The Highlight Reel of Marxism in American Football

Abstract: During many weeks in 2010, the Football dilemma started to arise as a social issue in society. Raising the question of what should be done if any by the National Football League to prevent traumatic and sometimes deadly hits on the field. Varying degrees of opinions as to what should be done; questions include inquiring on the ethics of the NFL and their lack of safety toward players as any kind of progressive movement. Stagnate would be the suitable term to use as describing the action taken by the NFL. Since the years of President Theodore Roosevelt, who wanted football outlawed in the 1900’s. The president himself could not enact the needed changes. American football is one of the largest industries in the nation with an overwhelming abundance of financial resources. So the question arises, why has there not been any fundamental change in the game or even changes in the guidelines that govern the sport? The answer would be Marxism. This paper will define NFL’s match to the Marxist perspective in their handling of players and their stagnant approach to change. This is a social a problem that relates to every aspect of society including the demise of the American family. This paper will also define the Marxism theory in relation the American football and the mental health epidemic caused by the dangers of the game. In recent weeks, the full contact sport of football has made headlines in America. There have been an overwhelming amount of injuries due to high impact contact to the head, which leads to various head injuries such as, concussions, spinal cord injuries, and deaths. According to Barry Wilner, The National Football League only represents a fraction of men playing the deadly sport. Colleges, universities, high schools, and middle schools have an overwhelming amount of young men who are amateur players. Many of these players suffer from some of the same forms of injuries and deaths as their pro counterparts playing in the National Football League. Leaving many to wonder the lag in the responsiveness for the NFL to make drastic changes after all the NFL is only has approx 1,900 players a season, leaving the separate class structures such as high school football and college football to absorb the majority of injuries related to football ndustry. In an article published by Paul Tenorino in, The Washington Post, he interviews George Atallah the assistant executive director of external affairs for the National Football League Players Association says, â€Å"He hoped the recent actions taken by the NFL and its players would help create a trickledown effect about the proper way to handle a concussion. † Based upon the actions and the structure of American football and NFL the majority of change is needed on lower levels within its system such as high school and middle school that represents more than 3. million players. Statistics do not lie. The numbers are the numbers. The vast majority of injuries are occurring outside of the National Football League. In a recent report published by Richard C. Senelick M. D has: Determined that there are only 1,900 active NFL players each season; There are more than 3 million children playing football at the youth level and 1. 2 million more playing high school football levels This report does not count the numerous collegiate athletes that play the sport. Colleges and universities along with various secondary education institutions have an epidemic on their hands and something needs to change, †¦he has estimated that a college lineman experiences over 1,000 sub-concussive head hits in an average season. He further goes on to say that a line man in the 3 point stance is the most vulnerable of all the players to a brain injury. Explanation in the lack of commitment in the prevention of injuries from the National Football League can be related to the need for power and the valued economics of the professional athletic system that is described as the Marxist Theory, by taking that approach to football the National Football League developed system that only benefits them. According to Barry Wilner, â€Å"The National Football League has begun raising fines for illegal hits from the average $5,000 to $10,000 to now $50,000 and $75,000 and has even implemented suspensions for repeated illegal blows. Raising fines and illegal hit, but not changing how the game is played, taking money from the players/workers in order to promote change but not implementing change or being specific to what hits are no longer allowed. Is the money that is taken from fines of players at the professional used in research to develop safer equipment in order to create safer play? No, it is given directly to the pockets of the NFL, and its governing organization. In Marxist theory, human society and community consists of two parts: Base and Superstructure. The base structure is the material relation and condition of production – division of labor, property relation, employer/employee, slave/master condition and relation. The relations of the base structure fundamentally determines and influences society's other ideas and conditions, namely the Superstructure – arts, institutions, state, habits, customs, cultural representations like, law, philosophy, science, sports and etc. We can see this example portrayed out in the design of football in America linked to society within in its class structures of football from pee wee, to middle school, to high school, to college to NFL. According to Imani Cheers, â€Å"Studies have shown that amateur players run a higher risk of head injuries that those in The National Football League. † All linking classes are a step up from the other one; allowing the National Football League to draw upon the usage of varying football players. Example: at the age of six little Johnny and his father sit together and enjoy a game of Monday night football, Johnny’s father emotions become ecstatic when little Johnny announces to everyone that he now wants to play football. Little Johnny’s father begins working with him showing him passes catches , the proper way to tackle and ultimately how to become a â€Å"real man† by playing football. Soon, Johnny is registered for peewee league and in now fully indoctrinated into the system set up so well to train that allows the National football league to groom and condition them into their system. Playing in leagues that are not under any professional governing authority, regulations are not decided based on the protection of the younger player, medical guidelines are not based on the requirements set by standards from any medical organization who would know that; the bone plates in a young child’s head does not full fuse together till after the age of twenty. This allows the younger players to be very sustepiable to head injuries vs their much older professional counter parts. Eventually, Johnny is known for being dedicated to his favorite sport, in middle school Johnny respect for the game and his training teaches him to take risk’s on the field trying plays that he has never been fully trained on how to carry out. Soon developing the approach to allow risk taking is a permissible and even heroic if you just win the game. High school for Johnny brings more challenges and opportunity hoping to be spotted by a college scout and achieving the status of â€Å"real man† an occasional injury occurs from time to ime, but nothing Johnny cannot walk off and then return back to the game. Finally, a respectable college notices Johnny’s dedication and, determination to the sport, they offer him a scholarship if he will play for their school; bringing with it the dream of possibly being drafted into the National Football League. Johnny declares his value as a man to society, with the show of wealth and riches by his multimillion-dollar contract; he finally receives as pay to participate in his loved sport. Johnny begins his college football career with high hopes. As a college freshman he does well at practices and the coach decides to make him a second string lineman allowing him the opportunity to develop his football skills and sharpen his aptitude on the field. His second year playing college ball he is allowed more playing time during game but is not moved up and a first string lineman, giving him even more opportunity to develop his tackling regimen, after a couple of head injuries he is benched for the season, hoping he will recover by the start of the next season. The next season, Johnny’s junior year, he is watched even more by coaches and supporting staff to make sure here are no issues from the previous season’s injuries. After a few games Johnny is finally moved up to first string lineman, allowing him the opportunity to achieve higher stats, he is further conditioned to play hurt, walking off the field and letting anyone know that he has just had his â€Å"bell rung† will only reduce the chance of him being able to play. Without pay, Johnny continues to play, sacrificing all for stats and the hopeful future of being drafted. Finally, Johnny’s senior year, he makes first-string lineman; and is allowed to start the game, giving him even greater need to cover up injuries. During the middle of his senior year, he is injured and benched only for the following next play, he returns to the line of scrimmage; back playing he is knocked around, proving to himself that being a man means to play under any circumstance no matter what. Eventually, he is noticed by professional scouts who take an interest in him because of his dedication to the game and his sacrifice of playing hurt for his team. After all the hard work he finally is a third round draft pick. Placing Johnny in the top ninety men eligible for recruitment after college, by the professional league and finally earning wages for the sacrifices to his body he has made all these years. The system within the football structure shows a varying display of the different class categories within the professional football league; that organize in the same way as the Marxist set up of workers. Starting at the bottom and working your way up through promotions or to the top, the difference is that the football system requires years of hard work and sacrifice without pay until you reach the very top or professional level. The lower class levels in the system are not monitored by any labor board or governing body to insure the safety of players, because all players go without pay until the professional level is reached. All levels have