MIS Project SEHA †Abu Dhabi Health Services Company

Executive summary This paper provides a brief but comprehensive analysis of SEHA- Abu Dhabi Health Services Company by looking at various critical elements including its competitive advantage, e-commerce policy, and relationships between the organizations and its suppliers and customers.Advertising We will write a custom essay sample on MIS Project: SEHA – Abu Dhabi Health Services Company specifically for you for only $16.05 $11/page Learn More A review of the recently implemented IT infrastructure portrays SEHA as a globally competent healthcare provider, but its juvenility leaves room for a few recommendations to attain international status and other objectives. About SEHA SEHA – Abu Dhabi Health Services Company is a public health provider based in Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates, UAE. It ranks number one in the provision of integrated healthcare services and has â€Å"12 hospitals (2644 beds), 62 ambulatory clinics, and 2 blood banks† (SEHA, 2012). In March this year, the UAE government signed an agreement with SEHA that shall facilitate in the creation of 14 new hospitals. Additionally, SEHA oversees the training and postgraduate education of physicians (interns or fellows) and subject to the aforementioned agreement; it is awaiting accreditation of its educational institution in November this year. Organizational structure: 3 levels of management Board of directors Internal audit office Managing directors Managing directors office Chief executive officer (CEO) CEO Office Strategy Performance and Management Finance Division Information Technology (IT) Division Clinical Affairs Division Operation Management Division Facility Construction Division Corporate Services support Division Business Objectives SEHA looks forward to establishing itself as the Abu Dhabi market leader in the provision of integrated high quality health care services It has every intention of laying a solid foundatio n for Research Development and education within its own ranks, i.e. internally Packaging SEHA as the ideal workplace and winning employee favor and loyalty It intends to attract both local and international investors as well as strategic partners with whom it can expand its effect globally Ensuring patient safety and earning patient trust in its healthcare services Establish and reposition ambulatory care services- mobile or decentralized clinics off base that can cater for a wider population To ensure that its healthcare services are provided effectively and efficiently, it envisages the active management of financial operations Active implementation of Emiritization initiatives with the goal of increasing the number of well-trained emirates engaged by and working under SEHA (SEHA, 2012) Competitive Advantages and Porter’s Five Competitive Forces Rivalry Concentration ratio as one of the measurement criterion of industry concentration indications provided by census shows t he top four firms that dominate a particular market. Healthcare is rather competitive especially due to the attempt at standardization by national (public) and private insurers (Porter, 1998). However, in the past decade, SEHA has ranked number one in the Abu Dhabi polls as the largest integrated public health care provider, with 12 hospitals, 62 clinics, and 2 blood banks; however, the private sector is quickly catching up. Presently, the private sector has captured 45 per cent of the healthcare provision sector and the pay advanced to doctors is more attractive (Ferrier, 2012). SEHA is constantly suffering a shortage of physicians who naturally prefer higher pay.Advertising Looking for essay on health medicine? Let's see if we can help you! Get your first paper with 15% OFF Learn More Threat of substitutes In the healthcare system, this threat is insignificant unless viewed under the lens of generic drugs. As such, SEHA is safe, as it does not specialize in pharmace uticals. Nevertheless, it is worth mentioning that since it is a public health provider, the services it renders are relatively cheaper than its private sector counterparts are, and thus it has an advantage. Buyers’ Power The healthcare buyers are weak in that they are largely fragmented and none has concentrated power. Therefore, it is difficult for them to create a monopoly (Porter, 1998). However, due to the available competition from the private sector, SEHA is constantly upgrading its services to achieve patient satisfaction. Suppliers Power This area is a real problem for SEHA because the suppliers have a credible forward integration threat that they can push to get buyers like SEHA to divulge some of their profits in the form of raw materials like pharmaceuticals as well as labor. P hysicians’ salaries have increased over the last few years and continue to do so as a shortage of specialists continues to plague the UAE. The causes of this shortage include a prefe rence of the private sector, shortage of non-Emeritus physicians, and the duration of accreditation after the acceptance of an offer-up to six months. Threat of new entrants and entry barriers The healthcare industry is a free market and such there is always the possibility of new entrants. In the UAE, this possibility is even more pronounced as the government is encouraging Emiratis to enter the industry and reduce the dependence on other nations’ specialists (Hamid, 2012). Consequently, the salaries are higher than in other professions such as in oil production (Ismail, 2012). However, SEHA is partly protected from the ramifications of the existing industries in such a scenario because the government regulates services. IT infrastructure and Database SEHA adopted an Oracle Enterprises Resources Planning (ERP) portal a couple of years back to digitize its operations and enhance its accessibility and effectiveness.Advertising We will write a custom essay sample on MIS Pr oject: SEHA – Abu Dhabi Health Services Company specifically for you for only $16.05 $11/page Learn More Through the Evolutionary Systems (Evosys), an Oracle supplier, the 8-month project was completed in record time, which gave way to a paperless system (SEHA, 2012). Presently, all the affiliate facilities (12 hospitals, 62 ambulatory clinics, and 2 blood banks) are accessible on one database run at the headquarters in the Injazat Data Center. Supply chain management The portal is very elemental in fostering the relationship between SEHA and its suppliers. It includes a tab through which tenders are broadcast and accepted by the organization, which is economically viable as it represents a vertical system of transactions that is executed directly between SEHA and the suppliers. In effect, it cuts out the intermediaries and this move reduces the costs of procurement as well as increasing the efficiency of supply. Customer relationship management SEHA has provided a simplistic customer care portal that allows customer feedback from patients, their families, suppliers, and the resident community to offer complaints or suggestions. It has also put in place a customer care office to deal with all this feedback and report to the source on the outcomes of their contributions. Additionally, it has set up a walk in office at Das Tower, 14th Floor, Sultan Bin Zayed Street (32nd St) Corniche, Khalidiya, open from 7am to 11pm Sunday through Thursday (SEHA, 2012). Alternatively, there is a physical address available at the website for those that would prefer to write via post office. SEHA understands how invaluable customer satisfaction is for the prosperity of the organization. E commerce in general With the new portal in place, SEHA has definitively embraced the digital era. The IT Department is presently working on availing pharmaceuticals for online purchase and delivery upon issuance of a subscription. Moreover, one can also get a diag nosis online and additional medical advice at a fee (SEHA, 2012). The psychiatric department is already established online and counseling sessions are available online for long-distance patients. However, since this phase is just the budding stage of the technological revolution at SEHA, matters of cybercrime are yet to be dealt with and resolved when they come up.Advertising Looking for essay on health medicine? Let's see if we can help you! Get your first paper with 15% OFF Learn More Due to the sensitive nature of doctor-patient confidentiality, registration for online services is restricted to manual forms at the nearest ambulatory clinics. Recommendations SEHA information system is in dire need of protection from the threat of cyber crime. As hackers and other online predators continue to prowl the web-sphere seeking vulnerable targets, SEHA is an invaluable system because it represents a new category of victims, viz. those with an Arab background. Therefore, due to UAE’s affiliation with oil and terrorist allegations, many users are in jeopardy of losing valuable information and even identity theft that may have grievous repercussions. It follows that SEHA would be wise to shield itself from such intrusions by taking proactive measures. Secondly, SEHA seeks to enter the international market in its expansion endeavors. However, presently, it is customized to satisfy an Arabic populace and it will have to diversify its services further in order to fit in to the global canvas it seeks to occupy. For instance, the working days are presently limited to Thursdays through Sundays leaving out Friday and Saturday. Arguably, most of its patients are Islamic; however, it would be necessary to diversify in order to cater for the needs of non-Muslim patients. Conclusion SEHA is a fast-growing integrated healthcare provider with a great potential for improvement especially due to the government backing it receives from congress. Over the past decade, it has successfully achieved most of the objectives it set out to accomplish from the onset, but it is yet to achieve international status. Additionally, it should set up proactive measures to protect the sensitive data bequeathed under its custody by patients and other individuals and this should inform part of its customer relationship management initiatives. References Ferrier, S. (2012). Doctors’ salaries to jump as competition heats up. The National United Arab Emirates, Retrieved from https://www.thenational.ae/uae/health/fourteen-new-healthcare-facilities-approved-in-abu-dhabi-1.398918#full Hamid, J. (2012). Abu Dhabi: The Question of Health Developments. Journal of  Integrated Healthcare , 16, 345-6. Ismail, M. (2012). Fourteen new healthcare facilities approved in Abu Dhabi. Abu Dhabi  Health Review , 23, 298-99. Porter, M. (1998). Competitive Strategy: Techniques for Analyzing Industries and  Competitors. Melbourne: Oxford University Press. SEHA. (2012). Welcome to SEHA – Abu Dhabi Health Services. Web. This essay on MIS Project: SEHA – Abu Dhabi Health Services Company was written and submitted by user Mauricio U. to help you with your own studies. You are free to use it for research and reference purposes in order to write your own paper; however, you must cite it accordingly. You can donate your paper here.

