...The Art of modern living (The Square, R. Östlund ) Swedish director Ruben Östlund after winning the jury's Un certainty for the Force Majeure (2014), returned this year to Cannes with his latest work The Square and this time he went back home with Palm d'Or. Östlund's The Square is a satirical guide through modern life, at the surface level, while in its metaphors lies the great director's philosophy of living. Bite of reality In the opening scene of the film, we meet Christian Nielsen (Claes Bang), curator of the fictional X Royal Museum of Modern Art in Stokholm, while giving a statement to journalist Anne (Elisabeth Moss) about the upcoming exibition "The Square". While Anne tries to penetrate Christian's "sublime artistic mind," asking...
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...Dream we can keep dreaming because most people in most places, including the thirty million of ourselves, live wide awake in the terrible reality of poverty.” LeGuin essentially claims that in order for one to succeed, another must fail; however, success stems from one’s own failure. LeGuin mentions the American Dream, which, for years, has been perceived by most as the hope of success and prosperity. Closely akin to this is the American Spirit. Since the early settlement of Jamestown, Virginia, we Americans have done nothing less than to keep our heads held high and do whatever it takes to achieve success. As concluded by Claudia O’Keefe in The Traveling Bra Salesman’s Lesson, “Only when we admit that the future awaits us can we embrace a more inclusive and thrilling successor…” O’Keefe reminds us how important it is to live for the future – not necessarily the moment. It is exactly this that the American Spirit adheres to, as remarked by President Barack Obama in his Independence Day address on July 4, 2009: “…It is what has always led us, as a people, not to wilt or cower at a difficult moment, but to face down any trial and rise to any challenge…” This has been exactly how we, as Americans, have conducted ourselves since the settling of Jamestown, Virginia in 1607. We make our mistakes, do our due diligence, and make success a reality. In this way, success stems from, and is one’s own failure – not another’s. In the film, The Day After Tomorrow, climatologist Jack Hall...
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...Sarah Ban Breathnach has in these words very aptly communicated the spirit and philosophy of the people living in the poorest zone of any country. They are living without drinking water, no sanitation, leaking roofs, hanging wires amongst drug lords in a place they call “home “ but we call “shanty towns”, bustees or favelas. Rio de Janeiro, known to Brazilians as the “Marvelous City,” is home to over 10 million people, of which nearly a third live in shantytowns or ghettos known as favelas. A favela is a Brazilian shanty town, which is generally found on the edge of the city. The first favela appeared about 100 years ago in Rio De Janiero. Today, there are more than 600 favelas in Rio De Janiero alone. Although many of these favelas are located in Rio de Janeiro, favelas have sprung in almost every large Brazilian town. A favela is generally found on the edge or outskirts of the city. Favelas are precariously built shacks constructed from a variety of materials, ranging from wood and corrugated cardboards to bricks. They have about one or two rooms but lack basic amenities like fresh water, electricity and toilets. Many favelas are very cramped and claustrophobic ! Infact they are extremely crowded with high population density which can reach a staggering figure of 150000 people/ square kilometer. Favela sites are generally prone to flooding , landslips and exposed to industrial pollution and consequently plagued by sewage and hygiene problems. ...
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...distinguishable, in reality this task may not necessarily be as clear and defined. It is further complicated by the vast geographic and socioeconomic diversities of the country as a whole that may not be reflected in the base statement of who comprise each class. Upper Class The upper class may be the most easily distinguishable among the three primary tiers of the social class system in America. This class is comprised of less than one percent of the total population...
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... For example, in the book Food: The New Gold by Kathlyn Gay explains how people are trying out new things like international food aid system; giant "factory farms,"which grow and slaughter animals using assembly-line techniques; and the genetic engineering of seeds, plants, and animals. These systems and practices promise to get more food to the people who need it.This idea hasn’t really worked out like they thought it would. The world has reduced the number of people who live in extreme poverty by over half, but that still leaves 767 million people living on the edge of survival with less than $1.90 a day....
