“Cal” by Bernard MacLaverty Critical Analysis

Task: Choose a novel I which the central character is involved in conflict. Briefly outline the nature of the conflict and then in more detail explain how it helped illustrate the theme(s) of the novel. In your answer you should deal with at least two of the following: setting, characterisation, dialogue, key incident, theme, or any other appropriate feature. Bernard MacLaverty's brilliant novel â€Å"Cal† tells the story of a young man's involvement with the IRA and his struggle to cope with the repercussions of his actions. The novel makes the reader contemplate the violence and aggression that infests areas of our society and how religious hatred and bigotry can have devastating effects on people's lives. The protagonist, Cal McLuskey, is involved in many conflicts throughout the text; all of which help to illustrate the key theme of isolation. Our appreciation of this concern is further enhanced by the author's use of setting and characterisation. Also you can read Analysis July at the Multiplex Set amidst the conflict of 1980's Northern Ireland, â€Å"Cal† tells the tale of a nineteen-year-old Catholic, Cal McCluskey. Life is not easy for Cal: he and his father, Shamie, are the only Catholics living a Protestant Estate; he is unemployed; his mother died when he was only eight; his brother was killed while working abroad; his relationship with his father is very strained and he is involved with the IRA. Throughout the course of the novel, Cal struggles to come to terms with his role in the murder of an RUC police officer by his acquaintance, Crilly; an operation for which he was the getaway driver. To make matters worse, Cal finds himself falling in love with the slain man's wife, Marcella. The setting of the novel is very effective in highlighting the conflict Cal is involved in, whilst also effectively illustrating the key theme of Isolation. Cal lives with his father, Shamie, in Northern Ireland on a Protestant Estate and as they are Catholics, the only Catholics living there, there is conflict between Cal and Shamie and their neighbours. Cal's home is like a prison to him, socially isolating him from the world in which he lives. â€Å"He could not bear to look up and see the flutter of Union Jacks.† This is an example of the Religious divide between Cal and his neighbours. It tells us Cal is very aware of his surroundings at this point in the novel and he feels insecure here. He feels like he does not belong and feels uncomfortable in his Protestant environment, therefore isolating himself from everyone around. He feels alone and scared of what will happen to him if he stays there any longer. Cal and Shamie's neighbours want rid of them and try to scare them out their own home by posting threatening messages through their front door: â€Å"GET OUT YOU FENYAN SCUMOR WE'LL BURN YOU OUT THIS IS YOUR 2ND WARNING THERE WILL BE NO OTHER.† Here we can see the extreme hatred that is shown towards Cal and his father. They are being called â€Å"Fenyan Scum† indicating that those around them think they are disgusting and worthless because of their religion. Cal and Shamie are subject to verbal, physical, and psychological abuse. However Shamie will not leave his home just because he has been told to, he is stubborn and this causes tension between Cal, Shamie and the loyalists which makes them isolated in their own estate. Cal's relationship with his father is very strained. They rarely agree and have conflicting views on how to deal with their social isolation. Cal does not like the sight of blood and refused to work in the abattoir with Shamie which causes conflict between them both. This makes Shamie feel extremely disappointed in his son. â€Å"It sticks in my throat that he got the job that you gave up because you hadn't a strong enough stomach. Now he's got money to burn and you're running about borrowing fags. Not to mention the embarrassment it caused me.† Shamie wants Cal to follow in his footsteps as he is his only son left, Cal's older brother was killed while working abroad. Since Cal's mother died when he was eight, Shamie and Cal only have each other and the conflict between them is increasing because if they do not have each other they do not have anyone. They are both isolated in their house because there is not a very good relationship between them. They are not close and barely engage in conversation with each other. They are both socially isolated in their own home. There relationship highlights isolation due to the conflict between them. Read also  Case 302 July in Multiplex It is not only the relationship between Cal and his father that highlights the theme of isolation but also Cal's relationship with his ‘friends', Crilly and Skeffington. They are heavily mixed up with the IRA and in a sense bully Cal into getting involved also. Crilly and Skeffington are very high believers of the 'cause' and when Cal rejects their beliefs there is conflict between them all. â€Å"Because we have committed ourselves, Cahal, it is our responsibility. We have to make the sacrifices.† Crilly and Skeffington believe so much in the cause that they kill for it. When Cal played a part in RUC officer, Robert Morton's death, he becomes repulsed at his actions. Because Crilly and Skeffington believe this is the right thing to do, that it is OK to kill for the Cause, Cal decides he wants to leave the IRA. Crilly and Skeffington do not react well to Cal's remorse and as a result of this Cal totally isolates himself from them. When he does this he becomes companionless and on his own. By rejecting the beliefs and aims or the IRA, Cal finds that he is ideologically isolated. Cal is constantly surrounded by news of deaths and war and conflict between two opposing beliefs. Even though he was involved with the IRA he does not believe in killing. The abattoir symbolises the conflict in Northern Ireland at the time with all the deaths and bloodshed. Cal hates going to the slaughterhouse and detests blood in any way, shape or form: â€Å"He loathed them, made from blood, like cross-sections of large warts bound in black Sellotape.† This is when Cal is describing black pudding and is a perfect example of his hatred for blood. He feels he is the only person who does not like killing. Cal detests the slaughterhouse because it reminds him of the war going on and maybe reminds him he was once involved in the murder of a man. Maybe this is another sign of his guilt. However, because he does not believe people should be killed he does not fully support the IRA and is therefore isolated because he is suddenly against people like Crilly and Skeffington for not believing what they feel is right. Cal just wants a free Ireland but does not believe killing is the right way to get it. As the novel progresses we discover the extent of Cal's emotional isolation. It is Cal's involvement with the IRA that leads to his relationship with Marcella, thus Cal's involvement in this conflict is the main cause of isolation. Cal wants redemption for his involvement in Robert Morton's murder. He does this by confiding in Marcella. If it was not for the IRA he would not know who Marcella Morton was. When he gets close to Marcella he is longing to confess what he has done, he wants to apologise. Then he starts feeling guilty for feeling some sort of happiness: â€Å"The happier Cal felt, the sadder he became. He wants to confess to her, to weep and be forgiven.† Cal feels he should not be allowed to feel happy since he was involved in a killing. He wants Marcella to redeem what he has done and forgive her but he knows he cannot tell her. This makes him isolated because he has to bottle up everything he feels. In the end of the novel I think Cal feels extremely relieved he is going to get what he feels he deserves: â€Å"The next morning†¦almost as if he had expected it, the police arrived to arrest him as he stood in a dead man's y-fronts listening to the charge, grateful that at last someone was going to beat him within an inch of his life.†Ã‚  Read also Critical appreciation of the poem â€Å"Old Ladies’ Home†. This is almost contradictory. He wants to get punishment for what he has done so that he can be free of his sin. Cal feels relieved that he has been found out and has not gotten away with what he has done. He is grateful that finally he is going to get what he deserves and is going to be punished. This highlights isolation as he was alone and needed to tell someone what he has done but he could not. The guilt was torturing him inside but he could not do anything about it. So in conclusion, Bernard MacLaverty's novel â€Å"Cal† effectively shows the degree to which isolation can affect us. We see this through the examples of religious bigotry and also how relationships with friends and family can affect lives.

Personal Goals and Mission

PERSONAL GOALS AND MISSION 1 –~———————— †¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦.. PERSONAL GOALS AND MISSION 2 Everyone wants to be Successful in life, and I believe a key success factor is the ability to set and achieve goals. I have learned that long term goals are best achieved when I break them into shorter goals. I live my life by three terms Believe, Achieve, and Succeed. I am destined for great things if I stay focused on what is important to me in order to excel in my future. I have noticed organization plays a major role in setting goals, and in life. I prioritize my goals, long term first they give me a sense of direction and purpose.I then create short term goals to relate to my long term. I was a person that second guessed me at times. I was unsure of where I was headed in life until I asked myself a few questions. What are some things I'm passionate about? Where do I see myself in the next five years? What is the proces s of accomplishing it? After answering these questions I began to set goals for myself. My three long term goals are operating and owning my very own Salon and Spa, Buy my first home, and start a family. These goals I intend to achieve in the next five to ten years.My short term goals are save money, succeed academically, and stay committed to my significant other. I'm aware that these goals will take time, and there are many obstacles that I will have to face during the process. My first long term goal is to own a Salon and Spa. Since I was a young girl I have always had a passion for doing hair, and make-up. My creativity allowed me to try different styles on people. I began to do hair out of my house, and I noticed the number of clients I had doubled. Research and networking with different Salon owners motivated me to want to own a Salon.There is hard work that is invested into owning a business. I have to first educate myself on how to begin the process of owning a Salon. This i s the main reason why I enrolled into the Business Management Course at Cardinal Stritch. I plan to succeed academically, in order to accomplish this long term goal. I know I will have to stay focused at home and school. I will spend less time watching TV, and hanging out with friends. There will be more time dedicated to completing all PERSONAL GOALS AND MISSION 3 my assignments, and participate in each and every class.I plan to ask for additional help from my instructors on work that is a challenge for me. There will be times where I think this course is a bit too much, but I have decided that no matter how hard the process gets I will stay focused. I work full time to support myself, and now school I can honestly say my plate is full with important responsibilities. Time management is a skill I must work on. I always say to myself I wish there were more hours in a day. That statement proves I lack time management. Planning my day and following through with it, will allow me to ge t more task accomplished.Life happens and random things may occur where I might get side tracked. Ifl try my best to stay on track I know this plan will never fail. Buying my first home is my second long term goal. I believe this decision is one of the most important choices you can make in life. You have to plan accordingly, and save money. Achieving this goal may take ten years or even longer. Before I begin the home buying process I  ·first have to work through essential considerations, like my objectives. I would consider accommodating my family members, right size square footage and cost ofliving space to my budget and lifestyle.Establishing my financial foundation is a short term goal during this process. I must boost my credit score first, by paying off old debts, boosting my income, and pay all my bills on time. This may be done if I manage my money correctly, and limit my spending on unnecessary things. Making this major decision will inquire some assistance, so I will de finitely need to find a great Realtor. That person would guide me through the steps to buying my dream home. My last long term goal is to start a family. I am extremely close to my siblings and parents. Our relationships are very important to me.I was raised in a home with three sisters and one brother. There seemed to always be some activities occurring in the house. We enjoyed PERSONAL GOALS AND MISSION 4 discussing our days, doing homework together and even being silly around one another. I had several friends who were born to broken families, so they spent most of their free time at my house. I believe my parents did an amazing job raising me. I value life and appreciate everything they have done for me. The same morals and values my parents taught me I want to teach my children one day. Marriage is a must before I have a baby.I am currently in a relationship with my best friend. We complement each other in every way possible. He is my number one supporter, and I see myself spen ding the rest of my life with him. This relationship is important because we have to want to the same things as far as children before we say â€Å"I do. † I feel it is important to be financially stable and prepared before a family is started. I expect different obstacles to stand in my way, which you can never be ready for each and every one. Being a critical thinker and great problem solver will allow me to find solutions to these road blocks.I have an incredible partner who strategizes with me to solve issues we are faced with. I chose to wait until my late twenties to start conceiving children. I feel I'm much more mature, and have a solid plan for the future. I believe long term goals are major accomplishments you hope to achieve in your life. There may be trials and tribulations I may endure before reaching the finish line, living by my personal Mission I am guaranteed to succeed. I have prioritized my goals from the most important to least. Short term goals have been established to support them, and I am confident in my plans.

