Dr. Andrew Stevens And Addresses Key Areas Of...

Advocate in Action What a society values changes almost yearly and differs between cultures. However, personal health will always bear a priceless significance to each person. The Apostle John writes to Gaius in III John 1:2, â€Å"Beloved, I wish above all things that thou mayest prosper and be in health, even as thy soul prospereth.† Themes related to health, sickness, and healing are inspired all throughout the Bible. Man lives in a fallen condition and still suffers from disease, in spite of modern medical advances. According to the American Cancer Society, more than 1 million people in the United States are diagnosed with cancer each year. Cancer spans over 200 diseases characterized recognized by rapid, uncontrolled growth of cells.†¦show more content†¦Leukemia broadly describes conditions that affect erythropoiesis in the bone marrow, lymphatic system, and spleen. As with all other cancers, leukemia begins from the mutation of DNA in certain cells. Classifications of leukemias a re based on the age of onset and the leukocyte involved (Lewis et al. 2014, 665). The most common leukemia is chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL), accounting for approximately 30% of cases in the United States (Copstead and Banasik 2013, 222). The normal function of the bone marrow, spleen, and liver becomes interrupted by the invasion of malignant lymphocytes (B cells); since the B cells are functionally inactive, a patient becomes more susceptible to infections. The sluggish progression of CLL unfortunately leads to late diagnoses and poor prognosis (Lewis et al. 2014, 665). Patients that become symptomatic in later stages will experience fatigue, weight loss, anorexia, and an increased susceptibility to infection, due to abnormal antibody production. Patient specific factors such as age, disease progression, and medication side effects will determine the course of treatment (Copstead and Banasik 2013, 223). The fragile state of patients with CLL requires continuous examination of drug therapy and interventions to prevent further complications. Drug therapy always carries risks, but in older populations, that risk is at times amplified due to normal physiological variations. When considering drug therapy for an older

Peer Pressure is Unavoidable in Adolescent Development

Peer Pressure is undeniably avoidable in adolescent development. There are many types of peer pressure. These types include: Individual, direct, and indirect. What are these? Individual peer pressure can be explained as self pressure. In other words, it is pressure that comes from one’s own self. Being and feeling different from a group of friends or a certain clique can cause hardship, stress, and insecurity. What does this look like? One might drastically change their style of clothing, music, the way they carry themselves, and how they talk. Common ways of trying to fit in include, experimenting with drugs that one is not in full understanding of and this can further emotional damage to them. Another type of peer pressure is direct peer pressure. What is this? Direct peer pressure may be an individual or group of people going to the person and telling them what they should do, be, and say. This is an act of bullying. The final and last type of peer pressure is indirect peer pressure. This type of peer pressure is not always obvious and may be the more common and more damaging of the three. It is common for one to have different groups of friends especially in such a diverse world we live in today. There is a common saying â€Å"You are who you surround yourself with†. One may start to conform to the actions of others without being directly influenced or individually influenced, and before they know it, a dangerous path is gone down. Who is affected by peer pressure? ThisShow MoreRelatedThe Term Storm And Stress Is A Term Coined By G. Stanley Hall2017 Words   |  9 PagesIf adolescents have to adjust to so much potentially stressful changes, and at the same time pass through this stage of life with relative stability, as the empirical view indicates, how do they do it? (Coleman and Hendry, 1999). The term ‘storm and stress’ is a term coined by G. Stanley Hall (1904). 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The Blue Sword CHAPTER NINE Free Essays

