Security and democracy. Can you have both Hows does popular culture Research Paper

Security and democracy. Can you have both Hows does popular culture and Star Wars tell us that you cannot - Research Paper Example However, we have countless cases around the world whereby democratic countries tend to be unstable, beset by cycles of conflicts while those that are led by despots seems to be enjoying relative peace. For instance, drug lords are virtually taking over some Southern American countries such as Guatemala and Mexico, making parts of those countries insecure even though free elections, a key demand for democracy, are held regularly. Clearly, the democratic governments in most of these countries have failed to enhance security in their states. On the other hand, countries lambasted for having failed the democratic test such as Cuba and swathes of nations in the Arab world, never known to hold elections to choose leaders, are relatively calm with very low levels of crime. Different stories and experiences of popular culture, with the backup from various academic and non academic sources will be analyzed to determine whether it is possible for a country to have stability and democracy at the same time. Democracy will undoubtedly cause tensions as the minorities cry foul over lack of opportunities. These tensions can be a major source of instability. Is it therefore possible to have both stability and democracy if the minorities are unhappy? Popular culture can be broadly defined as the aggregate of cultural products such as music, art, literature, fashion, dance, television and film that is primarily consumed by the non-elite portion of the society (Crossman; Osborn 3). Non-elitist group of the society are mainly the downtrodden or the masses that does not control both the political as well as the economic power. These are the laborers, the middle class and the lower class of the society. According to Crossman, popular culture can be viewed from two dimensions. First, popular culture is a tool used by the elites to control the masses. This is because the elites tend to control media outlets and the culture itself. For

Crime Rate in Centervale Essay Example for Free

Crime Rate in Centervale Essay If one was to compare the crime in Centervale to that of Alaska or Alabama it would be clear that Centervale has the highest crime total. If one was to compare the crime rate it would be clear that Alabama has in fact the highest crime rate with Alaska and then Centervale sitting very close in numbers. Alabama has the highest population and Alaska has the lowest, but this would mean that Alabama would not be the safest place to live. In fact an individual would want to live in either Alaska or Centervale. Centervale has a lower aggravated assault rate than that of Alaska, but Alaska has a lower robbery rate that that of both Centervale and Alabama. When looking for a new place to locate its always a great decision to check out how a city, county, suburb, or state hold up against that of other similar places when it comes to crime. No one wants to live in a place where they are afraid to leave their homes. When looking at the actually numbers Centervale is the highest followed by Alabama and then Alaska, but if an individual was to look at the crime rate then it would appear that Alaska has the highest followed by Alabama and then Centervale, but both Alabama and Centervale are very close in rate percentage. Alaska has a problem with alcohol related crimes, whereas in other locations in the United States drugs and alcohol are secondary to the crime. Information Importance This kind of information is important due to the growing concern that most individuals and families have about the crime not only in their local neighborhoods, but also in places that they may be considering locating too. It’s also important to find out what programs are in place to keep the crime rate reduced. Each neighborhood has some sort of program in place to help keep children and adolescents occupied so they are less likely to go out and commit a crime, but crime doesn’t always involve children and adolescents. Crime can and is often committed by adults. Read more:  India Crime Rate Most communities have an early childhood development program in place. It’s been stated by Paul Leighton (2007), that children enrolled in this program have â€Å"half as many criminal arrests, less likelihood of going to jail, higher earnings and property wealth, and a greater commitment to family†. There are also drug treatment, recreation, gang- prevention, education, special curricula, job training, and the labor market (Leighton, 2007). When moving to a new community an individual can call around to find what programs have been put into place to reduce the crime rate and what else can be done to help reduce the crime. Parents with small children wish to make sure that they are bringing their children to a safe environment with programs set in place to help the children and adolescents occupied after school. Definitions of Crime Crime is defined as â€Å"the act or the commission of an act that is forbidden or the omission of a duty that is commanded by a public law and that makes the offender liable to punishment by that law† (Merriam-Webster, 2013). Alabama and Alaska differ when it comes to crime punishment. Alaska abolished its capital punishment in 1957, but has since then tried to reintroduce it to no avail. Alabama on the other hand does have capital punishment and certain crimes can lead to the death penalty. These crimes are capital murder charges, rape, robbery, and burglary. Alaska imprisons their convicted criminals for either short period of times to life. In both states children and adolescents are charged as juveniles unless found to have committed an adult crime such as murder (non-accidental), robbery that ends up with loss of life or assault or rape. Rape charges can be difficult to try depending on the age of the child or adolescents and how much understanding of the charges and their understanding of right and wrong. Charging children in an adult court can be difficult to do since their understanding and reasoning is far different and underdeveloped than that of an adult. Recommendations Recommendations to help reduce the crime rate would to beef up the police and special crime units to help get a grasp on the crime in the state. Have better programs put into place within the prisons/jails. This will give a positive opportunity and outlet for the prisoners so they will not wish to reoffend. Allow employers that wish to hire ex-convicts the opportunity to sit down with the convict prior to their release. This will give the individual something positive to look forward to and a better outlook on life. Have programs set up for ex-cons along with programs set up for those who may need a positive outlet. Ex-cons need the structure to help them adapt better to outside life than to be just â€Å"dumped† on the streets after their sentence with the hopes of not reoffending. Many individuals feel they have nothing â€Å"outside† so why even try. In many cases this is true, the individuals family and or friends have given up on them or they have a difficult time finding a job, so they do what they believe is the only thing left and this causes them to reoffend. Conclusion In conclusion crime is a scary thing for any family or individual, but with careful consideration and knowing the facts needed one can make the correct decision. Many criminals that are within the prison/jail system are those who have reoffended, but due to the unknown these individuals tend to end back up within the system. Families and friends of those ex-cons need to be there for the individual for emotional support. Those who don’t have the proper support feel alone and often believe they need to be back where they were. References Crime in the United States. U.S. Department of Justice (2009). Retrieved from http://www2.fbi.gov/ucr/cius2009/data/table_05.html What Every American Should Know About the Criminal Justice System. Leighton, Paul (2007). Stop Violence. Retrieved from http://stopviolence.com/cj-knowledge.htm Merriam-Webster. Crime (2013). Retrieved from http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/crime

