Biography of Elena Kagan

Biography of Elena Kagan Elena Kagan is one of nine  U.S. Supreme Court justices,  and only the fourth woman to hold a position on the nations highest court since its first session in 1790. She was nominated to the court in 2010 by then-President Barack Obama, who described her as  Ã¢â‚¬Å"one of the nation’s foremost legal minds.† The U.S. Senate confirmed her nomination later that year, making her the 112th justice to serve on the Supreme Court. Kagan replaced Justice John Paul Stevens, who had retired after 35 years on the court. Education Hunter College High School  in Manhattan, New York, class of 1977.Princeton University in Princeton, New Jersey; she earned  a bachelors degree in history in 1981.Worcester College in Oxford, England; she earned a  master’s degree in philosophy in 1983.Harvard University Law School; she earned a law degree in 1986. Career in Academia, Politics and Law Before she took a seat on the Supreme Court, Kagan worked as a professor, an attorney in private practice and as solicitor general of the United States. She was the first woman to supervise the office that handles litigation for the federal government before the Supreme Court.   Here are Kagans career highlights 1986 to 1987: Law clerk for  Judge Abner Mikva of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Washington, D.C., Circuit.1988: Law clerk to U.S. Supreme Court Justice  Thurgood Marshall, the first African-American to serve on the court.1989 to 1991: Associate attorney in the powerful Washington, D.C., law firm of Williams Connolly, which was co-founded by  Edward Bennett Williams, the legendary trial lawyer who represented the likes of John Hinckley Jr., Frank Sinatra, Hugh Hefner, Jimmy Hoffa and Joseph McCarthy.1991 to 1995: Assistant professor of law, then tenured professor of law, at the  University of Chicago  Law School.1995 to 1996: Associate counsel to President Bill Clinton.1997 to 1999: Deputy assistant to the president for domestic policy, and deputy director of the Domestic Policy Council under Clinton.1999 to 2001: Visiting professor of law at Harvard Law School.2001: Professor of law at  Harvard Law School, teaching  administrative law, constitutional law, civil pro cedure, and separation of powers theory. 2003 to 2009:  Dean of the Harvard Law School. 2009 to 2010: Solicitor general under President Barack Obama.2010 to current: Associated justice of the Supreme Court. Controversies Kagans tenure on the Supreme Court has been relatively free of controversy. Yes, even Supreme Court justice invite scrutiny; ask Justice Clarence Thomas, whose absolute silence during almost seven years of oral arguments baffled court observers, legal scholars and journalists. Justice Samuel Alito, one of the most conservative voices on the court,  has openly criticized his fellow members, particularly following the courts  landmark decision on same-sex marriage. And the late Justice Antonin Scalia, who was famous for his unrestrained opinions, once said homosexuality should be a crime. The biggest dustup surrounding Kagan was a request for her to recuse herself from consideration of a challenge to Obamas health care law, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare for short. Kagans office of solicitor general under Obama had been on record as supporting the act in a legal proceeding. A group called Freedom Watch challenged Kagans judicial independence. The court declined to entertain the allegation. Kagans liberal personal beliefs and style of writing also came back to haunt her during her confirmation hearings. Conservative Republicans accused her of being unable to set aside her biases. In her memos to Justice Marshall as well as her work for Clinton, Kagan consistently wrote from her own perspective, prefacing her advice with I think and I believe and distinguishing her opinions from other members of Clintons White House team or from the presidents own opinions, said  Carrie Severino of the Conservative Judicial Crisis Network. Alabama Sen.  Jeff Sessions, a conservative Republican who would later serve in Donald Trumps administration, said: A troubling pattern has already emerged in Ms. Kagans record. Throughout her career, she has demonstrated a willingness to make legal decisions based not on the law but instead on her very liberal politics. As dean of the Harvard Law School, Kagan drew fire for her objection to having  military recruiters on campus because she believed the federal government policy that banned  openly gay individuals from serving in the military violated the universitys  anti-discrimination policy. Personal Life Kagan was born and raised in New York City; her mother was a school teacher and her father was an attorney. She is unmarried and has no children. 5 Important Quotes Kagan has not granted interviews with the news media, so court observers are left to scour her opinions, briefs and testimony during her confirmation hearings. Here are some select quotes on key issues. Sometimes you read these opinions and you think they must hate each other. Its just not true.  We have enormous respect for each other and a feeling that we are all operating in good faith. ... If you take this stuff personally, this is going to be a long life tenure. - Kagan speaking about the collegiality among the justices and the court, which she described as in some ways, the most intimate, warmest institution Ive participated in.â€Å"If you confirm me, you’ll be getting Justice Kagan. You won’t get Justice Marshall.† - Kagan defending herself against claims from Republican U.S. senators that she was a legal progressive, or judicial activist, during her confirmation hearings.The Supreme Court, of course, has the responsibility of ensuring that our government never oversteps its proper bounds or violates the rights of individuals. But the Court must also recognize the limits on itself and respect the choices made by the American people. - Kagan, explaining her philosophy of judicial restraint. All I can say about that paper is that it is dangerous to write papers about the law before youve spent a day in law school. I wrote that paper before I spent a day in law school. I was trying to think about whether to go to law school and I decided to write a paper about law in order to figure out whether I was interested in the subject... So I would just ask you to recognize that I didnt know a whole lot of law. - Kagan telling lawmakers to ignore a paper she wrote about justice who mold and steer the law.It means  Id have to get my hair done more often, Sen. Specter. Kagan replying to U.S. Sen. Arlen Specters question about allowing television cameras in U.S. Supreme Court arguments..

