Ganga river Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 3000 words

Ganga river - Essay Example Here it must be noted that the whole population which lives on the river basin depends on Ganga for agricultural, domestic and industrial water consumption. Taking into account all these facts, it can be confirmed that Ganga as a geographical and cultural element, plays a very important role. To have a critical view on this role, it won’t be enough to limit the analysis to the physical, biological and environmental systems associated with the river. For any analysis to happen, it must be understood that sociologically, the river Ganga is more than a river for the people and the culture associated with it. There are a set of systems ranging from environmental to mythological which combines to constitute the landscape of the river. The objective of this essay is to analyze the role of Ganga as a socio cultural entity and to understand its changing ritualistic relationship with the community. The Geographic spread of Ganga In order to understand the cultural relevance of Ganges, it is primarily important to understand the geographic spread and details of the river. The river covers more than a quarter of the country’s landscape. It comes up to 26.3% of the total area of India (Trivedi , 2010). It is considered to be largest river basin. Ganagotri Glaciers are the primary source of origin of Ganga river. It flows through the Himalayas and flows down the country starting from Haridwar (Trivedi , 2010). Numerous tributaries join Ganga at different parts of its flow through the country. The Ganga-Brahmatutra-Meghna basin of which Ganga basin is a part stretches across to four countries including China, India, Nepal and Bangladesh. However, a major chunk of this lies in India extending up to 80% of the total basin. The river flows through the Indian states of Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Bihar, West Bengal Delhi, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Haryana and Himachal Pradesh (Trivedi , 2010). Ganga as a sacred river The cultural landscape of the river has evolved in connection with the divine approach that the community associated with the river has linked with. To understand the socio ecological aspects in connection with the river it is important to understand the perception of the population connected with Ganga. The predominant socio religious concepts of India have considered water bodies as sacred. Rivers are perceived as â€Å"extensions and partial manifestations of gods† (Shiva, 2002). The Hindu mythology states that the existence of life on earth has been made possible due to the flow of heavenly water (Shiva, 2002). Connecting, this to the fact that, Himalayas, where The Ganga originates from is considered to be heaven, the mythological relevance of Ganga as a scared river can be assumed. The sacredness of Ganga has been nourished by the socio cultural ambience of the places through which it flows. Ganga flows through a number of scared cities including Haridwar, Rishikesh, Badrinath, Gangotri, Kedarnath, Varanasi and Alla habad. This stretch of landscape stretching across the Himalayan zone and the Indo-Gangetic plain creates an ecological system which connects to the Hindu mythology. This ecological system spreads beyond a physical space. It is a combination of natural resources, mythical concepts, religious structures, biological systems and rituals (Shiva, 2002). The Socio-cultural landscape of Ganga As mentioned earlier, the landscape of Ganga

Edgar Degas Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

Edgar Degas - Research Paper Example Moreover, being a romantic and lively creative person, he also drew the exotic pictures of women, which maintain perpetual captivation and unabated fascination in it. It is therefore his work experience splendid acknowledgement and admiration. Though, he could not earn fame in the beginning, and had to make hard efforts to win the attention of the art-lovers, yet he left his contemporary artists far behind by dint of his intelligent creativity and superb imagination. Consequently, his paintings are still making business in almost all parts of the globe. Aspects of Degass work - mainly, his ballet paintings from the 1880s - have long been popular with a broad audience; too much so for their own good. (artchive.com) The bath and combing oil paintings of women, produced by Degas, remind the literary viewers the most glamorous character of Belinda and her dressing room created by famous English poet of Classical Era Alexander Pope in his wonderful poem Rape of the Lock. Belinda is viewed as the most glamorous character ever created in the history of Continental Literature. Being the lover of art, I also appreciate the paintings created by Degas related to the bath and toilette, where he has skillfully drawn every crease of the body while drawing the sketch of the woman after bath. The color combination of the landscape is very close to natural beauty. The picture also reveals deep observation of this proficient artist, who has included everything that essential in a fashionable toilette of the ladies belonging to elite stratum of socie ty. It is therefore the future artists imitate his style and try to make portraits and drawings in the same lines adopted by

Vietnam Veterans Memorial Essay Example for Free

