Like Water for Chocolate: A Summary Essay

Revolutions throughout time have established change of traditions as the normal occurrence throughout our history. Revolutions in households ca also occur when traditions that are contrary to one’s desire interfere with the values of another. In the novel Like Water for Chocolate, a revolution develops between mother and daughter, Mama Elena and Tita. It is the family traditions, Mama Elena’s lack of understanding of Tita and Tita’s will to break free that sparks the revolution between them. Family traditions play an important role in the cause of Tita’s rebellion against her mother. Tradition states that the youngest daughter (in this case Tita) must not marry, but must take care of their mother until she dies. Tita struggles against her mother’s tradition to â€Å"serve† her until the day she dies, without having a life of her own. Tita did as her mother told even when it made her unhappy. Tita felt smothered by her overbearing mother. Se wanted something more out of life then just taking care of her mother, which is whys he was constantly defying family traditions. An example would be when Tita’s sister Rosaura was unable to feed her son Roberto. Tita however was able to feed him despite not being his mother, defying standards being a mother should feed her own son. Tita was constantly trying to be her own person to make something out of herself that had nothing to do with her mother. When Tita left after Roberto’s death, she wanted nothing to do with her mother, but despite her efforts when she found out that her mother had become paralyzed she soon returned home to help her and take care of her. Tita desperately fights for her freedom and love, while Mama Elena stands as a prime opposition that prevents her from living her dream.

Why Fear National ID Cards?

Featured in 2001 in the New York Times Alan Dershowitz’s article â€Å"Why Fear National ID Cards? † presents the idea of a National ID Card system being put to use in the United States. The reasoning behind such an idea is this, with the sacrifice of some of the individual’s privacy a greater level of security, equality, and productivity can be achieved while discarding some of the insensitive and inefficient methods of identification we use today.A National ID Card consisting of a name, address, photo and fingerprint print would be the first national uniform ID that would replace the high number variations of identification that are issued state by state. This would drastically decrease the chances of forgery by the use of a unified system and strict means of distribution. A more comprehensive ID will allow for accelerated wait times at high security locations such as airports, and for those who decline to show such an ID would be subjected to further security measures.The criteria in which people are required obtain or present identification would remain the same this allows for remnants of the old policy to remain in effect and further safe guards the citizens from a potential over stepping government. A more radical policy or criteria change could lead to an abuse of power or jumpstart similar non-popular policies to be acted on. It would also enable the rate of deportation of illegal immigrants to increase along with providing a better means to legal immigrants to display their status to authorities.â€Å"Rights are a function of experience, and our recent experiences teach that it is far too easy to be anonymous — even to create a false identity — in this large and decentralized country† (Barnet and Bedau). This point taken directly from the article puts into perspective the very real threat of the terrorism. Terrorist hide amidst the general public, this is a concerning reality. No system can prevent all acts of terror but a National ID card with an embedded corresponding fingerprint can reduce the likely hood of the creation of false identities and catch those who are using the weaknesses of the current system to slip by unnoticed.Alan Dershowitz’s stresses the importance of the elimination of the current trend of racial and ethnic stereotyping that acts as a countermeasure for possible threats to security. Improving civil liberties for these targeted groups is achieved by eliminating the need to target these groups in general. By utilizing security measures such as criminal-history retrieval systems and a corresponding fingerprint on the card itself we can remove the reason for profiling individuals due to their appearance alone.

Current Events-Native American Communites Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

Current Events-Native American Communites - Essay Example This essay analyzes this auction as part of the enduring fights against modern forms of colonization. Evidently, Native Americans continue to be bullied in and displaced from their original lands, as some people use the law to violate existing treaties and rulings that give property rights to the former. History repeats itself, as the Lakotas fight for what is theirs because they are under siege from the same forces that ejected them from their lands more than five hundred years ago. In Chapter 2 â€Å"The Invasions of America† of the book First Peoples: A Documentary Survey of American Indian History, Calloway (2012) described the centuries of land grabbing and extermination that Native Americans endured, since Columbus first stepped on the New World. The European settlers created laws and waged wars that aimed to take away the lands from the natives. Up to now, the same strategy persists. The descendants of these settlers continue the practice of using the law to dispossess the natives of their lands. Black Hills is a sacred site that the United States government and its Supreme Court recognize as the property of the Lakota people. The Reynolds family, however, â€Å"owns† it too, and so they can do as they please with it. At present, the Lakota tribes are accumulati ng funds to buy at least Pe’ Sla, which is quite saddening, because they are raising so much money to buy land that belongs to them. Hence, even in the twenty-first century, the natives continue to battle the settlers, who want to take fundamental signifiers of their culture- their sacred ancestral lands. The century has turned but the fight against colonization continues. This time, no blades, cannons, and guns are used, and instead, property rights laws are used. The victims have the same faces, the faces of the native tribes of America. Black Hills is a sacred site. More than that, it belongs to the Lakota. They do not even use it to make money. They need it to

The Filipino Culture Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

The Filipino Culture - Essay Example The Filipino characteristic is a mix of various cultures put together although it is basically of Malay stock. The spirit of kinship and camaraderie is inherited from the Malays, the close family relations from the Chinese, and the piousness from the Spaniards. The Filipinos have distinguishing characteristics of hospitality. They are divided geographically and culturally and their traits and dialects differ accordingly. They are easily distinguished by their fair color, tall structure and fairly formed nose structure. The main religion is Christianity (Roman Catholics). About 80 percent of the population is Catholic Christians while 15 percent are Muslims. The rest are Buddhists. The Filipinos refer to themselves as ‘God-fearing’ people. Rice is the main food eaten thrice a day. Fish and seafood are the principal source of protein. The food had minimal cooking and they either steamed, boiled or roasted their food. The ethnic food is Chinese cuisine which includes noodles and soy products. It is known as the Filipino-Chinese food. Gradually local ingredients were added to suit the local taste. The cuisine was given Spanish name for the convenience of the clients. The Spaniards too brought food influence from Spain and Mexico. After independence, there was a severe recession in Philippines and the economy shrunk by more than 10%. The Asian financial crisis added to the grim situation. It is now experiencing a very fast economic growth. It is now making a steady growth and meeting all government targets. Its growth rate is amongst the fastest in the Asian region. The Filipino language known as Tagalog, contains many Spanish words. Amongst their customs the most noticeable is the "fiesta" or the celebration of a towns patron saints feast day. This is an annual event and is celebrated with street parade, church ceremonies, fireworks and a grand feast. They

Ageism in Nursing Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2250 words

Ageism in Nursing - Research Paper Example As the discussion declares the country identified to manifest the highest shares of aged population (those with citizens 60 years old and above) was Japan as of 2011 and projected way into 2050. Likewise, in addition to the challenges facing the size and quality of workforce who would be qualified and competent to address ageism, other challenges which were noted included addressing non-communicable diseases and pension issues, to name a few.From this paper it is clear that  the causes of ageism was expounded through identifying the factors that allegedly contributed to its perpetuation. It was noted that culture, media, language and the perception of old age have led to enforcement of stereotyped beliefs on the aged population. Among the language or colloqualist terms apparently associated with the older population are: â€Å""geezer," "old fogey," "old maid," "dirty old man," and "old goat"†. Other contributory factors to ageism that were identified include institutions (o rganizations which preclude aged people from being promoted or from being hired); a reported focus of the American health care system on acute care and cure, rather than practicing chronic care which is identified to be most needed by this segment of the population; and government policies that seem to skew regulations and benefits to other sectors more than to the elderly.  The negative stereotyped beliefs add to the dilemma and non-disclosure or dissemination of factual information on the aged population.... d in the study written by Bloom, Boersch-Supan, McGee, and Seike (2011) have disclosed some relevant findings, to wit: â€Å"while aging is taking place in almost all countries of the world, rich or poor, very high longevity is still a matter of very high income levels† (p. 4). In fact, the country identified to manifest the highest shares of aged population (those with citizens 60 years old and above) was Japan as of 2011 and projected way into 2050. Likewise, in addition to the challenges facing the size and quality of workforce who would be qualified and competent to address ageism, other challenges which were noted included addressing non-communicable diseases and pension issues, to name a few. Different studies have been conducted to closely examine relevant issues that pertain to ageing in contemporary times. Authors Kane and Kane (2005) have delved into disparities related to ageism between long-term care and acute care as well as issues related to age-based rationing. Another study by Nolan (2011) examined dimensions of ageing and belonging as well as the effects of ageism. The various challenges faced by health care practitioners in addressing diverse needs and health-related issues of the aged population were expounded by Bloom, Boersch-Supan, McGee, and Seike (2011). There were negative myths and stereotypes that were also apparently presented by Palmore (1990) which have been vividly clarified through presentation of facts on concerns such as illness, impotency, ugliness, mental decline, mental illness, uselessness, isolation, poverty, depression, and political power (Chapin, Nelson-Becker, Gordon, & Terrebonne, 2002). The causes of ageism was expounded through identifying the factors that allegedly contributed to its perpetuation. It was noted that culture,