President of the Academy of Finland

Alvar Aalto is considered a modern architect, yet his work exhibits a carefully crafted balance of intricate and complex forms, spaces, and elements, and reveals traditionalism rooted in the cultural heritage and physical environment of Finland. He was born Hugo Alvar Henrik Aalto in the Ostro-Bothnian village of Kourtane, Finland in 1898. He graduated with honors from Helsinki Polytechnic in 1921 after which he opened his own practice. He held the position of Professor of Architecture at MIT 1946 to 1948, and was President of the Academy of Finland 1963-68.Aalto was a religious man and a practicing Christian. Although his early work borrowed from the neoclassic movement, he eventually adapted the symbolism and functionalism of the Modern Movement to generate his plans and forms. It allowed him to create a series of functional and yet non-reductionist buildings. Even though he borrowed from the International style, his use of color, texture, and structure was creative and new in its own right. He refined the modern European architecture and molded it to develop and define a new Finnish architecture.His designs were always contextual as they were responsive to site, material and form unlike most of the other modernist architects who designed in isolation. Aalto produced a lot of work in countries like Germany, America and Sweden. A lot of his projects under construction at the same time have overlapping ideas and details. Moreover, Aalto was of the few architects who designed to the last detail and was aware and receptive to the needs of the people and the environment. Aalto was a master of form and planning.His buildings have provided renewed inspiration in the face of widespread disillusionment with high modernism on one hand, and post-modernism on the other. Aalto's mature work embodies a unique functionalist/expressionist and humane style, successfully applied to libraries, civic centers, churches, housing, etc. In their scale, mastery of light and distincti ve palettes, Aalto’s buildings were characterized with a robust humanism. During the mid-1930s Alvar Aalto's work began to embody a more tactile, romantic, and picturesque posture, becoming less machinelike in imagery.The presence of these characteristics in his work, coupled with a seemingly rekindled interest in Finnish vernacular building traditions and a concern for the alienated individual within modern mass society, signals a movement away from the functionalist tenets that formed his architecture in the early 1930s. In renouncing industrialized production as a compositional and formal ordering sensibility, Alvar Aalto moved toward a more personal style which solidified over the next decade, a direction achieving maturity in his work executed after World War II.Aalto’s Saynatsalo Town Hall, built between 1942- 1952, in Saynatsalo, Finland, was one of the civic projects he undertook. The building had a pioneering effort in using brick. Never before had red bricks been used in civic buildings in Finland as they common concept on them not being too formal existed. However, bricks were warm with reference to color and not as formidable looking as stone, so they fit right into context in the cold harsh climate of Finland. Aalto had strong political opinions and wanted to make the town governments strong enough to be able to stand up to central governments.He had individual freedom in mind while designing the Saynatsalo Town Hall. He changed the program brief to increase the footprint and the mass of the building. He introduced a courtyard in the centre with single loaded corridors to ensure well-lit offices and corridors. He utilized the principal idea of the Greek agora when designing the town hall. The building followed the contours of site and the courtyard level defined the spatial datum. The use of exposed timber trusses was there as well as a double height council chamber to give it that hierarchy.Similarly, the Baker House Dormitory, at t he MIT campus in USA was designed and built between 1946- 1949. In this building, Aalto comes up with a slightly different approach which he later carries on in his other projects such as the Church of the 3 crosses in Vuokesenniska. He uses the concept of duality and carries it out in detail throughout the project in the sinuous serpentine wall. It’s a large brick building with repetitive elements. The duality exists in the background vs. foreground relationship of the building, in the repetitive vs.the unique, the curvy vs. the rectilinear, the planar vs. the volumetric, the large vs. the small and the brick vs. the marble. The unique staircase projects out of the buildings and becomes the diagonal element. It gives a certain degree of dynamism to the project. Like the Baker House Dormitory, Aalto juxtaposes the rectilinear against the curvilinear in a lot of his other projects. He breaks away from the idea of symmetry and uses asymmetry to his advantage and for functional reasons.Aalto’s later work had a lot to do with acoustics as he attempted at making acoustically sound buildings such as the Finlandia hall or the Church of the 3 crosses. Before totally moving towards architecture ad designing buildings, Aalto designed products and furniture. So in 1935, with the assistance of Maire Gullichsen and with Nils Gustav Hahl as director, the firm of Artek was formed, which produced and marketed Alvar Aalto's furniture, fabric, and glassware designs. Amongst some of his most famous product designs is the Savoy vase which was an organic form.Aalto’s vases had a fluid sinuous shape in varying colors that let the users decide the use. They are being manufactured to this day. Aalto’s furniture was mainly bent wood light furniture which followed the principles of clean functional design. He made the Paimio Chair for the sanitorium in 1931-32. It was inspired by the tubular steel Marcel Breuer chairs in his own home and was devised to ease the breathing of tuberculosis patients in a combination of molded wood and plywood which, Aalto believed, would be warmer and more comfortable than metal.Alvar Aalto died in 1976 in Helsinki. Over the course of his 50-year career, Aalto, unlike a number of his contemporaries, did not rely on modernism's fondness for industrialized processes as a compositional technique, but forged an architecture influenced by a broad spectrum of concerns. Alvar Aalto's architecture manifests an understanding of the psychological needs of modern society, the particular qualities of the Finnish environment, and the historical, technical, and cultural traditions of Scandinavian architecture.Bibliography : †¢ Gardner’s Art through the Ages †¢ Alvar Aalto (Archipocket) by Alvar Aalto and Aurora Cuito †¢ Alvar Aalto by Richard Weston †¢ www. wikipedia. org/wiki/Alvar_Aalto †¢ www. scandinaviandesign. com/Alvar_Aalto †¢ www. designmuseum. org †¢ http://virtual. fi nland. fi/netcomm/news/showarticle. asp? intNWSAID=26966 †¢ http://architect. architecture. sk/alvar-aalto-architect/alvar-aalto-architect. php †¢ Finnish Architecture and the Modernist Tradition by Malco Quantrill †¢ www. artek. fi

The production and sale of cigarettes should be made illegal Essay - 2

The production and sale of cigarettes should be made illegal - Essay Example The sale and use of cigarettes should be made illegal. Tobacco is a dangerous and addictive substance that causes major health problems to its users. Lung cancer increases the risk of lung cancer by 23 times in men and 13 times in women (Cdc, 2012). It also causes 10 other cancers including bladder kidney, and pancreatic cancer. Smoking decreases men’s sperm count and it causes infertility. The regular use of cigarettes is a risk factor that increases the chance of coronary disease. There is empirical proof that states that half of all regular smokers will die from its use. This fact implies that nearly 650 million people or 9.28% of the population will die from smoking. Cigarette smoking is even more dangerous among teenagers and pregnant women. Cigarette smoking is an epidemic that is hurting the youth in America. It is estimated that approximately 80% of all smokers begin to smoke cigarettes before the age of 18. The health dangers of smoking are greater for teenagers because their bodies are still developing. The incidence of teen smoking in the U.S. is extremely high as 30% of high school students are cigarette smokers (Cavnett, 2010). One of the reasons smoking is so dangerous among teenagers is because it causes oxygen deprivation. â€Å"Oxygen deprivation can damage and kill brain cells that are not replaced or repaired later in life† (Cavnett, 2010). Since the brains of teenagers are still developing smoking can inhibit the developmental process due to damage to brain cells. Pregnant women that smoke are irresponsible and are endangering an innocent life that is supposed to be protected by its mother. Smoking among pregnant women is a serious problem that deserves the immediate attention of our society. â€Å"Nearly one-quarter of all pregnant women in the United States are smokers, with more than half refusing to quit during their pregnancy† (Mozes, 2012). Making

Are women treated fairly in the workplace Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Are women treated fairly in the workplace - Essay Example No matter up to what extent the women are given freedom and the issue of gender discrimination is addressed, women will always have to face gender inequality. Women working in offices have to face a number of problems and issues particularly relating to the wages and job promotions (DeLaat, 1999). The women working in offices claimed that although they work equally as men but they were not given equal pays and privileges like their men counterparts. Many surveys have been conducted in order to find out what women feel regarding their treatment in various workplaces and the conclusion of nearly all the surveys was same, which was that the women felt that they were not being given equal rights, facilities and favors as the men in the same position were being given (Samuels, 1995). The European commission also declared that although much effort has been made to eliminate gender discrimination but women have not being given the equal status as men in the work market. It was also said that although the women work equally as the men, and in fact in some cases the women end up doing more work than men in the same positions, but women’s work is less valued and is not much appreciated. It is generally considered that women are only capable of doing jobs which are related to care, hospitality, cleaning and social working. Women are usually not hired on managerial positions and other higher posts in the office because it is a general perception that women cannot do such jobs efficiently. Although women have a number of other duties to oblige to apart from work, yet the women put in all their efforts to produce the best work but still it is thought that the women are not able to produce efficient results for the concerned companies (Bradley, 1999). It can be summed up to say that in majority of the cases the women feel that they are not being equally treated and are not being given the same accommodation and convenience as their male

