Barbie, If Looks Could Kill

Hannah Mekeel Pg1 Barbie: If Looks Could Kill Almost every American girl desires a Barbie at some point, for the chance to vicariously live her fabulous life. The average girl from ages 3-11 owns upwards of 10 Barbie dolls throughout her childhood, with hours on end spent exploring a Pepto-Bismol colored world, where Barbie has any dream job. For 53 years, Barbie has been an American standard of beautiful. With her leggy, busty figure and unattainable body measurements, neatly wrapped in pink packaging and a sunny disposition, Barbie has had over 80 careers, ranging from the President to a McDonalds’ cashier.When she’s not teaching or fighting fires, she still manages to maintain her Barbie dreamhouse, her body, and her dreamboat of a boyfriend, Ken. In the world of Barbie, a girl can have it all! But not all is sunny in paradise since the emergence of a Barbie backlash, as parents and child development experts begin to see the possible connections between young girls w ho play with Barbie’s and adult woman with body issues or eating disorders. The question becomes; What are these toys teaching young girls about their bodies, their gender, and their role in society? Is the character that has become Barbie a role model for all women can achieve?Or, have Barbie been teaching young girls that the perfect, attractive, and socially valuable woman is thin, always glamorous, always happy, and always silent? Since Barbie was first debut in 1959, she seemed to be a picture perfect role model for middle class, American girls. She was perfectly thin, had a perfect family, perfect hair, perfect car and house. Yet how was this image of a perfect woman affecting the millions of young girls who were playing with her? Some would argue that Barbie’s thin, but busty and hippy figure, instill in young woman an idea of the perfect body, desired by men and envied by other women, Mekeel Pg 2 ll the while, completely unattainable. â€Å"If Barbie were an a ctual woman, she would be 5'9†³ tall, have a 39†³ bust, an 18†³ waist, 33†³ hips and a size 3 shoe,† Slayen wrote in the Huffington . â€Å"She likely would not menstruate†¦ she'd have to walk on all fours due to her proportions. † (Katz). Many women admit they started worrying about their weight when they were between the age of 4 and six years old, and many of the girls who have or had an eating disorder admitted that Barbie played a huge role in influencing their attitudes toward their bodies.Barbie led young girls to believe, if you want Barbie’s fabulous life, you have to also look â€Å"fabulous†. During the formative ages of 4-6, right about the time young girls receive their first Barbie, they really begin to absorb the social standards around them, and the 1961 gem, â€Å"Slumber Party Barbie†, could not have been a positive influence on young girls. â€Å"Slumber Party Barbie† came equipped with a book title d How to Lose Weight , which offered advice like â€Å"don’t eat,† and a bathroom scale permanently set at 110 lbs. Slumber Party Barbie† is something no good parent would expose their young, impressionable daughter to, and something Mattel wouldn’t even attempt 40 years later. Mattel has had its missteps in the last 20 years, putting feminist across the country up in arms with the 1992 flop â€Å"Teen Talk Barbie†, who famously proclaims that â€Å"math class is tough†. Sure, math class is tough, but shouldn’t Barbie be reiterating to girls that math is essential, especially if you want to be just like Barbie and grow up to be a doctor, scientist, astronaut, or whatever you want. Mattel wasted no time silencing their quintessential bimbo following the backlash. Borger). Another major flaw in Barbie portrayed values is her desire for material wealth. Barbie has everything, but it wasn’t always that way. Barbie came from humble b eginnings, dressed like Mekeel Pg 3 a typical white, middle-class female of the 1960’s. She continued to evolve into mod Barbie, disco Barbie, and by the 1980s â€Å"she had the taste of a lottery winner,† says M. G. Lord, author of Forever Barbie. â€Å"At the core of this change is class. † (Borger). Barbie suddenly had a dreamhouse mansion, a convertible sports car, and in more recent years, began wearing designer duds from the likes of Ralph Lauren, Christian Dior, and Bob Mackie.Barbie advocates stress that the problem doesn’t lay in Barbie’s appearance, or even her values, but with our perceptions of a doll. After all, Barbie is an inanimate object, something that living women shouldn’t compare themselves to. If Barbie were real she would likely be divorced from Ken and in debt up to her eyes after remortgaging her dreamhouse, but she’s not real. She is a fantasy, which little boys and girls can use when flexing their imaginatio ns to develop a whole world and life for Barbie, as they would see it. It’s the ability to make Barbie into anything they want that makes her so appealing to children. We are in danger of looking at a child's toy through an adult's microscope and, of course, seeing all the wrong things. To a child she.. never says she can't play with you, always smiles, will accompany her owner everywhere, and never shouts. Onto her can be projected wishes and dreams. †(Russel) Barbie has also taken the form of many positively influential female role models like Jackie Onassis Kennedy or Olympic athletes. Having experienced first-hand, amongst girls my age, the damages of low self-esteem and a poor body image, I find it hard to believe that Barbie has played no role in damaging females.Though a six year old might not process the impact at the time, subconsciously she carries the effects of Barbie’s image with her for the rest of her life, affecting the way she sees Mekeel Pg 4 he rself and women around her. Sure, Barbie encourages young girl to be whatever they want to be, but only if you’re beautiful. With doll collecting being the second most popular hobby, to stamp collecting, and Barbie being a $1. 5 billion dollar industry, she’s not going anywhere soon. It is a parent’s responsibility to choose their children’s toys wisely, considering how it might impact them.If nothing else, parents should be present in their daughters’ lives contextualizing all these images they encounter in the public and in pop culture, and reinforcing a positive body imagine and self-esteem. Mattel continues to make efforts to bring Barbie to a place of more positive realism, but until woman are accurately represented and positive portrayed by gender specific toys, Barbie could be a serious danger to a young girls psyche, giving a new meaning to the phrase â€Å"if looks could kill. †

High Schools Should Be Able to Sell Junk Food Essay

High schools should be able to sell candy, chips and soft drink. If â€Å"variety is a spice of life† than why shouldn’t it apply to younger people? Recently schools have been taking into consideration depriving students of branded â€Å"unhealthy† foods in canteens such as candy, chips and lollies. They condemn junk food as the cause for obesity and believe that by banning it completely, the problem will disappear. Banning junk food from schools won’t change anything or stop people from being overweight completely. What label is put on unhealthy, where is the line drawn? There is a fine line between certain healthy and unhealthy foods; some could even be labelled as either. A hamburger for example generally contains meat, bread and salad. A sandwich on the other hand contains pretty much the same thing! Does that mean that sandwiches should also be banned from schools? For daily nutrients a variety of foods is needed, everything in moderation of course. Certain foods shouldn’t just be eliminated from a person’s diet. Think of the food pyramid (the amounts we should have the most to least of), people should have breads; pasta’s and rices the most. Then have vegetables and fruits. Next on the pyramid are eggs, dairy and meat. Last but not least are fats, oils and sweets. While fats, oils and sweets should be consumed the least, they are still needed and important for our body to function well. Unhealthy foods should still be kept in schools as people should know to eat in moderation. Students are constantly reminded about healthy eating. All throughout primary and high school students are taught in PE the healthy food pyramid and the dangers of eating too much of one food. Students being mature and well educated should be able to choose what they want to eat, knowing the consequences of their actions. Letting them make their own choices also sets them up for life in the real world, as they need to realise that eve rything has consequences, whether good or bad. While some may argue that children obviously can’t make the right choices, I beg to differ. While people blame adolescent’s obesity on their eating habits, there is another factor that isn’t seen. Another reason for child obesity is lack of exercise. In this day and age most children’s form of entertainment comes from a screen, whether it be Playstation, Wii, Xbox or even just their phones. Sure, people still attend sporting clubs and such but the amount of people who do has dropped dramatically in the last 20 years. Majority of people 20 years ago played outside games for their entertainment, getting the amount of exercisenecessary to burn fat and be healthy. Students are mature enough to make their own choices and shouldn’t have to be sheltered. If they take away junk food, not only are they taking away kids freedom of choice but they are taking away their enjoyment too. A school in Seattle is considering relaxing it’s ban on unhealthy foods in high schools after the policy has cost them hundreds of thousands of dollars. Moreover, opponents of the ban say it’s not even accomplishing its mission of preventing kids from eating bad foods; as many students just go to milk bars to buy products they used to buy at vending machines. The revenues are down by more than $50,000 dollars a year which has caused the school to cut back on funding to a range of student activities, with poorer families unable to attend. A member of the board admitted â€Å"I think we went a little too far.†(www.seattletimes.com.)From this example it’s evident that while people believe strongly about banning junk food, they need to ask themselves some questions, is it really for the better? Will it just make things worse? Not many bought the healthy foods and because of that others had to suffer. Poorer families who can’t afford to pay for extracurricular activities will be forced to not participate, providing their kids with fewer opportunities than the rest. While others may say that students will eventually get used to the healthy foods, they need to read this article. According to the article they trialled this ban for seven years, with the profits not getting any better. If they want to wait they will be waiting forever because it will never change. Sure it might just be this be this school but if it happened there then what reason is there that it wouldn’t happen here? There needs to be a middle ground, where they don’t take the ban to an extreme as there are good intentions for the ban. School canteens should sell both types of foods but make healthier foods a cheaper option than fatter foods. Banning junk food from schools won’t change people’s eating habits or stop people from being overweight. Both unhealthy and healthy foods are needed for a healthy diet but in moderation. Schools should make healthier food an easier and more affordable option for people to buy at canteens. As the old clique states; don’t throw the baby out with the bath water.

