Extinct Animals

Animal that has gone extinct ( Alasmidonta mccordi The Coosa elktoe, scientific name Alasmidonta mccordi, was a species of freshwater mussel, an aquatic bivalve mollusk in the family Unionidae, the river mussels. This species was endemic to the United States. [pic] I didn’t manage to find any specific ecological role of Coosa Elktoe, however I found the ecological role of mussels. Mussels play a key role in aquatic environments and are considered to be â€Å"ecosystem engineers† because they modify aquatic habitat, making it more suitable for themselves and other organisms.One of the valuable functions performed by mussels is capturing organic matter from the water column when they siphon, processing it to build body and shell, excreting nutrients that are immediately available to plant life and then depositing the remaining organic material to the sediment making it available for other invertebrates and fish to consume. During this feeding process, the mussels â€Å"c lean† the water they live in by removing phytoplankton and the bacteria and fungi that are attached to the non living organic particles they have removed from the water column.Other undesirable particles and chemicals are bound in the mussels' pseudo feces and deposited on the river bottom. This species was known only from a single specimen collected from the Coosa River in St. Clair County, Alabama and after its’ extinction the River was observed and there were no changes found, therefore, I suppose its’ extinction had no effects on ecology or if it did the effects are not significant and cannot be observed. |Kingdom: |Animalia | Phylum: |Mollusca | |Class: |Bivalvia | |Order: |Unionoida | |Family: |Unionidae | |Genus: |Alasmidonta | Alasmidonta mccordi was listed in 1996 (Baillie and Groombridge 1996) as Critically Endangered due to insufficient survey information. In 2000, surveys confirmed that A. mccordi is Extinct (Bogan 2000) and there has been no further evidence in recent years to suggest otherwise.This species is considered to be Extinct. Impoundment of the Coosa River is thought to have caused the extinction of this species. Animal that is endangered ( Brotia pageli This species occurs in mountain streams in Western Borneo, from Sabah to South Kalimantan. At present it is only known from the type locality, Sabah, east Malaysia, Borneo and one other location in south-west Indonesian Borneo. Brotia pageli requires well-oxygenated, small, clear mountain streams, preferring rocky or pebble substrates.It is mainly found in mud, on stones, or under leaves and therefore is only present in remnant patches of rainforest. Ecological role same as Alasmidonta mccordi ( mussel ). [pic] There is a continuing decline in the extent of occurrence, area of occupancy and the extent and quality of this species' habitat as a result of the slash-and-burn agriculture, intensive logging and deforestation taking place across Borneo. Further research is n eeded into the species' current population status and impacts of deforestation. |Kingdom: |Animalia | Phylum: |Mollusca | |Class: |Gastropoda | |Superfamily: |Cerithioidea | |Family: |Pachychilidae | |Genus: |Brotia | Animal that was endangered but now it is not ( American bald eagle (Haliaeetus leucocephalus) Bald eagles are one of the largest birds in North America with a wing span of 6-8 feet. Females tend to be larger than males. They live up to 40 years in the wild, and longer in captivity.Bald eagles are monogamous and have one life partner. [pic] Bald eagles live near large bodies of open water such as lakes, marshes, seacoast and rivers. They nest and roost in tall trees. The eagles live in every US state except Hawaii. They use a specific territory for nesting, winter feeding or a year-round residence. Their natural domain is from Alaska to California, and from Maine to Florida. Bald eagles that reside in the northern USA and Canada migrate to the warmer southern areas duri ng the winter to obtain easier access to food.They feed primarily on fish, but also eat small animals such as ducks, rabbits, turtles, snakes, etc. Bald eagle population numbers have been estimated to be 300 000 to 500 000 birds in the early 1700s. Their population fell to less than 10 000 nesting pair by the 1950s, and to less than 500 pairs by the early 1960s. This population decline was caused by the mass shooting of eagles, the use of pesticides on crops, the destruction of habitat, and the contamination of waterways and food sources by a wide range of poisons and pollutants.For many years, the use of DTT pesticide crops caused thinning of eagle egg shells, which often broke during incubation. The use of DDT pesticide was outlawed in USA and Canada in 1972/73. This action contributed greatly to the return of the bald eagle. The Bald Eagle was listed as Endangered in most of the U. S. from 1967 to 1995, when it was slighted upgraded to Threatened in the lower 48 states. The numbe r of nesting pairs of Bald Eagles in the lower 48 states had increased from less than 500 in the early 1960's to over 10,000 in 2007.They had recovered sufficiently to delist them from Threatened status on June 28, 2007. Since delisting, the primary law protecting Bald Eagles has shifted from the Endangered Species Act to the Bald and Golden Eagle Act. Although Bald Eagles have made an encouraging comeback throughout the U. S. A. since the early 60s, they continue to be face hazards that must be closely monitored and controlled. Even though illegal, Bald Eagles are still harassed, injured and killed by guns, traps, power lines, windmills, poisons, contaminants and destruction of habitat. Kirill Tashilov

Marketing Caselet Essay

Chapter 1: Marketing an Introduction Inquirer is the leading broadsheet in the Philippines. In 2001, it launched Libre, a free tabloid distributed in the MRT-LRT area. It was an unprecedented move of a major daily giving away their newspaper on weekdays and recovering cost solely from advertising revenue. Visit the MRT-LRT site and discuss and explain your answers to the following: a. What was the underserved and unserved market Inquirer was trying to tap? b. How strategic is the underserved and unserved market to them? c. What are the other key activity changes of the Libre system vs. the traditional Inquirer system? Chapter 2: Market Segmentation Victoria Court Drive-in Hotel and Restaurant is a chain of full-service motels catering mostly to the upper income market segment. The traditional market for drive-in-hotels and motels are lovers who avail of one out of the many specially designed â€Å"theme† rooms (Japanese room, jungle room, oval office room, game room etc.) for three hours (now called wash-up time). In the early 1990’s, Victoria Court embarked on an aggressive campaign to attract two additional segments of the market: the husband and wife market and the party market. Their mission was to slowly transform their image by communicating to the public that their drive-in-hotels could be used predominantly for legitimate purposes such as for resting, or for group social occasions. They have also acquired Hotel La Corona affiliated with the Best Western international hotel group. a. Identify the needs and wants of each of the three market segments targeted by Victoria Court? b. Who are their main competitors for each market segment? c. Given the traditional image of motel, do you agree with the segmentation strategy utilized by the Victoria Court group? Why or why not? Chapter 3: Marketing Mix: The 4Ps of Marketing gohotels.ph, a property of Robinson’s Land, began test marketing its value hotel in May 2010 at its building along Edsa beside Robinson’s Pioneer  Street. It has about 200 rooms in the Edsa site but has chosen to have 60 to 100 rooms in each of their subsequent sites in the provincial areas. Its pricing is unique because it utilizes the revenue management model of the airline industry where prices would vary depending on demand, in this case, occupancy numbers. Thus, a 16 to 22 square meter room can command a price as low as P388 plus value added tax (VAT), or as high as P3000 plus VAT, averaging about P1,550 plus Vat per room boasts of a comfortable bed with two types of pillows (hypoallergenic and chiropractic), a clean private bathroom with rain shower, free wifi, LCD TV, convenient location with safe surroundings secured by CCTV and safety cabinet. On its first month of its test market and despite using mostly viral marketing and press write ups to create awarenes s, it experienced an occupancy rate higher than most hotels – 60 to 80% on most days with two of those days fully booked, thus creating an innovative business model in the hotel industry with new basis of competition. a. Who would be the target market attracted to the offer of gohotels.ph? b. Identify the marketing mix of gohotels.ph and compare it with other value hotels. What are their strengths and weaknesses? c. How could gohotels.ph offer an amazingly low price as low as P388 plus VAT per room night? Chapter 4: Product Strategy: Product In the fast food industry, one growth opportunity in the past was the introduction of the breakfast category. Fast food companies like Jollibee and McDonald’s would have a different menu for breakfast and lunch to â€Å"customize† its meal solution, during these two different meal times. However, lunch and dinner menu remains the same. a. Do consumers have the same or different dine-in behavior during lunch and dinner? b. If not the same, identify the difference. c. What would you recommend to the fast food companies in order to improve their dinner sales and seat capacity usage? Chapter 4: Product Strategy: Branding Starbucks is a popular hangout for Gen X and Yuppies. Despite selling coffee  and other baked products at higher prices than regular food stores, they were able to generate awareness and patronage thru word of mouth and publicity instead of relying on media advertising. In 2010, Starbucks in the USA tested then â€Å"Roy’s Street Coffee and Tea by Starbucks Corporation†, an innovative neighborhood coffee house that sells coffee, wine and beer, together with organic pastries, gourmet cheese and meat plates. This was an attempt to recapture the upscale market which they lost when it went mainstream with cheaper lattes and frappuccinos that are now by Starbucks is the 15th Avenue Coffee and Tea. Both stores are located in Seattle which is the headquarters of Starbucks. a. Where do you think Starbucks Corporation got the insight to offer these products under two newly branded stores and not in their regular Starbucks? b. If the â€Å"Roy’s Street† and â€Å"15th Avenue† coffee shops succeed, what is the implication to the Starbucks brand and its over 16,000 stores worldwide, including the Philippines? Chapter 4: Product Strategy: Managing Product Lines During the 2010 annual stockholders meeting of San Miguel Brewery, it was reported that while the per capital consumption of beer in Luzon is 40 liters per year, it is only liters annually in the Visayas and Mindanao region. San Miguel Brewery, already with about 96% market shares of the total beer industry as of 2010, wanted to expand annual sales from 1.5 billion liters to 2 billion liters by encouraging higher consumption in the Visayas and Mindanao are its various beer brands. a. Investigate why Visayas and Mindanao consumption of beer is lagging far behind its Luzon counterpart. b. How can San Miguel Brewery use its various beer products to encourage higher consumption among underserved and unserved market in the Visayas and Mindanao area? c. How can San Miguel Brewery use its potential synergy with all its sister companies to increase beer demand in the Visayas and Mindanao area? Chapter 4: Product Strategy: Green Marketing Although having no nutritional value, Shark’s fin soup is a popular and much  sought-after dish served in many Chinese restaurants. Shark’s fin dumplings are an equally popular dimsum item. Hong Kong, Taiwan and Singapore are the top three countries that trade shark fins and are the suppliers for Philippine Chinese restaurants. Each fin weighs about 100kg. coming from sharks that are about 50 to 60 meters long. Some fishermen would capture sharks, slice their fins off and toss them back to sea to die so they can save space on their boat. More countries are banning the fishing and trading of shark’s fin. However, unless the trade of shark fin is totally stopped, sharks may become extinct, thus creating an imbalance in the ecosystem. To preserve sharks, one way is to encourage government to ban its trade. Another is to encourage restaurants not to serve them, and lastly, to campaign for customers not to consume them. All three options while challenging to do is not impossible if the readers of this book can do something individually or collectively about it. The essence of learning is not in knowing but in doing what needs to be done based on what we know. Devise and implement a campaign that will ensure the slow down if not absolutely stop shark’s fin trade and consumption in the Philippines.

Strategic Management (Shouldice Hospital) Case Study

Strategic Management (Shouldice Hospital) - Case Study Example They were supported to move around the halls and conduct conversation with the other patients as well as the surgeons. With the view of motivating the patients to walk, the steps were made with smooth inclination connecting the floors. The rooms were designed at the comfort of the home. The carpets were placed so that the patients didn’t feel that they are at hospitals. It can be worthwhile mentioning that the case study of Shouldice has been the perfect example of the well-built as well as service delivery procedures that have been quite focused. Over and above providing the quick, cheap and quality surgery, the hospital was also successful at conveying comfortable as well as exceptional experience to the entire set of patients coming for their treatment. There are multitudinous reasons behind the success of the hospital ranging from the surgery techniques to pleasant environment. The patients at the hospital were able to enjoy their meals in the general cafeteria to get the chance of interacting with the patients as well as the doctors. The treatment that is post-operative was sought to be the most significant factor of treatment that the patients receive. For the mental and physical recovery, no television or telephone were kept in the rooms and the patients were further motivated to walk. It is worthwhile to mention that the target segment of the hospital has been the healthy patients who were detected to recuperate fast. These patients had primary inguinal, one of the forms of hernia. Those patients possessing health problems other than hernia were not treated in the hospital. The logic behind admitting the patients those who were at a controllable stage was that they would get back to the normal stage quite fast... It can be worthwhile mentioning that the case study of Shouldice has been the perfect example of the well-built as well as service delivery procedures that have been quite focused. Over and above providing the quick, cheap and quality surgery, the hospital was also successful at conveying comfortable as well as exceptional experience to the entire set of patients coming for their treatment. There are multitudinous reasons behind the success of the hospital ranging from the surgery techniques to pleasant environment. The patients at the hospital were able to enjoy their meals in the general cafeteria to get the chance of interacting with the patients as well as the doctors. The treatment that is post-operative was sought to be the most significant factor of treatment that the patients receive. For the mental and physical recovery, no television or telephone were kept in the rooms and the patients were further motivated to walk. It is worthwhile to mention that the target segment of th e hospital has been the healthy patients who were detected to recuperate fast. These patients had primary inguinal, one of the forms of hernia. Those patients possessing health problems other than hernia were not treated in the hospital. The logic behind admitting the patients those who were at a controllable stage was that they would get back to the normal stage quite fast and thus other patients of hernia could have been treated at a greater frequency. Other numerous benefits have been associated with the admission of the healthy patients in the hospital.

