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The magazine's editors chose the nameless soldier to represent the 1.4 million men and women who make up the U.S. military, which led the invasion of Iraq nine months ago and a week ago captured deposed leader Saddam Hussein. About 130,000 U.S. soldiers remain in Iraq, with others deployed in Afghanistan, South Korea and elsewhere. Soldiers were singled out as the top newsmakers of the year because "the very messy aftermath of the war made it clear that the mission had changed, that the mission had not been completed and that this would be a story that would be with us for months, if not years, to come," Time Managing Editor Jim Kelly said. The selection echoes 1950, the year the Korean War began, when editors picked the American GI for the cover, writing that "it was not a role the American had sought, either as an individual or as a nation. The U.S. fighting-man was not civilization's crusader, but destiny's draftee." The 2003 Person of the Year package, which hits newsstands Monday, focuses on a 12-person artillery survey unit stationed in Iraq to tell the story of the American soldier. Two Time journalists embedded with the platoon were injured in a grenade attack this month. Three soldiers with the unit -- Marquette Whiteside, Billie Grimes and Ronald Buxton -- are shown on the cover. The magazine glorifies soldiers but not the Bush administration for putting them in Iraq, calling troops "the bright sharp instrument of a blunt policy," and leaving it to scholars to debate "whether the Bush doctrine is the most muscular expression of national interest in a half-century." The justification for a U.S. military presence in Iraq has been widely questioned, as coalition forces have found no weapons of mass destruction, which President Bush had argued Saddam was stockpiling. Guerrilla attacks against U.S. and allied forces stationed there have escalated over the months since May 1 when the president declared an end to major combat. More coalition troops died in November than in any other month: 104, including 79 Americans. "A force intensively trained for its mission finds itself improvising at every turn, required to exercise exquisite judgment in extreme circumstances," the magazine said. "They complain less about the danger than the uncertainty -- they are told they're going home in two weeks, and then two months later they have not moved." The Pentagon has said it expects to reduce the number of American troops in Iraq to just over 100,000 by May.

Primate Observation Essay

Primates are some of the most interesting animals to watch and learn about whether it be in person at a zoo or seeing a film or documentary on wild ones in a natural environment. Part of this reason is due to the incredible amount of similarities found in between primates and humans. After observing two different primate species at a local zoo, I found out that by observing their behavior, we gain a small insight into human behaviors and their roots. Today I will discuss the different types of behavior I observed as well as the effects of being in captivity and how this helps us understand hunan behavior. On sunny April 19th this year, I visited the San Francisco Zoo and the first species I observed were the gorillas, also known as Gorilla Beringei. Upon approaching the gorilla habitat, at about 1:30 p.m., I noticed the enclosure was roughly about fifty yards in diameter. Throughout the enclosure, there were different levels of ground elevation varying from small hills, to large rock structures placed about twenty feet away from the gorilla cages inside the habitat. There were also many plant or bush like shrubs around as well as trees varying from shape and size throughout the enclosure. The overall shape of the enclosure was similar to an octagon which supported different observational vantage points from a few different sides. The gorillas are the largest primates still existing today. The gorillas in the enclosure varied in size and appearances. All the females were much smaller then the male silverback, however within the female group, their sizes also varied. Some females within the group were less massive and more lengthy then for example the female in charge of the newborn gorilla. The â€Å"mother† of the baby gorilla, Kabibe, was much larger then the other females and she seemed to have more authority within the social group. The male silverback, Oscar Jones, was impressively larger then any other gorillas in the enclosure and had a much larger head and arms in comparison. He had long thick black hair with a patch of silver on his back symbolizing maturity. In total, I observed about six to eight gorillas out of the cages and interacting within the enclosure. The second species I  observed around 3:40 pm were the siamangs, or symphalangus syndactylus. Their enclosure was much different then the previously observed gorillas enclosure. This one was about fifty feet high, 30 feet long, and 20 feet wide and in the shape of the letter â€Å"L†. It’s made of reinforced glass from the bottom to about 10 feet high, then becomes a chain linked metal cage the rest of the way up. The structure contained many different objects from which the siamangs were able to use to climb up or down. Some of these objects included, climbing logs, swings, many thick pieces of rope, cylindrical shaped rubber tubes, planks of wood, and many other suspended objects. Towards the bottom of the enclosure, there were also a lot of plant life and bushes or flower like things where the siamangs could sit or interact with one another when not climbing around. Within the enclosure, there were two siamangs. Although not labeled, since siamangs are monogamous primates, I assume one was male and one was female. Physically, the siamangs are just a bit larger then the other gibbons however still small in comparison to the apes. They have no tails, are slender and long armed as they