Hurricane Isaac (Paper #1, ENGL 1101)

Ochsner Board of Directors: 

..., my friend and ... Manager for Ochsner Medical Center in New Orleans, Louisiana, recently experienced the force of Hurricane Isaac firsthand. On August 25, ... said all eyes were on Isaac as it gathered strength, organized power, and prepared for landfall. As the storm’s trajectory swung from Florida in the east toward the Louisiana coast in the west, the hospital began gearing up for violent weather. Midday on Monday the 27th, the administrative officials determined that the hospital would assemble staff Team A that evening (Team A rode the storm out on the job, and Team B was post-storm relief).

At 11:00 p.m., the administrators summoned ... with the rest of Team A and initiated the lockdown process. They distributed identification armbands to each arriving individual and then assigned the staff 12-hour-shift work schedules and rooms. Matters became complicated, however, when the armband printer malfunctioned. Hurricane Isaac made landfall early on August 30th, mere hours after Hurricane Katrina’s seventh anniversary. At 2:30 a.m., Ochsner Medical Center lost power, and the backup generators kicked into high gear.

Reflective Paper on "The Allegory of the Cave" by Plato (Ethics of Leadership)

Nobody wants to be a fool. The only way to escape foolishness is to pursue wisdom, and so each of us, in one way or another whether we realize it or not, seeks to find wisdom. However, we do not all have the same concept of wisdom and so we chase after it in different ways peculiar to our view. Plato believes in the existence of absolute truth and calls it the “essential Form of Goodness” (231). He hopes that exposing us to this Form of Goodness, this pure truth, will straighten out our view of life and give us a new way to live. For Plato, wisdom is an accurate understanding, one based on our own personal experience, of the “essential Form of Goodness” that produces in us a revitalized life built on our change of perspective.

Plato acknowledges that his understanding of absolute truth is limited, but he still believes in its existence. He states, “Heaven knows whether it is true; but this, at any rate, is how it appears to me” (231). Here we can see a basic philosophy that truth can exist regardless of our knowledge of it. Just because he thinks his reasoning to be correct does not mean that it is. This is why he advocates the seeking of wisdom; a complete comprehension of the “essential Form of Goodness” is always beyond our grasp yet we should absorb every bit of it that we can so our lives will be more and more closely oriented to that truth. Maturity is the ability to view truth “as it is in itself in its own domain” (230). Plato sees this truth objectively; he knows that he cannot influence or change it. His opinion of the truth may be in error but this does not affect the truth itself.