150th Birthday of H.G.Wells

             A little more than two months ago, the English writer H.G.Wells would complete 150 years old, so this post is a tribute to him. The wide range of his works always concern the improvement of the world, the fight against injustice and for human rights, and a more productive, full and fair existence. This post is a summary of five articles. The first was published at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H._G._Wells, The second was published with the incomplete title above at  https://kcls.org/blogs/post/happy-150th-birthday-to-h-g-wells/. The third was published at http://www.newstatesman.com/node/193726. The fourth was published at http://www.wnrf.org/cms/hgwells.shtml. The fifth was published at http://www.bookslut.com/small_but_perfectly_formed/2005_04_005019.php

               Herbert George Wells (1866-1946) Known as H. G. Wells was a prolific English writer in many genres, including novel, history, politics, social commentary and textbooks. Wells is now best remembered for his science fiction novels  and is called a "father of science fiction, along with Julio Verne. His most notable science fiction works include: The Time Machine (1895), The Island of Doctor Moreau (1896), The Invisible Man (1897), and The War of the Worlds (1898). His later works became increasingly political and didactic. Novels like Kipps and The History of Mr. Polly, which describe lower-middle class life, led to the suggestion that he was a worthy successor to Charles Dickens, but Wells described a range of social strata and even attempted, in Tono-Bungay (1909), a diagnosis of English society as a whole. A diabetic, in 1934, Wells co-funded The Diabetic Association. His father was a shopkeeper and professional cricket player, H.G.Wells was the fourth and last child. When his mother returned to work as a ladys's maid at Uppark, a country house in Sussex. For H. Wells, Uppark had a magnificent library in which he immersed himself, reading many classics works. This would be the beginning of H. Wells's venture into literature. In 1880, Wells won a scholarship to the Normal School of Science in London, studying Biology. He later helped to set up the Royal College of Science Association, of which he became the first president in 1909. Wells studied in his new school until 1887, thanks to his schoolarship, yet in his Experiment in Autobiography, he speaks of constantly being hungry. He was also among the founders of The Science School Journal, a magazine that allow him to express his views on literature and society, as well as trying his hand at fiction; a precursor to his novel The Time Machine was published in the journal under the title "The Chronic Argonauts". In 1890 Wells earned a Bachelor of Science degree in zoology from the University of London, in the same year he finds a post as a teacher at Henley School. His first published work was a text-book of Biology in 1893.  Some of his early novels, called "scientific romances", invented several themes now classic in science fiction. He also wrote realistic novels, including Kipps and Tono-Bungay. Wells also wrote dozens of short stories. According to James Gunn, one of Wells' major contributions to the science fiction was his approach, in his opinion the author should always strive to make the story as credible as possible. Wells also wrote nonfiction. Wells first nonfiction bestseller was Anticipations of the Reaction of Mechanical and Scienctific Progress upon Human Life and Thought (1901) When serialised in a magazine it was subtitled, "An Experiment in Prophecy", and is considered his most explicity futuristic work. Anticipating what the world would be like in the year 2000, the book is interesting both for its hits (trains and cars resulting in the dispersion of population from cities to suburbs; moral restrictions declining as men and women seek greater sexual freedom; the defeat of German militarism, and the existence of European Union) and its misses (he did not expect successful aircraft before 1950 and successful submarines) His bestselling two-volume work, The Outline of History (1920) began a new era of popularised world history. Wells reprised his outline work in 1922 with a much shorter popular work, A Short History of the World. Wells also wrote a dystopian novel, When the sleeper Wakes (1899).

                   In celebration of H.G.Wells' 150th birthday, we present the list of movies based on his creation available. He was the author of many extraordinary stories that , even today, inspire people. "Visionary' is not a grand enough word to describe him. Many of his books are shelved in our Teen Classic Collection, because a lot of American educators believe they are must-reads for our youth.I know this, because students come to our libraries looking for these titles at the beginning of every school year. These are great pieces of history in the science-fiction genre, written before the genre even existed. In the end of his life, Wells was a strong social activist.

                     At the beginning of the second world war, H.G.Wells wrote a letter to the newspaper Times attached to a draft "Declaration of Rights". The celebrated author called for a set of written principles to clarify what people were fighting for. His point was that fundamental rights were not just legal entitlements, but a set of values, perhaps the only values powerful enough to inspire and bind a nation. Wells called for a great debate on the issue, and the newspaper Daily Herald obliged. It made a page a day available for a month for a discussion of the articles in the draft declaration. The final version of the Declaration was published in February 1940. The declaration was translated into 30 languages. After some further lobbying, this goal was reflected in the founding charter of the U.N. Wells traced a line between the Magna carta, the 1689 and his own vision of fundamental rights. One hundred and fifty years before Wells' efforts, Tom Paine's booklet, The Rights of Man, had endorsed France's newly Declaration of Rights. First published in 1791, it was a bestseller. Virtually the entire democratic world incorporated human rights treaties into their laws.