are arboreal lesser apes. They are covered with long dense black hair and have long hooked nails. Siamangs are also known to have large throat sacs which they can use to let out a very loud call to warn against predators. However, neither of these siamangs had the adaptive throat sacs. Also, there was not much difference in size between the male and female gender. After observing the two primate species and reviewing my field notes, I noticed the two species although both part of the ape family, are not that similar in fact. For example, the gorillas social organization consists of a one male, multi female group with the male being the alpha leader. He ensures that it is his genetics being passed on to the offspring and that is the only way he will protect and partake in the baby’s life. Due to being a one male, multi female group, it is not uncommon for gorilla males to kill any infant they assume is not theirs. There also seemed to be a sense of hierarchy amongst the females themselves, with Kabibe’s mother, at the top of the female group. However, the male silver back Oscar Jones, was still maintaing authority amongst the entire group by charging the females. On the other hand, the siamangs are a pair bonded group whom select mates for life and have a family. In the enclosure I observed, there were only two siamangs present who behaved very differently from one another. One siamang continued to be very active, swinging throughout the cage and constantly climbing up and down the metal fence. However, the other siamang, which I believed to be female, sat on a small rock towards the bottom corner of the enclosure and did not interact with any bystanders or the other siamang at all. Also, my friend and I noticed this sitting siamang also seemed to appear as if it were depressed. Many times the active siamang would swing down and try and interact with his partner and the other siamang would just ignore him and continue staring down or out the glass. One of the gorillas I was observing displayed a way of acquiring food which I thought was quite intelligent. She grabbed a thin leaf filled branch from a tree and placed her hand at the top of the branch. Starting from the top she pulled her hand down towards the other end pulling any leaves out together instead of one by one. She then disposed of the branch by throwing it a few feet away from her. This showe d a level of intelligence I have not seen in other primates. The gorillas mainly stick to eating leaves and vegetation found in their enclosure from many trees and plants around. This similar to their natural habitat, does not offer them lots of nutritional value, however is available in large quantities and available year round. I am also assuming they are fed fruits by zoo employees as well for nutritional quality and value. The three females outside in the enclosure seemed to be isolated about 20 feet away from each other and spread around the enclosure. They did not seem to be sharing any source of food or interact much with one another unless they were nearing the cage door within the enclosure. The siamangs did not seem to display any signs of higher intelligence. One continued to constantly move around the cage by climbing up then swinging back down. The other siamang just sat in isolation and was not physically active much at all. They did not share anything amongst themselves and did not interact much either. The two primate species I observed did not have much in common, except for their diet. Both the gorillas and the siamangs are both primarily vegetarians and consume different types of leaves, fruits, and other plants found in their habitats. I was not able to observe how the siamangs acquired their food or how they react to â€Å"meal time†, however based on my observations I assume the siamangs would not share much either due to their lack of interaction with one another. This throws me off because according to what I have learned in class, the siamangs are in fact mates with one  another for life and yet they did not interact with one another at all durin g my observations at the zoo. I believe these similarities in diet exist because that the siamangs and gorillas are part of the ape family. However, the differences in behavior, mating, social organization, and intelligence also exist due to the fact that they are separated between the â€Å"lesser apes† (siamangs), and the â€Å"great apes† (gorillas). Another reason why these differences might exist is due to where the species originated from. Gorillas originally were from Africa while Gibbons were found from Southeast Asia. Overall after reviewing my notes, I noticed that the Siamangs are much less intelligent then the gorillas, yet more active. I believe this is because the siamangs are much smaller, requiring less energy to move about their enclosure in such a fast and excited manner. The gorillas on the other hand are much more complex in behavior as they actually interact with one another by expressing sounds and or physical actions. They also seem to be aware the fact that many people are around them watching, and they also react to this by hiding back in the cages or moving away behind a tree or rock structure. I have always believed that being held captive in a zoo, is no where close to being free in your natural habitat. How can one take an animal who should have the ability to roam endless land and have the need to survive in the â€Å"natural† world and put them in a restricted enclosure, a fraction the s ize of their natural habitats and claim that these animals are happy there? I personally believe being in captivity and on display in a zoo has many negative effects on these animals. While observing the gorillas, they seemed to be heavily affected by their environment and surroundings. In a gorillas natural habitat, you would most likely find them playing with one another, acquiring food, and being active. However, most times in zoo’s you simply find the gorillas not really doing anything besides just sitting there. These are most likely due to psychological effects brought on by being captive and put on display to thousands of people all the time. While observing, I noticed the gorillas did not really do much besides move around to their own spot of the enclosure, about twenty feet away from one another, and just sit there and stare at the people watching them. Also, these gorillas suffer mental trauma from being teased or provoked to a level where they feel threatened by all these yelling kids and or adults. I do not believe the behaviors  exhibited by gorillas in captivity are â€Å"natural† due to the fact that gorillas are very intelligent. According to GorillasWorld.com, â€Å"As humans are watching them they will be watching as well. This is why they often pick up behaviors from people.