ई-अभिमन्यु !Youngistan in Hazards!I am sorry to say that we the Parents do fail to understand how hazardous has become the life of our young children!
Indian Holocaust My Father`s Life and
Youngistan in Hazards!
I am sorry to say that we the Parents do fail to understand how hazardous has become the life of our young children!
It is NOt like our Childhood days which was quite slower, peaceful and Riskfree.We have to bear with them all the hazards. We have to share their experiences adjusting with their technical, socially networked supersonic careless lifestyle and Inject some positive Objectives in their life quite friendly accommodating their mindset. it is NOT easy as we ourselves suffer from Identity crisis, our children really never do know who they are! Hence they have a Blind Aimless Carefree Youngistan in the Virtual world which is more Hazardous than our Imagination!
Last night, as usal, I was busy with my PC in the Office away from Home on the Delhi Mumbai Highway in Ankurhati in Howrah district. It was peak hour. Suddenly, sabita Called me on my Cell Number 09903717833. it was an emergency. She landed in the ZENITH Hospital in Belgharia on BT Road. Ronnie, the only son of our Doctor Friend Ajitda met an Accident playing Table Tennis in Indian Stastical Institute, Kolkata. He lost Three Teeth and had huge Bleeding causing Pressure subsidence. His mother Ananaya, the Next door friend of Sabita was suffering from High Fever since Morning and Sabita had to do all the works in her kitchen. Ronnie left for the hostel late afternoon. He was quite Cheerful as he was at home away from his Bangaluru Engineering College.He had been at ISI studying Mathematics earlier. Returning home, he always gets back to the old hostel.
We have the experience as some years back, in a Diwali Midnight, our only Son Excalibur Stevens TUSSU was struck by a speedy motorbike on BT Road in Khardah in 2004, October. Me and Sabita had to pick up him from the Highway and get him admitted in the Hospital. He was lucky enough NOT to be RUN Over by another speedy vehicle on the busy highway.It was a Horribel experience. Sabita had always been very cool as she underwent Open heart Surgery in 1995 as she had a Tumour right into the heart. no one else but Dr Devy Shetty did the Operation. It was a rarest among rare cases. it was also the only successful Surgery in such a case in Kolkata. We were shocked but since me and Sabita brought up Tussu alone since he was born at Sushila Jaswant Hospital in Meerut on 3rd September, 1985. Sabita had already undergone no less than Three surgeries before that. I was always on Night Duty. Media was all Manual affair in those days and I had to return home after releasing late City edition and we had to cover every news , mind you. It was not Entertainment and Fashion in those days. sabita was school teacher who had to attend her school in Morning hours. Tussu had been often INDISPOSED! OFTEN, WE HAD TO RUN TO NEAREST hOSPITAL OR nURSING hOME late in Mid Night.
But Ronnie`s Parents were quite shaky. The lady, already indisposed, fgot Unconsious at Zenith as Ronnie was admitted in ICU.
I am sharing this with you as we meet such incidents daily somewhere or elsewhere. The Children are living a Risky life. They are Overloaded with Uncertain Future and fluctuating Career with ever expanding Friend Circle, Virtual world and social Networking. we have got too involved to sustain the Family against Price rise, Inflation, Job and livelihood insecurity and strains unwanted as we remain outside of the Economy Excluded and deserted as the State has ceased to be Welfare Stae and we have to Purchase the Basic servces like Ecucation and Health which most of us May Not afford. The Children are basically deprived of the services which we enjoyed quite Free during our childhood.The Survival kit is quie Heavier as the Schoolbags are. The appliances include Bikes, four wheelers, Cell Phones, I Phones, Lap Tops and so on. Often the children remain Disconnected from the Parents day after day, months after months and years after year in Single Unit families as well as in Joint Families. they depend on the Virtual world, Social Networking, Friend Circles and even drugs. We are quite separated, alienated.It never happened in our days. we had the feel of the Joint family in Rural as well as urban society. We always found the Society around us. We never felt Alone or Helpless. Ther had been alaways a helping and caring hand behind us. our children have lostb that caring, helping hand and they have indulged in Busier activities to engage themselves and they seek Help from unwanted quarters.
I have to return late in the night by office car and watch the Teenagers driving so fast and so blind as they do Never care for Life and Death quite unaware of the Caring worrying parents or family. Free Economy has changed us quite a bit. Free Economy has equipped some of us with DSuperfast Life Style kits in vogue, but Free Consumerist Life has made us Animals living on impulses and instincts.
I Never balme the children for the life they inherited from us. It is the biometric, genetic defects they inherit from us.Our parenst did educate us to make us Civilised. But we are working like corporates andMNCs who just invest for returns, benefits.
It is NOT liability or responsibility for us anymore as we have lost the Values. We are a deculturilised degenereted Parents generation who never know how to confide with the gfrowing children or simply how to bring up the children. We are just Investing for a Better Purchasing power, a super Consumer life! The disease is INFLICTED by us only. We created the Virtual Advertised entertaining Youngistan!
We may boast that we were responsible, socially awakened, concerned and connected children who behaved very well. How did we fail then as parnts?
In sevnties and eigties, Youngistan Never did exist. But the younger people wer more concerned and more Active as they Never did feel the pangs of uncertain Future. In the hills, we Never did worry about our future career befor we graduated. We were socially concerned even after Post Graduation.But the Youngistan is quite confused what to do with their life as false multidimensional avenues, which were Absent in our days and the overwhelming Virtual world mislead tehm to decide upon future course of life. This grand Confusion lands them into a Shakespearean Dilemma, TO BE OR NOT TO BE! They have NO time for the Societ as they are overindulged with the Darkest Future ever and the Knowledge Economy has destroyed their Objectives whatsover.
Friends let us think and try toresolve this problem as earlier as as paossible. It is greater problem tahn any of the Problems facing the Nation or the Economy!
Deculturalization refers to the "stripping away of a people's culture and replacing it with a new culture" (Spring 1). Deculturalization is one of the most inhumane acts one can partake in. A person's culture is his/her main defining feature. Culture is the medium through which people communicate their beliefs, values, and morals. Inserting one's own culture in place of someone's pre-existing culture is the basis of ethnocentrism. People have repeatedly become victims of deculturalization, especially in the United States, and by analyzing this ethnocentrism one learns the importance of sustaining different cultures in society.
There are many methods of deculturalization, such as segregation, isolation, and forced change of language. When the content of curriculum reflects culture of dominant group, it is deculturalization. Also, dominated groups are not allowed to express their culture and religion, which is deculturalization. Use of teachers from the dominant group to teach those that are dominated is another form of deculturalization (Spring 49).
"The problem was the assumption that U.S. institutions, customs, and beliefs
were the best in the world and they should be imposed" (Spring 42).
Throughout much of the past century, the United States sought to stamp its cultural ideal upon almost...
... middle of paper ...
...t engulfed Anglo Americans.
Deculturalization has been a very sad occurrence since the beginning of America, and only recently has this problem started to be alleviated. The impacts of deculturalization have been very negative on society, but mostly on the education system. Today, teacher education revolves around multiculturalism and valuing the differences in cultures. Until this idea reaches all realms of society, however, the United States will not be completely free from the negative aspects of deculturalization, which swept through the country for many years. Knowledge is half the battle, though, and the more people are educated on other cultures, the more people will begin to appreciate other cultures.
The sociology of education is the study of how public institutions and individual experiences affecteducation and its outcomes. It is most concerned with the public schooling systems of modern industrial societies, including the expansion of higher, further, adult, and continuing education.[1]
Education has often been seen as a fundamentally optimistic human endeavour characterised byaspirations for progress and betterment.[2] It is understood by many to be a means of overcoming handicaps, achieving greater equality and acquiring wealth and social status.[3] Education is perceived as a place where children can develop according to their unique needs and potential.[2] It is also perceived as one of the best means of achieving greater social equality.[3] Many would say that the purpose of education should be to develop every individual to their full potential and give them a chance to achieve as much in life as their natural abilities allow (meritocracy). Few would argue that any education system accomplishes this goal perfectly. Some take a particularly negative view, arguing that the education system is designed with the intention of causing the social reproduction of inequality.
According to Sennet and Cobb however, "to believe that ability alone decides who is rewarded is to be deceived".[3] Meighan agrees, stating that large numbers of capable students from working class backgrounds fail to achieve satisfactory standards in school and therefore fail to obtain the status they deserve.[20] Jacob believes this is because the middle class cultural experiences that are provided at school may be contrary to the experiences working-class children receive at home.[21] In other words, working class children are not adequately prepared to cope at school. They are therefore "cooled out"[22] from school with the least qualifications, hence they get the least desirable jobs, and so remain working class. Sargent confirms this cycle, arguing that schooling supports continuity, which in turn supports social order.[3] Talcott Parsons believed that this process, whereby some students were identified and labelled educational failures, "was a necessary activity which one part of the social system, education, performed for the whole".[20] Yet the structural functionalist perspective maintains that this social order, this continuity, is what most people desire.[17] The weakness of this perspective thus becomes evident.[citation needed] Why would the working class wish to stay working class? Such an inconsistency demonstrates that another perspective may be useful.
Where teachers have softened the formality of regular study and integrated student's preferred working methods into the curriculum, they noted that particular students displayed strengths they had not been aware of before.[25] However few teachers deviate from the traditionalcurriculum, and the curriculum conveys what constitutes knowledge as determined by the state - and those in power [Young in [3]]. This knowledge isn't very meaningful to many of the students, who see it as pointless.[21] Wilson & Wyn state that the students realise there is little or no direct link between the subjects they are doing and their perceived future in the labour market.[25] Anti-school values displayed by these children are often derived from their consciousness of their real interests. Sargent believes that for working class students, striving to succeed and absorbing the school's middle class values, is accepting their inferior social position as much as if they were determined to fail.[3] Fitzgerald states that "irrespective of their academic ability or desire to learn, students from poor families have relatively little chance of securing success".[26] On the other hand, for middle and especially upper-class children, maintaining their superior position in society requires little effort. The federal government subsidises 'independent' private schools enabling the rich to obtain 'good education' by paying for it.[3] With this 'good education', rich children perform better, achieve higher and obtain greater rewards. In this way, the continuation of privilege and wealth for the elite is made possible.
Conflict theorists believe this social reproduction continues to occur because the whole education system is overlain with ideology provided by the dominant group. In effect, they perpetuate the myth that education is available to all to provide a means of achieving wealth and status. Anyone who fails to achieve this goal, according to the myth, has only themself to blame.[3] Wright agrees, stating that "the effect of the myth is to…stop them from seeing that their personal troubles are part of major social issues".[3] The duplicity is so successful that many parents endure appalling jobs for many years, believing that this sacrifice will enable their children to have opportunities in life that they did not have themselves.[25] These people who are poor and disadvantaged are victims of a societal confidence trick. They have been encouraged to believe that a major goal of schooling is to strengthen equality while, in reality, schools reflect society's intention to maintain the previous unequal distribution of status and power [Fitzgerald, cited in [3]].
This perspective has been criticised[citation needed] as deterministic and pessimistic.
It should be recognised however that it is a model, an aspect of reality which is an important part of the picture.
Bourdieu used the idea of cultural capital to explore the differences in outcomes for students from different classes in the French educational system. He explored the tension between the conservative reproduction and the innovative production of knowledge and experience.[27] He found that this tension is intensified by considerations of which particular cultural past and present is to be conserved and reproduced in schools. Bourdieu argues that it is the culture of the dominant groups, and therefore their cultural capital, which is embodied in schools, and that this leads to social reproduction.[27]
The cultural capital of the dominant group, in the form of practices and relation to culture, is assumed by the school to be the natural and only proper type of cultural capital and is therefore legitimated. It demands "uniformly of all its students that they should have what it does not give" [Bourdieu [28]]. This legitimate cultural capital allows students who possess it to gain educational capital in the form of qualifications. Those lower-class students are therefore disadvantaged. To gain qualifications they must acquire legitimate cultural capital, by exchanging their own (usually working-class) cultural capital.[29] This exchange is not a straight forward one, due to the class ethos of the lower-class students. Class ethos is described as the particular dispositions towards, and subjective expectations of, school and culture. It is in part determined by the objective chances of that class.[30] This means that not only do children find success harder in school due to the fact that they must learn a new way of 'being', or relating to the world, and especially, a new way of relating to and using language, but they must also act against their instincts and expectations. The subjective expectations influenced by the objective structures found in the school, perpetuate social reproduction by encouraging less-privileged students to eliminate themselves from the system, so that fewer and fewer are to be found as one journeys through the levels of the system. The process of social reproduction is neither perfect nor complete,[27] but still, only a small number of less-privileged students achieve success. For the majority of these students who do succeed at school, they have had to internalise the values of the dominant classes and use them as their own, to the detriment of their original habitus and cultural values.
Therefore Bourdieu's perspective reveals how objective structures play an important role in determining individual achievement in school, but allows for the exercise of an individual's agency to overcome these barriers, although this choice is not without its penalties.
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October 1995
Volume 13, Number 10
Ludwig von Mises identified Victorian art critic John Ruskin as the intellectual source of this ceaseless griping. Ruskin saw civilization, embodied in the arts, as going down the tubes, and he labeled the market economy as the cause. This allowed him to be a socialist without surrendering upper-class affectations or having to prattle about workers and peasants.
Ruskin thus qualifies, said Mises, as "one of the gravediggers of British freedom, civilization and prosperity." "A wretched character in his private no less than in his public life," Ruskin eulogized the ancient producer cartels called guilds. "Government and cooperation are in all things the laws of life," wrote Ruskin in Unto This Last (1862), "anarchy and competition the laws of death."
Nowadays, practically everyone with a college degree is a tacit Ruskinian. Americans may understand the productive power of the market, but many are blind to its virtue as a civilizing agent, to its ability to sustain tradition, create what's beautiful and grand, and preserve what's right and good.
The Left (still essentially Marxian) wants us to think of capitalism as modern and industrial. More correctly, capitalism is just a name for the social recognition of private property, trade, and contract enforcement. It was as much a part of ancient Athens as 19th-century America. In its total absence, civilization would crumble, and the arts vanish.
In modern times, the confusion usually starts this way. Someone flips on the television to find the usual rotten show and offensive commercials. He concludes that's the market at work: base, vulgar, and insulting to our intelligence.
Once on this track, the anti-capitalist mentality runs wild. The decadence of the cash nexus appears everywhere. Strip malls and yellow M's in the sky. Boxing, moshing, tabloids, rap, and low pay for intellectuals. It's all horrible, sniffs this person, and it's all capitalism's fault.
If this theory were correct, the prophets, saints, and ancient philosophers were wasting their breath. They called on people to abandon sin and adopt virtue, when they could have taken the fast-track to social salvation by condemning free exchange and private property.
What the great moralists knew, and we've forgotten, is that people and cultures are products of human choice. Good lives can flourish in any social setting, whether the prison camp, the Wild West, or Washington, D.C. (hard as the latter is to believe).
Sin and stupidity will, of course, always be with us. From an economic perspective, our goal should be to make sure that sinners pay for their sins, and that minimal resources are used to cater to them. In this process, capitalism is our ally. In addition to making prosperity possible, the whole point of economics and markets is to make sure the minimum amount of resources is used to satisfy any particular demand of any particular group.
The free economy is efficient because it deals with tastes and preferences as a given, it organizes resources in an economically practical way, and it arranges for the consumer to get what he wants at the least possible cost to everyone else.
The junk on television may indeed speak volumes about our culture. People should care about more important things. Thanks to capitalism, however, society isn't wasting excess resources on it. Trash is delivered in the least costly manner, leaving more resources for the pursuit of what really matters.
Entrepreneurs have learned to provide services to even the smallest niche. When I see television, and I don't very often, the most intelligent network is EWTN. It features 50-part lectures by learned academics on subjects like Scholasticism.
This is a profitable enterprise that would be considered wasteful in a socialist country--not to mention politically incorrect. In a less prosperous society, it couldn't survive. Yet I can't remember anyone crediting capitalism for making St. Thomas Aquinas accessible to the masses.
It used to be said that government had to fund the arts for them to be of good quality. That argument no longer flies. Take a look at the malevolent and stupid creations of the National Endowment for Arts. The government's "sculptures," "architecture," and "music" has littered the country with rubbish.
Economists say that the market "internalizes externalities." This means, in part, that people who are offended by some goods and services can structure their lives to avoid exposure. That's mostly true, especially in the case of sleazy television and movies, pornography, and weird services like telephone sex. Thanks to capitalism--which restricts such services to the people who purchase them--the rest of us don't have to be affected.
A shop selling Satanic trinkets recently opened up in Auburn, Alabama. "Anything for a buck," people sneered, until the store went belly-up for lack of business. It's true that some people willdo anything for a buck, but in a market economy, they have to be subservient to the consuming public.
The market delivers plenty of similar good news, though most of it goes unremarked. Let's consider the case of big cities, which the productive public has been clawing its way out of for decades.
The government has done everything in its power to make cities uninhabitable by regular people. Government welfare has fostered a whole class of citizens that is at once indolent and criminal. Public housing and rental subsidies have destroyed settings that were once middle-class. Many cities today are only "cultural" centers if you like freaks and muggers.
Yet, thanks to capitalism, there is hope. Private individuals and developers take buildings that appear beyond repair and revive them. House by house, block by block, whole sections of cities have been gentrified. It's not charity work. Without a system of profit and loss, it wouldn't happen.
Yet you can't satisfy those with an anti-capitalist mentality. They invariably complain that gentrification raises property values and "squeezes" out the poor, while forgetting to notice how much better off everyone is when degraded resources are made more valuable.
Beach housing has long been a magnet for cultural complaints against capitalism. High-rise buildings were routinely called evil for destroying the view from a mile away. Yet it is this type of structure which makes beach-living possible for the masses in the first place.
Some architects, in revulsion against beach high rises, have worked with investors to buy miles of property on the beach. Then they create communities with quaint houses and shops. The result is magnificent, and entirely private, if affordable only for a few.
These architects think they're repudiating the tackiness of capitalism. They fail to realize that their private, planned communities are as much a part of capitalism as the high rises. Far from making a left-wing ideological point, they are catering to different tastes, marketing a product, and vastly increasing the value of property as a result. High rises and private communities represent capitalism at work.
Yet what about the materialism of capitalism? This too is a misnomer. Strictly speaking, capitalism is not about material goods; it's about exchangeable goods. Leisure, love, beauty, and art are all exchangeable, and as much a part of economic life as Big Macs and Seinfeld.
It's said that markets bring about short-term thinking. Quite the contrary. Markets often focus on the extreme long-term, in ways the government can never do. Consider the wine industry. It can take decades before a vineyard produces a really great bottle of wine. Even common table wines require that entrepreneurs plan many years in advance. The more forward-looking the capitalist, the more he can be rewarded for setting aside temporary pleasures.
Every good and service has a timetable, and the entrepreneur must plan in the most cost-effective manner. It's bureaucratic man--not the mythical economic man--who is prone to consumption and immediate gratification. And the more the state intervenes in an economy, the more it penalizes long-term thinking and rewards short-termism. Inflation is the most obvious example.
But hasn't the capitalist mentality forced everyone in the family to work sixty hours per week, just to keep up with material desires? In fact, it's the government that has brought it about. A conspiracy against sound money and private property is what drove wives and mothers into the workforce in the 1970s and 1980s. A return to unfettered capitalism would allow those who desired it to return home, so that we could restore family and community life. Both thrived under laissez-faire.
As Schumpeter noted, every socialist is an enemy of the bourgeois values of home, family, community, property, honesty, diligence, and hard work. The more socialist our economy becomes, the more vice displaces virtue in public and private life.
As for the culturally uplifting aspects of capitalism, the profit and loss system makes possible--to take just a few examples--our economy's amazing bounty of recorded classical music, the greatest cabernets in the world, an abundance of culinary treats even kings couldn't imagine two centuries ago, and some good movies. If that doesn't convince, consider that it's under capitalism that the Bible became the all-time best-selling book.
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Llewellyn H. Rockwell. Jr. is president and founder of the Ludwig von Mises Institute
http://mises.org/freemarket_detail.aspx?control=220
Here is American politics in a nutshell:
"I'm glad to see they're trying to rein in Fannie Mae, but I think I'm being disproportionately penalized," said Rayn Random, who is trying to sell her house in the hills for $849,000 so she can move to Florida.
Actually, that's probably everyone's politics in a nutshell. The issue here is that in 2008, after the collapse of the housing market, the federal government raised the limit for the size of the home loans that Fannie Mae would
But no matter how broadly supported a policy is, there's always somebody who's going to get the short end of the stick and is convinced they're being singled out for unfair treatment. In this case, it's upper middle class homeowners, who might have a bit harder time selling their homes and might have to pay a bit more when they're buying one. This is, of course, the free market in action, but no one in the housing industry cares about that when it's their paychecks on the line:
The National Association of Realtors, 8,000 of whom have gathered in Washington this week for their midyear legislative meeting, is making an extension of the loan guarantees a top lobbying priority....The Mortgage Bankers Association has opposed letting the limits drop, although a spokesman said its members were studying the issue.
I'd peg the number of genuine believers in free market capitalism at about 1% of the population. Maybe. The rest of us just want whatever policies benefit us the most. And the richer you are, the more money you make from policies that benefit you. Among the rich and the corporate elite, true believers in the free market probably number about 0%.
http://motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2011/05/culture-victimization-and-free-market
Shake your chains to earth like dew
Which in sleep had fallen on you -
Ye are many – they are few."
Percy B Shelley 1819
Time to start Chapter two! Today (November 17th) marks the beginning of the second round of global protest, after October 15th. Part of this is in response to the cowardly attack in the middle of the night against the Zuccotti encampment: roarmag.orgIt has been spectacular to watch people around the world stand up for their rights in 2011. The big question in my mind, was when Americans would start to manifest against the oppression and corruption in the US. On September 17th 2011, it turns out.
The importance of protest in the US is immeasurable. The US is able to influence all other countries, affecting their ability to practice democracy: if there is no democracy in the US, there won't be democracy anywhere.
The incredibly brave first wave of protest helped prove it can be done, that there is hope. Even when their efforts were blacked out of the main stream media completely, they fought on, with love, and the gesture has inspired millions. It took the shock of violence against peaceful protestors to jump start the media, but now the movement can no longer be ignored. Hope is growing, as more and more people around the world join the movement and organize to occupy their own cities. 82 countries have joined, in over 1000 cities. The message could not be more clear: we are not alone! We are feeding each other with love. This is what it is to be alive!
In part, this blog is my apology. I am sorry I lost faith something like this was possible. I am sorry I gave up hope, and felt overwhelmed by the staggering power of our oppressors. I am sorry I had the arrogance to think I was alone. This blog is also my thank you. OWS, you have restored my faith in America, in humanity, in myself. You have reminded me of something even bigger than Democracy or economic justice or social equality, you have reminded me of the ability of love to unlock our infinite power. Thank you, for revealing my fears to be what they are, just fears. Thank you, for awakening my heart. There is so much to be done. Thank you for uniting us, so we can get started.
http://edition.cnn.com/SPECIALS/2007/eyeonindia/
Knowledge of the hazards of non-ionising radiation has been around for the last 50 years. Whereas, the Russians took these problems seriously, Western industrial societies have weighted economical benefit against health problems and found economy to be more important than public health. Numerous papers, articles and books on low-level non-ionising radiation seem to have done little to alert the authorities even those coming from within governmental agencies themselves!!
In a recent paper issued by IEGMP: Independent Expert Group on Mobile Phones lead by Sir William Steward, famous British biochemist and leader of Association for the Advancement of Science, states mobile phone users may well experience long time exposure effects that will damage health. Especially warned were children in the paper Mobile Phones and Health issued April 2000. Sir Williams also scorned mobile phone producers for luring children to use mobile phones as essential " back to school" items.
December 8th 2000 the German Academy of Pediatrics issued a similar warning when advising parents not to encourage children to use mobile phones unnecessarily. They warned mobile phone radiation as a potential health hazard for the young generation. The same warning was issued by Wolfram Kônig from the Federal Agency for Protection from Radiation ( Bundesamt fûr Strahlenschutz) . In a press release July 31at 2001 in Berliner Morgenpost he urged people to consider that those sensitive to radiation may suffer ill effects, especially the younger generation
Several papers have been issued to warn pregnant women from exposure to ELF and HF non-ionising radiation. Professor Sianette Kwee of the Department of Medical Biochemistry at the University of Aarhus, Denmark, the Danish expert to European Unions COST281. Project group on Potential Health Effects from emerging Wireless Communication Systems, claims there is a substantial change in embryonic cells when exposed to ELF from power lines and MW from Mobile Phones !!The damage was greatest to young, fast growing embryonic cells.
Dr. Gerhard Hyland at the Department of Physics University of Warwick, Coventry, England states several hazards in his report at the STOA Committee of the EU dealing especially with children and mobile phones. His findings are alarming since he points to the fact that there will be resonant phenomena (building up of received energy with no chance of escape) within the scull-cavity, especially in sculls of the size of a young child! Young children using mobile phones or being close to a phone will also absorb more than a grown up due to a much thinner scull.
According to Hyland the 8.34 Hz and 2Hz pulses of current GSM phones lie in the range of normal brainwaves and may thus explain why such radiation is specially disturbing to the brains activity. Again this is most dangerous in children having an abundance of slow delta waves before the age of 12 when the faster alpha waves appear. Immune damage is also a problem not to be ignored.
In an article in Sunday Mirror December 27th 2001 headed "The Child Scrambler" a paper by Spanish scientists is quoted stating 2 minutes of mobile phone exposure to the ear causes altered brain activity for up to an hour afterwards, often resulting in aberrant behaviour, psychiatric problems and even ADHD—like problems.
The problem countered is even more problematic than first considered: In the Marbella Institute study in Spain quoted above, 87% of all kids, in the age group between 11-16 used mobile phones but when confronted with the findings as much as 70% said they did not bother about the consequences which bottom line means: regardless, of scientific warnings the average child is more willing to listen to producers advertising and the recommendations of their friends than hard science. Which of course rises a question of who should rule the market: science or mobile phone-companies.
Not only children suffer: older people do as well, Most recent breaking news is the suffering of WHO General Secretary Gro Harlem Brundtland, former Norwegian Prime Minister and chairman of the UN Brundtland Commission and way back also Labour Party minister of Environmental Protection in Norway. Highly respected for her work and achievements Brundtland now suffers the ill consequences of apparent overuse of unshielded PC-technology, Mobile Phone radiation and even a microwave oven accident injuring the GS's eyesight.
The GS`s health is now so fragile that no one is allowed to place a Mobile Phone , a PC or a bright light in her nearness, facts confirmed to both the Norwegian press and magazines such as Microwave News .In the midst of her suffering the GS has proclaimed that she will no longer hold the prestigious post as a "doctor to the world".
Explanations and investigations
Whereas official and mobile phone companies have tried to downplay the hazards by using obsolete measuring devices and focusing solely on the Joule/cm.
i.o.w. energy density absorption issue, claiming to find very little "heating effects" and thus stating the problem to be minimal ,even psychological, serious science focus on the main issue: biological resonance .Bio resonance is a well known phenomena acknowledged more than 60 years back when the first experiments with bio feedback started in the US . Briefly stated is works like this: living tissues like organs, vessels, nerves, individual cells, even their individual parts (organelles, proteins, enzymes and DNA) have certain energy absorption resonant frequencies where they start to absorb energy more intensely, and when doing so start to alter their manner of functioning sometimes improving their performance, but more often getting disturbed and starting to malfunction.
A considerable body of knowledge has been built up concerning radiation frequencies, wave topology (wave shape and pulse duration and the sequence of pulses) and their electromagnetic field strength. This body of knowledge today forms the firm foundation of a diversity of disciplines such as the benevolent art of magnetic healing, the German MORA-bio resonant therapy, the Hungarian Quantum Xeroid therapy and the more sinister art of electromagnetic warfare. Needless to say the players in the latter game is more often silent of their art en the other players, but enough is known by now to state firmly that MW is harmful even in nano-Joul/ cm2 quantities when topology and frequency is "right". Unfortunately current mobile phone technology has hit the wrong combination and unknowingly joined the wrong party .
Solid facts now appear to cause alarm. The more simplistic heating tissue problem claimed to be the only reason for concern by pro-mobile phone user has its problems these days. Dr. Kjell Hansson Mild at the National Institute of Occupational Health in Umeå in Sweden has shown that GSM phone users report heating effects after only 2 minutes use
Heavy users using the phone for more than 60 minutes pr day were 22 times more likely to experience heating effects to the head.
Professor Leif Salford at Lund University has shown that mobile phone radiation will cause an altered blood brain barrier and thus allow toxic elements to penetrate the brain more easily. Toxic penetration appears after only 2 minutes use of the phone. The effect is most probable a biological resonance effect.
If rats is your favourite topic it will be disturbing to know that professor Henry Lai and Narandra Singh at University of Washington in Seattle has found DNA damage to mobile phone exposed rats, most probably nonusers. Dr. John Tattersall at Porto Down Chemical and Biological Defence base in Wiltshire found that RF-radiation damaged the hippocampus of rats brains, the area a major structure for memory and learning abilities. These findings are disturbing because of their nature and because as some saw it, the funds came from DoH finding military research !
Clinical research is also abundant these days. In a study by Kjell Hansson Mild an colleges ( see above) published 1998 uncomfortable symptoms increased with the time exposed to mobile GSM phones. Symptoms investigated were problems as fatigue, headache, heat sensations to head, burning skin. The longer the exposure the more frequent the complaints For users exposed to 60 minutes or more pr day the increase; in symptoms were up to 16 fold, as for warmth behind the ears and 4 fold for feeling of exhaustion Certainly not a sign of safe technology at loose.
Theratronics involvement.
Our own involvement with the mobile phone hazards stems from my own "Brundtland syndrome" dating back to the eighties and nineties when being exposed to a considerable amount of ELF and HP and even MW and ionising radiation working with PCs and own experimental devices used for bio resonance research. When trying to find the answer to my own problems I tried many different ways to get answers ranging from the helpful assistance of Essentia in Canada, to various governmental agencies and finally starting to use the space-age equipment from Medtronik Germany, producing the MORA testing and bio resonance therapy (BRT) equipment. The latest reincarnation of their technology being the MORA Super plus machine sensitive to human micro radiation in the range of 20 -200KHz,picking up voltage as low as 10exp(-6) Volt. By using such equipment it is possible to analyse the reaction of living beings (even plants if necessary) and correct their energy pattern by the use of bio-feedback technology developed by Morell and. Rasche back in the sixties. Their technology has been tried and tested by thousands of users all over the world, with the major players in the German speaking world, but also numerous users in Canada.
Through constant feedback from users various protocols have been developed how to correct the aberrant bio energy of various diseases, even those electro magnetically diseased.
Through my association with the Med Tronic team and experienced users of their equipment I came to build my own database on mobile phone users problems and started to develop my own protocols of treatment resulting in the establishment of my Theratronics company at Fevik, Norway.
Before the company was started August 2002 we already had experience with 3000 individual measurements on MORA equipment.
We developed a specific protocol for testing and evaluating radiation caused problems, based on the Voll parameters and the tried and tested MORA-protocol. Before we undertook the Ecoflow assignment we ran several test series on a number of so-called shielding devices until we were sure of the protocol and the validity of our results.
But what about the improvements?? Since the only significant change takes place in the disappearance of the spin-inversion, the only conclusion is: what we see as, improvement is due to absence of spin inversion.
The type of spin inversion + excitation caused by mobile phones seems to be reflected in our parameters. If we impose a certain restriction on our readings and say we only want to deal with improvements greater than 2 ( above 1.6 on the average scale if we round off ) we are left with this conclusion:
Spin-inversion causes mostly: headaches, heat feeling burning sensation, pareztesia, restlessness, lack of concentration anger and irritation. It is not the sole contributor to those problems since these problems do not disappear totally when spin inversion disappears, but taking away the chaos-factor greatly reduces the problems ,actually on the average 42% improvements on the afore mentions problems!
The Biophone was not a "shielding device" at all, it is a "healing device" picking up signals from the radiation sick blood and returning the signal in a fashion that mimics a therapy signal.
The Biophone crystal-metal picks up the stress signals from the body when excited by the mobile phone, picks up the left—turning spin signals (the sick spin) phase invert the signal and returns to the body as a healing-signal.
In other words having worked with the Biophone for 6 months used thousands of kroners on the project, written for 200 hours and spent hours churning out numbers we ended up with some very, very ancient wisdom: crystals heal your body when attacked by harmful radiations.
Knowledge of the hazards of non-ionising radiation has been around for the last 50 years. Whereas, the Russians took these problems seriously, Western industrial societies have weighted economical benefit against health problems and found economy to be more important than public health. Numerous papers, articles and books on low-level non-ionising radiation seem to have done little to alert the authorities even those coming from within governmental agencies themselves!!
In a recent paper issued by IEGMP: Independent Expert Group on Mobile Phones lead by Sir William Steward, famous British biochemist and leader of Association for the Advancement of Science, states mobile phone users may well experience long time exposure effects that will damage health. Especially warned were children in the paper Mobile Phones and Health issued April 2000. Sir Williams also scorned mobile phone producers for luring children to use mobile phones as essential " back to school" items.
December 8th 2000 the German Academy of Pediatrics issued a similar warning when advising parents not to encourage children to use mobile phones unnecessarily. They warned mobile phone radiation as a potential health hazard for the young generation. The same warning was issued by Wolfram Kônig from the Federal Agency for Protection from Radiation ( Bundesamt fûr Strahlenschutz) . In a press release July 31at 2001 in Berliner Morgenpost he urged people to consider that those sensitive to radiation may suffer ill effects, especially the younger generation
Several papers have been issued to warn pregnant women from exposure to ELF and HF non-ionising radiation. Professor Sianette Kwee of the Department of Medical Biochemistry at the University of Aarhus, Denmark, the Danish expert to European Unions COST281. Project group on Potential Health Effects from emerging Wireless Communication Systems, claims there is a substantial change in embryonic cells when exposed to ELF from power lines and MW from Mobile Phones !!The damage was greatest to young, fast growing embryonic cells.
Dr. Gerhard Hyland at the Department of Physics University of Warwick, Coventry, England states several hazards in his report at the STOA Committee of the EU dealing especially with children and mobile phones. His findings are alarming since he points to the fact that there will be resonant phenomena (building up of received energy with no chance of escape) within the scull-cavity, especially in sculls of the size of a young child! Young children using mobile phones or being close to a phone will also absorb more than a grown up due to a much thinner scull.
According to Hyland the 8.34 Hz and 2Hz pulses of current GSM phones lie in the range of normal brainwaves and may thus explain why such radiation is specially disturbing to the brains activity. Again this is most dangerous in children having an abundance of slow delta waves before the age of 12 when the faster alpha waves appear. Immune damage is also a problem not to be ignored.
In an article in Sunday Mirror December 27th 2001 headed "The Child Scrambler" a paper by Spanish scientists is quoted stating 2 minutes of mobile phone exposure to the ear causes altered brain activity for up to an hour afterwards, often resulting in aberrant behaviour, psychiatric problems and even ADHD—like problems.
The problem countered is even more problematic than first considered: In the Marbella Institute study in Spain quoted above, 87% of all kids, in the age group between 11-16 used mobile phones but when confronted with the findings as much as 70% said they did not bother about the consequences which bottom line means: regardless, of scientific warnings the average child is more willing to listen to producers advertising and the recommendations of their friends than hard science. Which of course rises a question of who should rule the market: science or mobile phone-companies.
Not only children suffer: older people do as well, Most recent breaking news is the suffering of WHO General Secretary Gro Harlem Brundtland, former Norwegian Prime Minister and chairman of the UN Brundtland Commission and way back also Labour Party minister of Environmental Protection in Norway. Highly respected for her work and achievements Brundtland now suffers the ill consequences of apparent overuse of unshielded PC-technology, Mobile Phone radiation and even a microwave oven accident injuring the GS's eyesight.
The GS`s health is now so fragile that no one is allowed to place a Mobile Phone , a PC or a bright light in her nearness, facts confirmed to both the Norwegian press and magazines such as Microwave News .In the midst of her suffering the GS has proclaimed that she will no longer hold the prestigious post as a "doctor to the world".
Explanations and investigations
Whereas official and mobile phone companies have tried to downplay the hazards by using obsolete measuring devices and focusing solely on the Joule/cm.
i.o.w. energy density absorption issue, claiming to find very little "heating effects" and thus stating the problem to be minimal ,even psychological, serious science focus on the main issue: biological resonance .Bio resonance is a well known phenomena acknowledged more than 60 years back when the first experiments with bio feedback started in the US . Briefly stated is works like this: living tissues like organs, vessels, nerves, individual cells, even their individual parts (organelles, proteins, enzymes and DNA) have certain energy absorption resonant frequencies where they start to absorb energy more intensely, and when doing so start to alter their manner of functioning sometimes improving their performance, but more often getting disturbed and starting to malfunction.
A considerable body of knowledge has been built up concerning radiation frequencies, wave topology (wave shape and pulse duration and the sequence of pulses) and their electromagnetic field strength. This body of knowledge today forms the firm foundation of a diversity of disciplines such as the benevolent art of magnetic healing, the German MORA-bio resonant therapy, the Hungarian Quantum Xeroid therapy and the more sinister art of electromagnetic warfare. Needless to say the players in the latter game is more often silent of their art en the other players, but enough is known by now to state firmly that MW is harmful even in nano-Joul/ cm2 quantities when topology and frequency is "right". Unfortunately current mobile phone technology has hit the wrong combination and unknowingly joined the wrong party .
Solid facts now appear to cause alarm. The more simplistic heating tissue problem claimed to be the only reason for concern by pro-mobile phone user has its problems these days. Dr. Kjell Hansson Mild at the National Institute of Occupational Health in Umeå in Sweden has shown that GSM phone users report heating effects after only 2 minutes use
Heavy users using the phone for more than 60 minutes pr day were 22 times more likely to experience heating effects to the head.
Professor Leif Salford at Lund University has shown that mobile phone radiation will cause an altered blood brain barrier and thus allow toxic elements to penetrate the brain more easily. Toxic penetration appears after only 2 minutes use of the phone. The effect is most probable a biological resonance effect.
If rats is your favourite topic it will be disturbing to know that professor Henry Lai and Narandra Singh at University of Washington in Seattle has found DNA damage to mobile phone exposed rats, most probably nonusers. Dr. John Tattersall at Porto Down Chemical and Biological Defence base in Wiltshire found that RF-radiation damaged the hippocampus of rats brains, the area a major structure for memory and learning abilities. These findings are disturbing because of their nature and because as some saw it, the funds came from DoH finding military research !
Clinical research is also abundant these days. In a study by Kjell Hansson Mild an colleges ( see above) published 1998 uncomfortable symptoms increased with the time exposed to mobile GSM phones. Symptoms investigated were problems as fatigue, headache, heat sensations to head, burning skin. The longer the exposure the more frequent the complaints For users exposed to 60 minutes or more pr day the increase; in symptoms were up to 16 fold, as for warmth behind the ears and 4 fold for feeling of exhaustion Certainly not a sign of safe technology at loose.
Theratronics involvement.
Our own involvement with the mobile phone hazards stems from my own "Brundtland syndrome" dating back to the eighties and nineties when being exposed to a considerable amount of ELF and HP and even MW and ionising radiation working with PCs and own experimental devices used for bio resonance research. When trying to find the answer to my own problems I tried many different ways to get answers ranging from the helpful assistance of Essentia in Canada, to various governmental agencies and finally starting to use the space-age equipment from Medtronik Germany, producing the MORA testing and bio resonance therapy (BRT) equipment. The latest reincarnation of their technology being the MORA Super plus machine sensitive to human micro radiation in the range of 20 -200KHz,picking up voltage as low as 10exp(-6) Volt. By using such equipment it is possible to analyse the reaction of living beings (even plants if necessary) and correct their energy pattern by the use of bio-feedback technology developed by Morell and. Rasche back in the sixties. Their technology has been tried and tested by thousands of users all over the world, with the major players in the German speaking world, but also numerous users in Canada.
Through constant feedback from users various protocols have been developed how to correct the aberrant bio energy of various diseases, even those electro magnetically diseased.
Through my association with the Med Tronic team and experienced users of their equipment I came to build my own database on mobile phone users problems and started to develop my own protocols of treatment resulting in the establishment of my Theratronics company at Fevik, Norway.
Before the company was started August 2002 we already had experience with 3000 individual measurements on MORA equipment.
We developed a specific protocol for testing and evaluating radiation caused problems, based on the Voll parameters and the tried and tested MORA-protocol. Before we undertook the Ecoflow assignment we ran several test series on a number of so-called shielding devices until we were sure of the protocol and the validity of our results.
But what about the improvements?? Since the only significant change takes place in the disappearance of the spin-inversion, the only conclusion is: what we see as, improvement is due to absence of spin inversion.
The type of spin inversion + excitation caused by mobile phones seems to be reflected in our parameters. If we impose a certain restriction on our readings and say we only want to deal with improvements greater than 2 ( above 1.6 on the average scale if we round off ) we are left with this conclusion:
Spin-inversion causes mostly: headaches, heat feeling burning sensation, pareztesia, restlessness, lack of concentration anger and irritation. It is not the sole contributor to those problems since these problems do not disappear totally when spin inversion disappears, but taking away the chaos-factor greatly reduces the problems ,actually on the average 42% improvements on the afore mentions problems!
The Biophone was not a "shielding device" at all, it is a "healing device" picking up signals from the radiation sick blood and returning the signal in a fashion that mimics a therapy signal.
The Biophone crystal-metal picks up the stress signals from the body when excited by the mobile phone, picks up the left—turning spin signals (the sick spin) phase invert the signal and returns to the body as a healing-signal.
In other words having worked with the Biophone for 6 months used thousands of kroners on the project, written for 200 hours and spent hours churning out numbers we ended up with some very, very ancient wisdom: crystals heal your body when attacked by harmful radiations.
http://www.energetic-medicine.net/bioenergetic-articles/articles/49/1/Mobile-Phone-hazard/Page1.html
Wednesday, April 21, 2010
#The group investigated potential safety hazards around the periphery of campus, including Northeast Campus Parkway. The area near Terry and Lander Hall was a popular choice among survey participants when they were asked about the on-campus location in which they felt most unsafe. Participants took notes on lighting, signage, sightlines, emergency services, disability accommodations, maintenance, personal safety, and other aspects of areas on campus.
#Tunny Vann, Director of Community Relations, said that the "Broken Windows theory" guided him during his auditing.
#"If the area doesn't feel like it's being taken care of, it will give the impression of being unsafe," Vann said.
#The theory says that places that appear neglected are prone to more safety risks. Vann jotted down notes about graffiti, litter and construction sites — all "broken windows" on campus.
#Construction sites, specifically, came back as one of the leading concerns among student participants in the survey. Students felt the abandoned sites were prime places for criminals to dwell. Excessive bushes and shrubbery were also noted in the auditing process as places where criminals could hide.
#One of the large focuses in the auditing process was on lighting. In order to simulate a day in the life of a UW student, it was decided that the auditing would take place at various times during the day — both in the afternoon and the late evening, as lighting changed. Participants checked for the distribution of lights, obstruction of light and the quantity of light sources.
#Abigail Pearl, ASUW representative and organizer of the initiative, took geography and women studies fall quarter. Pearl found many of the course's lessons to be applicable to the UW at large. One specific project that the class worked on involved observing places on campus deemed to be unsafe. When Pearl became an ASUW committee member, she decided to convert the classroom project to a larger scale by conducting the safety survey and the campus-safety audit.
#The results from the original survey suggested that a large portion of participants felt at great risk when in close proximity to the homeless.
#"The amount of notes about homelessness in conjunction with safety was pretty telling," Pearl said. "We can't necessarily eliminate [homelessness], but I hope to at least educate people about poverty — the human aspect of homelessness."
#The next auditing group will meet Monday at 5:30 p.m. in the HUB to audit the interior of campus. The results will be presented to the Office of Student Life, the UW Police Department, and Facilities Services, among other departments, by the end of the quarter.
#Reach reporter Colin Gorenstein at news@dailyuw.com.
The knowledge economy is a term that refers either to an economy of knowledge focused on the production and management of knowledge in the frame of economic constraints, or to aknowledge-based economy. In the second meaning, more frequently used, it refers to the use of knowledge technologies (such as knowledge engineering and knowledge management) to produce economic benefits as well as job creation. The phrase was popularized by Peter Drucker as the title of Chapter 12 in his book The Age of Discontinuity, And, with a footnote in the text, Drucker attributes the phrase to economist Fritz Machlup and its origins to the idea of "scientific management" developed by Frederick Winslow Taylor.[1]
The essential difference is that in a knowledge economy, knowledge is a product, while in aknowledge-based economy, knowledge is a tool. This difference is not yet well distinguished in the subject matter literature. They both are strongly interdisciplinary, involving economists, computer scientists, engineers, mathematicians, librarians, geographers, chemists and physicists, as well as cognitivists, psychologists and sociologists.
Various observers describe today's global economy as one in transition to a "knowledge economy," as an extension of an "information society." The transition requires that the rules and practices that determined success in the industrial economy need rewriting in an interconnected, globalized economy where knowledge resources such as know-how and expertise are as critical as other economic resources. According to analysts of the "knowledge economy," these rules need to be rewritten at the levels of firms and industries in terms of knowledge management and at the level of public policy as knowledge policy or knowledge-related policy.[citation needed]
It can be defined as
" The concept that supports creation of knowledge by organizational employees and helps and encourages them to transfer and better utilize their knowledge that is in line with company/organization goals "
The initial foundation for the Knowledge Economy was first introduced in 1966 in the book The Effective Executive by Peter Drucker. In this book, Drucker described the difference between the manual worker (page 2) and the knowledge worker. The manual worker, according to him, works with his hands and produces goods or services. In contrast, a knowledge worker (page 3) works with his or her head not hands, and produces ideas, knowledge, and information.
The key problem in the formalization and modeling of knowledge economy, is a vague definition of knowledge, which is a rather relative concept. For example, it is not proper to consider information society as interchangeable with knowledge society. Information is usually not equivalent to knowledge. Their use, as well, depends on individual and group preferences (see the cognitive IPK model) – which are "economy-dependent".[2]
In the knowledge economy, the specialized labor force is characterized as computer literate and well-trained in handling data, developing algorithms and simulated models, and innovating on processes and systems. Harvard Business School Professor, Michael Porter asserts that today's economy is far more dynamic and that comparative advantage is less relevant than competitive advantage which rests on "making more productive use of inputs, which requires continual innovation."[7] Consequently, the technical, STEM careers including computer scientists, engineers, chemists, biologists, mathematicians, and scientific inventors will see continuous demand in years to come. Additionally, well-situated clusters, which Michael Porter argues is vital in global economies, connect locally with linked industries, manufacturers, and other entities that are related by skills, technologies, and other common inputs. Hence, knowledge is the catalyst and connective tissue in modern economies.
With earth's depleting natural resources, the need for green infrastructure, a logistics industry forced into just-in-time deliveries, growing global demand, regulatory policy governed by performance results, and a host of other items high priority is put on knowledge; and research becomes paramount. Knowledge provides the technical expertise, problem-solving, performance measurement and evaluation, and data management needed for the transboundary, interdisciplinary global scale of today's competition.[8]
Worldwide examples of the knowledge economy taking place among many others include: Silicon Valley in California; aerospace and automotive engineering in Munich, Germany; biotechnology in Hyderabad, India; electronics and digital media in Seoul, South Korea;petrochemical and energy industry in Brazil.
