Phaedra essays

Phaedra essays Phaedra was a great play in my own opinion. In this play of love, jealousy, and plenty of turmoil to go around. The star Phaedra, is stricken by love. She is in love with her step-son and prince, Hyppolytus. Phaedra cursed the gods, in particular Venus, which was much like Aphrodite, the god of love. Her current husband and the father of Prince Hyppolytus, Theseus was known for slaying many beast, but Phaedra did not love him at all. She was in love with Hippolytus. Hippolytus was in love with Aricia., a simple slave that worked the palace. Theseus however did not approve of Aricia because of her standards, because that she was a servant and no man or woman of noble ancestry should marry or even love those of lesser descent. Phaedra was torn between a decision which was to stay with her husband or proclaim her love for her step son. Hyppolytus did not share the same love with Phaedra as she had with him, but this was unknown to Phaedras knowledge. Phaedra begin to wish death upon herself, but her nurse Oenone convinced her otherwise and to go to Hyppolytus and proclaim her love. Phaedra was skeptical about the whole thing, but went through with it anyways. Phaedra soon got her wish. Word came to the kingdom, that Theseus had been killed by a mythical creature called the Minotaur. Her and Oenone soon went through with Oenones plans to tell Hyppotylus. Hyppotylus after finding out this news was shocked. Phaedra had many advances on him, but after she found out that he was not exactly feeling the same about her she attempted suicide with Hyppotyluss sword. Hyppotylus did not attempt to stop her, but Oenone would not let Phaedra commit suicide like this, so she ran and took the sword from her and she then fled from Hyppotyluss presence. Phaedra once again preferred death over life, especially now after Hyppotylus didnt return the love and then on top of Theseus was proclaime...

Free Essays on Buddhism Vs Christianity

Buddhism Buddhism to me has always seemed to be something similar to that of a fairytale. Not knowing much about the religion, I couldn’t understand how you could live happily ever after by looking up to a fat guy and making weird chanting sounds to who knows who. Needless to say, for my exploration of culture, I chose Buddhism. To pursue my study, I attended a class at the Heruka Buddhist Center on October 17, and talked, afterwards, with a Western Buddhist nun, Gen Kelsang Losel, who came to Fort Collins from England for the center. The class was on contemplating the faults of attachments, a core belief among Buddhists. The session began with a half hour of meditation to relax the muscles of the body and release tension. Then for forty-five minutes she lectured. She talked about how all of our attachments and desires in our life lead us to pain and suffering. So in order to be happy, one must let go of our attachments. Following, was another session of meditation. Siddhartha Guatama, the founder of Buddhism, was born into a Hindu family where he was sheltered from pain and suffering. At age nineteen, he married his cousin and had had a son. At twenty-nine he left his wife and began a quest of inner illumination, recognizing that much of the world experiences suffering. Six years later he concluded that a life of self denial was futile. He sat under a tree and meditated for the first time, for this reason, Siddhartha was called Buddha which means enlightened one, and he realized that the cause of suffering was desire, attachment to material things. He spent the next forty years preaching the message of humility and compassion. He emphasized nirvana, which is what all Buddhists strive to achieve. It signifies the end of suffering and craving, the attainment of perfect peace. An Arahant is someone who has attained Nirvana. He said anyone can reach nirvana, by avoiding all extremes in accordance with the eightfold p... Free Essays on Buddhism Vs Christianity Free Essays on Buddhism Vs Christianity Buddhism Buddhism to me has always seemed to be something similar to that of a fairytale. Not knowing much about the religion, I couldn’t understand how you could live happily ever after by looking up to a fat guy and making weird chanting sounds to who knows who. Needless to say, for my exploration of culture, I chose Buddhism. To pursue my study, I attended a class at the Heruka Buddhist Center on October 17, and talked, afterwards, with a Western Buddhist nun, Gen Kelsang Losel, who came to Fort Collins from England for the center. The class was on contemplating the faults of attachments, a core belief among Buddhists. The session began with a half hour of meditation to relax the muscles of the body and release tension. Then for forty-five minutes she lectured. She talked about how all of our attachments and desires in our life lead us to pain and suffering. So in order to be happy, one must let go of our attachments. Following, was another session of meditation. Siddhartha Guatama, the founder of Buddhism, was born into a Hindu family where he was sheltered from pain and suffering. At age nineteen, he married his cousin and had had a son. At twenty-nine he left his wife and began a quest of inner illumination, recognizing that much of the world experiences suffering. Six years later he concluded that a life of self denial was futile. He sat under a tree and meditated for the first time, for this reason, Siddhartha was called Buddha which means enlightened one, and he realized that the cause of suffering was desire, attachment to material things. He spent the next forty years preaching the message of humility and compassion. He emphasized nirvana, which is what all Buddhists strive to achieve. It signifies the end of suffering and craving, the attainment of perfect peace. An Arahant is someone who has attained Nirvana. He said anyone can reach nirvana, by avoiding all extremes in accordance with the eightfold p...