Explain your academic interests and strengths or your future career Essay

Explain your academic interests and strengths or your future career goals. You may include any majors or areas of study you are currently considering - Essay Example The field of profession and academics that is of great interest to me is the field of accounting. My interest towards the field and the drive to pursue the field of accountancy started developing when I was in my early ages of life. My interest in this field was developed since I realized that my mom was an accountant in a reputable organization. I use to see my mom indulged in her work even at home. I used to sit by her and learn the game of numbers that is very essential to become a highly reputable professional accountant. I believe that I have various resources at my disposal to become a member of the field of accounting. I already have developed various knowledge, skills and abilities (KSAs) that are required to work in the field. There are certain weaknesses that I need to overcome and I am sure that majoring in the subject of accounting from the Univeristy of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign will help be converting my weaknesses into strengths and will further strengthen my strengths (Catalog.illinois.edu 1). After graduating from university, I aim at attaining an entry level position in a well-known accountancy firm or I aim at attaining an entry level position in the accounts department of a reputed organization or I wish to work with a securities organization. In order to attain my career goals I need various KSAs including technical skills, audit and compliance skills, commodity and equity valuation skills and communication skills (Accacareers.com 1). I have already developed some of these skills especially the technical skills and the communication skills. These skills were developed as my mother had worked very hard on me in helping me understand the mathematical equations and problems that are associated with the work of an accountant. Furthermore, the skills of communications and technical skills were further polished as I have already worked as an intern in a power

Compensation and Benefits in regards to legislation Essay

Compensation and Benefits in regards to legislation - Essay Example Compensation and benefits basically are employees’ protection, but most of the workers experience deprivation. However, the government aims the development of labor group and several orders---which were conferred on this work---were enacted to achieve this. Racial discrimination is a major social issue that has a significant effect on a person’s life, especially the lives of the ones being discriminated. Even at the immediate moment, when it is said that discrimination has diminished, it is still evident in several workplaces. It is one reason why certain positions are filled only by American (White Race), and the Blacks, as well as the other races still don’t get as much opportunity. Executive Order 11246 and other labor laws were enacted to put a stop to this. Another factor that affects the labor group is gender discrimination. Most companies opt to hire men over women for the reason that women are entitled to maternity leaves. True, this may have a negative effect on companies especially with jobs that can’t wait or the ones that require daily transmission or submission of documents. Maternity leave is a paid absence, hence, the company is ordered to pay for an employer who is not even working. Choosing to hire men over women may seem practical, but it is obviously a form of discrimination and is definitely unjust for women; legislations were enacted to minimize cases of gender discrimination and other instances of unfairness: enforcement of Parts II and III of this Order. The Secretary shall adopt such rules and regulations and issue such orders as are deemed necessary and appropriate to achieve the purposes of Parts II and III of this Order. Sec. 202. Except in contracts exempted in accordance with Section 204 of this Order, all Government contracting agencies shall include in every Government contract hereafter entered into the following provisions: employment because of race, color, religion, sex, or national origin. The

Summarize two articles Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

Summarize two articles - Essay Example Bankrupt companies in Japan seem to find a way out of their debts by inviting foreign enterprises to bail them out. One example is Elpida Memory which agreed to be taken over by the American Company, Micron Technology for $760 million with the expectation that $1.8 billion be made to pay for Elpida’s debts in banks and other secured creditors at 70% of what they are owed. Unsecured creditors of Elpida, on the other hand only get 20-30% of what they are owed. This has caused much uproar amongst bondholders who complain that the Micron offer was way below the value of the Elpida company, which they claim is valued at $3.8 billion. Hence, they have resorted to seeking other sponsors to take over. In the past, Japan would not have allowed such battle to happen since investors rolled over funds while a restructuring was forced upon them. The government would force the takeover of a bankrupt company, causing negative outcomes for the company itself and its employees, and being a bur den to the economy. Nowadays, bankruptcy is a real option due to more openness to foreign take-overs rescuing failed Japanese

PM questions Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

PM questions - Assignment Example It is also important that the company continually provides training in the latest innovations and ideas for their employees, so that they have the best tools necessary to improve their, and the companies, overall performance. The company can then periodically rate the performance of its employees to provide feedback. Positive feedback and good performance should be rewarded and encouraged. If there is negative feedback it is important to then uncover areas that are in need of improvement. Due to the fact that performance management allows employees to fill a sense of ownership in their work and goals, it generally greatly increases the productivity of the organization. The fact that the employees are receiving continual training, and rewards for their improved performance also improves the employee’s overall sense of worth and well being. This provides a win- win situation company wide (Daniels 1-10). 2. There are two groups of people involved in business behavior, the leaders and the followers. The behavior of one of the two groups can either positively or negatively affect the behavior of the other. So what exactly is business behavior and are their any laws to govern what is acceptable and what is not? Despite what you might see marketed in various books and journal articles today as the, 100 unbreakable business laws, there are actually not a set group of laws that governs business. This is due to the fact that every business and company interaction is as different as the people that compose them. There are, however, guidelines for how business should be conducted. One of the guidelines is to not reward bad behavior. This is for both managers and employees. As Dr. Edwards noted, â€Å"well over 90% of the problems of quality are due not to frontline employees, but to management†. The rule of, â€Å"I don’t care how it gets done just get it done,† no longer applies. Ethics and moral responsibility in the process of achieving your goals sets a higher sense of morale and trust among the organization. As a result performance is actually improved. Behavior is the key to quality because you do not lead people in business you lead their behavior (Daniels 48 – 50 + 94). 3. Pinpointing is the act of trying to find the exact spot or issue that could be changed to improve overall effectiveness. Having the ability to accurately pinpoint is essential to performance management because allows the manager and employee to go to the source of the problem and uncover methods for irradiating it. Pinpointing should not be viewed or approached as a negative, but as a positive means for growth and development. Managers not only have the right but the responsibility to overview the work f their department and pinpoint areas that can be improved. It is not the sole responsibility of the managers to pinpoint, however, effective managers will train the employees to pinpoint problems as well. Since employees deal with the more day to day operations of the company if they are able to pinpoint and do away with problems early on, it helps to elevate a later possibly larger issue from occurring. This helps to improve overall managing performance because the more areas of concern that are pinpointed and eradicated the smother the department and company as a whole will run (Daniels 99-101). 4. Performance feedback is an essential tool in performance management. It should be ongoing between both managers and

Ethical Argument of The Omnivore's Dilemma Essay

Ethical Argument of The Omnivore's Dilemma - Essay Example k, The Omnivore’s Dilemma, Michael Pollan has raised this issue as well, calling for an alternative to present day’s farming practices, when it comes to raising cattle for food. It is evident, that a change is, indeed, warranted, especially when it comes to the feedlot, and feeding of the cattle, because, as Pollan puts it, we â€Å"are what [we] eat eats too† (84). It would be, perhaps, best if we reverted to the old days of localized animal farming, where the cattle would be raised as close to their natural and evolutionary pattern as possible. The feedlots of today are not a modern inception; they came into being round about the time of the Second World War, when food had to be produced at a much cheaper and quicker way to feed the troops, while taking into account the lower number of men available for farming. While they were efficient for this purpose, they did not take into account the havoc the system may play on the various natural processes involved in cattle raising, both on the cattle and on the consumers thereof. First, animal farms were moved from main cities and cattle were displaced from â€Å"widely dispersed farms in places like Iowa to live in densely populated new animal cities† (Pollan 67), termed CAFO (Concentrated Animal Feeding Operation). This creates problems on its own, as now the cattle waste that was once used to fertilize the farm goes to waste and ends up polluting the environment. Though, as it would later be explained, the manure of the cattle on CAFOs is no longer so tenable either. The calves that are born into the present animal farms are allowed their natural diet of mother’s milk and grass for only six months, after which they are taken away to the CAFO, to be fed an unnatural diet of â€Å"corn, for no other reason than it offers the cheapest calories around† (Pollan 68). Corn is not a natural food for the cattle, which results in many health problems for them; their stomachs do not digest corn well. Marvels of evolution,

What Does Conflict Mean Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words - 2

What Does Conflict Mean - Research Paper Example The case is based on the department of Mass Communication in Southern Illinois University Edwardsville. Management (which is the departmental head) should be wary of conflict and try to avoid them or resolve them as early and quickly as possible as their dire consequences are something that may cause not only physical damages but emotional ones and above all financial damages to the department crippling it. One of the most common causes of conflict is poor communication. This is especially so between the management and the employees or students. If the important departmental information is wrongly passed around or misinterpreted, then tensions are bound to rise within the department which if not quelled down quickly escalate into full-blown conflict. Poor communication caused by grapevine channels is usually misquoted or embellished with wrong details and is bound to cause unnecessary and avoidable conflict and hence are quick to correct and resolve. The other cause is competition ov er resources within the department. This is especially the case if the organization is organized into groups and they have to share the resources. The resources, in this case, may include departmental assets such as cars, students’ accounts or even financial grants. Competition may also be over the monetary resources especially salaries and benefits. This type of conflict leads to enormity, destruction of property and may even cause parties to leave the department and seek more peaceful service elsewhere. Lack of following the norms set in place by a team or management is also another cause of conflict within the department. Each team has its own established norm such as time management and allocation of duties within the team members. If any member goes against these norms, it is bound to cause conflict.

