Psychedelic Drugs (aka Psychedelics) Essay -- essays research papers

Psychedelic Drugs (aka Psychedelics) Introduction: Throughout human history people have sought experiences that somehow transcend every day life. Some sort of wisdom that might progress their knowledge of self and of the world that they live in. For some reason they believed that the tangible world just could not be all there is to life. Some believed in a greater force that controlled them, some believed of invisible beings that influenced their lives, some of an actual other world that paralleled their own. Many of these people also believed that it was possible to catch a glimpse of these forces, beings, or worlds through a variety of means that propel individuals into altered states of consciousness. These techniques include meditation, hypnosis, sleep deprivation, and (what will be discussed here) psychoactive drugs, more specifically psychedelic drugs. Although in the modern world such drugs have developed an almost taboo status, it is impossible to ignore the tales of enlightenment reported by ancient cultures and even those rebels that use such drugs illegally today. While the American government has been one of the main influences on today’s society’s negative attitudes towards psychedelic drugs, they have granted some scientist and psychologists permission to experiment with such agents, and despite the controversy and varying results there seem to be many positive uses of psychedelic agents. These positive uses and the research that has been directed toward these uses will be reviewed in the following, as well as a brief history of psychedelic drugs. History:   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Native Americans are probably the people most known for their use of psychedelic drugs. Being a very religious people, their entire society revolved around the spirit world, and some believed that access to this world was possible by eating certain plants that were abundant in their surroundings. In what are now Mexico and the Southwestern United States, tribes familiarized themselves with mescaline, the active ingredient in the peyote cactus. Another drug that was used by tribes in these and many other areas was psilocybin, the active hallucinogenic ingredient of the mushroom Psilocybe mexicana and other psilocybe and conocybe species that grow on the pacific coast of North, South, and Central America. Ritual use of psilocybin and mesca... ... research the government has allowed scientists and psychologists, there have been amazing discoveries of the capacities of these drugs. It has been proven that they are able to extend psychotherapy’s view of the human mind, they are able to promote massive personality changes, and to enhance the learning and problem solving experience. It has even been suggested that psychedelics are able to enhance any aspect of mental functioning.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  One must look beyond the stereotypes that psychedelics have earned in the twentieth century, and also modern science, that presupposes that any thing that cannot be explained within its own contexts either does not exist or is but a fanciful idea. However, the realm of psychedelics is uncharted area, and when dealing with such experimental substances, such as these psychedelic agents, one must proceed with caution, as was mentioned earlier the agents are powerful tools and can be used with skill or reckless abandon, and therefore can yield positive responses or deadly consequences. If used with care psychedelics will allow many psychologists and patients to embark on a perhaps endless journey of self-discovery.

Should the Chinese Government Ban the Internet Censorship?

Qing Yuan ESL114 Section G Ryan Salvador May 3, 2012 Should the Chinese government ban the internet censorship? Since the birth of internet, people have been bombarded with different kind of information every day. Internet is a network that connects the data of different private computer networks and organizational computer groups from people or organizations around the world (Merriam-Webster Dictionary). As a result, people are looking forward to having access to any kind of websites of their interest, and receiving the latest information about what is happening around their countries or around the world.However, things cannot be as perfect as expected. It is noticed by many people that many countries have set barriers to the internet in their own areas. China, which has the largest population of web users among the world, has created the most advanced surveillance system for internet monitoring (Rohde, 2011). The system is known as â€Å"Great Firewall†Ã¢â‚¬â€also called â €Å"the Golden Shield Project†, and is designed to sift out pornography and commercial frauds, but simultaneously blocks certain search terms for the government’s own purposes (McDonald, 2012).However, nobody is satisfied to be a frog in a well which can only perceive scenario above the wellhead but nothing beyond. So the internet censorship has provoked a fierce controversy in the society. Many people including some groups of experts