Organization of congress

On 8 August 1967, five leaders – the Foreign Ministers of Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore and Thailand – sat down together in the main hall of the Department of Foreign Affairs building in Bangkok, Thailand and signed a document. By virtue of that document, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) was born. The five Foreign Ministers who signed it – Adam Malik of Indonesia, Narciso R. Ramos of the Philippines, Tun Abdul Razak of Malaysia, S. Rajaratnam of Singapore, and Thanat Khoman of Thailand – would subsequently be hailed as the Founding Fathers of probably the most successful inter-governmental organization in the developing world today. And the document that they signed would be known as the ASEAN Declaration. It was a short, simply-worded document containing just five articles. It declared the establishment of an Association for Regional Cooperation among the Countries of Southeast Asia to be known as the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and spelled out the aims and purposes of that Association. These aims and purposes were about cooperation in the economic, social, cultural, technical, educational and other fields, and in the promotion of regional peace and stability through abiding respect for justice and the rule of law and adherence to the principles of the United Nations Charter. It stipulated that the Association would be open for participation by all States in the Southeast Asian region subscribing to its aims, principles and purposes. It proclaimed ASEAN as representing “the collective will of the nations of Southeast Asia to bind themselves together in friendship and cooperation and, through joint efforts and sacrifices, secure for their peoples and for posterity the blessings of peace, freedom and prosperity.” It was while Thailand was brokering reconciliation among Indonesia, the Philippines and Malaysia over certain disputes that it dawned on the four countries that the moment for regional cooperation had come or the future of the region would remain uncertain. Recalls one of the two surviving protagonists of that historic process, Thanat Khoman of Thailand: “At the banquet marking the reconciliation between the three disputants, I broached the idea of forming another organization for regional cooperation with Adam Malik. Malik agreed without hesitation but asked for time to talk with his government and also to normalize relations with Malaysia now that the confrontation was over. Meanwhile, the Thai Foreign Office prepared a draft charter of the new institution. Within a few months, everything was ready. I therefore invited the two former members of the Association for Southeast Asia (ASA), Malaysia and the Philippines, and Indonesia, a key member, to a meeting in Bangkok. In addition, Singapore sent S. Rajaratnam, then Foreign Minister, to see me about joining the new set-up. Although the new organization was planned to comprise only the ASA members plus Indonesia, Singapore’s request was favorably considered.” And so in early August 1967, the five Foreign Ministers spent four days in the relative isolation of a beach resort in Bang Saen, a coastal town less than a hundred kilometers southeast of Bangkok. There they negotiated over that document in a decidedly informal manner which they would later delight in describing as “sports-shirt diplomacy.” Yet it was by no means an easy process: each man brought into the deliberations a historical and political perspective that had no resemblance to that of any of the others. But with goodwill and good humor, as often as they huddled at the negotiating table, they finessed their way through their differences as they lined up their shots on the golf course and traded wisecracks on one another’s game, a style of deliberation which would eventually become the ASEAN ministerial tradition. Now, with the rigors of negotiations and the informalities of Bang Saen behind them, with their signatures neatly attached to the ASEAN Declaration, also known as the Bangkok Declaration, it was time for some formalities. The first to speak was the Philippine Secretary of Foreign Affairs, Narciso Ramos, a one-time journalist and long-time legislator who had given up a chance to be Speaker of the Philippine Congress to serve as one of his country’s first diplomats. He was then 66 years old and his only son, the future President Fidel V. Ramos, was serving with the Philippine Civic Action Group in embattled Vietnam. He recalled the tediousness of the negotiations that preceded the signing of the Declaration that “truly taxed the goodwill, the imagination, the patience and understanding of the five participating Ministers.” That ASEAN was established at all in spite of these difficulties, he said, meant that its foundations had been solidly laid. And he impressed it on the audience of diplomats, officials and media people who had witnessed the signing ceremony that a great sense of urgency had prompted the Ministers to go through all that trouble. He spoke darkly of the forces that were arrayed against the survival of the countries of Southeast Asia in those uncertain and critical times. “The fragmented economies of Southeast Asia,” he said, “(with) each country pursuing its own limited objectives and dissipating its meager resources in the overlapping or even conflicting endeavors of sister states carry the seeds of weakness in their incapacity for growth and their self-perpetuating dependence on the advanced, industrial nations. ASEAN, therefore, could marshal the still untapped potentials of this rich region through more substantial united action