Ipremier Dos Attack Essay Essay Example

Ipremier Dos Attack Essay Essay Example Ipremier Dos Attack Essay Essay Ipremier Dos Attack Essay Essay IntroductionOn January 12th. 2007 at 4:31am. Bob Turley. CIO of the iPremier Company. received a panicky phone call from his IT operations staff. Their external facing web site was â€Å"locked up† and could non be accessed by anyone. including their clients. iPremier is a web-based concern that generates gross through entirely treating on-line orders. While the web waiter was down. the company could non accept any new orders or let their clients to see their merchandises. An inadequately third-party managed and configured router/firewall allowed hackers to put to death a DOS ( Denial of Service ) onslaught on iPremier. I recommend buying a new firewall solution that will be managed and configured by the Company’s IT staff internally. This degree of control will let the company to orient the degree of security they desire and give them the ability to extenuate menaces consequently. Summary of FactsAt 4:31am on January 12th. 2007. Bob Turley ( CIO of iPremier ) received a panicky call from Leon Ledbetter in operations. Leon stated that the Company’s web site was down and that clients could non entree the site. He besides stated electronic mails incorporating the phrase â€Å"ha ha† were being received by the mail waiter. The Company’s proficient operations squad leader. Joanne Ripley called Mr. Turley at 4:39am saying she could non entree their equipment from the line to their office and indicated she was driving toward the Qdata co-located installation. She confirmed that Qdata ( their hosting company ) claims there was non a connectivity issue in or out of the edifice. Ripley stated the she would seek to re-start the web waiter once she reached the installation and confirmed she had an outdated transcript of exigency processs in her vehicle. Shortly after Mr. Turley hung up with Ripley he received a call from Warren Spangler. VP of concern development. Mr. Spangler was concerned with the affect on the Company’s stock monetary value. naming the constabulary or FBI. and basic PR issues ensuing from the incident. After Mr. Turley hung up with Spangler. he received a call from Ripley saying that Leon from operations notified Mr. Spangler of the incident. Turley so proceeded to name Tim Mandel. the Company’s CTO. Mandel advised Turley non to draw the Internet connexion so farther logging could be obtained. He besides disclosed advanced farinaceous logging would non be available due to infinite restraints from finance issue s. He besides received a call from Peter Stewart. the Company’s legal advocate. reding him to draw the stopper on the Internet connexion. Stewart advised that Jack Samuelson. the Company’s CEO. asked him to supply legal advice on the affair. Ripley besides called in and reported she could non entree the NOC due to knowledge and staffing issues at the Qdata installation. At this point Samuelson called Turley straight and advised that his chief concern was acquiring the Company back online and reiterated that Turley should non worry about any PR issues at this minute in clip. Shortly after. Ripley obtained entree to the hosted firewall and determined the closure was due to a SYN inundation type of DOS onslaught. A SYN inundation occurs when â€Å"external hosts attempt to overpower the waiter machine by directing a changeless watercourse of TCP connexion petitions. coercing the waiter to apportion resources for each new connexion until all resources are exhausted ( Lemon. 2 002 ) . Ripley attempted to barricade entree from the arising IP reference but rapidly learned that living dead machines were being used in the onslaught. rendering this attack useless. He hung up with Ripley so received another call from her at 5:46am saying that the onslaught all of a sudden stopped. Ripley confirmed the web site was back on-line and the concern was running every bit usual. This DOS onslaught prevented iPremier from selling merchandises. and allowing clients position merchandises. on their web site. This is the exclusive presence of the concern. and when the web site is down. the company can non bring forth gross. All responsible parties and directors were rapidly involved and attempted to extenuate negative effects to the company. There appeared to be a little gulf between the legal and functional leading advice across the board. The web site was merely down for a small over an hr and iPremier provinces there was no significant impact to the concern at this clip. Problem and Options This denial of service onslaught occurred due to inadequate firewall constellation and direction. This job was farther amplified by the fact that the firewall service was hosted by a third-party seller. Qdata. iPremier recognized staffing and general IT cognition and direction issues with Qdata in the past. but chose non to move upon their finds. iPremier did non hold any active monitoring of the firewall and merely knew there was a series concern runing issue merely when the web waiter was to the full unapproachable and unresponsive. One solution is for iPremier to buy their ain firewall where they can use the proper constellation to forestall farther onslaughts. This degree of direction will besides supply them with advantages where they could to the full supervise the device and to setup dismaies bespeaking when there is a possible issue. iPremier will hold full control over the device leting them to custom-make the degree of security they desire. The drawback is the cognition necessary to adequately configure and keep the device. Another solution is to go on their firewall service with Qdata after a complete audit was performed. Any failings in the security design would hold to be addressed and some type of warrant of service would hold to be put in authorship. I would besides urge that iPremier obtains some type of service degree understanding from Qdata to guarantee a prompt response clip during an incident. Some type of eventuality program must besides be put into topographic point leting them to instantly entree the device locally and remotely during a serious issue. The advantage here is maintaining the current supplier which would non necessitate them to do any web or equipment alterations. The obvious disadvantage would be go oning service with a company who has already failed them in the past screening hapless credibleness. A 3rd solution would be for iPremier to exchange to a firewall and security supplier who would supply a high degree of service for a fee they would experience comfy with. The same type of entree demands would be required during a serious issue to let iPremier entree when deemed necessary. â€Å"Shopping† around for a seller would let them to to a great extent research best in industry suppliers with a proved path record. The advantage here is obtaining a top-level service supplier with the right â€Å"know how† but finally iPremier would hold to reconfigure some equipment and do web alterations. Harmonizing to Allen. Gabbard. May. Hayes. A ; Sledge ( 2003 ) . utilizing a managed service supplier is a feasible solution for administering security operations and duties where the organisation still owns the associated hazards. but allows sharing and extenuation of the hazards. Decision and Decision Regardless of which solution iPremier chooses to implement. they must execute a full audit to bring out precisely what let this DOS onslaught to happen. We know the failing was in the firewall. but cognizing the root cause will let iPremier to utilize this calamity as a larning experience to construct upon in the hereafter. Joanne Ripley seems competent and willing to implement a â€Å"better† solution and I recommend prosecuting her in all treatments affecting this incident traveling frontward. Internal control of a firewall solution will let iPremier direction to acquire every bit involved as they want to be. The CTO and CIO could besides potentially pull studies from the device leting them to do future security planning determinations. Harmonizing to Applegate. Austin. A ; Soule. ( 2009 ) . exchanging IT systems can go hard and dearly-won once it is ingrained into daily activities. This facet of the security solution should decidedly be examined and taken into consideration. Allowing direction and IT staff to be involved in the Company’s security solution will assist maintain up security consciousness in the workplace every bit good. One individual may lose a possible menace that another staff member could acknowledge. Person as plugged in and competent as Ripley should merely be allowed to do alterations to the device. Staff should merely hold adequate entree to execute the necessary undertaking at manus. This would typically merely affect read-only entree to the security devices. iPremier conducts all of its concern through their web site and they can non afford for it to be down for any sum of clip. Mentions Allen. J. . Gabbard. D. . May. C. . Hayes. E. . A ; Sledge. C. ( 2003 ) . Outsourcing managed security services ( No. CMU/SEI-SIM-012 ) . CARNEGIE-MELLON UNIV PITTSBURGH PA SOFTWARE ENGINEERING INST. Applegate. L. M. . Austin. R. D. . A ; Soule. D. L. ( 2009 ) . Corporate information scheme and direction: Text and instances. Boston: McGraw-Hill Irwin. Lemon. J. ( 2002. February ) . Defying SYN Flood DoS Attacks with a SYN Cache. In BSDCon ( Vol. 2002. pp. 89-97 ) .