The Globe Construction Company Essay Example for Free

The Globe Construction Company Essay THE GLOBE CONSTRUCTION COMPANY The Globe Construction Company top management held a management workshop one weekend in April of 1989 for the purpose of discussing present policies and procedures with the ultimate objective of formalizing these in a new company operations manual. The company was established in the mid-50s by Mr. Eduardo Concepcion. The company grew at a very fast rate due to the construction boom in the government sector during the administration of ex-President Ferdinand E. Marcos, During the seventies and early eighties, the company constructed large projects for both the government and private sectors. However, most of its projects were for the government. Globe enjoyed high margins from its government projects during this period. Competition was not a problem. When Mrs. Aquino became President, private sector construction projects in the country outnumbered government projects. Competition became more stiff forcing Globe to reduce its margins when bidding for both sectors. This change in the environment led management to call the management workshop to discuss ways of improving organizational efficiency and effectiveness. The workshop was attended by the president, the vice-president for administration, the vice-president for operations, the purchasing manager and all the project managers ( See exhibit A for Organizational Chart) Project managers are the engineers in-charge of construction projects. The company employs twenty project managers. At present, there are about eighteen on-going projects at an estimated Bid price of at least P100 million each ranging from office condominiums, shopping centres and government buildings. The purchasing unit is headed by a purchasing manager to whom buyers report. Each buyer is completely in-charge of purchasing materials required by one or more construction projects. The VP for operations is over-all in-charge of on-going projects. During the workshop, one of the project managers, Isidro Remigio, proposed that the buyers should be located at the job site reporting to the Project Manager (See Exhibit B for the Organizational Chart at the Project Site) Mr. Remigio argued: â€Å"It takes so long, sometimes about 2 weeks, before Purchasing reacts to our purchase order (PO). If the buyers report to me directly, there is no doubt that they will attend to my PO. I will be the one who will evaluate the buyer’s performance. More importantly, his proximity to the job site will make him better understand the urgency and the nature of our requests. Communicating with him will be easier too. Sometimes, when the items I need are not available, he calls me to ask for substitutes. I always have problems reaching him by phone. If it’s not busy, he is not there! If my material are delayed, my project will not be completed as scheduled.† At this point during the workshop, the Purchasing Manager interrupted Mr. Remigio and said, â€Å"Our function is not merely to implement Pos. We purchase materials ordered by the projects only 1) if the items are not on stock in the central warehouse and 2) if the items are included in the Bill of Materials (BOM) as provided by the Executive Committee. Any order in excess of the approved by us unless there is an amended bill of materials. Therefore, if the buyers will report directly to project managers, this could lead to cost overruns. The President of the Company took the floor after hearing Mr. Remigio and the Purchasing Manager. â€Å"I am also concerned about the availability of funds for approved Pos to be acted upon by purchasing. While it is good for the projects to have the required materials on time, I wouldn’t want to encourage them to stock-up too much. This will tie-up funds and increase our interest costs. I hope that wherever Purchasing is to be located in the organization chart, we will also consider the matter of fund availability.† The Central warehouse is located in Antipolo while Head office (where the buyers gold office) is located in Paco, Manila. Approximately P10Million worth of materials are kept in the Central warehouse. Exhibit B PROJECT SITE ORGANIZATION CHART BOARD Equipment Engineering Superintendent Administration * General Foreman * Asst. Foreman Exhibit A GLOBE ORGANIZATION CHART * Marketing * Design * Estimating * Drafting * Accounting * Personnel * Finance * Treasury * Bookkeeper * Stock Clerk * Time Keeper Projects Construction Purchasing Project Development Administration Operations President BOARD

Fundamentals of block coding

Fundamentals of block coding ABSTRACT In this essay the basic fundamentals of block coding as a type of forward error correction code, as well as an example of such a code, are examined, in order to highlight the importance of error correction in digital communication systems. In the first part, the theory around error correction codes and types is presented with special emphasis on the block codes, their properties and the problems they encounter. In the second part the most popular block code, Reed-Solomon code, is discussed along with its mathematical formulation and the most common applications that implement it. INTRODUCTION Over the past years, there has been an extraordinary development in digital communications especially in the areas of mobile phones, personal computers, satellites, and computer communication. In these digital communication systems, data is represented as a sequence of 0s and 1s. These binary bits are expressed as analog signal waveforms and then transmitted over a communication channel. Communication channels, though, induce interference and noise to the transmitted signal and corrupt it. At the receiver, the corrupted transmitted signal is modulated back to binary bits. The received binary data is an evaluation of the binary data being transmitted. Bit errors may occur because of the transmission and that number of errors depends on the communication channels interference and noise amount. Channel coding is used in digital communications to protect the digital data and reduce the number of bit errors caused by noise and interference. Channel coding is mostly achieved by adding redundant bits into the transmitted data. These additional bits allow the detection and correction of the bit errors in the received information, thus providing a much more reliable transmission. The cost of using channel coding to protect the transmitted information is a reduction in data transfer rate or an increase in bandwidth. 1. FORWARD ERROR CORRECTION BLOCK CODES 1.1 ERROR DETECTION CORRECTION Error detection and correction are methods to make sure that information is transmitted error free, even across unreliable networks or media. Error detection is the ability to detect errors due to noise, interference or other problems to the communication channel during transmission from the transmitter to the receiver. Error correction is the ability to, furthermore, recreate the initial, error-free information. There are two basic protocols of channel coding for an error detection-correction system: Automatic Repeat-reQuest (ARQ): In this protocol, the transmitter, along with the data, sends an error detection code, that the receiver then uses to check if there are errors present and requests retransmission of erroneous data, if found. Usually, this request is implicit. The receiver sends back an acknowledgement of data received correctly, and the transmitter sends again anything not acknowledged by the receiver, as fast as possible. Forward Error Correction (FEC): In this protocol, the transmitter implements an error-correcting code to the data and sends the coded information. The receiver never sends any messages or requests back to the transmitter. It just decodes what it receives into the most likely data. The codes are constructed in a way that it would take a great amount of noise to trick the receiver interpreting the data wrongly. 1.2 FORWARD ERROR CORRECTION (FEC) As mentioned above, forward error correction is a system of controlling the errors that occur in data transmission, where the sender adds additional information to its messages, also known as error correction code. This gives the receiver the power to detect and correct errors (partially) without requesting additional data from the transmitter. This means that the receiver has no real-time communication with the sender, thus cannot verify whether a block of data was received correctly or not. So, the receiver must decide about the received transmission and try to either repair it or report an alarm. The advantage of forward error correction is that a channel back to the sender is not needed and retransmission of data is usually avoided (at the expense, of course, of higher bandwidth requirements). Therefore, forward error correction is used in cases where retransmissions are rather costly or even impossible to be made. Specifically, FEC data is usually implemented to mass storage devices, in order to be protected against corruption to the stored data. However, forward error connection techniques add a heavy burden on the channel by adding redundant data and delay. Also, many forward error correction methods do not quite respond to the actual environment and the burden is there whether needed or not. Another great disadvantage is the lower data transfer rate. However, FEC methods reduce the requirements for power variety. For the same amount of power, a lower error rate can be achieved. The communication in this situation remains simple and the receiver alone has the responsibility of error detection and correction. The sender complexity is avoided and is now entirely assigned to the receiver. Forward error correction devices are usually placed close to the receiver, in the first step of digital processing of an analog signal that has been received. In other words, forward error correction systems are often a necessary part of the analog to digital signal conversion operation that also contain digital mapping and demapping, or line coding and decoding. Many forward error correction coders can also produce a bit-error rate (BER) signal that can be used as feedback to optimize the received analog circuits. Software controlled algorithms, such as the Viterbi decoder, can receive analog data, and output digital data. The maximum number of errors a forward error correction system can correct is initially defined by the design of the code, so different FEC codes are suitable for different situations. The three main types of forward error correction codes are: Block codes that work on fixed length blocks (packets) of symbols or bits with a predefined size. Block codes can often be decoded in polynomial time to their block size. Convolutional codes that work on symbol or bit streams of indeterminate size. They are usually decoded with the Viterbi algorithm, though other algorithms are often used as well. Viterbi algorithm allows infinite optimal decoding efficiency by increasing limited length of the convolutional code, but at the cost of greatly increasing complexity. A convolutional code can be transformed into a block code, if needed. Interleaving codes that have alleviating properties for fading channels and work well combined with the other two types of forward error correction coding. 1.3 BLOCK CODING 1.3.1 OVERVIEW Block coding was the first type of channel coding implemented in early mobile communication systems. There are many types of block coding, but among the most used ones the most important is Reed-Solomon code, that is presented in the second part of the coursework, because of its extensive use in famous applications. Hamming, Golay, Multidimensional parity and BCH codes are other well-known examples of classical block coding. The main feature of block coding is that it is a fixed size channel code (in contrary to source coding schemes such as Huffman coders, and channel coding techniques as convolutional coding). Using a preset algorithm, block coders take a k-digit information word, S and transform it into an n-digit codeword, C(s). The block size of such a code will be n. This block is examined at the receiver, which then decides about the validity of the sequence it received. 1.3.2 FORMAL TYPE As mentioned above, block codes encode strings taken from an alphabet set S into codewords by encoding each letter of S independently. Suppose (k1, k2,, km) is a sequence of natural numbers that each one less than |S| . If S=s1,s2,,sn and a specific word W is written as W = sk1 sk2 skn , then the codeword that represents W, that is to say C(W), is: C(W) = C(sk1) C(sk2) C (skm) 1.3.3 HAMMING DISTANCE Hamming Distance is a rather significant parameter in block coding. In continuous variables, distance is measured as length, angle or vector. In the binary field, distance between two binary words, is measured by the Hamming distance. Hamming distance is the number of different bits between two binary sequences with the same size. It, basically, is a measure of how apart binary objects are. For example, the Hamming distance between the sequences: 101 and 001 is 1 and between the sequences: 1010100 and 0011001 is 4. Hamming distance is a variable of great importance and usefulness in block coding. The knowledge of Hamming distance can determine the capability of a block code to detect and correct errors. The maximum number of errors a block code can detect is: t = dmin 1, where dmin is the Hamming distance of the codewords. A code with dmin = 3, can detect 1 or 2 bit errors. So the Hamming distance of a block code is preferred to be as high as possible since it directly effects the codes ability to detect bit errors. This also means that in order to have a big Hamming distance, codewords need to be larger, which leads to additional overhead and reduced data bit rate. After detection, the number of errors that a block code can correct is given by: t(int) = (dmin 1)/2 1.3.4 PROBLEMS IN BLOCK CODING Block codes are constrained by the sphere packing problem that has been quite significant in the last years. This is easy to picture in two dimensions. For example, if someone takes some pennies flat on the table and push them together, the result will be a hexagon pattern like a bees nest. Block coding, though, relies on more dimensions which cannot be visualized so easily. The famous Golay code, for instance, applied in deep space communications uses 24 dimensions. If used as a binary code (which very often it is,) the dimensions refer to the size of the codeword as specified above. The theory of block coding uses the N-dimensional sphere model. For instance, what number of pennies can be packed into a circle on a tabletop or in 3-dimensional model, what number of marbles can be packed into a globe. Its all about the codes choice. Hexagon packing, for example, in a rectangular box will leave the four corners empty. Greater number of dimensions means smaller percentage of empty spaces, until eventually at a certain number the packing uses all the available space. These codes are called perfect codes and there are very few of them. The number of a single codewords neighbors is another detail which is usually overlooked in block coding. Back to the pennies example again, first pennies are packed in a rectangular grid. Each single penny will have four direct neighbors (and another four at the four corners that are farther away). In the hexagon formation, each single penny will have six direct neighbors. In the same way, in three and four dimensions there will be twelve and twenty-four neighbors, respectively. Thus, increasing the number of dimensions, the close neighbors increase rapidly. This results in that noise finds numerous ways to make the receiver choose a neighbor, hence an error. This is a fundamental constraint of block coding, and coding in general. It may be more difficult to cause an error to one neighbor, but the number of neighbors can be so big that the probability of total error actually suffers.

The Benefits and Drawbacks of Proportional Representation Essay

Every state has its own distinct electoral system in choosing their government, Britain is not an exception. It is a well-established country, which also seeks an appropriate and effective legislature. This in turn involves fair and rational voting policy and distribution of seats. During periods it had different systems of election and the current one is First-Past-The-Post (FPTP here and after). However, recently British government started to investigate its drawbacks and benefits, rationality and fairness of elections and now they are considering replacing it by Proportional Representation (PR here and after). PR is the system of election where seats in parliament are almost in same proportion as votes cast, while FPTP is one of plurality/majority systems, where parties with most votes take all and represent the whole Parliament. (accessed on http://www.historylearningsite.co.uk/) The following essay is going to analyze the benefits and drawbacks of PR and as a conclusion it will argue that this system can successfully replace FPTP in electing British Government. To begin with advantages, PR would result in better representation of the racial and ethnic minorities (Amy 1997). These parties are awarded a constituent power at a public and regional degree in the countries exploiting this system. Western Europe and Latin America are the demonstrative examples where PR is dominant according to Andrew Reynolds and Ben Reilly (2002). Besides, imposition of this system would provide the voters with a greater amount of viewpoints, so that the candidates of Minor Parties would have more possibility to get a seat at Westminster (Amy 1997). Participation in solving governmental issues would help to develop some new concepts, which don’t a... ...re Proportional Representation can suitably replace First Past The Post in the election of British Government and I believe that imposition of PR will influence the further prosperity of the government and the country as a whole. Works Cited 1. Amy, J. 1997. Full Representation: The Case for a Better Election System. USA: Crescent Street Press. 2. Farrell,M. 2001. Electoral systems: A comparative introduction. Basingstoke: Macmillan. 3. Gallagher, M., and P.Mitchell. ed. 2008. The politics of electoral systems. Oxford: Oxford University Press 4. Hix, S., R.Johnston and I.Mclean 2010. A research report prepared for the British Academy. London. 5. Reynolds, A., B. Reilly and A.Ellis. 2008. Electoral System Design: The New International IDEA Handbook. Sweden: Trydells Tryckeri AB. 6. http://www.historylearningsite.co.uk/proportional_representation.htm

