Major Problems in American History to 1877 Essay

Major Problems in American History Volume I: to 1877; 3rd ed. Chapter 2: The Southern Colonies in British America Introduction * April 26, 1907 – group of ships bearing 128 men sailed into the Chesapeake Bay; began the settlement of Jamestown --ââ€" ºfirst successful plantation in the Americas * English had attempted to establish colonies in locations as varied as present-day Maine and Virginia --ââ€" ºbut all had failed * Colony’s early years were horrific * Colonists were more interested in finding precious metals than feeding themselves * They encountered a variety of new diseases in the swampland in Jamestown * Many were gentlemen who felt it below their stations to clear fields or build stockades (barriers) *†¦show more content†¦Document 2 – Indentured Servant Richard Frethorne Laments His Condition in Virginia, 1623 * Document 2 indicates life of an English indentured servant could be difficult. In this letter to his parents, Richard Frethorne recounts the trials of the living in the 17th century Virginia and pleads to return to England. * Like many young men hoping for new opportunities in the colonies, Richard Frethorne agreed to workShow MoreRelated U.S. History 1877-1933 Essay1028 Words   |  5 Pagesquot;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;-Arnold Toynbee, A Study of History nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;The above statement is one that seems to be very true when looking back upon the history of the United States. From the years 1877 to 1933, this country went through many changes and transitions in the areas of politics, economy, society, and culture, which resulted in the birth of a new nation. nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;The period from 1877 to 1901 in American history was known as the Gilded Age, it was titled soRead MorePrimary Source Anaylsis George Alsop765 Words   |  3 Pagesgiven the â€Å"Priviledge†5 of spending three hours a day within the plantations house during the warmest summer months, something that Frethorne was denied as they were forced to â€Å"Work hard both early and late†6 for little reward. The lack of Native American hostilities experienced by Alsop will also have been a contributing factor for his more positive experience of indentured servitude. By 1666, the Seven Years war had been concluded for three years and whilst tensions between the British and NativesRead MoreThe Long Journey Of African Americans1176 Words   |  5 PagesAfrican American has a long history since the time of the slavery in the United States of America. There has been a timeline on how the changes have occurred in political, education, social and economic deve lopment of the black Americans. The black people were despised because of their skin color leading to lack of development on their part. They were denied their rights until the late 20th century when their fight for recognition brought the much anticipated results. These changes have gone untilRead MoreThe History of Labor Unions Essay1241 Words   |  5 Pagesimpact on labor. By believing in the producerist ideology, people would be staying with tradition, and that leaves no change for our world. Many laborers wanted change, which led to problems for the laborers. During the latter part of the 19th century, many laborers faced numerous problems. Some of these problems included, â€Å"mechanization of industry, emergence of giant corporations, nationalization of labor, public sentiment greatly admired the ‘Captains of Industry,’ and immigration† (Farless)Read MoreThe Endurance Of The Human Spirit Essay1364 Words   |  6 PagesAfrican American Endurance Bernard Kenan Ashford University HIS206: United States History II Betsy Anderson 10/31/2016 The endurance of the human spirit is always able to be seen through the eyes of the less fortunate. Not to discredit any other race or say that any race is superior to any other, however the enduring spirit of African Americans could be seen during the 1800’s and still can be seen shining brightly today. When one thinks of endurance, one tends to think about sustainabilityRead MoreEssay On Connecting The Present And The Past708 Words   |  3 Pageslower class that a minority control the majority of the wealth in the nation. The richest 1% of the U.S. total population own a total of one-third of the U.S. net worth. From an economist’s perspective, one can see the gradual trends which got the American people to this point. The U.S. economy saw a boom during Bill Clinton’s era from 1993-2000. Average U.S. incomes went up on average 4%, but the rich experienced a much larger increase of 10.3%. The rich accounted for nearly half, 45%, of all theRead MoreReconstruct ion Of The Civil War1365 Words   |  6 Pagesstates back into the Union. The victory in the Civil War has granted four million slaves their freedom. After the Civil War, the Civil Rights Act of 1866, the thirteenth, fourteenth, and fifteenth amendments help protect the freedom of African Americans. They were granted the right to vote, obtain land from former owners, develop their own employment, use public facilities, and participate in political actions. Life changed dramatically for these free slaves. Most importantly, they no longerRead MoreEssay about Change and Continuity in the Guilded Age1194 Words   |  5 PagesContinuity in the Gilded Age Emergence of Modern America nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp; â€Å"Every day things change, but basically they stay the same.†-Dave Matthews Change and continuity are two major principles of life. They can easily be applied to history because their application accurately portrays the circumstances, and characterizes the era of interest. Merriam-Webster defines continuity as an uninterrupted connection, succession, or union, or an uninterrupted durationRead Morereserchpaper817 Words   |  4 Pagessystem created new forms of freedom. 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Edison did some of his greatest work at Menlo Park. While experimenting

The Power of a Man and His Gun Essay - 2756 Words

The Power of a Man and His Gun An Inside look at Robert Wright’s Dave Saunders and America’s Love of Guns New England College of Business and Finance â€Å"The Man Who was Almost a Man† written by Robert Wright, is a fictional story in which we focus on the main character Dave Saunders. Dave is a seventeen year old African American living in a time of racial oppression. When we meet Dave, we learn of his struggles with some fellow field workers and desires more respect as a man. Believing that possession of a firearm will earn him the respect he thinks he deserves, Dave decides to buy a gun. In this story, Wright has created Dave to be facing multiple struggles against the white man. In the story’s setting,†¦show more content†¦The gun debate continues to raise eyebrows in America. And the main question is; why do American’s love guns? As always, there are two sides to every debate. In the expansive country that we live in, it’s quite understandable that there are going to be many different cultures and backgrounds in the mix. The debate over guns is no different. An example of these different views came into play debate between Representatives in 2000 between Adam Schiff (D. California) and Brad Carson(D. Oklahoma.) Both were asked a question about the gun issue in America, there responses were: Schiff: ‘When people think about guns, it’s not so much about hunting or self-protection, it’s more about gang violence and drive-by shootings, about someone going into a day-care center in Granada Hills and shooting a bunch of kids, or going into a school in Stockton and shooting kids,† Schiff said. Carson: ‘In my home district, when people think about guns, it’s also not that much about hunting or self-protection. It’s about Lexington and Concord.’ This simple point of view shows how America sees guns differently. In Schiff’s point, he sees them as causing harm and pain for unjust reasons. Carson sees guns as a point of defense, pride and part of American heritage. In today’s age we are constantly seeing violence on television. FromShow MoreRelated Man Who Was Almost a Man Essay653 Words   |  3 Pages What does it mean to be a man? How does one qualify for the title? Is the term man simply referring to male human beings, or does it hold a greater measure of meaning in society. In order to get more insight into this subject matter, I consulted, The Tormont Websters Encyclopedic Dictionary. As I anticipated, the first definition for man stated as following: An adult human being as distinguished from a female. This definition, did not surprise me, but what did ,was what followed it , itRead MoreThe Man Who Was Almost A Man Character Analysis1496 Words   |  6 Pagesof good fiction would be â€Å"The Man Who Was Almost a Man† by Richard Wright. Wright’s main character Dave possesses the three necessities that would make him a convincing character where Dave’s behavior is consistent, his words and actions spring from motivation, and he is a character who you would believe is real. â€Å"The Man Who Was Almost a Man† by Richard Wright is a story about a young boy who wants to become a man and believes that if you have a gun you are a man. Dave, the young boy, is a characterRead MoreThe Man Who Was Almost A Man947 Words   |  4 PagesThe Man Who Was Almost a Man Wright’s Story, â€Å"The Man Who Was Almost a Man† is a unique story of a man who is perpetually stuck in a state of juvenoia. Wright’s story is a more interesting one where we have a character that is underdeveloped socially, intellectually, and emotionally. Dave Sanders, â€Å"this man-child†, searches for his identity in the South as a sharecropper, an economic situation that erases personal identity through impoverishment. Dave, an uneducated and immature child sharecroppingRead MoreThe Man Who Was Almost A Man Analysis784 Words   |  4 Pagesadults because they see adults as people with power and people who are respected, while teenagers feel like no one respects them or takes their opinions seriously. These teenagers dream to become adults, but due to their lack of responsibility and thinking about their actions becoming adults becomes increasingly difficult and while reaching adulthood they struggle greatly. In â€Å"The Man Who Was Almost a Ma n† by Richard Wright the author presents the power and respect that many teenagers dream to achieveRead MoreComing of Age in The Man Who was Almost a Man by Richard White Dave562 Words   |  3 PagesThe Man Who Was Almost a Man What does it mean for someone to become a man? How does one get the key or password to becoming a man? Some believe that becoming a man is just referring to a coming of age, and it somewhat is, however there is more. In the short story â€Å"The Man Who Was Almost a Man† by Richard white, Dave, the main character is a young boy trying to become a man and is searching for the key. However, there are certain ways to do things in society, and there are ways to not, and bothRead MoreTax Proposal Analysis1134 Words   |  5 Pagesincome families. It will bring down corporate tax rates. It will modernize the international tax system. â€Å"Its a great day in moving in the right direction for middle income tax cuts,† says Steve Mnuchin. Amendment 16 talks about how Congress has power to collect tax on incomes. They can collect tax from anywhere the money was made without giving it to other states. This article connects to the Sixteenth Amendment because Amendment 16 says that Congress can apply a income tax and the Senate is writingRead More A Feminist Reading of The Last of the Mohicans Essay979 Words   |  4 PagesLa Longue Carabine by his enemies.   The scout symbolizes the greatest male power in the novel, and he is therefore the greatest protector of the women as well.    As the size of the weapons of the other characters decreases, so too does their generative power.   Only slightly shorter than the scout in weapon length are Uncas and Chingachgook, who, while carrying knives, also brandish long hunting rifles. Uncas is the closest to the scout in length, for he carries his former rifle-hearing aRead More An Analysis of Poems 585 and 754 Essay992 Words   |  4 Pagesbrings to life two inanimate objects, a train and a gun, both of which perform actions that are useful to man. Though these items cannot act on their own, Dickinson’s diction provides them with their own movements, characteristics, and feelings. In poem 585, a train’s daily journey is given a meaning beyond that of a cold, iron machine when Dickinson describes its animal qualities to show its strength, stubbornness, and perseverance. In poem 754, a gun is portrayed as a protective, devoted servant. InRead MoreThe Desert Is No Place For A Man And Cormac Mccarthy1256 Words   |  6 PagesThe desert is no place for a man and Cormac McCarthy makes that perfectly clear from the onset of Blood Meridian. At first, it’s hard to tell which will be more desolate and brutal: the environment or the men that traverse it. However, McCarthy initially seems to establish that unbridled nature will triumph over man every time regardless of the circumstance. If nature is God, then man is hopeless to stand against it. Yet McCarthy makes an important distinction between nature as it exists in the wildRead MoreSummary Of Richard Wright s The Of The Man Who Was Almost A Man 1031 Words   |  5 Pages224 10 November 2015 The Struggle to Manhood In the world of â€Å"The Man Who Was Almost a Man†, Dave is the seventeen year old main character and narrator of Richard Wright’s short story. Dave is an African American sharecropper who lives with his family on a white plantation owner’s land. Set in the Jim Crow South, independence is a trait that not many Americans possess. Under Jim Crow laws, the status of an African American man is undermined. It is humiliating to many of the men it affects because