All Quiet On The Western Front the Novel :: Erich Maria Remarque

Kantorek would say We stood on the threshold of life And so it would seem We had as yet taken no root The war swept us away For the others, the older men, It is but an interruption, they are able to think beyond it We, however, have been gripped by it And do not know what the end may be We know only That in some strange and melancholy way We have become a wasteland What does war do to a man? It destroys his inner being; it crushes hope; it kills him. Experiencing battle leaves only the flesh of a man, for he no longer has a personality; it leaves a wasteland where a vast field of humanity once was. Through the main character, Paul Baumer, the reader experiences the hardships and consequences of war. During the course of the war, Paul reflects on how the young men involved in the war have no future left for them, they've become a "lost generation." Paul feels that his generation has "become a wasteland" because the war has made him into a thoughtless animal, because he knew nothing before the war, and because the war has shown the cheapness of human life. Throughout the novel, Paul must face dangerous tasks. For example, in chapter nine Paul crawls through No Man's Land to gather information about enemy forces. While in No Man's Land, the enemy begins to bombard the Germans. Paul, fearing death, hides in an old shell crater and pretends to be dead. While feigning death, an enemy soldier enters the crater. Paul quickly reacts and strike at the enemy with his dagger, fatally wounding the soldier. In a later chapter, Paul explains why he reacted so quickly. War has turned all the soldiers into "unthinking animals in order to give us the weapon of instinct." This primal instinct is one of survival; it is the only thing that matters during war. It allows the soldiers to remain calm in battle, it allows them to escape solitude, and aids them in survival. "As in a polar expedition, every expression of life must serve only the preservation of existence, and is absolutely focused on that;" Paul and the other soldiers do only what is necessary to ensure their own survival. This affects each soldier when the war is finished. When a soldier returns back to his home after the war, he is unable to escape his primitive feelings of survival.

