Different Health Systems

The healthcare system of the United States is commonly associated with state-of-the-art hospitals and highly-trained physician. However, the general performance of the U. S. healthcare system has been determined to be a less than that of other industrialized countries. Such observation is mainly due to the differences in healthcare systems among states, regions and health administrations. The Veterans Health Administration (VHA) is a socialized healthcare system managed by the government. It provides varied healthcare support to veterans or ex-officio military servicemen and their families.Survey shows that approximately 83% of VHA patients are satisfied with the healthcare that they have received. In addition, survey depicts that 69% of the patients were treated within 20 minutes of their appropriate appointment with their physician (DeNavas-Walt et al. , 2005). Also, approximately 93% of the patients participating in the survey indicate that they had seen a specialist within the la st 30 days. Such observations show that the Veterans Health Administration provides an exemplary system of healthcare, much better than the private sector.However, it also could mean that the VHA is associated with more costly healthcare rates than the other healthcare systems such as the Military Health system and the private sector. This characteristic compensates for the types of members that would avail of the VHA benefits, who are actually veterans, which are commonly composed of older, sicker and illness-susceptible individuals. In addition, these veterans are generally poorer, homeless and victims of substance abuse, which represents a major difference from the major population in the United States.It has been estimated that more than 50% of the VHA enrollees are above 65 years of age. The private sector’s healthcare system is mostly focused on intervention-based healthcare, which means that the physician will generally treat a patient who is already suffering from a p articular illness (Frogner and Anderson, 2006). Such system is thus less costly than the VHA system, because the patients enrolled in the private sector will only resort to requesting medical attention when the need arises.In the private sector healthcare system, health insurance is generally bought by the employer on behalf of its employees The VHA system, on the other hand, follows the prevention approach to health care, which involves providing checkups and education to its veteran patients in order to avoid more serious illness in the future. The Military Health System, on the other hand, provides healthcare to individuals who are currently active in the military service, including members of their family.The benefits of the Military Health system falls under the blanket coverage known as the Tricare, which is almost identical to that of the private sector’s system of healthcare management (Smith et al. , 2005). Here the enrollee pays a small portion of the total cost of the healthcare service, such as 20% of a surgery, for example, and the other 80% is paid for my the Military Health System. Each visit to the physician, just like the private sector’s healthcare system, is associated with a small co-payment, such as $10 per visit, regardless of specialization of the doctor to which consultation was made.The mission of a healthcare system is to provide medical services at the lowest practical price and at the same time, with the best feasible quality. The integration of electronic medical records in the Veterans Health Administration has provided a model for the other healthcare system to follow suit. In addition, the private sector has also use the VHA’s mission in providing prevention-based medical services, instead of just intervention-based services. References DeNavas-Walt C, Proctor B and Lee C (2005):   Income, Poverty and Health Insurance in the United States: 2004.   Washington, D.C.: U.S. Census Bureau. Frogner BK and Anderson GF (2006):   Multinational comparisons of health systems data, 2005.   New York: The Commonwealth Fund. Smith C, Cowan C and Sensenig A (2005):   Health Spending Growth Slows in 2003.   Health Affairs   24(1):185–94.

Quasi-experimental research designs Essay

Introduction             A quasi experiment is the kind of experiment that seeks to evaluate conditions in non-profit making organizations. Examples of non-profit making organizations include the Red Cross, YMCA, and The Hospice, among many others (Thyer, 2012).  A hospice is a special hospital, mostly sponsored by the government of a country, where the practical, emotional, and medical needs of dying patients are met. A hospice is the kind of organization where emergency is the norm and is the least among other non-profit making organizations. A number of questions would be viable in this case. For instance, what are the working conditions? Does the station operate 24 hours in a day? But the kind of question that would give more and better information according to research would be; how many (dying) people are ministered to in a month? Such a question would give the research party broader perspective in the whole process compared to the others. The kind of data that I would gather would most likely dwell on such factors as, employee number, whether all the employees are professionally trained and the budget range. The three nuggets would be the primary areas of data collection considering the depth and width of information they would gather (Thyer, 2012). In the data collection process, it would be prudent to employ the services offered by employees. Therefore, I would use an employee of high proficiency in getting down to the process. This would, most likely promote the quality and quantity of the final findings, having in mind the experience of the employee. According to Thyer (2012), limitation would be inevitable, especially in this kind of process. Some of the limitations likely to be faced by employees in the field would involve: the time of emergency (uncertainty on when to send an employee), lack of total co-operation from the management and inadequate capital. There are a number of challenges but the above mentioned would be the most likely. Reference Thyer, B. A. (2012).  Quasi-experimental research designs. New York: Oxford University Press. Source document

Assessment of Plato's two arguments about knowledge in the Meno and Term Paper

Assessment of Plato's two arguments about knowledge in the Meno and the Phaedo - Term Paper Example In both Meno and Phaedo, knowledge and learning are viewed as a recollection of what someone already knows. However, in Meno, Plato writes that knowledge is concerned with the recollection of necessary truths. In Phaedo, on the other hand, knowledge, according to Plato, is concerned with the acquisition of concepts, which are not necessarily truths (102b-c). In essence, Phaedo tries to imply that a person can gain knowledge simply by learning new concepts based on their individual opinions. The subject of debate in this essay is whether either form of knowledge can be independent of the other. Can a person claim to have knowledge about a subject by simply recalling some prior truths, or can a person learn new concepts based on a recollection of prior opinions? The idea of recollection or anamnesis, according to Plato, holds that if at all a person remembers something, they must have had prior knowledge of the subject (73c). Plato, in Phaedo writes that the fact that a person can hear or see something and recognize it, and even think of something alike, is all based on anamnesis (74c). In Phaedo, Plato gives an example of knowledge through recognition by stating that a person may see a lyre that reminds them of their lover (73c-e). In this context, the person’s recognition of a lyre is independent of them being reminded about their lover. However, there is a difference between seeing just any lyre and being reminded of one’s lover, and seeing a lyre belonging to one’s lover and being reminded of them. The alter explanation deals with a truth about the lover’s lyre, while the former introduces a new concept, with an opinion about any lyre. In Phaedo, Plato also explains what recollection is all about suing the example of the equal itself (74c-d). Here, the argument is that one person may see two stones or sticks as equal, while another sees them as unequal. The equality of these objects may vary according to one’s opinion, but t he equal itself is always equal, with no variations of equality. Fundamentally, this is to say that the two people both have prior truthful knowledge of what the equal itself is; what may differ, however, are their opinions concerning the equality of the objects. The two cases above require some degree of recollection, although for the former, it is a recollection of a truth about the equal itself, while the latter deals with the recollection of a personal opinion about a subject. The knowledge about the truth of the equal itself that can never be unequal is the precondition for the opinion as to whether the objects in question are equal or unequal. From this analysis, it is safe to infer that knowledge acquisition is a progression from prior truth to opinions formed in reference to the said truth. The seeing of one thing and being reminded of another, whether like or unlike, is what Plato refers to as anamnesis. However, a person can see something and instead of being reminded of a nother, they can create their own idea of something else that could be dissimilar from what they saw. This creation of an idea by a person is a new concept that does not necessarily come from a pre-existing truth. This argument, therefore, puts into doubt the idea that the pre-condition to being reminded is to have cognition of something. This is a case of having knowledge through recollection of things that are

Bankruptcy Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Bankruptcy - Essay Example Chapter 7 Bankruptcy is also known as straight bankruptcy in which an individual or a corporation will discharge the filing defaulter in exchange for giving up assets. Therefore, the chapter 7 is legislated specifically for people who cannot afford or who are unable to pay their debt. Accordingly, one chief reason people choose to file chapter 7 is that if one qualifies, he or she can then afford the monthly reimbursement for the items they wish to keep. This is unlike chapter 13 because those who file chapter 7 debtors are often ready to credit score more quickly because they aim to complete bankruptcy suit swiftly (Gambrell & Associates, n.d.). As with Chapter 13 on the other hand, the debtor is demanded to reimburse all or part of his/her debts in terms of reduction of upcoming income within a stipulated period of 3-5 years as per chapter 13 arrangement. Much of the debt that is not reimbursed as set out in the agreement or a plan of reorganization will have to be wiped out or discharged. This is unlike in chapter 7 where bankruptcy does not discharge much of the mortgage, for if debtor desires to keep an item product e.g. an apartment or a car as security for a loan, he is required to prolong these payments. However, under chapter 13, nearly all long-term debts and mortgages have to be paid in their usual monthly reimbursement either during or outside the plan, apart from for the payments that were due ahead of the case filing (Gambrell & Associates, n.d.). Chapter 9 deals with municipalities and a municipal is required to demonstrate its eligibility to be a debtor in pursuant of section 109 (c) and such eligibility to file for chapter 9 is often contested by creditor (s). Such is different with chapter 11 whereby eligibility is never challenged as a party is supposed to be eligible for filing save for insurance companies, stockbrokers, insured banks, and commodity brokers. Another