Coconut free essay sample

Hair, skin, eyes, the nose, or whatever else parts of the body are all used to portray a site of struggle in the novel â€Å"Coconut† by Kopano Matlwa. It is clear that identity is used in coherence with appearance. As detailed in the novel we as mere humans judge each other on the surface based merely on skin colour or even the accents we use when speaking. This causes the need for a change of appearance by the two main characters we encounter throughout this novel, namely Ofilwe and Fikile. Both characters, especially Fikile, in some way try to deny their heritage and focus on using the English language or changing their appearance in order to acquire a greater sense of superiority. During this essay I will be focussing on the need for a change of appearance associated with the pursuit of a more superior and successful self. According to the article â€Å"Identity and the Body†, by Susie O’Brien and ImreSzeman, we can identify two points of view concerning identity. From an essentialist theoretical perspective identity can be seen as â€Å"a fundamental, unchanging core of meaning that precedes and transcends culture and politics† (O’Brien and Szeman, 2010: 184). The novel â€Å"Coconut† however is rather focussing on the social constructivist theory that attempts to â€Å"emphasize the cultural and political circumstances in which identities are produced† (O’Brien and Szeman, 2010: 184). This article continues to portray the â€Å"categories of gender, sexual orientation and race as markers of identity and social power† (O’Brien and Szeman, 2010: 185). However during the novel the human body is used to represent the same idea by describing how a change in appearance can be thought to acquire greater social power and superiority. Hair comes through as a powerful image describing the struggle between suppression and superiority. On the first page of the novel Ofilwe is describing a little black girl’s braids by using adjectives such as plastic, shiny and cheap (Matlwa, 2012: 1). This immediately demotes the black girl’s character as being inferior. In contrast a white girl named Kate Jones is said by Ofilwe to have â€Å"the most beautiful hair I had ever seen† (Matlwa, 012: 1). This places Kate Jones on a more socially powerful level than her non-white peers. It is even stated that some of the black girls would even do Kate favours just to experience a touch of her hair. With this idea in her subconscious, Ofilwe prefers to endure the pain of straightening her hair just to get rid of every last curl. This is of course done in an attempt to have straight hair like her white peers, thus placing them on a higher socially powerful level than herself. The pain encountered during the straightening of her hair is also emphasised by the repetition â€Å"Burn. Burning. Burnt. † (Matlwa, 2012: 3). In the second part of the novel we find that Fikile has caramel-blonde hair extensions. This, in coherence with her Lemon Light skin-lightener cream, sunscreen, eyeliner, mascara, eye-shadow, etc. (Matlwa, 2012: 117) shows how Fikile is willing to change her identity to obtain a greater sense of whiteness, which she associates with success and wealth. This assumption is also emphasised where Mrs Zola asks Fikile what she wants to be when she grows up. Fikile replies with the answer â€Å"White† (Matlwa, 2012: 135). Fikile also describes her emerald green contact lenses as being her most expensive possession (Matlwa, 2012: 117). In this sense we find Fikile going to the extent of changing her eye colour to modify her appearance and move closer towards a greater sense of whiteness. So in effect when looking into a mirror she will see a brown girl with green eyes moving closer to what she calls â€Å"Project Infinity†. By wearing the contact lenses Fikile is also literally altering her view on life. But what I found particularly interesting is the possible reasoning of why the contact lenses she uses is specifically green. Earlier in the novel Ofilwe states that her favourite colour is green (Matlwa, 2012: 55). From page 32 onwards we also encounter the story of the Green Apples and the Pears. Here the Green Apples are associated with being white and the Pears with being black. Now the colour green is usually associated with the idea of new life and new beginning, but the colour green is also associated with the emotion of jealousy. So here we have three examples in the novel of the colour green as being a symbol of having a white skin and being successful. Thus we can extrapolate that Kopano Matlwa probably wants to showcase the jealousy towards whiteness underlying in the characters’ subconscious during the era that the novel is set. A more obvious way of portraying the body as a site of struggle is by using the idea of skin colour. Ofilwe describes her future children as having â€Å"Colgate smiles† and being â€Å"painted in shades of pink† (Matlwa, 2012: 19). This again shows her tendency to associate a lighter or different skin colour with success. Also we encounter the phrases â€Å"Stop acting black! Stop acting black! † (Matlwa, 2012: 31). This passage further echoes the idea of inferiority associated with a black skin. Next the story Tshepo told Ofilwe about the Green Apples and Pears ties in with the image of a difference in skin colour (Matlwa, 2012: 32-37). As mentioned above the story describes the Green Apples as being associated with being white and the Pears as being black. The idea of a traitor Pear is also introduced. This traitor Pear denies the fact that it is a Pear and attempts to associate itself with the Green Apples. In this figurative sense we can associate Fikile as being a traitor Pear. This can be said as she constantly denies her heritage and culture, refuses to speak her home language and endlessly alters her appearance in a desire of being white. This point can further be proven by looking at the part where Fikile makes the statement: â€Å"I am not one of you. You are poor and black and I am rich and brown† (Matlwa, 2012: 140). Tshepo basically calls Ofilwe a traitor Pear during the extract â€Å"you are not one of their own. Then you will turn back, but there too you will find no acceptance, for those you have once rejected will no longer recognise the thing you have become. † (Matlwa, 2012: 93). This extract follows the scene where Tshepo saw all the posters on Ofilwe’s wall and realised that all the people she admires are white (Matlwa, 2012: 91-93). Thus he feels that she is betraying her culture and denying her heritage. According to Tshepo Ofilwe is denying her true identity. â€Å"being black presents an untenable choice: become fully human by identifying with what you are not and never can be, or be your â€Å"self†- in effect a non-self, defined only by difference and negation. † (O’Brien and Szeman, 2010: 190). I found that this extract in the article â€Å"Identity and the Body† ties in with the above mentioned denying of the true self. Now although language does not fall under the â€Å"body† category it does form a strong connection with skin colour. The English language does come forth as a dominating language being associated with white people and is described as â€Å"the one that spoke of sweet success† (Matlwa, 2012: 54). This idea of the English language being associated with whiteness is used in contrast during the extract where Ofilwe does not tell her mom about the parents evening at school. This is because she is too embarrassed by her mom, because, according to her, her mother’s English is ghastly (Matlwa, 2012: 51). The next paragraph in the novel however starts off by Ofilwe describing her mother as being beautiful, having a soft metallic blue-black skin colour. Through the above mentioned we can see that Ofilwe is not deliberately being offensive by not letting her mom know about the parents evening. Instead it shows the underlying idea in her subconscious of the dominating position of English being in connection to whiteness and being associated with success and superiority. Ofilwe continues by referring to English as being â€Å"the TV language† (Matlwa, 2012: 54). She also sees her dad as being successful and notes that English is also the language he uses at work (Matlwa, 2012: 54). Both of the last mentioned views from Ofilwe’s perspective further support her idea of English being associated with success. The head as a symbol of struggle comes through in the passage containing the phrase â€Å"I need to spring clean my head† (Matlwa, 2012: 177). Here Fikile is basically admitting to having a fragmented psyche. She chooses to ignore the truth that she is rejecting her true identity and also chooses not to face her thoughts. This idea is also portrayed in the final scene where she walks away while in mid-conversation with the man on the train. After describing his fear that his daughter will never speak her home language she just walked away without even greeting him. This shows that Fikile is running away from the truth. She even refers to the township (the same township she despises and sees as a symbol of poverty and lost opportunities) as being â€Å"home† (Matlwa, 2012: 190). In conclusion we have now seen many examples used by Kopano Matlwa of the body being a site of struggle. I find the change in identity a sad result of the pursuit for superiority. Both Ofilwe and Fikile undergo this change in identity and denial of the true self with different mind sets. I feel that Fikile deliberately denies her true identity as she is jealous of the success that white people have gained according to her perspective. From my take on the novel I find that Ofilwe approaches the change in identity (or denying of true identity) as a result of being bombarded by media and growing up in a well-off environment. Both Ofilwe and Fikile have, in their own ways, undergone transformation with the end result of becoming traitor Pears.

