Life Balance - Focus

How to Achieve A Good Work/Life Balance - Focus We hear the phrase work/life balance so often that its easy to gloss over it rather than digging into what it really means. Unfortunately, like many things that are easy to overlook (eating well and exercising, for instance), not having work/life balance can be quite dangerous for our health and wellbeing. The Dangers of Not Having Balance You can go one of two ways when youre out of balance: too much life, or too much work. The dangers of too much life in your equation are fairly obvious: if youre not working enough, you risk not producing results, producing lower-quality work, struggling to grow your business, or even losing your job. It seems more common to go the other way, though. Many of us end up spending too much time at work, not making enough time to relax and strengthen our relationships with friends and family. And this is where things get dangerous for our health. Research has found those who overwork (that is, work 55 hours or more in a week) have a 33% higher risk of stroke when compared to those who work fewer than 40 hours per week. Overworked employees who do manual labor or other non-white-collar jobs also have a 30% higher risk of developing type 2 diabetes. Those who work less than 40 hours, on the other hand, fall asleep faster and get more sleep overall. Researchers suggest this may be because working more gives us less time to relax and wind down for sleep, but increases our requirements for relaxation time. And since overworked employees get less sleep, they also attract downsides of being tired. When were tired we tend to misread other peoples emotions and pick fights more oftenâ€"neither of which are conducive to communication and productivity in the workplace. You might be thinking the downsides dont apply to you, or even if they do, theyre worth the trade-off for higher productivity. But working more doesnt actually lead to higher productivity in most cases. Theres a reason, for instance, that we tend to work eight hours a day, five days a week. Most studies and business experiments have found this to be the most effective spread of working hours for productivity. In the past it was common to work up to seven days a week and more than ten hours per day. But Henry Ford wasnt happy to settle for what everyone else was doing. He wanted to find the optimal spread of working hours to achieve the most efficient production output possible. After experimenting with different working weeks, Ford found that his workers produced at least as much output in five-day working weeks as they did when they worked for six days. Ernst Abbé, head of a German factory, was also interested in experimenting to find a more efficient working week for his employees. He tested shortening the workday from nine hours to eight, and found that production actually increased when his employees worked fewer hours. If youre still thinking that overworking isnt unhealthy in your case, you might be falling prey to the grip of crunch mode, during which we tend to overestimate how much work were getting done. We also overestimate how good our work is when were in crunch mode. Productivity is harder to quantify for knowledge workers than it was for people like Abbé and Ford measuring factory output. But even if youre struggling to measure exactly how much youre getting done, if youre at work for more than 55 hours every week, its likely that youre increasing your health risks and damaging your sleep quality. How To Achieve Balance So if you are thinking you need to improve the balance between your work and life, how do you go about it? Writer James Clear suggests using the four burners theory for thinking about the different areas of your life. Imagine four burners on a stove that represent these four areas of your life: Family Friends Health Work Now heres the problem: the theory suggests that to be successful, you have to turn off at least one burner. To be very successful, says Clear, you have to turn off two burners. Because we cant be everywhere at once, were forced to choose between these areas when we decide how to spend our time. If we dont choose where to focus our time, we end up with sub-par results in all areas, says Clear: Of course, you are free to divide your time equally among all four burners, but you have to accept that you will never reach your full potential in any given area. But of course none of us wants to give up any of these areas of our lives. So how can we use this theory to find a way to balance all four burners? Clear has three different suggestions for balancing your burners. The first is to outsource some of your burners. For instance, hiring a nanny or babysitter is outsourcing your family burner. Hiring employees or automating your business is outsourcing your work burner. Clear notes, however, that while outsourcing a burner keeps it running, its not necessarily the most meaningful way to keep that burner going. If we can, wed all like to put our own energy into the things we enjoy, like spending time with our family or growing our businesses, rather than outsourcing those efforts. Another option Clear suggests is to become more efficient in how you spend time on each burner. That could mean automating some areas of your business, planning how you spend your time more carefully, or spending most of your time on the activities that provide the biggest return for each burner. Since youre limited in how much time you have overall, maximizing your efficiency can help you get more out of the little time you can spend on each burner. Clears final suggestion is to focus on different burners in seasonal periods. Thinking of your time as being broken into seasons, you can let one or two burners turn off (or slow down) while you focus on others, knowing that youll change your focus when youre ready to start a new season. A season could be weeks, months, or years long, which is helpful for not having to make lifelong commitments to which burners youre turning off. The importance of your burners may change throughout life, says Clear. If youre worried about not focusing on all four burners, the seasonal approach can help you find times to focus on each burner in turn. Since the holiday season is coming up for many of us, for instance, that might be a short period where you turn off the work burner and focus on your family and friends burners. After the holiday period is over, you might find your health burner is needing some love if your holiday season includes eating as well as mine does! You can do it all in a lifetime, but not at the same damn time. â€" James Clear Another option Clear doesn’t mention is to combine your burners. If you’re lucky enough, you