Historical and Modern Terrorist Groups by Type

Historical and Modern Terrorist Groups by Type While there is no universally agreed-upon or legally binding definition of a terrorist act, the U.S. gives it a good try in Title 22 Chapter 38 U.S. Code  § 2656f, by defining  terrorism as an act of premeditated, politically motivated violence perpetrated against noncombatant targets by subnational groups or clandestine agents.  Or, in brief, the use of violence or threat of violence in the pursuit of political, religious, ideological, or social objectives. What we do know is that terrorism is nothing new. Even a cursory glance over the centuries reveals a startling list of groups for whom some form of violence is justified to  achieve  social, political, and religious change. Terrorism in Early History Most of us think of terrorism as a modern phenomenon. After all, many of the terrorist groups listed below rely or have relied on the mass media to spread their message through non-stop coverage. However, there are some pre-modern groups who used terror to achieve their ends, and who are often considered precursors to modern terrorists. For instance, the Sicarii, organized in the first century in Judea to protest Roman rule or the Thugee cult of assassins in ancient India who wreaked havoc and destruction in the name of Kali. Socialist/Communist Many groups committed to socialist revolution or the establishment of socialist or communist states arose in the last half of the 20th century, and many are now defunct. The most prominent included: Baader-Meinhof Group  (Germany; renamed Red Army Faction but defunct as of 1998)  Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP)Red Brigades (Italy)Revolutionary Struggle (Greece)Shining Path (Peru)Weather Underground Organization (United States) National Liberation National liberation is historically among the most potent reasons that extremist groups turn to violence to achieve their aims. There are many of these groups, but they have included: ETA (Basque)Fatah (PLO) (Palestinian)Irgun (Zionist)IRA (Irish)(Kurdish)Tamil Tigers (Sri Lankan Tamils) Religious-Political There has been a rise in religiosity globally since the 1970s and, with it, a rise in what many analysts call religious terrorism. It would be more accurate to call groups such as Al Qaeda religious-political, or religious-nationalist. We call them religious because they use a religious idiom and shape their mandate in divine terms. Their goals, however, are political: recognition, power, territory, concessions from states, and the like. Historically, such groups have included: Al Qaeda (transnational, Islamist)Aum Shinrikyo (renamed Aleph; Japanese, with various influences, including Hindu and Buddhist)Ku Klux Klan (U.S.,  Christian)Abu Sayyaf  (Philippines,  Islamist)Egyptian Islamic JihadHamas (Palestinian,  Islamist) (Hamas is designated by the U.S. and other governments as a terrorist group, but it is also the elected government of the Palestinian Authority)Hezbollah (Hezbollah is designated as a terrorist organization by the U.S. and other governments, but others argue it should be considered a movement, rather than a terrorist group) State Terrorism Most states and transnational organizations (like the United Nations) define terrorists as non-state actors. This is often a highly contentious issue, and there are long-standing debates in the international sphere over a few states in particular. For instance, Iran and other Islamic states have long accused Israel of supporting terrorist acts in the surrounding settlements, Gaza, and elsewhere. Israel, on the other hand, contends it is fighting for its right to exist free of terror.  There are some states or state actions in history over which theres no dispute, though, such as in Nazi Germany or Stalinist Russia.

