What is spanglish Case Study Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

What is spanglish - Case Study Example Languages are alive and they are constantly changing. Incorporating new words that are generally used is part of the logical evolution of a language. But languages are also part of the cultural heritage of a country that must be respected. Language is part of a country's identity.The use of Spanglish in formal institutions must not be allowed,much less tolerated.Its inclusion in school curriculum in the interest of studying it as a social phenomenon is acceptable but only with the purpose of understanding today’s society. The major values of a nation are expressed by its language. The first thing people identify with is the language of their country and it is the means by which they express their ideas, their values and their feelings. Language is very powerful in that sense, as well as the accents of each region, but this is a characteristic that Spanglish will never have. Spanglish first appeared near the border of America and Mexico, where both languages lived together. The term Spanglish was coined by Salvador Ti' in 1940. Although the number of people speaking Spanish in English-speaking countries is increasingly high, this does not mean that English can disappear. Learning a language must be an enriching experience, which promotes diversity as well as nationality. Both English and Spanish are languages with a historic root, but Spanglish is just a mixture of two languages, which uses both in the same sentence, combining words from one and other or creating new words from the fusion of the two. A result of the collision of two languages, Spanglish takes different forms. The most basic form is "code-switching," where words are substituted or inserted from one language into the other. For example, Spanglish might sound like "Vamos a la store para comprar milk" to mean, "Let's go to the store to buy milk." A bit more complicated form is the making up of words, or basically switching between languages within a word, by translating a word or phrase literally. In all cases, the resulting language or product does not bear the generally acceptable correctness of grammar rules and word usage. Spanglish is completely random. This will only lead to the bad use and the degradation of both languages. Moreover, countries influenced by English and Spanish have the big advantage of being bilingual, and it makes no sense renouncing it to this. Mexicans usually see Spanish as a symbol of colonization. But, does Spanglish have something to do with rejecting domination, or is it more like a trendy use of language' In some cases, Spanglish is the language of poor illiterate population trying to adapt to the changing situation. In other cases it is a matter of being part of the majority and using the same words as the major part of the population but, in fact, they are submitting to this majority instead of enriching their differences. The proliferation of a hybrid street language like Spanglish in dominantly English-speaking United States poses a serious threat not only to the socio-cultural aspect of the country's development, but also to its economic and political growth. Why is Spanglish a threat to the overall development of the U.S.' Foremost, the language of politics and commerce is English. In a highly globalized economy of nations, there is only one language used: English. It is in no way, therefore, that a mangled and fake English in the form of Spanglish can help facilitate the nation's coping and rising above the challenges brought about by globalization. Secondly, it is culturally unwell for any nation, much less the U.S., to uphold and encourage the proliferation of "languages" like Spanglish as doing so would show the people and the world as a whole a lack of healthy cultural identity. While it is understandably necessary to allow Spanglish to be used in places and in instances where it is the most convenient to use, given the growing diversity of communities in the United States, it is very important that the long-term benefits and losses from allowing it to prosper be considered over and above everything else. For instance, the use of Spanglish must be confined to the streets, where it actually originated and developed. It can also be used by people in their multicultural homes and neighborhoods

