Analysis of Assumptions Essay Example for Free

Analysis of Assumptions Essay Marta Russell, writer for Z Magazine, outlines the invisibility of the disability issue in the academic and activist debate in discrimination as a whole. Russell extensively uses secondary sources to make her article more grounded in theory and previous academic work. In this way, the slant of bias is not apparent, as she does not write this as an opinion piece and seeks to inform her audience for two reasons. Russell, is calling for social justice of the disabled and, also, is contributing to the body of work already compiled on this issue. In her call for action, she does use loaded language to engage readers, her choice for a title, alludes to this before a reader can even begin studying her work. The article, â€Å"The Social Movement Left Out†, was written in August, 2002 and suggests that the disabled are unseen in circles of academics and activists and that this is a huge problem. Russell goes into the history of the label of disability to give perspective on the issue. The concept of inferiority is rooted in the late 19th century social creation of normality. The normal was used as a means of measuring, categorizing, and managing populations. It informed hegemony, ranking order by the directive of the constructed norm. In turn, normality established the universal, unequivocal good and right from which social, economic, and political rights were granted rights being a means in liberal democratic societies of mitigating oppression (2002). In looking at the history of disability and its categorization, the implications of such movements, as the eugenics movement in both the United States and Germany and the absence of any movements inclusive to persons with disabilities is alarming. Russell believes that the issue of disability has always been a part of other types of discrimination and its absence of acceptance in Feminist and other field of inquiry is mistaken. Her justification of this conclusion is that women and other minorities were discriminated against, because of some sort of inferior status, just as persons with disabilities are today. The initial reasons that were legalized before legislation was passed giving these groups more rights to participate in the workplace, voting, and other important aspects of social life was that women and other minorities were mentally deficient. In this way, they were viewed as less intelligent than white men, until this idea was shattered and laws made to protect these groups, this was the prevailing idea. It makes sense then, Russell reveals, to make disability and all the discrimination involved with it, a part of other activists’ agendas. Russell outlines the historic legislation made exclusively for persons with disabilities in the late 1970’s and early 1980’s. These laws were helpful in assisting persons with disabilities in getting and keeping work and having legal recourse for any discrimination made in his or her career. It should be noted that persons with psychological impairments are not separated from persons with physical impairments. There is a limit to this analysis for that reason. Persons with mental illnesses have undergone a huge step in integrating with larger society, as efforts to reduce stigma on the part of researchers and psychologists have been successful in the past two decades or more. The separation of the two types of disability (physical and psychological) is notable, but not noted in this article. It should be part of the debate why physical disability has not seen visible improvement, in terms of public acceptance, as has mental illness. One of the most interesting aspects of this essay is the fact that other social movements involving discrimination all possessed more of a collective sense of political and economic barriers that made these causes more urgent. In contrast, Russell believes that disability is viewed more as a personal problem that does not have an overarching capitalist agenda and is up to each person to finds ways to cope with their limitations. While gender and race can all be viewed as mechanisms to limit the number of workers to the minimum, disability should fit, as well. But, since disability is pervasive in all races, genders. socio-economic classes, etc it is viewed quite differently. In fact, Russell tips to the school of thought that points to capitalism as the culprit in discrimination of those with disabilities. Radical disability theorists have posed that under capitalism impairment is socialized as a specific form of oppression disability. The defining feature of capitalism, commodity relations, has been a primary force behind the economic impoverishment of impaired persons. The material relation is primary and the ideology of superiority/inferiority serves the function of maintenance and perpetuation of this social relation (2002). In conclusion, discrimination of persons with disabilities is lacking in inclusion with other academic and activists efforts to put issues of discrimination under one umbrella. Russell manages to use extensive literature review and a call to action for people to realize this rift between minorities. Her essay is impressive in both form, tone, and content. The only missing factors in this puzzling debate is the other rift between persons with mental versus persons with physical disabilities. Once this is acknowledged and scholars and students see the uniform umbrella that is overarching all stereotypes and bars to decent living by minorities, only then can real progress and a real missing movement be visible for the disabled. Reference: Russell, Marta. (October 31st, 2002). â€Å"The Social Movement Left Out† in Z Magazine. Available online http://www. zmag. org/sustainers/content/2002-08/31russell. cfm. Last accessed April 1st, 2008.

