Pregnancy and Mother Hood Essay

For my narrative/descriptive essay I chose to write about becoming a mother. There are positives and negatives about being a teenage mother but I choose to always look at the good. My son wasn’t planned but he isn’t a mistake either. I only have one child for the moment but from this experience I’m still debating on having more. This had been one long and challenging journey but it was all worth it in the end. Childbirth is a Powerful & Exciting experience all at the same time. The way I found out that I was expecting was a challenge alone. Once I noticed I was loosing an extensive amout of weight, confused and clueless I went to the doctor to get answers. While in the doctors office I had blood work done as well as a pregnancy test. The test came back negative as I expected being that I was on birth control. Ring Ring. About thirty minutes later, I received a phone call from the doctors office asking me to come back because my pregnancy test changed to positive. Once I get back to the doctors office, the nurse took a blood sample. Fifteen to thirty minutes passed and then my life changed. It was confirmed that I was two months pregnant. Young and scared, I’m now about to be a teenage mother. I just graduated and was trying to go off to college and within fifteen to thirty minutes that dream was taken away. The next seven months were challenging and educational. Over the next seven months, I was going to doctor appointments and gaining more and more weight. The time has now come to meet my beautiful baby boy. I was admitted to the Baptist Memorial Hospital at 5:00 a.m. on Febuary 14,2011. While at the hospital there is so much going on around you the you sometimes get side tracked on what’s really going on and go into a zone of your own. While laying there waiting to see what happens next there is the sound of the nurses feet constantly coming in and out your room along with visitors. Once the contractions start to come then the journey to motherhood begins. After dialating to about 7-8 centimeters I then have a choice of getting an epidural. (a drug used to numb your body from waist down). I had signed up for one but didn’t plan on using it. Once the epidural Is given then most or sometimes all the pain is gone. After I was at about five centimeters my labor stood still. I had the choice of an c-section or getting an epidual to speed the process up the process. I chose the epidural to keep from being left with a permanent scar. Now is time to start pushing and once I started the beeping of machines, sounds of voices, phones ringing, and all other activity around your is tuned out. All that matters to me now is delivering my healthy baby boy. Three long, entensive push and Bray’lon lamar jones enters the world. He arrived Febuary 25,2011 @ 7:44 weighting 6lbs and 6 ozs. During the whole journey through all ups and downs in the end it was all worth it because of my son.

Zoot Suit

Richard Martinez Professor George LIT413 September 29, 2011 Theme Essay Today there are many different pieces to choose from in literature. This paper will be discussing the two novels of Zoot Suit by Luis Valdez and The Milagro Beanfield War by John Nichols. Zoot Suit is also a play and The Milagro Beanfield War was made into a film. Zoot suit is actually the first Hispanic play to be written. It is to be the only Hispanic play that exists today. The main character in Zoot Suit is Henry Reyna the leader of the 38th street gang.The main character in The Milagro Beanfield war is Joe Mondragon a hardworking family man. These two pieces of work have some of the same themes but one that stands out the most is the Hispanic culture. Zoot Suits Description The main character in the novel Zoot Suit is Henry Reyna and he is the leader of the 38th street gang. There is also the narrator which was called Pachuco meaning a Hispanic gangster who dressed really nice in that time in a Zoot Suit, cl ean cut, slick back hair, and belonged to a neighborhood gang.A Zoot Suit is a suit that has a long coat with wide shoulders, baggy pants but cuffed tight at the bottom with a big chain hanging on the side from the wallet pocket to the front belt loop. Hispanic gangs have been around for years now and are still on the rise. Many Hispanic gangs set new trends and tried hard to fit in with others. In the 1940’s Zoot Suitors’ were the popular gangs of the Hispanics and even some African Americans. In this story there was even a Caucasian in the 38th street gang. The Zoot Suit gangs originated in Los Angeles and expanded to New York and other big cities.Henry Reyna Henry Reyna is a young man trying to join the navy. Henry ends up getting blamed for the crime Pachuco committed. Henry was tried with many of his Zoot Suit amigos. It was a fishy trial to begin with his only way out was to be convicted and filing for an appeal. During the trial Henry’s defense attorney w as incapable of getting any objections. The judge was Caucasian and was prejudice and was on the prosecutions side. During this time frame Hispanics were not treated very well. In the 1940’s Hispanics were looked down on. Hispanics were at the bottom of the food chain.Many time Hispanics were frowned upon because of the crimes committed by Hispanics and not the good things that were done by Hispanics. Hispanics were always stereotyped by Americans. Language In Zoot Suit there is strong language used. There is also Spanish used as well as Spanish slang. Many nicknames were used to refer to certain people. There was also profanity used that made the book more exciting to read. It brought out the emotion in characters. Enrique Reyna, Henry’s father mentioned that calling Hispanics Chicanos means trash and to say Mexicanos instead because it is a better term to use.Many of the terms used in this book are only going to be heard by veteranos today, or Hispanic gangs. Huisa t oday is not a common word used in today’s society. Conclusion Zoot Suit and The Milagro Beanfield war are both Hispanic novels that are similar to one another in many ways. The themes for these novels are culture and pride between the characters of Henry Reyna and Joe Mondragon. These two individuals are both strong individuals that carry a lot of pride because that’s the way that Hispanics carry themselves. Hispanics fight for what is right.Today Hispanics still get mistreated because of their skin color and the gangs that they affiliated with. Both Henry Reyna and Joe Mondragon had to deal with the people in order to accomplish their goal. Henry Reyna had to fight to prove his innocence. Joe Mondragon had to fight to have his beanfield. Another common thing in these novels is Hispanics fighting Hispanics. This situation still exists in society today. Not just Hispanics but everybody is trying to fit in. ? References Nichols, John. The Milagro Beanfield War. New York, 1974, 1994. Print. Valdez, Luis. Zoot Suit. 1992. Print.

The Theme of Corruption of Money

Discuss the importance of Joe Gargery and the life of the forge in the presentation of the central Issues of Great Expectations. â€Å"Great Expectations† by Charles Dickens is a novel about a young boy, named Pip, whos expectations are raised from being a blacksmiths apprentice to being a gentleman after he Is adopted by an unknown benefactor. As a result of this Pip leaves his childhood home of the forge and his father figure, Joe Gargery. The novel explores the key themes of corruption of money, love and heartbreak, and pride.The following essay aims to discuss the importance f Joe Gargery and the life of the forge in relation to the key themes of the novel. The theme of corruption of money is seen mostly in the main character Pip. Throughout the novel Pip experiences the corruption of money in various forms. In his childhood he is familiar with a man called Mr Pumblechook, a man who has plentiful money and generally flaunts this fact. In these early stages Pip sees how mon ey has corrupted this man and believes this behaviour to be ridiculous.However upon receiving his expectations we see Pip acting in the same frivolous manner showing ow easily he has been corrupted by money. Even before receiving his expectations Pip wishes to be a gentleman. This Is only after spending time with Miss Havisham a rich woman who lives nearby. Joe Gargery Is the opposite of Pip In this respect. Though he Is only working class, and therefore wouldn't have much money, he Is uncorrupted by money and is the moral compass of the story. There are many points in the novel where dickens shows how Joe is unaffected by the corruption of money.At the start of the novel Pip steals a pie for an escaped convict upon his capture the onvict claims he stole the pie from the blacksmiths. Joe is unconcerned about this, and the expense of the pie, â€Å"God knows you're welcome to it – so far as it was ever mine†¦ We don't know what you have done, but we wouldnt have you star ve to death for it† this shows he does not want people to suffer over a matter that he deems so small in the scheme of things and is not Judgemental of the convict.Later when Pip stops visiting Miss Havisham Joe is given money by her In return for Pip's help. Joe does not keep the money however and Instead passes It on to his wife Mrs Joe In rder to appease her. It Is a large amount of money he Is given and Joe would rather see it used so that others may be happy. When Mr Jaggers comes to tell Pip of his fortunes Joe is offered payment in return for Pip. He refuses the money as he does not want to be bribed and would rather Pip make his own choices, â€Å"Pip is that harty welcome to go free with his services, to honour and fortun†¦ f you think as money can make compensation to me† this shows that he cares only about what Pip wants rather than the fact he is losing a labourer. Towards the end of the novel Pip falls into erious debt and illness. Before this time Pip had been cold towards Joe, despite this Joe goes to help take care of Pip and pays off his large debt showing that he cares more for his family then he does for money. These incidents show Joe's lack of concern over money and also shows that he would rather see It go towards helping others rather than keeping It for himself so that he may have more expensive things.The forge is an extension of Joe and so emulates him in being uninfluenced by forge is a central place in the village life as everyone needs the forge for something. This means that although it is a working class establishment it is more important and central than many other working class trades. Due to this, though the lifestyle is not reliant on it, more money goes into the forge. Despite this it is still uninfluenced. The Gargery family take in Pip when his parents die as Mrs Joe is his only remaining relative.This helps to illustrate that the lifestyle maintained at the forge is uncaring of monetary issues, such as h aving to care for young child. The forge is rarely closed and on the occasions that it is, it is a sign that a major event is about to occur. An example of this happening is when Joe goes to see Miss Havisham. This is an example of how the forge is unaffected by money as it is closed, even though there is likely plentiful work to do, to allow Joe to go and see Miss Havisham for Pip's benefit.The corruption of money is what causes Pip to leave one of the places he is happiest. Love is an important theme in relation to Joe. Despite Mrs Joe's harshness and domestic abuse Joe is still very much in love with her. After receiving money from Miss Havisham Joe gives it to Mrs Joe in order to appease her since she was not nvited, â€Å"into the hands of his sister Mrs J. GargerY' this shows Joe's desire to keep Mrs Joe happy due to his love of her. Her attack shocks Joe and it seems as though he feels guilty for not being there to protect her.Mrs Joe's death further on in the novel further shocks Joe and leaves him in a state of melancholy, â€Å"you knowed her when she were a fine fgure of a-† this shows his inability to speak due to his grief. It also shows his love for her as this is a phrase he often uses to describe her â€Å"She were a fine fgure of a woman†. It is many years before Joe falls in love again with Biddy. Joe is a very loving character and seems to be the embodiment of love. Before falling in love with Biddy, he loved her anyway for her kindness and help to Mrs Joe while she was ill.Joe's love also extends to Pip who he helped to raise and was also best friend to. Pip's betrayal of Joe by leaving does not affect Joe's love for him and Joe continues to aid Pip in every way he can including paying his debts and looking after him when he was ill â€Å"Ever the best of friends†¦ a receipt for the debt and costs on my which o ad been arrested† this shows his compassion and how much he cares for Pip. This is not returned in kind by Pip who all but forgets Joe and tries to avoid him at all costs. The forge is also important to the theme of love.It is here that Pip grows up in the loving environment of the forge where he is given a good home and a future Job. Within the forge we also Joe defend Mrs Joe after she is insulted by Orlick, he doesn't allow her to fght him herself showing he is probably concerned for her safety. Upon leaving the forge for his great expectations Pip is upset and desires to turn back ultiple times showing his love of the forge and the people there, â€Å"l deliberated with an aching heart whether I would not get down when we changed horses, and walk back† this shows how he is torn between his expectations and his home.He is also often torn between the simplistic life of the forge and the sophisticated life at Satis House. Pride is another important theme to the novel and its lack of control over Joe helps to illustrate his goodness. Though Joe is proud of himself he is not pro ud in the sense of thinking himself above others, â€Å"he may be too proud to let anyone take him fa place that he is competent to fill† this helps illustrate he is proud of his profession even if it is considered low. He is proud of his accomplishments but above or wrong.For example Joe is proud that Pip has managed to get an education however he is also proud of Pip for going off to be a gentleman. These again are two different types of pride. In the first example he is proud of Pips accomplishments, â€Å"what a scholar you are! â€Å", in the second it seems as though he is proud for Pip's sake, â€Å"heartily congratulated me; but there was a certain touch of sadness in their ongratulations†, it is as though Pip needs to see that Joe is proud of him in order to follow his plans through. Joe wants what is best for Pip.The forge also relates to pride. The forge is used by everyone in the town including the soldiers however it remains simplistic and is run by only the one man. Though the forge, and Joe by extension, have plenty to be proud of they remain simple and loving, giving help where needed. This attitude also helps, in a way, to stop Pip from giving up his apprenticeship at the beginning, â€Å"any good that intermixed itself with my pprenticeship came of plain contented Joe, and not of restlessly aspiring discontented me† this shows his desire to make Joe proud.

