Two days after Pervez Musharraf seized power in a bloodless coup in 1999, a poll in Pakistan revealed that 75% of Pakistanis supported the military takeover. The army chief had deposed the prime minister, Nawaz Sharif, seen by many as running an inept and corrupt government.

Fast forward nine years and the irony is inescapable. Yesterday it was the 65-year-old President Musharraf who resigned rather than face impeachment charges of incompetence and corruption. Recent opinion polls put Sharif as the country’s most popular politician.

In many ways it is an ignominious end for the military strongman. Musharraf has never been burdened by immodesty, but he comes from humble roots. His father was a lowly Indian bureaucrat in the British Raj. Pervez was born, the second of three sons, in Delhi in 1943.

During the bloody partition of India, the family fled to Pakistan. Pervez’s father joined the country’s new foreign service – posted to Turkey in 1949, where his family spent seven years, and where his sons learned fluent Turkish. Musharraf did not grow up in a particularly religious atmosphere. Unlike many observant families he kept dogs – which are seen as un-Islamic on the subcontinent.

Back in Pakistan his mother persuaded him to join the army – an institution that shaped his attitudes. As a mohajir, an Urdu-speaking refugee from India, he was an outsider in a Punjabi-dominated army but his talent did not go unnoticed and he rose steadily through the ranks. The rapid ascent almost killed him: he was supposed to be General Zia-ul-Haq’s military secretary in August 1988 and would have been blown up when Zia’s plane crashed. However his job had not been confirmed.

Just a decade later Musharraf seized power. He presented a liberal image, that of a man who privately liked a tumbler of scotch. He promised to end corruption and clean out the country’s institutions. General Musharraf said he wanted a return to democracy.

He also refused Bill Clinton’s request to cooperate in American attempts to capture Osama bin Laden. However 9/11 changed all that. Pakistan became a key ally in the war on terror. Whether the Bush White House threatened to “bomb Pakistan back to the Stone Age” or not, Musharraf cracked down on terror groups, he sent the army into lawless badlands on the Pakistan-Afghanistan border. He stopped sending jihadis into Indian Kashmir.

But the reluctant coup-maker always appeared unwilling to hand power back to the civilian politicians he loathed. His unseating of the chief justice in 2007 was a typical piece of bravado. His declaration of a state of emergency to confirm his own presidency was another sign of how a remarkably poor politician and domestic strategist he was.

There’s no doubt Musharraf remains fairly liberal-minded. He has acted bravely to combat Islamic extremists. Repeated triumphs have fed the myth of his indispensability. Yesterday all that came to an end.

Washington last night ruled out using military force in Georgia after putting the Pentagon in charge of the delivery of aid to the invaded Black Sea state and US non-combat troops on the ground.

A week into the crisis in the Caucasus, Condoleezza Rice, the US secretary of state, traveled to the Georgian capital, Tbilisi, to rally “the free world’s support for a free Georgia” following criticism that the Bush administration had been slow to respond to the Russian attack on the region’s key US ally.

Despite a French-brokered ceasefire agreement three days ago that required Russian and Georgian forces to retire to pre-conflict positions, Russian forces remained deep in what was Georgian-controlled territory, well outside the two contested provinces of Abkhazia and South Ossetia where the Russians were stationed as “peacekeepers”.

The Russians remained in control of the town of Gori straddling the main road north of Tbilisi, of Senaki to the west, and were in the Black Sea port of Poti – all home to key Georgian military facilities.

Moscow said it did not know when it would pull out.

“We are planning it. It depends on many factors. I can’t give you the date. We have stopped building up troops,” Colonel-General Anatoly Nogovitsyn, Russia’s deputy chief of staff, told reporters in Moscow.

But last night Robert Gates, the US defence secretary, said there were signs that the Russians were withdrawing to the two pro-Russian breakaway provinces of Abkhazia and South Ossetia.

The US landed a second large military transport plane with relief aid in Tbilisi after George Bush warned the Russians not to obstruct the aid effort, raising Russian suspicions that the Americans could be ferrying military supplies to the Georgians whose armed forces have been shattered by the Russians. “What is in it in reality?” asked Gen Nogovitsyn. “It is of major concern to the Russians.”

Bush said on Wednesday: “We expect Russia to ensure that all lines of communication and transport, including seaports, airports, roads and airspace, remain open for the delivery of humanitarian assistance and for civilian transit.”

The tough statement encouraged speculation that the US military could come into dangerously close contact with the Russians, raising the risk of US-Russian clashes. Such fears were heightened by President Mikheil Saakashvili of Georgia, who claimed that the Pentagon was taking control of Georgian ports and airports.

The US dismissed such claims. “We are not there to defend the ports, we are there to provide humanitarian aid,” White House spokeswoman, Dana Perino, said.

Last night, Gates said: “I don’t see any prospect for the use of military force by the United States in this situation.” He added that Washington hoped to avoid any return to a cold war confrontation triggered by the Kremlin’s invasion and rout of Georgia in under a week, but warned Moscow that it could do lasting damage to its relations with the west.

There would have to be unspecified consequences for Russia if it did not observe its ceasefire pledges. “If Russia does not step back from its aggressive posture and actions in Georgia, the US-Russian relationship could be adversely affected for years to come,” said Gates.

But all the signs were that the Kremlin would effect a retreat, satisfied that it had achieved its war aims and the better to control and dominate the diplomatic mediation effort gathering steam.

