Skip to main content

Home/ APEngLangper711-12/ Group items tagged ones

Rss Feed Group items tagged

Ellen L

US: Wal-Mart Denies Workers Basic Rights | Human Rights Watch - 0 views

  • Human Rights Watch found that while many American companies use weak US laws to stop workers from organizing, the retail giant stands out for the sheer magnitude and aggressiveness of its anti-union apparatus.
  • Wal-Mart workers have virtually no chance to organize because they’re up against unfair US labor laws and a giant company that will do just about anything to keep unions out,” said Carol Pier, senior researcher on labor rights and trade for Human Rights Watch. “That one-two punch devastates workers’ right to form and join unions.”
  • Wal-Mart’s relentless anti-union drumbeat creates a climate of fear at its US stores. Many workers are convinced that they will suffer dire consequences if they form a union, in part because they do not hear pro-union views. Many are also afraid that if they defy their powerful employer by organizing, they could face retaliation, even firing.
  • ...3 more annotations...
  • Managers receive explicit instructions on keeping out unions, many of which are found in the company’s “Manager’s Toolbox,” a self-described guide to managers on “how to remain union free in the event union organizers choose your facility as their next target.”
  • Penalties under US labor law are so minimal that they have little deterrent effect, and Wal-Mart only receives a slap on the wrist when found guilty of illegal conduct.
  • “Wal-Mart should change its anti-union behavior,” said Pier. “When companies like Wal-Mart can regularly violate US workers’ right to organize, they threaten a fundamental right and one that the government is duty-bound to uphold.”
  •  
    Human Rights Watch attacks Wal-Mart for their unfair treatment of their workers. While supressing unions, illegaly firing employees, and evesdropping on conversations, causing employees to be at a severe disadvantage, the corporation faces few legal consequences.
Connor P

Literary Reference Center - powered by EBSCOhost: THE IDEOLOGY OF AUTONOMY: FORM AND FU... - 0 views

  • The burial march to Jefferson tests this family's mettle, repeatedly forcing them to place the common good above their individual concerns. Darl's incarceration, as we have seen, is an instance of the Bundren family's protecting itself by means of sacrificing one of its own individual members
  •  
    This refers to the selfish motives of the characters that isolate them on the journey to Jefferson. Because everyone is focused on their goals, no one seems to care about Addie and her burial
Ellen L

The Oppression of Black People, The Crimes of This System and the Revolution We Need - 1 views

  • Conventional wisdom says that while some disparities remain, things have generally advanced for Black people in America and today they are advancing still. People like Obama and Oprah are held up as proof of this.
  • Take employment: Black people remain crowded into the lowest rungs of the ladder...that is, if they can find work at all. While many of the basic industries that once employed Black people have closed down, study after study shows employers to be more likely to hire a white person with a criminal record than a Black person without one, and 50% more likely to follow up on a resume with a “white-sounding” name than an identical resume with a “Black-sounding”2 name. In New York City, the rate of unemployment for Black men is fully 48%
  • Black infants face mortality rates comparable to those in the Third World country of Malaysia, and African-Americans generally are infected by HIV at rates that rival those in sub-Saharan Africa. Overall the disparities in healthcare are so great that one former U.S. Surgeon General recently wrote, “If we had eliminated disparities in health in the last century, there would have been 85,000 fewer black deaths overall in 2000.”5
  • ...4 more annotations...
  • Or education: Today the schools are more segregated than they have been since the 1960s6 with urban, predominantly Black and Latino schools receiving fewer resources and set up to fail. These schools more and more resemble prisons with metal detectors and kids getting stopped and frisked on their way to class by uniformed police who patrol their halls. Often these schools spend around half as much per pupil as those in the well-to-do suburbs
  • People rebelled in hundreds of American cities,25 and the revolutionary stance of leaders like Malcolm X and forces like the Black Panther Party resonated with millions in the streets and campuses of the U.S. Many things fed into this—including, again, the international situation which, as pointed out earlier, was marked by a great upsurge in national liberation struggles and the influence of a socialist China under the leadership of Mao.
  • ome African-Americans were given opportunities to enter college and professional careers, and social programs like welfare, community clinics, and early education programs were expanded. Government spending for training and jobs that would employ Black people increased. Some discrimination was lifted in credit for housing and small businesses. Most of this was in the form of small concessions—not only did this not begin to touch the real scars of hundreds of years of terrible oppression, but discrimination continued in all of these arenas. Nonetheless, these advances were hardly insignificant.
  • To put it another way, the ’60s showed that when masses rose up in rebellion against the powers-that-be, and when that was coupled with a political stance that called out the system as the problem, and when a growing section of that movement linked itself to and learned from the revolutionary movement worldwide…well, when all that happened, you could radically change the political polarization in society
  •  
    The most relevant parts of this article are the introduction and the 60's section. These discuss the struggle of the black population and the impact of leaders like Malcolm X on society. 
Zaji Z