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

Business Ethics Case Study

Question: Discuss about theBusiness Ethics Case Study. Answer: Introduction: Utilitarianism Utilitarianism is a part of normative ethics that states that right action is the one that leads most good (Barrow, 2015). It is also known as The Greatest Happiness Principle, that is a form of consequentialism where the action is judged completely based on the consequences (Mulgan, 2014). The given case is an analysis to understand if the installation of the Defeat Device in the various models of Volkswagen diesel cars is a morally correct action. There are two scenarios here. The first is that the defeat device is never found or the device is discovered. The Effected Device is not found Satisfaction levels Device is found Satisfaction Levels Volkswagen The device installation is cheap and quick. The cars under production will not be effected. 4 All the cars would have to be called back The company would lose its reputation Legal actions would be taken against the company All other cars produced by the company may be questioned. Sales may reduce drastically -5 Employees The sales would be as expected Little or no change to their regular work 3 Everyone involved would be questioned. Potential threat to employment -3 Customers Each car would increase pollutants in the air, causing the customer to contaminate their own environment without their knowledge. 5 Customers will not trust the company. Raise legal action against the company -4 Shareholders of the company Would get a fraction of the possible profit through the new line of cars 3 Would have to sell of shares at loss or bare future losses to the company -3 Sales Offices Would sell a number of cars gaining commission 4 The customers would not trust the sales team anymore and this team would be the POC for angry customers -4 Environment Would be effected with the increasing pollutants and the cause would not be detected -4 Measures to stop the emissions would be taken protecting the environment 4 Other Diesel cars The VW cars would be a competition -2 All the cars emissions would also be questioned -4 Testing Commission The tests can be fooled -2 Changes to test methods need to be done -5 Net Happiness 11 -24 Ratings: -5: Totally upset -4: Gravely upset -3: Highly Upset -2: little upset -1: upset 0: No effect 1: No Happiness 2: Little Happiness 3: Content 4: High Happiness 5: Total Prosperity Under the increasing need to protect environment it is given that there are several environmental agencies that are making sure that car emissions do not affect the environment and hence discovering the device is bound to happen. Also from the above table it is clear that the happiness experienced due to sales of cars would clearly be overshadowed if the device is discovered and hence, it is not a good idea. Kantian Deontological Analysis Kantian deontology states that we are duty bound to the set of rules and principles that are laid down and hence have to act according to them regardless of the consequences (Bentham, 2014). As the manager of Volkswagen I am duty bound to report any errors that may occur in production of the cars. The ideal car emission levels are known and hence the company should make sure that the levels are maintained. Cheating an emission control test to ensure that the production of cars is interrupted is not only immoral but also illegal. If the device is fixed, it would have adverse effects on the environment which is already under grave threat. As a citizen of a country that is trying to protect the environment, I would have to strongly suggest the company against installation. Also, such actions threaten the reputation and sales of the company, which would again result in substantial financial and customer base loss which cannot be easily recovered. And the company would be tied up in legal actions, which may lead to halting production. I would hence, make sure that I gather reports on the consequences of the actions to help the company understand the issue and find ways to make the correct fix. However, after all the above is done and the company decides to go ahead with the installation, I would be duty bound to carry the orders of the company (Gray, 2012). Virtue Ethics Virtue ethics is a part of normative ethics that emphasize on virtue and character rather than on consequences or duty (Hursthouse, 2013). The case study is in regard to Jeff Morris who became a whistleblower along with a couple of his colleagues to expose the wrong doings of his then employer Common Wealth Bank of Australia. The act of whistleblowing itself takes a lot of courage and the confidence to stand up against an organization to act on what one believes as right. Jeff Morris has stood up against a commonwealth bank of Australia which is a well reputed organization and had been fighting for his clients since 2008. Such actions require great courage as Jeff has to take up the responsibility to face various consequences including legal issue that would arise from the same. Also, getting a job post an incident as such can be challenging, as Jeff was not loyal to his organization. Jeff was friendly with his clients and truthful even in grave situation and stood up for what he believed with great magnanimity. His ambition was straight forward as he wanted to ensure that no one would be effected by the improper financial advice provided by the company (Van, 2014). Hence Jeff Morris is a man of his virtue who believes in being loyal to his clients rather than the organization, having the courage to stand against the wrong doers and be truthful in his actions. Kohlbergs Theory of Moral Development Kohlbergs theory of moral development states that ethical behavior has six stages that can easily be identified, and each stage is has a clear picture of the ethical dilemma when compared to its predecessor (Kurtines, 2014). The most evident stages of moral development that can be clearly seen in case of the Jeff Morris are the authority and social order obedience driven stage and Social contract driven stage. The former states that the laws and social conventions are regarded as important and breaking the law is morally wrong while the latter states that perspectives of each person are different and ideas that do not promote greater happiness and general welfare have to be changed (Cherry, 2014). In case of Jeff Morris, when he discovered that the values of the commonwealth bank of Australia were working against the greater good he has made sure that the actions are curbed. Also, he believed that lawful action is required against such organizations to ensure further actions in the line do not happen by any other organization as well. A demand for royal commission into banks is being made to ensure that proper legal action and correction is taken into consideration. Hence, the four and the fifth stages of Kohlbergs theory of moral development can be clearly seen in the case of Jeff Morris. References Barrow, R. (2015). Utilitarianism: A contemporary statement. Routledge. Bentham, J. (2014). Deontology; or, The Science of Morality.: In two volumes. Adegi Graphics LLC. Cherry, K. (2014). Kohlberg's Theory of Moral DevelopmentStages of Moral Development. Gray, K., Schein, C. (2012). Two minds vs. two philosophies: Mind perception defines morality and dissolves the debate between deontology and utilitarianism. Review of Philosophy and Psychology, 3(3), 405-423. Hursthouse, R. (2013). Normative virtue ethics. ETHICA, 645. Kurtines, W. M., Gewirtz, J., Lamb, J. L. (2014). Handbook of Moral Behavior and Development: Volume 1: Theory. Psychology Press. Mulgan, T. (2014). Understanding utilitarianism. Routledge. Van Hooft, S. (2014). Understanding virtue ethics. Routledge.