Rice went to Tbilisi last night to bolster the embattled Georgians in the diplomatic tussle that was launched by President Nicolas Sarkozy of France on Tuesday and resulted in a six-point ceasefire and peace plan.

Before arriving in Tbilisi, the secretary of state met Sarkozy in France to toughen the mediation terms which are being conducted by the French on behalf of the European Union. Georgia “is a member state of the United Nations and its internationally recognized borders need to be respected … The United States of America stands strongly, as the president of France just said, for the territorial integrity of Georgia”, Rice said pointedly, alongside Sarkozy.

Presenting the ceasefire terms in Moscow on Tuesday night, Sarkozy signally refused to support Georgia’s territorial integrity. “Georgia is an independent and sovereign state and I think this formula, the principle of sovereignty, is broader than the formula of territorial integrity,” he said.

Obama visits Indonesia

There might be a great change between the United States and Indonesia because of Obama’s visit.  

The U.S President Obama recently made special visit to Indonesia. In the 20 hour’s “hometown tour”, Obama and the President of Indonesia Susilo talks and visited the largest mosque in Jakarta and Indonesia University.

According to analysts, Obama’s Indonesia trip is just one of the new Asian strategies. There are two purposes. One is to ascend America’s impact in Asia, the other one is to improve the relationship in Islamic world through the country that has numerous Muslin populations. 

On the news conference, Obama emphasized that the United States will strengthen economic and trade cooperation with Indonesia and rank Indonesia as its first trading partner from the third one as soon as possible. He also promised to convene American businessmen and investors to seek business opportunities in Indonesia. Suilo said that the United States has immense economic potential and Indonesia is a rapid developing country, so the economic cooperation between the two countries will be a broad prospect.

During the visit, the leaders of the two countries signed a partnership agreement which is aimed at promoting the cooperation between the two countries. According to the agreement, there is cooperation on trade, investment, education, energy, environment and national security.

The United States and Indonesia are traditional allies in the 1970s. In the late 1990s, the United States aborted most military cooperation with Indonesia. The trading relationships between the two countries also fell subsequently. In the 21st century, the relations between the two countries are improved, but many cooperation projects are still suspended.

This year, the secretary of the state and the defense secretary visited Indonesia successively. The military cooperation between the two countries has been resumed and other aspects of cooperation are under way. The Indonesian thinks that Obama adjusts Asian strategies so that it can return to Asia. As the largest country in Southeast Asia, Indonesia granted becomes the focus of America.

The common side of the United States and Indonesia is to strengthen economic and trade cooperation. Both the slow recovery of economic in the United States and the rapid development of economic in Indonesia need mutual help from each other, especially for Indonesia. It needs America’s capital and technology. According to official statistics in Indonesia, the total investment of the United States in Indonesia is 1.57 billion dollars in 2008. And in 2009, it increases to 1.71 billion dollars. The Indonesia government hopes the Unites States can make more investment in non-oil and gas field.

How long is the way between Indonesia and the United States remains to be seen in the near future? Of course<img src="http://www.articlesfactory.com/pic/x.gif" alt="Free Reprint Articles" border="0", we hope the relationship between the two countries can be long-term so that we can change the world better and better.

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The electric pruners make light work of the bare cox’s apple branches as David Bradley strips them back, preparing the orchard for a new season and the harvest to follow. The farmer cuts and thins out the trees but when he removes the chamois leather glove protecting his right hand, the loss of his index finger, ligaments and skin tissue is laid bare.

This is not the only lasting injury from the former British army major’s time in Iraq. Sometimes, Bradley, 40, has to step out of the direct sunlight as his damaged iris no longer dilates and contracts in the way that it should.

The right side of his face is lightly peppered with black shrapnel marks but seeing him now on the family farm, it is hard to imagine that in the summer of 2004 he was so badly injured that doctors gave him only a 5% chance of survival.

His right hand and eye were shredded when his Warrior – an armoured infantry fighting vehicle used to carry troops – was hit by rocket-propelled grenades.

He was, he says, “blown up”. In the four years that followed, the soldier would first have to fight to live, then fight to rebuild his broken body and then create a completely new life outside the army.

“As soon as the doctors say they can’t operate on you any more you have a choice – stay in and do a desk job or leave. I left. It was the right thing for the army and for me. I am a soldier, I joined to command soldiers. With the injuries I have sustained I can’t do that. I was medically discharged and suddenly became mister, not major, Bradley.”

So, he and his wife Lara and his two children, Philippa, 10, and Alexander, eight, moved out of their military accommodation in Tidworth, Devon, and returned to Bradley’s family farm in Kent. There are times, he admits, when he wishes he was back with his company, which is currently in Iraq, preparing for the British withdrawal. But instead of men, the former major will spend his days this spring marshalling apples, pears, cherries and asparagus.

Sitting in the study of the farmhouse that once belonged to his grandparents, it’s easy for Bradley to conjure the events and mood of Iraq five years ago just as it might be easy for many to forget just how dangerous it was in the country at that time.

By the summer, the Shia insurgency was beginning to sweep across Basra and southern Iraq and in the months to come crude, but deadly, improvised explosive devices would become the weapon of choice against British soldiers, tearing through ineffectual armoured plating on vehicles, killing and maiming scores of soldiers.

Bradley had been in the country since April and was commanding B Company, the Princess of Wales’s Royal Regiment, a group of 116 men attached to the Cheshire Regiment. This was their first tour of Iraq. The company was based in the grounds of the Shatt al-Arab hotel in the northern part of Basra. Before the war, the art deco hotel had boasted a four-star rating and had been a favourite haunt for foreign businessmen who had come to the comparatively prosperous and cosmopolitan southern port.

