Change We Believe In

Electronic Commerce (E-Commerce:  The Digital Marketplace According to the text, it is stated that the “existing and emerging web technologies are offering organizations unprecedented opportunities to rethink strategic business models, processes, and relationships. These e-opportunities are divided into three distinct categories namely: electronic marketing, electronic operations, and electronic services” (Turban et al., 2010). However, to support this preposition, Bill Gates answered in response to a question asked about how do we compete in the digital economy by stating that “competition is not among companies, but among business models” (Turban et al, 2010). Using the answer that Gates presented as a premise, this paper seeks to address the issue as to how Bill Gates’ comment can be helpful in understanding E-Marketplaces. An Electronic Marketplace or e-marketplace is an online market, usually Business-to-Business (B2B), in which buyers and sellers exchange goods or ser...

Comparative Health Care Systems “Of all the forms of inequality, injustice in health care is the most shocking and inhumane.” MTK, Jr. The issues of public health care system are determined by policies developed by governments. Comparative studies in public policies have shown that one principle stands clear that “every public policy in every country is shaped by a unique configuration of forces” (Weiss & Lonnquist, 2009:373). These issues do not take into account whether the factors to be addressed in the policy concern matters of the environment, public school system, transportation, and health or relates to a specific geographic locality. A host of other factors are said to be fundamental determinants of policies formulation and development. As Leichter (1979) rightly puts it, that the range and number of factors that influence or determine what governments do or, for that matter, what they choose not to do, are virtually infinite. According to this description provided b...

Health care to me is a basic human right, because everyone should be provided with the same basic medical services to live a happy and productive life. However, the question to this end becomes who should be held responsible to pay for the medical services of those who can’t afford the money to pay for their medical services? We are all created equal as social beings, but economically differs in terms of how much money we make and the services we received also become stratified. The availability of a universal health care system has been an on-going debate not only in the United States and some developing countries, but globally touching the edges of every government. A population that is healthy can also become a productive workforce. The movie “Sicko” assessed the health care systems of the United States, Canada, France, Great Britain and Cuba. In the United States, health care is paid for by private and minimum public insurance plans. An individual can spend about $1,200.00 every ...

Health and Illness Justification  At the beginning of the decade in 2000, Heads of States throughout the world attended a conference in New York City to commit their nations to a new global agenda in targeting major problems that the world is encountering. This new agenda and goal has specific targets to be achieved in the year 2015. Heads of States of the United Nations agreed to coined these goals and their specific targets as the Millennium Development Goals or simply put it MDGs. Each members nations of the United Nations which include developed and developing countries agreed to design and implement national programs to achieve these goals by the year 2015. Few nations are already experiencing immense progresses in the attainment of each of the goals and their targets. Majority of those nations are industrialized nations mostly in the west and Far East Asia leaving behind majority of the other countries still struggling in the process of attaining these goals. Most of those...

The movie “children of men” to me captures a more social meaning of a collapse society in which greed, corruption, social stratification and alienation dives through societies that we have developed throughout our existence as oppose to a “religious” significance as some are suggesting. The movie tells of the future of humanity in 2027 when all of women on earth were considered to be infertile. This infertility becomes a point of hopelessness among humanity and subsequently led to collapses in societies in which humans’ values became worthless. It was in the midst of this hopelessness after solid eighteen years of solid barrenness or “no child birth” that an illegal immigrant or supposedly a “refugee” girl became pregnant for the first time. This became the hallmark for a new direction of society giving a collapse society a chance to be restored to order, respect for humanity and human values and bringing back to life the hopes and dignity of mothers throughout the world. On a more...

The article “Building A Prison Economy in Rural America” written by Tracy Huling provided information from both positive and negative impacts of establishing a prison in rural regions where economic developments seem to poorly developed. In the reading, Huling pointed out that people who support the establishment of prison facilities in rural regions see it as a mean of economic development; whereas, those against this perception see it as a form of demoralizing a community that is already suffering and can potentially hinder other investment opportunities in the area. The establishment of prisons in rural regions would not only serve as a mean of promoting a peaceful community and rehabilitating the inmates, but could also be seen as a possible medium for the creation of jobs for the local inhabitants and create the opportunity for those communities to be opened to other development opportunities to be operated by the prisons plus the cheap labor that are associated with prisoners...

This is a response to the article written by Shellenberger and Nordhaus entitled “The Death of Environmentalism.” The focus of their work is that environmental community’s narrow definition of its self-interest leads to a kind of policy literalism that undermines its power to create substantial changes on how we relate to the environment in terms of production, industrialization and urbanization. Shellenberger and Nordhaus presented several cases (from energy efficient light bulbs, to hybrid cars, etc) about how current environmentalists seek to institute policies affecting specific aspects of the environment in accordance with their interest, as oppose to seeing the environment as a collection of processes and substances that work together to create and sustain life. On this note, they concluded their study on the conceptualization that the current thoughts as what is constituted to be “environmental” has been narrowed down to definition of specific aspects in the environment, in t...

