Sunday, May 24, 2020

The History Behind Cobell Vs. Salazar

Surviving multiple presidential administrations since its inception in 1996, the Cobell case has been known variously as Cobell v. Babbit, Cobell v. Norton, Cobell v. Kempthorne and its current name, Cobell v. Salazar (all defendants being Secretaries of the Interior under which the Bureau of Indian affairs is organized). With upwards of 500,000 plaintiffs, it has been called the largest class-action lawsuit against the United States in U.S. history. The suit is the result of over 100 years of abusive federal Indian policy and gross negligence in the management of Indian trust lands. Overview Eloise Cobell, a Blackfoot Indian from Montana and banker by profession, filed the lawsuit on behalf of hundreds of thousands of individual Indians in 1996 after finding many discrepancies in the management of funds for lands held in trust by the United States in her job as treasurer for the Blackfoot tribe. According to U.S. law, Indian lands are technically not owned by tribes or individual Indians themselves but are held in trust by the U.S. government. Under U.S. management, Indian trust lands Indian reservations are often leased to non-Indian individuals or companies for resource extraction or other uses. The revenue generated from the leases is to be paid to the tribes and individual Indian land owners. The United States has a fiduciary responsibility to manage the lands to the best benefit of tribes and individual Indians, but as the lawsuit revealed, for over 100 years the government failed in its duties to accurately account for the income generated by the leases, let alone pay the revenues to the Indians. History of Indian Land Policy and Law The foundation of federal Indian law begins with the principles based on the doctrine of discovery, originally defined in Johnson v. MacIntosh (1823) which maintains that Indians only have a right to occupancy and not the title to their own lands. This led to the legal principle of the trust doctrine to which the United States is held on behalf of Native American tribes. In its mission to civilize and assimilate Indians into mainstream American culture, the Dawes Act of 1887 broke up the communal landholdings of tribes into individual allotments which were held in trust for a period of 25 years. After the 25-year period, a patent in fee simple would be issued, enabling an individual to sell their land if they chose to and ultimately breaking up the reservations. The goal of the assimilation policy would have resulted in all Indian trust lands in private ownership, but a new generation of lawmakers in the early 20th century reversed the assimilation policy based on the landmark Merria m Report which detailed the deleterious effects of the previous policy. Fractionation Throughout the decades as the original allottees died the allotments passed to their heirs in subsequent generations. The result has been that an allotment of 40, 60, 80, or 160 acres, which was originally owned by one person is now owned by hundreds or sometimes even thousands of people. These fractionated allotments are usually vacant parcels of land that are still managed under resource leases by the U.S. and have been rendered useless for any other purposes because they can only be developed with the approval 51% of all other owners, an unlikely scenario. Each of those people is assigned Individual Indian Money (IIM) accounts which are credited with any revenue generated by the leases (or would have been had there been appropriate accounting and crediting maintained). With hundreds of thousands of IIM accounts now in existence, accounting has become a bureaucratic nightmare and highly costly. The Settlement The Cobell case hinged in large part on whether or not an accurate accounting of the IIM accounts could be determined. After over 15 years of litigation, the defendant and the plaintiffs both agreed that an accurate accounting was not possible and in 2010 a settlement was finally reached for a total of $3.4 billion. The settlement, known as the Claims Settlement Act of 2010, was divided into three sections: $1.5 billion was created for an Accounting/Trust Administration fund (to be distributed to IIM account holders), $60 million is set aside for Indian access to higher education, and the remaining $1.9 billion sets up the Trust Land Consolidation Fund, which provides funds for tribal governments to purchase individual fractionated interests, consolidating the allotments into once again communally held land. However, the settlement has yet to be paid due to legal challenges by four Indian plaintiffs.

