Thank You Letter

THUA THIEN HUE UNION OF FRIENDSHIP ORGANIZATIONS 25 NGUYEN VAN CU HUE CITY, VIETNAM TEL: +84 54 3846493 FAX: +84 54 3846493 Website: huefo. org. vn Email: [email  protected] com THANK YOU LETTER To: Sunflower Mission Organizations, the US Thua Thien Hue Union of Friendship Organizations would like to give greetings to your organization. The program of Phong Thu 2 and Quang Loi 2 primary school construction as well as workcamp activities at Quang Loi 2 primary school, Quang Dien, Thua Thien Hue was successfully taken place.We highly appreciate this result because of your timely support and reinforcing of Infrastructure to promote education quality in these needy localities. More importantly, this is a very beautiful picture of Vietnamese people living in USA who always give warm care and practical help to our hometown. The results were reported to provincial bureaus and highly appreciated. Hence we appreciate the important role of Mr. Dao Nhat Tuan – the Sunflower Missionâ₠¬â„¢s Chairman as well as other members of the management board in US.Concurrently, we also acknowledge the efforts and enthusiasm of Ms. Dang Thi Ngoc Lang in close coordinating with us to conduct this project. We hope that Sunflower Misson will be always the core team in gathering more and more Overseas Vietnamese, especially the Youth towards our country. Simultaneously, we also hope you will continue to corporate closely with us in coming time’s projects and activities. Once again, we would like to express our deep gratitude to you and we wish you good health and a more developed organization. Sincerely, LE VAN ANH

Mandatory Sentencing

Many changes have occurred over the past three decades with regards to the sentencing systems from both the state and federal levels.   In 1975, all states and also the federal system principally relied on an indeterminate sentencing system that accorded judges wide discretion with respect to sentencing and gave parole boards practically unchecked discretion regarding the release of prisoners (Tonry & Hatlesad, 1997). All jurisdictions placed great emphasis on the philosophy of tailoring sentences to reflect offenders’ characteristics. This strategy represented an attempt to achieve the rehabilitation of the offender. That uniform response to sentencing has disappeared; in the year 2000, there is no common philosophy or common sentencing practices across jurisdictions in America (Tonry, 1999). All states, however, have adopted statutes requiring mandatory minimum prison sentences for certain violent, drug, and property offenders. The result has been increased sentence lengths (and numbers of admissions to custody) for a wide range of offenses. This, in turn, has led to overcrowded prisons across the country. Mandatory Sentencing Despite many legislative changes regarding specific crimes, 30 states still rely primarily on an indeterminate sentencing system which incorporates parole release (Tonry, 1999). Fourteen states have eliminated early release at the discretion of a parole board for all offenders, and many more states have substantially reduced â€Å"goodtime† credits, by which prisoners may earn their early release (Ditton and Wilson, 1999). Some jurisdictions have attempted to structure sentencing through the use of presumptive or voluntary sentencing guidelines. Several states have made a conscious effort to avoid populist punitive policies by requiring legislators to consider the impact of a law on criminal justice resources. For example, before approving legislation, Louisiana legislators must consider an impact statement on how a mandatory sentencing bill would affect jury trials, plea bargaining, overcrowding in prisons, and the corrections budget (DiMascio, 1997). In stark contrast to the federal sentencing guidelines, eight states have adopted â€Å"front-end resource matching†; the resources required for the implementation of a sentencing law must be approved before the sentencing law is enacted. This focus on resource matching may create more rational sentencing and allow legislators some breathing space in which to resist intense public pressure arising from high-profile cases (Frase, 1995, p. 179). These efforts, however, are infrequent, and policies reflecting penal populism still carry the day more often than not in contemporary America. Criminal Control Truly, the complexity of the criminal justice problem is such that issues like the etiology of crime and the impact of drug addiction on criminal behavior may never be completely understood. Because of this, there is much room for the purveyors of scientific snake off to sell their wares to an unsuspecting public. Proponents of the various programs that are engineered as solutions to such problems as recidivism and crime prevention are so diverse in their political philosophies and theoretical schools as to cause the head to reel. Still, the public demands that there be answers, and politicians have mandated that they be found – and they have been. Bureaucrats and academics, professional consultants and political activists, government commissions and high-powered think tanks have all been analyzing data and constructing better programs for the alleviation of crime. Each of the many camps that have sprung up around this industry has a particular theory to espouse and a specific agenda to promote. Most of them have budgets, jobs, and political turf to protect. And whether one is trying to deflect attention away from the failure of law enforcement and its allies or pursuing failure as a means of promoting a political agenda of scapegoating the poor, nothing will achieve the goal better than the latest and most fashionable pseudoscientific technique for reducing crime. Evaluating the Criminal Justice Policy Criminological research, just as any other body of scientific knowledge, can serve ideological or bureaucratic ends just as readily as it can serve the advancement of positive social goals. Indeed, this is the entire point of Jeffrey Reiman's Pyrrhic defeat theory. By selectively collecting and analyzing some data while ignoring others, one can frequently arrive at whatever conclusion will support the practitioner's or researcher's favorite theory. At the very heart of Reiman's assessment of the American system of justice is the contention that the police focus on street crime while ignoring white-collar and corporate crime. He notes, for example, that while 9,285 members of the work force lost their lives due to crime in 1972, 100,000 of them died as the result of occupational hazards (Reiman 1979, p. 66). It is Reiman's contention that many of the latter deaths were preventable, and thus were tantamount to negligent homicides. It is no wonder, then, he contends, that corporate interests use their influence to ensure that no legislation that would make such negligence prosecutable comes into being while, at the same time, supporting the aggressive pursuit of street gangs, burglars, and robbery suspects. Samuel Walker and the Criminal Justice Policy Samuel Walker does an excellent job of illustrating the impact of ideology on criminology and the American system of justice. In his book Sense and Nonsense About Crime and Drugs, he describes what he refers to as the conservative theology (pp. 17-19) and the liberal theology (pp. 19-20) of crime control: â€Å"Conservative crime control theology envisions a world of discipline and self-control; people exercise self-restraint and subordinate their personal passions to the common good. It is a place of limits and clear rules about human behavior. The problem with criminals is that they lack self-control† (p. 17). So goes Walker's account of the stance of the right. He goes on to asses the position of the left on issues of crime as well: â€Å"Liberal crime control theology views the world as a large and idealized school. It explains criminal behavior in terms of social influences. People do wrong because of bad influences in the family, the peer group, or the neighborhood, or because of broader social factors, such as discrimination and lack of economic opportunity. The liberals' solution to crime is to create a different set of influences. Rehabilitation involves shaping the offender in the direction of correct behavior† (p. 19). Samuel Walker and the Mandatory Sentencing Having set the stage, Walker goes on to explain that each of these camps has set upon a quest for its own brand of success. He describes the liberal push for reforms in the area of corrections as â€Å"the story of a continuing search for the Holy Grail of rehabilitation† (p. 19). As for the conservative tendency to equate deterrence with parental discipline, he tells us that â€Å"The real world, unfortunately, does not work like family discipline† (p. 18) Walker then supports these characterizations of the liberal and conservative schools of criminology by debunking several of the programs the two sides support and the claimed successes for each. One example used by Walker is that of the mandatory sentencing programs so near and dear to the hearts of law-and-order conservatives. The state of New York's 1973 drug law mandating lengthy prison terms is one of those examined. The law provided that convicted heroin dealers would serve minimum, mandatory prison terms ranging from one year to life for minor offenders, and fifteen years to life for major offenders (those who either sold an ounce of heroin or possessed two ounces of the substance). It was found, however, that between 1972 and 1976, â€Å"the overall percentage of arrests leading to conviction fell from 33.5 to 20 percent† (Walker 1994, p. 92). Walker points out that members of the â€Å"courtroom work group† (p. 48) (prosecutors, judges, and defense attorneys) were able to evade the intent of the law by selectively charging and dismissing the offenders. Although he concedes that there was some modest success, in that the rate of incarceration did go up for those who were convicted, the effect of the law was essentially nullified (p. 92). The claim that mandatory sentencing program are, by and large, not successful is further supported by the experiences of both the state of Florida and the federal system. Even though Florida passed mandatory sentencing laws in 1975 and 1988, no significant impact on sentencing practices has resulted. Walker again points out that such factors as judicial discretion and â€Å"good time† reduction of prison terms effectively negated the laws' impact as an effective tool for reducing crime (pp. 87-88). The story for the federal system is similar, though it must be conceded that the length of prison terms for those convicted did increase. Walker points out that this served to greatly increase the prison population and add to overcrowding. At the same time, however, correctional officials employed a greater use of â€Å"good time† programs in an effort to ease these conditions. The result is that whatever benefit might have been realized has again been negated (p. 95). An example of how Samuel Walker explains the failure of the left to come up with the right answers to the question of how to control crime is found in his account of the Martinson Report. This 1974 criminological report by Robert Martinson resulted from a review of all of the evaluations of correctional programs that were available in English-language publications between 1945 and 1967. Walker informs us that most of this universe of data was eliminated as not bun scientifically valid, for the Martinson team found that they were lacking such vital research components as control groups or drew â€Å"questionable conclusions from the data† (p. 209). The upshot of the study was that although Martinson did find some positive results from correctional rehabilitation, he also stated that â€Å"with few and isolated exceptions, the rehabilitative efforts that have been reported so for have had no appreciable effect on rehabilitation† (pp. 208-209). Follow-up studies of the type conducted by Martinson, Walker indicates, have resulted in similar findings, fueling a long-term debate on the efficacy of rehabilitation programs. Samuel Walker makes it clear that practitioners and researchers alike are guilty of wishful thinking and of stacking the deck in favor of their individual arguments. Time and again he demonstrates that many of the so-called successes in rehabilitation have been invented rather than achieved. Closer attention to ethical decision making might have served to advance the state of criminology in these instances, just as it might aid in achieving a more effectively run police department. A brief look at two of Walker's examples will be illustrative. Diversion is one of the programs Walker examines, and he chooses the Manhattan Court Employment Project as an example (p. 212). In this program employment services were provided to underemployed and unemployed defendants-not facing homicide, rape, kidnapping, or arson changes. Such persons were granted a delay of prosecution and could have their cases dismissed if they secured stable employment. A program evaluation conducted shortly after the project was initiated gave it high marks, including a 48.2 percent success rate and a very low cost. Later, however, another study found that recidivism was not abated and that the cost figures were misleading. Walker explains that this was due to the â€Å"net-widening syndrome,† (p. 213) a situation in which low risk offenders who would otherwise have their cases dismissed were selected for inclusion in the diversion program. The result, of course, is a skewing of statistics and the incurring of a cost that would otherwise not have been necessary. â€Å"The net-widening phenomenon suggests that the ‘old' diversion did a better job,† writes Walker (p. 214). Walker notes that what he means by this is that district attorneys who declined to prosecute and police officers who elected not to arrest offenders for minor violations of the law did a far more cost-effective and less intrusive job of diversion than did the Manhattan Court Employment Project. Walker also takes a look at intensive probation supervision (IPS), another of the many fads to hit the rehabilitation scene. In IPS programs, probationers are closely supervised with a great number of contacts between the client and the probation officer, frequent testing of drugs, and generally much tighter restrictions on behavior and movements. Not all that surprisingly, Walker finds that such programs are not new. As evidence of this he cites the San Francisco Project, an IPS program that was put into place during the 1960s. The San Francisco Project, a federal program of intensive probation supervision, was subjected to systematic evaluation at the time. Control groups were set up, reports Walker, for the purpose of comparing the new intensive measures with more traditional and less restrictive ones. The evaluators learned that there was â€Å"no significant difference in the recidivism rates of offenders in the various groups† (p. 214). Walker points out that there are similar findings in studies of the newest wave of IPS programs. Evaluations recently conducted in California, New Jersey, and Georgia are equally disheartening. â€Å"IPS suffers from both confused goals and exaggerated promises,† he writes (p. 220). Conclusion After all, a question still remains as to what are we to make of all of these?   Confusion and a seemingly endless series of fits and starts appear to constitute our best effort at finding a solution to crime and violence.   Samuel Walker provides us with a very solid explanation in his book as he goes about the task of illustrating the significant issues that encompass the current criminal justice policy. References DiMascio, W. M. (1997). Seeking justice: Crime and punishment in America. New York: Edna McConnell Clark Foundation. Ditton, P. M., and D. J. Wilson (1999). Truth in sentencing in state prisons. Bureau of Justice Statistics: Special Report (NCJ 170032). Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of Justice. Frase, R. S. (1995). State sentencing guidelines: Still going strong. Judicature. 78(4): 173–179. Reiman, Jeffrey (1979). The Rich Get Richer and the Poor Get Prison. New York: John Wiley and Sons. Tonry, M., and K. Hatlestad, eds. (1997). Sentencing reform in overcrowded times: A comparative perspective. New York: Oxford University Press. Tonry, M. (1999). The fragmentation of sentencing and corrections in America. National Institute of Justice: Research in Brief. NCJ 175721. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Justice. Walker, Samuel (1994). Sense and Nonsense About Crime and Drugs: A Policy Guide. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth.      

