Courage to Speak is Courage to Succeed

Courage to Speak is Courage to Succeed I am writing this note in May with a full and happy heart on the bus ride home from New York City where I did a two-minute pitch at the Jewish Book Conference. I’d practiced my pitch since February when I first registered for the conference almost everywhere – in the shower, with my kids, on the bus to work everywhere. But it’s a totally different experience when you pitch in front of a large crowd – in this case, 200 people who represented the various Jewish Community Centers among bookstores, festival organizers, bookclubs nationwide. The full-blown decision makers. They are the ones who decide whether to fly me out to various venues around the country to talk about my book’s message of courage during their upcoming programming year. So this brings me to my main point. If you want people to know about your book, the best way to get the word out is to speak about it. There’s something about taking a book off the â€Å"Amazon hinges† and connecting with an audience. Social media can only take you so far.  People see and hear your voice. You feel excited. They sense your passion. And the word spreads. I call this organically building a platform. Back to basics. I stood on that stage and gave that pitch every ounce of my being. There was that strong warrior woman of my Israel Defense Forces past I thought Id parked in the memoir, but that day I brought her back. To New York City. Where the Story began. The pitch: â€Å"It was an accident I got inducted in the Israel Defense Forces. I had no idea what I was getting involved in. My mother, daughter of a Holocaust survivor, child prodigy, Julliard graduate who played alongside Leonard Bernstein, was terrified I’d get blown up But I wanted to prove to my Israeli father that I could be my own person away from my mother’s fears and paranoias of Israel. So I dropped out of college and found myself in the middle of the desert with a bunch of immigrants who ridiculed and bullied me. Aerogram after aerogram, my mother pleaded with me to come home. I got my entire company punished because I arrived late for an inspection. I struggled to complete an eighteen kilometer march for our green beret in basic training. I held down an entire camp during one of Israel’s worst snowstorms in history with just one other Russian girl from my company. Mind you, that’s a great way to bond. As a lone IDF soldier, it was hard to stay courageous, but I managed to earn the best soldier award from then president Chaim Herzog. And I heard my mother say, â€Å"Dorit, you’re a really good kid.† Danny Ayalon, former ambassador to the US, says this about Accidental Soldier: A touching and courageous journey of the female immigrant experience that many readers will sympathize with. But the magic didn’t stop with the pitch. Groups came up to me afterwards to ask questions ranging from how did it feel to write my memoir to how did it feel to come back to the States. One woman eagerly asked if I had additional copies of the book. Her group already received their review copies, but she wanted the one copy I had to give it to four other groups in her area who wanted a speaker to talk about an Israel type experience. Wow! Talk about instant booking! At a busy cafà © in midtown Manhattan, I sat with my publicist, who called the experience â€Å"mind-blowing.† I blew up that room. Faces lit up. People watched as I spoke instead of peering over their thick books of numerous author profiles and copious notes. Through trial and error, Ive learned as an author to do these three things: Write a killer book. Hire a killer editor. Speak. Speak. Speak. I know of no better way to spread the word. And it begins with having the courage and the faith to put yourself out there. To your book writing success, Dorit.

