Mies van der Rohe and Oscar Niemeyer - Structural Grid Versus White Research Paper

Mies van der Rohe and Oscar Niemeyer - Structural Grid Versus White Architecture Sculptures - Research Paper Example He became a master stonemason at nineteen years. He worked at the art nouveau architect and furniture design that belonged to Bruno Paul. He received the first commission to design a house belonging to a philosopher when he was twenty years. He started working for Peter Behrens in 1908. He studied architecture of Karl Friedrich Schikel and Frank Lloyd Wright. In 1912 Mies opened his own office in Berlin. He studied skyscraper and designed two glass towers made of steel-frames for a competition. This foreshadowed his skyscraper designs of the 1940s and 1950s (Wintle, 2002, p 32). Ludwig van der rohe actively participated in several avant-garde groups like ‘Zehner ring’ and the Novembergruppe that championed modern art and architecture. He contributed to major architectural philosophies of the 1920s when he was the artist director of the Weissenhoff project. This was a model housing colony in Stuttgart where he managed to design a block together with other leading European architects of the time. In 1927, Mies designed the German pavilion in Barcelona which became his most famous buildings. The Barcelona pavilion hall was flat roofed with walls made of marble and glass and could be moved around. This brought the first concept of fluid space. Mies met Philip Johnson, a New York architect who championed him to architectural fame in the United States. Philip included some of Mies projects in the MoMas first architectural exhibition in 1932. He became the director of the Bauhaus School between 1930 and 1933 and then relocated to the States in 1937. He headed the department of architecture at the Armour institute of Technology in Chicago, (now Illinois Institute of technology). He designed a new campus for the school using refined steel and glass style (Thomas, 2010). After becoming an American citizen, Mies designed the Farnsworth house. The house was transparent and supported by eight steel columns. The interior consisted of a single room subdivided by partitions of glass. He developed the convention hall in 1953 and later the twin towers in Chicago. The twin towers skyscrapers were a realization of his dream of building skyscrapers using glass and steel. He built other high-rises in New York Detroit, Toronto and Chicago. However the Seagram building in New York was voted as the work of genius in skyscraper design. He achieved the ‘Order pour le Merite’ from Germany in 1959. He was acknowledged with the â€Å"Presidential Medal of Freedom† by the US government. He was invited to Berlin to design the New National gallery. This building was the culmination of his life-long vision of an exposed structure connecting the interior to the landscape. It was also his last design before his death on the 17th August, 1969. Traditionalism to Modernism Before World War I, Mies was a traditionalist who designed traditional custom homes. However, the traditional styles were already under heavy criticism from the progressive t heorist. According to these opponents traditional architecture was first and foremost non-progressive. The emerging technology of the modern time demanded its presence in the lives and architecture. However, traditional architecture was blamed for hiding the modern construction under the shallow

American Ideology Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

American Ideology - Essay Example Politics, like diplomacy, is the art of the postponement of hostilities, in the way people try to resolve their political, economic, and ideological differences. However, it is a fact that people will still try to bicker and debate on their differences despite the best efforts, because some people have a hard set of ideas or ideologies which cannot be swayed. This is in effect the essence of democracy, in which various ideas are welcomed and tolerated. Ideology can range from the extreme left (very liberal) to the middle to the extreme right (conservative) and this brief essay is a position paper as it examines both these two ideologies. Discussion Ideas are rarely truly original or innovative, most of these ideas are either influenced by earlier ideas or mere improvements or adaptations of much earlier ideas in human history. In this regard, history works in only a one-way street, which means earlier ideas can influence later ideas, as people go through their lives and human history unfolds in a deterministic way. This philosophy postulates that every human idea, action, and decision is a consequence from prior events or antecedent state of affairs. Along this line, history and ideology works in the same way; nothing exists in a vacuum and both Hitler and Einstein were also influenced. Question No. 1 – socialism is an economic, political, and social principle which states that the general public (the common masses) should own and control public properties or the so-called commons (the natural resources open to everybody for exploitation and their use); it further advocates public ownership of the means of production in society, such that there will be no private ownership of these same means of production for goods and services. Socialism is an adverse reaction to excesses of a free-market capitalism which arose out of the Industrial Revolution in England back in the eighteenth century; it (the Industrial Revolution) changed the wealth paradigm from own ership of vast tracts of land to ownership of the means of production, namely the new factories and assembly lines. This is a new economic system but the new class of capitalists exploited the masses of laborers by hiring them at subsistence wages, working in unsafe or unsanitary conditions, no minimum working hours and no minimum or living wage, the widespread use of child labor, and the repression of progressive social ideas such as labor unions or in not letting the workers' voice be represented or heard. Socialism therefore is in opposition to the main and cherished ideals of capitalism that are centered on egoism and self-preservation through the so-called â€Å"invisible hand† of Adam Smith in which free markets are supposed to be self-regulating and all are to be supposedly benefited by the profit motive. But modern economics show this does not really always work out as envisioned because capitalism implies fierce competition in free markets and this leads to undue wea lth accumulation by a few individuals (the capitalists or new elites of society). Modern economics always struggle with issues of scarcity and socialism is the best way to solve it. Albert Einstein believed that humans are capable of going beyond Veblen’s so-called â€Å"predatory phase† in the collective human experience of social development, which is reason for socialism to be adopted as the best system for human society. Reason is the key to achieving the social-ethical

