Egypt And Mexican Culture Essays - Architectural Styles, Egyptology

Egypt And Mexican Culture For many centuries people have been fascinated by ancient cultures and treasures. During the last two centuries the science of archeology and modern inventions allowed people to get inside of the Egyptian and Mayan pyramids and discover the treasures of Egyptian pharaohs and Mayan rulers. Most of what we know about Egypt we owe to the pyramids. Thanks to Egyptian belief in the afterlife we can now find out about the civilization that existed nearly five thousand years ago. Egyptian culture is not the only culture that left us its heritage in pyramids. In America we find pyramids build by civilizations of Olmec and Maya about 7th century CE. These pyramids had different purposes and usage then the ones in Egypt but they stand as memorials to ancient civilizations as well. Egyptian people believed in life after death. One of the way pharaohs prepared themselves for the afterlife journey was by building a pyramid and putting there all their belongings and riches. Egyptian people believed that pharaoh is the closest person to the God and treated him accordingly. That is the reason for Egyptian tombs being full with the golden jewelry, precious stones and art objects. Most of the time art objects were not considered a treasury but they played their particular role in religious rituals. Jars were holding food and drinks for pharaoh's journey, so he would not get hungry and would have food and drinks to offer to the Gods. The figurative sculptures were suppose to accompany Ka ( spiritual entity) in its lonely stay or serve as a twin for the mummy. If something happens to the mummy the ka could use the sculpture of the pharaoh for the revelation. As well as for Egyptians religion was an everyday concern for many of the Maya, whether the dynastic ruler, the zealous priest, or the humble believer. Maya has an extensive religion structure which we can not know in details. Chac and Itzamna are the most famous gods of Mayan culture. Hunahpu and Xbalanque are among the most interesting mythical characters. One of the most crucial gods was Tlaloc, who was worshiped in various guises by the culture of Teotihuacan, the Toltec of Tula, and later Aztecs. The Maya received the cult of Tlaloc during the 4th century more or less. The Cauac Monster, also known as the Witz monster, is a dominant supernatural concept in Maya religion, as are caves, cenotes, and other holy places (Maya Civilization pars. 6). The Maya built shrines, temples, and pyramids in honor of their gods, as well as to their kings, who ruled by all-encompassing concept of Divine power. Most of Mayan pyramids are temples to the gods, not the burial tombs as in Egypt. Even though Maya sometimes buried there their rulers they always put the temple on the top of the pyramid. Egyptians had temples near the pyramid or right next to it for the ceremonial services, but it never was placed on top of the structure. Also buildings in both cultures have a lot in common in their visual characteristics they are different structures. Egyptian pyramids originally had smooth equal sides meeting on the top in the perfect apex. Mayan pyramids look like one huge stairway towards the sky. It reminds of earliest Egyptian structures-mastabas, where one layer of stones was put onto another creating the effect of pyramid. Also The Tikal Temple on Great Plaza was originally plastered white. Then the roof comb was painted with reds, blues, and other colors to accent the different areas of sculptural decoration. These roof combs were like giant billboards, with immense portrayals of the enthroned king, larger then life size (Cities pars.3). Egyptians never colored their religious structures. As well as in Egyptian pyramids, the stone used to construct Mayan pyramids is local limestone, obtained from nearby quarries. The ancient Maya had no stone tools but limestone is soft enough that the Maya could utilize chert tools to work the stone in to neat rectangular building blocks. Egyptian pyramids served as huge tombs and they were constructed in such a way so they would stand for thousand years. Egyptians did not know when the spirit would return into the dead body. Pyramids were constructed of rough stone blocks laid in horizontal rows, in a polygonal shape, with triangular sides rising to meet in the apex. Some were originally as high as 750 feet. The pyramids were built by taking blocks of granite to the workshops, measuring the blocks down the size, shaping the block and placing