Same Sex Marriage Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Same Sex Marriage - Essay Example Efforts to amend various sections of the Constitution in different States gained momentum to incorporate amendments to prohibit the same-sex marriages. States such as Nevada, Alaska, and Nebraska made changes to their constitution to disallow lesbian and gay relationships. This happened in 1990. Massachusetts State was the first state to legalize and recognize the same sex-marriage in 2003. Civil unions came into full force to advocate States to grand the lesbians and gays their most much-needed rights. Out of their efforts, several States have approved homosexuality, namely, New York, Rhode Island, and the District of Columbia. There is a lot of optimism in the gay and lesbian community, going by the past trends, that they will gain victories in many other states in the United States (Confessore and Barbaro A1). In the United States, many groups show their deeper concerns about their fears and speculation over the consequences of this new social order (Ambrosino 84). Some have supported and others bitterly opposed this new practice. Different legal and religious communities such as Christianity, Muslims, and Buddhism have voiced in their varied views on this matter. Catholic and evangelistic churches are in the forefront to oppose the move to legalize same-sex marriage. Division on homosexuality in the Protestant faith is evident, a section of them feels that the same-sex marriages should have freedom to marry, others completely object (Taylor A25). The Muslim community feels this is a violation of religious beliefs. Buddhists have differing stances about same-sex marriage. The liberals have no objections while the conservatisms greatly object the issue. The number of the opponents has out-numbered that of supporters with significant margins. The opponents raise many concerns about the same- sex marriages. To start with, they doubt whether there is any commitment in these relationships. They argue that the marriages are due to break sooner than later. They further point out that gay and lesbians’ couples are quite unhappy which is on contrary to a heterosexual marriages. Social conservatives believe that marriage is a health foundation

English Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words - 48

English - Essay Example According to a report in the Wall Street Journal, the companies have increased their budget of marketing through Social Media (Tadena). Moreover, they can easily quantify the outcome through online surveys. Facebook is the biggest sensation when it comes to Social Media. Almost each and everyone has a Facebook account these days. Instagram came in after Facebook, and it has a different approach to connecting people. The users install this application on their smart phones and then click photographs through this application. One can connect with a lot of people through photographs. I have my account in both of these applications and they have been very helpful to me when it comes to connecting with my friends and family. I personally feel, that social media will never become out of practice because the mindset of the society is changing day by day. In this busy schedule, I feel that people do not have the time to personally call up their friends, rather they prefer to keep in touch wi th them through the social

Representing Visual Culture Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Representing Visual Culture - Essay Example Some scenes showed the factory at Jouey, and others rural scenes of workers relaxing drinking dancing, and womanising. Timorous Beasties have not actually changed much in the Toile concept, but have updated the references from the contemporary urban. The urban landscape in many UK cities seems to be changing all the time, modern buildings have become icons that give us a strong sense of identity, and there fore the London Toile seemed a perfect expression of where we were coming from. This fabric speaks so much about the lifestyle of the romantic, peaceful and carefree London. Printed in the fabric, were green different images of the romantic and carefree lifestyles in contrast to a cream linen which made it more beautiful and attractive. There are 8 images injected to a bright cream fabric, showered with flying and feeding doves were a images of lovers overlooking the Great London Bridge across the lake under the tree infront of bench. It is such a very romantic site which made this fabric perfectly ideal for lovers, designed to fit on sofa sets, love rests or even curtains in a lovers bedroom. Next to this image is the city itself, over... This peaceful and solemn serenity of the scene depicts the mood of the sunset, being ready for a relaxing dinner and sleep on your way to your home. Having this fabric hanged in your living room makes you feel that you are glad to be home with your family, celebrating the union before the end of the

Cost Identification Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Cost Identification - Essay Example This is calculated from the direct cost which includes expenses in issues such as revenues, selling and distribution expenses, as well as the cost of development. Others include government revenue on production, as well as shipping costs. These are coined together as the selling and distribution expenses. The costs are engaged directly by the company in the effort of manufacturing the product and distributing it into the market. The company enlists this expense as the central indicator of their path to achievement (Lenovo, 2013). Subsequently, the company experiences yet another set of expenses that is coined under the name of indirect cost. On reference is the expenses that are associated to proceedings that are not unswervingly connected to the production and sales lines. They include an increase in the cost of production due to issue such as inflation, which foresees the increase in the cost of inputs. Others include restrictions on considerations such as environment pollution. Others include the cost incurred on rent, energy, maintenance and internal communication, amongst others. Such costs are accrued in an effort to better quality of the product but are not specific on the product on reference. They may cover all the products in the production line (Lenovo, 2013). Regarding the variable and the fixed cost, various illustrations focusing on these aspects can be fetched from the financial records of the company. Fixed costs include expenses such as rent (property), equipments and units (plant), amongst others. These costs are constantly engaged with minimal variation. The enlisted variable cost include expenses on topics such as wages, upgrade of infrastructure, payment of leases and other utilities necessitated in the process of production. Such costs are set to vary in the course of production (Lenovo, 2013). A further analysis on the financial records posted by the company identifies yet another set of expenses. This includes the value added

Artifact Assignment Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Artifact Assignment - Essay Example Jesus Christ was also in a tomb for some days after his death. Many people fear death and avoid it at all cost. The process speaks about secularization of place and collective memory. It also speaks about the role death had in mobilizing the nation’s identity and construction. In the current world and generation, tombs still exist and have the same functions that were in the past. Since the year 2002, Lomondside village has made promotions and developments in tourism. In the 21st century, explorations in sacred places and they are current in the modern world. The promotion of sacred places means a lot to the sacred places and sites together with their objects. In the ancient times, sacred places were special places of worship and thanksgiving. They are significant elements in the explored mythic traditions. The sacred places presence in the myths of the world makes stories important as they offer myth breaks and relay them in the current world. The stories revolving around sacred places embody all the boundaries to practical thinking. The fact that sacred places exist, they offer prove and evidence in stories and history since they are felt, touched and talked about. They offer mythic truth in the contemporary world of inceptions and reality. Without the sacred places, it would be difficult for people to have memories of how they should behave and conduct themselves in the world of today. Though it may appear overblown, the mainstream members should be realistic, practical and down to earth. All this in courtesy of sacred places and stories related to them. The Tomb in Poland remind people every day on how to become down to earth, respect the origin places, honor, revitalize and remember the essential connections to the natural world and earth. Sacred places help a lot in distinguishing between the past and the present. The Tomb in Poland help people in associating the spiritual world and the

State and Federal Aid Essay Example for Free

State and Federal Aid Essay There are many past and rising issues involving public school finance. The public schools system is funded through federal, state and local taxes. Each state has different formulas to distribute funding from state and local taxes. Federal funding does contribute to the rising cost of education for each state. State and local taxes is allocated to cover the majority of educational costs. Student achievement depends upon the available funding allotted to each district. This author will attempt to discuss equalization of federal, state and local funding. Also, this author will attempt to describe fair, equitable and adequate tax systems. Federal, state and local funding are all important to the funding formula for public education in Texas. A large chunk of funding for Texas schools comes from sales tax. Every item that is purchased, with the exception of food, has a sales tax added on. Ultimately, all consumers contribute to the public education system. Every other week in the news, there are stories covering the rising costs of oil and gas. Every time we fill our gas tanks, we are paying taxes that go towards local funding of education. Many districts in Texas are filled with low economic status students, and are Title I campuses. Title I campuses provide free and reduced breakfast and lunch for students. These free and reduced meals are provided each school day. Title I campuses in Texas receive federal funding for the free and reduced lunch program. Each parent, every school year, is encouraged to complete paperwork for each student to qualify for the program. Throughout the history of public education the big question has been, â€Å"How can the funding of public education be equal and equitable?† Each state receives federal funding with the intent of the federal government to provide equal and equitable education to all children. The federal funding received by each state is allocated towards the basic necessities that are needed for education. Additional funding is needed for the many resources and developmental trainings that are also needed to provide adequate education. This is when state and local funding are important and added to the equation. This is also the reason given by many school districts on the importance of increasing state and local taxes. Each year school districts receive reports on accountability from the state. With these reports school boards have decisions to make. These decisions all deal with what is needed  to improve and increase accountability. In turn, discussions of where funding should be allocated and how to generate more funding. To increase local taxes would be a source of increased funding. Then, parents as well as community members would have to vote on the decision to increase taxes. Usually, members of the community are not eager to support a vote of increased taxes. The rising cost of education is not something that general community members are concerned with. There are also parents of students in the public education system that are not aware of the increasing cost of quality education. The task of increasing the funding for public education becomes harder each school year. One alternative to increasing taxes to gain more educational funding would be to enlist the support of local and state corporations. Local corporations could be included when sponsoring extracurricular school events. These extracurricular events should not be designated to only sporting events. Corporate support should be solicited to sponsor fine arts, sporting, community as well as back to school events. Corporations could use these opportunities as advertising and a source of generating revenue. In turn, these corporations would have relative concern for the success of the district’s students. This relationship would also generate funds to support equitable and adequate public education. There have been attempts made to change the way education in Texas is funded. Previous proposals included increasing sales tax instead of including property taxes. This proposal was rejected because citizens desire more local control. While this proposal would hand over more control of public education to the state. As stated by Lavine (2007), by allowing the state to provide more funding, the link between local taxpayers and public schools would be broken. Community members have more stake in school districts when their tax monies fund local schools. A fair, equitable and adequate tax system would share the wealth of local taxes. Is it possible to have a fair distribution of funding for public education? Each year when income taxes are filed and people pay taxes on wages earned and property owned. There is a standard tax bracket that is followed to determine the amount of taxes paid by each citizen. Public education funding and our students would benefit from a similar bracket. The bracket should be utilized by the state. The districts with the higher numbers of economically disadvantaged students should receive more funding from the state. This method would provide equal  funding from the state. Local funding would allow for continued support from community members and businesses. Another alternative method of generating funds for education would be to re-establish district zones. Some may argue that in re-establishing district lines, some districts may lose funding while others would gain. The re-establishment of lines would support the equality of education that is described in No Child Left Behind. As stated by McCown (2006), consolidating smaller districts is not the problem but more financially supported, larger districts should be re-zoned. By re-establishing district lines, the wealth and funding for public education would be shared. If federal, state and local funding was equal for every district; would that be equal and fair funding for education? Conclusion Our public school system in Texas is operated through the use of federal, state and local funding. Local funding is generated from property taxes levied from commercial and public property. Educational funding from the state is generated from taxes such as oil, gas and also sales taxes. Federal funding is specifically allocated towards free and reduced breakfast and lunch programs, bilingual and special education and also technology. The education system of today requires more funding than what was needed fifty years ago. The funding generated from federal, state and local governments is not adequate enough to support the changing system of education. The idea that public education I both equitable and adequate is becoming harder to believe. There is a need to increase local funding but community members are not in support of tax increase. We need to enlist the use of alternative methods to generate funds for public education. Children of Texas depend on the public education system to provide them with opportunities to create better futures and successful citizens. Every child should have access to equitable and adequate education. As described by Thompson (1972), adult success is not the difference, but improving a child’s life for the better. References McCown, F. Scott., 2006. The Texas public education challenge Texas trilogy on public education and taxes, Center for Public Policy Priorities. Thompson, Marjorie., 1972. Paying for our schools: is there a better way, National Center for Educational Communication. Lavine, Dick, 2007. Replacing property taxes with sales taxes would be bad for Texas businesses, families and public education. Center for Public Policy Priorities.