† As a result, behaviors seen by gorillas in a zoo would not be the same behaviors shown by wild gorillas in natural environment. With thousands of people standing around the enclosure yelli ng and making gestures towards the gorilla, it is safe to say the gorillas observe the humans behavior and repeat behaviors they have learned. The siamangs I observed also display a bit of natural and unnatural behaviors as well. For example, siamangs are arboreal primates who live in tree top canopies and are rarely seen walking on the ground. They use their long limbs and fingers as hooks to swing from branch or vine to another and that is how they maneuver throughout the forests. One of the siamangs I was watching was very active and continued to swing back and forth throughout his enclosure almost the entire time I was watching. He would use logs and ropes to climb up to the top corner of the cage, then he would observe from up there for a few seconds. After, he would make his way back down towards the bottom of the enclosure and would leap around. This is natural behavior to be seen by a siamang even in the wild. However, the other siamang within the enclosure exhibited some worrying signs of unnatural behavior. This siamang was sitting on a rock of some sort around the enclosure floor and would stare down towards the ground or look out the glass. However, she would not move at all throughout my entire observation time and really seemed depressed. At one point, the other active siamang swung down and got very close to her and still she did not move or interact at all. Im assuming this is a psychological effect brought on by being trapped in such a small con tainment instead of being able to roam about the forest and be free. I believe that this specific siamang has been held in captivity for a while longer due to the behavior shown. Observing these primates in their natural wild environment would have significantly different behavior observations. Living in the wild, these primates experience struggles to survive such as finding sources of food, competition for mating, and also predators and dangers. These are not really things captive animals in zoos experience due to human intervention. For example in the wild, gorillas are moving to a new â€Å"camping ground† very often due to predators such as large cats and build a  sleeping nest to stay protected. This is natural adaptive behavior found in gorillas; however, you will not see this in captive gorillas because the only predators they experience are humans taunting or screaming at them and they do not have enough space available to travel distances. As a result of these observations, primates and other animals in captivity may not exhibit natural behaviors observed in their natural environment. After spending the day observing the behaviors of both the gorillas and the siamangs, I see some behavior patterns that I also see in humans. For example, the siamangs find mates for life and raise a family and that is their social group. This is basically most families around the world. Our social group normally consists of us with a single mate whom we raise children with. I believe the fact that we as humans ideally choose to settle down with a single partner and raise children has to do with our culture and not necessarily as an instinctual choice such as the siamangs. As humans most of us find it wrong to have more then one mate or parter and we call it â€Å"cheating.† However, based on my observations of the primates, it is a natural and instinctual decision to try and mate as much as possible to ensure your genetics being passed on and carried through the future since that is life’s main objective. Another example is the effects of captivity the depressed siamang suffered from. This is very common in humans as well to become anti social or depressed when placed in a small room such as a jail cell. Studying primates can help us understand more of where humans came from due to our recent shared common ancestor. We are able to see some behavior patterns from the primates found in humans as well, however there are many behavioral patterns in the primates which is uncommon for humans. For example, the gorillas tended to be in isolation and spread out throughout the enclosure for most of the time. Humans on the other hand, if having to live together for a long period of time such as the gorillas, are more likely to build a tight knit group and have lots of interactions with one another. Based on my observations, there are some behavioral patterns found in both primates and humans. However the cause of these patterns differ based on instinct and adaptations in primates compared to culture and morality in humans. I believe that by studying and observing behavioral patterns in primates, we can better understand where some of our own actions and  behaviors derived from, and whether its something that is instinctual and preprogrammed, or if it is something we have created and added to part of our culture as humans. Works Cited Cawthon Lang KA. 2005 October 4. Primate Factsheets: Gorilla (Gorilla) Behavior .

