Saturday, August 31, 2019

Respect vs. Disrespect

Respect Vs Disrespect By Osita Onyebuchi Respect vs. Disrespect Have you ever met someone who was rude to you and didn't hold you with much regard? How did you feel? Did you feel angry? What do you think respect is? How is respect earned? Respect is an important way of being kind and good to other people. We live in a society that respect is earned not given. With respect there is also an opposite side of disrespect. The definition of respect is to consider worthy of high regard. There are different forms of respect, the word respect is defined as the condition of being esteemed or honored.Disrespect, on the other hand, is defined as a lack of respect. Respect has great importance in everyday life; everyone wants to be respected. Even those who do not give respect expect to be respected by others. We may also learn that how our lives go depends every bit as much on whether we respect ourselves. The value of self-respect may be something we can take for granted, or we may discover how very important it is when our self-respect is threatened, or we lose it and have to work to regain it, or we have to struggle to develop or maintain it in a hostile environment.Some people find that finally being able to respect them is what matters most   Ã‚  It is acknowledged widely that there are many different kinds of respect. Respect may come in different forms, but it will still be perceived as respect. Respect in your family household is very important for a child and any other individual. For example, a child may choose to obey their parent because their parent is very strict and the child doesn’t want to get on their bad side. This form of respect could also be perceived as fear because the child is worried about how the parent will react if they choose to misbehave. Read also Twitter Case StudyThe child would also respect their parent in a way that if they were to request something, the parents will grant the favor. Another example is a police officer respecting the rights of a man they just arrested. This form of respect is leaning towards unalienable rights. The police officer have to give you the respect that you deserve even when you are the one wrong in the situation. The respect goes a long way in our legal system because it’s the foundation on how criminals should be treated. Everybody akes mistakes especially criminals so you should always resect them even if you don’t approve of what they did. We are not in the place to judge anybody regardless of what they did. Everyone’s rights are respected regardless of merit. Another example is a child respecting and looking up to a celebrity. The child is in awe and therefore respects the celebrity. Besides those three examples, there is also religion. In different religions a nd culture comes major respect. The gestures you make with one culture is different with other cultures and religions.The culture of the people of China and Africa demand respect. For example, taking off your shoes before you enter into a house is very big in China but not as big in the United States. Another example would be calling your elders â€Å"aunt† or â€Å"uncle†. In Africa that is major respect, you can’t walk into somebody house and don’t greet them by saying â€Å"aunt or uncle†, Religious tolerance does not mean one cannot express his own beliefs. It does mean that seeking to undermine or attack the religious faith and beliefs of another has always been a short road to  trouble.It doesn’t matter if you dont worship the sam GOD the person next to you, just have respect for their religious beliefs. Cultures and religions are very important to people, so therefore respecting them is also very important. The last example is respe ct in the workplace. When you are at work there are so many rules you have to follow when it comes to respecting your co-workers. For example, there’s is a various amount of beautiful women at your workplace and you tend to gain interest in the person other than business relationship. I would advise not to do it due to the fact that it may come off as a form of disrespect.When it comes to building a relationship in the workplace it just doesn’t work out so try to stay away from that. Aside from respect, there is also disrespect. From being slapped by someone to being publically humiliated, disrespect is alive and well in today’s society. Just like respect, disrespect also comes in different forms. Verbal disrespect is a form of disrespect seen virtually everywhere. Raising your voice to an adult in public, using harsh words towards one another are some examples of verbal disrespect. Verbal disrespect does not always appear to be disrespect.For example, cutting s omeone off while they are speaking and lying and manipulation. When you cut somebody off when they are speaking that shows the person that you are not listening to them and don’t care about what they have to say. Many people are being verbally disrespected but do not notice it because it is not always as harsh as other forms of disrespect. Another form of disrespect is technological disrespect. Many people are disrespected and humiliated on social networks such Facebook, Twitter, and etc. But it doesn’t stop there, emailing texting, and even when talking on the phone can lead to technological disrespect.There is a lot of disrespect on the internet such as Facebook, both male and female can comment on somebody picture and say something sexual that the person would take offensive in disrespect. On twitter people can tweet something sexual and the only reason people are doing it because of fear so they hide behind a computer. Aside from technological disrespect is an even bigger issue of disrespect, physical disrespect. We’ve all heard about violence, not just in relationships but violence in general. Some examples of physical disrespect is violence in a relationship, physically hurting your children or family, or physically harming yourself.Physical disrespect is probably one of the worst forms of disrespect because it not only affects you physically but also emotionally and cognitively. One example of Physical disrespect is the bus driver incident that was over the news. A man should never put his hands on a female regardless of any circumstance. Physical abuse leaves scars that will not go away. In a relationship if you are getting physically disrespected, you should not be in the relationship than, no relationship is worth getting hit all the time. There are many variables when it comes to respect and disrespect.If you always respect a person it is likely that they will disrespect you. In this society that we live in treat others the way that you want to be treated. Respect goes a long way in life. Respect is to consider somebody that is high worthy. Everybody should be high worthy to you , just go by the guidelines provided below and you will be a respected person and also know how important it is to respect somebody else. Work Cite Page Koppelman, A. (2010). How Shall I Praise Thee? Brian Leiter on Respect for Religion. San Diego Law Review, 47(4), 961-986. Colker, J. (2012). THE DANGER OF DISRESPECT. Smart Business Chicago, 9(11), 10.

Friday, August 30, 2019

Healthy: Nutrition and Correct Relax Method Essay

People do different things to stay healthy. Personally, I think that three ways to be healthy are to do exercise regularly, eat moderately and relax correctly. To begin with, doing exercise regularly is very important so as to maintain a healthy condition. If you activate your body regularly, such as doing exercise every early morning or play sport at weekend, you will become both well-built and healthier. All poisonous substances are given out. that will clear your body, strengthen your bone, tone up your muscle and so forth. Next, a balanced diet is also crucial. in modern life, people have to do lots of things, so they usually run out of energy and work up an appetite at the end of day. Therefore, they need to be supplied the foods that must be both mutritious and balanced to recover and refill energy for a new day. A diet should include high fiber, high protein, lots of vegetable, cut down on fat and keep off smoking and drinking too much. Finally, you have a correct relax method. Especially, you must sleep at least 8 hours per day and shouldn’t stay up late. You should read, sometimes, joke stories; watch comedies or tell jokes with your friends and family because smiling is a dramatic method that help healthier. To sum up , health is a priceless gift of oneself. As long as you have your health, nothing else matters. For wise people, they always know how to do stay healthy. For me, three indispensale things are to activate the body, eat scientifically and refresh wisely.