Individuality free essay sample

What separates me from everyone else? The difference is not what clothes I wear or the music I listen too, but what I feel inside.Ever since I was young, I have loved professional wrestling. I woke up every Saturday to watch my favorite Superstars. As I grew older, I got a lot of flak for watching this fake sport. My peers would laugh at me for following what was called a mans soap opera. So, I put my love for wrestling on the shelf. Like everyone else, I wanted to be associated with the cool clique. I yearned to be invited to the parties of the in-crowd and hang out with the popular kids. I became pretty successful. Although my Friday evenings were busy with parties, I would still wake up early Saturdays to watch wrestling. It wasnt until freshman year that I realized I wasnt being myself. We will write a custom essay sample on Individuality or any similar topic specifically for you Do Not WasteYour Time HIRE WRITER Only 13.90 / page That year, I tried many new things and activities and made new friends. In my town, football was the sport, so I decided to play football, thinking it might give me a head start in popularity. The team started with 48 athletes. At the end, there were 14 of us left. I stuck it out not because I liked it, but because I am not a quitter. That long season taught me a lesson: I wasnt a football player. More importantly, it taught me to be myself.After that season, I went back to being a wrestling fan. I watched it religiously, no matter what insults were thrown my way. I came across a quote: Dont Dream It, Be It. When I read this, my friend Dan had the same idea I had. What if we build a wrestling ring? we asked. We acquired the necessary wood and equipment for its construction. The following weekend, we met at his house. We saw our dream in a pile in his backyard. We worked from dawn to dusk to build our great establishment. By Sunday night, our mission was complete. Our hard work (combi ned with a little creativity) had paid off. We had a real ring.We decided to hold an event. We practiced for hours, trying to improve every aspect of our wrestling ability. The date was May 24th. Our show had a start time of 9: 00 p.m. To our surprise, about one hundred family, friends and fans showed up to support us. It was the most important night of my life and a complete success. Since that time, we have held five shows with as many as two hundred and fifty people turning out. We continue to live this dream. We accomplished what we set out to do.We are now well known throughout school. When I walk down the halls, I am respected by my peers. Some are the same peers who ridiculed me for watching wrestling when I was younger. When they approach me, they often say, Good match, Chris. I humbly say, Thank you, knowing I did something I believed in.As my senior year winds down, Ill remember all of my high school memories. But what will stick out most is the memory that I did something I loved, despite what everyone said or thought. I accomplished my goal I lived my dream.