the same positions; same amount of players on the field, and safety equipment. The majority of the rules are the same with the exception of weight limits in the peewee league. There are not weight limits in any of the other categories of football. In the peewee league, in order to play you can weigh up to a certain amount for position in which you carry the ball, and then after that weight is exceeded, you can only be a center guard or tackle. Meaning, you can have a seventy- five pound quarterback, which is at the top of the weight scale, and the tackle can weigh two hundred pounds. Varying weights depend on each league rules, within that division. Those divisions is not monitored, by any professional division, only until you play sports within an educational system does a league have governing bodies, charter rules, medical restrictions. Allowing football to becoming more and more dangerous of a sport as the chain of classes develops up the line of class structure by allowing bigger players and no regulation or guidelines monitored by professionals. Marx would tell you, that the type of sport that plays in a given society would precisely reflect its economic/production basis. All of this given in higher economical societies (superstructure) are reflected and directly influenced by their historical material/economic means; Marxism, the doctrine that the state throughout history has been a device for the exploitation of the masses by a dominant class. That class struggle has been the main agency of historical change, and that the capitalist system, will after a period of dictatorship of the proletariat, be superseded by a socialist order and a classless society. Marxist sociology is based around five main theories that hypothesis as to how a society functions. Historical materialism, which portrays human history as a series of conflicts resulting from an old systems reshaped to fit the interest of the current society. The theory of surplus value, which describe how the capitalist make a profit from those who they employ; class division and struggle . Which, examine the bourgeois and the proletariat and how they conflict; alienation of the proletariat through the means and methods of the bourgeois. The â€Å"theory of politics† explains how the inevitable transition of capitalism to communism in a society. The theory of surplus value explains, the way in which capitalists exploit consumers and make a profit from the goods that they sell. The capitalists own the raw material and the means to work with them. Profit, is then added to the raw material through necessary labor from the payment of workers to work with the raw material labor and the payment of labor, longer working hours and cheaper pay for the workers, which together allow the production of more for less. The goods are the sold for more money that was received, was paid to receive, and was paid to have the goods produced. This process means that capitalists make a profit from the workers and consumers that both produce and consume their products. These capalists’ methods are clearly visible in professional football as identified by Brohm, as the spectator sport of commodity, which sells football along normal capitalist lines. Examples of these capitalist processes are illustrated and discussed in the text, Sport: a prison of measured time, authored by J. M Brohm. In the text, Brohm provides twenty theses on sports, eleven of which discuss the birth of modern capitalist sport. All the structures of present day sport tie in to bourgeois, capitalist society† (Brohm 1978, p. 47). Some of these illustrate how capitalists use the systems present in society in order to make a profit. For a start the very existence of sport on the scale at which it is now played can be attributed to the capitalist bourgeois society, as summarized by Brohm who said, â€Å"Sport is a direct consequence of the level of development under the productive forces under capitalism† (1978, p. 176). What he means by this, is that due to the mechanization of the workforce by capitalists in order to produce more for less, workers found that they had more free time; time in which they took up sport as a form of recreation. This occurred during the industrial revolution, which meant that improved travel and communications allowed newly formed teams to organize, travel and play matches during the free time that they now had. Notice that, the free time, travel and communications that were now available to the working class were all controlled by the bourgeois, -allowing them to effectively continue to profit from the working class population. The way sports operate can easily be compared to how companies operate in the business sector – different sports compete for viewers (who are effectively consumers as they pay money to the clubs for merchandise or viewing purposes), and the relationships with which the athletes have with the team owners are very similar to wage relations between company managers and workers. Brohm stated that, â€Å"The capitalists of sport appropriate players and athletes who thus become their wage laborer’s† (1978, p. 76). This view on football enhances feelings that it is as an enterprise more than a competitive form of game used to entertain the viewer – a consequence of football adopted by capitalists as another form of profit. Football players are similar to the workers in the Marxist system – who sells their labor to someone who is willing to pay them. The capitalist then make a profit from the athlete by using them to create entertainment that will draw larg e crowds who will pay to watch the player perform. How much the employer makes from the player is determined by the law of supply and demand – if the player has a skill which is not found commonly then people will pay more to watch them and the employer makes a greater profit. Brohm said athletes of, â€Å"Amateurism ceased to exist a long time ago. All top level sportsmen are professional performers in the muscle show,† meaning that all top level sport is no longer about playing a fair but competitive game; it is about people making a profit (Brohm 1978, p. 176). This action is demonstrated in the NFL’s, lack to make significant changes to the structure in which the game is played. Instead of making changes in the structure, the NFL fines players for aggressive tackles, and further pockets the money. Never considering the health of players to be important enough to ensure their safety, head injuries are a major concern to the lives of the players. The future lives of players and the quality of daily living is not being considered when the 3 million children playing football at the youth level and 1. million more playing high school football level, are not protected against the sport of football. There remains a significant issue with medical care, monitoring, guidelines and problems with equipment. The NFL instead for pushing for regulation changes in the lower class structure, â€Å"hope a change in dealing with concussions,† will be a result of the NFL fining players. Knowing that the lower structures are where they draw their future players from, they refuse to implement real changes that require the structure as a whole to change. Changing the whole structure, as we know it today would ensure healthier players, giving the majority of players, longer playing time. Longer playing times in the lives of professional players would cost the NFL more money in contracts, health insurance, and retirement pension. No change in the system guarantees the future profits for the teams, and guarantees the NFL an abundance of already trained players, therefore relieving them any responsibility, or commitment in protecting the health of future football players. Football can therefore be identified as just another tertiary sector in the capitalist system where large amounts of money is stood to be made by investors who hire athletes to essentially sell to consumers, â€Å"Economic trusts, banks and monopolies have taken over the financial side of sporting activity, which has become a prized source of capitalist profits† Brohm (1978, p. 177). Attempts by capitalists to maximize the profits they are making is shown by the increasing number of competitions and games that are played during each season in order to increase the number of people who come to watch. In addition to adding more game every year, the games rise in costs. It is not just the viewing rights that capitalists make money from, In order to increase profits further, we can see the production of goods and products, produced with necessary and surplus labor. Advertising rights being sold for money and the establishment of a sports betting industry all of which are sold for a greater cost than was used to produce them, allowing capitalists to benefit further from the sports industry, Leading to the support of hegemony. Football is a place where we can see the use of hegemony through sport is in class structure and social stratification. Sage, defines social stratification as, â€Å"structures that cause social inequality among groups of people† (1998, p. 35). This involves the bourgeois class using various methods of power to oppress the proletariat class football provide the bourgeois with a prime opportunity to do this. â€Å"The dominant classes control over the working class peoples free time was manifested in sports†(Hargreaves 1986 p. 85). One of the ways that the bourgeois established control over the playing and administration of sports was that when sports were initially becoming popular among society. Football first played and taught at schools where the majority of pupils came from families of high social status. According to Sage, â€Å"Students of these colleges, that played American Football, when it first achieved popularity, were overwhelmingly from wealthy families† (Sage 1998, p. 44). Apart from not being present in the places where sport was evolving and improving, people from lower class backgrounds also had another disadvantage in that they had less money. Which limited how much access they could have to sport even if it was available to them, â€Å"the higher the economic status, the higher the sports involvement (Sage 1998 p. 44). † These factors meant that by the time working class people were consistently able to participate in sport, the bourgeois class were already in control of game formats, equipment and location, allowing them to continue to oppress the proletariat class of society through sport as well as other social mechanisms.

