Drinking age Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1750 words

Drinking age - Essay Example It is stated in the act, along with other enforcements that the states should legislate or enforce the minimum legal drinking age to be twenty one years old. It is also stated under the Federal Aid Highway Act, that the state that fails to mandate or enforce the twenty one years old law of drinking age, is at risk of losing ten percent of the federal funding for highway appointments. There have been several controversies related to the National Minimum Drinking Age Act of 1984. The law was effective in 1984, when President Reagan signed this law for implementation, many people are convinced that the most influential supporter for the act was Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD) (Stefan, K, pp.25). Even if it is true or not, there is one thing very apparent that was the act was imposed as a law due to extraordinary support from the groups of special interests among which MADD was one of them. From a very long time, drinking has been considered as a government lack of control issue. Du ring the year 1919, a prohibition was effective which imposed a ban on everyone from drinking alcohol regardless of age group. It was considered as a criminal offense to manufacture, possess, sell or drink alcoholic beverages. The prohibition was lifted by the year 1933, and once again the consumption and possession alcoholic drink was legal. It was official prompted to many states, cities and municipalities that they control drinking by creating legislation. Through several studies, it is suggested that the brain of a youngster is not completely developed until the age of twenty one that is the reason why the brain of youngster is affected differently as compared to the effects on an adult. After several discussions it was settled that the age of twenty one was ideal for legal drinking age and an act was passed, it was required by the states to increase the age of legal drinking to twenty one otherwise their percentage of funding for highways will be reduced by ten percent. The tim e duration provided for implementation was two years. Some of the states enforced the law, some states did not but at present all the states have implemented the law. There are additional exceptions available in the Federal law, if youngsters want to pursue employment in a place where there is dealing of alcoholic beverages. An eighteen year old is eligible to work in a restaurant, bar and serve alcohol at a liquor store, the possession of alcohol in such case is legal, but they are not allowed to consume it. In some states the prohibition are more specifically defined as compared to others, whereas some municipalities have no legislation defined in this regard related to the legal age of drinking. To date there has been a lot of confusion raised with regards to what is allowed and what is not, as the implementation varied from state to state, but it is better to be precautious by being safe and not consuming or possessing alcohol beverages under the age of twenty one. United States of America has implemented highest age of legal drinking as compared to all other countries. Russia, Spain, Ireland, Mexico, Australia and England all these countries have the legal drinking age eighteen. Portugal, Greece, Germany, Italy and few other countries have allowed the young citizen to consume beer at a young age of sixteen, whereas some of the countries have no defined

Increased gas prices in the US compared to the Middle East Essay

Increased gas prices in the US compared to the Middle East - Essay Example The high prices are mainly caused by the supply and demand factor. The demand for crude oil has immensely increased which directly affects the gasoline prices at pumps of USA. The supply has not been increased in that proportion. The consumption of gasoline in developing countries like China and India has been significant as the automobile industry is skyrocketing in these countries. The gasoline consumption in USA is about one quarter of the world’s total production. However supply and demand is not only the factor but the additional cost which includes taxes, cost of refining crude oil, transportation cost, and the profit to the gasoline dealer is also the reason and contributes about increasing the cost less half then cost of gasoline in United States. Rising gas prices is a matter of concern for the USA car manufacturing companies. It is expected that the use of Subways will be increased in the future. This may result in weakening the USA economy as car manufacturers are one of major stakeholders. Last but the most important factor is recent unrest in the Arab World. Although the countries like Egypt, Syria, Jordan are not the major crude oil producers but they play significant role in determining the world oil prices. President Obama has put aside the interest shown by some Companies willing to explore oil in Alaska and other areas. The aim of these people was only to increase the domestic exploration. This action of him has resulted in complete shutting down of the present oil drilling infrastructure in USA. It is reported that about 103 permits are in waiting list for review. But the Obama administration has not renewed any single exploratory drilling plan in the Gulf of Mexico. Moreover Obama administration has also put â€Å"7 year ban† on the oil exploration in the coastal waters in Atlantic and Pacific coasts and the Eastern Gulf of Mexico. According to the experts

