Effects of Smoking While Pregnant :: smoking while pregnant

During a pregnancy there are many choices to be made and smoking should not be one of them. Smoking while pregnant can cause major effects before the birth of the child and also in the child’s future. Here are a few effects before the actual birth of the child: 1) Cigarettes contains a large number of chemicals that harm unborn babies. 2) Smoking raises the levels of carbon monoxide in your bloodstream. This gives less oxygen for baby. 3) Nicotine tightens the blood vessels, meaning the oxygen is passed over less effectively to the baby 4) Miscarriage or stillborn.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  The risk of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome triples if the mother has smoked during pregnancy. â€Å"It is estimated that twenty-five percent of expectant mothers in the U.S. smoke throughout their pregnancies. According to a report from the Surgeon General, twenty percent of low birth weight births, either percent of preterm deliveries and five percent of all perinatal could be prevented by eliminating smoking during pregnancy.†   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Not only can smoking cause considerable damage to the unborn baby, but it could affect the baby later in life. Smoking increases the chances of the baby having birth defects. For example, the child might develop severe brain damage. The baby also might be considerably light in weight. All these outcomes are extremely negative and can cause guilt.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Another thing that should be taken into consideration is secondhand smoke. Even though the smoking is not being done firsthand, there is still a big risk. Side effects of secondhand smoke are ear infections, colds, and damage to the lungs. And even though it is not definite that complications during pregnancy might not occur, the chance of putting a child at risk for the sake of smoking a cigarette should not be taken.

Alberti and urban context

Among Renaissance architects, Leon Batista Alberti was perhaps the most visionary authority on urban context and city planning.Though he was not an urban planner in the modern sense, he had a keen understanding of the city as an integrated, organic whole, and his designs and writings reveal his view that cities should be well-ordered and buildings should integrate themselves smoothly into that overall fabric.   In this regard, he was well ahead of his time and anticipated the ideas of urban context that exist today.Despite his visionary skill and prowess at architecture, Alberti (1404-72) was actually not a professional architect and seems never to have actually even supervised the construction of any of his works.   He was a polymath, or â€Å"Renaissance man† – cultured, well-educated, and well-versed in various academic fields, from art and religion to science and mathematics.According to art historians Ludwig Heydenreich and Wolfgang Lotz, Alberti â€Å"remaine d to the end the adviser who laid down the general lines and occasionally gave instruction for details . . . but he never set one stone on another.†[1]   Biographer Anthony Grafton’s description is even more to the point – â€Å"an impresario of society and space.†[2]Indeed, Alberti lacked the practical building experience most contemporary architects had, mainly because he was trained to advise and administer rather than actually build.   Born illegitimate but privileged in Genoa, he was well-educated as a youth and in 1428 took both a degree in canon law and orders in the Catholic Church.For much of the remainder of his life, Alberti served as an administrator and advisor to the popes, most notably Nicholas V, a friend from youth, who hired him to consult on major building projects in Rome.   Though mostly a career church administrator, Alberti pursued a wide array of intellectual interests and â€Å"presented himself as a master of all the ration al arts of living upon which his contemporaries set great store.†[3]In accordance with the Renaissance’s reverence for ancient Greek and Roman models, Alberti drew heavily from antiquity – not merely for decoration (which he believed should be used sparingly and tastefully, not simply for the sake of decoration alone), but for proportion and, more importantly, placement within a given physical and historical context.For example, in one of his first major works, the church of San Francesco at Rimini (whose renovation and redesign he supervised around 1450), Alberti used exterior motifs drawn from the area’s ancient monuments, varying these to suit the building itself and thus let it reflect the local architectural, cultural, and political contexts.The church’s faà §ade uses simple forms and a scale suited to the buildings around it, because, says Heydenreich, no single person’s vision would dominate that setting: â€Å"[It] was the product o f a collaboration between patron, adviser, and working architects. . . . ‘Local styles’ of this kind occasionally appear, but only where the political structure of the region favours them. . . .†[4]   In this sense, he heralded the post-modernists of the late twentieth century, who believe in urban fabric and context rather simply in designing buildings with no relationship to their surroundings.Alberti’s works in Florence between 1455 and 1470 demonstrate, in Heydenreich’s words, â€Å"[how] deeply the traditional forces in a city can influence the idiom of an architect.†[5]   There, his church of Santa Maria Novello draws heavily from local Tuscan styles and fuses them with a large Roman scale (as mandated by the Pope), making a distinctive building that fits with its prominent neighboring structures.(Though he used local elements freely, Alberti rarely directly imitated other buildings; when he borrowed forms or elements, he tended to f use them with those on nearby structures.)   Also, and perhaps more importantly, it embraces a unity of design, both within itself and in relation to the buildings around it, so that it does not appear incongruous or artificially imposed on its immediate context.Alberti also aimed to site buildings according to surveys he conducted, in keeping with his mathematical and cartographic skills.   Using a measuring disk he created, his survey of Rome (conducted around 1444, when he first entered architecture) â€Å"allowed him to establish the radial coordinates of Rome’s main churches and the towers on the city walls and to plot those in plan.†[1] L Heydenreich & W Lotz, Architecture in Italy, 1400 to 1600, Penguin, London, 1974, p. 27. [2] A Grafton, Leon Batista Alberti, Hill & Wang, New York, 2000, p. 263. [3] Grafton, p. 21. [4] Heydenreich & Lotz, p. 32. [5] Heydenreich & Lotz, p. 33. [6] R Tavernor, On Alberti and the art of building, Yale University Press, New Ha ven, 1998, p. 13.