                 The importance of H.G.Wells to the development of future studies lied not only in what he wrote, but in his influence on later thinkers. Every field of study, like every nation, has its founding fathers and mothers. Figures of history, they help give the incoming generations a sense of identity. they supply standards by which to measure the performance of new practitioners. Examples spring easily to mind. In modern physics, Galileo and Newton; in economics, Adam Smith and the French physiocrats; in history as an academic discipline, Leopold von Ranke. But who 'founded' the study of the future? The answer is unsurprising, yet not as obvious as perhaps it should be. The founder of future studies was the English novelist and journalist 'par excellence' H.G.Wells. The keystone of Wells' futurism is a volume now more than eighty years old. Usually cited as Anticipations, it was the first comprehensive and widely read survey of future developments. Wells' book represented a peak in human self-awareness. Anticipations ranged widely in its subject matter, from the future of transport to the future of world order. 

             A little over a century ago, H.G.Wells began the sort of literary career that just does not exist today. Bouncing over modern genre boundaries, he produced a vast number of books: sci-fic, fantasy, mystery, feminist fiction, political novels, social comedies, etc. Though his later books tended to be more didactic, the majority of his works still deserve to be ready today. It is his role as the founding father of sci-fic for which he is perhaps best known. Wells was the first to properly explore the ideas and ramifications of most of sci-fic's preocupations: alien invasion, journeys to other planets, time travel, biological manipulation, nuclear war, bio-weapons, totalitarian states, and more. If you like Wells, the writer with whom he is most often compared, Jules Verne, is in fact a very different sort, more interested in fantastic travelogues than in mind-boogling ideas. It is also worth reading the novels of Arthur Conan Doyle, The Lost World, in particular. Wells' social or problem novels could be fairly compared to those of George Gissing, or  Jerome K. But in many ways, Wells has no peers. He did too much too well for any easy comparisons to be made.

Enhancing Youth Employability

                This post is a summary of the book published in 2013 with the incomplete title above at http://www.ilo.org/wcmsp5/groups/public/---edifp_skills/documents/publication/wcms_213452.pdf

                Skills development is essential for increasing and sustainability of interprises, and improving the employability of workers. In order to secure job as well as navigate in the labour market, young women and men need the technical skills to perform specific tasks as well as core work skills. Employability results from several factors - a foundation of core skills, access to education, availability of training opportunities, ability and support to take advantage of continuous learning. Skills have become increasingly important in the globalized world. The employment situation of young people today is characterized specifically by high unemployment and lower quality jobs and difficult transitions into decent work, which combined, contribute to the detachment of the current generation from the labour market altogether. At the same time as the world struggles with unemployment, paradoxically, it is experiencing a skills shortage. Developing core work skills help individuals to understand the labout market, make more informed choices about their options in education, training, and self-employment. They also help them become better citizens and contribute to their communities. Many young people face difficult in finding a job because of the mismatch between their education/training and labour market requirements. Innovation and market developments have turned the world into a fast-changing environment.  The greatest challenge lies in the technology and knowledge intensive sectors that also have the highest potential for economic growth and employment. Core skills for employability underpin one does - at school, at work and at home. We communicate all the time and use ICT more and more each day. Good quality primary and secondary education, complemented by relevant vocational training and skills development opportunities, prepare future generations for their productive lives, endowing them with the core skills that enable them to continue learning. Secondary school is an important channel through which young people acquire skills that improve opportunities for good jobs. High quality secondary education that caters for the widest possible range of abilities and interests is vital to set young people in the path to the world of work as well as to give countries the educated workforce they need to compete in today's tech driven world. Lower secondary school extends and consolidates the basic skills learned in primary school; upper secondary school deepens general education and adds technical and vocational skills. Given the evidence on the success of innovative quality secondary education and training in transmitting core skills for employability, more needs to be done to get young people into secondary education and help them complete it. For many adolescents the education system is not sufficient flexible to adapt to their needs, and the quality of their basic education is insufficient to allow an easy transition; for others, their families can not afford it. This youth skills deficit is being felt all over the world. In developing countries, unskilled young people are being trapped in poverty for life. In order to address this deficit, disadvantaged youth need good quality training in relevant skills at lower secondary school and the upper secondary school curricula should provide a balance between vocational and technical skills. To improve the opportunities for youth to gain access to good jobs, secondary school has to be more inclusive, offering the widest possible range of opportunities in order to meet young people's different abilities, interests and background. The power of ICT to reach and teach the marginalized has the potential to break down some of existing barriers. Multiple and varied strategies are needed to address complex issues affecting learning for all in the developing world. ICT allows learners to learn inside and outside the classroom, in a greater variety of ways and to be creative. This is a different learning culture, featuring: independent learning, learners producing knowledge themselves, more content available in internet, connection to experts and access to resouces globally, access to learning material, more motivation. The key messages are: 1) The best way to acquire core skills for employability is on the job. But many employers are not prepared to take on new recruits without demonstrated ability in these skills. So individuals and education and training systems must do more. 2) Secondary school is an important channel through which young people acquire skills that improve opportunities for good jobs. High quality secondary school and vocational training that caters for the widest possible range of abilities, interests and backgrounds is vital to set young people on the path to the work. 3) Teaching skills requires innovative ways of integrating these skills into core academic content. 4) Given that innovative secondary education and good quality training can trasmit core skills for employability, more needs to be done to improve access, participation and completion at this level. 5) Improving access to, participation in and completion of secondary education is enhanced by a system that: Improves the quality of primary education, makes more relevant to the world of work, offers technical and vocational training, designs an effective flexible curriculum at upper secondary school, uses hands-on learning techniques and modular course design, combines civic and digital education to empower youth to understand the challenges that face their communites and work together to solve them. offers an online programme for specialized technologies, 