As a result, goods and services can be developed, bought, sold, and in many cases even delivered over electronic networks.
As regards the applications of any new technology, this depends on how it meets economic demand. It can remain dormant or make a commercial breakthrough (see diffusion of innovation).
These characteristics require new ideas and approaches from policy makers, managers and knowledge workers.
The knowledge economy has manifold forms in which it may appear but there are predictions that the new economy will extend radically, creating a pattern in which even ideas will be recognised and identified as a commodity. This certainly is not the best time to make any hasty judgment on this contention, but considering the very nature of 'knowledge' itself, added to the fact that it is the thrust of this new form of economy, there certainly is a clear way forward for this notion, though the particulars (i.e. the quantum of the revolutionary approach and its applicability and commercial value),remain in the speculative realm, as of now.
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The interaction between social class and health-related lifestyle is apparent already during the early years of life. The social environment of children and adolescents, consisting of, for example, family and peers, constitutes the context in which behaviours are learned, encouraged and practised (Taylor and Repetti, 1997). Some health-related behaviours can be seen as consequences of various styles of coping with stress, caused by the social environment. Inappropriate behaviours come from dysfunctional coping styles, like helplessness or hopelessness, altered perceptions of risk and vulnerability, and an undue willingness to behave in risky ways. Among the factors that form people's resources for confronting the stressors are socioeconomic conditions, the type and severity of life events, the amount of social support, and the access to information. These all differ according to social class, although there are also individual differences in responding to influences coming from the environment (Rutter and Quine, 1994; Taylor and Repetti, 1997). On the other hand, the interaction between social class and health-related lifestyle may arise from the economic possibilities and other contextual factors, e.g. wholesome food may be more expensive, which limits the actual possibilities of the poor to maintain a healthy diet. Also, in households which do not have a car, it is difficult to take children to instructive hobbies, like many forms of exercise and sports.
It is possible that the same features of social environment which constitute the association between social class and health-related lifestyle influence the association between social background and education, as well. Acquiring education may be an indication of a person's feeling that life is under control to the extent that far-reaching plans can be made. The realization of their plans requires a strong self-esteem and is hardly possible without support from one's immediate circle. It can be thought that giving value to knowledge is reflected in the appreciation of education as well as of health-promoting behaviours.
Many studies show that children from higher social class families reach the highest levels of education (Cobalti, 1990; Blackburn and Marsh, 1991; Mehan, 1992; Roberts and Parsell, 1992; Mauger, 1993; Erikson and Jonsson, 1996;Bourdieu and Passeron, 1977). Economic resources influence the costs attached to decisions about whether or not to continue schooling. Also the choice between academic and vocational studies is affected by the costs, benefits and probability of success. However, background factors other than economic resources seem to be more important for explaining the association between social origin and educational decisions (Erikson and Jonsson, 1996).
Social class differences in children's home environments, like patterns of interaction between parents and children, may explain why academic performance is better among children from higher social classes. More highly educated parents place a high value on education and may help their offspring's educational performance, e.g. by verbal training and practical help with schoolwork. (Argyle, 1994; Erikson and Jonsson, 1996). They transmit to their children cultural capital that helps them to adapt to school values and to navigate the educational system (Bourdieu and Passeron, 1977). Well-educated parents also tend to have a great confidence in their children's probability of success and in their own capacity to get them through the more demanding tracks. Lower class parents need stronger evidence of their children's potential before making decisions about higher education (Erikson and Jonsson, 1996).
Altogether, it is hypothesized that social background creates the starting point for the development of a health-related lifestyle and the educational track an individual is going to follow. One's background, on the one hand, offers economic resources for various lifestyles and education, and, on the other hand, creates a social environment in which lifestyles and educational decisions are made. This environment consists of values, social support and social resources for coping in life. The interplay between lifestyle and education forms a process, during which individuals gradually take up their positions in relation to their future health and social status. This process has a bearing on health differences between social classes.
The phenomenon of health behaviours differing according to the length of education that people are going to acquire is obvious in adolescence (West, 1988, 1991). Young people, who do not feel that education would help them to achieve a good life often turn their interest away from school. This is shown both in the adoption of health-compromising behaviours and in the amount of time spent on leisure, peer groups or work (Willis, 1977; Nutbeam et al., 1989;Mehan, 1992; Persaud and Madak, 1992; Argyle, 1994). Since educational track and school achievement strongly predict an individual's social position in adulthood (Halsey et al., 1980; Timmons, 1988), alienation from school leads to many kinds of difficulties in future life (Education and Research, 1992:1, Persaud and Madak, 1992). Low social class further diminishes a person's coping capabilities and abilities to adopt a healthy way of life (Macintyre, 1986;Jacobsen and Thelle, 1988; Winkleby et al., 1992; Argyle, 1994; Elo and Preston, 1996).
Smoking has a central role in distinguishing individuals who have chosen different educational tracks. Smoking is related to poor school attainment, disaffection with school and adoption of non-conventional values in society (Aarø et al., 1986; Glendinning et al., 1994, 1995). It can be thought that smoking is a strong indicator of a broader lifestyle, which gradually leads to a low level of education and health-damaging activities, with all their consequences (Nutbeam et al., 1989; West, 1991; Glendinning et al., 1992). Aarøet al. (Aarø et al., 1986) have defined lifestyle as `...relatively stable patterns of behaviours, habits, attitudes and values which are typical of the groups one belongs to, or the groups one wants to belong to'. Thus, in order to understand lifestyle, a large number of single, and possibly inter-related, behaviours need to be considered simultaneously. In addition, the role of reference groups is central. It is likely that the role of childhood social class as a reference group for lifestyle diminishes in adolescence when a person is in contact with other groups, e.g. in school and leisure-time. This will be reflected as the weak influence of the family's social class on the association between lifestyle and educational track.
The purpose of this study is to describe whether adolescents who have different health-related lifestyles have been selected into different educational tracks already at the age of 16. We want to identify which particular aspects of lifestyle are typical of adolescents who are at risk of ending up in low social positions or which are typical of those having the best chances of ending up in high positions. The conceptual model of the study is outlined in Figure 1. The associations of lifestyle with educational track at age 16 are assessed with adjustment to socioeconomic background. On the right are the supposed consequences of the process.
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In the Finnish educational system, after 9 years of compulsory schooling (basic education), a division is made, at the age of 16, into upper secondary schools and vocational or other schools (mostly vocationally or professionally oriented educational institutions) (Central Statistical Office of Finland, 1995). At the time of inquiry, the channel to university degrees and thus supposedly to higher social positions was through upper secondary schools. Achievement is measured by the pupil's own assessment of his or her position in the class, according to the average school marks in the preceding end-of-term school report. Consequently, the first of the successive categories, i.e. those with the poorest social prospects, consists of those who are not attending school at the time of inquiry (8%; N = 2377). The second category consists of those in vocational or other schools who have, at most, average school achievement (28%). The third category consists of respondents in vocational or other schools with above average school achievement (12%). The fourth category consists of those in upper secondary schools who have, at most, average school achievement (25%). The fifth category, i.e. those with the best social prospects, consists of respondents in upper secondary schools with above average school achievement (27%).
Most of the respondents were continuing their education after the compulsory level of schooling. Attending upper secondary schools and doing well in these schools is more typical for girls, while boys more often go to vocational or other schools and get average or below average level reports. Of all respondents, 3.6% are excluded from the classification because information about their school achievement is missing (1.4% in upper secondary schools and 7.0% in vocational schools).
The proportion of respondents attending formal education in this study is similar to the respective proportion in official Finnish statistics for the mid and late 1980s. Also the proportions of those attending upper secondary schools and vocational or other schools are comparable for this age group (Education and Research, 1992:3, 1987:5).
(2) Leisure-time activities
(3) Social relations
Two stepwise procedures were carried out. First, of the sociodemographic background variables, those showing independent associations with educational track in univariate analysis (Pearson's χ2-test) are selected into the model. Second, to get the final multivariate model of lifestyle variables which are independently associated with educational track, another stepwise procedure is used. This is done after adjusting for the sociodemographic background variables selected above. The cumulative odds ratios (COR) with 95% confidence intervals (CI) are calculated for the variables showing significant explanatory power in the final model. The groups giving approximately the same COR are combined. As cumulative models examine the relations between the categories of an ordinal type dependent variable, COR thus expresses the incidence of upper categories of the dependent variable as compared to the lower categories on various values of the independent variables.
All the decisions regarding statistical significance are made at the 5% risk level. The analyses are carried out using the PR program in the statistical software BMDP (Dixon, 1992).
Once the final model is found, its parameter values are used to calculate model-based predicted probabilities (see the formula above) of belonging to categories of educational track for persons with different combinations of characteristics. These probabilities are illustrated in Figures 2 and 3 for some combinations.
The logistic regression functions are computed using only the cases which have values for every variable. For this reason, there is a need to retain in the analyses as many observations for each variable as possible. Thus, for the variable, father's education, missing values (5.2%) are replaced by the most probable value according to father's occupation. For the variable, educational track, the missing values (3.6%), due to a lack of knowledge about the report level, are replaced by using the most probable value of the school report on the basis of school attendance and school type. The distributions of the variables are similar before and after the replacement of missing values, and in the final stepwise procedure there are only slight differences in the decimal parts of the significances and CORs. The proportion of missing values in the final model is 8.2% (16.9% before replacement).
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The final model is presented in Table II. In the first stepwise procedure of logistic regression analysis, four socioeconomic background variables have independent associations with educational track and are taken into the final model. Belonging to educational tracks with good social prospects is most typical of girls, of adolescents living with both parents and of adolescents whose fathers have a white collar occupation or a high level of education.
In the second stepwise procedure, after adjusting for the sociodemographic variables above, smoking is the lifestyle variable which is most closely associated with educational track. The probability of belonging to educational tracks with good social prospects is high among adolescents who do not smoke daily. Those who brush their teeth regularly, do not drink much coffee, participate in unorganized physical exercise, always use seatbelts, and use moderately or little milk fat and sugar in coffee also have a high probability of belonging to educational tracks with good social prospects.
Of leisure-time activities, the probability of belonging to educational tracks with good social prospects is associated with spending less hours daily watching TV or videotapes and listening to music, and attending church or other religious meetings often.
No variable describing social relations is significant in the final model.
Figure 2 shows model-based predicted probabilities of belonging to each of the five categories of educational track for people representing two different sets of characteristics, i.e. profiles. The profiles are combinations of sociodemographic and lifestyle variable categories. The predicted probabilities are based on cumulative odds ratios of the final model in Table II. A detailed description of the risk profiles in Figure 2 is shown in the Appendix. Figure 2 compares a person with an overall low chance of good social prospects (profile 1) with a person with an overall high chance of good social prospects (profile 2). The difference between profiles 1 and 2 is extreme. The predicted probability of belonging to the educational track with the best social prospects is 0.845 on profile 2 and 0.005 on profile 1. The predicted probabilities of belonging to the educational track with the poorest social prospects is 0.003 on profile 2 and 0.731 on profile 1. The profiles meet each other at the middle point of the distribution of educational track.
Figure 3 shows the effect of sociodemographic background on the association between lifestyle and educational track. Above, the difference between two individuals who both lead a hazardous lifestyle, but who differ according to sociodemographic background, can be seen. The profiles are quite similar, but a favourable background (profile 3) lowers the probability of belonging to the educational track with the poorest social prospects [i.e. of being in the category of not attending school (Table I)]. Otherwise, there is a slight difference in that a favourable background tends to increase the probability of belonging to educational tracks with better social prospects.
Below, there is a comparison between two individuals who both have a high chance of good social prospects according to lifestyle, but of whom one (profile 4) has an unfavourable sociodemographic background. Also here, the difference is most obvious at the extreme of the profile, in that an unfavourable background lowers the probability of belonging to the educational track with the best social prospects. Otherwise, an unfavourable background only slightly increases the probability of belonging to educational tracks with poorer social prospects.
Previous SectionNext Section
Almost every subject could be classified according to educational track and thus the number of missing cases remained small. In forming this variable, it is assumed that its categories reflect people's positions on an ordinal scale. The ordering is based on the knowledge that the selected educational track and school achievement predict an individual's social position in adulthood (Halseyet al., 1980; Timmons, 1988). In the Finnish context, the division into two main levels of education is important, because the channel to university studies at the time of the study was through upper secondary schools.
The selected educational track does not straightforwardly predict the educational level to be attained in adult age. Changes from one track to another and dropping out may occur. In Finland, in 1987, 6% of the students in daytime full-time upper secondary schools dropped out of school, although they could later apply for vocational education. In vocational schools, the drop-out rate was 8% (Education and Research, 1992:14, 1992:16). However, despite these drop-out rates, the overall predictability of adult social position is supposed to be strong (see also Koivusilta et al., 1996).
Among the socioeconomic variables, gender was most closely associated with educational track. Girls were more often on the tracks with good social prospects than boys. It has been observed that nowadays girls achieve better in schools than boys (Cobalti, 1990; Rimpelä et al., 1990; Undheim and Nordvik, 1992). One explanation given for this phenomenon is that girls are often more disciplined and hardworking than boys (Svensson, 1971). Moreover, they are more concerned with the status, rather than the economic value, of education than boys (Shavit and Blossfeld, 1996).
Family type was, in our study, the second most significant background variable. Many other studies have also shown that not living with both biological parents increases the risk of problems in school (Keith and Finlay, 1988; Dawson, 1991;Macintyre, 1992; Mulkey et al., 1992; Persaud and Madak, 1992). In one-parent families, there seems to be more clustering of health-damaging behaviours than in other families (Isohanni et al., 1993). It is probable that in one-parent families guardians do not have much time to spend on furthering the educational success of their children. Also the scarcity of economic resources may decrease the amount of educational material at home (Erikson and Jonsson, 1996).
In this study, too, the importance of social class background on educational track is seen (Bourdieu and Passeron, 1977; Cobalti, 1990; Blackburn and Marsh, 1991; Mehan, 1992; Roberts and Parsell, 1992; Mauger, 1993; Erikson and Jonsson, 1996). Both measures of social class have an independent association with educational track, but the association of father's or other guardian's occupation is stronger than that of his education. On the whole, working-class parents may be content if their son or daughter gets a vocational education, while middle-class parents often want their children to prepare for university studies (Argyle, 1994; Erikson and Jonsson, 1996). Furthermore, the parent's success in life is an encouraging model for a young person, and the lifestyle and values of the upper classes provide the cultural capital needed for success in school (Bourdieu and Passeron, 1977).
Several aspects of lifestyle appear in this study to be more strongly associated with educational track than is sociodemographic background. It is possible that some behaviours better catch the attitudes of young people than the standard measures of background. It is also possible that some adolescents are not able to classify their parents according to occupational class or education. Among behaviours, the central role of smoking is repeated also in many other studies. It is possible that smoking illustrates a broader lifestyle where education is not valued and interest is directed towards other spheres of life (Willis, 1977; Aarø et al., 1986; Persaud and Madak, 1992; Glendinning et al., 1995). This kind of process of withdrawal from school may include other health-damaging habits, low self-esteem and a sense of lack of control over one's own life, with all these features reinforcing each other (Hammarström et al., 1988; Nutbeam et al., 1989; Persaud and Madak, 1992; Nurmi, 1993).
Smoking may be a sign of stress caused by an overload of personal and social development tasks or failure to meet social role expectations (Jarvis, 1994;Hurrelmann and Maggs, 1995). Pressure to succeed academically has been identified as an important source of stress for adolescents (Hurrelmann, 1990). Smoking is associated with many kinds of mental health problems, such as depression (Anda et al., 1990; Covey and Tam, 1990). All this may mean that health-damaging behaviours, health problems and a lack of resources for educational achievement may be closely intertwined already at an early stage of life.
It is also possible that people adopt behaviours for their own purely psychological reasons, like curiosity, the desire to experiment or the images given to various behaviours, e.g. in films and advertisements. Later, people with the same kinds of behaviours join together and then the implication of these behaviours may be further strengthened. Sharing a common habit, like smoking, may add to a sense of togetherness and signify making a distinction from other groups (Bourdieu, 1984). Thus, a habit becomes a source of self-esteem and self-image (Argyle, 1994). The adoption of certain behaviours, especially beginning to smoke, may also be regarded as a rite of transition, a sign of adulthood.
In this study, alcohol use is quite significantly associated with educational track in univariate analysis, but is not selected into the model. This is explained by the way in which the stepwise method at every step selects the most significant predictor from the set of many important, and supposedly correlating, variables (Dixon, 1992). Thus, the inclusion of smoking into the model renders the alcohol variable insignificant. Although these two behaviours are closely associated with each other (Aarø et al., 1995; Pohjanpää et al., 1996), it is also possible that they have different bases in adolescence. Smoking may be more a matter of rebellion and of peer solidarity, while drinking is confined to recreational contexts. Each behaviour also has differing potentials for generating addiction (Biddle et al., 1985). Nowadays, there appear to be two different dimensions in addictive behaviour among Finnish youth. On the traditional dimension, smoking and drinking go together. On the modern, and systematically increasing, dimension, the use of alcohol is involved while smoking is not (Pohjanpää et al., 1996). The association between social group and alcohol use is not as straightforward as that between social group and smoking (Mackenbach, 1992). In Finland, smoking is much more strongly associated with years of education than any indicator of alcohol use (Helakorpiet al., 1995). It seems that smoking in adolescence is a stronger indicator of a lifestyle where education is not highly valued than alcohol.
The major part of other lifestyle variables which are independently associated with educational track are health behaviours, such as putting effort into dental hygiene, eating habits, physical exercise or safety in traffic. The total amount of exercise and participation in most kinds of sports seems to be greatest in the middle classes. This may reflect the activity and motivation to work hard to attain goals. These traits are also behind educational success. Engaging in exercise may also be a sign that a person possesses much energy (Argyle, 1994). On the whole, all the behaviours mentioned above involve a feeling that life is under control to the extent that it is worth while taking care of one's health and abstaining from dangerous situations, and that discipline and self-control lead to rewards in the future. This is a part of middle-class culture that values ambition, individual responsibility, cultivation of skills, postponing immediate satisfaction and planning for the future. (Argyle, 1994). We conclude that, regardless of the original factors behind these behaviours, young people who, at the age of 16, share the same health-related lifestyle, also share some common attitudes towards education.
Of leisure-time activities, the amount of time spent listening to music and watching TV or videotapes divides the respondents. These are relaxation-oriented and passive ways to pass the time, and thus spending much time on these activities may be a sign of a low value given to studying and striving for achievements (Persaud and Madak, 1992; Argyle, 1994). Although these activities are to some extent typical features of the common youth culture, they may here be regarded as indicators of different lifestyles. Attending religious meetings as a leisure-time activity seems to indicate an opposite view of the importance of studying and suggest the adoption of a middle-class lifestyle. The middle classes have been found to be more active in public religious behaviour, like church attendance (Argyle, 1994). Thus, these leisure-time activities, together with the health-related behaviours, sharpen the picture of differing adolescent lifestyles.
The finding that the number of close social relations is not associated with educational track is difficult to interpret. There are many studies showing the importance of relations with parents and friends in educational attainment. Friends mediate parts of the effect of social origin on attainment. (Hauser et al., 1983; Jencks et al., 1983). Also, clear differences have been found in educational attainment and involvement in further education, between youth groups with different types of integration into family, school and peers, regardless of social background (Glendinning et al., 1995).
The final model was used to predict probabilities of belonging to categories of educational track for people with different sets of characteristics. By changing the values of item variables, it is possible to describe and compare various combinations of individual characteristics. The figures show that the entity, which is formed by health-related lifestyle and sociodemographic background together, is a powerful indicator of an individual's career chances. An adolescent with the most favourable characteristics clearly stands out through having a probability of 0.845 of belonging to those who will get the strongest educational basis for reaching a good social status. An unfavourable socioeconomic background would weaken this probability. Likewise, a good home background somewhat improves the chances of adolescents who have the poorest profile of behaviours. The future prospects are gloomiest for the slightly less than one-tenth of the cohort who will remain without further education. They are likely to remain outside the labour market and must rely on social security for their living. These people, who have unhealthy behaviours and who do not have their paths smoothed by their families, are in danger of becoming marginalized from the society in many ways which will influence also their health as adults.
The figures show that, at the age of 16, the influence of home background on the association between lifestyle and educational track is greatest at the extremes of the track variable. Background may have been the original generator of an individual's lifestyle and educational decisions but, in adolescence, the pattern of behaviours closely resembles the lifestyle of the individual's future social group. Thus, it seems that people, already at early stages of their lives, begin to follow behavioural and educational tracks leading to different positions in relation to health and social class in adulthood (Illsley, 1955; Kuh and Cooper, 1992; Argyle, 1994; Glendinning et al., 1994; Helakorpi et al., 1995).
By and large, the study gives evidence of a strong association between health-related lifestyle and educational track in adolescence. However, the stability of these findings from adolescence to adult life needs to be tested by longitudinal study designs.
Previous SectionNext Section
Lifestyle variables
Lifestyle variables
Lifestyle variables
Lifestyle variables
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http://her.oxfordjournals.org/content/14/3/339.full
Youngistan unplugged
Rajeev Mullick, Hindustan Times
Lucknow, January 05, 2012
The new age voters are fed up with old-style politics centred on narrow considerations of caste and community. They root for development, an issue that will determine how they vote. An interaction with engineering students of the RR Institute of Modern Technology, Lucknow, during HT
Campus Adda reflects this mood.
Iti Khare, a student, demands: "The political parties must promise steps to boost development. The new government should invest heavily in infrastructure in order to attract industry and create jobs."
They also animatedly discuss other topics, including corruption, division of the state and minimum academic qualifications for politicians, among others.
Most of them are confident the polling percentage will go up this time. "The youngsters of today are more aware than ever before. They value their vote. And as the elections are taking place in February (when the weather is pleasant), there is every reason to believe that there will be a good turnout," says Kushal Khatwani.
No reservation, please!
The young voters are against reservation. While they say the government may provide numerous facilities to the poor, only deserving candidates should get jobs. Neha Sharma, another student, says: "It hurts when an undeserving candidate gets a job. There should be no comprise on merit. Or else, development will take a backseat."
"Give jobs to the deserving ones. Why do we need to reserve seats for the weaker sections? The government should try providing the best facilities to them so that they can compete with the masses," suggests Lalita Sharma.
Netas must be well-informed
The students say minimum educational qualifications should be prescribed for the netas. "How can a Class 10-failed leader rule over us? This is not acceptable. It should be stopped," demands Saif Khan. He wants the parties to groom leaders before giving them tickets.
RTI, the right tool
The students also say the Right to Information (RTI) is one of the finest weapons to keep a tab on the functioning of ministers and officials. Sonal Srivastava asserts: "RTI has made a big difference. We can keep a tab on the senior officials in various departments."
Young leaders preferred
The students find it easier to relate to young leaders and feel the latter should get more tickets. Punnet Kumar Verma says, "the old leaders should take the back seat and let the youngsters come forward. The seniors may mentor young politicians and help them make the right decisions."
http://www.hindustantimes.com/India-news/Lucknow/Youngistan-unplugged/Article1-791493.aspx
Marketers swear by the mantra 'catch 'em young' and that's just what we did. The elusive youth demographic got a disproportionate amount of editorial attention. This extended to the youthful heroes of the ad and marketing industries as well. Many of the people profiled in the first edition of hot young creatives (July 2000) can perhaps no longer be called 'young' — but the remainder of that descriptor still applies.
2 October 1996
Rap To A Different Beat
There is no global youth. While some lifestyle props may be common, Asian/Indian Youth hold a bright outlook, as against the dark attitude of the West. MNC advertisers must keep this in mind
19 July 2000
Red Hot 'N' Smart - Young Creatives
1 October 2003
The Boy Brands
They're the movers, shakers and groovers of the marketing world. Brand Equity brings you Generation Next, the men and women following the footsteps of Vindi Banga, Muktesh Pant and Rajeev Bakshi
13 May 2009
The ScreenAgers
They live life in between screens - Mobiles, TVs, iPods, computers, or PSPs. To them multiscreening is the key to multi-tasking. Their spend power and brand consciousness makes them a marketer's dream. Their short attention span and loathing of ads makes them a nightmare. They are the ScreenAgers
11 November 2009
Indian Marketers League
They started off as foot soldiers in marketing or even as programmers and business analysts. Some 'escaped' the mandatory stint in sales. But for a cross section of senior marketers, former colleagues, ad men and media executives, they are sizzling hot. After weeks of telephone calls, emails checks and counter-checks, BE presents a carefully picked crop of the country's hottest young marketers
30 December 2009
Eighteen
They were born in 1991 when India opened up, both in mindset and moolah. As consumers they leave marketers befuddled and humbled. To wrap up 2009, BE invited ten 18-year-olds, two strategic planners, a creative head and a youth marketer in our mission to decode the children of liberalisation
31 March 2010
Up In The Air
BE's pick of Indian advertising's young guns
25 May 2011
Millennials
They love their privacy but they love to share their opinions more. They have their day jobs and they dream for bigger and better. Brand Loyalty from them comes at a price i.e. complete honesty. They look beyond roti, kapda and makaan. So you think you know the Millennials?
17 August & 24 August 2011
Hot Young Creatives
http://articles.economictimes.indiatimes.com/2011-12-28/news/30565283_1_hot-young-creatives-marketing-indian-youth
"Millennial" redirects here. For the concept Millennialism, see Millennialism.
This article is about the demographic cohort (a group of subjects with a common defining characteristic) following Generation X. For other uses, see Generation Y (disambiguation).
Generation Y, also known as the Millennial Generation (or Millennials),[1][2] Generation Next,[3] Net Generation,[4] Echo Boomers,[5], describes the demographic cohort following Generation X. While there is no universally agreed upon time frame, the term generally includes people born in the[6] late 1980s, early to middle 1990s, or as late as the early 2000s.[7] One segment of this age-group is often called the "eighties babies" generation, in reference to the fact that they were born between January 1, 1980 and December 31, 1989.[8][9][10] Members of this generation are called Echo Boomers, due to the significant increase in birth rates through the 1980s and into the 1990s, and because many of them are children of baby boomers.[11][12][13][14] The 20th century trend toward smaller families in developed countries continued,[15][16] however, so the relative impact of the "baby boom echo" was generally less pronounced than the original boom.
Characteristics of the generation vary by region, depending on social and economic conditions. However, it is generally marked by an increased use and familiarity with communications, media, and digital technologies. In most parts of the world its upbringing was marked by an increase in a neoliberal approach to politics and economics; the effects of this environment are disputed.[17][18]
In China, Generation Y does not exist, as the rapid rate of change in that country since 1970 has caused generations to be classed by decade. [21] While in most of the developed world, a person born in 1985 and a person born in 1990 are considered the same generation; in China, those born in the '70s are called the "post-70s" generation, those born in the 80s the "post-80s" generation, and those born in the 90s the "post-90s generation". [22] The 80s generation in China is seen as the equivalent to Gen Y, though aspects of Gen Y are also observed in the 90s generation.
The name "Echo Boomers"[5] refers to the size of the generation and its relation to the Baby Boomer generation.[23]
Authors William Strauss and Neil Howe have been influential[citation needed] in defining American generations in their book Generations: The History of America's Future, 1584 to 2069 (1991).[24][25] Their generational theory is frequently cited in books and articles on the subject. Howe and Strauss maintain that they use the term Millennials in place of Generation Y because the members of the generation themselves coined the term, not wanting to be associated with Generation X. Almost a decade later, they followed their large study of the history of American demographics with a book devoted to the new generation, titled Millennials Rising: The Next Great Generation (2000).[26][27] In both books, William Strauss and Neil Howe use 1982 and 2001 as the start and end years of the generation, respectively. They believe that thecoming of age of year 2000 high school graduates sharply contrasts with those born before them and after them due to the attention they received from the media and what influenced them politically.[28][29]
According to the authors' 1997 book, The Fourth Turning, modern history repeats itself every four generations; approximately 80–100 years. The authors of the book mention that the four-cycles always come in the same order. The first one, the High cycle, occurs when a new order or human expansion is developed, replacing the older one. The next cycle is called the Awakening. More spiritual than the previous, this is a time of rebellion against the already established order. The third cycle is known as the Unraveling, when elements of individualism and fragmentation take over society, developing a troubled era which leads directly to the Fourth Turning, an era of crisis dominating society during which a redefinition of its very structure, goals, and purposes is established.
Each generation has its archetypes, the four having the following ones defined as: Prophet, Nomad, Hero, and Artist. According to the aforementioned book, Millennials belong to the Hero category, featuring a deep trust in authority and institutions; being somewhat conventional, but still powerful. They grew up during an Unraveling cycle with more protections than the previous generation (Gen X). They are heavily dependent on team work, and thus, when they come of age, turn into the heroic team-working young people of a Crisis. In their middle years, they become the energetic, decisive, and strong leaders of a High cycle; and in old age, they become the criticized powerful elders of an Awakening cycle. Another previous generation that belongs to this category is The Greatest Generation (1916–1924).[30]
One author, Elwood Carlson, locates the American generation, which he calls "New Boomers," between 1983 and 2001, because of the upswing in births after 1983, finishing with the "political and social challenges" that occurred after the terrorist acts of September 11, 2001, and the "persistent economic difficulties" of the time.[31]
In Australia, there is much debate over the dates of Generation Y - that is, when "Gen Y" began, and the "cut-off" period. It is generally accepted, however, that the first "Gen Y" members were born in 1982. Though some sources use the date range 1982-1995 for the generation, many, including the Australian Bureau of Statistics, use 1982-2000.[32][33][34][35][36]
In Canada, 1982 is generally thought to be the starting birth year for Generation Y, ending in the mid-1990s or 2000, sometimes even as late as 2004.[37][38][39][40][41][42]
Like members of Generation X, who are heavily influenced by the advent of MTV, early members of Generation Y are also sometimes called the MTV Generation. This term can also be a catch phrase for youth of the late 20th century, depending on the context.[43][44][45][46]
Jean Twenge, author of the 2007 book Generation Me, considers Generation Y along with later Xers to be part of a generation called Generation Me. This is based on personality surveys that showed increasing narcissism among this generation compared to Boomers when they were teens and twentysomethings. She questions the predictions of Strauss & Howe that this generation would come out civic-minded, citing the fact that when the War on Iraq began military enlistments went down instead of up.[47]
Twenge attributes confidence and tolerance to this generation, as well as a sense of entitlement, narcissism and rejection of social conventions.
Fred Bonner believes that much of the commentary on the Millennial Generation may be partially accurate, but overly general and that many of the traits they describe apply primarily to "white, affluent teenagers who accomplish great things as they grow up in the suburbs, who confront anxiety when applying to super-selective colleges, and who multitask with ease as their helicopter parents hover reassuringly above them." Other socio-economic groups often do not display the same attributes commonly attributed to Generation Y. During class discussions, he has listened to black and Hispanic students describe how some or all of the so-called seven core traits did not apply to them. They often say the "special" trait, in particular, is unrecognizable. "It's not that many diverse parents don't want to treat their kids as special," he says, "but they often don't have the social and cultural capital, the time and resources, to do that."[48]
Generation Y has a tendency to be more culturally liberal[54] with many supporting modern yet historically more liberal views in general as well as various other politically liberal stances, but, in spite of the new dominant liberal growth, a growing number of new youth clubs and groups have been created in developed countries (such as the US, UK, Japan, Australia and Italy) to take the task of promoting and preserving conservative views and religious beliefs (i.e. the rapid growth of nondenominational churches by gen-Yers), such as free market principles and "socially conservative" behavior (i.e. abstinence from drug experimentation, underage drinking and premarital sex).[citation needed][55] Since the 2000 U.S. Census which allowed persons to select more than one racial group, "Millennials" in abundance have asserted their right to have all their heritages respected, counted and acknowledged[56]
Generation Y'ers are largely the children of the Baby Boomers. Younger members of this generation have parents that belong to Generation X, and some older members have parents that are members of the Silent Generation.
There are different views regarding Generation Y. When the term originated in 1993, it referred to teenagers aged 13 to 19 at the time (born between 1974 and 1980) with "more to come over the next 10 years". Here is a verbatim reprint of the actual Advertising Age op ed. of August 30, 1993—the above erroneous information notwithstanding:
"That cynical, purple-haired blob watching TV, otherwise known as Generation X, has been giving marketers fits for a long time. He doesn't respond to advertising, isn't brand-loyal and probably doesn't have much discretionary income, i.e. a job. But help is on the way. Following this angry young adult generation is a group of teens-agers who are leaving Generation X at the gate. There are 27 million of these 13-to-19-year-olds spending $ 95 billion a year, and both numbers will rise in the next 10 years. As our headline last week pointed out, this group is interested in real life, real solutions.
"Teens care -- about AIDS, race relations, child abuse and abortion. But instead of saying, I got screwed, they say, What am I going to do about it? They like to volunteer and they respond to marketers who they can believe are helping make the world better. There are other differences with Generation X. Male teens read and don't spend all their time in front of the TV. A Roper survey showed that 83% of male teens read a major magazine at least once every four weeks, and 43% subscribe to a magazine. Comic books and place-based media are good ways to reach teens. If they're over 16, they listen to radio.
"OK, they like to shop for price and dump a brand if it gets costly. In personal care products especially, teens look for bargains. But Jane Grossman, Seventeen publisher, says they love brands and trust advertising more than any other group.
"That advertising can address them honestly and seriously without their tuning out. The Gap, Reebok and Bausch & Lomb are but three of the marketers that speak to teens without condescending to hip-hop language to do it. And they are reaping the benefits, proving again there are no smarter consumers than our average teen-agers, and no smarter marketers than those who speak honestly to them."
Generation Y who grew up in Asian countries show different preferences and expectations of work to those who grew up in the US or Europe. This is usually attributed to the differing cultural and economic conditions experienced while growing up.[66]
The Millennials are sometimes called the "Trophy Generation", or "Trophy Kids,"[67] a term that reflects the trend in competitive sports, as well as many other aspects of life, where mere participation is frequently enough for a reward. It has been reported that this is an issue in corporate environments.[67] Some employers are concerned that Millennials have too great expectations from the workplace.[68] Studies predict that Generation Y will switch jobs frequently, holding far more than Generation X due to their great expectations.[69] To address these new challenges, many large firms are currently studying the social and behaviorial patterns of Millennials and are trying to devise programs that decrease intergenerational estrangement, and increase relationships of reciprocal understanding between older employees and Millennials, while at the same time making Millennials more comfortable. The UK's Institute of Leadership & Management researched the gap in understanding between Generation Y recruits and their managers in collaboration with Ashridge Business School.[70] The findings included high expectations for advancement, salary and for a coaching relationship with their manager, and suggested that organisations will need to adapt to accommodate and make the best use of Generation Y. In an example of a company trying to do just this, Goldman Sachsconducts training programs that use actors to portray Millennials who assertively seek more feedback, responsibility, and involvement in decision making. After the performance, employees discuss and debate the generational differences they have seen played out.[67]
As a group, Generation Y are said to be much closer to their parents than their parents' generation, the Baby Boomers were.[72] While 40% of Baby Boomers in 1974 claimed they would be "better off without their parents" according to one study, 90% of Generation Y'ers claimed to be "extremely close" to their parents in another study.[73] Most also claim that the older generations had better morals.[72]
According to Kimberly Palmer "High housing prices, the rising cost of higher education, and the relative affluence of the older generation are among the factors driving the trend."[74] However, other explanations are seen as contributing. Questions regarding a clear definition of what it means to be an adult also impacts a debate about delayed transitions into adulthood. For instance, one study by professors at Brigham Young University found that college students are more likely now to define "adult" based on certain personal abilities and characteristics rather than more traditional "rite of passage" events.[75] Dr. Larry Nelson, one of the three Marriage, Family, and Human Development professors to perform the study, also noted that some Millennials are delaying the transition from childhood to adulthood as a response to mistakes made by their parents. "In prior generations, you get married and you start a career and you do that immediately. What young people today are seeing is that approach has led to divorces, to people unhappy with their careers ... The majority want to get married [...] they just want to do it right the first time, the same thing with their careers."[75]
Now indie rock of the early 2000s has been attributed to Generation Y, though the genre has been described as "spent", and criticized for its lack of angst.[83][84][85]
Expression and acceptance has been highly important to this generation. In well-developed nations, several cohorts of Generation Y members have found comfort in online games such as MMORPGs and virtual worlds like World of Warcraft and Second Life.[86] Flash mobbing, internet memes, and online communities have given some of the more expressive Generation Y members acceptance, while onlinepen pals have given the more socially timid individuals acceptance as well.[87]
There is a trend among Millennials to choose urban, or gentrified neighborhoods, as their preferred living situations.[88]
In June 2009, Nielsen released the report, "How Teens Use Media" which discussed the latest data on media usage by generation. In this report, Nielsen set out to redefine the dialogue around media usage by the youngest of Generation Y, extending through working age Generation Y and compared to Generation X and Baby Boomers.[91] One of the more popular forms of media use in Generation Y is through social networking. In 2010, research was published in the Elon Journal of Undergraduate Research which claimed that students who used social media and decided to quit showed the same withdrawal symptoms of a drug addict who quit their stimulant.[92]
Generation Y has been described in a New York Times article as entrepreneurial and, "a 'post-emotional' generation. No anger, no edge, no ego."[96] The hipster has been reluctantly accepted by members of the generation as a representative image. The social form of the small business has been cited as taking the place of the commune, and all social forms such as music, food, and good works have been expressed in those terms. However the article also says, "These movements always have an economic substrate. The beatniks and hippies — love, ecstasy, transcendence, utopia — were products of the postwar boom. The punks and slackers and devotees of hip-hop — rage, angst, nihilism, withdrawal — arose within the long stagnation that lasted from the early '70s to the early '90s. The hipsters were born in the dot-com boom and flourished in the real estate bubble."
Indian Holocaust My Father`s Life and
Time - SEVEN HUNDRED SEVENTY NINE
Palash Biswashttp://indianliberationnews.com/
http://indianholocaustmyfatherslifeandtime.blogspot.com/
http://basantipurtimes.blogspot.com/
Youngistan in Hazards!
I am sorry to say that we the Parents do fail to understand how hazardous has become the life of our young children!
It is NOt like our Childhood days which was quite slower, peaceful and Riskfree.We have to bear with them all the hazards. We have to share their experiences adjusting with their technical, socially networked supersonic careless lifestyle and Inject some positive Objectives in their life quite friendly accommodating their mindset. it is NOT easy as we ourselves suffer from Identity crisis, our children really never do know who they are! Hence they have a Blind Aimless Carefree Youngistan in the Virtual world which is more Hazardous than our Imagination!
Last night, as usal, I was busy with my PC in the Office away from Home on the Delhi Mumbai Highway in Ankurhati in Howrah district. It was peak hour. Suddenly, sabita Called me on my Cell Number 09903717833. it was an emergency. She landed in the ZENITH Hospital in Belgharia on BT Road. Ronnie, the only son of our Doctor Friend Ajitda met an Accident playing Table Tennis in Indian Stastical Institute, Kolkata. He lost Three Teeth and had huge Bleeding causing Pressure subsidence. His mother Ananaya, the Next door friend of Sabita was suffering from High Fever since Morning and Sabita had to do all the works in her kitchen. Ronnie left for the hostel late afternoon. He was quite Cheerful as he was at home away from his Bangaluru Engineering College.He had been at ISI studying Mathematics earlier. Returning home, he always gets back to the old hostel.
We have the experience as some years back, in a Diwali Midnight, our only Son Excalibur Stevens TUSSU was struck by a speedy motorbike on BT Road in Khardah in 2004, October. Me and Sabita had to pick up him from the Highway and get him admitted in the Hospital. He was lucky enough NOT to be RUN Over by another speedy vehicle on the busy highway.It was a Horribel experience. Sabita had always been very cool as she underwent Open heart Surgery in 1995 as she had a Tumour right into the heart. no one else but Dr Devy Shetty did the Operation. It was a rarest among rare cases. it was also the only successful Surgery in such a case in Kolkata. We were shocked but since me and Sabita brought up Tussu alone since he was born at Sushila Jaswant Hospital in Meerut on 3rd September, 1985. Sabita had already undergone no less than Three surgeries before that. I was always on Night Duty. Media was all Manual affair in those days and I had to return home after releasing late City edition and we had to cover every news , mind you. It was not Entertainment and Fashion in those days. sabita was school teacher who had to attend her school in Morning hours. Tussu had been often INDISPOSED! OFTEN, WE HAD TO RUN TO NEAREST hOSPITAL OR nURSING hOME late in Mid Night.
But Ronnie`s Parents were quite shaky. The lady, already indisposed, fgot Unconsious at Zenith as Ronnie was admitted in ICU.
I am sharing this with you as we meet such incidents daily somewhere or elsewhere. The Children are living a Risky life. They are Overloaded with Uncertain Future and fluctuating Career with ever expanding Friend Circle, Virtual world and social Networking. we have got too involved to sustain the Family against Price rise, Inflation, Job and livelihood insecurity and strains unwanted as we remain outside of the Economy Excluded and deserted as the State has ceased to be Welfare Stae and we have to Purchase the Basic servces like Ecucation and Health which most of us May Not afford. The Children are basically deprived of the services which we enjoyed quite Free during our childhood.The Survival kit is quie Heavier as the Schoolbags are. The appliances include Bikes, four wheelers, Cell Phones, I Phones, Lap Tops and so on. Often the children remain Disconnected from the Parents day after day, months after months and years after year in Single Unit families as well as in Joint Families. they depend on the Virtual world, Social Networking, Friend Circles and even drugs. We are quite separated, alienated.It never happened in our days. we had the feel of the Joint family in Rural as well as urban society. We always found the Society around us. We never felt Alone or Helpless. Ther had been alaways a helping and caring hand behind us. our children have lostb that caring, helping hand and they have indulged in Busier activities to engage themselves and they seek Help from unwanted quarters.
I have to return late in the night by office car and watch the Teenagers driving so fast and so blind as they do Never care for Life and Death quite unaware of the Caring worrying parents or family. Free Economy has changed us quite a bit. Free Economy has equipped some of us with DSuperfast Life Style kits in vogue, but Free Consumerist Life has made us Animals living on impulses and instincts.
I Never balme the children for the life they inherited from us. It is the biometric, genetic defects they inherit from us.Our parenst did educate us to make us Civilised. But we are working like corporates andMNCs who just invest for returns, benefits.
It is NOT liability or responsibility for us anymore as we have lost the Values. We are a deculturilised degenereted Parents generation who never know how to confide with the gfrowing children or simply how to bring up the children. We are just Investing for a Better Purchasing power, a super Consumer life! The disease is INFLICTED by us only. We created the Virtual Advertised entertaining Youngistan!
We may boast that we were responsible, socially awakened, concerned and connected children who behaved very well. How did we fail then as parnts?
In sevnties and eigties, Youngistan Never did exist. But the younger people wer more concerned and more Active as they Never did feel the pangs of uncertain Future. In the hills, we Never did worry about our future career befor we graduated. We were socially concerned even after Post Graduation.But the Youngistan is quite confused what to do with their life as false multidimensional avenues, which were Absent in our days and the overwhelming Virtual world mislead tehm to decide upon future course of life. This grand Confusion lands them into a Shakespearean Dilemma, TO BE OR NOT TO BE! They have NO time for the Societ as they are overindulged with the Darkest Future ever and the Knowledge Economy has destroyed their Objectives whatsover.
| ई-अभिमन्यु | |
| पलाश विश्वास | |
| बच्चा अब खुले मैदान में नहीं भागता, भूमंडलीकरण के खुले बाजार में चारों तरफ सीमेंट का जंगल, फ्लाईओवर। स्वर्णिम चतुर्भुज सड़कें। आयातित कारें। शापिंग माल। सीमाहीन उपभोक्ता सामग्रियां। आदिगन्त कबाड़खाना, या युध्द विध्वस्त रेडियो एक्टिव रोगग्रस्त जनपद, बच्चे के लिए कहीं कोई मैदान नहीं है दौड़ने को। बच्चा किताबें नहीं पढ़ता, मगज नहीं मारता अक्षरों में। अक्षर की सेनाएं घायल, मरणासन्न। कर्णेद्रिंय भी हुए इलेक्ट्रानिक मोबाइल। वर्च्युअल पृथ्वी में यथार्थ का पाठ प्रतिबंधित है और एकान्त भी नहीं, चैनलों के सुपर सोनिक शोर में कैसे पढ़े कोई। बच्चा कोई सपना नहीं देखता, बस, कभी-कभी बन जाता वह हैरी पाटर, सुपरमैन स्पाइडरमैन, या फिर कृष। इंद्रधनुष कहीं नहीं खिलते इन दिनों हालांकि राजधानी में होने लगा है हिमपात, मरुस्थल में बाढ़ें प्रबल, तमाम समुन्दर सुनामी, रुपकथा की राजकन्याएं फैशन शो में मगन, नींद या भूख से परेशान नहीं होता बच्चा अब ब्राण्ड खाता है। पीता है ब्राण्ड जीता है ब्राण्ड॥ ब्राण्ड पहनकर बच्चा अब कामयाब सुपर माडल। इस पृथ्वी में कहीं नहीं है बच्चों की किलकारियां, नन्हा फरिश्ता अब कहीं नहीं जनमता इन दिनों सुबह से शाम तलक तितलियों के डैने टूटने की मानिन्द बजती मोबाइल घंटियां पतझड़ जैसे उड़ते तमाम वेबसाइट मेरे चारों तरफ शेयर सूचकांक की बेइन्तहा छलांग, अखबारों के रंगीन पन्नों के बीच शुतुरमुर्ग की तरह सर छुपाये देखता रहता मैं, मशीन के यन्त्राश में होते उसके सारे अंग-प्रत्यंग। उसकी कोई मातृभाषा नहीं है, उसके होंठ फड़कते हैं, जिंगल गूँजता है। डरता हूं कि शायद किसी दिन बच्चा समाहित हो जाये किसी कम्प्यूटर में, या बन जाये महज रोबो कोई। सत्तर के दशक में विचारधारा में खपने का डर था। अब विचारधारा नहीं है। पार्टी है और पार्टीबध्द हैं बच्चे। इतिहास और भूगोल के दायरे से बाहर है बच्चा विरासत, परम्परा और संस्कारों से मुक्त अत्याधुनिक है बच्चा, क्विज में चाक चौबन्द बच्चा हमें नहीं पहचानता कतई। हम बेबस देखते हैं कि तैयार कार्यक्रमों के साफ्टवेअर से खेलता बच्चा चौबीसों घंटों, नकली कारें दौड़ाता है तेज, और तेज, लड़ता है नकली तरह-तरह के युध्द असली युध्दों से अनजान एकदम, एक गिलास पानी भरकर पीने की सक्रियता नहीं उसमें, भोजन की मेज पर बैठने की फुरसत कहाँ। चैटिंग के जरिये दुनियाभर में दोस्ती, पर एक भी दोस्त नहीं है उसका, उसके साथी बदल जाते हैं रोज-रोज, एकदम नाखुश, बेहद नाराज आत्मध्वंस में मगन बच्चा, उसके कमरे का दरवाजा बंद, खिड़कियां बंद, मन की खिड़कियां भी बंद हमेशा के लिए। शायद रोशनी से भी डरने लगा है बच्चा, सूरज का उगना, डूबना उसके लिए निहायत बेमतलब है इन दिनों, बेमतलब दिनचर्या, चाँद सितारे नहीं देखता बच्चा आज कल नदी, पहाड़, समुंदर आकर्षित नहीं करते। उसका सौंदर्यबोध चकाचौंध रोशनी और तेज ध्वनि में कैद है हमेशा के लिए। दिसम्बर 2006 |
Friends let us think and try toresolve this problem as earlier as as paossible. It is greater problem tahn any of the Problems facing the Nation or the Economy!
