Womens Misleading Magazines Essay -- Media Self Image Beauty Advertis

Women's Misleading Magazines I was flipping through some channels on the television set one day and came across a woman's talk show, "The View." It caught my attention when one of the hostesses asked the audience of mostly women to raise their hand if they thought they were truly beautiful. Much to my surprise the audience did not respond with very many show of hands. The hostess then introduced a study done by Dove, the makers of the body soap. Dove polled over 6,000 women from all over the country and only two percent of the women polled said they feel beautiful. Women are surrounded by images screaming physical beauty is more important than their talents and accomplishments. Women are deriving their self worth from an ideal of how they think they should look and how they think everyone else wants them to look instead of focusing on their sense of who they are, what they know, and where they are going in life. In "Help or Hindrance?: Women's Magazines Offer Readers Little But Fear, Failure," Mary Kay Bl akely states, "Instead of encouraging women to grow beyond childish myths and adapt to the changes of life, women's magazines have readers running in place, exhausted." She goes on to say, "This is a world we have 'made up' for women, and it is a perilous place to exist." One of the biggest culprits feeding women's insecurities are the popular women's magazine that line the book shelves of grocery stores, gas stations, and waiting rooms. They supply readers and the occasional innocent passerby with unrealistic images of what women should be instead of showing diverse age groups and women with natural beauty. Reading through a couple of magazines, Cosmopolitan, Elle, and Shape, I found nothing but hidden agendas and... ...ce in society. And the effects of the ideals behind these magazines are all the more powerful because of their subtlety." Women walk away from these magazines with an empty feeling and feelings of many inadequacies and they really don't know exactly why. The subtle undermining of women's intelligence and cause strips away their sense of worth ever so slowly and leaves them feeling depressed and in search of something that really can't exist together. Growing old while staying young takes many years of complete and internal happiness not many years of collagen injections and the added stress of having to stay unattainably perfect. While some consider these journalists for women's magazines talented writers, I consider them horrendous displays of talent in which they sell out the naturally beautiful women of the world for a quick buck and a popular magazine.

Freedom :: Essays Papers

Freedom This book was written in the middle to late twentieth century. Generally, this book dealt with Indians living in East Africa. The book is set in native Tanzania where Vassanji was raised after his family moved from his birthplace Nairobi. This book is a collection of short stories that chronically move from the narrator’s early childhood until he returns to his homeland years later to find that much has changed from his childhood. There are many issues that are intertwined into the text that Vassanji incorporates to relay his stories. Being a part of the lower class Indian community in Tanzania during the 1950’s, there is much class struggle. There is an instance early in the book where massive discrimination is evident in the book. â€Å"Schools went through preparation and drill for the royal visit.† â€Å"But to my great disappointment only the higher forms were allowed to welcome the princess.† The narrator overcame this discrimination by working through the crowd and essentially got a glimpse of the young queen. This was one of the more symbolic scenes in the book. The narrator overcame oppression here on a small scale as he later will by leaving Africa and going to a University in North America. The market place called the â€Å"Mnuda† was a place of massive thievery and just not a good place to go. However, many members of the â€Å"community† would go to the â€Å"Mnuda† to pick up odds and ends. The point is that this is a low class society we are dealing with. Later on there is a mention of green government trucks that randomly show up in the streets of Tanzania during the night. Green government trucks just give the impression that the government has something to fear if they are sending out â€Å"watchdog† trucks to keep an eye on the demos or population. This example just shows the kind of totalitarian government that was in place during the mid-twentieth century in this part of Africa. Just a reminiscent of 1984 and the concept of â€Å"big brother † mentioned in that novel. It seems this type of ruling is in place around the narrator at this time. The family of the narrator would go on to have their own lives. When the narrator prepares for going to the University, he talks about his sisters already married.