But by 2004, the Shatt al-Arab had become a large British military base, with row upon row of tents and portable toilets. It was heavily fortified with perimeter walls and guard posts. For US troops in Baghdad, car bombers had become the biggest threat but in the “Shatt”, B Company came under a different kind of attack – every night, the soldiers were mortared by Katyusha rockets, forcing them to sleep under the hard cover of one big, fetid room rather than in the tents that had been erected around the camp.

“We were mortared every night. We hunkered down inside the hotel because it was the only place with a hard roof. I remember once being mortared when I was outside in the toilet and thinking ‘don’t let me die here’.”

Bradley had been in the army for 12 years and in spite of serving in Northern Ireland and having been on exercise in countries such as Kuwait and Oman, this was the first time he had really felt the meaning of the adage: war is often 10% terror and 90% boredom.

The terror he had often talked of and thought about would visit him on Monday 9 August 2004.

Although it was cloudy that morning, it was oppressively hot – even more so inside the claustrophobic armoured fighting vehicles. Heading out of camp in their Warriors, the soldiers’ morning mission was to track down a group of 15 men who had been spotted on rough ground close to another British base, Camp Cherokee – that same rough ground had been the site used by insurgents who had been firing rockets at the camp.

By the time they dispersed the crowd, it was already more than 45c, and B Company were late for lunch; hot and hungry they returned to camp and made straight for the company cookhouse where the chef had kept pie and chips for them in the oven.

They were still in the middle of eating when a runner came in with disturbing news: a number of British troops were missing in the heart of Basra. The details were scarce but the problem obvious.

Gunners from the Royal Horse Artillery had been attacked when they raced in to the city to pull out an army officer who had seen a crowd build up outside the small British Camp Stephen and had radioed for help. As they drove towards the officers, their three “Snatch” Land Rovers were barraged with rockets and bullets – one managed to pull out, but two were so badly shot up they caught fire, the soldiers inside were forced to run for cover, leaving their radios inside.

Their sergeant managed to ring headquarters on an Iraqi mobile phone but he could give no coordinates as they had no idea exactly where they were.

He told HQ that nine soldiers were in the area of the Ba’ath party headquarters, right next to the office of the Moqtada al-Sadr – the headquarters of the Mahdi army.

In the cook house, Bradley remembers thinking that he just wanted to eat the rest of his chips. He gathered some of his men for a quick briefing. They were going to be the rescue party, and Bradley would lead them in to Basra to get the soldiers out. Hostage-taking had become a well-publicized weapon of the insurgents and no one needed reminding that for them the capture of British soldiers would have been the ultimate prize.

“You have images in your mind of them being caught, put into orange jumpsuits and being decapitated on TV,” said Bradley. “They were from a different regiment but none of us would ever leave a British soldier there – we would do whatever we had to to get them back.”

The first call about the missing troops came in at 3.44pm and by 4pm, five of Bradley’s Warriors swept out through the camp gates, each with a driver, gunner and commander on top and between four and seven soldiers – “dismounts” – in the back. There was no air support to call upon, the only means of rescue were the Warriors. The convoy sped down the main road into town, known to the British army as Red Route.

They had been driving for just five minutes when they came under heavy fire – more intense than any previous attack on B Company.

As it crossed a T-junction, Bradley’s Warrior, which went under the radio call sign Two Zero Alpha, was hit by a barrage of rocket-propelled grenades and small arms fire.

The assault was coming from buildings on both sides of the street, and Bradley, standing in the commander’s turret, was “scanning for the enemy” through the sight of his rifle, to give his men some idea of where to return fire, but before he had a chance an RPG hit the right side of the vehicle. Another hit his shoulder.

“I just suddenly felt this pressure. I was knocked down. Then there was this small, thick, dark grey explosion below me and I thought: ‘This is bad.’ It looked evil. I flung my hand up and it was a cloven hoof – my index finger had gone.”

In the pandemonium that followed, Bradley thought that another RPG had landed inside the vehicle and shouted through the intercom for everyone to “debus” – get out of the vehicle. But the communications were no longer working.

“I crawled out on top of the turret. I was on fire and with my good hand I patted it out and thought I was OK.” As he lay up there, Private Carl Yee-Lim, his gunner, was screaming: “Sir, sir, get back inside.” The voice, cutting through the roar of the rockets, brought Bradley back to his senses.

“Suddenly I was really conscious of all the rounds coming past me. My gunner grabbed me and I dropped down.”

In fact, the Warrior had been hit by seven RPGs almost simultaneously. Inside the back of the vehicle, it was thick with smoke and blood was everywhere. Sergeant Major Simon Barnett had serious shrapnel wounds to his leg and arms and his helmet had been blown off – a lump of metal was embedded in his head and his teeth were blown out.

The medic, sorely needed, was also badly hit. The rest of the crew in the back, including the Iraqi interpreter, suffered varying degrees of injury, mostly flash burns, and could no longer hear anything because of ear damage. He had blood in his eye but he could still see light.

The pain, however, was spreading and so Bradley reached for the morphine jab he kept just under the breast plate of his flak jacket. With the last reserves of his strength, he ripped it open with his teeth and stabbed it in his thigh.

As he did this, the Warrior sounded like a grunting metal pig as the driver, Sergeant Mick Pike – who thought Bradley was dead – was attempting to drive them out of danger.

