Malcom X “My First Conk” Essay

Through the years African Americans have been growing their roots in the United States. It wasn’t too long ago that they weren’t accepted as a part of society. Since then the gap between them and the Caucasian community has begun to close. As both populations blend together we start to think of them as one nation with more similarities than differences. What happens when one society bleeds out its culture more than the other? African Americans have increasingly opted to ditch their natural selves and instead take on the task of manipulating themselves in order to appeal to the white man’s idea of beauty. Rather than revolt against the insults thrown at blacks they seem to have adopted them as true. Why is it that instead of defending their natural kinks they cover them up with wigs or chemically alter them? Although some beauty practices are commonplace throughout most African American communities engaging in these activities is the equivalent of validating the notion that blacks aren’t good enough. Malcom X illustrates for us in his piece titled â€Å"My first Conk† how his first conking went. For those unfamiliar with the term conking is a procedure in which black males concoct a gel, using mainly household ingredients, then apply it to the hair in order to straighten it. The incorporation of lye in the gel is what causes the bearer to feel as though the scalp burns. Malcom was at first a devoted conker but through the years has come to regret his old habit. At first he explains how good the conk made him feel, later in his life he mentions that conking was his first step towards self-degradation. He calls out all those who have or still sport a conk and urges them to stop. He even goes as far as saying it makes blacks look foolish. He also concludes that hair unimportant and it’s a shame that so much time has already been wasted on this. A compelling story I stumbled upon tells the drastic measures some are willing to take in order to shed themselves of the image they have come to associate as inferior. A woman around 35 years old willingly admitted that she bleached not only herself but her children. She wet cloths with store-bought Clorox and placed the on her and the kids’ faces for about a couple of minutes. This woman openly acknowledged that she was ashamed of being black. Alongside with her there were other testimonies who felt the same. They all mentioned how they were looked down upon for being black. They told some of the insults they faced on a day to day for being who they were. They felt the measures they took to appeal to the white community was  necessary. It was necessary if they wanted to feel good, if they wanted to be seen as equals, and if they wanted to stop the mental abuse . When I first came upon these people I was shocked. How could someone be so insensible as to literally bleach their skin? What would compel people to undergo such painful procedures as the one mentioned by Malcom? I was shocked but little did I know I too was just as guilty of caving in to society’s ideals of what I should look like. Just last year, my senior year in high school, I would have a morning ritual. At 5:00 a.m. sharp I would stumble out of bed and turn on the coffee machine. The energy from the coffee was to help me stay awake so I could complete the lengthy task of straighten my hair. 2 long hours it took for me to do only my hair! As is probably imaginable I was often late to school. I was late so many times in fact that I nearly didn’t graduate on stage. How then did I dare judge poor lady who bleached herself when in reality I was no different? I too unnecessarily took it upon myself to change the way I was because the pressure I felt to be just a bit sim ilar to white people. Consciously I did not notice this was what I was getting across, as I presume many black people that do things such as perming or wearing wigs are also unaware, but ultimately we have been brainwashed so much that this behavior is reasonable. Many may argue that we have the right to express ourselves any which way we want. This is true but why then are blacks ridiculed when they defy the expectations and take pride in their true selves. Why must wearing their natural selves take courage? We as a blended society should know better than to judge. Oppressing people has to be a thing of the past. The oppressor is not the only one to blame here. The oppressed are guilty of not fighting back. No change will come until we try to change ourselves. Too many have suffered and continue to suffer. Both mentally and physically these people are abused but to no avail. Society will not let up. Instead of conforming to society, as we have done for so long, we must pave a different path. Comparing ag ainst another race is futile. Blacks will never be the same as whites, they shouldn’t try to be. Each a culture rich in its own way. Teach ourselves and our peers to take pride in our appearance once again. Dig back into a culture once covered up and exhume it. Let it breathe for when it does so will we.

