Lower Body Injury Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

Lower Body Injury - Essay Example In football and rugby, traumatic injuries are the major contributors while in basketball, lawn tennis, hockey and badminton sudden stopping and twisting tops the list. However, no sport is limited to a single cause. The major symptoms include mild to severe pain, swelling of the knee joint, audible click or pop in the knee, and at times knee lock occurs. The magnitude and the number of the symptoms observed in a casualty are not fixed (Engebretsen & Bahr 2011). In many case they vary depending on the severity of the injury. In case of a cartilage tear, the patient is first given a physiotherapy treatment to lessen the pain and inflammation or swelling of the joint. This involves application of ice parks at interval of 20 minutes hourly. For severe cases, the patient is hospitalized immediately (Engebretsen & Bahr 2011). Returning to the field to play once again may be immediate depending on how fast the knee settles down, swelling and pain disappearing. Although in complicated cases, this will be indefinite. This is because it is subject to type of treatment given and rehabilitation period based on the doctor’s opinion (Engebretsen & Bahr 2011). In sports, tearing of cartilage is not an injury that can be easily prevented. However, there are measures that can be employed to minimize the frequencies of such occurrences. In the field, players in any particular sport should avoid playing or training in uneven or grounds, do warm up activities before engaging in any intense physical sport and should have a knee strap to aid in restriction of joint rotation but permits knee movement. Also performing exercises that develops thee quadriceps and hamstring muscles can be handy in preventing cartilage tear (Sohn & Toth

Impact of Fiscal Decentralization on Economic Growth

Impact of Fiscal Decentralization on Economic Growth CHAPTER-1 INTRODUCTION INTRODUCTION Fiscal decentralization and its impact on economic growth have turned into an interesting subject until today since studies regarding fiscal decentralization are not only considered from the economic viewpoint, but also another perspective such as politics, graphic, and other subjects. The reason conduct of this study about fiscal decentralization and its impact on economic growth is that because sometimes the findings do not give the same conclusions among the researchers about the effect above topic. It is believed that Fiscal decentralization has positive impact on economic stability and growth because it supports in better and appropriate execution of public policies. In decentralized system the government is in great position to know about the essential requirements and problems of societies. It has no any issue in collecting the useful data for mapping out any results oriented policies for backward areas and societies. The â€Å"Decentralization Theorem† maintains that i f there are different preferences for public goods between jurisdictions of uniform provision of these goods by central government will generally achieve lower level of efficiency than one that can be attained by a decentralized provision that allows for differences across jurisdictions (Oates, 1972). Fiscal decentralization cab be handy in shaping out suitable policies, strategies and can get rid of needless activities of federal governments. In the words of Bird and Smart (2002), â€Å" for services to be effectively provided, those receiving transfers need a clear mandate, adequate resources and sufficient flexibility to make decisions†. Fiscal decentralization is a process through which the responsibilities as well as resources from national to provincial governments are devolved (Rondinelli, 1981). Thus decentralization, federal government empowers the provincial governments in such a manner that can help in better use of resources, improve public living standards and at the same time to share the work load (Gordin, 2004). Nevertheless from financial point of view, decentralization may pose danger if it is weakly design so that provinces are able to externalize their costs to others (Rodden et al, 2002; Von Hagen et al, 2000). Our country is federal country with centralized taxation procedure. The central authority collects the bulk of income and then redistributes it between the federal and provinces to correct both the vertical and horizontal differences. The financial resources allocation scheme in Pakistan is fortified with rule and an independent organization, National Finance Commission (NFC), subsequent to every five years, to make sure the fair and careful resource division. However, at times different issues perturb the method and existing economic resources sharing and that could not prove productive. Deadlocks were practiced time to time and therefore National Finance and horizontal resource sharing breaches. Further this study intention to discover the strengths and weaknesses of the present financial resource allocation structure in Pakistan, in the course of the compilation of its past trends. The accurate and suitable information about the existing resource sharing is supposed to result in improved strategy formulation and therefore would eventually assist the nation to grab the growth path faster. In this regard, it is very essential to check out the impact of present resources distribution on economic expansion of nation. So the present study assists in identifying the scale of financial sovereignty of the provincial governments and increase its long run returns. History of Resource allocation in Pakistan Pakistan is a country that has powerful central control system. Two levels of government are working in Pakistan .i.e. the national and sub national (provincial). The resources distribution system all the time remained under discussion due to the competence and sharing issues. -In the observation of Jaffery and Sadaqat (2006), the resource sharing system goes through the four levels. The first level the National Finance Commission (NFC) awards decides the revenue division among the central government and provincial governments. At the second level, Provincial Finance Commission (PFC) delegates funds from provincial to local levels. At the third stage transfers are made from central to local levels and lastly the vertical resources distribution takes place at local levels .i.e. from district government to Tehsil Municipal Administration. On the converse, the random transfers take the shape of particular grants, discretionary resources for administrative, the parliamentarian developmen t funds and the same. This fraction summarizes all the awards offered during the course of time after getting the independence. The overtime development is then discussed on the foundation of chronological investigation. 