Monitoring our home planet Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

Monitoring our home planet - Research Paper Example This paper will analyze the identified phenomenon that leads to natural disasters through a critique on the available web based monitoring resources. Earthquakes Earthquakes are sudden tremors that result from sudden release of energy from earth crust. The energy produces seismic waves that are experienced as earthquake. The magnitude of earthquake is determined by the degree of frequency of the resultant seismic waves. It is estimated that 500, 000 earthquakes occur annually and they are detectable with the current monitoring instruments. However, only 20% of the detectable earthquakes cannot be felt or experienced. Distribution of earthquakes around the globe is closely associated with tectonic stability. Regions with active geological activities such as volcanoes, and faults lines are more prone to earthquakes than more geologically stable regions. However, this does not restrict earthquakes to certain areas since areas that have never recorded cases of earthquakes such as New York often experience earthquakes that are below the detectable magnitude. The main earthquake zones around the world are closely associated with regions that have h istory of active volcanic activities, strong tidal waves, areas with natural fault lines and regions within tectonic plate interfaces. Seismometers are used to monitor seismic waves in the earth crust and predict earthquakes. Countries such as Japan, Haiti, Indonesia, and Turkey have experienced severe cases of earthquake in the recent past. Various resources have been set to monitor trends of seismic waves and the possibility of earthquakes. IRIS Seismic Monitor, Live Earthquakes Map and GeoNet – Quakes are some the main earthquake monitoring websites. The web based monitoring technology provides up-to-date information and data on earthquakes. However, the websites have a geographical bias and usually assume the welfare of developing countries. It is evident that the current geological system that depicts seismic hotspots is not accurate. However, the websites are restricted to availability and distribution of earthquakes monitoring infrastructures around the world. Politics plays a significant role in the recording and reporting of earthquakes and related information. Most of the global earthquake monitoring infrastructures such as satellites and seismic wave monitors are controlled by major world powers (Ollier, 1988). This indicates that availability of information concerning earthquakes is closely linked with global politics. In addition, data collection is mainly carried out in area that are of political interest. The seismic monitoring resources do not cover less developed countries or regions of less political interests. However, web based results can be used to predict occurrence of earthquakes in less developed countries through extrapolation methods. Global economics plays a critical role in monitoring and

Nation and States Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words - 4

Nation and States - Assignment Example Therefore, characteristics that identify a state include existence of a form of government, an organized economy, recognition of other existing states and their territorial legitimacy (White 67). The above distinctions between a state and a nation imply for instance that the Chinese, Americans, French and Swedes are nations, but China, United States of America, France, and Sweden are states (Shelley ix). Sometimes there are no clear distinctions between the two especially when countries such as the United States and India include smaller units also referred to as â€Å"states† but internationally, the these countries are still recognized as states. There are also examples where some nations and states have a close connection such as the case of most Japanese people living in state of Japan while a majority those residing in the state of Japan are also Japanese nationals. There are also cases where nations exist in more than one state in addition to a single state having several nations. This is the case for Arabs who are the many states found in North Africa and South-west Asia. Several definitions have been used to describe the Arab nation including those who are from the lineage of people ancient Arabia, those who speak Arabic as first language and having citizenship of a country that belongs to the League of Arab States. However, there is no single state for all Arab natio nals but multiple states that include Qatar, Libya, Saudi Arabia and Egypt among others (Shelley ix). Several factors place a nation like the United States at an advantaged position over a state like Afghanistan.  