Vietnam Veterans Memorial Essay I can get no satisfaction †¦ Rolling Stones Now here we are, standing near the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C. Fashioned from stark slabs of black granite, this memorial perfectly represents America’s collective memory of its longest war and first defeat. The memorial, like the memory, is both somber and ambiguous. On the polished face of the memorial appear the names of some 58,000 U.S. military personnel who died in Indochina. My friend’s name is one of those names. This was the greatest cost of the war of our country. There were others as well: the bitterness of over 3 million Vietnam veterans who returned to more scorn than gratitude from their fellow citizens; the inflation that followed years of deficit financing to help cover more than $150 billion in war expenses; bruising divisions within American society about responsibility for the nation’s defeat and the devastation of the peoples and lands of Indochina; and a public cynicism about government, reinforced by the Watergate scandal, that was to mark U.S. politics for many years. However, I wouldn’t like to put the card before the horse and thus I’ll try to tell you the whole story about the America of those days in all possible details.   I’ll tell you how everything started and where it ended; about our youth and our epoch, which nowadays one can easily call the Vietnam War Era. We had had very poor knowledge of Vietnam by July 27, 1964. On that exact day the news reported that 5,000 US military advisors were ordered to South Vietnam to join other American militaries and support the government of South Vietnam in its struggle against the Communists of the North. Today I say that day marked the beginning of new era for all of us. How it started    I should tell that the very beginning of the Vietnam War had contained much controversy that later generated negative attitude of our society towards that military campaign. Now I understand that the initial problem lay in following. Congress passed the resolution in 1964 to support Johnson in taking measures to protect U.S. armed forces in Indochina. As requested by Johnson, Congress passed the resolution in response to incidents between U.S. naval destroyers and North Vietnamese gunboats in the Gulf of Tonkin, off the coast of North Vietnam. But this resolution was not the official declaration of the war against North Vietnam however served for Johnson as justification for sending 500,000 troops into South Vietnam. The President’s administration to avoid disquieting people did not use word â€Å"war† and invented a devious substitute for it: the â€Å"functional equivalent† of a declaration of war. We started discussion as regards the appropriateness of treating that resolution as declaration of the war. And as time went by our society split up into two camps: the supporters and detractors of war. Political division of society    Moreover, we felt that not only Americans are dubious of their attitude towards the war. The whole world was also divided into two hostile camps: supporters of American invasion into Vietnam (capitalistic democratic countries) and opponents of the military actions (communistic totalitarian countries). You must know that America has always been the proponent of democratic principles. What should you also keep in mind is that it was the time of the Cold War development. I must admit that the existence of external foe (the Communism) was permanently felt by every American. We witnessed of the development of the Cold War, Cuban Missile Crisis when the Third World War nearly started, we watched how the nuclear power of the Soviet Union was rising. The fear of nuclear war haunted our country throughout the decade. Increase of social well-being    The threat of war had impacted all spheres of our life. We witnessed how police spent much time training for the very real possibility of nuclear attack. You would not believe but it is a fact that the threat of war was the reason for building of the Interstate Highway System during the 1960s. Our highways and roads expended quickly. Consequently, automobile became a common thing at the end of World War II and the demand for it was continuously growing. In the 1960s I and almost all my friends had a car and the number of young people driving a car reached an unprecedented level. At the same time our every day life contained the events not related to the Vietnam War. First of all it was a time of the unprecedented change in U.S. society. For the first time for the whole history we felt what the prosperity is! Technological advances in electronics, telecommunications and transportation changed the American lifestyle. A car became an affordable luxury for every American and since that time we could freely travel around the country.    Social protests The changes in our material well-being caused the drastic changes in the social order of our nation. I and my peers were born during the American first wave of the â€Å"baby boom† caused our young adult moms who followed the open rebel against society and those who represented its authority. To my view it was one of the implications of prosperity of American society. Only the prosperous people have courage to express their ideas freely.