Physics of Image Processing Essay -- physics photo photograph digital

Missing Figures Characteristics of Light There are a few fundamental characteristics of light that are useful to be aware of before proceeding with the discussion on how CCD's and Film can function to save a useful, meaningful image. One of these important fundamental qualities is the fact that visible light is electromagnetic radiation. Electromagnetic Radiation, Photons, and Energy Levels Electromagnetic radiation has many different classifications. Some such classifications include AM/FM Radio Waves, microwaves, visible light, x-rays, and gamma rays. A key factor in these classifications is that each different type or "level" of electromagnetic radiation contains different energy levels. These energy levels are determined by the speed or rate that charges from a given source move to create an electric field (for instance, moving charges through an antenna or lightbulb) (Serway 1090). Hence, this oscillating electric field has two very important characteristics: it has a frequency and a wavelength. Furthermore, light can also behave as a particle in some instances. This particle of light is called a photon, and is essentially the amount of energy that a light wave has at a certain frequency (the energy of a photon is not dependent on the intensity of the light, but rather only dependent upon its frequency) (Serway 1107). It is this "duality of light" that allows CCD's and film to function as they do, as energy is transferred to materials through light via. photons. Since the energy of a photon is only related to its frequency, an equation (discovered by Einstein) relates photons to the electrons they produce by: E = h * f Where E is the energy of the produced electron, h is Planck's constant (6.63 * 10^-34 J... ...graphic Sensitivity. 2001. 31 Mar. 2003 Gambhir. The Photographic Process: Silver Bromide Crystals. 1 April 2003 Harris, Tom. How Cameras Work. How Stuff Works. 1 April 2003 Light - Part VIII. 1 April 2003 Spectral Configuration Guide. 31 March 2003 Thompson, Tom. "Charge-coupled device." Computerworld 6 Aug. 2001: 49 Visible Light Waves.2 April 2003 Woodworth, Charles. How Photographic Film Works. How Stuff Works. 1 April 2003

Total Quality Management (TQM) :: GCSE Business Marketing Coursework

Total Quality Management Total Quality Management is a structured system for satisfying internal and external customers and suppliers by integrating the business environment, continuous improvement, and breakthroughs with development, improvement, and maintenance cycles while changing organizational culture. A remarkable thing is happening as we see the awakening of the individual and the collaboration of empowered people in the team effort of total quality management. It is a renewing, a reinforcing and a building of a bridge of trust among the individuals responsible for accomplishing a common goal (The Total Quality Review; May 1994). One of the goals is to build an organizational environment conducive to job redesign and cross training in order to facilitate job flexibility. TQM initiatives in areas of common concern provide an opportunity to form and better control the relationship with a company's external vital customers and suppliers. TQM is essential for companies seeking to provide quality goods and services to their customers. The end result is that they will enjoy prosperity and long-term growth. "In order to compete in a global economy, our products, systems and services must be of a higher quality than our competition. Increasing Total Quality is our number on priority here at Hewlett-Packard. -John Young, President of Hewlett-Packard" (www.dmu.ac.uk.htm). Often companies find themselves faced with a dilemma that is rooted to a lack of TQM. This was the case with Apple Computers. They were unable to conceive a working, productive relationship between their managers and engineers. Apple found themselves unable to alleviate this problem, which ultimately hindered it from responding to environmental changes. The positive effects of TQM has transcended down through the ranks. Non-profit organizations have begun to embrace TQM throughout their organization, relying on the positive results found throughout the business world. Even the Health care industry has initiated TQM to promote excellence in nursing, urging nurses to apply quality improvement.

Comments and Opinions While News Reporting Essay

News Reporting B.Thesis Statement: Why some broadcasters give out comments and opinions during news reporting? C.Trend: Many of Philippine broadcasters today seems to forget that a news report is totally different form a commentary. Consciously or unconsciously, they put on air their own judgments and remarks while delivering news. D.Issues: If giving comments and opinions during news reporting will continue, people might confuse news from commentary. Because of that, people’s decision about certain issue can easily be assorted by the own opinion/s of the broadcaster/s. In short, it will be easy for broadcasters (whose job is supposedly just to inform people) to shape the opinions of the listeners or the televiewers. Moreover, instead of discussing about the main issue, people might forget about it and start talking about the opinions of broadcasters, making their opinions an issue itself. Certainly, it will bring additional disarray to the society. E.Case 1. GMA morning news anchor Arnold Clavio became controversial after giving an offensive remark against the Filipino-foreign members of the Philippine Azkals during the nationwide broadcast of News and Public Affairs Program ‘Unang Hirit’ last March 2012. â€Å"Hindi naman kayo Pilipino. Nagpapanggap lang kayong kayumanggi. Hindi kayo dito lumaki. Mahirap ‘yun,† Clavio said while discussing about Cristy Ramos’ sexual harassment case against Azkals players Lexton Moy and Angel Guirado. Rhea Santos, Clavio’s co-anchor is also faced with bad comments after giving a remark about Filipino women: â€Å"Yung mga babae†¦ kasi porke guwapo†¦ sikat†¦ minsan halos itapon na nila yung mga sarili doon sa mga lalaki.† The Philippine Football federation already filed a complaint against GMA Network Inc., demanding for a written apology to be read on â€Å"Unang Hirit.† 2. The three comments on the news and exchange jokes at the end of the show on TV Patrol are so distracting. There was one time when Korina Sanchez obviously laughed shortly during a news report about a death of a rape victim. F.Concerns Giving opinions while delivering news is a violation under the Article 1, Sec 3a of Kapisanan ng mga Brodkaster sa Pilipinas (KBP) Code of 2007 which states that news reports shall be fair, factual, and objective; and Article 1, Sec. 3c, which states that side comments expressing personal opinions while a news item is being reported or delivered are prohibited to prevent the listener from mistaking opinion for news. Also, according to the journalist code of ethics, journalist â€Å"shall scrupulously report and interpret the news, taking care not to suppress essential facts or to distort the truth by omission or improper emphasis. I recognise the duty to air the other side and the duty to correct substantive errors promptly.† H.Conclusion News reporting is to inform people about important events. It is not to express your opinions in a certain issue. It must be fair, factual and objective. However, not all broadcasters obey this rule. Issues about news anchors and news reporters being accused of malicious statements are very rampant today. It is because they used news programs as venues to express their thoughts, which is a violation under the KBP Broadcast Code of 2007 Article 1, Sec. 3a and Sec. 3c. A broadcaster’s opinion in a certain issue can reach a thousand of people and he/she can use this opportunity to his/her own interest, or worse, his/her opinion might be a start of another issue. Giving comments while delivering a news report can never be considered as a irresponsible journalism for it will just create chaos to the society instead promoting national unity. Media is too powerful that whatever the public see in the television or hear over the radio can greatly affect their decisions in life. That’s the reason why broadcasters must be careful in whatever they do and say on air. I.References: †¢2007 Broadcast Code of the Philippines †¢file:///C:/Users/WIN%207/Documents/_CMS%20103/Journalist%E2%80%99s%20Code%20of%20Ethics%20%28Philippines%29.htm †¢http://ph.omg.yahoo.com/blogs/switchingchannels/tv-patrol-tabloid-journalism-104015722.html †¢http://www.gmanetwork.com/news/story/251681/sports/opinion/a-molotov-cocktail-of-sexual-harassment-race-and-social-media †¢http://www.abs-cbnnews.com/sports/03/15/12/pff-files-complaint-vs-clavio-azkals-comment

In many ways the ideas in this dystopian novel are more important than the characters – with the exception of Offred and Moira