How Mobile Phones Affect Our Lives English Language Essay

How Mobile Phones Affect Our Lives English Language Essay Around the world there are more mobile phones than old fashioned landlines. The mobile phones of today are ultra-thin and ultra-light. Currently Motorolas best mobile is a little more than half an inch thick when you fold it shut and it weighs just over three ounces. It also includes a digital camera. Mobile phone manufacturers continue to compete to provide the most features in the most fashionable phone. The technology that Martin Cooper unveiled more than three decades ago has fundamentally changed lives around the world from grocery shoppers in Europe to farmers in Africa. There are now over two billion mobile phones on the planet. There are more mobile phones in China than in any other single country in the world. China is the biggest mobile phone market in the world. There are more mobile phones in china than there are people in the United States. Mobile phones had revolutionary impact on the way we communicate, mobile phones let people do what they have to do, when and where they want. This freedom relies on huge investments in high technology and the evolution of smaller and faster machines. Smartphones are sophisticated devices used for communication while offering many other different functions at the same time. These functions may include video and audio recording, navigation assistance, music and video player and web browsing through wireless networks and apps ranging from games to highly specialized dictionaries. Smartphones come in different designs candy-bar models, clamshell models, slide models and wearable watch models. Common uses of smartphones besides phone calls and messaging may include video-conferencing, web browsing, listening to music, viewing videos, playing games, tool for different educational purposes, navigation assistant. Technically, an operating system platform open to developers is really the only minimum requirement to classify a Smartphone. Smartphones are generally also expected to be smart. For example if a phone that asks you for the sever address, port, etcà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦ to set up for email access, its not a Smartphone even if the advertising brochure says so. A Smartphone is cleverer than that because it will figure out the server from your email id by itself. While the majority of people may think that smartphones are for geeks it is actually the opposite because they are generally much more refined and intuitive than the non-smart phones. Smartphones can be used by the not so technically inclined as well, to do powerful things with their phones. A smartphone can be easily recognized by its excellent email, calendar, organizer integration and powerful apps presented in a simple and intuitive way. Symbian, Android, Windows Mobile, is the current operating systems that drive a smartphone. It is the same thing as Windows and Mac OS on our PC. These operating systems help us to interact with both the hardware and the applications on the phone. Unlike Java applications that can be installed on any ordinary mobile phone, applications that have been developed on these operating system platforms are normally much better in terms of their functionality. Through the appropriate OS such applications can interact more easily with the phones hardware. Application categories range from Productivity, Entertainment, Communication, Finance, Health, Lifestyle, Multimedia, News, Social to Travel and everything in between. These app stores are accessible from the phone itself for instant downloads of both free and paid applications. There is no end to how much functionality you can add to your phone. Invention Martin Cooper from Motorola created the first portable cellular device. It was shaped like a brick and it weighed nearly two pounds. Each technology allows us to do a thousand times more. The mobile phone is helping people, goods and services to move and it is driving technology forward. Back in 1915 when the thermionic tube was invented, it powered the whole world war two and after that came the transistor. The transistor allowed us to do a thousand times more with less power and after that came the integrated circuit which was again thousand times smaller, requiring less and less power while providing more computing power. We are wearing more digital storage than was available on this planet, in the year we were born by a long way. This revolution is not going to stop any time soon. We use mobile phones to talk through it, listen, we can send very minimal message. We dont need great technical knowledge in order to use it; we dont even need literacy to use it. It is almost universally accessible and this in itself is a very new thing for a piece of technology. The technology starts off being very expensive. The first mobile phone was the size of a brick and cost a couple thousand pounds and phone calls were incredibly expensive. Now they come off priced at less than twenty bucks and the rate of phone calls have become lower. A mobile phone nowadays is used as a text messenger, word processor, calendar, a clock, a diary, a dictionary, a compass, a scanner, a computer, an internet access, an email, a gaming console, a video camera, a television, a radio, a music sharing center, etcà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦ The very first smartphone to have been created was named Simon. It was designed and created by IBM (International Business Machines) in the 1992s. It was in Las Vegas, Nevada, during the COMDEX (Computer Dealers Exhibition) show that this idea of smartphone was first presented to the world. The Simon smartphone included features like world clock where it could show the time in all the countries in the, a note pad used to take notes, email, calculator, a calendar where it was possible to markup events in certain days and to set an alarm for that event, receive and send faxes and it was also possible to install and play different games. One unique feature that Simon smartphone had was its keyboard. It was the first phone to be using a touch screen keyboard. The On-screen keyboard was a built-in keyboard showed on the screen. For using the phones keyboard, people had to touch the screen with their fingers just like as if it were traditional keyboard with physical buttons. With time the technology evolved and the touch screen was no longer used just for the dialing, it was used for writing too. Smartphones with both touch screen