Gender Roles Essays - Gender Studies, Social Psychology,

Gender Roles I have thought about many different ways to organize this paper and have come to the conclusion that the best way to approach the topic is on a book-by-book basis. My perceptions of the gender biases in these books vary greatly and I did not want to begin altering my views on each so that they would fit into certain contrived connections. What interests me most in these stories is how the authors utilize certain character's within their given environment. Their instincts and reactions are a wonderful window into how the authors perceive these "people" would interact with their surroundings and often are either rewarded or punished by the author through consequences in the plot for their responses. Through this means we can see how the authors expect their characters to behave in relation to their post in the world. We must be very careful as readers to judge these biases based only on evidence within the text and not invent them from our own psyche due to the individual world we know. In Louis Sachar's award winning book Holes, we see gender biases in many characters. The first and most obvious bias in this book can be found in the way Sachar's characters address Mr. Pendanski, one of the staff members at Camp Green Lake. Many of the boys refer to him sarcastically as "mom", and it is not because of his loving nature. Mr. Pendanski is neurotic about things the boys consider trivial and he has a tendency to nag them. Because Mr. Pendanski is portrayed as the antithesis of Mr. Sir, who simply drips testosterone, others view him as a female for his weakness. The fact that Sachar allows his characters to equate weakness with femininity, or more accurately motherhood, shows a certain bias towards the supposed strength that innately accompanies masculinity. This attitude is only furthered by the fact that the rest of the book as almost totally devoid of female characters other than the witch-like caricature presented to us in the form of the warden. She comes complete with a vicious disposition and poisonous fingernails. The most interesting part of this bias is that the boys chose to name Mr. Pendanski "mom" in light of their own personal family histories. I think it can safely be assumed that not many of these boys had a functional relationship with their parents or they probably would not be in Camp Green Lake to begin with. These boys chose to place Mr. Pendanski, a whiny and unrespected man in the grand scheme of things at camp, in the role of mother. They did not turn to the only woman present at the camp, nor the man who disciplines them each day, to fill their maternal needs. Instead they turn to the weakest figure in their lives and mock him by referring to him as a woman. This demonstrates to us that Sachar considers femininity a weakness in this world and has no issues showing us. As Ernst wrote, "How easy is it to relegate girls to second class citizens when they are seen as second-class citizens, or not at all" (Ernst 67). This point is only furthered by the fact that the only woman present is such a fairy tale character. She is portrayed to us as all but a sorceress and it can be assumed she has taken on this persona in order to survive in a predominately male post in a totally male dominated environment. Even in our class it was evident that many readers were taken aback by the fact that Sachar chose to make his warden a female. And so it again can be seen that Sachar has imparted onto us a bias that a real woman could not function in this world so he had to invent a completely fictional and grandiose one. With all the other characters in the book appearing so human, it seems obvious he turned the warden into a beast because he felt he had to. In What Jamie Saw, by Carolyn Coman, gender bias shows itself in a new way. In this book masculinity and evil seem to go hand in hand. There is the character of Van, who is pretty much the same abusive man from every after school special and info-mercial we see during primetime, doing terrible things to a defenseless family. Then there is Jamie, who by my estimation is one of the meekest male characters I have encountered in a children's book. Finally we have Earl, who

Free Essays on Virtues

Plato’s Four Virtues Virtues contribute to people’s actions in today’s society. Society as a whole has a common set of virtues that many people agree on. In today’s society, these are known as laws. Virtues also mold the individual outlook on life, and give them the moral’s to do what is right. In The Republic, Plato divides a society into three classes: gold, silver, as well as bronze and iron souls. Each class is designated to posses a specific virtue. He believes that wisdom, courage, moderation, and justice combine together to form The Republic. However, Plato’s four virtues individually do not necessarily produce a utopian society. A combination of the four in each citizen along with other personal emotions is necessary in producing the ideal society. In Plato’s search for the perfect â€Å"republic†, he decides that the basis of the society will be on four virtues. The first of these virtues is wisdom. Of the three classes , the gold souls posses the virtue of wisdom. The gold souls are the only class whose knowledge goes beyond the mere facts to the level of true wisdom. â€Å"†¦This class, which seems to be by nature the smallest, belongs a share of the knowledge that alone among all the other kinds of knowledge is to be called wisdom† (429a). The second virtue that Plato defines is courage or spirit. Courage is the preservation of the opinion produced by law, through education about what things are terrible, and what things are good. Courage can be found in the silver souls, or the guardians. Plato uses the example that when dyers want to dye wool, they start with the background. They need the right kind of white material, and they have to prepare it carefully; and if they go to this trouble, you can’t bleach the color out. If they do a poor job of it, the cloth quickly becomes washed-out and faded. Plato used the dyeing analogy to state how he wishes to train the silver souls. H e states that the people will under... Free Essays on Virtues Free Essays on Virtues Plato’s Four Virtues Virtues contribute to people’s actions in today’s society. Society as a whole has a common set of virtues that many people agree on. In today’s society, these are known as laws. Virtues also mold the individual outlook on life, and give them the moral’s to do what is right. In The Republic, Plato divides a society into three classes: gold, silver, as well as bronze and iron souls. Each class is designated to posses a specific virtue. He believes that wisdom, courage, moderation, and justice combine together to form The Republic. However, Plato’s four virtues individually do not necessarily produce a utopian society. A combination of the four in each citizen along with other personal emotions is necessary in producing the ideal society. In Plato’s search for the perfect â€Å"republic†, he decides that the basis of the society will be on four virtues. The first of these virtues is wisdom. Of the three classes , the gold souls posses the virtue of wisdom. The gold souls are the only class whose knowledge goes beyond the mere facts to the level of true wisdom. â€Å"†¦This class, which seems to be by nature the smallest, belongs a share of the knowledge that alone among all the other kinds of knowledge is to be called wisdom† (429a). The second virtue that Plato defines is courage or spirit. Courage is the preservation of the opinion produced by law, through education about what things are terrible, and what things are good. Courage can be found in the silver souls, or the guardians. Plato uses the example that when dyers want to dye wool, they start with the background. They need the right kind of white material, and they have to prepare it carefully; and if they go to this trouble, you can’t bleach the color out. If they do a poor job of it, the cloth quickly becomes washed-out and faded. Plato used the dyeing analogy to state how he wishes to train the silver souls. H e states that the people will under...

