Mart :: essays research papers

  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  The largest and most successful company in the world is now being ridiculed for the way in which it has risen to the top. Wal-Mart is accused of setting a bad example for American companies by squeezing producers for low prices, outsourcing manufacturing jobs, discriminating in the workplace and for the inhumane treatment of employees. What these critics don’t understand is that there are positive aspects to what Wal-Mart is doing. Wal-Mart is good for America because it embodies capitalism. It constantly improves the productivity of American retailing, encourages competition and outsourcing, provides quality items at a low cost, is a stepping stone for retail workers, and creates business opportunities for other companies. Voted â€Å"America’s Largest Corporate Cash Giver† by Forbes magazine in 2003, Wal-Mart is also very generous to charities around the world. Wal-Mart is not detrimental to our economy or our country. It is a fundamental puzzle piece that is merely a strong player in today’s neoliberal game of capitalism. Lets face it, the good old days when producers dictated what appeared on the shelves of stores is now over, and in place is a buyer-driven chain where the consumer dominates. Now you have the choice of what to buy, where to buy it, and for the price you want. That is the great thing about global capitalism, it sparks competition.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Competition in the market is a good thing for consumers and helps achieve the lowest prices one can possibly find anywhere in the world. Wal-Mart is driving prices down through its competitive bargaining strategy for its manufacturing costs. By holding prices at a low level, inflationary pressures are relieved and the economy is a lot steadier.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  By selling items for less than average, Wal-Mart allows its customers to acquire more than normal when shopping in the store. Lower prices also mean more money is left in the pockets of consumers. This allows opportunities for businesses of all types. If the consumer doesn’t spend all their money at Wal-Mart, they will most likely go out and spend it somewhere else. That means more money spread across the economy.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  The low prices we enjoy at Wal-Mart indirectly come from the outsourcing of American manufacturing jobs. By sending low skilled jobs overseas, the overall prices of items decline tremendously. Some Americans will be left without a job for a short period, but it is through outsourcing that the global economy becomes most efficient.

State Policy Affect on the Family (Uk)

