Reno v. ACLU How Does Freedom of Speech Apply Online

Reno v. ACLU offered the Supreme Court its first chance to determine how freedom of speech would apply to the internet. The 1997 case found that it is unconstitutional for the government to broadly restrict the content of online speech. Fast Facts: Reno v. ACLU Case Argued: March 19, 1997Decision Issued: June 26, 1997Petitioner: Attorney General Janet Reno  Respondent: American Civil Liberties UnionKey Question: Did the 1996 Communications Decency Act violate the First and Fifth Amendments by being overly broad and vague in its definitions of the types of internet communications that it banned?Majority Decision: Justices Stevens, Scalia, Kennedy, Souter, Thomas, Ginsburg, Breyer, OConnor, RehnquistDissenting: NoneRuling: The Supreme Court ruled that the act violated the First Amendment by enforcing overly broad restrictions on free speech and that it is unconstitutional for the government to broadly restrict the content of online speech. Facts of the Case In 1996, the internet was a relatively uncharted territory. Concerned about protecting children from â€Å"indecent† and â€Å"obscene† material on the World Wide Web, lawmakers passed the Communications Decency Act of 1996. The act criminalized the exchange of â€Å"indecent† information between adults and minors. A person in violation of the CDA could be subject to jail time or up to $250,000 in fines.  The provision applied to all online communications, even those between parents and children. A parent could not give their child permission to view material classified as indecent under the CDA. The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and the  American Library Association  (ALA) filed separate lawsuits, which were consolidated and reviewed by a  district court panel.   The lawsuit focused on two provisions of the CDA  which prohibited the knowing transmission of  obscene, indecent or patently offensive to a recipient under 18 years of age. The  district  court filed an injunction, preventing  enforcement  of the law, based on over 400 individual findings of fact. The government appealed the case to the Supreme Court. Constitutional Issues Reno v. ACLU sought to test the governments authority for restricting online communications.  Can the government criminalize sexually indecent messages sent to users under the age of 18 on the internet? Does the First Amendment freedom of speech protect these communications, regardless of the nature of their content? If a criminal law is vague, does it violate the Fifth Amendment? The Arguments Counsel for the plaintiff focused on the idea that the statute imposed too broad of a restriction on a person’s First Amendment right to freedom of speech. The CDA failed to clarify vague terms like â€Å"indecency† and â€Å"patently offensive.†Ã‚  Counsel for the plaintiff urged the court to apply strict scrutiny in their review of the CDA. Under strict scrutiny, the government must prove that the legislation serves a â€Å"compelling interest.† Counsel for the defendant argued that the statute was well within the parameters set by the court for restricting speech, relying on precedents set by jurisprudence. The CDA did not overreach, they argued, because it only restricted specific communications between adults and minors. According to the government, the benefit of preventing â€Å"indecent† interactions outweighed the limitations placed on speech without redeeming social value. The government also advanced a â€Å"severability† argument to try and save the CDA if all other arguments failed. Severability refers to a situation where a court issues a ruling that finds only one part of a law unconstitutional but keeps the rest of the law intact. Majority Opinion The court unanimously found that the CDA violated the First Amendment by enforcing overly broad restrictions on free speech. According to the court, the CDA was an example of a content-based restriction of speech, rather than a time, place, manner restriction. This meant that the CDA aimed to limit what people could say, rather than where and when they could say it. Historically, the court has favored time, place, manner restrictions over content restrictions for fear that restricting content could have an overall â€Å"chilling effect† on speech. In order to approve a content-based restriction, the court ruled that the statute would have to pass a strict scrutiny test. This means that the government would have to be able to show a compelling interest in restricting speech and demonstrate that the law was narrowly tailored. The government could not do either. The language of the CDA was too broad and vague to satisfy the narrowly tailored requirement. Furthermore, the CDA was a pre-emptive measure as the government could not provide evidence of â€Å"indecent† or â€Å"offensive† transmissions to demonstrate the need for the law. Justice John Stevens wrote on behalf of the court, â€Å"The interest in encouraging freedom of expression in a democratic society outweighs any theoretical but unproven benefit of censorship. The court accepted the â€Å"severability† argument as it applied to the two provisions. While the â€Å"indecent† statute was vague and overreaching, the government had a legitimate interest in restricting â€Å"obscene† material as defined by Miller v. California. As such, the government could remove the term â€Å"indecent† from the text of the CDA to prevent further challenges. The court chose not to rule on whether the vagueness of the CDA warranted a Fifth Amendment challenge. According to the opinion of the court, the First Amendment claim was sufficient to find the Act unconstitutional. Concurring Opinion In the majority opinion, the court ruled that it was not persuaded by the governments claim that software could be designed to tag restricted material or block access by requiring age or credit card verification. However, it was open to the possibility of future advancements. In a concurring opinion that acted as a partial dissent, Justice Sandra Day OConnor and Justice William Rehnquist entertained the notion of zoning. If different online zones could be designed for different age groups, the justices argued that the zones could be covered by real-world zoning laws. The justices also opined that they would have accepted a more narrowly tailored version of the CDA. Impact Reno v. ACLU created a precedent for judging laws governing speech on the internet by the same standards as books or pamphlets. It also re-confirmed the courts commitment to erring on the side of caution when considering the constitutionality of a law that restricts free speech. Congress attempted to pass a narrowly tailored version of the CDA called the Child Online Protection Act in 1998. In 2009 the Supreme Court struck down the law by refusing to hear an appeal against a lower court decision in 2007 that found the law unconstitutional on the basis of Reno v. ACLU. Although the Court gave the internet the highest level of protection in terms of free speech in Reno v. ALCU, it also left the door open to future challenges by ruling based on readily available technology. If an effective way to verify the age of users becomes available, the case could be overturned. Reno v. ACLU Key Takeaways The Reno v. ACLU case (1997) presented the Supreme Court with its first opportunity to determine how  freedom of speech  would apply to the internet.  The case centered on the Communications Decency Act of 1996, which criminalized the exchange of indecent information between adults and minors.The court ruled that the CDAs content-based restriction of online speech violated of the First Amendment freedom of speech.The case set a precedent for judging online communications by the same standards that books and other written materials receive under the First Amendment. Sources â€Å"ACLU Background Briefing - Reno v. ACLU: The Road to the Supreme Court.†Ã‚  American Civil Liberties Union, American Civil Liberties Union, www.aclu.org/news/aclu-background-briefing-reno-v-aclu-road-supreme-court.Reno v. American Civil Liberties Union, 521 U.S. 844 (1997) .Singel, Ryan. â€Å"Child Online Protection Act Overturned.†Ã‚  ABC News, ABC News Network, 23 July 2008, abcnews.go.com/Technology/AheadoftheCurve/story?id5428228.

The Effects of Media on Adolescent Girls Essay - 1029 Words

Media has become a significant component within society. While media provides many pros, it supplies various cons as well. One very prominent fault that the significance of media has is its visual depiction of women. There is an abundance of media portraying women to have ideal bodies, and this undoubtedly has a negative effect on adolescent girls. Two of the many effects of media on females are depression and self esteem issues, as well as eating disorders. Unfortunately, body dissatisfaction caused by media is becoming more and more common. In today’s society, media is a part of everyone’s lives, whether people want it to be or not. One of the most openly disliked components of the media is the thin, ideal, hour-glass figure that is†¦show more content†¦Depression is when an individual has feelings of hopelessness and has very little energy to accomplish tasks; many people have tremendous trouble sustaining an interest in life. In today’s culture, girl s have become more depressed in adolescence compared to boys (Stice and Bearman). One of the major influences on why girls are frequently more depressed than boys, is that girls struggle to obtain the perfect body in their own eyes. Findings show that, compared to teen boys, teen girls have higher body shame. Fifty-three percent of adolescent girls reported being dissatisfied with their body after the study (Knauss). Low-self esteem, combined with depression, can potentially be very dangerous for young women. Furthermore, media surrounds teenage girls in today’s culture. It is impossible to escape the sight of media. The media’s constant idealistic beauty is ever present to a vast amount of self-conscious girls. This image of beauty causes girls to have low self-esteem (Clay, Vignoles, and Dittmar). Media defining this perfect body image causes many adolescent girls to feel dissatisfied with their bodies and become depressed. â€Å"Viewing ultra-thin or average-size models led to decreases in both body satisfaction and self-esteem in adolescent girls aged eleven to sixteen, with changes in self-esteem fully mediated by changes in body satisfaction† (Clay, Vignoles, and Dittmar).Show MoreRelatedThe Effects Of Media On Body Dissatisfaction Of Young Girls And Adolescents1214 Words   |  5 PagesThe media is an important aspect of the current society and is ever present to the public. With the creation of new technology, there are more and more ways the media can be rec eived and displayed for people to see everywhere they go. There are so many media sights nowadays such as Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook, as well as new magazines, commercials and other media publications made every day that allow people to connect to current events and new trends. 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I am particularly interested in the contributors to eating disorder, for instance, the relationship between eating disorders to bullying, the media, social environments, and so forth. D. What is your topic about? The research topic is about bulimia and the mass media. The topic will relate to the mental health of female adolescents. There is no set geographic location nor would timeframe for the literature review as I felt it be too constraining. E. What methods (e.g. interviews, surveysRead MoreMedia Images Influence On Adolescent Girls Self Concept Essay1094 Words   |  5 Pages Melissa Milkie’s article, Media images’ influence on Adolescent Girls’ self-concept, explores forms of media, more specifically magazines directed at teen girls, that effect young girls’ self -concept. Milkie demonstrates how our self-concepts are impacted by what we perceive others think of us and how we use the â€Å"third-person effect† in where we underestimate how much influence the media actually has on ourselves compared to others (54). Some of the major points of the article are the researchRead MoreSexual Objectification Of Music Videos And How Adolescents Are Affected Essay1068 Words   |  5 Pages Sexual Objectification in Music Videos and How Adolescents Are Affected Lauren Faron, Aynsley Fishel, Nisha Patel, Menelik Solomon The Ohio State University Music videos are easily accessible to everyone, especially adolescents. From its earliest origins on TV to recent upgrades to technology on the internet, such as YouTube, anyone can watch music videos at any time of the day. Online music video sites draw an average of 150 million people each month who view