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What is a rave party? : India News - India Today
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27 Jun 2011 – A rave is an electronic music dance party that lasts all night. It can feature performances from DJs or live music performers along with rampant ...
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Hot Rave Party MMS in Mumbai - Video
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4 days ago – After the gr8 response to my video part 1 here comes the extra hot part 2 Enjoyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy.
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27 Jun 2011 – A rave party in the Raigad district near Mumbai was busted by the police late on Sunday night where about 300 people were rounded up.
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27 Jun 2011 – It was 9:30 pm on Sunday night and the music was pumping in the Mount View resort in Karjat, a two and a half hour drive from Mumbai.
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Deculturalization refers to the "stripping away of a people's culture and replacing it with a new culture" (Spring 1). Deculturalization is one of the most inhumane acts one can partake in. A person's culture is his/her main defining feature. Culture is the medium through which people communicate their beliefs, values, and morals. Inserting one's own culture in place of someone's pre-existing culture is the basis of ethnocentrism. People have repeatedly become victims of deculturalization, especially in the United States, and by analyzing this ethnocentrism one learns the importance of sustaining different cultures in society.
There are many methods of deculturalization, such as segregation, isolation, and forced change of language. When the content of curriculum reflects culture of dominant group, it is deculturalization. Also, dominated groups are not allowed to express their culture and religion, which is deculturalization. Use of teachers from the dominant group to teach those that are dominated is another form of deculturalization (Spring 49).
"The problem was the assumption that U.S. institutions, customs, and beliefs
were the best in the world and they should be imposed" (Spring 42).
Throughout much of the past century, the United States sought to stamp its cultural ideal upon almost...
... middle of paper ...
...t engulfed Anglo Americans.
Deculturalization has been a very sad occurrence since the beginning of America, and only recently has this problem started to be alleviated. The impacts of deculturalization have been very negative on society, but mostly on the education system. Today, teacher education revolves around multiculturalism and valuing the differences in cultures. Until this idea reaches all realms of society, however, the United States will not be completely free from the negative aspects of deculturalization, which swept through the country for many years. Knowledge is half the battle, though, and the more people are educated on other cultures, the more people will begin to appreciate other cultures.
Sociology of education
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia| * |
| Functionalism · Conflict theory |
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The sociology of education is the study of how public institutions and individual experiences affecteducation and its outcomes. It is most concerned with the public schooling systems of modern industrial societies, including the expansion of higher, further, adult, and continuing education.[1]
Education has often been seen as a fundamentally optimistic human endeavour characterised byaspirations for progress and betterment.[2] It is understood by many to be a means of overcoming handicaps, achieving greater equality and acquiring wealth and social status.[3] Education is perceived as a place where children can develop according to their unique needs and potential.[2] It is also perceived as one of the best means of achieving greater social equality.[3] Many would say that the purpose of education should be to develop every individual to their full potential and give them a chance to achieve as much in life as their natural abilities allow (meritocracy). Few would argue that any education system accomplishes this goal perfectly. Some take a particularly negative view, arguing that the education system is designed with the intention of causing the social reproduction of inequality.
Contents[hide] |
[edit]History
A systematic sociology of education began with Émile Durkheim's work on moral education as a basis for organic solidarity and that by Max Weber, on the Chinese literati as an instrument of political control. It was after World War II, however, that the subject received renewed interest around the world: from technological functionalism in the US, egalitarian reform of opportunity in Europe, and human-capital theory in economics. These all implied that, with industrialization, the need for a technologically-skilled labour force undermines class distinctions and other ascriptive systems of stratification, and that education promotes social mobility. However, statistical and field research across numerous societies showed a persistent link between an individual's social class and achievement, and suggested that education could only achieve limited social mobility.[1] Sociological studies showed how schooling patterns reflected, rather than challenged, class stratification and racial and sexual discrimination.[1] After the general collapse of functionalism from the late 1960s onwards, the idea of education as an unmitigated good was even more profoundly challenged. Neo-Marxists argued that school education simply produced a docile labour-force essential to late-capitalist class relations.[edit]Theoretical perspectives
The sociology of education contains a number of theories. Some of the main theories are presented below.[edit]Political Arithmetic
The Political Arithmetic tradition within the sociology of education began with Hogben (1938)[4] and denotes a tradition of politically critical quantitative research dealing with social inequalities, especially those generated by social stratification (Heath 2000).[5] Important works in this tradition have been (Glass 1954),[6] (Floud, et al. 1956)[7] and (Halsey, et al. 1980).[8] All of these works were concerned with the way in which school structures were implicated in social class inequalities in Britain. More recent work in this tradition has broadened its focus to include gender,[9][10] ethnic differentials [11] and international differences.[12] While researchers in this tradition have engaged with sociological theories such as Rational Choice Theory [13] and Cultural Reproduction Theory,[14] the political arithmetic tradition has tended to remain rather sceptical of 'grand theory' and very much concerned with empirical evidence and social policy. The political arithmetic tradition was attacked by the 'New Sociology of Education' of the 1970s [15] which rejected quantitative research methods. This heralded a period of methodological division within the sociology of education. However, the political arithmetic tradition, while rooted in quantitative methods, has increasingly engaged with mixed methods approaches [16][edit]Structural functionalism
Structural functionalists believe that society leans towards equilibrium and social order. They see society like a human body, in which institutions such as education are like important organs that keep the society/body healthy and well.[17] Social health means the same as social order, and is guaranteed when nearly everyone accepts the general moral values of their society. Hence structural functionalists believe the aim of key institutions, such as education, is to socialise children and teenagers. Socialization is the process by which the new generation learns the knowledge, attitudes and values that they will need as productive citizens. Although this aim is stated in the formal curriculum,[18] it is mainly achieved through "the hidden curriculum",[19] a subtler, but nonetheless powerful, indoctrination of the norms and values of the wider society. Students learn these values because their behaviour at school is regulated (Durkheim in [3]) until they gradually internalise and accept them. Education must, however perform another function. As various jobs become vacant, they must be filled with the appropriate people. Therefore the other purpose of education is to sort and rank individuals for placement in the labour market [Munro, 1997]. Those with high achievement will be trained for the most important jobs and in reward, be given the highest incomes. Those who achieve the least, will be given the least demanding (intellectually at any rate, if not physically) jobs, and hence the least income.According to Sennet and Cobb however, "to believe that ability alone decides who is rewarded is to be deceived".[3] Meighan agrees, stating that large numbers of capable students from working class backgrounds fail to achieve satisfactory standards in school and therefore fail to obtain the status they deserve.[20] Jacob believes this is because the middle class cultural experiences that are provided at school may be contrary to the experiences working-class children receive at home.[21] In other words, working class children are not adequately prepared to cope at school. They are therefore "cooled out"[22] from school with the least qualifications, hence they get the least desirable jobs, and so remain working class. Sargent confirms this cycle, arguing that schooling supports continuity, which in turn supports social order.[3] Talcott Parsons believed that this process, whereby some students were identified and labelled educational failures, "was a necessary activity which one part of the social system, education, performed for the whole".[20] Yet the structural functionalist perspective maintains that this social order, this continuity, is what most people desire.[17] The weakness of this perspective thus becomes evident.[citation needed] Why would the working class wish to stay working class? Such an inconsistency demonstrates that another perspective may be useful.
[edit]Education and social reproduction
The perspective of conflict theory, contrary to the structural functionalist perspective, believes that society is full of vying social groups with different aspirations, different access to life chances and gain different social rewards.[23] Relations in society, in this view, are mainly based on exploitation, oppression, domination and subordination.[3][24] Many teachers assume that students will have particular middle class experiences at home, and for some children this assumption isn't necessarily true.[21] Some children are expected to help their parents after school and carry considerable domestic responsibilities in their often single-parent home.[25] The demands of this domestic labour often make it difficult for them to find time to do all their homework and thus affects their academic performance.Where teachers have softened the formality of regular study and integrated student's preferred working methods into the curriculum, they noted that particular students displayed strengths they had not been aware of before.[25] However few teachers deviate from the traditionalcurriculum, and the curriculum conveys what constitutes knowledge as determined by the state - and those in power [Young in [3]]. This knowledge isn't very meaningful to many of the students, who see it as pointless.[21] Wilson & Wyn state that the students realise there is little or no direct link between the subjects they are doing and their perceived future in the labour market.[25] Anti-school values displayed by these children are often derived from their consciousness of their real interests. Sargent believes that for working class students, striving to succeed and absorbing the school's middle class values, is accepting their inferior social position as much as if they were determined to fail.[3] Fitzgerald states that "irrespective of their academic ability or desire to learn, students from poor families have relatively little chance of securing success".[26] On the other hand, for middle and especially upper-class children, maintaining their superior position in society requires little effort. The federal government subsidises 'independent' private schools enabling the rich to obtain 'good education' by paying for it.[3] With this 'good education', rich children perform better, achieve higher and obtain greater rewards. In this way, the continuation of privilege and wealth for the elite is made possible.
Conflict theorists believe this social reproduction continues to occur because the whole education system is overlain with ideology provided by the dominant group. In effect, they perpetuate the myth that education is available to all to provide a means of achieving wealth and status. Anyone who fails to achieve this goal, according to the myth, has only themself to blame.[3] Wright agrees, stating that "the effect of the myth is to…stop them from seeing that their personal troubles are part of major social issues".[3] The duplicity is so successful that many parents endure appalling jobs for many years, believing that this sacrifice will enable their children to have opportunities in life that they did not have themselves.[25] These people who are poor and disadvantaged are victims of a societal confidence trick. They have been encouraged to believe that a major goal of schooling is to strengthen equality while, in reality, schools reflect society's intention to maintain the previous unequal distribution of status and power [Fitzgerald, cited in [3]].
This perspective has been criticised[citation needed] as deterministic and pessimistic.
It should be recognised however that it is a model, an aspect of reality which is an important part of the picture.
[edit]Structure and agency
[edit]Bourdieu and cultural capital
This theory of social reproduction has been significantly theorised by Pierre Bourdieu. However Bourdieu as a social theorist has always been concerned with the dichotomy between the objective and subjective, or to put it another way, between structure and agency. Bourdieu has therefore built his theoretical framework around the important concepts of habitus, field and cultural capital. These concepts are based on the idea that objective structures determine individuals' chances, through the mechanism of the habitus, where individuals internalise these structures. However, the habitus is also formed by, for example, an individual's position in various fields, their family and their everyday experiences. Therefore one's class position does not determine one's life chances, although it does play an important part, alongside other factors.Bourdieu used the idea of cultural capital to explore the differences in outcomes for students from different classes in the French educational system. He explored the tension between the conservative reproduction and the innovative production of knowledge and experience.[27] He found that this tension is intensified by considerations of which particular cultural past and present is to be conserved and reproduced in schools. Bourdieu argues that it is the culture of the dominant groups, and therefore their cultural capital, which is embodied in schools, and that this leads to social reproduction.[27]
The cultural capital of the dominant group, in the form of practices and relation to culture, is assumed by the school to be the natural and only proper type of cultural capital and is therefore legitimated. It demands "uniformly of all its students that they should have what it does not give" [Bourdieu [28]]. This legitimate cultural capital allows students who possess it to gain educational capital in the form of qualifications. Those lower-class students are therefore disadvantaged. To gain qualifications they must acquire legitimate cultural capital, by exchanging their own (usually working-class) cultural capital.[29] This exchange is not a straight forward one, due to the class ethos of the lower-class students. Class ethos is described as the particular dispositions towards, and subjective expectations of, school and culture. It is in part determined by the objective chances of that class.[30] This means that not only do children find success harder in school due to the fact that they must learn a new way of 'being', or relating to the world, and especially, a new way of relating to and using language, but they must also act against their instincts and expectations. The subjective expectations influenced by the objective structures found in the school, perpetuate social reproduction by encouraging less-privileged students to eliminate themselves from the system, so that fewer and fewer are to be found as one journeys through the levels of the system. The process of social reproduction is neither perfect nor complete,[27] but still, only a small number of less-privileged students achieve success. For the majority of these students who do succeed at school, they have had to internalise the values of the dominant classes and use them as their own, to the detriment of their original habitus and cultural values.
Therefore Bourdieu's perspective reveals how objective structures play an important role in determining individual achievement in school, but allows for the exercise of an individual's agency to overcome these barriers, although this choice is not without its penalties.
[edit]Educational sociologists around the world
[edit]Asia
[edit]Europe
- Basil Bernstein
- Pierre Bourdieu
- Jean Floud
- A. H. Halsey
- Stephen Gorard
- Anthony F. Heath
- Stephen Ball
[edit]North America
- James S. Coleman
- Michael Apple
- Charles Bidwell
- Henry Giroux
- John W. Meyer
- Stephen Raudenbush
- James Rosenbaum
[edit]Australia
- Raewyn Connell (creator of 'southern theory')
- Karl Maton (creator of 'Legitimation Code Theory')
[edit]Russia
[edit]References
- ^ a b c Gordon Marshall (ed) A Dictionary of Sociology (Article: Sociology of Education), Oxford University Press, 1998
- ^ a b Schofield, K. (1999). The Purposes of Education, Queensland State Education: 2010 Accessed 2002, Oct 28.
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Sargent, M. (1994) The New Sociology for Australians (3rd Ed), Longman Chesire, Melbourne
- ^ Hogben, L. (1938) Political Arithmetic: a symposium of population studies, London: Allen & Unwin.
- ^ Heath, A. (2000) The Political Arithmetic Tradition in the Sociology of Education, Oxford Review of Education 26(3-4): 313-331.
- ^ Glass, D. V. (1954) Social Mobility in Britain, London: Routledge and Kegan Paul.
- ^ Floud, J., Halsey, A. H. and Martin, F. (1956) Social class and educational opportunity: Heinemann.
- ^ Halsey, A. H., Heath, A. F. and Ridge, J. M. (1980) Origins and destinations : family, class, and education in modern Britain, Oxford: Clarendon Press
- ^ Gorard, S., Salisbury, J. and Rees, G. (1999) Reappraising the apparent underachievement of boys at school, Gender and Education 11(4): 441-454.
- ^ Sullivan, A., Heath, A. F. and Rothon, C. (2011) Equalisation or inflation? Social class and gender differentials in England and Wales, Oxford Review of Education 37(2): 215-240.
- ^ Heath, A. F. and Cheung, S.-Y. (eds) (2007) Unequal Chances: ethnic minoroties in western labour markets, Oxford: Oxford University Press.
- ^ Heath, A. F. and Sullivan, A. (2011) Introduction: The democratisation of upper-secondary education?, Oxford Review of Education 37(2): 123-138.
- ^ Breen, R. and Goldthorpe, J. (1997) Explaining Educational Differentials: Towards a Rational Action Theory, Rationality and Society 9(3): 275-305.
- ^ Sullivan, A. (2001) Cultural Capital and Educational Attainment, Sociology 35(4): 893-912.
- ^ M. F. D. Young (ed) Knowledge and Control: New Directions for the Sociology of Education, London: Macmillan.
- ^ Ogg, T., Zimdars, A. and Heath, A. F. (2009) Schooling effects on degree performance: a comparison of the predictive validity of aptitude testing and secondary school grades at Oxford University, British Educational Research Journal 35(5): 781-807.
- ^ a b Bessant, J. and Watts, R. (2002) Sociology Australia (2nd ed), Allen & Unwin, Sydney
- ^ NSW Board of Studies, K-6 HSIE Syllabus (NSW Australia)
- ^ Harper, G. (1997) "Society, culture, socialisation and the individual" in Stafford, C. and Furze, B. (eds) Society and Change (2nd ed), Macmillan Education Australia, Melbourne
- ^ a b Meighan, R. & Siraj-Blatchford, I. (1997) A Sociology of Educating (3rd Ed), Cassell, London
- ^ a b c Jacob, A. (2001) Research links poverty and literacy, ABC Radio Transcript [1]
- ^ Foster, L. E. (1987) Australian Education: A Sociological Perspective(2nd Ed), Prentice Hall, Sydney
- ^ Furze, B. and Healy, P. (1997) "Understanding society and change" in Stafford, C. and Furze, B. (eds) Society and Change (2nd Ed), Macmillan Education Australia, Melbourne
- ^ Connell, R. W. and White, V., (1989) 'Child poverty and educational action' in Edgar, D., Keane, D. & McDonald, P. (eds), Child Poverty, Allen & Unwin, Sydney
- ^ a b c d Wilson, B. and Wyn, J. (1987) Shaping Futures: Youth Action for Livelihood, Allen & Unwin, Hong Kong
- ^ Henry, M., Knight, J., Lingard, R. and Taylor, S. (1988) Understanding Schooling: An Introductory Sociology of Australian Education, Routledge, Sydney
- ^ a b c Harker, R., (1990) "Education and Cultural Capital" in Harker, R., Mahar, C., & Wilkes, C., (eds) (1990) An Introduction to the Work of Pierre Bourdieu: the practice of theory, Macmillan Press, London
- ^ Swartz, D., "Pierre Bourdieu: The Cultural Transmission of Social Inequality" in Robbins, D., (2000) Pierre Bourdieu Volume II, Sage Publications, London, pp.207-217
- ^ Harker, R., (1984) "On Reproduction, Habitus and Education" in Robbins, D., (2000) Pierre Bourdieu Volume II, Sage Publications, London, pp.164-176
- ^ Gorder, K., (1980) "Understanding School Knowledge: a critical appraisal of Basil Bernstein and Pierre Bourdieu" in Robbins, D., (2000)Pierre Bourdieu Volume II, Sage Publications, London, pp.218-233
[edit]Further reading
- Block, A.A., (1997) I'm only bleeding, Education as the Practice of Violence Against Children, Peter Lang, New York
- Bourdieu, P., (1977) Outline of a Theory of Practice, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge
- Bourdieu, P., (1984) Distinction, a Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste, Harvard University Press, Cambridge
- Bourdieu, P., (1986) "The Forms of Capital"
- Bourdieu, P., (1990) Reproduction: In Education, Society and Culture, Sage Publications, London
- Bourdieu, P., (1996) The State Nobility, Polity Press, Cambridge
- Gabbard, D and Saltman, Ken (eds) (2003) Education as Enforcement: The Militarization and Corporatization of Schooling
- Grenfell, M. (ed) (2008) Pierre Bourdieu: Key concepts, London, Acumen Press.
- Harker, R., Mahar, C., & Wilkes, C., (eds) (1990) An Introduction to the Work of Pierre Bourdieu: the practice of theory, Macmillan Press, London
- Lampert, K.,(2003) "Prolegomena for Radical Schooling", University Press of A, Marryland
- Paulo Freire, (2000) Pedagogy of the Oppressed (3rd Ed), Continuum Press, New York
- Schofield, K. (1999) "The Purposes of Education", in Queensland State Education: 2010 (Conference Papers)
- Spring, J., (2000) Deculturalization and the struggle for Equality: A brief history of the education of dominant cultures in the U.S. McGraw Hill
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The Mises Institute monthly, free with membership
October 1995
Volume 13, Number 10
Capitalism and Culture
Llewellyn H. Rockwell, Jr.
From Left and Right, capitalism is condemned for all the cultural failings of the modern world--everything from mindless TV to dirty books to slatternly art to trashy movies to debasing music. It's an extension of the liberal habit of blaming a system for what are actually the failings of individuals.Ludwig von Mises identified Victorian art critic John Ruskin as the intellectual source of this ceaseless griping. Ruskin saw civilization, embodied in the arts, as going down the tubes, and he labeled the market economy as the cause. This allowed him to be a socialist without surrendering upper-class affectations or having to prattle about workers and peasants.
Ruskin thus qualifies, said Mises, as "one of the gravediggers of British freedom, civilization and prosperity." "A wretched character in his private no less than in his public life," Ruskin eulogized the ancient producer cartels called guilds. "Government and cooperation are in all things the laws of life," wrote Ruskin in Unto This Last (1862), "anarchy and competition the laws of death."
Nowadays, practically everyone with a college degree is a tacit Ruskinian. Americans may understand the productive power of the market, but many are blind to its virtue as a civilizing agent, to its ability to sustain tradition, create what's beautiful and grand, and preserve what's right and good.
The Left (still essentially Marxian) wants us to think of capitalism as modern and industrial. More correctly, capitalism is just a name for the social recognition of private property, trade, and contract enforcement. It was as much a part of ancient Athens as 19th-century America. In its total absence, civilization would crumble, and the arts vanish.
In modern times, the confusion usually starts this way. Someone flips on the television to find the usual rotten show and offensive commercials. He concludes that's the market at work: base, vulgar, and insulting to our intelligence.
Once on this track, the anti-capitalist mentality runs wild. The decadence of the cash nexus appears everywhere. Strip malls and yellow M's in the sky. Boxing, moshing, tabloids, rap, and low pay for intellectuals. It's all horrible, sniffs this person, and it's all capitalism's fault.
If this theory were correct, the prophets, saints, and ancient philosophers were wasting their breath. They called on people to abandon sin and adopt virtue, when they could have taken the fast-track to social salvation by condemning free exchange and private property.
What the great moralists knew, and we've forgotten, is that people and cultures are products of human choice. Good lives can flourish in any social setting, whether the prison camp, the Wild West, or Washington, D.C. (hard as the latter is to believe).
Sin and stupidity will, of course, always be with us. From an economic perspective, our goal should be to make sure that sinners pay for their sins, and that minimal resources are used to cater to them. In this process, capitalism is our ally. In addition to making prosperity possible, the whole point of economics and markets is to make sure the minimum amount of resources is used to satisfy any particular demand of any particular group.
The free economy is efficient because it deals with tastes and preferences as a given, it organizes resources in an economically practical way, and it arranges for the consumer to get what he wants at the least possible cost to everyone else.
The junk on television may indeed speak volumes about our culture. People should care about more important things. Thanks to capitalism, however, society isn't wasting excess resources on it. Trash is delivered in the least costly manner, leaving more resources for the pursuit of what really matters.
Entrepreneurs have learned to provide services to even the smallest niche. When I see television, and I don't very often, the most intelligent network is EWTN. It features 50-part lectures by learned academics on subjects like Scholasticism.
This is a profitable enterprise that would be considered wasteful in a socialist country--not to mention politically incorrect. In a less prosperous society, it couldn't survive. Yet I can't remember anyone crediting capitalism for making St. Thomas Aquinas accessible to the masses.
It used to be said that government had to fund the arts for them to be of good quality. That argument no longer flies. Take a look at the malevolent and stupid creations of the National Endowment for Arts. The government's "sculptures," "architecture," and "music" has littered the country with rubbish.
Economists say that the market "internalizes externalities." This means, in part, that people who are offended by some goods and services can structure their lives to avoid exposure. That's mostly true, especially in the case of sleazy television and movies, pornography, and weird services like telephone sex. Thanks to capitalism--which restricts such services to the people who purchase them--the rest of us don't have to be affected.
A shop selling Satanic trinkets recently opened up in Auburn, Alabama. "Anything for a buck," people sneered, until the store went belly-up for lack of business. It's true that some people willdo anything for a buck, but in a market economy, they have to be subservient to the consuming public.
The market delivers plenty of similar good news, though most of it goes unremarked. Let's consider the case of big cities, which the productive public has been clawing its way out of for decades.
The government has done everything in its power to make cities uninhabitable by regular people. Government welfare has fostered a whole class of citizens that is at once indolent and criminal. Public housing and rental subsidies have destroyed settings that were once middle-class. Many cities today are only "cultural" centers if you like freaks and muggers.
Yet, thanks to capitalism, there is hope. Private individuals and developers take buildings that appear beyond repair and revive them. House by house, block by block, whole sections of cities have been gentrified. It's not charity work. Without a system of profit and loss, it wouldn't happen.
Yet you can't satisfy those with an anti-capitalist mentality. They invariably complain that gentrification raises property values and "squeezes" out the poor, while forgetting to notice how much better off everyone is when degraded resources are made more valuable.
Beach housing has long been a magnet for cultural complaints against capitalism. High-rise buildings were routinely called evil for destroying the view from a mile away. Yet it is this type of structure which makes beach-living possible for the masses in the first place.
Some architects, in revulsion against beach high rises, have worked with investors to buy miles of property on the beach. Then they create communities with quaint houses and shops. The result is magnificent, and entirely private, if affordable only for a few.
These architects think they're repudiating the tackiness of capitalism. They fail to realize that their private, planned communities are as much a part of capitalism as the high rises. Far from making a left-wing ideological point, they are catering to different tastes, marketing a product, and vastly increasing the value of property as a result. High rises and private communities represent capitalism at work.
Yet what about the materialism of capitalism? This too is a misnomer. Strictly speaking, capitalism is not about material goods; it's about exchangeable goods. Leisure, love, beauty, and art are all exchangeable, and as much a part of economic life as Big Macs and Seinfeld.
It's said that markets bring about short-term thinking. Quite the contrary. Markets often focus on the extreme long-term, in ways the government can never do. Consider the wine industry. It can take decades before a vineyard produces a really great bottle of wine. Even common table wines require that entrepreneurs plan many years in advance. The more forward-looking the capitalist, the more he can be rewarded for setting aside temporary pleasures.
Every good and service has a timetable, and the entrepreneur must plan in the most cost-effective manner. It's bureaucratic man--not the mythical economic man--who is prone to consumption and immediate gratification. And the more the state intervenes in an economy, the more it penalizes long-term thinking and rewards short-termism. Inflation is the most obvious example.
But hasn't the capitalist mentality forced everyone in the family to work sixty hours per week, just to keep up with material desires? In fact, it's the government that has brought it about. A conspiracy against sound money and private property is what drove wives and mothers into the workforce in the 1970s and 1980s. A return to unfettered capitalism would allow those who desired it to return home, so that we could restore family and community life. Both thrived under laissez-faire.
As Schumpeter noted, every socialist is an enemy of the bourgeois values of home, family, community, property, honesty, diligence, and hard work. The more socialist our economy becomes, the more vice displaces virtue in public and private life.
As for the culturally uplifting aspects of capitalism, the profit and loss system makes possible--to take just a few examples--our economy's amazing bounty of recorded classical music, the greatest cabernets in the world, an abundance of culinary treats even kings couldn't imagine two centuries ago, and some good movies. If that doesn't convince, consider that it's under capitalism that the Bible became the all-time best-selling book.
------------------------------------------
Llewellyn H. Rockwell. Jr. is president and founder of the Ludwig von Mises Institute
http://mises.org/freemarket_detail.aspx?control=220
The Free Market and the Culture of Victimization
—By Kevin Drum| Wed May. 11, 2011 9:46 AM PDT
Here is American politics in a nutshell:
"I'm glad to see they're trying to rein in Fannie Mae, but I think I'm being disproportionately penalized," said Rayn Random, who is trying to sell her house in the hills for $849,000 so she can move to Florida.
Actually, that's probably everyone's politics in a nutshell. The issue here is that in 2008, after the collapse of the housing market, the federal government raised the limit for the size of the home loans that Fannie Mae would
But no matter how broadly supported a policy is, there's always somebody who's going to get the short end of the stick and is convinced they're being singled out for unfair treatment. In this case, it's upper middle class homeowners, who might have a bit harder time selling their homes and might have to pay a bit more when they're buying one. This is, of course, the free market in action, but no one in the housing industry cares about that when it's their paychecks on the line:
The National Association of Realtors, 8,000 of whom have gathered in Washington this week for their midyear legislative meeting, is making an extension of the loan guarantees a top lobbying priority....The Mortgage Bankers Association has opposed letting the limits drop, although a spokesman said its members were studying the issue.
I'd peg the number of genuine believers in free market capitalism at about 1% of the population. Maybe. The rest of us just want whatever policies benefit us the most. And the richer you are, the more money you make from policies that benefit you. Among the rich and the corporate elite, true believers in the free market probably number about 0%.
http://motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2011/05/culture-victimization-and-free-market
Occupy-Wallstreet.com
58Share"Rise like Lions after slumber
In unvanquishable number -Shake your chains to earth like dew
Which in sleep had fallen on you -
Ye are many – they are few."
Percy B Shelley 1819
Time to start Chapter two! Today (November 17th) marks the beginning of the second round of global protest, after October 15th. Part of this is in response to the cowardly attack in the middle of the night against the Zuccotti encampment: roarmag.orgIt has been spectacular to watch people around the world stand up for their rights in 2011. The big question in my mind, was when Americans would start to manifest against the oppression and corruption in the US. On September 17th 2011, it turns out.
The importance of protest in the US is immeasurable. The US is able to influence all other countries, affecting their ability to practice democracy: if there is no democracy in the US, there won't be democracy anywhere.
The incredibly brave first wave of protest helped prove it can be done, that there is hope. Even when their efforts were blacked out of the main stream media completely, they fought on, with love, and the gesture has inspired millions. It took the shock of violence against peaceful protestors to jump start the media, but now the movement can no longer be ignored. Hope is growing, as more and more people around the world join the movement and organize to occupy their own cities. 82 countries have joined, in over 1000 cities. The message could not be more clear: we are not alone! We are feeding each other with love. This is what it is to be alive!
In part, this blog is my apology. I am sorry I lost faith something like this was possible. I am sorry I gave up hope, and felt overwhelmed by the staggering power of our oppressors. I am sorry I had the arrogance to think I was alone. This blog is also my thank you. OWS, you have restored my faith in America, in humanity, in myself. You have reminded me of something even bigger than Democracy or economic justice or social equality, you have reminded me of the ability of love to unlock our infinite power. Thank you, for revealing my fears to be what they are, just fears. Thank you, for awakening my heart. There is so much to be done. Thank you for uniting us, so we can get started.
15 Responses to Occupy-Wallstreet.comDonzel says:
- October 26, 2011 at 12:44 pm
- I believe as Thomas Jefferson believed. Wall Street Banks and other investment bankers should be controled. When the bankers cost tax payers money, they should have thier assets taken to cover the tax payers cost. When the banks go bankrupt, the goverment should close the bank(s) down.
- Replybruce block says:
- October 28, 2011 at 5:45 am
- what Jefferson was talking about was that the u.s. government should never give over the ability to issue money to a central bank such as the federal reserve that can inflate and deflate at whim, because what happens is that the whole structure of the economy becomes corrupted and migrates to feed off of the phenomena of monetary expansion. This is what happened in the financial crises as corporations i.e. mortgage lenders, investment banks ,rating agencies and insurance companies all colluded to justify the expansion of the banks ability to create debt through the fractional reserve banking system. Thomas Jefferson was a believer of free markets and capitalism but the American system corrupted by the power of the fed has veered from free market philosophy in the last thirty years and has become a fascist state .
- Replyadmin says:
- October 28, 2011 at 12:39 pm
- I believe this to be the core of the debate the corporate media is (desperately) seeking to avoid.
- Replyadmin says:
- October 26, 2011 at 1:12 pm
- I couldn't agree more. Unfortunately, those charged with controlling the banks (the Securities and Exchange Commission) have been compromised. Here is a great Rolling Stone piece on how the SEC is illegally covering up for the criminals they are supposed to prosecute. I guess you can easily afford bribes when you have stolen as much money as Wall Street has:
- http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/is-the-sec-covering-up-wall-street-crimes-20110817
- Replyerin says:
- October 27, 2011 at 6:29 pm
- For those in Oakland- the protesters started the altercation by throwing things (including glass bottles, paint, etc) at the police who then, as expected, started in with the flash bangs etc. Did they really expect to threaten and injur police officers and just have them stand there? I see so many articles claiming all the protesters kept returning peacefully-, and that is a flat out lie.
- If you want people to even take the time to listen to what you are protesting- then do it without being threatening to the general public and without destroying property etc. When you truly have a peaceful and legal gathering- then people may actually listen to you.
- Replyadmin says:
- October 27, 2011 at 7:09 pm
- Hi Erin,
- I certainly agree that it is essential for OWS to remain nonviolent. I think so far the protestors have done a remarkable job, even when confronted with unnecessary force.
- Bottles may have been thrown, but who knows who threw them, or why? Residents of Oakland have a lot of local issues to be angry about, such as the closing down of public schools, in what already is one of the most dismal school districts in America (the Oakland school district came up with Ebonics, as a way to move kids through the system without teaching them the skills they need for college or a good job). There is a long history of police violence in Oakland, which is totally unrelated this protest, most notably the murder of an unarmed man in a BART station by police. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eZTbJH6BNaU&feature=fvst
- The very minor departure from nonviolence – which did not actually harm any police officers – does not represent the Occupy movement as a whole, whatsoever.
- On the other hand, the police can be seen intentionally firing projectiles at people – which resulted in a fractured skull for a war veteran. Dispersing a crowd with tear gas is different than trying to hit people with the canisters. And the truth is, the police were already very well prepared to unleash a full blown assault. The few thrown bottles merely provided a catalyst for them to do what they had come to do.
- ReplyGary Ehlenberger says:
- October 27, 2011 at 7:46 pm
- GREED KILLS
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EdWmlnwhhlo
- Replyadmin says:
- October 28, 2011 at 12:45 am
- Very nice, perfect song too!
- ReplyRonald Chan says:
- November 6, 2011 at 6:51 pm
- Support Occupy Wallstreet. Too many riches are not deserve to the wealth. Stop working hard. Let the richest do everything including join the military to protect your country.
- Replyjohn allen roseborough says:
- November 10, 2011 at 6:07 pm
- It seems in light of the northamerican uprising that people are becomming aware of thier plight. Unfortunatly I don't see real change happening any time soon. Presently the E.U. is struggeling to maintain thier economic system so the few people who benefit from it may continue to do so. The same thing happened when the big banks and auto makers where bailed in the U.S. The bail out allowed the 1% (probably less) to continue to maintain a lifestyle that the average american could scarcely concieve. Any economy that allows one person to live in poverty and another to live in gross excess is flawed. The oil in the U.S. does not belong to B.P. or Exxon,
- It does not belong to Chinese share holders and most of all it does not belong to traders on wallstreet. So why are these companies and people living large off the American peoples. Well they are living large for the same reasons that debeers lives large off off the african people or gadaffi lived large off the lybian people. American Tax dollars subsidise these companies, american politicians profit form these deals and, American workers earning $8-$20 an hour pay for it all by working thier whole lives if thier lucky enough to have a steady job.
- Our planet cannot sustain unlimited growth. Our planet cannot sustain unlimited polution. We do not need tankers and aeroplanes so every corner store stocks wines from all over the world, or the few who can afford it can take trips to exotic places. We need to grow up as a comunity that can share this planet responsibly, with dignity and integrity. The science comunity as a whole have understood these problems for decades and It's a shame our politicians have yet to acknoledge these undeniable truths. As far as these protests are concerned, act responsibly with dignity and the knowledge that you have to do this for the next generation because it may well be the last chance this planet has to survive this bullshit.
- Replyjoel drotts says:
- November 26, 2011 at 9:10 am
- The Bankruptcy Abuse and Consumer Protection Act of 2005, Pub. L. No. 109-8, 119 Stat 23 (April 20, 2005), is the little known, but destructive force which the then sitting Legislature passed into law, stripping American's of the majority of their Chapter Seven Bankruptcy Court protections. This bill single handedly created and ensured the environment where "Predatory Lending" could begin, while creating the crooked Consumer Credit Rehabilitation Industry which is every bit as predatory as the "Predatory Lenders." Once this under the radar law was passed, in the name of controlling "Bankruptcy Abuse," added to the mortgage meltdown, bundling, and default practices which received all the press, the Legislature and the bequest of George Bush Junior gave greedy Wall Street fat cats all the tools they needed to almost bankrupt America via the 2008 crash.
- What exactly was it about this one simple law, which sounded good on it's face, which was able to cause such havoc with America's financial markets and way of doing business? Simply put in lay terms, it fundamentally changed the very way which America had done business, ever since the first store owner decided to provide his customers with credit. How? This law, removed the number one check on the market, on credit, and removed for businesses the most watched business variable in the book. The variable of which I am speaking of, is of course "Risk."
- Risk is what business get paid for. They're risking their capital, their time, their energies, and talents, and the reward is supposed to be the benefits you receive for taking that risk on yourself, your idea, your partners, or whatever business venture or enterprise a business person sees fit to risk their capital, time, effort, or resources into. If you're novel, better then the rest, efficient, nimbler, or whatever it is that makes you more successful than the rest, the rewards for your risk taking is of course your profits. That is the fundelmental way in which business works.
- As all businesses know, and usually have incorporated into their operating cost column is the risk of companies of individuals defaulting on credit you have extended them. Prior to the passage of this 2005 Act, every business and business-person in America worth their salt knew this to be an absolutely known fact and fundlemental rule of doing business. This risk is part of what entitled businesses to their hard earned profits. However, shortly after Bush Junior was elected, several large and well monied business interests decided they no longer liked the rules of the game. The rules of the market, of business, and decided that instead of them being good at their jobs, the Government should eliminate for them the most nature check on the market Capitalism has. Therefore, they lobbied the then Legislature, and the Republican President, to eliminate their credit risk by law.
- The bill became an Act, which according to the Constitution is perfectly legal as the Legislature may create the perimeter and laws with which the bankruptcy courts can operate upon and with. What happened next, is the story all American's know. After successfully convincing the Legislature that they were some how in danger of going bankrupt themselves, due to these so called "Bankruptcy Abusers," these billion dollar companies successfully got the Chapter Seven and even Eleven Bankruptcy Laws changed to where consumers could no longer receive a clean slate, and no matter what they had to repay their debts. Granted at slower, and reduced payments, but what this Act essentially did was create an indentured servant class out of consumers whom got in over their heads. No longer allowed a fresh start, American's debts now follow them for life.
- What makes this so evil, is that isn't the end of the story, it is the mere beginning. For starters, bankruptcy pre-Bankruptcy Abuse and Consumer Protection Act was not an easy thing. Yes, you got a fresh start, were debt free, allowed to keep certain nessicities like your car, home, and things of that nature. However, you couldn't receive a lick of credit, for seven years. Which meant whatever car you had, where ever you were living, or what you had when you filed for Chapter Seven Protections, was all you were going to have for the next seven years, unless you were able to successfully save up and pay in total the cash value of whatever you hoped to purchase. As every American knows, unless you're making bug bucks, isn't the easiest thing in the world to do.
- At the same time, these billion dollar companies were no where near bankruptcy, and merely wanted to ensure that their greed was protected by law. Smelling blood in the water, Wall Street crooks decided that since these new styled "never may be wiped clean debts" were now in existence and on the market, why not begin purchasing, bundling, creating financial products from, and give value to these defaulted on debts. The reasoning was, even though they are defaulted debts, they were still a secure risk or bet, as the Chapter Seven Laws had been changed to make it so these debts had to eventually be paid off according to the new and unfair laws. Once this idea caught on, there was only one thing left to do, and that was to ensure that more people got in over their heads and more of these defaulted debts were available on the market.
- As Wall Street not only controls the majority of the markets, it also controls the banks and lending companies as well. Pretty soon, American's are being given credit they could never afford to pay back, and consumerism hit an all time fever pitch. Mean while the banks, financial types, and other crooks, whom should almost be charged for treason for the way in which they attempted to destroy America's markets via their greedy, shortsightedness, and smugness about it, continued to find bigger and better things to utilize their new tools on. Finally, as we all know, they broke into the highest prize of all, the American dream itself, otherwise known as home ownership.
- Utilizing the same tactics, and principles learned from mere consumer debt assignment and debt selling, they expanded into the housing markets. Pretty soon, people were given $800,000 homes, with no money down, and with incomes as low as $40,000 a year. Then they introduced the variable rate loans to the game, so they could exelerate payments at will, or back-load heavy debts. The American consumer never stood a chance, and what was their crime…. Merely accepting money which was offered them, so they may have a shot at the American dream. In Law, the term for transactions like these are called "unfair bargaining power." It's when a sophisticated and knowledge possessing party intentionally convinces a less sophisticated and ignorant party to enter into a business or sales contract, which is morally corrupt, and one sided as far as the bargained for consideration of both parties. While not ill-legal, this legal remedy stands strongly in equity, and there is recourse for such victims. However, unless a party is a lawyer, they've probably unfamiliar with the equitable doctrine of "unfair bargaining power."
- So ignorant, the laws stacked against them, and having notions of living the American dream dangled in front of them, the average American consumer was purposely victimized and swindled by the greedy of their own countrymen. Without the protections the Courts were once allowed to offer in a Chapter Seven bankruptcy, as far as wiping a slate clean, and making the creditor the one whom had to bare the brunt of the defaulted credit or actually suffer the consequences of lending to risky credit seekers, the pockets of American's got emptier. People stopped buying things, businesses suffered drops in sales. Worst of all, the Wall Street crowd still pumping up the idea that these defaulted debts were the best thing since sliced bread, bundled, packaged, and sold these "products" to American's and foreigners alike. The people whom purchased these products, tended to be middle to upper class investors looking for a safe haven for their money, with a decent return on their risk.
- Therfore, these near treasonous Wall Street crooks, not only ripped off the poor, but stole from the middle to upper classes as well. By this time Bush is out, and he hands President Obama this shit sandwich that he and whatever idiot Bush had as his Treasurer created. Here is the sad and most infuriating part of this twisted tale, when all these debts came due, and the shit hit the fan, these Wall Street crooks and banks had the nerve to ask the very people they had just bankrupted, stolen fro, manipulated, and ripped off, to bail them out. To put a cherry on top of the shit Sunday, these doosh-bags served the American people, they then gave themselves these insultingly large bonuses and salaries. Their reasoning, so they could retain their talent. Mind you, this is the same talent that created and profitted from this mess.
- There's no class warfare, there's no one percent. There are people that are rightfully angry, but they don't know why. This is the cliff notes of what they're pissed off about, how it happened, and the arguments they need to be touting, instead of clogging traffic and being annoying. They should be petitioning their elected officials to undue the Bankruptcy Abuse Act, insist that any credit rehabilitation company be by law required to pay off all the debts of any consumer seeking help, and offer them a lower, longer, single monthly payment plan which is with-in the bad credit possessing parties budget. Instead, these crooked credit rehabilitation companies, take consumers money, hold it in trust, and offer to "negotiate" the same simple satisfaction and accord which any individual may due on their own. Meanwhile, the Credit Rehabilitation people use the money given them in trust, to make investments, the profits of which are not shared with the bad credit payee. This could constitute the crime of "usury," or a possible "conversion" if only for a short period of time.
- Do the Occupiers have a reason to be mad, absolutely! Are they stupid hippies, whom should conduct research into matters, and seek out legal recourse via a clear and concise message… Absolutely. This is just one man's opinion, and take on things. I have with purpose not included the fact that while all of this was taking place, the price of oil more then quadrupled, which in turn made everything twice as expensive. Which is ironic as most people are or were twice as broke. How to prosecute? Who are the major players of these actions. Names, dates, specific products sold, trace the monies, lop off the heads of those whom hurt the country financially, reinstall confidence in America's regulatory powers. Show the World we don't tolerate bullshit, get off the foreign oil, and use Solar Power and it's infrastructure capabilities, dollar saving possibilities, and most of all it's mass job creation abilities. Let's get this Country running again!
- Where do we start? Giving Joel Marshall Drotts his license to practice law, and get your best players off the God damned bench and in the game! Sure there's plenty of others like me. $98,000 a year, and I will go about hunting these fuckers down, and prosecuting them one by one. I'll do it with glee. As a patriot, as a lawyer, as a fighter, and let's face it, some one whom just loves to fight and argue! I want in the game, now coac
- Replyjoel drotts says:
- November 26, 2011 at 9:11 am
- We the People of the United States of America, citing our First Amendment right "to petition the Government for a redress of grievances," do hereby respectfully ask that the now sitting Legislature's of both the House of Representatives and the House of the Senate, in lawful accordance with Article One, Section Eight, sub-section Four, to re-amend all Chapter Seven and Eleven Bankruptcy Laws to their pre-existing state as of Nineteen Ninety Nine, thereby re-establishing the much needed protections and clean state debt forgiveness which were available to any United States citizen, legal alien, or resident whom did properly seek the protections of a Lawfully convened Court of Law, in proper accordance with the Federal Rules of Bankruptcy Procedure as so written in the year Nineteen Ninety Nine.
- We make this request of the Legislature, as a proper redress to our grievances. By signing this petition, I hereby state that under penalty of perjury and voter fraud that I am at least eight-teen years of age, I am a citizen of the United States of America, and I am lawfully allowed to vote by in the United States of America. Furthermore, by signing my name to this lawful petition to Congress I am stating that I do hereby agree that:
- 1. The risk of a credit default and the possibility of that debt never being paid by the debtee to a business debtor, is and has always been a proper check on the market, as well as a part of the risk which a business agrees to under take by extending consumers credit.
- 2. That for almost two-hundred years of this Nations history, businesses, not the consumers, have always been better situated to bare the costs associated with lending credit or monies to consumers. Furthermore, that the possibility of the bankruptcy of a debtee always had been and should once again become part of the risks one agrees to undertake when one goes into business, and extends credit or capital to a customer or consumer.
- 3. That the lack of this risk no longer being present or common place in the market or in matters of business, was and is the cause of predatory lending, mismanaged funds by individuals and businesses alike, which did created an era of unprecedented success to certain businesses in America, to the extreme detriment of the American Consumer.
- 4. That prior to Nineteen Ninety Nine, businesses, lenders, and creditors were required to properly assess, understand, and be held accountable for their lending and crediting practices, by way of simple fact that a debtee may become over extended and file Chapter Seven bankruptcy, whereby the debtor would lose all rights to claim a debt was owed them, after the proper proceedings and liquidations which could be a part of a Chapter Seven or Chapter Eleven filing. In other words, Consumers could have a clean slate, after a lawful bankruptcy proceeding.
- 5. That becoming even debt free, the filing of bankruptcy was never an easy or inexpensive task. Moreover, a bankruptcy was a mark on your credit, which could haunt a Consumer for up to seven years. Furthermore, that even if the myth of Bankruptcy Abuse were real, any such abuses could only be made possible by the negligence of a lender or creditor for not properly investigating and ascertaining the credit worthiness of an individual consumer or even a businesses.
- 6. Moreover, that it today modern age of instant information, the likelihood of a bankruptcy going un-noticed on a would be credit receiving parties record is highly unlikely, if not almost an impossibility. Therefore, a proper re-alignment and balancing of the risks and rewards willingly undertaken by both debtor and debtee, or lender to consumer, are not only proper but much needed.
- 7. That I am signing my name to this lawful petition to both Houses of the Legislature of the United States of America, I am with purpose invoking my First Amendment Right to petition my Government for a redress of my grievances, and hereby ask that those grievances are heard, understood, and lawfully remedied in the manner so prescribed in this petition.