The Incorporation of Western Faming and Technology in India Essay

The Incorporation of Western Faming and Technology in India - Essay Example This paper illustrates that even though, other Israelite Agricultural technological companies have made entry into India to provide support in the farming of horticultural crops; they have only limited their services to Haryana and Maharashtra. Examining the current situation in India, most locations and farmers remain unaware of the current procedures and technology in agriculture practice. As such, Vickens Inc. targets to sell its product and services to the geographic, demographic, psychographic and behavioral segments of the market. The entire market segments shall benefit from the newly improved agricultural technological solutions provided by the company. The main reason besides the establishment of this new business is to fill the market niche that exists in the Indian Agricultural sector. Gallagher notes that while the country is agriculturally driven the use of new and current technology has been limited. Most farmers in the country still adopt the traditional methods of far ming that yields very little output to the farmers. The mission of Vickens Inc. is to provide the farmers with most current agricultural procedures and technology to increase productions of crops and generate increased revenues in return. This will be achieved through enhancing an eco-friendly environment that does not affect the lives of individuals. With the e-Choupal initiative in India, a lot of information is available to the country’s farmers about the use of new technology in farming. Ideally, this forms a wider customer base for the Vickens Company products and service. The Company targets to sell its products to all the four market segments as proposed by Kerin. In the geographic division, the organization aims to reach all the farmers within the Indian agricultural potential zones.

The Main Objective Of The Copyright Law Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

The Main Objective Of The Copyright Law - Essay Example All intellectual property laws have the common goal of extending and controlling exclusive privileges over the products of creative work or intellectual works , offering the creator or the owner of those exclusive privileges with a limited monopoly as regards to that property , normally for some phase of time.(Nathan & Morgan 2008 :20). Copyright safeguards â€Å"original works created by the authors† that are permanent in nature and available in a corporeal guise of expression. The permanence need not be frankly discernible, as long as it may be expressed with the help of a devise or a machine. The following works are acceptable for registration with the copyright office provided they are original and creative in nature. †¢ Literary works †¢ â€Å"Lyrics and musical works† †¢ Play or drama with or without music †¢ Choreographic or Pantomimes †¢ â€Å"Sculptural , graphic and pictographic works† †¢ Audiovisuals and motion graphics †¢ Architectural works †¢ â€Å"Sound tracks or recordings† â€Å"Creative works are safeguarded by the Copyright Act†. Creative works may be in any of the following form viz. movies, video games ,poetry , CD-ROMs, plays ,videos , sheet music ,paintings , novels , recorded music performances , sculptures ,software codes, choreography , photographs and architectural designs. There should be some creative initiatives on the side of an author so as to receive a protection under Copyright Act. The Act does not quantify how much creativity should be there. For instance, a work should be more creative than that of a telephone directory where alphabetical records of telephone numbers exist instead of a creative selection of listings. It should be noted that an author’s creative ideas are not safeguarded by the Copyright Act. Thus, copyright protection is available only for an original, fixed, and creative expression and no protection is available for just facts or ideas on which the expression is footed. For instance, there may be prot ection availed for a specific novel, computer game or song about a marriage in space under copyright act but no protection is available to the underlying conception of a marriage in a star. Thus, permitting the creators to monopolize their conception or ideas would frustrate the underlying objective of copyright law, which is mainly aimed to encourage the authors or creators to invent or create a new work. Likewise, no protection is available under copyright law for the facts which may be either historical, scientific, news of the day or biographical info. For any discovery by an author which is available in the public domain, no protection under copyright law is available. For instance, anyone is at his liberty to employ the information which is contained in a book about how human heart functions, a TV documentary of the babyhood of erstwhile President George W Bush or a journal article on the lifestyle and natural beauties of the Andaman Islands – so long as they describe t he information in their own style and words. It is to be observed that real facts are not safeguarded under the copyright law even if the author splurges a lot of effort and time in divulging things that are not known early. For instance, if an author of a book on Andaman Islands

Media and climategate Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Media and climategate - Research Paper Example Climatic Research Unit (CRU) is an internationally renowned research institution for climate change and global warming. The research done at CRU is globally accepted and practiced, for instance, global temperature record and other data sets.CRU was the key contributor of Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC) Fourth Assessment Report in 2007.It was a   collaboration between World Meteorological Organization(WMO) and United Nations Environment Program and considered to be the most authoritative of the likes(CNN). According to Seymour, climategate proved to be the starting point of a series of leaks that shook scientists’ long held and advocated belief that â€Å"the science is settled†. However, despite the authoritative position of CRU and far reaching impact of the leaked information, news media networks played soft on the whole incident. They seemed unshaken by the unethical course of action taken by the scientists whose claims were promoted by these networks over the years and gradually shaped public opinion. Surprisingly, since November 20, 2009, less than 10 percent of the global warming and climate change related news stories pointed towards any of the climate related scandals. The most disturbing email communication was among CRU Director Phil Jones and Penn State Scientist Michael Mann. The later is internationally renowned for his hockey stick graph of global warming which was the main feature of IPCC’s report in 2001.In e-mail Jones informed Mann that he worked on a trick to make addition in real temperature record of last 20 years in order to hide the decline. Other e-mails encourage criminal act of destroying information rather than passing them on to Freedom of Information requests(Seymour).Daily Mail(UK) reported on January 28,2010 that Information Commissioner discovered that ERU scientists are violating FOI law, but he couldn’t take legal action because of the statute of limitation(qtd. in

The Problems and Challenges in Developing Teams Research Paper

The Problems and Challenges in Developing Teams - Research Paper Example This requires extensive group activities and teamwork. Moreover, multinational organizations also require collaborating efforts of people located in a wide variety of geographic locations. Thus teamwork may also constitute people belonging to different nations. Thus it is seen that the overall performance and productivity of organizations fall short in the absence of proper management and development of teams. The present project discusses the situation and condition of teamwork and development at British Airways which is one of the largest airlines in England. The organization has confronted with challenging situations on account of the varying environmental and business conditions but has successfully overcome hurdles through proper and effective teamwork and development. Organizational Analysis- Context and Scenario leading to the problems of Team Roles and Team Development in the organization British Airways demonstrated tremendous failures in its self managed teams during the 19 90s. This is because of the fact that its team members lacked proper people management skills (McCann, â€Å"Introduction†). Following are the details of the context and scenario in British Airways which group work and team development failed. Person Sex Age Position Character AB M 35 Project Manager Autocratic leadership style that reinforces decisions and choices. Sociable, Extrovert. Pays little heed to people’s concerns, issues, views or suggestions CD M 32 Software Developer Highly knowledgeable and skilled worker, friendly yet introverted, conscientious; prefers to interact with computers rather than with people EF M 30 Software Developer Medium level of knowledge of technical aspects, people oriented, quick learner, extrovert and bubbly. Good listener and puts work first and self-aspects later GH M 28 Software Developer Unsociable, prefers to work on his own terms without being guided or directed; Concerned with his won work objectives and individual task accomp lishments rather than the tasks of the group at large. The above table mentions the characteristics of the different team members working under a single project manager. The main implication on the manager is the fact the members differ distinctly from one another in terms of their nature and behaviors. On the other hand, the manager himself displays an authoritarian autocratic style of leadership which members find difficult to handle. The fact that he imposes his own decisions and choices with regards to work activities and strategies is crucial for the team which comprises of members who are adequately knowledgeable and prefers to work as per their own understanding and decisions. Here, arises another problem.  Ã‚  

How might theories of economic power prove limited when exploring the Assignment

How might theories of economic power prove limited when exploring the relations between media forms and claims of cultural imperialism - Assignment Example Within the definition of imperialism, a deliberate act is visualized in which one country seeks to extend its power over one other or many other countries. The Roman Empire, the British Empire, and the German Third Reich are perhaps classic examples of imperial power, and it is from such systems that most models of economic power in which one nation asserts control over another have been built. But within the 21st Century world can a deliberate kind of cultural imperialism be identified? Within what might be termed as the hold-overs from the Twentieth Century system of Imperialism there clearly are deliberate attempts at cultural control through the power of the mass media. One example is the â€Å"Voice of America†. Started during the Cold War as an attempt to counter what was perceived as a propaganda machine being created by the USSR, the Voice of America was transmitted into eastern Europe, Cuba and whatever countries were deemed as needing the service. Financed and suppor ted by the US government, VOA claims to be â€Å"a trusted source of news and information† on its internet homepage. The move from pure radio transmissions to the internet shows how while the media may change, its basic nature does not. VOA seeks to present the American view of the world to the populations of countries that might not necessarily hear it otherwise. The move to the internet, with written news available in more than sixty languages, represents the growth of VOA into what is termed â€Å"the information age†.... Like road maps, models or theories of economic phenomena come in various degrees of detail - but all models describing the same set of phenomena are consistent with each other. No map or theory will be perfectly complete in every detail... So ask not, "Is the theory accurate" but rather "Is the theory good enough for our purposes" 2 So, to put it succinctly, are any theories of economic power "good enough" for the purposes of explaining the relationship between media forms and cultural imperialism. What degree of detail is needed in an economic map of media/cultural imperialism Can such complex and ambiguous a relationship be explained by the simplified model of reality that a theory implies This paper will analyze these questions in two parts. First, it will explore what the relationship between 'media forms" and 'cultural imperialism' is, and whether the latter actually exists. Second, an attempt will be made to place this relationship within present theories of economic power. Some initial definitions are in order. Media is defined as "a means of mass communication . . . the communications industry or profession."3 Culture is defined as "the behavior patterns, arts beliefs, institutions, and all other products or human thought at work; especially as expressed in a particular community of period."4 Imperialism is "the policy of extending a nation's authority by economic and political means over other nations."5 'Media' is then, at least superficially, quite easy to define. In the modern age media includes books, newspapers, films, TV programs and, perhaps, the Internet. Yet professional sports6 and education7When looking at the definitions of "culture" and "imperialism ", problems start. Within the definition of imperialism a deliberate act

