A Legacy of Racism: Humanity vs. Race The United States boasts a paradigm of the "American Dream", which includes the ideal of equal opportunities for all. And indeed, this appears to finally show some vestage of truth. However, human rights abuses still continue to pervade the lives of many even today. Because of social and racial factors for example many families are forced to live in conditions not even deemed fit for an animal. In the colonial period especially there was a tendency among white Americans to treat African- Americans as less than animals, and to derive entertainment from it. This sad fact is shown in "A Party Down at the Square" by Ralph Ellison, "Night, Death, Mississippi" by Robert Hayden and "Jasper Texas 1998" by Lucille Clifton. The title of the short story by Ellison suggests excitement, and indeed so do the opening lines of the story. It is however soon revealed that the "party" referred to is no dancing, singing collection of individuals. A "nigger" is involved.

Are the California schools and teachers making the grade in regard to illiteracy' Illiteracy is a problem of hidden proportions. For example, the San Diego Business Journal recently quoted the San Diego's Council on Literacy and pointed out that 20% of the United States population is functionally illiterate and 26% in the San Diego County. So are the teachers missing the point or are there some other underlying problems' The entire educational system is being severely tested as administrators point out that smaller class sizes create a need for more classrooms and teachers. These demands for more teachers force the system to hire many unqualified individuals. "In terms of sheer statistics, the state is a national leader. State enrollment is adding about 100,000 students each year, meaning that California will be home to one-fifth of all US students in a few decades. As a result of this growth, an estimated 300,000 teachers will be needed here during the next de

Jean Piaget was a Swiss psychologist famous for his pioneering studies of the development of thought processes, particularly in children. He is generally considered to be one of the most important figures in modern developmental psychology and his work has had a great influence on educational theory and child psychology. He received many international honors for his work, including seven scientific prizes and 25 honorary degrees. Piaget was born on 9 August 1896 in Neuchtel, Switzerland. He published his first scientific article about an albino sparrow when he was only 10 years old, and by the age of 15 he had gained an international reputation for his work on molluscs. Subsequently he studied at the universities of Neuchtel, Zurich and Paris, obtaining his doctorate from Neuchtel in 1918. His interest then turned to psychology and he spent two years at the Sorbonne researching into the reasons

Interest rate risk is included in the larger category of market risk, to which a bank, like any financial institution, is subject to. A move in any such risk can result in profit or loss for the bank, but here we are interested in the loss part, correlated with risk. As taken from the glossary on the Internet, interest rate risk can be defined as "the possibility of a reduction in the value of a security, especially a bond, resulting from a rise in interest rates". However, in the case of a bank, this definition can be somewhat diversified and there are two aspects that we have to deal with. First, we may consider a portfolio of diversified assets, including bonds that the bank, as a player on the financial market owns. As a security, these bonds have a two-faced value, one given by there face value and another given by their coupon. If the interest rates on the market rise, than the bank that owns the portfolio of bonds will suffer a loss, because the e

This paper discusses the importance of conserving tribal lands, and also the pressure that is put on some tribal peoples to give up their natural resources. The paper also discusses why it is important to conserve tribal lands, and what culture and heritage the lands carry forward.

Introduction The economy seems to be churning on all cylinders as of November 2003. As retailers expect great numbers during this holiday sales season, our overall economic health seems to be better than this one year ago. Other than some high unemployment figures and major problems as the airlines, it would seem that retailers will score big and the new manufacturing orders seem to be on a rise according to the Investment Business Journal. New home sales are up because of low interest rates and the automobile saw one of its first positive sales Novembers in years. Iraq an the oil situation seems to be under control as long as your not a soldier in Iraq of course. Economically, our country seems to coming out of the doldrums. The question I, can we maintain into the first and second quarters of 2004 or are we simply hoping all is well. This report will review the current economic climate by touching on topics such as the market, Iraq, inflation

According to Muffatto and Payaro, companies which move their operations to the internet have done so by way of taking full advantage of the technology which is available at any given time. When the industrial revolution occurred, businesses that did not convert their manufacturing systems to an assembly line, and continues to manufacture products by hand were at a competitive disadvantage to those who made the investment in assembly line machinery. Fro example, a shop which manufactured automobiles one or two at a time could not stay competitive with the Henry Ford Company which was able to produce dozens of completed vehicles each day. Many qualified automobile companies ceased to operate soon after assembly line technology came to the auto industry. In the same way, today a company or organization which does not invest into internet based marketing, sales, procurement and fulfillment systems has no opportunity to compete with the digital company. Companie