The National Patient Safety Goals Are Effective Essay -- Nursing, Heal

There are a large number of professional organizations specific to healthcare. One such organization The Joint Commission, is a non-profit independent organization that certifies and accredits over 19,000 healthcare organizations in the United States. [Their mission statement is] â€Å"to continuously improve health care for the public, in collaboration with other stakeholders, by evaluating health care organizations and inspiring them to excel in providing safe and effective care of the highest quality and value† (The Joint Commission, 2011). The National Patient Safety Goals were implemented 2002. The goals later became effective January 1, 2003 to address specific areas of concern in regards to patient safety. Upon implementation, these goals have been effective in reducing the number of medication errors, improving communication between healthcare providers, and reducing hospital-acquired infections in patients. Thousands of individuals are admitted each year and require medication in the hospital setting. With the increasing number of admissions due to disease and illness affecting today’s society leads to the likelihood of nurses committing medication errors. Over the years errors resulting from medication have been the leading cause of injury in hospitalized patients. Forty six percent of these medication errors occurred at the time of admission, time of discharge or while transferring patients between units. [After reviewing these events], â€Å"The Joint Commission identified â€Å"Improve the Safety of Using Medications† as one of the 2009 National Patient Safety Goals (Cleveland Clinic, 2009, p.1). In relation to this safety goal, hospitals created a medication reconciliation form that resides in the patient’s ch... ...before a procedure, shaving is avoided and clippers are used to trim the hair. This reduces the risks of breaks in the skin. In addition, one hour before surgery the patient is administered antibiotics before the incision and discontinued within twenty-four hours. The National Patient Safety Goals are a key when it comes to patient safety. Implementing safety goals helps reduce the number of medication errors, improves communication between members of the healthcare team and reduces the number of infections patients acquire while under the hospital’s care. In addition, The Joint Commission reviews and publishes these goals each year. Depending on the occurrence of sentinel events, the goals are re-evaluated or revised accordingly. It is important that The Joint Commission reinforce the practice of patient safety goals in that they help improve patient care.

Family Identity Essay

David and Bar-Tal’s look at collective identity by incorporating a micro and macro level of research. The first level tells us the individual process of identification; which is important with the surrounding society for molding of one. There are many aspects of identification such as cognitive, motivational, and emotional. Macro is the second level it defines collective identity in a diverse way such as, a situation in which people in society identify themselves as collective and they also know there are other people that do this as well. In David and Bar-Tal’s article they claim that â€Å"collective identity† is an important implication for a group of people and its members as individuals and also as a whole; it can construct the sense of the group and how they are united together. They talk about how there is an emotional aspect of how we identify ourselves; people in a group feel attached with each other as love and care is expressed amongst them all and is shown. A family Identity I believe is â€Å"unique† and they show us that cultural beliefs, values, norms and such things make up uniqueness; a family usually is a â€Å"we† which makes it distinctive with unique characteristics. In my research paper I am going to address how â€Å"family identity† is seen as a â€Å"collective identity† and also I want to look at how a family becomes who they are, how they are not the same as each other. I first would like to explain what a â€Å"family† is. The main aspects that my paper is based on is going to be how change and family rituals can shape that identity, how a family theorizes themselves, not based on an actually theories that people assume about how they live. Lastly I will be talking about the togetherness of family- how families move and shift into different places and how families willingly spend time with each other even when there are many other better things to do in the outside world. What is a family actually? Have you ever wondered? A family is shaped by how we live our everyday lives with the members of our family; families constitute and manage their identities themselves (Epp, A & Price, L, 2008). We do not know what one is as a family, each family containes different everyday experience and consists of uniqueness within everyone. A  family is usually seen as a â€Å"we†; there may be a way to tell how a family sustains their identity and how they engage in consumption activities to manage those identities. Families build collective identity as they see it in media and what they inherit; their identity is the sense of it owns continuity over time, and the present situation and its characters. The authors Epp, A and Price, L (2008) go into figuring out exactly how family identity works; I believe that family identity builds from the day it has started and their identity does not just appear it has to be created. Change is a huge aspect of life, it can shape how we live; family rituals and traditions are abounded within change throughout