Essay

G07N2903

In this essay the concept of web 2.0 will be introduced in relation to the phenomenon and trend of a blog formerly known as a weblog. A blog is suggestive of an online diary which is a form of a communication device which is obliterating communication barriers around the world. The benefits and changes this form of technology has established in and around the world will be discussed using three different blogs namely: a South African, African and International blog. The focus of the blogs being chosen is based on the topic of the 2010 World Cup to be held in South Africa. Different uses of reporting techniques, blogging styles and the use of web 2.0 will be contrasted and compared. The ways that these specific bloggers present their ideas and views will be intrinsically dissected and analysed to underline similarities and differences in their blogs.

It is the first time that this prestigious sporting event has ever been hosted in an African country. This has caused much controversy and speculation to whether a Third World ranked country could make a success of a Eurocentric, Western world dominated event. Due to the global economic crisis there is further uncertainty to whether this event will be a success. Many expected international visitors would possibly not make the trip due to financial circumstances. As this event is an international one, countries across the globe have been articulating their views and opinions over the World Wide Web through the form of Web 2.0.

Tim Berners Lee is the inventor of the World Wide Web. Through his initiatives of such an invention the creation of other web technologies such as web 2.0 were allowed to be introduced. The term web 2.0 is closely linked with Tim O’Reilly due to the O’Reilly media conference which was held in 2004. Web 2.0 is not the latest version of the World Wide Web but rather is the changes in which software developers use the web. Web 2.0 correlates with the concepts of web design and web development which makes possible the interactive user centred design and rapid information sharing. Examples of Web 2.0 include social networking sites, wikis, web applications, and blogs. Web 2.0 allows users to interrelate with others or to alter content on sites, in comparison to previous non- interactive sites were unreceptive viewing of information is only authorized.

A blog is an interactive online form of a diary or commentary of news or an event. An individual can exhibit their thoughts, and writings on the web in regular entries of commentary. These blogs can be categorised based on topics, events, hobbies, and themes. They can be daily routine like blogs, weekly bogs or even monthly blogs. A blog can be written in a formal or informal manner depending on the bloggers approach or style. They can be personal, subjective, objective, written in a news like manner or even just informative. An important feature of a blog is that readers can leave their comments about the blog. Another intrinsic part of a blog is having links to related sites and other blogs. The growth of blogs has meant that it has become some individual’s jobs to write blogs were as others just use it for hobby purposes. The concept of a blog reduces space, time and distance and allows people from varying parts of the world to be able to communicate with each other in an interactive manner from the comfort of their homes.

The blog from South Africa is “2010 Fifa World Cup readiness update” by Nicholas Whiteley and Sarah Gurney. As this blog is from the hosting country it is expected that the blogs which come from this country are pro 2010 hype and publicity. As a citizen of this country it is only ones patriotic duty to inform the world that their country is ready for the world and the tournament. This tournament is being hosted in an African country for the first time and has thus put immense pressure on South Africa to deliver the same standards of quality that previous European countries have. This blog is a collaborated piece by two Capetonian’s and reflects on numerous aspects regarding the world cup. The layout of the blog has been structured in a formal almost essay like manner: there is an introduction, body and conclusion. In the body of the blog there are several different sub headings such as safety and security, transport, accommodation, Green Point stadium, electricity, Fan fest, Cape Town Tourism ready to welcome visitors, and lastly the 2010 legacy. These bloggers delve into all aspects of scepticism associated with South Africa hosting the world cup. The tone of the writing is informative and positive. It has the flare of a tourism brochure in which the country and the tournament are paraded as must see tourist attractions.

As this blog is written from the perspective of a South African it had tendencies of being perhaps a little biased. At the same time every South African has become a marketing tool for the 2010, in promoting its growing success. The conclusion states that, “Ultimately, the success of the World Cup in Cape Town will depend largely on the welcome visitors receive from Capetonians and on the readiness of citizens to embrace them in our football celebrations. With Cape Town’s excellent reputation for hospitality, it’s a welcome Capetonians are sure to provide!” The use of pictures of the progress of stadiums and the patriotic vukuzela being blown with picturesque Cape Town in the background expels the ideas of readiness and confidence which these bloggers embed into this blog. At the end of the blog the feature of the comment bar has been used by reader Peter Max who states that, “As a sales representative for one of the material suppliers, it is amazing to see how the stadium takes shape upon each visit to the site. I have no doubt in my mind that Cape Town and its soccer/football loving inhabitants will make a success of the upcoming Fifa World Cup 2010. We are ready to welcome the world”. This comment reiterates the idea of all South Africans promoting the 2010 which will add a sense of international status to this country.

The blog from an African country is from Nigeria and is called “S Africa strike hits stadia” by the Admin staff at Afrigator. This blog website allows individuals all over Africa to post blogs on any topic thinkable. It was very easy to find a blog from South Africa and an International one but it was a lot more of a search to find a blog from Africa. Afrigator is one of the main blog websites displaying blogs on all topics. It is only expected that a blog from an African country such as Nigeria would be supportive as it is the first time that an African country is hosting this event, “This is the first time the football World Cup will be hosted in Africa”. However, there might be a hidden sense of jealousy that South Africa was chosen over all the other African countries when it comes to international affairs. The blog has been written more like a hard news story with a striking headline and a hard-hitting first paragraph typed in bold font which introduces a negative tone to the piece, “Some 70, 000 construction workers in South Africa have gone on strike, halting work on stadiums being built for the 2010 World Cup”. There is only on dreary looking picture of construction at the stadium site with a caption stating that “Work on the South African stadiums seems to be on schedule so far”. This caption does not correlate with the headline of the blog which suggests that construction on the stadiums would be falling behind because of the 70, 000 workers on strike. Both this blog and the blog from South Africa have used the technique of presenting information in a way that the reader reads the blog as containing factual data rather than mere estimates and opinions. This blog is considerably shorter in word count in comparison to the South African and International blog. In antithesis to the other blogs, this blog is the only one which has almost a constant tone of pessimism entrenched in the writing style. However, there is a slight hint of hope in this piece which can be seen through all the negativity which suggests that they still want 2010 to be a success as it is the first time that Africa is hosting the event. They still have a proud feeling knowing that they are part of Africa and Africa is hosting such a prestigious event.

