History Of Information Technology Essay

The history of the Information Technology has been divided into four periods Pre Mechanical (3000BC-1450AD). Mechanical (1450AD-1840AD). Electro Mechanical (1840AD-1970AD). Electronic (1970AD-Today) These periods are categorized with successful breakthroughs. The first economical computer was introduced in the year 1946, which is called Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer (ENIC). The general purpose computer was developed in the name of UNIVAC (Universal Automatic Computer) in 1940. Before it came into usage Lyons Electronic Office (LEO) came out and became the world’s first commercial computer. After this, there was a rapid development in the information technology starting from 1969-today, with the continuous development in the features of the computers. ARPANET is introduced in 1969, which is funded by the defence. First single chip processor was introduced by Intel and named as Intel 4004 in 1971. Graphical User Interface and Mouse are experimentally used by The Xerox Paulo Alto Research Center in 1973. The first electronic spreadsheet program was used in 1979. In 1981, IBM introduced first personal computer with operating system developed by Microsoft. . When did it (Information Technology) begin to impact society? The impact of science and technology on society is very high. The impact created by the information technology is even higher. It revolutionized the structure of the management and nature of competition in many of the industrial sector. IT became one the important service sector in many countries. In developed countries like USA it amounts to 74% of GDP, 76% of the national employment and also a trade of about $ 52 billions. Generally service sector includes technology-intensive and technically sophisticated firms in banking, insurance, transportation, health care, professional and personal services. IT with its advantages such as less expensive, more portable, better integrated and better embedded in many devices is in a position to reach out quickly. New applications and interactive multimedia systems for business, home entertainment, and communication purpose has enhanced the scope of IT and likely to evolve and also likely to have a profound effect on industry structure, employment and economic growth. Now a day’s world economy is booming with white – collar services rather than the blue collar services. The white collar services include research, education, design, accounting, marketing, logistic planning, communication, information management etc. these types of activities are important to the individual service industry. The standard of the living and the competitiveness in the world trade will be determined on how the information technology is deployed and used. Society is a broad grouping of people having common traditions, institutions, collective activities and interests. The integration of society and information technology can be seen in two areas, first the institutions and next the collective activities of the society. IT has influence on the common traditions such as customary pattern of thought, action or behavior and even religious practice or a social custom. With easy access to information, change is observed not only among people within, but through out the world. The social attitude of the citizens has also changed tremendously and every one is expecting various elements of that society to be better informed than before. They are getting more information regarding the subject matter of their choice and about the specific product. With the availability of information they are in a position to know about the services of any organizations and even its back ground. The institutions such as Governments, commercial businesses, News and Media organizations, Educational organizations also have profound influence on the society using the information technology. With the IT development the government is able to give the data easily and the people are able to receive information with out going to the government offices. There is lot of improvement in the e-governance too. IT also improved defense capabilities by helping government in gathering intelligence information. Information technology has helped commercial business activities by offering different software with advances of computer aided design, spread sheets, word processing software not only helped this branch commercially but also automated their business process. Use of internet and satellite television by News and Media organization is a perfect example of Information and Technology’s success. Education system became even closer to the students with the online studies. Even the researchers are able to make their research with wider source of information with in less time. What is the impact of technology on: Individuals Every individual is a part and parcel of the society. For the development of society proper interaction is also necessary. The IT has enhanced the scope of interaction among the members of the society. Introduction of online debates and online voting helped each individual to become part and parcel of administration system and giving a true meaning to Democracy. People are using emails, chartrooms, blogs etc,. Society is able to distribute information quickly, efficiently and cheaply. Society now expects the creation of new information to be facilitated by these new technologies Individual’s education became easy with the recent development in IT. gathering and storing information has become routine. . He is able to do online courses for his academic career, getting the online tutors etc. His mode of education has imparted several new technologies with the technical advancements. Now the designing work, architectural work etc, had been automated with the technical advancement. Information and technology has its mark on Economic reforms as well. In the modern world superior technologies have automated business process there by bringing pace in business activities. Invest management got organized with use of technology. The government has played major role in developing technology in many ways. The US Government invested billions of rupees to develop technology and with aim of making economically sound. Information Technology not only cost effective, it has helped individual to make decisions faster. As decision making has direct impact on profitability, with easy access to all the relevant data. In the due course wastage in terms of time, money and labor has drastically reduced.

