Public Policy Reporting Class :: essays research papers

  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Pending approval from the General Assembly, the funding for older Illinoisans will receive nearly an eight percent increase in the fiscal year 2001 budget for the Illinois Department on Aging.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  The state’s portion of the overall spending is $234.9 million and funds the Department’s Community Care program at $205 million. The program provides senior citizens with home care services, adult day services and custodial care.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  The eight percent increase is drastically needed according to Carol Aronson, spokesperson for the Shawnee Alliance for seniors.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã¢â‚¬Å"Senior programs are underpaid compared to the services of Department of Children and Family Services with a much lower rate of funds for seniors, even with an eight percent increase,† Aronson said.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  An additional $7 million has been allocated to the Elder Abuse and Neglect Program, an increase of 11 percent. Community based agencies will be able to respond to over 8,600 reports of abuse and neglect, which account for a projected increase. The Elder abuse reports have been on the rise every year, prompting Gov. Ryan to also respond to the problem by forming a new Elder Abuse Task Force.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  The Illinois Department on Aging’s Elder Abuse and Neglect Program responds to all reports of abuse of people age 60 and older. The program provides investigation, intervention and follow-up services to victims. Reports are increasing about 10 percent a year, as the older population grows and awareness of the problem increases.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Jones 2 â€Å"The spring session was certainly fruitful for all Illinois seniors,† said Illinois Department on Aging Director Margo E. Schreiber.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã¢â‚¬Å"The budget will help the Illinois Department on Aging fulfill its mission, and we are grateful to the Governor and legislators for their diligent work in addressing the needs and quality of life for the seniors in our state.†   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  While the bill awaits approval, a similar proposal for seniors, the 100 percent campaign, has been passed and is a working success according to Susan Patterson, field coordinator for the Egyptian Area Agency on Aging, Inc. Specifically, Senate Bill 677, increased access to the state’s Medicaid program for those whose income is less than 100 percent of the federal poverty level, or $687 a month. Currently, the eligibility is set at $308 a month, or 47 percent of the federal poverty level. Through the 100 percent plan, in July 2000 the 47 percent income threshold will jump to 70 percent of the federal poverty level, which will change their income by an additional $184.

The Love Poems of Rich, Marvell and Campion :: Adrienne Rich Andrew Marvell Essays

The Love Poems of Rich, Marvell and Campion Adrienne Rich’s â€Å"Twenty-One Love Poems,† which explore the nature of lesbian love, differ strikingly from classic love poems written by a man to a woman, such as Andrew Marvell’s â€Å"To His Coy Mistress† and Thomas Campion’s â€Å"There Is a Garden in Her Face.† Rich’s poems focus on the â€Å"us† aspect of love, the concept of two strong, yet imperfect women facing all oppositions together, while the love poems written by men are far more reverent, almost worshipful of their subjects. The lesbian poems have a sense of love being â€Å"real†, a connection based on far more than physical attraction, whereas the men’s poems focus on an idealized view of the woman: beautiful, pure, distant. The women in Marvell and Campion’s poems are lovely faà §ades, storybook figures without any real depth or imperfections. Perhaps the lesbian love poems could be seen as less eloquent, or less flawlessly romantic, bu t the romance in them is found in the genuine nature of the love. Rich is doubtlessly writing about experiences she has had, real people she has loved, whereas Marvell and Campion could ostensibly be writing about any beautiful, but otheriwse characterless, woman that they’ve seen. The stress that Rich places on the two members of the couple as equals is a striking contrast to Marvell’s and Campion’s poems, in which the female subject is placed on a pedestal and kept at a distance. There is little sense of a real-life relationship between the man and the woman. The men’s poems are mere descriptions of the woman and their love for her, with little discussion of how they interact, or how they may feel about her personality. Rich, however, creates an atmosphere of â€Å"us against the world†, writing â€Å"I touch you knowing we weren’t born tomorrow, / and somehow, each of us will help the other live, / and somewhere, each of us must help the other die† (Rich 237). Certainly, this discrepancy is at least partially a product of the different eras in which the poems were written; Campion and Marvell were writing in the 16th and 17th centuries, respectively, while Rich’s â€Å"Twenty-One Love Poems† was written in the mid-1970’s. Victorian and Elizabethan culture dictated that the woman be far more removed from the often vile realities of life – revered, but not seen as an equal partner in a relationship. Sexuality would not have been a topic to be openly discussed.