Van Gogh Starry Night

Starry, Starry Night â€Å"Starry, starry night, paint your palette blue and grey, look out on a summer's day, with eyes that know the darkness in my soul. † (Don MacLean) I chose to write about the painting, The Starry Night by Dutch artist Vincent van Gogh. Van Gogh painted the view outside his sanitarium room window located in southern France at night. But Van Gogh painted it from memory during the day. I feel that this painting has Asymmetrical Balance. From our handouts – â€Å"In this case balance is achieved with dissimilar objects that have equal visual weight or equal eye attraction. The Starry Night is a picture of the night sky with stars and trees and the moon. We read that Nature is not symmetrical. Even the stars are different sizes and give off different light. â€Å"Shape and Texture also attracts our attention and is used in Asymmetrical Balance. † The Rhythm of this painting appears to be Legato Rhythm. The handout says â€Å"some rhythms are called legato, meaning connecting and slowing. This work gives a feeling of relaxing and calm. † The stars make up most of the painting – they are different in brightness, along with the moon.When we look at the stars, they are all yellow and round, vary in size and placement, and they have halo like light encircling them. â€Å"Sketch the trees and the daffodils, Catch the breeze and the winter chills. † (DL) The breeze and the winter chills give off a Legato rhythm flowing with the swirling wind and the round brush strokes throughout the painting. The Lines in this painting show movement in the sky as well as distance. The cypress tree in front is a thicker stroke as to the trees and bushes in the background.The lines that make up the buildings get thinner as your eye looks further and deeper into the painting. The vertical lines such as the green cypress tree and church tower softly break up the composition, but keep your eyes moving around them. Van Gogh used â€Å"dot-to-dot† lines to depict the wind movement and accentuate the light the stars and moon were giving off. I read that Van Gogh was concerned with the unity of his paintings. In Starry Night, the swirling brush strokes and use of cool colors seems to unify the pieces of the painting and create the feeling that everything belongs together.Van Gogh used a painting technique called impasto. This is a thick application of paint that makes no attempt to look smooth. This technique is textured, and shows off brush and palette knife marks. â€Å"Colors changing hue, morning fields of amber grain,† as much as I don’t want to disagree with Don McLean, but a color cannot change a hue, it is in fact the other way around. Van Gogh chose vibrant hues such as violet, blue, yellow, and green. Since the painting is bright stars and moons in the dead of the night, shows how he used the Value of the colors.He also used white and yellow to create a spiral effect and draws a ttention to the sky. The Tint was this use of white around the stars to make them appear to light up the town even in the dark of night where he uses Shade to darken the rest of the sky. The buildings in the middle of the painting are small blocks of different yellows, oranges, and greens with a dash of red to the left of the church. The dominant color of blue is balanced by the orange of the night sky. He used intensity to make the stars light up the dark blue sky.Van Gogh chose to paint with an analogous color scheme, meaning he stayed close to a certain color, blue in this case, on the color wheel, and ventured left and right to the violets and greens. He painted with rich colors of the night and uses these colors to suggest feeling and emotion. Emotion that he truly had which Don McLean let the world know with his chorus in his song, Vincent. â€Å"For they could not love you, but still your love was true. And when no hope was left in sight, on that starry, starry night. You to ok your life as lovers often do. But I could have told you, Vincent, this world was never meant for one as beautiful as you. †