Abuses Against Workers Taint U.S. Meat and Poultry | Human Rights Watch - 2 views

  • In meat and poultry plants across the United States, Human Rights Watch found that many workers face a real danger of losing a limb, or even their lives, in unsafe work conditions.
  • “A century after Upton Sinclair wrote ‘The Jungle,’ workers in the meatpacking industry still face serious injuries,” said Jamie Fellner, director of the U.S. Program at Human Rights Watch.
  • “When workers try to defend themselves by forming unions, employers use fear and intimidation to stop them,”
  • ...1 more annotation...
  • “The meatpacking companies hire immigrant workers because they are often the only ones who will work under such terrible conditions,”
  •  
    Reports are out: modern day meatpacking is still considered to be one imposing extreme hazard to the worker. This is only one of the many modern instances of ethical injustice as employers continue to intimidate their workers from creating unions, as described with Fast Food Nation and McDonald's. It is a marriage of Sinclair's eye-opening description of the meatpacking industry and Schlosser's depiction of contemporary business ethics. 
  •  
    This is a great source and annotation showing how the horrors of the meatpacking industry first brought up in the Jungle, and later in Fast Food Nation are still going on today. The terrible ethics of these big businesses are still a problem to this day.
  •  
    You guys bring up valid points. Honestly it gets frustrating hearing the same topic being incessantly repeated, but it still is a good source about these novels and the poor treatment of the workers. I like how your second quote even relates it to modern times, just like FFN
Zaji Z

WA Minimum Wage Soon to Top $9 an Hour - 0 views

  • The minimum wage in Washington state goes up 37 cents on Jan. 1, to $9.04 an hour. Washington is one of only 10 states that ensure by law that their minimum wage keeps up with inflation
  • For a full-time worker, the higher minimum wage will mean about $770 more dollars a year.
  •  
    While many of modern society's economic talk, including Ehrenreich's experience, are of the injustice corporations and the government impose on the people with low wages that cannot even sustain a family for a month (or barely, at least)... they are overlooking the smarter state governments that do adjust their minimum wage policy to match inflation. Even if it may only be a few cents of a raise per hour, one can nearly earn a thousand, which definitely helps in sustaining a family. 
Ellen L

The Psychological Effects of Child Relocation - 0 views

  • Home is a name, a word, it is a strong one; stronger than magician ever spoke, or spirit ever answered to, in the strongest conjuration."
  • The prevailing rule of thumb used to be that the older the child, the more difficult the moving experience will be.
  • Moving does not have to be traumatic for your children, however; there are many things that you can do as a parent to help reduce the impact for them, right from the moment you share the news with them.
  •  
    This article discusses the detriments that moving has on a child's psyche, and the steps a parent should take to comfort their child in times of such great change. Neither Perry, nor Vardaman's father comforts them during their travels and the psychological effects the change has on them is evident.
Ellen L

Social Isolation May Have A Negative Effect On Intellectual Abilities - 0 views

  • Spending just 10 minutes talking to another person can help improve your memory and your performance on tests
  • The higher the level of participants' social interaction, researchers found, the better their cognitive functioning. This relationship was reliable for all age groups, from the youngest through the oldest.
  • The findings also suggest that social isolation may have a negative effect on intellectual abilities as well as emotional well-being. And for a society characterized by increasing levels of social isolation---a trend sociologist Robert Putnam calls "Bowling Alone"---the effects could be far-reaching.
  •  
    This article discusses how social isolation hinders one's ability to cognitively function on a normal level. Studies have been done showing that those who interact socially for 10 minutes before a test out-perform those who do mental exercises such as crosswords. By isolating himself, Victor faced the psychological effects described in this article.
Ellen L

Access : Social isolation delays the positive effects of running on adult neurogenesis ... - 0 views

  • Social isolation can exacerbate the negative consequences of stress and increase the risk of developing psychopathology.
  • individual housing precludes the positive influence of short-term running on adult neurogenesis in the hippocampus of rats and, in the presence of additional stress, suppresses the generation of new neurons.
  • These results suggest that, in the absence of social interaction, a normally beneficial experience can exert a potentially deleterious influence on the brain.
  •  
    Studies have shown that a lack of social interaction turns usually beneficial activities, such as running, into detrimental ones, as a lack of interaction causes elevated levels of corticosterone to be produced, suppressing the generation of new neurons. This reflects the fine line Victor walked between sanity and insanity, as the isolation has a tendency to produce psychopathic effects. 
Ellen L