Historiography on General Robert E. Lee Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

Historiography on General Robert E. Lee - Essay Example Both men became idols after their deaths made them martyrs for the Confederacy. Books published in those first years after the war treated Lee favorably but found fault with his actions at Gettysburg and Malvern Hill - and sometimes Antietam, Fredericksburg and the Severn Day's battle. While Jackson, Longstreet, Joseph E. Johnston, Albert Sidney Johnston and others received generally favorable treatment, Richard Ewell and Jubal Early were universally criticized for their timidity on the first day at Gettysburg. These early books included James Dabney McCabe Jr.'s Life and campaigns of Gen. Robert E. Lee (1866), William Swinton's The Twelve Decisive Battle of the War (1867), and Campaigns of the Army of the Potomac (1882), John Esten Cooke's A Life of Gen. Robert E Lee (1871), and Edward A. Pollard's Lee and His Lieutenants (1867). In an 1866 book, The Lost Cause, Pollard concluded that Lee's influence on the Confederacy's general affairs was negative (Bruce 1866 pp.133). After his death on October 12, 1870, however, Lee became a southern and then a national deity or idol. Previously second to Jackson in the literature and hearts of the South, Lee was elevated to the flawless southern embodiment of The Lost Cause. No criticism of him went unchallenged, and the South's other leading generals were seen as a threat to Lee's exaltation, and thus became fair game for censure and condemnation. One of the major reasons for Lee's elevation to god-like status was that former Confederate officers associated with Lee could promote themselves through idolization of Lee. Wartime incompetents Jubal Early and William Nelson Pendleton were among the leaders of the pro-Lee and anti-Longstreet cabal. (Piston, 1998, pp. 47-51). "When the Civil War ended, Early and Pendleton were generally viewed as failures. For Early and Pendleton, the worship of Lee seems to have given meaning to otherwise empty lives." Ok to add the above in since I'm not using footnotes/endnotes Al so, what pages (if any) should I reference Ok to add it in! Just reference it in the same style as throughout the paper. Early had faltered at Gettysburg, lost the Shenandoah Valley and his corps, had been relieved of command by Lee, and fled the country for a few years after the war. Through his pro-Lee efforts, he hoped to cover up his own disastrous record and spread the blame elsewhere. He became the power and brains behind the anti-Longstreet movement with his famous January 19, 1872 Lee Birthday Speech at Washington and Lee University. (Gallagher, 1996, pp. 37-73) In that speech, which was widely distributed as a "Lost Cause" pamphlet, Early created the myth that Lee had ordered Longstreet to attack at dawn on the second day at Gettysburg. (Piston, 1987, p. 118) Early proved to be a better propagandist than general and dominated the pro-Lee cult for three decades as an author and as president of three Lee-worshiping organizations, the Lee Monument Association, the Association of the Army of Northern Virginian, and the Southern Historical Society. (Gallagher, 1996, pp. 90-91). (Need to add this t o Works Cited page). Pendleton furthered the myth that Lee ordered Longstreet to attack at dawn in his 1873 Lee Birthday speech, which contradicted his 1863 after-action report to Lee.1 (Piston, 1987, pp. ) Below you give numerous pages do I list all of

History of the Stanford-Binet intelligence scales Essay

History of the Stanford-Binet intelligence scales - Essay Example The Fifth Edition of the Stanford-Binet Intelligence Scales (SB5) is a relatively new revised method, but has a unique history (figure 1). In 1905, Binet and Simon developed the first formal intelligence test, and Louis Terman created the Stanford-Binet Scale in 1916; this final scale was revised in 1937, 1960, 1986, and 2003. The first versions used items to address functional abilities, and were arranged by levels. The Fifth Edition is a standardized intelligence battery that can be administered to people from ages 2 to 85 years. According to Strauss (2006) the main purpose of the revision was â€Å"to expand the range of the test, to allow assessment of very low and very high levels of cognitive ability†, and to increase its clinical applications (see table 1).The SB5 is based on the Cattell-Horn-Carroll (CHC) theory of cognitive functioning, which is considered â€Å"one of the well-validated, comprehensive models of cognitive functioning† (Fiorello and Primerano, 2 005). Johnson (2007) describes the Stanford-Binet as â€Å"a comprehensive, norm-referenced individually administered test of intelligence and cognitive abilities†. The test is consists of five factors, which include Fluid Reasoning, Knowledge, Quantitative Reasoning, Visual-Spatial Processing, and Working Memory; each factor is further divided in verbal and non-verbal subtests (table 2). The Abbreviated Battery IQ scale consists of two routing subtests: one nonverbal (Object Series/Matrices) and one verbal (Vocabulary) (Coolican, J. et al, 2008).

Critically evaluate the ways that the HR function could play a more Essay

Critically evaluate the ways that the HR function could play a more strategic role in the organisation - Essay Example By stepping away from subordinate-based practices and theories, the human resources manager develops practices that are geared for long-term success as it relates to the tactical side of objective fulfilment and long-run market orientation. The HR manager can take a more strategic role in the organisation by focusing on line management, executive leadership, new training development, and involvement in change management principles in an effort to expand their presence in the organisation as an HR leader. The strategy angle â€Å"The overall purpose of HRM is to ensure that the organisation is able to achieve success through people† (Armstrong 2006: 11). Success does not necessarily pertain to human capital needs and motivational practice development, it involves market orientation, market position of the business, operational efficiency, general staff productivity, and development of competitive strategies to gain cost and human capital advantages. Therefore, to become more st rategically oriented, the HR manager needs to expand their organisational presence to include executive management involvement and line management education to achieve competitive success using people as resources. In most organisations, change is a constant scenario. New technology implementation or procedures that relate to attaining market profitability (as two examples) dictate a need for improving change leadership and gaining employee/management support. In a situation where the business requires new information technology, changes to how employees conduct their job roles is inevitable, usually on the back of workflow redesign or complete changes to job responsibility. Kappelman, McKeeman and Zhang (2009) identify that when IT projects are part of change management, failures occur due to weak team commitment, lack of senior executive support, or team members who lack the requisite skills and competencies needed to complete the project effectively. In most cases, large-scale im plementation of new technologies consist of months if not years of labour investment and contribute significantly to cost reduction activities or improving process flow related to meeting customer demands. This is where the HR manager can take a more strategic role in the business in promoting change management principles to meet strategic goals. When change is required, management is described as â€Å"undeserving victims of irrational and dysfunctional responses of employees† (Ford, Ford and D’Amelio 2008: 362). The human resources manager can become more involved with the team functioning during the implementation phases of the new technology launch, promoting more effective interpersonal relationship development and team functioning. Weak team commitment may be stemming from employees, executives or mid-tier management due to the illogical and dysfunctional inherent psychology of the team members. By applying subordinate-based practices to higher-level individuals involved in project teams, the HR manager is promoting a more strategic angle that leads to more positive information technology and process improvement outcomes. Outside of technology scenarios, the HR manager can

Beauty and the Beast Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Beauty and the Beast - Essay Example The cues are hidden in plain sight in childhood movies and cartoons by Disney, as safe and American as apple pie. When I watched the bathing scene before, I never noticed the many clues to what I am expected to believe, what I am expected to perform in heteronormative society. When I paused the film to look carefully, I was flabbergasted by what I found! As the scene opens, the big, ugly, hairy beast is taking a bath (Jazzbo). He is golden, in color, and his neck hair culminates in a frontal mane, like a lion, He is over-sized, sitting in a golden, claw foot bathtub with graceful scrollwork designs, and royal blue ceramic interior. Nearby is a golden hamper and on the wall is a golden mirror. These are obvious signs of wealth. In a heteronormative culture, wealth is something that particularly makes a male marriage candidate desirable, in that his role is to protect his woman and give his children a good life. When we look through the darkness (transparent black curtains) that separa tes the surface from more intimate access, we find gentleness (pink walls, pink floor, insecurity and an endearing lack of sophistication). We also find that instead of being consumed by the off-putting, objectifying lust we might expect, he claims that he cares for Beauty but is afraid to confess his love. This sweet sensitivity is something valued in a male, in heteronormative culture, only so long as male strength, fierceness and lion-like pride are firmly in place. Indeed, if sensitivity is present without the other qualities, the unfortunate fellow is labeled a sissy, a fag, a queen. It is imperative that, whatever gender identity is enacted in private, the heteronormative one is especially performed in public. The Beast, however, is able to socially construct his heteronormative male role performance sufficiently to counterbalance his more feminine and queer performance. In fact, there is a golden mirror on the wall and, counter-intuitively, it reflects nothing, suggesting the strong silent hero of heteronormative culture. The beast harbors an undiscovered depth. Discovering and nurturing his unseen depth will be the duty of Beauty, once she accepts his confession of love and proposal of marriage. The servants can bathe him, advise him, snip and curl his hair, and structure his days with a schedule, but they cannot co-constuct his gender identity as effectively as a woman can, as they perform together the dance of heteronormative cultural mythology. The water is white foam. His eyes are rolled back in apparent ecstasy. There is foamy white water spilling from the tub, onto the floor, from the vicinity of his reproductive organs. An octopus servant is bathing him, and bubbles float down from the brushes. A double bubble also drifts downward. We are thus reassured about his sexual vigor and potent fertility. The bubbles are a symbol of her eggs, her fertility, which his gender construction scripts him to long for. Two of the egg-like bubbles are joined, as though the egg is splitting to become a baby. A baby is absolutely necessary to the heteronormative recipe for happily-ever-after. Where there is no baby, there will be whispers of speculation, eventually, calling into question his potency, his heteronormative manhood, and her heteronormative womanhood. All of this imagery is carefully constructed to define an environment aimed at socializing us, and particularly young children, into