- Respectfully,
- _______________________________________________________
- I understand it is a felony offense to unlawfully impersonate, transcribe the name of another individual, to forge another persons signature, and the name so attached to this petition, is my own, and that I am the person whose name I did with purpose, free of duress, fraud, or threat did lawfully transcribe and attach to this Petition to Legislature of the United States of America.
- Replyjoel drotts says:
- November 26, 2011 at 9:14 am
- Strategic Goals of The United States Solar Industry
- ROUGH DRAFT: I apologize for misspelling, language, and grammer
- 1. Solar systems on every roof, and plug in electric cars in every garage!
- This is the main goal of the Solar Industrial Complex, which in my mind is a hybrid Governmental and United States Industry mix. Government provides the proper incentives for business and industry to occupy the field, through a serious of carrot and stick tax, trading, manufacturing, and installation programs.
- Now, while the Federal Government can and should do all it can from the top down, in order for such massive and needed change to be instituted it must occur from the bottom up. Therefore, the question becomes, how can the Federal Government influence business and local governments at the City, County, and even State levels to successfully move America in the correct direction.
- 1. Mass Media
- Propaganda. Using legal dollars which are already in place from the Tobacco industry, alcohol, or other so called "sin tax" bullshit the US Government starts pumping out and under takes a national we're going solar ad campaign. This ad campaign should be on par with the national don't smoke, don't DUI, and other such already instituted advertising campaigns. The ads should feature the benefits and positiveness of local businesses, installing pay for plug electric hardware already available by General Electric and Siemens Corporation. The adds should also show FOR FREE, Chevy Covalts, Mitiubishi Electrics, as well as Nissen Electrics.
- What this does is show and say to American car manufacturing & Electric Infrastructure Hardware Creators that FREE ADVERTISEMENT will be made available to companies, by the United States Government who so properly chose to get on board with the program.
- 2. TAX Incentives and the Carrot
- A. It is and has been known for a great while to any tax attorney or Accountant worth their salt that Public Utility Companies pay no property taxes on energy producing lands, or properties. This law and tax code, is already legally usable by any independent tax producing family, city, county, or State Government. This is a good law, which needs to be touted and advertised. Every square footage of solar array, wind, or other such independent electric producing footage of an private home, business, or local governmental agency is legally exempt from all property tax.
- This doesn't mean the entire property, unless any such property is entirely dedicated to the generation of solar power production and storage. This is a system, already build into the tax code, where just as the square footage of a home office or business/ private home hybrid may be differently assets for tax purposes, so too shall the square footage of any building dedicated to the generation of solar power, and areas dedicated to even pay for plug or personal electric plug in areas. This program, is a proper usage of how the Treasury Laws or Tax Code may be properly used to influence government policy, as the Founding Father's set for in the Constitution.
- B. The EPA and other Federal Regulatory Bodies
- As the legislature has already given certain executive powers to the Office of the President, the President may at will enact and influence a large portion of Federal Policy. This is especially true when it comes to the areas of National Defense, where he is the Supreme Commander and Chief, as well as all energy policy. The reason such energy policies may be controlled is the Legislature has given the EPA, great amounts of power, which sort of another Legislative vote remanding said powers the President may do as he pleases.
- With that in mind, it is know that major Oil Companies seek to drill and expand the operations on shore. This is plausibly a good thing, as it will extend out the level and amounts of America's National Strategic Reserve Supplies. However, what the President may do, as the Primary Executive of this Country is cut deals with these oils companies. The deals would be far from the usual "sweet heart" deals, one generally thinks of. Instead, the President produces land grants, covenants, and contracts with the oil companies stating that:
- In order to drill, explore, or finance any new patrolium based activities, within the boundaries of the Untied States or as a part of any contract, land grant, or land covenant covered by this agreement, any such parties in good consideration for the right to continue further patrolium based activities must keep a good faith accounting of the costs, profits, and expenses of all such activities. Then the sum total of all three standard business accountings, when calculated in accordance with the standards put forth by the American Accounting Board (Forget the name of the American Bar Associations Eequivilant for Accountants), shall be matched dollar for dollar in tax exempt research, development, manufacturing, production, job creation, installation, or distribution of Solar Electric Technologies, Solar Electric Storage, and/or Solar Electric transmission and distribution programs, which as a part of good consideration for the right and privilege granted said company to undertake petroleum exploration, production, drilling, and/or extraction from Federal or State held lands. All financial benefits, wind-falls, or financial gains which may befall any such oil company through their good faith and legally funded dollar for dollar expenditures, made in the areas of Solar Electric generation, storage, distribution, transmission, electric transportaion, American home construction technologies and/or power saving technologies, shall be to the sole benefit of the creating company to mass produce, market, exploit, or profit from. However, at no time, may any ground breaking or patentable technologies created or discovered as a part of this program be patented without bringing said technologies to market within six-twelve months of said technology being patented. The sole purpose behind this patent clause is to ensure that no technologies are discovered and patented by any such participating company, merely to ensure that said technologies stay off the market and unavailable to the American Public for use, job creation, production, distribution, transmission, or construction.
- 3. LOCAL GOVERNMENT
- A. The role of local government on a nation wide scale
- A. Local government is the most crucial part of any strategic policy based plan, as while the Federal Government may attempt to dictate from the top down, the Constitution and pure logistics require that local City and County Governments enact the majority of any such program. For lack of a better term Local Government IS the boots on the ground. Therefore, what sorts of Federal Policies and Programs may be enacted, to help and not hinder the coffers of local Governments?
- California has taken the lead in this area, by allowing for the "Solar Leasing" and "Green Credit Sales," programs. These programs allow Solar installers to install onto the roofs of local buildings Solar Arrays, in exchange for the "Green Credits" which may be sold to polluting State or out of State companies, and the allowing of the sales of excess power generated to local utilities. The next legal and logical step, is for local Solar installation companies to install Solar Systems on medium to large apartment and office complex buildings, and sell at discounted rates electricity to the tenants. This sort of contractually legal arrangement, merely offers tenants of any rental space an alternative to the local municipality.
- The landlord entering into either a purchase agreement or leasing agreement, with the Solar Installer, offers a viable alternative to the local municipalities. If local Governments are smart enough not to tax such enterprises out of competitiveness, what local Cities would have his their first truly NEW stream of taxable income they've experienced in decades. As most municipalities, are taxed at the State level, due to their size, these local independent power producers offer NEW streams of much needed income to local governments. Of course, every City can do as they please, and the possibility for corrupt politicians to accept pay offs or moneys from the larger State sized municipalities is and will be an on going concern.
- We've already witnessed where sort sighted politicians, eager to fill coffers now, tax or other wise create an unfriendly local business environment through fees, dues, or even red-tape. As the boots on the ground, the Federal Government has little control over such business killing policies. However, the power of the Federal purse may again, be utilized to state certain Federal Dollars received by State and Local Governments are conditional upon exempting or strictly limiting the amount of local taxes placed on an industry America is attempting to grow nationally. Moreover, smart local politicians will be able to see the immediate local job creation, pay increases, joblessness, and over all economies grow from such a large, multi-teared, multi-trade and profession, manufacturing, distribution, instalation, and ultimately cost savings benefits visited upon the local citizenry.
- The more locals employed, the more locals saving on energy bills, and the more businesses looking to do business locally, pay reasonable permitting fees, the more locals will have to spend at local shops, entertainment attractions, and other benefits of economic bounty a local Government receives, when the local economy is thriving. Also if small enough, so they may remain competitive and cheaper than the large municipalities, local city governments may begin to tax small usage points, such as the State does on small independent power producers. Again, the main concern being that this NEW industries biggest chip in the big game is that they are cheaper and more efficient electric power producing entities, than the large State wide municipalities. If local Governments tax that advantage away, they will effectively kill this possible and huge job creating industry.
- B. Direct Income Sources and saving for local Governments
- It is crucial and already Constitutionally decided that it is local State and City Governments whom shall control and contract for their own cities needs. Under this pretext, City Governments can and should contract with large Solar Power Installation companies, and grant certain city contracts. A. Pay for plug hardware. B. Solar systems on City lands. C. Maintaining of City vehicle fleets.
- Every City shall be free to negotiate it's own contracts, and decide if it wants to buy, lease, rent, or partner with Solar Industries. A prime example is the now available Solar Power City Block Lights. These brighter then currently existing Solar Powered Street Lights. charge in the day, and are able to shine from dusk till dawn. With batteries and smart features, these lights can shine for several nights, one they have reached fully charged levels. Given the current millions of dollars large cities pay for the price of keeping their cities streets safely lit, would it not be smarter to either purchase for the ownership of the public solar powered street lamps, which have a ten year warranty on them? The alternative being to partner with or begin to accept bids from companies willing to install, maintain, and provide solar powered city street lights, which would be significantly cheaper than current municipalities prices.
- The author also reminds the reader that along with any such installation or project undertaken by the city, comes employment opportunities for the installers, maintainers, as well as all the local supplies and distribution houses whom will receive a major benefit from the undertaking of such projects. Local Electrical Union benches emptied, as teams of Electrical Contractors are put back to work installing cost effective and solar efficient solar street lamps, all to the benefit of the local economy. Moreover, that's just one example.
- San Francisco, being a prime and perfect City for any Federal, State, or Private experiments into just how cost effective, efficient, and beneficial Solar Systems could be for local Governments, Economies, and the Citizenry, San Francisco's MUNI system is an already electric powered system. If an entity, private or public, were able to install a Solar Electric System capable of generating enough power to power the Municipal Rails and Buses, the Solar Electric System would pay for itself. The City could quickly pay for any such system, by allocating
- .10-.25 out of every dollar paid the system by riders. This is the same concept used to pay off the now failed "Clipper Card" system. However, instead of complaints and more expense the City would actually enjoy drastic cost reductions in it's massive electric bill. These savings could then be allocated to other more needed areas of government, like police, fire, and recreation departments.
- Another cost saving area, would be the actual energy bills paid by local Government, just to keep it's own lights on. Aside from the City Street Lights, the actual operation of City buildings is quite expensive. Again, using a purchase as own, a leasing, or a hybrid model, the City could install Solar Electric Systems on the roofs, windows, and lands of the City, providing electric power cheaply and more efficiently than the current PUC's. This also allows the City to bid and contract out pay for plug hardware, for Citizens and even city fleets. Imagine the cost reductions of a City which had close no no electric bills, and had no gas bills to pay for the majority of it's fleet?
- Then imagine the amount of local jobs and growth of the local economy from undertaking and instituting such a program? Local suppliers, installers, contractors, car dealers, the Government, and all their employees all experiencing increases in pay, job creation, even local, state, and Federal taxes. Imagine if all major cities were to do this. However, like any large business plan, a test bed must be found and used. San Francisco makes a highly attractive test bed.
- 4. San Francisco the testing Ground
- 1. First and for most San Francisco's population is a more liberal and probably more willing population to undergo such an experiment. As a eco-friendly and a city with a mean average salary of $69,000-$74,000, and a City instituted minimum wage of $9.75 San Francisco is one of, if not the largest Economies on the West Coast of the United States of America.
- 2. As once said by Mark Twain, "The coldest winter I ever spent, was a summer in San Francisco." What Mr. Twain was referring to, is of course San Francisco's famous fog, which outside of London is as close to pea soup as an American city can get, as far as fog goes. Therefore, San Francisco proves to be a perfect test bed for Solar Technologies, which MUST be able to capture, harness, and convert the power of the Sun on foggy days as well as sunny. Thankfully, all Solar Technologies are efficient enough to harness the suns rays through even the foggiest of whether these days. However, exactly which solar electric system does so most efficiently is yet unproven or tested on a mass scale. Which is exactly why San Francisco makes such an excellent test bed.
- 3. As previously stated, almost %80 if not more of San Francisco's public transportation system is already electric based. Therefore, a large infrastructure (at least on a large city scale), already exists in San Francisco. All that would be needed is to convert the on grid electric power utilization system, to an independent power generating system, or a hybrid there of. The results, costs, and savings could then be measured, modeled, and reported nationally.
- 4. San Francisco has many medium to large apartment and business buildings, and some of the trickiest land covenants, historical landmark, and building code regulations in the United States of America. If compromises, legal precedent, and tactful legal interpretations around and through needless red tape can be accomplished in San Francisco, it can be done any where in the nation. As one of the two California State Bar Associations is located in San Francisco, the possibility of co-operation and the recognition of pro-bono hours for the highly specialized real-estate, business, trust, non-profit, and administrative law lawyers could be a possibility.
- 5. The political climate is such in San Francisco that any politician which apposed such pro-green, pro-job creation, pro-union, pro-environment, pro-cost savings, and first of it's kind opportunity like the one's so proposed, would be committing a political suicide by opposing such progressive movement. However, as any reader should realize this isn't really a progressive movement, it is a push to get America's political and industrial powers to realize the incredible job creating, cost saving, and nation saving abilities Solar Electric Technologies truly represent. For the first time, possibly ever in this nations history we are at a cross-roads, and presented with an everybody wins scenario, opportunity, and industry. It's all made possible by the Solar Electric Industry.
- Jobs? Creates them. Breaks our need for foreign oil? Does that as well. Jump start the economy with a large enough industry to sustain the United States of America? We're only limited by our own imaginations. Our power grid is over fifty years old, lets rebuild it. Only smarter, faster, and with Solar Electric Capabilities in mind. Are we the first Country to successfully pull this off? No, there is a German model to study, if the ney sayers must. Are we alone? No, our usual trading partners and allies, are merely waiting for the United States and her still the largest economy on the planet (for now), to make the right move, and to call the tune the rest of the Western World and Japan are going to dance to. Will it happen over night? No, but it the President started now, in four years time he can and will have pushed this movement so far forward that there can be no turning back.
- This isn't Jimmy Carter's solar panels on the White House roof. This is read Bill Clinton's latest book, The Diaries of an Economic Hit Man (To see what could happen in the negative), heeding the Presidents own call to Nation Build at Home, with President Mac Authors statement about "The military industrial complex," and the infrastructure of the 1950′s. Wrap those all together, then the President using the power of his office makes some phone calls to heads of car industries, Senators, and industry giants, he says "Just a heads up, this is where I plant on taking this Country. I'd like your help, if I can count on it, what do you can I do to help you to help me, help America? If not, you may gladly get left in the dust, because the only bail outs or bail ins or for these programs and ones that help."
- CEO's do it all the time. My Grandfather often would call personally local Electrical Contractors, to let them know Independent Electric was now doing business in their area, and would appreciate their business. My Grandfather found that having the President of IES call personally, and ask for business did a lot of good. Smoothed over egos, and made people flattered if a big guy calls on a little guy. Imagine what would happen if the Office of the President of The United States called a couple of industry big shots. They may be big shots, but a call from the President with a heads up has got to humble almost any American. Enough so, to get this plan into serious over drive, I know that much. Maybe he could leave off the last sentence, and state that publicly. Personally, I feel the President speaks for the American people, and that's probably about the tone people want taken with the so called "to big to fail" size companies.
- That's a good start, for an over-view. Each layer, level, or idea can and must be expanded upon greatly, either by this author, his partners, or those whom wish to run with and utilize this plan. This is a mere over view, a general direction, but specific enough to actually act upon on several levels by several parties. This isn't the end, this is the beginning.
- ReplyRosa McCurdy says:
- December 1, 2011 at 6:05 pm
- Occupy Walls Street is the greatest movement I have witnessed in my life time. I am 79 years old. I am proud of every American that takes part in and supports this movement. Keep up the good work OWS.
- Replykenneth E. ALDHIZEER says:
- December 13, 2011 at 12:24 am
- If all persons in this country had access to quality health insurance and education, especially emotional and mental health, then the statement that conservative republicans (who support the wealth) who say that the reason people in this country are poor, is their own fault, may have more meaning, But the children in the growing middle class who are financially hurting, the poor, the disabled, and the working poor do not have the resourses to send their children to education beyond high school, many of the parents themselves are emotionally unstable due to the lack of work, their children may drop out of school, do not graduate, they do not have quality medical insurance as you and the wealthier people in this country, The statements made by conservatives that money, quality medical care, and resources to pay for quality education and jobs for all of the unemployed, are not required to be successful persons but far too many conservatives in this country are people who are just not concerned with the unfortunate. It is their way of making themselves feel good, and will communicate with and pay people who agree with them, who themselves have no concious either. The money to pay for all of this will come from millions of the additional tax payers, billions plus in money saved from entitlement programs, billions saved from Justice systems including prisons where millions of non violent inmates who committed petty crimes for food or drug addition, and other government programs. these costly programs are like a giant whale, beached on a mountain side bellowing out, FEED ME, FEED ME!!
- Kenneth E. Aldhizer
- Moneta, Va.
- (ok to print)
- Reply
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Mobile Phone hazard
- By The Administrator
- Published 04/20/2008
- EMF - Electromagnetic Field research
- Rating:
THE ADMINISTRATOR
EMR Administrator
View all articles by The Administrator
Mobile Phone hazardKnowledge of the hazards of non-ionising radiation has been around for the last 50 years. Whereas, the Russians took these problems seriously, Western industrial societies have weighted economical benefit against health problems and found economy to be more important than public health. Numerous papers, articles and books on low-level non-ionising radiation seem to have done little to alert the authorities even those coming from within governmental agencies themselves!!
In a recent paper issued by IEGMP: Independent Expert Group on Mobile Phones lead by Sir William Steward, famous British biochemist and leader of Association for the Advancement of Science, states mobile phone users may well experience long time exposure effects that will damage health. Especially warned were children in the paper Mobile Phones and Health issued April 2000. Sir Williams also scorned mobile phone producers for luring children to use mobile phones as essential " back to school" items.
December 8th 2000 the German Academy of Pediatrics issued a similar warning when advising parents not to encourage children to use mobile phones unnecessarily. They warned mobile phone radiation as a potential health hazard for the young generation. The same warning was issued by Wolfram Kônig from the Federal Agency for Protection from Radiation ( Bundesamt fûr Strahlenschutz) . In a press release July 31at 2001 in Berliner Morgenpost he urged people to consider that those sensitive to radiation may suffer ill effects, especially the younger generation
Several papers have been issued to warn pregnant women from exposure to ELF and HF non-ionising radiation. Professor Sianette Kwee of the Department of Medical Biochemistry at the University of Aarhus, Denmark, the Danish expert to European Unions COST281. Project group on Potential Health Effects from emerging Wireless Communication Systems, claims there is a substantial change in embryonic cells when exposed to ELF from power lines and MW from Mobile Phones !!The damage was greatest to young, fast growing embryonic cells.
Dr. Gerhard Hyland at the Department of Physics University of Warwick, Coventry, England states several hazards in his report at the STOA Committee of the EU dealing especially with children and mobile phones. His findings are alarming since he points to the fact that there will be resonant phenomena (building up of received energy with no chance of escape) within the scull-cavity, especially in sculls of the size of a young child! Young children using mobile phones or being close to a phone will also absorb more than a grown up due to a much thinner scull.
According to Hyland the 8.34 Hz and 2Hz pulses of current GSM phones lie in the range of normal brainwaves and may thus explain why such radiation is specially disturbing to the brains activity. Again this is most dangerous in children having an abundance of slow delta waves before the age of 12 when the faster alpha waves appear. Immune damage is also a problem not to be ignored.
In an article in Sunday Mirror December 27th 2001 headed "The Child Scrambler" a paper by Spanish scientists is quoted stating 2 minutes of mobile phone exposure to the ear causes altered brain activity for up to an hour afterwards, often resulting in aberrant behaviour, psychiatric problems and even ADHD—like problems.
The problem countered is even more problematic than first considered: In the Marbella Institute study in Spain quoted above, 87% of all kids, in the age group between 11-16 used mobile phones but when confronted with the findings as much as 70% said they did not bother about the consequences which bottom line means: regardless, of scientific warnings the average child is more willing to listen to producers advertising and the recommendations of their friends than hard science. Which of course rises a question of who should rule the market: science or mobile phone-companies.
Not only children suffer: older people do as well, Most recent breaking news is the suffering of WHO General Secretary Gro Harlem Brundtland, former Norwegian Prime Minister and chairman of the UN Brundtland Commission and way back also Labour Party minister of Environmental Protection in Norway. Highly respected for her work and achievements Brundtland now suffers the ill consequences of apparent overuse of unshielded PC-technology, Mobile Phone radiation and even a microwave oven accident injuring the GS's eyesight.
The GS`s health is now so fragile that no one is allowed to place a Mobile Phone , a PC or a bright light in her nearness, facts confirmed to both the Norwegian press and magazines such as Microwave News .In the midst of her suffering the GS has proclaimed that she will no longer hold the prestigious post as a "doctor to the world".
Explanations and investigations
Whereas official and mobile phone companies have tried to downplay the hazards by using obsolete measuring devices and focusing solely on the Joule/cm.
i.o.w. energy density absorption issue, claiming to find very little "heating effects" and thus stating the problem to be minimal ,even psychological, serious science focus on the main issue: biological resonance .Bio resonance is a well known phenomena acknowledged more than 60 years back when the first experiments with bio feedback started in the US . Briefly stated is works like this: living tissues like organs, vessels, nerves, individual cells, even their individual parts (organelles, proteins, enzymes and DNA) have certain energy absorption resonant frequencies where they start to absorb energy more intensely, and when doing so start to alter their manner of functioning sometimes improving their performance, but more often getting disturbed and starting to malfunction.
A considerable body of knowledge has been built up concerning radiation frequencies, wave topology (wave shape and pulse duration and the sequence of pulses) and their electromagnetic field strength. This body of knowledge today forms the firm foundation of a diversity of disciplines such as the benevolent art of magnetic healing, the German MORA-bio resonant therapy, the Hungarian Quantum Xeroid therapy and the more sinister art of electromagnetic warfare. Needless to say the players in the latter game is more often silent of their art en the other players, but enough is known by now to state firmly that MW is harmful even in nano-Joul/ cm2 quantities when topology and frequency is "right". Unfortunately current mobile phone technology has hit the wrong combination and unknowingly joined the wrong party .
Solid facts now appear to cause alarm. The more simplistic heating tissue problem claimed to be the only reason for concern by pro-mobile phone user has its problems these days. Dr. Kjell Hansson Mild at the National Institute of Occupational Health in Umeå in Sweden has shown that GSM phone users report heating effects after only 2 minutes use
Heavy users using the phone for more than 60 minutes pr day were 22 times more likely to experience heating effects to the head.
Professor Leif Salford at Lund University has shown that mobile phone radiation will cause an altered blood brain barrier and thus allow toxic elements to penetrate the brain more easily. Toxic penetration appears after only 2 minutes use of the phone. The effect is most probable a biological resonance effect.
If rats is your favourite topic it will be disturbing to know that professor Henry Lai and Narandra Singh at University of Washington in Seattle has found DNA damage to mobile phone exposed rats, most probably nonusers. Dr. John Tattersall at Porto Down Chemical and Biological Defence base in Wiltshire found that RF-radiation damaged the hippocampus of rats brains, the area a major structure for memory and learning abilities. These findings are disturbing because of their nature and because as some saw it, the funds came from DoH finding military research !
Clinical research is also abundant these days. In a study by Kjell Hansson Mild an colleges ( see above) published 1998 uncomfortable symptoms increased with the time exposed to mobile GSM phones. Symptoms investigated were problems as fatigue, headache, heat sensations to head, burning skin. The longer the exposure the more frequent the complaints For users exposed to 60 minutes or more pr day the increase; in symptoms were up to 16 fold, as for warmth behind the ears and 4 fold for feeling of exhaustion Certainly not a sign of safe technology at loose.
Theratronics involvement.
Our own involvement with the mobile phone hazards stems from my own "Brundtland syndrome" dating back to the eighties and nineties when being exposed to a considerable amount of ELF and HP and even MW and ionising radiation working with PCs and own experimental devices used for bio resonance research. When trying to find the answer to my own problems I tried many different ways to get answers ranging from the helpful assistance of Essentia in Canada, to various governmental agencies and finally starting to use the space-age equipment from Medtronik Germany, producing the MORA testing and bio resonance therapy (BRT) equipment. The latest reincarnation of their technology being the MORA Super plus machine sensitive to human micro radiation in the range of 20 -200KHz,picking up voltage as low as 10exp(-6) Volt. By using such equipment it is possible to analyse the reaction of living beings (even plants if necessary) and correct their energy pattern by the use of bio-feedback technology developed by Morell and. Rasche back in the sixties. Their technology has been tried and tested by thousands of users all over the world, with the major players in the German speaking world, but also numerous users in Canada.
Through constant feedback from users various protocols have been developed how to correct the aberrant bio energy of various diseases, even those electro magnetically diseased.
Through my association with the Med Tronic team and experienced users of their equipment I came to build my own database on mobile phone users problems and started to develop my own protocols of treatment resulting in the establishment of my Theratronics company at Fevik, Norway.
Before the company was started August 2002 we already had experience with 3000 individual measurements on MORA equipment.
We developed a specific protocol for testing and evaluating radiation caused problems, based on the Voll parameters and the tried and tested MORA-protocol. Before we undertook the Ecoflow assignment we ran several test series on a number of so-called shielding devices until we were sure of the protocol and the validity of our results.
But what about the improvements?? Since the only significant change takes place in the disappearance of the spin-inversion, the only conclusion is: what we see as, improvement is due to absence of spin inversion.
The type of spin inversion + excitation caused by mobile phones seems to be reflected in our parameters. If we impose a certain restriction on our readings and say we only want to deal with improvements greater than 2 ( above 1.6 on the average scale if we round off ) we are left with this conclusion:
Spin-inversion causes mostly: headaches, heat feeling burning sensation, pareztesia, restlessness, lack of concentration anger and irritation. It is not the sole contributor to those problems since these problems do not disappear totally when spin inversion disappears, but taking away the chaos-factor greatly reduces the problems ,actually on the average 42% improvements on the afore mentions problems!
The Biophone was not a "shielding device" at all, it is a "healing device" picking up signals from the radiation sick blood and returning the signal in a fashion that mimics a therapy signal.
The Biophone crystal-metal picks up the stress signals from the body when excited by the mobile phone, picks up the left—turning spin signals (the sick spin) phase invert the signal and returns to the body as a healing-signal.
In other words having worked with the Biophone for 6 months used thousands of kroners on the project, written for 200 hours and spent hours churning out numbers we ended up with some very, very ancient wisdom: crystals heal your body when attacked by harmful radiations.
Mobile Phone hazard
- By The Administrator
- Published 04/20/2008
- EMF - Electromagnetic Field research
- Rating:
THE ADMINISTRATOR
EMR Administrator
View all articles by The Administrator
Mobile Phone hazardKnowledge of the hazards of non-ionising radiation has been around for the last 50 years. Whereas, the Russians took these problems seriously, Western industrial societies have weighted economical benefit against health problems and found economy to be more important than public health. Numerous papers, articles and books on low-level non-ionising radiation seem to have done little to alert the authorities even those coming from within governmental agencies themselves!!
In a recent paper issued by IEGMP: Independent Expert Group on Mobile Phones lead by Sir William Steward, famous British biochemist and leader of Association for the Advancement of Science, states mobile phone users may well experience long time exposure effects that will damage health. Especially warned were children in the paper Mobile Phones and Health issued April 2000. Sir Williams also scorned mobile phone producers for luring children to use mobile phones as essential " back to school" items.
December 8th 2000 the German Academy of Pediatrics issued a similar warning when advising parents not to encourage children to use mobile phones unnecessarily. They warned mobile phone radiation as a potential health hazard for the young generation. The same warning was issued by Wolfram Kônig from the Federal Agency for Protection from Radiation ( Bundesamt fûr Strahlenschutz) . In a press release July 31at 2001 in Berliner Morgenpost he urged people to consider that those sensitive to radiation may suffer ill effects, especially the younger generation
Several papers have been issued to warn pregnant women from exposure to ELF and HF non-ionising radiation. Professor Sianette Kwee of the Department of Medical Biochemistry at the University of Aarhus, Denmark, the Danish expert to European Unions COST281. Project group on Potential Health Effects from emerging Wireless Communication Systems, claims there is a substantial change in embryonic cells when exposed to ELF from power lines and MW from Mobile Phones !!The damage was greatest to young, fast growing embryonic cells.
Dr. Gerhard Hyland at the Department of Physics University of Warwick, Coventry, England states several hazards in his report at the STOA Committee of the EU dealing especially with children and mobile phones. His findings are alarming since he points to the fact that there will be resonant phenomena (building up of received energy with no chance of escape) within the scull-cavity, especially in sculls of the size of a young child! Young children using mobile phones or being close to a phone will also absorb more than a grown up due to a much thinner scull.
According to Hyland the 8.34 Hz and 2Hz pulses of current GSM phones lie in the range of normal brainwaves and may thus explain why such radiation is specially disturbing to the brains activity. Again this is most dangerous in children having an abundance of slow delta waves before the age of 12 when the faster alpha waves appear. Immune damage is also a problem not to be ignored.
In an article in Sunday Mirror December 27th 2001 headed "The Child Scrambler" a paper by Spanish scientists is quoted stating 2 minutes of mobile phone exposure to the ear causes altered brain activity for up to an hour afterwards, often resulting in aberrant behaviour, psychiatric problems and even ADHD—like problems.
The problem countered is even more problematic than first considered: In the Marbella Institute study in Spain quoted above, 87% of all kids, in the age group between 11-16 used mobile phones but when confronted with the findings as much as 70% said they did not bother about the consequences which bottom line means: regardless, of scientific warnings the average child is more willing to listen to producers advertising and the recommendations of their friends than hard science. Which of course rises a question of who should rule the market: science or mobile phone-companies.
Not only children suffer: older people do as well, Most recent breaking news is the suffering of WHO General Secretary Gro Harlem Brundtland, former Norwegian Prime Minister and chairman of the UN Brundtland Commission and way back also Labour Party minister of Environmental Protection in Norway. Highly respected for her work and achievements Brundtland now suffers the ill consequences of apparent overuse of unshielded PC-technology, Mobile Phone radiation and even a microwave oven accident injuring the GS's eyesight.
The GS`s health is now so fragile that no one is allowed to place a Mobile Phone , a PC or a bright light in her nearness, facts confirmed to both the Norwegian press and magazines such as Microwave News .In the midst of her suffering the GS has proclaimed that she will no longer hold the prestigious post as a "doctor to the world".
Explanations and investigations
Whereas official and mobile phone companies have tried to downplay the hazards by using obsolete measuring devices and focusing solely on the Joule/cm.
i.o.w. energy density absorption issue, claiming to find very little "heating effects" and thus stating the problem to be minimal ,even psychological, serious science focus on the main issue: biological resonance .Bio resonance is a well known phenomena acknowledged more than 60 years back when the first experiments with bio feedback started in the US . Briefly stated is works like this: living tissues like organs, vessels, nerves, individual cells, even their individual parts (organelles, proteins, enzymes and DNA) have certain energy absorption resonant frequencies where they start to absorb energy more intensely, and when doing so start to alter their manner of functioning sometimes improving their performance, but more often getting disturbed and starting to malfunction.
A considerable body of knowledge has been built up concerning radiation frequencies, wave topology (wave shape and pulse duration and the sequence of pulses) and their electromagnetic field strength. This body of knowledge today forms the firm foundation of a diversity of disciplines such as the benevolent art of magnetic healing, the German MORA-bio resonant therapy, the Hungarian Quantum Xeroid therapy and the more sinister art of electromagnetic warfare. Needless to say the players in the latter game is more often silent of their art en the other players, but enough is known by now to state firmly that MW is harmful even in nano-Joul/ cm2 quantities when topology and frequency is "right". Unfortunately current mobile phone technology has hit the wrong combination and unknowingly joined the wrong party .
Solid facts now appear to cause alarm. The more simplistic heating tissue problem claimed to be the only reason for concern by pro-mobile phone user has its problems these days. Dr. Kjell Hansson Mild at the National Institute of Occupational Health in Umeå in Sweden has shown that GSM phone users report heating effects after only 2 minutes use
Heavy users using the phone for more than 60 minutes pr day were 22 times more likely to experience heating effects to the head.
Professor Leif Salford at Lund University has shown that mobile phone radiation will cause an altered blood brain barrier and thus allow toxic elements to penetrate the brain more easily. Toxic penetration appears after only 2 minutes use of the phone. The effect is most probable a biological resonance effect.
If rats is your favourite topic it will be disturbing to know that professor Henry Lai and Narandra Singh at University of Washington in Seattle has found DNA damage to mobile phone exposed rats, most probably nonusers. Dr. John Tattersall at Porto Down Chemical and Biological Defence base in Wiltshire found that RF-radiation damaged the hippocampus of rats brains, the area a major structure for memory and learning abilities. These findings are disturbing because of their nature and because as some saw it, the funds came from DoH finding military research !
Clinical research is also abundant these days. In a study by Kjell Hansson Mild an colleges ( see above) published 1998 uncomfortable symptoms increased with the time exposed to mobile GSM phones. Symptoms investigated were problems as fatigue, headache, heat sensations to head, burning skin. The longer the exposure the more frequent the complaints For users exposed to 60 minutes or more pr day the increase; in symptoms were up to 16 fold, as for warmth behind the ears and 4 fold for feeling of exhaustion Certainly not a sign of safe technology at loose.
Theratronics involvement.
Our own involvement with the mobile phone hazards stems from my own "Brundtland syndrome" dating back to the eighties and nineties when being exposed to a considerable amount of ELF and HP and even MW and ionising radiation working with PCs and own experimental devices used for bio resonance research. When trying to find the answer to my own problems I tried many different ways to get answers ranging from the helpful assistance of Essentia in Canada, to various governmental agencies and finally starting to use the space-age equipment from Medtronik Germany, producing the MORA testing and bio resonance therapy (BRT) equipment. The latest reincarnation of their technology being the MORA Super plus machine sensitive to human micro radiation in the range of 20 -200KHz,picking up voltage as low as 10exp(-6) Volt. By using such equipment it is possible to analyse the reaction of living beings (even plants if necessary) and correct their energy pattern by the use of bio-feedback technology developed by Morell and. Rasche back in the sixties. Their technology has been tried and tested by thousands of users all over the world, with the major players in the German speaking world, but also numerous users in Canada.
Through constant feedback from users various protocols have been developed how to correct the aberrant bio energy of various diseases, even those electro magnetically diseased.
Through my association with the Med Tronic team and experienced users of their equipment I came to build my own database on mobile phone users problems and started to develop my own protocols of treatment resulting in the establishment of my Theratronics company at Fevik, Norway.
Before the company was started August 2002 we already had experience with 3000 individual measurements on MORA equipment.
We developed a specific protocol for testing and evaluating radiation caused problems, based on the Voll parameters and the tried and tested MORA-protocol. Before we undertook the Ecoflow assignment we ran several test series on a number of so-called shielding devices until we were sure of the protocol and the validity of our results.
But what about the improvements?? Since the only significant change takes place in the disappearance of the spin-inversion, the only conclusion is: what we see as, improvement is due to absence of spin inversion.
The type of spin inversion + excitation caused by mobile phones seems to be reflected in our parameters. If we impose a certain restriction on our readings and say we only want to deal with improvements greater than 2 ( above 1.6 on the average scale if we round off ) we are left with this conclusion:
Spin-inversion causes mostly: headaches, heat feeling burning sensation, pareztesia, restlessness, lack of concentration anger and irritation. It is not the sole contributor to those problems since these problems do not disappear totally when spin inversion disappears, but taking away the chaos-factor greatly reduces the problems ,actually on the average 42% improvements on the afore mentions problems!
The Biophone was not a "shielding device" at all, it is a "healing device" picking up signals from the radiation sick blood and returning the signal in a fashion that mimics a therapy signal.
The Biophone crystal-metal picks up the stress signals from the body when excited by the mobile phone, picks up the left—turning spin signals (the sick spin) phase invert the signal and returns to the body as a healing-signal.
In other words having worked with the Biophone for 6 months used thousands of kroners on the project, written for 200 hours and spent hours churning out numbers we ended up with some very, very ancient wisdom: crystals heal your body when attacked by harmful radiations.
http://www.energetic-medicine.net/bioenergetic-articles/articles/49/1/Mobile-Phone-hazard/Page1.html
Students warned against hazards of smoking
by Ananda Kannangara
The National Cancer Institute (NCI), Maharagama will launch a cancer awareness program islandwide shortly to educate schoolchildren on the hazards of cigarette smoking.
According to reports over 18,000 new cancer patients seek treatment at the NCI every year and the majority of them are affected with cancer due to cigarette smoking.
Dr. Samadhi Rajapaksa of the NCI told the Sunday Observer that over 75 percent of oral and lung cancer was caused due to cigarette smoking and tobacco consumption and it is now time for responsible officials to take tough action in this regard.
Although there was a significant drop in cigarette smoking among the younger generation it is the duty of teachers and parents to create awareness on the hazards of cigarette smoking and alcohol consumption.
Dr. Rajapaksa who compared a cigarette to a cyanide capsule warned schoolchildren to avoid being even in the vicinity of smokers.
Passive smoking could cause even heart attacks and strokes apart from lung, oral and breast cancer. He cautioned teachers and parents to keep a close eye on male students who could get addicted easily to smoking and other tobacco related products, since tobacco is generally recognised as the country's number one killer. Dr. Rajapaksa thanked the National Authority on Tobacco and Alcohol, Chairman Prof. Carlo Fonseka for enforcing the ban on the sale of tobacco related products in close proximity to schools.
http://www.sundayobserver.lk/2011/07/31/new42.aspStudent Safety Audit Identifies Hazards Around Campus
The ASUW Committee on Student Safety sent a survey to students in February and received 994 responses about safety on campus.
The DailyWednesday, April 21, 2010
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Tunny Vann, ASUW director of community relations, inspects safety utilities on Northeast Campus Parkway.
#The ASUW Committee on Student Safety sent a survey to students in February and received 994 responses about safety on campus. In response, the ASUW took part in its first auditing — or "safety walk" — Monday.#The group investigated potential safety hazards around the periphery of campus, including Northeast Campus Parkway. The area near Terry and Lander Hall was a popular choice among survey participants when they were asked about the on-campus location in which they felt most unsafe. Participants took notes on lighting, signage, sightlines, emergency services, disability accommodations, maintenance, personal safety, and other aspects of areas on campus.
#Tunny Vann, Director of Community Relations, said that the "Broken Windows theory" guided him during his auditing.
#"If the area doesn't feel like it's being taken care of, it will give the impression of being unsafe," Vann said.
#The theory says that places that appear neglected are prone to more safety risks. Vann jotted down notes about graffiti, litter and construction sites — all "broken windows" on campus.
#Construction sites, specifically, came back as one of the leading concerns among student participants in the survey. Students felt the abandoned sites were prime places for criminals to dwell. Excessive bushes and shrubbery were also noted in the auditing process as places where criminals could hide.
#One of the large focuses in the auditing process was on lighting. In order to simulate a day in the life of a UW student, it was decided that the auditing would take place at various times during the day — both in the afternoon and the late evening, as lighting changed. Participants checked for the distribution of lights, obstruction of light and the quantity of light sources.
#Abigail Pearl, ASUW representative and organizer of the initiative, took geography and women studies fall quarter. Pearl found many of the course's lessons to be applicable to the UW at large. One specific project that the class worked on involved observing places on campus deemed to be unsafe. When Pearl became an ASUW committee member, she decided to convert the classroom project to a larger scale by conducting the safety survey and the campus-safety audit.
#The results from the original survey suggested that a large portion of participants felt at great risk when in close proximity to the homeless.
#"The amount of notes about homelessness in conjunction with safety was pretty telling," Pearl said. "We can't necessarily eliminate [homelessness], but I hope to at least educate people about poverty — the human aspect of homelessness."
#The next auditing group will meet Monday at 5:30 p.m. in the HUB to audit the interior of campus. The results will be presented to the Office of Student Life, the UW Police Department, and Facilities Services, among other departments, by the end of the quarter.
#Reach reporter Colin Gorenstein at news@dailyuw.com.
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http://dailyuw.com/news/2010/apr/21/student-safety-audit-identifies-hazards-around/Knowledge economy
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia| * | This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed.(November 2008) |
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The knowledge economy is a term that refers either to an economy of knowledge focused on the production and management of knowledge in the frame of economic constraints, or to aknowledge-based economy. In the second meaning, more frequently used, it refers to the use of knowledge technologies (such as knowledge engineering and knowledge management) to produce economic benefits as well as job creation. The phrase was popularized by Peter Drucker as the title of Chapter 12 in his book The Age of Discontinuity, And, with a footnote in the text, Drucker attributes the phrase to economist Fritz Machlup and its origins to the idea of "scientific management" developed by Frederick Winslow Taylor.[1]
The essential difference is that in a knowledge economy, knowledge is a product, while in aknowledge-based economy, knowledge is a tool. This difference is not yet well distinguished in the subject matter literature. They both are strongly interdisciplinary, involving economists, computer scientists, engineers, mathematicians, librarians, geographers, chemists and physicists, as well as cognitivists, psychologists and sociologists.
Various observers describe today's global economy as one in transition to a "knowledge economy," as an extension of an "information society." The transition requires that the rules and practices that determined success in the industrial economy need rewriting in an interconnected, globalized economy where knowledge resources such as know-how and expertise are as critical as other economic resources. According to analysts of the "knowledge economy," these rules need to be rewritten at the levels of firms and industries in terms of knowledge management and at the level of public policy as knowledge policy or knowledge-related policy.[citation needed]
Contents[hide] |
[edit]Concepts
A key concept of the knowledge economy is that knowledge and education (often referred to as "human capital") can be treated as one of the following two:- A business product, as educational and innovative intellectual products and services can be exported for a high value return.
- A productive asset
It can be defined as
" The concept that supports creation of knowledge by organizational employees and helps and encourages them to transfer and better utilize their knowledge that is in line with company/organization goals "
The initial foundation for the Knowledge Economy was first introduced in 1966 in the book The Effective Executive by Peter Drucker. In this book, Drucker described the difference between the manual worker (page 2) and the knowledge worker. The manual worker, according to him, works with his hands and produces goods or services. In contrast, a knowledge worker (page 3) works with his or her head not hands, and produces ideas, knowledge, and information.
The key problem in the formalization and modeling of knowledge economy, is a vague definition of knowledge, which is a rather relative concept. For example, it is not proper to consider information society as interchangeable with knowledge society. Information is usually not equivalent to knowledge. Their use, as well, depends on individual and group preferences (see the cognitive IPK model) – which are "economy-dependent".[2]
[edit]Definition
To participate in the knowledge economy trade[3] the World Bank provides four core requirements[4] in their Knowledge Assessment Methodology that a country must have. The World Bank defines the requirements as having sound institutional and economic regime, education system, and telecommunications infrastructure, and an Innovative System.[5][6][edit]Evolution
The knowledge economy is also seen as the latest stage of development in global economic restructuring. Thus far, the developed world has transitioned from an agricultural economy (pre-Industrial Age, largely the agrarian sector) to industrial economy (with the Industrial Age, largely the manufacturing sector) to post-industrial/mass production economy (mid-1900s, largely the service sector) to knowledge economy (late 1900s – 2000s, largely the technology/human capital sector). This latest stage has been marked by the upheavals in technological innovations and the globally competitive need for innovation with new products and processes that develop from the research community (i.e., R&D factors, universities, labs, educational institutes).In the knowledge economy, the specialized labor force is characterized as computer literate and well-trained in handling data, developing algorithms and simulated models, and innovating on processes and systems. Harvard Business School Professor, Michael Porter asserts that today's economy is far more dynamic and that comparative advantage is less relevant than competitive advantage which rests on "making more productive use of inputs, which requires continual innovation."[7] Consequently, the technical, STEM careers including computer scientists, engineers, chemists, biologists, mathematicians, and scientific inventors will see continuous demand in years to come. Additionally, well-situated clusters, which Michael Porter argues is vital in global economies, connect locally with linked industries, manufacturers, and other entities that are related by skills, technologies, and other common inputs. Hence, knowledge is the catalyst and connective tissue in modern economies.
With earth's depleting natural resources, the need for green infrastructure, a logistics industry forced into just-in-time deliveries, growing global demand, regulatory policy governed by performance results, and a host of other items high priority is put on knowledge; and research becomes paramount. Knowledge provides the technical expertise, problem-solving, performance measurement and evaluation, and data management needed for the transboundary, interdisciplinary global scale of today's competition.[8]
Worldwide examples of the knowledge economy taking place among many others include: Silicon Valley in California; aerospace and automotive engineering in Munich, Germany; biotechnology in Hyderabad, India; electronics and digital media in Seoul, South Korea;petrochemical and energy industry in Brazil.
[edit]Driving forces
Commentators suggest there are various interlocking driving forces, which are changing the rules of business and national competitiveness:- Globalization — markets and products are more global.
- Information technology, which is related to next three:
- Information/Knowledge Intensity — efficient production relies on information and know-how; over 70 per cent of workers in developed economies are information workers;[citation needed] many factory workers use their heads more than their hands.
- New Media – New media increases the production and distribution of knowledge which in turn, results in collective intelligence. Existing knowledge becomes much easier to access as a result of networked data-bases which promote online interaction between users and producers.
- Computer networking and Connectivity – developments such as the Internet bring the "global village" ever nearer.
As a result, goods and services can be developed, bought, sold, and in many cases even delivered over electronic networks.
As regards the applications of any new technology, this depends on how it meets economic demand. It can remain dormant or make a commercial breakthrough (see diffusion of innovation).
[edit]Characteristics
It can be argued that the knowledge economy differs from the traditional economy in several key respects:- The economics are not of scarcity, but rather of abundance. Unlike most resources that become depleted when used, information and knowledge can be shared, and actually grow through application.
- The effect of location is either
- diminished, in some economic activities: using appropriate technology and methods, virtual marketplaces and virtual organizations that offer benefits of speed, agility, round the clock operation and global reach can be created.
- or, on the contrary, reinforced in some other economic fields, by the creation of business clusters around centres of knowledge, such as universities and research centres. However, clusters already existed in pre-knowledge economy times.
- Laws, barriers, taxes and ways to measure are difficult to apply solely on a national basis. Knowledge and information "leak" to where demand is highest and the barriers are lowest.
- Knowledge enhanced products or services can command price premiums over comparable products with low embedded knowledge or knowledge intensity.
- Pricing and value depends heavily on context. Thus the same information or knowledge can have vastly different value to different people, or even to the same person at different times.
- Knowledge when locked into systems or processes has higher inherent value than when it can "walk out of the door" in people's heads.
- Human capital — competencies — are a key component of value in a knowledge-based company, yet few companies report competency levels in annual reports. In contrast, downsizing is often seen as a positive "cost cutting" measure.
- Communication is increasingly being seen as fundamental to knowledge flows. Social structures, cultural context and other factors influencing social relations are therefore of fundamental importance to knowledge economies.
These characteristics require new ideas and approaches from policy makers, managers and knowledge workers.
The knowledge economy has manifold forms in which it may appear but there are predictions that the new economy will extend radically, creating a pattern in which even ideas will be recognised and identified as a commodity. This certainly is not the best time to make any hasty judgment on this contention, but considering the very nature of 'knowledge' itself, added to the fact that it is the thrust of this new form of economy, there certainly is a clear way forward for this notion, though the particulars (i.e. the quantum of the revolutionary approach and its applicability and commercial value),remain in the speculative realm, as of now.