Critical Analysis of Women Behind Bars Essay

More and more women-mothers, grandmothers, wives, daughters, and sisters are doing hard prison time all across the United States. Many of them are facing the prospect of years, decades, even lifetimes behind bars. Oddly, there’s been little public discussion about the dramatic increase of women in the prison system. What exactly is happening here, and why? This paper will be a critical analysis of the book, â€Å"Women Behind Bars: The Crisis of Women in the U.S. Prison System. This paper will Introduction Journalist Silja Talvi’s Women Behind Bars: The Crisis of Women in The U.S Prison System is an overview of issues affecting incarcerated women. The goal of the book Women Behind Bars is to increase the awareness about the growing population of women prisoners. Women Behind Bars presents a number of important issues regarding women prisoners. Incarcerated women’s stories represent a distillation of the larger forces that affect free women like racism, sexism and economic pressure. For these reasons, Silja Talvi explains, â€Å"incarcerated women should not be forgotten, despite the stigma of their criminal convictions and their physical removal from the community† (Talvi, 2007). Additionally, though incarcerated women may be locked up, they should not be overlooked. Women Behind Bars succinctly illustrates some of the important connections involving the War on Drugs, racial disparity, medical neglect: physically and psychologically, and the high rate of substance abuse and physical and sexual abuse among incarcerated women. Silja Talvi’s aim is to â€Å"shed light on what has contributed to this historic phenomenon of the mass incarceration of women in the United States† (Talvi, 2007). This paper will give background on how Silja J.A. Talvi researched the increase of female incarceration. This paper will also give insight surrounding the problems of the women, who Silja J.A. Talvi interviewed, faced while incarcerated. Additionally, outside resources pertaining to the issue of women in prison will be mentioned throughout this paper. Finally, an informed opinion based on the collection of outside information and what  was learned from the book will be presented. Silja J.A. Talvi bases her account on interviews with women prisoners. Silja J.A. Talvi had in-person and phone interviews with roughly one hundred women prisoners over a two year span. She also received letters from approximately three hundred women behind bars. In addition, she interviewed more than a dozen women who has been releases form jail or prison. Silja J.A. Talvi stayed in regular contact with fifty women locked up in state and federal prisons in seventeen states. In addition, Silja Talvi visited he women’s county jails in Los Angeles and San Francisco, as well as the Seattle/King County detention facility for juveniles. Silja Talvi also spent a fair amount of time talking with and learning from low-income women on Seattle streets who were willing to talk about their encounters with law enforcement and incarceration. Internationally, Silja Talvi was also granted permission to visit three women’s prisons, including the European Union’s biggest women’s prison, Holloway, in London, England; the sole female prison on Hameenlinna, Finland; and a provincial Canadian prison in British Columbia. Silja Talvi focuses on these women because she believes â€Å"that incarcerated females are the most misunderstood population in the vast U.S. incarceration system† (Talvi, 2007). These accounts from the women interviewed will further the insight on the realities of female incarceration. Further on this topic of incarceration, the author, Silja J.A. Talvi has stated that the United States has more people in prison than any other nation. â€Å"By mid-2006, the total number of women and men in prison rose to over 2.24 million, representing a significant increase from earlier year† (Harrison & Beck, 2006). Relatively speaking, more than one thousand prisoners are added to the prison and jail system every single week (Harrison & Beck, 2006). Meanwhile, â€Å"the number of incarcerated adult women has jumped by a shocking 757% since 1977, at nearly twice the rate of male prisoners† (Harrison & Beck, 2006). â€Å"The number of women in prisons and jails has reached a milestone,† explains Kara Gotsch, director of advocacy for the Sentencing project in Washington, DC. One of the main reasons why women are being locked up at an alarming rate is a result of a policy of mass incarceration. â€Å"Mass incarceration is a rate of incarceration so high that it affects not only the individual offender, but also whole social groups.† (American Academy of Arts & Sciences, 2011) Pursuing further, another main reason of  the increase of incarceration of women are the sentencing policies brought about by the â€Å"war on drugs.† â€Å"At the Federal level, prisoners incarcerated on a drug charge comprise half of the prison population, while the number of drug offenders in state prisons has increased thirteen-fold since 1980. Most of these people are not high-level actors in the drug trade, and most have no prior criminal record for a violent offense.† (sentencingpolicy.org) According to an excerpt in the Journal of Criminology, women are more likely to serve time for drug-related offenses and are less likely to serve time for violent offenses. (Lalonde & Cho, 2008) In addition, with the passage of the Anti-Drug Abuse Act, women began to be arrested and charged with impunity, and were threatened increasingly with conspiracy charges if they didn’t snitch on their husbands, boyfriends, family member and acquaintances. Women were interrogated and threatened if they did not cooperate and these women would face serious repercussions. (Talvi, 2007) Many of the women that in state or federal prisons are first-time, non violent offenders sentenced on drug conspiracy charges. These women are serving far longer sentences than most first-time offender rapists, child molesters, or even murdered convicted of second degree murder or aggravated manslaughter. Furthermore, to a far greater degree than men, women come into the system with histories of sexual, physical abuse, domestic violence, rape, and mental illness. In this sense it is believed that our country is in crisis. Undoubtedly, because there are so many women locked up, there are a plethora of problems that incarcerated women face on a daily basis while in prison. Some of these problems include sexual assault and misconduct, medical neglect, deficient mental health treatment, and also discrimination based on gender, race and sexual orientation. Experiences of extreme violence and sexual abuse in women’s prisons are far worse and far too common than most American’s realize. In the United States, sexual assault by guards in women’s prisons is so notorious and widespread that it has been described as â€Å"an institutionalized component of punishment behind prison walls† (Davis, 1998). â€Å"Today it is estimated that at least 40% of guards in women’s prisons are men. In some female prisons, the majority of employees are men.† (Talvi, 2007) In these kinds of settings, there are violations of women’s privacy, as well as visual and verbal abuse by the male guards. Today, â€Å"one in four women reports having been sexually abused while being in  jail or prison† (Talvi, 2007). In addition to reports of violent restraint and punishment resulting in abrasions, cuts, bruises and even broken bones, women stated that they were subjected to humiliating strip searches and verbal harassment. Talvi explains that most of the women she interviewed in these prisons are in fear to even say anything about their abuse because of the likeliness to face the wrath of prison guards. The prison guards will cut visitation and phone privileges, take away prized possessions, and threaten these women and their families with bodily harm. On another note, According to Kim Shayo Buchanan, in an article called, â€Å"Beyond Modesty: Privacy in Prison and The Risk Of Sexual Abuse† basically explains, if women are being victimized by male guards in prison, it does them no harm to expose the problem by saying so. It is pointed out that black women are often discouraged from speaking out about sexual abuse because of concerns that, by speaking out about sexual harassment by black men, black women â€Å"will reinforce negative racial stereotypes about Blacks in general and about Black men in particular.† (Buchanan, 2005) Furthermore, ineffective formal procedures, legislation and reporting capacity within the United States prison system account for much of the ongoing sexual abuse of women. In several instances, guards who were disciplined for the abuse of women were reprimanded to the minimum degree. The frequency of sexual harassment and abuse in a prison environment is a constant reminder of how little power the women have over their lives once they are sentenced to do time. The sexually intrusive or abusive nature of these experiences in prison has a devastating impact on a women’s likelihood of achieving a healthy and successful reentry in society. When women leave jail or prison, with even more traumatic experiences heaped upon their life experiences, these women might endure low self-esteem issues, shame and rage. Within the book, Silja Talvi explains, â€Å"that these women who do re-enter into society, manifest any number of serious problems: continuing mental and/or physical illness the likelihood of an interruption of their treatment and medicines; loss of custody of their children; limited education or career opportunities; a lack of safe or stable housing; and the temptations to indulge in drug use or criminal activity.† If these factors are in place, it is believed that these women will find themselves back in the prison system intertwined in a vicious cycle. Secondly, a problem that is also plaguing women’s prisons is medical neglect and carelessness. While medical care for all prisoners is poor, the situation is far worse for women prisoners. Because prison health care systems were created for men, routine gynecological care, such as pap smears, breast exams and mammograms, is extremely rare in prisons. (Talvi, 2007) Care is frequently only administered once the situation becomes an emergency. In addition, women are denied essential medical resources and treatments, especially during times of pregnancy and/or chronic and degenerative diseases. There is also failure to refer seriously ill inmates for treatment and delays in treatment, cutbacks in budgets, lack of qualified personnel, inadequate supplies, and use of non-medical staff, charges for medical attention, inadequate reproductive health care, and lack of treatment for substance abuse. In the same sense, a factor that magnifies the severity of physical illnesses and disease is a nutrient poor, high fat diet. Fruits and vegetables are nearly non-existent in prisons. Relatively speaking, â€Å"the extensive overcrowding in some of these prisons lends itself to a concentration of mental and medical health problems that the prison system was never designed to handle† (Talvi, 2007). Thirdly, deficient mental health treatment is a serious issue when dealing with the incarceration of females. â€Å"48-88% of women inmates experienced sexual or physical abuse before coming to prison, and suffer post-traumatic stress disorder. Very few prison systems provide counseling. Women attempting to access mental health services are routinely given medication without opportunity to undergo psychotherapeutic treatment.† (Amnesty International, 2011) The overuse of jails and prisons to treat mental illness in society is problematic itself. Many of these women would be better served by intensive treatment programs and community based care rather than being thrown in prisons. The environment of prison can make an inmate’s mental health worse, not better. â€Å"Most prison systems lack treatment settings and programs for these prisoners. For instance, most state prisons, refused admittance to a psychiatric inpatient unit if inmates have a record of violent episodes† writes Kupers in Prison Madness. â€Å"they tend to wind up in super maximum confinement, where the harsh conditions and forced idleness worsen their mental disorders, followed by more disruptive behaviors on their part and  even longer terms in lockup.† (Kupers, 1999) A majority of the corrections employees are not trained in any extent in psychology or social work, and are most generally uneducated about the common symptoms of various psychiatric disorders and states of emotional distress. In these prisons that Talvi had visited she felt that there is high level of ignorance and outright hostility toward the mentally ill. The separation between mental health and disciplinary is lacking in many of the prisons. In a book called Prison Madness, Terry Kupers, an expert in psychiatric issues in prison criticizes this issue of mental illness treatment within prisons. â€Å"When behaviors on the part of mentally disordered prisoners-including suicide attempts, self-mutilation, rule breaking, and even some minor violent incidents-are secondary to their mental disorder, they should not be handled entirely as disciplinary infractions requiring punishment. Too often, disruptive acts are merely punished and the possibility that they reflect an imminent psychotic episode or a need for immediate psychiatric attention is never even considered.† (Kupers, 1999) In light of the issue surrounding the treatment of the mentally ill prisoners, suicide rates within in these prisons are at an increase. An investigator appointed by U.S. District Judge Lawrence Karlton took a look into the mental healthcare in the state prison system, and to find out a reason behind the increase in suicides. It was found that prisoners in overcrowded and understaffed Administrative Segregation units are killing themselves in unprecedented numbers. Confining a suicidal inmate to their cell for twenty-four hours a day only enhances isolation and anti- therapeutic. (Talvi, 2007) In addition to insufficient substance abuse and mental health services, educational and vocational programs are also in short supply. Several studies (Pollock-Byrne, Morash, Haarr, and Rucker) found that female prisons offered fewer vocational and education program opportunities when compared to those offered in male institutions. Educational program opportunities could help successful integrate these incarcerated women back into the community. Lastly, discrimination based on gender, race and sexual orientation is a significant matter of contention in women’s prisons. The growth in incarceration has had its greatest impact on minorities, particularly African Americans. â€Å"Over a five-year period, the incarceration rate of African American women increased by 828%.† (NAACP LDF Equal Justice, 1998.) Also, according to Amnesty U.S.A,  the racial disparity revealed by the crack v. powder cocaine sentences insures that more African American women will land in prison. Although 2/3 of crack users are white or Hispanic, defendants convicted of crack cocaine possession were 84.5% African American. Crack is the only drug that carries a mandatory prison sentence for first time possession in the federal system. (prisonpolicy.org) Women are most vulnerable to different forms of discrimination, including sexual harassment or abuse. Women that do not fit the norm, such as lesbians, face increased risk of torture and abuse. Many of the prisoners Silja Talvi had interviewed expressed their grief about always getting taunted because of their sexual orientation. The issues facing lesbians and bisexuals in the criminal justice system aren’t just limited to what goes on behind bars. One study conducted by Victor Streib, a professor of law at Cleveland State University points to the possibility that lesbians, or women who do not appear to appear feminine, may be victims of harsher sentencing. In addition, lesbian or non feminine women who had entered the prison system may very well have less if a shot at an early release. (Streib, 2002) Human Rights Watch has documented categories of women who are likely targets for sexual abuse. Perceived or actual sexual orientation is one of four categories that make a female prisoner a more likely target for sexual abuse, as well as a target for retaliation when she reports that abuse. (HRW, 2010) These issues facing these women in the criminal justice system are not just limited to what goes on behind bars. In conclusion, based on the information provided from Women Behind Bars and many outside resources, the incarceration of women is at an all time high. Most likely, the number of incarcerated women will increase in the upcoming years unless the problem of mass incarceration is solved permanently. I feel as that as a result of drug laws, women are now a fast growing segment of the U.S. prison population. It is my belief that women are particularly vulnerable to such policies as mandatory minimums, because they are more likely than men to be incarcerated for drug-related or petty, non-violent property crimes. It is these arrests that are driving their high rates of incarceration. The problem of women in prison is directly tied to current US drug policy. For the last ten years, researchers have argued that the war on drugs has become a war on women (Belknap, 2002; Bloom & Chesney-Lind, 2000; Owen, 2000 & 1998, Cheney-Lind, 1997). In my opinion, one of several  alarming statistics is, The Bureau of Prisons reports that almost 80% of their female population is incarcerated for drug-related offenses. Relatively speaking, I think factors of poverty, psychosocial problems, mental illness, histories of trauma and abuse, and involvement in abusive relationships can lead up to a life of criminal behavior in women. Furthermore, based on information, statistics, and stories provided from the book Women Behind Bars and also from outside resources, it is my conclusion to say that many things could be altered within the prison system. First of all, I believe there are simply far too many women in prison for enough people to be drawn to the difficult job of guarding and rehabilitating these women and addressing their needs. With the information that has been researched, women’s prisons are poorly equipped to deal with the range of issues and needs of an ever-increasing female population. One of the things that struck me when reading the book is the degree to which jails and prisons have become America’s new mental health facilities. Also in regards of the issue of incarcerated mentally ill, I believe that basic education could be provided to correctional staff. Furthermore, guards could be taught to calm and talk the dangerous mentally ill women down from fits of paranoia, anxiety, or distress. Also, many of these women would be better served by intensive treatment programs and community-based transitional care, instead of just being thrown into the prison system. Furthermore, I feel that the extreme abuse of women in prison is a serious problem. I believe this action also harms society because it decreases the legitimacy of the justice system. If society cannot trust those responsible for guarding our prisons to behave properly, there is little hope for the rehabilitation of women in prison. Personally, I feel the prison has a place, but it is not in the persecution of non-violent females. I think there can be a lot more rehabilitation for these women. Many of these women in prison have emotional and psychological issues and because of the abuse, discrimination, and medical neglect, it is only going to make matters far worse. An excerpt from Silja Talvi’s Women Behind Bars that I found captivating that summed up a lot of what the book was about is, â€Å"Imprisoned girls and women deserve a chance to heal from past abuse, and to learn from their life experiences and the nature of their crimes. Before women and released, they must be given the tools to ensure that their reintegration  into society is not fraught with immediate economic and social struggle, and to help increase the odds that they will be released into families or communities that will actually support their reintegration. Former prisoners must be given the productive tools to become productive members of society; that is, if they weren’t productive already, and if they even needed to be locked up in the first place. In general, women in prison aren’t given one iota of the emotional, social and vocational skills they need to overcome the vast hurdles awaiting them beyond the gates that have confine them for years or decades on end.† (Talvi, 2007) In closing, I never realized to a great extent of the problem of women in prison. This book, Women behind Bars and also many outside resources has enlightened me on the growing issue of female incarceration. Women in prison is a problem in itself, then leading to all of the other problems these women face while in prison. I believe the struggles that women go through, go unnoticed, and more people should be aware of the increasing problem. Finally, I feel that Silja J.A. Talvi’s book Women Behind Bars can help focus attention on this growing population of women prisoners, and maybe one day something can be done about this increasing issue. According to the text, women represent the fastest growing segment of the criminal justice system increasing 757% between 1977 and 2004, a rate nearly 2 times the percent increase in the male offender population. The number of women involved in the US criminal justice system doubled during the 1990s (Beck, 2000). An estimated 68 in every 100,000 U.S. women are serving time in a state or federal prison with increased rates to one in every 100 among black women in their late 30s. Women currently represent about 7% of the overall state and federal prison population and 24% of individuals on community supervision. Substance use and abuse have been consistently reported as major contributing factors in the increasing population of women offenders. Some have argued that increased attention to substance users during the late 1980s and 1990s during the war on drugs had particular adverse consequences for women. A majority of women offenders have a history of drug use and drug-related offenses. Conclusion In closing, the writer never realized to a great extent of the problem of women in prison. This book, Women behind Bars and also many outside resources has enlightened on the writer of the growing issue of female incarceration. Women in prison is a problem in itself, then leading to all of the other problems these women face while in prison. The struggles that women go through, go unnoticed, and more people should be aware of the increasing problem. Finally, this book, can help focus attention on this growing population of women prisoners, and maybe one day something can be done about this increasing issue. The writer believes that alcoholism and addiction is a disease. Because it is a disease, communities should address it as a health issue and not a criminal justice issue. Imprisonment only removes a symptom, but does not cure the problem. The number of women incarcerated is steadily rising at frightening rates. When you incarcerate a woman, most often, you are also incarcerating a mother. The state not only pays to house the offender, but often pays for the care of the children of the offender as well. Women offenders have special needs many of which revolve around their children. Corrections should be perceived as a positive and helping connection, not a punitive one. In our present system, unfortunately, the women must often first fail before they are given the level of treatment they needed in the beginning. A new approach to corrections, one that offers a highly structured environment and stresses accountability, as well as, addressing the individual needs of each offender will not only save money, but also more importantly, it will save lives. In addition, communities should take responsibility and become involved in getting and giving education, reaching out to their communities to offer assistance helping addicts find hope through programs that take a holistic approach to their disease. Addicts need programs that heal body, mind and, most importantly, their crushed spirit. If needs are responded to on a personal level, in a way that engenders trust and confidence, women offenders can begin to hope again and the lives of families can be rebuilt. If people do not have hope, there is nothing to strive for, no reason to change. Instead of incarceration, I believe it would be more cost-effective to put women offenders in a community based program similar to the work release program that is used for prisoners after incarceration. These programs would allow the individual to maintain a job, yet they would be held accountable for all their time. They would receive counseling on an individual basis geared toward each one’s individual needs. The best programs combine supervision and services to address the specialized needs of female offenders in highly structured, safe environments where accountability is stressed. In conclusion, I believe that if communities would make an effort to educate themselves and their communities about the disease of alcoholism and addiction, they would begin to understand the magnitude of the problem. Although there are no easy solutions, one must accept the responsibility of educating our children, offer new and innovative programs that heal holistically, and most importantly, accept responsibility that as citizens one must reach out to help those in our communities who are struggling, offering them hope, support and encouragement. References American Academy of Arts & Sciences. (2011) Retrieved from http://www.amacad.org/projects/incarceration.aspx Austin, J., Irwin, J. (2001). â€Å"It’s About Time: America’s Imprisonment Binge.† Belmont, CA: Wadsworth Publishing Co Belknap, J. (2001). â€Å"The Invisible Woman.† Gender, Crime and Justice. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth Publishing Co. Bloom, B., Chesney-Lind, M., Owen, B. (1994). â€Å"Women in California Prisons: Hidden Victims of the War on Drugs.† San Francisco, CA: Center on Juvenile and Criminal Justice. Bloom, B., Chesney-Lind, M. ( 2000). â€Å"Women in Prison; Vengeful Equity.† In It’s a Crime: Women and Criminal Justice. Roslyn Muraskin, (ed.), pp. 183-204. Upper Saddle River, New Jersey: Prentice Hall. Buchanan, K. (2005). â€Å"Beyond Modesty: Privacy in Prison and The Risk Of Sexual Abuse.† Marquette Law Review, 88(4), pp. 751-813. Bureau of Justice Statistics. (1994). â€Å"Special Report: Women in Prison.† Washington, DC: US Department of Justice Bureau of Justice Statistics. (1999). â€Å"Women Offenders.â €  Washington, DC: US Department of Justice. Davis, A. (1998). â€Å"Public Imprisonment and Private Violence: Reactions on the Hidden Punishment of Women.† Crim. & Civ. Confinement, 24, pp. 339-350. Editors. (2006). â€Å"U.S. Inmate Populations on the Rise: U.S. Leads World in Number of Incarcerated.† Correctional News. Harrison, P., Beck, J. (2006). â€Å"Prisoners in 2005.† Bureau of Justice Statistics. Human Right Watch. (2010) â€Å"Sexual Abuse of Women in U.S. State Prisons.† Retrieved from http://www.hrw.org/ Immarigeon, R., Chesney-Lind, M. (1992). â€Å"Women’s Prisons: Overcrowded and Overused.† National Council on Crime and Delinquency. San Francisco, CA Kupers, T. (1999). Prison Madness: The Mental Health Crisis Behind Bars and What We Must Do About It. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Publishers. Lalonde, R., Cho, R. (2008). â€Å"The Inpact of Incarceration in State Prison on the Employment Prospects of Women.† Journal of Quantitative Criminology, 24, 243-265, 23. doi: 10.1007/s10940-008-9050 Mauer, M, Potler, C., Wolf, R. (1999). â€Å"Gender and Justice: Women Drugs and Sentencing Policy.† The Sentencing Project. Washington, DC Owen, B. (2000). â€Å"Women and Imprisonment in the United States: The Gendered Consequences of the US Imprisonment Binge.† In Harsh Punishments: International Experiences of Women’s Imprisonment. Cook and Davies (Eds.) pp. 81-98. Northeastern Press. Streib, V. (2002). â€Å"Gendering the Death Penalty: Countering Sex Bias in a Masculine Sancutary.† Ohio State law Journal, 63 Talvi, S. (2007). Women Behind Bars: The Crisis of Women in the U.S. Prison System. Emeryville, CA: Seal Press. Van Denend, J. (2010). â€Å"Melanie Klein, Drug Crimes, and Women.† Studies in Gender & Sexuality, 11, 10-23. doi: 10.1080/15240650903445799 http://www.sentencingproject.org/template/page.cfm?id=107 http://www.prisonpolicy.org/scans/women_prison.pdf

