Marketing Mix Cafe Coffee Day Essay

The leading coffee chain across the world, Cafe coffee day has several products which appeal to the Indian audience and it has a price which is very much affordable for the upper middle class of India. The promotions are amazing and it has numerous retail outlets which are growing in number across India. This article discusses the marketing mix of Cafe coffee day. Product: Cafà © Coffee Day product mix constitutes a wide range of products that appeal primarily to Indian coffee and snack lovers. Products have a decided Indian taste to it – be it food or coffee. Most of the eatables have been adopted to meet the Indian taste buds like samosa, biryani, masala sandwich, tikka sandwich etc. Thus they have been trying to capture the Indian taste along with classic coffee.The best selling item in summer is frappe, which is coffee and ice cream blended together. The young people favor it. In winter it is cappuccino. Their merchandising includes funky stuff like t-shirts, caps etc. Price: Considering that Cafà © Coffee Day knows its major customer lies in the bracket of 15- 29,it has tried to derive a policy whereby it can satisfy all its customers. The price for a cup of coffee ranges from Rs.45 to Rs 80. From the time it first started its operations, therehas been only minor changes in the pricing policy of Cafà © Coffee Day. The changes havebeen mo re due to the government taxes than any thing else Place: The strategy CCD has adapted is to place a cafe in every possible location where some business can be generated.This is a prime factor in determining the success of a retail chain. Cafà © Coffee Day looks to cater to their target market with strategically located outlets. Their outlets are generally located in High Street/ Family Entertainment Centers, gas stations, near Collegesetc . Promotion: CCD is involved in all the areas of serious consumer passion like: Television:Cafà © Coffee Day held a contest around a very popular programme on Zee English calledFriends. All the six lead characters are shown often visiting a coffee shop.They have tied up with Channel [V]’s Get Gorgeouscontest. Tie-ups:Besides that Cafà © Coffee Day also tie up lot of the youth brands. So they have a contest going on with Levis,another one with Scooty, Liril, latest one with AirtelFriends. Association with movies:CCD can be seen in movies like Khakhee and Mai Hoon Na Sales Promotion:Cafà © Coffee Day uses special ‘Cafà © Citizen Card’ for rewarding Cafà © Coffee Day’s customers. It is a loyalty program to gain new customers and retain the existing ones. Process: The ordering and delivery process in CCD was earlier based on self- service. But now in most its coffee shops the waiter comes and takes away the order and delivers the order on table. Physical evidence: a)Logo , image, brand: Cafà © Coffee Day has used bright red and green colors in its logo. RED stands forleadership , vitality,passion for coffee. The GREEN stroke harks back the coffee plantations that they own.Cafà © is noticeably larger in the logo to denote that Cafà © Coffee Day pioneered thecafà © concept in India way back in 1996.The font looks as though the letters have congealed out of a liquid. b) Architecture and Decor:Largely wood and granite based interior with young colours of today,like limegreen, yellow, orange, and purple predominate. c) Literature:The literature provided by Cafà © Coffee Day is indicative of its youthful image. Themenus, posters, pamphlets are all designed to attract young and young at heart People: People at Cafà © Coffee Day believe that â€Å"People are hired for what they know but fired for how they behave†. Motivation and personal skill are laid emphasize upon. Their employees are like friend to the customer but at the same time th ey know about the international standards of hygiene and cleanliness and personal grooming.

Children and Adolescents with New-Onset Epilepsy

Children and adolescents with new-onset epilepsy Journal Article Epilepsy is one of the most common neurologic disorders in childhood, with a widespread rate of approximately 3-4 per 1,000. In the paper they explore parent’s perceptions of their child’s quality of life and the impact of the diagnosis on their family. It’s talking about how the parent’s and children’s lives get accustomed to everyday normal functioning activities. Whenever there is any emotional well-being, self-esteem, and physical changes with their condition due to the epilepsy. Data was collected as part of the Stand and New Antiepileptic drugs (SANAD) trial.SANAD compared clinical trial and cost-effectiveness of standard and new AEDs. SANAD recruited 2,437 patients (1,983 age older than 16 years; 454 children age between 5 and 16 years), with history of two or more definite unprovoked seizures in the previous year. Talks about the primary outcomes were time to treatment failure, and time to 12-month remission. Children from 8-15 years were asked to answer self-complete questionnaires annually and thereafter for 4 years for SANAD. The parents gave written consent to long-term follow-up. Parents were asked to complete questionnaires to assess their child’s quality of life.It talks about parents being affected by their child’s seizures at home or at family outings. How it can take a toll on everyday things they do. I agree that children with epilepsy (CWE) are more likely to have learning disabilities and to experience academic underachievement. Well I agree because it’s already hard for children to fit in at school and to try to focus is even harder. I agree with the finding that adolescence is a critical period for identity formation and peer group identification. Being an outcast from their peers is an important concern for adolescents.I agree because the adolescents can experience self-conscious, ashamed of their epilepsy, and secreti ve behavior. I agree with the finding that single parents have less support from other networks, may cause them to be more concerned about their child’s well-being. I agree because their only support is usually themselves, thereafter, it’s not easy raising and caring for a sick child. I agree with the argument that it is a seizure event, not a diagnosis of epilepsy that impacts on daily functioning. Because an epileptic attack is more traumatizing and over whelming for a child, then being told you have epilepsy.Which some adolescents don’t know what this means for them. Those who scored >13 are considered to be psychiatric morbidity. Children with new-onset epilepsy had significantly poorer for physical, emotional and friend’s domains. A recent study found children in the United Kingdom reported low levels of child well-being, despite relatively high levels of wealth, compared to children from other European countries. What I found interesting was that CW E should be assessed for psychosocial problems in the beginning so intervention can be done in time for no further damage with the child.Interventions aim to increase self-esteem. I believe these studies are great resources for the families of the epileptic children. It gives them more insight in their everyday functions in life. Without these kind of studies parents might be clueless to what could be happening to their child in school or even at home. It hard for the families of these adolescents to undergo these kinds of trials, but with all the information and support groups out there it can be very helpful for everyone. In conclusion I believe with more moral support and patience, much can be done for children with these special conditions.

Accounting for a Loss Contingency for a Verdict Overturned on Appeal Essay

M International (â€Å"M†) and W Inc. (â€Å"W,† a competitor of M) have been engaged in long- standing litigation over a specific patent infringement matter. Below is a summary timeline of specific events that have taken place related to this matter: In May 2007, W filed a claim against M for patent infringement. For the year ended December 31, 2007, management of M determined that a loss for this matter was probable and represented that the estimate of loss was in the range of $15 million to $20 million, with $17 million being the most likely amount of loss within the range. See more: Beowulf essay essay A jury trial took place in September 2009. The jury reached a verdict on September 24, 2009, and a judgment was ordered in favor of W. The judgment required M to pay W $18.5 million. In November 2009, M filed a Notice of Appeal with the Court of Appeals. In December 2010, the Court of Appeals issued a ruling in favor of M’s appeal and reversed the lower court’s ruling on the matter. This meant that the Court of Appeals overturned the jury verdict and the $18.5 million judgment against M. On January 6, 2011, W filed a petition for a re-hearing before the same panel of appellate judges against the reversal of ruling by Court of Appeals. On February 10, 2011, the appellate judges declined the petition for a re-hearing. On February 28, 2011, management of M determined this matter was closed upon discussions with in-house legal counsel.

Unified standards Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Unified standards - Essay Example System wide rules imply standards imposed across the entire enterprise. In view of the fact that the classical IS function has been decentralized to accommodate distributed systems, assess who should be in charge of developing and enforcing such broad standards.First of all, I want to mention that the unified standards are essential for any kind of information systems. Standards provide external interfaces for the distributed systems so they can connect to other information systems, perform data exchange and provide necessary feedback, for example in case of failure.As its website says, ISO (International Organization for Standardization) is the world's largest developer of standards. Although ISO's principal activity is the development of technical standards, ISO standards also have important economic and social repercussions. ISO standards make a positive difference, not just to engineers and manufacturers for whom they solve basic problems in production and distribution, but to so ciety as a whole.The International Standards which ISO develops are useful to industrial and business organizations of all types, to governments and other regulatory bodies, to trade officials, to conformity assessment professionals, to suppliers and customers of products and services in both public and private sectors, and, ultimately, to people in general in their roles as consumers and end users.ISO standards contribute to making the development, manufacturing and supply of products and services more efficient, safer and cleaner.... u (1998, para.3) writes in Netsurfer Focus, "The only safe computer is a dead computer." But of course there are some steps to protect data and computers of company's information system. As Yoo (n.d.) writes, all systems consist of three components, the software and hardware parts, the people, and the procedures. The same is true of computer and network systems. Securing computer system means security of the software and hardware, trustworthiness of the people who use and manage it, and reliability of the procedures for using and managing the system. In this issue, most companies are mainly focus on secure software and system management practices. But for complete evaluation of the security of networked system the other components should be considered. Firstly, employees of the company must be aware of the risk of sharing passwords or the use of simple dictionary-based passwords and of the implications of opening questionable programs or attachments in their e-mail that may contain extremely dangerous viruses. Secondly, level of risk should be evaluated. Network administrators are not security professionals, and therefore their primary mission is not establishing a secure network, but rather a functional one. What must be evaluated is how much risk is acceptable, and therefore what level of functionality will be sacrificed to ensure a reasonably secure network with an acceptable level of risk. Thirdly, information systems and networks must be designed and implemented to establish a strong foundation and architecture to incorporate security. The identification of access points into a network and establishing the appropriate access controls such as firewalls and monitoring solutions is necessary. Also, updating and patching software is essential to prevent known

Work-life Balance In the Global Human Resource Management Coursework

Work-life Balance In the Global Human Resource Management - Coursework Example Employees could be ‘forced’ by the organisations to make maximal or even stressful physical and mental contributions as part of their work schedule, thereby negatively impacting the work-life balance. In certain cases, employees themselves could also push themselves with personal motives and also due to unstable work environments, disregarding their health. In the recent times, the need to maintain apt work-life balance is being strongly focused by the organisations and the employees themselves. Understanding how apt balance could not only optimize the employees’ personal side but also their work productivity, organisations are actualizing various initiatives in the work environment. Although, this introduction of various measures is widespread, when it comes to certain organisations in the non-Western or developing countries, there is a varied perspective. Due to specific cultural, economic and social factors, these differences occur. Thus, the focus of this report will be on how the changing nature of the workplace is having an effect on work-life balance in a global context, critically discussing and comparing, with two case studies, the range of work-life balance initiatives being followed in Western and non-Western countries, finally ending with recommendations. Work-life balance is a concept which refers to how employees with the support of organisations can aptly balance or prioritize their work aspects like their professional career, ambitions, financial statuses, etc., with their lifestyle style aspects like their family, friends, health, leisure, etc. Clark (2000, p. 751) defines work-life balance as â€Å"satisfaction and good functioning at work and at home, with a minimum of role conflict.† Heathfield (2013) further expands on the above definition by stating, work-life balance has a concept â€Å"that supports the efforts of employees to split their time and energy between work and the other important aspects of their lives†, by

Child abuse research paper Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2500 words

Child abuse research paper - Essay Example The definition has expanded through the years as it came to cover physical injury to physical assault, neglect, emotional abuse, and coercive sexual activity. Statistics speaks about this grim situation: in 2002, 896,000 cases of child abuse and neglect were substantiated across 50 states and that according to the National Child Abuse and Neglect Data System, about 81% of these cases were perpetuated by parents. (Runyon et al. 2006, p. 23) These kinds of reports, however, do not necessarily reflect the actual incidence of child abuse because the figures may still be higher as many cases of abuse are still estimated to be unreported. The gravity of the situation is highlighted by the fact that child abuse is one of the five leading causes of childhood death in the United States today. (Mankiller 1999, p. 87) The answer is quite complicated to the question why parents abuse their children. There are several dimensions to the issue. For example, mothers are more prone to maltreat their children than fathers or that substance abuse contribute to the emergence of child abuse, among others. These variables, however underscore the need for effective intervention approaches to address the numerous issues in the subject. This paper will explore why treatment is important, how it is being carried out and how this strategy is more effective than punishment in addressing child abuse. In the treatment of parents involved in child abuse, it is important to consider the ecological issues that lead to the abuse. For example, is there unemployment in parents or a maltreatment in the childhood history of the parents? Also, the number of children in the family, the physical or developmental disabilities that are difficult to manage as well as other care giving responsibilities must be considered. It is important that in addressing the problem of child abuse, all parts of the family system issue must be treated. Particularly,

September 11 Attack on America Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1750 words