Presenting the first step of the three step writing process Assignment

Presenting the first step of the three step writing process - Assignment Example During the completion step, the writer revises, proofreads, and distributes the final report among the audience. The three step writing process is important to create purposeful presentations, which are comprehensible, brief, and focused, all at the same time. Planning Planning of business messages requires a business professional to do following tasks: A. Analyzing the situation is the most important step of planning, as it includes clearly identifying the purpose of report and analyzing the audience type. It not only saves time but is also convenient in terms of budget. Business message must be purposeful, worthwhile, and realistic, and must go in accordance with the IQ level of the audience. For example, if the intended audience is elderly employees, then it is no use using too many technological words, as they will not be able to understand. B. The information, that should necessarily be ethical and pertinent, is gathered keeping in consideration the needs of the audience. This i nformation outlines the purpose of the business message to be conveyed. For example, business message intended for females must encompass the needs of women only, and not the general population. This may include messages about maternity leave; and, these messages will be laid out in a way that interests only females. C. Medium, through which the message will travel onto the audience, is considered. The writer considers whether to deliver message through, for example, conversation, speech, lecture, phone call, email, or brochure; and, also considers cost and availability of the chosen media. The audiences’ access to the chosen media is also considered. For example, not every person uses computer and internet, that is, electronic media. There may be some individuals who may use internet inside the workplace but do not have computers at homes. So, to deliver the message to general audience, all pros and cons of chosen media are considered. D. Lastly, the information gathered or the message outlined is organized. Organization saves times and makes the message more clear and understandable, while building audience interest at the same time. For example, a claim without evidence is a kind of unorganized message that is not reliable at all. Real World Example Let’s suppose that the employer has to arrange a vacation, and has to ask the employees to report their convenient dates for vacations. The first step would be planning, in which the employer has to analyze the problem. Information about employees and their past vacations is analyzed. Medium is selected. Emails are a common form of interaction between employees, so this channel may be preferred. In writing phase, a clear message is laid out. For example: â€Å"All employees are requested to submit their convenient dates for the oncoming vacation to the manager by October 15th,† is a good message encompassing all kinds of employees. This kind of message is not only clear and simple, but also gives others a chance to collaborate, in a shared environment, with each other and with the officials. In completion step, the message is revised, proofread, and is distributed through the chosen medium, which may be email or a simple report form. Insight I believe that the three step writing process needs the writer to possess basic writing skills; and, that he must be able to understand the importance of clear, concise, accurate, and pertinent business message. I have learnt that an

Cultural Sensitivity Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Cultural Sensitivity - Essay Example Health care disparities encompass inequalities in regards to rank, social status and age. Disparities in the health care system are closely linked to equity. There are various factors that lead to the differences among individuals. The US population is highly multi-ethnic, and it is mandatory to understand the various cultures (Diller, 10). In spite of the advancements made in the health care system, there are increasing differences in health status among Hispanics, Native Americans, African Americans, Haitians, Jamaicans and Pacific Islanders (Diller, 10). Additionally, the challenges facing the healthcare sector have increased over the years as the population becomes more ethnically diverse. The future of the health care system in the US will be influenced significantly by advancements in ethnic minorities.The composition of the US population has been changing dramatically over the years. This is true from the statistics shown by the recent studies conducted on the population. In t he past decade, there was a relative increase in ethnic groups as follows: non-Hispanic White 5.5%, African American, 16.4%, Hispanic, 65.3% and Pacific Islanders 123.5% (Diller, 11). If this development continues in the future, the number of ethnic minorities will continue rising. Statistics from the census conducted in 2000 reinforce this argument. This further emphasizes the need for cultural competency in the health care system. The table below shows the expected figures by 2042 (Diller, 11). Composition of the US population Ethnic group 2009 (%) 2050 projections (%) Native Americans 1.6 2.0 Asians 5 9 Hispanics 15 30 Non- Hispanic Whites 66 46 Source: Diller, 12 There are five key challenges facing health practitioners in ensuring cultural sensitivity. The main challenge is communication; different ethnic groups have their native languages and hence may not communicate fluently in English. This calls for the need of interpreters for various languages (Weinstein, 447). Secondly, patients from different groups are conservative and are reluctant to talk about sexual matters and other personal problems. Thirdly, there exist clinical differences among the different ethnic groups, for example, the prevalence to some diseases including hypertension and diabetes. The fourth challenge is ethics; Medical practitioners should have respect for different cultures and beliefs while handling their patients. Last but not least is the problem of trust; Patients from different ethnic groups tend to be afraid of the figures in authority and fail to trust the care givers in hospitals. The issue of cultural diversity in the health care sector is here to stay, and there are numerous solutions to the problems emanating from this diversity. Health care providers should

Corporate governance Case Study Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1750 words

Corporate governance - Case Study Example The corporation holds an enhanced asset policy that helps in reducing the risk and optimizes opportunity (BHP Billiton, 2010). The corporate governance program of BHP resulted in the financial growth, with increase in sales volume. EBIT (Earnings Before Interest and Taxes) increases with higher margin with a positive increase in the cash flow, thus making the corporate more competitive along with maintaining the shareholders interest in the corporation in different ways especially through enhanced dividend policy (BHP Billiton, 2010). As stated by Timothy M. Devinney in one of his article, BHP Billiton had routinely placed itself soaring in social responsibility surveys (such as Global Reporting Initiative) for the corporations’ response to the environmental procedures and safety (Devinney, 2009). Due to the consequence of highly exposed measures such as the James Hardie asbestos scandal and the collapse of Enron in Australia, it had increased the level of corporate governance. BHP shareholders have formed ‘BHP shareholders for social responsibility’ concerning about the social, economical and environmental issues and the BHP management have actively participated in corporate governance (Thomas & Nowak, 2006). BHP Billiton have committed to the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the UN Global Compact. It has committed to the Global Reporting Initiative towards the social responsibility (Jones & Et. Al., 2007). BHP Billiton has failed in their commitment towards collective bargaining for its employees which was compatible with its CSR line. During previous years the report relating to the collective bargaining and issues related to labor management was not emphasized. During the year 2005, the corporation had listed unions as the key stakeholders but still it did not align to the corporate social responsibilities. The potential for ethical business behavior is judged when the corporations reinforce

MIDTERM PART 4 Term Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

MIDTERM PART 4 - Term Paper Example While racial disparities have been on the forefront in shaping America’s socio-political and socio-economic context, ethnicity has been trailing in significance. Many people readily recognize racialism at the expense of ethnicity (Watts, 2005). The battle against racism and racial confusion diminished after the second world war. During the war, Americans fought in solidarity irrespective of race, gender, and ethnicity. Racial and ethnic prejudice and biases dominated American life system thereafter. Racial intermarriages and ethnic assimilations attribute the major causes of racial and ethnic confusion. Intermarriages were because of different factors. The white skin complexion has always been associated with superiority and freedom. Such is a fact emphasised by the way pure white Americans view themselves as being superior over other mixed race or non-white Americans. The fact that veterans might have gotten raw deals after the war could have forced in them, a push towards neutralization interactions. Thus, intermarriages and assimilations came to being. Racial confusion intimidates the victims (Kwan & Speirs, 2004). Most of the victims of race and ethnic diversity often find themselves in discriminatory and intimidating scenarios. The problem is outrightly persistent and may take several decades or centuries to end. Many non-whites who had migrated to America with ambitions of getting better life deals ended up not living the American dream. They meet harsh racial environments that shattered the development of both their intellectual and practical professionalism (Spickard & Fong, 1995). During the war, however, Americans fought as a nation and not as individuals. There were utmost unity and togetherness, and no one saw a difference on the other. The unity ought to have continued among the people beyond the war period. However, the then whites-dominated government and

Leadership and darwin Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Leadership and darwin - Essay Example Indeed, human beings are known to be highly adaptable to their external environment so as to optimize their success within the given paradigm of work environment. In the highly competitive business of contemporary times, the workforce continuously strives to creatively evolve skills and strategies that would optimize the intended output. The organizational culture that facilitates learning environment and promote shared learning is able to gain competitive advantage. It helps the workers with wider scope to improve his skills and core competencies for improved performance outcome. Thus change is not an inherent part of development but also serves as vital input for motivating people to adapt to challenging environment. Most interestingly, Darwin’s theory becomes critical ingredient of organizational leadership. Leadership primarily refers to people who are able to bring about changes within the society. Indeed, effective leaders are able to inspire people to adopt more accommo dating approach to changing dynamics of environment. The inherent traits of leaders are important paradigms that support Darwin’s theory of natural selection.