Logistics

Case Study report of DHL Abstract The rapid development of global commerce has drove logistics to reduce products lifecycles, increase response and action efficiency and optimize investments of inventory for current businesses. Therefore, logistics plays a pivotal role in nowadays commerce. The objective of the report is to discuss and evaluate the existing logistics theories. Whereas, DHL will be selected as a case study so as to get a further understanding on logistics according to the analysis result. IntroductionAs with the growing complexity of transporting goods and supplying materials for a business in world’s supply chain, expertise that developed to deal with this kind of problem is imperative so logistics. The concept of logistics is not specific, the world’s formal definition is ‘Logistics is the management science of supply chain and the art of controlling and managing any kinds of resources flow like products, information, petrol and even people betwe en the origin point and the consumption terminal so as to satisfy clients’ demand’.Logistics is in relation to the process of moving the right products and services at the right quality to the right place at the right time with right prices. It is said to be the essential part of any marketing or manufacturing activities. Logistics involves Literature Review Since the value of time becomes more and more important in today’s global commerce, transportation speed and delivery reliability are necessary for companies to compete emulously in business operations which drives logistics industry to improve service standard.In 1996, Kostecki pointed that conscientious in accordance with service determine logistics companies’ emulously advantage and success. To that content, an important part to be integrated into time management for logistics industry is operating business with clients effectively and innovating more efficiency operation skills with clients. This is important because any inefficiencies and irregularities in operating with customers that happened in different regions can affect the commerce environment significantly for logistics companies argued by Ahanori and Nachum in the year 2000.They said that the current development trend in logistics industry is just in time supply, e-commerce and growing globalization management. In 1998, Altabet predicted that logistics theory would be updated into supply chain management. The impact of effective forecast in the process of supply chain management on a company is significant. Kiely states that it will result in inventory investment reduction, customer satisfactory improvement and product distribution efficiency enhancement. Generally speaking, forecasting eliminates companies’ worry about excess inventory investment so as to increase the efficiency when operates with customers.Another important managerial skill for commerce is the cost management theory. Degraeve and Roodhooft point that over half of entire costs is accounted from external goods and services parchment. In order to hold a competitive position in the logistics market, companies should develop a more dependable and lower cost supply chain while assure high service quality for customers. Some suggests that company can increase the cost management reliability via computer technology. With the increasing importance of globalization transaction, contracts act essential role in international trade.On account of companies always being confronted with the situation of accomplishing orders with deadline and quotas, some suggest a management approach of Vendor management inventory to handle the problem (Waller, 1999). The management project help companies distribute the requirement materials more flexible and offer the possibility of cost reduction and efficiency improvement at the same time. Objectives With the purpose of understanding logistics theory in accordance with practical application and t o see how enterprises apply logistics theory to enhance efficiency and reduce cost . tc. DHL, the global leading logistics player is selected for a case study about its logistics operations in this report. Logistics operation of DHL DHL is the leader of global express, international transportation and air freight. It is the world’s NO. 1 shipping contract logistics provider. DHL offers customers a full range of logistics solutions from documents to supply chain management. As the global biggest logistics expert, DHL is a strong logistics partner for its clients that can offer any kind of freight transportation via water, railway, road and air. It can supply either pecial or shared operations of warehousing and distribution to any kind of industry sectors. On account of DHL is entirely service oriented, it involves no material movement itself but that for clients both consigner and consignee and the intermediaries as well. It just includes physical distribution and procurement . While, procurement involves in packaging materials like paper, plastic and boxes etc. the process is as follows. The first step is to weight and check for condition of the products and materials that collected from the consigners and then pack them according to their various characteristics.After that, products or services will be sent along to their destinations. DHL facilitate service performance via effective forecasting. It means the estimation of time required for both collecting wares from the consigner and that arriving to the final client. The crucial point of DHL’s entire business is timely delivery. The delivery documentation and process will be coordinated based on the approachability and distance to the final consignee. DHL can measure the time that it will cost for the goods to arrive to its end-point precisely.DHL provides customers Web Shipping services that allocate a certain user name and password for each client which allows goods sender and receiver to tr ack goods status via online information center. DHL has won the reputation for its continuous development on supply chain solutions innovation that improves control. It supplies for customers reverse logistics management solutions that enable client design, accomplish and conduct materials flow and regulate corresponding information, support of the supply chain to resize values and guarantee safe-handling of products.It involves receiving, ordering, controlling and conducting returned goods. In addition, DHL offers service for manufactures of service and replacement. It enable customer receive and send manufactures’ replacement parts in terms of pre-designed service such as with a certain deadline. What’s more, DHL offers some services other than physical logistics services such as order management, global inventory management, freight solutions, and customs solutions. The following three figures show the flow process of DHL. Figure [ 1 ] Process Map of DHL Figure [ 2 ] internal process map of DHL Figure [ 3 ] external process map of DHLFive objectives analysis of DHL’s operation Quality DHL has a process of performance measurement so as to supervise the daily working process and understand customers’ voice. The company applies DePict project management approach to track every project in order to ensure their service quality. Furthermore, most units in the management system of DHL are in accordance with the system ISO 9000 which is the global quality controlling standard. Hence, DHL always keeps a high level service quality. Speed DHL provides its client’s specialized solutions so as to ensure a faster response speed to the changing marketplace.For its different kind of customers such as automotive, retail and fashion, DHL offers each of them unique logistics solutions so as to enable a lower response time to the market. Dependability DHL is a leading player in many fields of the logistics market; it operates business in abou t 220 countries and employs more than 31000 people. In addition, it has the world’s largest aircraft fleet and a huge number of ships and vehicles. Moreover, it conducts business with advanced management methodologies and performance measurement. All of these resources ensure DHL an unrivalled ability to accomplish any kinds of logistics services perfectly.Flexibility DHL involves in many parts of logistics market and has strong enough ability in each field. It can offer many kinds of logistics service via different routes. Otherwise, DHL can provide customizing logistics or supply chain solutions to meet their specific demand. Cost As a leader in many of logistics market, the bargaining power of DHL is much higher than most of its competitors which therefore will bring some advantages for DHL. However, for there are lots of companies that can provide similar service or products it may lose the price advantage in some egment market. SWOT analysis of DHL’s operation Str ength The biggest strength for DHL is its leader position in logistics field. It is the dominator in the area of freight transportation through air and ocean. DHL’s business covers a larger area of the world; it provides services for over 220 countries. The leading position enable DHL enhance its economy scale and the power of setting price. Secondly, DHL’s diversified business model enable the company to reduce the risks in business activities and discover new opportunities in emerging and existing marketplaces.DHL devotes itself to the division of mail, supply chain, freight transportation and express. In addition, DHL has the highest employee productivity based on the data from Datamonitor. What’s more, the DHL owns a large airplane fleet that can provide great transportation ability and a long-term emission reduction GOGREEN program which makes DHL as the first mover in this area. Weakness According to the data collected by Datamonitor, DHL has encountered a problem of decline in its cash flow which results from low efficient cost management.This will reduce its resources availability when it is in pursuit of growing plans. Another problem is due to its huge airplane fleet. As with the rapid climate changing, enterprises are required to undertake their social responsibility for the environment. Large number of aircraft implies lots of emission. Although DHL is trying to apply approaches to reduce aircraft emission such as using higher quality fuel and optimal flight line, reductions on emissions will be still minimal due to the limitations in nowadays aeromechanics implies that airplane efficiency cannot be improve a lot in this aspect.What’s more, as a forerunner in the area of making effort to reduce emission, DHL will also get the advantage in compliance with new environmental regulations in the future. Opportunities As with the rapid development of e-commerce, online shopping nowadays grows with a steady high speed year by y ear. Most of consumers will move their shopping habitat from retail to online. Thus deliveries will increase significantly with the step of online sales which will promote the growth of DHL’s business.Moreover, consumers nowadays require more environmental friendly products and services which result in a growing demand from enterprises to get greener logistics services, higher efficiency transportation and low carbon offerings. The GOGREEN policy of DHL will meet the demand of such companies and the continuation development of this kind of services will help DHL get a good hand in competence with others. Threats DHL currently is in the situation of facing fierce competition in logistics business. The scattered global logistics market brings intense competition to DHL.These may result in negative effects on the company that potentially will decrease its growth and profits. What’s more, it is said that logistics industry produces a big percent of global emission which le ad to governments from all over world aim to reduce the pollution contribution from this market. As a multi-national enterprise DHL always faces the pressure across from governments and NGOs as well. It may affects DHL’s reputation since people nowadays consider more and more about a company’s social responsibility. Conclusions and Recommendations To conclude, logistics is very important for nowadays global intense competitive marketplace.As is known to all, logistics is an essential part of any companies function. A good logistical operation can enable a company cut the production cost and enhance the efficiency. In this report, DHL was selected as a case study to help analysis logistics theory. DHL owns the biggest logistics network all over the world. It provides any kind of freight transportation via multiple approaches. DHL conducts its great range of logistics activities and solutions for clients across almost 220 countries. It is dedicated to provide customers b etter performance and low-cost service in today’s highly competitively market.In order to get the victory in the competition, DHL should set a reasonable price, provide a faster and larger amount of scheduled service, improve the function of tracking goods, enlarge the business geographic area, enhance its dependability and innovate new service for customers. In addition, DHL should make more efforts on emission reduction. The performance management and GOGREEN program may help DHL to accomplish this target. In a word, the art of logistics is essential to every organization while DHL has shown its great management and operations to enable a leading position in the world’s market.References 1. Ahanori, Y & Nachum, L 2000,  Globalization of Services: Some Implications for Theory and  Routledg: London 2. Degraeve, Z & Roodhooft, F 1999, â€Å"Effectively selecting suppliers using total Cost of Ownership†,  The Journal of Supply Chain Management, vol. 35, no. 1, pp. 5-10. 3. Kiely, D 1999, â€Å"Synchronizing supply chain operations with consumer demand Using customer data†,  The Journal of Business Forecasting Methods & Systems, vol. 17, no. 4, pp. 3-9. 4. Kostecki, M 1996, â€Å"Waiting Line as a Marketing Issues†,  European Management Journal, vol. 14, no. 3, pp. 295-303. Logistics Logistics process Definition of logistics Logistics is a function that is flexible and changes according to the various constraints and demands imposed upon it. Logistics is – Supply + Materials Management + Distribution and logistics is basically the overall management of distributions and supply. There are many different transport methods including- * Air- This is used to deliver goods fast and also internationally. * Water- This can be used to transport goods slower. Sometimes unreliable. * Road- This is to be used nationally, and used by the most ranges of business. This is the most popular way of transportation. Rail- This is the quicker way of transporting goods. Royal Mail use rail to transport goods to their regional offices. * Container- Containers are used to deliver goods simply because they don’t need as much security and also cost less in transport, meaning more profits. When we compare different retailers, we have to take into consideration: * The amount o f stores that the retailer has. * Where the location of the stores are * The supply chain. For example: Tesco has over 7500 stores in the UK, which includes a mixture of high street, out of town and local stores.They have a wide supply chain which stretches globally as they try to source the cheapest products to sell in their supermarkets. Independent stores may have only a few stores at the most (for example Merrie England). The location of the stores are on the high street and in town centres and the supply chain will only reach nationally. Small retailer – Small retailers usually use wagons to transport from manufacturer to retailers, and mostly use wholesalers. These are more likely to have less suppliers to work with then larger retailers because of the size of the stores.Multinational retailer: the retailer buys it direct from the multinational manufacturers and then supplies to the customers, normally using wagons from the distribution centres. Relationship with suppli ers All retailers, whether they are small or large, have to have a relationship with their suppliers. This is so they can get the best products at the best price and can also introduce new products. By having a good relationship with the suppliers, they know if they are getting the best deal and can also have a good payment plan, whilst also having good interactions by using electronics.Product search * Logistics * Electronic data interchange * Supply chain integration * Ordering and payment * Invoice orders The supply chain for a large and small business is more or less the same- especially the logistics and distribution stage. However, larger businesses have to have warehousing to store all of their surplus stock, or to store and to distribute to all of their stores. Examples of this can be supermarket warehouses, which take all of the bulk stock and then separate them into store deliveries, then use their wagons for store deliveries.This not only saves the business time but is al so cost effective as the larger the order, the cheaper the product should be for the supermarket. This means that the stock that supermarkets and other larger businesses take will be cheaper than smaller businesses. Stock Management By having management on how much stock needs distributing to independent stores, they can reduce waste, and overall, saves the business time and money by putting them into the correct stores. It also keeps customers happy, because if the stock is to hand, then customers won’t complain and/or go to other competitors. Warehousing/Stock RoomsLarger Retailers will have lots of different warehouses to meet the customer needs and to also deliver to different stores across the country. By warehousing and storing the products in a safe, cool and dry place, it will keep the products fresh (if they are food/drink items), or safe and without the risk of overheating/getting water damage to the products. By keeping the products in these conditions, they will b e stay in perfect condition until you need them. Internationally Small Independents won’t need to distribute internationally, so won’t need to use rail or air transportation methods to deliver their stocks.Also, because of how small they are, they are also less likely to need to source their items from abroad aswell, unless they are a business that relies on international sourcing. However, larger retailers have to rely on sourcing from other countries, especially supermarkets that have to get their fresh foods (including fruit and vegetables) from other countries. This means that they have to rely on air travel to bring in their items. They also have to rely on fast transport methods, such as containers and wagons to deliver their items to the distribution centres before delivering it to local independent stores.Use of Electronics Smaller Independent shops won’t need to rely on electronics as much as the larger retailers, because of how big their stores are and how they get their stock. Small independent stores will normally get their stock from cash and carry’s so will normally use man power to get their items. However, larger stores will have to constantly source their items from different retailers, and have to rely on electronics to order items from the distribution areas. This means that if any problems occur with the electronics surrounding the business, they could have problems with orders and could therefore run out of products.

EXAM PREPARATION Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

EXAM PREPARATION - Essay Example It is in this context that strategic CSR rewards in financial benefits for the company and in turn creates an additional benefit on the structural development of the society. Evidently enough, based on the effectiveness of CSR, it is also termed as â€Å"Spiritual Capitalism† (McElhaney, 2009). Correspondingly, it can be stated that strategic CSR is linked with the concept of societal marketing, which determines the requirements and interests of the targeted audiences as well as provides satisfaction by enhancing the well being of the society at large. Another important aspect of CSR, in alignment with societal marketing is that it supports the issues related to education and culture to safeguard the organization along with the society. For instance, IBM institute for Business Value conducts its CSR through the implementation of societal marketing by providing consumers assistance by elite services and aims to develop the society by providing proper product and basic education (McElhaney, 2009). These additional attributes will assist the company to meet the present customer needs. Moreover, through these continuous learning processes regarding the CSR will provide future benefits for the company and the society. It is evident from the instances of IBM and Wal-Mart that CSR activities are quite effective to yield the benefits of competitive differentiation and favorable positioning to find potential customers in the emerging market and assist in creating new future revenue streams thereon (McElhaney, 2009). Creating CSR strategies assists the companies in attaining their goals by ensuring correct measures in the right direction and time, which further benefits them in their long term sustainability. In this regard, to provide further satisfaction to the customers and ensure high performance organizations needs to implement sustainable marketing concepts.

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Psychology2 Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

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On The Bold and The Beautiful is Katie suffering from Postpartum Movie Review

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Personal Ethics Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Personal Ethics - Essay Example If I live by rules that are stemmed from the ill effects of society, then I will end up being depressed and discouraged. Free will basically trusts one’s instincts. It is being able to live well, to do things my own way and to live slowly but surely. My thought patterns are shaped by the way I see things. If I see things in a different light, if I see the two sides of a coin and if I choose to see what I want to see in my own perspective, then this is what I call free will. Ethics is governed by the rightness and wrongness of actions. What is then the definition of right and wrong? Can these be equated with obligation and duty? Take the context of the family. I know for a fact that the family is the basic unit of the society. Is the husband obliged to take care of his wife or vice versa? Are parents obligated to take care of their children? When the elderly in the family starts to suffer from dementia, are the concerned family members obliged to take good care of him or her? These are the questions that will help us define the morals and principles that have shaped the society. I treat Kantian ethics as a foundation of the difference between right or wrong, between good and bad. Immanuel Kant argues that to act in the morally right way, people must act according to duty. But then is duty synonymous to responsibility? How does duty become a sense of accountability? Take for example the situation in the community. The rules that the society dictates can sometimes be so distracting but if I would consider that rules are meant to be followed and not meant to be broken, then everything in the community will be in order. The very simple sign, â€Å"No smoking† at the gasoline station is meant to be abided.... In this case, is this really my duty not to smoke Or is it simply following the rules and being aware of the consequences if I smoke at the gasoline station How can I say that it is a matter of common sense How does comprehension differ from awareness How does common sense differ from morally dictated laws If I do something, should I think the welfare of others Take for example a friend of mine needs a job. Let us name my friend Elle. Elle has been looking for a job for the past six months. Now an opportunity for her to work part time has landed on her lap. Her duty is to fill in the position of a nurse in a nursing home for only three days. Now as she started working, she does not want to let go of the opportunity. What she did was to convince the nursing home administrator to hire her full time instead of the 2 Nurse whom she has temporarily replaced for three days. Elle was able to convince the nursing home administrator to hire her full time at the expense of the nurse who only took her days off. Who is now at fault here Is it that of the nursing home administrator or is it that of scheming Elle who thought of her own self interest rather than the nurse who has worked in the nursing home for years When the nurse returned, she does not have a job anymore. On Elle's part, she would rather think of her own survival rather than the welfare of the nurse whom she has replaced. In this situation, the context of good and bad is really out of the maxim of the rules of good and evil. Take for example the context of suicide. Japan is considered the country with the highest suicide rate. In Japan, suicide is common but in the milieu of Christianity, suicide is not advisable. In this framework,

