politicians personal lives Essay -- essays research papers

Politicians make decisions that affect our everyday lives to the very state of defense for our country, and the media seems to personify personal parts of their lives. Should the press be allowed to interfere in and report on political figures personal lives? Some say they should, the people have a rite to know how an elected office candidate acts on said persons casual life. Others argue it’s an intrusion on privacy. It is my belief that these people run our country, but they all have personal lives that should be respected for the following reasons dignity, respect, and even suicide.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  To begin with dignity is a base foundation of a person. Without dignity what good is a person’s word. Allowing the mass media to report on personal lives causes a direct loss of the subject’s personal dignity, and can lead to mistrust among voters and peers. When dignity is compromised scandals are allowed to run rampant. Scandals can affect a politicians public image, and voters and the general public may gain a misleading image of the candidate and ignore the person’s actual stance on issue therefore swaying voters to believe a false image. And example of this is the current president George Bush while his public image portrayed by the media is a redneck moron who used to do cocaine in 9/11 incident.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  In addition respect is the basic respect for people is what bui...

Stephen Coonts flight Of The Intruder: Summary Essay -- essays resea

Stephen Coonts' "Flight of the Intruder": Summary This week I read Flight of the Intruder by Stephen Coonts. I read from page 1 to page 437 for a total of 437 pages. The book is about an A-6A Intruder (a naval bomber) pilot named Jake Grafton. In the first few pages Jake's best friend and B/N (Bombardier/Navigator) is killed by a Vietnamese soldier's rifle. In this mission their target was a "suspected truck park." Jake goes into despondency (depression, despair) for a days and tries to convince his squadron leader that the targets are worthless, that thousand of Americans have died en route and returning from these. The leader replies that he is not in control of the targets, the Pentagon and Air Force is. Jake gathers information from maps and a friend in the navigation department to learn about a target he wants to go after: The Vietnam Communist Party Headquarters. The three figure that if they succeed, they'll have a good chance of hitting the leader of the party. Grafton and his bombardier, Virgil Cole miss the building completely and just hit a few bystanders and blow craters in the sidewalk. Just when the two are about to be court-martialed, President Nixon gives the orders of unauthorized bombings anywhere in North and South Vietnam. Grafton and Cole fly their next mission with a EA-6B for SAM (surface-to-air missiles) suppression. This plane only carried antiradiation missiles to destroy the SAMs and their radar. ...

Of Power and Piety: An Inquisition into The Roman Catholic Church Essa

Religion is thought to provide comfort to the innermost part of a human: the soul. However, what happens when religion seeks to overstep its rightful boundaries and attempts to control humans from the outside, rather than uplift them from within. Such is the fault of the largest religious organization on Earth: The Roman Catholic Church. Throughout history, the Catholic Church has been among the most infamous of faith-groups due to its apparent conquest for absolute dominance over the minds, bodies, and souls of humanity. The Roman Catholic Church has and continues to play a negative role in the world with respect to the fields of science, politics, and culture, undermining the quality of life for adherents and infidels alike. The Church has and continues to impede humanity’s quest for knowledge and prosperity through its repression of science. As well, it has been involved in among the most infamous events throughout history. Finally, the Church has made its blatant that it s eeks to turn back the hands of time worth respect to progressive social change through tis preaching of its archaic attitudes on contemporary social issues. The Roman Catholic Church has throughout history, impeded scientific discovery, which thereby impaired humanity’s progress towards better understanding of and prospering in the world. Being the most â€Å"catholic† of the world’s faiths, the church has wielded an uncanny grip over the hearts and minds of a large portion of the human race; this was its source of power. To ensure that this power would never be lost, the church had to appeal to all faculties of the human condition, including those of wondering and reason. To this end, the church only tolerated explanations of the workings of the universe that w... ...578d3124b4%40sessionmgr11&bdata=Jmxhbmc9ZW4tY2Emc2l0ZT1wb3YtY2Fu# db=p3h&AN=1639206 Robinson, B.A. "The role of the Roman Catholic Church in the Shoah (Nazi Holocaust)." religious tolerance.org. Retrieved from http://www.religioustolerance.org/vat_hol12.htm "The Decline of the Church Authority.†. Albalagh Retrieved from http://www.albalagh.net/kids/history/church_decline.shtml Dickson White, Andrew. "A History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom." University of Michigan Center for the Study of Complex Systems. Retrieved from http://cscs.umich.edu/~crshalizi/White/ Hawkes, Charles, and Jennifer Watt. What Makes us Human. Images of society: introduction to anthropology, psychology, and sociology. Toronto. McGraw-Hill Ryerson, 2001. Pg39.