Analyzing Talk Among Friends Essay Example for Free

Analyzing Talk Among Friends Essay In the preceding example, the utterance Ahma git me Ð ° gig! was interpreted differently by the participants in the interaction. So the question to be asked about Ahma git me Ð ° gig! is, what does it mean (how did the listeners arrive at their understandings), and what particular features of language and/or social situation signal that meaning? To arrive at an understanding of what the utterance meant, interpretations are not constructed solely from the speakers perspective but are also gathered from the participants who heard the utterance. Later, others may be asked to listen to Ð ° recording and share their understandings of the utterance(s). Then, the analysts task is to make an in-depth study of the selected instances of verbal interaction, observe whether or not actors understand each other, elicit participants interpretations of what goes on, and then (Ð °) deduce the social assumptions that speakers must have in order to act as they do, and (b) determine empirically how linguistic signs communicate in the interpretation process ( Gumperz 1982: 35). In the analysis of the example noted here, for instance, Gumperz was able to show that most white speakers did not seem to understand the utterance other than as Ð ° lapse into dialect or saw the switch to Black English as Ð ° rejection of whites and the speaker addressing himself only to other black students. Black students, however, explained the students remark as an attempt to justify himself by appealing to others in the group, Іm just playing the game as we blacks must do if we are to get along in Ð ° white world, while also identifying Ð ° particular rhythm in the utterance that led them to their interpretation. Thus, features of language carry social meaning that plays Ð ° significant role in interpreting what speakers mean (see Gumperz 1982: 29-37 for Ð ° detailed explanation of this example and its interpretation). While this example should make any interpreter wonder how they are interpreting meaning of speakers who differ in some way, such as region of the country, age, ethnicity, gender, my point here is about the analysis of natural language and how discourse analysts determine what speakers mean and how language conveys elements of meaning. Using these methods to analyze interpreted discourse is Ð ° way of understanding how the participants in an interpreted interaction understand each other at the time. Gumperz proposed that Ð ° theory of discourse must take into account both the linguistic and socio-cultural knowledge that an interlocutor must have to maintain involvement in an interaction, Accounting for such knowledge demonstrates two things: (1) meanings are jointly constructed between speakers as they talk, and (2) conversations contain internal evidence of their outcomes, that is, the ways in which participants share, partially share, or do not share, mutual conventions for meaning and how they succeed in achieving their communicative ends. Tannen reached Ð ° similar conclusion. She called such linguistic and social knowledge conventions by which meaning is communicated in social interaction (1984: 151). In Conversational Style: Analyzing Talk Among Friends, Tannen (1984) analyzed two and Ð ° half hours of conversation over Ð ° Thanksgiving dinner. She defined and discussed features of conversational involvement, such as topic, pacing (how relatively fast or slow one spoke), narrative strategies (in what order events are told, how speakers made their point, etc.), and expressive paralinguistic (intonation, pitch, and others), which together pattern in different ways the speech of different participants. For three of the speakers, these features combined in acceptable ways of having Ð ° conversation, but three other speakers experienced the same conversation as unusual and their participation faltered. When speakers share conventions for signaling meaning, they can be said to share Ð ° conversational style ( Tannen 1984). Tannens approach to studying discourse, modeled after Gumperz, is characterized by (1) recording naturally occurring conversations; (2) identifying segments in which communication may seem to flounder or be troublesome; (3) looking for patterned differences in signaling meaning that could account for trouble; (4) playing the recording, or segment of it, back to participants to elicit their spontaneous interpretations and reactions, and also, perhaps later, eliciting their responses to the researchers interpretations; and (5) playing segments of the interaction for other members of the cultural groups represented by the speakers to discern patterns of interpretation. Tannens study suggests that within an interpreted interaction speakers who do not share Ð ° common language also have conversational styles that they do not necessarily share with the interpreter. For example, Tannen (1994) has demonstrated that Ð ° discourse approach to gender and language, following in the tradition of Gumperz, can be understood by looking for differences in the way women and men signal meaning in conversation. This has great implications for interpreters: what happens when interpreter’s do not share Ð ° conversational style with one or both speakers? Many interpreters are women who interpret for men. Do they understand male strategies for asking questions or giving information? Do men understand female strategies? As her research demonstrates, the notion of cross-cultural encompasses more than just speakers of different languages or from different countries; it includes speakers from the same country of different class, region, age, and even gender ( Tannen 1985: 2o3). Gumperzs analysis of brief utterances located within Ð ° social scene and Tannens analysis of Ð ° single extended interaction via the same analytical and interpretive framework provide Ð ° rigorous methodology for analyzing conversational interactions, including interpreted conversations. Their emphasis on soliciting participant reactions and interpretations, along with close transcription of contextualization cues in language, provides Ð ° framework for going beyond Ð ° mere structural description of an interpreted encounter to an intense scrutiny of turn-taking as experienced by the participants, including phenomena such as simultaneous turn-taking.