lives. The value of assessing family ritual life is an aid to understanding how a family gets organized and the process of becoming an actual family. According to Giblin’s (1995) research that there if there was not any family rituals, the families were not satisfied in their marriage which would affect the kids as well. A relationship between family ritual meaning and marital satisfaction was demonstrated with good results. Families, like individuals, have identities; the family may have certain beliefs about themselves which are generally recognized and seen by others. Such beliefs may relate to the family’s achievement, career aspirations, wealth, poverty, physical appearance, communication styles or coping mechanisms. Each of these qualities or characteristics reflects the family identity (Friesen, J, 1990). Rituals are one of those things that make a family different from all the other families in the world; every family has a certain ritual or belief that they hang onto which also gets carried on throughout their generations of the family. A ritual does not have to be something that is based on one’s culture, a ritual can be something like having movie night every Friday of the month and everyone just sitting together and relaxing as family; a ritual can be as simple as that. Change can also how a families identity is, because in the place where they are known, they have a reputation that they have to live up to kind of and in a new place they have to build that again, which is an example of change like moving to a different place. Change can also be something like a divorce which is huge in a family; it can change many things throughout all the relationships that had been made already. Does one make a family based on what they have read about what a family should actually be? Specialist has their own theories about what a family should act like, but a family has their own theories about how they should work together as. Our own family and our everyday lives are by the complex intersections of many forces such as things like material health, moral and spiritual, temporal, spatial and relationship concerns (Daly, K, 2003). These concerns are both ordinary and persistent; they are not often apparent in our formal theories of families. The theories created by specialist have referred as the â€Å"elusiveness of family life†; everyday concerns such as the ones listed above are pervasive, however they are not often apparent in the formal theories created about families. There is a difference between theories that scholars create and what a family actually lives by. The author uses negative spaces to foreground the implicit theories created by scholars; negative spaces are the recessive areas that we are unaccustomed to seeing but that are every but important for the representation of the reality at hand (Daly, K, 2003). The three main negative spaces in a family include things such as the realm of belief and intuition which consists of emotions, religious and spiritual matter, the world of material things and the coordinate of time and space as means of everyday family experiences (Daly, K, 2003). Scholars theorize families differently than they actually are; on television we see examples of families that some scholars may have theorized to be the correct way of living as a family. These examples from the television can lead many of us wanting to have that kind of perfect family, and sometimes make us try too hard to create that picture-perfect family; but all we have to do is make our families the way we want them to be, not what we have seen. Families are created by people, they do not just occur. People begin a family with people they care about and also sometimes a certain place can make it easier to make a family happen. Miller, L (1995) explains that there is decline of intact families in the suburbs; once a promising place for a family to flourish, Family is not only a domestic alliance, it is a group of people that enjoy each other’s company. There doubts in many ways that the social and spatial structure of suburbia does promote family togetherness. Family was beginning to be redefined as a source of companionship and  emotional sustenance and the suburbs were a great place to begin according to Miller, L (1995). Family I believe is an alliance that creates a household to take care of its members’ basic necessities; but they are also a group of people who enjoy each other’s company. This is a vision of family togetherness, meaning that husband, wife and children choose to spend the time not c laimed by wage labor or school with one another, they prefer each other’s company instead of the things in the outside world that could be attractive. In conclusion the value of assessing family ritual life is an aid to understanding how a family gets organized and the process of becoming an actual family .A relationship between family ritual meaning and marital satisfaction was demonstrated with good results. Families, like individuals, have identities; the family may have certain beliefs about themselves which are generally recognized and seen by others. There is a difference between theories that scholars create and what a family actually lives by. Families are created with the thought that each and every one takes care of its members’ basic necessities; but they are also a group of people who enjoy each other’s company. This is a vision of family togetherness, meaning that husband, wife and children choose to spend. Families can have multiple identities that can be caused by divorce as well, also not having a ritual in a family actually affect their identity greatly. Everyone wants to create a family that works out with no problem and that everyone enjoys each other’s company when together no matter how busy their personal life may be or how much work they have to do at their jobs, giving time to their family should not be something they are forced to give, it should something they want to do. Bibliography David,O & Bar-Tal,D. (2009). A Socialpsychological conception of collective identity: The case of national identity as an example. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 13(4), 354-379. doi: 10.1177/1088868309344412 Daly,K. (2003). Family theory versus the theories families live by. Journal of Marriage and Family,65(4),771-784. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org.proxy.ufv.ca: 2048/stable/3599889 Epp,A & Price,L. (2008). Family identity: A framework of identity interplay in consumption practices. Journal of Consumer Research, 35(n/a), 50-65. doi: 10.1086/529535 Friesen, J. (1990). Rituals and Family Strength. Direction Journal. (19(1), 39-48. Retrieved from http://www.directionjournal.org/article/?654 Giblin,P. (1995). Identity, change, and family rituals. The Family Journal: Counselling and Therapy for Couples and Families, 3(1), 37-41.doi: 10.1177/1066480795031006 Miller,L. (1995). Family togetherness and the suburban ideal. Sociological Forum, 10(3), 393-418. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/684782

The Weimar Republic Was Failed from the Beginning

The Weimar republic was failed from the beginning. It began with the collapses of political governments within the Weimar republic. Stresemann’s government collapsed in late 1923 to be replaced by another government led by Wilhelm Marx of the Centre party. However the main contributing catalyst to the failure of the Weimar republic was the ever rising inflation in the country. The Weimar republic was failed from the start as the inflation started at the begging of the war as Bonnel points out â€Å"Inflation began in 1914 and was linked to the way in which the imperial government chose to pay for the war effort. Undoubtedly the imperial government had indirectly doomed the Weimar republic. This was the reason for the growing disillusionment within the Weimar Republic. The growing disillusion with the Weimar Republic was the deteriorating economy . This view is generally accepted but most historians are that of the German economist Kurt Borchardt (1982) . Borchardt suggests the slow growth within the Weimar republic was because that the trade union power kept wages high and therefore squeezed profits and middle class income. Borchardt believes that the Weimar Republic was unstably weak before 1929. This backs up Bonnels statement and is supported by K. J. Mason statement â€Å"The economic prosperity of the 1920s, however, was built on weak foundations† . However there are historians such as C-L Holtfrerich that have challenged such a view that high wages were the cause of the Weimar unstable economy . The weight of the evidence shows that C-L Holtfrerich could not have a significantly large change in the economy as the economy was already plummeting into inflation. Hyper-inflation initiated by the government to pay back reparations however it was blamed on the invasion of the Ruhr. There response to the economic situation was to print more money. Salmon suggests â€Å"The government simply printed more money†¦. Banknotes became increasingly worthless†. By 1923 the Reichsmarck became so worthless that 4 200 000 000 000 was worth one U. S. dollar. This alienated the middle class from the regime. The social and political cost of the hyperinflation was high. Scholars note that the inflation did more to undermine the middle classes than the ostensibly socialist revolution of 1918. A lifetime of savings would no longer buy a loaf of bread. Money was being carried in a wheel barrow to carry money to buy loaves of bread, it end up that the wheel barrow was worth more than the money in it. Trade union funds wiped out the middle classes and Capitalists losing there savings there for making the rich poor over night. Pensions planned for a lifetime were wiped out completely. Politically, the hyperinflation fuelled radicalism on both the left and the right. The Communists, badly damaged by their failure in January 1919, saw greatly improved prospects for a successful revolution. In Munich the leader of the small National Socialist German Workers' (Nazi) Party, Adolf Hitler, used the turmoil to fashion an alliance with other right-wing groups and attempt a coup in November 1923—the Beer of the left succeeded in imposing their will. In the short run they did not succeed because of ineptitude and miscalculation; in the long run they failed because the government sponsored a currency reform that restabilized the mark and also decided to end its policy of passive resistance in the Ruhr in exchange for an end to the occupation and a rescheduling of the reparation payments that it owed to the Allies . Hall Putsch—that sought to use Bavaria as a base for a nationalist march on Berlin. He hoped to overthrow the democratic system of Weimar that he believed was responsible for Germany's political and economic humiliation. Neither the radicals of the right nor those of the left succeeded in imposing their will . In the short run they did not succeed because of ineptitude and miscalculation; in the long run they failed because the government sponsored a currency reform that restabilized the mark and also decided to end its policy of passive resistance in the Ruhr in exchange for an end to the occupation and a rescheduling of the reparation payments that it owed to the Allies. The wages of the working class became worthless. This caused society to