Cultural References in Translation Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Cultural References in Translation - Essay Example What makes people a group are not only the affinities of its members, but rather the diversity its members have towards what stands outside of it: the action of culture is similar to the two faces of a wall, which both encloses and, on the other side, protects from what is unknown and obscure, from what is foreign. And the language is the most important (and most efficient) wall a group have to protect its society, its structures and its culture. As the language is the main vehicle (and product itself) of a culture, it is almost impossible to translate the same cultural reference in a different language: the final result will always be lacking something in the power of the form or in its deep meaning. Obviously, this problem is minimum in translations between two similar languages, such as Slovenian and Russian are, or between two societies which have several believes in common, but the problem still remains, because it is impossible to transpose both the meaning and its form, even if we consider the French and British societies, quite different for many aspects, such as independent linguistic origins, but extremely similar for history and development.It is a nonsense to think of a word as a simple 'label' of just one concept3, because a single concept, especially the ideas expressing historical or traditional objects, has different meanings, according to the culture or society it refers to. It is enough to consider the diff erent values that the word Renaissance has: although it points to a defined period of British history, the Italian word Rinascimento refers to a definitely different historical period (1385/1492) and, moreover, to a completely separate sets of values. This is nothing but an insignificant example, but it portrays the misunderstanding a cultural reference could generate: a word achieves a meaning depending on the environment it surrounds it, and in this case it would consist in a wrong interpretation of history. Transposing a meaning is sometimes even impossible: if we consider the fact that English Language has neuter form, while French has not, or if we consider the fact that adjectives have feminine forms in French and English have not (Mon cher/ Ma chre vs. My dear), it is easy to understand how difficult is for the translator to transmit both meaning and form from a language into the other. Even mere objects, such as houses, cars and so on, achieve (or miss) some original feature s of theirs when translated. The word bois describes a wood and evocates the features a wood has in France, describes the species of trees this wood is made of, recollects the sounds of the animals peopling it: it creates an image which has nothing to deal with a wood situated in New Zealand. Obviously this problem is avoided in movies, illustrated books, or children books, as the features of the objects are defined and the words are not requested to portray what has already been constructed by the image, but it remains in literature, especially when a word

The Commonwealth games OR The Olympics Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

The Commonwealth games OR The Olympics - Essay Example (Heath and Roberts). In the Olympic Games, a combined team called Great Britain comprising England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales is only fielded in all sports disciplines. This has been the case in all the previous Olympics, and will be case in the upcoming London Olympics in 2012. â€Å"Team GB will have a chance to shine again, this time on home soil, when the next Olympics comes to London† (Berkmoes 2009). People will normally back this combination or team, thereby reinforcing their belief in Britishness. â€Å"When an England team (or athlete) fails to qualify†¦, the media quickly appropriates other British or Irish teams as ours.† (Smith and Porter 2004). However, the British identity gets changed according to the situations. The current issue which again reinforces the clash in identities is the decision about fielding a combined football team in the London Olympics. With a combined Great Britain team participating in every Olympic event, it should be the case with the f ootball event as well. So, sections of population including even the former British Prime Minister Gordon Brown proposed the idea of fielding a combined Great Britain football team, with players from England, Scotland, Ireland and Wales. â€Å"Prime Minister Gordon Brown, who is Scottish, has already jumped on board and suggested that another Scot, Manchester United manager Sir Alex Ferguson, could coach the team.† (Silva 2009). However, this arrangement is not welcomed by the Scottish, Irish and Welsh football associations, who opined that having a combined team will negatively impact the individuality of each nation. Gordon Smith, Chief executive of the Scottish FA, had this to say â€Å"Scotland, Wales, England and Northern Ireland have always been autonomous where football is concerned and that is the way it should remain† (guardian.co.uk 2009). They have also

Manet's Race Course at Longchamp and Origin of Modernis Essay

Manet's Race Course at Longchamp and Origin of Modernis - Essay Example The painting captures that â€Å"specific† point in time of racing, when jockeys are galloping toward each other, as they romp toward the finish line (Modernism 109). It can be seen from the painting that two jockeys are closely contending for the first place spot, though the rest can easily catch up. The rising dust cloud stresses the muscular strength and speed of the horses that these jockeys are controlling. The speed and power of animals are nothing, if they cannot be harnessed to make that big win. The audience is a blur, but it remains evident how men and women, with women donning their usual dresses and using their umbrellas, are energetically focused on the race. It is interesting how nineteenth-century women are enjoying this â€Å"manly† sport, with its dirtiness and physical action. They oppose the gender stereotype of women, who prefer dances and parties to sports events. In this painting, women also seem to potentially cherish betting and the adrenalin rus h of watching a horse race as it concludes. Like this audience, Manet wants his art viewers to also feel the intense action and excitement of the race at this point in time. He wants them to feel what it is like to hold their breaths, as they wait for that winning horse. Like the audience in the actual race, there is a distinct feeling of never being quite sure who the winner will be. Hence, this painting effectively captures the emotions and senses of that specific point of race time, when excitement and uncertainty are at their highest points. Furthermore, the â€Å"Race Course at Longchamp† is a modernist painting, because it tackles a unique subject matter. While other paintings focus on portraits, spiritual or Catholic images and events, still life, and other important, mostly official or royal, personalities and events, Manet chooses to paint about a common sports event in the â€Å"Race Course at Longchamp.† This sports event may be a highlight to some upper-cla ss people who enjoy them too, but horse racing is generally viewed as a â€Å"commoner's sport.† The subject here is not the usual subject matter of other artists, and instead, the â€Å"Race Course at Longchamp† explores a specific event that common people enjoy. In addition, the painting zooms into that specific time, when the race is at its hottest, and where the reactions of the audience and the weather are also depicted. As mentioned, the painting evokes a sense of excitement and intensity. The reactions of the audience are also crucial to the modernist painting, because it defines the wholeness of the event. It would not be enough to focus on the jockeys and the horses alone; it will also be crucial to view how the people are reacting to the horse race as it nears its end. In addition, the cloudiness of the weather reinforces the dustiness of the game. Together, they create a sort of gloomy uncertainty on the potential result of the race. The game can change any time and this uncertainty heightens even more for those bettors. They all want to win, but they are also aware that only one horse will win the race. A modernist painting also focuses on the colors and lighting of the subject matter to assert its â€Å"wholeness.†