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Nevertheless, even well-being could not shield the upheaval rising within our nation. As U.S. troops and hardware poured into Vietnam, the casualty figures mounted and domestic unease intensified. Here I have to mention the anti-war movements of the Vietnam War Era. So, in the 1960s The New Left movement appeared. At those days the mass media treated them as parasites rejecting American values. But today I understand that they were young people with radical standpoints who attempted to change our society for better. The New Left was a movement of self-understood radicals, mostly students. Most of the central figures were my peers in their twenties during that decade, and were born during or just before World War II; most of the rank and file were born after the war and too were part of the mentioned baby boom, which filled the expanding colleges and universities. Although the central figures began as student activists, the New Left grew into an intellectual tendency that included academics, principally in the social sciences and humanities; professionals (doctors, lawyers, social workers, etc.) who shared its concern for the rights of helpless and victimized people. So where did they spring from, you wonder. Seeking intellectual coherence, student activists borrowed the term New Left from British intellectuals who had left the Communist Party and helped form the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (it was in 1957). Unlike the Britons, most of the U.S. New Left were not Marxists. They hoped to find other social constituencies with the social commitment to transform society in an egalitarian and democratic direction. I cannot help but describe the activity of this organization in details as my view of them has changed since then. We were continuously informed through TV, radio and newspapers on communist threat. We were told the communists had allegedly penetrated all spheres of our life and due to this the New Left made a noise in our society. From 1965 on, the main force that swelled the New Left was the Vietnam War. Gathering strength, the New Left spun off a movement against the war, and in the popular mind became principally identified with that movement. Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), which had nine chapters and some 600 members in 1963, grew to some 300 chapters and 100,000 members in 1969. National demonstrations against the war grew from 25,000 people (April 1965) to 500,000 (November 1969). As the war escalated, the New Left (or what increasingly called itself â€Å"the movement†) became not only larger but more militant.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   During this time, however, the core of New Left organizers came to regard themselves as more than a protest movement. They increasingly saw themselves as committed to a radical transformation with an antiauthoritarian spirit. Pragmatic, many were reluctant to call themselves â€Å"socialist† or â€Å"anarchist†; they borrowed elements from both traditions, as well as from liberalism. Toward that end, they experimented with community organizing among the poor; with projects in student-centered education; with attempts to radicalize factory workers. But their principal base was the university campuses. Best represented among elite universities at the beginning of their movement, their class base later moved progressively downward. By 1970, demonstrations against the draft, against military education, against corporate recruiters, against disciplinary rules, and in favor of ethnic studies departments took place on hundreds of campuses and turned into a real trouble for authorities.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   By 1967, most of my friends in the New Left had moved (in the words of their own slogan) â€Å"from protest to resistance.† We, observing the massive disaffection of college-educated youth as signaled in drug use, popular music, hippie clothing, long hair, and so forth came to feel that a radical transformation of the society was necessary, although they had little conception of a new order. By 1968, we saw institutions from university administrations to the Democratic Party as hopelessly oppressive. Opposition to draft In relation to the protests of the young generation I want to stress upon such phenomenon of those days as draft evasion. Some of those who opposed the war were driven by the fact that as Johnson’s policy escalated, more and more young people were drafted into the armed services and sent to Vietnam. By 1967, half of the military servants were draftees. By 1969, more than the half of all combat deaths were draftees. These were extremely discouraging data.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   I cannot but stress that no other war produced so much opposition to the draft. This fear was partially caused by its unfairness. Until 1968 senior students were entitled to defer military service by the time they finished their study. Another fact that evoked our rejection was the class injustice; many young middle-class men joined the National Guard and Reserves on the likely gamble that they would not be called up for duty in Southeast Asia. Consequently, the Vietnam War appeared to many to be a working-class war. There was a disproportion in numbers of draftees and enlisted men who mostly came from blue-collar class. During the war a lot of my male contemporaries preferred exile to Canada and Sweden to avoid the draft. The prospect of the draft also served as impetus for eligible guys to start family and have children, or continue their education.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   As it could have been expected increasing draft resistance took form of civil disobedience and severe discipline problems. The poorly motivated behavior of militants in the field made the government think of dramatic reform. The president Nixon established a lottery system trying to make the draft system at least a little fairer. But we took it as a cynical joke. In September 1971, Nixon’s proposal for All-Volunteer Force was passed by Congress, and in July 1973, Nixon terminated the draft. Fight for you right      Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   There is one important figure whom I cannot skip in my story of public protests. I am speaking about Martin Luther King. King started his social discussion attacking segregation as he hopscotched the nation. Later King attempted not