Are laws that protect us from our own dangerous behaviors (such seat Essay

Are laws that protect us from our own dangerous behaviors (such seat belt or helmet) morally acceptable - Essay Example Controversies over the laws which are basically designed for protecting people from dangerous behavior are problems of paternalism. Paternalism is interference in people’s freedom though it is for their own good. It is like a father making decisions for his kids instead of letting the kids make decisions for them, considering one important thing that father knows best. Wide range and variety of laws, practices and actions are taken into account which is under the principles of paternalism. More like a doctor or physician deciding what is best for his patients and the laws which are designed to restrict the use of cocaine, marijuana, heroin and other drugs. Such plans also include compulsory retirement plans, mandatory seatbelt laws which are designed to protect one’s interest whether they are liked by the people or people detest them. All these paternalistic practices are common, but the question is whether these practices are morally accepted or not. There is conflict of two important values attached with paternalism which include the value is taken into account for protecting and also promoting well being of others, along with the value which is associated with the freedom of persons which make their lead their life according to their wish and choice. When the people are ready to act in certain ways oppose to their own well being and security , an important question arises that are the laws justified which interfere in people’s private choices and matters. This is what leads to the problem of paternalism. There is a majority who would agree that paternalism becomes a justified thing when it is about a person who has limited and also impaired freedom of choices whether the cause of this is limited cognitive capacities or even the ignorance of facts, effects of a disease, influence of drugs and another reason can be due to coercion. Paternalism varies depending on the person, their emotional stability and behavior along with the capacity to understand and know what is best for them. According to many moral philosophers, a competent and a knowledgeable person should be allowed to make decisions freely and they should not be over ridden, though they are for their own person’s good. There was a case voiced by John Stuart Mill who was a British philosopher during the nineteenth century, according to him the only reason due to implement and make laws for the citizens and people of civilized community is to prevent problems and harm to others. Will of one’s own being is not enough physically and even morally. The laws are made for a collective society and laws which are beneficial and important for protecting the society over all. According to Mill, it was important to provide freedom as it is important and crucial for people’s individual personality development. Along with that people should be given a free hand for making choices they wish and like even if the choices are not the best ones. All these individual choices creates ability for people to make decisions and their decision making power will only improve their practices and experiences. Another important view which he holds was that individuals are the best judge for

Speech Coaching Essay Example for Free

Speech Coaching Essay Problem Definition Communication, particularly oral communication is an essential skill, maybe more now than ever. With all of the electronic communication, good oral communication should stand out. Justification for Problem Definition Communication skills simply do not refer to the way in which we communicate with another person. It encompasses many other things the way in which we respond to the person we are speaking, body gestures including the facial ones, pitch and tone of our voice and a lot of other things. And the importance of communication skills is not just limited to the management world, since effective communication skills are now required in each and every aspect of our life. We can measure the importance of communication skills in the business sector when we take a look at job advertisements. There is little chance that you will come across an advertisement which does not mention that candidates should have good communication skills. List of Alternative course of action . Hiring a speech consultant. 2. Onsite communication and speech training. 3. Online or remote communication and speech training. Evaluate Alternatives 1. Conduct in house training sessions. First we have to hire employees with high effective communication skills, with this the amount of investment in the communication training should be minimized, then to conduct a periodic and regular in-house sessions and workshops to develop and enhance their communication skills. . Communication training for all employees. Communication training will help business to grow, essential communication skills training is required to be provided to all employees, but more advanced levels of training should be provided to front liners and executives, as effective communication skills are important for business continuity and growth. The company will invest a lot in this training but most probably will gain the benefits of this investment. 3. Communication training for leaders and front liners. Provide top notch communication skills training for company’s leaders, who are expected to train and mentor their subordinates on how to communicate effectively. Providing this kind of training to front liners will help improving business and grow sales figures. Conclusion Recommendations First and third solutions are recommended to be conducted along with each other’s to help have better communication across the company and with external parties.

Basic empirical beliefs and its importances

Basic empirical beliefs and its importances A basic belief for most people is the idea that we believe in something which has not been corrupted by other beliefs to change the core belief we initially have about certain things. They are not inferred from other beliefs and is known better as Foundationalism. From this is the idea of a basic empirical belief, a belief that is learned by observing it using our empirical knowledge; sight, hearing, touch etc. To try and understand beliefs more clearly and to grasp what knowledge is without empirical beliefs, if it can happen, I will look at Foundationalism its counter argument Coherentism and the basic idea of empirical/sensory belief. Foundationalism considers that we need a core set of beliefs, beliefs that our other beliefs we have are built upon in order to make the original belief become more real. Most of us have a foundationalist belief structure and our basic beliefs can be justified by beliefs that link to it in order to make it more factual and the basic belief makes the beliefs which tie in with it justified. However, this doesnt mean that they themselves are justified, just that the basic belief, if true, makes the beliefs that stem from it justified. Following from having a basic belief, The Regress argument/Trilemma puts across that a belief is justified by another belief which is justified by another, then another and so on. So a) It goes on forever, b) Ends with some of the beliefs justify themselves, c) Ends with some of the beliefs having no justification. Therefore, if it went on forever it would be a vicious circle and end up having no end or beginning. It is a vicious regress, which Lewis discusses further, if you believe in the chance of something occurring or being true is small, then you dont really believe it because to have belief in something you need to b e able to justify it, if nothing can be certain then how do we know anything? But the idea of regress can be reversed if something is certain and we believe in it, so some beliefs must be certain. In Agrippas Trilemma, the 2nd option relates to Coherentism, which is an alternative argument to Foundationalism. Coherentism considers that if there could be now way to justify our empirical sense beliefs, and if the idea that beliefs can be justified by one another forever is ruled out then the beliefs can only be justified by their unique properties in relation to other beliefs and how well they fit together in order to produce a organised system of beliefs. Consistency is a requirement of coherence, but a set of beliefs do not need to have flaws to have no coherence, beliefs, which are perfectly consistent, may also have no coherence. As said in Agrippas Trilemma, beliefs justify themselves instead of going on forever, this is shown by the idea that if a belief was to be justified by another belief and so on, then empirical justification moves in a circular motion. But, Coherentism moves away from this idea and towards the idea of a linear motion and that the belief is in a line, with the order of epistemic priority at the beginning and epistemic justification at the other end of the line. The belief justifies itself then, as it does not need to have another belief to rely on it to make it justified. Moving on from this, having empirical beliefs means to have knowledge of our beliefs by gaining it through our senses. Foundationalism believed that basic beliefs were infallible, but by looking at Infallible sensory beliefs, what we believe to be seeing might not be infallible after all and most of our beliefs make us sure of our sensory beliefs. So it seems that we cannot have beliefs without our senses. For example, the belief in a religion, a God, that England are the best at Rugby, all these beliefs cannot be justified unless we have our sense to prove so. Furthermore, we cant have these beliefs to begin with unless we use our empirical knowledge to understand what we believe. If we had no sight then we could not read Holy Scriptures, which reveal religions, if we had no hearing then we could not hear classical music which you may believe to be the best music made by man and so forth. Our empirical knowledge is intertwined closely with our beliefs, and if we were unfortunate to not be able to use all our empirical senses and to have 1 of them taken away, this still hinders our chances of having a true belief in something and being able to justify it. However, a belief can make us more certain of our sensory beliefs e.g. I think I felt a spider run across my back. Later we discover it was a feather duster. Why cant other beliefs lower how sure we are of our sensory beliefs? If we are to accept the foundation of sensory beliefs, how does this relate to the belief structure? Following on from empirical beliefs is a priori knowledge. It is common to most that all the knowledge we hold comes from experience, experience we gain through using our senses. Our experience is not doubted and is gathered by using raw material of our sensible impressions, our empirical knowledge is formed by our interpretations of our own knowledge. A priori knowledge is very different from this, it does not come from experience, and it comes from innate knowledge we are born with. In example, a man who undermined the foundations of his house, that he might have known a priori that it would fall, that is, that he need not have waited for the experience of its actual falling. A priori knowledge is totally separate from experience, its opposite being posteriori, knowledge through experience. With beliefs, we adapt what we know from posteriori and a priori knowledge to justify and understand what we know about our beliefs. Before we are born are we are believed to have this previous knowledge, which Piaget talks of in relation to conscience and children. A child develops internal representations or mental and physical actions, some Schemata that are already present in a newborn, such as sucking, gripping and crying. Others develop as the child grows. The Schemata are built through 2 processes: 1. Assimilation- fitting newly acquired knowledge into what the child already knows. 2. Accommodation-as new experiences occur which do not fit into existing schemata, the child adapts them t fit, or creates new ones. This is similar to beliefs and knowledge, we can have a priori knowledge of a religion, like a blueprint in our mind of a God and we can build on our belief of this by using empirical knowledge to know more about it and by adapting what we already know and interpreting it with our senses. Overall, arguments show that mainly, if we cannot have empirical beliefs then we would find it hard to now anything. Our senses play a huge part in creating thoughts of belief, and without them it is hard to understand what beliefs can be justified if we were to for example have no sight or hearing. We would not be able to believe in a religion, except for the idea that we have a priori knowledge of a God. However, the basic belief of this is not enough to justify it and requires other beliefs to justify it, so this makes it hard for us to know anything. Or for that matter, anything true. I believe that we cannot know anything other than what we are innately born with, but this knowledge alone is not enough to create beliefs or pure knowledge, which solidifies these beliefs. Our empirical senses are key to establishing what we believe and whether we can justify them further therefore without empirical beliefs we can know nothing sufficient. Bibliography The Structure of Empirical Knowledge- Lawrence Bonjour 1986. London, Harvard University Press, ch.5 Critique of Pure Reason, trans. Immanuel Kant 1929. Norman Keep Smith, New York, St. Martins Press, 41-55 Piaget and the Foundations of Knowledge- Lynn S. Liben 1983. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Hillsdale, New Jersey, ch.6