Advice for Finding a Private School Teaching Job

Advice for Finding a Private School Teaching Job Cornelia and Jim Iredell run Independent School Placement, which matches educators with independent schools in New York City, its suburbs, and New Jersey. The company was founded in 1987. We asked Cornelia Iredell her advice for teachers and teacher candidates. Here’s what she had to say: What do private schools look for in teacher applicants? These days, just as much as advanced degrees and familiarity with independent schools, independent schools look for experience in the classroom. It used to be 25 years ago that if you went to a wonderful college, you could walk into an independent school and start teaching. That’s not true these days, except perhaps in the suburbs in Connecticut and New Jersey. In New York City independent schools, the position open to people with that background is the assistant teacher in elementary grades. It’s the easiest entry-level position. You need a strong undergraduate degree and some experience working with children. The more academic schools really look for someone who’s had more professional experience and who’s halfway through a master’s or done some student teaching. Even that is more difficult for someone with a B.A. Schools will make an exception for an alumna or alumnus sometimes. Why is prior teaching experience so important? One of the situations that teachers in independent schools may face is a parent asking why a student isn’t getting an â€Å"A.† Kids will complain too if the teacher doesn’t have experience. The schools want to make sure the teacher is prepared to deal with these types of situations. On the other hand, teacher candidates shouldn’t worry about where they got their degrees. Some schools are known for certain programs, and these schools aren’t necessarily top tier or Ivy League. People will sit up and take notice at all kinds of schools around the country. What is your advice for mid-career people looking to transition? For the mid-career person, these schools have an individualized process. The schools may be looking for someone with professional experience. They may be looking for someone who can do something else, such as development. A career changer can find a job in an independent school. We see an increasing number of career changers who are tired of doing what they are doing. Now, we’re more frequently getting candidates who have done some graduate work in the field. We’ve had people do the New York City Teaching Fellows program even if they’re interested in independent schools, so they can get hands-on training. What is your advice for jobseekers? Get experience in some way. If you are a recent grad, do Teach for America or the NYC Teaching Fellows program. If you can put up with being in a difficult school, it can be an eye-opener. People will take you seriously. You can also try to find a position in a boarding school or another part of the country, where it is more difficult to find the ideal teacher. Boarding schools are more open to intern teachers. They give you a lot of mentoring. It’s a wonderful experience. In addition, write a good cover letter and resume. Some of the cover letters and resumes we see are in poor shape these days. People don’t know how to structure a cover letter introducing themselves. People present themselves badly and praise themselves in the letter and overstate their experience. Instead, keep it brief and factual. Can public school teachers transition to private schools? Yes, they can! Certainly there are lower school teachers who’ve been head teachers in public elementary schools. If it’s someone who’s been tied to testing and a Regents curriculum, it’s harder. If you are coming from a public school, become more familiar with independent schools. Sit in classes, and get an idea of what the expectations are and what the classroom dynamic is. What helps teachers  be successful once in schools? A good mentoring program helps people. Some schools have a more formal one, while some are more informal. Have not only a mentor in your own teaching department, but have someone perhaps in a different area who is not tied in with commenting on how you are teaching your subject and can give you feedback on how you are relating to your students. Being a subject matter expert and a good teacher are both important, particularly in the upper school. Again, that’s part of the importance of the style of the person fitting in with the school. Teachers are always nervous about the demo lesson they have to do as candidates. It’s an artificial situation. What the schools are looking at is the style of the teacher, whether the teacher connects with the class. It’s important to engage the students. Are there any particular areas of growth? Independent schools are always evolving and working to stay at the forefront of learning and education. They are constantly reevaluating their curriculum, even the best schools. Many schools offer a global emphasis in many areas in the curriculum and a greater movement towards interdisciplinary work. There is also a move towards a student-centered approach and modern skills and learning methods. Real world experience is also becoming increasingly important, as are skills in technology, design thinking, entrepreneurship and more, so teachers with life experience might find themselves at the top of the resume pile.