Mine Disasters Essays

Mine Disasters Essays Mine Disasters Essay Mine Disasters Essay Essay Topic: Notes From Underground Mining disaster in the past have been referred to mining accidents claiming five or more lives. Mine disasters once were really common. In the single year of 1907 there were 18 coal mine disasters.. Among the disasters in 1907 was historys worst the Monongah coal mine explosion, which claimed 362 lives and impelled Congress to create the Bureau of Mines. I will discuss this disaster more later in this paper. Mine accidents have declined dramatically in number and severity through years of research, technology, and preventive programs. Today mine accidents resulting in five or more deaths are no longer common. However preventing recurrence of disasters like those of the past remains a top priority requiring constant attention by management, labor, and government. Thus, it happened in 1907 when the Fairmont Coal Companys mine at Monongah, West Virginia exploded killing 362 men and boys. Congress reacted to the disaster at Monongah by passing and toughening mining laws. Through disasters such as this one and many others it has forced laws and regulations, technology,and training which has brought us into mining as we know it. In 1910, following a decade in which the number of coal mine fatalities exceeded 2,000 annually, Congress established the Bureau of Mines as a new agency in the Department of the Interior. The Bureau was charged with the responsibility to conduct research and to reduce accidents in the coal mining industry. In 1968 less than five miles from Monongah another explosion had happened and the fire which resulted after killed 78 men at the Consol No 9 mines at Farmington, West Virginia. The Farmington explosion resulted in the Federal Coal Mine Health and Safety Act of 1969 a far reaching document that promised a new day for the men in an industry that had claimed more than 100,000 lives since 1900. Even before the Farmington mine had exploded in 1968, there were a push going on for a better mine safety law. The Johnson Administration introduced a measure in the fall of 1968 that would dramatically strengthen the governments enforcement tools. It went to Congress too late and didnt hold up. Then came the explosion at Farmington and there were new converts to the cause of mine safety. That is when the Nixon Administration expanded upon the Johnson Administration proposals of 1968 and addressed the potential for mine explosions in proposed legislation. President Nixon went on to sign the Federal Coal Mine Health and Safety Act of 1969 on December 30, 1969. Enforcement powers in coal mines increased greatly, at that time the Act required four annual inspections for each underground coal mine and two inspections for each surface mine. The Act for the first time established mandatory fines for all violations and criminal penalties for knowing and willful violations which was a big step in the right direction in my opinion. The act eliminated non gassy mines from special legal exemptions. All mines were considered gassy and additional inspections were required. The powers of the inspectors were expanded and the nspectors were given the power to close a mine for imminent danger. Miners were given the right to request a Federal inspection. Safety standards for all coal mines were strengthened under the 1969 Act and health standards were also adopted. The Act also provided benefits to miners disabled by black lung disease. The legacy of the Sunshine Mine disaster is reflect ed in greatly enhanced miner training programs and fire protection measures in metal and nonmetal mines across the country. In 1973 the (MESA) Mine Enforcement and Safety Administration was created out of the Bureau of Mines as the first Federal agency with the sole purpose of assuring miners of a safe, healthful working environment. Standards requiring mine emergency and self rescuer training, regular evacuation drills, and two mine rescue teams at underground metal and nonmetal operations were known by April of 1973. On March 9, 1977, the Agency was transferred from the Department of the Interior to the Department of Labor and was renamed the better known Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA). The legislation which was signed by President Jimmy Carter, repealed the Federal Metal and Nonmetal Mine Safety Act and amended the Federal Coal Mine Health and Safety Act of 1969 to combine protection of coal and metal and nonmetal miners under a single law, the Federal Mine Safety and Health Act of 1977 (the Act). Following passage of the Act, additional required miner training, increased MSHA enforcement activities, and upgraded fire prevention standards continued to teach the hard learned lessons from fires at mines such as Cargill Salt Mine, Belle Isle, Louisiana and the Sunshine Mine at Kellogg, Idaho. The new Act of 1977 required at least four complete inspections of all coal and non coal underground mines and two f all surface mines each year. Among other important changes the new law provided for procedures to speed up the regulation making process and stronger ways force compliance with Federal health and safety standards. This included increased capability of dealing with the most dangerous mine hazards, increased emphasis on protection of miners healt h, greater involvement of miners or their representatives in processes affecting worker health and safety, and improved procedures for assessing and collecting civil penalties imposed for violating mine health or safety requirements. Mine accidents have declined greatly in both number and severity as a result of years of research, technology, education, and preventive programs. During my career mine accidents resulting in five or more deaths are no longer common. One thing remains the same preventing the recurrence of disasters like those of the past remains a top priority requiring constant attention by management, labor, and government. The Sago Mine disaster was a coal mine explosion that had occurred on January 2, 2006, the Sago Mine was located in West Virginia. The explosion had trapped 13 men for nearly two ays with only one miner surviving. It was the worst mining disaster in the West Virginia since the 1968 Farmington Mine disaster that killed 78 people. The previous year the mine had been cited by the MSHA 208 times for violating regulations, and had a history of roof falls. Violations had included failure to follow the approved roof control and mine ventilation plans and problems concerning emergency e scape ways and required pre-shift safety examinations. The explosion occurred at approximately 6:30 a. m. at the beginning of the first shift after the mine reopened after New years holiday weekend. An examination conducted at 5:50 am by a mine fire boss had cleared the mine for use. Two man buses of miners were making their way into the mine to begin work. Early reports noted that there was a thunderstorm in the area at the time and suggested a lightening strike near the mine entrance may have ignited methane but no one reported seeing such a strike. Sensors from the U. S. National Lightning Detection Network indicated at least two lightning strikes near the mine. Another early theory was that lightning struck a methane well that had previously been drilled from the surface to an area behind the seals. Methane wells are used to extract methane from coal seams and sometimes from sealed areas when methane levels are high. Fourteen men on the second man bus escaped the initial explosion. The 12 trapped miners were on the first man bus which apparently passed the point where the explosion occurred. The foreman on the second trip whose brother was among those trapped the mine superintendent and three others entered the mine to rescue the trapped miners. They into the mine until gas detectors indicated there was too much carbon monoxide to continue. Although they were false reports of he 12 miners found alive there were only 1 Randal Mcloy jr. Randal McCloy Jr. wrote a letter to the families of the victims. McCloy wrote that three weeks before the explosion he and Junior Toler while drilling a bolt hole a gas pocket which detectors confirmed the presence of methane. He said they immediately shut down the roof bolter and the incident was reported up the line to our superiors. He stated he noticed the following day that the gas leak had been plugged with glue normally used to secure the bolts. On the day of the explosion just after exiting the man trip the mine filled quickly with umes and thick smoke and that breathing conditions were nearly unbearable and that at least four of the emergency oxygen packs were not functioning. He shared his rescuer with Jerry Groves, while Toler, Jesse Jones and Tom Anderson sought help from others. He said they were not enough rescuers to go around. Because of the bad air they had to abandon their escape attempt and return to the coal rib where we hung a curtain to try to protect ourselves. The curtain created an enclosed area of about 35 feet. They attempted to signal their location to the surface by beating on the mine bolts and plates. That effort caused them to breathe much harder and use more oxygen. After becoming exhausted they stopped trying to signal. The air behind the curtain grew worse so he tried to lie as low as possible and take shallow breaths he said he could tell that it was gassy. According to McCloy, Toler and Anderson tried to find a way out. The heavy smoke and fumes caused them to quickly return. There was just so much gas. At that point the miners began to accept their fate. Toler led them all in the Sinners prayer. They prayed a little longer then someone suggested that they each write letters to their loved ones. He said he became very dizzy and lightheaded and that some drifted off into what appeared to be a deep sleep and one person sitting near him collapsed and fell off his bucket not moving. It was clear that there was nothing he could do to help him. The last person he remember speaking to was Jackie Weaver who reassured him that if it were their time to go then God’s will would be fulfilled. As my trapped coworkers lost consciousness one by one the room grew still and he continued to sit and wait unable to do much else. He have no idea how much time went by before he also passed out from the gas and smoke, awaiting escue. There we many investigation which came up with possible theorys as followed:Lightning strike and seismic activity, Use of foam rather than concrete seals, Proximity with active gas and oil wells, Sparks from restarting machinery after holiday. After the disaster there were many provision that would, mandate equipment to communicate with miners, locate miners, a nd provide sufficient caches of air, Rescue teams must be staffed and on site, Operators must notify the MSHA immediately when there is an accident, Any coal operator who fails to do so will be ubject to a $100,000 fine and/or 12 to 15 years imprisonment, The bill would mandate a rapid notification and response system, The bill would create a new mandatory minimum penalty of $10,000 for coal operators that show negligence or reckless disregard for the safety standards of the Mine Act,The bill would nullify an MSHA rule issued in 2004 that authorizes the use of belt entries for ventilation, which may have caused fire in another accident at Alma, The bill would create a science and technology transfer office in MSHA to pull research and development ideas rom other federal agencies for use in the mines,The bill would create an ombudsman in the Labor Department’s Inspector General office for miners to report safety violations. Mine Improvement and New Emergency Response (MINER) A ct after the Sago and Darby Mine explosions in 2005 and 2006 I have read many notes left to the families of the miners trapped in disaster not only this one and we keep one posted on our mine rescue station door to remind us why we are doing what we do he is the letter: Ellen, darling, goodbye for us both. Elbert said the Lord has saved him. Do the best you can with the children. We are all praying for air to support us, but it is getting so bad without any air. Horace, Elbert said for you to wear his shoes and clothing. It is now 1/2 past 1:00. Powell Harmon’s watch is in Andy Woods’ hand. Ellen, I want you to live right and come to heaven. Little Elbert said he trusted in the Lord. The bad air is closing in on us fast. Dear Ellen, I leave you in bad condition, but set your trust in the Lord to help you raise my little children. Elbert said for you all to meet him in heaven, for all of the children to meet us both. Raise the children the best you can. Oh how I wish to be with you. Goodbye, all of you, Goodbye. Bury me and Elbert in the same grave by little Eddie. Goodbye Ellen, Goodbye Lillie, Goodbye Jimmie, Goodbye Minnie, Goodbye Horace. Oh God, for one more breath. Ellen, remember me as long as you live. Goodbye darling. It is 25 minutes after 2:00. There are few of us alive yet. Jake and Elbert. The Aracoma Mine accident had happened when a conveyor belt in the Aracoma Mine No. 1 at Logan WV caught fire. The conveyor belt ignited on the morning of January 19, 2006, pouring smoke through the gaps in the Stopping line and into the intake that the miners were supposed to se for their escape, obscuring their vision and ultimately leading to the death of two of them. If the stoppings had been in place they would have prevented any smoke from the conveyor belt to the intake the primary source of air for workers inside the mine. Instead investigators now believe, smoke flooded into the air intake, which also serves as an escape route, disorienting two of the min ers, who became lost and died in the fire. The two men, Ellery Hatfield, 47 and Don Bragg, 33, died of carbon monoxide poisoning when they became separated from 10 other members of their crew. The others held hands and edged through the air intake amid dense smoke. As the federal agency that conducts research to advance mine safety and personal protective technologies, moves the results of research to workplace practice, and tests and certifies respirators for workplace use, NIOSH is working with diverse partners to plan, support, and carry out research that addresses those needs. Areas of focus include:Innovative designs for SCSRs that will provide air to users for longer durations. NIOSH is interested in new technologies for training that simulates actual respirator use. Realistic training that can be done frequently and efficiently will improve miners’ ability to escape. Changes in requirements for evaluating and testing SCSRs . Collaboration with the Mine Safety and Health Administration to update current training modules for donning SCSRs. Updates will incorporate guidance on the donning of multiple SCSRs during an emergency escape, reflecting new requirements under the MINER Act of 2006. Those provisions require mine operators to provide individual miners with immediate access to at least two SCSRs, and to store extra units along escape ways. Aracoma brought about more of training and provision to strengthen their ability to inspect better and enforce laws and regulations in place such as:better tools for cracking down on companies with patterns of violations, stronger protections for whistle blowers, stiffer criminal penalties and quick fix injunctive relief that would let the Department of Labor act decisively against an operator when it identifies an immediate threat The Upper Big Branch Mine disaster occurred on April 5, 2010 underground at Massey Energys Upper Big Branch mine at in Raleigh County, West Virginia. Twenty nine out of thirty one miners at the site were killed. The explosion occurred at 3:27 pm. The accident was the worst in the U. S. since 1970. High methane levels were detected and subsequently an explosion from an unknown source occurred. Twenty five men were initially killed. Four days later the four missing men were found dead for a total of 29 deaths. While investigations is still ongoing, officials have speculated that it may have been caused by a spark from a mantrip. Due to the large area and concentration of toxic gases mine rescue teams were able to enter and kept getting ulled out delaying rescue and recovery efforts until holes were drilled for ventilation. They were many problems in the past with violations as with many mine who have had disasters miners were scared some even left notes before the explosion and due to the size of the explosion there had to be large amounts of dust as well as methane of course Massey is denying their responsibility they have already prosecuted some officials I would write more on this disaster that we all have heard many reports and are familiar with this disaster but I do not wish to speculate ore until the investigations are complete and I am stating facts instead of opinions I would not like to speculate on something that has effected so many lives of my fellow miners and their families. Although they have not really been any changes in laws and since the Upper Big Branch explosion other than the non-combustible material has raised to 80% or better in returns instead of 60%. Since the April 2010 explosion the safety agency has also ramped up enforcement created new mine safety screening procedures and conducting 228 impact inspections at mines with poor safety records or other warning signs of problems. The agencys new screening procedures were put in place after officials discovered that a computer error had allowed Upper Big Branch to evade heightened scrutiny. The agency has also proposed new safety rules that would result in speedier enforcement for mines that have shown a pattern of serious violations. The Monongah Mine disaster of Monongah, West Virginia occurred on December 6, 1907 and is labeled as the worst mining disaster in American History. The explosion was said to be caused by the ignition of methane which ignited the coal dust in mines number 6 and 8, killing hundreds of workers. Rescue workers could only work in the mines for 15 minutes due to the lack of breathing equipment. Some of those workers also perished due to suffocation caused by methane oxidation. The lives of 362 or more workers including children were lost in the underground explosion, leaving 250 widows and more than 1000 children fatherless. The exact death toll remains unknown. The worst of the explosion occurred in the No. 8 mine and so great was its force that the concrete roof of the engine house was torn into fragments and one piece weighing more than 100 pounds was blown more than 500 yards. The victims came to their deaths suddenly. Many were found sitting upright in the positions they were in when the explosion came with its spread of deadly gases. The scenes at the mines during the work of rescue were pitiful in the extreme. For several days frantic women grouped about the opening of the mines and their shrieks of agony were enough to move the hardest heart to pity. Grief stricken mothers, wives, sweethearts and sisters waited and watched and cried and prayed. Although the village of Monongah was unprepared for the disaster relief work was quick nd effective. Relief parties were rapidly formed and additional forces were hurried from Fairmont and adjacent cities and towns. But with a few exceptions there was no need for the physician and the rescuer -death to those in the mines came fully and suddenly and without suffering. The mine officials as well as the officials of the B. O. Railroad Company took an active part in the relief and many acts of bravery were performe d by the volunteers who entered the mines in search of the victims. Appeal for funds with which to carry on the relief work mong the families of those who perished met with a quick response. The sole survivor of the blast was Peter Urban. He found a small foxhole to climb out before the toxic gases reached him. Some believe that several other men escaped with him but there is little evidence to validate that. Although they are some difference in these explosions they are similarities between them. Most of them the true cause may never be known. Many of them had also been repeat offenders of violations. From all mining disasters they have been new laws or regulations with stiffer compliance, improved training and technology. If you couldnt tell from the Upper Big Branch you can see that when a disaster happens in the mines West Virginia supports each other all miners are familys and close and we support each other. Although the mining industry remains dangerous we have took great strides for improved safety and will continue to pursue that goal, not only have we made great strides in the mining but also in Mine Rescue from training and equipment improvements and hopefully many more will come in to be better prepared to save the lives of fellow miners if such a disaster was to happen again.