“Yee-Lim was sitting behind the chain gun and he kept leaning across and going: ‘Sir, sir, stay with us.’ I was thinking why does he keep shaking me when I am not badly wounded?”

Bradley drifted in and out of consciousness and was a little irritated by the panic in Yee-Lim’s voice. As the vehicle pulled inside camp, the major tried to get out himself.

“I remember putting my hand down on the vehicle and jumping off and just feeling really, really tired and some lads turned up with a stretcher. I collapsed back thinking I am not getting up from this. I didn’t know I was as badly wounded as I was. I just felt drained.”

Bradley collapsed on to a stretcher, was taken inside and put on the commanding officer’s desk. The room turned into a casualty clearing station, but only limited first aid could be done. It immediately became clear they needed to move him to a place with more specialist care. He begged the doctor to knock him out as he had had enough. The last thing Bradley remembers from that day was being wheeled out to a helicopter that flew him to the medical centre at Shaibah logistics base.

“One of the nurses said if any of the other lads had come in at the same time as me they would have put me to the side. They didn’t think I was saveable. If there had to have been a choice, they wouldn’t have operated on me, they would have operated on someone else.”

On the operating table, Bradley was losing blood pressure and the doctors couldn’t work out why. Luckily, there was a Czech doctor working at the base, Marcel Hyack, who was a specialist in chest surgery. With little to lose, Hyack decided to operate and found copper piercing shrapnel from an RPG embedded deep inside. “The shrapnel had cut my innominate vein. The surgeon thought I was going to die anyway, so let’s have it out.”

That night Bradley was induced into a coma and flown to Birmingham in an intensive care unit on board a C17 military aircraft. After being operated on for 18 hours he was brought round, with his wife and father at his bedside.

“They still weren’t sure that I would make it. I had severe shrapnel wounds to the right hand and they had to cut of 80% of the deltoid muscle. They removed my index finger back to the metacarpal. They had to attach my hand to my stomach and transfer the skin flap – it was attached for three weeks.”

Bradley prods the slightly puffy and hairy part of his hand that was rebuilt from his stomach.

“The blast blew out the lens of my right eye and shredded the cornea. I had a new artificial lens and a corneal graft. I can wear a lens but don’t wear it all the time because the cornea is so sensitive. I had three broken ribs and a broken clavicle. I lost some of my lymph glands.”

Bradley remained in hospital for eight weeks. On his tenth day there he received a letter telling him he had been posted to the Y list – an administrative location for people who are not fit to serve.

“In order for them to get a replacement for me I had to leave the battalion. Lara says she watched me shrink when I read it. It was confirmation of my situation and it was very impersonal. I complained about it and they have now changed their procedures.

“All I wanted to do was to get back and command the company. Over time I realised that it wasn’t going to be that easy but that time allowed me to come to terms with it. If you are a double amputee, you know that you can’t go back to fighting as soon as you open your eyes.” From hospital he was allowed home but spent six separate month-long stays at Headley Court military rehabilitation centre in Surrey.

Bradley missed out on compensation introduced in April 2005 for those British soldiers injured on the frontline. He received a medical discharge lump sum of £48,000 and supplements his pension of £21,000 a year with a wage from the farm. A few weeks ago, Bradley – with the help of his father and some hired labor – planted 7,500 new apple trees to augment the orchards of his childhood. For his family, they are a symbol of their new life.

In spite of what happened to him, the soldier-turned-farmer says he “would have been nowhere else on 9 August”. He said: “In its purest form, we went out there to save British soldiers’ lives and we achieved that.”

But also, unknown at the time to the badly injured Bradley, the battle that had engulfed his company left one of its soldiers, Private Lee O’Callaghan, 20, dead.

Without Bradley as commander, his junior officers and soldiers stormed the Ba’ath party headquarters – heavily fortified by the British but handed over to the Iraqis – but could not find the missing troops. By some stroke of good fortune a helmet was spotted in a house nearby and since only British soldiers wore helmets in Basra, they knew they had stumbled across the lost men who were about to run out of ammunition. The beleaguered soldiers were piled into the back of a Warrior.

Bradley’s men gave up their safe-ish seats to fight their way out on foot. Some soldiers were later awarded medals for bravery, including the Military Cross.

“There are dark moments when I lie in bed,” Bradley concedes. He knows he has changed. “I am more emotional than I was. I think many people who come back from those sorts of environments experience that sort of change.

“I have a shorter temper sometimes, though that is becoming less. I am different. But so far farming has been great. The army is a fit man’s business and I am a broken soldier.”

INTRODUCTION

The third world is a part of our earth that is always in the clutches of the military generals. Almost every general in this part of the earth is ambitious to grab the highest post of the president or chief martial law administrator. But wishes do not always come true. The golden bird does not sit on the shoulders of all the generals. Only few get the chance to rule and befool the naïve public of their states. There are a lot of such generals who do not succeed in usurping the powers.

There are two kinds of such generals of the third world who cannot reach their “unnatural” political boundary:
1-those who try
2-those who do not try

Why these generals fail in politics, let us make a survey of the causes and effects of their failure.

ATTITUDE

The first and foremost reason of the defeat in the battlefield of politics is the unreasonable attitude of the generals. Many generals attempt seriously to make good. They have native ability to do so. The native ability in this connection is the military background of the general. This general finds it almost impossible to sit at a desk and concentrate on his evil designs.