Blown to Bits Essay Example for Free

Blown to Bits Essay Technology has rapidly advanced, affecting standards on privacy, telecommunications, and criminal law. Every day, we encounter unexpected consequences of data flows that could not have happened a few years ago. Due to the bits explosion, the world changed very suddenly. Almost everything is stored in a computer somewhere. Court records, grocery purchases, precious family photos, radio programs†¦ It is all being reduced to zeroes and ones – â€Å"bits.† The bits are stashed on disks of home computers and in the data centers of big corporations and government agencies. The disks can hold so many bits that there is no need to pick and choose what gets remembered. So much disk storage is being produced every year that it could be used to record a page of information, every minute or two, about you and every other human being on earth. Once something is on a computer, it can replicate and move around the world in a heartbeat. Making a million perfect copies takes but an instant – copy of things we want everyone in the world to see, and also copies of things that weren’t meant to be copied at all. Due to instantaneous transfers, some data leak. Credit card records are supposed to stay locked up in a data warehouse, but escape into the hands of identity thieves. And we sometimes give information away just because we get something back for doing so. A company will give you free phone calls to anywhere in the world—if you don’t mind watching ads for the products its computers hear you talking about. The book presents 7 ‘koans’ or principles regarding the bits and the effect of it on humanity. Koan 1: Even though your computer seems to present pictures, texts, songs, and videos, they are all composed of bits. Everything that’s digital are ruled by bits. Even as we speak, bits are flying through the airwaves by our phones. Koan 2: Every copy made by a computer is perfect. The era of books  being handwritten oftentimes resulting to mistakes, has now been closed by digital explosion. And even though these machines do fail as long as the bits have been communicated, the probability of error of the bits is so slim. Koan 3: Vast as world-wide data storage is today, five years from now it will be ten times as large. Yet the information explosion means, paradoxically, the loss of information that is not online. Outdated software and information not stored in the computer are usually assumed as inexistent. Koan 4: The speed of a computer is usually measured by the number of basic operations, such as additions, that can be performed in one second. The fastest computers available in the early 1940s could perform about five operations per second. The fastest today can perform about a trillion. Koan 5: Exponential growth is actually smooth and steady; it just takes very little time to pass from unnoticeable change to highly visible. In the rapidly changing world of bits, it pays to notice even small changes, and to do something about them. Koan 6: Data stored will all be kept forever, unless there are policies to get rid of it. The Internet consists of millions of interconnected computers; once data gets out, there is no getting it back. Victims of identity theft experience daily the distress of having to remove misinformation from the record. It seems never to go away. Koan 7: In the bits world, in which messages flow instantaneously, it sometimes seems that distance doesn’t matter at all. The instantaneous communication of massive amounts of information has created the misimpression that there is a place called â€Å"Cyberspace,† a land without frontiers where all the world’s people can be interconnected as though they were residents of the same small town. The book introduces two basic morals. The first is that information technology is inherently neither good nor bad—it can be used for good or ill, to free us or to shackle us. Second, new technology brings social change, and change comes with both risks and opportunities. Any technology can be used for good or ill. Nuclear reactions create electric power and weapons of mass destruction. The same encryption technology that makes it possible for you to email your friends with confidence that no eavesdropper will be able to decipher your message also makes it possible for terrorists to plan their attacks undiscovered. The key to managing the ethical and moral consequences of technology while nourishing economic growth is to regulate the use of technology without  banning or restricting its creation.

Its Time to Decriminalize Marijuana :: Marijuana Drugs Argumentative Persuasive Essays