Intravenous Drug Users Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Intravenous Drug Users - Assignment Example This paper will focus on the on the vulnerability of the youths towards intravenous drug abuse. The most vulnerable population of this abuse is the youth’s offenders this is according to the study carried out in South Australia. These youths are mostly found in areas that are densely populated. Lack of good storage techniques of syringes encourages intravenous drug use among the youths. Statistics indicate that there is less use of drugs in youths that are under the care of the parents than those that are on the streets. An assessment was carried out among the youths to acquire appropriate data on the usage of drugs. Most youths were not ready to comply with this assessment. It was later found that intravenous drug abuse is most common among the youths of the age between 14-19 years old (Chin 133). The youths seem to abuse drugs more than the adults. Substance abuse increases with an increase in age. Male youths have been reported to abuse drugs more than women. This abuse amo ng youth’s emanates from environmental factors and also social factors. Intravenous drug users get to learn from there peers. Youths who reside in urban centers are reported to be the most vulnerable towards drug abuse. These youths are influenced into substance abuse by those individuals that have a close connection to the drugs. ... A study carried out in Canada proved that the high spread of substance abuse was due to the high level of homelessness among the youths. Therefore, this homeless children resort to staying in the streets where they are lured into substance use. Others participate in transportation or selling of these drugs to earn a living (Chin 139). Another contributing factor to the usage of drugs is stress among the youths who later resort to abuse of drugs. Adults play a role in fueling drug use among the use for instance ignorance among parents on their children’s welfare, there are adults who encourage intravenous drug use by selling drugs and syringes to the youths. Abuse of drugs has had negative far reaching effects on the youth population. Most cases of HIV/AIDS has been caused due to substance abuse. Unplanned pregnancies have also bee caused by substance abuse therefore leading to production of children by children. Intravenous drug abuse is sometimes caused by an individualâ€⠄¢s ignorance. Most youths are adamant to the teachings and blind to the negative effects that accrue from substance abuse. Another reason to the high substance abuse is school drop outs. Most undisciplined students drop out of school to engage in substance abuse. They do not care about the effects of these drugs to their health. Effects of intravenous drug abuse have been made known worldwide therefore; the youth’s engagement in this act cannot be blamed to the environmental factors but rather themselves (McCarthy 16). Research is very important in shaping ones attitudes. The bias that has been formed against the intravenous drug users can be changed through research. This is because we get to learn different factors that lead to substance abuse among the youths. An individual will be able

Shelia's Cake Decorating Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Shelia's Cake Decorating - Essay Example Aside from baked goods, light snacks such as sandwiches and salads is also offered. Aside from the delights from the bakeshop, customers in need of a specialized cake with plain or even elaborate decorations can be ordered from here. The prices are very competitive and lead time for orders is only a day’s notice. There is also a bookshelf in the nook that contains classic literary books that can be read. Since the bakeshop is a place to meet for different reasons, there is a cork board where messages can be written . The place is envisioned as an important part of one’s routine since sipping coffee, reading newspapers, and buying goodies for children waiting at home is a joyful task that can be accomplished in Sheila’s Bakeshop. In the next few years, it would have more loyal customers patronizing its wider array of baked goods. New customers will be gained as word of mouth advertisement will work effectively for the promotion of the bakeshop. Many satisfied cust omers would refer the bakeshop to family, friend, and clients. As the bakeshop gains reputation for having baked goods served with friendly service , it may develop another franchise in some parts of the city. Sheila’s Cake Decorating and Bakeshop is a sole proprietorship type of business. The owner has extensively trained in baking at international baking schools under the tutelage of renowned bake decorating professionals. More importantly, The owner is also an MBA graduate from Wharton University specializing in Finance. The owner has substantial personal savings invested in this business; however, a loan from one of the private banks will boost the capital formation in terms of baking equipments that needs to be purchased. The main goal of Sheila’s Cake Decorating and Bakeshop is to supply the demands of the population for baked products as well as give the most artistic cake decoration that is reasonably priced. Nevertheless,

Structure and Culture in Human Resource Management Essay

Structure and Culture in Human Resource Management - Essay Example 251 - 278). Culture is a set of basic shared assumptions that the group learns and taught to new members as the responses to problems (Schein, 2006). Cultures differ with structures. To achieve the maximum HR performance, ogranisation structure should be chosen based on the environment in which the organisation operates (Bartol and Martin, 1998, p. 251 - 278), its strategy (Bartol and Martin, 1998, p. 251 - 278), the size of the organisation (Bartol and Martin, 1998, p. 251 - 278), technology (Woodward, 1965, p. 76 - 77), and the type of exceptions that occur during production (Perrow, 1967, p. 194 - 208). If the environment in which the organisation operates is uncertain, it should adopt an organic structure for quicker response. Also, structure must match strategy to achieve HR performance. For example, a functional structure should be adopted if the organisation sells a large volume of a single product in the same region; a product structure should be adopted if the organisation sells several dissimilar products; and a customer structure should be adopted if the organisation deals with different sets of customers each of whom is very large and important. More over, as the size of an organisation increases, there are more departments, more levels of hierarchy, and more staff positions. After a point, formalisation and decentralisation come in. Furthermore, organisation structure should match production technology. The three types

Folic acid and b12 Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

Folic acid and b12 - Assignment Example It is also significant in the synthesis of certain pyrimidines and purines which are important elements of the DNA (Wilton & Foureur 256). Determining the level of folic acid in the serum of individuals can help determine ones choice of folate supplement that may be recommended for them to help improve their nutrition status and improve their medical condition (De Wals et al 34). If the level of folic acid is very low, the individuals may have a weak immune system because of the low levels of white blood cells in blood. This may also imply that the individual with lower levels of folic acid have poor nutritional statuses especially in the case of alcoholics. In this case therefore, it may be significant to increase the level of folic acid of the individuals so as to improve their medical situation. The type of folate to be used in this process will be based on the needs of the individuals, for instance if the white blood cells is very low, the individual may be required to be given folic acid rich in vitamin

Do I look like Public Enemy Number One(can change) Essay

Do I look like Public Enemy Number One(can change) - Essay Example Is it really true that religious identity of a person itself can be their enemy? It is a known fact that terrorism has aroused much anger and rage among U.S public regarding the evil objective of Arab Muslims. As per (Danios) â€Å"If one follows the cable news networks, it seems as if all terrorists are Muslims. It has even become axiomatic in some circles to chant: â€Å"Not all Muslims are terrorists, but nearly all terrorists are Muslims†. But targeting innocent lives like the author Ali is not agreeable. The author here is questioning her character and responsibility as an American and is enquiring to the world as to whether be she a culprit to America for just being an Arab and Muslim. The author here is confessing about the helplessness she experience towards her religion and ethnic background and the biased outlook of Americans which changed her respect for herself. The author in dilemma does not understand what to expect from self and the public. The religion does mold a person but it cannot alter the nature of one’s soul and heart. Ali is half Muslim but does that make her terrorist? Terrorism is a sect who is fanatics and radicals and they are cultured with a religious and political motive. Every Muslim like Ali cannot be tagged as a terrorist and savaged throughout life as it is ignorance, humiliation and prejudism.Human values are conditioned and Ali is a woman who has American values as she grew up in a liberal atmosphere. Public needs to be more vigilant while considering the personal values and ethics before criticizing or suppressing a person based on ethnicity and religion. The article is all about the mentality and attitude of Americans who are racist and prejudiced and who is living in fear of terrorism. The article reflects the life of innocent Muslim population who has to undergo the traumatic reaction of atrocities of terrorist, who are selfish and negligent. According to

Business strategy in Chinese restaurant Assignment

Business strategy in Chinese restaurant - Assignment Example Several other outlets of Hai Di Lao Hot Pot were also started and the business operations were carried through this chain of restaurants. The restaurant reached a stable growth rate over time and this enabled it to open multiple outlets and marketing stores in Nanjing, Tianjin, Shanghai, Beijing and other locations of China. The company employs about 15,500 employees (Hai Di Lao hot pot, 2014). Political: The business operation of the restaurant, Hai Di Lao Hot Pot is subject to some political constraints. In emerging nations like China, the government often impose several extensive policies for maintaining a stable and competitive market. Sometimes due to political wars and corruption in bureaucracies, the expansion plans of the company get hampered. The restaurant also has to abide by foreign tax policies in order to expand its business globally (Griffiths and Tenenbaum, 2004). Economical: The distribution centre, warehouse and factories of the restaurant mainly operate in the Chinese market and thus, it does not have to worry about risks associated with the exchange rate. Economic productivity of China, as measured by the Gross Domestic Product (GDP), is quite stable which implies that there is an increase in the per capita income level of the population. Consumers have high demand and increased purchasing power which enables them to avail speciality dining in restaurants like Hai Di Lao Hot Pot. Social: Globalization has helped businesses to conduct integrated operations that would help improve standard of living. Hai Di Lao Hot pot offers its customers with traditional dinning habit with a blend of modern styles. The restaurant values the social and cultural aspects that are associated with Chinese food. This ensures that the restaurant maintains a stable growth (Chow, Lau, Lo, Sha and Yun, 2007). Technological: Food making techniques are essentially subject to innovations. Several innovations in cooking techniques are practised by the

Mrketing Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Mrketing - Essay Example My concept of mrketing is close to the definition by CIM tht looks not only t identifying customer needs, but lso stisfying them (short-term) nd nticipting them in the future (long-term retention). In its most generic form, I define mrketing s mrketing seen s reltionships, networks nd interction or mrketing bsed on interction within network of reltionships. In the brodest sense of mrketing, ll mngement, the whole society, nd even life itself, form networks of reltionships within which we interct in our roles of business executives, employees, consumers, citizens nd humn beings. Collbortion. The core contribution from mrketing is its emphsis on collbortion. In nrrow sense it comprises the collbortion between customer nd supplier. This hs lwys been prcticl necessity for services nd for the development, production, mrketing nd purchsing of complex products in business mrketing. Its prctice, however, is often unprofessionl nd guided by legl-bureucrtic vlues nd lck of empthy. Its introduction in theory nd eduction is long overdue. Tody, severl sources independent of reltionship mrketing stress collbortion. Collbortion is the very reson for forming n orgniztion; you collborte inside nd compete outside. In totl reltionship mrketing you both collborte nd compete, inside s well s outside the orgniztion. Long reltionships. Long reltionships. series of studies clim tht the longer the reltionship with customer, the higher the profit will be. This is primrily due to two effects of customer loylty: reduced mrketing costs when fewer customers defect; nd incresed 'customer shre' or 'shre of wllet' ( higher shre of the customer's purchse of product or service goes to single supplier). Long reltionships re lso needed inside the orgniztion. Win-win. Effective collbortion in long-term reltionship cn only tke plce if the prties feel like winners, or t lest tht they gin from the reltionship nd tht it is their best option under current circumstnces. It requires ech prty to think of the other prty s prtner rther thn s n