The blog from an International country is from the United Sates of America and has been named “The road to 2010 world cup final” by screen name writer Amunti on Blog Catalog. By using a screen name it is like creating a persona and character for yourself which gives the reader a sense of the unknown. In the first blog the bloggers use their name which suggests a sense of authorship and authenticity. Unlike, the first two blogs which are interested in the construction aspects and readiness of South Africa for 2010. This blog is the journey of the blogger which is explored in the introduction to this blog, “My journey from Brooklyn, New York January 4, 2007 to the world cup final match 11 July, 2010 in South Africa. How will I get there? I have no idea? Join me as I travel around Africa, write a book, make some friends and watch the beautiful game!” The title of the blog alone has a different feel when compared to the first two blogs which focus more on the host country and its people. This blogs theme is on the game of soccer and the hype created around this well anticipated tournament. This shows the spatial distance that USA has from SA as there is no mention of scepticism, the electricity load shedding or construction worker strikes. It is as if the blogger has no political agenda but writes for the love of the game. This blog features the full draw for the 2010 UEFA Champions League, road to 2010 tidbits, latest news on new players, injured players and scandal on players, teams and coaches. This blog is the longest of all three blogs and has the most amount of information available for a reader. There are numerous entries made to update and inform other soccer fans around the globe. In the casual use of language and writing the blog comes across as more as a diary formatted blog in comparison to the other blogs which take on a more formal stance. There are numerous links which allow potential readers other sources of information. The pictures used have mostly been of soccer teams and their logos and the UEFA Champion League Logo. This is vastly different to the previous blogs in which the pictures were mainly of the construction of the stadiums.

In each of these blogs there are similarities and differences which have been noted. The overall view of each blog is as follows: South African blog uses positive tone in which all scepticism is discarded. There is use of formal and informative persuasive writing styles. The writing technique used can be compared to having the flare of tourism brochure which portrays the world cup and South Africa as must see sites. The blog from Africa is drenched in a negative tone as it releases ideas of scepticism, propaganda and portrays information as facts. However, there is still a hint of hope in the blog which suggests that they still want 2010 to be a success as it is the first time that an African country is hosting the world cup. The blog from USA has taken on the blogging style of casual and informal diary entry. Unlike, the previous two blogs which focused on the scepticism and South Africa and its people this blog focuses on the tournament and the love of the game. The overall view is that all these blogs focus on the 2010 world cup from varying aspects whilst still promoting the world cup and its success in their own styles and techniques. Each blog employs their role of being part of the phenomenon of the blogging world and web 2.0 in reducing space, time and distance through the breaking down of communication barriers from people around the world.

Reincarnation

Reincarnation is the belief that when one dies, one's body decomposes, but something of oneself is reborn in another body. It is the belief that one has lived before and will live again in another body after death. The bodies one passes in and out of need not be human. One may have been a Doberman in a past life, and one may be a mite or a carrot in a future life. Some tribes avoid eating certain animals because they believe that the souls of their ancestors dwell in those animals. A man could even become his own daughter by dying before she is born and then entering her body at birth.

The belief in past lives used to be mainly a belief in Eastern religions such as Hinduism and Buddhism, but now is a central tenet of much woo-woo like dianetics and channeling. In those ancient Eastern religions, reincarnation was not considered a good thing, but a bad thing. To achieve the state of ultimate bliss (nirvana) is to escape from the wheel of rebirth. In most, if not all, ancient religions with a belief in reincarnation, the soul entering a body is seen as a metaphysical demotion, a sullying and impure rite of passage. In New Age religions, however, being born again seems to be a kind of perverse goal. Prepare yourself in this life for who or what you want to come back as in the next life. Belief in past lives also opens the door for New Age therapies such as past life regression therapy, which seeks the causes of today's psychological problems in the experiences of previous lives.

L. Ron Hubbard, author of Dianetics and the founder of Scientology, introduced his own version of reincarnation into his new religion. According to Hubbard, past lives need auditing to get at the root of one's "troubles." He also claims that "Dianetics gave impetus to Bridey Murphy" and that some scientologists have been dogs and other animals in previous lives ("A Note on Past Lives" in The Rediscovery of the Human Soul). According to Hubbard, "It has only been in Scientology that the mechanics of death have been thoroughly understood." What happens in death is this: the Thetan (spirit) finds itself without a body (which has died) and then it goes looking for a new body. Thetans "will hang around people. They will see a woman who is pregnant and follow her down the street." Then, the Thetan will slip into the newborn "usually...two or three minutes after the delivery of a child from the mother. A Thetan usually picks it up about the time the baby takes its first gasp." How Hubbard knows this is never revealed.

Channeling, like past life regression, is distinct from reincarnation, even though it is based on the same essential concept: death does not put an end to the entirety of one's being. In classical reincarnation, something of the consciousness of the deceased somehow enters a new body but as that body grows only one unified consciousness persists through time. Channeling might be called temporary intermittent past life invasion because there is a coming and going of the past life entity, which always remains distinct from the present self-conscious being. For example, JZ Knight claims that in 1977 the spirit of a Cro-Magnon warrior who once lived in Atlantis took over her body in order to pass on bits of wisdom he'd picked up over the centuries. Knight seems to be carrying on the work of Jane Roberts and Robert Butts, who in 1972 hit the market with Seth Speaks. Knight, Roberts, and Butts are indebted to Edgar Cayce, who claimed to be in touch with many of his past lives. One would think that channeling might muck things up a bit. After all, if various spirits from the past can enter any body at any time without destroying the present person, it is possible that when one remembers a past life it is actually someone else's life one is remembering.