He cannot sit down for a long time due to some addiction or illness to ponder over the constitution. Sometimes he tries to do so, opens the book of constitution, but he is unable to decide about his abilities. He always procrastinates and the other rank fellows win the fields. He wastes his time in preparing himself to make a coup. In this way his time passes and nothing comes out in his favor.

Such uncourageous habits are not easy to uproot. If the general wants to succeed he should have to eradicate such obnoxious habits otherwise he should shun all his noble designs of revolution.

Although he thinks that he is trying yet he does not try. He spends a lot of time in the presence of the books of constitution but is unable to amend it in his favor.

ADVISORS

A common cause of failure of the generals of the third world is mistaken ambition on the part of his advisors. The toadies and humbugs are always instigate the military chief to achieve the highest post but are not the best judge of the abilities of the general.

Many generals do not show any interest in political involvement. They are absolutely not fit for this job even for their own job but are advised by his advisor to get involved in the politics. Such a general cannot overthrow the elected government.

The reason behind this defeat is that he has to follow a direction mapped out by his advisor. That direction always runs counter to his interests and abilities.

Such generals always earn a number of warm enemies among the advisors and politicians. Their wish of making him a stooge does not come true and they become his enemies until they succeed in overthrowing him.

Such a general prefers to become ambassador or head of a lucrative department after retirement.

EASYGOING FELLOWS

Another type of a General who does not try is the very intelligent and diligent person. He has always done his duties efficiently and considers politics a child, s play. He supposes that he can float through the politics with as little effort as he did through military career. Such a general is the most pitiable person on the earth when he is pitted in the field of politics. It is almost a tragedy to see such a receptive mind wasting the entire opportunity the politics has offered to him.

PHYSICAL AND MENTAL HEALTH

The question of health both physical and mental is always one of the reasons for failure. If a proper free medical service is available in the USA or ENGLAND, the general can hold up the bridles of the administration. Moreover if proper cooperation exists between the establishment and the general he can easily make a coup.

FINANCIAL RESOURCES

Most of the generals want to join politics but the financial pressure is a very serious reason behind their failure. A lot of them could not find or avail opportunity to heap unlawful wealth during service. Such generals cannot succeed in their ambitions, as they can not gather timeservers around them. Such officers are unable to win sympathies of the establishment and politicians.

These generals are absolutely ignored by the patrons.

Moreover the generals who are cast entirely on their own resources cannot succeed because their entire income is not enough to grease the palms of the establishment. Politicians having vested interests should help them in this regard if they want to fulfill their interests.

JUDGMENT

There are a goodly number of generals whose judgment is perverted by the attraction of the motorcades and escorts of the prime ministers and presidents. So they want to overthrow them and fill up their gap. Such generals who aim at these things should shun their ideas of getting the status of a president or a prime minister .It is better for them to become chairman of a semi- governmental organization and lead their life in comfort and luxury.

POLITICS IS NOT CRICKET

A large number of generals drift into politics and drift out again without serving any interests. They think that politics are just like cricket. Most of them have not found any serious interest in politics. It is usually wise to let them retire in the cold world of general public so that they might know the real and miserable condition of the public.

CONCLUSION

In so far as the failure is concerned it can be avoided by acting upon the guidelines provided by the former military rulers. If this is not kept in mind the failure is the fate of such generals.

The advisors are advised to select the right general who follows the footsteps of his forerunners who had ruled the nation for a decade or more. It would be great service to the failing generals as well to the ignorant people who always welcome the person in the uniform.

Nursing is the nation’s largest health care profession, with more than 2.7 million registered nurses nationwide, and nursing students account for more than half of all health professions students in the United States. Applications to attend nursing schools continue to increase nicely but did you know that thousands of students are being turned away because of an acute shortage of Nursing Educators?

A study done by the U.S. Bureau of Health Professions indicates that by 2020, the U.S. nursing shortage will grow to more than 800,000 registered nurses. How can we put a serious dent in stemming this dangerous tide unless nurses take an active role in educating the nurses of tomorrow?

*Becoming a Nurse Educator is a Wonderful Career Choice*

Registered nurses are teachers already! RNs teach patients and their families how to manage their illness or injury, including post-treatment home care needs, diet and exercise programs, and self-administration of medication and physical therapy. RNs mentor and precept new graduates and new hire staff as well as develop and implement ongoing continuing education activities within clinical settings. RNs combine their clinical expertise and passion for teaching others in thousands of ways every time they work. Nurse Educators make use of that same clinical expertise and passion for teaching to guide and shape the future of the nursing profession- one student at a time!

Do you want to be doing direct patient care when you’re 63 and still waiting to be old enough to retire? I say leave bedside nursing to the younger nurses, give your sore back a rest, and turn your talents towards building the next generation of nurses instead!

Some RNs choose to advance their nursing career by moving into administrative or management positions, but the responsibilities and stress of management isn’t for everyone. For those RNs who would enjoy keeping in touch with direct patient care and in shaping the future of nursing the best career path to think about is becoming a nurse educator!

Given the growing shortage of nurse educators, the career outlook is strong for nurses interested in teaching careers. Nursing schools nationwide are struggling to find new faculty to accommodate the rising interest in nursing among new students.

*Teaching Nursing Offers Outstanding Career Flexibility*

Most nurse educators work in colleges and universities that offer associate and baccalaureate programs in nursing, and some work as instructors for LPN courses while educators involved in clinical education also work at collaborating health care facilities.