The process of developing and designing products

The process of developing and designing products has taken a sharp change in the last couple of years. Companies are being pushed by demanding global customers and are being challenged by rapid change of technology. Manufacturers have had to increase the speed of design cycles while at the same time cut the cost of development and manufacture. They must ensure the product takes full advantage of the latest and best technology. Leading companies have found that obstacles in the market today are far too rigorous to overcome on their own. This process of design and development of products has never been so competitive and daunting. However, it is more critical for future success. The Success of modern day companies is due to help from a resource that has been present since the early days of the company. The answer is suppliers. In some industries suppliers are taking on responsibility for designing parts, components, materials, assemblies, and even complete systems for automobiles, computers and other products. Leading manufacturers are using their supply bases as a key element of their product design strategies, and it’s paying off in a big way. In other words the old saw â€Å"Slow and sure wins the race† no longer holds. Speed is competitive edge today s business needs to succeed. Including suppliers in the manufacturing process adds to the clock-speed of a company. The Honda Motor Company is one such company that has recognized this need for speed and has thus adjusted its production to accommodate. The Honda Motor Company is one of the world s most well known producers of motor vehicles. The Company itself is based in Japan, but it had branches all over the world. From a simple start, Honda has grown to one of the world s most successful motoring companies, selling products in almost 200 countries. Honda has set new standards in vehicle production and design. From the Civic to ongoing participation in automotive racing, Honda s spirit of challenge and commitment forms the basis for every Honda project. Honda’s new â€Å"world platform† strategy will produce four variants of the new mid-size Accord platform. Honda s Research and development team found that the easiest way of producing their most popular make of car, the Accord, was to produce a world platform. This platform is an Accord chassis around which different accord bodies are built. For example; The Accord built for America will be larger than the one built in Japan because there is a market for larger cars. The one built in Europe will narrower so that it may compete with other cars on the European market. Essentially the Accord platform is universal. The car s appearance changes due to its location around the world. Accords will be produced in 11 and sold in 100 countries.

Critically evaluate Nozick's response to Rawls's theory of justice Essay

Critically evaluate Nozick's response to Rawls's theory of justice - Essay Example Thus, the entitlement theory of justice, which is comprised in Nozick’s response to Rawls’ theory of justice, reveals the clash between libertarianism and social welfare liberalism on the topic of justice. Although both Nozick and Rawls belonged to the social contract tradition in political philosophy, Nozick’s entitlement theory of justice should be realised primarily as an opposition to Rawls’ theory of distributive justice and it everyone in the society is entitled to engage in distribution of property. As Suri Ratnapala maintains, â€Å"Rawls’ case for distributive justice in its simplest form is that a system of social cooperation makes everyone better off than a system of non-cooperation in which each person fends for themselves by their own effort. Principles of justice are required to distribute the surplus that results from social cooperation.† (Ratnapala 2009, P. 346). Therefore, Rawls’ theory of justice is mainly based on th e hypothetical social contract among the self-interested members in a state of ignorance regarding their future, and they take part in a game of risk minimisation. The libertarian response to Rawls’ theory of justice as offered by the American political philosopher Robert Nozick in his book Anarchy, State, and Utopia should be realised as belonging to the social contract tradition in political philosophy. ... In a reflective exploration of Nozick’s response to Rawls’s theory of justice, it becomes lucid that the contrasting books of John Rawls’ A Theory of Justice and Robert Nozick’s Anarchy, State, and Utopia have dominated the debate in analytical political philosophy for the last three decades. In his 1971 book, Rawls presented the case for a form of liberal egalitarianism which was challenged by Nozick’s arguments in favour of libertarianism, including the free market, absolute property rights, and the ‘minimal state’, presented in his book in 1974. Ever since the publishing of these contrasting books, a vast quantity of critical literature has been written on their political philosophy and Nozick has gained the approbation of the contemporary political philosophers as his arguments are strikingly close to the political spirit of the current age. â€Å"Nozick’s project is to defend the libertarian minimal state – akin to t he ‘night-watchman’ state of classical liberalism – which exists purely to safeguard the personal and property rights of individuals. The enterprise falls into three stage.† (Wolff 1991, P. 4). First of all, Nozick makes the argument, against the Anarchist, that a state as broad as a minimal state can be justified. Secondly, he makes his arguments against the defender of the extensive state by claiming that the minimal state is the most extensive form of legitimate state. Thirdly, he maintains that the minimal state is ‘inspiring’ as well as right, and there is no cause of regret. (Wolff 1991, P. 4). Therefore, in contradiction of Rawls’ case for a form of liberal egalitarianism, Nozick’s makes his pertinent arguments on the side of libertarianism which consists of the