Franz Kafka's "Metamorphosis" Franz Kafka's Metamorphosis contains one of the most famous beginnings of any short story ever written, stating that the central protagonist, Gregor Samsa, woke one morning to discover that he had been transformed into a large cockroach. Gregor's parents, unsurprisingly, are rather distressed by this development. Despite Gregor's alarming appearance, however, they apparently recognize him. However, Gregor becomes a prisoner of his room and a prisoner of his body. He can no longer go to work. Once, he was the financial and emotion support structure of his family. Now he is reduced to scuttling around his room. He is beaten by the home's charwoman and fed by his repulsed sister Greta. Gregor has helped finance his sister's musical education. He can no longer do this because of the way he startles his employers and colleagues at the office and his physical, insect-like clumsiness. (Gregor, like any dutiful employee at first

In many civilizations, religion provides a strong foundation for leadership and social acceptance. One's religious beliefs shape their world, and in many countries, shape the world in which they are allowed to live. Yet the United States has always claimed to be different: a "melting pot" of religion, founded on freedom of speech, and the freedom of religious choice. However, while America may be based on the idea of these freedoms, the American society condones, promotes, and practices mostly Christianity. The United States government has long claimed to promote religious freedom and the freedom of speech relating to that religion. Beginning with the United States Constitution, Article VI's statement that "no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States", the need for religious freedom is noted ("The Constitution of the United States," Article VI). This freedom was extended with the Bill of Rig

The Canterbury Tales is a 14th century literary work of Geoffrey Chaucer, an English poet and once-courtier and civil servant for the English royalty. His work is a collection of tales narrated by different characters in the novel, comprised of pilgrims assembling outside the Tabard Inn as they journey towards Canterbury. These tales were told as a form of entertainment while they spend their time resting after a long journey. However, these tales of entertainment' is actually a description, a portrait of the social condition of English society during Chaucer's period, similar to Giovanni Boccaccio's depiction of medieval life in The Decameron. One particular tale that portrays the social issues prevalent in English society during this period is the tale of the Wife of Bath. In this tale, which is made up of the prologue and tale of the character (Wife of Bath) herself, the theme of women subjugation is discussed and confronted, where the narrator proposes that wo

Objective: To detect the amount of particular matter collected from the smoker's end of a cigarette and the amount of second hand smoke released into a room by a cigarette. Materials and Methods/Procedures: Two each of a 250 ml filter flask, a piece of filter paper, a 1-hole rubber stopper, glass tubing, a glass funnel and rubber tubing were assembled as required, and the filter flask was attached to a water aspirator. The filter papers were removed, weighed to the nearest 0.001 g, and replaced on the apparatus. A non-filtered cigarette was inserted into the funnel, which was then clamped pointing up. A second funnel was clamped approximately a half inch above the cigarette funnel in order to collect the

National Endowment for the Arts The U.S. House of Representatives passed an amendment granting the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) a ten million dollar budget increase for 2003 (NEA Newsroom 2003a). The funding hike is earmarked for the agency's Challenge America initiative, which is designed to make the arts more widely available in underserved communities across the country. National Endowment for the Arts Chairman Dana Gioia states: We welcome this much-needed, positive development. This vote of confidence in the NEA comes just as state, local, and organizational arts budgets across the country are being slashed. These funds will greatly enhance our ability to deliver the finest arts and arts education programs to all regions of the country. All Americans should be encouraged that the House recognized this as a worthy investment that will pay significant cultural and even economic dividends to comm

As a kid growing up in the Bronx, I have seen, heard, and felt first-hand the issues of injustice, racism, poverty, and gender inequality in my own neighborhood. I attended segregated schools; as Kozol states, "segregation" is not a word used often in the popular press or in the common vernacular, but there is no doubt that schools in the Bronx are racially segregated. As a boy with half African-American roots, I fit in fine with my brown and black schoolmates. We didn't quite know what to make of the few white kids at our school and I rarely associated with them. My neighborhood and my school were poor, as poor as many of the places Jonathan Kozol describes in his book Amazing Grace. Although the writer was an outsider, a white journalist interested in the perspectives of minority youth in one of the poorest areas in the nation, Kozol does an excellent job of describing for his readers the situation in the Bronx. In fact, it might take an outsider to objectively observe