Credit Card Security Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Credit Card Security - Research Paper Example is known as the Fraud Protection Guarantee, wherein the card holder is free from any fraudulent charges whether the credit card is used on the internet or not. It promotes maximum security because of its secure encryption technology that keeps the cardholders information strictly confidential (americanexpress.com, n. p.). For secure and safe online shopping, MasterCard has its MasterCard Secure Code; it works as having a personal code only known to the cardholder. Visa on the other hand, is also cooking up its own scheme of credit card security measure. counterfeit credit card, which makes up 37 percent of credit card frauds. Criminals who make fake credit cards employ the latest technology to "skim information" that are embedded on the magnetic stripes of the credit card and pass security measures, like holograms ("Credit Card Fraud Statistics and Facts," n. p.). In other words, using credit card online makes you susceptible to all kinds of credit card fraud. One interesting question is how criminals get a hold of your information. Although the most common perception is that credit card info is intercepted once the card is used online. That is an interesting theory, but experts explain that e-commerce has created an environment where anonymity is practiced; meaning cards are being used even without identifiers (Faughnan, n. p.). This could be the one problem that big credit card companies try to address with the code systems of their new security measure program. Another way of stealing a cardholders information is using a particular online business as a front to get credit card info. One common and enticing site is pornography site. Such is designed as a legitimate business, thus can easily asked for a persons credit card information once that person is interested in one of the sites services. This is what is identified as selling information because these are vendors and purchasers that only deal with information and need no physical a ddress for