The deleterious effects, and the risks of GM food Essay Example for Free

The deleterious effects, and the risks of GM food Essay It’s been said that humans are what they eat. The relationship humans have with food is unappreciated. Food is the fuel that keeps humans going, gives them the energy needed to be creative and productive; it is the building block of society, after all, it wasn’t until the Neolithic Era, when humans figured out a way to domesticate plants and animals, that any form of organized society formed. Even during the previous hunter-gatherer foraging era, humans were very connected to the food they ate; understanding where it came and having an idea of how it came to be was crucial to knowing what was vital to survive. In this time, food sources like grains, fruits, and vegetables were naturally abundant, whole. Humans could choose between many different types of nutritious food because there were thousands of varieties of species. Unfortunately, as populations grew and more civilized societies formed, various farming techniques were created, and a vast majority of these species became extinct to make way for the harvesting of a select few (Pringle). In the industrial era, societies around the world, especially western ones, emphasized the importance of technological advancements. With this pursuit of technology, nature became something to control rather than live with; an attempt at making life simpler, better. Breaching the gap between nature and technology is optimization. It is this obsession with optimization that most accurately characterizes contemporary America. Undoubtedly, it comes with great costs. As it turns out, optimization is a business, and a profitable one. Thus, the costs and ef fects of optimization are often hidden from the public by industrial leaders in an effort to maintain profits. They control the businesses they run and protect themselves by dumping millions of dollars into politics. Today, it seems that the gap between nature and technology has been breached with the propagation of genetically modified organisms (GMOs). The aliens that now fill supermarkets nationwide represent the ultimate disconnect from natural, whole foods necessary for a healthy lifestyle. People are relatively uninformed about GM foods, issues include: their benefits, the testing and safety, the harmful effects they can have on the body and environment, the government’s role as overseer, the labeling controversy, and the â€Å"substantially equivalent† principle; all of these issues are conveniently hidden vitalities in understanding the danger, the deleterious effects, and the risks of GM foods. In tackling these issues, an additional understanding of the historic background of how GMOs came to be is equally important. Advocates for the rapid advance of technology will cite the numerous positive breakthroughs, the internet, healthcare, the numerous inventions; it’s hard to argue with, which is why when addressing GM foods, the emphasis should be placed on the relationship between technology and nature, specifically within the food industry, and how this relationship has become too intimate, to the point where it’s difficult to differentiate between technology and nature. The courtship leading to the marriage between technology and nature is exemplified in Peter Pringle’s book, Food, Inc., in which he discusses the 1960’s Green Revolution, a turning point in agriculture during which producers moved from traditional to monoculture methods of farming. This vastly increased crop yields. But how? Farmers had high yields because they started to use fertilizers and pesticides containing chemicals like nitrogen, left over from World War II explosives. New irrigation systems were introduced and animals replaced some human labor in order to handle the large crop fields and monoculture agriculture provided food relief to starving nations post-war (Pringle). Farmers experienced a rude awakening when yields started to decline due to a number of unforeseen or unaddressed consequences. Although the Green Revolution saved or improved millions of lives during the 1960’s, little consideration was given to the future effects it could have on environmental sustainability. The lack of food plant diversity eventually led to multiple problems, like the mass destruction of crops that had contracted disease or succumbed to pesticide-resistant insects, chemically saturated and overly watered soils, and an inevitable decline in production yields (Pringle). Obviously, the United States needed to find a solution to this problem. By the late 1900s, many scientists and biotechnologists approved and advocated genetic engineering as the most viable solution. This process is best described by Lauren and Robin Ticciati in their book, Genetically Modified Foods: Are They Safe? You Decide. According to the Ticciati’s, scientists planned to take a gene from one completely different organism and insert it into the plant in order to make it yield a desired outcome (Ticciati). The goal was to create food plants that could grow and withstand harsh conditions like pesticides, infertile soil, unfavorable climates, and geographical locations. Despite wariness from skeptical environmentalists about the unknown future effects of genetic food engineering, the companies who profit from this new food technology proclaimed it to be the wave of the future. As the Ticciati’s evidenced, in 1996, when the FDA approved the use of genetically engineered foods with no special label requirements, the GM foods were introduced on grocery market shelves with relatively no consumer awareness. This is just another example of how society is not clueless by choice. If this seems a harsh diagnosis, take into context what Kathleen Hart exemplified in her book, Eating in the Dark; a survey which took place just a couple years after GM foods were released revealed about two-thirds of the American adult population had no idea that supermarkets were carrying such items (Hart). Since then, GMOs have become part of the staple food products in the diets of the everyday consumer. Part of the problem is that nobody is exactly sure how harmful GM foods are, but there is substantial evidence to show that they can have a devastating effect on the economy, the human body, and the environment. In Food, Inc., Pringle discusses the farming method of artificial hybrid breeding which became a huge success in the mid-1900s and attracted a lot of commercial attention, spawning the term â€Å"agribusiness.† Scientists found that by crossing-breeding two varieties [of a species of plant] that had been inbred, [and] fertilized by their own pollen for three or four generations showed a tremendous leap in hybrid vigor, with grain yields up to 50 percent higher [than the natural bred variety] (Pringle). Unfortunately, when naturally crossed in the farmers’ fields, the hybrids strength did not withstand, so farmers had to rely on industry-produced super seeds. An economic boom occurred within the seed and fertilizer industries, with businesses rapidly sprouting up like the crops they helped produce. A few decades later the early warnings of genetic uniformity suddenly became a reality, (Pringle). One alarming discovery was the fact that since only one type of species was being harvested in a given area, if a crop contracted a disease, the entire field was wiped out, which meant no income that season for many farmers (Pringle). The companies who were invested in this new agricultural era and had seen the enormous profit potential in having a hand in controlling the food chain were not going to just quit. They pushed further into science, seeking ways to alter a species genetic make-up in order for it to conform to optimization, instead of considering natural solutions to these problems (Pringle). Today, there are GM super foods that are so genetically modified that they differ starkly from their ancestors. It is a teeter-totter industry; either profits are extremely high (like they have been for so long) or the industry fails and profits cease to exist. The latter doesn’t look like it’s going to occur any time soon because the government is firmly grasped by the biotech food companies that control the GM food industry. The most prominent of these companies, Monsanto, falsely advocates the necessity for GM foods, with the real motive the preservation of profits. Monsanto executive Hugh Grant claims â€Å"they [GM foods] can help feed the world and preserve the environment by reducing the need for pesticides,† (Harvest of Fear). Others advocate the hope that GM technology can save lives, like scientist Charles Arntzen, who is working on GM techniques to make edible vaccines to combat viruses in developing countries, (Harvest of Fear). More recently, companies like AquaBounty Technologies are working to develop genetically engineered animals. AquaBounty’s AquAdvantage salmon has been touted as â€Å"as safe as food from conventional Atlantic salmon,† by the FDA, but is still being met with numerous opposition (Pollack). The salmon â€Å"contain a growth hormone gene from the Chinook salmon and a genetic switch from the ocean pout that turns on an antifreeze gene,† which allows the salmon to make growth hormone in cold weather, whereas they usually produce it only in warm weather,† (Pollack). Genetic manipulation is causing drastic changes in the natural behavior of the organisms it’s implemented on, and it is believed that this could have multiple adverse effects on the environment and society. Those who have similar concerns, these cautious enemies to GM foods, can find strength in recent studies that are beginning to expose the numerous harmful effects of GM foods. In a study done by Gilles-Eric Sà ©ralini at the University of Caen in France, 200 rats were fed either genetically engineered corn or the herbicide Roundup and observed for two years, their entire life cycle and not just the normal ninety day period. It was found that they had an increased risk of developing tumors, suffering organ damage, and dying prematurely (Pollack, GMO Global Alert). Additional animal studies have shown other serious health risks associated with GM food consumption: infertility, immune dysregulation, accelerated aging, and changes in the liver, kidney, spleen, and gastrointestinal system (Genetic Roulette). To exemplify how this is portrayed in humans, statistical evidence shows that after 1996, when GMOs increased in the American diet, disorders like inflammatory bowel disease, ulcerative colitis, chronic constipation, gastrointestinal infections, Crohn’s disease, and gastroephageal reflux have all risen dramatically and consistently (Genetic Roulette). Further evidence indicates that GMOs cause food allergies, have increased toxicity, decreased nutritional value, and promote antibiotic resistance (UMN). Not only do GM foods have a great potential for negatively effecting humans, they are harmful to the environment. Companies like Monsanto claim that genetically modifying foods is environmentally friendly, but this has been proven wrong on a multitude of levels. There is lack of nutrients found in soil in which GM crops are planted (Ticciati). These crops hurt the soil and the food chain. The chemicals found in pesticides were not only killing pests but also small animals, especially birds, were also facing extinction (Robbins). Tampering with natural selection creates a domino effect and damages the entire ecosystem. Imposing an unnatural element in the form of GM foods changes the equation and disrupts natural balance, even if things balance out, they will be forever different, even this is dangerous. Although GM foods are responsible for massive crop yields and the increased food supply, the industry is precariously perched given the increasing amount of deleterious effects that are being exposed more and more each day. For this reason, the government needs to take action. This is another dilemma; it is easy to wonder how the government can do anything when it has such close relationships with the companies that all the fingers are being pointed at. The primary antagonist in this story is the company Monsanto, the inventor of saccharin, an artificial sweetener, and many additional products. Monsanto accounts for over two-thirds of genetically engineered soy, corn, and canola crops worldwide (Robbins). Hendrik Verfaillie, Monsantos Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, described the company’s aggressive strategy with, The biggest mistake that anyone can make is moving slowly, because the game is going to be over before you start, (Robbins). It is understandable that a company this big has a profoundly large impact on government rulings regarding its industry. With Monsanto’s Roundup herbicide bringing in billions of dollars, the industry convinced the Supreme Court to allow the patenting of genetically engineered seeds so that the offspring would become the property of the seed manufacturer. In Genetic Engineering, Food and Our Environment, Luke Anderson exemplifies the impact of this ruling by stressing the profound repercussions it will have on the future of living organisms; This extraordinary decision by the U.S. Supreme Court heralded a new era. Once a shared heritage, the gene pool of plants, animals, and humans was now a commodity waiting to be bought and sold (Anderson). What appears to be mainly a business venture is an extremely important political issue, with companies pouring millions into politics to stay afloat. This is exemplified by the following quote, from the documentary The Future o f Food. Here, director D.K. Garcia focuses on the 2000 Presidential Election and the biotechnology issue: Agricultural biotechnology will find a support occupying the White House next year, regardless of which candidate wins the election in November (Garcia). The Future of Food reveals top ranking officials from the Supreme Court, such as Justice Clarence Thomas who previously represented Monsanto as their Lawyer for Regulatory Affairs, to Donald Rumsfeld, The Secretary of Defense, who was previously the President of Searle, a Monsanto subsidiary. Given their backgrounds, it is difficult to ignore the likelihood that their political stances would not be swayed. Even worse is Linda Fisher, who has switched roles between the EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) and Monsanto a number of times; she was Monsantos Executive Vice President for nearly a decade and Deputy Administrator for the EPA as well as Commissioner for George Bushs administration (Garcia). It’s frightening that the EPA, which acknowledges and regulates