September 11 Attack on America - Research Paper Example A Description of the historical event Analysis of the historical and contemporary causes of the event Analysis of the different historical interpretations of the event Evaluation of the positive and negative outcomes of the event Conclusion September 11 attack on America Introduction September 11 attacks on America remain to be the main memorable event of the twenty first century all over the world. The recent decades have seen scientists, academicians and the theorists conduct comprehensive research in a bid to establish the causes of such a thrilling event as well as the impacts, which some remain unfolded. However, the historical descriptions in regard to this event are quite amazing to the extent of instilling fear on the contemporary society. The issue has long raised a variety of truths as well as controversies since its occurrence as many as try to swallow the event’s bitterness. There are countless historical and contemporary causes of the challenging 9/11, which are i nclusive of the bitterness of the Al-Qaeda towards America for supporting Israel. The demonstration of this bitterness is viewed in the recent incident where America portrayed its deed of killing the then Al-Qaeda leader, Osama bin Laden. The event sets the stage of understanding the extent to which great psychological, social, political, and economic impacts overtook the contemporary America. The discussion in this paper seeks to provide a comprehensive overview of September 11 attacks. A discussion of the historical context in regard to the even will be provided. ... The terrorists are said to have hijacked four passenger Jet airliners that were meant for commercial services and crashed them at various destinations, which included the north and south towers of the world trade center, pentagon house and forth targeted the white house, the location of the American capital. The 9/11 morning dawned in a devastating state when the Al-Qaeda’s hijacked jet airliners. Two airliners were intentionally crashed at the World Trade Center Twin Towers that collapsed within two hours of attack. The third airliner was as well crashed at the Arlington, Virginia pentagon house, while the fourth was directed onto the rural Pennsylvania’s Shanksville. Three thousand people were killed on the sport, and no one survived from the crashing flights, including 60 military officials (Griffin, 2009). The report of the investigations conducted by the Newborn research personnel indicated that there had been prior plans by the terrorist group on the procedure of attacking the entire United States, including the capital city. The attack is always remembered since it resulted in massive deaths of people, who included 60 military officials, a case that has never occurred in any other war or attack in the world. Therefore, the 9/11 attacks left a legacy that all Americans have in mind up to date. The chief suspect at the time was Al-Qaeda under the leadership of Osama bin laden, who denied responsibility of the act. In 2004, he agreed to take responsibility and disclose the act where it became identified worldwide. The history commences with a heavy burst where in May 2011, the then AL-Qaeda leader Osama was found and put to

Article summary on 'Supply chain management', Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Summary on 'Supply chain management', - Article Example Why Chosen: â€Å"Supply Chain Matters First Impression Regarding RedPrarie / JDA Software Merger† article identifies and gives a projection of what is to come of supply and chain management. With the good use of technology, no boundaries will bare supply chain and managements from achieving their strategies. What You Learned: Technology has created impacts in each and every sectors of the world’s business, with the supply and management being positive in advancing its applications through consolidation of initially independent companies into one pool based on cloud software and end-to-end outsourced services. Your Assessment of the Article’s Content: Efforts set in place to ensure effective merging of JDA and Red Prairie requires firm stands, bold vision, strong leadership morals, and end user participation in order to succeed. Synopsis: Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) is entitle to establish larger public reporting programs that will help to enhance hospital performance profiling at higher national ranks. CMC started by availing results in July 2007. Since then, it has shown remarkable progress in attaining its mandates as stipulated in Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) contained in its several requirements. In CMC management’s view, public reporting had very crucial roles to play that they could never be ignored. Why Chosen: This Article on health related issues of CMC is an educative material that eliminates ignorance and adds value by providing necessary information that one should have in readiness for any tragedy. What You Learned: Public reporting plays important roles such as promoting informed patients’ choices, affecting the public image/ reputation of a hospital if its functions are not up to the standards expected, and providing objective feedback that encourages professional desire to improve. Your Assessment: All that

Peer review Threats to Data Security (Virtual Lab Research Paper

Peer review Threats to Data Security (Virtual Lab - Research Paper Example In such an area, access to such gadgets can easily be monitored. The control not only restricts accessibility to the premises but also data, information and information systems. When such individuals gain access, they may alter network and system settings that may weaken the security system of the organization. Other physical threats not mentioned include direct break in by thugs. In such a case, we require CCTV cameras installed and warning systems to alert the security. The text did not also include the use of biometric systems for authentication to server rooms and rooms containing networking equipment’s (Special issue on trust in cyber, physical and social computer computing’, 2013). For example, authorized persons can have their fingerprints taken so that when they enter such rooms, they only use their fingers as a passkey. In addition, visitors need to be given badges, escorts for them and control entrance for such individuals. Further, it is wise to secure workstations with locks. Although Laptops can have locks, it is important to set alarm systems to restrict unauthorized persons from touching them. Printed documents that are the waste should be shredded to avoid their use elsewhere. It also means that information that is in the paper especially that which is very sensitive to the organization needs securing in cabinets using locks. Only authorized personnel should have accessibility to this

The Impacts and Roles of Canada in China-Japan Row Research Paper

The Impacts and Roles of Canada in China-Japan Row - Research Paper Example The purchase put the full control over the island on Japan. However, with politics at play, China has showed an interest over the island again claiming that the island rightfully belongs to them, an argument that Japan is not willing to listen to according to Zhao (2012). In fact, pundit argue that the two countries may end up engaging in of the deadliest fights after the World War II if nothing is not done to ease the tension between the two neighboring countries. As a result, Canada is one of the countries that have been proposed to negotiate a cease-fire between these two countries at war, following the fact that Canada is not seen to have any inclination both economically or politically with the two nations. This paper will explore the tension brewing up between China and Japan and the involvement of Canada on the issue. China and Japan are two economic giants in the Asian region and the world at large. These two neighboring countries had had close relation between each other for a very long time until recently in 2010 when an issue arose between the two nations over uninhabited island. Initially the issue appeared very little that it did not attract much attention of the international community until recently when a war of words and military surveillance began over the island. In this regard, Chinese warships and airplanes have been surveying the island over the past few years with a view to taking it away from Japan. However, Japan has always maintained its position that the island has traditionally and rightfully belongs to them, and any attempt by Chinese government to take the island will be met with the strongest force possible, a statement, which has signaled that war is in the offing (Tanaka, 2013). The tension has indeed affected the strong bilateral trade between these two countries since the beginning of the tension. Bloomberg News (2013) reported that some discontented Chinese consumers have been boycotting Japanese products in protest over the island. This scenario has led to a sharp fall in Japanese autos sales in China, something that is negatively affected the economy of Japan, taking into consideration the fact that China has been one of its biggest auto market in the world. In fact, Japan has not yet recovered from such a huge decline in sales in Chinese market witnessed in the recent past. Bloomberg News (2013) reveals that many Chinese factories have shifted their loyalty to South Korean component suppliers. At the same time, China has also experienced a significant decline in the export market due to the tension between it and Japan. This has become costly for the Japanese government since China has been its long time largest export market. Bloomberg News (2013) reveals that currently the U.S. has overtaken China as the largest export market for the Japanese products. Bloomberg News (2013) also noted that as China continue with its territorial claim over the island, the bilateral trade between the two countries, w hich tripled from 2000 to over $300 billion, is likely to decline significantly. The latest flare-ups had been reverberated by Xi Jiping of the Chinese Communist Party when he criticized the move by Kunioki Kurihara, a Japanese developer to sell three of the disputed islands to the Japanese government for just $23 million, calling this a farce according to Bloomberg News (2013). The dispute between the two nations is reported to have resulted in a decline, in Japanese growth, by about one percent. Meyer (2011) argues that this percentage decline has the potential of keeping the economy in recession up to September this year. The fall out is also projected to have caused a

Electronic Media Critical Analysis Paper TV Show Family Guy Essay

Electronic Media Critical Analysis Paper TV Show Family Guy - Essay Example The family guy is an animated television series about a seemingly normal middle class American family with its tribulation problems and spans of happiness. In this show the Griffin family is the main characters. The Griffin Family is not a normal family by any measure. It has some incredible members who do the most unexpected of things. The six members of the family are Peter Griffins, Lois Griffin, Chris Griffin, Meg Griffin, Brian Griffin, and Stewie Griffin who are characters in the show. The show is mainly based on humor and within the humor the creator play around with many themes such as violence, stereotypes and issues such as transgender. The head of this household is Peter who is depicted as the dumbest of all having an IQ lower than that of a retarded, a typical couch potato who is overweight and loves to watch TV. Paradoxically he is also the fastest in the series. The other character Lois Griffin who is the wife of peter, she plays a role that seems to keep the disjointed family together as a unit. She comes from a rich background and always associated with the rich but decided to marry Peter because she wanted some adventure and uniqueness. She found the rich folks too snobbish and thus she chooses someone different, and that was Peter who was a towel boy at the time. The couple has three children and Chris is one of them. He is just as fat as his father and even just as dumb. In the series he is constantly being attached by an Evil Monkey from his closet, the evil monkey usually comes out of the closet and points at him only. Meg the daughter is usually the ignored child and her family members ignore her as if she never existed and they only focus on her when they are teasing and making fun of her.

