The social issues of the roaring twenties ( Art and Ideas, Economy, Essay

The social issues of the roaring twenties ( Art and Ideas, Economy, Technology, Science, and the Social Ferment) - Essay Example 58). This discrimination was upheld by the US Supreme Court in Plessy v. Ferguson in 1896. This decision, which supported racial segregation, was reversed in 1954, and the government made racial segregation and discrimination in any form, illegal. However, discrimination persists and until 1920, women were not permitted to exercise their franchise, when Congress passed the Nineteenth Amendment to the US Constitution that provided women with the right to vote. Despite these measures, women in the US are still subjected to discrimination (Pozzuto & Arnd-Caddigan, Mar2008, P. 58). From the early 1900s till the Second World War, the US witnessed modernism in art, design and architecture. The first skyscrapers were constructed in the 1870s. These structures generated considerable competition from architects. The first successful design was New York’s Woolworth Building. The Architects Anderson Graham, Probst, and White designed and constructed the Wrigley Building in Chicago. Howells and Hood designed the Chicago Tribune Tower. Chrysler and the Empire State Building displayed the Art Deco design. Architect Frank Lloyd Wright designed several houses in California and Japan. Art Deco lasted from 1925 to 1950. It was called as modern construction and emerged from the 1925 International Art Exposition in Paris (Whitley, 2008). Opposition to communism reached fanatical levels in the US during the 1920s. Communism was referred to as Red Scares, and communists were referred to as anarchists. In 1920, there were an estimated 150,000 communists in the nation, which was just 0.1 percent of the population. People subscribing to radical views were persecuted, as evident from the case of Sacco and Vanzetti. Americans of that period adopted provincialism, as depicted by the reemergence of the Ku Klux Klan, restrictive immigration laws and Prohibition (Roaring Twenties). The 1919, 18th amendment to the Constitution,

Financial Management - Ratios comparision Essay

Financial Management - Ratios comparision - Essay Example This ratio indicates the financial structure of the enterprise. In other words the ratio is a barometer to reveal how the assets of the enterprise have been financed. Total Owings (Debts) include long-term debts and current liabilities, whereas Total Assets consists of both fixed and current assets. The ratio measures the total assets financed by outside debts. In 2006 47.54% of total assets of Bloodstone Ltd. Were financed through total owings, both long term as well current liabilities; where as in 2007 dependency on owings for assets financing has marginally gone up to 48.38%. The situation of Blooodstone Ltd.is little better than Garnet Plc., half of whose assets are financed through owings The ratio measures the incremental sales over previous year sales. The formula is to divide the absolute increased value of sales by total sales of the previous year and express the increment as percentage over previous year’s sales. Blood Stone Ltd. has attained a 15% growth in sales in the year 2006 over the sales of 2005. On the other hand such growth is only 8% for Garnet Plc. Even assuming both the companies in the same industry there may be a variety of reasons for such increased growth for Blood Stone Ltd., like: a) Increased value of fixed assets in the year 2006 as compared to 2005 suggests the new fixed assets have been manage effectively in the contribution of growth in sales. There may have been increase in sale outlets and in areas where there is no or negligible competition. b) Debtors have gone down to â‚ ¤1050 in 2006 as compared to â‚ ¤1,100 in 2005. This implies that the emphasis was on cash sales either by reducing the sales prices per unit or by providing cash discounts. There is also a possibility that certain incentive plans might have been introduced or there was better credit control. Bloodstone Ltd.’s PBIT ratio has remained more or less constant during 2005 and 2006. In 2006 it was 4.67% as compared to 4.5% in 2005.