DIOPHANTUS A KEY FIGURE IN THE HISTORY OF ALGEBRA Essay

DIOPHANTUS A KEY FIGURE IN THE HISTORY OF ALGEBRA - Essay Example He was a Greek mathematician who was born, raised and lived in Alexandria in Egypt which was considered a striking center for learning and culture in the Greek world. During his time he was best known for his collection of books arithmetica which was a landmark work in the algebra history. He had a very huge influence on the development of number theory with the Diophantine equations (Book Rags, n.d). Diophantus’ book The Arithmetica was a much higher one on level compared to the others as it had (or it gave) many amazing solutions to the difficult indeterminate equations. He was very keen as he did not have any impression for zero and tried as much as he could to avoid negatives in his equations. His keenness drove him at three types of quadratic equations that include ax2 + bx = c, ax2 = bx + c and ax2 + c = bx. However despite him using the three types, today’s mathematics only one case (only one quadratic equation) is looked at. He also considered other various types of problems. He was good at solving many mathematics problems that included the pairs of simultaneous quadratic equations (Algebra.com) Diophantus made many contributions to algebra and one of contributions which will be discussed in detail is the problems of Arithmetica. There are six books of Arithmetica that present the indeterminate and determinate problems and they are treated using algebraic inequalities and algebraic equations. Diophantus moves from the simple to difficult in the degree of the unknown numbers and equations. All his works are summed in the sixth book which has a number of exercises that belong to a variety of group problems. The exercises are related to the right triangle and without taking into consideration the dimensions; the polynomials are created from the surface and from the sides and once from the angle bisector (encyclopedia.com., 2011). The first book by Diophantus contains the determinate problems that are of the second and the first degree.