Using information from Items B and C and elsewhere, examine the ways in which state policy may affect families and households State policy has an influence on families and households through the laws the government create, and the messages certain policies give. Item B says that â€Å"The state has intervened significantly in families for a considerable length of time†, showing how the government considers it part of their responsibility for the families of Britain.However, the state has been accused of not doing enough to protect the traditional nuclear family. Some commentators have suggested that some liberal state policies, especially those introduced in the 1960’s (such as the 1969 divorce act and the legalisation of homosexuality in 1967), are responsible for the perceived decline in traditional family values. Those who claim that the family is in decline can be grouped under the label ‘New right’. They are usually conservative thinkers and politician s who believe strongly in tradition and dislike change.They believe that there was a ‘golden age’ of the family, in which husbands and wives were strongly committed to each other for life, and children were brought up to respect their parents, the authority, and the law. Item B says that â€Å"conservative thinkers tend to believe that there has not been enough state input into protecting the traditional family, or that state interference has actually contributed to the families decline by encouraging the development of ‘deviant’ living arrangements. They believe that equal opportunities and the equal pay legislation distracted women from their ‘natural’ careers as mothers and wives. They say that the 1969 divorce reform act undermined the commitment to marriage and that homosexuality is ‘unnatural’ and deviant. However, some state policies have tried to uphold the traditional family. Tax and welfare policies have generally favour ed and encouraged heterosexual married couples rather than cohabiting couples, single parents and same-sex couples. Graham Allen (1985) said that there policies have discouraged cohabitation and lone-parent families.Policies such as the payment of child benefit to the mother, and the government’s reluctance to fund free universal nurseries, have reinforced the idea that it is the woman (mother) who should take prime responsibility for the children. Also, the fact a coordinated set of family policies was not introduced until 1999 may reflect the state’s tendency to see the family as a private institution, and therefore reluctance to interfere. Nevertheless, the New right still think that government policies have damaged the nuclear family ideal.They claim that the government has encouraged women to return to work, and therefore ‘damaged’ children by ‘maternal deprivation’. Morgan (2000) even suggests that the government is ‘anti marriageà ¢â‚¬â„¢, and that the government is responsible for ‘deviant’ family types. Item C says that Dr Adrian Rodgers, of the group Family Focus, says that ‘homosexual couples cannot be defined as families- the basis of true love is the ability to procreate and have children’. The government has also had a positive effect on the individuals within the family. Conservative government made marital rape illegal in 1991, and the children’s acts (e. 1989) have increased rights for women and children within the family. Many people believe that this has strengthened the family, although others believe that this had undermined traditional male dominance within the family. Feminists say that the male dominance within the family is called private patriarchy, and in order to eradicate male dominance in society, we must first eradicate private patriarchy, which several state policies have attempted to do. In 2003, Labour appointed a Minister for children, and in 2007 t hey formed the Department for Children, Schools and Families.Lewis (2007) says that Labour have taken a ‘social investment in children’ and have increasingly recognized that family forms are changing. Lone mothers are no longer condemned as a moral problem and threat. Labour introduced policies such as the New Deal of 1998 to help lone mothers get back into work. They have also invested in subsidies for nursery childcare, lengthened maternity leave from 14 weeks to 9 months, and introduced the right for parents of young children to ask for flexible working patterns from their employers.However, this has attracted criticism that it is undermining family privacy and has constructed a ‘nanny state’ which over interferes in personal living arrangements. Furthermore, the government is still accused of conforming to familial ideology (the ‘ideal’ family; the preferred model is the traditional nuclear family with a clear sexual division of labour) in that the policy emphasis is still overwhelmingly on motherhood rather than parenting in general and fatherhood, for example in the way that there are limited rights of fathers to take paid paternity leave.Feminists have claimed that familial ideology is merely a patriarchal ideology, which ensures male dominance in the workplace. Oakley says that the government (and society) has the view that women have a maternal instinct, which follows on from the view that women, who choose not to have children, are ‘deviant’. In conclusion, the state has created many policies which affect families and households. The government can be seen to be encouraging marriage and discouraging cohabitation.Item C says that Lord Nicholls says that the family bond must be of a â€Å"relationship which is permanent or at least intended to be so†. Fox Harding (1996) argues that the best council housing is often allocated to married couples with children and the worst housing on ‘probl em’ estates are allocated to lone-parent families. This suggests that the tradition nuclear family is the dominant family type, and the government discouraged other types of families. The state has also encouraged families to take responsibility for the elderly and long-term sick/disabled.Female members of the family often carry the burden of this care, which means they are less likely to work full time and are more likely to be economically dependent on a man. This suggests that the government is reinforcing the traditional sexual division of labour. The new right say that the family is decline, but it may just be that it is simply changing, and the government changes its policies in accordance to how families change or need to be changed for the better.