Democratic Reform and Injustice in Latin America: The Citizenship Gap Between Law and Society

               This post is a summary of a report with the title above, published  in 2008  at http://blogs.shu.edu/diplomacy/files/archives/07%20Brysk.pdf

                Latin America is a paradoxical world leader. In the twentieth century, Latin America leads in unjust societies that can not fulfill the promise of universal human rights despite elections and theoretical rule of law. The "citizenship gap" between developed formal entitlements and distorted life conditions, including massive personal insecurity. L.A.'s experience demonstrates how the rule of law can be systematically undermined by displacement of power, as well as incomplete democratization of state institutions. The persistence of injustice demonstrates the interdependence of democratic processes in the public sphere. This essay will argue that injustice in L.A. is a problem of democratic deficits in function - despite the democratic structure of elections and institutions. The citizenship gap is not an inherent insufficiency of democracy for addressing social problems, as some populists claim, but rather an insufficient application of democracy to functional arenas. The democratic deficit in L.A. can be understood as a failure in the indivisibility, universality and accountability of human rights. Indivisibility indicates the relationship between civil and social rights, while universality demands the extension of these interconnected rights to all citizens regardless of class or status. Accountability is the duty of the state to provide rights, which correspond to citizens's entitlement to claim rights. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights lays the foundation for the interdependence of civil and political rights with social and economic rights, by including civil and political freedoms alongside fundamental requisites of human dignity. Poverty is interwined with lack of access to social rights such as health care and education. Education, in turn, empowers political participation and is highly correlated with access to justice. The remainder of this essay will discuss the dimensions of the contemporary human rights gap in L.A., and assess some measures taken to address it. The discussion will concentrate on the civil and political rights abuses and show how they are influenced by the lack of state accountability and the denial of social and economic rights. Every year, tens of thousands of Latins Americans are denial fundamental rights to life, liberty, and personal integrity by direct government action, indirect state sponsorship, or systematic negligence. The persistence of political murders and disappearances, torture, abusive detention and widespread social violence are symptoms of an epidemic inconsistent with democracy. Murder and disappearances are committed by paramilitaries and are often targeted at political activists, human rights advocates, and civil society leaders. Persisting human rights violations under democratic governments have been specifically addressed by the establishment of national human rights institutions, The national human rights institutions of Argentina, Bolivia, Ecuador, Honduras, Mexico, and Peru participate in an international network of such bodies linked to the U.N. Office of the High Commissioner on Human Rights, which encourages capacity-building and directs attention to regional themes such as migration, indigenous people, and disability rights. Another way to gauge policy response is to examine the set of measures taken on a high-risk country or issue basis. Brazil is clearly a hot-spot for numerous types of human rights violations, from indentured servitude to abuse of power, thus in 1996, Brazil launched a National Human Rights Plan. With ongoing persecution of human rights advocates, Brazil then introduced a special Program for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders in 2004, but it has lacked sufficient funding and personnel. What can be done to close the citizenship gap in Latin America and to allow democracy to foster freedom from fear? First of all, we must remind ourselves of the ways in which electoral democracy and rule of law do offer new resources for the defense of human rights. Transition to democracy implies the state's hegemony no longer intrinsically requires physical repression and armed conflict ceases. Even partial rule of law provides channels for institutional redorm and opportunities for social mobilization, hence, the distorted version of citizenship in L.A. has historically offered an avenue for the struggles of dispossessed populations. What institutional democracy without full-spectrum rights can not provide is accountability for the relevant forms of power, such as private and unelected coercive state agents. In an era of globalization, L.A. democracy looks like partially liberalized weak states struggling to cope with rising threats to social control.   The mandated democratic institutions of legislatures and judiciaries lack traction over actors outside the state. They also can not control unaccountable praetorians insulated by the Executive due to its dependency on their repressive services. Contemporary social conditions short-circuit the historic cycle of expansion of citizenship rights that accompained the rise of modern capitalist democracy chronicled by T.H.Marshall, and the extension of liberal human rights to new groups and expansion to new domains. The prospects for effective state-sponsored human rights reform along current lines are tenous at best. Like the coalition that transformed Latin America's dictatorship to democracies, it will take a renewed effort from international and civil society to secure the new human rights agenda of social rights, accountability, and the deepening of democracy. State-sponsored reforms will be most effective to the extent they incorporate citizens, other democracies, and regional networkd, and when they tackle the complex marginality of second-class citizenship. Injustice is a problem of power, and speaking law to power is the unfinished business of real democracy in Latin America.               