1.3 Niemeyer Award In the light of the 1935 Act of United India, the Niemeyer Award was followed for resource allocation between the federal and provinces. According to this award, a major tax i.e. sales tax was levied and collected by the provincial government. While the fifty percent of income tax of the total collection was redistributed to the provinces. When Pakistan came into being, the similar provisions were carried out up to March 1952, though a few adjustments were chart out in railway budget and distribution of earnings and sales tax (Government of Pakistan, 1991). 1.4 Raisman Award In December, 1947 the Raisman award was presented (Government of Pakistan, 1991). The particular provisions were made to cover up the fragile financial situation of the central government. The federal government was authorized of fifty percent of sales tax revenue as an ad hoc measure. The remaining fifty percent was given to provinces, out of which five percent was allocated to provinces, Punjab, Sindh, NWFP, Bhawalpur, Khairpur Mir’s, Balochistan states union and residual as 27,12,8,4,0.6,0.6 and 2.8 percent respectively and 45 was given to East Pakistan (Government of Pakistan, 1991). 1.5 Revenue Sharing Under One Unit In 1955, all the four provinces of West Pakistan were combined and stated as a one unit during the implementation phase of the Raisman Award. Consequently, later than 1955 the entire country was acknowledged two identities merely .i.e. West Pakistan and East Pakistan. In the period of One Unit, two awards were presented .i.e. of year 1961 and 1965. 1.5 (I).The First Award 1961 In the light of this first award the 70 percent of sales tax and other taxes from divisible pool were assigned to East Pakistan and West Pakistan. The share of East Pakistan and West Pakistan was 54% and 46% respectively. While the remaining 30 percent of sales tax was assigned to the provinces on the basis of collection in their respective areas. The remaining duties on agricultural land and capital value tax on immovable property were given to the units as per their collection (Pakistan 1991). 1.5 (II). The Second Award 1965 The 1965 National Finance Commission was designed under the article 144 of the 1962 constitution of Pakistan. The divisible pool comprised of collection from income tax, sales tax, excise duty and export duty. However 30% of sales tax was distributed in accordance with its collection in each province. The respective share out of divisible pool between Centre and Provinces were decided 35:65 percent respectively. The share of East Pakistan and West Pakistan remained untouched at 54% and 46%. However, on 1st July 1970 the West Pakistan was disband into four provinces Sindh, Punjab, Baluchistan and NWFP, thus its share 46 percent was distributed as 23.5, 56.5, 23.5, 4.5 and 15.5 percent respectively among the new provinces of West Pakistan. (Pakistan 1991). 1.6 National Finance Committee 1970 In April 1970, this was first time a committee was made to chart out acceptable resource allocation among the federating units under the supervision of federal finance minister. The committee gave a new resource division mechanism. The resources pool was vertically divided between federal and provincial government 20:80 percent respectively. The thirty percent of the allotted sales tax was redistributed among the provinces according to the collection from the respective areas. Table No: 01, Provincial Share under National Finance Committee 1970 Sindh Punjab Baluchistan NWFP 23.50%56.50% 4.50% 15.50% Source: Pakistan 1991 1.7 Financial Arrangements in 1973 Constitution The 1973 new constitution was accepted in the majority by National Assembly either government member or opposition members. The particular provisions were charted out for the revenue allocation mechanism smooth and suitable in the new constitution of 1973. The federal government was made obligatory to constitute the NFC following every five years in the 1973 constitution. The commission was authorized to propose and asses the resource allocation process in country. So with the new and strong position, efforts were made to make sure an undisputed revenue allocation 1.8 The FirstNational Finance Commission (NFC) Award 1974 In the light of new constitution the first National Finance Commission was constituted in 1974. The DP consisted of merely sales tax, income tax and export duty on cotton under this new commission. This commission made the population only decisive factor for horizontal income sharing among the federating units. The vertical division of resources remained unchanged. Because of population as the only standard for the resource division, the provincial share of Punjab increased to 60.25 percent of the total provincial share. As a result with the non-diversification of principle, the smaller provinces were badly affected. Table No: 02, Provincial Share under National Finance Commission 1974 Sindh Punjab Baluchistan NWFP 22.50%60.25% 3.86% 13.39% Source: Pakistan 1991 1.9 The Second National Finance Commission (NFC) Award 1979 In 1979 the government of President General Zia-ul-Haq set up the second national finance commission award. This commission gave the resource distribution formula between provinces as the following i.e. Punjab 57.97, Sindh 23.34, NWFP 13.39 and Baluchistan 5.30 respectively. Table No: 03, Provincial Share under National Finance Commission 1979 Sindh Punjab Baluchistan NWFP 23.34%57.97% 5.30% 13.39% Source: Pakistan 2000 1.10 The third National Finance Commission (NFC) Award 1985 The third National Finance Commission could not give any recommendation for resource distribution mechanism. The revenue was distributed in the light of the first NFC award with the amended provisional population. Table No: 04, Provincial Share under National Finance Committee 1970 Sindh Punjab Baluchistan NWFP 23.50%56.50% 4.50% 15.50% Source: Pakistan 1991 1.11 The Fourth National Finance Commission (NFC) Award 1991 Under the shelter of democratic government of Mr. Muhammad Nawaz Sharif the Fourth National Finance Commission was shaped in 1990. This Fourth NFC achieved the success after the break of sixteen years so this award was considered a significant attainment. The numbers of constructive suggestions were the elements of this award. In the light of this fourth NFC award the horizontal resource share of the provinces registered the significant expansion of 17 percentage points which increases form 28% to 45% of federal tax revenue, (Ghaus and Phasha, 1994). The population was the only base for resource distribution among the provinces which is given below. Table No: 05, Provincial Share under National Finance Committee 1991 Sindh Punjab Baluchistan NWFP 23.28%57.88% 5.30% 13.54% Source: Pakistan 1991 1.12 The Fifth National Finance Commission (NFC) Award 1997 In this award the DP was extended with the addition of all duties and taxes. Capital value tax, wealth tax, income tax, sales tax, excise duties, export duties, custom duties (other than duty on gas that is charged at wellhead), and each and every other taxes that were collected or levied by central government. The net development surcharges on natural gas and the royalties on crude oil were extended to the provinces in the form of straight transfers. The each province was given the share from divisible pool as under. Table No: 06, Provincial Share under National Finance Committee 1997 Sindh Punjab Baluchistan NWFP 23.28%57.88% 5.30% 13.54% Source: Pakistan 1996 1.13 The sixth National Finance Commission (NFC) Award 2000 General Pervaiz Musharraf came into power and gave the Sixth NFC in which the federal government was insisting 45% out of DP but the provinces were demanding 50% of the share and this NFC completed its term without any achievement. 