Thursday, August 29, 2019

The Blue Sword CHAPTER NINE

She felt caught as she stared at the dark Hill-king astride his red horse, caught by the sky, by the stars winking into the new-fallen darkness, by the sand and encircling Hills; they seized her and held her down. She was a figure in some story other than her own, an embroidered shape in a Hill tapestry, a representation of something that did not exist in her Homeland. Then the crowd gave a roar and surged inward; she closed her eyes. But they were patting her ankles, her legs, her back, making her human again, with human bewilderment and human luck. She began to distinguish words in the roar: they were shouting, â€Å"Harimad-sol! Laprun minta! Minta – musti! Harimad-sol!† Tsornin and Isfahel were driven together, and they stood patiently while the crowd rose and foamed around them. Isfahel turned his head and Tsornin turned his, till their flared nostrils touched briefly in a salute. Out of the corner of her eye Harry saw Corlath blot the drop of blood at his mouth with the back of his hand. The crowd fell away from its center, breaking into smaller eddies that laughed and swung each other by arms and hands and shoulders. Sungold and Fireheart edged away from each other, their riders silent and motionless. Harry could not look at Corlath. He reached out one hand toward her, perhaps to touch her, but Tsornin sidled just one step farther and Corlath's hand dropped away. Mathin appeared on Harry's far side and touched her elbow, and Harry smiled gratefully at his familiar face. Mathin did not speak to her, but turned away, and she slid off Sungold and the two of them followed him, walking slowly, permitted their due of weariness at last. Mathin stopped where two taris were already set up, and knelt down to build a fire, companionably ignoring his two pupils; and Harry was glad to lay aside the glory of laprun-minta. The headache haze and sense of displacement began to ebb as she mechanically stripped off Sungold's saddle and rubbed him down. The smell of Mathin's cooking crept to greet her and cheer her, and remind her who she was, or who she had become. She was the Daughter of the Riders. Harry ate too much that night. She ate till her stomach hurt – Mathin had kept them on strict rations during training – but she was only half aware of what she was eating. Many of the lapruni she had faced today came to her, to touch her hand and offer what seemed a sort of fealty; they materialized at the edge of the firelight, as indistinct as they had seemed to her that afternoon: they wore red robes and blue robes and brown robes and black, for none wore a sash, and their swords hung in scabbards by their sides instead of drawn against her. And they called her Harimad-sol, and laprun-minta, and their voices were hushed and reverent. Harry ate too much because it made her feel more real. As the evening progressed other taris were set up nearby: she had noticed that Mathin was using a pot larger than the one for the two of them she had seen every night for six weeks. Soon she found they were sharing their fire and supper with Innath and Faran and Forloy and Dapsim, and others of the king's Riders. They watched without comment as the lapruni came to show themselves to the Daughter of the Riders, who kept putting more food on her plate as they appeared and vanished. Once when Harry looked up she saw Mathin handing Corlath a plate. The king slouched down, cross-legged, and began to eat. Harry would have liked to ask why the lapruni were saluting her, for it seemed beyond a simple acknowledgment of the loser to the victor, but she did not ask. Mathin had taught her patience, and she had known all her life how to be stubborn. It seemed a bit unfair to complain, she thought, as it – or as I – have turned out; but couldn't I have been told a little more beforehand? She looked into the eyes of those who sought her and called her Harimad-sol, and tried to think of them as individuals, and not as robes and tunics and fallen sashes. The lapruni all went away without her having to speak to them, for they did not seem to expect her to answer them with anything but her presence. This was both restful and unnerving. One laprun was a woman. For her Harry did have a question. â€Å"What is your name?† The girl's robe was blue, and Harry suddenly recognized her as the rider on the bay mare. â€Å"Senay,† she replied. â€Å"Where is your home?† Senay turned to face northwest. â€Å"Shpardith,† she said. â€Å"It is there,† and she pointed into the blackness. â€Å"Twelve days on a fleet horse.† Harry nodded, and the girl left to return to her own fire, and others came to speak to the laprun-minta who sat with the Riders and the king. When she looked around again she realized that there were eighteen dark figures besides herself and the king; all the Riders, from wherever they had been, had returned. And Narknon reappeared, and Harry hugged her eagerly, for she felt in need of something to hug. She offered her bits of meat, which Narknon graciously accepted, although she attempted to nose through Harry's plate herself, to make sure Harry wasn't keeping back any of the best bits for herself. Harry slept dreamlessly, her hand on the hilt of her sword; when she awoke and found this so, she stared at her hand as if it did not belong to her. She crept out of the tari and looked around. The sky was light; yet most of the taris still had bodies in them, and there were more blanket-swathed figures motionless around banked or burned-out fires. Mathin's lips moved as he rebuilt their fire. She turned to look behind her. Corlath was gone; there was only a small ripple in the sand where he had lain, or it might be only the wind. Mathin handed her a cup of malak. It was reheated from last night, and bitter. Harry shrugged into her stiff grimy surcoat, hoping there would be bathing sometime today, and thinking wistfully of the little valley behind her, and its green pool. Her split sash lay beside her, where she had stuffed it through the tari's open flap the night before. She picked it up and, after a moment's thought, wrapped it around her waist again, tucking torn edges underneath till it would stay fixed. She did not do it very well, and she thought of asking Mathin for help, but chose not to. After the wildness of the night before, this morning everyone went quietly about the business of packing up and returning, it seemed, to where they had come from. A few lingered: Harry and several of the Riders, for many of them had vanished with Corlath, and perhaps a dozen riders she did not recognize, and a few of the lapruni. She looked for Senay hopefully, but did not see her. The wind whispered over the bare land. But for the black hollows of dead fires, there was nothing to show that several hundred people had spent the last three days here. Mathin turned Windrider east, east where the City lay just beyond one of the enigmatic rockfaces before them. Tsornin fell into step beside Windrider; Viki came along behind them, still grumbling to himself; and the others, some thirty riders, strung out behind them. Harry peered over her shoulder several times, watching the procession winding behind her, till she caught Mathin's expression of restrained amusement when he glanced over at her. After that she looked only straight ahead. Narknon padded softly among them all. There was another big hunting-cat with them, a handsome spotted-mahogany male an inch or two taller than Narknon; but she scorned him. Tsornin strode out like a yearling having his first sight of the world beyond his paddock. Harry tried to keep her back straight and her legs quiet. Yesterday she had been glad of her perfectly fitted saddle, for it gave her suppleness and security; today she was glad of it because it told her where her legs were supposed to be even when they felt like blocks of wood. Her shoulder hurt, and her head felt woolly, and her right wrist was as weak as water, and she had a great purple bruise on her left calf. My horse is ignoring me, Harry thought. Or maybe he's trying to cheer me up. She had gone over him with great care the evening before, and again this morning, and applied salve to the few small scrapes he had collected. He had no suspicious swellings, no lameness, and his eyes were bright and his step buoyant. He made her feel woollier. â€Å"Are you trying to cheer me up?† she said to his mane, and he cocked a merry ear at her and strutted. They had just begun to step upward off the plain into the Hills when they rounded another abrupt shoulder of rock like the one she and Mathin had passed for her first view of the laprun fields; and here was a wide highway mounting steeply to massive gates not far away. There lay the City. They passed through the gates, borne beneath an arch two horse-lengths thick, their horses' hooves echoing hollowly. There was a cold grey smell, as if of caves, although the gates had stood for a thousand years. They walked down a broad avenue where six horsemen might walk abreast. It was stone-paved, laid out in huge flat cobbles, some grey or white or red-veined black; it had edges of earth where slender grey trees grew. Behind them were stone walkways where children played; and beyond them were stone houses and shops and stables and warehouses; stone flower-pots stood in doorways and on window ledges. The green-and-blue parrots Harry had seen in the traveling camp were perched on many shoulders, and some of them joined, gay and noisy, in the children's games. Often with a flirt of wings one would carry off the stone counter or mark a group of children was using, while the children shrieked at them, and occasionally threw pebbles at them, but only very small ones. â€Å"Is there no wood?† said Harry. â€Å"Nothing but stone?† She looked up at the roof and walls and gables mounting up the hillside behind the gates, tiers of stone, multi-colored stone, no shingles or slats or carved wooden cornices, or shutters or window frames. â€Å"There is wood here,† said Mathin, â€Å"but there is more stone.† Innath rode up on Harry's other side. â€Å"Mathin cannot see the strangeness of this place,† he said; â€Å"his village is just as stony as the City, only smaller. Where I come from we cut down trees and plane them smooth and slot them together, our houses and barns are warm and weathered, and do not last forever and haunt you with the ghosts of a thousand years.† â€Å"We use wood,† said Mathin. Innath made a dismissive gesture. â€Å"The grand receiving-rooms here have wooden paneling – you'll see some of them at the castle – and parlors, where people really live, often have wooden screens as ornaments.† â€Å"There are wooden chairs and tables and cupboards,† said Mathin. â€Å"There are more stone chairs and tables and cupboards,† said Innath. â€Å"They don't often rearrange the furniture here.† Harry looked around. She saw doors so well hung on their hinges that they were opened and closed by a child's touch, yet made of stone slabs so heavy she wondered how they had been wrestled into their places to begin with. Free-standing walls, she saw, were often as wide as the reach of her two arms; yet often too the inner wall facing on a courtyard encircled by tall houses was so fine and delicate, cut into filigree work so complex, it looked as though it must tremble in the lightest breeze; as if one might roll it up like a bolt of silk and store it on a shelf. â€Å"To be either a stonemason or a carpenter is to be respected,† Mathin said. â€Å"The best of them are greatly honored.† â€Å"Hear the horse-breaker,† said Innath. Mathin smiled. The children began calling: â€Å"The lapruni are here! And the Riders – and the laprun-minta!† â€Å"Harimad-sol,† Innath called to them, and Harry blushed. â€Å"Harimad-sol,† agreed the children; and people came out from the houses and down the narrower ways off the wide central way to look. Harry tried to look around her without catching anyone's eye, but many of the onlookers sought hers; and when one succeeded, he – or she – would touch right wrist to forehead and then hold the flat empty palm out toward her. â€Å"Harimad-sol,† she heard, and eagerly they added, â€Å"Damalur-sol.† The children danced in front of Tsornin's feet to make her look at them, and clapped their hands; and she smiled and waved shyly at them, and Tsornin was very careful with his hooves. They rode on. At first the Hills rose up behind the low buildings, but as they went farther in, the buildings grew taller and taller and seemed part of the Hills themselves; and the trees that lined the way grew larger, till the shade of them could be felt as one passed beneath. Then another gate rose up before them, the wall around it running into the flanks of the mountains as if wall and gate had been formed with the mountains at the beginning of time. They went through this gate too, and entered a wide flat courtyard of polished stone. This stone was mirror-white, and it blazed up fiercely in the morning sunlight, and Harry felt as if she had emerged from underground. She blinked. Before her stood Corlath's castle; no one had to explain to her what this huge stone edifice must be. She tipped her head back to see the sharp points of the turrets, brilliant as diamonds. It was itself a mountain, proudly peaked, seated among its brothers; its faces glittered dangerously. The shadows it threw were abrupt and absolute; one wall reflected white, another black. The central mass was taller than the Hill crests here; the road they had climbed had reached near the summit of the dark Hills, and like an island in the crater lake of an extinct volcano, the castle stood in its stone yard that shone as bright as water in the sun. Harry sighed. Men of the horse were approaching them in the swift but unhurried way she remembered from the days on the desert in the traveling camp; and she felt a sudden sharp stab of memory, as if that were a time many years past, and the present were sad and weary. She slipped down from Tsornin's back and he suffered himself to be led away when one of the brown men spoke to him gently by name and laid a hand in front of his withers. Narknon sat down neatly at Harry's feet; Harry could feel her tail twitching at her ankles. Those who had ridden with her began now to go purposefully in their own individual directions. Mathin said to her, ‘†It is here I am to leave you. Perhaps it may be permitted that we ride against each other again and you may practice your skills upon me, Daughter of the Riders.