only to achieve civil rights, but also to stop the Vietnam War and to eliminate American poverty. On 4 April 1968, an assassin’s bullet killed Martin Luther King Jr.; riots exploded in Chicago, Washington, D.C., and elsewhere. Another horrible assassination occurred the same year. In June, Robert Kennedy, John Kennedy’s brother and a presidential candidate in his own right, was shot and killed in Los Angeles. These terrifying events considerably undermine government’s credibility in our minds. Nonetheless, no assassinations could stop public protests which did their job gradually. The antiwar movement dramatically affected our national domestic policy. After 35,000 mostly young people besieged the Pentagon on 21–22 October 1967, Lyndon Johnson launched a public relations campaign that emphasized how well the war was going. When the Communists of the North Vietnam launched their seemingly successful nationwide Tet Offensive on 30 January 1968, most of us felt that we had been deceived by our own government. It caused even more severe protests. That widespread public disaffection led to Johnson’s decision on 31 March 1968 not to escalate further and not to stand for reelection. We carried our point and finally a man who had initiated war in Vietnam stopped being our president. Cultural Revolution As I already mentioned at the beginning our society was split in terms of political views. The divisions were cultural and generational too. A youthful counterculture expressed its alienation in more open sexuality, free love; long hair, and cast-off clothing; rock music, the Beatles, Bob Dylan, the Doors and Rolling Stones; and marijuana and other consciousness-altering substances. At Woodstock, New York, in August 1969 I witnessed the greatest youth gathering. About half a million of young people stayed there for a three-day music festival, laced with political and cultural protest. What we may conclude    As you can see from my story the Vietnam War Era was a complicated period for our society from which I hope it had derived correct conclusions. In my point of view these conclusions can be expressed by one sentence: â€Å"Win quickly or stay out†. Regardless of the camp to which you belong to those emphasizing the former or to those emphasizing the latter, you should feel that you are a part of one nation. I believe that the memorial near which we are staying now will help us remember this simple principle. Bibliography:    George C. Herring, Americas Longest War: The United States and Vietnam, 1950–1975, 2nd ed. New York, 1986.

Psychology and Perspectives Essay Example for Free

Psychology and Perspectives Essay Human beings are given the unique capacity to view things not just the way they are but also on the pre-programmed processes we use in describing a situation. These perspectives can come from many different external influences and by internal factors involving our personal and historical development. On these reason we can employ psychology to study why and how we view things and how these factors influence our perspectives. There are many psychological perspectives presented in the field to distinguish our differences from other people. However, though we have been guided by these explanations on how we react mentally and physically over a situation, these perspectives, though they are limited, complement each other to form a unified explanation on our views. Their questions present different answers which can describe the paradigms of human existence and process, based on the different aspects of their functions and influences. This paper will discuss several psychological perspectives and their relationship to our daily routine of looking at things differently from others. View point and summaries of related topics will be discussed applied with the neuroscience, evolutionary, psychodynamic, behavioral, behavior genetics and cognitive perspectives. These perspectives are best to explain the differences people have on viewing a situation. Neuroscience Perspective First, the neuroscience perspective looks at the internal viewing functions of a person. This involves the processes of the brain in conceiving a situation and the underlying influences that affect a persons behavior. It describes how the body and mind control our emotions, memories, and sensory processes to react on a given situation. In The Girl with a Boys Brain by Carlin Flora, neuroscience perspective is used in determining a persons tendencies and irregularities by identifying brain processes and disorders.   Kiriana Cowansage has had obsessions and successes in many areas of her life. However, though her brain is above the average intellectual norm, she often gets lost in her own neighborhood. She is then diagnosed to have Aspergers Syndrome, a mental disorder highly functional in the autism family. This condition is found usually on boys due to their innate tendency to systematize. Kiriana is said to be weak in relating with other people and in situations she is in. Often times she gets confused by unfamiliar events and get lost helplessly in it due to her faulty sensory processing systems. Kirianas behaviors are apparently affected by her condition and needs attention on how inner processes to solve her problem. This inner view to explain a persons behavior and practices is described in neuroscience perspectives. Evolutionary perspective Evolutionary perspective relates our ancestral environment to be affective of our behaviors at present. The historical development of people and their retained and their passed characteristics are considered to be factors that affect their emotions and tendencies. Evolutionary psychology taps on the affective structures of human