Seeing Poverty from Sociological View Essay Example

Seeing Poverty from Sociological View Essay Poverty seems to be recognized by many people nowadays from various kinds of mass media. However, do we really understand what poverty is, why it appears and how it affects one’s life? There are much bigger problems than we could imagine from just seeing the surface of poverty on daily news. Eli Khamarov, a social theorist, says, â€Å"Poverty is like punishment for a crime you didn’t commit† (Raphael 7). People in poverty are not always poor because of themselves. The reasons are more likely to be in society we live in and political policy we accept. Poverty is not only a matter of finance. Financial problem is the direct cause of poverty, but the effects come from that are unfortunately much more problematic. It is one of the biggest problems that the modern society has to deal with, because it is strongly related with social exclusion, poor bashing and blaming victims, and social determinants of health. Those are sometimes seen as more obvious, problematic phenomena than poverty itself. First of all, it is known that poverty causes social exclusion to the poor. Percy-Smith says, â€Å"This analysis of social exclusion is primarily concerned with the societal processes that lead to groups systematically being denied the opportunity to participate in commonly accepted activities of societal membership† (Raphael 90) Social exclusion in employment situations against the poor, who are eager to work, often comes from language problems, lack of knowledge and skills, health problems, domestic problems, disabilities, being aboriginal, being women, being colored, and being recent immigrants. We will write a custom essay sample on Seeing Poverty from Sociological View specifically for you for only $16.38 $13.9/page Order now We will write a custom essay sample on Seeing Poverty from Sociological View specifically for you FOR ONLY $16.38 $13.9/page Hire Writer We will write a custom essay sample on Seeing Poverty from Sociological View specifically for you FOR ONLY $16.38 $13.9/page Hire Writer Many of them are not changeable, nor optional. People with those factors tend to have problems of being employed much more than those who are not with any of them. It seems very unfair and wrong that bourgeoisies, who have power, take advantages of proletariats, who do not have. However, in modern capitalism society, even if it is unfair and wrong, as Karl Marx claims, â€Å"capitalism exists because it creates patterns of unequal relations between these two classes,† (Raphael 92) it is how capitalism is supposed to be. It could be said that it is only natural that there is inequality, because both capitalism and inequality are always designed to be together. People are made to struggle with something that they should not worry. What we need is a new, solid policy that will give a well-considered, positive impact on this capitalism society. Second of all, poor bashing and blaming victims are often on people’s minds when they think about poverty and it is also problematic in order to solve poverty problem, because it is necessary for the poor to be widely understood what factors make them poor by others in order to solve poverty. In addition, there is no need of attacking the poor more when they have been in very harsh situations and struggling to get out of there. According to Jean Swanson, who is anti-poverty activist, poor bashing is â€Å"when people who are poor are stereotyped, ignored, blamed, patronized, pitied, falsely accused of being drunk and having large families and not looking for work† (Raphael 319). It might be true that even those poor themselves start accepting to be poor-bashed and blame themselves as they stay in poverty and bashing, blaming situations too long. It sadly symbolizes that they submit to unfair treatment they receive. It could come from liberalism society that gives us options and allows us to choose in many occasions, but not necessarily fully for everyone. Those poor bashing and blaming victims ideas are very dangerous, because these ideas have never solved and also will never solve poverty. People, both wealthy and poor, need to unite in order to change the way it is. The one which really need to be bashed, or blamed are the society and political policy that creating poverty. Third of all, social determinants of health caused by poverty are very serious, physical issues of being poor. Poverty and Health are sometimes sorted two very unrelated phenomena, but actually it is strongly connected. Many of the poor barely manage their daily lives, in other words, they cannot take care of their health such as exercise and weight. They also try to deal with stress and depression that come from poverty by smoking and drinking. These factors can cause death from diseases. In addition, health is not only considered as nutrition matters, it is also the environment they live in such as daily necessities, working environment and housing situation. As long as their next day is not promised, they cannot fully pay attention to their health. However, it is still extremely important for them, especially children and pregnant women living in poverty. It is a cycle of poverty that poverty produced sickly children, then they cannot get out of poverty easily because of their health conditions and they create the ame situation to their children because they are still poor. There is nothing really they could control. What they need is good health care that allows them to recover from diseases and poverty eventually. In the end, there is absolutely no rationality in poverty from the social point of view. We never create anything from social exclusion, so we need to find a reliable policy that protects the poor and is adapted to modern society. We also have get rid of the ideas, poor bashing and blaming victims, which will not lead us to better way nor create single good solution. We have to cooperate and help each other to lead ourselves to a better society. It is needless to say that for creating a better society, we do not want avoidable death of children who are full of possibilities and adults who have a lot of life experience. Better health care can make this happen. We have to face the truth that many causes of poverty are not people’s fault. Those causes are actually visible problems of our modern society. It is just not right that some people have to deal with them while others take advantages of them in the same society.