Starbucks Negative Points Essay Example for Free

Starbucks Negative Points Essay Starbucks is Hypocritical about community service. Although they supposedly pride themselves on being involved with projects that help improve the community, recycling and making a difference in the world , In actual this is not the case . The Plastic cups which they use are not recyclable, and even if they were, many Starbucks stores do not have recycling bins. Starbucks bought 2. 5 billion cups for stores in North America in 2007. The 10% recycled paper cups used by Starbucks are not recyclable, because the plastic coating that prevents the cup from leaking also prevents it from being recycled. The plastic cups used for cold drinks are also non-recyclable in most regions. Starbucks cups were originally made using plastic #1 (polyethylene terephthalate, PETE) but were changed to plastic #5 (polypropylene, PP). The former type of plastic can be recycled in most regions of the U. S, whereas the latter cannot. Starbucks is considering using biodegradable material instead of plastic to line the cups, and is testing composting of the existing cups. It does not track recycling at licensed locations in airports, grocery stores and elsewhere. Environmentalists are not happy with Starbucks environmental record. They are concerned about everything from new plastic stoppers for coffee lids to Starbucks bottled water brand, Ethos. The Starbucks does not use recycled plastic in Ethos bottles, but the product is manufactured by PepsiCo, which uses recycled plastic in its own bottles. Off Late Starbucks gives customers a 10-cent discount when they bring their own reusable cup, and it now uses corrugated cup sleeves made from 60 percent post-consumer recycled fiber. But the same is still not propagated in all the regions Also there are various complaints from the customers about the rude behavior of Starbucks Staff and poor customer service from the Staff. Although this may vary from region to region and store to store the baseline is being such a big name in the Industry Starbucks needs to concentrate more on Staff training on Hospitality and customer handling