Developing work in and with communities Assignment

Developing work in and with communities - Assignment Example There is no denying that the only way forward is by strengthening the community through cross-community relations. Personally, I believe that integration is a long-way battle considering that Northern Irish society in general, do not subscribe to a unilateral agenda. And as long as these divisions are encouraged, the same issues will thrive and Northern Ireland will remain a weak state in the face of a hypercritical world. Today, various interests groups abound but it is the growing number of youth and working professionals taking part in a nonviolent form of resistance that holds a promise. It means that students do not only feel the burden, they also want to lessen the burden. It means that the working class seeks for counter-culture attacks in the face of the ignoble Irish failure (against European success). It means that the status quo is not favored and the once naà ¯ve groups are finally capable of taking responsibility. The foundation of Section 75 I believe is a testament that the conditions mentioned above are recognized by the state. It is like reinforcing the people that public authorities are there to serve and that amidst the many divisions, the government is one with the people in pushing for a better and inclusive Northern Ireland. Unfortunately, statistics and empirical evidence do not seem to reinforce the government’s stance. Records would agree that children’s rights are continuously hindered by poverty and that poor children are still easy preys for discrimination and economic exploitation. Children remain voiceless. Though there have been researches that involved children’s perspectives on sectarianism, equality promised by Section 75 is nowhere to be found. Although various structural mechanisms have been created to foster service provisions to the youth, the fact is that even schools are no longer havens

Residential Project Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Residential Project - Essay Example Furthermore, any activities that result in wastage of time shall be eliminated. Also, activities that can be done simultaneously shall be grouped for quick results. The desired result of the message is to be able to graphically demonstrate that I have been successful in complying with the schedule. Furthermore, the message shall invite feedback from the audience regarding which activities need to be grouped or which need to be eliminated. This shall ensure that there is communication between my boss and myself. Not only will it allow my boss to keep track of the direction I’m taking in my work but also allow him to provide feedback on the work I’ve completed. This shall further allow him/her to make recommendations for any improvements which I can incorporate into my project to complete it on time. Any bottlenecks shall be identified to which improvements shall be made over time. Although the message is complete in itself, it shall serve as the building block for future discussions. The intended audience is my boss. Assuming that I work in a construction firm as a construction manager, and I am presenting the results of my team before the general manager. The results shall show the number of housing units completed under the private sector, residential housing project. The audience is expected to be knowledgeable about the concepts used in the message; hence, technical terms may be used. Since the graph shall convey its intended meaning through the illustrative element rather than words, display type shall not be used to draw audience’s attention. Using display type may distract the audience from the overall meaning of the message in this case which is to compare the scheduled and actual outcomes. Few words shall be used in the copy area and shall primarily comprise of the graph’s legend.