Discrimination and Prejudice Free Essays

Discrimination is easiest explained through prejudice. Prejudice is when a social subject holds a preconceived notion about another person or a group of people, without judging from experience. Discrimination is when a social subject acts upon such preconceived notions. We will write a custom essay sample on Discrimination and Prejudice or any similar topic only for you Order Now A common mistake is the concept that both prejudice and discrimination are only negative, as in a derogative notion of someone (such as the treatment many minorities were subjected to), but, in truth, positive discrimination and prejudice are both possible, if there is a preconceived notion in favor of someone. Both of these notions are those of inequality, the difference between them being in thought as opposed to action of any kind. In fact, it’s possible to be prejudiced and not discriminate, out of such things as fear or profit, and it is possible to discriminate for the same reasons and not be prejudiced. Though, most commonly, it is those who are biased who discriminate, and those who are-non biased give equal treatment to their peers from different groups. There are three types of discrimination, based mostly on the level of social deepness. There is personal discrimination, which consists of any personal attack on a minority member, from slurs to murder. This is any attack on the personal level, any interaction of particular human beings. An instance of such an attack would be calling a transgendered human spawn of Satan. There is legal discrimination, which is when a minority group is denied any kind of rights – public institutions, jobs, housing and anything social, basically. Any person who has ever been denied a job because â€Å"blacks do not work as well as whites do† (without looking at the prior credentials) knows what legal discrimination is like. And, finally, the most deeply entrenched in society is institutional discrimination. This is when there is a tradition of discrimination so deep that it is no longer viewed as discrimination, where a discriminatory idea is so old and seemingly natural, that even members of the minority group themselves sometimes believe it. A great example is that â€Å"Romani are thieves†. Despite all cultural tradition, if this stereotype weren’t upheld by society, building walls on their side of the Romani self-chose seclusion, their way of life might have changed over the centuries, like it did with many other peoples. There are four basic approaches to the matters of aging within society. The first is the functionalist approach, otherwise known as social disengagement theory. It looks upon the withdrawal of elders from society as natural, since they gradually lose social power, and thus remove themselves from social responsibilities as to make room for youth in functional aspects, while retaining the ability to engage in activities of their choosing, such as hobbies, should they so desire. However, the activity (or interactionist) theory disputes the functionalist approach, by claiming that the more active an elderly person remains, the better their quality of life. They may disengage from responsibilities, but remaining active is necessary for a full life even in this age. Research supports this, despite criticisms that this may set unrealistic goals for the elderly. Their capacity for activity does lessen, but activity remains a basic need for happiness, and needs to be fulfilled, even in this reduced amount. But if the elderly are happier if engaged in activities, why do they disengage? Conflict theory states that, since profit is the driving force behind society, there is much pressure on the elderly to leave their positions, so that younger, less expensive and more competent specialists may be hired, the elderly losing social value as time goes on. This seems more correct than the subculture approach, which states that the elderly, while disengaging with those younger, form subcultures among themselves to compensate. While subcultures may be formed, they are not the defining factor for the disengagement, but rather, one of its consequences. And last, the exchange theory on aging combines all of these perspectives, by stating that the elderly remain active socially (and thus, happy) as long as their activity is beneficial to all involved. By â€Å"beneficial† they do not mean only economic benefits, but also the exchange of simple human feelings such as love, friendship and compassion, though some elderly people remain engaged economically (for instance, by renting rooms in their homes), and thus allow themselves the possibility of social interaction. This also includes the functionalist perspective, for it shows how rewards are given in return for past productivity. This is the most comprehensive approach. How to cite Discrimination and Prejudice, Papers Discrimination And Prejudice Free Essays Prejudice is a term which is used in most of our daily conversations and means unconfirmed or untested formed belief, attitude, opinion or knowledge held about an entity or a group and it is taken as truth by the person or groups who holds such opinion, belief, attitude or knowledge, (Honey, 1999). A typical example is the belief of the western countries that Africans are primitive and nothing good comes from them. This statement qualifies as prejudice since no test has since been carried out to confirm this claim even though most western community widely accepts it. We will write a custom essay sample on Discrimination And Prejudice or any similar topic only for you Order Now Another example to elaborate further prejudice is an opinion by Christian community that both Muslims and Hindus are sinners, not worthy of heavenly inheritance. The same is also the typical opinion held against Christians by adherents to other religious groups. This statement propagates prejudice since it is not true that following a different religious belief makes people bad. Final example in this category is the belief by a group of people that Muslims are terrorists. Is it confirmed? Discrimination on the other hand is a term widely used to mean a process of according unequal treatment or chance to different individuals, group of people, objects or events based on the views held on them. In this case therefore, the factors about which positive view(s) is/are held have higher probability of being given favorable treatment as opposed to those factors about which negative attitudes are held. By the same token, to discriminate refers to an act of giving unequal treatment to an entity or group with presume similar characteristics, (Cochran, 1999). For instance, the belief that Africans are primitive may influence someone from western countries to prefer an American as his/her personal doctor over an African medical specialist. A faithful Christian is most is likely to appreciate neither Hindu nor Islamic faith and vise versa. Finally, most Muslims may not be given visa to most countries as other nationals have access to this document with ease. It therefore follows that discrimination and prejudice are two interrelated words with prejudice possibly resulting to discrimination How to cite Discrimination And Prejudice, Papers

Macro and Micro Economics free essay sample

Micro Economics:- Microeconomics is a branch of economics that analyzes the market behavior of individual consumers and firms in an attempt to understand the decision-making process of firms and households. It is concerned with the interaction between individual buyers and sellers and the factors that influence the choices made by buyers and sellers. In particular, microeconomics focuses on patterns of supply and demand and the determination of price and output in individual markets (e. g. coffee industry). Areas microeconomics covers: ?Supply and demand ?Competition ?Monopolies ?Profit and loss ?Opportunity cost Elasticity †¢Rigid laws:- Businesses may be doomed to be non starters due to restrictive business environment which may take the form of rigid government laws ( no polluting industry can ever be located in around 50 Km radius of the Taj) , state of competition ( Car manufacturing capacity presently in the country is far in excess of demand) etc. †¢Environment impac t:- The present and future viability of an enterprise is impacted by the environment For eg no TV manufacturer can be expected to survive by making only BW television sets when consumer preference has clearly shifted to color television sets. We will write a custom essay sample on Macro and Micro Economics or any similar topic specifically for you Do Not WasteYour Time HIRE WRITER Only 13.90 / page Key Inputs:- The availability of all key inputs like skilled labor , trained managers, raw materials, electricity, transportation, fuel etc are a factor of the business environment. †¢Public awareness:- Increasing public awareness of the negative aspects of certain industries like hand woven carpets (use of child labor ) , pesticides (damage to environment in the form of chemical residues in groundwater), plastic bags (choking of sewer lines) have resulted in the slow decline of some industries. †¢The Market:- Organizations closely monitor their customer markets in order to adjust to changing tastes and preferences. A market is people or organizations with wants to satisfy, money to spend, and the willingness to spend it. Each target market has distinct needs, which need to be monitored. It is imperative for an organization to know their customers, how to reach them and when customers needs change in order to adjust its marketing efforts accordingly. The market is the focal point for all marketing decisions in an organization. †¢Marketing Intermediaries:- Physical distribution firms help the organization to stock and move products from their points of origin to their destinations. Warehouses store and protect the goods before they move to the next destination. Marketing service agencies help the organization target and promote its products and include marketing research firms, advertising agencies, and media firms. Financial intermediaries help finance transactions and insure against risks and include banks, credit unions, and insurance companies. Macro Economics:- Macroeconomics is a branch of economics dealing with the performance, structure, behavior, and decision-making of the entire economy. This includes a national, regional, or global economy. Macroeconomists study aggregated indicators such as GDP, unemployment rates, and price indices to understand how the whole economy functions. In Macroeconomics there are two areas of research that are emblematic of the discipline: the attempt to understand the causes and consequences of short-run fluctuations in national income (the business cycle), and the attempt to understand the determinants of long-run economic growth (increases in national income). Areas of macroeconomics covers: ?Money supply ?Interest rates ?Fiscal and monetary policy ?Unemployment ?Growth ?Inflation ?Inflation:- In recent years, a confluence of macroeconomic and industry-specific factors has led to record-high prices and unprecedented volatility in the global agricultural commodity markets. Specifically, simultaneous increases in demand and production costs along with intensifying supply-side pressures have led many experts to forecast extended periods of higher-than-average prices for many commodities. Farm-based commodities have recently experienced unprecedented growth in demand from both traditional and non-traditional sources. Traditional demand has increased primarily via worldwide population growth. The world’s population currently exceeds 6. 5 billion, is projected to reach nearly 9. 5 billion by 2050. Increases in demand have also been driven by global industrialization’s positive effect on disposable income in emerging economies like China and India. As a result, citizens of these countries have begun to shift away from the grain-centric diet of developing countries to the protein-rich diet common to countries with higher per capita GDP. Because, on average, one pound of protein requires nearly seven pounds of grain to produce, the increase in demand for meat has a large multiplier effect on the demand for grain. Moreover, increased globalization, free trade, and currency exchange considerations have increased agriculture-based exports from producing countries like the U. S. Canada, and Australia, as well as Europe and South America, which has increased competition and intensified demand on a global scale. In addition to traditional food-related demand, coarse grains such as corn, sorghum, barley, oats, and rye and edible oils and edible oil products have experienced exponential demand growth due to the rapidly expanding biofuels initiative in the United States, Brazil, and the European Union. The World Bank estimated that nearly all of the increase in global corn production between 2004-2007 was used for biofuels production in the United States. Moreover, as evidenced by Congress’s recent mandate to increase domestic ethanol production nearly five-fold by 2022, the biofuels component of agricultural commodity demand is not likely to decline in the near, or even intermediate, future. Most agricultural commodities are also experiencing significant supply-side pressure from a variety of sources. Recently, the global supply of agricultural commodities has been severely affected by unfavorable weather conditions (e. g. , droughts, flooding, and freezes) in several regions, including the U. S. , Europe, Canada, Argentina, Ukraine, and Russia. As a result, global stockpiles of agricultural commodities have fallen to their lowest levels in many years. At the same time, increased competition for productive crop land and the reconfiguration of planting decisions to maximize returns from biofuels-related plantings (e. g. , corn and soybeans) have drastically affected the supplies of most agriculture commodities. Significant increases in production costs, led by record oil and fertilizer prices, and increasing scarcity of productive farmland and sufficient and accessible water supplies have further contributed to limits on worldwide production capacity. Finally, political unrest in producing countries has slowed or stopped production on otherwise physically productive land, further tightening supplies. Unlike many other commodities, agricultural commodities are crucial to the survival of nations. In a recent study, researchers concluded that nearly 60 percent of all global conflicts over the past two decades have been primarily driven by disputes related to food, land, or water. Recent spikes in food prices have lead to food smuggling in some countries and riots in others. Because of the universal necessity for food and the irreplaceable role that agricultural commodities have in worldwide food production, market analysts, including the United Nations Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) predict that â€Å"when commodity supplies eventually recover and prices moderate from current high levels, the new equilibrium prices will be significantly higher than has traditionally been observed during periods of market balance. † As summarized in the table below, even when the volatility is removed from short-term prices, long-run ommodity price projections forecast equilibrium prices for most major crops that are 19 to 110 percent higher than their recent five-year average. The preceding analysis suggests agribusiness and agricultural-related firms may present interesting investment opportunities. Companies with operations and/or substantial investments in one or more key grain producing nations, such as the U. S. , Canada, Europe, Russia, Brazil, an d China, may be favorable over countries operating primarily in resource poor nations. Companies with significant command over their supply chain are likely to display significant operating advantages, but because of the capital-intensive nature of the industry, especially for companies with significant supply chain investment, firms with low debt, good credit rating, and/or relatively easy access to credit markets are preferred in light of current global economic conditions. Moreover, any company with significant supply chain investment should be providing logistical synergies and optimizing efficient operation of all its assets. In particular, companies that invest in technology to produce more robust, more efficient farmland and crops may provide unique opportunities for investment in the short- and intermediate-term. In summary, although current prices and volatility may not be sustainable in the long term, the long-term factors affecting agricultural commodities will most likely result in an extended period of high, although not necessarily record, prices. As a result, investments in agriculturally-oriented firms appear to be promising over intermediate- and long-term horizons.

