History in America Essay Example for Free

History in America Essay Domestic abuse has a long and harmful history in America. Generally it occurs when the man within the family seeks to maintain or create control over his wife or loved one through a variety of motives which in the end, are counterproductive and which usually further the distance between the victim and the perpetrator which had already existed in the beginning and which contributed to the start of the abuse. What is starting to gain some light in recent years is the fact that men sometimes can be the victims of intimate partner abuse, both from homosexual and heterosexual relationships and which can be very damaging to the relationship in both cases. Abuse can be divided into physical, emotional, economic and spiritual. (Cook, 2003 pg. 13) All four can and often times do, place irreversible damage on the victim which if they are to ever recover from the abuse, can often times takes years and sometimes decades to recover. Others will never fully recover and in carrying that hurt, such abuse serves as a severe impediment to the victim ever carrying out successful and intimate relationships with future individuals. This is how intimate partner abuse can be so destructive. A black eye will completely heal in the matter of a couple of weeks at the most. However, a bruised psyche and emotional hurt can often times linger when there seems to be no outside effects on the victim. Only when that victim engages in a intimate relationship with an outside party will such hurt often times come to the surface and can sometimes completely negate the ability of the couple to continue in a successful and loving relationship as the victim may be forever scarred as a result of the previous abuse. Further understanding of the causes of domestic violence and the ways in which it can be dealt with and even prevented is so very important to not only the victim and his or her loved ones, but also their future relationships and also, the perpetrator himself. In doing this, the individual can better identify the reasons why he acts out in such a fashion and in doing so, it becomes that much more likely for the motivation to be identified and then corrected in one way or another. In the end, domestic violence can take on many forms and each case of intimate partner abuse can be the result of a single motivating factor or the combination of various factors and all to varying degrees. Domestic violence will not be disappearing anytime soon from our society but in the recognition of the causes and lasting and damaging effects of such abuse, one may be better educated and prepared to identify it and stop it from ever occurring. In first attempting to understand family violence, one must first define it. There are four major categories which are to be included when talking about family violence and the dangers that it imposes on the victims involved. The first and most obvious is physical violence. This constitutes unwanted physical contact which can also include rape and murder. It can also include indirect physical violence as for example, the throwing of objects from one person or another with the intent of committing injury on the receiver of the object. The second major category of family violence is mental or emotional violence. This constitutes verbal threats of physical violence to the victim, his or her children, animals or the use of possessions of any kind. Verbal threats also do not have an exact time frame associated to it as the threat of physical violence can be impending or is relegated to some inexact time in the future. Facial expressions or threatening body postures can also constitute an example of emotional or mental violence. The third is economic or social abuse. This is where one member of the family controls the other’s money in such a stringent sense that the victim is under strict economic dependence upon the perpetrator to a degree that a sense of empowerment is concluded and usually is the chief motivating factor. Social abuse is when the social life of the victim is dependent completely upon the perpetrator as he or she dictates who, the victim will see and how often. The victim usually suffers from a decrease in the number of friends in comparison to the time when the victim was not under the control of the perpetrator. Lastly, the fourth most common form of family violence or abuse is spiritual abuse. This is the prevention of the victim’s spiritual faith to be practiced in the home. This can also constitute a repeated harassment of the victim’s faith and personal beliefs to the point of ridicule. This also takes a toll on the victim but is one that has not received the same amount of coverage from violence prevention groups and therefore, there is less known as the repetitive of the violence as well as its direct effects upon the victim. All forms of family violence is harmful to the individual but the one that is the most common as well as the most dangerous is physical violence within the home. Often times, this relates to sexual violence. â€Å"Sexual violence is defined as the use of physical force to compel an individual to participate in a sexual act which is against the will of both people involved. † (Cook, 2003 pg. 23) When one of the participating parties is forced into the sexual act, this is an example of sexual violence. Also, the sexual advances upon somebody who is unwilling to refuse the advances, whether that be a result of the victim being intoxicated or his or her mental or physical disability preventing the victim from refusing. This is an example of sexual violence as well. It is a sad fact but one that is well established despite men’s reluctance to report as being victims of both sexual and physical abuse by their partners, it is much more common for men to be the perpetrators than women. One of the impediments to achieving an exact study on this problem is the fact that many men will not report such cases to the police out of fear of embarrassment as well as the police or their loved ones from taking the incident seriously. It is estimated that as many as 70% of all abuses of women towards men goes unreported. (Cook, 2003 pg. 118) This reluctance speaks to the misunderstanding of society as to the importance that the recognition of female abuse towards men. Mental and emotional violence which has a direct and negative effect upon the psychological make up of the individual is one of the four main categories of family violence. One aspect of this is when a threat is made from one person to another which promises bodily harm in the immediate future as well as an indeterminate time in the future. However, this is only one aspect of the psychological violence which occurs most often within the home. Harmful and repeated words of aggression or an attempt to bring down the family member with repeal hostile words or gestures in an attempt to maintain the supposed authority of one individual over another. A threat of a physical injury only constitutes a percentage of the abuse which can fall under the category of psychological abuse. This abuse is basically any intentional verbal assault which is designed to maintain the believed authority of one person over another. â€Å"When it is perceived that the victim is slipping away from the authority of his or her perpetrator, the abuse will often times intensify. † (Jones 2001 pg. 14) This feeling of a loss of power will only increase the abuse so when a victim feels as though the abuse will stop or is coming to a stop, often times, it is simply the calm before the storm as a more intensified version of the abuse is to soon follow. Psychological abuse can also use the children as weapons as the parents are seeking a divorce and the custody of the children is at stake. One parent will use the child to alienate the parent and to make the other feel as though he or she is powerless in their child’s life and that the authority, influence and love which the parent has present in the child’s life, is no longer valid and will soon be completely erased. These are very powerful feelings which often times can evoke a powerful response. In a very sad case in Hazel Crest, Illinois, a suburb of Chicago in the fall of 2006, John Jacobs, a forty one year old man in the middle of a bitter custody battle with his wife over his only child, an eight year old girl, the man, an avid pilot, piloted his plane along with his daughter inside and purposely, flew his plane into his ex wife’s house, killing both him and his eight year old daughter. The mother was not home at the time of the incident. The suicide note that the man left for his friends, and the testimony of those who knew the family was able to substantiate his story; that his wife was daily threatening him with their daughter and the possibility that she would never see her father again. Before killing both himself and his only daughter, Mr. Jacobs stated in his ransom note: â€Å"Julie, ( his wife) you have done everything in your power to try to take my daughter away from me. That is not right and I feel compelled to do the only thing that I have any power over. For your efforts, I will now take the daughter away from you forever. † (Pearson, 2003 pg. C3) This of course, was not a justified reaction to the parental alimentation which the mother reportedly used as a weapon against his ex husband. Hurt feelings were at a premium and when the child is used as a weapon, parents often times, do not possess all of their rational faculties. This was one very sad and tragic example of what can happen when the emotional abuse of one person over another reaches its zenith and the victim will often times become the aggressor in response as he or she feels completely helpless by the abuse