argue for humans’ equal rights to know true and latest resources of information around them. The Chinese government should no longer conduct their censorship program because every person has the right and freedom to know what is going on around them.If the Chinese government insists on this project, people would be trapped in a vicious cycle because the continuity of information blocks would affect the next generation which doubles its effect on people’s ignorance and it would do nothing but fool its own people. First, in Ch ina, people’s words online are carefully inspected which means people do not have the freedom to say what they want, but rather only what are permitted by the Chinese government.According to a study by the Language Technologies Institute at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, more than 16 percent of all messages which are posted by web users in China are considered â€Å"unqualified† and get deleted (McDonald, 2012). The Chinese government explained to the media that the â€Å"Great Firewall† sifted out words or names that it evaluates as politically odorous. However, due to the matter of fact, it is not that reasonable, but rather private contains emotions of the government.For example, Sina Weibo, a most popular micro blogging site in China whose users surpassed 300 million, is required to inspect those bloggers whose have more than 100,000 followers (McDonald, 2012). If there are any posts that disobey the government’s rules must be deleted withi n five minutes. â€Å"295 terms with a high probability of being censored,† said the Carnegie Mellon team. So words like â€Å"Tibet†, â€Å"Dalai Lama†, â€Å"Ai Weiwei† (outspoken artist), â€Å"Liu Xiaobo† (imprisoned Nobel laureate), and even â€Å"Egypt†, â€Å"Jon Huntsman† (the former American ambassador), and â€Å"Playboy† (the magazine), etc. are banned (McDonald, 2012).As a result, some people have invented some subversive lexicons to refer to the words prohibited such as using â€Å"grass-mud horse† to replace a four-letter word of obscenity, using â€Å"river crab† to replace â€Å"harmony† which is also banned because it was used to refer to websites deletion by the government, and using phrase â€Å"Buying soy sauce† to indicate someone who is involved in scandals like embezzlement and bribery. The phrase â€Å"Buying soy sauce† came from the mouth of a government official who w as involved in a political scandal and wanted to show his innocence through the TV interview (McDonald, 2012).So if the government insists on such obvious and self-deceiving procedures, people would finally uncover the truth and thus lose trust in the government because many insightful people like who use VPN to â€Å"scale the wall (also a subversive word which means to browse foreign websites)† and have known some truth of some political issues or more people who are studying abroad where has no such internet-defending programs know the truth as well. Maybe this kind of methods worked before, but it would not work anymore as people are familiar and proficient in computer science.If the government stops their unacceptable programs right now, the status of the society will be much more stable, or the controversial would be more serious and finally trigger something unimaginable. Second, the Chinese government censors some websites which are considered vicious and unbeneficial to them, so they block websites just because they are not in government’s whitelist. In 2009, The Ministry of Industry and Information Technology posted new regulations on domain management institutions and internet services providers because them want to have a deeper control over domain name registration (Hornby and Le, 2009).The Chinese government explained this is beneficial for an on-going anti-pornography program by creating a list of so called â€Å"whitelist. † However, this policy did not mention the treatment of overseas websites. In fact, foreign sites that have not registered could also be blocked such as Google's YouTube, Twitter, Flickr and Facebook. The reason is these sites are thought politically sensitive and containing unreasonable schemes by the Chinese government (Hornby and Le, 2009).However, as many web users who used VPN to get access to foreign websites have already known that the websites such as Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter are highly reco gnized in the U. S. Many popular stars like NBA players often update their newest progress in preparing for the play-off on Twitter, which is often referred to as a trustworthy resource by sports channels like ABC and ESPN. Also, YouTube is even a normal educational tool in some world-famous universities as its sources are updated frequently and carefully (Hornby and Le, 2009).Many of the videos like the videos on cultural diversities and new-born social phenomena etc. are authoritative. They are often in the forms of a real interview with famous experts in the places where the issues happened like the case of Trayvon Martin, people can find many videos on YouTube which are interviews hold by some sociologists. As a result, blocking websites that the Chinese government considered