ancestral environments on the establishment of emotions, personalities, cognitive processes, and mental disorders (Nesse, p6). In a Psyched for Success article publsihed in October 2003, evolutionary perspective is used in describing the causes and implications of depression. There they raised the question of whether depression is simply a disorder or a sign of emotional fatigue. The article states that, in centuries past, aspects of human life have been internalized and passed through generations to our present life. These aspects of the past are still being used but are insufficient or inappropriate because of our more complicated present. Depression is said to signal this mismatch between our old ways and our new situations (2003). Since life today are relatively harder, people cannot cope completely with new and unfamiliar events presented to them thus causes stress and signals a people to step back and reassess the situation and their reaction. Psychodynamic perspective Psychodynamic perspective asserts that inner conflicts of the past affect a persons behaviors and emotions at the present. It is based primarily on Freuds concept of the unconscious where all repressed feelings are stored and affect our views unnoticeably. People who have abusive and violent experiences in the past are more likely to have repressed emotions stored in their unconcious and these defines who they are in the present. The article In the Name of Love describes adult relationships to be greatly affected by peoples relationships during childhood. Johnson and Maranos report relates the attachment theory of infancy, the characteristic of a child to rely and depend on an immediate relative, a mother usually. This attachment is then carried as children grow old and establish their own relationships with other people (Johnson and Marano, 1994). Partners rely on each others affection and availability. When people are in fear or anxiety, they will certainly ask for support from their partners. Children and adult relationships are underlined by the common need of a person for attachment and security. Behavioral perspective Most of the time there are environmental stimuli that automatically or force us to make a reaction. Behavioral perspective describes this immediate factors as affective to ones behavior. Psychotherapy utilizes this perspective to describe a persons behavior through various stimulus and on many occasions it is used to erase or establish a behavior in a person. In an article by Tim Bower and Robert Epstein, behavioral perspective can detect psychological disorders on patients and consequently affect a therapists own personality. Due to the reinforced and repeated exposure to the cases and situations of patients they treat, therapist have a tendency to absorb behaviors and manifest it in their own lives. In a certain instance, psychologists who experienced having a patient suicide felt guilt and self-incrimination which could lead to other unprofessional behaviors. Also, the distress caused by their patients faulty disclosures have affected their lives with their own families the same with how their family relationships affect their professional responsibilities. Also, mental health workers are at greater risk of substance abuse due to their treatment of patients with the same behavior (Epstain and Bower, 1997). Genetic behavior perspective The genetic behavior perspective relates to the innate causes of behaviors. The hereditary influences that people often are affected in their responses to stimuli are regarded with much research and attention to prove. The concept of being born and not made can be found on this perspective as what the article Bruce Avolio explained. In Are Leaders Born or Made?, he stated that genetic codes also contain behavioral preferences and tools for people be what they are â€Å"meant† to be. Leaders are equipped with high energy, desire to affect others, determination and intelligence. Scientist have spent time and effort in proving that these qualities are innate and   are gifts to chosen individuals tasked become leaders. However, these characteristics are later found with the possibility of being learned and instilled to us by our parents at the early stages of life (Avolio, 1999). Also, in the article, My Genes Made Me Do It, Peele and DeGrandpre genetic codes programmed with certain behaviors are being used as excuse for tolerating certain actions (Peele and DeGrandpre , 1995). Often times, people are fooled with wrong theories on genetic behaviors and on this note researchers are focused on specific areas of life which can really be passed genetically. Also, if our personality is already determined during the early stages of conceiving, people tend to withdraw efforts on changing their behaviors. This perception is considered to have monumental consequences on how we view ourselves and on personal development. These psychological perspectives – neuroscience, evolutionary, genetic behavior, behavioral, and psychodynamic – are established to have various views on how human beings behave and relate to others. Though these perspectives raises differing questions and answers, they all relate a persons process and structure for behavior. The study on these perspectives not only open various doors for psychological exploration but also give different means on how to describe personalities and offer treatments on the disorders which haunt people over the course of their life by identifying the internal and external etiologies of their abnormalities. Also, these only prove that wherever human perspectives are present, psychological approaches can be utilized to determine the wide range of causes and influences of these views.