. Video games are a popular pastime for teenagers (and many adults) all around the world. In fact, 97% of American teenagers play video games. Not all video games show graphic violence. But about half of the top selling video games do. It is common for a video game to include weapons that are used to harm other humans. Many video game critics argue that violent images and violent role play in video games can desensitize teens to violence. This means that violence starts to seem normal. Some argue that enough violent video games can even make teenagers more likely to commit violent acts in real life. In 1993, Congress first took a look at the issue. Mortal Kombat had just been released. Many Americans were worried about children playing such a violent game. Congress talked a bout whether the government should place limits on the sale of video games. This caused the video game industry to create an organization to rate video games. This organization is called the Entertainment Software Rating Board. They give ratings based on the age level a video game is appropriate for. The American Psychological Association (APA) created a Task Force on Violent Media. In 2017 they released a statement. It labeled violent video games as a “risk factor for aggression.” This means that they linked playing video games to increased “aggressive behaviors, thoughts and emotions” and “decreased empathy.” Empathy is the ability to understand the feelings of others. But they did not actually state that video games are the cause of an increase in crime. Plus, other studies have said that the competition in video games increases aggression more than just violent images.

Richard Bland College (RBC), Virginia’s selective, two-year, residential, liberal arts transfer institution, was born through innovation. In 1959, years before the Virginia Community College system was imagined, Frank Ernst – a Gateway region native, entrepreneur, and retired executive of Hopewell’s Allied Chemical Plant – proposed the creation of an institution grounded in the liberal arts tradition with opportunities for specialized training in in-demand fields such as engineering to the State Council of Higher Education. After discussions with Virginia Tech and the University of Virginia, Ernst found a willing partner in the College of William & Mary, the second-oldest university in the United States, who founded Richard Bland College in 1960. RBC has since offered multiple certificates and university-parallel two-year degrees. The College was named for the Virginia statesman and champion of public rights, Richard Bland. Son and grandson of successful planters, Richard Bland was educated at The College of William and Mary. From 1742 until his death in 1776, he represented the area in which the College is now located, first in the House of Burgesses, and later, with the adoption of a state constitution, in the House of Delegates. He also served as a delegate from Virginia in both the First and Second Continental Congresses. It seems fitting, therefore, that an institution of higher learning located in an area served for so many years by this distinguished Virginia patriot and scholar, should derive its name from one whom Jefferson described “as the most learned and logical man of those who took prominent lead in public affairs.” Before the Civil War, the property on which the College is now located was a plantation owned by the Gurley family. It became an important part of the Union-occupied territory during the 1864-1865 Siege of Petersburg. The present campus was the scene of two battles during that campaign. Shortly after the turn of the century, Hatcher Seward established a dairy and cattle farm on the former Gurley property and constructed two farmhouses. Today they serve as the President’s residence and the Hospitality House. In the early 1900s, the still-beautiful grove of pecan trees was planted. The farm was used as a work camp for about twenty conscientious objectors during World War I. The Commonwealth of Virginia authorized Central State Hospital to purchase the land in 1932 for use as the Petersburg Training School and Hospital for African-American Youth. That institution was moved in 1959, and the land, still owned by the Commonwealth, became the location for the establishment of Richard Bland College of The College of William and Mary. Under the guidance of Colonel (Ret.) James M. Carson, the former hospital and training facility was transformed into Richard Bland College, and classes were held beginning in 1961. In the late 1960s, Ernst Hall (named for a local business leader influential in the establishment of the college) was added to the original campus. In addition, a Student Center Library building and a gymnasium also were constructed in the early 1970s. Colonel Carson retired as the founding