It's Time to Decriminalize Marijuana Currently, drugs remain high on the lists of concerns of Americans and are considered one of the major problems facing our country today. We see stories on the news about people being killed on the street every day over drugs. To many people drugs are only an inner-city problem, but in reality they affect all of us - users and non-users. I believe that the negative affects we associate with drugs would be greatly reduced if the United States adopted a policy towards the total decriminalization of marijuana. The current drug policy of our government is obviously failing. Drug laws have created corruption, violence, increased street crime, and disrespect for the criminal justice system. Current drug legislation has failed to reduce demand. It's just too hard to monitor illegal substances when a significant portion of the population is committed to using drugs. (Inciardi and McBride 260) Marijuana comes from the hemp plant, which can readily be grown on fields across the nation and was cultivated heavily in colonial period. After 130 years of being legal, the potential problems of marijuana were brought into the public eye by Harry J. Anslingler, the commissioner of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics and author of Marijuana: Assassin of Youth (Goldman 88). In his book, Anslinger portrayed images of Mexican and Negro criminals, as well as young boys, who became killers while under the influence of marijuana. With the added public pressure, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt signed into law the Marijuana Tax Act of 1937. This law made the use and dale of marijuana federal offenses. At this point marijuana was removed from the public eye, and heavy users included poor Negroes, migrant Mexicans, and Jazz Musicians (Himmelstein 3). Marijuana reappeared in the mid 1960's with the emergence of the "Hippie." Widespread objection to the use of marijuana remained because of the set of valued and lifestyles associated with it, but use appeared in colleges and among middle-class youths in the suburbs (Himmelstein 103). Marijuana became a symbol of a counter-culture, and youthful rebellion. As a consequence, marijuana use rose for the next ten years. Marijuana was becoming more accepted across the nation. As the users of Marijuana changed, the attitudes about the danger of Marijuana broke down. In 1970, the Comprehensive Drug Abuse Prevention and Control Act reduced the classification of simple possession and non-profit distribution from felonies to misdemeanors (Himmelstein 104).

Argue for or Against the Electoral College Essay

The 2000 United States (U. S. ) presidential election concluded with Vice President Al Gore winning half a million more popular votes than George W. Bush (50,992,335 to 50,455,156) yet losing the White House in the Electoral College by only five votes (271 to 266). It once again raised questions about the validity of the Electoral College as the same scenario has occurred in the 1824, 1876, and 1888 presidential elections. This essay will discuss two problems of the Electoral College: the failure to accurately reflect national popular vote will and the problem of state bias. I argue that the U. S. should abolish the Electoral College and implementthe direct popular election of the president. The Electoral College fails to accurately reflect national popular vote will as it is possible to elect a minority president. As mentioned above, this â€Å"incident† has happened four times in history. The Electoral College is fundamentally unfair to voters where voting rights are grounded in the one person, one vote principle. By giving a chance for the Electoral College to elect a minority president, it shows that the Electoral College ignores the people’s choice. The Electoral College also faces the problem of state bias which favors the votes of some citizens over that of others. Firstly, it gives undue weight to the votes of citizens in the smaller states. As the constitution assigns a number of electors equal to the whole number of senators and representatives, each state will at least have three electors, including the smaller states. This system gives â€Å"bonus votes† to the smaller states since the three electors they have are more than what they deserve on the basis of their population share. Therefore, this bias gives added power to citizens of small states. For example, in the 2000 election, California cast one electoral vote for every 203,071 voters while Wyoming cast one electoral vote for every 71,242. Al Gore lost because his votes were not dispersed across the states in a such manner as to prevail in the Electoral College. The race was lost in the smaller states where Bush successfully won eleven out of eighteen small states. Secondly, the Electoral College and its winner takes all system gives greater voting power to the larger states since they have more electors. It is possible that a candidate could win the presidency with only 7% of the popular vote if he or she wins all of the eleven largest states without having to capture a single popular vote in the remaining 39 states and D. C. Therefore, candidates would spend more time in the larger states. To the extent that large states are not as competitive in larger states like California and Texas (solid blue and red states), candidates will target the more competitive larger states (swing states) such as Florida, Ohio, and Pennsylvania. This system discourages voter turnout and disenfranchises people who vote for the losing candidates in the solid blue or red states. This is because in these noncompetitive states, one or the other major party is traditionally victorious. There is arguably less motivation for citizens in that state to vote, no matter which candidate they might support because they know their vote will not matter. To conclude, U. S. should switch to direct election as it is the best system that guarantees the president has the â€Å" direct popular mandate† from the people. It also ensure representativeness (â€Å"one person, one vote†) and encourages voters turnout by giving voters a direct and equal role in electing the president.