pesticides emitted into the environment, is likely to be biased in regards to the approval of genetically modified organisms into the environment. Needless to say, it’s shocking to see the connections that pose how much of an apparent influence Monsanto and the other leading biotech companies have on government regulations of GMOs. Evidence of this influence is presented in Seeds of Deception, in which Micah Sifry states, the four leaders of the biotech industry Monsanto, Dow, DuPont, and Novartis gave more than $3.5 million in PAC, soft-money, and large individual contributions between 1995 and 2000, three-quarters of it to Republicans (Smith). Stricter guidelines and extensive testing are not required because the companies have such strong political ties that they can influence the policy that is implemented upon them. In 1992, former U.S. Vice President, Dan Quayle, exemplifies this in his speech on behalf of the Council of Competitiveness, We will ensure that biotech products will receive the same oversight as other products, instead of being hampered by unnecessary regulation (Garcia). The FDA approved genetically modified foods with a high sense of hesitant reluctance. Consumers are supposed to rely on the FDA to determine if food is safe for consumption; the agency is supposed to be a protective one. This was a landmark decision for the FDA, a decision which required strong political influence for the agency to decide against its own principles. This is evidenced in The Future of Food; Dan Quayle and the Bush administrat ion appointed Michael Taylor as Deputy Commissioner for Policy, which Andrew Kimbrell divulges in an interview, noting that Taylor was formerly Monsantos Senior Counsel at the King and Spaulding law firm. Taylor instituted a no-regulation policy and left it to the biotech companies to determine whether or not genetically modified food was deemed safe for human consumption (Garcia). As the examples presented indicate, the successful clearance of GM foods has been engineered by companies like Monsanto and politicians, almost as much as the foods themselves. With the FDA swept out of the way, the companies that dominated the biotech industry were free to roam as they pleased, testing at their fingertips. How can the consumers trust Monsanto to act in their best interest, especially when the company’s Director of Corporate Communication, Phil Angell, says things like â€Å"Monsanto should not have to vouchsafe the safety of biotech food. Our interest is in selling as much of it as possible. Assuring its safety is the FDA’s job,† (Robbins). Without extensive testing, which would almost certainly yield new truths about the harmful effects of GM foods, Monsanto can achieve its goal of selling as much as possible while disregarding the consequences this has on society and the environment. Testing is probably the biggest grey area of them all. The FDA has a persona of an overseer and protector, meaning that people generally believe that all food undergoes tests by the FDA to ensure their safety. Unfortunately, this couldn’t be further from the truth. Testing genetically modified foods is dependent on the words of the companies that develop them. According to Consumer Unions Jean Halloran, When a company comes in with data, the FDA looks at it and writes a letter saying, Dear Monsanto, you supplied information regarding the safety of corn variety X and we are confident about what youve shown, It is your responsibility, (CBS). The FDA is in a difficult position. It is presented with its initial objective of protecting the American people but now, with biotechnology and GM foods, it is faced with a decision of whether or not to promote the biotech industry. The FDA regulates GM foods as part of the â€Å"coordinated framework† of federal agencies that also includes the EPA and the United States Department of Agriculture (Bashshur). The problem is that this framework has been the subject of critical analysis and calls for redesign; it is outdated, with the FDA policy unchanged since 1992. It is available online and contains a searchable database that covers â€Å"genetically engineered crop plants intended for food or feed that have completed all recommended or required reviews,† (Bashshur). The policy places responsibility on the producer or manufacturer to assure the safety of the food, explicitly relying on the producer or manufacturer to do so: â€Å"Ultimately, it is the responsibility of the producer of a new food to evaluate the safety of the food and assure that the safety requirement of section 402(a)(1) of the act is met,† (Bashshur). It is also this policy that establishes that the â€Å"substantially equivalent† concept, with which the FDA judges most GM crops as â€Å"substantially equivalent† to non-GM crops. In these cases, GM crops are â€Å"designated as â€Å"Gener ally Recognized as Safe† under the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act (FFDCA) and do not require pre-market approval,† (Federation of American Scientists). Although these products are described as substantially equivalent, their manufacturers stress that they are different so that they can patent them and continue to profit. In this situation, the consumer must take the producer’s angle. Their products are dramatically different; their genetic composition is very different in comparison with that of their ancestral forms. In deciding whether or not to ingest these products, the consumer must realize that if the companies that produce them stress they are dramatically different, and there is minimal testing done on them, these GM food products could be extremely dangerous. Currently, there is no regulatory scheme requiring GM foods to be tested to see if it is safe for humans to eat or not. FDA guidance to the industry issued in 1997 covered voluntary â€Å"cons ultation procedures,† but â€Å"still relied on the developer of the product to provide safety data,† (Bashshur). There are numerous pieces of evidence that indicate that GM food testing is completely unregulated. The FDA’s policy is outdated and weak, â€Å"substantially equivalent† cannot be justified when such a small level of testing has been done. The fact that this policy has remained unchanged for two decades is staggering; there’s probably a lot of money keeping it that way. In tackling what Ramona Bashshur describes as the FDA’s â€Å"dual mission,† rational thought is vital. Although the FDA cannot ignore the opportunity to make scientific advances with the potential to better society, it must reflect on its original role, as a protector. While scientific advances with GMOs are rapidly continuing, there hasn’t been enough testing on them to determine how dangerous they are. If testing was done and the foods proved safe , which they probably wouldn’t, there would be nothing wrong with promoting it. In the meantime, as more and more harmful aspects of GM foods come to the surface, it would be smart for the FDA to revise its policy, improve the extent of testing done on these foods, so that America can move forward in science with the assurance that it won’t hurt its citizens. This is a difficult task; there is so much political influence on the industry that it may never occur. If the policy for testing cannot be amended, there is action that can be taken that could have a similar outcome. Specialized labeling for GM foods would set them apart from normal foods and make it easier for consumers to make healthy choices. In the United States, they aren’t labeled, while in Europe, Russia, China, and other countries, they are. This is an extremely popular movement in the United States. An example is California’s Proposition 37, which would’ve required â€Å"labeling on raw or processed food offered for sale to consumers if made from plants or animals with genetic material changed in specified ways.† And it would prohibit marketing â€Å"such food, or other processed food, as ‘natural,’† (Bittman). The numbers don’t lie; people supported Proposition 37; roughly 65% for to 20% against, with 15% undecided. From a national perspective on the labeling issue, 91% of voters believe that the FDA should require that â€Å"foods which have been genetically engineered or containing genetically engineered ingredients to be labeled to indicate that,† (Bittman). With these numbers as a reference for the support that Proposition 37 had, it’s hard to believe that it was struck down. Again, this is an instance of money having the loudest voice in the room. Money flew in from both sides, but the food companies that stood to lose in the situation, like Monsanto and The Hershey Co., contributed to what was â€Å"eventually a $44 million windfall for No on Prop 37, while proponents were only able to raise $7.3 million,† (Almendrala). According to MapLight, an organization that tracks campaign contributions, biotech companies amassed $46 million to defeat the measure, with Monsanto contributing $8.1 million and Kraft Foods, PepsiCo and Coca-Cola each contributing at least $1.7 million (Pollack). In contrast, those who backed Proposition 37 were only able to contribute $9.2 million; money made the difference. Proposition 37 was close, garnering 47% of the vote, with campaigns like the online based â€Å"Just Label It† collecting signatures and comments on a petition to the FDA, requesting rules â€Å"similar to those in the European Union, Japan, China, India and Australia, stating what transgenic food is in the package,† (Moskin). The biggest thing about Proposition 37 is that it had national implications; it wasn’t just California that the food conglomerates were worried about. If it passed, it could’ve been the beginning of a national labeling revolution, potentially the beginning of an even greater revolution. Throughout history, organisms have developed through a recurrence of genetic mutations that have naturally selected the organisms that are most fit for survival. The rise of GMOs can be viewed through the same lens. GMOs arose from the conditions following the monoculture agricultural shift in the 1960’s Green Revolution. The key here is that they are not natural. The â€Å"mutations† that have aided the rise of GMOs are manmade, manufactured, and abnormal. GMOs are a result of the American obsession with optimization, which manifests itself in technology. After World War II and throughout the Green Revolution, America sought numerous technological advancements as it relished its role as a world power. With GMOs, America breached the gap between technology and nature in an effort to optimize food. Companies like Monsanto, with their growing number of political connections, began using their funds to pave the way for GMOs to become and remain a staple contingent of the American diet. Today, GM foods are still privately and minimally tested and they remain unlabeled in the United States. While the FDA stands by its outdated 1992 policy, claiming that GM foods are â€Å"substantially equivalent,† the producers stress that they are different in an effort to obtain patents. America cannot trust the sources it looks to for accurate information because there has been little testing but there is hope on the horizon after California nearly passed a law forcing GM foods to be labeled. As concerned parties seek an answer, they must first look towards labeling these foods, sparking a chain reaction that causes uninformed consumers to ask questions like, â€Å"Why are these foods specially labeled?† and â€Å"What makes these foods different?† Labeling could prove to be the beginning of a further revolution to enhance regulation of GM foods. This revolution, though currently nonexistent, must occur before this problem mutates even further, before not just the American people, but the entire world, reaps the consequences for playing the role of Creator. Anderson, L. (1999). Genetic engineering, food, and our environment. Vermont: Chelsea Green Publishing. Clark, E. A. Lehman, H. (2001). Assessment of GM crops in commercial agriculture. Journal of Agricultural and Environmental Ethics, 14 (1), 3-28. Retrieved October 26, 2006, from ProQuest Research Library. Guidance for industry: Voluntary labeling indicating whether foods have or have not Been developed using bioengineering. (2001) Retrieved November 8, 2006, from http://www.cfsan.fda.gov/~dms/biolabgu.html. Garcia, D. K. (Director, Producer, Writer). (2004). The future of food. [DVD]. Mill Valley: Lily Films. Hart, K. (2002). Eating in the dark. New York: Pantheon Books. Pascalev, A. (2003). You are what you eat: genetically modified foods, integrity, and society. Journal of Agricultural and Environmental Ethics, 16 (1), 583-594. Retrieved October 29, 2006, from ProQuest Research Library. Pringle, P. (2003). Food inc. New York: Simon Schuster. Robbins, J. (2001). The food revolution: How your diet can help save your life and the world. Berkeley: Conari Press. Smith. J. (2003). Seeds of deception. Vermont: Chelsea Green Publishing. Ticciati, L. Ticciati, R. (1998). Genetically engineered foods. Are they safe? You decide. New Canaan: Keats Publishing. http://documentarylovers.com/genetic-roulette-gamble-our-lives/ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Njd0RugGjAgfeature=related http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/22/business/gene-altered-fish-moves-closer-to-federal-approval.html?pagewanted=all_r=0 http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/08/dining/a-suit-airs-debate-on-organic-vs-modified-crops.html http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/09/15/g-m-o-s-lets-label-em/?_r=0 http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/21/business/energy-environment/21salmon.html http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/04/health/policy/04salmon.html http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/08/business/california-bid-to-label-genetically-modified-crops.html http://www.nongmoproject.org/learn-more/ http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/20/business/energy-environment/disputed-study-links-modified-corn-to-greater-health-risks.html?_r=0 http://enhs.umn.edu/current/5103/gm/harmful.html http://www.cbsnews.com/2300-204_162-10004920-2.html http://www.americanbar.org/content/newsletter/publications/aba_health_esource_home/aba_health_law_esource_1302_bashshur.html http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/11/07/prop-37-defeated-californ_n_2088402.html http://www.fas.org/biosecurity/education/dualuse-agriculture/2.-agricultural-biotechnology/us-regulation-of-genetically-engineered-crops.html http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Njd0RugGjAgfeature=related