† He smiled. â€Å"We will meet again at the king's table, here in the City.† Harry looked up toward the castle when Mathin left her, feeling a little forlorn; and it was Corlath himself who walked to meet her. She swallowed rather hard, and blessed the sunburn that would prevent her fierce blush from showing as clearly as it would on an Outlander's pale skin. â€Å"We meet again, Harimad-sol,† Corlath said. There was a tiny scab at one corner of his mouth; he looked down at her with a cold dignity, she thought; he is the master of this place, and what am I? Even Daughter of the Riders could not comfort her as Corlath stood before her with his castle shining savagely behind him. But then he spoiled the effect – or perhaps the effect was all in Harry's eyes to begin with – by saying, â€Å"So that's where the thrice-blasted cat disappeared to. I should have guessed it.† He did not look very majestic while glaring at a cat; so Harry said crossly, â€Å"I wish I knew what was going on.† Corlath looked at her thoughtfully, and Narknon, with customary feline charm, stood up and went to twine herself around Corlath's legs. Corlath's face softened and he rubbed her ears. Harry could hear her purr; she could almost feel it through the soles of her boots on the white stone. Narknon was a champion purrer. â€Å"And don't tell me that no one knows what is going on and that it is for the gods to decide, either.† Corlath's face wavered and then broke into a smile, although whether at Harry or the big cat, Harry didn't know. â€Å"Very well,† he said. â€Å"I won't. I will tell you that you are the First of the laprun trials, laprun-minta, which you already know, and as such the most important of the lapruni, the untried.† Corlath's hand lay motionless on Narknon's head. â€Å"The army marches, to do what it can, in less than a fortnight's time. You and the best of the lapruni will ride with us.† Narknon bumped Corlath's hand violently and the fingers stirred and began scratching again. In a lighter tone Corlath continued, â€Å"In other years that the laprun trials are held, there is a week's celebration at their end, and a great many songs are sung, and lies about one's own prowess told, and all the minta of past years claim that their year was the best, and much wine and beer is drunk, and it is all very cheerful. This year we have not the time, and many of those who would be part of it are far away, and those who are here are busy, and the work they do is melancholy.† He paused as if hoping she would say something, or at least raise her eyes from Narknon's sleepy face and look at him; but when she did finally look up, he immediately squinted up at the sky. â€Å"But tonight there will be a feast in your honor. You are not the least of those who have been laprun Firsts. There are many who will come tonight merely to look at you.† Harry stopped smiling at the cat. â€Å"Oh,† she said. â€Å"Come. I will show you where you will stay till we leave the City.† She followed him across the smooth courtyard and around one wing of the castle; as they rounded the tip, set back from the edge and guarded by the castle's great bulk was a wall that at first seemed low; but it was fully ten feet high as they approached. It curved back on itself as if it protected something within that was very precious. In the wall was a door, the height of a tall man. Corlath opened it, and looked around for her. She stepped in first, Narknon crowding at her heels, with the odd feeling that he was watching her anxiously for her reaction. It was very beautiful. Here the courtyard was not stone, but green grass, and a stream ran through it from one end to the other, with a fountain at the center, and a stone horse reared in the midst of the falling spray. On either side of the stream was a path of paving-stones, grey and blue, that went all the way around the fountain. There were curved stone seats on either side of the fountain, with the stream running between them. Beyond all this was what Harry thought of instantly as a palace, for all its diminutive size; it was no bigger than the gateman's cottage on her father's – now Richard's – estate, back Home. But this cottage had slender peaked towers at each of its five corners, and a cupola at the center of the slanting roof, with a delicate fence surrounding it. But for the cupola, it was only one story high, and the windows were tall and thin. The walls and roof were a mosaic of thousands of small flat blue stones, with colors from aquamarine to turquoise to sapphire, but Harry had no idea what these stones might be, for they were opaque, and yet they gleamed like mother of pearl. She sighed, and then to her horror she felt her eyes filling with tears; so she ran forward. It seemed as though even her leather riding-boots made no sound on the stone here, and she plunged her hands into the water of the fountain, and put her face under the spray. The coldness of it quieted her, and the drops danced around her. Narknon climbed up on one of the benches and lay down. Corlath followed them through the door in the wall and then went on to the little mosaic palace. There was no door in the arched entrance. Harry stepped slowly inside. Here the stream had slipped around behind and entered by some back way, for in the center of the front room was another fountain, and the stream ran in under the rear wall; but here the stone horse stood on all four legs and bowed his head to drink from the pool at his feet. There were tapestries on the walls, and rugs and cushions on the floor, and one low table, and that was all. Corlath opened the stone door beside the place where the stream came under the wall. She looked in. The stream entered over a tiny falls of three stone steps under the far wall, to run under the near wall and out to the fountain in the front room. The water tinkled as it fell. The floor of this room was thick with carpets, and against the wall opposite the stream was the long bolster-like object she had learned to recognize in the traveling camp as the Hill idea of a bed, although she had entertained higher hopes of the furnishings of the City. There were pillow-sized cushions at one end, and body-sized rugs folded up at the other end. She went back into the bigger room and looked around again. There was another door between two long blue-and-green tapestries. She walked over to it and opened it, wondering if she would find a dragon breathing fire from a heap of diamonds, or merely a bottomless chasm lined with blue stones, but instead it was only a bit more of the grassy courtyard, and a few steps away was a door in the wall surrounding this magic place into what she thought vaguely must be the castle itself. She closed the door and turned back; Corlath was dangling his fingers in the pool just in front of the horse's stone nose. He looked as if he were thinking very hard about something. Harry leaned back against the door behind her and stared at him, wondering what he was looking at, and waited for him to remember her. He looked up finally, and met her eyes. She didn't think she flinched. â€Å"Do you like it?† he said. She nodded, not quite sure of her voice. â€Å"It has been a long time since this place sheltered anyone,† he said; she wanted to ask how it came to be here at all, who had built it so lovingly and why; but she didn't. Corlath left her there. He walked out past the fountain of the rearing horse, and at the door where they had first entered he paused and turned back toward her. She had followed him from the small jeweled cottage, and stood next to the low bench where Narknon lay at her ease. But he said nothing, and turned away again, and closed the door behind him. She went to the little back room with the bolster and took off her surcoat. Her hands met her torn sash; her fingers curled around it and then she pulled it off in her two hands and tossed the pieces away from her. They fluttered to the floor. She lay down by degrees, leaving the lower half of her left leg h anging over the edge of the bolster, where the bruise need not come in contact with anything, and carefully arranged her sore shoulder. A young woman woke her, but she was dressed as the men of the household were dressed, in a long sashless white robe, and had the same mark they did on her forehead. â€Å"The banquet will begin soon,† said the girl, and bowed; and Harry nodded and sat up stiffly, and yawned, and contemplated her bruises, which seemed to be spreading. She unfolded herself, and weaved to her feet. She put on her blue robe but left the sash lying, and followed the girl out of the mosaic palace and through the castle door into an antechamber. She looked to the left and saw a room with tables, high tables, and real chairs: not chairs like the ones she had known at Home, but still chairs, with legs and backs, and some with armrests. The girl guided her to the right and into an immense bathroom, with the bath itself sunk into the floor, the size of a millpond, and s teaming. The girl helped her out of her clothes, and Harry sat for a moment at the edge of the lake and dabbled her tired feet in it. Her attendant hissed with sympathy over the bruises. Once she was fairly in and wet all over, two more young women appeared, and one of them presented her with a cake of white soap. The third young woman unbound her wet hair – now that it was wet, it smelled terribly of horse – and started rubbing shampoo into it. The shampoo smelled like flowers. She thought, I bet Corlath's shampoo doesn't smell like flowers. She would rather have climbed out of her own clothes – in spite of the aches and pains – and washed her own hair. The young woman who had given her the soap washed her back with a scratchy sponge, and Harry repressed the urge to giggle; she hadn't had anyone wash her back for her since she was five years old. She was clean at last and wrapped in towels, and sat quite patiently while the young woman who had washed her hair now tried to work the tangles out of it. It was long and thick and hadn't been combed properly smooth for weeks. Better her than me, Harry thought cheerfully; there are advantages to servants, perhaps; and this girl is very gentle †¦ Harry caught herself dozing. I'm going to be less than a success at my own banquet if I can't even stay awake, she thought. I suppose the last six weeks are all catching up with me now, and Mathin's grey dust. She tumbled off her stool at last, the towels removed, and a heavy white shift dropped over her head. They put velvet slippers on her feet and a red robe around her shoulders, and twisted a gold cord around her hair but let it hang down behind her so she had to flick the end of it aside when she sat down. At Home, one never wore one's hair loose when one was no longer a child; at night it was braided, during the day it was tied up. Harry shook her hair; it felt funny. These last weeks she had tied and pinned it fiercely under her helmet, where it couldn't get caught in anything, like the branch of a tree, or Mathin's sword, or under her own saddle. The young woman who had awakened her had rubbed salve into her shoulder and leg before they dressed her, and Harry found that she could move more freely, and the weight of the robe didn't bow her down, nor the sleek surface of the shift rub her like sandpaper. The three girls ushered her across the anteroom to the room with the chairs, and they all three bowed, and looked shyly at her with smiles hovering in their eyes, so she grinned at them and flapped the edges of her clean scarlet robe at them, and they smiled happily and left. Harry sat down tentatively in one of the queer crook-legged chairs, and leaned back luxuriously. Rugs and cushions and stools can be very comfortable, but they are inevitably backless, and it was apparently not done to lean against a tent wall; no one else did it, at least, so she hadn't tried. The shift billowed around her as she shrugged farther into the chair: No sash, she thought. There was a long hall she could see through an open door; and after a few minutes Mathin appeared through another door at the far end of it and came toward her. In his hand was a bit of maroon cloth; and when he came through the door, the air that swept in with him smelled of flowers. Harry smiled. â€Å"Well met, Daughter of the Riders,† said Mathin, and unrolled what he had in his hand. It was her old sash, washed clean. The smile left Harry's face, and when Mathin held the sash out to her, still in its two pieces, as if he would tuck it around her waist, she backed up a step. He stopped, surprised, and looked at her face, white under the tan. â€Å"I think,† he said slowly, â€Å"that you do not understand.† He held his arms out to his sides, and the hand indicated a line on his own dark green sash. â€Å"Look here.† Harry looked and saw a similar tear, but carefully mended, with tiny exact stitches of yellow thread. â€Å"All the Riders wear them so. Many of us won the slash at the hand of the king after being First at the laprun trials – as I did, many years ago. It was Corlath's father gave me this cut. Two or three of us have won them at other times. Any one lucky enough to have a sash cut off by a sol or sola will wear the mended sash ever after.