Treasury bills Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Treasury bills - Assignment Example T-Bills are usually sold at a profit but are not charged any additional interest such as in the case of other loans. The profits are calculated by finding the remaining amount after ‘redemption value’ has been subtracted from the value at which it was purchased (Brigham and Ehrhardt, 2013). In the financial market, T-bills is considered to be the best selling security compared to others in the money market. In nutshell, they are ways and strategies that a government devises to generate some amounts from its citizens. As discussed, they are short-term and usually mature within a year or less. Investors who buy these securities earn through buying them at cheaper prices than those they sell them at when they mature and this provides for a remarkable profit generation. To issue these marketable securities, the government usually operate under ‘bidding system’. This means that to acquire the T-bills, one has to forward their bids requesting for the items of which will be determined through rigorous analysis and considerations. There are two ways in which the bids can be submitted; either through ‘competitive or non-competitive forms (Garbade, 2012). Competitive means that one only stands a chance of allocation if they forward the lowest bid and the bidders are therefore asked to mention precisely the profit they seek to earn at the end. Those who quote low profits are given the T-bills. Non-competitive system is where the bidders just forward their bids and they are given the whole sum of the money they requested once it matures. This investment is good and bad to a financial company that seeks to generate revenue and sustain itself in the money market industry. One of the reasons they have gained market fame and admiration is because they are relatively not expensive and so many companies can easily acquire them. They range from one thousand to a million US Dollars and

Helpful Nursing Experience Personal Statement Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Helpful Nursing Experience - Personal Statement Example It is a recognized fact that not all nurses are given the chance to work in this particular section of a hospital since it requires not just a thorough knowledge in the processes involved in surgery, but likewise needs an alert mind to cope with the necessities of the situation at the shortest time possible.   By extending my service to those afflicted with acute or chronic diseases, not to mention those severely injured, I realized that I must not be content with just performing my job as a nurse, but have to strive more in order to ease out the pain being suffered by my patients. Somehow, my experience in this field gave me an assurance that I am competent enough to handle the most difficult parts of nursing care. I also had an experience working in a nursing home or short-term rehabilitation center where I gained actual knowledge in handling special people with specific psychiatric needs, above the usual nursing care that is given in regular hospitals. Through this, I learned more how to communicate with different kinds of patients, from the young ones up to old-age patients. It was not really that easy to reach for these people and gain their confidence in order to fully perform the usual nursing care that they need. The actual hands-on experience, no matter how short, had made a big difference in enhancing my practical nursing skills. This knowledge, I admit, cannot be gained by the mere reading of books or by observation.

Attributes of a Culture Formed by the ISIS Assignment

Attributes of a Culture Formed by the ISIS - Assignment Example The religious seminars have been enforced for pharmacists that they have to pay their presence for the importance to being allowed to carry on operating their businesses. In various parts of Iraq, the ISIS has imposed taxes on local people business should pay taxes. Cars entering into the state have to pay tax. Other religions have to pay tax, for instance, the Christians. The ISIS has also imposed sweeping restrictions on personal freedom implying that women must wear the niqab, or face unspecified punishments. Every person under the control of ISIS should always carry a ‘repentance card, which is a paper testifying that a person has ‘repented’ from his or her heretical past. Status of women under ISIS In ISIS, the group has released a manifesto that illustrates the role of women in the jihadist group which say that it is ‘legitimate' for girls to get married to fighters whoa re at nine years and emphasizing their role as wives, homemakers or even mothers. T he ISIS believes that women should be kept at home unless an emergency occurs that requires them to get out of the home. When they leave their homes, they should wear the niqab. Under ISIS, Arab women are encouraged to go to ISIS Islamic countries such as the Iraq and Syrian, where they are asked to live the ‘sedentary’ lifestyle that is guided by the responsibilities in the home, which is considered to be their ‘divinely appointed right’ in line with Shariah as well as the life’s methodology that God ordained it.

The Professional Accountant Assignment Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

The Professional Accountant Assignment - Essay Example In this case, the definition of the independent directors may vary. An independent member of the board should be in depend in terms of not just the definition but also in terms of the structure of his or her work and how he relates to the firm. They have to be independent from the executives of the firm with regard to the financial gains. The new governance is very difference from the UK cooperate governance standards. For instance, it will have to include a council o a maximum of 100 members who will be in control of the firm with regard to overseeing the decisions of the firm through voting. This is very different from the corporate governance for UK cooperates because they do not usually have these (Solomon, 2011). This is however necessary for the cooperative because as Lord Myner said in his report, the cooperative should always be in the control of its owners. In this regard, he proposed that there must be as many members of the council in order to make sure that they oversee the decisions and actions for the executives. Corporations do not have this kind of government and only depend on bound members and the CEO as well as the chainman to the board. However, for a cooperative, this may be necessary on order to guarantee that the vested interests of the cooperative members have been achieved (Mallin, 2013). The other difference between the new structure in the cooperative and the UK cooperate structure is the senate which will be elected by the council members. This senate will help co-ordinate the activities of the council. It will also help in coordinating the relationships and operation of the council, the board and the executives of the cooperative. This is different from the standard UK corporate governance as these corporations do not have a senate or even a council (Thompson & Wright, 2013). The non-executive directors are involved in the strategy development by contributing to the processes they help in this by challenging

PETITION FOR UNSPONSORED LEARNING Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

PETITION FOR UNSPONSORED LEARNING - Essay Example We raised her and provided all her physical and emotional needs. Unfortunately, my wife and I separated in March 2006. In the intervening period, we tried our best to sort out the seeming differences between us. Nevertheless, all the efforts failed to bear fruit. Consequently, the marriage was finally dissolved a year and seven months after the initial separation. Just like my wedding seven years earlier, my divorce in October 2007 was a fundamental event in my life with wide-ranging effects on my young family. After the conclusion of my divorce, I was awarded full custody of my minor child. Although I was ecstatic at the opportunity of raising Jordan to maturity, I was aware of the fact that such a monumental task would run me to the ground. Nevertheless, I was determined to do my utmost so as to fulfill all my obligations. There are various significant events that influenced the experiences discussed in my learning assignments. The first major event came after my graduation from high school in June 1998. In August 1999, I formed my company and gained my first shot at autonomy. The beginning of my work experience formed the first step in a long line of employment positions that I was privileged to hold from then onwards. Another significant life event that shaped my life was my marriage in May 2000. My wife and I had been acquainted since childhood, and the sense of attraction had grown over a long period. Therefore, it was extremely satisfying to tie the knot finally and have her as my wife. The start of my marriage coincided with the beginning of my professional career. I teamed up with my wife and formed a business called Accurate Answers. The company began operations in January 2001, barely a few months after our wedding. The corporation offered DNA and drug testing services. Accurate Answers provided onsite drug testing for county courts, consumers, and businesses. The success of our marriage coincided with the