might be able to work on a couple of burners at the same time. That’s the case at MeisterLabs, the company behind MeisterTask, where built-in exercise programs allow employees to work on both their “work” and “health” burners in a normal workday. MeisterLabs CEO Michael Hollauf told me combining work and exercise was the impetus for creating the MeisterLabs running club: We already knew that staying active is good for physical health and emotional wellbeing, reducing for example the risk of developing stress or anxiety. We also knew that our team had family commitments and other obligations outside of work (e.g. that latest Netflix series) which can make fitting in regular exercise tricky. When I stumbled across a study which found that exercising while at work actively boosts productivity levels, we decided to act on it. Of course, some of you might be thinking (as I was when I first found out about this initiative) that this approach excludes anyone who can’t or won’t use running as a way to improve their health. But the MeisterLabs team thought of that, too: This went down great but excluded some team members who didn’t fancy the distance, so we recently set up a yoga class with an external instructor too, held here at our office on Mondays and Fridays. This has proven even more popular … and with the yoga beginning at a very basic level, offering different position options for different abilities, there’s something for everyone. While we’re not all lucky enough to have an exercise club at work, some workplaces offer other ways to combine your burners, such as day care in the building letting you get some family time breaks throughout the workday, or flexible work so you can work from home and see your family throughout the day. Work smarter, not longer. Discover MeisterTask Its free! Discover MeisterTask What if Balance Isnt the Right Approach At All? Now that Ive talked all about finding balance, Im going to throw a spanner in the works. The point of finding balance is to separate work and life so you can fit in both comfortably. But some people think this isnt even possible. The truth is work and life collide and cannot be easily separated. â€" Shawn Murphy According to Shawn Murphy, CEO and founder of Switch Shift, work and life cant be separated, and we only frustrate ourselves by trying. Wharton professor Stewart Friedman agrees. Friedman suggests that we have four domains of life, similar to the four burners theory. His four domains include: work/school home/family community/society mind/body/spirt These are pretty close to the categories of the four burner theory, but the difference is Friedman says we dont have to give any of these up. He suggests we can live an integrated life and be satisfied in all these areas. In fact, research on the difference between trying to integrate different areas of your life shows this is more healthy than trying to separate those areas. The reason is related to something called cognitive role transition. According to management researcher David Burkus, cognitive role transition is what happens when youre actively engaged in one role, but experience thoughts of [sic] feelings related to a different role. If youve ever felt a nagging feeling to check your work email during dinner with your family, or to pay your rent while youre at work, thats cognitive role transition. And heres the strange thing: the more you try to separate work and life, the worse the effects of these transitions. A study of over 600 workers found people who didnt try to strictly separate work and life made more cognitive role transitions, but the transitions didnt affect them too much. For those who did try to separate work and life strictly, they experienced fewer transitions but those transitions depleted their energy and hurt their work performance a lot more. David Burkus said of the study, the more frequent role transitions makes [sic] it easier for those individuals to push the thought out of their mind with less willpower. For more productivity tips, check out our post on How to write a better to do list and get more done. This can all get a little confusing, because there are so many different points of view. But if we focus on what the research shows, we know that overworking is bad for our health and our productivity. Research has also shown us that trying to strictly separate work and life can backfire by making the crossover between the two more harmful to our productivity and wellbeing. Beyond the research, it’s up to us to experiment and decide for ourselves what works best. We can use the four burner theory James Clear suggests and look for ways to split our time between family, friends, work, and our health. That might mean focusing on different burners in seasons, combining burners when we can, or outsourcing some burners. On the other hand, some people believe work and life can’t be separated, and research shows that those who let them blend together tend to be healthier and perform better. Their approach is to let the lines between life and work blur a little more, so we can avoid the nagging feeling of one area while trying to focus on another. Whether we can have it all and still be successful is up for debate, but the most important lesson to be learned is not to focus on only one thing for two long. Whether its work or play, too much of one leaves us feeling burned out and lacking balance.   Find balance with task management Try MeisterTask Its free! Try MeisterTask How to Achieve A Good Work/Life Balance - Focus We hear the phrase work/life balance so often that its easy to gloss over it rather than digging into what it really means. Unfortunately, like many things that are easy to overlook (eating well and exercising, for instance), not having work/life balance can be quite dangerous for our health and wellbeing. The Dangers of Not Having Balance You can go one of two ways when youre out of balance: too much life, or too much work. The dangers of too much life in your equation are fairly obvious: if youre not working enough, you risk not producing results, producing lower-quality work, struggling to grow your business, or even losing your job. It seems more common to go the other way, though. Many of us end up spending too much time at work, not making enough time to relax and strengthen our relationships with friends and family. And this is where things get dangerous for our health. Research has found those who overwork (that is, work 55 hours or more in a week) have a 33% higher risk of stroke when compared to those who work fewer than 40 hours per week. Overworked employees who do manual labor or other non-white-collar jobs also have a 30% higher risk of developing type 2 diabetes. Those who