Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck †Literature Essay

Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck – Literature Essay Free Online Research Papers Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck Literature Essay In John Steinbeck’s novel Of Mice and Men, there are many recurring events. Out of all of the recurring events within the novel, the most significant events were the death of Candy’s dog and the murder of Lennie. These two killings have very much in common, and yet at the same time they have very many differences. Foreshadowing is one reason why many events reoccur throughout the novel. The first most significant event of the novel would have to be to death of Candy’s dog. The main reason why this event is significant is because it shows some meaning of foreshadowing about Lennie’s death. â€Å"A shot sounded in the distance. The men looked quickly at the old man. Every head turned torward him.† This quote shows that Carlson had finally shot the dog and put him out of his misery. Later on in the novel, Candy says that she should have shot the dog instead of making someone else do it. This little message plays a major role of foreshadowing for the murder of Lennie. The other most significant event of the novel is Lennie’s death. The way Lennie died was that he was shot and killed by his best friend george. Going back to when Candy said that she wished she had killed her dog, this is prime case of foreshadowing because it is the only reason why George killed Lennie because Curly was going to shoot him anyways. George did the right thing that he had to do, but also he did the one thing he didn’t want to do. There are also some differences between these two deaths. The most common difference is that Candy’s dog is an animal and Lennie is a human being. Research Papers on Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck - Literature EssayThe Fifth HorsemanCapital PunishmentArguments for Physician-Assisted Suicide (PAS)Mind TravelQuebec and CanadaThe Masque of the Red Death Room meaningsEffects of Television Violence on ChildrenThe Spring and AutumnHip-Hop is ArtIncorporating Risk and Uncertainty Factor in Capital

Dollar Decline essays

Dollar Decline essays The current official US view of the dollar is that its decline has been orderly, constructive, and not worrisome. This view has allowed the dollar to depreciate against other major currencies in the world has various implications for the US national economy as well as the international economy which can be analyzed from a liberal and mercantilist perspective. The idea of a weak dollar needs to be clarified at first. A weak dollar is basically worth less relative to other currencies around the global market. Hence, a weak international dollar compared to other currencies say the pound means that English goods will cost more to purchase in the United States and it will harm English exports to us. By the same token, if the US dollar is weak, compared to the pound, then the English will find that American goods are cheaper for the English citizens to buy, and American exports will benefit. Mercantilism believe in the need to protect their security and independence as they assume that the nation-state is the primary actor in this anarchic international system where relative gains matter since power is a zero-sum game and human nature is riddled with conflict. These assumptions allow the mercantilist to support the idea of a weak dollar as it helps countries create wealth and power in order to preserve and protect their national security and independence. Mercantilism pursues this idea of a devalued or weak currency via a Beggar Thy Neighbor Policy as it has beneficial implications for increasing a countries relative without increased interdependence onto other countries in the global markets. Beggar Thy Neighbor is a policy where by a country artificially deflates its exchange rate by keeping its real interest rate low and it does not do anything to raise the strength of devalued currency. This devalued/weak currency has various positive implications from the mercantil ist view point. Mercantilist indicate that a devalued currency wi...

International Corporate Finance and Financial Markets Essay - 1

International Corporate Finance and Financial Markets - Essay Example To begin with, international corporate finance deals with a number of activities pertaining to the multinational corporations. Some of the activities of the international corporate finance include the management of cash, capital, debtors, inventory and short term financing. The corporate finance as far as global finance is concerned since it enables companies to evaluate funding requirements, as well as plan its corporate capital. Having a clear understanding of the capital structure of a firm is crucial for the managers since it provides a clear insight into the various sources of finance that may be needed in order for the company to operate effectively blobally. For instance, having enough cash for operation is vital particularly for companies with declining sales numbers. In such a situation, international financial markets become significance as it allows organizations to obtain a pool of liquidity. This is a strategic technique required of company top managers in order to ensur e the success of a company in the long run. Financial markets are also important for organizations since it enables firms obtain financial by issuing of stock or share capital and corporate bonds (Sercu, 2011). Global financial markets are also important for companies and individuals since it provides investment opportunities, which enables exchange participants to fulfill their long and short-term financial objectives. Companies tend to involve in equity transaction as a means of generating extra revenue. The additional revenue generated is vital as it can help the company reduce red ink, particularly if the principal activities of the firm indicate slothful performance (Claessens and Laeven, 2006). Regulation of the global finance is another crucial role played by the international corporate finance and financial markets. There are usually government agencies in the global marketplace that are concerned with the regulation of the activities of investors to

Individual research and contribution Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

Individual research and contribution - Essay Example The first method involves survey whereby the consumers will interact directly with the researchers. They would be given questionnaires that are straightforward. They would be asked if they would prefer having the e-books than the actual book. In my opinion, other feasible research method would involve focus groups, which makes it possible for individuals to discuss the products among different groups of people. This makes it possible for the publishing company to understand the different perception of different groups. The research could as well involve personal interviews of writers and the readers. The publishers will have the creative minds of the writers who would likely be their clients in the future projects. I believe that responses from individuals might not give the clear interpretation of what the individual wants. This gives a good interpretation of the consumer behavior of individuals. Finally, the research would involve field trial where some of the books that have been published will be given to the consumers. This would make them understand some of the quality of the products from the