† Harry, faintly in the back of her mind, heard Beth saying: â€Å"They come in those long robes they always wear – over their faces too, so you can't see if they're smiling or frowning; and some of them with those funny patched sashes around their waists.† Mathin said: â€Å"I will teach you to mend yours; you must do it yourself, as you clean your own sword and pay your own homage.† He looked at her slyly and added: â€Å"All those sashes you lopped off their owners you may be sure will be saved and mended; and the cuts will be bragged of, given by the damalur-sol whose prowess was first seen when she was First at the laprun trials.† Harry suffered Mathin to put the maroon sash around her waist again. He did not tuck it together, as she had, so that the slash did not show; instead it went in front, proudly – Harry gritted her teeth – and was fixed by a long golden pin. Then she silently followed him down the corridor. There were pillars reaching up three stories to meet the arched ceilings; the floors were laid out in great squares, two strides' length, but within each black-and-white border were scenes drawn in tiny mosaic tiles. Harry tried to look at them as she walked over them, and saw a great many horses, and some swords, and some sunrises and sunsets over Hills and deserts. She had her eyes so busily on the floor that when Mathin stopped she ran into him. They stood under one of the three-story arches the pillars made, but on either side of them the spaces between the tall columns were filled in, and tapestries hung on these walls, and they stood in the doorway to an immense room. It too was three stories high, and a chandelier was let down from the ceiling on a chain that seemed hundreds of feet long. Mathin and she went down six steps, across a dozen strides of floor, and up nine steps to a vast square dais; around three sides of the square was a white-laid table. At the one edge of this dais where there was no table were three more steps up to a long rectangular table on a smaller dais; and around this table sat Corlath and seventeen Riders. There were two empty seats at Corlath's right. Chairs, Harry thought happily. Chairs seem quite commonplace in the City, even if they don't understand beds. They sat, and the men and women of the household brought food, and they ate. Harry cast a sharp eye over those bearing the dishes; it seemed that those of the household here in the City were about equally divided, men and women. Harry turned impulsively to Mathin and said, quietly so that Corlath would not hear, â€Å"Why were there no women of the household with us in the traveling camp?† Mathin smiled at his leg of fowl. â€Å"Because there were so few women riding with us.† Corlath said, â€Å"There will be some to go with us in ten days' time, if you wish it; for even an army on its way to war needs some tending.† Harry said stiffly, â€Å"If this wish of mine is not a foolish one, it would please me to see women of the household come with us.† Corlath nodded gravely; and Harry thought of that first banquet she had attended, still dizzy and frightened from her ride across the desert, bumping on Corlath's saddlebow. She was still dizzy and frightened, she thought sadly, and touched the gold pin in her sash; it was cold to her fingers.. There was talk over the food of the laprun trials just past and of how so-and-so's son had ridden well or poorly; all the Riders had been watching the trials with an attention made more acute by the nearness of the Northerners. Mathin mentioned that a young woman named Senay had done well; a place should be offered to her when the army was ready to march. The kysin had ranked her high, and so she was still in the City, hoping for such a summons. â€Å"Where is her home?† Corlath asked. Mathin frowned, trying to remember. â€Å"Shpardith,† Harry said. â€Å"Shpardith?† Mathin said, surprised. â€Å"She must be old Nandam's daughter. He always said she'd grow into a soldier. Good for her.† â€Å"Mathin's growing into a billitu, do you think?† said Innath, and a ripple of laughter went around the table. Harry turned to look at Mathin, and thought he was looking even more stolid than usual. â€Å"I choose only the best,† said Mathin firmly, and everyone laughed again. A billitu is a lady-lover. Harry smiled involuntarily. No one mentioned the brilliant performance of the youngster on the big chestnut Tsornin who had had the luck to carry off the honors, and Harry began to relax as the meal progressed, although, she thought, staring into her goblet, the wine was probably helping. All was cleared away at last, and then came a pause so measured and expectant that Harry knew before she saw the man bearing the leather sack that they would bring out the Water of Seeing. This time she could understand when the Riders spoke of what they saw: war was in almost everyone's eyes, war with the Northerners, who were led by someone who was more than a man, whose sword flickered with a light that was the color of madness, and terror filled the heart of anyone who rode against him. Faran laughed shortly and without mirth and said that what he saw was no use to anybody; Hantil saw his own folk riding grimly toward the City bearing a message he did not know. Hantil came from a village in the mountains that were the northern border of Damar. â€Å"I do not like it,† said Hantil; â€Å"I have never seen my father look so stern.† Innath sighed over his Sight. â€Å"I see the Lake of Dreams,† he said, â€Å"as if it is early spring, for the trees are in bud. The Riders ride along its edge, but our number is only fifteen.† Mathin tipped a swallow of the Water into his mouth, and stared into the distance; and it was as though he were turned to stone, a statue in the stone City; but his face broke into a sweat, and the drops rolled from his forehead. Then he moved, became human again, but the sweat still ran. His voice was rough when he spoke: â€Å"I am on fire. I know no more.† As soon as Harry's hands closed around the neck of the flask, a picture swam before her; in the brown leather of the bag, among the fine tooling, there was another image placed there by no leather worker. She saw Tsornin standing on the desert, and his rider carried a white flag, or a bit of white cloth tied to the end of a stick. â€Å"What do you see?† asked Corlath gently, and she told him. She could not see the rider's face, for there was a white cloth pulled over nose and chin; but she shivered at the thought of seeing her own face so eerily: and worse yet, what if it were not her face? Tsornin broke into a canter and then a gallop, and Harry saw what he approached: the eastern gate of the General Mundy. Then the picture faded, and she was looking at the curiously tooled leather of the Water bag again. She raised it to her lips. Something like an explosion occurred in her head as she tasted the Water. She shuddered with the shock. Her right arm was numb to the shoulder, and it was her left hand's grasp on the neck of the bag that prevented her from dropping it. Then she felt another shock like the first, and realized that Tsornin was between her legs, and he screamed with rage and fear. The sky seemed to be black, and there were shouts and shrieks all around her, and they echoed as in a high-walled valley. One more of those shocks and she would be out of the saddle. She felt it poised to fall on her – and her vision cleared, and there was the table again. She looked at her right hand; it was still there. She looked up. â€Å"I don't – I don't know exactly what I saw. I think I was in a battle and – I seemed to be losing.† She smiled weakly. Her right arm was still not working properly, and Corlath lifted the bag out of her left hand. He took a sip in his turn; and Harry, watching, saw his eyes change color till they were as yellow as they had been the first time she had seen him in the Residency's courtyard. Then he closed them, and she saw the muscles in his face and neck and the backs of his hands tense till she thought they would burst through the skin; and then it was all over, and he opened his eyes, and they were brown. They moved to meet hers, and she thought she saw something of his vision still lingering there, and it was something like her own. â€Å"I have seen our enemy's face,† Corlath said calmly. â€Å"It is not pretty.† Then the man came to carry the Water away, and the wine was brought back, and the shadows were chased away for a little. The Riders began looking expectantly toward Corlath, but this was a happier expectancy than that which had predicted the Meeldtar, and Harry caught the eagerness herself, though she knew not what it was for, and looked around for clues. They had eaten their meal alone in the vast hall, and their few voices ran up into the ceiling like live things with wills of their own. But after the Water bag had been taken away, people had begun to appear around the small dais where the king and his Riders sat; they entered from all directions and settled on cushions or chairs. Some of them mounted the lower dais and sat around the great table that surrounded the Riders. More of the folk of the household appeared, some bearing trays and some low tables, and set out more food, or passed it among the increasing audience. There was a murmur of talk, low but excited. Harry rubbed her fingers up and down the length of the gold pin in her sash till it was no longer cold. One of the men brought Corlath his sword, and he stood up and slung the belt of it around him. Harry wondered sourly how many years it took to learn to sling oneself into a sword as easily as yawn; and then wondered if she wanted to spend so many years that way. Or if she would have the choice. She had not liked waking up to find herself clutching her sword hilt as a child might clutch a favorite toy. Perhaps it was as well to have to think of shoulder and waist, belt and buckle. Another man came in, carrying another sword. Corlath took this one too, and held the scabbard in his left hand, letting the belt dangle; and he pulled it free and waved it, gleaming, under the light of the candles in the great chandelier. There was a blue stone set in its hilt, and it glared defiantly in the light. This was a shorter lighter sword than Corlath's, but the suppleness of it, and the way it hung, waiting, in the air, gave it a look of infinite age, and sentience, as if it looked out at those who looked at it. â€Å"This is Gonturan,† said Corlath, and a murmur of assent and of recognition went around the hall; the Riders were silent. â€Å"She is the greatest treasure of my family. For a few years in his youth each son has carried her; but she was not meant for a man's hands, and legend has it that she will betray the man who dares bear her after his twentieth year. This is the Lady Aerin's sword; and it has been many a long year since there has been a woman to carry it.† Harry was staring at the blade, and barely heard Corlath's words; she was watching a flame-haired woman riding in a forest that seemed to grow against the flat of the shining sword; in her hand was another sword, and the hilt sparkled blue. All the other Riders were standing up, and Corlath reached down and seized her wrist. â€Å"Stand up, disi,† he said. â€Å"I'm about to make you a Rider.† She stood, dazed. A disi was a silly child. There was another who rode with the woman who carried the Blue Sword; he rode a few paces behind her. â€Å"A Rider?† Harry said. â€Å"A Rider,† Corlath replied firmly. She dragged her eyes away from the winking sword edge and looked at him. Another man of the household set a small flat pot of yellow salve at Corlath's right hand. The king dipped the fingers of that hand in it, then drew them to smear the ointment across his palm. He had shifted Gonturan to his left hand; now he seized the blade near the tip with his right, and gave it a quick twist. â€Å"Damn,† he said, as the blood welled between his fingers and dripped to the floor. He picked up a napkin and squeezed it. â€Å"Take my sword, Harimad-sol,† he said, â€Å"and do the same – but not so enthusiastically. I think, though, that Katuchim has not the sense of humor that Gonturan does, so do not fear him.† She dipped her fingers in the salve, and touched them gently to her palm; reached out and, as awkwardly as if she had never learned one lesson from Mathin, dragged Corlath's sword from its scabbard. It was so long she had to brace the hilt against the table to get a reasonable angle on the edge. She closed her fingers around it, thought about something else, and felt the skin of her palm just part. She opened her hand, and three drops of blood only sprang from the thinnest of red lines across her skin. â€Å"Well done!† said Mathin over her shoulder, and the Riders cheered; and the whole hall picked it up, shouting. Corlath grinned down at her, and she could not help smiling back. â€Å"There have been more graceful kings and Riders since the world began, but we'll do,† said Corlath to her, quietly, below the roar around them. â€Å"Take your sword, and mind you treat her well. You will have Aerin's shade to answer to, else.† Harry's fingers closed round the blue hilt and she knew at once that she would handle this sword very well indeed – or it would handle her. For a moment she found herself wishing that she had been carrying Gonturan the day of the trials, and at this a slow sly smile spread across her face. She raised her eyes to Corlath's face – he had taken his own sword back and sheathed it, and one of the Riders was tying the napkin around the wounded hand and saying something sardonic; but Corlath only laughed, and turned back to watch her. Such was the slow sly smile he offered her in return that she rather thought he knew just what she was thinking. â€Å"Damalur-sol!† the people cried. â€Å"Damalur-sol!†

