A study of the social representation of war Essay

War, a reportage of the crude reality of the Afghanistan conflict started in 2001. Junger, the author and also protagonist, let us  live as a US army soldier in the â€Å"terrible  geology†Ã‚  of  the  Korengal Valley. Even the soil  appears to be the perfect place to host something as horrible as the Afghanistan war. Junger’s  first accomplishment is surely the terrible  masterpiece  representation of the US soldiers’ lives in Afghanistan. The combination of descriptive sequences and figurative language throws the reader into the cruel battlefield where  Taliban and Americans play a â€Å"slow  game  that everyone was enjoying too much to possibly bring to an end†.    Junger, however, doesn’t limit  himself to the plain  reportage  of his  five journeys. His  book succeeds  at representing the sociological interactions that originate within  the platoon. â€Å"The men†, living  in a hostile  environment  with  extremely poor living conditions, seemed to have established higher social moral values than our society. The courage, the love they feel for each other brings about the â€Å"collective defense†, described by Junger, as an addictive feature of the society of this platoon. Through the dialogues, I felt extremely surprised in noticing that those men essentially were happier than us, because, in their societal  reality, the core system  was taking care of each other. The social institutions  of the platoons imposed brotherhood and  knowing that you had a family, your platoon, soldiers’ need were  accomplished.  I was then allowed to understand why the return to the normality is neve r an  easy process for veterans. Given the sociological representation of war, I could not avoid the comparison between  the society of the platoon with our Westernised reality.  Isn’t it crazy in our civilized Western society, that all we seem to lack, is care for each other? Our modern society focused on our own self-fulfillment, allows to ignore the moral calling,  to withdraw from moral engagement; however, in war, as Junger made me notice, nothing is taken for granted, everything is shared and everyone represents your family. If you save someone, it’s your duty, and accomplishing this duty takes you away from the psychological trauma of the daily atrocities of war allowing you to return to a familiar environment. I found Junger explanation of veterans’ traumatic return to reality very insightful.  As he suggests, once you experience the caring society of the platoon, real-world seems even more hostile than war. Perhaps it is, perhaps the real battlefield  is our 21st-century society. Junger made me reflect and wonder whether a hostile external environment is the only criteria where Marx’s  communism principles  hypothetically could work within a society; as the company of each other’s is all humans have got, the creation of a reality where equality and common goals would establish the social institutions, could in turn act as a defending barrier from the external hostile environment, allowing the shared commitment to a communist system. Junger in his  analytical reflection  (220-260) attempts to explain humans’  love of war.  As mentioned above, the return  to normality  seems to scare soldiers more than  the combat itself,  because there is no combat in the society. Throughout  his travels, the journalist never questions who gives us the right to be God. And if somehow we are allowed to fight for God position, as we accept that God was long gone from that Valley and the God position is â€Å"vacant†, are the soldiers truly  fighting  only  because they are told to do so? Fighting means killing. Every day, it means  taking over human lives. Junger never explores this topic in depth. He superficially justifies men’s engagement into  conflict due to a physiological adrenaline addiction. But  I reckon that human nature is three-dimensional, and the analytical chapters never  explored  whether the combat was addictive because  killing is a â€Å"joyful slaughterà ¢â‚¬  (Bourke, 1999). I felt that this  relevant aspect  of conflicts  was being avoided and it seemed like Junger maybe could not accept  our terrible human nature, our â€Å"terrible love for war† (Hillman, 2004). Personally, I believe that war is part of human beings and cannot be avoided, as neglecting it  would imply neglecting the human nature itself. Why do soldiers â€Å"miss the good stuff†?  Junger superficial  argumentation of addiction  to adrenaline seems too weak to support this argument. It is indeed scary, but war is natural, and I feel confident in claiming this as empirical history shows us war constancy. Another side of this book review focuses on the consequences that I noticed on my emotional spectrum throughout the reading. My judgment vacillates between  the ability of Junger as a great writer and the negative implications of his writing ability  on  my emotional reaction.  War further explores â€Å"how easy it is to go from living to the dead† (p. 85), the transcendent  condition of being on the â€Å"real† battleship: the Koregan Valley. Junger’s writing style leaves its mark, his climax, the vast use of short sentences to finish paragraphs and peculiarity to leave white empty space. It is here in these white where  he allows me, the reader, to feel and imagine, and thus  bring my persona into  those empty spaces; this writing what  took me back into my past. Passing from one paragraph to the other, carrying a heavy burden of sadness, I started remembering. Anxiety made me overthinking  rendering the reading experience  not pleasurable anymore. Junger was able to make me so engaged that I could not detach emotionally  anymore. Junger’s great ability to describe the soldier life conditions triggered the reminiscence of my past, where  I could, to a much lesser extent, resemble  the soldier’s  anxious life situation  with my past 13-year-old  self. Alone in my own land, now as well, governed by war; my parents, respectively the Taliban and the Americans. The gunfire, in my reality, pictured by  the lawyers, and as much as Junger, I’m unable to move, sometimes unable to remember. Until now. My gear, my responsibilities, and as much as the men felt too hot, I felt too young. I always thought that a good book is like a good soundtrack that accompanies an as well good movie. But would the good movie create the same effect on the audience without the musical notes? The movie would still be good, but emotionally steady. What Junger is able to do in his book is allowing a natural development of this soundtrack throughout the entire duration of the reading travel. For me, the soundtrack were the emotions, I could feel the pain and the emotional dimension of the platoon and linked it back to my personal experience. Could Junger have triggered a better emotional engagement, be it negative or positive? Another proof of the great ability of Junger in letting the reader assimilating the images of Afghanistan in war through his simple, emotionally detached writing style occurred when suddenly I found myself thrown into a distorted view of what we would recall as reality. Everything, from the soil, the muffled noises, to the deprivation of light. It was a hostile environment. Chaos dominated the scene. Despair could be felt and seen by glancing at other living beings’ eyes. The concept of life was no longer alive. I saw myself running, without a purpose, without a destination, without knowing. I was perhaps running for not dying, maybe because fear impregnated the odor of the air. I was not running to survive. I remember falling, and there I clearly felt a fleece trespassing my skin and hitting my lung. Breathing became an unbearable painful experience. And I was lying there, alone, on that desolated land where God had possibly forgotten to visit for a long time.  When the sun rise shone my room, I  was recollected into this world that we consider real. It took me a while to remove that negativity from my being. I remember hoping for someone to explain to me what had happened but no one of my war dream comrades was there. I could only grasp the ghost of a memory dissolving without leaving a trace. Indeed, I had a negative emotional reaction, but this doesn’t want to diminish Junger’s skills. However, his emotional  detachment,  I could say, made me  feel  sometimes frustrated.  As the reporter, it is essential to remain detached as the sole and unique task is to report. However, I, as a reader, was looking for an emotional judgment from the author. I felt  like I could  read  the mind of a mute child, victim  of an abuse,  who,  due to the trauma, has lost the capability of communication. And the more I was reading, the more the misunderstand was growing. Couldn’t Junger express something, just a small confirmation that what was happening was wrong? It took me a while before understating.   Only by reading chapter after chapter I was able to  realize that the emotionally detached writing style adopted by Junger, was, in reality, an emotional response to the atrocities that he was subject to witness in his travels. The detachment was maybe the only way to survive, the only way to remind himself that the War was not his reality, that his pe rmanence in Afghanistan was just temporary, unlike reality for the Platoon. Perhaps he also wanted to let the reader develop a  critical judgment without intervening. Overall, the representation of the US soldiers’ life condition in Afghanistan, under a sociological and psychological viewpoint, represents the best outcome of this book. Junger proves to be able to communicate clearly what he went through and he doesn’t stop here; his skills overcome the simple flat reading experience and allow the reading audience to develop an emotional engagement, be this emotional reaction positive or negative. Considering what happened in Afghanistan roughly 10 years ago, and how men had to live daily, I feel grateful and lucky to have had the possibility to read this book, as the probability of a bullet hitting Junger’s hypothalamus seems to have been somehow high.    Bibliography Bourke, J. (1999). An Intimate History of Killing: Face-to-face Killing in Twentieth-century Warfare. Hillman, J. (2004). A terrible love for war. New York: The penguin press.   

Advances in technology

This world goes through a lot of changes as time goes on. Changes in technology can make a brighter future for individuals. Because of advances in technology, this world is becoming more efficient and saving us money in the long-run with fuel, electricity, communication, etc. The social lifestyle of an individual involves technology in some way. Technology has become a necessity in these modern days and it is going to become more advanced as time goes on. With these advances in technology, the social lifestyles of individuals can be simpler. Technology moves our world forward nto a new and advanced era.Without technology, we would all be stuck in the same time as our ancestors. Technology is a very good thing for people anywhere and everywhere, no matter how old, it helps us in every aspect of our daily lives, and it is a thing that cannot be lived without. Technology has many branches and levels, from cell phones to the internet and even for medical purposes. However, cell phones an d the internet have taken the main role in changing our society. I find it truly amazing that a person from China is able to talk to a person from the United States, all hrough the internet.Programs such as facebook make finding an old childhood friend extremely easy, all that is to be done is type in their name. The advantages of technology include better health facilities due to increased disease diagnosis using technology and faster as well as more accurate business results and solutions through technology. Technology has also enabled the automation of manual work thus saving time and money. It has boosted the entertainment through games and computer programs as well as increase in economy growth due to faster and easier usiness.Without technology in our lives, our world we be a very different place. Not only does technology provide us with a new and improved way to communicate, is gives us new and exciting ways to research and get ideas out to the world faster. Technology is onl y going to get better and better as each day progresses and with the appropriate efforts and integrating it into the classroom will enhance education forever. Our advance in technology has and always will be a good thing that will always benefit our world. People's lives are becoming simpler.