Failure of the Legal System in Atonement, Wonder Boys and The Round Hou

The code of Hammurabi, dating back to 1772 BC, is one of the oldest recorded legal codes and reflects the early Babylonians’ views of justice. The code is best known for â€Å"an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth.† By enumerating punishments for certain crimes the code removes ambiguity and combined with its relatively harsh penalties, especially on lower class citizens, served as an effective deterrent. More profoundly however, Hammurabi’s code formally shifted justice-seeking responsibilities from the individual to the state. Today, most modern legal systems are structured similarly to Hammurabi’s code with their own codified laws and listed punishments. Capital punishment and the idea that â€Å"the punishment should fit he crime† are derivatives from the ancient text that are widespread in the world today. Hammurabi’s code however was not without fault. Pervasive throughout the archetype of modern law are inequitable punishments determined by one’s social standing. For example, the 8th law of Hammurabi’s code states, â€Å"If any one steel cattle or sheep, or an ass, or a pig or a goat, if it belong to a god or to the court, the thief shall pay thirtyfold therefore; if they belonged to a freed man of the king he shall pay tenfold; if the thief has nothing with which to pay he shall be put to death† (King). Both the social standing of the violator and the victim of the crime played a large role in determining what the penalty would be. Today, our view of justice has ostensibly metamorphosed, to the extent that most people today would recognize that the 8th law from Hammurabi’s code was prejudiced and wrong. Although some may wish to remove themselves from such an unjust system, the reality is that we are not far from it. The mode... ...sity, n.d. Web. 10 Dec. 2013. . Lee, Jaeah, and Brett Bownell. "Charts: Why You're in Deep Trouble If You Can't Afford a Lawyer." Mother Jones. Mother Jones, 1 July 2013. Web. 10 Dec. 2013. . McEwan, Ian. Atonement: A Novel. New York: N.A. Talese/Doubleday, 2002. Print. Stevenson, Bryan. "We Need to Talk about an Injustice." TED: Ideas worth Spreading. TED Talks, Mar. 2012. Web. 10 Dec. 2013. Wright, Paul. "Prison Legal News - Legal Articles, Cases and Court Decisions." Prison Legal News. Prison Legal News, n.d. Web. 10 Dec. 2013. .

The Sony Playstation 2

Game is one of the biggest markets in the world; most of people like to play game for relaxing, or at the spare time with friends. People of all ages are players. Report has pointed out the global spending on video games-games console hardware and associated games-exceeds that spent at cinema box offices and is double the video rental market. Many firm such like Microsoft, Nintendo and Sony seize this opportunity and plan to enter this biggest market. The competition has been intensified among the game market, who will be the winner? The market leader for hand-held, portable consoles is Nintendo-its Game Boy, launched in 1990, has sold well and consistently. Games console which are coupled up to a domestic television screen comprise a larger section of the market , and this is where Sony has become dominate. In 1994, Sony was a ‘non-entity' in the video games market, however by 1996, it was the world leader of its fast growth market. At the end of 2003 Sony's accumulated sales of 12 million games consoles was well in excess of rivals Sega and Nintendo. The stronger financial support is definitely the reason of successful for Sony. However, those just one small part of reason for the success of the Playstation, the mainly reasons for the success of the Playstation are below: * Adequate knowledge form technology, which had been developed over many years. It was able to derive synergy from its competencies in both hardware and software. * Suitable timing to entered the market, to avoid some unnecessary competition with rivals. Sony timed the launch carefully and entered the market just one month after Sega launched its new Saturn console, the first 32-bit machine. This suggested that the real competition in this sector of the industry lay between Sony and Sega, rather than with Nintendo as well, although in 1997 Nintendo launched its 64-bit N64. * Its pricing strategy for consoles. Sony knew the real profits came from subsequent software sales and happy to cross-subsidize a relatively low-priced console. They also enjoying cost saving through the experience curve effect and happy to pass these on to consumers. * A number of attractive licensing deals, which helped it, build up a strong portfolio of games from the outset. A number of key games software companies were persuaded to switch their allegiance to Sony.†1 * Sony's advertising campaign was very specifically planned. Sony worked out exactly what they wanted the adverts to achieve. They also aimed to make people think of the Playstation as powerful and destructive, using the line, â€Å"Do not under-estimate the power of Playstation† in many of its adverts. Those intelligence ideas help Sony become a winner through this competition. So they are the strengths of Sony Playstation, which made Sony's market share grows in creditable rate. And helped Sony corporation build up a good reputation among the consumers that will become advantage for Sony's further competition. Late in 2000 Sony was unable to satisfy the early demand in both the US and Europe for its new Playstation 2. The problem has come. It was experiencing internal supply problems of critical components. This is a real fault for Sony in Christmas – the peak sales period. This could affect the profits of Sony Corporation. When Sony was struggling with the launch of Playstation 2, Microsoft and Nintendo realized this is a good opportunity to launch their new game console into the video games market. They believe there was a real chance that some customers would switch to the game console of Microsoft and Nintendo, if their intended first choice Playstation were no available. This is a real threat for Playstation's position in the video game market. As Nintendo and Microsoft launch their new game console into the video game market, something has been changed. Reports said that sales of Sony's PlayStation 2 console are down but sales of Nintendo's GameCube console seem to be on the rise. The holiday sales of Nintendo's GameCube rose over 70% from a year ago, while Sony's PlayStation 2 sales did not fall as sharply as expected. Nintendo also said that it would easily achieve a global sales target of six million GameCubes for the full business year. Its sales are directly being attributed to GameCube price cuts in Japan, Europe and North America in September and October of 20032. However, Sony Corporation is keeping finding many opportunities for them to keep their opposition in the video game market. They noticed that entered an established market have to offer some value, something clearly different. So they tried to add the new function, new technology into PlayStation 2. For example: the graphics on Playstation 2 are of ‘cinematic quality' and the console has a DVD reader, which can run movies. PlayStation's hard drive would later be able to accommodate and Internet connection and allow users to buy games over the Internet and download them directly on to their machine, they also could play game online. In addition, PlayStation 2 is a 128-bit machine now, but it was not the first 128-bit machine on the market. Another mainly opportunity for Playstation 2 is their software (games). They categorized their games into 5 main types: adventure/strategy games, driving/motoring games and simulations, sports, fighting game and platform games. By Sony's good reputation there are more and more software companies available for the Sony Playstation than are available for any of its rivals. In 1999 Sony had 90 companies developing games for Playstation 2 and was determined that 50 news games would be available for the launch. Playstation 2 also creating a unique opportunity for content providers and third party publishers from their biggest online community. In 2003, the massive Playstation community proved yet again the enviable advantage of strength-in-numbers as games for the number one selling platforms flew off the shelves in record amounts. Playstation 2 software led the industry with close to 3 billion in total video game sales for the year, nearly three times as much as its closest competitor. This is first online console community is also the most popular, with the Playstation 2 online base growing nearly three times as fast as that of Microsoft's Xbox live. Sony wants to hang on its leadership in the computer games industry. That appears to be Sony's thinking as the electronics giant moves ahead with development of the next version of its PlayStation video game console, which is well known as Playstation 3. Japanese media reported on May 6th that the PS3 console is in development. The goal is to make new processor technology, called â€Å"grid† about 200x faster than current console technology. This is almost achieving their original goal of making the PS3 1000 times faster than the PS2. This goal was publicly set by Mr Okamoto, the Senior VP and Chief Technical Officer of Sony Computer Entertainment, at the 2002 Game Developers Conference in San Jose, California. Playstation 3 may become a major threat to the other company in the game industry. So when Sony look for the future, one of the rivals review recent past, Pete Isensee, lead developer for Microsoft's Xbox Advanced Technology Group, used his GDC talk to deliver a mostly positive critique of the Xbox's journey to the market, lauding a product launch that happened on time and without major bugs, a departure from Microsoft history. â€Å"Microsoft has this stigma about not getting it right until version three,† he said. â€Å"We didn't have a choice with Xbox. If we didn't get it right with version one, Sony and Nintendo would eat us alive.†3 Nowadays, Playstation 2 will be outsold by rivals, but who knows what will be happen in the next. When the new game console-Playstation 3 launch to the market in Christmas 2004, maybe everything will have a big change.