Special Effects essays

Special Effects essays When you see a commercial, and animals are talking to each other and having human expressions you think, how did they do that? The answer is special effects. When you look at commercials, movies, cartoons, all of them have some sort of special effect. With the technology becoming better we begin to see more and different types of special effects. As with the movie Toy Story, being created all by computer, it was the first of its kind. As the times and movies progressed we have seen the increased usage of special effects and the steady improvement of the quality of the special effects. If we did not use Special Effects the revolution of movies would be really slow and boring and movies would be really basic. With Special Effects in movies we can create endless possibilities and bring dreams, illusions, and fantasies to life. Using special effects, we have brought dinosaurs, aliens, and other monsters to life. We have destroyed cities, people, and planets with special effects also. With computers we are able to create sceneries we would never think possible. With the help of computers we can create people, buildings, animals, monsters, aliens, and many other creations. Our creations in the computers can come out to life with a touch of a button. Special Effects are both an art and a science. The "science" part involves the complete understanding of how the audio-visual sensory parts of our body and brain perceive the world around us, while the "art" part involves the strategic use of this information to fool the sensory system. Without knowing what special effects is, it would be hard to understand what is necessary and needed to produce a good movie with special effects. Now there are two basic kinds of effects, computer generated and humanized effects. Computer generated effects consist of the Blue Screen/Matte, Computer Animation, and Composting. A blue screen/matte is when the foreground and backgro...

Health Risks and Benefits of Circumcision Research Paper

Health Risks and Benefits of Circumcision - Research Paper Example The main risk associated with circumcision is primarily credited to the surgical procedure itself. In a study conducted in the University of Washington, the authors were able to establish that out of 130,000 boys who had circumcisions at the Washington state hospital, 287 of them developed complications in relation to the procedure. The most common complications seen were intraoperative bleeding (230 cases) and damage to the penis (52 cases). The authors comment however that these are preventable risks which would still be outweighed by the benefits of circumcision. Most of the complications associated with circumcision are minor and are very much localized. Meatal stenosis is seen in circumcised males and is said to follow intraoperative vascular injury to the frenular vessels. Due to meatal stenosis, there may be a deflection of the urine system or in some cases; dysuria and occult hematuria may also be seen in the circumcised male. Reports of skin bridges forming when separated fo reskin come in contact with each other are sometimes also manifest in circumcised males, and this can cause pain and penile curvature during erection. Before the advent of improved anesthesia options, the neonatal pain experience has been emphasized as one of the main objections against circumcision. The pain experience is known to cause physiological responses, such as increased heart rate, respiratory rate, and serum cortisol level, lower serum oxygen saturation and lower vagal tone.