120th Birthday of Scott Fitzgerald

              A little more than one month ago, precisely on 24th of September, the American writer Scott Fitzgerald would complete 120 years old, so this post is a tribute to him. Like many realistic writers, his novels contributed to become the world less hypocritical. This post is a summary of three articles. The first was published at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F._Scott_Fitzgerald. The second was published at http://www.ccsenet.org/journal/index.php/ells/article/viewFile/44230/26674. The third was published athttp://www.bookrags.com/essay-2005/10/28/12454/461/#gsc.tab=0

               Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald (1896-1940) known as F. Scott Fitzgerald, was an American novelist and short story writer, whose works illustrate the called Jazz Age. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest Writers of the 20th century. He finished four novels: This Side of Paradise, The Beautiful and Damned, The Great Gatsby (his best known) and Tender is the Night. Fitzgerald also wrote numerous short stories, many of which treat themes of youth and promise, and age and despair. He spent his childhood in Buffalo, NY. His formative years in Buffalo revealed him to be a boy of unnusual intelligence with a keen early interest in literature. After graduating from the Newman High school in 1913, Fitzgerald decided to stay in New Jersey to continue his artistic development at Princeton University. This Side of Paradise, a semi-autobiographical account of Fitzgerald's undergraduate years at Princeton, was published in March of 1920 and became an instant success. It launched his career as a writer and provided a steady income. He married with Zelda Sayre, the daughter of a judge from Alabama and they had their daughter and only child Frances in October of 1921. Like most professional authors at the time, Fitzgerald supplemented his income by writing short stories for magazines, and sold stories and novels to Hollywood studios. Fitzgerald, an alcoholic since university, became notorious during the 1920s for his heavy drinking, undermining his health by the late 1930s. He died of a heart attack in December of 1940 in Hollywood. His work has inspired writers ever since he was first published. The publication of, The Great Gatsby, prompted T.S. Eliot to write, "It seems to me to be the first step that American fiction has taken since Henry James..." Into the 21st century, millions of copies of The Great Gatsby, a constant best-seller, is required reading in many high school and university classes.

             Fitzgerald's style is completely his own and perhaps the most incomparable aspect of his prose. He frequently exploited and became famous for his material rather than because of his technical innovations. This paper tries to investigate the influence of three important literary movements: Realism, Modernism and Existentialism on Fitzgerald's creative works. The realistic elements are obvious in all Fitzgerald's works. He best represented the Roaring Twenties with his evocative works. Many authors after the First World War created a new literature that shattered conservative taboos in their expression of physical and psychological reality. This was the beginning of Modernism. Fitzgerald developed a modernist literature that was connected to American traditions but, what all the modernists shred was a belief in literature's significance in the contemporary world, and the need for it to be repeatedly vital. Like realists, the modernists and naturalists focused on changes on society and used symbolism to attack society's problems. What is significant about this author is the influence of European Existencialism on his works. The Great Gatsby focused on the applicability of Nietzsche's philosophies of modern civilization. Like the existencialists, Fitzgerald recognizes the inadequacy of American democracy in an increasingly commercial and consumer culture and rejects the capitalistic values, and norms prescribed and reinforced through the oppressive political structures of American culture. For Fitzgerald what are at stake are the individual, the inventive spirit, and the life of the nation and they echoes all the way through his works, a sentiment manifest in their portraits of incapable, lost, aimless, and emotionally unfulfilled characters. Fitzgerald was not a purely objective chronicler of the 1920s and 1930s but instead brought a strong moral perspective to his work. His central characters undergo processes of self-assessment, or they judge others, or they are judged by author himself, who constantly measured the behavior of characters against implicit standards of responsibility, honor and courage. In his novels, Fitzgerald revealed not only the fulfillment of the American dream but also the many ways it could be distorted. His most evocative protagonists, among them Jay Gatsby and Dick Diver, share that quality of the idea and willingness of the heart. Although they are frequently disappointed in their quests, it is not finally the dream that fails them but instead something else, some weakness or corruption in themselves or others. In 1940, Fitzgerald wrote in a letter to his daughter: "Life is essentially a cheat and its conditions are those of defeat... the redeeming things are not 'happiness and pleasure' but the deeper satisfactions that come out of struggle." More than any other author of his era, Fitzgerald was conscious about the influence of money on American life and character. As he wrote solemnly about money, ambition, and love, which were undividable in his work, he has been labeled a materialist. Fitzgerald's sense of being excluded from the freedom and opportunities provided by money had been further intensified by his inability to marry Zelda right away because of his failures in New York following his army discharge. Because Fotzgerald's response to wealth was complex, mixing resentment and strong attraction, his fictional treatment of his material is both profound and extensive. Beside, Fitzgerald with his great sense of pattern was trying to find a way through which he could impose order in the chaotic world he was living in. With the book, This Side of Paradise, Fitzgerald became known as a daring writer primarily because of his themes rather than his technical innovations. His questing young men and courageous young women, who challenged conventional standards of behavior, seemed emblematic of the decade of the 1920s. He was not essentially a modernist, as were many of his contemporaries. He avoided the stream of consciousness, technique perfected by James Joyce and Virgina Woolf. He also rejected the style with short declarative sentences and simple diction of Ernest Hemingway. Fitzgerald was above all, a story teller who achieved a close relationship with the reader through the voice of his fiction, which was intimate, warm, and witty. Trilling defined this quality as 'his power of love:' "There is a tone and pitch to the sentences with suggest his warmth and tenderness, and what is rare nowadays and not likely to be admired, his gentleness without softness. He was gifted with satiric eye, yet we feel that his morality, he was more drawn to celebrate the good than to denounce the bad... we perceive that he loved the good not only with his mind but also with his quick senses and his youthful pride and desire." Commentators have given much attention to Symbolism in Fitzgerald's novels, particularly his expansion of color imagery into large symbolic patterns, his persistent drawing upon figures and episodes from American history, and above all, his pervasive concern with time and mutability, or inevitable change. Fitzgerald like other late 19th century realist writers, tried to show the diverse manners, classes and stratification of life in America and he created this picture by combining a broad variety of details derived from surveillance and documentation to approach the norm of his experience. Along with this technique, he compared the objective or absolute existence in America to that of the universal truths, or observed facts of life. as a result, the realistc elements are apparent in all his works. Fitzgerald directed the modernistic renaissance by using realistis and naturalistic techniques. He is considered as a romantic writer, but he combined these qualities with realism, meaning precision of observation and characterization. Moreover, what is noteworthy about this author is the influence of existentialism and the depth of the cultural moments he captures in his art.   