Air Pollution (Global Warming) Essay

Our planet Earth is only a tiny part of the universe, but nowadays it’s the only place where we can live. People always polluted their surroundings. But until now pollution was not such a serious problem. People lived in rural areas and did not produce such amount of polluting agents that would cause a dangerous situation in global scale. With the development of overcrowded industrial highly developed cities, which put huge amounts of pollutants into surrounds, the problem has become more and more dangerous. Today our planet is in serious danger. Acid rains, global warming, air and water pollution, and overpopulation are the problems that threaten human lives on the Earth. In order to understand how air pollution affects our body, we must understand exactly what this pollution is. The pollutants that harm our respiratory system are known as particulates. Particulates are the small solid particles that you can see through rays of sunlight. They are products of incomplete combustion in engines, for example: internal-combustion engines, road dust and wood smoke. Billions of tons of coal and oil are consumed around the world every year. When these fuels are burnt, they produce smoke and other by-products, which is emitted into the atmosphere. Although wind and rain occasionally wash away the smoke, given off by power plants and automobiles, but it is not enough.. These chemical compounds undergo a series of chemical reactions in the presence of sunlight; as a result we have smog, mixture of fog and smoke. While such pollutants as particulates we can see, other harmful ones are not visible. Among the most dangerous to bur health are carbon monoxide, nitrogen oxides, sulfur dioxide and ozone or active oxygen. If you have ever been in an enclosed parking garage or a tunnel and felt dizzy or lightheaded, then you have felt the effect of carbon monoxide (CO). This odourless, colourless, but poisonous gas is produced by the incomplete burning of fossil fuels, like gasoline or diesel fuel. Factories emit tons of harmful chemicals. These emissions have disastrous consequences for our planet. They are the main reason for the greenhouse effect and acid rains. Our forests are disappearing because they are cut down or burnt. If this trend continues, one day we won’t have enough oxygen to breathe, we won’t see a beautiful green forest at all. The seas are in danger. They are filled with poison: industrial and nuclear wastes, chemical fertilizers and pesticides. If nothing is done about it, one day nothing will be able to live in our seas. Every ten minutes one kind of animal, plant or insect dies out forever. If nothing is done about it, one million species that are alive today may soon become extinct. And even greater threats are nuclear power stations. We all know how tragic the consequences of the Chernobyl disaster are. Fortunately, it’s not too late to solve these problems. We have the time, the money and even the technology to make our planet a better, cleaner and safer place. We can plant trees and create parks for endangered animals. We can recycle our wastes; persuade enterprises to stop polluting activities, because it is apparent that our careless use of fossil fuels and chemicals is destroying this planet. And it is now more than ever apparent that at the same time we are destroying our bodies and our future.

How To Overcome The Problems And The Advantages And Dis Advantages Of Using Survey Method

a. ) Discuss the problem which a researcher might encounter when conducting social surveys. Explain how to overcome the problems. b. ) Explain the advantages and dis advantages of using survey method. According to chrishnaswami O. R (2003) social survey is defined as a fact finding study. It is a method of research involving the collection of data directly from a population or a sample there of a particular time.It must not be confused with the mere clerical routine of gathering and tabulating figures for it requires expert and imaginative planning careful and rational interpretation of findings. Omari I. M defined social survey research as probably the best method available to the social scientists interested in collecting original data for describing a population too large to observe directly. Survey may be used for descriptive explanatory and exploratory purposes.Although this method can be used for other units of analysis such as group or interactions it is necessary that some in dividual persons are used as respondents or informants. In social survey data maybe collected by methods like observation, interviewing and questionnaires . social survey has the following characteristics, it is always conducted in a natural setting, it seeks responses directly from the respondents, it can cover a very large population and it covers a definite geographical area for instance a city, district or a state. The following steps are involved while collecting a survey.The first step is selection of as problem and its formulation followed by the preparation of a research design then operation of concepts and construction of measuring indexes and scales then sampling then construction of tools for collection of data and their pretest then field work and calculation of data then processing data and tabulation then lastly reporting. A researcher might encounter certain problems while conducting a survey study, the following are the problems which a researcher might encounter wh ile conducting social survey. A sample survey is subject to sampling error.Its findings must be interpreted in the light of this error. The survey method depends primarily on verbal behavior; the respondent can give untrue or misleading answers hence a survey is subject to response errors. A survey is also subject to errors of measurement, implicit, iniquity attitude, abilities behaviors and other personal traits. There is a limit of the number of items of information that can be collected in a single survey. There is an optional length of time for an interview hence the extent of data requirement should be delimited to the tolerance of the respondents.The survey methods alone are in adequate analyze adequately the complex fabric of social organization . it is also not well suited to studies of historical development. Social surveys are very expensive in terms of time and cost. Hence an individual cannot afford to carry out an extensive survey out of these resources. Having seen the problems which a researcher might encounter the following are the ways through which a researcher can use so as to overcome those problems, The researcher must make sure that the research topic is clearly defined to him/herself .this will enable the researcher to state the problem clearly to his/her respondents. The researcher should be clear both about the information that is required about the topic and the reason for wanting this information for him/herself. The researcher should make sure that the topic has been properly defined for the respondent that is by avoiding the use of abstract words and jargons Researchers should make sure that they ask questions that are relevant to the respondents.He /she should avoid asking hypothetical questions/abstract questions and should also avoid asking for information that requires the respondent to have remembered things that they are likely to have forgotten. This will reduce misleading answers. The researcher should make sure that the qu estions asked are not biased . he/she should ensure balance in the introduction, should also ensure that the sets of response options are balanced and should avoid words that are likely to invoke different reactions or stereotype reactions from respondents.The researcher should eliminate complexities so that the respondent can easily understand the questions . this is by avoiding asking two or more questions at one time, avoid using words with several meaning. Check whether the question has been simplified to its simplest form and avoid using too many vocabularies in the question. The researcher should, ensure that the respondents understand what kind of answer is needed. The researcher should also avoid asking ambiguous questions b) Explain the advantages and dis ad vantages of using survey method.The following are the advantages of survey research The survey method facilitate the drawing generalization about large populations on the basis of representative sample The survey method is flexible to permit the use of various methods of collecting data like observation interviewing and questionnaire. Social surveys sensitize the researcher to unknown problems, the collection of data from respondents through interviewing or mailing often uncovers facts previously unknown to the researcher.The quality of data collected is not dependent on the personal impressions, skills and objectivity of single researcher. The information is gathered from a sample. Generalization can easily been drawn by studying large number of respondents in using effective sample techniques. Social surveys deliver objective accurately measured scientific data which can be easily put into statistical form. Having seen the advantages of the survey method . the following are the dis advantages of social survey methods, In social survey the most important questions might not be asked, this is due to the limit of time.However the researcher might find it difficult to ask, more questions due to poor response and negative reactions from the respondents hence not getting the expected answers. Misinterpretation due to the language used. Respondent may not be well familiar with the language which the researcher use as a result misunderstanding rises due to lack of clarity to the respondents hence sometimes giving out an irrelevant answer to the question asked by the researcher.A single survey is done with a specific planned time and since time is limited the number of items to be collected must also be limited to put in planned time hence leaving out some others items to be collected to make the whole survey complete and worth fully needed facts found. Social survey is very expensive in terms of time and cost. an individual cannot afford to carry out an extensive survey out of his resources. The concepts and forms of language used in the survey maybe misinterpreted hence lead the respondent to tell lies. This creates limitation to the researcher on terms of facts finding hence can lead to false conclusions

Equity of Opportunity, Class Cleavages, the Role of the State, and Research Paper

Equity of Opportunity, Class Cleavages, the Role of the State, and Globalization - Research Paper Example I will discuss evidence of social and political motivation to end child poverty in Canada and will raise social change scenarios to direct attention to positive outcomes of implementing a guaranteed annual income for all Canadians, alleviating child poverty in Canada. 2. Objective My objective, in this paper, is to outline the issue of Child Poverty in Canada and to argue for a key solution to it, a guaranteed annual income for all Canadians. I intend to build a logical, persuasive argument, well-documented by reputable sources, calling for ethical action for society’s benefit. 3. Thesis Statement The federal government should implement a guaranteed annual income for all Canadians to alleviate child poverty. 4. Outline I. Introduction A. Provide definitions and Canadian interpretations of child poverty. B. Child poverty is inversely correlated with income. C. The federal government should implement a guaranteed annual income for all Canadians to alleviate child poverty. II. Li terature Review and Discussion A. Discuss child poverty in Canada. i. In one of the richest countries, 1,400,000 children live in poverty. ii.