and now seeks to eliminate the gap in power between the victim and the perpetrator which had existed. † (Roberts 2002 pg. 114) Often times in such cases, the courts are dragged in to take sides and in the process, usually will contribute the parental alienation as well. Economic abuse is when one person, usually a spouse, has complete control over the finances of the family and over the other person. This goes beyond the responsible actions of one who seeks to place his or her family on a budget and adheres to the strict restrictions himself, as well as what he imposes upon the other members of the family. Economic abuse occurs when there is an unnecessary and very fiscally stringent limitations placed upon the other’s spending habits while at the same time, not following the advice of his own actions. This is designed, not for the sake of fiscal responsibility but in order to create a dominion over the other in the form of financial power. If one does not have the economic freedom to act in accordance with his or her own financial earning power, then the person who controls that money, also controls the person who earns it. When one speaks of family violence and abuse, economic abuse often times is forgotten as physical abuse monopolizes the conversation. However, over time, economic abuse can be just as effective in the pursuit of one person to create or maintain control over another. This is true because â€Å"at the center of all abuse, whether it be physical, emotional or economic, there exists the desire of one person to create or maintain their control over another person† (Roberts 2002 pg. 200) Now that the various types of abuse has been defined, it now behooves the reader to realize the various facts which are associated with domestic violence. However, one must realize that by its very nature, domestic violence in all of its various forms, will usually remain underreported. However, these are some of the established and published statistics which are available to the public. In 2001, there occurred in the United States, 588,420 incidents of intimate partner violence (FBI 2004 pg. 15) Those incidents cost the United States between three and five billion dollars on medical expenses and an additional 90 million dollars is lost to businesses as the victims of domestic violence are therefore compelled to miss work out of a medical necessity or from the embarrassment that often times is associated with being a victim of intimate partner abuse. In the United States, 35% of violent crimes against women, occurred as a result of their intimate partner’s abuse within the home in 2003. ( FBI 2004 pg. 117) This is a stark comparison to the fact than less than 3$ of violence towards men occur as a result of their intimate partner as well. This latter figure and the fact that our society does not take seriously the occurrence of violence towards males, the reported 3% is only a ballpark estimate and there is no way of knowing exactly what percentage of men are being victimized by their intimate partner within the home. 23% of men of men who live with their homosexual partner, experience physical violence. 3. 2 million men experience â€Å"minor† abuse such as pushing, shoving and slapping from their intimidate partner. Nearly ? a million men are stalked annually and it has been reported that at least 22% of men have experienced some form of physical, emotional or sexual abuse in their lifetime from an intimate partner during their lifetime. (Cook 2003 pg. 118) except for the above mentioned, there seems to be a shortage on the information about men as being the victims of abuse of various kinds. This will continue until the stigma is completely erased and men feel an absence of guilt and embarrassment from being the victims of such crimes. The embarrassment comes from the fact that society perceives men as being stronger than women and therefore, it is always possible to fend off the attacker. In this erroneous assumption, one believes that the only form of abuse is physical. If that were the case, then society would be correct a majority of the time as men usually are stronger than women but this does not exclude a woman from using a weapon of any kind in which to overcome the difference in physical strength. Over 70% of men who were victims of physical abuse by their wives or girlfriends, were used on them, some sort of object which was then used as a weapon. However, often times, abuse does not take the form of physical violence and as it was seen in the case of the Jacobs, emotional abuse can for some people be more damaging than any form of financial or physical abuse. A man who is torn down every day for not fulfilling the expectations of his wife or girlfriend, who is made to feel as though he is not good enough and undeserving of her, who feels inferior in comparison to not only her, but as a man himself, will likely react in a wide array of different ways in which he seeks to regain control of the power which he felt he once had or as he feels emasculated by the entire process, the man now seeks to gain any sort of dominance over the perpetrator and in the process often times, is transformed from the victim to the perpetrator and physical violence will many times follow. Also, when there first is psychological violence, physical violence will likely follow. As it was touched on previously, the causes of domestic violence revolves around the fact that the victim, either intentionally or unintentionally is challenging the power and control of the perpetrator who is committing these various forms of abuse upon the victim. The need to control their victims also surrounds feelings of lose self esteem and the belief in the inadequacy of the person and that through the control of the victim, the gap which exists in their self esteem can somehow be corrected. Also, the more that these efforts fail to fill that â€Å"gap within their self esteem, often times, the abuse will intensify. † (Cook, 2003 pg. 134) However, there are other causes of abuse and often times, it is the childhood environment in which the perpetrator was subject to and which predisposed him or her to abusing a loved one in the future. A man is six times more likely to abuse a loved one if he was abused himself. A man is seven times more likely to abuse his loved one if he came from a broken home where the parents got divorced after a prolonged period of fighting and four times more likely to lack the emotional capacity to abstain from any aspect of the various abuses, if the person came from a broken home in which only one parent had always been present. (Roberts, 2003 pg. 190) Also, if a boy grows up in a family where his father routinely mistreated his wife, then when that boy grows up to become a man, as the sociologists all say that individuals are products of their environment more than then biology, it can sometimes become a certainty that the boy will grow up to repeat what he had spent his life witnessing. † (Jones, 2001 pg. 113) Substance abuse, mental illness and a low self esteem are among some of the various motivating factors which are somewhat to blame for a perpetrator’s likelihood to commit violence towards an intimate partner. What can be agreed upon, is the fact that intimate partner abuse can be the result of one chief motivating factor or is the result of various factors and all to a varying degree. This is what contributes to the complexity of the problem and the fact that spousal abuse, in all of its various forms, will not be eradicated from the social scene any time soon. Another cause of spousal abuse comes from the ability or desire of the man to devalue the woman for a wide range of reasons. This relates to the overwhelming percentage of spousal abuse in which the woman is the victim of the aggressive and hurtful behavior of the man. This is called dehumanization or the reduction of the other person to the importance of nothing at all; less than an object. Something that id disposable and therefore can be replaced and is of little importance. Only when the perpetrator values the victim as not only a person, not only an individual but one that is of a great value and cannot be replaced will the occurrences of abuse either stop of be curtailed. † (Cook, 2003 pg. 210) This also speaks to the gender differences of abuse. This is certainly not always the case but men’s abuse is preceded by physical violence and women are more known for psychological violence. However, an important issue to recognize is the fact that often times, physical abuse so preceded by psychological abuse and as a result, hospital records report a higher percentage of females seeking treatment than men for spousal abuse. Another factor in the high rate of physical abuse of women in comparison to men is the idea that women, had a predisposition towards being the victims of violence. In Erin Pizzey’s controversial book on abuse of women, Prone to Violence, Pizzey who was the founder of a women’s shelter in England stated that some women had a predisposition towards being the victim of abuses since they were seeking out the â€Å"bad boys;† the ones who were known to act out against society and therefore had within them a sense of danger which some of the women would find exciting. In the same book, Pizzey stated that of the first 100 female victims of spousal abuse, 62 were in her opinion, more violent than the men that they were running away from. Her book does not state if she thought that these women were instead made to act out violently because of the experiences that were placed upon them by their abusing spouses. These findings, no doubt, were the cause of a controversial discussion as to what was the cause of spousal abuse. Nowhere did Ms. Pizzey blatantly state that it was the