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An understanding of personal choice is commonly based in a conception of rationality or rational choice

he central points of this theory are: (1) The human being is a rational actor, (2) Rationality involves an end/means calculation, (3) People (freely) choose all behavior, both conforming and deviant, based on their rational calculations, (4) The central element of calculation involves a cost benefit analysis: Pleasure versus Pain, (5) Choice, with all other conditions equal, will be directed towards the maximization of individual pleasure, (6) Choice can be controlled through the perception and understanding of the potential pain or punishment that will follow an act judged to be in violation of the social good, the social contract, (7) The state is responsible for maintaining order and preserving the common good through a system of laws (this system is the embodiment of the social contract), (8) The Swiftness, Severity, and Certainty of punishment are the key elements in understanding a law's ability to control human behavior.

Some children may still think the dead person will return. Guilt may make a child feel responsible for the death through her own wishful thinking (I wish he would die!), harsh words (You'll be the death of me yet.) or not doing something (I didn't help Grandpa mow the lawn. Now he died.). Fears related to death may arise.

How to help: Be a good listener. Correct any confusing ideas the child may have. Provide play opportunities and routine. Reassure the child the death was not her fault. Provide opportunities to open discussion with a quiet child by reading stories related to death.

Some children in this age range may appear to be unaffected by death on the surface. They may see death as a punishment for bad deeds.

5-10 calls per day from interested job recruiters.  It’s all good until they hear my voice on the phone, and they can tell that I am a black man.  In spite of having a stellar resume, it all goes downhill from there.

I have had to watch as colleagues that I went to school with found jobs before I did with the same damn degree I had; and I graduated a year before they did!

People LAUGHED at the black man’s economic situation.  However, now that white America, and everyone else is feeling the sting, all of a sudden, they want to start a damn movement, and they expect US to join?

Goldthorpe posits three requirements for moving toward a less class-based society. First, the link between individuals' social origins and their schooling must increasingly reflect only their ability. Second, the link between their schooling and their eventual employment must be strengthened by qualifications acquired through education. And third, the link between schooling and employment must become constant for individuals of differing social origins.

But it seems clear that higher education does not promote social equality as effectively as it often claims to do and as it is popularly perceived to do.

When Eric Schlosser came out with Fast Food Nation: The Dark Side of the All-American Meal in 2001, it was hailed as a modern-day Jungle, and with good reason.

Schlosser did far more, connecting the rise and consolidation of the fast-food industry in America to the declining power of labor unions, sliding blue-collar wages and growing income inequality.

"The basic thinking behind fast food has become the operating system of today's retail economy

I work so my husband and I can support our three children. I was really excited when I started working at the Wal-Mart in Kingsville, Texas, in 1996. During orientation, they made it sound so wonderful, like you’re going to get this and that, and they’re really family-oriented. They painted a pretty picture—but it’s not.

The managers were always telling us we’d better not go into overtime. But if you actually clocked out when your shift was supposed to be over, it would be like asking to lose your job. I knew the hours I worked, and the overtime would not be in my check.

writing has always been the way I make sense of the world. It’s a kind of stay against dread, and chaos.

After she died, I kept writing — and reading — trying to understand or just get a handle on grief, which was different from what I thought it’d be. It wasn’t merely sadness; I was full of nostalgia for my childhood, obsessed with my dream life and had a hard time sleeping or focusing on anything but my memories.

A McDonald's worker in Union City, Ga., was arrested and jailed Thursday night for putting too much salt and pepper on a police officer's hamburger

"is sit down and look through cases where the criminals had been arrested. I listed how old [the perpetrators] were, whether they were male or female, their level of education. Did they come from broken families? Did they have school behavioral problems? I listed as many factors as I could come up with, and then I added them up to see which were the most common."

"The basic premise is that behavior reflects personality," explains retired FBI agent Gregg McCrary. In a homicide case, for example, FBI agents glean insight into personality through questions about the murderer's behavior at four crime phases:Antecedent: What fantasy or plan, or both, did the murderer have in place before the act? What triggered the murderer to act some days and not others?Method and manner: What type of victim or victims did the murderer select? What was the method and manner of murder: shooting, stabbing, strangulation or something else?Body disposal: Did the murder and body disposal take place all at one scene, or multiple scenes?Postoffense behavior: Is the murderer trying to inject himself into the investigation by reacting to media reports or contacting investigators

Among those in the profiling field, the tension between law enforcement and psychology still exists to some degree. "The difference is really a matter of the FBI being more oriented towards investigative experience than [academic psychologists] are," says retired FBI agent McCrary.

every character is essentially isolated from the others. Moreover, the characters in the novel do not communicate effectively with one another.

The absence of his mother’s love leads Darl to isolation not only from others but also from himself.

Just months after publication of The Jungle, federal legislation was passed mandating improved inspection of meat, as well as requiring labels listing the ingredients of canned food products. The legislation had been proposed years earlier, but a combination of business interests resisted it, arguing that it was not the business of the federal government to regulate what people ate. The Jungle demonstratedPage 145  |  Top of Article clearly that people had no way of knowing what was in canned food, and therefore needed government regulation to keep foods safe.

Upton Sinclair's The Jungle (1906) and Barbara Ehrenreich's Nickel and Dimed (2001) both offer accounts of the hazards and tribulations of lower-class occupations.

Though the author's methods are unscientific, and her perspective is as biased as Sinclair's, she nonetheless draws an alarming picture of the state of America's lowest-class citizens: the work they perform is back-breaking, the pay is low, and job security is nonexistent.

The real secret to Ehrenreich's book, though, is yuppie voyeurism. Nickel and Dimed is an interesting read. It approaches the working poor like a separate species -- and for most of Ehrenreich's readers, they are.

Ehrenreich's book does have historical precedent, but it's not Orwell. It's the illustrated guides to the London underworld so popular with the Victorians. Ehrenreich's official conclusion: It's difficult, if not impossible, to keep afloat on $7 an hour. Her implicit conclusion: The poor are different from you and me. They look different. They eat different foods. They live in places middle-class people rarely go. They smoke. They even think differently from the way we do. They distrust collective endeavors. They're not stupid, but they're not interested in politics or other abstractions. Above all, they instinctively dislike change, even when change might improve their lives.

And sooner or later, she will be invited to testify before Congress, probably about the effects of welfare reform and the subsequent growth of the service economy.