keypad and also the standard keypad were invented because some people were unsatisfied due to the fact that it was hard to write text messages from a completely touch screen phone because of its sensitivity. Such phones were named QWERTY phones. The QWERTY Smartphones helped people to write more easily, and because it looks like a minicomputer, they can easily use it to surf the web, use instant messengers and many other features. The smartphones are great for business persons or anyone who wants features that a computer has, but it has the disadvantage of having a much higher price compared to normal phones. The price is expected to drop as time passes by and technology advances. Ringtones Ringtones were first invented via these devices itself. When mobile phone manufacturers first developed their devices, they had the opportunity to put music within them. Thats how we got early tones coming from the manufacturer to start with which were a series of sound to let the owners know that their phone was ringing. Firstly there was the monophonic tune and then came the polyphonic tune. Nowadays we are in a position where we call it the true tone or real sound and that is in fact an actual clip of a real piece of music. Impact on poor countries AFRICA The mobile phone has brought more telephony to the whole continent of Africa in the last 5 years than the landline telephone was able to bring since its inversion in the last hundred years. Mobile phones are highly appreciated in Africa, they are very important because it enables the people there, to reach everyone and everyone. It is saving money, life, transportation. The mobile phone in Africa is now as important as the bicycle once was. Everybody, from a shoe polisher to a guy in the market to the highest executive, depend on mobile phones rather than the landlines. The mobile phone can be considered to be a technology that gives people the power to make things better on their own. Africa is now part of the world where the subscriber count is growing the fastest. Mobile phones give us economic benefits. They save us the trouble of making wasted journeys, make it easier to find work; they allow you to call several markets if you are a farmer or a fisherman to find out the best pri ce for your product. They also compensate for bad infrastructure i.e. places where we dont have good roads, postal services or fixed network. Mobile phones boost economic activities in a big way. The price of handsets has fallen greatly in the last eighteen months. We can now get mobile phones in less than thirty dollars. All of those things put in the hands of the poor, they can then benefit from these great things mobile phones can do. The mobile phone is a force for good benefiting billions of people and changing the way we all behave. There is however a darker side to the mobile phone revolution. We dont know yet all the risks in health, in ecology, in security but it is known that mobile phones have been used to trigger bombs in Madrid, in London, in Israel, in Iraq and India. The mobile phone has become crucial to state security. Everyones calls are now routinely scanned and monitored. While it can argued that the innocent have nothing to fear, this is not entirely true. Nowadays it is possible to track back a person if a call is being made. For example, lets say that there is an executive chief officer of a big company and he has commercial rivals who have got a new product, new service, new piece of software that is going to seriously do damage to the companys business. Then, arises the issue of whether it is possible for the company to listen to its commercial rivals mobile phone calls. There is no legal way the company can do that but it is possible to do it, illegally. INDIA In India we now have more mobile phones than landlines. Even though landlines are cheaper and available, people still prefer mobile phones to landlines. Now in India, mobile phones are becoming accessible to the very poor. The sort of people who live in the eighty-six thousand villages all over the country that have no connectivity at all. Mobile phones can ease the lives of the poor. Lets take the case of a farming woman from a town in India. The woman is carrying a heavy load of vegetables which she actually harvested in her backyard. She does not know when the bus will come and if the bus comes and she gets into the bus with her heavy load of vegetables, she is not quite sure that the market at the next stop is still open. When she goes in the market if it is open, she is not sure if that particular vegetable that day on that market is well priced enough to meet her ends. This is where communication plays a crucial role. This woman could also go to the rural communication center also known as tele-centers. There she can find a man and a woman sitting there waiting to provide services. She goes into this place asks to know when the bus arrives and thanks to the telephone facility, this service provider person might call the nearest person to ask when the bus is coming and what is the rate of the particular vegetable in the market and is the market open or not? We cannot go to every village raining tele-centers. Imposing a tele-center on a village does not always work. It only works if the demand comes from the villagers themselves and it meets their needs. A good way out would be not to have any tele-center but lots of cheap handsets distributed out to many more people. A curse or a blessing? A recent survey done by of one million users in 34 countries showed that 62% believed that their work productivity was much better due to new technology.   75% considers the opportunity provided by devices such as smartphones and laptops to remain in constant contact with work as a positive development. Converting down time to work time, and being able to stay in touch with whats happening at work at all times.  This kind of commitment used to be associated with Type A executives, but nowadays anyone with a smartphone can do so too. Many people like to find new ways to be effective, and like to feel as if they are getting better at managing time. However, what is actually happening with many  professionals is not amusing at all. Companies  have taken the opportunity given to them by technology to convince employees to spend more down time doing work.    