Educational orientation Essay Example for Free

Educational orientation Essay According to the journal for American association for counseling and development (2008) and Zweigenhaff and Domhoff (2003) the African Americans value very much education and are ready to make sacrifices to achieve the education qualifications. Though they have that desire and willingness to have a good education background they are faced with a number of challenges that affect their performance in school. According to Rovai et al (2007) African American students as compared to the other students have lower performance standards and this is raising concern because this area has not been given much consideration to determine what could be the actual reasons behind their low grades. Lincoln et al (1990) and Henderson and Sumler (1999) discusses some of the reasons why these students do not perform well as others as to include difficulties to integrate and accept the various people from different cultural backgrounds they encounter in school and where they live. The hip hop culture is also said to contribute to the low grades because more of this students have indulged themselves in weird lifestyles that cannot allow them to have enough time with their studies. As argued in Cross (2005) and Wayne (2005) most of the African American students come from average family background and when they go to school with the white American they are seen by the fellow white students as being inferior which psychologically will affect them in their education as they find that they are discriminated. This creates a gap between them that and limits the way they will associate with the others and their presence in the school is threatened. The other reasons for their low grade as discussed in smiley (2006) include the poverty that they live in that makes them struggle to meet their basic needs and making them lose enough concentration to the education and even at times dropping out of school to try life elsewhere. The other reasons according to Obiakor (2002) and Ashe (2002) leading to low academic performance among the African Americans include the way they select the schools that they go to which might have low standards, having different curriculums that may not cover all the necessary topics and choosing areas of study that they are not competent in and also some of the teaching staff may not be giving them support because they tend to display behavior that show no much concern to their education. How to address the problem. Ogbu (2003) and Wright et al (2001) suggests that the teachers and the schools have a responsibility to encourage and support all the students they have under their care to perform well. He also argues that this will be done by helping the students to change the various negative attitudes they have towards their teachers, other students and the education materials like books. Obiakor et al (2002) suggests that the learning environment needs to be made conducive for all the students so that nobody feels threatened by the other because it will help the students settle in their education. As argued by Allen et al (1998) and Wayne (2005) the parents and guardians are encouraged to give moral support to the students and they should encourage them to develop interest in the religion as it offers psychological support. References A. P. Rovai, Louis B. Gallien, Helen R. Stiff (2007): Closing the African American achievement gap in higher education. National association for college admission counseling. Retrievedonline http://www. nacacnet. org/PUBLICATIONSRESOURCES/BOOKREVIEWS Alex B. Henderson, Janice Sumler (1999). Freedom’s odyssey Clark Atlanta university press. Allen K, Stelzer, P Wielkiewicz, M (1998). The ecology of leadership: adapting to challenges of a changing world. The journal of leadership. Bertram D. Ashe (2002). From within the frame. Routledge publishers Charles E. Lincoln, Lawrence H. Mamiya (1990). The black church in the African American experience. Duke university press. Cross T. (2005). The persisting racial gap in college student graduation rates. The journal of higher education. Festus E. Obiakor, Bridgie Alexis ford (2002). Creating successful learning environments for African American learners with exceptionalities. Corwin press Faye Z. Belgrave, KevinW. Allison (2005). African American psychology. Sage publishers. .J. Hale (2001). Learning while black. JHU publishers. Journal of counseling and development by American association for counseling and development vol 79 2008. Ogbu J (2003). Black American students in an affluent suburb: a study of academic disengagement. Lawrence Erlbaum publishers New Jersey. Tavis Smiley (2006): The covenant with black America. Third world press. W. Wayne (2005). African Americans and the color line in Ohio. Ohio university press. R. Zweigenhaft, G. Domhoff (2003). Blacks in the white elite. Rowman and Littlefield. Richard Wright, A. Chapman, Malcolm (2001). Black voices. Signet classic publishers

Isolation as the Root of Hamlets Torment Essay -- Essays on Shakespear

Isolation as the Root of Hamlet's Torment Does Hamlet stand alone? Does this magnate of English literature hold any bond of fellowship with those around him, or does he forge through his quandaries of indecision, inaction and retribution in solitude? Though the young Dane interacts with Shakespeare's entire slate of characters, most of his discourse lies beneath a cloud of sarcasm, double meaning and contempt. As each member of Claudius' royal court offers their thickly veiled and highly motivated speech Hamlet retreats further and further into the muddled depths of his conflict-stricken mind. Death by a father, betrayal by a mother, scorn by a lover and abhorrence by an uncle leave the hero with no place to turn, perhaps creating a sense of isolation painful enough to push him towards the brink of madness.   Ã‚  Ã‚   With the supporting cast of detractors circled around him, Claudius clearly constitutes the core of Hamlet's opposition. The king's animosity towards Hamlet spreads to the rest of his entourage in the same way that his refusal to mourn his brother's passing left only the prince in black attire and dark-eyed grief. Claudius and the others each make weakly shrouded attempts to gain Hamlet's support, but the deafening falsity of their gestures leaves little doubt about their true sentiments. The first appearance of King and nephew together begins with the disingenuous greeting, "But now, my cousin Hamlet, and my son-" (1.2, 64) to which Hamlet sardonically retorts, "A little more than kin, and less than kind!" (1.2, 65).   Ã‚  Ã‚   This initial encounter between the two men reveals a sea of mutual hostilities and as a broker of the king's will, Polonius parallels such an antagonism. The advisor's first meeting with Haml... ...is inaction. The tragic hero walks a very lonely role, and this seclusion probably deserves a mention in literature's eternal search for the roots of his torment. With words more sage than he realizes, Polonius condenses Hamlet's entire struggle into a single poignant idea: "The origin and commencement of his grief / Sprung from neglected love" (3.1, 180-181). Polonius and Laertes derail Ophelia's tenderness, and Claudius' persuasion steals the heart of Gertrude. A unanimous lack of mourning scoffs at Hamlet's deep esteem for his fallen father and even the companionship of his childhood friends succumbs to Claudius' menacing demands. The end result is a huge gulf between ally and adversary, a gulf that ultimately plummeted Hamlet to the depths of psychological torment. Works Cited: Shakespeare, William. Hamlet. Ed. David Bevington. New York: Longman,1997.