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...fraught with danger. But all of this was due to change. This has all come to pass due to globalization and technology, where social issue especially in economics has come more apparently important than ever in history. Now new and even more major issues are arising than ever imagined, and unless we start making rational decisions makings as equal descent human beings living in one world, much catastrophe may lay ahead. As an economic phenomenon, globalization is a shift from national economies to a more global economy. In today’s global world, the production of goods has been internationalized, and money flows even more freely and quickly across borders. In this system multinational corporations wield vast power, while anonymous investors can gain much material needs or can cause devastating depression in any part of the world due to greed. Globalization has indeed been a force that has raised living standards for many across the world. Peter Sutherland, chairman of the Overseas Development Council, says that “until recently, it took at least two generations for living standards to double, but in China, living standards now double every 10 years.” Globalization is perceived as bringing many new opportunities to billions of people. The expansion of world trade has induced a wave of productivity and efficiency and has created new jobs. Its critics, however, counter that globalization can also bring down economies overnight. For instance, economic globalization can actually contribute...
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...Lagos: the survival of the determined Lagos is a city where near anarchy prevails rather than government. Lagosins respond to the chaos by relying on their own ingenuity to get by It’s rush-hour near the stadium in Lagos where Nigeria has just lost a football match. Streams of young men run through the street to let off steam as crowds dive into the tangle of battered yellow minibuses. A dozen passengers pack into one bus, and the driver grinds into gear, lurching at full throttle to gain a six-inch lead over his competitor. The side-view mirror has to be pulled in for the bus to squeeze through. Girls balancing bags of water on their heads edge their way through the traffic to vend their wares. Toilet brushes, cutting shears, smoked fish, hankies, inflatable globes and even a steering wheel are sold by boys as the coil of traffic becomes ever more ensnared. But the action never stops for a moment. That’s Lagos—a city that moves, miraculously, against the odds. A mighty magnet It’s difficult to find the centre, let alone the logic, of this city reputed to be the most dangerous in Africa. Three bridges connect about 3,500 square kilometres of lagoon, islands, swamp and the mainland, where unlit highways run past canyons of smouldering garbage before giving way to dirt streets weaving through 200 slums, their sewers running with raw waste. So much of the city is a mystery. No one even knows for sure the size of the population—officially it’s 6 million, but most experts estimate...
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...COUNSELLING FOR SOCIAL ADJUSTMENT: A PANACEA FOR SOCIO-POLITICAL INSTABILITY AND ETHNIC/RELIGIOUS CRISES IN NIGERIA BY: IRABOR PETER ODION 07037830536 DEPARTMENT OF SOCIAL STUDIES, COLLEGE OF EDUCATION, IGUEBEN, EDO STATE BEING A PAPER PRESENTED AT THE COUNSELLING ASSOCIATION OF NIGERIA (CASSON) HELD AT SCHOOL HALL, NATIONAL GRAMMAR SCHOOL, NIKE ENUGU, ENUGU STATE FROM 16TH TO 17TH OF APRIL, 2012 ABSTRACT Counselling-which that provides direction or advice as to a decision or course of action is inevitable in any organisation, institutions or society. More importantly, the roles of counselling in a country like Nigeria made up of diverse ethnic groups and often confronted with socio-political menace that threatens her existence cannot be over emphasized. This study therefore investigates the roles and important of counselling towards the sustainability of Nigeria socio-political development and ethnic/religious unity. Finally, the study examined and recommended how Nigeria can equally experience stable socio-political and ethnic/religious unity with the counsellors playing divergence role in the society. INTRODUCTION Nigeria is a country of extraordinary diversity and as such has extraordinary complexities (Irabor, 2011). Indeed, Nigeria adventure into pluralism of religions and ethnic diversities owns its origin to colonial conquest which permeated the entire continent of Africa beginning from the early 19th...
