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Empire Of Illusion
''Empire of Illusion: The End of Literacy and the Triumph of Spectacle'' is a 2009 nonfiction book by American journalist Chris Hedges. ''Empire of Illusion'' examines a claimed cultural decay in the United States as a result of a malignant consumer culture and corporate influences. Contents The Illusion of Literacy ''Empire of Illusion'' begins with an exploration of the narratives found in World Wrestling Entertainment competitions, noting the increased use of class, family, and sexual conflict. Hedges compares the spectacle to Plato's allegory of the cave, and argues that the invented celebrity culture of the wider entertainment world is creating with it a population divorced from understanding reality. Hedges furthers that the rise of artificial relationships and pseudo-events has political implications, particularly with the creation of celebrity status for politicians. The Illusion of Love The following chapter decries the abuses against women in the American se ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Chris Hedges
Christopher Lynn Hedges (born September 18, 1956) is an American journalist, Presbyterian minister, author, and commentator. In his early career, Hedges worked as a freelance war correspondent in Central America for '' The Christian Science Monitor'', NPR, and ''Dallas Morning News''. Hedges reported for '' The New York Times'' from 1990 to 2005, and served as the ''Times'' Middle East Bureau Chief and Balkan Bureau Chief during the wars in the former Yugoslavia. In 2001, Hedges contributed to ''The New York Times'' staff entry that received the 2002 Pulitzer Prize for Explanatory Reporting for the paper's coverage of global terrorism. Hedges produced a weekly column for '' Truthdig'' for 14 years until the outlet's hiatus in 2020. His books include '' War Is a Force That Gives Us Meaning'' (2002), a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award for Nonfiction; '' American Fascists: The Christian Right and the War on America'' (2007); ''Death of the Liberal Class'' (201 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jargon
Jargon is the specialized terminology associated with a particular field or area of activity. Jargon is normally employed in a particular communicative context and may not be well understood outside that context. The context is usually a particular occupation (that is, a certain trade, profession, vernacular or academic field), but any ingroup can have jargon. The main trait that distinguishes jargon from the rest of a language is special vocabulary—including some words specific to it and often different senses or meanings of words, that outgroups would tend to take in another sense—therefore misunderstanding that communication attempt. Jargon is sometimes understood as a form of technical slang and then distinguished from the official terminology used in a particular field of activity. The terms ''jargon'', ''slang,'' and ''argot'' are not consistently differentiated in the literature; different authors interpret these concepts in varying ways. According to one definition, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Globe And Mail
''The Globe and Mail'' is a Canadian newspaper printed in five cities in western and central Canada. With a weekly readership of approximately 2 million in 2015, it is Canada's most widely read newspaper on weekdays and Saturdays, although it falls slightly behind the '' Toronto Star'' in overall weekly circulation because the ''Star'' publishes a Sunday edition, whereas the ''Globe'' does not. ''The Globe and Mail'' is regarded by some as Canada's " newspaper of record". ''The Globe and Mail''s predecessors, '' The Globe'' and ''The Mail and Empire'' were both established in the 19th century. The former was established in 1844, while the latter was established in 1895 through a merger of '' The Toronto Mail'' and the '' Toronto Empire''. In 1936, ''The Globe'' and ''The Mail and Empire'' merged to form ''The Globe and Mail''. The newspaper was acquired by FP Publications in 1965, who later sold the paper to the Thomson Corporation in 1980. In 2001, the paper merged with broadc ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Laura Penny
Laura Penny (born 1975) is a Canadian academic and the author of the bestselling ''Your Call is Important to Us: The Truth About Bullshit'', a study of the phenomenon of bullshit and its role in modern society. Penny was featured on '' 60 Minutes'' with Princeton professor Harry Frankfurt, author of the similarly themed treatise, ''On Bullshit''. Penny is an occasional contributor to ''The Globe and Mail''. She has also written for the ''National Post'', '' Saturday Night'', '' Chatelaine'', and ''Toronto Life'' (for which she is also a contributing editor). Penny holds a PhD in Comparative Literature from the State University of New York at Buffalo (now renamed Buffalo State College) . From 2002 to 2006, she taught at the University of King's College in Halifax, Nova Scotia, where she was a Senior Fellow in the Foundation Year Programme. She then went on to teach at Halifax's Mount Saint Vincent University Mount Saint Vincent University, often referred to as the Mount, is ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Privatization In The United States
Privatization is the process of transferring ownership of a business, enterprise, agency, charity or public service from the public sector (the state or government) or common use to the private sector (businesses that operate for a private profit) or to private non-profit organizations. State, county, and city economies are constantly challenged in running government operations. A government-run sector may transfer the responsibility for carrying out the service and/or resource management activities and responsibilities to the private sector. Privatization can be a solution for dealing with particularly problematic aspects within a government's administration. Often municipalities will turn to privatization to solve an issue. A city or county may, for example, have vehicle maintenance cost increases that exceed revenues consistently and look to privatization as a means of controlling increasing costs. It may not, however, address other factors that are contributing to the cost inc ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lobbying In The United States