The Wages of Maturity Essay Example for Free

The Wages of Maturity Essay Joyce Carol Oates had distinctively portrayed the harmful consequences that teens may experience when they act much older than their ages. In the story â€Å"Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been†, Oates tells the story of a 15-year old girl who behaves more mature than kids of her age. Oates based this story on a Life Magazine story of a young man killing several girls in Arizona and in it she clearly wants to impart that maturity has its own time and rushing it up will only lead to unfavorable things.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Such thing happened to Connie, the main character of the story, whose ways are a lot more grown-up than her 24-year old sister, June. June was simple and plain looking, whereas Connie is obsessed with her appearance and the need to always look good. Oates describes Connie to have â€Å"a quick, nervous giggling habit of craning her neck to glance into mirrors or checking other people’s faces to make sure her own was all right† (1). She goes out with friends who possess the same behavior and together they love going to the mall, restaurants, and movies houses up until an hour before midnight. One can never see them hang out in places where girls of their age usually are. Connie thinks that the sprees of a typical teenager are boring. And that’s the reason why she goes out in places where young adults spend time. She loves mingling with older boys and her mother never approved to any of those. Connie then, covers what she is doing outside her house by acting differently when she is at home. This is how Connie gets away with her need to show others that she isn’t an ordinary 15-year old with regular hobbies. She wants to show all the people that she was somebody different – somebody far more classy and superior to others.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   At 15, Connie was adventurous and has cars and older boys enlivening her. She lives a wild and thrilling life when she’s outside. Her haven outside was the drive-in restaurant across the busy road where a lot of older kids normally hung out. It was a fly-infested restaurant, but Connie and her friends are pleased and expectant of the place as if it were a sacred building when they are inside it   (Oates 1). Connie’s love to live a mature life is exemplified by her preference for loud music and shiny cars. She chooses to talk to boys older than her when she’s inside the restaurant and ignores the ones who merely came from school. Connie is obviously caught in a world not apt for her, and she is yet to know how harmful that could be for her.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚      Connie never liked family affairs because she believes her personality wasn’t apt for those gatherings. She never liked household chores and doesn’t clean even her own room. One Sunday her whole family was invited to a barbeque at an aunt’s house. Connie, being uninterested about the matter, rolled her eyes to her mother and said she’d rather stay home. And that’s when her maturity pretense is going to catch up on her. Arnold Friend, a guy whom she encountered in the same restaurant she frequents, suddenly drove into their garage in his newly painted car. He looks much older than 18 years old, which he claims to be. He is enticing Connie to come and ride away with him, together with another friend Ellie, who is to sit in the car’s back seat. Connie was more than hesitant. But Arnold is clear that she doesn’t have any other choice but to go out with him. Arnold has something inside him that was both weird and scary – and something had made Connie totally helpless with the situation. She knew she was headed for trouble, but she can’t scream or run or do anything about it because Arnold has this supernatural power of disorienting her and making her house feel like a box of carton that is unable to protect her from the harm that he can do to her. Arnold was not merely human. In him is an evil soul and his physical appearance is merely a disguise of what he really is. Connie, unable to think right and is defenseless, have no other choice but to go to him and follow.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Maturity has its wages. People come to age when the right time comes. Rushing it up doesn’t make us more mature than what we really are. Posing to be mature won’t cause people to respect us more. Instead, doing so openly shows our insecurity and vulnerability to them. And that is something they can use against us. Acting mature doesn’t make us mature. It makes us weaker than we should be.