Inanimate Object

Nina Ferrer Professor Susan Chapman English 111 21 February 2013 The darkness is slowly scaring me making me feel overwhelmed. I can’t see anything. I feel suffocated and musty with all these boxes stocked next to me and on top of me. I’ve been here for so long and I feel so hopeless and useless. Then suddenly a bright light shines on me and I finally feel free from this very comfortless home. I wish someone would open this lid on top of me so I can breath in fresh air. But here I am staying strong and just patiently waiting.Then suddenly, I am lifted, opened, and place on top of a flat surface. I feel so nervous. I am hearing human voices. My wish is granted. It is my time, and I am free! My thoughts are running, I wonder if this little boy will pick me. My skin color is black with a shade of silver and red. I have thick bottoms and have plenty of grip. I was made from China but I was made to improve performances, protect ankles, and give extra comfort. I was created p repared. As my top is removed, the open air almost suffocated me. Just then I was lifted into the air and slammed onto he floor.Then suddenly for the first time, I feel human feet inside me. I am moving. He’s walking back and fourth with me and I can see my reflection through the mirror on the floor. I look handsome on his feet. Matching white socks would go so perfect with me. He took his feet off me, and before I can even prepare myself for what is about to happen, I am swung into the air, and slammed back inside the box. He still hasn’t closed the lid, I can see the little boy staring at me with such an unsure face. I was tossed inside the box and the lid of the box is slammed, I’ve been here before.As light shines on me, fresh air hits me again, and I’m home. I am inside the little boys room. He finally took me out the box and he tried me on once again. He’s running around with me, jumping up and down. Ouch! I am not used to all this impact and pressure, although the boy is little. He’s looking at me through the mirror, and I can see that he has bought white socks as well. I am ecstatic, I do not want bare, smelly feet inside me. My owner finally takes his feet out and puts me on the bed and walks away.Patiently waiting, the little boy comes in rushing, full of energy, and I can see him changing into basketball shorts and putting socks on. Then a sudden whip-lash, he grabs me and he slips his feet inside super fast. He’s running now, I can feel myself being stepped on, and I am also stepping on dirty floor. He runs outside, and this is my first time stepping on concrete, I hope I don’t get creased or stepped on by other shoes. I am so nervous I can barely catch my breath. I can feel sweat and moist already surround my soles. We finally arrive at the park.I see my fellow basketball shoes all looking very sharp, but I believe nothing can compare to me I am the best, and I am here to make sure I protect my owners ankles and feet and to help him play better, and give him extra boost to hop and jump. As my owner is running, I see the ball being dribbled in front of me. As scared as I am as of now, I have to face this. This is my job. My owner and I just jumped. And before I knew it I was back on the ground. Here I am still keeping up and running. I’ve gotten stepped on so many times. I am exhausted.I’m moving left to right, and running back and fourth a full court so fast. I just want. I have so many scratches and dirt on me from all the other shoes. I hope my owner finishes playing already. Before I can take one final breath, he suddenly stopped and we started walking. I’m guessing he’s tired. I wish we can head home already. Finally, we arrive home. I am extremely weary and depleted, but my spirit is still strong. I feel so accomplished that although I was beaten up and left like this, I’ve completed my main task to protect my owner, and at the sa me time make him look good and keep him safe.As my owner takes me off, I feel so much air coming inside, I can breath better, he picks me up and wipes me with a cold wet cloth. He puts me back in where I belong . The box is closed, and darkness once again overtakes me. Even though I am unaware of when the next time I will step on the ground, hopefully soon, what I do know is that, I’ve completed my main task. And instead of being in a dark room suffocated with other boxes, I am home, waiting for another adventure.