Basic Concepts in Positive Psychology Essay

* What do researches mean by ‘subjective well-being’? How is this construct measured? What the researchers mean by ‘subjective well-being’ is that it takes a broad view of happiness, beyond the pursuit of short-term of physical pleasures defining a narrow hedonism. It is also define as life satisfaction, the presence of positive affect, and a relative absence of negative affect. ‘Subjective well-being’ is measured by hedonic well-being where it’s proposed that an individual experiences happiness when positive affect and satisfaction with life are both high. * On p. 18 of your textbook, the authors present the hypothetical possibility of being hooked up to an ‘experience machine’ that would guarantee a constant state of happiness and positive emotion. Would you choose to be hooked up to such a machine? Why or why not? In your response, differentiate between hedonic and eudaimonic concepts of happiness. When I read this part of the passage in my textbook about being hook to an â€Å"experience machine† that would guarantee a constant state of happiness and positive emotion did cross my mind. I thought about what it would be like just to feel the constant emotion of being happy. At first I thought it would be an incredible experience. Never having to worry, or to feel sad, to feel rejected or lonely would be awesome not to feel those emotions anymore. However, to be in a constant state of being happy and always positive could take away the fulfillment of actually living life. Eudaimonic is defined as self-realization, meaning the expression and fulfillment of inner potential. So from this perspective, the good life results from living in accordance with your true self. It’s a process in which our talents, needs, and deeply held values direct the way we conduct our lives. The hedonic view captures a major element of what we mean by happiness in everyday terms: we enjoy life, we are satisfied with how our lives are going; and good events outnumber bad events. Hedonic well-being is based on the concept that increased pleasure and decreased pain leads to happiness (subjective well-being).

Secret Window

Abstract This paper explores the review of the movie – Secret Window. It talks about in detail on how the movie shows the two side of a human behavior – the good and the evil and how things can go if one cannot have a control over its mind. It clearly shows the aftermath of it and sends a message to the viewer’s as well. Based on Stephen king’s novella â€Å"Secret Window, Secret Garden† (1990) , this movie inspires people to take a look at themselves and decide what is good and bad.The movie was released in 2004, and was mentioned as one of the best work of Stephen King by all the film viewer’s and the critics. In this paper, the history, thesis, story, moral and a conclusion is given about the movie. The movie is a drama thriller and it keeps audience at the edge of their seats for the entire 106 minutes. The movie explains about the life of a writer who is in a state of depression after a divorce from his wife and how this incident changes his whole life. The suspense and thrillers in this movie will definitely make this movie very enjoyable.The purpose of this paper is to review the movie and explain how this movie can become a huge factor in the lives of the people. The goal of this paper is to show what it has given to its viewers and how this can affect them. Secret Window Secret Window is a psychological thriller released in 2004 and adapted from a Stephen King novel,† Secret Window, Secret Garden†. It stars Johnny Depp as Mort Rainey, a Successful mystery writer who is suffering from a serious case of writer’s block primarily caused by an unfortunate divorce from his wife Amy.Whom he caught cheating with her new boyfriend Ted Milner. Mort retreats to a lakeside cabin trying to finish a novel despite his lack of inspiration and growing resentment for his wife. Mort’s solitary life in the woods is disturbed when a mysterious man named John Shooter appears on his doorstep accusing him of plagiarism by claiming that Mort has word-for-word had stolen a story he had written years before, and published it in the Ellery Queen Street Magazine. The identical stories were Mort’s â€Å"Secret Window† and Shooter’s â€Å"Sowing Season†.Shooter demands to Mort,† Fix it. Make it Right! † in a southern accent and proposed to re work the ending of the story. The intruder Sends increasingly persuasive signals that he means business, first putting a screwdriver through Mort’s Dog, then burning down the New York home where Amy lives with her new partner before progressing to brutal murder. The movie ends when Mort realizes that Shooter is only a figment of his imagination, reveals this