The Economic Reform of China Essay Example for Free

The Economic Reform of China Essay In the late 1970s, China initiated a full-scale economic reform in rural and urban parts of the country, because of the economic reform China has transformed itself from a centrally planned economy to an emerging market economy and at the same time its economy has achieved nearly a 9.5 percent average growth rate. The pace of China’s growth is not unique — Korea, Singapore and other economies in East Asia grew as fast in the 1970s and 1980s. What is unprecedented historically is its scale. The size of China’s population, market and geography, and the dynamism that flowed from economic reform and transformation are what define its impact on the rest of the world. Despite a still relatively low per capita income, the sheer size of the Chinese economy has made China a significant player in world production, consumption, trade and increasingly international finance and the environment. The historic decision on â€Å"reform and opening-up† made at the Third Plenum of the CCP Eleventh Party Congress on December 18-22, 1978, marked the beginning of China’s reform era. At the time, China had a clear desire to increase productivity and raise living standards by reforming its economic system and structure, but it did not have a clear objective of what the new system would be like. Furthermore, the reform did not have a well-designed strategy or policy measures. China’s economic reform was often distinguished from the market reform of the Soviet Union and many former socialist countries in Eastern Europe. First, unlike the case of the Soviet Union, China did not change its political system and was able to maintain political stability. Second, China’s reform process did not have a blueprint. Each step was taken after drawing the experience of the previous step. As Deng put it, the process was like a person walking across the river by feeling the rocks in each step. This characteristic was necessitated by the lack of knowledge of what kind of market economy was suitable for China on the part of the leaders. They had  to learn by experimentation. Secondly, experimentation helped convince the party members of the validity of the new institutions. The slogan â€Å"to build an economic system with Chinese characteristics† was introduced in the early 1980’s and remains in constant use in the early 2000’s. â€Å"Chinese characteristics† mean the results of experimentation that are shown to work for China. This slogan also implies that the Chinese leaders are pragmatic and not confined to a set of old Communist ideology. Recall Deng Xiaoping’s famous statement, â€Å"it does not matter whether a cat is black or white as long as it catches mice.† Pragmatism over ideology is an important trait of China’s reform process. China’s reform measures that resulted from experimentation include the â€Å"household responsibility system† in agriculture, autonomy and the †contract responsibility system† for state industrial enterprises, the free economic zones as experiments for foreign trade and investment policies, and the introduction of share-holding companies in Jiang Zemin’s report of September 1997 partly as a result of the successful experience of some small and medium sized state enterprises that was initiated by the individual enterprises themselves. One advantage of China’s economic condition over that of the Soviet Union at the early stage of reform was that the Chinese farmers knew how to farm as private farmers. Collective farming was introduced under the Commune System only in 1958, twenty years before the reform. The farmers still remembered how to farm and they also had some practice in 1963-1965 during the president of Liu Shaoqi who introduced some elements of private farming after the economic collapse of the Great Leap Forward Movement of 1958-62. On the other hand collective farming had been introduced in the 1930’s, sixty years before the reform of the Soviet economy in the early 1990’s. Russian farmers did not know how to farm as individual farmers. The large increase of agricultural productivity in China served as the basis for further economic growth and reform. In 1977, Deng Xiaoping made it clear that performance should be the main consideration in the economic and social advancement of individuals. In  other words, professionalism and results should count. Furthermore, he emphasized the importance of academics and scientists for the future of the economic development and the international standing of China. He thought that this should be more widely recognized by the Chinese people. During 1978, Deng Xiaoping’s reform philosophy gained growing support in the CCP and its desirability was accepted in December 1978 at the Third Plenary Session of the Eleventh Central Committee. This session proved to be a turning point in the direction of China’s policies for its economic and social development. It was decided at this meeting that the system and methods of economic management in China would be transformed; economic co-operation with other countries would be expanded; special efforts would be made to adopt the world’s advanced technologies and equipment; and that scientific and educational work would be greatly strengthened to meet the needs of modernization. The importance of the four modernizations (modernizing agriculture, industry, national defense, science and technology) was emphasized. 2.0. Meaning of reform 2.1. Agriculture Beginning in 1978 several major institutional reforms have been undertaken. First is the adoption of the household responsibility system in agriculture. Collective farming under the Commune system introduced by Mao in 1958 in the Great Leap Forward Movement was being practiced. Farmers worked as a team consisting of some forty persons. A farmer could not get extra reward by working harder because all members of the team would share the additional output due to his additional labor. Chinese farmers deserved credit for initiating reform in agriculture. Some farmers realized that if they farmed separately the team could produce more in total and still delivered the same amount of output required by the procurement system for government distribution of agricultural products in the economy. The Commune system was changed as the team was reorganized by distributing its land to individual households to farm separately, each getting the additional reward for additional labor after delivering a fixed amount of  output to the team for delivery to the government procurement agencies. Such practice was introduced and spread in many areas of the country. In 1978, Deng recognized its beneficial effects and adopted it as a national policy and called it the â€Å"household responsibility system.† Agricultural output increased rapidly in China. The farmers became richer. The success of reform in agriculture served as the foundation of reform in other sectors not only by increasing the supply of food but also by changing the ideological thinking of Communist Party members in support of a market economy. 2.2. State-owned Enterprises Reform of Chinese state enterprises is an example of a gradual approach to economic reform through experimentation. The first was to give state enterprises some autonomy in production, marketing and investment decisions rather than simply carrying out the decisions under a system of central planning. The experiment began in late 1978 with six enterprises in Sichuan Province. By the end of June 1980, 6,600 industrial enterprises that were allowed to make such autonomous decisions produced about 45 percent of the total output of all state industrial enterprises. The second was to make them financially independent, allowing them to keep the earnings as their own profits after paying taxes to the state, rather than as revenue belonging to the government. The third was to introduce a responsibility system similar to the household responsibility system in agriculture, first to selected parts of the enterprise under the important reform Decision of the Central Committee of the Communist Party in October 1984, and later to an enterprise in 1987. Under the responsibility system, a part of an enterprise was allowed to keep the remaining profit after surrendering a fixed amount to the enterprise controlling it. In 1987, further reform of the state enterprises was carried out under the â€Å"contract responsibility system.† After paying a fixed tax to the government having jurisdiction over it, each state enterprise was allowed to keep the remaining profit for distribution to its staff and workers and for capital investment. Within one year in 1987, almost all state enterprises were under the new â€Å"contract responsibility system.† The idea of such a system sounded appealing to the economic officials who designed it, as witnessed by the  author who participated at meetings with these officials. However, the incentives provided under the system turned out to be less impressive than expected. First, the so-called fixed levy to each enterprise was not really fixed but was subject to change depending on the profits of the enterprise. The tax was increased when the profits were higher than expected. This partly destroyed the incentives provided by a fixed levy, which would not interfere with the optimal marginal cost and benefit calculations of the enterprise. Secondly, the additional revenue was not put into good use. The managers could not receive sufficient compensation because a high salary to management was socially and ideologically unacceptable. When profits were high the workers received additional compensation in the form of durable goods such as color TV sets and refrigerators because money wage had to follow a fixed scale nationally. The additional reward was not dependent on additional effort. Third, investment policy might not be optimal in the sense that risk taking by a manager was not sufficiently compensated. Forth, the quality of the managers was poor in general because they were not trained under a free market system. Bureaucracy and personal connections determined the selection of manager to a considerable extent. Significant steps on state enterprise reform were taken in the late 1990’s as stated in the important report of Jiang Zemin to the Congress of the Communist Party in September 1997. China government was to give up ownership and control of small and medium sized state enterprises while keeping the control of large enterprises. Shares were issued for a small or medium enterprise, to be purchased by its managers and staff. The state would give up most of its shares. This would help an infusion of capital to the enterprise. In many instances, the incentives provided to the workers who share a part of the profits were significant. The large enterprises can be transformed to various forms depending on the circumstances, but most of these enterprises were to become shareholding companies of one kind or another, with the state controlling the majority shares. From my point of view, changing the form of ownership on paper alone could not and does not make the enterprise efficient. First, the management itself may not be improved. The lack of qualified managers of modern corporations in China cannot be resolved by such reform. Second, many managers were still selected  by personal connections under the Chinese bureaucratic system. One manager told the author that the new system did not change the supervision and authority his former bosses. These same people now became members of the board under the new system. Some managers also complained that the time spent on committee and board meetings increased under the new system. In some instances, the government was willing to sell the entire enterprise to a foreign investor, especially a person of Chinese decent living in Hong Kong or a South Eastern Asian country. There are examples of successful transformation of large state enterprises. 2.3. The Banking and Financial Sector When the planning system was being changed from â€Å"compulsory† planning to â€Å"guidance† planning as stipulated by the October 1984 Decision of the Central Committee of the Communist Party a macro-economic control mechanism was to be introduced which required a more modern banking system. Before economic reform, the People’s Bank was a mono-bank that had branches to accept deposits from the public. Its other functions were to issue currency and to extend loans to state enterprises according to the need specified and approved by the planning authority. It had no authority to decide on these loans. Commercial banks did not exist in the sense of being able to extend credits to enterprises according to the criterion of profitability. In 1983 the People’s Bank was nominally transformed into a central bank. Specialized banks, including the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, Agricultural Bank of China and the People’s Construction Bank of China, were established and given some autonomy in the extension of credits in the early 1980’s in the same way that state industrial enterprises were given autonomy to make production decisions. This led to the rapid increase in the supply of currency in 1984 by 50% and an inflation rate of 8.8% by the overall retail price index in 1985. Reforms of the banking system to serve a market economy (as the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party declared China’s economy to be a socialist market economy in October 1992) progressed gradually in the late 1980’s and early 1990’s. In November 1993, the Third Plenum of the 14th Central Committee of the Communist Party decided to accelerate reform of the financial sector by giving more independence to the People’s Bank as a central bank and transforming the specialized banks to  commercial banks. Two significant dates are March 18, and May 10, 1995, when the People’s Congress passed respectively the Law on The People’s Bank of China and the Commercial Banking Law. Although there the provisions of these laws were not actually carried out in practice, the laws provide a blueprint for the banking system and serve as a convenient framework for us to understand the working of the system. Banking reform is one important example to demonstrate the rule that institutions cannot be changed by legislation alone. Besides the banking system, other financial institutions were changed. In 1981 the government formed the China International Trust and Investment Corporation (CITIC) to attract foreign capital. Similar investment trusts under the sponsorship of provincial governments followed. Stock markets in Shanghai and Shenzhen were established in the early 1990s. As pensions were provided under a new social security system, pension funds became an important source for savings and investment. The domestic insurance business, after being suspended for over twenty years, was reopened. Foreign insurance companies have been allowed to operate in China. The financial sector can be expected to expand further as foreign companies enter under the provisions of the WTO. 2.4. Education system Concerning the education system, while China had a combination of private and public schools at all levels before 1949, the education system was drastically changed in the early 1950’s. All schools were brought under government control, with private schools and universities taken over by public educational organizations. Higher education was modeled after the Soviet education system. Universities were broken up into colleges specializing in technical training. The special technical schools were administered by the government units requiring the services of their graduates. The operation of the education system was seriously interrupted by the Cultural Revolution, with many colleges and universities closed and school enrollment drastically reduced. Ever since economic reform started China’s educational system quickly returned to normal and began to improve. Universities were opened after the interruptions of the Cultural Revolution. Students were given opportunities to take examinations to enter universities and graduate schools. Intellectuals who had been criticized and mistreated were restored to their previous status and given due respect. People were eager to learn. Students seized upon their educational opportunities and studied diligently. The population as a whole wanted to absorb new ideas and knowledge from the outside world since they had been deprived of such knowledge when China was closed to the outside world. Foreign scholars and professionals of all kinds were invited to China to lecture, in schedules so full that even enthusiastic lecturers became exhausted. The Ministry of Education and the State Education Commission from 1985 to 1998, sponsored programs to cooperate with foreign educational institutions to improve education in China. At the same time individual universities were given the freedom to invite foreign scholars to lecture and they did so effectively. Students were sent abroad to study, and were permitted to go abroad by their own initiatives. Modern textbooks were adopted in university courses. Efforts were made to translate modern texts into Chinese and to write new texts in Chinese. As time went on, the skill in modern languages especially English improved rapidly and texts in English began to be adopted. 3.0. Conclusion In summary economic reform consisted of changes in agriculture system, reform of state enterprises, reform of banking and financial sector, and education system, which the changes taking place step by step depending on the results of and experience gained in previous steps. Many shortcomings of the China’s economic reform remain, but rapid economic growth continues. China’s economic development cannot be understood without taking into account its historical, political and cultural background. Based on the above discussion, we may learn seven major lessons from Chinese economic reforms. First, the most important principle for a successful transition from a planned economy to a market economy is pragmatism. Second, the incremental approach generates the momentum from earlier reform success and thus provides a political basis for the further reforms. Third, successful reforms rely on political support, which in turn depend on delivering tangible benefits to a large majority of the population. In addition, there are high international hopes that China will continue to be an engine  contributing to global economic growth for some time to come and signs of economic recovery in China have strengthened global economic confidence in recovery from the current economic recession.

Organ Donation Essay examples -- Papers Organ Donor Medical Health Ess

Organ Donation Organ donation is a topic which contains many conflicting views. To some of the public population organ donation is a genuine way of saving the life of another, to some it is mistrusted and to others it is not fully understood. There are some techniques that can be used to increase donation. Of these techniques the most crucial would be being educated. If the life threatening and the critical shortage of organs was fully understood by the public, organ donation would more likely be on the rise. An effort is needed throughout the world to make people aware of the benefits this process contains. Advances in medical technology have made it possible to save someone?s life by a process of organ donation. However, the scarcity of available organs is bringing the beneficial process down. By becoming an organ donor, people engage in improving someone else?s life at no cost. Although the question of religious or moral cost comes into effect, virtually there is no physical cost of becoming an organ donor. Organ donation should be seen as the "gift of life" but there are not enough logical explanations to explain this phrase. Whether people are donors, non-donors or recipients, all the public should be aware that organ donation is for the common welfare. Organ Donation-Why People Become Donors The main reason an individual becomes an organ donor is to give someone the "gift of life." By giving someone this privilege a person feels they are adding to another person?s life. Some reasons people give this gift is simply from having a kind heart, they may find the other person?s use for the organ more important than their need or maybe just because they just have no use for t... ...ic is underway. This effort is referred to as the Coalition on Donation and Advertising Council. The goal of this coalition is to ensure every individual in the U.S. understands the need for organ donation and accepts it as a human responsibility. Organ Donation-Ways to Increase Awareness organ donation is in serious need for more participants. Medical technology has made it possible to give people a second chance at life and our public population is bringing this chance down. Educational efforts remain most important to increase the success of donation. The public needs to recognize the benefits of such a process. The role of a family must also improve. Although families have the authority to refuse donation of their deceased one, they also have the opportunity to give a person a second chance of life, or better said the ?gift of life."