1.14 The Seventh National Finance Commission (NFC) Award 2010 The long standing problem of allocation of resources between provinces and federal has been set on by the momentous announcement of the 7th National Finance Commission Award on 18th March 2010. In this National Finance Commission Award the share of the provinces in vertical allocation has been enlarged from 49 percent to 56 percent for the period of the 2010-11 and 57.5 percent for the duration of the remaining years of the award. The multiple criteria formula for the horizontal resource distribution among the provinces has been applied instead of traditional population criteria which was the only base for resource distribution in Pakistan. In the light of this new multiple criterion for resource distribution among the provinces, 82 percent allocation was made on population, 10.3 percent on poverty and backwardness, 5 percent on revenue collection or generation and 2.7 percent on inverse population density (IPD). According to the 7th NFC award Federal Government had reduced its colle ction charges from 5 percent to 1 percent, which would mainly benefit to the provinces. Realizing the position of Province Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa in the war on terror 1 percent of the net divisible pool was assigned to this province. According to this new formula of resource allocation Baluchistan would get 9.09 percent from divisible pool, Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa 14.62 percent, Sindh 24.55 percent and Punjab 51.74 percent. Table No: 07, Provincial Share under National Finance Committee 2010 Sindh Punjab Baluchistan Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa 24.55%5174% 9.09% 14.62% Source: Pakistan 2006 Briefly, the record of National Finance Commission indicates the resource allocation in Pakistan generally has been ineffective. It has the both the shades of failure as well as certain achievements. On the positive side the NFC all the stake holders are kept on board and decides the resource allocation among them. Further, with the passage of time more financial resources autonomy has been delegated to the provinces and there is more realization of fiscal decentralization especially in past three NFC awards of 1997, 2006 and 2010. The resource share of provinces has been improved either due to inclusion of taxes in the DP or due to the higher provincial share in the comparison that of central since 1991 NFC award. Further the increased grants and straight transfers are channelized to the provinces. Similarly, the incentive of matching the grants motive the provinces, inviting them to enhance efficiency, have their own resource generation and obtain financial autonomy ( Ahmed et al, 2007). On the other hand, on its negative side, various deadlocks and long breaks were exercised very often due to non-harmony among the provinces and between the provinces and center. Every one of the provinces has contrary characteristics and offers different monetary opportunities to its citizens. Different importance of the provinces destabilized their bargaining authority. For instance, Punjab insisted for the agriculture yield and population as only criterion to share out the funds, while Sindh has emphasized on the revenue generation criterion, Baluchistan demanded for area and Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa advocated for backwardness. Consequently, owing to the absence of consensus and failure in agreement, provinces retreat to the adoption of a single criterion, which is sub-most favorable. In last the institutional system of NFC has remained unsuccessful in amicably moving towards the progress, development and tackling the very crucial hitch of fiscal allocation and transference. The second part of this empirical work is the comparison between the local governments’ and non-local governments’ economic performance. The GDP growth rate has been compared. The first phase of local governments starts from the government of General Ayoub Khan and Yahya Khan from 1960 to 1971, second phase of the local government starts in the government of General Zia-ul-Haq from 1978 to 1987 and third phase of local government starts in the government of General Musharraff from 2001 to 2008. The total time period of local government remained 30 years so other remaining years of non-local government performance have been compared which starts form 1957 to 1959, 1972 to 1977, 1988 to 2000 and 2009 to 2012. GDP growth rate during the local and non-local government in Pakistan year wise is given bellow. Table No: 08, GDP growth rate during non-local governments in Pakistan for thirty years. Year GDP Growth Rate Year GDP Growth Rate 1954 10.2 1991 5.6 1955 2.0 1992 7.7 1956 3.5 1993 2.3 1957 3.0 1994 4.5 1958 2.5 1995 4.1 1959 5.5 1996 6.6 1972 2.3 1997 1.7 1973 6.8 1998 3.5 1974 7.5 1999 4.2 1975 3.9 2000 3.9 1976 3.3 2009 1.6 1977 2.8 2010 3.8 1988 6.4 2011 4.4 1989 4.8 2012 4.5 1990 4.6 2013 5.0 Source Economic Survey of Pakistan and Handbook of Statistics on Pakistan Economy Graph No: 01 GDP growth rate during non-local governments in Pakistan Table No: 09, GDP growth rate during local governments in Pakistan for thirty years. Year GDP Growth Rate Year GDP Growth Rate 1960 10.2 1981 5.6 1961 2.0 1982 7.7 1962 3.5 1983 2.3 1963 3.0 1984 4.5 1964 2.5 1985 4.1 1965 5.5 1986 6.6 1966 2.3 1987 1.7 1967 6.8 2001 3.5 1968 7.5 2002 4.2 1969 3.9 2003 3.9 1970 3.3 2004 1.6 1971 2.8 2005 3.8 1978 6.4 2006 4.4 1979 4.8 2007 4.5 1980 4.6 2008 5.0 Source Economic Survey of Pakistan and Handbook of Statistics on Pakistan Economy Graph No: 02, GDP growth rate during local governments in Pakistan. Graph No: 03, GDP growth rate during the local and non-local governments for the selected thirty years in Pakistan. In this graph of GDP growth rate during Local and Non-local Governments, the green colour bars show the GDP growth rate during Local Governments and while the purple colour bars show the GDP growth rate during the Non-local Governments in Pakistan for the selected years. The green colour bars which depict the growth rate during local governments are generally higher than others that represent the growth rate during Non-local Governments for nominated years in Pakistan. Further we have compared the Average GDP growth rate of both types of governments. First GDP growth rates of Non-local Governments of Pakistan for given time periods 30 years have been summed and divided by 30 thirty years and same for Local Governments. So the average GDP growth rate during Non-local Governments has remained 4.41% and while the GDP growth in the period of Local Governments has remained 6.11%, which is much higher than Non-local governments.

