Tracing Dimensions of Changing Culture Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1750 words

Tracing Dimensions of Changing Culture - Essay Example The book is a collection of seven short stories beginning with â€Å"Girl with Lizard†, which tells about a boy and his obsession and desire for a mysterious painting he inherited from his parents, which drove him to unconsciously ruin his relationships with women while discovering his parent’s dark past. â€Å"A Little Fling†, a story about a husband’s political betrayal of his wife for her sake, a wife’s betrayal of her husband to spite him, the narrator’s betrayal of his friend as a result of his own naivety, and the revelation, which destroyed the intimate relationship they all shared. â€Å"The Other Man†, a story, which recounts a man’s discovery of his late wife’s affair and his realization about the truth of his marriage. The middle story, â€Å"Sugar Peas†, tells about a narcissistic man balancing his relationships with three women. â€Å"The Circumcision†, which tells of the relationship between a German man and a Jewish girl in New York, is a foray into the sensitive topic of the division caused by their culture and religion. â€Å"The Son†, on the other hand, tells of filial love, described in a dramatic fashion. The book then ends with â€Å"Woman at the Gas Station†; which narrates of a man and his decision to leave his wife. All these stories are bound by the themes of betrayal brought about by obsession, desperation, and historical circumstance – all because of and in spite of love. The themes, embodied in Flights of Love are best exemplified in his opening story â€Å"Girl with Lizard†.

United States Border Control Problems and Solutions Thesis

United States Border Control Problems and Solutions - Thesis Example Alternative programs which help provide solutions to the border control issues in the United States should include three main points: (1) that the program must ensure sufficient control over unauthorized entry and work, or that the program must be a supplement – not a substitute – for illegal activities in the US; (2) that employers must also have sufficient incentive in the hiring of domestic workers before foreign workers are hired; (3) that the program must set forth remedies to ensure that the rights of temporary workers are protected (LoBreglio, p. 958).   The protection of immigrant workers’ rights is an important consideration and requirement in securing successful solutions to the border control issues.   Historically, illegal aliens and even guest workers have not enjoyed bargaining rights in the workplace and political rights as individuals (LoBreglio, p. 958).   Illegal aliens who are mostly economic migrants point out that they do enjoy better l ives in the US and they emphasize that the problem also lies with their own government and in the insufficient opportunities given to them in their native countries.   In order to resolve the problem of illegal aliens, the US needs to coordinate its efforts with other countries, especially with the Mexican and the Canadian government.   The Congress can do this by focusing its attention on specific populations and secure the rights of such population by â€Å"incorporating directly into immigration law the human rights and transparency elements of Canadian and European Union policy† (LoBreglio, p. 959). Congress must also further the protection of guest workers by including provisions for the allocation of funds for state or non-governmental organizations towards education programs which would teach guest workers about their rights and obligations under the US laws (LoBreglio, p. 959).   These programs must also be based on their native language and must focus on their issues and concerns as migrants.   Such programs must also not overly focus on legal terminologies which would not be understood by the migrants; instead, they must focus on giving migrants practical and relatable instructions, especially instructions they would need in order to ensure that their stay in the US would be within legal limits.   Sound education programs can successfully reduce the burden of such aliens to American society and help reintegrate them into their society upon their return to their native countries (LoBreglio, p. 959).  Programs which also attempt to educate the general public in relation to the reasons and consequences of illegal immigration can also help reduce abuse and negative stereotypical thoughts against migrant workers (LoBreglio, p. 960).   Sanctions issued against employers hiring illegal aliens can also help deter or reduce the hiring of aliens.   It is also important to educate employers about the process they can undertake in order to gain legal workers and the repercussions of illegally employing aliens (Lobreglio, p. 960).  The possible passage of a law which specifically protects the rights of illegal immigrants can also be considered by the concerned authorities.   Such law can direct the immigrants in gaining direct access to the Ombudsman or other human rights agencies.   For example, phone numbers for the Immigration Department of the Mexican National Commission for Human Rights can be posted at Mexican alien detention centers (LoBreglio, p. 960).  Ã‚  