Talking to Children about Death - 0 views

  • 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.
  • ...1 more annotation...
  • Talk about the ways in which things are different and how they are the same. Reassure the child he did not cause the death.
  •  
    This site talks primarily about younger children s understanding of death, and what parents should do to help their young ones cope with the phenomenon. The thought processes spoken of on this site reflect those thought by Vardaman
Evan G

GRAPES OF WRATH - 2011 « The Burning Platform - 3 views

  • “It has always seemed strange to me… the things we admire in men, kindness and generosity, openness, honesty, understanding and feeling, are the concomitants of failure in our system. And those traits we detest, sharpness, greed, acquisitiveness, meanness, egotism and self-interest, are the traits of success. And while men admire the quality of the first they love the produce of the second.” – John Steinbeck
  • By 1929, the richest 1% owned 40% of the nation’s wealth
  • The have-nots can dream about becoming a have, but the chances of achieving that dream today are miniscule. Steinbeck pointedly distinguishes between the selfishness of the moneyed class and the altruism of the working poor. In contrast to and in conflict with this policy of selfishness stands the migrants’ behavior toward one another. Aware that their livelihood and survival depend upon their devotion to the collective good, the migrants unite—sharing their dreams as well as their burdens—in order to survive. 
  •  
    An overall summary of the depression/GOW. It especially hits on the selifshness of the rich, who seek to keep the poor divided, as well as on the unity of the poor, who die and sacrifice for each other. It contains an EXCELLENT quote from Steinbeck which cynically describes human nature, basically saying that nice guys are admired, but they never get ahead. Greedy, mean guys are hated, but they are admired for their success.  Again, later  it ties into crushing the migrants' dreams in order to keep them down and divided.
Sydney C

Spied on by the King - 0 views

  •  
    This article shows the extent to which unethical practices are used by the fast food companies. Apparently, Burger King employees had been spying on two labor unions and writing things against them on Youtube. They also had private investigators pose as high school students and try to find out info on the unions.
Ellen L

The women behind Mrs Woolf - Telegraph - 0 views

  • Upon reaching adulthood, she would never live without some form of domestic "help", and battling the "timid spiteful servant mind" throughout her life both enraged her and sustained her. It was easier for her to regard her servants as not quite real than to accept the fact of her dependence on others.
  • It's a compelling portrait of how rich and poor women of this time were locked into a strange and pernicious symbiosis, and a vital warning against social inequality.
  •  
    It is interesting how Woolf thought so negatively about the social gap between men and women, and the poverty of women that kept them from freely thinking, yet had no qualms about depending on servants and other domestic help. These people are in similar situations to the ones she portrays women to hold, which makes her treatment of them suprising (she tries to avoid contact with them by writing her orders in order to avoid them all together)
Sarah Sch

(3) Loneliness - 0 views

  •  
    "Social scientists agree that loneliness stems from the subjective experience of deficiencies in social relationships and that these deficiencies are unpleasant, aversive, and exceptionally common."
  • ...2 more comments...
  •  
    "Studies examining associations between personality characteristics and loneliness consistently show that extroverted people report less loneliness, whereas highly neurotic people often feel lonely. Low self-esteem, shyness, and pessimism also correspond to higher levels of loneliness"
  •  
    "Consistent links between loneliness, life satisfaction, and anxiety exist, and loneliness is associated with depression independently of age, gender, physical health, cognitive impairment, network size, and social activity involvement"
  •  
    "Attempts to change one's social relationships are active coping strategies wherein feelings of loneliness motivate people to form new relationship ties... Attempts to reduce the importance of social relationships or engage in diversionary activities are passive coping strategies that often do little to alleviate loneliness"
  •  
    This article discusses isolation, the causes of isolation, the effects of isolation, and how one copes with social isolation. In Frankenstein, the monster feels inferior to humans when they scream and beat him. This isolation influences the monsters mental state and his outlook on the world around him. As a result, he fixates on Victor in order to cope. This essay would support an essay on isolation or the connection between Victor and his creature.
Evan G

What Makes a Psychopath? Answers Remain Elusive | LiveScience - 0 views

  • Lack of empathy, guilt, conscience or remorse Shallow experiences of feelings or emotions Impulsivity and a weak ability to defer gratification and control behavior Superficial charm and glibness Irresponsibility and a failure to accept responsibility for their actions A grandiose sense of their own wort
  •  
    This source discusses the characteristics of pyschopaths, as well as some of the base causes that drive people criminally insane. As one can see below, between Perry and Dick, every one of the listed traits of a serial killer pyschopath is listed below.
Sarah Sch