fault of the women for being abused as it is not the fault of women who enter a bar wearing provocative clothing and gets raped. What is similar is that women, according to Ms. Pizzey, possess the power to many times, prevent the abuse from occurring by responsible behavior. This is not to say that women are to blame for the abuse since there does not seem to be any legitimate cause for the abuse of anyone, regardless of their gender, age or relation to the perpetrator. What next must follow is that the law will become involved. This is done reluctantly as the judicial system wishes to stay out of such affairs. This changes however, when one or more of the many crimes which are associated with spousal abuse, are deemed to have occurred or is about to occur. This includes but is not limited to murder, manslaughter, rape, threats to kill, kidnapping, false imprisonment, obstruction of justice and criminal damage as well as harassment and blackmail. When the above mentioned is present with a spousal abuse case, often times it is designed to create or maintain control over another person or the overreaction that the victim had towards the abuse of the perpetrator. In any event, the initial presence of the abuse increases into more than just a private family dispute. Often times, the presence of police and the judicial system often times will compound the problem. In a recent issue of the television show COPS, an individual’s common law wife called the police as she has become the victim of physical abuse by her husband. The cops responded to the call and tried to talk rationally to the man. The presence of the cops enraged the man and as he was being tackled to the floor, yelled that he was going to kill his wife and that he would never forgive her for what SHE had done. The police stated over and over, once the man was subdued, that they had not intention of arresting the man, despite the fact that it was obvious that the man had caused physical harm to both their home and to the woman but she was not going to press charges, the man was not going to be arrested until he decided to assault the police. Not only was the feelings of the man hurt and he was now more enraged by what he perceived to be the incorrect actions of his wife, the court case which followed, only prolonged the negative feelings that the man had towards his wife. Also, both the family disturbance and the court trial that was to follow, occurred in front of their small child. It seems unlikely that all three people will walk away from this event totally unaffected. The negative effects may last for decades to come in all three individuals. This speaks volumes as to the lasting dangers that domestic violence has on those who are involved and those who witness it. In an ideal world, everyone would find that one person that they were meant to spend the rest of their lives together in heavenly bliss. This still occurs but those are the lucky ones. Nearly every one of the millions of couples which have gotten divorced in America, either one or both of the people involved, were victims of one form of abuse or another. This is one of the leading reasons why divorce so severely scars the parents as well as the children involved as such abuse does not disappear quickly. Therefore, it would behoove all those involved, to abstain from such abuse on others, especially their loved ones and in front of their children. This is easier said than done for most people but if those who have a disposition towards either being the victim or perpetrator of physical violence, can recognize both the causes and effects of this most dangerous and harmful abuse, they can therefore be given much more of a chance to avoid its pitfalls and to enjoy the happiness of a mutually loving relationship; free from physical, emotional, economic and spiritual abuse which plagues the happiness of millions of people in this country and around the world. WORKS CITED Cook. P (2003) Abused Men: The Hidden Side of Domestic Violence Westport, CT: Praeger Publishers Jones, A ( 2001 ) More Than Victims: Battered Women, the Syndrome Society, and the Law (Morality and Society Series Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Pearson, D. Man and Daughter are Killed in Tragic Plane Crash. Chicago Tribune October 14, 2006 Roberts. A ( 2002) Handbook of Domestic Violence Intervention Strategies: Policies, Programs, and Legal Remedies New York: Oxford University Press Uniform Crime Reports: Crime in the U. S. , 2004 (Uniform Crime Reports: Crime in the U. S. ) Federal Bureau of Investigation Washington D. C Government Printing Office

Experiment for Cancer Risk Factors

Experiment for Cancer Risk Factors Curiouser and Curiouser The case-control method used to identify risk factors for cancers relies on prior knowledge about the possible link between the cancer and the risk factors. It is a powerful method as the following two cases show. Asbestos In the 1970s, a series of studies identified the risk factor for a rare form of lung cancer called mesothelioma. Case-control studies pinpointed the risk to certain professions: insulation installers, shipyard workers, etc. The statistical analysis pinpointed the risk factor to be exposure to asbestos. Subsequent tort litigation and government oversight precipitated a reduction in occupational exposures to asbestos, reducing the risk of mesothelioma. Diethylstilbestrol (DES) Diethylstilbestrol (DES) is a synthetic hormone prescribed to pregnant women in the 1950s to prevent premature deliveries. In 1971, case-control studies found that women with vaginal and uterine cancer had not been exposed to estrogen directly, but their mothers had been. DES, the carcinogen, did not cause cancers to women treated with the drug, but it caused cancers to their daughter who were exposed to the drug in the womb. *** But what if the exposure responsible for the disease is unknown? A Test for Chemical Carcinogens Normally, a strain of Salmonella, a bacterial genus, cannot grow on galactose. But when exposed to certain chemicals, it could acquire a gene mutation that enables it to grow on galactose. By counting the number of growth-enabled colonies form, one can quantify the mutation rate in any experiment. In the late 1960s, Bruce Ames, a bacteriologist at Berkeley, used this technique to test thousands of chemicals on their capacity to create mutations in Salmonella, and created a catalog of mutagens chemicals that increased the mutation rate. He observed that chemicals that scored as mutagens tended to be carcinogens. Ames didnt know why mutagens could induce cancer. But he had demonstrated a practical way to find carcinogens. Hepatitis B virus (HBV) In the early 1970s, Baruch Blumberg, a biologist in Philadelphia, discovered that a human hepatitis virus can cause chronic inflammation that leads to cancer. In 1966, Blumberg discovered that individuals carrying the Au antigen (a blood antigen present in several Australian aboriginals) often suffered from chronic hepatitis. Upon further analysis, he found out that au was not a blood antigen but a viral protein floating in the blood. Blumbergs lab isolated the virus in the early 1970s, and called the virus hepatitis B virus (HBV). HBV infection caused a broad spectrum of diseases, ranging from acute hepatitis, to chronic cirrhosis in the liver, and to hepatocellular cancer. HBV is a live carcinogen capable of being transmitted from one host to another. By 1979, Blumberg and his team had found a vaccine for HBV. The vaccine cannot cure the cancer, but it can reduce the incidence of HBV infection. Helicobacter Pylori (H. Pylori) In 1979, at the Royal Perth Hospital in Australia, Barry Marshall and Robin Warren wanted to investigate the cause of gastritis. Patients with gastritis are   predispose to peptic ulcers and stomach cancer. Warren believed that gastritis was caused by a yet unknown species of bacteria. But he was ridiculed by mainstream doctors who did not believe any bacteria could live in the stomach. To prove his point, Marshall and Warren set out to culture the bacteria using brushings from patients with ulcers. But no bacteria grew out. Over a busy Easter weekend in 1982, Marshall had forgotten to examine the culture dish for bacteria for a few days. When he remembered and went to examine them, he found bacteria colonies growing out in the dish. Warren and Marshall called it Helicobacter pylori (H. pylori). To prove H. Pylori caused gastritis, they inoculated pigs with the bacteria. But the pigs did not get ulcers. In 1984, after failed attempts to infect piglets, Marshall fasted until 10 am and then drank a Petri dish containing cultured H. Pylori, expecting to develop an ulcer. Within a few days, Marshall was violently ill, and diagnosed with gastritis. H. pylori was indisputably the cause of gastritis. By the late 1980s, several epidemiological studies had linked H. pylori-induced gastritis with stomach cancer. Randomized trials run on the western coast of Japan showed that antibiotic treatment reduced gastritis and gastric ulcers, and reduced the incidence of gastric cancer. But the it would not cure the cancer once manifested. A Spiders Web If cancer truly transitioned from a precursor lesion precancer to its full-blown form slowly, and methodically, then perhaps one could intervene by attacking its precancer, thwarting the progression of the cancer at its earlier stages. There are two forms of prevention. In primary prevention, you prevent a disease by attacking its cause. For example, stop smoking for lung cancer, or a vaccine against HBV for liver cancer. In secondary prevention, you prevent a disease by screening for its early presymptomatic stage. Pap smear and mammography (discussed below) are examples of secondary preventions. The Pap Smear Secondary Prevention for Cervical Cancer George Papanicolaou, a Greek physician, arrived in New York in 1913. After a few months selling carpets, he found a research position at Cornell University studying the menstrual cycle of guinea pigs. He found that cells shed by the guinea pig cervix could foretell the stages of the menstrual cycle. By the late 1920s, Papanicolaou had extended his technique to human patients.   