Plata o Plomo (Javdani) Response Paper Analysis Essay

In her essay, â€Å"Plato o Plomo,† Marie Javdani compares & contrasts the stories of two boys, whom live separately in two countries, to signify their indirect relation. The phrase â€Å"Plato o Plomo† translates to â€Å"silver or lead†, meaning that peasants of South America can either accept a bribe & live (silver) or take a bullet & die (lead). Eric, an American boy, & Miguel, a Colombian, are both out on the road on a Friday night, but their intentions are entirely different. After scoring drugs, Eric whistles while walking down his street to meet up with his friends for â€Å"a bit of fun.† Miguel creeps down the road in his village, praying for the last time in his life; he to be murdered by the guerillas who have been threatening him & his father. The two stories of both Eric & Miguel begin to unite as Javdani narrates the cause & effect of America & Colombia, showing how choices made in the U.S. can affect the harsh realities of Colombia’s drug cartel. By using parallelism in the stories of Eric & Miguel, Javdani identifies the factors contributing to high drug activity. â€Å"Eric & Miguel represent opposite poles in what the United States government refers to as the ‘war on drugs.’† Eric’s drug use symbolizes the demand of production in Colombia, where Miguel’s village is terrorized by the ruling drug lords & paramilitaries. The strategy that the writer uses to represent both Eric & Miguel is cause & effect. This use of parallelism combined with cause & effect is meant to emphasize two sides to the political turmoil of drug violence in Colombia. Javdani mentions that U.S. money being sent to Colombia is ineffective in its purpose, which is to enforce order over the high drug activity that rules Colombia. Because Colombia produces a majority of the world’s cocaine & heroine, the U.S believes that putting an end to the growth of the coca, a plant used for making cocaine & heroine, can stop the use of drugs in the states. But the billions of aid dollars sent to fund, supply, and train Colombian military units have only escalated the violent paramilitaries that support drug cartels. As a result of rebel drug lords having control, Colombians have no choice but to cooperate with the production of coca on their land. This approach to eliminating drug activity was obviously not successful, it is becoming easier to see that drug trafficking is market-driven; the end to the demand.

Safe Guarding Babies and Children Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2250 words

Safe Guarding Babies and Children - Essay Example ld abuse. The object is to establish the moral responsibility of every individual in the child-care system and create awareness. The article focuses on factors on the agency and individual level that are deemed key to avert tragedies such as this from happening in the future. 1. Responsibilities of local authorities. 2. Multi Agency policies. 3. Valued judgement and effective communication. 4. Targeted and Specialized support. 5. Individual social worker’s responsibilities The article evaluates and explores the methods that can be employed to avoid the mistakes as ascertained by the Laming report. Responsibilities of local authorities: â€Å"Those who sit in judgement often do so with the great benefit of hindsight† (Lord Laming Report, 2003 Page 1. ... In this event the Local authorities outline all disciplinary and inter-agency policies to be implemented by the agencies. Research has shown that multiagency working is more pronounced during the early stages of the case while making enquiries and â€Å"less pronounced and apparent in implementing action plans† (Chahal and Coleman 2003, p.39). Agencies that handle the cases from the Local authorities work on the brief give to them. Therefore it is imperative that professionals from both Local and Agency levels communicate effectively. In Victoria Climbie’s case there was evidence that the front line staff that received her case were not kept up to date on the guidelines as outlined by the Children Act of 1989. The procedure books made available to them were not up to date on the guidelines to monitor and provide care for children who were undergoing abuse. This affects the judgement of the staff and the ability to recognize an emergency or sounding the alarm. A sense of lax amongst caseworkers and front line staff is also prevalent as social work and especially working with children is not seen as an attractive career option. This has been attributed to the callous treatment of social workers by the top executives. Most of the work that social workers put into their work goes unnoticed or unappreciated. London shows a 11 per cent vacancy rate nationally in these sectors while some boroughs show as much as 40 to 50 per cent (Dfes 2003, Every Child matters, The Challenge, p.22). Because of this most front line staff are not adequately qualified to handle such sensitive issues. It is important for agency heads to be qualified in the regulations of social work to be able to empathize with the staff handling the cases and appreciate the work and