Minority Group and Multiculturalism Essay

Ideas about the legal and political accommodation of ethnic diversity — commonly termed â€Å"multiculturalism† — emerged in the West as a vehicle for replacing older forms of ethnic and racial hierarchy with new relations of democratic citizenship. Despite substantial evidence that these policies are making progress toward that goal, a chorus of political leaders has declared them a failure and heralded the death of multiculturalism. This popular master narrative is problematic because it mischaracterizes the nature of the experiments in multiculturalism that have been undertaken, exaggerates the extent to which they have been abandoned, and misidentifies not only the genuine difficulties and limitations they have encountered but the options for addressing these problems. Talk about the retreat from multiculturalism has obscured the fact that a form of multicultural integration remains a live option for Western democracies. This report challenges four powerful myths about multiculturalism. First, it disputes the caricature of multiculturalism as the uncritical celebration of diversity at the expense of addressing grave societal problems such as unemployment and social isolation. Instead it offers an account of multiculturalism as the pursuit of new relations of democratic citizenship, inspired and constrained by human-rights ideals. Second, it contests the idea that multiculturalism has been in wholesale retreat, and offers instead evidence that multiculturalism policies (MCPs) have persisted, and have even grown stronger, over the past ten years. Third, it challenges the idea that multiculturalism has failed, and offers instead evidence that MCPs have had positive effects. Fourth, it disputes the idea that the spread of civic integration policies has displaced multiculturalism or rendered it obsolete. The report instead offers evidence that MCPs are fully consistent with certain forms of civic integration policies, and that indeed the combination of multiculturalism with an â€Å"enabling† form of civic integration is both normatively desirable and empirically effective in at least some cases. To help address these issues, this paper draws upon the Multiculturalism Policy Index. This index 1) identifies eight concrete policy areas where liberal-democratic states — faced with a choice — decided to develop more multicultural forms of citizenship in relation to immigrant groups and 2) measures the extent to which countries have espoused some or all of these policies over time. While there have been some high-profile cases of retreat from MCPs, such as the Netherlands, the general pattern from 1980 to 2010 has been one of modest strengthening. Ironically, some countries that have been vociferous about multiculturalism’s â€Å"failure† (e. g. , Germany) have not actually practiced an active multicultural strategy. Talk about the retreat from multiculturalism has obscured the fact that a form of multicultural integration remains a live option for Western democracies. However, not all attempts to adopt new models of multicultural citizenship have taken root or succeeded in achieving their intended effects. There are several factors that can either facilitate or impede the successful implementation of multiculturalism: Multiculturalism: Success, Failure, and the Future 1 MIGRATION POLICY INSTITUTE Desecuritization of ethnic relations. Multiculturalism works best if relations between the state and minorities are seen as an issue of social policy, not as an issue of state security. If the state perceives immigrants to be a security threat (such as Arabs and Muslims after 9/11), support for multiculturalism will drop and the space for minorities to even voice multicultural claims will diminish. Human rights. Support for multiculturalism rests on the assumption that there is a shared commitment to human rights across ethnic and religious lines. If states perceive certain groups as unable or unwilling to respect human-rights norms, they are unlikely to accord them multicultural rights or resources. Much of the backlash against multiculturalism is fundamentally driven by anxieties about Muslims, in particular, and their perceived unwillingness to embrace liberal-democratic norms. Border control. Multiculturalism is more controversial when citizens fear they lack control over their borders — for instance when countries are faced with large numbers (or unexpected surges) of unauthorized immigrants or asylum seekers — than when citizens feel the borders are secure. Diversity of immigrant groups. Multiculturalism works best when it is genuinely multicultural — that is, when immigrants come from many source countries rather than coming overwhelmingly from just one (which is more likely to lead to polarized relations with the majority). Economic contributions. Support for multiculturalism depends on the perception that immigrants are holding up their end of the bargain and making a good-faith effort to contribute to society — particularly economically. When these facilitating conditions are present, multiculturalism can be seen as a low-risk option, and indeed seems to have worked well in such cases. Multiculturalism tends to lose support in high-risk situations where immigrants are seen as predominantly illegal, as potential carriers of illiberal practices or movements, or as net burdens on the welfare state. However, one could argue that rejecting immigrant multiculturalism under these circumstances is in fact the higher-risk move. It is precisely when immigrants are perceived as illegitimate, illiberal, and burdensome that multiculturalism may be most needed. I. Introduction Ideas about the legal and political accommodation of ethnic diversity have been in a state of flux around the world for the past 40 years. One hears much about the â€Å"rise and fall of multiculturalism. † Indeed, this has become a kind of master narrative, widely invoked by scholars, journalists, and policymakers alike to explain the evolution of contemporary debates about diversity. Although people disagree about what comes after multiculturalism, there is a surprising consensus that we are in a post-multicultural era. This report contends that this master narrative obscures as much as it reveals, and that we need an alternative framework for thinking about the choices we face. Multiculturalism’s successes and failures, as well as its level of public acceptance, have depended on the nature of the issues at stake and the countries involved, and we need to understand these variations if we are to identify a more sustainable model for accommodating diversity. This paper will argue that the master narrative 1) mischaracterizes the nature of the experiments in multiculturalism that have been undertaken, 2) exaggerates the extent to which they have been abandoned, and 3) misidentifies the genuine difficulties and limitations they have encountered and the options for addressing these problems. 2 Multiculturalism: Success, Failure, and the Future MIGRATION POLICY INSTITUTE Before we can decide whether to celebrate or lament the fall of multiculturalism, we need first to make sure we know what multiculturalism has meant both in theory and in practice, where it has succeeded or failed to meet its objectives, and under what conditions it is likely to thrive in the future. The Rise and Fall of Multiculturalism The master narrative of the â€Å"rise and fall of multiculturalism† helpfully captures important features of our current debates. Yet in some respects it is misleading, and may obscure the real challenges and opportunities we face. In its simplest form, the master narrative goes like this:1 Since the mid-1990s †¦ we have seen a backlash and retreat from multiculturalism. From the 1970s to mid-1990s, there was a clear trend across Western democracies toward the increased recognition and accommodation of diversity through a range of multiculturalism policies (MCPs) and minority rights. These policies were endorsed both at the domestic level in some states and by international organizations, and involved a rejection of earlier ideas of unitary and homogeneous nationhood. Since the mid-1990s, however, we have seen a