[edit]Technology
The technology requirements for an Innovative System as described by the World Bank Institute must be able to disseminate a unified process by which a working method may converge scientific and technology solutions, and organizational solutions.[9] According to the World Bank Institute's definition, such innovation would further enable the World Bank Institute's vision outlined in their Millennium Development Goals.[edit]Challenges for Developing Countries
The United Nations Commission on Science and Technology for Development report (UNCSTD, 1997)[10] concluded that for developing countries to successfully integrate ICTs and sustainable development in order to participate in the knowledge economy they need to intervene collectively and strategically. Such collective intervention suggested would be in the development of effective national ICT policies that support the new regulatory framework, promote the selected knowledge production, and use of ICTs and harness their organizational changes to be in line with the Millennium Development Goals. The report further suggests that developing countries to develop the required ICT strategies and policies for institutions and regulations taking into account the need to be responsive to the issues of convergence.[edit]See also
[edit]References
- ^ Peter Drucker, (1969). The Age of Discontinuity; Guidelines to Our Changing Society. Harper and Row, New York. ISBN 0-465-08984-4
- ^ Terry Flew (2008), New Media: An Introduction
- ^ Knowledge for Development - About
- ^ The Four Pillars of The Knowledge Economy
- ^ "Knowledge for Development".
- ^ Benchmarking countries in the knowledge economy: presentation of the Knowledge Assessment Methodology (KAM). Knowledge for development program, World Bank Institute, 2004, pg 4
- ^ Michael Porter, "Clusters and the New Economics of Competition." Harvard Business Review.
- ^ The Brookings Institution. MetroPolicy: Shaping A New Federal Partnership for a Metropolitan Nation Report. (2008)
- ^ IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON KNOWLEDGE AND DATA ENGINEERING, Automatic Fuzzy Ontology Generation for Semantic Web, VOL. 18, NO. 6, JUNE 2006
- ^ UNCSTD (1997). United Nations Commission on Science and Technology for Development, - Report of the Working Group on ICTs for Development prepared for the 3rd Session, 12 May, Geneva, Switzerland
[edit]Bibliography
- Arthur, W. B. (1996). Increasing Returns and the New World of Business. Harvard Business Review(July/August), 100–109.
- Bell, D. (1974). The Coming of Post-Industrial Society: A Venture in Social Forecasting. London: Heinemann.
- Drucker, P. (1969). The Age of Discontinuity; Guidelines to Our changing Society. New York: Harper and Row.
- Drucker, P. (1993). Post-Capitalist Society. Oxford: Butterworth Heinemann.
- Machlup, F. (1962). The Production and Distribution of Knowledge in the United States. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
- Porter, M. E. Clusters and the New Economics of Competition. Harvard Business Review. (Nov-Dec 1998). 77-90.
- Romer, P. M. (1986). Increasing Returns and Long-Run Growth. Journal of Political Economy, 94(5), 1002–1037.
- Rooney, D., Hearn, G., Mandeville, T., & Joseph, R. (2003). Public Policy in Knowledge-Based Economies: Foundations and Frameworks. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar.
- Rooney, D., Hearn, G., & Ninan, A. (2005). Handbook on the Knowledge Economy. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar.
- The Brookings Institution. MetroPolicy: Shaping A New Federal Partnership for a Metropolitan Nation. Metropolitan Policy Program Report. (2008). 4-103.
[edit]External links
- Knowledge for Development Program, World Bank
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Health-related lifestyle in adolescence—origin of social class differences in health?
+Author Affiliations
Department of Public Health, University of Turku, Lemminkäisenkatu 1, 20520 Turku,
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1Tampere School of Public Health, University of Tampere, Box 607,33101 Tampere and Tampere University Hospital, Box 2000, 33521, Tampere, and
2National Research and Development Centre for Welfare and Health (STAKES), Box 220, 00531 Helsinki, Finland
Received April 4, 1997.
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Accepted April 16, 1998.
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Abstract
Survey data collected by mail, representing Finnish 16 year olds (N = 2977; response rate 83%), were used to identify which particular aspects of lifestyle are typical of adolescents who select various educational tracks and, thus, have different probabilities of ending up in low or high social positions. The dependent variable, educational track, was formed by classifying the respondents into five successive categories predicting their social position in adulthood. Lifestyle is measured by health behaviours, leisure-time activities and social relations. The probability of belonging to educational tracks with good social prospects in adulthood was high among adolescents who placed much emphasis on health-enhancing behaviours (not smoking, physical exercise, low milk-fat diet, dental hygiene, use of seatbelts, etc.), who did not spend much time watching TV or listening to music and who attended church or other religious meetings weekly. Health-related lifestyle, at the age of 16, is oriented towards the social group the individual is likely to belong to as an adult. The study provides evidence for a strong association between health-related lifestyle and educational track in adolescence.Previous SectionNext Section
Introduction
A way of life involving risks for ill-health is in general more common among people in lower social classes or those with a poorer education. These behaviours include, for example, smoking, excessive alcohol consumption, lack of physical activity, bad sleeping patterns, unfavourable food habits (e.g. a high fat intake), coffee drinking, and engaging in high-risk activities and sexual practices (Macintyre, 1986; Hasan, 1989; Marmot et al., 1991; Adler et al., 1993;Glendinning et al., 1994; Mackenbach, 1994; Helakorpi et al., 1995; Pill et al., 1995). Since these behaviours are associated with both health and social class, they may be hypothesized as being factors producing socioeconomic health differences.The interaction between social class and health-related lifestyle is apparent already during the early years of life. The social environment of children and adolescents, consisting of, for example, family and peers, constitutes the context in which behaviours are learned, encouraged and practised (Taylor and Repetti, 1997). Some health-related behaviours can be seen as consequences of various styles of coping with stress, caused by the social environment. Inappropriate behaviours come from dysfunctional coping styles, like helplessness or hopelessness, altered perceptions of risk and vulnerability, and an undue willingness to behave in risky ways. Among the factors that form people's resources for confronting the stressors are socioeconomic conditions, the type and severity of life events, the amount of social support, and the access to information. These all differ according to social class, although there are also individual differences in responding to influences coming from the environment (Rutter and Quine, 1994; Taylor and Repetti, 1997). On the other hand, the interaction between social class and health-related lifestyle may arise from the economic possibilities and other contextual factors, e.g. wholesome food may be more expensive, which limits the actual possibilities of the poor to maintain a healthy diet. Also, in households which do not have a car, it is difficult to take children to instructive hobbies, like many forms of exercise and sports.
It is possible that the same features of social environment which constitute the association between social class and health-related lifestyle influence the association between social background and education, as well. Acquiring education may be an indication of a person's feeling that life is under control to the extent that far-reaching plans can be made. The realization of their plans requires a strong self-esteem and is hardly possible without support from one's immediate circle. It can be thought that giving value to knowledge is reflected in the appreciation of education as well as of health-promoting behaviours.
Many studies show that children from higher social class families reach the highest levels of education (Cobalti, 1990; Blackburn and Marsh, 1991; Mehan, 1992; Roberts and Parsell, 1992; Mauger, 1993; Erikson and Jonsson, 1996;Bourdieu and Passeron, 1977). Economic resources influence the costs attached to decisions about whether or not to continue schooling. Also the choice between academic and vocational studies is affected by the costs, benefits and probability of success. However, background factors other than economic resources seem to be more important for explaining the association between social origin and educational decisions (Erikson and Jonsson, 1996).
Social class differences in children's home environments, like patterns of interaction between parents and children, may explain why academic performance is better among children from higher social classes. More highly educated parents place a high value on education and may help their offspring's educational performance, e.g. by verbal training and practical help with schoolwork. (Argyle, 1994; Erikson and Jonsson, 1996). They transmit to their children cultural capital that helps them to adapt to school values and to navigate the educational system (Bourdieu and Passeron, 1977). Well-educated parents also tend to have a great confidence in their children's probability of success and in their own capacity to get them through the more demanding tracks. Lower class parents need stronger evidence of their children's potential before making decisions about higher education (Erikson and Jonsson, 1996).
Altogether, it is hypothesized that social background creates the starting point for the development of a health-related lifestyle and the educational track an individual is going to follow. One's background, on the one hand, offers economic resources for various lifestyles and education, and, on the other hand, creates a social environment in which lifestyles and educational decisions are made. This environment consists of values, social support and social resources for coping in life. The interplay between lifestyle and education forms a process, during which individuals gradually take up their positions in relation to their future health and social status. This process has a bearing on health differences between social classes.
The phenomenon of health behaviours differing according to the length of education that people are going to acquire is obvious in adolescence (West, 1988, 1991). Young people, who do not feel that education would help them to achieve a good life often turn their interest away from school. This is shown both in the adoption of health-compromising behaviours and in the amount of time spent on leisure, peer groups or work (Willis, 1977; Nutbeam et al., 1989;Mehan, 1992; Persaud and Madak, 1992; Argyle, 1994). Since educational track and school achievement strongly predict an individual's social position in adulthood (Halsey et al., 1980; Timmons, 1988), alienation from school leads to many kinds of difficulties in future life (Education and Research, 1992:1, Persaud and Madak, 1992). Low social class further diminishes a person's coping capabilities and abilities to adopt a healthy way of life (Macintyre, 1986;Jacobsen and Thelle, 1988; Winkleby et al., 1992; Argyle, 1994; Elo and Preston, 1996).
Smoking has a central role in distinguishing individuals who have chosen different educational tracks. Smoking is related to poor school attainment, disaffection with school and adoption of non-conventional values in society (Aarø et al., 1986; Glendinning et al., 1994, 1995). It can be thought that smoking is a strong indicator of a broader lifestyle, which gradually leads to a low level of education and health-damaging activities, with all their consequences (Nutbeam et al., 1989; West, 1991; Glendinning et al., 1992). Aarøet al. (Aarø et al., 1986) have defined lifestyle as `...relatively stable patterns of behaviours, habits, attitudes and values which are typical of the groups one belongs to, or the groups one wants to belong to'. Thus, in order to understand lifestyle, a large number of single, and possibly inter-related, behaviours need to be considered simultaneously. In addition, the role of reference groups is central. It is likely that the role of childhood social class as a reference group for lifestyle diminishes in adolescence when a person is in contact with other groups, e.g. in school and leisure-time. This will be reflected as the weak influence of the family's social class on the association between lifestyle and educational track.
The purpose of this study is to describe whether adolescents who have different health-related lifestyles have been selected into different educational tracks already at the age of 16. We want to identify which particular aspects of lifestyle are typical of adolescents who are at risk of ending up in low social positions or which are typical of those having the best chances of ending up in high positions. The conceptual model of the study is outlined in Figure 1. The associations of lifestyle with educational track at age 16 are assessed with adjustment to socioeconomic background. On the right are the supposed consequences of the process.
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Materials and methods
The study is a part of the Adolescent Health and Lifestyle Survey which is a national monitoring system of adolescent health and health behaviours. Data were collected by mailed questionnaires in 1987 from a national sample of 12-, 14-, 16- and 18-year-old Finns. The first inquiry was sent in February and was followed by two further inquiries to the non-respondents. In this paper, only the 16 year olds are considered, because by this age the division into those who continue and those who do not continue their studies has in most cases taken place. All those born between 14 and 31 July were included in the sample which was drawn from the Central Register of the Finnish Population. The total sample of 16 year olds comprised 2977 adolescents. The final number of respondents included in our analyses was 2467. The response rate was 83%, in boys 77% (N =1183) and in girls 89% (N = 1284). In terms of the geographical region of residence, the response rate was lowest (79%) in Central-West Finland and highest (88%) in North Finland. Self-administered 12-page questionnaires were sent to the sample members. Responding was voluntary and the purpose of the study was explained in a covering letter. The study protocol was accepted by the ethical committee of the Department of Public Health at the University of Helsinki.Dependent variable
The dependent variable, educational track, is formed by classifying the respondents into five successive categories predicting their social position in adulthood. The first category consists of those who are presumed to have the poorest social prospects, i.e. the lowest probability of reaching a high social position in adulthood. The fifth category consists of those who are presumed to have the best social prospects, i.e. the highest probability of reaching a high social position in adulthood. The categories of educational track are formed according to the type of school the respondents are attending and their achievement.In the Finnish educational system, after 9 years of compulsory schooling (basic education), a division is made, at the age of 16, into upper secondary schools and vocational or other schools (mostly vocationally or professionally oriented educational institutions) (Central Statistical Office of Finland, 1995). At the time of inquiry, the channel to university degrees and thus supposedly to higher social positions was through upper secondary schools. Achievement is measured by the pupil's own assessment of his or her position in the class, according to the average school marks in the preceding end-of-term school report. Consequently, the first of the successive categories, i.e. those with the poorest social prospects, consists of those who are not attending school at the time of inquiry (8%; N = 2377). The second category consists of those in vocational or other schools who have, at most, average school achievement (28%). The third category consists of respondents in vocational or other schools with above average school achievement (12%). The fourth category consists of those in upper secondary schools who have, at most, average school achievement (25%). The fifth category, i.e. those with the best social prospects, consists of respondents in upper secondary schools with above average school achievement (27%).
Most of the respondents were continuing their education after the compulsory level of schooling. Attending upper secondary schools and doing well in these schools is more typical for girls, while boys more often go to vocational or other schools and get average or below average level reports. Of all respondents, 3.6% are excluded from the classification because information about their school achievement is missing (1.4% in upper secondary schools and 7.0% in vocational schools).
The proportion of respondents attending formal education in this study is similar to the respective proportion in official Finnish statistics for the mid and late 1980s. Also the proportions of those attending upper secondary schools and vocational or other schools are comparable for this age group (Education and Research, 1992:3, 1987:5).
Independent variables
The independent variables are divided into two main groups as follows: sociodemographic background variables and lifestyle variables.Sociodemographic background
- Father's or other guardian's education: high (12 years or more), middle (from 8 to 11 years), low (at most 8 years).
- Father's or other guardian's occupation is classified by the status classification of the Central Statistical Office of Finland in 1987 (Central Statistical Office of Finland, 1987): upper white-collar workers, lower white-collar workers, farmers, blue-collar workers.
- The urbanization level of the place of residence is defined by the population density: capital area (Helsinki and the adjoining towns), large towns (population over 100 000), small towns, villages (densely populated areas in rural municipalities), sparsely populated rural municipalities (isolated homesteads in rural municipalities).
- The five geographical regions of residence describe the South–North dimension, the most industrialized areas being South and South-West: South (provinces of Uusimaa and Kymi), South-West (provinces of Turku and Pori, Häme), Central-West (provinces of Keski-Suomi, Vaasa), East (provinces of Kuopio, Pohjois-Karjala, Mikkeli), North (provinces of Oulu, Lappi).
- Family type: nuclear family (living with both parents), non-nuclear family (parents not living together, father, mother or both dead, or not living with parents).
- Gender: male, female.
Lifestyle
(1) Health behaviours- Physical exercise. Organized physical exercise is obtained by summarizing, for each respondent, the total frequencies of participating in exercise organized by (a) schools or workplaces (physical training lessons were excluded), (b) sports clubs and (c) other associations or clubs. Classification is: daily, weekly (at least twice a week, but less frequently than daily), monthly (at least once a month, but not more often than once a week), rarely (less frequently than once a month or no exercise at all). Unorganized physical exercise is a measurement of exercise done alone or with friends or members of the family: classification as above.
- Alcohol use: none (do not drink alcohol or drink at most once a year, but never get drunk), controlled drinking (drink but never get drunk), less-controlled drinking (drink at most twice a month and get drunk at most once a month/drink at least once a week, but get drunk less often than once a month), uncontrolled drinking (drink at least once a week and get drunk at least once a month).
- Smoking: never tried, experimental or occasional (have smoked at most 50 times, but do not smoke daily), 1–9 cigarettes a day, 10+ cigarettes a day.
- Dental hygiene is measured on the basis of the frequency of brushing teeth: several times a day, once a day, 2–5 times a week, at most once a week (or never).
- Drinking coffee: not daily, 1–3 cups a day, 4 cups or more a day.
- Consumption of sugar. Number of sugar lumps used in a cup of coffee is classified as: no sugar (including those who do not drink coffee daily), 1–2 lumps, 3 lumps or more. Consumption of sweets: at most once a week (or never), about 3–4 times a week, daily.
- Consumption of milk fat combines the type of milk a person drinks and the type of fat he/she uses on bread. The three categories are: minor use (do not drink milk or drink skimmed milk and do not use fat on bread, or use margarine or comparable types of spread), medium use (do not suit either the first or the third category), heavy use of milk fat (use whole milk and mostly butter).
- Use of seatbelts when travelling in the front-seat of a car: always, sometimes, never (includes those who do not drive in a car).
- Bedtime: regular, irregular.
(2) Leisure-time activities
- Hobbies. The frequencies of visiting discotheques or dancing places: never, occasionally (more seldom than weekly), at least weekly; sitting in bars or `hanging out' with friends: as above; attending church or other religious meetings: as above.
- The number of hours spent daily on some activities: watching TV or videotapes: occasionally (less than 0.5 h), 0.5–2 h, at least 2 h; reading magazines, newspapers or comic books: as above; listening to music: as above.
(3) Social relations
- The number of close relationships is formed as a combination of three types of social relations, the easiness of talking to mother/father/friends about things that really bother. These are dichotomies with categories easy and difficult (including the ones lacking mother/father/friends, 1.2/7.0/0.1% of the respondents, respectively). The categories of the combinatory variable are: three, two, one, none.
- The starting age of the first time of going steady with someone: not yet, at the age of 15–16, before age 15.
Statistical procedures
The associations between educational track and the independent variables are analysed using polychotomous logistic regression models (Hosmer and Lemeshow, 1986; Agresti, 1990). Because of the ordinal nature of the dependent variable, cumulative logistic models are used. The ordinal dependent variable ytakes values 1, 2,..., J according to the category of the response. The model is formulated as (follows):j = 1, 2,..., (J – 1) and P[y > J] = 0. uj is a linear function of the categorical independent variables. This model can be used to calculate the probabilities in each category of y (Dixon, 1992).Two stepwise procedures were carried out. First, of the sociodemographic background variables, those showing independent associations with educational track in univariate analysis (Pearson's χ2-test) are selected into the model. Second, to get the final multivariate model of lifestyle variables which are independently associated with educational track, another stepwise procedure is used. This is done after adjusting for the sociodemographic background variables selected above. The cumulative odds ratios (COR) with 95% confidence intervals (CI) are calculated for the variables showing significant explanatory power in the final model. The groups giving approximately the same COR are combined. As cumulative models examine the relations between the categories of an ordinal type dependent variable, COR thus expresses the incidence of upper categories of the dependent variable as compared to the lower categories on various values of the independent variables.
All the decisions regarding statistical significance are made at the 5% risk level. The analyses are carried out using the PR program in the statistical software BMDP (Dixon, 1992).
Once the final model is found, its parameter values are used to calculate model-based predicted probabilities (see the formula above) of belonging to categories of educational track for persons with different combinations of characteristics. These probabilities are illustrated in Figures 2 and 3 for some combinations.
The logistic regression functions are computed using only the cases which have values for every variable. For this reason, there is a need to retain in the analyses as many observations for each variable as possible. Thus, for the variable, father's education, missing values (5.2%) are replaced by the most probable value according to father's occupation. For the variable, educational track, the missing values (3.6%), due to a lack of knowledge about the report level, are replaced by using the most probable value of the school report on the basis of school attendance and school type. The distributions of the variables are similar before and after the replacement of missing values, and in the final stepwise procedure there are only slight differences in the decimal parts of the significances and CORs. The proportion of missing values in the final model is 8.2% (16.9% before replacement).
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Results
All the socioeconomic background variables and all the lifestyle variables, except the number of close relations, are significantly associated with educational track in univariate analysis (Table I). For all the variables, except for urbanization level, geographical region of residence, visiting discotheques or dancing places and hours spent daily on reading magazines or comic books, the associations are significant at the risk level of 0.01%. Thus, it is unlikely that they are caused by the large sample size.The final model is presented in Table II. In the first stepwise procedure of logistic regression analysis, four socioeconomic background variables have independent associations with educational track and are taken into the final model. Belonging to educational tracks with good social prospects is most typical of girls, of adolescents living with both parents and of adolescents whose fathers have a white collar occupation or a high level of education.
In the second stepwise procedure, after adjusting for the sociodemographic variables above, smoking is the lifestyle variable which is most closely associated with educational track. The probability of belonging to educational tracks with good social prospects is high among adolescents who do not smoke daily. Those who brush their teeth regularly, do not drink much coffee, participate in unorganized physical exercise, always use seatbelts, and use moderately or little milk fat and sugar in coffee also have a high probability of belonging to educational tracks with good social prospects.
Of leisure-time activities, the probability of belonging to educational tracks with good social prospects is associated with spending less hours daily watching TV or videotapes and listening to music, and attending church or other religious meetings often.
No variable describing social relations is significant in the final model.
Figure 2 shows model-based predicted probabilities of belonging to each of the five categories of educational track for people representing two different sets of characteristics, i.e. profiles. The profiles are combinations of sociodemographic and lifestyle variable categories. The predicted probabilities are based on cumulative odds ratios of the final model in Table II. A detailed description of the risk profiles in Figure 2 is shown in the Appendix. Figure 2 compares a person with an overall low chance of good social prospects (profile 1) with a person with an overall high chance of good social prospects (profile 2). The difference between profiles 1 and 2 is extreme. The predicted probability of belonging to the educational track with the best social prospects is 0.845 on profile 2 and 0.005 on profile 1. The predicted probabilities of belonging to the educational track with the poorest social prospects is 0.003 on profile 2 and 0.731 on profile 1. The profiles meet each other at the middle point of the distribution of educational track.
Figure 3 shows the effect of sociodemographic background on the association between lifestyle and educational track. Above, the difference between two individuals who both lead a hazardous lifestyle, but who differ according to sociodemographic background, can be seen. The profiles are quite similar, but a favourable background (profile 3) lowers the probability of belonging to the educational track with the poorest social prospects [i.e. of being in the category of not attending school (Table I)]. Otherwise, there is a slight difference in that a favourable background tends to increase the probability of belonging to educational tracks with better social prospects.
Below, there is a comparison between two individuals who both have a high chance of good social prospects according to lifestyle, but of whom one (profile 4) has an unfavourable sociodemographic background. Also here, the difference is most obvious at the extreme of the profile, in that an unfavourable background lowers the probability of belonging to the educational track with the best social prospects. Otherwise, an unfavourable background only slightly increases the probability of belonging to educational tracks with poorer social prospects.
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Discussion
The respondents represent well the entire Finnish population of 16 year olds. Since the proportions of 16 year olds in our study attending upper secondary schools and those attending vocational or other schools are similar to the respective proportions in official Finnish statistics (Education and Research, 1992:3, 1987:5), the fact that boys were less active than girls in returning the questionnaire has not caused distortion. However, there are no means to assess representativeness according to school performance. It has been found that in health-related surveys the response rate is lower in young men than in young women, and that reluctance to respond is associated with negative health behaviour and poor school performance (Pietilä et al., 1995). If active responding were selective in that direction also here, the associations found would be weak as compared to the situation where everyone would have responded.Almost every subject could be classified according to educational track and thus the number of missing cases remained small. In forming this variable, it is assumed that its categories reflect people's positions on an ordinal scale. The ordering is based on the knowledge that the selected educational track and school achievement predict an individual's social position in adulthood (Halseyet al., 1980; Timmons, 1988). In the Finnish context, the division into two main levels of education is important, because the channel to university studies at the time of the study was through upper secondary schools.
The selected educational track does not straightforwardly predict the educational level to be attained in adult age. Changes from one track to another and dropping out may occur. In Finland, in 1987, 6% of the students in daytime full-time upper secondary schools dropped out of school, although they could later apply for vocational education. In vocational schools, the drop-out rate was 8% (Education and Research, 1992:14, 1992:16). However, despite these drop-out rates, the overall predictability of adult social position is supposed to be strong (see also Koivusilta et al., 1996).
Among the socioeconomic variables, gender was most closely associated with educational track. Girls were more often on the tracks with good social prospects than boys. It has been observed that nowadays girls achieve better in schools than boys (Cobalti, 1990; Rimpelä et al., 1990; Undheim and Nordvik, 1992). One explanation given for this phenomenon is that girls are often more disciplined and hardworking than boys (Svensson, 1971). Moreover, they are more concerned with the status, rather than the economic value, of education than boys (Shavit and Blossfeld, 1996).
Family type was, in our study, the second most significant background variable. Many other studies have also shown that not living with both biological parents increases the risk of problems in school (Keith and Finlay, 1988; Dawson, 1991;Macintyre, 1992; Mulkey et al., 1992; Persaud and Madak, 1992). In one-parent families, there seems to be more clustering of health-damaging behaviours than in other families (Isohanni et al., 1993). It is probable that in one-parent families guardians do not have much time to spend on furthering the educational success of their children. Also the scarcity of economic resources may decrease the amount of educational material at home (Erikson and Jonsson, 1996).
In this study, too, the importance of social class background on educational track is seen (Bourdieu and Passeron, 1977; Cobalti, 1990; Blackburn and Marsh, 1991; Mehan, 1992; Roberts and Parsell, 1992; Mauger, 1993; Erikson and Jonsson, 1996). Both measures of social class have an independent association with educational track, but the association of father's or other guardian's occupation is stronger than that of his education. On the whole, working-class parents may be content if their son or daughter gets a vocational education, while middle-class parents often want their children to prepare for university studies (Argyle, 1994; Erikson and Jonsson, 1996). Furthermore, the parent's success in life is an encouraging model for a young person, and the lifestyle and values of the upper classes provide the cultural capital needed for success in school (Bourdieu and Passeron, 1977).
Several aspects of lifestyle appear in this study to be more strongly associated with educational track than is sociodemographic background. It is possible that some behaviours better catch the attitudes of young people than the standard measures of background. It is also possible that some adolescents are not able to classify their parents according to occupational class or education. Among behaviours, the central role of smoking is repeated also in many other studies. It is possible that smoking illustrates a broader lifestyle where education is not valued and interest is directed towards other spheres of life (Willis, 1977; Aarø et al., 1986; Persaud and Madak, 1992; Glendinning et al., 1995). This kind of process of withdrawal from school may include other health-damaging habits, low self-esteem and a sense of lack of control over one's own life, with all these features reinforcing each other (Hammarström et al., 1988; Nutbeam et al., 1989; Persaud and Madak, 1992; Nurmi, 1993).
Smoking may be a sign of stress caused by an overload of personal and social development tasks or failure to meet social role expectations (Jarvis, 1994;Hurrelmann and Maggs, 1995). Pressure to succeed academically has been identified as an important source of stress for adolescents (Hurrelmann, 1990). Smoking is associated with many kinds of mental health problems, such as depression (Anda et al., 1990; Covey and Tam, 1990). All this may mean that health-damaging behaviours, health problems and a lack of resources for educational achievement may be closely intertwined already at an early stage of life.
It is also possible that people adopt behaviours for their own purely psychological reasons, like curiosity, the desire to experiment or the images given to various behaviours, e.g. in films and advertisements. Later, people with the same kinds of behaviours join together and then the implication of these behaviours may be further strengthened. Sharing a common habit, like smoking, may add to a sense of togetherness and signify making a distinction from other groups (Bourdieu, 1984). Thus, a habit becomes a source of self-esteem and self-image (Argyle, 1994). The adoption of certain behaviours, especially beginning to smoke, may also be regarded as a rite of transition, a sign of adulthood.
In this study, alcohol use is quite significantly associated with educational track in univariate analysis, but is not selected into the model. This is explained by the way in which the stepwise method at every step selects the most significant predictor from the set of many important, and supposedly correlating, variables (Dixon, 1992). Thus, the inclusion of smoking into the model renders the alcohol variable insignificant. Although these two behaviours are closely associated with each other (Aarø et al., 1995; Pohjanpää et al., 1996), it is also possible that they have different bases in adolescence. Smoking may be more a matter of rebellion and of peer solidarity, while drinking is confined to recreational contexts. Each behaviour also has differing potentials for generating addiction (Biddle et al., 1985). Nowadays, there appear to be two different dimensions in addictive behaviour among Finnish youth. On the traditional dimension, smoking and drinking go together. On the modern, and systematically increasing, dimension, the use of alcohol is involved while smoking is not (Pohjanpää et al., 1996). The association between social group and alcohol use is not as straightforward as that between social group and smoking (Mackenbach, 1992). In Finland, smoking is much more strongly associated with years of education than any indicator of alcohol use (Helakorpiet al., 1995). It seems that smoking in adolescence is a stronger indicator of a lifestyle where education is not highly valued than alcohol.
The major part of other lifestyle variables which are independently associated with educational track are health behaviours, such as putting effort into dental hygiene, eating habits, physical exercise or safety in traffic. The total amount of exercise and participation in most kinds of sports seems to be greatest in the middle classes. This may reflect the activity and motivation to work hard to attain goals. These traits are also behind educational success. Engaging in exercise may also be a sign that a person possesses much energy (Argyle, 1994). On the whole, all the behaviours mentioned above involve a feeling that life is under control to the extent that it is worth while taking care of one's health and abstaining from dangerous situations, and that discipline and self-control lead to rewards in the future. This is a part of middle-class culture that values ambition, individual responsibility, cultivation of skills, postponing immediate satisfaction and planning for the future. (Argyle, 1994). We conclude that, regardless of the original factors behind these behaviours, young people who, at the age of 16, share the same health-related lifestyle, also share some common attitudes towards education.
Of leisure-time activities, the amount of time spent listening to music and watching TV or videotapes divides the respondents. These are relaxation-oriented and passive ways to pass the time, and thus spending much time on these activities may be a sign of a low value given to studying and striving for achievements (Persaud and Madak, 1992; Argyle, 1994). Although these activities are to some extent typical features of the common youth culture, they may here be regarded as indicators of different lifestyles. Attending religious meetings as a leisure-time activity seems to indicate an opposite view of the importance of studying and suggest the adoption of a middle-class lifestyle. The middle classes have been found to be more active in public religious behaviour, like church attendance (Argyle, 1994). Thus, these leisure-time activities, together with the health-related behaviours, sharpen the picture of differing adolescent lifestyles.
The finding that the number of close social relations is not associated with educational track is difficult to interpret. There are many studies showing the importance of relations with parents and friends in educational attainment. Friends mediate parts of the effect of social origin on attainment. (Hauser et al., 1983; Jencks et al., 1983). Also, clear differences have been found in educational attainment and involvement in further education, between youth groups with different types of integration into family, school and peers, regardless of social background (Glendinning et al., 1995).
The final model was used to predict probabilities of belonging to categories of educational track for people with different sets of characteristics. By changing the values of item variables, it is possible to describe and compare various combinations of individual characteristics. The figures show that the entity, which is formed by health-related lifestyle and sociodemographic background together, is a powerful indicator of an individual's career chances. An adolescent with the most favourable characteristics clearly stands out through having a probability of 0.845 of belonging to those who will get the strongest educational basis for reaching a good social status. An unfavourable socioeconomic background would weaken this probability. Likewise, a good home background somewhat improves the chances of adolescents who have the poorest profile of behaviours. The future prospects are gloomiest for the slightly less than one-tenth of the cohort who will remain without further education. They are likely to remain outside the labour market and must rely on social security for their living. These people, who have unhealthy behaviours and who do not have their paths smoothed by their families, are in danger of becoming marginalized from the society in many ways which will influence also their health as adults.
The figures show that, at the age of 16, the influence of home background on the association between lifestyle and educational track is greatest at the extremes of the track variable. Background may have been the original generator of an individual's lifestyle and educational decisions but, in adolescence, the pattern of behaviours closely resembles the lifestyle of the individual's future social group. Thus, it seems that people, already at early stages of their lives, begin to follow behavioural and educational tracks leading to different positions in relation to health and social class in adulthood (Illsley, 1955; Kuh and Cooper, 1992; Argyle, 1994; Glendinning et al., 1994; Helakorpi et al., 1995).
By and large, the study gives evidence of a strong association between health-related lifestyle and educational track in adolescence. However, the stability of these findings from adolescence to adult life needs to be tested by longitudinal study designs.
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Appendix: The detailed description of the profiles in Figures 2 and 3
Profile 1: The lowest overall chance of good social prospects
Sociodemographic background variables- Gender: Male
- Family type: Non-nuclear
- Father's occupation: Blue collar worker or farmer
- Father's education: Middle or low
Lifestyle variables
- Smoking: Daily
- Brushing teeth: At most 5 times a week
- Drinking coffee: 4 cups or more a day
- Hours spent daily on watching TV or videotapes: At least 2 h
- Unorganized physical exercise: Rarely
- Use of seatbelts: Sometimes or never
- Use of milk fat: Heavy use
- Hours spent daily on listening to music: At least 2 h
- Attending church or other religious meetings: Occasionally or never
- Use of sugar in coffee: 3 or more lumps
Profile 2: The highest overall chance of good social prospects
Sociodemographic background variables- Gender: Female
- Family type: Nuclear
- Father's occupation: Upper white collar worker
- Father's education: High
Lifestyle variables
- Smoking: Occasionally or never
- Brushing teeth: Several times a day
- Drinking coffee: Not daily or 1–3 cups a day
- Hours spent daily on watching TV or videotapes: Less than 2 h
- Unorganized physical exercise: Daily, weekly or monthly
- Use of seatbelts: Always
- Use of milk fat: Minor or medium use
- Hours spent daily on listening to music: Less than 2 h
- Attending church or other religious meetings: Weekly
- Use of sugar in coffee: No sugar or 1–2 lumps
Profile 3: A high chance of good social prospects according to sociodemographic background, but a low chance according to lifestyle
Sociodemographic background variables- Gender: Female
- Family type: Nuclear
- Father's occupation: Upper white collar worker
- Father's education: High
Lifestyle variables
- Smoking: Daily
- Brushing teeth: At most 5 times a week
- Drinking coffee: 4 cups or more a day
- Hours spent daily on watching TV or videotapes: At least 2 h
- Unorganized physical exercise: Rarely
- Use of seatbelts: Sometimes or never
- Use of milk fat: Heavy use
- Hours spent daily on listening to music: At least 2 h
- Attending church or other religious meetings: Occasionally or never
- Use of sugar in coffee: 3 or more lumps
Profile 4: A low chance of good social prospects according to sociodemographic background, but a high chance according to lifestyle
Sociodemographic background variables- Gender: Male
- Family type: Non-nuclear
- Father's occupation: Blue collar worker or farmer
- Father's education: Middle or low
Lifestyle variables
- Smoking: Occasionally or never
- Brushing teeth: Several times a day
- Drinking coffee: Not daily or 1–3 cups a day
- Hours spent daily on watching TV or videotapes: Less than 2 h
- Unorganized physical exercise: Daily, weekly or monthly
- Use of seatbelts: Always
- Use of milk fat: Minor or medium use
- Hours spent daily on listening to music: Less than 2 h
- Attending church or other religious meetings: Weekly
- Use of sugar in coffee: No sugar or 1–2 lumps
View this table:
Table I.
The distribution (%) of educational track according to sociodemographic background and lifestyle variables [P values for the χ2-tests of independence in two-variable cross-tabulations (univariate analysis)]
View this table:
Table II.
Independent variables associated with educational track in the final model (Pvalues, the COR for belonging to educational tracks with good social prospects with their 95% CI)
View larger version:
Figure 1.
The conceptual model of the study.
View larger version:
Figure 2.
Model-based predicted probability of belonging to each of the five educational tracks according to the particular profiles [1 (——) versus 2 (– – –)] describing lifestyle and sociodemographic background. For detailed description, see Appendix.
View larger version:
Figure 3.
Model-based predicted probability of belonging to each of the five educational tracks according to the particular profiles [1 (——) versus 3 (˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙) and 2 (– – –) versus 4 (– - – - –)] describing lifestyle and sociodemographic background. For detailed description, see Appendix.
Previous SectionNext SectionAcknowledgments
This study was supported by the Ministry of Social Affairs and Health, Finland.Previous Section
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Youngistan unplugged
Rajeev Mullick, Hindustan Times
Lucknow, January 05, 2012
The new age voters are fed up with old-style politics centred on narrow considerations of caste and community. They root for development, an issue that will determine how they vote. An interaction with engineering students of the RR Institute of Modern Technology, Lucknow, during HT
Campus Adda reflects this mood.
Iti Khare, a student, demands: "The political parties must promise steps to boost development. The new government should invest heavily in infrastructure in order to attract industry and create jobs."
They also animatedly discuss other topics, including corruption, division of the state and minimum academic qualifications for politicians, among others.
Most of them are confident the polling percentage will go up this time. "The youngsters of today are more aware than ever before. They value their vote. And as the elections are taking place in February (when the weather is pleasant), there is every reason to believe that there will be a good turnout," says Kushal Khatwani.
No reservation, please!
The young voters are against reservation. While they say the government may provide numerous facilities to the poor, only deserving candidates should get jobs. Neha Sharma, another student, says: "It hurts when an undeserving candidate gets a job. There should be no comprise on merit. Or else, development will take a backseat."
"Give jobs to the deserving ones. Why do we need to reserve seats for the weaker sections? The government should try providing the best facilities to them so that they can compete with the masses," suggests Lalita Sharma.
Netas must be well-informed
The students say minimum educational qualifications should be prescribed for the netas. "How can a Class 10-failed leader rule over us? This is not acceptable. It should be stopped," demands Saif Khan. He wants the parties to groom leaders before giving them tickets.
RTI, the right tool
The students also say the Right to Information (RTI) is one of the finest weapons to keep a tab on the functioning of ministers and officials. Sonal Srivastava asserts: "RTI has made a big difference. We can keep a tab on the senior officials in various departments."
Young leaders preferred
The students find it easier to relate to young leaders and feel the latter should get more tickets. Punnet Kumar Verma says, "the old leaders should take the back seat and let the youngsters come forward. The seniors may mentor young politicians and help them make the right decisions."
http://www.hindustantimes.com/India-news/Lucknow/Youngistan-unplugged/Article1-791493.aspx
Demographic's impact on marketing: Welcome to Youngistan
ET Bureau Dec 28, 2011, 12.11am ISTTags:
Marketers swear by the mantra 'catch 'em young' and that's just what we did. The elusive youth demographic got a disproportionate amount of editorial attention. This extended to the youthful heroes of the ad and marketing industries as well. Many of the people profiled in the first edition of hot young creatives (July 2000) can perhaps no longer be called 'young' — but the remainder of that descriptor still applies.
2 October 1996
Rap To A Different Beat
There is no global youth. While some lifestyle props may be common, Asian/Indian Youth hold a bright outlook, as against the dark attitude of the West. MNC advertisers must keep this in mind
19 July 2000
Red Hot 'N' Smart - Young Creatives
1 October 2003
The Boy Brands
They're the movers, shakers and groovers of the marketing world. Brand Equity brings you Generation Next, the men and women following the footsteps of Vindi Banga, Muktesh Pant and Rajeev Bakshi
13 May 2009
The ScreenAgers
They live life in between screens - Mobiles, TVs, iPods, computers, or PSPs. To them multiscreening is the key to multi-tasking. Their spend power and brand consciousness makes them a marketer's dream. Their short attention span and loathing of ads makes them a nightmare. They are the ScreenAgers
11 November 2009
Indian Marketers League
They started off as foot soldiers in marketing or even as programmers and business analysts. Some 'escaped' the mandatory stint in sales. But for a cross section of senior marketers, former colleagues, ad men and media executives, they are sizzling hot. After weeks of telephone calls, emails checks and counter-checks, BE presents a carefully picked crop of the country's hottest young marketers
30 December 2009
Eighteen
They were born in 1991 when India opened up, both in mindset and moolah. As consumers they leave marketers befuddled and humbled. To wrap up 2009, BE invited ten 18-year-olds, two strategic planners, a creative head and a youth marketer in our mission to decode the children of liberalisation
31 March 2010
Up In The Air
BE's pick of Indian advertising's young guns
25 May 2011
Millennials
They love their privacy but they love to share their opinions more. They have their day jobs and they dream for bigger and better. Brand Loyalty from them comes at a price i.e. complete honesty. They look beyond roti, kapda and makaan. So you think you know the Millennials?
17 August & 24 August 2011
Hot Young Creatives
http://articles.economictimes.indiatimes.com/2011-12-28/news/30565283_1_hot-young-creatives-marketing-indian-youth
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Generation Y
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia"Millennial" redirects here. For the concept Millennialism, see Millennialism.
This article is about the demographic cohort (a group of subjects with a common defining characteristic) following Generation X. For other uses, see Generation Y (disambiguation).
Generation Y, also known as the Millennial Generation (or Millennials),[1][2] Generation Next,[3] Net Generation,[4] Echo Boomers,[5], describes the demographic cohort following Generation X. While there is no universally agreed upon time frame, the term generally includes people born in the[6] late 1980s, early to middle 1990s, or as late as the early 2000s.[7] One segment of this age-group is often called the "eighties babies" generation, in reference to the fact that they were born between January 1, 1980 and December 31, 1989.[8][9][10] Members of this generation are called Echo Boomers, due to the significant increase in birth rates through the 1980s and into the 1990s, and because many of them are children of baby boomers.[11][12][13][14] The 20th century trend toward smaller families in developed countries continued,[15][16] however, so the relative impact of the "baby boom echo" was generally less pronounced than the original boom.
Characteristics of the generation vary by region, depending on social and economic conditions. However, it is generally marked by an increased use and familiarity with communications, media, and digital technologies. In most parts of the world its upbringing was marked by an increase in a neoliberal approach to politics and economics; the effects of this environment are disputed.[17][18]
Contents[hide] |
[edit]Terminology
The term Generation Y first appeared in an August 1993 Ad Age editorial to describe teenagers of the day, which they defined, at that time, as separate from Generation X, and then aged 12 or younger (born after 1981), as well as the teenagers of the upcoming ten years.[19] Since then, the company has sometimes used 1982 as the starting birth year for this generation.[20] "Generation Y" alludes to a succession from "Generation X."In China, Generation Y does not exist, as the rapid rate of change in that country since 1970 has caused generations to be classed by decade. [21] While in most of the developed world, a person born in 1985 and a person born in 1990 are considered the same generation; in China, those born in the '70s are called the "post-70s" generation, those born in the 80s the "post-80s" generation, and those born in the 90s the "post-90s generation". [22] The 80s generation in China is seen as the equivalent to Gen Y, though aspects of Gen Y are also observed in the 90s generation.
The name "Echo Boomers"[5] refers to the size of the generation and its relation to the Baby Boomer generation.[23]
Authors William Strauss and Neil Howe have been influential[citation needed] in defining American generations in their book Generations: The History of America's Future, 1584 to 2069 (1991).[24][25] Their generational theory is frequently cited in books and articles on the subject. Howe and Strauss maintain that they use the term Millennials in place of Generation Y because the members of the generation themselves coined the term, not wanting to be associated with Generation X. Almost a decade later, they followed their large study of the history of American demographics with a book devoted to the new generation, titled Millennials Rising: The Next Great Generation (2000).[26][27] In both books, William Strauss and Neil Howe use 1982 and 2001 as the start and end years of the generation, respectively. They believe that thecoming of age of year 2000 high school graduates sharply contrasts with those born before them and after them due to the attention they received from the media and what influenced them politically.[28][29]
According to the authors' 1997 book, The Fourth Turning, modern history repeats itself every four generations; approximately 80–100 years. The authors of the book mention that the four-cycles always come in the same order. The first one, the High cycle, occurs when a new order or human expansion is developed, replacing the older one. The next cycle is called the Awakening. More spiritual than the previous, this is a time of rebellion against the already established order. The third cycle is known as the Unraveling, when elements of individualism and fragmentation take over society, developing a troubled era which leads directly to the Fourth Turning, an era of crisis dominating society during which a redefinition of its very structure, goals, and purposes is established.
Each generation has its archetypes, the four having the following ones defined as: Prophet, Nomad, Hero, and Artist. According to the aforementioned book, Millennials belong to the Hero category, featuring a deep trust in authority and institutions; being somewhat conventional, but still powerful. They grew up during an Unraveling cycle with more protections than the previous generation (Gen X). They are heavily dependent on team work, and thus, when they come of age, turn into the heroic team-working young people of a Crisis. In their middle years, they become the energetic, decisive, and strong leaders of a High cycle; and in old age, they become the criticized powerful elders of an Awakening cycle. Another previous generation that belongs to this category is The Greatest Generation (1916–1924).[30]
One author, Elwood Carlson, locates the American generation, which he calls "New Boomers," between 1983 and 2001, because of the upswing in births after 1983, finishing with the "political and social challenges" that occurred after the terrorist acts of September 11, 2001, and the "persistent economic difficulties" of the time.[31]
In Australia, there is much debate over the dates of Generation Y - that is, when "Gen Y" began, and the "cut-off" period. It is generally accepted, however, that the first "Gen Y" members were born in 1982. Though some sources use the date range 1982-1995 for the generation, many, including the Australian Bureau of Statistics, use 1982-2000.[32][33][34][35][36]
In Canada, 1982 is generally thought to be the starting birth year for Generation Y, ending in the mid-1990s or 2000, sometimes even as late as 2004.[37][38][39][40][41][42]
Like members of Generation X, who are heavily influenced by the advent of MTV, early members of Generation Y are also sometimes called the MTV Generation. This term can also be a catch phrase for youth of the late 20th century, depending on the context.[43][44][45][46]
Jean Twenge, author of the 2007 book Generation Me, considers Generation Y along with later Xers to be part of a generation called Generation Me. This is based on personality surveys that showed increasing narcissism among this generation compared to Boomers when they were teens and twentysomethings. She questions the predictions of Strauss & Howe that this generation would come out civic-minded, citing the fact that when the War on Iraq began military enlistments went down instead of up.[47]
Twenge attributes confidence and tolerance to this generation, as well as a sense of entitlement, narcissism and rejection of social conventions.
Fred Bonner believes that much of the commentary on the Millennial Generation may be partially accurate, but overly general and that many of the traits they describe apply primarily to "white, affluent teenagers who accomplish great things as they grow up in the suburbs, who confront anxiety when applying to super-selective colleges, and who multitask with ease as their helicopter parents hover reassuringly above them." Other socio-economic groups often do not display the same attributes commonly attributed to Generation Y. During class discussions, he has listened to black and Hispanic students describe how some or all of the so-called seven core traits did not apply to them. They often say the "special" trait, in particular, is unrecognizable. "It's not that many diverse parents don't want to treat their kids as special," he says, "but they often don't have the social and cultural capital, the time and resources, to do that."[48]
[edit]Demographics
Experts differ on the actual start date of Generation Y. Some sources use starting dates as early as 1976.[49] Other sources use 1978, 1980, or 1982. Generation Y is the group generally considered to be the last generation of children wholly born in the 20th century. Source(s)[50][51][52] And while 1982 is a fairly common start date, some sources use even later dates.[31] Sources citing 1982 mark the end the generation either in the early or mid-1990s or the early 2000s, with 1982-1995 and 1982-2000 as common ranges.[11][12][13][53] Today, there are approximately 80 million Echo Boomers.[12]Generation Y has a tendency to be more culturally liberal[54] with many supporting modern yet historically more liberal views in general as well as various other politically liberal stances, but, in spite of the new dominant liberal growth, a growing number of new youth clubs and groups have been created in developed countries (such as the US, UK, Japan, Australia and Italy) to take the task of promoting and preserving conservative views and religious beliefs (i.e. the rapid growth of nondenominational churches by gen-Yers), such as free market principles and "socially conservative" behavior (i.e. abstinence from drug experimentation, underage drinking and premarital sex).[citation needed][55] Since the 2000 U.S. Census which allowed persons to select more than one racial group, "Millennials" in abundance have asserted their right to have all their heritages respected, counted and acknowledged[56]
Generation Y'ers are largely the children of the Baby Boomers. Younger members of this generation have parents that belong to Generation X, and some older members have parents that are members of the Silent Generation.