Main Reasons why Humans Remain Earthbound Essay

Main Reasons why Humans Remain Earthbound - Essay Example As such, as science has grown and developed throughout the years, one of the primal questions that have been born from this original question of the solitary nature of life within the universe is a better understanding and more complete explanation of the universe in which we dwell. For this reason as well as for many others, scientists have long sought to find ways in which to explore the bounds of the neighborhood in which the Earth and the Milky Way galaxy ultimately reside. The extant problem that is illustrated though is the fact that there are a number of constraints that provide an ultimate barrier to humans traveling to other solar systems throughout our galaxy. As such, this brief analysis will consider the key issues that constrain mankind to inter solar system travel (and a limited amount of that). Furthermore, by analyzing each of several different viewpoints for how exploration within and without of our own galaxy might seek to take place, as well as analyzing the key we aknesses inherent in each, it is the hope of this author that the reader might be able to come to a better understanding of just what is preventing us from further exploring and/or colonizing other regions of the universe. The first of these is the fact that the distances that must be traveled are so vast as to be nearly incomprehensible. As a function of this understanding, the reader should come to an appreciation of the fact that distance within the universe is calculated not in miles or kilometers but rather in light years; i.e. the distance covered by a beam of light during the period of a year’s time. To understand just how vast such a distance is, one must understand that the actual speed of light is something approaching 300,000,000 meters per second. As such, the reader can begin to comprehend the actual distance that a single light year actually represents. Furthermore, due to the fact that the nearest star to our own Sun is that of Alpha Centuri, one might assume t hat it would be most reasonable to visit this one as a means of further exploring our universe and understanding the many nuances that exist within it. However, the fact of the matter is that although Alpha Centuri is the closest star, besides our own Sun, it is nonetheless 4.2 light years away (Corley, 2012). This distance provides a seemingly insurmountable obstacle to the current technology that exists. For instance, scientists and researchers in the Russian Federation have been performing extensive rounds of testing on how a manned mission to Mars would affect the health of the crew members. This has been done by isolating a crew of several individuals and putting them in a replicative environment that would simulate the same stresses, both physical and psychological, that such a mission would necessarily engender. Although the trip to and from Mars would take a little under a year’s time, the strain and pressures of sustaining life aboard an unnatural environment for suc h an extended period of time present a whole array of challenges which are but a brief understanding of the means that such pressures would be realized should a longer voyage be undertaken (Landau & Strange, 2011). Although an understanding of the means by which our universe has come into existence, continues to expand, and will ultimately experience a heat death, the science and technology governing astrophysics and space exploration has advanced greatly since the first manned trip into space. However, surprisingly, one aspect of technology that has not developed at all is with

Nickel and Dimed Essay Example for Free

Nickel and Dimed Essay In the book â€Å"Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting by in America† Barbara Ehrenreich writes of her experiences working and living in what is considered mainstream America. In the sociological perspective the method of research Ehrenreich used was that of participant observation in which the researcher participates in the research setting while observing what is happening in that setting. The type of people studied were the lower middle class, the working class and the working poor. Lower middle class is about 30 percent of the population and members of this class have jobs that call for them to follow orders given by those who have upper middle class credentials. Their technical and lower level management positions bring them a good living, but is usually constantly threatened by taxes and inflation. In Ehrenreich’s book she discusses how these groups of individuals will feel secure in their positions and anticipate being able to move up the social class ladder. The distinction between the lower middle class and the working class on the next lower rung are more blurred than those between other classes, but members of the lower middle class work at jobs that have slightly more prestige and their incomes are generally higher. The focus on the book was more on the working class and the working poor. Another 30 percent of the U. S. Population belongs to this class of relatively unskilled blue collar and white collar workers. Compared with the lower middle class, they have less education and lower incomes. Their jobs are also less secure, more routine, and more closely supervised. One of their greatest fears is being laid off during a recession. With only a high school diploma, the average member of the working class has little hope of climbing up the class ladder. Job changes usually bring more of the same, so most concentrate on getting ahead by achieving seniority on the job rather than by changing their type of work. Ehrenreich worked mainly in this class but in order to make ends meet, she also took a job, cleaning houses that the working poor would normally be employed at. The working poor make up about 22 percent of the population and work at unskilled, lower paying, temporary and seasonal jobs, such as sharecropping, migrant farm work, house cleaning and day labor. Most are high school dropouts. Many are functionally illiterate, finding it difficult to read even the want ads. They are less likely to vote because they feel that no matter what party is elected to office their situation won’t change. Many of these individuals work full time but still have to depend on help such as food stamps to supplement their meager incomes. But with the push to end social institutions in America the problem will only become huge. Ehrenreich’s book shows how easy to see how one can work full time and still are poor. This book shows clearly the workings of the capitalist society we live in. How most live day to day and if they are getting by don’t mind. The working poor are the one’s that will be affected the most by welfare reform and in my opinion no one is really paying attention. The only attention is the bottom dollar; the only thing that is looked at is how much this will increase money for the upper classes. It really wasn’t very shocking to me what was going on when you live and have lived within these social classes. I have always known we are just the indentured servants working for the capitalist class that only create about 1 percent of the population. Reference: Ehrenreich, B. (2003). Nickel Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America. New York: Holt Publishers.