President of the College in 1973. From 1973 through 1975, Dr. Cornelius Laban, Professor of Biology, Emeritus, served as the Acting President of Richard Bland College. In 1975, Dr. Clarence Maze succeeded Colonel Carson as Richard Bland College’s second President. During his tenure, Richard Bland College expanded its academic programs, added an Asian water garden that was designed by Dr. Maze and expanded international programs and travel. In recognition of his service to the College, the renovated administration building was named Maze Hall upon his retirement in 1996. In 1996, Dr. James B. McNeer succeeded Dr. Clarence Maze as Richard Bland College’s third President. Dr. McNeer introduced a residential life program and oversaw the addition of the Residential Village in 2008. The Residential Village was comprised of two dormitories, Freedom Hall and Patriot Hall, which housed 250 students. A new Science and Technology Building was added in 2010, and in recognition of his service to the College, this building was named James B. McNeer Hall. Dr. McNeer retired in 2012. In 2012, Dr. Debbie L. Sydow succeeded Dr. James McNeer as Richard Bland College’s fourth president. Dr. Sydow expanded the reach, range and diversity of students attending Richard Bland College. She oversaw a physical campus transformation through extensive building renovation and new construction, creation of a Business Innovation Park, and conservation of the iconic pecan grove and water garden. President Sydow reinstituted intercollegiate athletics in 2013 and has since hailed three NJCAA national championship teams. She supported the Foundation’s emergence as a vibrant, entrepreneurial organization led by a Board of Directors composed largely of alumni, and she secured the largest private gift in College history to launch the W&M Promise Scholars program. By effectively leveraging partnerships, President Sydow boosted work-based learning and expanded academic and career pathways for students.

Democratic Constitution in South Africa Struggle against Apartheid • Apartheid was the name of a system of racial discrimination unique to South Africa. • This system was particularly oppressive for the blacks. → They were forbidden from living in white areas. • Since 1950, the blacks, coloured and Indians fought against the apartheid system. • The African National Congress (ANC) was the umbrella organisation that led the struggle against the policies of segregation. • In 1964, Nelson Mandela and seven other leaders were sentenced to life imprisonment in 1964 for daring to oppose the apartheid regime in his country. Towards a New Constitution • As protests and struggles against apartheid had increased, the white regime changed its policies. • After 28 years of imprisonment, Nelson Mandela released from jail. • At the midnight of 26 April 1994, democracy was adopted as a form of government in South Africa. • After two years, a constitution came out which gave to its citizens the most extensive rights available in any country. Why do we need a Constitution? • A constitution is necessary because: → It generates a degree of trust and coordination that is necessary for different kind of people to live together. → It specifies how the government will be constituted, who will have power to take which decisions. → It lays down limits on the powers of the government and tells us what the rights of the citizens are. → It expresses the aspirations of the people about creating a good society. Making of the Indian Constitution • In 1928, Motilal Nehru and eight other Congress leaders drafted a constitution for India. • In 1931, the resolution at the Karachi session of the Indian National Congress dwelt on how independent India’s constitution should look like. • Factors contributed to the making of our Constitution. → Ideals of French Revolution → The practice of parliamentary democracy in Britain → The Bill of Rights in the US → The socialist revolution in Russia The Constituent Assembly • In July 1946, Elections to the Constituent Assembly were held. → The drafting of the document called the constitution was done Constituent Assembly. → Dr. Rajendra Prasad was the Chairman of the Constituent Assembly. → In December 1946, the first meeting was held. • After the country was divided into India and Pakistan, the Constituent Assembly also got divided. • The Assembly adopted the Constitution on 26 November 1949 but it came into effect on 26 January 1950. • To mark this day we celebrate January 26 as Republic Day every year. • The Constituent Assembly worked in a systematic, open and consensual manner. → First some basic principles were decided and agreed upon. → Then a Drafting Committee chaired by Dr. B.R. Ambedkar prepared a draft constitution for discussion. → More than two thousand amendments were considered. Philosophy of the Constitution • The Constitution begins with a short statement of its basic values which is called the Preamble to the constitution. The preamble focuses on: → Justice, social, economic and political. → Liberty of thoughts, expression, belief, faith and worship. → Equality of status and of opportunity. → Fraternity assuring the dignity of the individual and the unity and integrity of the nation.