School Prayer & the US Constitution Essay Example for Free

School Prayer the US Constitution Essay Prelude There was a lot of happening in 1960’s, or so it seems. The lawyers, the clerics, the socialists, the politicians, the religious activists and the common public; they all appeared to have something critical, urgent and spat on their agenda; rather exceedingly controversial and notorious matter; the Prayer in Schools. Court prohibits Prayer in Schools Originally, the Warren Court of the 1960s declared prayer in public schools unconstitutional. By examining St. Louis Post-Dispatch, we can cover the story that Court ruled out Prayer in Schools emphasizing state is faithful to an arrangement of a neutral stance. The Supreme Court held June 17, 1963 wrap up that Bible reading and recitation of the Lord’s Prayer as exercises in public schools is unconstitutional. The decision came on the last day of the courts 1962-63 term. It proclaimed adjournment until October. The vote was 8 to 1, with Justice Tom C. Clark writing the majority opinion and Justice Potter Stewart delivering the balk. Justice William Joseph Brennan Jr. wrote a long agreement in the mainstream outlook as did Justices Arthur J. Goldberg and Justice John Marshall Harlan. The court ruled on two appeals openly concerning attacks on such daily prayer and Bible readings at opening exercises in public schools in Maryland and Pennsylvania. Conversely, the decision had a far- reaching effect on such practices in public schools across the land. The officially permitted inquiry concerned with the cases was whether such school recitals abuse the free exercise clause of the First Amendment to the Constitution, which says, â€Å"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.† Justice Clark declared that both the Maryland and Pennsylvania cases could be disposed of in the equivalent belief because they heaved the similar fundamental pronouncement under vaguely dissimilar realistic circumstances. Clark said in the light of the history of the First Amendment and of the cases inferring and affecting its necessities, jury hold that the practices at issue and the laws requiring them are unconstitutional under the establishment clause, under the Fourteenth Amendment of US Constitution. In an earlier case, the court decided June 25, 1962, that the use in New York public schools of a nondenominational prayer which had been composed by state officials violated the First Amendment. The verdict in the New York case was 6 to 1, with Justice Stewart the lone dissenter. Justice Hugo Black was the author of the majority opinion. Justice Felix Frankfurter was ill at the time and did not participate. He later resigned and was succeeded by Justice Arthur Goldberg. Justice Byron R. White, new on the court, did not participate because he did not hear the arguments that preceded the ruling. Justice Clark wrote in 1963 decision that the place of religion in our society is an exalted one, achieved through a long tradition of reliance on the home, the church and the inviolable citadel of the individual heart and mind. In the relationship between man and religion, the state is firmly committed to a position of neutrality. Though the application of that rule requires interpretation of a delicate sort, the rule itself is clearly and concisely stated in the words of the First Amendment. In his dissent, Justice Stewart declared it was a â€Å"fallacious oversimplification† to observe supplies of the First Amendment as launching a single constitutional standard of â€Å"separation of church and state† which can be useful perfunctorily in every case to outline the requisite limitations between government and religion. He err in the first place if they do not recognize, as a matter of history and a matter of the imperatives of the free society, that religion and government must necessarily cooperate in innumerable customs. Although, the previous court decisions have made clear that there is no constitutional bar to use of government property for religious purposes, he said that previous cour t decisions relating to the public schools systems were inadequate to religious instruction or proselytizing actions of religious sects by chucking the weight of secular authority in the wake of the broadcasting the religious doctrine. He saw no danger to the government or religion in the exercises involved in the Maryland and Pennsylvania cases because they involved only a reading of the Bible single handed by remarks which otherwise constitute instruction. He felt the records of the Maryland and Pennsylvania cases were so essentially scarce as to make impossible an informed or accountable resolve of the constitutional issues offered. He didn’t agree that on the records they can say that the establishment clause has necessarily been violated. He favored sending both the Maryland and Pennsylvania cases back to the lower courts for taking of additional evidence. In the Maryland case, Mrs. Madalyn E. Murray and her 16-year-old son, identifying themselves as atheists, attacked constitutionality of a Baltimore city school board regulation. The regulation called for daily opening exercises of Bible reading and recitation of the Lords Prayer. Objecting students are permitted to be excused from the exercises. Maryl ands court of appeals, by a 4-to-3 vote, ruled against objections by the Murrays. The state court said the Constitutions First amendment was not â€Å"intended to stifle all rapport between religion and government.† Counsel for the Murrays argued before the Supreme Court that the Maryland practice breached the figurative wall between church and state. The court was told that the son, William Murray, had been wounded by the practice in that he had lost caste, had been spat on, and was assailed by fellow students of William. In the Pennsylvania case, a three-judge United States district court in Philadelphia unanimously sustained protestations to a state law requiring Bible reading daily at opening exercises of the schools.(Woods) Historical perspective of the US Constitution When the Constitutional Convention initially gathered in Philadelphia in 1787, the spiritual backdrop of the states was diverse. Most states gave authorized gratitude to one recognized spiritual value. For Instance, The state of Virginia, accepted the â€Å"Episcopal Church† as re presentative of the state. Spiritual belief as a central part of colonial life was not in query. Somewhat, sacred matters that occured among states centered on the variations amid states’ conventional values. The political scene also turned off scripts of disunity. The Articles of Confederation had proved insufficient for governing, and the states were aggressive over issues of taxation—namely, which should pay the costs incurred by the Revolutionary War. As the Constitutional Convention assembled, observers supposed the thought of a Constitution, much less a nation, was delicate and quickly fading. Presided by George Washington, this conference of some of the original Founders was observed as a last endeavor for unity. During the Constitutional Convention, states quarreled and self-interest thrived, to the point that no progress was being made. It was then that an aged Ben Franklin stood and said: In the beginning of the contest with Britain, when we were sensible of danger, we had daily prayers in this room for Divine protection. Our prayers, Sir, were heard, and they were graciously answered. All of us who were engaged in the struggle must have observed frequent instances of a superintending providence in our favor  ¼ and have we no w forgotten this powerful Friend? Or do we imagine we no longer need His assistance? I have lived, Sir, a long time, and the longer I live, the more convincing proofs I see of this truth: ‘that God governs in the affairs of man.’ And if a sparrow cannot fall to the ground without His notice, is it probable that an empire can rise without His aid? I therefore beg leave to move that, henceforth, prayers imploring the assistance of Heaven and its blessings on our deliberations be held in this assembly every morning before we proceed to business â€Å" The 81-year-old Benjamin Franklin was not one of the more religiously-minded Founding Fathers—he actually believed more in the rational views of the French Enlightenment—yet he was willing to acknowledge the importance of prayer to the political aspirations of a nation. Not a prayer bound to a denomination, like the states already had, but prayer that acknowledged God as the Creator and Sustainer, prayer that outmoded the trivial blocs of authoritatively standard foundations. (MacLeod 1) Landmark Cases of Supreme Court ENGEL V. VITALE (1962) The Regents School Prayer What authority, if any, does the government have when it comes religious rituals lik e prayers? Can a government write specific prayers for public school students to recite every day? That used to be the case in many places in America, but that was challenged and ultimately struck down by the Supreme Court. This is one of the most important cases in the history of the Supreme Court’s church/state decisions. The State Board of Regents, which had supervisory power over New York public schools, had become concerned about an apparent decline in the morality of school students and so began a program of â€Å"moral and spiritual training† in the schools. This program included a prayer every morning which the Regents themselves had composed in a nondenominational form. Labeled the â€Å"To whom it may concern† prayer by one commentator, it stated: Almighty God, we acknowledge our dependence upon Thee, and we beg Thy blessings upon us, our parents, our teachers and our Country. A group of 10 parents were joined by the ACLU in a suit against the Board of Education of New Hyde Park, New York because they had adopted that prayer. Amicus curiae briefs were filed by the American Ethical Union, the American Jewish Committee and the Synagogue Council of America. Both the state court and the New York Court of Appeals allowed the prayer to be recited. Arguments were made on April 3rd, 1962. On June 25, 1962, the Supreme Court ruled 7 to 1 that it was unconstitutional for a government agency like a school or government agents like public school employees to require students to recite prayers. In his majority opinion, Justice Black sided substantially with the arguments of the separationists, who quoted heavily from Thomas Jefferson and made extensive use of his â€Å"wall of separation† metaphor. Particular emphasis was placed upon James Madison’s â€Å"Memorial and Remonstrance against Religious Assessments.† According to Black, the governmentally created prayer recitation is much like the English creation of the Book of Common Prayer. It was to avoid exactly this type of relationship between government and organized religion that many early colonists came to America. In his words, the prayer was â€Å"a practice wholly i nconsistent with the Establishment Clause.† Although the Regents argued that there was no compulsion on students to recite the prayer, Black observed that: Neither the fact that the prayer may be denominationally neutral nor the fact that its observances on the part of students are voluntary can serve to free it from the limitations of the Establishment Clause The Establishment clause is violated regardless of whether there is any â€Å"showing of direct government compulsionwhether those laws operate directly to coerce non-observing individuals or not.† As if he anticipated the harsh public reaction, Black attempted to point out that the decision shows great respect for religion, not hostility. It is neither sacrilegious nor anti-religious to say that each separate government in this country should stay out of the business of writing or sanctioning official prayers and leave that purely religious function to the people themselves and to those the people choose to look to for religious guidance. This case was one of the first in a series of cases, many in the 1960s, in which a variety of religious activities sponsored by the government were found to violate the Establishment Clause. This was the first case which effectively prohibited the government from sponsoring or endorsing official prayers in schools, not Abington School District v. Schempp (from the following year) as is commonly thought. People were outraged that official prayers were no longer permitted in schools, although their anger was directed mostly at the cases which were decided in the following years. Representative of most reactions was a statement from evangelist Billy Graham, who still opposes church/state separation even today: â€Å" This is another step toward the secularization of the United States. [] The framers of our Constitution meant we were to have freedom of religion, not freedom from religion†. Engel v. Vitale got the ball rolling on the separation of church and state in the latter half of the 20th century. (Cline, About: Agnosticism / Atheism) ABINGTON SCHOOL DIST. v. SCHEMPP MURRAY v. CURLETT (1963) Since of the embargo of the First Amendment against the acting out by C ongress of any law respecting an establishment of religion, which is made valid to the States by the Fourteenth Amendment, no state law or school board may require that passages from the Bible be read or that the Lords Prayer be recited in the public schools of a State at the beginning of each school day even if individual students may be excused from attending or participating in such exercises upon written request of their parents. Mutually these cases transactc with â€Å"state-approved reading of Bible passages† before classes in public schools. Schempp was conveye to trial by a religious family who had dropped a line to the ACLU. The Schempps defied a Pennsylvania law which declared that: at least ten verses from the Holy Bible shall be read, without comment, at the opening of each public school day. Any child shall be excused from such Bible reading, or attending such Bible reading, upon written request of his parent or guardian. A federal district court banned this. Murray was conveyed to trial by an atheist: Madalyn Murray (later OHair), who was functioning on the part of her sons, William and Garth. Murray defied a Baltimore statute that supplied for the reading, without comment, of a chapter of the Holy Bible and/or of the Lords Prayer before the start of classes. This act was sustained by both a state court and the Maryland Court of Appeals in the Supreme Court. Opinions for both cases were taken notice of on the 27th and 28th of February, 1963. On the 17th of June, 1963, the Court ruled 8-1 against of allowing the re citing of the Bible verses and the Lords Prayer. Justice Clark wrote at length in his majority opinion about the history and significance of religion in America, but his finale was that the Constitution prohibits any concern of religion, that prayer is a form of religion, and that hence state- sponsored or mandated prayer in public schools cannot be permissible. For the foremost moment, an examination was formed to assess Establishment questions ahead of courts: what are the purpose and primary effect of the enactment? If either is the advancement or inhibition of religion then the enactment exceeds the scope of legislative power as circumscribed by the Constitution. That is to say that to withstand the structures of the Establishment Clause there must be a secular legislative purpose and a primary effect that neither advances nor inhibits religion. [emphasis added] Justice Brennan wrote in a concurring opinion that, while legislators argued that they had a secular purpose with their law, their goals could have been achieved with readings from secular document. The law, however, only specified the use of religious literature and prayer. That the Bible readings were to be made without comment demonstrated even further that the legislators knew that they were dealing with specifically religious literature and wanted to avoid sectarian interpre tations. A violation of the Free Exercise Clause was also created by the coercive effect of the readings. That this might demand only minor encroachments on the First Amendment, as argued by others, was unrelated. The proportional study of religious conviction in public schools is not forbidden but those religious adherences were not crafted with such visions in mentality. ABINGTON SCHOOL DIST. v. SCHEMPP was fundamentally a replicate of the Courts earlier Court Decision in Engel v. Vitale, in which the Court acknowledged constitutional violations and struck the legislation. As with Engel, the Court held that the voluntary nature of religious exercises (even allowing parents to exempt their children) did not avert the statutes from violating the Establishment Clause. There was, of course, an intensely