Aesthetics- Philosophy of Art Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Aesthetics- Philosophy of Art - Essay Example In aesthetics you have to see for yourself precisely because what you have to "see" is not a property: your knowledge that an aesthetic feature is "in" the object is given by the same criteria that show that you "see" it. To see the sadness in the music and to know that the music is sad are one and the same thing. To agree in the judgment that the music is sad is not to agree in a belief, but in something more like a response or an experience" (Eldridge 145: 2003).It has long been recognized that human beings find a variety of visual and auditory appearances to be extremely fascinating. Certain sunsets, flowers, birdsongs, and beautiful bodies, among natural things, and certain pots, carvings, vocalizations, and marked surfaces, among humanly made things, seem to engage eye or ear simultaneously with thoughtful mind. In experiencing such things, we feel we want the experience to continue for "its own sake, " at least for some further time. The Greek uses a phrase to kalon which means the fine, the good, or the beautiful, to describe many sorts of things that are attractive to mind and eye or ear, without sharply distinguishing natural beauty from artistic merit (or moral goodness). "In the Symposium, Socrates reports that the priestess Diotima once instructed him in how a lover who goes about this matter correctly must begin in his youth to devote himself to beautiful bodies, first loving one body, then many (as he comes to understand that they are alike in beauty), next beautiful minds, beautiful laws and customs, beautiful ideas and theories, until finally he will come to love the Beautiful itself, absolute, pure, unmixed, not polluted by human flesh or colors or any other great nonsense of mortality." (Eldridge 47: 2003) In pleasing us, natural and artistic beauty, according to Kant, serve no outer purpose. The experience of beauty does not yield knowledge, and it does not of itself enable the satisfaction of desires for material goods. Yet it is not nonetheless merely agreeable or pleasant; instead, the experience of beauty matters. Beauty in nature makes us feel as though the natural world were congenial to our purposes and projects. In feeling the beautiful natural object to be "as it were" intelligible or made for us to apprehend it, we further feel that nature as a whole, which seems to "shine forth" in beauty, is favorable to our cognitive and practical interests as subjects. To experience a beautiful sunset, according to Kant, is to feel (though not to know theoretically) that nature makes sense. Kant's terminology may be difficult, the experience he is describing is a familiar one. Beautiful objects of nature or art engage our attention. We love them by paying active, cognitive attention to t hem, even if we do not get anything from them or even if it brings out the inner most emotions from us. The above discussion brings us to compare art with emotions, the reason why identifications with artists and imaginative participation in experiences and emotions are available to us is that works of art are made things, products or instances of human action. To understand an action, including actions of artistic making, is to understand its suitable motivation by reasons in contexts. Actions of artistic making, including the making of both narrative art and non-narrative art, are concerned with the shaping of materials to hold attention on a presented subject matter. (In abstract work, the presented subject matters are often centrally the perception and gestural action of the artist and the possibility of the audience's imaginative participation in that perception and gestural action.) Whatever emotions figure in attention to this subject matter are emotions that members of the audience are solicited to experience and explore, as they participate in the attention that is embodied in the work. The understanding of art is much related to exploring, to understand art critically is to explore it imaginatively, guided by a range of relevant

Language Arts lesson plan analysis Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Language Arts lesson plan analysis - Essay Example Furthermore, by allowing the students to predict what will happen, especially the ending of the story, students will be using inquiry based learning. They will be responding to questions, as well as asking themselves questions in the process of making a story. Thus, the various learning styles and strategies learned should help students gain a better grasp of what the beginning, middle, and end of something, such as a story, means. This will hopefully help them better understand analysis and storytelling in the future. As far as content specific strategies are concerned, this is a very interesting lesson plan. It does have quite a bit of promise. Students at the elementary age love storytelling, and thus incorporating a lesson plan into storytelling is a very good way to bring them into the actual lesson, and to catch and hold their attention. Asking them questions and getting them to focus on the illustrations will also help to keep their interest, since children typically love looking at the pictures in books. However, a stronger assessment could be presented in this lesson.