Media Representation Of Elderly And Young Offenders

Media Representation Of Elderly And Young Offenders The paper presents a fundamental chapter in the thesis by examining the role that media depiction of crime plays within society. It addresses the question by firstly introducing the connections between the media and crime. The paper addresses three core issues on the impact of media depiction of crime, firstly the impact on human behaviour, secondly the impact on generating a fear of crime and thirdly the role in generating moral panics. This chapter sets the paper up for further consideration of how the media represents youth offending differently and then subsequently elderly offending. The next half of the paper will turn to deal with the latter two issues and will present a final conclusion with a redrafted introduction setting out the overall aims and goals of each chapter. Youth offending; elderly offending; fork devils; victims; media depiction; crime. The differences in the media representation of elderly offenders opposed to young offenders? Table of Contents: Abstract 4 Chapter One: Introduction 5 Chapter Two: The Relationship between Crime and the Media 2.0 Introduction 2.1 Media Depiction of Crime and Human Behaviour 2.2 The impact of criminal images and deviance on fear of crime 2.3 The role of the media in moral panics 2.4 Conclusion Abstract: This thesis explores the differences in how elderly offenders are represented in the media in comparison to young offenders. The thesis highlights the differential approach adopted by the media in portraying elderly offenders to how they represent young offenders. The thesis firstly considers the role media plays in reporting crime by considering the relationship between crime and media. The thesis then progresses to consider youth offending and elderly offending in separate chapters. The final chapter draws conclusions on whether there are differences and considers the rationales for a distinction between a young offender and elderly offender in news reporting. Additionally, consideration is also given to the myth of victims always being elderly and whether this plays any role in the media depiction of elderly crime. Chapter One: Introduction The central aim of the thesis is to explore the differences between how elderly offenders are represented in the media as opposed to young offenders. The key underlying objective is to firstly highlight if there is a distinction and then secondly to go to question the basis for a distinction between the representation of young offenders and elderly offenders in the media. The thesis will begin in chapter two by considering the relationship between crime and the media. This chapter will provide the background context to discussing youth offending and elderly offending depiction in the media. In particular, chapter two provides an insight into three aspects on how media reporting on crime can impact and influence society. The chapter specifically focuses on the impact of the media depiction of crime in three ways, firstly by examining the impact on human behaviour, secondly on the impact of criminal images and deviance on the fear of crime and thirdly on the role of the media in moral panics. The conclusion that can be drawn from chapter two is that the mass media selects the reporting of crime in a way that sensationalises crime by creating sound bite headlines directly designed to target the general public for sales. From the perspective of human behaviour, fear of crime and moral panics, the media play a fundamental role in representing crime to the masses. The public is susceptible to media messages in a passive context which directly influences the public perception of particular crimes reported. The interconnection between law and order media depiction and politics is strongly linked from the 1970s when successive governments have used the media representations of crime to facilitate policy swings and shifts to target crime control. The third chapter investigates the way in which the media represents youth offending. The first half of the chapter primarily focuses on establishing the specific ways in which the media represent youth offending. In particular, reference is drawn to the impact of core criminal acts which have involved young adults and children. The second half of the chapter will investigate the role of media in demonising children in the aftermath of the Jamie Bulger case. The fourth chapter investigates the way in which the media represents elderly offending and in particular focuses on the myth of the perceived stereotype of elderly people as being the victim and never the offender. The second half of the chapter deals directly with how the elderly are reported in the media and draws upon the literature to identify the rationales for how elderly crimes are represented in the media. The final chapter draws together the previous and presents a conclusion firstly on whether there is a distinction between the media depiction of youth offending in direct comparison to elderly offending. The bigger question this chapter presents is whether there are any rationales for the distinction between the reporting of youth offending and elderly offending. This question is answered by examining what the impact has been from the distinction between the media depiction on youth offending and elderly offending. This is examined by dealing with how youth offenders are dealt with in comparison to elderly offenders in the criminal justice system. Chapter Two: The Relationship between Crime and the Media 2.0 Introduction: It is argued by Dowler et al (2006) that the most significant and potentially illuminating area of criminological inquiry is the analysis of crime, media and popular culture. (Dowler et al 2006; 837). The relationship between crime and the media becomes intertwined with a number of disciplines including criminology, psychology, sociology, cultural and media studies. (Carrabine 2008; 2). Initially, academic studies have focused on cinema, radio and television before moving to focus on video gaming and music videos until currently focusing on new advancing technologies such as the internet. The advancing technologies over the past five decades have led to a radical transformation in the way media is reported and in particular, the way information on crime is accessed by the general public. In the wake of the internet, information is readily available to the public on a global scale. The accessibility of vast tracks of information has been fundamental in influencing public perception on issues of politics, crime and contemporary issues. The public perception of crime is heavily influenced by the way in which they are exposed to various forms of media including television, film, video and the internet. (Ibid). The advancement of technology has undoubtedly invoked an information age with a desire to be informed of reports and information. Media arguable occupies a dominant role becoming a central institution of modern life which increasingly centres on television and in more recent times the internet. (Garland 2001; 85). It is argued by Wykes (2001) that a major concern about media reporting on crime centres on the way in which the media can select to report a crime. Although the media is not the cause of crime, it is the way they can choose to exaggerate and sensualise crime which creates and invokes emotions among the public of frustration, anger and fear. (Gerbner 1995; 547-550). Media portrayals of crime and violence have become part of everyday life. (Kidd-Hewitt 1995; 1). It is important to point out that crime manifests itself in many different forms of media. It is ever present in film genres, television shows and gaming genres which have become an entertaining aspect of modern life. Many film productions from the 1920s have used crime plots to entertain the masses, similarly, books have used crime plots to the same extent. Increasingly television production has used reality television shows and soap operas to highlight criminal themes. Crime is central to the production of news in society and is considered newsworthy being produced as informative but plays an entertaining role. (Dowler 2004; 574, Fleming 1983). Although crime is considered newsworthy it is the way that the mass media can present its stories on crime that can become the focus of criminological inquiry. Headline news in the mass media in both the digital and print forms scream for our att ention. (Jewkes 2008; 3). Editors and journalists design these headlines to grab our attention by shocking, frightening and most of all entertaining our senses. It is an appeal to occupy the mainstream space for public attention. However, the focus of this chapter is on the mass media obsession with reporting crime and whether this reporting has become harmful. The first half of this paper will concentrate on dealing with the impact media depiction of crime can have in influencing and impacting society. The second half of this chapter will progress to deal with the specific role media plays in generating a sense of fear of crime in a society which has been played out in the mass media over the past six decades. The investigation of the ways in which the press and mass media report crime is firmly an established field within criminology. (Carrabine (2008); 2). A study conducted by Reiner (2007) highlights that after an extensive review of media content he found that the press and broadcast media concentrated their reporting of crime on two particular categories of crime, violent crime and sex crime. (Reiner 2007; 303-15). Reiners study identified that a pattern of news reporting is identifiable in the press and broadcast media which overwhelmingly focuses on violent and sexual crimes. A further study conducted earlier by Williams and Dickson (1993) found that 65 per cent of reported news media dealt with violent crimes where individuals were affected. (Williams and Dickinson (1993); 40). It is important to note that Williams and Dickinson (1993) cross referenced their study of the reported news against the British Crime Survey (Mayhew 1989) which identified that only 6% of crime involved vio lence. Williams and Dickinsons study highlights an imbalance between actual crime and the reported crime within the mass media in favour of violent crime. It is important to note that other studies have also been conducted which has found similar patterns of publication within the content of press and broadcast media. For example, in Smith (1984) a survey of local papers reporting on crime against actual crime in the area found a similar imbalance towards the media reporting primarily crimes of robbery and assault. (Smith 1984: 290). Smith found that whilst assault and robbery only represented 6 per cent of crime in Birmingham, it occupied a 52.7 per cent of space devoted to crime reporting in the local press. A further study of Scottish papers found that the Scottish media dedicated 45.8 per cent of printing space to violent crimes and sexual crimes but when violent crime and sexual crimes are combined they only represented 2.4 per cent of actual crime in Scotland. (Ditton and Duff y (1983); 164). These studies represent an indication of how crime is reported in the press both at a national and a regional level during the 1980s and early 1990s. It is arguable on the basis of these studies newspapers may be selective in the types of crimes it seeks to publish with a heavy tendency towards crimes that are either violent or sexual in nature. Even though these crimes are arguably not representative of the criminal picture of crime committed, news media selects news that will sell papers by playing to the senses of the general public in generating sensational headlines. However, it should be noted that these studies can be criticised as being too narrow by comparing actual crime rates with news reported crimes rates. It is argued by Ericson (1991) that the actual crimes rates and statistics do not represent the reality of crime in practice as many crimes go unreported. (Ericison (1991): 220). In particular Ericison argues that the statistics produced by the police are primarily for their organisational management and cannot be reliably used to compare media reporting. (Ibid) It can be counter-argued that whilst the studies may be imperfect from the perspective of verifiable data, they do go somewhat to comparing the popularity of crime within the headlines against the proportion of reported crime. It facilitates a snap shot in time of how media report crimes albeit imperfect. Initially, therefore it can be argued that a core problem inherent within news, media and crime reporting is a tendency on the part of the mass media to focus on news or crime that will sell their papers and stories that will intrigue readers. The wider effects of this type of reporting will be discussed below in greater detail. The principal architects within criminology on the study of news reporting were Stanley Cohen and Jack Young work. (Cohen and Young (1973)). Their work proposed two polarised views of news reporting traditions. Firstly their work proposes a Mass Manipulative Model which argues that the public is passive receptors of information and messages waiting to be influenced by the news media. (Ibid: 10). This model proposes that the media is the all-powerful influence on society that serves to reinforce dominant views. (Carrabine (2008); 3). Secondly, this model is contrasted with a Commercial Laissez-Faire model which takes a more varied approach and is viewed as being less manipulative of public perception but rather is seen to further a diversity of opinions. (Cohen and Young (1973): 11). The commonalities within Cohen and Youngs work and the vast array of subsequent literature on media and crime are the focus on the assumption that media reporting may be potentially damaging or detrimenta l to society. There are three main areas of research interest within the literature on the effects of media reporting on society. (Greer 2010: 379). Firstly the effects of media violence on human behaviour, the impact of media images of crime and deviance on fear of crime, and the role of the media in the production of moral panics. (Ibid). The concerns about media reporting influencing and impacting society detrimentally have developed in the literature along two lines. Firstly, research occupies a traditional right view that media reporting and representation of crime influences society by the way it glamorises crime through television programming, film genres, printed and digital press, music and gaming mediums. The focus of the traditional right view is on the message delivered through the media to society and how that message, in turn, is interpreted. In particular, the traditional right concern is centred upon the message being delivered and the likelihood that recipients will engage in violent or criminal behaviour. Secondly, research literature also occupies a left approach. The left approach concentrates concern on the media images of crime and violence which increases the fear of crime within the general public. If media depiction of crime results in a society which is more fearful it will legitimise the state s role in creating new legal frameworks designed to tackle and deal with the law and order issues. Altheide (2009) argues that the media regularly uses its reporting on law and order to invoke moral panics amongst the general public. (Altheide (2009): 79). Moral panics are intense media fuelled bursts of collective concern or outrage directed against particular fork devils. (Ibid). In particular moral panics occur when the media spotlight particular issues which give rise to national concerns which require swift action by the government to implement a policy to counter-act the concern. This chapter will divide into three sections, the first section will discuss the impact of the media depiction of crime upon human behaviour, secondly the impact of the images of crime and deviances upon the fear of crime and thirdly the role of media in creating and generating moral panics. 2.1 Media Depiction of Crime and Human Behaviour: There have been a number of studies conducted to consider the impact of crime depiction within the media over the past five decades. A study conducted by Bandura et al (1963) considered the impact of portraying violent and aggressive films. (Bandura et al (1963): 3-4). The study focused on determining whether objects who are subjected to the depiction of aggression would after watching the film re-enact the aggression from the film or at least be influenced by the aggression. The authors conducted a scientific experiment to investigate whether children who were subjected to aggressive filmed cartoon scenes would display aggressive tendencies after watching their film. The results of the study allowed the authors to conclude that there was strong evidence to suggest that exposure to filmed aggression heightened aggressive reactions in the children under the experiment. The study demonstrated that those children who were subjected to the filmed aggressive behaviour exhibited twice as m uch aggression in the aftermath of the watching the short cartoon as those children who were not subjected to aggression. (Ibid: 9). Additionally, the study found that not only were the children who were subjected to the aggressive cartoons displayed aggression afterwards but those same children were influenced by the type of aggression. (Ibid). The authors selected children as the objects of their experiment as they believed that children represented the most passive receptors for their film which would provide a fertile ground for their experiment. However, it is important to note that many academics have criticised the approach employed by Bandura et al (1963) in the way they conducted their experiment. Many critiques question the methodological and theoretical validity of the study with particular concern in linking the effects of aggression on children to adults. (Gauntlett (2001): 47-49). Although much criticism can be levelled against the study, it does however demonstrate th at people are capable of being passive receptors of media messages and within this passive state they can potentially become susceptible to media influence. Despite considerable criticism in the literature on the methodological and theoretical limitations of empirically assessing the connections between media effects and actions, there remains an insistence on a link between media consumption and criminal behaviour. (Borden (1975), Browne and Pennell (1998), Gauntlett and Hill (1999)). For example in the aftermath of the murder of Jamie Bulger by two ten-year-old boys in 1993 films such as Childs Play III and other violent video games were identified as being the cause for influencing young adults in acting out violent intentions. (Barker (2001)). Although no connection can empirically be made in the Jamie Bulger case to explain why two ten-year-old children would exhibit such violent tendencies. Similarly in Columbine in 1999 when two teenagers shot 12 classmates and one teacher, and further injuring 21 others, the music of Marilyn Manson, the film The Basketball Diaries and violent video games were all identified by various media sourc es as contributing to the cause of such a massacre. (Muzzatti (2003)). Additionally, when a spate of black killings emerged in Birmingham in the 2002/2003 the Home Secretary, David Blunkett, firmed blamed the media for creating a culture of killing as a fashion accessory. (Mueller (2003)). Although logically it may be inferred that increasing violence in films, television and computer games all may contribute to invoking violence tendencies to those who watch them and in particular children and young adults may be more susceptible to the message of violence than adults. However, it should be noted that no connection be made empirically due to the difficult nature of investigating such a connection between crime depiction and criminal behaviour. Nonetheless, in a time of explanation such as the Jamie Bulger case, the Columbine massacre and other instances crying out for the explanation, many point  towards the influence of media messages invoking violence. It is demonstrated by Barker and Petley (2001) that it is possible to good research on media violence and audiences if it is conducted in accordance with rigorous concepts, theories and methods. (Barker and Petley (2001)). It is interesting to note that Barker and Petley consider that by simply trying to count violent scenes/acts or conduct and then to measure them against an effect on an audience purely within a quantitative framework is setting the experiment up to fail. (Ibid: 5-10). The authors argue that a more coherent approach is to explore the meaning that different forms of media violence may hold for different audiences in different contexts. (Greer 2010: 403-404). The authors draw upon other qualitative works and attempt to explore the meanings that different forms of media violence may hold for different audiences. The net effect of Barker and Petleys work is that it demonstrates the possibility of exploring how media may effect different audiences in different ways. Alth ough it is not empirically legitimate in that it inferences meanings from other empirical works, it goes somewhat to explaining the connections between human behaviour and media depiction of crime. 2.2 The impact of criminal images and deviance on fear of crime: It is demonstrated by Ditton et al that there have been at least 73 attempts to establish a connection between media consumption and fear of crime with only 23 per cent of studies finding a positive relationship and 73 per cent fail to make any connections. (Ditton et al 2004: 595-598). Ditton et al argue that one reason why the connections between media consumption and fear of crime may not be found in the studies more frequently is that much of the pre-existing studies do not approach the question from a methodologically suitable approach. (Ibid). All the studies ask the correct the question, whether there is a connection to be made between media consumption and fear of crime, but they fall down on the methods employed to arrive at the answer. The authors in their work approach the question by attempting to overcome the identified methodological weaknesses of previous studies by employing a mix of quantitative and qualitative approaches in the exploration of media consumption and f ear of crime. Ditton et als work firstly demonstrates that much of the existing literature on establishing a connection between media consumption and fear of crime uses only quantitative approaches to validate their results, to which the authors refer to as amateurish. (ibid: 595). The authors argue that in order to make fuller more substantiated connections between media consumption and fear of crime quantitative and qualitative research approaches are necessary to engage adequately with media reception and influence. They use qualitative approaches including, interviews and focus groups to explore fully how the media consumers can be influenced by media messages. Their study concludes that there is some fear of crime by media consumers who are subjected to violent crimes through the media depiction of crime. (Ibid: 606-607). Interestingly their study concludes that the fear associated with the media depiction of crime does not result from the localness of the report or the sensati onalist headlines but rather the individuals interpretation of the media content. (Ibid). The importance of the Ditton et al study highlights that individuals who are exposed to the media depictions of crime can and do evidence levels of fear of crime as a result of that exposure. It also highlights that by employing quantitative and qualitative research approaches it is possible to demonstrate that individuals fear of crime is primarily located within their interpretation of the media story. Another important aspect of the impact of criminal images and deviance invoking fear of crime is Cavenders (2004) work on applying David Garlands culture of control theory. (Cavender (2004): 335). Cavender argues that by applying Garlands theories on the shifting of criminal policies over the past century to the development of media studies can provide further support for Garland theories. (Ibid). The author argues that in the 1970s the public perception both in the USA and the UK was centred upon the belief that society in general was becoming more risky which were grounded in the reports of rising crime rates, political manipulation of the media and media representations of crime. (Ibid: 336). The argument being made by Cavender is that during the 1970s media representations in addition to political representations of a rising tide of crime required swift action plans by the government. The various governments from the 1970s used the media representations of crime as the basis to d evelop their policies for election and implementation to manage and control crime. Various political parties used these media representations of criminal activity to present solutions to deal with law and order issues. Cavender points to the 1970s in line with Garland as the turning point for public fear of crime which allowed successive governments to employ varied strategies which were perceived as effective at managing crime. (Ibid: 337). Goode (1989) identifies that the media depiction of crime in the 1980s focused on the drugs problems which later precipitated into policies which were designed to deal with the war on drugs. (Goode (1989)). By employing Cavenders hypothesis it possible to argue that the media depictions of criminal activity in 1970s invoked a fear of crime particularly focusing on both young and adult offenders. The 1980s media depiction of crime represented a fear of drugs and spotlighted the need for tougher laws on dealing with the specific issues surrounding drugs wars. The 1990s can be characterised by a focus on youth crime and serious offending. Cavenders work demonstrates somewhat the impact media depiction can have upon crime and in particular, it can facilitate the use of draconian policies which are perceived to be effective at dealing with crime. Additionally, Ditton et al highlight that media depiction does contribute towards a general perception that crime in the media can contribute towards a fear of crime with drastic effects upon society both in terms of a risky perception and secondly upon the laws governments may enact to counter-act the risk perception. Each decade since the 1970s has focused policy on tackling particular crimes which the media has spotlighted through its depiction of crime. 2.3 The role of the media in moral panics: A moral panic is an intense burst of public outcry at particular issues which are primarily media fuelled. Essentially the issue under a moral panic invokes a public outcry which is perceived to be a threat to societal values and interests. (Cohen (2002): 1-6).