Schools and Districts Support for Adolescent Literacy Essay Example

Schools and Districts Support for Adolescent Literacy Essay IntroductionThere are many students today faced with the challenge of reading their books or even understanding what they read. This makes the students experience difficulties in understanding most of their subjects in school like mathematics, science and others as they are also guided by the reading skills (Corporation, 2010). This is evident due to the low grade student’s score, and this puts the various institutions, like schools and districts in a bad state of affairs. This is because the various professionals taking care of students are not proud with what they do as the result of their work is never pleasing, and may attract criticism. Most affected students lack proficiency and their reading skills are unusually low requiring help from all quarters. The schools, therefore, must continue to encourage their students to be responsible and continue exercising how to read and write properly if they are to be successful in the various professions later in life. However, the s uccess of students cannot be left to schools only and should continue outside the facilities with everyone in the student’s life putting an effort to encourage and motivate them (Berman, 2009). Adolescents should, therefore, be encouraged to continue with their studies as the numbers of illiterates increasing as compared to other countries and poverty levels. Schools and districts should be in the frontline when such issues are to be dealt with, and better policies developed to cater for the various challenges faced. People may have different explanations of why more than a third of the American adolescent students rate poorly in their literacy levels. This paper will try to focus on what the different schools and districts can do if they are to improve the literacy level of adolescent in the different communities. We will write a custom essay sample on Schools and Districts Support for Adolescent Literacy specifically for you for only $16.38 $13.9/page Order now We will write a custom essay sample on Schools and Districts Support for Adolescent Literacy specifically for you FOR ONLY $16.38 $13.9/page Hire Writer We will write a custom essay sample on Schools and Districts Support for Adolescent Literacy specifically for you FOR ONLY $16.38 $13.9/page Hire Writer Adolescent LiteracyAdolescence literacy is all about how well the adolescent can read instructions mainly in grades four to twelve. This is a very crucial stage and most district policy makers and institutions need to concentrate on how they can save their students. Most of the students in the lower grades have been taught how to read, but this is not encouraged in the higher grades as the students are taught how they can concentrate on the various subjects and pass their exams (Ehren, 2009). The switch from learning how to read to reading to learn is a challenge to many students as there is no much concentration in this area by the teachers. This is why most institutions should put more efforts in the adolescent students. Most students in the higher grades are said to be able to read, but comprehending or processing the information has been a problem. The schools are, therefore, mandated to change the way through which they teach so that the shift can be smooth (Marchand-Martella et al., 2013). You can easily at our website with professional writing guidelines from experts. The US is facing challenges in the area of literacy with other countries performing better like the Koreans, Greece, Brazilians and others. The level has increased since 1992 and in 2007, only thirty one percent of those assessed for proficiency levels in the eight-grade performed. Additionally, twenty four percent of those assessed in the twelfth grade in writing skills scored above proficiency. This shows that the issue has affected the US in a big way, and there must be stiff interventions to rescue the US adolescent students from the menace (Berman, 2009). Moreover, adolescent from the rich families have been found to perform well as compared to poor families and mostly the white perform better that the African American or other groups in the US. This is because these families are able to take their kids to better schools or hire coaches who are able to take personalized care to the students. On the other hand, there are students that are fast learners while others are slow, whic h makes it difficult for the switch. Another problem that has led to poor literacy of the adolescent is the preparedness of workers or the teachers (Marchand-Martella et al., 2013). Most of the workforce in schools is relaxed as they expect the students from lower grades to have received the required information thereby expecting the students to be educated. Some teachers always instruct according to what they understand or how they were taught thinking that they are doing the right thing. This is a problem because there are different changes that have taken place around them like technology, which requires better preparation if the students are to understand better. The problem of literacy continues to college levels, and some students are required to take some remedial courses because of their poor skills. These are some of the challenges that are hindering adolescents from gaining the required knowledge vital for their future development (Berman, 2009). Areas Where Adolescent Need To Be EducatedWord studyThis is a type of literacy where the students are required to develop skills that enable them identify some words and become proficient while reading the words (Corporation, 2010). They also learn some common words which make it easier to understand and read these words. Learning of the skill is important as it helps students’ memorize many words which is vital for their learning experience, and understanding the meaning of these words. Schools at this level should teach the students the various strategies of breaking some of the words into parts so that it becomes easier for the students (Marchand-Martella et al., 2013). Some of the strategies that may be adopted here are like breaking the words into syllable types that make it easier to read. The words become easier for students to decode and it is important to those in middle and high school levels. The schools must, therefore, concentrate on teaching their students this s kill as it makes it unproblematic to understand the meaning of the various words. FluencyMost students practice being fluent in their reading, which means that they must possess the ability to quickly, accurately and properly read the various contents availed to them. This skill is fundamental as when the students are able to read fluently; the issue of understanding the content is somehow eliminated (Ehren, 2009). This is because most of their time is not spent on decoding words or trying to read but understanding what words they read means. Teachers and the various institutions, like schools and district facilities, should concentrate on guiding the students through various techniques of becoming fluent in their reading, like repeated reading that make them decode words easily. Repeated reading means that students are encouraged to read the same material several times, but the vocabulary level should be in line with the level of study. In so doing, the students later learn new vocabularies and avoid struggling with becoming fluent, therefore, succeeding due to t he continuous reading. MotivationMost of the students struggling with learning the various skills lack motivation from teachers or those around them (Marchand-Martella et al., 2013). This is crucial as most students are encouraged and become skilled learners developing their various skills and strategies. On the other hand, those struggling with reading various vocabularies may become challenging if they are not encouraged as they may feel dumb or unwanted and may think that they will never make it. In this area, teachers should encourage the student to read some content or use some of the materials that are intriguing to the students like story books or short novels (Ehren, 2009). To add to this, teachers should interact with students directly or encourage them to enter the different social groups that are essential in encouraging them to continue reading or improve their reading. This is a soft way of encouraging students to continue their reading and thereby becoming literate as compared to other strate gies. It is also not left to teachers only and can be done by other people in the society as there are no vital skills required. This should also be used together with other strategies as motivation may never work alone (Pitcher et al., 2010). Improving Adolescence LiteracyThe daily running of educational institutions is left to those fully experienced in the systems, and the policy makers have a limited role in this process (Pitcher et al., 2010). However, this does not mean that they are never involved in the running process as they are concerned with policy making process that is vital in ensuring the correct practices are adopted. These policy makers ensure that they enact laws and that they are well implemented. This is mostly undertaken at the various districts levels because the authorities are also concerned with the illiterate levels of their adolescent students (Berman, 2009). One of the ways that literacy among adolescents can be improved is through the avoidance of inoculation strategy where reading is only taught to younger children (Corporation, 2010 and Alexandria, 2006). The departure from this strategy may help all the people from the different levels, like the slow learners, who can be helped to learn the skills of reading even during the later grade levels. Although the skills learnt up to the fourth grade are indispensable for the development of the student later, they are not enough and should continue as various things are changing in the environment (Weldon, 2010). This is because the various studies have shown that there must be a follow up if the adolescent students are to perform better around the world (Berman, 2009). Secondly, institutions should encourage other teachers from different departments to help the students in the various fields even if the subjects are out of their field (Pitcher et al., 2010). This is because those in fields like sciences, mathematics or others concentrate too much on what they are doing and some of them may have helped in improving the conditions of the students in becoming more literate. They might help in encouraging students to read whenever there is a reading to be done in their lessons, or motivate them to put more effort in reading different materials (Corporation, 2010). Many teachers may be resistance in diversifying their lessons to different fields, like literacy, due to the specific time they have. The various districts should encourage this strategy as it is vital for the growth of the kid as a whole. Some of the districts have adopted the strategy and policy makers should create laws that encourage this kind of behavior although they may face some resis tance. Some say that they have extremely limited time to cover the syllabus while others say that they are not qualified in any other area. In addition, the various policy makers should continue making laws and policies that are vital in developing the literacy skills of the adolescent students (Morrell, 2010). These are like training literacy coaches that would help the teachers in impacting the reading skills into the students (Ehren, 2009). This is because the teachers are always in a hurry to follow what is in the curriculum, and some coaches from outside may increase the level of material read by the students per year, which is an admirable thing in ensuring that the students are well prepared to join other levels of education where the skill is little taught but widely used. There are those who join the colleges, and after they are given a lot of work to read, they become shocked because they are not used to such large contents. It is, therefore, important that the coaches encourage the pupils to continue reading as this will improve their literacy and they will find learning easier at their later stages in school (Weldon, 2010). Moreover, there should be proper development of the teaching profession so that it becomes compulsive and hence maintain teachers in class. This is because there are many teachers leaving the profession and joining others that are less cumbersome and engaging (Corporation, 2010). There should be better pay to the teachers and encourage them to work overtime with best packages. On the other hand, teachers joining the different colleges should be well qualified so that the quality of trained teachers is high and competitive enough with other professions. This will ensure that the outcome in class is attractive, and people can be well taught to match or even be better than those in other countries (Alexandria, 2006). Finally, all the people in the districts must fully support the various programs as they are very essential for the growth of the adolescent. The support may be through monetary and other areas which make it possible for schools and other education institutions function smoothly. The other supports may be like development of various plans required in making the school function and there should be summits and meetings developed to create awareness to the different parties concerned (Corporation, 2010). This would make every party aware of the problems in details and how they can help to handle them at different levels and places. The community is also encouraged to motivate their adolescent student to read widely and join social groups, which would make them courageous to read and talk in public. These strategies may help the adolescent grow their literacy levels and become students who are able to read and learn and not those learning to read (Berman, 2009). Case studyHopkins West Junior HighOver the years, there has been a significant development experienced in this school due to its visionary leaders. There are many students in the school from the 7th grade to the 9th grade. There are about eighty three percent White students, eight percent Black students and the others occupying the nine percent. Over the years, there has been a wide gap experienced between the literacy performance of the students due to poverty or color. Most Blacks always dragged behind their white counterparts, and the administration had to look for solutions. This portrayed a poor image and the management looked for ways to change it quickly. In the first place, they were to involve all the kids indiscriminately and infuse it into their culture. This encouraged the teachers as they developed these skills benefiting the kids in a big way. This became one of the strategies adopted by the school and was able to harmonize the results by improving the condition of the Blacks and the poor kids Carnegie (Corporation, 2010). ConclusionIt is evident that schools and districts can play a major role in improving the literacy level of adolescents in the US and around the world in general. This is because there are many different areas requiring changes, and the US adolescent students need to move up and be leaders. This calls for the establishment of laws and policies in the various districts aimed at making it mandatory for the changes to take effect. The schools are one of the institutions that a big part of these policies to be adopted. This is because students here learn the various skills and are guided to be analytical and able to decode the various messages. It is, therefore, very important that the teachers adopt new strategies of dealing with the student and those teaching different lessons involved also. Reading is vital for the students as it shows how ready they are to move to the different levels of education as the higher levels may need the skills. This should continue at higher levels to make it easy for the student change to read to learn state which is highly required. The whole community must try and play their role in ensuring that all students are taught accordingly. Do you still need professional research paper writing help on this topic? Are you read to pay for a custom paper? ^