Issues In Sustaining Tourism Development In Vietnam

Issues In Sustaining Tourism Development In Vietnam In recent years, Vietnam has taken great steps in the development of tourism. Tourism is promoted widely by the government because it provides the potential for job opportunities, thus producing income for the country and became a source of revenue for the government. However, the tourism industry can also be seen as a critical force, causing negative outcomes such as congestion, the loss of natural environmental and landscapes and the cultural degradation (Bui, 2009). These problems are becoming an issue towards tourism industry of Vietnam due to the lack of effective planning and proper planning of tourism development. Tourism is claimed to be one of the key elements towards the country economy development with particular attention being placed on infrastructure development, human resources, environmental issues, product development and marketing strategies by the Tourism Master Plan 2001 -2010 (Vietnam Embassy, 2011). Yet, evidence demonstrates a critical need for identifying sust ainable ways of using the tourism resources by avoiding a voracious exploitation of the countrys patrimony as well as to ensure the beneficial trade exchange in the international marketplace and substantial long-term socio-economic benefits. This report seeks to explore how the sustainable tourism development in Vietnam affects its economic, social and environmental with an emphasis placed on the challenges that appear along this process. 2.0 Overview of sustainable tourism in Vietnam Vietnam has a high market potential in the tourism industry with foreign investors showing interest in the country (Mok and Lam, 2000). The introduction of an economic reform policy, doi moi encouraged the establishment of normal political with other countries by lifting the restrictions on investment by the private sector. As a result, Vietnam has experienced a massive growth in the service industry since the Asian financial crisis in 1998. The improving visa policy, the limited transportation networks and the restricted marketing (i.e. tourism promotion budget around S$1m about a tenth the size of the budgets of Singapore) are the three main considerations of accessibility to Vietnam (Suntikul, Butler and Airney, 2008). According to the Vietnam National Administration of Tourism (2010), international visitors to Vietnam reached 449,570 arrivals in 2010, increasing by 19% over the same period last year. The total international arrivals in 2010 reached 5,049,855 representing a 34.8% growth. In terms of market share, China was ranked top, with the largest influx of visitors into Vietnam in 2010, while the South Korea and Japan, at second and third, also dominated the market. Such a number exceeds the carrying capacity in Vietnam, including both its tourist infrastructure and environment and risks serious overcrowding in some cities of attraction e.g. Hue, environmental pollution, degradation of monuments and the collapse of the tourist industry as the result of unsustainable tourism development (Bui, 2009). Since 1995, Vietnam National Administration of Tourism (VNAT) urged the tourism industry to focus on the development of facilities and infrastructure to encourage more investment, while developing a unique tourism product (Vietnam Embassy, 2008). It is also stated that the unsustainable nature of the sector both in terms of use of local resources and tourists arrivals (limited repeat visitors) , which is also reflected by tourism destination being exploited carelessly and by traditional cultures being affected and changed by tourist arrivals. In other words, there is a need to address the Vietnamese tourism sites that have been exploited without proper planning, caring and investing take place in tourism facilities, the conservation and restoration of values of culture, history and landscapes. The ever-increasing annual number of international and domestic tourists coming to Vietnam has been a significant encourage to the industry in its efforts to promote tourism business development in a sustainable manner. (Luong, 2005b) 3.0 Issues faced in sustaining tourism development in Vietnam 3.1 Weak institutional practices Vietnam tourism development is dominated by small-medium enterprise (SMEs) that facing weak institutional practice, low financial capacity and lack of attention about environmental conservation and protection (Bui, 2009). These firms are a distinct group with diverse of needs and associated impacts. The problem in infrastructure and improper solid waste practices and sewage produced from the hundreds of tourism enterprises and the mass market of visitors has caused a serious environment pollution and degradation of cultural heritage. Also, there is a lack of clear stands and procedures to examine its strategies in the development of tourism and policies planning. As a result, the VNAT had to reconsider many of its development targets segments for Vietnam tourism industry in the 21st century. The urge to earn foreign exchange and the lack of a strong institutional fundamental to effectively manage environmental resources had led to many example of unsustainable development (Thang, 2004). The domestic private and international sectors have been supported the development of sustainable tourism in Vietnam because it believed that this new market-oriented mechanism brings with it economic benefits. It can be showed as the participation of the local and international stakeholders in sustainable tourism development is only concentrated in the some popular tourist attraction for e.g. SAPA which believed to generate extra revenue by ensuring a clean, green and attractive tourism destination image. Meanwhile, Vietnam government tried to devote its attention to the management of the environment because the fears a loss of political control over the tourism industry due to its rapid development. Yet, the capacity at district government is very low to cater to need in the huge market of sustainable tourism development. Despite that, each group of stakeholders has different views and concern on their responsibility towards the future of tourism depending on the amount of investment that they spend in each tourism destination. SMEs are often seemed to be more concerned towards their return in investment than the overall impact of their operations on the environment and socio-economic sphere (Cooper, 1997; Briassoulis, 2002; Thang 2004). The participation of SMEs are crucial in creating the modalities in strengthen institutional practice and management that enable sustainable tourism development to success. Adoption of sustainable tourism project requires strong institutional frameworks that can overcome shortage in the potential of the market to ease tourism enterprises especially the SMEs towards more sustainable business practices Other than that, one of the challenges is that the policies and law system are inadequate, inconsistent and not in accordance with the reality of tourism development; there is also a lack of understanding and acknowledgement of international rules and principles (Lloyd, 2003). The weak institutional framework for the tourism industry in Vietnam has characterized by a fairly complex system of policies, laws, ordinances and regulation, issued by line ministries, agencies and provincial governments (Lloyd, 2003; Nhà ¢n Dà ¢n, 2006). It is stated that many existing laws and ordinances are incomplete, not only in terms of coverage but also in terms of lacking documents to guide for implementation (VNAT, 2005; Sam et al., 2001; Nhà ¢n Dà ¢n, 2006). Thus, it is crucial to strengthen the need for sustainable tourism planning and management by emphasizing its structure and processes, that has not yet been fully explored and understood in many developing countries e.g. Vietnam. The strategies for sustainable tourism development made by developing countries often tend to be encumbered by the lack of understanding of the complexity of the tourism industry by stakeholders and a lack of strong institutional frameworks needed for their implementation (Bui, 2000). Thus, the corporation of an incorporated tourism development approach for a region emphasized that sustainable tourism development needs a well established institutional practice that enables the participation and co-ordination of stakeholders. 3.2 Threats to the local community in terms of social-economy factor 3.2.1 Employment for locality The Vietnam tourism industry can also have less positive impacts in providing job opportunities for local communities. The tourism industry might reduce of jobs when national parks, forest, rivers or even rice fields become part of the tourism product/experience whereby local government have set buffer zones in many tourist resorts such as national parks, natural reserves and monuments in order to protect them. As a result, local people are forced to move out of, and thus restricted their living practices in these areas. When tourism development displaces and affects local villagers in this way, it can destroy their traditional employment practices (De, 2002; Ha, 2005). It is worthless to reduce labor costs in some tourism-related services since the private sector has made considerable effort to increase the efficiency of tourism business operation. Another important feature of Vietnams tourism industry is that it is differentiated by small- and medium-scale tourism enterprise. Even though the country has taken actions to decentralize its diversity products and management system, yet the increased involvement of privately owned small enterprises in the tourism industry has resulted in slow employment growth. As most of these enterprises are in family based, thus their overall contribution to national employment has been small. 