Biology of Asthma and Allergic Disease

Biology of Asthma and Allergic Disease I. ABSTRACT The increasing prevalence of asthma and allergic diseases had inspired various researchers to conduct studies that will help understand the main causes, and solutions to the identified problem. This paper is important in creating a wider and deeper awareness and knowledge of asthma and allergic diseases. The study of the Biology of Asthma and Allergic Diseases intends to show the relationship between the increased prevalence of asthma and allergic diseases, and the hygiene hypothesis. The hygiene hypothesis claims that increasing exposure to dirt helps in creating an immune system that helps lower the incidence of asthma and allergic diseases. In this regard, gathering various studies, evaluating and creating lists of valuable evidences, and intelligently presenting them in this paper will help the public in many ways. First, the readers of this paper will have a better understanding of the biology of asthma and allergic diseases and to adopt possible solutions; second, this paper will pose a challenge to researchers, interested on this topic, to conduct further research studies; and third, various institutions studying this phenomenon may utilize this research to further support their claims. II. INTRODUCTION Asthma and allergic disease pose an increasing threat to humans. According to asthma statistics, there are an estimated 300 million people around the world who suffers from asthma, and 250,000 deaths have been attributed to the disease annually (www.aaaai.org). In the United States, there are an estimated 34.1 million Americans during their lifetime, who have been diagnosed with the asthma disease (www.aaaai.org). What is more disturbing is the fact that, about 70% of people with asthma have allergies as well. The American Academy of Allergy Asthma & Immunology estimated that by the year 2025, over 100 million people will have asthma. In a survey conducted in the homes of Americans, it was found out that approximately one quarter had dust mit es allergens in their bed, which is considered high enough level to trigger asthma. Statistics also showed that in 2007, 29% of children who had an allergy to food also had asthma. In fact, asthma was ranked as the third reason for the hospitalization among children under 15 years old (www.aaaai.org). This paper titled Biology of Asthma and Allergic Disease: Hygiene hypothesis explains the biological basis of asthma and allergic diseases and the hygiene hypothesis as its focus area of research. The researcher will also focus on providing a deeper understanding of asthma and allergic disease, in terms of the disease s form, structure, function, growth and development, and behavior. Current researches on the hygiene hypothesis will be presented including the study s aim, methods and results. Moreover, this research paper will explain the value and application of the related research findings to the public health. Likewise, examples will be provided to give the readers with an understa nding of how the presented information can be used in improving the public health policy, programs, and practice. III. RESEARCH The increase cases of asthma and allergic disease around the world have led to various researches and studies of its causes. The International Study of Asthma and Allergy in Children in 2003, revealed that countries such as Australia, New Zealand and the United Kingdom have the highest prevalence of asthma (Holgate, 2004). The percentage rate of children with asthma in these countries was recorded at 20%, way higher than the recorded asthma patients in Central Africa, Central and Eastern Europe and China, which was less than 5% (Holgate, 2004). The report was confirmed when the European Community Respiratory Health Survey gathered almost similar results on difference of the prevalence on adult asthma and bronchial hyperresponsiveness in intercountry samples (Holgate, 2004). Although the suspected cause of the increased asthma may be genetic, a critical role of the environmental factors in the increased prevalence of asthma and other allergic disease is almost certain (Jarvis & Burney, 2000).