A Comparison of the Ideals of Bronte in Jane Eyre and Voltaire in Candi

The Ideals of Bronte in Jane Eyre and Voltaire in Candide      Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Subjective novelists tend to use personal attitudes to shape their characters. Whether it be an interjection of opinion here, or an allusion to personal experience there, the beauty of a story lies in the clever disclosure of the author's personality. Charlotte Bronte and Voltaire are no exceptions. Their most notable leading characters, Jane Eyre and Candide, represent direct expressions of the respective author's emotions and impressions. In their stories, Bronte and Voltaire create fictional settings and imaginary scenes. However, through the psyche of their leading protagonists, Bronte and Voltaire genuinely portray their own inner world   they are their own subjects. While the novels Jane Eyre and Candide are in no manner outright autobiographies, they are extremely similar in that the experiences and beliefs of Bronte and Voltaire serve to characterize Jane and Candide. A careful examination of both works reveals that Jane and Candide evince the contrasting i deals of Bronte and Voltaire in various spheres.    As individuals, Voltaire and Charlotte Bronte could not have been any more different. They lived in opposing eras, had unlike backgrounds, and espoused divergent philosophies. While Candide, which some consider the epitome of the eighteenth century Enlightenment, uses satire to achieve its goals, Jane Eyre uses extensive descriptions to take the reader on a psychological roller coaster through the mind of its leading character. Analysis shows that the two authors will seldom agree on many issues. However, by the end of both novels, Jane and Candide have become very much alike. Answering the question of how this transformation occurs necessitat... ...the attainment of happiness with a simultaneous discovery of a personal identity. Jane Eyre and Candide are not only fictionalized versions of their creators, but also the very epitome of modern mankind. They look to their hostile surroundings and inside themselves to find answers to life's questions. In their struggles, we share their agony. In victory, we share their triumphs.    Works Cited Berg, Maggie. Jane Eyre: A Student's Companion to the Novel. Boston: Twayne Publishers, 1987. Blom, Margaret. Charlotte Bronte. Boston: Twayne Publishers, 1977. Bottiglia, William. "Candide's Garden". Voltaire: A Collection Of Critical Essays. Ed. William Bottiglia. Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall, 1968. 87-111. Bronte, Charlotte. Jane Eyre. New York: Penguin Books, 1997. Voltaire. Candide. Trans. Lowell Bair. New York: Bantam Books, 1959.   

Speech and Language Disorders -- essays papers

Speech and Language Disorders Communication is very crucial in life, especially in education. Whether it be delivering a message or receiving information, without the ability to communicate learning can be extremely difficult. Students with speech and language disorders may have â€Å"trouble producing speech sounds, using spoken language to communicate, or understanding what other people say† (Turkington, p10, 2003) Each of these problems can create major setbacks in the classroom. Articulation, expression and reception are all essential components for communication. If a student has an issue with articulation, they most likely then have difficulty speaking clearly and at a normal rate (Turkington, 2003). When they produce words, they may omit, substitute, or even distort sounds, hindering their ability to talk. Students who lack in ways of expression have problems explaining what they are thinking and feeling because they do not understand certain parts of language. As with all types of learning disabilities, the severity can range. Two extreme cases of expression disorders are dysphasia and aphasia, in which there is partial to no communication at all (Greene, 435, 2002). Individuals can also have a receptive disorder, in which they do not fully comprehend and understand information that is being given to them. They can experience problems making sense of things. â€Å"Children may hear or see a word but not be able to understand its meaning† (National Institutes of Health, 1993, p1). Whether children have difficulty articulating speech, expressing words, receiving information, or a combination of the three, there is no doubt that the tasks given to them in school cause frustration. These children experience anxiety when... ... CLD info sheets: assistive technology. Council for Learning Disabilities. Retrieved on April 24, 2005, from http://www.cldinternational.org/c/@CS_yKIo7l8ozY/Pages/assistive.html This page provides an in-depth look at assistive technology available for learning disabilities. The site is an outlet for students with learning disabilities. Croal, N. (2004 September 27). This is serious fun. Newsweek Magazine. Retrieved on May 1, 2005, from http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6100258/site/newsweek/ This article looks at a new type of video game that is actually beneficial, in that it aides’ students with learning disabilities such as ADHD. Page, C. (2005, April 26). Critics leave behind no alternative for education reform. The Baltimore Sun. Retrieved on April 29, 2005, from http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/opinion/oped/bal-op.page26apr26,1,7395434.story

Economic Freedom Vs. Interdependence :: essays research papers

Economic freedom cannot be fully instated as long as interdependence exists. The reasoning for this is that interdependence directly effects economic freedom. The basic idea in these two terms is options. Economic freedom means having unlimited and unrestricted options, while interdependence equals limited options. It is impossible for these two ideas to completely coexist to the entirety of their definitions. The government is forever creating and amending rules, regulations, and laws, which constitutes in limiting economic choices and options. Economic freedom is the aspect of choice. It is a concept that allows each individual to fully choose exactly how they use their money while having unlimited options when making economic decisions, with the advantage of unbounded possibilities. If there were unlimited options, it would mean that anything that is desired should be able to become reality. With the absence of restrictions, having unlimited options allows individuals to act independently with their decisions. Interdependence, relating to the consumer, is practically the opposite of economic freedom. Interdependence means limited options and added restrictions. With interdependence, the choices the consumer makes and the options he has are dependent on the decisions made by others. They could be other consumers, entrepreneurs, or the government. Laws, taxes, and the role of Alan Greenspan are also part of this idea. Interdependence means that all the consumer's economic decisions are out of his control because they depend on the decisions of others. Based on this definition, interdependence and economic freedom are opposing concepts. The concepts are similar in that they are both economic terms that entail a system of making decisions based on the consumer. Both also deal with the concept of options. However, that is also exactly how they are different. It is like two sides of a coin, one is for options, and one is against them. Economic freedom is all about unlimited options; therefore, it could not possibly coexist with a governing that relies on limiting options. Achieving complete economic freedom depends on interdependence and what limits are being set. It is possible that both concepts could coexist in a watered down state, like a compromise. There may be a variety of choices in one area for the consumer, but not in another area. It is also possible that complete economic freedom does not exist. In the American economy, the government is the main source of interdependence, but without the government, America's economy would be shattered.