The Return: Nightfall Chapter 31

Let us at least have the dignity of walking out of your trap on our own feet – or should I say, using your own key?Damon thought to Shinichi. To Elena, he said, â€Å"Yes, we're looking for what's-his-face. But you took a bad fall. I wish – I would like to ask you – that you stay here and recuperate whileI go look for him.† â€Å"You think you know where Matt is?† That was the entire sentence distilled for her. That was all she heard. â€Å"Yes.† â€Å"Can we gonow ?† â€Å"Won't you let me go alone?† â€Å"No,† Elena said simply. â€Å"I have to find him. I wouldn't sleep at all if you went out alone. Please, can't we go now?† Damon sighed. â€Å"All right. There were some† – (there will be now) – â€Å"clothes that will fit you in the closet. Jeans and things. I'll get them,† he said. â€Å"As long as I really, really can't convince you to lie down and rest while I look for him.† â€Å"I can make it,† Elena promised. â€Å"And if you go without me, I'll just jump out a window and follow you.† She was serious. He went and got the promised pile of clothes and then turned his back while Elena put on an identical version of the jeans and Pendleton shirt she had been wearing, whole and un-bloodstained. Then they left the house, Elena brushing her hair vigorously, but glancing back every step or so. â€Å"What are you doing?† Damon asked, just when he had decided to carry her. â€Å"Waiting for the house to disappear.† And when he gave her his bestwhat're you talking about? look, she said, â€Å"Armani jeans, just my size? La Perla camisoles, same? Pendleton shirts, two sizes too big, just like the one I was wearing? That place is either a warehouse or it's magic. My bet's on magic.† Damon picked her up as a way to shut her up, and walked to the passenger's door of the Ferrari. He wondered if they were in the real world now or in another of Shinichi's globes. â€Å"Did it disappear?† he asked. â€Å"Yup.† What a pity, he thought. He'd have liked to keep it. He could try to renegotiate the bargain with Shinichi, but there were other, more important things to think of. He gave Elena a slight squeeze, thinking, other,much, much more important things. In the car he made sure of three small facts. First, that click which his brain automatically registered as passenger buckled up really did mean that Elena had her seat buckle properly fastened. Second, that the doors were locked – fromhis master control. And third, that he drove quite slowly. He didn't think that anyone in Elena's shape would be throwing themselves out of cars again in the near future, but he wasn't taking any chances. He had no idea how long this spell was going to work. Elena must eventually come out of her amnesia. It was only logical, since he seemed to be, and he'd been awake much longer than she had. Pretty soon she would remember†¦what? That he'd taken her in the Ferrari against her will (bad but forgivable – he couldn't know she'd launch herself out)? That he'd been teasing Mike or Mitch or whoever and her in the clearing? He himself had a vague picture of this – or was it another dream. He wished he knew what the truth was. When wouldhe remember everything? He'd be in a much stronger bargaining position once he did. And it was hardly possible that Mac was getting hypothermia in a midsummer snowstorm even if he were still in that clearing right now. It was a chilly night, but the worst the boy could expect was a twinge of rheumatism when he was around eighty. The vital thing was that theydidn't find him. He might have some unpleasant truths to tell. Damon noticed Elena making the same gesture again. A touch to her throat, a grimace, a deep breath. â€Å"Are you carsick?† â€Å"No, I'm†¦Ã¢â‚¬  In the moonlight he could see her blush come and go; could sense her heat with detectors in his face. She flushed deeply. â€Å"I explained,† she said, â€Å"about feeling†¦too full. That's what it is now.† What was a vampire to do? Say,I'm sorry – I've given it up for Moonspire ? Say, I'm sorry – you'll hate me in the morning? Say,To hell with the morning; this seat reclines two inches ? But what if they got to the clearing and found that something really had happened to Mutt – Gnat – the boy? Damon would regret it for the rest of the remaining twenty seconds of his life. Elena would call battalions of sky spirits down on his head. Even if no one else believed in her, Damon did. He found himself saying, as smoothly as ever he'd spoken to a Page or a Damaris, â€Å"Will you trust me?† â€Å"What?† â€Å"Will you trust me for another fifteen or twenty minutes, to go to a certain place I think what's his name might be?†If he is – my bet is that you remember everything and you never want to see me again in your life – then you'll be spared a long search. If he isn't – and the car isn't either; it's my lucky day and Mutt wins the prize of a lifetime – and then we go on looking. Elena was watching him intently. â€Å"Damon, do youknow where Matt is?† â€Å"No.† Well, that was true enough. But she was a bright little trinket, a pretty little pink, and more than all that, she was clever†¦. Damon broke off his polyrhythmic contemplations on Elena's intelligence. Why was he thinking in poetry? Was he really going crazy? He'd wondered that before – hadn't he? Didn't it prove you weren't crazy if you wondered if you were? The truly insane never doubted their sanity, right? Right. Or did they? And surely all this talking to himself couldn't be good foranyone . Merda. â€Å"All right, then. I'll trust you.† Damon let out a breath he didn't need and headed the car toward the clearing. It was one of the more exciting gambles of his life. On one hand, therewas his life – Elena would find some way or other of killing him if he'd killed Mark, he was certain. And on the other hand†¦a taste of paradise. With a willing Elena, an eager Elena, an open Elena†¦he swallowed. He found himself doing the thing closest to praying that he'd done in half a millennium. As they rounded the corner on the road to the little lane, he kept himself in hyper-alertness, the engine a bare hum, the night air bringing all kinds of information to vampire senses. He was thoroughly aware that an ambush could have been set up for him. But the lane was deserted. And as he suddenly hit the accelerator to reveal the little clearing, he found it blessedly, bleakly, blankly empty of either cars or of college-aged young men whose names started with â€Å"M.