International Organizations and World Order Essay Example for Free

International Organizations and World Order Essay After First World War, there was call for formation of international organization to bring order in the world. The notion led to the formation of the League of Nations due to the conviction of the then president of the United States of America, President Woodrow Wilson who was certain that the move would prevent future conflict if only nations would come together to defend the principles of self-determination and independence. The progress of the League of Nations was thwarted when the United States refused to join it. It was also thwarted by the extremist political ideologies and power rivalry that existed at that time in history, which was 1930s. Due to the outbreak of Second World War that ended in 1945, there was more concern that led to the formation of another international organization in the name of United Nations. The Bretton woods conference, which is the reason for the existence International Monetary Fund, and the World Bank as well as the Dumbarton Oaks Conference came to existence in 1944. The foundation do the United Nation was laid by the allies of the organization (Owen, 1996). According to Owen (1996, p. 9) most of the international organizations were formed with an intention of reconstructing Europe, which was seriously devastated after the war against Nazi Germany. Most of the International organizations that were formed after World War II became more active in the 1960 where their activities were expanded to meet the new challenges because of European colonization, which included independent but politically immature and poor nations in Latin America, African and Asia. Most of the international organizations were started in the 19the century. Owen (1996, p. 10) states that â€Å"More recently, with the uncertainties and instabilities which have followed the ending of the Cold War, international organizations have stepped in to cope with the effects of the resulting conflicts and tensions, many of them within states rather than between states n the process, many UN bodies have been found wanting. The office f the United Nations Disaster Relief Coordinator (UNDRO), for example was founded in 1971. † Some of the international organizations include regional Arab Maghreb Union (AMU), which was formed in 1989 with an objective of establishing common military, cultural and economic policies to ensure free movement of goods, services and people between member states. The Member nations of Arab Maghreb Union include Morocco, Libya, Algeria, Tunisia and Mauritania (Schafer, Verbist, Imhoos, 2005). Another International Organization is Asia Pacific Economic co-operation Forum (APEC) was formed in 1989 to promote linearization of economy in the Pacific region. Association of South East Asian nations (ASEAN) was formed in 1967 to replace ASA (Association of South East Asia). The member nations of ASEA include Australia, United States of America, Japan and New Zealand. The main objective of the organization is to promote common economic, political and trading policies. There is also another international organization in the name of Caribbean Community (CARICOM), which was formed in 1965 to ensure economic cooperation in Caribbean common market, to put in place common policies in education, health, culture, industrial relation and communication and to coordinate foreign policy among the member nations. The affiliations of the CARICOM according to Owen include â€Å"Caribbean Development Bank; Caribbean Examinations Council; Caribbean Meteorological Organization; Council of Legal Education; University of Guyana; University of the West Indies; West Indies Shipping Corporation†. The Common wealth is another important international organization that is in forefront trying to address contemporary global issues. Commonwealth was formed in 1884 and it grew out of the British Empire. The objectives of the Commonwealth are to enable nations from different parts of the world to exchange opinions in an informal, friendly and intimate atmosphere. Commonwealth has member nations, which according to Owen (1996, p. 11) include â€Å"Australia, Bahamas, Bangladesh, Barbados, Belize, Botswana, Brunei Darussalam, Canada, Cyprus, and Dominica. Others are: Gambia, Ghana, Grenada, Guyana, India, Jamaica, Kenya, Kiribati, Lesotho, Malawi, Malaysia, Maldives, Malta, Mauritius, Namibia, Nauru, New Zealand, Nigeria, Pakistan, Papua New Guinea, St Kitts-Nevis, St Lucia, St Vincent and the Grenadines, Seychelles, Sierra Leone, Singapore, Solomon Islands, South Africa, Sri Lanka, Swaziland, Tanzania, Tonga, Trinidad and Tobago, Tuvalu, Uganda, the United Kingdom, Vanuatu, Western Samoa, Zambia, Zimbabwe. † There are several other International organizations such as Commonwealth of Independent States, Council of Europe, European free trade association (EFTA), European union (EU), gulf co-operation council (GCC), Mercosur (Mercado Commun del Sur-southern common market), African union (AU), Organization of American States (OAS), Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC), South Pacific Forum, Southern African Development Community (SADC) among others. According to Mendlovitz (1966, p5) â€Å"Law has too often been conceived in static terms as a system of order designed to uphold the status quo. In any legal system, whether national, regional, or global in scope, law also has a dynamic aspect which allows it to make a contribution to projects for social change. † Saul Mendlovitz further states that â€Å"international law to the postulated goal of a warless world with an excerpt from an article that considers how law might help us move from where we are to where we would like to be; it is this gap that creates what we have called the transition problem. In this new age, there has emerged a vas and ancient worldwide conspiracy called the New World Order, which aims to unite the entire world under one government. The New World Order concept was introduced into the dictionary of the international politics after the collapse of Communism in Eastern Europe (Slaughter, 2004). The former president of the United States of America George Bush was the first who strongly invoke the idea in response to the Gulf crisis. Therefore, the concept traced to 1991, when Iraq invaded Kuwait and when the cold war ended. According to Ismael (1994), he states that â€Å"Thus, the end of the cold war and Iraqs invasion of Kuwait in August 1991 constitute the historical reference points for the concept. This suggests at least two dimensions in its meaning: the end of an international order determined by the struggle for hegemony between the United States and the Soviet Union; and the initiation of a U. S. foreign policy doctrine based on U. S. hegemony in the international order. † When president George Bush was waging a war of words with the then the president of Iraq Saddam Hussein in 1990 he demonized him and referred to his effort as an attempt to establish a new world order (Wells, 2008). Many were excited by the effort of Bush at first because they thought the president of the United States was promoting democracy in the region as he had done in the Eastern Europe. Unfortunately that was not to be realized as Ishmael (1994) says, Bush was determined in establishing hegemony. The region after the gulf war in Iraq and Kuwait has remained unstable politically. According to Lloyd (2002, p. 1) New world Order was a fragile creation that emerged after September 11 attack. Lloyd states, â€Å"Before 11 September, the new (left) world order was a tentative, even fragile, creation. It emerged from new Labor in 1997 as an ethical dimension in foreign policy, announced by the then foreign secretary, Robin Cook, as a natural extension of the globes interdependence. The world had become a moral forum through the media and the work of non-governmental organizations (NGOs). † The world was at peace before the attack on the United States to the extent that most world leaders praised the state in which the world was. Some of the people who were at the forefront of the new idea of new world order are Robert cooper and Anthony Giddens, a senior diplomat and a director of the London school of Economics respectively. Giddens was for the idea that globalization could then take place because there was a state of peace that was a recipe to one global governance. The globalization, he argued would transfer power from the nations into the global space leading to the call for the need of regulation to guide the governance. Copper on the other hand argued that new world order will lead to a shift in value where there will be a victory of values of individual of those of state and those of market over the military ones and foreign policy will no longer to be about war (Lloyd, 2002, p. 1). International court creation came in to being after two attempts to organize an international court had failed (Mower, 1931, p. 616). Before there was, a court called The Hague Permanent Court of International Arbitration, which could not provide the much-needed justice in the international level as the current International Criminal Court. Other international courts deal with different legal issues. For instance, there are courts that deal with human rights at the international level, which include African Court of Justice (ACJ), African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights (ACHPR), European Court of Human Rights and International-American Court of Human rights. Others include International Court of Justice (ICJ), International Criminal Court (ICC), and Permanent Court of Arbitration (PCA), Resource materials on International Courts and Special International Criminal Courts and Tribunals. According to Class Action Publisher (2008), there are seven special international criminal courts and tribunal, which include Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC), International Criminal tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) and International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR). Others are â€Å"Regulation 64† Panels in the Courts of Kosovo, special Courts for Sierra Leone, Special panels of the District Court of Dili (East Timor) and War Crimes Chambers (WCC) in Sarajevo- within the state court. All these international courts have well designed objective and operation guidelines. International criminal Court established in 1998 by Rome statute and it is the first permanent court to hear international criminal claim. The court has a role to hear cases that are regarded as most serious such as crime against humanity, war crimes and genocide (Janis, 1992). It does not deal with cases that occurred prior it its institution but only to those crimes that have been committed after July 1, 2002. ICC does not deal with cases that have been committed by legal entities but natural persons. It can act on cases when the cases have been referred to it by the United Nations’ Security Council or with consent of the affected state. The International Criminal Court takes up a case or jurisdiction only as the last resort when all the national avenues have been completely exhausted (Buhler Webster, 2005). The nations have been endowed with the responsibility of international crimes but when a state is unwilling to pursue justice, delays in pursuing justice or it shows impartiality of dealing with international crimes then the ICC takes up the matter. This may also result from unavailability of proper judicial system or if the state is unable to carry out the proceeding. Over one hundred nations worldwide subscribe to the Rome statute that established the ICC exclusive of the United States of America. United States revoked the signature of the former president Bill Clinton that was due to lack of checks and balance of the ICC. The ICC gives considerable rights to victims which include attending the proceeding of the court have having their concerns considered; being represented by counsel and interrogating witnesses; seeking monetary compensation after conviction and seeking preservation of defendant assets pending trial. The ICC has four major organs namely judicial divisions, the presidency, office of the prosecutor and the registry, which have different roles that help the court to achieve its objectives (Schafer, Verbist Imhoos, 2005). The international courts have been able to provide effective enforcement of international legal instruments in different countries. Many countries have suffered from the art of war, which have seen many people suffer thereby depriving them of their human rights. Individuals for their own personal and selfish reasons started some of the wars that have caused suffering to citizens of the affected nations. Being well connected to the political order of the day most perpetrators of the crimes that lead to the abuse of human right cannot be properly persecuted in their respective countries. Other reasons that have made it possible for the perpetrators of the crime of high magnitude is the fact that most countries where such crimes are committed lack proper judicial system that is independent, impartial and ineffective. This has led to transfer of many cases to the international courts or to the ICC (Barker, 2004. ) International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda is an existing testimony to the effectiveness of the International Courts. In Rwanda where the conflict started between the Tutsi and the Hutu tribes in 1994, many people belonging to the Tutsi tribe were killed in the Genocide. The total number of the Tutsi that were killed is estimated to be over five hundred thousand people. In response to the crime, the United Nation Security Council created the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda in November of 1994 to prosecute crimes genocide and violation of the Geneva Convention. The ICTR is a subsidiary organ under chapter VII of the United Nations Charter of the Security Council under article 29 (Barker, 2004). International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda has completed over fifty trials so far and of the accused persons, 29 have been convicted of crime (Klip Sluiter, 200). About eleven people are on trial, others waiting trial, some are to be transferred to the national jurisdiction trial while others are still unconfined. The first person was tried three years after the formation of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda in 1997 and he was Jean-Paul Akayesu. Jean Kambanda also pleaded guilty after wards. The tribunal has also issued arrest warrant to some suspects that are thought to have played a role or orchestrated the genocide like Kabuga Felicien. International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda issued an international arrest warrant for Felicien in 1999 where he was charged with complicity in genocide, genocide and conspiracy to commit genocide. The action of the international court in Rwandan genocide has achieved a lot in the nation and it has sent a clear message to the whole world. With arrest, trial and judgment of the suspects of the unfortunate occurrence, peace and order has been restored in Kigali because the Tutsi who were the main victim of all sorts of crime committed feel that justice has finally prevailed and cannot think of revenge and other notions that might lead to civil war again. The action has also sent a right signal to anybody in Ruanda and all over the world that any perpetrators of such crime will not escape the long arm of justice. Therefore, in reality International Court has succeeded in pursuing justice and is in the right path of ensuring that there is a peaceful planet where the innocent are vindicated while the guilty are condemned (Klip Sluiter, 200).

Audio spotlight Device

Audio spotlight Device Abstract A directional source of audio sound created using a parametric array, sometimes called an audio spotlight, generates a sound beam that is much narrower than the sound beam generated by a conventional source. It is a very recent technology that creates focused beams of sound similar to light beams coming out of a flashlight. By ‘shining sound to one location, specific listeners can be targeted with sound without others nearby hearing it. It uses a combination of non-linear acoustics and some fancy mathematics. But it is real and is fine to knock the socks of any conventional loud speaker. This acoustic device comprises a speaker that fires inaudible ultrasound pulses with very small wavelength which act in a manner very similar to that of a narrow column. The ultra sound beam acts as an airborne speaker and as the beam moves through the air gradual distortion takes place in a predictable way due to the property of non-linearity of air. Joseph Pompeis Holosonic Research Labs inve nted the Audio Spotlight that is made of a sound processor, an amplifier and the transducer. The targeted or directed audio technology is going to a huge commercial market in entertainment and consumer electronics and technology developers are scrambling to tap in to the market. Audio spot light technology can do many miracles in various fields like Private messaging system, Home theatre audio system, Navy and military applications, museum displays, ventriloquist systems etc .Thus audio spotlighting helps us to control where sound comes from and where it goes! I. Introduction Audio spotlight is a very recent technology that creates focused beams of sound similar to light beams. By ‘shining sound to one location, specific listeners can be targeted with sound without other nearby hearing it, i.e. to focus sound into a highly directional beam. The audio spotlight uses ultrasonic energy to create extremely narrow beam of sound that behave like beam of light. Audio spotlighting exploits the property of non-linearity of air. When inaudible ultrasound pulses are fired into the air, it spontaneously converts the inaudible ultrasound into audible sound tones. like audible sound ultrasound waves, get distorted as they travel through air. The ultrasound waves are breaked into lower frequency, i.e. audible sound waves. so these ultrasound waves can travel along a narrow path, people to left or right of a target remain silence. II. System Requirement A. Hardware Requirement: A transducer(speaker). An amplifier. Coax cable. III. Architecture The ultrasound has wavelengths only a few millimeters long, which are much smaller than the source, and consequently travel in an extremely narrow beam. Of course, the ultrasound, which contains frequencies far outside our range of hearing, is completely inaudible. But as the ultrasonic beam travels through the air, the inherent properties of the air cause the ultrasound to distort (change shape) in a predictable way. This distortion gives rise to frequency components in the audible band, which can be accurately predicted, and therefore precisely controlled. By generating the correct ultrasonic signal, we can create, within the air itself, essentially any sound desired. Note that the source of sound is not the physical device you see, but the invisible beam of ultrasound, which can be many meters long. This new sound source, while invisible, is very large compared to the audio wavelengths its generating. So the resulting audio is now extremely directional, just like a beam of light. Often incorrectly attributed to so-called Tartini tones, the technique of using high-frequency waves to generate low-frequency signals was in fact pioneered by physicists and mathematicians developing techniques for underwater sonar over forty years ago. Through a combination of careful mathematical analysis and engineering insight, the Audio Spotlight sound system has become the very first, and still the only, truly directional audio system which generates low-distortion, high quality sound in a reliable, professional package. IV. System Description The Audio Spotlighting Device consists of a round shaped disc which consists of a transducer, an amplifier and coax cables. Transducer is very discreet, at only 1/2† thick. The transducer comes in two standard sizes 18† round or 24† hexagonal. The cover of the audio spotlight is produced using sublimation printable lycra , this lycra cover can be printed to look like anything that we can take a digital picture of, making integration into an existing display or trade show environment even easier. this lycra cover can be produced with an elastic edge so that it is easily interchangeable. The transducer emits an ultrasound beam. The transducers are driven by small ultrasound amplifiers. The amplifier receives the input signal from a standard audio source such as a computer, CD player or DVD player. The amplifier can currently push the sound signal through the cable 110 long. The amplifier runs on standard 110v or 220v power and is very easily adaptable to European or Asian version of electrical power. Coax cables are used to connect amplifiers to transducers. V. Types A. Direct Audio B. Projected Audio Directed audio can direct sound at a specific target, creating a contained area of listening space which is called â€Å"Direct audio†. Protected audio can bounce can bounce of a sound object, creating an audio image. This audio image gives the illusion of a loudspeaker, which the listener perceives as the source of sound, which is called â€Å"projected audio†. VI. Advantages 1. We can here sounds like music, speeches etc even disturbing others. 2. Army is using this technology which can be very advantageous to security. 3. Creates highly focused beam of sound. 4. Portable. VII. Disadvantages Its highly costly. It can be misused by enemies. Both speaker and amplifier are separate. Maintenance is high. VII. Future Scope Audio Spotlighting really â€Å"put sound where you want it† and will be â€Å"A REAL BOON TO THE FUTURE.† VIII. Conclusion It can be concluded that sound can be forced to make travel in one direction by using the technology audio spotlighting. We can here sounds like music, speeches even disturbing others. References 1. B.PREMLET ,Engineering physics 2. D. Meyer. Computer Simulation of Loudspeaker Directivity, J. Audio Eng. Soc 3. Houghton Mifflin Company,2006 The American heritage Dictionary of English language, 4. J. Eargle, Loudspeaker Handbook, Chapman and Hall, New York 5. J. Proakis and D. Manolakis, Digital Signal Processing, Principles, Algorithms, and Applications 6. M. Yoneyama and J. Fujimoto. The audio spotlight: An application of nonlinear interaction of sound waves to a new type of loudspeaker design, J. Acoustical Society of America 7. P. Hong, IMTC, Georgia Institute of Technology 8. T. Chen, Guest Editor. The Past, Present, and Future of Audio Signal Processing, IEEE Signal Processing Magazine. 9. Universal physics. 10. W.F Dryvestegn J. Garas personal sound, J. Audio eng society. 11. http://www.holosonic.com/ Audio Spotlight Add sound and preserve the quiet.html 12. http://www.spie.org. 13. http://www.imtc.gatech.edu/projects/archives/multimedia/AudioSpotlight.pdf 14. http://www.howstuffworks.com. 15. http://www.abcNEWS.com. 16. http://www.howstuffworks.com 17. http://www.abcNEWS.com 18. http://www.holosonic.com 19. http://www.skads.org 20. http://www.AudioSpotlights.com /audio_spotlight_case_study.html 21. http://www.holosonics.com/ audio_spotlight_case_study.html 22. http://www.audiospotlights.com/directional_sound_intro.html 23. http://www.technovelgy.com/ct/Science-Fiction-News.asp?NewsNum=376 24. http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Audio_Spotlightredirect=no 25. http://www.techalone.com. 26. http://www.holosonics.com/brochure/Audio_Spotlight-Museums.pdf 27. http://www.holosonics.com/brochure/Audio_Spotlight-libraries.pdf 28. http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/search/freesearchresult.jsp?history=yesqueryText=(audio+spotlighting)imageField.x=26imageField.y=8 29. www.sciam.com