               While it is argued that Fitzgerald emulated Shakespeare in his novel The Great Gatsby through his incorporation of tragic character flaws, his incorporation of existentialist ideals is much more apparent. The character Jay Gatsby embodies three  main principles of existentialism: Gatsby is nonconformist individual combatting absurdity and inhumanity; he created a second life for himself in order to win Daisy's love; and he preserved his separateness as an emblem of his independence.

Dystopian Literature as Social Evolution

             This post is a summary of a literary analysis of dystopian literature with the incomplete title above and was published in 2015 at http://digitalcommons.otterbein.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1026&context=stu_honor

            In popular culture today, the dystopian literature is experiencing a surge in popularity that is infused with a fervent intensity. Since the publication of, The Hunger Games, dystopians novels have become exceptionally popular, spawning a release of blockbuster movies adaptations and new dystopians series. The popularity of these novels shows an interest in rebellion and revolution, ideas that build the core of dystopians fictions as a genre. The novels provide the possibility of social change in truly horrible societies, thus bringing ideas about social change into young consciousness. These pop culture texts have the potential to develop an examination of society through literary analysis. Literature can be used to ask questions about society, and the development of a better society, because of the way it reflects and questions cultural understandings of social justice, literature can interact more concretely with our ability to work for a better society. Rooted in the history of human rights literature and using the Hunger Games' protagonist Katniss Everden as a model of social change evolution. As defined by the Oxford Dictionary, social justice is, "the objective of creating a fair and equal society on which each individual matters, their rights are recognized and protected, and decisions are made in ways that are fair and honest."  The desire for social justice is the desire to live in a world without oppression and inequality, where individuals are able to participate and be valued in a society no matter what identities they hold. Elizabeth S. Goldberg and Alexandra S. Moore's article "Meditation on a Fractured Terrain: Human Rights  and Literature" established the idea a reading practice for human rights that, "can attend to their material and historical context without instrumentalizing the aesthetic in service to those contexts". A social justice reading of literature aims for a similar practice of reading texts with reference to their ability to establish questions of social change. Literary critics argue not only for the important work literature can do, but for the kind of thinking literature can inspire within readers. According to Greg Mullins' essay "Labors of Literature and Human Rights," readers experience sympathetic emotions of empathy and compassion that work on rationality to "build the human capacity to make sound judgments." Readers, from their experience with literature, will become fairer in their understanding of ethical action. James Dawes attributes these sympathetic emotions to shared inner feelings and desires, a concept he attributes strongly to the form of the novel. Characters in novels define the human as an individual, independent being that is defined by inner feelings that humans implicity share. This understanding leads to the conceptions of natural, equal, and universal human rights based on the inner similarity of our emotions. In the past twenty-five years, literary studies has shown an interesting development in its relation to human rights. Literary theorists argue for the potential for literature to relate to and help readers understand contemporary human rights issues. Literature in human rights circles can be used as a tool for developing a deeper understanding of human rights abuses and for healing those who have experienced the violent loss of their human rights. Literary critics are in a prime position to understand the complexity of abuses and teach others how to empathize with this broader human question. Making these types of arguments about the use of literature in differing contexts, literary critics are calling for a social change in the understanding of how literature can be used. Humans have been dreaming of worlds better than their own since early history, this is a universal human desire. Dystopian fiction has played into these desires. Dystopian works by authors like George Orwell, Ray Bradbury, Aldous Huxley and Margaret Atwood connect deeply to cultural and social problems and the warning about what would happen if we did not act to change the world around us. Issues of government surveillance, totalitarianism, and oppressive power structures are common. In their own way, characters in dystopian texts attempts to rebel against the system, whether from a personal rejection of the power structure, or in a way that directly stands up against the structure and creates a new society. In the end, whether or not the character is successful, the individuals questioning of power hope to develop, as the reader can see the potential for change. Dystopian worlds take the impulse towards utopianism and use that world to create a warning about the future. The dystopian world relies on the specific problems of the present to invoke a warning about the future that could develop. The world generally has the appearance of semblance and order, but it soon is revealed that the world contains serious power imbalances, governmental control, or lack of resources. The situation mirrors certain elements of modern society in such a way that the reader can recognize the problem and starts to critically engage with them, resulting in a desire toward change in their own world. Embedded in the sense of warning is an impulse toward hope in the future for our own society. The characters in dystopian texts typically have the ability to attempt to engage with a possible solution for their terrible society. Thus, even if the heroines are unsuccessful, the reader can envision themselves resisting the dystopian society and escaping from a future like the protagonists. Adolescent readers have been exposed to dystopian fiction for years in ways that encompassed both the power imbalances and the rebellion along with elements of adventure and romance. This allowed readers to become a part of those dystopian worlds and live out their own anxieties and lack of power by watching characters launch rebellions against worlds that strived to push them down. The popularity of the texts resonates with readers in a way that shows a desire for change, although the success and failure of the rebellion in these texts takes place in a separate realm. By examining the ways that social change occurs in these texts, the lead protagonists can model instances of activism, showing how an evolution toward social change can occur within a protagonist that can apply to the readers understanding of social change. A major element of adolescent is "adjusting to a worthy way of life" which requires an adolescent to examine values, beliefs, attitudes, and ideas into a coherent structure that will allow them to develop their own understanding of the world that reflect their own priorities while "accepting standards and values of his society". Literature can clearly serve as an experimental zone in this process of discovery. Literature has the potential to be responsible for developing an understanding of politics and society in a way that has readers exploring social change more in depth. Current dystopian novels provide a phetora of examples of characters that rebel against their oppression in a way that creates a social change. The protagonist of Hunger Games is an interesting subject of examination, because she has a dramatic evolution in her relationship to social change. The evolution of Katniss' relationship to social change models a way for adolescent readers to begin to understand the process of developing social change movements that can allow them to think about their own activism. The massive popularity of the novels suggest an interest in exploring rebellion further in terms of creating change in the world. Katniss acts as a canonical model of how an individual can inspire a change in the world through a personal evolution. Divergent series stars is another strong, defiant female protagonist, but Tris begins the novel already having experienced her own evolution in understand that she can question the power structure and cause a revolution against injustice. The potential to inspire people toward acts of social change is not insignificant, as within days of the writing of this paper, students in Bangkok protested a military coup using the three-fingered salute and were arrested for the use of that symbol. The potential for change is apparent, but the connection of the novel as an example of a broader change of social justice literature could use texts as models of social justice in the broader culture. By critiquing and understanding the movements more deeply, protagonists like Katniss have the potential to inspire the next generation to accomplish more instances of social change.

