Author: ata311

Pentagon Has a plan to stop zombie apocalypse

After reading Zone one at 12 am, it suddenly hit me. What if zombies were a real thing? What will we do then? While 99.999999999% of the people have no idea what to do if a zombie apocalypse was to happen, luckily the US pentagon has a plan- as always. Us Military is perhaps one of the most organized force in the world with a plan to face any situation worldwide. If you need a response for a Russian nuclear missile launch? You contact US military. If you have to rescue a U.S. ambassador kidnapped by drug lords? You also contact US military. And apparently if you found a zombie in your neighbors house you can still contact US military.

Buried on the military’s secret computer network is an unclassified document, obtained by Foreign Policy, called “CONOP 8888.” It’s a zombie survival plan, a how-to guide for military planners trying to isolate the threat from a menu of the undead — from chicken zombies to vegetarian zombies and even “evil magic zombies” — and destroy them

CONOP 8888 is designed to “establish and maintain a vigilant defensive condition aimed at protecting humankind from zombies,” according to the plan’s purpose, and, “if necessary, conduct operations that will, if directed, eradicate zombie threats to human safety.” Finally, the plan provides guidance to “aid civil authorities in maintaining law and order and restoring basic services during and after a zombie attack.”

Stay Safe, Stay educated and Read more here about how to survive a zombie apocalypse

All About Polio

Different types of Polio
Spinal polio – attacks motor neurons in the spinal cord and causes paralysis in arms and legs and breathing problems
Bulbar polio – affects neurons responsible for sight, vision, taste, swallowing, and breathing
Bulbospinal polio – both spinal and bulbar polio
What causes polio?
It is caused by a virus specific to humans. The virus lives in feces and can easily spread in areas of pour sanitation.

What are symptoms of polio?
Polio can be come in extreme or mild form.

In the extreme form of polio Symptoms include

  • loss of muscle reflexes
  • severe muscle pain
  • Floppy limbs
  • Those symptoms often advance into paralyzing the victim or even death

In Mild form of polio symptoms include
fever

  • fatigue
  • back and neck pain
  • arm pain
  • muscle spasms
  • vomitting

These symptoms often only last for a couple of days in best case scenarios or a coyuuple of weeks by far.

How is Polio diagnosed?
If patients have the polio symptoms, throat secretions, stool samples, or cerebrospinal fluid are used for laboratory tests

How is polio treated?
Now a days as a replacement for the horrible iron lungs doctors use modern portable ventilators and jacket-type ventilators. However these are just advanced more comfortable forms of iron lungs and are not cures for the virus. As up till this moment there is no polio medication.

How to prevent Polio?

There are two vaccines available to fight polio – inactivated poliovirus (IPV) and oral polio vaccine (OPV). These vaccines if given to children from being 2 months old up till 4-6 years the kids develop immunization against this virus. These vaccinations are very safe for children and are recommended by most doctors

What is progress

“Change is not progress,” but progress requires change. The issue of progress is the main underlying theme throughout the entire second part of Kushner’s Angels in America. Progress can be easily identified as improvements made in the life of the human kind. How does this mean building a nuclear bomb is progress? If so what kind of progress? Also another interesting question: is there a morality aspect to progress?

In our context perhaps I believe that progress is best defined as: Human advancement is any change that makes some people consider themselves better off without making anyone else worse off (This is called the Pareto principle.) I believe that this is the message Kushner is trying to push that progress shall either positively enhance or doesn’t enhance one’s life;it should never make it worse off. This mentality is essential in our Novel as Kushner throughout the novel is making us doubt the policies of former presidents Ronald Reagan and is trying to deliver the message that advancements in nuclear weapons and failing to acknowledge the Aids epidermal is not in any form progress. He tries to deliver the message through the character of the angel and Harper who strictly rejects progress.

However I would like to challenge this approach. If we think at the invention of the automobile it threw the manufacturers of buggy whips out of work. If we think of achieving democracies, it dramatically stripped the previous rulers out of power and changed their lives to the worse. If we think of the invention of the internet it has improved the quality of life of people and disadvantaged those who have been subject to cyber attacks. I believe most people would view these examples as progress but by this definition they are not. And if we choose a different definition as “development towards an improved or more advanced condition.” Then the very notion of nuclear weapon which Kushner would fall under the label of progress. I failed to find the meaning of progress but perhaps one of you can…..

Don’t forget to progress,
Ali Abouelatta

The fallen woman

This post shall serve as a two in one. The first purpose of this post is to direct you guys to an awesome performance of Ghosts which although I got the chance to see bits and pieces from it I believe is magnificent.

If you have extra two hours to spare I highly encourage you to click the link below

 

As for the second and most important purpose of this post is to discuss a concept that may have have not been discussed thoroughly in class which is the “fallen woman.” What does it mean to be a fallen woman in 1881? Well the most straight forward answer I can get was

“The fallen woman relentlessly troubled the Victorian world. In a period obsessed with the idealisation of female virginity, the consequences of sexual experience outside wedlock often resulted in ruin”

However as I have intensified my research I figured out the answer is not as simple as it looks.Firstly the origin of fallen comes from the phrase “falling out of God’s and society’s favour” Or in another version “fallen from the grace of God.” The term fallen woman is not constrained in a woman losing her virginity or getting involved in an  extra-marital sex. Woman who have been raped or subjected to the crime of male aggression also fell under the umbrella of a fallen woman. There’s is a reason such a term disappeared from our lives and it is of the over generalization brought by it. It disappoints me to learn this conception has not changed much in our current days.

Although the labels changed a huge sum of people still categorize rape and extra-marital affairs as the same thing. In fact according to a survey carried out by Mail Online 50% of woman think that rape is the victims fault. This generalization I believe holds a higher figure in this region and I though it is worth our time to look at our readings differently and use it to explore issues that we are familiar with.

Mrs Alving has brought up a rather unfamiliar term which is “fallen man”, while this term was not used back then I challenge you my dear colleagues to come up with a the definition of a fallen man. Does it necessarily mean a man who was just involved in a pre-marital or extra-marital affair. Or does it have a larger more socially inclined meaning?

I am interested in hearing your definition, for whom of you who uses twitter can use the

#A_Fallen_Man_Is

(dont forget to use contagion15 hashtag too)

 

Best,

Ali Tarek Talaat Abdallah Hassan Hussein Abouelatta AbouIsmail,