In 1928, he reported that uterine cancer could be diagnosed by means of a vaginal smear. But the importance of his work was not recognized. Between 1928 and 1950, Papanicolaou delved into his smears ferociously. He became known for his invention of the Papanicolaou test, commonly known as the Pap smear or Pap test. He knew normal cervix cells change in step-wise fashion in time. Might cancer cells also change in a slow stepwise way from normal to malignant? Could he identify intermediate stages of cancer? A thought occurred to him at a Christmas party in 1950. The real use of the vaginal smear was not to find cancer, but to detect its precursor. In 1952, Papanicolaou convinced the NCI to launch a clinical trial of secondary prevention using his smearing technique. In the cohort of about 150,000, 555 women had invasive cervical cancer, while 557 had preinvasive lesions. Early stage preinvasive lesions were curable by a simple surgery. The women with preinvasive lesions had no symptoms. Had they not been tested, they would never have suspected they would develop cervical cancer. The average age of diagnosis of women with preinvasive lesions was about 20 years younger than women with invasive lesions. The Pap smear would detect cervical cancers at an early stage while it is still curable 20 years before they become invasive, giving women a chance to treat it before it evolves into cancer. Mammograms Secondary Prevention for Breast Cancer In 1913, Albert Salomon, a German surgeon, performed a study on 3,000 mastectomies. He studied the X-rays of the amputated breasts after mastectomies to detect the shadowy outline of cancer. Salomon called his technique mammography. He was able to establish the difference as seen on an X-ray image between cancerous and non-cancerous tumors in the breast. But his studies were interrupted by the Nazis in the mid-1930s. He lived in a concentration camp until 1939 when escaped the camps to Amsterdam and vanished underground. Mammography, as he called his technique, languished in neglect. By mid-1960s, with radical surgery being challenged, mammography re-enter X-ray clinics, championed by radiographers such as Robert Egan. Egans mammograms could now detect tumors as small as a grain of barley. But would screening women to detect such early tumors save lives? HIP Trial In 1963, three men set out to investigate whether screening asymptomatic women using mammography would improve mortality from breast cancer. The three men were Louis Venet, a surgeon; Sam Shapiro, a statistician; and Philip Strax, an internist. They wanted a randomized, prospective trial using mortality as an end point to test mammography. The trial, launched in December 1963, was kept simple. Women enrollees in the New York Health Insurance Plan (HIP) between 40 and 64 years old were divided into two groups. One group was screened with mammography, and the other not. If a tumor was detected by mammography, the women would be treated according to the conventional treatment available at that time. In 1971, the initial findings of the trial were remarkable. 62,000 women participated; about half had been screened by mammography. There had been 31 deaths in the mammography group and 52 deaths in the control group. The percentage reduction in mortality from screening was about 40 percent. Breast Cancer Detection and Demonstration Project The positive results of the HIP trial prompted the American Cancer Society to launch a called the Breast Cancer Detection and Demonstration Project (BCDDP). The project, backed by Mary Lasker and virtually every cancer organization in America, intended to screen 250,000 women in a single year. Problems with the HIP study As the BCDDP forged ahead, people were casting doubts over the HIP study. The study had a potential flaw. They had decided to exclude women with prior breast cancer. So they dropped women who had had cancer from each group. But they may have over-corrected: more patients with prior cancer were dropped from the screened group. Critics now charged that the excess mortality in the control group was due to the fact that it was mistakenly overloaded with patients with prior breast cancer. The Canadian Trial In Canada, researchers launched their own mammography trial in 1980. But there was a flaw with the study: a woman was randomized after her medical history and examination. The allocations that emerged after the nurse interviews were no longer random. Women with abnormal breast were disproportionately assigned to the screened group. That explains why the results of the CNBSS were markedly negative: The breast cancer mortality of women in the screened group was higher than the unscreened group. Malmà ¶ Mammographic Study In 1976, 42,000 women enrolled in the Malmà ¶ Mammographic Study. Half of the cohort was screened yearly, and the two groups have been followed closely ever since. In 1988, the study reported its results. Women older than 55 had benefited from screening, with a reduction in breast cancer mortality by 20 percent. Younger women had no benefit from screening. In 2002, an analysis combining the experience over fifteen years was published in the Lancet. In aggregate, for women aged 55 to 70, mammography screening had resulted in 20 to 30 percent reductions in breast cancer mortality. But for women under 55, the benefit was negligible.

History Essays French Revolution Violence

History Essays French Revolution Violence French Revolution Violence When historians and others engage in discussion of the French Revolution, they often begin with discussions about why the French people became unhappy and turned towards popular violence as an effective means of dismantling the Ancient Regime. Popular violence became an enduring form of achieving the population’s goals, just as it helped to bringing about a violent abolition to France’s monarchy on August 10, 1792. The French Revolution’s aims however, were not solely focused on replacing the King of France, Louis XVI with an alternative government, but also to completely recreate French Society. The events that occurred following August 4, 1789, were matters focused on religion and politics, and set in motion the Revolution detaching itself from the liberal ideas originally intended for a constitutional monarch, and instead heading down the path of violence and bloodshed. At the heart of the problem, is that the revolution collapsed from within, because of a document presented to a stunned population. This document, the Civil Constitution of the Clergy, created the French Catholic Church as a branch of the new revolutionary government. Previously, the Church and State government had acted in synchronicity. People throughout France were unhappy with this fundamental change to their Church, and millions began to desert the ideas of the revolution for the sake of their religion. Ultimately, this would lead to an escalation of violence that would cause the French Revolution to become progressively bloodier. The Civil Constitution of the Clergy introduced a division between Church and State and the Revolution in such a way that it increased the level of violence and executions to harrowing levels. The Civil Constitution of the Clergy was proclaimed by the National Assembly on July 12, 1790 (Desan 5). The document was the product of the ecclesiastical body of the assembly (Desan 5). The impetus behind its creation was to create a document that would add a â€Å"rationalized structure† to the Church that would cause the Church to operate separate from the government, and to eliminate its financial discretion over the people of France (Desan 5). The document reflects the thinking of the assembly’s ecclesiastical body by reason of what it attempted to accomplish, but it reflects the inexperience of the group in matters of politics. The document essentially turned the bishops and priests of France into state employees because it created their responsibility to the state where none had previously existed (Desan 5). This might have met the satisfaction of the low echelon church priests, but it would not have been to the satisfaction of the bishops. Most of the bishops in France were from families who had previously been members of the Second Estate. The document would have essentially not just the authority that they exerted over the populations residing within their parishes, but it would greatly impair their relationship with the Papacy and, in some cases, mitigate the ambitions of the bishops. As state employees, the bishops would have been reported to the government on their communications with Rome. It would have been necessary to discuss applicable Church doctrine with the state official or department that was put in charge of the state employees. More importantly, however, is that the Civil Constitution of the Clergy was a blow to the Church’s finances. It eliminated certain sources of revenues, such as the fees charged by the Church to perform certain services in the community (Desan 5). Suzanne Desan (1990) states that while the bishops and clerics were probably willing to work with the revolutionaries to make the Constitution work for them, the vast majority of the clergy were fundamentally against it (Dessan 5). To some extent, Desan says, the bishops and clerics agreed with the reform represented by the Constitution (Desan 5). However, they still could not take affirmative action in that direction without guidance from Rome (Desan 5). While everyone waited for Rome to respond, the assembly grew impatient and acted without Rome’s authority or guidance and imposed the Constitution on the Catholic bishops and clergy (Desan 5). Whether or not the assembly predicted that Rome would withhold its approval is unclear. However, the events as they unfolded might suggest that Rome recognized that the potential for division amongst the revolutionary forces if the Pope withheld comment and let the events unfold as they would. The assembly also attempted to force the bishops and clergy to take an oath to the document, the King (who sanctioned the document), and to France. It is here that it might appear, as Desan suggests as well, that the French Revolution began to go wrong (Desan 6). â€Å"The incidence of oath taking was highest in the center, the Ile-de-France, and the southeast. In those regions later known for a high level of religious practicethe northwest, northeast/east, and the Massif Centralwell over half the clergy refused the oath. 8 Historians have frequently seen the requirement of the oath as one of the critical errors of the Revolution, for it provoked unending controversies among the clergy and laity alike and persuaded many villagers to oppose the Revolution (Desan 6).