turn to extreme anti-republican groups, the evidence of this was shown in the 1932 elections as anti republican parties gaining majority such as the Nazi party and the KPD. The financial recovery that began with the restabilisation of the German currency in late 1923 received a boost in 1924 when the Allies agreed to end their occupation of the Ruhr and to grant the German government a more realistic payment schedule on reparations. A committee of the Allied Reparations Commission headed by the American financier and soon-to-be vice president Charles Dawes had recommended these changes and urged the Allies to grant sizable loans to Germany to assist its economic recovery . The Dawes Plan marked a significant step in the upswing of the German economy that lasted until the onset of the Great Depression. The 800 million gold marks in foreign loans had by 1927 enabled German industrial production to regain its 1913 pre-war high . That same year the Reichstag addressed the vital need for social and class reconciliation by voting for a compulsory unemployment insurance plan. Reconciliation on the political level seemed achieved in 1925 when the 77-year-old Hindenburg was elected to succeed the deceased Ebert as president . Although no democrat, the aged field marshal took seriously his duty to support the constitution and the republic . The economy played a major part in the fall of the Weimar Republic. The hyper inflation in the 1920s was a catalyst which sped up the obvious fall of the Weimar Republic. This is supported by Feuchtwanger as he states â€Å"†¦ in the final years of the Republic the governments chances for survival were slim ‘. Furthermore supports the fact that Weimar was doomed from the beginning with the debts of the war which passed on during the Weimar â€Å" the principle causes for the failure, however,, to be sought in the years after 1918. as for these the many reason of the economy led to the fall of the Weimar Republic by 1933. When the Germans spoke of Lebensraum, which means â€Å"living space†, they used the term to denote a perceived need to have enough physical room to provide for themselves comfortably. This was used as propaganda in the invasion of Russia in 1941. Using children’s school books and the education system Hitler put in place to brain wash society into believing that this is how Germans should be. Propaganda might take the form of persuading others that your military might is too great to be challenged; that your political might within a nation is too great or popular to challenge etc. In Nazi Germany, Dr Joseph Goebbels was in charge of propaganda. Goebbels official title was Minister of Propaganda and National Enlightenment. As Minister of Enlightenment, Goebbels had two main tasks to ensure nobody in Germany could read or see anything that was hostile or damaging to the Nazi Party. To ensure that the views of the Nazis were put across in the most persuasive manner possible. To ensure success, Goebbels had to work with the SS and Gestapo and Albert Speer. The former hunted out those who might produce articles defamatory to the Nazis and Hitler while Speer helped Goebbels with public displays of propaganda. The Nazis understood human psychology. It was Goebbels' simple realisation that, for instance in cinematic propaganda, there was a need for the viewer to be entertained. Otherwise, there would be no interest in watching at all. This is simply a single instance of the successfulness of Nazi propaganda. Goebbels realised this and corrected it. How Successful was Nazi Propaganda 1933-39? The relevance of how successful propaganda was at reaching people is that: it would be largely true to say – if it had reached people, if it had influenced peoples thought in a way beneficial to the rise of the Nazi party, therefore it had achieved a primary aim. The cinema allowed people to see the might of Germany†¦ but far from via raw imagery – the influence of propagandists was initially clear, however became more transparent and therefore more effective: Cinema attendance figures quadrupled. Propaganda, however slight or extreme, was being seen. The object of Riefenstahl's ‘Triumph of the Will' was also another facet of propaganda. The ensure that everybody could hear Hitler speak, Goebbels organised the sale of cheap radios. These were called the â€Å"People's Receiver† and they cost only 76 marks. A smaller version cost just 35 marks. Goebbels believed that if Hitler was to give speeches, the people should be able hear to him. Loud speakers were put up in streets so that people could not avoid any speeches by the Fuhrer. Cafes and other such properties were ordered to play in public speeches by Hitler. Goebbels and his skill at masterminding propaganda are best remembered for his night time displays at Nuremberg . Although it was his idea Speer brought it to life. Here, he and Speer, organised rallies that were designed to show to the world the might of the Nazi nation. In August of each year, huge rallies were held at Nuremberg. Arenas to hold 400,000 people were built. In the famous night time displays, 150 search lights surrounded the main arena and were lit up vertically into the night sky. Their light could be seen over 100 kilometres away in what a British politician, Sir Neville Henderson, called a â€Å"cathedral of light†. The propaganda allowed people to feel a sense of pride for there nation even though they themselves were suffering. That there suffering was for a reason and that it was not all in vain because that it was being fixed. They believed this because of all the great feats of design that Speer and Goebbels had put up inspired them this was he effect of Nazi propaganda.