to his wife, and later kills her and her lover with a shovel and buries them in a garden where he later plants a crop of corn.By nature writers are quirky people. While they may pay attention to the mundane details of life in a painful manner, they are of ten unaware of their own behavior. While in the pursuit of a story they may pace around as the rough idea of pages come to them, or sit for hours staring at the screen thinking of the next precise word. They have a tendency to snack constantly rather than break for a meal and to remain in the same dirty clothes rather than break for a shower. I know this behavior because as a writer I’ve done all of it at some point or another.That’s the first part of the psychological thriller â€Å"Secret Window† that made me sits up and takes notice – a writer named Mort Rainey. In the film â€Å"Secret Window†, directed by David Koepp, the theme of the double is used to represent the protagonist’s â€Å"dark side†. This was realized through the portrayal of Shooter as Stalker and the use of two different kinds of hats, Mort’s depression from the divorce, and the ending in Mort’s story â€Å"Secret Window†. Rooney claimed that â€Å"the story is a chronicle of a man becoming steadily disturbed, engaged in a bickering dialogue with himself and increasingly ruled by the demons in his head†.Mort’s emotional trauma from the divorce robbed him off his inspiration and put him in a state of worst writer’s block. His negative feeling’s formed an evil-like alter-ego, in the person of Shooter, which overshadowed his real persona. Shooter was part of himself as displayed by his behaviors in the movie. First, Shooter seemed to appear at bad times, to know everything about Mort’s life and to make his quest for the magazine harder. Shooter accused that Mort copied a story he has written a few years back and demanded that Mort fixed it. Mort promised to get a copy of the magazine where the story was published to know his innocence.However, Shooter was a violent, impatient man, stalking Mort and making increasingly worse things happen as the magazine failed to arrive. Mort eventually lo cated the magazine that would have proven he published â€Å"Secret Window† before Shooter wrote â€Å"Sowing Season† but the story had been cut out. Second, there were two hats used in the film. One was Mort’s Knit hat and the other was Shooter’s tall brimmed hat. The hat represented two different personas. Whenever Mort got up from his couch of depression to do something he put on his going-out knit hat.Shooter’s hat was kept at a distance at first but began to close in on Mort as the story progressed. When he actually placed the hat on his own head, the dark inner workings of his soul were revealed. The use of Shooter also demonstrated the high cost of marital infidelity and the kind of evil that can be unleashed when one person chooses to follow his sinful desires. It presented the aftermath of divorce and the kind of nightmare that it brings. Mort’s fascination with unending naps and liquors, as well as his tendency to walk around in hi s wife’s tattered bathrobe and sport a weird hairdo revealed longing for his wife.Also, Mort’s work â€Å"Secret Window† which Shooter claimed as plagiarized narrated the experience of a man who is betrayed by his wife, and decides to kill her and bury her in her beloved garden. When Mort finally realized that Shooter was only a fabrication of his imagination brought so vividly to life through undetected dissociative identity disorder to commit acts that Mort himself felt he could not commit, his concerned ex-wife tried to help him out but Mort was already overpowered by Shooter. He killed his wife and lover with a shovel and buried them in a garden where he later planted with corn.The movie’s ending was highlighted with Mort’s line â€Å"The Only thing that matters is the ending†¦and this one’s perfect†. The finale showed that the evil has won. The local sheriff told Mort that he knew about the murder and as soon as the bodies w ere found, Mort would pay for the crime. Mort nonchalantly ignored the threat because he knew that the ending of his story would be an impeccable culmination. His decision to plant, grow and consume corn from the garden where his ex-wife and her lover were buried meant that he was actually destroying all the evidence needed to implicate him with the crime.In my opinion, Depp is definitely the highlight of the movie, which is good since he’s the character the movie revolves around. In interacting with his ex-wife (Maria Bello) we can see the pain and the love he still holds for her. Rainey’s spats with her boyfriend Ted (Timothy Hutton) show his anger. Yet none of that holds a candle to his conversations with himself. Rainey spends at least a third of the