A Brief History of English and American Literature Essay

The Norman conquest of England, in the 11th century, made a break in the natural growth of the English language and literature. The old English or Anglo−Saxon had been a purely Germanic speech, with a complicated grammar and a full set of inflections. For three hundred years following the battle of Hastings. this native tongue was driven from the king’s court and the courts of law, from parliament, school, and university. During all this time there were two languages spoken in England. Norman French was the birth−tongue of the upper classes and English of the lower. When the latter finally got the better in the struggle, and became, about the middle of the 14th century, the national speech of all England, it was no longer the English of King Alfred. It was a new language, a grammarless tongue, almost wholly {12} stripped of its inflections. It had lost a half of its old words, and had filled their places with French equivalents. The Norman lawyers had introduced legal terms; the ladies and courtiers, words of dress and courtesy. The knight had imported the vocabulary of war and of the chase. The master−builders of the Norman castles and cathedrals contributed technical expressions proper to the architect and the mason. The art of cooking was French. The naming of the living animals, ox, swine, sheep, deer, was left to the Saxon churl who had the herding of them, while the dressed meats, beef, pork, mutton, venison, received their baptism from the table−talk of his Norman master. The four orders of begging friars, and especially the Franciscans or Gray Friars, introduced into England in 1224, became intermediaries between the high and the low. They went about preaching to the poor, and in their sermons they intermingled French with English. In their hands, too, was almost all the science of the day; their medicine, botany, and astronomy displaced the old nomenclature of leechdom, wort−cunnin g, and star−craft. And, finally, the translators of French poems often found it easier to transfer a foreign word bodily than to seek out a native synonym, particularly when the former supplied them with a rhyme. But the innovation reached even to the commonest words in every−day use, so that voice drove out steven, poor drove out earm, and color, use, and place made good their footing beside hue, {13}wont, and stead. A great part of the English words that were left were so changed in spelling and pronunciation as to be practically new. Chaucer stands, in date, midway between King Alfred and Alfred Tennyson, but his English differs vastly more from the former’s than from the latter’s. To Chaucer Anglo−Saxon was as much a dead language as it is to us. The classical Anglo−Saxon, moreover, had been the Wessex dialect, spoken and written at Alfred’s capital, Winchester. When the French had displaced this as the language of culture, there was no longer a â€Å"king’s English† or any literary standard. The sources of modern standard English are to be found in the East Midland, spoken in Lincoln, Norfolk, Suffolk, Cambridge, and neighboring shires . Here the old Anglian had been corrupted by the Danish settlers, and rapidly threw off its inflections when it became a spoken and no longer a written language, after the Conquest. The West Saxon, clinging more tenaciously to ancient forms, sunk into the position of a local dialect; while the East Midland, spreading to London, Oxford, and Cambridge, became the literary English in which Chaucer wrote. The Normans brought in also new intellectual influences and new forms of literature. They were a cosmopolitan people, and they connected England with the continent. Lanfranc and Anselm, the first two Norman archbishops of Canterbury, were learned and splendid prelates of a {14} type quite unknown to the Anglo−Saxons. They introduced the scholastic philosophy taught at the University of Paris, and the reformed discipline of the Norman abbeys. They bound the English Church more closely to Rome, and officered it with Normans. English bishops were deprived of their sees for illiteracy, and French abbots were set over monasteries of Saxon monks. Down to the middle of the 14th century the learned literature of England was mostly in Latin, and the polite literature in French. English did not at any time altogether cease to be a written language, but the extant remains of the period from 1066 to 1200 are few and, with one exception, unimportant. After 1200 English came more and more into written use, but mainly in translations, paraphrases, and imitations of French works. The native genius was at school, and followed awkwardly. The Anglo−Saxon poetry, for example, had been rhythmical and alliterative. It was commonly written in lines containing four rhythmical accents and with three of the accented syllables alliterating. R_este hine thà ¢ r_à ºm−heort; r_à ©ced hlifade G_eà ¡p and g_à ³ld−fà ¢h, gà ¤st inne swà ¤f. Rested him then the great−hearted; the hall towered Roomy and gold−bright, the guest slept within. This rude energetic verse the Saxon scà ´p had sung to his harp or glee−beam, dwelling on the {15} emphatic syllables, passing swiftly over the others which were of undetermined number and position in the line. It was now displaced by the smooth metrical verse with rhymed endings, which the French introduced and which our modern poets use, a verse fitted to be recited rather than sung. The old English alliterative verse continued, indeed, in occasional use to the 16th century. But it was linked to a forgotten literature and an obsolete dialect, and was doomed to give way. Chaucer lent his great authority to the more modern verse system, and his own literary models and inspirers were all foreign, French or Italian. Literature in England began to be once more English and truly national in the hands of Chaucer and his contemporaries, but it was the literature of a nation cut off from its own past by three centuries of foreign rule. The most noteworthy English document of the 11th and 12th centuries was the continuation of the Anglo−Saxon chronicle. Copies of these annals, differing somewhat among themselves, had been kept at the monasteries in Winchester, Abingdon, Worcester, and elsewhere. The yearly entries were mostly brief, dry records of passing events, though occasionally they become full and animated. The fen country of Cambridge and Lincolnshire was a region of monasteries. Here were the great abbeys of Peterborough and Croyland and Ely minster. One of the earliest English songs tells how the savage heart of the Danish {16} king Cnut was softened by the singing of the monks in Ely. Merie sungen muneches binnen Ely Tha Cnut chyning reu ther by; Roweth, cnihtes, noer the land, And here we thes muneches sang. It was among the dikes and marshes of this fen country that the bold outlaw Hereward, â€Å"the last of the English,† held out for some years against the conqueror. And it was here, in the rich abbey of Burch or Peterborough, the ancient Medeshamstede (meadow−homestead) that the chronicle was continued for nearly a century after the Conquest, breaking off abruptly in 1154, the date of King Stephen’s death. Peterborough had received a new Norman abbot, Turold, â€Å"a very stern man,† and the entry in the chronicle for 1170 tells how Hereward and his gang, with his Danish backers, thereupon plundered the abbey of its treasures, which were first removed to Ely, and then carried off by the Danish fleet and sunk, lost, or squandered. The English in the later portions of this Peterborough chronicle becomes gradually more modern, and falls away more and more from the strict grammatical standards of the classical Anglo−Saxon. It is a most valuable historical monument, and some passages of it are written with great vividness, notably the sketch of William the Conqueror put down in the year of his death (1086) by one who had â€Å"looked upon him and at another time dwelt in his court.† {17} â€Å"He who was before a rich king, and lord of many a land, he had not then of all his land but a piece of seven feet. . . . Likewise he was a very stark man and a terrible, so that one durst do nothing against his will. . . . Among other things is not to be forgotten the good peace that he made in this land, so that a man might fare over his kingdom with his bosom full of gold unhurt. He set up a great deer preserve, and he laid laws therewith that whoso should slay hart or hind, he should be blinded. As greatly did he love the tall deer as if he were their father.† With the discontinuance of the Peterborough annals, English history written in English prose ceased for three hundred years. The thread of the nation’s story was kept up in Latin chronicles, compiled by writers partly of English and partly of Norman descent. The earliest of these, such as Ordericus Vitalis, Simeon ofDurham, Henry of Huntingdon, and William of Malmesbury, were contemporary with the later entries of the Saxon chronicle. The last of them, Matthew of Westminster, finished his work in 1273. About 1300 Robert, a monk of Gloucester, composed a chronicle in English verse, following in the main the authority of the Latin chronicles, and he was succeeded by other rhyming chroniclers in the 14th century. In the hands of these the true history of the Saxon times was overlaid with an ever−increasing mass of fable and legend. All real knowledge of the period {18} dwindled away until in Capgrave’s Chronicle of England, written in prose in 1463−64, hardly any thing of it is left. In history as in literature the English had forgotten their past, and had turned to foreign sources. It is noteworthy that Shakspere, who borrowed his subjects and his heroes sometimes from authentic English history, sometimes from the legendary history of ancient Britain, Denmark,and Scotland, as in Lear, Hamlet, and Macbeth, ignores the Saxon period altogether. And Spenser, who gives in his second book of the Faerie Queene, a resumà © of the reigns of fabulous British kings—the supposed ancestors of Queen Elizabeth, his royal patron—has nothing to say of the real kings of early England. So completely had the true record faded away that it made no appeal to the imaginations of our most patriotic poets. The Saxon Alfred had been dethroned by the British Arthur, and the conquered Welsh had imposed their fictitious genealogies upon the dynasty of the conquerors. In the Roman de Rou, a verse chronicle of the dukes of Normandy, written by the Norman Wace, it is related that at the battle of Hastings the French jongleur, Taillefer, spurred out before the van of William’s army, tossing his lance in the air and chanting of â€Å"Charlemagne and of Roland, of Oliver and the peers who died at Roncesvals.† This incident is prophetic of the victory which Norman song, no less than Norman arms, was to win over England. The lines which Taillefer {19} sang were from the Chanson de Roland, the oldest and best of the French hero sagas. The heathen Northmen, who had ravaged the coasts of France in the 10th century, had become in the course of one hundred and fifty years, completely identified with the French. They had accepted Christianity, intermarried with the native women, and forgotten their own Norse tongue. The race thus formed was the most brilliant in Europe. The warlike, adventurous spirit of the vikings mingled in its blood with the French nimbleness of wit and fondness for display. The Normans were a nation of knights−errant, with a passion for prowess and for courtesy. Their architecture was at once strong and graceful. Their women were skilled in embroidery, a splendid sample of which is preserved in the famous Bayeux tapestry, in which the conqueror’s wife, Matilda, and the ladies of her court wrought the history of the Conquest. This national taste for decoration expressed itself not only in the ceremonious pomp of feast and chase and tourney, but likewise in literature. The most characteristic contribution of the Normans to English poetry were the metrical romances or chivalry tales. These were sung or recited by the minstrels, who were among the retainers of every great feudal baron, or by the jongleurs, who wandered from court to castle. There is a whole literature of these romans d’ aventure in the Anglo−Norman dialect of French. Many of them are {20} very long—often thirty, forty, or fifty thousand lines—written sometimes in a strophic form, sometimes in long Alexandrines, but commonly in the short, eight−syllabled rhyming couplet. Numbers of them were turned into English verse in the 13th, 14th, and 15th centuries. The translations were usually inferior to the originals. The French trouvere (finder or poet) told his story in a straight−forward, prosaic fashion, omitting no details in the action and unrolling endless descriptions of dresses, trappings, gardens, etc. He invented plots and situations full of fine possibilities by which later poets have profited, but his own handling of them was feeble and prolix. Yet there was a simplicity about the old French language and a certain elegance and delicacy in the diction of the trouveres which the rude, unformed English failed to catch. The heroes of these romances were of various climes: Guy of Warwick, and Richard the Lion Heart of England, Havelok the Dane, Sir Troilus of Troy, Charlemagne, and Alexander. But, strangely enough, the favorite hero of English romance was that mythical Arthur of Britain, whom Welsh legend had celebrated as the most formidable enemy of the Sassenach invaders and their victor in twelve great battles. The language and literature of the ancient Cymry or Welsh had made no impression on their Anglo−Saxon conquerors. There are a few Welsh borrowings in the English speech, such as bard and druid; but in the old Anglo−Saxon literature there are {21} no more traces of British song and story than if the two races had been sundered by the ocean instead of being borderers for over six hundred years. But the Welsh had their own national traditions, and after the Norman Conquest these were set free from the isolation of their Celtic tongue and, in an indirect form, entered into the general literature of Europe. The French came into contact with the old British literature in two places: in the Welsh marches in England and in the province of Brittany in France, where the population is of Cymric race and spoke, and still to some extent speaks, a Cymric dialect akin to the Welsh. About 1140 Geoffrey of Monmouth, a Benedictine monk, seemingly of Welsh descent, who lived at the court of Henry the First and became afterward bishop of St. Asaph, produced in Latin a so−called Historia Britonum in which it was told how Brutus, the great grandson of Aeneas, came to Britain, and founded there his kingdom called after him, and his city of New Troy (Troynovant) on the site of the later London. An air of historic gravity was given to this tissue of Welsh legends by an exact chronology and the genealogy of theBritish kings, and the author referred, as his authority, to an imaginary Welsh book given him, as he said, by a certain Walter, archdeacon of Oxford. Here appeared that line of fabulous British princes which has become so familiar to modern readers in the plays of Shakspere and the poems of Tennyson: Lear and his {22} three daughters; Cymbeline, Gorboduc, the subject of the earliest regular English tragedy, composed by Sackville and acted in 1562; Locrine and his Queen Gwendolen, and his daughter Sabrina, who gave her name to the river Severn, was made immortal by an exquisite song in Milton’s Comus, and became the heroine of the tragedy of Locrine, once attributed to Shakspere; and above all, Arthur, the son of Uther Pendragon, and the founder of the Table Round. In 1155 Wace, the author of the Roman de Rou, turned Geoffrey’s work into a French poem entitled Brut d’ Angleterre, â€Å"brut† being a Welsh word meaning chronicle. About the year 1200 Wace’s poem was Englished by Layamon, a priest of Arley Regis, on the border stream of Severn. Layamon’s Brut is in thirty thousand lines, partly alliterative and partly rhymed, but written in pure Saxon English with hardly any French words. The style is rude but vigorous, and, at times, highly imaginative. Wace had amplified Geoffrey’s chronicle somewhat, but Layamon made much larger additions, derived, no doubt, from legends current on the Welsh border. In particular the story of Arthur grew in his hands into something like fullness. He tells of the enchantments of Merlin, the wizard; of the unfaithfulness of Arthur’s queen,Guenever; and the treachery of his nephew, Modred. His narration of the last great battle between Arthur and Modred; of the wounding of the king—â€Å"fifteen fiendly wounds he had, one might in the least {23} three gloves thrust—†; and of the little boat with â€Å"two women therein, wonderly dight,† which came to bear him away to Avalun and the Queen Argante, â€Å"sheenest of all elves,† whence he shall come again, according to Merlin’s prophecy, to rule the Britons; all this left little, in essentials, for Tennyson to add in his Death of Arthur. This new material for fiction was eagerly seized upon by the Norman romancers. The story of Arthur drew to itself other stories which were afloat.

A Tale of Four Learners Summary Essay

Bernice McCarthys’ essay, â€Å"A Tale of Four Learners,† is about her classifications of the different types of learners based on the system she created, THE 4MAT. The four types of learners are: Type 1 learners, Type 2 learners, Type 3 learners, and Type 4 learners. The names of the people she uses in the essay are Lisa, Marcus, Jimmy, and Leah. Linda was a highly imaginative student who favored feelings and reflecting. She was a Type 1 learner, who struggled with math but was great at writing poetry, until a college professor connected her poetry to statistics. Type 1 learners prefer to learn by talking, listening, and watching then responding. Type 1 learners work well in groups or teams, but dislike confusion and conflict. They experience difficulty in long explanations, and memorizing large amounts of information. Marcus was the analytic student who favored reflecting and thinking. Marcus was a Type 2 learner who found school as an absolute joy. Type 2 learners prefer to learn through lectures and objective explanations, and unlike Type 1 learners, Type 2 learners prefer to work alone. They are highly organized and experience difficulty learning in noisy, high-activity environments, and as well in talking about their feelings. Jimmy was a common-sense learner who favored thinking and doing. As a Type 3 Learner Jimmy was a great problem solver and was drawn to how things work. Type 3 learners prefer to learn through step-by-step procedures and experimentation. They experience difficulty when reading is the primary means of learning, and they too have difficulty expressing their feelings. Leah was a dynamic learner who favored creating and acting. Leah, as a Type 4 learner sustains learning by trial and error. They prefer learning through self-discovery, creative solutions to problems, and working independently. Type 4 learners experience difficulty with unquestionable routines, visual complexity, and time management. In conclusion, all the different types of learners have their own way of making learning easier for their own well-being. They all have their own struggles, and should not be frowned upon because of that but should be encouraged so they can grow.