Wednesday, May 13, 2020

Bullying Is The Intentional Harm Doing Or Harrasement

What is bullying? It is the intentional harm-doing or harrasement directed to vulnerable people and is repeated quite often. Bullying can be done in multiple ways. Some examples are: physical violence, verbal talk and/or threats and rumors being spread either verbally or online. Bullying can happen to anyone, but mostly involves kids. There are ways to try and stop it and everyone should help in getting that rate down. (Bullying.-Britannica†) This isn’t something that is to be taken lightly but many people do, and it stays an issue in many places, especially at schools. A U.S. national study done at the beginning of the 21st century stated 30 percent of kids, middle to high school, experienced bullying during their school years. Research shows that it tends to start during early teen years and decreases in their later teen years, and it is showed to be done mostly by boys. It can start from reactions to struggles and from power within a group. (Bullying-Britannica) It c an also be done by kids who feel like having the power or from those who come from homes where the adults fight or hurt each other. When girl’s bully, they tend to do it in emotional ways, such as excluding a certain girl or gossiping about her (Bullying- Topic overview). Bullying doesn’t just apply to high school kids, but adults are also experiencing it at work and by definition it is worse at work than in school. In the workplace, bullying often involves a person in power, such as a manager or

Wednesday, May 6, 2020

Tweleve Years a Slave Free Essays

While reading this novel, I often thought about what I learned about slavery in school and the many films I’ve seen on the subject, most notably, the television series Roots , which is probably most of our first visual representation of a slaves’ life – but I thought, â€Å"Noooo, they got it wrong! Slavery was 50 times worst than any representation I’ve ever seen on a film. Solomon Northup, was a free born, African America man living in New York state in the early 1800s. He had a wife, three children, and was able to provide for his family working various jobs, depending on the season. We will write a custom essay sample on Tweleve Years a Slave or any similar topic only for you Order Now Solomon is kidnapped and forced into slavery for 12 years, in the deep south. What makes this novel so compelling is his story telling. He goes into great detail explaining what is feels like to be a slave; the constant state of fear (scared of waking up late, scared of not working fast enough, scared of being in the wrong place at the wrong time if your master is in an angry mood), the whippings (which happened more often than I originally thought), the brutal labor, the little food (yet being forced to work at 100% at all times with little nourishment), and the depressing feeling of being separated from your family (being sold to another master was the worst nightmare of most slaves, more fearful than the whip). His prose paints a clear picture of what it feels like to be a slave. I highly recommend this non-fiction novel (did I mention, this is a TRUE story) to any and everyone interested in American or African American history. This novel is currently being made into a film by director Steve McQueen, starring Chiwetel Ejiofor, Brad Pitt, Benedict Cumberbatch, Michael Fassbender. I have to admit, I am very eager to see this film (it’s slated for release Sept. 6, 2013) because I’m curious to see if they will be true to the original work, and go hard and showcase slavery in its most brutal form, even if it will make audiences uncomfortable, because as time goes on, I think we forget how truly horrible an institution slavery was. How to cite Tweleve Years a Slave, Papers