Ruth Bader Ginsberg Essays - Phi Kappa Phi, Ruth Bader Ginsburg

Ruth Bader Ginsberg Ruth Bader Ginsburg Ruth Bader Ginsburg was born on March 15, 1933 in Brooklyn, New York. Her father, Nathan, was a furrier and her mother, Celia, had a strong passion for reading, language and love of books. Ruth had an older sister, Marilyn, who died of Meningitis. She attended James Madison High School, where she was a cheerleader, baton twirler, played the cello and was editor of the school paper. Graduating top of her class in grammar and high school, she went on to Cornell University, earning her bachelors in government. In 1954 she married Martin D. Ginsburg, now a professor of tax law at Georgetown University Law Center. They enrolled together in Harvard Law School. She then wrote material on sex-based discrimination after being personally discriminated against when she told her employer she was pregnant and received a three ? level pay decrease. Ruth then had two children: Jane C (a professor at Columbia Law School) and James S (a producer of Classical productions). After graduation, she served as a clerk for Federal District Judge Edward Palmieri and then became the second woman to join the faculty of Rutgers Law School. She tried many cases for the American Civil Liberties Union. On June 30, 1980, Ruth Bader Ginsburg was sworn into the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, after being nominated by President Jimmy Carter. There she served for thirteen years until August 10, 1993, when Judge Byron R. White resigned from the Supreme Court. Being nominated by Bill Clinton, she was approved by the senate with a vote of ninety-six to three. Ruth Bader Ginsburg was the second woman and first Jew ever admitted. Ruth Bader Ginsburg served many supreme court cases. One of her major ones was the Baker vs. General Motors Corp. in 1997. In this case Ronald Elwell worked fifteen years for GM. He was assigned to study GM vehicle performance, particularly concentrating on vehicular fires. Their relationship soured and Elwell agreed to retire after two year of consultation work. Before he retired, the corporation deposed Elwell when a GM truck burst into flames just after a collision. Over GM's objection, he testified to the fuel systems inferiority to competing products. Ronald Elwell sued, claiming to be wrongfully discharged. In the settlement, GM paid Elwell an undisclosed amount of money but die to a counter-claim that Elwell had breached his fiduciary duty to GM, was barred from testifying as a witness in any litigation involving General Motors. Another major court case was the Kawaauhau vs. Geiger in 1998. Kawaauhau sought treatment for an injured foot by Dr. Geiger, who hospitalized her and prescribed oral penicillin. Although intravenous would have been more effective, cost was an issue to Kawaauhau and requested it to be minimized. Gieger left her in care of other physicians, while on a trip, coming back to find they transferred her to an infectious disease specialist. Dr. Geiger cancelled this transfer, believing the infection had subsided. Kawaauhau's condition deteriorated, leading to the amputation of her leg. She sued and was awarded $355,000 in damages due to malpractice. With no malpractice insurance, Dr. Geiger moved to Missouri where he unsuccessfully petitioned for bankruptcy as he was ineligible due to ?willful and malicious? care. Ruth Bader Ginsburg still serves in the Supreme Court today. She is known to be a strong and steady voice for justice, gender equity, and civil rights. One of her last appearances as an attorney arguing a case before the Supreme Court was arguing on the behalf of women. The unsympathetic, Justice Renquist, asked, ?You won't settle for putting Susan B. Anthony on the new dollar, then The answer that resulted describes who this woman is, ?We won't settle for tokens.? Biographies

Correcting Other Peoples Grammar

Correcting Other Peoples Grammar A suggestion . . . dont do it. Every once in a great while, a typo or grammatical error appears in the newsletter. I have a wonderful proofreader, and, between us, we comb the newsletter each week. But hey, sometimes when the stars align and we both have a bad week, an item slips There is little more insulting than for someone who never offers positive feedback, to smugly tell someone that their grammar is wrong. Let me explain why. 1) Once the words are said and/or published, they cannot be taken back, regardless of how noble the criticism. You did wrong, becomes more the message. 2) Rather than educate the person (as the critic often states is their motive), theyve insulted them. Unless the critic is personally close to the individual, their criticism will be considered  critical, not enlightening. 3) The critic is remembered as a critic. They are burning a bridge. 4) The mistake might be a one-time thing. Better to wait and identify a trend rather than pounce on a happenstance slip. Critics will often begin their assessment with one of the following remarks: 1) I normally love your work, but this mistake bothered me 2) You are normally keener than this, but I couldnt help but notice 3) I used to be an English teacher/bestselling novelist/editor/term paper grader and cannot help myself 4) Sorry, but Ive always been fanatical about grammar, and I couldnt help but notice If its not repetitious, dont do it. Even then, think twice. Trust me; you arent remembered in a fond light. A week ago, a gentleman wrote about using THEIR as a singular pronoun, stating that I made a mistake. Then he downplayed it, joking, typing in jumbled up, misspelled words  that he wasnt necessarily a professional but just wanted to bring it to my attention. My response was that I dont correct other people. Once something is published, it cannot be undone. However, since he opened that door, I wanted to cite places that use/endorse/explain using THEIR in a singular context. In return, he got mad for being corrected and unsubscribed. Just think twice before correcting someone else. We arent always so perfect ourselves.

A letter to the editor of Wall Street Journal Assignment

A letter to the editor of Wall Street Journal - Assignment Example It can be argued that the next election will see a wide gender difference among the voters. Republicans have tried to come with measures to appeal to the female voters as the Democratic Party strives to take advanatge of the female vote by promoting economic policies that are more likely to favor women including equal pay protection and increasing the minimum wage. This is not the first time the Democrats have employed this strategy to campaign against the Republicans. I agree with the fact this is not simply about the social isssues but about the economic issues affecting the population. Furthermore, there is a clear diffrence in views on whether it is possible for individuals to succeed in the US. Most men agreed to the proposition that anyone could compared to 37 percent of women (Hook and Timiraos). A study conducted by the NBC Survey/new journal found that most women believe that the recession has not yet ended as compared to 43 percent of males (Hook and Timiraos). This explains why 70 percent of the women are of the view that increasing that minimum wage would result to an improvement in the economy (Hook and Timiraos). This letter confirms the facts stated in the paper on the disparities between the economic views between men and women and how it influences