In many ways the ideas in this dystopian novel are more important than the characters – with the exception of Offred and Moira. The other characters tend to function as members of groups or as representatives of certain ideological positions. However, as Offred insists, every individual is significant, whatever Gilead decrees, and her narrative weaves in particularities: she continually writes in other voices in sections of dialogue, in embedded stories and in remembered episodes. It is a feature of Atwood's realism, even within a fabricated futuristic world, that she pays dose attention not only to location but to people and relationships. OFFRED Offred, the main protagonist and narrator, is trapped in Gilead as a Handmaid, one of the ‘two-legged wombs' valued only for her potential as a surrogate mother. Denied all her individual rights, she is known only by the patronymic Of-Fred, derived from the name of her current Commander. Most of the time she is isolated and afraid. Virtually imprisoned in the domestic spaces of the home, she is allowed out only with a shopping partner and for Handmaids' official excursions like Prayvaganzas and Salvagings. At the age of thirty-three and potentially still fertile, she is a victim of Gileadean sexist ideology which equates ‘male' with power and sexual potency, and ‘female' with reproduction and submission to the point where individuality is effaced. Offred's narrative, however, does not possess such diagrammatic simplicity, for she resists such reductiveness by a variety of stratagems that allow her to retain a sense of her own individuality and psychological freedom. She refuses to forget her past or her own name when she was a daughter, lover, wife and working mother; she refuses to believe in biological reductionism; and she refuses to give up hope of getting out of her present situation. She knows what she needs to pay attention to: What I need is perspective. The illusion of depth †¦ Otherwise you live in the moment. Which is not where I want to be' (Chapter 24). Offred's greatest psychological resource is her faculty of double vision, for she is a survivor from the past, and it is her power to remember which enables her to survive in the present. It is not only through flashbacks that she reconstructs the past (though these are her most effective escape routes from isolation, loneliness and boredom), but even when she walks down the road she sees everything through a double exposure, with the past superimposed upon the present, or to use her own layered image from Chapter 1, as a ‘palimpsest' where the past gives depth to the present. She has perfected the technique of simultaneously inhabiting two spaces: her Handmaid's space (or lack of it) and the freer, happier spaces of memory. Though she is forbidden to use her own name, she keeps it like a buried treasure, as guarantee of her other identity (‘I keep the knowledge of this name like something hidden, some treasure I'll come back to dig up, one day – Chapter 14). She gives her real name as a love token to Nick, and he in turn uses it as an exchange of faith when he comes for her with the black truck (‘He calls me by my real name. Why should this mean anything?' Chapter 46). Offred does not trust the reader with her real name, however, which is a sign of her wariness in a precarious situation, though there is a fascinating essay by a Canadian critic, Constance Rooke, which argues that it is coded into the text and that Offred's real name is June. What is most attractive about Offred is her lively responsiveness to the world around her. She is sharply observant of physical details in her surroundings, she is curious and likes to explore, and she has a very lyrical response to the Commander's Wife's beautiful garden. She observes its seasonal changes closely, for that garden represents for her all the natural fecundity and beauty that are denied by the regime but which flourish unchecked outside the window. It is also a silent testimonial to her own resistance: ‘There is something subversive about this garden of Serena's, a sense of buried things bursting upwards, wordlessly, into the light' (Chapter 25). Her response to the moonlight is equally imaginative, though noticeably tinged with irony, which is one of her most distinctive characteristics: ‘a wishing moon, a sliver of ancient rock, a goddess, a wink. The moon is a stone and the sky is full of deadly hardware, but A God, how beautiful anyway' (Chapter 17). Offred consistently refuses to be bamboozled by the rhetoric of Gilead, for she believes in the principle of making distinctions between things and in the precise use of words, just as she continues to believe in the value of every individual. Of the men in her life she says: ‘Each one remains unique, there is no way of joining them together. They cannot be exchanged, one for the other. They cannot replace each other' (Chapter 30). It is this sharpness of mind which informs her wittily critical view of her present situation, as in the satisfaction she gets out of teasing the young guard at the gate. ‘I enjoy the power; power of a dog bone, passive but there' (Chapter 4). Her attitude is discreetly subversive but never openly rebellious. She watches for those moments of instability which she calls ‘tiny peepholes' when human responses break through official surfaces. Offred is mischievous, but, more seriously, she yearns for communication and trust between people instead of mutual suspicion and isolation. Ironically enough, her fullest human relationship in Gilead is her ,arrangement' with the Commander. This provides her with a ‘forbidden oasis', for it is in their Scrabble games that Offred is at her liveliest and hermost conventionally feminine. In his study, Offred and the Commander relate to each other by old familiar social and sexual codes, which alleviates the loneliness both feel. It is after her first evening that Offred does something she has never done before in the novel: she laughs out loud, partly at the absurdity of it all, but partly out of a reawakening of her own high spirits. Yet she is too intelligent ever to forget that it is only a game or a replay of the past in parodic form, and her outing to Jezebel's confirms this. For all its glitter, her purple sequined costume, like the evening, is a shabby masquerade, and in the clear light of day she is left sitting with ‘a handful of crumpled stars' in her lap (Chapter 46). Living in a terrorist state, Offred is always alert to the glint of danger, as in her first unexpected encounter with Nick in the dark where fear and sexual risk exert a powerful charge which runs through the novel to its end. Their love represents the forbidden combination of desire and rebellion, and it is through that relationship that Offred manages to find new hope for the future and even to accommodate herself to reduced circumstances in the present, like a pioneer who has given up the Old World and come to the wilderness of a new one: ‘I said, I have made a life for myself, here, of a sort. That must have been what the settlers' wives thought' (Chapter 41). Offred shows through her detailed psychological narrative how she can survive traumas of loss and bereavement and how she manages to elude the constraints of absolute authority. We know little about her physical appearance because the only time she ever mentions it is when she is at her most bizarre, in her red habit with her white winged cap or in her purple sequined costume at Jezebel's. But we know a great deal about her mind and feelings and her sense of wry humour. We also know that she is a highly selfconscious narrator and that she is aware of contradictions and failings within herself She knows that she lacks Moira's flamboyant courage, and she accuses herself of cowardice and unreliability, just as at the end she feels guilty for having betrayed the household who imprisoned her. Yet, despite her own self-doubts, Offred manages to convince us of her integrity. She survives with dignity and she embraces the possibility of her escape with hope. Her narrative remains a witness t o the freedom and resilience of the human spirit. Offred and Moira are the two main examples of feminist positions in the novel (unlike the older women Serena Joy and the Aunts). Yet they are very different from each other, for Offred's resistance always works surreptitiously and through compromise, whereas Moira is more confrontational. Offred represents Atwood's version of a moderate heterosexual feminism in contrast to Moira's separatist feminism. MOIRA Moira, always known by her own name because she never becomes a Handmaid, is strongly individual, although she is also a type of the female rebel. This is a position which can be viewed in two ways, and both of them are illustrated here. From Offred's point of view Moira is the embodiment of female heroism, though from the Gileadean authorities' point of view she is a ‘loose woman', a criminal element, and her story follows the conventional fictional pattern of such rebellious figures: when Offred last sees her she is working as a prostitute in Jezebel's. Even here, Moira manages to express her dissidence, for she remains a declared lesbian and her costume is a deliberate travesty of feminine sexual allure, as Offred notices when she meets her again on her night out with the Commander. Moira's own wryly comic comment on it is, ‘I guess they thought it was me' (Chapter 38). Moira, too, is a survivor of the American permissive society, a trendy college student who wears purple overalls and leaves her unfinished paper on ‘Date Rape' to go for a beer. Much more astute about sexual politics than Offred, she is an activist in the Gay Rights movement, working for a women's collective at the time of the Gilead coup. When she is brought into the Rachel and Leah Centre she is still wearing jeans and declares that the place is a ‘loony bin' (Chapter 13). She cannot be terrorised into even outward conformity-, instead she tries to escape and succeeds on her second attempt. She manages to escape disguised as an Aunt. Always funny and ironic, to the other women at the Centre she represents all that they would like to do but would not dare: ‘Moira was our fantasy. We hugged her to us, she was with us in secret, a giggle; she was lava beneath the crust of daily life. In the light of Moira, the Aunts were less fearsome and more absurd' (Chapter 22). Moira continues to surface in Offred's narrative, bobbing up in memory, until her devastatingly fimny final appearance at Jezebel's. Behind the comedy, however, is the fact that Moira has not managed to escape after all, and as an unregenerate has been consigned to the brothel, where she tells Offred that she has ‘three or four good years' ahead of her, drinkingand smoking as a Jezebel hostess, before she is sent to the Colonies. Our last view of Moira is on that evening: ‘I'd like her to end with something daring and spectacular, some outrage, something that would befit her. But as far as I know that didn't happen' (Chapter 38). Moira is one of the spirited feminist heroines, like Offred's mother and Offred's predecessor in the Commander's house who left the message scrawled in the closet. The sad fact is these women do get sent off to the Colonies or commit suicide, which Offred herself refuses to do. Offred and Moira are both feminist heroines, showing women's energetic resistance to the Gilead system, but there are no winners. Neither compromise nor rebellion wins freedom, though it is likely that Offred is rescued by Nick. However, their value lies in their speaking out against the imposition of silence, challenging tyranny and oppression. Their stories highlight the actions of two individual women whose very different private assertions become exemplary or symbolic. Their voices survive as images of hope and defiance to be vindicated by history. SERENA JOY Serena Joy, the Commander's Wife, is the most powerful female presence in Offred's daily life in Gilead, and as Offred has plenty of opportunity to observe her at close quarters she appears in the narrative as more than just a member of a class in the hierarchy of Gileadean women. As an elderly childless woman she has to agree to the grotesque system of polygamy practised in Gilead and to shelter a Handmaid in her home, but it is plain that she resents this arrangement keenly as a violation of her marriage, and a continual reminder of her own crippled condition and fading feminine charms. The irony of the situation is made clear when Offred remembers Serena Joys past history, first as a child singing star on a gospel television show, and later as a media personality speaking up for ultra-conservative domestic policies and the sanctity of the home. Now, as Offred maliciously remarks, Serena is trapped in the very ideology on which she had based her popularity: ‘She stays in her home, but it doesn't seem to agree with her' (Chapter 8). Serena's present life is a parody of the Virtuous Woman: her only place of power is her own living room, she is estranged from her husband, jealous of her Handmaid, and has nothing to do except knit scarves for soldiers and gossip with her cronies or listen to her young voice on the gramophone. The only space for Serena's self-expression is her garden, and even that she cannot tend without the help of her husband's chauffeur. If flowers are important to Offred, so are they too to Serena, and she often sits alone in her ‘subversive garden', knitting or smoking. To see the world from Serena's perspective is to shift the emphasis of Offred's narrative, for these two women might be seen not as opposites but as doubles. They both want a child, and the attention of them both focuses on the Commander of whom Serena is very possessive: ‘As for my husband, she said, he's just that. My husband. I want that to be perfectly clear. Till death do us part. It's final' (Chapter 3). Offred seldom knows what Serena is thinking, though there are indications of her attitudes and tastes in the jewels and the perfume she wears and in the furnishings of her house: ‘hard lust for quality, soft sentimental cravings' as Offred uncharitably puts it (Chapter 14). There is also evidence of a certain toughness in Serena's cigarette-smoking and her use of slang, not to mention her suggestion that Offred, unknown to the Commander, should sleep with Nick in order to conceive the child she is supposed to produce: ‘She's actually smiling, coquettishly even; there's a hint of her former small-screen mannequin's allure, flickering over her face like momentary static' (Chapter 31). But Serena has her revenges too: she has deliberately withheld from Offred the news of her lost daughter and her photograph which Offred has been longing for. By a curious twist, Serena occupies the role of the wife in a very conventional plot about marital infidelity, as well as in the privileged Gileadean sense. She is one of the points in the triangular relationship which develops between Offred and the Commander: ‘The fact is that I'm his mistress †¦ Sometimes I think she knows' (Chapter 26). Actually, she does not know until she finds the purple costume and the lipstick on her cloak. It is a clich6-like situation, but Serena's own pain of loss goes beyond this conventional pattern: †¦ Behind my back,† she says. â€Å"You could have left me something.