Gender Constructions in The Hours

Gender Constructions in The Hours TITLE: Gender Constructions in The Hours (Daldry. S, 2002) AIM/OBJECTIVE: To illustrate gender as being a social construction rather than a biologically determined entity and to evaluate how heteronormativity influences the several layers of identity. METHODOLOGY Drawing upon the evolution of gender construction in The Hours, I intend to use feminist theory and the social construction on gender to obtain a preview of a society devoid of the restrictions in terms of heteronormativity. LITERATURE REVIEW: Judith Butler’s (1988) ‘Performative Acts and Gender Constitution: An Essay in Phenomenology and Feminist Theory’ asserts that â€Å"gender identity is a performative accomplishment compelled by social sanction and taboo†. Butler (1988) argues that gender is constituted through a series of â€Å"acts† that have been actualized by individuals in repetition over time. She further argues that gender is something that is not a concrete â€Å"social fiction† but is constantly being reproduced, shifted and moved. In short, she theorizes that gender is not a set of concrete identities, but it is always reproduced over and over by the body. â€Å"One is not born, but rather becomes, a woman.† This emblematic quote of Simone de Beauvoir in ‘The Second Sex’ (1949) demonstrates that â€Å"no biological, psychological, or economic fate determines the figure that the human female presents in society†¦Ã¢â‚¬  Gender must be understood as a process of taking on or realizing possibilities, a process of interpreting the body and giving it a cultural form. In other words, to be a woman is to become a woman through an active practice of appropriating, interpreting and reinterpreting received cultural possibilities. In so doing, women are relegated to the category ‘the other’ through cultural construction, which Butler identifies as being the key to women’s oppression. Gender identity, advocates Simone de Beauvoir, â€Å"rests on unstable bedrock of human invention.† Drawing on Laura Mulvey’s work ‘Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema’, Anneke Smelik’s ‘Feminist Film Theory’ (1999) indicates a prolific diversity which echoes the multitude of voices, manifold points of view, and cinematic styles and genres that indicate womens triumphant endeavor for self-representation on the silver screen. However, a restriction such as the reproduction of a male/female dichotomy is questioned and the need for a deconstruction is expressed. The renewed interest in the sex/gender distinction that Gayle Rubin had introduced in 1975 is given much importance. The term gender usually seemed to point to a more lucid distinction between anatomy (sex) and social construction (gender), and equally between sexual practice and gender identity. This distinction contributes to the critical appreciation of movies where gender constructions are depicted as being unusual. BACKGROUND: Society has been, most of the time, portrayed as being a patriarchal one. One representation that can be recurrently seen in texts is that man is the norm, and woman is ‘the other’, or as stated by Culler (2007), â€Å"Men have aligned the opposition male/female with rational/emotional, serious/frivolous, or reflective/spontaneous†. In such a scenario, the woman feels restricted to particular roles dictated by men and at some point, she feels stifled by the various impositions levied upon her. This research topic gives a discerning stance of the struggle of women of the 20th century who have been constantly seeking for more meaningful lives. In order to question the whole issue of gender construction as well as the hierarchy of the opposing attributes, this tale of women will be considered. These heroines of everyday lives will be analysed in terms of the construction of a patriarchal society as they make heart breaking and defining choices that eventually influence their whole life. INTRODUCTION: The Hours is a 2002 drama film – a screenplay by David Hare based on the 1999 Pulitzer Prize-winning novel of the same title by Michael Cunningham. Starring Meryl Streep, Nicole Kidman and Julianne Moore, the movie relates the life of women of three different generations, who are interconnected by Virginia Woolf’s novel, Mrs. Dalloway. The character of Virginia Woolf, magnificently portrayed by Nicole Kidman, lives against her will in Richmond, England, 1922. Laura Brown is a pregnant housewife living in 1951 in Los Angeles. Played by Julianne Moore, she feels suffocated in her so-called â€Å"perfect life†. Lastly, Clarissa Vaughan, expertly acted by Meryl Streep, is a contemporary version of Mrs. Dalloway and leads a somewhat happy life with her homosexual partner, Sally, in New York City, 2001. DISCUSSION: In The Hours, Virginia Woolf is seen to be delving into her imagination to create Mrs. Dalloway – a woman who, like herself, embodies liberal thoughts, but nonetheless, enjoys a more expansive freedom in her lifestyle. Through her creation, she craftily plays on the notion of what gender identity