Overcrowding in 19th Century Britain

Overcrowding in 19th Century Britain The Problem of Overcrowding in 19th Century Urban Britain During the nineteenth century urban populations grew at an extremely fast rate as industrial growth drew people into the cities in the search for employment. This rapid growth caused a great deal of concern amongst Victorian politicians and authorities regarding law and order, but they were at first unaware of the far greater danger which was the poor sanitation caused by the speedy building of back-to-back housing created to accommodate this population growth. The main points I will be addressing in this essay will be a) how far the growth of population was the main cause of bad health caused by overcrowding, and b) how the authorities dealt with such health problems and how far they were successful. I have chosen this particular subject because it can be argued that it was the main problem of urban living in the nineteenth century, and other problems such as pollution, cholera outbreaks or infant mortality could be said to be caused or exacerbated by such overcrowding. By the time of the 1851 census, and for the first time in the nation’s history, more people were living in urban areas than they were in rural areas. Between each census from 1841 to 1881, the population of urban areas grew by an average of 25% and by 1881 the urban population was 70.2% of the total population of England and Wales.[1] In Manchester, the city where the cotton industry caused massive urban growth, the population had increased six times within sixty years by 1831.[2] In order to cope with such numbers building of houses was undertaken as quickly as possible, often in small areas of land, which meant that in poorer areas houses were built back-to-back in high density in order to accommodate as many people as possible. In order to save space, they were built without gardens, around dark courtyards with communal privies at the end of each street. Some buildings in Edinburgh had more than ten storeys, which meant that people had to carry water up many stairs – and often didn’t bother. In Manchester, the large numbers of Irish immigrants created pockets of poverty-stricken communities living amongst the factories and smoke where ‘several families might be living under one roof or even in â€Å"the pestilential atmosphere† of one room.’[3] In London, in the period before the underground railway, when people still needed to be able to walk to work, building programs took place close to the city areas without any plannin g from central sources. Thus areas such as Bethnal Green and Whitechapel suffered from gross overcrowding, and in Covent Garden, older buildings were converted into tenements and cellars to provide for the poor settlers who swept into the metropolis, particularly in the area known as ‘The Rookeries’ where refugees from the Irish famine had settled. In 1847 Dickens described the ‘disorderly crop of beginnings of mean houses, rising out of the rubbish, as if they had been unskilfully sown there.’[4] Edwin Chadwick’s Report on the Sanitary Condition of the Labouring Classes, commissioned by the government to investigate sanitation in 1842 was undertaken through a system of interviews and visits carried out by Poor Law medical officers and commissioners. Its evidence revealed how many families lived in cellars, often several families at the same time, which were subject to flooding. In one example in Manchester, 40 people were discovered to be living in one cellar. Furthermore, unscrupulous owners of lodging houses, taking advantage of the need for housing, would put lodgers up in ‘poorly furnished, badly ventilated and overcrowded’ rooms.[5] Chadwick’s report revealed that mortality rates in urban areas were much higher than in rural areas, particularly amongst the poorer classes. In fact, the average age of death for labourers in districts such as Liverpool and Manchester was around 15 during the period 1839-40, indicating an extremely high infant mortality rate. Chadwick himself attributed these figures to squalid and overcrowded living conditions, although badly ventilated working areas and long working hours were also a contributory factor.[6] Chadwick’s report did raise awareness, yet many people, in particular the Conservative Party, did not support his recommendations, and the pressure group set up in 1844, the Health of Towns Association, found very little was being done in towns and cities to counteract the effects of poor sanitation. The attitude of laissez-faire was strong, and many authorities were opposed to sanitary reform for economic reasons. The evidence shown by Chadwick would seem to show an obvious correlation between overcrowding and poor health. However, the association between dirt and disease was not yet fully understood at this time. Outbreaks of cholera in the 1840s and 50s were the subject of much debate over its likely causes and very little was understood about how the disease was spread. It was noted, however, that the worst cases of cholera seemed to prevail in areas of towns where there was very poor sewerage or drainage, and Dr John Snow tried to demonstrate through scientific experiment that disease was water-borne. However, Snow met with huge opposition within the medical profession, and it was not until 1883 that his theory was proved. Thus, although people like Snow and Chadwick tried to encourage cleanliness amongst the working classes, very little effective work was done by the authorities. Chadwick did not suggest curative methods in his report. He declared: ‘engineers were needed for the task at hand not the medical profession’[7] He was more concerned with preventative measures, ensuring towns had regular supplies of clean water, and that houses had adequate drainage into proper sewers. However, this is not to say that medicine did not play a role in the developments that eventually led to improvements in town and city health. Medicine did in fact play a very important role in the improvements in housing. At the beginning of the century very little was known about the causes of disease, and doctors had very little equipment with which to carry out research. Surgery was extremely primitive and carried out in what we now know as unhygienic conditions. It was not until 1865 that Louis Pasteur proved his germ theory: that these micro-organisms could cause decay and disease. Robert Koch built on Pasteur’s work by showing that different types of germs caused specific illnesses, and that the answer to curing disease was to destroy the specific germ. It was Koch who, in 1883, identified the germ that caused cholera. From Pasteur and Koch’s work, vaccines began to be developed in the 1880s.[8] It was due to these discoveries, and the work of Dr. John Snow, that the authorities finally realised that it was necessary to make radical changes in the drainage and water systems in towns and cities. In 1866, the year after Pasteur had made proved his germ theory, the Sanitary Act was passed, forcing towns to appoint sanitary inspectors. Local government became responsible for public health, and eventually Public Health Act 1872 was formed, creating separate bodies each headed by a Medical Officer of Health. Despite these developments, it took a long time for housing to improve. Back-to-Back housing was still being erected in Leeds and Bradford up until 1937, despite some building regulations and strong calls for their demise.[9] In rural areas, especially around the mining towns of Wales, house building was still very hasty without due care for health, as is evidenced in this report on the area by Merthyr Tydfil: ‘If a new colliery is opened in an upland valley 200, 300 or 400 houses are built very rapidly, and they inhabited long before they are dry.’[10] However, some cities, such as Bury and Liverpool, forbid the building of back-to-backs in the 1860s. To sum up, the problem of overcrowding in urban and industrial Britain in the 19th century was one that was not widely recognised by the authorities in the early part of the century. Housing was created to accommodate vast numbers of industrial workers who flooded into the cities, and the speed at which they were built meant that little care was taken to provide adequate drainage and disposal of sewerage. Reformers such as Chadwick saw that there was a distinct connection between overcrowding and mortality rates, but it was not until scientific and medical advances proved that germs and bacteria carried by dirty water supplies caused diseases such as cholera that the government took any adequate action. The main sources I have used for this essay are Taylor, Best and Briggs. Taylor does not provide the highest academic level of text, but his clear chapters separated into different economic and social subjects, and his use of primary sources provides useful factual information. Best is one of the recognised authorities on Victorian Britain and he provides a detailed account of life in mid Victorian England. Briggs is also highly regarded as an expert in this field, and his detailed historical research provides a good, detailed overview of specific British cities during this period. Bibliography Best, Geoffrey, Mid-Victorian Britain 1851-75, Fontana Press, 1990 Briggs, Asa, Victorian Cities, Penguin, 1990 Taylor, David, Mastering Economic and Social History, Macmillan, 1988 Wilson, A. N., The Victorians, Arrow, 2003 1 Footnotes [1] Best, Geoffrey, Mid-Victorian Britain 1851-75, Fontana Press, p.24 [2] Briggs, Asa, Victorian Cities, Penguin, p.89 [3] ibid, p.92 [4] quoted in Briggs, A, p.346 [5] Taylor, David, Mastering Economic and Social History, Macmillan, p.303 [6] ibid, p.307-8 [7] Taylor, D., p.310 [8] ibid, pp.319-20 [9] Briggs, A., p.156 [10] quoted in Best, G., p.39

The Nature of a Crazy Family in Faulkner’s As I Lay Dying :: Faulkner’s As I Lay Dying

The Nature of a Crazy Family in Faulkner’s As I Lay Dying "My mother is a fish." (p. 79) I think that this statement typifies the entire family. There is something not-quite-right about all of them. Vardeman, as Cora Tull says on page 70, is "outen his head with grief and worry" for his mother. He has confused her with the fish because they both died on the same day. In his child's mind he cannot differentiate between the two. Throughout the novel he refers to his mother as a fish, as on page 196. In this scene, he is looking at the vultures that have gathered over the wagon. Darl and Cash are trying to get Cash's broken leg situated better for the rest of the ride. Vardeman thinks that his "mother is not in the box. My mother does not smell like that. My mother is a fish." Darl is slowly going crazy. He is referred to as being "queer, lazy, pottering about the place no better than Anse" on page 24. However, his true madness is not shown until his monologue at the end of the novel after he has been arrested for burning the barn. Cash believes he did so to try to rid them of Addie's body, but Darl never reveals his motivations. In his final section he seems to be looking in on himself. He refers to his body as Darl, and he asks himself "'What are you laughing at?'" All the answer he gets is "'Yes yes yes yes yes'" (253). Dewey Dell is obsessed with sex and her unwanted pregnancy. Every man that looks at her she looks at with "her eyes kind of blaring up and going hard like [they] had made to touch her" as she does with Tull on page 124. Even in trying to get rid of the fetus, however, she is confronted with sex. She is none the wiser to the wiles of the ‘doctor’ until afterwards when she says, â€Å"’It won’t work [ . . . ] I just know it won’t’† (252). Jewel has some less-than-healthy fascination with his horse. While he frequently beats it about the head, he still refers to it as a â€Å"’sweet son of a bitch’† (13). He was willing to work all night every night for weeks in order to buy the horse, and he disappears for a while when Anse barters it for the new team.