Effect of Gangsterism

                Few months ago, the media (including internet) talked a lot about the culture of rape, but there is a culture that need to be even more talked. It is the culture of gangsterism. In Brazil there is little study about this evil. We have to fight against the danger of this culture spreading, causing the inversion of values and the dehumanization of the persons. The pride of bad actions, the cult of violence, the contempt for education, for hard work and for human rights, the bullying, the indifference to the victims and their suffering are some of the characteristics of this culture.  This post is a summary of three articles. The first with the title above, was published at http://studymoose.com/effect-of-gangsterism-essay. The second was published at      http://www.ngcrc.com/journalofgangresearch/jour.v18n1.cureton.ms.pdf. The third was published at ot.com.br/2010/06/factor-of-gangsterism-and-how-to     

                Gangsterism is a social phenomenon that occurs widely among the youth. With the rapid rise of this problem, gangsterism have much negative impact on individuals, families, and communities. In term of individual, student who involves themselves with gangsterism will face bad consequences in their future. Most probably they will be detained. this will also affect their life as they will be unable to perform their study in higher level, they will waste their precious life in prison. In communities where gang activity dictates normal living, there are very few signs of progressive life or development. Gangsterism of all levels and types usually has a negative effect on society. The researchers Middleton-Moz and Zawadski (2002) argue that our own lack of awareness often causes us to be both deaf and blind to the pain experienced by many persons and, as a result, many persons too often become the prisoners of their sadness and depression, seeing little possibility for change and no way out. Therefore, it show that our own lack of concern over what had happened make the matter of gangsterism getting worst until the victim of gangsterism are being abuse physically and emotionally. Society is no longer feeling peace and harmony in the country which they had resided. they can not move out freely as they are afraid of those gangster and worried about their safety. Crime does not merely victimise individuals, it impedes and, in extreme cases, even prevents the formation and maintenance of community. By disrupting the delicate nexus of ties, formal and informal, by which we are linked with our neighbours, crimes atomises society and makes of its members mere individuals calculators, estimating their own and only advantage.                                                                                                                                      While in Los Angeles, California conducting research on Crips gang, I watched the interview with professional football player, actor and grass roots activist, Jim Brown. The conversation turned to Mr.Brown's efforts to address the social ills of gangsterism through his "Amer-I-can" organization. Jim Brown suggested that the culture of gangsterism is destructive for scores of alienated urban males. Jim Brown was critical on efforts to help poor cope with gangsterism. Jim Brown criticism seemed similar to those made by Franklin Fraser. This is Mr.Brown's criticism in that many people are perhaps so detached from the realities of residents of the ghetto that are not in a position to effectively address the social realities of the poor. To this end, this article represents a renewed investment of attention on gangsterism with the intent to reengage sociologists, criminologists, behaviorists about the most damaging subculture affecting poor urban. The reality is that gangs and the subculture of gangsterism are deeply rooted in many socially depressed communities in many cities. The root cause of this subculture are inadequate economic support, poor protection from physical attack, few opportunities, low chances of succeeding in conventional institutions, or even denial of the autonomy. The explanations from the specialists all emphasize that gangs can not arise as solutions to these problems. In the struggle for dignified humanity, grass roots activism has provided some examples of how to improve the condition of the poor. In order to effectively address the murderous, criminogenic components of gangsterism. The family is critical to the social, moral and physical development of the child and of the teenager. The mother is the agent of reassurance, confidence and essentially primary in instilling compassion and sensitivity in children. The father is the epitome of masculine performances, instrumental success and stabilizes the household. Whenever economic and household dynamics and social processes becomes dysfunctional children are like to have stresses and strains resulting frustation, anger and irritation. These traits certainly do not lend themselves to conventional choices particularly in gang lands. Tookie's words highlight the importance of the family. The breakdown of the family, the absence of father, the disposition of a mother. Masculinity is more achieved than ascribed, there will be notable differences in the behaviors that ghetto confined boys participate in