Prescription Privileges

1: Prescription Privileges Some of the current changes that can be seen in regards to prescription privileges include changes in the ways that physicians and mental health professionals are able to prescribe medications to their patients. According to Brenda Smith of the APA (2012), currently patients receive their medications for psychological conditions by a physician usually without having been evaluated by a mental health practitioner according to the CDC. The trend includes individuals to visit their general health practitioners in order to receive psychotropic medications such as antidepressants and anxiolytics. The problem with individuals receiving these medications from other sources include: deterrence from alternate treatment interventions that include CBT or psychoanalysis. Changes currently described as happening in the realm of prescription privileges include the expansion of prescription writing privileges to mental health professional such as license psychologists that are well-versed in psychopharmacology as well as the dangers of overuse and over prescription of psychotropic medications. According to the American psychological Association (Smith, 2012), several states programs for psychologists designed in respect to prescription privileged programs have been approved. The states include Louisiana, New Mexico and the US armed forces. Additionally according to the American psychological Association (Smith, 2012), there are several bills being considered in many other states regarding the expansion of prescription drug privileges but many of these measures have been met by opposition from the American Medical Association and the American psychiatric Association due to concerns about the adequacy of each training programs in dispensing of prescription medication and overall patient safety. . Changes in Ethics of Drug Treatment Some of the decisive changes described above in the ethical use of drug treatments for individuals that might have a psychological disorder include the consideration of clinical level testing for psychotropic medication prescription. Special attention should be giving to understanding informed consent and any challenges that may be presented and prescribing ethically medications to special populations such as children. According to the Gerald Tietz of the Washington law review (1986), indicates that it is well within a practitioner’s scope of duty to inform the patient of significant effects were injuries that may be related to the prescribing of any particular pharmacological treatment. This informed consent should be expanded to include the harms were dangerous presented also with non-use of additional treatment interventions such as therapy or CBT. Additional trends identified in ambulance pediatrics (Cooper, Arbogast & Ding, 2006), or the trends and the prescription of antipsychotic medications for children in the United States of America. The information taken from the national ambulatory medical care survey in regards to the US population indicated that between 1995 and 2002 there were nearly 6,000,000 visits to health providers by children in the US that had been subscribed or prescribed antipsychotic medications. Nearly 1/3 of the prescriptions for lease populations were provided by non-mental health service professionals. The study of the department of pediatrics at Vanderbilt University in Nashville also indicated that over half of the prescriptions for these children were given based on behavioral indications or affective disorders which find a way have not been fully studied for use in children. These changes tend to speak more towards the trends and blocking of measures to expand prescription privileges due to the fact that they affect children as a special group. It appears that the special groups and factors such as overprescribing of psychotropic medications fueled a change in the ethics of drug treatment. As these factors become rectified, so will be trends were changes towards allowing privilege of prescription to mental health professionals and expansion of ethical considerations for those individuals prescribing these drugs.

Analysis Act 1 Othello

Name: Adeisha Pierre Class: U6:3 Subject: Literature OTHELLO ACT 1 Lighting is important as it extends Shakespeare’s thematic concerns with the lightness and darkness of character and skin. Play begins in darkness. Entirety of Act one is in darkness. Critic: Norman Sanders: â€Å"The darkness helps to reveal Iago’s character because it is set in the night and it highlights the dark and devilish nature of his character. † The darkness feeds Iago’s malicious nature. Textual evidence: Iago: â€Å"Hell and night/ Must bring this monstrous birth to the world’s light. We see Iago’s obsession with evil. The darkness that Act one is enshrined in gives Iago the power he needs to plot against and deceive each character he communicates with. For instance he appears to be loyal to Othello whilst simultaneously uttering, â€Å"I hate the Moor. † Iago is Caucasian and is therefore referred to as having â€Å"white† skin. This purity and ligh t that the colour white is associated with however, does not extend to his character as Iago is too consumed by dark thoughts.Contrastingly, Othello who is an African Moor and therefore dark in complexion does not let his outward appearance interfere with his inner greatness. This is evident when the Duke says to Brabianto in Scene 3: â€Å"Your son-in-law is far more fair than black. † Shakespeare is extending the idea that man should not be judged by his race or outward appearance but rather by his merit. Language: Imagery used to unveil Iago’s mysterious character. (The image of Janus, Roman God with two faces. Iago swears by this God which is appropriate as Janus two faced-nesses or doubled personality facilitates Iago’s duplicative nature. Iago’s words turn into action. He acts one way with Othello and another way behind Othello’s back. This is why even though he is deceitful and malicious the characters on stage refer to him as â€Å"honest Iago. † His two faced-nesses therefore give him the power he needs to plot and manipulate. Textual reference: Othello says, â€Å"Honest Iago, / My Desdemona must I leave to thee: / I prithee, let thy wife attend on her: / And bring them after in the best advantage. At the end of the scene, when Iago is hatching his plan against Othello, he comments that â€Å"The Moor is of a free and open nature, / That thinks men honest that but seem to be so, / And will as tenderly be led by the nose / As asses are† Iago knows that Othello considers him honest, and he is planning on using that in his dishonest plans. Iago’s ability to wheel power spirals a series of events which is detrimental to most Characters. Shakespeare is letting the audience know to be careful of who they trust. Shakespeare challenges the racial stereotype and the norms of the Elizabethan era when he makes Othello the governor of Cyprus.Significant as it show the audience that despite societies norms people can still excel. Reinforces the idea of judging a man based on merit rather than race. War as a symbol of Othello’s struggle to find a balance between his Muslim/African background and his new status in Venice: The tension between Venice and Turkish fleet is a representation of Othello’s internal conflict. Turks are Muslim and so is Othello. He is therefore fighting a war against himself. It represents the conflict between â€Å"valiant†, â€Å"fair† Othello and the barbarity which takes place within him.

How to End a Sentence (A Guide to Terminal Punctuation)

How to End a Sentence (A Guide to Terminal Punctuation) How to End a Sentence (A Guide to Terminal Punctuation) Punctuation marks that can be used to end a sentence are known as a â€Å"terminal† punctuation. But what exactly are your options in this respect? Check out our guide to terminal punctuation to find out. The Period The period (sometimes also known as a â€Å"full stop†) is the most common type of terminal punctuation. They are used for any sentences that are not questions or exclamations. For instance: Brevity is the soul of wit. This finality is why people say â€Å"period† at the end of a sentence to emphasize a point. Furthermore, we see the same punctuation mark used for: Decimal points (e.g., 3.1415) Abbreviations (e.g., â€Å"Prof.† or â€Å"Dr.†) Ellipses (i.e., a series of three dots used to indicate an omission [†¦]) The period is therefore very versatile! Technically, however, it only counts as â€Å"terminal punctuation† when used at the end of a sentence. The Question Mark We use question marks to show that a written sentence is a question. This only applies, however, when asking a direct question. For an indirect question (i.e., a question within a statement), we use a period instead: Direct Question: Is brevity the soul of wit? Indirect Question: He asked me whether brevity is the soul of wit. Finally, you can use either a period or a question mark after a rhetorical question. Make sure to apply punctuation consistently if you ask more than one rhetorical question in a document, though. The Exclamation Point Exclamation points are the most enthusiastic punctuation marks. We use them when we want to show that something is surprising or exciting, or to express strong emotions in general: Help! My writing lacks brevity and therefore wit! Here, for example, the exclamation marks indicate urgency (or possible panic). You can also use an exclamation point in fictional dialogue to show that a character is shouting or speaking loudly. â€Å"How witty!† Tim whooped in excitement. Keep in mind, though, that exclamation points lose their impact if overused. They are therefore best used sparingly, and you may want to avoid them completely in formal or academic writing. Summary: What Is Terminal Punctuation? Terminal punctuation indicates the end of a sentence. These marks include: Periods – Used for any sentence that is not a question or exclamation Question marks – Used to indicate a direct question Exclamation points – Used to express surprise or strong feelings If you need help with the punctuation in your writing, check out our services. Terminal punctuation marks.

Free Essays on Teenage Runaways

Teenage Runaways How many times did you vow as a teenager that you would run away when your parents wouldn’t allow you to go out? Allow me to paint a picture for you. You’re packing your bags while grumbling about how tough life is at your age. Pink hair, black nails and a nose ring are all that matters in high school. Meanwhile, your parents are calmly standing at the door watching you with concerned yet confident looks knowing that the driveway, maybe even the mailbox, will be your farthest attempt. However, what if you went to a shelter? What if you ended up on the streets? Is your local city bench better than a warm bed? Now, let us replace those loving parents with angry, screaming and abusive ones. Would the situation change and seem more comprehensible? For some central Florida teens the mean streets of Orlando and other large nationwide cities are much more welcoming than their very own home. However, why do young teens run away? Where do most go? And what are city committees doing about this rising epidemic? A child who runs away usually has left home to escape or avoid an unpleasant environment. Most motives in teenagers for running away range from escaping recurrent abusive experiences at home to self improvement where they hope to change or stop whatever negative activity they are doing or about to do ( Conner par. 3). If, as a parent, you are unaware of your child’s friends and who they have close relations and contact with on a regular basis, than the likeliness of your child running away is mounting. An ever-present distance between child and parent is one of the many warning signs in troubled and potential runaways ( Conner par. 7). In addition to unfamiliarity in a child’s network of friends, abusive, irrational and emotional behavior are also key indicators. In this day and age as a parent one may think it impossible to know everyone your child hangs out with or comes in contact with. I... Free Essays on Teenage Runaways Free Essays on Teenage Runaways Teenage Runaways How many times did you vow as a teenager that you would run away when your parents wouldn’t allow you to go out? Allow me to paint a picture for you. You’re packing your bags while grumbling about how tough life is at your age. Pink hair, black nails and a nose ring are all that matters in high school. Meanwhile, your parents are calmly standing at the door watching you with concerned yet confident looks knowing that the driveway, maybe even the mailbox, will be your farthest attempt. However, what if you went to a shelter? What if you ended up on the streets? Is your local city bench better than a warm bed? Now, let us replace those loving parents with angry, screaming and abusive ones. Would the situation change and seem more comprehensible? For some central Florida teens the mean streets of Orlando and other large nationwide cities are much more welcoming than their very own home. However, why do young teens run away? Where do most go? And what are city committees doing about this rising epidemic? A child who runs away usually has left home to escape or avoid an unpleasant environment. Most motives in teenagers for running away range from escaping recurrent abusive experiences at home to self improvement where they hope to change or stop whatever negative activity they are doing or about to do ( Conner par. 3). If, as a parent, you are unaware of your child’s friends and who they have close relations and contact with on a regular basis, than the likeliness of your child running away is mounting. An ever-present distance between child and parent is one of the many warning signs in troubled and potential runaways ( Conner par. 7). In addition to unfamiliarity in a child’s network of friends, abusive, irrational and emotional behavior are also key indicators. In this day and age as a parent one may think it impossible to know everyone your child hangs out with or comes in contact with. I...