Physical Security †Essay Essay

In the United States everyone is concerned about safety in their homes and in his or her workplace. Individuals go to great lengths to ensure that all their possessions that they own could not be stolen from them. According to the 1999 FBI Uniform Crime Reports, nationwide 408,217 robberies were committed with the estimated amount of losses being reported at $508 million in losses. Many measures can be put in place to prevent such losses. This paper will discuss physical security and other components such as building security, grounds security, access control systems, perimeter security, information systems, and technology security. Physical Security According to Search Security (2011), Physical security is â€Å"Physical security is the protection of personnel, hardware, programs, networks, and data from physical circumstances and events that could cause serious losses or damage to an enterprise, agency, or institution. This includes protection from fire, natural disasters, burglary, theft, vandalism, and terrorism.† Physical security can be described as measures taken to prevent and to deter intruders or attackers from gaining access to facilities, resources, or information stored on physical media. Physical security also provides guidance on ways to design structures to resist various hostile acts. As physical security can have seemed to be this elaborate task, but can be a simple act of locking a home or business door and not given an easy access to an intruder. To keep individuals, families, or employees safe one has to think about the things that are important to them and the things one also wants to protect. Ground Security Ground security can be looked at as ways to protect areas around airports. Since September 11, 2001, airports have gone through many changes to ensure that their passengers are safe and all bags and equipment are safe before the leave the ground and enter the airplane. Before that tragic event there were no major security measures in place except screenings but people could just come and go as they please. As a result of the hijackings security was  beefed up tremendously. Passengers are screened more closely. People are not allowed to carry liquids into the airport and not like before only passengers with boarding passes may enter the terminal. According to USAToday reporter Blake Morrison (2002), Flight attendants report that many ground workers such as airport mechanics, caterers and ramp workers still have access to planes without going through any checkpoints as long as the have their swipe cards. Access Control Systems Access control systems are highly used at most businesses to keep unauthorized people out of places they do not belong. Access control systems are thought of as electronic card readers were badges are needed to unlock a doors, lets individuals gain access to an elevator, or garage. Access control systems also can be as simple as possessing a security guard to stop people from entering a certain area. There are levels of access controls there is the basic system that allows systems to respond to a pin or a card number, there is an intelligent system that controls access to doors locks and also has the capability to store information. The most common breach of this system is that people allow individuals without badges to slip in behind them. For example, nowadays many apartment building or condo complexes have main entrances were they must badge in or have a key to unlock the door. There is always someone waiting at the door to gain entry, and most people will just open the door and let him or her in never thinking that this person should not have access. The person who is let in could be an intruder there to do harm. For this reason many companies/residence complexes stress that authorize users should not let anyone enter unless he or she have followed the appropriate procedure for visitors. Access cards have been proven to have some vulnerability. Hackers are very intelligent and have found ways to copy the cards information. Hackers have become so accomplished that they have created portable readers t hat can capture the card number. No security method can ever be listed as 100% effective. Perimeter Security Perimeter Security can be described as a boundary that separates an area from the rest of the world. The purpose of the perimeter security is to deter,  detect, delay and deny unauthorized access to a perimeter without the owner’s consent to avoid theft, vandalism, or other criminal acts. Many things are used to prevent individual from gaining access to his or her property. Fences or gates are good starting points to protect property. Gates that are high enough and locked keeps intruders out. Another line of defense is security lights. Having an area with good lighting is critical to a security system because people are less likely to commit a crime in a place if they feel they can be seen by someone. Most criminals look for an area that does not have good lighting and is away from by passers. Good lights around a home and an area not hidden by overgrown trees and shrubs provides some protection. Lighting can protect a home or a business from intruder because it provides trickery. Many homes have installed motion sensor lights that come on when someone walks or moves in a certain perimeter around his or her home or business. If the intruder were to set off the sensor and lights come on they will most likely run away as they are not sure if someone is watching either from the home he or she is intruding or from the neighbor’s house. Criminals are also deterred from homes or businesses with outside lighting because they think that if you took the time to install good lighting, this home also has the potential of having an alarm system. Also if it is a business that is being intruded good lighting also helps the use security cameras, if the lighting is good clearer images could be captured. Information Systems and Technology Security Information security means protecting information from unauthorized access, use, disclosure, disruption, modification, perusal, inspection, recording, or destruction. Most companies and homes have intrusion detection systems on their computers. Intrusion detection systems allow companies to monitor unwanted attempts to gain access to their systems. According to Webopedia (2010) these detection devices allow managers to see all activity incoming and outgoing. Intrusion detection is important to keep information systems safe from hackers, disgruntled employees, and others who may want to cause the company trouble or damage their IT systems. Safety Net uses a Reactive Intrusion Detection system. The reason the passive system is used because it logs all activities and then sounds an alert. A reactive system not only  logs the traffic and suspicious use then alerts administrators, but it also logs off a user after suspicious activity is detected (Net Security, 2010). Safety Net feels the passive method is just not protective enough in monitoring suspicious activity. Allowing managers to know who has conducted such activity is great but Reactive stops the activity. The detection system utilized by Safety Net is a Host Intrusion Detection System rather than the Network Intrusion Detection System. Conclusion Physical security is the protection of personnel, hardware, programs, networks, and data from physical circumstances and events that could cause serious losses or damage to an enterprise, agency, or institution. Individuals have the responsibility to make sure that they protect themselves from harm. All measures have to be weighed and applied to ensure that security cannot be breached. References Robbery. (2011). Retrieved fromhttp://www2.fbi.gov/ucr/cius2009/offenses/violent_crime/robbery.html | | | Morrison, Blake. (2002) Attendants question ground security. Retrieved on January 7,2011 from http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2002/04/04/ground-security.htm Intrusion Detection. (2012). Retrieved on January 7, 2011 From http://www.webopedia.com/DidYouKnow/Computer_Science/2005 Net Security. (2011). Retrieved on January 7, 2011 From http://netsecurity.about.com/cs/hackertools/a/aa030504_2.htm