Genesis And Causes Of Naxalism History Essay

Genesis And Causes Of Naxalism History Essay Genesis The origin of the Naxalite movement can be located in the contemporary global context of the 1960s. The Naxalite movement was a part of the contemporary, worldwide impulse among radicals to return to the roots of revolutionary idealism. The Naxal leaders drew inspiration from the Indian peasant uprisings of the18th and 19th centuries and the more modern organized armed peasants struggles led by Communists in Telengana in south India in the late 1940s. Naxalism is essentially an outcome of socio-economic problems, mal-administration, un-accountability, perceived injustice and is an end product of agrarian tensions. The contention of Naxalites is that the existing system is corrupt, rotten and can be destroyed by violence alone. Naxals feel that it is the landlords and the state administrators who keep violence on their agenda. Naxals feel justified to counter it by violence so as to achieve radical reforms.  [1]  The genesis of this movement is based on peasants movement and agrarian discontent.  [2]  The primary aim of the movement was to liberate the poor through land and social reforms. Although, the aim was a noble one, the method chosen to achieve it was completely misguided and unlawful. The Naxalite movement quickly veered away from its professed agenda of social justice and, today, various Naxalite factions are nothing more than tools at the disposal of external forces that want to create internal turmoil in India.  [3]   3. Naxalism grew from a tiny movement of Charu Mazumdar and Kanu Sanyal of village Naxalbari in the foothills of the Himalayas in Darjeeling district of West Bengal, carved out by him in 1967 after a split, from the ultra left sections of CPI (Marxists). Mazumdar greatly admired Mao Zedong and advocated that Indian peasants and lower classes must follow in his footsteps and overthrow the government and upper classes whom he held responsible for their plight. The movement, basically anti-landlord, acquired the nomenclature of CPI (Marxist- Leninist) in Nov 1967. A similar group, calling itself Marxist Communist Centre (MCC) was operating in the South. CPI (M) and MCC merged in 2004 and became CPI (Maoist), accepting Maoist doctrine of revolutionary agrarian war of seeking power through armed violence and surrounding the urban centres from the countryside. Their activities soon accounted for approximately 90% of revolutionary armed action in India. This brand of revolutionary activities came to be described broadly as Naxalism in recognition of the village Naxalbari from where the bugle of armed revolutionary agrarian revolt was first sounded.  [4]  Ã‚   4. Naxalism and its threat to the state have been growing steadily in the past forty years. Their ideology appeals to the deprived and downtrodden. They have a coherent organisation whose members are ready for sacrifice. They have visionary plans of seizing political power through armed violence. They display a robust will and determination of purpose.    Naxal Ideology 5. Naxalism is the ideology followed by Naxalites in India. It is based on the principles of Marxism, Leninism and Maoism. 6. The Marxist Communist Centre (MCC) is distinguished by its commitment to an earlier version of the Charu Mazumdar, which envisions protracted armed struggle. The MCCs philosophy revolves around two grounds. The first is that, within the country, a revolutionary mass struggle existed and the people were fully conscious and even prepared to take part in revolution immediately. The second was that militant struggles must be carried on, not for land, crops, or other immediate goals, but for the seizure of power. These assumptions are reflected in all their views, whether on organization, on strategy or on tactics. As a result, all efforts and attention is firmly focused on revolutionary activities to undermine the state and seize power. Though the Peoples War Group (PWG) also held a similar view till the early 1980s, it has since shifted focus and established several political front organisations. The PWG gradually discarded its initial assessment of the peoples level of preparedness for an armed struggle, and consequently revised its strategy of immediate seizure of power. Though the armed struggle is not discarded, considerable differences emerged on the issue of the appropriate methodology. There is now increasing emphasis on the process of party building and the encouragement of mass political organizations. Their perspectives on strategy and tactics are also somewhat more nuanced, and there is an acknowledgement that the issues on which the struggle should be conducted necessarily depend on the level of peoples consciousness and the nature of problems faced by them.  [5]  . The PWG has remained unwavering in its ideological commitment to class annihilation, to capturing power through revolutionary warfare on the Maoist pattern, and in its rejection of Parliamentary democracy. This strategy entails building up of bases in rural and remote areas and transforming them, first, into guerrilla zones, and then into liberated zones, even as an area-wise seizure is consolidated, and cities are encircled. Within the theoretical constructs of its peoples war strategy, as well as the PWGs past practices, moreover, negotiations have been used as a tactic and opportunity for recovery, consolidation and expansion.  [6]   Causes for Growth of Naxalism 9. The region, over which the Naxalites have established their presence, is marked by widespread poverty, corruption, unemployment, lack of development, poor governance and an under-equipped police force. In many of these areas, the state machinery either does not exist or has a very limited existence. Naxalites fill the vacuum and exploit the poor performance of the institutions of governance on issues such as land rights, minimum wages, education and anti-corruption. In some areas they have assumed many of the tasks of the state and run a parallel administration.  [7]  The major causes for growth of naxalism are as follows:- Social Inequalities. Atrocities, subjugation, discriminatory treatment of dalits and lower caste peasants by the upper caste landlords continue to be very common in naxalite affected parts of the country. Economic Deprivation. There is extreme poverty and utter lack of economic development in many parts of the country. The landlords do not follow the stipulated minimum wage rule as laid down by the government. Infrastructure Inadequacies. The areas affected by the naxal movement are one of the richest in terms of natural resources. Even then, these areas have not seen any infrastructure development and continue to remain neglected by the authorities. Tribal and Forest Policies. The primitive methods of cultivation have left the tribal people economically fear behind in comparison with other peasants. The tribals have been denied their traditional means of livelihood and hence, their only means of survival has been taken away from them in the name of our forest policies. Inadequate Governance. It is a known fact that in many of these areas, there is no governance at all and the state and civil administrative infrastructure is virtually non-existent. Strategy 10. The Naxals follow the strategy of armed uprising and the theory of revolutionary base. From such revolutionary bases they would strategically be in a position to launch a frontal attack on the enemies of the peasantries and the backward classes. Having complete possession of the revolutionary bases, Naxalites would be launching attacks on large villages, and eventually, guerrilla attack upon cities. The aim of the above naxalite strategy was the annihilation of the landlords, moneylenders, police and its informers and those who would prevent them from establishing a strong hold over the villages.