Dr. Mary Edwards Walker, Civil War Surgeon

Dr. Mary Edwards Walker, Civil War Surgeon Mary Edwards Walker was an unconventional woman. She was a proponent of womens rights and dress reform- especially the wearing of Bloomers which didnt enjoy wide currency until the  sport of bicycling  became popular. In 1855 she became one of the earliest female physicians upon graduation from Syracuse Medical College. She married Albert Miller, a fellow student, in a ceremony that did not include a promise to obey; she did not take his name, and to her wedding wore trousers and a dress-coat. Neither the marriage nor their joint medical practice lasted long. At the start of the Civil War, Dr. Mary E. Walker volunteered with the Union Army and adopted mens clothing. She was at first not allowed to work as a physician, but as a nurse and as a spy. She finally won a commission as an army surgeon in the Army of the Cumberland, 1862. While treating civilians, she was taken prisoner by the Confederates and was imprisoned for four months until she was released in a prisoner exchange. Her official service record reads: Dr. Mary E. Walker (1832 - 1919) Rank and organization: Contract Acting Assistant Surgeon (civilian), U. S. Army. Places and dates: Battle of Bull Run, July 21, 1861 Patent Office Hospital, Washington, D.C., October 1861 Following Battle of Chickamauga, Chattanooga, Tennessee September 1863 Prisoner of War, Richmond, Virginia, April 10, 1864 - August 12, 1864 Battle of Atlanta, September 1864. Entered service at: Louisville, Kentucky Born: 26 November 1832, Oswego County, N.Y. In 1866, the London Anglo-American Times wrote this of her: Her strange adventures, thrilling experiences, important services and marvelous achievements exceed anything that modern romance or fiction has produced.... She has been one of the greatest benefactors of her sex and of the human race. After the Civil War, she worked primarily as a writer and lecturer, usually appearing dressed in a mans suit and top hat. Dr. Mary E. Walker was awarded a Congressional Medal of Honor for her Civil War service, in an order signed by President Andrew Johnson on November 11, 1865. When, in 1917, the government revoked 900 such medals, and asked for Walkers medal back, she refused to return it and wore it until her death two years later. In 1977 President Jimmy Carter restored her medal posthumously, making her the first woman to hold a Congressional Medal of Honor. Early Years Dr. Mary Walker was born in Oswego, New York. Her mother was Vesta Whitcom and her father was Alvah Walker, both originally from Massachusetts and descended from early Plymouth settlers who had first moved to Syracuse in a covered wagon and then to Oswego. Mary was the fifth of five daughters at her birth. and another sister and a brother would be born after her.   Alvah Walker was trained as a carpenter who, in Oswego, was settling into a farmers life. Oswego was a place where many became abolitionists including neighbor Gerrit Smith and supporters of womens rights. The womens rights convention of 1848 was held in upstate New York. The Walkers supported the growing abolitionism, and also such movements as health reform and temperance.   The agnostic speaker Robert Ingersoll was Vestas cousin.   Mary and her siblings were raised religiously, though rejecting the evangelism of the time and not associating with any sect. Everyone in the family worked hard on the farm, and were surrounded by many books which the children were encouraged to read. The Walker family helped to found a school on their property, and Marys older sisters were teachers at the school. Young Mary became involved with the growing womens rights movement. She may also have first met Frederick Douglass when he spoke in her home town. She also developed, from reading medical books which she read in her home, the idea that she could be a physician.   She studied for a year at Falley Seminary in Fulton, New York, a school which included courses in the sciences and health.   She moved to Minetto, New York, to take a position as a teacher, saving to enroll in medical school. Her family had also been involved in dress reform as one aspect of womens rights, avoiding the tight clothing for women that restricted movement, and instead advocating for more loose clothing.   As a teacher, she modified her own clothing to be looser in the waste, shorter in the skirt, and with pants underneath. In 1853 she enrolled in Syracuse Medical College, six years after  Elizabeth Blackwells medical education. This school was part of a movement towards eclectic medicine, another part of the health reform movement and conceived of as a more democratic approach to medicine than the traditional allopathic medical training.   Her education included traditional lectures and also interning with an experienced and licensed physician. She graduated as a Doctor of Medicine in 1855, qualified as both a medical doctor and as a surgeon. Marriage and Early Career She married a fellow student, Albert Miller, in 1955, after knowing him from their studies.   The abolitionist and Unitarian Rev. Samuel J. May performed the marriage, which excluded the word obey. The marriage was announced not only in local papers, but in  The Lily,  the dress reform periodical of Amelia Bloomer. Mary Walker and Albert Mmiller opened a medical practice together. By the late 1850s she became active in the womens rights movement, focusing on dress reform. Some key suffrage supporters including Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and Lucy Stone adopted the new style including shorter skirts with pants worn underneath. But the attacks and ridicule about clothing from the press and public began to, in the opinion of some suffrage activists, distract from womens rights.   Many went back to traditional dress, but Mary Walker continued to advocate for more comfortable, safer clothing. Out of her activism, Mary Walker added first writing and then lecturing to her professional life. She wrote and spoke about delicate matters including abortion and pregnancy outside of marriage. She even wrote an article on women soldiers. Fighting for a Divorce In 1859, Mary Walker discovered that her husband was involved in an extramarital affair.   She asked for a divorce, he suggested that instead, she also find affairs outside their marriage. She pursued a divorce, which also meant that she worked to establish a medical career without him, despite the significant social stigma of divorce even among those women working for womens rights.   Divorce laws of the time made a divorce difficult without the consent of both parties. Adultery was grounds for a divorce, and Mary Walker had amassed evidence of multiple affairs including one that resulted in a child, and another where her husband had seduced a woman patient.   When she still could not get a divorce in New York after nine years, and knowing that even after the granting of a divorce there was a five year waiting period until it became final, she left her medical, writing, and lecture careers in New York and moved to Iowa, where divorce was not so difficult.   Iowa In Iowa, she was at first unable to convince people that she was, at the young age of 27, qualified as a physician or teacher.   After enrolling in school to study German, she discovered they did not have a German teacher. She participated in a debate, and was expelled for participating.   She discovered that New York state would not accept an out of state divorce, so she returned to that state. War When Mary Walker returned to New York in 1859, war was on the horizon. When the war broke out, she decided to go to war, but not as a nurse, which was the job the military was recruiting for, but as a physician. Known for:  among the earliest woman physicians; first woman to win the Medal of Honor; Civil War service including commission as an army surgeon; dressing in mens clothing Dates:  November 26, 1832 - February 21, 1919 Print Bibliography Harris, Sharon M.  Ã¢â‚¬â€¹Dr. Mary Walker, An American Radical, 1832 - 1919  . 2009.Synder, Charles McCool.  Dr. Mary Walker: The Little Lady in Pants.  1974.   More About Mary Walker: Profession:  PhysicianAlso known  as:  Dr. Mary Walker, Dr. Mary E. Walker, Mary E. Walker, Mary Edwards WalkerOrganizational Affiliations: Union ArmyPlaces: New York, United StatesPeriod: 19th century