Information mangment Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Information mangment - Essay Example According to Nonaka, Krogh and Voelpel (2006), â€Å"organizational knowledge creation is the process of making available and amplifying knowledge created by individuals as well as crystallizing and connecting it with an organization’s knowledge system.† Studies have shown that creation of knowledge, retention as well as managing it is very important for the survival of the organization during the contemporary period as we move towards a digital economy (Alavi & Leidner, 2001). One way of generating knowledge in an organization is achieved through the use of learning. Learning in an organisation is particularly concerned with creating, acquiring and transforming knowledge and transforming this knowledge to improve the overall performance of the employees and the organization as a whole (Andriopoulos & Dawson 2009). Knowledge may be explicit and/or tacit, individual and/or collective. Basically, explicit knowledge refers to details of processes that have been codified an d it often acts as a manual to deal with certain queries or problems in the organization while tacit knowledge is knowledge of experience (Polanyi, 1983). In as far as tacit knowledge is concerned so the person concerned uses his or her experience to deal with a certain problem. As noted above, knowledge is a business asset given that much of organizations’ value mainly depends on their capacity to create and generate knowledge which can be used to transform the operations of the organization during changing period. It is important for an organization to create knowledge and transfer it to other employees since this can help the whole organization. As illustrated in the model of knowledge creation and diffusion illustrated above, it can be seen that there are various techniques that can be used to transfer knowledge from one person to the other in the organization. According to Nonaka & Takeuchi (1995), knowledge can be transferred through the following strategies in the comp any: tacit to tacit through socialization, tacit to explicit through a process of externalization, explicit to tacit through a process of internalization as well as explicit to explicit through a process of combination. Tacit knowledge can be transferred to tacit knowledge through the process of socialization. Basically, socialization is a process that loosely describes the way people in an organization are socialised or interact. Through interaction among employees in an organization, knowledge can be transferred from one person to the other. In this case, it is individual to individual where an experienced employee can impart his or her ideas and experience to the other employee who also can capitalise on this wealth of knowledge in his or her operations. Explicit to tacit knowledge can also be transferred through a process of internalization in the organization. Internal structures in the organization are created and these are meant to transform knowledge that is codified into ac tual experience that can help the employees to deal with different situations they may encounter in their operations. This process involves transfer of knowledge from the individual, group as well as organization. This helps to improve the overall performance of the employees as well as the organization a whole. The other strategy is tacit to explicit

