Critique of the Lost Boy
David Pelzer's autobiography The Lost Boy (1997) is a very moving and disturbing account of his childhood experiences of severe abuse by his mother and abandonment by his father. He was removed from his mother's custody at age 12 by Child Protective Services and ended up in a series of foster homes for the next six years. He rarely spent more than a few months in each one, and did not receive the necessary psychological counseling that would have helped him resolve the issues of abuse and abandonment. Although David was grateful to the foster care system and believed it had literally saved his life, he recognized that it was often overwhelmed with the sheer volume of abuse cases and lacked a sufficient number of social workers and foster homes. On the whole, though, he was very satisfied with the social worker who saved him from his alcoholic and violently abusive mother and certain that she was a very caring individual. Had the system identified this abuse sooner instead of sending him back to his mother, he would certainly have been better off, but whether his severely disturbed mother would have benefited from treatment is more problematic. Essentially, the system worked by removing this child from the home but failed in certain important areas of follow up as he was passed from one foster home to another. He became very isolated and alienated, did poorly in school, and failed to make emotional bonds with any of his peers. Fortunately, though, David was particularly resilient and was able to obtain a GED at age 18 and then enlisted in the Air Force.
External analysis of Coca-Cola
Coca Cola – External Analysis
An external analysis of Coca-Cola (NAICS # 312111 – Soft Drink Manufacturing) requires scrutiny of the specific industry environment with Porter's 5-Forces model and examination of the larger business environment through a PEST analysis. Porter's 5-Forces Model considers the factors of Competitive Rivalry, Threat of New Entrants, Threat of Substitute Products, Bargaining Power of Suppliers, and Bargaining Power of Buyers. A PEST Analysis, which considers factors within the greater business environment, looks at four "sub-environments" of: "Political (including regulatory); Economic; Sociocultural; and Technical."
Business scholars offer many sources from which data can be collected in order to examine the dynamic external factors affecting any business, including Coca-Cola.
19th Century Women\'s Suffrage in Europe
Most countries in Western and Central Europe, including Great Britain granted women the vote right after World War I, and only in the Scandinavian nations of Norway and Finland did they receive it earlier than that. France stood out as exceptional, however, no matter that it was the homeland of democratic revolution and of the idea of equal rights for women. It also had a highly conservative side and did not allow women's suffrage until 1945. In Southern and Eastern Europe, granting the vote to women was usually delayed at least that long as well, especially due to the influence on the Catholic Church. In any event, the authoritarian or even fascist nature of the regimes in most of these countries made voting irrelevant, but for the most part no movements for women's suffrage and equality even existed in these regions in the 19th Century. Women's suffrage advanced fastest in the Northern Protestant European countries that had the strongest liberal and democratic traditions un the 19th Century, particularly Britain and Scandinavia, although almost everywhere, working class and social democratic parties were the first to formally endorse female voting rights.