A Master’s degree in nursing is typically required to become a faculty member at a university but RNs with a Bachelors degree in nursing and clinical experience are the minimum basic requirements for clinical instructors.Nurse educators can work as full time faculty with all the benefits including tenure and retirement, or may choose to work as part time faculty while still continuing clinical employment and direct patient care. Nurse educators play a vital role in preparing and shaping future generations of nurses!

*Earn a Master’s in Nursing Education While You Work*

You can earn an accredited Master’s Degree in Nursing with a specialization in education or in health education online while maintaining your current job by investing just a few hours of study time per week through several schools.

*Don’t have a BSN Degree?*

There’s a fully accredited RN to MS in Nursing bridge program that allows busy nurses to take the fast track to earning their Masters in Nursing. Students earn both degrees in a fraction of the time at 1/2 the cost of traditional programs and don’t have to give up their job to do it.

Make a difference today that will impact the entire profession for years to come. Become a Nurse Educator!

Scholarships are the amount of money that is given or cut in fees of students on some spatial basis. Various institutes all over the world provide scholarships for students, based on performances in exams or in some other cases as arias, finance or family backgrounds.

Scholarships are the financial help to the students for their studies. Most of the time scholarships are given based on performances. It is a kind of reward for brilliant students as the reductions of fees or direct financial help. Institute provides scholarships to uplift the level of education and to make it easy for brilliant students to get higher education at low cost.

Higher education is getting more and more costly now a days. Sometimes it gets even out of reach for a certain class of people. Scholarships provide the opportunity to the students of those classes to reach up to that higher education, without caring about big amounts of fees. Sometimes students have to earn money for their own expenses besides the fees of the institutes, in such cases scholarships helps a lot.

In countries, where higher studies are not world class, students tends to go abroad for studies, sometimes because of differences of currencies it becomes a big problem for them, most of the world class institutes provides scholarships for outsider students on the basis of certain exams which help students study abroad. Most of the excellent engineering, medical, business, arts and other institutes provide scholarships. As in U.S.A., all big educational institutes have scholarships for outsider students as well as excellent home country students.

Not only for higher level, but for now almost every educational institute has scholarship programs in different forms. Those programs help in raising education level and provide opportunity for performers. Almost all governmental institutes have scholarship programs to help performers in which government provides money to feed excellence in the country. World over big educational institutes have various scholarship programs and now it is a regular phenomena for all kinds of institutes.

Besides performance in examinations there are some more criteria in which scholarships are provided as there are scholarships for handicaps, scholarships for poor students, scholarships for military background students, scholarships for outsider students and scholarships on the basis of personal earnings (students without financial support of any kind).

Scholarships are always given to certain students on some spatial basis; there are three basic reasons for it:

Giving reward to performers so performance is appreciated and others are given motivation to perform.

Helping students, which are financially incapable, but academically excellent.

Honoring some families from spatial backgrounds (as in military)

Scholarship is a very good system for studies as now importance of studies, spatially higher studies, is regularly increasing. In such case, if there are students, which have excellent qualities but are unable to pay heavy fees, will not be able to study than it will be a big loss of human resource. On the other hand scholarships provides motivation to all kinds of students and establish the importance of studies.

Many older people want to stay in their own homes or at least in the same neighborhood. The maintenance and upkeep of a large family home is not always a practical option, physically and financially. But a retirement home sounds so… retired.

So, where are you going to live if you leave the home your children grew up in? There are a few options that you might want to explore if you are adamant about not moving into a structured retirement facility.

Manufactured Mobile Homes are an increasingly attractive choice for older folks. These homes are affordable, energy efficient, spacious and some of the models are designed especially for seniors, utilizing “universal design” features. If zoning ordinances permit, they can be assembled near or on family property, or moved to a senior mobile home community.

Cooperatives are usually found in urban areas. Homes in a cooperative combine the benefits of home ownership with the convenience and efficiency of multi-family housing. This idea appeals to those who want to build equity in their accommodations but don’t want the isolation or responsibility of a larger home.

Condominiums are also an option. This type of ownership offers many advantages to older people. Condos are different from a conventionally owned single-family home or an apartment. While you are holding title to your own living unit, you share ownership of common areas.

Accessory Apartments are worth considering if your house is too large and the utility bills and maintenance are too much for you. An accessory apartment is a second, completely private living unit created in the extra space of a single family home. You may have heard it called a MIL or mother-in-law apartment.

ECHO Housing (Elder Cottage Housing Opportunity) or Granny Flats are also an option. These separate, self-contained units are designed for temporary installation in the side or backyard of an adult child’s home.

Home Matching Programs have been gaining in popularity because of the lack of adequate senior housing. The idea is that you contact a service (often for a fee) that matches people up as roommates. When it works, it is an excellent situation and can enable an older person to stay in his/her own home, while relieving the feelings of isolation and loneliness that many older people experience. A good home-matching service offers counseling to provide help in identifying needs and concerns.

Shared Housing is a similar option. This is what the TV sitcom Golden Girls was all about. It can be economical, provide companionship, and provide a sense of security. It is a peer group situation, but it is not for everyone. If you’ve never lived with others (or have been on your own for many years), you may find it difficult.

Adult Foster Care, or Adult Family Homes, is provided in a private home occupied by an individual or a family who will offer room, meals, housekeeping, and minimal supervision for a month fee. Staff are not permitted to administer medications, however, unless they are nurses.