Current Issues Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

Current Issues - Essay Example In addition, the state has joined half of other states in the U.S. and gone ahead signing the Medicaid expansion program, which is going to be fund by the Federal government, for a period of 3 years. The Governor and the lawmakers have done this by extending the program to adult persons earning up to 138% of the level of Federal poverty (MPRnews, n.d.). Other crucial issues that are being discussed by the legislatures and the governor include the budget, which is the focus; taxes, which, Gov. Dayton is saying that, he wants making Minnesota’s tax system simpler and fairer, by unveiling a tax reform plan. New plans for a health insurance exchange required by the Affordable Care Act unveiled by President Obama are underway (Governing, n.d.). In addition to the aforementioned issues, other issues underway include the same-sex marriage, which is illegal in Minnesota, public safety issues, which were triggered by the recent shootings of high profile, election issues, triggered by the Republican-backed amendment to the constitution, requiring voters to produce photo identification (Liz, 2014). Finally, the sand mining issues, which the governor says will be huge in the current season, and transportation. Therefore, it is evident that there are a couple of issues that the governor and lawmakers be pushing for in the current year, w hich form our current issues in Minnesota. Liz, F., Chris, K., Wogan, J.B., Mike, M., and Ryan, H. (2014). The Top ten Legislative Issues to Watch in 2014. Retrieved from

Global market Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words - 1

Global market - Essay Example Every profession including health care can be wide and vast and in order for one to understand and gain experience, they need more than what is learnt in the class. Throughout this essay, in order to protect the identities of people, trust and clinical setting involved confidentiality will be maintained with omission of names (Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC), 2015) Practice based learning is when a group of nursing staff and lecturers work collaboratively to make a significant contribution to supporting student learning and assessment within a designated clinical area (Chapple and Aston (2004). It provides the opportunity to link theory into practice and promote professional development (Koh, 2002). Practice based learning is very crucial in the profession of nursing due to the vocational nature of work and necessity of assessing clinical competency and protecting the public. By doing so, it ensures all student nurses achieved all the NMC standards and criteria/ objectives, before ensuring they are fit for practice/ registration (NMC 2004). In practicing health care, there is need to have a mentor who will guide the prospecting practitioner with vast experience. Nursing and Midwifery Council 2008 defines a mentor as an individual who is registered and has completed the NMC approved mentor preparation programme and has acquired the skills, knowledge and competence needed to meet the defined outcomes. As a mentor, an individual has a key role to play in ensuring that they guide new and potential practitioners as they go through transition. Their roles include; The mentor has the role of organizing as well as coordinating the students learning activities in the health care practice. The mentors play vital roles in ensuring that various students’ learning activities particularly in the healthcare sector are organized and well coordinated. Also, mentors have a role in supervising students in learning circumstances.