† There were conflicts within the assembly on the document as well. F. A. Aulard says that Robespierre and the ecclesiastics differed because Robespierre held that religion was an individual choice. He envisioned the government of France as one that was non-religious and focused on matters of state. The idea that the people of France would pursue their religious choices and obligations independent of their state responsibilities was truly revolutionary (Aulard 45). This was very much a Girondist sentiment, and quite different than that held by Couthon. It was Couthon who wanted to see a religious state where the â€Å"Supreme Being,† was at that center of State and Church policy. With that, The Civil Constitution of the Clergy was intended to deal with what the revolutionaries perceived to be a dangerous situation with which they were faced (Thompson 1952 22). The Catholic Church was not just the wealthiest institution in France, it was also the most powerful (22) The revolutionaries were faced with a need to take that power away from the church, but in a way in which the National Assembly would be able to absorb and make use of the power themselves (22). The holdings owned by the Church were rich and extensive in land, buildings and endowments (22). The wealth held by the Church was badly needed by the revolutionaries in order to continue moving towards their democracy. That too remained precarious, because in the first year of the revolution there was what anyone should have anticipated as chaos as people sought to bring to a violent end France’s monarch and wealthy (22). In the second year, the year in which the Constitution of the Clergy was created, there was a need to create infrastructure within the revolutionary government; as well as the desire by the vying parties to gain leadership roles in the new government (22). To allow the Catholic Church to continue to hold greater wealth and power than the revolutionaries was contrary to their movement, and it could not be allowed to happen (22). This is the way in which the National Assembly was divided in religious ideology. The Jacobins were philosophical in nature, and, as reflected in Robespierre’s ideas, saw the state independent of religious influence. Robespierre especially wanted France independent of Catholic Church influence because it stood in stark opposition to the ideological state he envisioned. Regardless of Robespierre’s aspirations for France, â€Å"The republic, once it was Montagnard, became a religion; it had its martyrs and its saints (Aulard 125).† It is at this point where the assembly began to divide, with the Jacobin and the other ideologies separate sides. This division arose out of the Constitution of the Clergy because it revised the Church in policy, and it revised the relationship the Church had with the state and with the French people. Considering that these factions existed within the assembly prior to the Constitution being imposed upon the State, it might be concluded that some of the assembly members saw potential conflict as predictable because of the relationship that the provinces had with the Church. The conflict would present for the assembly members the opportunity they needed to wrest control of France away from the Jacobins. Since Robespierre was in large part behind the Constitution of the Clergy, it was predictable, too, that the response of the people to the altered relationship between themselves and the Church would be a mitigating factor in Robespierre’s popularity. Robespierre had been raised a Catholic, but his goal was, Thompson says, to unite the country in faith if not religion â€Å"freed from Catholic dogma and clerical fanaticism (Thompson 24).† Robespierre was at heart a classical Republican, dedicated to equality, a constitutionally guaranteed order of freedoms and a document that served as a direction for the government. In dire need of cash, and on behalf of the state, Robespierre began to auction off confiscated church properties â€Å"bit by bit (Thompson 25).† The state also devised a scheme that was innovative for its time, allowing people to buy in co-owners of national properties (Thompson 25). The government program created a new class of landowner, and, more importantly, that their newfound status and land came out of the revolution meant that those people felt a loyalty to the government, and to Robespierre. It meant, too, that they would fight to prevent the nobility and royalty from returning to their previous status in France, because it would mean they would lose their newfound positions and property (Thompson 25). The Civil Constitution of the Clergy served as the basis for allegations that it was atheist in nature, and that was a document intended to further the cause and position of France’s Jewish population (Van Kley 1994 121). These two elements served as the prongs with which to separate the revolutionists, and to fuel the Church’s own quest to regain some of the power it lost to the government by the Constitution of the Clergy. By late 1791 the Constitution of the Clergy began showing the cracks of its weakness. Many people believed that the traditional Church had a place in the new government of France (Van Kley 416). As unrest spread, more attention was being focused on the Civil Constitution as undermining the people of France. That rhetoric, encouraged by Robespierre’s enemies, permeated the minds of the people who associated with the document with an anti-faith notion and with officially empowering Jews in a way that had never been done before in France. Because of this, the people of France grew restless, became agitated, and began to turn again to popular violence as a means of achieving their goals (Van Kley 417). France’s population in the provinces was feeling especially agitated and defiant. â€Å"Religious rioters mixed the sacred and the violent in powerful ways (Desan 1990 165).† After this point, the Civil Constitution of the Clergy began to fall apart with what it meant to accomplish. Disgruntled Catholics who were convinced that the revolutionary government was moving towards atheism grew angry, and mob mentality permeated the countryside. Robespierre’s government based on philosophy, which left room for the monarchy had role as did the Church began crumbling under the weight of the very document intended to help ensure a government representing greater freedoms for everyone in France. Rather than swear an oath under the Civil Constitution, a majority of bishops in France had taken flight or gone into hiding. This break in relationship with the people with whom they had built constituencies left a void in the lives of those French people who had close ties to their Church and religious leaders. Albert Soboul (1988) says that enlightened reformism does not maintain the same shape in the sovereign setting (Soboul 2). That remains true even today (Soboul 2). Suggesting that Robespierre’s ambitions for France never took the form necessary to withstand the trials and tribulations of church and state. The research of John Markoff (1996) involved creating tables for violence that Markoff directly relates to the Constituion of the Clergy (231). Violence against clerics in religious events was 58%. Violence against â€Å"old regime roles† of priest, bishop, canon, and monks was at 7% in connection with religious events, and 18% against baillages in connection with religious events (Markoff 231). Violent acts committed against nonjurors in connection with religious events was 14% (Markoff 231). Violent acts against nonjurors bailliages in connection with religious events was 34% (Markoff 231). Violence resulting in the damage to constitutionals during religious events was 26%, and those events against the constitutionals associated with bailliages was 20% (Markoff 231). The percentage to monasteries from violence or even total destruction of the monastery was 18%, and the events of violence damaging or destroying monasteries in connection with billiages was 36% (Markoff 231). Across Markoff’s chart, the events of violence and the destruction associated with the violence was greater than those incidences of violence associated with non-religious events. Markoff found that the attacks by the people related to anti-tax events were 25%, while the attacks on anti-tax ballialages was 40% (Markoff 234). Attacks on person or property of tax collectors was 30% s compared