Different perspectives are always insightful. Two authors who have provided us with images of the south are Flannery O'Connor and William Faulkner. In Flannery O'Connor's short story, "The Life You Save May Be Your Own" and William Faulkner's "Barn Burning," we are presented with different pictures of the old south and those who lived there. O'Connor illustrates the gullible in Mrs. Crater and Faulkner gives us insight into the lives of those who lived under slavery with Abner's family. In "The Life You Save May Be Your Own," Mrs. Crater and her daughter live in a "desolate" (O'Connor 262) part of the country. Their home is in an isolated area and very far from any public road. Mrs. Crater also owned a large piece of property because we are told that at night "the old woman's three mountains were black against the dark blue sky" (267). We are also told that the yard has a water pump as well as chickens that were planning on roosting in a fig tree. Additionally,

1. After the publication of Uncle Tom's Cabin, or Life Among the Lowly. In addition to being an abolitionist tract, Uncle Tom's Cabin was also a reflection of life as it was in the mid-nineteenth century. A kinder version of Shelby appears as the Southerner in the journal entries below. Northerner: I haven't the time to read, as my good wife has. But what she told me this evening, about a book that has been circulating among her friends, makes me hopeful that before too long this horror of slavery will be over. I can scarce bear to cross the border into Maryland, what with the owning of slaves so close to home. I can't look into their eyes, the slaves I meet when I go down into that place. I have heard rumblings about Baltimore, how it provides passage for those poor folks escaping cruelty and being owned by another. I hope my children might be spared dealing with this, but perhaps not as they're almost grown. I'm afraid that if it takes war to change

Slavery has been of significant importance in American history. During the antebellum period, slavery undergirded the economy of the United States, dominated politics and eventually led to the war between the North and South (Institution 1991). After the Civil War, the legacy left behind of slavery continued to influence American history, from the Reconstruction era of the 1860's and 1870's to the struggle of civil rights during the twentieth century (Institution 1991). After the American Revolution, slavery became an institution in the South. With the invention of the cotton gin in 1793, cotton production rose sharply and the demand for slaves increased (Institution 1991). When the Revolution began, there were approximately half a million slaves in the United States, North and South, and on the eve of the Civil War there were four million slaves, confined entirely to the South (Institution 1991). Slaveholdings in the South varied according to size, location, and crops produced and slavery in cities differed substantially from that in the countryside (Institution 1991). Slaves served as skilled craftsmen, preachers,

In today's society, the media has a strong impact on the way in which consumers learn of health related issues. Specifically, the media's influence through advertising impacts all forms of health related issues, and can lead consumers to view certain products or behaviors in a positive or a negative light. This is particularly true in relation to alcohol and tobacco use, the effects of use, and people's opinions about those who use them. The influence of advertising is strong, even when the advertising is misleading. According to Krohn and Flynn (2001), the relationship between consumers and health related advertising is a strong, positive one (Krohn & Flynn, 8). According to their research, consumers in general feel that health related advertising is beneficial to their needs. Consumers believe that they are able to learn more about health related services, and new technology through advertising aimed at them. In addition, they feel that advertising promote

In his essay, entitled "Art," Clive Bell proposes that there is one element that coheres all works of art considered great in the world. "There must be some one quality without which a work of art cannot exist; possessing which, in the least degree, no work is altogether worthless. What is this quality'" In other words, Bell accepts that there must be some aesthetic standards by which to judge all works of art. However, Bell acknowledges that the body of art produced in and by the world's artists is multifaceted in its character, depending on the era when it was produced, the artist who produced it, and the medium in which it was produced. Early on in his essay, Bell states that to define the core query behind all of art criticism is to ask, "What quality is shared by all objects that provoke our aesthetic emotions'" It is not enough to say that adherence to reality or beauty is the standard, otherwise a functional Persian bowl might be ranked above a masterpiece of fruit in a bowl painted by Cézanne. Bell states, "only one answer seems possible - significant for

When a book is published today that includes the story of an affair between a married man and/or woman, hardly anyone raises an eyebrow in protest. After all, this is 2003, and extramarital affairs occur regularly in real life and even more so in literature and films. However, the situation was quite different in earlier centuries when affairs were looked upon much differently and novels covered the topic of marriage but not of illicit love affairs. Although adultery is mentioned in works from the earliest times as in Homer, chivalric literature and Shakespeare's plays, the subject takes on a much greater significance in the latter 18th and 19th century novels. Early fiction that deals with infidelities often centers on "seduction, fornication and rape" and how these related to different classes (Tanner 12). In the 18th century novel, for example, sexual activities are much more visible, often directly related to considerations of money and class. Frequently called