A Game of Thrones Chapter Sixty-one

Daenerys When the battle was done, Dany rode her silver through the fields of the dead. Her handmaids and the men of her khas came after, smiling and jesting among themselves. Dothraki hooves had torn the earth and trampled the rye and lentils into the ground, while arakhs and arrows had sown a terrible new crop and watered it with blood. Dying horses lifted their heads and screamed at her as she rode past. Wounded men moaned and prayed. Jaqqa rhan moved among them, the mercy men with their heavy axes, taking a harvest of heads from the dead and dying alike. After them would scurry a flock of small girls, pulling arrows from the corpses to fill their baskets. Last of all the dogs would come sniffing, lean and hungry, the feral pack that was never far behind the khalasar. The sheep had been dead longest. There seemed to be thousands of them, black with flies, arrow shafts bristling from each carcass. Khal Ogo's riders had done that, Dany knew; no man of Drogo's khalasar would be such a fool as to waste his arrows on sheep when there were shepherds yet to kill. The town was afire, black plumes of smoke roiling and tumbling as they rose into a hard blue sky. Beneath broken walls of dried mud, riders galloped back and forth, swinging their long whips as they herded the survivors from the smoking rubble. The women and children of Ogo's khalasar walked with a sullen pride, even in defeat and bondage; they were slaves now, but they seemed not to fear it. It was different with the townsfolk. Dany pitied them; she remembered what terror felt like. Mothers stumbled along with blank, dead faces, pulling sobbing children by the hand. There were only a few men among them, cripples and cowards and grandfathers. Ser Jorah said the people of this country named themselves the Lhazareen, but the Dothraki called them haesh rakhi, the Lamb Men. Once Dany might have taken them for Dothraki, for they had the same copper skin and almond-shaped eyes. Now they looked alien to her, squat and flat-faced, their black hair cropped unnaturally short. They were herders of sheep and eaters of vegetables, and Khal Drogo said they belonged south of the river bend. The grass of the Dothraki sea was not meant for sheep. Dany saw one boy bolt and run for the river. A rider cut him off and turned him, and the others boxed him in, cracking their whips in his face, running him this way and that. One galloped behind him, lashing him across the buttocks until his thighs ran red with blood. Another snared his ankle with a lash and sent him sprawling. Finally, when the boy could only crawl, they grew bored of the sport and put an arrow through his back. Ser Jorah met her outside the shattered gate. He wore a dark green surcoat over his mail. His gauntlets, greaves, and greathelm were dark grey steel. The Dothraki had mocked him for a coward when he donned his armor, but the knight had spit insults right back in their teeth, tempers had flared, longsword had clashed with arakh, and the rider whose taunts had been loudest had been left behind to bleed to death. Ser Jorah lifted the visor of his flat-topped greathelm as he rode up. â€Å"Your lord husband awaits you within the town.† â€Å"Drogo took no harm?† â€Å"A few cuts,† Ser Jorah answered, â€Å"nothing of consequence. He slew two khals this day. Khal Ogo first, and then the son, Fogo, who became khal when Ogo fell. His bloodriders cut the bells from their hair, and now Khal Drogo's every step rings louder than before.† Ogo and his son had shared the high bench with her lord husband at the naming feast where Viserys had been crowned, but that was in Vaes Dothrak, beneath the Mother of Mountains, where every rider was a brother and all quarrels were put aside. It was different out in the grass. Ogo's khalasar had been attacking the town when Khal Drogo caught him. She wondered what the Lamb Men had thought, when they first saw the dust of their horses from atop those cracked-mud walls. Perhaps a few, the younger and more foolish who still believed that the gods heard the prayers of desperate men, took it for deliverance. Across the road, a girl no older than Dany was sobbing in a high thin voice as a rider shoved her over a pile of corpses, facedown, and thrust himself inside her. Other riders dismounted to take their turns. That was the sort of deliverance the Dothraki brought the Lamb Men. I am the blood of the dragon, Daenerys Targaryen reminded herself as she turned her face away. She pressed her lips together and hardened her heart and rode on toward the gate. â€Å"Most of Ogo's riders fled,† Ser Jorah was saying. â€Å"Still, there may be as many as ten thousand captives.† Slaves, Dany thought. Khal Drogo would drive them downriver to one of the towns on Slaver's Bay. She wanted to cry, but she told herself that she must be strong. This is war, this is what it looks like, this is the price of the Iron Throne. â€Å"I've told the khal he ought to make for Meereen,† Ser Jorah said. â€Å"They'll pay a better price than he'd get from a slaving caravan. Illyrio writes that they had a plague last year, so the brothels are paying double for healthy young girls, and triple for boys under ten. If enough children survive the journey, the gold will buy us all the ships we need, and hire men to sail them.