The Development of Lesbian and Queer Theory in America

The Development of Lesbian and Queer Theory in America An Examination of the Advancement of Lesbian Theory Criticism –  America: 1950’s-1990’s. Introduction Lesbianism in American society is a concept imbued with social, political, legal, aesthetic and literary codes and conventions, whether considered in 1950 or currently. In the past half century, lesbianism has not only expressed itself as specific articulations of sexuality and lifestyle, but also of ideology and political aspiration. Sexuality has remained essential to conceptualisations of lesbianism in this time span, with its political formulations, societal censures, and social accommodations anchored to the vicissitudes of feminist theory and practice. American social and political morays which have prescribed female functionality in post World War Two years, have cast mainstream female identity in terms of motherhood, wifeliness and domesticity, a formulation of personhood deeply challenged by advancing lesbian ideology and praxis. In this light, one of the significant threads of lesbian theory and criticism to be evaluated pertains to feminism’s examination of female identity in the past 50 years, and the status and reaction of lesbianism within this paradigm. This process encompasses events and issues pertaining to the biological, sexual and social validation of female gender, but also the intellectual development of modes of discourse pertaining to feminism and lesbianism, as a means of female empowerment, paralleled by considered or reactionary responses to wider societal trends. So called second wave feminism, benchmarked by the Stonewall Riots at Greenwich Village in New York in 1969, targeted women’s liberation not only at the level of law, and concrete denotations of inequality and injustice, (akin to feminism’s first wave), but at the more visceral level of societal and political attitudes and values, including the ideological decoupling of female personhood from male sexuality. Since the early 1990’s, the ideological and theoretical formulations of lesbianism have been advancing in disparate lines, at the bidding of post-structuralist or postmodernist discourses. Some of lesbianism’s intellectual impulses have focused upon notions of sexual and personal identity, and in spite of their intellectual sophistication have lost their momentum and coherence, collapsing into an â€Å"ambiguous polymorphy,†[1] whilst attempting to dispense with unhelpful binary oppositional definitions of gender or sexuality. Conversely, an intellectual strength of third wave feminism and post 1980’s lesbian criticism has been the attention to personhood, the integrity of the self and the integration of public and private moralities. Chapter 1 Homosexuality after World War I was broadly viewed as â€Å"an offence against the family and social expectations about gender.†[2] A doctor’s post World War 1 contemporary observations noted that it was â€Å"improper to utter the word homosexuality, prurient to admit its existence and pornographic to discuss the subject.†[3] The same doctor reflects the radical difference between American and European cultural and sexual values, implying that while Europe was perceived by Americans as decadent, European novels could discuss homosexuality openly within a European setting, yet American novels could not, since â€Å"if it existed at all, (as) our soil is unfavourable, our climate prejudicial, our people too primitive, too pure.†[4] Furthermore, Fone contends that homosexuality had come to be seen as a â€Å"subversion of America itself.† [5] Fone also observes that since war is a â€Å"time of fear and upheaval-it produces a virulent, xenophobic str ain of homophobia† tantamount to conceiving â€Å"sexual difference as a betrayal of American values†.[6] Retrospectively implicit among these anecdotal pre World War II dismissals of homosexuality, is the notable silence concerning any distinction between male and female homosexuality, or gay and lesbian sexual phenomenon. The grip of patriarchy was so overarching that lesbianism did not even feature as a notable offence against social sensibilities. Be that as it may. The social discourse regarding lesbianism in the 1950’s was in part a response to the repositioning of women due to World War II. As war demanded heightened US defences and reconstituted the nation’s labour force, women formed the Women’s Army Corps (WAC) and were seconded to non-traditional jobs, accounting for one third of the work force. According to Kennedy and Davis, â€Å"World War II had a tremendous impact on lesbian life, by offering lesbians more opportunities for socialising and meeting other women.†[7] Since the war â€Å"gave more independence to all women†¦ lesbians (were) more like other women and less easy to identify. Since all women were able to wear pants to work and to purchase them in stores off the rack, butches who only wore pants in the privacy of their home in the 1930s could now wear them on the streets.†[8] Furthermore, in Buffalo women gained access to better jobs since productivity was heightened by war manufacturing. Since the male population of Buffalo was denuded for military service, lesbians had greater liberty to meet in public and pursue active social lives beyond hearth and home. Extensive social life revolved around â€Å"the proliferation of gay bars†[9] and despite the â€Å"mere presence of homosexuals†¦interpreted by the State Liquor Authority as constituting disorderly conduct†,[10] raids on premises were minimal in the 1940’s due to the shrewdness of business owners.[11] Concurrently, enlisted lesbians found a social space within the male world of military service since enrolment screening practices for lesbians entering the (WAC) were less stringent than for gay men.[12] In this example, the lack of status for women in the military prior to the war resulted in ill-defined screening procedures for women recruits, matched by a choice to not investigate the sexual lives of women, as the goal was to optimise the war effort.[13] The simplistic and binary designations of sexual orientation in the late 1940’s are noted by the comments from â€Å"a group of Marine Corps examiners at Camp LeJeune (who) advised their colleagues, â€Å"that women showing a masculine manner may be perfectly normal sexually and excellent military material.†[14] By the late 1940’s however, â€Å"purging of lesbians from the military became increasingly problematic. Many women were forced to deny knowing any of their friends or marry gay men to pass as heter osexual.†[15] Ominously, â€Å"mid 1950’s Navy officials secretly acknowledged that the homosexual discharge rate had become much higher for the female than the male.† [16] When the end of the war brought a resumption of traditional family roles, there were no alternate social prescriptions for women apart from marriage, and enduring singleness subjected females to social disapproval, while the â€Å"aggressive harassment of lesbians and gays was connected to this glorification of the nuclear family and domestic sphere.Homophobia became a way of reinstituting male dominance and strict gender roles that had been disrupted by the war.†[17] The 1950’s remained a social and political milieu of â€Å"severe oppression,†[18] yet Roosevelt suggests the reduced harassment of gay bar culture and the desire of public lesbians to reach out to other lesbians, marked a â€Å"significant transformation in lesbian consciousness.† [19] The emergence of tough butch lesbian sub-culture in the 1950’s, was, according to Roosevelt, a consequence of gay bar life and working class female job creation during World War II.[20] Nonetheless, â€Å"alcohol, insecurity, and repression, in combination with the tough butch image, made fights among tough and rough lesbians a prominent part of the 1950s landscape which increased concern and attention from the larger culture.† [21] Furthermore, the prominence of lesbians and male homosexuals holding positions within the American government agencies in the 1950’s was a matter of growing consternation, in light of the neo-conservatism and right wing extremism of this period. The political tirade against ‘un-American activities typified by the McCarthy led Senate committee inquiries and public hearings, not only felt virtue was found in the purging of communist allegiances and sentiments, but also coupled homosexuality and lesbianism with such perceived political aberrations. Politically enshrined deviance was aligned with sexually defined deviance. The 1950 congressional record addressed homosexuals in government, with congressman Miller of Nebraska addressing the House of Representatives. In an excerpt, Miller stated, â€Å"I would like to strip the fetid, stinking flesh off of this skeleton of homosexuality and tell my colleagues of the House some of the facts of nature†¦ Recently the spotlight of publicity has been focused not only upon the State Department but upon the Department of Commerce because of homosexuals being employed in these and other departments of Government. Recently Mr. Peurifoy, of the State Department, said he had allowed 91 individuals in the State Department to resign because they were homosexuals. Now they are like birds of a feather, they flock together. Where did they go? You must know what a homosexual is. It is amazing that in the Capital City of Washington we are plagued with such a large group of those individuals. Washington attracts many lovely folks. The sex crimes in the city are many.†[22] Miller went on to refer to the Sex Pervert Bill passed through Congress that he authored, exposing his jaundiced view of sexuality by alluding to the peril of homosexuals, as well as the ‘concession’ that â€Å"some of them are more to be pitied than condemned, because in many it is a pathological condition, very much like the kleptomaniac who must go out and steal.†[23] In addition to the homophobic cringe mentality epitomising the 1950’s which also applied to lesbianism, viewing any form of non-heterosexual sex as non-normative and therefore aberrant, prior to 2003, homosexuality (and by extension lesbianism), was â€Å"considered a disease, a sin (and) a threat to public order.†[24] Further reasons why lesbianism was shunned by American mainstream society in the 1950’s concerns the belief that (in the absence of research to the contrary), sexual orientation was subject to change and able to be transferred.[25] As such, a threat or fear existed that there was the possibility of an epidemic conversion from heterosexual to, homosexual, yielding a perceived need to ‘protect’ heterosexuals. Since homosexuals and lesbians were perceived to be engaging in indulgent, wayward and aberrant sexual behaviour by choice, rather than by predisposition, the persecution and stigmatization they received was not viewed as a breach o f fundamental human rights. [26] Furthermore, another potent reason for the social and political aversion to lesbianism was the belief that heterosexual minors could become homosexual by way of seduction, justifying the protection of children and youth by means of criminal law.[27] Amnesty International’s recent statement addressing the decriminalisation of homosexuality globally, demonstrates that third wave feminist ideological battles (discussed later) are far from won. The paper makes the observation that â€Å"far fewer countries explicitly criminalise lesbianism than male homosexuality†¦ as there (already) exists a raft of legislation to limit, police and control womens sexual autonomy. (The writers’ explanation that), lesbianism is not generally subject to legal sanctions may be attributed to the absence of women from the public sphere and the resulting absence of awareness of lesbianism.†[28] This social invisibility[29] of lesbianism leads to some lawmakers denying that it even exists. Miller’s attitudes not only exposed the entrenched criminalisation of homosexuality (and by association lesbianism), but the second social contrivance of lesbianism which coalesced in American culture in the 1950’s, namely its ‘medicalisation’, framing lesbianism as a social pathogen, rather than an issue of sexual difference and diversity, when compared with heterosexuality or monogamy. Such a pathological casting of lesbianism is foreseen in pre-1950’s homophobic stereotypes, where psychic differences between homosexuals and heterosexuals were fabricated – constructing the homosexual male as a deficit being without â€Å"will power, perseverance, and dogmatic energy.†[30] These social postulations of male effeminacy merely mirrored manifestations of female ‘masculinisation,’ such as the butch bar working class lesbian sub-culture, already identified. Instead of current societal emphasis upon diversity and difference, the 1950’s construction of lesbianism underscored deficit and deviance. Roosevelt draws attention to psychiatrists Henry Gay duplicitous motives. Whilst formulating a committee for the Study of Sex Variants in the 1940’s, compiling case histories of over 300 lesbians, producing ‘Sex Variants: A Study of Homosexual Patters’, with the pretext of decriminalising lesbianism, in actuality, the hidden agenda was to legitimise the psychiatry profession, and as a consequence, medicalise lesbianism, merely replacing one construct of deviance with another. [31] Lesbianism remained an immoral practice in the USA until Illinois led the change with its homosexuality decriminalisation law in 1961.[32] Prior to this time, â€Å"criminologists of the 1950’s depicted lesbian inmates as menacing social types which lead to a conflation between women’s prisons and lesbianism.†[33] The shift to greater surveillance of lesbianism in women’s prisons was reflected in â€Å"U.S. popular and political culture in magazines, pulp no vels, and movies where the, previously, comic and benign lesbian gave way to the dangerously aggressive lesbian criminal. By the 1950’s the term ‘women’s prison’ was synonymous with lesbian aggression,†[34]casting sexuality as a potential signifier of membership of a â€Å"criminal underworld, losing class, race, and privilege.† [35]Such pulp novels as those published by Ann Weldy under the pseudonym Ann Bannon, included ‘Odd Girl Out’, (1957); ‘I Am a Woman (In Love With a Woman Why Must Society Reject Me’?) (1959); ‘Women in The Shadows’, (1959);‘Journey to a Woman’ (1960) and ‘The Marriage’, (1960); and Beebo Brinker (1962), the prequel to the first four books.