Business Models Strategy and Innovation

The concept of the business model is basically a structure that supports business viability that includes its goals, purpose and other ongoing plans to achieve them. In simple words, it specifies the description to fulfill an organization's purpose. The business plan is all about elements that are required for demonstrating a prospective business's feasibility, whereas a business model is about demonstrating elements for making the existing business to work successfully. The definition of the business model is described differently by various authors but its common meaning can be defined by two elements – a business system, that can be defined as work systems in form of delivery or production system that are designed by a firm, within its boundaries and beyond for product delivery to target customers. And the next element is profit model, which is a pattern to describe firm’s intention of making profits in existing business. It can include plans to sales increase or/and reducing costs.   It also helps the business to distinguish from other competitors by means of product or price (Verstraete, & Jouison-Laffitte, 2011). Out of the two elements of the business model, the business system is less visible and profit model is more visible. The profit model is observed by outsiders and due to direct linkage to the bottom line of any firm, it is much more glamorous than the business system. However, a business system can be considered as the most significant element in a business model, since it plays two roles – as a system that realizes a firm's differentiation strategic intent which is the real work, and secondly, it accelerates towards future learning processes. During business system design the following things are determined by the firm –the labor division amongst the firm and its partners for trading, internally organizing firm’s in-house system of working and controlling trading activities of partners externally (Weill, Malone, D’Urso, Herman, & Woerner, 2005). The business model as a system works to satisfy needs of customers and tries to do a better job than other competitors. It also enables people working in an organization to explore more about technologies and observe customer's reaction. The business model as a system functions in accordance with learning system while doing the work that involves learning first. It also leaves footprints of the doers while working on any system. It determines two important factors that include maintaining the workflow of in-house and outsourced operations and controlling final delivery options to customers. These factors help the firm to determine ways to learn about market and technology and search for possible partners that are aligned with the firm's goals (Lindgren, 2012). When actual work is done, the flow of various kinds of information takes place and it creates an overall exchange of information from firms to its business partners. As humans are blessed with high thinking and observational po wers, it can directly stimulate by work or action that can be done. This action further provides triggering events and enhances the capacity to form proper strategies for the business system. Also, the business system helps with accumulating information. It is not just dealing with mundane operations to determine operations cost and various products to act as a learning system. It also enables these firms to keep close watch over outside parties like partners and customers and then gains business system's byproducts activity that can quite quickly accommodate and provides growth for improving long-term benefits. Thus, eliminating static problems of any kind. The profit models, on the other hand, has multiple attractions that enable the firming contract to offer lower cost operations that can reduce its operating costs and no longer needs to invest in such work sector (Osterwalder, & Pigneur, 2009). It overall leads to the reduction in capital costs in the firm. If the business model is considered as a system, the doers are accumulators of work related information and approach contract firm that is still learning. The costs can be controlled unless external work can become extra burdens to the firm's business. It integrates together the unbundled and bundled work for carrying out overall operation smoothly, then delivers its final product to customers. This will not become a serious problem if both these bundled, as well as unbundled works, are integrated without creating the transaction costs too expensive. It also means that less learning about work never erodes future growth that has the potential of unbundling firm. The profit model c an override risks that are imposed on the business system due to dynamic problems in firm. There are unexpected environmental conditions that exist in the supplier firms that can change in dramatic ways, and hence threatens the supply lines for destabilizing integration in smooth ways. This significant learning process can produce certain in-house components in a business model that creates a huge innovation towards progressing future market, where a central role is occupied by components to produce new products successfully (Kim, & Min, 2015).   As per the article on the design of business model with a perspective of an activity system, by Raphael Amit and Christoph Zott, it gives a whole new idea about the business model and its various parameters to design its activity systems. The design elements include structure, content, and governance. The element structure describes activities that are linked or in other words have sequences between them that capture their actual importance for a business model. If IBM is considered, during the 90's when a huge financial crisis occurred, the firm was triggered and it forced to switch its peripheral and core activities. Thus shifting the firm's focus from hardware supplier and to become new software service provider. It enabled the firm to rebuild its structure from old known body or core and it helped in becoming one of the greatest service providers in the world. It took those decades but it enhanced its reach and helped them to launch a new range of activities related to IT, consulting, networking and many other services (Dermine, 2013). By the end of the year 2006, almost over half of the revenues generated by IBM amount to ninety billion dollars and it was possible due to investing new technologies or activities that are totally new. The element content is referred to activities selection by the firm that is actually ready to be performed. If an example of retail bank named as Bancolombia is considered, it adopted activities that were designed for offering microcredit to above sixty percent of Colombian citizens who didn't have banking service accesses. The bank adopted training methodologies for top management people to hire new staff and train them. Thus creating and developing new ways to link and expand the existing banking system that includes channels, applications, and platforms (Honohan, 2002). The element governance is referred to people those performing activities. If any franchise is considered, it is relevant to one approach that can work as a key element in value determination in any firm. It's about an adaptation of new business ideas through exploring professional management for creating values that can be added to performance in any business model. The NICE themes for business model design deal with novelty, lock-in activities, complementarities services and efficiency in a model. Novelties are new ways of governance activities, lock-in refers to retaining power by the activity system, and complementarities are the inclusion of value adding services that lead to innovation in a firm and create demand in an actual market (Teece, 2010). The efficiency refers to use of activity system to achieve more output and reducing transaction costs. The essay covers the overall idea regarding the adaptation of business models to run and operate any business firm successfully. Its idea is to understand the concept of business model and its work functioning as an activity system. The elements of business models are discussed in brief along with its focus on handling problems that can arise during business model implementation. The essay also enlightens on partnership and innovation processes along with significant design elements that are necessary for future growths of existing business models. Dermine, J. (2013). Bank Regulations after the Global Financial Crisis: Good Intentions and Unintended Evil.  European Financial Management,  19(4), 658-674. https://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-036x.2013.12017.x Honohan, P. (2002). Comment on â€Å"Costs of banking system instability: Some empirical evidence†.  Journal Of Banking & Finance,  26(5), 857-860. https://dx.doi.org/10.1016/s0378-4266(01)00271-0 Kim, S., & Min, S. (2015). Business Model Innovation Performance: When does Adding a New Business Model Benefit an Incumbent?.  Strategic Entrepreneurship Journal,  9(1), 34-57. https://dx.doi.org/10.1002/sej.1193 Lindgren, P. (2012). Business Model Innovation Leadership: How Do SME’s Strategically Lead Business Model Innovation?.  International Journal Of Business And Management,  7(14). https://dx.doi.org/10.5539/ijbm.v7n14p53 Osterwalder, A., & Pigneur, Y. (2009). Business Model Generation. Retrieved from https://www.businessmodelsinc.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/Business-Model-Generation-preview-of-the-book.pdf Teece, D. (2010). Business Models, Business Strategy and Innovation.  Long Range Planning,  43. Retrieved from https://www.businessmodelcommunity.com/fs/root/8jig8-businessmodelsbusinessstrategy.pdf Verstraete, T., & Jouison-Laffitte, E. (2011).  A business model for entrepreneurship  (1st ed.). Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar. Weill, P., Malone, T., D’Urso, V., Herman, G., & Woerner, S. (2005). Do Some Business Models Perform Better than Others?.  Sloan School Of Management Massachusetts Institute Of Technology. Retrieved from https://ccs.mit.edu/papers/pdf/wp226.pdf

Critical Thought Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

Critical Thought - Essay Example The critical thought makes it seem as though modern democracies arose out of the thinking of the Ancient Greeks, or that governmental architecture mirrors classical Greek architecture naturally. This, however, ignores the massive historical gap that lies between the two time periods. The modern democracy, and modern nation state, arose not out of the polis, but out of the feudal system of the middle ages. Land ownership requirements existed in many countries into the 19th century for voting rights, for instance, a direct holdover from the feudal, not the classical world. To be truthful to history and to the truth of ourselves, we must recognize that our world in some ways mirrors the prototypes developed by the Greeks not because of natural evolution or happenstance, the mirrors exist because the creators of our societies have actively tried to copy and to call on aspects of ancient Greek culture in architecture, governance and

Leadership Management and Management of Strategic Change in Apple Inc Essay - 1

Leadership Management and Management of Strategic Change in Apple Inc - Essay Example This paper illustrates that the change in technology and the workforce characteristics have come up with the challenges of predicting the business direction. The leaders have to remain flexible in a data-centric world where quick business decisions have to be made within the shortest time possible. The entry of global competition has seen the organizations lose domestic markets and the profit margins reduce considerably. For any organization to remain profitable, it is crucial for leaders to execute strategic measures to position themselves in the market and overcome the challenges that come along with a rapidly changing business market. At the same time, new opportunities such internet connectivity and data processing technologies have come up, although taking advantage of them is always a challenge for managers. In light of this, having to work in the dynamic mobile industry is a big challenge for our organization. Therefore, managers at Apple Inc need to remain creative, opportuni stic and flexible to implement strategic management within the organizations. One great challenge that is a potential threat to the survival of Apple Inc in the future is the competition by other innovative companies such as Samsung and Nokia. Although the company has created a unique profile by patenting most of its applications, Samsung has come around this challenge by using the Android Platform, which is the world’s favorite software platform. The mobile and Table users today prefer the Android platform over the iOS, which Apple Inc uses. The Android platform allows flexibility of access open source application, which makes it more integrative than any other operating system within the market. This is the major reason why the Apple mobile market is constrained as people shift their tastes towards this new software platform. This trend promises that Apple Inc is bound to experience a severe challenge if it does not take appropriate measures to counter ever-rising competiti on in the market.