should represent. This idea is once again explored through Mrs. Brown, who engages herself in reading the novel Mrs. Dalloway in her moments of solitude and depression. Virginia Woolf thus gives birth to Mrs. Dalloway, who in turn, becomes a source of inspiration to Laura Brown. Woolf turns many cultural gender stereotypes and generalizations on their heads, and seems to do so more in an effort to expose how gender is a socially constructed concept rather than promoting an exclusively feminist agenda. The character of Clarissa is yet another portrayal of construction related to gender identity. The contrast between Mrs. Dalloway in the novel and Clarissa Vaughan in the movie shows how the process of deconstruction occurred over time. The fact that Mrs. Dalloway could only be allowed to reminisce about her love for Sally shows that there are some limitations for her to live her femininity and sexuality as compared to Clarissa who is in a committed relationship with her homosexual lover. The construction of identity as portrayed in Clarissa goes beyond sexual orientation and constricted roles for women. It focuses on how the concept of the self develops in a society defined by social norms. CONCLUSION: With each upcoming generation, the characters demonstrate that they are given license to broaden their horizons. This evolving pattern shows a deconstruction of heteronormativity and at the same time does not restrict women to being portrayed as the other. BIBLIOGRAPHY: Ahmed, S. (2010). ‘Killing Joy: Feminism and the History of Happiness’. The University of Chicago Press. Vol. 35, No. 3, pp. 571-594 Beauvior, S. D. (1949). ‘The Second Sex’, trans. and ed. H. M. Parshley. New York: Knoph. Butler, J. (1986). Sex and Gender in Simone de Beauvoirs Second Sex .Witness to a century. 72 (3), 40-42. Butler, J. (1988). ‘Performative Acts and Gender Constitution: An Essay in Phenomenology and Feminist Theory’. The John Hopkins University Press: Theatre Journal, Vol. 40, No. 4 (Dec., 1988), pp. 519-531 Butler, J. (1988). ‘Performative Acts and Gender Constitution: An Essay in Phenomenology and Feminist Theory’. The John Hopkins University Press: Theatre Journal, Vol. 40, No. 4 (Dec., 1988), pp. 519-531 Butler, J. (1990) ‘Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity’. London and New York: Routledge. Butler, J. (1993). ‘Bodies that Matter: On the Discursive Limits of â€Å"Sex†. London and New York: Routledge. Cott, F. N. (1987). ‘The Grounding of Modern Feminism.’ Yale University Press Culler, J. D. (2007). ‘On Deconstructionà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¬: Theory and Criticism After Structuralismà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¬Ã¢â‚¬â„¢. Cornell University Press.à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¬Ãƒ ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¬Ãƒ ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¬Ãƒ ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¬Ãƒ ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¬Ãƒ ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¬Ãƒ ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¬Ãƒ ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¬Ãƒ ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¬Ãƒ ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¬ Daldry. S (Director).The Hours[Motion picture]. Miramax Films, 2002. Fausto-Sterling, A. (2000). ‘Sexing the Body: Gender Politics and the Construction of Sexuality’. New York: Basic Books. Flax, J. (1990). ‘Postmodernism and gender relations in feminist theory’. In Nicholson, L. J., editor, Feminism/Postmdernism. London and New York: Routeldge, 39-62. Foucault, M. (1961). ‘Madness and Civilization: A History of Insanity in the Age of Reason.’ Howard, R., translator. New York: Pantheon Books. Hjersing, C (2009).‘Representations of Clarissa and Septimus in Virginia Woolf’s Mrs Dalloway A deconstructive approach combined with aspects of feminist and psychoanalytical criticism’ Molyneux, M. (1986).‘No God, No Boss, No Husband: Anarchist Feminism in Nineteenth-Century Argentina.’ Sage Publications. Latin American Perspectives, Vol. 13, No. 1, Latin Americas Nineteenth-Century History, pp. 119-145 Motashery, I. (2012). ‘A Feminist Reading of Virginia Woolf’s Mrs Dalloway’. International Journal of Applied Linguistics English Literature. Vol. 1 No. 3. Offen, K. (1988). ‘Defining Feminism: A Comparative Historical Approach’The University of Chicago Press. Vol. 14, No. 1, pp. 119-157 Probyn, E. (1993). ‘Sexing the Self: Gendered Positions in Cultural Studies’. London and New York: Routledge. Shihada, M, I. ‘A Feminist Perspective of Virginia Woolf’s Selected Novels: Mrs. Dalloway and To the Lighthouse.’ Shor, M. et. al (1999).‘Contemporary Feminism: Art Practice, Theory, and ActivismAn Intergenerational Perspective’. College Art Association. Art Journal, Vol. 58, No. 4, pp. 8-29 Smelik, A. (1999). ‘Feminist film theory.’ Warner, M. (1991). ‘Introduction: Fear of a Queer Planet’. Duke University Press. Social Text, No. 29 (1991), pp. 3-17