The Roles of Identity in Society

The Roles of Identity in Society Many would argue that social justice is being served when someone says â€Å"we are all the same under the skin†. We are not all the same under the skin. Within us are our own senses of identity, constructed by our familiar discourses, the physical environment and its embedded culture, and our individual differences. Our sense of identity accounts for our perceptions of ourselves and how we are positioned by others in terms of culture, tradition, rituals, race, family, religion and education (Allen, 2004). Our identities affect our life chances through our positions in society, the access we have to power, status, education, and wealth (Allen, 2004). Examining our own identities gives us insight into the role identity plays in life and society and therefore some understanding of the impact that the identities of others has for them on their life choices (Austin, 2005). This essay will examine the importance of the search for identity, and the desire to reconcile those identities with society’s expectations, for the narrator in the novel by McDonald and Pryor (1999), ‘The Binna Binna Man’. The journey of this character will be positioned against my own life’s story as I attempt to compare the roles our identities have played in positioning us as members of Australian society. The narrator in The Binna Binna Man is a character who has a very secure sense of his own identity. He has a sound knowledge of his spiritual heritage, his people’s traditions and the importance the strength of his identity has for him and for his people. He seems perplexed by the idea that his cousin Shandell is â€Å"†¦living different from all that stuff’ (McDonald & Pryor, 1999, pg 17). He is reminded by his â€Å"girragundji† (a guide for life sent by his ancestors) that the way to stay strong and avoid getting lost is to have faith in his spirituality and his identity (McDonald, et al. , 1999). This is proven to him when he almost follows Shandell down the path to self-destruction. The Binna Binna Man, their beliefs, bring them both back to the strength they gain from knowing that they are Aboriginal Australians, with a wealth of culture, history, knowledge, and skills. Unfortunately their people bear the scars of that wealth being devalued and misunderstood by the Anglo Australian hegemonic society. This is demonstrated through the sadness they carry and the way they feel how many of their people they have lost. The narrator and his family have to scrape together the means to travel out of the community they live in to be able to participate in their cultural rituals of grief and burial because they are not traditions easily accessible to them in Australian society. The narrator does not carry around the invisible knapsack of rights and power described by McIntosh (1988) that gives him access to the ability to carry out the roles of his identity. Rather, he realizes the struggle he has ahead of him, to keep the strength of his identity and to be able to survive life and society with it proudly intact. He can see the strength of his people, but he can also see their struggle (McDonald et al, 1999). As noted in McDonald (2004) Australian Indigenous youth battle on a daily basis with the pressures their identities generate such as racism, poverty, the hegemonic culture of school, and having English as a second language, while trying to maintain the roles expected of them from their Indigenous cultures. It is an enormously demanding and frustrating battle for these youth to get through their daily lives intact, let alone being able to achieve well in either world. The narrator is struggling with his identity as an Aboriginal youth in Australian society and is trying to emerge from a history of oppression and denial. He has not inherited wealth from his parents or the social and cultural capital necessary to be able to identify with the hidden curriculum of the education system (Allen, 2004). His family has only relatively recently emerged from a period of oppression under The Aboriginal Protection and Restriction of the Sale of Opium Act 1897 (Genever, 1992) where the Indigenous people of Australia were denied, by the Australian Government, the right to own anything, freedom of movement, the right to practice their cultural traditions, or the right to the education required to â€Å"participate as responsible citizens† (Genever, 1992). He is caught in Australian society, within his cultural boundaries â€Å"†¦(the objective presence of cultural difference)† as discussed in McDonald’s paper on ‘Forms of Social Justice’ (2004). In no way is he served by social justice by being given the same chances I was, under the pretext of â€Å"treating us all the same†, as though we share a common identity. The development of my identity has benefited from what McIntosh (1988) terms â€Å"unearned privilege†. The life choices and chances I have, I have inherited, not struggled or worked for. I am fortunate to have a very strong family support structure within my immediate family and my extended family. Traditionally, as a family, we celebrate birthdays, special events and seek advice from one another as needed. There is a strong sense of respect for elders in my family and the younger generation bears responsibility for their well-being. Predominantly, my family follows the Catholic religion and my values and beliefs reflect this. Consequently, I have developed a strong sense of self worth through the influence of my family and their cultural practices. I am a third generation Australian. My family was middle class and although not overly wealthy in terms of material belongings I can see that my life was rich in opportunities and choices that the narrator was not afforded. I was born into an environment that set me up to be able to succeed at school. English is my first language and I speak it well enough to succeed at school and to be accepted into university. I am immersed in a society where the traditions, customs, practices and language of my heritage surround me and dominate all other identities. The practices and language used by my family were consistent with those of the schools I attended, where the autonomy and independence encouraged