Lyndon Johnson and how he handle the Tet offensive Research Paper

Lyndon Johnson and how he handle the Tet offensive - Research Paper Example Johnson the president of United States. His domestic public support for the war waned leading to his abandonment of re-election in the 1968 elections. As for Giap the North Vietnamese army general â€Å"they were not able to destroy enemy forces but the offensive sent shudders through vital points† (Willbanks, 2008, p. 66). However, the question we need to ask ourselves is: why was the Tet offensive carried out in the first place and how did Lyndon Johnson handle it? Americans under General William Westmoreland took troops to Vietnam for continuity of its foreign policy of containing the spread of communism and for nation building just like Lyndon’s predecessor John Kennedy. North Vietnam under General Giap wanted to win the war fast and weaken South Vietnam military and at the same time provoke an uprising that would see the overthrow of government which was under Thieu. However, they underestimated the military power of allied forces hence the defeat. Many criticisms have been leveled against Johnson on the way he handled the whole affair. The doves believed American should not have been involved in the war in the first place while the hawks supported the effort. This paper will argue that Johnson was guided by his domestic as well as foreign policy when handling the offensive. He only had two options: leave his domestic program of â€Å"Great Society† and get involved in war thus risk losing all programs at home or seek peace and let the communists win the war but this option would have rendered him a coward. He could not have the â€Å"guns and butter† as Eisenhower used to say (Bringham, 2008, p. 119). He had an option of granting Westmoreland more troops to finish the war but this would have resulted into full-scale war attracting China and Soviet Union into the war. On the other hand, withdrawing the troops and seek peace but this would definitely result in defeat. The withdrawal of the troops in the end gave North Vietnam the edge and when war finally ended in 1975, South Vietnam was under control of the communists. Background Tet Offensive of 1968 was carried out in the midst of Vietnam War. The war was an extension of the cold war between two superpowers: U.S and U.S.S.R after the Second World War. Though the two nations collaborated against common enemies such as Japanese and Germany, it was clear that the two had tense relations filled with suspicions and lack of trust. The two super powers had very divergent political ideals; the U.S wanted states to free and democratic under capitalism form of government while the U.S.S.R viewed capitalism as a source of all evil and the cause of world war in the first place. It thus wanted to eliminate capitalism and replace it with communism hence the beginning of cold war. The cold war shaped U.S foreign policy for decades to come with Harry S. Truman’s doctrine of containment being the guide. It was meant to contain the spread of communism by using U.S funds to promote economic development in affected nations especially Europe and South Eastern Asia. A developed nation which takes care of the well-being of its people and lets them determine their future by electing a democratic government would combat communism spread. U.S.S.R on the other hand, was bent of spreading communism especially to border countries for security reasons. Various indirect wars were fought in the struggle for dominance

GCC economies and their role in the world economy Research Paper

GCC economies and their role in the world economy - Research Paper Example The Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) was formed on May 26, 1981. The GCC is an organization specifically formed to unite the Arab oil producing countries. Its major operation angle is to the southern regions of Asian continent. GCC is made up of six active Arabian countries that involve the Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Oman, Bahrain and Qatar. However, some new applications for membership have been received from other oil producing Arabian countries like Jordan and Morocco. The objectives of GCC are to unite the member states with the aim of harmonizing quotas of oil in the world market. The members have several factors in common among them religion, political structures, climatic conditions and natural resources. The organization also seeks to coordinate and promote economic productivity of the member states (Mohammed, 2011). The organization also intends to boost education, healthcare, employment and trade among the member states. Saudi Arabia Saudi Arabia in the views of Mohammed (2011) forms four-fifths of the entire GCC. Besides being a member of the GCC, Saudi Arabia is also a member of Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC). Saudi Arabia has been voted the world’s largest oil reserve among the OPEC and the GCC member states. In fact, oil production is the backbone of all the economic sectors in Saudi Arabia. Estimates indicate that a third of the total oil produced by the OPEC comes from Saudi Arabia (Mohammed, 2011). Oil production in Saudi Arabia on a daily basis estimates at around 10 million barrels. As a result of massive oil reserves that infiltrate money to the country, Saudi Arabia enjoys a diversified economy with plenty of production industries that have offered jobs to its citizens and the world population in general. The oil sector has contributed to the development of various industries such as petrochemicals, fertilizers and steel manufacturing industries that boosted the export products of the country. Mohammed (2011) adds that Saudi Arabia has excelled in the production of dates and even becoming the world’s best producer of dates. Saudi Arabia also has expanded fishing grounds and a lot of money has been ventured to modernize and promote sea fishing activities. In 1998, OPEC slashed Saudi Arabia’s global supply quota to 8 million barrels per day. The imposition of the quota led to significant fall on the country’s total income. Telecommunications investment (% revenues) in Saudi Arabia In the reports of World Bank, telecommunication investments revenue in Saudi Arabia reached 84.12% in 2008. Telecommunication investments are expenditures associated with purchasing the ownership of telecommunication equipment infrastructures including land, building, labor and computer software. Source; Trading Economics, 2011 Current statistics in the world oil market show that Saudi Arabia has much potential to increase its oil injection by additional 2.5 million barrels a day (Daya, 2011). Such an injection can boost oil supply in the world market and even ease the world energy crisis. Oil