(6) mental child abuse and neglect - 0 views

  •  
    "In addition, parents who psychologically abuse their children are often narcissistic (self-absorbed) and feel that raising children gets in the way of their own lives and the things they would rather be doing."
  •  
    "Families in which psychological maltreatment occurs are usually dysfunctional in some way and lack good communication skills. "
  •  
    This article further examines the effect of parental neglect on children and the potential causes of parental neglect. One leading cause of parental neglect is the resentment a parent feels due to the restrictions having a child places on their life. Another cause is the self-absorbedness of the parent. These two causes are seen with Perry's mother and father. Perry's father neglects Perry's needs as a child when he drags Perry from town to town on his own whim.
Evan G

Whites favor law against interracial marriage where? | Gene Expression | Discover Magazine - 0 views

  •  
    This is a touchy subject, and there are no quotes, HOWEVER this site was really neat because it provides a lot of modern statistics regarding those who favor laws AGAINST interracial marriage, based on race, religion, age, etc. In the same way that Malcolm and Shorty were arrested for being with white girls, rather than for the theft at hand, many modern people in America favor bans on interracial marriage.
Ellen L

Ethical Issues in Genetic Engineering and Transgenics (ActionBioscience) - 0 views

  • What are the long-term effects on the environment when transgenics are released in the field?
  • What ethical, social, and legal controls or reviews should be placed on such research?
  • Will transgenic interventions in humans create physical or behavioral traits that may or may not be readily distinguished from what is usually perceived to be “human”?
  • ...1 more annotation...
  • If we create a being that has the ability to speak and perhaps even reason but looks like a dog or a chimp, should that being be given all the rights and protection of a human being? Some bioethicists argue that the definition of “human being” should be more expansive and protective, rather than more restrictive. Others argue that definitions that are more expansive could be denigrating to humanity’s status and create a financial disincentive to patenting creations that could be of use to humanit
  •  
    This article discussed the controversy on what it means to be a human being. As the field of genetic engineering is quickly growing, ethical concerns arise, particularly what constitutes a human being. If scientists were to create entities that functioned like humans, but did not look like them, there is a question to how they would be treated. This is much like the monster Frankenstein creates, who functions much like a normal human, but is denied equal treatment by others. 
Evan G

Things to ponder...: As I Lay Dying, characterizing Vardaman... - 0 views

  • Although he is the youngest, it seems as though he is the lost one in the family- no one is there to help him figure out or understand the concept of death,
  • Vardaman is alone in thought and age difference in the family and he sort of becomes an orphan when he loses his mother
  •  
    This source discusses the role of isolation and alienation in Vardaman's life; he is the innocent, clueless child who is unable to comprehend Addie's death, yet his father and brothers neglect him, and no one helps him understand. He wanders around confused and clueless
Ellen L

History Now. The Historians Perspective - 0 views

  • "I am Upton Sinclair, and I have come to write the Uncle Tom's Cabin of the labor movement."
  • that the jungle was actually industrial capitalism. In the serialized version, he states: "the place which is here called The Jungle is not Packingtown, nor is it Chicago, nor is it Illinois, nor is it the United States—it is Civilization."
  • Tiddy was toying with a light breakfast an' idly turnin' over th' pages iv th' new book with both hands. Suddenly he rose fr'm th' table, an' cryin': 'I'm pizened,' began throwin' sausages out iv th' window. . . . Since thin th' Prisidint, like th' rest iv us, has become a viggytaryan
  •  
    As more historical perspective on the Jungle, this article provides direct quotes from the author, the president, and some bystanders. It discusses the effects the Jungle had on society both socially and legally
Evan G

SparkNotes: The Jungle: Themes, Motifs & Symbols - 0 views

  • Every event, especially in the first twenty-seven chapters of the book, is chosen deliberately to portray a particular failure of capitalism, which is, in Sinclair’s view, inhuman, destructive, unjust, brutal, and violent.
  • The slow annihilation of Jurgis’s immigrant family at the hands of a cruel and prejudiced economic and social system demonstrates the effect of capitalism on the working class as a whole
  • Instead of a land of acceptance and opportunity, they find a place of prejudice and exploitation; instead of a country where hard work and morality lead to success, they find a place where only moral corruption, crime, and graft enable one to succeed materially.
  • ...1 more annotation...
  • The family itself has been subject to swindles, grafts, manipulation, and rape. As the corruption motif recurs with increasing levels of immorality, it enhances the sense that things are growing worse and worse for the family. Sinclair heightens the atmosphere of grim tragedy and hopelessness to such an extent that only the encounter with socialism in Chapter 28 can possibly alleviate Jurgis’s suffering and give his life meaning.
  •  
    Yet again, Sparknotes is a fairly decent source, describing various themes for potential essay topics including the failure of capitalism, corruption in businesses, treatment of the [immigrant]  worker, etc. It's very short, to the point, and concise, talking about how awfully workers are manipulated, and the utter torment they go through on a day-to-day basis, merely trying to survive.
1 - 20 of 311 Next › Last »
Showing 20 items per page