Lab report Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words - 4

Lab Report Example These occipital condyles are projections from the bottom of the skull that attach the skull to the atlas and axis of the cervical vertebrae. This gives an indication of how upright the organism stood. The more centered that the occipital condyles are along the Frankfurt plane, the higher the probability the hominid was upright. 4) Nasal cavity shape – the nasal cavity shape helps establish ancestry and racial origin. A wider nasal chamber indicates a sub Saharan origin as compared to a narrower flared/heartshaped one in the European skull. The Mystery skull 1 belongs to anatomically modern Homo sapiens. The reason I assigned this taxon is due to the high uv/tv ratio. This implies that the hominid had a lower brow and thus the frontal lobes were higher than eye level. The tw/tv ratio is also large meaning that the foramen magnum is high. This implies an upright posture. The index of condylar position is also large implying that the foramen magnum is nearly centrally placed under the skull. This also implies a near upright gait. The facial features such as zygomatic bones are not as prominent, thus showing that the hominid did not have need for large mastication muscles. The maxillary jaw is also less protruded. This is characteristic of the more evolved hominids. The saggital sutures also close to form a well rounded calvaria characteristic of higher hominids. Mystery skull 2 belongs to the Neanderthal. The reason I assigned this taxon is due to the fact that the uv/tv ratio is relatively large. This implies that the brow ridge is not as high, and thus the brain is slightly higher placed than the eyes. The tw/tv ratio shows that the foramen magnum is located lower on the skull and thus the hominid may not have been entirely upright. The xy/xz ratio is quite large. This implies that the foramen magnum was almost centred, meaning that although the hominid was not entirely upright, it may have employed bipedal gait. The

Reducing the rate CO2 emissions by reducing deforestation in poorer Essay

Reducing the rate CO2 emissions by reducing deforestation in poorer countries. Should richer countries pay poorer countries to stop cutting down trees - Essay Example Hence, the environment faces many stern adverse effects. For instance, there is habitat loss causing numerous species that are dependent on the forests to go extinct. Notwithstanding, there is a massive climate change attributed to the acts of deforestation. Essentially, there is an urgent need for the developed countries to intervene and provide funds for poorer nations to help thwart deforestation. Arguably, reduction of emissions emanating from deforestation and environmental degradation can greatly assist in curbing global warming and climate change. Nevertheless, developing nations are not in a position to avoid deforestation because they depend on agriculture for their food security. The situation leads to a need for more land that is essential for agriculture due to a rapidly growing human population. In return, more forests are in danger since they face an invasion from the farmers. Notably, if the developed nations could intervene, more forests can be saved. In subduing deforestation in poorer countries, developed countries need to come together and establish treaties that would support other food production methods. For instance, the alternative methods of agricultural production are expensive for poorer countries to implement. As such, they resort to cheap and easy methods of land cultivation that requires large tracts leading to increased cutting of trees. Thus, fina ncial support to implement such means of alternative agriculture can save the forests a great deal. Poverty has played a substantial role in the degradation of the environment. Most of the world’s rainforests reside in the poorest countries in the universe. The inhabitants of these poor regions rely on the forest ecosystems for survival. Activities in this context entail collection of wood for fuel, gathering, hunting, and they receive some finances from companies that exploit the forest resources. Similarly, most of the people

Executive Compensation in the US is out of control. Salaries for most Essay

Executive Compensation in the US is out of control. Salaries for most CEOs are way too high in comparison to front line wage ear - Essay Example Analysis and Evaluation of the issues Survey on the salaries of the CEOs have shown that the discrepancy in the salary have been growing very rapidly. During the 1980s the remuneration of the top executives was almost 42 times of that of the hourly workers’ pay. This had increased to 85 times by the next decade. With the inception of the new millennium the salary differential raised up to 531 times the salary of the junior most executive in the corporation. The Congress has passed a law in the post financial crisis period that made it mandatory for the CEOs and the top executives to disclose their salaries (Smith 1). The compensation that the CEOs were in different forms like salary, perks, bonus, pension accrued over the years and stock options. This compensation ratio of the CEO to the average workers varied across sector. It has been observed that the difference was greatest in the corporations that provided financial services, followed by the companies that produced consum er products. The ratio was comparatively less in the materials, technology and healthcare sector respectively. According to the eminent management thinker Peter Drucker, this ratio should range between 25:1 and 20:1. However the opinion that Drucker posited till as late as 2005, is not followed in the employment market in the United States or any of the multinational corporations that operate in different parts of the world. This kind of differences has led to a growth in the inequality in the distribution of income. While the growth of the wages of the top 1% of the executives have been 361 percent the wages of the employees that belong to the lower hierarchies have grown only by 34 percent over a period of almost three decades. This has a direct effect on the amount of revenue that the US government has collected from the top executives in form of taxes. As a result the income gap of the households has also increased (Mishel 4). Various issues relating to this have also come up in this regard. Only those households which had a top executive of a company as their family member had incomes that were extremely high. This was especially true for the executives who worked in the financial sector. Another surprising fact was that the rate is which the stock markets have grown over the years was less than that of the growth of the salaries of the CEOs. Research has shown that the stock options that the CEOs are offered account for this discrepancy in the wages. Warren Buffet is another supporter of this view. He insisted that the pay the top executives do not justify the work that they perform. He also feels that the CEOs have selfish intensions when they formulate policies in the organization rather than thinking about the benefit of the investors and the health of the company (Buffet 16). According to him a CEO can fulfill his selfish needs by paying fewer dividends to the shareholders and steering the retained funds into projects that may not turn out to be frui tful. Reactions I support the opinion expressed by the authors discussed above and the results of the various studied that have been conducted on this issue. The US financial crisis that had made a lot of families bankrupt was caused due to the extreme greed of the top executives. This greed had forced them to get into deals that were either very vulnerable or

Reading Responses of Trifles by Susan Glaspell Essay

Reading Responses of Trifles by Susan Glaspell - Essay Example Though I still do not know what Monster’s ball meant, studying the play Trifles for the second consecutive time proved to me that it is different. Apparently, Glaspell’s indirect concentration became evident to me in the second study of the play. Symbolism is an exemplary aspect of the play. The dead bird that Mrs. Peter and Ms. Hale spotted is a symbolism of Foster’s intrinsic demise. The open cage of the bird emblemizes the wife’s new freedom found through the demise of her husband (Bradford). Compared to reality, we apply tangible items to emblemize the intangible ones every other day in life. For instance, a white dove is regularly used to emblemize peace. Moreover, the American flag shows liberty among other symbolism used in contemporary times. Glaspell’s indirect style proves to us that it is nonetheless a worthy style. She discusses the women’s place in the society through the entire play (Bradford). Men, who hold distinctive and respectable titles such as deputy and county sheriff use their time searching for touchable evidence and applying fancy methods to arrive at a solution but to eventually fail in their endeavors. However, the women, who I strongly suspect that they were simple housewives, solve the quandary ingeniously, quietly and cleverly. Notably, the women employ their individual knowledge regarding Minnie Foster to theorize and formulate possible reasons why she would have murdered her husband. Additionally, they apply their off-centered blanket stitching to hypothesize that she was surely nervous regarding something. Moreover, the women who never stepped on the scene of the crime discovered the dead bird, which is concrete evidence to depict and prove the motive why she would have murdered her husband (Bradford). In conclusion, in spite of the numerous great traits in the play Triples, there is an eventual