work less than 40 hours, on the other hand, fall asleep faster and get more sleep overall. Researchers suggest this may be because working more gives us less time to relax and wind down for sleep, but increases our requirements for relaxation time. And since overworked employees get less sleep, they also attract downsides of being tired. When were tired we tend to misread other peoples emotions and pick fights more oftenâ€"neither of which are conducive to communication and productivity in the workplace. You might be thinking the downsides dont apply to you, or even if they do, theyre worth the trade-off for higher productivity. But working more doesnt actually lead to higher productivity in most cases. Theres a reason, for instance, that we tend to work eight hours a day, five days a week. Most studies and business experiments have found this to be the most effective spread of working hours for productivity. In the past it was common to work up to seven days a week and more than ten hours per day. But Henry Ford wasnt happy to settle for what everyone else was doing. He wanted to find the optimal spread of working hours to achieve the most efficient production output possible. After experimenting with different working weeks, Ford found that his workers produced at least as much output in five-day working weeks as they did when they worked for six days. Ernst Abbé, head of a German factory, was also interested in experimenting to find a more efficient working week for his employees. He tested shortening the workday from nine hours to eight, and found that production actually increased when his employees worked fewer hours. If youre still thinking that overworking isnt unhealthy in your case, you might be falling prey to the grip of crunch mode, during which we tend to overestimate how much work were getting done. We also overestimate how good our work is when were in crunch mode. Productivity is harder to quantify for knowledge workers than it was for people like Abbé and Ford measuring factory output. But even if youre struggling to measure exactly how much youre getting done, if youre at work for more than 55 hours every week, its likely that youre increasing your health risks and damaging your sleep quality. How To Achieve Balance So if you are thinking you need to improve the balance between your work and life, how do you go about it? Writer James Clear suggests using the four burners theory for thinking about the different areas of your life. Imagine four burners on a stove that represent these four areas of your life: Family Friends Health Work Now heres the problem: the theory suggests that to be successful, you have to turn off at least one burner. To be very successful, says Clear, you have to turn off two burners. Because we cant be everywhere at once, were forced to choose between these areas when we decide how to spend our time. If we dont choose where to focus our time, we end up with sub-par results in all areas, says Clear: Of course, you are free to divide your time equally among all four burners, but you have to accept that you will never reach your full potential in any given area. But of course none of us wants to give up any of these areas of our lives. So how can we use this theory to find a way to balance all four burners? Clear has three different suggestions for balancing your burners. The first is to outsource some of your burners. For instance, hiring a nanny or babysitter is outsourcing your family burner. Hiring employees or automating your business is outsourcing your work burner. Clear notes, however, that while outsourcing a burner keeps it running, its not necessarily the most meaningful way to keep that burner going. If we can, wed all like to put our own energy into the things we enjoy, like spending time with our family or growing our businesses, rather than outsourcing those efforts. Another option Clear suggests is to become more efficient in how you spend time on each burner. That could mean automating some areas of your business, planning how you spend your time more carefully, or spending most of your time on the activities that provide the biggest return for each burner. Since youre limited in how much time you have overall, maximizing your efficiency can help you get more out of the little time you can spend on each burner. Clears final suggestion is to focus on different burners in seasonal periods. Thinking of your time as being broken into seasons, you can let one or two burners turn off (or slow down) while you focus on others, knowing that youll change your focus when youre ready to start a new season. A season could be weeks, months, or years long, which is helpful for not having to make lifelong commitments to which burners youre turning off. The importance of your burners may change throughout life, says Clear. If youre worried about not focusing on all four burners, the seasonal approach can help you find times to focus on each burner in turn. Since the holiday season is coming up for many of us, for instance, that might be a short period where you turn off the work burner and focus on your family and friends burners. After the holiday period is over, you might find your health burner is needing some love if your holiday season includes eating as well as mine does! You can do it all in a lifetime, but not at the same damn time. â€" James Clear Another option Clear doesn’t mention is to combine your burners. If you’re lucky enough, you might be able to work on a couple of burners at the same time. That’s the case at MeisterLabs, the company behind MeisterTask, where built-in exercise programs allow employees to work on both their “work” and “health” burners in a normal workday. MeisterLabs CEO Michael Hollauf told me combining work and exercise was the impetus for creating the MeisterLabs running club: We already knew that staying active is good for physical health and emotional wellbeing, reducing for example the risk of developing stress or anxiety. We also knew that our team had family commitments and other obligations outside of work (e.g. that latest Netflix series) which can make fitting in regular exercise tricky. When I stumbled across a study which found that exercising while at work actively boosts productivity levels, we decided to act on it. Of course, some of you might be thinking (as I was when I first found out about this initiative) that this approach excludes anyone who can’t or won’t use running as a way to improve their health. But the MeisterLabs team thought of that, too: This went down great but excluded some team members who didn’t fancy the distance, so we recently set up a yoga class with an external instructor too, held here at our office on Mondays and