Symbols of Feminine Power in Their Eyes Were Watching God Essay

Symbols of Feminine Power in Their Eyes Were Watching God  Ã‚     Ã‚  Ã‚   Much evidence supports Saturday Review writer Doris Grumbach's opinion that Their Eyes Were Watching God is "the finest black novel of its time" and "one of the finest of all time" (Washington, 4). Zora Neale Hurston's text is highly regarded because of the meaning and purpose it conveys using poetic language and folkloric imagery. It is the heroic story of Janie Crawford's search for individuality, self-realization, and independence from the patriarchal forces of her time. Because the novel is mainly concerned with Janie's many relationships within a male-dominated context, it is only logical to take feminist view of Their Eyes Were Watching God. Throughout my reading of this particular novel I have identified the images of porches, trees, and the horizon as symbols of power in favor of Janie Crawford's search for a feminist identity. To support this opinion, I have chosen to utilize the feminist / reader response theories formulated by Judith Fetterley in Introduction to the Resisting Reader: A Feminist Approach to American Fiction. Fetterley's writing is useful for the study of Their Eyes Were Watching God because of her discussion of power and its relation to women. In her introduction she explains the relationship between the two classifications of gender (male versus female) and the ideology of America. According to Fetterley, "American literature is male," and "to be American is male" (991). Unfortunately, this type of philosophy has existed for many years and still exists today. In order for a change to occurs, Fetterley says that readers must "examine American fictions in light of how attitudes toward women shape their form and content" because it... ...independence.    Works Cited Donlon, Jocelyn Hazelwood. "Porches: Stories: Power: Spatial and Racial Intersections in Faulkner and Hurston."Journal of American Culture (1996): 95-110. Online. Internet. 8 December 1999. Available: http:vweb.hwwilsonweb.com/cgi-bi†¦GT.&SP.URL.P=(H5Z7)J(0000121600)&. Fetterley, Judith. "Introduction to the Resisting Reader: a Feminist Approach to American Fiction." The Critical Tradition: Classic Texts and Contemporary Trends. Ed. David H. Richter. Boston: Bedford books, 1998. 991-998. Hurston, Zora Neale. Their Eyes Were Watching God. New York: Perennial Classics, 1990. Jacobs, Karen. "From 'Spy-glass' to Horizon: Tracking the Anthropological Gaze in Zora Neale Hurston." Novel (1997): 329-60. Online. Internet. 8 December 1999. Available: http:vweb.hwwilsonweb.com/cgi-bi†¦GT.&SP.URL.P=(H5Z7)J(00000121600)&.      

Facebook

Opportunities and Challenges UKOLN: Supporting the Cultural Heritage Sector Why The Interest In Facebook? Facebook has generated much interest over recent months. Much of the interest has arisen since Facebook announced the Facebook Platform [1] which enabled third party developers to build applications which could be used within the Facebook environment. Since Facebook was developed initially to support students it is not surprising that student usage has proved so popular.This interest has also spread to ther sectors within institutions, with researchers and members of staff exploring Facebook possibilities. What Can Be Done Within Facebook? Social networks such as Facebook can provide a range of benefits to members of an organisation: Connections with peers: The main function of Facebook is to provide connections between people with similar interests. Friends can then send messages to each other (either closed messages or open for others to read). Groups: Facebook users can set up discussion group areas, which can be used by people with interests in the topic of the group.Creation of details of events, which allows users to sign up to, is another popular use of Facebook. Sharing resources: Many of the popular Facebook applications are used for sharing resources. Some of these replicate (or provide an interface to) popular social sharing services (such as Flickr and YouTube) while other applications provide services such as sharing interests in films, books, etc. An environment for other applications: The opening of the Facebook Platform has allowed developers to provide access to a range of applications.ArtShare [2], for xample, provides access to arts resources from within Facebook. Web presence: Although originally designed for use by individuals since November 2007 Facebook can be used as a Web hosting service for an organisational page. It should also be noted that organisational pages in Facebook were redesigned in 2009 so that they more closely resembl e personal pages [3]. Organisational pages are now also able to share status updates. Facebook: Opportunities and Challenges users can set up discussion group areas, which can be used by people witn interests share Status Updates.What Are The Challenges? Reservations about use of Facebook in an institutional context include: Privacy: There are real concerns related to users' privacy. This will include both short term issues (embarrassing photos being uploaded) and longer term issues (reuse of content in many years time). Ownership: The Facebook terms and conditions allow Facebook to exploit content for commercial purposes. Misuse of social space: Users may not wish to share their social space with other colleagues, especially when there may be hierarchical relationships.Liability: Who will be liable if illegal content or copyrighted aterials are uploaded to Facebook? Who is liable if the service is not accessible to users with disabilities? Sustainability and Interoperability: How s ustainable is the service? Can it provide mission-critical services? Can data be exported for reuse in other systems? Resources: The cost implications in developing services for the Facebook platform. Institutional Responses To Such Challenges How should institutions respond to the potential opportunities provided by Facebook and the challenges which its use may entail?The two extreme positions would be to ither embrace Facebook, encouraging its use by members of the institution and porting services to the environment or to ban its use, possibly by blocking access by the institutions firewall. A more sensible approach might be to develop policies based on: Risk assessment and risk management: Analysing potential dangers and making plans for such contingencies. User education: Developing information literacy / staff development plans to ensure users are aware of the implications of use of Facebook, and the techniques for managing the environment (e. g. privacy settings).