vicious is detrimental to people’s development in learning advanced thoughts and real educational resources from foreign countries some of which are recognized as much more better in high-level educa tion than that of China.If the government continues to do things arbitrarily like this, people would lose trust in their government because they do have the ability to consider what kind of information is true and what kind of information is of plot. In conclusion, the Chinese government should stop their internet censorship because it really affects people’s common lives both in freedom of communication and education. The importance of relieve the inspection on internet is obvious and necessary. If the Chinese government moderates the censorship, people can obtain easier access to foreign resources.As people’s educational levels are higher and higher along with the rapidly-developing status of China’s economy, people are getting more insightful in absorbing more advanced technologies and methods. For instance, teachers can use foreign websites such as YouTube which has huge amount of authoritative resources in college education. Many people have realized that s tudents in China’s colleges know little about realities about some big issues around the world and also have big obstacles in English skills which are not beneficial to students’ development.Also, if students get such progress in education, there will be more opportunities for them to get jobs abroad which can not only enhance Chinese people’s skills in international business but also relieve the pressure in competition for jobs. Finally, stopping the internet censorship helps the Chinese government to win people’s trust and is also educationally, economically beneficial to a large number of Chinese people. References: Merriam-Webster Dictionary. (n. d. ). Internet. Retrieved from http://www. merriam-webster. com/dictionary/internet Hornby L. and Le, Y. 2009, December 22). China to require internet domain name registration. Retrieved from http://www. reuters. com/article/2009/12/22/us-china-internet-idUSTRE5BL19620091222 McDonald, M. (2012, March 13). Wat ch your language! (in china, they really do). New York Times. Retrieved from http://rendezvous. blogs. nytimes. com/2012/03/13/watch-your-language-and-in-china-they-do/? ref=internetcensorship Rohde, D. (2011, November 18). China’s newest export: Internet censorship. Retrieved from http://blogs. reuters. com/david-rohde/2011/11/17/chinas-newest-export-internet-censorship/

Female Knights

There are plenty of fierce women who have battled their way through history in politics and warfare. Although from an academic standpoint women could not generally carry the title of knight, there were still many women in European history who were part of chivalric orders and performed the duties of female knights without the formal recognition. Key Takeaways: Female Knights During the Middle Ages, women could not be granted the title of Knight; it was reserved for men only. However, there were many chivalric orders of knighthood that admitted women and female warriors who performed the role.Documented stories of women—primarily high-born—prove that they donned armor and directed troop movement in times of war. Chivalric Orders of Europe The word knight was not just a job title, it was a social ranking. For a man to become a knight, he had to be formally knighted in a ceremony, or receive an accolade of knighthood for exceptional bravery or service, usually in battle. Because neither of these were typically the domains of women, it was rare for a women to carry the title of knight. However, in parts of Europe, there were chivalric orders of knighthood that were open to women. During the early medieval period, a group of devout Christian knights joined together to form the Knights Templar. Their mission was twofold: to protect European travelers on pilgrimage in the Holy Land, but also to carry out secret military operations.  When they finally took the time to write down a list of their rules, around 1129 C.E., their mandates mentioned a pre-existing practice of admitting women to the Knights Templar. In fact, women were permitted as part of the organization during its first 10 years of existence. Lorado / Getty Images A related group, the Teutonic Order, accepted women as Consorores, or Sisters. Their role was an auxiliary one, often related to support and hospital services during times of war, including on the battlefield. In the mid-12th century, Moorish invaders laid the town of Tortosa, Spain, under siege. Because the towns menfolk were already off at battle fighting on another front, it fell to the women of Tortosa to set up defenses. They dressed in mens clothing—which was certainly easier to fight in—picked up weapons, and held their town with an array of swords, farm implements, and hatchets. In the aftermath, Count Ramon Berenguer of Barcelona founded the Order of the Hatchet in their honor. Elias Ashmole wrote in 1672 that the count granted the women of Tortosa numerous privileges and immunities: He also ordained, that at all publick meetings, the  Women  should have precedence