Fridays. This has proven even more popular … and with the yoga beginning at a very basic level, offering different position options for different abilities, there’s something for everyone. While we’re not all lucky enough to have an exercise club at work, some workplaces offer other ways to combine your burners, such as day care in the building letting you get some family time breaks throughout the workday, or flexible work so you can work from home and see your family throughout the day. Work smarter, not longer. Discover MeisterTask Its free! Discover MeisterTask What if Balance Isnt the Right Approach At All? Now that Ive talked all about finding balance, Im going to throw a spanner in the works. The point of finding balance is to separate work and life so you can fit in both comfortably. But some people think this isnt even possible. The truth is work and life collide and cannot be easily separated. â€" Shawn Murphy According to Shawn Murphy, CEO and founder of Switch Shift, work and life cant be separated, and we only frustrate ourselves by trying. Wharton professor Stewart Friedman agrees. Friedman suggests that we have four domains of life, similar to the four burners theory. His four domains include: work/school home/family community/society mind/body/spirt These are pretty close to the categories of the four burner theory, but the difference is Friedman says we dont have to give any of these up. He suggests we can live an integrated life and be satisfied in all these areas. In fact, research on the difference between trying to integrate different areas of your life shows this is more healthy than trying to separate those areas. The reason is related to something called cognitive role transition. According to management researcher David Burkus, cognitive role transition is what happens when youre actively engaged in one role, but experience thoughts of [sic] feelings related to a different role. If youve ever felt a nagging feeling to check your work email during dinner with your family, or to pay your rent while youre at work, thats cognitive role transition. And heres the strange thing: the more you try to separate work and life, the worse the effects of these transitions. A study of over 600 workers found people who didnt try to strictly separate work and life made more cognitive role transitions, but the transitions didnt affect them too much. For those who did try to separate work and life strictly, they experienced fewer transitions but those transitions depleted their energy and hurt their work performance a lot more. David Burkus said of the study, the more frequent role transitions makes [sic] it easier for those individuals to push the thought out of their mind with less willpower. For more productivity tips, check out our post on How to write a better to do list and get more done. This can all get a little confusing, because there are so many different points of view. But if we focus on what the research shows, we know that overworking is bad for our health and our productivity. Research has also shown us that trying to strictly separate work and life can backfire by making the crossover between the two more harmful to our productivity and wellbeing. Beyond the research, it’s up to us to experiment and decide for ourselves what works best. We can use the four burner theory James Clear suggests and look for ways to split our time between family, friends, work, and our health. That might mean focusing on different burners in seasons, combining burners when we can, or outsourcing some burners. On the other hand, some people believe work and life can’t be separated, and research shows that those who let them blend together tend to be healthier and perform better. Their approach is to let the lines between life and work blur a little more, so we can avoid the nagging feeling of one area while trying to focus on another. Whether we can have it all and still be successful is up for debate, but the most important lesson to be learned is not to focus on only one thing for two long. Whether its work or play, too much of one leaves us feeling burned out and lacking balance.   Find balance with task management Try MeisterTask Its free! Try MeisterTask

Annotated Bibliography On Metacognitive Strategies

Journal article review on topic: Metacognitive strategies to improve reading comprehension Research over the years has highlighted the fact that highly proficient strategic readers employ strong metacognitive strategies and have a high degree of cognizance of the reading strategies they employ. To give a quick understanding of metacognition, one can think of it as the ability to take a bird’s eye view as to the processes involved in mental activities—frequently referred to by educators as thinking about thinking (Anderson, 2002, p.23). Because metacognition has proven to be vital to reading comprehension, most quality English as a second language (ESL) programs teach and model reading strategies in order to ensure better reading comprehension. Tools to measure metacognitive awareness are the MARSI (Metacognitive-Awareness-of-Reading Strategies Inventory) or the SORS (Survey of Reading Strategies) inventory. The SORS is intended for use with students who are post-secondary, whether native or non-native. This test is divided into three areas: Global reading str ategies (GLOB), Problem-solving (PROB), and Support Reading Strategies (SUP) (Sheory Mokhtari, 2001). Since academic preparedness in college students, especially international students, can be molded by socio-cultural factors, research as to the impact of culture on metacognition, particularly in reading strategy choice, is of interest. The improvement of reading comprehension for international students through theShow MoreRelatedHow and Understanding of Metacognition Improves the Way a Student Learns2074 Words   |  9 Pagesof two components: knowledge and regulation. Metacognitive learning includes knowledge about oneself as a learner and the factors that might impact performance, knowledge about strategies, and knowledge about when and why to use strategies. Metacognitive regulation is the monitoring of one’s cognition and includes planning activities, awareness of understanding and task performance, and assessment of the efficacy of monitoring processes and strategies. Metacognition also improves with suitable instruction

McCullen v Coakley - Free Essay Example