Spina bifida is a congenital defect that is present at the birth of a child. It is caused by problems with early development of the spine with the main defect being the failure of the closure of the vertebral column that is the bony column that surrounds the spinal cord. Without this closure, the spinal cord is not afforded the usual protection of the vertebrae, and is left open to either mechanical injury or invasion by infection. However, spina bifida may be treated with utero surgery. While this is a risky yet promising procedure, it appears to improve short-term outcomes (Worcester, 2003). Dr. Joseph Bruner, professor of obstetrics and gynecology at Vanderbilt, states that, "To date, more than 250 surgeries to repair the lesions associated with spina bifida have been performed at centers such as Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, the University of California, San Francisco, and Vanderbilt University." In utero repair has several advantages over post

Central to the success of McDonald's, as envisioned by Kroc, was that everything would look and taste exactly the same at every location - he was a great believer in uniformity and conformity. Now that has one effect when you're talking about what a restaurant's architecture looks like and what that means for the American landscape, but when it comes to food it has a profound effect on how food is produced. Because if they want their potatoes to taste everywhere exactly the same, or their ground beef to taste everywhere exactly the same, they need suppliers who can produce that on a large scale. And so the effect of the fast food industry in the United States has been really to promote concentration in agriculture, to promote large-scale industrialised agriculture that can make sure that a potato tastes exactly the same in New York as it does in Oregon. The ripple effects have been profound throughout the American agricultural economy. Well, again if you go back

In the article "Resegregation in American Schools," authors Gary Orfield and John Yun argue that a new form of segregation is emerging in the nation's schools, particularly in the South. Many white students remain cloistered in their own schools, particularly in regions with few non-white residents. Meanwhile, non-white racial groups, Latinos and blacks in particular, are often located in schools with a none-white majority. These schools with non-white majorities are also often located in areas with high crime and poverty rates. This new segregation will have several important long-term consequences not only for the Latino and black students but also for society as a whole. Education is seen as a stepping-stone for a brighter future. The goal of educators, after all, is not only to teach students skills for gainful employment. In doing so, education is supposed to give young people the critical and analytical foundations that will later allow them to

It was Saturday, the first Saturday of the month, and the girls were at it again. Mohammed left early when he heard his mom clanging pots together in the kitchen. "MaMaaa, is Sana and Marina coming for lunch today'" he called from the flat roof after morning prayers. "Yes, you sister and grandmother are coming for the day. You know we meet every month on the first. Marina your sister has a new job at the retail store in town, and your grand mother is, well, she is the same as ever. Ready to complain about the politician, the food, and the way you kids dress, but she is still my mother, and I enjoy her company. We have seen many changes . . and you should . . ." Mohammed already had grabbed his work vest, and was headed out the door as his mother's voice changed from one of telling him about the day to judging his modern attitudes. "Good by MaMaa, I will be back after evening prayer." He called over his shoulder. The last thing he wanted to do was to be lectured on his

The purpose of this paper is to introduce, discuss, and analyze the book "The Woman Warrior: Memoirs of a Girlhood Among Ghosts," by Maxine Hong Kingston. Specifically, it will discuss why Kingston chooses to tell the stories of her mother and other female relatives, combining genres of autobiography, fantasy, fiction, and mythology, in order to illuminate her own identity. Kingston uses the stories of her mother and female relatives to illustrate the vast differences between her American culture and the culture of her ancestors. This clearly demonstrates the constant pull Kingston feels between her two cultures, and the difficulty she faces being a Chinese American in the United States. This pull will be illustrated throughout the author's life, and throughout the book.

Virtually everyone agrees that the media have a profound effect on the electorate's thinking. Given their enormous influence, however, it is remarkable how little has been said about what the media should cover in a properly functioning democracy. There are pundits of various types who bemoan both the lack of focus on the issues and the excessive attention paid to the "horse race," but no one has developed a rationale to explain why this state of affairs is wrong. Because of the media's enormous influence, it is worth asking how issue and candidate coverage should be balanced. The balance of coverage provided by the media is only worth worrying about if the media are influential. Past work suggests they are, in that the media influence how voters think about the issues and also how they think about the competing candidates. With regard to issues, past work shows that documentaries, news stories, advertiseme