Are Alternative Energy Sources the Answer to Ending Human Dependence Research Paper

Are Alternative Energy Sources the Answer to Ending Human Dependence on Oil - Research Paper Example Are alternative energy sources the answer to ending human dependence on oil? Defining alternative energy: Alternative energy is the resultant product of alternative fuels, and these are anything that is not â€Å"fossil† based. The question that needs to be answered here is whether or not alternative energy sources are really the answer to ending humanities dependence on fossil based fuels, primarily oil. According to an article in the Virginia Environmental Law Journal, â€Å"All renewable sources of energy (including hydroelectric, biomass, wind, geothermal, and solar) will increase by an annual rate of approximately 2.2 percent and will constitute over ten percent of the overall domestic energy production by 2030† (Rosenberg, 2008). Understanding the mechanisms behind wind energy: Wind power has been utilized for centuries to pump water, grind grain into flour and in the modern times it is used to generate electricity to drive appliances and more. There are many plac ers around the world where steady relatively strong winds remain almost all year long. In these locations the use of efficient wind power may in fact be beneficial, however, as some have seen the installation of wind powered turbines large enough to generate an adequate supply of electricity take up a substantial amount of land, and cause eyesores as well as displacement of wild animals in some areas. Additionally the use of expensive and maintenance intensive batteries filled with environmentally dangerous chemicals adds to the downside of wind power. These drawbacks do not necessarily mean that wind power is not a valid option, in fact they simply mean that there are areas where work should be applied to generate a less expensive, more environmentally sound approach to storage of the electricity and to the actual generation of it through wind power. For some in the windy areas of the United States installing individual wind generating systems and towers is a relatively inexpensive proposition with a long term benefit for the homeowner. Arizona has seen a proliferation of small home sized wind towers and more importantly solar power. Understanding the mechanisms behind solar energy: Solar energy is another form of renewable energy that is virtually free, it is the methods used to harness it that cause consternation or are currently cost prohibitive on a large scale. Solar powered farms generate large amounts of steam, which means they require a large amount of water and they use oil cooled piping and reservoirs to channel the steam and generate the electricity. As a result there are still environmental concerns, and of course the additional concerns that accompany the creation of several square miles of solar farms, which unfortunately is what it would take for a medium sized city. Though technology is advancing there are still drawbacks to the use of solar power. This of course does not mean that using solar power for the individual’s home or for a sm all co-operative of homes is not a beneficial idea. In fact with some of the newer longer lasting gel cell batteries that are relatively maintenance free one can economically supply power to a small community of 5-10 houses without utilizing coal or oil based electric sources. There are numerous small solar powered

Memo Case Study Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words - 4

Memo - Case Study Example The first thing the organization needs to establish is the goals. These will lean towards what the organization is aiming to achieve and what they want to attain within the short term that is less than a year and in a few years’ time. In order to attain the goals, it is necessary to have desired outcomes such as having financial security and a larger clientele base for sustainability of the organization. The desired outcomes will be accompanied by a timeline with set time limit to attain the outcomes. This will pressure the employees and board members into working harder and smarter. Strategies to attain the desired outcomes need to be put in place. These may include letting go of the unproductive board members, employees and trustees as they add no value to the organization’s success. New board members can be brought in who have knowledge in business and economics. The new members will work with the earlier proposals and plans of the development committee and the new goals in mind. Measure of the target and strategies should be put in place to be carried out after every two months and the final results to be released on or before the set timeline. Strong leadership provides direction and guidance for the rest of the people in the organization without which there will be disorganization and chaos as is currently the case in ECO. The board and trustees should come together with assistance from neutral party seek a new leader from outside the current individuals who has business experience. Evaluation of progress made will be carried out after every two months and will focus on the challenges and strengths made by the leader. The board is in charge of seeking funds to run the organization which is carried out through fundraising. Without the funds to run the organization, it will have to be closed and the employees lose their source of livelihood. The older more

Potential Role of The Yuan as the New Reserve Currency Essay

Potential Role of The Yuan as the New Reserve Currency - Essay Example These are large economic base, political stability, and a low rate of inflation (IMF, WB & World Bank Group, 2009). It should also be backed by a joint international monetary authority that is capable of asserting compliance among its member states, which must in turn comprise a significant number of nations in the world (Finance and Development, 2009). The currency must be sellable or tradable without limitation (Levine, 2009). Since the currency is supposed to be, according to Levine, a â€Å"safe haven† for other currencies, they should be able to have access to huge sums of it without restriction. This is because inadequate reserves of the currency would compromise the ability of that country to trade in that currency or participate in international transactions denominated in it. The international currency’s home economic and political systems must also be stable enough and fundamentally sound to support international transactions among countries. In order to engen der confidence in the reserve currency, the valuation of said currency must be transparent to all for them to consider holding that currency in significant quantities. Because the determination of value is for the most part subjective, the matter of the country’s governance may not be concealed from the world, and therefore the political ideology of the country must be supportive of full disclosure (Cohen, 2007). Recent developments that triggered the search for a substitute It has already been mentioned that the large current account deficit and huge public debt of the United States are primarily responsible for the weakness of the dollar as the primary medium of exchange. Ordinarily,...This paper presents a comprehensive analysis, that aims to determine whether or not the renminbi would provide a real substitute for the dollar as principal international reserve currency within the next ten years, and whether such a substitution will stabilize the global currency market and prevent further recurrences of financial crises as the world had experienced in the past. The international reserve currency performs three vital functions of money – that is, as medium of exchange, as unit of account, and as store of value. There are many reasons for the yuan to be considered as a possible alternative, the most important of which is its position as the top trading country in the world. It has amassed some 3 trillion dollars worth of international reserves, two-thirds of which is in U.S. dollars, thus this country is capable of exerting economic pressure on the U. S. Yearly it experiences record current account surpluses, compared to the U.S.’s accumulating current account deficit and public debt. Despite these positive factors, there are also serious concerns. China’s financial markets are still highly restricted, and its currency is still unable to trade in open market, let alone be freely converted into other currencies. Other than currency concerns, China’s economic and political infrastructure are in need of a fundamental change. Corruption must be addressed, and the system made more transparent, in order to afford investors and fund managers a clearer view by which to assess the political risks of the currency.

International Financial Theory on the basis of Empirical Evidence Essay

International Financial Theory on the basis of Empirical Evidence - Essay Example The PPP theory states that there will be price equalization of goods internationally once they are measured in the same currency due to arbitrage forces (Pilbeam, 2006). This theory is based on the law of one price, which states that identical products when sold in different markets will sell at the same price when expressed in common currency. The main assumptions for this law to hold good are the presence of a competitive market structure, absence of transport costs and other barriers to trade (Sarno and Taylor, 2002).There are two types of purchasing power parity; the absolute and relative power parity. The absolute power parity theory states that a rise in the home price level relative to the foreign price level will result in an equivalent depreciation of the home currency against the foreign currency. Relative power parity states that there will be adjustments for the exchange rate by the amount of inflation differential between two countries (Pilbeam, 2006). The main problem w ith the PPP theory is that it does not distinguish between traded and non-traded goods. Many studies have shown that this distinction is important for testing PPP since traded goods are determined mainly by international competition while non-traded goods are influenced by domestic supply and demand conditions (Officer, 1976, 1986). At the same time, some other authors have showed distinction between traded and non-traded goods as unclear (Sarno and Taylor, 2002).The other limitations are the assumptions underlying the PPP theory like perfect competition, absence of transport costs and barriers to trade which are questionable. Further, it is very difficult to find identical products to be compared for testing PPP in different countries (Rogoff, 1996). Thus PPP is theoretically ambiguous and remains and empirical question. Three types of empirical evidence for PPP have been done .They are based on graphical representations, simplistic data analysis and

Frederick Douglas - liberation of slaves Research Paper

Frederick Douglas - liberation of slaves - Research Paper Example To keep them in their place, slaves were forbidden to be taught how to read or write, they were separated from their families at even very young ages and were regularly physically and emotionally beaten as a means of keeping them in line. All of this had the effect of reducing these people to the survival instincts of animals, reinforcing concepts held by the white people as well as the slaves that this menial labor was all they were capable of – higher thought was clearly beyond the capacity of their more primitive brains. Proving that this was not the case, though, was Frederick Douglass, the first black man to appear on a presidential ticket in America. An escaped slave from Maryland, Douglass toured the country and the world telling his story and illuminating the various ways in which black people are kept in their dark imprisonment through no fault of their own and with little hope of discovering a means of true escape. In his early narrative Frederick Douglass: Life of a n American Slave, the author details his early life and education in such a way that he illustrates both the dehumanizing effects of slavery as well as those factors that operated to inspire him to ‘become a man’ rather than remaining in the role of a slave. This narrative, as well as the speeches and work Douglass did to increase awareness of the true condition of the slave, did much to convince the white people of the world that black people had equal potential when given equal opportunity. Although his exact birth date is unknown, Douglass believed he was born sometime in February of 1818, already a slave on a Maryland farm. He died on February 20, 1895. The name he was given at birth was Frederick Augustus Washington Bailey, but he later changed it as he discovered more information about his probable parentage. â€Å"He spent his early years with his grandparents and with an aunt, seeing his mother only four or five times before her death when he was

Culture group presentation (American Indian) Essay

Culture group presentation (American Indian) - Essay Example All this contributes to the manner in which in which one would regard his or her profession and make contribution towards richness of the culture and profession. These cultural characteristics are easily observed in a day to day task is carried on by an individual as well. In a country like India, in medical profession, especially doctors are considered to be miracle workers. The trust on the medical profession is immense. Along with the medical training the doctors receive, it is expected that the doctors would be empathetic and compassionate towards the patient whom they are treating with their knowledge. Both these qualities come naturally in the Indian race. Making elderly patients feel comfortable in the dispensary, for ex: giving them a hand while they climb up and down the hospital cots, talking to them to quiet their fears, helping their relatives, will all have a basic element of treating the elders with respect and love which is taught to Indians since their childhood. This factor will be absolutely evident in the manner in which the Indian doctors will treat their patients. Another different characteristic of Indian psychology will be turning to alternative medicine rather than allopathic medicines. Indian traditional medicine also believes in the well being of a person, that is the spiritual, physical and psychological balance of a human being. The harmony in these three factors contributes to the healthy life of a human immensely. Hence the western medicine is also increasingly tilting towards meditation and yoga. Doctor scientist such as Dean Ornish has effectively used Indian therapies in his famous experiment of reversing heart disease and leading a healthy and balanced life. It is not only about homeopathic medicines but also about naturopathic or ayurvedic medicines which people have been taking without any medical consultation and trusting them. Medicinal property ingredients

Proposal 1 Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Proposal 1 - Assignment Example The primary focus of DroneIn will cater for developing more friendly and wholesome drones. Since there is an increasing rate of insecurity, my firm will create drones that cater for the growing market. I am not ignorant of the fact that, there are other established firms, which seems to have a relatively large share in this market. As such, i have established prior mechanisms that will enable me to cater for what the big players have left out. Although there are many player in this sector, there has VectorCal appears to be more established than a vast majority of other firms in this sector. It is a long way ahead, though there are promising results a willing heart. There are a number of weaknesses that I have seen in VectorCal, this create a open gap for exploitation. As mentioned earlier, VectorCal has not fully met the growing needs of a vast majority of consumers, additionally; this firm has a relatively weak forecasting method that have mainly focussed on short term goals success, poses clear threats. Ultimately, DroneIn will seek to be the leading entity in this sector with regards to provision of friendly but yet sophisticated drones that will serve the needs of the ever change consumers. Additionally, my firm will establish long term relationships with the consumers through offering affordable and easily controllable drones (Barnhart, 2012: pg 240-241). Conclusively, my firm will strive to give the consumers a reason to continuously work with us. My target consumers mainly involve governments, private security agencies and individuals. There are prior measures that have been established to cater for the different needs that are evident in the three groups. As for the government, I have ensured that there will be more faster and yet stable drones. Since private agencies have a growing need for drones that are smaller, I have sourced out relevant technologies that will