Unemployment in UK Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Unemployment in UK - Essay Example Unemployment in UK The thing that makes unemployment most dangerous is that it directly affects the growth of a nation and this is becoming evident for UK. United Kingdom, arguably Europe’s most influential country over the history has been dealing with this ailment since the early 1970’s. The unemployment rate in the United Kingdom was last reported as 8.4% in December 2011. (Hamilton) Due to this it is very important to analyze the cause of this mass unemployment in UK, and to find viable solutions to this particular problem. Summary of Articles As proposed by Hamilton, in his article â€Å"U.K. Unemployment Increases as Global Outlook Cut: Economy† published in Business Week (January 18, 2012), mass unemployment in UK touched its zenith in 16 years in November 2011. This was primarily due to Britain’s plunge into recession again. The unemployment rate according to the International Labour Organisation (ILO) rose to a staggering 8.4%, the highest recorded since January 199 6. The number of people attaining jobless benefits rose to a figure of 1.6million. The World Banks’ estimation of global growth has experienced repeated down grades in last three years. The prime reason that has been forwarded by them is a declining state of the UK economy. Since UK is a part of the European Union and enjoys a quite significant status hence the euro-area crisis is being compounded by Prime Minister David Cameron’s budget cuts. This is affecting consumer confidence negatively and will lead to a further loss of employment for about 700000 workers by 2017. As specified by Nida Ali, an economic adviser in the Ernst & Young item club, the future for the labour market is pretty dismal. She even expects the rate of unemployment to rise by another 9.3% in a year. ITEM (Independence Treasury Economic Model) Club acknowledged that Britain has been struck by recession once again and Europe’s incapability to end the crisis of debt had a simultaneous effect on Royal Bank of Scotland group in United Kingdom. It has proposed last week that it will shut down its corporate-finance units and equities that will cut down almost 35000 jobs. Hamilton has also cited the ITEM club regarding the possibility of 600 job cut by â€Å"Premier Foods Plc† to illustrate the grim situation in UK job market. (Hamilton) According to Barrow in his article â€Å"Foreign workers take yet more UK jobs as number of Britons in work plunges and youth unemployment hits 1 million† published in Daily mail UK, a prime reason for unemployment in UK is the increased absorption of foreign workers by the firms belonging to UK instead of own domestic workers. Most of the business entities in UK hire foreign workers and that has left United Kingdom’s unemployment rate at the highest in 17years. The ministers termed this as â€Å"unacceptable†, but the management of the reputed entities in UK pointed out that many young British workers are lazy an d incapable at basic works, which made them to shift towards the foreign workers. As an example, the proportion of foreign workers at a leading firm of plumbers, â€Å"Plimico Plumbers†, has doubled over the past two years because the domestic British workers lack the right work ethics. Furthermore it is often seen that the workers are more interested in real wage than nominal wage courting a fall in their purchasing power. (Barrow) Evaluation & Conclusion It has been specified by Hamilton that the Prime Minister of UK has been administering a budget

OUT OF THE LOOP IN SILICON VALLEY Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

OUT OF THE LOOP IN SILICON VALLEY - Essay Example So many start-up tech companies are set up in the region annually, but nearly all of them are led by men. Those exceptional ones that are founded by women face difficulties in getting funding for projects. So, despite being progressive in many respects, there is yet no complete acceptance of women in top managerial roles. Another issue raised by the article is the stereotyping of women’s possible career paths right from high-school. It is partly true that many girls do not have a natural inclination toward subjects such as math and science. But even those who show interests in these subjects are either discouraged, denied opportunity or under-funded in fulfilling their aspirations. A third key issue raised by Ms. Claire Miller is the practical difficulties faced by women entrepreneurs, especially young women who wanted to raise families. Such issues discussed in Out of the Loop are highly relevant to contemporary American society and are analyzed in detail by Jessica Valenti i n her popular recent book Full Frontal Feminism. In an attempt to bring awareness about Feminism to the younger generation of women, Valenti uses easy language and accessible real-life examples to illustrate her points.