A Health Promotion For Older Adults Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

A Health Promotion For Older Adults - Essay Example The growing number of Americans is s common founded information. For example in 2010, 40.2 million older adults (65 plus years) represented the American populace. It is approximated that by 2050 there will be more than 88.5 million older adults, twice the number in 2010. This has been treated as strange in America because the older adults have outnumbered the teenagers. Additionally, the majority of the middle aged couples have an alive parent compared to their children (three to four parents compared to just two children Markson, 2003, p.10). Relationship of race, ethnicity, and culture on health status, health belief, help-seeking behaviors, health practice (i.e., traditional and non-traditional medicine), and health outcomesThe number of American adults of 65 years and above will be more than a twofold close to 71 million by 2030. The quickly escalating number of elderly Americans has far-reaching repercussions for the country's public health structure and will bring unmatched req uirements on the conditions on the healthcare and age related-services. Public health attempts to advance health and serviceable autonomous critical strategies in assisting older people to remain healthy. According to studies, poor health does not have to be expected outcomes of aging. Elderly adults who exercise health behaviors, fully utilize clinical preventive services, and continually engage with family and friends are most likely to stay healthy, live independently and attract less health-related costs.

Water shortages in urban areas Essay Example for Free

Water shortages in urban areas Essay An analysis of the â€Å"Impacts of water rationing on public health†: Case study of Makokoba, Bulawayo Introduction Zimbabwe local governance is made up of a system of city councils and municipalities which are mandated to provide water and sanitation services and goods to their respective residents. This system has been effective during the colonial era where the urban areas were less populated than there are at the present moment. The Zimbabwe post-independence period has seen a large influx of people into the urban areas. The population growth in urban areas meant that most city councils and municipalities are failing to cope with the water demand. The major reason is that the rate of population increase in urban areas is by far greater than that of improving or increasing the existing water supply. Background information However worries over water supply in Bulawayo is only part of a larger trend across urban Africa1. Water is vital to any development, and its availability or dearth is a major driving force behind migration, population growth, and economic development, among other factors. As a whole, Africa has relatively ample water supply potential2. Bulawayo is the second largest city in Zimbabwe, which was established in the 1840s. Its economy was built around it being a center of industry for the nation and a hub of transportation for the Southern Africa region. With this economic development, Bulawayo saw an unabated increase in water demand over the past three decades, with increasing urbanization, economic activity (until 2000), and population growth, which has steadily increased over time, to around 655675 (CSO 2012), in line with urban areas across Zimbabwe3. Bulawayo as a city and province has failed to secure a long term and sustainable water resources to meet its water demands both domestic and industrial. Its main water supply was reliant on five dams but currently being supplied by Insiza and Lower Ncema and Umzingwane with the other two being decommissioned. This led to the city council to introducing the 72hours per week rationing strategy to save the remaining water resources prior to the rainy season. The water stress currently being faced by the city is attributed by several factors such as its geographical location, increased population, climate effects and underdevelopment of infrastructure4. DAM VOLUMES 9/09/13

call centers :: essays research papers

Call Centers -- RP's Emerging Sunshine Industry The call center service has been dubbed the country's latest sunshine industry, expected to generate around 24,000 jobs in the next two years. When a door closes, a window opens. Even as the Philippines feels the fallout from the global IT crunch, it has benefited from the prevailing cost-cutting trend in an unexpected way -- an unprecedented boom in the call center business. Indeed, the call center service has been dubbed the country's latest sunshine industry, with the sector expected to generate around 24,000 jobs in the next two years, according to Toby Monsod, former assistant secretary of the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI). "It's a very promising industry. Everybody's growing and hiring," Benedict Hernandez, Contact Center Association of the Philippines (CCAP) chair, said in a recent interview. From 2000 to 2001, the segment reportedly grew by more than 200 percent, and local call center revenues are projected to increase from $173 million in 2002 to $864 million in 2004. Optimism runs high as an international research group forecasts the growth of ICT-enabled services to a $200-billion industry by the year 2010, with the call center segment's share at $42 billion. Reports say that in the United States alone, there are 1.5 million call center seats that could be outsourced, and so far the Philippines has less than 10,000 seats filled, indicating the domestic industry's huge potential. What are call centers? A call center is a central customer service operation where agents (often called customer care specialists or customer service representatives) handle telephone calls on behalf of a client. Clients include mail-order catalog houses, telemarketing companies, computer product help desks, banks, financial service and insurance groups, transportation and freight handling firms, hotels and IT companies. The size of an operation is described in terms of the number of "seats." A seat consists of a station with two or three people alternating in several shifts to provide 24-hour call center service. The industry's main target markets include the United States, Australia and the United Kingdom. Many factors contribute to the local industry's sizzling development pace. One is the rising cost of doing business in industrialized countries like the United States, forcing foreign companies to downsize and outsource peripheral e-services to developing countries like the Philippines to cut overheads. CCAP president Jose Ferreros also cites the better power and telecommunications infrastructure, competitive labor cost in terms of quality and value for money, and strong government support for ICT-related industries.