† Behind them, the girl being raped made a heartrending sound, a long sobbing wail that went on and on and on. Dany's hand clenched hard around the reins, and she turned the silver's head. â€Å"Make them stop,† she commanded Ser Jorah. â€Å"Khaleesi?† The knight sounded perplexed. â€Å"You heard my words,† she said. â€Å"Stop them.† She spoke to her khas in the harsh accents of Dothraki. â€Å"Jhogo, Quaro, you will aid Ser Jorah. I want no rape.† The warriors exchanged a baffled look. Jorah Mormont spurred his horse closer. â€Å"Princess,† he said, â€Å"you have a gentle heart, but you do not understand. This is how it has always been. Those men have shed blood for the khal. Now they claim their reward.† Across the road, the girl was still crying, her high singsong tongue strange to Dany's ears. The first man was done with her now, and a second had taken his place. â€Å"She is a lamb girl,† Quaro said in Dothraki. â€Å"She is nothing, Khaleesi. The riders do her honor. The Lamb Men lay with sheep, it is known.† â€Å"It is known,† her handmaid Irri echoed. â€Å"It is known,† agreed Jhogo, astride the tall grey stallion that Drogo had given him. â€Å"If her wailing offends your ears, Khaleesi, Jhogo will bring you her tongue.† He drew his arakh. â€Å"I will not have her harmed,† Dany said. â€Å"I claim her. Do as I command you, or Khal Drogo will know the reason why.† â€Å"Ai, Khaleesi,† Jhogo replied, kicking his horse. Quaro and the others followed his lead, the bells in their hair chiming. â€Å"Go with them,† she commanded Ser Jorah. â€Å"As you command.† The knight gave her a curious look. â€Å"You are your brother's sister, in truth.† â€Å"Viserys?† She did not understand. â€Å"No,† he answered. â€Å"Rhaegar.† He galloped off. Dany heard Jhogo shout. The rapers laughed at him. One man shouted back. Jhogo's arakh flashed, and the man's head went tumbling from his shoulders. Laughter turned to curses as the horsemen reached for weapons, but by then Quaro and Aggo and Rakharo were there. She saw Aggo point across the road to where she sat upon her silver. The riders looked at her with cold black eyes. One spat. The others scattered to their mounts, muttering. All the while the man atop the lamb girl continued to plunge in and out of her, so intent on his pleasure that he seemed unaware of what was going on around him. Ser Jorah dismounted and wrenched him off with a mailed hand. The Dothraki went sprawling in the mud, bounced up with a knife in hand, and died with Aggo's arrow through his throat. Mormont pulled the girl off the pile of corpses and wrapped her in his blood-spattered cloak. He led her across the road to Dany. â€Å"What do you want done with her?† The girl was trembling, her eyes wide and vague. Her hair was matted with blood. â€Å"Doreah, see to her hurts. You do not have a rider's look, perhaps she will not fear you. The rest, with me.† She urged the silver through the broken wooden gate. It was worse inside the town. Many of the houses were afire, and the jaqqa rhan had been about their grisly work. Headless corpses filled the narrow, twisty lanes. They passed other women being raped. Each time Dany reined up, sent her khas to make an end to it, and claimed the victim as slave. One of them, a thick-bodied, flat-nosed woman of forty years, blessed Dany haltingly in the Common Tongue, but from the others she got only flat black stares. They were suspicious of her, she realized with sadness; afraid that she had saved them for some worse fate. â€Å"You cannot claim them all, child,† Ser Jorah said, the fourth time they stopped, while the warriors of her khas herded her new slaves behind her. â€Å"I am khaleesi, heir to the Seven Kingdoms, the blood of the dragon,† Dany reminded him. â€Å"It is not for you to tell me what I cannot do.† Across the city, a building collapsed in a great gout of fire and smoke, and she heard distant screams and the wailing of frightened children. They found Khal Drogo seated before a square windowless temple with thick mud walls and a bulbous dome like some immense brown onion. Beside him was a pile of heads taller than he was. One of the short arrows of the Lamb Men stuck through the meat of his upper arm, and blood covered the left side of his bare chest like a splash of paint. His three bloodriders were with him. Jhiqui helped Dany dismount; she had grown clumsy as her belly grew larger and heavier. She knelt before the khal. â€Å"My sun-and-stars is wounded.† The arakh cut was wide but shallow; his left nipple was gone, and a flap of bloody flesh and skin dangled from his chest like a wet rag. â€Å"Is scratch, moon of life, from arakh of one bloodrider to Khal Ogo,† Khal Drogo said in the Common Tongue. â€Å"I kill him for it, and Ogo too.† He turned his head, the bells in his braid ringing softly. â€Å"Is Ogo you hear, and Fogo his khalakka, who was khal when I slew him.† â€Å"No man can stand before the sun of my life,† Dany said, â€Å"the father of the stallion who mounts the world.