Management in the News paper Research Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Management in the News - Research Paper Example However, from the period of 2007 Grady Memorial Hospital the charitable and training institution in Atlanta started suffering from a huge financial crisis. The huge financial crisis amounting to millions of dollars affected the operations of the hospital. However, the local and the national government have not taken any significant steps to help the hospital revive from the crisis. (Dewan & Sack, 2008) The Grady Memorial Hospital based in Atlanta share a nostalgic relationship with many Americans who have risen to higher positions in the country. In fact, the Grady Memorial Hospital had been the first home in the world to many people living in the region of Atlanta. The hospital observed to be a charitable organization caring for a host of immigrants, prisoners and low income groups is suffering from a financial crisis from the 2007 period. Management operations in the hospital are being carried on through a system of small financial packages obtained from various sources. The case of Grady earns similarity to other health organizations based in different areas of the United States like Memphis, Chicago and Miami. However, the magnitude of financial crisis has led Grady to surpass the distressful situation of around 1,300 hospitals operating in United States. The financial crisis loomed over Grady for the hospital operated on a traditional approach which failed to generate suffici ent funds to help the organization carry out its operations in an extensive manner. Grady Memorial Hospital renders maximum focus in the treatment of the patients belonging to the uninsured and immigrant groups. Moreover, the amounts received from the end of the insured patients also fail to suffice in meeting the operational costs. Further, the Grady Memorial Hospital faces huge competition from other private players operating in the health care arena of the country. The private hospitals and other non-profit health organizations earned high popularity in successfully rendering

The Representation Of Black Identity in Films

The Representation Of Black Identity in Films The debates over race and representation of African American in films have been highly contentious for over a century. Blacks have generally been perceived and stigmatized, throughout history, as trouble makers, incapables, intellectually limited, inferior, lazy and irrational, amongst the many other demeaning labels attached to them. These labels are connected not only to the history of colonization but also, importantly, to the exploitation, perpetuation, and careful maintenance of stereotypes through cinematic clichà ©s which have imposed themselves easily and significantly on the popular imagination. As rightly stated by Wijdan Ali, the projection of harmful and negative stereotypes onto marginal or ineffectual groups within a society has always been an easy and useful method for making scapegoats.  [1]  Effectively, films form the ideal platform/space to circularize and preserve the labels which the mainstream audience desires to attach to the black community. Five decades of the Civil Rights Movement have gone by, and the degree of change in the black community, though undeniably real and noticeable, remains perplexingly complex and inadequate. Although the fact that we now live in a time in history where Americans have voted for a black President, where blacks now occupy positions of power and are ostensibly less subject to institutional discrimination than in the past, the black community nevertheless remains inadequately poor, unemployed, undereducated and negatively labeled. Therefore, adopting a writing-back style in Bamboozled (2000), Spike Lee satirically attacks the way in which African Americans have historically been misused and misrepresented on screen. Through Bamboozled (2000), the director attempts both to entertain and to educate his audience about the history of African American representation within popular culture, with the word bamboozled itself indicating the state of having been cheated or conned. Bamboozled (2000) presents American mass entertainments history of discrimination through abasing minstrel stereotypes, which first started to be performed in musical theatres and which were later brought to cinema with films such as The Wooing and Wedding of a Coon (1905), The Sambo Series (1909- 1911) and D.W Griffiths controversial The Birth of a Nation( 1915). Consequently, the purpose of this study is to analyze both the African American evolution in the American film industry and the social construction of black identity through symbolic representation in cinema. These will in turn help to understand why the integration of African Americans is considered as a problematic issue even in a sophisticated era where racism seems to be a thing of the past, and where people are supposedly no longer judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.  [2]  This paper will also analyze the effect of stereotypes on black identity using Spike Lees film, and will explore the impact of such a film in the deconstruction of stereotypes and the renegotiation of a stigmatized identity. But before getting to what Bamboozled (2000) actually brings to the table of African American films, it is important to look at the history and evolution of black representation in Hollywood cinema, which the following paragraphs are going to deal with. African American in American Films: A Brief Retrospective African Americans first started to be represented in minstrel shows in the late 1820s and later on television in the early 20th century.  [3]  Through blackface minstrelsy, a performance style where white males parodied the culture, clothing, songs, dances and speech patterns of Southern blacks  [4]  using blackface makeup and exaggerated lips, Americas conceptions of blackness and whiteness were shaped by these mocking caricatures. While whiteness was posited as the norm, every black face was a statement of social imperfection, inferiority, and mimicry that [was] placed in isolation with an absent whiteness as its ideal opposite.  [5]  Consequently, for over a hundred years, the belief that blacks were racially and socially inferior to whites was ingrained and accepted by legions of both white and black minstrel performers and audiences. The caricatures took such a firm hold on the American imagination that audiences naturally came to expect any person with dark skin, ir respective of his/ her background, to conform to one or more of the following stereotypes; Jim Crow, a dull-witted and subservient plantation slave; Zip Coon, a gaudily dressed, lazy man from the city representing the proud newly- freed slave; Mammy, the contended, happy, loyal and ever-smiling female slave (as evidence of the supposed humanity of the institution of slavery,); Uncle Tom, the good Negro; submissive, hearty, faithful no matter what, stoic, selfless, and oh-so-very-kind,  [6]  Buck, the proud and menacing Black man always interested in white women; Wench/ Jezebel, the temptress; the mixed race Mulatto and Pickaninnies, who have bulging eyes, unkempt hair, red lips and wide mouths into which they stuff huge slices of watermelon.  [7]   As time moved on, black appearance in mainstream films became more and more frequent, as well as the increase in the number of independent black directors, from Oscar Micheaux to Daniel Lee and Spike Lee. Since The Birth of a Nation, which marked a change in emphasis from the pretentious but harmless Jim Crow to the threatening savage Nigger, black filmmakers have responded by creating race movies and blaxploitation films which were tailored to black audiences . The 1970s witnessed a resurgence of the blaxploitation genre with films such as Sweet Sweetbacks Baadassss Song (1971), Shaft (1971), Black Caesar (1973) and Foxy Brown (1974). Since such films were themselves in turn accused of using the negative to hyperbolize issues pertaining to blacks , this genre saw its end in the late 1970s to give way to a new wave of black directors, such as S. Lee and John Singleton, who focused on black urban life. However, we cannot afford to simply celebrate the achievements of black filmmakers for the so-called ethnic arts. And as Stuart Hall remarks, we have come out of the age of innocence, which says that its good if its there.  [8]  The mere fact that such films have had a considerable increase does not mean that the black self is undergoing a positive change although it may be true that the level of clear-cut racism has known an important decrease, or even a disappearance. This can be backed up by Appiahs statement that changes in the representation of blacks do not ipso facto lead to changes in their treatment.  [9]   In Bamboozled (2000), Spike Lee directly addresses this issue of African American representability as being a discourse of white essentialism. Through Bamboozled (2000) the director invites his audience to realize that although nobody goes around in blackface anymore,  [10]  it does not entail that Hollywood has altogether abandoned/given up essentialist discourse. The name of the blackface show in Bamboozled (2000) is in itself very symbolic; Mantan: The New Millennium Minstrel Show. Here, Lee suggests that minstrelsy has not disappeared in the new millennium. In his own words therefore, it has only gotten more sophisticated. Gangsta rap videos, a lot of the TV shows on UPN and WB- a lot of us are still acting as buffoons and coons.  [11]  Clearly, his aim in this satirical film is to show that even today, the American film industry is still concealing essentialist discourses within contemporary films. Consequently, as essentialism involves ongoing human and social interacti on as well as limitation, identity regulation and enforcement takes place within this kind of racist discourse, whereby blacks have to undergo identity dilemma while trying to seek approval. Appiah, K. A. (1993). No Bad Nigger: Blacks as the Ethical Principle in the Movies. In: Garber, M, Matlock, J and Walcowitz, R, L Media Spectacles. New York: Routledge. 77-90. Bogle, D. (2001). Black Beginnings: From Uncle Toms Cabin to The Birth of a Nation. In: Bogle, D Toms, Coons, Mulattoes, Mammies and Bucks: An Interpretive History of Blacks in American Films . 4th ed. London: The Continuum International Publishing Group Inc. p1-18. Crowdus, G. and Georakas, D. (2002). An Interview with Spike Lee. In: Cynthia Fuchs Spike Lee: Interviews. United States of America: University Press of Mississippi. 202-217. Mercer, K. (1994). Diaspora Culture And The Dialogic Imagination: The Aesthetics Of Black Independent Film In Britain. In: Mercer, K Welcome to the Jungle: New Positions in Black Cultural Studies. New York: Routledge. 53-68. Wijdan, A. (2003). Muslim Women: Between Clichà © and Reality. Diogenes. 50 (3), 77-87.