Sample details Pages: 6 Words: 1808 Downloads: 9 Date added: 2017/06/26 Category Law Essay Type Narrative essay Topics: Crime Essay Did you like this example? Running Head: Case Opinion Analysis: Mccullen V. Coakley McCULLEN V. Coakley Case Opinion Analysis For the purpose of this paper I choose to place an opinion applet to the case of Supreme Court of the United States no. 12–1168. Eleanor McCULLEN, et al., petitioners v. Martha Coakley, attorney general of Massachusetts, et al .on writ of certiorari to the United States court of appeals for the first circuit argued on January 15, 2014 and decided June 26, 2014. Following an enactment of the legislature to regulate speech on designated areas on health facilities offering abortion. Holding: The Massachusetts law which makes it a crime to stand on a public road or sidewalk within thirty-five feet of a reproductive health care facility violates the First Amendment. The most important enquiry presented by this appeal is the tolerable extent to which the Massachusetts statute is at par with the constitution and whether the statute violates the First Amen dment with regards to the petitioners talking to the women in health facilities in the aim of talking them down not to take the abortion procedure Some of the those who stand outside Massachusetts abortion clinics are impartially described as protestors, who express their moral or religious antagonism to abortion through signs and chants or, in some cases, more aggressive methods such as head-on opposition. Petitioners take a different method. They try to engage women approaching the clinics in what they call â€Å"sidewalk counseling,† which involves offering information about alternatives to abortion and help taking those options. The Massachusetts statute confers it a crime to knowingly stand on a public way or sidewalk within 35 feet of an entrance or driveway to any place, other than a hospital, where abortions are performed. Mass. Gen. Laws, Ch. 266, 120E ½ (a), (b) (West 2012). The Petitioners are the entities who approach and talk to women outside such amenities, trying to discourage them from ta king the abortions. The statute inhibits petitioners from doing so near the facilities entrances. The epicenter of this case is based on the mass. Gen. Laws Ch. 266 120E  ½ (2007) the act. the pertinent provisions of the act are detailed in some detail in which the alleged persons are restricted from the public and sidewalks of reproductive health care amenities which are within the marked buffer zones which span 35 feet of any portion of the driveway entrance or exit or such an area created by extending the boundaries of the same locations to the point which there is intersection with the street sideline in front of such a driveway, entrance or exit. This act in the revision of 2000 however exempts the persons leaving or entering the indicated facilities, the employees and the agents of the facility, the law enforcement personnel, utility personnel firefighting ambulances and public works staff. It also exempts the people using the areas with the sole purpose of right of way to get to their destination. On 16th of January 2008 this action was brought against the Massachusetts attorney general in the federal district court with an allegation of a varied constitutional claims and invoking 42 U.S.C. 1983. The court separated the plaintiff’s facial challenge from their as applied challenge thus addressing the facial challenge and upholding the act. Following an appeal the court held that the act was a content neutral, valid and viewpoint neutral. The plaintiffs over breadth claim was rebuffed by citing the Hill v. Colorado 530 U.S 703(2000) from which the Supreme Court upheld a Colorado statue which controlled communicative activities within 100 feet of healthcare facility entrances. Finally, it was ruled that the Act did not constitute an unlawful prior restraint on protected speech. What remained then was the plaintiffs as applied challenge. As a threshold matter it invokes the case of doctrine counteratta cked the plaintiffs effort to reargue the facial constitutionality of the Act. Next, it allowed the defendants motion for judgment on the pleadings with regard to seven as-applied counts. Id. at 141-45. Resulting to whether the Act, as applied, constituted a valid time-place-manner directive, the court concluded that the only trial worthy subject concerned the suitability of alternative channels of communication at the affected facilities. Id. at 145. Following a bench trial, the court upheld the Act as applied. McCullen III, 844 F. Supp. 2d at 213-25. The essential or salient facts; In line with magistrate court holding the act on its face is constitutionally valid time place manner regulation .the court had a finding that the law of the case doctrine barred re litigation of the issue. The law of the case e doctrine constitutes of two branches which both apply in the case brought forward; one which embodies the mandate rule prevents re litigation in the trial court of matters that were explicitly or implicitly decided by an earlier appellate decision in the same case. United States v. Matthews, 643 F.3d 9, 13 (1st Cir. 2011) (internal quotation marks omitted). The second binds a successor appellate panel in a second appeal in the same case to honor fully the original decision. For certainty, the law of the case doctrine concedes of certain exceptions. But the conditions giving escalation to those exceptions are scarcely bounded: A party may avoid the application of the law of the case doctrine only by showing that, in the relevant time frame, controlling legal authority has changed dramatically; or by showing that significant new evidence, not earlier obtainable in the exercise of due diligence, has come to light; or by showing that the earlier decision is blatantly erroneous and, if uncorrected, will work a miscarriage of justice. Although the plaintiffs refer in desultory fashion to the third exception, they make no reference to the second exceptio n and their only claim pertains to the first exception. The plaintiffs base their claim on recent verdicts of the Supreme Court standing for the wholly unremarkable proposition that content-based and speaker-based speech restrictions are disfavored, Snyder v. Phelps, 131 S. Ct. 1207 (2011); Citizens United v. FEC, 130 S. Ct. 876 (2010). The propositions for which the plaintiffs quote the above cases are no more than conservative First Amendment principles declaimed by the Supreme Court in the setting of actual scenarios far different form the scenario presented by the issue at hand . The verdict on which the plaintiffs depend on most profoundly Citizens United — is symbolic of this point. Citizens United domineered Austin v. Michigan Chamber of Commerce, 494 U.S. 652 (1990), which had held that corporate entities, with contrast to other speakers, could be forbidden from engaging in partisan speech. The plaintiffs contend that Citizens United proclaimed, at first, an umbrella ban on all speaker distinctions, whatever the situation. This unconditional ban, they say, should serve to invalidate the Act as a speaker-specific restriction. This is an imprecise interpretation of Citizens United. The Citizens United Court alleged that government cannot entirely forbid corporate political speech. In support, it raised the central principle laid out in First National Bank of Boston v. Bellotti, 435 U.S. 765 (1978), to the effect that the First Amendment does not permit political speech limitations based on a speakers corporate affiliation . Citizens United, 130 S. Ct. at 903. Going by fact, the act makes no such distinction. The plaintiffs, however, are undeterred. They seize upon a remote statement in Citizens United: Prohibited, too, are restrictions distinguishing among different speakers, allowing speech by some but not others.