Dark green religion and hunting Essay

Hunting and Dark Green Religion with a Twist of Sport Hunting Dark Green Religion and hunting go hand in hand in the traditional sense. According to Dark Green Religion, as exemplified by Bron Taylor, the death of an animal should be appreciated and teach us the ethics of loving and caring for the bounty of our planet. Farm animals are killed all the time with the justification that they are for food. The conditions those animals deal with are explicitly anti-DGR. There are several types of hunting but the main two are hunting for subsistence and sport hunting. Hunting for food is acceptable because since the beginning of time, animals eat other animals, due to our carnal nature. Numerous environmentalists, in accordance with Bron Taylor, agree that hunting is a life function for almost all animals its either for survival or for food, therefore it is acceptable, but the death of an animal should come at a price of great sadness and appreciation. Dark Green Religion and its followers believe that animals have some sort of spiritual value, this leads them to respect all living things whether they are sentient beings or not. Humans are omnivores by nature, so eating dead animals is as natural as it can get, as long as it is not factory farmed. One thought that arises is what is naturally acceptable and what is not? In the wise words of Henry David Thoreau what is wild is good or â€Å"all good things are wild and free. †1 Anything that is untainted by humans is natural, just like killing for food is natural, but killing to show off skill is not because other animals in the wild do not kill for pleasure or thrill. It is either for food or for self-preservation in some rare cases. Through the various DGR literature pieces that are analyzed in this paper there is a spectrum in the environmental literature. 2At one end is the view that hunting is justified only for self protection and for food, where no other reasonable alternative is available. Most writers, in this case Bron Taylor, Gretel Van Wieren, and Priscilla Cohn, also agree that hunting is sometimes justified in order to protect endangered species and threatened ecosystems where destructive species have been introduced or natural predators have been exterminated. Others, especially in western society, accept hunting as part of cultural tradition or for the psychological well being of the hunter, sometimes extended to include recreational hunting when practiced according to â€Å"sporting† rules. Nowhere in the literature as far as DGR is concerned is hunting for fun, for the enjoyment of killing, or for the acquisition of trophies defended. 3 Imagine being an animal†¦ getting chased and shot at by humans for pure enjoyment. It cannot be fun especially if they miss the vital organs and you are in severe pain. Sometimes the hunt will take hours and the animal will drag its mutilated body around trying to die in peace because that is all it can do at that point. Animals can feel pain just like us. In a movie that Dr. Ellard showed to us in class, a man with special powers transferred the pain and sadness of a dying deer to a hunter, the hunter screamed and writhed in pain. That just makes you think what must have been going through the deer’s brain. At what point is it acceptable to kill animals? For instance, killing in self defense is justified only if no effective nonlethal means is available. Some say the thrill of the hunt makes it worth whatever the cost may be. Killing to obtain trophies would be justified and only if trophies are an important nonsubstitutable good, or if some other important substitute good cannot reasonably be achieved by any other means. 4 Others say hunting does have a thrill but it shouldn’t be the only thoughts going through your head. According to Bron Taylor no small numbers of DGR folk hunt. Taylor does not approve of trophy or sport hunting. In his words; although there is nothing wrong in my view with appreciating and enjoying all that goes with the hunt, this is best combined with the feelings of sadness that I hope also comes with the taking of life. Dark Green Religion gives wildlife intrinsic value and a sort of spiritual relevance. Wild life is to be revered, not conquered and made to look inferior. 5 Humans are a part of the whole circle of life, and we should stay within our circle and not go out and destroy it. Bron and I discussed the main reason to which degree hunting should be considered acceptable. I think hunting is justifiable for food, as a philosophical understanding that we are not superior but rather are a part of nature and like other organisms, kill to survive and thrive, and it is also justifiable, sometimes, to promote the health of an ecosystem and the viability of other species populations. 6 According to Gretel Van Wieren agrees with me that there is less harm done in hunting that there is factory farming. In our case up here in the northeast, we have hunted the wolves to extinction in our region. The wolves were the main predators of the deer  population, since all the wolves have been killed; now it is our responsibility to hunt the deer since they are constantly overpopulating the region and devastating the flora of the region along with farmland. Bron Taylor and his colleagues who are mentioned above, joined us in our discussion, agreed with me wholeheartedly thru the lens of DGR. According to Ted Kerasote, avid outdoorsman, hunter, and author, buried in our animal nature lies an important but unstated fact: The drive to hunt and the drive for sex have much in common. Both are primal and both can be thanked for our presence here today. While the drive to hunt is less obvious than the drive for sex, the former probably contributed more to our culture. Sex is accomplished by two, but hunting is often accomplished in cohesive and enduring groups. 7 Before we became hunters, we met our need for animal protein by snacking on insects, snails, fledgling birds and other slow creatures too small to share. But hunting produced large, festive meals too grand to be eaten by any one person, meals which could feed large groups of people who would stay around the carcass not only to be sure of their shares but also to defend the meat from scavengers. 8 Based on the facts presented by Kerasote hunting, therefore, made us social. Since we have evolved and advanced so much that hunting is outdated in most cases, we hunt for other reasons. Hunting has brought us subsistence, and then the social aspect took over and now we are acting in the reverse direction of why we started hunting in the first place. The social aspect has led us to believe that hunting is acceptable just for the social aspect and not for that which it was originally intended. On the other hand, certain people, hold that animals were not put on earth for our use, certainly not so that we can kill them for pleasure. To the various DGR people mentioned in the paper, sport hunting is no more exalted than pulling the wings off flies. What the issue comes down to, then, is this: Now that we have become an industrialized society, should we indulge our instincts at the expense of other intelligent forms of life? That question has been very intelligently addressed in Ted Kerasote’s book called Bloodties. He makes a big a point in his introduction to the book that as long as we hunt locally (so that we don’t burn fossil fuel getting to our quarry) and as long as we eat the victim, we do infinitely less harm to the overall environment than we do by eating ordinary supermarket vegetables. After all, the vegetables are grown by an energy-hungry agribusiness whose pesticides decimate the ecosystem and whose