Concept Of Role And Role Episode Model

Concept Of Role And Role Episode Model Role stress is highly inevitable in nature and has become problem at workplace for employers and organization. The main purpose of this paper to study the concept of role, role stress, their biosocial variables as well as role episode model. . Number of studies found that there is difference in the impact of role stress across occupations..This paper also deals management of role stress with the help of mentoring and role episode model. Role episode model is a classical model used to measure role stress. Key words: Role episode model, Role conflict, role ambiguity and role overload, bio-social variables, job stress, job satisfaction, job performance. Introduction : The concept of stress was first proposed by Hans Selye (1936). Selyes well-known definition of stress, based on his research, is the nonspecific response of the body to any demand made upon it (Selye, 1974).Stress is broader in term and to define stress is very difficult. Due to its complex nature most of the researchers cannot agree on a single definition ( Kahn Boysiere ,1992). Stress can be a motivator and get the job done .Some stress researchers ( e.g Golembiewski, Munzernrider and Stewenson ,1986;Sharahan and Mortimer ,1996),distinguish between negative stress ,termed distress and positive stress, termed eustress. This good stress or eustress can be defined as is actually a positive and healthy form of stress and some people enjoy it .Eustress activates and motivates people to accomplish goal. The Distress is when the good stress becomes too much to bear or cope with. It is important to note that there are three levels of stress -low level, moderate or optimal level and high l evel. Moderate or Optimal level of stress may acts as a motivator. On the basis of literature survey it is clearly understood that too much stress is toxic to employees and too little stress can also lead unexpected problem.e.g too little stress can result in boredom apathy and can be accompanied by low performance and too much stress can cause depression, dissatisfaction, anxiety, tension and low performance. An optimal level of stress results in high energy, motivation and high performanceThe cause of stress is known as stressors stressors are conditions and events that evoke strain (Kahn Byosiere, 1992). According to Cooper Marshall (1978) sources of managerial stress can be categorized into six components -intrinsic to job , role in organization , career development ,organizational structure and climate, relationship within organization and organizational interface and outside .Matteson Ivancevic (1999) and Cook Hunsaker (2001) identified that stress can be caused by envir onmental, organizational, and individual variables. Role stressors belong to organizational variables. Role stressors are major antecedents of job stress among employees in organization .According to Ivancevich Matteson (1980) and French Caplan Harrison (1982) ,role ambiguity and role conflict have been identified as a major source of stress and job tension. Work overload both quantitatively and qualitatively has been empirically linked to a variety of physiological ,psychological and behaviour strain symptoms(Beehr Newman, 1978; Roberts et al., 1997; Miller Ellis, 1990).It was found that role stress variables are associated with job dissatisfaction, lower performance ,increased stress , lower commitment and intention to leave the organization .According to various researchers ( Fisher and Gitelson, 1983; Jackson and Schuler, 1985;Van Sell et al., 1981; Lee, 1997; Jones, 1993),role stress is responsibile for individual as well as organizational outcomes ,such as job tension ,job dissatisfaction , employee turnover and employee burnout and low organizational commitment and performan ce (Johnston et al., 1990; Jackson and Schuler, 1985). Concept of Role Role episode model The term role can be defined as a expected mode of behaviour. There are three types of roles (I) the expected role, (ii) the perceived role and (iii) the actual role. The expected role is what other people expect from an individual. The perceived role is how the individual thinks he or she should behave to fulfil the expected role and the actual role is the way the person actually behaves in the organization. Linton (1936) defined role from culture perspective . Role episode model is known as interactional management tool between Role Set Members Role Incumbent given by Katz and Kahn ( 1978) . In order to examine and integrate the research on role conflict and ambiguity, Khan et al. role episode model is very useful. The model depicts transactional relationship between role senders and focal person. Focal person or role incumbent occupies a particular position (social location) within organization. Individuals who send role expectation to the focal person regarding his or her activities in the role compromise role set ( Merton 1957) .They are called role senders or Role Set Members. When Role Set Members communicated their expectations are called sent role carries role pressure .The set of expectations a role incumbent or focal person receive from Role Set Members is the received role. The role episode model consists of a cyclic series of communications between Role Set Member and the Role Incumbent. This process continues until the role ep isode finishes, creates shared expectations or postpone negotiations. Fig 1 suggests that there are organizational, personal, and interpersonal factors which affect the role episode model. The organizational factors consist structure, level in the organization, role requirements, task characteristics, physical setting, and organizational practices. The personal factors (which can be applied to both the role senders and focal person) refer to such variables age, sex, and tenure in the organization. The interpersonal factors in the relationship between role senders and focal person include frequency of their interactions, mode of communication, importance of senders to focal person, physical location, visibility, feedback and participation. The role senders can be the focal persons supervisors, clients, co-workers, or subordinates. Role sender focal person relationship have generally been investigated by gathering perceptual data on role conflict and ambiguity from the objective responses. Affective responses include job satisfaction, job involvement, tension, threat, anxiety, and propensity to leave the organization. Interpersonal Process Focal Person Experience Response Role Sender Expectations Sent Role Inter Interpersonal Factors Personal Factors Organizational Factors Structure Status Mode of Communication Level Needs Frequency of Interaction Role requirements Values Importance of sender Task Education Mode of Interaction Physical Setting Ability Physical location Practices Age Visibility Sex Feedback Tenure Participation [Source Van Sell et al (1981)] Fig:1 Literature Review Role stress/Role stressors and Bio-social Variables: Role stressors can be defined as anything about an organizational role that produces adverse consequences for the individual ( Kahn and Quinn,1970). Role related stress are concerned with how individuals perceive the expectations others have of them and includes role ambiguity and role conflict ( Alexandros -Stamatios et. al.,2003) .According to Schafer (1998) role stressors are associated with social roles, which are social positions with clustered expectations .Role problems that may cause occupational stress include role overload, role insufficiency, role ambiguity and role conflict (Greenberg, 2009).S ( Kahn,1980; Scbauberock ,Cotton and Jenning,1989;Kellaway and Barling,1990) role stressors are made-up of three variables but related constructs :role conflict ,role ambiguity role overload.The major role stress variables are -role conflict, role ambiguity and role overload/work overload . Role conflict Role conflict takes place when individuals simultaneously perform multiple roles and they conflict each other. Drafte (1998) defined role conflict job roles that interfere with on another and Schafer (1998) defined incompatible expectations associated with a social position, such as student, employee, or mother. Kahn et al (1964) have defined role conflict existence of two or more roles such that to manage with one would make difficult to manage with other.Kahn et al. identify five major forms of roleconflict: 1. Intra-sender conflict:- 2. Inter-sender conflict:- 3. Inter-role conflict:-4.Person-role conflict:- 5. Role-overload: -conflicting prescriptions/proscriptions from the same sender.conflicting prescriptions/proscriptions from different senders.conflict between roles in situations where an individual holdsmore than one role.where an individuals role requirements are incompatible withhis/her own beliefs, values, and norms.reasonable expectations may have been received from rolesenders, but he/she may not have enough time to address them all. Role ambiguity occurs when an individual does not .possess requisite information to enable effectiveexecution of his/her role. The type of infmmation normally required by the role incumbent includes[Kahn et al., 1964]: 1. relevant expectations relating to the role such as rights, duties, and responsibilities; They identified five major forms of role i) Intrasender Conflict -This type of conflict occurs when a Role Set Member requires the Focal person to perform contradictory .For example a Role Sender may request the Role incumbent to perform task and task cannot be completed without disturbing rules. But Role Sender attempts to enforce the rule. ii)Intersender Conflict -The Focal person experiences this type of conflict , if the role behaviour demanded by one Role Set Members incompatible with the role behaviour demanded by another Role Set Members. iii) Interrole Conflict -This type of conflict occurs when the Focal person receives two or more role at a time which are incongruence in nature. iv) Intrarole conflict ( Person-Role) Conflict Intrarole conflict occurs when the role requirements are incongruent with the focal persons attitudes , values and profession behaviour. v) Role Overload Role overload occurs when the Focal person is required to number of tasks by different Role Set Members . Gender Women experienced more role conflict than men ( Frone et al. (1992); Gutek et al. 1991 and Duxbury et al. (1994).Working women face more inter-role conflict role overload as compare to men /or non-working women ( Kapur,1974).Cooper and Davidson ( 1982) reported that the female executives have more role conflict and role overload because of dual responsibilities. According to Sangamitra, Buddhapriya and Preetham Khandewal (1995),female executives face conflict between job demands and family obligations than the male mangers. Age There is contradictory findings were obtained between age and role conflict .Most of the studies support negative relationship between age role conflict (Peltit,1973: Simpson, 1979:Schwab,1981 Parasuraman Alutto, 1984) and some studies which prove the opposite (Redfeck,1973; and Flora 1977, Madhu Harigopal, 1980 Marital status (Married / Unmarried) It was found that married person experience more role conflict than unmarried person Married working women have to perform dual role and child bearing could be one reason. Number of Children- According to Itshree Padhi,1999 working mothers with more number of children experience high -level of conflict than those who have fewer children.Kala Rani (1976) also found a similar correlation pattern in her study. On the basis of above literature review of role conflict conceptual framework can be designed Role Ambiguity Role ambiguity arises when focal persons do not have clear authority or knowledge about how to perform the assigned jobs (Rizzo, House Lirtzman, 1970; Ivancevich Matteson, 1980; Ashforth Lee, 1990;Kahn et al ,1964) .Individuals having unclear plans and objective ,lack of clarity of ones duty and uncertainty about the amount of authority to perform assignment ( Rizzo et al ,1970) . Role ambiguity occurs when employees perceive a lack of clarity in the behavioural requirements of their job (Kahn et al., 1964; Rizzo et al., 1970). The focal person is likely to experience two types of role ambiguity. One, concerning the task and the related adivities; the other concerning the feedback regarding his performance of the task.RoleFor e.g in case of academics, lack of regular feedback about how well academics were doing was the highest source of stress ( Dua;1994 Sharpley et al.1996). Feedback is important to enable the academics to evaluate their performance on the job and how they are p rogressing in their effort toward task accomplishment. Since positive feedback may serve as higher performance and less stress, academics who do not receive regular feedback may experience considerable uncertainty about their role performance (Bandura Locke, 2003). Higher ambiguity may also arise due to lack of clarity regarding how to prioritize different academic activities of teaching, research and professional services that are necessary for the successful accomplishment of academic role. Regular feedback from a supervisor may acerbate role ambiguity, which in turn reduces stress. Bio-social Variables that are associated with role ambiguity. a) Gender- b) Age- Peltit (1973) reported a negative relationship between role conflict and role ambiguity and age. Similar findings were obtained in an educational setting (Elsenhauer, 1977; Simpson, 1979; Schwab, 1981) but this was not supported by Redfck (1973) and Flora (1977) who conducted studies in a similar background.Pandia (1991) reported that there is no relation between role ambiguity and age.Increasing age was associated with ambiguity ,according to Sreelatha ( 1991) finds a positive relationship between age and job ambiguity .But contradictory findings was obtained by Peltit (1971),he found negative relationship between age and job ambiguity.Increasing age was associated with role ambiguity ,Sreelatha ( 1991) finds a positive relationship between age and job ambiguity . Studies reported that role ambiguity is maximum at lower age group. It has been established that females experience more role ambiguity at lower age group because of the adjustments they have to make at the beginni ng of their married life and the presence of infants in the house etc. c) Length of service / Tenure -According to Madhu ( 1982) Nath ( 1980) there is negative relationship between length of service role ambiguity . Malhan, Agarwal Krishna (1983) reported that managers with relatively less number of years of service might experience role ambiguity detrimental to their performance. There found to be a negative correlation existing between role ambiguity and length of service. Pandia (1991) reported that there is no relation between role ambiguity and age. Role Overload /Work Overload Work overload also known as role overload role overload is a complex form of role conflict. According to Kahn et al ( 1964) role overload is a kind of person-role conflict and it is combining aspects of intersender and person-role conflicts .It occurs simply when employees have more task than he or she can handle. Role overload occurs when role expectations are higher than the focal persons capabilities ( terms taken from Kahn et al ,role episode model) .It can be either qualitative quantitative .Quantitative task can be defined as the person has too many tasks to perform or too little time to perform them and Qualitative occurs when person lacks ability to perform task . Workload stress can be defined as reluctance to come to work and a feeling of constant pressure (i.e. no effort is enough) accompanied by the general physiological, psychological, and behavioural stress symptoms (Division of Human Resource, 2000). a) Gender-Cooper and Davidson ( 1982) reported that the female executives have role conflict and role overload because of their dual roles in the family and the office. Mehta ,Chandwani Mehta were of the opinion women face more workload as compare to men. Coverman (1989)) found that the role overload scores of women were higher than men .But men have higher overall satisfaction than women .Role overload could be one of the major reason of womens psychological stress. Pleck (1985) has suggested that women complain of role overload not because of exhaustion or doing too much, rather her husband is doing too little. b) Age or Length of service span of control Researchers( Philip C Koshy ,1994 ,Gupta Pratap,1987 ;Pestonjee ,1992 ; Sen ,1981) explored that there is negative relation between work load and length of service ,age span of control . Managers who are younger and those having lesser tenure of service experience more role overload. But contradictions finding was obtained For example Johnson et al .(2005) conducted comparative studies of 26 occupations(2005) concluded that teaching is one of the most stressful occupations. The most stressful aspects of the job perceived by teachers include workload, time pressures and no guidance pertaining to various teacher roles (Hui Chan,1996). There was a national survey on occupational stress in Australian universities, research shows that employees at senior level face more workloads and more role-overload (Dua, 1994; Lease, 1999; Winter et al., 2000). Consequences of Role stress: Researchers had proved that role stress affects individual and organization both .Kahn et al , concluded from their study role incumbent experiences low job satisfaction ,lower confidence in organization ,high degree of tension intention to quit organization. Role ambiguity was found to be prevalent as role conflict and the consequences are similar. Netemeyer , Johnston and Burton (1990) , role conflict and role ambiguity may responsible to leave job indirectly through other factors such as job dissatisfaction and low organizational commitment. According to Division of Human Resource, (2000) Workload stress is responsible for physiological, psychological, and behavioural stress symptoms. A number of studies by various researchers ( Behrman Perrault ,1984;Brief and Aldag ,1976;Fisher Gitelson ,1983;House Rizzo ,1972) Relationship between Role stress Job Stress A number of studies proved that role stress are positively associated with anxiety, tension ,low performance and job dissatisfaction. RHL ( Rizzo ,House and Lirtzman ,1970) identified that role ambiguity responsible for job dissatisfaction , anxiety , tension and poor performance. Rosenheim (1976) found that anxiety is directly related to role conflict, role ambiguity and role overload. A number of studies by various researchers ( Behrman Perrault ,1984; Brief and Aldag ,1976; Fisher Gitelson ,1983;House Rizzo 1972;Jackson Schuler ,1985;Johnson Stinson ,1975;Miles,1975;Miles and Perrault 1976; Rizzo at al ,1976;Sohi ,1996) found that role conflict is associated with low job involvement organizational commitment , tension , anxiety intention to leave organization.According to Caplan Jones (1975) role ambiguity was positively associated with anxiety, depression, and resentment. Keenan and McBain (1979) found positive relationship between tension and role overload Similarly, mos t studies report a positive relationship between role ambiguity and tension or anxiety. But two studies report no relationship (Tosi, 1971: Tosi Tosi,1970). Relationship between Role stress Job Satisfaction According to Miles ( 1974 ) that role stress ( role sonflict role ambiguity ) were related to job dissatisfaction . Rosenheim (1976),Organ Greene (1974), Bemardin (1981), Coldwell (1981), Keenan (1981) and Madhu (1982) found same thing .Jackson and Schuler, 1985; Brown and Peterson, 1993; Tubre and Collins, 2000; and Ortqvist and Wincent, 2006 ,they revealed that both role conflict and ambiguity have negative influences on job satisfaction. It has been found that the higher the role conflict, the lower the job satisfaction.( Srilatha ;1991,Keller ;1975,Krant ;1966,Senatra ;1977,Carter ;1878,Singh ;1983, Coldwell ;1984.Jagdish and Srivastava; 1984. Libby, 1978; Simpson, 1979; Price, 1971; Flora, 1977; Wilson,1980; Miller 1979; Riggling, 1979; Yarworth, 1979; Monnelt, 1980; Ahrens, 1977) . But according to Hamner and Tosi (1974) reported no relationship between role conflict and job satisfaction in a study among a sample of managers. Christopher Orpen John Bernath (1987) report that correlation between role conflict and job satisfaction is not significant. Miles (1974) ,Roseenheim( 1976) ,Organ Greene ( 1974),Bemardin ( 1981) .Coldwell ( 1981) , Keenan ( 1981) and Madhu ( 1982) concluded that both role conflict and role ambiguity were negatively related with Job satisfaction Batesman (1981) in his study, reported that role overload resulted in poor job satisfaction. Note-On the basis of various literature reviews I came to know that relationship between role conflict role ambiguity with job satisfaction varies among a variety of occupation. Occupation Job satisfaction. The major outcomes of role conflict are job dissatisfaction and job related tension, which have been isolated among a variety of occupational groups (Beehr, Walsh Taber, 1976; Brief Aldag, 1976; Brief, Aldag, Van Sell Melone,1979; Gross et al., 1958; House Rizzo, 1972;: Miles, 1976; Oliver Brief, 1977-78). According to Hamner and Tosi (1974) reported no relationship between role conflict and job satisfaction in a study among a sample of managers.They reported a positive correlation between role conflict and job threat among a sample of managers.Tosi and Tosi (1970) found a negative relationship between role conflict and job related threat and anxiety. Keller (1975) observed negative relationship between role conflict and job satisfaction among research and development professionals but no such negative. The observation suggests the effects of role conflict vary with various occupations. There are number of studies shown a difference in the impact of role ambiguity across occupations. According to Beehr et al. 1976; Caplan et al. 1975; Greene 1972; Hamner Tosi, 1974; Johnson Stinson 1975; Paul 1974;: Rizzo et al. 1970 role ambiguity to be associated with job dissatisfaction, studies among nurses aides (Brief Aldag, 1976) managers (Tosi, 1971) teachers (Tosi Tosi, 1970) and supervisors and operating employees (Ivancevich Dobbelly, 1974) found no relationship. Relationship between Role stress Job Performance Shrtom , Fried and Cooper (2008) reported that the negative relation between job performance and role overload was higher for managers and non-managers.According to Kahn Boysiera 1992;Mc Grath ,1976 Sahi ,1996 ,there is deleterious effects of role conflict and role ambiguity on Job performance . On the basis of above literature review conceptual framework can be designed : Major Consequences Job Stress Job dissatisfaction Job Performance Role conflict + Role ambiguity + Role overload Fig:2 On the basis of above literature review of role conflict conceptual framework can be designed Management of Role stress in Organization Mentoring -Mentoring can be one effective tool to manage role stress at workplace .According to Hunt Michael, (1983) mentors are highly experienced person in organization who is interested in guiding and promoting individuals career and also members of that Role Set. In addition mentors can provide role clarifying information to focal person and alternatives for dealing with role demands including role expectation that may create conflict. According to Griffin ( 1992) suggest that role ambiguity occurs because a person is not clear about her or his role. Role ambiguity occurs when there is non-existent of information or there is no proper communication between Role Set Members and Role incumbent .Mentors can provide information that can clarify role expectation. Sawyer, 1992 found that quality feedback from Role Set Members or supervisors and co-workers is responsible to minimize role ambiguity. According to Major, Kozilowski ,Chao Gardner (1995 ) ,intentions to leave organization can be minimized by high quality exchange between leaders and sub-ordinates. Role sender / Role Set Members / Mentors Clear Role expectations Quality feedback Focal Person /Role Incumbent Experienced less Role conflict / Role ambiguity Feedback loop Note- Adapted from Role Episode Model , Mentors can be treated as a Role Set Members . Fig :3 Role Episode Model classical tools to minimize level of role conflict and role ambiguity Role Episode Model ( Kahn et al ,1964) ,which is most suitable model to explain variables related to role conflict and role ambiguity and is widely used by researchers to study role stress variables among workers (Schuler, 1975; Fisher Gitelson ;1973) According to Doughtery and Pitchard ,1985 ,the role conflict and role ambiguity measurement captured somewhat global perception of role stress and can be used with any job. Role conflict occurs in organization with the conflicting demands from There are various factors related to role stress such as organizational factors, interpersonal factors and attributes of person ( Role Set Member Focal Person both) . For Examples:Faridah Ibrahim ( Predictors of Role Stress Among Malaysian Journalist in Newsroom Decision Making Process ,Journal Komunikasi 2001 )conducted research on journalist to identify the predictor variables involved in role stress( Role conflict Role ambiguity) and he adopted Role Episode model which consists of organizatio nal variables , interpersonal variables personal variables. According to Kahn et al ( 1964) role stress occurs as enacted by role behaviours could be associated with these factors. Researcher taken 12 independent variables ( organizational variables are participation in task decision ,participation in decision making ,leadership behaviour supportive ,task characteristics ,leadership structure deadline pressure .Interpersonal variables are communication relationship and Interpersonal relationship .Personal variables are age ,years in formal education ,salary years of working) for investigation and out of the 12 variables four variables ( working experience beta =-.29;deadline pressure ,beta=-.25 ,task characteristics beta=-.20 and participation in task decision, beta=.13) were found to be good predictors of role conflict and for role ambiguity ,out of the 12 variables four variables ( interpersonal relationship ,Beta= -.39;;participation in decision making ,Beta = -.17, task chara cteristics ,beta= -.17 and years of experience ,beta = -.11) were found to be good predictors. it can be said that working experience is the strongest predictor for role conflict . Conclusion : There are independent biosocial variables are responsible in contributing stress in role stressors.in role ambiguity. .Biosocial variables are independent variables which interact with role stressors to produce negative consequences such as job stress, job dissatisfaction and low performance .Researchers found that there is positive relationship between role stressors and job stress, job dissatisfaction and role performance. Contradictory findings were obtained by some researchers in relationship between role stress and job dissatisfaction. It was found that difference in the impact of role ambiguity and role conflict across various occupations. Studies found that role ambiguity to be associated with job dissatisfaction, but studies among nurses aides, managers, teachers and supervisors and operating employees found no such relationship. Number of researchers explored that there is negative relationship between role conflict and job satisfaction but in case of research and developmen t professionals but no such negative relationship had been found.Role stress can be managed by mentoring as well as role episode model .Role Episode model is one the classical tool to identify significant predictors associated with role stress and predictors can be analysed to minimize role stress. In mentoring role sender can play role of mentor ,who can communicate clear role expectations as well as expectations that match the focal persons expectation . In addition quality feedback from role sender to the focal person can monimize the effects of role stress on individual as well as organization. Intrapersonal conflict involves diagnosis of and intervention in ,conflict . Diagnosis Intrapersonal conflict can be diagnosed by self report ,observation and interview method .Rizzo et al designed questionnaire to measure role conflict and role ambiguity and is frequentely used in organization studies. Conclusion: Role conflict , role ambiguity and role overload are associated with biosocial variables such as age , gender , years of experience , marital status and number of children .Biosocial variables are independent variables which interact with role stressors to produce http://htmlimg1.scribdassets.com/4lk2zrg8e8y8jki/images/27-9e40fbd968.jpg