From a philosophical point of view, reincarnation poses some interesting problems. What is it that is reincarnated? Presumably, it is the soul that is reincarnated, but what is the soul? A disembodied consciousness?

Reincarnation does seem to offer an explanation for some strange phenomena such as the ability of some people to regress to a past life under hypnosis. Also, we might explain child prodigies by claiming that unlike most cases of reincarnation where the soul has to more or less start from scratch, the child prodigy somehow gets a soul with great carryover from a previous life, giving it a decided advantage over the rest of us. Reincarnation could explain why bad things happen to good people and why good things happen to bad people: they are being rewarded or punished for actions in past lives (karma). One could explain déjà vu experiences by claiming that they are memories of past lives. Dreams could be interpreted as a kind of soul travel and soul memory. However, past life regression and déjà vu experiences are best explained as the recalling of events from this life, not some past life. Dreams and child prodigies are best explained in terms of brain structures and genetically inheritable traits and processes. And since bad things also happen to bad people and good things also happen to good people, the most reasonable belief is that there is no design to the distribution of good and bad happening to people.
Stories, especially stories from children, that claim knowledge of a past life, abound. One collector of such stories was the psychiatrist Ian Stevenson, who made a weak case that the stories offered scientific evidence for reincarnation.

Finally, since there is no way to tell the difference between a baby with a soul that will go to heaven or hell, a baby with a soul that has been around before in other bodies, and a baby with no soul at all, it follows that the idea of a soul adds nothing to our concept of a human being. Applying Occam's razor, both the idea of reincarnation and the idea of an immortal soul that will go to heaven or hell are equally unnecessary.

How Death came into the world

Traditional, mythic accounts of the origin of death extend back to the earliest hunter-gatherer cultures. Usually these stories are morality tales about faithfulness, trust, or the ethical and natural balance of the elements of the world.

According to an African Asante myth, although people did not like the idea or experience of death, they nevertheless embraced it when given the choice, as in the tale of an ancient people who, upon experiencing their first visitation of death, pleaded with God to stop it. God granted this wish, and for three years there was no death. But there were also no births during that time. Unwilling to endure this absence of children, the people beseeched God to return death to them as long as they could have children again.

The death myths of aboriginal Australia vary enormously among clans and linguistic groups. Among most of them, however, death is often attributed to magic, misfortune, or to an evil spirit or act. Occasionally death is presented as the punishment for human failure to complete an assignment or achieve a goal assigned by the gods. Still other stories arise from some primordial incident that strikes at the heart of some tribal taboo. Early myths about death frequently bear these moral messages.

Among the Tiwi of Bathurst and Melville Islands in northern Australia, the advent of death is explained by the Purukapali myth, which recounts a time before death entered the world, when a man lived with his infant son, his wife, and his younger brother. The younger brother was unmarried and had desires for his brother's wife. He met her alone while she was gathering yams, and they spent the rest of the afternoon in sexual union. During this time, the husband was minding his infant son, who soon became hungry. As the son called for feeding, the husband called in vain for his missing wife. At sunset, the wife and younger man returned to find that the infant son had starved to death. Realizing what had happened, the husband administered a severe beating to his brother, who escaped up to the sky where he became the moon. His injuries can still be seen in the markings of the moon every month. The husband declared that he would die, and, taking the dead infant in his arms, performed a dance—the first ceremony of death—before walking backwards into the sea, never to be seen again.

The Berndts, Australian anthropologists, tell another ancient myth about two men, Moon and Djarbo, who had traveled together for a long while but then fall mortally ill. Moon had a plan to revive them, but Djarbo, believing that Moon's idea was a trick, rebuffs his friend's help and soon dies. Moon dies also, but thanks to his plan, he managed to revive himself into a new body every month, whereas Djarbo remained dead. Thus, Moon triumphs over bodily death while the first peoples of that ancient time followed Djarbo's example, and that is why all humans die.

Death As a Being

None of these stories is meant to suggest that aboriginal people do not believe in spiritual immortality. On the contrary, their lore is rich in accounts of immortal lands. These are accounts of the origin of physical rather than spiritual death.

The idea of death as a consequence of human deeds is not universal. The image of death as a being in its own right is common in modern as well as old folklore. In this mythic vein, death is a sentient being, maybe an animal, perhaps even a monster. Sometimes death is disguised, sometimes not. Death enters the world to steal and silence people's lives. In Europe during the Middle Ages death was widely viewed as a being who came in the night to take children away. Death was a dark, hooded, grisly figure—a grim reaper—with an insatiable thirst for the lives of children. Children were frequently dressed as adults as soon as possible to trick death into looking elsewhere for prey.

The film industry produced two well-known films, the second a remake of the first, which examined this idea of death as a being who makes daily rounds of collecting the dead: Death Takes a Holiday (1934) and Meet Joe Black (1998), both of which portrayed death as perplexed at his victim's fear of him. In a wry and ironic plot twist, a young woman falls in love with the male embodiment of death, and it is through an experience of how this love creates earthly attachment that death comes to understand the dread inspired by his appearance.

But the idea of death as a humanlike being is mostly characteristic of traditional folktales that dramatize the human anguish about mortality. By contrast, in the realm of religious ideas, death is regarded less as an identifiable personal being than as an abstract state of being. In the world of myth and legend, this state appears to collide with the human experience of life. As a consequence of human's nature as celestial beings, it is life on Earth which is sometimes viewed as a type of death. In this way, the question of how death enters the world in turn poses the question of how to understand death as an essential part of the world.

The Garden of Eden

In the book of Genesis, the first man, Adam, wanders through the paradisiacal Garden of Eden. Pitying his solitary nature, God creates the first woman, Eve, from Adam's rib. Adam and Eve are perfectly happy in the Garden of Eden and enjoy all its bounty with one exception: God prohibits the couple from eating from the Tree of Knowledge.