Comparing Melvilles Moby Dick as a Mans Story and Naslunds Novel, Ah

Comparing Melville's Moby Dick as a Man's Story and Naslund's Novel, Ahab's Wife as a Woman's Story Throughout my reading of Moby Dick and Ahab's Wife, I was disturbed by the fact that the most tempting way to situate the two novels in a relationship was to categorize them as "male" and "female." Moby Dick was, of course, the man's story and Ahab's Wife was its womanly counterpart. This comparison makes sense when you consider the gender of the authors, Melville and Naslund, the gender of their respective narrators, Ishmael and Una, and the experiences portrayed throughout the texts. Many readers argue, "There are no female characters in Moby Dick- how could it be anything but a man's story?" In that context, it is easy to position Ahab's Wife at the opposite end of the literary spectrum because the novel is told solely from a feminine perspective. Viewing the texts in this way indicates that our conceptions of gender have not changed much since the days of Adam and Eve. In that story the man, Adam, came first and provided the foundation for humankind. Eve was an afterthought, born e from a single rib. The rib that became Una can be found in Moby Dick- a single reference to Ahab's spouse back in Nantucket. Adam and Eve represent a clear division between male and female that established the gender binary we now impose on these two texts. I find this dichotomy troubling and ultimately inadequate for several reasons. First of all, I don't agree with the spectrum concept that places maleness on one side and femaleness on the other, then locates Moby Dick and Ahab's Wife at these opposite poles. However, this formula exists in almost every field of study. The scientific term for the differences between males and females of a s... ...the finishing to posterity." (663) Just as Melville left room for Naslund, she has opened the door for more stories to emerge from Moby Dick and more towers to be constructed. Sources Cited Chase, Cheryl. "Hermaphrodites With Attitude: Mapping the Emergence of Intersex Political Action." from "Questions of Gender/Engendering Questions", 130-141 Garber, Marjorie. "Spare Parts: The Surgical Construction of Gender" from "Questions of Gender/Engendering Questions", 361-368 Hemmeter, Gail. "Ambiguous Sexes" from "Questions of Gender/Engendering Questions", 96-118 Melville, Herman. Moby Dick. New York: W.W. Norton & Company Inc, 2002. Naslund, Sena Jeter. Ahab's Wife. New York: William Morrow and Company, Inc, 1999. Slaughenhoupt, Bruce L. "Diagnostic Evaluation and Management of the Child With Ambiguous Genitalia." KMA Journal 95 (1997): 135-141.

Adoption of HRM Essay

The Strategic Choice model created by Kochan, Katz and Mckersie originated from economics and organisational behaviour is closely associated with human resource management, while the Labour Process approach evolved from Marx’s theoretical works has traits that is closely associated with personnel / industrial relations. From two diverse perspectives, the two models both have indications that they support an adoption for human resource management, provided that personnel / industrial relations is seen as apart of and giving rise to human resource management. Kochan, Katz and McKersie developed their theory of the Strategic Choice model from previous works of Dunlop’s System Theory. The two models had strong emphasis on employment relations being strongly influenced by environmental forces which include: economic forces; technology advancement; political forces; legal and social forces; management’s values, beliefs and philosophies; the outcomes of previous organisational decisions; the distribution of power and structure within the organisation i.e. central or decentralised hierarchy; and the unions’ and government agencies’ values and strategies in creating policies and legislations. Level Employers Unions Governments Long-Term Business Strategies Political Strategies Macroeconomic Strategy and Investment Strategies Representation strategies and social policies Policy Making Organising strategies Collective Personnel policies Collective Bargaining Labour law and Bargaining Negotiation Strategies Strategies administration and Personnel policy Workplace and Worker Participation Contract administration Labour standards Individual/ Job design and Work Worker Participation Worker participation organization Organization Job design and worker Individual rights relationships. participation. (Kochan, Katz and McKersie, 1986, p 17.) The majority of environmental forces influencing employment relations can be explained by three groups: employers, unions and the government which in essence is the three actors from Dunlop’s System Model. In relation to KKM’s Strategic Choice, the three tier model explains why and how the three actors interact and hence explaining the environmental forces. There are three levels of decision making: macro, industrial relations system and the workplace. In the perspective of employers, the top level is where the creation of business strategies and goals for it to be competitive are developed to maximise the value of the organisation. This is usually achieved by satisfying the demands of the environmental forces or eliminating any problems reducing their chances of achieving their goals. The middle level is a representation of the industrial relations where policies and negotiations between all three actors occur. As for the bottom, the policies created in the middle level are implemented upon employees and other parties included in the policies. Thus through this model, it demonstrates that decisions made at the top level will inevitably affect those at the bottom level i.e. policies made at the top level will have some sort of representation in lower level policies. The notion of strategic choice is based on the assumption that the three actors have alternatives and options in the decisions chosen that will inevitably impact on the employment relations and the direction that these will take. Not only does the organisation can make decisions that would affect itself, but also the choices and decisions made on the part of labour, management, and government affect the course and structure of industrial relations systems. Legislations made by the government can restrict or either enhances an organisation’s ability to be competitive, and an example of this is tariffs imposed in countries to protect the internal markets from overseas markets. The Labour Process approach was first theorised by Karl Marx. The theory was not a static, universal theory but a historical theory that was revised in the light of historical change. Such scholars as: Harry Braverman, Stephen Marglin, Stanley Aronowitz, Andre Gorz and Katherine Stone have all created their own theories encompassing Marx’s theory during their times, and hence the many different interpretations of the Labour Process (Gartman 1978, p. 1). In general the core notion of Labour Process is concerned in converting potential into actual labour. An example of this is how to organise and structure employees such that the organisation can make full use of their skills. Though this sounds simple in theory, there is an organisational dilemma in how to reconcile the potential inconsistency between individual needs and interests of different organisational stakeholders on the one hand, and the collective purpose of the organisation on the other. Increase control by the employer over the employees seems to be one solution to the inconsistency of interests and needs. The workplace thus becomes a competition between employees individually and collectively seeking to protect and expand their own interests and needs, but also at the same time trying to resist management’s attempts to control. These activities are closely aligned with actions of industrial relations: conflict of interests that would result in tension and conflict between parties. This approach of increase control was supported by Taylorist approach. Braverman added his thoughts that another form of reconciling the differences was to: de-skill the employees to minimise time lost on context switching; simplify the structure of labour divisions; lower labour cost since the occupation becomes less sophisticated hence maximising output. (Gartman 1978, p. 5) In essence the labour process sees conflict as a fundamental and central dynamic in organisational life that can be used to explain the actual i.e. observed instances of workplace conflict, control, and profit distribution. This can be seen by large organisations performing â€Å"restructuring† of itself in terms of labour management to reduce cost of production (banking sector and motoring industry). Prevention of conflict is not considered in a labour process approach, hence ruling out the requirement of employers to nurture the moral and ethics of employees. Guidelines and procedures are strictly followed, which these features are clear characteristics of industrial relations approach. â€Å"In recent years the distinctions between industrial relations and human resource management have blurred, as the resolution of industrial conflicts has been decentralised and as national policy increased its interests in issues like training and labour productivity, once left to workplace management.† (Gardner & Palmer 1997, p. 7) Human resource management is a managerial perspective, with an aim to establish an integrated series of personnel policies consistent with organisation strategy, thus ensuring the quality of working life, high commitment and performance from employees, and organisational effectiveness and competitive advantage: the management of organisational goals and labour. Thus meaning that industrial relations is another component of human resource management, which allows the comparison and contrasting of Kochan, Katz and McKersie’s Strategic Choice approach, Marxist Labour Process approach to be made possible. One major common approach that there is between the two models is that there is some form of upward movement in opinions and interests by the employees. In the case of strategic choice approach collective bargaining is utilised whereas unions is made use of for the labour process approach to express employees’ interests and needs. As for industrial relations, negotiation is its prized management skill between employer and employee. Both human resource management and the strategic choice approach create their policies based on the interests of the organisation and employees with a slightly more emphasis upon the organisation goals. From the three tier model, policies are made at the top level in the interests of the organisation just as human resource management places the organisation’s ‘customer’ first (Fells 1989, p. 486). Labour process approach is primarily focused upon conflicts and has a less of an emphasis upon organisational strategies. As previously stated the labour process is closely associated with industrial relations, which can also be seen in the middle level in the three tier model in terms of strategic choice approach. For human resource management, industrial relations is melded into its strategies in the form of pre-emptive actions upon conflicts i.e. the managerial task is seen as a nurturing employees’ moral and ethics. Labour process approach can also be viewed as hard human resource management as the employees are seen as any other resources of production by controlling and managing them, while cultivation of employees’ moral and needs is neglected. Soft human resource management is represented by the strategic choice approach as employees are seen as ‘human’ resources that are valuable to the organisation to make full use of. Policies made in the middle level of the three tier model are in consideration of both in the best interests of employees and the organisation itself. Human resource management in recent times has become more strategic; it increasingly scraps developmental aspects and places more focus upon financial aspects. De-skilling of employees has been more emphasised upon more than the structure and organisation of labour, which is quite on the contrary upon the goals of labour process approach where de-skilling of an occupational positions. De-skilling has the effect of either removing or lowering the skill level required from those performing the job and in some cases it will also reduce the price of labour. In conclusion, Kochan, Katz and McKersie’s Strategic Choice approach and the Labour Process approach provide explanations for the adoption of Human Resource Management, since it is more contingent management strategy than Personnel / Industrial relations. Evidence of this is clearly seen in today’s evolving workplace where large organisations include human resource management in its decision making and is no longer neglected as a lower priority department. In addition, both models: strategic choice approach and labour process, have had many radical perspectives added to the theory in the past until recently very little change has been made meaning the end to the two models and the rise of human resource management. As human resource develops, initiatives come and go whereas the focus of financial mechanisms increase and become more sophisticated. References: Bratton J. and Gould J. 1988, Human Resource Management – Theory and Practice Braverman, H. 1974, Labor and monopoly capital: the degradation of work in the twentieth century Clark, I ‘The Budgetary and Financial Basis of HRM in the Large Corporation’, Internet Source: http://panoptic.csustan.edu/cpa99/html/clark.html Fells, R. 1989, The employment relationship, control and strategic choice in the study of industrial relations Gardner, M. & Palmer, G. 1997, Employment Relations: Industrial Relations and Human Resource Management in Australia Gartman. D. 1978, Marx and the Labour Process: An Interpretation Huczynski, A. & Buchanan, D. Organizational Behaviour: An Introductory Text Kitay, J. 1997 The Labour Process: Still Stuck? Still a Perspective? Still Useful? Kochan, T., Katz H. & McKersie J. 1986, The Transformation of American Industrial Relations

The Development of Jig in “Hills Like White Elephants”

In Hemingway’s â€Å"Hills Like White Elephants,† Jig undergoes a transformation enabling her to realize and declare her own feelings. At the story’s beginning Jig is passive, unaware of her own feelings, and in the habit of looking to the American direction. She soon comes to realize her own desires and struggles to assert herself for the first time. The story is structured around the two sides of the valley, the division symbolizing the opposition between the American’s values and Jig’s. The two sides of the valley of the Ebro represent two ways of life, one a sterile perpetuation of the aimless hedonism the couple have been pursuing, the other a participation in life in its full natural sense† (Renner, 32). On one side are the values associated with abortion, and on the other are the values associated with having the child. â€Å"In this setting, then, Hemingway works out the story’s conflict, which revolves around the development o f his female character† (28).The dialogue between Jig and the American about hills and drinks â€Å"is in actuality an articulated but decisive struggle over whether they continue to live the sterile, self-indulgent, decadent life preferred by [the American] or elect to have the child that Jig is carrying and settle down to a conventional but, in Jig’s view, rewarding, fruitful, and peaceful life† (Holladay, 1).The American argues adamantly for the abortion while Jig, being accustomed to doing what he wants, â€Å"has not yet developed the mechanism to know what she wants, much less to articulate it. Thus she cannot forthrightly contest her companion’s urging, but neither, because of what is at stake in this case, can she stifle her own feelings† (Renner, 29). Up until this point the American has been the leader of the couple’s relationship, managing their life together in a manner consistent with his own desires.At the beginning of the story , the couple is sitting at a table on one side of the station, â€Å"facing out toward the hills on the same side of the valley,† the side â€Å"associated with the barrenness and sterility both of the implications of going through with an abortion and of the current state of the couple’s relationship† (Renner, 30). Jig looks at the hills on this side of the station, noting that they look like white elephants.A white elephant, in a North American cultural context, â€Å"is not only a rare and sacred creature, but also a metaphor for an expensive and burdensome property†¦the burden at issue in this story is the unborn child† (Link, 67). The American responds that he has never seen a white elephant. â€Å"No, you wouldn’t have,† Jig replies. â€Å"To Jig, the unborn child she carries is eminently, painfully real; to the American it is a concept, an abstraction, and too expensive to keep† (Wyche, 59). Jig goes on to say, â€Å"That ’s all we do, isn’t it – look at things and try new drinks? This statement articulates â€Å"an increasing awareness of the emptiness of the couple’s lifestyle to date† (60). Jig stands up and walks to the other end of the station, â€Å"effectively [distancing] herself from the influence of her male companion and [enabling] herself, evidently for the first time, to realize what is in her own mind† (Renner, 32). She is now able to see the other side of the valley, â€Å"the fields of grain and trees along the banks of the Ebro,† and the river, which are representative of the values associated with having the child.Jig rejoins the American at the table, once again facing the â€Å"the hills on the dry side of the valley. † She tries to convince the American that her pregnancy could be meaningful for them, and that they could get along even with a child. The American â€Å"resumes his double talk, assuring her that he will go al ong with what she wants while stubbornly pressuring her to do what he wants† (Renner, 33). Pushed to her breaking point, Jig finally â€Å"explodes with real feeling. Even though she still does not state in direct terms her feeling that there can be more to life than their aimless hedonism, she†¦. vidently for the first time†¦[asserts] herself openly against the American† (33). â€Å"Would you please please please please please please please stop talking? † Jig no longer wants to hear what the American has to say, demonstrating her â€Å"increasing awareness†¦of the man’s self-centered and insecure motivation for pursuing the abortion† (Rankin, 235). She is resisting both â€Å"what he wants for their relationship and the hypocrisy of his efforts to persuade her† (Renner, 33), as she realizes it is the â€Å"unencumbered sexual playhouse† that the American is selfishly trying to reserve. The American takes carries their bags to the other side of the station, and upon his return asks Jig if she feels better. â€Å"I feel fine,† she responds. â€Å"There’s nothing wrong with me. I feel fine. † â€Å"The absolute straightforwardness of the last line, a line that incidentally coincides with Jig’s own dramatic epiphany† (Rankin, 234) may well â€Å"imply her realization that there is something wrong with her companion† (Renner, 40).By the conclusion of the story, â€Å"the relationship between Jig and the American has been effectively destroyed† (Wyche, 70). However, â€Å"we see the result of her development toward self-realization: the reluctant and still somewhat resentful capitulation of her male companion† (Renner, 28). Once the â€Å"stereotypical passive female, not even knowing her own mind,† Jig finds herself no longer able to â€Å"drift along in mindless accompaniment† (37) and breaks free from her conditioned deference to assert her own feelings to the American.