FDR: The New Deal Essay -- America and the Great Depression

Outline Thesis: The various programs created by FDR’s New Deal helped bring the United States out of The Great Depression. Paper Outline Intro Who was FDR Why was he popular His views Thesis II.) The U.S. emerges from a depression About the depression Who was affected What the nation needed at the time FDR’s help during New Deal Who helped him Why they did it It’s effects on the nation Restoring Banks Why people lost faith in the banks What FDR did to increase faith the FDIC More Americans get jobs CWA FERA CCC Business relief How business was affected by depression NIRA NRA SEC Help for Farming Depression hurts agriculture AAA Improving Americans lives Poor conditions of depression TVA Conclusion Overview of programs overall effectiveness alphabet soup   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  The day finally came when the United States, emerging to become a world power, began to crumble. Called Black Thursday, October 24, 1929 would be the start of The Great Depression, and the first test of the Communist influences that were present around the world (Schraff 17). Then in 1933, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, FDR, was elected to the Presidency with hopes of uplifting Americans from the severe economic decline it was going through (Schlesinger 106). Roosevelt was prepared with a plan to battle depression with a set of new programs. His first â€Å"Hundred Days† helped pass new legislation to aid farmers, industrialists and workers (Watkins 123-160). â€Å"His technique was, as he said, ‘bold, persistent experimentation†¦Take a method and try it. If it fails, admit it frankly and try another. But above all, try something’† (Schlesinger 106). Roosevelt experimented with many new programs to help different groups, and Americans o n the whole. The various programs created by FDR’s New Deal helped bring the United States out of the Great Depression.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Numerous factors caused the Great Depression in the United States from 1929 to 1945. One of these was stock market speculation. People began to buy stocks with money loaned from banks, and used these stocks as collateral to buy more stock. The stock market began to increase rapidly on false hopefulness and borrowed money. Due to this, the stock market was uneasy and many began to lose confidence in it. Those with stocks tried to sell them, and no one was willing to buy. This ultimately led to the downfall of the ... ... and provided relief for those who can not support themselves. Overall, FDR’s New Deal helped create programs that ended the Great Depression. Although some argue that WWII ended the depression, FDR’s programs were the main support and foundation for the increase in production of war goods. Therefore, the various programs created by FDR’s New Deal helped bring the United States out of The Great Depression. Works Cited Boardman, Fon W. The Thirties: America and the Great Depression. New York, Henry Z. Walck, Inc., 1967. Church, George J. â€Å"Taking Care of Our Own.† Time. 9 Mar. 1998: 106-108. Gupta, Pranav and Jonathan Lee. The Great Depression and The New Deal. 7 Mar 1996. 20 May 2000 . Library Projects Under Public Works, Civil Works, and Relief Administrations. 1 Dec 1933. 23 May 2000 . Schlesinger, Arthur Jr. â€Å"Franklin Delano Roosevelt.† Time. 13 Apr. 1998: 98-100. Schraff, Anne E. The Great Depression and The New Deal. New York: Franklin Watts, 1990. Watkins, T.H. The Great Depression: America in the 1930’s. Boston: Blackside, Inc., 1993.

The Bright Side of Regret Essay -- Literary Analysis

â€Å"There is no person so severely punished, as those who subject themselves to the whip of their own remorse,† wisely summates Lucius Annaeus Seneca 1st century Roman philosopher (qtd. in ThinkExist.com Quotations). Effectively illustrating this idea as a concise confessional, the short story, â€Å"I Stand Here Ironing,† is written in an autobiographical style by Tillie Olsen, contrasting the festering damage that unresolved internal remorse creates with the reassuring serenity that unconditional acceptance generates. Regretfully, this stark reality often becomes the harrowing plight of the nescient parent. That having been said, taking a closer look into Olsen’s story will undeniably prove that a conflicting introspective battle between regret and contentment can only be resolved through the emancipation of unconditional acceptance. When experiencing regret, a person has the tendency to repeatedly replay the details of whatever caused that emotion. However, recounting past events is only the first step in the healing process, but it is not the end solution. This is abundantly evident in Olsen’s story which begins with the narrator’s rapid emotional descent into regret. This happens when, as she has probably done a thousand times before, an unnamed third party questions the mother about her eldest daughter, Emily, asking how they can â€Å"help† and â€Å"understand her† better (Olsen 607), for surely she would know. Unfortunately, the answer to this request sends the mother helplessly down memory lane into regret valley. With Olsen’s strong symbolism, the reader becomes more keenly aware of the inner â€Å"torment† she feels while reminiscing about her callow method of raising Emily. Consequently, as the mother â€Å"moves†¦ back and forth† emotionally, ... ...ot have to automatically mean something negative. Therefore, though deep emotions are involved in the healing process, we now know love and acceptance, not guilt and sadness releases us from wasting precious energy on negative thinking and opens up a completely new opportunity, being able to enjoy the bright side of regret. Works Cited Page Kathryn Schulz. â€Å"Don't Regret Regret.† 2011. Video. TED Conferences, LLC, New York. Web. 24 Apr 2012. http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/en/kathryn_schulz_don_t_regret_regret.html Olsen, Tillie. â€Å"I Stand Here Ironing.† Literature: An Introduction to Fiction, Poetry, Drama, and Writing. Ed. Kennedy, X.J., and Dana Gioia. 11th ed. New York: Longman, 2011. 607- 612. Print. ThinkExist.com Quotations. â€Å"Seneca quotes.† ThinkExist.com Quotations Online. 1 Mar. 2012. Web 23 Apr. 2012. http://en.thinkexist.com/quotes/seneca/