Court Observation Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2500 words

Court Observation - Essay Example I also provide a critical reflection upon my experience in court outlining the relevant concepts discussed in Courts and Criminal Law. On the entrance of court the guards asked me to empty out my pockets, open my jacket and then pass through the metal detectors. As I walked around the court building, I also observed that there were guards for safety measures at every exit door and they made sure no one entered; only exited. There were also Police Officers in most of the courtrooms I looked into. In my opinion, security measures were very good at this location and I felt very safe. The building itself was ordinary, nothing to fancy. The outside of it looked like any other building in San Diego and it was hard to tell what the building was without knowing. The inside was the same, very ordinary. The staff was very helpful. When I first walked into the building, I walked over to the receptionists desk, which was surrounded by bulletproof glass, and told her who I was and why I was there. She then told me that I was welcome to sit in on any of the hearings going on that morning as long as it was all right with the judge/referee. She also told me that there were courtrooms on the first three floors. I decided to go to the third floor because the first two were crowded. As I was walking through the hall, I was looking into the different courtrooms to see if anything was going on. Finally I looked into one of the last courtrooms and saw someone I recognized, not a student, but the judge. I couldnt remember where I knew him from, but I recognized him from somewhere. I walked in and told him who I was and asked if he would mind if I sat in on the hearings he had today. He told me that he had no problem with it and that there would be a pre-trial today. He introduced himself to me and began to tell me some things about his background. Inside the courtroom, the lighting was adequate and for the two pre trials I observed, the seating was adequate

Criminal Behavior Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Criminal Behavior - Essay Example An investigation of male and female criminal activity will see a shift in female behavior that has been influenced by social and cultural pressures, and a narrowing of the gap between male and female perpetrators. Recent decades have seen an increasing prevalence of female criminals and the crimes that they commit have become more violent. During the 10-year period from 1986 to 1997 the adult male correctional population increased by 67 percent, while the women's population increased by 100 percent (Demographic trends, 2008). Still, crime is an activity that is dominated by males as 5 percent of them are under some form of correctional supervision in the US compared with only 1 percent of the female population. However, female crimes have become more violent in nature. In 1989, 13 percent of the crimes committed by females were violent in nature, but that number had increased to 17 percent by 2002 (US Department of Justice, 2004). In addition, in the year 2000 women constituted 6.7 percent of the total state and federal prison population, and that number had increased to 7.2 percent in 2007 (US Department of Justice, 2008). Data from a variety of sources verifies that women have become more a ctive in crime in a more violent fashion. The contrast between male and female crime and the shift in demographics in recent years can help give an indication of the motivations that underlie criminal activity. Emotion has a far lesser impact on a man's decision to commit a crime than it does for a female. When men commit a crime it is often the result of learned behavior that has been the result of social interaction. Ramoutar & Farrington (2006) report that, "According to social learning theory, if individuals have ample opportunity to observe aggressive or violent behaviour, this will increase the chance that they will learn to value violence and incorporate it into their behavioural repertoire" (p.562). These behaviour patterns are learned from parents, family members, social networks, and promoted through the culture of the popular media. The male dominated society has traditionally tolerated male violence and males are responding to the motivation of perpetuating the existing social norms (Women's Aid, 2005, p.7). Soc ial and cultural norms are at the foundation of the difference in male and female demographics in regards to the types of crimes committed. Women commit violent acts as a means of reacting to their socially repressed status, while males commit violent acts as a learned behavior and minimizes the act based on society's acceptance of male domination. While social learning is a factor that impacts a male's decision to commit a crime, it is also a factor that discourages women from criminal activity. Social control theory further states that "human beings have a natural tendency to engage in antisocial behavior, irrespective of gender" and that strong community, family, workplace, and social ties all contribute to a person's reluctance to engage in criminal activity (Li & MacKenzie, 2003, p.279). According to Corbett (2007) there are significant "informal pressures and sanctions placed on women by family to conform to appropriate gender prescribed behaviours that discourage deviance" (p.258). Women have traditionally been perceived as the 'weaker sex' and sheltered from the male dominated activities associated with

Argumentative Research Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Argumentative Research - Essay Example Content not driven at the ideology of this political group or the government as a whole (for example either Tibetan or Taiwanese independence) is suppressed in the interests of the state (Hughes). Search engine giant Google has recently come under fire for complying with China’s standards of censorship. Opponents, like Frida Ghitis, accuse Google of selling out on its lofty and righteous corporate responsibility to the oppressed people of China. They claim that as Google puts profits above the people of China, they are compounding the problem by promoting a low standard of corporate ethics. Nevertheless, this view of Google and its ethical responsibilities is itself destructive and contradictory. Claiming that any corporation has a moral duty to serve the interests of anyone besides stockholders is patently absurd. Additionally, to think a corporation does have a moral duty threatens to subordinate businesses to the whims of societies (and, by proxy, their governments): the ou tcome Google’s opponents argue against. The question of Google allowing the Chinese government to censor its content drives a deeper issue: that of corporate social responsibility. This term refers to the moral kinds of obligations, if any, that businesses and corporations are committed to by virtue of being such entities. Obviously, many are favorable to the idea of corporations contributing in some way to social change, other than what some have called â€Å"economic imperialism†, where corporations â€Å"exploit† workers in third-world countries. Nevertheless, the ethics of corporate responsibility have not been well-justified, and are typically found only in the businesses’ models for making profit. Thus, on its face, it seems that â€Å"being responsible† for a corporation is good for business. It can benefit, first of all, brand

A Male from Saudi Arabia Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

A Male from Saudi Arabia - Essay Example In effect, I have decided to become effective in learning the language through writing. In this case, writing will not only help me in the pronunciation of the words, but it will also help me improve my grammar. As a writer, one strength area is in my choice of words during the process of writing. In this case, I ensure clarity in work and avoid wordiness, which is requisite for a good writer since it helps me avoid clichà ©s. On the other hand, my main weakness area lies in the area of evaluating the information to include in my writing. In this case, deciding on which information will help support my thesis statement proves to be a challenge although I am improving on this weakness through research. On the other hand, my approach to writing involves the handling of all writing as a process of creative work that requires time to complete the work and the provision of feedback from an instructor in order to avoid similar mistakes in the future. Finally, I like writing since I am able to learn a lot due to the process of research involved when developing the

Media reporting and child sexual abuse Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 3250 words

Media reporting and child sexual abuse - Essay Example The United Nation’s 1959 Declaration of the Rights of the Child states that the child needs special care and protection including appropriate legal protection due to his physical and mental immaturity before and after birth. In the UK, children and young people are offered protection by two important pieces of legislation: the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child and the Human Rights Act 1998.There have been plentiful and varied challenges involving children and young people, in particular under Article 8 of the Human Rights Act(Curtice and Tim,2010,p.361). The Children, Schools and Families Bill has taken some initiatives concerning publishing the family proceedings information. The measures are subject to controversy as there is need to strike the right balance between right of press to report court proceeding under Article 10 ECHR and right to privacy and its respect for children under Article 8 ECHR in addition to their best interest under the UN Convention on the Righ ts of the Child. Relaxation of limitation on media reporting of family proceeding has raised concerns over limiting children rights and providing them insufficient protection (JCHR, 2010). According to media laws, accredited journalists are permitted to observe family court proceedings; however, they are under strict reporting regulations that allow certain level of details for print. The limitation of print reporting are imposed in order to ensure privacy and well-being of children involved in the cases (Silk, 2009).Furthermore, according to Justice Secretary, Jack Straw (cited in Silk, 2009) the limitation will be relaxed in an effort to convey the case substance while children identity and lurid details about family must not be published. The modifications will permit the publication of expert witness reports, including those incorporating details of child abuse. The relaxation will ensure transparency in family justice system and increased public confidence on its services. The legislation has broaden the amount of information that can be reported which include child or parent’s medical, psychological, or psychiatric details in addition to the   information given by a child to his or her parents. It permits the publication of information regarding the case which is not â€Å"personal sensitive information† but the limitations are not clearly defined. The act ensures that names and identities of parties involved remain hidden to maintain lifelong anonymity of children (Baksi, 2010). Recently, numerous high-profile celebrities have accused media of intruding into their privacy during their cases in UK. Most cases are reported against the stories by ‘kiss-and-tell’ tabloids and photographs taken by freelance paparazzi. For instance, celebrity footballer David Bekham and pop star Victoria Bekham and members of British monarchy consistently tried to limit press interference into their personal lives (Drake, 2007, p.220). Apparently, Privacy limitations seems to be defined clearly, however, there is no statute in either English or Scottish law that can be attributed as Privacy Act. In addition, the publicity or personality rights are also not evident. Contrary to defamation or copyright laws, under no specific law we can hold some newspaper responsible for intruding into any individual’s or celebrity’s privacy. This scenario has led to extending the existing legislation in order to contain privacy related cases and to establish the concept in English law courts (Drake, 2007, p.220). Lacking legislation triggered the attempts to define privacy in UK AND Calcutt Committee defined it as â€Å"the right of the individual to be protected against intrusion to his personal life or affairs, or those of his family, direct physical means or by publication of information† (1990, p.7 cited in Drake, 2007, p.221). Absence of a general law for privacy led to the utilization of common law in such cases. I t includes; the 1998 Data Protection Act, 1997