†Ã¢â‚¬Ëœ Offred wonders, ‘Does she love him, after all?' (Chapter 45). Serena is still there in her house, standing anxiously beside the Commander at the end as Offred is led out through the door. Her farewell to Offred is wifely in an old-fashioned sense which has none of the pieties of Gilead: †¦ Bitch,† she says. â€Å"After all he did for you (Chapter 46). THE OTHER COMMANDERS' WIVES These merely exist as a gaggle of gossips in blue, for Offred knows nothing of their lives apart from overhearing snatches of their conversation at Birth Days, Prayvaganzas or social visits, when they make scandalous comments about their Handmaids. Only the Wife of Warren achieves a moment of grotesque individuality when she is seen sitting on the Birth Stool behind Janine, ‘wearing white cotton socks, and bedroom slippers, blue ones made of fuzzy material, like toilet-seat covers' (Chapter 21). There is also one other unfortunate Wife who is hanged at the Salvaging, but Offred does not know what her crime was. Was it murder? Was it adultery? ‘It could always be that. Or attempted escape' (Chapter 42). THE AUNTS Like the Wives, the Marthas, the Econowives and most of the Handmaids, these are presented as members of a class or group, every group representing a different female role within Gilead. With their names derived from preGileadean women's products, the Aunts are the older women who act as female collaborators on the orders of the patriarchy to train and police Handmaids. They are a paramilitary organisation, as is signified by their khaki uniforms and their cattle prods, and, as propagandists of the regime, they tell distorted tales of women's lives in the pre-Gileadean past. The villainesses of the novel, they are responsible for the most gruesome cruelties, like the female Salvagings and the Particicutions, as well as for individual punishments at the Rachel and Leah Centre. Only Aunt Lydia is individuated, and that is by her peculiar viciousness masquerading under a genteel feminine exterior: ‘Aunt Lydia thought she was very good at feeling f6r other people' (Chapter 8). A particularly sadistic tormentor, Aunt Lydia is an awful warning that a women's culture is no guarantee of sisterhood as Offred's mother's generation of feminists had optimistically assumed, but that it is also necessary to take account of some women's pathological inclinations towards violence and vindictiveness. OFGLEN AND OFWARREN Only two of the Handmaids, Ofglen and Ofwarren Ganine), emerge as individuals, one because of her courage and rebelliousness and the other because she is the conventional female victim figure. Both are casualties of the Gileadean system. Ofglen has no past life that Offred knows about, but she does have a secret life as a member of the Mayday resistance movement which she confides to Offred after weeks as her shopping partner. There is nothing exceptional about her appearance except her mechanical quality which Offred notices, ‘as if she's voice- activated, as if she's on little oiled wheels' (Chapter 8). Offred is proved right in her suspicions, for under the disguise of Handmaid, Ofglen is a sturdy resistance fighter. She identifies the alleged rapist as ‘one of ours' and knocks him out before the horrible Particicution begins. She also dies as a fighter, preferring to commit suicide when she sees the black truck coming rather than betray her friends under torture. Offred learns this from her replacement, the ‘new, treacherous Ofglen', who whispers the news to her on their shopping expedition. Janine is a female victim in both her lives: before Gilead when she worked as a waitress and was raped by a gang of thugs, then as a Handmaid. At the Rachel and Leah Centre she is a craven figure on the edge of nervous collapse, and consequently one of Aunt Lydia's pets. Though she has her moment of triumph as the ‘vastly pregnant' Handmaid Ofwarren in Chapter 5, she is also a victim of the system with which she has tried so hard to curry favour. Even at the Birth Day she is neglected as soon as the baby is born and left ‘crying helplessly, burnt-out miserable tears' when her baby is taken away and given to the Wife (Chapter 21). There is no reward for Janine. Her baby is declared an Unbaby and destroyed because it is deformed; Janine becomes a pale shadow overwhelmed with guilt; finally, after the Particicution, when Offred sees her again, she has slipped over into madness. OFFRED'S MOTHER Offred's mother and her life belong to the history of feminism which is being recorded in this novel, for she joined the Women's Liberation Movement of the 1960s and 1970s, campaigning for women's sexual and social freedom. As an older woman she continued to be a political activist, and at the time of the Gileadean take-over she disappeared. Only much later does Offred learn that she has been condemned as an Unwoman and sent to the Colonies. Like Moira, and possessing the same kind of energy, Offred's mother resists classification. In an odd way she even resists being dead, for she makes two startling appearances in the present, both times on film at the Rachel and Leah Centre. On one occasion Offred is shocked to see her as a young woman marching toward her in a pro-abortion march, and later Moira reports seeing her as an old woman working as slave labour in the Colonies. Offred's mother is, however, more than a feminist icon. She haunts her daughter's memory, and gradually Offred comes to understand her mother's independence of mind and to admire her courage. Her mother is evoked in a series of kaleidoscopic images: at a feminist pornographic book burning (Chapter 7), with a bruised face after an abortion riot (Chapter 28), and as an elderly woman proudly defending her position as a single parent to Offred's husband, while accusing her daughter of naivet6 and political irresponsibility. It is her jaunty language which Offred remembers as distinguishing her mother: A man is just a woman's strategy for making other women. Not that your father wasn't a nice guy and all, but he wasn't up to fatherhood. Not that I expected it of him. Just do the job, then you can bugger off, 1 said, I make a decent salary, I can afford daycare. So he went to the coast and sent Christmas cards. He had beautiful blue eyes though. (Chapter 20) An embarrassing but heroic figure, this is the woman whom her daughter misses when it is all too late, though Offred continues her dialogue with her mother in her own mind as a way of keeping her alive: ‘Mother, I think. Wherever you may be. Can you hear me? You wanted a women's culture. Well, now there is one. It isn't what you meant, but it exists. Be thankful for small mercies' (Chapter 21). Finally Offred tries to lay her mother to rest, but without success: ‘I've mourned for her already. But I will do it again, and again' (Chapter 39). Deprived of the freedoms which her mother fought for, Offred learns to admire her mother's courage and to value her memory as a vital link with her own lost identity. Her elegy to her mother underlines the thematic motif of Missing Persons, and particularly lost mothers and daughters, which runs through the novel. MALE CHARACTERS The few male characters in this novel seem little more than functionaries of the patriarchal state or functional to the workings of the plot. Most of them have no names but only group identities like ‘Angels' or ‘Eyes' or ‘the doctor', while Professor Pieixoto is a satirical sketch of a male academic. Only three male characters are given any individuating characteristics. They are Offred's Commander, her lover Nick, and her absent, vanished husband Luke. THE COMMANDER The Commander is the most powerful authority figure in Offred's world. He is a high-ranking government official, and he is head of the household to which Offred is assigned. It is his first name which she takes, though whether as a slave or as a parody of the marriage service is never made clear. Yet he is an ambiguous figure, substantial but shadowy, whose motivations, like his career in Gilead, remain unclear to Offred; even in the ‘Historical Notes' his identity remains uncertain. As a Commander he wears a black uniform and is driven in a prestige car, a Whirlwind. He is an elderly man with ‘straight neatly brushed silver hair' and a moustache and blue eyes. He is slightly stooped and his manner is mild (Chapter 15). As Offred observes him with his gold-rimmed glasses on his nose reading from the Bible before the monthly Ceremony, she thinks he looks ‘like a midwestern bank president', an astute judgement, as he tells her much later that before Gilead he was in market research (Chapter 29). The image he presents is that of male power, isolated and benignly indifferent to domestic matters, which include his Wife and his Handmaid. This is, however, not entirely true, for Offred has seen him earlier on the day of the Ceremony, a figure lurking in the shadows outside her room, who tried to peer at her as she passed: ‘Something has been shown to me, but what is it?' (Chapter 8). It is only after the official Ceremony, performed by the Commander in full dress uniform and with his eyes shut, that Offred has the chance to get to know him a little and his stereotypical male power image begins to break down. It is he who asks her to visit him ‘after hours' in his study, for he is a lonely man who desires friendship and intimacy with his Handmaid and not the serviceable monthly sex for which she has been allocated to him. In his Bluebeard's chamber, what he has to offer is not ‘kinky sex' but Scrabble games and an appearance of ‘normal life', with conversation and books and magazines, all of which he knows are forbidden to Handmaids. On his own private territory the Commander is an old-fashioned gentleman with an attractive sheepish smile, who treats Offred in a genially patronising way and gradually becomes quite fond of her. ‘In fact he is positively daddyish' (Chapter 29). He seems to have the ability to compartmentalise his life (in a w ay that Offred cannot manage) so that he can separate her official role as sexual slave from her unofficial role as his companion. In many ways the Commander's motives and needs remain obscure to Offred, though they do manage to develop an amiable relationship, which from one point of view is bizarre and from another is entirely banal: ‘The fact is that I'm his mistress' (Chapter 26). Yet their relationship is still a game of sexual power politics in which the Commander holds most of the cards, as Offred never allows herself to forget. For all his gallantry, he remains totally trapped in traditional patriarchal assumptions, believing that these are ‘Nature's norm' (Chapter 34) and allow exploitation of women, as his comments and conduct at Jezebel's suggest. Their private sexual encounter there ends in ‘futility and bathos' and is strongly contrasted with Offred's meeting with Nick later that same evening. As she leaves his house for the last time, Offred sees the Commander standing at the living-room door, looking old, worried and helpless. Possibly he is expecting his own downfall, for nobody is invulnerable in Gilead. Offred has her revenge, for the balance of power between them has shifted: ‘Possibly he will be a security risk, now. I am above him, looking down; he is shrinking' (Chapter 46). The academics go to some trouble later to establish the Commander's identity: he may have been ‘Frederick R. Waterford' or ‘B. Frederick Judd'. Waterford, it is revealed, had a background in market research (which seems most likely), while the more sinister Judd was a military strategist who worked for the CIA. Both of them ‘met their ends, probably soon after the events our author describes'. NICK Nick is presented as the central figure of Offred's romantic fantasy, for he is the mysterious dark stranger who is her rescuer through love. He also hasa place in her real world, of course, as the Commander's chauffeur and the Commander's Wife's gardener. He ‘has a French face, lean, whimsical, all planes and angles, with creases around the mouth where he smiles' (Chapter 4) and a general air of irreverence, wearing his cap at a jaunty angle, whistling while he polishes the car, and winking at Offred the first day he sees her. At the household prayers he presses his foot against hers, and she feels a surge of sensual warmth which she dare not acknowledge. In the daytime he is rather a comic figure but at night he is transformed into Offred's romantic lover, the embodiment of sexual desire. This transformation is made all the more piquant because he is always acting under orders, either as the Commander's messenger or as the lover chosen for Offred by the Commander's Wife. From their first unexpected encounter in the dark living room (Chapter 17) theirs is a silent exchange which carries an unmistakable erotic charge. It is Nicles hands which make his declaration: ‘His fingers move, feeling my arm under the night-gown sleeve, as if his hand won't listen to reason. It's so good, to be touched by someone, to be felt so greedily, to feel so greedy (Chapter 17). As a subordinate, Nick, like Offred, has to remain passive until ordered by the Commander's Wife to go to bed with Offred. On that occasion his attitude is not directly described but veiled by Offred's three different versions of that meeting. Certainly she falls in love with him, and in defiance of danger she returns many times to his room across the dark lawn on her own. Towards the end, she tells him that she is pregnant. Nevertheless, her description of their love-making is suggestive rather than explicitly erotic, and Nick tends to remain a mysterious figure. Even at the end when he appears with the Eyes to take her away, Offred really knows so little about him that she almost accuses him of having betrayed her, until he calls her by her real name and begs her to trust him. Ever elusive, he is the only member of the household not there to see her depart. We want to believe that Nick was in love with Offred, and we must assume from the ‘Historical Notes' that he did rescue her and that he was a member of Mayday resistance. However, as a character he is very lightly sketched and it is his function as romantic lover which is most significant. LUKE Luke, Offred's husband, is one of the Missing Persons in this novel. Probably dead before the narrative begins, he haunts Offred's memory until he fades like a ghost as her love affair with Nick develops. He is the one person Offred leaves out when she tells the story of her past life to Nick (Chapter 41), though she is still worrying about him at the end (Chapter 44). He is also the most fragmented character in the text, appearing briefly as a name in Chapter 2, and then gradually taking on an identity as Offred's lover, husband and the father of her child. He is a figure whose life story stopped for Offred at a traumatic point in the past: ‘Stopped dead in time, in mid-air, among the trees back there, in the act of falling' (Chapter 35). Through her reconstruction Luke appears as a late twentieth-century ‘liberated man', full of courage and humour and remembered by Offred entirely in his domestic relations with her. He is an older man who has been married before, so that there is an ironic parallel drawn between him and the Commander. Offred remembers their affair when she goes with the Commander to Jezebel's, for it is the hotel where she and Luke used to go (Chapter 37). She retains the memory of a strong loving partner, and her detailed recollections are of Luke cooking and joking with her mother, of lying in bed with her before their daughter was born, of collecting their daughter from school. We never know what Luke's job was, but Offred recalls his supportive behaviour when she lost her job at the time of the Gileadean take-over and her resentment against him for being a man (Chapter 28). Luke figures insistently in Offred's recurring nightmare of their failed escape attempt, not only in that final image of him lying shot face down in the snow, but also in her recollections of his careful preparations and his coolly courageous attempt to take his family to freedom over the Canadian border. His afterlife in the novel is very much the result of Offred's anxieties about what might have happened to him. Is he dead, or in prison? Did he escape? Will he send her a message and help her to escape back into their old family life? ‘It's this message, which may never arrive, that keeps me alive. I believe in the message' (Chapter 18). It is also her hope of this message which keeps the image of Luke alive. The anxieties we may feel for his fate are projections of Offred's own.