negative public reaction. In May 1964, there were more than 145 proposed constitional amendments in the House of Representatives which would permit school prayer and effectively reverse both decisions. Representative L. Mendell Rivers accused the Court of legislating they never adjudicate with one eye on the Kremlin and the other on the NAACP. Cardinal Spellman claimed that the decision struck at the very heart of the Godly tradition in which Americas children have for so long been raised. Although people frequently argue that Murray, who later instituted the American Atheists, was the women who got prayer put the boot of public schools and, it should be apparent that even had she never survived, the Schempp case still would have approached to the Supreme Court in some moment in time . (Cline, About: Agnosticism / Atheism) LEMON v. KURTZMAN (1971) There are a lot of people in America who would like to see the government provide funding to private, religious schools. Critics argue that this would violate the separation of church and state and sometimes the courts agree with this position. This was actually three separate cases: Lemon v. Kurtzman, Earley v. DiCenso, and Robinson v. DiCenso. These cases from Pennsylvania and Rhode Island were joined together because they all involved public assistance to private schools, some of which were religious. The final decision has become known by the first case in the list: Lemon v. Kurtzman. Pennsylvania’s law provided for paying the salaries of teachers in parochial schools and assisting the purchasing of textbooks or other teaching supplies, as required by Pennsylvania’s Non-Public Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1968. In Rhode Island, the 15% of the salaries of private school teachers was paid by the government as mandated by the Rhode Island Salary Supplement Act of 1969. In both cases the teachers were teaching secular, not religious, subjects. Arguments were made on March 3rd, 1971. On June 28th, 1971, the Supreme Court unanimously found that direct government assistance to religious schools was unconstitutional. In the majority opinion written by Chief Justice Burger, the Court created what has become known as the â€Å"Lemon Test† for deciding if a law is in violation of the Establishment Clause. Accepting the secular purpose attached to both statutes by the legislature, the Court did not pass on the secular effect test, inasmuch as excessive entanglement was found. This entanglement arose because the legislature has not, and could not, provide state aid on the basis of a mere assumption that secular teachers under religious discipline can avoid conflicts. The State must be certain, given the Religion Clauses, that subsidized teachers do not inculcate religion. Because the schools concerned were religious schools, because they were under the control of the church hierarchy, and because the primary purpose of the schools was the propagation of the faith, a comprehensive, discriminating, and continuing state surveillance will inevitably be required to ensure that these restrictions [on religious utilization of aid] are obeyed and the First Amendment otherwise respected. This sort of relationship could lead to any number of political problems in areas in which a large numbers of students attend religious schools — just the sort of situation that the First Amendment was designed to prevent. Chief Justice Burger further wrote: Every analysis in this area must begin with consideration of the cumulative criteria developed by the Court over many years. First, the statute must have a secular legislative purpose; second, its principal or primary effect must be one that neither advances or inhibits religion; finally, the statute must not foster and excessive government Entanglement with religion. The â€Å"excessive entanglement† criteria was a new addition to the other two, which had already been created in the Abington Township School District v. Schempp. The two statutes in question were held to be in violation of this third criteria. This decision is especially significant because it created the aforementioned Lemon Test for evaluating laws relating to the relationship between church and state. It is a benchmark for all later decisions regarding religious liberty some people love it, some hate it. (Cline, About: Agnosticism / Atheism) Court Tests Applied to Legislation Affecting Religion The Lemon Test Founded on the 1971 case of Lemon v. Kurtzman, the Court will regulate a practice unconstitutional if: 1) It lacks any secular purpose. That is, if the practice lacks any non-religious purpose. 2) The practice either promotes or inhibits religion. 3) Or the practice excessively (in the Courts opinion) involves government with a religion. The Coercion Test Based on the 1992 case of Lee v. Weisman, the religious practice is examined to see to what extent, if any, pressure is applied to force or coerce individuals to participate. The Court has defined that Unconstitutional coercion occurs when: (1) the government directs (2) a formal religious exercise (3) in such a way as to oblige the participation of objectors. The Endorsement Test Finally, drawing from the 1989 case of Allegheny County v. ACLU, the practice is examined to see if it unconstitutionally endorses religion by conveying a message that religion is favored, preferred, or promoted over other beliefs. The Establishment Clause and the Lemon Tests Based on its 1971 decision in the case of Lemon v. Kurtzman, the Supreme Court came up with the three tests of any religion-related law. The Lemon test is still used by the Court today to determine whether or not the law meets constitutional muster. In order for any law to satisfy the First Amendment, it: 1) Must have some secular, or non-religious legal purpose; 2) must neither promote or inhibit the practice of religion; and 3) must not must not foster an excessive government entanglement with religion. In its Lemon decision, the Supreme Court concludes, [i]f a statute violates any of these three principles, it must be struck down under the Establishment Clause. Lemon Test v. The Ten Commandments When viewed against the Lemon tests, the first four of the Ten Commandments would fail because they have no secular, or non-religious legal purpose. Instead, they concern only specific religious duties expected of believers. 1. Thou shalt have no other gods before me. 2. Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the wa ter under the earth. Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them. 3. Thou shalt not take the name of the LORD thy God in vain. 4. Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy. However, commandments 5-10, taken by themselves, make no mention of religion at all. Instead, they are all rules of proper conduct by people in society and are thus completely secular in nature. 5. Honour thy father and thy mother. 6. Thou shalt not kill. 7. Thou shalt not commit adultery. 8. Thou shalt not steal. 9. Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour. 10. Thou shalt not covet thy neighbours house, thou shalt not covet thy neighbours wife, nor his manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor any thing that is thy neighbours. But, the Aderholt Amendment did not rule out the first four commandments from contemplation. The 284 U.S. Representatives vote for it. They drew from the expressions of the people who engraved the Constitution. (US Govt. Info, Court Tests) Separation of Church and State Separation of church and state is not even stated i n the U.S. Constitution, since its drafters did not perceive a dichotomy between their religious beliefs and the manuscript that constructed their Republic. However separation of church and state came primarily from two sources, a letter Thomas Jefferson wrote to a group of ministers and from the U.S. Supreme Court case, Everson v. Board of Education. The Danbury Letter. Thomas Jefferson wrote the famous phrase separation of church and state in a letter to the Committee of the Danbury Baptist Association in Connecticut. He was responding to the letter they had written, part of which said: Our Sentiments are uniformly on the side of Religious Liberty—That Religion is at all times and places a Matter between God and Individuals—That no man ought to suffer in Name, person or effects on account of his religious Opinions—That the legitimate Power of civil Government extends no further than to punish the man who works ill to his neighbor. Jefferson’s response to their letter was amicable. He said, Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between man and his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legislative powers of government reach actions only, and not opinions [emphasis added], I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should ‘make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,’ thus building a wall of separation between Church and State. Adhering to this expression of the supreme will of the nation in behalf of the rights of conscience, I shall see with sincere satisfaction the progress of those sentiments which tend to restore to man all his natural rights, convinced he has no natural right in opposition to his social duties. Jefferson’s declaration of a wall of separation between Church and State expressed his opinion that the federal government did not have the auth ority to prescribe even occasional performances of [religious] devotion. He did not question the validity of religious belief, but he constructed his wall to protect religious freedom of conscience from the potential of one federally recognized religion. His fears were well founded. In his Inaugural Address of the previous year, Jefferson had noted that America had banished from our land that religious intolerance under which mankind so long bled and suffered. Clearly, Jefferson decried the federal domination of religious freedom through one established church. In addition, when Jefferson founded the University of Virginia, the Pamphlet of University Regulations included two sections that read: No compulsory attendance on prayers or services. Each denomination to send a clergyman to conduct daily prayers and Sunday service for two weeks. Was this a man who would have sanctioned the complete removal of any form of prayer from the public schools of America? Obviously, Thomas Jefferson’s views on church and state have been grossly distorted. Everson v. Board of Education. The second notable mention of the phrase separation of church and state came in the 1947 U.S. Supreme Court case, Everson v. Board of Education. The plaintiff argued the New Jersey law that reimbursed parents for the cost of bus transportation—to public and religious schools—violated the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment. The Supreme Court said that it did not. In the majority opinion, however, Justice Hugo Black used language to set the stage for damaging rulings in the future. He wrote that the Establishment Clause created a complete separation between the state and religion. Jefferson’s letter was written 10 years after the ratification of the First Amendment, yet Black relied upon his own interpretation of Jefferson’s words, rather than on the text of the First Amendment, to set the Everson precedent for future rulings. Twentieth-Century Cases Twentieth-century courts, based predominately on Jefferson’s l etter and on the precedent Justice Black created in Everson, have argued that the Constitution intended to separate all religious expression from public life. Yet that ignores the textual history and the original intent of James Madison, the author of these religion clauses. It also ignores the broad, historical context. The men who hammered out each section of the Constitution also believed in the importance of daily prayer. The Establishment Clause has often been misinterpreted to mean that any link to religion is establishing religion. One of the causes of this is a simple alteration of the wording in the First Amendment. The clause reads, Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion. It does not read, Congress shall make no law respecting the establishment of religion, as it is often misquoted. If the article is read as the, then it refers to establishment of all religion in general. If the article is an, then it clearly refers to a specific religion or denomination—an interpretation backed up by historical records. Realizing that the amendment uses the word an helps clarify the meaning of the Framers. So, rather than attempting to separate themselves from religious belief and expression, the Framers were trying to keep one denomination from being favored over another. The twentieth-century cases pertinent to the issue of school prayer do not recognize those differences. They have clearly been built upon the framework created by Everson, as summaries of key cases demonstrate: McCollum v. Board of Education (1948). It is a violation of the Establishment Clause for Jewish, Catholic or Protestant religious leaders to lead optional/voluntary religious instruction in public school buildings. Engel v. Vitale (1962). The daily recitation of prayer in public schools is unconstitutional. Abington School District v. Schempp (1963). Daily school-directed reading of the Bible (without comment), and daily recitation of the Lord’s Prayer, violates the Establishment Clause when performed in public schools. Lemon v. Kurtzman (1971). This ruling created the three-part Lemon test for determin ing violations of the Establishment Clause. Stone v. Graham (1980). The Court struck down a state law requiring public schools to post the Ten Commandments (with a notice of secular application). Wallace v. Jaffree (1985). A state law requiring a moment of meditation or voluntary prayer was struck down as an establishment of religion because the intent of the legislature was deemed to be religious rather than secular. By Justice Stevens scripting the mass judgment, the Court decided 6-3 that the Alabama law providing for a moment of silence was unconstitutional. The decision underlined that inspection the Supreme Court apply while assessing the constitutionality of government actions. Pretty than allow the argument that the inclusion of or voluntary prayer was a slight accumulation with a bit realistic implication, the goal of the legislature that approved it was adequate to display the unconstitutionality of prayer. Lee v. Weisman (1992). A private, nongovernmental individual (in this case a rabbi) at a public school graduation cannot offer prayer. Student rights were infringed upon, according to the Court, because the important nature of the event in effect compelled them to attend graduation. That, in effect, compelled students to bow their heads and be respectful during the prayer, which the Court ruled was a constitutional violation. Santa Fe Independent School District v. Jane Doe (2000). The Court struck down a school district’s policy that allowed an elected student chaplain to open football games with a public prayer. Even though high school football games are purely voluntary activities, the Court concluded that the policy establishes an improper majoritarian election on religion, and unquestionably has the purpose and creates the perception of encouraging the delivery of prayer at a series of important school events. Each of those cases paid attention on the Establishment Clause to the damage of the Free Exercise Clause. That has been the trend of the twentieth century. The courts have too quickly forgotten that the Constitution explicitly protects the free exercise of religion. (MacLeod 2-3) â€Å"The earlier cases were more black and white, and the later ones were more grey in terms of the issues: Stink of Unfairness in Later School Prayer Cases† The era of 1980s instigated with a diktat not in favor of the Ten Commandments in public school classrooms, and by 1985 even so much as one minute of silence, for meditation or prayer by students, turned out to be inviolable; even though firm decisions delivered by the supreme court (see Engel v. Vitale. Abington School District v. Schempp, Lemon v. Kurtzman). Engel v. Vitale case was one of the first in its origin in which a range of holy conducts backed by the government were found to defy the Establishment Clause. This was the first case which successfully forbidden the government from sponsoring or endorsing official prayers in schools, not Abington School District v. Schempp which is frequently considered. Public were irritated that official prayers were no longer legalized in schools, although their anger was directed mostly at the cases which were decided in the following years. Delegates of most reactions were a declaration from evangelist Billy Graham, who still refuses to accept church/state separation