Main Death Camp in 1942 Essay Example for Free

Main Death Camp in 1942 Essay Firstly, until mid-1943, the main death camps were camps similar to Sobibor, Belzec, and Treblinka. However, when all of the ‘non desirables’ had been liquidated, these camps shut down. Death camps were only meant to be a temporary place, and once their job was completed, they would quickly be dismantled. Auschwitz was different. It incorporated a Labour camp – so was designed for a much longer use than its’ contenders. The fact that it was one of the few camps that wasn’t temporary, meant that Jews from other areas of Europe – not just from nearby districts were sent to Auschwitz to be dealt with accordingly. This made Auschwitz’s population grow to way beyond the amount it was originally designed to hold around 11,000. However, in August 1944, the population was a massive 105,168. Secondly, the camp also had other uses, apart from a death camp. Auschwitz I was the base camp, in which the whole of Auschwitz-Birkenau was operated from, which also incorporated a few gas chambers, and prison cells. Auschwitz II-Birkenau was the main death camp, where the majority of the 1.5-2 million Jews were killed. Auschwitz II also incorporated a separate camp for Roma and Ukrainian Gypsies, where Gypsies were sent from Ghettos such as Lodz, and from countries in the Nazi Empire. Auschwitz III was the main Labour camp, where Jews and other ‘less desirables’ were held and worked for the Reich. Auschwitz also had 45 sub-camps, in the surrounding areas. These sub-camps were concentration camps, where ‘non desirables’ were held until they were moved to Auschwitz itself. The vast array of camps in Auschwitz made it the main extermination camp, as it was a lot easier sending the ‘non desirables’ to Auschwitz via train, that to build several hundred temporary Extermination camps. Lastly, Himmler ordered for the camp to increase in size, saying the existing extermination centres in the east are not sufficient to cope with an operation on such a scale. The war emphasised the quickly progressed the killings in the Death camps, and Himmler knew that there were no camps big enough to ‘deal’ with the ‘undesirables’ on an industrial level. Auschwitz by this time was quite a small camp, with good railway links to Germany and  the rest of Poland. During this time, Himmler also, said that Auschwitz should be the main camp for the proposed â€Å"Final Solutions†. In conclusion, the main reason why Auschwitz was the main Death Camp was due to the fact that Auschwitz was one of the few permanent ‘killing stations’. This meant that ‘undesirables’ were sent there from all over Europe, and overpopulated the camp. This resulted in the camp increasing in size, and overall, having over seven gas chambers and crematoriums.

Women in the Civil War Essay Example for Free

Women in the Civil War Essay Historians agree that World War II changed life for American women in the 20th century. The Civil War had just as great an impact on the lives of American women in the 19th century. (http://www.defenselink.mil) Staying at home, women could help the war effort by running businesses, making clothes, and taking care of their farms, but some women wanted to do more. Some women went to become nurses and helped wounded soldiers, some became spies, and still others posed as men and enlisted in armies, almost all women did their best to help during the civil war. Over 3,000 women served as nurses between 1861 and 1865. Since nursing schools were not established until 1873 they had no formal training. Many had no work experience outside the home. (http://www.northnet.org) As nurses, women worked in hospitals taking care of wounded soldiers. The novelist Louisa May Alcott described the soldiers as riddled with shot and shell and torn and shattered. Two famous nurses were Mary Edwards Walker, who earned a Congressional Medal Honor for her medical service, and Clara Barton. Clara Barton was known as the Angel of the Battlefield, she used her home as a warehouse to store medical supplies, and with the help of her friends, she distributed them to troops. When the government began to send adequate supplies, she began an organization to locate missing soldiers. In 1869, she founded the American Red Cross, after traveling abroad. Dorthea Dix, who originally worked towards improving the care of mentally ill people, was recruited as the superintendent o f the Union army nurses. She made hospitals, oversaw sewing societies, helped get medical supplies, and recruited and trained women to be nurses. Her requirements in a nurse were strict not too young, not too pretty, and of strict moral character. She preferred farm women accustomed to the sight of blood. Nurses wore only plain brown or black dresses with no hoop skirts, jewelry, or accessories and no curls. (http://www.northnet.org) Many women became nurses to care for loved ones who had been injured in battle. Maria Eastman Olmstead Eldred, Ellon McCormick Looby, and Alvira Beech Robinson were a few nurses who left their homes to care for their injured husbands. (http://www.northnet.org) Many of the nurses were unprepared for the challenges and horrors that would face them. However, surrounded by death, confronted with the mangled bodies of soldiers and piles of loose limbs,  they persevered. Other women took a more active role in helping with the war and became spies. Two such women spies were Ginnie and Lottie Moon. They were two sisters who spied for the Confederates during the war. They were born in Virginia but moved to Oxford, Ohio when they were young. Their home, The Moon House is a historic site in Oxford. Emmeline Piggott was another spy and smuggler. She carried supplies and messages in large pockets under her full skirts. After doing this many times, she was caught, arrested, and imprisoned. However, she was released and sent home eventually. Elizabeth C. Howland was another successful Confederate spy. She sent her young son and daughter to carry messages. The young children, appearing innocent, were allowed to pass through enemy lines. (http://userpages.aug.com) One of the most famous female spies was Belle Boyd. After the war, she became an actress and was know on stage as La Belle Rebelle. Her real name was Isabelle Boyd, she was born in Martinsburg, West Virginia in 1844. Near the beginning of the war, she helped in traditional ways, rolling bandages and raising money for the Confederate forces, but that soon changed. Union soldiers occupied Martinsburg in July of 1861; Boyd mingled with Union officers and learned some of their plans. She told the Confederate forces all that she had heard. Boyd continued to spy for the Confederates and delivered messages for Maj. John S. Mosby. She was arrested by Union forces and held in Washington until she developed typhoid and was paroled in a prisoner exchange. Elizabeth Van Lew, a Union spy, accomplished much more than Boyd. Born in Richmond, Virginia, she despised slavery. She freed all of her family slaves and even bought other slaves to free them as well. She often visited Union prisoners held in Richmond, she took them food and medicine. Many of the prisoners had heard Confederate plans after they were captured, and Van Lew invented a code to send what they knew to Union forces. Her neighbors called her Crazy Bet, and she decided to act the part. She talked to herself, dressed in old and battered clothes, and did not comb her hair. All of Richmond thought that Crazy Bets sympathy for the Union was part of her madness. Van Lew also got one of her former slaves, Elizabeth Bowser, a job as a house servant for Jefferson Davis. Together, they collected and passed a great deal of information to the North. (http://www.defenselink.mil) Nancy Hart  served as a Confederate scout, guide, and spy; she carried messages between Southern Armies. She went to isolated Federal outposts, pretending to be a peddler, to report their strength, population, and vulnerability to General Jackson. Hart was twenty years old when she was captured and jailed, with guards constantly patrolling the building. Nancy gained the trust of one of her guards, got his weapon from him, shot him, and escaped. (http://userpages.aug.com) You will see by this paper that on the 15th day of November 1866 I enlisted in the United States army at St. Louis, in the Thirty-eighth United States Infantry Company A, Capt. Charles E. Clarke commanding. (http://www.buffalosoldier.net) Cathay Williams or William Cathay was a former slave, liberated by the Union who wanted to help in the war effort. She joined the war but before her three years were finished, she decided that she wanted to leave the army and complained of pains in her side, and rheumatism in her knees. The doctor who examined her discovered that she was a woman and she was discharged. (http://www.buffalosoldier.net) Other women who served as men were Sarah Emma Edmonds, alias Franklin Thompson, Jennie Hodgers who served and fought for three years as Albert Cashier, and a woman known only as Emily, who ran away from home at 19 and joined the drum corps of a Michigan Regiment. (http://userpages.aug.com) She was shot and her sex discovered, while dying she at first refused to give her real name but eventually agreed to dictate a letter to her father in Brooklyn. Forgive your dying daughter. I have but a few moments to live. My native soil drinks my blood. I expected to deliver my country but the fates would not have it so. I am content to die. Pray forgive me Emily. (http://userpages.aug.com) I think that if women had not helped as much as they did during the Civil War, it could have been completely different. These women greatly expanded the scope of expected persona of women in the 19th century. From La Belle Rebelle to 19 year old Emily, everyone helped in their own way.