Parenting in Diverse Cultures Essay Example for Free

Parenting in Diverse Cultures Essay Culture may influence child activities and behaviors through the organization of the physical and social settings of every day life. Social as well as cultural norms, values, and conventions can direct and control the childs behavior through the progression of social evaluation. Throughout childhood and preadolescence, due to childrens particular need for peer assimilation and closeness, peer evaluation and social recognition in the peer group can play a critical role in the mediation of cultural influences on individual functioning. Moreover, in the development of socialization, culturally shaped parental belief systems and parenting practices can mediate and restrained childrens acquisition of cultural messages. Finally, formal training in educational institutions such as the school constitutes another significant channel for the transmission of human knowledge and cultural values from adults to children in modern societies. Culturally diverse children can have an expectation concerning confidentiality as do American-born children. Also, this concept in fact runs counter to therapeutic attempts to enlist the parents as partners in their childrens treatment. Discretion with culturally diverse adolescents can be particularly challenging. Often, culturally diverse families experience conflict while children reach adolescence and instigate to identify mainly with the values of their American peer culture. On the contrary to the elongated American adolescence phase devoted to ongoing education and the development of peer relationships, culturally diverse parents can have experienced their own abbreviated adolescence cut short by the need to find employment, by early marriage, and/or by parenting. They do not recognize the push for independence among American adolescents. Culturally diverse adolescents can want to pursue the activities of American youth despite knowing their parents would condemn. Researchers are interested in parental ideologies concerning childrearing as they may provide useful information concerning the explanation of different parenting behaviors across cultures. Moreover, it is a practical assumption that parental cognitions, ideas, and beliefs serve a mediating function in development of cultural influences on parental attitudes and behaviors toward the child (Goodnow, 1995). Indeed, it has been found that parents in diverse cultures have different expectations and goals regarding parenting and that socialization goal are linked with parental judgment and valuation of normal and abnormal child behaviors (Hess, Kashiwagi, Azuma, Price, Dixon, 1980). In traditional Chinese cultures, for instance, â€Å"filial piety† is a Confucian doctrine dictating that children vow obedience and reverence to parents. Chinese parents, in turn, are accountable for â€Å"governing† (i. e. , teaching, disciplining) their children, and are held responsible for their childrens failures. While individualistic values are underlined in Western cultures, with children being mingled to be independent and self-assertive (Hess et al. , 1980), Chinese children are socialized to be moderate, well-mannered, reciprocally dependent, and concerned with the collective. Cross-cultural differences in parenting ideology can be illustrated also in different values concerning child independence in collectivistic and individualistic cultures. A sense of autonomy is measured crucial to adaptive development in many Western cultures (Maccoby Martin, 1983), but might not bear such implication to the adaptive development of children raised in other cultures. Indeed, there is little emphasis on socializing children to be independent in Japanese culture (Rothbaum, Pott, Azuma, Miyake, Weisz, 2000). While American mothers are more likely than Japanese mothers to persuade their children personal autonomy and forcefulness such as defending ones rights, Japanese mothers are more likely to socialize their children to be polite and deferential to authority figures (Hess et al. , 1980). Weisz, Rothbaum, and Blackburn (1984) argued that diverse emphases on self-sufficiency might account for such cross-cultural differences as Japanese children showing more self-control and sympathy to others and American children being more self-expressive. Parental belief systems consist of a wide range of thoughts, perceptions, values, and expectations regarding normative developmental processes, socialization goals, and parenting strategies (Goodnow, 1995). Cultural disparities in parental beliefs and values are a major source of involvement to cross-cultural differences in parental attitudes, actions, and behaviors in parenting. Nevertheless, it must be noted that the links between parental beliefs and behaviors characteristically range from weak to modest in the Western literature (Sigel, McGillicuddy-DeLisi, Goodnow, 1992). It is largely indefinite how belief systems might be linked with parenting practices at the cross-cultural level, as these two constructs have not been obviously differentiated in several cross-cultural studies. Parents of diverse culture have the same hopes as well as dreams for their children and families that the general population does. Most desire their children to get a good education and become prolific members of society. In the more traditional families, these desires comprise learning about tribal values, beliefs, and customs. These families want successful children in a manner reliable with cooperative, noncompetitive tribal, community, and family values as well as aspirations (Burgess, 1980). Parents in diverse culture often take an dynamic role in socializing their children concerning the consequences of their ethnicity in the larger society (Harrison et al. , 1990). Oppression provides the framework of teaching about the assaults of typical culture. Parents teach their children to watch for subtle clues about whether they are welcome in a given situation (Cross, 1995). As children mature, they are more well-informed about differences in race, and they come to recognize themselves with a particular tribe; though, they appear to prefer toys, activities, and friendships from the prevailing culture. Parents (Dawson, 1988) emphasize the significance of self-esteem in their children: â€Å"If my children are proud, if my children have an individuality, if my children know who they are and if they are proud to be who they are, theyll be able to meet anything in life† (p. 48). Positive self-esteem provides self-assurance, energy, and optimism to master lifes tasks. This positive sense of self and confidence is significant for parents as well as children. Parents who feel capable in their parenting are more able to involve themselves in their childrens lives outside the home. Parental involvement is significant to the future educational development of their children (Dawson, 1988). In diverse culture families believe that their children should have the opportunity to grow into adulthood with the considerate that they are worthwhile individuals who are equal to all other Americans. American children should believe that they are respected for their culture, as they value the worth of others. They should believe that they are valued in American society and that they can attain in any way they choose according to their individual talents (Noley, 1992). In diverse culture, children view themselves more pessimistically than do their dominant culture counterparts, let say self-concept of Native American children is negatively linked with chronological age and years of schooling. Soares and Soares (1969) found that in spite of living in poverty, disadvantaged children in elementary school did not essentially suffer from lower self-esteem and a lower sense of self-worth. These findings suggest that just being poor is not the leading factor in the low self-esteem of Native American students. Though, researchers have long been interested in family influences on child social and cognitive functioning. The general consent is that family, as a main socialization agent, plays a significant role in the development of individuals adaptive and maladaptive functioning. This belief has been sustained by the results of numerous empirical studies concerning the associations amongst parenting practices, family organization and family socio-ecological conditions, and child adaptive and maladaptive functioning in diverse settings, although different opinions still exist (Harris, 1995). Among family variables, parenting beliefs and practices compose a central theme in the cross-cultural study of upbringing. Several explanations for cross-cultural variations in parenting have been suggested. First, an anthropological viewpoint proposes that differential vulnerability to threats to the survival of children accounts for the changeability in parenting practices (LeVine, 1974). on the other hand, it has been suggested that parental needs to engender the values and attitudes essential for becoming a competent adult, able to achieve expected roles in his or her respective culture, may be related to diverse parenting practices across cultures (Hoffman, 1987). It has also been argued that cross-cultural differences in parenting attitudes and behaviors can reflect variability in beliefs pertaining to childrens distinctiveness and to the world in general (Super Harkness, 1986). Reference: Burgess, B. J. (1980). Parenting in the Native-American community. In M. D. Fantini R. Cardenas, Parenting in a multicultural society (pp. 63–73). New York: Longman. Cross, T. L. (1995). The worldview of American Indian families. In H. I. McCubbin, E. A Thompson, A. I. Thompson, J. E. Fromer (Eds. ), Ethnic minority families: Native and immigrant American families (Vol. 1, pp. 143–58). Boston: Sage Dawson, J. (1988). â€Å"If my children are proud†: Native education and the problem of selfesteem. Canadian Journal of Native Education, 15 (1), 43–50. Goodnow, J. J. (1995). Parents knowledge and expectations. In M. H. Bornstein (Ed. ), Handbook of parenting, Vol. 3, Status and social conditions of parenting (pp. 305-332). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum. Harrison, A. O. , Wilson, M. N. , Pine, C. J. , Chan, S. Q. , Buriel, R. (1990). Family ecologies of ethnic minority children. Child Development, 61, 347–62. Hess, R. D. , Azuma, H. , Kashiwagi, K. , Holloway, S. D. , Wenegrat, A. (1987). Cultural variations in socialization for school achievement: Contrasts between Japan and the United States. Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology,8, 421-440. Hess, R. D. , Kashiwagi, K. , Azuma, H. , Price, G. G. , Dixon, W. P. (1980). Maternal expectations for mastery of developmental tasks in Japan and the United States. International Journal of Psychology,15, 259-271. Hoffman, L. W. (1987). The value of children to parents and parenting patterns. Social Behavior,2, 123-141. LeVine, R. A. (1974). Parental goals: A cross-cultural view. Teachers College Record,76 (2), 226-239. Luftig, R. L. (1983). Effects of schooling on the self-concept of Native American students. The School Counselor, 30 (4), 251–60. Maccoby, E. E. , Martin, C. N. (1983). Socialization in the context of family: Parentchild interaction. In E. M. Hetherington (Ed. ), Handbook of child psychology, Vol. 4, Socialization, personality, and social development (pp. 1-102). New York: Wiley. Noley, G. (1992). Educational reform and American Indian cultures. Tempe, AZ: Division of Educational Leadership and Policy Studies, Arizona State University. (ERIC Document Reproduction Service No. ED 362 341) Rothbaum, F. , Pott, M. , Azuma, H. , Miyake, K. , Weisz, J. (2000). The development of close relationships in Japan and the United States: Paths of symbiotic harmony and generative tension. Child Development,71, 1121-1142. Sigel, I. E. , McGillicuddy-DeLisi, A. V. , Goodnow, J. J. (1992). Parental belief systems: The psychological consequences for children. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum. Soares, A. T. , Soares, L. M. (1969). Self-perceptions of culturally disadvantaged children. American Educational Research Journal, 6 (1), 31–45. Super, C. M. , Harkness, S. (1986). The developmental niche: A conceptualization at the interface of child and culture. International Journal of Behavioral Development,9, 545-569. Weisz, J. R. , Chaiyasit, W. , Weiss, B. , Eastman, K. L. , Jackson, E. W. (1995). A multimethod study of problem behavior among Thai and American children in school: Teacher reports versus direct observations. Child Development,66, 402-415. Weisz, J. R. , Rothbaum, F. , Blackburn, T. C. (1984). Standing out and standing in. American Psychologist,39, 955-969. Weisz, J. R. , Suwanlert, S. , Chaiyasit, W. , Walter, B. R. (1987). Over- and undercontrolled referral problems among Thai and American children and adolescents: The wat and wai of cultural differences. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology,55, 719-726. Weisz, J. R. , Suwanlert, S. , Chaiyasit, W. , Weiss, B. , Walter, B. R. , Anderson, W. W. (1988). Thai and American perspectives on over- and undercontrolled child behavior problems: Exploring the threshold model among parents, teachers, and psychologists. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology,56, 601-609.