film alone, but we never feel that he’s isolated. Out-of-nowhere quips and commentary about the situations Rainey finds himself in provide real depth to Rainey as a struggling writer.That is where the real geniu s of Depp’s work on this character comes from. I think the director David Koepp does an excellent job of bringing â€Å"Secret Window† to the screen. On the writing side he has taken a short story by Stephen King and created a strong and suspenseful plot, highlighted by complete and memorable characters as a solid base for his actors to work with. On the directorial side, he understands how a psychological thriller should work and makes his movie follow those rules. The movie builds just as a story of this type should and the audience is never ahead of the movie.But Perhaps, I think that the biggest problem with the movie is Turturro's awful turn as Mississippi hick John Shooter. There is nothing menacing or threatening about this guy, even after he starts taking revenge on Rainey. He is simply annoying. The scenes between Shooter and Rainey are excruciating because the novelist is so obviously unimpressed by the threats that there is no tension built between the two. The rest of the cast, including Charles S. Dutton, as a private investigator, and Timothy Hutton as Amy's lover, are completely wasted and seem to be just going through the motions of this flat thriller.The biggest problem, however, is that because there is no menace or tension built up throughout the picture, the ending, for all its obviousness, seems rather abrupt and wholly unmotivated and without cause. All in all, this movie is a great movie to watch and is sure to have the audiences at the edge of their seats. There’s always something going on in the movie which will have the audience glued at their screens. The Movie was a creation that aspired to arouse psychological enquiry as well as portray the dilemma within human nature which is the battle between good and evil.The plot of the movie was a subtle journey from the lead character’s emotional and psychological stresses caused by the two most common traumas in human experience – infidelity and betrayal. Mort’s hatred towards his wife’s cheating consumed his creativity and left him in a state of severe incapability to even come up with a single line for a story. These negative emotional factors brought into life a dark alter-ego Shooter, who became his companion in a sinister of events that led him to realizing that his stalker was actually a fiction of his mind.Koepp’s movie was helpful in portraying that a person’s self can actually be his greatest enemy. As human’s experience life and it’s varying degrees of complexities and stresses, a person has to deal with letting go off the past and moving on with the present to have a renewed view of the future. It is narration of how a person writes his personal story by making important decisions. Mort had a hard time doing this. The book of his life started with chaos and he ended it by choosing evil, which was basically more chaotic. Hence, this movie is sure to have the audience interested and I personally enjoyed watching this movie.

My role in the family Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

My role in the family - Essay Example As such, my family has seen me develop into a caring person, who looks at the rest of the world as part of a larger family, such that the family’s needs to have its interest put first for the benefit of all. In addition to this family environment, the warm and caring environment has created in me a strong sense of interest in other people so that I understand them better and try to get along with them, which appears to be more of an outgoing character trait in me. As a result, the warm cocoon created by the family has developed a socially well-rounded girl capable of interacting with anyone in the society without problems. My family has contributed to my personality by ensuring that everyone in the family has a role to play in everyday activities or duties. In the family duties, everyone is assigned a task that he/she must fulfill before a given time. Moreover, in collective duties, we all work together towards a common goal, while in the individual tasks each one of the famil y members runs his or her own duty. Thus, my family has seen me grow substantially towards responsibilities in a way that could not have happened in their absence as it has allowed me to enjoy in partaking my duties. As a result, I am a responsible person who does not wait for other people to do things for me, but I instead take care of my own business.In addition, another way in which my family has developed my personality is through the entire family led by my parents to handle our share of problems collectively.