combines fatally batter hundreds of small animals (insects, toads, snakes, ground-nesting birds, mice, voles, woodchucks, striped squirrels, weasels, skunks, foxes) in the course of each harvest. But venison is in dramatic contrast to the vegetables resulting from that harvest, as well as to feed-dependent pork, beef, mutton, chicken and turkey. Unlike agricultural produce, venison requires no pesticide or fossil-fuel to grow, and results in the loss of just one life: the deer’s. 9 Why don’t we all see this? Because to many of us, the little animals in the crops are vermin and the deer are Bambi, yet as Kerasote points out, life is precious to all creatures. This point that he makes shows us how deep this animal harm goes, people who are vegans probably do not think this deep. The land cleared for their food was once a home to animals. That same land is annually inhabited by other animals and every year they get killed or chased away by machinery. Kerasote hunts, probably very well. As a hunter he sounds more like an Inuit or a Bushman (or more like a wolf or a mountain lion, to name two other hunters of the deer) than like the camouflage-clad, beer-sodden macho types with automatic weapons who infest the woods each fall. And because he’s a hunter, Kerasote’s descriptions of hunts are realistic perfection, his detail is very vivid and proves the reader with imagery that makes you want to hunt. The thrill of the hunt is what our ancestors must have followed in order to even overcome the challenge of hunting with stones and on foot. Trophy hunting is the selective hunting of wild game animals. Although parts of the slain animal may be kept as a hunting trophy or memorial (usually the skin, antlers and/or head), the carcass itself is seldom used as food or mostly it is considered useless and thrown away. 10 Sport hunting goes back to ancient Mesopotamia and Persia. Kings would conduct lion hunts from chariots, and would often stock their lands with the beasts for this purpose. One of the oldest legends in history–Gilgamesh–celebrates his killing of lions and other beasts, mythic and real. Hunting–whether for food or for sport–has been directly tied to the extinction of megafauna in the Ice Age 41,000 years ago. The advent of firearms made hunting easier, and hunting expeditions (like the safaris of the 19th and early 20th centuries) became popular. 11 Before conservation laws, virtually anything was deemed fair game: elephants, tigers, rhinos, gorillas, wolves, deer, elk and most other large animals. Most of the animals involved with trophy hunting are either endangered or on the watch list. â€Å"Sport† hunting is a brutal business. It means taking the life of an innocent animal for personal gain. The hunting industry doesn’t like the word kill because it exposes the lie that animals die peacefully after being arrowed, shot, trapped, choked and generally tortured to death. So they sanitize the cruelty of hunting by using euphemisms to describe their evil deeds. 12 To make matters worse, not all of these animals that are hunted for sport are eaten; this promotes the lack of appreciation for their life. It is certainly true that many hunters seek to kill trophy animals which are precisely the animals that the species can least afford to lose: the â€Å"genetically prime† animals. 13 Since hunters look for the prime animals to kill, the stunted and genetically unfit animals are allowed to breed and then the offspring have less of a chance of surviving which further hinders the population as well as the hunters that are still hunting the species. A chief of this would be hunting elephants with big tusks. When the animals with big tusks are poached, the remaining population has to breed with males that would have otherwise lost in fights over mating partners. Since these elephants are genetically inferior precisely due to the size of their tusks, they are less likely to survive because during the dry season they will not be able to dig for water, and their offspring would have to endure the same problem. This would cull the population to the point where there would not be enough healthy elephants to keep the population alive. This just goes to show how such small actions by mankind can lead to such adverse effects for animals. Sport and trophy hunting have other deleterious effects on animal populations, as I discussed earlier in the paper with my example of the deer and wolf dilemma in northeast America. Hunting for sport has obliterated species. The dodo bird’s disappearance along with passenger pigeons’ is attributed mostly to sport hunters, and the historical decimation of the American buffalo from sport hunters nearly pushed that species to total extinction. Big game hunting was a craze in the 1800s, and their effect on animal populations was devastating. Sport hunters of the time were ignorant of issues like sustainable breeding populations, and there were no protected species until the first conservation laws were passed in the 20th century. 14 Dark Green Religion people have made it their mission to let society know of the harm they are causing by hunting for pleasure. If you look at the bigger picture here, anything that humans do for pure pleasure generally has a harsh consequence for the environment. If we paid attention to the devastation we cause we would probably help reduce the amount of damage we cause to our one and only planet. If the â€Å"pros† of sports hunting can be outweighed the â€Å"cons† by so much more it makes an obvious statement against sports hunting. Sport hunting has the direct effect of reducing animal populations; unless it is tightly regulated, this form of hunting can decimate species and disrupt the balance of ecosystems. 15 In many cases sports hunting has already upset an established ecological balance as in the case of the white tailed deer and the wolves. The message of DGR people is quite clear at this point, and we see that in some cases advocacy helps, but illegal sports hunting still proceeds unhindered in many cases and we need to help raise support against it by denying a market for illegal animal products. According to various environmentalists along with Bron Taylor, Gottlieb, and Henry David Thoreau, in order to fix the problem, we need to identify the problem and advocate to the public to the point where the public will be scrambling for a solution on their own. As these various authors are working on advocating the problem, the environment and society are still on a downhill plunge. In some cases we need visceral Dark Green Religion to come in explain why some groups regard wilderness with such reverence. It is because of Dark Green Religion that I even wanted to write this paper. I hope the rest of the world is as understanding as I am and attempt to do as much as anyone can to help improve the situation, because that is the only way change will occur. Bibliography Gunn, Alastair S. â€Å"Environmental Ethics and Trophy Hunting. † Ethics & the Environment. no. 1 (2001): 68-95. Kerasote, Ted. Bloodties: Nature, Culture, and the Hunt . New York: Random House, 1993. Priscilla Cohn Ethics and Wildlife: Hunting Myths, Lewiston, NY: Edwin Mellen, 1999. Swan, James A. In Defense Of Hunting. New York: Harper Collins, 1995. Tallmadge, John, â€Å"Deerslayer with a Degree,† in Mark Allister (ed. ) Eco-Man: New Perspectives on Masculinity and Nature, University of Virginia Press, 2004, 17-27 Taylor, Bron. Dark Green Religion: Nature Spirituality and the Planetary Future. Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2009. Wade, Maurice L. â€Å"Animal Liberationaism, Ecocentrism, and the Morality of Sport Hunting. † Journal of the Philosophy of Sport. (1990): 15-27.