Album Review essays

Album Review essays Amazing stories, endless street slang, rugged beats. What do you get when you put all of those three things together? The Big Picture, by Big L. The Big Picture was produced in 2000 shortly after the death of Big L (Lamont Coleman) in 1999. Even though the album was in progress and not complete at the time of his death, Flamboyant Records (Big Ls own label) was able to put together one of the best hip-hop albums in the genres young history. Just a fair warning before you listen to the album: if you are not a big fan of underground hip-hop this is not an album for you. If you are accustomed to hip-pop or radio rap Big L will probably not hit the spot for you. No where in his raps does he attempt to appeal to the general public. This album is what many true fans would call thorough. So if you are ready for a tour of the streets get ready, because L tells it how it is. The CD opens with the self titled track The Big Picture, which is an appropriate opening. Not only by title but for the frame work of the whole album. He proceeds with similes like Whats this rap game without L. Thats like jewels without ice. Thats like China without rice. Or the Holy Bible without Christ. Or the Bulls without Mike. Or crack-heads without pipes. The village without dykes. Or hockey games without fights. Its lyrics like these that make this album one for the books. As if the lyrics of Big L arent enough, he is also complimented by guest appearances by the late Tupac Shakur and The Notorious B.I.G.. With the company of two of the greatest rappers in history and one of the best DJs around this album was an overall success. Later in the CD he has a song titled Casualties of a Dice Game which tells about him winning money in a game and being followed by the jealous loser. L goes on to explain how he ...