Top 10 Commercial :: GCSE Business Marketing Coursework

Top 10 Commercials Introduction We are said to spend two years of our lifetime watching commercials on television. If we spend that much time on watching something, that something better be very good and worthwhile. The video Top 10 Commercials ranks ten America’s favorite commercials of all time based on the commercial’s creativity, originality, inventiveness and style. Commercial clips are one genre of art form with a very different objective from any other art—to sell goods. These commercials are very successful achieving their AIDA, and they do so in various forms; the commercial clips amused me very much, and they just did what they are supposed to on me. Video Contents— Categorizing the ranked commercials It was a very interesting learning experience to see how different commercials have different ways of achieving the same goal of â€Å"selling†Ã¢â‚¬â€some of them spot their target market and focused only on the TM, where others may want to be â€Å"catchy† to any potential viewers or to be a pure attention grabber. Commercials Focused on Their TM Bartles and Jaymes Wine Cooler commercial and Life Cereal commercial can be categorized in this type. Mr. Bartles speaks in Southern accent in a very calm tone and tells us how their wine cooler can be so soothing after working hard for a day with his non-speaking buddy Mr. Jaymes. This commercial intentionally picked these two Mid West guys to represent the product for its TM to relate to these men—very genuine, somebody just like themselves. Life Cereal had overlooked who its real target market was until the company realized that the children were the ones who eat the product. Again, Life Cereal also used characters the TM children would relate to in the commercial, and let them speak their â€Å"own language† just like Bartles and Jaymes spoke good old American Southern English—â€Å"Mikey likes it!† The Noxzema Shaving Cream can be also sorted into this category, as well as being a great attention-getter, because the woman is not â€Å"seducing† the wives or the girlfriends who have to buy shaving cream for their men, but the user themselves. She wanted men in America to â€Å"take it all off†, and the guys didn’t feel too bad about it either. â€Å"Catchy, Catchy, What a Cutie Speedy is!† Jingle, characters and animated icons and catch phrases make the commercials stick to consumers’ heads and they keep doing their jobs outside of their airtime.

Pollution: Waste and People

Cleaning up our town Our rivers and lakes are polluted. That’s because people throw litter everywhere they want, factories dump their industrial waste near lakes and rivers. If people pollute our ground, everything will go to groundwater and we can’t drink that, nor can we swim in our body of waters. We have to do something. Firstly we should organise a clean up campaign. We have to encourage people, that volunteering is good. If we get together many people, we can clean up rivers, lakes, and sides of the roads.When we are done with that, we have to put put more rubbish bins. In that way less litter will occur in water. Secondly, we could fine factories that dump indusrtial waste into lakes and rivers. Factores won’t throw their wastes everywhere they want, but in places where that waste don’t harm nature. In that way water pollution will decrease and we can enjoy cleaner water. If local people and industry work together we all can clean up our lakes and r ivers. After working together we can swim and use the water again.Parandatud: Our rivers and lakes are polluted. That’s  because people throw litter everywhere they want, factories dump their industrial waste near lakes and rivers. If people pollute our ground, everything will go to groundwater and we can’t drink that, nor can we swim in our  body  of waters. We have to do something. Firstly,  we should organise a clean up campaign. We have to encourage  people that  volunteering is good. If we get together many people, we can clean up rivers, lakes, and sides of the roads.When we  are done with  that, we  have  to  put put  more rubbish bins. In that way less litter will occur in water. Secondly, we could fine factories that dump  indusrtial  waste into lakes and rivers. Factores won’t throw their wastes everywhere they want, but in places where that waste  don’t  harm nature. In that way water pollution will decrease and we  can  enjoy cleaner water. If local people and industry work together,  we all  can  clean up our lakes and rivers. After working together,we  can  swim and use the water again.

Police Authority and Accountability in Australia

INTRODUCTION Police officers in Australia, as well as worldwide, have been consistently accused of abusing their authority over the years. Police officers are known to protect and serve and to be the law enforcers of the land, but due to the reality that some human beings are concerned about self-satisfaction and lawlessness, police authority can often times be misconceived as abusive and aggressive.The powers of the police are consistently being scrutinized by the media, the community and even politicians, not to mention that police are, and not just in Australia but worldwide, held as one of the most accountable in society (Robertson, 1998). In order to essentially resolve these issues, the focus of the research should be related to police officers and specific issues such as use of force, police discretion, delegation of authority and the attempts that were made to control officers behaviours’ in Australia.WHAT IS POLICE AUTHORITY? Firstly, authority can be defined as gener ally and basically, Persons having power or powers that other people will not naturally be allowed to have. Bringing this definition toward linking it to police authority, this is where the police officer has legal power of enforcing laws, and at all times should be given the respect, because they are the gate keepers of society, our â€Å"guardian angels† who will be watching over us twenty four seven.For example, we are to respect our parents; they care for us and provide for us our basic needs, I believe that police officers are somewhat the same because they provide us the citizens with safety and when there is a problem we can run to them at many times. Although police authority maybe a good thing, there are also the pit falls with it, in that, there is the abuse of police authority.Some officers due to â€Å"bad apples† meaning some officers are dirty cops, because of greed and selfishness, also some officers believe that they are above the law, because they enfo rce the law, but I believe in the â€Å"eye for an eye† theory: if you do the crime, you should do the time; no one is above the law. WHAT IS POLICE ACCOUNTABLILITY? Firstly accountability is It is a fundamental principle of a democratic society that the police should be held to account for their actions. Accountability includes both what the police do and how they perform.What an officer does or how they do what they do is extremely critical in the world of policing. The entire concept of police accountability revolves around these two criteria, which according to how efficient they are executed, may make or break an officer’s policing career. Agency-level accountability involves the performance of law enforcement agencies with respect to controlling crime and disorder and providing services to the public (National Institute of Justice, 1999). Individual-level accountability involves the conduct of police officers with respect to lawful, respectful, and equal treatmen t of citizens. walker, 2007). I honestly believes that police accountability should be very vital within policing. Officers should be held accountable for their actions like any other individual. POLICE AUTHORITY IN AUSTRALIA In Australia the authority and powers of the police services are clearly defined and understood by officers, these powers are being tested by the courts and even the police themselves, the police know the limit of their authority and powers, but at sometimes politicians, legal professions and even the community are reluctant to greatly alter those powers.Hence the reason why officers may have to use force, law enforcement officers are authorized to use force in specific circumstances, officers in Australia are trained as any other police officer worldwide, but the matter of the issue is how much force to use, this is referred to as police discretion. Authority and abuse needs to be differentiated, because they are not at all supposed to be equal to the same thi ng. Generally, the way in which the police may maintain social order successfully is mainly in alignment with the use of force exercised by the police officers.Many people, citizens of Australia and even the world, here the term use of force being used consistently, whether it may be via the media or directly from a police officer, but what does the term really mean? Use of force is simply and basically the amount of force that is required of a police officer to ensure that an unwilling offender complies with the law enforcer (National Institue of Justice, 2012). Where it is unnecessary to use brute force, a police officer ought to refrain from so doing. An officer can use force in ifferent ways, either verbally or physically; also it may be less lethal or lethal (National Institue of Justice, 2012). Even as it remains that the police officer in Australia has the right to use force where necessary, how then do we determine when he should use which method of force, and how to deal wi th an offender on the whole? Police discretion is used often times when it comes to more of the minor offences, such as alcohol use and urination, but one major encounter in Australia in which police discretion ought to be used is in relation to people suffering from mental illness.Police discretion though, can be influenced by either personal relationships, or race or status, which ought not to be so, but realistically is it. There was one scenario in which a police officer encountered a cafe proprietor who had a traffic violation. The officer in this scenario, decided not to give the driver a traffic offence notice due to the relationship that had developed from before.Although many other officers agreed with the officer’s decision to exercise gratitude toward the violator, this is not a welcoming and promising prospect for the future of law enforcement on the whole. Police discretion can be altered and affected by many other factors surrounding an offender in society. An u nwilling and unruly suspect has a higher risk of being arrested than one who cooperates with the officer. Also, the police records of an offender may also influence the decision of the police.Even with relation to juvenile, police discretion can be altered but not by the juvenile themselves. The parents or Guardians of the juvenile may weigh in heavily on the decision and discretion of the police officer. In the case where the parent or guardian may be uninvolved or uncooperative, the officers may be led to take a different approach to the handling of this situation (Holmgren, 2012). POLICE ACCOUNTABILITY IN AUSTRALIA The face of the matter remains, and one which makes complete logical sense, is that whatever a police officer does, he/she need to account for it.Police in Australia, however, have been given a sense of discretion and freedom to fulfil their roles in society without too much interventions of any judicial or supreme official (Lewis, 2012). Police are not to be seen as i ndependent and totally able to do as they will by members of society, which is not at all the case. Police usually have to consult the judiciaries in the commission of enquiry pertaining to accountability for their actions or allegations, but what prompted this move by the Government?Police in Australia in the past; have been accused for many different things, such as police corruption, inefficiency and brutality. These falls of the police officers are not overlooked by the judiciary, and even though police are the protectors of society, they are very liable to punishment and sanctions for their wrong if it is not properly accounted for (Lewis, 2012). Police accountability has over years become viewed as more of a problematic issue than that of an encouraging one.One of the major ongoing disturbances in Australia’s society is the case where civil litigation is constantly overlooked as a form as accountability (Ransley, 2007)what exactly is civil litigation? Well, civil litiga tion is where someone is accused of doing wrong, but not necessarily a crime, and it is formally submitted to a court (Honeyman, 1999-2010) In fact and very evident to the world today, there have been many cases in Australia, in which persons have been involved in disputes with police officers for doing wrong yes, but not crimes.The reality that the purpose of civil litigation is to settle and attain some form of compensation for being wrongfully accused or dealt with, makes civil litigation a very critical aspect that should more than likely be incorporated in the field of Police accountability mainly because it is a form of correction, just that it is from the civilian stand-point (Ransley, 2007).If in fact, the intent of the more recent police reform is directed toward the strengthening and to some extent upgrading of the individual and organisational accountability, then that makes civil litigation a very fundamental, effective and also it should be, a mandatory component in the effective completion of this goal. Attempts to control the behaviour of police officers are not only affected by civil litigation, but also by the measures in which police officers are dealt with for misconduct.Without the emphasis on the errors of police officers, the police force may adapt to the conditions which could lead to the abuse of their powers and authority. The lack of consistent correction of officers often times may lead to the diminishing of confidence in the community in the police service (Perez, 2008). Internationally, this have become the evident scenario in the present society, as the trust and corporation between Police officers and communities is rapidly becoming a thing of the past, and this have been ighly influenced by the lack of legitimate duty and procedures by police officials. Officers have confrontations of a sort among their own organisations because of the corrections that they may face having the issue to argue that to balance the leniency of misco nduct and the harshness of crimes is difficult to manage (Perez, 2008). A common observation presently is that since authority is delegated rather than chosen gives police officials the opportunity to select the appropriate officers to do the reputation and compatibility with the relative scenarios at hand.CONCLUSION Whether it may be the favourable opinion to some, or the contradicting bias to others, Policing authority and accountability is one of the fundamental aspects of efficient law enforcement. In the case where any of the two may fail or fall short in any aspect, there will always be a conflict in the relationship between Law enforcement and community, and also it may serve as the catalyst for the diminishing status of the police force.From the use of force, to the correction of police officers by their own organisations, the main concept is to ensure that the standard and reputation of the Australian law enforcement department. There have been a lot of complaints geared to wards or targeted at the police officers, but in fact as much as the reality is that they do make some really uncharacteristic errors, they do uphold the law relatively efficiently.This is just another reinforcing point that the society at large tends to make judgements, especially toward individuals and systems within the law enforcement sector based on their benefit and fair treatment. Whether or not the case would have been that police officers in Australia abuse their powers or not, the comparison of the rate in which civil litigation is turned away and how vast the difference is between the corrections that the police officers correct citizens to how intense and consistent the punishment and corrections of officers themselves are, would have still caused some sort of rift within the system.Nothing, it seems can truly be completely satisfying and totally effective, and especially in a world where crime and deviance, because of the continuous introduction of laws and stereotypes via media interventions and other sources, the balance between being lenient and modest in terms of acts of misconduct, and being harsh and enforcing in situations that are more serious, or crimes, is very difficult to assess. The fact remains that o matter where the police system is today, in Australia, and even worldwide, the law enforcement sector cannot afford to cease from continuously modifying and developing their efforts and adaptations to the criminal advancements in society. REFERENCES Holmgren, L. (2012, April 12). Factors that affect Police officers' discretion. Retrieved April 5, 2012, from ehow: http://www. ehow. com/list_5960237_factors-affect-police-officers_-discretion. tml Honeyman, C. (1999-2010). Civil litigation. Colorado, united States of America. Lewis, C. (2012, may 5). Police, civilian and democratic accountability. Monash, Australia. National Institue of Justice. (2012, January 20). police use of force. D. C. , Washington, United States of America. Perez, M . R. (2008, august). Police discipline and community policing: New models. Los angeles, USA. Ransley, J. A. (2007).Civil Litigation against Police in Australia:Exploring its extent, Nature and implications for accountability. Australian and New Zeland Journal of Criminology(Australian Academic Press) , 143-160. Robertson, D. (1998). Public and Private policing: Issues and options for collaboration within Australia. sydney: n/a. walker, s. (2007, may N. D). police accountability: current issues and research needs. POLICE ACCOUNTABILITY , p. 4.