Debate Fingerprinting and Background Check vs. Invasion of Privacy

Debate Fingerprinting and Background Check vs. Invasion of Privacy Nowadays, the development of technologies and science takes one of the most significant positions. Scientists can present numerous innovations, which may considerably improve people’s lives, help to find out the solutions and even to make the right choice. Advertising We will write a custom research paper sample on Debate: Fingerprinting and Background Check vs. Invasion of Privacy specifically for you for only $16.05 $11/page Learn More Nowadays, numerous background checks and fingerprinting are improved by means of science, and people get more opportunities to find out more information about each other. Fingerprint identification is considered to be an accurate science, accepted by numerous state courts. Lots of civilians think that fingerprinting and background checks are all about invasion of privacy. I truly believe that such sciences like fingerprinting and background checks help to control society and establish justice, and in spite of the fac t that people’s identification and investigation deprive lots of people of personal life, privacy, and secrets, the idea to live in disorder frightens me more. Fingerprinting and background checks help to control society and provide the necessary order. If there is no means to control a person or, at least, to give some hints, this person can take unpredictable steps against the law. The value of fingerprinting lies in the fact that by means of such investigations, it is easier and more accurate to find out a criminal. â€Å"Through the use of computers, fingerprints lifted from crime scenes, weapons, and other objects can be matched to a particular individual’s fingerprints in a matter of minutes† (Hall, 2008, p. 429). This is why within a short period of time, it is quite possible to find out a real criminal and assume the necessary measure. With the help of background checks and fingerprinting, it becomes a bit easier to obtain justice. Very often, innocent people may be blamed for something they did not do. A profound background check may help to focus on person’s past and evaluate his/her actions in the present. People cannot avoid mistakes, however, their mistakes should be grounded on their past experience, this is why such reliable techniques like background checks can be quite useful to those, who is looking for justice.Advertising Looking for research paper on homeland security? Let's see if we can help you! Get your first paper with 15% OFF Learn More However, the above-mentioned techniques deprive people from one simple issue – their privacy. It becomes not very difficult to organize a background check and find out some personal information that should be secret. People can be found anywhere; the presence of people in any place may be identified by means of fingerprinting. Is it fair to deprive people from their personal life by means of background checks? To my mind, it is not fair. Thi s is why it is crucially important to have an access to such techniques only in the extreme cases, when the question or blame has strong grounds. According to the Fifth Amendment to the US Constitution, also known as the Bill of Rights, people have a kind of protection from government authorities. This is why no one has the right to worm into other person’s life without clear reasons. Fingerprinting and background checks cannot be considered as invasion of privacy, but on the contrary, as one more means in order to make this life safe and law-abiding. With the help of such techniques, it is possible to clear up who is a real criminal and who is a victim. Fingerprinting and background checks are really useful, however, not everyone should have an access to these technologies in order to control people’s existence somehow. Reference List Hall, D. E. (2008). Criminal Law and Procedure. Delmar: Cengage Learning.