Acoustic Cryptanalysis of RSA and Its Counter Measure

Acoustic Cryptanalysis of RSA and Its Counter Measure Prof. J P Agrawal Saurabh Sharma Siddharth Gupta ABSTRACT Acoustics has come up as a new vulnerability in the field of information security. The RSA encryption algorithm, although h very hard to break mathematically, has been broken recently by using acoustics and power analysis of emanations. Acoustic Cryptanalysis is the side-channel attack which targets implementations of cryptographic algorithms. The cryptographic algorithms are quite secure at the mathematical level, but inadvertently leak secret information through signatures in power consumption, electromagnetic emanations, timing variations, and acoustical emanations. This paper presents a software based countermeasure which is based on application of specific mitigation techniques to ensure that even if there is leakage of information it would bear minimal useful information. INTRODUCTION Acoustic cryptanalysis is a form of side channel attack that aims at deriving the private key in a public key cryptography system using acoustical vibrations of a laptop. A side channel attack is basically an attack that gives attacker an additional channel of information about the system, the noise generated by computers is one such potential channel other channels include keystroke acoustic emanations, acoustic emanations from printers, power analysis via the USB port and timing attacks. Side channel attacks can only be performed on public key cryptography system because the encrypted text i.e. ciphers text depends upon the text that is encrypted. So while decryption the cipher text produces a unique acoustic spectrum which helps the attacker to extract the key. In this case we put our emphasis on a different source of computer noise i.e. vibration of electronic components like capacitors and transistors in the circuit of the CPU. These acoustic vibrations are related to the system activity since the amount of power drawn from the CPU depends upon the operation which is performed. As a study case, we will focus on the GnuPG (GNU Privacy Guard), a cross-platform, open-source implementation of the OpenPGP Standard. We will demonstrate a key extraction attack that can extract 4096-bit RSA secret keys when used by GnuPG running on a laptop computer by analyzing the vibrations generated by the computer during decryption of chosen cipher texts. RELATED WORK Analysis of acoustical vibrations is relatively a newer practice commonly used in military context such as identification of vehicles through the sound signature of their engine. Similarly computer programmers monitor the functioning of their systems by listening to sound generated by mechanical components. Some of the successfully implemented experiments involving side channel attacks include : à ¯Ã¢â‚¬Å¡Ã‚ · Electromechanical ciphers. à ¯Ã¢â‚¬Å¡Ã‚ · Keyboard acoustic emanations. à ¯Ã¢â‚¬Å¡Ã‚ · Acoustic emanations from printers. à ¯Ã¢â‚¬Å¡Ã‚ · Power analysis. à ¯Ã¢â‚¬Å¡Ã‚ · Power analysis via the USB port. à ¯Ã¢â‚¬Å¡Ã‚ · Timing attacks. THE EXPERIMENTAL SETUP (A) laptop on which the decryption is being performed (B) Brà ¼elKjà ¦r 4190 microphone capsule mounted on a Brà ¼elKjà ¦r 2669 preamplifier held by a flexible arm. (C) Brà ¼elKjà ¦r 5935 microphone power supply and amplifier, (D) National Instruments MyDAQ device with a 10 kHz RC low-pass filter cascaded with a 150 kHz RC high-pass filter on its A2D input (E) laptop computer performing the attack. Here, the microphone power, amplification and some filtering are done by an integrated, battery operated Brà ¼elKjà ¦r 5935 microphone power supply. After a self-built 10 kHz RC low-pass filter cascaded with a 150 kHz RC high-pass using capacitors and resistors, A2D conversion is done by the compact, USB-operated National Instruments MyDAQ device. The MyDAQ device captures at 200 K sample/sec. The Brà ¼elKjà ¦r 5935 amplifier is limited to a frequency of 100 kHz. OBSERVING THE ACOUSTIC LEAKAGE 1. Distinguishing various CPU operations We can distinguish between various operations performed by CPU by analyzing the low bandwidth leakage of acoustical emanations. Our analysis begins by taking into account simple operations like: HLT (CPU sleep), MUL (integer multiplication), FMUL (floating-point multiplication), main memory access (forcing L1 and L2 cache misses), and REP NOP (short-term idle). We concluded that these operations exhibit a unique frequency spectrum on execution. 2. Distinguishing various code lengths These acoustical emanations can also determine the length of loop being executed. For example the leakage produced by a code executing 10000 ADD instructions in an infinite loop will have a different acoustic spectrum than a program executing 20000 ADD instructions in an infinite loop. 3. Leakage source The observed acoustical emanations are not caused by the rotation of the fan, hard seeks or audio speakers as it is verified by disabling these components. Rather it is caused by the capacitors and resistors in the power regulation circuit of the CPU. The precise source of the emanations is difficult to characterize, since it is different in every machine and it is typically located in hard to reach places. Acoustic localization is also difficult due to mechanical coupling of capacitors and resistors and because of acoustic reflections due to other components. PERFORMING THE ATTACK The attacker sends an encrypted email to the target machine. This email when received by the target machine undergoes the process of decryption so as to extract the data that has been sent. The email which is sent involves sending a chosen ciphertext, it cannot have any random data in it. The data which is sent via the email has to be a specially crafted ciphertext. Through this attack we try to get the ‘q’ i.e. one of the prime factor of the key ‘n’. Enigmail provides an integrated graphical user interface and handles e-mail encoding and user interaction; the actual cryptography is done by an external GnuPG executable. Received e-mail messages are decrypted upon the user’s request. In addition and by default, Enigmail automatically decrypts incoming e-mail messages. Thus, an attacker can send a suitably-crafted e-mail message to the victim, containing a chosen ciphertext. When this e-mail message is fetched by the target computer, the attacker observes the acoustic emanations during decryption, and obtains a bit of the secret key. The attacker then sends additional e-mail messages, until all key bits are recovered. If the messages are backdated or made to look like spam messages, they may even go unnoticed. But this doesn’t affects our attack as it will still be decrypted by the email client. Choosing the ciphertext q is a 2048 bit number q2048 q2047 q2046 q2045†¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦ q2 q1 GnuPG always generates RSA keys in which the most significant bit of q is set, i.e., q2048 = 1. Considering we know the first i-1 bits of q e.g. i=4 , we know q2048 q2047 q2046 =110 Now we need to find the next bit of q , which can be 0 or 1 So , we create a ciphertext with first i-1 bits equal to that of first i-1 bits of q, the next bit 0 and the remaining bits to be 1 q2048 q2047 q2046 0 111111†¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦.11111 Recording the emmisions We use our experimental setup to record the acoustic emissions that are created during the decryption. Placing the microphone with respect to the laptop body has a large influence on the obtained signal. Laptops have cooling system for heat dissipation. It has a fan that requires large intake of air and some exhaust holes. Also, there are other holes and gaps for ports such as USB, Express Card slot, SD card reader, and Ethernet port. Any of these ports can be used as a position for the microphone. Typically, the best microphone placement is near the Ethernet port or the fan exhaust vent. We record the sound using the LABVIEW software. We compute the sliding-window Fourier transform of the trace, yielding a sequence of spectra, and then aggregate these spectra by taking the median value of each bin. (The use of median effectively rejects temporally-local outliers, such as transient spikes.) The spectrum is truncate to the frequency range of interest (determined manually). Extracting the key The most significant bit of a prime number is always 1. Using this fact we create a desired ciphertext and obtain the power frequency templates for 0 and 1. Thus, if the attacker were to have two spectrum templates describing the leakage of zero and one bits, he could classify an unknown signal by checking the similarity between it and the templates he has. Concretely, in our case a template is a vector of real numbers describing the signal power at each frequency bin. The classification is based on computing the correlation of the Fourier spectrum of the leakage with the two templates. Recall that q is chosen to be a prime such that its most significant bit is always set to one. Moreover, this information is known to an attacker. Thus, obtaining an example of a leakage of a one bit can be done by measuring the leakage resulting from the decryption of g2048;1. Obtaining an example of a leakage of a zero bit is more tricky. This is because the attacker does not know in advance the location of the first zero bit in q. However, this problem can be easily avoided. Consider any number l such that q 2048 1). Notice that the reduction of l modulo q is equivalent to computing l q and will cause the bits of the result to be random thus achieving a similar spectrum as the sound of zero bits of q at the beginning of the attack. After this we compare the data acquired with the templates of 0 and 1 and the output of the comparison gives one bit of the q. Then this attack has to repeated 2048 times to get all the bits of q. These templates are updated dynamically in the matter of 20 bits. After receiving the acoustic spectrum of every attack bit we try to match the frequencies with the ones in the predefined templates. Whenever we get a matching frequency we check it’s corresponding value for power if this value is in range according the given threshold of the template we classify the bit as 0 or 1. By repeating this same procedure to attack every bit we obtain all the 2048 bits of prime q and in turn find the key. COUNTER MEASURE Cipher text randomization : One countermeasure that is effective in stopping our attack ciphertext randomization. If we have a cipher text c, instead of decrypting c immediately what we can generate a 4096 bit random value r, compute re and then decrypt re* c and multiply the result by r^-1. Since ed = 1 mod (n) It does not stop the attacker from extracting the key but it masks the original key so that even if the attacker is able to extract the key he doesn’t has the correct key. In implementation we have used the random library of python. Using this library random.randint(range) generates a random integer which can be multiplied to the value of cipher text and it changes the acoustic spectrum of the ciphertext which masquerades the original key. Why software based countermeasures are better than hardware based countermeasures? Enforce a proper layering can seem to be an effective countermeasure. Unfortunately, such low-level physical leakage prevention, is most of the times, impractical due to the significantly bad cost vs. security tradeoff because of the following reasons : (1) Suitable manipulation at the higher levels can amplify any leakage remnants, similar to what we do in our chosen-ciphertext attack (2) Low-level mechanisms try to protect all computation, even though most of it is insensitive or does not induce easily-exploitable leakage (3) Essential performance-enhancing mechanisms produce leakage as an inevitable side effect. REFRENCES [1] M. Hanspach and J. Keller, à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â‚¬ ¢In guards we trust: Security and privacy in operating systems revisited,à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬- in Proc. 5th ASE/IEEE International Conference on Information Privacy, Security, Risk and Trust, Washington D.C., USA: IEEE, Sept 2013. [2] M. Hanspach and M.Goetz, à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â‚¬ ¢On Covert acoustical mesh network in air, revisited,à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬- in Journal of Communications Vol. 8, No. 11, November 2013. [3] R. Otnes, A. Asterjadhi, P. Casari, M. Goetz, T. Husà ¸y, I. Nissen, et al., Underwater Acoustic Networking Techniques, ser. Springer Briefs in Electrical and Computer Engineering, Springer, 2012. [4] R. Frankland, à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â‚¬ ¢Side channels, compromising emanations and surveillance: Current and future technologies,à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬- Department of Mathematics, Royal Holloway, University of London, Egham, Surrey TW20 0EX, England, Tech. Rep., Mar. 2011. [5] Daniel Genkin, Adi Shamir, Eran Tromer, RSA Key Extraction via Low-Bandwidth Acoustic Cryptanalysis December 18, 2013. [6]Nikita Borisov, Ian Goldberg, and David Wagner. Intercepting mobile communications: the insecurity of 802.11 [7] H. E. Bass and Roy G. Keeton. Ultrasonic absorption in air at elevated temperatures. The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America. [8]Taher ElGamal. A public key cryptosystem and a signature scheme based on discrete logarithms.IEEE Transactions on Information Theory, 31(4):469–472, 1985. 1

The Effectiveness Of The Opening To Hamlet Essay example -- essays res

Hamlet is launched extremely well because there is no long drawn out introduction to the plot. The story begins almost immediately with a brief yet concise 5-scene Act entailing the state of affairs within the Court of Denmark. Each scene contributes to the overall exposition significantly and Act 1 effectively captures the interest of the audience, introduces the key characters, establishes the conflicts and creates and maintains the dominant atmosphere of the play. In Act 1 – Scene 1, the audience is instantly shocked into interest by the exchange of short, sharp speeches between the very nervous sentries of the castle. What follows is the audience’s discovery of the frequenting appearance of a Ghost and the sentries’ plans to have Horatio, a scholar, attempt to communicate with it. The setting for this scene is atop a castle, resting upon cliffs high above the ocean. It is midnight, creating a more sinister atmosphere, apt for following story and the medieval time period to which it is set. When the ghost finally appears to Horatio and the others, the audience discovers through their inferences that the ghost has a strong likeness to the late King Hamlet of Denmark. The conversation that follows gives the audience a brief understanding of the current situation in Denmark, involving the details of preparations for war and revelations of conflict with Fortinbras of Norway. Scene 1 therefore serves as part of a good exposition in that it: Captures the interest of the audience with the short stabs of nervous speech between the sentries, It introduces the characters of the Ghost, the sentries (Marcellus, Barnardo, Francesco) and Horatio, It establishes the situation with Fortinbras and the appearances of the mysterious Ghost as points of interest and future conflict, And it contributes through mood and setting to the dominant atmosphere of tragedy within the play. Scene 2 jumps to within the castle, where the court mourning for King Hamlet has seemingly just finished and the newly appointed King Claudius is apparently making his first address to his nobility. During this gallant speech, the audience becomes informed that Claudius has married Hamlet’s mother, Gertrude, rather hastily after King Hamlet’s death – attention is then drawn to Hamlet, still in deep mourning for his father. He drifts into a soliloquy where he contemplates the act of suicide rat... ...escribes how the murder was performed and implies a plan for revenge to Hamlet involving the feigning of insanity. This scene serves as part of a good exposition in that it deeply captures the attention of the audience with the stunning revelations of Claudius’ deceit and betrayal of his own blood. The conformation that the ghost is Hamlet’s father is what first grabs the audience’s attention. The exposà © that follows ensures their captivation within the plot. The scene establishes the impending conflict that will occur between Hamlet and Claudius later on in the play, due to the light that the ghost has just thrown upon Claudius’ integrity. The scene contributes to the dominant tragic atmosphere in that there is the realisation that seeing as Hamlet is now on a quest for revenge, there is only one way in which it can end – death, which is tragic in itself, but made out to be more so in the play. Act 1 effectively captures the interest of the audience, introduces the key characters, establishes the conflicts and creates and maintains the dominant atmosphere of the play. Each of the 5 scenes contribute significantly to the overall exposition which launches the play extremely well.