† But they tug this statement from its context and they neglect to mention that the Court cites Bellotti a case th at substantially precedes this proposition. It appears that The Courts dependence on Bellotti is not a mere chance. After all, the Citizens United Court pronounced its decision as a reappearance to classic First Amendment jurisprudence rather than a withdrawal therefrom. The Court did not withdrawal from its well-settled abortion clinic/buffer zone jurisprudence. Seen in this light, the court of appeal could not read Citizens United as undermining the First Amendment foundation on which our rejection of the plaintiffs facial challenge rested. With reference to the Snyder case, in which the Court held that the First Amendment excludes tort liability against persons who had peacefully remonstrated, on public property, at the funeral of a Marine. Snyder, 131 S. Ct. at 1213-14, 1220-21. For another time the Court did no more than refer to the long-recognized First Amendment principles. And while it restated the special status of public streets as the epitome of a customary public mee ting, it ensued to confirm that even public settings are subject to reasonable time-place-manner regulations. It is particularly telling that, in making this point, the Court referred explicitly to the abortion clinic buffer zone that it had upheld in Madsen. The plaintiffs dependence on Sorrell is similarly mislaid. The Sorrell Court overturned a Vermont law that regulated the sale, expose, and use of pharmacy records for marketing purposes. Sorrell, 131 S. Ct. at 2659. The law by fact was content-based and speaker-based, and had been endorsed with the avowed purpose of diminishing the efficiency of marketing by manufacturers of brand-name drugs. It is the courts holding that the Massachusetts law is one viewpoint neutral and that it does not discriminate on the basis of content. It treats the Massachusetts law like it bans all manner of speech within the stipulated buffer zones. While this law would be content neutral on its face, there are situations in which the law prohib iting all speech at a particular location would not be content neutral in fact. Suppose, for instance, that a facially content-neutral law is enacted for the purpose of suppressing speech on a particular topic. Such a law would not be content neutral. The bottom line is that, to be cognizable, a claim of uneven enforcement requires state action. The First Amendment is concerned with government interference, not private jousting in the speech marketplace. In this case, I don’t think it was possible to reach a ruling about the intentions of the Massachusetts Legislature without taking into account the fact that the law that the legislature enacted deliberately discriminates on the basis of a viewpoint. In light of this proposition, as well as the over breadth that the Court recognizes, it cannot be said, based on the current record, that the law would be content impartial even if the exemption for clinic employees and agents were excised. However, if the law were truly conte nt neutral, I would agree with the Court that the law would still be unconstitutional on the ground that it burdens more speech than is necessary to serve the Commonwealth’s asserted interests. References Bellotti v. Baird, 428 U.S. 132, 96 S. Ct. 2857, 49 L. Ed. 2d 844 (1976). Citizens United v. Federal Election Comn, 130 S. Ct. 876, 558 U.S. 310, 175 L. Ed. 2d 753 (2010). First Nat. Bank of Boston v. Bellotti, 435 U.S. 765, 98 S. Ct. 1407, 55 L. Ed. 2d 707 (1978). Lessig, L. (2000). Copyrights First Amendment. UCLA L. Rev., 48, 1057. McCullen v. Coakley, 571 F.3d 167 (1st Cir. 2009). Merkle, S. E. (2009). Snyder v. Phelps. SCL Rev., 61, 657. Mass. Gen. Laws, Ch. 266, 120E ½ (a), (b) (West 2012). Snyder v. Phelps, 131 S. Ct. 1207, 562 U.S. 09, 179 L. Ed. 2d 172 (2011). Don’t waste time! Our writers will create an original "McCullen v Coakley" essay for you Create order

Benefit of Smoking Free Essays

BENEFIT OF SMOKING 1. Smoking lowers risk of knee-replacement surgery While smokers might go broke buying a pack of cigarettes, they can at least save money by avoiding knee-replacement surgery. Surprising results from a new study have revealed that men who smoke had less risk of undergoing total joint replacement surgery than those who never smoked. We will write a custom essay sample on Benefit of Smoking or any similar topic only for you Order Now The study, from the University of Adelaide in Australia, appears in the July issue of the journal Arthritis Rheumatism. What could be the connection? Knee-replacement surgery was more common among joggers and the obese smokers rarely jog and they are less likely to be morbidly obese. After controlling for age, weight and exercise, the researchers were at a loss to explain the apparent, albeit slight protective effects of smoking for osteoporosis. It could be that the nicotine in tobacco helps prevent cartilage and joint deterioration. 