The Washington And Post Washington Consensus

The Washington And Post Washington Consensus Abstract The present term paper is an attempt to explore and put forth the theoretical exposition of the two major development paradigms the market-oriented and the state-cum-market centric development models, plausibly portrayed in terms of what is often phrased as the Washington Consensus and the Post-Washington Consensus. These discourses must not be only analysed keeping in mind the benefits and costs of the implementing the policy prescriptions advocated by these two sets of development paradigms in different economies over the years, but at the same time its long-term effects on the individual economies, be at the centre or periphery, and the repercussion effects of any alteration in economic variables in one country on the other as a consequence of openness of economies, while pursuing the universal policies, granted for the fact that today we believe the world no less than a global village where the governance concept has modified radically over the last a few decades at the behest o f the key Bretton Woods institutions like the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. The development discourse must also account for the individual capability and capacity of countries to absorb the economic policies in the development agenda of individual countries in question, as put forth by these institutions. Naturally enough, the failure of the sound theoretical programs would invite criticisms, at least because it has worked unevenly in almost every country trying to employ these policies and unfortunately there are no dearth of evidences from all corners of the globe to prove that the universal policy design uniformly for all countries, in order to bring about meaningful economic development globally has actually failed or at least been partly successful. The overall idea is to make an insight into the Washington Consensus and the Post-Washington Consensus and evaluating to what extent any scrutiny for these policies could be hence put forward. Introduction The economic development discourse of nations had been under constant influence of the economic ideology prevailing in particular nations at any point in time. The economic history of nations itself suggests that how we have witnessed the changing development paradigms have evolved after the Second World War in 1944-45, primarily seen as the deliberate developmental assistance to the war-affected nations. The focus used to be mainly the need to correct market failure through command and control mechanism through various state-oriented developmental strategies and economic programmes like the import substitution industrialisation policy for the promotion of indigenous industries for better comparative advantage in production and exchange, financial repression etc. But the decade of 70s precisely late 70s, apparently proved the defects and malfunctioning of the centrally planned economies. The two major oil shocks, first in 1973 and the next in 1979 put the greatest challenge before th e policy makers and development economists, which completely destabilised the global economy along with many other politico-economic developments around the world. This would be clear in the following excerpts. The 1980s were a hell of a decade. They began with the reverberations of the second OPEC oil shock. They ended with the fall of the Berlin wall. In between, we had the Reagan-Thatcher-Kohl economic policy era in North America and Europe, the Volcker interest rate shock, the Latin American debt crisis, collapse in Africa, the start of rapid growth in China and in India, and on and on. Oh, and by the way, in 1989 John Williamson coined the term Washington Consensus (Williamson, 1990:3) It became a questionable affair to challenge the efficacy of how far government policies can actually benefit or harm the economic environment. This tendency of statist model inevitably led to emergence of an alternative theory of development fundamentally rests on the assumptions of the neo-classical model of a free-market enterprise economy. The Washington Consensus per se is primarily affiliated to this school of economic thought, which states for the minimal role of the state in carrying out economic activity. That is governments should limit their interferences in the economy, only to maintain macroeconomic stability and to secure law and order and provision of public goods. In other words, the Washington Consensus is the market-centered strategy designed to counter the ill-effects of excessive state intervention in the economy, under the aegis of World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF), which claimed to provide a universal mechanism for the efficient allocation of economic resources and promoter of economic growth world wide. However, the validity of Washington Consensus was under strict scrutiny for not fulfilling its much hyped economic policies and soon criticised for its failure. At this preliminary level, it is important to introduce the other parallel but pole opposite of Washington Consensus, that is, the emergence of the Post-Washington Consensus in mid-1990s, which advocates for a mixed-blend of interventionist and market strategy for better economic development of nations, granted a few conditions of the Washington Consensus like the trade liberalization to be continued along with deliberate state intervention in the economic affairs. The Pros and Cons of the Washington Consensus The Washington Consensus, sometimes synonymously used as the set of neo-liberal economic policies or a universal policy package was originally designed by the key Bretton Woods institutions like World Bank and IMF, to restore economic growth and to correct the balance of payments crises or the debt crises and hyper-inflation kind of situation facing the Latin American countries, such as Argentina and Mexico. The term Washington Consensus was coined and formulated by John Williamson in 1989 at the Peterson Institute of International Economics in the US. According to Nobel Laureate in Economics in the year 2001, Joseph E. Stiglitz, The Washington Consensus policies, however, were based on a simple model of market economy, the competitive equilibrium model, in which Adam Smiths invisible hand works, and works perfectly. Because in this model, there is no need for the government that is, free, unfettered, liberal markets work perfectly the Washington Consensus policies are sometimes referred to as neo-liberal based on market fundamentalism, a resuscitation of the laissez-faire policies that were popular in some circles in the nineteenth century (Stiglitz, 2002: 74). This neo-liberal orthodoxy prevailed over the entire global economy from the beginning of the late 1970s to the mid of 1990s irrespective of the nature and extent of economic growth parameters in different countries. The set of policy prescription was purely of market-oriented model of economic growth. This policy package eventually effectuated in what is better known as the Structural Adjustment Policy (SAP) of the World Bank and the IMF to help countries get rid of debt-crises aftermath of the oil shock of 1979 from the sharp decrease in the primary commodities prices and increasing interest rates, the World Bank and the IMF put forward conditionalities in order to receive credits or financial assistance from these institutions basically to the governments of the developing countries. Therefore, stable macroeconomic policies, outward orientation, and free-market capitalism became the central instruments of the Washington Consensus. In other words, the three big ideas underlying these reforms as Williamson asserts are: The macroeconomic discipline, a market economy, and openness to the world. The first three reforms are, so far as I am aware, widely accepted among economists (Williamson, 2000: 251). Williamson also provided a more specific list of ten policy areas or tenets of that could be used to characterize the consensus as listed below: (1) fiscal discipline, (2) redirection of public expenditure toward the areas of education, health, and infrastructure, (3) tax reform, (4) interest-rate liberalization, (5) competitive exchange rates, (6) trade liberalization, (7) liberalization of inflows of foreign direct investment, (8) privatization, (9) deregulation, and (10) secure property rights (Williamson 1990). We can say that all these reforms fundamentally rest on the premises of the neo-classical paradigm that supports the laizzez-faire doctrine as panacea for all economic problems in a capitalist economy. Therefore, the whole concern was through following these policy package, the markets could be freely allowed to take its own course in order to set the prices right, which comes from the essence of free trade as a major component of the Washington Consensus. The widespread and often excessive state intervention was being seen as the making the economy weak and therefore it was contended that imperfect markets are better than imperfect states. Giving the logical corollary to prove this point, Lal (1983: 63-64) at different occasions asserted that The cost of government failures arising from the rent-seeking and price distortions associated with excessive protectionism would always outweigh market failures associated mostly with imperfect competition an under-provision of public goods. The Washington Consensus was thus increasingly based on the understanding that imperfect markets are always superior to imperfect states. Some scholars like Colclough and Manor (2000: 263) summarised the resurgence of the neo-liberal thinking in development discourse in following words. The emerging neoliberal orthodoxy advocated a new development model based on the primacy of individualism, market liberalism, outward-orientation, and state contraction. The organising principle of neo-liberal political economy was the notion of a minimal state, whose primary functions were to secure law and order, ensure macroeconomic stability and provide the necessary physical infrastructure. Further, according to Colclough and Manor (2000: 263) Trade liberalisation and state contraction were necessary tools to curb the excessive powers enjoyed by politicians and bureaucrats, a process which was regarded as crucial for rapid and equitable economic growth. Originally the policy reforms as envisaged in the Washington Consensus was designed and intended to cover all the Latin American countries, later it was applied to almost all countries and was intentionally penetrated into the economic policy agenda of Third World Countries. Regarding the supremacy of the Washington Consensus on all the earlier prevalent economic thoughts, different opinions came into the picture. Say for instance, much before the arrival of such an economic ideological discourse, economists like J. M. Keynes (1936), who is considered to be a pioneer of the welfare state, believed that a policy of fiscal discipline would neither avoid the current account crisis, nor it can lead to a fully employed economy where all the factors of production and economic resources are optimally employed. So J. M. Keynes basically challenged the classical axioms for the smooth functioning of the economy. Since the classical axioms are not very close to the real world phenomena of perfe ctly competitive markets, the essence of the Washington Consensus way of looking at the economy could be better described in the words of Keynes in the following lines: It happens not to be those of the economic society in which we actually live; with the result that its teaching is misleading and disastrous if we attempt to apply it to the facts of experience (Keynes, 1936:30). Infact, it is felt that the last of the ten policy reforms, that is, securing property rights for efficient production in the economy however, cannot be refuted easily. If the state is capable to ensure that the production ownership should go in the hands of those who value it more, who has also the capability to augment resources, further there is no harm in transferring property rights to develop right entrepreneurship in the economy. What is important here is to note that the Washington Consensus was treated like a shock therapy for the countries suffering from debt-crises of any sporadic shock like the one oil shock of 1979, because it was assumed that trade liberalisation and privatisation will take care of the economic disturbances affecting the normal working of the economic system. However, the experiences of the last 20 years or so have shown that the reforms envisioned through the Washington Consensus have actually led to disaster in many countries. This understanding of the neo-liberal orthodoxy could be better explained in the following lines of John Williamson. I wrote a background paper in which I listed 10 policy reforms that I argued almost everyone in Washington thought were needed in Latin America as of that date. I labeled this reform agenda the Washington Consensus, never dreaming that I was coining a term that would become a war cry in ideological debates for more than a decade. Indeed, I thought the ideas I was laying out were consensual, which is why I gave them the label I did (Williamson, 1990). The evidences we have clearly indicate that Washington Consensus as a universal policy package became a soft target of severe criticisms in recent years primarily from the countries at the periphery. The consistent episodes of criticisms labeled against the Washington Consensus pave the way for the future insights in the economic development discourse. Whats wrong with the Washington Consensus A wide range of criticisms had been put forward as a result of the practical problems faced by the countries pursuing the reforms as recommended by the Washington Consensus since the year of its introduction. One of the criticisms which is generally labelled against the Washington Consensus is regarding the fundamental assumptions of the neo-classical model of free market ideology. In this connection, Stiglitz (2002:73-74) maintains that: Behind the free market ideology there is a model, often attributed to Adam Smith, which argues that market forces the profit motive drives the economy to efficient outcomes as if by an invisible hand. It turns out that these conditions are highly restrictive. Ironically occurring precisely during the period of relentless pursuit of the Washington Consensus have shown that whenever information is imperfect and markets incomplete, which is to say always, and especially in developing countries, then the invisible hand works most imperfectly. Significantly, there are desirable government interventions which, in principle, can improve upon the efficiency of the market. So in this way the basic premises on which the Washington Consensus rests itself became questionable in the academia. Furthermore, Stiglitz (2002: 74) went on to criticise the theoretical validity of the neo-classical model in his following words: Even if Adam Smiths invisible hand theory were relevant for advanced industrialised countries, the required conditions are not satisfied in developing countries. The market system requires clearly established property rights and the courts to enforce them; but these often these are absent in developing countries. The market system requires competition and perfect information. But competition is limited and information is far from perfect and well-functioning competitive markets cannot be established overnight. The theory says that an efficient market economy requires that all of the assumption be satisfied. In some cases, reforms in one area, without accompanying reforms in others may actually make matters worse. This is issue of sequencing. Ideology ignores this matters; it says simply move as quickly to a market economy as you can. But economic theory and history show how disastrous it can be to ignore sequencing. Apart from the theoretical loopholes in overall framework of the Washington Consensus, many other empirical evidences can be put forth for its failures. These are listed below: The fundamental claim of the Washington Consensus that full-scale liberalisation, at all costs, is associated with superior economic performance was doubtful. For instance, it has been maintained that the highly successful story of the Newly Industrialised Countries (NICs) in East Asia such as Japan and Taiwan better known as the East Asian miracle, gave a reason for the resurgence of the neo-liberal policies. These NICs, no doubt, performed appreciably not only in making rapid and high economic growth but also progressed in terms of key social indicators paved a strong supporting pillar for the neo-liberal paradigm constituting the Washington Consensus. Many believed that these NICs are very close to the norms of the free-market economy. However, this story is partly true. What is significant at this point is to know that the institutions pertaining to industrialization and export growth were performing robustly well and these were the factors which were at the heart of success of t hese countries. Onis (1998: 197-216) has tried to give the valid argument in following words: Strong growth and diversification of industrial output and exports could not be accounted for simply for the logic of the free market: interventionist strategies and an active industrial policy, dictated by considerations relating to longer-term competitiveness and dynamic comparative advantage, constituted the central elements contributing their success. If we see the world economic growth rate, it had infact strikingly lowered, and become more unstable during the neo-liberal era. Not only this, the degree of inequality in the global economy appeared to have increased during this period of neo-liberal economic restricting (UNCTAD 1997). Even the gap between the developed and the developing countries had widened and there had been increased divergence within the Third World. For example, as compare to the hyper-growth in Asian NICs, the Latin American countries in 1980s and sub-Saharan Africa lagged far behind over the same period of time (Rock, 1993: 1787-1801). Moreover, excluding China, there is an increase of poor people and the poverty rate had declined from 28.5 percent to 25 percent (Fischer, 2003:8). According to Stiglitz (2002:76), There is a more fundamental criticism of the IMF/Washington Consensus approach: It does not take acknowledge that development requires a transformation of society. Even it completely ignored the fairness concept. A few more instances could be put forward to support the argument that the collapse of Washington Consensus was inevitable such as the success of Argentina in the first few years of accepting the policies and later how its economy collapsed. The case of Turkey is another example where the Washington Consensus policies totally failed. Exposure of many middle income countries to the vagaries of financial globalization actually proved costly for them because opening of their capital accounts before taking into account the macroeconomic stability fell in the trap of the World Bank and the IMF. These high volatile capital flows and frequent financial crises, because of unregulated financial markets led to repercussion effect of one country could be easily felt in another, which we have thoroughly witnessed in the Asian Crisis of 1997 and the Russian Crisis of 1998, which had myriad socio-economic-politico impacts on different economies. Last but not the least in the series of criticisms that had been labelled against the popular programmes of the Washington Consensus is of course a paradoxical situation when the Washington Consensus talks about minimising the bureaucratic inefficiency, rent-seeking, and other forms corruption and pervasive state failure, it had come to our observation that it had actually happened the other way round these all social and economic evils had actually aggravated during the neo-liberal regime. Keeping these issues in mind, during the mid-1990s there emerged a new and thought provoking policy focus of the key Bretton Woods institutions away from the hard-core neo-liberalism to a new synthesis of states and markets as emerging Post- Washington Consensus. The Post-Washington Consensus: Is it inevitable? The Post-Washington Consensus goes further in detailing the nature of the failures of the Washington consensus (Stiglitz, 1998:17). Joseph E. Stiglitz who is supposed to provide the intellectual backbone to the emerging Post-Washington Consensus maintains that there was lack of understanding between the policies put forth by Washington Consensus and the contextual framework of developing countries. In the following words, Stiglitz tries to state his position: There was a failure in understanding economic structures within developing countries, in focusing on too narrow a set of objectives, and on too limited a set of instruments. For instance, markets by themselves do not produce efficient outcomes when technology is changing or when there is learning about markets; such dynamic processes are at the heart of development; and there are important externalities in such dynamic processes, giving rise to an important role for government. The successful East Asian countries recognized this role; the Washington consensus policies did not (Stiglitz, 1998:17-18). Stiglitz and Greenwald (2003) further believe that the Post-Washington Consensus recognizes that There is a role for a market; the question is to what extent the neoliberals recognize that there is a role for the state, beyond the minimal role of enforcing contracts and property rights. There is no theoretical underpinning to believe that in early stages of development, markets by themselves will lead to efficient outcomes. Moreover, the Asian crisis of 1997 proved to be an important turning point for the rethinking about the Washington Consensus for the reason that for the first time in its history, the IMF was confronted with serious criticisms from all over. It was criticised not only for failing to predict the crisis but also to make the situation worse aftermath the crisis. To describe it more clearly in words of Stanley Fischer, The Asian Crisis was also important in terms in producing a serious rift between the two Bretton Woods institutions again for the first time for many decades. Following the rethinking process that has occurred, the IMF now tends to pay far more attention to regulatory reforms, notably in the context of the banking and financial system, and recognises far more than on the past the importance of strong institutions and good governance (Fischer, 2002:385). Stiglitz (2002:155) further added that the IMF until the Asian Crisis used to be crititicised by the countries at the periphery or the Third World countries, but now the criticisms were also put forward by the countries at the centre or the developed countries. He maintains that: With the onset of the Asian Crisis, the IMF especially became the object of serious criticism from the centre within the key Bretton Woods institutions themselves (Stiglitz, 2002:155-156). One of the key ingredients of the Post-Washington Consensus is the recognition that states have a great role to play in the economic development process. However, the Post-Washington Consensus favours the market liberalisation, the twin concepts of states and markets are considered as of complementing rather than substituting in nature. Greater role for the state institutions has been prescribed for better and efficient working of the economy. There is a clear indication about the regulation of financial markets in order to avoid any uncertainty arising out global flows of capital between countries. And the most important, it is thought that certain areas like human development, equality and to alleviate poverty, states can replace the market failures in accomplishing these issues. The question remains how to improve the state efficiency or to avoid state failure. In this regard, Stiglitz (2001:17) highlights that: The effectiveness of states can be improved by using market-like mechanisms. An interesting symmetry is established by noting that states are important for the effective functioning of markets but also that markets or market-like mechanisms are important for the effective functioning of states. Conclusion While analyzing the whole set of ideas and instruments put forward by each of these different line of thinking about the development discourse it is certain that the policies advocated by them may work in some countries and may not in others. What is important is the debate over the sufficiency conditions put forth for the pervasive development of countries primarily the Third World countries. So far nothing appreciable has been achieved since the introduction of either Washington or the Post-Washington Consensus in developing countries. What is apparent here is the fact that all policies whether its neo-liberal or structuralist in from and nature has not benefitted much from the development assistance programmes initiated by the World Bank and the IMF Post-Second World War period. While the role of the state cannot be undermined in economic progress of any country, it is also important to scrutinise its position and capability in the global scenario marked by excessive dominance of the global governance agenda before it. The irresistible wave of globalisation to a large extent undermines the possible intervention in formulating policies at least at the domestic levels for the countries. The concern in the developing countries is how to bring growth with equity. The balanced approach of the Post-Washington Consensus between states and markets along with reforming the governing institutions is far more impressible strategy than that of believing the automatic working of the economy exposed to liberalisation of markets and openness of economy. At least the gains and losses can be mutually appropriated between these two institutions of markets and states. Relying heavily on the free trade and the consequent trickle-down effect to happen automatically has become a far fetched dream for majority of the countries in the larger paradigm of global governance with varied socio, economic and political implications. What is sure is the trade-off between states and markets would to a large extent provide a new outlook for the development discourse for individual countries presuming institutions of governance are at their best of their capacity, capability and efficiency fronts.