Nowadays, most people with a smartphone have gotten into the habit of continuously trying to convert down time into useful, work time. Ways in which professionals may be converting their down time to get something done: An employee sending a text message to his co-workers while travelling at 120 Km/h in a train and spilling hot coffee into his lap. A teacher in a PTA meeting thats going very slow, logs in her e-mail and replies, missing two tasks given to her among the various others. An accountant at the swimming pool to watch his child swim the 25m freestyle event closes a deal during the mens 25m freestyle via cellphone and lies to his son about seeing him break the record for that event. A supervisor attending 3 days of fitness training is unable to do her training without touching her smartphone every 15 minutes and later after getting them written results of her training complains that the training program was not effective enough. A teacher talking to the school manager to obtain a place in the school gets a message from her tuition student asking for help on a revision exercise, just before the exams start. She quietly sends her a reply while the manager is still talking. The manager notices the sudden lapse in attention and interprets it as a lack of interest in the proposals he is offering. A lawyer one more time takes his smartphone to the toilet where he can multi-task and by misfortune his boss husband who borrowed his smartphone, like five minutes before, happened to be there and notices him. More importantly the phone falls in the urinal and the owner quickly picks it up and tries his best to continue his conversation with his customer These habits were developed by professionals who were trying to boost their productivity by converting down time into something of value. Human beings are known to easily develop habits that are hard to stop and these habits can also be annoying to others. There are where cases employees are provided with a smartphone for free by their company executives and managers. It is even seen as a form of reward and indicator of status in some companies. Its much better to make the small, enlightened changes now, than to wait until the cost is higher and the effort required seems to be impossible to garner. All it takes to get started is one or two employees who are willing to redefine what productivity means for themselves and their companies, in favor of long-term results that are sustainable. Health Alzheimers and Parkinsons are just some of the diseases being attributed to prolonged cell phone use. But above these, the possibility of getting brain cancer is what most health-conscious individuals worry about their fascination with these gadgets. Mobile phone electromagnetic radiation is said to destroy the protein barrier of the brain and make it susceptible to viruses and toxins. Aside from that, it is also said to destroy red blood cells and cause hemoglobin leaking, which consequently harms the heart and kidney. These harms eventually manifest as an elevated blood pressure and a decrease in the bodys immunity. In addition, cell phone radiation is also suspected of causing another form of physical threat, in the form of car accidents. According to a study conducted by the Harvard University, cell phones are predisposing factors to 200 vehicular deaths and millions of deaths per year. Furthermore, it is also insinuated that electromagnetic waves prove detrimental to the environments health and may cause freak fires in gas stations, as it can unwillingly ignite gas fumes. But with all things considered, cell phones are not solely to be blamed for these ill consequences. As such, the human factor cannot be excluded in the equation. Our excesses and lack of control usually bring about negative effects to our cell phone use. So, it might be best that we learn, while still physically fit, about what we can do to prevent bad things from happening. By using the internet, we can gather enough intelligence to help us live a better, healthier mobile phone using life. For example using a wired ear piece to talk through to the phone would prevent exposure of radiations to the brain. Fashion Today more than two hundred million Americans have a mobile phone. For many of us mobile phones are essential and the younger we are the truer that is. On the streets of London, new school ringtones and latest mobile phones are objects of desire. Mobile phones have become agents of change and modifiers of behavior. They alter our notion of time and space. They blur the boundaries between private and public. Mobile phones expand the sense of self, making us seem grander and more important. People like carrying their mobile phones around. They do not carry it in their pocket or hand bags but they are holding it in their hands and waving it around. We can see this in restaurants for example when people go to restaurants, even if their mobile phone is in their pocket, they take it out and place it on the table so that everyone can see it. Another example would be when there is a group of girls standing around and then there is a men flashing his mobile phone and talking continuously on the phone. The young girls think that he must be a busy man. The young girls were looking at him and suddenly his phone rang. People want to show off their phone so much that they are even pretend to be talk. Even if we do not need our mobile phone, we bring it out with us just to show off. These days the mobile phone each person uses is considered to be an indicator of his/her status in society. It seems that to be part of the society especially among youths today, one has to be charged up, switched on and always connected. Nonetheless we have to be aware that non-stop networking can become addictive and intrusive. Most teenagers nowadays always have a mobile phone in there hand. It is like they are someone important and anybody can phone the him/her any moment. Some are in the middle of a text message while talking to someone else; giving an impression they have a really interesting life and so many friends. It is not uncommon in these modern days to meet young people who are talking to each other and texting at the same time. People even sleep with their mobile phones switched on. Improvements Jim McGregor would like future smartphones to zap the person on the other end when they say something stupid. The chief technology strategist for In-Stat Research is onto something. For now, the closest we probably have to that is the mute button. But a chief technologist strategists job incorporates vision, and thats one vision that many might share. We are really just at the beginning of making these devices interface with the real world through advanced sensors and intelligent applications, says McGregor. Future devices will be able to sense temperature, speed, direction, location, action and be able to communicate with you with information you may want, rather than just the information you request. (By McGregor) Smartphones are starting to overtake the PC in terms of the primacy of getting information and entertainment from the Internet, says Mike Woodward, vice president of the mobile phone