“There’s No Such Thing as Sound Science” by By Christie Aschwanden was a lead science writer for FiveThirtyEight. FiveThirtyEight, Science, Dec. 6, 2017 Science is being turned against itself. For decades, its twin ideals of transparency and rigor have been weaponized by those who disagree with results produced by the scientific method. Under the Trump administration, that fight has ramped up again. In a move ostensibly meant to reduce conflicts of interest, Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt has removed a number of scientists from advisory panels and replaced some of them with representatives from industries that the agency regulates. Like many in the Trump administration, Pruitt has also cast doubt on the reliability of climate science. For instance, in an interview with CNBC, Pruitt said that “measuring with precision human activity on the climate is something very challenging to do.” Similarly, Trump’s pick to head NASA, an agency that oversees a large portion the nation’s climate research, has insisted that research into human influence on climate lacks certainty, and he falsely claimed that “global temperatures stopped rising 10 years ago.” Kathleen Hartnett White, Trump’s nominee to head the White House Council on Environmental Quality, said in a Senate hearing last month that she thinks we “need to have more precise explanations of the human role and the natural role” in climate change. The same entreaties crop up again and again: We need to root out conflicts. We need more precise evidence. What makes these arguments so powerful is that they sound quite similar to the points raised by proponents of a very different call for change that’s coming from within science. This other movement strives to produce more robust, reproducible findings. Despite having dissimilar goals, the two forces espouse principles that look surprisingly alike: Science needs to be transparent. Results and methods should be openly shared so that outside researchers can independently reproduce and validate them. The methods used to collect and analyze data should be rigorous and clear, and conclusions must be supported by evidence. These are the arguments underlying an “open science” reform movement that was created, in part, as a response to a “reproducibility crisis” that has struck some fields of science.1 But they’re also used as talking points by politicians who are working to make it more difficult for the EPA and other federal agencies to use science in their regulatory decision-making, under the guise of basing policy on “sound science.” Science’s virtues are being wielded against it. What distinguishes the two calls for transparency is intent: Whereas the “open science” movement aims to make science more reliable, reproducible and robust, proponents of “sound science” have historically worked to amplify uncertainty, create doubt and undermine scientific discoveries that threaten their interests. “Our criticisms are founded in a confidence in science,” said Steven Goodman, co-director of the Meta-Research Innovation Center at Stanford and a proponent of open science. “That’s a fundamental difference — we’re critiquing science to make it better. Others are critiquing it to devalue the approach itself.” Calls to base public policy on “sound science” seem unassailable if you don’t know the term’s history. The phrase was adopted by the tobacco industry in the 1990s to counteract mounting evidence linking secondhand smoke to cancer. A 1992 Environmental Protection Agency report identified secondhand smoke as a human carcinogen, and Philip Morris responded by launching an initiative to promote what it called “sound science.” In an internal memo, Philip Morris vice president of corporate affairs Ellen Merlo wrote that the program was designed to “discredit the EPA report,” “prevent states and cities, as well as businesses from passing smoking bans” and “proactively” pass legislation to help their cause. The sound science tactic exploits a fundamental feature of the scientific process: Science does not produce absolute certainty. Contrary to how it’s sometimes represented to the public, science is not a magic wand that turns everything it touches to truth. Instead, it’s a process of uncertainty reduction, much like a game of 20 Questions. Any given study can rarely answer more than one question at a time, and each study usually raises a bunch of new questions in the process of answering old ones. “Science is a process rather than an answer,” said psychologist Alison Ledgerwood of the University of California, Davis. Every answer is provisional and subject to change in the face of new evidence. It’s not entirely correct to say that “this study proves this fact,” Ledgerwood said. “We should be talking instead about how science increases or decreases our confidence in something.” The tobacco industry’s brilliant tactic was to turn