Wednesday, August 28, 2019

Embryonic Stem Cell Research Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Embryonic Stem Cell Research - Essay Example The essay "Embryonic Stem Cell Research" talks about the embryonic stem cells which have two unique properties including their ability to grow and differentiate as well as to replicate infinitely. The ability of ES cells to self-renew indefinitely is the main reason why it is used in treatments for regenerative medicine and tissue replacement after either an injury or disease. Other than its curative essence, the ES cell is beneficial in studying early developments in human as an in vitro technique in toxicology testing.Varying conviction between religion and science in regards to Human life’s inception has yielded to uncalled for controversy more so in embryonic stem cell research. Hence, prompting some contended the controversy is about annihilating human embryos for it is by far from ES cell research. Even the staunch dissenters have shown some support and approval towards other stem cells research methods like in vitro fertilization clinics and adult stem cell. Some also s ay that creating and destroying embryos for curing diseases through IVF clinics is not justifiable than the ES cell research. Modern scientific technologies have pushed beyond the domains of morality and this has led to the dilemma in the bodies governing the implementation and policymaking. This controversy reminds us of recombinant DNA and in vitro fertilization. Christianity includes various Orthodox, Catholicism, and Protestant churches which lack a unanimous definitive statement on when life begins and when an embryo becomes a person.

BUSINESS MODELS, CUSTOMER & CROSS-CULTURAL EXPERIENCES Assignment - 2

BUSINESS MODELS, CUSTOMER & CROSS-CULTURAL EXPERIENCES - Assignment Example This shows that the fee is reasonable and that is the reason as to why many people were able to afford this treatment. The cost compete with that of laser treatment, and therefore, the company has made it possible to secure more patients using the LED instead of them going for laser treatment at almost the same cost. The annual quantity of the LED cannot be estimated unless the service providers give information on the quantity that they use on each treatment. In ensuring the marketing of the product, the company may be in a position to make donations to the charity organizations, which in turn may promote the product, making it possible for people to seek more treatment from the company. Another way in which the product can be promoted is by ensuring that the company creates a clear relationship with the clients, and this can be done through social networks and websites. The clients may in turn promote the product and bring in more people to seek the same treatment (Michalowicz, 2009). The Company’s approach to the manufacture of the product should be through the government and the research institutions which have proved that the product is safe and can be used for treatment. The company should also ensure that it designs the system which is required in the production of LED. As the CEO of the company, I would work together with the service providers to ensure that the product is well used in order to satisfy the customers, and also make sure that the costs are favorable and competitive with other companies such as those which offer laser treatment. The main business idea is that of coming up with a computer which can only be established through a team of people, and which can be sold at a relatively high cost for the benefit of the company. In order to come up with the evolution of the computer, it means that Andy wants to be a

Tuesday, August 27, 2019

Other than the September 11, 2001 attacks, and later than 2000, Term Paper

Other than the September 11, 2001 attacks, and later than 2000, identify and describe one event that has influenced (changed, modified, added, subtracted) homel - Term Paper Example Hurricane Katrina turned out to be the worst thing that could happen to our homeland and the pieces were left for Department of Homeland Security to pick up. Katrina was a category 4 hurricane and FEMA, part of the Department for Homeland Security, reacted to it according to a prepared plan. But nothing could have prepared Americans for the destruction brought on by the hurricane. No one had anticipated the ruin and damage (Borja 2008). Before the development of one Department of Homeland Security, these activities were carried out by more than 40 federal agencies. Although there had always been talk of bringing all of them under one banner; the need for one entity was truly felt after the 9/11 attacks. A March 2001 bill proposed that FEMA, Border Patrol, Customs along with several other offices be merged into one agency that will be responsible for all security related services for homeland. The Office of Homeland Security was announced 11 days after the 9/11 attacks. Its main purpose was to safeguard the country against any threats of terrorism is the future (Borja 2008). This report will discuss how the hurricane forever changed homeland security and led to the introduction of a whole new set of previously ignored challenges. Hurricane Katrina was unprecedented due to its sheer force and size. It was a huge challenge and the most destructive event in American history. It challenged our disaster response capabilities to the extreme and brought out the deficiencies in our nation’s preparedness and response facilities (Townsend 2006). According to a presidential address in 2002, the Department of Homeland Security had four goals that became the responsibility of four of its divisions accordingly. The Border Security Division is responsible for guarding the borders and preventing terrorists from entering the country. The Emergency preparedness and Response Centre has to work in tandem

Monday, August 26, 2019

The fall of Satan Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

The fall of Satan - Essay Example Satan always yearns to be God. He once tried to convince Adam and Eve by telling that if they eat the forbidden fruit, they will be as God. Satan’s desire and purpose is nothing but to be God. We find in the passage that Lucifer wanted to raise his throne above the stars of God. Satan is the author of desire, lust and thirst for position. His mind is clearly revealed in this passage. He wanted to be like the most high. Throughout the bible we find Satan relentlessly attempting to make himself like God. Yet another passage that confirms the mentioning of Satan in Isaiah 14 is Ezekiel 28. Here we find a proud king, king of Tyre who represents Satan. Satan, the father of pride and idolatry is ruling the heart of king of Tyre. We find the lamentation about king of Tyre, Satan. We find that he was in the Garden of Eden, among the fiery stones. He was adorned with precious stones, and was a shining star in heaven. In the same passage we find Satan being thrown out of heaven. His pri de pushed him out of heaven. We find his fall to the earth from heaven. It is the same fall Jesus mentions in Luke 10:18. The description of the fallen star in Isaiah 14, Luke 10 and Ezekiel 28 refer to Satan, the fallen angel. The pride of the fallen star mentioned in Isaiah 14 and Ezekiel 28 accounts to Satan alone. Satan’s status before the God prior to his fall is also explained in Isaiah 14 and Ezekiel 28. In Ezekiel we read that â€Å"Thus says the Lord God: â€Å"You were the signet of perfection, full of wisdom and perfect in beauty. You were in Eden, the garden of God every precious stone was your covering, sardius, topaz, and diamond, beryl, onyx, and jasper, sapphire, emerald, and carbuncle; and crafted in gold were your settings and your engravings. On the day that you were created they were prepared. You were an anointed guardian cherub. I placed you; you were on the holy mountain of God; in the midst of the stones of fire you walked. You were blameless in your ways from the day you were created, till unrighteousness was found in you† (The Holy Bible). Who other than Satan was found in the Garden of Eden? Satan who remained as the guardian angel for Adam and Eve sinned against God and man because of his pride and thirst for glory and power. This unrighteous attitude of Satan is mentioned in the passages. Satan’s unrighteousness was found on the day he developed the desire to place himself above God. Isaiah explain this unrighteousness as â€Å"You said in your heart, ‘I will ascend to heaven; above the stars of God; I will set my throne on high; I will sit on the mount of assembly in the far reaches of the north; I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will make myself like the Most High’† (The Holy Bible). The consequence of Satan’s pride is also mentioned in Isaiah 14. We read that â€Å"How you are fallen from heaven, O Day Star, son of Dawn! How you are cut down to the ground, you who laid the nations low!† (The Holy Bible). The explanation of Satan’s position before God, his beauty, his adornment, his perfection and his place (in the Garden of Eden) in Ezekiel resembles to the glory and honor of Satan mentioned in Isaiah 14. Isaiah describes him as morning star, son of the dawn. Ezekiel finds him walking in the stones of fire. The status of Satan before and after the fall coincides in all the three passages. There is no character in the Bible who can be attributed to the characteristics