COMPARATIVE POLITICS Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

COMPARATIVE POLITICS - Essay Example Thus, for example participation and activities in sports or female organizations should be also considered as political participation. This idea can be supported by the fact that all kinds of political and social organizations function in a political context of the country (Clark and Vincent Hoffmann-Martinot, 1998); they have administrative regulation and active social activities performed by their participants. Therefore political culture is a wide concept. In order to consider it with regard to political participation, we’ll focus our attention on political processes in three case study countries: USA, Russia and France. The main claim which will be developed in this research paper is that political events, socio-economic changes in these countries determine a context of political culture. A diverse political culture of the chosen countries, historical background and peculiarities of countries’ development is considered as influential factors of both political cultur e and political participation in America, Russia and France. America America is generally considered to be the most democratic country. Two hundred years were devoted to the development of democratic process in this country. America is well-known for overall obliged democratic principles and in spite of numerous arguments, this country will hardly loose heights of its democratic principles. ... Consequently, the most important values for Americans are: Declaration of Independence which propagates liberty and overall happiness, equality, self-government (i.e. â€Å"of the people, by the people, and for the people†) (Dye, 1994); propagation of individualistic success and respect to diversity. American nation is being developed in compliance with democratic principles, constitutionalism and capitalism. Consequently, there is direct delimitation between political, economic and social issues in America. This country propagates equal participation on different levels of country’s life. It can be supported by the fact that Americans actively participate in the voting process, they are active participants of social organizations and there is a high spirit of voluntarism in America. All these facts prove that political participation of American citizens coincides with propagated principles of liberty, independence, democracy, and respect to diversity. All this happens because of rich historical background of America: an intermixture of different cultures made Americans comply with different traditions, customs and respect different nations. Democratic principles are another ideal which America has been developing from the day of its foundation. Therefore, American nation respects and follows national politics, being an active participant in all spheres of country’s life. Therefore political culture of this country creates a favorable atmosphere for individual’s perfection and development (Kaid, Gerstlae and Sanders, 1991). A voluntary striving of the nation to the welfare of America proves the fact that citizens of the country respect America and work for the favor of their native country (Kernen, Beat, 2004). Russia Russia has been developed under

Cities have the right to ban smoking in public Essay - 1

Cities have the right to ban smoking in public - Essay Example All cities around the world have a right to ban smoking in order to safeguard the health of its masses. On that note, it is going to follow the five steps of persuasion that entails the establishment of credibility, acknowledging the audience’s position, constructing a rationale, transplanting root elements, and seeking for a response (Lakhani, 2005). For instance, in the establishment of credibility, it is significant to observe that smoking causes health problems both to the active and passive smoker. Experts note that out of the 4000 chemical compounds that are found in cigarettes, 400 are noxious substances and cause various diseases and health risks. Similarly, the tar contained in all cigarettes causes both lung and mouth cancer. Additionally, addictive nicotine raises the cholesterol levels in a human body. Apart from the harmful effects of tar and nicotine, there is carbon monoxide that depletes the oxygen levels in the body. Another fundamental factor why banning of smoking in the cities is paramount is it reduce risks to non-smokers. These are the people also called the passive smokers. It is said that passive smokers are more exposed to the harmful effects of smoking than the active smokers (Haneline & Meeker, 2010). They, for instance, are prone to asthmatic attacks and the infections of the bronchia. Alternatively, according to Action on Smoking and Health group, the risk of heart attack increases for non-smokers if they are exposed to 30 minutes of smoking. On the same account, in a BBC News report released in 2002, many people in London succumbed to heart disease because of secondhand smoke. Therefore, despite the doubts that the audience may harbor against the banning of smoking in the cities around the world, there are other valid reasons. For example, my rationale construction postulation states that the ban of smoking will have many positive effects. This means that there will be