Against Anti †Social Activities Essay

Antisocial behaviour: the construction of a crime Now the New Labour government has revealed its ‘respect’ agenda, the problem of ‘antisocial behaviour’ has moved to the forefront of political debate. But what is it? by Stuart Waiton ‘Antisocial: opposed to the principles on which society is constituted.’ (Oxford English Dictionary, 1885). ‘Antisocial: contrary to the laws and customs of society; causing annoyance and disapproval in others: children’s antisocial behaviour.’ (Oxford English Dictionary, 1989). ‘Antisocial behaviour’ is used as a catch-all term to describe anything from noisy neighbours and graffiti to kids hanging out on the street. Indeed, it appears that almost any kind of unpleasant behaviour is now categorised as antisocial, with the behaviour of children and young people most often labelled as such (1). This expresses a growing perception that the ‘laws and customs of society’ are being undermined by rowdy youngsters. Yet the term ‘antisocial behaviour’ was rarely used until the 1990s. Throughout the 1980s a couple of articles a year were printed in the UK discussing antisocial behaviour, whereas in January 2004 alone ther e were over 1,000 such articles (2). Not even the most pessimistic social critic would suggest a parallel increase in problem behaviour. Indeed, in recent years there has been a slight fall in actual vandalism, for example, against a dramatic increase in newspaper mentions of antisocial behaviour (3). When looking at the issue of antisocial behaviour, the starting point for most commentators is to accept that the problem exists and to then work out why people are more antisocial today. The ‘collapse of communities’ is often seen as a key influence in the rise of antisocial behaviour, with young people growing up without positive role models and a framework within which to develop into sociable adults. This idea of the loss of a sense of community – or indeed of ‘society’ – rings true. We are indeed more atomised and individuated today, and there are fewer common bonds that hold people together and give them a ‘social identity’. It is less clear, however, that this necessarily means people are increasingly out of control, antisocial and on the road to criminality. Alternatively you could argue that this fragmentation of communities and of social values has helped foment a ‘culture of fear’ (4) – a culture that elevates what were previously understood as petty problems into socially significant ones. This essay examines the construction of the social problem of antisocial behaviour, by focusing, not on the behaviour of young people, but on the role of the political elite. It may be understandable for a tenants’ association or local councillor to be engaged by the issue of noisy neighbours and rowdy children – but for the prime minister to prioritise this issue as one of his main concerns for the future of the nation seems rather strange. What is it that has put ‘antisocial behaviour’ so high up on the political agenda? Constructing crime as a social problem When introducing laws against antisocial behaviour, curfews, and new crime initiatives, the New Labour government invariably asserts that these are in response to the concerns of the public. While there is undoubtedly a high level of public anxiety about crime and about the various problems and irritations now described as antisocial behaviour, this anxiety is clearly shaped by the concerns of the political elite. It is also worth noting that when the government highlights particular ‘social problems’ as being significant for society, it puts other issues and outlooks on the back burner. The elevation of crime and, more recently, antisocial behaviour, into a political issue has helped both to reinforce the significance given to this kind of behaviour and to frame the way social problems are understood. By defining antisocial behaviour as a major social problem, the political elite has, over the past decade, helped to generate a spiralling preoccupation with the petty behaviour of young people. At no time in history has the issue of crime as a social problem in and of itself been so central to all of the political parties in the UK – and yet, there has been a significant statistical fall in crime itself. The key difference between the moral panics over crime and social disorder in the past and anxiety about crime and disorder today is that this anxiety has now been institutionalised by the political elite. Up until the 1970s the political elite, as distinct from individual politicians and the media, generally challenged or dismissed the panics associated with youth crime and subsequently held in check the effects they had. In opposing certain calls for more laws and regulations on society, more reactionary ways of understanding these problems were often rejected and the insti tutionalisation of measures that help create new norms were equally opposed. For example, while the moral panic that arose in the media around the Mods and Rockers in the 1960s has been widely discussed thanks to Stanley Cohen’s famous study Folk Devils and Moral Panics, first published in 1972 (5), these concerns were marginal to politicians, and never became an organising principle of political life. More recently, however, the political elite has panicked and legislated on the strength of extreme one-off events, like for example the Dunblane shootings in 1996, which resulted in the banning of handguns, or the killing of Victoria Climbie in 2000, which led to legislation requiring schools to organise around child protection. An important consequence of the institutionalisation of anxiety is that in contrast to the intermittent moral panics of the past, panics are now an almost permanent feature of society. And whereas moral panics – particularly before the 1990s – were generated within a traditional conservative moral framework, today i t is the new ‘amoral’ absolute of safety within which they tend to develop. Politicising crime The politicisation of crime can be dated back to the 1970s, with the 1970 Conservative government being the first to identify itself explicitly as the party of law and order. As crime developed as a political issue through the 1970s, however, it was fiercely contested. When Conservatives shouted ‘law and order’, the left would reject the idea that crime was increasing or was a social problem in and of itself, pointing instead to the social problems thought to underlie it. Significant sections of the left, influenced in part by radical criminologists in the USA, challenged the ‘panics’ – as they saw them – promoted by the so-called New Right. They questioned the official statistics on crime, challenging the ‘labelling’ of deviants by ‘agents of social control’, and attacked the moral and political basis of these panics (6). Thus, the idea that crime was a broader ‘social problem’ remained contested. Crime b ecame a political issue at a time when there was an increase in serious political and social conflicts, following the more consensual political framework of the postwar period. Unemployment and strikes increased, as did the number of political demonstrations, and the conflict in Ireland erupted. In contrast to the current concern about crime and antisocial behaviour, which emerged in the 1990s, the New Right under Margaret Thatcher promoted crime as a problem very much within a traditional ideological framework. In 1988, Alan Phipps described the Tory approach to crime like this: ‘Firstly, it became conflated with a number of other issues whose connection was continually reinforced in the public mind – permissiveness, youth cultures, demonstrations, public disorders, black immigration, student unrest, and trade union militancy. Secondly, crime – by now a metaphorical term invoking the decline of social stability and decent values – was presented as only one aspect of a bitter harvest for which Labour’s brand of social democracy and welfarism was responsible.’ (7) As part of a political challenge to Labourism in the 1970s and 80s, Conservative prime minister Margaret Thatcher developed an authoritarian approach to the ‘enemy with in’, which attributed greater political significance to criminality than its effects on victims. Despite an increase in the financial support to the Victim Support schemes in the late 1980s, victims of crime were themselves often used politically, ‘paraded’ by Conservative politicians and by sections of the media as symbols of disorder, not as the central focus of law and order policy or rhetoric itself. Sociologist Joel Best describes a process of typification, whereby an often extreme example of crime is used to define a more general perceived problem (8). The ‘typical’ criminals of the 1970s and 1980s were the violent trade union militant and the young black mugger. Traditional British values and individual freedoms were contrasted to the collectivist, promiscuous values of the ‘enemy within’ (9). Even burglars were understood as being part of the ‘something for nothing society’. Here the ‘criminal’, whether the trade union member, the mugger or the burglar, far from being a victim of circumstance, was an enemy of the state, and, importantly, the damage being done was not primarily to the victim of crime but to the moral values of society as a whole. ‘Social control’ and ‘public order’ were promoted within both a political and moral framework in which the deviant in question was likewise understood to have certain political or moral traits that needed to be confronted. Where the petty criminal acts of children were mentioned, the target was not simply this behaviour itself, nor the impact it had on individuals, but rather the ‘soft liberal’ moral values – held by teachers and social workers – that it was argued were undermining British Victorian values of discipline and hard work. In keeping with this, Thatcher saw the responsibility for cutting crime not simply as that of the government or police, but also of the public, who, it was argued, should take action to defend themselves. Go directly to jail ‘The demand for law and order, which at first sight appears to attempt a restoration of moral standards, actually acknowledges and acquiesces in their collapse. Law and order comes to be seen as the only effective deterrent in a society that no longer knows the difference between right and wrong.’ (Christopher Lasch, Haven in a Heartless World, 1977.) American sociologist Christopher Lasch identified key developments in the USA in the 1970s. In the UK, while an increasing emphasis on law and order reflected a certain weakening of the political elite’s grip on society, crime had been understood in largely ideological and political terms. Thatcher used the issue of crime in the battle against Labourism and welfarism. By the early 1990s, however, things were changing fast. John Major’s desperate and ultimately failed attempt to revitalise the political dynamic of the Conservatives with his ‘Back to Basics’ campaign in 1993 demonstrated the Toriesà ¢â‚¬â„¢ inability to develop a political direction that engaged both the elite and the electorate, and it was at this point that the politics of crime took on a new, less ideological, but even more authoritarian character. The issue of ‘persistent young offenders’ became a political issue and a recognised ‘social problem’ in 1992 and exploded as an issue of concern in 1993. The ‘violent trade union militant’ was now replaced by this ‘persistent young offender’ as the ‘typical’ criminal, and, as then home secretary Michael Howard explained, ‘self-centred†¦young hoodlums’ would ‘no longer be able to use age’ as a way of hiding from the law (10). It is important to note that under Thatcher, despite the ‘most consistent, vitriolic and vindictive affront to justice and welfare’ in general, the criminal justice approach to young people developed under principles that resulted in ‘diversion, decriminalisation and decarceration in policy and practice with children in trouble’ (11). Despite the tough rhetoric with regard to adult crime, the Thatcher administration maintained a pragmatic and even progressive policy towards young offenders. Under John Major this all changed. The enemy within became ‘minors rather than the miners’ (12). With the end of the contestation between right and left, and the resulting decline in the ideological politicisation of crime, the direct control and regulation of the population substantially increased, and between 1993 and 1995 there was a 25 per cent increase in the number of people imprisoned (13). Politically-based authoritarianism was replaced by a more reactive ‘apolitical’ authoritarianism which was directed less at the politics and moral values of the organised labour movement and other enemies within, than at the more psychologically-framed behaviour of individuals. ‘Antisocial behaviour’ now began to be recognised as a significant ‘social problem’ around which new laws and institutional practices could be developed. Following Lasch, it appears that by 1993 law and order had come to be seen as the only effective resource for a political elite that no longer knew the difference between right and wrong. Rather than using the fight against crime in an effort to shape the moral and political outlook of adults in society, the Conservative government increasingly opted simply to lock people up, thus acknowledging and acquiescing in its own political and moral collapse. Cultures of crime As part of the growing preoccupation with the ‘underclass’, the floundering Major government also attacked what he described as a ‘yob culture’. This identification of an alien, criminal culture had developed in the late 1980s, as crime panics began to move away from concerns with the organised working class and shifted on to the behaviour of ‘hooligans’ and ‘lager louts’. The criminalisation of the working class, by the early 1990s, was framed not in political terms, but increasingly as an attack on the imagined ‘cultures’ of alien groups. These aliens were no longer black outsiders or militants, but white, working class, and young, who could be found not on demonstrations but in pubs and estates across the UK. The door was now open for an attack on the personal behaviour and habits of anyone seen to be acting in an ‘antisocial’ manner. The idea of there being alternative ‘cultures’, expressed by conservative thinkers at this time, implied that significant sections of the public were no longer open to civilising influences. However, and somewhat ironically, within criminological theory, this idea of impenetrable cultures had developed from radicals themselves back in the 1970s. Stanley Cohen and the cultural studies groups of the Birmingham Centre had been the first to identify youth cultures and deviant subcultures as specific types of people existing within a ‘different life-world’. At a time of greater political radicalism, these groups were credited with positive ‘difference’. With the decline of radical thought these imagined cultures were rediscovered in the 1990s, but this time were seen as increasingly problematic (14). In reality, the growing preoccupation with ‘cultures’ – for example the discovery of a ‘knife culture’ in 1992 – was a reflection of a loss of belief in politics as a way of understanding and resolving wider social problems. With the loss of ideologically based politics on the right and the left, reflected in the r ise of New Labour, the problem of crime became increasingly understood as a problem of and for individuals. New Labour, New Social Problems ‘What my constituents see as politics has changed out of all recognition during the 20 years or so since I first became their Member of Parliament. From a traditional fare of social security complaints, housing transfers, unfair dismissals, as well as job losses, constituents now more often than not ask what can be done to stop their lives being made a misery by the unacceptable behaviour of some neighbours, or more commonly, their neighbours’ children. The Labour MP Frank Field, in his book Neighbours from Hell: The Politics of Behaviour (2003), explained how politics had become a matter of regulating behaviour. Field neglected to ask himself whether poor housing and a lack of opportunities are no longer problems, or whether his constituents have simply lost faith in politicians’ ability to do anything about them. Similarly, Field ignored the role the Labour Party itself played in reducing politics to questions of noisy neighbours and rowdy youngsters, and the wa y in which New Labour in the 1990s helped to repose ‘traditional’ social concerns around issues of crime and disorder. A more fragmented and atomised public was undoubtedly subject to a ‘culture of fear’, but the role of New Labour was central to the promotion of concerns related to antisocial behaviour. Under Tony Blair, crime became a central issue for the Labour Party, especially after Blair’s celebrated ‘tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime’ speech in 1994. This ended any major political opposition to the recently reposed ‘social problem’ of crime. A key ‘right’ for New Labour now became the ‘right’ to be, and to feel, safe. By 1997 the New Labour manifesto was strikingly confrontational around the issues of crime and antisocial behaviour. As the Guardian newspaper noted in April of that year: ‘There are areas where Neil Kinnock’s manifesto barely ventured. In 1992, crime, for instance, rated five paragraphs and mainly concentrated on improving street lighting. Now law and order rates two pages with the n ow familiar â€Å"zero tolerance† strategies and child curfews fighting for room next to pledges to early legislation for a post-Dunblane ban on all handguns. Such policies seemed unthinkable five years ago. However, in this case, Blair’s â€Å"radicalism† – with its social authoritarian tinge – may play better with the centre rather than the Left.’ Freed from the politics of welfarism and the labour movement, New Labour in the early 1990s reoriented its approach to the politics of crime, not only accepting that crime was a key social problem in and of itself, but also in expanding it to include the non-criminal antisocial behaviour of ‘neighbours from hell’ and ‘antisocial youth’. With the prioritisation of crime and antisocial behaviour came a focus upon the emotional reaction of victims, reflected in the concern with the fear of crime. ‘Tackling the epidemic of crime and disorder’ was now a ‘top priority for Labour in government’ and ‘securing people’s physical security and freeing them from the fear of crime and disorder’ was described as the ‘greatest liberty government c an guarantee’ (15). Liberty was transformed from the active freedom of individuals, to the protection given to them by government and the police. In contrast to the social and economic framework within which crime had been largely understood by the ‘active’ labour movement in the 1980s, New Labour now addressed the problems of crime and disorder with reference to a more passive, disorganised and fragmented public. As the government took a more direct approach to tackling crime in its own terms, so the issue expanded to consume problems that previously had been understood in more political terms. Accordingly, social, economic and political solutions were replaced by attempts to regulate the behaviour of both criminals and antisocial neighbours and children. Imprisonment, antisocial behaviour orders and more intense forms of behaviour management of parents and children increasingly became the political solution offered by New Labour to these problems. Engaged by safety The term ‘community safety’ did not exist until the late 1980s, but has subsequently become a core strategic category around which local authorities and national government have developed community-based policies. Community safety is not about crime as such, but is more broadly about the fear of crime and of petty antisocial acts, especially committed by young people, and thought to undermine communities’ sense of security. Here the loss of ‘community’ that has been generated by such major social shifts as the defeat of the old Labour movement and the weakening of the postwar institutional welfare framework has been reinterpreted as a problem of mischievous children creating fear across society. An important watershed in the organisation of society around the issues of safety was then shadow home secretary Jack Straw’s notorious attack in 1995 on the ‘aggressive begging of winos, addicts and squeegee merchants’ (16). Only a year ea rlier, Straw had accused John Major of ‘climbing into the gutter alongside the unfortunate beggars’ when the prime minister had made seemingly similar comments (17). There was an important difference, however. Major and his chancellor Kenneth Clarke had attacked beggars as dole scroungers – ‘beggars in designer jeans’ who receive benefits and ‘think it is perfectly acceptable to add to their income by begging’. Still understanding crime through the political prism of welfarism, Clarke saw begging as a criminal act that defrauded the benefit system. In his later attack on beggars, Jack Straw redefined the issue. For Straw the problem was not the crime of begging or the political or economic problem of benefit fraud, but the disorderly and intimidating behaviour of the aggressive beggar, which was understood to increase the fear of crime and help to undermine society’s sense of wellbeing (18). Jack Straw believed that the Tories had failed to understand the significance of street disorder as a cause of the fear of crime, the ‘loutish behaviour and incivility’ that made the streets ‘uncomfor table, especially for women and black and Asian people’ (19). The issue for New Labour was not the political question of benefit fraud, but the emotional sense of security of a newly discovered vulnerable public. By the time the election year of 1997 came around the soon to be prime minister, Tony Blair, had elaborated on the typical beggar. This was not a man quietly scrounging money off the public, but the often drunken ‘in your face’ lout who would, ‘push people against a wall and demand money effectively with menace’ (20). No figures for the rise in bullying beggars were given, but Tony Blair noted that he himself sometimes felt frightened when he dropped his children off at King’s Cross in London – a notorious area for ‘winos’, prostitutes and ‘aggressive beggars’. Straw, using a well-worn feminist slogan, demanded that we ‘reclaim the streets’ – streets that had been ‘brutalised’ by beggars and graffiti vandals. The radical creation of victimhood Because much of this rhetoric of intimidation, abuse and the collapse of communities has its origins in the radical school of criminology, Labour politicians felt able to employ it without embarrassment. In the late 1980s, left-wing and feminist criminologists had a significant influence on Labour-run inner-city councils, carrying out victim surveys, and sitting on a number of council boards particularly within the Greater London Council. Developing out of the radical framework of the early 1970s, a number of such criminologists had become disillusioned with the fight for political and social change and, rather than challenging the focus on crime as an expression of class prejudice as they once might have, increasingly identified crime as a major issue, particularly for the poor, women and blacks who were now conceived of as ‘victims’ of crime. Instead of identifying with and engaging its constituency in terms of politics and public matters, the left sought a new relatio nship with the poor and oppressed based on their private fears and their sense of powerlessness. Identifying fear as a major factor in the disaggregation of these communities, the so-called ‘left realists’ noted that it was not only crime but the non-criminal harassment of women and petty antisocial behaviour of young people that was the main cause of this fear among victimised groups (21). The identification of harassed victims of antisocial behaviour rose proportionately with the declining belief in the possibility of radical social change. As the ‘active’ potential of the working class to ‘do’ something about the New Right declined, Jock Young and other realists uncovered the vulnerable ‘done to’ poor. Discussing the shift in Labour councils from radicalism to realism, Young noted that: ‘The recent history of radical criminology in Britain has involved a rising influence of feminist and anti-racist ideas and an encasement of left-wing Labour administrations in the majority of the inner-city Town Halls. An initial ultra -leftism has been tempered and often transformed by a prevalent realism in the wake of the third consecutive defeat of the Labour Party on the national level and severe defeats with regards to â€Å"rate capping† in terms of local politics. The need to encompass issues which had a widespread support among the electorate, rather than indulge in marginal or â€Å"gesture† politics included the attempt to recapture the issue of law and order from the right.’ (22) Indeed, crime and the fear of it became so central to Young’s understanding of the conditions of the working class that, on finding that young men’s fear of crime was low – despite their being the main victims of crime – he argued that they had a false consciousness. Rather than trying to allay women’s fears about the slim chance of serious crime happening to them, Young asked whether it ‘would not be more advisable to attempt to raise the fear of crime of young men rather than to lower that of other parts of the public?’. For the first time, it was safety that began to frame the relationship between the local authority and the public, expressing a shift from a social welfare model of that relationship to one of protection. The significance of the left realists and feminists at this time is that they were the first people systematically to redefine large sections of the working class as ‘victims’, and thus helped to reorient Labour local authorities towards a relationship of protection to the public at the expense of the newly targeted antisocial youth. It is this sense of the public as fundamentally vulnerable, coupled with the disengagement of the Labour Party from its once active constituency within the working class and the subsequent sense of society being out of control, that has informed the development of New Labour’s antisocial behaviour initiatives. Issues related to inner-city menace, crime and what was now labelled antisocial behaviour, which had been identified as social problems by conservative thinkers periodically for over a century, now engaged the Labour Party. Increasingly for New Labour, having abandoned extensive socioeconomic intervention, the problem of the disaggregation of communities and the subsequent culture of fear that grew out of the 1980s was identified as a problem of crime, disorder and more particularly the antisocial behaviour of young people. The Hamilton Curfew and the politics of fear The development of the politics of antisocial behaviour was accelerated in 1997 when the first ‘curfew’ in the UK was set up in a number of housing estates in Hamilton in the west of Scotland. Introduced by a Labour council, this was a multi-agency initiative involving the notoriously ‘zero tolerance’ Strathclyde Police and the council’s social work department. The curfew that followed was officially called the Child Safety Initiative. This community safety approach reflected a number of the trends identified above. Rather than tackling crime as such, the initiative was supposed to tackle the broader, non-criminal problem of antisocial behaviour, in order to keep the community free from crime and also, significantly, free from the fear of crime (23). The rights of people in the community promoted by this initiative were not understood in terms of a libertarian notion of individual freedoms, nor within a welfarist conception of the right to jobs and se rvices. Rather it was ‘the right to be safe’ and the ‘right to a quiet life’ that Labour councillors promoted. Without a collective framework within which to address social problems, and concomitantly without a more robust sense of the active individual, a relationship of protection was posited between the local authority and the communities in question. Talk of ‘rights and responsibilities’ implied the right of vulnerable individuals to be and feel safe, not by being active in their own community but rather by either keeping their children off the streets, or by phoning the police whenever they felt insecure. Advocates of the Child Safety Initiative identified all sections of the community as being at risk – children were at risk simply by being unsupervised; adults were at risk from teenagers who hung about the streets; and young people were at risk from their peers, who could, by involving one another in drink, drugs and crime, ‘set patterns’ for the rest of their lives, as the head of the social work department argued. Even those teenagers involved in anti social and criminal activities were understood as an ‘at risk’ group – the ‘juvenile delinquents’ of the past were thus recast as ‘vulnerable teenagers’ who needed protection from each other. The centrality of the concern with victims of crime, which has developed since the Hamilton curfew was first introduced, is reflected within the curfew itself. In effect all sections of the public were understood to be either victims or vulnerable, potential victims of their neighbours and of local young people. The legitimacy of the police and the local authority was based not on a wider ideological, political or moral platform, but simply on their ability to protect these victims. The politics of antisocial behaviour lacks any clear ideological or moral framework, and therefore it has no obvious constituency. In fact, the basis of the Child Safety Initiative was the weakness of community. Rather than being derived from a politically engaged public, the authority of the council and the police was assumed, or ‘borrowed’, from that public in the guise of individual victims. Accordingly, the police in Hamilton constantly felt under pressure to show that the potential victi ms they were protecting – especially the young people who were subject to the curfew – supported what they were doing. Of course, nobody has a monopoly on borrowed authority. A number of children’s charities similarly took it upon themselves to speak for the children, arguing that the curfew infringed their ‘rights’ and coming up with alternative surveys showing that young people opposed the use of curfews. There was little effort to make a substantial political case against the curfew, however. In fact, ‘child-friendly’ groups and individuals tended to endorse the presentation of young people and children as fundamentally vulnerable potential victims, and some opposed the curfew only on the basis that children would be forced back into the home where they were even more likely to be abused. Just as Blair was put on the defensive over his attack on aggressive begging by charities campaigning for the rights of the victimised homeless, so the curfew exposed the authorities to charges of ‘harassing’ or ‘bullying’ young people. Since the curfew w as justified precisely on the basis of protecting young people from these things, the charge was all the more damaging. This was more than a tricky PR issue: it demonstrated a fundamental problem with the politics of antisocial behaviour. In presenting the public as vulnerable and in need of protection, the state transformed the basis of its own authority from democratic representation to a more precarious quasi-paternalism; in effect it became a victim protection agency. The very social atomisation and lack of political cohesion that underlies the politics of antisocial behaviour means that the authority of the state is constantly in question, despite the fact that its assumptions about the vulnerability of the public are widely shared. As such, the Hamilton curfew gave concrete expression to the attempt to re-engage a fragmented public around the issue of safety, and the difficulties this throws up. Criminalising mischief In contrast to the pragmatic approach of past political elites to the issue of crime and occasional panics about delinquent youth, the current elite has come to see crime, the fear of crime and antisocial behaviour as major ‘social problems’. With the emergence of New Labour in the 1990s any major political opposition to the issue of crime as a key social problem has disappeared and its centrality to political debate and public discourse was established. Under New Labour, however, the concerns being addressed and the ‘social problems’ being defined are less to do with crime and criminals than with annoying children and noisy neighbours. These petty irritations of everyday life have been relabelled ‘antisocial behaviour’, something which is understood to be undermining both individuals’ and society’s sense of well being. At its most ridiculous extreme what we are witnessing is the criminalisation of mischief (24). Basil Curley, Manc hester council’s housing executive, told the Guardian: ‘Yes, we used to bang on doors when we were young. But there used to be badger-baiting once, too. It’s different now, isn’t it? Things are moving on; people want to live differently.’ (25) This casual comparison of children playing ‘knocky door neighbour’ with the brutality of badger-baiting tells us nothing about young people, but indicates that what has changed is the adult world with an inflated sense of vulnerability driving all antisocial behaviour initiatives. For New Labour the problem of the disaggregation of communities and the subsequent culture of fear that grew out of the 1980s was located within politics as a problem of crime and disorder. Devoid of a sense of social progress, in the 1990s it was the political elites – both right and left – who became the driving force for reinterpreting social problems within a framework of community safety. Lacking any coherent political direction, the government has both reacted to and reinforced panics about crime and disorder, institutionalising practices and initiatives based upon society’s sense of fear and anxiety. In an attempt both to regulate society and to reengage the public, over the past eight years New Labour has subsequently encouraged communities to participate in and organise around a raft of safety initiatives. Despite the fall in the official crime statistics society’s sense of insecurity has remained endemic and no ‘sense of community’ has been re-established, much to the government’s frustration. However, rather than recognising that constructing a society around the issue of safety has only helped to further the public’s sense of insecurity, New Labour is becoming ever more reactive and developing more and more policies to regulate a growing range of ‘antisocial’ activities and forms of behaviour. By thrashing around for solutions to the ‘politics of behaviour’ in this way, the government is helping to fuel the spiral of fear and alienation across society. Rather than validating the more robust active side of our character, validation is given to the most passive self-doubting aspects of our personality. Communities and a society that is more at ease with itself would expect men and women of character to resolve problems of everyday life themselves, and would equally condemn those who constantly deferred to the authorities as being antisocial. Today, however, we are all being encouraged to act in an antisocial manner and demand antisocial behaviour orders on our neighbours and their children. Rather than looking someone in the eye and resolving the incivilities we often face, we can increasingly rely on the CCTV cameras to do this, or alternatively look to the community wardens, the neighbourhood police and the antisocial task force to resolve these problems for us. We are told to act responsibly, but are expected to call on others to be responsible for dealing with noisy neighbours or rowdy children. As this approach develops a new public mood is being created, a mood based on the notion of ‘safety first’ where an increasing number of people and problems become the concern of the police and local authorities. This weakened sense of individuals is a reflection of the political elite itself, which lacks the moral force and political direction that could help develop a sense of community. Ultimately, it is the crisis of politics that is the basis for the preoccupation with curtain-twitching issues – the product of an antisocial elite, which is ultimately creating a society in its own image.