ESL Lesson Plan Intensive Reading Exercise

ESL Lesson Plan Intensive Reading Exercise The following lesson focuses on reading intensively, in other words, understanding every word. Generally, teachers tend to ask students to read quickly for a general understanding. This method of reading is called extensive reading and is very helpful in getting students to deal with large chunks of information. However, at times students do need to understand details and this is when intensive reading is appropriate. Aim Developing intensive reading skills, vocabulary improvements concerning fine differences between related vocabulary terms Activity Intensive reading exercise in which each sentence must be read very carefully to discover mistakes and inconsistencies of syntax Level Upper-intermediate Outline Discuss different types of reading skills with students: Extensive reading: reading for pleasure with emphasis on general understandingIntensive reading: reading carefully for an exact understanding of text. Necessary for contracts, legal documentation, application forms, etc.Skimming: quickly looking through text to get an idea of what the text concerns. Used when reading magazines, newspaper articles etc.Scanning: locating specific information in a text. Usually used in timetables, charts, etc. Ask students to give examples of when they employ the various reading skills. This part of the discussion can serve to raise awareness concerning the fact that it is not always necessary to understand every word. Pass out handout and have students get into groups of 3-4. Ask students to read one sentence of the stories at a time and decide what is wrong with the sentences in terms of vocabulary (contradictions). Follow-up with a class discussion about the various problems with the text. Have students get back into their groups and try to substitute appropriate vocabulary for the incongruencies. As homework, ask students to write their own Whats Wrong? story which will then be exchanged with other students as a follow-up activity to the lesson in the next class period. What's Wrong? This exercise focuses on intensive reading. Read one sentence at a time and find the inappropriate vocabulary mistake or contradiction. All errors are in the choice of vocabulary NOT in grammar. Jack Forest is a baker who always provides his customers with tough meat. Last Tuesday, Mrs Brown came into the shop and asked for three fillets of brown bread. Unfortunately, Jack only had two fillets remaining. He excused Mrs Brown and promised her that he would have too much bread the next time she came. Mrs Brown, being a reliable customer, assured Jack that she would return. Later that day, Jack was sealing the shop when he the phone sang. It was Mrs Brown requiring if Jack had baked another slice of brown bread. Jack said, As a matter of truth, I burnt some extra loaves a few hours ago. Would you like me to bring one buy?. Mrs Brown said she would and so Jack got into his bike and road to Mrs Browns to deliver the third pound of brown toast.My favorite reptile is the Cheetah. It is truly an amazing creature which can trot at a top speed of 60 m.p.h.! Ive always wanted to go to the cool planes of Africa to see the Cheetah in action. I imagine it would be a disappointing experien ce looking at those Cheetah run. A few weeks ago, I was watching a National Geographic special on the radio and my wife said, Why dont we go to Africa next summer?. I hopped for joy! Thats a lousy idea!, I stated. Well, next week our plain leaves for Africa and I can hardly imagine that we are going to Africa at first. Frank Sinatra was an infamous singer, known throughout the world. He was a novice at singing in the crooning style. During the 50s and 60s grunge music was very popular throughout clubs in the US. Las Vegaswas one of Frank Sinatras favorite squares to sing. He often traveled into Las Vegas from his hut in the woods to perform in the evening. Audiences inevitably booed as he sang encore after encore to the delight of international fans from around the county.

