Ancient Man and the Disco Ball
Essay One)
Thousands of years ago, primitive man walked the earth very similarly to the way he does today. We can discern this from the cultures that remain nearly intact from that time, and by analyzing what remains from those ancient peoples. Technologies change, making life easier for people, and ensuring the survival of the species (things like medicine and modern farming techniques), but the people themselves change very little.
Ethnographically, people like the !Kung bushmen are very specialized. In actuality, any and all of the remaining societies that have survived outside of mainstream culture must be very specialized. There are few places in the world untouched by civilized man (perhaps none at all), and the only places that have managed to elude him thus far are the regions that are generally unwanted. These places, like the Kalahari, Arctic Circle, and South American Jungle, are the only locations containing native people living in their traditional ways. All of the people living in these places have to live in a very specific way, or they simply cannot survive on what the land gives them. Of, course all of the ethnographic records we have show highly specialized people, we killed all the ones that lived where they could be more generalized and still survive.
The archaeological record shows us what the intelligent ethnographers preach; there is more out there than what we see, and we are constantly underestimating the cultures that came before us. The widespread use of tools like harpoons and spears, the spread of pottery and boxes, and the actual contents of ancient stomachs (like the Ice Man's) show us that ancient people were once more variable than they are now. Considering that ancient men spread from Pittsburgh to South America in an incredibly short span of time (though from whence they came is unknown), ancient people must have been very adept at adapting.
Archaeologists are trying very hard to understand the ethnographers. They do this because they want to understand just what it is that they are digging up, and the best way to find out is to ask the people who use them. Of course they are not perfect, and some archaeologists dig competitively (almost like tomb raiders), but overall, we can learn a lot about ancient people from the work of these two groups of scientists working together with the past and the present.
When envisioning a prison, one often conceptualizes a grisly scene of hardened rapists and murderers wandering aimlessly down the darkened halls of Alcatraz, as opposed to a pleasant facility catering to the needs of troubled souls. Prisons have long been a source of punishment for inmates in America and the debate continues as to whether or not an overhaul of the US prison system should occur. Such an overhaul would readjust the focuses of prison to rehabilitation and incarceration of inmates instead of the current focuses of punishment and incarceration. Altering the goal of the entire state and federal prison system for the purpose of rehabilitation is an unrealistic objective, however. Rehabilitation should not be the main purpose of prison because there are outlying factors that negatively affect the success of rehabilitation programs and such programs would be too costly for prisons currently struggling to accommodate additional inmate needs.
Visher is the Principal Research Associate at The Urban Institute, a Washington DC-based think tank that conducts policy research and offers solutions. In the article, Visher begins by asserting that the United States’ criminal justice policies swing from “tough on crime” to “rehabilitation.” The problem of prisoner reentry no longer focuses on just the offender and his/her circumstances, but the broader approach to find new evidence-based solutions. Policy makers are now extremely aware of the prison situation and is now a topic of interest. Although a larger number of prisoners have been released since the 1980s and 1990s, most of them come back. The admission rate of prisoners is higher than that of releasing them. Prisoner reentry is a main policy concern at the state, local and federal level for several reasons. First and foremost is the public safety problem. The recidivism rate has not changed in the past decade or two. One-third of all prison admissions nationwide, are offenders who are being returned to prison for new crimes or technical violations. The second reason is the fiscal implications the prisoner reentry phenomenon has on society. Expenditures on the correctional system has increased six fold in just 25 years. As a result, policy and political attention in the United States has grown, that councils have passed resolutions to deal with the crisis. Some examples of new legislation include the Serious and Violent Offender Reentry Initiative (SVORI)
For much of society prison is viewed as a facility that segregates and imprisons individuals who commit acts of crimes considered deviant from accepted social behaviors, to ensure the safety and security of the overall community. These individuals are thus handed down a mandated sentence, stripped of their individual freedoms, and are told to reflect on their actions as a means of punishment. However, this method fails to recognize the notion that a majority of these people will one day be allowed back into society, and as a result those who are released tend to fall back into old habits contributing to the rising recidivism rate that currently plagues our prisons. In recent years there has been a gradual push for the implementation of rehabilitation
This plainly states that public school teachers, principals, and boards are required to be religiously neutral. They may not promote a particular religion as being superior to any other, and may not promote religion in general as superior to a secular approach to life. They also may not promote secularism in general as superior to a religious approach to life, be antagonistic to religion in general or a particular religious belief, be antagonistic to secularism, and they must neither advance nor inhibit religion (Religion in Public).