Beware Web Quizzes

Beware Web Quizzes Beware Web Quizzes Beware Web Quizzes By Maeve Maddox Most of us have probably been sucked in by one of the thousands of quizzes that proliferate on the Web as a form of entertainment. My weakness is anything language-related. One that lured me recently has the title â€Å"Can You Pass an 8th Grade Test from 1912?† I should have been suspicious as soon as I saw that the quiz is multiple-choice. In 1912, the multiple-choice test had not yet begun its insidious invasion of the American classroom. Nevertheless, I took the quiz and was brought up short by Question 14: In the sentence ‘John ran over the bridge,’ parse the word ‘bridge.’ Here are the answer options: a) Singular noun, subject of sentence b) Regular verb, active voice, present tense c) Singular noun, object of sentence d) A structure built to span physical obstacles such as a body of water What, I wondered, is one supposed to do when none of the answers is correct? What do American school children do when presented with a multiple-choice question? Guess, of course. I knew that John is the subject and that ran is the verb. I knew that the fourth choice has nothing to do with parsing, so I clicked on the third choice and was told that I was CORRECT! Here’s the â€Å"explanation† of my â€Å"correct† answer: It is â€Å"Singular noun, object of sentence.† â€Å"Parsing† used to be a common term in schools. In this case, â€Å"bridge† is an [sic] noun, and it is the object on which the action occurs. I tracked down the unaltered 1912 test. This is the source of the â€Å"John ran over the bridge† question: Parse all the words in the following sentence: John ran over the bridge. Not a great many years ago, certainly since 1912, parsing was a common term in my own classroom. I learned the value of teaching grammar via parsing when I taught in a private school in London. Students parse a sentence by identifying each word in it according to its part of speech. Younger children simply name the part of speech. Older children state such things as function, gender, case, etc. For example: John- proper noun, subject of â€Å"ran† ran- verb, third person singular, intransitive over- preposition the- definite article bridge- common noun, object of the preposition â€Å"over.† Web quizzes may be fun, but they can also be a source of misinformation. 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 General category, check our popular posts, or choose a related post below:Writing Prompts 101"Latter," not "Ladder"

GARMIN Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

GARMIN - Essay Example Sales volume and high levels of customer demand point toward Garmin’s strengths in the GPS marketplace. In 2007, Garmin company announced that 75 cents per share dividends would be included for investors as a reward for the company’s sales performance (Hough, 2008). Garmin has only recently paid dividends after being in business for 20 years, which indicates sizeable growth in sales which can likely be attributed to consumer satisfaction regarding the product. One of the main strengths of a company is its ability to lure investors and use stock equities to boost capital. Garmin’s ability to pay handsome dividends and the company’s commitment to investor relations represent the firm’s largest strengths. Additionally, Garmin has recently signed a six-year agreement with NAVTEQ, the digital map supplier responsible for the majority of Garmin’s electronic GPS routes (Annual Report). NAVTEQ will continue to provide map assistance and upgrades, allowing the company to maintain focus on its brand and remain a leader in effective and accurate GPS technologies. The company’s main weakness is an external issue involving the current economic climate across the United States. Consumer wealth is diminishing and it is relatively common knowledge that customers are scaling back on purchases in order to sustain a quality lifestyle. This change is most noticeable with Garmin’s stock price shift from nearly $100 to $19 in 2008 (Hough). The majority of Garmin’s products are designed for the consumer rather than on a B2B model (business-to-business) which creates a situation in which the company must understand its consumer and create products which will be in high demand in difficult economic climates. Garmin’s main opportunity lies in marketing and its ability to create effective sales and marketing promotions to build brand loyalty. With such a high volume of competition in the GPS market, Garmin

The Impacts of Sequestration on the Department of Defense Research Paper

The Impacts of Sequestration on the Department of Defense - Research Paper Example Reductions of federal funding across the boards, also known as sequestrations have had a considerable impact on the fiscal years prior to, and during 2014. It not only reduced optional operations, but also cut down on the direct spending of the federal budget (Epstein, 2013). This has led to widespread concerns about the Department of Defense’s personnel, reallocation budget, customer’s service and other such details. The federal budget cuts affected the Department of Defense Human Resources Management in several important ways. The former level of readiness, although sustained, has experienced an irrecoverable deficit due to a decade of counterinsurgency operations (Roulo, 2014). According to the Department of Defense website, the current President Budget promises to restore the equilibrium between readiness and planned force structure. The Budget Control Act (BCA) of 2011 encumbers this shift to the mission of Department of Defense. This is due to the fact that the reduced funding levels have decreased not only the number of trained personnel, but also hampered the maintenance of ground vehicle and aviation. Furthermore, the flying hours of Navy and Marine Corps are to be decreased, which would also result in decreasing the levels of their readiness (Estimated Impacts of Sequestration-Level Funding, 2014). Such are the impacts of sequestration that there has been a radical expected drawdown to 450,000 active soldiers, 335,000 in the Army National Guard and 202,000 reservists by the end of 2015 fiscal year. (Roulo,2014) These reductions will further lead to the Department of Defense relying more on National Guard. The Army personnel and readiness are perhaps facing the greatest drawback as almost 70 percent of the total cut-downs are facing in its direction. The Army, for instance cancelled seven combat training sessions and skilled personnel was lost due to frozen salaries (Roulo, 2014). This reiterates the Department of Defense concern about

American History after World War II Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1750 words

American History after World War II - Essay Example In 1960s, this paper highlights the ways in which the American populations were affected by the Vietnam war despite of fact that the war was not fought on their land. In 1970s, this paper discusses on Nixon's Watergate scandal which was the biggest scandal exposed in the history of America and how it leads to awareness of regulating authorities, mass media and citizens. In 1980s, this paper discusses the economic boom led by the economics of President Reagan and provides brief literature on its effects on American industries and financial system. In 1990s, this paper displays the ways in which the America emerged as a super power in the world after end of cold war and its effect on the foreign policies of America. In 1950s, the impact of the "McCarthy" on American people was uniformly evident in the area of international affairs. (Schrecker, 2002) Antagonism to the "Cold War" had been so methodically acknowledged with socialism that it was no longer feasible to defy the fundamental postulations of American foreign policy devoid of gaining doubts of treachery. The uncertainty raised by "Joseph McCarthy" distressed the State Department for very long tenure, particularly with reference to East Asia. (Schrecker, 2002) "Joseph McCarthy's" association with the unremitting intellectual experience that bearded his name in history of America commenced with a speech on "Lincoln Day, February 9, 1950," to the Republican Women's Club of Wheeling by demonstrating an alleged list of identified Communists functioning for the State Department. (Schrecker, 2002) Whilst there were added reasons why television presented a featureless menu of quiz shows and Westerns in late 1950s, apprehensions in the period of McCarthy undoubtedly played a key role. Correspondingly, the blacklist contributed towards the disinclination of the silver screen industry to struggle with contentious social or biased issues. (Fried, 1991) The political inhibition of the McCarthy phase encouraged the growth of the national security state and assisted its growth into the rest of communal society. For the sake of shielding the country from communist penetration, federal agents harassed individual privileges and extended state influence into film studios, academies, work unions and many other seemingly self-regulating institutions. (Fried, 1991) Countless Americans lives and jobs were gone astray owing to McCarthy and his allegations. Hollywood's cream of the crop opposed politician's consent to control their employing practices but subsequent to the "HUAC" hearings the "blacklists" embarked on in Hollywood restricting employers to hire people who were acknowledged as communist in the blacklist. (Fried, 1991) The blacklists stayed in Hollywood while in the Government agencies over 2,000,000 employees were subjected to loyalty investigations no matter what their status was. Businesses akin to "General Electric, General Motors, CBS, the New York Times, New York City Board of Education and the United Auto Workers" (Fried, 1991) were forced to pursue Hollywood's

BOOTS and ALLIANCE in talks over 7.5bn merger Essay

BOOTS and ALLIANCE in talks over 7.5bn merger - Essay Example Companies and Supermarkets now have the liberty to set up in-store pharmacies, which poses a danger to key pharmaceutical players like BOOTS and Alliance. In an analysis published in biotech-info.net- Due to the softening of rules and the law, BOOTS is facing stiff competition from other pharmaceutical retailing majors such as TESCO, which enjoyed and continues to enjoy a place of dominance and monopoly in the market. Tougher competition from the supermarkets has forced Mr. Baker of BOOTS to cut the price of his products in an attempt to prop up the so far lukewarm sales, although this has put some further pressure on the profit and operating margins. As such, both the firms have decided that it is time to join hands in order to compete effectively in the market and also to improve upon their current individual deficiencies. The present deal is expected to give the new firm an industry share of nearly up to 20%. But the present deal has been met with a lot of speculation especially f rom the institutional shareholders who generally regard such nil-premium mergers with skepticism. The companies, intend to seek support for the deal by outlining the capacity of the new merged outfit’s capacity to generate significant cost and purchasing synergies and boost margins. The company ascertains that it would be in a better position to handle the competition faced by it from TESCO. The company also proposes to start smoking and weight-loss clinics and creating beauty parlors in the group’s stores throughout Europe.