Cynicism in Dorothy Allisons Short Story, This Is Our World :: Our World

Cynicism in Dorothy Allison's Short Story, This Is Our World Is â€Å"The world is meaner than we admit† (Allison 159)? In the short story, â€Å"This Is Our World,† Dorothy Allison asks this question, and her response startled me. I disagree with her way of thinking. Allison says that the world is a cruel, mean place. I think that the cruelty is balanced out with the goodness in the world. I was surprised to read her negative examples of how bad of a place it is that we live in and call â€Å"home.† This story was written with reference to events and occurrences that I have never experienced and things I have never seen. I found it difficult to relate to these events. The minister, the narrator, and her mother walked around the building where the narrator’s mother was to be baptized. Then they looked at the baptismal font. Allison states, â€Å"Watching baptisms in that tank was like watching movies at a drive-in† (155). I was glad to read that the narrator was not the one being baptized, because I feel she did not understand the true significance of the baptism ritual. She spoke of the Jesus painting as being, â€Å"rouged and pale and pout as Elvis Presley† (155). She was also trying not to giggle at the other little boys that were being baptized that day, â€Å"He looked as if he hoped someone would rescue him. It was too much for me. I began to giggle helplessly† (156). The narrator was too young to understand fully what it meant to be baptized. I believe that it is one of the reasons that Allison has such a negative attitude towards life. Maybe she did not agree or understand the meaning of a baptism, or religion as a whole. This could stem from a broken home life and no strong father figure. Although I have been fortunate enough to have a father and mother who love me a great deal, I still think the world can be cruel and mean. But meaner than we think? Every day we hear of some new tragedy that she speaks of, â€Å"the woman who drowned her children, the man who shot first the babies in her arms and then his wife, the teenage boys who led the three-year-old away along the train track, the homeless family recovering from frostbite with their eyes glazed and indifferent while the doctor scowled over their shoulders† (159), but every day we also hear of the good things.