The Garden of Eden is utopian. Utopia, in its etymological sense, is literally "no place." It is a perfect, probably spiritual domain for two celestial beings who, bearing the birthmarks of the God who created them, are immortal. These two beings eat from the Tree of Knowledge, which ironically, distracts them from their awareness of God and his omnipresence. As a result of this error, Adam and Eve become the embodiment of forgetfulness of the divine. In other words, they become material beings, as symbolized in their sudden awareness of and shame in their nakedness.

Adam and Eve thus "fall" into the flesh, into the world as it is known, with the entire legacy that embodiment entails: work, suffering, and physical death. Paradoxically, the Tree of Knowledge heralds ignorance of their divine nature, and the fall into flesh signals their sleepwalking indifference to that nature. Human beings therefore need God's help through the divine mercy of his Son or the sacred texts of the Bible to awaken them to their divine destiny. Without this awakening, the wages of sin are eternal death—an eternal darkness spent in chains of ignorance, a blindness maintained by humans' attachment to mere earthly concerns and distractions. This famous story thus embodies all the paradoxical elements of creation, implying that human life is actually no life at all, but its opposite: death.

In the kernel of this local creation story lies the archaic analogy of all the great stories about how life is death and death is the beginning of true life. The cycles of life and death are not merely hermeneutic paradoxes across different human cultures, but they are also the fundamental narrative template upon which all the great religions explain how death entered the world and, indeed, became the world.

In Greek mythology, as Mircea Eliade has observed, sleep (Hypnos) and death (Thanatos) are twin brothers. Life is portrayed as a forgetfulness that requires one to remember, or recollect, the structures of reality, eternal truths, the essential forms or ideas of which Plato wrote. Likewise, for postexilic Jews and Christians, death was understood as sleep or a stupor in Sheol, a dreary, gray underworld in the afterlife. The Gnostics often referred to earthly life as drunkenness or oblivion. For Christians, the exhortation was also to wake from the sleep of earthly concerns and desire and to watch and pray. In Buddhist texts, the awakening is a concern for recollection of past lives. The recollection of personal history in the wheel of rebirth is the only hope anyone has of breaking this cycle of eternal return.

Sleep, then, converges with death. Both have been the potent symbols and language used to describe life on earth. It is only through the remembering of human's divine nature and its purpose, brokered during an earthly life of asceticism or discipline, or perhaps through the negotiation of trials in the afterlife, that one can awaken again and, through this awakening, be born into eternal life.

Modern Accounts

The humanistic trend of twentieth-century social science and philosophy has diverged from this broadly cross-cultural and long-standing view of death as earthly existence and true life as the fruit of earthly death. Contemporary anthropology and psychoanalytic ideas, for example, have argued that these religious ideas constitute a "denial of death." The anthropologist Ernest Becker and religious studies scholar John Bowker have argued that religions generate creation myths that invert the material reality of death so as to control the anxiety associated with the extinction of personality and relationships.

Like-minded thinkers have argued that philosophical theories which postulate a "ghost in the machine"—a division of the self into a body and a separate spirit or soul—are irrational and unscientific. But, of course, the assumptions underlying these particular objections are themselves not open to empirical testing and examination. Criticism of this kind remains open to similar charges of bias and methodological dogma, and tends, therefore, to be no less speculative than religious views of death.

Beyond the different scientific and religious arguments about how life and death came into the world, and which is which, there are several other traditions of literature about travel between the two domains. Scholars have described the ways in which world religions have accounted for this transit between the two halves of existence—life and death. Often, travel to the "world of the dead" is undertaken as an initiation or as part of a shamanic rite, but at other times and places such otherworldly journeys have been part of ascetic practices of Christians and pagans alike.

In the past half century psychological, medical, and theological literature has produced major descriptions and analyses of near-death experiences, near-death visions, visions or hallucinations of the bereaved, and altered states of consciousness. Research of this type, particularly in the behavioral, social, and clinical sciences, has reignited debates between those with materialist and religious assumptions about the ultimate basis of reality.
Traditionally confined to the provinces of philosophy and theology, such debates have now seeped into the heretofore metaphysics-resistant precincts of neuroscience, psychology, and medicine. What can these modern psychological and social investigations of otherworldly journeys tell experts about the nature of life and death, and which is which?

The religious studies scholar Ioan Peter Couliano argues that one of the common denominators of the problem of otherworldly journeys is that they appear to be mental journeys, journeys into mental universes and spaces. But such remarks say more about the origin of "mental" as a term of reference than the subject at hand. The glib observation that otherworldly journeys may be mere flights of fancy may in fact only be substituting one ambiguous problem with yet another.
As Couliano himself observes, people in the twenty-first century live in a time of otherworldly pluralism—a time when such journeys have parallels in science and religion, in fantasy and fact, in public and private life.

Conclusion

Death has permeated life from the first stirrings of matter in the known universe—itself a mortal phenomenon, according to the prevailing cosmological theory of contemporary physics. Death came incorporated in the birth of the first star, the first living molecules, the birth of the first mammoth, the first cougar, the first human infant, the first human empire, and the youngest and oldest theory of science itself. Early cultures groped with the meaning of death and its relationship to life. The very naming of each, along with the attendant stories and theories, is an attempt to somehow define and thus master these refractory mysteries. All of the major myths about how death entered the world are, in fact, attempts to penetrate below the obvious.
Most have concluded that Death, like Life, is not a person. Both seem to be stories where the destinations are debatable, even within their own communities of belief, but the reality of the journey is always acknowledged—a continuing and intriguing source of human debate and wonderment.

Marvel Universe: Death Embodiment

Like Eternity, Lord Chaos and Master Order, and Infinity, Death is an abstract entity embodying the concept of the mortality and extinction, inasmuch as its opposite, Eternity, embodies life. Death and Eternity even regard themselves as siblings, having come into existence at the moment the universe was formed.