Ethics Article Review Essay

This paper seeks to prepare a review of an article discussing ethics in accounting and financial decision making by making a brief summary, relating to assigned reading for the week, relating and applying the concepts to current or former employer’s organization, making improvement for the organization using the article as basis and explaining the importance of ethics in accounting and financial decision making. A description of the 2002 Sarbanes-Oxley act will also be discussed including its impact on accounting and financial decision making. 2. Discussions 2. a. Brief Summary The article is talking about the importance of ethics in accounting and business. To dramatize its significance in business, it has cited a story of a number of rich people who may have attained their financial rewards in business but ended dying in less meaningful ways impliedly because of missing the principles of ethics. While the article admits that earning money or attaining riches may be an acceptable goal in business, there is still the question of how success in measured in the final analysis and for which the authors were arguing for riches acquired with honor and if a choice would be made between the two, it would be more preferable to have honor rather riches (Smith and Smith, 2003) . 2. b. Relating to assigned readings As to how the article relate to assigned readings for this week, it may be argued that the article has touched on the importance of rules or guides to actions in business. Ethics in business may be asserted to be indispensable if business will have to attain its goals in harmony with other goals of society such as those in economics and politics. 2. c. Application of article to organization As to how the ethical concepts discussed on the article may apply to this researcher’s former or current organization, it may be argued that the universality of principles related to ethics would really make it difficult to exclude this researcher’s organization from any of its application.. Since my organization is part of the larger society where everybody else lives, it cannot isolate itself from the community by doing unethical things. It cannot even argue that any illegal or unethical thing that it may do will not matter in a world where there many players who may be affected by decisions made. In the same way that a member of society can make a difference for the good of the community so with the failure of one organization or even a person in the organization can do to the detriments of many if not all of the members of the community. 2. d. Recommendations for improvement of the organization To make recommendations for improvement on this researcher’s or organization using the article as basis, the organization should encourage simple living among its executives so that they could be more disciplined in the way the company’s resources are being managed not only for the stockholders but even to every stakeholders who stand to benefits from the observance of ethical conduct in the organization. The other stakeholders of course include the employees who aspire for long-term employment (Sears, 2003), the creditors and lenders who resources need to be protected as well, customers who need to have their needs and wants for company’s products and services continuously satisfied and the government who must continue ensuring payment of taxes and compliance with regulations. 2. e. The importance of ethics in accounting and financial decision making and how the 2002 Sarbanes-Oxley Act affects the same The important of ethics in accounting and financial decision making cannot be underestimated. Without ethics there would be no responsibility for right or wrong act can be demanded from people making decisions. The managers who are considered agents of stockholders would instead enrich themselves at the expense of stockholders investments. On the other hand, these stockholders would just exploit whatever they can to the detriment of their principal, this time their debt capital providers. The organization can likewise treat its employees with disrespect and violate the latter’s if there in no ethics that would guide them. Laws will be insufficient to exact compliance if people in the organization were not instilled the proper values when they were still young in the same way that it is hard to teach tricks to an old dog. The Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 is a classic example to legislate rules of conduct that would improve corporate governance (Ali, et. al, 2006) including a more strict compliance of requirements in regulating companies in terms of financial statements and ensuring of ethical conduct of external auditors (Bainbridge, 2007). Although the law is a positive act to ethical practice of doing business, the choice to do what is right is still with decision makers who must have the right sense of values for society. 3. Conclusion: Ethics has a purpose to attain. It is a part of an organization’s life since it is a guide to decision making not only in accounting and finance but even to all other aspect of business operations. A sense or rightness or wrongness offers a choice and that which is good is incidentally consistent with ethics. As the world seems to be painting what are the standards of its success when actually they are not the real and lasting ones, ethics its and principles have much to offer in making the correct decision that will lead real and lasting success for human existence. The article has argued that honor is preferable than riches but riches need not be inconsistent with riches as long as they are ethically acquired. References: Ali, et. al (2006) International Corporate Governance After Sarbanes-Oxley, John Wiley and Sons Bainbridge (2007), The Complete Guide to Sarbanes-Oxley: Understanding How Sarbanes-Oxley Affects Your Business; Adams Media Sears (2003) Successful Talent Strategies: Achieving Superior Business Results Through Market-focused Staffing, AMACOM Div American Mgmt Association. Smith and Smith (2003) Business and Accounting Ethics, {www document} URL, http://acct. tamu. edu/smith/ethics/ethics. htmAccessed September 29,2008