Bottle Gourd Domestication and History

Bottle Gourd Domestication and History The bottle gourd (Lagenaria siceraria) has had a complex domestication history written for it over the past twenty years. However, recent DNA research suggests that it was domesticated three times: in Asia, at least 10,000 years ago; in Central America, about 10,000 years ago; and in Africa, about 4,000 years ago. In addition, the bottle gourds dispersal throughout Polynesia is a key part of evidence supporting the possible Polynesian discovery of the New World, circa 1000 AD. The bottle gourd is a diploid, monoecious plant of the Cucurbitacea. The plant has thick vines with large white flowers that open only at night. The fruit comes in a large variety of shapes, selected for by their human users. The bottle gourd is primarily grown for its fruit, which when dried forms a woody hollow vessel that is suitable for containing water and food, for fishing floats, for musical instruments and for clothing, among other things. In fact, the fruit itself floats, and bottle gourds with still-viable seeds have been discovered after floating in seawater for more than seven months. Domestication History The bottle gourd is native to Africa: wild populations of the plant have recently been discovered in Zimbabwe. Two subspecies, likely representing two separate domestication events, have been identified: Lagenaria siceraria spp. siceraria (in Africa, domesticated some 4,000 years ago) and L. s. spp. asiatica (Asia, domesticated at least 10,000 years ago0. The likelihood of a third domestication event, in Central America about 10,000 years ago, has been implied from genetic analysis of American bottle gourds (Kistler et al.), Domesticated bottle gourds have been recovered in the Americas at sites such as Guila Naquitz in Mexico by ~10,000 years ago. Bottle Gourd Dispersals The earliest dispersal of the bottle gourd into the Americas was long believed by scholars to have occurred from the floating of domesticated fruits across the Atlantic. In 2005, researchers David Erickson and colleagues (among others) argued that bottle gourds, like dogs, had been brought into the Americas with the arrival of Paleoindian hunter-gatherers, at least 10,000 years ago. If true, then the Asian form of the bottle gourd was domesticated at least a couple of thousand years before that. Evidence of that has not been discovered, although domestic bottle gourds from several Jomon period sites on Japan have early dates. In 2014, researchers Kistler et al. disputed that theory, in part because it would have required the tropical and subtropical bottle gourd to have been planted at the crossing place into the Americas in the Bering Land Bridge region, an area far too cold to support that; and evidence for its presence in the likely entryway into the Americas has yet to be found. Instead, Kistlers team looked at DNA from samples in several locales in the Americas between 8,000 BC and 1925 AD (included Guila Naquitz and Quebrada Jaguay) and concluded that Africa is the clear source region of the bottle gourd in the Americas. Kistler et al. suggest that the African bottle gourds were domesticated in the American Neotropics, derived from seeds out of gourds which had drifted across the Atlantic. Later dispersals throughout eastern Polynesia, Hawaii, New Zealand and the western South American coastal region may have been driven by Polynesian seafaring. New Zealand bottle gourds exhibit features of both subspecies. The Kistler study identified the Polynesia bottle gourds as L. siceria ssp. asiatica, more closely related to Asian examples, but the puzzle was not addressed in that study. Important Bottle Gourd Sites AMS radiocarbon dates on bottle gourd rinds are reported after the site name unless otherwise noted. Note: dates in the literature are recorded as they appear, but are listed in roughly chronological order from oldest to youngest. Spirit Cave (Thailand), 10000-6000 BC (seeds)Azazu (Japan), 9000-8500 BC (seeds)Little Salt Spring (Florida, US), 8241-7832 cal BCGuila Naquitz (Mexico) 10,000-9000 BP 7043-6679 cal BCTorihama (Japan), 8000-6000 cal BP (a rind may be dated ~15,000 bp)Awatsu-kotei (Japan), associated date 9600 BPQuebrada Jaguay (Peru), 6594-6431 cal BCWindover Bog (Florida, US) 8100 