Sunday, August 25, 2019

Entrepreneurial and Global Vision Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Entrepreneurial and Global Vision - Essay Example The first success factor is the focus made not on large corporations and holdings but on the small and medium enterprises (SMEs). As legendary Sam Walton has once created the Walmart chain in small and rural areas, thus Jack Ma has focused on helping and supporting SMEs by creating technology infrastructure, necessary and helpful for developing their businesses. Thus, Jack Ma has gained a big opportunity for business growth having found the way to contribute to the global society by solving the customer’s problems and thus delivering value. However, it is important to note that even though Jack Ma has focused on small and medium businesses he has achieved economies of scales due to huge population in China and great demand on behalf of the Chinese entrepreneurs (Rose, 2011). As Jack Ma explains, the new generation should be treated differently by businesses. First of all, global entrepreneurs should focus on the customers and their needs, then on employees, and only then on shareholders and their needs. This consequence of priorities is different to the standard perception that shareholder’s interests should be satisfied first. And obviously, Jack Ma’s focus on the customers and employees is one of the secrets of his success as a global entrepreneur. The founder of Alibaba site states that the core competence of his business is the corporate culture. Corporate culture cultivates delivery of value to the customer, and this generates economic value to the company as a consequence. Focus on employees is another important aspect that contributes to the success of the global entrepreneur. Ma recommends treating human brain as the greatest resource as he believes it is the greatest potential and driver of innovation (Rose, 2011). Finally, he bel ieves that shareholders’ needs should be satisfied after the customers’ and employees’ needs as greediness common to shareholders doesn’t have long-term positive effect and in case of crisis

Saturday, August 24, 2019

Sports and Entertainment Management Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words - 2

Sports and Entertainment Management - Essay Example The most interesting thing that I learnt was that life takes unexpected turns for all of us. It is not always for the worse but some brilliant opportunities are presented to us too. We need to be open to new circumstances. A flexible attitude always prevails. Mr. Baker talked about transition in an organization. Transition or change is very important for an organization. Mr. Baker said that making a change is extremely difficult but we have to make it because we have to stay up to speed with the rest of the world. The ways of the world change. The tastes of the consumers change. Technology changes all the time. This is why an organization needs to be flexible and must be able to anticipate the requirements of change. According to Lewin, when an organization undergoes change, it goes through three processes which are unfreezing, change, and refreezing (pp. 197–211). Unfreezing is the most difficult part because it is the stage which is resisted the most. It is common human beha vior that when people are settled in and are comfortable, they always tend to resist when they are asked to make a change. A good leader administers change in a very effective manner by taking all team members into confidence and explaining to them that a change is necessary for their own well-being. When the team members know about the importance of change, they cooperate in a better manner. The key is to involve the team members in the process of transitioning. If the details of change are kept from the team members, a greater resistance is likely to be expected. However, no matter how much efforts are made to involve the team members in the change process, there would always be some resistance. It is very important that this resistance is dealt fairly because it causes great stress otherwise. Lewin suggests that a â€Å"controlled crisis† can be created by the leader so that the team members or the employees are motivated to find a new equilibrium themselves. When the cris is creates a sense of instability in the team members, they seek change themselves and, therefore, enter the second phase of change. According to Lewin, different people respond differently to change. It is not possible that the change would be undergone overnight. There are two types of people; proactive and reactive. Proactive people understand the need of change quickly and start working in the new direction at once. Reactive people do not change unless something really happens to them and they are forced to change. The creation of a crisis was suggested to set the wheels of reactive people in motion. However, there are always certain people who benefit heavily from the status quo. Such people take a long time to unfreeze and change. Here comes the importance of yet another very important aspect of Mr. Baker’s presentation which is decision-making. A leader must be able to take tough decisions in a timely manner. Being a hockey coach for a fair amount of time, Mr. Baker ha s the mental toughness and maturity to handle a team effectively. According to him, it is very important that a leader never cheats. One of the major aims of his coaching was to hold the kids accountable if they do anything wrong so that a sense of responsibility can be created. This also helps in letting the team members know what their boundaries are. The team members are also treated with great respect so that they may never feel mistreated. All these things apart, the need to take necessary decisions is very important no matter how tough they are. However, there is always a room for improvement and there is a possibility that things can be done in much better way than they have been done in the past. According to Shapira, decision making is considered as a process in which different interests and perspectives

Friday, August 23, 2019

Global marketing strategy and product launch Essay

Global marketing strategy and product launch - Essay Example Besides providing an opportunity to the people to go beyond the ordinary, Dinner in the Sky’s mission is to provide a perfect environment to the customers with friendly services and utmost satisfaction (Mills et al, 2003). The restaurant marks its presence in more than 15 countries (Dinnerinthesky.com, 2012). The focus and the gist of this report would be to present the opportunity which the market of Pakistan presents Dinner in the Sky and to present a marketing plan and an audit of the market in order to successfully launch Dinner in the Sky in Pakistan. ... The idea of taking the diners literally in the sky and serving scrumptious food is being widely accepted throughout where the restaurant operates. The restaurant’s main aim is to provide a service and an experience which no one else in the market is providing. The big idea is to cater the client’s lavish needs of conducting their events such as important meetings, marriages etc in the sky but the primary purpose of the entity is to provide an ultimate dining experience to the customers. The restaurant’s vision is to mark its presence globally and promote the idea throughout the world (Dinnerinthesky.com, 2012). In line with the restaurant’s aim to promote the idea globally, Dinner in the Sky will launch its services in Karachi, which is the business hub of Pakistan. The market presents a good opportunity to the restaurant with a growing middle class. As the economic trend show a rise of investment and economic activity in the Asian countries, Dinner in the Sky must grab this business opportunity. Not only the economic side seems favorable but the marketing aspect of the market in accordance with Dinner in the Sky’s aims and objectives compliment the launching of the venture (Hotel, Restaurant & Tourism Directory of Pakistan, 2009; State Bank of Pakistan, 2011). 2 Environmental Analysis: 2.1 Political and Economic Analysis: Karachi, as mentioned above is the business hub of Pakistan. Apart from that, Karachi also is a home of people coming from many cultures and background. This becomes reason for some political disturbance in the city however, the higher end areas of the city, i.e. Clifton, Muhammad Ali Jinnah Society, Tariq Road, Defense Housing Authority remain calm (Hashmi, 1965). Apart from this, the economy of Pakistan is growing at a steady rate. Its

Thursday, August 22, 2019

Mathematics and English Sentences Essay Example for Free

Mathematics and English Sentences Essay The order of operations was developed years ago. Someone just decided on an order in which operations should be performed. It has nothing to do with magic or logic. Some one decided to adopt a way, and it has been followed through out history. It makes communication easier. Punctuation marks are used in any language to make clear what we want to say. Punctuation marks are just as important in number sentences as they are in English sentences. Without being told by a symbol or some other means, we do not know whether to do the multiplication or the addition first. To avoid the confusion of such an expression naming two different numbers, let us use parentheses to indicate which operation is to be first. When part of a number sentence is enclosed within parentheses, think of that as naming one number. It is commonly agreed that when more than one operation, or all of the operations, are indicated in the same expression, we multiply and divide first, then add and subtract going from left to right. Just as punctuation marks are used to make sentences, the order of operations are used to make math sense. Whenever the order of operation is not indicated by grouping symbols, there is a standard order of operations to be followed. That order is Exponents, Multiplication, Division, Addition and Subtraction from left to right. In mathematics, more than in some other forms of written expression, ambiguity must be eliminated. Otherwise, different people may assign different meanings to the same symbols, and communication is faulty. Ambiguity is eliminated using grouping symbols and the order of operations rule.