What role does assessment play in the teaching and learning of Essay

What role does assessment play in the teaching and learning of Mathematics - Essay Example n the universe understands the progress that they have to make in learning and they can only improve on their learning capabilities if they receive the support that they need in this process (DCSF 2008, p. 3). Ideally, many students consider mathematics to be one of the hardest subjects within a learning curriculum hence influencing the need for motivating students to improve on this perceived weak subject. The assessment process, especially on mathematics can be on a daily, transitional or on a periodic basis in which the findings of the assessment may be shared between the students, parents and the teachers (CERI 2008, p. 1). With this, this essay will delve into the roles in which assessment plays in the teaching and learning of mathematics through the formative and summative assessment strategies. Further, the focus of the essay will also be on exploring the relationship between teaching practice, policies and theories while applying views of the various stakeholders in the learning process. Ideally, formative assessment tends to be a variety of assessment tools in which teachers apply within the learning process as a way of improving the results of the students in teachers may have to making changes to their teaching curricula. The most principle aspects in this assessment form is that it makes use of feedback rather than the scores of the students whose main objective is focusing on the course contents and improved performance of the students (Sammons 2009, p. 110). On the other hand, summative assessment refers to the assessment tool in which learners have to sit for tests after a period of time in which the teacher marks the test and gives scores as per the performance of the learners (Kennedy, Tipps & Johnson 2008, p. 105). The basic component in this is that summative assessment tends to summarize the learnt aspects up to the point of testing and does not influence the improvement of the performance of the students. `Learning tends to draw influence

Public private partnerships in healthcare sector in middle income Literature review

Public private partnerships in healthcare sector in middle income countries - Literature review Example As well, theoretical as well as empirical studies point to the potential contribution of private sector to reforms aimed at improving the quality and accessibility of health systems. The focus of the study is the increased focus of public-private partnerships (PPP) as a way of increasing capital finance as well as improving the efficiency and quality of service provision in low and middle-income countries. The partnership involves the public sector entering into long-term contract with private sector in order to enable the public sector access private capital for building and renovating health facilities and agreeing to deliver services over the contract period. Such contracts are designed and agreed upon some pre-determined specifications of the required outputs and define the financial, working and clinical standards, which the private sector has to meet. In low and middle-income nations, governments remain the ultimate funder of health care by making periodic payments to private s ector in return for services delivered (Hellowell, 2012 p.71). Public-private partnership is an institutional arrangement built on foundation of fresh public management that claims objectives such as improved efficiency, quality as well as competition of public sector services. In striving to achieve these objectives, PPP aims at achieving value for money while reducing the demands on the state budget by involving the private sector in provision of traditional infrastructure services like health care. Adoption of PPP policy within industrialized nations is often viewed as a tool for further development of public services, while its application in developing nations is a way for reducing poverty and improving the service offered to citizens in such nations. Early 1990s PPPs policy was widely adopted in industrialized nations like USA, UK and Australia; nevertheless, this policy has been diffused in developing nations (Appuhami, Perera & Perera, 2011, p.431). The approach of PPP is at tractive to developing countries that often experience macro-economic problems like poor infrastructure that burden the government budgets and excessive government budget. State-based healthcare service provision and private sector health services have existed together in various low and middle-income nations for decades with many nations having a huge portion of healthcare spending paid by the state. Private providers are heterogonous made up of formal business entities like independent hospitals, informal entities that include unlicensed providers as well as non-profit and non-governmental organizations (Basu, Andrews, Kishore, Panjabi & Stuckler, 2012, p.3). Various studies have disaggregated consumption of health care by income levels and appeared to show that the private sector mainly provide health services to more affluent populations. In the emerging economies, some nations are taking bold steps with the PPP’s by indulging the private sector in both infrastructures re newal and delivery of clinical services in the integrated partnership. Health care is a labour-intensive industry where clinical and ancillary services absorb most the expenditure allotted to many health systems; therefore integrating clinical services with provision of capital infrastructure in PPP offer unique opportunity for

Spinster and Women Role Essay Example for Free

Spinster and Women Role Essay PART A: Introduction According to the latest statistics reported by the Census and Statistics Department of Hong Kong, the population of single women has been on the rise over the past two decades. The population of women aged 30-39 who have never married has risen from 51,000 people in 1986, to 180,600 in 2009. In recent years, people in Mainland China and Hong Kong started to use the term â€Å" † to describe any woman who remains unmarried beyond the conventional age for marriage. In western culture, words like â€Å"Spinster† and â€Å"Old maid† indicate an older, childless woman who is unwilling and unable to marry. Undoubtedly, traditional Chinese culture has cultivated generations of women who believed that their ultimate and most important role in society was to get married and have children. If a woman cannot achieve those goals, she would be considered eccentric or unfulfilled. The objective of my term project is to change general perceptions of unmarried women. I do believe that there is a wider range of acceptable and alternative lifestyle choices for women, such as living together with a lover without being married, and marrying at an older age. Hence, I produced a short film, and entitled it â€Å"A Love Warrior†. The Choice of Character The character in my short film is Ada, a typical businesswoman who is confident, strong, outspoken and attractive. She represents a large group of modern women in our society. After graduating from Drexel University in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA, Ada was awarded with two additional master degrees with recognized qualifications in Hong Kong. Although she is in her early-thirties, she works as a senior marketing manager in a German-based sports apparel manufacturer. With a highly educated background, it is obvious that Ada sees herself as a career-focused woman. But like other women, she also enjoys love life. In her most recent long-term relationship, she found out that her boyfriend cheated on her with a younger girl, therefore she made up her mind and ended this eight-year old relationship. After this painful experience, she became very optimistic and joked that she should be calling herself a â€Å" † and sees the world differently, there are many other good men available. Nevertheless, she is still seeking her Mr. Right and asserted her belief of true love and settled down. The Spinster Stereotype According with the Circuit of Culture (du Gay et al. 1997), culture is described as the production and circulation of meaning. On the whole, there are five stations: Representation, Identity, Production, Consumption and Regulation which are connected to each other providing a synergistic impact. Even fluctuation in one station would affect all other elements. Meaning comes from representations from language, photography, painting and ot her media, which uses â€Å"signs and symbols to represent or re-represent whatever exists in the world in term of a meaning concept, image or idea. † (du Gay et al. , 1997). Identity refers to how meaning is constructed or made and internalized by individual person or cultural group when confronted with a text (du Gay et al. ,1997). Production refers to the effort that an entity, for example, an individual, culture or industry goes about representing itself or products to others. Nowadays, meaning is also produced in a variety of different media. The modern mass media in a global scale circulate meanings between different cultures on a scale and with a speed. Consumption denotes that meaning is produced whenever people make use of appropriate cultural stuff to express themselves in. Regulation indicates that meanings help to set the norms, rules and conventions by which social life is ordered and governed. In other words, it is accepted as appropriate if the observed behaviour is pleasing to the individual or group. As long as the behaviour makes one uncomfortable, it becomes inappropriate. The approval or disapproval of texts may be in the hands of individual or groups within a cultural setting. During the early nineteenth century, unmarried women earned a living by spinning cloth at home. It was really the thankless work. The term â€Å"Spinsters† originally identified those women. Nevertheless, people used to associate middle-aged and unmarried women with â€Å"Spinsters†. That was definitely a symbolic representation, and became a social stigma attached to their status.. Feminist reject the stereotype of spinster. They point out that the term â€Å"Bachelor† which is used to label unmarried man, did not have the same negative implication as that of â€Å"Spinster†. Moreover, words like â€Å"Spinster† and â€Å"Old maid† pertain to the sexual as well as marital state of a woman (Schur, 1983). A bachelor could have several partners, yet it would be immoral for a spinster to do the same. People mostly implies that a bachelor is young, energetic, virile and available while a spinster eventually ages to a point where she becomes infertile and never bear children. Obviously, these terms for labeling unmarried man and woman respectively did not parallel in meaning. There are several psychological characteristics associated with the spinster stereotype: abnormal, unfulfilled and pitiful. In the traditional sense, spinsters were viewed as abnormal because they did not have children. Since spinsters would not have husband and children, they were alone in life which were viewed as unfulfilled by traditional definition. Also, people took pity on the lonesome spinsters who could not have true meaning in life without a husband and children. The Contemporary Image of Single Women In my short film, Ada represents a fashionable and cheerful lady although she is unmarried. She is dressed in trendy and sexy clothes, and has her hair bobbed. She looks chic and posh. She is confident to speak what she wants to express. She admits that she is eager to seek for her Mr. Right through online dating websites and marriage agency. During the photo shoot, she struck a posed on the Jacuzzi in the bathroom, and she drank the red wine in an Italian restaurant. These images convey the message that she knows how to enjoy her life and make herself happy, and defy conventional stereotype of unmarried women. Conclusion After completing this project, I think short film production is similar to photovoice. These creative approaches enable people, especially the stereotype group, to identify, define and enhance their community based on their own specific concern and priorities. Furthermore, I believe that in order to minimize the stereotypes for unmarried women in our society, cultural changes and breakthrough must be made. The struggle for these women to become a respected part of the society has been carrying on for centuries. Today, most single women have become sensible and smart on selecting the other half through wide opportunity for dating. (Word Count : 1103) PART B: There are 4 suggestions for improving my work. Firstly, I believe that the target audience of this project is unmarried women sharing a similar background with Ada. Hence, for the representation, I would have Ada encourages these women to follow her attitude towards life, being independent, assuming their femininity, breaking free from conventions and showing confidence with strength in both their career and personal lives. Secondly, having a strong female character as the main focus, the male audiences may feel offended by the tonality. Therefore I would have included various scenes in which Ada shows her femininity side in a traditional way, such as baking cupcakes or planting lavender. In order to seek acceptance from the male audiences, it is necessary to slightly tune down the independent and strong characters of single women. Thirdly, music can be use as a medium to express our feelings. The background music I chose for the short film is in English. The powerful lyrics of these songs illustrate the modern women’s attitudes towards their lives, and they are perfect to show Ada’s point of views, also to add more excitement for the audiences. However, due to language barrier, some audiences may not be familiar with these songs and not easy to be associated with.