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...Race and Poverty: Factors of the African American Achievement Gap Abstract The proposed action research study will pinpoint factors that contribute to the African American academic achievement gap. These factors impact not only the lives of families in the African American community but continues a vicious cycle of generations of poverty that hinders our country’s ability to effectively compete economically and also threatens America’s capacity to provide social equality for all. The participants in this study will comprise of parents and students of highly concentrated poverty - low academically performing African American public schools. Thirty two parents and thirty two students from eight low performing-poverty schools in the research study will be interviewed and surveyed online. Collected information and data will be researched employing qualitative and quantitative practices. Introduction There was a time when children of color were denied the hope and expectation of equal education because of racial isolation and discrimination in America’s education system. Although it’s been well over 50 years since Brown –vs.- The Board of Education which established equal education for all, today we are still faced with large racial disparities in reading and math proficiency between African American children and their thriving white contemporaries. This purpose of this study is to illustrate the connection that occurs between race and poverty with the academic...
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...Analyze the economic situation of the movie: The movie “Blood Diamond” is directed by Edward Zwick. This movie is considered as one of the great movies because the diamonds mined at Africa are traded in exchange for firearms and other weapons which are used in civil wars, coups and cruel military dictatorships, and what makes the story interesting is that, which side is worse? Is it the government or the rebels? So the first thing we see in this story if we will relate it to economic situation is that, people face tradeoffs. RUFs mine diamonds and sell to those people who will give them firearms in exchange for diamonds. Back to the story, this story takes place in 1999 in Sierra Leone, which during that time, is at civil war. The story stars Leonardo DiCapprio, played the role as Danny Archer, who is a diamond smuggler who needs money to leave Africa for good. There, he meets Solomon Vandy. His life changed when the Revolutionary United Front or RUF invaded their village, killed many people, and kidnapped most children and men. His family escaped, and he is sent to the forced labor camp to mine diamond. During that time, diamonds have really high value because they are traded for arms and is sold for a very high price. When Solomon is sifting sand on a river bank, he saw a 100 karat pink diamond which he initially hides then later buries. No less than a minute, it happened that there was government raid, he captured and he was sent in jail. There he meets Danny, who...
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...Throughout the decades, notably from the 1970s to the present, America has experienced its changes through the influence of hip-hop culture. Cultural hip-hop talks about real-life experiences of subjects such as gangster mafia violence, drugs, degrading of women, and many other realistic, pessimistic values, whether the artist has experienced those situations or not. Currently, the public has opened their ears to a whole new level by listening to the ludicrous lyrics of some of the mediocre, modern-day hip-hop and rap artists. Due to much of the publicity, some of these artists are put on such a high pedestal that they go to extremes by acting out their music and wind up being horrible role models, ruining the names they made for themselves. On the other hand, some artists in hip-hop culture see a political trend form and decide to incite it with heart-grasping lyrics that pertain to the governmental issues. From the 1970s to current times, there is a pattern emerging that Americans are willing to listen to politically subjected songs that hip-hop artists have written as signs of political trends. America’s changes through hip-hop culture have had some influences on the government and public as a whole through significantly realistic lyrics, violence, and trend-setters. Since 1979, when Sugarhill Gang came out with “Rapper’s Delight”, hip-hop music has been “all the rage” for about three decades (Blanchard 1). Hip-hop came from the different genres of jazz, gospel,...