During the times that Death has manifested itself on the physical plane, it often takes the form of a skeletal female; however, the body Death chooses to manifest as can be in any form or size.
Death's motives and modus operandi are hard to fathom. It works in some kind of partnership with Galactus, a being who survived the destruction of the previous universe, and also provides some measure of power for Death-gods like Hela and demons like Mephisto, who are allowed to rule in her name over extradimensional realms inhabited by the souls of the dead.

Death seems to be always seeking out new conquests and may manipulate mortals with or without their knowledge in order to gain them. Death once attempted to destroy the vampire lord Dracula through human pawns because Dracula was depriving it of conquests by creating vampires who were neither truly alive nor truly dead. Death failed on that occasions, but Dracula eventually fell victim to permanent destruction.

Although Death ordinarily seems content to maintain a balance in the universe between its power and Eternity's Death will seize opportunities that arise to achieve dominance over Eternity. Death once appeared to the mad Titan Thanos in the form of a woman with whom he fell so much in love that he was willing to destroy the universe in order to please her. Indeed, nearly all of Thanos' activities from that point on involved his desire to win Death's favor. When Thanos possessed virtual omnipotence by means of the Infinity Gauntlet, however, Death, for reasons of its own, turned its back on him. Thanos himself has yet to fathom Death's motives for this relationship.

Death has on occasion taken the role of gamesman, having once played a tournament of champions with the Elder to the Universe called the Grandmaster, the end result of which proved the Grandmaster and fellow Elders immune to Death's power.
At one point, Death was "killed" by the Beyonder, who later "recreated" it. The implications of this on Death's nature are still a mystery.

Later, Death appeared to the Phoenix Force, claiming it to be the product of power of all life yet unborn, and thus somewhat an agent of Death and abstract entity the likes of Eternity and Death. Death helped to convince the Force to leave its then-current avatar, Rachel Summers.
Death has seemed to take a fascination with the mercenary known as Deadpool, appearing to him on several occasions in the context of a somewhat romantic nature. Again, the implications of this are still a mystery, even to Deadpool. Death's ultimate goals are unknown. There may be a master plan guiding its movements or nothing more than random chance. Virtually all living creatures in the known universe must eventually surrender themselves to Death. Even the offshoot of humanity known as the Eternals and the otherwordly Asgardians age, although they do so very slowly, and will someday die. Olympians do not age, but can be killed by a sufficient powerful force. Galactus, the only known entity said to predate the creation of the universe itself, has since died. Death remains one of the greatest mysteries of the universe.
Retrieved from "http://www.marvel.com/universe/Death_%28embodiment%29"

O.J. Simpson, Murder for Love

The O. J. Simpson murder case has been described as the most publicized criminal trial in history, in which O. J. Simpson, former American football star and actor, was brought to trial for the 1994 murder of his ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend Ronald Goldman. Simpson was acquitted in 1995 after a lengthy trial—the longest jury trial in California history.

Simpson hired a high-profile defense team led by Johnnie Cochran and F. Lee Bailey. Los Angeles County believed it had a solid prosecution case, but Cochran created, in the minds of the jury, the belief that there was reasonable doubt about the DNA evidence (then a relatively new type of evidence in trials), including that the blood-sample evidence had allegedly been mishandled by lab scientists and technicians. Cochran and the defense team also alleged other misconduct by the Los Angeles Police Department. Simpson's celebrity and the lengthy televised trial riveted national attention on the so-called "Trial of the Century". By the end of the criminal trial, national surveys showed dramatic differences between most blacks and most whites in terms of their assessment of Simpson's guilt.

Later, both the Brown and Goldman families sued Simpson for damages in a civil trial. On February 5, 1997, the jury unanimously found there was a preponderance of evidence to find Simpson liable for damages in the wrongful death of Goldman and battery of Brown. In its conclusions, the jury effectively found Simpson liable for the death of his ex-wife and Ron Goldman. On February 21, 2008, a Los Angeles court upheld a renewal of the civil judgment against him.

Jack the ripper

Jack the Ripper is a pseudonym given to an unidentified serial killer active in the largely impoverished Whitechapel area and adjacent districts of London, England, in late 1888. The name originated in a letter sent to the London Central News Agency by someone claiming to be the murderer.

The victims were women earning income as prostitutes. Most victims' throats were slit, after which the bodies were mutilated. The removal of internal organs from three of the victims led some officials at the time of the murders to propose that the killer possessed anatomical or surgical knowledge.

Newspapers, whose circulation had been growing during this era,bestowed widespread and enduring notoriety on the killer because of the savagery of the attacks and the failure of the police to capture the murderer.

Because the killer's identity has never been confirmed, the legends surrounding the murders have become a combination of genuine historical research, folklore, and pseudohistory. Many authors, historians, and amateur detectives have proposed theories about the identity of the killer and his victims.

World War 1

The total number of casualties in World War I, both military and civilian, were about 37 million: 16 million deaths and 21 million wounded. The total number of deaths includes 9.7 million military personnel and about 6.8 million civilians. The Entente Powers (also known as the Allies) lost 5.7 million soldiers and the Central Powers about 4 million.

Classification of casualty statistics

Estimates of casualty numbers for World War I vary to a great extent; estimates of total deaths range from 9 million to over 16 million Military casualty statistics listed here include 6.8 million combat related deaths as well as 2 million military deaths caused by accidents, disease and deaths while prisoners of war. The table lists total deaths; the footnotes give a breakout between combat and non-combat losses. The figures listed below include about 6 million civilian deaths due to war related famine and disease, these civilian losses are often omitted from other compilations of World War I casualties. The war disrupted trade resulting in acute shortages of food which resulted in famine in Europe, the Ottoman Empire and Africa. Civilian deaths include the Armenian Genocide, and it is debated if this event should be included with war losses. Civilian deaths due to the Spanish flu have been excluded from these figures, whenever possible. Furthermore, the figures do not include deaths during the Turkish War of Independence and the Russian Civil War.

Elvis' Heart

Man is mortal. And for every life there has to be an end. This is the rule of Nature. So the death of Elvis was imminent from that point of view. Then what makes people react so much about Elvis's death? Why has his death been called intrigue?The closest possible explanation is perhaps the time and the weird nature of his death. It all happened so suddenly that people were could hardly believe it.