Geico ad campaigns and how they made the company successful Research Paper

Geico ad campaigns and how they made the company successful - Research Paper Example dvertisement campaigns strategy of GEICO integrates within it, and incorporates a vivid amount of mail circulars, radio advertisements, television parody and other forms of advertisements. The company has primarily utilized the punch line, which is "fifteen minutes could save you fifteen percent or more on car insurance." According to the owner of GEICO, Warren Buffett, approximately more than 40% of Americans are capable of making big savings on their money by utilizing the services and features of GEICO. He also mentioned that, if possible, then he could even have invested $2 billion merely on the advertisements of the company. There have been numerous advertisements of GEICO which have become the memorable one shot ads. They include many the following: A man owns a dog who wears a fire propinquity suit and a man's dog wears a fire proximity suit as he distributes the insurance company’s competing bill for the reason that it is "too hot to handle". The duck is on the adverti sement and is found saying (while clearing throat), "Am I on? GEICO could save you hundreds of money on car insurance. Result..." The bill is then removed by the duck and, in its place, a smaller bill is shown, while saying, "...Smaller bill." Another impressive advertisement shows that a long distance phone call is placed by a man through the operator. He uses the code name Bob Wehaddababyitsaboy in order to evade the call charges which could be billed to the recipient of the call. This commercial was run on for several weeks over the televisions and was named joke and had a pitch for GEICO. The ad was accompanied by the shot of a man who was shown further exploiting his name trick on the telephone. He was seen saying "Last name is Wehadababyitsaboyandweighs8pounds3ouncesandisdoingfine". This... Geico Ad Campaigns In the current era of increasing modernization, technical advancements and upgradations, the companies have widely taken the opportunities offered by the diverse media to present their distinctly produced goods and services.There have been numerous advertisements of GEICO which have become the memorable one shot ads.They include many the following: A man owns a dog who wears a fire propinquity suit and a man's dog wears a fire proximity suit as he distributes the insurance company’s competing bill for the reason that it is "too hot to handle".ïÆ'Ëœ The duck is on the advertisement and is found saying (while clearing throat), "Am I on? GEICO could save you hundreds of money on car insurance. Result..." The bill is then removed by the duck and, in its place, a smaller bill is shown, while saying, "...Smaller bill." ïÆ'Ëœ Another impressive advertisement shows that a long distance phone call is placed by a man through the operator. He uses the code name Bob Wehaddababyitsaboy in order to evade the call charges which could be billed to the recipient of the call. This commercial was run on for several weeks over the televisions and was named joke and had a pitch for GEICO. The ad was accompanied by the shot of a man who was shown further exploiting his name trick on the telephone. He was seen saying "Last name is Wehadababyitsaboyandweighs8pounds3ouncesandisdoingfine". This commercial had captured the attention of many viewers and had increased the popularity of the company.

Critically examine how effective the Single European Act has been in Essay

Critically examine how effective the Single European Act has been in creating a European Internal Market - Essay Example Through a historical overview of the treaties upon which the EU is founded, followed by a discursive analysis of the enlargement process, the creation of joint borders through the Schengen Agreement, and the formulation of a monetary regime whose outcome was he implementation of a single EU monetary unit, the research shall demonstrate that while the SEA contributed to both the deepening and the fortification of the integrative process, it is hardly single-handedly, or even primarily, responsible for the evolution of the EU of 2005. The European Union is a unique example of political economic integration. Even though Paul and De Burca date the creation of the EU to the birth of the Maastricht Treaty in 1993, others have contended this to be erroneous, insisting that the evolutionary process spanned five decades. This argument is forwarded by Molle (2001) and expressed in his contention that evolved from a limited common market with only six member states to a regional political and economic bloc, comprising twenty-five nations, in the span of five decades, the European Union provides political economists and legal scholars with a unique insight into the legal strategies and frameworks requisite for the realization of such an ambitious project. The European Union project, as noted by Molle (2001), was predicated on the assumption that regional political and economic unification could restore European global economic and political power and with this assumption functioning as a prime motivator, legislature and tr eaties among towards the realization of the stated goal, entered the formulation stage I 1948 and the implementation stage in 1952 (Molle, 2001). 1952 witnessed the passage and implementation of the EU’s founding treaty, the Treaty of Paris. At this stage, the European integration process was confined to the creation of the