Juenile Delinquency in Trinidad and Tobago - 1801 Words

JUVENILE DELINQUENCY Running Head: JUVINILE DELINQUENCY Juvenile Delinquency is resulting from the absence of a father figure in the home, abuse and peer pressure in TnT and can be reduced through family intervention education and peer counselling. By Karryl Johnson Caribbean Nazarene College In partial fulfilment of the requirements for Course: PT461: Research Methods 11. Lecturer: Shirley Cadogan Date: Saturday 6th October, 2012 1. Introduction A. Rationale B. Definition 11 Biblical Perspectives of Juvenile Delinquency in Trinidad and Tobago. A. Old Testament B. New Testament 111 Sociological Perspectives of Juvenile Delinquency in Trinidad and Tobago. A. Causes of Juvenile Delinquency in Trinidad and Tobago. 1.†¦show more content†¦The literature on juvenile delinquency has shown that incarcerating children and young people in detention centers, young offender institutions or prisons in an attempt to reform them has been an expensive failure. According to Singh (1997)11 these institutions have the tendency of increasing the reconviction rates of their exanimate. It has also been stated that young people who have spent time at these institutions are likely to end up in prison as adults confirming the notion that prison establishments are â€Å"universities of crime.† Therefore, as the pervasive problem of juvenile delinquency continues to threaten the safety, security and moral fabric of society, concerns and searches for initiatives to curb this growing menace continues to grow. The Young Person and Offenders Act (Young Offenders Detention Act, No. 19 of 1926, which has been in operation since November, 1962) and The Probation (of Offenders) Act (1947). Overall these pieces of legislation are inadequate and a total system of Juvenile Justice is an urgent requisite. It is instructive to note that though there is no ‘real’ Juvenile Justice System in Trinidad and Tobago, this should not be interpreted to mean that there is no protection for juveniles within the existing justice system as the system offers a small measure of comfort for these deviant youths. This includes not photographing youths under the age of eighteen who are being