yet at present. Abington School District v. Schempp case was fundamentally a consequence of the Courts earlier Court Decision in Engel v. Vitale, in which the Court recognized constitutional violations and struck the legislation. As with Engel, the Court held that the voluntary nature of religious exercises. There was, of course, an hugely harmful public behaviour. In May 1964, there were more than 145 proposed constitional amendments in the House of Representatives which would permit sch ool prayer and successfully overturn both verdicts. Lemon v. Kurtzman decision was particularly noteworthy because it created the aforementioned Lemon Test for assessing laws relating to the relationship between church and state. It is a yardstick for all later decisions concerning religion freedom. By the turn of the 21st century the extirpation of faithfulness from government schools had been merged, and the mugging on religion in public life fanned out into society at large. Proclamations were subjected exalting vice and suppressing virtue. The year2004 saw the outrage of despair, elevated to a â€Å"full right† under the Constitution, even as God’s Ten Commandments were driven off public property. In the supreme court of Alabama the Chief Justice dared to resist, and was stripped of his office. The judicial oligarchy forced all these changes in the name of the Constitution. The school cases were precise to the establishment clause of the First Amendment. So far the Amendment has a complimentary implement of religion clause, which the politburo of nine has elected to downplay or minimally ignorant. For instance, the Lee v. Weisman decision failed to reverse the standards established by the Court in Lemon. Instead, this ruling extended the prohibition of school prayer to graduation ceremonies and refused to accept the idea that a student would not be harmed by standing during the prayer without sharing the message contained in the prayer. Similarly, Upon reading Santa Fe, Ingebretsen, and Clear Creek II, it seems, with regard to the Establishment Clause, that panels of our court pay little regard to previous jurisprudence. One might think that a specific holding of a prior opinion is no more than a puff of wind. Santa Fe disregards Clear Creek II today. The next panel can disregard Santa Fe tomorrow. When judges can pick and choose without the constraints imposed by precedent, the public is left stranded, vulnerable to liability, helplessly dependent on the panel it draws. We could fulfill our constitutional and professional duty to the public, vote this case en banc, and be of a single voice. But when our court refuses to rehear en banc cases such as Santa Fe, this unrestrained decision-making goes uncorrected. This failure to act, in turn, allows individual members of our court to continue to engage in an activity that has all the appearance of simply advancing personal philosophy. The Alito Nomination: Chief Justice John Roberts and future Justice Samuel Alito probably mean a more conservative Supreme Court. But it probably doesn’t mean a stream of clear-cut conservative breakthroughs on abortion, affirmative action, school prayer or even flag burning. The future of constitutional rulings on those and other hot button issues will be determined by two words: Anthony Kennedy. That’s an oversimplification of course. But it seems likely that on a number of issues, there will be four conservatives, four liberals and there will be Justice Kennedy. Unlike Roberts and Alito who went to lengths to leave the world guessing about how they will rule, we know a lot about what Anthony Kennedyism means because he has already faced these issues as a justice. It means Roe v. Wade isn’ t overturned, but partial birth abortion is banned and other abortion restrictions are accepted. Affirmative action is more constrained but not ruled unconstitutional. State-sponsored displays of religious symbols are more likely to be tolerated, but the ban on school prayer is not overturned. Burning a U.S. flag to protest, and viewing pornography on the internet continue to be constitutionally protected activities but McCain-Feingold- type regulations on political campaigning are vulnerable to First Amendment challenges. On the first day of the Alito hearings, Sen. Joseph Biden, D.-Del., said that the â€Å"elephant in the room†¿ was the question of whether Alito would cast the decisive votes to reject the direction in which the Supreme Court has been going for the past 70 years. Over the next two and a half days, Alito endorsed some of those precedents (Brown v. the school board, one-person, one-vote, and the Constitutional right of privacy, at least as far as the contraception cases.) Alito also danced artfully around senators’ efforts to commit himself on some other precedents, most especially relating to abortion. This is the current state-of-the-art strategy for confirmation, and it appears to be working well. The intensity of the pro-choicer campaign a gainst Alito leads one to forget that there are still five votes to affirm Roe, and that on many of the issues liberals care about, Kennedy has affirmed the basic Warren Court breakthrough rulings. Depending on the the health of Kennedy and the four liberals, and the outcome of future elections, the stakes simply may not be as high as Biden’s elephant’s eye. (That was an elaborate conflation of the previous reference with a corny lyric from â€Å"Oh What a Beautiful Morning.† Ask your parents.†) If Roberts and Alito turn out to be solid allies of Scalia and Thomas, if the liberals stay together and stay well, and if Kennedy sticks with his established positions, that means: †¢Roe v. Wade is not overturned. Kennedy and the four liberals have already rejected that idea. But the congressional ban partial birth abortion is upheld. Kennedy already voted to uphold it once before. And other restrictions on abortion rights will be accepted. †¢Affirmative action is not ruled unconstitutional at its core. Scalia and Thomas have indicated a willingness to strike it down completely. But Kennedy declined to join those opinions. On the other hand, college s and universities will have an even rougher time figuring out how to construct a constitutional affirmative action program. In 2003, Justice O’Connor joined the four liberals in upholding the University of Michigan Law School’s admissions program, which claimed to have found a way to act affirmatively without explicit quotas or race-based point systems. Kennedy and the conservatives formed a four-member bloc that didn’t buy it. Quite likely, if a similar question makes it to the court, Kennedy will cast the decisive vote. †¢State-sponsored displays of religious symbols, like the 10 commandments, are more likely to be tolerated when Kennedy’s becomes the key swing vote. But the breakthrough Warren-era decision, banning school prayer, will not be overturned. Kennedy has already endorsed that precedent. †¢Kennedy’s free speech jurisprudence has a strong libertarian streak. That has helped liberals construe the burning of a U.S. flag by protesters and viewing pornography on the internet as constitutionally protected activities under the First Amendment. But Kennedy ’s libertarian streak made him leery of McCain-Feingold-type regulations that restrict political advertising in the name of campaign finance reform. The next time those issues roll around, Kennedy may provide the fifth vote necessary to strike down those regulations on First Amendment grounds. ( Black and Tice 1-2) Arguments against and in favor of School Prayer: School Prayer was a chief center of attention of Darrell Scott’s (father of Rachel Scott, a victim of the Columbine High School Shootings in Littleton, Colorado) testimony to the House Judiciary Committee in a exceptional session of the U.S. Congress on Thursday, May 27, 1999. What Darrell Scott said to our national leaders regarding school prayer was utterly factual and enlightening for all of us. The following is a portion of the transcript: â€Å"I wrote a poem just four nights ago that expresses my feelings best. This was written before I knew I would be speaking here today. Your laws ignore our deepest needs, Your words are empty air. Youve stripped away our heritage, Youve outlawed simple prayer. Now gunshots fill our classrooms, And precious children die. You seek for answers everywhere, And ask the question, Why? You regulate restrictive laws, Through legislative creed. And yet you fail to understand, That God is what we need! Men and women are three-part beings. We all consist of body, soul, and spirit. When we refuse to acknowledge a third part of our make-up, we create a void that allows evil, prejudice, and hatred to rush in and wreak havoc. Spiritual influences were present within our educational systems for most of our nations history. Many of our major colleges began as theological seminaries. This is a historical fact. What has happened to us as a nation? We have refused to honor God, and in doing so, we open the doors to hatred and violence. And when something as terrible as Columbines tragedy occurs, politicians immediately look for a scapegoat such as the NRA. They immediately seek to pass more restrictive laws that contribute to the erosion of our personal and private liberties. We do not need more restrictive laws. Eric and Dylan would not have been stopped by metal detectors. No amount of gun laws can stop someone who spends months planning this type of massacre. The real villain lies within our own hearts. Political posturing and restrictive legislation are not the answers. The young people of our nation hold the key. There is a spiritual awakening taking place that will not be squelched! We do not need more religion. We do not need more gaudy television evangelists spewing out verbal religious garbage. We do not need more million dollar church buildings built while people with basic needs are being ignored. We do need a change of heart and a humble acknowledgment that this nation was founded on the principle of simple trust in God! As my son, Craig, lay under that table in the school library and saw his two friends murdered before his very eyes, he did not hesitate to pray in school. I defy any law or politician to deny him that right! I challenge every young person in America, and around the world, to realize that on April 20, 1999, at Columbine High S chool, prayer was brought back to our schools. Do not let the many prayers offered by those students be in vain. Dare to move into the new millennium with a sacred regard for legislation that protects your God-given right to communicate with Him.† (Popular Issues, School Prayer) There is always a state of war between secular humanists and groups like the Christian Coalition are concerning prayer in high schools and the victim is the innocent average high school kid. Each moment in time the argument is reawakened it concludes in a deadlock. The supporters of prayers say it will add to the broadmindedness in schools, as children be taught of diverse religions will convey to surface the special inquiries kids have about God and religion and allow them to investigate for their own conviction. The majority of them believe that prayers will lend a hand overturning the moral degradation of the society. Contrarily, Secularists shapes the public schools exist to educate, not to proselytize. Religion is private, and schools are public, both of the things couldn’t be intermixable. Whilst the sunup members of the clergy supports prayer during the Constitutional Convention and in ordinances governing education, the U.S. Supreme Court has vividly transferred their original premises. Some legal scholars and special interest groups have built upon those precedents, creating other rationalizations for limiting religious expression in America’s public schools. The mainly widespread squabble of such individuals is that the government has a responsibility to be neutral, so that no child is offended by the religious speech of another. This is erroneous because the issue cannot be neutral. Elimination of religious expression for the atheist will offend the child who believes in God. So, the schools must choose. Since 1962, they have sided with the small, nonreligious minority of atheists which, as recent Newsweek poll shows, consists of only 4 percent of the population. By contrast, 94 percent of respondents to that same survey professed a religious faith, and 61 percent said that they agreed with the statement that religion is very important in their lives. If free religious expression in the form of prayers is forbidden, school officials are, at the very least, teaching children that public recognition of God is not as significant as the things the schools can argue. It looks irrational that public schools permits open discussion about sexism but do not permit unwrap conversation regarding God. The courts have elapsed that schools can allocate free religious expressions devoid of implementing any meticulous category of spiritual consideration. Another dilemma is School prayer polarizes citizens around a religious axis. so far the First Amendment was printed to evade the bickers that might effect in the midst of values. Not tolerating prayer has done more to polarize citizens than almost any other issue in American history. Allowing prayer would put decision-making back in the hands of parents and local school boards, where it once rested. Those local boards could position guiding principles that would permit students who object to all prayer or some prayers not to chip in, just as many religious students have opted out of sex education classes at school place. That would obviously revere the rights of the minority, without infringing upon the rig hts of the majority. Local school boards would also be sheltered by the constitutional time/place/manner restrictions that apply equally to religious and nonreligious dialogue. In due course, a reinstatement of liberated expression to local public schools would unite, not polarize, citizens. The Establishment Clause of the First Amendment presents that government shall make no law respecting the establishment of religion. Because public schools are government funded, prayer led by school officials or incorporated into the school routine amounts to government-established religion. Prayer is school is already legal. Students are already allowed to pray on a voluntary basis (in a non-disruptive way) so formal school prayer is unnecessary. School prayer may lead to intolerance. Public prayer will emphasize religious diversity of which students may have been oblivious. Those students who withdraw from school prayer or dissent against it may be detested. School prayer is intrinsically coercive and cannot be implemented in a way that is truthfully intentional. The public school system is created for all students and supported by all taxpayers. It should therefore remain neutral on religious issues over which students and taxpayers will differ. Since no formal school prayer could simultaneously honor and uphold the tenets of the many religions practiced in the U.S., as well as various denominational differences, prayer is better left in the home and religious institution of the individual student’s choice. An associated squabble is that school prayer assumes the function of parents and religious institutions who wish to offer religious instruction in keeping with their possessive viewpoints. (All About History, School Prayers) Ishmael Jaffree alleged after Supreme Court decision (1985): For me, the battle is over. But prayer will go on in the schools. It just wont go on in any of my childrens classes. (NY Times B5:1) Works Cited Edward F. Woods. â€Å"Court Outlaws Prayer in Schools†.(1963) St. Louis Post-Dispatch Laurel MacLeod. â€Å"School Prayer And Religious Liberty: A Constitutional Perspective†. (2000) http://www.cwfa.org/images/content/cwaicon.ico Frohnmayer, John. â€Å"Out of Tune: Listening to the First Amendment. Golden, Colorado† North American Press, (1995). Austin Cline. â€Å"Prayers in Public Schools†. About: Agnosticism / Atheism. http;//usgovtifo.about.com â€Å"Church and State: How the Court Decides†. US Govt. Info/ Resources http;//usgovtifo.about.com â€Å"School Prayer Case Law- Absolute Necessity†. Popular Issues http://www.allaboutpopularissues.org Choper, Jesse H. â€Å"Securing Religious Liberty: Principles for Judicial Interpretation of the Religious Clauses†. University of Chicago Press. (1995). Erick Black and DJ Tice. â€Å"The Big Question: Who was the elephant NOT in the room†? Star Tribune (2006) http://www.startribune.com/blogs/bigquestion/?m=200601 â€Å"Arguments Against School Prayer†. All About History http://www.allabouthistory.org Ishmael Jaffree. â€Å"Quotation of the Day†. The New York Times. B5:1, Published: June 5, 1985.