Data Security Policy Analysis

Data Security Policy Analysis Dylan Mc Grath   The reason for having a policy: The reason for having the policy is so that the workers at ACME LEARNING Ltd know what to do when they are assessing the personal data of the customers and how they will use the data. A Brief explanation of the companys obligations under the law: There is one main legislation which the company has to obligate by it is called the Data Protection Act 1998 which was also amended in 2003. It was created for when personal details are given to a company they have to keep the details and they cannot be given to anyone outside of the company. Every person who has given their details to the company can request a copy of their information that the company has. The company must send the person their details within 40 days. They can also have their name removed from any marketing list. They could also make a complaint to the data commissioner if the company is not adhering to the Protection Acts rules. A person can claim compensation if they suffer when the company uses their data in a wrong way. Who is effected by how the company uses and stores data? The people that are effected by this are: Teachers and Staff who work for ACME LEARNING Ltd Management Students The Data that is stored about them is: Credit Card/ Bank Details Birth Dates Contact details Name Address Email Gender PPS Numbers Suppliers information Why the data is used by ACME LEARNING Ltd: For advertising and marketing purposes. To have a database of a persons information. For payroll and pension administration To make the names and addresses of people are correct. To stop fraud and money laundering For record keeping What Specific Threats does AMCEs data have? Malware: Malware is software that can harm a computer and can slow down performance. Hacking: Getting into a computer authorized or unauthorized without wanting to cause any damage. Weather Conditons and Fires: data can lost by storms, earthquakes and floods.   Fires can also be started by accident when the server room is too hot. When these weather conditions and fires happen the server rooms can be completely destroyed. Adware: Software that can monitor the users online activities so that the person can be targeted by advertisements. Disgruntled employees Spyware Accidents Theft Human Error Copying data onto storage devices. Trojans Roles and Responsibilities: Data Controller ACME LEARNING Ltd must appoint a Data Controller who is there to deal with the data which is about their customers on a computer and also in a filing cabinet. The Data Controller must: 1: Obtain and process the information fairly. 2: Keep it only for what is it was needed for. 3: Use it for and it should only be given out for a specified purpose. 4: It must be kept safe and secured. 5: The information must be kept up to date and correct. 6: Make sure the data is adequate, relevant and not excessive. 7: It must not be kept for any longer than it is needed for. 8: Give a copy of his/her personal data on their request. Every Employee that works for ACME LEARNING LTD has to be given training on how to use and handle the data. Rules for:1. Data storage: Data on hard drives cannot be deleted. The data has to be stored on the network drive where the I.T department can back it up when they need to. Data that is on paper has to be kept in a safe place. Data has to be protected by strong passwords. All data has to be stored on the server and data has to in a safe location. The Data Controller and only the people who need to access the data are allowed to look at it. Servers and computers that have data have to be protected by a firewall and security software. Data on CDs or DVDs has to be locked away. The servers have to have different sites in case one site goes offline. Data should not be saved on laptops or other mobile devices. There will be two different databases for both staff and students information. The data cannot be stored locally have it in a place where it can be backed up every night. Data has to be backed up every night. The usb ports on all the machines have to be disabled. Every computer in the building has to be rebooted every night at a certain time. There are two databases one for staff and the other for students information. Users have to logout of their computer to make the data stays safe. The person that looks at the data should be able to see the quantity of the data and the duplication. 2. Data use When looking at data on a computer all employees must have their computer locked when they are away from their desk. Employees cannot make a duplicate of any data on a file. When data is being transferred electronically it has to be encrypted. 3. Data accuracy: ACME Learning LTD must keep the data up to date and accurate. Data that is inaccurate should be updated to the correct data by someone that is allowed to edit the data. There are staff that are allowed to edit the data and other staff who are only allowed to read the data. 4. Data access requests: The Data Protection Act lets a person find out if ACME LEARNING Ltd has any information that relates to them. The person has to either fill out a form or write a letter to the company asking for their information. The person has to include identification so that the company knows that they are giving the data to the right person. The person is entitled to: A copy of the data. A description of the use for which it is held. A description of those to whom the data may be shown to. The source of the data. The person may have to pay a fee to access their information which cannot exceed â‚ ¬6.35. The person has to be contacted within 40 days with their data or be told that the company does not have any data about them. 5. Data Disposal: ACME LEARENING LTD will keep the data it has for employees for seven years only if it is financial. ACME LEARENING will keep the students data for three years. If a student has ticked a box to say that they want ACME LEARENING LTD to keep their exam results then ACME LEARENING LTD has to keep the students exam results for a certain number of years. If data is on paper it has to be thrown into a waste bin. It must also be recycled. The paper can also be shredded so that the data on the paper will be destroyed. An incinerator can be used to burn the paper to destroy it so no one can recover any of the data on the sheets. Hard Drive Disposal: At the time the hard drives need replacing an employee must carry out the procedures that need to be done. The procedures are to overwrite a hard drive, get the hard drive destroyed by paying a company that deals with destroying hard drives the right way so that the data is safe from being seen by a person that wants to use it for gaining money. The hard drive can also be degaussed. This removes all the data from the hard drive. Degaussing destroys the magnetic fields on the hard drive. It completely makes the hard drive in tiny pieces so that it cannot ever be used again. Overwriting the data using a program puts binary numbers onto the hard drive. It should be done at least three times to be successful. Tape Media Disposal: The data on the tapes can be overwritten. They can also be incinerated this method will completely destroy the tape. This method will pollute the air.   The data on the tapes can be degaussed. The company can get someone to come in and do it to witness that the tape has been degaussed properly.