Understanding of Working Practices Essay Example for Free

Understanding of Working Practices Essay Understanding of working practices and strategies that can be used to minimise abuse in health and social care. The discussion within this essay is about some of the sections of the children’s act, it will explain the existing working practices, which are designed to minimise abuse and neglect within health and social care contexts, also evaluating the effectiveness of working practices and strategies used to minimise abuse and neglect within health and social care contexts, also discussing possible improvements to working practices and strategies to minimise abuse in health and social care contexts. Also within this discussion Hamzah Khan will be drawn upon as examples of when the children’s Act did not come into action when their abuse and neglect was at its strongest point. Strengths, weaknesses, positives and negatives will also be drawn upon through the lives of Hamzah Khan. As well, the Munro review and timescales. Within the role of the LADO –Local authority designated officer they are set to safeguard children, a LADO could have helped Hamzah Khan and possibly saved his life, not resulting in death (government, 2013). The Lado has certain strategies and working practice they have to abide by to ensure a child’s safety. For example if a child is in the hands of suspected abuse or neglect they must consider a police investigation of the possible criminal offence; enquiries and assessment by children’s social care about whether a child is in need of protection or in need of services; and consideration by an employer of disciplinary action in respect of the individual (government, 2013). They are also responsible for letting the child’s voice be heard, providing advice, information and guidance to employers and voluntary organisations around allegations and concerns regarding paid and unpaid workers. These strategies and working practices are here to help prevent abuse in cases such as Hamzah Khan, However Hamzah did not receive a LADO, but if he had he might not have been abused and he might not of died with the tools that the LADO has, he or she could have took Hamzah away from that home, when suspected abuse was first brought up and could have formed a case, which then could have gone to the courts, leading to Hamzah possibly going into foster care where he could not have been abused anymore. Improvements could be made in the children’s Act of the LADO. A LADO needs to be contacted more, and needs to be in contact  more with other health care professions so they can communicate together with what is happening with the child, but in Hamzah’s case the Lado obviously failed to do so (Wirral, 2015). The LSCB are required to produce policies and procedures for supporting the welfare of children in their local area. The board are required to take immediate action when a child’s welfare is at risk, also to investigate any allegations of people working with children, i.e. teachers, nursery workers, etc. They are to communicate with other health and social care professionals, also promoting the welfare of children and raise awareness to deal with the situation. The board is also responsible for observing and evaluating inefficiency of what’s done by authorities and their bodies to safeguard and promote welfare of children and advice on how to improve things. Monitor and evaluating the effectiveness of what is done by the authority and their board partners individually and collectively to safeguard and promote the welfare of children and advising them on ways to improve. In addition to all of the above they are to evaluate serious cases within the local areas and find a better solution to improve the situation at hand. For example finding a foster family for a child that has been previously abused and neglected in their home, in this case blood ideology (blood related) would not been ideal, as placing a child back into an abusive home where the child is more likely to get abused and neglected again, whereas in a foster home the child is safe and not at risk with this non- blood ideology family. The board use these strategies and working practices to help prevent children from getting abused, the positives to the LSCB are that they are required by law to communicate with people and bodies in areas of authority to safe guard children, so they can get in touch with these authorities and find out of them all different information that can help prove suspected abuse is going on and then get the right authority to remove the child of suspected abuse however a negative is that  The LSCB says that blood link ideology is better than non blood link ideology so even if a child has previously been abused at a home they are preferred to go back there as it is blood linked. (Working together online, 2013) In Hamzah’s case one of these officers was not provided, as he was described as ‘the invisible child’ (The Guardian, 2013). Improvements such as removing the blood link ideology from this section of the act would improve it greatly as this means that there are  less chances of this child getting abused by their previous abuser again. The LSCB did not occur in Hamzah’s case, he was not a priority and he wasn’t safeguarded by this board. His case was not evaluated, and the situation he was in which he was being abused and neglected was not being improved by any health care profession, like the LSCB are supposed to do, for example improving his situation by putting him into a foster family so he could not be put at risk any longer. â€Å"An emergency protection order is when a person applies to a court for an order to be made under this section with respect to the child† (www.gov.uk, 1989). The court may make the order, but only under these criteria; There is belief that the child is very likely to suffer harm, neglect or abuse if he or she is not moved to accommodation immediately tha t is provided by the applicant or on behalf of the applicant. He or she does not stay in the place in which he or she is being accommodated. An emergency protection order could have been issued so many times within this case, however all health care professional failed to see something wrong as quoted he was the â€Å"invisible child† to social services especially, during a visit too Amanda Hutton’s house it was found that one of Amanda’s children didn’t have a bed, one child’s sleeping arrangements were made unclear and Amanda herself seem to be under a unknown influence of alcohol or drugs, but none of these professionals thought that any of these would be a reason to issue a EPO, if this EPO was put in place they could have helped Amanda for example make it a court order that she goes to rehabilitation and be sober before Hamzah was back in her care, they could have also got her property in a better state as there was rubbish everywhere, they could have also help find her a job and get a steady income so her family wasn’t neglected and in poverty; all of these things if put in place within the EPO could have resulted in Hamzah being a healthy boy today. (Bradford safeguarding children board, 2013) These strategies and working practices did not help Hamzah as stated above; the EPO needs many improvements to that for example someone like Hamzah doesn’t die again, for example a negative to this section is that the child in question of abuse can be returned after 8 days if they have failed to find valid evidence and the EPO can apply again for a further 7 more days, but this still not long enough, so even if Hamzah  did get an EPO he could have been returned and then further abuse could have carried on and this is going to happen to other children if the time limit is still so short, however this time could be considered quite a long period away from the family as the suspected abuser may not even be abusing the child. â€Å"The Munro review was critical of the current system used for monitoring performance in child protection, Munro explained that by focusing on specific aspects of process within child protection system- as opposed to the quality of practice –performance indicators have skewed and misdirected local priorities, current performance indicators focus on data which is easy to collect and achievements are measured in the form of numbers e.g. number of C.P plans and efficiency targets† (tri.x, 2011) This proves to be a negative aspect, the system is more bothered about quantity rather than quality and this intervention tell us nothing at all about children being safer as a result of the intervention. One improvement on the Munro is that these new indicators place a clear emphasis on the importance of collecting outcome data. Within the Munro improvements are set to get even better with stronger focus on outcomes and impact, they are set to also get feedback from children, young people, families and the work force. They are also now set to improve the scope of the new data collection measures for example; focusing on timelines, workforce issues and outcomes and experiences. (tri.x, 2011) To summarise if these improvements were made earlier could this review have saved Hamzah? Bibliography 1. The guardian (2013) Hamzah khan: social services missed warning signs, report finds [online]. Available from: http://www.theguardian.com/society/2013/nov/13/hamzah-khan-social-services-warning-signs [accessed on 29/12/14] 2. Government (2013) if your child is taken into care [online] Available from:https://www.gov.uk/if-your-child-is-taken-into-care/care-proceedings [accessed on 2nd December 2014] 3. Government (2013) Local Authority designated officer for allegations [online]. Available from: https://www.wirral.gov.uk/my-services/childrens-services/wirral-safeguarding-childrens-board/information-professionals/allegations [accessed on 29/12/14] 4. Government (2013) Local Authority designated officer for allegations [online]. Available from: https://www.wirral.gov.uk/my-services/childrens-services/wirral-safeguarding-childrens-board/information-professionals/allegations [accessed on 29/12/14] 5. Government (2013) Local Authority designated officer for allegations [online]. Available from: https://www.wirral.gov.uk/my-services/childrens-services/wirral-safeguarding-childrens-board/information-professionals/allegations [accessed on 29/12/14] 6. Government (2013) working together to safeguard children [online]. Available from:http://www.surreycc.gov.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0005/254669/Safeguarding-children,-child-protection-policy-2012.pdf [accessed on 22nd November 2014] 7. Trixonline (2011) The Munro review interim report: ‘the child’s journey’ [online].Available from :(http://www.trixonline.co.uk/website/news/pdf/policy_briefing_No-11.pdf [accessed on 29/12/14 8. Trixonline (2011) The Munro review interim report: ‘the child’s journey’ [online].Available from :(http://www.trixonline.co.uk/website/news/pdf/policy_briefing_No-11.pdf [accessed on 29/12/14]

Spatial Patterns Of Tropical And Temperate Deforestation Environmental Sciences Essay