Effects of News Media Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Effects of News Media - Essay Example Secondly, the journalists have often received threats of violence and legal action from people avoiding unfavorable publicity. This is a significant challenge especially if the coverage is on drugs or political agendas that are opposed to the government. The career is also risky based on the bribes that are presented to the media to avoid publication of an unfavorable story. Some journalists may be vulnerable to bribes which results to dishonest at work and an eventual dismissal. Other key challenges relate to gifts that are used by leading companies to buy friendship with the media so as to avoid bad publicity, family where a journalist may fear to offend the clan, organization or friends by producing an article on them and tradition in which case the writer may be pressured into a certain patterns of behavior (Campbell, Martin & Fabos 387). As a journalist, one has to be careful on what sites in the web the right information can be obtained. The credibility of information especially with regard to political issues in the websites is questionable since most of the people will post issues that favor and are of interest to them. Some may not even weigh the repercussion of the information they post in these sites. A journalist thus has a challenge to look at the formation provided and obtain data that is relevant, accurate, fair, unbiased and concentrate more on the content information and source. In this case, the journalist has to understand that the news publicized influence the level of thinking of the readers of such content. Therefore, media production is not just about writing articles, but more about filtering all content to ensure that the information provided is proper. The information and news media have influenced the American culture through many ways. Not only do they produce proper and relevant information, but also destructive sites especially with regard to pornographic material. The media thus has a social

Innovation versus Invention Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Innovation versus Invention - Essay Example Novelty is the introduction of a new idea into the world. While dealing with innovation, an idea does not have to be new except in a specific situation. When a company introduces an idea to the world, it is said to be innovative regardless of whether it is new to the industry or not. Basically, an invention is novel and potentially practically applicable whereas an innovation is usually practically applicable and hence introduced into the market. In terms of stages, invention is seen as an early stage while innovation is the end stage where the introduction of the ideas is presented to the end user. Innovation is categorized into two namely, product or service and process. Product or service innovation is about launching of new and improved products or services to the market. Some of its advantages to man include higher prices and profitability, added value, increased market shares and improved public relations. Process innovation deals with better and efficient ways of producing existing products and better ways of delivering existing services. This has benefited mankind in terms of reduced costs, improved quality of services and more responsive customer services. One example of innovation that has impacted man’s existence is the application of Bluetooth technology in mobile and computer devices for faster, cheaper and more convenient transfer of files and information.

Energy Conservation Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

Energy Conservation - Research Paper Example Though the imperative to conserve energy is as old as the use of energy itself (Wulfinghoff, n.d.) it could be argued that the modern push for energy conservation has been driven by overreliance on fossil fuels and the accompanying fear over their rate of depletion, rising costs of fossil fuels and the effects of fossil fuels on the environment. Herein we can single out the production of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases that lead to global warming as a significant environmental problem within energy conservation. Greenhouse gases are those gases that absorb and emit heat in the atmosphere e.g. carbon dioxide, methane, water vapor and nitrous oxide. Water vapor and carbon dioxide are the greatest contributors to the greenhouse effect. However, according to Jacob (1999) water vapor resides in the atmosphere for a period of about nine days before it condenses and precipitates, unlike carbon dioxide and the other greenhouse gases which mix in the atmosphere and reside there for years. It is this lack of natural processes to remove the greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide that leads to the earth heating up because the gases entrap heat within our atmosphere. Seas / lakes, vegetation, land, wildlife and livestock are some of the living and nonliving factors that contribute to or are affected by energy conservation. Seas have a huge potential with regards to providing an alternative source of energy in the form of wave or tidal energy. Tidal energy provides a renewable source of electricity that should lessen our dependence on fossil fuels thus reduce our emissions of greenhouse gases. However, it must be noted that harnessing tidal energy through building of dams near bays or estuaries could result in negative impacts on aquatic and shoreline ecosystems (Ocean Energy Council, n.d.). Secondly, utilising seas/oceans for energy generation would reduce the need to open up more oil exploration in the seas which could lead to leaks and