Select a health care law topic from the assigned readings. Present an Term Paper

Select a health care law topic from the assigned readings. Present an executive summary of the law in 200 words or less, and dis - Term Paper Example Applicable industry standards, statutes, federal laws and ethical guidelines Ethics and laws imply that physicians inform patients of the limit to which confidentiality protection of disclosure of personal information is allowed. This is because a patient requires privacy which should be respected by the physician. Federal statutes allow physicians to diagnose death which should be made in line with industry standards Statutes or federal laws may also require that a medical case be disclosed in fear of further spread. Applicable Industry Standards, Statutes, Federal Laws, Ethical Guidelines There are many ways of acquiring medical insurance benefits under the Medicare coverage program. The largest number of people are automatically eligible for this coverage at the age of 65 if they are entitled to monthly social security retirement benefits, survivor or transport retirement benefits. These individuals are entitled to Medicare coverage irrespective of whether they are eligible for ot her retirement benefits. Those persons not entitled tom these kinds of benefits will need to file an application for the Medicare coverage.

Risk Management Strategies Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Risk Management Strategies - Essay Example As a result, more and more small companies are turning to a strategic approach as the way forward. Therefore, it is conclusive that risk planning has a very high significance in the risk management model, and, as secondary research shows, larger firms have more sustainability because they focus on risk planning and opportunity development. A firm's behavior in planning is also affected by the perception of its environment and size, as well as the nature of its activities, but not on the firm's performance. Although all small businesses have an amount of risk, being a new start-up restaurant and producing customer service goods adds further risk. This creates quite a bit more exposure to risks from mismanagement than in larger firms, where a major risk is that "some change will occur that will leave the enterprise beached high and dry," and "enterprises must expect to change drastically and repeatedly in response to changes in customers' wants and purchasing power, in competitors' products and prices, in available technologies, in law and in social expectations" (Goetz p 25 2001). The overall rationale to management is to answer the circumstances that develop risks. In business, the successful management strategy must be resilient in the face of failure, and develop sophisticated business plans because major chains have created competitor risk by raising the bar with strategic planning, which is a large part of their success according to Kep Sweeney (Garber p 88 2006). Sweeney further states that "The critical points in the deal making phase include identifying a new concept, forming a team, raising money and finding real estateYou can engineer out a tremendous amount of risk-and increase your chance of success-with proper planning." (Garber p 88 2006). Historic Role and Function Kerzner (p 876 1998) first identifies risk planning as "the process of developing and documenting an organized, comprehensive and interactive strategy and methods for identifying and analyzing risk issues, developing risk handling plans, and monitoring how risks have changed," to the small business owner, this means that a step by step analysis of proposed risks and their possible changes is an inherent part of risk management. Secondly, Kerzner (p 878 1998) describes risk assessment as "the process of identifying and analyzing program areas and critical technical process risks to increase the likelihood of meeting cost, performance and schedule objectives," this will assist the risk management model by answering to the critical processes that create risks and the businesses responses in those areas. The risk identification process is also shown by Kerzner (p 880 1998) as "process of examining the program areas and each critical technical process to identify and document the associat ed risk," in risk identification, the internal and external factors are described and levelled according to their significance to the program area. For example, while a flood may be a risk, that is minimal if the business currently has a leaking roof. Risk analysis "is the process of examining each identified risk issue to estimate the likelihood of

Select a health care law topic from the assigned readings. Present an Term Paper

Select a health care law topic from the assigned readings. Present an executive summary of the law in 200 words or less, and dis - Term Paper Example Applicable industry standards, statutes, federal laws and ethical guidelines Ethics and laws imply that physicians inform patients of the limit to which confidentiality protection of disclosure of personal information is allowed. This is because a patient requires privacy which should be respected by the physician. Federal statutes allow physicians to diagnose death which should be made in line with industry standards Statutes or federal laws may also require that a medical case be disclosed in fear of further spread. Applicable Industry Standards, Statutes, Federal Laws, Ethical Guidelines There are many ways of acquiring medical insurance benefits under the Medicare coverage program. The largest number of people are automatically eligible for this coverage at the age of 65 if they are entitled to monthly social security retirement benefits, survivor or transport retirement benefits. These individuals are entitled to Medicare coverage irrespective of whether they are eligible for ot her retirement benefits. Those persons not entitled tom these kinds of benefits will need to file an application for the Medicare coverage.

Diversity And Discrimination In the Work Place, Can It Ever Be Essay

Diversity And Discrimination In the Work Place, Can It Ever Be Overcome - Essay Example Therefore, to overcome this discrimination, diversity management policies should have a high focus on increasing awareness, sensitizing the staff and ensuring inclusive policies. Causes of Discrimination and Strategies to Overcome Awareness In the recent years, eliminating any discrimination due to diversity has been a topic that has received the attention of researchers and scholars. One of the main reasons because of which discrimination takes place in workplace is the lack of awareness that leads to insensitive and discriminatory behavior (Nishii and Wright, 2008). Hence, creating awareness should be one of the most important steps when it comes to diversity management. In addition, creating awareness does not mean having certain non-discriminatory policies at workplace, instead it means educating employees and making them understand how to acknowledge as well as accept the diversity that they would be experiencing. This is particularly crucial in a situation where the majority of employees belong to one particular group (age, gender, ethnic origin, sexual orientation and so on). In such a situation, discrimination can even happen in the form of isolation (Nishii and Wright, 2008). For example, most organizations have a policy of non-discrimination with regard to homosexuals, but due to the stigma associated with homosexuality, it is possible that the individual is looked at in a different manner because of the sexual orientation. Therefore, both the Human Resources team as well as the management should work in tandem through formal sessions, online trainings and need-based individual sessions to improve awareness. Acknowledgement and Acceptance According to Green, Lopez, Wysocki... The paper stresses that with rising competition and challenges related to economic recession, it is necessary for the organization to ensure that any form of discrimination is eliminated because it can result in not just the loss of productivity, but it can also compromise the ethical foundation of the organization. Across the world, the message of equality and acceptance is being propagated and hence, a good diversity management policy which is effectively implemented can help in overcoming the challenge of discrimination at workplace. The report makes a conclusion that , most organizations have a process called diversity training which aims at informing and educating the management as well as the staff about diversity and the advantages that a diverse workforce can provide to the organization. Additionally, some organizations have also implemented the policy of diversity audit. This audit is carried out through means such as surveys and personal interviews to understand if there are any hidden prejudices or discrimination that exists in the organization. A diversity audit can not only help in resolving any discrimination issues, but it can also provide information on how to improve the diversity management strategies from an employee’s perspective. The author declares that one of the major mistakes that organizations make with regard to diversity management is that they frame certain policies and implement it, but do not subject it to periodic review. This can be drawback because as trends related to divers ity change; the needs of diversity management also undergo a change. Hence, they should periodically review these policies to see if it suits their needs of the current set of employees that the organization has.