Cookies as Spyware Essay Example for Free

Cookies as Spyware Essay This paper addresses Cookies as Spyware. The option chosen was to analyze the issues associated with cookies being used as spyware. Are cookies pieces of malicious, benign, or innocent software? The next paragraphs of this paper will discuss the various uses of cookies. And, then, the paper will conclude with my opinion about cookies based upon my research findings. Since web browsing uses a stateless connection, cookies are used to maintain the state of a browsing session. Cookies are small data files that are produced by a web server that are stored on your computer. Cookies allow a personalized web browsing experience because of the identifying information that they store within them (such as login information, passwords, web pages visited, and/or items placed in a shopping cart). There are different types of cookies that are created for specific purposes. They include session, persistent, first-party, and third-party cookies. Session cookies are used to store information related to a particular visit during one session. Persistent cookies are used to store information permanently on your hard drive about your interactions and/or preferences with a certain web site. First-party cookies are used by the specific site that created them while their website is being visited, whereas third-party cookies are not created by the website that is being visited. Third-party cookies are created by another website besides the website being visited such as a banner advertisement on the web page that is being visited. (â€Å"Encyclopedia,†) While most cookies appear to be used solely for the purpose of enhancing the user’s web browsing experience, cookies can be used for other purposes including adware or spyware if they contain active code. Adware is used to automatically download or display advertisements on a person’s computer. Spyware is technology used to gather information about a person or organization without their consent or knowledge and relay that information back to advertisers or other interested parties. (â€Å"Information security magazine,† 2008) Technology has evolved to the point where cookies can or have been abused, so they are associated with some security risks. The risks associated with cookies are hijacking (session hijacking), inaccurate identification (due to multiple user accounts or different browsers being used on a single PC), poisoning or stealing (cookie manipulation), and lack of expiration or artificially long expiration periods (allowing cookies to remain when they are no longer needed can allow the cookies to be stolen or attacked). (â€Å"Are all cookies,† 2010) All of these security risks can be used to gain access to or steal personal information from a user or their computer. In conclusion, from the research articles reviewed, it is my opinion that cookies are both beneficial and potentially harmful if used improperly. Cookies can be used safely to enjoy their beneficial purposes for web browsing by following some simple rules. Routinely find and delete unnecessary cookies by navigating to the path on your hard drive where your cookies are stored (C:\Documents and Settings\[username]\Cookies). There really isn’t much danger in deleting these files since new cookies are automatically downloaded the next time you visit the site anyway. Also, check to make sure that your browser settings are only allowing first-party cookies (restrict third-party cookies). Another important thing is to install antivirus software (such as Symantec Endpoint Protection, Sophos, McAfee, or any other reputable vendor) and keep your antivirus software updated properly. Perform regular scans on your hard drive and all attached peripherals to prevent infections. Keep operating system patches updated to prevent anyone from hacking your system because of a known vulnerability. Web browsing would be much less personalized if we completely denied ourselves the privileges associated with cookies.

Race and Intercultural Relations in the United States Essay -- Racism

We don't have problems understanding ourselves. We have problems understanding our interactions with others. See yourself as another sees you and you will begin to understand their viewpoint Preface The development of a culture in the United States has been a winding road of interactions between differing, oftentimes opposing cultures and races from the first footfalls of Europeans upon the American continent’s shores. Each group of settlers and immigrants have brought their own unique perspectives and underlying values to the table. Many of these perspectives have been incorporated into the mainstream way of life, many others however, have been dismissed and discarded as either foreign or outright dangerous. The patterns that have emerged from this interaction of cultures and peoples define who we are today as Americans, not a homogenous amalgam of those who came before us, but an inter-connected group of varied cultures living within the same system of democracy. Whether for good or bad, our collective interaction has defined our reference set of values and norms in our interpersonal and cultural development. The patterns that define the macroculture of the United States are deeply rooted in the intercontinental strife and politics of Europe, Africa, and Asia prior to the colonization of North America. The developing European empires and their social, cultural, commercial and religious differences set the stage for intercultural interaction and development for the next 400 years in North America. These groups religious bigotry’s (Protestant vs. Catholic vs. Islamic†¦), social inequalities (noble vs. peasant), and outright greed all combined to contribute to and define our unique American experience... ...ities and privileges to all members of society, regardless of class, race or religious belief. It is the hope that all people can live the American dream of equality and prosperity. References 1) Deconde, Rappaport & Steckel. (1973). Patterns in American History, (3rd edition), Volumes I & II. Wadsworth Publishing Co., Belmont, CA. 2) E.D. Hirsch, Jr. (1987). Cultural Literacy. Houghton Mifflin Co., Boston, MA. 3) Margaret Connell Szasz. (1988). Indian Education in the American Colonies, 1607-1783. University of New Mexico Press, Albuquerque, NM. 4) J. R. Pole. (1993). The Pursuit of Equality in American History, revised edition. University of California Press, Berkeley and Los Angeles, CA. 5) Gorton Carruth. (1993). The Encyclopedia of American Facts and Dates, (ninth edition). Harper Collins Publishers, New York, NY.