The way he lied unnoticed for hours together, the strange phrases with which the medicos attributed his death, all fueled the shock and disbelief. This is what made Elvis's death so intriguing.Read on the story.The DeathBaptist Hospital, Memphis. It was 3-30 P.M. on August 16, 1977.Elvis Aaron Presley was pronounced dead by his personal physician, Dr. George Nichopoulos.The pronouncement was final. Yet, for the thousands of yarning souls thronged outside the hospital it brought in shock and disbelief. The disbelief that is still being nurtured by many across the world. Not yet ready to believe that the death has brought such an abrupt end to their so beloved idol.It was disclosed at a press conference later that evening.

The medical examiner Dr. Jerry Francisco indicated that the cause of death to be "cardiac arrhythmia," noting that, "There was severe cardiovascular disease present."Elvis had suffered irregular heartbeat which the medicos called "cardiac arrhythmia". Surprisingly the reason for such irregularity of heartbeat remained unknown. For it was reported to be brought in by "undetermined causes."Elvis was found lying unconscious on his bathroom floor of Grace Land, his Memphis mansion, by his girlfriend, Ginger Alden. Help was summoned, he was rushed in to hospital. But all attempts to revive him were futile.It was later disclosed he had been lying there for about three hours before Alden discovered him.

No evidence of any illegal drugs was found at his home. There were, however, many drugs prescribed by his doctor.True Elvis was wrecked with torments; true Elvis was haunted by a feeling of insecurity and abandonment; true he had spent many sleepless nights; true he took to heavy doses of pills. But they don't mean he would embrace death so early and so lonely. Away from his child and in the absence of his so endearing mom Gladys. Had Elvis really lost the love for life?...

"The King is dead", that's what the newspapers flashed in their headlines.Tens of thousands of people gathered outside his Memphis mansion to bid farewell to the King of Rock 'n' Roll. There were flowers and bouquets aplenty, as there were thousands of bidding eyes with vision blurred from tears. They would see no more their Elvis performing live . The black hands of Death has snatched their idol far beyond their reach. Had Elvis come alive! The thought of the distant possibility... That's the only way they could find solace.

Death of a lily

This is an ironic image as a lily which signifies death has been killed by death. This can be viewed as the cycle of life; it was born and now it was its time to die, this issue can be linked to the idea of natural causes. What is anatural causes, can you pin point this idea even in the terms of humans who supposedly die of natural causes? Is natural causes just another word for old age?

However, there is a different argument which is that perhaps this part of nature would survive longer without humans due to their industrilization, over population, and pollution which all leads to global warming which is killing the Earth. This can thus be interpreted as mass murder of nature and the possible end of human kind cause with out plants, trees and nature all living things will die as they need oxygen to survive.

Global warming is the increase in the average temperature of the Earth's near-surface air and the oceans since the mid-twentieth century and its projected continuation. Global surface temperature increased 0.74 ± 0.18 °C (1.33 ± 0.32 °F) during the 100 years ending in 2005. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) concludes that anthropogenic greenhouse gases are responsible for most of the observed temperature increase since the middle of the twentieth century, and that natural phenomena such as solar variation and volcanoes probably had a small warming effect from pre-industrial times to 1950 and a small cooling effect afterward. These basic conclusions have been endorsed by more than 40 scientific societies and academies of science, including all of the national academies of science of the major industrialized countries.

Climate model projections summarized in the latest IPCC report indicate that global surface temperature will likely rise a further 1.1 to 6.4 °C (2.0 to 11.5 °F) during the twenty-first century.[1] The uncertainty in this estimate arises from the use of models with differing climate sensitivity, and the use of differing estimates of future greenhouse gas emissions. Some other uncertainties include how warming and related changes will vary from region to region around the globe. Most studies focus on the period up to 2100. However, warming is expected to continue beyond 2100, even if emissions stop, because of the large heat capacity of the oceans and the long lifetime of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.

Increasing global temperature will cause sea levels to rise and will change the amount and pattern of precipitation, likely including expansion of subtropical deserts. The continuing retreat of glaciers, permafrost and sea ice is expected, with the Arctic region being particularly affected. Other likely effects include shrinkage of the Amazon rainforest and Boreal forests, increases in the intensity of extreme weather events, species extinctions and changes in agricultural yields.

Cancer

Celebrity, Jade Goody was taken from her family from cervical cancer, which took her young life on the 22nd of March 2009. This image is of her and her husband just before she died.

Cancer (medical term: malignant neoplasm) is a class of diseases in which a group of cells display uncontrolled growth (division beyond the normal limits), invasion (intrusion on and destruction of adjacent tissues), and sometimes metastasis (spread to other locations in the body via lymph or blood). These three malignant properties of cancers differentiate them from benign tumors, which are self-limited, do not invade or metastasize. Most cancers form a tumor but some, like leukemia, do not. The branch of medicine concerned with the study, diagnosis, treatment, and prevention of cancer is oncology.

Cancer may affect people at all ages, even fetuses, but the risk for most varieties increases with age. Cancer causes about 13% of all deaths. According to the American Cancer Society, 7.6 million people died from cancer in the world during 2007. Cancers can affect all animals.
Nearly all cancers are caused by abnormalities in the genetic material of the transformed cells[citation needed]. These abnormalities may be due to the effects of carcinogens, such as tobacco smoke, radiation, chemicals, or infectious agents. Other cancer-promoting genetic abnormalities may be randomly acquired through errors in DNA replication, or are inherited, and thus present in all cells from birth. The heritability of cancers are usually affected by complex interactions between carcinogens and the host's genome. New aspects of the genetics of cancer pathogenesis, such as DNA methylation, and microRNAs are increasingly recognized as important.

This form of death is still very unknown to humans, as although they have ways of fighting back cancer they still do not know what causes it. They cannot fight back something if they don't know were its core is?