Increase in cigarette tax would reduce the cigarette consumption

Increase in cigarette tax would reduce the cigarette consumption 5.0 Introduction The results of our analysis demonstrate that increase in cigarette tax would reduce the cigarette consumption or quit smoking among lower income smokers and heavily addicted smokers, thus it upheld the hypotheses four and five. However, the tax factor does not prove to be significantly related on younger smokers, female smokers and less educated smokers. Chapter 5 includes a summary description of descriptive and inferential analyses and discussion of major findings that validate our research objective and hypotheses. Next section provides the implications of our study toward the society. Following section will discuss several limitations that are apparent during the progress of the study, as well as to provide some recommendations for future research. Then, an overall conclusion of our entire study is presented at the end of this chapter. 5.1 Summary of Statistical Analysis The demographic profiles of respondents are analyzed when the data are collected. Smokers are categorized by different races, gender, smoking degree, education and age and the data is presented in pie charts. Besides, the central tendencies statistic of the variables is also calculated in the analysis. Cross tabulation tables are presented to show responses of each subgroup. Statistical method used in the inferential analysis is multinomial logistic regression. This statistical method presented the predictability relationship between the dependent and independent variables in the form of odd ratio [i.e. Exp(B)]. When the significant level is less than 0.05, the alternative hypothesis is accepted. In this research, alternative hypothesis for age, gender, and education level are rejected as these factor do not affect the likelihood of the responses towards cigarette tax. The alternative hypothesis for smoking degree and income level are accepted as the significant level is less than 0.05. Therefore, smoking degree and income level are more likely to predict a certain type of responses from the smokers. Multivariate analysis is also performed by inputting all independent variables as covariate factors in the SPSS program. Multivariate analysis is to ensure the relationship is not significantly affected by other independent variables. 5.2 Discussion of Major Finding Table 5.1: Summary of the Inferential Analysiss Results Hypothesis Result H1: Younger smokers are more likely to quit smoking than older smokers given cigarette tax increase. Rejected H2: Male smokers are more likely to give no response to cigarette tax increase than female smokers. Rejected H3: Highly educated smokers are more likely to quit smoking than less educated smokers given cigarette tax increase. Rejected H4: Lower income smokers are more likely to cut cost than higher income smokers given cigarette tax increase. Accepted H5: Heavy smokers are more likely to give no response to cigarettes tax increase than light smokers. Accepted Source: Developed for the research According to rational addiction theory in terms of the variable age, rational young smokers should be more likely to quit smoking given that their longer life remaining compared to older smokers and their comparatively lower income. Younger smokers who might develop lung cancer right now would lose much more (time) compared to an 80 years old smoker with lung cancer. Our empirical research does not confirmed this because we had shown that younger smokers are not more likely to quit/cut smoking than adult smokers. Past studies by Lewit and Coate (1982) and Sylvain (2007) also contradicted the result we had. The possible reason leading to this result might include the small number of young smokers in our sample. The alternative explanation is that since we perform our data collection in urban areas, young smokers tend to be more affluent, therefore they are not affected by increase in tax. Interestingly, Decicca, Kenkel and Mathios (2008) stated that since most smoking initiation start s during youth, therefore, the existing young smokers who quit/cut smoking due to taxes could be higher. The study also finds that gender is not a factor in determining the decision to cut/quit smoking given cigarette tax increase. However, rational addiction theory predicts female is more likely to cut down cigarette consumption due to traditionally being poorer than male. This contradiction happened because, we suspect, the income gap between the genders is fast closing. Therefore, any tax increase will not significantly create any reduced consumption of cigarettes among the women. Our finding is in line with the mixed results of previous literature. Chaloupka (1990) discovered that men are more likely to quit/cut smoking while Stehr (2007) found that women are more likely to quit/cut smoking. We find that education has little impact on the decision of smokers in response to cigarette tax increase. According to rational addiction theory, smokers with less education incur much cost than highly educated smokers for smoking because they have generally lower income. Our findings did not support rational addiction theory. Previous research by Madden (2007) partly supported our finding, he found that highly educated smokers are less responsive to cigarette tax. However, Tansels (1993) findings in Turkey (a middle income country) partly supported our conclusion. He found a positive and significant relationship between education and cigarette tax elasticity meaning that the higher the education, the higher the sensitivity towards cigarette tax a smoker will be. The reason behind is that highly educated smokers also tend to cut down smoking when taxed are raised, not because of the money issue, but because they are fearful of the health consequences. They have utilized the tax incr ease as the opportunity to go cold turkey. Therefore, when both higher education and lower education smokers choose to smoke less, none is more likely than the other. Lower income smokers are more likely to cut cost than richer smokers because the cost of continuing the habit of smoking is higher. Each RM increase in cigarette price will affect their quality of life, even creating shortages of money for childrens education, food and other daily expenses compounded to the future. This result conforms to previous research done by Biener et al. (1998) which says that poor smokers are 3 times as likely to either switch to cheaper brands of cigarettes or reduce consumption. Townsend et al. (1994) findings also brings forth similar conclusion. As expected, heavy smokers are more likely to give no response towards cigarettes tax increase than light smokers. Adjacent complementarity explains that within a certain time frame, the more a smoker smokes now, the more he would like to smoke in the future. Unless the pain of higher cigarette price is more than the pain of giving up the smoking addiction, smokers will tend to continue to smoke in the future. Previous research done by Lee (2008) does not conform to our findings. Lee et al. (2004) whose result shows that heavy smokers increase smoking consumption when tax is increased supported our result. Overall, the article that Biener et al. (1998) produced matches our results almost entirely. Other studies that contradict our result normally utilized national cigarette sales data. Therefore, their studies are not entirely comparable to our individualistic survey-based study. 5.3 Implications of the Study Whether cigarette tax effectively achieves the governments goal in reducing cigarette consumption is a significant issue that needs to be carefully considered from time to time in order to better determine the direction of future policies. Hence, identifying the effect of tax increases on cigarette consumption is an essential part for regulating proper governmental policies on the tobacco use. Generally, the progressive increase in cigarette tax rates may provide a powerful contribution toward the governments taxation policy which would boost the governments income tax revenue, as well as to improve economic efficiency of the country. In our study, we found that highly addicted and high income smokers do not respond to cigarette tax well. They still purchase same quantity of cigarettes. Therefore, government should devise a method of targeting cigarette taxes towards these groups of smokers to maximize tax revenue. According to Tsai et al. (2003), portions of extra revenue which was derived from the cigarette tax would be earmarked to the governments effort for implementing tobacco control program against the tobacco use such as anti-smoking media-campaigns. Still, other portion of the cigarette tax revenues would dedicate into funding healthcare for under-insured population, lung cancer research and other health related activities. Apart from that, our study also contributes to public health by identifying that education does not play a significant role in reducing consumption of cigarette due to taxes. This implies that our education system is not emphasizing the danger and health hazard of smoking. This, however, agrees with the rational addiction theory because highly educated people are likely to be wealthy. Therefore, they do not suffer as much because of tax increase. In contrast, wealthy people also suffer more because of health problems because they have much to enjoy in life (holidays, entertainment, longer life etc.) compared to low income smokers. Therefore, in devising a public health policy, our study implies that we should educate people on the danger of smoking while at the same time increasing cigarette tax so that in the end, the rich and the poor both smoke less. During the process of conceptual foundation, our research has contributed extensive amount of empirical evidence that have reviewed the relationships between various demographic and smoking degree factors and the response to cigarette tax increase. Through our study, we can better understand the effects of taxation on cigarette consumption which will result in different consumption patterns. For instance, smokers may cut cost either by reducing the number of cigarette they smoke or change to a cheaper brand, choose to quit smoking, or maintain their original level of consumption. According to the fundamental law of economics which specified that as the price of a product rises, the quantity demanded for that product would fall. However, we found that there is an exception to this most basic law of economics because of the nature of rational addiction. Since we viewed the cigarettes smoking as an addictive behaviour, therefore it could be expected that increasing cigarette tax would h ave smaller effect than normal product in reducing peoples consumption of cigarettes. Alternatively, increasing cigarette taxes too high and the government would risk creating a black market or the emergent of smuggled cigarette. 5.4 Limitations of the Study Limitation of this survey-based research is that smokers may not always do what they say they would do in the questionnaire. They may choose to answer quit smoking, cut cost in the questionnaire but may act to smoke next week, next month or some other dates. On the other hand, they may answer no response to cigarette tax but choose to quit smoking the next day. However, they are not necessarily been telling lies. It is just that future behavior is hard to predict even for smokers themselves especially those who are highly addicted to cigarettes. Warner (1978) had showed that self-reported consumption in questionnaire significantly underestimate the actual sales data taken at the national level. Apart from that, the small numbers of samples of young smokers age 11 and below may not be sufficient to produce any strong evidence for that age group. The reason for such low numbers is that it is illegal for them to smoke in Malaysia. Besides, retailers are not permitted to sell cigarettes to minors age 18 and below. Besides, comparably smaller numbers of female smokers compared to male smokers may have distorted the results. Female smokers are historically and nationally lower than male smokers. Therefore, each female smokers responses to cigarettes tax have larger impact per person to the end result as compared to individual male smoker. Wasserman, Manning, Newhouse and Winkler (1991) had observed that using individual level data may incorporate ecological bias into the study. There may be other variables affecting the tobacco use that are not incorporated into the determinant. Example might include, family size, social statuses of smokers and profession (e.g. doctors may possibly smoke less). Another example would be the existence of societal culture that disapproves the habit of smoking. The respondent going through the survey questionnaire cannot choose to answer the questionnaire in any other way than was included in the choices of answers. The smoker only can fill in their answer according to the objective answers set by the researcher beforehand and all the answer categories are based on nominal or ordinal. If the questionnaire is asking about question such as how would you response to a RM1 increase in cigarette price and the respondent wish to answer that he would quit for 1 month and only continue smoking if his income has increase accordingly, it is not possible. These will result in inaccurate result as the researcher has already set the chooseable