Images Of African Americans In The Media

Images Of African Americans In The Media The mass media is a powerful force today in American pop culture. A lot of the images seen on television, magazines, billboards, and on television have lasting impressions. Sometimes these impressions create a negative impact. The media can be very destructive to society. Many different ethnic groups and cultures are negatively affected by the content and images in the media. African Americans seem to be on the very top of that list. For some people in society, the only time they get to see another race is from the images portrayed through the media. America is populated with many different cultures and races, often considered as the worlds largest melting pot. Learned ignorance with a combination of limited exposure and negative images being the only depiction seen in different areas of the media lead to stereotyping of an entire race. Since the infancy of television and newspaper, exposure of African Americans has been scarce or even non-existent. In the early times black culture in television and film were limited to demeaning and cruel depictions of black people as being submissive, docile, and unintelligent. Many black actors were only assigned to domestic roles, portrayed as savages, and other images that added to the stereotypes of black people in that time in history. Blacks were rarely seen in news shows, newspapers, but it seemed to only be shown if they were committing crimes. The negative stereotypes of blacks in the media were a result of the lack of African Americans holding management positions in the media. Therefore a lot of the images being shown blacks had no control over. Even though there are so many negative images of blacks in the media, black entrepreneurs began showing positive images of their race and culture. In 1945, John H. Johnson, founder of Johnson Publishing Company, created Ebony Magazine. This is where he put an effort into displaying positive role models in the black community. In 1951, he crested Jet magazine to discuss the news in the black community that mainstream media ignored. People that read Jet and Ebony said they believrf their dreams could come true after reading the stories of success of other African Americans, despite what they saw in the media. Newspapers that were writing and organized by African Americans had a major influence in overcoming racial stereotypes in the media. In the 1980s, television started portraying positive images of bla cks. Successful sitcoms like The Cosby Show, developed by Bill Cosby showed that African Americans can be educated parents and raise successful family in New York. At least a decade before that, Norman Lear developed a successful family show called Good Times that showed Africans Americans struggling to make ends meet by staying away from the danger that is associated with living in public housing. Even though black people do successful things they are still criticized. Those shows were successful as far as ratings but were still criticized about the characters in Good Times are depicting blacks as poverty stricken. The success of the Cosby show and other positive black shows has changed drastically over the years. The negative and racial preferences in the media even influence our younger generation. All children in our society become aware of racial prejudice that is directed against their own race or others. Social comparison starts from early school years. They normally focus on characteristics like skin color, to make social comparisons. It has been proven through several tests on adolescents in grade school their preferences on a particular race based on what they see in the media. One of researches was based on baby dolls. This test indicated that children prefer white baby dolls because it was more popular on television commercials. Black baby dolls were rarely seen on TV or non-existent. Colorism is another major aspect that has been brought upon by the mass media. Colorism involves light skinned African Americans rejecting blacks who are darker skin toned. Colorism encompasses that dark -skinned African Americans discriminating against lighter skinned blacks for not being dark enough. This also includes issues involving hair texture, eye color, and hair texture. It also involves discrimination among their own race on a persons complexion and physical characteristics. In the media, whether it be on television or in newspapers, it has been said that those with lighter complexions, are treated differently that darker African Americans. African American women in the mass media portray women as stereotypical, mammies, matriarchs, welfare recipients, and jezebels. These images have been controlling images for a long time. The media displays demeaning characteristics of black women being lazy and promiscuous. Today in society the images in women, especially black women, ar e disgusting. In music videos derogatory lyrics and compromising photos forces the community to believe that this is all what African women are all about. Black women are given the most sexual and demeaning roles to promote and advertise products and albums for record labels. These types of images only send out negative images that this is the only thing black women know how to do. Black men are seen as drug users, violent and dead beat fathers in the mass media. Music videos portray them also as thugs and uneducated. If convicted of a crime the news will often show a mug shot of a black male but will show a less offensive picture of a white male. Crime shows and movies will tend to show black males as the offender, being disrespectful , running from the police, and involved in hostile situations. The media tends to show this type of behavior over and over in the news or published in the newspaper more often than you would see a black male doing something positive for his community. This is why other black males are influenced by what they see because this is all they see and they believe this is what they are supposed to do. When society is seeing the same behaviors being shown continuously then this creates the stereotypes of that race. They believe is this how ths race acts based on what they see on television and what they read. On the other hand, the same negative images by the media are turned around when it comes to white females and males. White females are portrayed as victims of crimes and innocent. Forensic files television shows or cold case shows seem to show crimes that involved a white female as a victim, cases with black victims are not sown as much. Another example of the media influencing or promoting racial stereotypes is in the movies. A lot of the movies that are about gang violence or living in urban areas focus on black males being angry and committing crimes. For example, A film called Menace to Society, was produced by black men, and was a totally negative display of African American Men. This movie focused only on the street life and made it seem like there is something good and honorable about being a thug and being involved in criminal activity. A lot of the movies portray black men as being nothing more than animals that have no brains and only engage in criminal activity. With these types of movies being on the market, it is only expected that society including other African Americans will believe and act out on what they see. The media constantly bombards us with negative images of African American males and females, and this is what encourages racial stereotypes. Unfortunately, people tend to believe what they see on TV. They believe that what they see on TV is the truth about the world and everybody in it. Those who believe what they see on television have no other reference or personal life experience which to compare or contrast to make decisions about they see. Younger children tend to look at the med ia to explore new things and see if they can relate to other things in the world. Television and the media has a way of stereotyping people, races, and cultures based on standardized roles and behaviors. This provides people with a broad idea and assumptions. The absence of minorities in the media may leave children with the sense of not being worthy, worthy of attention, or respect. Despite the negative depictions in the media, African Americans have come a long way and have become very successful and powerful in society. African Americans have succeeded in becoming athletes, movie stars, and musical artist. They have succeeded in becoming police officers, nurses, and other professions. They have excelled in being outstanding mother and fathers and marriages are lasting. There is still the high statistics that show that African Americans are above all other races when it comes to being single parents and having broken homes, but not everyone in that race is classed under those stereotypes. They are a lot of positive African American role models that we can look up to now. One African American family that everyone can look up to know as positive reinforcement is the Obama family. They have shown that black they are positive black families that can stick together and be successful. They have given American another way to view black families. They stereotypical views that blacks families always end destruction and broken homes and the children become useless in society have come to end. There are a lot of black families that consist of the mother and father and both are successful in life. They media unfortunately dont show the positive side. He media tends to focus on the broken homes and terrible behaviors of kids that are split between the broken homes. Sadly, this is true but the black family is not the only ones going through broken homes and having single parents. The Cosby Show was one of the first positive depictions of black families, but it was only a television show. Now the Obamas shows a real life portrayal of a happy successful African Amer ican family. Positive images of black fathers in the media are virtually non-existent. Black fathers are normally depicted has leaving their families and not supporting their children. They are mostly seen as worthless individuals who do not work and avoid taking responsibility for their kids. There are a lot of black fathers who are active in their childrens lives but the media neglects to show that to America. Even on day time talk shows you will always see more than any other race black fathers denying their kids and going through paternity test on national television. America loves nothing more but to find enjoyment in watching them demean their race. This display on television only adds fuel to the fire when we are watching black men deny their children. This only makes other races believe that black men are dead beat dads. Contrary to what is being shown on television, there are shows that show how many black men are being involved in their childrens lives. Many rap stars constantly show how much they love and cherish their children. Most of the time you will see them with their families on red carpet events and now they are even making sitcoms that show their everyday lives with their families. With this new change in the media it is a refreshing look at how things are slowly changing.

Violence of Decolonization Essay -- European History Colonies Essays

Violence of Decolonization Frantz Fanon argues the decolonization must always be a violent phenomenon because resisting a colonizing power using only politics will not work. Europeans justified colonization by treating it as gods work. They believed that god wanted then to occupy all lands and spread the word of god to savages of darker skin color. Fanon joined the Algerian Nationalist Movement when the Algeria was being colonized be the French. Many examples of violence written of in The Wretched of the Earth were taken from the struggle for independence in Algeria. Also the writing is sympathetic towards colonized natives. Fanon claims decolonization causes violent actions from both settlers and natives and creates intolerant views toward the opposite party. Violence from Europeans during the colonization is a tactic used to keep the natives oppressed and a resistance minimal. The police officers and soldiers of the settlers used excessive force to show dominance and create an "atmosphere of submission" in native communities (Fanon, 38). European schools, churches, and economic societies were set up on colonized people's land. These acts of segregation and practices of European values were an insult to natives and helped fuel violent protests. Officers who would patrol the boarders between the two groups and political leaders would serve as a "go-between" person for negotiations (Fanon 62). Negotiations involving larger masses of bodies were feared to lead to aggression. Although the politic between these groups was a slow moving process, when native political or independence parties begin to immerge, the colonial governments will allow concede to some writes demanded by natives. Settlers did this to contr... ...ent of psychiatry and included Psychiatrist's notes about the effects the war was having on the native people. Lack of dignity, depression, inferiority complex, suicidal and homicidal tendencies were psychiatric disorders developed by colonized people resulting from the forces lifestyle change, extreme violence, raping, and murder of the native people. Decolonization causes violence and aggression form both settlers and natives. It also harvests hatred and extreme prejudice toward the opposite party. Settlers see violence as the most effective method of conquering new land where the colonized see violence as the most effective way to regain their freedom. Violence from both settlers and natives simultaneously during a period of decolonization reinforces Fanon's argument. Work Cited Fanon, Frantz. The Wretched of the Earth. New York: Grove Press, 1963

Comparing Brontes Wuthering Heights and Dickens Coketown Essay

Comparing Bronte's Wuthering Heights and Dickens Coketown      Ã‚   Throughout British Literature, compositions created by honored literary artists reflect current dominant lifestyles. The differences in prevailing environments are visible when comparing Emily Bronte's Withering Heights and Charles Dickens Coketown. Bronte reveals the wild unbinding freedom available though country living predominate in the late 17th and early 18th century, whereas Dickens explains the disheartening effects of industrialization, which caused massive urbanization and numerous negative consequences. Within both works, the authors portrayed the lifestyles their culture encouraged.    Rural households, spaced several miles apart, were common during Bronte's lifetime, therefore it is no surprise that she chose this enjoyable environment to set her scene for her novel which so closely mirrored her life. The moors surrounding Withering Heights remind each reader of the tranquil lifestyle enjoyed by the British at this juncture in their history. As pointed out in Seminar 1, "travel was not an easy chore" at this time, thus making frequent visiting among neighbors impossible (Seminar 1 J.H.). Therefore, it is understandable that women occupied their time knitting and gossiping (Seminar 1 K.T.). The women of Withering Heights portray this idol lifestyle. When Lockwood meets Cathy 2, she is idly setting in the apartment. Cathy 1 receives many tongue-lashings for her wild adventures in the moors as a girl. Later in her life, after her marriage to Edgar Linton, she realizes her position is to remain at the house and receive visitors there. These women represent the expecte d lifestyle of women during the romantic period.    Personal feelings an... ...hese terms infer the results of abandonment of faith and religion, vividly displaying the differences of the two periods.    Each author portrayed darkness of the soul in a separate way, just like the characteristics and origins of the darkness are separate. This turning from describing a revolting nature to a desecrated nature graphically describes the atmosphere in each period. Individual struggles dominated Bronte's time where societal hardships, resulting from technological and industrial advances, governed Dickens and his contemporaries.    Works Cited Damrosch, David, et al., ed.   The Longman Anthology of British Literature: Vol. B.   Compact ed.   New York: Longman - Addison Wesley Longman, 2000. Bronte, Emily.   Wuthering Heights. Norton Critical ed.   3rd ed.   Ed. William M. Sale, Jr., and Richard J. Dunn.   New York:   W. W. Norton, 1990.