Cult Suicide

A wild child who surfed her way to suicide and 'virtual immortality'

The secret life of Natasha Randall was laid bare on an alarmingly candid web page.

At the click of a button you could discover her likes and dislikes, study revealing photographs, chat to her online and find out who wanted to have sex with her. Yesterday that page became her virtual headstone.

'Internet suicide cult' rips apart town as SEVEN young people hang themselves Scroll down for more ...

Victim: Natasha Randall was the seventh young person to kill themselves in Bridgend in a year
The 17-year-old college student's entry on her favourite social networking site was overflowing with tributes to the latest victim of what appears to be a bizarre chain of internet-chronicled suicides.

An online memorial wall of "virtual bricks" was started just hours after she was found hanged - and friends quickly began to cover it in farewell messages drawn on individual sections.
The fact that at least seven suicides and two attempted suicides might be linked in one area of Britain is a horrifying prospect.

But equally disturbing is the possibility - voiced by police - that young people may regard "virtual immortality" as the ultimate in cool. To an adult unfamiliar with the peer status that celebrity on the web can create, it might sound unlikely. But a few minutes spent browsing Natasha's page on "bebo", one of the leading social network sites, would horrify most decent parents. And she was not alone. Her web page contains links to others in the so-called suicide circle, among them Liam "Clarkey" Clarke.

Ted Bundy: Serial Killer

Theodore Robert Bundy, born Theodore Robert Cowell (November 24, 1946 – January 24, 1989), known as Ted Bundy, was an American serial killer who murdered numerous young women between 1974 and 1978. He twice escaped from prison before his final apprehension in February 1978. After more than a decade of vigorous denials, he eventually confessed to 30 murders, although the actual total of victims remains unknown. Estimates range from 29 to over 100, the general estimate being 35. Typically, Bundy would bludgeon his victims, then strangle them to death. He also engaged in rape and necrophilia.

The term Serial Killer was coined after Ted Bundy and the mass murder that he sought out!

AIDS and HIV

Acquired immune deficiency syndrome or acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS) is a disease of the human immune system caused by the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV).

This condition progressively reduces the effectiveness of the immune system and leaves individuals susceptible to opportunistic infections and tumors. HIV is transmitted through direct contact of a mucous membrane or the bloodstream with a bodily fluid containing HIV, such as blood, semen, vaginal fluid, preseminal fluid, and breast milk.

This transmission can involve anal, vaginal or oral sex, blood transfusion, contaminated hypodermic needles, exchange between mother and baby during pregnancy, childbirth, or breastfeeding, or other exposure to one of the above bodily fluids.

AIDS is now a pandemic. In 2007, an estimated 33.2 million people lived with the disease worldwide, and it killed an estimated 2.1 million people, including 330,000 children. Over three-quarters of these deaths occurred in sub-Saharan Africa,retarding economic growth and destroying human capital.

Protest from the Youth

June 16, 1976 - Hector Petersen, a 13-year old South African student is shot and killed during a massive demonstration to protest apartheid laws in South Africa. The photograph of the fatally wounded Petersen being carried from the scene appeared throughout the world and he became a symbol of the anti-apartheid movement. A generation later, June 16 is still a day of remembrance, particularly in Soweto, where Petersen was killed. This is just one particular case but many other school children were also killed in their protest bfor freedom and equal rights. The past youth seemed to have more "fight" in them, what is happening to the current youth in the world, why are they not protesting and making a stant?

Links:June 16th Student UprisingRead a two-part series on the Soweto student protest, browse links on apartheid laws and view the famous photograph of the wounded Hector Peterson.

Soweto South AfricaLearn about the history of the township and view the iconic photograph of Hector Peterson.

The History of Apartheid in South AfricaLearn how racial discrimination was institutionalized in South Africa through apartheid laws.

Books:Anatomy of a Miracle: The End of Apartheid and the Birth of the New South Africaby: By Patti Waldmeir 1997A chronicle of the political and personal struggles to end apartheid in South Africa through the eyes of a journalist.

Soweto: The Fruit of Fearby: By Peter Magubane 1987A photographic account of the June 16th uprising in Soweto.

Politics of the New South Africa: Apartheid and Afterby: By Heather Deegan 2000An account of life in South Africa during the past decade.

Atomic Bomb

The image on thhe left is known as the Fat Man mushroom cloud resulting from the nuclear explosion over Nagasaki rises 18 km (11 mi, 60,000 ft) into the air from the hypocenter.


The atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were nuclear attacks near the end of World War II against the Empire of Japan by the United States at the executive order of U.S. President Harry S. Truman on August 6 and 9, 1945. After six months of intense fire-bombing of 67 other Japanese cities, the nuclear weapon "Little Boy" was dropped on the city of Hiroshima on Monday,August 6, 1945, followed on August 9 by the detonation of the "Fat Man" nuclear bomb over Nagasaki. These are to date the only attacks with nuclear weapons in the history of warfare.

The bombs killed as many as 140,000 people in Hiroshima and 80,000 in Nagasaki by the end of 1945, roughly half on the days of the bombings. Amongst these, 15 to 20% died from injuries or illness attributed to radiation poisoning. Since then, more have died from leukemia (231 observed) and solid cancers (334 observed) attributed to exposure to radiation released by the bombs. In both cities, the overwhelming majority of the dead were civilians.

Six days after the detonation over Nagasaki, on August 15, Japan announced its surrender to the Allied Powers, signing the Instrument of Surrender on September 2, officially ending the Pacific War and therefore World War II. (Germany had signed its unavoidableInstrument of Surrender on May 7, ending the war in Europe.) The bombings led, in part, to post-war Japan adopting Three Non-Nuclear Principles, forbidding that nation from nuclear armament.

War and its Victims

A definition for war could be death in large numbers, mass murder.