Domain Names as Internet Properties Essay

What are your long term plans for your domain name? Do you expect to convey the name and the goodwill associated with it to an interested buyer or bequeath it your heirs? Perhaps you intend to use the domain name to secure a loan for a business expansion or for your child’s college tuition. You may be in for a surprise. The intellectual property community asserts that domain names, as source indicators, are akin to trademarks. However, trademark law cannot be effectively grafted on to domain names because of the discrepancies over geographical boundaries and context-sensitive use. In order for a trademark registration to issue, the mark must be used in interstate commerce to identify the source of a class of goods or services. Identical trademarks can co-exist so long as they are associated with non-competing types of goods or services or are used in different geographic areas. Domain names are registered on a first-come, first-served basis. The first individual or company to complete the registration template for an available name gets the sole right to be associated with it. For a reasonable fee, currently hovering at $10 a year, the registrant can brand and propagate the name in a worldwide marketplace. The registrant receives the exclusive right to use that name for a website presence, global e-mail, and network file transfers. But every domain name must be unique, and it is this technical requirement that makes domain names potentially valuable resources which are substantively different from trademarks. Compaq Computer Corp paid $3. 35 million in July 1998 for rights to ALTAVISTA. COM, purchased from a California start-up called Alta Vista Technology. The transaction included existing traffic of a half million visitors a day who were already expecting to find the Alta Vista search engine at that domain name. As the price bar for domain names rises, NSI’s customers may resist being subject to the vagaries of the registrar’s feudal regime. Simple and unencumbered ownership endows the registrant with a type of predictable, if limited, sovereignty. Through legislation and judicial acknowledgment, registrants who meet certain individual responsibilities should be allowed a perpetually renewable and assignable right to enjoy this new source of wealth. Many domain names have become the cornerstone of multimillion-dollar business plans. In the fall of 1999, VirtualVineyard of Palo Alto, California, acquired Wine. Com of Napa, primarily for its domain name. While the $3. 3M-plus acquisition included an operating business, the CEO of Wine. Com estimated that about 70 percent of his company’s value was its name. The current controversies over domain names highlight the interplay of technology, law, economics and politics. Court opinions trail society’s changes and conundrums resulting from technology of recent vintage. Yet, nearly everyone agrees on one point: domain names are caught in a legal thicket. If domain names are property, then existing contracts such as NSI’s harsh Service Agreement must be rewritten. Although the implications of the Umbro decision are yet to be fully assessed, and NSI’s appeal remains to be heard, the magistrate recognized that each knotty domain name dispute before the court may be breaking new legal ground. References Unknown (1999). ‘Mortgages’ for domain names. BBC Sci/Tech News. Retrieved November 26, 2006 from http://news. bbc. co. uk/2/hi/science/nature/533455. stm Oppedahl, C. (1997). Remedies in Domain Name Lawsuits: How is a domain name like a cow? Patents. com. Retrieved November 26, 2006 from http://www. patents. com/pubs/jmls. htm