Filipino Voting Pattern

THE CAMPAIGN First World techniques, Third World setting The Philippines uses state-of-the-art campaign techniques, but its elections are taking place in a political culture that is pre-modern and oriented toward the family. BY LUZ RIMBAN SATURDAY, JANUARY 3RD, 2004 | Filipino politicians use the latest campaign techniques, but still look upon voters as mendicants. | | | ADVERTISING  guru Reli German tells the story of the time he was tapped to produce commercials and jingles for then candidate Ferdinand Marcos’s 1965 presidential bid.The campaign was more of a family venture with no less than Marcos’s wife Imelda herself directing the troops. She would drop by German’s office to look over campaign materials and listen to the jingles being prepared for her husband’s campaign. â€Å"It was more of Imelda that we were dealing with directly for the campaign in 1965,† German recalls. One night Imelda summoned German and his production team to the Marc os home in San Juan, where they were led to her bedroom, which had a closet full of shoeboxes.The group, a team of professional advertising people, did not know exactly what they were doing in Imelda’s boudoir, but the mystery was soon revealed. German remembers that â€Å"she took three shoeboxes and the boxes were offered to us, and they were full of money! † With that, the campaign production team was paid, and paid handsomely. German’s story does not only provide insights on the other uses Imelda made of her shoes (or, more precisely, the boxes they had come in).It also tells us that advertising professionals had been involved in Philippine election campaigns as far back as 1965, when radio was reaching its peak and television, just beginning to make a dent in Filipinos’ consciousness. Then and now, however, professionals like German are relegated to the background, hidden members of the campaign team who are traditionally composed of the candidateâ⠂¬â„¢s trusted family members. Campaign professionals, though, have actually been around longer than that.Soon after the United States introduced elections in the Philippines, the country’s former colonizer also exported to the islands U. S. -style campaigning. This included the use of the mass media to create and manipulate public images, the hiring of public relations and advertising professionals, and later, the employment of sophisticated tools like campaign research and polling. Candidates like Manuel Quezon, Ramon Magsaysay, and Ferdinand Marcos were sold to voters partly through images crafted by experts and peddled to the public through newspapers, radio, and later, television.At least in terms of elections, the Philippines is not the laggard of Asia, but perhaps the first country in the region that has mastered the use of first-world election techniques. | The first national-level Philippine elections were held in 1907. Photo shows voters reading campaign posters iss ued for that election. | | | But it isn’t easy applying first-world election know-how to a third-world political setting. Despite what appear to be advanced campaign methods, the Philippines is still basically a feudal society where the family lords over political life.And with the weakening of political parties — alongside the weakening of other institutions in society — the family has remained the country’s basic political organization. This feudal, family-oriented base is one of the factors that stunts the growth of political-campaign professionals. Four decades after Imelda Marcos successfully steered her husband to power, Philippine campaigns are still far from being well-oiled political projects run by professionals. In the Philippine setting, a political campaign machine — especially one designed for a presidential candidate — can be a complex structure with various compartmentalized sub-groupings.The professionals would be embedded s omewhere within, a silent and unknown minority who bow to tacticians and campaign operators. These tacticians and operators, in turn, are usually members and friends of a political clan. It isn’t altogether surprising that a campaign can still look like a mom-and-pop affair with the candidate’s wife as campaign manager, the husband a fundraiser, and all sorts of hangers-on filling the backroom. There is a difference in this year’s election, however. It is the first presidential election in decades in which political advertisements will be allowed.It is the first time that the power of media in general — and television in particular — may determine who wins. At no other time in the nation’s history will candidates be sold like soap and toothpaste because 40 million voters will be relying on little more than visibility and image to make their choices. More than ever before, candidates and their campaign machineries will now need to use the med ia specialists, campaign managers, and assorted professionals to make themselves known to the public, and through whatever means available.By passing the law lifting the ban on political advertisements, â€Å"Congress was in fact saying there’s another way of winning,† says political consultant Malou Tiquia. And part of the message to candidates may be that there could be more room for the pros. For some candidates, this may be a welcome development, since it may mean more effective campaigns, i. e. more votes. But it may not necessarily be good news for the public. As U. S. political scientist Dan Nimmo points out in his book,  The Political Persuaders, hiring professionals may just mean more sophisticated manipulation. Without question,† says Nimmo, â€Å"the new technology introduces not only the possibility but indeed the likelihood of systematic deception in electoral politics. † More and more, candidates will be seen in images and settings that do not really reflect who they really are and what they are going to do once elected to office. With more professional sleight of hand at work, the public may have a harder time distinguishing fact from fiction, especially when they remain unaware that experts now have more say in the show. IN THE  so-called mature democracies of the West, there are experts for every task in a campaign.In the United States, the election industry is huge, manned by a wide range of specialists including campaign managers, political consultants, public relations people, speechwriters, audio-visual experts, and fundraisers. They operate by a set of rules and design campaign strategies based on scientifically obtained data provided by another component of that growing industry: the profession of campaign research that includes not only pollsters but also psychologists and behavioral experts. | President Quezon addresses a crowd. | | | That is not the case in the Philippines. For starters, there are very f ew such professionals in the country.For example, there are only two or three reputable independent polling agencies in the Philippines. Image specialists, political consultants, and campaign managers are also hard to find. Two years ago, an organization called the Association of Political Consultants of Asia was formed, bringing together political technicians aiming to transform political consultancy and campaigning from craft to science. Still, quips one political consultant: â€Å"It’s easier to find a cardiologist who can do open heart surgery than to find a good spin master. † That is partly why families and friends remain the captains of Philippine political campaigns.Fernando Poe Jr. ’s campaign machinery, for instance, is packed with his siblings and supporters in the entertainment world. Brother Conrad Poe handles logistics, sister Elizabeth Poe is the official scheduler, while erstwhile comedian and Senator Tito Sotto is the campaign manager. Even acto rs Rez Cortes and Richard Gomez have been assigned parts to play in the campaign, as has Poe’s swarm of stuntmen-friends who dabble as spokespersons, rallyists, and even act as Poe’s security cordon. On that point, President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo isn’t far behind. Her brother Diosdado ‘Buboy’ Macapagal Jr. s her campaign manager and fundraiser. First Gentleman Mike Arroyo is in the thick of her campaign, too, even if just last year, he had gotten embroiled in a scandal that portrayed him as using an alias to stash away millions of pesos of surplus campaign funds from his wife’s 1998 vice-presidential bid. Of course, a family-run campaign does not necessarily translate into an inefficient and ineffective venture. The most politically experienced clans have even elevated political campaigning to an art, and have over time mastered how to best maximize manpower, resources, and connections.Elite families are especially skilled at this, putting the charismatic and media-savvy members at the frontlines, assigning the crafty and the cunning to the management side, and mobilizing the clan and its network for other tasks in the campaign, including recruiting campaigners, poll watchers, goons, bodyguards — even hitmen, if need be. But with this election promising more pros, campaigns are bound to be slicker than ever. There is, for instance, the advertising agency Campaigns and Grey and its stable of image specialists working for presidential candidate Raul Roco.There will also be groups like Tiquia’s Publicus Ltd. , a political consultancy firm that provides campaign services to senatorial and local candidates. There is even the television production team TAPE Productions — which puts out programs like the noontime variety show â€Å"Eat Bulaga! † — acting as image makers for Fernando Poe Jr. Most of these professionals, though, remain in the background. â€Å"It’s an underground indu stry-most of these people don’t carry calling cards, don’t introduce themselves, don’t appear at press conferences, don’t advertise their services,† says a political consultant. They get hired by referral and by word of mouth. The really good ones are overloaded with clients and forced to turn down others. † For this article, they refused to be identified. â€Å"You let the spotlight fall only on your principal,† this political consultant adds. Another one says, â€Å"The pros are often relegated to the backroom, or they don’t have the stature to face the public. † â€Å"Undocumented experts,† is how yet another political consultant describes himself and his peers. The secrecy is understandable.Most of them have day jobs, either as reporters, columnists, businessmen, advertising executives, legislative staff, or civil servants. Elections and political campaigns don’t come that often and cannot be a stable sou rce of livelihood, which is why most political professionals consider themselves â€Å"political sacadas† or sharecroppers whose work is seasonal. Besides, in the professions where they officially belong, moonlighting for politicians is an ethical taboo. Journalists working as public relations practitioners or political consultants would be violating the rules on independence, impartiality, and conflict of interest.Some advertising agencies even insist that they have no history or record of involvement in political campaigns. Yet as far back as 1965, the presidential campaign was already a battle of the ad agency executives. | Ferdinand and Imelda Marcos display their affection for each other during their heyday. | | | For that particular campaign, adman Billy Esposo writes in a recent column, Marcos hired Proctor and Gamble’s creative team, which was composed of, among others, Miniong Ordonez, now of Jimenez Basic Advertising. Reli German was part of that team.On the other side of the fence, says Esposo, Diosdado Macapagal’s â€Å"image team was headed by the late Fenny Hechanova, himself a former adman from a pioneering agency called Philprom. † When Marcos ran for reelection four years later, Esposo continues, he got Greg Garcia, who eventually headed the prominent ad agency Hemisphere-Leo Burnett. Greg Garcia, now retired but still part owner of Leo Burnett, is the chief image handler of Senator Panfilo Lacson. The reticence of many professionals in admitting their political work stems from the stigma it apparently carries. Political campaigning is often viewed as an illicit undertaking.Players are perceived to ink deals and engage in dirty tricks and special operations that can go from wooing special interest groups and thinking up a candidate’s position on issues, to peddling propaganda, buying the media, and negotiating for votes with local party leaders. But much of the bad name suffered by political professionals has also been blamed on Marcos. After he declared martial law in 1972 and abolished elections, the political pros’ skills and talents were put to use only to promote his Kilusang Bagong Lipunan (the only active political party at that time) or push his New Society.It was a situation that didn’t allow skilled political organizers to thrive and develop a profession called campaign management or political consultancy. Although the Development Academy of the Philippines and the Department of Interior and Local Government became training grounds where political managers could hone their skills managing political organizations, all their work was still for Marcos’s benefit. The only other option was to escape the system and cross over to activist organizations or the underground Left, such as the National Democratic Front (NDF) or the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP).Today’s top party and campaign people, in fact, trace their roots to these diverse beginni ngs: Lakas’s Gabriel Claudio and Ronaldo Puno were products of the DILG, while Horacio ‘Boy’ Morales and Rigoberto Tiglao, came from the leftist movement. PERHAPS  the unsuspecting public should be thankful that the country still has a relatively tiny community of campaign management experts, resulting in often-chaotic campaigns that either reveal more than the candidate wants the public to know, or reveal so little that the voters are left annoyed.In truth, present Philippine campaigns are quite like those in the United States were more than 100 years ago. In The Political Persuaders, which was published in 1970, Nimmo writes, â€Å"A century ago, candidates relied on their wits, their friends, and a few trusted allies to mount a campaign for office. Few men specialized in selling political advice. The campaign specialists of that day were primarily party politicians. † | Joseph Estrada is mobbed by adoring crowds during his 1998 campaign. | | |Accordin g to Nimmo, the campaign management industry is a â€Å"direct descendant of the public-relations profession† that became popular in the 1920s. That was when U. S. capitalists were under attack by consumers who were reading in newspapers about unsavory business practices. Countering such criticism required a specialist who could proclaim the good side of U. S. industry. Thus was born the PR agent. â€Å"In the process,† Nimmo continues, these PR people â€Å"made increasingly adroit use of the means of mass communication; the result was the burgeoning field of mass advertising. It would not be long before public relations and mass advertising would cross over to the world of politics, especially with the rise of television, and give birth to a profession that proclaims the good side of political