2. Smoking lowers risk of Parkinson’s disease Numerous studies have identified the uncanny inverse relationship between smoking and Parkinson’s disease. Long-term smokers are somehow protected against Parkinson’s and its not because smokers die of other things earlier. The most recent, well-conducted study was published in a March 2010 issue of the journal Neurology. Far from determining a cause for the protective effect, these researchers found that the number of years spent smoking, more so than the number of cigarettes smoked daily, mattered more for a stronger protective effect. Harvard researchers were among the first to provide convincing evidence that smokers were less likely to develop Parkinson’s. In a study published in Neurology in March 2007, these researchers found the protective effect wanes after smokers quit. And they concluded in their special scientific way that they didn’t have a clue as to why. 3. Smoking lowers risk of obesity Smoking — and, in particular, the nicotine in tobacco smoke — is an appetite suppressant. This has been known for centuries, dating back to indigenous cultures in America in the pre-Columbus era. Tobacco companies caught on by the 1920s and began targeting women with the lure that smoking would make them thinner. A study published in the July 2011 issue of the journal Physiology ; Behavior, in fact is one of many stating that the inevitable weight gain upon quitting smoking is a major barrier in getting people to stop, second only to addiction. The relationship between smoking and weight control is complex: Nicotine itself acts as both a stimulant and appetite suppressant; and the act of smoking triggers behavior modification that prompts smokers to snack less. Smoking also might make food less tasty for some smokers, further curbing appetite. As an appetite suppressant, nicotine appears to act on a part of the brain called the hypothalamus, at least in mice, as revealed in a study by Yale researchers published in the June 10, 2011 issue of the journal Science. No respectable doctor would recommend smoking for weight control, given the toxic baggage accompanying cigarettes. This recent Yale study, however, does offer an inkling of hope for a safe diet drug to help obese people control their appetites. 4. Smoking lowers risk of death after some heart attacks Compared with non-smokers, smokers who have had heart attacks seem to have lower mortality rates and more favorable responses to two kinds of therapy to remove plaque from their arteries: fibrinolytic therapy, which is basically medication; and angioplasty, which removes the plaque by inserting balloons or stents into the arteries. There’s a catch, though. The reason why smokers have heart attacks is that smoke scars the arteries, allowing fat and plaque to build up in the first place. So, one theory as to why smokers do better than non-smokers after such therapies is that they are younger, experiencing their first heart attack approximately 10 years before the non-smoker. A study published in an August 2005 issue of the American Heart Journal, however, states that age alone is not enough to fully explain the survival differences and that â€Å"the smoker’s paradox is alive and well. † No alternative theories have been put forth since. 5. Smoking helps the heart drug clopidogrel work better Clopidogrel is a drug used to inhibit blood clots for those patients suffering from coronary artery disease and other circulatory diseases leading to strokes and heart attacks. Smoking seems to help clopidogrel do its job better. A study by Korean researchers in the October 2010 issue of the journal Thrombosis Research builds upon work by Harvard researchers published in 2009 that demonstrates the benefit of smoking at least 10 cigarettes a day. It seems that something in cigarette smoke activates certain proteins called cytochromes, which convert clopidogrel into a more active state. Again, no respectable doctor is encouraging patients to start smoking to get the most out of clopidogrel. But this and the other four â€Å"benefits† of smoking reveal how tobacco — perhaps not unlike other potentially toxic plants — might contain certain chemicals of real therapeutic value. 6. Smoking Relieves Stress This is the most common thing you hear from smokers about the benefits of smoking. This is because cigarettes create a myriad of conditions that help the body deal with anxiety, stress, and depression. 7. Smoking Relaxes Your Breathing The way you breathe when you smoke helps your body relax and calm down. For people who have panic attacks or stress problems, Doctors recommend patients practice a sort of breathing called relaxation breathing. Among other things, it involves taking a deep breath into the lungs and holding it in for a second or two before exhaling. This is exactly like the act of smoking. This kind of breathing slows your heart rate and relieves tension in your muscles, especially your neck and upper back, which tense up in stressful situations. 8. Outside Smoke Breaks Calm You Down If you go outside for smoke breaks, this simple act can really help you deal with your stress. Say if you’re in a fight with your spouse or close to the deadline on a major project for work, leaving the house or office to step outside for a smoke break helps you deal with the stress. * You get a break from your stressor * You get into the open and fresh air * You leave the stressful environment * You have time to think about your problems from an objective point of view   * The nature and sky outside helps your mind calm down and relax 9. Nicotine is an Anxiety and Depression Medication The nicotine in cigarettes is also a major factor of stress relief. Nicotine is a chemical which mildly and temporarily stops the feelings of anxiety and depression. After an inhale of cigarette smoke, the nicotine reacts in your brain chemistry within seven seconds. Nicotine makes the brain feel better, and stops the chain reaction anxiety and depression can have within the brain. It is no surprise that 1/3 of nicotine addicts claim to have depression or anxiety problems. Cigarettes are a great form of self medication. How to cite Benefit of Smoking, Papers

Survival Of The Sickest Essay Example

Survival Of The Sickest Essay For this assignment, several questions will require answers to be a paragraph or n,vow. A typical paragraph consists of 45 sentences. If you do quality work you will probably w rite MORE than two paragraphs for a number of your responses. 5. Be sure to use the spell check function before submitting your assignment. Have someone else proofread your answers to make sure they make sense. 5. Another key skill you will need is to SE evidence to support what you claim. In science, your opinion holds very little weight, you must provide evidence to support whatever ere claim you make in response to a question. This does not mean copy something from the book wormwood. Whenever you cite specific evidence or facts from the book that you did not already know w, I want you to reference the page number from where you pulled that information in parentheses. EVE RYE answer will require you to make at least one or two citations. For example, might make the follow ins claim from the book, thus will reference the page number as follows: In the 1 sass people with humidifications were more likely to survive and r produce because of their remonstrated macrophages. This means people with the mutation for hem chromatics were more likely to pass on the defective gene to their children. So generation after generation, more and more people had the gene for humidifications and possibly explains why the plague died out by 1350. (p. 5) Notice did not copy this information wormwood, but paraphrased it and p t it into my own words. You have been assigned Chapter 1 of the book Survival of the Sickest. Type your answers under each Of the questions asked below: Chapter 1 Ironing it Out Read pages 122 1 . Define homeomorphisms and explain what conditions it can lead to. homeomorphisms. We will write a custom essay sample on Survival Of The Sickest specifically for you for only $16.38 $13.9/page Order now We will write a custom essay sample on Survival Of The Sickest specifically for you FOR ONLY $16.38 $13.9/page Hire Writer We will write a custom essay sample on Survival Of The Sickest specifically for you FOR ONLY $16.38 $13.9/page Hire Writer