answers, namely to quit smoking, cutting cost and choose not to respond. Another limitation of the research is that it does not consider smuggled cigarettes and cigarettes sold in tax free zone. Tsai et al. (2003) and Lee and Chen (2006) had proved in their studies that smokers tend to purchased smuggled cigarettes to avoid the high cost of legal cigarettes in Taiwan. Respondent who purchase tax-exempted cigarettes from these two sources may not be hurt by the tax and therefore our result will be biased towards No Response. Moreover, although we know that the main effect of rising price of cigarette due to tax would reduce smokers cigarette consumption but we do not know whether it is cigarette tax that has actually play an important role on the demand of cigarette. Perhaps the reason for reducing cigarette consumption may be due to some issues other than taxation policy such as concern over the health consequences of cigarette smoking since they know that smoking will lead to lung cancer, heart disease, stroke, etc. Another issue that could influence on the demand of cigarette may be the tobacco control policy, for example advertising restrictions or ban on smoking in public places, as well as anti-smoking media campaigns could induce smokers to quit/cut smoking as well. Besides that, law policy also plays a major effect on cigarette consumption which limit smoking in public place and restrictions on youth under 18 years old to purchase the tobacco products. Since there are a lot of other issues than t axation in affecting their smoking behaviour, therefore it is recommended that future research in those issues need to be conducted to verify its actual effects. The final limitation of our study is that we seek our respondent mainly in the Klang Valley area. Therefore, it may not truly represent the whole population in Malaysia. We know that Klang Valley populations are urban dwellers and the result may deviate a little if we include smokers from rural areas. Urban dwellers normally had higher education level and higher income level compared to non-urban dwellers. However, since majority of the smokers live in the city and most of the tax revenue collected comes from them, it is acceptable to neglect smokers from rural areas. All limitations are acknowledged but they do not detract from the significance of finding but merely provides platforms for future research. 5.5 Recommendations for Future Research As we use cross-sectional method in our research, we highly recommend future research on this topic conducted in the longitudinal method. Future researchers can conduct the research on the change of cigarette tax in Malaysia in the time period of few years or longer. It is similar to the way conducted by Hamilton, Levinton, Pierre, Grimard (1997) and Hanewinkel and Isensee (2007) in their studies. Based on our knowledge and finding, Malaysia has not conducted the research on this topic by this method. By conducting the study in longitudinal method, the result will be more accurate and reliable because this method can overcome the limitation of cross-sectional method as discussed in the first paragraph of limitation. Actually, there are even little research on the topic cigarette taxes itself in Malaysia. More research on this topic is highly recommended because the consumption behavior of Malaysian smokers may be different from overseas smokers. Many researches on the cigarette consumption were focused either on the effect of cigarette tax/price to the cigarette consumption such as Lee (2008) or the effect of anti-smoking campaign/health information on the cigarette consumption such as Warner (1977) and Lee and Chen (2008). Future researchers should find ways to integrate and study both the effect of cigarette tax and anti-smoking campaigns together on the cigarette consumption. This is because cigarette tax and health information do affect the cigarette consumption at the same time. The only difference between them is whether price or health information plays in a bigger role on the change of cigarette consumption. By studying the effect of cigarette tax and health information together on the cigarette consumption, the result can be more reliable and usable for government to implement its tobacco policy effectively and efficiently. Besides that, researchers can examine the fairness principle on the tobacco policy in Malaysia. Many researchers such Gospodinov and Ian Irvine (2009)) and Warner et al. (1995) had discussed the issues of fairness principle in the tobacco policy in their studies. One of the arguments is the tax imposed is unfair to lower income group. Lower income group often will consume lower priced or smuggled cigarettes when cigarette tax is increased as proved by Evans and Farrelly (1998), Farrelly, Nimsch, Hyland and Cummings (2004), and Tsai et al. (2003). Often, lower priced or smuggled cigarettes contain higher tar and nicotine substance. The consumers health will be more affected by smoking these types of cigarettes. Moreover, future research can focus on whether tax should be imposed based on the quantity of nicotine and tar instead of quantity of cigarette in Malaysia. The impacts of implementing tax based on quantity of nicotine and tar need to be researched and determined. Youth is the most valuable assets for the country. Future research can focus on the access of youth to cigarette or exposure to smoking environment/ habits in Malaysia. This type of research can provide important data and information to our country and the world since the younger generation of smokers has increased many folds throughout the world during the past century. More effective tobacco control program to the youth can be implemented based on the data and information. In addition, future research can focus on what is the optimal tax rate for cigarette in Malaysia and its impacts. 5.6 Conclusion Smoking has been a prevalent epidemic in the modern world. It remains one of the top killers of human on the 21st century. Fortunately, excise taxes on cigarettes continue to be our last line of defense against smoking and many countries including Malaysia has been increasing taxes on cigarettes for many years. In the beginning of our research, we had set out to answer the questions. We want to know given the socio-economic factors and addictions degree, whether it will affect the likely responses of fellow smokers following a significant increase in cigarettes tax. The principles of rational addiction theory predict that lower income, younger, low education, female and lightly addicted smokers are more likely to respond towards cutting down on smoking consumption and quitting altogether given a tax increase. Conducting a self-administered questionnaire survey in Klang survey with samples of 300 smokers, we have found out the following results. Gender, education and age do not affect the likely responses of fellow smokers. The reasons might be caused by relatively small samples, closing gaps of income between genders and tendency of highly educated smokers to cut down smoking due to health reasons. However, research found that low income smokers are more likely to cut cost. Highly addicted smokers are more likely to maintain same level of consumption. Both income and addiction factors is accurately predicted by the theory and previous research. Our research has wide implications. They include helping government devise better taxation policy, public health policy and smoking awareness campaigns. Besides, we have also contributed significant empirical data towards rational addiction theory. Limitations of this research includes incongruence between smokers actions and smokers intended action and ecological bias. Small samples for certain age group and the availability of smuggled cigarettes are among the limitations. Therefore, we highly recommend that future longitudinal research on cigarette taxation be conducted in Malaysia. Besides, research on the differential effect of taxation vs. anti-smoking campaign, fairness of cigarette taxation and access of youth towards cigarette can be conducted to supplement this research area. Overall, our research has been a success. Although the hardship we have encountered during the data collection process and data analysis process is painful, it is worth it and has paid off to the team. We hope that the result that we had produced is truly helpful to other researchers as well as to the society as a whole.

America Needs More Government Programs to Pull People Out of Poverty :: Argumentative Persuasive Essays

A frightened young girl sits in a doctor’s office ready to receive the news that will change her life forever. She has made foolish choices which will leave her with a child, no husband, and an uphill struggle against poverty. In high school, she dreamed of college, a career, and later a family. Now the order has been reversed as she takes on a new role — a single mom. This role will keep her from graduating from high school and leave her without an education. She will never have a well-paying career and she will face unending struggles to support her child. It has often been believed that hard work will lead to financial success. The underprivileged look to figures such as Andrew Carnegie and an enticing story of rags to riches. Americans turn their eyes toward a dream of being a great entrepreneur and establishing a legacy of wealth. The typical citizen believes that with hard work, obstacles can be overcome with a life of luxury as the prize. Unexpected obstacles, such as pregnancy at a young age, are not calculated into this dream. In addition, society tells us that the poor are in a state of poverty because the lower class is not willing to do the hard work that is necessary to acquire any kind of high-esteemed position. This, however, is not the case. A single mother, like the sixteen year-old girl, can work long hours and multiple jobs but still not make an adequate amount of money to support her child. Poverty exists in a cyclical fashion, as David Shipler shows: A run-down apartment can exacerbate a child’s asthma, which leads to a call for an ambulance, which generates a medical bill that cannot be paid, which ruins a credit record, which hikes the interest rate on an auto loan, which forces the purchase of an unreliable used car, which jeopardizes a mother’s punctuality at work, which limits her promotions and earning capacity, which confines her to poor housing (11). Something must be done to aid the girl so that she might provide for her new baby. However, segregation exists between the various income levels in America. The wealthy have little to no interaction with the financially unstable, yet according to Barbara Ehrenreich: the affluent exert inordinate power over the lives of the less affluent, and especially over the lives of the poor, determining what public services will be available, if any, what minimum wage, what laws governing the treatment of labor (216). America Needs More Government Programs to Pull People Out of Poverty :: Argumentative Persuasive Essays A frightened young girl sits in a doctor’s office ready to receive the news that will change her life forever. She has made foolish choices which will leave her with a child, no husband, and an uphill struggle against poverty. In high school, she dreamed of college, a career, and later a family. Now the order has been reversed as she takes on a new role — a single mom. This role will keep her from graduating from high school and leave her without an education. She will never have a well-paying career and she will face unending struggles to support her child. It has often been believed that hard work will lead to financial success. The underprivileged look to figures such as Andrew Carnegie and an enticing story of rags to riches. Americans turn their eyes toward a dream of being a great entrepreneur and establishing a legacy of wealth. The typical citizen believes that with hard work, obstacles can be overcome with a life of luxury as the prize. Unexpected obstacles, such as pregnancy at a young age, are not calculated into this dream. In addition, society tells us that the poor are in a state of poverty because the lower class is not willing to do the hard work that is necessary to acquire any kind of high-esteemed position. This, however, is not the case. A single mother, like the sixteen year-old girl, can work long hours and multiple jobs but still not make an adequate amount of money to support her child. Poverty exists in a cyclical fashion, as David Shipler shows: A run-down apartment can exacerbate a child’s asthma, which leads to a call for an ambulance, which generates a medical bill that cannot be paid, which ruins a credit record, which hikes the interest rate on an auto loan, which forces the purchase of an unreliable used car, which jeopardizes a mother’s punctuality at work, which limits her promotions and earning capacity, which confines her to poor housing (11). Something must be done to aid the girl so that she might provide for her new baby. However, segregation exists between the various income levels in America. The wealthy have little to no interaction with the financially unstable, yet according to Barbara Ehrenreich: the affluent exert inordinate power over the lives of the less affluent, and especially over the lives of the poor, determining what public services will be available, if any, what minimum wage, what laws governing the treatment of labor (216).

