A Comparison of Crying of Lot 49 and White Noise Essay -- comparison c

A Comparison of Crying of Lot 49 and White Noise    Pynchon's novel The Crying of Lot 49 has much in common with Don DeLillo's book White Noise. Both novels uncannily share certain types of characters, parts of plot structure and themes. The similarities of these two works clearly indicates a cultural conception shared by two influential and respected contemporary authors.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Character similarities in the two novels are found in both the main characters and in some that are tangential to the plots. The two protagonists of the works, Oedipa Maas of Lot 49 and Jack Gladney of White Noise, are characters struggling to make sense of their worlds, and yet, both are afraid to face pure, filtered truth. Oedipa is inadvertently sent on a quest, which she embraces as a possible mechanism of bringing new meaning into world of tupperware parties. On her journey Oedipa is innundated with new and baffling information which she is either a series of clues to a counter culture or Pierce Inverarity's attempt to extend himself beyond his death. This dichotomy sets up the theme of binary opposites in novel. Oedipa's journey does not end in a final choice of one realm or the other, confirming one of the novel's other assertions, that excluded middles are "bad shit" ( J. Kerry Grant eloquently discusses Oedipa's journey in terms o f binary opposites and a search for meaning in the introduction to his A Companion to "The Crying of Lot 49" (pp. xv-xvi)).   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Jack Gladney also involves himself and his family in a series of journeys, which are searches for safety and understanding, yet share Oedipa's focus on finding a new reason for existence. Jack and his wife Babbette are afraid of dying. Their worries, conversations,... ...s comfort in bulk, Babette runs the stairs of a football stadium, and both become involved with the intensely neurotic Dylar conspiracy.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   The concept of enframing, the reducing of something to a representation which man produces and consumes, is prevalent in both these novels as well. In White Noise the most obvious examples are "The Most Photographed Barn in America" (pp.12-13) and Nature T.V., and in Lot 49 it can be seen in the man made lake, Lake Inverarity. Enframing is an example of both the possibility of a meta-conspiracy, and of mankind's attempt to shield himself from reality. The mass produced and readily consumable objects and ideas that appear in both novels are presented as being the possible result of a conspiracy to homogenize and control people, or an attempt by people to distance themselves from the real world and truth.   

Reaction to Beloved :: essays research papers

Reaction To Beloved   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  The movie Beloved was a tale of a woman who is so devastated by the evil of slavery. Therefore she is willing to kill her toddler daughter rather than allow her to be taken back into the horror. This murderous act proves itself to be a choice, which only further enslaves her soul as her daughter’s ghost haunts her life. The movie was set in the 1800’s. Sethe is a pregnant slave on a Kentucky plantation named Sweet Home. She was under control by a violent slave master. To me there is no reason or excuse for this kind of evil. The enslavement and brutal treatment of our fellow human beings is a spiritual scar.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  When Sethe gives birth to Beloved and is reunited with her children in Ohio. The happiness of this reunion is turn into a tragic event as she sees her former master riding up to the house with the local sheriff. Sethe knows that he is coming back to take her children back into slavery, she runs into the shed, cuts the throat of her two year old daughter, Beloved, and hits her sons’ heads with a shovel. Her sons didn’t die but beloved did. Soon after the tragic event the spirit of Beloved haunts Sethe’s house. The scene of seeing Sethe kill Beloved is very disturbing to witness. The ghostly tantrum of Beloved comes back over and over again to disrupt Sethe’s home. Her two sons become very scared by the haunts of Beloved. Sethe’s younger daughter, Denver becomes calm with her mother and the ghost, and she never leaves the house and yard. Sethe also becomes ok with the ghost presence in the house. She keeps denying that she did anything wrong by killing Beloved. So she feels that she doesn’t need any help.  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  This is often the way evil take over our lives. Rather than having the courage to face the evil we suffer , as Sethe did she affected her own children with this violence. Sethe became in denial with her responsibility. She accepted the pain of her guilt and shame with a lie towards her dignity. She felt everything was right and didn’t want to ask for forgiveness and victory over the evil. But soon a physical form of Beloved comes to Sethe’s house. The girl who act as Beloved is real and demanding like a spoiled child.