Drawing the Line on Political Correctness Essay

Introduction   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   It is funny how over the years, humor had changed tremendously. Television networks do not intend to offend anybody, except for the ego-driven celebrities and politicians as well as constant draws which satirize church people and family driven values.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   It is not because some things are now regarded revered. The viewers have also changed. They cannot express amusement at themselves to any further extent. One concrete example is the old sitcom, titled Murphy Brown, which over ten years ago, has been the center of contention on the subject of political correctness. The show on October 11, 1993 was aired and was regarding a series of comments made on-air made by Murphy and Peter which all got gashed up, and had the entire staff production required to attend a session on political correctness (Tucker 1).   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   That particular episode exposed much of the irrationality of how people can get easily offended by the least thing said, such as: â€Å"I’m not black, I’m African-American† as one character protested. Another beamed up â€Å"I’m not African†¦I’m black†. â€Å"I’m not black†¦I’m brown!† Networks have determined that it is impossible to say anything without getting anyone offended by someone, so they have principally decided not to pronounce anything (Tucker 1). Political Correctness   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   In 1980’s, political correctness or PC emerged as a communal tyranny. It was an impulsive or unprompted statement of specific expressions, behavior and ideas considered legal but must be outlawed and those who disobey will be imposed with punishment. It began with little influence and later on had grown to such popularity till it then started written and unwritten law in the community. By way of those declared in the public as not being politically correct fitting the subject of state or mob prosecution (Atkinson 1).   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   In the effort of pointing out the detestable background of political correctness is to reiterate the vital significance of freedom of speech, freedom of voice and plain speaking; such are the safeguards of the community against the nuisance of tyranny, the absence of these factors indicates having no tyranny. For that reason, any form of expression prohibition or those summoned by the slander, libel and public decency laws, are considered matters of severity subject by methodology of common law and not by mob dictations (Atkinson 1).   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   The affirmed coherent of this oppression is to avert people from getting offended; to coerce each one to stop the use of   behaviors or words which can displease women, non-whites, homosexuals,   the fat, the stupid, the ugly or the crippled. This exposes not only its irrationality but its stimulation. The set of values which are not accepted are those apprehended by the earlier generation, for such reasons, the terms dagos, wogs, niggers, coon, sheilas,   poofs, spastics and   have turned out to be profanation, because, in an action of infantile rebellion, their issue have develop as well-regarded by the latest generation (Atkinson 1).   Political correctness is simply the antipathy of spoilt children bound for against their values of the parents (Blazquez 1).   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   A decline in the community takes place at the time the greater part of its people turned out to be self-centered, and beneath this power it gradually takes apart all the manacles in the lead of decadence brought about by customs, law, manners, tradition and beliefs. As each succeeding generation of self-centered people accede to be in command of the community, it grabs its chance to desert further of the exasperating fetters that wisdom and genius had instilled. The social annihilation and its proponents attain their unfounded principle by openly taking on irrationality by means of slogans at the same time as defaming those who do not sustain their standpoint (Atkinson 3) .As part of the social decline due to political correctness it makes each generation by another one crafts public behavior less rational and less restrained.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   In the present day we face up to a problem of political correctness which is the direct opposite of the liberal tradition. Wherein liberalism promotes challenging political ideas, political correctness, by language, conduct or law, tries to find how to hold back the expression of the ideas.   The fundamental nature of social equality is the preference of opinions and ideas, and the liberty to convey the ideas.   However democracy is not all about choice, it is moreover about majorities. The values and ideas of the greater part are capable to succeed over to other choices.   The politically correct pay no attention to the autonomous ideal in terms of both the majoritarism and choice.   It is their objective to have the institutions of the state captured and mould them to reveal their outlooks.   The reality that their thoughts may not mirror the thoughts of the majority, or certainly are particularly conflicting to views of the majority, is of no importance.   It is the views’ imposition that matters.   Hence this is the deep-seated predicament with political correctness (Hanan 1).   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   There are three features in political correctness. The first is that, political correctness is a set of beliefs and attitudes which are separated from conventional values.   Next, the person being politically correct has a narrow outlook on how people ought to sense and what they are allowed to talk about.   Third and mainly significant, political correctness is rooted in institutions of the public, which comprise a lawmaking support, and which have compelling powers.   It is this third feature that provides political correctness its influence.   The absence of this confine of power the outlooks of the politically correct will merely be an additional view in the arena of ideas (Hanan 2). An institution, government is or a person is politically correct when they stop to correspond to the welfare of the preponderance, and become concentrated on the concerns and cares of sector groups of minority.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Political correctness and its origin does breed confusion.   This is for the reason that political correctness has its beginning in equality campaigns, specifically the racial equality campaign, which has regularly been motivated by politics and its liberal side.   The existing result is that the more raucous adversaries of political correctness plunge into the corner of involving, for instance, that racism is acceptable, basically since it is not politically correct.   Doing the contrary to what is politically correct is not the base to be in opposition to political correctness (Hanan 3). This ensnares, on the other hand, point out why it is imperative to evaluate the predicaments emerging from political correctness.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Retorts about Vice Presidents are a revered custom on TV. But the issues of Dan Quayle in an Emmy Awards ceremony bear a resemblance to a Rodney King thrashing by the elites of Hollywood. Quayle is television’s superior beating guy ever in view of the fact that he made campaign issue on Murphy Brown; it was a ram of what appeared like every onstage joke. Diane English, the creator of Murphy Brown, topped the evening with an argument of single mothers that traversed the line into adherent nastiness. â€Å"As what Murphy has said to herself, ‘I couldn’t possibly do a worse job raising my kid alone than the Reagans did with theirs.’ â€Å" The viewers applauded and laughed on lines such as these. However the reaction was extra troubled and concerned. At a campaign rally Quayle used the Emmy volley to stress his point that â€Å"Hollywood doesn’t like our values.† Numerous parties in the industry of television approved that the entire flaunt was, at the semantically criticism like values of religious faith, marital fidelity and patriotism. Quayle writes that â€Å"Tens of millions of Americans now see the entertainment industry as an all-powerful enemy, an alien force that assaults our most cherished values and corrupts our children† (Zoglin 1). The Republican-political episode in which Murphy reacted to the Vice President, while hurriedly nursing to her new born; she heeds his remarks on television and responds with disbelief: â€Å"I’m glamorizing single motherhood? What planet is he on? I agonized over that decision.† Afterward, she emerges on her television show to respond to the charges of Quayle: â€Å"Perhaps it is time for the Vice President to expand his definition and recognize that whether by choice or circumstance families come in all shapes and sizes. And ultimately, what really defines a family is commitment, caring and love.† (Zoglin 1) Conclusion   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   What can be done to deal with political correctness and its problems is to eliminate the encouragement role of such seen on televisions.   They should be apprehensive with the arbitration of rights, not disseminating the politically correct ideologies.   Their backing character roots from their lawmaking permission.   It is the point to eradicate this permission which does slight more than allow misinformation (Hanan 4).   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   In these modern times, many people are amused with how funny lines are thrown in television shows, especially when the icons make fun of prominent people using politically correct terms which are perceived to be satirical and insulting. Political correctness does not happen only in the industry of television, each individual may encounter such lines which can cause annoyance and getting offended. For instance when one is told that â€Å"she does not wear too much makeup, she is cosmetically oversaturated† or when one is told to be â€Å"afraid of commitment then he is monogamously challenged†. It can be very much insulting indeed. Political correctness is something that should be eradicated in the society. There should be lines drawn as to when joking or entertaining goes, it should not go beyond the point of insulting and degrading someone’s character, because no person has the right to insult nor hurt their sensible beings. The television industry is such a great means of influence; hence they should realize the sensitivity with which their messages affect their audiences. Works Cited Atkinson, Phillip. Political Correctness. 2000. A Theory of Civilization. 3 February 2008   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   . Blazquez, Augustin.April 8, 2002. Political Correctness: The Scourge of Our Times. Newsmax. 3 February 2008 . Path: Archives; Articles; 2002. Hanan, Ralph. The Problem with Political Correctness. June 22, 2005. National. 3 February 2008 . Tucker, Jamey. Politically Incorrect Humor. April 11, 2005. Jamey Tucker’s Blogsquat. 3   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   February 2008 . Zoglin, Richard. Sitcom Politics. Sep. 21, 1992. Time Magazine in parnership with CNN. 3 February 2008 . Path: Time; Magazine; Article

what is pure essays

what is pure essays What are pure, rare, external, and a versatile metal? Its called platinum. Platinum is not only used for fashion or style but also used in chemical, auto catalyst, dental, electronics, jewelry, medical and petroleum. Platinums history consist of it being an ancient lost treasure. The Ancient Egyptians, pre-Incan civilizations and the Spanish conquistadors all encountered platinum. It then reemerged in the 1700s to fascinate kings and alchemists. Platinum grew in popularity in the 19th and 20th centuries and today is the precious metal of choice of rappers, movie stars and the glitterati (www.preciousplatimum.com/output/page 49/asp). In 1924 German geologist Hans Merensky discovers the worlds largest platinum deposit near Johannesburg, South Africa. During WWII it was declared as a strategic metal, and the use for jewelry making was forbidden. In the post war era however, platinums popularity is once again reborn as the passion for jewelry is rekindled. At the White Heat exhibition in New York in 1947 a number of precious platinum and diamond pieces were displayed, proving that platinum is back in vogue. Today platinum has become the precious metal of choice of the worlds glitterati, loved by stars such as Ronald Baby Williams. Platinum is paraded down the red carpet at award ceremonies. Artists such as Grammy award winner Outkast and many other rich and famous people wear it. Platinum qualities consist of it being pure. It is pure, and endows a brilliant white luster, this helps reflect the true radiance of diamonds. This is because it is generally 95 percent pure platinum. Platinum jewelry does not tarnish and it keeps its looks for a lifetime (www.preciousplatinum.com/output). Charles Lattimore from Friedmans Jewelry store at Northwoods Mall states that platinum is the least sold item at the store ...