Spatial Patterns Of Tropical And Temperate Deforestation Environmental Sciences Essay Global deforestation has become a major concern of human society. Belonging to the last untouched and pristine terrestrial ecosystems on earth, tropical forests in particular are a central issue of many conservation movements. Safeguarding global biological diversity has been widely approved as a political goal throughout the global community with forests playing a major role. Large and rare animals and pictures of burned forests have strengthened the belief in the moral and ethic injustice currently taking place in the tropics. Yet, we have to consider that this point of view originates in western society and mainly remains widely accepted in the developed world where for the most part no tropical forests exist. In contrast to the (partly) intact and less degraded forest ecosystems of the tropics, in the highly developed countries of the northern hemisphere large parts of temperate forest ecosystems have long vanished and been replaced by anthropogenic landscapes. This change in lan d use has resulted in the creation of severely transformed ecosystems fundamental for the economic and social development. These include, for instance, agricultural, pastoral, industrial and urban landscapes. The long time that has passed since their clearance often leaves temperate forests out of the current investigation on deforestation patterns. Rather, scientists concentrate on patterns of tropical deforestation, which is currently the most alarming regarding the net loss of forest cover. Generally, land degradation occurs to a great extent in forested areas since about 25% of total land degradation is associated with broad-leaved forests and 17% with boreal forests (UNEP 2007). With the severity of the consequences of global deforestation becoming evident, environmental and economic science is increasingly addressing the issue. Just recently, beginning in the late 1980s, environmental economists have been publishing new thoughts on valuing the environment and considering its ecological functions in economic decision-making (see de Groot 1987, 1992; Daily 1997; Costanza et al. 1997; among others). Nowadays, the interdependence and importance of forest ecosystem functions and services is widely accepted throughout scientific and economic literature. This development has raised the general awareness of the importance of well functioning and sustainably managed forests and has augmented the acceptance of forest conservation movements (at least in western societies). Supp orted by new technologies, such as satellite imagery and remote sensing methods, the study of deforestation processes and spatial patterns of deforestation has been facilitated at various levels and different scales at affordable costs. By using new technologies and approaches, many studies have been conducted in an attempt to estimate the extent of deforestation and to explain its causes. A great amount of studies focuses on the processes of tropical deforestation which is doubtlessly most alarming at the moment. However, other studies have approached deforestation from a global perspective and also for temperate forest ecosystems in particular. In light of the ongoing debates on deforestation, this paper first defines forest degradation and deforestation and then explores potential misunderstandings of such definitions. This discussion is followed by an analysis of the causes of global deforestation process and concludes with some key findings for tropical as well as temperate deforestation patterns. 2 Defining forest degradation and deforestation Drawing on the publication by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) (2009), the following section will shortly present the debate on the definition of forest degradation and deforestation in a global context. As the number of studies and policy instruments concerning forest degradation and deforestation are numerous it is necessary to establish a common language in order to draw mutual conclusions and to find applicable solutions. Being a serious environmental, social and economic problem, forest degradation and deforestation are issues of major concern discussed at various political levels as well as by the public. As consequences of deforestation become evident not only on the local but also on the global scale, finding consensus among different parties is of great importance for responding adequately to a daunting challenge. The definition of forest degradation and deforestation, however, is technically and scientifically difficult to define because it is viewed and perceived differently by various stakeholders who might have different objectives regarding forest use or conversion. Furthermore, discrepancies in the definition can have implications on forest related policy making processes as well as on the monitoring and enforcement of policies (FAO 2009). The FAO report argues that forest-related definitions [à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦] which are outcomes of international processes are policy tools and can have major economic, social and environmental implications (FAO 2009, p. 8). Besides monitoring purposes, forest-related definitions also determine financial flows and the allocation of financial incentives for various purposes (e.g. restoration or improvement measures, projects under the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) or the Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation (REDD) program) (FAO 2009). 2.1 Deforestation Deforestation describes the process of land use change from forest to non-forest (FAO 2009). However, this quite simple definition based on certain thresholds of deforestation has the potential to cause conflicts when the individual factors are evaluated. Different nations, international organizations or ethnic groups might have differing perceptions and definitions of forest or non-forest. Drawing on the definition provided by the FAO, forests are defined as land spanning more than 0.5 hectares with trees higher than five meters and a canopy cover of more than ten percent, or trees able to reach these thresholds in situ (FAO 2005, p. 16). This definition does not include land that is predominately under agricultural or urban use (FAO 2004). Furthermore, deforestation can occur on different spatial and temporal scales which will be discussed later in the following section. 2.2 Forest degradation While deforestation is relatively easy to define, much more effort is required to define forest degradation. In 2002, a symposium of international forestry-related organizations consisting of the FAO, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR), the International Union of Forest Research Organizations (IUFRO) and the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) agreed on a common definition of forest degradation, defining it as the reduction of the capacity of a forest to provide goods and services (FAO 2009a, p. 9). This process occurs within the forest and negatively affects the characteristics of the forest, which can be of structural or functional nature and which determine the capacity to provide goods and services. Defining the latter two terms well is a challenging and demanding task. The definition can be comprehensible for one party but could be understood very differently or be misunderstood. For instance, with r egard to the REDD mechanism, forest degradation considers particularly the reduction in carbon stocks within a forest (FAO 2009b). However, there is still a lack of practically applicable approaches to measure the extent of forest degradation because the existing definition is not an operational formulation due to different perceptions of what forest degradation furthermore entails (FAO 2009). Therefore, the United Nations Forum on Forests (UNFF) has called for greater harmonization of internationally applicable definitions related to forests to facilitate monitoring and reporting on progress towards the achievement of the global objectives on forests and sustainable forest management [à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦](FAO 2009, p. 8). 3 Processes of deforestation As described above, deforestation is a process of change in land use. Although it is currently being addressed widely at different political levels as well as by the public, it is not a new phenomenon. Since humankind began to control fire and to domesticate animals, forests needed to be cleared for various purposes. However, among great parts of western society forests nowadays are being valued very differently than even a hundred years ago. Scientific progress, environmental awareness, technical innovations and deliberative policies have made clear that deforestation has become an important and global issue. The following section shortly depicts the process of deforestation after which the underlying causes for this development and typical observable spatial patterns of deforestation will be presented. In general, it can be distinguished between natural and anthropogenic disturbance processes. Natural interferences occur naturally in the environment, in contrast to anthropogenic interferences which are human induced. While natural stresses occur rather on a small to medium scale and are of relatively short term, anthropogenic disturbances often occur on a medium to large scale and are long term processes. The former include forest clearances by natural wildfires, wind (storms), extreme weather events or changing climatic conditions (though being argued to be human induced). The latter includes timber extraction, pastoral uses, small shifting cultivation plots, induced forest fires and large scale forest conversion activities. Anthropogenic disturbances can either be intentional (direct), e.g. logging or land conversion, or unintentional (indirect), e.g. introduction of invasive species (FAO 2009). However, forest disturbance regimes become less predictable once natural and anthropo genic factors combine (FAO 2009). The two factors are often dependent on each other and combinations can be complex and take various forms. For instance, anthropogenic impacts on forest structure and dynamics in tropical mountain regions can have severe consequences for downstream areas during naturally occurring storm events in the form of floods and landslides. Further, human impacts influence the vulnerability of forests to degradation from natural causes, can negatively affect the successional regeneration process in naturally disturbed forests, and naturally occurring drought periods can be the cause for large scale forest fires ignited by escaped land clearing fires (Goldammer 1992). Moreover, global ecological feedback mechanisms can have far reaching impacts on anthropogenic forest interferences (Goldammer 1992); this will be addressed later in the paper. Usually, forest degradation is associated with a reduction of the vegetative cover (Lund 2009 in FAO 2009). Considering forest degradation as a continuous internal process caused either by natural or human induced disturbances, various thresholds can be defined, for example, in terms of percentage of canopy cover. Thus, when passing a certain threshold, a forest can be classified into various levels of degradation and eventually, when reaching a high level of openness, the forest cannot longer be defined as a forest (i.e. 10% canopy cover), although administratively it still might be considered forest land (FAO 2009). Deforestation can occur abruptly in a very short period of time by simply removing the lands tree cover. Under those circumstances, the forest is usually cleared for the purpose of land conversion for other forms of land use or for the substitution by monoculture plantations of exotic tree species. This form of deforestation, if sufficiently large, is easily detectable by remote sensing (FAO 2009). However, deforestation can also occur over a longer period of a subsequent forest degradation process caused by disturbances which vary in terms of severity, quality, origin, extent and frequency. The impacts occur on varying spatial and temporal scales and are dependent on the type and specific characteristics of the forest (FAO 2009). Its detection and measurement is relatively difficult as it implies a long-term loss of biomass, productivity or species composition that is difficult to assess, especially the impacts on soils, water, nutrients, biodiversity and the landscape. (FAO 2009, p. 13). Yet, forest degradation is not inevitably a prerequisite for deforestation. Forests can also exist as degraded forests for a long period of time without reaching the level of deforestation (Angelsen et al. 2008). 4 Causes for deforestation Various direct and indirect causes for tropical deforestation exist (Geist and Lambin 2002). Drawing on an earlier publication by the two authors (2001), the results are based on the analysis and interpretation of 152 subnational case studies within the tropics. Direct or proximate causes are human activities or immediate actions at the local level [à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦] that originate from intended land use and directly impact forest cover (Geist and Lambin 2002, p. 143). Indirect causes or underlying driving forces are fundamental social processes [à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦] that underpin the proximate causes and either operate at the local level or have an indirect impact from the national or global level (p. 143). In other words, direct causes for deforestation are the actual physical impacts on forest cover that degrade the forest or convert it to other forms of land use. Indirect causes, on the other side, are institutional arrangements or socio-demographic forces which facilitate the existence and emergence of the direct causes. At the proximate level, the results clearly show that deforestation in the majority of cases is caused by multi-factorial terms, that is, a combination of direct causes rather than by a single variable. The four single causes are (decreasing in relevance): agricultural expansion, infrastructure extension, wood extraction and other factors (land characteristics, biophysical drivers and social trigger events). The most frequent combination of direct causes is the agricultural wood extraction infrastructure expansion combination that ultimately leads to deforestation (3-factor term of causation) (Geist and Lambin 2001). However, it is questionable to just project this result to the entire tropical forest biome. Each individual case of (small to large scale) deforestation can have a distinct history of the cause or need to change the land use form and might statistically not be represented in the current literature. Likewise, at the underlying, institutional level tropical deforestation is associated with synergetic driver combinations rather than individually operating forces. The five single driving forces are (decreasing in relevance): Economic factors, policy and institutional factors, technological factors, cultural factors, demographic factors (Geist and Lambin 2001). Here, the indirect factors are in the majority operating at the 5-factor term of causation, that is, all underlying factors together are argued to be driving deforestation in more than a third of all cases. In Lambin and Geist (2003), the two authors discuss regional differences in tropical deforestation in more detail. In fact, they argue that the processes of humid tropical deforestation in the three most important areas, namely Latin America, Southeast Asia and Africa, can vary to a great extent. Reasons for the regional differences are derived from three sets of factors: the environmental and land-use history, the particular combination of causes triggering and driving land-use change, and the feedback structure, that is the social and ecological responses to land-cover changes (p.24). Though, Rudel (2006) distinguishes more precisely the most important tropical forest areas (Central America the Caribbean, South America, West Africa, Central Africa, East Africa, South Asia, and Southeast Asia) and depicts a detailed image of the relevant agents of deforestation (road builders, corporate loggers, forest managers, reserve advocates, urban enterprises and consumers). He argues that wh ile the size of the forest area decreases, the agents of change adjust their behaviour and act differently in respect to the actual forest size. The authors main conclusions can be shortly summarized as follows. As forests decline in size roads are ceased to be built, corporate enterprises stop exploiting the forests, community forest management becomes more effective, protected forest areas become less applicable for conservation measures, and degraded sites are reforested by urban consumers (Rudel 2006). Thus, the causes for deforestation and land use change are not static and since all factors are interdependent it is difficult to assess causes in a biome wide or global perspective. However, the quite general conclusions that are drawn by Geist and Lambin for the three major tropical forest areas (Latin America, Southeast Asia, and Africa) must be viewed cautiously. For instance, an extensive and diverse area such as central and western Africa is reviewed by means of only 19 case studies from eight countries. The results then are treated non-exclusive, are thus assumed to be comparable (although being quantitative as well as qualitative) and are used for drawing representative conclusions on the entire tropical Africa (Geist and Lambin 2001). Furthermore, the definition of deforestation that is used by the authors must be viewed critically since they use a broad and inclusive (Geist and Lambin 2001, p.17) definition which considers not only forest conversion (à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦) but also different types of [forest] degradation (p.17). Nevertheless, Geist and Lambin (2001, 2002, 2003) provide a good overview of the existing causes for deforestation in the tropics an d relate underlying and direct causes (as well as accompanying occurrences) before they conclude with a quantification of the causative linkages. Also, they discuss the strengths and weaknesses of their chosen methodology and address potential biases and ambiguities to the reader adequately (2001, p. 17 ff). Also, it is important to stress the importance of roads or access in general to (remote) forest areas, which is a prerequisite for large scale anthropogenic interferences. This is true not only in the tropical forest biome but also in the temperate forest biome. In many logistic regression models for the assessment of deforestation patterns, the distance to roads is a major factor and closely related to deforestation processes (Mertens and Lambin 1997; Altamirano and Lara 2010; Echeverria et al. 2008; Wilson et al. 2005; among others). Although agricultural expansion is mentioned to be the most significant cause for deforestation, it should be mentioned that the intensification of agricultural practices, however, can have a positive effect on remaining forests since productivity increases and the pressure of expansion thus is reduced (cf. Barbier 2001). As the global human population and the demand for food and agricultural products increase, the importance of agriculture must not be neglected and should be incorporated into policy responses. In his book Logjam Deforestation and the Crisis of Global Governance, David Humphreys (2006) shortly describes the European deforestation process from an institutional economics perspective. He argues that, in contrast to Garret Hardins theory of the tragedy of the commons, common property regimes are crucial for the conservation of forest public goods (such as watershed protection or climate regulation) as long as land tenure rights and legal ownership are secured. Likewise, Elinor Ostrom (2002) argues similarly in her essay Reformulating the Commons and identifies several requisite attributes for the resource system and the appropriators in order for efficient self-governing associations to form. The most important attributes mentioned are the spatial extent of the resource system, the salience or dependence of the appropriators on the resource for a major portion of their livelihood, trust and reciprocity and autonomy, among others (Ostrom 2002, p. 5). Common property regimes can be defined as institutional arrangements for the cooperative (shared, joined, collective) use, management, and sometimes ownership of natural resources. (McKean 2000 in Humphreys 2006, p. 4). Humphreys (2006) states that in Europe the common use of forests under public ownership was widely respected until the Middle ages when the aristocracy and political elites organized the systematic and widespread displacement of commoners from common land, and the subsequent enclosure of this land by fencing (p. 6), thus, changing the property regime from public to private. Then, with the rise of the centralized state during the 16th to 18th century, forests were further enclosed and exploited with timber as a steady revenue source. In central Europe soon only few species were considered economically profitable. By conserving only economically valuable species, this instrumental, utilitarian and abstractionist logic eroded biodiversity in the forest and promoted the development of scientific f orestry [à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦] (Humphreys 2006, p. 6). This socioeconomic development, an increasing demand for timber and fuel wood and a steadily growing population promoted the exploitation of temperate forests across Europe and lead to the degradation of the forest public goods which were considered unproductive in economic terms. The practices of enclosure and scientific forestry were later also brought to the European colonies in Africa, Asia, Australia and the Americas (Humphreys 2006) where currently remaining pristine tropical forests are experiencing a similar trend. To sum up this paragraph, again I use the words of David Humphreys since they convincingly make a point and cannot be formulated better. Enclosure during the medieval and colonial eras degraded and destroyed forest commons across the world. Forest degradation in the 20th and 21st centuries has rarely been due to poorly functioning common property regimes. It is invariably the result of the enclosure of commons by s tate and private interests, who overexploit the forests for economic gain and who have a totally different relationship to the forest than the commoners whom they displaced. (p. 7). 5 Spatial change patterns Only as recent as the last 150 years have tropical forests experienced a drastic human induced change in terms of forest cover and species composition in contrast to many temperate forest ecosystems which have experienced severe and large scale changes for much longer. While vast areas of tropical forest were still without anthropogenic pressure, temperate forest landscapes (in Europe i.e.) were, in relation to available land area, highly populated and forest ecosystems largely impacted and altered (Potapov et al. 2009). Today, it is estimated that over one half of the temperate forest biome has been fragmented or removed by humans, in comparison to nearly one quarter of the tropical forest biome (Wade et al. 2008) Tropical forests have recently experienced a constant loss of forest area. Achard et al. (2002) estimated a loss of tropical forest of 0.52 % for the period 1990-1997 and Hansen et al. (2008) estimated that 1.39 % of the total tropical forest area were lost between 2000 and 2005. Temperate forests, however, recently experience neither large net gains nor losses in forest area and some areas even show an increase in forest cover (FRA 2010). For the tropics, six general spatial patterns of the forest/non-forest interface were developed by Husson et al. (1995) which were used for example in Mertens and Lambin (1997) or Geist and Lambin 2001. The six types of patterns are: geometric, corridor, fishbone, diffuse, patchy, and island. Geometric patterns are related to large-scale clearings for modern sector activities, corridor patterns to roadside colonization by spontaneous migrants, fishbone patterns to planned resettlement schemes (yet limited to the Brazilian Amazon), diffuse patterns to smallholder or traditional subsistence agriculture, patchy patterns to high population density areas with residual forest patches, and island patterns to (peripheral) urban areas (Geist and Lambin 2001, p.66). Such spatial patterns are easily detectable once the deforestation process occurs quickly and when the connectedness of the forest area was large hitherto. These characteristics are more likely to be found in the tropical moist bro adleaved forest type (especially in South America and Africa (Wade et al. 2003)) and thus the spatial models depicted here are more adequate to be used in the tropical forest biome. Source: Geist and Lambin (2001), p. 66 For the temperate forest biome (here: Europe) Estreguil and Mouton (2009, p. 6) present four different and typical patterns of forest loss. Drawing on publications by Forman (1995) and Bogaert et al. (2004) they characterize local spatial forest loss by a) attrition (the disappearance of patches), b) shrinkage (decrease of the size of remaining patches), c) perforation (cleared holes within forest patches), and d) fragmentation (braking up of forest areas). Source: Estreguil and Mouton (2009), p. 7 6 Consequences of deforestation The consequences of deforestation can cause local scale and far reaching ecological feedback mechanisms such as atmospheric, hydrological and climatic changes (Goldammer 1992) and can furthermore have implications on the socio-economic environment. This, in turn, affects the whole forest ecosystem at large scale and in the long run. Regarding the current debate on a changing global climate, forests are of major concern since they serve as a great sink for atmospheric carbon. The wooden and photoactive biomass as well as forest soils sequester large amounts of atmospheric carbon. In comparison, forests store and sequester more carbon than any other terrestrial ecosystem (Gibbs et al 2007). A great amount of the total human induced global carbon emissions is argued to be released from forest degradation and deforestation; a great amount in tropical regions since here deforestation rates are currently most striking. Calculations that not even include tropical forest fires estimate the amount of carbon released at 10-25% of the total human induced carbon emissions (Santilli et al. 2005; Houghton 2003). The proportion of carbon released by forests fires and burning of biomass is still difficult to determine but is practically responsible for great amounts of carbon and other harmful substances released into the atmos phere (Goldammer 1992; Houghton 2003). While tropical deforestation processes are estimated to significantly add to global carbon emissions and act as a source, temperate forests of the northern hemisphere are considered a carbon sink (Heath et al. 1993 in Potapov 2009; Goodale et al. 2002 in Houghton 2003). 7 Forest rehabilitation At any level of degradation, forest conditions can be improved and the process of degradation halted or even reversed. Essential for the rehabilitation of degraded forests are silvicultural or protection measures on degraded forest land or reforestation measures on non-forest land. These rehabilitation measures must be adapted to the specific ecological conditions of each individual area. If successful, those measures might eventually lead to a level of non-degraded forest (FAO 2009). In general, tropical forest rehabilitation is more complicated and requires more efforts than in temperate forests. From an institutional perspective, the implementation of rehabilitation or conservation measures by corporate enterprises is seldom achieved on a voluntary basis because (tropical) forests are mostly characterized by open access conditions and forest ecosystem services are public goods. Only if secure property rights are allocated, monitored and enforced and incentives for action are being provided are such measures more likely to be realized. Moreover, forest degradation and deforestation can be argued to be negative externalities that are often neglected by forestry or agricultural enterprises or even small-scale users. David Humphreys (2006) puts it as follows: While corporations are effective in supplying private goods, their efficacy in public good provision is highly questionable. Corporations have one overwhelming responsibility, namely to maximize shareholder value. This is a fiduciary responsibility in private law in most countries [à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦] (and) rationalizes both t he internalization of monetary benefits and the systematic externalization of social and environmental costs. (p. 11). For those ecologically negative externalities to be considered during decision making processes adequate policies and governance structures are required. In our current capitalist system of neoliberal economic policies, an ecologically and socially sustainable economy will be very difficult to achieve, if not impossible. 8 Conclusion The scientific progress towards an understanding of ecological forest processes and deforestation patterns has recently fueled the debate on the true value of intact forest ecosystems. With the recent tendency of accelerated anthropogenic forest conversion into other land uses, the impacts of considerable small-scale disturbances along with large-scale conversions accumulate to such an extent that they become measurable on a regional and even global level. Although forest ecosystems are of central importance regarding the economic development especially in humid tropical countries, Hansen et al. (2008) argue that forest governance is still impaired by a lack of timely information on forest cover change. They conclude that a mixed strategy for monitoring should include data at multiple temporal and spatial resolutions (p. 9443) providing a feasible and cost-effective methodology to produce timely, precise, and internally consistent estimates of biome-wide forest clearing (p. 9443) (Hansen et al. 2008). However, global governance on forest ecosystems is currently not sufficiently developed. A biome-wide assessment of the forest development must therefore be viewed critically. Rather, a decentralized assessment of the causes and processes of deforestation should be aimed at to find appropriate political answers to halt deforestation and promote a socially and environmentally sustainable forest management. Goldammer (1992) points out that a reliable assessment of tropical forest development requires detailed knowledge of interacting ecological processes, namely the consideration and connection of small-scale impacts with large-scale feedback mechanisms. Thus, not underestimating the social importance forests play, a comprehensive understanding of deforestation processes and patterns requires an interdisciplinary approach from an ecosystem perspective that considers ecological, economic and social sciences. Word count: 4558 (list of references excluded)