Emotional Marketing: Necessity of Today’s Marketing Management

The purpose of this paper is to write an analysis of an article that discusses an aspect of marketing management. During my research I was attracted to an article by James Cooper Titled, ‘Emotional Marketing as the Basis of Your Promotions’; after reading Coopers article I found Emotional Marketing to be interesting, but his article did not provide enough data to satisfy my interest in Emotional Marketing . So, rather than write about a single article, I have chosen to write about the topic of Emotional Marketing and its necessity in today’s Marketing Management. Marketing mangers must understand that if the consumers’ emotions are addressed in the right way they could get more loyal customers. This has unlashed the approach to marketing which was termed as â€Å"Emotional Marketing† (Drypen). Cooper points out that, â€Å"Marketing to today’s consumers is a challenging business because you are no longer listing the specifications of products and services. Instead you are meeting people on an emotional level to break into their consumer awareness†. As part of a company’s marketing strategy producers need to realize that there is a strong emotional connect between consumers / customers and the products they use. Brands that don't make emotional connections with their prospects and customers will eventually lose out to those that do. The practice of emotional marketing as it relates to value proposition is all about getting your target audience to connect with your product, service, and brand at a very basic and fundamental level – the level of emotions. When building customer value, emotional marketing can be used in influencing customer perceived value and total customer benefit. Some examples of firms that are successful in this application can be seen with top brands such as Starbucks, Porsche, and so on. These products and services make an emotional connection with the people they serve. They have met the challenge of identifying how its products/services can connect emotionally. They have explored what type of experience their product can offer its customers and the perceived value to customer above the firm’s competitors. Emotional marketing can only take place once the company delivers a user experience that represents its purpose. Once the company is able to deliver on that promise, it can market the experience to consumer prospects. Companies must leverage: customer testimonials, word-of-mouth, discussion forums, and trials (marketingscoop). Ideally the company wants its products or services to deliver an experience, and gets prospects to participate along with having the experience themselves. Emotional marketing is a powerful strategy if you can deliver a strong customer experience, thus, leveraging the experience to maximize customer satisfaction in the long run. On the other hand, there are the companies that use emotional marketing when customers are having a not so positive customer experience. These companies take advantage during times of crisis and turmoil. An example of this is appealing to the public during an epidemic or natural disaster and offering short term solutions. Many times the products or services offered are not even effective, nor do they provide the experience the customer desires. Furthermore, the customers’ negative experience is just the opportunity that some companies are looking for to capitalize on short run profit maximization. Leveraging emotional marketing can help in evaluating and selecting market segments to exploit. If and when the marketing/promotion appeals to the emotional aspects of customers the companies, in some cases, can move toward targeting a ‘supersegment’. For example, many symphony orchestras target people who have broad cultural interests, rather than those who only regularly attend concerts (Kotler & Keller pg 229). The product appeal is more toward a cultural or emotion interest rather than that of a physiological need. Emotion acts as a catalyst in the engine of the purchase decision process. Through experience and learning, people acquire attitudes. These in turn influence buying behavior (Kotler & Keller, pg 170). This is important since favorable and unfavorable experiences trigger emotional feeling toward a product or service being marketed. Cooper’s article, â€Å"Emotional Marketing as the Basis of Your Promotions† only touched on promotion of the product as it appeals to emotional marketing. After further research I found that emotional marketing throughout the marketing process is important in its application to: marketing strategy, customer value, target markets, brands, market segment, customer satisfaction and purchasing decisions. In conclusion, marketing managers must understand that costumers get attracted to products which effect there feelings. Companies which want to stand above the competition have to leverage emotional marketing so as to increase market share. Effective development in emotional marketing can shift a marketing challenger or market follower to position of market leader. Thus, making emotional marketing a necessity of today’s marketing management. References Cooper, J. , (Feb. 2008) Emotional Marketing As The Basis Of Your Promotions , Written for Marketinglinx. com, retrevied from the World Wide Web on 14 May 2009 at http://www. articlesbase. com/marketing-articles/emotional-marketing-as-the-basis-of-your-promotions-325335. tml Kotler, P. , & Keller, K. ,(2006), Marketing Management 13th edition, Pearson Prentice Hall. Upper Saddle River, New Jersey Drypen, (Nov. 2008),Emotional Marketing – to Play the Emotional Tune is the Necessity of Today's Marketing, written for Drypen. com, retrevied from the World Wide Web on 14 May 2009 at http://www. articlesbase. com/authors/drypen/73887. htm Unknow n, (2009), Making an Emotional Connection with Your Customers, written for marketingscoop. com, retrevied from the World Wide Web on 14 May 2009 at http://www. marketingscoop. com/emotional-marketing. htm