Hacking Essay -- essays research papers fc

As the world becomes more and more reliant on computers the computer hacking industry is greatly rising. With people such as Kevin Mitnick, who is known as a "computer terrorist" (Kjochaiche 1), computerized information isn't safe any more. Kevin is known as "the most high-profiled computer criminal and responsible for more havoc in the computer world today."(1) He considered this a fun and easy task. He got caught and thrown into prison, but once he got out nothing changed. Kevin stated that as long as the technology is there it just calls to people to break into it. Computer hackers usually start off young, thinking that it is nothing but a little harmless fun. But as they get older, they realize it has turned into an addiction. The definition of a hacker according to the Hacker's Dictionary, "a person who enjoys exploring the details of programmable systems and how to stretch their capabilities."(Hackers 1) "The Internet is just another playing field." (Kjochaiche 3) "Hackers regard hacking as a game in which their mind is up against that of the system designers." (Hackers 3) The Internet allows the hackers to take files, programs, passwords, and other information from users that are using it. They use this as a tool to make it easier to beat "the system". There are three major types of hackers, one with good intentions but gets slapped in the face due to the bad reputation of others, there are the hackers with bad intentions, and there are the hackers that fit in between. The bad hacker category is the largest by far. "A bad hacker's motives are to punish someone or retaliate against the owner of a computer system."(2) Computer terrorists fall under this category. Some bad hackers may also hack just to challenge the programmer. The hacker feels that if they can break into it then they are much more superior than the person who actually wrote the software. They can feel so superior that t hey might enter a virus to eliminate a program that was not worthy of their abilities. One of the other many goals of a hacker is to steal passwords. Hackers can steal your password about four different ways. Intercepting your password through email is "not that difficult."(How are they getting my password? 1) This is by far the easiest method because all they have to do is take the email as ... ... out. â€Å"More often than not the hackers are soloists.†(Kjochaiche, 6) It is proven that when hackers work together they get caught more often. Hackers will always do their work just like doctors will always treat patience. With the growth of technology comes new threats, and new problems. â€Å"This will continue to be on the rise due to advances in the world.†(Hackers, 3) Millions and millions of dollars will be put to end this but this will not work because new ways of hacking will always be made. Bibliography Works Cited Computer Hackers [Online] Available Http://www.mc2.nu. Dellert, Brian. Interview with a Hacker [Online] Available http://www.rabble.com/xpress/1997.03.01/hacker.com January 3,1997. Espy, Bob. Crime on the Intenet [Online] Available http://www.techforum. com/tsld009.htm. Hackers [Online] Available http://scitsc.wlv.ac.uk/~cm5220/home.html. How are they getting my password? [Online] Available http://geocities.com/yosemite/2215/password.html. Kjochaiche, Ahmad. Kevin Mitnick: Computer Terrorist [Online] Available http://www.rmit.edu.au/lectures/. Orman, Neil. Is your computer hacker-proof? [Online] Available http://www.amcity.com/austin/index.html Septemeber 1, 1997