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...Living in a Flat World Would you believe me if I told you the world was becoming flat? Well, it is, just not necessarily in the literal sense that you may be assuming. The recent advances in technology and communications have led to the rapid spread of globalization. This new level of connectivity is serving as the equalizer between industrial and emerging market countries. To put it bluntly, the gap between what we once thought were more highly developed nations and those less efficient, is shrinking at an incredible rate. To determine what this means and what effects it will have on managers of corporate America we must take a more in depth look. What is making the world flat? Globalization is the prime catalyst for continuing the flat world process. However, it can be narrowed down more directly to telecommunications and outsourcing. It was not until recently when countries such as India and China have risen as international economic powers. They have realized that the free market system, which uses competition to ignite growth, is paramount for reducing the poverty of a nation. Free enterprise guarantees that new ideas, technologies, and best practices will easily flow into a country. These new concepts, when put to use, inevitably lead to new jobs and products. China and India have had a noticeable drop in their poverty level in recent years, while in contrast; non globalizing Sub Saharan Africa continues to become more impoverished than ever before. It has become...
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...Latin America’s history has been an arduous and long struggle in their attempt to break the chains that bound them. Since the conquista, conquering, of their lands during the colonial era, Latin America has been a region plagued with an oppressed poor. There have been people that have been the voice for the poor community in Latin America. These people are specific priest of the Catholic Church, these priests took it upon themselves to go against the status quo and appeal to the poor. These priests quickly became a beacon for the poor because with their guidance the poor were seeing a way out of the despair of poverty. The priest to place this feeling of helping the poor rather than the elite was the Dominican friar, Bartolome De Las Casas. He was the first priest to challenge the crowns of Portugal and Spain, because of their maltreatment to the indigenous people of the New World. In this day and age, the poor still go through a systemic way of oppression; in which the poor stay being the poor and they receive no help from the government and the concept of imperialism is continuously suffocating the poor. Until the archbishops of Latin America got together to discuss what should be their primary focus; out of that meeting the idea that the archbishops of Latin America should direct their energy to the poor was formed. That idea soon evolved into an ideology that came to be called, Liberation Theology. Gustavo Gutiérrez, whom admired the work that Bartolome De Las Casas had done...
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...His dad, an very bad example, sets the basis for a tough, punishing upbringing. When his father beats him to the edge of severe injury, Troy decides it is time to leave. After hiking a considerably long way, he comprehends he cannot get work or a home to reside. Telling his upbringing to Bono and Lyons, Troy says, “…I was, a robber…Went to rob this fellow…pulled out my knife…and he pulled out a gun. Shot me in the chest…I jumped at him with my knife. They told me I killed him…they put me in the penitentiary for fifteen years” (Wilson 55). Troy, a black guy in the Deep South, goes to stealing to feed himself and is ultimately sent to prison for fifteen years after pledging an act of self-protection. That alone can make somebody hostile for his or her whole life. To top it off, Troy cannot chase his dream for baseball because the blacks were prohibited from...
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...Economic Development The Impact of Political Decision Making Process to Economic Development Ruben Tota 1006805763 Statement of Authorship “Saya/kami yang bertandatangan dibawah ini menyatakan bahwa makalah/tugas terlampir adalah murni hasil pekerjaan saya/kami sendiri. Tidak ada pekerjaan orang lain yang saya/kami gunakan tanpa menyebutkan sumbernya. Materi ini tidak/belum pernah disajikan/digunakan sebagai bahan untuk makalah/tugas pada mata ajaran lain kecuali saya/kami menyatakan dengan jelas bahwa saya/kami menyatakan menggunakannya.” Saya/kami memahami bahwa tugas yang saya/kami kumpulkan ini dapat diperbanyak dan atau dikomunikasikan untuk tujuan mendeteksi adanya plagiarisme.” Nama : Ruben Tota NPM : 1006805763 Mata Ajaran : Economic Development Judul Makalah/Tugas :The Impacts of Political Decision Making Process to Economic Development Tanggal : 11 April 2013 Dosen : Mr. Budi Susetyo Tandatangan : ( / / ) Abstract The main idea of the paper is that the involvement of politicians in economic development decision making process as measured by political influence on Indonesian economic system which associated with worse economic performance. The procedures are based on the analysis of outlier events and differentiate between several sources of risk (“Political, Economic, World market, Other”). This paper is supported by my empirical results, which indicate that political influence is the most important...
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