Chinese Footbinding :: essays research papers fc

The ancient Chinese custom of footbinding caused severe life-long suffering for the Chinese women involved. When researching the subject of footbinding, one of the difficult things is finding factual knowledge written before the 20th century. Most of the historical data has been gathered from writings, drawings and photographs from the 19th and 20th centuries. Additionally, the research indicates that the historical documentation was mainly from missionary accounts and literature from various anti-footbinding societies. These groups had a bias because of their opposing viewpoints. The first documented reference to footbinding was from the Southern Tang Dynasty in Nanjing (Vento 1). Although the history of footbinding is very vague it lasted for at least one thousand years.Early text referred to the Han Dynasty as people who preferred that the women have small feet (Vento, 1). Vento also acknowledged the first documented reference to actual binding of the feet was from the Tang Dynasty in Nanjing (1). Before the Sung Dynasty Binding was only slightly constricting, allowing for free movement, they were also thought to have used footbinding to suppress women. The Yuan Dynasty introduced binding into the central and southern parts of China. It may have been emphasized to draw a clear cultural distinction between the Chinese and their large footed conquerors, the Mongols. Footbinding was most popular during the Ming Dynasty, if parents cared for their sons they would not go easy on their studies and if they cared for their daughters they would not go easy on their footbinding (Levy, 47-49). One recent study estimated that there are still one million women in China with bound feet. The last Chinese women, still living with bound feet in Hawaii, was in 1994 (Kam, D-6).There are many legends of how footbinding began, one such legend is Lady Yao, a dancer and concubine for Prince Li Yu, danced with such grace that the prince required her to bind her feet to resemble new moons all the time. Another, is that it began out of the sympathy for Empress Taki who had club feet (Aero, 112-113). Although it has not been proven how footbinding started, one of the biggest reasons the practice continued for over 1000 years was it's sexual appeal (Kam, D-1).Humans have shown they will do just about anything- good, evil, or in-between for sex. Footbinding is a very bold issue that many Chinese do not like to talk about.