Abba Kovner and Resistance in the Vilna Ghetto

Abba Kovner and Resistance in the Vilna Ghetto In the Vilna Ghetto and in the Rudninkai Forest (both in Lithuania), Abba Kovner, only 25 years old, led resistance fighters against the murderous Nazi enemy during the  Holocaust. Who Was Abba Kovner? Abba Kovner was born in 1918 in Sevastopol, Russia, but later moved to Vilna (now in Lithuania), where he attended a Hebrew secondary school. During these early years, Kovner became an active member in the Zionist youth movement, Ha-Shomer ha-Tsair. In September 1939, World War II began. Only two weeks later, on September 19, the Red Army entered Vilna and soon incorporated it into the Soviet Union. Kovner became active during this time, 1940 to 1941, with the underground. But life changed drastically for Kovner once the Germans invaded. The Germans Invade Vilna On June 24, 1941, two days after Germany launched its surprise attack against the Soviet Union (Operation Barbarossa), the Germans occupied Vilna. As the Germans were sweeping east toward Moscow, they instigated their ruthless oppression and murderous Aktionen in the communities they occupied. Vilna, with a Jewish population of approximately 55,000, was known as the Jerusalem of Lithuania for its flourishing Jewish culture and history. The Nazis soon changed that. As Kovner and 16 other members of the Ha-Shomer ha-Tsair hid in a convent of Dominican nuns a few miles outside of Vilna, the Nazis began to rid Vilna of its Jewish problem. The Killing Begins at Ponary Less than a month after the Germans occupied Vilna, they conducted their first Aktionen. Einsatzkommando 9 rounded up 5,000 Jewish men of Vilna and took them to Ponary (a location approximately six miles from Vilna that had pre-dug large pits, which the Nazis used as a mass extermination area for Jews from the Vilna area). The Nazis made the pretense that the men were to be sent to labor camps when they were really sent to Ponary and shot. The next major Aktion took place from August 31 to September 3. This Aktion was in pretense a retaliation for an attack against the Germans. Kovner, watching through a window, saw a woman dragged by the hair by two soldiers, a woman who was holding something in her arms. One of them directed a beam of light into her face, the other one dragged her by her hair and threw her on the pavement. Then the infant fell out of her arms. One of the two, the one with the flashlight, I believe, took the infant, raised him into the air, grabbed him by the leg. The woman crawled on the earth, took hold of his boot and pleaded for mercy. But the soldier took the boy and hit him with his head against the wall, once, twice, smashed him against the wall.1 Such scenes occurred frequently during this four-day Aktion - ending with 8,000 men and women taken to Ponary and shot. Life did not get better for the Jews of Vilna. From September 3 to 5, immediately following the last Aktion, the remaining Jews were forced into a small area of the city and fenced in. Kovner remembers, And when the troops herded the whole suffering, tortured, weeping mass of people into the narrow streets of the ghetto, into those seven narrow stinking streets, and locked the walls that had been built, behind them, everyone suddenly sighed with relief. They left behind them days of fear and horror; and ahead of them were deprivation, hunger and suffering - but now they felt more secure, less afraid. Almost no one believed that it would be possible to kill off all of them, all those thousands and tens of thousands, the Jews of Vilna, Kovno, Bialystok, and Warsaw - the millions, with their women and children.2 Though they had experienced terror and destruction, the Jews of Vilna were still not ready to believe the truth about Ponary. Even when a survivor of Ponary, a woman named Sonia, came back to Vilna and told of her experiences, no one wanted to believe. Well, a few did. And these few decided to resist. The Call to Resist In December 1941, there were several meetings between the activists in the ghetto. Once the activists had decided to resist, they needed to decide, and agree, on the best way to resist. One of the most urgent problems was whether they should stay in the ghetto, go to Bialystok or Warsaw (some thought there would be a better chance at successful resistance in these ghettos), or move to the forests. Coming to an agreement on this issue was not easy. Kovner, known by his nom de guerre of Uri, offered some of the main arguments for staying in Vilna and fighting. In the end, most decided to stay, but a few decided to leave. These activists wanted to instil a passion for fighting within the ghetto. To do this, the activists wanted to have a mass meeting with many different youth groups in attendance. But the Nazis were always watching, especially noticeable would be a large group. So, in order to disguise their mass meeting, they arranged it on December 31, New Years Eve, a day of many, many social gatherings. Kovner was responsible for writing a call to revolt. In front of the 150 attendees gathered together at 2 Straszuna Street in a public soup kitchen, Kovner read aloud: Jewish youth!Do not trust those who are trying to deceive you. Out of the eighty thousand Jews in the Jerusalem of Lithuania only twenty thousand are left. . . . Ponar [Ponary] is not a concentration camp. They have all been shot there. Hitler plans to destroy all the Jews of Europe, and the Jews of Lithuania have been chosen as the first in line.We will not be led like sheep to the slaughter!True, we are weak and defenseless, but the only reply to the murderer is revolt!Brothers! Better to fall as free fighters than to live by the mercy of the murderers.Arise! Arise with your last breath!3 At first, there was silence. Then the group broke out in spirited song.4 The Creation of the F.P.O. Now that the youth in the ghetto were enthused, the next problem was how to organize the resistance. A meeting was scheduled for three weeks later, January 21, 1942. At the home of Joseph Glazman, representatives from the major youth groups met together: Abba Kovner of Ha-Shomer ha-ZairJoseph Glazman of BetarYitzhak Wittenberg of the CommunistsChyena Borowska of the CommunistsNissan Reznik of Ha-Noar ha-Ziyyoni At this meeting something important happened - these groups agreed to work together. In other ghettos, this was a major stumbling block for many would-be resisters. Yitzhak Arad, in Ghetto in Flames, attributes the parleys by Kovner to the ability to hold a meeting with representatives of the four youth movements.5 It was at this meeting that these representatives decided to form a united fighting group called the Fareinikte Partisaner Organizatzie - F.P.O. (United Partisans Organization). The organization was formed to unite all the groups in the ghetto, prepare for mass armed resistance, perform acts of sabotage, fight with partisans, and try to get other ghettos to also fight. It was agreed at this meeting that the F.P.O. would be lead by a staff command made up of Kovner, Glazman, and Wittenberg with the chief commander being Wittenberg. Later, two more members were added to staff command - Abraham Chwojnik of the Bund and Nissan Reznik of the Ha-Noar ha-Ziyyoni - expanding the leadership to five. Now that they were organized it was time to prepare for the fight. The Preparation Having the idea to fight is one thing, but being prepared to fight is quite another. Shovels and hammers are no match to machine guns. Weapons needed to be found. Weapons were an extremely hard item to attain in the ghetto. Even harder to acquire was ammunition. There were two main sources from which the ghetto inhabitants could obtain guns and ammunition - partisans and the Germans. Neither wanted the Jews to be armed. Slowly collecting by buying or stealing, risking their lives every day for carrying or hiding, the members of the F.P.O. were able to collect a small stash of weapons. They were hidden all over the ghetto - in walls, underground, even under a false bottom of a water bucket. The resistance fighters were preparing to fight during the final liquidation of the Vilna Ghetto. No one knew when that was going to happen - it could be days, weeks, perhaps even months. So every day, the members of the F.P.O. practiced. One knock on a door - then two - then another single knock. That was the F.P.O.s secret password.6  They would take out the hidden weapons and learn how to hold it, how to shoot it, and how not to waste the precious ammunition. Everyone was to fight - no one was to head for the forest until all was lost. Preparation was ongoing. The ghetto had been peaceful - no Aktionen  since December 1941. But then, in July 1943, disaster struck the F.P.O. Resistance! At a meeting with the head of Vilnas Jewish council, Jacob Gens, on the night of July 15, 1943, Wittenberg was arrested. As he was taken out of the meeting, other F.P.O. members were alerted, attacked the policemen, and freed Wittenberg. Wittenberg then went into hiding. By the next morning, it was announced that if Wittenberg were not apprehended, the Germans would liquidate the entire ghetto - consisting of approximately 20,000 people. The ghetto residents were angry and began attacking F.P.O. members with stones. Wittenberg, knowing he was going to sure torture and death, turned himself in. Before he left, he appointed Kovner  as his successor. A month and a half later, the Germans decided to liquidate the ghetto. The F.P.O. tried to persuade the ghetto residents not to go for the deportation because they were being sent to their deaths. Jews! Defend yourselves with arms! The German and Lithuanian hangmen have arrived at the gates of the ghetto. They have come to murder us! . . . But we shall not go! We shall not stretch our necks like sheep for the slaughter! Jews! Defend yourself with arms!7 But the ghetto residents did not believe this, they believed they were being sent to work camps - and in this case, they were right. Most of these transports were being sent to labor camps in Estonia. On September 1, the first clash broke out between the F.P.O. and the Germans. As the F.P.O. fighters shot at the Germans, the Germans blew up their buildings. The Germans retreated at nightfall and let the Jewish police round up the remaining ghetto residents for the transports, at the insistence of Gens. The F.P.O. came to the realization that they would be alone in this fight. The ghetto population was not willing to rise up; instead, they were willing to try their chances at a labor camp rather than certain death in revolt. Thus, the F.P.O. decided to escape to the forests and become partisans. The Forest Since the Germans had the ghetto surrounded, the only way out was through the sewers. Once in the forests, the fighters created a partisan division and performed many acts of sabotage. They destroyed the power and water infrastructures, freed groups of prisoners from the Kalais labor camp, and even blew up some German military trains. I remember the first time I blew up a train. I went out with a small group, with Rachel Markevitch as our guest. It was New Years Eve; we were bringing the Germans a festival gift. The train appeared on the raised railway; a line of large, heavy-laden trucks rolled on toward Vilna. My heart suddenly stopped beating for joy and fear. I pulled the string with all my strength, and in that moment, before the thunder of the explosion echoed through the air, and twenty-one trucks full of troops hurtled down into the abyss, I heard Rachel cry: For Ponar! [Ponary]8 The End of the War Kovner survived to the end of the war. Though he had been instrumental in establishing a resistance group in Vilna and led a partisan group in the forests, Kovner did not stop his activities at the wars end. Kovner was one of the founders of the underground organization to smuggle Jews out of Europe called Beriha. Kovner was caught by the British near the end of 1945 and was jailed for a short time. Upon his release, he joined Kibbutz Ein ha-Horesh in Israel, with his wife, Vitka Kempner, who had also been a fighter in the F.P.O. Kovner kept his fighting spirit and was active in Israels War for Independence. After his fighting days, Kovner wrote two volumes of poetry for which he won the 1970 Israel Prize in Literature. Kovner died at age 69 in September 1987. Notes 1. Abba Kovner as quoted in Martin Gilbert, The Holocaust: A History of the Jews of Europe During the Second World War (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1985) 192.2. Abba Kovner, The Mission of the Survivors, The Catastrophe of European Jewry, Ed. Yisrael Gutman (New York: Ktav Publishing House, Inc., 1977) 675.3. Proclamation of the F.P.O as quoted in Michael Berenbaum, Witness to the Holocaust (New York: HarperCollins Publishers Inc., 1997) 154.4. Abba Kovner, A First Attempt to Tell, The Holocaust as Historical Experience: Essays and a Discussion, Ed. Yehuda Bauer (New York: Holmes Meier Publishers, Inc., 1981) 81-82.5. Yitzhak Arad, Ghetto in Flames: The Struggle and Destruction of the Jews in Vilna in the Holocaust (Jerusalem: Ahva Cooperative Printing Press, 1980) 236.6. Kovner, First Attempt 84.7. F.P.O. Manifesto as quoted in Arad, Ghetto 411-412.8. Kovner, First Attempt 90. Bibliography Arad, Yitzhak. Ghetto in Flames: The Struggle and Destruction of the Jews in Vilna in the Holocaust. Jerusalem: Ahva Cooperative Printing Press, 1980. Berenbaum, Michael, ed. Witness to the Holocaust. New York: HarperCollins Publishers Inc., 1997. Gilbert, Martin. The Holocaust: A History of the Jews of Europe During the Second World War. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1985. Gutman, Israel, ed. Encyclopedia of the Holocaust. New York: Macmillan Library Reference U.S.A., 1990. Kovner, Abba. A First Attempt to Tell. The Holocaust as Historical Experience: Essays and a Discussion. Ed. Yehuda Bauer. New York: Holmes Meier Publishers, Inc., 1981. Kovner, Abba. The Mission of the Survivors. The Catastrophe of European Jewry. Ed. Yisrael Gutman. New York: Ktav Publishing House, Inc., 1977.