Has Television Taken Over Photography?

Has Television Taken Over Photography? In the age of television and internet streaming videos, photography is no longer as pervasive a tool of social control as it used to be. Its golden age is now over, since it flourished and died along with the great dictatorships of the 20th Century. In fact, the most eloquent examples of the use of photography as a means to seduce people and annihilate their ability of a critical analysis of reality (in order to submit their will to the goals of a governing elite) can be found in the period between the 1920’s and the 1950’s. It was in such period that the fascist, nazi, and communist propaganda saw in photographers the perfect craftsmen who could transform images, often fake or posed, into messages to convey a particular information about what was going on in their country. In Italy, it was through the pictures taken by anonymous photographers that Benito Mussolini managed to give the people the idea of being part of a great nation, where everybody (intellectuals, sport smen, the Church, the unions, the common men) were proud to demonstrate their faith in the fascist regime[1]. It was through them that he was able to depict the country as a plentiful land, led by a good-hearted man embodying the virtues of the great Roman emperors. Most of those photographers were working for the same institution, the Istituto Luce, a formally independent organism that was actually controlled by the fascist regime. Its purpose was to operate as a modern news agency, but any proof of the disastrous economic and social conditions of many areas of Italy (such as Sicily, Veneto or Sardinia) was withdrew from the press. So, there were no news, if they had to be bad news. Another example of Mussolini’s attempt at distorting reality was the photographic book Italia imperiale (Imperial Italy), published in 1937. The author, Manilo Morgagni, wrote a visual elegy of the virtues of the dictator. In the same period, Adolf Hitler was making a similar use of photography in Germany, especially thanks to the collaboration of Leni Riefenstahl, who later would become one of the most famous artists of the world. The book Schoenheit im Olympischen Kampf (Beauty in the Olympic games), published in 1938, was a collection of her shots of the German youth, taken during the Olympic Games held in Berlin in 1936; it was an instrument of Hitler’s propaganda aimed at celebrating the perfect bodily features that only the pure Aryan race could boast[2]. In this way, German population was given an amount of visual messages that confirmed the superiority of their race, so that there was no questioning about the crimes their leader was committing in foreign countries. On the other hand, Hitler wie ihn keiner kennt (The unknown Hitler) was an homage to the Furher from his personal photographer, Heinrich Hoffmann, and was completely dedicated to him and his private life. It showed a leader ca ressing children and enjoying mountain resorts, depicting him as father and protector on the nation. In the USSR, Iosif Stalin reduced the avant-garde photographer Aleksandr Rodchenko to a mere instrument to convey the perfection of a state working in the best imaginable way, where every movement was preordained and nothing could go wrong. In fact, the usual subjects of Rodchenko were military parades and public meetings, during which everybody had a specific role to play and a proper place to fit in[3]. Moreover, Stalin made a wide use of photomontage to insert his figure in all the topic moments of the October Revolution of 1917, so that the people were induced to think that it was him who actively participated and fought in the process that led to the creation of a land that was supposedly governed by them. Another famous example of the way photography and its manipulation were used to attain the consent of the people is the picture taken by Yevgeny Khaldei in Berlin on May 2nd, 1945. It is the image of a soldier of the Red Army raising the communist flag on the roof of the Reich stag[4]. Since Khaldei arrived too late, when the action had already been accomplished, he asked a soldier to repeat it in order to fix the moment on film, and give Russian population another proof of the power of their leader. Further east, Mao Tse-tung was acting in the same way, one of his preferred photographers being Li Zenghshen, who took also many shots of the atrocities committed by the regime but hid them until the late Nineties, when he thought it was safe to show them to the public without risking to be prosecuted by the communist regime. The above mentioned examples are taken from the major dictatorships of the past century; nonetheless in the 1930’s the greatest democracy of the world, the USA, had a similar approach to photography, although lacking the militaristic vision of the country that characterised