Benefits of Nanotechnology on Health and the Environment

Benefits of Nanotechnology on Health and the Environment Aleksandar Banic Abstract Nanotechnology is concerned with manipulating matter to near atomic scales between one and 100nm (nanometers-1 billionth of a meter). This technology has recently gained popularity due to its potential in altering the behaviour of individual molecules and has opened the door to new applications. Many researchers have pinpointed the potential risk of nanotechnology on the environment and on human health. This is due to the fact that the extremely small nanoparticles can penetrate into human cells. This paper aims at determining ways in which this new technology can benefit the environment and the state of people’s health. Typical expectations of functional paints and coatings include: durability, reproducibility, easy application and cost effectiveness, tailored surface morphology and environmental friendliness. Through the use of nanotechnology, these properties can be achieved; therefore inflicting less environmental damage and cost. Discussion As shown in figure 1 (refer to appendix), the list of benefits for paints containing nanoparticles is extensive. It is also apparent that nano titanium dioxide (TiO2) is one of the most common nanoparticles in both the paint and lacquer industries. The primary reason for this is its ability to make the paint more durable (refer to figure 2 for following references). The wavelength of the visible light spectrum ranges between 400 and 700nm, whereas TiO2 is much shorter (200-350nm). This property renders the coating transparent and more aesthetically pleasing whilst also allowing UV absorption smaller wavelength means more energy. Therefore, when moving from left to right in figure 2, the different types of radiation become increasingly destructive. During UV radiation, UV photons can cause ionization, where electrons break away from atoms and this vacancy affects chemical properties. As a result, the paint could begin to flake, otherwise known as ‘chalking’ where it is th en washed away into the environment (1)(2)(3). Nano TiO2 coating serves to prevent this and is therefore considered to be an advantage to the environment. As durability is increased, the longevity of the paint does likewise and therefore, the rate of production is lowered. This means that energy and resource outputs are decreased, thus benefiting the environment once more. Figure 2: electromagnetic spectrum image displaying frequency and wavelength. Also highlights visible spectrum (3) One of the most advantageous characteristics of nanoparticle paints and coatings is their self-cleansing property. Nano scale titanium dioxide (TiO2) is the most often employed nanoparticle that exhibits this property. As TiO2 is photo catalytic, when illuminated with an ultraviolet (UV) source (e.g. sunlight) in the presence of water, valence electrons are transferred into the conduction band of TiO2 and then react with oxygen. Super oxide radicals result. These photo-produced radicals are powerful oxidizing species and can cause the deterioration of organic contaminants or microbial pieces on the particle surface. Furthermore, nano TiO2 is super-hydrophilic, i.e. the entire surface attracts and spreads water out into a thin film (4). Therefore, water and rainfall easily wash away contaminants when the coating is applied on an exterior surface. Figure 3: Hydrophilic coating (right) with TiO2on float glass for comparative purposes. Notice how right side is spread out thinly to cover as much surface as possible. This allows for a more consistent cleaning (4). Self-cleaning surfaces can decrease the amount of cleaning required. In the case of industrial cleaning in particular it can reduce labour costs and extend a materials durability. Lower energy costs and less use of cleaning detergents are expected to be the primary environmental benefits (5). In fact, nano TiO2 was proven to achieve the following: Reduction in re-paint material consumption by over 75% Reduction in labour and energy costs by 50% In summary, the photo catalytic and hydrophilic features of nano T (Environmental Protection Agency , 2015)iO2 result in the benefit of self-cleaning. When compared to that of standard paints, this is also beneficial to the environment whilst also being more cost effective. In addition, paints coated in nano TiO2 have also managed to reduce surface pollution. Paint which photocleans the air of automobile-produced nitrogen oxides (NOx) is currently under heavy promotion. NOx are formed during the combustion process when nitrogen (N) and oxygen (O) are present at elevated temperatures. They also serve as key precursors for ozone and this can lead to numerous health effects as outlined in the figure below. Figure 4: The relationship between the severity of the effect and the proportion of the population experiencing the effect can be presented as a pyramid. Many individuals experience the least serious, most common effects shown at the bottom. Fewer individuals experience the more severe effects such as hospitalization or death; however, they are still possibilities especially after prior health issues or prolonged exposure (6). In the presence of sunlight, TiO2 nanoparticles in the paint, form hydroxyl and peroxyl radicals, which then react with NOx in the air to produce nitric acid. This reacts further with calcium carbonate in the paint matrix to generate minute quantities of calcium nitrate, water, and carbon dioxide (CO2). Calcium nitrate is especially useful as a fertilizer; therefore it is not harmful to the environment. And although CO2 is considered a greenhouse gas, it is nontoxic (7)(8). Figure 5: graph compares the surface area covered by anatase (one of the three forms of TiO2) to the % of NOx removed from that vicinity. Eventually it will plateau as the production of NOx will be no longer be able to reduce by more than is being created (7) In an experiment, a 4,100m2 wall was subjected to paint containing TiO2 nanoparticles. Results showed that each square meter could remove 80g of NOx from the atmosphere per year. Furthermore, NOx levels in the vicinity of the wall were compared to that of other areas of the city and a 57% decrease was found. It can be concluded from this information that health effects would also be lowered proportionally (8). As the effects of nano TiO2 particles in paint are evidently advantageous, it supports the statement that in general, the positives of nanoparticles outweigh the negatives. If nanoparticles are firmly imbedded within a coating matrix, current risk assessments conclude that the probability of a harmful impact on the environment is very low. However, nanoparticles may be released as a result of weathering on the coating matrix. An investigation conducted in 2010, has shown that very small amounts of TiO2 (between 20 and 300nm in size) are released by house paints due to weathering. They can then enter the soil via rainwater drains. As stated previously, the photocatalytic activities of TiO2 are able to produce oxygen radicals. They are in fact toxic for aquatic organisms. However, the release of nanoparticles into the environment can be reduced or prevented if nanomaterials and coatings are designed accordingly. Regardless of the fact that surface coatings which contain firmly embedded nanoparticles currently pose a minute risk to the health of users and consumers, special attention is required for those that manufacture nanoparticulate raw materials. (4) (9) (Chang)Nevertheless, there are currently no known long-term health effects as a result of nanoparticle paint, and the short-term effects are easily reduced or prevented when safety measures are taken accordingly. Although possible health and environmental effects may exist, they are unsupported and easily outweighed by the positives of nanoparticle paints. Conclusion Several advantages for nanoparticles used in paint and lacquer have been focused on throughout this paper. Although many more are possible as outlined in figure 1 (appendix), it is evident from the properties of UV absorption, self-cleansing and NOx reduction alone, that it overcomes the unfounded negative impacts. In fact, the only undesirable aspect is the danger that nanoparticles could inflict upon the appliers and manufacturers. However, there is very little supporting evidence and can therefore not be used as a counter argument for the use of nanoparticle paints. It is important that the public understands how beneficial this technology is they would be doing themselves and the environment a great disservice. Bibliography Wick, P. (2012). Nanoparticles in paints: A new strategy to protect faà §ades and surfaces? . International Conferences on Safe Production and Use of Nanomaterials , 10. Popov, A. (2008). TiO2 NANOPARTICLES AS UV PROTECTORS. UNIVERSITATIS OULUENSIS. OULUN YLIOPISTO. New World Encyclopedia. (n.d.). Electromagnetic Spectrum. Retrieved May 4, 2015, from New World Encyclopedia: http://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Electromagnetic_spectrum Nanotechnology solutions for self-cleaning, dirt and water-repellent coatings . (2011, January 11). Retrieved May 4, 2015, from Nano Werk: http://www.nanowerk.com/spotlight/spotid=19644.php Environmental Protection Agency . (2015, January 31). Health Effects of Ozone in the General Population. Retrieved May 5, 2015, from Ozone and Your Patients Health Training for Health Care Providers: http://www.epa.gov/apti/ozonehealth/population.html Dalton, J. (2002). Photocatalytic oxidation of NOx gases using TiO2: a surface spectroscopic approach. Elsevier . Bendak, S. (2010). Potential Environmental and Health Benefits of Nanotechnology. Journal of Materials Science and Engineering , 4 (1), 2. Joseph, R. (2011). Nanotechnology-A New Prospective in Organic Coating Review. International Journal of Chemical Engineering and Applications , 2 (4). Chang, X. Health effects of exposure to nano-TiO2: a meta-analysis of experimental studies. Nanjing : Springer . Appendix Figure 1: above table states the various advantages of nanoparticle paints and coatings along with their respective nanomaterial and industrial branch (1) Bibliography (Popov, 2008) (New World Encyclopedia) (Nanotechnology solutions for self-cleaning, dirt and water-repellent coatings Read more: Nanotechnology solutions for self-cleaning, dirt and water-repellent coatings , 2011) (Wick, 2012)