Lobbying in the United States describes paid activity in which special interest groups hire well-connected professional advocates, often lawyers, to argue for specific legislation in decision-making bodies such as the United States Congress. It is a highly controversial phenomenon, often seen in a negative light by journalists and the American public, with some critics describing it as a legal form of bribery, influence peddling, and/or extortion.Robert Reich, June 9, 2015, Salon magazineRobert Reich: Lobbyists are snuffing our democracy, one legal bribe at a time Retrieved May 30, 2017, "...This second scandal is perfectly legal but it's a growing menace ... the financial rewards from lobbying have mushroomed, as big corporations and giant Wall Street banks have sunk fortunes into rigging the game to their advantage...."Mike Masnick, April 12, 2012, Tech DirtIs Lobbying Closer To Bribery... Or Extortion? Retrieved May 30, 2017, While lobbying is subject to extensive and often c ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Medical Debt
Medical debt refers to debt incurred by individuals due to health care costs and related expenses. Medical debt is different from other forms of debt, because it is usually incurred accidentally or faultlessly. People do not plan to fall ill or hurt themselves, and health care remedies are often unavoidable; medical debt is often treated with more sympathy than other kinds of debt resulting in advice that people ought not try to convert it to credit card debt. United States Medical debt is an especially notable phenomenon in the United States. According to the poll from the Pew Research center, American citizens are much more worried about health care issues as a top public matter and concern, especially medical expenses, rather than the economy and terrorism. In less developed nations those on low income in need of treatment will often avail themselves of whatever help they can from either the state or NGOs without going into debt, and in most developed countries public cover ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Outsourcing
Outsourcing is an agreement in which one company hires another company to be responsible for a planned or existing activity which otherwise is or could be carried out internally, i.e. in-house, and sometimes involves transferring employees and assets from one firm to another. The term ''outsourcing'', which came from the phrase ''outside resourcing'', originated no later than 1981. The concept, which ''The Economist'' says has "made its presence felt since the time of the Second World War", often involves the contracting of a business process (e.g., payroll processing, claims processing), operational, and/or non-core functions, such as manufacturing, facility management, call center/call center support. The practice of handing over control of public services to private enterprises (privatization), even if conducted on a limited, short-term basis, may also be described as outsourcing. Outsourcing includes both foreign and domestic contracting, and sometimes includes offshorin ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Civil Religion
Civil religion, also referred to as a civic religion, is the implicit religious values of a nation, as expressed through public rituals, symbols (such as the national flag), and ceremonies on sacred days and at sacred places (such as monuments, battlefields, or national cemeteries). It is distinct from churches, although church officials and ceremonies are sometimes incorporated into the practice of civil religion. Countries described as having a civil religion include France, South Korea, the former Soviet Union, and the United States. As a concept, it originated in French political thought and became a major topic for U.S. sociologists since its use by Robert Bellah in 1960. Origin of term Jean-Jacques Rousseau coined the term in chapter 8, book 4 of '' The Social Contract'' (1762), to describe what he regarded as the moral and spiritual foundation essential for any modern society. For Rousseau, civil religion was intended simply as a form of social cement, helping to unify the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mental Health
Mental health encompasses emotional, psychological, and social well-being, influencing cognition, perception, and behavior. It likewise determines how an individual handles stress, interpersonal relationships, and decision-making. Mental health includes subjective well-being, perceived self-efficacy, autonomy, competence, intergenerational dependence, and self-actualization of one's intellectual and emotional potential, among others. From the perspectives of positive psychology or holism, mental health may include an individual's ability to enjoy life and to create a balance between life activities and efforts to achieve psychological resilience. Cultural differences, subjective assessments, and competing professional theories all affect how one defines "mental health". Some early signs related to mental health problems are sleep irritation, lack of energy, lack of appetite and thinking of harming yourself or others. Mental disorders Mental health, as defined by the Publ ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Job Satisfaction
Job satisfaction, employee satisfaction or work satisfaction is a measure of workers' contentedness with their job, whether they like the job or individual aspects or facets of jobs, such as nature of work or supervision. Job satisfaction can be measured in cognitive (evaluative), affective (or emotional), and behavioral components.Hulin, C. L., & Judge, T. A. (2003). Job attitUdes. In W. C. Borman, D. R. ligen, & R. J. Klimoski (Eds.), Handbook of psychology: Industrial and organizational psychology (pp. 255-276). Hoboken, NJ: Wiley. Researchers have also noted that job satisfaction measures vary in the extent to which they measure feelings about the job (affective job satisfaction). or cognitions about the job (cognitive job satisfaction). One of the most widely used definitions in organizational research is that of Edwin A. Locke (1976), who defines job satisfaction as "a pleasurable or positive emotional state resulting from the appraisal of one's job or job experiences" (p.& ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Productivity
Productivity is the efficiency of production of goods or services expressed by some measure. Measurements of productivity are often expressed as a ratio of an aggregate output to a single input or an aggregate input used in a production process, i.e. output per unit of input, typically over a specific period of time. The most common example is the (aggregate) labour productivity measure, one example of which is GDP per worker. There are many different definitions of productivity (including those that are not defined as ratios of output to input) and the choice among them depends on the purpose of the productivity measurement and/or data availability. The key source of difference between various productivity measures is also usually related (directly or indirectly) to how the outputs and the inputs are aggregated to obtain such a ratio-type measure of productivity. Productivity is a crucial factor in the production performance of firms and nations. Increasing national producti ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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