Pasaporte Para Viajar a EEUU en Casos Doble Ciudadanía

Pasaporte Para Viajar a EEUU en Casos Doble Ciudadanà ­a Frecuentemente, las personas con doble ciudadanà ­a se preguntan si pueden ingresar sin visa a Estados Unidos por turismo o negocios utilizando el pasaporte que es de un paà ­s incluido en el listado del Programa de Exencià ³n de Visas, aunque no residen habitualmente en dicho paà ­s. La respuesta es sà ­, aunque deben conocerse las excepciones y cundo pueden surgir los problemas.   Ventajas e inconvenientes de viajar sin visa a Estados Unidos Los ciudadanos de 38 paà ­ses, entre los que se encuentran Chile y Espaà ±a, pueden ingresar a los Estados Unidos sin visa. Si llegan por avià ³n de là ­nea regular o barco deben antes de volar una autorizacià ³n que se conoce como ESTA. Una ventaja evidente de viajar sin visa es que la ESTA es mucho ms econà ³mica. En el momento de escribir este articulo el costo de la ESTA es de $14 frente a $160 de la visa B1/B2, cuyo precio final puede ser incluso superior para algunos paà ­ses, en aplicacià ³n de acuerdos de reciprocidad. Otra ventaja econà ³mica es que en caso de negacià ³n, se recuperan $10 en el caso de la ESTA, por lo cual el coste total es de $4. Por el contrario, si no es aprobada la solicitud de la visa de turista o negocios o la combinada de ambas, el solicitante no recupera nada. En otras palabras, pierde los $160 dà ³lares. Otro de los atractivos de viajar sin visa es que se evita tener que acudir a la entrevista en persona al consulado o Embajada, lo cual ahorra sin duda tiempo y en muchos casos tambià ©n nervios. En cuanto al tiempo, en la actualidad este problema es incluso mayor porque son numerosos los consulados en los que se necesita acudir con anterioridad a la entrevista a un Centro de Apoyo al Solicitante por el asunto de los datos biomà ©tricos, es decir, huellas digitales y fotografà ­a. Pero cuando se compara viajar con visa o sin visa, tambià ©n hay inconvenientes para este à ºltimo caso. Como regla general, si se ingresa a Estados Unidos con visa de turista se recibe una autorizacià ³n de 180 dà ­as, es decir, 6 meses. Ese plazo es el ms comà ºn, aunque puede ser inferior si asà ­ lo decide un oficial de migracià ³n. El plazo autorizado est reflejado en el documento que se conoce como I-94. Por el contrario, si se viaja con visa el tiempo mximo de estancia en Estados Unidos es de 90 dà ­as, ni uno ms. Otra gran diferencia es que si se ingresa con visa es posible solicitar una extensià ³n de la estancia y tambià ©n un cambio de visa, por ejemplo, de turista a estudiante. Sin embargo, si se ingresa a Estados Unidos sin visa no es posible alargar el  plazo de 90 de ninguna de las maneras. En otras palabras, la ley no contempla la peticià ³n de extensià ³n o de cambio a otra visa no inmigrante. Es imposible. Por lo tanto hay que salir del paà ­s antes de cumplir los 90 dà ­as de presencia.  Adems, es recomendable evitar juegos como salir a Mà ©xico, Bahamas o Canad y regresar con la idea de obtener asà ­ otros 90 dà ­as. Lo cierto es que en estos casos se regresa no con un nuevo plazo, sino con los dà ­as que quedasen del anterior. Incluso hay que tener en cuenta que se est jugando con fuego en los casos de salida al paà ­s de origen o cuando se viaja a paà ­ses adyacentes como Mà ©xico y Canad y se fuerza al là ­mite el plazo de los 90 dà ­as antes de salir de tal manera que ya no hay dà ­as restantes en el primer plazo cuando se regresa y se quiere obtener un nuevo trimestre. Puede suceder que el oficial de migracià ³n considere que se est viviendo en Estados Unidos, sospeche que se est trabajando o estudiando sin visa, etc. lo cual llevarà ­a a que se prohà ­ba el ingreso al paà ­s e incluso acabar con el castigo de una expulsià ³n inmediata.  ¿Viajar con un pasaporte o con los dos? Esta es una pregunta muy comà ºn entre las personas con doble ciudadanà ­a que deciden ingresar a Estados Unidos sin visa. La respuesta no es à ºnica y se ilustra mejor con casos especificos. Por ejemplo, en el caso de un argentino que vive en Argentina pero que tiene tambià ©n pasaporte italiano deberà ­a viajar con sus dos pasaportes. Asà ­, saldrà ­a de Argentina con el de ese paà ­s pero mostrarà ­a ya allà ­ el italiano para que le permitan embarcar. Al ingresar y tambià ©n al salir de Estados Unidos. Al llegar a Argentina, mostrarà ­a ese pasaporte para entrar a su paà ­s. Otro ejemplo distinto es el de, por ejemplo, un argentino que reside habitualmente en Italia y tiene tambià ©n pasaporte de ese paà ­s. En este caso, utilizarà ­a solamente el pasaporte italiano. Quà © problemas pueden surgir al llegar al control migratorio de los Estados Unidos En principio, los problemas potenciales son los mismos si se viajan con visa o sin visa. Ninguna de las dos situaciones garantiza el ingreso. Lo que importa es que la persona que quiere ingresar como turista tiene que ser considerada como elegible y admisible para ingresar a Estados Unidos. Si se considera que reà ºne tal cualidad, no hay problema. De hecho, son miles las personas con doble ciudadanà ­a que deciden viajar sin visa y nunca han tenido problemas. En otras palabras, el problema no es la visa o la no visa, sino si se cumplen los requisitos para ingresar o no. En este punto decir que hay noticias que apuntan a que se les ha negado el ingreso en repetidas ocasiones a dominicanos que viajan a Estados Unidos recià ©n adquieren la ciudadanà ­a de un paà ­s incluido en el listado de los Paà ­ses con Exencià ³n de Visado (VWP, por sus siglas en inglà ©s). No es que no puedan viajar, es que por la razà ³n que sea puede haber levantado sospechas de que su intencià ³n es quedarse en los Estados Unidos. Si se tiene duda, la opcià ³n es olvidarse de viajar sin visa y solicitar una B1/B2.   Finalmente decir en relacià ³n a este punto de los posibles problemas que pueden encontrar  los cubanos para embarcar sin visa en un vuelo hacia Estados Unidos. Lo cierto es que miles de cubanos embarcan e ingresan sin ningà ºn problema. Pero no es menos cierto que se les puede impedir incluso embarcar si se sospecha que su intencià ³n es quedarse en Estados Unidos y pedir que se les aplique la Ley de Ajuste Cubano una vez que estn allà ­. Excepciones a viajar sin visa en los casos de doble ciudadanà ­a En determinadas ocasiones no es posible que las personas con doble ciudadanà ­a decidan que prefieren viajar sin visa y deben solicitar la visa si es que quieren viajar como turistas a los Estados Unidos. Entre otras situaciones destacan las siguientes: Cuando previamente le han negado una visa, aunque la solicitaran con otro pasaporte. La visa se le negà ³ a la persona, no al pasaporte y las autoridades migratorias saben que se trata de la misma persona al cotejar las huellas digitales que se dieron al solicitar la visa con las que se toman en el punto de ingreso a Estados Unidos (puerto, aeropuerto o paso terrestre fronterizo). Otra situacià ³n que pide por solicitar la visa es cuando previamente una persona ha tenido una visa americana y à ©sta ha sido cancelada. Otro caso es cuando se ha visitado anteriormente Estados Unidos y el visitante se ha quedado ms tiempo del autorizado.   Finalmente, todos los casos en los que ha habido en el pasado situaciones problemticas, como violaciones migratorias, deportaciones, expulsiones inmediatas, etc. Otras situaciones de doble ciudadanà ­a o nacionalidad Estados Unidos, por regla general, no tiene ningà ºn problema con la doble ciudadanà ­a, tambià ©n conocida como doble nacionalidad. Esto es asà ­ en el caso de extranjeros que pueden utilizar el pasaporte que deseen, como se ha explicado en este artà ­culo, pero tambià ©n en otros como para aplicar por visas limitadas a ciertos paà ­ses como es el caso de la visa de inversià ³n E-2. Asà ­,por ejemplo, un venezolano no puede beneficiarse de esa visa pero si cuenta con otro pasaporte como puede ser el de Colombia, Espaà ±a, Portugal, etc, puede solicitarla. Pero tambià ©n es el caso de sus propios ciudadanos. Estados Unidos admite la doble nacionalidad y casi no impone là ­mites a esta situacià ³n. De interà ©s para turistas en Estados Unidos La mejor forma de evitar problemas migratorios, tanto si se ingresa con visa o con ESTA, es cumplir con la ley, por lo que se recomienda tomar este test para conocer aspectos fundamentales. El caso especial de Canad Como regla general, los ciudadanos de Canad no necesitan ni visa ni ESTA para ingresar a Estados Unidos como turistas y el permiso de estancia es por 6 meses.   Esto aplica a los canadienses que tambià ©n son ciudadanos de otro paà ­s, es decir, a los casos de doble ciudadanà ­a. Sin embargo, no aplica a los extranjeros que tienen residencia en Canad. Este es un artà ­culo informativo. No es asesorà ­a legal.