The Stupidest Angel Chapter 11

Chapter 11 A SLUG TRAIL OF GOOD CHEER He might have been made of polished mahogany except that when he moved, he moved like liquid. The stage lights reflected green and red off his bald head as he swayed on the stool and teased the strings of a blond Stratocaster with the severed neck of a beer bottle. His name was Catfish Jefferson, and he was seventy, or eighty, or one hundred years old, and not unlike Roberto the fruit bat, he wore sunglasses indoors. Catfish was a bluesman, and on the night before the night before Christmas, he was singing up a forlorn twelve-bar blues fog in the Head of the Slug saloon. Caught my baby boning Santa, Underneath the mistletoe (Lawd have mercy). Caught my baby boning Santa, Underneath the mistletoe. Used to be my Christmas angel, Now she just a Christmas ho. â€Å"I hear dat!† shouted Gabe Fenton. â€Å"Sho-nufF, sho-nuff. True dat, my brutha.† Theophilus Crowe looked at his friend, just one in a whole line of awkward, heartbroken men at the bar, rocking almost in rhythm to the beat, and shook his head. â€Å"Could you possibly be any whiter?† Theo asked. â€Å"I gots the blues up in me,† Gabe said. â€Å"She sho-nuff did me wrong.† Gabe had been drinking. Theo, while not quite sober, had not. (He had shared a toothpick-thin spliff of Big Sur polio weed with Catfish Jefferson between sets, the two of them standing in the back parking lot of the Slug, trying to coax fire out of a disposable lighter in a forty-knot wind.) â€Å"Didn't think you muthafuckas had weather here,† Catfish croaked, having sucked the joint so far down that the ember looked like the burning eye of a demon staring out of a cave of dark finger and lip. (The calluses on the tips of his fingers were impervious to the heat.) â€Å"El Ni;o,† Theo said, letting loose a blast of smoke. â€Å"Say what?† â€Å"It's a warm ocean current in the Pacific. Comes up the coast every ten years or so. Screws up the fishing, brings torrential rains, storms. They think we might be having an El Nià ±o this year.† â€Å"When will they know?† The bluesman had put on his leather fedora and was holding it fast against the wind. â€Å"Usually after everything floods, the wine crop is ruined, and a lot of cliffside houses slide into the ocean.† â€Å"And dat because the water too warm?† â€Å"Right.† â€Å"No wonder the whole country hate your ass,† said Catfish. â€Å"Let's go inside fo' my narrow ass gets blowed back to Clarksville.† â€Å"It's not that bad,† said Theo. â€Å"I think it'll blow over.† Winter denial – Theo did it, most Californians did it – they assumed that because the weather was nice most of the time, it would be nice all of the time, and so, in the midst of a rainstorm, you'd find people outdoors without an umbrella, or when nights dipped into the thirties, you'd still see someone dip-pumping his gas in surfer shorts and a tank top. So even as the National Weather Service was telling the Central Coast to batten down the hatches, as they were about to get the storm of the decade, and even though winds were gusting to fifty knots a full day before the storm made landfall, the people of Pine Cove carried on with their holiday routine like nothing out of the ordinary could happen to them. Winter denial: therein lay the key to California Schadenfreude – the secret joy that the rest of the country feels at the misfortune of California. The country said: â€Å"Look at them, with their fitness and their tans, their beaches and their movie stars, their Silicon Valley and silicone breasts, their orange bridge and their palm trees. God, I hate those smug, sunshiny bastards!† Because if you're up to your navel in a snowdrift in Ohio, nothing warms your heart like the sight of California on fire. If you're shoveling silt out of your basement in the Fargo flood zone, nothing brightens your day like watching a Malibu mansion tumbling down a cliff into the sea. And if a tornado just peppered the land around your Oklahoma town with random trailer trash and redneck nuggets, then you can find a quantum of solace in the fact that the earth actually opened up in the San Fernando Valley and swallowed a whole caravan of commuting SUVs. Mavis Sand even indulged in a little California Schadenfreude, and she was a Californian born and raised. Secretly, she wished for and enjoyed the forest fires every year. Not so much because she liked watching the state burn down, but because for Mavis's money, there was nothing better than watching a burly man in rubber handling a hefty hose, and during the fires, there were plenty of those on the news. â€Å"Fruitcake?† Mavis said, offering a suspicious slice on a dessert plate to Gabe Fenton, who was drunkenly trying to convince Theo Crowe that he had a genetic predisposition toward the blues, using some impressively large words that no one but he understood, and periodically asking if he could get an ;amen; and â€Å"five up high,† which, as it turned out, he could not. What he could get was fruitcake. â€Å"Mercy, mercy, my momma done made a fruitcake look just like that,† Gabe howled. â€Å"Lawd rest her soul.† Gabe reached for the plate, but Theo intercepted it and held it out of the biologist's reach. â€Å"First,† Theo said, â€Å"your mother was an anthro professor and never baked a thing in her life, and second, she is not dead, and third, you are an atheist.† â€Å"Can I get an amen?!† Gabe countered. Theo raised an eyebrow of accusation toward Mavis. â€Å"I thought we talked about no fruitcake this year.† The prior Christmas, Mavis's fruitcake had put two people into detox. She'd sworn that it would be the last year. Mavis shrugged. â€Å"This cake's nearly a virgin. There's only a quart of rum and barely a handful of Vicodin.† â€Å"Let's not,† Theo said, handing the plate back. â€Å"Fine,† Mavis said. â€Å"But get your buddy off his blues jag. He's embarrassing me. And I once blew a burro in a nightclub and wasn't embarrassed, so that's saying something.† â€Å"Jeez, Mavis,† Theo said, trying to shake the picture from his mind. â€Å"What? I didn't have my glasses on. I thought he was a hirsute insurance salesman with talent.† â€Å"I'd better get him home,† Theo said, nudging Gabe, who had turned his attention to a young woman on his right who was wearing a low-cut red sweater and had been moving from stool to stool all night long, waiting for someone to talk to her. â€Å"Hi,† Gabe said to the woman's cleavage. â€Å"I'm not involved in the human experience and I have no redeeming qualities as a man.† â€Å"Me either,† said Tucker Case, from the stool on the other side of the red-sweater woman. â€Å"Do people keep telling you that you're a psychopath, too? I hate that.† Tucker Case, under several layers of glibness and guile, was actually quite broken up over his breakup with Lena Marquez. It wasn't so much that she had become a part of his life in the two days he had known her, but that she had begun to represent hope. And as the Buddha said: â€Å"Hope is merely another face of desire. And desire is a motherfucker.† He'd gone out seeking human company to help dilute the disappointment. In another time, he'd have picked up the first woman he encountered, but his man-slut days had left him lonelier than ever, and he would not tread that lubricious path again. â€Å"So,† Tuck said to Gabe, â€Å"did you just get dumped?† â€Å"She led me on,† Gabe said. â€Å"She tore my guts out. Evil, thy name is woman!† â€Å"Don't talk to him,† Theo said, taking Gabe by the shoulder and unsuccessfully trying to pull him off his bar stool. â€Å"This guy's no good.† The young woman sitting between Tuck and Gabe looked from one to the other, then to Theo, then at her breasts, then at the men, as if to say, Are you guys blind? I've been sitting here all night, with these, and you're going to ignore me. Tucker Case was ignoring her – well, except for inspecting her sweater cakes as he talked to Gabe and Theo. â€Å"Look, Constable, maybe we got off on the wrong foot –  » â€Å"Wrong foot?† Theo's voice almost broke. As upset as he appeared, he appeared to be talking to the woman in the red sweater's breasts, rather than to Tucker Case, who was only a foot beyond them. â€Å"You threatened me.† â€Å"He did?† said Gabe, angling for a better look down the red sweater. â€Å"That's harsh, buddy. Theo just got thrown out of the house.† â€Å"Can you believe guys our age can still fall so hard?† Tuck said to Theo, looking up from the cleavage to convey his sincerity. He felt bad about blackmailing Theo, but, much like helping Lena hide the body, sometimes certain unpleasantries needed to be done, and being a pilot and a man of action, he did them. â€Å"What are you talking about?