Sociology Within 1984 by Orwell

Madeline LaRossa October 24, 2012 C07789454 Potential Outcomes of Progress: Orwell’s 1984 1) Summary of the Book 1984 is an eye-opening novel written by George Orwell. Orwell wrote the novel in 1949 to outline how he projected society would be in 1984 if progress continued upon its current track. Orwell published the book as a warning that society must be careful about progress for progress’s sake, or conditions could end up similar to the way society is in his work 1984. The novel is divided into three chapters, or books, each with multiple subunits, and these sections tell the story in chronological order.The book ends with an appendix on the principles of newspeak, the new language of Oceania. The novel follows Winston Smith’s experiences in London in 1984. Smith is a low-ranking member of â€Å"the Party,† the all-controlling ruling entity of their county Oceania. The Party (represented by Big Brother) has telescreens (two-way microphones and cameras) and spies everywhere with the purpose of finding and snuffing out anyone who is not fully and unquestioningly devoted to the Party.The citizens of Oceania are not allowed to own their own property, are not allowed any privacy (even in their thoughts), are not encouraged to have sexual desires, are forced to live under strict rations in constant wartimes, and are forced to alter their memories and records as The Party sees fit. The book focuses on Smith’s secret disobedience of the Party; he thinks he joins an underground resistance movement However, he is eventually captured and tortured into honest belief of everything that the Party and Big Brother claim and represent. 2) Summary of the ChaptersThe beginning of the first chapter takes place in April of 1984 and introduces the reader to the book’s protagonist, Winston Smith. Smith is coming home to his dilapidated apartment building (ironically called â€Å"Victory Mansions†) and reflects both on his troublesom e varicose ulcer and on the large posters plastered everywhere, all advertising the same blown-up face and stating â€Å"Big Brother is Watching You. † The reader learns that although Smith is a low-ranking member of the Party, he is still under their oppressive control. Smith enters his apartment and sits in the alcove in his oom hidden from the telescreen; he proceeds to commit â€Å"thoughtcrime† by writing his true feelings against the Party in his secret diary. In the second and third parts of the chapter, Winston reflects on how there are spies everywhere searching for thoughtcrime and how a parent’s own child will turn him in. Winston thinks about his childhood and how the Party has falsified historical records as they saw fit, even though Winston is not allowed to acknowledge or even be having these thoughts. Winston also reflects on a man named O’Brien, with whom he works and whom he suspects may also secretly question the Party as he does.In the middle of the first chapter, Smith goes to his job at the Party, where he falsifies old records in order to account for the Party constantly switching war enemies and eliminating questioning citizens. While at work, Winston hears an announcement from The Party stating that they are increasing rations, when Winston really knows that they are decreasing them. Winston observes how everyone believes this unquestioningly, but then wonders if he has given himself away when he realizes that a dark-haired woman has been watching him.When he goes home, Smith writes in his diary about how he would love to have a steamy sexual affair because the Party discourages sex for any means other than reproduction. In the close of the first chapter, Smith writes in his diary about how any hope for rebellion lies in the â€Å"proles,† the lowest class in Oceania, and a rumored secretive resistance group called â€Å"The Brotherhood. † Smith considers how bad the conditions are that everyon e lives in, but then realizes that no one has any previous better conditions to compare it to, thanks to the Party altering all historical records.He writes about how he once had concrete evidence that the Party was lying about the past, and he repeats his suspicion that O’Brien shares his sentiments towards the Party. Winston eventually walks into the proles’ district and sneaks into a forbidden shop to buy a paperweight, a relic from the past. As he is leaving the store, he realizes that the same dark-haired girl is watching him and believes that she is a spy for the thought police, and that he has surely been found out and will be eliminated. The second chapter starts with the dark-haired girl slipping Smith a note at work saying that she loves him.The two eventually make secret plans to meet far out in the country, and Smith learns that her name is Julia. The two eventually do meet and have sex hidden out in the countryside, simply for the purpose of pleasure and d efying the Party. Julia and Smith then return to their respective homes, thinking themselves undiscovered. Smith then rents a room above the shop where he previously bought the paperweight. Julia and Smith meet in the room whenever possible to have sex and share in the contraband food and drink they are able to obtain.As the citizens prepare for a large political movement supporting Oceania in its ever-going war, O’Brien makes contact with Smith and arranges a secret meeting between the two, confirming Smith’s suspicions about O’Brien’s disloyalty to the Party. Winston and Julia continue to meet in the room above the shop, and eventually, the two go together to meet O’Brien at his home. O’Brien turns off his telescreen (as he can do this since he is an upper-Party member) and enlists Smith and Julia in The Brotherhood’s secret efforts to overthrow the Party.O’Brien tells them that he will arrange to have The Brotherhood’ s book of missions and truths delivered to Smith, and then bids them on their way. Smith does acquire the book, and the chapter ends with Smith and Julia reading it in their rented room. The book uncovers all of the Party’s lies and lectures on the Party’s ever-increased desire for complete control over all. The next morning, Julia and Smith realize that they have been found out by the Party’s thought police; the two are cornered in their room and restrained into custody. The last chapter opens with Smith locked up in the Ministry of Love, one of the Party’s three departments.Smith is originally still hopeful for the Brotherhood, but he then sees O’Brien there working for the Party; Smith realizes that O’Brien has actually been an undercover member of the Party’s thought police the whole time, and that the Brotherhood has never actually existed. O’Brien begins to torture Smith, trying to impress The Party’s ideals and pr inciples into Smith. Smith initially resists, but after weeks of torture, he yields on all aspects of the Party and its teachings except for one: Smith still refuses to betray his feelings for Julia.Smith is transferred to more comfortable quarters in the department and is content for a while, until he accidentally reveals his prevailing love for Julia. O’Brien brings Smith to the infamous â€Å"Room 101,† where everyone is tortured with his or her worst fear. There, Smith is threatened with rats that will slowly eat him, so he finally renounces his love for Julia. At the very end of the last chapter, the story leaps to when Smith has been released back into society. Smith now honestly believes in everything that the Party does and represents and he respects them whole-heartedly.He runs into Julia by chance, but they both are now different people and go their separate ways. Smith eventually has a fleeting memory of his childhood but quickly dismisses it as a false memo ry, congratulating himself on his victory over himself and his unquestioning love for Big Brother. An appendix follows the last chapter of the book, explaining some of the vocabulary and grammatical structures of Oceania’s official language, New-speak. 3) Relation Between the Book and Class Materials Orwell’s 1984 holds great relevance to the topics we have recently covered in class.First of all, 1984 references, on several occasions, then tendency for people to get drawn into mass sentiments, doing things without knowing why they are doing them. In class, we referred to this as â€Å"collective behavior,† and defined it as â€Å"behavior that doesn’t involve that deliberate interpretation—instead we just get swept up and act as others are acting† (Weinstein, 2012). As an example, we discussed how people get swept up at a basketball game and react favorably simply because everyone around them is doing so, without specifically thinking about or analyzing it.We talked about how this can also lead to â€Å"circular reaction,† when a person reacts off of the person next to them, and then the person next to them reacts based on the original person, and so on, leading to amplification of the original reaction. 1984 touches on this concept several times. Early in the novel, the character Smith reflects on something called â€Å"the Two Minutes Hate,† in which everyone gathers once a day and simply hates and yells out against Oceania’s wartime enemy.Smith realizes that the mass hysteria of everyone around him can even change his own sentiments momentarily, as Orwell writes, â€Å"At those moments his secret loathing of Big Brother changed into adoration, and Big Brother seemed to tower up, like a rock against the hordes of Asia. . . † (Orwell 15). Later on in the book, Smith talks about how the uneducated Proles get swept up into moments of blind patriotism without really knowing or understanding wh at they are rooting for.Smith notices that â€Å"The poles, normally apathetic about the war, were being lashed into one of their periodical frenzies of patriotism† and realizes that the upper Party encourages this behavior in many slick ways, including propaganda and mind control (Orwell 149). Orwell yet again wants us to understand the dangers of this behavior as he writes â€Å"Times beyond number, at Party rallies and spontaneous demonstrations, she [Julia] had shouted at the top of her voice for the execution of people whose names she had never heard and in whose supposed crimes she had not the faintest belief† (Orwell 152).Orwell impresses upon the reader the importance of fighting this mindless behavior since this mindlessness can be very dangerous. We discussed in lecture how historically, people have often gotten swept up into mindless bureaucracy, doing things simply because everyone else is or because it is what they are used to doing or are told to do. We t alked about how dangerous this could be— it can allow a bureaucracy to gain much more power than it ever should be able to, since its citizens do not question the things that the government does and implements, as occurs in 1984.Secondly, the attributes of progress and the ways technology influences it play a large role both in 1984 and in our class discussions. Early on in the work, 1984 overlaps some of the topics we have covered in class as Orwell references some of the various ways that â€Å"progress† is exhibited in a society; Orwell writes, â€Å"The Party claimed, for example, that today forty per cent of adult proles were literate; before the Revolution, it was said, the number had only been fifteen per cent.The Party claimed that the infant mortality rate was now only a hundred and sixty per thousand, whereas before the Revolution it had been three hundred. . . † (Orwell 74). Just as Orwell uses factors such as literacy rates and infant mortality rates to measure progress in society, we also learned in class that these can be important indicators of how a society is changing, as well as death rates and other statistics. Similar to how we learned in class that progress just for progress’s sake must be discouraged as it can lead to detrimental results, Orwell is warning against this very occurrence all through 1984.More specifically, Orwell warns against the dangers of excessive technological advancements: â€Å"Science and technology were developing at a prodigious speed, and it seemed natural to assume that they would go on developing. This failed to happen. . . partly because scientific and technical progress depend on the empirical habit of thought. . . As a whole the world is more primitive today than it was fifty years ago† (Orwell 189).Orwell later warns that technology can indeed ruin our private lives by allowing us to be constantly watched and submitted to endless propaganda. The character Smith reflects upo n this when he says â€Å"Every citizen, or at least every citizen important enough to be worth watching, could be kept for twenty-four hours a day under the eyes of the police and in the sound of official propaganda. . . The possibility of enforcing not only complete obedience to the will of the State, but complete uniformity of opinion on all subjects, now existed for the first time† (Orwell 206).We discussed this very possibility in class when we talked about how citizens of today’s society are created technology that is smarter than us, and about how dangerous this could be towards the safety of our society in the case of a technological revolt. Professor Weinstein also pointed out how excessive technology can make it even easier for government can control us and gain power excessively; he pointed out that the government could be watching us right now through the webcams on our laptops and listening to us through our phones.Additionally, both our class lectures and 1984 reference aspects of a class system and a hierarchal society. First of all, when we discussed in class the characteristics of a bureaucracy, we talked about the concept of ascribed versus achieved statuses. We learned that in the family setting, a status is ascribed—a person is born into their position. However, in a bureaucracy such as that present in 1984, a status is instead something that must be worked for and earned—it is an achieved status. 1984 touches on this in the secret Brotherhood’s book, as the book lectures â€Å"In principle, membership in these three groups is not hereditary.The child of Inner Party parents is in theory not born into the Inner Party. Admission to either branch of the Party is by examination, taken at the age of sixteen† (Orwell 208). In lecture, we learned that since statuses are achieved in a bureaucracy instead of ascribed, the power of the status is held by the position itself, not the person that holds the posit ion. In other words, we learned that in a bureaucracy, a person is simply filling a role that could be filled by anyone; if a person dies or no longer wishes to hold their position, it can quickly be filled by another person.People, or a policeman, for example, only hold power because of their uniform and job, not because of who they are on a personal, individual level. 1984 also teaches this concept; at one point, Julia is expressing how happy she is to finally escape her generic job position in the Party and instead simply be an individual woman as she exclaims, â€Å"In this room I’m going to be a woman, not a Party comrade† (Orwell 142). 4) Relation Between the Book and a Personal Experience 1984 and its teachings hold close relation to a personal experience I recently had.Last week, I had a huge assignment that I was trying to do for one of my classes. I settled in to start working on the paper, but then my phone rang. I picked up because it was my mother, and I e nded up involved in a thirty minute conversation. I eventually hung up with my mother and returned to the paper, but soon after, I heard someone start talking to me from my computer! I soon realized that I had accidentally left my video messaging on on my computer, behind the screen on which I was writing the paper, and one of my friends had seen that I was online and started video chatting me.Since she had started the conversation, I was then obligated to hold a conversation with her in order to not be rude. All the while, I was distracted from working on my assignment. Once we finished talking and I turned off my chat program, I was tempted to check my email before I got back to my paper, but I realized that if I did, I may indeed never get to my paper. This showed me that technology certainly can be dangerous towards progress, not only on a large societal scale, but also as far as the simple task of writing my paper.All of the means of technology that my friends were using to con tact me were simply invading my privacy while I was trying to concentrate and have a private evening to do an assignment. Reading 1984 only supported and increased my awareness of how distracting technology can be, and how dangerous and detrimental it can actually be in the grand scheme of progress. 5) Critique of the Novel 1984 has many positive aspects. I really enjoyed how Orwell used a fictional situation to teach readers and warn them against dangerous conditions rather than simply lecturing the readers about what they should and should not be doing.I liked this because even though a lecture-style presentation of material teaches important concepts, I feel that putting these concepts into a theoretical story helps the reader to remember the concepts and understand how they can be practically applied in real life. Although the ending is sad for the reader (as it extinguishes all hope that anyone could hold out against the Party’s mind control and excessive practices), I l iked it because I thought it was important to drive Orwell’s teachings home.I felt that this ending was necessary because through the way things ended, Orwell showed that if society continued as it was in 1949, conditions would eventually get so bad that even the smartest individuals would not be able to undermine and revolt against the political entity, and there would be no hope. I feel that this was necessary because it shows just how important it was that people altered the path down which society was headed. I am hard-pressed to find anything that I dislike about Orwell’s work.At some points during the first half of the book, I wondered if Orwell’s long and detailed description of the conditions and unspoken rules of Oceania was really necessary, but as I read farther in the book, I realized that all of the descriptions were indeed necessary so that the reader would fully understand and grasp all of the terrors that were in store if society’s current track was not derailed. All in all, I really enjoyed this book, and it helped me to further understand many concepts that we discussed in lecture.When it was published in 1949, 1984 was, and remains as such now, an eye-opening warning of the way our lives will change if we ever allow our society and government to run away with itself by striving for progress simply for progress’s sake. Citations Orwell, George. 1984. New York: Penguin Group, 1949. Weinstein, Jay. Class Lecture. The Components of Change. University of Miami, Miami, Florida. 9 October 2012. Weinstein, Jay. Class Lecture. The Engines of Change. University of Miami, Miami, Florida. 16 October 2012.