3.2.2 Arise of income equality in rural areas From the social issues perspective, rapid population growth, inadequate basis services of education and health care and social stratification have emerged widely in Vietnam even though the country has made much effort to use its economic success for social improvements (Bui, 2009). According to Kokko and Tingvall (2005), Vietnam has faced the rising of income inequality over the past decade because some regions are improving and growing tremendously faster than others: average income is rising faster in the cities that have higher concentration of tourists than in rural areas whereby there are significant differences between incomes in lowland areas compared with the remote and mountainous areas which has less concentration of tourist. Another example to look into this issue is through a popular tourism destination in Vietnam, Kim Bong Village is capable to attract the attention of tourist because of its scenic riverside landscape and traditional carpentry workshops. Yet, visitors only tend to stop by in Kim Bong village and undertake a short trip. Despite the tourism potential of the village, Kim Bong does not benefit from the development of tourism and is hindered by the underdeveloped infrastructure. As a result, a high incidence of poverty and a lack of decent employment opportunities are direct consequences of these drawbacks. 3.2.3 Lack of skilled human resources The Asian-Tour project ToR highlighted that there is a lack of professional and skilled staff working in tourism sector. While it is easy to start working in the tourism sector, the long term success depends on the satisfaction of the tourist as client. The problem is especially arising when working with poor local communities, who show a lot of hospitality but do not really know how to serve international visitors. The cultural and language differences are constraining the tourism development in Vietnam. Despite, Vietnam having more than 60 tourism training centers that offer university, vocational and postgraduate training, and many graduates from these centers fail to satisfy their employers requirements (Canh 2002; Luong, 2005b). The quality of tour operators, tour guides and hotels operating staff are at bare minimum of acceptable service levels for foreign tourist which reflected the poor quality standard of tourism training programmes offered in Vietnam. Due to the teaching standard and training programmes vary in each training institution has resulted a considerable of inconsistency in the used of textbooks and curricula. Tour companies claimed that tourism graduates are often poorly equipped with the skills and knowledge they needed in working in the sector, whereby there are insufficient historical and cultural understanding, lack of hospitality skills and poor language proficiency (Vietnam Cultural Profile, 2005). It is stated that the lack of qualified local tour guides wh o speak Asian languages such as Japanese, Chinese and Korean is of particular concern to the VNAT, given their current focus on this area because tourist from China, South Korean and Japan are the top three countries that have visited Vietnam in 2010. For this reason, the industry has to recruit skillful tour guides from outside the sector and trained in post. 3.2.4 Lack of participation of local communities Despite that, the local communities and their leader are rarely included in the strategy, practices and policy making processes relating to sustainable tourism development project which affects their access and business activities to tourism resources. The level of participation of tourism enterprises and the local communities in the control of operation in tourism activities is constrain (De, 2002; Ha, 2005; Dinh et al., 2006). Despite that, however, from the local community point of view, a development and institutional practices might result in a loss of access to tourism resources and unfavorable social activities in the local economy. (Lipscombe Thwaites, 2003). It can be seen that the major constraints to sustainable tourism development in Vietnam is due to the insufficient of communication and co-operation between various authorities, especially with central government developing policies for tourism planning, marketing and promotion of tourism. 3.3 Week awareness of planning and development of tourism facilities It is undeniable that the tourism industry has contributed massively to the economic growth of Vietnam, but in return it has also caused environmental degradation, biodiversity deterioration and the other adverse impacts (Canh, 2002; Lam, 2002). The exploit of natural resources in the supply of tourists facilities can lead to conflicts over resources between the locality and the tourism industry. For example, the Tam Dao tourism site in Vinh Phuc province has become degraded; areas of Trang Tien, opera house or Bac Co in inner of the capital city should have planned into flower gardens rather building of Hilton hotel; beaches in Ha Long Bay of Quang Ninh province has been imposed by Hoang Gia hotel project; Van Phong gulf in Khanh Hoa province is about to become an uncultivated bay because of a shipbuilding plant (Le Minh, 2010) Deforestation and intensified use of the resources can also result in environmental pollution and erosion. Pressures on the environment and tourism resources generated by the development of tourism in Vietnam are excessive. Often, those impacts are due to improper planning, negligent behavior by tourism-related services and tourists, and a lack of education and awareness towards the impacts by many localities. In Vietnam, there have been many national parks cater to both conserve biodiversity as well as tourism attraction. It is risky for mass tourism participates in national parks with fragile forest ecosystems. In addition to the stresses put on the local environment through accommodating the needs and comforts of these tourists: communication routes, provision fuel wood and waste disposal services all put a large stress on the ecology (De, 2002; Luong, 2005a). 3.3.1 Poor infrastructure The poor public infrastructure in Vietnam is a major issue to hotel and tourism. Roads are poor with many potholes and the adequate transport links between the north and south parts of the country. Floods in roads after downpours can be easily seen in tourist destination sites, causing a great deal of inconvenience and bad tourism image to tourists. The railway system is weak and substandard. Trains, still using steam engines, are slow of poor quality. Poor transportation networks and facilities have impeded travel by international tourist within the country (Connie and Terry, 1998). The system infrastructure is poorly developed whereby the transportation, tourism services, information system, telecommunication development are limited in terms of quality. It is important to note that, because of a lack of proper national tourism promotion strategy and its poor infrastructure Vietnam struggles to compete as a tourism destination with some of its more developed neighbors such as Singapore, Thailand, Indonesia and Malaysia (VNAT, 2005). 3.4 Lack of diversified and sustainable tourism product There are many articles appearing on the national newspaper Viet Nam News, emphasizing on tourism potential, development and target markets that became an important source of income to the country which resulted the efforts in advertising and promoting the image of Vietnamese tourism in international networks, and at the same time improving the quality of the current tourism products and services. Yet, minimum attentions have been placed towards the requirement of fundamental diversification in identifying and packaging of a tourism product to cater the different needs and expectations by the domestic, the short-haul Asian and the long-haul European and other international markets. It seems that tourism development in Vietnam can be seen through the construction of more high-rise hotel buildings as well as the emerged of international hotel chain to cope with increasing numbers of visitors, with the lack of attention towards the planning and management of those natural resources that attracted tourists in the first place. 3.5 Weak destination image Those working in the tourism sector argue that the VNAT must implement more promotion towards the country in overseas than just presenting itself at selected international travel trade shows. Currently, the Vietnamese tourism industry has a ratio of 15 percent in repeated international arrivals, which is rather low compared with Singapore, Thailand or Indonesia (Thanh, 2007). The increasing conjunction of the industry into the regional and international tourism market has imposed a strong pressure for Vietnamese tourism enterprises (Bui, 2009). The standards in terms of marketing, branding and promotion have not met the demand and compete in Vietnams neighboring countries. In responding its relative weakness in competitiveness, the Vietnam tourism industry has increasingly over-exploited natural and human tourism resources cutting development costs in areas such as environmental management and providing poor worker conditions (Thanh, 2007). The deprivation of environmental resources has appeared widely in many tourist destinations such as Cat Ba, Ha Long, Da Nang and Vung Tau.