America’s Prescription Drug Plan Essay -- Essays Papers Health Medicin

America’s Prescription Drug Plan Graphs Not Available For the past couple of years there has been a bitter battle between Canada and the United States over the importation of prescription drugs. Unfortunately due to amount of uninsured Americans who cannot afford these drugs in the United States, they must travel across the border and buy them in Canada. Currently the United States has made it illegal for anyone but the manufacturer or a selected representative to import prescription drugs into the United States. However the increasing difference in price between prescriptions in Canada and the United States has created an opportunity for Canadian businessmen and women to export these prescription drugs from Canada to the United States. According to the Fraser Institute, â€Å"Canadian mail-order pharmacies currently enjoy reported sales of about US$650 million, a trivial portion of the American market for prescription drugs (Harris 2003).† There are several concerns regarding the drug trade with Canada: one is the cross-borde r trade of pharmacies could be harmful, and two it will eventually cause drug prices in Canada to increase. In turn, will leading to increased pressure for explicit price controls in the United States which would cause a reduction in medical research and development. Several Aspects of the United States drug market make it stand out from other markets. One of them as stated above is R&D for creating new drug products. As long as the United States is selling prescription drugs at such high prices (in order to support the R&D), Canada will be able to free ride based on the work done by the US manufactures. The competition between drug manufactures is extremely competitive, and developing new drugs and get... ...these drugs. The CBO concluded â€Å"the average price for patented drugs in other industrialized countries is 35-55% lower than in the United States. Ultimately there is a problem, with the prescription drug trade and a solution need to be found quickly. Whether it is a two-tiered system, a mulit-tierd system, or a parallel trade relative to income system the problem needs to be dealt with and fixed. Otherwise people are going to get sick and due to the high cost of prescription drug and health care they will lose the chance to get better. Work Cited Beckman, Ph. d, Steven. International Trade, University of Colorado at Denver. Fall, 2004. http://www.theorator.com/bills107/s2244.html http://www.affordablerx.com/newsandmedia/062103.html Congressional Budget Office, Washington D.C. April 29, 2004. http://www.cbo.gov/showdoc.cfm?index=5406&sequence=0