How Aids Has Affected Our Society :: essays research papers fc

Today more Americans are infected with STD's than at any other time in history. The most serious of these diseases is AIDS. Since the first cases were identified in the United States in 1981, AIDS has touched the lives of millions of American families. This deadly disease is unlike any other in modern history. Changes in social behavior can be directly linked to AIDS. Its overall effect on society has been dramatic. It is unknown whether AIDS and HIV existed and killed in the U.S. and North America before the early 1970s. However in the early 1980s, "deaths by opportunistic infections, previously observed mainly in tissue-transplant recipients receiving immunosuppressive therapy", were recognized in otherwise healthy homosexual men. In 1983 French oncologist Luc Montagnier and scientists at the Pasteur Institute in Paris isolated what appeared to be a new human retrovirus from the lymph node of a man at risk for having AIDS. At the same time, scientists working in the laboratory of American research, scientist Robert Gallo at the National Cancer Institute, one of the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland, and a group headed by American virologist Jay Levy at the University of California at San Francisco isolated a retrovirus from people with AIDS and from individuals having contact with people with AIDS. All three groups of scientists had isolated what is now known as HIV, the virus that causes AIDS. Lorusso 2 In 1995 HIV was estimated to infect almost 20 million people worldwide, and several million of those people had developed AIDS. The disease is obviously an important social issue. AIDS has caused many to rethink their own social behavior. People are forced to use caution when involving themselves in sexual activity. They must use contraception to avoid the dangers of infection. Many people consider HIV infection and AIDS to be completely preventable because the routes of HIV transmission are so well known. To completely prevent transmission, however, dramatic changes in sexual behavior and drug dependence would have to occur throughout the world. Prevention efforts that promote sexual awareness through open discussion and condom distribution in public schools have been opposed due to fear that these efforts encourage sexual promiscuity among young adults. Similarly, needle-exchange programs have been criticized as promoting drug abuse. Governor Christine Todd Whitman vetoed a bill in New Jersey that tried to create a needle-exchange program. She was accused of being "compassionless". She replied that she could not allow drug addicts to continue to break the law. By distributing needles, she felt that she was, in fact, encouraging them to break the law. Prevention programs that identify HIV-infected individuals and notify

Does the Media Distort Our Understanding of What Is Happening in the World? Justify Your Answer with the Use of Examples

When thinking about this question, we have to ask ourselves firstly what is the role of the media in our world? Media is defined as the means of mass communication (esp. Television, radio, newspapers, books, magazines, internet) regarded collectively. Its role in society is to inform the public, and keep us informed, about what is happening throughout the world as well as entertain us. It uses many platforms including internet, books, magazines, newspapers, television, when you walk down the street.It is all around us. It is there to make people think and encourages us to challenge and have an opinion about events and decisions that are happening and being made. But is it also used to keep the public naive, only informing the public about certain events, hypnotising them into buying products they don’t need, distorting their understanding of what is happening in the world? Media delivers us with news and information not only from our country, but from around the globe. A main section of our news is political.The media delivers us information about everything from political parties, elections, MP’s, to and decisions made. The famous quote by the CBS news anchor Walter Cronkite paints a picture of what the news networks and corporations are there to do; ‘Our job is to only hold up the mirror, to tell the public what is happening. ’ But that is only a slim part of what they actually do. Due to media conglomerates it is very easy for a corporations political agenda to be forced on the public, even the world, without knowing.An example of this is Rupert Murdock. He is the founder, chairman and CEO of New Corporation, which owns the Fox Network, BSkyB (39. 1), The Times, The Sunday Times, The Sun, The Daily Mail, Vogue, and the list goes on. It has influence in countries all over the world including United States, the biggest economy in the world, and the UK. There are many examples throughout its history where it has interfered and persuad ed the public to alter the course of politics for the benefit of the corporation or individual. One example is The Sun.In the 1992 elections in Britain, The Suns’ headline ‘Kinnock wins today will the last person to leave Britain please turn out the lights’ is one of the most famous headlines in newspaper history. The headline refers to The Suns’ campaign leading up to the polling days. The newspaper led a campaign against the Labour parties leader, Neil Kinnock, which then lead to the election day headline being that. That year, the conservatives won and the headline the day after was ‘It The Sun Wot Won It’. There are many more examples The Sun and other newspapers doing this.This shows that the media can be used as a powerful political tool to convince the public to vote for a party, for the corporations, individuals and/or governments benefits. Rupert Murdock was 13th on Forbes; the most powerful people in the world 2010, above President o f France, Nicholas Sarkozy. Is that right? This raises the question of whether media is helping people make informed, wise decisions? Advertisement are a massive chuck of our media today. Every platform for media you look at, whether it be newspapers or television, advertisements will be apart of it.Due to adverts being the funding for majority of media networks, a lot of the news corporations listen to companies demands. For instance, not writing bad press about the firms that are polluting our world, or implementing child labour on the other side of the globe. If the news agencies did this, then they wouldn't have the funds to survive. This is a massive distortion and people are left in the dark about all the terrible actions from companies. An example is the rural tribal lands of East India. Protestors are going head to head with steel giant Arcelor Mittal.The global company wants to displace the villagers from their ancestral land, and build facilities for coke smelting, and ste el production. It will destroy 15 villages and displace many villagers. As for-profit organisations are allowed to buy up media networks, they do so in order to make more profit and can use the media to distort our understanding of what their company is actually doing. For example, in 1995, when Disney was on the brink of collapse and their viewings were decreasing, they purchased the ABC network in the attempt of reviving Disney.This enabled them to broadcast their shows at peak times, as many times as they liked. They were able to report good press about themselves and able to advertise their products. Majority of advertisements are not good either. It has made societies, more developed countries than developing, materialistic and wanting more and more. Products used to be marketed for their utility and they were expected to last. But due to the companies thinking that after they sold one to someone, they wouldn’t need another. So they changed their advertising campaign to needing it.It changed the ‘want’ in the 1950s to the ‘modern need’. People are trained to desire things, which takes their attention off more important things in life. Pestering power is another ploy they use in order to sell their products. Food, drink, and other products target young children in order to pester their parents into buying the specific products. Nick Davis, a former journalist of the year and writer for Guardian, says ‘Our media have become mass producers of distortion. ’ He gives the example of a group of feral child bullies who had ganged up and attempted to hang a five-year-old from a tree.The whole of fleet street published this story in one way on another. However what he go on to explain is that the police, from day one, had refused to say that the boy had been hanged from a tree. The one and only quote that the whole story