because they are attempting to become men in environments where gangs are dominant and are the most powerful socializing agent in the community. Following this logic, urban poor males actively participate in criminogenic behaviors in an effort to seize and maintain gang reputation manhood. Young males, who turn to the streets to negotiate and maintain a manly identity can easily be manipulated to voluntarily fight, rob, shoot and sell drugs in the name of the gang, and perhaps in the name of gangsterism in general. According to researches, joining a gang is heavily influenced by the absence of fathers in homes. Having a father or positive male role model is important. The critical question driving this article has been, "what are we failing to communicate about gangsterism?" Attempts to fully address the significant idiosyncratic nuances of gangsterism would be problematic, particularly if the interpreter or researcher had no experienced the everyday routine activities of residency in a gangland. In the end, gangland confined young males do listen to words of wisdom and warning about the gang. However, diverting that gravitation towards gangsterism is more difficult in the absence of resources that improve life chances. Gangsterism remains an attractive alternative partly because mainstream has been an oppressive regulatory legal machine, a distant sympathizer, a limited helper, and often self-appointed gang experts who are on the outside looking in. Hence the solution to the problem of obtaining a true vision of gangsterism may very well be that more persons who have knowledge of the subculture will have to become scholars.

               Nowadays, there are daily ocurrence of gangsterism and bullying in many places. Gangsterism and bullying is an act of opressing others to show one's superiority and strength. Due to this, the crime rate involving youth has increased tremendously. The youth can not concentrate on their studies and they began to lose trust and respect from society. We must prevent the problem of gangsterism from spreading. One of the preventive measures is we should give counseling sessions to the youth. We should also inculcate good moral values in the youth. They should be taught on how to respect others regardless of the race, physical appearance or socio-economic background. Awareness campaigns should be organized to make youth better individuals. The final way to prevent gangsterism in the youth is through strict enforcement by the authorities. In conclusion, gangsterism are the main problems faced by today's youth. The effects are bad. The society has to work hand-in hand to help the government combat these problems.

               

         

What Makes a Good Politician? Part II

               The post of this week is another text about politicians. We have to know how to choose well who will govern our city or our country, because after, our regret will be costly for us and for our children. The people must take care at the election time, but after as well, following the elected and demanding a productive and good job. This post is a summary of four articles. The first was published at   https://siyli.org/what-is-leadership-what-makes-good-leader/. The second was published in August of 2016 at          http://www.governing.com/gov-institute/funkhouser/gov-depression-politics.html, The third was published in October of 2015 at https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2015/10/23/why-the-victims-of-personal-tragedy-often-make-better-politicians/?utm_term=.1af83137ae41. The fourth was published at ttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Politician

                There are many definitions of leadership. One great definition is: "Leadership is the art of leading other to deliberately create a result that would not happened otherwise." It is not just the creation of results that makes good leadership. Good leaders are able to deliberately create challenging results by enlisting the help of others. What makes a good leader? Here are some of their most important characteristics: 1) Self-Awareness - You have an intimate knowledge of your inner emotional state. You know yourself, including your capabilities and your limitations, which allows you to push yourself to your maximum potential. 2) Self-Direction - You are able to direct yourself effectively and powerfully. You know how to get things done, how to organize tasks and how to avoid procrastination. You know how to generate energy for projects. You can make decisions quickly when necessary, but can also slow to consider all the options on the table. 3) Vision - You're working towards a goal that is greater than yourself. 4) Ability to Motivate - Leaders do not lead by telling people what they have to do. Instead, leaders cause people to want help them. A key part of this is cultivating your own desire to help others. When others sense that you want to help them, they in turn want to help you. 5) Social Awareness - Understanding social nerworks and key influencers in that social network is another key part of leadership. 6) Emotional Intelligence -  Leaders with high E.I. are intrinsically more self-aware. They understand their mental processes and know how to direct themselves. They naturally care more for other and receive more compassion in return.