Steve Jobs : Book Review

STEVE JOBS BY WALTER ISAACSON Dear all dignitaries and peers present here, Welcome to this hall, where we are all presented with the rarest opportunity on hearing about various respected and popular members of this world. On given an opportunity, I wondered what should be the theme of my speech. Should I go for the Nobel laureates or the most popular figurines or people who changed this world? Nobel laureates are historic, and popular people as noted are already quite popular. So, let’s hear about a person who changed the way we look at technology now. The way he drove a multibillion dollar company, the way he became a symbol of youth GOD!Yes, I’m here to talk about the authorised biography, the i-bio of the master, STEVE JOBS by Walter Isaacson. ‘Steve Jobs: The Exclusive Biography' was one of the most eagerly awaited books of the year 2011. The book is a journey into the life of a legend who revolutionized the way people saw technology. Walter Issacson brings to life, the innovator, the dreamer and the devil within Steve Jobs. An absolutely must read! In my mind the sole purpose of reading non-fiction is to learn, and if you learn something, by definition you will be changed. So, what did I learn from this book? 1.I have a better understanding of Apple products and understand why they enjoy premium pricing. 2. Jobs ability to focus on only 2-3 things at once with absolute intensity. I, like many, have too many interests and hobbies and could benefit from a tighter focus on just a few. 3. Jobs was able to get the most from his employees, but sometimes with tactics that I wouldn’t be comfortable using, including intimidation and tearing down of others. 4. His goal was to surround himself with  Grade A minds. Surrounding yourself with the best is not a bad motto. 5. Life is short-treat time with your family as if you are aware of your short time on earth.So, How does the author portray the genius Was he unbiased? Well, to the authorà ¢â‚¬â„¢s credit, Walter Issacson  is a biographer and a writer. He is also the director of Aspen Institute and has been the Managing Editor of TIME. Issacson has previously written the biographies of Henry Kissinger and Albert Einstein. As a  biographer of Albert Einstein  and Benjamin Franklin, Mr. Isaacson knows how to explicate and celebrate genius: revered, long-dead genius. But he wrote â€Å"Steve Jobs† as its subject was mortally ill, and that is a more painful and delicate challenge. He had access to members of the Jobs family at a difficult time.Mr. Isaacson treats â€Å"Steve Jobs† as the biography of record, which means that it is a strange book to read so soon after its subject’s death. Some of it is an essential Silicon Valley chronicle, compiling stories well known to tech aficionados but interesting to a broad audience. Some of it is already quaint. Mr. Jobs’s first job was at Atari, and it involved the game Pong. (â€Å"If youâ€⠄¢re under 30, ask your parents,† Mr. Isaacson writes. ) Some, like an account of the release of the  iPad  2, is so recent that it is hard to appreciate yet, even if Mr. Isaacson says the device comes to life â€Å"like the face of a tickled baby.    And some is definitely intended for future generations. â€Å"Indeed,† Mr. Isaacson writes, â€Å"its success came not just from the beauty of the hardware but from the applications, known as apps, that allowed you to indulge in all sorts of delightful activities. † One that he mentions, which will be as quaint as Pong some day, features the use of a slingshot to launch angry birds to destroy pigs and their fortresses. So â€Å"Steve Jobs,† an account of its subject’s 56 years (he died on Oct. 5), must reach across time in more ways than one. And it does, in a well-ordered, if not streamlined, fashion.It begins with a portrait of the young Mr. Jobs, rebellious toward the parents who raised him a nd scornful of the ones who gave him up for adoption. (â€Å"They were my sperm and egg bank,† he says. ) Although Mr. Isaacson is not analytical about his subject’s volatile personality (the word â€Å"obnoxious† figures in the book frequently), he raises the question of whether feelings of abandonment in childhood made him fanatically controlling and manipulative as an adult. Fortunately, that glib question stays unanswered. As far as the making of the book, that in itself is a wondrous story.During the summer of 2009, Walter Isaacson got a phone call from Steve Jobs. It so turned out that Jobs wanted Isaacson to write a biography of him. After  Steve Jobs  anointed  Walter Isaacson  as his authorized biographer in 2009, he took Mr. Isaacson to see the Mountain View, California, house in which he had lived as a boy. He pointed out its â€Å"clean design† and â€Å"awesome little features. † He praised the developer, Joseph Eichler, who bu ilt more than 11,000 homes in California subdivisions, for making an affordable product on a mass-market scale. And he showed Mr.Isaacson the stockade fence built 50 years earlier by his father, Paul Jobs. â€Å"He loved doing things right,† Mr. Jobs said. â€Å"He even cared about the look of the parts you couldn’t see. † Mr. Jobs, the brilliant and protean creator whose inventions so utterly transformed the allure of technology, turned those childhood lessons into an all-purpose theory of intelligent design. He gave Mr. Isaacson a chance to play by the same rules. His story calls for a book that is clear, elegant and concise enough to qualify as an iBio. Mr. Isaacson’s â€Å"Steve Jobs† does its solid best to hit that target.Mr. Jobs promised not to look over Mr. Isaacson’s shoulder, and not to meddle with anything but the book’s cover. (Boy, does it look great. ) Steve Jobs asked for no right to read it before it was published and had no control over what was being written before it was published. He also encouraged people to speak honestly. In the book Jobs sometimes speaks brutally and candidly about the people he worked along with and also his competitors. And he expressed approval that the book would not be entirely flattering. But his legacy was at stake. And there were awkward questions to be asked.At the end of the volume, Mr. Jobs answers the question â€Å"What drove me? † by discussing himself in the past tense. His friends, colleagues and foes offer an unparalleled view of the perfectionism, passion, artistry, obsessions, compulsions and devilry that shaped his approach to the innovative products and business that resulted. Within hours of Steve Jobs's death in October, impromptu shrines began to appear outside Apple Stores – flowers, half-eaten apples and iPhones and iPads with images of flickering candles. The man whose company had always attracted a cult following was fast becoming a saint.But, no more than a day later, the backlash began. Jobs was not a saint or even a genius, just, in the words of AN Wilson, ‘a clever backroom boy who got lucky'. What Walter Isaacson's masterful biography reveals is that both the true believers and the cynics got Jobs wrong. In a warts-and-all portrait that continually had this reader recoiling in disgust at the petulant pioneer's behaviour, he shows that Apple's co-founder was very far from being a saint. As a teenager, he browbeats his kindly parents into sending him to a college they cannot afford – then drops out after a year. After teaming up with the rilliant but naive engineer Steve Wozniak he cheats him out of his share of a bonus they get for designing a game. ‘Ethics matter to me,' the always tolerant Wozniak tells the author, ‘but, you know, people are different. ‘ And as a tyrannical leader, he is either screaming at Apple staff about their appalling inadequacies or stealing their ideas and taking the credit for them before an adoring public. Throughout, we see the cranky food habits, the misguided belief that a fruit diet means you only need to shower once a week and an almost wilful disregard for the feelings of others, including those of his family.But, hey, Henry Ford was not the world's nicest man and Thomas Edison was apparently a ruthless egomaniac. Those who aspire to change the world are almost always difficult people, and Isaacson, while obeying the instructions of Jobs's wife not to whitewash his life, presents a compelling case for his genius. Yes, he was a magpie, snatching the idea for the graphical user interface from Xerox Parc, the iPod concept from other MP3 players, the iPad from Microsoft's tablet computer. But, as he said: ‘Picasso had a saying – â€Å"good artists copy, great artists steal† – and we've always been shameless about stealing great ideas. It was what he did with those ideas that proved his genius f or spotting where technology might head next and shaping it to his will. The perfectionism meant driving his executives to distraction with constant demands for tiny adjustments – a different font, a paler shade of green – before anything could be shipped. Jobs was not a quarter the engineer that Wozniak was or as gifted artistically as Jony Ive, the designer whose close but somewhat tortured relationship with his boss is an interesting subplot in the latter half of the book.But his creative imagination changed a series of industries – computers, mobile phones, music and, with Pixar, the movie business. His greatest creation, though, was Apple itself, a company that always wanted to be about more than technology. ‘It is in Apple's DNA that technology alone is not enough,' he said at the unveiling of the iPad 2. ‘We believe that it's technology married with the humanities that makes our hearts sing. ‘ Cynics would say that it has been not the hu manities or the arts but a ruthless attention to marketing and margins that has enabled Apple to put more than $70bn in the bank.But the Jobs strategy of management remained pretty constant throughout his career, and it was always centred on product not profit. At its core was complete control over hardware and software and of every stage of the product's life cycle, from conception through to the retailer. We see that strategy triumph as early Apple products define home computing, then fail as Microsoft's rival philosophy of licensing its software prevails. Then in 1996, with Apple on the ropes, its co-founder returns.This amazing book takes you on a rollercoaster ride into the ferociously intense personality of a passionate and creative entrepreneur whose powerful drive and vision revolutionized six industries: music, personal computers, phones, animated movies, digital publishing and tablet computing. Steve Jobs also re-imagined and tried to revamp retail stores, but it did not t urn out to be as revolutionary. Instead, he paved the way for an entirely new market for app based digital content. This is a book that's mainly about innovation.Steve Jobs stands tall as the sole icon of imagination, sustained innovation and inventiveness. His vision was very clear; if you want to create value in the industry, connect technology with creativity. A company called Apple was built on this vision, which changed the entire face of technology with its imagination blended with remarkable feats of engineering. Often driven by his demons, Jobs could make those around him lurch in despair and fury. His products and personality were interrelated and his life was cautionary and instructive at the same time.Apple's rise to that position has been characterised by a management style that is now right out of fashion – the egomaniac CEO, the obsessive secrecy, the total disregard for market research, the suspicion of collaborative ventures. Walter Isaacson has written an ent hralling history of the birth of our modern digital world and the company that may have done more than any other to shape it. And, in his obnoxious, smelly, ranting, impatient, intuitive, creative and inspirational Steve Jobs, he has presented us with the greatest business genius of the past 30 years. Mr.Jobs, who founded  Apple  with Stephen Wozniak and Ronald Wayne in 1976, began his career as a seemingly contradictory blend of hippie truth seeker and tech-savvy hothead. â€Å"His Zen awareness was not accompanied by an excess of calm, peace of mind or interpersonal mellowness,† Mr. Isaacson says. â€Å"He could stun an unsuspecting victim with an emotional towel-snap, perfectly aimed,† he also writes. But Mr. Jobs valued simplicity, utility and beauty in ways that would shape his creative imagination. And the book maintains that those goals would not have been achievable in the great parade of Apple creations without that mean streak.Mr. Isaacson takes his reade rs back to the time when laptops, desktops and windows were metaphors, not everyday realities. His book ticks off how each of the Apple innovations that we now take for granted first occurred to Mr. Jobs or his creative team. â€Å"Steve Jobs† means to be the authoritative book about those achievements, and it also follows Mr. Jobs into the wilderness (and to NeXT and Pixar) after his first stint at Apple, which ended in 1985. With an avid interest in corporate intrigue, it skewers Mr. Jobs’s rivals, like John Sculley, who was recruited in 1983 to be Apple’s chief executive and fell for Mr.Jobs’s deceptive show of friendship. â€Å"They professed their fondness so effusively and often that they sounded like high school sweethearts at a Hallmark card display,† Mr. Isaacson writes. Of course the book also tracks Mr. Jobs’s long and combative rivalry with Bill Gates. The section devoted to Mr. Jobs’s illness, which suggests that his canc er might have been more treatable  had he not resisted early surgery,  describes the relative tenderness of their last meeting. â€Å"Steve Jobs† greatly admires its subject. But its most adulatory passages are not about people. Offering a combination of tech criticism and promotional hype, Mr.Isaacson describes the arrival of each new product right down to Mr. Jobs’s theatrical introductions and the advertising campaigns. But if the individual bits of hoopla seem excessive, their cumulative effect is staggering. Here is an encyclopedic survey of all that Mr. Jobs accomplished, replete with the passion and excitement that it deserves. Mr. Jobs’s virtual reinvention of the music business with iTunes and the  iPod, for instance, is made to seem all the more miraculous (â€Å"He’s got a turn-key solution,† the music executive Jimmy Iovine said. ) Mr. Isaacson’s long view basically puts Mr.Jobs up there with Franklin and Einstein, even if a tiny MP3 player is not quite the theory of relativity. The book emphasizes how deceptively effortless Mr. Jobs’s ideas now seem because of their extreme intuitiveness and foresight. When Mr. Jobs, who personally persuaded musician after musician to accept the iTunes model, approached Wynton Marsalis, Mr. Marsalis was rightly more impressed with Mr. Jobs than with the device he was being shown. Mr. Jobs’s love of music plays a big role in â€Å"Steve Jobs,† like his extreme obsession with Bob Dylan. (Like Mr. Dylan, he had a romance with Joan Baez.Her version of Mr. Dylan’s â€Å"Love Is Just a Four-Letter Word† was on Mr. Jobs’s own iPod. ) So does his extraordinary way of perceiving ordinary things, like well-made knives and kitchen appliances. That he admired the Cuisinart food processor he saw at Macy’s may sound trivial, but his subsequent idea that a molded plastic covering might work well on a computer does not. Years from now , the research trip to a jelly bean factory to study potential colors for the  iMac  case will not seem as silly as it might now. Skeptic after skeptic made the mistake of underrating Steve Jobs, and Mr.Isaacson records the howlers who misjudged an unrivaled career. â€Å"Sorry Steve, Here’s Why Apple Stores Won’t Work,† Business Week wrote in a 2001 headline. â€Å"The iPod will likely become a niche product,† a Harvard Business School professor said. â€Å"High tech could not be designed and sold as a consumer product,† Mr. Sculley said in 1987. Mr. Jobs got the last laugh every time. â€Å"Steve Jobs† makes it all the sadder that his last laugh is over. Perhaps the funniest passage in Walter Isaacson's monumental book about  Steve Jobs  comes three quarters of the way through.It is 2009 and Jobs is recovering from a liver transplant and pneumonia. At one point the pulmonologist tries to put a mask over his face when he is deeply s edated. Jobs rips it off and mumbles that he hates the design and refuses to wear it. Though barely able to speak, he orders them to bring five different options for the mask so that he can pick a design he likes. Even in the depths of his hallucinations, Jobs was a control-freak and a rude sod to boot. Imagine what he was like in the pink of health. As it happens, you don't need to: every discoverable fact about how Jobs, ahem, coaxed excellence from his co-workers is here.As Isaacson makes clear, Jobs wasn't a visionary or even a particularly talented electronic engineer. But he was a businessman of astonishing flair and focus, a marketing genius, and – when he was getting it right, which wasn't always – had an intuitive sense of what the customer would want before the customer had any idea. He was obsessed with the products, rather than with the money: happily, as he discovered, if you get the products right, the money will come. Isaacson's book is studded with mome nts that make you go â€Å"wow†. There's the  Apple  flotation, which made the 25-year-old Jobs $256m in the days when that was a lot of money.There's his turnaround of the company after he returned as CEO in 1997: in the previous fiscal year the company lost $1. 04bn, but he returned it to profit in his first quarter. There's the  launch of the iTunes store: expected to sell a million songs in six months, it sold a million songs in six days. When  Jobs died, iShrines popped up all over the place, personal tributes filled Facebook and his quotable wisdom – management-consultant banalities, for the most part – was passed from inbox to inbox. Thisbiography  Ã¢â‚¬â€œ commissioned by Jobs and informed by hours and hours of interviews with him – is designed to serve the cult.That's by no means to say that it's a snow-job: Isaacson is all over Jobs's personal shortcomings and occasional business bungles, and Jobs sought no copy approval (though, typic ally, he got worked up over the cover design). But its sheer bulk bespeaks a sort of reverence, and it's clear from the way it's put together that there's not much Jobs did that Isaacson doesn't regard as vital to the historical record. We get a whole chapter on one cheesy ad (â€Å"Think Different†). We get half a page on how Jobs went about choosing a washing machine – itself lifted from an interview Jobs, bizarrely, gave on the subject to  Wired.Want to know the patent number for the box an iPod Nano comes in? It's right there on page 347. Similarly, the empty vocabulary of corporate PR sometimes seeps into Isaacson's prose, as exemplified by the recurrence of the word â€Å"passion†. There's a lot of passion in this book. Steve's â€Å"passion for perfection†, â€Å"passion for industrial design†, â€Å"passion for awesome products† and so on. If I'd been reading this on an  iPad, the temptation to search-and-replace â€Å"passionâ €  to â€Å"turnip† or â€Å"erection† would have been overwhelming.Isaacson writes dutiful, lumbering American news-mag journalese and suffers – as did Jobs himself – from a lack of sense of proportion. Chapter headings evoke Icarus and Prometheus. The one on the Apple II is subtitled â€Å"Dawn of a New Age†, the one on Jobs's return to Apple is called â€Å"The Second Coming†, and when writing about the origins of Apple's graphical user interface (Jobs pinched the idea from Xerox), Isaacson writes with splendid bathos: â€Å"There falls a [sic] shadow, as TS Eliot noted, between the conception and the creation. † But get past all that pomp and there's much to enjoy.Did you know that the Apple Macintosh was nearly called the Apple Bicycle? Or that so obsessed was Jobs with designing swanky-looking factories (white walls, brightly coloured machines) that he kept breaking the machines by painting them – for example bright bl ue? As well as being a sort-of-genius, Jobs was a truly weird man. As a young man, he was once put on the night-shift so co-workers wouldn't have to endure his BO. Jobs was convinced his vegan diet meant he didn't need to wear deodorant or shower more than once a week. His on-off veganism was allied to cranky theories about health.When he rebuked the chairman of Lotus Software for spreading butter on his toast â€Å"Have you ever heard of serum cholesterol? â€Å", the man responded: â€Å"I'll make you a deal. You stay away from commenting on my dietary habits, and I will stay away from the subject of your personality. † That personality. An ex-girlfriend – and one, it should be said, who was very fond of him – told Isaacson that she thought Jobs suffered from narcissistic personality disorder. Jobs's personal life is sketchily covered, but what details there are don't charm.When he got an on/off girlfriend pregnant in his early 20s, he cut her off and aggres sively denied paternity – though he later, uncharacteristically, admitted regretting his behaviour and sought to build a relationship with his daughter. Jobs himself was adopted, and seems to have had what Americans call â€Å"issues around abandonment†. He cheated his friends out of money. He cut old colleagues out of stock options. He fired people with peremptoriness. He bullied waiters, insulted business contacts and humiliated interviewees for jobs.He lied his pants off whenever it suited him – â€Å"reality distortion field† is Isaacson's preferred phrase. Like many bullies, he was also a cry-baby. Whenever he was thwarted – not being made â€Å"Man of the Year† by Time magazine when he was 27, for instance – he burst into tears. Nowadays we are taught that being nice is the way to get on. Steve Jobs is  a  fine counter-example. In 2008, when  Fortune magazine  was on the point of running a damaging article about him, Job s summoned their managing editor to Cupertino to demand he spike the piece: â€Å"He leaned into Serwer's face and asked, ‘So, you've uncovered the fact that I'm bad.Why is that news? ‘† Well.. that’s the story. Sorry if I had given out a few spoilers on the book.. but they were essential to bring out the nature of an awesome personality! The book is well written and an easy read. To tell the story of Jobs’ complete life, the cast of characters is large. Mr Isaacson identifies the importance of those he included and what influence they had on Jobs. So, in a nut shell, this book, to use a few words from Job’s dictionary, is a ‘Must read! ’