Energy Use and Greenhouse Gas Emission: Calculations of Four Electronic Products Energy is the ability to do work. All of life on earth is powered by solar radiation a fragment of the energy that is emitted from the sun. However, humans only use a small portion of the energy generated by the sun. Since the Agricultural and industrial revolution, our dependence on energy provided by fossil fuel is inevitable. However, with the exponential increase in the human population globally and an increase in the automobile industry as well as other aspects of our lives that are so much dependent on energy provided by oil, coal and fossil fuel we are deem to collapse if proactive measures are not taken immediately to conserve energy and develop efficient and sustainable option for our energy crisis. The following calculations of four basic household electronic devices that we all use daily provide some evidence why we should now start thinking about energy conservation if we weren’t cautious ...

Review of Radical Simplicity by Jim Merkel and The Triple Crisis of Civilization: Finite Resources, Population Growth, Eco-devastation (Survival Handbook) “Merkel’s passion for creating a more humane world shines through on every page. A real inspiration,” where the words of Janet Luhrs, author of The Simple Living Guide and Simple Loving. Jim Merkel a military engineer by profession quit his position after the Exxon Valdez disaster, which occurred on March 24 1989. Jim devoted much of his life to develop tools for personal and societal sustainability. He also founded the Global Living Project (GLP) in 1996 as a proactive response to poverty, war, climate change and ecological destruction (www.radicalsimplicity.org/glp_history.html, 2010). His intention for establishing the GLP project was to learn from and create inspiring examples of wholesome, sustainable lifestyles. The book under review entitled “Radical Simplicity” is a product of such efforts. Jim also directs the Global ...

My Energy Use Energy is the capacity and the ability to do work. It requires energy to do everything. The sun is the powerhouse of energy for the earth. The sun’s energy is use to power all metabolic processes in plants and animals, microscopic organisms, and also natural processes such as the water cycle, decomposition of dead plants and animals remains, volcanoes and earthquakes, and weather conditions on earth just to name a few. The sun is paramount in our daily lives. However, overtime human has developed several technologies to process raw materials extracted from the earth to serve as different sources of energy for the operation of sophisticated machineries and equipments for their use. It is against this background that I would like to share how I use energy personally and professionally. In order to state my energy use I would like to mention all the technologies that I currently use and how often I use them. I do have one vehicle (2008 Pontiac G6) runs on 30 MPG on the H...

Jenkins Macedo Prof. Mohamed Eskandari 04/17/2010 Chapter 13 Iraq: Modern Mesopotamia Iraq has a historical, economic, cultural and geopolitical importance regionally and globally. Modern Iraq as we know it today, emerged as an independent Kingdom in 1932 and its boundaries and major institutions were defined in accordance with the League of Nations mandate under the British tutelage. Geographically, Iraq is a land of two rivers, Tigris and Euphrates, two of the three great rivers in the Middle East. The area upon which Iraq is situated was the eastern limb of the Fertile Crescent, which was the cradle of the earliest known civilizations and also served as the culture hearth from which the first idea of sedentary agriculture, domestication of animals, the wheel, writing and urban development are believed to have developed and diffused westward to the Nile Valley and eastward to the Indus Valley. Iraq hosts the cultural heritages of both ancient nations such as Assyria, Babylon...

Jenkins Macedo Prof. Mohamed Eskandari 04/09/2010 Chapter 12 Israel, Palestine, and Disputed Territories Since 1943 when many states became independent, Israel’s influence has unprecedented levels of international involvement, both in support and in opposition. The focus of this chapter is centered on Israel itself and also discussed local aspects of the territories Israel has occupied. Israeli consider themselves as located in the Middle East, but not of the Middle East. This statement creates the platform upon which Israel distinct themselves from their neighbors in the region. Judaism, Christianity and Islamism all stamp out of the long historical developments of Palestine as recorded in the Torah, the Bible and Quran. The Zionist or Jewish claims of the “promised land” is associated with accounts in the Old Testament; whereas, more recent historical developments underlies the often-conflicting claims of Muslims and Christians. The subsequent defeat of the Ottoman Turkish f...

Jenkins Macedo March 21, 2010 Prof. Mohamed Eskandari Chapter 9 Syria Middle East Heartland This chapter opens the discussion of the book from the physical and cultural geographic features of the Middle East to its regional geographical aspects discussing Middle Eastern countries in detail in individual chapters. Chapter 9 as such is focus on the nation of Syria, which is situated in the center of the Middle East and has significant historical events to the region. Syria is one of the oldest nations in the Middle East, which traces its origin to about 3,500 years ago. It lies between the Mediterranean Sea and middle Euphrates River and has since played significant roles in the overall historical, economic, military and cultural developments of the region. Syria reached its political dominance in Middle Eastern political history between 661-750. However, throughout the ...