Conceptual Art: Responses to Capitalism

Conceptual Art: Responses to Capitalism When Situationism evolved from the Letterist movement, in the middle of the last century, it set itself up in opposition to two other two other politically motivated groups: Dadism and Surreallism. Situationism, however, was only incidentally political, and rather than subverting the art world, aimed only to redesign its context, including the attitudes of the public, so that art could become something anyone could do or enjoy- something integrated into everyday life. Historically, arts efforts to bring down capitalist structures from within have been very ill-fated, with artists finding themselves ignored, scorned, crushed or – perhaps worse- accessories to political agendas. Artists and writers must work harder than ever to devise means of opposing or exposing capitalisms deceptions, but many commentators appear to have reached the conclusion that the battle is barely worth fighting. As we shall see, Jean Baudrillard argues that criticism of the status quo is no longer possi ble through art or literature and that the only efficient way of dissenting from capitalist society is to commit suicide, Modern art wishes to be negative, critical, innovative and a perpetual surpassing, as well as immediately (or almost) assimilated, accepted, integrated, consumed. One must surrender to the evidence: art no longer contests anything. If it ever did. Revolt is isolated, the malediction consumed. Thus the avant-garde movements in Europe put the artist under pressure to exhibit a certain individuality, while also – rather contradictorily- being a producer, and as prolific, political and reactionary a producer as possible, There is a lot of talk, not about reform or forcing the Enlightenment project to live up to its own ideals, but about wholesale negation, revolution, another new sensibility, now self- affirming or self-creating, rather than a universalist or rational self-legitimation. This in turn suggests a tremendously heightened role for the artist, the figure whose imagination supposedly creates or shapes the sensibilities of civilization. In a sense, the avant-garde has been socially commissioned to forecast the future, to scouting out new intellectual terrain, Aesthetic modernity is characterized by attitudes which find a common focus in a changed consciousness of time The avant-garde understands itself as invading unknown territory, exposing itself to the dangers of sudden, shocking encounters, conquering an as yet unoccupied future. The avant-garde must find a direction in a landscape into which no one seems to have yet ventured Early Attempts to Overthrow Capitalism In many ways, Dada and Surrealism represent the most successful artistic rebellions against capitalist norms, as they have attacked the conventional assumption of meaning itself, and in doing so drew attention to the ridiculous fact that such an assumption existed at all, Dada has often been called nihilistic and its declared purpose was indeed to make clear to the public at large that all established values, moral or aesthetic, had been rendered meaningless by the catastrophe of the Great War Dada preached nonsense and anti-art with a vengeance It is as though the Artist jumped before she was pushed. With its effort to close the gap between producer and produced by making everything equally alien, Surrealism also sought to negate its creator, using, pure psychic automatism intended to express the true process of thought free from the exercise of reason and from any aesthetic or moral purpose . Habermas, too, asserts that Surrealism poses a threat to arts existential rights, but still fails in two ways, First, when the containers of an autonomously developed cultural sphere are shattered, the contents get dispersed. Nothing remains from a desublimated meaning or a destructured form; an emancipatory effect does not follow. Habermas draws attention to the levelling affect of contemporary communication networks: networks which challenge the hierarchical assumptions of classical Marxism, and which have, in scale, surpassed what any postmodern commentator – even in the 1980s- could have imagined. More so than ever, our media are democratic and interrelated, A rationalized everyday life, therefore, could hardly be saved from cultural impoverishment through breaking open a single cultural sphere art and so providing access to just one of the specialized knowledge complexes. Any active dissent can be transformed into a commodity, a product to assist the perpetuation of capitalism. Catchy slogans devised by revolutionaries are used to sell mortgages, paintings that challenge conventional assumptions about beauty and form are written about in books to be sold, and bought by galleries where their beauty and form can be admired and valued- bought and sold. As the â€Å"Anti-Naturals† recently wrote, on the subject, â€Å"It is the nature of the Spectacle to transform all experience into a consumer commodity. It is no surprise, then, that so much of modern capitalist production should be focused on the authenticity swindle. It is not merely that we are told that our authentic self is only a credit card order away. We must be told what and how to purchase. Since, in the midst of the Spectacle, all experience is real only when it can be consumed, it is natural to follow the guidance offered by the array of products engineered to address each particular need. In reality, it is quite easy to mass market to hundreds of millions of individuals,‚ since each quest is identical in its basic features.† Any words spoken against can be turned into rallying support. Art, like any powerful weapon, can always be turned against those who use it. Whatever doesnt kill power is killed by it. In this way the Dadaists watched their anti-art works being systematically categorised as works of art, and were forced to focus their whole project completely on the evasion of this recuperation. Five years of agitation against capital, war and morality, brought them to an impasse of suicide or silence. Everything the Dadaists made, said, wrote or performed seemed to be turned against its critical purpose and used against them- and they abandoned the project. Effectively, they went on strike. The Dadaists left a legacy in the form of recuperated, commodified art works, and in multiple imitations of their style and attitude. Their advocation of collage and photomontage is now everywhere in advertisements, their paradoxically anti-art art surely at the very heart of current post-modernist critical theory. They were correct in their belief that this capitalist appropriation was inevitable while they were merely producing, and not controlling the means of production, but in some ways, they did in fact constitute a challenge to bourgeois morality. Dadaism questioned the philosophical assumptions which justified smug bourgeois attitudes, and uncovered the hypocracy of World War 1s brutality legitimising propaganda. In the end they felt that their subversions of established values were merely contributing too much to the culture they had been trying to undermine. The Situationist Asger Jorn was emphatic about the failure of Marxist theory, to liberate of art from commodification , â€Å"Instead of abolishing the private character of property, socialism does nothing but augment them as much as possible, rending humans themselves useless and socially non-existent. The goal of the development of artistic liberation is the liberation of human values by the transformation of human qualities into real values. Here begins the artistic revolution against socialist development, the artistic revolution that is tied to the communist project . . .† Debord and the Situationist Reaction to Capitalism Debords 1967 book The Society of the Spectacle, represented an attempt to articulate as fully as possible the Situationist philosophy. The term spectacle refers to the colonization of everyday life by commodity in late capitalism, an extension of alienation experienced between production and consumption. The spectacles subjective, one-directional effect requires a kind of non-participation, eventually resulting in a breakdown of communication between people. Situationism distinguishes between classical and modern forms of capitalism. Where classical capitalism demanded that wasted time describes any time not spent at work, modern capitalism actually reverses that, using advertising and other spectacular means to declare that it is the time spent at work that is wasted, and work is justifiable only because it provides the monetary ability to consume. Marx wrote that, the worker feels at home when he is not working, and when he is working he does not feel at home The Situationists describe the spectacular society as a place where, the spectator feels at home nowhere, for the spectacle is everywhere . As Debord himself explains, So long as the realm of necessity remains a social dream, dreaming will remain a social necessity. The spectacle is the bad dream of modern society in chains, expressing nothing more than its wish for sleep. The spectacle is guardian of that sleep . However, the spectacle was not unique to capitalist society; the Situationists worked on a theory of the concentrated spectacle that would incorporate individual influences on capitalist regimes. This was principally contrived as a rhetorical framework to include the cult of personality in the dictatorships of places such as Cuba, the Soviet Union and China. The Situationists argued that the same tricks that society used to sell fast cars and kitchen appliances were used to promote and deify figures such as Chairman Mao. In anarchic efforts to subvert the spiritual and fiscal poverty of urban life under the tyranny of the spectacle, the Situationists developed a revolutionary art, departed from artistic convention. In their article Preliminaries Toward Defining a Unitary Revolutionary Program, Debord and the Marxist theorist Pierre Canjuers, assert, â€Å"At one pole, art is purely and simply recuperated by capitalism as a means of conditioning the population. At the other pole, capitalism grants art a perpetual privileged concession: that of pure creative activity, an alibi for the alienation of all other activities (which makes it the most expensive and prestigious status symbol). But at the same time, this sphere reserved for free creative activity is the only one in which the question of what we do with life and the question of communication are posed practically and in all their fullness. Here, in art, lies the basis of the antagonisms between partisans and adversaries of the officially dictated reasons for living. The established meaninglessness and separations give rise to the general crisis of traditional artistic means a crisis linked to the experience of alternative ways of living or the demand for such experience. Revolutionary artists are those who call for intervention; and who have themselves intervened in the sp ectacle in order to disrupt or destroy it.