Dont Forget Working Capital When You Buy a Website :: Sell Websites Buy Websites

Don't Forget Working Capital When You Buy a Website Reprinted with permission of VotanWeb.com If you intend to obtain a loan to buy a website, you should consider how much capital you should have available until the website starts generating income. Believe it or not, many buyers overlook this and wind up in trouble soon after they acquire a website. It is important that you determine the "working capital" requirements of the website before you purchase. This is the amount of money you will need available to fund the website after you take over until it becomes self-sufficient, meaning that there is enough inflow of cash to pay the bills of the website as well as your family. There isn't a standard method to determine working capital requirements, but it is something that you can calculate. Of course, you must keep in mind that every scenario is different. For example, if you acquire a website where clients pay immediately, then you will have an inflow of cash the first day that you take over. On the other hand, if it's a website where you grant payment terms to clients and the average time to collect is 30 days, then at a bare minimum, you will need at least one month of working capital. The other thing to consider is inventory. If you will have to purchase products to sell prior to seeing payments form clients, here too your cash flow will be affected. The best way to approach this for any website is to do a forecast for the first six months after closing. Generally, you should take the average monthly revenue for the past year. Then, factor in any seasonality to the business. For example, if you are buying a website that sells primarily school supplies to college students, then you can certainly expect sales to be far lower in the summer than they will be in September. Once you determine the average sales, then you must calculate all of the fixed costs that you will incur from day one. These are all of the expenses that the business will have that are not related to the sales. For example, your webmaster is a fixed expense. You have to pay this regardless of what the website revenues may be. Other fixed costs include: marketing, advertising, insurance, taxes, etc. Always add a cushion of at least 10% - 15% to cover miscellaneous costs that always arise for new website owners.

Araby Interpretive James Joyce

Araby Araby is a short story about a young boy that falls in love that has little or no experiences on the subject he in turn gets to feel for himself some of the follies that come along with it. Firstly we see the awkwardness the boy demonstrates around his crush. This boy who remains nameless throughout the story we see follow around a girl and spy on her, this in my books isn’t a great way to get the ladies, but on the other hand he is just a boy and the story took place over one hundred years ago so I’m thinking this might have been ok back then so I guess I’ll give him a break.Next they finally meet late at night in a dark room by chance and the young boy is speechless can’t even remember what he says at first when the girl asks if he’s going to Araby, but he does vow on bringing something back for her. I’d say that’s reasonable, something I have done for a girl I liked, I have also been painfully nervous around a crush so I can r elate. Now he’s on a mission putting all the parts in play, he gets permission to attend Araby, then the promise of funding from his uncle to complete the task at hand to win his loves heart.He’s ready to go got everything in order but something doesn’t go right and his uncle comes home awfully late, but the boy pushes to go no matter what he’s made up his mind and he’s going something all of us can relate to at one point or another. Finally getting off the train alone he arrives at Araby, he makes is way to the market only to find most of the booths closed he approaches one but sees only English tea sets and pottery, shortly after that the lights go out and he stands there in the dark feeling angry and disappointed.I think he was just wasn’t mature enough to deal with the situation he was out of his element at Araby, he should be in church, school or playing, he’s too young to be concerned about this kind of stuff, but at least now h e’s learned a lesson that love its tough and things don’t always go the way you plan, we have all been there and it sucks and even though what happened to this boy is tiny on the grand scale of relationships it can still hurt.