was based on was from the boys adult cousin. He had told the press that the boy had said ‘Some boys and girls have put a rope around my neck and tried to tie me to a tree’. Nothing in their says he was hanged. Nick Davis, to try and understand why the press had run this story, commissioned research from specialists at Cardiff University.They surveyed 2,000 articles from 5 newspapers (Times, Telegraph, Daily Mail, Guardian and Independent). What they found was out of the articles, only 12% of stories where composed of material researched by reporters, 8% was unknown and the remaining 80% was from second hand sources and provided by news agencies and the public relations industry. – Nick Davis. (2008). Our media have become mass producers of distortion. Available: http://www. guardian. co. uk/commentisfree/2008/feb/04/comment. pressandpublishing. Last accessed 8th December 2011.This research shows that a lot of the articles are in danger of not being accurate because of misinterpretation, lying, or other means. Due to the rise in social networking such as Faceboo k and Twitter, ‘citizen journalism is on the increase as well’. People talking and reporting the news by sharing links, giving their opinion about events and writing about what is happening, and their friends, colleges and fellow bloggers taking it for truth. But due to a a lot of these people not having the knowledge about the subject, or not doing research, these information they are sharing is not always accurate and can distort what is really going n. Take wikipedia for example, anyone no matter what their knowledge is on the subject, their intellect, education, they can edit, re-edit, and involve themselves in wikipedias entries. The system is open to abuse and means that a lot of the content on there could be inaccurate and or false. If we can’t trust our news or the people who are in charge of informing us, this isn't a democracy, its a society in which we are told only what a few selected people want us to hear and see. In conclusion, I feel that there ar e a lot of media outlets that do distort what is happening around us, and this is a big problem.From the news networks being controlled by their for-profit funders, to large companies buying media networks in order to supply the public with a false image of themselves. A large part of the problem though is that a lot people are not taught to think on their own, which makes it easier for the media to do so, or are thinking on their own but not having the knowledge to give relevant information to others. Whether it be the fault of the government, the parents, schools, it needs to change. However, not all media distorts our understanding of what is happening in the world.There are news corporations that aren’t just financed by adverts, which stops the need for the networks to listen to the firms. BBC is solely funded by taxes collected by the government, the tax on your TV, and has been running since 1932. The Guardian is another example. It was owned by the Scott Trust, a chari table foundation in which aimed to ensure the papers editorial independence and that it was not taken over by a for-profit organisation. This means that it would not give in to firms demands, and reports the news at a non bias angle.

Include strategies Essay

Plan, implement and evaluate at least three activities for children in the foundation stage. You should ensure that across the three plans there are learning goals from each of the 6 areas of learning. Your plans should include strategies for differentiation.  Claire Field  Preston College  Introduction  The purpose of this work is to review the nature and content of the foundation stage curriculum and to consider the theoretical underpinning and underlying principles that have assisted in the formation of this early years practice. Through the planning and implementation of three activities, spanning the full spectrum of the foundation stage curriculum, the writer aims to identify and meet the needs of foundation stage children. This work will then evaluate the provisions for these children and investigate further the ways in which differentiation strategies can be implemented to ensure all children, regardless of their abilities, or stage of development, may receive the curriculum, delivered in a style appropriate to them and their own personal requirements. In 1988 the Conservative government, under the leadership of Margaret Thatcher, legislated that a National Curriculum be in force for pupils between the ages of 5 and 16, because she believed that  Ã¢â‚¬Ëœa good educational system was essential for the future  success of the nation’ (Ridley, 1992, p92)  Although a curriculum was in place for ages 5 to 16, there was a distinct lack of standardised learning for the early years. Margaret Hodge joined the Department for Education in 1998 and was responsible for reforming pre-school education policy (www.news.bbc.co.uk 12/10/2006). She was actively involved in the implementation of the Foundation Stage Curriculum in September 2000 and the publishing of the guidance to accompany this. The abilities of children are multifaceted and the foundation stage curriculum gives practitioners a much less rigid approach than the National Curriculum, by following the children’s progress using stepping stones. As the foundation stage curriculum is a government legislated policy, this means that all children should follow it. As it is flexible in the way in which it is implemented, it means that different types of settings can fashion the teaching methods to follow it in their own way. This means that whether a child attends a pre-school, an LEA nursery, a work-based nursery, or indeed a childminder, they are provided with the same curriculum. This is governed by Ofsted who maintain this proviso through their regular inspections. Good planning is essential in ensuring that all the practitioners involved can build a picture of the children’s development programme. Not only does it provide them with a premeditated programme of learning, but it also gives an opportunity for discussion to take place, where they can think about how they can progress children through the various stages of learning. For the practitioner to ensure all areas of the curriculum are covered, the planning must,  Ã¢â‚¬Ëœentail attention to overall (long-term) planning, medium  and short-term planning†¦for every aspect of every  lesson’ (Cohen et al, 2004, p125) Long term planning ensures that all the areas and aspects of learning within the curriculum are covered throughout the whole year and provides a template for the medium term planning. Correct use of the Curriculum Guidance for the Foundation Stage, together with the knowledge of the practitioners relating to the individual children, means that the children experience new and exciting ways to learn through play. The long term plans of the settings must be flexible. They should incorporate the schools ethos and provide for an enriched curriculum with scope for differentiation to allow inclusion. Medium term planning then identifies the specific topics of work to be covered over the term, or half term. From these the practitioner then sets out the weekly activity plans, to guarantee full coverage of the learning outcomes within the set topics. It is vital that the plans cover the whole of the six areas of learning and that the practitioner assesses the progress of the children, in order to make certain that they are all progressing to the best of their capabilities. Recording achievements as stepping stones enables early years practitioners’ to carry out assessments whilst the children are involved in activities, thus preventing the child having any knowledge that an appraisal of their skills and understandings is being undertaken. Planning and evaluating the success criteria of an activity allows the practitioner to be certain that every area of the curriculum is covered. Piaget introduced three principles of cognitive development and these apply to all of the subjects studied in this report. His first principle is assimilation. He says that children do not absorb all the information they encounter. They actively engage in the assimilation process and learn what is relevant to them at their stage of development. The schema stage is next. During this phase the children relate what they know already to their current situation. The third phase is where the child wishes to seek stability cognitively. He utilises the knowledge gained and applies it to make a general logical picture (Oakley, 2004). From this it is clear to see how the children gain the learning and knowledge applicable to them by interpreting activities in their own way.