i Felt A Funeral, In My Brain :: essays research papers

In my opinion, Emily Dickinson as a transcendentalist used her poetry to describe the process of transcendental meditation, particularly the meditation of death. In this poem she tries to allow us to expierience our true nature by entering directly into our conscious. The poem is a deep seeking of the nature of death, the death that is a process of expansion and transformation from solidarity to a spaciousness. When she says: "I felt a funeral in my brain, and mourners to and fro, kept treading, treading till it seemed that sense was breaking through... " She focuses on the sensation of being in the body, feeling the body's substantiality and solidity, and the heaviness caused by gravity pulling on its very substance. When she says ..."And then I heard them lift a box and creak across my soul, With those same boots of lead, again the space began to toll..." I believe this to be an expression of the awareness a "Light Body" expieriences, seeing , tasting, touching, and the like. The body that is within the heavy or outer body. "As all the heavens were a bell, and being but an ear, and I, and silence, some strange race, wrecked, solitary here" I believe is a reference to the phase where the "Light Body" becomes seperated from the "Heavy Body" and everything floats free. "And then a plank in reason broke, and I dropped down, and down, and hit a world at every plunge, and finished knowing then-" I believe this to be gently and gradually dying and into the light and free of knowing. Thinking that all that comes to mind is old and are just old thoughts, and we do not have to hold to them. Giving a new birth to ourselves, to observe peace, mercy, kindness, and healing the pain we suffer from.