Wednesday, August 21, 2019

Europeanization Case Essay Example for Free

Europeanization Case Essay INTRODUCTION A number of related phenomena and changing patterns have been referred as Europeanization by many experts and professionals in their different studies and researches in this field. Outside of the social sciences, when a European continental identity grows, it is commonly referred as the definition of the Europeanization.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   In this case, national identities, countries, and polities in the European continent are regarded as growing under the banner of Europeanization. When the organizational logic of national politics allows the political and economic dynamics of the European Union to become its part, it might also refer as the process of Europeanization. Policy-making in this governmental judgment has also been included in the definition of the Europeanization.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Within a European context, national, regional, and other identities are re-defined by the leading of European governance at its various levels by the institutional interaction of policy actors, as posits by a more nuanced analysis. In this regard, opposition is not usually seen among the multiple levels of governance in the continent of Europe.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   In this way, a stronger, strengthened, and the United States is found to be gathering collectively under the name of Europeanization. In the result, identification of these European states is being done collectively, rather than identifying them as German, French, etc, as it was done in the past by different European states in the continent   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Institutions of Europe consist of an obvious area of change in them particularly. In addition, the growth of the European Union has also been changed during the process of Europeanization. In this case, the European Central Bank has been provided with the monetary policy of various nations that have been using the euro as their national currency.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   In this regard, Spain is one of the European countries that have gone through the process of Europeanization since many years, and a full European government has been eventually lead by the continuing process of Europeanization in the country. In this study, we will try to understand the process of Europeanization from the case study of Spain. Government, politics, and culture of the Spain will be focused, in order to understand the significance of Europeanization, as well as, the European Union in the continent of Europe.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   An example of pacific democratization has been underlined by the establishment of democratic model, as well as, after the Franco’s death during the transition of the Spain. A unique example has been highlighted by the abovementioned in this regard. The devolution of competencies concerning the different regions has been achieved by the first steps of autonomous communities’ concept and system in the Spain.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   In the last years, appearance of regional statutes has been done in different reforms due to high extent of strong questioning than ever before. In one’s perception, more competencies and decentralization have being claimed by the regional powers. Almost independent projects have been covered by these reforms. The Spanish parliament rejected Ibarretxe’s Plan on February 2005.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Some of the main points of the new statutes are the equality between autonomous communities and countries, empowering the self-government, and nationality in the region. As the central-state in shape of unique actor in international matters has been recognized by the Spanish constitution only, one of the most problematic aspects has been the direct international representation of the Spain in the world.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   In this sense, some of the aspects that conflict between the regional forces and central state are the implementation and decision-making processes of the European Union. The autonomous communities have been influenced by one of the most influential factors with the help of the regional policy of the European level, even after twenty years of association with the European Union by the Spain. EUROPEAN INTEGRATION   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   The barriers of national state of Spain have been over gone by the integration process of Europeanization in the continent. In 1988, the structural funds were reformed during the process. In this process, the commission, the concerned member states, and the recognized and designated competent authorities have consulted closely, in order to define the term partnership. In this case, the problems and priorities of targeted regions were familiarizing with the local, as well as, the regional actors, in order to create the efficiency of the regional policy through the abovementioned local and regional involvement by an attempt of the partnership principle. In this case, the regions were given the chance and opportunities for the first time to create their own regional policy, rather than following one in the region. From the beginning of the text, this point was reinforced by the Treaty of Maastricht. According to this treaty, the citizens of the continent were encouraged to become closer, in order to make effective decisions in the region, and to recognize the objective based on united Europe, rather than for individual states. Therefore, the structures would not be left equally in the European Union by the expansion of actors in it. In this case, private spheres were also included along with the regional actors during the expansion. In the result, the complex system of transnational decision-making has been integrated in the continent of the Europe. In this regard, the wider framework of European policy system has been provided to these regional and national states, in order to defend and represent their interest in the continent. The process of the combination of different European states with the Spain has been referred as the sandwich model by some authors. However, the Spain has faced the lost of territorial sovereignty, but in the European level, its regional position has been strengthened and revaluated during the process of Europeanization. In the European level, the empowerment of regional actors has not only been faced by the Spanish national state, however, it has also been faced within its own barriers. In other words, the territorial space and the functional space have been facing a friction in the Spanish state. Newly functional bonds have been replaced by the long existing territorial lies in the region. In the Spain, the concept of government has been widened with that of the governance due to this continuous process of Europeanization in the region. At the same time, the role of national governments, and particularly Spain, has been strengthened by the regional policy of the European Union in the region. In this regard, the policy-making and decision-making opportunities have been given to the Spanish national state by the European Union. PARTICIPATION OF AUTONOMOUS COMMUNITIES IN EUROPEANIZATION The process of Europeanization has been made difficult by the weak territorial framework, as well as, the institutions. In the last twenty years, an initial competitive adaptive strategy has been replaced by the autonomous communities, in which, each competencies against the central state has been preserved by each region. Some of the examples of this moving from an initial strategy are the new framework of 2004, which were created in the CARCE, as well as, the Inter-ministerial Conference on the European Affairs, which was held in the year 1988. The transfer of both national and regional competencies has been allowed by the Spanish constitution, as well as, its legal framework to the European level. In this regard, the consent of the autonomous communities has not been required during the transformation. In this case, the regional powers and central state have gone through a feeling of friction between them. At the beginning of the Europeanization process, the losing of competencies was not concerned by the autonomous competencies in their important fields of agriculture, fishery, industry, etc. Even they felt that competencies were regained by the central state by the utilization of transfer power, and by implementing community law to the autonomous communities. The central administration and regional governments came under the competitive situation due to the abovementioned reason, which occurred during the 80s, as well as, in the beginning of 90s in region. Therefore, the abovementioned are some of the factors that changed the situation of Spain during the process of Europeanization in the region, and which changed the perception of local, as well as, the regional states in the continent.    AGREEMENT OF 1985   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   In 1985, the Spain accessed to the European Council, before which, European policy-making was analyzed, in order to find the coordination and cooperation inter-governmentally in the central regions. In the implementation of European legal acts, the Spanish regions were tried to participate by the regulation of proposal of the central administration.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   In relation with the Spanish stage, the distribution of responsibilities was proposed by the Spanish government, where the European policies were transposed by the central state, while the practice was put on by the autonomous communities. The project of agreement of 1985 was not found to be so specific during the decision-making process in the European level. However, this agreement is considered as one of the important aspects during the transformation of Spanish government into a unified European state. SPANISH GOVERNMENT’S SECOND PROPOSAL   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   After the rejection of the first proposal in 1985, second proposal was given by the Spanish legal framework in the year 1986. In this proposal, some considerations of the first proposal that was failed were taken by the Spanish central-administration. Domestic policy-making was proposed by the Spain, in order to distribute the responsibilities effectively in the region.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   On the decision making stage, the regional governments were provided with all European governments as per the proposal of Spanish government. The competencies, their interests, and their related information were also provided in this second proposal of the Spain. Interestingly, the idea of an inter-autonomous coordination body was the most interesting and fascinating point of the second proposal of the Spain, which was affected the proud culture of the Spain, which was usually depended on its domestic policies, rather than depending on the responsibilities and actions of the regional states in the region. SPANISH GOVERNMENT’S THIRD PROPOSAL   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   The conditions of the 1986 project were kept similar in the third draft of the Spanish government regarding the European policies in the Spain, as well as, in the other regional states. However, the participation of autonomous communities changed in the level of decision-making. In this proposal, the idea of an inter-autonomous coordinating body was dropped by the Spain, and a possible forum was seen as the Sectarian Conferences. However, new inter-governmental coordination mechanism was allowed for the discussion in this third proposal of the Spain. INTERGOVERNMENTAL AGREEMENTS   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   After the rejection of all the three proposals of the Spanish government regarding the participation of autonomous communities in the implementation of the European policies, an institutionalized dialogue was created by partial agreements, known as the intergovernmental agreements. Therefore, the Inter-ministerial Conference on the European Affairs was created on December 1988. The three basic principles were formulated in the second session of this conference in the year 1989.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   According to these principles, the central state belong the exclusive competence regarding its foreign relations with the regional bodies of the region. Secondly, the internal distribution of the competencies must not be affected by the accession of Spanish government in the European Union. Thirdly, the second session formulated that the legal framework of the Spanish Constitution should be followed by the central state during the exercise of their competencies. PROCEDURAL FRAMEWORK IN 1994 Finally, intrastate participation of autonomous communities was provided by a comprehensive agreement of the Spanish government, the European Union policies were implemented in the decision making level as per the agreement. The principle of unity in external representation was respected by the new agreement. In this way, the autonomous participation was allowed in their different fields of agriculture, environment, employment, fishery, health, social policies, education, etc. In addition, youth and culture were also given a significance importance, in order to keep their significant magnitude in the region. CONCLUSION In the Spanish recent history, the relation and act of the two processes that are, Europeanization, and decentralization have been observed parallel with each other. In the result, the problems of intrusion and conflict have been caused most of the time between the regional and central-state governments. In the last years, one of the most important questions have been faced by the European Union regarding its integration process, which is the question of democracy, as the reflection of France and Netherlands have been observed in the shape of their constitutional referendums. Conclusively, the process of Europeanization can be understood interestingly by the example of the Spanish reality in asymmetrical states. The governance in European Union level and its work can be extrapolated in this sense. Lastly, we have tried our best to define, understand, and discuss the meaning of Europeanization with the case study of Spain and its central state, as well as, their different proposals regarding the Europeanization in the region.                         Works Cited Robert Harmsen. Europeanization. Rodopi, 2000. Paul Christopher Manuel. Spain and Portugal in the European Union. Routledge, 2004. Harold C. Raley. The Spirit of Spain. Halcyon Press Limited, 2001. Elena de La Souchere. An Explanation of Spain. Random House, 1964. Borzel. States and Regions in the European Union. Cambridge University Press, 2002. Rosamond. Theories of European Integration. St. Marin’s Press, New York, 2000. Aalberts. The Future of Sovereignty in Multilevel Governance Europe. JCMS, 2004. Luis Moreno. The Federalization of Spain. Routledge, 2001.