Near Earth Objects (NEOs) Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

Near Earth Objects (NEOs) - Research Paper Example Depending on how close they are to the Earth, they can be spotted with the naked eye, or they can be spotted with a telescope. Rather than clustered together, a comet is a single large object with a long tail. More often than not, it is the tail, and not the main part of the comet that can be seen. Near Earth Objects might be fun to look at, but they are capable of doing catastrophic damage. Craters around the world pay homage to the respect that they undoubtedly deserve. One of the most widely accepted theories for the extinction of dinosaurs is that a massive meteor struck the planet and radically changed both climate and atmosphere. Fortunately, when it comes to this modern age, there are methods and theories in which to deflect NEOs. All of these are untested, however, and have only performed in labs. A meteor, or meteorite, is a body of rock, ice, or metal that enters the Earth’s atmosphere. Many of these are small and harmless, and burn up upon entering the atmosphere. W hen you see a shooting star, or a meteor shower, that is what you are seeing. While no threatening meteors have recently struck the Earth’s surface, the evidence is all around us. The largest crater in the world, created by a meteor, is in South Africa in an area called the Vredforte Dome. This meteor hit the Earth more than 2 billion years ago, and was around 10 km in diameter. According to science, the impact of the meteor might have been massive enough to jumpstart multicellular life by increasing the amount of oxygen in the atmosphere. There are, to date, 841 World Heritage sites around the world. A World Heritage site is a special place that has either a cultural or a physical significance. These sites are chosen by the UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization), which has been around since 1945. While Earth appears safe for the most part, it has had its share of close calls. One such close call occurred in September of 2004. An asteroid b y the name of Toutatis swept by Earth, missing it by about a mile. Several kilometers in diameter, if Toutatis or a rock like it were to hit Earth, it would devastate life as humans know it. The sun would be obscured by a huge cloud of dust that would travel around the globe, changing the temperature and climate of the Earth. Plants would start to die from lack of sunlight, unable to complete their cycles of photosynthesis, and herbivores would begin to starve. Humans would have major crop failure as well, and would need to resort to another means of sustenance. Eventually, over time, civilization would cease to be. Food, if any survived at all, would be both precious and hard to come by. Water would become stagnant and toxic to drink, as the evaporation process would be altered without sunlight. The impact of a NEO of this size would ultimately either destroy all life on the planet, or force evolution into overdrive. A rare NEO that is usually only seen by astronomers with high-pow ered telescopes and other special equipment is the comet. These massive objects are made up of ice and organic material. They carry behind them a long ‘tail’, which consists of ice and other materials that it picks up as it hurtles through space. The ‘head’ of the comet is called a nucleus, which consists of the ice and organic materials. The core of the nucleus is as yet unknown. These beautiful objects are far older than many of the planets in the solar system, the majority of them estimated to be