† Theo asked. â€Å"Well, Lena and I have parted ways, Constable. Shortly after you and I spoke this morning.† â€Å"Really?† Now Theo looked up from the woolly mounds of intrigue. â€Å"Really,† Tuck said. â€Å"And I'm sorry things happened the way they did.† â€Å"That doesn't really change anything, does it?† â€Å"Would it make a difference if I told you that I absolutely did not harm this alleged Dale Pearson, and neither did Lena?† â€Å"I don't think he was alleged,† said Gabe, slurring at the breasts. â€Å"I'm pretty sure he was confirmed Dale Pearson.† â€Å"Whatever,† said Tuck. â€Å"Would that change anything? Would you believe that?† Theo didn't speak right away but appeared to be waiting for an answer from the decolletage oracle. When he looked up at Tuck again he said, â€Å"Yeah, I believe you.† Tuck nearly aspirated the ginger ale he was drinking. When he stopped sputtering he said, â€Å"Wow, you suck as a lawman, Theo. You can't just believe a strange guy who tells you something in a bar.† Tuck wasn't accustomed to being believed by anyone, so to have someone take him at face value†¦ â€Å"Hey, hey, hey,† said Gabe. â€Å"That's uncalled for –  » â€Å"Well, fuck you guys!† said the woman in the red sweater. She jumped up from her stool and snatched her keys off the bar. â€Å"I am a person, too, you know? And these are not speakerphones,† she said, grabbing her breasts underneath and shaking them at the offenders, her keys jingling cheerfully as she did, completely defusing the effect of her anger. â€Å"Oh – my – God,† said Gabe. â€Å"You can't just ignore a person like that! Besides, you're all too old and you're losers and I'd rather be alone on Christmas than spend five minutes with any of you horn dogs!† And with that she threw some cash on the bar, turned, and stormed out of the bar. Because they were men, Theo, Tuck, and Gabe watched her ass as she walked away. â€Å"Too old?† Tuck said. â€Å"She was what, twenty-seven, twenty-eight?† â€Å"Yeah,† Theo said. â€Å"Late twenties, maybe early thirties. I didn't think we were ignoring her.† Mavis Sand took the money off the bar and shook her head. â€Å"You were all paying her proper attention. Woman's got some issues when she's jealous of her own parts.† â€Å"I was thinking about icebergs,† said Gabe. â€Å"About how only ten percent of them show above the surface, yet below lies the really dangerous part. Oh, no, I got the blues on me again.† His head hit the bar and bounced. Tuck looked to Theo. â€Å"You want some help getting him to the car?† â€Å"He's a very smart guy,† said Theo. â€Å"He has a couple of Ph.D.s.† â€Å"Okay. Do you want some help getting the doctor to the car?† Theo was trying to get a shoulder under Gabe's arm, but given that he was nearly a foot taller than his friend, things weren't working very well. â€Å"Theo,† Mavis barked. â€Å"Don't be such a friggin' wanker. Let the man help you.† After three unsuccessful attempts at hefting the bag of sand that was Gabe Fenton, Theo nodded to Tuck. They each took an arm and walked/dragged the biologist toward the back door. â€Å"If he hurls I'm aiming him at you,† Theo said. â€Å"Lena loved these shoes,† said Tuck. â€Å"But you do what you feel like you need to.† â€Å"I have no sex appeal, a rum-pa-pa-pum,† sang Gabe Fenton, in spirit with the season. â€Å"My social skills are nil, a rum-pa-pa-pum.† â€Å"Did that actually rhyme?† asked Tuck. â€Å"He's a bright guy,† said Theo. Mavis creaked ahead of them and held the door. â€Å"So, I'll see you pathetic losers at the Lonesome Christmas party, right?† They stopped, looked at one another, felt camaraderie in their collective loserdom, and reluctantly nodded. â€Å"My lunch is coming up, a rum-pa-pa-pum,† sang Gabe. Meanwhile, the girls were running around the Santa Rosa Chapel, putting up decorations and preparing the table settings for a Lonesome Christmas. Lena Marquez was making her third circumnavigation of the room with a stepladder, some masking tape, and rolls of green and red crepe paper the size of truck tires. (Price Club in San Junipero only sold one size, evidently so you could decorate your entire ocean liner without making two trips.) The act of serial festooning had taken Lena's mind off her troubles, but now the little chapel was starting to resemble nothing more than the nest of a color-blind Ewok. If someone didn't intervene soon the Lonesome Christmas guests would be in danger of being asphyxiated in a festive dungeon of holiday bondage. Fortunately, as Lena was moving the ladder to make her fourth round, Molly Michon snaked a foot inside and pulled the chapel's double doors open; the wind from the growing storm swept in and tore the paper from the walls. â€Å"Well, fuck!† said Lena. The crepe paper swam in a vortex around the middle of the room, then settled into a great wad under one of the buffet tables Molly had set up to one side. â€Å"I told you a staple gun would work better than masking tape,† Molly said. She was holding three stainless-steel pans of lasagna and still managed to get the oak double doors closed against the wind with her feet. She was agile that way. â€Å"This is a historical landmark, Molly. You can't just go shooting staples into the walls.† â€Å"Right, like that matters after Armageddon. Take these downstairs to the fridge,† Molly said, handing the pans to Lena. â€Å"I'll get you the staple gun out of my car.† â€Å"What does that mean?† Lena asked. â€Å"Do you mean our relationships?† But Molly had bounded back out through the double doors into the wind. She'd been making more and more cryptic comments like that lately. Like she was talking to someone in the room besides Lena. It was strange. Lena shrugged and headed back to the little room behind the altar and the steps that led downstairs. Lena didn't like going into the basement of the chapel. It wasn't really a basement; it was more of a cellar: sandstone walls that smelled of damp earth, a concrete floor that had been poured without a vapor barrier fifty years after the cellar had been dug and so seeped moisture and formed a fine slime on top in the winter. Even when the stove was cranked and an electric heater turned on, it was never warm. Besides, the old, empty pews stored down there cast shadows that made her feel as if people were watching her. â€Å"Mmmm, lasagna,† said Marty in the Morning, your drive-time dead guy in the a.m. â€Å"Dudes and dudettes, the little lady has certainly outdone herself this time. Get a whiff of that?† The graveyard was abuzz with moldy anticipation of the Lonesome Christmas party. â€Å"It's highly inappropriate, that's what it is,† said Esther. â€Å"I suppose it's better than that horrible Mavis Sand woman barbecuing again. And how is it that she's still alive, anyway? She's older than I am.† â€Å"Than dirt, you mean?† said Jimmy Antalvo, whose faceprint was still embedded in a telephone pole on the Pacific Coast Highway, where he'd hit it at age nineteen. â€Å"Please, child, if you must be rude, at least be original,† said Malcolm Cowley. â€Å"Don't compound the tedium with cliche.† â€Å"My wife used to put a layer of hot Italian sausage between every layer of cheese and noodles,† said Arthur Tannbeau. â€Å"Now, that was some good eatin'.† â€Å"Sort of explains the heart attack, too, doesn't it?† said Bess Leander. Being poisoned had left a bitter taste in her mouth that seven years of death could not wash away. â€Å"I thought we agreed not to talk about COD guilt,† said Arthur. â€Å"Didn't we agree on that?† COD was shorthand of the dead for Cause of Death. â€Å"We did agree,† said Marty in the Morning. â€Å"I do hope that they sing ‘Good King Wenceslas, † said Esther. â€Å"Shut the fuck up about ‘Good King Wenceslas, would you? No one knows the words to ‘Good King Wenceslas, no one ever has.† â€Å"My, my, the new guy is cranky,† said Warren Talbot, who had once been a painter of landscapes but after liver failure at seventy was fertilizing one. â€Å"Well, it's gonna be a great party to listen to,† said Marty in the Morning. â€Å"Did you hear the constable's wife talking about Armageddon? She's definitely taking a cruise down the Big Nutty.† â€Å"I am not!† shouted Molly, who had come down to the basement to help Lena clear space in the two refrigerators for the salads and desserts that they had yet to unload. â€Å"Who are you talking to?† said Lena, a little frightened at the outburst. â€Å"I think I've made my point,† said Marty in the Morning.