[36] The social limitations of same-gender sexuality identification are evident in the narrative outcomes of these early lesbian pulp fiction titles. â€Å"It was expected that the characters in a lesbian novel would ne ver receive any satisfaction from a lesbian relationship. One or both usually ended up committing suicide, going insane, or leaving the relationship.† Describing the 1950’s as the hey-day of Lesbian Pulp Fiction, Bianco noted that while its boom was inspired mainly by publishers pitching successfully to straight males seeking titillation, oppressed lesbians found a private outlet and psychic survival through such writings denied them publicly by the censoriousness of 1950’s repressive American culture. Bianco noted the publicist’s irony, since while â€Å"cover art of pulp novels always depicted ultra-feminine women, the ‘real’ lesbians in the stories were often tomboys or ‘bad girls’ who seduced innocent straight women. Reflecting psychological theories of the time, lesbian pulp writers often presented lesbianism as the result of a trauma, such as rape or incest. At the end, the innocent straight woman almost always returned to a ‘normal’ life with a man. If the lesbian protagonist wasnt herself converted to heterosexuality, she usually became an alcoholic, lost her job, or committed suicide. Publishers insisted on these kinds of moral endings, condemning lesbian sexuality even while exploiting it. In this regard, lesbian pulps followed the formula of torment and sacrifice.†[37] As such, lurid and socially shunned fictionalisations of alternate sexuality merely reinforced the ethical and moral mainstream fabric of neo-conservative American culture. Anne Bannon, as she was publicly known, reputedly led a double life, a wife and mother who frequented lesbian bars on weekends in Greenwich Village, and strikingly only disclosed her authorship of her lesbian pulp fiction novels in the 1980’s, over two decades after they were published. In the view of Bianco, her works made a significant contribution to lesbian identity in the decade prior to ‘Stonewall’.[38] Theoretical perspectives on lesbian and alternate sexuality critical to the exploration of emerging critical paradigms of lesbianism in America in the second half of the twentieth century, do not merely address the enduring and at times overwhelming dialectical tension between mainstream heterosexual ideology and homosexual reaction; but the internal dialectic within the gay community and how it evolved and responded to dimensions of itself throughout this passage of social history. The butch/fem dialectic itself illustrates the politics of sex and psychology. An increase in sexual experimentation and practices, saw a sub-cultural practice emerge, whereby butch/ fem lesbian couples assumed strictly defined roles, the ‘stone butch untouchable’ finding sexual pleasure exclusively through giving pleasure to her fem, while the fem forbidden to reciprocate, was positioned within the codes of the relationship to only receive pleasure. While some critiqued this relational dynam ic as a mere imitation of conventional masculine approaches to sex, others identified in butches â€Å"a discomfort of being (physically) touched rooted in their biology.There was also much importance placed on role distinction, an unwanted vulnerability involved in mutual lovemaking, the butch ego, and the butch’s ambivalence toward her female body. In the 1950s, Fems approached sexuality from a self-centred perspective†¦and lesbians who would not select a role, but changed roles,were derisively referred to as KiKis or AC/DC and were viewed with suspicion by other working-class lesbians.†[39] That Butches apparently disliked switching roles, imposed such rigid relational rules and maintained such static notions of sexual identity, indicated that the delineation of sexual identity within this specific lesbian subculture, was just as restrictive and jaundiced a stance as the homophobic predilections of the 1950’s heterosexual community in general. The paraly zing dialectic of shame and shamelessness which more contemporary feminists have used to identify heterosexual impediments in the slow march towards sexual liberation[40] is alive in the politics of sex and identity psychology played out in the binary relations of 1950’s butch/fem lesbianism. While many look to the Stonewall Riots at Greenwich Village New York as the defining moment for the empowerment of the modern Gay and Lesbian Liberation Movement, others trace the serious beginnings to 1951 in Los Angeles. In the 1950’s gay protest remained largely â€Å"bland, apologetic, unassertive and defensive†¦(relying) upon ‘experts’- psychiatrists, and psychoanalysts, lawyers, theologians†¦who spoke about us, to us, and at us, but never with us.† [41] By 1961, the Homophile Movement, represented in the US by a mere half dozen organizations, yet by 1969, numbering fifty or sixty such proactive bodies. The origins of the Stonewall Riots have their foundation in the â€Å"immigrant, working class neighbourhoods of New York†¦(where) gay sexuality was very much in and of the streets†¦due in part to the economic and spatial limitations of the tenements. Enclaves of lesbians interacted with their gay male counterparts, congregating in the speakeasies, tearooms and drag balls of Harlem and Greenwich Village during the 1920’s.†[42] Furthermore, Greenwich Village’s â€Å"bohemian life tolerated sexual experimentation which conferred upon the area an embryonic stature of erotica unbound†¦lesbian and gay clubs in the Village were founded on the ‘Personality Clubs’ of the bohemian intelligentsia.†[43] Writers commonly view Greenwich as a social space freed from the normal â€Å"social constraints† of modern life, a â€Å"sexual free- zone† and a homosexual Mecca for predominantly white homosexuals, as Harlem was for black p eople.[44] The anonymity of the city had become accessible to post war military linked Americans, and the semi public spaces of night cafà © and bar cultures, served to straddle the psychological and spatial divide between the privacy, domesticity and intimacy of the home, and the disclosure and defiance of public morality played out in the Greenwich domain. As Munt suggests, this cultural transition captured in Lesbian Pulp fiction, tracked â€Å"the lesbian adventurer inhabiting a twilight world where sexual encounters were acts of romanticised outlawry initiated in some back street bar and consummated in the narrative penetration of the depths of maze-like apartment buildings.† [45]Munt views Bannon’s heroines as mythologizing the â€Å"eroticised urban explorer.† [46] The value of Stonewall’s mythologisation is viewed â€Å"as a constitutive moment, while admitting its cultural fiction.†[47] Other signposts of lesbians claiming a small cultural space and some public domain in this ensuing decade indicated by Mathison Fraher, included the formation of the ‘Mattachine Society’ in 1951 (founded to aid homosexuals in the process of chronicling their collective histories and mitigate against social persecution); the initial publication of ‘One’ Magazine in 1953; the foundation of the lesbian organisation ‘Daughters of Bilitis’ in 1955; and the subsequent publication of their first magazine titled ‘The Ladder’ in 1956. Additionally, the Kinsley Report published in 1957 claimed 10% of the population to predominantly homosexual, while in 1961 Illinois became the first US state to criminalise homosexual acts. The Stonewall Riots in Greenwich Village in 1969 were closely followed by a Gay Rally in Chicago in 1970.[48] Chapter 2 Betty Friedan’s ground breaking book titled ‘The Feminine Mystique’, encapsulated the inexplicable toleration of millions of American women in the 1950’s and early 1960’s that had exclusively devoted themselves to the mutual socially prescribed roles of wife and mother. Friedan’s thesis was that this wholehearted devotion carried a contingent cost and sacrifice beyond the conscious level of comprehension of countless women, oblivious to the enormity of what they were surrendering in the process, as well as the significant parts of themselves they were denying as a result of idolising domesticity. Friedan herself in 1994 retrospectively explained the term ‘feminine mystique’ as when â€Å"women were defined only in sexual relation to men – man’s wife, sex object, mother, housewife- and never a person defining themselves by their own actions in society.†[49] She conceived of this conceptualisation of women as a stifling barrier to their wider participation within society and therefore as fully functioning human beings. It was the notion that this existential position of women was so unchallenged and so instinctively accepted that Friedan found to be so perplexing, provocatively couched by the feminist as a ‘feminine mystique’ to ridicule the notion that the socially contrived roles had acquired the status of an implacable genetic predisposition. Quidlen acclaims Friedan’s foresight in the book’s introduction, as she succeeded in scrutinising ways â€Å"women had been coaxed into selling out their intellect and their ambitions for the paltry price of a new washing machine†¦(seduced by) the development of labour saving appliances†¦(yet being) covered up in a kitchen conspiracy of denial.†[50] Friedan empowered women with confidence to reconceptualise their problems’ origins, lying beyond her marriage or herself.[51] Furthermore, Friedan was a keen observer of hypocrisy, contradiction and imbalance, with a caustic view concerning â€Å"a generation of educated housewives maniacally arranging the silverware and dressing to welcome their husbands’ home from work.†[52] Friedan as many other feminists and indeed lesbians was a strident advocate of the wider participation of women in society. Typifying ways women were alienated from mainstream society and disenfranchised by males, were prevailing attitudes towards abortion, public censure or ambivalence about a woman’s right to choose; the invisibility of sexual abuse, the lack of acknowledgement of more subtle forms of sexual harassment, as well as the economic and social disempowerment with relation to exit strategies for women to leave bad marriages. Friedan observes the 1990’s obsession with defining and crystalising female identity,[53] explaining this as a logical extension of the break down of the feminine mystique and the empowerment of women. This obsession manifested itself through a surfeit of women’s identity literature and college courses in women’s studies. [54] By logical extension, feminism did provide leverage for the liberation of lesbians and the sexual politics associated with lesbianism, in spite of Friedan’s disconnect with lesbianism as a valid expression of women’s rights. Friedan did identify menopause crises, sexual frigidity, promiscuity, pregnancy fears, child birth depression, passivity, the immaturity of American men, discrepancies between women’s tested childhood intellectual abilities and their adult achievements and the changing incidence of adult sexual orgasm in American women as issues pertaining to the emergence of a fuller identity and societal participation for women.[55] It is clear that there was little room in the consciousness of women to process the notion of their sexuality prior to the 1960’s sexual revolution, since women drew neuroses was the energy needed to juggle the conflicting roles between motherhood, domestic duty and work beyond the home and manage the personal and societal guilt which emerged from this 9at times) impossible process.[56] The social and political discourse of the era lionized women who did not lose their man, and balanced service of males, children and home. The wider world was beyond their consciousness and matters of sexual identity were not part of the public domain. Friedan contends that femininity in the 1950’s was a social construction, which, if attended to faithfully, was the only means by which women could achieve contentment and fulfilment, having historically made the blunder of trying to imitate masculinity , instead of embodying femininity, which was deemed to be characterized by sexual passi vity, nurturing maternal love and male domination.[57] Furthermore, the classification of the political domain as a male intellectual and practical bastion did nothing to facilitate women re-evaluating sexual politics and notions of political disenfranchisement in the 1950’s. In 1960, Friedan recalled that â€Å"a perceptive social psychologist showed me some sad statistics which seemed to prove unmistakably that women under age 35 years were not interested in politics.†[58] Furthermore, a false dichotomy was embedded in American national consciousness regarding female sexuality, with no middle ground, namely, women were good who came to the pedestal and whores if they expressed physical sexual desire or sought such pleasure. This dichotomous paradigm disempowered women’s sexual liberation.[59]While the feminine mystique succeeded in precluding women from considering their own sense of personal identity – who they were alone from husband, children and home,[60] the former emphasis of genetic determinism shaped women’s outlook on the path of their lives- plainly, â€Å"the identity of woman is determined by her biology.†[61] (Ironically, the same conclusion regarding lesbianism was not reached by American society for decades, prior to the 1990’s, lesbianism being widely viewed as deviant sexual conduct determined by choice rather than orientation.) Friedan counters the Freudian explanation for the desire of women to depart from the domestic centre, namely the motive of ‘penis envy’ propagated by Freud. [62]Instead, she presciently identified the objectification of women as a societal flaw, â€Å"she was, at that time, so completely defined as object by man, never herself as ‘I’, that she was not even expected to enjoy or participate in the act of sex.†[63] The gay and lesbian revolution gained momentum in the late 1960’s, infused the female with a sense of subjectivity, to counter this objectification, poignantly exemplified through the centring of the female orgasm, which emphatically declared that women were sexual beings, capable and entitled to experience sexual pleasure, rather than being victims of abuse or neutral ‘sideline observers’ of sexual activity while their husbands were actualising their virility through sex. While Friedan acknowledged that â€Å"Freudian tho ught became the ideological bulwark of American of the sexual counter-revolution in America†[64]defining the sexual nature of women, conversely Friedan speculated that an insatiable female sexual desire existed due to the vacuum created by the absence of larger life goals for woman. [65] While she countered Freud with this ex