Read Savage Inequalities by Jonathan Kozol Essay

In 1964, the author, Jonathan Kozol, is a young man who works as a teacher. Like many others at the time, the grade school where he teaches is segregated (teaching only non-white students), understaffed, and in poor physical condition. Kozol loses his first job as a teacher because he introduces students to some African American poetry that questions the conditions of blacks in America. Years later, after holding many other jobs, Kozol misses working with children. He decides to visit schools across America to see what has changed. What he learns is saddening; many schools have student bodies that are still separate and unequal. Kozol’s journey starts in East St. Louis, Illinois. Traveling with a woman from a religious organization, Kozol takes a look around the inner city. The town sits on a flood plain below beautiful homes that have been built on. Furthermore, factories pour sewage and toxic waste into the city. Playgrounds are found to contain heavy metals that can make children ill. An attempt has been made at building a new school in one area, but cheap construction techniques result in a roof that collapses. Local grade school children tell Kozol horror stories of family and friends who were murdered. A visit to the East St. Louis schools reveals an overall lack of facilities. Sewage floods lunchrooms, making it intolerable to serve food there. Students need books, computers, chalk and even toilet paper. Science classes need test tubes, tables, running water and even heat. The ceiling is about to collapse in one school, the gym and locker room stink with toxic mold, and even the arts classes have no tools. Dedicated teachers make poverty wages teaching oversized classrooms and even choose to bring in their own teaching aids and pay for them out of their own wages. Almost every student in every rundown school is not white. Minority students know they are receiving inferior education in ugly, filthy, dangerous buildings but seem most concerned by the fact that they are all pushed aside and not accepted into nearby white schools. They wonder why they are not liked or trusted. Next Kozol travels to Chicago, Illinois, in the area of Lawndale where Martin Luther King has worked and experienced the worst racism of his life. The conditions are similar as in East St. Louis with filth, decay and danger in mostly non-white schools. Kozol focuses on the incompetent and unkind teachers are the only people the Chicago school system have been hired for these segregated schools and offering low wages. The author disagrees with government officials claims that schools don’t need more money, only better teaching methods. To prove his point he talks about a dedicated, brilliant teacher working in the slums who manages to excite students. She is just down the hall from uncaring teachers. If they wish to learn her methods, all they have to do is watch. Lack of money is the problem and racism is the reason these schools are not getting the money they need, Kozol states. Thousands more dollars are spent each year on each white student attending better schools in the nearby suburbs. Blaming teaching methods or parental involvement for the horrible problems in segregated schools is easier than raising money and finding solutions. The author continues on that the way schools are funded allows inequalities to continue. Local property taxes fund schools, meaning the money a school receives is based on the value of the houses in the area. Houses in richer areas can be afforded by whites that pay more property taxes and get better schools (even if they are dumping sewage onto non-white areas situated below them without paying taxes to those areas to help clean up). Richer homeowners also get tax relief for paying their mortgages. Meanwhile, poor black areas are dumping grounds for toxic waste and garbage, which benefit the wealthier citizens, but they tend to be the only places poor non-whites can afford to live. Low properrty values result in badly funded, dangerous schools. Wealthier whites avoid these public schools and move to suburbs where their property taxes go toward building elegant public schools. Trier school is an example. It attracts a highly trained staff, and boasts an Olympic swimming pool as well as other luxuries. An article about this suburban school brags that most of the students in it are white. Kozol says that magnet schools (special public schools built for the most talented students) seem like a good idea, but are also unfair. The inner city disadvantaged non-white students usually don’t provide head start programs or educated parents who can help them push for admittance. Students of magnet schools are mostly white. Disadvantaged students watch television and know they are being treated like something less than human. This is savagely cruel. In the next area, New York, Kozol sees the same pattern of filth, indifference and degradation. The difference between money spent in inner city schools and outlying suburbs is more than double in the New York districts. The school system administrators admit they don’t even know how many kids become discouraged and drop out of these schools. Kozol finds this shocking in a town where every penny stock on Wall Street can be accounted for every day. However, the school system cannot collect a list of names of dropouts. In fact, several school administrators admit that they actually hope kids will drop out because they have so many students, they can’t teach them all. Health care for disadvantaged minorities is pathetic, which shows society’s indifference to the non-whites, says Kozol. As in Illinois, funding inequalities in New York are not just a local problem. The State of New York actually distributes more money to the richer schools. Visiting a fancy school in Rye, NY, Kozol is disappointed to learn privileged kids are uninterested to the suffering of non-white students in other schools. According to Kozol this is not true of students in his day. Media adds to the misconceptions about poor schools, according to Kozol. For instance, The Wall Street Journal claims that minor cuts in class size won’t help test scores much. Kozol argues that if that is the case, why not double the number of children in each white public school classroom? Nobody would stand for this. He visits Camden, NJ, the fourth poorest area in country. At Pyne Jr. High there are no computers. At the local high school the computers have literally melted because of the extreme heat in the non-air conditioned building. Kozol wonders why African American teachers at these schools ignore the issues of race as if they just accept matters as inevitable. High school kids in Camden tell Kozol about being unable to read the classics because pages are missing from their books, and one promising student is told by her guidance councilor to give up her dream of becoming a lawyer because her English isn’t good enough. As in other cities, dangerous chemicals flee from nearby factories (the factories do not pay taxes here) and children suffer major illnesses. The only principal who earns respect from the media s a man who walks around the school with a bat and tosses three hundred students out of school. This doesn’t help the school, but it gets him on the cover of magazines. When parents of a young boy named, Raymond Abbott go to court to protest the inferior education he is receiving as a poor non-white boy in New Jersey. Expensive lawyers are hired by the State to fight the lawsuit. Eventually the court decides that Raymond is indeed being unfairly treated. However, the decision comes too late to save his educational career. Raymond ends up a dropout cocaine addict in jail. Before introducing readers to the problems in Washington, DC, Kozol observes that disadvantaged people ask for totally equal education when they go to court. Why not? Kozol heads to Washington, where the city contrasts with the reality of the non-white slums a few blocks away. A city official observes that the very poor accept a dual system with richer magnet schools so the whites won’t leave altogether and take political power and money to the suburbs. The news media seem to â€Å"blame the victim† portraying the people who live in ghettos as dangerous fools who spend too much on expensive tennis shoes and jewelry. Kozol says TV viewers in the suburbs don’t understand this stuff is being pushed on ghetto residents who have no access to things of real value. One failed method of improving non-white schools has been to hire non-white administrators. Kozol says this cannot help. Detroit has had non-white administration for years and the underfunded schools are still in a predicament. When a U.S. District Court finds that Detroit schools are both separate and unequal, the U.S. Supreme Court is called in to consider the charge. The Supreme Court at this time is heavily packed with conservative Nixon appointees. These judges say that making things fair in the city of Detroit for the poor would unfairly punish the suburbs. An important Justice of the Supreme Court, Thurgood Marshall, disagrees with the majority opinion and sees that the country has taken a giant step backward in values. Later, President George H.W. Bush says money is not the answer to solving school problems. Kozol then heads to San Antonio where he begins by claiming that Americans hesitate to directly discriminate against other people’s children because this would make them feel guilty. However, he thinks, laws have allowed discrimination to occur in a less direct form. For example, in the 1920s in America the Foundation program is established. It is supposed to mean that everybody is taxed on local homes and businesses at the same rate, and the federal government comes in to make up the difference in money raised by sending extra subsidies to poor schools. Yet, white schools historically get more of this â€Å"make up† money. Kozol thinks it’s strange that when it comes to equal funding for public schools, officials fight for local control, but the federal government is happy to overrule federal control when it comes to which books should be read, and other important issues. In 1968 in San Antonio, the parents of Demetrio Rodriguez and other students go to court to fight for equal funds for their low-grade school. Justice Powell of the Supreme Court suggests that a quality education is not guaranteed by the constitution, although lawyers argue the students need the skills to vote, which is guaranteed by the constitution. Twenty-one years later it is found that unequal funding is in fact unfair, but of course this decision is too late for the kid who brought the lawsuit in the first place. Kozol visits Alamo Heights near San Antonio where the wealthy live. He then descends to the shacks below the bluffs where 99.3 percent of the kids are Hispanic and poor enough to rely on the school lunch program for their main meal of the day. Down in the valley, the teachers are underpaid, the buildings are crumbling and the schools can spend only a fraction of what they spend in Alamo Heights on each student. Yet most of the State’s extra funding goes to Alamo Heights. Finally Kozol sees that when white children are impoverished and discriminated against, their schools are poor, too. He visits a community of poor Appalachian children thrust into one school. It undergoes overcrowding; the building is in shambles and teachers lack resource, just like all of the non-white schools all over the country. He is told that soon many of these children will be bussed to non-white schools nearby Kozol’s observations are haunting. Time and time again the pattern is repeated; Non-whites pushed into nasty, dangerous conditions through history, whites unwilling to share their prosperity with the people of color they fear, governments endless excuses for doing nothing and actually blocking the success of poor schools in corrupt ways. Kozol’s conclusion is that this is illogical, unpatriotic and deeply unkind. Overall, I truly enjoyed this book and what is has to offer when describing the unequal treatment African Americans and minorities have in urban areas. â€Å"Here’s what we should do. Put more money into preschool, kindergarten, elementary years. Pay college kids to tutor inner city children. Get rid of the property tax, which is too uneven and use income taxes to support these schools. Pay teachers more to work in more places like the Bronx. It has to come from taxes. Pay them extra to go to the worst schools. You could forgive their college loans to make it worth their while.†, this statement spoke to me. It’s the ideal plan, however I don’t see it actually transpiring into our education world. I was ignorant to the true facts of the American educational system. This book, Mr. Kozol, has opened my eyes to the history, suffering and makes a powerful impact on his behalf. He begins by showing specific, terrible injustices then examines how the troubles have come to be, sometimes by reviewing court decisions or by tracing the movement of labor away from a particular area. Next, he talks about those things standing in the way of improvement, often vague attitudes or fears. Finally, toward the end of the book, he begins to outline his vision for getting past the roadblocks and improving all schools. The result is that the reader/I was hooked right away, wondering how in the world such awful things have come to pass.