                 The social stigma of depression has increased over the last several decades. Abraham Lincoln had many crises in his life, in fact his chronic depression was widely recognized. He took no pains to hide his moods. He viewed his condition, as Joshua Wolf wrote in his book, "Lincoln's Melancholy: How Depression Challenged a President and Fueled his Greatness." as part of the natural world, to be studied, understood, and when possible, managed. I have never read that Lincoln's enemies saw his depression as a weakness to be exploited. But somewhere along the way that changed. Depression have been stigmatized and hidden away, especially by those who aspire to positions of leadership. The irony of all this is that an argument can be made that, as Joshua and others believe was true for Lincoln, being depressed can actually make you a better leader. These concurrent crises are complex, but there are at least two things a politician can do. First, recognized the need to build opportunities for people to connect with one another and develop a sense of community and cohesion. Second, lead the way in destigmatizing depression.

                Ken Mehlman, who managed George Bush's 2004 reelection campaign, once observed that voters size up presidential candidates based not on their policy prescriptions but in terms of their characters and "attributes." The attribute I am referring to is, for lack of a better term, personal suffering, or the politics of grief. Grief matters in politics, and not because it makes a candidate more effective. Grief matters because it can serve as the source of public empathy and political authenticity, counteracting and becoming a tonic for much of the cynism that continue to corrode politics. Personal grief has defined and shaped the approach to public affairs of some of our most iconic politicians, including president Franklin D. Roosevelt, senator Robert Kennedy and presidents Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton. The grief politicians experienced often became source of fuel for their work ethic and public achievements. It is hardly armchair psychoanalysis to assert a link between politicians' enduring private pains and righting wrongs in the public arena as a way to compensate for such pain. The pattern has deep roots in our politics. Former three-term N.Y. mayor Fiorello La Guardia lost his infant daughter and his first wife to tuberculosis in 1921, and the adversity lent his politics a fierce focus. In addition, their deaths, caused by a disease typically spread in the city's tenements, crystallized for him the distinction between the wealthy with access to sanitation and those forced to live on the margins, more susceptible to the diseases and poverty's hazards. His suffering helped make him a authentic politician. La Guardia became a workaholic and a champion of underprivileged New Yorkers. His private grief formed his capacity to empathize with ordinary citizens' hardships. Two of his contenporaries, Eleanor and Franklin D. Roosevelt, similarly found their public calling partly as a direct result of their personal suffering. As a young girl, Eleanor lost her parents, including one to alcoholism. As a young married couple in 1909, the Roosevelts lost their newborn son with a heart condition to influenza. Eleanor described her very public work as the best antidote she knew for her private grief, and her pain deepened her already capacious symphathy for others' plight. In 1921, Franklin D. Rooselvelt contracted polio and began using a wheelchair, giving this leader an uncanny ability to grasp and articulate the pain felt by millions of citizens amid the broader suffering inflicted by the Great Depression. Personal tragedies enable much of the public to regard their leaders, who have suffered so, as vulnerable, ordinary people with uncommon reservoirs of resiliency and humanity. Ronald Reagan's alcoholic father, as Reagan suggested in his memoirs, was somebody he felt impelled to help, a parable of a citizen who aids those in their hour of need. Similarly, Clinton reflected that his father's death in a car accident powered his political ambitions, framing his life's work. Losing his father made the president feel "that I had to live for two people" and that his future achievements "somehow could make up for the life he should have had." There is no way to quantify or compare suffering among various politicians. And just because a political leader suffers does not magically transform him or her into an authentic, more empathic tribune for the hopes and setbacks experienced by millions of ordinary citizens. Yet, looking at the 2016 field, it is hard not to notice that few of our political leaders have suffered as much as the vice president Joe Biden has. Most have lived charmed lives. The media's interest on his candidacy, rest upon a sense that he was unusually well-qualified to grasp ordinary people's fears, hardships and daily struggles.

                A politician is a person active in politics. In democratic countries, politicians seek elective positions within a government through elections or, at times, temporary appointment to replace politicians who have died, resigned or have been removed from office. Politicians propose, support and create laws or policies that govern the land and, by extension, its people. Broadly speaking, a politician can be anyone who seeks to achieve political power in any bureacratic institution. Numerous scholars have studied the characteristics of politicians, comparing those at the local and national levels, and comparing the more liberal or the more conservative ones, and comparing the more successful and less successful in terms of elections. In recent years, special attention has focused on the distinctive career path of women politicians. Many critics attacks politicians for being out of touch with the public. Areas of friction include the manner in which politicians speak, which has been described as being overly formal and filled with many euphemistic and metaphorical expressions and commonly perceived as an attempt to "obscure, mislead, and confuse".