Themes Of Landscape And Wilderness In Cinematic Films Essay

Themes Of Landscape And Wilderness In Cinematic Films - Essay Example 2. Examine the scope of landscape and wilderness in films. 3. Highlight the nature of landscape and wilderness as characters within films. Despite the progressive change, which land undergoes, two key predictions can be made about land, especially with regard to the establishment of new landscapes: i.e. landscapes transpire in light of people’s expectations, as well as their previous encounters, or landscapes evolve from a shift in mindset and from a changed connection between the environment, society and self. This means that changes that are embedded on a landscape are not typically similar to changes that are wrought on land. According to Sobieszek, the theme of landscape has undergone a dramatic change since early times, especially between the 1950s and 1980s. It is clear that a relatively new order of landscape has engulfed cinematic films that seem to take hold of the imagination of not only the writer and film director, but the audience, as well. The radical change in the perception of landscape is that from a solid yet permanent view to one that is marred by treachery and transmutation. In essence, differ ent media create new landscapes. For instance, in the film Walkabout of 1971, Roeg offers what can be perceived as a typology that showcases photography of locations such as Australian auk lands in the late 20th century. Roeg embodies a formalist concept by rendering the settings of landscapes devoid of human presence through settings such as deserts, flat horizons, vacant highways and fields (Harper and Rayner, 2010, 71). All these locations convey an essence that is at odds with the echo of Hollywood fictions. This allows films to level the meanings that they are originally meant to convey. Landscape in cinematic films adopts quite a different stance compared to still images, which are frozen depictions of landscape. Landscape in cinematic films incites the feeling of culture and cross-over between popular cinema and photography. Historically, landscape is initially associated with painting, and this is evidenced by the numerous depictions of landscapes in exhibitions and art muse ums around the world. Launched in the seventeenth century, the portrayal of emerging infrastructures of channels, harbours and roads that ran through sheltered country sides illustrates the claim that landscape depiction and description through picture is a product of the shift from feudal to capitalist economies (Harper and Rayner, 2010, 58). This paper argues that landscape facilitates new perceptions and venues of analysis and interpretation of cinematic films. Simply put, landscape emerges when the setting becomes the subject of the cinema rather than an object within the entire cinematic film. When applied to films, landscape enables a variation from plot, characters and psychology towards elements that are rarely taken into account in mainstream film. The main challenge thus becomes the discussion of landscape as a comprehensive expression in its own right, as well as its own agenda in other instances. Landscapes can be appreciated as encompassing numerous interacting ideas, t raditions, as well as inventions rather than something that is either out there or can be fixed on films. This paper will conduct a discussion within the realm of films over the period between the year 1970 and 2009. This is a period marred by a number of uncertainties and upheavals, as well as immense successes in the media industry and especially with regard to films. Through this period, there has been immense focus on film and landscape as avenues of the contested perception of individuals, and how film makers investigate the practices, properties and traditions of global cinema that is

Promoting the Integration of Therapeutic Touch in Nursing Practice Essay Example for Free