Privacy of Electronic Medical Records

A service related health care organization with staff to patient ration of 1:100 can be described as acutely understaffed. This is a scenario where nurses and doctors are allocated more patients than they can handle efficiently. It puts patients at a danger of getting worse medically or even dying.This is a situation where drug errors, diagnosis and other medical errors are likely to occur. Due to nurse attrition they may record wrong findings and measurements because of pressure to accomplish certain goals within limited time. In most cases understaffed organizations suffer lack of technological input where it is manifested by use of outdated methods of.In a case where a hospital is understaffed, communication among doctors and other staff in such a hospital is poor thus leading to problems that have a ripple effect nature in the running of the institution. Administrative functions are hampered because most of the duties have to be executed manually.The quality of health care is ver y poor because every patient is not given the proper personal attention that they require because other patients will be waiting for the physician that is attending to him or her. Lack of accuracy in writing medical records is commonplace for such an institution because writing the information manually can make someone feel worn out at some point and result in erratic writing.Another cause for errors is the fact that some of the prescriptions or diagnoses are done in illegible handwriting giving a hard time to those who are supposed to act on them.Patients’ mortality and morbidity rate is therefore high as a result. Due to the large number of patients that have to be attended to by one nurse, a problem of retrieval of medical information of the patients becomes a hectic task because files have to be searched manually.This puts patients who need urgent treatment at a risk because time may be lost in trying to allocate their personal information which normally has their medical history and forms the basis on which the physicians act. In addition to this the files may be dilapidated because of wear and tear making the information blurred and illegible, and some of the materials could also get misplaced and scattered all over. All these problems summed up, lead to poor co-ordination in the hospital as well as inefficiencies in the administration.Information technology is indispensable in any health organization because according to Jack Duncan it facilitates health care that is of high quality and is cost effective.Through Electronic Medical Records, Once a patient visits the hospital they give their personal information and on diagnosis of their ailment, findings are recorded against the information as well as other details like prescriptions and orders to other health institutions. This technology ensures accuracy, precision and completeness. It is the same development that enables the creation of reminders and alerts for practitioners to administer drugs to patients thereby saving lives.Electronic Medical records are advantageous in that with consent from patients, other health providers have access to their medical records. The advantage of having such a situation is that a patient is attended to in time since less time is used in finding out his or her medical history regardless of which health institution he or she has attended. Some patients call in hospital too sick to talk or are even subconscious but once some basic information is known about them like their identification, the physician goes right ahead with treatment without having to interview them.Electronic medical records are kept by health organizations for reference and must be kept securely. It is a statutory requirement under state and federal laws for every health organization to keep them protected from access by unauthorized people (Barrows, Randolph and Clayton, Paul. 1996).The security is for the protection of patients from victimization by employers because o f certain health conditions or by their insurers. Disclosure of patients’ confidential information is capable of jeopardizing the integrity of the organization involved on account of defamation, medical malpractice and subjection of patients to emotional distress (Bennett, Bob. 1995).A health care organization therefore has the legal obligation to provide security for any confidential medical information. Physicians are also not allowed to have access to a patient’s medical record without their consent. Electronic technology enhances efficiency in the storage of medical records as well as accessibility.

Decision Making in an Addicted Brain Essay

Decision making is a mental process of selecting a course of action. We exercise this right to free will on a very regular basis. We often think this right comes easily to us, however in individuals with neurological addictions decision making can be a difficult process. With individuals who are addicted to a substance or habit decision making is abnormal (Fecteau, 2010). When an addict partakes in the substance they are addicted to there is often a rush or feeling of relief. If an addict is attempting to quit using a substance, they often attempt to obtain a similar feeling of satisfaction. Typically recovering addicts turn to risky decision making due to the fact that when one makes a risky choice the two experiences share similar behavioral sensations (Fecteau, 2010). Understanding how addicts make decisions based on their addiction is crucial in planning treatment options in order to suppress drug cravings in substance abusing patients. Through certain testing, scientists have discovered that specific, noninvasive brain stimulation can aid in the suppressing of drug cravings in addicts. The inference was made that if we can stimulate a portion of the brain that controls decision making in the average human, we can aid in the suppression of cravings. This portion of the brain is called the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (Fecteau, 2010). It is located in the frontal cortex of the brain which controls other things such as mannerisms, social and sexual behavior, as well as decision making. With this technique of addiction suppression, there are many things to take into consideration. These things could be possible implications with the therapy, moral values as to whether testing this method on humans is humane, as well as whether or not there could be possible health risks in the future. This method of addiction suppression is an interesting one that could potentially make shaking an addiction much less difficult if the risks turn out to be minimal. References Fecteau, S., Fregni, F., Boggio, P. S., Camprodon, J. A., & Pascual-Leone, A. (2010). Neuromodulation of Decision-Making in the Addictive Brain. Substance Use & Misuse, 45(11), 1766-1786.