Retirement Hotels (also called Senior Resident Hotels or Senior Apartments) are hotels intended for people over 62. Some hotels are high-rises and have landscaped gardens while others are drab concrete shoe boxes, but they are usually built in good locations with nearby public transportation. Rent can include meals and maid service, activities programs, assistance with personal grooming, and access to a chore service for a fee.

A Boarding House is when you are basically renting a room, sometimes shared, in someone else’s house, with a manager on the premises.

Senior Apartment Houses are monthly rentals with a variety of options. Some have security systems, activities, and a full complement of services, while others offer lodging only.

For a more detailed discussion on retirement housing options visit this retirement housing site.

TC Thorn is the blogger at home improvement ideas.

Sniper rifles are used to ensure exact placement of shots at larger distances than other small arms. A typical rifle is designed for optimum levels of accuracy, has a telescopic sight and has a military centrefire cartridge.

Classification of sniper rifles

These are of two fundamental types: military and law enforcement. Military sniper rifles give up some accuracy to acquire a good magnitude of durability, reliability, sturdiness, repairability and serviceability. Law enforcement are used by police forces. These are supposed to have more accuracy than military rifles at shorter ranges.

Military sniper rifles

This rifle must not be very heavy as it has to be carried for long hours along with ammunition. Also it has to be very reliable to use in any type of weather. Several rounds of firing would have to be possible without the need of cleaning, maintenance and loss of accuracy. It must be easy to fieldstrip and repair on the field. It must also have backup iron sights, if there is telescope breackage. Generally, these rifles use variants of the standard caliber army cartridges, specially developed for sniping. Some examples are 7.62mm NATO or 7.62X54mm R. The effective range of the standard-caliber sniper rifles is 700-800 meters for first-shot skills. To increase this effective range to more than 1000 meters, .300 Winchester magnum (7.62X67mm) or .338 Lapua magnum (8.6X70mm) are used. Military sniper rifles are classified into two categories: the sniper rifles to attain aimed hits at faraway distances and the Designated Marksman Rifles to provide accurate fire support for line troops. The true sniper rifles are bolt action ones to gain maximum accuracy. The DMRs are semi-autos to achieve a higher rate of fire. Some examples are Russian SVD or German G3ZF or MSG-90.

.50 Caliber Sniper rifle

The main components of the system are a rifle, day optical sighting system and hard carrying case. This is a portable, shoulder-fired, recoil operated semi-automatic system using military standard .50 caliber ammunition. The entire system comprises of the .50 caliber semi-automatic rifle, detachable 10-round magazine, variable-power day optic sight, transport case, tactical soft case, cleaning/maintenance equipment, detachable sling, manuals and adjustable bi-pod. Barrett Firearms Manufacturing Inc. is the organization creating these rifles. The M107 .50 caliber long range rifle has a characteristic of being semi-automatic. Targets upto 2000 meters can be aimed with precision. Its length is 29 inches. The frame mounted, bolt-action XM107 has a weight of 28.5 pounds along with optics. The M107 .50 caliber long range sniper rifle is a new Category I weapon being given to infantry snipers. The Army’s new .50 caliber sniper rifle design was called the XM-107 in the beginning stage. For the manufacture of .50 caliber sniper rifles, there was competition between Barrett and EDM Arms. The former won this competition.

Data relevant to .50 Caliber Sniper rifle

These are sufficiently potent to puncture armored limousines. They can be used to assassinate. They have thet rounds present in the civilian market. Extremely destructive armor-piercing, incendiary and explosive rounds are available. These are designed to invade parked or landing aircraft, rail tank cars, armored personnel carriers, concrete bunkers and bulk fuel storage. These range of these rifles is 2000 yards i.e. 20 football fields juxtaposed. Deer hunters have a range of only 150 to 200 yards. It is said that Osama bin Laden’s Al-Qaeda network purchased 25 such rifles in the latter part of the 1980s.

Early Life of Edgar Allan Poe

Edgar Poe was born on the 19th of January, 1809 in Boston, Massachusetts. His father was David Poe Jr. and his mother was Elizabeth Arnold Hopkins Poe. Both of them were actors. Edgar had an elder brother named William Henry Leonard Poe and a younger sister named Rosalie Poe.

In 1810, their father abandoned them, and within a year their mother died of consumption. Edgar went to live with John Allan who was a Scottish tobacco merchant living in Richmond, Virginia. His siblings went to other families. The Allan family was quite well to do, and Edgar lived a good life with them. As a mark of respect for his adoptive family, Edgar took the middle name of Allan and came to be known as Edgar Allan Poe.

In 1815, the Allans along with Edgar traveled to England, where Edgar began to attend school. In 1815, he attended Grammar School in Irvine, Scotland, and in a boarding school in Chelsea in 1817. After that, he attended the Reverend John Bransby’s Manor House School at Stoke Newington near London. In 1826, he joined the University of Virginia, but he left within a year.

Although the Allans were quite well off, John Allan would not give Edgar much money for his survival in college. To make up for the less money, Edgar began to gamble and lost heavily. His gambling debts created further rifts between him and John Allan.

Literary Career and Works of Edgar Allan Poe

He traveled to Boston under the assumed name of Henri Le Rennet and reached there in 1827. There, he published ‘Tamerlane and Other Poems’ under that assumed name.

But Poe was poor and needed money. So he joined the United States Army under the assumed name of Edgar A. Perry. He served for two years and attained the rank of Sergeant Major. In 1829, Poe moved to Baltimore, Maryland to live with his widowed aunt Maria Clemm and his cousin Virginia Eliza Clemm. His elder brother Henry was also living with them.

