the interviews, the selection committee members required some professional experience, which I did not have at that time. In my home city, I applied in almost every renowned company but did not succeed in finding a good job. After almost six months of job search, I found a job in a marketing firm located far away from my living place. I was recruited in the department of outdoor sales and my salary was very less as compared to my educational qualifications. The salary was so less that it was very hard for me to save any money for my family. I was not satisfied with that job. I did that job for almost a year when I decided to go abroad in order to find a better employment. My parents did not support my decision of moving abroad and insisted me to remain in my home country and continue my job search. In the problem, which I discussed above, I made use of persuasive thinking to convince my parents. I had two main reasons of going abroad for employment. One reason was to find a better employment while the second reason was the huge difference between the economy levels of my home country and the country where I was planning to go for employment. My parents were not supporting my decision initially as they insisted me not to go abroad. I told them that it would be wastage of my precious time

Business Plan - Keep My Heart Adult Medical Day Care, Part 2 Essay

Business Plan - Keep My Heart Adult Medical Day Care, Part 2 - Essay Example market segment in line with its fundamental objectives of providing customized day care services, as well as medical care for Alzheimer’s elderly patients. Whereas the US rank among the most populated counties in the world, its healthcare index indicates that aging is a major factor of public health concern. Accordingly, about 14% of the population are facing health problems associated with dementia and aging. Out of these, more that 5.3million have been diagnosed with various forms of dementia including Alzheimer’s disease (Adelman & Daly, 2005). Despite the fact that a significant proportion of the elderly population in America is suffering from Alzheimer’s disease and other forms of dementia, the government has not instituted proper systems to address their needs. In addition, the existing healthcare facilities are less concerned with the challenges affecting the ailing aged population of the US community as observed by Wheeler (2009). To that end, it is rather a noble course to redefine this segment of the healthcare market. Taking into account the overwhelming realities of neglect and poor medical care for the elderly, Keep My Heart Adult Medical Day Care has singled out two specific segments of this market. The first segment refers to the elderly population suffering from Alzheimer’s disease and any other traumatic brain injuries. Ideally, this segment comprises persons aged 55 years and above most of whom have retired and are in their 60s. They will need professional attention and daily social health care to add value to their lives. The second segment relates to elderly persons suffering from other forms dementia other than Alzheimer’s disease. At this point, Keep My heart Adult Medical Day Care is interested in elderly patients who are not sick enough to live in nursing homes. As such, the proposed business venture will offer comfortable ambience for this segment thereby providing basic day care services for the ailing adults. Among other

UPS Invests Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

UPS Invests - Essay Example Many of these objectives are going to be attained by monitoring, fuel consumption which will mean that they will be able to use less fuel during their activities. Another thing that the company aims at by introducing the new technology is to encourage responsibility and accountability of their employees. With the new technology they will be able to monitor their activities throughout the world. There are a number of things that United Parcel Service is doing in the bid of embracing technology. They are fitting their delivery vans with sensors that enable them to collect data about the activities that these vans are involved in. For the data that is collected to be inclusive the sensors are installed various parts of the vehicles. The parts of the vehicles that are fitted with these sensors include: the brakes, engine boxes, and the accelerators. A combination of data collected from these parts can help in coming up with inclusive information on the performance of these vehicles. The data that they aim at collecting include information about the routes used by the vans, the amount of fuel consumed by the vans, and amount of time that the engines are left idle. Given that most of their parcel transportation takes place through air transport, they also aim at conserving flight fuel, moderating flight speed, and regulating the routes that are used by their flights. The sensors that are used by their trucks will also see to it that the consumption of fuel is minimized. Every morning the drivers are briefed on the data that was collected from the vehicle that they drive (Sobey, 2009). Apart from the briefing the company also offers advice to the drivers on things that they could do to make sure that their activities contributes to the sustainability of the company. There are a number of ways in which United Parcel Service will benefit from virtualization. The