Monday, May 4, 2020

Proposal for Kindergarten Courseware free essay sample

Introduction The early stages is the lives of children where the brain development growth rapidly. Although the brain develop continuously but the first three years are the most critical moment. This is because when the brain is more flexible and ready to learn something new. The weight of baby brain is almost 25% of the adult brain weight and when reaching the age of 3 years old, infant brain has evolved into a multi-million cell (which consists of neurons and brain cells, etc. ). The cells are then fused to form a multi-million compact (synapses). Next the Link between these cells will form a complex control center for the development of mental, emotional, physical and spiritual. Because the development of babies brain growth actively and they are always in a good care with parents during the early stage, hence it is not possible for the parent to have a strong influence in their growth. This Pre-School Interactive Learning with Entertainment courseware provides colorful and lots of interesting picture and sound to attract this children interest to learn, they also can easily do the exercises provided because it is an interactive courseware which is simple to use. . 2 Problem Definitions * Fear Children are afraid to deal with strangers and they are also scared to be away from their parents, hence, this is a problem for parents because the child does not want to go to kindergarten and learn. * Hyperactive ADHD (Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder) is a common behavioral disorder that affects an estimated 8% to 10% of school-age children. Boys are about three times more likely than girl to be diagnosed with it. The main reason though it is never be define yet. Kids with the ADHD problem usually act without thinking, are hyperactive, and have trouble in focusing. They may understand what expected of them but have trouble following through because they can’t sit still, pay attention or attend to details. * Time Most of the children’s learn to know their first alphabets and numbers during their pre-school session, this is because, lack of attention from their parent. Parent nowadays are too busy with working and could not spend their time to teach their kids in learning ABC and 123 before entering pre-school. 1. Problem Objectives * Build Self Confidence This courseware will build children self confidence to overcome their fear to go to the kindergarten. With interactive learning system in this Pre-School Interactive Learning with Entertainment courseware, kids will be excited to learn in kindergarten later without parent besides them. * Pronunciation Using this Pre-School Interactive Learning with Entertainment, children will b e train to pronounce and spell the correct accent. Hence, parent can overcome their children lisp problem easil * Make Learning Fun Making use of technology such as digital photography, video and audio recording is a way of providing a practical learning experience. Using rhymes, sings and music encourage creativity, game and answer questions, this Pre-School Interactive Learning with Entertainment courseware will be a modern method to attract the interest of these young children and getting them onto the path of learning of a young age will help to develop good habits throughout their learning. * Time Save All children need a good guide in experience life and learning new things in their life. Parent are usually a good influence and guide in experience life by using this Pre-School Interactive Learning with Entertainment courseware, parent can save time in finding an interactive subject or object to teach their child. 1. 4Project Scope * Children Initially, the infant brain is able to save a sound that has been heard. As an analogy, imagine we remove a document to â€Å"trash† on a computer, we still can find the document as long as it is not removed directly from the computer. This also explains why children learn language more easily rather than the mother tongue. Kindergartens Teacher The brain development will be stopped if the stimulation is not provided on an ongoing basis. Children who grow up without a proper stimulation of the brain are generally smaller compared with children who received stimulation and exposed to various experiences. Therefore, teacher need to have additional tools in teaching in order to attract the young children attention in learning to expose them in experiences. 1. 5Project Development Methodology Most multimedia project must be developed in several stages. Some of it needs to be completed before a new stage is started and some of it can be combined or just skipped. In order to develop a successful project with achieving its goal, there are four basic stages in multimedia project is needed. These stages are: * Planning and Costing Each objective and message of the work will be identified to gain more information about the system. Before the system is start to be develop, all the multimedia expertise requirement such as graphic arts, audio, video and writing skills will be draft out. In developing this system, we need to estimate the time and budget that is going to be used in completing the five elements of multimedia which is text, sound, image, audio and video. * Designing and Producing In this next stage, we will implement all the planning that has draft e out earlier to design a complete courseware. This is when we received many feedbacks from user until it achieves the customer satisfaction. We use a part of our knowledge and creativity in designing arts, video, and music in this courseware. This project is design using Adobe Flash, Photoshop CS5 and Apple Quick Time Player software. We also use Acer Aspire 4736Z with Windows 7, Intel Pentium Processor T4200, and 3GB DDR3 memory with 160GB HDD hardware * Delivering Delivering is a product development stage when the testing level is complete. Before the final product is delivered to the end user, we need to ensure that all the software requirements is provided in running the courseware. Then only this courseware can be delivered to end user. 1. 6 Summary We might be wondering, what is the influence of genetics on development and intelligence of children? Genes or genetic factors do play a role in determining intelligence and the intelligence of a child, however, surrounding where a person grew up surely are a factors to determine how much talent and ingenuity that is inherent to grow and expand. In other words, both factor is related and helping each other. With the simple and attractive courseware for pre-school learning, learning skills will turn to be more interesting, interactive and easy. Hence, it also helps parent and teacher to provide the young children with basic ABC and 123.