portfolio for ATT. Theres a whole generation of people, who, if they wanted to go find out something, they went and sat down at the computer and got it. Theres a generation coming up behind that, if they need to grab some quick information, a movie ticket, a dinner reservation they immediately reach for their smartphone, whether theyre out on the go or not. Conclusion Far into the future, everything would be miniaturized so the smartphone would have a CPU larger than modern day laptops and amazing integrated graphics. This smartphone would be faster than the fastest laptops we see today. The phone would have a few projectors on it as well as a stand in the back. We could put it on its stand and then hit a button to turn it into computer mode. It would project a screen in front of it as well as a keyboard down in front of you and it would basically turn into a laptop. Basically one day would arrive where we would be carrying around only one device. That is our smartphone that we could easily turn into a real full size computer. Our future smartphone should be able to wirelessly transmit to our TV screen in HD resolution, and be more powerful than our current desktop computer. It will have an infrared keyboard projector that is sensitive to finger motion. It will have such fast bandwidth that local storage will be a moot questionit will be connected to our Mega-Cloud storage drive, with Terabytes of storage immediately available to you anywhere. It will also carry our digital credit card and e-money that can only be accessed by a living fingerprint with a pulse rate that does not indicate extreme stress to discourage robberies.

What Is Enterprise Acrhitecture Essay -- Information Technology Essays

What is Enterprise architecture? Enterprise Architecture is the link between strategy and implementation. It is a top down view of the structure of systems; it includes the fundamental organization of a system, embodied by its components, their relationships to each other and the environment, and the principles guiding its design. It can be defined as: A means for describing business structures and processes that connect business structures. www.sei.cmu.edu/architecture/glossary.html There are four areas that are commonly accepted as the components of the overall frame work. These are: †¢ Business Process. This includes strategy, governance, organisation, and key business processes. †¢ The Data. This describes the structure of an organisation's data assets. †¢ Applications. This provides an overview for the individual application systems to be deployed, their interactions, and their relationships to the business processes of the organization. †¢ Technology. This describes the logical software and hardware that are required to support the deployment of business, data, and application services. This includes IT infrastructure, networks, communications, processing, etc. It is can be used to get the current view of the business process and also where the business wants to go and how to get there. It can be viewed as city planning for IT covering the overall business processes and IT assets, how they're used, and how they should be built. What Impact could it have on the business? A strong Enterprise Architecture process helps to answer basic questions like: What are the organization's business processes, and how is IT supporting those processes? In general, the essential reasons for developing an Enterprise... ...requirements of an organization. †¢ The required IS and business capabilities to achieve these requirements. It is important to include all relationships with external entities to help ensure proper integration with their systems. †¢ Required changes within the organization this. This includes identifying the gaps between where you are and where you want to be. Once agreement has been reached that this is right for the company and backing received for the key stakeholders the company then needs to: †¢ Agree priorities for delivery. This needs to be planned in manageable stages to accommodate the company’s capacity to handle change. The company should also keep in mind the dependencies between one system and another or the possibility to run systems in parallel during the change over. †¢ Develop the required solutions. †¢ Agree standards. †¢ Evolve solutions.

Savage Inequalities By Jonathan Kozol

The following paper presents a book review. The book which has to be reviewed is â€Å"Savage Inequalities† by â€Å"Jonathan Kozol†. The book covers the research of the author on the school or disable and privileged children. He also shows a comparison between the schools in urban and suburban areas. Furthermore in the book, he tells that how the education is effected due to unavailability of books to the children in the schools of the poor neighboring areas. By reading this book, people can easily conclude the conditions of the city schools with the uptown ones. The comparison presented in the book is based on the difference of quality of education being given, the races that are involved are analyzed, the facilities being provided to the children there and the situations under which these children are getting education. Adding further to this, he also suggests that suburban schools value the money better, as they provide the children with a better and secure future. Children can flourish more in the suburban school setting as it is providing them with better and good opportunities ahead. He thinks that all the children in the schools should be treated equally and should be provided with an equal amount of money, so that one is not superior to the other. If a child studying in the school belongs to a poor background, he should have been given equal money so that he can coup up with the other students who are better than him. Theme of the book: In Savage Inequalities, Jonathan Kozol tells about his analysis, that he did by investigation the environment of a number of schools in America. His main focus was the public schools. The book explains his visits to approximately 30 schools, between the year of 1988 and 1990. These schools were basically ranged from the poorest inner city schools to the ones in the wealthier sub urban communities. He found a huge gap between the conditions of the communities and the schools. His main focus throughout the book was on the question that â€Å"How is there such an enormous difference inside a country with all these public schools who claim to provide everyone with equal opportunities? In this survey, Jonathan observed the fact that how the underprivileged schools are not given equal attention, where the education standard is low and poorer as compared to the one that is being followed in the wealthier localities. The poorer schools are not given