The Matrix, or Two Sides of Perversion Essay Example for Free

The Matrix, or Two Sides of Perversion Essay When I saw The Matrix at a local theatre in Slovenia, I had the unique opportunity of sitting close to the ideal spectator of the film namely, to an idiot. A man in the late 20ies at my right was so immersed in the film that he all the time disturbed other spectators with loud exclamations, like My God, wow, so there is no reality! †¦ I definitely prefer such naive immersion to the pseudo-sophisticated intellectualist readings which project into the film the refined philosophical or psychoanalytic conceptual distinctions. (1) It is nonetheless easy to understand this intellectual attraction of The Matrix: is it not that The Matrix is one of the films which function as a kind of Rorschach test [http://rorschach. test. at/] setting in motion the universalized process of recognition, like the proverbial painting of God which seems always to stare directly at you, from wherever you look at it — practically every orientation seems to recognize itself in it? My Lacanian friends are telling me that the authors must have read Lacan; the Frankfurt School partisans see in the Matrix the extrapolated embodiment of Kulturindustrie, the alienated-reified social Substance (of the Capital) directly taking over, colonizing our inner life itself, using us as the source of energy; New Agers see in the source of speculations on how our world is just a mirage generated by a global Mind embodied inthe World Wide Web. This series goes back to Platos Republic: does The Matrix not repeat exactly Platos dispositif of the cave (ordinary humans as prisoners, tied firmly to their seats and compelled to watch the shadowy performance of (what they falsely consider to be) reality? The important difference, of course, is that when some individuals escape their cave predicament and step out to the surface of the Earth, what they find there is no longer the bright surface illuminated by the rays of the Sun, the supreme Good, but the desolate desert of the real. The key opposition is here the one between Frankfurt School and Lacan: should we historicize the Matrix into the metaphor of the Capital that colonized culture and subjectivity, or is it the reification of the symbolic order as such? However, what if this very alternative is false? What if the virtual character of the symbolic order as such is the very condition of historicity? Reaching the End Of the World Of course, the idea of the hero living in a totally manipulated and controlled artificial universe is hardly original: The Matrix just radicalizes it by bringing in virtual reality. The point here is the radical ambiguity of the VR with regard to the problematic of iconoclasm. On the one hand, VR marks the radical reduction of the wealth of our sensory experience to — not even letters, but — the minimal digital series of 0 and 1, of passing and non-passing of the electrical signal. On the other hand, this very digital machine generates the simulated experience of reality which tends to become indiscernable from the real reality, with the consequence of undermining the very notion of real reality — VR is thus at the same time the most radical assertion of the seductive power of images. Is not the ultimate American paranoiac fantasy that of an individual living in a small idyllic Californian city, a consummerist paradise, who suddenly starts to suspect that the world he lives in is a fake, a spectatle staged to convince him that he lives in a real world, while all people around him are effectively actors and extras in a gigantic show? The most recent example of this is Peter Weirs The Truman Show (1998), with Jim Carrey playing the small town clerk who gradually discovers the truth that he is the hero of a 24-hours permanent TV show: his hometown is constructed on a a gigantic studio set, with cameras following him permanently. Sloterdijks sphere is here literally realized, as the gigantic metal sphere that envelopes and isolates the entire city. This final shot of The Truman Show may seem to enact the liberating experience of breaking out from the ideological suture of the enclosed universe into its outside, invisible from the ideological inside. However, what if it is precisely this happy denouement of the film (let us not forget: applauded by the millions around the world watching the last minutes of the show), with the hero breaking out and, as we are led to believe, soon to join his true love (so that we have again the formula of the production of the couple! ), that is ideology at its purest? What if ideology resides in the very belief that, outside the closure of the finite universe, there is some true reality to be entered? (2) Among the predecessors of this notion, it is worth mentioning Phillip Dicks Time Out of Joint (1959), in which a hero living a modest daily life in a small idyllic Californian city of the late 50s, gradually discovers that the whole town is a fake staged to keep him satisfied†¦ The underlying experience of Time Out of Joint and of The Truman Show is that the late capitalist consummerist Californian paradise is, in its very hyper-reality, in a way irreal, substanceless, deprived of the material inertia. So it is not only that Hollywood stages a semblance of real life deprived of the weight and inertia of materiality — in the late capitalist consummerist society, real social life itself somehow acquires the features of a staged fake, with our neighbors behaving in real life as stage actors and extras†¦ The ultimte truth of the capitalist utilitarian de-spiritualized universe is the de-materialization of the real life itself, its reversal into a spectral show. In the realm of science-fiction, one should mention also Brian Aldiss Starship, in which members of a tribe leave in a closed world of a tunnel in a giant starship, isolated from the rest of the ship by thick vegetation, unaware that there is a universe beyond; finally, some children penetrate the bushes and reach the world beyond, populated by other tribes. Among the older, more naive forerunners, one should mention George Seatons 36 Hours, the film from the early 60ies about an American officer (James Garner) who knows all the plans for the D Day invasion of Normandy and is accidentally taken prisoner by Gernans just days before the invasion. Since he is taken prisoner unconscious, in a blast of explosion, the Germans quickly construct for him a replica of small American military hospital resort, trying to convince him that he now lives in 1950, that America won the war and that he has lost memory for the last 6 years — the idea being that he would tell all about the invasion plans for the Germans to prepare themselves; of course, cracks soon appear in this carefully constructed edifice†¦ (Did not Lenin himself, in the last 2 years of his life, lived in an almost similar controlled environment, in which, as we now know, Stalin had printed hor him a specially prepared one copy of Pravda, censored of all news that would tell Lenin about the political struggles going on, with the justification that Comrade Lenin should take a rest and not be excited by unnecessary provocations.) What lurks in the background is, of course, the pre-modern notion of arriving at the end of the universe: in the well-known engravings, the surprised wanderers approach the screen/curtain of heaven, a flat surfaced with painted stars on it, pierce it and reach beyond — it is exactly this that happens at the end of The Truman Show. No wonder that the last scene of the film, when Truman steps up the stairs attached to the wall on which the blue sky horizon is painted and opens up there the door, has a distinct Magrittean touch: is it not that, today, this same sensitivity is returning with a vengeance? Do works like Syberbergs Parsifal, in which the infinite horizon is also blocked by the obviously artificial rear-projections, not signal that the time of the Cartesian infinite perspective is running out, and that we are returning to a kind of renewed medieval pre-perspective universe? Fred Jameson perspicuously drew attention to the same phenomenon in some of the Raymond Chandlers novels and Hitchcocks films: the shore of the Pacific ocean in Farewell, My Lovely functions as a kind of end/limit of the world, beyond which there is an unknown abyss; and it is similar with the vast open valley that stretches out in front of the Mount Rashmore heads when, on the run from their pursuers, Eva-Marie Saint and Cary Grant reach the peak of the monument, and into which Eva-Marie Saint almost falls, before being pulled up by Cary Grant; and one is tempted to add to this series the famous battle scene at a bridge on the Vietnamese/Cambodgian frontier in Apocalypse Now, where the space beyond the bridge is experienced as the beyond of our known universe. And how not to recall that the idea that our Earth is not the planet floating in the infinite space, but a circular opening, hole, within the endless compact mass of eternal ice, with the sun in its center, was one of the favorite Nazi pseudo-scientific fantasies (according to some reports, they even considered putting some telescopes on the Sylt islands in order to observe America)? The Really Existing Big Other What, then, is the Matrix? Simply the Lacanian big Other, the virtual symbolic order, the network that structures reality for us. This dimension of the big Other is that of the constitutive alienation of the subject in the symbolic order: the big Other pulls the strings, the subject doesnt speak, he is spoken by the symbolic structure. In short, this big Other is the name for the social Substance, for all that on account of which the subject never fully dominates the effects of his acts, i. e. on account of which the final outcome of his activity is always something else with regard to what he aimed at or anticipated. However, it is here crucial to note that, in the key chapters of Seminar XI, Lacan struggles to delineate the operation that follows alienation and is in a sense its counterpoint, that of separation: alienation IN the big Other is followed by the separation FROM the big Other. Separation takes place when the subject takes note of how the big Other is in itself inconsistent, purely virtual, barred, deprived of the Thing — and fantasy is an attempt to fill out this lack of the Other, not of the subject, i. e. to (re)constitute the consistency of the big Other. For that reason, fantasy and paranoia are inherently linked: paranoia is at its most elementary a belief into an Other of the Other, into another Other who, hidden behind the Other of the explicit social texture, programs (what appears to us as) the unforeseen effects of social life and thus guarantees its consistency: beneath the chaos of market, the degradation of morals, etc., there is the purposeful strategy of the Jewish plot†¦ This paranoiac stance acquired a further boost with todays digitalization of our daily lives: when our entire (social) existence is progressively externalized-materialized in the big Other of the computer network, it is easy to imagine an evil programmer erasing our digital identity and thus depriving us of our social existence, turning us into non-persons. Following the same paranoiac twist, the thesis of The Matrix is that this big Other is externalized in the really existing Mega-Computer. There is — there HAS to be — a Matrix because things are not right, opportunities are missed, something goes wrong all the time, i. e. the films idea is that it is so because there is the Matrix that obfuscates the true reality that is behind it all. Consequently, the problem with the film is that it is NOT crazy enough, because it supposes another real reality behind our everyday reality sustained by the Matrix. However, to avoid the fatal misunderstanding: the inverse notion that all there is is generated by the Matrix, that there is NO ultimate reality, just the infinite series of virtual realities mirroring themselves in each other, is no less ideological. (In the sequels to The Matrix, we shall probably learn that the very desert of the real is generated by (another) matrix. ) Much more subversive than this multiplication of virtual universes would have been the multiplication of realities themselves — something that would reproduce the paradoxical danger that some physicians see in recent high accelerator experiments. As is well known, scientist are now trying to construct the accelerator capable of smashing together the nuclei of very heavy atoms at nearly the speed of light. The idea is that such a collision will not only shatter the atoms nuclei into their constituent protons and neutrons, but will pulverize the protons and neutrons themselves, leaving a plasma, a kind of energy soup consisting of loose quark and gluon particles, the building blocks of matter that have never before been studied in such a state, since such a state only existed briefly after the Big Bang. However, this prospect has given rise to a nightmarish scenario: what if the success of this experiment will create a doomsday machine, a kind of world-devouring monster that will with inexorable necessity annihilate the ordinary matter around itself and thus abolish the world as we know it? The irony of it is that this end of the world, the disintegration of the universe, would be the ultimate irrefutable proof that the tested theory is true, since it would suck all matter into a black hole and then bring about a new universe, i. e. perfectly recreate the Big Bang scenario. The paradox is thus that both versions — (1) a subject freely floating from one to another VR, a pure ghost aware that every reality is a fake; (2) the paranoiac supposition of the real reality beneath the Matrix — are false: they both miss the Real. The film is not wrong in insisting that there IS a Real beneath the Virtual Reality simulation as Morpheus puts to Neo when he shows him the ruined Chicago landscape: Welcome to the desert of the real. However, the Real is not the true reality behind the virtual simulation, but the void which makes reality incomplete/inconsistent, and the function of every symbolic Matrix is to conceal this inconsistency — one of the ways to effectuate this concealment is precisely to claim that, behind the incomplete/inconsistent reality we know, there is another reality with no deadlock of impossibility structuring it. The big Other doesnt exist Big Other also stands for the field of common sense at which one can arrive after free deliberation; philosophically, its last great version is Habermass communicative community with its regulative ideal of agreement. And it is this big Other that progressively disintegrates today. What we have today is a certain radical split: on the one hand, the objectivized language of experts and scientists which can no longer be translated into the common language accessible to everyone, but is present in it in the mode of fetishized formulas that no one really understands, but which shape our artistic and popular imaginary (Black Hole, Big Bang, Superstrings, Quantum Oscillation†¦). Not only in natural sciences, but also in economy and other social sciences, the expert jargon is presented as an objective insight with which one cannot really argue, and which is simultaneously untranslatable into our common experience. In short, the gap between scientific insight and common sense is unbridgeable, and it is this very gap which elevates scientists into the popular cult-figures of the subjects supposed to know (the Stephen Hawking phenomenon). The strict obverse of this objectivity is the way in which, in the cultural matters, we are confronted with the multitude of life-styles which one cannot translate into each other: all we can do is secure the conditions for their tolerant coexistence in a multicultural society. The icon of todays subject is perhaps the Indian computer programmer who, during the day, excels in his expertise, while in the evening, upon returning home, he lits the candle to the local Hindu divinity and respects the sacredness of the cow. This split is perfectly rendered in the phenomenon of cyberspace. Cyberspace was supposed to bring