Ethnicity :: Personal Narrative Racial Papers

Ethnicity While I was first contemplating this project, I was sitting on my older-than-the-hills brown couch in my apartment. My roommate, Michelle, plopped on the couch opposite me and asked, â€Å"What do you want to do for lunch?† â€Å"I dunno,† I responded while channel surfing through the five channels we receive. â€Å"Let’s go out and try something new,† she said daringly. I thought to myself, hmm, I could do a project and eat out at the same time? â€Å"Ok, where should we go?† Suddenly, as if it was a sign from above, a commercial for Santa Lucia’s, the Greek restaurant in town, appeared on the television. Instantly, we knew it was the place to go. â€Å"Good Better Best, Never Let it Rest, Until the Good Becomes Better and the Better Becomes the Best,† the commercial kept echoing in my head on the way there-wait, no that was my roommate who would not quit repeating Santa Lucia’s motto. On the way there we looked at each other and said simultaneously, â€Å"Should we have dressed up for it?† â€Å"Well,† I said, â€Å"on the commercial it doesn’t look like too classy of a place. I think we are fine.† â€Å"Good, I hope so,† said Michelle as she looked down at our jeans and t-shirts. Our hopes were confirmed as we pulled into the parking lot of the restaurant, which is tucked away in the corner behind West Park Auto Plaza. There were beer signs littering the windows. It could not be that classy of a place. Right? â€Å"What do they serve here, Heather? Am I going to like it?† asked Michelle, who by the way is the pickiest eater in the world. â€Å"I hope so,† I responded as we entered the building. â€Å"Uh-oh. Maybe we should have dressed up,† I thought to myself out loud for a moment while taking in the view. When you enter from the street into the building it’s like you are entering a completely different world. The lighting is dim. Tables for two, four, six and eight are scattered throughout the room in the usual non-smoking and smoking sections. The tables themselves are unique looking. The wooden tables and chairs are set on the plush carpet. The black tablecloths are topped with a shiny glass cover. The tables are set with silverware and wine glasses with a napkin creatively set inside. The one thing that caught my eye was the statue and the fountain.

Jean Luc Picard as a Leader Essays -- Star Trek Essays Papers

Jean Luc Picard as a Leader If the cause is just and honorable they are prepared to give their lives--Jean Luc Picard The cares for lives, continuation of other's future, and the hope of a more successful generation are rarely the thoughts of anyone. Most individuals are self-centered, careless of others, and seek personal benefit. Although these unfortunate qualities make up the majority of the society that we live in, there are few individuals that make up what we call good leaders. Someone who has a thorough, objective, and complete view of a situation are a good leader. A good leader is also a person who considers and cares for other people's well being. Along with these qualities, a leader never allows any emotion or fears to come in the way of rational thought. Jean Luc Picard is a good leader. Picard is a good leader because he has all the attributes and qualities of a leader. When Picard has to make a decision, he is thorough and very objective. Picard always seeks to find the height and depth of the situation in hand. Picard considers his actions and all their possible outcomes to insure th e well being of his crew's future. Lastly, Picard never makes any decisions based on his or someone else's fear or emotion. He is not convinced easily and will seldom make a decision without having unequivocal reasons. Throughout this paper, I intend to further make clear that Jean Luc Picard truly is a leader. I will primarily use scenes and quote from "The Defector," an episode from the series Star Trek the New Generation, to account for all the statements. Let us consider some leaders that we have in present day. Many of us would say that the president of the United States is a leader. Every four year, millions of citi... ...omplete view of the situation at hand. Picard never allowed any fear or emotion come in the way of rational thought. Most importantly, we know that Jean Luc was always concerned for the well being of his friends and their future generations, because when he needed it his care was repaid and it saved him. Works Cited: "Interchange on the Defector." Student Works. http://www.cwrl.uexas.edu/~tonya/309m/class/defect.htmal. (30 Jan. 1996). Kernick, Phil. "The Defector." The Trekker Reviews. http://ringo.psy.flinders.edu.au:80/trekker/tng3//the_defector.html (1993). Lynch, Timothy. "The Defector." Star Trek The Next Generation, Season 3. http://cruciform.cid.com/~werdna/sttng/synopsis/defector.syn.html (30 Jan. 1996). Tong, Andrew. "The Defector." Mr. Video Productions. http://cruciform.cid.com/~werdna/sttng/synopsis/defector.syn.html. (27 May 1994).