† He relaxed against the seatback. Elena had been watching him. â€Å"You thought he might be here.† â€Å"Yes.† And now was the time for the real question. Without asking her this, the whole thing was a sham, a fraud. â€Å"Doyou remember this place?† She glanced around. â€Å"No. Should I?† Damon smiled. But he took the precaution of driving on up another three hundred yards, into a different clearing, just in case she should have a sudden attack of memory. â€Å"There were malach in the other clearing,† he explained easily. â€Å"This one is guaranteed monster-free.† Oh, what a liar, I am, I am, he rejoiced. Have I still got it or what? He'd been†¦disturbed ever since Elena had come back from the Other Side. But if that first night it had discomfited him into literally giving her the shirt off his back – well, there were still no words for how he'd felt when she'd stood before him newly returned from the afterlife, her skin glowing in the dark clearing, naked without shame or the concept of shame. And during her massage, where veins traced out lines of blue comet fire against an inverse sky. Damon was feeling something he hadn't felt for five hundred years. He was feeling desire. Human desire. Vampires didn't feel that. It was all sublimated into the need for the blood, always the blood†¦. But he was feeling it. He knew why, too. Elena's aura. Elena's blood. She'd brought back with her something more substantial than wings. And while the wings had faded, this new talent seemed to be permanent. He realized that it was a very long time since he'd felt this, and that therefore he might be quite wrong. But he didn't think so. He thought that Elena's aura would make the most fossilized of vampires stand up and blossom into virile young men once again. He leaned away as far as the crowded confines of the Ferrari would allow. â€Å"Elena, there's something I should tell you.† â€Å"About Matt?† She gave him a straightforward, intelligent glance. â€Å"Nat? No, no. It's about you. I know you were surprised that Stefan would leave you in the care of somebody likeme .† There was no room for privacy in the Ferrari and he was sharing her body warmth already. â€Å"Yes, I was,† she said simply. â€Å"Well, it may have something to do with – â€Å" â€Å"It may have had something to do with how we decided that my aura would give even old vampires the jigsies. From now on, I'll need strong protection because of that, Stefan said.† Damon didn't know what the jigsies were, but he was prepared to bless them for getting a delicate point across to a lady. â€Å"I think,† he said carefully, â€Å"that of all things, Stefan would want you to have protection from the evil folk drawn here from all over the globe, and above all other things that you not be forced to – to, um, jigsy – if it was not your wish.† â€Å"And now he'sleft me – like a selfish, stupid, idealistic idiot, considering all the people in the world who might want to jigsy me.† â€Å"I agree,† Damon said, careful of keeping the lie of Stefan's willing departure intact. â€Å"And I've already promised what protection I can offer. I really will do my best, Elena, to see that no one gets near you.† â€Å"Yes,† said Elena, â€Å"but then something like this† – she made a little gesture probably to indicate Shinichi and all the problems brought about by his arrival – â€Å"comes up and nobody knows how to deal with it.† â€Å"True,† said Damon. He had to keep shaking himself and reminding himself of his real purpose here. He was here to†¦well, he wasn't on St. Stefan's side. And the thing was, it was easy enough†¦. There she was, brushing her hair out†¦a fair pretty maiden sat brushing her hair out†¦the sun in the sky was nonesuch so gold†¦. Damon shook himselfhard . Since when had he gotten into ye Olde English folksongs? What waswrong with him? To have something to say, he asked, â€Å"How are you feeling?† – just, as it happened, as she lifted her hand to her throat. She grimaced. â€Å"Not bad.† And that made them look at each other. And then Elena smiled and he had to smile back, at first just a quirk of the lip, and then a full smile. She was†¦damn it, she waseverything . Witty, enchanting, brave, smart†¦and beautiful. And he knew that his eyes were saying all that and that she wasn't turning away. â€Å"We might – take a little walk,† he said, and bells rang and trumpets played fanfares, and confetti came raining down and there was a release of doves†¦. In other words, she said, â€Å"All right.† They picked a little path off the clearing that looked easy to Damon's night-acquainted vampire eyes. Damon didn't want her on her feet too much. He knew that she still hurt and that she didn't want him to know it or to pamper her. Something inside him said, â€Å"Well, then, wait until she says she's tired and help her to sit down.† And something else beyond his control, sprang out at the first little hesitation of her foot, and he picked her up, apologizing in a dozen different languages, and generally acting the fool until he had her seated on a comfortably carved wooden bench with a back to it and a very light traveling blanket over her knees. He kept adding, â€Å"You'll tell me if there's something – anything – else you want?† He accidentally sent to her a snippet of his thoughts of possible contenders, which were, a glass of water, him sitting beside her, and a baby elephant, which he had earlier seen in her mind that she admired very much. â€Å"I'm very sorry, but I don't think I do elephants,† he said, on his knees, making the footstool more comfortable for her, when he caught a random thought of hers: that he was not so different from Stefan as he seemed. No other name could have caused him to do what he did then. No other word, or concept, could have such effect on him. In an instant the blanket was off, the footstool had disappeared, and he was holding Elena bent backward with the slender column of her neck fully exposed to him. The difference,he told her,between me and my brother is that he is still hoping somehow to slip in through some side door into heaven. I'm not such a moaning ninny about my fate. I know where I'm going.And I don't – he gave her a smile with all canines fully extended – give a damn about it. Her eyes were wide – he'd startled her. And startled her into an unintentional, thoroughly honest response. Her thoughts were projected toward him, easy to read.I know – and, I'm like that, too. I want what I want. I'm not as good as Stefan. And I don't know – He was enthralled.What don't you know, sweetheart? She just shook her head, eyes shut. To break the deadlock, he whispered into her ear, â€Å"What about this, then: Say I'm bold And say I'm bad Say – you vanities – I'm vainer. But you Erinyes, just add I kissed Elena.