in Indigenous children like the narrator may have been misinterpreted and devalued as neglect (Malin, 1990). I did, however, experience a brief time in my schooling that bore a stark contrast to that described above. When I was nine years old, I attended a school in Hawaii for twelve months and for the first time in my life was part of a minority group where my language, culture and experiences were not valued by the students or the teacher. I was never asked to share anything about myself or my life in Australia and was the victim of some ridicule from my peers because I lacked knowledge of, and a skill for playing, baseball. I was subjected to racist remarks about the colour of my skin and was never supported or really even acknowledged by my teacher. As a class, we were required to write a paper detailing the history of American presidents which I found extremely difficult. The exercise held no meaning for me and I was unable to connect with it on the same level that my American peers did. My developing experience as a pre-service teacher now allows me to see the value that would have come from the teacher asking me to write my paper on the history of Australian Prime Ministers, and to share that with my teacher and the class. This would have been an opportunity for the teacher to encourage a rich, authentic learning experience for me and for my American classmates – a sharing and valuing of knowledge and cultures and an opportunity to break down some of the cultural barriers that were present within the classroom and the school. I strongly believe that education is the key to success in society and that teachers hold powerful positions with regard to recognizing and valuing the diverse groups in their classrooms. My development as a pre-service teacher depends on an ongoing commitment to value and support every student in my classroom by understanding their cultures and how their identities shift and change, have different importance amongst peers, family, and the community. I will continue to make myself aware of the role identity plays in shaping our self perceptions and, therefore, our life chances. The education system has, in the past, failed certain groups and continues to reproduce social disparities, prejudices, conditioning and spirals of failure for these groups (Keefe & Carrington, 2007). As teachers, we should not see the cultural differences of our students as excuses or reasons for students to fail. Rather, we need to adapt our teaching practices and find ways to give them access to education and opportunities. Students need to be taught to view the world, themselves and others critically in order to recognize and discontinue the perpetuation of social inequities in education and other institutions. If teachers can work towards identifying the inadequacies in teacher service, they begin to address the needs of disadvantaged groups ensuring equitable access to education, as is every student’s right. As I raise my own child and instill in him the same practices, language and culture as my family did for me, I am aware I am equipping him with that â€Å"invisible knapsack† that McIntosh (1988) writes about. I am aware that I am sending him out into a world where he does not have to carry his identity around with him like a weight around his neck, restricting him access to education, his choices, his rights and responsibilities. I do hope however as I continue to grow and learn, that I instill in him the ability to understand ‘identity’ and what that means for him and for others. As he grows and learns he will understand that if he were to be treated â€Å"the same† as many of the minority groups he lives amongst, that he too would have to struggle to maintain his identity, just like the narrator. I know that his identity will provide him with more than his share of opportunities and choices. It is clear that various cultural and traditional factors shape our unique identities. Teachers have a responsibility to recognize and value the diverse backgrounds, experiences, and knowledge that their students bring to the classroom, and to ensure that pedagogies incorporate a variety of styles to cater for this diversity. Researching this topic and reflecting on my own experiences has been a valuable exercise that will influence my teaching philosophy and the way I view identity and diversity. Compiling this essay brought back virtually forgotten memories of events I myself encountered during my schooling when I experienced a situation akin to those described by the narrator. I strongly believe that our education system must implement inclusive curriculum programs that value all cultural identities. This will ensure that all students receive educational opportunities and the chance to develop self respect and positive dispositions towards learning, thus enhancing life chances and empowering them to succeed. . References: Allen, J. (2004). Sociology of Education: Possibilities and Practices. (3rd Ed). Southbank, VIC: Social Science Press. Austin, J. (Ed. ). (2005). Culture and Identity (2nd ed. , pp 139-154). Sydney: Pearson Education Australia. Genever, T. (1992). Black and Blue. Aboriginal-Police Relations in Far North Queensland During The Currency of The Aboriginals Protection and Restriction of the Sale of Opium Act 1893 – 1939. Unpublished Honours Thesis, JCU, Tsv. Keefe, M. , & Carrington, S. (Eds. ). (2007). Schools and Diversity (2nd ed. , pp 108 – 127). Sydney: Pearson Education Australia. McDonald, H. , (2004). Forms of social justice. Notes prepared for teacher education students. Townsville: James Cook University. McDonald, H. , (2004). Supporting Indigenous students as â€Å"smart, not good† knowers and learners: The practices of two teachers. Paper adapted for exclusive use of students enrolled in ED2990 and ED3290 at James Cook University. McDonald, M. , & Pryor, B. M. , (1999). The binna binna man. Crows Nest. NSW: Allen & Unwin. McIntosh, P. (1988). White privilege: unpacking the invisible knapsack. Available from http://seamonkey. ed. asu. edu/~mcisaac/emc598ge/Unpacking. html (Accessed 17 September 2008). Malin , M. (1990). â€Å"Why is life so hard for Aboriginal students in urban classrooms? † The Aboriginal Child at School, 18 (1), 9-29.