† A mounted warrior rode up and vaulted from his saddle. He spoke to Haggo, a stream of angry Dothraki too fast for Dany to understand. The huge bloodrider gave her a heavy look before he turned to his khal â€Å"This one is Mago, who rides in the khas of Ko Jhaqo. He says the khaleesi has taken his spoils, a daughter of the lambs who was his to mount.† Khal Drogo's face was still and hard, but his black eyes were curious as they went to Dany. â€Å"Tell me the truth of this, moon of my life,† he commanded in Dothraki. Dany told him what she had done, in his own tongue so the khal would understand her better, her words simple and direct. When she was done, Drogo was frowning. â€Å"This is the way of war. These women are our slaves now, to do with as we please.† â€Å"It pleases me to hold them safe,† Dany said, wondering if she had dared too much. â€Å"If your warriors would mount these women, let them take them gently and keep them for wives. Give them places in the khalasar and let them bear you sons.† Qotho was ever the cruelest of the bloodriders. It was he who laughed. â€Å"Does the horse breed with the sheep?† Something in his tone reminded her of Viserys. Dany turned on him angrily. â€Å"The dragon feeds on horse and sheep alike.† Khal Drogo smiled. â€Å"See how fierce she grows!† he said. â€Å"It is my son inside her, the stallion who mounts the world, filling her with his fire. Ride slowly, Qotho . . . if the mother does not burn you where you sit, the son will trample you into the mud. And you, Mago, hold your tongue and find another lamb to mount. These belong to my khaleesi.† He started to reach out a hand to Daenerys, but as he lifted his arm Drogo grimaced in sudden pain and turned his head. Dany could almost feel his agony. The wounds were worse than Ser Jorah had led her to believe. â€Å"Where are the healers?† she demanded. The khalasar had two sorts: barren women and eunuch slaves. The herbwomen dealt in potions and spells, the eunuchs in knife, needle, and fire. â€Å"Why do they not attend the khal?† â€Å"The khal sent the hairless men away, Khaleesi,† old Cohollo assured her. Dany saw the bloodrider had taken a wound himself; a deep gash in his left shoulder. â€Å"Many riders are hurt,† Khal Drogo said stubbornly. â€Å"Let them be healed first. This arrow is no more than the bite of a fly, this little cut only a new scar to boast of to my son.† Dany could see the muscles in his chest where the skin had been cut away. A trickle of blood ran from the arrow that pierced his arm. â€Å"It is not for Khal Drogo to wait,† she proclaimed. â€Å"Jhogo, seek out these eunuchs and bring them here at once.† â€Å"Silver Lady,† a woman's voice said behind her, â€Å"I can help the Great Rider with his hurts.† Dany turned her head. The speaker was one of the slaves she had claimed, the heavy, flat-nosed woman who had blessed her. â€Å"The khal needs no help from women who lie with sheep,† barked Qotho. â€Å"Aggo, cut out her tongue.† Aggo grabbed her hair and pressed a knife to her throat. Dany lifted a hand. â€Å"No. She is mine. Let her speak.† Aggo looked from her to Qotho. He lowered his knife. â€Å"I meant no wrong, fierce riders.† The woman spoke Dothraki well. The robes she wore had once been the lightest and finest of woolens, rich with embroidery, but now they were mud-caked and bloody and ripped. She clutched the torn cloth of her bodice to her heavy breasts. â€Å"I have some small skill in the healing arts.† â€Å"Who are you?† Dany asked her. â€Å"I am named Mirri Maz Duur. I am godswife of this temple.† â€Å"Maegi,† grunted Haggo, fingering his arakh. His look was dark. Dany remembered the word from a terrifying story that Jhiqui had told her one night by the cookfire. A maegi was a woman who lay with demons and practiced the blackest of sorceries, a vile thing, evil and soulless, who came to men in the dark of night and sucked life and strength from their bodies. â€Å"I am a healer,† Mirri Maz Duur said. â€Å"A healer of sheeps,† sneered Qotho. â€Å"Blood of my blood, I say kill this maegi and wait for the hairless men.† Dany ignored the bloodrider's outburst. This old, homely, thickbodied woman did not look like a maegi to her. â€Å"Where did you learn your healing, Mirri Maz Duur?† â€Å"My mother was godswife before me, and taught me all the songs and spells most pleasing to the Great Shepherd, and how to make the sacred smokes and ointments from leaf and root and berry. When I was younger and more fair, I went in caravan to Asshai by the Shadow, to learn from their mages. Ships from many lands come to Asshai, so I lingered long to study the healing ways of distant peoples. A moonsinger of the Jogos Nhai gifted me with her birthing songs, a woman of your own riding people taught me the magics of grass and corn and horse, and a maester from the Sunset Lands opened a body for me and showed me all the secrets that hide beneath the skin.† Ser Jorah Mormont spoke up. â€Å"A maester?† â€Å"Marwyn, he named himself,† the woman replied in the Common Tongue. â€Å"From the sea. Beyond the sea. The Seven Lands, he said. Sunset Lands. Where men are iron and dragons rule. He taught me this speech.