The Road to the Cemetery :: Narrative Memoir Essays

The Road to the Cemetery The smell of cigarette smoke was strong; the leather couch reeked of it. Next to the couch was a nick-knack rack and on it were a little china girl, maybe Jill, and a little china boy, Jack; there was a glass wishing well near them too. Little glass dogs, a china cat, some shiny rocks, a little box, and a plastic Hawaii hula baby lived on the rack as well. Grandma opened the doors and all of the windows; today we were to begin cleaning out Aunt Beth's house. I looked out the front door, saw clouds were coming, and in the distance, I saw lightning flash. Today was nothing like those days nearly two weeks ago when Aunt Beth had died, and was then laid to rest. I remember the year my Great Great Aunt Beth died. Being little, people would speak quietly about her declining health and expect my cousins and I not to understand, thinking that they were sheltering us. "She isn't doing well," someone would say. "No She isn't," would be the reply, "and she refuses to take her oxygen when she goes out." "I know, she won't even have it on when someone visits." "It embarrasses her." "It shouldn't lots of people have to have oxygen" "She left it on when I went to visit her the other day, that proves that she's really not feeling very well at all." Another time I was told straight out, "Honey, Aunt Beth doesn't feel well, I don't know if she'll ever get better." This statement was wrong I was sure, she was my Aunt Beth and she would get well. I would look at her sometimes, trying to see why everyone thought she was unwell. She looked like she always had; maybe her back was a little more crooked she had Scoliosis. Her voice was just a little rough and perhaps she coughed a little more. She still gave me a sound hug when I saw her. Aunt Beth did not go on picnics with the family anymore, because she was to old Grandma said. I did know she did not feel well, but she never had felt well as long as I could remember. She did not try to shelter her many nieces, nephews, great nieces and great nephews she knew we would find out sooner or latter. She used to say "My bones ache, my hands hurt, my back aches, I have trouble walking so I had to get me a cane, and I can't sleep for coughing.