Between the Self and the Community: The Lost Identity in Morrisons Sul

Aristotle once said, "I count him braver who overcomes his desires †¦ for the hardest victory is over self." Unfortunately, most people don't understand the sheer meaning of Aristotle's quote because they live as servants of their community where one's identity losses its shape. Such end is the inevitable result of living under the constraints of binaries. Toni Morrison's Sula is packed with numerous binaries that define the nature and acts of the novel's characters such as the Self/Community binary. The identities of Sula, Nel and Eva are sketched out by the diverse choices they make in relation to this binary: controlling the privileged side, being controlled by the unprivileged side or sticking in between. To begin with, Sula enjoys the superiority of her pivotal self. Galehouse in her article, "New World Women" states that "despite any real or perceived limitations imposed by her family, her community, or the era in which she is depicted, Sula does not put any limits upon herself"(341). Her disinterest in what the Bottom community glorifies forms her narcissistic identity and creates her "I want to make myself" motto (Morrison 121). For Sula, all the worn-out traditions promoted by her community worth nothing more than her own "dirt" for at least the latter is her own production. Sula`s identity as a new world woman is highlighted by her "daring, disruptive, imaginative,†¦ out-of-the-house, uncontained and uncontainable" personality, as Morrison puts it (qut in. Galehouse 339). Moreover, throughout the novel, Sula`s self controls every aspect of her social and intellectual life resulting in full appreciation of her angelic, as well as, demonic actions. On the one hand, w hen cutting her finger in an attempt to... ...ng? Finally, I idealize Eva, but does she idealize her own self? Questions remain unanswered just as the Self/Community binary remains unchanged even in our legendary 21st century. (1,187) Works Cited Bergenholtz, Rita. "Toni Morrison's Sula: A satire on Binary Thinking." African American Review 30.1 (1996): 89-99. Academic Search Premier. Web. 22 March 2012. Galehouse, Maggie. "New World Woman: Toni Morrison's Sula." Papers on Language and Literature 35.4 (1999): 339-355. Jstore. Web. 21 March 2012. Morrison, Toni. Sula. New York: Penguin Books, 1993. Print. Pessoni, Michele. "She was laughing at their God: Discovering the goddess within Sula." African American Review 29.3 (1995): 439-442. Academic Search Premier. Web. 20 March 2012.

I Will Write Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow :: Personal Narrative Writing

I Will Write Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow "We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars." - Oscar Wilde Life, I think, if we could map it out on some sort of cosmic parchment, would be a tapestry of paths taken, woven in on each other in a tangle resembling nothing if not a spider web. Somewhere in the midst of these interlocking and twisting trails of all the ways I've gone, the ways I've planned to go and the roads I have abandoned I managed to find two trends that form a frame for all the other twists and turns that may come. These two trends, two paths that I'm currently in the midst of walking, are the practical-and-mired-in- reality realm of economics and the freer, more creative area of writing. When it came to this paper, to actually taking both and projecting them into the future, I found myself coming up against one specific question. How on earth can I wrap the two of them together, meld them into something that stands as a unit? The answer that I found, for now at least, is that they cannot be melded; each is too firmly intent on standing on its own. But this doesn't mean t hat they do not coincide again and again from time to time. Each has its future, separate from the other, but neither precludes the other. Neither stands completely isolated from the other. Even with the advances of technology and the changing trends that the world is bringing to bear with a vengeance, there's still a phenomenon that allows for the coexistence of such different and yet inextricable fields. 'E pluribus unum'--that's the slogan, right? I think it applies, and perhaps more importantly, that it will continue to apply. Economics, in the present is a hot topic for discussion. Everyone, from the attendant at the gas station to candidates for political office, has their opinions and theories about it all. Economics, in its simplest definition, is the study of human choices and decisions when unlimited wants meet limited or scarce resources. As far as I can tell, and as far as I've been told, we've yet to come up with a technology that eliminates this problem of scarcity, so it stands to reason that the field itself will exist in the coming decades. With that much established, little else is certain.

Edgar Allan Poe`s Conception of Death

In this chapter, the detailed analysis would focus on the aspect on different attitudes adopted by Edgar Allan Poe to portray his conception of death in selected poems. Poe himself sees death in various experiences and his transformation of death from one poem to another is noteworthy. The bedrock of analysis would be The Raven, Annabel Lee, Lenore, The City in the Sea, Eldorado, and The Conqueror Worm. Although the theme in these poems is the same, the attitudes and the nature of description is entirely different in all of them. the chapter is allocated to three subtitles, man's attitude towards death of the beloved, man's description of death and the third corresponds to the reasons behind these attitudes adopted based on Poe's biography 3.1 Man's attitude towards the death of the beloved:3.1.1 The RavenThe poem follows an unnamed narrator who is also a lamenting lover of his dead beloved Lenore. Lenore is thought to be the deceased wife of Poe and holds the central element in this poem. The narrative poem begins on a dreary night of December, where the lover is seen as tired and weak. Remembering his dead beloved he experiences ennui and tries to overcome this by diverting his attention to an old book. As the narrator is seen feeling at unease and weak, he hears a tapping on his chamber door. He consoles himself that a visitor may have tapped the door to seek asylum and nothing else. Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary, Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore,— While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping, As of someone gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door. â€Å"‘T is some visitor,† I muttered, â€Å"tapping at my chamber door;Only this and nothing more. † (The Raven 112)Since the beginning of the poem, the reader can feel the ambience of death surrounding the narrator. The use of â€Å"I† is the poem indicates the unnamed narrator being fearful and irritated as he describes the sound in rather negative term â€Å"rapping†. According to TheFreeDictionary, the word corresponds to a series of rapid audible blows in order to attract attention. This rapping sound generated as the narrator describes makes the narrator aware of his surroundings more and begins to fear for himself. Narrator also uses â€Å"gentle† which portrays yet another descriptive aspect, the gentle tap made the narrator aware of his situation and so enough was able to respond to it. The narrator also shows his irritated nature: â€Å"T is some visitor,† I muttered, â€Å"tapping at my chamber door / Only this and nothing more.† Narrator now moves on to remembering his lost beloved Lenore. Narrator can be evidently seen to showcase his unconscious, as he portrays a moment of flashback, a specific time that he is reliving again in that chamber. The use of words â€Å"dying embers† showcases a trigger generated in the narrator about his lost Lenore. It is said that â€Å"we unconsciously tend to run away from our distressing thoughts and painful experiences by believing and convincing ourselves to forget them.† These repressed thoughts and experiences remain in our unconscious in a dormant phase, and as soon as similar situation occurs, these recurring experiences surfaces. The past has surfaced again when the narrator moves into flashback, feeling sorrow for having lost his beloved forever:Ah, distinctly I remember it was in the bleak DecemberAnd each separate dying ember wrought its ghost upon the floor.Eagerly I wished the morrow;—vainly I had sought to borrow From my books surcease of sorrow—sorrow for the lost Lenore,For the rare and radiant maiden whom the angels name Lenore: Nameless here for evermore. (The Raven 112-113) Here, narrator uses â€Å"bleak December† to signify cold, and consequently death. The very first line creates a conception of death as cold and unwavering in the reader's eyes. Nothing lives in the winter, for those who live goes into hibernation till the winter surpasses. December is the month of winter. This symbolizes death as cold, unforgiving and larger in magnitude. The cold of winter wipes out the warmth effortlessly as the narrator explains it as â€Å"dying ember†. This dying ember generated the flashback of his beloved and this in turn instils the narrator to think about his beloved's death. He calls her the â€Å"fair maiden† whom the angels took away, leaving narrator sorrowful and mournful in attribute. To surpass his sorrow, he sought refuge in books: â€Å"Eagerly I wished the morrow; —-vainly I had sought to borrow / From my books surcease of sorrow—-sorrow for the lost Lenore. Now narrator moves to open the door, fearing, grieving, and contemplating that it might be Lenore that seeks entrance in his chamber. The depiction of this fear is uncanny, the narrator shows his inner fear which enthralls in him terrible yet fantastic horrors that he has never felt before. This uncanny attitude towards death is evident of the nature of Poe. Poe regards death as an inevitable concept in this narrative poem. The horrors that the narrator faces are portrayed through the musical effect of silken purple curtain, sad, uncertain rustling of purple curtain, narrator is now terrified of this sound and reassures himself that it might be some visitor who seeks entrance at his chamber door. From the initial concept of death as an inevitable phenomena, the transformation has made death generating fear inside narrator. The narrator is now fearful of the ambience around him as it generates the

Critically Evaluate Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs as Way of Understanding Employee Motivation in Contemporary Chinese Business