Black Power Movement Essay

The movement for Black Power in the U.S. emerged from the civil rights movement in the early 1960s. Beginning in 1959, Robert F. Willams, president of the Monroe, North Carolina chapter of the NAACP, openly questioned the ideology of nonviolence and its domination of the movement’s strategy. Williams was supported by prominent leaders such as Ella Baker and James Forman, and opposed by others, such as Roy Wilkins(the national NAACP chairman) and Martin Luther King.[10] In 1961, Maya Angelou, Leroi Jones, and Mae Mallory led a riotous (and widely-covered) demonstration at the United Nations to protest the assassination of Patrice Lumumba.[11][12] Malcolm X, national representative of the Nation of Islam, also launched an extended critique of nonviolence and integrationism at this time. After seeing the increasing militancy of blacks in the wake of the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing, and wearying of the domination of Elijah Muhammed over the Nation of Islam, Malcolm left that organization and engaged with the mainstream of the Civil Rights Movement. Malcolm was now open to voluntary integration as a long-term goal, but still supported armed self-defense, self-reliance, and black nationalism; he became a simultaneous spokesman for the militant wing of the Civil Rights Movement and the non-separatist wing of the Black Power movement. An early manifestation of Black Power in popular culture was the performances given by Nina Simone at Carnegie Hall in March 1964, and the album In Concert which resulted from them. Simone mocked liberal nonviolence (â€Å"Go Limp†), and took a vengeful position toward white racists (â€Å"Mississippi Goddamn† and her adaptation of â€Å"Pirate Jenny†). Historian Ruth Feldstein writes that, â€Å"Contrary to the neat historical trajectories which suggest that black power came late in the decade and only after the ‘successes’ of earlier efforts, Simone’s album makes clear that black power perspectives were already taking shape and circulating widely†¦in the early 1960s.† By 1966, most of SNCC’s field staff, among them Stokely Carmichael (later Kwame Ture), were becoming critical of the nonviolent approach to confronting racism and inequality—articulated and promoted by Martin Luther King, Jr., Roy Wilkins, and other moderates—and rejected desegregation as a  primary objective. SNCC’s base of support was generally younger and more working-class than that of the other â€Å"Big Five†[14] civil rights organizations and became increasingly more militant and outspoken over time. From SNCC’s point of view, racist people had no qualms about the use of violence against black people in the U.S. who would not â€Å"stay in their place,† and â€Å"accommodationist† civil rights strategies had failed to secure sufficient concessions for black people.[citation needed] As a result, as the Civil Rights Movement progressed, increasingly radical, more militant voices came to the fore to aggressively challenge white hegemony. Increasing numbers of black youth, particularly, rejected their elders’ moderate path of cooperation, racial integration and assimilation. They rejected the notion of appealing to the public’s conscience and religious creeds and took the tack articulated by another black activist more than a century befo re, abolitionist Frederick Douglass, who wrote: Those who profess to favor freedom, and yet depreciate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground. They want rain without thunder and lightning. They want the ocean without the awful roar of its many waters. †¦Power concedes nothing without demand. It never did and it never will. Most early 1960s civil rights leaders did not believe in physically violent retaliation. However, much of the African-American rank-and-file, and those leaders with strong working-class ties, tended to compliment nonviolent action with armed self-defense. For instance, prominent nonviolent activist Fred Shuttlesworth of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (and a leader of the 1963 Birmingham campaign), had worked closely with an armed defense group that was led by Colonel Stone Johnson. As Alabama historian Frye Gaillard writes, †¦these were the kind of men Fred Shuttlesworth admired, a mirror of the toughness he aspired to himself†¦They went armed [during the Freedom Rides], for it was one of the realities of the civil rights movement that however nonviolent it may have been at its heart, there was always a current of ‘any means necessary,’ as the black power advocates would say later on. During the March Against Fear, there was a division between those aligned with Martin Luther King, Jr. and those aligned with Carmichael, marked by their respective slogans, â€Å"Freedom Now† and â€Å"Black Power.† While King never endorsed the slogan, his rhetoric sometimes came close to it. In his 1967 book Where Do We Go From Here?, King wrote that â€Å"power is not the white man’s birthright; it will not be legislated for us and delivered in neat government packages.†