R.L. Stevensons Classic Essay An Apology for Idlers

R.L. Stevensons Classic Essay An Apology for Idlers Best known for his popular adventure stories (Treasure Island, Kidnapped, The Master of Ballantrae) and the study of evil in The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Robert Louis Stevenson was also a noteworthy poet, short-story writer, and essayist. The Scots-born author spent much of his adult life traveling, searching for a healthful climate until he finally settled in Samoa in 1889. There he lived on his estate of Valima until his death at age 44. Stevenson was not yet a well-known writer in 1877 when he composed An Apology for Idlers (which, he said, was really a defense of R.L.S.), but his own days of idleness were about to come to an end. Just a year after he wrote in a letter to his mother, Hows that for busy? It does me good. It was well I wrote my Idlers when I did; for I am now the busiest gent in Christendom. After reading Stevensons essay, you may find it worthwhile to compare An Apology for Idlers with three other essays in our collection: In Praise of Idleness, by Bertrand Russell; Why Are Beggars Despised? by George Orwell; and On Laziness, by Christopher Morley. An Apology for Idlers By Robert Louis Stevenson BOSWELL: We grow weary when idle.JOHNSON: That is, sir, because others being busy, we want company; but if we were idle, there would be no growing weary; we should all entertain one another. 1 Just now, when every one is bound, under pain of a decree in absence convicting them of là ¨se-respectability, to enter on some lucrative profession, and labour therein with something not far short of enthusiasm, a cry from the opposite party, who are content when they have enough, and like to look on and enjoy in the meanwhile, savours a little of bravado and gasconade. And yet this should not be. Idleness so called, which does not consist in doing nothing, but in doing a great deal not recognized in the dogmatic formularies of the ruling class, has as good a right to state its position as industry itself. It is admitted that the presence of people who refuse to enter in the great handicap race for sixpenny pieces, is at once an insult and a disenchantment for those who do. A fine fellow (as we see so many) takes his determination, votes for sixpences, and in the emphatic Americanism, it goes for them. And while such an one is plowing distressfully up the road, it is not hard to understand his resentment, when he perceives cool persons in the meadows by the wayside, lying with a handkerchief over their ears and a glass at their elbow. Alexander is touched in a very delicate place by the disregard to Diogenes. Where was the glory of having taken Rome for these tumultuous barbarians, who poured into the Senate-house, and found the Fathers sitting silent and unmoved by their success? It is a sore thing to have labored along and scaled the arduous hilltops, and when all is done, find humanity indifferent to your achievement. Hence physicists condemn the unphysical; financiers have only a superficial toleration for those who know little of stocks; literary persons despise the unlettered, and people of all pursuits combine to disparage those who have none. 2 But though this is one difficulty of the subject, it is not the greatest. You could not be put in prison for speaking against industry, but you can be sent to Coventry for speaking like a fool. The greatest difficulty with most subjects is to do them well; therefore, please to remember this is an apology. It is certain that much may be judiciously argued in favor of diligence; only there is something to be said against it, and that is what, on the present occasion, I have to say. To state one argument is not necessarily to be deaf to all others, and that a man has written a book of travels in Montenegro, is no reason why he should never have been to Richmond. 3 It is surely beyond a doubt that people should be a good deal idle in youth. For though here and there a Lord Macaulay may escape from school honors with all his wits about him, most boys pay so dear for their medals that they never afterwards have a shot in their locker, and begin the world bankrupt. And the same holds true during all the time a lad is educating himself or suffering others to educate him. It must have been a very foolish old gentleman who addressed Johnson at Oxford in these words: Young man, ply your book diligently now, and acquire a stock of knowledge; for when years come upon you, you will find that poring upon books will be but an irksome task. The old gentleman seems to have been unaware that many other things besides reading grow irksome, and not a few become impossible, by the time a man has to use spectacles and cannot walk without a stick. Books are good enough in their own way, but they are a mighty bloodless substitute for life. It seems a pity to sit, like the Lady of Shalott, peering into a mirror, with your back turned on all the bustle and glamor of reality. And if a man reads very hard, as the old anecdote reminds us, he will have little time for thought. 4 If you look back on your own education, I am sure it will not be the full, vivid, instructive hours of truancy that you regret; you would rather cancel some lacklustre periods between sleep and waking in the class. For my own part, I have attended a good many lectures in my time. I still remember that the spinning of a top is a case of Kinetic Stability. I still remember that Emphyteusis is not a disease, nor Stillicide a crime. But though I would not willingly part with such scraps of science, I do not set the same store by them as by certain other odds and ends that I came by in the open street while I was playing truant. 5 This is not the moment to dilate on that mighty place of education, which was the favorite school of Dickens and of Balzac, and turns out yearly many inglorious masters in the Science of the Aspects of Life. Suffice it to say this: if a lad does not learn in the streets, it is because he has no faculty of learning. Nor is the truant always in the streets, for if he prefers, he may go out by the gardened suburbs into the country. He may pitch on some tuft of lilacs over a burn, and smoke innumerable pipes to the tune of the water on the stones. A bird will sing in the thicket. And there he may fall into a vein of kindly thought, and see things in a new perspective. Why, if this be not education, what is? We may conceive Mr. Worldly Wiseman accosting such an one, and the conversation that should thereupon ensue:How now, young fellow, what dost thou here?Truly, sir, I take mine ease.Is not this the hour of the class? and shouldst thou not be plying thy Book with diligence, to the end thou mayest obtain knowledge?Nay, but thus also I follow after Learning, by your leave.Learning, quotha! After what fashion, I pray thee? Is it mathematics?No, to be sure.Is it metaphysics?Nor that.Is it some language?Nay, it is no language.Is it a trade?Nor a trade neither.Why, then, what ist?Indeed, sir, as a time may soon come for me to go upon Pilgrimage, I am desirous to note what is commonly done by persons in my case, and where are the ugliest Sloughs and Thickets on the Road; as also, what manner of Staff is of the best service. Moreover, I lie here, by this water, to learn by root-of-heart a lesson which my master teaches me to call Peace, or Contentment. 6 Hereupon Mr. Worldly Wiseman was much commoved with passion, and shaking his cane with a very threatful countenance, broke forth upon this wise: Learning, quotha! said he; I would have all such rogues scourged by the Hangman! 7 And so he would go his way, ruffling out his cravat with a crackle of starch, like a turkey when it spread its feathers. 