† Initially, the work the Situationist International produced was aimed at ridiculing formalist conceptions of the art object: Asger Jorn bought amateur paintings at flea markets and painted over them, subverting notions of authority and value. Giuseppe Pinot-Gallizio invented a style of â€Å"industrial† painting where the canvas was over a hundred metres long, then cut strips off for potential buyers, thereby subverting traditional preconceptions of arts autonomy. In reality these processes were eventually absorbed by a capitalist art market bought, sold, exhibited, written about, and for the most part, politically neutered. In his 1974 book Theory of the Avant-Garde, Peter Burger points out that the avant-garde artists main goal is to shock the viewer, typically accustomed to organic or formalist works of art, in the hope that such withdrawal of meaning will direct the readers attention to the fact that the conduct of ones life is questionable and that it is necessary to cha nge it He goes on to state that, Paradoxically, the avant-gardist intention to destroy art as an institution is thus realized in the work of art itself. The intention to revolutionize life by returning art to its praxis turns into a revolutionizing of art. This is the kind of logic that prompted the Situationists to agree to stop producing art in 1961, when they decided to cease considering themselves artists. Any remaining members unwilling to abandon traditional forms of art, including Jorn, Pinot-Gallizio, and Constant found themselves either being forced into ideological resignation or expulsion. â€Å"It is a question not of elaborating the spectacle of refusal, but rather of refusing the spectacle. In order for their elaboration to be artistic and authentic in the new and authentic sense defined by the SI, the elements of the destruction of the spectacle must precisely cease to be works of art. Once and for all. . . . Our position is that of combatants between two worlds one that we dont acknowledge, the other that does not yet exist.† In The Situationist City, Simon Sadler write that, in abandoning early Situationism, the Situationist International abandoned its imagining of utopia a devastating decision, surely unprecedented in the history of the avant-garde, and yet at the same time surely the situationists greatest contribution to that history: the recognition that in changing the world, avant-garde art cannot be a substitute for popular redistribution of power It seemed that the SI recognized that for any avant-garde to succeed, it would do best striving to produce artists, and not art. The Dadaists, too, were aware that both art and artist are part of the capitalist system, and consequently as guilty in their participation as any other commodity or worker. Marcuse and Adorno, in contrast, argued that the Dadaist project was misguided for its attacks on conventional art. They saw art as an autonomous entity, separate from capitalist interests, and something intrinsically apolitical that must be preserved rather than aggressively undermined. For Adorno, art bears an essential negativity derived from its peculiar Form; its rearrangements of reality are conducted according to a system quite alien to those of capitalism. This â€Å"Form† grants art a: refuge and a vantage point from which to denounce the reality established through domination. While Adorno and Marcuse criticised the anti-artists for attacking artistic Form, they agreed with the avant-gardists in their slightly utopic aspiration of abolishing the distinction that existed between art and the rest of reality. In fact, Marcuse wished to see a society organised around the aesthetic principles he believed resided only within art. Both argued that this integration could not be achieved if artists were allowed to participate. Art should be kept apolitical and protected, in a realm conducive to calm reflection that might remind us of the truth an authentic life can afford us after the revolution. So, although they expressed their rejection of this view in different ways, the Dadaists, Surrealists and Situationists all aspired to a collapse of the distinction between art and the rest of life in present: â€Å"everyday life†. Instead of waiting for the revolution, all three argued that the integration of art and life was in fact necessary for the achievement of revolution, a revolution made possible only by a combined cultural, ideological and economic assault on capitalism. Asger Jorn, again, on the failure of the socialist revolution, â€Å"The capitalist revolution was essentially a socialization of consumption. Capitalist industrialization brought humanity a socialization as profound as the socialization proposed by the socialists that of the means of production. The socialist revolution is the fulfillment of the capitalist revolution. The one element removed from the capitalist system is saving, because consumptions richness has already been eliminated by the capitalists themselves†¦ Real communism will be the leap into the domain of freedom and of value, of communication. Contrary to utilitarian value (normally known as material value), artistic value is the progressive value because, by a process of provocation, it is the valorization of humanity itself. Since Marx, economic politics has shown its impotence and its cowardice. A hyperpolitics will need to strive for the direct realization of humanity.† Walter Benjamins Authentic Opposition: Crisis of Reproduction Walter Benjamin is probably Adornos most established opponent, particularly since The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction, a work that concentrated upon defining the aura of traditional art preceding 1900, and assessed the decay of this aura under the impact of new media and cultural technologies. Benjamin argues that art has lost its authenticity because of mechanical mass reproduction in our capitalist-orientated culture industry. He is concerned about shifting attitudes to art, which came about as a consequence of the introduction of mechanical means of reproduction. Formerly unique objects, located in a particular space, lost their singularity as they became accessible to many people in diverse places. Lost too was the aura that was attached to a work of Art which was now open to many different readings and interpretations Unlike his Frankfurt School colleagues, however, and especially unlike Adorno, Benjamin argues, this loss of authenticity is actually a positive thing, because it democratizes and politicizes art. Benjamins claim that arts loss of authenticity might actually help free people, not enslave them in a capitalist culture industry starkly opposes Adornos ideas. In addition, each stage of reproduction of an original work of art also contributes to its loss of aura. According to Benjamin, then: culture has been transformed into an industry; thus art has become commodified; contemporary culture is the machinery by which oppressive ideologies are reproduced and disseminated; new media technologies such as phonographs, film and photography, serve to destroy arts aura and effectively demystify the process of creating art, making available radical new access and roles for art in mass culture; the spectator has become a collaborator and participant, who joins the author in determining the meaning of the production of the work of art. Art is successful only when it enables the critical contemplation of a viewer. Benjamin happily equates authenticity with authority- the authority of oppressive institutions such as the church or the state- and history. As Benjamin explains, the work of arts authenticity is the essence of all that is transmissible from its beginning, ranging from its substantive duration to its testimony to the history which it has experienced Until the 20th century, artworks retained their aura, their â€Å"authenticity† precisely because of their inability to be mass-reproduced, whether religious artifacts or one-off paintings commissioned by individual wealthy patrons. This conception clearly presents aura and authenticity as profoundly undemocratic, as the means of artistic production remain in the control of the rich and powerful, then able use such art to maintain control over the masses. The introduction of mechanical means of reproduction of art, particularly photography and film, caused the very foundations of this setup to be radically altered. For the first time it was possible for anyone to acquire the means to take photographs of a work of art, or at purchase an image of the work. However hard cultural elites in the late 19th century had tried to protect the aura of art works, the social advance of the masses and the invention of media such as film, which depends upon distribution to the masses, had led to the inevitable decay of the aura in the 20th century. Benjamin marks the distinction between manual and machine reproduction of art, The whole sphere of authenticity is outside technical, and, of course, not only technical reproducibility, he states, Confronted with its manual reproduction, which was usually branded as a forgery, the original preserved all its authority; not so vis a vis technical reproduction Benjamin states two reasons this occurs. Firstly, machine reproduction is more independent of the original than manual reproduction; secondly, technical reproduction can put the copy of the original into situations which would be out of reach for the original itself. So mass-produced copies are able to engage with the wider world in a manner not possible for the original or one-off copies. Benjamin summarises his ideas concerning reproduction by asserting the technique detaches the reproduced object from the domain of tradition. Many reproductions it substitutes a plurality of copies for a unique existence.