Cultural Music Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2500 words

Cultural Music - Essay Example What we are going to explore in this paper are the values, cultural music uphold, its historical significance, where it came from and the factors that distinguishes the cultural music from that of popular culture. We would put light across factors like religious rituals, social rituals, materialism and how it developed. Cultural value becomes a relative idea today because it is everywhere turned into something quantifiable, as the principle of exchange value (i.e., price) is extended into all spheres of life. Music when considered on a broad spectrum, is an art, and the value of art becomes a shifting term in an economy of cultural meanings, defined by its relation to other signifying elements in the cultural system, not to anything "real" to which it might ultimately refer. But when it comes to musical judgments, cultures are never explored in the context of social values. Though the formation of "taste cultures" has always been socially defined. Participation in certain genres of music say, grand opera, street ballads, or rural folk music was historically determined by a person's social position, not by a purely independent aesthetic choice. Indeed, from a sociological perspective, cultural taste is always a social category rather than an aesthetic one; it refers to the way we use cultural judgments as social "currency, " to mark our social positions. This may be less clear today, since contemporary society is characterized by the fragmentation of older taste cultures and the proliferation of new ones. In this context, cultural musical transactions take place with increasing rapidity hence the heating up of the cultural economy and its rapid turnover of new products. Not only are taste cultures themselves shifting, but people now tend to move between them with greater ease. These factors contribute to a sense of the relativity of any single position. Contemporary musical choices enable us to make selection from among umpteen choices, such choices refer to the pluralism, and the effect of that plurality is inevitably to confirm that, in matters of musical judgment, the individual can be the only authority. (Johnson, 2002, p. 7) Musician Perception Musicians are perceived as "speaking on behalf" of the cultures they perform. As Harnish says, "For those of us teaching in geographic areas of little diversity, we are charged with or charge ourselves with the task of representing the music and culture of the ensemble". (Solis, 2004, p. 14) Debate about music, even technical debate between musicians, has always been an attempt to wrestle with this conundrum: music flows from individuals to other individuals and yet seems to be shaped by supra individual forces. The basic model of that conundrum does not change. Music teachers, however, are the only

Current Strategy of Ikea Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Current Strategy of Ikea - Essay Example This paper puts into perspective the various current strategies employed by IKEA. IKEA’s current strategy is focused on low cost of operations. Case in point is that the company assembles most of its products on a self-assembly basis. This strategy is critical for the company because it helps in cutting transportation and operational cost. The company also uses the strategy to focus on the middle class on each segment of the market (Palepu et al., 2012). IKEA has a strategy that has immense cultural orientations. Case in point is that the company’s advertisement program has attention catching elements that make its products salable to a wide range of customers. Essentially, IKEA does not focus its attention on the mass market, but rather concentrates on marketing approaches that target individuals. The market in the current dispensation is increasingly competitive, and IKEA has sought to establish mechanisms that can ensure continual relevance in the market. Ideally, the company’s current strategy is more quality oriented (Elliott et al., 88). Quality defines the products that a company deals with and fundamentally distinguishes it from the competitors. IKEA has become bullish in the market due to its quality furniture that is characterized by uniqueness. Another current strategy that IKEA focuses on is the diversification of its products (Elliott et al., 212). The Company does not just focus on the mainstream furniture products, but also concentrates on childrens products. Additionally, the company produces customized products for its clients as a consequence of meeting their needs and expectations. IKEA has an advertisement strategy that has limited orientation in the international market (Daft et al., 234). Case in point is that the promotional strategy adopted by IKEA is based on catalogues. The current strategies that have been adopted by the company have