The risk factors for breast cancer

The risk factors for breast cancer INTRODUCTION Breast cancer is the most common type of cancer among women in Malaysia with an overall age-standardized incidence (ASR) of 46.2 per 100,000 population [1]. The incidence of breast cancer differs among Malaysia states; it is the most common cancer among women in Penang, followed by Sabah [2]. However, there is no previous study on risk factors associated done in Penang before. Determining the risk factors of breast cancer helps to identify women who may benefit most from screening or other preventive measures, also offers hopeful promise of modifying those factors, thus preventing breast cancer occurrence. Many risk factors of breast cancer have been found and many of them have been recognized as established factors. Advancing age is one of the most important factors [3]. Reproductive factors like timing of menarche and menopause, parity play a major role in breast cancer incidence [4, 5] . Also, lifestyle factors like alcohol consumption [6-9], high fat diet [10-14] and smoking [15-17] have been identified by many studies as risk factors for breast cancer. This study aimed to determine the relationship between the socio-demographic factors, family history, reproductive factors, the life-style factors and external factors with the occurrence of the breast cancer among the study population. MATERIAL AND METHODS Study design A matched case-control study was conducted in Penang General Hospital, Penang Island, Malaysia between 20th November 2009 and 22th January 2010 using a standardized questionnaire that designed into two languages: English and Malay. Both cases and controls were matched by age group and ethnicity. Sample size was calculated according to that reported by CARIF-UM (Release New Malaysian Breast Cancer Genetic Study) which stated that 14% of breast cancer patients in Malaysia who have family history of breast cancer [18] and the relative risk for strong family history ranging from 2.5 to 4.5 [19] , the minimum sample size was 149 patients per group. Ethical Approval Our study was approved by Clinical Research Centre and Medical Research Ethic Committee of Ministry of Health Malaysia. Considering the ethical issues, written consent was signed by each case and verbal agreement for interview participation was obtained from all control subjects. All the personal information collected was considered confidential. Data Collection The cases were recruited from a convenience sample of prevalent breast cancer women who attended the oncology clinic, day-care chemotherapy center, oncology ward, and the surgical ward during the period of conducting this research. Women with confirmed diagnosis of breast cancer histologically regardless of the stage and met the following criteria; above 20 years old, non-pregnancy, without any gynecological problems (e.g., artificial menopause by hysterectomy), hormonal and psychological problems, were called for interview. Only one patient refused to participate. Our controls were non-breast cancer women who attended the outpatient clinics and outpatient pharmacy during the same period. Women who are non-pregnant, matched by age group and ethnicity to the cases recruited, without any malignancies, gynological, hormonal and endocrine, and psychological problems are eligible to be our controls. Statistical Analysis All data entry and analyses were conducted using SPSS version 15 Microsoft program. Descriptive statistics including mean and standard deviations (SD) for continuous variables, frequencies and percentages for categorical variables were used to describe the study population. Crude ORs with 95% CI were calculated using simple logistic regression models that examined the association between breast cancer status and risk factors. Significant independent variables with P values RESULTS In all, 300 women within two groups were interviewed; 150 women with breast cancer and 150 control women without breast cancer. The means  ± SD age of cases and controls were 52.81  ± 11.13 years (range 23-83 years) and 52.40  ± 11.52 years (range 22-78 years), respectively. Statistically, there is no significant difference between cases and controls in term of age (P value= 0.75) and race frequency (P value= 1.00). Among each cases and controls group, 34.7 % were Malay, 50.7 % were Chinese, 14.0 % were Indian and 0.7 % were other races. Socio-demographic Risk Factors The results of socio-demographic risk factors obtained from univariate logistic regression analysis summarized in Table 1 showed that lower educational level and occupation were significantly related to breast cancer risk (P Family History Family history of first degree relative with other types of cancer (nasopharyngeal, ovarian, Lung, bladder, stomach, or colon cancers) increased the risk significantly (P Reproductive Risk Factors According to the reproductive factors (Table 3), women with late ages at menopauses (= 55 years old) (OR=2.8, 95%CI: 1.18 6.67), or history of menstrual irregularity (OR= 3.2, 95%CI: 1.00 10.08) or who had never breastfed (OR= 1.74, 95%CI=: 1.09 2.76) were more likely to have breast cancer. The protective effect of breastfeeding found to be a duration dependent; women who had breastfed for only few months had a higher risk by 1.51 ( 95%CI: 0.83 2.77) compared to breastfed women for a total of more than 1 year, and the risk increased in non-breastfed women to 2.08 (95%CI= 1.22 3.57). Nevertheless, no statistically significant association were observed between breast cancer and the age at menarche, number of children (parity), age at first full term pregnancy, number of abortions and menopausal status. Life Style and External Risk Factors Breast cancer risk ratios were higher for women who had a history of benign breast disease (OR=2.8, 95%CI: 1.13 6.88) and who had never practiced low fat diet (white meat, white fish, skinless chicken and avoid deep fried food) (OR=1.81, 95%CI: 1.14 2.86). However, other lifestyle factors like; smoking, alcohol consumption, body mass index (BMI = 25 kg/m2) and external hormone use, like OCP and HRT were not significant statistically to be risks for breast cancer. Multivariate Results Among all factors included in the multivariable model (Table 5), occupation, breastfeeding and practicing low-fat diet play important protective roles against breast cancer; unemployed women (adjusted OR= 2.7, 95%CI: 1.59 4.61), never breastfed women (adjusted OR= 1.94, 95%CI: 1.15 3.27) and never practiced low-fat diet (adjusted OR = 1.97, 95%CI: 1.18 3.27) were found to be associated with breast cancer risk as statistically significant independent factors. Other factors contributing to breast cancer risk were: family history of distant relatives with breast cancer (adjusted OR= 3.70, 95%CI: 1.48 -9.20) and first degree relatives with other cancers (adjusted OR= 5.27, 95%CI: 1.38 20.1). Also, women with histories of benign breast disease (adjusted OR= 3.14, 95%CI: 1.17 8.40) and menstrual cycle irregularity (adjusted OR= 4.94, 95% CI: 1.42 17.26) were more likely to have breast cancer. OCP use was significantly related to breast cancer risks; however, this was not related to the duration. While using OCP for 5 years increased the risk by only 3 times (95% CI: 1.02 9.00). DISCUSSION In a pooled analysis of 150 breast cancer cases and 150 non-breast cancer controls, associations between breast cancer and various demographic, reproductive, and lifestyle factors were examined. Both cases and controls were chosen intentionally from the same hospital during the same study period. The risk of breast cancer has been reported to be associated with socio-demographic status [24-26]. Age is a very important risk factor; it was found that breast cancer incidence generally increases with age. The mean age at diagnosis for all breast cancer patients is 50.7  ± 11.0 years. The peak age reaches between 40 and 49 and thereafter the number of breast cancer patients decreases quite dramatically with only 4.0% above 70 years old (Figure 1). Also, only 2.0% of cases were diagnosed below the age of 30 which is consistent with Singletary findings [3]. According to the other socio-demographic factors studied, higher level of education has a protective effect (P Occupation status also plays an important role as a protection factor against breast cancer in both univariate and multivariate analysis (P Family history is an important factor in our population; an adjusted OR of 3.7 (95%CI = 1.48 9.2) was found for women with a distant relative with breast cancer, which is within the OR range reported by previous literature [19, 37] and higher than that reported by others [3, 38]. However, having first degree-relatives with breast cancer is not significantly related to the breast cancer risk (P > 0.05). This may be explained partially because of the high frequency of controls (7 of 150 controls vs. 16 of 150 cases) that had first-degree relatives with breast cancer. Such a high number of family histories in controls may result in an underestimation of increased risk due to the family history. Furthermore, history of first degree relatives with other cancer (gastric, pancreatic, colon, lung carcinoma.etc) is significantly more frequent in patients than in controls with the adjusted odd ratio of 5.27 (95% CI= 1.38 20.1). Recently, it has been discovered that clustering of first degree cases of breast, pancreas and stomach carcinomas in a family has been associated with mutations in the breast cancer susceptibility gene BRCA2 [39]. Breastfeeding is an important protective factor among our population; women who had never breastfed their baby have a 1.74 (95%CI: 1.09 2.76) higher risk of getting breast cancer and the adjusted odd ratio is 1.94 (ever versus never, 95%CI = 1.15 3.27) in the multivariate analysis. Our finding is in agreement with these studies [40-48], however, others failed to find any association [31, 36, 49-52]. Moreover, the duration of breastfeeding has also an important effect; found that the longer the lactation period, the least the risk of breast cancer. This inverse relationship between the duration of breastfeeding and the risk of breast cancer have been suggested by other studies [46, 53-60], however, other revealed that this is mainly confined to women diagnosed before the age of 40 with a weak trend for older patients [61]. History of irregular menstrual cycle (Polymenorrhea, Oligomenorrhea, or Amenorrhea) had an increased risk; the OR range (3.17- 4.94) and this supports the Turkish study [62] which found that menstrual irregularity increased the risk by 1.61 (95% CI 1.05-2.49). Others [55, 63, 64] did not find any significant relation between menstrual irregularity and breast cancer risk. However, it has been reported that menstrual irregularity decreased the risk [65] This study detected a significant association between oral contraceptive use and breast cancer, consistent with other local studies [27, 36, 66] and other international studies [46, 67]. Whereas we could not find any relationship between the duration of OCP used and the risk of breast cancer, so our study does not support the growing body of evidence that long-term use of oral contraceptives, especially during certain parts of reproductive life, is associated with a modest increase in breast cancer risk [46, 68]. However, most studies found no or weak association of OCP use with the risk of breast cancer [34, 69-71]. The association between OCP use and breast cancer is also related to the duration, dosage, type of OCP and the age of first use [72]. Previous history of benign breast disease is highly significant in the present study (P Practicing low-fat diet (take only white meat, white fish, and skinless chicken and avoid deep fried food) exhibited an inverse association with the risk of breast cancer, which is significant in both univariate and multivariate analysis (crude OR 1.81, 95%CI= 1.14 2.86) and (adjusted OR: 1.96, 95%CI=1.18 3.27) respectively for women who had never practicing low fat diet. Red and fried meat consumption and fatty foods were suggested as important risk factors for breast cancer [11, 73]. For each additional 100 g (3.5 oz) daily of meat consumption the risk of breast cancer increased risk by 56% in a French case-control study [13]. Another cohort study [74] reported a significant relative risk (RR) of 1.7 for women who reported eating the skin on poultry. Null high consumptions of fatty forms, namely fried fish and chicken with skin were associated with an increase of breast cancer risk [75]. Other case-control studies reported a protective effect of poultry and fish against the devel opment of breast cancer [76]. Also, there was no evidence for a positive association between total dietary fat intake and risk of breast cancer and no reduction in the risk even among women whose energy intake from fat was less than 20 percent of the total energy intake [77]. Some case-control studies and cohort studies have shown weak and inconsistent associations between high intake of dietary fat and poultry with the occurrence of breast cancer [14, 78]. Other well-established factors that have been studied; smoking cigarettes, alcohol intake, regular use of HRT, pre and post-menopausal body mass index (BMI), marital status and the level of monthly income , age at menarche, age at first full-term pregnancy, number of abortions, menopausal status and parity were found not to be significant in this study (P > 0.05). Strength and Limitation To our own knowledge, the present study is the first case-control study of breast cancer to investigate the risk factor in Penang Island, Malaysia. Both cases and control were matched by age group and ethnicity which add some strength to our study. This research studied almost all the socio-demographic, reproductive, lifestyle and external risk factors, so the confounding effects of all of these factors had been taken into consideration when getting our result by multivariate analysis. Furthermore, the questionnaire was designed into two languages (English and Malay), hence most of the three main ethnic groups in Penang (Chinese, Malay, and Indian) are fluent in either or both of them. As other case-control studies, our work has some limitations. The question regarding menstrual history (age at menarche, age at menopause) of the respondent are likely to be affected by recall bias. There was a chance of error in recall especially for age at menarche that had been many decades earlier and this may have affected the results. We tried to minimize this bias through assisting the memory of subjects. Some of the Chinese cases were excluded due to the language barrier (they cannot speak Malay or English), that may cause some selection bias. 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Huckleberry Finn and The Modern Classroom :: essays papers