Hawthornes Young Goodman Brown and History Essays -- Young Goodman Br

â€Å"Young Goodman Brown† and History  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚        Ã‚   Q. D. Leavis states that â€Å"perhaps the persecuting aspect of their way of life was peculiarly present to Hawthorne because of the witch-hanging judge and the Quaker-whipping Major among his ancestors† (30). This is a reference to one instance of historical allusion in Nathaniel Hawthorne’s â€Å"Young Goodman Brown.† This essay will explore a variety of historical incidences referred to in this short story.    Clarice Swisher in â€Å"Nathaniel Hawthorne: a Biography† states:    William Hathorne was a colonial magistrate involved in the persecution of Quakers, another Protestant religious group. Hawthorne later described him as â€Å"grave, bearded, sable-cloaked, and steeple-crowned,† a hard, dark man. His son John Hathorne was well known as a Puritan judge who condemned women as witches in 1692 during the Salem witchcraft trials, and who later expressed no remorse for his actions. . . . Of his ancestors, especially Judge John, Hawthorne later said, â€Å"I . . . hereby take shame upon myself for their sakes, and pray that any curse incurred by them . . . may be now and henceforth removed (14).    Reference to these forbears of Goodman Brown is made in a notable episode in â€Å"Young Goodman Brown† when the devil responds to Brown’s assertion of his family’s Christian past: â€Å"We have been a race of honest men and good Christians, since the days of the martyrs. And shall I be the first of the name of Brown, that ever took this path and kept"- The devil then responds:    "Such company, thou wouldst say," observed the elder person, interrupting his pause. "Well said, Goodman Brown! I have been as well acquainted with your family as with ever a one among the Puritans; an... ... Derived from New England Living.† In Readings on Nathaniel Hawthorne, edited by Clarice Swisher. San Diego, CA: Greenhaven Press, 1996.    Hawthorne, Nathaniel. â€Å"Young Goodman Brown.† 1835. http://www.cwrl.utexas.edu/~daniel/amlit/goodman/goodmantext.html    Leavis, Q.D. â€Å"Hawthorne as Poet.† In Hawthorne – A Collection of Critical Essays, edited by A.N. Kaul. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1966.    Swisher, Clarice. â€Å"Nathaniel Hawthorne: a Biography.† In Readings on Nathaniel Hawthorne, edited by Clarice Swisher. San Diego, CA: Greenhaven Press, 1996.    Wagenknecht, Edward. Nathaniel Hawthorne – The Man, His Tales and Romances. New York: Continuum Publishing Co., 1989.    Williams, Stanley T. â€Å"Hawthorne’s Puritan Mind.† In Readings on Nathaniel Hawthorne, edited by Clarice Swisher. San Diego, CA: Greenhaven Press, 1996.