Innovation and Change - Open Innovation and Strategy Essay

Innovation and Change - Open Innovation and Strategy - Essay Example This creates proper competition in the market as the firms compete on specific value benefits to the customers. The computer industry across the world has greatly been disrupted by new innovations that are always meant to add value to the existing products in the market. Initially, mainframe computers were the only existing form of computers in the market. Such computers had the ability to address all the important needs of people at the time. However, developments in the computer industry led to the introduction of personal computers. These computers were not in any way seen as competitors to the mainframe computers. The personal computers therefore developed effectively without much influence on the mainframe computer market. In any case, these two types of computers had totally different applications in the market. However with time, the personal computers became a great threat to the operations of the mainframe computers which had very great limitations owing to their size and po rtability. This challenge eventually led to the disruption of the mainframe computer industry when the personal computers became much adopted in the market in contrast to the mainframe computers. ... This creates a lot of challenges in the market. The development of personal computers was for a long time totally unrelated to the mainframe computers market. Basically, personal computers were not used for industry applications since they were considered not powerful enough to perform such great tasks. However, with a lot of developments and innovation, much success has really been evidenced. The market for personal computers eventually became much greater than mainframe market. However, much disruption in the market is still expected given the introduction of minicomputers and other smaller computers. The major driving force behind this disruption is actually the need for efficiency and ease of operations. While mainframe computers are still much effective in industry applications, they greatly face a lot of competition from the personal computer market. Fundamentally, it has to be realized that personal computers were actually an innovation and development of the mainframe compute rs. These computers were basically an extension of the technology used in the mainframes which were in much use in the 1970s through to the 1980s. While the personal computers have greatly managed to bridge the gap that always existed in terms of computer applications in the market, some gaps still exist in the market which create the need for more innovation. In this regard, mainframe computers are widely used in industries due to their great speeds and processing ability. In organizational setups, such computers are often used to manage other computers in the organization. While such features are greatly valuable and demanded in the market, most personal computers do not have the ability to provide such

Story on Grant Ensminger Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

Story on Grant Ensminger - Essay Example Whether it is traditional painting, frescoes, children’s story books or fashion T-shirts, Ensminger takes the genre and stamps his own individual style onto it. The colors are exuberant, and there is plenty of postmodern irony and quotation from famous twentieth century artists. He mixes pop art Marilyn with Picasso-esque heads in profile, and sets them alongside frescos that look like upmarket graffiti. This is an artist who claims no formal art school education, and seeks out his own role models as he carves out his own quirky journey of artistic discovery. A fascination with sharks when he started out, some three years ago, has given way to a link-up with local indie band Rey Fresco. Ensinger exhibits regularly in the area, and his work is certainly worth a look. If you turn up to see it there is every chance that you will meet the man himself and make contact with the epitome of Ventura

Chili’s Bar Essay Example for Free

Chili’s Bar Essay In the decision making process, it helps to look at all the information. This SWOT is comparing Chili’s restaurant to two of its competitors, Ruby Tuesday’s and Applebee’s. Company History Chili’s restaurants are part of the company, Brinker International Corporation. Chili’s Bar Grill is a casual dining restaurant that was founded in 1975 and has expanded to include 1,200 restaurants located domestically and internationally. There menu consists of fresh and healthy American dishes and limited amount of southwestern style Mexican dishes. In the last 30 years, Chili’s has created an identifiable, recognizable brand name, just think of the commercials. Chili’s Strengths Chili’s is the one of the largest full service restaurant chains with over 1,200 stores, second only to Applebee’s which has about 1,900 stores. Their competitor Ruby Tuesday has less than 900 stores with many of those franchises. Chili’s is part of Brinker Intl. , which is world’s second largest casual dining restaurant operator, the first being Darden restaurants. This allows them to offer affordable prices, because they can negotiate product rates for all of their stores, unlike a smaller company. They have also expanded their company to include Chili’s Too, Small Town Chili’s, and offer catering services. They update their menu one to two times a year, unlike Ruby Tuesday’s which updates their menu every three to four months. Chili’s has a popular menu that keeps people coming back, so they tweak it a bit to keep up with trends, but keep their core items. At this time they serve the same menu in every store, which allows for consistency throughout the company. They have a very broad market with a recognizable brand name and they focus on customer satisfaction. The restaurant business can be very competitive, but they have unusually high management retention and that may be in part to extremely competitive starting salaries and excellent benefit packages. Their competitor, Ruby Tuesday, has franchised many of its stores, creating varied salaries, salary caps, and benefits, when going from a franchise to a corporate store, which can make it difficult to retain managers. When Chili’s is looking for hourly employees, it offers several opportunities to them. They can apply and interview online, receive benefits and have the opportunity to grow with the company. Their hourly employee turnover rate is also lower than the industry average. Chili’s Weaknesses Even though the Chili’s brand is recognizable, it doesn’t appeal to the upper class. The casual dining concept, no matter how different, is still the same. They receive much of their food frozen, unlike Ruby Tuesday which receives all of their meat and produce fresh, making some items not the best of quality. During the busy times, servers are pressured to decrease their table turn time, the time from when a guest sits at the table until they leave and the table is ready for another guest, which can make it difficult to build a rapport with their guests, but at the same time they want their PPA (per person average) to be higher. Many of their restaurants are focused around the bar, which segregates some consumers that do not want to be in that environment. It also makes their seating area than some of their competitors. Chili’s Opportunities There are several things Chili’s can do to remain competitive in the casual dining industry. They can continue to expand internationally, beyond the 20 countries they are already in. Their competitors have yet to exceed that with Ruby Tuesday’s being in about twelve countries and Applebee’s is in almost twenty. They have a very well known brand which will allow them to continue expansion at a rapid rate with the backing of their parent company, Brinker Intl. They are launching a program to try international cuisines at some of their foreign locations. If consumers react positively this could be a great growth opportunity, if it is not taken to, it could be a threat to their international stores if they continue it. They can enlarge their restaurants or configure different models, based on the demographics of the area, to include more seating for guests and not just the bar area. They can continue to expand their brand recognition apparel and glassware. Chili’s Threats The largest threat to the Chili’s brand is the competition of casual dining restaurants, which are easy to duplicate. Applebee’s and Ruby Tuesday’s both had higher 1-year sales growths, with 10% and 17. %, respectively, compared to Chili’s at 6. 1%. Chili’s saturated some U. S. markets and has no where else to expand in those areas. They need to keep up with current trends and eating habits, because they change often, to stay current with the market. Summary Chili’s has managed to saturate the US and foreign markets better than its competitors. Their sales are higher and they retain their employees longer. They need to look at a few things like following eating trends and standing out from the competition a bit more, but they are a highly competitive company that keeps people coming back.

corporate governance Essay examples -- essays research papers

Corporate governance is a very poorly defined concept; it covers so many different economic issues. It is difficult to give a first class definition in one sentence. Corporate governance has succeeded in attracting a great deal of interests of the public because of its obvious importance for the economic health of corporations and society in general. As a result, different people have come up with different definitions that basically mirror their special interest in the field. It is difficult to see that this 'disorder' will be any different in the future so the best way to define the concept is perhaps to list a few of the different definitions rather than just mentioning one definition. "Corporate governance is a field in economics that investigates how to secure/motivate efficient management of corporations by the use of incentive mechanisms, such as contracts, organizational designs and legislation. This is often limited to the question of improving financial performance, for example, how the corporate owners can secure/motivate that the corporate managers will deliver a competitive rate of return.† www.encycogov.com, Mathiesen [2002]. According to Shleifer and Vishny in The Journal of Finance, â€Å"corporate governance deals with the ways in which suppliers of finance to corporations assure themselves of getting a return on their investment.† J. Wolfensohn, president of the Word bank, quoted by an article in Financial Times in June of 1999 that "corporate governance is about promoting corporate fairness, transparency and accountability." â€Å"Corporate Governance looks at the institutional and policy framework for corporations - from their very beginnings, in entrepreneurship, through their governance structures, company law, privatization, to market exit and insolvency. The integrity of corporations, financial institutions and markets is particularly central to the health of our economies and their stability.† (www.oecd.org) What does this all mean and how does it affect the business world today is what may be asked. Criticism of corporate governance is back with a vengeance in the post-Enron era. Is the entire governance system broken down and in need of change, or was it just the wrong actions of a few people that has led to this new case of critisms? E... ...an Administration are leading the way for reform, which is unusual â€Å"given the typical pro-business sympathies of these groups.† Some people feel that the current governance is working as best it can and that greater regulation will not prohibit the unethical and immoral actions of a few people. However, employees want greater protection. They want to be assured that the rules for selling company stock are not different for top managers that they are for employees. Investors also want to be looked after. They want to be certain that the public information available to them is â€Å"an accurate and fair representation of the company’s financial status.† (Business Week 116) www.encycogov.com. Mathiesen 2000 www.oecd.org. Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. Building Partnerships for Progress Booker, Katrina. â€Å"Trouble in the Boardroom.† Fortune Magazine. May 13, 2002 Luoma, Patrice. â€Å"Enron and Beyond.† Corporate Self-Governance and the Corporate Checks and Balances System. CCH Incorporated. 2002 â€Å"Corporate Governance: The Road Back.† Business Week. May 6, 2002. p. 116