† â€Å"A maester in Asshai,† Ser Jorah mused. â€Å"Tell me, Godswife, what did this Marwyn wear about his neck?† â€Å"A chain so tight it was like to choke him, Iron Lord, with links of many metals.† The knight looked at Dany. â€Å"Only a man trained in the Citadel of Oldtown wears such a chain,† he said, â€Å"and such men do know much of healing.† â€Å"Why should you want to help my khal?† â€Å"All men are one flock, or so we are taught,† replied Mirri Maz Duur. â€Å"The Great Shepherd sent me to earth to heal his lambs, wherever I might find them.† Qotho gave her a stinging slap. â€Å"We are no sheep, maegi.† â€Å"Stop it,† Dany said angrily. â€Å"She is mine. I will not have her harmed.† Khal Drogo grunted. â€Å"The arrow must come out, Qotho.† â€Å"Yes, Great Rider,† Mirri Maz Duur answered, touching her bruised face. â€Å"And your breast must be washed and sewn, lest the wound fester.† â€Å"Do it, then,† Khal Drogo commanded. â€Å"Great Rider,† the woman said, â€Å"my tools and potions are inside the god's house, where the healing powers are strongest.† â€Å"I will carry you, blood of my blood,† Haggo offered. Khal Drogo waved him away. â€Å"I need no man's help,† he said, in a voice proud and hard. He stood, unaided, towering over them all. A fresh wave of blood ran down his breast, from where Ogo's arakh had cut off his nipple. Dany moved quickly to his side. â€Å"I am no man,† she whispered, â€Å"so you may lean on me.† Drogo put a huge hand on her shoulder. She took some of his weight as they walked toward the great mud temple. The three bloodriders followed. Dany commanded Ser Jorah and the warriors of her khas to guard the entrance and make certain no one set the building afire while they were still inside. They passed through a series of anterooms, into the high central chamber under the onion. Faint light shone down through hidden windows above. A few torches burnt smokily from sconces on the walls. Sheepskins were scattered across the mud floor. â€Å"There,† Mirri Maz Duur said, pointing to the altar, a massive blue-veined stone carved with images of shepherds and their flocks. Khal Drogo lay upon it. The old woman threw a handful of dried leaves onto a brazier, filling the chamber with fragrant smoke. â€Å"Best if you wait outside,† she told the rest of them. â€Å"We are blood of his blood,† Cohollo said. â€Å"Here we wait.† Qotho stepped close to Mirri Maz Duur. â€Å"Know this, wife of the Lamb God. Harm the khal and you suffer the same.† He drew his skinning knife and showed her the blade. â€Å"She will do no harm.† Dany felt she could trust this old, plainfaced woman with her flat nose; she had saved her from the hard hands of her rapers, after all. â€Å"If you must stay, then help,† Mirri told the bloodriders. â€Å"The Great Rider is too strong for me. Hold him still while I draw the arrow from his flesh.† She let the rags of her gown fall to her waist as she opened a carved chest, and busied herself with bottles and boxes, knives and needles. When she was ready, she broke off the barbed arrowhead and pulled out the shaft, chanting in the singsong tongue of the Lhazareen. She heated a flagon of wine to boiling on the brazier, and poured it over his wounds. Khal Drogo cursed her, but he did not move. She bound the arrow wound with a plaster of wet leaves and turned to the gash on his breast, smearing it with a pale green paste before she pulled the flap of skin back in place. The khal ground his teeth together and swallowed a scream. The godswife took out a silver needle and a bobbin of silk thread and began to close the flesh. When she was done she painted the skin with red ointment, covered it with more leaves, and bound the breast in a ragged piece of lambskin. â€Å"You must say the prayers I give you and keep the lambskin in place for ten days and ten nights,† she said. â€Å"There will be fever, and itching, and a great scar when the healing is done.† Khal Drogo sat, bells ringing. â€Å"I sing of my scars, sheep woman.† He flexed his arm and scowled. â€Å"Drink neither wine nor the milk of the poppy,† she cautioned him. â€Å"Pain you will have, but you must keep your body strong to fight the poison spirits.† â€Å"I am khal,† Drogo said. â€Å"I spit on pain and drink what I like. Cohollo, bring my vest.† The older man hastened off. â€Å"Before,† Dany said to the ugly Lhazareen woman, â€Å"I heard you speak of birthing songs . . . â€Å" â€Å"I know every secret of the bloody bed, Silver Lady, nor have I ever lost a babe,† Mirri Maz Duur replied. â€Å"My time is near,† Dany said. â€Å"I would have you attend me when he comes, if you would.† Khal Drogo laughed. â€Å"Moon of my life, you do not ask a slave, you tell her. She will do as you command.† He jumped down from the altar. â€Å"Come, my blood. The stallions call, this place is ashes. It is time to ride.† Haggo followed the khal from the temple, but Qotho lingered long enough to favor Mirri Maz Duur with a stare. â€Å"Remember, maegi, as the khal fares, so shall you.† â€Å"As you say, rider,† the woman answered him, gathering up her jars and bottles. â€Å"The Great Shepherd guards the flock.†