Free Essays on Mystical Pathways to the Governing Body of consciousness

William James submits to us the notion that â€Å"personal religious experience has its root and centre in mystical states of consciousness. † Stating that mystical states of consciousness must have the characteristics of ineffability, Noetic quality, transiency, and passivity , James ascribes four marks to mystical states of consciousness, clearly defining them from our normal state of consciousness (what James calls â€Å"rational consciousness †). These four marks provide reason for the existence of a supreme governing body over mystical states of consciousness, which will be established as G-d. Furthermore, G-d's existence in these mystical states provides reason for G-d's existence in rational consciousness. In dissecting James’ four marks of mystical states of consciousness, we find that the very nature of them either implies or makes reference to some form of supreme governing being over their existence. Primarily, James states that there are two main qualities which every mystical state must have: Ineffability, and Noetic quality. The ineffability of mystical states provides a link to the ineffability of G-d. James quotes, â€Å"whoso calls the Absolute anything in particular, or says that it is this, seems implicitly to shut it off from being that - it is as if he lessened it. † This is to say that not only is anything we use to describe G-d by no means of the level of divine quality, it also limits G-d and detracts from anything else that G-d may be. This raises a pondering question: If G-d is ineffable, how may we know of G-d’s existence? The preeminent means of addressing this problem is to compare this issue to the ineffability of mystical states of conscious ness. While it is true that these states of consciousness are inexplicable, we do not deny the validity of their existence. Rather, we acknowledge that only the one experiencing them may know the true meaning of them. The same can be said of G-d. While it is true t... Free Essays on Mystical Pathways to the Governing Body of consciousness Free Essays on Mystical Pathways to the Governing Body of consciousness William James submits to us the notion that â€Å"personal religious experience has its root and centre in mystical states of consciousness. † Stating that mystical states of consciousness must have the characteristics of ineffability, Noetic quality, transiency, and passivity , James ascribes four marks to mystical states of consciousness, clearly defining them from our normal state of consciousness (what James calls â€Å"rational consciousness †). These four marks provide reason for the existence of a supreme governing body over mystical states of consciousness, which will be established as G-d. Furthermore, G-d's existence in these mystical states provides reason for G-d's existence in rational consciousness. In dissecting James’ four marks of mystical states of consciousness, we find that the very nature of them either implies or makes reference to some form of supreme governing being over their existence. Primarily, James states that there are two main qualities which every mystical state must have: Ineffability, and Noetic quality. The ineffability of mystical states provides a link to the ineffability of G-d. James quotes, â€Å"whoso calls the Absolute anything in particular, or says that it is this, seems implicitly to shut it off from being that - it is as if he lessened it. † This is to say that not only is anything we use to describe G-d by no means of the level of divine quality, it also limits G-d and detracts from anything else that G-d may be. This raises a pondering question: If G-d is ineffable, how may we know of G-d’s existence? The preeminent means of addressing this problem is to compare this issue to the ineffability of mystical states of conscious ness. While it is true that these states of consciousness are inexplicable, we do not deny the validity of their existence. Rather, we acknowledge that only the one experiencing them may know the true meaning of them. The same can be said of G-d. While it is true t...

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The mail - Essay Example Repayment of the loan is also important to them and at what rate it will be repaid, I am planning to repay the loan in two years time since I have already registered three hundred students who are to commence their studies next year. I already have 0.5 million dollars as capital and the extra funds will enable me to rent offices, hire lecturers, buy office furniture and equipments, and advertise in the media and internet and also to obtain a license which is very expensive to obtain. The presentation is the key to the success or failure of my plans therefore after the presentation I want the audience to be confident and satisfied with my plan and offer me the money, if it's possible I would like them to ask me to consider their partnership in the company. The presentation will last for at most three hours, I will therefore need to have a visual aid which include an LCD projector, a laptop and in this case led me yours and also a hearing aid. I am therefore needed to have slides that will aid me in communicating to them.

Status of Women in Lebanon Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Status of Women in Lebanon - Essay Example Indeed, the status of women in Lebanon is pathetic considering the widespread human rights violations against women in Lebanon. Although women in Lebanon are strongly opposed to their status within the Lebanese environment and society, they lack a voice that would champion for their rights especially considering the brutality and male dominance within the Lebanese cultural framework (Nadya). From a historical perspective, Lebanon has come a long way since her independence in 1943 from the French colonial powers. Originally established as a mandate of the French, Lebanon has experienced her fair share of civil wars especially in the 1970s and 1980s when the nation was forced to sign the Taif Peace Accord to end the violence (Zaatari). However, this was not before the Lebanese government invited the Syrian forces to help in the peacekeeping mission (Nadya). With Israeli constant invasion in Lebanon, it is worthy to note than Lebanon has suffered various attacks particularly in 1976 and 1982 (Nazir and Tomppert 22). This means that the constitution states one thing while the practice on the ground is another different phenomenon. Perhaps the bizarre phenomenon with the Lebanese constitution is that while it guarantees gender equality, no explicit article within the constitution that actually protects the Lebanese women against discrimination (Damon  and  Hume). A classic example of this is that fathers can pass citizenship to their children through birth as long as they become Lebanese citizens. However, the situation is slightly different when it comes to foreign women married to Lebanese men in whereby their children are not considered part of the society. Such harsh judgments based on gender are increasingly affecting the Lebanese women they need full participation in the society just as any other women across the globe (Zaatari). Undoubtedly, the Arab world is one of the most stringent patriarchal societies that incorporate gender roles in their key decisi ons with women falling victims to the harsh male judgments (Zaatari). Lebanon is indeed one of the Arab countries with about fifteen religious factions hence necessitating the institution of personal statute codes that govern the Lebanese families (Nadya). This means that the protection of the Lebanese women is not explicit and conclusive enough but instead, it is guided by the religion a particular woman hails from. While such discriminatory laws may protect some Lebanese women, many of them usually become victims of circumstances merely because their religious factions do not pay high regards to gender issues especially those pertaining to women (Khalaf).