Stephen Edwin King :: essays research papers

Stephen Edwin King The second son of Donald and Nellie Ruth Pillsbury King was born on 1974 in Portland, Maine. His name was Stephen Edwin King. After his parents serpertion as a toddler, Stephen and his older brother, David, were raised by his mother. Stephen, David, and their mother lived in Fort Wayne, Indiana, which was where Stephen's father's side of the family lived. They then moved to Stratford, Connecticut, that was where Stephen King spent most of his childhood paying frequent visits to his mother's side of the family that resided in Malden, Massachusetts and Pownal, Maine. Around his 11th anniversary Stephen's mom moved to Durham, Maine, along with Stephen and his brother, to take care of her parents, whom were to old to take care of themselves. Stephen's school days were spent in the Durham Grammar School. He then attended Lisbon Falls High School, graduating in 1966. He went to college at the University of Maine at Orono, at which, during his spophomore year, he worte a weekly column for THE MAINE CAMPUS. During his years at college he was opposed to the war in Vietnam, declaring it unconstitutional. After his graduation in 1970 Stephen had aquired a Bachelor of Science in English and immediately was qualified to teach at the high school level. As a student Stephen worked at the Folger Library, which was on the University of Maine at Orono's campus. While working he met a fellow employee named Tabitha Spruce, who he married in Janurary 1971. Stephen King's first publication was a short story he wrote and sent to a men's magazine. This is where his first profit from writing came from, throughout the few years after his graduation he worte stories and sold them to men's magazines. All of these short stories would be later gathered into a collection known as the "Night Shift collection." In the fall of '71 King was hired as a teacher at Hampden Academy, a public high school in Hampden, Maine. He still found time to write short stories and work on his novel on the weekends and evenings. King's first big break came on the spring of 1973 upon the acceptence of Doubleday & Co. to publish Stephen King's novel Carrie. After learning from his new editor, Bill Thompson, that a major paperback sale would make him financially secure enough to quit teaching, Stephen moved his now growing family to southern Maine because of his grandmother's ever growing sickness. During the writing of Salem's Lot