this baked-in uncertainty against the scientific enterprise itself. While insisting that they merely wanted to ensure that public policy was based on sound science, tobacco companies defined the term in a way that ensured that no science could ever be sound enough. The only sound science was certain science, which is an impossible standard to achieve. “Doubt is our product,” wrote one employee of the Brown & Williamson tobacco company in a 1969 internal memo. The note went on to say that doubt “is the best means of competing with the ‘body of fact’” and “establishing a controversy.” These strategies for undermining inconvenient science were so effective that they’ve served as a sort of playbook for industry interests ever since, said Stanford University science historian Robert Proctor. The sound science push is no longer just Philip Morris sowing doubt about the links between cigarettes and cancer. It’s also a 1998 action plan by the American Petroleum Institute, Chevron and Exxon Mobil to “install uncertainty” about the link between greenhouse gas emissions and climate change. It’s industry-funded groups’ late-1990s effort to question the science the EPA was using to set fine-particle-pollution air-quality standards that the industry didn’t want. And then there was the more recent effort by Dow Chemical to insist on more scientific certainty before banning a pesticide that the EPA’s scientists had deemed risky to children. Now comes a move by the Trump administration’s EPA to repeal a 2015 rule on wetlands protection by disregarding particular studies. (To name just a few examples.) Doubt merchants aren’t pushing for knowledge, they’re practicing what Proctor has dubbed “agnogenesis” — the intentional manufacture of ignorance. This ignorance isn’t simply the absence of knowing something; it’s a lack of comprehension deliberately created by agents who don’t want you to know, Proctor said.2 In the hands of doubt-makers, transparency becomes a rhetorical move. “It’s really difficult as a scientist or policy maker to make a stand against transparency and openness, because well, who would be against it?” said Karen Levy, researcher on information science at Cornell University. But at the same time, “you can couch everything in the language of transparency and it becomes a powerful weapon.” For instance, when the EPA was preparing to set new limits on particulate pollution in the 1990s, industry groups pushed back against the research and demanded access to primary data (including records that researchers had promised participants would remain confidential) and a reanalysis of the evidence. Their calls succeeded and a new analysis was performed. The reanalysis essentially confirmed the original conclusions, but the process of conducting it delayed the implementation of regulations and cost researchers time and money. Delay is a time-tested strategy. “Gridlock is the greatest friend a global warming skeptic has,” said Marc Morano, a prominent critic of global warming research and the executive director of ClimateDepot.com, in the documentary “Merchants of Doubt” (based on the book by the same name). Morano’s site is a project of the Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow, which has received funding from the oil and gas industry. “We’re the negative force. We’re just trying to stop stuff.” Some of these ploys are getting a fresh boost from Congress. The Data Quality Act (also known as the Information Quality Act) was reportedly written by an industry lobbyist and quietly passed as part of an appropriations bill in 2000. The rule mandates that federal agencies ensure the “quality, objectivity, utility, and integrity of information” that they disseminate, though it does little to define what these terms mean. The law also provides a mechanism for citizens and groups to challenge information that they deem inaccurate, including science that they disagree with. “It was passed in this very quiet way with no explicit debate about it — that should tell you a lot about the real goals,” Levy said. But what’s most telling about the Data Quality Act is how it’s been used, Levy said. A 2004 Washington Post analysis found that in the 20 months following its implementation, the act was repeatedly used by industry groups to push back against proposed regulations and bog down the decision-making process. Instead of deploying transparency as a fundamental principle that applies to all science, these interests have used transparency as a weapon to attack very particular findings that they would like to eradicate. Now Congress is considering another way to legislate how science is used. The Honest Act, a bill sponsored by Rep. Lamar Smith of Texas,3 is another example of what Levy calls a “Trojan horse” law that uses the language of transparency as a cover to achieve other political goals. Smith’s legislation would severely limit the