us all together in a Global Village; however, what effectively happens is that we are bombarded with the multitude of messages belonging to inconsistent and incompatible universes — instead of the Global Village, the big Other, we get the multitude of small others, of tribal particular identifications at our choice. To avoid a misunderstanding: Lacan is here far from relativizing science into just one of the arbitrary narratives, ultimately on equal footing with Politically Correct myths, etc. : science DOES touch the Real, its knowledge IS knowledge in the Real — the deadlock resides simply in the fact that scientific knowledge cannot serve as the SYMBOLIC big Other. The gap between modern science and the Aristotelian common sense philosophical ontology is here insurmountable: it emerges already with Galileo, and is brought to extreme in quantum physics, where we are dealing with the rules/laws which function, although they cannot ever be retranslated into our experience of representable reality. The theory of risk society and its global reflexivization is right in its emphasis one how, today, we are at the opposite end if the classical Enlightenment universalist ideology which presupposed that, in the long run, the fundamental questions can be resolved by way of the reference to the objective knowledge of the experts: when we are confronted with the conflicting opinions about the environmental consequences of a certain new product (say, of genetically modified vegetables), we search in vain for the ultimate expert opinion. And the point is not simply that the real issues are blurred because science is corrupted through financial dependence on large corporations and state agencies — even in themselves, sciences cannot provide the answer. Ecologists predicted 15 years ago the death of our forrests — the problem is now a too large increasee of wood†¦ Where this theory of risk society is too short is in emphasizing the irrational predicament into which this puts us, common subjects: we are again and again compelled to decide, although we are well aware that we are in no position to decide, that our decision will be arbitrary. Ulrich Beck and his followers refer here to the democratic discussion of all options and consensus-building; however, this does not resolve the immobilizing dilemma: why should the democratic discussion in which the majority participates lead to better result, when, cognitively, the ignorance of the majority remains. The political frustration of the majority is thus understandable: they are called to decide, while, at the same time, receiving the message that they are in no position effectively to decide, i. e. to objectively weigh the pros and cons. The recourse to conspiracy theories is a desperate way out of this deadlock, an attempt to regain a minimum of what Fred Jameson calls cognitive mapping. Jodi Dean(3) drew attention to a curious phenomenon clearly observable in the dialogue of the mutes between the official (serious, academically institutionalized) science and the vast domain of so-called pseudo-sciences, from ufology to those who want to decipher the secrets of the pyramids: one cannot but be struck by how it is the oficial scientists who proceed in a dogmatic dismissive way, while the pseudo-scientists refer to facts and argumentation deprived of the common prejudices. Of course, the answer will be here that established scientists speak with the authority of the big Other of the scientific Institution; but the problem is that, precisely, this scientific big Other is again and again revealed as a consensual symbolic fiction. So when we are confronted with conspiracy theories, we should proceed in a strict homology to the proper reading of Henry James The Turn of the Screw: we should neither accept the existence of ghosts as part of the (narrative) reality nor reduce them, in a pseudo-Freudian way, to the projection of the heroines hysterical sexual frustrations. Conspiracy theories, of course, are not to be accepted as fact however, one should also not reduce them to the phenomenon of modern mass hysteria. Such a notion still relies on the big Other, on the model of normal perception of shared social reality, and thus does not take into account how it is precisely this notion of reality that is undermined today. The problem is not that ufologists and conspiracy theorists regress to a paranoiac attitude unable to accept (social) reality; the problem is that this reality itself is becoming paranoiac. Contemporary experience again and again confronts us with situations in which we are compelled to take note of how our sense of reality and normal attitude towards it is grounded in a symbolic fiction, i. e. how the big Other that determines what counts as normal and accepted truth, what is the horizon of meaning in a given society, is in no way directly grounded in facts as rendered by the scientific knowledge in the real. Let us take a traditional society in which modern science is not yet elevated into the Master-discourse: if, in its symbolic space, an individual advocates propositions of modern science, he will be dismissed as madman — and the key point is that it is not enough to say that he is not really mad, that it is merely the narrow ignorant society which puts him in this position — in a certain way, being treated as a madman, being excluded from the social big Other, effectively EQUALS being mad. Madness is not the designation which can be grounded in a direct reference to facts (in the sense that a madman is unable to perceive things the way they really are, since he is caught in his hallucinatory projections), but only with regard to the way an individual relates to the big Other. Lacan usually emphasizes the opposite aspect of this paradox: the madman is not only a beggar who thinks he is a king, but also a king who thinks he is a king, i. e. madness designates the collapse of the distance between the Symbolic and the Real, an immediate identification with the symbolic mandate; or, to take his other exemplary statement, when a husband is pathologically jealous, obsessed by the idea that his wife sleeps with other men, his obsession remains a pathological feature even if it is proven that he is right and that his wife effectively sleeps with other men. The lesson of such paradoxes is clear: pathological jealously is not a matters of getting the facts false, but of the way these facts are integrated into the subjects libidinal economy. However, what one should assert here is that the same paradox should also be performed as it were in the opposite direction: the society (its socio-symbolic field, the big Other) is sane and normal even when it is proven factually wrong. (Maybe, it was in this sense that the late Lacan designated himself as psychotic: he effectively was psychotic insofar as it was not possible to integrate his discourse into the field of the big Other. ) One is tempted to claim, in the Kantian mode, that the mistake of the conspiracy theory is somehow homologous to the paralogism of the pure reason, to the confusion between the two levels: the suspicion (of the received scientific, social, etc. common sense) as the formal methodological stance, and the positivation of this suspicion in another all-explaining global para-theory. Screening the Real From another standpoint, the Matrix also functions as the screen that separates us from the Real, that makes the desert of the real bearable. However, it is here that we should not forget the radical ambiguity of the Lacanian Real: it is not the ultimate referent to be covered/gentrified/domesticated by the screen of fantasy — the Real is also and primarily the screen itself as the obstacle that always-already distorts our perception of the referent, of the reality out there. In philosophical terms, therein resides the difference between Kant and Hegel: for Kant, the Real is the noumenal domain that we perceive schematized through the screen of transcendental categories; for Hegel, on the contrary, as he asserts exemplarily in the Introduction to his Phenomenology, this Kantian gap is false. Hegel introduces here THREE terms: when a screen intervenes between ourselves and the Real, it always generates a notion of what is In-itself, beyond the screen (of the appearance), so that the gap between appearance and the In-itself is always-already for us. Consequently, if we subtract from the Thing the distortion of the Screen, we loose the Thing itself (in religious terms, the death of Christ is the death of the God in himself, not only of his human embodiment) — which is why, for Lacan, who follows here Hegel, the Thing in itself is ultimately the gaze, not the perceived object. So, back to the Matrix: the Matrix itself is the Real that distorts our perception of reality. A reference to Levi-Strausss exemplary analysis, from his Structural Anthropology, of the spatial disposition of buildings in the Winnebago, one of the Great Lake tribes, might be of some help here. The tribe is divided into two sub-groups (moieties), those who are from above and those who are from below; when we ask an individual to draw on a piece of paper, or on sand, the ground-plan of his/her village (the spatial disposition of cottages), we obtain two quite different answers, depending on his/her belonging to one or the other sub-group. Both perceive the village as a circle; but for one sub-group, there is within this circle another circle of central houses, so that we have two concentric circles, while for the other sub-group, the circle is split into two by a clear dividing line. In other words, a member of the first sub-group (let us call it conservative-corporatist) perceives the ground-plan of the village as a ring of houses more or less symmetrically disposed around the central temple, whereas a member of the second (revolutionary-antagonistic) sub-group perceives his/her village as two distinct heaps of houses separated by an invisible frontier†¦(4) The central point of Levi-Strauss is that this example should in no way entice us into cultural relativism, according to which the perception of social space depends on the observers group-belonging: the very splitting into the two relative perceptions implies a hidden reference to a constant — not the objective, actual disposition of buildings but a traumatic kernel, a fundamental antagonism the inhabitants of the village were unable to symbolize, to account for, to internalize, to come to terms with, an imbalance in social relations that prevented the community from stabilizing itself into a harmonious whole. The two perceptions of the ground-plan are simply two mutually exclusive endeavours to cope with this traumatic antagonism, to heal its wound via the imposition of a balanced symbolic structure. Is it necessary to add that things stand exactly the same with respect to sexual difference: masculine and feminine are like the two configurations of houses in the Levi-Straussian village? And in order to dispel the illusion that our developed universe is not dominated by the same logic, suffice it to recall the splitting of our political space into Left and Right: a Leftist and a Rightist behave exactly like members of the opposite sub-groups of the Levi-Straussian village. They not only occupy different places within the political space; each of them perceives differently the very disposition of the political space — a Leftist as the field that is inherently split by some fundamental antagonism, a Rightist as the organic unity of a Community disturbed only by foreign intruders. However, Levi-Strauss make here a further crucial point: since the two sub-groups nonetheless form one and the same tribe, living in the same village, this identity somehow has to be symbolically inscribed — how, if the entire symbolic articulation, all social institutions, of the tribe are not neutral, but are overdetermined by the fundamental and constitutive antagonistic split? By what Levi-Strauss ingeniously calls the zero-institution, a kind of institutional counterpart to the famous mana, the empty signifier with no determinate meaning, since it signifies only the presence of meaning as such, in opposition to its absence: a specific institution which has no positive, determinate function — its only function is the purely negative one of signalling the presence and actuality of social institution as such, in opposition to its absence, to pre-social chaos. It is the reference to such a zero-institution that enables all members of the tribe to experience themselves as such, as members of the same tribe. Is, then, this zero-institution not ideology at its purest, i. e.the direct embodiment of the ideological function of providing a neutral all-encompassing space in which social antagonism is obliterated, in which all members of society can recognize themselves? And is the struggle for hegemony not precisely the struggle for how will this zero-institution be overdetermined, colored by some particular signification? To provide a concrete example: is not the modern notion of nation such a zero-institution that emerged with the dissolution of social links grounded in direct family or traditional symbolic matrixes, i. e. when, with the onslaught of modernization, social institutions were less and less grounded in naturalized tradition and more and more experienced as a matter of contract. (5) Of special importance is here the fact that national identity is experienced as at least minimally natural, as a belonging grounded in blood and soil, and as such opposed to the artificial belonging to social institutions proper (state, profession†¦): pre-modern institutions functioned as naturalized symbolic entities (as institutions grounded in unquestionable traditions), and the moment institutions were conceived as social artefacts, the need arose for a naturalized zero-institution that would serve as their neutral common ground. And, back to sexual difference, I am tempted to risk the hypothesis that, perhaps, the same logic of zero-institution should be applied not only to the unity of a society, but also to its antagonistic split: what if sexual difference is ultimately a kind of zero-institution of the social split of the humankind, the naturalized minimal zero-difference, a split that, prior to signalling any determinate social difference, signals this difference as such? The struggle for hegemony is then, again, the struggle for how this zero-difference will be overdetermined by other particular social differences. It is against this background that one should read an important, although usually overlooked, feature of Lacans schema of the signifier: Lacan replaces the standard Saussurean scheme (above the bar the word arbre, and beneath it the drawing of a tree) with, above the bar, two words one along the other, homme and femme, and, beneath the bar, two identical drawings of a door. In order to emphasize the differential character of the signifier, Lacan first replaces Saussures single scheme with a signifiers couple, with the opposition man/woman, with the sexual difference; but the true surprise resides in the fact that, at the level of the imaginary referent, THERE IS NO DIFFERENCE (we do not get some graphic index of the sexual difference, the simplified drawing of a man and a woman, as is usually the case in most of todays restrooms, but THE SAME door reproduced twice). Is it possible to state in clearer terms that sexual difference does not designate any biological opposition grounded in real properties, but a purely symbolic opposition to which nothing corresponds in the designated objects — nothing but the Real of some undefined X which cannot ever be captured by the image of the signified? Back to Levi-Strausss example of the two drawings of the village: it is here that one can see it what precise sense the Real intervenes through anamorphosis. We have first the actual, objective, arrangement of the houses, and then its two different symbolizations which both distort in an amamorphic way the actual arrangement. However, the real is here not the actual arrangement, but the traumatic core of the social antagonism which distorts the tribe members view of the actual antagonism.