Essay --

According to NAMI (), schizophrenia is a long term mental illness that interferes with a person’s ability to think clearly, make decisions, and relate to others, impairing a person from functioning to their full potential when left untreated. For these persons affected, it is many times difficult to distinguish what is real from what is not. â€Å"Unfortunately, no single simple course of treatment exists.† Research has linked schizophrenia to a multitude of possible causes† (NAMI). As stated by NIHM, the prevalence of schizophrenia is about 1 in every 100 people in the general population. Ten percent of the people who have first degree family members with the disorder, such as a brother, sister, or parent, also have schizophrenia. A longitudinal incidence study was conducted in the Netherlands to further study prevalence over 10 years of the general population. According to (ANNUAL INCIDENCE GALILEO), the incidence rate of schizophrenia was 12/100,000 per year. The study found that incidence rates were higher in men than in women. The results also showed that there was a peak in incidence rates between the ages of 15 and 25 with a decrease by 40% after 25 per ten years. The results also indicated that the incidence rate was higher in urban area, but found no association between incidence rates and living in deprived areas. â€Å"Although presumed to be relatively infrequent in presentation, the existence of late onset schizophrenia is now recognized by the Int ernational Consensus on Late Onset and Very Late Onset Schizophrenia Group. LOS patients tend to experience more positive and fewer negative symptoms.† (LATE ONSET SCHIZOPHRENIA). The etiology of schizophrenia would the diathesis-stress model, involving both hereditary and environment... ...esn’t move or respond to others. â€Å"Catatonia is rare today, but it was more common when treatment was not available† (NIHM). â€Å"Negative symptoms refer to the absence of normal behaviors found in functional humans† (HELP GUIDE). Stated by the NIHM, negative symptoms may be harder to recognize and can be mistaken for depression. Some examples could be the flat affect, where a person’s face does not move and talk in a monotonous voice, lack of pleasure, lack of ability to start and sustain activities, and little verbal communication. One category of negative symptoms includes cognitive symptoms. Cognitive symptoms can include poor executive functioning, trouble focusing, and problems with working memory. Other than symptoms, there are also types of schizophrenia, three to be exact. There is paranoid schizophrenia, disorganized schizophrenia, and catatonic schizophrenia.

Paintball Essay -- essays research papers

Paintball is a fast and furious sport. It is played on both a social and serious level by over 16 million people around the world (Cooke,11). It is one of the fastest growing sports on the planet. Paintball's history, games, guns, and safety are all part of the fun. In 1970, James Hale, an engineer, invented and patented the first commercially successful paintball gun. Paintball guns were first used by the National Forest Association to mark trees that would be cut down. Then, it was used to mark cattle by cowboys. One night while sitting around a campfire, one cowboy shot another and that is how the game of paintball got started. This "splotchmaker" can rightfully claim to be the grandfather of modern paintball guns (Peters, 73). Over the next two decades, Daisy Manufacturing Co. Inc. of Airgun Frames manufactured these guns under contract for the Nelson Paint Co. During this twenty year span, paintball evolved from a "survivalist" game into the wholesome, exciting, family game it is today. In paintball, there are two teams equipped with paintball markers. These are basically low-powered airguns that fire small capsules of paint. It is not a dangerous sport. The only real danger is getting hit in the eye with a paintball. Wearing specific goggles made for paintball easily stops this danger. This rule is strictly enforced at all reputable playing fields worldwide. Obviously if a player is out of sight of the referee and takes off his mask, then he is looking for trouble. American Insurance statistics show that it is safer to play paintball than to play golf or go fishing (Pierce, 17). Getting hit by a paintball generally does not hurt. You may get an occasional bruise, but on the whole the game is not painful. The excitement certainly outweighs any momentary discomfort a player may feel. To lesson the chance of being bruised, long sleeved shirts and pants are highly recommended. To be on the safe side, more than one layer should be worn. Bright colors should be avoided, purely because the more visible you are, the more likely you are to be shot. Most people like to wear camouflage clothing. This helps them to blend into the environment and not be easily shot. Also, good quality hiking or trail boots with ankle support is a good idea to protect both feet and ankles. There are many different leagues and tournaments you can participate ... ...If the surrounding team captures the item and returns it to their station, they win. Also, surrounding players alive at the end of the game can be assigned a point value to make their rescue even more important. The last game is a continuous play game. The only extra items you need are a paper punch and a player card. This is a great game to play when you have a continuous stream of experienced players arriving on the field at different times. Each player is given a card to keep track of how many times he or she is eliminated. When eliminated, the player comes off the field, punches the card and returns to the game. The team loses points every time a team member is eliminated. The team gains points every time they bring back the opposing side’s flag. Paintball is a fun and serious game. It does not glorify war. It is an old paintball adage that the sport actually proves how easy it is to be shot. The supporters of paintball like to prefer the sport as a tactical game of skill. (Cooke, 93) You need to wear protection and play fair so everyone stays safe. Also, you can play the regular, basic games or make up your own. The most important thing is to have fun and play responsibly.

Mapping an Argument

Mapping an Argument Kimberly Williams CRT/205 11/11/2012 University of Phoenix Mapping an Argument What is the Issue? I have decided to read about the Traditional newspapers are becoming extinct. The issue with this is the cost of the newspapers going up and how the Internet is taking over the place of the newspaper. People are now depending on the Internet for their sources instead of the newspapers. The competition-deflecting effects of printing cost got destroyed by the Internet. The newspaper people often note that newspapers benefit society as a whole, but it is getting so expensive to keep newspapers running.The imperatives to strengthen journalism and to strengthen newspapers have been so tightly wound as to be indistinguishable. They are trying to find ways to strengthen the ways of newspapers. â€Å"Save newspapers† to â€Å"save society† is the big issue of this article. The other issue is to keep the newspapers from becoming extinct. The other article that I read about was the Veterans Administration health care not being readily available in rural areas. The issues of this article were the increased efforts to improve the care that is available for rural veterans.Also anther issue for the veterans was the long distances it is a huge problem for most of them. Long distances and restrictive rules have become an issue for the veterans and they have also become very obstacles to health care for many of them. Rural veterans have other problems with this also. The health care needs of rural veterans and managing the money for expanding care. In addition, oversight of rural health care programs was ineffective. There are so many issues with their heath care needs they are trying to fix them. What are the stated and unstated premises?The stated and unstated premises for Traditional Newspapers Are Becoming Extinct are that the newspaper industry has been fighting for its life since the beginning of the digital age, and also journalism will surv ive without newspapers. Strategizing to survive the on Internet was also one of the stated premises for this article and the unstated premise for this was that they never really stated how they were going to fight and keep the newspapers going in a way that the papers can still be running and people can still use the Internet for sources also.The stated premises for the Veterans Administration Health Care is that the VA has increased efforts to improve the care that is available for rural veterans. Long distances are a problem for many veterans is a stated premise that was in the article, and also veterans had to fight very hard to get every dollar that they could. Suicides among Iraq and Afghanistan veterans have reached record levels because of the heath care and the long distance that have caused problems for them. The unstated premises that weren’t listed that I could find was why most of the veterans did not feel that they had to enroll in a health care plan.What was the reason that they never wanted to enroll and what could the VA have done to help the veterans want to enroll in the heath care plan, what type of jobs did they do to help those that had problems with the long distance? These are some unstated premise that I feel should have been put into the article. What is the conclusion? The conclusion on the Traditional Newspapers Are Becoming Extinct is a plan and a strategy to survive the Internet, and trying to figure out how they can use the newspaper and the Internet without having to stop the use of one of them.They needed a plan how to deal with the Internet. A way for the newspaper to grow unsteady of shirking how to improve the newspaper in away the public would enjoy its use and continue to want to read it unsteady of using the internet. And a way to keep it up and running because the newspaper is coming so expensive to keep it up and running also way to have respected for people when written about a person in the newspaper. The conclu sion on the Veterans Administration Health Care is that the VA needs to find a way to make the veterans want to and enjoy the ability to have VA health care.Furthermore, the VA needs to find A way to make health care available for all of the veterans to have it, and afford the heath care. The VA needs to have rules for veterans heath care so the distance that the veterans live from the nearest facility shouldn’t be a problem. Improving the health care for the veterans is the conclusion for this article. They need to find a way that health care can be provided for all of our veterans because they deserve it. To ensure veterans receive the health care and benefits they have earned.To make a way for the veterans to be seen by out-of-network doctor if the same care is available within the system even if it’s more convenient for them there should be away for them to see what every doctor is available for them at the present time. They need to improve the health care for the veterans. Content and Development 35 Points| Points Earned33/35| | Additional Comments:| All key elements of the assignment are covered in a substantive way. * 350 to 700 words * Examines 2 articles from Opposing Viewpoints in Context * Provides substantive explanations to the following questions: * What is the issue? What are the stated and unstated premises? * What is the conclusion? | Paper addresses two of the assigned articles in a contemplative manner. The paper identifies the issue, premises, and conclusion in an adequate way. Although most points are clear, a few are vague. See notes above. | The content is comprehensive, accurate, and persuasive. | | Major points are stated clearly; are supported by specific details, examples, or analysis; and are organized logically. | | | | Readability and Style 10 Points| Points Earned6/10| | Additional Comments:| The tone is appropriate to the content and assignment. | Tone is informative.The writing in this paper has several issues: w ordiness, fragments (incomplete sentences), and vagueness. I've highlighted several examples above and suggested revisions. | Sentences are complete, clear, and concise. | | Sentences are well constructed, strong, and varied. | | Sentence transitions are present and maintain the flow of thought. | | | | Mechanics 5 Points| Points Earned3/5| | Additional Comments:| The assignment—including tables and graphs, headings, title page, and reference page— is consistent with Associate Level Writing Style Handbook formatting guidelines and meets course-level requirements. Layout is effective and aids readability. Several mechanical corrections are noted. Citations and references have not been included. It is essential to cite and reference non-original sources correctly. Refer to the formatting guidelines in the Associate Level Writing Style Handbook. | Intellectual property is recognized with in-text citations and a reference page. | | Rules of grammar, usage, and punctuation are followed. | | Spelling is correct. | | Late Penalty – 10% per day up to 2 days| | Total 50 Points| Total Earned42/50| Overall Comments:Hi Kimberly,Thank you so much for turning in this assignment.You have offered a competent mapping of the articles. You have generally identified the issues, premises, and conclusions and offered a substantive explanation for each. Your post is addresses all points in the assignment. Better organization of the writing would have strengthened the paper. Several mechanical and formatting changes are present. See comments above and in the text for specifics. Good work on this assignment! I hope this assignment has helped you clarify concepts relating to analyzing arguments to identify the issues, premises, and conclusions. |