Function of spoken conversation Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Function of spoken conversation - Essay Example Spoken conversation would then be the use of spoken communication to transfer ideas, information and opinions. It's the simplest and most effective way to get one's message across. After body language, it's the second form of communication that we learn, and in a way, it's the most infallible. When an infant cries for example, we know that it either a) wants something, b) is in uncomfortable, or c) none of the above and one needs to see a doctor; but we can't be sure of the exact problem. It's the reason a doctor asks a person to describe one's symptoms first; because spoken conversation is the fastest way to get information. Anyone who's played charades will understand the trouble it is to make people understand something purely using body language. Anyone who loves a pet will know how infuriating it is that one can't have a good one-on-one chat with a dog, cat, gerbil, or goldfish. When we converse with someone verbally, we have a better chance of understanding that person; as compared to communicating via email or just observing their body language. Speaking is more emphatic than any other form of interaction. When we want to emphasize our point, we strain our voices and inflect more; the interest we take in a subject can be gauged by the speed at which we speak, or the way the decibel levels in our voice change. People give away a hundred different bits of info while they talk; other than just the words that they speak (Brennen, 2004). It's a bit difficult to state the function of spoken conversation; other than the absolute obvious. We use spoken conversation to communicate cheaply (doesn't require a monthly internet charge, or permanent markers); easily and fast; and to get our idea across most effectively. The voice, like the body, doesn't have a language barrier. The way a person intonates, and the rise and fall of his voice can get his message across even if he doesn't speak your language. The dynamism of speaking is such that we never ever pronounce a word in the same way twice (Wiki Answers). Our brain is able to recognize different sound patterns and give meaning to them. A simple word "Yes" can be used to signify approval, doubt and even a "No" if spoken with different tones. In any other form of communication, yes would just mean a 'yes'. So if one is speaking, it's absolutely necessary to pay attention, otherwise you might never know what you're getting into. Spoken conversation, because of its chances of ambiguity, strains one's mind more than any other form of conversation; and that includes written conversations with one's English Literature professor. And lastly; no form of conversation is as enjoyable as spoken conversation. Wit, banter, and irony are all exchanged verbally. Arguments, heated discussions, and rants on politics and sport are as much a part of our lives as gossip exchanged on the telephone. The advent of the 'Talkies' finished off silent movies; and unemployed many silent movie actors. And now, I doubt we can even imagine sitting through a 2 hour movie that doesn't have words. We speak not because we absolutely have to, but because we need to. An average person can go quite a long time without communicating with anyone through writing, but not having someone to talk to can drive him insane. In 'Castaway', Tom Hanks stars as a FedEx delivery man stranded on an island. Among his delivery consignment he finds a football which he turns into a

FridgeCom Case Study Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 4000 words

FridgeCom Case Study - Assignment Example Generally speaking a leader is a one who can lead his or her followers to achieve a common goal (Haslam, 2004, p.53). Scholars on time to time basis made several attempts to define leadership but they realised that â€Å"leadership has been a complex and elusive problem largely because the nature of leadership itself is complex† (Daft, 2007, p.4). Traditionally leadership was viewed as an influence of leader over the followers to achieve the common goal but in contemporary business environment leadership can be considered as â€Å"the process of producing direction, alignment and commitment in collective† (Velsor, 2010). Many a time, people do get confused with the concept of leadership and management. Leadership is just one of the basic characteristic to be possessed by the manager to fulfil their job responsibilities. Apart from the leadership quality, a manger must possess other qualities like motivational skill, time management ability and efficiency to conduct planning, managing and execution of day to day activities (Cherry & Jacob, 2005, p.367). However, it must be understood that a manager may not possess leadership qualities and a leader not necessarily be a leader. The leadership style followed by different leaders varies from individual to individual. These leadership styles are influenced by several internal as well as external factors. The internal factors are specific to a leader and these can be called the leadership traits. Again, the external factors such as the organisational culture, the job responsibility and the internal situations are equally important. In the early days the scholars identified some of the vital traits which must be present in a leader and this theory was called â€Å"trait theory†. This theory was proposed by Sir Francis Galton in 1869. Some of the common teats to be possessed by the leader were need for

Vaginitis particularly Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Vaginitis particularly - Essay Example The subsequent sections provide an overview regarding this infection. The common type of vaginitis is caused by the trichomonas vaginalis (T. vaginalis), an anaerobic parasitic flagellated protozoan. The T. vaginalis trophozoite has five flagella arising near the cytosome. Four of the said flagella extend outside the cell collectively. The fifth flagellum, the function of which is unknown, wraps backwards along the surface of the organism. Apart from these, a barb-like axostyle, which may be used for attachment to surfaces and cause damage of tissues observed in trichomoniasis infections, protrudes on the opposite of the four-flagella bundle. (Talaro, 2002) The T. vaginalis has multiple enzymes that catalyze a number of reactions. However, it lacks mitochondria and other necessary enzymes and cytosomes to conduct oxidative phosporylation. This organism survives by obtaining nutrients transported through the cell membrane and via phagocytosis. To maintain energy requirements, it makes use of a small amount of enzymes through glycolysis of glucose to glycerol and succinate in the cytoplasm. These processes are followed by the further conversion of pyruvate and malate to hydrogen and acetate in the hydrogenosome organelle. (Ryan & Ray, 2004) The normal vaginal flora is maintained by a complex and intricate balance of microorganisms that include lactobacilli, corynebacteria and yeast. In addition, this microenvironment is influenced by hormones. With this, a decrease in estrogen levels, which usually occurs in prepuberty and postmenopause, can result in an increased risk of infection. (Gor, 2006) It should be noted that growth of pathogenic organisms such as T. vaginalis is inhibited given the normal postmenarchal and premenopausal vaginal pH ranging from 3.8 to 4.2. In this regard, disturbance in the normal vaginal pH can change the vaginal flora resulting in the overgrowth of pathogens. Myriad factors such as the use of feminine hygiene products, contraceptives, vaginal medications, antibiotics and contracting sexually transmitted diseases my bring about the alteration of the vaginal environment. (Gor, 2006) Specifically for females, the T. vaginalis infection may occur when the normal acidity of the vagina changes from a healthy and semi-acidic pH to a more basic pH of 5 to 6. This organism could also survive for a maximum of 24 hours in urine, semen or water samples. Considered as one of the most durable protozoan trophozites, the T. vaginalis has the ability to persist on fomites with a moist surface for one to two hours (Talaro, 2002). As mentioned, the T. vaginalis mainly infect vaginal epithelium. Aside from this, it may also infect the endocervix, urethra and Bartholin and Skene glands. (Gor, 2006) Prevalence and Risk Factors In the United States (US), the actual frequency of vaginitis caused by T. vaginalis is difficult to ascertain. According to research, it affects all races and age groups. Highest incidence is noted among African American, wherein occurrence may range from 1.5 to nearly 4 times greater than other racial or ethnic groups (Sorvillo, 2001). On the other hand, lowest incidence is in Asians. In terms of age, high incidence is observed among young, sexually active women. (Gor,