backlash and retreat from multiculturalism, and a reassertion of ideas of nation building, common values and identity, and unitary citizenship — even a call for the â€Å"return of assimilation. † This retreat is partly driven by fears among the majority group that the accommodation of diversity has â€Å"gone too far† and is threatening their way of life. This fear often expresses itself in the rise of nativist and populist right-wing political movements, such as the Danish People’s Party, defending old ideas of â€Å"Denmark for the Danish. † But the retreat also reflects a belief among the center-left that multiculturalism has failed to help the intended beneficiaries — namely, minorities themselves — because it has failed to address the underlying sources of their social, economic, and political exclusion and may have unintentionally contributed to their social isolation. As a result, even the center-left political movements that initially championed multiculturalism, such as the social democratic parties in Europe, have backed 1 For influential academic statements of this â€Å"rise and fall† narrative, claiming that it applies across the Western democracies, see Rogers Brubaker, â€Å"The Return of Assimilation? † Ethnic and Racial Studies 24, no. 4 (2001): 531–48; and Christian Joppke, â€Å"The Retreat of Multiculturalism in the Liberal State: Theory and Policy,† British Journal of Sociology 55, no. 2 (2004): 237–57. There are also many accounts of the â€Å"decline,† â€Å"retreat,† or â€Å"crisis† of multiculturalism in particular countries. For the Netherlands, see Han Entzinger, â€Å"The Rise and Fall of Multiculturalism in the Netherlands,† in Toward Assimilation and Citizenship: Immigrants in Liberal Nation-States, eds. Christian Joppke and Ewa Morawska (London: Palgrave, 2003) and Ruud Koopmans, â€Å"Trade-Offs between Equality and Difference: The Crisis of Dutch Multiculturalism in Cross-National Perspective† (Brief, Danish Institute for International Studies, Copenhagen, December 2006). For Britain, see Randall Hansen, â€Å"Diversity, Integration and the Turn from Multiculturalism in the United Kingdom,† in Belonging? Diversity, Recognition and Shared Citizenship in Canada, eds. Keith G. Banting, Thomas J. Courchene, and F. Leslie Seidle (Montreal: Institute for Research on Public Policy, 2007); Les Back, Michael Keith, Azra Khan, Kalbir Shukra, and John Solomos, â€Å"New Labour’s White Heart: Politics, Multiculturalism and the Return of Assimilation,† Political Quarterly 73, No. 4 (2002): 445–54; Steven Vertovec, â€Å"Towards post-multiculturalism? Changing communities, conditions and contexts of diversity,† International Social Science Journal 61 (2010): 83–95. For Australia, see Ien Ang and John Stratton, â€Å"Multiculturalism in Crisis: The New Politics of Race and National Identity in Australia,† in On Not Speaking Chinese: Living Between Asia and the West, ed. I. Ang (London: Routledge, 2001). For Canada, see Lloyd Wong, Joseph Garcea, and Anna Kirova, An Analysis of the ‘Anti- and Post-Multiculturalism’ Discourses: The Fragmentation Position (Alberta: Prairie Centre for Excellence in Research on Immigration and Integration, 2005), http://pmc.metropolis. net/Virtual%20Library/FinalReports/Post-multi%20FINAL%20REPORT%20for%20PCERII%20_2_. pdf. For a good overview of the backlash discourse in various countries, see Steven Vertovec and Susan Wessendorf, eds. , The Multiculturalism Backlash: European Discourses, Policies and Practices (London: Routledge, 2010). Multiculturalism: Success, Failure, and the Future 3 MIGRATION POLICY INSTITUTE away from it and shifted to a discourse that emphasizes â€Å"civic integration,† â€Å"social cohesion,† â€Å"common values,† and â€Å"shared citizenship. †2 The social-democratic discourse of civic integration differs from the radical-right discourse in emphasizing the need to develop a more inclusive national identity and to fight racism and discrimination, but it nonetheless distances itself from the rhetoric and policies of multiculturalism. The term postmulticulturalism has often been invoked to signal this new approach, which seeks to overcome the limits of a naive or misguided multiculturalism while avoiding the oppressive reassertion of homogenizing nationalist ideologies. 3 II. What Is Multiculturalism? A. Misleading Model In much of the post-multiculturalist literature, multiculturalism is characterized as a feel-good celebration of ethnocultural diversity, encouraging citizens to acknowledge and embrace the panoply of customs, traditions, music, and cuisine that exist in a multiethnic society. Yasmin Alibhai-Brown calls this the â€Å"3S† model of multiculturalism in Britain — saris, samosas, and steeldrums. 4. Multiculturalism takes these familiar cultural markers of ethnic groups — clothing, cuisine, and music — and treats them as authentic practices to be preserved by their members and safely consumed by others. Under the banner of multiculturalism they are taught in school, performed in festivals, displayed in media and museums, and so on. This celebratory model of multiculturalism has been the focus of many critiques, including the following: It ignores issues of economic and political inequality. Even if all Britons come to enjoy Jamaican steeldrum music or Indian samosas, this would do nothing to address the real problems facing Caribbean and South Asian communities in Britain — problems of unemployment, poor educational outcomes, residential segregation, poor English language skills, and political marginalization. These economic and political issues cannot be solved simply by celebrating cultural differences. Even with respect to the (legitimate) goal of promoting greater understanding of cultural differences, the focus on celebrating â€Å"authentic† cultural practices that are â€Å"unique† to each group is potentially dangerous. First, not all customs that may be traditionally practiced within a particular group are worthy of being celebrated, or even of being legally tolerated, such as forced marriage. To avoid stirring up controversy, there’s a tendency to choose as the focus of multicultural celebrations safely inoffensive practices — such as cuisine or music — that can be enjoyably consumed by members of the larger society. But this runs the opposite risk 2. For an overview of the attitudes of European social democratic parties to these issues, see Rene Cuperus, Karl Duffek, and Johannes Kandel, eds. , The Challenge of Diversity: European Social Democracy Facing Migration, Integration and Multiculturalism (Innsbruck: Studien Verlag, 2003). For references to â€Å"post-multiculturalism† by progressive intellectuals, who distinguish it from the radical right’s â€Å"antimulticulturalism,† see, regarding the United Kingdom, Yasmin Alibhai-Brown, After Multiculturalism (London: Foreign Policy Centre, 2000), and â€Å"Beyond Multiculturalism,† Canadian Diversity/Diversite Canadienne 3, no. 2 (2004): 51–4; regarding Australia, James Jupp, From White Australia to Woomera: The Story of Australian Immigration, 2nd edition (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007); and regarding the United States, Desmond King, The Liberty of Strangers: Making the American Nation (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004), and David A. Hollinger, Post-ethnic America: Beyond Multiculturalism, revised edition (New York: Basic Books, 2006). Alibhai-Brown, After Multiculturalism. 