Ernest Hemingway ` A Farewell to Arms`

With its relatively simple plot, sparse language, and seemingly traditional background of love and war, Earnest Hemingway's third novel, â€Å"A Farewell to Arms† stands as one of the most highly regarded novels of the twentieth century.Beneath the traditional surface of the novel revolutionary narrative techniques and penetrating appraisals of political and social themes interact to produce, perhaps, the most richest and profound work of Hemingway's career.The themes and   emotions of â€Å"A farewell to Arms† are stated indirectly, through an unreliable narrator, but beneath the familiar-seeming surface of the story, like an iceberg, â€Å"which  Ã‚   Hemingway often took to be the apt image of his art.† (Bloom 10)One important technique Hemingway uses in â€Å"A Farewell to Arms† is to tell the story from a 1st person narrative point of view. This allows for the inclusion of ambiguity and unreliability in the story, so that the reader can never be e xactly certain (as one can in omniscient narration) of the nature and specificity or meaning of the events that are being recounted.The first step toward this ambiguous and unreliable narrative is to create a character with an outward traditional â€Å"face:† that of a soldier; but with a non-traditional inner-self: â€Å"the book is cast in the form which Hemingway has apparently delimited for himself in the novel-diary form.It is written in the first person, in that bare and unliterary style[†¦] in that tone which suggests a roughly educated but sensitive poet who is prouder of his muscles than of his vocabulary.† (Meyers 121)The poetic narrator caught in a war that he is only ambivalently engaged in at an emotional level, and then caught up in a whirlwind love-affair that he may or may not be faking,generates an enormous degree of novelty in Hemingway's characterization. The fact that the narrator spends a great deal of his time contradicting himself or acting in direct opposition to his expressed beliefs endows â€Å"A Farewell to Arms† not only with verisimilitude, but also with a multi-layered theme, one which must be searched for by the reader as he or she follows along with Fredrick Henry's own quest.Henry says he is in love with Catherine, but then immediately remarks: â€Å"I knew I did not love Catherine Barkley nor had any idea of loving her. This was a game, like bridge, in which you said things instead of playing cards. Like bridge you had to pretend you were playing for money or playing for some stakes.† (Hem 30-31)This dynamic use of theme marks one of several innovative narrative techniques at work in the novel. By subsuming even his character to the (hidden) theme of the novel, Hemingway allowed for an intense degree of reader-identification and thematic resonance. The theme of the novel is probably most directly and explicitely stated by Frederick Henry's observation that:  Ã¢â‚¬Å"If people bring so much co urage to this world the world has to kill them to break them, so of course it kills them.The world breaks every one and afterward many are strong at the broken places. But those that will not break it kills. It kills the very good and the very   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   gentle and the very brave impartially. If you are none of these you can be sure it will kill   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   you too but there will be no special hurry.† (Hem) This theme, one of bitterness, regret, and mortality — where heroism and courage are met only by death is decidedly not a traditional theme for war novels or love stories. By digging deeply beyond the surface layers of the novel, an astute reader will find that the aforementioned traditional themes of the heroic soldier and the happy lovers gives way to a more probing, penetrating — and accurate — view of love and war, at least in light of Hemingway's personal beliefs and experiences.Beneath the romantic surface is a brutal truth of death and regret and waste and sadness: â€Å"For a war novel, however, A Farewell to Arms ends rather surprisingly, with the strangled and stillborn death Of Frederic's and Catherine's infant, and Catherine's subsequent death by hemorrhaging.† (Pozorski)In fact, this theme is foreshadowed and hinted at throughout the course of the novel by way of   Henry's unreliable narration and also by way of the use of symbols and wordplay through the novel's rising action. Key to Hemingway's themes being â€Å"masked† or mirrored is his use of wordplay and puns.The title of course operates as a â€Å"pun † of sorts: â€Å"A Farewell to Arms involves a play on words relating both to Frederic Henry's desertion from the Italian army and to his later leave-taking of Catherine Barkley after her death in Switzerland.† (Harrington 59)However, there are other instances of puns and wordplay which specifically point out to the astute reader that Henry's surface level narration cloaks the deeper more desolate themes recounted above.â€Å"One highly revealing play on words in A Farewell to Arms involves Frederic's returning to the front before his knee is completely healed. He has only â€Å"partial articulation† in the wounded leg (96), a pun that captures his reticence and failings as narrator†¦ Similarly, while making their diagnosis, the doctors in Milan â€Å"[t]est [Frederic's] articulation† (96), which matches the reader's task in working through this intricate text.† (Harrington 59)