of the  Men; That they should be exempted from all Taxes; and that all the Apparel and Jewels, though of never so great value, left by their dead Husbands, should be their own. It is not known whether the women of the Order ever fought in any battles other than defending Tortosa. The group faded into obscurity as its members aged and died out. Women in Warfare During the Middle Ages, women were not raised for battle like their male counterparts, who typically trained for warfare from boyhood. However, that doesnt mean they didnt fight. There are numerous examples of women, both noble and lower-born, who defended their homes, their families, and their nations from attacking outside forces. Margaret of Anjou directed troops during the War of the Roses. Hulton Archive / Getty Images The eight-day siege of Jerusalem in 1187 relied on women for success. Nearly all of the citys fighting men had marched out of town three months earlier, for the Battle of Hattin, leaving Jerusalem unguarded but for a few hastily-knighted boys. The women, however, outnumbered men in the city by nearly 50 to 1, so when Balian, Baron of Ibelin, realized it was time to defend the walls against the invading army of Saladin, he enlisted the female citizens to get to work. Dr. Helena P. Schrader, Ph.D. in History from the University of Hamburg, says that Ibelin would have had to organize these untrained civilians into units, assigning them specific, focused tasks. ... whether it was defending a sector of the wall, putting out fires, or ensuring that the men and women doing the fighting were supplied with water, food and ammunition. Most astonishing, his improvised units not only repulsed assaults, they also sortied out several times, destroying some of Saladin’s siege engines, and two or three times chasing the Saracens all the way back to the palisades of their camp. Nicholaa de la Haye was born in Lincolnshire, England, around 1150, and inherited her fathers land when he died. Married at least twice, Nicholaa was the castellan of Lincoln Castle, her family estate, despite the fact that each of her husbands tried to claim it as their own. When her spouses were away, Nicholaa ran the show. William Longchamps, a chancellor of Richard I, was heading to Nottingham to battle against Prince John, and along the way, he stopped at Lincoln, laying siege to Nicholaas castle. She refused to yield, and commanding 30 knights, 20 men-at-arms, and a few hundred infantrymen, held the castle for 40 days. Longchamps eventually gave up and moved on. She defended her home again a few years later when Prince Louis of France tried to invade Lincoln. Women didnt just show up and perform the duties of knights in defensive mode. There are several accounts of queens who traveled into the field with their armies in times of war. Eleanor of Aquitaine, the Queen of both France and England, led a pilgrimage to the Holy Land. She even did it while dressed in armor and carrying a lance, although she didnt personally fight. During the War of the Roses, Marguerite d’Anjou personally directed the actions of Lancastrian commanders during battles against Yorkist opponents while her husband, King Henry VI, was incapacitated by bouts of madness. In fact, in 1460, she defeated the threat to her husband’s throne by calling on the Lancastrian nobility to assemble a mighty host in Yorkshire that ambushed York and killed him and 2,500 of his men outside his ancestral home at Sandal Castle. Finally, its important to note that over the centuries, there were countless other women who donned armor and rode into war. We know this because although medieval European writers documenting the Crusades emphasized the notion that pious Christian women did not fight, the historians of their Muslim opponents wrote of crusading women battling against them. The Persian scholar Imad ad-din al-Isfahani wrote, a woman of high rank arrived by sea in late autumn 1189, with an escort of 500 knights with  their forces, squires, pages and valets. She paid all their expenses and also led them in  raids on the Muslims. He went on to say that there were many female knights among the Christians, who wore armour like the men and fought like men in battle, and could not be told apart from  the men until they were killed and the armour was stripped from their bodies. Although their names have been lost to history, these women did exist, they simply were not granted the title of knight. Sources Ashmole, Elias. â€Å"The Institution, Laws Ceremonies of the Most Noble Order of the Garter Collected and Digested into One Body.†Ã‚  Early English Books Online, The University of Michigan, quod.lib.umich.edu/e/eebo/A26024.0001.001?viewtoc.Nicholson, Helen, and Helen Nicholson. â€Å"Women and the Crusades.†Ã‚  Academia.edu, www.academia.edu/7608599/Women_and_the_Crusades.Schrader, Helena P. â€Å"Surrender of Jerusalem to Saladin in 1187.†Ã‚  Defending the Crusader Kingdoms, 1 Jan. 1970, defendingcrusaderkingdoms.blogspot.com/2017/10/surrender-of-jerusalem-to-saladin-in.html.Velde, Francois R. â€Å"Women Knights in the Middle Ages.†Ã‚  Women Knights, www.heraldica.org/topics/orders/wom-kn.htm.