Conditioning: Psychology

Learning is an important skill that all organisms must acquire in order to survive or fall prey to Darwinism’s main idea of survival of the fittest. Learning is the long lasting effect of a change in behavior. This would constrict the application of learning conditioning to a few applications. The three most recognizable applications are classical conditioning, operant conditioning, and learning by observation. Each type of learning is different, but uses similar ideas such as an unconditioned stimulus, which is usually food, and an unconditioned response, which food is associated with salivation and hunger. There are several ways that an individual can condition an organism to learn skills through three different applications of learning: classical, operant, and observation. The idea of classical condition is one of the most notable learning techniques because it involves a stimulus rewarded for a certain response. Naturally, animals and human have unconditioned stimulus that triggers an unconditioned response. The most common connection is the correlation between food and salivation. Food naturally draws organism to it in order to satisfy a drive created by hunger to acquire homeostasis. A response is created because of the organism’s reaction to food, which is usually salivation. Classical conditioning is considered an effective way to train an organism to learn habits not naturally associated with certain unconditioned stimulus. This creates a conditioned stimulus. The once unconditioned response is now conditioned to respond to the conditioned stimulus, which is called a conditioned stimulus. An example of conditioned stimulus and response is the example of associating the school bell with food. Children are hungry by nature, but when the school bell is added, the children are reinforced to associate the school bell with lunchtime. Classical conditioning is effective when trying the teach an organism a skills by rewarding the organism with a unconditioned stimulus. An individual could use classical conditioning to teach an organism to learn skills that could aid in their own survival such as teaching human to avert certain food because of taste. If one were being taught to avert away from sour tastes, the teachers would first use a food that was extremely sour. By using the person’s innate instinct of hunger, they would give the person a lemon to eat. This sour extremity would cause the person to avoid lemons. The teacher would continuously use this tactic until the person has acquired the skill of aversion of lemons. The learner would have an acquisition of the skill. The teacher would then condition the learner in a variable interval to constantly reinforce the skill. The learner would then avoid all lemons. This may cause the learner to generalize the concept of lemon, for example, the learner may generalize the yellow color to symbolize all sour products, such as generalizing bananas as being sour. The teacher would then have the obligation of teaching the person how to discriminate items, so that his aversion is just towards lemons. While classical conditioning involves the stimulus being rewarded to incur a response, operant conditioning deals with changing the occurrence and forms of behavior. The main different between operant conditioning and classical conditioning is the operant conditioning deals with modifying the learner’s voluntary behavior. Operant conditioning involve consequences to teach desired skills. There are two ways that operant conditioning works, through reinforcement and punishment. Reinforcement comes in two flavors: positive reinforcement and negative reinforcement. Positive reinforcement is the teacher adds something of pleasure to the learner’s behavior in order to get a certain skill. An example would be a mom allowing her child to play video games if the child put the trash outside. The mom uses the favorable stimulus, which is the video games, in order to achieve a behavior, which is taking out the trash, out of the child. There is also negative reinforcement, in which negative reinforcement is the teacher removing an aversive stimulus, which is usually seen as unpleasant, in order to increase the frequency of a certain behavior. For example, when someone wakes up early in the morning, they use an alarm clock to tell them when to wake up. When the alarm clock is activated, it sends a signal, which is usually an annoying buzzing noise, to the learner that it is time to wake up. To reinforce the behavior of waking up, the learner must get up from bed to turn off the aversive stimulus. Reinforcements are consequences of reinforcing favorable behaviors. Punishments, on the other hand, are consequences in which the teacher tries to reduce the frequency of unfavorable behaviors. As with reinforcements, there are also positive and negative punishments. Positive punishment refers to occurred behavior followed by aversive stimulation, such as shock. An example of positive punishment would be if a child had talked negative to the mom, and the mom would respond with a slap on the wrist in order to lessen the frequency of such behavior. Negative punishment, on the other hand, is the removal of a pleasurable stimulus after the occurrence of an undesirable behavior. As with the example of the mom, and the child taking out the trash, if the children had not taken out the trash, the mom would instead take away the video games to lessen the frequency of not taking out the trash. The problem with punishment is that it may cause the learner to demonstrate bad behavior in response to the punishment through responses of fear or anger, rather than lessen the occurrence of the aversive behavior. Operant conditioning is more effective using reinforcements than punishment. However, using both facets successfully is the most effective way. An individual could teach another through operant conditioning if one would like to change a voluntary behavior in another. The teacher would have to use reinforcements to reinforce the desired behavior from the learner. For example, if the individual wanted the learner to wash the dishes after eating, the individual would have to give an incentive to the learner in order for the behavior to continue, such as letting a child play video games after completing his chores. The continuous stimulation by the positive reinforcement would allow the learner to associate good behavior with pleasurable activities. Once the learner has acquired the behavior, the learner may generalize the behavior to include doing all his chores in order to gain the positive reinforcement. The teacher would use punishment sparingly to lessen the frequency of aversive behavior such a taking away the video games. The way that an individual could instruct an organism to acquire a skill is through observable learning. Observable learning is the observations made by the learner through the actions of the teacher in order to create a skill, or change a behavior. Observational learning is the most commonly used tactic. It allows the learner to learn a skill without reward or consequences. The learner learns through observing the teacher and then imitating the actions of the teacher. This is a more common tactic to teach child skills that are learned and reinforced throughout their adulthood, such as table manners. The individual could teach an organism how to do a skill through observational learning. The individual would do an act that is observed by the learner, and they would have the learner imitate the actions. For example, a mother would like to teach her child table manners. She would demonstrate proper table manners to the child. She would then have the child repeat and imitate her actions. Once the child has acquired that knowledge, the mom would continuously reinforce the behavior. The child would learn table manners without much need for punishment or reinforcers. The way that observational learning works, some may categorized observational learning as operant conditioning because it usually involves changing behaviors. The individual could use these three conditioning techniques in conjunction with each other, in combination with them, or separately. Either way, these techniques, classical conditioning, operant conditioning, and observational leanring, are the effective way to show an organism how to learn skills.