3 4 4 Multiculturalism: Success, Failure, and the Future MIGRATION POLICY INSTITUTE of the trivialization or Disneyfication of cultural differences,5 ignoring the real challenges that differences in cultural and religious values can raise. Third, the 3S model of multiculturalism can encourage a conception of groups as hermetically sealed and static, each reproducing its own distinct practices. Multiculturalism may be intended to encourage people to share their customs, but the assumption that each group has its own distinctive customs ignores processes of cultural adaptation, mixing, and melange, as well as emerging cultural commonalities, thereby potentially reinforcing perceptions of minorities as eternally â€Å"other. † This in turn can lead to the strengthening of prejudice and stereotyping, and more generally to the polarization of ethnic relations. Fourth, this model can end up reinforcing power inequalities and cultural restrictions within minority groups. In deciding which traditions are â€Å"authentic,† and how to interpret and display them, the state generally consults the traditional elites within the group — typically older males — while ignoring the way these traditional practices (and traditional elites) are often challenged by internal reformers, who have different views about how, say, a â€Å"good Muslim† should act. It can therefore imprison people in â€Å"cultural scripts† that they are not allowed to question or dispute. According to post-multiculturalists, the growing recognition of these flaws underlies the retreat from multiculturalism and signals the search for new models of citizenship that emphasize 1) political participation and economic opportunities over the symbolic politics of cultural recognition, 2) human rights and individual freedom over respect for cultural traditions, 3) the building of inclusive national identities over the recognition of ancestral cultural identities, and 4) cultural change and cultural mixing over the reification of static cultural differences. This narrative about the rise and fall of 3S multiculturalism will no doubt be familiar to many readers. In my view, however, it is inaccurate. Not only is it a caricature of the reality of multiculturalism as it has developed over the past 40 years in the Western democracies, but it is a distraction from the real issues that we need to face. The 3S model captures something important about natural human tendencies to simplify ethnic differences, and about the logic of global capitalism to sell cosmopolitan cultural products, but it does not capture the nature of post-1960s government MCPs, which have had more complex historical sources and political goals. B. Multiculturalism in Context It is important to put multiculturalism in its historical context. In one sense, it is as old as humanity — different cultures have always found ways of coexisting, and respect for diversity was a familiar feature of many historic empires, such as the Ottoman Empire. But the sort of multiculturalism that is said to have had a â€Å"rise and fall† is a more specific historic phenomenon, emerging first in the Western democracies in the late 1960s. This timing is important, for it helps us situate multiculturalism in relation to larger social transformations of the postwar era. More specifically, multiculturalism is part of a larger human-rights revolution involving ethnic and racial diversity. Prior to World War II, ethnocultural and religious diversity in the West was characterized by a range of illiberal and undemocratic relationships of hierarchy,6 justified by racialist ideologies that explicitly propounded the superiority of some peoples and cultures and their right to rule over others. These ideologies were widely accepted throughout the Western world and underpinned both domestic laws (e. g. , racially biased immigration and citizenship policies) and foreign policies (e. g. , in relation to overseas colonies). 5 6 Neil Bissoondath, Selling Illusions: The Cult of Multiculturalism in Canada. (Toronto: Penguin, 1994). Including relations of conqueror and conquered, colonizer and colonized, master and slave, settler and indigenous, racialized and unmarked, normalized and deviant, orthodox and heretic, civilized and primitive, and ally and enemy. Multiculturalism: Success, Failure, and the Future 5 MIGRATION POLICY INSTITUTE After World War II, however, the world recoiled against Hitler’s fanatical and murderous use of such ideologies, and the United Nations decisively repudiated them in favor of a new ideology of the equality of races and peoples. And this new assumption of human equality generated a series of political movements designed to contest the lingering presence or enduring effects of older hierarchies. We can distinguish three â€Å"waves† of such movements: 1) the struggle for decolonization, concentrated in the period 1948–65; 2) the struggle against racial segregation and discrimination, initiated and exemplified by the AfricanAmerican civil-rights movement from 1955 to 1965; and 3) the struggle for multiculturalism and minority rights, which emerged in the late 1960s. Multiculturalism is part of a larger human-rights revolution involving ethnic and racial diversity. Each of these movements draws upon the human-rights revolution, and its foundational ideology of the equality of races and peoples, to challenge the legacies of earlier ethnic and racial hierarchies. Indeed, the human-rights revolution plays a double role here, not just as the inspiration for a struggle, but also as a constraint on the permissible goals and means of that struggle. Insofar as historically excluded or stigmatized groups struggle against earlier hierarchies in the name of equality, they too have to renounce their own traditions of exclusion or oppression in the treatment of, say, women, gays, people of mixed race, religious dissenters, and so on. Human rights, and liberal-democratic constitutionalism more generally, provide the overarching framework within which these struggles are debated and addressed. Each of these movements, therefore, can be seen as contributing to a process of democratic â€Å"citizenization† — that is, turning the earlier catalog of hierarchical relations into relationships of liberaldemocratic citizenship. This entails transforming both the vertical relationships between minorities and the state and the horizontal relationships among the members of different groups. In the past, it was often assumed that the only way to engage in this process of citizenization was to impose a single undifferentiated model of citizenship on all individuals. But the ideas and policies of multiculturalism that emerged from the 1960s start from the assumption that this complex history inevitably and appropriately generates group-differentiated ethnopolitical claims. The key to citizenization is not to suppress these differential claims but to filter them through and frame them within the language of human rights, civil liberties, and democratic accountability. And this is what multiculturalist movements have aimed to do. The precise character of the resulting multicultural reforms varies from group to group, as befits the distinctive history that each has faced. They all start from the antidiscrimination principle that underpinned the second wave but go beyond it to challenge other forms of exclusion or stigmatization. In most Western countries, explicit state-sponsored discrimination against ethnic, racial, or religious minorities had largely ceased by the 1960s and 1970s, under the influence of the second wave of humanrights struggles. Yet ethnic and racial hierarchies persist in many societies, whether measured in terms of economic inequalities, political underrepresentation, social stigmatization, or cultural invisibility. Various forms of multiculturalism have been developed to help overcome these lingering inequalities. The focus in this report is on multiculturalism as it pertains to (permanently settled) immigrant groups,7 7. There was briefly in some European countries a form of â€Å"multiculturalism† that was not aimed at the inclusion of permanent immigrants, but rather at ensuring that temporary migrants would return to their country of origin. For example, mothertongue education in Germany was not initially introduced â€Å"as a minority right but in order to enable guest worker children to reintegrate in their countries of origin† (Karen Schonwalder, â€Å"Germany: Integration Policy and Pluralism in a Self-Conscious Country of Immigration,† in The Multiculturalism Backlash: European Discourses, Policies and Practices, eds. Steven Vertovec and Susanne Wessendorf [London: Routledge, 2010], 160). Needless to say, this sort of â€Å"returnist† multiculturalism — premised on the idea that migrants are foreigners who should return to their real home — has nothing to do with multiculturalism policies (MCPs) premised on the idea that immigrants belong in their host countries, and which aim to make immigrants 6.