to 41% on tax bailliages (Markoff 234). Violent attacks on â€Å"all indirect taxes,† were highest of the overall anti-tax related violence (although Markoff does not define those any clearer) at 61% for anti-tax evens and 66% for anti-tax billiages events of violence (Markoff 234). The figures are consistent, and the incidence of violence that Markoff has identified as arising out of those events directly related to the Civil Constitution of the Clergy are more numerous than the events he identified as related to anti-tax incidences of violence. Markoff says that the sources he relied upon for his information in compiling the figures are reliable and thorough in recounting the events he has charted (Markoff 235). His conclusion is that the violence of the revolution was a greater reflection of the change in the relationship between the church-state-population than it was about taxes. It would suggest, too, that the pre-Civil Constitution of the Clergy relationship of between the church-state and people was such that it might even have served as a circumvention of public reaction to other matters, such as taxes. Markoff also cites documentation from Philippe Goujard which demonstrates that the rural petitioners expressed sentiments indicating that they respected the taxes but did not support the revolutionary government’s enforcement of seigneurial rights (Markoff 235). This would explain the higher percentage of attacks on local jails, police, military camps, or other type office during the post Civil Constitution of the Clergy period. Markoff cites Eugen Weber, who held that it was late in the nineteenth century that French peasantry began to look beyond their own parish and be interested in the politics and events going on elsewhere (Markoff 241). Markoff says that his work has demonstrated that it was much earlier than Weber had originally believed, and that it was really the degree to which the peasantry expressed an interest that Weber was detecting (Markoff 241). Whereas, Markoff says, his events tables show that the peasantry was responding earlier (Markoff 241). As Desan points out, there was a difference in perspective held by those people in the cities and the rural peasants (Desan 123-124). For Catholics during the Directory, liberty meant the freedom of religious expression (Desan 123-124). It is clear that the goals of the rural countryside were not as philosophical as those of the Parisians. That it was widely miscalculated as to what the rural populations were most passionate about, and that the religious relationship the rural people had with their local parishes went a long to satisfying their total philosophical curiosity. The response of the rural peasantry was one that became increasingly violent, and directed towards individuals that Markoff describes as â€Å"frequent mismatch of clerical and communal political leanings, violence against clerics rose sharply (Markoff 506).† The likelihood, Markoff says, of personal in religious clashes is, as demonstrated by the statistics cited above, much higher than any other issue arising out of the revolution (Markoff 506). There were surely to be people who anticipated some of the reactions that led to more and more violent responses on the part of the rural peasantry, and who hoped to exploit that violence to their own benefit. However, it would be a fair conclusion to say that based on the evidence presented by Markoff in his statistical tables of violence and events, that post Civil Constitution of the Clergy, as a result of that document, by way of the changes that it ushered in, the counterrevolution was indeed much more violent than it might have otherwise been had not those changes in the relationship between the people of France and their parishes taken place. Works Cited Aulard, A. The French Revolution: A Political History 1789-1804. Trans. Bernard Miall. Vol. 2. London: T. Fisher Unwin, 1910. Aston, Nigel, ed. Religious Change in Europe, 1650-1914: Essays for John McManners. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1997. Desan, Suzanne. Reclaiming the Sacred: Lay Religion and Popular Politics in Revolutionary France. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1990. Markoff, John. The Abolition of Feudalism: Peasants, Lords, and Legislators in the French Revolution. University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1996. Soboul, Albert. Understanding the French Revolution. New York: International Publishers, 1988. Thompson, J. M. Robespierre and the French Revolution. London: English Universities Press, 1952. Van Kley, Dale, ed. The French Idea of Freedom: The Old Regime and the Declaration of Rights of 1789. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1994.

Nursing Care as Applied to a Client with a Mental Health Problem Essay

An extended essay demonstrating the candidate’s ability to evaluate how the application of theoretical knowledge gained during the course influences and effects the provision of quality nursing care as applied to a client with a mental health problem. The aim of this assignment is to explore the application of theory to practice with regards to a client with a mental health problem. In order to effectively care for clients, nurses need to regularly evaluate their knowledge and assess this knowledge increases the quality of mental health nursing care. The client chosen for this assignment was a female, 39 year-old suffering with agoraphobia. She was a single Asian origin, but living in a council flat in London with her father and sisters. The duration of the clients' illness was approximately nine years, since about 1987. For the purpose of the reader, this essay will be written in the first person, as it will make the assignment more coherent. I worked with the client in the community for the duration of my placement. Therefore, for two months I had regular contact with the client everyday. The client needed nursing intervention because she needed help in coping with her agoraphobia. Due to this phobia she was reliably housebound and could not successfully carry out her activities of daily living. Her father did the shopping and housework. In addition to this the client's functioning was impaired due to other physical problems. She suffered from epilepsy and she had a tumour growing in the left hemisphere, which affected her right-sided mobility. â€Å"A phobia is a fear of a specific of a specific object or scenario† ... ...each session. I then used his list as a reference when the client began to ramble. If supervision had not been used we could have become stressed through interpretation and lack of reflection. Supervision is important because it enhances nurses' education, orientation, support and facilities and nurses to think about how to use of self. (Hinchcliffe 1994). Therefore, the nurses are constantly learning and gaining insight, which impresses clients'. Quality of cares and protects nurses. So we can see from this essay that all the care subjects we have gained knowledge of in the course can greatly improve the clients' care it and our ability to care for them. We are constantly learning in practice and need to use knowledge, but supervision, reflection and other disciplines to improve our standard of care. Nursing Care as Applied to a Client with a Mental Health Problem Essay An extended essay demonstrating the candidate’s ability to evaluate how the application of theoretical knowledge gained during the course influences and effects the provision of quality nursing care as applied to a client with a mental health problem. The aim of this assignment is to explore the application of theory to practice with regards to a client with a mental health problem. In order to effectively care for clients, nurses need to regularly evaluate their knowledge and assess this knowledge increases the quality of mental health nursing care. The client chosen for this assignment was a female, 39 year-old suffering with agoraphobia. She was a single Asian origin, but living in a council flat in London with her father and sisters. The duration of the clients' illness was approximately nine years, since about 1987. For the purpose of the reader, this essay will be written in the first person, as it will make the assignment more coherent. I worked with the client in the community for the duration of my placement. Therefore, for two months I had regular contact with the client everyday. The client needed nursing intervention because she needed help in coping with her agoraphobia. Due to this phobia she was reliably housebound and could not successfully carry out her activities of daily living. Her father did the shopping and housework. In addition to this the client's functioning was impaired due to other physical problems. She suffered from epilepsy and she had a tumour growing in the left hemisphere, which affected her right-sided mobility. â€Å"A phobia is a fear of a specific of a specific object or scenario† ... ...each session. I then used his list as a reference when the client began to ramble. If supervision had not been used we could have become stressed through interpretation and lack of reflection. Supervision is important because it enhances nurses' education, orientation, support and facilities and nurses to think about how to use of self. (Hinchcliffe 1994). Therefore, the nurses are constantly learning and gaining insight, which impresses clients'. Quality of cares and protects nurses. So we can see from this essay that all the care subjects we have gained knowledge of in the course can greatly improve the clients' care it and our ability to care for them. We are constantly learning in practice and need to use knowledge, but supervision, reflection and other disciplines to improve our standard of care.