candidates. Nimmo recounts that election campaigns soon became a battle for public exposure. That battle, however, hasn’t been easily fought and won. Many other things compete for the voters’ attention, and candidates need people who are masters not only at constructing the candidate’s message and image, but also at sending these in the most effective way that will make full use of manpower, time, and limited resources.In short, campaigns need strategies. The U. S. -trained Tiquia, formerly a legislative staff member in the Philippine and U. S. Congresses, defines the ingredients that make for a good campaign strategy. These are listed in a book entitled Campaign Politics: defining the voting population being targeted, creating the message to be communicated, managing resources, timing, and tactics. Tactics include direct voter contact such as campaign events, rallies, and even door-to-door campaigning, and indirect tactics like media advertisements, billboards, and campaign paraphernalia.Having a professional campaign team to implement the strategy is another necessity. The team is supposed to put order into the traditionally topsy- turvy exercises called campaigns. In this country, however, third-world realities can get in the way. For instance, Tiquia says, there are times when a candidate hires a professional campaign team that may find itself clashing with family members, or with yet another professional team working for the same politician. Problems like these only slow down the campaign.Campaign Politics also advises politicians to plot their moves way in advance, get their hands on the best people before the competition beats them to it, and plan carefully how resources are to be spent. But there’s that manana habit of the Filipino-his penchant for not planning ahead and waiting till the last minute-which can wreak havoc on the campaign in many ways. As examples, Tiquia cites candidates who are buying TV spots only now, and are finding out that there are none available because an enterprising agency had purchased all that was left months ago.It is now selling these â€Å"on the secondary marketâ €  at much higher rates. There were, however, a few who bought spots early, and at rates that were far, far cheaper. Among the more visible swift-footed ones are presidential candidate Raul Roco and Panfilo Lacson, whose ads had been airing regularly since the campaign started, and senatorial candidate Mar Roxas. As if operating in such a third-world conditions weren’t enough, political professionals in the Philippines also have to deal with obsessive-compulsive candidates who try to control the campaign every step of the way.Among the cardinal rules for campaigns, says one of the political consultants interviewed for this piece, is that â€Å"a candidate cannot think and campaign at the same time; a candidate shouldn’t handle his or her own campaign. † But most candidates refuse to leave things to the experts. Despite the enormity of her duties as president and candidate, Gloria Arroyo still decides where her campaigns sorties will go, political consultants say. Even members of her campaign still cannot fathom why she chose to launch her presidential bid in the hills of Cavinti, Laguna.Observers could only guess that  feng shui  might have had something to do with it; taking the team to high ground probably bodes good luck, they said. But after Cavinti, the president went north, leaving observers still trying to discern a pattern in her campaigning — if there was really any at all. One consultant, though, says, â€Å"Look at the route she has taken, and you’ll see that it’s like she’s drawing the number eight on the map-she goes up, she goes down, forward, then backward. † Poe is said to be no different, at least as far as his political rallies are concerned. Remember that he’s a movie director, so he wants to have a say in how his rallies are produced,† says a political professional. But the king of Philippine movies is also a political neophyte, which has unfortunately resulted in P oe being kept in an artificial world where everything is stage-managed. Hence, every interview, every appearance has to be scripted. And having written lines for scripts, Poe tends to have a say in how his campaign is managed. â€Å"The best candidate surrenders himself to his handlers,† says another political consultant. And if there was one who embodied this, it was Joseph ‘Erap’ Estrada in 1998. Erap was a good follower in the sense that when you said the schedule was like this, even if it was so hot or he was already dead tired, he would still follow the schedule to the letter,† says Lito Banayo, who was on Estrada’s 1998 campaign team, and is now on Lacson’s. â€Å"That’s why he was a joy to handle. Perhaps because he was an actor, he was used to having a call time, he had to be on the set at this certain time. He (carried that) discipline in the campaign. † But another plus factor in the Estrada campaign was its near-perfec t machinery, which was due to a generous influx of funds.Ample funds and resources make a large part of a successful campaign. Reli German even says, â€Å"The three most important things (in a campaign) are money, money, and money. † The Estrada campaign in 1998 had that in huge quantities. Recalls Banayo: â€Å"There were really a lot of people who helped in that campaign by way of cash as well as material donations. † A feature of Estrada’s campaign sorties, for instance, were the motorcades and caravans where Estrada would appear beside his showbiz friends Poe and Nora Aunor, and they would then toss candies to the crowd.Banayo says they never ran out of candies because the supplies just kept coming. Banayo explains the â€Å"symbiotic relationship† of campaign elements: â€Å"Once the perception or image of a candidate improves, the survey results become stacked in his or her favor, the numbers go up, the resources will pour in accordingly. † Making the candidate more visible, his image more winnable, translates into more campaign contributors. Traditionally, political consultants say, donors such as Filipino-Chinese businesspeople who put in large sums of money into election campaign, initially give equal amounts to all candidates.The money reportedly starts getting bigger only by April, when donors have a clearer idea who among the candidates is pulling away from the pack, and likely to lead the race. But Tiquia laments how fundraising, like the other aspects, remains a hidden but very important facet of Philippine campaigns. Candidates do not, in the course of the campaign, reveal who their funders are, and methods for raising funds are not always above board. In the United States, Tiquia notes, fundraising is a profession.Professional fundraisers’ methods include organizing events or dinners, or sending out mail asking supporters to contribute to the campaign kitty. There are limits to the amounts supporters c an donate. In this country, it is the field of contributors that is limited. The money comes mostly from Filipino-Chinese businesspeople; the bigger players are the likes of Lucio Tan and Eduardo Cojuangco, whose hearts, minds, and pocket the candidates have to compete for. In exchange, candidates promise them the moon, the stars, and even a piece of the economy.And now to lure them — and the voters — candidates are tapping political professionals. The irony is that takes a lot of money as well. Nimmo notes, â€Å"The professionals are for hire, but at very high prices. Fewer and fewer politicians can afford the costs of candidacy†¦. In an age when less affluent members of society are already disillusioned with a political arrangement which they perceive are shutting them out, it will hardly produce harmony to request that they play by the rules of an electoral game they cannot afford to enter. Source: http://pcij. org/stories/first-world-techniques-third-world-s etting/ ‘Voters Harder To Fool With Empty Promises' by Kathleen A. Martin, ABS-CBNnews. com Posted at 01/17/2013 11:22 AM | Updated as of 01/17/2013 11:22 AM MANILA, Philippines – Aspiring politicians will need more than a catchy jingle and an empty promise to capture the hearts of Filipino masses, advertisers said. Yoly Ong, group chairperson at Campaigns and Grey, said that based on various focus group discussions, Filipinos are more selective when voting for candidates. They (the masses) actually say, ‘peke yan e,' because the promises are different from what the politicians actually do,† Ong told ANC's Inside Business. â€Å"In fact, I've come to the conclusion that it's harder to fool the masses today,† Ong continued. Ong is behind President Benigno Aquino III's successful campaign in 2010, and the brains behind the catchy â€Å"Pag walang corrupt, walang mahirap† slogan. â€Å"They (Filipino voters) have very different behaviors toward c andidates. For presidential candidates, they don't want the jingles. What they want to know is what the guy is going to do to improve their quality of life,† Ong said. But for the senatorial candidates, I guess it's more of remembering who to vote for because there's 12 people you need to choose,† Ong noted. Ong believes that for the national elections, the â€Å"air war† or the television and radio will be the primary venues for warring candidates. But local candidates such as congressmen and mayors will still need to battle it out â€Å"retail-elections† style, or going from house to house. Consultant Greg Garcia concurs with Ong, but stressed the role of television in political campaigns has â€Å"dramatically† changed over the years. If you're not on TV, don't even think about running for national office because the penetration of TV is just fantastic,† Garcia said. â€Å"I always advise clients that 80% of their money should go into media , and 80% of that 80% should go to television. Television is the only way to communicate to as many people as you can in the shortest amount of time,† he added. Garcia is the man behind Vice President Jejomar Binay's successful 2010 bid. Garcia said Binay's narrative of â€Å"Ganito kami sa Makati, sana ganito din sa buong bayan† was the secret behind the vice president's win. The campaign for the vice president was really right on†¦ and I think every candidate must have a narrative to win,† Garcia said. â€Å"It's not just about name recall, what's important is recalling the candidate's narrative,† he stressed. Source: http://www. abs-cbnnews. com/-depth/01/17/13/voters-harder-fool-empty-promises Philippine Elections Will Stop Being A Sham When Voters Wisen Up By: Ilda, November 9, 2012 Poor Filipinos. We can only stand back and watch in awe at how the Americans conduct their successful Presidential election.Less than a day after the US Presidential e lection, the winner could be declared without a hitch and without much contention from the losing candidate. Months of campaigning from both candidates come to an abrupt halt as soon as the winner is announced. It is back to work for everyone in the White House. The ease with which the US election sailed by so smoothly is not even because they have a computerized voting system. For many decades, US elections have always come and gone with hardly any drama. It’s just another walk in the park for people who follow a system that works.In relative terms, there’s hardly any cheating that would cause the sorts of delays that could put entire institutions in doubt. In contrast, even the Philippines’ very first computerized election in 2010 was fraught with allegations of fraudulent activities as reported by some of the members of the local and international community who participated and observed the election. As mentioned in my previous article immediately after the 2 010 election, foreign observers concluded that there was massive cheating involved in the first ever-automated Presidential election.Apart from the problems encountered with the machines, there were other elements whose presence was questionable considering they should not have been in the polling stations in the first place. Observers witnessed a chaotic scene with strong military presence and lots of instances of intimidation in and around the polling stations. One international observer who was assigned at the Pampanga and Tarlac region even specifically mentioned that intimidation was rampant in Hacienda Luisita, the hometown of President Benigno Simeon â€Å"BS† Aquino.These were observations made by outsiders who are completely unbiased. It is incomprehensible why our public officials allow these things to happen. This is why until now there are still some people who question the legitimacy of President BS Aquino’s win. The following is a summary of their observa tion all throughout the country: Serious and systematic irregularities: – Vote buying – People lining up outside the candidate’s house waiting to receive cash or goods – There was no privacy in the polling stations – People could see what the voter is writing The ballot sheet could not be folded to cover the information – There were voters who were not stamped with indelible ink – There were voters who were stamped with ink before voting – There were people taking pictures and videos of voters for intimidation purposes – Police and military presence was strong. Despite reports of massive election fraud, majority of Filipinos don’t seem inclined to do or don’t even want to know anything about them. The Commissions on Elections (Comelec) and President BS Aquino’s media cohorts were quick to declare the election a success.They wanted everyone to think that the first automated voting system delivered as expected and that Aquino’s win was a decisive one. Unfortunately, we will never know the truth. Filipinos will always be in the dark as to what truly happened because they chose to ignore boring details. Filipinos have this tendency to just listen to what the Philippine media is telling them. The Filipino people’s preference for turning a blind eye to impropriety is what’s preventing our country from moving forward. It is turning the Philippines into a nation of cheaters.The irony is that we cry foul after a bad deed is done but we ignore the deed as it transpires. It seems we don’t want the inconvenience of having to deal with the fallout of reporting a crime in progress. We don’t even have protection for whistleblowers. Instead of commending people for their bravery in coming forward, Filipinos turn against the whistleblowers, making them look like they are making mountains out of molehills. People who are seen supporting the whistleblowers are c onsidered â€Å"sore losers†. This discourages people from doing the right thing.Vigilance against crime is what will actually foster an environment of trust in our society. If we know that illegal activities are not tolerated, we can be assured that people will be honest with their day-to-day activities. Sadly, we shun people who go out on a limb to expose corruption or any form of malpractice, but what we need to do is to help promote a society in which it is possible to speak out without reprisal about corruption, dangers to the public and environment, and other vital social issues. Until we change the way we think and do things collectively as a people, we will never have a smooth election like the Americans.Here are some of the lessons I learned during the 2010 election that could help us in the 2013 Senatorial election and even the 2016 Presidential election: 1. Campaign platforms No one comes up with a credible platform during elections because voters don’t care about platforms. They cared about Noynoy’s love life and what he does in his spare time. Voters were also smitten with the â€Å"Aquino Legacy† and are convinced that Noynoy will continue whatever it is they think that Ninoy or Cory could have achieved but for whatever reason did not. The voters don’t even have a clue what a platform is.You have to wonder now how they plan to evaluate how Noynoy sticks to his campaign promises during his term of office. Lesson learned: Most Filipino voters are star-struck ignoramuses. If you want to run for the presidency in 2016, get an image makeover or try to appear â€Å"good† and â€Å"humble†. 