There are different views regarding Generation Y. When the term originated in 1993, it referred to teenagers aged 13 to 19 at the time (born between 1974 and 1980) with "more to come over the next 10 years". Here is a verbatim reprint of the actual Advertising Age op ed. of August 30, 1993—the above erroneous information notwithstanding:
"That cynical, purple-haired blob watching TV, otherwise known as Generation X, has been giving marketers fits for a long time. He doesn't respond to advertising, isn't brand-loyal and probably doesn't have much discretionary income, i.e. a job. But help is on the way. Following this angry young adult generation is a group of teens-agers who are leaving Generation X at the gate. There are 27 million of these 13-to-19-year-olds spending $ 95 billion a year, and both numbers will rise in the next 10 years. As our headline last week pointed out, this group is interested in real life, real solutions.
"Teens care -- about AIDS, race relations, child abuse and abortion. But instead of saying, I got screwed, they say, What am I going to do about it? They like to volunteer and they respond to marketers who they can believe are helping make the world better. There are other differences with Generation X. Male teens read and don't spend all their time in front of the TV. A Roper survey showed that 83% of male teens read a major magazine at least once every four weeks, and 43% subscribe to a magazine. Comic books and place-based media are good ways to reach teens. If they're over 16, they listen to radio.
"OK, they like to shop for price and dump a brand if it gets costly. In personal care products especially, teens look for bargains. But Jane Grossman, Seventeen publisher, says they love brands and trust advertising more than any other group.
"That advertising can address them honestly and seriously without their tuning out. The Gap, Reebok and Bausch & Lomb are but three of the marketers that speak to teens without condescending to hip-hop language to do it. And they are reaping the benefits, proving again there are no smarter consumers than our average teen-agers, and no smarter marketers than those who speak honestly to them."
[edit]Economy
Economic prospects for the Millennials have worsened due to the late-2000s recession.[57][58] Several governments have instituted major youth employment schemes out of fear of social unrest due to the dramatically increased rates of youth unemployment.[59] In Europe, youth unemployment levels are very high (40% in Spain, 35% in the Baltic states, 19.1% in Britain[60] and more than 20% in many more). In 2009 leading commentators began to worry about the long term social and economic effects of the unemployment.[61] Unemployment levels in other areas of the world are also high, with the youth unemployment rate in the U.S. reaching a record level (19.1%, July 2010) since the statistic started being gathered in 1948.[62] In the United States the economic difficulties have led to dramatic increases in youth poverty, unemployment, and the numbers of young people living with their parents.[63] It has been argued that this unemployment rate and poor economic situation has given Generation Y a rallying call with the 2011 Occupy Wall Street movement.[64] In Canada, unemployment amongst youths aged 15 to 24 years of age in July 2009 was 15.9%, the highest it had been in 11 years.[65]Generation Y who grew up in Asian countries show different preferences and expectations of work to those who grew up in the US or Europe. This is usually attributed to the differing cultural and economic conditions experienced while growing up.[66]
The Millennials are sometimes called the "Trophy Generation", or "Trophy Kids,"[67] a term that reflects the trend in competitive sports, as well as many other aspects of life, where mere participation is frequently enough for a reward. It has been reported that this is an issue in corporate environments.[67] Some employers are concerned that Millennials have too great expectations from the workplace.[68] Studies predict that Generation Y will switch jobs frequently, holding far more than Generation X due to their great expectations.[69] To address these new challenges, many large firms are currently studying the social and behaviorial patterns of Millennials and are trying to devise programs that decrease intergenerational estrangement, and increase relationships of reciprocal understanding between older employees and Millennials, while at the same time making Millennials more comfortable. The UK's Institute of Leadership & Management researched the gap in understanding between Generation Y recruits and their managers in collaboration with Ashridge Business School.[70] The findings included high expectations for advancement, salary and for a coaching relationship with their manager, and suggested that organisations will need to adapt to accommodate and make the best use of Generation Y. In an example of a company trying to do just this, Goldman Sachsconducts training programs that use actors to portray Millennials who assertively seek more feedback, responsibility, and involvement in decision making. After the performance, employees discuss and debate the generational differences they have seen played out.[67]
[edit]Peter Pan Generation
This generation is also sometimes referred to as the Boomerang Generation or Peter Pan Generation, because of the members' perceived penchant for delaying some rites of passage into adulthood, longer periods than most generations before them. These labels were also a reference to a trend toward members living with their parents for longer periods than previous generations.[71]As a group, Generation Y are said to be much closer to their parents than their parents' generation, the Baby Boomers were.[72] While 40% of Baby Boomers in 1974 claimed they would be "better off without their parents" according to one study, 90% of Generation Y'ers claimed to be "extremely close" to their parents in another study.[73] Most also claim that the older generations had better morals.[72]
According to Kimberly Palmer "High housing prices, the rising cost of higher education, and the relative affluence of the older generation are among the factors driving the trend."[74] However, other explanations are seen as contributing. Questions regarding a clear definition of what it means to be an adult also impacts a debate about delayed transitions into adulthood. For instance, one study by professors at Brigham Young University found that college students are more likely now to define "adult" based on certain personal abilities and characteristics rather than more traditional "rite of passage" events.[75] Dr. Larry Nelson, one of the three Marriage, Family, and Human Development professors to perform the study, also noted that some Millennials are delaying the transition from childhood to adulthood as a response to mistakes made by their parents. "In prior generations, you get married and you start a career and you do that immediately. What young people today are seeing is that approach has led to divorces, to people unhappy with their careers ... The majority want to get married [...] they just want to do it right the first time, the same thing with their careers."[75]
[edit]Religion
In the United States, Generation Y has a lower level of religiosity to older generations, and they are more likely to be skeptical of religious institutions.[72] A 2005 study looked at 1,385 people aged 18 to 25 and found that less than half of those in the study said that they pray regularly before a meal. A third said that they talked about religion with friends, attend places of worship, and read religious materials weekly. 23% of those studied did not identify themselves as belonging to a religious affiliation.[76][edit]Communication and interaction
The Millennial Generation (or Gen Y), like other generations, has been shaped by the events, leaders, developments and trends of its time.[77]The rise of instant communication technologies made possible through use of the internet, such as email, texting, and IM and new media used through websites like YouTube and social networking sites like Facebook, MySpace, and Twitter, may explain the Millennials' reputation for being somewhat peer-oriented due to easier facilitation of communication through technology.[78][79][80] The 2000s produced no new, epoch-defining, music genres, unlike past decades (Rock and soul in the 1960s for baby boomers, grunge, techno/rave and hip hop in the 1990s for Generation X).[81][82] Instead genres such as hip hop and r&b built incrementally on where they were in the '90s. Autotune has been cited as the decade's sole musical innovation. Many have cited the spread of information technology, from YouTube to iTunes, to file sharing blogs, as having increased the presence of the past in individuals lives because of the range of content that can be accessed. As a result, Generation Y has revived styles of past decades without actually creating anything new.Now indie rock of the early 2000s has been attributed to Generation Y, though the genre has been described as "spent", and criticized for its lack of angst.[83][84][85]
Expression and acceptance has been highly important to this generation. In well-developed nations, several cohorts of Generation Y members have found comfort in online games such as MMORPGs and virtual worlds like World of Warcraft and Second Life.[86] Flash mobbing, internet memes, and online communities have given some of the more expressive Generation Y members acceptance, while onlinepen pals have given the more socially timid individuals acceptance as well.[87]
There is a trend among Millennials to choose urban, or gentrified neighborhoods, as their preferred living situations.[88]
[edit]Digital technology
In their 2007 book, authors Junco and Mastrodicasa expanded on the work of Howe and Strauss to include research-based information about the personality profiles of Millennials, especially as it relates to higher education. They conducted a large-sample (7,705) research study ofcollege students. They found that Next Generation college students, born between 1982–1992, were frequently in touch with their parents and they used technology at higher rates than people from other generations. In their survey, they found that 97% of these students owned acomputer, 94% owned a cell phone, and 56% owned an MP3 player. They also found that students spoke with their parents an average of 1.5 times a day about a wide range of topics. Other findings in the Junco and Mastrodicasa survey revealed 76% of students used instant messaging, 92% of those reported multitasking while instant messaging, 40% of them used television to get most of their news, and 34% of students surveyed used the Internet. Generation Y's online presence is growing, as evidenced by the website GenerationYGirl.com founded in 2011 to provide a voice for women coming of age in the recession. [89][90]In June 2009, Nielsen released the report, "How Teens Use Media" which discussed the latest data on media usage by generation. In this report, Nielsen set out to redefine the dialogue around media usage by the youngest of Generation Y, extending through working age Generation Y and compared to Generation X and Baby Boomers.[91] One of the more popular forms of media use in Generation Y is through social networking. In 2010, research was published in the Elon Journal of Undergraduate Research which claimed that students who used social media and decided to quit showed the same withdrawal symptoms of a drug addict who quit their stimulant.[92]
[edit]Cultural identity
Some have argued that the Millennials have "moved beyond" the ideological battles spawned by the counterculture of the 1960s, which persisted through the 1990s in the form of the culture wars.[93] This is further documented in Strauss & Howe's book titled Millennials Rising: The Next Great Generation, which describes the Millennial generation as "civic minded," rejecting the attitudes of the Baby Boomers and Generation X.[94] Generation Y'ers never truly rebelled against their parents, unlike prior generations, often enjoying the same music, movies and products as their parents.[95]Generation Y has been described in a New York Times article as entrepreneurial and, "a 'post-emotional' generation. No anger, no edge, no ego."[96] The hipster has been reluctantly accepted by members of the generation as a representative image. The social form of the small business has been cited as taking the place of the commune, and all social forms such as music, food, and good works have been expressed in those terms. However the article also says, "These movements always have an economic substrate. The beatniks and hippies — love, ecstasy, transcendence, utopia — were products of the postwar boom. The punks and slackers and devotees of hip-hop — rage, angst, nihilism, withdrawal — arose within the long stagnation that lasted from the early '70s to the early '90s. The hipsters were born in the dot-com boom and flourished in the real estate bubble."
[edit]See also
[edit]References
- ^ Strauss, William & Howe, Neil. Generations: The History of America's Future, 1584 to 2069. Perennial, 1992 (Reprint). ISBN 0-688-11912-3 pp. 31, 327
- ^ Shapira, Ian (2008-07-06). washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/07/05/AR2008070501599.html "What Comes Next After Generation X?". Education (The Washington Post): pp. C01. Retrieved 2008-07-19.
- ^ "The Online NewsHour: Generation Next". PBS. Retrieved 2010-08-24.
- ^ Cheese, Peter (2008-03-13). "Netting the Net Generation". Businessweek.com. Retrieved 2010-08-24.
- ^ a b Armour, Stephanie (2008-11-06). "Generation Y: They've arrived at work with a new attitude". USA Today. Retrieved 2009-11-27.
- ^
- Stephanie F. Gardner (August 15, 2006). "Preparing for the Nexters". American journal of pharmaceutical education(American Journal of Pharmaceutical Education) 70 (4): 87.doi:10.5688/aj700487. PMC 1636975. PMID 17136206. "born between 1976 and 1994"
- "Gen Y Propels Need for Online Service Technologies & Talent". Business Wire. 2008-08-19. Retrieved 2010-10-27. "born between the years 1976 - 1992"
- French, Dana (2005-11-21). "Generation Y versus Baby Boomers". Furniture Today. Retrieved 2009-11-27. "Born between 1976 and 1994, more than one-third of Gen Y is still under 18."
- Price, Sarah; Kass, Susanna (2006-06-18). "Generation Y turning away from religion". Melbourne: The Age. Retrieved 2009-11-27. "born between 1976 and 1990"
- Katy Marquardt (2008-09-04). "Troubled Finances of the Young and Restless - New Money". usnews.com. Retrieved 2010-08-24. "born between 1976 and 1987"
- ^
- "Is Your Firm Ready for the Millennials? - Knowledge@Emory". Knowledge.emory.edu. 2006-03-08. Retrieved 2010-08-24. "born between 1982 and 2002"
- Tovar, Molly (August/September 2007). "Getting it Right: Graduate Schools Respond to the Millenial Challenge".Communicator 40 (7): 1. Retrieved 2008-08-29. "born between 1982 and 1994"
- "Gen X and Gen Y saving more than Boomers: survey". Reuters. 2011-12-19. Retrieved 2011-12-25. "born between 1977 and 1989"
- Neuborne, Ellen (1999-02-15). "Generation Y". Business Week. Retrieved 2009-05-17. "Born during a baby bulge that demographers locate between 1979 and 1994"
- Bush, Alan J.; Craig Martin, Alan Bush, VVictoria Bush (2004-05-12). "Sports Celebrity Influence on the Behavioral Intentions of Generation Y". Journal of Advertising Research 44 (1): 108–118. doi:10.1017/S0021849904040206. Retrieved 2010-10-28. "those individuals born between 1977 and 1994"
- By Nadira A. Hira, Fortune writer-reporter (2007-05-15)."Attracting the twentysomething worker. CNNMoney.com. May 15, 2007". Money.cnn.com. Retrieved 2010-08-24. "for our purposes, those born between 1977 and 1995"
- "Demographics / Population Trends". Alliancetrends.org. Retrieved 2010-08-24.
- "The Echo Boomers". CBS News. 2009-02-11. Retrieved 2011-7-23. "born between the years 1980 - 1995"
- "The millennials - ever optimistic about jobs". CNN Money. 2011-05-18. Retrieved 2011-7-23. "These are the "millennials", born in the 80's and early 90's"
- "Gen Y'ers try 'speed dating' -- for jobs". CNN.com. 2011-07-21. Retrieved 2011-7-23. "Millennials -- those between 18 and 30"
- Davis, Glyn (2005-05-30). "Rise of the millennials". The Age(Melbourne).
- "Millennial generation the next big thing". CNN.com. 2011-03-24. Retrieved 2011-7-23. "the Millennial generation, born between 1980 and 2005"
- "How Generational Theory Can Improve Teaching: Strategies for Working with the "Millennials"" (PDF). Currents in Teaching and Learning 1 (1): 29–44. Fall 2008. Retrieved 2009-05-16. "Born between 1982 and 2003"
- ^ "The Millennial Manifesto: How 80's Babies Can Save the World. by Jermaine Spradley +". huffingtonpost.com. 2011-09-11. Retrieved 2011-11-22.
- ^ "Economic `boom': '80s babies get set to flex spending power. by Richard Burnett". orlandosentinal.com. 2007-05-26. Retrieved 2011-11-22.
- ^ "Pity the plight of the 80s babies. by ChrisGiles". financialtimes.com. 2007-07-13. Retrieved 2011-11-22.
- ^ a b Marino, Vivian (2006-08-20). "College-Town Real Estate: The Next Big Niche?". The New York Times (The New York Times Company): pp. 1. Retrieved 2010-09-25. "College enrollments have been on the rise as the baby boomers' children — sometimes known as the "echo boom" generation — come of age. This group, born from 1982 to 1995, is about 80 million strong."
- ^ a b c Font size Print E-mail Share Page 1 of 2 By Rebecca Leung (2005-09-04). "The Echo Boomers - 60 Minutes". CBS News. Retrieved 2010-08-24.
- ^ a b Knoblach, Jochen (2006-01-21). "Ein neues Spiel" (in German). Berliner Zeitung (Berliner Verlag): pp. 1. Retrieved 2010-09-25. "Echo-Boomer-Generation nennen Marketing-Experten die neue Zielgruppe. Junge US-Amerikaner der Geburtsjahre 1982 bis 1995, die mit Videospielen aufgewachsen sind."
- ^ Elliott, Stuart (2010-10-25). "Selling New Wine in Millennial Bottles". The New York Times: pp. 1–2. Retrieved 2010-10-28. "...members of the generation known as millennials, Generation Y or echo boomers...That demographic cohort is generally defined as being composed of those born between 1982 and 1995."
- ^ "Baby Boom - A History of the Baby Boom". Geography.about.com. 1948-08-09. Retrieved 2010-08-24.
- ^ Rosenthal, Elisabeth (2006-09-04). "European Union's Plunging Birthrates Spread Eastward". The New York Times. Retrieved 2010-04-02.
- ^ Seabrook, Jeremy (2007-06-17). "Children of the market". The Guardian (London). Retrieved 2010-04-02.
- ^ "Please Just F* Off, It's Our Turn Now". The Sydney Morning Herald. 2006-03-14.
- ^ "Generation Y" Ad Age August 30, 1993. p. 16.
- ^ Francese, Peter (2003-09-01). "Trend Ticker: Ahead of the Next Wave". AdvertisingAge. Retrieved 2011-03-31. "Today's 21-year-olds, who were born in 1982 and are part of the leading edge of Generation Y, are among the most-studied group of young adults ever."
- ^ http://www.echinacities.com/expat-corner/post-80s-and-90s-what-s-with-the-ultra-short-generation.html
- ^ http://www.echinacities.com/expat-corner/post-80s-and-90s-what-s-with-the-ultra-short-generation.html
- ^ Huntley, Rebecca (2006-09-01). The World According to Y: Inside the New Adult Generation. Allen Unwin. ISBN 1-74114-845-6.
- ^ "Portrait of the Millennials". Millennials: A Portrait of Generation Next. Washington D.C.: Pew Research Center. 2010-02-24. "Judy Woodruff, Senior Correspondent, PBS Newshour: Neil Howe, I want to come to you first because you really are the person more than anybody in the country, who has studied generations and especially this one."
- ^ Hoover, Eric (2009-10-11). "The Millennial Muddle: How stereotyping students became a thriving industry and a bundle of contradictions". The Chronicle of Higher Education (The Chronicle of Higher Education, Inc.). Retrieved 2010-12-21. "They soon became media darlings, best-selling authors, and busy speakers. Generations would popularize the idea that people in a particular age group share distinct personae and values by virtue of occupying the same 'place' in time as they grow up. In turn, this would affirm the notion that Millennials were a riddle waiting to be solved...These days people all over the world seek Mr. Howe's advice about Millennials. Mellow and soft-spoken, he listens for rhythms in history. In fact, he's a well-connected consultant who runs a bustling business, LifeCourse Associates, from the ground floor of his spacious home...Each year Mr. Howe gives about 60 speeches, often followed by customized workshops...Mr. Howe has also consulted with some of the globe's biggest companies, including Nike, Hewlett-Packard, and Kraft Nabisco. Recently an investment firm in Prague hired him to do a demographic forecast...In the Millennials industry, plenty of people owe their success—not to mention their talking points—to Mr. Howe."
- ^ "Lifecourse Associates: Generations (Book)". Lifecourse.com. Retrieved 2011-11-02.
- ^ "Lifecourse Associates: Millennials Rising (Book)". Store.lifecourse.com. Retrieved 2011-11-02.
- ^ Howe, Neil; Strauss, William (September 2000). Millennials Rising: The Next Generation. New York: Vintage. pp. 3–120.ISBN 978-0-375-70719-3.
- ^ http://www.lifecourse.com/assets/files/yes_we_can.pdf
- ^ "Generation Y Full Guide". YouBioIt.com. 2010-06-20. Retrieved 2010-12-27.
- ^ a b Carlson, Elwood (2008-06-30). The Lucky Few: Between the Greatest Generation and the Baby Boom. Springer. p. 29.ISBN 978-1-4020-8540-6.
- ^ McCrindle, Mark (2005-07-18). "Superannuation and the Under 40s: Summary Report: Research Report on the Attitudes and Views of Generations X and Y on Superannuation" (www.aph.gov.au/house/committee/efpa/super/subs/sub002.pdf).McCrindle Research. "Generation X comprises those aged between 24 and 40...Generation Y 1982-2000..."
- ^ Kershaw, Pam (2005). "Managing Generation X and Y". The Sydney Morning Herald (Fairfax Media). Retrieved 2010-12-18. "Mark McCrindle, director of McCrindle Research Pty Ltd which specialises in social and generational studies, says differences between generations in the workplace have never been greater...Generation Y: born 1982 onwards, aged 23 or younger."
- ^ Shoebridge, Neil (2006-10-11). "Generation Y: Catch Them If You Can". Australian Financial Review (Fairfax Media). Retrieved 2010-12-18. "The definitions of generation Y vary...others plumping for 1982 to 1995."
- ^ "State of the News Print Media in Australia Report 2008". Australian Press Council. 2008-12-22. Retrieved 2010-12-18. "This comment is not meant to convey a negative in regard Generation X (1965–1981) and Generation Y (1982–2000)."
- ^ "Generation X and Y: Who They Are and What They Want".Board Matters Newsletter 8 (3). 2008-11. Retrieved 2010-12-18. "Generation Y 1982-2000"
- ^ "Achievement for All Children: An Apple Canada Perspective"(www.bcssa.org/topics/WhitePaper_Canada_CE.pdf). Apple Canada. Apple Inc.. 2004-04-19. Retrieved 2010-12-19. "Generation Y, or the 'Millennials,' as they prefer to be called, are the children of the Boomers and early-wave members of Generation X. They account for almost 26% of Canada's population. Born between 1982 and 2000, this first generation of the new millennium populates classes in elementary, middle, and high schools, as well as colleges and universities."
- ^ Crealock, Martha (2008-Jan.). "The Teachers Write – About Millennials" (www.usask.ca/gmcte/drupal/files/bridges_Jan08.pdf).Bridges 6 (2): 10–11. "This issue's topic is the Millennials. There has been a lot of talk about 'Millennials,' or "Generation Y": young people born between 1982 - 2000."
- ^ "Generation Y: Challenging Employers to Provide Balance: Who are Generation Y and do employers and managers in the non-profit sector really need to fear them?". Family Connections 12(2). 2008-Summer. Retrieved 2010-12-19. "Generation Y – also frequently known as the Echo Boomers, the Millenials, the Net Generation, or the Next Generation – are those people born between 1982 and 1997."
- ^ "Millennials & The Digital Entertainment Age: A Sourcebook for Consumer Marketers". The Millennials. Toronto, Canada: Digital Media Wire. 2008-03-05. "By the year 2010, Millennials, born between 1982 and 2000, will outnumber both Baby Boomers and Gen-Xers and will be the most significant consumer sector for the media & entertainment industries."
- ^ "Destination Canada: Are We Doing Enough?". Deloitte Tourism, Hospitality & Leisure Industry and Tourism Industry Association of Canada (TIAC): 1–16. 2009. Retrieved 2011-03-28. "67% are members of Generations X (1961-81) and Y (1982-2001), or the 'contemporary generations'"
- ^ Joel, Mitch (2010-10-14). "Social Media a Waste of Time? Not to Gen Y". The Vancouver Sun (Pacific Newspaper Group). Retrieved 2010-12-19. "Contrast the news above with this blog post last week from MediaPost's Engage — Gen Y titled, Social Network Disconnect (Oct. 8), which looks at generation Y (those born between 1982 and 2004)."
- ^ "Encouraging alternative forms of self expression in the generation Y student: a strategy for effective learning in the classroom". The ABNF Journal. 2003.
- ^ Silverman, Stephen M. (2002-01-15). "Colin Powell Joins MTV Generation - Colin Powell". People.com. Retrieved 2010-08-24.
- ^ Tahman Bradley (2007-10-29). "Obama Unplugged – Obama Talks With the MTV Generation - Political Radar". Blogs.abcnews.com. Retrieved 2010-08-24.
- ^ Kolbert, Elizabeth (1994-04-20). "Frank Talk by Clinton To MTV Generation". The New York Times. Retrieved 2010-04-02.
- ^ Twenge, Jean M (2007-03-06). Generation me: Why today's young Americans are more confident, assertive, entitled--and more miserable than ever before. ISBN 9780743276986.
- ^ Hoover, Eric (2009-10-11). "The Millennial Muddle: How stereotyping students became a thriving industry and a bundle of contradictions". The Chronicle of Higher Education (The Chronicle of Higher Education, Inc.). Retrieved 2010-12-21. "commentators have tended to slap the Millennial label on white, affluent teenagers who accomplish great things as they grow up in the suburbs, who confront anxiety when applying to super-selective colleges, and who multitask with ease as their helicopter parents hover reassuringly above them. The label tends not to appear in renderings of teenagers who happen to be minorities, or poor, or who have never won a spelling bee. Nor does the term often refer to students from big cities and small towns that are nothing like Fairfax County, Va. Or who lack technological know-how. Or who struggle to complete high school. Or who never even consider college. Or who commit crimes. Or who suffer from too little parental support. Or who drop out of college. Aren't they Millennials, too?"
- ^ Erickson, Tamara (2008-08-19). "From 2006 to 2011, the number of Gen Y (those born between the years 1976 - 1992) online bankers will increase by an astounding 136 percent". Business Wire (CBS Interactive). Retrieved 2011-03-30. "From 2006 to 2011, the number of Gen Y (those born between the years 1976 - 1990) online bankers will increase by an astounding 136 percent."
- ^ Armour, Stephanie (2005-11-08). "The new workplace mix".USA Today.
- ^ Braid, Mary (2007-05-20). "How to connect with Generation Y: However workshy and demanding they seem, today's young people are still vital quarry for UK firms". The Sunday Times(London: Times Newspaper Ltd.). Retrieved 2011-03-30. "this generation – born in or after 1980"
- ^ Warner, Judith (2010-05-28). "The Way We Live Now: The Why-Worry Generation". The New York Times (The New York Times Company). Retrieved 2011-03-30. "Once described by the trend-watchers Neil Howe and William Strauss as "the next great generation" — optimistic, idealistic and destined to do good — millennials, born between 1982 and 2002...showed up."
- ^ "Live Births and Birth Rates, by Year —". Infoplease.com. Retrieved 2010-08-24.
- ^ "E225 Reboot Poll Book.indd" (PDF). Retrieved 2010-08-24.
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- ^ "The President, the Census and the Multiracial "Community"". Retrieved 2011-03-31.
- ^ "How We Survive: The Recession Generation" Making Contact, produced by National Radio Project. November 23, 2010.
- ^ Yen, Hope (2011-09-22). "Census: Recession Turning Young Adults Into Lost Generation". Huffington Post. Retrieved 2011-09-22.
- ^ "Jobless Youth: Will Europe's Gen Y Be Lost? - SPIEGEL ONLINE - News - International". Spiegel.de. Retrieved 2010-08-24.
- ^ Travis, Alan (2009-08-12). "Youth unemployment figures raise spectre of Thatcher's Britain". The Guardian (London). Retrieved 2010-05-03.
- ^ "Europe's New Lost Generation, by Annie Lowrey". Foreign Policy. 2009-07-13. Retrieved 2010-08-24.
- ^ "Employment and Unemployment Among Youth Summary". Bls.gov. 2009-08-27. Retrieved 2010-08-24.
- ^ Thompson, Derek. "Are today's Youth Really a Lost Generation?". The Atlantic. Retrieved 23 September 2011.
- ^ Serchuk, Dave. "Move over Boomers!". Forbes. Forbes. Retrieved 7 November 2011.
- ^ "Youth unemployment highest in 11 years: StatsCan". CBC.ca. 2009-07-10. Retrieved 2010-03-20.
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- ^ Alsop, Ron (2008-10-21). "The Trophy Kids Go to Work". The Wall Street Journal. Retrieved 2008-10-24.
- ^ Kunreuther, Frances; Kim, Helen & Rodriguez, Robby (2009).Working Across Generations, San Francisco, CA:
- ^ "Great Expectations: Managing Generation Y, 2011". I-l-m.com. 2011-07-08. Retrieved 2011-11-02.
- ^ Shaputis Kathleen. The Crowded Nest Syndrome: Surviving the Return of Adult Children. Clutter Fairy Publishing, 2004. Print. ISBN 978-0972672702
- ^ a b c "How Millennials Perceive a New Generation Gap". TIME. 2010-03-11. Retrieved 2011-11-02.
- ^ Mahoney, Jill (2011-07-12). "Stronger by Association: Understanding Generational Conflict". Blog.drakeco.com. Retrieved 2011-11-02.
- ^ "Palmer, Kimberly. "The New Parent Trap: More Boomers Help Adult Kids out Financially." U.S. News & World Report 12 Dec 2007 Web.28 Jun 2009". Usnews.com. 2007-12-12. Retrieved 2010-08-24.
- ^ a b Brittani Lusk - DAILY HERALD (2007-12-05). "Lusk, Brittani. "Study Finds Kids Take Longer to Reach Adulthood." Provo Daily Herald 5 December 2007". Heraldextra.com. Retrieved 2010-08-24.
- ^ "Generation Y embraces choice, redefines religion".Washington Times. 2005-04-12. Retrieved 2010-03-20.
- ^ McCrindle, Mark. "The ABC of XYZ: Generational Diversity at Work". McCrindle Research. Retrieved 2008-07-19.
- ^ Davie, Sandra (12 May 2008). "Gen Y @ work". The Straits Times. Retrieved 23 May 2010.
- ^ Hilton, Robin (2008-06-06). "The Sound of a Generation : All Songs Considered Blog". NPR. Retrieved 2011-11-02.
- ^ "'Nevermind,' never again?". CNN. 2011-09-23. Retrieved 2011-10-27.
- ^ Reyonolds, Simon (2011-07-15). "The Songs of Now Sound a Lot Like Then". New York Times. Retrieved 2011-12-02.
- ^ Reynolds, Simon (2011-08-23). "The Ghost of Teen Spirit".Slate. Retrieved 2011-12-16.
- ^ Horgan, Colin (2011-09-13). "Grunge revival shows rock'n'roll is not dead – just tired". The Guardian. Retrieved 2011-11-05.
- ^ "The Sound of a Generation". NPR. 2008-06-05. Retrieved 2011-11-02.
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- ^ Sarah Perez. "Your "Real" Friends are Your Online Friends (or so Says Gen Y)".
- ^ "City-Loving Millennials: Are They Born That Way? | New Jersey Future". Njfuture.org. Retrieved 2011-11-02.
- ^ Junco, Reynol; Mastrodicasa, Jeanna (2007). Connecting to the Net.Generation: What Higher Education Professionals Need to Know About Today's Students. National Association of Student Personnel Administrators. ISBN 0931654483.
- ^ Berk, Ronald A. (2009). "How Do You Leverage the Latest Technologies, including Web 2.0 Tools, in Your Classroom?".International Journal of Technology in Teaching and Learning 6(1): 4. Retrieved 2010-09-29.
- ^ Nielsen. "How Teens Use Media - A Nielsen report on the myths and realities of teen media trends (2009)" (2009)
- ^ Cabral, J. (2010). Is Generation Y Addicted to Social Media. The Elon Journal of Undergraduate Research in Communication, 2(1), 5-13.
- ^ "Coming of Age in Cyberspace". The New York Times. 2007-09-24. Retrieved 2010-04-02. "the logic of setting established traditionalism against a youth counterculture has collapsed with our generation. But that does not mean we have lost the will to make change"
- ^ Howe, Neil, Strauss, William Millennials Rising: The Next Great Generation, p. 352.
- ^ Cannon, Stephen (2010-08-24). "When Gen Y Speaks, Boomers Must Listen". Huffington Post. Retrieved 2011-09-13.
- ^ Deresiewics, William (2011-11-12). "Generation Sell". New York Times. Retrieved 2011-12-03.
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Categories:A Portrait of "Generation Next"
How Young People View Their Lives, Futures and Politics
SUMMARY OF FINDINGSThis is part of a Pew Research Center series of reports exploring the behaviors, values and opinions of the teens and twenty-somethings that make up the Millennial Generation.A new generation has come of age, shaped by an unprecedented revolution in technology and dramatic events both at home and abroad. They are Generation Next, the cohort of young adults who have grown up with personal computers, cell phones and the internet and are now taking their place in a world where the only constant is rapid change.
In reassuring ways, the generation that came of age in the shadow of Sept. 11 shares the characteristics of other generations of young adults. They are generally happy with their lives and optimistic about their futures. Moreover, Gen Nexters feel that educational and job opportunities are better for them today than for the previous generation. At the same time, many of their attitudes and priorities reflect a limited set of life experiences. Marriage, children and an established career remain in the future for most of those in Generation Next.
More than two-thirds see their generation as unique and distinct, yet not all self-evaluations are positive. A majority says that "getting rich" is the main goal of most people in their age group, and large majorities believe that casual sex, binge drinking, illegal drug use and violence are more prevalent among young people today than was the case 20 years ago.
In their political outlook, they are the most tolerant of any generation on social issues such as immigration, race and homosexuality. They are also much more likely to identify with the Democratic Party than was the preceding generation of young people, which could reshape politics in the years ahead. Yet the evidence is mixed as to whether the current generation of young Americans will be any more engaged in the nation's civic life than were young people in the past, potentially blunting their political impact.
This report takes stock of this new generation. It explores their outlook, their lifestyle and their politics. Because the boundaries that separate generations are indistinct, the definition of Generation Next and other generational groups mentioned in this report are necessarily approximate. For analysis purposes, Generation Next includes those Americans between the ages of 18 and 25 years old.
Meet Generation Next:
- They use technology and the internet to connect with people in new and distinctive ways. Text messaging, instant messaging and email keep them in constant contact with friends. About half say they sent or received a text message over the phone in the past day, approximately double the proportion of those ages 26-40.
- They are the "Look at Me" generation. Social networking sites like Facebook, MySpace and MyYearbook allow individuals to post a personal profile complete with photos and descriptions of interests and hobbies. A majority of Gen Nexters have used one of these social networking sites, and more than four-in-ten have created a personal profile.
- Their embrace of new technology has made them uniquely aware of its advantages and disadvantages. They are more likely than older adults to say these cyber-tools make it easier for them to make new friends and help them to stay close to old friends and family. But more than eight-in-ten also acknowledge that these tools "make people lazier."
- About half of Gen Nexters say the growing number of immigrants to the U.S. strengthens the country more than any generation. And they also lead the way in their support for gay marriage and acceptance of interracial dating.
- Beyond these social issues, their views defy easy categorization. For example, Generation Next is less critical of government regulation of business but also less critical of business itself. And they are the most likely of any generation to support privatization of the Social Security system.
- They maintain close contact with parents and family. Roughly eight-in-ten say they talked to their parents in the past day. Nearly three-in-four see their parents at least once a week, and half say they see their parents daily. One reason: money. About three-quarters of Gen Nexters say their parents have helped them financially in the past year.
- Their parents may not always be pleased by what they see on those visits home: About half of Gen Nexters say they have either gotten a tattoo, dyed their hair an untraditional color, or had a body piercing in a place other than their ear lobe. The most popular are tattoos, which decorate the bodies of more than a third of these young adults.
- One-in-five members of Generation Next say they have no religious affiliation or are atheist or agnostic, nearly double the proportion of young people who said that in the late 1980s. And just 4% of Gen Nexters say people in their generation view becoming more spiritual as their most important goal in life.
- They are somewhat more interested in keeping up with politics and national affairs than were young people a generation ago. Still, only a third say they follow what's going on in government and public affairs "most of the time."
- In Pew surveys in 2006, nearly half of young people (48%) identified more with the Democratic Party, while just 35% affiliated more with the GOP. This makes Generation Next the least Republican generation.
- Voter turnout among young people increased significantly between 2000 and 2004, interrupting a decades-long decline in turnout among the young. Nonetheless, most members of Generation Next feel removed from the political process. Only about four-in-ten agree with the statement: "It's my duty as a citizen to always vote."
- They are significantly less cynical about government and political leaders than are other Americans or the previous generation of young people. A majority of Americans agree with the statement: "When something is run by the government, it is usually inefficient and wasteful," but most Generation Nexters reject this idea.
- Their heroes are close and familiar. When asked to name someone they admire, they are twice as likely as older Americans to name a family member, teacher, or mentor. Moreover, roughly twice as many young people say they most admire an entertainer rather than a political leader.
- They are more comfortable with globalization and new ways of doing work. They are the most likely of any age group to say that automation, the outsourcing of jobs, and the growing number of immigrants have helped and not hurt American workers.
- Asked about the life goals of those in their age group, most Gen Nexters say their generation's top goals are fortune and fame. Roughly eight-in-ten say people in their generation think getting rich is either the most important, or second most important, goal in their lives. About half say that becoming famous also is valued highly by fellow Gen Nexters.This report is drawn from a broad array of Pew Research Center polling data. The main survey was conducted Sept. 6-Oct. 2, 2006 among 1,501 adults including 579 people ages 18-25. In addition, the report includes extensive generational analysis of Pew Research Center surveys dating back to 1987.
Much of the analysis deals with comparisons among the four existing adult generations. For purposes of this report, Generation Next is made up of 18-25 year-olds (born between 1981 and 1988). Generation X was born between 1966 and 1980 and ranges in age from 26-40. The Baby Boom generation, born between 1946 and 1964, ranges in age from 41-60. Finally, those over age 60 (born before 1946) are called the Seniors. These generational breaks are somewhat arbitrary but are roughly comparable to those used by other scholars and researchers.
The report is divided into four main sections: (1) Outlook and World View, (2) Technology and Lifestyle, (3) Politics and Policy, and (4) Values and Social Issues.
http://www.people-press.org/2007/01/09/a-portrait-of-generation-next/
05 MARCH 2010
Top 10 Hollywood soundtracks that I love to hear again and again!
1. Batman Begins
A fusion of Orchestra and Electronic music, this track was composed by Hans Zimmer. Music is exceptional and this one dominates them all, the chase sequence my god is just mind-blowing!
2. Navras- Matrix Revolutions
The beginning of the song itself amazes me, lyrics are from Brhadaranyaka Upanisad. The mantras are recited over an electronic beat and boy I fell in love instantly with the song, must listen! Composed by Don Davis and Juno Reactor
3. Mortal Kombat
Choose you Destiny.. tataataa.. its a pretty old track, of the nineties but an instant hit. Yes its again electronic but tell me how many of you used to hum this piece! We grew up with it, I certainly did!
4. Saw theme
The very first impression of the song shall remind you the gory scenes of the film! Saw: "Hello Zepp", "Zepp Overture" was composed by Charlie Clouse. Its again an orchestra but an apt one for the film.
5. Mission Impossible
Nineties music just seems to dominate my top 10 list and no surprises with the Mission Impossible Theme by Danny Elfman. It was played at almost all the occasions that I can possibly recollect :D
6. Terminator
The one and only film that comes to my mind when you talk about Arnold Alois Schwarzenegger is Terminator, what follows is the theme! Danny Elfman again and yes it takes you even more further into the history lanes-1984!
7. Die Another Day
I dint know who Madonna was until I came across this masterpiece! The single spent 11 weeks at number one on the United States Billboard Singles Sales Charts and is her most successful title on the sales chart to date. Die Another Day was the most successful Bond theme-song since the 1980s
8. The Fast and Furious - Tokyo Drift
Fast and Furious is known for its soundtracks besides Cars! ;)
Mustang Nismo (Feat. Slash) by Brian Tyler topped my iPods 'Most Played' playlist many a times! Its full of energy and adrenaline and what more can you ask for! Rock at its Best!!!
9. District 13/Banlieue 13
I never knew that it had an equally interesting background score until I've been to the film. Though not famous the troupe Octopus did a fantastic job! I have all the soundtracks of the film now, why wouldn't I , afterall its Electronic! :P
10. Transformers and Pirates of Carribean
Sorry, I wasn't able pick one among these coz both of them are my favorites, What I've Done by Linkin park just had to be on my list and so was the POC theme, Hans Zimmer appears yet again! :)
Well I'm done for now, so what about you? Do share your top 10 list with me!
Posted by VeNoM at Friday, March 05, 2010 0 comments
Labels: Entertainment, Youngistan Specials
02 JANUARY 2010
Five Hollywood Flicks that made my '09
1. Avatar
Well without a second thought, this obviously had to be just there on top for one profound reason-Fantasy surpassing Reality!
A whopping $232 million in the first week and gaining the 26th place on imdb are just 'few' of the records to name. Taking animation to a whole new level, it has set a benchmark by winning the hearts of the anime-appetites.
Just as James admits this was 'the perfect' time for the movie-2009, people wanted a change, they wanted a more realistic sci-fi and boy wasn't that a super cool awesome Christmas-New Year Gift!
He might well land up with another Oscar, I hope so!
2 .District 9
If I were to go with the plot and the script this definitely had to be on my chart. The whole new idea of pulling off the stranded aliens from District 9 of Jo-Burg is more than impressive. The action of Sharlto Copley was just incredible-din't he make u cry? For me the best part of the movie has been the climax, both Avatar and District 9 share a theme of 'Mankind suppressing Aliens'. It was a welcome change and it might be one of the reasons for the movie to make a revenue of six times the budget!
3. Inglorious Basterds
Quentin Tarantino had proved once again as why he is one of the most admired directors of Hollywood Cinema. As with the most of Tarantino's movies Inglorious too had a remarkable screenplay and the plot with the Brad Pitt's action along with others is just an icing on the cake!
If you love history especially the World War II then you definitely must go for this top #68th imdb film!
4. The Hangover
You might ask me as why I have chosen Hangover besides Transformers/Terminator/FnF but if you are looking for some serious comedy ,entertainment then this is 'the choice of 09'. It just redefined the word 'Hangover'. How many of you felt so?
Really worth your money and hence it sits on 8 star[imdb]
5. Up
No list ever ends without a Pixar movie eh? They made History with Wall-E, Finding Nemo, The Incredibles and this year was no different. If u have the appetite for Animation then Up( # 70 on imdb) is just up for you!!
I wanted to post five and I did, but just in case if u want five more then they can be Tranformers-Revenge of the Fallen,Angels and Demons, X-men Wolverine, Terminator Salvation, 2012 :D
So whats your list of Fav Five, write a comment, share it with us! :)
http://youngistan.blogspot.com/
Penalised for being young, we have every right to feel apathetic
by Laurie Penny
April 8, 2010 at 12:53 am
Somewhere in all the fuss and rigmarole of the launch of the central party tour buses, the government has just rushed through a bill called the Town and Country Planning (Use Classes) Order 2010.
No, it hasn't made the headlines, and probably wouldn't have done so even if it weren't Election Announcement Week, because it's a very, very boring bill. I know, because I've just read it.
In between interminable sub-clauses concerning what types of building may or may not be used to store maggot-infested meat is a slippery little snippet of legislation creating a new dwelling category, 'Houses with Multiple Occupants'
Which means that any three or more unrelated adults living together now constitute a legally separate form of household, requiring separate planning permission and separate housing administration.
Sounds like an everyday piece of wearisome local-government wrangling, but let's be paranoid for a second and ask ourselves: who is this set to target?
The practical effect of the legislation will be this: if you're a student, on a low income, a lodger in a landlord's home, a migrant worker, or if you simply want to share a flat with more than one friend who you don't happen to be fucking, any landlord offering to rent you a property will have to go to the expensive beauraucratic nightmare of obtaining planning permission.
Even if you can find a landlord willing to take on the hassle, the local council will be able to decide whether allowing house shares will fit in with their "development plan" for your local area – a scheme that has already been test-driven in Loughborough.
The number of properties available for people wishing to flatshare will inevitably decrease, rents will rise, overcrowding will worsen, and many of us will simply be unable to afford to live in large towns and cities.
Is this a targeted attack on young people? Let's have a little look at the Manchester City Council briefingon the new legislation:
Problems caused by high concentrations of Houses in Multiple Occupantion (HMOs) have become an issue in a number of towns and cities across the country. High concentrations can have a detrimental effect on the local environment as well as impacts on social cohesion and services within an area. Manchester, along with other local authorities, has lobbied the government for greater planning powers to be able to tackle these problems.
Manchester and other councils evidently consider people living in houseshares – students, migrants and young adults – to 'have a detrimental effect on the local environment'. They don't like our sort, you see. Not only are we feckless enough to want somewhere to live, we have the temerity to use actual services. The bloody cheek of it.
I've lived in communal housing for three years, and yes, it's very different from Friends. But there's no alternative; and the makeshift communes of the 21st-century have produced, rather charmingly, some of the most radical ideas and creative projects that Europe and America have seen in decades.
I suspected that I was a socialist before I started living communally with other young, poor somethings trying to build lives. Now, I know for sure. My housing arrangements are a significant part of my wanky online bio for the simple reason that they have a sincere effect on my politics.
Right now, I pay half my meagre salary to live in a room the size of a normal person's toilet (we suspect it used to be a toilet before a dodgy landlord modded the place) in an overcrowded houseshare in inner London, the fourth such houseshare I've lived in since moving here in 2007.
Nobody does enough washing up, everyone gets on each other's nerves, and we all have to pretend not to hear each other's shagging sounds through the paper-thin walls.
We are also family. We play music together, cook together, discuss politics, write together, share smokes and paperbacks and ideas. We may not be related, but we're enough of a family to have agreed to put up a sign in the window endorsing the Liberal Democrats, and we are voters too.
As far as me and my housemates are concerned, we're sitting here waiting for an election, when what we need is a revolution. Not the revolution, the rapture for socialists and dreamers, the big change that's always coming over the hill, the revolution, the kind there's only ever one of.
I'm talking about the sort of quiet, radical upheaval that follows in the wake of social agitation and gets things done. The sort of unravelling that prevents the authorities from lashing out at the poor, the young and the disposessed. I'm talking about everyday revolution, revolution I can grab with my hands and show to my friends. I want it so much I can almost taste it.
Looking at these three grinning hairdos, it's painfully obvious that none of them will bring that revolution, even though all three are so frantic to repeat the word 'change' that I keep expecting one of them to voice his desire for the Queen to appoint him Britain's first African-American Prime Minister.
Two days into the big push, and I can't persuade myself to feel anything but irritated over this election. Can we have some revolution now, please?
---------------------------
About the author
Laurie Penny is a regular contributor to Liberal Conspiracy. She is a journalist, blogger and feminist activist. She is Features Assistant at the Morning Star, and blogs at Penny Red and for Red Pepper magazine.
· Other posts by Laurie Penny
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Reader comments
1:26 am, April 8, 2010
1. SRA
This is fantastic stuff! Glad to see someone from 'my generation' write at length about this stuff in a genuinely critical and thoughtful way. More of the same please!
1:58 am, April 8, 2010
2. George W Potter
Absolutely brilliant article. I'm moving into a household of they type you described this summer (due to limited accommodation on campus) and I had no idea about this bill. I know exactly what you mean and I just wish there was something I could do about it other than casting my vote (which, in all honesty, has very, very little impact).
2:16 am, April 8, 2010
3. JSlayerUK
"Looking at these three grinning hairdos, it's painfully obvious that none of them will bring that revolution, even though all three are so frantic to repeat the word 'change' that I keep expecting one of them to voice his desire for the Queen to appoint him Britain's first African-American Prime Minister."
A+, would LOL again.