BPCoxcatlan Cave (Mexico) 7200 BP (5248-5200 cal BC)Paloma (Peru) 6500 BPTorihama (Japan), associated date 6000 BPShimo-yakebe (Japan), 5300 cal BPSannai Maruyama (Japan), associated date 2500 BCTe Niu (Easter Island), pollen, AD 1450 Â   Sources Thanks to Hiroo Nasu of the Japanese Association of Historical Botany for the latest information about Jomon sites in Japan. This glossary entry is a part of the About.com guide to Plant Domestication and the Dictionary of Archaeology. Clarke AC, Burtenshaw MK, McLenachan PA, Erickson DL, and Penny D. 2006. Reconstructing the Origins and Dispersal of the Polynesian Bottle Gourd (Lagenaria siceraria). Molecular Biology and Evolution 23(5):893-900. Duncan NA, Pearsall DM, and Benfer J, Robert A. 2009. Gourd and squash artifacts yield starch grains of feasting foods from preceramic Peru. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 106(32):13202-13206. Erickson DL, Smith BD, Clarke AC, Sandweiss DH, and Tuross N. 2005. An Asian origin for a 10,000-year-old domesticated plant in the Americas. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 102(51):18315–18320. Fuller DQ, Hosoya LA, Zheng Y, and Qin L. 2010. A Contribution to the Prehistory of Domesticated Bottle Gourds in Asia: Rind Measurements from Jomon Japan and Neolithic Zhejiang, China. Economic Botany 64(3):260-265. Horrocks M, Shane PA, Barber IG, D’Costa DM, and Nichol SL. 2004. Microbotanical remains reveal Polynesian agriculture and mixed cropping in early New Zealand. Review of Palaeobotany and Palynology 131:147-157. doi:10.1016/j.revpalbo.2004.03.003 Horrocks M, and Wozniak JA. 2008. Plant microfossil analysis reveals disturbed forest and a mixed-crop, dryland production system at Te Niu, Easter Island. Journal of Archaeological Science 35(1):126-142.doi: 10.1016/j.jas.2007.02.014 Kistler L, Montenegro , Smith BD, Gifford JA, Green RE, Newsom LA, and Shapiro B. 2014. Transoceanic drift and the domestication of African bottle gourds in the Americas. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 111(8):2937-2941. doi: 10.1073/pnas.1318678111 Kudo Y, and Sasaki Y. 2010. Characterization of Plant Remains on Jomon Potteries Excavated from the Shimo-yakebe Site, Tokyo, Japan. Bulletin of the National Museum of Japanese History 158:1-26. (in Japanese) Pearsall DM. 2008. Plant domestication. In: Pearsall DM, editor. Encyclopedia of Archaeology. London: Elsevier Inc. p 1822-1842. doi:10.1016/B978-012373962-9.00081-9 Schaffer AA, and Paris HS. 2003. Melons, squashes and gourds. In: Caballero B, editor. Encyclopedia of Food Sciences and Nutrition. second ed. London: Elsevier. p 3817-3826. doi: 10.1016/B0-12-227055-X/00760-4 Smith BD. 2005. Reassessing Coxcatlan Cave and the early history of domesticated plants in Mesoamerica. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 102(27):9438-9445. Zeder MA, Emshwiller E, Smith BD, and Bradley DG. 2006. Documenting domestication: the intersection of genetics and archaeology. Trends in Genetics 22(3):139-155. doi:10.1016/j.tig.2006.01.007

Imagery in Poetry Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

Imagery in Poetry - Essay Example He portrays the beauty of the natural setting consisting of the woods, hills, grooves and valleys among others explaining that the beauty will pleasure many, â€Å"And we will all the pleasures prove† (line 3). The poet portrays his genius through his systematic use of words to evoke numerous other feelings besides sight and hearing. Sensory imagery is vital in enhancing the effectiveness of the message in the poem. Christopher Marlowe strives to portray the natural beauty of the landscape; he therefore utilizes all the senses in doing this. â€Å"And we will sit upon the rocks† (line 5), in the line the poet strives to build the feelings associated with solitary sitting on rocks while watching the natural scenery. The line enables the audience to conceptualize the setting and the act. In retrospect, building mental images is a fundamental poetic requirement in poems. Just as is the case above, imagery influences the consumption of the poems. In this context, Christopher Marlowe strives to develop the beauty associated with natural scenery. He therefore uses descriptive words that help develop the images thereby enhancing the consumption of the