2. Surveys and Polling firms Some Filipinos were dumb enough to think that if a candidate is popular, it means that he should be voted in as president. The fact of the matter is, candidates with a lot funds can hire polling firms and publish reports when it is favorable to them.It was also reported that polling firms c onducting the surveys in 2010 were closely linked to the presidential candidate leading the polls. Likewise, despite the number of candidates allowed to run, people were actually just choosing between two candidates. Lesson learned: Next election, call for more transparency around poll survey questionnaires; clamor for more polling firms to conduct surveys and be vigilant and critical of Media’s interpretation of the poll results. 3. Media Bias Noynoy Aquino was given more exposure by prominent media outlets like thePhilippine Daily Inquirer  during the campaign period.It didn’t matter how trivial the news was; Noynoy Aquino was always on the front page. Broadcast networks such as ABS-CBN also helped expose Noynoy to the masa through shows that flagged the â€Å"Aquino Legacy†. Lesson learned: Media outlets owned and operated by members of the Philippine oligarchy will give more exposure to whoever presidential candidate offers concessions they can benefit fro m. 4. Religious endorsements A week before Election Day, the leader of Iglesia ni Cristo announced that they will be endorsing presidential candidate Noynoy Aquino.It has been said that this religious group actually waits for the last minute before announcing their endorsement because they want to ensure that whoever they endorse actually wins — presumably with the aim of making a few deals with the president once in office. It was also said that Noynoy’s party was secretly courting that leader’s guarantee that the INC votes will be in their favor. Lesson learned: The endorsement of religious leaders depends on which candidate is popular; religious leaders can make or break a presidential aspirant; Filipinos will vote for whoever their religious leaders instruct them to vote for. . Election Day thugs and vote buying It seems that all of the above exercise with the possible exception of item number four will have no bearing on Election Day to the majority of vote rs because of the presence of thugs in the polling stations. As previously mentioned, police and military personnel who have no business being in polling stations and who are under the payroll of candidates, hang around to intimidate voters. If the Police and the military themselves are involved in this illegal behavior, to whom can the voters report the irregularity to?The illegal activity called vote buying involves the buyer and the seller. They both are accountable for their actions. In this case, both parties won’t be willing to report each other because they both benefit from the activity. Unfortunately, the voter who sells his vote will only benefit in the short term. Lesson learned: As long as irregularities like this happens on Election Day, any efforts at educating the voters will just go down the drain. 6. Automated Machines It turns out that automated machines are not foolproof.Reports abound of machines malfunctioning, machines found kept in someone’s shed , the discrepancies in time lapsed, and allegations of malicious software installed in the machine itself. Lesson learned: Filipinos cannot be trusted with both manual and automated election. Filipinos are very resourceful at finding a way to cheat. Lastly, here is the bottom-line: Filipinos are ultimately to blame for allowing fraudulent activities to happen. Politicians will keep trying to get away with cheating but it is up to us to decide if we will let them. Source: http://getrealphilippines. om/blog/2012/11/philippine-elections-will-stop-being-a-sham-when-voters-wisen-up/ 2013 Mix-And-Match Voting By  Ramon Casiple, Mon, Jan 7, 2013 The weak political party system in the Philippines can be seen in the way voters will vote in the 2013 national and local elections. A cursory study of the voting patterns in the past elections showed that voters vote for a candidate on various grounds, among them their personal relationship to the candidate, a candidate’s popularity (not necessarily in politics), endorsement by respected persons, and, of course, what the candidate stands for in relation to voters’ own.Nowhere in this list is a voter’s recognition of the candidate’s political party platform and program. The candidate, in this sense, sells himself, not the party. A tacit recognition of this can be seen in the way candidates and political parties present themselves to the voters. In streamers and billboards, the face and name of the candidate stands out compared to the party. Even in the party-list system—where the party-list groups are the ones to be elected–it has become more advantageous to present faces of their nominees in addition to the group names.The result is mix-and-match voting by individual voters. Rarely do they vote straight for a party’s candidates. Source: http://ph. news. yahoo. com/blogs/communityvoices/2013-mix-and-match-voting-130754846. html Everything I Need To Know About Improving The Ou tcome Of Philippine Elections I Learned In Kindergarten By: benign0, February 25, 2013 Campaign platforms You’d think that the call for platforms is so new this year considering how much of the mainstream has now taken up the cudgels of beating this concept into the tiny skulls of the Filipino voters.Yet only just four years ago, the idea of demanding platforms from candidates making their pitch to voters was so exotic. So exotic it was that I  wrote a piece  back in mid-2009 outlining the basic how-to’s of developing a campaign platform. As evident in what I wrote there, â€Å"If we are to expect Filipinos to courageously rally around a serious effort to become a better country in the foreseeable future, it would help to see a leader who has it clear in his or her mind how to get us from A to B. † it is obvious that the concept back then was quite new.The call for platforms rose to a crescendo as the presidential campaign leading to the 2010 elections march ed on. But as it became more apparent that the then front-running candidate, Benigno Simeon â€Å"BS† Aquino III lacked one, had no inclination of producing one, and was happy enough to run entirely on the back of his family pedigree, many folk who had by then drank enough of BS Aquino’s Yellowist Kool Aid were loudly extolling the irrelevance of revealing clear governance platforms during an election campaign.Instead, what to them was BS Aquino’s qualification to lead the country was his  perceived  honesty, integrity, and lack of a track record of corrupt practices. Funny how the most important lessons are learnt after the disaster had already wrought havoc. BS Aquino is now President of the Philippines and the very same bozos who thought platforms were not  that  important are now parroting what we had been saying back in 2009. Voter educationIn the lead up to and then in the aftermath of the 1986 EDSA people power â€Å"revolution†, the idea t hat in â€Å"freedom† lies the singular key to Philippine prosperity became deeply-ingrained in the Filipino psyche. It was all about freedom, and a blanket of demagoguery built around this simpleton’s message descended upon and enveloped the Philippine National â€Å"Debate† in the subsequent 27 years. The Vote — the â€Å"freedom† to choose one’s leaders — guaranteed that the  right  ones would be elevated to office as the prevailing thinking went.This was, the activists insisted, the â€Å"power† that the Filipino people â€Å"regained† after the 1986 â€Å"revolution†. But then as one bozo after another got elected into office since 1986, it became quite clear that the erstwhile thought leaders of the time simply gave Filipino voters too much credit. It turns out they were really not that smart after all. Freedom in the hands of the Filipino voter was like a blowtorch in the hands of a two-year-old. And so the idea of â€Å"educating† Filipino voters came about.The thing with â€Å"voter education† is that it is really not that complicated. It comes down to something most normal people learned in kindergarten — that we are ultimately all accountable to ourselves for the decisions we made in the past. In a society renowned for a collective faculty for thinking that is stunted by amnesia and voodoo logic, â€Å"voter education† should start with a re-visit of these kindergarten basics; that being accountable as a â€Å"voter† encompasses a system of three key acts of responsibility: (a) Select the right leaders; b) Use the system to hold them accountable; and, (c) Hold ourselves accountable for the quality of the leaders we choose using the system. A lot of the focus of this year’s â€Å"voter education† activist fad is on just the first one,  selecting the right leaders. The harder part of the equation — keeping politicians on their toes  in between elections  is where the  real  deal lies. Unfortunately Filipinos are simply not up to delivering their part of the deal in between fiestas. And so politicians gravitate to the same old buffoonery†¦ Grandstanding politiciansThe reason Filipino politicians are so at liberty to make big, lofty, colourful, noisy, but  hollow  promises during election campaigns is because the Filipino voter simply drops the ball once the fiesta is over. Because Filipino voters simply fail to  use the system to hold them accountable  as a matter of routine in between elections and utterly lack an ethic of  holding themselves accountable for the quality of the leaders they choose  during those fiestas, Philippine politics is a con man’s wet dream. You only need a lousy product and a million suckers to make a lot of money in business.And Philippine politics is, indeed, good business. And so we come to†¦ The role of social media in Philippine polit ics In a recently-concluded â€Å"convention† that saw one of the current crop of â€Å"thought leaders† after another pontificate about what such a  kewwwlllthing social media is, we learned that social media is unprecedented in the way it†¦ – breaks traditional commuinication barriers; – serves as a platform for unfiltered egalitarian â€Å"dialogue†; – elevates â€Å"political discourse† by; – providing a more â€Å"inclusive† discussion community; and, – prompts — and demands — quick response from its participants.Yadda, yadda, yadda. In short (cutting through all the fad jargon), social media  transmits  andamplifies  the â€Å"voice of the people† at an unprecedented scale and efficiency so that every schmoe and her dog has a crack at the proverbial bullhorn once wielded by only the most powerful and influential people. Sounds nice —  on paper. The thing with partic ipating in social media chatter is that it is really a form of high-tech Chinese whispers. The Twitter â€Å"retweet† and the Facebook â€Å"share† functions are the 21st Century facilitators of this game — and it is now a game played on a vast scale.Communication engineers will point out that the principle of signal degradation as data is transmitted, relayed, and re-amplified a number of times as transmission distance increases over a channel is the same as the way hearsay information is perverted in a typical Chinese whispers game. Human debate unfortunately remains  analog, so the advent of social media — the  digital intermediary  in the propagation of this â€Å"debate† — merely served as a more efficient way to  accurately  spread low-quality information.With every digital factoid passing through Filipino brains in between retweets, the signal progressively  degrades  into noise. We see this degradation in  signal-to-n oise  ratios everyday — when we make photocopies  of photocopies  and make photocopies of  those  photocopies, the quality of the copy worsens as the number of copies increase. Enlarge one of these nth-generation copies and you will come up with a really bad image. In the same way, amplify and transmit a bad signal over several iterations and all you get for your trouble is a louder and even noisier signal.That is essentially what social media is doing for the Philippine National â€Å"Debate†. * * * Indeed, everything essential to practicing democracy  properly  comprises stuff most well-bred people learned as little kids. Having a plan to get where one wants to go. Acquiring relevant information and applying it shrewdly. Regarding sales pitches with a critical mind. Being respectful and prudent when communicating with other people — regardless of the communication technology being used. You don’t really need a Masters Degree in political à ¢â‚¬Å"science† to really get all that.When one understands  fundamental  problems using  common sense, we tend to have a more practical regard for some of the silver-bullet â€Å"solutions† that the savviest spin-meisters around us build buzzes around. Source: http://getrealphilippines. com/blog/2013/02/everything-i-need-to-know-about-improving-the-outcome-of-philippine-elections-i-learned-in-kindergarten/ BLOG POSTS: Policy Dialogue Series 2004 Academe Meets the Political Parties It has often been said that political parties in the Philippines are based on personalities, not on platforms and ideologies.But individuals do not aggregate demands of sectoral interests. Ideally, parties become the key venues where policies and programs are shaped. In the end, it is still the parties who can be made accountable to their constituents and to the people come post-electoral politics. While it may be true that voting patterns in the Philippines have reflected preference for personalities rather than parties, the platforms of the political parties should still be subjected to public scrutiny. Source: http://twsc. upd. edu. ph/training_PDS1. html Date: March 01, 2004 Filipino Voting PatternsBy: Reynz According to some of the articles on the Internet about Filipino voting patterns, most Filipino voters choose their candidates based on the following: 1. ) Utang na loob (Debt of gratitude) 2. ) Winnability 3. ) Charisma 4. ) Media exposure 5. ) Eloquence 6. ) Pakikisama 7. ) Ka-ching! ka-ching! In other words, Filipino voters rarely vote on the basis of the following: 1. ) Capability 2. ) Leadership skills 3. ) Knowledge of the job 4. ) Moral upbringing and, 5. ) Fortitude Source: http://www. reynaelena. com/2013/02/03/filipino-voting-patterns/ Date: February 03, 2013