† Her eyes flew open. â€Å"Oh, no! Please, Damon.† She was whispering. â€Å"Please! Please not now!† And she swallowed miserably. â€Å"Besides, you asked me if I'd like a drink, and then suddenly it's no drink. I wouldn't mindbeing a drink if you'd like, but first, I'mso thirsty – as thirsty as you are, maybe?† She did the little tap-tap-tap under her chin again. Damon's insides melted. He held out his hand and it closed around the stem of a delicate crystal glass. He swirled the splash of liquid in it expertly, tested it for bouquet – ah, exquisite – then gently rolled it on his tongue. It was the real thing.Black Magic wine,grown from Clarion Loess Black Magic grapes. It was the only wine most vampires would drink – and there were apocryphal stories of how it had kept them on their feet when their other thirst could not be assuaged. Elena was drinking hers, her blue eyes wide above the deep violet of the wine as he told her some of its story. He loved to watch her when she was like this – investigating with all her senses fully aroused. He shut his eyes and remembered some choice moments from the past. Then he opened them again to find Elena, looking very much the thirsty child, eagerly gulping down – â€Å"Yoursecond glass†¦?† He'd discovered the first goblet at her feet. â€Å"Elena, where did you get another one?† â€Å"I just did what you did. Held out my hand. It's not as if it were hard liquor, is it? It tastes like grape juice, and I was dying for a drink.† Could she really be that naive? True, Black Magic wine didn't have the sharp odor or taste of most alcohol. It was subtle, created for the fastidious vampire palate. Damon knew that the grapes were grown in the soil, loess, that a grinding glacier leaves behind. Of course, that process was only for the long-lived vampires, as it took ages to build up enough loess. And when the soil was ready, the grapes were grown and processed, from graft to foot-stomped pulp in ironwood vats, without ever seeing the sun. That was what gave it its black velvet, dark, delicate taste. And now†¦ Elena had a â€Å"grape juice† mustache. Damon wanted very much to kiss it away. â€Å"Well, someday you can tell people you drank two glasses of Black Magic in under a minute, and impress them,† he said. But she was doing the tap-tap-tapping again under her chin. â€Å"Elena, do you want to have some of your blood drawn?† â€Å"Yes!† She said it in the ringing-bell tones of someone who has finally been asked the right question. She was drunk. She flung both arms backward, draping them against the bench, which conformed to accept her body's every new motion. It had become a black suede couch with a high back: a divan, and just now, Elena's slender neck was resting on the highest point of that back, her throat exposed to the air. Damon turned away with a little moan. He wanted to get Elena to civilization. He was worried about her health, mildly concerned about†¦Mutt's; and now†¦he couldn't haveanything he wanted. He could hardly bleed her when she was drunk. Elena made a different sort of sound that might have been his name. â€Å"D'm'n?† she mumbled. Her eyes had filled with tears. Just about anything that a nurse might have to do for a patient, Damon had done for Elena. But it seemed she didn't want to unswallow two glasses of Black Magic in front of him. â€Å" ¡Ã‚ ®M'shick,† Elena got out, with a dangerous hiccup at the end. She gripped Damon's wrist. â€Å"Yes, this is not the kind of wine to guzzle. Wait, just sit up straight and let me try†¦Ã¢â‚¬  And maybe because he said the words without thinking, without thinking of being rude, without thinking of manipulating her one way or another, it was all right. Elena obeyed him and he put two fingers on either side of her temples and pressed slightly. For a split second there was a near disaster, and then Elena was breathing slowly and calmly. She was still affected by the wine, but she wasn't drunk any longer. And the time was now. He had to tell her the truth at last. But first, he needed to wake up. â€Å"A triple espresso, please,† he said, holding out his hand. It appeared instantly, aromatic and black as his soul. â€Å"Shinichi says espresso alone is an excuse for the human race.† â€Å"Whoever Shinichi is, I agree with him or her. A triple espresso, please,† Elena said to the magic that was this forest, this snowflake globe, this universe. Nothing happened. â€Å"Maybe it's only attuned to my voice right now,† Damon said, flashing her a reassuring smile, and then he fetched her espresso with a wave. To his surprise, Elena was frowning. â€Å"You said  ¡Ã‚ ®Shinichi.' Who's that? Damon wanted nothing less than for Elena to get involved with the kitsune, but if he was really going to tell all she was going to have to. â€Å"He's akitsune , a fox spirit,† he said. â€Å"And the person who gave me that Web address that sent Stefan running.† Elena's expression froze over. â€Å"Actually,† Damon said, â€Å"I find that I would rather get you home before taking the next step.† Elena lifted exasperated eyes to the sky, but let him pick her up and carry her back to the car. He had just realized where the best place to tell her was. It was just as well that they didn't urgently need to get to any place that was out of the Old Wood right now. They didn't find any road that did not lead to dead ends, little clearings, or trees. Elena seemed so unsurprised at finding the little lane that led to their small but perfectly appointed house that he said nothing as they entered and he took new inventory of what they had. They had one bedroom with one large, luxurious bed. They had a kitchen. And a living area. But any of these rooms could become any kind of room you chose simply by thinking of it before opening the door. Moreover, there were the keys – left behind by what Damon was realizing was a seriously shaken Shinichi – that allowed the doors to do more. Insert a key in a door and announce what you wanted and there you were – even, it seemed, if it should be outside Shinichi's territory in spacetime. In other words, theyseemed to link to the real outside world, but Damon wasn't entirely sure about that.Was it the real world or just another of Shinichi's play-traps? What they had right now was a long spiraling stairway to an open-air observatory with a widow's walk around it, just like the roof of the boardinghouse. There was even a room just like Stefan's, Damon noted as he carried Elena up the stairs. â€Å"We're going all the way up?† Elena sounded bewildered. â€Å"All the way.† â€Å"And what are wedoing up here?† Elena asked, when he had her settled in a chair with a footstool and a light blanket on the roof. Damon sat down on a rocker, rocking a little, his arms wrapped around one knee, his face tilted to the clouded sky. He rocked once more, stopped, and turned to face her. â€Å"I suppose we're here,† he said, in the light self-mocking tone that meant he was very serious, â€Å"so that I can tell you the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.†