Critically evaluate Maslow’s hierarchy of needs as way of understanding employee motivation in contemporary Chinese business. Because of the great developing and consume potentials in China, more and more multinationals are attracted. Companies who had rich successful experiences in west have difficulties to manage in this unfamiliar emerging market (in Alas, 2008). To define the way of understanding employee in China, needs and motivations of Chinese employees should be considered first. Maslow's hierarchy of needs as one of the most discussed theories which related to people motivations should be included.According to Maslow’s model, individuals have the same order of needs all over the world. Some criticisms pointed out that needs would change under different cultures. Furthermore, following the great changes of China, employee motivations between new China and contemporary China changed as well. Due to the reform in China, Chinese people have more chance to communic ate with western which gave a important impact on Chinese employees’ work values and motivations. This essay will evaluate Maslow’s hierarchy of needs as way of understanding employee motivation in contemporary Chinese business.From Maslow’s perspective (in Geren, 2011), human needs are the same worldwide. It indicated that the hierarchy of needs which developing based on U. S. society can be applied all over the world. Whereas the research of Hofsted (2001) reported that people under different cultures have diverse values which have a motivational influence on life choices and behaviors (in Alas, 2008). Compared with the individualism culture in U. S. , China exists as a collectivist society due to its long history of traditional culture and the dominant position of imperial power.Individuals in the individualistic society are concerned more about self-success, but for Chinese people, maintain harmony within their social environment is more significant. Accordi ng to Kirkman and Shapiro (in Alas, 2008), there are some crucial links between cultural values and job attitudes which can be the approach to study employee motivations between U. S. and China deeply. A diagram about the hierarchy of needs of the People's Republic of China by Nevis (in Gambrel and Cianci, 2003) showed that the order of needs of Chinese people and employees are: social belonging, physiological, safety and elf-actualization. Employees in China tend to emphasize social needs more over individualistic needs which means the status and identity were concerned more in a society, while employees in more individualistic society such as America stress more on individualistic needs. A famous case was at Lenovo when Chinese and American employees worked as a group, Chinese employee considered the team as the key for company’s successful. However, The Americans were trying to identify individual high performers (Gallo, 2008).The hierarchy of needs model seems not appropr iate for understanding the employee motivations in China business. However, an ambitious reform program was launched in China. Instead of a relatively closed system previously, an open, market-driven system had been set up. A series of actions including entering the WTO, opening the western region of China and building up an information network have given dynamic to support the system and take the way to develop. As a result of these great changes of China, employee motivations and work values between new China and contemporary China changed as well.According to studies by Ralston et al. (in Jaw, 2007), Work values of contemporary Chinese leaders who get a higher score on individualism differ from those older generation of the past. It indicated that new generation of Chinese manager characterized more individualistic. Furthermore, because of the experiences to western thought and management practices, Chinese employees who ever had under western cultural influence are more aggressi ve (in Jaw, 2007). It stated that work values are different between Chinese employees who have western cultural experiences and those who have not.Chinese employees who have western cultural exposure experiences focus more on individual values, especially self-esteem and self-actualization which can be applied in Maslow’s model. As the number of those employees increasing, this tendency will become more obviously. For those Chinese employees who do not have a western background, they put more emphasis on the material standard of living and work conditions which can be seen as the first level of Maslow’s model. For example, high wages have been seen as one of the most significant factors to attract employees in contemporary Chinese business.In order to motivate employees more effectively, Google’s office in China not only provide fresh fruit and high quality food, but also create relax and comfortable working environment (Marre, 2011). The ANOVA test of work valu es in 4 areas showed that Chinese respondents pay more attention to the provision of welfare than employees in the other areas (in Alas, 2008) . When employees’ age is old enough to retire, they need the welfare to support daily life without working. It reflected the importance of the security of their work.The reasons behind their needs were attributed to the different developments in the economy after experiencing a centrally planned economy in China and low material standards of living (in Jaw, 2007). Although China has been seen as the emerging market with full of power, the country had experienced a socialist regime which have considerable less wealth than traditional capitalist countries and started to develop only around 30 years. That caused most of Chinese employees still strive for the lowest need and also explain the rationality of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs in China. To sum up, as the representer of U.S. middle class values during the period of individual achievements were stressed, Maslow’s model is not applied across all cultures (in Jaw, 2007). However, as a result of the reform in China in 1978, links between China and the world connected. By the influence of western culture, Chinese manager and employee who had a background in foreign countries shown more aggressive and ambitious which closer the stage of self-esteem and self-actualization among Maslow’s theory. On the other hand, general employees focus more on income, work environment and welfare which explain Maslow’s model in a practical way.Although Maslow’s model is not apply in a collectivistic society, it becomes more proper to express Chinese employees motivations after 30 years’ development. Word count:1004 References: Alas, R. (2008) Attitudes and values in Chinese manufacturing companies: A Comparison with Japanese, South Korean and Hong Kong companies. Chinese Management Studies Vol. 2 No. 1 pp. 32-51 Marre, W. (2011) Is GOOGLE Emp loyee Heaven? Available from: [March 2012] Gambrel, P; Cianci, R. (2003) Maslow’s Hierarchy of needs: Does It Apply In A Collectivist Culture. Journal of Applied Management and Entrepreneurship; Apr 2003; 8,2; ABI/INFORM Global pg. 43 Gallo, F. (2008) Business Leadership In China: How to Blend Best Western Practices with Chinese Wisdom, Publisher: Wiley; (August 1, 2008) Geren, B. (2011) Motivation: Chinese theoretical Perspectives. Journal of Behavioural Studies in Business Vol. 3 [online]. Available from: [March 2012] Hofstede,G. (2001) Culture's Consequences: Comparing Values, Behaviors, Institutions, and Organizations across Nation(2nd ed. ), SAGE Publications: Thousand Oaks, CA Jaw, B-S; Ling, Y-H; Wang, C. Y-P; Chang, W-C. (2007) The impact of culture on Chinese employees' work values. Personnel Review Vol. 36 No. 1, 2007 (pp. 128-144)

Is Credit Card Necessary in Our Life Essay

A credit card is a card issued by a financial company to the holder in order for an individual to borrow funds often at a point of sale. It is important to note that credit cards charge interest and are basically use for short-term financing. Moreover, the interests charged on credits cards are enacted usually one month after purchasing is made and borrowing limits are pre-set. This is with regard to the individual`s card rating. Significantly, credit cards contain a higher interest rate that is about 19% per year than majority of the consumer lines or loans of credit. Consequently, many consumer stores allow payment through credit cards, an aspect that has seen the vast growth of these cards. Suze denotes says â€Å"For Americans who don’t pay their entire credit card bill each month, the average balance is close to $4,000. † In addition, they are a mode of payment in the current world by most companies and even the civil servants. However, the various limitations like dent limit make credit cards insignificant in our life. Credit cards are not necessary in our life because they impose various limitations to the card holders. First, charging items, goods, and services on plastic can be convenient but encourage poor spending habits. Credit cards are readily within one`s reach. Moreover, people walk with these cards in their wallets and handbags. This is not only, a limiting factor, but also encourages the issues of money expenditure. For instance, online stores have become a considerable element in the current American society. Buying of goods and services can be done within seconds, especially with the home delivery services at hand. Suze in her argument emphasizes, â€Å"But also realize that some of you are broke by circumstances. I believe you are Broke by Choice. † This is to indicate the practices that we engage with the accessibility to the cards. Credit cards expose high rate expenditure among people with even little goods they would purchase locally. Credit card debt is a considerable problem that each ground people every year. Rise in the interest rates is a limit factor towards the use of credit cards. It is evident that financial companies vary their rates within days and even a month. For instance, the interest rate may change frequently if the economy of the nation keeps alternating. This puts the credit card holders in a chilly spot. The fluctuation of interest rates has resulted to individuals going for loans since they cannot support their bills. Suze denotes, â€Å"The average interest rate charged on credit is 15 percent, with plenty of folks paying 18 percent†¦ † Moreover, the financial companies are after profits, and to ensure they have established this, they enact interest rates that are merely undistinguishable by the credit card holders. This exposes the card holders to vulnerability of inevitable charges by the organizations. Moreover, at times payments through the credit cards get missed. This is usual among the card holders. Various companies have emphasized on credit card payment mode. However, it is imperative to note that during the transfer of money from the corporative, some instances of money loss have been identified. Efficiency is a factor that cannot be relied on from payment and service coherence. Furthermore, online vandalism in the form of account hacking is a current problem facing credit card issuing financial corporations. For instance, payoneer company accounts that are issued online to individuals from various regions of the world have faced vandalism with clients and card holders losing millions of cash. Hacking online credit card accounts has become a common practice in the present society. This has forced people to limit the utilization of the credit cards. Credit cards are likely to accumulate debts if the monthly charges are not paid in time. â€Å"†¦if you are late on any other card, your zero deal can be in jeopardy. † In addition, credit card scores are trashed by the financial companies rendering to discrimination of the individual card holders. On the other hand, credit cards can be regarded to be very significant in the modern world. This is because they solve the issue of distance payment. For instance, an individual living in Great Britain can receive his/her salary even if working for a company established in the United States. This is because the credit cards allows funds to be deposited on the card holder`s card. Furthermore, the card holder can withdraw money from any card supporting Automatic Teller Machine (ATM). This is not only an advantage to the credit card holders but a limitation to knowing their bank ledger rates and various banking processes within the account. Majority of the credit card holders neglect the various conditions and terms they are subjected to during account application. Considerably, for the people who do not pay their credit card bill every month, it is significant to note that their average balance is estimated to $4,000. Considerably, the higher earning individual with an annual income that ranges $75000 and $100000, the average balance is approximately $8,000. â€Å"To see if you have been late on any card, not just their car. † This is a remarkably high cost in incorporating credit card in aspects of payment and other financial areas. It does not make meaning if an individual is paying, for example, 18 percent interest on a $7,000 balance and he/she makes just 1. percent minimum payment each month. This is because the individual will end up paying $20,000 in the averagely 50 years he/she will take to decline the balance to zero. It is important to note that those people who like buying goods on credit are at a big risk of ending up in great debts. The various transactions or credits that are made on the credit cards are crucial since they gain more interest to the related financial company. It is important to limit the rate at which one uses the credit card. Suze denote â€Å"Push yourself hard to make that extra payment as large as possible. Otherwise, an individual will end up accumulating a good amount of dents. Paying for groceries and friends drinks at the restaurant at your expense is a practice will finally get one to the unpaid credit balance. The card sets an individual for many snares and traps though the card companies in order for you to spend more creating more debts. The strategy for getting out of rid of the credit card debt is only by maneuvering the credit card companies with strategies that will ensure individuals pay the least amount possible interest rate. Considerably, the average interest charged on a credit card is about 15 percent. However, Suze says that, â€Å"majority of the people pay at around 18 percent and any balance carried by a credit calls for the rate lowered as possible. † In conclusion, it is important to note that credit cards are not necessary to our life. This is with consideration on the various credit debts they can amount to an individual. Further, they enhance high expenditure through online stores including groceries. Therefore, progressive use of credit cards even with minor goods and services that can be obtained readily endangers you to debts that are critical within credit card use. The most appropriate strategy in dealing with high-rate debt in the use of credit cards is ensuring that all your cards are equally used. â€Å"If you have a FICO score of at least 720, and you make at least the minimum payment due each month, on time, you should be able to negotiate with your current credit card issuer to lower your rate. If other cards are frequently used unlike others an individual would be paying the monthly charges and other interests for free. Therefore, credit cards are a critical aspect in the financial ground of an individual.