Huckleberry Finn and The Modern Classroom Mark Twain’s story The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, is a racist, immoral book that should not be taught in American High Schools. As a children’s story, Finn is an exciting tale of a boy and a runaway slave riding a raft to freedom. As a book to be taught to 16-year-old English students, it is a novel that incorporates serious racist issues conveniently hidden among it’s many scattered plots. From the beginning we are warned â€Å"persons attempting to find a plot will be shot,†(Notice) suggesting that, as analyzing novels is a central theme in English classrooms, Finn may not be the best choice. The protagonist, Huckleberry Finn, is a 14-year-old white boy growing up in Missouri, who lives his life running away from his problems, lying to everyone, stealing, and using everyone he comes across. He fakes his own death very convincingly, and all with the cool, level-headedness not akin to young boys. â€Å"Well, next I took an old sack and put a lot of big rocks in it, -all I could drag,-and I started it from the pig and dragged it to the door and through the woods down to the river and dumped it in, and down it sunk, out of sight. You could easy see that something had been dragged over the ground. I did wish Tom Sawyer was there, I knowed he would take an interest in this kind of business, and throw in the fancy touches. Nobody could spread himself like Tom Sawyer in such a thing as that.†(Ch. 7) This character isn’t probably what the youth of America needs to be learning about. His ability to remorselessly lie to people to get what he wants, is a frightening characteristic, which isn’t one that should be taught to impressionable students. He has taken the pretense of his own death and, in his mine, placed it in the category of the imaginary robbers and thieves games he used to play with Tom Sawyer. Huck’s companion on his trip down the river is Jim, an uneducated adult, black slave who has run away hoping to make it to a free state. The way that Huck treats Jim at times, lying to him or belittling him is racist and wrong.

Alan Bennetts Talking Heads inspired my initial idea. :: Drama

Alan Bennett's 'Talking Heads' inspired my initial idea. DRAMA PRACTICAL =============== Our group comprised of Jennifer Harney, Jamie Hollaway, Antonia Forsyth, Nick Hudson and myself. Alan Bennett's 'Talking Heads' inspired my initial idea. I had imagined two seats on stage with two people portraying an unusual event. The other actors would then act out the narrated story. However this was not met with great enthusiasm and so was immediately dismissed. Our second idea was more stimulating. We came up with the idea of a failing band who were looking for new talent a la 'The commitment', and were holding auditions. Jenny was immediately taken with the idea and imagined herself portraying the role of director. We soon had discussed this idea to death and were no longer inspired by it but dreaded the thought of how we would bring it to the stage.. The end of the lesson arrived and we realised we had done nothing but talk and had rubbished all the ideas we had come up with. We repeated the second lesson in the same way, however it was a little more productive. We moved from the idea of a failing band to an actress who was finding it tough being at the top. However two problems soon emerged. The first was that we were coming up with fantastic ideas that would obviously only work on film, and not on the stage. The second was the lack of insight and excitement for all the characters, other than the star herself, leaving everyone else feeling worthless and unimportant; the group was starting to split- this was turning into a disaster. We were able to salvage this by the lifeline provided by Nick. Although his idea also contained many problems that needed to be discussed, we were able to recover the fading spirit of the group. During the third lesson we became worried that we not getting anywhere fast, so we decided to change our approach. We remembered that in earlier workshops, when we had been stuck for inspiration, we wrote down random words and then just improvised based around the chosen word. The first to be used was squash, after the second attempt I was reminded of the metaphor 'When life gives you lemons make lemonade'. Although this was a slight deviation from 'squash, nevertheless the group was inspired ands so we spent twenty minutes discussing the idea. We then realised our idea had, once again, dragged us back into the fatal area of discussion, which we were trying to avoid! The fourth lesson we returned we asked for the help of our teacher (Mrs. Curtis)- we were aware of the other group's developments, and