Meanwhile, with the pressure of budge shortfalls, rehabilitation increasingly becomes to be one of the most effective way to place offenders. Restorative justice is a criminal rehabilitation system that aims to reduce recidivism rates. In Minnesota and Vermont, restorative justice programs have been implemented as a rehabilitation tool, rather than abolishing imprisonment. The main idea is that offenders could benefit from reduced sentences by completing programs (Immarigeon, 1995). Drug rehabilitation is one of the programs that have been proved to be effective on reducing recidivism rates. The programs include the “in-prison treatment” , “the work release program” and aftercare program. It is reported by the Federal Bureau of Prisons that drug offenders accounts for a large part of prisoners housed in federal prisons, which is about 52.2 percent (Rosansky, n.d.). In the study, it is found that more than 75 per cent of offenders who complete the programs do not recidivate. The reason why this program succeeded is that the policy makers target the potential collateral consequence that it is difficult for prisoners to reintegrate into society after the
"I do not believe that any type of religion should ever be introduced into the public schools of the United States." -Thomas Edison. Religion and prayer in public schools is a big controversy for schools in the United States. School officials cannot take sides on religion since it will violate the first amendment which states, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” Establishing a specific religion in public school violates the first amendment, therefore public schools have to remain neutral when it comes to the matter of religion. Some people believe that teaching about religion should not be allowed considering it violates the separation of church and state, but that is not true. There are many issues regarding religion in public schools, however exercising your personal religion independently is not one of them. (Leitch, 1)
Boston, R. (2007, June). There Should Not Be Prayer and Bible Study in Public Schools. the Humanist, 67, 38. Retrieved March 4, 2011, from Opposing Viewpoints in Context.
Since the early Paleolithic period, civilizations have gone through many changes, including the way in which people find their food and the way they settled and live. This change shifted through the Paleolithic period all the way through the Agrarian Revolution. Changes included civilizations shifting from a nomadic type of people to a settled, farming people in the Agrarian Revolution. These changes took place from about 2.5 million years ago, or the beginning of what is called the Paleolithic Period, all the way to some of the first societies. The main thing that was changed was the way in which people found their food and where they settled. These changes brought forth new techniques and new tools to use. These tools and techniques
Firstly, the programs that have been established to rehabilitate ex-convicts are ineffective. Time and time again studies have shown that these programs do not take the right measures to rehabilitate their groups. These programs try to use a cookie-cutter method to rehabilitate each prisoner. From before release to after, the programs do little to educate the prisoners on how to function as law-abiding citizens.
Paleolithic age presents the era when key human adaptations evolved in response to a variety of environmental changes experienced at the time. This period of human evolution coincided with change within the surrounding of man. Such included cooling, drying and unpredictable climatic patterns over the time. This increased amount of variability in environmental conditions raised the level of uncertainty and instability in their respective terms of survival, necessitated the man to adopt new habits to increase adaptability to the new and changing surroundings. The evolved structures and behaviors led to specialization to enable coping with changing and unpredictable conditions.
According to Darwin and his theory on evolution, organisms are presented with nature’s challenge of environmental change. Those that possess the characteristics of adapting to such challenges are successful in leaving their genes behind and ensuring that their lineage will continue. It is natural selection, where nature can perform tiny to mass sporadic experiments on its organisms, and the results can be interesting from extinction to significant changes within a species. Human beings are no exception to biological evolution. Like other organisms around the world, humans have significantly changed over time and have developed all sorts of diverse characteristics.
changes with them. When people settled down in the Neolithic Revolution, they put down there
Supporters of organized prayer believe the school day should not just revolve around training the student’s mind academically, but also spiritually. “Far more than the mere teaching of facts, true education concerns itself with establishing beliefs and values” (Salter 176). Many supporting citizens of organized prayer believe religion can help better a student by their educational potentials, level of education achieved, and attendance. Students who are raised under religious families will have a stronger attitude towards school. Parents who raise their children with a religious foundation want public schools to reinforce and model moral values taught at home (Haynes and Berkowitz 144). Having organized prayer allows religion to set morals and instruct discipline giving students a stronger ou...
Before taking Political Thought, I would have to say my view on government seemed to be that they did not do their jobs well. I seemed to have the idea that politics was easy and government can be easily functioned. However, my opinion now
Recidivism/repeated offense is the repetition of criminal activity, and it is determined by a prisoner who is released from the prison return to prison for a new offense. Rates of recidivism indicate the amount of released inmates have been rehabilitated, and the degree of severity of the punishments outside the prison. “An estimated 67.5% of prisoners released in 1994 were rearrested within three years, an increase over the 62.5% found for those released in 1983”(Bureau of Justice Statistics, 2014). High rates of recidivism result in enormous costs, in the area of public safety, and high rates of recidivism could lead to disastrous social costs to the communities and the offenders themselves, as well as their families. Hence, the severe punishment in order to reduce the recidivism is necessary, as well as the education for prisoners is important, too.