Libertarianism and Redistribution of Wealth

The libertarian claim that any money gained though employment or business is none that they are fully entitled to is false, therefore the claim that the redistribution of that wealth through taxation Is a form of theft Is also false based on the grounds that no one fully owns all of their wealth. The reason that no one fully owns all of their wealth is that we live in a society where many aspects of our economy that contribute to the generation of wealth are paid for by society as a whole. An example of this is a child who goes to school.This child will graduate knowing how to read, write, do math, use computers, etcetera. These are all skills required both for them to have Income and for future employers o profit from. These skills allow employers to hire them knowing that they can have a basic level of expectation of this child, and even If they are not employed, business owners can also assume a basic level of expectation in the ability to use the products being sold. To clarify, let's look at an example using Bill Gates, one of the richest men in the world.Bill Gates would never have become wealthy if he did not have the basic expectation that the majority of people in America had the education and knowledge to use computers. He did not pay for this knowledge, society as a whole did. The fact that society Is responsible for educating our people to the basic level required for the use of Bill Gates' products Is the reason why Bill Gates does not fully own all of his wealth. Again, to own something is to assume that you are fully Bill Gates owes part of his wealth to society for the education it provided which allows us to use computers.Another reason why people do not completely own all of their wealth Is that we all owe something to the government who protects our wealth and our ability to gain wealth. The government provides security from outside influence in the world, laws which govern our business practices to protect us from each other, and allows the environment in which we are able to perform business. Because of these reasons we all owe the government because we are able to take advantage of the system that our government has provided.Since the wealthy are able to take a much greater advantage of this system, It Is natural to assume that the wealthy also owe more to the government than do the poorer and middle class citizens. The fact Is that we live in a society in which we are not paid for the labor we do or for the product in which we provide to society as a whole. Instead we are paid based on how well we are able to take advantage of the systems in place. This system allows for unfair advantages for some and the only way to balance out those unfair advantages is through taxation.As I nave calmer Deter, ten wangle purpose AT taxation In ten TLS place Is as a Tort of redistribution of wealth. Services need to be paid for and the government must have money in order to run. Taxation allows the government to redistribute wealth in a fashion which should be fair (though many times is far from fair) in order to provide the necessary services for our country to prosper. If our country has too large of a gap between the wealthy and the poor it also looses the ability create new wealth. What I mean is this. The wealthy are able to create wealth by taking advantage of the poor and middle classes.This is not always a bad thing however. Since the poor and middle class make up the vast majority of the countries' population, it is also them who purchase, manufacture, and provide the majority of the products and services offered by the wealthy. The wealthy are able to make money because the rest of the countries' citizens spend money. If these citizens have o money to spend there is no money for the wealthy to make and they must begin to look outside of our country for that wealth. Again, this comes down to the advantages provided by our government which allow for overseas trade and the import and export of goods an d services.If the wealthy are to take advantage of foreign trade, they again owe extra to the government, and society as a whole, for the advantage which is provided to them. In the end however, it is simply a good idea to redistribute wealth back to the poorer in our country in order to provide all citizens at the very least an opportunity to get some of that wealth back from them. Our economy is a never ending circle of exchanges in which the most affluent are able to take the greatest advantage, thus owing the most back to their government and society.I do agree that people have a right to their own property (as long as it was obtained honestly), however, how much property does one really need and to what extent do they really own it. There must be a point at which a certain amount of wealth is too much. How many of the richest people in the world will ever be able to spend all of their money? It is basically for this reason that I am against the views hat it should not be the go vernment's responsibility to use taxation as a way to redistribute income.This is in fact the sole reason for taxation in the first place and the reason why the rich pay a higher amount of tax than the poor. This higher taxation is especially necessary in a society such as ours where the average CEO make something along the lines of 400-500 times as much as the average worker (much higher than any other country in the world). I see no reason why we can't increase taxes on the richest in order to fulfill our obligation to the poor, not only at home but across the world.