Management Structures

Efficient management structure that meets the needs of an organization is definitely a must in every company. Needless to say, there are various management structures, but each one of them does affect both daily and long term activities of a company. Departmentalization In general, departmentalization refers to grouping activities into separate departments that are coordinated by a specialist or a group of specialists depending on the size of an organization (Torbiorn, 2004). Whether departmentalization is functions, product, customer, geigraphic, process, or a mixture of the stated above types, the affect on daily activities varies accordingly. As a result of departmentalization, the work process is built around certain products, services, or locations; the effeiciency of the production process also increases. To be more specific, the need for extensive external coordination reduces, since ability for the internal coordination within one unit increases, which means that daily company activities are more structured better organized around a certain factor, i.e. customer support department is built around the customer. Matrix Organizations In matrix management, workers in a company are grouped based on their skills, i.e. high-tech specialists work in the IT department (Shell, 2003). In this case, several projects can be assigned to a single department, which then leads to employees reporting to several project managers. Given workers are engaged in narrow activities and are grouped based on their specialization field, the depth of knowledge of employees increases. For instance, Java programmers, being involved solely in programming on this language, have their daily activities centered on this narrow activity, which then leads to narrow professional growth. The Project Team In the case of the project team, people are grouped together based on the common function, project they need to carry out (Shell, 2003) Given people are viewed as a one team, the performance is assessed based on mutual work, which then increases the â€Å"team spirit†. The daily work of team members is more supportive especially in situations when, for instance, one of the the members of a group team failed to carry out a task assigned. The Collegial Model Under the collegial model, the deision making process consensual and involves representatives of all parties affected by the decision (Nicholl, 2006) This management structure is more of idealistic, as daily activities of an organization are centered around meaningful progress, which even though leads to a greater level of empowerment and increases the level of interest, is still less efficient. This includes situations when a decision must be taken that has a negative impact on one or more parties that still must be taken for the mutual benefit. As the daily decision making process is more complicated, time and efforts consuming. It should be noted, that all management structures have positive and negatives sides, whereas implementation of a definite structure is a matter of specific organizational needs of a given company. References Nicholl, P. (2006). Organisational Structures Do Matter for Good Governance and Good Performance. Comparative Economic Studies, 48(2), 214. Shell, R. L. (2003). Management of Professionals (2nd ed.). New York: Marcel Dekker. Torbiorn, I. (1994). Operative and Strategic Use of Expatriates in New Organizations and Market Structures. International Studies of Management & Organization, 24(3), 5.

A life changing event.