Freedom is an illusion

Freedom is an illusion Brief 106213 ‘Freedom is an illusion.’ Discuss. Roger Scruton once remarked that there are ‘two sources of the metaphysical conundrum of human existence: one is consciousness, the other one is freedom.’ (Scruton: 227). Philosophers have long been perplexed by questions of freedom and necessity in human life. This essay will focus on Enlightenment philosophy which has given a formidable response to those who maintained that freedom in the social domain is a chimera. Amongst Enlightenment philosophers Immanuel Kant has probably formulated the most consistent and compelling argument for the existence of human freedom and it is his notion of the intricate connection between liberty and autonomy that will receive most attention in this essay. Philosophers have often approached the issue of human freedom from two different angles. First, they often conceptualised freedom under the rubrics of the absence or presence of constraints in the social sphere. Political philosophers have mainly engaged in this version of theorising freedom. The question they asked is most poignantly captured by Rousseau who notes that the real mystery of freedom is how we can be in chains and still regard ourselves as free (Rousseau: 181). While Thomas Hobbes considered freedom a matter of external impediments to an intended action, Rousseau extended this notion of impediment by querying whether social practices and laws should consequently be perceived as constraints and how we could possibly justify the existence of such laws and rules. Rousseau accepted that rules may facilitate the varied co-operative schemes amongst strangers. Yet, he argued any laws of society clearly required some justification, one that was rooted not in tradition but in reason. He writes: ‘the problem is to find a form of association†¦ in which each [individual], while uniting himself with all, may still obey himself alone, and remain as free as before.’ (Rousseau: 191) The second, and arguably more philosophical perspective which philosophers formulated however takes a more fundamental view of human life. It does not concentrate on the various external constraints which may act as obstacles in our multifarious pursuits of life, but whether we have the capacity to act freely at all. David Hume framed this viewpoint when he explored the relationship between reason, passion and action in his work A Treatise of Human Nature. In an insightful passage he notes that reason may be instrumental in identifying the connections between causes and effects, but must inevitably fail to contribute to the objects of our will. He thereby sets the tone of the argument which Immanuel Kant took up only decades later with such analytic precision. Hume notes: ‘Nothing can oppose or retard the impulse of passion, but a contrary impulse†¦We speak not strictly and philosophically when we talk of the combat of passion and of reason. Reason is, and ought only to be the slave of the passions, and can never pretend to any other office than to serve and obey them.’ (Hume: 415) And in a famous sentence, Hume draws the radical conclusion: ‘Tis not contrary to reason to prefer the destruction of the whole world to the scratching of my finger.’ (Hume: 416) But if Hume’s radical scepticism as to the influence of reason on individual volition was correct, are we condemned to go wherever our passions and impulses take us? Kant was at pains to point out that human life possesses an ethical quality which cannot be grounded in the manifold desires and urges that individuals happen to find themselves in. Any viable notion of moral conduct must presuppose a capacity to reason and, critically, assumes a notion of freedom that we cannot deny anybody else. Freedom is a prerequisite of ethical behaviour. Kant thought that Hume had overlooked an essential dimension of the relationship between passions and human action. Although he granted that desires and impulses that are contingent upon circumstances may generate the goals of human conduct whether or not we pursue a once identified object of desire or a certain course of action crucially depends on its compatibility with the most fundamental moral law, the categorical imperative, which is ‘†¦ the principle to act on no other maxim than that which can also have as an object itself as a universal law.’ (Kant: 63) This leads Kant to conclude that freedom is the most fundamental category of social existence for those that are capable of rationality. As Scruton notes, for Kant ‘freedom is the presupposition for the applicability of the moral law’ (Scruton: 234). However, if this was all there is to Kant’s argument he would only have presented us with another reason why we ought to assume that individuals act freely when they behave morally. First of all, Kant reminds us that as humans we are at once part of the world of nature and of the world of reason. As to our impulses and desires that we happen to have, we are part of the animal world. We understand them in terms of necessity, generated by physical circumstances. No moral standards apply. It matters little whether we approve of being hungry or sleepy; ethical maxims cannot alter our state of affairs in any remarkable way. As such, human beings are subject to the natural laws that govern the domain of nature. We cannot suspend these laws even if we disapprove of them. On the other hand, however, man is a creature that is capable of rational thought and as such he has given himself laws to live by. These laws are often arbitrary, but Kant intends to show that there is at least one law that regulates human life which possesses universal applicability. The issue Kant has to confront is one that echoes Rousseau’s dilemma of how to reconcile laws and freedom. For Kant, his question is under which conditions individual agency can impose norms and rules onto itself while still remaining to be unfettered by extraneous circumstances. For Rousseau it was the question of identifying those laws of society that would accommodate individual (external) freedom with legal constraints. Kant challenges us first of all to consider under which conditions we can speak of a free will. He argues that human volition must be self-determined to be plausibly considered as free. If the will is subject to extraneous circumstances or influences if ceases to express itself freely in our actions. In this scheme of things, freedom can only be preserved if the moral laws that individuals endorse and accept as their guidance are such that they can accept them voluntarily (Kant: 57-58). Kant notes that man may come to approve of various rules of social co-operation for a variety of reasons, some of them ethically more obscure than others. What may appear to be actions done out of benevolence may turn out to be done with a personal benefit in mind. Kant is adamant that we cannot accept any rules for spurious or ethically nebulous reasons. Accepting a maxim out of selfishness does not produce a good, but a morally flawed norm. Equally, adopting a morally hazy rule even with best intentions cannot lay the foundations of a just society. In a brilliant analytical sequence Kant guides us to the solution of this problem: The only truly good entity, he argues, is a good will (Kant: 14-15). It is only determined by itself and so accepts no other authority than itself. In fact, it produces true authenticity of human conduct. Now, any inherently good will must recognise that there is only one maxim that reflects accurately the notion of an ethical norm; Kant writes: ‘Act only on that maxim whereby thou canst at the same time will that it should become a universal law.’ (Kant: 38) Kant’s argument provides us with a formidable justification for assuming that freedom is the necessary and indispensable condition of human existence given that man has the capacity to act upon the commands of reason: that is the categorical imperative. He writes: ‘Now I affirm that we must attribute to every rational being which has a will that it has also the idea of freedom and acts entirely under this idea. †¦ (The individual) must regard itself as the author of its principles independent on foreign influences. Consequently, [any individual] must regard itself as free.’ (Kant: 65) For Kant, being human is tantamount to being free. Only freedom guarantees that we can plausibly speak about moral responsibility. And although Kant’s argument in favour of the categorical imperative has attracted much criticism, his idea of freedom and individual autonomy still offers us a remarkable benchmark in normative ethical theory. David Hume (1989). A Treatise of Human Nature. [1739]. Edited by L.A. Selby-Bigge. Oxford: Clarendon. Immanuel Kant (1949). Fundamental Principles of the Metaphysics of Morals. [1785]. Indianapolis New York: Liberal Arts Press. Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1973). The Social Contract and Discourses. [1762] Translated and introduced by G.D.H. Cole. London: Everyman. Roger Scruton (1997). Modern Philosophy. A Survey. London: Arrow.