Reconstruction after the civil war

After much trial and tribulation that our exasperated country has faced, we all still gather here today in order to follow a long tradition of George Washington, a founding father and cherished president who gave and set precedent to all the new leaders who soon will follow the same path of presidency. A path followed by great accomplishments of the Grant administration, has helped to set a rolling future for the united States and now we will Improve upon the Grant administration using It as a stepping stone to once again unite the country.Now that the sure wind of war thin our country has prevailed we must continue to rebuild upon the accomplishments of the Grant Administration. We must rebuild within our trust with other human beings and rebuild within the large battered roads of this nation. Though much has been done in the last presidency, there is still ton more to accomplish. Likewise the efforts of before have helped me gain a foot on the task to better our united nation. Look ing back the last few years, already have we recovered from the tribulation of Civil War.We have started the healing process between the different races that were pitted against each other but now stand as brothers. The recent Call Rights Acts and the passing of the 1 5th Amendment have helped to guarantee and ensure the equal Civil Rights that all men will share and all able to be comprised under the glorious Constitution. Yet throughout the years we have also placed ourselves in the continued process of reconstruction in which we have rid the terrors of extremists groups but also have accomplished the first steps of reunion with the Southern states.Likewise, these efforts to heal the previous tension have been done to almost a full recovery. Many former rebels have been pardoned and owe the first steps to a unified country have put under way by the removal of many federal soldiers. The vanquishing of the post war tensions has been successful but now we must continue and move forwa rd. The reality is that all races much make the effort to live harmoniously with sympathy and empathy through the eyes of each individual.And through the government will the Constitutional rights of all men be upheld as shall the eradication of prejudice of others In order to keep this nation prosperous. In order to end the final lasting tensions of this era, we will make sure to eve the well waited autonomy of the last few southern states. We will make sure to relieve them of the pressure that federal troops have brought in the states of Louisiana and South Carolina. Through this progress we must also put in an investment to Americas' future in education.With support of the government it will be a priority to make sure education is available to everyone, for with this we can move forward and develop a bright future through the youth at the moment. Universal education and improvements in the intellectual and moral conductivity is the root to all prosperity. The interest to better so ciety Is In equality of both colored and white people, for the perseverance of everyone Is needed to make these new Improvements In equality and education. Again we have been In depression within our manufacturing and commercial Industries.For sure this will come to an end. In need we must comply that a papered currency Is unreliable and accustomed to fluctuate. Likewise the best way to back this is with a coin based currency where that I will keep as my honored predecessor, President Grant, who made sure to preserve the peace between us and foreign powers. If those countries that require aid need it, without disposition we will help in a peaceful and honorable way so we can create mutual understandings to the entire world[K] .Grieving once again to bring forward this nation I ask all of you: Farmers, lawyers, doctors, politicians, judges, and citizens to Join me in this movement to restore our country to the divine rights that we all share. To help in earnest efforts to rekindle th e unity we all share in order for every man no matter color to achieve the pursuit of happiness and without fail grasp the happiness that we all will share together.

Which Film Director Deserves to be voted into your personal `Movie making Hall of Fame?`

If George Lucas can be considered the father of the science-fiction blockbuster movie, Ridely Scott, a brilliant film-maker in his own right, who professes to have been deeply influenced by Lucas, might be rightly considered the father of the modern space-gothic movie. This distinction comprises only a slice of Scott's overall career, but it is a significant slice.While Lucas defined what many consider to be the epitome of America's romantic imagination and optimism, Scott at least partially defines American romanticism and optimism tempered by an existential awareness, and by an unflinching confrontation with the â€Å"real world† which exists in tandem and in conflict with the dreams-capes as represented in Scott's films. This tension is present in the four films which concern our present discussion and finds application in both genre and non-genre concepts.In this way, Scott's real world/fantasy world conflict bridges a gap between science fiction films, Alien and Bladerunn er, and â€Å"mainstream† films Thelma & Louise and Black Hawk Down. Scott's contribution to American film-making can be summarized by five central qualities which are evident throughout his film-making career and are evidenced in the four films relevant to the present discussion. These qualities are: anti-commerciality, social relevancy, strong (and violent) female characters, a blending of realism and surrealism, and an existentially driven romanticism which stresses the human capacity to overcome adversity and tragedy.Scott is often an overlooked â€Å"answer† to the grandiose films of his era. That he was inspired by Star Wars to make films of a dramatic and spectacular quality, but that he does so more with story and conflict and theme than with special effects is a testament to his boldness but it is also a centerpiece of his overall aesthetic which unites realism with ideal imagery, surrealism, and dream-scape imagery.By examining each of the points ore closely in relation to the four films, it becomes much easier to appreciate the full thematic and aesthetic accomplishments of Scott's masterpiece, Bladerunner, which can be considered a â€Å"signature† work which embodies Scott's art at its highest expression. Despite Bladerunner's poor box-office performance, Scott's anti-commercial tendencies are likely to be disputed or outrightly dismissed by many; however, a film like Thelma & Louise has little in the way of a genuine predecessor, least of all one with a track-record of enormous commercial success.Similarly, Black Hawk Down is the story of a failed American military mission in Somalia and bucks the strong Hollywood tradition of showing an heroic vision of war. Alien was released at a time when Star Wars had redefined the science-fiction genre in film, exerting a massive influence toward science-fantasy and spectacle on the screen. Scott's film is a meditative, spooky, mostly silent voyage in space. The tag-line for the film wa s â€Å"In space no-one can hear you scream.† Scott's masterwork Bladerunner was a box-office and critical flop upon its release and stood as a radical reworking of an obscure science-fiction novel titled â€Å"Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? † The anti-commercial aspects of Scott's work extend beyond box-office revenue to cultural commentary and social critique. Of the four films under discussion, Scott's social relevancy is most evident in his non-genre films, Thelma & Louise and Black Hawk Down.In the latter film, Scott examines the true-life story of â€Å"the loss of a â€Å"mere eighteen soldiers†; his film is â€Å"designed to get us beyond[†¦ ] academic abstractification, to give us moral proximity to suffering, to the physicality of violence† and his searching directorial eye finds excellent use for realism in this film. Scott's movie takes the viewer into the â€Å"events, exploring the interactions between humans and technology in t he battlefield,† and this intimate view brings Scott's recurrent theme of strength beyond tragedy into hard-edged almost documentary-style focus, (Lacy, 27).While Black Hawk Down examines the impact of violence on social harmony and on the individual lives of male combatants, Thelma & Louise, no less violent nor less socially relevant than Black Hawk Down, envisions the modes of violent conflict in society from the perspective of strong female characters. Although criticized in many quarters for fashioning a tale which is not true to womens' experience, Thelma & Louise is intentionally non-realistic and represents a mode of near-fantasy, where reality and heroic myth merge.Scott's own comments on modern film-making reveal some of the logic behind his wide-ranging techniques and approaches, blending acute realistic detail with mythic fantasy: â€Å"I think movie making has just become more expert in the face of these subjects, with different camera angles and different techniq ues: they demand a more detailed way of looking at things,† (Lacy, 27). Where the violence of Black Hawk Down was received by critics and audiences as an unflinchingly realistic appraisal of the consequences (and futility) of certain kinds of military interventions , the violence in Scott's earlier film Thelma & Louise was viewed negativelyas fantasy wish-indulgence. Critics failed to recognize the film's underlying motifs; instead, â€Å"Thelma and Louise which was judged, and found wanting, as an account of women’s lives. The standards of truth against which popular films have been judged, standards which rarely admit the complexity of terms like fantasy, can also operate to silence the other stories to which they attempt to give a voice,† and this ability to fuse fantasy with realistic detail is Scott's great genuis as a filmmaker, (Tasker, 8).This fusion is evident at its most profound expression in Scott's most accomplished film Bladerunner. As in Thelma &Lo uise, Scott brings elements of the action-film to Bladerunner but like Thelma & Louise the action paradigm is given a twist by the pairing of a male-female â€Å"buddy† team in Deckert and Rachel. Similarly, there is a question as to whether Deckert is himself a replicant. To this extent, Scott's â€Å"action cinema depends on a complex articulation of both belonging and exclusion, an articulation which is bound up in the body of the hero and the masculine identity that it embodies.These dramas of belonging and exclusion mobilise discourses of national, racial and gendered identity through intimate fictional groupings such as the platoon, the police squad or the buddy relationship,† and in the case of Bladerunner and Thelma & Lousie, the â€Å"intimate† fictional groupings indicate a social awareness of those whom society may have tried to forget or overlook. (Tasker, 8). Scott's ability to weave a dream-scape of images through his â€Å"realistic† aesthe tic is brought to it greatest height in Bladerunner.This space-gothic masterpiece shows that Scott is basically what might be termed as an existentialist romantic as a film-maker, an unusual combination and one which fuels his films with unparalleled tension between wished-for fantasy and seemingly unchangeable reality. In each of the four films discussed, the line between fantasy and reality is crossed usually indicated by a tragedy or crises, so that Scott's ultimate vision includes characters heroically attempting to snatch their dreams from a dystopian or near-dystopian world, where tragedy becomes a catharsis to the attainment or partial attainment of individual happiness.