Prerequisites for The European Union Formation and Its Development Research Paper

Prerequisites for The European Union Formation and Its Development - Research Paper Example At this stage in history, and despite realization of the importance of integration, only six European countries, Belgium, France, the Federal Republic of Germany, Italy, Luxembourg, and the Netherlands, signed the Treaty of Paris (Biggs, 110-111). Great Britain, possibly encouraged by the fact that it was not part of continental Europe, refrained from signing this treaty. The second major stage in the formation of the EU came in the form of the Treaty of Rome in 1957 and the subsequent creation of the European Economic Community. This treaty, as Gordon Weil explains, established the principles, laws and institutions for much closer economic cooperation, leading towards integration, between the member states. Again Britain refused to sign the treaty and rejected the prospect of European integration. As Loukas Tsoukalis explains, Britain's resistance, as was the case with other European countries, was based on the simple fact that it feared that it would loose its national identity and that the British state would loose its sovereignty over the country. Quite simply stated, resistance to integration was based on the fear of the consequences of integration to national identity and sovereignty (439-441). ... Britain is, needless to say, one of the EU's most prominent members and within the framework of the union, is a power in its own right. Despite the fact that it is a fully integrated EU member, not to mention an extremely influential one, and has benefited both politically and economically from its membership, Britain remains resistant to the deeper economic and political integration which monetary unification represents. Lee Miles, conceding that "Economic and Monetary Unification has always been a sensitive policy area" due to the fact that it entails the resignation of a substantial amount of sovereignty over domestic economies, argues that the economic benefits outweigh the loss to sovereignty (3). Even though monetary integration would necessitate Britain's conceding large parts of its economic sovereignty to the EU, the facts seem to indicate that Britain, as a signatory of the Single European Act and as a member state which is obligated to accept the supremacy of EU law, is no t safeguarding its sovereignty over its domestic economy through its rejection of monetary unification. Quite simply stated, it has already resigned a significant amount of that sovereignty and has already accepted the supremacy of EU law. This leads to the conclusion that rejection of monetary unification, while partly related to domestic fiscal and monetary policies, expresses Britain's commitment to its national identity and heritage and its refusal that this identity is overwhelmed by the European one. Through an examination of the implications of the Single Europe Act and the doctrine of supremacy, the paper shall seek to prove this point.

OP-ED columnist Joe Nicera Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

OP-ED columnist Joe Nicera - Research Paper Example Pamela Cantor’s research which was based on high poverty schools. Throughout his article, Nocera adopts an informative and discursive tone in order to enlighten his readers about the gravity of the consequences the effects of poverty have on the educational system as well as to motivate them to deal with this issue. According to an article, high poverty schools take up about 40% of schools in cities but their average scores are very low compared to other schools. (Christine Armario, 2010). The article opens with the mention of Dr. Pamela Cantor’s speech, titled â€Å"Innovative Designs for persistently Low-Performing Schools†. It then moves on to talk about how Dr. Cantor has studied the effects of poverty on education. Nocera informs his audience that â€Å"chaos reigned† in schools where there was a high poverty level. The teachers were not equipped to bring order to chaos and the â€Å"most disruptive children dominated the schools†. These school s are normally populated by levels of racial minorities. (Mike Green, 2011). Needless to say, these schools were functioning as schools should be. Nocera explains the findings of Dr. Cantor’s research in order to build a base for the discussion about how to tackle and eliminate these effects in the longer run. He goes on to describe how the â€Å"Turnaround for Children† came about as Dr. ... Poverty figures have become more serious since September 2011, when it was quoted by the NY Times that about one out of five people in New York could be categorized as poor. (Sam Roberts, 2011). Approximately half of America’s children live in high poverty districts according to a census done in 2011. (Lisa Lambert, 2011). A map that depicting changes in poverty in the United States shows that poverty in America is becoming a rising trend; where once in 2010 only 15.1% Americans were living below the line, today, two years later, that number is much higher. (Andy Hull, Nick McClellan and Troy Schneider, 2012). Turnaround plays an important part in this issue because it is working to â€Å"bridge an important divide† by facing the issues high-poverty schools face â€Å"head-on† instead of beating around the bush with them. Nocera then shifts to a brief discussion of how this project operates and how it creates a â€Å"positive, disciplined culture† by motiv ating the students about how they can excel in school and education in general. He goes on to clarify that even though this project is of extreme importance; it is still in its experimental stages and is â€Å"relatively small†. Results of Turnaround’s efforts in various schools have shown that the schools that they had worked on were on average â€Å"calmer, safer, indeed, happier places† however, they should work more on improving academic environment if they want to achieve better results from this venture. Nocera moves towards the closing of his article by mentioning again, Dr. Cantor’s speech mentioned first in the very beginning of his article. He explains how her speech talked