† So to allow the reproduction to meet the beholder or listener in his own particular situation, is to reactivate the object reproduced, â€Å"It is these processes that lead to the tremendous shattering of tradition which is the obverse of the contemporary crisis and renewal of mankind In Benjamins conception, then, state and religious authorities have steadily lost the ability to control general access to such works of art, particularly since the 20th century began. This is most apparent in relation to the cinema, which destroyed the traces of aura with which art had been traditionally imbued; Benjamin cites arts historical value as a fundamental part of magical and religious rituals. In the process, capitalism strips art of its the idealistic, theological halo- to some extent a happy consequence and restorative, as it returns the art object to its non-utilitarian presence, its everyday reality. For Benjamin, an artworks â€Å"aura† refers to its uniqueness and the phenomena of distance, however close [an object] may be. He uses gives the example of distant mountains and a trees bough over head, both contain aura because they are images have not been effectively reproduced mechanically . Beyond the concepts of aura and authenticity, Benjamins concepts of reproduction and reversibility represent the core of his concerns about way in which arts role in society has been fundamentally altered in the 20th century. Benjamin proposes that the artworks aura of authenticity has withered away because of its reproduceability, and the process of reproduction brings art into closer proximity with a mass audience. However, paradoxically, as the authenticity erodes, the works essence becomes forefronted in the process, as it starts to become designed for reproducibility. As Benjamin describes it, â€Å"for the first time in world history, mechanical reproduction emancipates the work of art from its parasitical dependence on ritual. . . . From a photographic negative, for example, one can make any number of prints; to ask for an authentic print makes no sense. But the instant the criterion of authenticity ceases to be applicable to artistic production, the total function of art is reversed. Instead of being based on ritual, it begins to be based on another practice – politics†. Benjamins commentaries on the effects of reproduction inspired other writers, such as Lechte, â€Å"it is the process of reproduction as such which is revolutionary: the fact, for instance, that the photographic negative enables a veritable multiplication of originals. With the photograph, therefore, the spectre of the simulacrum emerges, although Benjamin never names it as such. The photograph as simulacrum by-passes the simple difference between original and copy† Barbara Krugers Situationism and the Irresistible Collage of Society Barbara Kruger addresses the negative aspects of capitalist society as an artist, writer, curator, lecturer and graphic designer. Her art is displayed both inside and outside museums and in a range of different forms. Occasionally her prints are framed and hung on the walls of museums and galleries in the traditional fashion, but Kruger is endlessly inventive, and often writes text to be printed or projected directly on the walls or floors of a museum. In Picturing Greatness, a photography exhibition curated by Kruger in 1987 for The Museum of Modern Art in New York, text was printed in large black type across a central partition. Kruger selected photographs for this exhibit from the museums collection, and according to the words on the partition, the photographs were mostly of mostly famous artists† who happened to be predominantly white and male. The text on the partition claimed the works can show us how vocation is ambushed by clichà © and snapped into stereotype by the camera, and how photography freezes moments, creates prominence and makes history. Krugers work continually questions the definition of art, artists and the ways in which â€Å"great art† should be exhibited. In this work, Kruger challenges the overwhelming dominance of male artists and draws attention to the females apparent invisibility in western art history. Just like the Situationists under Guy Debord, she has altered the meaning of art by rec ontextualising it. Crucially, the visitor to Krugers exhibition does not need to be familiar with the original photographs before seeing the show- even the uneducated viewer could read Krugers text, look at the original images and come to their own conclusions about the meaning. Thus the work achieves a kind of unique political democracy. Kruger has a background as a graphic designer, and as such creates effective bold images which are in many ways visually indistinguishable from advertisements, but rather than trying to sell a product, appeal directly to our social conscience. The subject of her text is always I, me, we, or you, as though Kruger engages in conversation with the viewer. Her messages probe the assumptions of the capitalist status quo: You are seduced by the sex appeal of the inorganic, When I hear the word culture, I take out my checkbook and We have received orders not to move. Similarly, Constant, of the COBRA group, proposed a city as a kind of physical expression of his utopia of â€Å"free play† which, in parts, bears striking resemblance to representations of the Internet, in books such as Mapping Cyberspace (with wild lines pouring out of the metropolis perhaps representing bandwidth and site traffic). Made with perspex and bike parts, Constants models and his diagrams for New Babylon demonstrate his yearning for future as something mobile, organic, animated, and self-celebratory. For Constant the city was a sort of perpetual festival of leisure. With its intricately connected wires suspending clear circular layers, ramps and walkways, Constants New Babylon recalls some kind of tensile organism. As Constant describes it, â€Å"The unfunctional character of this playground-like construction makes any logical division of the inner spaces senseless. We should rather think of a quite chaotic arrangement of small and bigger spaces that are constantly assembled and dissembles by means of standardized mobile construction elements like walls, floors and staircases. Thus the social space can be adapted to the ever-changing needs of an every changing population as it passes through the sector system.† Analogues with the Internet are irresistable. Equally, he could have been referring in a general way to those unique social structures which have grown from the anti-globalisation movement – structures which, although provisional, pragmatic and short term, are nevertheless ideologically committed to social change and serve as emblems of the ongoing struggle against capitalism, a battle fuelled entirely from reserves of creativity. Constants is city as collage, similar to that celebrated by the less politically motivated group, Archigram, in the UK (many of whose members now design massive architectural features for megaband stadium concerts). In this time of desperate connectivity and complicated layering of urban cultures, with invisible webs of communication engulfing us, the need to understand the city as a place beyond work and production seems more pressing than ever. The Situationist reaction to capitalism is also excellently expressed through anti capitalist collage: for example that of the General Lighting and Power group, whose slick mock-advertising images of soft focus female forms in leotards and computer graphics of office interiors and car accidents, wryly annotated with entertaining aphorisms such as: Aerobics is necessary: progress implies it (I see you baby, shaking that ass) and God is in the retailing Comparisons to Jenny Holzer and Barbara Kruger are obvious. Charles Rice, too, has observed the oversized billboard signs now proliferating in major cities, arguing convincingly that they serve to perpetuate the distance between the real and the impossible,these spatial fantasies effectively deliver identification with the distant and the unattainable† Many writers have noted the similarities between the Situationists idea of the derive (that is, the navigating of a city via means and routes other than those originally intended) and the experience of â€Å"surfing† the internet. Colin Fournier, architect and educator makes some potent observations on this area. It would seem that many of the characteristics of the internet reflect the S.I.s utopic city. The things considered prerequisite for their utopia: an ephemeral, negotiable type of city, where uses were determined by the population, surfing the web is like the idea of drifting or â€Å"deriving†, flaneur-like, through a city. The Situationist city and the web are uniquely flexible, anarchically dynamic: spacial relations secondary on any given route. The internet always seems to somehow recall the old Surrealist idea of using a map of one city to find ones way around another. Art as Capitalism: the Medias Re-appropriation of Images Increasingly, the media is becoming governed by imagery, and the average consumer is overwhelmed by visual information on a daily basis. Through sheer competition, the commercial sphere has been forced to use stranger, scarier, more extreme imagery to earn the attention of bewildered customers. Magazines such as Vogue have lured artists to their pages, where they are seen as innovative, visionary powers for re-inventing a complacent visual vocabulary. Thus, the traditional hierarchy of photography, in which the commercial and conceptual worlds were segregated, has been broken down into a fluid, integrated world- mutual respect has ensured that crossing the boundary either way no longer carries the taint or disrespect it once did. A new generation of artists have grown up with the rather cynical and postmodern idea that all things are commercially viable. Contemporary art school graduates are less likely to see their ventures into the commercial realm as contamination, and more as a necessary aspect of their endeavor. Commerce is incorporated into art at every level, from the means to the ends to the theme. That the common thread of art and fashion- the human body- has become such a commodity, seems like an obvious extension of this. Fashion spreads frequently borrow art photographers for their pages and mimic, in the case of Diesel and others, with considerable irony- the current art world trend towards narrative ambiguity and deliberately theatrical tableaux that recall â€Å"theoretical† artists like Jeff Wall and Cindy Sherman. Russel Wong is one such new generation artist, his work strongly informed by todays cultural fascination with celebrity. Wong has become famous through striking portraits of personalities from sports to music and movies, famous for capturing moments of vulnerability, warmth and humor. A number of Wongs photos have been used on the covers of international magazines. My photos are never confrontati