Chapter 8 The Earth and the State: Geopolitics The Middle East is a region that lies at the intersection of three continents on the Earth and these are Africa, Asia and Europe. The region is well known for its historical development, rich deposits of natural resources and minerals, and the epicenter of thousands of languages, the cradle of ancient and scientific, mathematic, economic and religious thoughts. Studying the Middle East involves studying all the sixteen states located in the region and their political structures and landscape and these interact on the global scene. This chapter dealt with the “geopolitical pertains of the spatial interaction between geographical area and political phenomena” (Held, 2006). The term “Geopolitics” in the chapter is interchangeably used conceptually to refer to the political geography of the Middle East. This chapter discussed the geopolitics of the Middle East in several subheadings, which include: Hub and Heartland, the state in the Middle ...

Jenkins Macedo Prof. Mohamed Eskandari Chapter 6 Reaction Paper March 14 2010 Riches Beneath the Earth The Middle East is well noted for its riches in natural minerals deposited in the region as a result of geologic processes over the period of Earth’s History. This chapter is focused on the enormous wealth of the region in the form of petroleum, natural gas resources in the form of associated and non-associated gases, which add on the region’s historical development and influences on the global economy, geopolitics, cultures and development. The presence of natural minerals and gases in the Middle East are associated with the deposition of sediments throughout geologic time scale, which are directly linked to the movement of oceanic and continental plates through the process of plate tectonics. The chapter also discussed the riches beneath the earth’s surface in several sub-headings such as the historical development of petroleum in the region, patterns of reserves associated ...

Jenkins Macedo Professor Mohamed Eskandari March 3, 2010 Chapter 5 The Desert and the Sown: Land Use This chapter outlined and discussed in detail the topographical composition and land use of the Middle East within the context of Agricultural productivities, landholding and reform systems, precipitation induced farming, water resources, the roles and function of animals, forestry and fishery. Agricultural conditions, systems in the Middle East are significantly different throughout the region. The geographic landscapes of the region influence greatly the kind of crops that can be grown in each country. This is also influence by the climate system in each country in the Middle East. Lands that can be used to support agricultural activities can be grouped into three headings and these headings are: sub-humid and humid areas that can be used to cultivate crops that are reliant on precipitation without irrigation, irrigated areas are situated in deserts and semi-deserts regions and...

Jenkins Macedo Prof. M. Eskandari 23 February 2010 Chapter 4 Patterns of Peoples, Cultures and Settlements This chapter provided specific demographic details concerning the patterns of peoples, cultures and settlements of the Middle East. The Middle East has several complexities relating to the distribution of the population and people. These complexities are influenced by the region’s biophysical, cultural and historical developments over centuries. Over the years, the populations of the countries in the Middle East increase exponentially and this can be attributed to the region’s favorable environmental conditions and its increasing economic importance in both the regional and the global sphere. Since the early 1950s, urbanization in various cities in the region greatly increased which can be directly linked to the result of population shift from settling in rural areas to urban communities. For example, “Turkey, Iran and Egypt have population approaching 70 million” (Held, 2...

Jenkins Macedo Prof. Eskandari February 17, 2010 Chapter 3 Patterns of Time: Historical-Geographical Foundation This chapter was my favorite, because it brought back to my knowledge what I learned about the Middle East several years ago in another cause related to the historical developments of the Holy Land before and after biblical periods. The current geographic location upon which the Middle East is situated has been in existence since the discovery of humans’ civilization. It can be argued that the Middle East is the beginning place of human civilization, which started around the banks of the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers in ancient Mesopotamia. The region encompasses successive cultures, kingdoms and empires and also serves as the birthplace of the three main world religions (Judaism, Christianity and Islamism) and diverse languages (Towel of Babel). Throughout the history of the Middle East, past cultures, economic influences and empires can still be detected from ancien...

Jenkins Macedo Professor M. Eskandari Reflection on Chapters 2 Chapter 2 was lengthen than chapter 1 and provided detail geographic information of the landforms of the Middle East, its Water Systems, the region’s skies and winds that influence the climate system and other environmental features such as soil and their ecological relationships, vegetation and animal life. The landform patterns of the Middle East include the stable interior province such as the Nubian-Arabian Shield, the Mobile Belt and the Median Trough, which is an intermediate between the two. The Nubian-Arabian Shield contains both the narrow coastal plain, “Tihamah that extends virtually the full length of the Arabian Peninsula’s to the Red Sea coast and supported by tremendous mountain ranges” (Held, 2006 pg. 19). Sedimentary materials found in the eastern Arabian Peninsula overlies the basement rocks found in the Fertile Crescent and the Syrian Desert which are located in the heart of the Middle East. Neverth...