the totalitarian regimes. The American government did not make a wide and evident use of photography to make its citizens agree on its political and financial behaviour, but in some occasions documentary images were used as proofs of the necessity of its decisions. The Farm Security Administration, for instance, was founded in 1935 by president Franklin Delano Roosevelt as part of his New Deal program aimed at rescuing the nation after the great depression of 1929. Its goal was to relieve the rural populations from their poverty and many famous photographers (Russell Lee, Jack Delano, Dorothea Lange, Walker Evans among the others) were hired to document their situation, in order to inform about it people li ving in the urban areas. But this project was also meant to provide a visual justification on how and why the government was spending public money, preventing any questioning by the richest part of the population[5]. The best output of this policy was a book compiled by Archibald McLeish, titled Land of the free and published in 1938. In the meanwhile, another way to use photography in order to exert social control was beginning to see the light in the USA. But this one was completely different from the propaganda experienced in Europe, since it was focused on not showing, rather than on showing. It is the case of the 216 nuclear tests held by the Army between 1945 and 1962 (in the desert in the state of Nevada or in the middle of the Pacific Ocean). They were documented by anonymous officials mainly through aerial photography, but the pictures were kept in secret archives till very recently, because the government thought that such experiments might arise doubts in public opinion about nuclear power and the cold war[6]. This attitude quickly developed and expanded to the majority of the nations, prompting governments to prevent their people from looking at what might endanger their consent. A form of undeclared censorship has been watching over photography all the time, and war reporters have been its principal t argets. One of the most recent and outstanding case is the story occurred to a now famous picture taken by Kenneth Jarecke during the first Gulf War (1991). He shot the body of an Iraqi soldier, burnt to a cinder by American bombing while he was retreating with his troop on the Basra road[7]. This picture was published abroad but not in the USA until the war was definitively over, since it might counter the Pentagon’s notion of a technological a war amended of all the atrocities of the previous ones. Nonetheless, nowadays television has taken over the role that was played by photography, and it has become the principal tool to exert social control. Probably, this function is still accomplished by photography only through commercials, but in this case the aim is altering people’s perception of reality in order to influence their needs. The most interesting aspect of this function is that who is sending the message to the public usually does not depict a fake situation as it were real, nor does hide a particular side of it. Most commercials evoke a hypertechnological world or a lost one, like in Marlboro Country’s advertisements, where values and lifestyle are as simple and good as in the good old days[8]. Two opposite worlds that have just one feature in common: they can be reached through the product advertised. This kind of social control is very different from that exercised through propaganda and censorship, but it must be noted that its target is not the citizen as a political individual, but the consumer as a participant in the local and global market. Moreover, there is not such a monopoly of the mass media as the one that is proper of a governing institution, but all the organs emitting messages to control the public are constantly competing against each other to be most visible. Consequently, this particular use of photography requires bigger and more accessible platforms wherefore communicate, such as glossy, fancy magazines and huge city billboards. Bibliography Michael Famighetti: Underexposed, Aperture 173, winter 2003, pages 14-16. Marshall McLuhan: Understanding media, Routledge, 2002, chapters 2 and 20. Martin Parr and Gerry Badger: The photobook: a history. Volume 1, Pahidon, 2004, chapter 6. Ian Jeffrey: Photography, Thames and Hudson, 1981, chapter 9. Li Zhensheng: Red-color news soldier, Phaidon, 2003. Michael Light: 100 Suns, Contrasto Due, 2004. 1 Footnotes [1] See picture 1 [2] See pictures 2 and 3 [3] See picture 4 [4] See picture 5 [5] See picture 6, by Dorothea Lange [6] See pictures 7, 8 and 9 [7] See picture 10 [8] See picture 11

Security Threats and Trade Barriers :: Economics Globalization Trade Papers