money to upgrade their current status and can come up to the mark. Even though it is necessary for all the children to go to a school until the age of 16, they are still kept back sue to all the differences in the school in which they draw lines and separate them on the basis of race as well as the social class. He studies the financial support given to the schools as how unequal that is when it comes to relate the public class divisions. He also examines institutional and biological racial discrimination, segregation, unfriendliness of students, employees that are in underprivileged schools, substantial decomposing away of constructions and even the physical condition of the apprentices (Jonathan Kozol, 1992). Overview of â€Å"Savage Inequalities†: Jonathan Kozol's main focus in the entire book is to explore the urban school districts, which are separated by the racial difference and category of the students which includes their class. The black or nonwhites are considered to be very poor, which discriminates them harshly with ones who are rich and belong to a wealthier class of suburban schools. He observes that even if a school is not creating diversions, the divisions occur within the school that has a vast population of students. This division is mainly caused by the type of education being given and the career tracking which the students follow. This division is also created by the people by just thinking about there status and considering them superior in class. One of the reasons for these differences could be â€Å"its all in the head† motto. The most important tribulations that have an effect on these institutions are an entrepreneurial structure that involves the imitation of the partition of work. Schools afford the education to congregate this obligation all the way through the trails of apprentices into the characters that they will accomplish in their financial configuration. The author further explains and points out that the upper class of white people want their children to be properly educated, and get into better jobs and places. They want to see a bright future for them and work in a comfortable environment in less polluted areas. These people have an upper hand and will benefit from the dissection of labor and will even use their resources to create an influence with the government, in order to maintain their proper places on the positions they are working. In his book, he also discusses a few casual conversations with the students of the schools. For example, he talked about financial support unfairness amongst institutional regions with a group of wealthy students in Rye, New York, in that group, one student posed her beliefs by saying that she doesn’t exactly have any interest in these funding supports for the poorer schools, since she was unable to see that how would it benefit her (Jonathan Kozol, 1992). She really didn’t care about the situation of the schools that are under privileged. She knew the fact that how all those class and status divisions would favor her in different aspects. Then why would she bother looking the other way? Using various variety of details and scenarios to describe the conditions of the most prosperous school such as â€Å"New Trier High School and on the other hand the most underprivileged school such as â€Å"Du Sable High School†. In this comparison he portrays the most terrible environments in which the students attend their daily school and also tells that in the well off schools, the students are given such wonderful and good options and opportunities to make their career. He distinguishes the underprivileged and affluent institutes to demonstrate the readers the worst conditions that are available. Kozol also talks about a very crucial and one of the major issue and that is of racism. He brings the fact to knowledge that mostly the poor or black children usually the Hispanic are bad savings. No matter how good they are or how good they could be. Meager educative surroundings effect in substandard learning and serious educational shortage in learners. It turns out to be very noticeable the system the management, the civilization, and the instructive system do not pass unfortunate offspring in the United States (Jonathan Kozol, 1992). Kozol vividly illustrates the deplorable conditions of the poorest schools. In distinction, he gives some colorful images of the richest suburban schools that surround them. He effectively demonstrates the racist conditions and social class discrimination that lead to the variations within the public school system as well as discusses the funding formula for America's public schools. Kozol provides descriptions of the worst of the worst, but his research only extends to a limited number of urban schools (Jonathan Kozol, 1992). Perhaps Kozol could also include more on his views as to what the â€Å"minimal† requirements for a good school should be. What are the basic needs of a public school? He says that there should be more poor schools that resemble the better schools. Talking of the wealthy schools and the schooling they are providing, is that the minimum standard that they should provide? Or should the wealthy schools give a bit less so that the poorer schools can come up to their standard? Are all the public schools on the same level, as in providing equal opportunities to all the students? As a result, if the parents ask for more than the amount of quality education being provided in the public schools, they either demand for more, or mostly go for tuitions or private education for their offspring. The possible solution for lack of quality in urban schools according to Kozok is equalized funding. The schools will not be solved by funding alone. For real improvement to occur changes in the greater society will have to take place. After all equals schools are not determined by equal funding. Would equal funding really be desired by policy makers? If public education was really valued by the politician and if they really believed in providing equal funding for all, a lot of money would â€Å"become available. † Jonathan Kozol in his book Savage Inequalities takes into consideration the condition of several American Public Schools. He visited schools in the neighborhood and discovered wide disparity in the conditions between the schools in the poorest inner-city communities and schools in the wealthier suburban communities. How can such huge difference be possible in the public schools systems of the country that claims to provide equal opportunity for everyone? Kozol finds it obvious that many of the children from the poor communities get education which is far inferior to that of children who are growing up in the wealthier communities. Strong evidence is provided by the book of the