Digital Fortress Chapter 34

Susan sat alone in Node 3, waiting for her tracer. Hale had decided to step outside and get some air-a decision for which she was grateful. Oddly, however, the solitude in Node 3 provided little asylum. Susan found herself struggling with the new connection between Tankado and Hale. â€Å"Who will guard the guards?† she said to herself. Quis custodiet ipsos custodes. The words kept circling in her head. Susan forced them from her mind. Her thoughts turned to David, hoping he was all right. She still found it hard to believe he was in Spain. The sooner they found the pass-keys and ended this, the better. Susan had lost track of how long she'd been sitting there waiting for her tracer. Two hours? Three? She gazed out at the deserted Crypto floor and wished her terminal would beep. There was only silence. The late-summer sun had set. Overhead, the automatic fluorescents had kicked on. Susan sensed time was running out. She looked down at her tracer and frowned. â€Å"Come on,† she grumbled. â€Å"You've had plenty of time.† She palmed her mouse and clicked her way into her tracer's status window. â€Å"How long have you been running, anyway?† Susan opened the tracer's status window-a digital clock much like the one on TRANSLTR; it displayed the hours and minutes her tracer had been running. Susan gazed at the monitor expecting to see a readout of hours and minutes. But she saw something else entirely. What she saw stopped the blood in her veins. TRACER ABORTED â€Å"Tracer aborted!† she choked aloud. â€Å"Why?† In a sudden panic, Susan scrolled wildly through the data, searching the programming for any commands that might have told the tracer to abort. But her search went in vain. It appeared her tracer had stopped all by itself. Susan knew this could mean only one thing-her tracer had developed a bug. Susan considered â€Å"bugs† the most maddening asset of computer programming. Because computers followed a scrupulously precise order of operations, the most minuscule programming errors often had crippling effects. Simple syntactical errors-such as a programmer mistakenly inserting a comma instead of a period-could bring entire systems to their knees. Susan had always thought the term â€Å"bug† had an amusing origin: It came from the world's first computer-the Mark 1-a room-size maze of electromechanical circuits built in 1944 in a lab at Harvard University. The computer developed a glitch one day, and no one was able to locate the cause. After hours of searching, a lab assistant finally spotted the problem. It seemed a moth had landed on one of the computer's circuit boards and shorted it out. From that moment on, computer glitches were referred to as bugs. â€Å"I don't have time for this,† Susan cursed. Finding a bug in a program was a process that could take days. Thousands of lines of programming needed to be searched to find a tiny error-it was like inspecting an encyclopedia for a single typo. Susan knew she had only one choice-to send her tracer again. She also knew the tracer was almost guaranteed to hit the same bug and abort all over again. Debugging the tracer would take time, time she and the commander didn't have. But as Susan stared at her tracer, wondering what error she'd made, she realized something didn't make sense. She had used this exact same tracer last month with no problems at all. Why would it develop a glitch all of a sudden? As she puzzled, a comment Strathmore made earlier echoed in her mind. Susan, I tried to send the tracer myself, but the data it returned was nonsensical. Susan heard the words again. The data it returned†¦ She cocked her head. Was it possible? The data it returned? If Strathmore had received data back from the tracer, then it obviously was working. His data was nonsensical, Susan assumed, because he had entered the wrong search strings-but nonetheless, the tracer was working. Susan immediately realized that there was one other possible explanation for why her tracer aborted. Internal programming flaws were not the only reasons programs glitched; sometimes there were external forces-power surges, dust particles on circuit boards, faulty cabling. Because the hardware in Node 3 was so well tuned, she hadn't even considered it. Susan stood and strode quickly across Node 3 to a large bookshelf of technical manuals. She grabbed a spiral binder marked SYS-OP and thumbed through. She found what she was looking for, carried the manual back to her terminal, and typed a few commands. Then she waited while the computer raced through a list of commands executed in the past three hours. She hoped the search would turn up some sort of external interrupt-an abort command generated by a faulty power supply or defective chip. Moments later Susan's terminal beeped. Her pulse quickened. She held her breath and studied the screen. ERROR CODE 22 Susan felt a surge of hope. It was good news. The fact that the inquiry had found an error code meant her tracer was fine. The trace had apparently aborted due to an external anomaly that was unlikely to repeat itself. Error code 22. Susan racked her memory trying to remember what code 22 stood for. Hardware failures were so rare in Node 3 that she couldn't remember the numerical codings. Susan flipped through the SYS-OP manual, scanning the list of error codes. 19: CORRUPT HARD PARTITION 20: DC SPIKE 21: MEDIA FAILURE When she reached number 22, she stopped and stared a long moment. Baffled, she double-checked her monitor. ERROR CODE 22 Susan frowned and returned to the SYS-OP manual. What she saw made no sense. The explanation simply read: 22: MANUAL ABORT