Los Zetas

RUNNING HEAD: Los Zetas Nolita Oliveira Wayland Baptist University Dr. Paul Lankford Borderland Beat Reporter Overmex (2010, August 26), reported 72 illegal immigrants from El Salvador, Honduras, Ecuador and Brazil, were found dead on a ranch in San Fernando, Tamaulipas, which is 150 km from the U. S. border city of Brownsville. This discovery came from one survivor who found his way to the Navy troops and reported members of the Los Zeta cartel at the nearby ranch. According to the Borderland Beat; 21 rifles, six 5. mm M4 carbines, three 7. 60 mm AK-47, seven 12 gauge shotguns, five . 22 caliber rifles, 101 magazines, two ammunition belts, six thousand 649 cartridges of various calibers, four bullet proof vests, one helmet, four trucks, one with the Ministry of National Defense (SEDENA), were also found at the ranch. With such a rich supply of ammunition and a massacre of men and women with their hands and feet tied, the question remains, how have the Los Zetas become so powerful? Los Zeta’s was originally founded by a group of highly trained Mexican Army Special Forces deserters and has expanded to include corrupted former federal, state, and local police officers hired by Mexico’s Gulf Cartel (Los Zetas, 2010, November 22). The group originally consisted of 31 members with the first leader, Lieutenant Arturo Guzman Decena using his Federal Judicial Police radio code to become identified as Z1. This code was given to high-ranking officers for the Commanding Federal Judicial Police Officers in Mexico. Zeta is also named for the letter in Spanish. Decena was born in 1976 and trained with an elite Mexican military group called Grupo Aeromovil de Fuerzas Especiales (GAFE) which were trained in counter- insurgency and locating and apprehending drug cartel members, with Decena came 30 other GAFE deserters. Decena was killed in 2002 and his second-in-command Z2 was captured in 2004 (Decena, 2010, November 27). The current leader is Z3 Heriberto Lazcano. Los Zeta’s was originally hired to track down and kill rival cartel members and provide protection for the Gulf Cartel. Their power has grown and their savagery has had no boundaries. In 2003 Los Zetas negotiated a pact with the Gulf Cartel and the Beltran –Leyva Cartel to engage their own drug shipments (Los Zetas, 2010, November 22). Seven years later after the pact, Los Zetas have violently turned against their former partner, the Gulf Cartel, and have formed alliances with the Juarez Cartel, Tijuana Cartel and the Beltran- Leyva Cartel. The other major faction alignment includes the Gulf Cartel, Sinaloa Cartel, and La Familia Cartel. In response to the Los Zeta’s savagery the Sinaloa Cartel hired another armed enforcer gang, Los Negros, to fight back. Los Negros have also turned their back and become independent are gaining more control of regions. As with other terrorist organizations, such as al Qaeda, there are roots to the source of the evil. According to Brookes (2005), it is important to understand the many reasons for the terrorist phenomenon includes radical religious ideology, poor governance, a lack of economic opportunity, social alienation, demographic pressure, and political isolation (page 11). Although Los Zeta’s. Los Negros, or other Mexican Cartels have not been listed as terrorist organizations by the U. S. Department of State their actions are in compliance with the different definitions of terrorism. Narcoterrorist would describe what these Mexican Cartels are. The statutory definition used by National Counterterrorism Center NCTC states that terrorism is premeditated, politically motivated violence directed against non-combatants (Benjamin, D. 2010,August 5). According to Narcoterrorism (2010, December 6), former Peru President coined the term narcoterrorism when describing terrorist-type attacks against nation’s anti-narcotics policy. The term was originally understood to mean â€Å"the attempts of narcotics traffickers to influence the policies of a government or a society through violence and intimidation and to hinder the enforcement of the law and the administration of justice by the systematic threat or use of such violence (Narcoterrorism). FARC, ELN, Hamas, Taliban, and AUC in Colombia, and PCP- SL in Peru are all known terrorist organizations that engage in drug trafficking activity to fund their operations and gain recruits and expertise. Describing the horrific killing and torturing tactics Los Zetas use against their countrymen, government, innocent men, women, and children could be best described as simply terrorist, the best term when describing them would be narcoterrorist. Their battle against their own and the United States is not deeply rooted to a religion or some other similar ideology known terrorist organization’s base their practice on. These cartels are simply money hungry, power tripping, double crossing, unfaithful to any cause, and will burn their own to reach their desired level. The War on Drugs is not a new concept simply invented overnight by someone to calm people down or put the fear into those pushing and selling. According to Head (2011), there is a history dating back to the early 1900’s when the Harrison Tax Act of 1914 was enforced to restrict the sale of heroin and cocaine. The Marihuana Tax Act of 1937 attempted to tax marijuana because it was an alleged â€Å"getaway drug† for heroin uses and was popular among Mexican- American immigrants. President Eisenhower was considered the first president to literally call for a war on drugs and he stressed his determination by establishing mandatory minimum federal sentences for possession of marijuana, cocaine, and opiates. The increase in federal penalties was under the Narcotic Control Act of 1956. Today the war on drugs has made it difficult to determine what is legal and illegal. Depending on the drug and the wording of drug policy legislation, narcotics are illegal except when prescribed to a certain individual. In 1996 California legalized marijuana for medical use and both the Bush and Obama administration have arrested California medical marijuana distributors (Head). The current strategy for the War on Drugs as determined by President Obama’s drug policy coordinator, which is end War on Drugs terminology and attempt to rebrand federal antidrug efforts as simple harm- reduction strategies (Head). Head also quoted â€Å"you can’t declare war on inanimate objects, social phenomena, moods, or abstractions— and it’s a rhetorical convention that has determined the way our country views drug policy enforcement (Head). If you can’t declare war on these inanimate objects, social phenomena, moods or abstractions, and you can’t declare war on a country without resources to fight a war, than how do you rid the world of narcoterrorist? It’s simply not possible. Mexico has been the main foreign supplier of marijuana and methamphetamines to the U. S. Dr ug cartels have been illegally transporting an estimated 70 % of foreign narcotics such as cocaine, heroin, and other drugs into the United States and other countries but were not transporting in such violent methods as used today (Mexico Drug War, 2011, January 3). Mexican Drug War also states that Mexico only accounts for a small share of worldwide heroin production but is the major distributor of heroin introduced into the United States. The U. S. Department estimates 90% of the cocaine is mainly produced by Colombia but entered into the U. S. through Mexico. Mexico and the U. S. borders have been used since the mid- 1980’s when Mexico had established organizations competent and reliable to transport Colombian cocaine. Mexican cartels were given 30 % to 50 % of the cocaine shipment which led the cartels to become traffickers and distributors. Although the first few decades after the development of the cartels was passive, since 2006 the Mexican Cartels have turned deadly battling for territory rights and turning on each other. According to Timeline of the Mexican Drug War (2010, December 18), the deployment of Mexican Army soldiers into Michoacan to end drug violence was regarded as the first major retaliation made against cartel violence in Mexico and was regarded as the starting point of the Mexican Drug War between the government and drug cartels. The war escalated with each increase in military troops making Los Zeta’s violence against Mexicans harsher and frequent. It was reported 150 Mexican soldiers and police officers were killed as opposed to the 500 cartel gunmen killed in 2006. Violence surged and by 2008 there was a record of 5, 630 death. The kidnapping, torture, and decapitation of seven off duty soldiers and one police commander were included in this death toll. In 2008 high ranking police officials and government officials were gunned down or executed. The decapitated heads of the off duty police officials were left in a shopping center to be found with a threatening note to the military. Their terrorism tactics have since left their marks to be remembered. With Los Zetas becoming more violent and demanding more plaza’s the need for outside and local forces free from corruption is highly in demand. Regardless of the attempts to weed out those with possible links to Los Zetas or any cartel will remain impossible to prevent the introduction of new and easily corrupted officials. This can be said for their recruitment of poor, military, law enforcement and government officials. According to Los Zetas, their main recruits are all corrupted ex- federal, state, and local police officers as well as the poor men and women and former Kaibiles from Guatemala. This group does recruit women to help run the organization. The Kaibilies are special operations force of the Guatemala military and specialize in jungle warfare tactics and counter- insurgency operations (Kaibilies, 2010 November 2). There is also hierarchy within the group, just like other organized crime organizations. According to Los Zetas there are five groups. The first group consisted of the Los Halcones (The Hawks) and they were responsible for monitoring the distribution zones. The second group is the Las Ventanas (The Windows) who are bike-riding mid- teens responsible for warning the presence of police and other suspicious individuals near small stores that sell drugs. The Los Manosos (The Tricky Ones) gathered the arms. Los Zetas employ prostitute women who are called Los Leopardos (Leapards). The Los Zetas also have the Direccion (Command) which consists of 20 communications experts who intercept phone calls, follow and identify suspicious automobiles and are also known to accomplish kidnappings and executions. All of these groups form the composition of Los Zetas (Los Zetas). Los Zetas can also be compared to al- Qaida, in that their myriads of extensive criminal activities. They kidnap, murder- for- hire, use extortion, money- launder, smuggle humans and are involved with oil siphoning. Like al Qaeda, they have adopted a cell- like structure to limit the information known about members within the organization. Los Zeta’s boldness and cells are spread globally and it has been reported that the FBI were warned that a Los Zetas cell in Texas would use full tactical response if they intervened on their operations. Los Zetas have been able to take over and lord over a great deal of territories by battling it out with their enemies. Los Zetas is mainly based in the border region of Nuevo Laredo and have established lookouts in airports, bus stations, and main roads. They are also along the Gulf Coast region, Tabasco, Yucatan, Quintana Roo, Chiaps, Pacific Coast states, including Guerror, Oaxaca, Michocan, and in Mexico City. Los Zetas hires Mexican gangs such as the Texas Syndicate and MS-13 to carry out their contract killings (Los Zetas). According to the NarcoGuerra Times the DEA officials in Canada, Italy, and Mexico had arrested 175 members of the Zetas who were connected with the Ndrangheta. Los Zeta’s has been operating in approximately 47 countries and have been said to have established connections with the Italian Calabrian mafia known as Ndrangheta (NarchGuerra Times, 2009, September 19). There is research showing the Zetas and Ndrangheta had been working together for more than two years, since Europe needed the cocaine. The main reason their connection is important is because Ndrangheta is considered a major transnational criminal organization dealing in nuclear waste. Their partnership has also allowed the Zetas to advance their money laundering, real estate and human trafficking into Europe (Narco Guerra Times). Forming alliances with foreign countries organized criminal divisions will only make it harder for the Mexican government fight their war against the cartels and for these countries to fight their wars on drugs. America has been battling with the war on drugs and so have other countries’ making it harder to clean up the streets is becoming more impossible with each cell developed in other locations. Mexico’s battle with corruption within all the levels of police departments and constant recruitments with gangs across the border and international waters has made it harder for Homeland Security to fight the battle. Mexico’s war against the cartels seem to only be escalating the issue and although many of the main cartel members throughout the different territories have been brought to justice, it seems their war on that side of the border is not accomplishing much but more bled shed on both sides of the border. As one of the strongest and dominant countries, America could provide the assistance needed. Many may debate this or feel America has their hand in too many countries affairs but the fact remains the brutality and narcoterrorist tactics used by Los Zetas and other cartels will continue to increase. This is not saying President Calderon has rejected American help or has been using other security tactics to help prosecute criminals associated with known narcoterrorist organizations. According to Hansen (2008, November 20), Mexico has pursued different methods for security tactics including extraditing alleged criminals to the United States, including the head of the Gulf Cartel. They have also been actively attempting to dismantle illegal methamphetamine labs, cocaine shipments, and eradicate marijuana. This shows promise but only twenty six meth labs were dismantled between 2002 and 2007. President Calderon developed a 2008 constitutional reform that merged their Federal Preventive Police (PFP) and the Federal Agency of Investigation (AFI). The AFI is similar to the FBI and gathers intelligence and the PFP is responsible for maintaining public order but does not have investigative abilities. President Calderon constitutional reforms of 2008 also called for reforms on criminal procedures. The reforms include oral trials with public proceedings, sentencing based on the evidence presented during trial, judges who are allowed to quickly rule on search warrant requests (Hansen). Their old ways used written trial procedures that could last for years. These efforts show some willingness to adopt new and effective methods using foreign help and using modern legal methods but it is still not enough. According to Hernandez (2010, February 25), the International Narcotics Control Board (INCB) based out of Vienna stated that Mexico, Brazil, and Argentina were sending out the wrong messages in their legislative and judicial developments that were aimed to decriminalize the possession of some drugs. With their declaration Mexico, Brazil, and Argentina rebutted and claimed that the INCB was overstepping their organizations mandated and were unwarranted intrusions in their countries sovereign decision-making and that the INCB has no jurisdiction over police changes made within sovereign nations. In 2009 Mexico decriminalized the possession of small amounts of marijuana, cocaine, heroin, and methamphetamine (Hernandez). Brazil replaced prison sentences with education and treatment for small-time drug offenders in 2006. In 2009 Argentina’s Supreme Court declared punishment for possession of marijuana for personal use as unconstitutional. Argentina also called INCB’s arrogant for questioning the highest judicial authority of a sovereign state. Hernandez also stated that the INCB was deeply concerned with the United States moving towards legalizing or regularizing the use of marijuana for medical purposes may send the wrong message to other countries. The INCB had a legitimate concern for these countries actions of making it easier for criminals to pursue selling and people using marijuana and other drugs. In the United States inmates are allowed to pursue an education or gain their GED to help them gain employment when released but this does not prevent repeated offenders. Taking tough actions and measures is the only way to decrease crime and drug usage. Mexico’s President taking two steps forward and then two steps back is only causing confusion for others to know what actions they need to take. The hard core facts that these Mexican narcoterrorist organizations were developed by corrupted ex military or law enforcement officials make it hard for the rest of the world to believe Mexico is competent to battle against the cartels or protect heir citizens from the unthinkable. With Mexico’s incompetence comes inpatient Americans’ willing and ready to battle for their land. When the Arizona rancher was found dead on his land it was automatically assumed illegal immigrants had killed him. Arizona government officials quickly used his death as an example to push forwa rd their Senate Bill 1070. Now other states have developed similar versions for their own state immigration laws. The growing concern has somewhat shifted from illegal immigration, to how to battle Los Zetas and other cartels. Arizona’s Bill may have opened people’s eyes to the growing problem of illegal immigrants advancing in the United States, but no one in their right mind could have ever imagined seeing those poor immigrants hog tied, gagged, and executed by Los Zetas; for trying to make it across the border. The American people don’t want the Mexican’s killed, simply accounted for. When talking about Los Zeta’s and their narcoterrorist ways, it seems impossible not to think of them as terrorist in the same class as al Qaeda. They may not share the same fanatical ideology as al Qaeda but their terrorist tactics used against the Mexican and American people is on the same level. With the vast growth of their cells spreading globally and forming alliances with known organizations handling nuclear waste, the threat they pose to all those against them is even scarier than those threats by al Qaeda supporters living in the United States. Mexico has been using underground tunnels and smuggling drugs, humans, and weapons across both sides of the borders for decades. There have been reports that al Qaeda has helped train Los Zetas recruits with similar tactics. These Mexican military deserters have trained in the same American military installation, Fort Bragg, as known al Qaedan terrorist members have. The connection is too great and should not be ignored. Los Zeta’s is in a country that has a poor economy but extremely rich in the illegal drug trade. The promise of pay, respect, and fear is what appeals to those who join their ranks. This can be said for any organization. The Mexican government will not be able to use only their military forces to combat against these cartels. Los Zetas has proven they have no loyalty to any one organization but to themselves and their greed for territory and wealth has been fueling their fire. President Calderon should not wait for a full out battle to develop between the cartels and the cartels against the Mexican military. Zetas is growing rapidly and stronger with support and alliances from other countries. Instead President Calderon should call upon Mexico’s allies for help battling them and cleaning up their streets. These cartels have gained their intelligence from working on the inside and gaining as much intelligence, expertise, and experience as possible. Their knowledge, tactics, and alliances will keep them thriving and defining who they are. It is up to the Mexican government to develop solutions to their economic crisis, drug laws, and protection of the people. Their military can only combat so long for so little pay and then they will turn to the darker side. If they paid their people enough salary there would be fewer traitors. It’s like a mother developing rules for her children and expecting them to follow without having to actually enforce them. Countries have been known to break down barriers such as Germany. Countries have also sat by and watched a power hungry Jew hating man murder thousands of innocent people before calling in the big guns. Countries should not sit idly by and watch thousands of people get slaughtered because some men in uniform are greedy for territorial rights and making money by distributing, marketing, laundering drugs, humans, and weapons. There are American military installations located across Border States and if that is what it takes, so be it. References Arturo Guzman Decena. (2010, November 27). In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved 20:30, January 2, 2010. From http://en. wikipedia. org/w/index. php? title=Arturo_Guzm%C3%A1n_Decena&oldid=399212394 Benjamin, D. (2010, August 5). Briefing on the release of country reports on terrorism for 2009. U. S. Department of State: Diplomacy in action Retrieved January 2, 2010 from http://www. state. gov/s/ct/rls/rm/2010/145734. htm Borderland Beat Reporter Overmex (2010, August 26). Zetas Massacre 72 Illegal Immigrants in San Fernando, Tamaulipas. Borderland Beat: reporting on the Mexican Cartel drug war. Retrieved December 2, 2010 from http://www. orderlandbeat. com/2010/08/zetas-massacre-72-illegal-immigrants-in .html Hansen, S. (2008, November 20). Mexico’s Drug War. Council on Foreign Relations. Retrieved 2010, December 30 2010 from http://www. cfr. org/publications/13689/mexicos_drug_war. htm Head, T. (2011). History of the War on Drugs. About. com Civil Liberties. Retrieved 2011, December 2, 2010 from http://civilliberty. about. com/od/drugpolicy/tp/W ar-on-Drugs-History. Hernandez, D. (2010, February 25). The International Narcotics Control Board criticizes several Latin American countries. La Plaza: News from Latin American and the Caribbean. Retrieved December 22, 2010 from http://latimesblogs. latimes. com/laplaza/2010/02/united-nations-latin-america-international-narcotics-control-board-incb-mexico-brazil-argentina. html Kaibilies. (2010, November 10). In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved January 2, 2010 from http://en. wikipedia. org/w/index. php? title=Kaibiles&oldid=395893797 Los Zetas. (2010, November 22). In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved November 27, 2010 from http://en. wikipedia. rg/wiki/Los_Zetas NarcoGuerra Times (2009, September 19). Zetas/La Compania, Ndrangheta and the Nuclear Options. NarcoGuerra Times. Retrieved from http://narcoguerratimes. wordpress. com/2009/09/19/zetasla-compania-ndhrangeta-and-the-nuclear-options/ Narcoterrorism. (2010, December 6). In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved January 2, 2010 from http://en. wikipedia. org/wiki/Narcoterrorism Timeline of the Mexican Drug War. (2010, December 18). In Wikip edia, The Free Encyclopedia Retrieved January 2, 2010 from http://en. wikipedia. org/w/index. php? ttle=Timeline_of_the_Mexican_.