Drilling Offshore or not Essay Example

Drilling Offshore or not Essay Example Drilling Offshore or not Essay Drilling Offshore or not Essay Name: Lecturer: Course: Date: Reflection paper The research paper presents an argument on the effects of offshore oil drilling. The engineer appreciates the fact there is a high demand of oil in many countries. Due to the economic status, offshore drilling is the most economical method of oil mining. However, the researcher registers great concern on the consequences of this method, for example oil spillage, which results to severe pollution of the environment. Instead of using this inappropriate method, there are other alternative mentioned. The researcher recommends use of renewable energy resources in place of oil. If oil must be drilled, then onshore method should be used. This method is safer than offshore drilling. There are a few areas that the researcher needs to improve on. It is clearly stated that using renewable energy is one alternative of solving oil problems. This is a logical finding but may not be applicable. It could be extremely difficult to get the best energy source that is reliable. The researcher should find out more details and explain the most appropriate energy source. In place of offshore drilling, onshore method can be used. The work lacks brief details on this method. It is crucial to include them so that its benefits over offshore method are revealed. This research topic is wide, and more data could be gathered. It is recommendable to carry out further research on this topic. It will not only benefit the researcher but other people who wish to be informed. Despite the improvements to be made, there are also strengths. The argument made in this research paper has clearly been brought out. The points have been explained with clarity and are comprehensive. One significant characteristic of this paper is that it not only lays out an argument but also gives some practical solutions. The greatest strength experienced during this research, was getting evidence. The statistics included are a good support for the points laid out. There were readily available and easy to access. During field work, the respondents were cooperative hence, accurate data was obtained. This made it easy to analyze and present the data. The only significant struggle experienced was working within a limited time.

The History of the Compass and Other Magnetic Innovations

The History of the Compass and Other Magnetic Innovations A compass is an instrument containing a freely suspended magnetic element that displays the direction of the horizontal component of Earths magnetic field at the point of observation. Its been used to help people navigate for many centuries. Located in the same part of the public imagination as sextants and telescopes, its actually been in use for a lot longer than the sea voyages that discovered North America. The use of magnetism in inventions doesnt stop there, though; its found in everything from telecommunications equipment and motors to the food chain. Discovery Large deposits of magnetic oxides were found in the district of Magnesia in Asia Minor thousands of years ago; their location led to the mineral receiving the  name of magnetite (Fe3O4), which was nicknamed lodestone. In 1600,  William Gilbert published De Magnete, a paper on magnetism that details the use and properties of magnetite. Ferrites, or magnetic oxides, are stones that attract iron and other metals. These are natural magnets and are not inventions. However, the machines that we make with magnets are inventions. Magnetic Compass The magnetic compass is actually  an old Chinese invention, probably first made in China during the Qin dynasty (221–206 B.C.). Back then, the Chinese used lodestones (which align themselves in a north-south direction) to construct fortune-telling boards. Eventually, someone noticed that the lodestones were better at pointing out real directions, which led to the creation of the first compasses. The earliest compasses were designed on a square slab that had markings for the cardinal points and the constellations. The pointing needle was a spoon-shaped lodestone device with a handle that would always point south. Later on, magnetized needles were used as direction pointers instead of the spoon-shaped lodestones. These appeared in the eighth century A.D.- again in China- and between 850 and 1050. Compasses as Navigational Aids In the 11th century, compasses use as navigational devices on ships seemed to have become common. The magnetized-needle compasses used in navigation could be wet (in water), dry (on a pointed shaft), or suspended (on silk thread) and were used by voyagers, such as those traders who traveled to the Middle East, and were used by early navigators to locate the magnetic North Pole or pole star. Electromagnetism In 1819,  Hans Christian Oersted  reported that when an  electric current  in a wire was applied to a magnetic  compass  needle, the magnet was affected. This is called  electromagnetism. In 1825, British inventor William Sturgeon (1783–1850) displayed the power of the electromagnet by lifting nine pounds with a seven-ounce piece of iron wrapped with wires through which the current of a single-cell battery was sent. This device laid the foundation for large-scale  electronic communications, as it led to the invention of the telegraph. It also resulted in the invention of the electric motor.   Cow Magnets U.S. patent #3,005,458 is the  first patent  issued for a cow magnet. It was issued to Louis Paul Longo, the inventor of the Magnetrol Magnet, for the prevention of hardware disease in cows. If cows happen to consume scrap pieces of metal, such as nails, when theyre feeding, the foreign objects can cause internal damage to their digestive tract. Cow magnets keep the metal pieces confined to the cows first stomach, rather than traveling to the later stomachs or intestines, where the fragments can cause the most damage.