Jane Austen :: essays research papers

She puts to rest her pots and pans and takes a new stand. She is conniving and explicit in her manipulative ways. She cares deeply for her beloved children. She fears not being headstrong and liberal-minded, and she truly believes that her epiphanies are gospel truth to her own life. Most important of all, she takes action, is heroic in her boldness to fix the wrong, and does not hesitate to look back on what she leaves behind. In his nineteenth century plays, Henrik Ibsen portrays Norwegian women sharing and contrasting many, and more, of these strong qualities. Like a vigorous and professional artist, Ibsen paints vivid female characters in his skillfully tragic plays, creating diversity among them. In three of his plays alone, A Doll’s House, An Enemy of the People, and Hedda Gabler, women are shown to play various roles under different circumstances in nineteenth century Norway. In these plays, the women’s characteristics range from being maternal and conservative, to being radically liberal and nonconforming.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  In Ibsen’s play, A Doll’s House, the protagonist is in fact, a woman, named Nora. At the onset of the play, Nora is shown to be like the traditional mother, simply making preparations for Christmas events. She is portrayed as a strikingly beautiful and almost perfect wife who is affectionate, kind, and always obedient to her husband saying things such as, â€Å"I should not think of going against your wishes.† However, this surface is only a mere cover to what really lies in the heart of Nora. It becomes evident that Nora is not completely complacent with her life. Gradually it becomes evident that she takes pleasures in other things that she does not have. For example, she longs for an affluent lifestyle and indulges in material things because she is more youthfully extravagant than she is maternal. In the play, she even admits herself that she desires grand opulence, saying, â€Å"†¦I used to sit here and imagine that a rich old gentle man had fallen in love with me†¦[and] that he died; and that his will contained†¦ ‘The lovely Mrs. Nora Helmer is to have all I possess paid over to her at once in cash.’† To fantasize about such a greedy thing shows that Nora prefers being a single and wealthy woman in society. Not only was Nora hungry for money, but she was hungry for simple respect. In all the years she was married to Helmer, no one ever took Nora seriously or accredited her with anything.

I: The Better Part of Justice

Through two separate cases and decisions respecting the affirmative action policy at the University of Michigan, the Supreme Court offered two opposite opinions on the same question—striking down the university’s undergraduate College of Literature, Science and the Arts (LSA) affirmative action policy (Gratz v. Bollinger, 6-3) in 2003 and upholding the University of Michigan Law School’s (UMLS) affirmative action policy (Grutter v. Bollinger, 5-4) at the same time. However, the specific reasoning for each of the two different opinions explains the court’s seemingly contradictory rulings. In the Grutter v. Bollinger decision of this reverse discrimination challenge, the Supreme Court agreed that the State had a compelling interest in an ethnically diverse student body at UMLS which afforded applicants who are ethnic minorities a greater regard in their candidature for acceptance to the law school. UMLS considered candidates holistically and did not award them points solely on the basis of their ethnic minority status. The Court held that the practice is not prohibited by the U.S. Constitution and was in keeping with the narrow tailoring set forth by Regents of the University of California v. Bakke, 438 U.S. 265 (1978) for how affirmative action admission policies might be devised when informed by the Fourteenth Amendment. Moreover, the Court said that the affirmative action policy ought not to be permanent and should be replaced by a color-blind policy after twenty-five years at which time affirmative action in admissions should no longer be necessary. Concerning Gratz v. Bollinger, the Court’s opinion was opposite the Grutter case finding that the affirmative action policy used by LSA was a violation of the Fourteenth Amendment. Unlike UMLS, LSA automatically awarded points to ethnic minority applicants on the basis of their minority ethnicity alone as opposed to the special consideration of each candidate as an individual like UMLS did. Thus, the Court sided with the plaintiffs against Bollinger because of the automatic nature of the preferential treatment of ethnic minority candidates for no other considerations than race. This was viewed as a blatant violation of the U.S. Constitution because the numeric system was not narrowly tailored and failed to meet the standard of strict scrutiny. It is clear from these two cases and Supreme Court decisions that affirmative action as a means to student diversity was not in contention for the Court but rather the administration of any such policy. The how was the real heart of the matter and not whether such a policy was needed at this point in time in American history. As in almost any case, it is the details that ultimately determine the court’s as well as the public’s opinion on an issue before them. II: The Affirmative Action Controversy Ironically, Boatright’s â€Å"No† (p. 179) column against affirmative action on the whole were more compelling arguments in support of why the U.S. government should implement affirmative action in employment and in education than the â€Å"Yes† (p. 178) column favoring the policy. Although Justice O’Connor appealed to research in social science in her composition of the majority decision, like the â€Å"Yes† column arguments seem to do, the logical thinking of the â€Å"No† column appeals to reason and justice. When relevantly compared to the almost four centuries of societal and institutional discrimination and prejudice, the view that affirmative action promotes a victim mindset is an incompetent argument and becomes fallacious. The logical argument is that the very maltreatment itself is the greatest cause of any sense of victim identity as it would be in a criminal case (e.g., rape, assault, mugging, etc.). Contrarily, affirmative action is likely to foster a sense of relief or appreciation like when the criminal that victimized someone is caught. Furthermore, special consideration in getting a foot in the door of a school or job does not ‘taint’ the work or confidence of individuals—as we see from the privileged access white ethnics have enjoyed in the Americas since the 1600s—who understand the difference between access and performance and are often anxious to prove their worth for which the lack of access is a barrier. Once access is granted to those it has been denied, they desire to â€Å"succeed or fail on an equal basis† (p. 179) just as any other privileged class claims to desire. Although racial tensions may arise, it is a stretch of the imagination to argue that affirmative action is somehow worse than racial prejudice and discrimination respecting racial tensions or anything else. One day the pernicious effects of racial discrimination may well be in the past like American slavery is but they are not past yet. Sparing white ethnics from reverse discrimination sometimes is inadequate as a defense for maintaining the status quo in the quixotic hope that institutional prejudice and discrimination against ethnic minorities will someday just fade away. Certainly, the abundant evidence of discrimination is comparable to the special preferences afforded war veterans, Holocaust victims, 9/11 attack victims, their families, and affected businesses as well as displaced victims of Hurricane Katrina. Like the Tsunami victims in 2004 half the world away, the U.S. government recognizes by its own actions that victims of disaster, domestically or internationally, require some type of preferred assistance to overcome the devastating effects of something inflicted upon them. Victims of the long-lasting effects and consequences of the peculiar institution of slavery in the U.S. are just as deserving of special consideration as victims of events or forces that warrant special attention from the FEMA or the Red Cross or any number of other governmental and non-governmental organizations domestically and internationally which are dedicated to providing assistance to affected persons with particular regard to race. For example, these organizations would not locate themselves in England but in Ethiopia or Indonesia or Haiti. Moreover, because the aim of affirmative action is to increase ethnic diversity in colleges and universities and access to employment it does not explicitly quash the special privileges enjoyed by white ethnics with regard to access to higher education or gainful employment. The idea that race-neutral criteria can work, or are even just in this job/school context given the longstanding social history of the condition, to correct the tremendous inequities caused and maintained by institutional discrimination against ethnic minorities is unrealistic at best and underhanded in the least. It essentially is an argument for the status quo because it offers no compelling alternative public policy by which the object of ending racial inequity in schools and the labor market is begun. It would restore the privileges of the ethnic majority unabated while relegating the ethnic minority(ies) of the nation to feed on the scraps from the table of the descendants of their former slave masters. It takes no stretch of the imagination to see how such a non-policy policy would be the very framework of wider racial tensions on par with the widening gap between rich and poor in the United States. References Grutter v. Bollinger, 539 U.S. 306 (2003) and Gratz v. Bollinger, 539 U.S. 244 (2003). Writs of Certiorari to the United States Court Of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit (Nos. 02-241, 02-516). Retrieved April 29, 2007, from http://www.oag.state.ny.us/press/2003/feb/grutter_vs_bollinger.pdf   

Recruiting in the High Schools Essay