Security Threats and Trade Barriers "As defence, however, is much more important than opulence..." In 1776, even as Adam Smith was championing the ideals of a free market economy, he recognized that the interests of national security far outweighed the principles of free trade. More then two centuries later, that sentiment proves to still be accurate and in use. Since the early 1900s, the United States has used this precept to defend its position on trade barriers to hostile nations, and through the majority of the century, that predominantly referred to the Soviet Union and its allies. Just as Adam Smith supported the Navigation Acts in Great Britain to protect the navy (their chief means of defense; Smith 1776: 464), the United States has gone to great lengths to protect their chief means of defense: the technologically advanced electronics and machinery areas. The motive for these measures has not changed over the centuries. The desire to maintain superiority over other nations and to retain the ability to defend the sovereignty of the nation have remained an important aspect of both foreign and trade policy. It is the trade policy that we are most concerned with in this paper. It is the desire of the United States to preserve the technological superiority that we have enjoyed for so long. After all, if no other nation equals our level of technology, then it greatly reduces any threat from another nation simply because we can counter anything they may threaten us with. However, if it is not possible to retain such a lead in technology (and it is not, at least not for long), then it becomes necessary to retain the ability to deal with all subsequent security threats in an efficient manner. Smith advocated, and the United States has implemented, the use of export barriers to make sure that crucial goods or intelligence vital to national security does not leave the country or fall into the hands of our enemies. Though the Cold War is over, and the threat that has loomed over the United States and the rest of the world that depended on the United States for military support for the better part of this century has largely been eradicated, does not mean that there are no longer any security threats to the United States. The United States remains cautious in regards to the unstable status that Russia frequently seems to be in, as well as security threats from other nations like Iraq, and to some degree China.

Primate Species Profile :: essays papers

Primate Species Profile Red-shanked Douc Langurs What are their names? Scientific name: Pygathrix nemaeus English name: Red-shanked douc langurs How are they classified? Order: Primata Family: Cercopithecidae Did you know..... -That Douc langurs are leaf-eating monkeys with long intestines and very large stomachs to get nutrients out of leaves. Leaves are difficult to digest, so therefore, the langurs spend most of their time sleeping in order to properly digest them. They leaves they eat ferment inside them as part of their natural digestion, which releases bubbles of gas and causes them to burp! -Douc langurs have a specific "playface" in which the eyes are closed, exposing very pale blue eyelids. -The tails of Douc langurs are actually longer than their body. -Douc langur babies are very susceptible to the pet trade because they are so cute. Unfortunately most of these babies die due to lack of proper nutrients because their owners feed them only fruits - and they need many other nutrients for a balanced, healthy diet. Where do they live? Douc langurs are found most frequently in primary evergreen forests of Vietnam and Laos (also in Cambodia), at around 300-2000 meters elevation. Recent fieldwork has demonstrated that although douc lagurs were once thought to have a restricted habitat, they are actually found in a variety of habitats. While douc langur monkeys are restricted to wooded areas, they occur in a variety of forest types. Populations of doucs have been located from both monsoon forests as well as rainforests and include: semi-evergreen, lowland lower montane and upper montane forest types. What are their general characteristics? Description: Douc langurs appear as if dressed in costume. They have grey-black underparts, and the upper part of the leg is also black, and finally continuing down the knee and below are orange-red. Cheeks and throat are white, and the hands, feet, brow, and shoulders are a contrasting black. The tail, forearms, and genital region are also white. There is no sexual dimorphism in the size of douc langurs, and the size ranges are the following: the body length ranges from 23.1-23.5 inches, the tail length ranges from 23.5-26.8 inches, and their weights range from 18.1-24.0 lbs. Diet: Douc langurs are vegetarians, getting adequate protien and fluid by eating leaves, buds, fruit, and flowers. They eat 50 species of plant but no animals. At the zoo, the animals eat primate chow and various types of greens that they get in a rotating diet. That way the animals get to choose which type of green they want.