Ingres, Jean- Auguste-Dominique essays

Ingres, Jean- Auguste-Dominique essays Art has been through many changes through as early as the middle ages to the renaissance to the French Neoclassism. Artist began to practice and show their skills to the world. The successfulness of an artist is greatly determined on how much people (wealthy individuals) hired and loved their work. Ingres, Jean-Auguste-Dominique is one of them. French Neoclassism painters were largely influenced by trends in late 18th-century Europe. However, the French Revolution inspired a unique brand of Neoclassism realism that was a strong force in French paintings. Painting nude women portraits of the history of art were popular during this period. Portraits were very expensive to commission so the only people who could afford it were the wealthy and rich people. Ingres, Jean-Auguste-Dominique, was a French painter, who was a leading figure in the neoclassical movement. Ingres was born in Montauban in the South of France on August 29, 1780. He demonstrated great talent at an early age for music and drawing and received his first instruction from his father. His father was also an artist but an unsuccessful sculptor and painter. Ingres prepared himself and entered the studio of neoclassical painter in Paris. Ingres learned to draw from his sculptor father before attending the Academy of Art in Toulouse, from 1791. In 1797 he entered Jacques Louis David's studio in Paris. He won the Prix de Rome in 1801 for his painting The Envoys from Agamemnon. The Grande Odalisque the painting that Ingres painted was a picture a women nude lying in bed. In my opinion the picture was very detailed and the skin tone of the women had different shades of skin color, the lines are blended into the picture and every line that he did was a shadow. The lightness comes from the left side while the other side is dark. In this painting he uses dark colors for the background the curtains and the bed. The womens body has shadows on her. The amazing thing about...