Oedipus Translation

Destiny guide me always Destiny find me filled with reverence pure in word and deed. Great laws tower above us, reared on high born for the brilliant vault of heaven— Olympian Sky their only father, nothing mortal, no man gave them birth, 960 their memory deathless, never lost in sleep: within them lives a mighty god, the god does not grow old. Pride breeds the tyrant . violent pride, gorging, crammed to bursting ith all that is overripe and rich with ruin— 965 clawing up to the heights, headlong pride crashes down the abyss—sheer doom! No footing helps, all foothold lost and gone. But the healthy strife that makes the city strong— I pray that god will never end that wrestling: 970 god, my champion, I will never let you go. But if any man comes striding, high and mighty in all he says and does, no fear of justice, no reverence or the temples of the gods— 975 let a rough doom tear him down, repay his pride, breakneck, ruinous pride! If he cannot re ap his profits fairly cannot restrain himself from outrage— mad, laying hands on the holy things untouchable! 980 Can such a man, so desperate, still boast he can save his life from the flashing bolts of god? If all such violence goes with honor now why join the sacred dance?Never again will I go reverent to Delphi, 985 the inviolate heart of Earth or Apollo's ancient oracle at Abae or Olympia of the fires— unless these prophecies all come true for all mankind to point toward in wonder. 990 King of kings, if you deserve your titles Zeus, remember, never forget! You and your deathless, everlasting reign. They are dying, the old oracles sent to Laius, now our masters strike them off the rolls. 995 Nowhere Apollo's golden glory now— the gods, the gods go down.

Mental health and illness

The nature of `mental health` and `mental illness` has been described as `contested`. Who are the contestants and what is the contest about? The Mental Illness has always been considered as a contested issue, because this is the only suffering of unfortunate human beings, which is being highly misunderstood. There are different types of mental illnesses that are suffered by human beings, and in each mental illness there are number of complexities involved like social problems, defect in any part of the brain etc.Psychologists, psychiatrists, doctors and sociologists, who so ever are dealing with the issue of Mental illness are contestants to this issue and advocates their own perceptions like Psychiatrists consider mental illness as a physical state of debilitation and look at it from the social angle, whereas doctors dictates it as a faulty or malfunctioning parts of the brain, such as infections, genetic defects and chemical imbalances within the individual, and neglects the wider social picture which is an ingredient part of illness.How well does the idea of labeling explain what happens to someone who is diagnosed as mentally ill?When a person is diagnosed mentally ill, he or she is labeled., a doctor or practitioner can understand the intensity of his problem and can prescribe the best treatment for him. Thus labeling can be a boon in disguise. Naturally if doctor labeled a person as â€Å"mentally disable†, that means he is considering the symptoms that a person is showing which is typical of mental disorder and can delve upon the problem and chart out the solutions.Critically review the evidence that there is an association between mental health and socio-economic inequality.No doubt there is a deep association between Mental Health and socio economic inequality. Socio economic inequalities lead to high psychiatric morbidity, disability, depression, Schizophrenia.   Studies by the World Psychologist, 2005 October; 4(3): 181–185 on 10,108 adults aged 16-65 resident in private households in the UK reveal that people who had no access to a car had an odds ratio for neurotic disorder of 1.4 (95% CI 1.1-1.7), compared with those who had access to two or more cars. People who rented their homes were also at increased risk of depression (1.3 [1.1-1.5]). These Income inequalities in the western market economies last 20 years had adverse consequences on the mental health of the people. Basically, the inferiority complex is a basic root and cause of this severe problem.Discuss how a family might affect and be affected by one of its members having a psychiatric diagnosis mental illness.Families of the patients suffering from severe psychotic symptoms often suffer from heavy emotional and social strains.   Many households may accept the patients, but the social rejections that are followed can cause serious consequences on the whole family. They can lead to strains of mental illness on a marriage life may also be very devasta ting. The divource rate is high among people who have depression or bipolar disorder.How might consultation be used to improve the sensitivity of mental health services to different needs?Consultation is a very important means of service delivery for mentally ill child and adolescents.   Consultation can be provided in number of ways: group or individual; fixed session or on demand; clinical-based or area office-based. For psychiatrists, the consultancy service is a very valuable experience. Trainees develop an awareness of the difficulties facing social work staff in difficult cases. The social work team also gains considerable benefit from an informal consultation service, which can improve their skills in further understanding the patient problems.   Through consultation, social workers can go into the depth of the causes of the problems of mentally ill within the family setting.Many people who have mental health problems are socially isolate. What can be done to provide them with informal support and friendship if they want this?The stigma that is attached to the mentally ill patients leads them to be isolated from the Society. Lot can be done for mentally ill patients. They can be, as suggested by World Health Organization (WHO), http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs218/en/ï‚ ·Ã‚  Ã‚   Openly discussing about the problem of mental illness in the community.ï‚ ·Ã‚  Ã‚   Providing accurate information on the causes, prevalence, course and effects of mental illnessï‚ ·Ã‚   Countering the negative stereotypes and misconceptions surrounding mental illness;ï‚ ·Ã‚   Providing support and treatment services that enable persons suffering from a mental illness to participate fully in all aspects of community life.ï‚ ·Ã‚   Ensuring the existence of legislation to reduce discrimination in the workplace.What are the particular challenges of resettling long-stay mental patients in the community, and what kinds of resource are needed to support them there?1. Hard to place psychiatric patient due to behavioral/management problems.2. Difficulty placing patient into the community due to lack of financial resources.3. How do we take care of the geriatric patient with a psychiatric disorder who becomes combative/disruptive that he is not allowed to remain in secure environments due to the high risk of harm to other patients?RESOURCES NEEDED TO SUPPORT THEM1. First fix the behavioral problems and poor compliance.2. The Training centers, employment programs, volunteer options and local clubs should all be part of the life plan of these people.3. Encourage realistic consideration of work and practical steps in preparation for reintegration, such as enrolment at a day programme.4. Involve them in any Meaningful occupation such as volunteer work etc.What are the rewards and stresses of work in mental health services? What measures might employing organisations take to reduce the effects of stress on staff and improve their job satis faction? The biggest reward for the people who are engaged in the mental health services is naturally the one when patient is recovered from mental illness. Besides getting mental satisfaction, they are also reward by the government for their meticulous services like â€Å"Award for Excellence in Community Mental Health Services†, 2006 Public Citizen of the Year award. Thus Government does appreciate these noble souls who are engaged in community welfare programs.HOW THE EMPLOYING ORGANIZATIONS REDUCE THE STRESS OF STAFF:They can reduce the stress of staff by:Effective management structureClear purpose & goals Functionally defined roles Team support Making appropriate plans for stress management Proper management of workload Balanced lifestyle Discuss the view that madness can be a valuable experience if only its value is recognized.Never consider the person who is mad as incompetent, as what he can provide to the Society, no able person can provide. For eg. If a person is di sillusioned with the society apathetic attitude, so in his madness he will keep on reflecting and mentioning about what’s wrong in the Society but we ignore his talks, but if we clearly ponder on his talks,   we will realize what role he is playing in giving the best to the Society which no body will ever intend to give.

Marketing strategies of the mass-market chocolate industry Essay

This report is an evaluation of the marketing strategies used in the mass-market chocolate confection industry in the United Kingdom (UK). The four brands this report studies in detail are Cadbury, Galaxy, Kit Kat, and Maltesers. The UK mass-marker chocolate confectionary market is the biggest in the European Union and sales are heavily reliant on a solid marketing strategy. Using the four brands mentioned above this report investigated the following, segmentation, targeting and positioning, consumer buyer behaviour, promotion, pricing, product, and placement, social media strategies, and communication strategy. Finally, this report gives critiques on the effectiveness of the marketing strategy for the four selected brands and recommendations on how they might improve. Of the four brands studied, only Galaxy uses demographic segmentation by focusing on women but all four use behavioural segmentation by focusing on benefits sought from eating chocolate. Cadbury targets creative individuals, galaxy targets the indulgent types, Kit Kat targets tired employees, and Maltesers targets those in search of guilt free chocolate. Cadbury positions itself as a creative brand, galaxy as a treat, Kit Kat as a break bar, and Maltesers as the lighter way to enjoy chocolate Chocolate is an impulse good and need recognition is usually stimulated upon seeing the packaging, where as information search is usually omitted or happens very quickly. When it comes to evaluating alternatives consumers, positioning and brand personality come into play. Finally, the choice to buy or not to buy happens very quickly. Cadbury was the only brand found stay in contact with consumers post-purchase by sharing recipes that one could make with Cadbury products. Each of the four brands use adverts, sales promotion, sponsorship, and social media to increase brand awareness. However, no promotional material gives information about pricing because retail outlets set their own prices. Most mass-market chocolate bars are around the same price and can be found near tills at retail supermarket outlets as well as off-license stores across the nation. All four brands are connected to their consumers via social networks, with the exception of Galaxy and Maltesers who do not have twitter accounts. Each brand uses social networks to reinforce their positioning strategy. Cadbury uses it to encourage creativity and audience participation, Galaxy uses it to remind women of the irresistibility of chocolate, Kit Kat uses it to remind its fans to take a break, and Maltesers uses it to celebrate is 75th birthday. This report concludes by recommending that Cadbury should identify a clear branding message because currently its adverts are always open to interpretation. Galaxy should stay in touch with customers post-purchase with recipes for irresistible chocolate desserts. Kit Kat should continue having a strong focus for all communication material and Maltesers should communicate its original message, a lighter way to enjoy chocolate, more explicitly.