Play Area Critique Essay

The area of the pre-school room that I have chosen to critically evaluate is the dress up area. Our pre-school consists of 20 children aged 3-4 years old spread over two sessions, and comprises both boys and girls. In our pre-school we have two polish children, one boy and one girl, who speak both English and Polish, one Chinese girl and one Zimbabwean boy. The rest of the children are Irish. Our pre-school room is one large room in a general childcare facility, located at the rear of the building adjacent to the after-school room, and opens out onto the outdoor play area. The development of a learning environment which supports children‘s learning, socialization, interests and needs, is one of the foundation stones to quality early years curriculum and service. According to Aistear, taking time to develop a good indoor and outdoor learning environment will assist in the development of your curriculum and provide a welcoming and supportive learning atmosphere for the children. There are two roles for the adult in preparing this environment: organising it and resourcing it. In a pre-school room the space should be divided into interest areas i. e.  child-sized areas rather than in a single large group space. The supervisor should create well-defined areas of interest that encourage a variety of types of play and helps children see and experience the choices on offer. As you enter our room, the room the sinks and wash up area are to the left, as are the toilets. To the right is the table top area and arts & crafts corner. To the rear of the room, the book and reading corner is on the left hand side adjacent to the construction area, the dress up stand is along the back wall, and the home corner is a separate area on the right hand side. Our building is relatively new and the room is bright and airy, with most of the toys and equipment in a good state of repair. There is no obviously old or shabby area that needs attention. Primary Research In deciding which area of the room needed improvement, I needed to conduct some primary research. The areas of assessment and planning have become increasingly important in childcare. In order to support children’s learning and development, providers must support each individual child by providing appropriate opportunities, experiences, activities, interactions and materials within the daily service. Therefore, I decided to carry out an observation on the children playing, and an informal interview with the children. Observation and assessment processes can be used to identify the effectiveness of the setting, specific areas of the setting, specific activities and the practitioner. Through observing the children and/or the learning environment we can revise plans and, perhaps, changes to the environment, to improve provision. In carrying out my research I: †¢ observed the children when they were playing using a trail record observation sheet to determine the most and least popular areas of interest. †¢ observed how the space and organisation of the environment was supporting or hindering play †¢ interpreted what I saw and heard in the play †¢ used the assessment information gathered in planning for improving the play areas. The children were invited to participate and give their opinions on the room during the informal interview with the group. Indeed consulting with the children in relation to the development of the space and materials can be empowering for the children and give them a sense of ownership. The results of my research indicated to me that the book area and dress up areas were the least utilised areas of the room during free play time. The book area didn’t overly concern me, as we incorporate reading and storytelling into our curriculum during the day, but I was concerned to see the lack of interest in the dress up area. Home Corner/ Dress Up Area The dress up area should be a very active area in the preschool room where children engage in a lot of role play. When children put on dress-up clothes and pretend to be grown up, they are discovering more than how it feels to dress as an adult. â€Å"Pretend play† helps children to understand how other people think and feel. It gives children the opportunity to discover new experiences or new places they can see only in their imagination. This is called symbolic thinking and is indicative of Piagets pre-operational stage of development. Symbolic thinking is an important, complex skill necessary for many tasks in life, including language and communication, social skills, and even algebra and geometry. When we watch children playing in dress-up clothes, we notice they often use problem-solving skills they see adults use. Negotiation and shared responsibility become easier when children are pretending to be adults. They are gaining a sense of adult rules and expectations. Sometimes children may find the dress-up area a place to confront fears and work through stressful situations. By pretending to be a doctor or a monster, a child gains a sense of power over the unknown, or by acting out a traumatic event and talking about it, it becomes less scary to the child. Furthermore, engaging in dress up play can help further develop practical skills, as little fingers are learning to tie, zip, button and snap. Providing dress up supplies and dress up time allows young children to practice these skills without the pressures of time constraints. Preschoolers will be building fine motor skills and improving self-help while using their imaginations, enjoying creative play and having fun. Dress up play also encourages language skills as kids discuss amongst themselves what they are wearing, the colours and textures of the clothes, and the roles they are playing. Proposal of Recommendations From my observations, I saw that the children often bypassed the dress up stand on their way to other areas, or at times even forgot that it was there. When the children did stop and have a look, they usually pulled out one costume, put it on and ran off to play elsewhere. Our dress up area consists of a child sized clothes rail with 4 costumes 1 x fairy, 1 x princess, 1 x bob the builder, 1 x fireman, and two baskets with some doctor/nurse paraphernalia, a few scarves, a straw hat, a couple of  Halloween masks, fairy wings, a crown and a plastic gun. It became obvious to me from my observation and interview with the children that our assortment of dress up clothes was completely inadequate, both in quantity and in variety. Our costumes were limited to a number of fairytale or cartoon characters, with no reference to ordinary everyday practical contexts. I also realized that we were sadly lacking in accessories, to enable the children to adapt and change the outfits on a day to day basis, thus maintaining interest and motivation. Furthermore, the location and display of the dress up clothes needed attention, to attract the children to this very important play area. Rather than the dress up area existing as a separate area, it should be incorporated into another relevant interest area such as the Home Corner, to help