A Burlesque Biography By Mark Twain English Literature Essay

A Burlesque Biography By Mark Twain English Literature Essay by Mark Twain (1835-1910) Two or three persons having at different times intimated that if I would write an autobiography they would read it when they got leisure, I yield at last to this frenzied public demand and herewith tender my history. Ours is a noble house, and stretches a long way back into antiquity. The earliest ancestor the Twains have any record of was a friend of the family by the name of Higgins. This was in the eleventh century, when our people were living in Aberdeen, county of Cork, England. Why it is that our long line has ever since borne the maternal name (except when one of them now and then took a playful refuge in an alias to avert foolishness), instead of Higgins, is a mystery which none of us has ever felt much desire to stir. It is a kind of vague, pretty romance, and we leave it alone. All the old families do that way. Arthour Twain was a man of considerable note–a solicitor on the highway in William Rufus’s time. At about the age of thirty he went to one of those fine old English places of resort called Newgate, to see about something, and never returned again. While there he died suddenly. Augustus Twain seems to have made something of a stir about the year 1160. He was as full of fun as he could be, and used to take his old saber and sharpen it up, and get in a convenient place on a dark night, and stick it through people as they went by, to see them jump. He was a born humorist. But he got to going too far with it; and the first time he was found stripping one of these parties, the authorities removed one end of him, and put it up on a nice high place on Temple Bar, where it could contemplate the people and have a good time. He never liked any situation so much or stuck to it so long. Then for the next two hundred years the family tree shows a succession of soldiers–noble, high-spirited fellows, who always went into battle singing, right behind the army, and always went out a-whooping, right ahead of it. Thi s is a scathing rebuke to old dead Froissart’s poor witticism that our family tree never had but one limb to it, and that that one stuck out at right angles, and bore fruit winter and summer. Early in the fifteenth century we have Beau Twain, called â€Å"the Scholar.† He wrote a beautiful, beautiful hand. And he could imitate anybody’s hand so closely that it was enough to make a person laugh his head off to see it. He had infinite sport with his talent. But by and by he took a contract to break stone for a road, and the roughness of the work spoiled his hand. Still, he enjoyed life all the time he was in the stone business, which, with inconsiderable intervals, was some forty-two years. In fact, he died in harness. During all those long years he gave such satisfaction that he never was through with one contract a week till the government gave him another. He was a perfect pet. And he was always a favorite with his fellow-artists, and was a conspicuous member o f their benevolent secret society, called the Chain Gang. He always wore his hair short, had a preference for striped clothes, and died lamented by the government. He was a sore loss to his country. For he was so regular.

Canon Digital Cameras Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 3500 words

Canon Digital Cameras - Essay Example The reason is that such companies have adopted effective strategies than relying on raw money power and propaganda. The lack of sensible strategy and the failure to use technology, combined with obsolete methods of marketing seems to be the bane of many companies who are not able to make a successful thrust in the market. Most ideas are either short sighted or serve only the immediate purposes of the company. Lack of professionalism is very evident in the management of many companies that has great potential. A very important aspect of business that still is a gray area for many business organizations is effective customer management. Canon's long 70-plus year history of expertise in the photographic industry positions us for such market leadership," said Yukiaki Hashimoto, senior vice president and general manager of the consumer imaging group at Canon U.S.A., Inc. "We are proud to be the camera of choice for consumers and professionals. We are the only camera company today that truly offers a full line of consumer and professional digital imaging solutions. By designing and manufacturing our own lenses, CMOS image sensors (found on the company's digital SLRs) and image processors, we can control both image quality and cost - ultimately providing consumers with the best digital imaging options.More than 60 years of experience and know-how,  Canon started out as a company with a handful of employees and a burning passion. That company soon became a world-renowned camera maker and is now a global multimedia corporation. However, the origins of our success remain unchanged: the passion of our early years and tech nological expertise amassed over more than 60 years.  

Banc one corporation (interest rate yield curve and how Banc One's Essay

Banc one corporation (interest rate yield curve and how Banc One's interest swaps impact the curve) - Essay Example These swaps had a significant impact on their portfolio. Initially, they engaged in fixed-receiving IRSs’ which provided them with an above-market return or implied yield. In this case, swaps assisted them in generating higher returns, and thus its yield curve witnessed an upward shift. However, this yield curve would be flat as the rate is fixed. Also, it is shift in the implied yield rather than a rising slope because the tenure of the investment remained the same. After this, Banc One changed gears and opted for investing in short-term floating rate instruments and then entering into medium-term receive-fixed swaps. This again boosted the yield for the corporation, and at the same time provided liquid investments. The advantages of this structured product greatly outweighed the disadvantages. As part of its ongoing strategy to invest in CMOs’, the bank began to consider the development of a synthetic swap which would cater to the CMO investments which Banc One had ma de. Amortized Interest Rate Swaps were introduced. In this derivative, the bank was receiving a fixed rate and paying a floating rate. However, there was a risk of prepayments of the mortgages in which the bank had invested in. If the interest rates were to fall, the amortization of the CDOs’ would increase rapidly and the bank would find itself with funds to reinvest in a depressed market.