8 Now this, of Mr. Wisemans, is the common opinion. A fact is not called a fact, but a piece of gossip, if it does not fall into one of your scholastic categories. An inquiry must be in some acknowledged direction, with a name to go by; or else you are not inquiring at all, only lounging; and the work-house is too good for you. It is supposed that all knowledge is at the bottom of a well, or the far end of a telescope. Sainte-Beuve, as he grew older, came to regard all experience as a single great book, in which to study for a few years ere we go hence; and it seemed all one to him whether you should read in Chapter xx., which is the differential calculus, or in Chapter xxxix., which is hearing the band play in the gardens. As a matter of fact, an intelligent person, looking out of his eyes and hearkening in his ears, with a smile on his face all the time, will get more true education than many another in a life of heroic vigils. There is certainly some chill and arid knowledge to be found upon the summits of formal and laborious science; but it is all round about you, and for the trouble of looking, that you will acquire the warm and palpitating facts of life. While others are filling their memory with a lumber of words, one-half of which they will forget before the week be out, your truant may learn some really useful art: to play the fiddle, to know a good cigar, or to speak with ease and opportunity to all varieties of men. Many who have plied their book diligently, and know all about some one branch or another of accepted lore, come out of the study with an ancient and owl-like demeanour, and prove dry, stockish, and dyspeptic in all the better and brighter parts of life. Many make a large fortune, who remain underbred and pathetically stupid to the last. And meantime there goes the idler, who began life along with themby your leave, a different picture. He has had time to take care of his health and his spirits; he has been a great deal in the open air, which is the most salutary of all things for both body and mind; and if he has never read the great Book in very recondite places, he has dipped into it and skimmed it over to excelle nt purpose. Might not the student afford some Hebrew roots, and the business man some of his half-crowns, for a share of the idlers knowledge of life at large, and Art of Living? Nay, and the idler has another and more important quality than these. I mean his wisdom. He who has much looked on at the childish satisfaction of other people in their hobbies, will regard his own with only a very ironical indulgence. He will not be heard among the dogmatists. He will have a great and cool allowance for all sorts of people and opinions. If he finds no out-of-the-way truths, he will identify himself with no very burning falsehood. His way takes him along a by-road, not much frequented, but very even and pleasant, which is called Commonplace Lane, and leads to the Belvedere of Common-sense. Thence he shall command an agreeable, if not very noble prospect; and while others behold the East and West, the Devil and the Sunrise, he will be contentedly aware of a sort of morning hour upon all sublunary things , with an army of shadows running speedily and in many different directions into the great daylight of Eternity. The shadows and the generations, the shrill doctors and the plangent wars, go by into ultimate silence and emptiness; but underneath all this, a man may see, out of the Belvedere windows, much green and peaceful landscape; many firelit parlours; good people laughing, drinking, and making love as they did before the Flood or the French Revolution; and the old shepherd telling his tale under the hawthorn. 9 Extreme  busyness, whether at school or college, kirk or market, is a symptom of deficient vitality; and a faculty for idleness implies a catholic appetite and a strong sense of personal identity. There is a sort of dead-alive, hackneyed people about, who are scarcely conscious of living except in the exercise of some conventional occupation. Bring these fellows into the country, or set them aboard ship, and you will see how they pine for their desk or their study. They have no curiosity; they cannot give themselves over to random provocations; they do not take pleasure in the exercise of their faculties for its own sake; and unless Necessity lays about them with a stick, they will even stand still. It is no good speaking to such folk: they  cannot  be idle, their nature is not generous enough; and they pass those hours in a sort of coma, which are not dedicated to furious moiling in the gold-mill. When they do not require to go to the office, when they are not hungry and hav e no mind to drink, the whole breathing world is a blank to them. If they have to wait an hour or so for a train, they fall into a stupid trance with their eyes open. To see them, you would suppose there was nothing to look at and no one to speak with; you would imagine they were paralysed or alienated: and yet very possibly they are hard workers in their own way, and have good eyesight for a flaw in a deed or a turn of the market. They have been to school and college, but all the time they had their eye on the medal; they have gone about in the world and mixed with clever people, but all the time they were thinking of their own affairs. As if a mans soul were not too small to begin with, they have dwarfed and narrowed theirs by a life of all work and no play; until here they are at forty, with a listless attention, a mind vacant of all material of amusement, and not one thought to rub against another, while they wait for the train. Before he was breeched, he might have clambered on the boxes; when he was twenty, he would have stared at the girls; but now the pipe is smoked out, the snuff-box empty, and my gentleman sits bolt upright upon a bench, with lamentable eyes. This does not appeal to me as being Success in Life. 10 But it is not only the person himself who suffers from his busy habits, but his wife and children, his friends and relations, and down to the very people he sits with in a railway carriage or an omnibus. Perpetual devotion to what a man calls his business, is only to be sustained by perpetual neglect of many other things. And it is not by any means certain that a mans business is the most important thing he has to do. To an impartial estimate it will seem clear that many of the wisest, most virtuous, and most beneficent parts that are to be played upon the Theatre of Life are filled by gratuitous performers, and pass, among the world at large, as phases of idleness. For in that Theatre, not only the walking gentlemen, singing chambermaids, and diligent fiddlers in the orchestra, but those who look on and clap their hands from the benches, do really play a part and fulfill important offices towards the general result. 11 You are no doubt very dependent on the care of your lawyer and stockbroker, of the guards and signalmen who convey you rapidly from place to place, and the policemen who walk the streets for your protection; but is there not a thought of gratitude in your heart for certain other benefactors who set you smiling when they fall in your way, or season your dinner with good company? Colonel Newcome helped to lose his friends money; Fred Bayham had an ugly trick of borrowing shirts; and yet they were better people to fall among than Mr. Barnes. And though Falstaff was neither sober nor very honest, I think I could name one or two long-faced Barabbases whom the world could better have done without. Hazlitt mentions that he was more sensible of obligation to Northcote, who had never done him anything he could call a service, than to his whole circle of ostentatious friends; for he thought a good companion emphatically the greatest benefactor. I know there are people in the world who canno t feel grateful unless the favour has been done them at the cost of pain and difficulty. But this is a churlish disposition. A man may send you six sheets of letter-paper covered with the most entertaining gossip, or you may pass half an hour pleasantly, perhaps profitably, over an article of his; do you think the service would be greater, if he had made the manuscript in his hearts blood, like a compact with the devil? Do you really fancy you should be more beholden to your correspondent, if he had been damning you all the while for your importunity? Pleasures are more beneficial than duties because, like the quality of mercy, they are not strained, and they are twice blest. There must always be two to a kiss, and there may be a score in a jest; but wherever there is an element of sacrifice, the favour is conferred with pain, and, among generous people, received with confusion. 