extend play between areas. I picked up on this concept from observing the children, when one child dressed up as a fireman and then went to the Home Corner to â€Å"put out a fire† in the kitchen. Of course it comes naturally to children when engaging in symbolic or pretend play to link areas such as dress up and home corner. In conducting some reading and research into how to effectively organize a dress up area, I learned that the area should be attractive and inviting to children, yet well organised in order for children to discover and explore various costumes, accessories and items of clothing. There also needed to be enough space to allow groups of children to play in the area at the same time. Materials and equipment should be kept visible to the children and easily reached. The supervisor should make sure that the shelving is low level and that dress up equipment is within easy reach of the children. Choosing see-through containers allows the children to see what is inside without taking it from the shelf, or using labels on the outside of the boxes would help the children greatly in choosing items and also at tidy up time, which is an important part of the High/Scope philosophy. In addition to these criticisms of our dress up area, I realised that we have not made any effort to bring cultural or ethnic diversity to our selection. In developing the home corner and dress up area, you should take the profile of the children attending your service into account. Our pre-school has 4 children of different ethnic backgrounds attending, and we as room leaders should endeavour to include their ethnic clothes, music, dance, food and customs into the room, as well as those of other ethnic groups also. Implementation of Recommendations I had an informal meeting with my pre-school colleagues and the centre manager to outline my observations, and proposal of recommendations for improving the dress up area. From this meeting we came up with the following plan of action: |Improvement Area |Action Required |Delegated to |Comments | |Location of dress up area|To be moved to, and incorporated into |Myself & |The layout will be changed one afternoon| | |the home corner |colleague |after playschool session | |Display |Additional rail needed |My colleague |My colleague was to purchase items after| | |Two coat racks to be fitted on wall | |funds made available by manager, and | | |Baskets to be swopped for clear storage| |arrange for assembly with caretaker | | |boxes | | | | |Two additional boxes req. | | | | |Full length mirror req. | | | |Variety |Additional costumes req. |My colleague |Funds to be made available by manager | | |Additional everyday clothing items req. |Myself |for purchase of costumes. Other items to| | |Ethnic clothing req. |Myself |be sourced by myself via request for | | |Variety of accessories req. |Myself |parental contributions and charity | | | | |shops/ jumble sales | |Curriculum |Dress up time to be strategically |Myself & |We will do this through drama, music and| | |incorporated into curriculum |colleague |dance activity. | Therefore to follow through on our plan of action, our centre manager made â‚ ¬100 available for the purchase of necessary items and additional costumes. My colleague went to Home base and purchased the coat racks, child clothes hangars, storage boxes and mirror, and then purchased a child sized clothes rail in Smyth’s as well as some new additional dress up items. These items included a policeman’s costume, nurse’s costumes and some additional props. Dress up clothes should ideally comprise a wide variety of clothes which reflect the occupations of family members, local customs and people in the community, and should not be limited to superheroes or stereotyped dress up clothes. We re-arranged the home corner incorporating the dress up area on a Thursday afternoon, and my colleague had the caretaker fit the coat racks on the wall beside the clothes rails and the mirror. I sent home a letter with the children requesting donations for our dress up corner including a variety of accessories, and I also included the request in our pre-school newsletter. I also asked all the staff in the childcare facility for same. I made sure to specify that all donations should be clean, in a good state of repair and non hazardous for children. I included a list of suggested items which would be greatly appreciated. The response was overwhelming and we took in approximately 5 black refuse sacks of items for use in the area. I went through all the items and took out what I felt was appropriate. These items were washed and sanitized, and double checked by my colleague and centre manager for any safety hazards. I took the remainder of the dress up items given to us, and donated them to our nearest Barnardos charity shop on behalf of the pre-school. This list of items I requested was as follows: |Phones |Old Hair Dryers – Cords Removed |Sunglasses | |Small suitcases |Hats |Large fabric pieces | |Purses & Wallets |Aprons |Belts | |Baby items such as bottles, dodies, babygro’s, |Ties |Feather boas | |blankets etc. | | | |Empty toiletries i. e. shampoo bottles, facecream jars|Scarves |Jackets or shirts with buttons, zippers and | |etc. |Capes & Shawls |snaps | |Sponge Curlers |Tool belts |Crowns | |Handbags |Uniform items |Shoes with laces | |Small dresses |Football kit |Wands | |Leg warmers |Gloves | | We managed to procure most of the items requested via donations, and the families of the foreign national children very kindly donated some items of clothing and accessories from their cultures. For example the mother of the Chinese girl very kindly gave us a piece of Chinese silk fabric and a Chinese fan, whilst the Zimbabwean family gave us an ethnically printed tunic and a small turban style printed hat. We carefully displayed all our dress up items so as to make it interesting for the children to try different combinations, and make it easy for them to find things. Dress up clothes were put on hangars on the rails, hats and belts and aprons etc. were hung on the coat racks, whilst scarves and other accessories were stored in clearly labeled storage boxes and baskets at the base of the rails. A special basket was filled with props such as wands, microscopes, toy swords and other such items to bring fantasy to life. One very important new addition to the dress up area was a full length mirror, which was fitted to the wall beside the rails. This is very important in maintaining interest in the dress up area, and helps the children to observe and assess their choices. Furthermore, allowing kids to self-verify the results of their work is very Montessori. The overall result is that we now have a first class area which the children love. The time spent in the dress up area and home corner area in general has increased hugely, and the children have great fun trying different combinations of costumes. [pic] [pic] Bibliography Harding, Jackie Meldon Smith, Liz â€Å"How To Make Observations & Assessments† 2nd Edition Hodder & Stoughton UK Hayes, Noirin â€Å"Early Childhood An Introductory Text† 1999 Gill & MacMillan Dublin Madigan, Imelda â€Å"Defining, Assessing and Supporting Quality in Early Childhood Care and Education: The High/Scope Ireland Model http://www. cecde. ie/english/pdf/Questions%20of%20Quality/Madigan. pdf Miller, Patricia H â€Å"Theories of Developmental Psychology† 2002 Worth Publishers US. Sylva, Kathy Lunt, Ingrid â€Å"Child Development: A First Course† 1982 Blackwell Publishing UK Aistear – National Council for Curriculum and Assessment www. ncca. ie www. education. com http://www. ehow. com/how_10055611_set-up-fancy-preschool-classroom. html#ixzz29Hs4JKT9 http://www. kildarechildcare. ie/wp-content/uploads/Guide-to-Play-The-Learning-Environment. pdf http://education. scholastic. co. uk/resources/144269 http://www. sagepub. com/upm-data/9656_022816Ch5. pdf