The Recent Negative Effect Of Technology On Society Essay example -- e

The Recent Negative Effect of Technology on Society   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ever since the Industrial revolution, technology has been changing at a fast pace. People are always wanting a better lifestyle therefore there is always something new arising so humans can cope with their physical environment. One of the most important breakthroughs for technology was the agricultural system. The agricultural system was the basis for the technology of the future. The agricultural system brought on the need for transportation, workers and even, battles over land. The need for transportation brought vehicles into the market. The need for employees brought mechanical robots into society. Battles over land brought on the need for sophisticated weapons. The agricultural system brought on a revolution. The invention of the television can bring media and other forms of entertainment into your house with video and audio combined. Before 1950, newspapers and radio were the only ways to bring media or entertainment into the house. Mass production and other job opportunities brought many people from the suburbs and farms into the city. We can now have forms of electricity directed into our houses for heating and light. Humans are more reliant on technology then ever before. All of these technological advances sound great, however, there is a negative effect to all this technology. Technology can serve to actually harm humans rather then help them. Competition between companies or even cities can sometimes make lives for humans even worse. Take for example when a city builds better and more roads to attract tourists. This actually creates more traffic, not less. Technology also changes our sense of common purpose. New inventions such as the personal computer and machines can change our lifestyles. Even things we take for granted such as the automobile have negative effects on technology. The oil needed for a car to run needs to be imported and sometimes accidents such as the Exxon Valdez incident spills many gallons of oil into the ocean. All of these examples show how technology has negative effects on society.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  First, competition can lead to a negative effect of technology. When a company in the U.S. produces shoes and a company in Great Britain produces shoes as well, they must fight for their market share... ...n conclusion, society has recently seen the negative effects of society. Competition between cities and companies has taken away jobs and brought unwanted and costly projects into pleasurable areas. A change in lifestyle among almost every human being is yet another negative effect of technology. What has happened to people since supermarkets came to town? People do not want to hunt for food anymore. They find it much easier to walk into a store and purchase it. A third reason why technology has a negative effect on society is the advent of highly reliant possessions such as the automobile. Many people count on traveling to work everyday by car. If the car was somehow taken away from people then there would be chaos. It is much too late to take it away. Humans are much too reliant on it. There is not enough mass transit to transport all of the present car users. Hopefully, future technologies will be fully considered. We must look at the advantages and consequences and measure if society will benefit or suffer from the technology. Past technologies weren't fully considered and if they were, there is a chance that the automobile never would have went into production.

What To Do About Ethnic Cleans Essay -- essays research papers

WHAT TO DO ABOUT ETHNIC CLEANSING? BACKGROUND PAPER   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  In 1994, unrest swept through the Maryland-sized African nation of Rwanda. Thousands of Hutu extremists launched a massive assault on the Tutsi, who traditionally make up Rwanda's upper class, killing hundreds of thousands of innocent people (Night Rider – 'most days';). The United States immediately responded to this slaughter by turning the other way, denying that a problem existed until years after the genocide had ceased. In 1999, ethnic cleansing (hostility between ethnic groups) broke out in Kosovo in a less severe form. This time, instead of being killed, the Kosovars were driven out of their homes and neighborhoods. This time, United States and NATO forces immediately confronted the problem by launching a substantial air war on the area. Clearly, the doctrine for ethnic cleansing is widely varied, and merits further discussion.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ethnic cleansing is a 'phrase for an attempt to purge an area of an unwanted ethnic group. It can include deportation, intimidation, and acts of genocide or mass murder.'; (Encarta, 'Ethnic cleansing';). It occurs most frequently in third world countries. Whenever it arises, it is followed by a host of moral questions. Do we just stay out completely and allow the country to deal with its own problems? Or, if we decide to take action, do we merely send medical aid or help militarily? Should we send in the army? Or is an air war the only acceptable option? It all comes down to an ethical issue, with one group insisting that preventing the loss of lives is paramount. The other side states that ethnic cleansing is caused by a fundamental disagreement between two ethnic groups, so unless we allow the groups to resolve their own issues, they can never be content and productive.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Whenever any human rights issue breaks out, there are differing opinions on the appropriate course of action. The difference in the case of ethnic cleansing is that this issue is much more critical than almost any other human rights issue. In the case of ethnic cleansing, the United States' approach to intervention could determine the fates of thousands of people. In cases of extreme ethnic cleansing, intervention can take place on an international level, with many nations cooperating in an attempt to br... ... not affect its neighbors adversely. This middle ground supports certain parts of both sides. It believes that while the country should be allowed to conduct its own internal affairs as it sees fit, as soon as the conflict oversteps the nation's borders, we must intervene to prevent the trouble from spreading as it did during the holocaust.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  At the present moment, the pro-action side is most influential in determining strategies for dealing with ethnic cleansing. This is illustrated by the Kosovo conflict. Only a few years previously, the anti-action approach was in favor; no outside intervention occurred during the Rwandan genocide. No predictions forecast an end to the issues of ethnic cleansing. As long as distinction can be made between groups, that distinction will be made, and as long as that distinction is made, there will be a few warmongers who will take advantage and cause bloodshed. Although the madness of a few people will not always spread, once in a while it will go out of control, leading to a massive genocide such as in Germany and Rwanda. And when there is another massive wholesale destruction, what will the world powers do about it?