The Geopolitics Of The Global Illegal Drug Trade Geography Essay

The Geopolitics Of The Global Illegal Drug Trade Geography Essay One of the biggest problems facing the world today is the production, trade and consumption of illegal drugs. Millions of people around the world are involved in either this trade either as producers, vendors or consumers, despite it being a highly illegal activity with strict and often harsh penalties for even the possession of a small amount of these illegal substances. In this paper we will be discussing the consequences of the global illegal drugs trade in different areas of the world, and whether the legalization and regulation of this trade would be positive or negative. 2. AFGHANISTAN Afghanistan is one of the worlds top producers of illegal substances, in particular opium, and there are many reasons why this is the case. It is one of the poorest countries in the world, according to the CIA world fact book, with a GDP per capita of just $800 and ranked 181st on the UNs Human Development Index second lowest in the world. (CIA World Fact Book, 2009) It is a landlocked country with direct links to Russia and the EU 2 of the worlds largest illegal drug markets with land movement being extensive due to lack of border control. Rugged terrain, with many isolated areas makes government surveillance and law enforcement difficult. Due to this and Afghanistans notoriety for lawlessness, instability and poverty (resulting from decades of war which have ravaged the country) the opium trade has flourished and now a huge proportion of the country is dependent upon its cultivation. It is interesting that under the Taliban regime, levels of opium production were showing signs o f falling, but since 2001 when the USA declared its â€Å"War on Terror†, this level has increased significantly from around 75,000 hectares in 2000 to nearing 200,000 hectares in 2007. So why is the opium trade such a huge issue? Agriculture is the countrys main form of industry and the collapse of the economy forced more and more farmers to seek alternative methods of generating revenue from crops. This came at a time when demand for opium was increasing due to restrictions being made in nearby opium producing countries such as India. Farmers realised there huge profits could be made from the cultivation of opium poppies, with the risk of being caught relatively low due to the reasons mentioned in the previous paragraph, despite it being a punishable offence. In addition, opium poppies are notoriously hardy- they are almost drought resistant compared to legal crops such as wheat. Many Afghans have used poppy cultivation as a means of investment in legitimate businesses due to lack of personal loans resulting from the poor economy; while illegitimate moneylenders have high interest rates and use various forms of intimidation such as kidnapping. The seriousness of t his situation being that many farmers in Afghanistan have little other legal lucrative alternative, and the government is doing little to encourage farmers to do so. There is also significant evidence to suggest that the since the fall of Taliban, they and other terrorist groups are now significantly funded by the drug trade. What then are the options available? The first is enforcement of current laws whilst offering alternative livelihood options. This involves better monitoring of opium growers in the country and eradication of Heroin production factories, and offering farmers incentives to grow alternative crops. One suggestion is substitution with Saffron, another lucrative crop which has proven to grow well in Afghanistans climate. This would also involve improving the infrastructure needed to support legal crop cultivation. The other option which has been suggested is licensing the opium trade. This gives the government much more control over the end use of opium, as it could be used in the production of valuable legal opiates such as morphine. Trade could also be taxed, providing valuable revenue for the undeveloped economy of Afghanistan. Another issue this would solve is eliminating warlords and severing the ties between the drug trade and human/weapons trafficking as it could be regulated and m onitored by government authorities â€Å". (Licensing) combines the best of both worlds. It stabilizes a crucial country in the global war on terrorism and alleviates the pain crisis in AIDS stricken developing countries. It is not a silver bullet for Afghanistans many troubles, but it does pave the way for the country to escape its current development and security crisis† (Kamminga , Van Ham. 2006). This is not necessarily saying that Heroin should be made legal; but is another option that could be looked into with the legalisation and regulation of all drugs, rather than a select few. 3. THE NETHERLANDS The Netherlands government takes an alternative approach to the enforcement of anti-drug laws, believing that drug use is a public health issue, rather than a criminal one; and that there is a difference between soft drugs (cannabis) and hard drugs (cocaine, heroin). A quote which summarises this attitude is â€Å"if a problem has proved to be unstoppable, it is better to try controlling it instead of continuing to enforce laws that have shown to be unable to stop the problem† (WordIQ: Drug policy of the Netherlands. 2010). They therefore employ a policy of non-enforcement towards soft drugs such as cannabis, but will still prosecute users if they are found causing a public disturbance, or pose a risk to themselves or others whilst under the influence of drugs. The Netherlands drug policy has a number of aims which are: To separate the market between hard and soft drugs so that soft drug users do not come into contact with hard drugs To limit the sale of soft drugs to minors To divert profits from the sale of soft drugs away from criminal drug dealers To gain tax from the legitimate sale of soft drugs To use the money gained to assist problem drug users (i.e. Treatment and rehabilitation) and promote awareness and education of hard drugs To prevent soft drug users being criminalised unnecessarily So is this policy working? In the USA where cannabis is strictly illegal and carries severe fines and prison time, 42.4% of Americans have tried the drug, whilst in The Netherlands only 19.8% of the population have tried cannabis, despite it being tolerated and sold freely in coffee shops (Degenhardt et al. 2008) 9.7% of young adults consume soft drugs once a month in Holland; this figure is far lower than the UK level of 15.8%, but higher than in other European countries such as Sweden (3%). The EU average of soft drug users that go on to become problem drug users is 0.52%, in The Netherlands this figure is just 0.3%, and the number of hard drug users is also considerably lower. These statistics show that while levels of soft drug use in The Netherlands is not significantly higher or lower than the rest of Europe, the levels of problem drug users and hard drug users is considerably lower. It is also interesting to note that due to taxes gained from the legitimate sale of cannabis, a round 90% of drug users can be treated effectively. 4. NON-GOVERNEMENT ORGANISATIONS NGOs around the world aim to eradicate problems associated with the illegal drug trade; however without financial backing and access to resources, their policies are often limited. Their strategies focus on influencing government protocol and targeting social issues in a ‘prevention over cure approach. The social aspect focuses on education of the young and those vulnerable to drug addiction, in addition to financing and organising rehabilitation for those suffering from addiction. Strategies also target producers of drugs, particularly agricultural ones. These producers are influenced to cultivate alternative products (such as wheat), both through financial incentives and legal prevention. All aspects of the global illegal drugs trade span over large areas, making it difficult for individual state governments to act effectively. NGOs such as the UN, WHO and the EU create policies targeting drug abuse issues to socially improve nations. High costs and infrastructure requirement s for drugs trade prevention deter LEDCs from acting, as their costs do not warrant their benefits it is the state importing that often suffers the most. So what would be the effect of the legalisation of the illegal drugs trade in regards to NGOs? Effectively there would be dissolution of all strategies to cease and prevent the global trade in illegal drugs. Trade would shift to safer routes through legally disclosed transport subject to scrutiny at borders, so potential would remain for NGO involvement in cases of unregulated drugs being traded across borders. 5. CONCLUSION A quote from ‘The Economist claims that the UN believes thatâ€Å"The drug market has â€Å"stabilised†, meaning that more than 200 m people, or almost 5% of the worlds adult population still take illegal drugs† and goes on to say that â€Å"by providing honest information about the health risks of drugs and pricing them accordingly, governments could steer consumers towards the least harmful ones† (The Economist, 2009). However, the legalisation of drugs is a highly complex and sensitive issue which has many social, political, moral and economic implications. The scale of which is unimaginable and is something which many people feel would be an impossible task. It is a known fact that people around the world produce, distribute and use drugs- as they have done for thousands of years. Perhaps money would be better spent on educating people about the dangers of certain drugs (including legal ones) as well as helping those that have become dependent on either the sale or use of illegal drugs, rather than criminalising those that use them safely, or have little other viable options other than producing drugs. This could also have benefits for those in the developing world who rely on the illegal drugs trade as a source of income, and could eliminate the violence involved with the illegal drugs trade. REFERENCES CIA: The World FactBook Afghanistan. 2009. https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/af.html Degenhardt et al. 2008. Toward a global view of alcohol, tobacco, cannabis, and cocaine use: Findings from the WHO World Mental Health Surveys. PLoS Medicine 5(7) e141 Kamminga, Van Ham. 2006. Poppies for peace: Reforming Afghanistans opium industry. The Washington Quarterly. 30:1 pp 69-81 The Economist. 2009. Failed states and failed policies: How to stop the drug wars. http://www.economist.com/opinion/displaystory.cfm?story_id=13237193source=login_payBarrier WordIQ: Drug policy of the Netherlands Definition. 2010. http://www.wordiq.com/definition/Drug_policy_of_the_Netherlands Ashley White Registration No: 090167133

Tuesday, August 20, 2019

Veronica Decides To Die :: essays research papers

What is reality? Webster’s Unabridged Dictionary defines it as: something that exists independently of ideas concerning it; something that exists independently of all other things and from which all other things derive; something that constitutes a real or actual thing, as distinguished from something that is merely apparent. So, what defines reality? I mean can anyone, in all honesty, construct a concrete reproduction in which to turn and point proclaiming once and for all, â€Å"There, I give you reality in the flesh.† The answer simply is no. For as, the character, Dr. Igor stated â€Å". . . Other things, however, become fixed because more and more people believe that’s the way they should be (167).† Reality is nothing more than a socially accepted opinion – a perception inherently subjective. This very principle is the driving force behind Paulo Coelho’s introspective novel, Veronica Decides To Die. Veronica Decides to Die is an interesting story about a young woman called "Veronica" who wants to die but her suicide is not successful and she finds herself in "Villet", a place for the both the insane, as well as, the sane. Although she insists on pursuing the end she has chosen, some events, relationships, and her doctor's trick changes her view toward life. This novel is colored by the author's intimate knowledge of the world of mental hospitals, the relationships, and the comfort and anxiety of living in such a place. Coelho’s story of insanity and madness in contrast to the monotony of life provokes the feeling of self-discovery and the power of challenging all limitations and traditions. In this atmosphere created by Coelho, you learn that being different doesn't mean being mad and you understand that reality is something the majority deems to be, not necessary the best or the most logical one. It is in the vivid moments of Veronica Decides To Die that you can feel love and religious beliefs are the most important feelings one can have in one's life. You also recognize how one can stop one's feelings like fear, hatred and love and let them emerge in a way which makes one fresh without any "vitrol" (mind's bitterness), the poison believed to be the cause of insanity. Paulo Coelho first won my heart with his work entitled, The Alchemist, and with Veronica Decides To Die he secured a permanent place there. I must say that this particular novel was, at times, hard for me to read – not for any technical fault on Coelho’s part – because the story being told in many ways is my life.

Monday, August 19, 2019

Hemophilia :: essays research papers

Hemophilia Hemophilia is a genetic blood disease, which is characterized by the inability of blood to clot, or coagulate even from minor injuries. This disease is caused by an insufficiency of certain blood proteins, called factors, that participate in blood clotting and often by sudden gene mutation. Therefore, with the absence of factors, the blood clotting process is prolonged. There are different types of hemophilia, hemophilia A and hemophilia B for example. Hemophilia A , the most common form is caused by the lack of factor VIII. In the second most common form of hemophilia, hemophilia B (also known as Christmas disease), factor IX is absent. The condition appears when the person is born. Also, the disease is hereditary, passed on from parent to child. Because of it's genetic makeup, hemophilia is carried by females however those affected are almost always males. In one-third of all cases hemophilia thought to be caused by spontaneous gene mutation with no family history. This is how females are able to be affected by hemophilia. Inheritance is controlled by a recessive sex-linked factor carried by the mother on the X chromosome. There is a fifty percent chance that the sons of a female carrier will have hemophilia. There also is a fifty percent chance that the daughters of a female carrier will be carriers of hemophilia. In addition, all daughters of men with hemophilia are carriers, but his sons are unaffected. Men cannot transmit hemophilia, and female carriers are free of the disease. Hemophilia is the most common hereditary blood disorder. Currently, approximately one in every 10,000 people in all parts of the world suffers from hemophilia. This blood related disease affects about 20,000 people in the