Fast Food or Dine in Debate Essay

The dispute over whether fast food or a Dine-in meal is just more practical, and better in general for our everyday lives is a reoccurring debate in America in a time where health issues are at an all time high. Some people argue the point that fast food maybe the unhealthier of the two choices. Others would make the rebuttal that they can equally be a knock on your health meter. In this paper I would like to explore these debates and find common ground between the two. According to QSR magazine (QSR; Drive-thru performance study, 2009) the average time it takes you to receive your food though take-out is one hundred and thirty-four seconds. If you refer to the same magazine it also tells you that most of the Top dine-in restaurants take anywhere from 12-30 minutes average for a family meal. For this sole reason alone many Americans who have busy lives prefer to make quick stops at fast food joints on lunch breaks. In today’s society we live on the go, and we would like our technology and food to be the same way. Restaurant tycoon McDonalds has made put a substantial margin of space between it and any of its competitions annual income. McDonalds Net worth is fifteen billion dollars, more than double the net worth of the most popular dine-in according to the â€Å"Super size me† documentary (super size me, Sundance films, 2004) . The fact that fast food sales outweigh dine-in sales through out the world does not mean necessarily that this choice and source of food is better for you. Or does it?

Buddhist, Confucian, and Taoist Views on Benevolence Essay

Benevolence can be defined as the moral inclination to be kind and compassionate. If people could control their malicious behaviors and focus on participating in acts that are solely beneficial to humanity, the earth would be much more prosperous. Being kind to others gives us a feeling of contentment that is otherwise unattainable. Receiving compassion and kindness provides us with a sense of gratitude and wellness that many cannot help but share with others. No one enjoys being the subject of someone else’s ill will. This is why moral codes such as (but not limited to) Buddhism, Confucianism/Taoism have emerged. If everyone followed any one of the previously stated practices, it would be much easier for humans to grow and develop as a whole because there would be fewer causes of our discontentment. The Buddhists’ ultimate goal is to end suffering by achieving enlightenment, or nirvana (Kessler, pg. 186). Benevolence is indefinitely required to reach this state. Enlightenment can only be obtained by recognizing the Four Noble Truths. This basically states that life is suffering, which is the result of bad karma caused by malevolent actions that are driven by natural human desires. The end of desire will inevitably be the end of suffering. The only way to end suffering is by following in the footsteps of Siddhartha Gautama’s enlightenment (Kessler, pg. 166). This method of bringing an end to suffering is otherwise known as the Eightfold Path, or the Way of the Buddha. In order to obtain the same enlightenment, Buddhists are required to uphold a strict set of rules regarding the way to behave as a beneficial member of society, including â€Å"right view, right thought, right speech, right conduct, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness, and right meditati on.† (Kessler, pg. 224). The most devout Buddhist possesses immense self-control and discipline in attempt to live the purest, least harmful existence possible. A good example of the ideal Buddhist is the bodhisattva. Bodhisattvas have reached the ultimate level of moral purity, kindness, and compassion toward the world and therefore live to relieve people from suffering (Kessler, pg. 170). Concerning overall kindness and compassion, the fate and preservation of the entire world should be taken into account before performing any act. No living being should ever be harmed or killed. One should never steal from another, but may receive gifts openly. Buddhists should be chaste, truthful, and fair. They are required to keep peace among people if necessary. A devout Buddhist would never speak to someone in a discourteous manner, including sharing erroneous information (Kessler, pg. 185). This moral code practiced by Bodhisattvas is directly concerned with the wellbeing of the world through good deeds, which leads to the end of eternal suffering, according to the previously stated teachings of the Buddha. Another influential teacher of morality and obtaining widespread human prosperity is Confucianism. The Way, or Tao, is the Confucian concept of human nature. The Mandate of Heaven is dictated by the fact that humans, by nature, want to obtain balance and harmony in the world, which is possible beginning with harmony within the self. Harmony within one’s self leads to harmony among other people, which results in the harmony of natural phenomenon, and thus the world is harmonious. This requires that all human emotional conditions be in balance. Although the notion is truly inconceivable, this can be most closely described as the Confucian concept of heaven. People must be understanding and compassionate towards one another, and make sacrifices for the greater good. When this is achieved, human flourishing is then possible. People are either intelligent enough to possess the sincerity of the way, or they can be instructed to do so. Humans are all capable of making a contribution toward achieving the order of the Way, which results in spiritual salvation (Kessler, pg. 242-243). The most important way this goal is to be achieved by the followers of Confucian teachings is through sacrifice. An honorable person intends to sacrifice in order to spread good will to the earth. This helps emphasize the responsibilities all humans have to maintain peace and harmony in the world for the well being of everyone (Kessler, pg. 240). Humans are born into different ranks, which must be taken into consideration, but the overall goal of Confucian teaching is to uphold the moral obligation of goodness. Elders and authority figures are to be respected in accordance to the Confucian way. For example, a child is respectful to a parent because both are needed to maintain balance in the family. This plays a crucial role in the functionality of the family unit. The same notion can be applied to the citizen and his governing body. The citizen is obedient to the government because defiant behavior would lead to chaos (Kessler, pg. 242). The Buddhist and Confucian doctrines are similar in many ways. The ultimate goal of both sets of teachings is the same: human benevolence leads to moral salvation and the well being of humanity. Renunciation plays a major role in the overall intention of both parties. The crucial difference between the two is the source of the regarded texts. Confucians’ fate is subject to the government no matter what. They pay respect to all people, but understand the necessity to respect the upper class because they play a major part in the well being of the whole. The elders and authority figures â€Å"take care† of the younger or less fortunate. Buddhists focus more on solitude and undergoing suffering for the greater good. They go as far as to give up normal eating habits as to refrain from any selfish behavior that may lead to bad karma. Confucians also undergo suffering, but do not give up basic human desires for the benefit of others. They are undeniably considerate. Any feeling that one would not enjoy feeling would never be bestowed upon someone else. No form of extreme asceticism required of Confucians as it is sometimes in Buddhism. Rather, Confucian success is more important to human flourishing. Although true, both moral concepts have the same intended outcome of benevolence toward everyone. Works Cited Kessler, Gary E. Ways of Being Religious. Mountain View, CA: Mayfield Pub., 2000. 166+. Print.

Hospital Management and CABG Surgery Case Essays

Hospital Management and CABG Surgery Case Essays Hospital Management and CABG Surgery Case Essay Hospital Management and CABG Surgery Case Essay There are various payoffs or benefits those one could expect from the implementation of care path method in the hospital. Execution of Care Path could help to improve the quality of operating processes of all the departments of Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) (Wheelwright Weber, 2004). The implementation of care path or critical path method could help to provide standard, modified, and better care to all the patients before and after the coronary artery bypass graft (CABG) surgery. Reduction in operating cost and average length of stay could be also expected to result from the implementation of the care path approach in the hospital. The operating room cost that is determined by the amount of surgery performed could be expected to decline in the future due to the improvement in operating processes. Similarly, it could also help to reduce SICU staff cost per day due to the effective communication of information regarding the patients, current medications, and conceptual information and reduce delay to provide X-ray (Wheelwright Weber, 2004). Some of the other benefits could be expected from this method that includes shorter length of stay, less extensive tests, proper management of permanent medical record of each patient, availability of beds, reduced medical  complications etc. The revenue of MGH could be increased in the form of improvement in the heath care processes and benefits of care path method. Answer 2. Beneficiary Hospital Management 3 Several parties would be the beneficiary of improvements in health care process at MGH that includes stakeholders of the hospital like, management of the hospital, surgeons, physicians, staff members, and all the patients. The implementation of care path method could be helpful to reduce the hospital’s cost that includes operating room cost and SICU cost per day and increase  the hospital’s revenues that would be beneficial for the stakeholders of the hospital. Similarly, this approach could help to reduce the average length of patient stay for the coronary artery bypass graft (CABG) area in hospital and medical complaints that would be beneficial for the patients and patient’s family (Wheelwright Weber, 2004). The care path method would help nurses to effectively maintain patient’s permanent medical record through the care path check sheet. Such improvements in maintaining the patient’s medical records would be helpful for nurses and other accounting administrative staff to  maintain the record of each patient. The implementation of care path methods would be helpful to improve the communication between the MGH’s management and referring physicians, and smooth process of patients flow. Such improvements would be beneficial for the surgeons and physicians of the hospital, because of effective communication with hospital’s management. Answer 3. Approach, Resources and Timeline Bohmer and Torchiana should select small pilot program to implement the care path method for coronary artery bypass graft (CABG) surgery at Massachusetts General Hospital  (MGH) to reduce the overall cost of hospital (Wheelwright Weber, 2004). The small pilot program would start in January to quickly implement the care path method by all the surgeons simultaneously at MGH. The implementation of care path surgery method through this approach might help the management to more quickly convert the benefits of care path method in other Hospital Management 4 departments of MGH. Several resources would be used to implement the care path method that includes human resources, hospital funds, machinery equipments etc. The human resources include all surgeons, doctors, nurses, physicians, and other hospital staffs. Bohmer and Torchiana would expect effective performance in all the departments of MGH in terms of quality and standardization of processes. The implementation of care path approach would help to reform the whole system of health care process of hospital through significant changes. Creation of a critical pathway through care path approach would helpful to take initial benefits and build an effective framework for the continuous improvement in the future (Wheelwright Weber, 2004). The performance of the hospital would improve in terms reduction in length of patient stay that would be dropped about 20% to 30%. This approach will  help the administration of the hospital to reduce the cost throughout the hospital. The implementation of care path method would help to maintain the cooperative environment in the hospital and develop a better way to treat patients and improve quality. The timeline that is expected to execute this approach in the hospital is as follows Month Procedure January, 2011 Implementation of program March, 2011 Assessment of program June, 2011 Evaluation and control of program Hospital Management 5 References Wheelwright, S Weber, J. (2004). Massachusetts General Hospital: CABG Surgery (A). Harvard Business School, pp. 1-21.