2:38 am, April 8, 2010
4. tim f
This wasn't hidden, back in January this section of the bill was highlighted and proudly trumpeted by the government. It got a positive write-up here at liberal conspiracy too: Don Paskini showed how it was the result of grassroots pressure from ordinary Labour activists. http://liberalconspiracy.org/2010/01/29/the-fruits-of-people-power/
Put simply, we want proper housing, not HMOs springing up all over the place.
2:50 am, April 8, 2010
5. Sunny H
Its a good rant, but I'm afraid there's two reasons why I think it's a bit naive.
First, the more apathetic young people get the more likely they are to be ignored. Of course 'Generation Y' could collectively sulk and demand people pay attention to them or they won't – but there are too many other groups vying for attention for the youngsters to be paid special attention.
Look at the campaigning in the US in contrast. They have big registration drives there aimed at young people. Those people are politicised, they get registered and then politicians have to listen. It happened with Obama – they supported him and as a result he paid more attention to them and courted that vote.
Its chicken and egg. If this Generation Y want to be listened, then your answer is registration drives and active campaigning on issues.
Secondly, I'm not sure what revolution you want. Are you really expecting one? And I don't even mean that rhetorically – even if you really wanted a revolution then you have to show majority public opinion in that direction.
What I mean is, many people want a revolution on an area that say about 10-20% of the population may support. That's not good enough. You need about 60% support. And then a strategically targeted campaign. Who said a representative democracy is easy?
At least pray we are not in the US where everything is in deadlock thanks to hyper-partisan bickering.
2:52 am, April 8, 2010
6. Sunny H
And tim f confirms my point.
A section of the population got organised and made themselves heard. Eventually, the govt listened.
Another section of the population gets annoyed they are not heard, and instead of getting organised they get apathetic and tune out. And they complain about it but don't get organised and do anything about.
Guess which one is going to win.
3:23 am, April 8, 2010
7. Joshua Mostafa
As I see it, the two problems are:
1. Rents are too expensive
2. Landlords are cramming too many people into houses
Both of these are symptoms of a (state-enforced) concept of private property that allows people to own far more (houses, land, etc) than they can personally use. This is the underlying problem.
Real solutions to this problem would require a more fundamental shift than the "everyday revolution" the OP suggests. But that doesn't mean there's nothing you can do now – it's not all or nothing.
Petitioning the government to intercede a little on behalf of the people against the obscene logic of capital is the liberal / social democratic answer, and while certainly worthwhile, and better than nothing, does not solve the problem. There is a false dichotomy here – whine and do nothing, or ask nicely and hope someone listens.
The OP's glib characterisation of radical politics as similar to "the rapture" is annoying, and feeds into the apathetic discourse that paints serious change as impossible utopia. Quiet, radical upheaval is already happening. Why not quit whining and get involved? http://www.radicalroutes.org.uk/
3:25 am, April 8, 2010
8. Simon Mair
@5
"The more apathetic young people get the more likely they are to be ignored"
You're right Sunny; this is chicken and egg – which came first? I'm willing to bet it was ignoring us. By our very definition we aren't experienced activists. It's very hard to make yourself heard whilst learning to talk.
3:32 am, April 8, 2010
9. Sunny H
I'm willing to bet it was ignoring us. By our very definition we aren't experienced activists.
Possibly. Though the youth have always been ignored in society by virtue of the fact that they were never that politically active. So now we have a generation that wants more. Great. But how do you plan to get more power? Complaining will only go so far.
Joshua, while being more radical, offers some routes. That suggests a way forward I'd say. Join these groups. Organise. Campaign. Get strategic. What's the point of doing politics otherwise?
4:14 am, April 8, 2010
10. Nick
Going to get ridiculous when they try to enforce that.
7:14 am, April 8, 2010
11. Hugo
I flagged this up in November: http://www.cuca.org.uk/2009/11/02/deregulation/
Regulations almost always end up hurting the little guy.
7:17 am, April 8, 2010
12. mel
well i live and work within the catchment area of students mentioned (loughborough ) and i can tell you its much improved since the new system .
for anyone who has to live by the standards imposed on everyday working persons ( bed before midnight, up at six to work etc etc ) we find we can actually DO that now, not have to listen to the constant blasts from people who only have two lectures a week partying like they don't care ( and indeed they don't )
middle class wankers slumming it for a couple of years at uni make me laugh, forget your "gender awareness workshops " and try getting up at six to go work in a real workshop for a week .
of course tho, if mummy and daddy live out in the stockbroker belt you can always get away from the party lifestyle for a rest and battery recharge, us poor proles only get two months off from it in the summer………..
7:33 am, April 8, 2010
13. blanco
quiet, radical upheaval
Upheavals are never quiet, especially not radical ones.
Laurie, this is all well and good, but it just comes across as complaining about the plight you've chosen to put yourself in without saying what kind of 'revolution' it is you want to see happen, or how it would come about. You criticise the party leaders for talking about 'change' but a "quiet upheaval" sounds like 'change' to me.
And yes, given your background, you really have chosen this life for yourself, which is fine but please stop wearing it as some kind of badge of credibility, because it grants you none – you can tell us how horrible it is to live in the shit, but there are people out there who, unlike yourself, really had no choice about. You're just rubbing your chosen poverty in our faces in an attempt to make yourself look cool. There's no credibility, honour or cleverness in that. It just makes you look fake and desperate to seem relevant, despite your Oxford degree. There is no shame in having a comfortable lifestyle, and if you feel in every post here you need to remind us of the dire personal circumstances you have imposed on yourself to make your arguments work, then you are probably making the wrong arguments.
8:18 am, April 8, 2010
14. Gwyn
"As far as me and my housemates are concerned"
Hang on, what the fuck is this, Penny? Who taught you grammar? Go stand in the corner.
On topic, it's very strange that all three parties are campaigning for an election that could go either way, yet none of them have any policies beyond fixing the economy (which will, let's be honest, fix itself in two years' time) and a vague, hand-wavey notion of healing society.
There's strikes everywhere, and no party wants to be on their side. There's millions of agency temp workers with no rights, and nobody wants to know. There are so many votes out there that would have gone to anyone who showed the slightest interest, but now it's too late to be convincing.
8:19 am, April 8, 2010
15. astateofdenmark
So when the council busybody comes round, you just say I'm fucking one or more of the other occupants. Council busybody fucks off.
8:22 am, April 8, 2010
16. blanco
To be fair, it has been a very long time since Labour was on the side of strikers. Even in the 80s, Kinnock hated Scargill, and still does:
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/davidhughes/9193687/Kinnock_and_Scargill__how_the_feud_began/
8:39 am, April 8, 2010
17. cjcjc
@4 – indeed.
I thought the point of this legislation was in part to prevent "exploitation" of the sort Laurie is complaining about?
Earth to Laurie – "inner London" is crowded and expensive. There are other places to live or, with your qualifications, better paying jobs to go for.
8:53 am, April 8, 2010
18. Tim Worstall
Strange laws about HMOs are hardly new. 5, 6 years ago they had an impact on me.
I have a flat in Bath. What were once single occupancy Gerogian homes have, over the past century or so, been split up into flats, usually one per floor. This seems a pretty reasonable use of what is, after all, a World Heritage Site.
So, one building, six floors (basement to attic) and six flats. The definition of whether it was an HMO or not was whether the majority (ie, 4 out of 6) were rented rather than owner occupied. If so then much more restrictive rules about the internal design were applied. For example, in the galley kitchen, a certain minimum amount of preparation space was demanded. Further, what had been windows allowing some natural light to enter said galley kitchen through the intervening room must be sealed up with fireproof material. The kitchen door must be a self sealing door (on a riser).
Such rules applied to all flats in the building if 4 out of 6 were rented. If three out of six were owner occupied then they were not in any.
Now whether these are good or bad trules is entirely not what I'm talking about. Rather, only to point out that there's nothing new about such odd rules applying to HMOs nor anything new about slightly odd descriptions of what makes an HMO.
9:20 am, April 8, 2010
19. Trofim
How about Hartlepool? You can rent a three-bedroom house with a nice garden, within easy reach of wonderful countryside for the price of a one-bedroom flat in Hackney. Quality of life hugely better.
But further afield, the glory of globalisation and free movement is that not only has it enabled us to obtain superior workforce from the EU, and the rest of the world, but you can live elsewhere in the EU very easily.
But you yourself, Laurie Penny, I believe are very much in favour of immigration. Last time I looked, around over 2 million non-Brits have come to London in the past 15 years. If they come to live in London, then you either build dwellings in London to house them, or Londoners have got to go elsewhere to make room for them, which they have been doing steadily for the past couple of decades.
9:22 am, April 8, 2010
20. Trofim
Forgot to add: the third alternative is that London just becomes ever more crowded. There's plenty of room for new dwellings on Hampstead Heath, isn't there? It's not as though it's used for anything useful.
9:36 am, April 8, 2010
21. donpaskini
Probably the first article of yours that I absolutely and totally disagree with.
"Right now, I pay half my meagre salary to live in a room the size of a normal person's toilet (we suspect it used to be a toilet before a dodgy landlord modded the place) in an overcrowded houseshare in inner London, the fourth such houseshare I've lived in since moving here in 2007."
And this is the system you are defending?
How's about a really radical idea – people shouldn't be allowed to make a fortune by buying up lots of properties, renting them out when they are in an appalling condition, exploiting their tenants, and making life a misery for longer term residents.
High concentrations of unregulated multiple occupation housing can obviously have a negative impact on an area. People affected tend to blame the students, migrants, and others who tend to live in multiple occupation housing.
What is really positive about this legislation is that instead of kicking the victims, it puts extra duties and responsibilities on the wealthy people who are causing the problem – the landlords who have 12 or more migrants crammed into one of their properties, the ones who just use their property to make money and let it turn into a slum, the ones who do nothing when their tenants have problems which need sorting out. And as Sunny and Tim pointed out, this legislation came about from grassroots pressure – long term residents working together with tenants, getting the support of good landlords, persuading the government to regulate a group of people who got filthy rich under Blair.
This is something to celebrate, not criticise. The revolution won't come by sticking up for the rich and powerful.
9:45 am, April 8, 2010
22. Laurie Penny
But Don, there's no language anywhere in the bill or the rhetoric surrounding it that suggests this is meant to protect young people and those in vulnerable housing. It's about preventing more shared homes from being built – but where is the alternative? Where are we supposed to live?
Of course I don't like living in a bedroom that used to be a toilet. How silly of me! I'll just move into a flat on my own, then, shall I? – Or not, because I need some sort of shared living arrangement to be able to afford to live near my job. And that's not going to get any easier unless someone actually decides to build some more houses.
Of course landlords cramming people into slums is a problem. I really, really do know. I've lived in rat-infested holes for the last 3 years, and it wasn't nice, but it was necessary. And just getting rid of HMOs isn't going to make it any easier for us, in the long term.
9:49 am, April 8, 2010
23. Gwyn
blanco@16
Forgive my poor use of language. I don't think any party should blindly support strikers for the sake of them striking. Striking isn't appropriate in every case.
What I meant to say is that, were I a politician in search of votes, I'd be focusing at least some energy on convincing disillusioned or unfairly-treated workers that I was their man. Those votes are like armfuls of low-hanging fruit waiting to be picked – why doesn't anyone want them?
Not one leader has entertained the possibility that Willie Walsh is being disingenuous or opportunistic, and all seem to agree that what's good for Willie is good for cabin crew staff. We don't know if it's true or not, but that's why you ask such questions. The parties are meant to be in opposition, but nobody's actually doing any opposing. That's weird, right?
9:54 am, April 8, 2010
24. Paul
Yes, I'm with Don P and Tim F squarely on this one. I've supported the lobby for this new legislation in my own area for the very reasons they identify, and see it as requiring landlords to provide decent accommodation in time, not as getting at young people. As Don says, this is important in areas like mine not least because quite small houses have been stuffed to the gills with exploited migrant workers working the fields in the surrounding growing areas.
9:56 am, April 8, 2010
25. Tom
Lots of films end with a revolution; it's an easy romantic idea that taps into peoples fantasies about rejecting everything that they see as wrong in the world. But they end with it so they don't have to show what happens next. Revolutions (while, admittedly, sometimes neccesary in the face of horrific human suffering) are bloody, dangerous affairs.
Useful, meaningful and constructive change always comes slowly – like building a house brick by brick – try to intigate change too fast and you can quickly lose control and end up with dictatorships and all kinds of shit… i'm not an expert on the subject so I welcome correction, but I can't really think of any happy revolutions (admittedly some consider the american war of independence a revolution rather than a war).
It's a lovely idea – for a group of middle class revolutionaries with plenty of food, education, TVs and ipods to rise up against their hardship and make a utopia – but I fear you may have watched your DVD box set of Star Wars a few too many times.
10:05 am, April 8, 2010
26. Dunc
How's about a really radical idea – people shouldn't be allowed to make a fortune by buying up lots of properties, renting them out when they are in an appalling condition, exploiting their tenants, and making life a misery for longer term residents.
It's a marvellous idea, but do we really imagine that those landlords are going to see the error of their ways and accept the hit to their bottom line? Or are they going to respond to these changes by screwing their tenants even more?
Living in someone's broom cupboard is far from ideal, but it beats sleeping under a bridge. Sure, we'd all love it if there was a sufficient supply of affordable housing, but there simply isn't. Last time I was living in an overcrowded flat, the landlords knew nothing about it. We lived like that not because some evil top-hatted capitalist forced us to, but because it was the only way we could afford to keep a roof over our collective heads whilst living somewhere where we could all find work. And it was still a hell of a lot better than the conditions my parents grew up in…
10:12 am, April 8, 2010
27. Jonn
Surely the problem is that the only real solution to the housing crisis is to build a lot more housing in London and the south east.
This would bring down rents and plug the shortages.
But it would also get a lot of NIMBYs up in arms and probably bring down the house prices on which we've built most of the last 15 years of economic growth, so it's little wonder that no party is even looking at this issue.
10:20 am, April 8, 2010
28. Tim Worstall
"Surely the problem is that the only real solution to the housing crisis is to build a lot more housing in London and the south east."
Not quite. The production cost of housing in the SE is not defined by the cost of building it. That's the same as it is in Manchester or Hartlepool. It's the cost of getting permission to build upon land in the SE.
Thus to reduce the price of housing in the SE it is necessary to reduce the cost of such planning permission….and economics 101 gives us the answer there. Grant more such planning applications to increase supply of land that you can build on.
10:28 am, April 8, 2010
29. Jonn
@28 Er… yes. That doesn't really contradict what I was saying, it's just a more detailed version of the same point.
I haven't seen many politicians clamouring to use more land for house-building. Politics 101 suggests this is because the people who already own houses have more votes than the ones who might one day move into the area. So, planning rules stay the same and demand continues to exceed supply.
10:29 am, April 8, 2010
30. donpaskini
Hi Laurie,
I do agree on building more homes, but a solution to the problem requires both more homes and higher standards.
Problem is, if you build more homes without any extra regulation, what will happen is that the buy to let landlords will buy them up, either to rent out at the maximum profit or just to leave empty in the hope of rising property values. Net effect – no benefit to people in our position, more profits for the already rich.
The lack of planning permission for HMOs also contributes to rising house prices. Someone bidding for a 3 bedroom house who intends to have 12 people all paying him rent for the dubious pleasure of living there is always going to be able to outbid a family on medium incomes – this is one of the things driving up prices and making alternatives to multiple occupation living unaffordable.
I just don't think it is necessary to have a system where landlords cram people into slums. Many landlords do look after their tenants and do provide things like shared amenity space, rather than e.g. coverting the living room into another bedroom to make more money. They still make a decent return on their investment without charging more to their tenants than the slum landlords. It is a strange feature of our system where the ones which extract the maximum rent for the minimum service are the ones who profit most, but this isn't inevitable.
This legislation is a small step, but it is a step in the right direction. Personally, I'd like to see an option where the right to buy is extended to private tenants, so that tenants could club together to buy homes off their landlord, with a government funded discount. Technically difficult, but that really would make a difference.
10:33 am, April 8, 2010
31. donpaskini
"It's a marvellous idea, but do we really imagine that those landlords are going to see the error of their ways and accept the hit to their bottom line? Or are they going to respond to these changes by screwing their tenants even more?"
Many landlords do treat their tenants well.
Another idea which would be very popular and effective would be to massively ramp up the penalties for bad landlords who screw over their tenants or who let their property become a slum. Bigger fines to be spent on improvements to local services, time in prison, and confiscation of their homes in the worst cases – I believe the legislation is probably already in place and it would quickly lead to some very positive behavioural change.
10:35 am, April 8, 2010
32. Joshua Mostafa
That "strange feature" is a symptom of capitalism generally though, isn't it? Regulation is necessary, but not much of a solution. It raises that minimum but the forces act the same way. Landlords will always try to find loopholes.
How about instead of a private right to buy, genuine housing cooperatives where the people who live there hold the living space in common? (See my link above…)
10:35 am, April 8, 2010
33. Tim Worstall
"I do agree on building more homes, but a solution to the problem requires both more homes and higher standards."
Eh? Higher standards makes houses more expensive. Must do.
10:37 am, April 8, 2010
34. Kojak
Unfortunately, as the UK's pensions system is kaput, retaining a second property for rental is a route that many middle aged families decide to follow. They are not Rachman's or slum landlords, merely people who used the capital from their first properties (flats usually) to move to a house when the kids come along.
They make up a considerable portion of the rental market and to characterize it only as slum landlords v opressed tenants is a bit naive.
Having said that, I know a few Eastern European builders who, having set up here early on, have bought properties and packed them solid with newer immigrants who spend their waking hours either building/repairing large houses for affluent property owners or working in the low paid service industries. But, that's just the tough path immigrants know the world over.
As far as HMOs and students are concerned I can understand the deleterious effect they can have on an area. I shudder when I look back at the lack of consideration I had towards my neighbours all those years ago – especially now when I hear the noise coming from the other side of the party wall as the 'kids' in the 'Animal House' next door start playing with their Wii.
10:41 am, April 8, 2010
35. Chris
Laurie – It's not about stopping HMOs from being built, it's about stopping landlords buying up housing in a certain areas and destroying the community by converting it all into HMOs for a transient population. Manchester and Leeds City Councils have both approved huge student focussed blocks of flats (for more than two residents) over the last five years, and will probably approve scores more in the next five (as it's the other part of the construction industry still active in the northern cities). HMOs are clearly being built.
What they're trying to prevent is the current situation getting worse. Large tracts of what could be prime family housing in these cities are dominated by a socially irresponsibly term time community completely disengaged from the civic life. The councils want to see a return of family housing to family use; but landlords can price most people who might see areas like Hyde Park or Withington as a good deal out of the market; and once the students move in everyone else who can moves out.
I've been in your situation (and I might be in it again soon enough) so I sympathise with it, but London is not typical and what's 'good' for the reatively minor slice of the population you represent is not good for most of the country. I agree there does need to be better provision of housing for young people in London, but if the current situation is so inadequate then surely the correct campaigning focus would be the private lettings market; and not defending a policy that is making beggars of other cities.
10:46 am, April 8, 2010
36. donpaskini
"Higher standards makes houses more expensive. Must do."
Yes, but the problem is not just shortage of housing, but shortage of decent quality homes. Converting most of London and suburbs of university towns into slums would increase the supply of housing, but it is still not a desirable policy aim.
10:50 am, April 8, 2010
37. bluepillnation
@34
That's funny, because when we were students living in shared accommodation in London, we made sure we *always* got the OK from the neighbours if we were going to have a noisy gathering and tried to be as courteous as possible.
I think this is one of those "suck it and see" things, in that I can see both sides of the argument. I'm amused by the comments that seem primed to veer into "Four Yorkshiremen" territory shortly though.
10:50 am, April 8, 2010
38. Tim Worstall
"Converting most of London and suburbs of university towns into slums would increase the supply of housing, but it is still not a desirable policy aim."
Forgive me if I rather object to "HMO" being taken as a synonym for "slum". Are the mansion blocks of London (Dolphin Square for example) slums? Is the centre of Bath a slum? Certainly almost all of the Georgian houses there have been converted. There's only one full house left in the Royal Cresecent and perhaps two or three in The Circus. These are slums?
Come on now, as average household size falls then clearly the current built estate is going to be sliced up into smaller units.
10:52 am, April 8, 2010
39. jungle
tim f: "Put simply, we want proper housing, not HMOs springing up all over the place."
Yes, but that is not going to be the effect of the bill: it's like attempting to tackle poverty by banning being poor. The bill doesn't provide any mechanism for provision of proper housing.
The effect of the bill will not really be that HMOs reduce in number (since given the cost of housing people need them to provide a roof over their heads), but that they become entirely illegal. As a consequence their inhabitants will have to live knowing that at any time they could be evicted, and knowing that they will have no legal redress against whatever their illegal landlord should choose to do.
This isn't actually just a young people issue: it's a fact that if you earn a below average wage in London (and a number of other cities) and don't have a partner, you must live in an HMO. There are no other realistic options. Social housing is by and large not available; as a single person if you ask the Council for support with housing you'll typically get an LHA payment and be told to find an HMO to spend it on. This affects young people, but it also affects the poor generally. In the past I've lived in HMOs containing low paid 30-somethings and in one case a pensioner.
The fact is that this legislation, if enforced, will remove the buffer (crowding poorer people into HMOs) which has so far prevented our lack of housing construction – particularly social housing – leading to illegal slum housing or mass homelessness.
10:58 am, April 8, 2010
40. donpaskini
No, not all HMOs are slums, and as I've said before many landlords actually look after their properties, treat their tenants right etc etc. This is why I just don't believe that these regulations will lead to mass homelessness etc, what will happen is that the people who find it too onerous to provide a minimum decent standard for their tenants will sell up and find other things to do with their money, and more homes will be bought (a) by people who want to live there and (b) by people who will treat their tenants better.
The current system offers maximum advantage for the people who buy a property and then do the bare minimum for their tenants and try to figure out exciting ways of screwing them out of money.
10:59 am, April 8, 2010
41. Jonn
@39: "Yes, but that is not going to be the effect of the bill: it's like attempting to tackle poverty by banning being poor."
I just wanted to requote that. Well put.
In London, if you're single, under 40 and not an investment banker, you've got basically no chance of living on your own. This bill offers no mechanism to fix that.
11:02 am, April 8, 2010
42. pagar
Well said, Laurie.
I think you're turning libertarian or anarchist or something.
Brilliant.
Ignore Sunny and Don- they'd like to control how much tomato sauce you're allowed to squirt from the bottle.
Have to say I as far as revolution is concerned, I can't detect the whiff of cordite in the air but if you'd like to set a time and place for it to start, I'll definitely be there.
11:19 am, April 8, 2010
43. tim f
#39
Well the government have committed to be building 10,000 quality council homes each year by the end of the next parliament. And over the last couple of years seem to have finally woken up to the need for quality council housing.
We seem to be rehashing debates from the late forties. Labour won the argument for the need for more housing, but the Tories wanted to build lots of cheap housing quickly. Nye Bevan, under a lot of pressure, refused and built a lot of quality council housing, but obviously he couldn't build as many as quickly as if he'd settled for less. The houses he built (at least those which are still under local control) are still some of the best council homes which exist today. Nothing but the best for the working class, as Bevan used to say.
11:36 am, April 8, 2010
44. Tom
#41
I earn a below average wage (lets say it's in the teens) and support my unemployed partner whilst living in our own flat in North London.
It's tiny and hard work – but it's not impossible.
11:37 am, April 8, 2010
45. Kojak
Bluepillnateion re: 37,
I remember telling our neighbours about parties not long before people started arriving, making lots of noise working in the early hours, and having a great time as if everyone around us enjoyed quadruple glazing. I was much better than many, but now I understand why people sold up so eagery to Mrs Kelly, a landlord who owned many properties around Manchester's Oxford Road.
Now I can hear a pin drop, so much so that I wasn't unhappy when the nearest tree along my street became infested with ants and was cut down by the council thereby depriving an early rising bird od it's pre-dawn perch.
Approx 80% of the houses along my street, including the one in which I live, have been convereted into HMOs and every month some buggers will innocently move in and have a house-warming party which lasts untill the early hours. 11 months and 3 1/2 weeks later they'll have a leaving party just before the next lot move in and repeat the cycle. Only nowadays none of them give warning as they think, correctly I suppose, it goes with the territory.
11:48 am, April 8, 2010
46. the a&e charge nurse
[42] "Ignore Sunny and Don- they'd like to control how much tomato sauce you're allowed to squirt from the bottle" – or even the size of chips apparently?
http://www.thedailymash.co.uk/news/society/brown-now-dicking-about-with-fish-and-chips-201003042527/
11:48 am, April 8, 2010
47. Dunc
Can I just re-iterate that the last time I was living in an HMO, the landlords thought there were about half as many people living there as there actually were, and that if they'd found out the truth, we'd all have been out on the street? High occupancy is not always a result of landlords exploiting tenants – it's frequently a result of people taking in homeless friends, or people on low incomes having to split the rent more ways than the lease allows.
What else were we supposed to do? Seriously, I'd really like to know.
11:59 am, April 8, 2010
48. Jonn
@44 Do you rent or own? If the latter, when did you buy?
12:02 pm, April 8, 2010
49. Laurie Penny
@47 precisely. I was in exactly the same situation last year, and still am (I'm living in what's technically supposed to be the cupboard).
12:21 pm, April 8, 2010
50. donpaskini
Worth noting that Shelter supports greater regulation of private renting, along with a range of other good policy ideas:
http://england.shelter.org.uk/news/march_2010/spotlight_on_private_renting
http://england.shelter.org.uk/housing_issues/Improving_private_renting
12:33 pm, April 8, 2010
51. donpaskini
"What else were we supposed to do? Seriously, I'd really like to know."
What you did – take in homeless friends and split the rent. And in the longer term, support efforts to make sure people aren't forced into this situation.
The current system is desperately failing people, and according to anti-homelessness campaigners, the solution involves a mix of increasing supply of homes and regulating the private rented sector. This legislation isn't a panacea, but it is part of the solution, not part of the problem.
12:40 pm, April 8, 2010
52. cjcjc
If the problem is one of supply – which surely it is – then it's unclear how increased regulation is going to help.
Rather it will increase costs or reduce supply or some combination of the two.
Of course, there's no point in observing that the UK's population growth might not be quite as sustainable as commenters on other threads seem ever happy to assume, is there?
12:44 pm, April 8, 2010
53. Dunc
The current system is desperately failing people, and according to anti-homelessness campaigners, the solution involves a mix of increasing supply of homes and regulating the private rented sector.
I've got no problem with that, but doing the latter, in this specific fashion, without the former seems to be begging for unintended consequences. Sometimes an action which would be beneficial as part of a balanced package of measures is counter-productive when taken in isolation. Without a serious improvement in the availability of affordable social housing, measures like this are at best just pissing in the wind. Shit housing that you can afford is better than good housing you can't afford, and in the absence of affordable good housing, eliminating the affordable shit housing just means that there's no affordable housing at all.
12:58 pm, April 8, 2010
54. Cath Elliott
47. DuncCan I just re-iterate that the last time I was living in an HMO, the landlords thought there were about half as many people living there as there actually were, and that if they'd found out the truth, we'd all have been out on the street?
Same here, although in my case it was the building inspectors who didn't know what was going on.
My room was formed by the landlord partitioning off the end of the front room. So when the building inspectors were due to visit to give the place the all clear ('cos it was a former warehouse, and when we moved in, the other floors in the building were still being worked on), I had to move out for a few days while the temporary wall to my room was ripped down. Then, once the inspectors had had a good poke about and satisfied themselves that the accommodation was suitable for the number of people the landlord had told them he was going to house, the wall was put back up and I was allowed to move back in….
And I suspect this is exactly the type of thing that will happen under this new legislation, because crap landlords will always find a way to cram as many people into a dwelling as they can.
1:04 pm, April 8, 2010
55. Jon
Why are people in the comments thread talking as if Houses of Multiple Occupancy are a bad thing? I share the view and experiences of the author in having lived in a converted house with 7 other people for the past 3 years, and having had it been the most positive experience of my life. I don't want to live in a house with 2 or 3 people, it would be shit. The 8 of us can cook for each other less than once a week, do washing up less than once a week, and even the quietest night in is a buzz of activity. We share everything, so none of us really need to buy very much. We all do different things I have a wealth of experience from areas that I would have never got to experience otherwise. All this legislation does is penalise me and make it more difficult for me to find a big enough house by limiting the supply.
It's totally dishonest and misses the spirit of the bill to say that this was done to somehow benefit tenants. Nobody is being forced into large houses at this stage, there are plenty of bedsits and 2 or 3 person terraces for those who want a bit of peace and quiet. As the author mentions, this legislation was sold as a kind of fightback against "studentification" in cities like Manchester and Brighton. It's just a cynical move to win "grey marginal" seats full of old Daily Mail reading Tories who want national service restated. It amounts to an attack on young people who don't necessarily want to live in a nuclear family and enjoy living in large groups, and the worst part is that it isn't even going to satisfy the group that its aimed to appease because you're never going to stop the older generation whining about young people – its just a fact of life that always has and always will be the case. The only thing you can do is wait for them to die and hope they don't do too much damage on their way out.
1:25 pm, April 8, 2010
56. Trofim
jon @ 55:
"The 8 of us can cook for each other less than once a week, do washing up less than once a week, and even the quietest night in is a buzz of activity".
If you like a buzz of activity, I guess that's fine. If you don't, not so fine.
1:55 pm, April 8, 2010
57. Andy
The reason it didn't make the headlines is because it's something that's been around a while.
"Houses of Multiple Occupancy" have been regulated since at least 1962, if not earlier.
This order – which affects the ability of councils to regulate where they can be, and doesn't affect the legal regulation of them under the Housing Act – was signed off a month ago, before the election was called; it came into force on Tuesday because 6 April is one of the two standard days for new regulations to come into force.
It is the result of a consultation process which began in early 2008, following Parliamentary debate in 2007, and recieved almost a thousand responses.
I don't think it's a particularly sensible regulation, and I agree the unintended consequences could be more than predicted, but it's a real mistake to think it's somehow being rushed through before an election or that there was no public discussion on the issue.
2:16 pm, April 8, 2010
58. David Strachan
I need some sort of shared living arrangement to be able to afford to live near my job
I thought you were a freelance journalist?
And if not, unless the cost of a monthly London travelcard zones 1-3 (£120) is prohibitive, then living near your job is a luxury almost no Londoners can afford. It's a nice idea but there are economic reasons why it's so damn hard.
3:20 pm, April 8, 2010
59. manky manc
No-one's penalised for being young. This legislation (certainly from Manchester's point of view) is aimed at helping people who have had to live in areas where arrogant, selfish, stupid students think it is acceptable to the lives of decent working people an absolute misery. I used to be a student, and not too long ago, but my mother taught me to treat others with respect. Sadly, a large proportion of the students who live in this great city don't get it at all. The council's done a blinding job on this and it will hopefully improve the quality of life for large numbers of people. And lest you think I'm some kind of anti-student t*sser, let me make it clear that most of the blighters are decent kids, but sadly there is a large minority of them who shouldn't be allowed to leave the home unaccompanied.
As for those of you who live in communes, you need to grow up, but never fear, this legislation will still allow you to live the hippy dream.
3:21 pm, April 8, 2010
60. Chris
Jon – HMOs may not be a bad thing for all tennants but they're bad for some tennants and are often a bad thing for the local community. When I was living in Hackney (in a house of three single people) the family next door moved away for a year and four students/recent graduates moved in. It was a nightmare. They played music all night in the week, they left their garden in a state and they had parties every few weeks. If they were having an impact on my quality of life (I was 24 and working full time) I can't imagine the effect they'd have had if a young family or an old couple had been living where I was.
Obviously young people have to live somewhere and due to the expense they will often have to live in shared accomodation; but to suggest that local councils limiting their numbers within a certain area is an 'attack on young people' is absurd. It's simply protecting a community from the negative impact young people can, and often do, have.
3:36 pm, April 8, 2010
61. Tom
@48
I rent
5:29 pm, April 8, 2010
62. Jonn
@61 Fair enough. Then I accept I'm probably overstating it.
I stand by my disbelief that the solution to the housing shortage is to cut the supply yet further.
11:04 pm, April 8, 2010
63. Mary Tracy9
@ Cath
OMG!!! I can't believe anyone would do such a thing!
At which point did people get the idea that housing was a luxury item?
Oh, and great article, Laurie.
7:09 am, April 9, 2010
64. blanco
If you feel you are being penalised for being young, surely the worst thing to then do is be apathetic? That only guarantees further penalisation and does nothing to improve your situation.
You people are weird. The expenses scandal exposes the current crop of MPs to be shit, but no, instead of working to either replace the current shower with decent MPs or to change the system altogether, you complain, and you moan, and you don't get involved – because you're apathetic.
Either change things, or shut the hell up, you apathetic scum. Laurie, you went to Oxford, you've got no excuse to be so damn short-sighted.
12:56 pm, April 9, 2010
65. David Floyd
The cost of a pleasant but unspectacular one bedroom flat in the area where I live is 19 times my annual salary. If I went on a list for social housing, I'd be unlikely to reach the top of it in my lifetime.
I'm baffled as to how this legislation can possibly be progressive if it isn't accompanied by measures to more affordable properties and/or social housing available.
As far I can see, the only likely outcome is that people will continue to be forced into private shared rental accommodation but landlords will have an excuse for making that accommodation more expensive to rent.
Reactions: Twitter, blogs- Liberal Conspiracy
- Penalised for being young, Generation Y has every right to feel apathetic.http://bit.ly/9OSn0e
- Steve Akehurst
- Brilliant, tub thumping stuff RT: Penalised for being young,Generation Y has every right to feel apathetic. http://bit.ly/9OSn0e via @libcon
- Nick Batley
- RT @libcon: Penalised for being young, Generation Y has every right to feel apathetic. http://bit.ly/9OSn0e
- John Linford
- The government, fucking the young voter over just before a general election? Surely not… http://is.gd/bjjjU
- andrew
- Liberal Conspiracy » Penalised for being young, we have every …: About the author: Laurie Penny is a regular con… http://bit.ly/cCUYvf
- Linda Jack
- RT @libcon Penalised for being young, Generation Y has every right to feel apathetic. http://bit.ly/9OSn0e
- movingturtle
- RT @libcon: Penalised for being young, we have every right to feel apathetichttp://bit.ly/bb8KRz
- Niamh Foley
- RT @movingturtle: RT @libcon: Penalised for being young, we have every right to feel apathetic http://bit.ly/bb8KRz
- Rachael Wardell
- RT @libcon: Penalised for being young, we have every right to feel apathetichttp://bit.ly/bb8KRz
- Hazel Sheard
- Makes no sense. RT @johnlinford: Government, fucking the young voter over just before a general election? Surely not… http://is.gd/bjjjU
- Charlotte Gore
- Also @pennyred has a good piece on Lib Con today. Govt decided to boost demand for housing, it seems http://bit.ly/95f221 /ht @drneevil
- Tim Cowlishaw
- Anyone know more about this? http://bit.ly/95f221 (Town and Country Planning Order 2010)
- FishermansEnemy
- Penalised for being young, we have every right to feel apathetic http://bit.ly/beOrDu
- Alex Smith
- @Whatleydude of course, they'll have to watch out for this.. http://tinyurl.com/yewo88x
- Nolan
- The government, fucking the young voter over just before a general election? Surely not… http://is.gd/bjjjU
- Stephen Pike
- @plankton http://is.gd/bjU3Z nice summary of that one…
- Mitchell Stirling
- http://liberalconspiracy.org/2010/04/08/penalised-for-being-young-generation-y-has-every-right-to-feel-apathetic/ Great piece
- David Writter
- Liberal Conspiracy » Penalised for being young, we have every … http://bit.ly/abrxmT– cool blog
- Paul Nolan
- RT @libcon Penalised for being young, Generation Y has every right to feel apathetic. http://bit.ly/9jLpMb
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Rave
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
For other uses, see Rave (disambiguation).
For the genre "rave music", see rave music and breakbeat hardcore.* This article has multiple issues. Please help improve it or discuss these issues on the talk page.
It may require cleanup to meet Wikipedia's quality standards. Tagged since April 2008.
It may contain original research. Tagged since July 2008.
- "Peace"
- "Love"
- "Unity"
- "Respect"
- Acid house party – Forerunner of raves typically staged in UK warehouses around 1987–89.
- Circuit party
- Doof
- Free party – The modern, illegal version of raves.
- Massive Magazine – The original US Rave magazine from Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
- Melbourne Shuffle – A rave dance style culture that has evolved in Melbourne, Australia over the past 15 years.
- Merry Pranksters – Their early escapades were best chronicled by Tom Wolfe in The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test.
- New Rave – A new genre of music mixing elements of rave culture, disco and rock.
- Rat Parties – When Sydney's gay dance party scene opened up to the broader community in the 1980s.
- RAVE Act – An American law targeting raves.
- Rave Board Game – 1991 board game based on the UK Rave scene
- Rave music – Music and music styles at raves
- Technoshamanism – A technique employed by some ravers, often utilising electronic music and psychoactive drugs.
- Tecktonik, a dance style based on rave music, developed in Paris, France and well known throughout Europe.
- Zippies
- ^ a b "The Problem of Rave Parties", Michael S. Scott, Center for Problem Oriented Policing, 2009, webpage: popc-rave.
- ^ Rave, Free Dictionary.
- ^ a b Helen Evans. "OUT OF SIGHT, OUT OF MIND: An Analysis of Rave culture". Retrieved 25 October 2007. "The term rave first came into use in late 50s Britain as a name for the wild bohemian parties of the time."
- ^ http://www.visualthesaurus.com/cm/wordroutes/1687/
- ^ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Having_a_Rave_Up
- ^ "Unit Delta Plus". Delia Derbyshire. Retrieved 25 October 2007. "Perhaps the most famous event that Unit Delta Plus participated in was the 1967 Million Volt Light and Sound Rave at London's Roundhouse, organised by designers Binder, Edwards and Vaughan (who had previously been hired by Paul McCartney to decorate a piano). The event took place over two nights (28 January and 4 February 1967) and included a performance of tape music by Unit Delta Plus, as well as a playback of the legendary Carnival of Light, a fourteen minute sound collage assembled by McCartney around the time of the Beatles' Penny Lane sessions."
- ^ Timeline and numbers Reynolds, Simon (1998). Generation Ecstasy: into the world of Techno and Rave culture. Picador. ISBN 0-330-35056-0.
- ^ Simon Parkin (May 1999). "Visual Energy".
- ^ "Public Order: Collective Trespass or Nuisance on Land – Powers to remove trespassers on land – Powers to remove persons attending or preparing for a rave". Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994. Her Majesty's Stationery Office. 1994. Retrieved 9 June 2008.
- ^ "REZERECTION – THE OFFICIAL WEBSITE (z)". Archived from the original on 28 September 2007. Retrieved 25 October 2007.
- ^ "2007 – police close down illegal rave".
- ^ Short excerpt from special on German "Tele 5" from Dec.8, 1988. The show is called "Tanzhouse" hosted by a young Fred Kogel. It includes footage from Hamburg's "Front" with Boris Dlugosch, Kemal Kurum's "Opera House" and the "Prinzenbar".
- ^ a b c Robb, D. (2002), Techno in Germany: Its Musical Origins and Cultural Relevance, German as a Foreign Language Journal, No.2, 2002, (p. 134).
- ^ Messmer, S. (1998), Eierkuchensozialismus, TAZ, 10.7.1998, (p. 26).
- ^ Henkel, O.; Wolff, K. (1996) Berlin Underground: Techno und Hiphop; Zwischen Mythos und Ausverkauf, Berlin: FAB Verlag, (pp. 81–83).
- ^ Schuler, M.(1995),Gabber + Hardcore, (p. 123), in Anz, P.; Walder, P. (Eds) (1999 rev. edn, 1st publ. 1995, Zurich: Verlag Ricco Bilger)Techno. Reinbek: Rowohlt Taschenbuch Verlag.
- ^ Reynolds, S.(1998), Energy Flash: a Journey Through Rave Music and Dance Culture, Pan Macmillan, (p. 110).
- ^ At www.hyperreal.com (1994–1997), then hyperreal.org (1997–present).
- ^ Sicko, Dan (1999), Techno Rebels: The Renegades of Electronic Funk (1 ed.), Billboard Books, pp. 202–203, ISBN 9780823084280
- ^ Sicko, Dan (2010), Techno Rebels: The Renegades of Electronic Funk (2 ed.), Wayne State University Press, p. 142, ISBN 9780814334386
- ^ Pupatello, Sandra (3 May 2000). "Bill 73, Ontario Rave Act".
- ^ "Canadian Rave community forum" http://www.skyscrapercity.com/showthread.php?t=528354
- ^ ShockOne http://www.discogs.com/artist/Shock+One+(2)
- ^ Kito http://www.discogs.com/artist/Kito+%285%29
- ^ Greg Packer http://www.discogs.com/artist/Greg+Packer
- ^ Origin festival http://www.theorigin.com.au/
- ^ "Media Awareness Project".
- ^ "Raves and Paraphernalia". "In today's culture it is not uncommon for gang violence to take place at these events – a kind of "turf war"."
- ^ "UN Drug Officials Discuss Issues and Challenges at 48th Session of Commission on Narcotic Drugs". United Nations Information Service. "He also offered support for drug testing on highways and in sensitive industries, and called for action on the dangers of Raves, international drug festivals fuelled by ecstasy and other synthetic drugs."
- ^ Refstad S (2003). "Paramethoxyamphetamine (PMA) poisoning; a 'party drug' with lethal effects". Acta Anaesthesiol Scand 47 (10): 1298–9.doi:10.1046/j.1399-6576.2003.00245.x. PMID 14616331.
- ^ Lamberth PG, Ding GK, Nurmi LA (2008). "Fatal paramethoxy-amphetamine (PMA) poisoning in the Australian Capital Territory". Med. J. Aust.188 (7): 426. PMID 18393753.
- ^ J Pharm Pharmacol. 1980 Apr;32(4):262-6.
- ^ OH, SUSAN, and RUTH ATHERLEY. "RAVE FEVER. (cover story)." Maclean's 113.17 (2000): 38. Business Source Complete. EBSCO. Web. 2 May 2011.
- ^ DEMONT, JOHN. "YOUNG AND RECKLESS. (cover story)." Maclean's 113.17 (2000): 45. Business Source Complete. EBSCO. Web. 3 May 2011
- ^ Cloud, John. "ECSTASY CRACKDOWN." Time International (Canada Edition) 157.14 (2001): 50. Business Source Complete. EBSCO. Web. 3 May 2011
- ^ Meek, Miki. "The feds go after raves." U.S. News & World Report 130.25 (2001): 27. Business Source Complete. EBSCO. Web. 3 May 2011.
- Del Pinal, Janelly. Altered State: The Story of Ecstasy and Acid House. London: 1997 : Serpent's Tail – How rave dances began inManchester, England in the Summer of 1988 (the Second Summer of Love) and the aftermath. ISBN 1-85242-604-7
- Reynolds, Simon. Generation Ecstasy: Into the world of Techno and Rave culture. New York: Little, Brown and Company, 1998. ISBN 0-316-74111-6
- Ott, Brian L. and Herman, Bill D. Excerpt from Mixed Messages: Resistance and Reappropriation in Rave Culture. 2003.
- Evans, Helen. Out of Sight, Out of Mind: An Analysis of Rave culture. Wimbledon School of Art, London. 1992. Includes bibliography through 1994.
- St John, Graham (ed). 2004. Rave Culture and Religion. New York: Routledge. ISBN 0-415-31449-6
- St John, Graham. 2009. Technomad: Global Raving Countercultures. London: Equinox. ISBN 978-1-84553-626-8.
- Griffin, Tom. Playgrounds: a portrait of rave culture. 2005. ISBN 0-646-45135-9. Official Website [4] WALLAWALLA
- Kotarba, Joseph. 1993. The Rave Scene in Houston, Texas: An Ethnographic Analysis. Austin: Texas Commission on Alcohol and Drug Abuse.
- Dancecult: Journal of Electronic Dance Music Culture
- Volterock Archive: Rave culture, communities, dance, art, and history
- Gridface: Reviews from 1996 to present
- Raveguide Eflyers Listings and more
- Underave. Underground music, party pics, videos, art images and much more
- Zines, flyers and mixtapes from 1990–1999
- mixed tapes and rave culture in early 1990s Los Angeles
- Rave Footage from 1988 – 1994
- – History of the Northeast of England Rave Scene 1990+
- Rave FAQ from 1995.
- Regional community links at the Open Directory Project
- XLR8R Magazine
- Chronicles the Toronto rave scene through flyers and music
- Movies About Raves
- Rave Diaries from 1992
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Categories:
| Rave culture | |
| Stylistic origins | electronic music, such asKraftwerk |
| Cultural origins | |
| Typical instruments | |
| Mainstream popularity | From late 1980s onwards, but with roots going back to the 1960's Mod and Hippie culturesand the Disco of the 1970's |
| Derivative forms | |
| Subgenres | |
| house, trance, psytrance, techno, electro house, drum and bass, breakbeat, dubstep, UK Hardcore, hardstyle, Hardcore techno, Gabber, and Electronic body music, | |
| Fusion genres | |
| Other topics | |
| MDMA, ketamine, post-disco, Love Parade,Street Parade, Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994 |
A large rave event, held in a warehouse sized venue, with elaborate lighting and a large sound system
Rave, rave dance, and rave party are parties that originated mostly from acid house parties, which featured fast-paced electronic music and light shows.[1][2] At these parties people dance and socialize to dance music played by disc jockeys and occasionally live performers. The genres of electronic dance music played include house, trance, psytrance, techno, electro house, drum and bass, UK Hardcore, breakbeat, dubstep, hardstyle and many others with the accompaniment of laser light shows, projected images and smoke machines.[edit]History
The late 1950s in London saw the term "Rave" used to describe the "wild bohemian parties" of the Soho beatnik set.[3] In 1958 Buddy Holly recorded the hit "Rave On," citing the madness and frenzy of a feeling and the desire for it to never end.[4] The word "rave" was later used in the burgeoning mod youth culture of the early 1960s as the way to describe any wild party in general. People who were gregarious party animals were described as "ravers". Pop musicians such as Steve Marriott of The Small Faces and Clare Willans were self-described "ravers".Presaging the Word's subsequent 1980s association with electronic music, the word "rave" was a common term used regarding the music of mid-60s garage rock and psychedelia bands (most notably The Yardbirds, who released an album in the US called "Having a Rave Up"). Along with being an alternative term for partying at such garage events in general, the "rave-up" referred to a specific crescendo moment near the end of a song where the music was played faster, heavier and with intense soloing or elements of controlled feedback.[5] It was later part of the title of an electronic music performance event held on 28 January 1967 at London's Roundhouse titled the "Million Volt Light and Sound Rave". The event featured the only known public airing of an experimental sound collage created for the occasion by Paul McCartney of The Beatles – the legendary Carnival of Light recording.[6]
With the rapid change of British pop culture from the mod era of 1963–1966 to the hippie era of 1967 and beyond, the term fell out of popular usage. During the 1970s and early 1980s until its resurrection, the term was not in vogue, one notable exception being in the lyrics of the song "Drive-In Saturday" by David Bowie (from his 1973 album Aladdin Sane) which includes the line "It's a crash course for the ravers." Its use during that era would have been perceived as a quaint or ironic use of bygone slang: part of the dated 1960s lexicon along with words such as "groovy". The perception of the word changed again in the late 1980s when the term was revived and adopted by a new youth culture, possibly inspired by the use of the term in Jamaica.[3]
In the mid to late 1980s a wave of psychedelic and other electronic dance music, most notably acid house and Techno, emerged and caught on in the clubs, warehouses, and free-parties around London and later Manchester. These early raves were called Acid House Parties. They were mainstream events that attracted thousands of people (up to 25,000[citation needed] instead of the 4,000 that came to earlier warehouse parties). Acid House parties were first re-branded "rave parties" in the media, during the summer of 1989 by Neil Andrew Megson during a television interview, however, the ambience of the rave was not fully formed until 28 May 1991. In the UK, in 1988–89, raves were similar to football matches in that they provided a setting for working-class unification, in a time with a union movement in decline and few jobs, and many of the attendees of raves were die-hard football fans.[7]
In the late 1980s, the word "rave" was adopted to describe the subculture that grew out of the acid house movement.[8] Activities were related to the party atmosphere of Ibiza, a Mediterranean island in Spain, frequented by British, Italians, and German youth on vacation.[1] The fear that a certain number of rave party attendees used "club drugs" such as MDMA, cocaine, amphetamines and, more recently, ketamine, was taken by authorities as a pretext to ban those parties altogether.