national oppression, endemic in the American system. Kozol focuses on the discrepancy in resources amongst predominantly Black or Latino (usually inner city) schools and those that are predominantly white (usually suburban), Case studies and statistics are used to compare the opportunities given to some kids to succeed while others (oppressed nations) are set up to fail (Jonathan Kozol, 1992). The topic of the conditions that are faced by children should pose an easy win for Communist looking to explain to people the need for equality for all. It's hard to believe someone thinking that a kid, born into circumstances out of his or her control, deserves suffer poor housing, inadequate healthcare, and substandard education. While people argue that adults â€Å"bring it on them†, the children clearly have no control over where they are born. But Kozol highlights, with astonishment, that he found racist arguments being made by white adults about the potential of Black and Latino kids to justify the better funding of the schools in the white neighborhoods. Kozol brings to mind how during the social movement people would have been vilified by such arguments, but in the early 1990s when he wrote the book, these attitudes were commonplace. Not just the adults but the kids in these wealthier schools had excuses explaining why they deserved better schools than kids who sometimes lived miles away. The statistics presented in Kozol’s book are startling; bring to attention how classes in one school are segregated racially. In one classroom there are all white students with the exception of maybe one or two Asian or Black children. In another class, which is the â€Å"special† class, all black children are present, with maybe one white child. According to the author, the children are separated more from each other in magnet schools. The poorer Pilcher 3 children do not get the opportunity to apply for these selective schools. Even if the parents are informed, on many occasion they do not have proper education to be able to fulfill the necessary requirement to admit their children to the special schools. He strongly disagrees with the business approach to education, stating that limits cannot be put on a child for the child will never strive to go beyond that limit. He maintains that this approach will not introduce Excellency but will in fact just repeat unevenness (Jonathan Kozol, 1992). Recommendations: After reading this book my perception has completely changed, I had never known that a large number of schools were situated in the ghettos and are overcrowded or only had two toilets working share by 1000 students, and also no toilet paper is available. The thing that has really upset me is the fact that schools in the same city limit but in the suburbs have an average of 20 children per classroom and also have enough supplies and computers enough so that no child needs to share. It is clear that the majority of these suburban schools are dominantly white and the minorities are in the urban schools. The dropout rates in the book are very high. Most children drop out of secondary school and do not get proper education due to lack of supplies and very little or interest of the teacher. The greater part in the poor schools are that of the Hispanic or black while the elite white class children and the rare Asian children are in the gifted classes of the sub urban schools. The small population of blacks and Hispanics that attend the same schools go to the â€Å"special† classrooms and their â€Å"mental retardations† is shown as a reason for their placement. A majority of these students belong with the whites and Asians, they are not mental. It seems like the teachers were so unmotivated to teach in the urban schools that it reflected off of the children, the children become unmotivated towards learning which has become the reason for such high dropout rates in secondary schools. These children never get real education; instead they receive partial discrimination due to the color of their skin. Access to private schools is denied to them, they do not get toilet paper or working toilets, and they are subdued, so they are not able to expand their horizons and are made to learn without the use of materials or supplies. They are never given a chance to attain proper education and so they suffer the consequences by living in poverty and having their children attend schools similar to their parents. This is all very upsetting to me as even though the school systems have improved a great deal there is nothing that can be done for the poor parents who were not able to get real education due to their color and class. I hope these parents realize that what they suffered from should not affect their children. Today this issue has been subdued only because the number of schools situated in ghettos also educates the whites along with the minorities. I myself attended a high school situated in the ghetto in Bradenton, Florida. I did not actually live in a ghetto nor did any of my friends. My opinion about Savage Inequalities would be that the book presents a good over view about the conditions of the schools in the urban and suburban areas. The way it compares the situation in the schools is very innovative. But at a point I find the book very disturbing and heart touching, on the other hand this book became an eye opener and now I can look back and think what were the situations before and how they are now. It is very good to see the things change with the passage of time. The schools have realized the fact that the race and class doesn’t matter, it’s the talent that a student carries. Although the schools maybe dominating with the majority of whites and the minority of others, the students are still receiving quality education, without comparing one race to another, they are able to realize the fact that it’s not the race which helps a person to succeed from one another. The single inconsistency that I observe in the book was that Kozol failed to notice a few matters. He didn’t address to the fact that no matter if the poor are in minority, they still have the right for proper education and learn the things that the rich are learning. He also did not defend the fact that it’s not the poor who are responsible for lack of quality education for the poor children, whether they be in minority or majority. Overall it was a good book, worth reading and spending time on it. It had covered some really interesting facts that I enjoyed reading. On a finishing note, what I consider is that the importance of these savage discrimination, productively arrange offspring into victors and defeats; those institutions persuaded the children that they ought to have in some sagacity to be unsuccessful in their schooling.