Promoting the Integration of Therapeutic Touch in Nursing Practice Essay 1. Describe the patient group in the study. English speaking adults with Dx of cancer expected to be on the unit the day following the intervention, whose medical conditions did not preclude their ability to comfortably receive TT or participate in the interview, and were able to give informed consent; 34 patient-participants completed the research process (16 women and 18 men), age range of 22 to 77 with an average age of 52 years 2. What was their health problem? Bone marrow transplant Patients. The focus of the study? Explore the experiences of nurses and patients on an inpatient oncology and bone marrow transplant unit when nurses had time preserved for exclusive offering of TT. 3. Who was providing the care? Two staff nurse-interventionists who were experienced and participated in TT education, and three nurse-interviewers who discussed the TT intervention with patient-participants the day following TT treatment. 4. What was the setting for the care? The study was conducted in an academic medical center on a 26 bed hematology/oncology in patient unit with bone marrow transplantation program. 5. What were the findings? 1) TT is a vehicle for comfort, caring, and presence that creates possibility and healing 2) TT invites a shift from disease-state focus to personhood focus that is freeing and reawakens the essence of nursing 3)TT is an intervention that illuminates the transformative power of nursing theory-research-practice. 6. What were the recommendations? Having a complementary nursing strategy, such as TT, that allows nurses an additional way to offering care that facilitates comfort, assists with anxiety reduction, and enhances sleep is of major significance. 7. How practical/useful is this information to a practicing nurse? I am not sure how practical TT is. First, you would have to have additional staff to allow for the time to educate seasoned nurses in TT and then to perform TT on the patients. You would also have to have the support of the administrative staff. However, I do believe that laying on of hands is an effective therapeutic tool. 8. What I wonder is†¦.. would there be a similar outcome in other specialty areas that patients have not had the opportunity to establish a trusting relationship with the nursing staff prior to TT.

Landscape Architecture Essay example -- essays papers

Landscape Architecture For my career opportunity project, I have chosen to take a look at the profession of landscape architecture. This field interest me for several reasons. First, I have always liked to draw and design and growing up I always wanted to be an architect or engineer. I felt that engineering put too many limitations on creativity, so architecture was the path of choice. Then, after working with my father’s small business for the past 6 doing some landscaping and lawn care, I decided that since I enjoyed working with plants and landscaping that I might want to look into a profession that would allow me to continue to work in those areas. Landscape architecture seemed to be the next logical choice, allowing me to continue being involved in the landscape industry and also to work much like I would in the field of architecture. When most people think of landscaping, they think of flower beds around a residence. The landscaping that a landscape architect is responsible for designing, however, rarely deals with residential landscapes and when it does so it is only on expensive projects. While landscape architects may do projects ranging form a few thousand dollars on up to as much as the customer would like to spend, the majority of their work is concentrated in the $30,000 to $15 million range (Pethel). You can see where few residential projects would fall into this range. However, this range is broad enough to encompass many different projects in ...