You see them everywhere dressed up head to toe in camouflage and shiny boots, with the image of a super hero. With the recent conflicts in the Middle East, parents across America have protested the military being inside of our children’s schools auctioning off a better life. Let’s face it, who can give a better life to you than your mother? In 2002 the government made a flagship program designed to help underprivileged kids called the â€Å"No Child Left Behind Act†. â€Å"Since 2002 the â€Å"No Child Left Behind Act† has meant that US schools which receive government money must allow the military in to talk to students† (Act of Congress). So this poses a huge problem for the parents that are trying to fight to get the military out of the schools and to put a ban on recruiting from within the confines. The military shouldn’t be able to recruit in high schools for many reasons. The most important reasons why the military shouldn’t recruit inside of high schools is because the mind of a high school student isn’t developed enough to make the right decisions to join; the military gives false hope to kids of financial freedom, and the possibility of death isn’t realistically depicted by the recruiters to the high school students. Why are we recruiting in high schools instead of on college campuses? There could be a lot of reasons behind it, but first and foremost is that seventeen year olds aren’t ready to join. The mind of a seventeen year old isn’t fully developed until their in their twenties. So the judgment of a right and a wrong decision isn’t mindfully thought through. Yes, a seventeen year old only needs a high school diploma and parental consent but, how can they think they are ready for war when they can’t even drink alcohol or vote for their commander and chief? In high schools there are cliques and like any kid they want to be in these so called cliques. Robert Ayers discusses in his book how kids are looking for a clique or group to belong to, â€Å"High school kids are at an age when being a member of an identifiable group with a grand mission and a shared spirit — and never underestimate a distinctive uniform — is of exaggerated importance, something gang recruiters in big cities also note with interest and exploit with skill† (William Ayers). Ayers is depicting to us how easy it is to manipulate, and convince a young mind, seventeen years old, just wants to be part of a group with an image no matter what group it is. All someone has to do is depict an image of greatness and the young people are sold. The fact and bottom line is that our kids look up to a glorified image that the military and their commercials depict from a young age and they shouldn’t be capitalized on nor taken advantage of due to this overwhelming lopsided image. The military is currently under quota of manpower that they need to run a successful defense, so turning to seventeen year olds without the knowledge of military recruiting tactics is the logical and more efficient way to get people to join our depleted military. But this is not a reason to prey on sixteen and seventeen year olds who aren’t even old enough to vote nor drive, but they can make life and death decisions to join the military. But having the undeveloped brain, like we all went through, as they do they are not old enough to cypher through the presentations that the recruiter gives in order to make a valid and rational decision. Why do you see more recruiters in poverty stricken areas contrast to those in areas of good or well financial being? This is because the military is unethically targeting the vulnerable kids in our school system. Recruiters unethically target low income kids while promising them financial aid for school after these students serve in the military. Some of the students are promised is school fully paid for via the â€Å"Post 9/11 bill† and the â€Å"GI Bill†. But if you go www. va. gov website you will see the underlying criteria to actually get 100 percent free tuition. The Veteran Affairs website referenced these criteria’s; Active duty status, months and years served, months retired and a plethora of underlying circumstances. Getting high school students seem to be the plan for high school students, â€Å"The U. S. military’s practice of targeting low-income youth and students of color for recruitment, in combination with exaggerated promises of financial rewards for enlistment, undermines the voluntariness of their enlistment† (Soldiers of Misfortune). So why does the military seem to recruit people of color? Well according to www. census. gov the website tells us a lot about Caucasian children eighteen and under below the poverty line was seventeen percent and the children of the minority races were thirty five percent and higher. So this is actually the ideal place for a recruiter to so called â€Å"fill their quota†. Going back to the argument of recruiters promising false financing of school, this could be an advantage for the recruiters. Promising people who don’t have anything something is unethical and misleading. This is mostly unethical because the recruiters that are usually E-4 to E-6 have no pull to get you in different schooling programs nor give you the position that you could want, in terms of career and financing. â€Å"Many possible recruits are promised that they will receive tens of thousands of dollars in education when, in actuality, 57 percent of veterans who have applied for Government Issue (GI) benefits have not received any financial aid, according to the non-profit organization Finding Alternatives to Military Enlistment† (FAME). Promising financial benefits to kids that less than the majority of the military veterans receive is morally and ethically wrong. Also, the recruiters don’t tell you that in some circumstance you can’t attend school while in an â€Å"Active Duty Status†. Reason being is that you could get deployed and be called off to duty at any time and then the government would have to reimburse the institution for the incomplete credits. The recruiters also don’t tell recruits that if you are a reservist you are not eligible for the GI Bill, being in the reserve status it will be impossible to accumulate four years’ worth of active duty. The military also made it so that this could never be reached, it’s like a safe guard they have in place. The U. S. government also targets disadvantaged communities and areas. The philosophy of recruiters seem to be â€Å" The more in poverty a student is, the more likely they will look for a way out and join the ranks†. When the recruiters target these areas their showing that the more fortunate kids lives are more valuable and worth sparing more than others. It just isn’t right to exploit children from these backgrounds and hold their lives to a lesser status than other backgrounds. Why isn’t war realistically depicted to recruits before they join? Because, it’s nothing like what you see on the video games like â€Å"Call of Duty† or movies like â€Å"The Expendables or The ‘A’ Team†, when people shoot a plethora of bullets at you someone or something gets hit. â€Å"War is catastrophic for human beings, and, indeed, for the continuation of life on Earth. With over 120 military bases around the globe and the second largest military force ever assembled, the U. S.  government is engaged in a constant state of war, and American society is necessarily distorted and disfigured around the aims of war† (William Ayers). A good statistic that should be shared while a recruit is debating whether or not to join the military is, â€Å"During the last decade of that spectacular century, two million children were killed, 20 million displaced, six million disabled† (William Ayers). Now this is a statistic that should get shared with recruits along with the good statistics that are put in there to glorify military service. Another good fact that recruits probably don’t know about â€Å"108 million people were slaughtered in wars during the 20th century† (William Ayers). Now the recruiters should tell the recruits to put this into perspective. 108 million people like you and me were killed within 100 years due to war and military conflict. The kids in high school need to understand that those were kids their age and younger, on some continents that were getting killed over things not fully understood. Then when your contract is up and you are honorably discharged from your branch of service people are still left with images of war and relive it every day. â€Å"Vets suffer long-term health consequences including greater risk of depression, alcoholism, drug addiction, sleep disorders, and more. About one-third of Vietnam vets suffered full-blown post-traumatic stress disorder. Another 22% suffered partial post-traumatic stress disorder. This is the nature of the beast. Anyone who’s been there knows† (William Ayers). If kids the age of 18 and lower are allowed to see and experience these things, then when their brains are fully developed they will be brain washed and war could be instilled in them with no turning back. This could also be that kid’s brains are not fully developed so they don’t have a clear concept of death. Recruiting in the high schools is ethically wrong due to the lack of the recruits’ brain development to cypher through and make a decision based on facts instead of the image the recruiters portray of the military. Also, the recruiters promise tens of thousands of dollars to these kids when that is a very farfetched truth. The recruiters need to tell them what you actually have to do to earn and qualify for that money so it can actually be yours’. Military recruiters also don’t depict a clear picture of war and all that is lost during it. People’s sanity, lives and total way of living are altered forever. Recruiting in high schools should be closely monitored in schools if not done away with all together. Kids eighteen and younger just don’t have a grasp on what’s reality and what’s fabricated. Works Cited Ayers, William. â€Å"Hearts and Minds: Military Recruitment and the High School Battlefield. † Www. democraticdialogue. com. N. p. , 07 Apr. 2006. Web. Cave, Damien. â€Å"Growing Problem for Military Recruiters: Parents. † Editorial. New York Times [New York] 3 June 2005: B6. Www. newyorktimes. com. Web. â€Å"Census Bureau Homepage. † Census Bureau Homepage. N. p. , n. d. Web. 02 Nov. 2012. . â€Å"FAME Time Series. † FAME Time Series. N. p. , n. d. Web. 02 Nov. 2012. . Www. gibill. va. gov. N. p. , n. d. Web.