Brian B. and The Medical File Test Essay

Brian B. is taken into an exam room in the office of Dr. K. by the medical assistant, Amy. Amy gets into an animated discussion with Brian about their mutually favorite baseball team. As Amy leaves the exam room, she accidentally places Brian’s medical file on the counter. While Brian waits for Dr. K., he reads through his file folder. He is shocked to discover that his recent test for AIDS came back positive. Brian panics and runs out of the office before seeing Dr. K. The doctor tries to reach Brian by phone but there is no answer. Dr. K. then sends a letter marked â€Å"Confidential† to Brian and explains that he must be treated for his disease and also needs to inform his sexual partners about his disease. Brian does not respond to the letter. Question What else can Doctor K. do to meet his obligation to report a communicable disease? In dealing with outbreaks of communicable diseases, Doctor K. should work with public health authorities to promote the use of interventions that achieve desired public health outcomes with minimal infringement upon individual liberties. In implementing such measures, Doctor K should take necessary actions to promote the patients’ well-being. In addition, Doctor K should also be responsible for taking appropriate precautionary measures to protect the health of individuals caring for patients with communicable diseases. Physicians are ethically obligated to safeguard patients’ privacy and should not reveal confidential communications or information without the express consent of the patient, unless required to do so by law.24 Therefore, physicians must comply with legal requirements to report affected patients to appropriate public health authorities.