Business and Support Systems Essay

The following paper answers questions on three different case studies. The case studies are Reality Gets Better, The Flash Crash: Machines Gone Wild and Piloting Valero with Real-Time Management. Case Study 1: Reality Gets Better The difference between virtual reality and augmented reality is perception. Virtual reality is when a user totally enters a different reality visually. This reality is completely computer generated. Augmented reality users enter a mixed world of computer generated and real life images. (Laudon & Laudon, 2012) The reason augmented reality is so appealing to marketers is because it offers them a different way to present their products. The goal of marketers is to present their product in such a way that people will remember it, be impressed with it, and ultimately purchase it. Augmented reality offers this through a series of interactive ads that can be used to impress and involve the consumer. (Laudon & Laudon, 2012) The reason augmented reality is useful for real estate shopping applications is it offers the buyer the opportunity to have an interactive view of a property that is up for sale without the hassle of making an appointment with a realty company. The ability to use a phone to get pricing information, and pictures of the interior of a property is a major time savor and very convenient. (Laudon & Laudon, 2012) Based on what has been learned by this case study the applications for augmented reality are far reaching. A manufacturing company could use augmented reality to teach employees and to direct employees. Simply have the employee wear a helmet and they would not have to do much thinking on the job as they could be led to every correct decision. Augmented reality such as the real estate application could be used at the humane society to give clear pictures and understandings of the animals they have up for adoption. Case Study 2: The Flash Crash: Machines Gone Wild? The conditions that preceded the flash crash were a market that was already low and moving lower, concerns by investors over the debt in Europe and current worries over the economy. (Laudon & Laudon, 2012) Some of the benefits of electronic trading include; far faster trading than a human being could do, ability to analyze the market trends quickly and change what is being traded, lower cost and the ability to have a more liquid market. (Laudon & Laudon, 2012) The features that contributed to the crash would be the automated selling put into place to sell regardless of time or price. The other feature would be the high frequency traders designed to purchase what was being sold and then sold when the price was lowered. Finally the automated systems put in low offers that are so low they are not very likely to ever to be accepted. In the conditions created by the electronic trading, those stocks sold. (Laudon & Laudon, 2012) Due to the programming of the automated systems this crash could have easily been prevented if humans were in control of the decisions that were made. (Laudon & Laudon, 2012) They would have been able to set a better selling time and set the amount being sold. By doing the previous, none of the other events would have taken place. Case Study 3: Piloting Valero with Real-Time Management. When developing the new dashboard the issues that needed to be addressed would be making sure the dashboard was set to measure the appropriate items, making sure the system was able to send real time data and making sure executives, those at the refinery level and those at the individual level could view performance. (Laudon & Laudon, 2012) The measures of performance that the dashboards display include; inventory management, safety, plant and equipment reliability and energy consumption. (Laudon & Laudon, 2012) Some of the management decisions that could be made by using these displays would include whether or not to purchase new equipment, whether a plant needs to change its energy consumption, whether or not a plant needs to have more safety training, and whether or not a plant needs more inventories. Valero currently uses a group decision support systems designed to link systems to corporate headquarters and each of the fifteen plants. Valero’s dashboards are very effective in piloting the company. As of 2009 a Valero executive said they were saving an estimated 140 million dollars a year in the seven plants that had the dashboard. He further said that they could estimate a savings of up to 240 million dollars once the dashboard was put into all sixteen of their plants. (Henschen, 2009) There would be no real point in developing a dashboard with information outside the company’s control. You cannot monitor events that you have no control over.