Human Rights as a Global Issue

Human Rights as a Global Issue This essay will aim to explain and describe human rights, how it was recognised and how it is rapidly becoming a global issue in various countries. The essay will also go further to discuss Bentham’s theory relating to human rights and analyse the values of human rights with and without laws to protect them. Firstly, according to MM Wallace and Martin-Ortega â€Å"human rights are regarded as those fundamental and inalienable rights essential for life as a human being.†[1] Human rights are known to be the fundamental rights that belong to all and as such everyone is entitled to have these rights. There have been different ideas on human rights over past centuries; however it received international support as a result of the holocaust and the Second World War. As a result of this, the United Nation adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948 which sets out to protect human rights in various countries, to create awareness to individuals, to serve as a benchmark, to educate individuals on their rights, to serve as a political tool. There are different bodies under the United Nations that manage the affairs of human rights and these are the Human Rights committee, the Human rights commission which was replaced by the Human rights council. These bodies enforce and aim to maintain human rights laws in different countries to a certain extent. There are three different human right laws which are enforced and monitored in different ways; these are the international law, the regional law and the domestic law. According to the oxford dictionary international law â€Å"is a body of rules established by custom or treaty recognised by nations as binding in their relations with one another.†[2]The international law protects human rights globally and it consists of treaties and conventions such as International Convention on Civil and Political Rights, the United Nations Convention on Rights of a Child and the United Nations Convention against Torture. Apart from international law, the regional law is also used to protect rights and it consists of home-group treaties such as the European Convention on Human Rights, the African Charter on Human and People’s Rights and the American Convention on Human rights. Other than this, there is also domestic law that also serve the same purpose as the international and regional laws. Many countries have their own domestic human rights legislation which sets out to protect the rights of the citizens. For example, the United Kingdom has the Human Rights Act 1998 which came into force on 2nd October 2000. Looking at the points made above, it is clear to see that these laws support and implement human rights. Human rights are essential but without the law they have no real values. According to Bentham’s theory; he states that â€Å"natural rights are simple nonsense: natural and imprescriptible right, rhetorical nonsense- nonsense upon stilts.†[3] Bentham was stating that natural rights are nonsense because he believes that rights are things that cannot be seen and if these so called rights cannot be seen then the existence of them is actually unknown. He also goes further to explain that human rights are given to individuals by the sovereign because it is the sovereign that makes the laws and therefore the laws should back up human rights, so in essence human rights have to exist with the law or without it, it is valueless. In addition to this, human rights need to have laws to guide them so as to avoid infringement upon individual’s rights by the government which may lead to conflict and dispute which could eventually escalate to war. Furthermore international law can protect rights through the use of international trade. In international trade there are sanctions that are given to some countries that violate the human rights laws and these are known as embargos, tariffs and quotas. An embargo is the complete prohibition against importing foreign goods into the country while the tariffs are taxes that are placed on imported goods in a country. The quotas are limits on the amount of a particular good that should be imported into a country. The embargo is the most commonly used sanction for states that go against the law and it has proven to be effective to a certain extent. The embargos are imposed by the UN or the EU; examples of countries that have been embargoed from the United States are North Korea, Syria, Cuba, Iran, Somalia, Sudan and Libya. Although one can see that law is really needed to protect human rights but international law can be criticised. International law is ineffective and inefficient to a certain extent because there are still reports on the infringement on human rights in different countries. An example is North Korea where human rights are being abused; this shows that even with the existence of international law and the United Nations some countries can ignore the laws since it is non-legal bound and a good example of international law is the UDHR (Universal Declaration of Human Rights). Apart from this, international law is difficult to enforce as a result of the non-legal bound factor and therefore this will prove a difficult task for the United Nations. Another demerit of international law is that some sanctions that are imposed on some countries do not affect them. The embargo which is a form of sanction does not affect some powerful countries because without trade these countries can still survive and grow with their resources. Human rights can also be valued without the implementation of the law; Bentham explains that human rights are just ideas but nevertheless they are there and they are recognised by the United Nations. The knowledge of these rights has real values in the sense that the citizens of a country can pressure the government into giving them their rights since they are aware of it. This act which can be viewed as rebellion against the government can either be carried out by interest groups or pressure groups. The student room article explained that â€Å"pressure groups are organised groups of people who come together, usually outside of the government, with a common cause with the intention of influencing government policy and public opinion.†[4] The statement above shows that pressure group are groups of individuals that come together to pursue a common interest in the society. Pressure group is essential in every democratic society because it represents and promotes the principle of freedom of speech and freedom of association inherent in democratic settings. Fagan states â€Å"the expression of opinions and views is widely considered a fundamental attribute of individual freedom.†[5] Pressure groups adopt different methods to promote their interests and these are lobbying, campaign, strike, protest and boycott. One of the major benefits of pressure groups is that it promotes democratic principles of freedom of speech therefore allowing individuals to express their opinions. Apart from this, another benefit is that it promotes democratic principles of criticism which indirectly checks the power of the government. However pressure groups have been known to be very destructive, especially during the period of direct action such as a protest and this can eventually lead to retrogression in the society. Not only can this happen but it can also lead to civil war whereby a considerable number of citizens will be killed. In addition to this, human rights that have no law to support them have its disadvantages. One of which is the fact that the government can still infringe on the citizen’s human rights even if they attempt to rebel against the government. An example of a country where such act can be seen is Syria; in Syria a civil war has occurred because of the uprising against the regime of the president Bashar al- Assad in March 2011. The Syrian civil war is also a part of the Arab spring uprisings in the Middle East. The Arab spring can be said to be the media term for a revolutionary wave of violent and non-violent demonstrations such as protest, riots and civil war in the Arab world. T he Arab spring which is still a global issue in the modern world has also been able to prove that without law to protect human rights it has no real values. In conclusion, human rights have no real values without the law to protect it. Referring back to the points made, it can be seen that having the knowledge of these rights are not substantial because human rights abuse will still occur but if the law is implemented, human rights can still be protected to a certain limit showing that with law human rights have real values. 1 [1] Wallace MM R. Martin- Ortega O, INTERNATIONAL LAW, 7TH EDITION, 2013, Sweet and Maxwell [pg 240] [2] INTERNATIONAL LAW, www.oxforddictionaries.com [accessed 19th February, 2014] [3] George H. Smith, Jeremy Bentham’s attack on Natural rights, June 26 2012, www.libertarianism.org [accessed 18th February, 2014] [4] THE STUDENT ROOM, PRESSURE GROUP,www.thestudentroom.co.uk [accessed 19th February, 2014] [5] Fagan A, THE ATLAS OF HUMAN RIGHTS, Myriad editions, 2010, Earthscan Ltd, [pg 40]