Bag of Bones CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

For men, I think, love is a thing formed of equal parts lust and astonishment. The astonishment part women understand. The lust part they only think they understand. Very few perhaps one in twenty have any concept of what it really is or how deep it runs. That's probably just as well for their sleep and peace of mind. And I'm not talking about the lust of satyrs and rapists and molesters; I'm talking about the lust of shoe-clerks and high-school principals. Not to mention writers and lawyers. We turned into Mattie's dooryard at ten to eleven, and as I parked my Chevy beside her rusted-out Jeep, the trailer door opened and Mat-tie came out on the top step. I sucked in my breath, and beside me I could hear John sucking in his. She was very likely the most beautiful young woman I have ever seen in my life as she stood there in her rose-colored shorts and matching middy top. The shorts were not short enough to be cheap (my mother's word) but plenty short enough to be provocative. Her top tied in floppy string bows across the shoulders and showed just enough tan to dream on. Her hair hung to her shoulders. She was smiling and waving. I thought, She's made it take her into the country-club dining room now, dressed just as she is, and she shuts everyone else down. ‘Oh Lordy,' John said. There was a kind of dismayed longing in his voice. ‘All that and a bag of chips.' ‘Yeah,' I said. ‘Put your eyes back in your head, big boy.' He made cupping motions with his hands as if doing just that. George, meanwhile, had pulled his Altima in next to us. ‘Come on,' I said, opening my door. ‘Time to party.' ‘I can't touch her, Mike,' John said. ‘I'll melt.' ‘Come on, you goof.' Mattie came down the steps and past the pot with the tomato plant in it. Ki was behind her, dressed in an outfit similar to her mother's, only in a shade of dark green. She had the shys again, I saw; she kept one steadying hand on Mattie's leg and one thumb in her mouth. ‘The guys are here! The guys are here!' Mattie cried, laughing, and threw herself into my arms. She hugged me tight and kissed the corner of my mouth. I hugged her back and kissed her cheek. Then she moved on to John, read his shirt, patted her hands together in applause, and then hugged him. He hugged back pretty well for a guy who was afraid he might melt, I thought, picking her up off her feet and swinging her around in a circle while she hung onto his neck and laughed. ‘Rich lady, rich lady, rich lady!' John chanted, then set her down on the cork soles of her white shoes. ‘Free lady, free lady, free lady!' she chanted back. ‘The hell with rich!' Before he could reply, she kissed him firmly on the mouth. His arms rose to slip around her, but she stepped back before they could catch hold. She turned to Rommie and George, who were standing side-by-side and looking like fellows who might want to explain all about the Mormon Church. I took a step forward, meaning to do the introductions, but John was taking care of that, and one of his arms managed to accomplish its mission after all it circled her waist as he led her forward toward the men. Meanwhile a little hand slipped into mine. I looked down and saw Ki looking up at me. Her face was grave and pale and every bit as beautiful as her mother's. Her blonde hair, freshly washed and shining, was held back with a velvet scrunchy. ‘Guess the fridgeafator people don't like me now,' she said. The laughter and insouciance were gone, at least for the moment. She looked on the verge of tears. ‘My letters all went bye-bye.' I picked her up and set her in the crook of my arm as I had on the day I'd met her walking down the middle of Route 68 in her bathing suit. I kissed her forehead and then the tip of her nose. Her skin was perfect silk. ‘I know they did,' I said. ‘I'll buy you some more.' ‘Promise?' Doubtful dark blue eyes fixed on mine. ‘Promise. And I'll teach you special words like â€Å"zygote† and â€Å"bibulous†. I know lots of special words.' ‘How many?' ‘A hundred and eighty.' Thunder rumbled in the west. It didn't seem louder, but it was more focused, somehow. Ki's eyes went in that direction, then came back to mine. ‘I'm scared, Mike.' ‘Scared? Of what?' ‘Ofi don't know. The lady in Mattie's dress. The men we saw.' Then she looked over my shoulder. ‘Here comes Mommy.' I have heard actresses deliver the line Not in front of the children in that exact same tone of voice. Kyra wiggled in the circle of my arms. ‘Land me.' I landed her. Mattie, John, Rommie, and George came over to join us. Ki ran to Mattie, who picked her up and then eyed us like a general surveying her troops. ‘Got the beer?' she asked me. ‘Yessum. A case of Bud and a dozen mixed sodas, as well. Plus lemonade.' ‘Great. Mr. Kennedy ‘ ‘George, ma'am.' ‘George, then. And if you call me ma'am again, I'll punch you in the nose. I'm Mattie. Would you drive down to the Lakeview General'-she pointed to the store on Route 68, about half a mile from us ‘and get some ice?' ‘You bet.' ‘Mr. Bissonette ‘ ‘Rommie.' ‘There's a little garden at the north end of the trailer, Rommie. Can you find a couple of good-looking lettuces?' ‘I think I can handle that.' ‘John, let's get the meat into the fridge. As for you, Michael . . . ‘ She pointed to the barbecue. ‘The briquets are the self-lighting kind just drop a match and stand back. Do your duty.' ‘Aye, good lady,' I said, and dropped to my knees in front of her. That finally got a giggle out of Ki. Laughing, Mattie took my hand and pulled me back onto my feet. ‘Come on, Sir Galahad,' she said. ‘It's going to rain. I want to be safe inside and too stuffed to jump when it does.' In the city, parties begin with greetings at the door, gathered-in coats, and those peculiar little air-kisses (when, exactly, did that social oddity begin?). In the country, they begin with chores. You fetch, you carry, you hunt for stuff like barbecue tongs and oven mitts. The hostess drafts a couple of men to move the picnic table, then decides it was actually better where it was and asks them to put it back. And at some point you discover that you're having fun. I piled briquets until they looked approximately like the pyramid on the bag, then touched a match to them. They blazed up satisfyingly and I stood back, wiping my forearm across my forehead. Cool and clear might be coming, but it surely wasn't in hailing distance yet. The sun had burned through and the day had gone from dull to dazzling, yet in the west black-satin thunderheads continued to stack up. It was as if night had burst a blood-vessel in the sky over there. ‘Mike?' I looked around at Kyra. ‘What, honey?' ‘Will you take care of me?' ‘Yes,' I said with no hesitation at all. For a moment something about my response perhaps only the quickness of it seemed to trouble her. Then she smiled. ‘Okay,' she said. ‘Look, here comes the ice-man!' George was back from the store. He parked and got out. I walked over with Kyra, she holding my hand and swinging it possessively back and forth. Rommie came with us, juggling three heads of lettuce I didn't think he was much of a threat to the guy who had fascinated Ki on the common Saturday night. George opened the Altima's back door and brought out two bags of ice. ‘The store was closed,' he said. ‘Sign said WILL RE-OPEN AT 5 P.M. That seemed a little too long to wait, so I took the ice and put the money through the mail-slot.' They'd closed for Royce Merrill's funeral, of course. Had given up almost a full day's custom at the height of the tourist season to see the old fellow into the ground. It was sort of touching. I thought it was also sort of creepy. ‘Can I carry some ice?' Kyra asked. ‘I guess, but don't frizzicate yourself,' George said, and carefully put a five-pound bag of ice into Ki's outstretched arms. ‘Frizzicate,' Kyra said, giggling. She began walking toward the trailer, where Mattie was just coming out. John was behind her and regarding her with the eyes of a gutshot beagle. ‘Mommy, look! I'm frizzicating!' I took the other bag. ‘I know the icebox is outside, but don't they keep a padlock on it?' ‘I am friends with most padlocks,' George said. ‘Oh. I see.' ‘Mike! Catch!' John tossed a red Frisbee. It floated toward me, but high. I jumped for it, snagged it, and suddenly Devore was back in my head: What's wrong with you, Rogette? You never used to throw like a girl Get him! I looked down and saw Ki looking up. ‘Don't think about sad stuff,' she said. I smiled at her, then flipped her the Frisbee. ‘Okay, no sad stuff. Go on, sweetheart. Toss it to your mom. Let's see if you can.' She smiled back, turned, and made a quick, accurate flip to her mother the toss was so hard that Mattie almost flubbed it. Whatever else Kyra Devore might have been, she was a Frisbee champion in the making. Mattie tossed the Frisbee to George, who turned, the tail of his absurd brown suitcoat flaring, and caught it deftly behind his back. Mattie laughed and applauded, the hem of her top flirting with her navel. ‘Showoff!' John called from the steps. ‘Jealousy is such an ugly emotion,' George said to Rommie Bissonette, and flipped him the Frisbee. Rommie floated it back to John, but it went wide and bonked off the side of the trailer. As John hurried down the steps to get it, Mattie turned to me. ‘My boombox is on the coffee-table in the living room, along with a stack of CDs. Most of them are pretty old, but at least it's music. Will you bring them out?' ‘Sure.' I went inside, where it was hot in spite of three strategically placed fans working overtime. I looked at the grim, mass-produced furniture, and at Mattie's rather noble effort to impart some character: the van Gogh print that should not have looked at home in a trailer kitchenette but did, Edward Hopper's Nighthawks over the sofa, the tie-dyed curtains that would have made Jo laugh. There was a bravery here that made me sad for her and furious at Max Devore all over again. Dead or not, I wanted to kick his ass. I went into the living room and saw the new Mary Higgins Clark on the sofa end-table with a bookmark sticking out of it. Lying beside it in a heap were a couple of little-girl hair ribbons something about them looked familiar to me, although I couldn't remember ever having seen Ki wearing them. I stood there a moment longer, frowning, then grabbed the boombox and CDs and went back outside. ‘Hey, guys,' I said. ‘Let's rock.' I was okay until she danced. I don't know if it matters to you, but it does to me. I was okay until she danced. After that I was lost. We took the Frisbee around to the rear of the house, partly so we wouldn't piss off any funeral-bound townies with our rowdiness and good cheer, mostly because Mattie's back yard was a good place to play level ground and low grass. After a couple of missed catches, Mattie kicked off her party-shoes, dashed barefoot into the house, and came back in her sneakers. After that she was a lot better. We threw the Frisbee, yelled insults at each other, drank beer, laughed a lot. Ki wasn't much on the catching part, but she had a phenomenal arm for a kid of three and played with gusto. Rommie had set the boombox up on the trailer's back step, and it spun out a haze of late-eighties and early-nineties music: U2, Tears for Fears, the Eurythmics, Crowded House, A Flock of Seagulls, Ah-Hah, the Bangles, Melissa Etheridge, Huey Lewis and the News. It seemed to me that I knew every song, every riff. We sweated and sprinted in the noon light. We watched Mattie's long, tanned legs flash and listened to the bright runs of Kyra's laughter. At one point Rommie Bissonette went head over heels, all the change spilling out of his pockets, and John laughed until he had to sit down. Tears rolled from his eyes. Ki ran over and plopped on his defenseless lap. John stopped laughing in a hurry. ‘Ooofl' he cried, looking at me with shining, wounded eyes as his bruised balls no doubt tried to climb back inside his body. ‘Kyra Devore!' Mattie cried, looking at John apprehensively. ‘I taggled my own quartermack,' Ki said proudly. John smiled feebly at her and staggered to his feet. ‘Yes,' he said. ‘You did. And the ref calls fifteen yards for squashing.' ‘Are you okay, man?' George asked. He looked concerned, but his voice was grinning. ‘I'm fine,' John said, and spun him the Frisbee. It wobbled feebly across the yard. ‘Go on, throw. Let's see whatcha got.' The thunder rumbled louder, but the black clouds were all still west of us; the sky overhead remained a harmless humid blue. Birds still sang and crickets hummed in the grass. There was a heat-shimmer over the barbecue, and it would soon be time to slap on John's New York steaks. The Frisbee still flew, red against the green of the grass and trees, the blue of the sky. I was still in lust, but everything was still all right men are in lust all over the world and damned near all of the time, and the icecaps don't melt. But she danced, and everything changed. It was an old Don Henley song, one driven by a really nasty guitar riff. ‘Oh God, I love this one,' Mattie cried. The Frisbee came to her. She caught it, dropped it, stepped on it as if it were a hot red spot falling on a nightclub stage, and began to shake. She put her hands first behind her neck and then on her hips and then behind her back. She danced standing with the toes of her sneakers on the Frisbee. She danced without moving. She danced as they say in that song like a wave on the ocean. ‘The government bugged the men's room in the local disco lounge, And all she wants to do is dance, dance . . . To keep the boys from selling all the weapons they can scrounge, And all she wants to do, all she wants to do is dance.' Women are sexy when they dance incredibly sexy but that wasn't what I reacted to, or how I reacted. The lust I was coping with, but this was more than lust, and not copeable. It was something that sucked the wind out of me and left me feeling utterly at her mercy. In that moment she was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen, not a pretty woman in shorts and a middy top dancing in place on a Frisbee, but Venus revealed. She was everything I had missed during the last four years, when I'd been so badly off I didn't know I was missing anything. She robbed me of any last defenses I might have had. The age difference didn't matter. If I looked to people like my tongue was hanging out even when my mouth was shut, then so be it. If I lost my dignity, my pride, my sense of self, then so be it. Four years on my own had taught me there are worse things to lose. How long did she stand there, dancing? I don't know. Probably not long, not even a minute, and then she realized we were looking at her, rapt because to some degree they all saw what I saw and felt what I felt. For that minute or however long it was, I don't think any of us used much oxygen. She stepped off the Frisbee, laughing and blushing at the same time, confused but not really uncomfortable. ‘I'm sorry,' she said. ‘I just . . . I love that song.' ‘All she wants to do is dance,' Rommie said. ‘Yes, sometimes that's all she wants,' Mattie said, and blushed harder than ever. ‘Excuse me, I have to use the facility.' She tossed me the Frisbee and then dashed for the trailer. I took a deep breath, trying to steady myself back to reality, and saw John doing the same thing. George Kennedy was wearing a mildly stunned expression, as if someone had fed him a light sedative and it was finally taking effect. Thunder rumbled. This time it did sound closer. I skimmed the Frisbee to Rommie. ‘What do you think?' ‘I think I'm in love,' he said, and then seemed to give himself a small mental shake it was a thing you could see in his eyes. ‘I also think it's time we got going on those steaks if we're going to eat outside. Want to help me?' ‘Sure.' ‘I will, too,' John said. We walked back to the trailer, leaving George and Kyra to play toss. Kyra was asking George if he had ever caught any crinimals. In the kitchen, Mattie was standing beside the open fridge and stacking steaks on a platter. ‘Thank God you guys came in. I was on the point of giving up and gobbling one of these just the way it is. They're the most beautiful things I ever saw.' ‘You're the most beautiful thing I ever saw,' John said. He was being totally sincere, but the smile she gave him was distracted and a little bemused. I made a mental note to myself: never compliment a woman on her beauty when she has a couple of raw steaks in her hands. It just doesn't turn the windmill somehow. ‘How are you at barbecuing meat?' she asked me. ‘Tell the truth, because these are way too good to mess up.' ‘I can hold my own.' ‘Okay, you're hired. John, you're assisting. Rommie, help me do salads.' ‘My pleasure.' George and Ki had come around to the front of the trailer and were now sitting in