Casting and Data Type Conversions in VB.NET

Casting and Data Type Conversions in VB.NET Casting is the process of converting one data type to another, for example, from an Integer type to a String type. Some operations in VB.NET require specific data types to work. Casting creates the type you need. The first article in this two-part series, Casting and Data Type Conversions in VB.NET, introduces casting. This article describes the three operators you can use to cast in VB.NET - DirectCast, CType and TryCast - and compares their performance. Performance is one of the big differences between the three casting operators according to Microsoft and other articles. For example, Microsoft is usually careful to warn that, DirectCast ... can provide somewhat better performance than CType when converting to and from data type Object. (Emphasis added.) I decided to write some code to check. But first a word of caution. Dan Appleman, one of the founders of the technical book publisher Apress and a reliable technical guru, once told me that benchmarking performance is much harder to do correctly than most people realize. There are factors like machine performance, other processes that might be running in parallel, optimization like memory caching or compiler optimization, and errors in your assumptions about what the code is actually doing. In these benchmarks, I have tried to eliminate apples and oranges comparison errors and all tests have been run with the release build. But there still might be errors in these results. If you notice any, please let me know. The three casting operators are: DirectCastCTypeTryCast In practical fact, you will usually find that the requirements of your application will determine which operator you use. DirectCast and TryCast have very narrow requirements. When you use DirectCast, the type must already be known. Although the code ... theString DirectCast(theObject, String) ... will compile successfully if theObject isnt a string already, then the code will throw a runtime exception. TryCast is even more restrictive because it wont work at all on value types such as Integer. (String is a reference type. For more on value types and reference types, see the first article in this series.) This code ... theInteger TryCast(theObject, Integer) ... wont even compile. TryCast is useful when youre not sure what type of object youre working with. Rather than throwing an error like DirectCast, TryCast just returns Nothing. The normal practice is to test for Nothing after executing TryCast. Only CType (and the other Convert operators like CInt and CBool) will convert types that dont have an inheritance relationship such as an Integer to a String: Dim theString As String 1 Dim theInteger As Integer theInteger CType(theString, Integer) This works because CType uses helper functions that arent part of the .NET CLR (Common Language Runtime) to perform these conversions. But remember that CType will also throw an exception if theString doesnt contain something that can be converted to an Integer. If theres a possibility that the string isnt an integer like this ... Dim theString As String George ... then no casting operator will work. Even TryCast wont work with Integer because its a value type. In a case like this, you would have to use validity checking, such as the TypeOf operator, to check your data before trying to cast it. Microsofts documentation for DirectCast specifically mentions casting with an Object type so thats what I used in my first performance test. Testing begins on the next page! DirectCast will usually use an Object type, so thats what I used in my first performance test. To include TryCast in the test, I also included an If block since nearly all programs that use TryCast will have one. In this case, however, it will never be executed. Heres the code that compares all three when casting an Object to a String: Dim theTime As New Stopwatch() Dim theString As String Dim theObject As Object An Object Dim theIterations As Integer CInt(Iterations.Text) * 1000000 DirectCast Test theTime.Start() For i 0 To theIterations theString DirectCast(theObject, String) Next theTime.Stop() DirectCastTime.Text theTime.ElapsedMilliseconds.ToString CType Test theTime.Restart() For i As Integer 0 To theIterations theString CType(theObject, String) Next theTime.Stop() CTypeTime.Text theTime.ElapsedMilliseconds.ToString TryCast Test theTime.Restart() For i As Integer 0 To theIterations theString TryCast(theObject, String) If theString Is Nothing Then MsgBox(This should never display) End If Next theTime.Stop() TryCastTime.Text theTime.ElapsedMilliseconds.ToString This initial test seems to show that Microsoft is right on target. Heres the result. (Experiments with larger and smaller numbers of iterations as well as repeated tests under different conditions didnt show any significant differences from this result.) Click Here to display the illustration DirectCast and TryCast were similar at 323 and 356 milliseconds, but CType took over three times as much time at 1018 milliseconds. When casting reference types like this, you pay for the flexibility of CType in performance. But does it always work this way? The Microsoft example in their page for DirectCast is mainly useful for telling you what wont work using DirectCast, not what will. Heres the Microsoft example: Dim q As Object 2.37 Dim i As Integer CType(q, Integer) The following conversion fails at run time Dim j As Integer DirectCast(q, Integer) Dim f As New System.Windows.Forms.Form Dim c As System.Windows.Forms.Control The following conversion succeeds. c DirectCast(f, System.Windows.Forms.Control) In other words, you cant use DirectCast (or TryCast, although they dont mention it here) to cast an Object type to an Integer type, but you can use DirectCast to cast a Form type to a Control type. Lets check the performance of Microsofts example of what will work with DirectCast. Using the same code template shown above, substitute ... c DirectCast(f, System.Windows.Forms.Control) ... into the code along with similar substitutions for CType and TryCast. The results are a little surprising. Click Here to display the illustration DirectCast was actually the slowest of the three choices at 145 milliseconds. CType is just a little quicker at 127 milliseconds but TryCast, including an If block, is the quickest at 77 milliseconds. I also tried writing my own objects: Class ParentClass ... End Class Class ChildClass Inherits ParentClass ... End Class I got similar results. It appears that if youre not casting an Object type, youre better off not using DirectCast.

Third-party behavior Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Third-party behavior - Research Paper Example Sources have revealed that in the Criminal Justice System (CJS), methods applied in the crime prevention and reduction is inefficient. For instance, in the most cases, the CJS acts only when a crime occurs or is discovered by the respective authority. Surprisingly, they take act only if the crime detection procedure and the investigation culminate into the identification of a suspect and a decision to charge them with an offense (Cochran, et al. 77). It is, therefore necessary to implement a well-outlined procedural way of preventing and reducing the occurrence of such crimes. Therefore, I do not believe in criminalizing a third party who fails to react by stopping, reporting or preventing the occurrence of the crime. Since the nature of the crime differs, criminalizing a third party can only occur depending with its intensity. The US constitution, which is the supreme law, allows people some freedom to act provided one fails to meddle with others rights (Harr and Hess 23). Therefore, some actions like prostitution and public-intoxication cannot result to the criminalization of a third party who fails to report or prevent the occurrence of such a crime. In brief, the nature of crime determines whether to criminalize a third party for inaction. In some circumstances, the behavior of the third party calls for criminology. For instance, the third party may give moral, material, or financial support (Gibson and Cavanido 20). In addition to the provision of such a support, the third party may refuse to take actions, after witnessing the suffering of either party. The CJS should thus consider some issues before the initiation of the third party criminalization process. It is thus a duty of the CJS to device a well-outlined procedure to follow for the criminalization of a third party. Since the third party has profound responsibility in most of the crimes committed, it is therefore, a duty of the CJS to conduct its