kind of evidence the EPA could use for decision-making. Only studies whose raw data and computer codes were publicly available would be allowed for consideration. That might sound perfectly reasonable, and in many cases it is, Goodman said. But sometimes there are good reasons why researchers can’t conform to these rules, like when the data contains confidential or sensitive medical information.4 Critics, which include more than a dozen scientific organizations, argue that, in practice, the rules would prevent many studies from being considered in EPA reviews.5 It might seem like an easy task to sort good science from bad, but in reality it’s not so simple. “There’s a misplaced idea that we can definitively distinguish the good from the not-good science, but it’s all a matter of degree,” said Brian Nosek, executive director of the Center for Open Science. “There is no perfect study.” Requiring regulators to wait until they have (nonexistent) perfect evidence is essentially “a way of saying, ‘We don’t want to use evidence for our decision-making,’” Nosek said. Most scientific controversies aren’t about science at all, and once the sides are drawn, more data is unlikely to bring opponents into agreement. Michael Carolan, who researches the sociology of technology and scientific knowledge at Colorado State University, wrote in a 2008 paper about why objective knowledge is not enough to resolve environmental controversies. “While these controversies may appear on the surface to rest on disputed questions of fact, beneath often reside differing positions of value; values that can give shape to differing understandings of what ‘the facts’ are.” What’s needed in these cases isn’t more or better science, but mechanisms to bring those hidden values to the forefront of the discussion so that they can be debated transparently. “As long as we continue down this unabashedly naive road about what science is, and what it is capable of doing, we will continue to fail to reach any sort of meaningful consensus on these matters,” Carolan writes. The dispute over tobacco was never about the science of cigarettes’ link to cancer. It was about whether companies have the right to sell dangerous products and, if so, what obligations they have to the consumers who purchased them. Similarly, the debate over climate change isn’t about whether our planet is heating, but about how much responsibility each country and person bears for stopping it. While researching her book “Merchants of Doubt,” science historian Naomi Oreskes found that some of the same people who were defending the tobacco industry as scientific experts were also receiving industry money to deny the role of human activity in global warming. What these issues had in common, she realized, was that they all involved the need for government action. “None of this is about the science. All of this is a political debate about the role of government,” she said in the documentary. These controversies are really about values, not scientific facts, and acknowledging that would allow us to have more truthful and productive debates. What would that look like in practice? Instead of cherry-picking evidence to support a particular view (and insisting that the science points to a desired action), the various sides could lay out the values they are using to assess the evidence. For instance, in Europe, many decisions are guided by the precautionary principle — a system that values caution in the face of uncertainty and says that when the risks are unclear, it should be up to industries to show that their products and processes are not harmful, rather than requiring the government to prove that they are harmful before they can be regulated. By contrast, U.S. agencies tend to wait for strong evidence of harm before issuing regulations. Both approaches have critics, but the difference between them comes down to priorities: Is it better to exercise caution at the risk of burdening companies and perhaps the economy, or is it more important to avoid potential economic downsides even if it means that sometimes a harmful product or industrial process goes unregulated? In other words, under what circumstances do we agree to act on a risk? How certain do we need to be that the risk is real, and how many people would need to be at risk, and how costly is it to reduce that risk? Those are moral questions, not scientific ones, and openly discussing and identifying these kinds of judgment calls would lead to a more honest debate. Science matters, and we need to do it as rigorously as possible. But science can’t tell us how risky is too risky to allow products like cigarettes or potentially harmful pesticides to be sold — those are value judgements that only humans can make.

Organization of living things

Organization of Living Things PT Quiz 1

Organization of Life

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