The Effectiveness Of Methods To Control Microorganisms Health Essay

The Effectiveness Of Methods To Control Microorganisms Health Essay In the following assignment I will discuss the effectiveness of methods to control microorganisms in particular I will highlight the methods such as temperature, Immunisations and antibodies. Temperature is a huge factor in the growth of microorganisms along with food supply, pH levels and time. Refrigeration and freezing play a role together in the growth of bacteria in foods. Freezing foods at low temperatures merely leaves large amounts of microorganisms dormant by being unactive which is an effective method of controlling the spread of the microbes but not in the eradication of the microorganisms. As the temperature increases the microorganisms become active and spread which can lead to illness. The types of bacteria found in refrigerated foods are pathogenic bacteria and spoilage bacteria, such as salmonella, listeria, E.coli O157. these bacteria are present in large amounts of foods which have been repeatedly frozen again. Certain foods have different shelf lives to others because of this certain foods have to be frozen before the use by date for availability of consumption. A refrigerator is an effective method for the control of microorganisms. Effectiveness of controlling microorganisms by freezing/refrigeration is visibly present as spoilage bacteria turns foods off, changing colour, fungi growth, they release bad odours and by freezing foods/refrigeration it lets foods be available for consumption for longer periods of time. There are over a million cases of food poisoning each year, 20,000 hospitalisations and 500 deaths. This rate is slowly decreasing in the U.K. This costs the economy  £1.5 billion each year (Micbo 2012). In Northern Ireland and Scotland the risk of food poisoning from local food stores and food outlets was increasing at an alarming rate. The Food Standard Agency devised a plan to introduce a scheme of rating every food outlet and provider with a score from 1-5 on their business when it is inspected by a food safety officer from the businesss local authority. The hygiene rating shows how closely the business is meeting the requirements of food hygiene law (The Food Standards Act 1999). (FSA 2012) Th is scheme along with food hygiene legislation greatly decreases the rate of microorganisms growing and it is a great way that shows that when the rules are followed correctly the methods are effective in controlling microorganisms. An autoclave is a machine which operates highly pressurised steam, this is known as sterilisation. Sterilisation is the most effective method of controlling microorganisms. Due to autoclaves being used in a large scoop of practise, every practise has their own set of guidelines in the use of autoclaves. With further research I have concluded that the majority of autoclaves based on the University of Cardiffs research guidelines preform at the same capacity i.e. correct autoclaving will result in a 100% kill rate. It should therefore be the first choice method (wherever practicable) both wild-type and genetically modified micro-organisms. (UOC2012). With this information I can concluded that the use of autoclaves for example within a hospital or dental care practise is different to a lab environment autoclave. This means that autoclaves in hospitals and dental care practises come into contact with a range of different microorganisms and it is these microorganisms that spread disease. In do so some microorganisms have adapted and modified to insure survival such as prions, these prions do not eradicate at normal pressurised temperatures such as the typical 134  °C for three minutes or 121  °C for 15 minutes. The overall effectiveness in controlling microorganisms with the use of an autoclave is still considered to be the best method. Due to the factor of small amounts of prions still alive after autoclave it poses major concerns with infection control policies. Immunisations are one of the greatest achievements of medicine and it has saved millions of lives that have been spared from diseases. Immunisations can prevent diseases such as measles, mumps, rubella and a wider list ranging from anthrax to yellow fever. (DOH2012)(NHS,1.2012) Measles, mumps and rubella known as MMR our infectious diseases. Since the introduction of the MMR vaccination in 1998 the number of children who develop the disease has fallen to a relatively low number. The MMR vaccine works by activating parts of the immune system to produce antibodies against MMR. If you come into contact with one of the diseases your immune system will produce antibodies to fight against it or them. According to BUPA UK after the first dose of the MMR vaccine, 64 out of 100 people will be protected against mumps, 90 out of 100 people will be protected against measles and 95 out of 100 people will be protected against rubella. After the second dose, 99 out of 100 people will be protected against all three illnesses. (Bupa2012) Controversy over the effectiveness of the MMR vaccine and its side effects caused by the published findings by Dr Andrew Wakefield in 1998 caused a huge number of people not receiving their children vaccinated against MMR. His published findings showed a strong link between the MMR vaccine and autism and bowl disease. An investigation of the published findings showed that by Dr Andrew Wakefield used controlled tests with selected individuals in which he based his findings on. This was a huge error in his findings which proved that Dr Andrew Wakefield findings where wrong but because these findings were published they caused panic for the public. MMR still has a foothold in the United Kingdom and across Europe and it hasnt been totally eradicated like the infectious disease called smallpox. The Department of Health along with the General Medical Council state that Over 90% of individuals will seroconvert to measles, mumps and rubella antibodies after the first dose of the MMR vaccines currently used in the UK (DOH2010) which shows that it is a highly effective method. The Antibiotic was first discovered in 1928, the first antibiotic was called penicillin by Andrew Fleming. Penicillin is used to treat infections caused by bacteria. Over time these bacteria have become multi-resistant to antibiotics with the abuse of antibodies which create new strains of bacteria known as super bugs such as (MRSA) Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus and (TB) Tuberculosis. According to the Northern Ireland Strategic and Research Agency (2012) the number of deaths with Staphylococcus aureus or MRSA mentioned and recorded as the underlying cause on the death certificate by registration year, 2001-2011 with All Staphylococcus aureus at a percentage of 35% and MRSA with a percentage of 31%. Compared to 2001 All Staphylococcus aureus where at a percentage of 52% and MRSA at a percentage of 44% (NISRA2012). These findings show that the mortality rate for all Staphylococcus aureus and MRSA in Northern Ireland is on the decline due to infection control policies, ant ibiotic administration policies and proper use of antibiotics. Therefore antibodies are extremely effective method for the control of microorganisms when used correctly in accordance with your doctor and policies (NICE 2012). Reference Section (Bupa2012) Bupa Information Resource website (2012) On how effective is the MMR vaccine? [Accessed Online] Available from http://www.bupa.co.uk/individuals/health-information/directory/m/mmr-vaccine?tab=Resources (Date Accessed: 23/11/12) (DOH2012) (NHS,1) Department of Health website NHS Choices website (2012) Immunisation facts [Accessed Online] Available from http://www.nhs.uk/Planners/vaccinations/Pages/Landing.aspx (Date Accessed: 23/11/12) Department of Health (2010) and General Medical Council (2010) / NHS Publications of Immunisations statistics from 2009-10 with the present. [Accessed Online] Available from https://www.wp.dh.gov.uk/immunisation/files/2012/07/Chap-21-dh_122643.pdf http://www.ic.nhs.uk/webfiles/publications/immsstatisticsreplacement/imms%20200910%20replacement/Immunisations_Bulletin_2009_10_v2.pdf (Date Accessed: 23/11/12) FSA 2012) Food Standards Agency. Food Safety Week statistics.*(2012.) [Accessed Online] Available from http://www.food.gov.uk/multimedia/pdfs/fsw2012-toolkit.pdf (Date Accessed: 23/11/12) (FSA 2012) Food Standards Agency. Food Standard Hygiene Act 1999 [Accessed Online] Available from http://www.food.gov.uk/enforcement/regulation/foodstandardsact (Date Accessed: 23/11/12) (NICE2012) National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence Infection: prevention and control of healthcare-associated infections in primary and community care (2012) [Accessed Online] Available from http://www.ips.uk.net/uploads/guidelines/NICE%20Clinical%20Guidelines%20for%20Infection%20Control_CG139.pdf (Date Accessed: 23/11/12) (NISRA2012) Northern Ireland Strategic and Research Agency (2012) [Accessed Online] http://www.nisra.gov.uk/demography/default.asp29.htm (Date Accessed: 23/11/12) (Micbo2012) Microbiology Online [Accessed Online] Available from http://www.microbiologyonline.org.uk/about-microbiology/microbes-and-food (Date Accessed: 23/11/12) (UOC2012) University of Cardiff evidence based research on the OSHEU Autoclave Guidance Online Document effectiveness of the autoclave [Accessed Online] Available from http://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=trct=jq=esrc=ssource=webcd=1ved=0CDAQFjAAurl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.cardiff.ac.uk%2Fosheu%2Fresources%2FAutoclave%2520Guidelines%2520draft%2520document.docei=Ee6uUJT4H8fD0QXp9oHIDwusg=AFQjCNEYNS-kN77ojA7_rYNFnSRywJKAggsig2=s1poyV8RmTH3TngWK-ijLQ (Date Accessed 23/11/12)

Jealousy, the Monster in Shakespeares Othello :: Othello essays

The Monster in Othello      Ã‚   This essay is about William Shakespeare's Othello.   It focuses on Iago's words to Othello, "O, beware, my lord, of Jealousy.   It is the green-eyed monster." in act 3, scene 3 and just how important this warning was not only for Othello, but also for Roderigo and for Iago.      Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Before considering the importance of Iago's words, it is important to define what jealousy means.   According to The New Lexicon Webster's Encylopedic Dictionary of the English Language, "jealousy is a state of fear, suspicion, revenge   or envy caused by a real or imagined threat or challenge to one's possessive instincts.   It may be provoked by rivalry, in sexual love, by competition or by desires for the qualities or possessions of another."      Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Roderigo is foolish and even at times unusually feeble-minded.   This explained partially by Roderigo's jealousy:   he is infatuated with Desdemona and has been for some time.   He is willing to do anything to win her love.   He is jealous that Desdemona loves Othello and not him.   In accordance with the definition of jealousy, Roderigo desires the possessions of another.   It is this jealousy which moves him to do many evil things in the play.   He pays Iago large amounts of money to conjure up a scheme to acquire Desdemona.   He gives in to Iago at the beginning of the play.   In effect he has become the villian's disciple.   By doing this, he himself has adopted the green-eyed monster image. In act two, he is prompted by Iago to cause a commotion and begin a fight with Cassio.   Later in act four, scene two, Roderigo is convinced by Iago to kill Cassio.   In act five, scene one, Roderigo attempts to kill Cassio but only manages to wound him.   At the same time Cassio wounds Roderigo.   Iago (who was watching this fight) leaves only to re-enter later and kill Roderigo. Roderigo's jealousy brought upon his downfall.      Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Most people do not think of jealousy as Iago's downfall, but in essence, jealousy has many negative effects on Iago.   By using Iago, Shakespeare has shown just how powerful jealousy really is.   Iago is cunning, crafty, intellectual and   intelligent.   Despite seeming to be impermeable to negative emotions such as jealousy, the exact opposite seems to happen.

Religion in American Film Essay -- Essays Papers

Religion in American Film American’s nation-wide did a disbelieving double take when they were heard that Jim Carrey was going to be playing the role of God in Universal Pictures summer 2001 movie Bruce Almighty. Millions of American’s have found themselves near-obsessed with the engrossing epic Lord of the Rings, Dogma has been welcomed into the Cult Films Hall of Fame, and Mel Gibson’s The Passion stirred an overwhelming amount of religious, cultural, and ethnic criticism. When looking at the recent array of films that either present or suggest religious themes – whether it be allegorically, evangelically, or satirically – we find ourselves asking the question â€Å"why now?† Is the reason for this upsurge sociological, psychological, philosophical, or historical? Is there perhaps a political or economic reason as to why American’s today are so eagerly consuming films that are looking at the timeless battle between good & evil, questioning organized belief s ystems, or presenting religion in new and contemporary ways? From critical analysis and research done on this subject, as well as much pondering and theorizing, it could be said that the question of â€Å"why now† is more philosophical, and value oriented, than anything else. The religious content that is present in modern American films is indicative of a more general discussion & questioning of values and resonates with the post-modern, religiously pluralistic mindset that American’s have come to embody. It is a common mis-conception that films are merely entertainment, and serve no other purpose than to provide for the viewer a two-hour escape from reality. This is a serious under-estimation of the power, purpose, and potential of film, because film, upon reflection, revea... ...garet R. Seeing and Believing: Religion and Values in the Movies. Boston: Beacon Press, 1996. Johnston, Robert K. Reel Spirituality: Theology and Film in Dialogue. Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2000. Stone, Bryan P. Faith and Film: Theological Themes at the Cinema. St.Louis: Chalice Press, 2000. Valenti, F. Miguel. More Than a Movie : Ethics in Entertainment. Colorado: Westview Press, 2000 Detweiler, Craig, and Barry Taylor. A Matrix of Meanings: Finding God in Pop Culture. Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2003. Putnam, Robert D. Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2000 http://www.hollywoodjesus.com/bruce_almighty.htm For the purposes of this study, it is helpful to look specifically at the way in which Christ and Christianity are being presented, through the various methods, in contemporary film.