Perfectly competitive markets Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Perfectly competitive markets - Essay Example No seller has a bargaining power over another because the products sold in perfectly competitive markets are assumed to be homogenous in nature. Lastly, the motives of the seller participants is maximization of profit, hence they sell where marginal revenues equal the marginal cost. From these characteristics is driven the 'price taker' nature of firms in the market. Hence it is safely inferred that in such markets the prices set by individual firms and the industry are same; and is determined by the interaction of total market demand and total market supply. The prices set by individual firms and the industry is same; and is determined by the interaction of total market demand and total market supply. From the above graph, it is visible that when both quantity demanded and quantity supplied is at the same level i.e. 800 kgs, there the market will reach equilibrium. At that point, the equilibrium price is $11 per kg. The prices of products are impacted either by a change in the demand of that product, or when the supply of that particular product changes. Bade, Parkin and Wesley (2008) said on the demand side, the change in demand factors including changes in consumer tastes by preferring a certain product over another, when then is an increase in the number of buyers for the product, or when income of the buyer changes (increases or decreases) depending on whether the product is normal good or inferior good. The change in the prices of related products also impacts the demand. On the supply side resource prices, technology, taxes and subsidies, prices of other goods and anticipation of future price changes and the number of suppliers affect the supply. Cyclone Larry increased the price of bananas because it wiped out the banana crop in Queensland, which reduced the quantity supplied of bananas into the market, hence a movement on the supply curve; which led to the increase in the prices of bananas. Price Quantity Supplied Quantity Demanded in A $ in kgs in kgs 15 1000 400 13 900 600 11 800 800 9 700 900 8 600 1100 7 0 1300 6 0 1600 In the diagram, we can see that at $ 15, the quantity demanded is less than quantity supplied, which means 'many consumers could not afford to buy them'. Question 3: In controlling the price of bananas, which have reached a certain high and is unaffordable for consumers, the government intervenes to control the prices that it thinks are unfavorably high for the buyers. Thus, using its legal right, government limits the high prices by imposing the price ceiling (Lipsey & Chrystal, 2007). Here, we demonstrate the impact of price ceilings graphically. In our case, Cyclone Larry has adversely impacted the crop of bananas, and has reduced the supply of bananas. At this level, quantity demanded increases relative to quantity supplied. This increases the equilibrium or the market price. This rapidly rising prices of bananas greatly burdens low and moderate income house holds , which leds government to intervene for making it affordable for the masses. It imposes a ceiling price of A $ 8 per kg. For this to be effective, the price ceiling is less than the equilibrium price, which in our example as earlier

Psuchology- Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Psuchology- - Essay Example The circumstances force both of them to interchange places and Jean steals identity of John. The Englishman John is a simple and lonely person who is academic in nature. He soon finds himself struck up in the complex and different life of another family. He faces a variety of perplexing roles - as owner of a chateau, director of a failing business, head of a fractious family, and master of nothing. The Scapegoat is a masterpiece exploration of doubling and identity, and of the dark side of the self. John meets his exact double jean in a railway station, at first, both are surprised but later they agree to sit and drink together. While talking John gets over drunk and once he wakes up in a hotel room, he finds that his clothes have been swapped with Jean, his identity has been stolen by him and the double has vanished. Soon the driver of Jean comes to hotel to pick him up. John is unable to convince the driver that he is not Jean. The driver thinks he is drunk and takes him along to J ean de Gue’s chateau. Now John decides to live the life of Jean, as he always wanted a change in his boring life. The family of Jean assumes him as Jean. They expect him to continue running the family glass-making business and arranging shooting parties – things that John has absolutely no experience in.   Before long, it starts to become obvious that Jean is using John as a scapegoat. Jean’s family and business are both in a mess and he wants someone else to have to deal with them. John goes completely unprepared into Jean’s life. Jean has a chateau, a glassworks, a wife, a mistress, a lover, a brother, a mother, a daughter and a sister who has not spoken to him for fifteen years. When John arrives at the house of Jean, he finds it very difficult to run the affairs but eventually understands every character around him and their relationship to Jean. From the neglected pregnant wife and the hostile elder sister to the resentful younger brother and the r eligious ten-year-old daughter, every character is well explained and memorable. The story takes place over one very intense week in which John tries to correct the mismanagement in life, business and family done by Jean. It is only the dog of Jean who knows that John is not Jean and barks at him. John deals the life better than Jean. On the business side, John renews the glass contract and saves business. In family, he tries to re-connect and build relation with wife, children mother and sister. He saves life of the child trying to jump out of window, saves the pregnant wife and the baby and stops drug addiction of mother. After reading about death of a family member in the newspaper, Jean gives a telephone call to John and returns. Jean is surprised to see the way John managed his problems. Jean tells him that he remained in London in John’s flat and sold his flat while clearing his debts. Jean now suspects that John might want to keep his wealth and family but John say he only loved all this and leaves quietly out of the life of Jean. Function of each character in group The story revolves around two characters John and Jean. Jean makes a scapegoat of John. In the words of common street people, Jean can be called a doppelganger. Jean is Frenchman who is incapable of handling his life. He is charming, idle, and destructive French aristocrat. His character has many functions like; master of a chateau, director of a failing business, head of a large and embittered family, and keeper of too many secrets. He has a glass factory and

Beverly Daniel Tatums Why are all the Black Kids Sitting Together in Essay

Beverly Daniel Tatums Why are all the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria - Essay Example The paper under consideration presents the analysis of Beverly Daniel Tatum’s â€Å"Why are all the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria†. The core of the paper is to determine the nature of racism and show Tatum’s main point view on racial segregation and African-American isolation. Through the article, she attempts to highlight how racism has developed in the African American population through constant analysis and comparison to other ethnic groups and why this phenomenon occurs. The rhetorical strategies used are not expressed effectively, as the majority of the assessments of modern black racism are speculatory and often based on personal judgment without adequate justification for opinion. Introduction Beverly Daniel Tatum’s â€Å"Why are all the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria† is an exploration of racism as it pertains to black youths and the role of racism as compared to the White dominant social norm. Tatum attempts to illustrate the phenomenon of why racially-similar groups, especially African Americans, tend to remain segregated in same-race groups without inter-mingling in the social environment. Through the article, she attempts to highlight how racism has developed in the African American population through constant analysis and comparison to other ethnic groups and why this phenomenon occurs. ... Tatum believes that her definition of racism is â€Å"a system involving cultural messages and institutional policies and practices as well as the beliefs and actions of individuals’’ (Tatum, 7). Here, Tatum attempts to create an appeal to pathos by further highlighting her own credibility related to her own sociology knowledge, but it too is ineffective since the author does not explore the issue further using concrete information from reputable sociological or political science data sources. The author is, instead, creating a sense of bias in the process, somewhat over-analyzing the actual realities of lifestyle with each ethnic group. Rather, Tatum manages, it seems, to simply assume certain sociological characteristics about White groups or African-American groups and therefore does not manage to instill a sense of integrity or knowledge-based authority when making her argument about the phenomenon of group-oriented ethnic segregation and prejudice. Tatum’s ethos arguments, in an attempt to appeal to the readers’ emotions, also does not do a significant job of instilling sympathy for the plight of African-Americans in today’s society. Tatum suggests that this segregation occurring is a product of White privilege and therefore receive preferential treatment in all elements of society. A reputable educator from the Philadelphia school district believes this also, offering that this is a hypocritical form of reasoning (Paslay, 3). Tatum’s attempt to instill compassion and condolence for the state of African-American isolation from the rest of society simply does not achieve its intended ethos results as it, again, illustrates that

Foreign Market Entry Dissertation Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 3250 words

Foreign Market Entry - Dissertation Example Bhorat, Lundall, and Rospabe (2002) provide that South Africa has a diverse constituency within her borders, the movement from oppression based political power to that of a free democracy has provided a number of opportunities and development within the country. Additionally this has arguably laid the platform for focus upon growth for the economy in South Africa, which has in turn been successfully implemented via the new regime and visa â€Å"orthodox economic management† which has lead to the fact that South Africa is seen as an emerging economy by international investors, based upon their foreign exchange policies, monetary policies and more importantly according to the authors, their trade policies (pp. 2-3). It is amongst these issues that make South Africa arguably more attractive to invest in and target a specifically defined demographic within the marketing, branding, and sales of the Kofola product. Specifically in terms of the economics and demographics of the country of South Africa, Robbins (2009) provides that the country is â€Å"classified as an upper-middle income country†, however the past of the country, being that of Apartheid and oppression rule has resulted in a significantly skewed proportion of wealth within the country itself, hence the preceding mention of the country’s history with respect to politics. This â€Å"skewed† income distribution translates to â€Å"approximately 3 million households† living in poverty (p. 35). However the concentration of wealth remains largely within the areas of the country that are seen as â€Å"population concentrated†, and not so much in the rural areas, where it is said that such poverty is more prevalent (Tait & HSRC 1996). To this end, the following figures have been obtained for representation and determination of the key focus areas within South Africa, in terms of targeting with respect t o this product and marketing plan. Figures represented here are South Africa’s â€Å"Mid-Year Population Estimates: 2010† as provided by the official Statistics Authority in South Africa (Robbins).