Negotiation Strategy Article Analysist Paper

Negotiation is a process by which two or more parties, each with its own goals and perspective, coordinate areas of interest through concession and comprise to reach an agreement and take joint decisions about areas of common concern in a situation in which neither side has nor wants to use complete power. â€Å"we know that lawyers and car salespeople spend lots of time negotiating, but so do managers. Managers have to negotiate salaries for incoming employees, cut deals with superiors, bargain over budget, work out differences with associates, and resolve conflicts with subordinates.Negotiating is something that every one engages in almost every day and most of the time without even realizing it. . Negotiation occurs when two or more conflicting parties attempt to resolve their divergent goals by redefining the terms of their interdependence (Pruit and Carnevale 1993) Some researchers have suggested that in negotiations, collaborative style is the most effective, but the truth is that it may be too overbearing for the negotiations (Brett, 1984). While collaborating, one is most often to share all the information to arrive at a satisfactory solution.However, information is rarely shared until trust is established. As a result, negotiators adopt a cautiously collaborative style in the beginning, slowly trying to find out whether the other party will share the information that it knows. This also helps build trust (Fells, 1993). If trust is not established, negotiators shift to the win-lose style of negotiation from the win-win style, there by trying to maximize their returns. The success for negotiation depends on the bargaining technique used by both the parties involved. There are basically two major types of strategies.The first one is the distributive bargaining. The most distinctive feature of distributive bargaining is that it operates under a zero-sum game, that is, the gain made by one person is the loss incurred by other person. Each person involved i n the negotiation defines the ultimate point where the settlement will be made, Then there is a resistance point that marks the least settlement that is acceptable. The negotiator generally settles in the area between these resistance points, which tends to overlap. The second strategy is integrative bargaining.The characteristics feature of integrative bargaining is that it relies on a win-win and therefore, uses a collaborative model of conflict resolution. Both the parties involved in the negotiation process jointly look at the problem, try to search for alternatives and try to evaluate them and arrive at a mutually acceptable decision or solution. If the process is successful, it results in satisfaction and positive-long relationship. In this paper we have analyzed the case of United Parcel services. United Parcel Service is one of the messagengerial companies in USA.The company was founded the year the world’s largest global provider of package delivery. It has created i ts good name so far as logistic and the transportation services are concerned. So far as the workforce of the company is concerned, their work forces are young. It is because the company employs the part time activities. The young people generally prefer to join in the company as stop gap arrangement. The workforce of the company is also very large. The company part time workers constitute one of the major constituent of the total.There are around 2, 00,000 part workers in the company working all over the country day and night. They generally work for 27-28 hours in a week. These part time workers had number of problems. Their working condition was not satisfactory. The remuneration was not adequate they will not get the facility which the permanent workers were getting. So, all these factors lead to the dissatisfaction among the employees. The labor union wanted to take this problem to their hand. So the union decided to fight for this issue. The union decided there will be strike in the company.There were a public support from outside the union, who decided to go for it. This was intimated to every one through e-mail. The union demanded full hiring and also demanded other benefits what the full employees are getting from the company. The union came with list of demands. The reasons were mentioned why they are going on strike. Both parties agreed for the negotiation. In the beginning, the company studied the present status of the part time workers. The data was collected to know the disparities between the full time workers and the part time workers.They went for comparison between the part time workers and the full time workers. All the issues were discussed in detail regarding salaries, retirement benefits and the opportunities for full employment. The demand was basically for full time job and the job security in future. Finally the agreement was made. Many of the demand were accepted by the company for the benefits of the company as well as the benefit of the employee. More than ten thousand jobs were regularized. The part time jobs were converted to full time occupation at UPS. Ten thousand job positions are now available to non union members.The part salary increased. The disparities between the part worker wage rate and the full time workers got reduced. Measures were taken to improve the working condition of the employees. There was replacement of the older car fleets with power steering features and additional ventilations. The incentives were also given to the workers who went for extra time. The leave system liberalized. There was relaxation of leaves. The expansion of maternity and the paternity leaves were extended for the employees. The company made huge amount of losses for this strike.If we compare the situation with the strategy we have the combination of both the strategy. In case of distributive bargaining strategy the negotiator tries to be both helpful and rude to the other party alternatively. In this case the nego tiator may initially be abusive and threaten to walk out, and suddenly, later, takes, on an affectionate and helpful behavior, thus affecting the attitude of the other party until the other party decides to give in and lose. In case of integrative bargaining while negotiating, individual personalities with his or her egis should not take precedence over the objectives or the interest involved.The dynamics of interpersonal relationship between the people involved in the negotiation process should not take priority over the main issues. Negotiators should try to work on mutually acceptable solutions rather than trying to let each other down while negotiating. The negotiating parties should focus on some standards evolved at the negotiation table in the form of some rule and law. This will help the parties to focus on objectivity rather than the desires of the parties involved. By using objective criteria, neither party has to give in to the other, not must both the parties defer to a fair solution (Fisher and Ury, 1991 )