Guns Germs and Steel Essay Example for Free

Guns Germs and Steel Essay Yali asked the question of â€Å"why is it that you white people developed so much cargo and brought it to New Guinea, but we black people had so little cargo of our own?† (Diamond 14) In other words, he is asking â€Å"what is the factor between our people and ours that causes human development to proceed at different rates?† (Diamond 16) What Yali is really asking though, is, what is this mysterious factor? According to Diamond, the basis for development is the environment around us including the resources and the native people of New Guinea don’t live in an area where a chance is provided for them to take advantage of. The natural resources are just enough for them to get by. This is why the people of New Guinea produce so little â€Å"cargo† of their own. Pizarro’s capture of Atahuallpa and destruction of the Incas made the Europeans realize what power they head, and what they could do to the rest of the world. They easily wiped out the Inca’s of 80,000 with 168 men. From the Battle of Cajamarca, Pizzaro came back to Charles I saying that Europe had the power to conquer the Americas. There were reasons Pizarro and the Europeans could conquer the Americas†¦ They had better warfare than the Incas. Pizarro’s men had armor rode horseback and used steel compared to their wooden weapons. Eurasia happened to have an abundance of edible material because of the right environment leading to the domestication of plants and animals led the people to settle down in one place instead of being nomads. When people started to settle down and bring the food to them, they started to have a surplus which led for the people to have extra jobs and it started to also support a higher population while allowing women to have more children contributing to job specialization. These specialists were not devoted to farmers or food producers but varied to priests, blacksmiths etc. Permanent agriculture societies were able to from with the food surpluses leading to empires. Some of the reason that people began to settle down and farm are because at the time many wild foods began to decrease due to hunters and gatherers killing off too many large animals leaving life unsustainable. More wild plants that could be domesticated became available at the time. Technological advances allowe3d people to harvest and store greater amounts of food that they cultivated. Human populations rose it’s not clear how much it caused food production and how much food production caused it but researchers believe there’s a connection. As populations rose, they needed to have better food supplies and started farming. The farm societies were able to drive out neighboring hunter-gatherers. A continent with long east-west axis like (Eurasia) has an advantage over continents with long north-south axes (like Africa and the Americas). The reasons it does have to do with crops and longitude. In general similar crops can grow at similar longitudes. In other words a cropped that developed in one place can be spread east to west (or west to east) but less likely to spread north and south. Epidemic diseases developed among the societies that had been farming the longest. These were Eurasian societies. Societies in the Americas, Australia, and other places had not been farming as long and lacked epidemic diseases. When Europeans came in contact with Native Americans, for example, European epidemic diseases killed huge percentages of the Native Americans. This helped the Europeans conquer and the conquest made them richer and more powerful. Therefore germs help to answer Yalis question. The societies that did independently invent writing were those with complex hierarchies and so phisticated systems of food production. Writing was needed for politics and was generally learned by bureaucrats who had the comfort of available time and energy. As food was available to them, they had no need to hunt and gather for themselves. Since their basic needs were being met, they could focus on a higher level of existence and communication. There are two conditions in which technology may develop. The first is â€Å"mother necessity ideology† which is when a society needs something to make things easier they invent it. Technology differed from place to place because there were more people to invent and better diffusion to spread the invention. The opposite happened in the Americas because there were less people and a slower diffusion rate. Also different cultures had different ideas for change. The only way that society can emerge is through food. Such developments include jobs, such as the chief and the beginnings of government. The institutions of society changed over time based on how organized they were. They evolved based around various factors like war and other societies. They are related by diffusion. Whenever a state is conquered by another state they enforce use of their technology or exploit it. States are going to develop weapons, troops, and religion in order to make the state survive. They develop in response to need of their population size. They use these agents of conquest to become larger and to conquer other societies; and for that they need guns, germs, and steel. What Diamond is saying is that he thinks that people really should not think that history is so much different from the sciences. He is saying that the study of history can be pretty scientific if it is done correctly (and that some sciences are not as precise as things like chemistry). Diamond is trying to argue that historians should use what he calls natural experiments. He thinks that there are many experiments where there are two or more places that are pretty similar in many ways but which then turned out differently (like his experiment in Chapter 2). He argues that historians can use these they can look at what was different and what was similar and how the differences led to the differences in the outcomes. Guns, Germs, and Steel Book Review I think Diamond’s central intent of writing the book is to explain how varying societies become dominate, and how certain others can become dominated. By looking at environmental conditions that caused the disparities that lead to certain societies developing guns, germs, and steel, including other technology, and forming a government necessary for conquest. He introduced the book with Yali’s question â€Å"Why is it that you white people developed so much cargo and brought it to New Guinea, but we black people has so little cargo of our own?† This question used a scientific/geographic background, and set his intent is to answer the question or inform how to answer the question. He also tries to analyze the causes of the expansion of civilizations’ in some parts of the world, since all people are physically the same what could cause some to be successful and others to die? He used archaeological and historical case studies and evidence from genetics and linguistics, he argued that technological and gaps in power are not caused by race or culture differences but by environmental differences, He used the idea of the axis as one saying that Eurasia had an east to west (or west to east) therefore having an advantage over Africa or the Americas for instance, because crops could grow at the same longitude but it was more difficult as they went north and south. Also when cultural or genetic differences have favored Eurasians like for example written language or resistance to epidemic diseases he says these advantages occurred because of the influence and geography on societies and cultures and were not inherited as genes from Eurasian ancestors. Diamonds book argues that the differences in progress for different societies around the world do not result from one group being smarter or more resourceful than another. Rather, he focuses on the impact of geography whether food and other key items were plentiful, whether and how disease spread, and how these developments led to different levels of industrialization, and wealth The book â€Å"Guns, Germs, and Steel† was very well written in the sense that Diamond had a question in which was the foundation of the book, he throughout the book acquired evidence and explanations and ideas of how to answer the question. The book had evidence to back it up by explaining how Eurasia had a better opportunity being west to east meaning they had better crop farming. Which led to a growing civilization and soon conquest. The book wasn’t exactly dull or boring but it wasn’t exciting or entertaining either. It was like any other history book it asked a question, then went on to the point. There was an explanation of the main topic which was Yali’s question and evidence that dealt with answering the question. From beginning to end, Diamond stresses that he rea lizes that efforts to compare societies have frequently been used by racists or nationalists to belittle groups or justify mistreatment of them. He argues that his analysis is in fact anti-racism at work because it shows that the white people who enjoy the comforts of modern life are ultimately luckier than, not more deserving than, people in impoverished nations.