Human Trafficking Report Professor Ramos Blog

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Voter Turnout in Local Election Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Voter Turnout in Local Election - Research Paper Example Turnout is bad enough during the a federal election cycle, but when there are no national politics involved, that statistics get even poorer. As a result, it becomes increasingly difficult to unseat incumbents, many of whom have grown too comfortable in their position to enact meaningful change. There are other issues involved, as well, in the record low numbers of voters turning out in local elections. This paper aims to examine some of those issues, provide implications for such voter apathy should it continue, and propose possible solutions for increasing voter turnout in local elections in the future. There is a wealth of current research looking into possible reasons that local election typically draw such abysmal voter turnout year after year. Many simply blame this on voter apathy, a frustration with current politicians and government in general, or simply on a mismanagement of the election calendar, resulting in elections in off years simply not gaining the attention that the y need to in order to garner a deeper interest in local government. While the reality is that it is likely a combination of these factors that have created the problem, a solution centered on having local elections coincide with the federal cycle will likely be a quick way to improve initial voter turnout numbers. Then, attention could be directed into getting more local involvement in government and restoring trust to the people in their own political system. To begin, let us consider the state of California. Hajinal and Lewis (2003) looked at some empirical research to determine various factors that are leading to low voter turnout in elections for various mayoral and city council races. The feeling was that something needed to be done to combat these low turnout numbers in order to have a more active and politically sensitive government. The study revealed that many residents in various towns and cities throughout the state had lost faith in their local government, so they have c eased any type of involvement in their community political system, most of all among these local elections. As a result, many incumbents are running unchallenged and seemingly unabated in their quest for a career in local politics. Not only has this phenomenon resulted in voter apathy, as it is difficult to get excited about voting when there is only candidate running for various offices, but it has also cheapened the entire political process of local government. The author’s of this study concluded that many local politicians who had been in office for numerous election cycles were now unmotivated to really invoked lasting change in the community, because they had no fear of being unseated. Similar to other studies, it was also uncovered that the same incumbents were supported in every campaign by the same special interest groups who could count on the local politicians to keep voting their way on various issues. It has been little wonder that many local communities simply h ave low turnout on voting day (Hajinal & Lewis, 2003). This study employed a methodology whereby current voting data was triangulated with current events in an effort to determine what remedies could be found to help encourage higher numbers of voters to actually turn out and cast their vote on election day. The research findings and data led to the eventual conclusion that shifting local

Aristotle & Hume Term Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Aristotle & Hume - Term Paper Example Passion is a feeling which has no boundaries, if aroused naturally and authentically in an individual. Hume understands the concepts and elements of life as he is a deep thinker and has contemplated on life and human psychology in various ways. Here the intention is to comprehend the statement of Hume and interpret it with one of the greatest Greek philosophers the world has seen, Aristotle. The view of Aristotle is distinctive and unique and can be contradictory or resembling to that of Hume. The attempt here is to argumentatively interpret the statement by Hume and convey how Aristotle would converse regarding this issue. Passion being a natural feeling cannot be influenced or affected by other qualities or personality traits of human being. People can analyze the feeling and reciprocate on it in varied ways, but it really depends on the philosophical perspective and reasoning ability of a philosopher. Here the perspective and argumentative stand of Hume and Aristotle would bring a bout more of depth to the thinking ability and philosophical values of both. Arguments Passion is natural and contradictory to reasoning Aristotle, as an intellectual thinker and philosopher, connects virtue to feelings. Passion is an aggressive and intense feeling of human being. Aristotle was of the opinion that with intellectual thinking intellectual virtues like wisdom, reasoning and intellectual skills are connected; on the other hand, moralistic virtues are related to one of the component of soul where feelings reside. If a person holds a pure soul, then he would be morally ideal and realistically passionate. Passion is attached to soul; it is a feeling arising from the inner most depth of a human soul and heart. A person who possesses high intelligence needs not necessarily have a passionate soul or heart. According to Morgan, â€Å"[f]or when the beings are of different kinds, the parts of the soul naturally suited are of different kinds, since the parts possess knowledge b y being somehow similar appropriate† (Morgan 307). It is normally observed that a person with intelligence and a high reasoning ability focuses more on analytical facts and gives importance to brain faculty rather than desire. Here we can understand that Hume’s ideology and Aristotle’s perspective match in a positive manner. Aristotle would totally agree with Hume and would proclaim that passion in no way can be combatted by reasoning. Reasoning is a quality of physical body whereas passion is both spiritual and physical and can surpass reason in all manners. Aristotle would postulate the fact that passion, as a strong feeling, could change a man’s thinking and reasoning ability to a great extent. Aristotle would further suggest that a man who is passionately evoked cannot be tethered by reasoning or intelligence as he is completely surrendered to the soul. A soul is the ultimate powerhouse of a human being, and when enslaved to soul, no intelligence can r ule the mental status of a person. Reason is an egoistic value and passion a natural feeling Aristotle, being a soul lover, would comment to Hume that soul is the universal energy, and nothing in the world which is related to ego can fight with it. Passion is the essence of a soul, and a man, being a soul enriched being, can be overwhelmingly overtaken by passion. Reasoning is a component of soul, but it is not a moralistic virtue even though it is a virtue. Aristotle would continue that all virtues are not idealistic, and