A life changing event. THWACK!Occasionally everyone is rocked by events not just beyond control, but beyond understanding. I lost the illusion of safety on a sweaty day in Bogot ¡, Colombia.We were driving not so much on a road but an infected cut on the skin of the jungle, which was always trying to heal the wound. The jungle itself loomed on either side of the road, staring back at me to show that it was the panther and I the hare.The jeep leapt and bound over the broken terrain. In the back of the jeep I was tossed about like an ice cube in a martini shaker. The two men in the front of the jeep were discussing something in Spanish; they seemed worried, so I asked them what was happening."This area is controlled by the rebels, we must drive very fast," Manuel said. Manuel was a Colombian Armed Forces captain.Tranvà ­a en llamas frente al Capitolio Nacional do...When he spoke he had the perfect enunciation of words that is so familiar to people for whom English is not their first language."When will we be out of danger?" I asked"You are an American in Colombia; you will be in danger until you get home." Manuel replied, laughing as he did so."Everything will be fine when we get past the first checkpoint in a few miles" Carlos said to reassure me.Carlos was a Colombian born American army captain. It was he who originally contacted me to do this job. When we first spoke he told me about the poor conditions in Bogot ¡. The people there needed better health care and the U.S. government was building new facilities. They wanted help with their computer systems, specifically with patient tracking. He convinced me that I would be making a difference in the lives of the Colombian people.He also alerted me to the danger. Colombia has been fighting a fifty year civil war. Before that the country had spent another fifty years in a constant struggle between wealthy land owners known. A struggle so vicious it is simply known as "La Violencia", the Violence. "Americans are occasionally kidnapp ed and ransomed. However we will have an escort as all times." he assured.Ridding in the jeep I noticed the way Manuel rarely took his eyes away from the jungle, always looking around, looking not with fear but suspicion, as if he suspected the very leaves themselves of harboring an unseen enemy.We passed the checkpoint without difficulty and entered the city a few miles ahead. It was grotesque. Every metropolitan area has a group of economically disadvantaged, but nothing I had ever seen prepared me for the city. The first thing you notice is the filth. It seemed the entire city was a refuse station. The greasy smell of it seemed to crawl into my nostrils and settle like dirty snow that won't melt until spring. The streets were full of litter. Is was not the kind of litter that you see in American cities, for most of that material is still useful to the truly poor, but a new dirtier kind of litter that sat perfectly on the border between trash and compost.The city seemed to be stru ggling against itself exploding too quickly and falling back in on itself, growing and shrinking like a parasite that never kills its host but can never be totally disposed of.The buildings were a crowded hubbub of materials that seemed piled together without thought to their neighbors. Snarls of wires sat at the top corners looking like the building itself had unwashed hair. Much of the construction seemed designed to lean against each other to support its tired existence.The people were the most obvious feature. There were throngs of people in front of the jeep. Everywhere I looked there were people in cars, scooters, bicycles and most of all on foot.There was paranoia in the air as we drove through by the people. Every time we stopped my escort would look out scanning the crowd as a hyena would looking for a lion about to take its food. At one stoplight someone looked back.He was a small man with dark skin and black eyes, but these details could describe anyone on these sweaty st reets. He carried himself through the crowd with more confidence, the confidence of a man that got what he wanted, by any means. He looked upon our party with powerful malice. There was an aura of menace to him that bespoke his intention well before his actions.I met eyes with the malicious man. The air became heavy with threat. Time itself seemed to stop to watch the events unfolding. A drop of sweat was forming on my forehead, leaking gently from my pores to be whisked away by evaporation, leaving me ever so slightly cooler. A billion molecules being carried by the air swirled and eddied into my nostrils. The smell of smoke from a trash fire followed by the soap that my driver had used to wash his hands at lunch and a million other slight scents were grabbed with both hands and rammed into my brain. Through the smears of insect entrails and dust on the windshield I saw the man's hand move."Gun!" I heard. Suddenly the world exploded. THWACK! The windshield cracked into a crystallin e fractal. THWACK! The windshield disappeared. THWAK! THWACK! THWAK! THWACK! There was a jet of dust from a hole that seemed to just appear in the seat in front of me. There was something sticky on my hands, but I couldn't see it. I couldn't take my eyes away from the man who was shooting at me.My ears hurt but I could not hear any sound. There was no sound getting from my eardrum to my brain, but my ears were still dutifully telling me that the noise was too loud. People around me seemed to be screaming and yelling, but I would not hear them.All I could see was the broken windshield, my driver sitting listlessly in place and the man with the rifle spitting short bright lines at my jeep. Manuel reached over from the passenger seat and began a kind of macabre wrestling with the driver. Manuel was reaching over to take the driver by the arm, but the arm didn't seem to be there; it seemed to have gone to the same place as my hearing although without the returning ticket. He pushed the unmoving driver aside and grabbed the wheel. He used his left foot to reach the gas and began to accelerate through the street, now empty except for the trail of smoke left behind by our vehicle.After traveling for several blocks, swerving around the road as Manuel drove from the passenger seat, we came upon several jeeps with markings similar to ours. Immediately men poured out surrounding our vehicle and getting the passengers out. I was rushed into a nearby building by a small man in a uniform who repeated "OK, OK?" over and over, until I finally understood that he was asking me a question and I replied "OK", much to his relief.I finished my work in Colombia without further excitement. In the hail of bullets the driver of the jeep had lost his arm, but thankfully not his life. The shooter turned out to have been a FARC rebel that had chosen that time to commit a terrorist act. I pale to think of how that information was extracted.Since this adventure, I have been back to the hosp ital for work twice, both times without incident. The work I've done there has saved lives, although indirectly, and I like to believe that saving lives is worth some personal danger. But I still hope it never happens again.