12 There is no duty we so much underrate as the duty of being happy. By being happy, we sow anonymous benefits upon the world, which remain unknown even to ourselves, or when they are disclosed, surprise nobody so much as the benefactor. The other day, a ragged, barefoot boy ran  down the street after a marble, with so jolly an air that he set every one he passed into a good humour; one of these persons, who had been delivered from more than usually black thoughts, stopped the little fellow and gave him some money with this remark: You see what sometimes comes of looking pleased. If he had looked pleased before, he had now to look both pleased and mystified. For my part, I justify this encouragement of smiling rather than tearful children; I do not wish to pay for tears anywhere but upon the stage; but I am prepared to deal largely in the opposite commodity. A happy man or woman is a better thing to find than a five-pound note. He or she is a radiating focus of goodwill; and their entrance into a room is as though another candle had been lighted. We need not care whether they could prove the forty-seventh proposition; they do a better thing than that, they practically demonstrate the great Theorem of the Liveableness of Life. Consequently, if a person cannot be happy without remaining idle, idle he should remain. It is a revolutionary precept; but thanks to hunger and the workhouse, one not easily to be abused; and within practical limits, it is one of the most incontestable truths in the whole Body of Morality. Look at one of your industrious fellows for a moment, I beseech you. He sows hurry and reaps indigestion; he puts a vast deal of activity out to interest, and receives a large measure of nervous derangement in return. Either he absents himself entirely from all fellowship, and lives a recluse in a garret, with carpet slippers and a leaden inkpot; or he comes among people swiftly and bitterly, in a contraction of his whole nervous system, to discharge some temper before he returns to work. I do not care how much or ho w well he works, this fellow is an evil feature in other peoples lives. They would be happier if he were dead. They could easier do without his services in the Circumlocution Office, than they can tolerate his fractious spirits. He poisons life at the well-head. It is better to be beggared out of hand by a scapegrace nephew, than daily hag-ridden by a peevish uncle. 13 And what, in Gods name, is all this pother about? For what cause do they embitter their own and other peoples lives? That a man should publish three or thirty articles a year, that he should finish or not finish his great allegorical picture, are questions of little interest to the world. The ranks of life are full; and although a thousand fall, there are always some to go into the breach. When they told Joan of Arc she should be at home minding womens work, she answered there were plenty to spin and wash. And so, even with your own rare gifts! When nature is so careless of the single life, why should we coddle ourselves into the fancy that our own is of exceptional importance? Suppose Shakespeare had been knocked on the head some dark night in Sir Thomas Lucys preserves, the world would have wagged on better or worse, the pitcher gone to the well, the scythe to the corn, and the student to his book; and no one been any the wiser of the loss. There are not many works extant, if yo u look the alternative all over, which are worth the price of a pound of tobacco to a man of limited means. This is a sobering reflection for the proudest of our earthly vanities. Even a tobacconist may, upon consideration, find no great cause for personal vainglory in the phrase; for although tobacco is an admirable sedative, the qualities necessary for retailing it are neither rare nor precious in themselves. Alas and alas! you may take it how you will, but the services of no single individual are indispensable. Atlas was just a gentleman with a protracted nightmare! And yet you see merchants who go and labour themselves into a great fortune and thence into the bankruptcy court; scribblers who keep scribbling at little articles until their temper is a cross to all who come about them, as though Pharaoh should set the Israelites to make a pin instead of a pyramid; and fine young men who work themselves into a decline, and are driven off in a hearse with white plumes upon it. Would you not suppose these persons had been whispered, by the Master of the Ceremonies, the promise of some momen tous destiny? and that this lukewarm bullet on which they play their farces was the bulls eye and centre-point of all the universe? And yet it is not so. The ends for which they give away their priceless youth, for all they know, may be chimerical or hurtful; the glory and riches they expect may never come, or may find them indifferent; and they and the world they inhabit are so inconsiderable that the mind freezes at the thought. * An Apology for Idlers, by Robert Louis Stevenson, first appeared in the July 1877 issue of the  Cornhill Magazine  and was later published in Stevensons essay collection  Virginibus Puerisque, and Other Papers   (1881).

A Growing Problem essays

A Growing Problem essays The escalating divorce rate is a growing problem in American culture and will not get better unless drastic steps are taken. Divorce rates have steadily increased in the United States since the early 1920s. In 1920 there was approximately 13.4 divorces per 100 marriages. In the 1988 it jumped to 32.8 divorces per 100 marriages and at present it is close to 50 divorces per 100 marriages and climbing (divorce rates chart). Researchers say that the fastest growing marital status category in America is divorced people. I believe something needs to be done to preserve the once sacred institution of marriage and family values in the United States. Divorce has a profound impact on children. Children of divorce are 3 to 4 times more likely to have psychological problems, juvenile delinquencies and suicide among other detrimental problems. A child of divorce is more likely grow up and be in a marriage that ends in divorce. The child is more inclined to view divorce as an easy way out of a situation instead of working on their marital problems. They feel divorce is an acceptable option as they have seen their parents divorce. Here are few of the important factors that I believe contribute to the ever-escalating divorce rates in the United States. First, lawmakers enacted the no-fault divorce law in the 1970s. Researchers believe that the new law caused an explosion of divorces. A no-fault divorce is one in which neither spouse blames the other for the breakdown of their marriage. Both spouses agree that irreconcilable differences have arisen and that their marriage is irreparable (no-fault divorce). A no-fault divorce does not require proof in a court of law by the divorcing party. Essentially a no-fault divorce makes it much easier and much faster to get a divorce. Currently, divorce laws in nearly every state give greater legal rights to spouses who want to end the marriage than ...