British politicians responded with hostility to the emerging rave party trend. Politicians spoke out against raves and began to fine anyone who held illegal parties. Police crackdowns on these often-illegal parties drove the scene into the countryside. The word "rave" somehow caught on in the UK to describe common semi-spontaneous weekend parties occurring at various locations linked by the brand new M25 London Orbital motorway that ringed London and the Home Counties. (It was this that gave the band Orbital their name.) These ranged from former warehouses and industrial sites, in London, to fields and country clubs in the countryside.
[edit]United Kingdom
From the Acid House scene of the late 1980s, the scene transformed from predominantly a London-based phenomenon to a UK-wide underground youth movement. By 1991, organisations such as Fantazia, Universe, Raindance, and Amnesia House were holding massive legal raves in fields and warehouses around the country. One Fantazia party, called One Step Beyond, was an open-air, all-night affair that attracted 30,000 people. Other notable events included Vision at Pophams airfield in August 1992, with 40,000 in attendance and Universe'sTribal Gathering in 1993.In the early 1990s, the scene was slowly changing, with local councils passing by-laws and increasing fees in an effort to prevent or discourage rave organisations from acquiring necessary licenses.[citation needed] This meant that the days of legal one-off parties were numbered. By the mid-90s, the scene had fragmented into many different styles of dance music, making large parties more expensive to set up and more difficult to promote. The happy old skool style was replaced by the darker jungle and the faster happy hardcore. Although many ravers left the scene due to the split, promoters such as ESP Dreamscape and Helter Skelter still enjoyed widespread popularity and capacity attendances with multi-arena events catering to the various genres. Particularly notable events of this period included ESP's Dreamscape 20 on 9 September 1995 at Brafield aerodrome fields, Northants and Helter Skelter's Energy 97 event on 9 Aug 1997 at Turweston Aerodrome, Northants.
The illegal free party scene also reached its zenith for that time after a particularly large festival, when many individual sound systems such as Bedlam, Circus Warp, DIY, and Spiral Tribe set up near Castlemorton Common. In May 1992, the government acted. Under the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994, the definition of music played at a rave was given as:
"music" includes sounds wholly or predominantly characterised by the emission of a succession of repetitive beats.
–Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994[9]
Sections 63, 64 & 65 of the Act targeted electronic dance music played at raves. The Criminal Justice and Public Order Act empowered police to stop a rave in the open air when a hundred or more people are attending, or where two or more are making preparations for a rave. Section 65 allows any uniformed constable who believes a person is on their way to a rave within a five-mile radius to stop them and direct them away from the area; non-compliant citizens may be subject to a maximum fine not exceeding level 3 on the standard scale (£1000). The Act was officially introduced because of the noise and disruption caused by all night parties to nearby residents, and to protect the countryside. However, it has also been claimed that it was introduced to kill a popular youth movement that was taking many drinkers out of town centres, where they would drink taxable alcohol, and into fields to take untaxed recreational drugs.[citation needed]. In November 1994, the Zippies staged an act of electronic civil disobedience to protest against the CJB.
After 1993, the main outlet for raves in the UK were a number of licensed venues, amongst them Helter Skelter, Life at Bowlers (Trafford Park, Manchester), The Edge (formerly the Eclipse [Coventry]), The Sanctuary (Milton Keynes) and Club Kinetic.[10]. In London, itself, there were a few large clubs that staged raves on a regular basis, most notably "The Laser Dome", "The Fridge", "The Hippodrome", "Club U.K.", and "Trade." "The Laser Dome" featured two separate dance areas, "Hardcore" and "Garage", as well as over 20 video game machines, a silent-movie screening lounge, replicas of the "Statue of Liberty", "San Francisco Bridge", and a large glass maze. At capacity "The Laser Dome" held in excess of 6,000 people. Events proved to be one of the main forces in rave, holding legendary events across the north-east andScotland. Initially playing Techno, Breakbeat, Rave and drum and bass, it later embraced hardcore techno including happy hardcore andbouncy techno. Judgement Day, History of Dance, and now REGENeration continued the Rezerection legacy. Scotland's clubs, such as theFUBAR in Stirling, Hangar 13 in Ayr, and Nosebleed in Rosyth played important roles in the development of these dance music styles.
These were nearly all pay-to-enter events; however, it could be argued that rave organisers saw the writing on the wall and moved towards more organised and "legitimate" venues, enabling a continuation of large-scale indoor raves well into the mid-nineties. One might remember that the earliest house and acid house clubs were themselves effectively "nightclubs". Public perception of raves was also overshadowed in the press by the 1995 death of Leah Betts, a teenager who died after taking ecstasy; journalists and billboard campaigns focussed on drug use, despite Betts cause of death being water intoxication in her home, not an ecstasy overdose at a rave.
Genuine illegal raves have continued throughout the UK to this day and unlicensed parties have been organised in venues including disused quarries, warehouses, and condemned night clubs. The rise of the Internet has both helped and hindered the cause, with much wider and more accessible communication resulting in bigger parties, but consequently increasing the risk of police involvement.[11]
The 2006 M.I.A. song "XR2" is an ode to the rave scene of early 1990s London.
There are also types of Rave clothes, like , 'pumps', 'Three button Shirts', 'Fluorescent Yellow Jackets','White Gloves' and White belts this is known as 'Rave gear'.
As well as clothing there were a range of accessories carried by many ravers including: Vicks Vapour Inhalers and Rub, which heightened the sensations when using Ecstasy, dummies to satisfy the need to chew caused by taking Ecstasy and glow sticks which were used whilst dancing to entertain other drug users. This led some clubs and event organisers to search participants on entry and confiscate such items due to it being evidence of drug use inside the venue.[citation needed]
[edit]Continental Europe
See also: Love Parade, Street Parade, Hardcore techno, Gabber, and Electronic body musicRave party in Salento (August 2009)
By 1987, a German party scene based on the Chicago House sound was well established. The following year (1988) saw acid house making as significant an impact on popular consciousness in Germany as it had in England.[12] In 1989 German DJs Westbam and Dr. Motte established the Ufo Club, an illegal party venue, and co-founded the Love Parade.[13] On 9 November 1989 the Berlin Wall fell, free underground Techno parties mushroomed in East Berlin, and a rave scene comparable to that in the UK was established.[13] East German DJ Paul van Dykhas remarked that the Techno based rave scene was a major force in re-establishing social connections between East and West Germany during the unification period.[14]In 1991 a number of party venues closed, including Ufo, and the Berlin Techno scene centred itself around three locations close to the foundations of the Berlin Wall: theE-Werk, Der Bunker and the now legendary Tresor.[15] In the same period German DJs began intensifying the speed and abrasiveness of the sound, as an acid infused techno began transmuting into hardcore.[16] This emerging sound was influenced by Dutch gabber and Belgium hardcore. Other influences on the development of this style were European Electronic Body Music groups of the mid 1980s such as DAF, Front 242, and Nitzer Ebb.[17] In Germany, fans referred to this sound as "Tekkno" (or "Bretter").[13]
Across Europe, rave culture was becoming part of a new youth movement. DJs and electronic-music producers such as Westbam proclaimed the existence of a "raving society" and promoted electronic music as legitimate competition for rock and roll. Indeed, electronic dance music and rave subculture became mass movements. Raves had tens of thousands of attendees, youth magazines featured styling tips, and television networks launched music magazines on House and Techno music. The annual Love Parade festivals in Berlin (in the Metropolitan Ruhr area onwards) attracted more than one million party-goers between 1997 and 2000. Meanwhile, the more commercial sound of happy hardcore topped the music charts across Europe. Nowadays there are only a few popular raving acts on the case in Germany, but many underground acts in Berlin and Frankfurt (Main). That is why Berlin (especially the east side) is still called the capital city of electro music and rave. Although electro composer Paul Kalkbrenner from Friedrichshain, Berlin made "Berlin Techno" world popular again, he is touring on his Berlin Calling (named after the movie he acted the main character and the soundtrack he produced for) tour through Europe and America.
In Vienna, Austria in 2005
[edit]Regional expansion
[edit]United States
The upsurge in popularity of rave culture in the United States at a certain period in time often lends it characteristics common to a 'movement' or subculture. As the Disco era came to a close in the late '70s, Rave culture began to see significant growth. Rave culture incorporated Disco culture's same love of dance music, and hedonism. Although disco culture had thrived in the mainstream, the rave culture would make an effort to stay underground to avoid the animosity that was still surrounding disco and dance music.In the late 80s, rave culture began to filter through from English ex-pats and DJs who would visit Europe. However, rave culture's major expansion in North America is often credited to Frankie Bones, who after spinning a party in an aircraft hangar in England helped organise some of the earliest known American raves in New York City that maintained a consistent core audience. After this, hundreds of smaller promotional groups sprung up across the east coast, and later the west coast, causing a true "scene" to develop.
Raves were also represented in mainstream culture, even this early in their existence. The film Party Monster (2003) shared aspects of the rave scene via anachronism, since it was set during the "Club Kid" era of the late 1980s and early 1990s.
American underground rave DJs from that time who would go onto international celebrity include artists like Moby, Josh Wink, DJ Keoki, DJ Carlos Soul Slinger, DJ Mr. Kleen, DJ Scott Richmond, Cinnabun, DJ Special K , Frankie Bones, Doc Martin, DJ Kool-Aid, DJ Marmik, Jon Bishop , Nigel Richards, Mark E. Quark, Steve Pagan and others. During this time publications such as Milwaukee's "Massive Magazine", Chicago's "Reactor" and "A Thousand Words", Los Angeles' "Urb", and San Francisco's "XLR8R" magazines helped spread the scene from coast to coast and abroad. One of the first rave websites with event listings, music info and chemical information was Hyperreal.[18][19][20]The popularity of rave music within the mainstream started in early to mid 1990s with such artists as Rozalla, Praga Khan, The Prodigy andThe Shamen among others. Because the movement and music both embrace and incorporate so many different elements, a common thread can be hard to find.
Some cultural tenets associated with rave culture are:
The word "Responsibility" was added to the acronym PLUR during the mid to late 90s to promote awareness of increased drug overdoses at raves. Groups that have addressed drug use at raves include the Electronic Music Defense and Education Fund (EMDEF)[1], DanceSafe[2], and the Toronto Raver Info Project [3], all of which advocate harm reduction approaches to enjoying a rave.
[edit]Hippies of a New Era
American ravers, following their early UK & European counterparts, have been compared to both the hippies of the 1960s and the new wavers of the 1980s, due to their interest in non-violence and music. In the 1990s, one of the most influential Rave organisers / promoters in America was San Diego's G.U.N. ,Global Underworld Network known as Nicholas Luckinbill and Branden Powers. They were made famous for organising and throwing the internationally known OPIUM and NARNIA raves that reached in size of 60,000 plus people in attendance, a feat unheard of at that time. Narnia which would become famous for a morning hand holding circle of unity was featured on Mtv and twice in LIFE magazine being honored with Event of the Year in 1995. Narnia quickly became known as the "Woodstock of Generation X". These festivals were mostly held on Indian Reservations and Ski Resorts during the Summer months and were headlined by well known DJs such as Doc Martin,Dimitri of Dee-lite,Afrika Islam and the Hardkiss brothers from San Francisco. They also featured exceptional local San Diego DJ's Jon Bishop, Steve Pagan,Alien Tom,Jeff Skot and Mark E. Quark. Global Underworld's events were the first prop heavy , themed parties in America. Global Underworld Network were also the first production company to throw Raves within Mexico, thus launching the entire rave culture movement within South America as well. The iconic fairy and pixie craze with ravers getting fairy tattoos and wearing wings to parties all started from an image of a winged fairy on the first Narnia flyer. The Crystal Method played their first out of town show for Global Underworld's Universary event. Fearing reprisals from the police Global Underworld Network advertised the event as "A thousand Points of Light" referring to the power of healing crystals and not the obvious drug reference of the Crystal Methods name. A fact that tickled the upcoming artist so much they would refer to it years later in their biography. The Chemical Brothers were also in awe of Nicholas and Branden's Global Underworld headquarters in downtown San Diego. A multi story building of the arts, much like Warhol's factory. There Global Underworld fed starving artists and provided space for all the arts. The Chemical Brothers played an intimate show at Global's offices in front of a few hundred lucky fans on the eve of a Global event that was shut down by the authorities. In an interview with Virgin Airways The Chemical Brothers referred to Global Underworld as a cult with cult like followers, a fact that wasn't too far from the truth. Nicholas Luckinbill step grandson of the late Lucille Ball and Branden Powers were the Tim Leary and Ken Keaseys of the Rave Generation, and were instrumental in creating their political movement called RTD or RIGHT TO DANCE. RTD was a non violent protest held in San Diego and later in Los Angeles on the steps of the Cities administrators proving that Rave was about community , peace, love and not a dirty word. These protest by Global Underworld helped lay the foundation for future growth within the rave scene.[edit]San Francisco
The west coast rave scene, while today being the most active and diverse scene in America, was one of the later scenes to get started. At first, small underground parties sprung up all over the SOMA district of San Francisco in vacant warehouses, loft spaces, and clubs like DV8 (on Howard st between 3rd and 4th) and 1015 Folsom (on Folsom St. between 6th and 7th), and the basement of Jessie Street that had permits to run to 6 am as long as no alcohol was served. The zero alcohol rule fuelled the ecstasy-driven parties to a much larger crowd, and soon followed were the first large-scale raves.[citation needed]Rave promotion crews began achieving notoriety not only for their choices in musical entertainment, but for the entire experience as a whole (sometimes referred to colloquially as "the vibe"). Unlike concert promotion, rave promotion adds another dimension of creativity: the decorations, visualisations, theme and demographics of a party. This extra requirement that must be satisfied had small underground raves were just starting out and expanding beyond SF to include the East Bay, the South Bay Area including San Jose and Santa Clara, and Santa Cruz beaches (where the notorious 'full moon raves' took place at Bonny Doon beach every month).[citation needed]
One of the first regular rave nights in San Francisco was DJ Pete Avila's Osmosis. Held on Thursday nights on the top floor of the DV8 club, this event got started with a bang in the Fall of 1989. The original regular DJs included Pete Avila, Markie Mark (Wicked), Neon Leon, and DJ Ghost, now of Renegade Productions. When Markie went back to the U.K in 1990, another UK. DJ took over as a regular, Jëno (Wicked). DJ Doc Martin was a frequent guest, and many other notable DJs of the day played there, including DJ Dimitri (Dee-lite) and Keoki (Limelight).[citation needed]
Another notable early San Francisco rave dance was the Smartie Party, which took place on 23 March 1991 at 1052 Geary near Van Ness. Admission was $5 and the featured DJ was Markie Mark of London, UK. Several hundred people attended this event. In late 1991 raves started to explode across Northern California into cities like Sacramento, and other parts of the San Francisco Bay Area besides San Francisco such as Oakland and Silicon Valley were taking off every weekend. This proved to be the turning point in Northern California's rave history. No longer were raves a secret, where one had to know the right people to gain access to map points. Now rave flyers were to be found up and down Haight Street at stores like "Anubis Warpus", "Amoeba" clothes, "Behind The Post Office", and newly opened "Housewares". Raves were exploding at an enormous rate and no longer were hundreds of revellers heading out, now there were thousands of ravers living for every weekend. The second generation of raves were just starting to be realised.[citation needed]
The Toontown Club New Year's Eve of 1991 rave which took place in the basement of the Fashion Center in SF was the first 'true' massive in the bay area. Over 8,000 people helped welcome in the new year and at the same time put SF as a must visit city for the burgeoning world wide rave scene. This was the first of many subsequent "Toontown Club" rave dances over the next few years (all organised by rave dance promoters Dianna Jacobs, Mark Heley, and Lawrence Sutten, along with a host of dedicated partners and volunteers). The Toontown Club was notable for having the best light shows—five different light shows, each of a different type, the most beautiful and largest psychedelic black light murals, and the best go-go dancers (both female and male). The superb excellence of the production standards of the Toontown Club became a touchstone for all future promoters to follow. Similarly, a year later, The Gathering held New Year's Eve of 1992 in Vallejo had over 12,000 people in attendance. The massive parties were taking place every weekend now from such disparate locations as outdoor fields to the aeroplane hangars and hilltops that surround the San Francisco Bay.[citation needed]
San Francisco has long been a Mecca for ravers from all over the world and true to form a lot of the early promoters and DJs were from the UK and Europe. For almost ten years after the initial raves took place, one could find up to 2 to 4 parties happening a weekend and sometimes on the same night. There was no curfew in place, which allowed the SF scene to explode by the late '90s when venues would have up to 20,000 people every weekend; Homebase, and the 85th & Baldwin Warehouse (both in Oakland near the Oakland Airport) were the largest venues to be used in the Bay Area. Many amazing venues were used by crews that held clout or members that were tied to the city or knew the appropriate ways to navigate the permit maze. Thus, in the late 1990s some of the most memorable raves took place in locations such as the SFMOMA art museum, 'Where the wild things are' museum on top of the Sony Metreon, and in the venerable Maritime hall that was used for many parties from 1998 to 2002. Some old locations appeared again brand new, such as the Concourse that saw thousands of ravers in '92, now saw the same amount in late 99. The Galleria that once held a 'concert' in '92 with artists such as Moby,Aphex Twin, The Prodigy, and Space Time Continuum was now used for a few one-off events that utilised all 5 floors of the building with a different music style on each floor.[citation needed]
The mid part of the 1990s saw a general loss of the first generation of ravers, causing the scene to take a short dive. In this time, however, and into the late '90s, a new West coast sound was formed and developed by DJs such as Tony Hewitt, Jeno, Spun, DJ Carlos, Galen, Solar, Harry Who?, and Rick Preston to name but a few. Venues and parties such as Stompy, Harmony, CloudFactory, the Cyborganic lounge, Mr. Floppy's Flophouse (in Oakland), the Acme warehouse among many others started to fuse the Breakbeat sound from hardcore trax with the more melodic pace of house. West coast funky break-beat was born from this and stormed the dance scene. By the end of '94 all the people that had left a gap in the rave scene in '93 were long forgotten as twice as many people now found the new sounds completely and utterly funky.[citation needed]
This time period saw the rise of the many facets of EDM. Now all jungle raves, or cybertrance, or Breakbeat, or just good house could be enjoyed by anyone willing to go out to any of these parties. Gone were the days of a basement, and red light and a feeling. Now one could pick an upscale club, or a warehouse, or illegal outdoors as many crews sprung forward and blossomed. Promoters started to take notice and put together the massive rave dances of the late 1990s with many music forms under one roof for huge 12 hour events (There was greatly increased prosperity in late 1990s due to the tech boom.). It was not unheard of for as many as 20,000 people to pack Homebase, or 85th/Baldwin for a night of eternal dancing at massive raves. The two major massive rave dance production companies in the San Francisco Bay Area in the late 1990s were Cool World Productions, which produced the Cyberfest and Planet New Year massive rave dances (sometimes with DJ Keoki as a guest DJ), and Clockwork Eventz productions, which produced the Metropolis and Atlantis massive rave dances (featuring DJs such as Ron Reeser [aka DJ Rktech], Jeno, Garth, and many others). SF was now a fabled and much talked about destination around the United States, if not the world. DJs from all corners of the globe played in San Francisco.[citation needed]
The year 2000 saw the beginning of the decline of massive raves as curfews were placed on permits handed out to promoters throwing parties. Instead of all night and into the next day, parties now had to end at 2 am Another problem was that the Oakland fire marshal began doing meticulous fire inspections of the two massive rave dance warehouses near the Oakland Airport. These two largest venues closed down soon after, and there wasn't enough momentum to sustain parties that catered to tens of thousands of people. As if a nail was driven into the coffin of the SF rave scene, the Homebase warehouse that held massive parties from 1996 to 2000 burned down to the ground in a spectacular 6-alarm fire in 2004. Another factor is that in 2003, musical styles changed and many younger people started to listen and dance to electro and electropop music played in small clubs that served alcohol instead of going to large rave dances that played house music with no alcohol. Rave dances also changed back to the new smaller, intimate venues, which continued just like they had from the start and underground raves became the norm in the years after the tech boom of the 1990s.[citation needed]
While San Francisco's crowd attendance and variety of DJs might have peaked, it still maintains a much smaller but dedicated cadre of various crews, DJs such as DJ Joey Tek from Redwood City, promoters and producers. Every weekend, many events are still dedicated to the various forms of electronic music across the greater Bay Area.[citation needed]
In September 2004, the first LoveFest (Love Parade) was held in San Francisco, and it has been held every autumn, winding up with a celebration at the San Francisco Civic Center. In 2010 LoveFest (now named LovEvolution) was put on hold by the city of San Francisco. This was the year of AB77, a law to limit raves by elected official Fiona Ma. While the rave community fought back through legislation, peaceful talks, and petitions there was no luck for any "Massive" in San Francisco in 2010. While AB74 is still on the table, 2011 has brought a new home for LovEvolution at The Oracle Arena.
[edit]Los Angeles
Los Angeles had Raves as early as 1988. The early rave scene thrived in Los Angeles due to the fact that the city had such a large, multi-cultural population, a dry/temperate climate, and vast amounts of space which made locations plentiful. Warehouses were often broken into or hired (often through deceptive means to unsuspecting owners), a sound system and lighting was set up on the day of the event, and people would phone the info lines on the backs of flyers on the evening of the party to find out the location. This would often involve first going to a map point, which would be a predetermined location where people would get tickets and directions to the actual event, or directions to another map point. The map points would often be used to create excitement and anticipation for the rave, but also to elude police and large numbers of people loitering outside of the venue. Raves would often range from smaller, more intimate low-budget events, to large, full scale productions with multiple international DJs and acts, expensive lasers and visual effects, and props often in theme with the event. Some of the better known early events were Alice's House, Under The Paw Paw Patch, Love. Sex. Dance, Grape Ape, Gilligan's, Truth, and Double Hit Mickey.By the early 1990s, the Los Angeles rave scene had grown to near epic proportions, which major events occurring nearly every weekend. Parties were being thrown in every type of location promoters could get their hands on, from empty warehouses and lofts, to swap meets and strip malls, as well as open air locations such as ranches, the mountains, and the Mojave Desert. Events were getting bigger, becoming far more expensive to produce, and taking place well known locations like Wild Rivers (Water Park), Knott's Berry Farm, the Spruce Goose dome in Long Beach, and the Shrine Auditorium. As larger raves gained in popularity, so did the scrutiny of law enforcement and news media, with news reports often featuring segments about the dangers of raves, warning parents "Do you know where your children are?" and depicting raves as drug-fuelled parties where Ecstasy use was almost mandatory. By the mid 1990s, the scene had become too big to stop, and this was either the pinnacle, or the end depending on whom you spoke to. A tradition to keep the scene underground grew, with a back to basics concept of the illegal warehouse rave again gained in popularity, although location "busts" where police shut the party down, and sometimes confiscated equipment or made arrests were becoming more and more commonplace. Despite all of this, Los Angeles remained a predominant fixture of the scene, with events regularly running all night long in well known locations such as La Casa, the Hollywood Masonic Temple, Plaza Del Sol in Boyle Heights, the Alexandria Hotel, The Gotham Hall, 333 S Boylston, the Hollywood Soundstage onSanta Monica Blvd., the Masterdome, the National Orange Show Events Center in San Bernardino, the Grand Olympic Auditorium, the Arts Colonly in Pomona, and various warehouses on the outskirts of Downtown Los Angeles, particularly around Santa Fe Ave., and Alameda St. A new generation of ravers were also experiencing the rise in popularity of the "desert rave," with large parties heading outside of the city, where there was less of a chance of getting busted. Some notable desert parties of the time included the "Dune," "New Moon," and "Moontribe" parties, the later of which still throws more intimate, outdoor events to this day. One of the largest outdoor events in Southern California was met with tragedy when in 1999, 5 teenagers died when their car went off a cliff while leaving the Juju Beats rave at theSnowcrest ski resort. This along with several other highly publicised fatalities occurring at outdoor raves during years prior, led many location owners to stop allowing parties to take place on their land, and the ones that still did occur were often met with stricter requirements, such as 2 am closing times, and requiring law enforcement to be present.
Although San Francisco was considered to be the epicenter of the West Coast rave scene for numerous years, this has begun to change during the past decade. Today, Los Angeles has convincingly overtaken San Francisco and arguably boasts the most thriving rave scene in the country, with numerous massives and music festivals such as Electric Daisy Carnival, Together As One, Monster Massive, and Nocturnal Wonderland all being annually held within the city and its surrounding areas. Events such as these consistently attract the world's top DJs and tens of thousands of ravers and electronic dance music enthusiasts.
In 2010 Insomniac's Electric Daisy Carnival boasted a two day attendance of 185,000 at Los Angeles' memorial Coliseum, making it the largest Rave in North America and well beating other concerts such as Coachella. Reports state that about 100 people were hospitalised during the event, and near over 200 required medical attention. While the event was advertised for ages 16+, lax security allowed some minors to attend. One minor who was able to attend was Sasha Rodriguez, 15, was believed to have died from an ecstasy overdose but it was soon announced she died of hyponatremia, an electrolyte disturbance in the body, by consuming too much water too fast. Her death, along with the death of 2 others at a rave a month earlier in northern California, caused city officials to place a temporary ban on Raves at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum due to increasing media attention. Thereafter, Los Angeles police began cracking down on future rave events that do not have an 18+ age requirement, such as shutting down early Uprise and forcing the cancellation of Abtraskt Desert 2. Although, Insomniac has chose to move the annual event to Las Vegas for 2011, with a 5 year lease at the motor speedway. A much larger venue that will hold many more people safely. The event has moved to 3 days long as well. The party will also will end at sunrise, which hasn't happened in many years.
[edit]Seattle
From 1990 and into the 2000s the city of Seattle also shared in the tradition of West Coast rave culture. According to The Rocket, the first raves in Seattle were "Orbit Parties" during the summer of 1990, thrown by local DJs Todd Robbins, aka DJ Fallout (Sky Cries Mary), andMika Salmi. Kandi Raver style, friendship and culture became particularly popular in the West Coast rave scene, both in Seattle and San Francisco. At the peak of West Coast rave, Kandi Raver, and massive rave popularity (1996–1999,) it was common to meet groups of ravers, promoters, and DJs who frequently traveled between Seattle and San Francisco, which spread the overall sense of West Coast rave culture and the phenomenon of West Coast "massives".[edit]San Diego
In the 1990s, one of the most influential Rave organisers / promoters in America was San Diego's G.U.N. ,Global Underworld Network known as Nicholas Luckinbill and Branden Powers. They were made famous for organising and throwing the internationally known OPIUM and NARNIA raves that reached in size of 60,000 plus people in attendance, a feat unheard of at that time. Narnia which would become famous for a morning hand holding circle of unity was featured on Mtv and twice in LIFE magazine being honored with Event of the Year in 1995. Narnia quickly became known as the "Woodstock of Generation X". These festivals were mostly held on Indian Reservations and Ski Resorts during the Summer months and were headlined by well known DJs such as Doc Martin,Dimitri of Dee-lite,Afrika Islam and the Hardkiss brothers from San Francisco. They also featured exceptional local San Diego DJ's Jon Bishop, Steve Pagan,Alien Tom,Jeff Skot and Mark E. Quark. Global Underworld's events were the first prop heavy , themed parties in America. Global Underworld Network were also the first production company to throw Raves within Mexico, thus launching the entire rave culture movement within South America as well. The iconic fairy and pixie craze with ravers getting fairy tattoos and wearing wings to parties all started from an image of a winged fairy on the first Narnia flyer. The Crystal Method played their first out of town show for Global Underworld's Universary event. Fearing reprisals from the police Global Underworld Network advertised the event as "A thousand Points of Light" referring to the power of healing crystals and not the obvious drug reference of the Crystal Methods name. A fact that tickled the upcoming artist so much they would refer to it years later in their biography. The Chemical Brothers were also in awe of Nicholas and Branden's Global Underworld headquarters in downtown San Diego. A multi story building of the arts, much like Warhol's factory. There Global Underworld fed starving artists and provided space for all the arts. The Chemical Brothers played an intimate show at Global's offices in front of a few hundred lucky fans on the eve of a Global event that was shut down by the authorities. In an interview with Virgin Airways The Chemical Brothers referred to Global Underworld as a cult with cult like followers, a fact that wasn't too far from the truth. Nicholas Luckinbill step grandson of the late Lucille Ball and Branden Powers were the Tim Leary and Ken Keaseys of the Rave Generation, and were instrumental in creating their political movement called RTD or RIGHT TO DANCE. RTD was a non violent protest held in San Diego and later in Los Angeles on the steps of the Cities administrators proving that Rave was about community , peace, love and not a dirty word. These protest by Global Underworld helped lay the foundation for future growth within the rave scene.[edit]Midwest scene
Grave Rave, on 11 October 1992 marked the first major party crack down in the mid-west, when 973 people were arrested for attending a party at a warehouse in Milwaukee's Third Ward. Following the crackdown, most raves were promoted via fliers and distributed a phone number with an informational voice message. On the day of the party, the message changed to give the location of the map point. Upon showing up at the map point, ravers were able to purchase a map and ticket to the party. Midwest parties were commonly held at barns, camp grounds, and warehouses. Detroit actually held Raves in abandoned businesses. Through the 1980s & 1990s, another common Detroit underground party was The Red Door. In 1995 the Detroit Police Department began sending the gang squad in to raid parties.No longer considering itself as a "rave" scene, unless using the term "rave" in a sarcastic yet nostalgic way, Detroit has a very committed fan base for all-night Techno events, better known as "parties." Detroit is known for Techno music, as demonstrated in the opening of the clubThe Motor Lounge (later -The Motor) of Hamtramck (Detroit) in 1996 by Steven Sowers. This allowed DJs to play at a legitimate place rather than underground Raves. The history of Techno music's origins and connotations still linger in Detroit and continue to inspire die-hard devotees who produce and progress the ideals of Techno and House gatherings in underground circumstances and production teams which are unique to Detroit. The Detroit Electronic Music Festival (DEMF) is an opportunity for visiting Techno tourists to experience the vibe of Detroit "parties," but the Detroit "party" scene continues year round for the locals who have, in many cases, been raised in the spirit and tradition of the Detroit Techno scene, usually for ten years or more.
[edit]Canada
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Rave culture in Canada reached its peak in the 1990s and early 2000s. Scenes were established within the major Canadian cities, but most notably Montreal, Toronto, and Vancouver and Edmonton. While the Toronto rave scene subsided about 2003, Montreal has thrived. Toronto during the late 1990s was home to the largest raves in Canada with attendance of 20,000. The shrinking of the Toronto rave scene was due to the actions of various Ontario based politicians and media. The Ontario Rave Act[21] and City TV were especially influential on the scene. By creating a scare to the venue owners, it was difficult if not impossible for promoters to establish locations to house the events, and insurance companies would create a trade barrier by preventing the execution of a certificate thus preventing the event from occurring. Requirements were also created for an arbitrary amount of paid duty police constables to be on-site at events, thus greatly raising the expenses to the promoter. Montreal regularly holds large scale events with the biggest international headliners. Bal en Blanc being one of the best known single night parties in Canada. Toronto is now more known for its shift to the Club/Drum 'n' Bass scene. The Hullabaloo production company held its final party on 9 July 2005. Outdoor raves are still a mainstay of the Vancouver scene. Edmonton continues to hold a following and is currently experiencing a small resurgence.[22]
Canadian ravers listen and dance to a variety of electronic music such as Trance, Drum 'n' Bass, Techno, Hardcore, Happy Hardcore,Psytrance, Goa, House and Dubstep. A number of Canadian DJs and producers have emerged from the Canadian rave scene to reach international acclaim, including Deadmau5, ill.Gates, Richie Hawtin, Excision, Datsik, Downlink, Max Graham, Jay Tripwire, Mathew Jonson,Fred Everything,and Tiga, among others. There is a well established and ever changing rave scene on Vancouver Island spawning many DJ's,Producers and Performers. Commercial Raves in Canada are concentrated in Montreal, Toronto]], Edmonton, Halifax, Saskatoon, Calgary,Ottawa, Vancouver and Winnipeg, with the exception of house raves which can be found in smaller cities.
[edit]Australia
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Brunswick Street Free Rave 1994
Raves flourished in Australia in the 1980s where they were generally called Dance Parties due to the parties being promoted by the gay and straight/gay scenes, until the 1990s when they began being referred to as "raves" with more UK style promoters taking it on.In Sydney from 1983 Rat Parties saw the opening up of Sydney's underground gay dance party scene to a broader community where it found an enormous appetite. By 1990 the standard settingSydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras party, its winter off-shoot Sleazeball and the regular Rat Parties which ran until 1992, were attracting huge crowds of gays and straights alike, while young entrepreneurs behind events like FUN, Sweatbox and Bacchanalia were booking inner city warehouses and tired old venues and transforming them into vibrant, packed party palaces. The DJPeewee Ferris played at the first Sweatbox parties (Let them eat cake and Sign of the times) and RAT Parties from 1987. The biggest RAT Party was in 1999 with Grace Jones with 20,000 people at the Hordern Pavilion.
After the Hordern Pav lost its 24 hour license in 1990 (or thereabouts) the scene went quiet for a bit with attempts at doing similar parties in the newly constructed Darling Harbour Convention centre. These were fairly uncomparable in terms of vibe. UK magazine ID came through on its 'ID world tour' and put on a OK party there but it took a few months before real underground parties emerged in Sydney. Flim Flam, Love and other promotion entities took over inner city venues and some less than legit impromptu spaces that had incredible vibe and aesthetics. The term Rave started to be used in Sydney due to this distinct connection to the scene in the UK.
In Melbourne, the underground dance style called the "Melbourne Shuffle" originated at these parties. Some early parties such as Every Picture Tells A Story were broadcast live on free-to-air television from the party's own TV station.[citation needed] The Melbourne raves tended to have a greater amount of artwork, video art, decor and performance as the underground arts community of Melbourne was heavily involved in producing the parties.[citation needed] Fashion was also a very important component, as many party goers were in the fashion industry which is very large in Melbourne,[citation needed] and they designed and made their own 'party' clothes and accessories. The parties became a fashion show for the designers and created strong retail sales for their works.[citation needed] Often outstanding dancers were sponsored to wear designers' ranges at parties.
Raves and dance parties in Sydney are commonly held at theOlympic Stadium
The Melbourne underground rave community was very large with its own street press, radio stations, TV shows, clothing shops, bars, cafes, theatres, performance venues, record labels, clothing labels, and free street raves associated with the Brunswick Street festival (pictured) which regularly drew large crowds.The first novel dedicated to the Australian rave and dance scene was set in Melbourne. Written by Tom Griffin and titled, Playgrounds: a portrait of rave culture, it was launched at a rave at Kryal Castle in 2005.
Driven by a need to be away from residential areas due to noise pollution complaints of residents, as well as in many cases a desire to evade the attention of the authorities, the Australian rave scene held their events in industrial areas.
In Perth, Western Australia, parties were either held in warehouses in the outer eastern and southern suburbs, or on fields in semi-rural areas easily reachable from the city, such as Wanneroo and Serpentine. Large events included the Deja Vu rave in 1992, RUSH and Emotion in 1993, and Space Garden in 1994, as well as the infamous Sunrise held on new years eve every year since its conception until new years eve 2010. 2009 was an extremely successful year for the scene, seeing multiple events a month and very little grief from the authorities. This was until an event held in a cinema theatre in which the seats provided excessive amounts of cover to buy and sell drugs, the organiser prematurely ended the event 4 hours short of the ticketed time. The Perth rave scene was subject to a bit of turmoil in 2010, after an over-promoted and over-sold rave failed to re-ignite the scene after an abnormally long lack of events. After the closing down of the long-running Rise nightclub in early 2011 the scene was left with few mainstream dance clubs in central Perth, although events continue to occur on a weekly basis at venues such as Ambar, The Velvet Lounge, and The Rosemount, as well as occasional large parties at Metro City. There is a continued strong representation from the drum'n'bass and dubstep scenes, with artists such as ShockOne [23], Kito [24] and Greg Packer [25]successfully releasing tunes and mix CDs. The Origin festival [26] each New Year continues to provide a line-up that reflects these musical tendencies. Smaller underground events continue to occur, spread mostly by word-of-mouth and social media. Perth also hosts many of the major summer festivals which tour Australia, such as Future Music Festival, Stereosonic, God's Kitchen and Parklife. Western Australia is the only state to host its own annual dance music industry awards, the PDMAs.
For the Sydney rave scene the industrial areas of the Western suburbs were quite common in the late 1990s and early 2000s. Following the2000 Sydney Olympics the Sydney Olympic Park at Homebush proved a popular venue as it had ample large warehouse space available and the advantage of no close by residential areas. The "Superdome" at Olympic Park has hosted a number of events due to the large capacity. Events at these venues often have ample room for amusement rides, open air "chill out" areas and food stalls. Several amusement parks have hosted dance party events (Wonderland Sydney and Luna Park Sydney). Public attention was brought upon rave culture in Australia following the death of Sydney teenager Anna Wood who died after consuming an ecstasy tablet at a rave on 25 October 1995. Similar to the death ofLeah Betts, Woods had died from water intoxication secondary to the use of the drug, not the drug itself, because the drug had altered the way she consumed water, rendering her body unable to release it. The incident saw the closure of the club in which she purchased the drug and attended after consuming it and prompted moral panic and further drug awareness in Australia.
In Victoria, the Docklands area of Melbourne hosted numerous raves in the 90s. Bushland areas out side of Melbourne provided Doof venues, notably Mt Disappointment for Earthcore and Kryal Castle just outside of Ballarat.
The Newcastle Rave scene made use of unused warehouses in the Newcastle CBD and at licensed entertainment venues throughout the late 90s and early 2000s. Events such as "Vital beats" and under-age dance parties were held in these venues.
[edit]South Africa
The first mega-rave in South Africa was held in a warehouse on Cape Town's foreshore. Dubbed the World Peace Party, it featured a cross-over crowd of Cape Flats rappers, fashionistas and Clubbers dancing to rave music and progressive house. The first electronic South African Bands who performed live at the Raves were the Kraftreaktor and The Kiwi Experience. The first large Johannesburg rave was held at an old cinema in Yeoville in early 1992. Amongst the first Johannesburg rave organisers in the early 1990s were Fourth World Productions (responsible for the legendary 1993 nightclub 4th World) World's End Productions and Damn New Thing Productions.Other production companies achieved notoriety during the 1990s and included ICE (Incubated Cyber Energy) and Mother Productions, with tours by Boy George, Northern Exposure and Carl Cox adding to the growing international recognition of South Africa as a premier RAVE destination. The most famous club at the time (and still going) is ESP in Doornfontein, renowned for its Sunday parties where the roof was thrown open and ravers danced the day away.
[edit]Kenya
Raves in Kenya begun in the late 90's, and were attended only by over 21 youths.As time went by electronic music begun to spread through out the country. By 2005 they had their own International Dance Festivals and these were attended by many teens and adults;from 13–23 too.Electronic music only clubs, such as the Loft Lounge; List only entry, begun to spread through Nairobi. By 2009 Rave events were mainly attended by children of the countries rich and famous, who were in High Class international schools.As of now, every week rave events are held from Thursday to Sunday Morning. They are organised by 6 am ENTERTAINMENT, iRepresent INC. and The Allies.
[edit]Culture
[edit]Dancing
Raving in itself is a syllabus free dance, whereby the movements are not predefined and the dance is performed randomly, harmonised with beats from music. Rave dance refers to the street dance styles that evolved alongside rave culture. Such dances are street dances since they evolved alongside the underground rave movements, thus without the intervention of dance studios. Sometimes club-oriented dances would be danced to rave music, too, for example, tecktonik is sometimes danced to fast-paced electro house.[citation needed]Such dances are usually freestyle in nature, since they are very rarely choreographed in preparation for such events (although some ravers may create personal dance routines). Dances like Jumpstyle, Tecktonik, Liquid and digits, Shuffling and Industrial dance may be sometimes highly dependent on pre-planned choreography for performances at raves, therefore such dance styles may be practised professionally. Nonetheless, rave dance styles can be completely freeform due to their simple footwork and arm movements.[citation needed]
Rave in Brazil
[edit]Light shows
Some ravers participate in one of four light-oriented dances, called glowsticking,glowstringing, gloving, and lightshows. Other types of light-related dancing includeLED lights, flash-lights and blinking strobe lights. LEDs come in various colours with different settings. The "low intensity" setting causes a strobe effect, leaving trails of dots, while "high intensity" leaves a solid line. There are many techniques used to make the lights "flow" with the music in order to create a visually pleasing and mesmerising combination of patterns. There are also a nearly infinite variety of other moves with varying levels of difficulty applied in their execution. These such moves are called a "figure eight" along with "finger rolls".Regardless, glowsticks and LEDs can be used at raves for interesting dance effects, because most raves (except some open air raves, e.g. technoparades) are held in dark or nearly dark rooms. Because rave parties are popular with people who wish to show off their dancing, glowsticks can be an ancillary material for creative freestyle dance. LEDs and glowsticks now not only show up at most every rave event, but also are becoming more prominent at many electronic dance music clubs.
[edit]Rave names and marriages
Rave names are pseudonyms that people use to be able to give to other raves to be known by. They are usually names bestowed upon you by a fellow raver. It is considered a social faux pas to name someone else unless you have been raving for longer than a year's time. These names are given much the same way that a Native American 'deed name' is given and usually have deep symbolic meaning for people.Ceremonies are sometimes done to 'rave marry' two people together. This shows a union of two people who are very good friends and promise to be there for each other when they need it most. It is one way in which the rave community shows the unity aspect of the P.L.U.R. acronym.
[edit]Rave magazines
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During the '90s, the US Rave scene self-publication became a huge part in the way parties were advertised and known of. These publications ranged from a single sheet photocopied "zines" to expensive glossy covered magazines. Each magazine had its own reasons for being and having a dedicated audience that centred around the cities of publication of each magazine. The Midwest was known for its Milwaukee based "Massive Magazine" and Chicago based "Reactor" and "A Thousand Words" photo magazine. On the East Coast you had NYC DJ Heather Heart's "Under One Sky"(actually started in 1990 or 1991) and a few years later a little magazine called "Vice" that was in the works (Feel free to add here), and later, in 1996 & 1997, NYC had DROP Magazine that was a continuation of PROJECT X Magazine, On the West Coast you had LA based "URB" , San Diego's Hypno, BPM and Sin Magazines and San Francisco based Lotus and "XLR8R". Abroad you had Germany's "Frontpage" and "De:Bug" and the United Kingdom's "Mixmag", "Atmosphere" and "Knowledge" magazines. The latter two dedicated to the UK's Breakbeat and Drum n Bass markets.
Each publication was an essential part of the local Rave scene, and was greatly appreciated by many ravers. Each issue contained interviews with artists that were not known in commercial publications. Most of these magazines started as free enterprises, usually surviving only on an advertising revenue based model. Later on, some magazines such as "Urb" and "Xlr8r" were able to legitimise and become proper publications that can now be found at local book stores. While others like "Massive Magazine" ended with a fire consuming their offices in the winter of 2004 destroying all the films and back issues making issues of "Massive Magazine" a piece of must have nostalgia fetching prices of up to 100 dollars for any early back issues on eBay.
[edit]Drug use
In the U.S., the mainstream media and law enforcement agencies have branded the subculture as a purely drug-centric culture, usually drugs such as cannabis, ecstasy, LSD, PCP, cocaine and ketamine, similar to the hippie movement of the 1960s.[27]Groups that have addressed drug use at raves include the Electronic Music Defense and Education Fund (EMDEF), The Toronto Raver Info Project, and DanceSafe, all of which advocate harm reduction approaches. Paradoxically, drug safety literature (such as those distributed by DanceSafe) is used as evidence of condoned drug use. Other groups, such as Drug Free America Foundation, Inc., characterize raves as being rife with gang activity, rape, robbery, and drug-related deaths.[28]
In 2005, Antonio Maria Costa, Executive Director of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, advocated drug testing on highways as a countermeasure against drug use at raves.[29]
In recent times, as opposed to the past decades, rave venues have taken to hiring local law enforcement to reduce drug use.
[edit]Ecstasy
MDMA powder
There have been a number of deaths attributed to PMA, a potent and highly neurotoxic hallucinogenic amphetamine, being sold as ecstasy.[30][31] PMA is unique in its ability to quickly elevate body temperature and heart rate at relatively low doses, especially in comparison to MDMA. Hence, a user believing he is consuming two 120 mg pills of MDMA could actually be consuming a dose of PMA that is potentially lethal, depending on the purity of the pill. Not only does PMA cause the release of serotonin but it also acts as a monoamine oxidase inhibitor, MAOI. When combined with an MDMA or an MDMA-like substance, serotonin syndrome can result.[32] Combining MAO inhibitors with certain legal prescription and over the counter medications can also lead to (potentially fatal) serotonin syndrome.Tablets sold as MDMA may contain other chemicals
According to one report in 2000, drug related deaths in the rave scene have caused parents to forbid their children from attending while baby boomers find it implausible to deny these young people from these drugs and entertainment[33] In 2000 parents of one overdose victim, 23 year-old Jamie Britten, expressed a desire for safeguards instead of prohibition. Britten was a newcomer to the rave scene, and died after taking enough ecstasy to make the level in his blood 2.5 mg per litre.[34]Another death, that of 17 year-old Jillian Kirkland is reported to have outraged medical professionals and law makers. This caused federal agents to start an investigation, and eventually a grand jury indicted three men who ran the night club she took the drugs in. Prosecutors used a 1986 law called the Crack House Statute which prohibits maintaining property for the purpose of distributing controlled substances.[35] In a federal probe, undercover Drug Enforcement Administration agents were able to get their hands on as much as 13g of ecstasy. In an attempt to discourage drug use in many of these raves, venue owners and law enforcement are banning some of the rave related items such as glow sticks and pacifiers[36][edit]See also
[edit]Notes and references
[edit]Further reading
[edit]Video
Sunrise was one of the biggest raves to hit Europe during what some people called "The second summer of love." An estimated 20,000 people attended the event.[edit]External links
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