The same year, Poe’s foster mother, Francis Allan, passed away. She made a dying request with John Allan to reconcile the differences between him and Poe. So John Allan obtained a commission for Poe to enter the United States Military Academy at West Point. That same year Poe also published another volume of poems titled ‘Al Aaraaf Tamerlane and Minor Poems’.

Poe joined West Point in 1830, but John Allan and he had not reconciled their differences, yet. When John remarried, quarrels broke out between the two of them over the several affairs and children that John had sired both in and out of wedlock. John Allan finally disowned Poe. Edgar Allan Poe then decided to go on strike at West Point and refused to attend his classes and so on. He was court-martialed for disobedience in 1931. Edgar Allan Poe then released his third volume of poetry which was titled, simply ‘Poems, Second Edition’.

That same year, Edgar moved back to Baltimore with his aunt. His brother Henry died of tuberculosis in August, 1931. Meanwhile, Poe had begun to try his hand at writing prose. He began to publish his short stories in a Philadelphia publication. He also won a prize for another short story titled ‘The Manuscript found in a Bottle’ from the Saturday Visitor, which was a newspaper in Baltimore.

This got him a job as the assistant editor on the Southern Literary Messenger in Richmond. However, he was dismissed within a few weeks for being drunk.

This time when he returned to Baltimore he secretly married his cousin Virginia on the 22nd September, 1835. She was 13 at that time.

On the promise of good behavior, Poe was taken back at his job on the Southern Literary Messenger. He returned to Richmond with Virginia and his aunt. While at that job, he wrote extensively for the magazine. He published poems, book reviews, stories and critiques of other people’s works. The circulation of the magazine increased from 700 to 3500.

On the 16th of May, 1836 he publicly married Virginia Clemm. In 1837, Edgar Allan Poe left the Southern Literary Messenger.

In 1838 Poe published ‘The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym’ and it was widely reviewed. In 1839 he joined the Burton’s Gentleman’s Magazine as an assistant editor. There too, he wrote a large number of stories, articles and reviews for the magazine. He also published ‘Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque’ in two volumes which contained a collection of his classic short stories such as ‘The Fall of the House of Usher’, ‘The Manuscript found in a Bottle’, ‘Bernice’, and ‘Ligeia’.

In 1840 he left the Burton’s Gentleman’s Magazine and joined Graham’s Magazine as an assistant editor. There, he published his first detective story titled ‘The Murders in the Rue Morgue’ wherein he created the character of C. Auguste Dupin who solves crimes by the means of a process of deduction. This story was perhaps the first detective story ever told. This character, later, went on to influence Sir Arthur Conan Doyle in the creation of his famous detective, Sherlock Holmes.

It was also after publishing this story, that he invited the readers to send in cryptograms to the magazine which he would solve and publish.

In 1842, his wife Virginia broke a blood vessel and started bleeding heavily from the mouth. This was the first sign of consumption and she recovered, but only partly. Under this stress, Poe began to drink heavily.

Poe then left Graham’s Magazine and moved to New York where he joined the Evening Mirror and then moved on to the Broadway Journal. It was there that he got into a public feud with Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. In 1845, his poem called ‘The Raven’ appeared in the Evening Mirror and caused quite a stir.

The Broadway Journal went bankrupt in 1846 and Poe moved to The Bronx in New York.

In 1847, Virginia died from tuberculosis and left Poe a broken man. He became more unstable and started to drink heavily. He began to suffer bouts of depression and madness. Some say, that apart from drinking, he also began indulging in opium and absinthe – two mind altering substances which were quite ‘popular’ at that time.

He eventually began to court Sarah Helen Whitman, but their courtship did not develop into anything due to his erratic behavior and the meddling of Sarah’s mother. He then returned to Richmond and began to court a childhood sweetheart called Sarah Elmira Royster.

Death of Edgar Allan Poe

As in life, Poe dealt with demons even in his death. On the 3rd of October, 1849 Poe was discovered on the streets of Baltimore in a very delirious condition. He was taken to the Washington College Hospital, where his condition worsened even more. He was not coherent enough to elaborate on how he came to be found in that particular state. He finally passed away on the 7th of October, 1849.

The Edgar Allan Poe biography is an account of a great man’s life. He was the first to create and popularize the ‘Short Story’ method of writing prose. He was also renowned as a master critic of literature. Poe was also the creator of what is known today as the ‘horror’ genre and the ‘detective story’. The work of Edgar Allan Poe has influenced many renowned authors across the world. Few among them are Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, H.P. Lovecraft, Charles Baudelaire, Oscar Wilde, Ray Bradbury, George Bernard Shaw, and Alfred Hitchcock to name a few.

Perhaps, his life can be described better by one of the Edgar Allan Poe Poems, titled ‘A Dream Within A Dream’.

Take this kiss upon the brow
And, in parting from you now,
Thus much let me avow –
You are not wrong, who deem
That my days have been a dream;
Yet if hope has flown away
In a night, or in a day,
In a vision, or in none,
Is it therefore the less gone?
All that we see or seem
Is but a dream within a dream.

I stand amid the roar
Of a surf-tormented shore,
And I hold within my hand
Grains of the golden sand –
How few! yet how they creep
Through my fingers to the deep,
While I weep — while I weep!
O God! can I not grasp
Them with a tighter clasp?
O God! can I not save
One from the pitiless wave?
Is all that we see or seem
But a dream within a dream?