Dante Club

The Dante Club begins with the murder of fictional Chief Justice Judge Healey, who had avoided taking a position to stop or support the escaped slaves of the South. Found by his chambermaid near a white flag atop a short wooden staff, Healey had been hit in the head and then left in his garden to be eaten alive by strategically placed maggots and stung by hornets. Holmes, who examines the body for the police, recognizes the correlation between the murder and the punishments seen in Dante's Inferno.Then Reverend Talbot, who was paid by the Harvard Corporation to write against Dante, was found dead in an underground cemetery, buried up to his waist upside down, his feet burnt. Members of the Dante Club, a group of poets translating The Divine Comedy from Italian into English, notice the parallels between the murders and the punishments detailed in Dante's Inferno. The club, including Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. , and James Russell Lowell, sets out to solve th e murders, fearing that the truth will ruin Dante's burgeoning reputation in America, thus making their translation a failure.Then, Phineas Jennison, both a wealthy contributor to the Harvard Corporation and friend to the translators (a â€Å"schismatic†), is sliced open exactly down the middle—all killed in extreme fashion and undeniable resemblance to the punishments of people in Dante's Inferno. Eventually, the murderer is discovered to be a former Civil War Soldier Dan Teal, a man who worked at Ticknor and Fields. Driven partly mad by the trauma of his war experiences, Teal hears Dante Club member George Washington Greene giving sermons on Dante, and becomes convinced that Dante alone understood the need for perfect justice in the world.With protecting Dante as his sole motivation, Teal takes it upon himself to release Hell's punishments as indicated by Dante, in order to purify the city. Teal finds each of his victims when learning of their involvement in the stop ping of the translations, which become their respective sins. The club eventually tries to capture him, with the aid of Boston's first African-American policeman Nicholas Rey, the only other person who saw the connection, while attempting to punish Harvard Treasurer Dr. Manning and Pliny Mead (â€Å"the traitors†). Mead was a student of the Dante course who helped betray his eacher by cooperating with Manning. He later fled when the club attempted to punish him for his involvement in stopping the translation of the Inferno. They later encounter him as he tries to round up the translators, to punish them for not embracing his â€Å"work. † Dr. Manning—saved by Longfellow, Holmes, Rey, Lowell, and Fields—realizes the situation as he recovered from his attempted punishment of being buried naked in ice. He sees Teal on the street with a gun to Longfellow, and Manning ends the murderer's life, thus returning the city to normal.

Psychological Conflicts in Literature(1) Essay

We all experience psychological conflicts, knowingly or unknowingly. They involve psychological conflicts among our thoughts, emotions, and rational thinking. It may be the most dangerous conflict of all due to the battleground in which it take place in — our mind. There are many examples of psychological conflicts in the stories we have read. In â€Å"Leiningen Versus the Ants† by Carl Stephenson, Leiningen battled not only on his South American plantation, but in his mind. He struggled with the issue of running away and letting the ants take over his plantation. He wasn’t a quitter and enjoys the mental aspects of things. But when the ants and the reality of death came, he had to resolve the conflict whether to stay or flee. This was especially true when he ran to the dam wheel. He could of fled then or died, but he chose to try to save the plantation and workers. He was faced with the conflict living or, perhaps the greatest psychological conflict, which he resolved when he chose to run to the wheel. In â€Å"The Contents of the Dead Man’s Pockets† by Jack Finney, Tom also faced a psychological conflict. The story was mainly focused on his physical conflict, but near the end he experienced psychological conflict. As with Leiningen, Tom faced the choice to die or to live, and he realized with that conflict how much his wife meant to him. He overcame the conflict when, as we read, the yellow paper flew out the window again, but he left to be with his wife. In â€Å"Blues Ain’t No Mockin’bird† by Toni Cade Bambara, Granny experienced a psychological conflict with her past treatment and her current conflict with Smiley and Camera. She struggled to break and maybe actually kill them or fall into depression, but she was successful in winning the conflict. When she hummed in a high pitch instead of low, it showed that she had finally won. In conclusion, psychological conflicts are important. They can be very dangerous because we are fighting within ourselves and our rational reasoning. And when we fight within ourself it is hard to win. Psychological  conflicts can be won, however, by set priorities and moral standards.