Who is Jesus? Reflections on S. Endo\u27s A Life of Jesus

In lieu of an abstract, below is the essay\u27s first paragraph. Shusaku Endo was a Japanese author born in Tokyo in 1923. He was raised by his single mother who became a fervent believer in Christianity. With her influence, Endo himself was baptized by the age of twelve. Having grown up in Japan, Endo was obviously very knowledgeable about Japanese religion and customs and most especially Japanese ideals. He claimed that “the Japanese have a traditional saying to the effect that the four most dreadful things on the earth are fire, earthquakes, thunderbolts, and fathers” (4). Obviously, as this quote illustrates, the image of a strict father is not very appealing to the Japanese; instead, according to Endo, the Japanese prefer the image of a maternal figure. This is precisely why, Endo argues, that the Christian religion is such a minority in Japan. Because God has always been depicted as a stern father in western cultures, Christianity has never caught on in Japan. So to help his Japanese audience better understand his beloved religion, Shusaku Endo wrote the novel called A Life of Jesus. To accomplish this purpose, Endo depicted God and Jesus in a very different way from which western readers are used to seeing. Because the Japanese identify more with the maternal side of things and are more “responsive to one who „suffers with [them]‟”, Endo decided to depict God as a caring maternal figure and Jesus as a man who had such great love that he was willing to die even for those who did not yet believe (1). In this way Endo is able to greatly bring out the humanity of Jesus. When A Life of Jesus is read with this perspective in mind, it makes a lot more sense in terms of the arguments made, the type of soft language used, and the tear jerking metaphors presented. Overall, this book serves its purpose, which is to present and in a way to “sell” Christianity to a Japanese based audience who know very little, if anything, about Jesus

Gender Discrimination and Job Satisfaction

This article defines the relationship between two factors and its impact by examining the effect of Gender discrimination in the work place which influences the job performance and job satisfaction in individuals(i.e.; hiring, promotion, salary, control/ autonomy/ influence, challenge, performance measures, feed back, in strumentality, stability/security). The data is collected through quantitative method. The sample of thestudy consisted of 500 employees working in different bank in Islamabad and Wahcantt (Pakistan) through the questionnaire, of which 300 were returned and processed. R was used to analysis the data, using independent T-Test, and excel, Correlation and Multi-regression analysis. There is a significant prove, gender discrimination has an influence on Job satisfaction and job performance and stability of individuals. From findings of the study, it is also depicted that male and female have significantly different level of job satisfaction

Influence of single and multiple dry bands on critical flashover voltage of silicone rubber outdoor insulators: simulation and experimental study

Dry band formation on the surface of outdoor insulators is one of the main reasons leading to flashover and power outages. In this paper, a dynamic arc model is proposed for single and multiple dry bands configuration to predict the critical flashover voltage for silicone rubber outdoor insulators. An arc is modelled as a time dependent impedance consisting of a Resistor Inductor Capacitor (RLC) circuit. The effect of dry band location and existence of multiple dry bands on critical flashover voltage is investigated. To validate the proposed model, experiments were conducted in a climate chamber under controlled environmental conditions on rectangular silicone rubber sheets polluted using improved solid layer method based on IEC 60,507. Tests were conducted at different dry band configurations and pollution severity levels. A good correlation was found between experimental results and simulation results. This model can provide a good foundation for the development of mathematical models for station post insulators having multiple dry and clean bands and can be used in the design and selection of outdoor insulators for polluted conditions

Y2K Interruption: Can the Doomsday Scenario Be Averted?

The management philosophy until recent years has been to replace the workers with computers, which are available 24 hours a day, need no benefits, no insurance and never complain. But as the year 2000 approached, along with it came the fear of the millennium bug, generally known as Y2K, and the computers threatened to strike!!!! Y2K, though an abbreviation of year 2000, generally refers to the computer glitches which are associated with the year 2000. Computer companies, in order to save memory and money, adopted a voluntary standard in the beginning of the computer era that all computers automatically convert any year designated by two numbers such as 99 into 1999 by adding the digits 19. This saved enormous amount of memory, and thus money, because large databases containing birth dates or other dates only needed to contain the last two digits such as 65 or 86. But it also created a built in flaw that could make the computers inoperable from January 2000. The problem is that most of these old computers are programmed to convert 00 (for the year 2000) into 1900 and not 2000. The trouble could therefore, arise when the systems had to deal with dates outside the 1900s. In 2000, for example a programme that calculates the age of a person born in 1965 will subtract 65 from 00 and get -65. The problem is most acute in mainframe systems, but that does not mean PCs, UNIX and other computing environments are trouble free. Any computer system that relies on date calculations must be tested because the Y2K or the millennium bug arises because of a potential for “date discontinuity” which occurs when the time expressed by a system, or any of its components, does not move in consonance with real time. Though attention has been focused on the potential problems linked with change from 1999 to 2000, date discontinuity may occur at other times in and around this period.

The Economics of Stateless Nations: Sovereign Debt and Popular Well-being in Pakistan

The Government of Pakistan believes that “high and growing” indebtedness of the government is reflected in falling investment and growth rates of the economy, leading to growing poverty of the people. This paper examines how this came to be, and whether the connections implicit in this assessment do in fact exist? On this basis, the paper also comments on the efficacy of some current policy proposals. The conventional wisdom is that “persistent fiscal and balance of payments deficits are a fundamental source of Pakistan’s high debt burden” [Pakistan (2001), p. xv)].1 The State Bank of Pakistan (2001, p. 117) goes further: “This…public debt is the result of structural weaknesses in the domestic economy and the external account. Excessive government expenditures, stagnant tax revenues, high returns on government securities and inappropriate sequencing of financial reforms, led to a bludgeoning (sic.) domestic debt profile. On the external front, large current account deficits, stagnant export revenues and declining worker (sic.) remittances, effectively forced Pakistan into an unsustainable situation”. All this is true, but hardly exhaustive.

Anaemia and associated factors among standard 6 rural schools in Kuala Terengganu District Dicember 1994, 1995

A cross sectional study was done in December 1994 to determine the prevalence rate of anemia and the associated factors among standard six students in the district of Kuala Terengganu. Three schools was randomly selected from 65 schools in Kuala Terengganu which involved a sample of284 students. Data was obtained using a self-administered questionnaire, anthropometry measurement, 24-hour dietary recall, academic assessment and mental activities. The health knowledge of mothers of the students were also assessed using a self-administered questionnaire. The prevalence rate of anemia (Hb < 12 gm.%) was 12.7%. It is higher among female students. The other variables including nutrition intake, antropometry status, family size, sanitation and health knowledge of mothers did not show any significant difference between anemic and non anemic students. These could be due to the fact that the population is homogenous. There is a situation indicating lower school performance based on examination result of three subjects (English, mathematics and Human Science). However this study does not shows any significant difference. This could be due to other confounding factors such as severity of anemia, homogenesity of sample and others not studied. The mental performance of the student is measured by the duration to complete a set of activities involving puzzle, quiz and others was done. The linear regression analysis showed that for every I gm % decrease in level of hemoglobin of the children, there is an increase of 18 second in time to complete the mental activities. (p < 0.05, r = 0.19 and r = 3.8 %). These infer that anemia as indicated by the hemoglobin levels cause a decrease in attention spans of children conducting a set of mental activities. Since anemia is still prevalence among the school children in Kuala Terengganu screening of cases and follows up to over come the problem is importance to ensure that the children are alert at school