Chopins Lilacs and the Story of the Annunciation :: Chopin Lilacs Essays

Chopin's Lilacs and the Story of the Annunciation  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚     Ã‚  Ã‚   When the theologian Elisabeth Schussler Fiorenza writes that the myth of the Virgin Mary "sanctions a deep psychological and institutional split" (59) among women in the Catholic tradition, she captures what Kate Chopin also captured in her story "Lilacs." There, sisterhood between secular and religious women appears fragmented and nearly impossible. To scrutinize the division, Kate Chopin fashions her story around the portion of the Virgin Mary myth told in St. Luke's gospel of the Annunciation of the birth of Jesus spoken to Mary by the archangel Gabriel. Working with that text, "Lilacs" mocks a tradition prizing virginity and separating the cloistered from the secular. Irony prevails, but so too does the sorrow born of religious restraint and condemnation. From the tension in the Annunciation between the virginal and the non-virginal comes ages of women divided from one another on the basis of chastity and divided internally into spiritual and physical selves.    Chopin's "Lilacs" plays out this division on the grounds of a Sacred Heart convent and in the apartments of a Parisian mondaine to question whether a life almost wholly spiritual or a life almost wholly physical can be anything but the subject of ridicule. The narrator tempts us to enjoy the ridicule only to have us feel more painfully at the story's end the dolorous effects of con strained desire, effects which diminish both nun and secular woman.    As a story that draws so heavily on the details and symbols of the Annunciation story, "Lilacs," we could assume, would want to remind us of Mary's (and, by extension, woman's) salvific role as the vessel chosen by God to ensure humankind's redemption. But "Lilacs" fails to announce the good news for women as it sees too clearly that what was salvific for humankind ended up dividing women within themselves and within the Catholic tradition because of that tradition's insistence on Mary's virginity before and after childbirth. This insistence separated the ideal virginal mother from real women and mothers whose joyously experienced sexuality closed the doors to work within the clerical ministry even until today. The Annunciation story for Kate Chopin is a story told at the expense of women's sexuality and spirituality, full and complementary as they might have been. The notion of a failed annunciation, then, opens "Lilacs": "Mme. Adrienne Farival never announced her coming.