Comparison in the Issue Between USA and South Africa Essay

This paper seeks to make a comparison on freedom of expression between the United States and South Africa. The question to be answered in contained the definition of the problem. II. Definition of the Problem (or Issue/Topic) Is the freedom of expression now in the Republic of South Africa now comparable with that of the United States? III. Nature and Extent of the Problem in the Two Countries The Republic of South has evolved into a republic not many years ago which signifies its adoption of democratic framework which basically includes the freedom of expression as part of the rights of the citizens. The US Constitution which includes the freedom of expression on the other hand has been in existence much longer in number of years as compared with RSA’s. Given the extent of the proliferation of the technology and the universal nature of human rights at this point, it is interesting to evaluate whether the rights or freedom of expression are comparable or have close similarities between the two countries. IV. Dynamics of the Problem This part would refer to the factors that could create or perpetuate the problem or those that would tend toward elimination/resolution of the problem. What could create the problem may include lack of vigilance of the citizens in protecting their rights. Democracy requires vigilance of its citizens (Shaw, S. , 2001; Africa Research Bureau, 1981) and the failure of these citizens to assert their right could result to the demise or non-enjoyment of the right. Another factor is the support of the courts to uphold the right of the citizens by the nature of the decisions made. It is also required that courts need to have independence from the political branch of the government (Lieberman, 2006; Bowman Iii, 2005). What could work towards elimination or resolution could come from the factors that c could create or perpetuate the problem. If the citizens therefore are vigilant, there is a great chance that the right would triumph in the court battles. Similarly if the courts are independent from the political branches of government and that the resulting decision are based on the spirit and letter of the rights or freedom of expression (Pasqualucci, 2006; Pannill, 2002), they by all mean, the conflict if any on these rights may be resolved in favor of their assertion and eventual enjoyment by its citizens V. Analysis on the Degree of Comparability It could be cited that RSA’s ratification of its 1996 Constitution, signaled the adoption of some of the best practices from the different part of the world including that of the US. Since US is believed to the leader in the area of human rights, it could be thought the RSA may actually have improved on what is has adopted. The IFLA/FAIFE World Report: Libraries and Intellectual Freedom (1998) indicates that South Africa still requires more time to have its freedom to be considered comparable to the US. There is thus the RSA court decision involving the freedom of expression thing and what came out was that the Supreme Court has just even overruling previous decisions in favor of the upholding better right of freedom of expression. This means that RSA’s judicial system needs more time to really attain what the US as leader in human rights has attained as to freedom of expression. The IFLA/FAIFE World Report: Libraries and Intellectual Freedom (1998) has cited a decision on defamation in favor of â€Å"City Press† where the court has recently removed the unfair burden of legal liability on media. Without this ruling, the media would continue to be inhibited in its ability in championing the right to freedom of expression. This recent ruling was therefore considered as a victory of the principles of freedom of expression as contained in RSA’ Constitution. Since it was just made recently because of the RSA’s history of more repressive regimes, it could be asserted that it may require more time before RSA could match the kind of right now enjoyed in the US. VI. Conclusion Based on recent rulings of South Africa’s Supreme Court, it could be deduced that citizens of RSA could now be having more freedom of expression. But as stated in the dynamic of the problem, there are factors that could determine the resolution of conflicts pertaining to the right and the same factors could also be influenced the decrease or demise of the rights to expression. One of this is vigilance that must be asserted by the citizens of South Africa. The present level of technology could be a great help for them to use to protect their right by their acts of vigilance. The courts too need to be independent from political branches of government and be not cowed by the experiences of past regimes in South Africa. It has taken South Africa to adopt those of the US principles on human rights including the freedom of expression. It should be enough to conclude, it could not be that fast to reach what the US has attained in many decades for RSA’s freedom expression of expression to attain high degree of comparability with the US. VII. References Africa Research Bureau (1981) Africa Research Bulletin, Africa Research, Ltd. , 1981 Bowman Iii (2005) Mr. Madison Meets a Time Machine: The Political Science of Federal Sentencing Reform; Stanford Law Review, Vol. 58 ICL (2008) The Constitution of South Africa, Act 108 of 1996, {www document} http://www. servat. unibe. ch/icl/sf__indx. html, Accessed November 11, 2008 IFLA/FAIFE World Report: Libraries and Intellectual Freedom (1998), {www document} http://www. ifla. org/faife/report/south_africa. htm, Accessed November 11, 2008 Lieberman (2006) Sorting the Revolutionary from the Terrorist: The Delicate Application of the â€Å"Political Offense† Exception in U. S. Extradition Cases; Stanford Law Review, Vol. 59 Pannill (2002) Free Speech, â€Å"The People’s Darling Privilege†: Struggles for Freedom of Expression in American History; Journal of Southern History, Vol. 68, 2002 Pasqualucci (2006) Criminal Defamation and the Evolution of the Doctrine of Freedom of Expression in International Law: Comparative Jurisprudence of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights; Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law, Vol. 39 Shaw, S. (2001) South Africa’s Transition to Democracy: An African Success Story : a Resource Book on the Positive Changes of the Nineties, The Author