Second Language Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Second Language - Assignment Example It is noticing that ensures that input becomes intake before any processing takes place. This is a pre-requisite for the learner's integration into the developing inter-language system. Noticing thus the first stage in second language acquisition. (Gass, 1988) Balestone emphasizes on the importance of noticing by calling the "real gateway to subsequent learning". (Balestone, 1994) This has been asserted by Lynch as well who claims that noticing is the most essential ingredient of successful language learning. (Lynch, 2001) Various other researchers have marked out and pointed the importance of noticing in second language acquisition. Sharwood and Rutherford are to name a few. They believe that noticing leads to the other subsequent stages before the language is acquired in its entirety. After noticing, the processing phase takes form and once processing starts, the language gets integrated into the learner's mind. However noticing can be of various, forms. It can be in both conscious as well as unconscious states of mind. According to some authors, the assertion that "noticing the gap" is a conscious process is not right. They feel that it can't be a conscious process and there are far too many differences in languages that can be acquired consciously. It is not as simple as it looks like, but is a rather complex. Apart from this Truscott has criticized these founding's claiming that the foundations of hypothesis in cognitive psychology is weak and it can't be based on rational theory of languages. He feels that noticing is not a very legitimate and strong factor in second language acquisition. He believes that noticing is only important for the acquisition of met linguistic language which is acquiring the ability to change words, fill gaps, adapt to sentence manipulations and dictate grammar rules. Noticing acts a mediary between the input and the memory systems. Spotlight consciousness is given by short term memory and is instantiated by various influences on noticing. These are the main factors that influence noticing: Instruction, silence, task demand, perceptual silence, skills, frequency and comparing. Instruction plays an important role in laying the foundations for expectation settings about the language which are noticed by observers and adapted accordingly. Another language feature that is of considerable importance is frequency which comes up due to repeated use of the language by teachers. This helps the learner notice the features of the language and eventually learn them accordingly. Skills set required to be incommunicado for a particular language is yet another important element that assists noticing of language in humans. Q2) Corrective Feedback in Second Language Learning What are the types of feedback Different terms have been used interchangeably that identify corrective feedback in the second language acquisition literature. Some of these terms are corrective feedback, negative evidence and negative feedback. According to Chaudron (Chaudron, 1992) the word corrective feedback can be layered down to mean different things. A "treatment of error" could mean any teaching behavior that follows after an error has been made. These steps aim to inform the learner of the facts of the error. The treatment will not be observed from the student's response but it would rather work to

Digital Image Metadata and Exif files - Forensics Research Paper

Digital Image Metadata and Exif files - Forensics - Research Paper Example (University of Reading, 2011) Data of raster images are represented in the form of a pixel which is the smallest part of a display screen. Each pixel represents the colour and its intensity. Raster is a display space of x and y grid for two dimension image and x, y and z coordinate for three dimension images. The raster images are difficult to modify without loosing any information as they are mapped directly to the raster space. The size of raster image files is usually far more than the size of vector image files. The most common types of raster images files include BMP, GIF, TIFF, JPEG and PNG. (Whatis.com?, 1997) Tagged Image File Format (TIFF) type of digital images contains complete information about the images and no data is lost when saved. It is generally referred as â€Å"lossless† format. Their sizes are too big to be suitable for delivery by web. (University of Reading, 2011) Joint Photographic Experts Group (JPEG) type of digital images compresses data when saved. It looses its data whenever any modification is done and therefore generally referred as â€Å"lossy† format. It is good for delivery of photographic images by web. (University of Reading, 2011) Graphical Interchange Format (GIF) type of digital images is used for icons and graphics having limited range of colours. It does not loose information when saved and therefore generally referred as â€Å"lossless† format. It is good only for some types of images and used mostly on internet. (University of Reading, 2011) Portable Network Graphics (PNG) type of digital images is added recently in graphics file types. It has better compression result and support true colours. It is high quality and small size digital image file. (University of Reading, 2011) Data of vector images on the other hand is represented by vector objects which are geometrical figures such as lines, circles, rectangles, curves and many more shapes of geometry. Scaling, transformation, resizing, and resha ping are accurately done on vector images as its data is based on mathematical instructions. The most common types of vector image files have extension of SVG. They are used in software that is dedicated towards drawing and illustration such as Adobe Flash, CorelDraw, Inkscape, ACD Canvas, etc. Figure 1 shows comparison between digital images of Raster and Vector types. (JISC Digital Media, 2009) Figure 1: Comparison of Raster Images and Vector Images (JISC Digital Media, 2009) Metadata Metadata is the digital information that describes structure and relationship amongst different contents of digital data files. Earlier databases stored metadata as headers of the actual data files. Metadata is stored in a separate database file generally referred as registry or repository. For example, Windows operating system have registry in which the structure of entire hardware, device drivers and actual data is stored. (Bargmeyer & Gillman) The simplest example of metadata is an index of a book which gives the name of the chapters in the book and page numbers where it is located. If an index is removed from the book, it becomes extremely difficult to find any chapter whenever some information is needed. Similarly, metadata helps in organizing, storing, processing, retrieving and displaying contents of a data file which is otherwise meaningless. Metadata adds meaning to a data file by interpreting its contents according to its context. Digital Image files did not have