Religious Rights of Women in Islam with Common Misconceptions of Research Paper

Religious Rights of Women in Islam with Common Misconceptions of Islamic Women in Western Culture - Research Paper Example In Islamic nations, and according to Sharia law, these have been conserved in a bid to empower women despite having secular western laws. As for marriage, women can either agree or refuse to marry, and the man has a responsibility to be the protectors of their wives according to the Islamic laws. Western laws have infiltrated most aspects of rights about criminal, financial and criminal law. Therefore, women have retained personal rights on a number of crucial issues that affect them. Islam, according to the Quran, advocates equality of both man and woman as God’s creations and grants women several rights that include the right to inherit property and own it. It also provides for women to be recognized as individuals with a legal personality unlike thoughts of Islamic women in the western world (Hashmi 591). This is because  the western world’s has  misconceptions of Islamic women being slaves to men in their households are greatly contradicted. However, Islamic wom en have a degree of inequality to men according to Quranic provisions that are followed in the Islamic world. The Islamic world allows for a patriarchy society where men are the leaders and are regarded as the financial providers. Moreover, Islamic religion stipulates that inheritance of women to be half of that which men receive from their parents (Hashmi 591). Thus, the misconceptions towards Islamic women in the western culture to a certain degree are justified, as the rights of women in Islam are sometimes discriminatory. In addition,  women are considered to be worth less than men; this is evident concerning bearing witness, where only the testimony of two men can hold against that of a single woman (Hashmi 592). This proves how much the religious rights of Islamic women are used against them. In western culture, Islamic women are viewed as oppressed and have no say in issues that affect them in the society. To many, this may be viewed as a misconception by the west whereas i t has a degree of truth in it. This is because those who understand the Islamic religion argue that inequality in gender issues is deeply rooted in Islamic religious literature. Moreover, rights movements are seen as products from the west and are considered secular and to have no effect in Islamic society. Therefore, Islamic women who participate in rights advocacy perceive themselves as facing oppression from their own religious beliefs; hence, they are alienated from the society.   However, there are groups of Islamic women who attempt to rewrite the religious rights granted to them by the same Islamic faith they profess (El-Mahdi 380). This is in a bid to have â€Å"normal† human rights applied to them similar to men; in addition, religion is taking a big part in influencing politics, therefore, affecting the religious rights of Islamic women. For example, Islamism is gaining ground in social politics, which, in turn, subordinates women’s rights in society concer ning political safety and legitimacy (El-Mahdi 382). Thus, Islamic women have enjoyed religious rights for a long period especially during colonization when secularization had allowed women to campaign for their rights, and for them be involved in the control of the patriarchal society (El-Mahdi 383). This was due to the weakening of the religious hierarchy and rise of secular institutions. In Islamic societies, Islamic religion does not bar or hinder the

Outline President Kennedys foreign policy problems as they related to Essay

Outline President Kennedys foreign policy problems as they related to Cuba - Essay Example This was intended to spur a rebellion to overthrow the then communist leader Fidel Castro. However, the mission was a failure and led to great embarrassment to the president (Haney & Vanderbush 45). Kennedy’s foreign policy was heavily influenced by the cold war, the continuing conflict of the Soviet Union as well as conflicts in Cuba. From 1960 until after the 1962 Missile crisis, the American objective was to get rid of Cubans leader, President Castro. Subsequently, during the years of the cold war the U.S foreign policy objectives were to get Cuba to halt its aid to revolutionaries, reduce its military ties to the Soviet Union and to show greater respect for human rights (Haney & Vanderbush 185). The United States trade embargo and other sanctions against Cuba have been in place for some 36 years, and the U.S policy towards the island has changed a little in that time. In the absence of full access to the diplomatic records in this country and abroad, it is not possible to resolve this debate on Kennedy fully, but certain studies by analysts on the Cuban missile crisis, lend support to the more friendly view of Kennedy. The president certainly made mistakes in foreign policy, and he raised more hopes than he fulfilled. However, he demonstrated a relatively cosmopolitan and sophisticated view of the world, grew in office, and had a feel for diplomacy, which for some time had been lacking in American