lawn-chairs like a couple of old cronies at their London club. George was telling Ki how he had shot it out with Rolfe Nedeau and the Real Bad Gang on Lisbon Street in 1993. ‘George, what's happening to your nose?' John asked. ‘It's getting so long.' ‘Do you mind?' George asked. ‘I'm having a conversation here.' ‘Mr. Kennedy has caught lots of crooked crinimals,' Kyra said. ‘He caught the Real Bad Gang and put them in Supermax.' ‘Yes,' I said. ‘Mr. Kennedy also won an Academy Award for acting in a movie called Cool Hand Luke.' ‘That's absolutely correct,' George said. He raised his right hand and crossed the two fingers. ‘Me and Paul Newman. Just like that.' ‘We have his pusgetti sauce,' Ki said gravely, and that got John laughing again. It didn't hit me the same way, but laughter is catching; just watching John was enough to break me up after a few seconds. We were howling like a couple of fools as we slapped the steaks on the grill. It's a wonder we didn't burn our hands off. ‘Why are they laughing?' Ki asked George. ‘Because they're foolish men with little tiny brains,' George said. ‘Now listen, Ki I got them all except for the Human Headcase. He jumped into his car and I jumped into mine. The details of that chase are nothing for a little girl to hear ‘ George regaled her with them anyway while John and I stood grinning at each other across Mattie's barbecue. ‘This is great, isn't it?' John said, and I nodded. Mattie came out with corn wrapped in aluminum foil, followed by Rommie, who had a large salad bowl clasped in his arms and negotiated the steps carefully, trying to peer over the top of the bowl as he made his way down them. We sat at the picnic table, George and Rommie on one side, John and I flanking Mattie on the other. Ki sat at the head, perched on a stack of old magazines in a lawn-chair. Mattie tied a dishtowel around her neck, an indignity Ki submitted to only because (a) she was wearing new clothes, and (b) a dishtowel wasn't a baby-bib, at least technically speaking. We ate hugely salad, steak (and John was right, it really was the best I'd ever had), roasted corn on the cob, ‘strewberry snortcake' for dessert. By the time we'd gotten around to the snortcake, the thunderheads were noticeably closer and there was a hot, jerky breeze blowing around the yard. ‘Mattie, if I never eat a meal as good as this one again, I won't be surprised,' Rommie said. ‘Thanks ever so much for having me.' ‘Thank you,' she said. There were tears standing in her eyes. She took my hand on one side and John's on the other. She squeezed both. ‘Thank you all. If you knew what things were like for Ki and me before this last week . . . ‘ She shook her head, gave John and me a final squeeze, and let go. ‘But that's over.' ‘Look at the baby,' George said, amused. Ki had slumped back in her lawn-chair and was looking at us with glazing eyes. Most of her hair had come out of the scrunchy and lay in clumps against her cheeks. There was a dab of whipped cream on her nose and a single yellow kernel of corn sitting in the middle of her chin. ‘I threw the Frisbee six fousan times,' Kyra said. She spoke in a distant, declamatory tone. ‘I tired.' Mattie started to get up. I put my hand on her arm. ‘Let me?' She nodded, smiling. ‘If you want.' I picked Kyra up and carried her around to the steps. Thunder rumbled again, a long, low roll that sounded like the snarl of a huge dog. I looked up at the encroaching clouds, and as I did, movement caught my eye. It was an old blue car heading west on Wasp Hill Road toward the lake. The only reason I noticed it was that it was wearing one of those stupid bumper-stickers from the Village Cafe: HORN BROKEN WATCH FOR FINGER. I carried Ki up the steps and through the door, turning her so I wouldn't bump her head. ‘Take care of me,' she said in her sleep. There was a sadness in her voice that chilled me. It was as if she knew she was asking the impossible. ‘Take care of me, I'm little, Mama says I'm a little guy.' ‘I'll take care of you,' I said, and kissed that silky place between her eyes again. ‘Don't worry, Ki, go to sleep.' I carried her to her room and put her on her bed. By then she was totally conked out. I wiped the cream off her nose and picked the corn-kernel off her chin. I glanced at my watch and saw it was ten 'til two. They would be gathering at Grace Baptist by now. Bill Dean was wearing a gray tie. Buddy Jellison had a hat on. He was standing behind the church with some other men who were smoking before going inside. I turned. Mattie was in the doorway. ‘Mike,' she said. ‘Come here, please.' I went to her. There was no cloth between her waist and my hands this time. Her skin was warm, and as silky as her daughter's. She looked up at me, her lips parted. Her hips pressed forward, and when she felt what was hard down there, she pressed harder against it. ‘Mike,' she said again. I closed my eyes. I felt like someone who has just come to the doorway of a brightly lit room full of people laughing and talking. And dancing. Because sometimes that is all we want to do. I want to come in, I thought. That's what I want to do, all I want to do. Let me do what I want. Let me I realized I was saying it aloud, whispering it rapidly into her ear as I held her with my hands going up and down her back, my fingertips ridging her spine, touching her shoulderblades, then coming around in front to cup her small breasts. ‘Yes,' she said. ‘What we both want. Yes. That's fine.' Slowly, she reached up with her thumbs and wiped the wet places from under my eyes. I drew back from her. ‘The key ‘ She smiled a little. ‘You know where it is.' ‘I'll come tonight.' ‘Good.' ‘I've been . . . ‘ I had to clear my throat. I looked at Kyra, who was deeply asleep. ‘I've been lonely. I don't think I knew it, but I have been.' ‘Me too. And I knew it for both of us. Kiss, please.' I kissed her. I think our tongues touched, but I'm not sure. What I remember most clearly is the liveness of her. She was like a dreidel lightly spinning in my arms. ‘Hey!' John called from outside, and we sprang apart. ‘You guys want to give us a little help? It's gonna rain!' ‘Thanks for finally making up your mind,' she said to me in a low voice. She turned and hurried back up the doublewide's narrow corridor. The next time she spoke to me, I don't think she knew who she was talking to, or where she was. The next time she spoke to me, she was dying. ‘Don't wake the baby,' I heard her tell John, and his response: ‘Oh, sorry, sorry.' I stood where I was a moment longer, getting my breath, then slipped into the bathroom and splashed cold water on my face. I remember seeing a blue plastic whale in the bathtub as I turned to take a towel off the rack. I remember thinking that it probably blew bubbles out of its spout-hole, and I even remember having a momentary glimmer of an idea a children's story about a spouting whale. Would you call him Willie? Nah, too obvious. Wilhelm, now that had a fine round ring to it, simultaneously grand and amusing. Wilhelm the Spouting Whale. I remember the bang of thunder from overhead. I remember how happy I was, with the decision finally made and the night to look forward to. I remember the murmur of men's voices and the murmur of Mattie's response as she told them where to put the stuff. Then I heard all of them going back out again. I looked down at myself and saw a certain lump was subsiding. I remember thinking there was nothing so absurd-looking as a sexually excited man and knew I'd had this same thought before, perhaps in a dream. I left the bathroom, checked on Kyra again rolled over on her side, fast asleep and then went down the hall. I had just reached the living room when gunfire erupted outside. I never confused the sound with thunder. There was a moment when my mind fumbled toward the idea of backfires some kid's hotrod and then I knew. Part of me had been expecting something to happen . . . but it had been expecting ghosts rather than gunfire. A fatal lapse. It was the rapid pah! pah! pah! of an auto-fire weapon a Glock nine-millimeter, as it turned out. Mattie screamed a high, drilling scream that froze my blood. I heard John cry out in pain and George Kennedy bellow, ‘Down, down! For the love of Christ, get her down!' Something hit the trailer like a hard spatter of hail a rattle of punching sounds running from west to east. Something split the air in front of my eyes I heard it. There was an almost-musical sproing sound, like a snapping guitar string. On the kitchen table, the salad bowl one of them had just brought in shattered. I ran for the door and nearly dived down the cement-block steps. I saw the barbecue overturned, with the glowing coals already setting patches of the scant front-yard grass on fire. I saw Rommie Bissonette sitting with his legs outstretched, looking stupidly down at his ankle, which was soaked with blood. Mattie was on her hands and knees by the barbecue with her hair hanging in her face it was as if she meant to sweep up the hot coals before they could cause some real trouble. John staggered toward me, holding out a hand. The arm above it was soaked with blood. And I saw the car I'd seen before the nondescript sedan with the joke sticker on it. It had gone up the road the men inside making that first pass to check us out then turned around and come back. The shooter was still leaning out the front passenger window. I could see the stubby smoking weapon in his hands. It had a wire stock. His features were a blue blank broken only by huge gaping eyesockets a ski-mask. Overhead, thunder gave a long, awakening roar. George Kennedy was walking toward the car, not hurrying, kicking hot spilled coals out of his way as he went, not bothering about the dark-red stain that was spreading on the right thigh of his pants, reaching behind himself, not hurrying even when the shooter pulled back in and shouted ‘Go go go!' at the driver, who was also wearing a blue mask, George not hurrying, no, not hurrying a bit, and even before I saw the pistol in his hand, I knew why he had never taken off his absurd Pa Kettle suit jacket, why he had even played Frisbee in it. The blue car (it turned out to be a 1987 Ford registered to Mrs. Sonia Belliveau of Auburn and reported stolen the day before) had pulled over onto the shoulder and had never really stopped rolling. Now it accelerated, spewing dry brown dust out from under its rear tires, fishtailing, knocking Mattie's RFD box off its post and sending it flying into the road. George still didn't hurry. He brought his hands together, holding his gun with his right and steadying with his left. He squeezed off five deliberate shots. The first two went into the trunk I saw the holes appear. The third blew in the back window of the departing Ford, and I heard someone shout in pain. The fourth went I don't know where. The fifth blew the left rear tire. The Ford veered to that side. The driver almost brought it back, then lost it completely. The car ploughed into the ditch thirty yards below Mattie's trailer and rolled over on its side. There was a whumpf! and the rear end was engulfed in flames. One of George's shots must have hit the gas-tank. The shooter began struggling to get out through the passenger window. ‘Ki . . . get Ki . . . away . . . ‘ A hoarse, whispering voice. Mattie was crawling toward me. One side of her head the right side still looked all right, but the left side was a ruin. One dazed blue eye peered out from between clumps of bloody hair. Skull-fragments littered her tanned shoulder like bits of broken crockery. How I would love to tell you I don't remember any of this, how I would love to have someone else tell you that Michael Noonan died before he saw that, but I cannot. Alas is the word for it in the crossword puzzles, a four-letter word meaning to express great sorrow. ‘Ki . . . Mike, get Ki . . . ‘ I knelt and put my arms around her. She struggled against me. She was young and strong, and even with the gray matter of her brain bulging through the broken wall of her skull she struggled against me, crying for her daughter, wanting to reach her and protect her and get her to safety. ‘Mattie, it's all right,' I said. Down at the Grace Baptist Church, at the far end of the zone I was in, they were singing ‘Blessed Assurance' . . . but most of their eyes were as blank as the eye now peering at me through the tangle of bloody hair. ‘Mattie, stop, rest, it's all right.' ‘Ki . . . get Ki . . . don't let them . . . ‘ ‘They won't hurt her, Mattie, I promise.' She slid against me, slippery as a fish, and screamed her daughter's name, holding out her bloody hands toward the trailer. The rose-colored shorts and top had gone bright red. Blood spattered the grass as she thrashed and pulled. From down the hill there was a guttural explosion as the Ford's gas-tank exploded. Black smoke rose toward a black sky. Thunder roared long and loud, as if the sky were saying You want noise? Yeah? I'll give you noise. ‘Say Mattie's all right, Mike!' John cried in a wavering voice. ‘Oh for God's sake say she's ‘ He dropped to his knees beside me, his eyes rolling up until nothing showed but the whites. He reached for me, grabbed my shoulder, then tore damned near half my shirt off as he lost his battle to stay conscious and fell on his side next to Mattie. A curd of white goo bubbled from one corner of his mouth. Twelve feet away, near the overturned barbecue, Rommie was trying to get on his feet, his teeth clenched in pain. George was standing in the middle of Wasp Hill Road, reloading his gun from a pouch he'd apparently had in his coat pocket and watching as the shooter worked to get clear of the overturned car before it was engulfed. The entire right leg of George's pants was red now. He may live but he'll never wear that suit again, I thought. I held Mattie. I put my face down to hers, put my mouth to the ear that was still there and said: ‘Kyra's okay. She's sleeping. She's fine, I promise.' Mattie seemed to understand. She stopped straining against me and collapsed to the grass, trembling all over. ‘Ki . . . Ki . . . ‘ This was the last of her talking on earth. One of her hands reached out blindly, groped at a tuft of grass, and yanked it out. ‘Over here,' I heard George saying. ‘Get over here, motherfuck, don't you even think about turning your back on me.' ‘How bad is she?' Rommie asked, hobbling over. His face was as white as paper. And before I could reply: ‘Oh Jesus. Holy Mary Mother of God, pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death. Blessed be the fruit of thy womb Jesus. Oh Mary born without sin, pray for us who have recourse to Thee. Oh no, oh Mike, no.' He began again, this time lapsing into Lewiston street-French, what the old folks call La Parle. ‘Quit it,' I said, and he did. It was as if he had only been waiting to be told. ‘Go inside and check on Kyra. Can you?' ‘Yes.' He started toward the trailer, holding his leg and lurching along. With each lurch he gave a high yip of pain, but somehow he kept going. I could smell burning tufts of grass. I could smell electric rain on a rising wind. And under my hands I could feel the light spin of the dreidel slowing down as she went. I turned her over, held her in my arms, and rocked her back and forth. At Grace Baptist the minister was now reading Psalm 139 for Royce: If I say, Surely the darkness shall cover me, even the night shall be light. The minister was reading and the Martians were listening. I rocked her back and forth in my arms under the black thunderheads. I was supposed to come to her that night, use the key under the pot and come to her. She had danced with the toes of her white sneakers on the red Frisbee, had danced like a wave on the ocean, and now she was dying in my arms while the grass burned in little clumps and the man who had fancied her as much as I had lay unconscious beside her, his right arm painted red from the short sleeve of his WE ARE THE CHAMPIONS tee-shirt all the way down to his bony, freckled wrist. ‘Mattie,' I said. ‘Mattie, Mattie, Mattie.' I rocked her and smoothed my hand across her forehead, which on the right side was miraculously unsplattered by the blood that had drenched her. Her hair fell over the ruined left side of her face. ‘Mattie,' I said. ‘Mattie, Mattie, oh Mattie.' Lightning flashed the first stroke I had seen. It lit the western sky in a bright blue arc. Mattie trembled strongly in my arms all the way from neck to toes she trembled. Her lips pressed together. Her brow furrowed, as if in concentration. Her hand came up and seemed to grab for the back of my neck, as a person falling from a cliff may grasp blindly at anything to hold on just a little longer. Then it fell away and lay limply on the grass, palm up. She trembled once more the whole delicate weight of her trembled in my arms and then she was still.