Drown essays

Drown essays The story of immigrant struggles is the major theme in "Drown" by Junot Diaz. Every immigrant has a personal story, pains and joys, fears and victories, and DÃ ­az portrays much of his own story of immigrant life in Drown, a collection of 10 short stories. This book captures the fury and alienation of the Dominican immigrant experience very well. Other immigrants' grief's also come up in DÃ ­az's short stories. My argument for this paper delves with the question of is this book merely storytelling or is it autobiographical? Also, it seemed to me as if he uses some symbols and specific words (mostly verbs) to express himself in a manner which the reader can almost feel the story as if it were real. The book tells of the barrios of the Dominican Republic and the struggling urban communities of New Jersey. This book is very strong and these stories tell of a sense of discovery from a young man's perspective. It seems as though for the immigrants, even when things are at their best, a high probability of calamity looms just around the corner. Uncertainty is the only certainty for these outsiders, who live in communities that, are "separated from all the other communities by a six-lane highway and the dump." It tells of a world in which fathers are gone; mothers fight with determination for their families and themselves. Drown brings out the conflicts, yearnings, and frustrations that have been a part of immigrant life for centuries. Diaz himself lived in such a world. In each of his stories Diaz uses a first-person narrator who is observing others. Boys and young drug dealers narrate eight of these tales. Their struggles shift from life in the barrios of the Dominican Republic to grim existence in the slums of New Jersey. These young boys could be the voice of Junot Diaz himself. If so, why would the book be a fiction? The characters in these stories wrestle with recognizable traumas. Yunior and Rafa in "Ysrael" and "Fie ...

Productivity Growth and Real Wages Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Productivity Growth and Real Wages - Essay Example The common man is actually not getting the benefits from the productivity growth 1. An appreciable rise in both productivity and wage structure was witnessed through the 1950s and 1960s, which slowed down in the 70s and 80s 5. However, the 1990’s saw a good and steady rise in productivity and therefore the benefits of the growth were seen by the increase in the wages 1. In the US, the real wage growth was weak in the early 1990s, but it rose from 1994, in response to the accelerating productivity, up to 2004 after which it showed a downward trend mainly attributed to increasing energy costs 3. The recession witnessed in the early 2000s resulted in a downward trend with respect to wages, even though the productivity was high 1. According to a report the median real wages for all workers increased by 1.4% per year between 1995 and 2003, which was less than half the rate of productivity growth 2. Another news article published in a website quotes a 2% decline in the median hourly wages for American workers since 2003, despite the steady rise in productivity 5.This inequality in wage distribution can be attributed chiefly to the bargaining power of workers in case of high productivity. Employee unions play a vital role this bargain. However, the workers ability to bargain has considerable diminished, thus preventing them from enjoying the fruits of the ir own labor 1. Some reasons cited for this reduced bargaining power include global trade, immigration, layoffs and technology 5. Inflation shares an inverse relationship with wage distribution and so does fringe benefits such as health care 1, 5. Education status and working skills of workers also plays a vital role in determining the wages 4. Another point made is that only the top 10% enjoyed the real benefits of productivity growth leaving the rest of the 90% with very less growth in terms of wages 3, 4.According to the Baumols Law, mobility in labor will result in an increase in wages so

Stonefish Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Stonefish - Research Paper Example The stonefish belongs to the class Osteichthyes and the order Scorpainiformes under the Synanceiidae. There are different species in this genus totaling 28 and two of them are the most venomous fish known to man. The Synanceia horrida being the deadliest and the other, the Synanceia verucossa is also known for the harm it could bring. It can grow up to 40 centimeters in length and feeds mostly on fish and crustaceans. They mainly wait for food to come to them and almost never sting to catch prey. This means that their venom is for purposes of self-defense rather than for hunting food. A clear study of its reproduction habit and life span is yet to be explored while its birthing pattern is believed to be through planktonic eggs. Their habitat consists of the shallow sandy waters and reefs where they are often mistaken as rocks. Aesthetically, this fish has a wide head relatively not proportioned to its small tail but where there should be scale, a stonefish has warts and slime coverin g its body (Burton and Burton 2547-2548). Stonefish can be found mostly in the indo-pacific region, that is the Indian Ocean and the Pacific Ocean, and known to be common in these waters. Among them, the Great Barrier Reef in Australia is well-known as home for a number of different species of stonefish. They are usually in the colors of brown and green with different colored patches to camouflage in their surroundings. Their venom is released through the spines on their back which makes them deadly in rare cases. The trouble lies in the fact that they are difficult to see and most times it is only after a person has already had an unpleasant encounter with these creatures that they realize they are even there (Antill 4-5). Effects of envenomation differ significantly among reports which range from virtually nonexistent to deadly in a few rare occasions. The process starts with the breaking or wounding of the skin which makes it possible for the poison to be injected through it (Burton and Burton 2547). The experiences of hu mans with this animal are usually unpleasant which tends to create an atmosphere of legends around them and since most notable encounters are associated with pain, they have been regarded as nuisances and a cause for concern. â€Å"It is not widely appreciated that stonefish are plentiful in the sea, but because of their superb camouflage they are not commonly sighted†¦ Similarly, as records of stings show, stonefish stings are themselves not rare† (Williamson, Fenner, Burnett and Rifkin 374). The fact that they look just like stones or algae that form part of their most immediate surroundings make them invisible to the indiscriminate eyes. In the event that envenomation occurs, the best first aid treatment advised is to immerse the affected are in hot water to relieve of the pain. Preferably, anti-venom must be sought immediately in the nearest local medical facility upon confirmation that a person has been poisoned by a stonefish. Handling a stonefish must be with grea t care. It should not be carried by hand and a stick would come in handy if this occurs. Authorities even suggest that it will be best to just throw the fish back in the water and let it swim away. If one finds it necessary to handle it, the best way is to hold it by the tail which could most likely alarm it and thus raise its spines in defense (ibid 381). The prudent attitude is to steer away from them to avoid envenomation and logically to refrain from picking up or going near what may seem to be just an ordinary rock when in