The Computer: Humankind’s Greatest Scientific Discovery

Discoveries throughout time have moved mankind forward in many fields, such as medicine, technology, communications and manufacturing. These findings have also contributed to shifting the way humankind operates on a global basis. Defining the greatest discovery should encompass the revelations which have had the most beneficial impact on our societies. For our generation, it is the founding of the computer. The computer has affected virtually every aspect of our lives, from the way people do business to the way we communicate. Since its humble beginnings with the inventions of the first binary computer in 1936 by Konrad Zuse, and the mechanical calculator, the use of computer has become more than just widespread: it has developed into a phenomenon that has altered the lives of every human living on Earth today in some shape or form. In 1939, Hewlett Packard was founded and by 1945, John von Neumann had discovered electronic storage for data. Subsequently, the year 1967 saw the first metal oxide semiconductor built by Fairchild Camera and Seymour Papert, and it created a language on the computer for children that operated a mechanical turtle. Later in 1967, the first storage system for digital photography was invented by IBM, which had the ability to translate a trillion bits of information. In 1994, Windows first browser Netscape 1.0 was released. Additionally, the Internet search engine, Yahoo, was invented. From this point, computer technologies have constantly been improving and have resulted in modern wonders. Computers have made the technological advances we enjoy today possible. These include online purchasing, business and private communication through social networks, selling to global markets, creating personal websites, or talking to people while seeing them on our computer screens while they are thousands of miles away, and many more advances. All of this is done with little cost, except for a wireless connection fee. People tend to store information not in the public archives, libraries, or in other ways that require using physical media, but in a digital format with the help of cloud technologies. Many significant scientific discoveries are made with the help of computers, and even if the findings are made by hand, computers are still used to process and calculate data gathered during these researches. Computers are indispensable for many business and financial operations, exchange trades, freelance jobs, medicine, production quality control and studying – almost all aspects of life today are tied to the use of the computer. Clement Mok, former creative director of Apple, once said, â€Å"Five years ago, we thought of the Web as a new medium, not a new economy.† As civilization races ahead, technology also speeds up, creating new markets and jobs while helping with advances in medicine and agriculture. Computers have evolved from a simple mechanical calculator, which was still revolutionary for its time, into a sophisticated and complicated helpful tool that has become an essential part of humans’ everyday lives. Nowadays, it is difficult to find a part of modern humanity's existence which has not been reshaped by the invention of the computer, and there is no way of knowing where this great discovery will end up leading civilization in the future. ReferencesMok, Clement.   â€Å"Technology Quotes.† IT History Society. N.p., n.d. Web. 24 Jan. 2013. .â€Å"Computer History Museum.† Timeline of Computer History. N.p., n.d. Web. 24 Jan. 2013..