Evaluation Essay -- Essays Papers

Evaluation I believe that my writing has grown a lot with in this first semester of college. I was the type of person in college that would write a paper, and not review it, and still turn it in. I would usually receive good grades, but that was on the high school level. Those types of under-developed papers do not receive good grades in college. On a paper that I may have turned in to one of my high school teachers would have got me a B, yet if I turn around and use that same paper now, I would receive no more than a D. That is what I believe should happen at this level in the game. You as an individual must recognize your own mistakes, and correct them on your own. In high school many of my teacher’s would grade a paper, return it with marks on which we should impro...

Adolescent Offender Essay

Lionel Tate, a fourteen year old Florida boy was sentenced to life during March 2001 for killing Tiffany Eunick, a six- year boy during a wrestling match which took place in 1999. Thus he was convicted of first degree murder as the killing was due to aggravated child abuse and he was sentenced to life without parole.   His sentence was questioned by many critics and many wonder how the justice system allows to send a just fourteen year old boy to prison for life. The underlying question in the ongoing debate was that how a juvenile can be awarded punishment similar to their adult offenders. [i] Adolescent can be defined as the stage of life cycle from puberty to maturity ends at the age of majority. Adolescent thus refers to the change in physical system of a human leading to sexual maturity. Many adolescent teenagers without proper support factors can end in the ‘cracks’ and may land in hostile world. Juvenile delinquency means antisocial attitude beyond the control of parents and result in crimes that is punishable with imprisonment. In other words, it is a criminal offense committed by a minor. See more: Analysis of Starbucks coffee company employees essay Rolf Loeber has conducted research on delinquent paths or trajectories and recognized three discrete paths to a criminal career such as 1) the authority conflict pathway 2) The convert pathway 3) The overt pathway; He also recognise that disruptive behavior that starts from in early childhood with truancy ,lying , threat to animals . There were more than 600 murders that were committed by young people aged 12. Thus in the case of Lionel, it starts from early age of 12 and corroborates with Loeber finding under the overt pathway which escalated to aggressive acts beginning with aggression leading to violence i.e. murder. The Lionel may be of suffering from Problem behavior syndrome (PBS). People with these syndromes will resort to physical abuse, sensation seeking, and arrogance. Researches reveal that delinquent possessed this inherent behavior from very early young age. Some had resorted to drug abuse and heavy drinking as early as at age of 10 or still younger.   Thus the Rolf Loeber and David Farrington study reveals that early-onset offenders had a disruptive behavior with truancy, lying, cruelty to animals and theft. Thus the attitude of young offenders can be attributed when there is no adequate parental care, the environment of their brought up , inherent characteristics at birth and may also due to Problem behavior syndrome ( PBS) [i] Scott, Elizabeth S, ‘Blaming Youth’, Texas Law Review, Feb, 2003. Children Committing First Crime at Just 11. (2005, February 15). The Evening Standard (London, England), p. 16.