Frankenstein or his creature? Essay

† This is Frankenstein’s first descriptions of the creature after it has been â€Å"born†, we can see that at first the describes the monster with words such as having beautiful features, then he goes on to repeat the word making it seam like he is being sarcastic, then he says â€Å"Great God! † This is short and effective sentence, which makes the reader, think that he does not think that his creature is beautiful, but in fact ugly and disfigured. The way that Shelley put this phrasing together, making it a long sentence, makes us think that Frankenstein is thinking carefully about his words, choosing them carefully. Here it is that he realises that the full extend of his arrogance and naivety. He describes his emotions after the event as † The beauty of the dream had vanished, and breathless horror and disgust filled my heart. † He then rushed out of the room and into his bedroom, the events and how he describes how he is feeling, makes the reader’s of today think that he is experiencing what we today would call a nervous breakdown. Luckily, his friend Clerval comes to his rescue and nurses him better. Even as he is on the better side of his recovery, he does not bear to think about what he has done, if he even thinks about it he starts to shake and tremble. Shelley here is describing how we all would feel if we had done something wrong, a sort of guilt of knowing that one has done something that one should not have done in the first place. In the next chapter, we have a letter from Elizabeth, telling Frankenstein of a Justine Moritz, this letter goes into great detail of this characters past, as Shelley is wanting the reader to find out, as she did with Walton in the beginning, this particular characters past. We hear of how her father had died and he mother had almost disowned her. Is this another coincidence that Justine is left almost parentless, as her relationship was never very good with her mother? In this letter we also hear of Frankenstein’s youngest brother William, who we find out in the beginning of chapter seven is dead, another coincidence? We do not here of the creature again until chapter ten, when Frankenstein meets the creature, the language changes considerably in the way that we now feel that it is more formal and almost biblical. It feels like the creator, or God is talking to its’ creation, Adam. The creature then goes on and it tells it’s tale in chapter’s eleven through to chapter seventeen. It tells us how it learnt to read and write from the people living in the cottage, how it was rejected by society. This is an interesting point that Shelley makes, one of her father’s philosophies was that you could not separate a human being from society, which is exactly what Shelley does with the monster, and also in a way what she does to Frankenstein when he is in the process of creating the monster itself. The creature also speaks of how he becomes angry and cannot understand his emotions. He tells Frankenstein of how he read his diary that he left behind in his home, how he felt about some of the things that Frankenstein said about him, and how he feels about being made from dismembered bodies. After the creature finishes telling his story, we recognise how the creature and Frankenstein speak similarly, they both use complex sentence structures and they know how to talk about how they feel emotionally. We can sympathise with the creature on an emotional level, because of the way the book is written. Shelley, very cleverly, gave the book three viewpoints. From the view of Walton, Frankenstein and of the creature. This gives us an insight into how the creature’s mind works, so we can empathise with how he is feeling, so we do not get a one sided view of him from Frankenstein. We get to understand why the creature feels angry and also that the creature does not see what he is doing as wrong. He does not care about killing William or framing Justine, he describes her as â€Å"Another one I could not have. † This in his eyes, made her just as guilty as every other person for not accepting him. He says â€Å"I am malicious because I am miserable,† this is the creatures’ justification for killing people. He also resents Frankenstein for abandoning him after his â€Å"birth† like a child would if its’ father left it after or before its birth. The creature sees Frankenstein very much as its, father. This is not what Frankenstein wants, and he is now thinking about the coincidences for his actions, even though now, he cannot do anything about it. The creature says, â€Å"I am chained in an eternal hell. † Here the creature describes his life away from society, he describes it as his version of â€Å"hell† because that is how most people would hate to live. Nobody likes to feel alone in the world. At the end of the book, the creature weeps to the death of his â€Å"father†, when Frankenstein dies, he is most grievous though, about the fact that Frankenstein never gave him a name, and he feels that his name is very important. In some cultures of the world if you commit a crime your name can be taken off you, this is felt more of a punishment as being outlawed or being sent to prison. T In conclusion, I still think that Frankenstein is the most monstrous. Even though the creature killed innocent people, it can by saying it didn’t know better, justifies its’ actions, also I think that Frankenstein has a part to play in this because the creature never asked to be born. It was out of arrogance and out of naivety that Frankenstein thought that he could get away with creating life and not having to live with the consequences, much I think how some people act towards life today. I think that this story still plays a part in today’s world. I think that this story has a moral, and that the moral of the story is, â€Å"You should always think before you act. † You should always think about the repercussions of your actions. If everybody thought a little bit more about what they were doing and how it would affect other people, the world would be a much better place for us all to live in. Rebecca Wood 10/4 Show preview only The above preview is unformatted text This student written piece of work is one of many that can be found in our GCSE Mary Shelley section.