The Vietnam War, also known as the Second Indochina War, the Vietnam Conflict, or often in Vietnam, the American War occurred in Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia from 1955 to April 30, 1975. The war was fought between the communist North Vietnam, supported by its communist allies, and the government of South Vietnam, supported by the United States and other member nations of the Southeast Asia Treaty Organization (SEATO).
The Vietcong, the lightly armed South Vietnamese communist insurgency, largely fought a guerrilla war against anti-communist forces in the region. The North Vietnamese Army engaged in a more conventional war, at times committing large-sized units into battle. U.S. and South Vietnamese forces relied on air superiority and overwhelming firepower to conduct search-and-destroy operations, involving ground forces, artillery and air strikes.

The United States entered the war to prevent a communist takeover of South Vietnam as part of their wider strategy of containment. Military advisors arrived beginning in 1950. U.S. involvement escalated in the early 1960s and combat units were deployed beginning in 1965. Involvement peaked in 1968 at the time of the Tet Offensive. Despite a peace treaty signed by all parties in January 1973, fighting continued. In April 1975, North Vietnam captured Saigon. North and South Vietnam were reunified the following year.

The war exacted a huge human cost in terms of fatalities, including 3 to 4 million Vietnamese from both sides, 1.5 to 2 million Laotians and Cambodians, and 58,159 U.S. soldiers.

What is a natural disaster?

What is a natural disaster? Is it actually natural or do humans trigger this disaster through their abuse of the world? Is it due to global warming? Or is it the worlds way of killing of mass numbers of people to try and save the world from over population? Is it not interesting that so many of the places hit by natural disasters are in poverty striken areas? So many questions and so few answers!

The 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake was an undersea earthquake that occurred at 00:58:53 UTC on December 26, 2004, with an epicentre off the west coast of Sumatra, Indonesia. It is known by the scientific community as the Great Sumatra-Andaman earthquake,[3] and the following tsunami is known as the Asian Tsunami or the Boxing Day Tsunami.

The earthquake was caused by subduction and triggered a series of devastating tsunami along the coasts of most landmasses bordering the Indian Ocean, killing more than 225,000 people in eleven countries, and inundating coastal communities with waves up to 30 meters (100 feet) high. It was one of the deadliest natural disasters in recorded history.

Indonesia, Sri Lanka, India, and Thailand were hardest hit.
With a magnitude of between 9.1 and 9.3, it is the second largest earthquake ever recorded on a seismograph. This earthquake had the longest duration of faulting ever observed, between 8.3 and 10 minutes. It caused the entire planet to vibrate as much as 1 cm (0.4 inches)[4] and triggered other earthquakes as far away as Alaska.[5]

The plight of the many affected people and countries prompted a widespread humanitarian response. In all, the worldwide community donated more than $7 billion (2004 U.S. dollars) in humanitarian aid.

Illegal Substance Abuse Leads to Death

This image is linked to the pertinent issue of Meth Abuse. Methamphetamine is a very addictive stimulant drug that affects the central nervous system. It is a Schedule II stimulant, which means it has a high potential for abuse and is available only through a prescription that cannot be refilled.

What Other Adverse Effects Does Methamphetamine Have on Health?

Taking even small amounts of methamphetamine can result in increased wakefulness, increased physical activity, decreased appetite, increased respiration, rapid heart rate, irregular heartbeat, increased blood pressure, and hyperthermia. Long-term methamphetamine abuse has many negative consequences, including extreme weight loss, severe dental problems, anxiety, confusion, insomnia, mood disturbances, and violent behavior. Chronic methamphetamine abusers can also display a number of psychotic features, including paranoia, visual and auditory hallucinations, and delusions (for example, the sensation of insects creeping under the skin). Also, transmission of HIV and hepatitis B and C can be consequences of methamphetamine abuse. Among abusers who inject the drug, HIV and other infectious diseases can be spread through contaminated needles, syringes, and other injection equipment that is used by more than one person. The intoxicating effects of methamphetamine, regardless of how it is taken, can also alter judgment and inhibition and lead people to engage in unsafe behaviors. Methamphetamine abuse may also worsen the progression of HIV and its consequences. Studies of methamphetamine abusers who are HIV positive indicate that the HIV causes greater neuronal injury and cognitive impairment compared with HIV-positive people who do not use the drug.5,6

Other Information Resources For more information on the effects of methamphetamine abuse and addiction, visit www.drugabuse.gov/drugpages/methamphetamine.html. To find publicly funded treatment facilities by state, visit http://www.findtreatment.samhsa.gov/. For street terms searchable by drug name, street term, cost and quantities, drug trade, and drug use, visit: www.whitehousedrugpolicy.gov/streetterms/default.asp.

Death by Inhumane Human

This image is of Elizabeth Short who was named the Black Dahlia after her mutilated disfigured body was found on the side of a suburbian road. In this case the issue of death can be questioned intensively; why her? why was she murdered in such an inhumane manner? who did this to her? did she know that she was going to die?

Accidental Death

Was this an accidental death? Or rather an orchastrated conspiracy? This related imagery is the car that Lady Diana died in.

Death by Famine

A famine is a widespread shortage of food that may apply to any faunal species, which phenomenon is usually accompanied by regional malnutrition, starvation, epidemic, and increased mortality. Famines in modern time are typically linked to overpopulation, as the number of humans exceeds regional carrying capacity.

Historically, famines have occurred among the poor because of agricultural problems such as drought, crop failure, or pestilence. A famine can be made worse by increased human population, war, or economic policies which place the poor at a disadvantage.

During the 20th century, an estimated 70 million people died from famines across the world, of whom an estimated 30 million died during the famine of 1958–61 in China. The other most notable famines of the century included the 1942–1945 disaster in Bengal, famines in China in 1928 and 1942, and a sequence of famines in the Soviet Union, including the Holodomor, Stalin's famine inflicted on Ukraine in 1932–33. A few of the great famines of the late 20th century were: the Biafran famine in the 1960s, the disaster in Cambodia in the 1970s, the Ethiopian famine of 1983–85 and the North Korean famine of the 1990s.