Regarding History vs. When Death Comes

Regarding history/ when death comes Luisa A. Igloria's, â€Å"Regarding History† is a very intriguing poem. Initially it seems to be a very straight forward poem, she beings by speaking of two trees that she can see from her window that lean into the wind, and goes on to describe a certain meat that she is cooking. At first glance this poem seemed to just be a description of an afternoon, but as the poem progresses it gets more complicated, which lead me to start to question if her earliest descriptions where literal, or a representation of something else entirely.A key turning point in my interpretation of this poem is when she said: â€Å"Tell me what I'll find, in this early period at the beginning of a century. Tell me what I'll find stumbling into a boat and pushing off into the year's last dark hours. † It is obvious that she is searching for something, but what? After I reread the poem I began seeing more of a love aspect to it when I noticed her speaking of a pe rson, who she wants to take the person's face in her hands and â€Å"Grow sweet from what it tells†.This once more brings me back to the begging of the poem, and my initial question, what do the trees represent? I came to the conclusion that the two trees represented her and this person that she adores, and that she is not necessarily observing them, but rather the trees make her think of the relationship with this person she adores and herself, which by the description of the how the trees are: â€Å"leaning now into the wind in a stance that we'd call involuntary-† shows to me that there is a struggle of sorts that they are facing together. Another aspect of the poem that peaked my interest was the title.After reading it and rereading it there seemed to be no logical conclusion to be made of the title until I had focused on the ending when she talks about â€Å"the beginning of a century†. It made me think that she was about to embrace something new, and this struggle that is present may have been a repeat of the past, therefore bringing about the entire poems purpose, her questioning the future while regarding the past, or as the poem states, history. â€Å"When Death Comes†, This poem by Mary Oliver was simple, but the way she used imagery and depicted her thoughts upon death was brilliant and extravagant.When I say simple, I meant that there seemed to be no hidden meaning of what the poem was really about. After reading over the material more than a few times is was clear that death meant death, and her position on it was firmly established. At the beginning of the poem she starts off by describing death, how it is vicious, swift, unbiased and unforgiving. â€Å"When death comes like the hungry bear in autumn when death comes and takes all the bright coins from his purse to buy me, and snaps his purse shut; when death comes like the measle-pox; when death comes like an iceberg between the shoulder blades†¦ Then she begins to question about what death will be like when it is her time. Her reflection of death and its characteristics provokes thoughts on how she values all life and her personal relationships. She describes her relationships a brother and sisterhood, stating that she is very close to those she loves and highly values their relationship. She describes all life as a flower, but as common as a field daisy, but none the less beautiful, and any life that dares venture towards and endure life a body of courage, like a lion, and she ends the poem describing how she wants to exit this world.She wishes to die never having stopped being amazed by creation and never having stopped exploring new things and ideas, She wishes to have no questions or doubts. She wants to have experienced the world, not only have had visited it. Her take on the ideas and life and death themselves are very respectable, and something that I believe should be modeled, I believe that they are setup for well being, satisfac tion, and a full life. In this poem, she had many literay devices.To me, the most interesting one is on stanzas three and four: † when death comes and takes all the bright coins from his purse to buy me, and snaps his purse shut†¦ † Its obvious that when you die you lose all of your possesions, but in ancient Greece, the culture believed that when you died you had to pay a toll to Charon, a demi-god whose only purpose is to ferry people in to the after life. These coins were mostly gold or other precious metals and were usually owned by the person who died and placed on the eyes as their final payment to the Charon, which is represented by the adjective she uses, â€Å"Bright†.

A Theory of Justice Presented by John Rawls Essays

In A Theory of Justice John Rawls presents his argument for justice and inequality. Rawls theorizes that in the original position, a hypothetical state where people reason without bias, they would agree to live in a society based on two principles of justice (Rawls 1971, 4). These two principles of justice are named the first and second principles. The first is the equal rights and liberties principle. The second is a combination of the difference principle and the fair equality of opportunity principle, or FEOP (Rawls 1971, 53). Rawls argues that inequality will always be inevitable in any society (Rawls 1971, 7). For example, there will always be a varied distribution of social and economic advantages. Some people will be wealthier than†¦show more content†¦Furthermore, they have no concept of social standing or economic standing. The individuals are just capable of reasoning and possess the goal of creating a just society (Rawls 1971, 17). The purpose of the veil is to al low those in the original position to agree on rules pertaining to their own mutual interests. Rawls thinks that behind the veil of ignorance, free of bias with rational thought, the individuals would agree to a society governed by his two principles of justice (Rawls 1971, 53). Individuals would agree to these principles because it would be the only way to ensure a fair initial status quo in society (Rawls 1971, 53). This is important because it allows for justified inequalities later that will be regulated instead of unjust inequalities. No one would want to make things unequal from the start because they have no way of knowing their actual place in society behind the veil (Rawls 1971, 11). For example, if someone suggested that all UCR students get free tuition at the cost of students at other universities footing the bill, it would be within the individuals best interest to disagree because he has no way of knowing if he is a UCR student in the society or one of the other univer sity students that now have to pay more. The idea of the original position is that a just society would be fair and equal, and individuals behind the veil of ignorance would agree on Rawls’ two principles of justice to make it so. Rawls’s first principleShow MoreRelatedLife Without Laws And Regulations Essay879 Words   |  4 Pagesmaintain a controlled society in which protects people’s rights to life, liberty and protection of ones property. 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