Culture’s Impact on Education and Development Essay

Children’s participation in education is considerably influenced by several different cultural customs and tendencies. In my opinion, culture signifies a common set of beliefs and values. Different school systems practice what their particular culture believes in and how their culture believes education should take place and be taught. Different cultures have a complete diverse set of expectations for what they believe â€Å"normal† school behavior consists of. It is important for teachers to understand and to take into consideration these different cultural tendencies. One of the strongest roles played on an individual’s disposition of accepting their school’s discipline is the influence of their individual culture and family background (Feinberg & Soltis, 2004). For instance, a teacher who is unaware of the differences between cultures might construe a child’s behavior as disrespectful and misbehaving. However, the child views and considers their behavior as normal. In many cases, due to the fact that these cultures are hard to recognize, students do not always understand why their teachers are punishing them and categorizing their behavior as ill-mannered and inappropriate. Once children are placed in their school environments, what happens next? Every child in the world deserves an equal right to education. Unfortunately, today’s world faces a very critical issue. Children are not receiving the adequate and plentiful education in which they deserve. While in third world countries, there is a tremendous amount of children who are not attending school, today’s world faces an even larger issue. In Africa, for instance, attending school can be very dangerous due to the prevalent amount of violence that takes place both in and outside of the school environment. As author Jonathan Jansen explains, â€Å"Opportunity to learn might be less achievable than full enrollment† (Jansen, 2005). That is to say, the more pervasive problem facing the education of today’s developing countries is not quite the access to schools, but the things that occur once the child gets inside those schools. Furthermore, it is imperative that educators truly understand the distinct histories and ideologies concerning the cultural tendencies of groups as well as the education and learning. In America, maintaining eye contact while having a conversation with someone is considered a sign of respect. In contrary, the cultures of different countries, such as Asia and Africa, view making eye contact with an authority figure or elder as disrespectful and in appropriate. With that being said, we can visualize how easily misinterpretations are made between students and teachers of different backgrounds and cultures (â€Å"Non-verbal communication,†). The Japanese teacher’s approach to the students’ disputes, in the article about Japan, certainly surprised me. From past personal experience, whenever I would find myself in the middle of a dispute there was always an adult alongside to help resolve it. From elementary school to high school, there were constantly authority figures that would intervene as soon as a dispute between students was recognized. In contrary, the Japanese teacher in the reading emphasized that she restrains herself from intervening disputes because she’s afraid of sending the wrong message to the children. She doesn’t want them to think that they can’t handle and take care of themselves in any given situation. By intervening, she stresses that it would interrupt the children’s experience with complex situations and resolving things upon themselves (Tobin, Hsueh & Karasawa, 2009). References Feinberg, W., & Soltis, J. (2004). School and society. New York, NY: Teachers College Press. Jansen, J. (2005). Targeting education: The politics of performance and the prospects of ‘Education For All’. Non-verbal communication. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:JMDMvvI0abkJ:sitemaker.umich.edu/356.kyprianides/non-verbal_communication &cd=10&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us Tobin, J., Hsueh, Y., & Karasawa, M. (2009). Preschool in three cultures revisited: China, Japan, and the United States. Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press.

Friedrich Nietzeche Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Friedrich Nietzeche - Assignment Example On the other hand, slave morality embraces the standards of what is beneficial to the powerless. The morality holds that the independent and strong people possess evil attributes (211). In effect, the slave morality advances virtues such as humility, sympathy, and kindness. Thus, the two types of morality have remarkable differences. The master morality gives the masters a sense of fullness, including ability, wealth, and power. In this respect, the noble people perceive themselves as the originators of value, and can decide on what is good or bad. Such masters do not need the outside force to affirm their goodness because they believe devotion for greatness is in them (212). Thus, Nietzsche thinks that master morality is superior because it emphasizes strength, freedom, power, and egoism, and concern less with the externals. The morality evokes fear, inflicts suffering, and exploits the people in the lower order. In essence, the masters consider the non-masters in the society contemptible. To them, the non-masters are secondary and insignificant. Nietzsche thinks that religion and democracy fall under slave morality because the two tend to ease the suffering of the people. The expression of the slave morality adheres to the moral standards inherent in religion and democracy. Hence, the religion and democracy exemplify the same ideology as in slave morality. In effect, the religion and democracy exhibit the ideology of herd, majority, and convention contained in the slave morality. Similarly, religion and democracy embrace values such equality, pity, and humility that typify slave morality. Thus, Nietzsche uses the values to classify religion and democracy under the slave morality. In my opinion, relativistic morality cannot be defended. The relativistic morality tends to exaggerate the extent of diversity among cultures. Notably, the superficial differences among the cultures mask the underlying shared agreement. I