Study guide midterm

Topic and a Purpose Sources for choosing a topic Determining the general purpose of your speech Difference between a specific purpose and a central Idea Topic: The subject of a speech Choosing a topic: Topics you know a lot about Topics you want to know more about Brainstorming: A method of generating ideas for speech topics by free association of words and ideas. Personal Inventory Clustering General Purpose: The broad goal off speech. Specific Purpose: A single Infinitive phrase that states precisely what a speaker hopes o accomplish In his/her speech.Tips for formulating the specific purpose statement: Write as a full Infinitive phrase, not as a fragment Express as a statement, not a question Avoid figurative language Limit to one distinct idea Not too vague or general Question to ask about specific purpose: Does it meet the assignment Can it be accomplished in the time allotted Is the purpose relevant to my audience Is the purpose too trivial for my audience Is the purpose too t echnical for my audience Central Idea: A one-sentence statement that sums up or encapsulates the major Ideas of a speech.Residual Message: What a speaker wants the audience to remember after it has forgotten everything else in a speech Guidelines for a central idea: Should be expressed in full sentence Should not be in form of a question Should avoid figurative language Should not be too vague or general Chapter 6- Gathering Materials Resources for library research Credible types of sources for public speaking Catalogue: A losing of all books, periodicals, and other resources owned by a library Call Number: A number used in libraries to classify books and periodicals and to hat catalogues articles from a large number of Journals or magazines Reference Work: A work that synthesizes a large amount of related information for easy access by researchers Encyclopedias Yearbooks Quotation Books Biographical Aids Specialized Research Resources: Virtual Libraries Government Resources Multicu ltural Resources Evaluation Internet Documents: Authorship Sponsorship Regency Chapter 7- Supporting Your Ideas Four types of supporting material What they are and when to use Supporting Material: The materials used to support a speaker's ideas Examples Statistics Testimony Analogy Examples: Brief Example Extended Example Hypothetical Example Tips for using examples: Use to clarify ideas Use to reinforce ideas Use to personalize ideas Make examples vivid and richly tested Practice delivery of extended examples Statistics: Representative? Reliable source?Tips for using statistics: Use statistics to quantify ideas Use sparingly Identify source of statistics Explain the statistics Round off complicated statistics Use visual aids to clarify Expert Testimony: from people who are recognized experts in their field Peer s Paraphrasing Tips for using testimony: Quote or paraphrase accurately Use from qualified sources Use from unbiased sources Identify the people you quote or paraphrase from Chapter 8- Organizing the Body of the Speech Four organizational patterns used in Informative Speaking Connectives, transitions, previews, summary, signposts Strategic order of main points: Chronological Order Spatial Order Casual Order Topical Order – main points divide the topic into logical and consistent subtopics Connectives: Transitions Internal Previews Internal Summaries Signposts.

Safeguarding the welfare of children

Parents with less money may also find it hard to afford the right food or not a lot of food which some children end up going to school with no breakfast this may lead to poor diet and health. B. Educated parents. If a child is brought up with well-educated parents this can take over a child's life this can have a big impact on their social life as the parents may have the child taking a lot of extra lessons for example piano lessons or dance lessons pushing them to be the best they may not realize that the child is emotionally and physically drained but not wanting to disappoint the child carries on.The child may feel left out in the fact that their friends are out enjoying life and having fun and they are missing out on heir childhood. The child may not be as intelligent as their parents and finding it hard or stressful that they are struggling with work because they don't want to fail their parents. A child with less educated parents may be struggling with school work or home work as their parents can't help them with studying they may also not care about the child's education because they may not have been brought up to care by their parents.C. Lone parent. A single working parent has less time for their child especially if they are siblings it ill be hard for them to give equal time to all children. This may affect the child's behavior as they may see this as an opportunity to take advantage of the situation they may bunk off school or start hanging around with the wrong crowd or Cumming in late. Emotionally this may leave them feeling left out and doing bad things such as thieving thinking this is the only way they can get your attention.They could start to fall behind at school because their parents aren't involved enough and not giving them the encouragement they need. The child may have also had to grow up quicker asking their own tea maybe dropping off and picking up siblings why the parent is at work meaning they don't have a social life because their caring for their brothers or sisters. The positive side to a working parent is that the child's education may be better like being in a private school, also the child more than likely doesn't go with out when it comes to new things for example clothes, laptop etc.A single parent on benefits may have all the time in the world for their children, giving the child less opportunity to bunk off school or fall behind with work but the child may be less ordinate when it comes to clothes and gadgets which may lead to the child being bullied and not fitting in socially with their peers this may lead to the child falling behind on work as they can't concentrate feeling like they don't want to be in school where these bullies are. B) Health A. Over weight.A child over weight through genetics not self-inflicted may struggle with day to day tasks such as struggling to get there selves dressed or even the simple task of going up and down stairs or doing pee at school. This may affect them emotio nally because asks are more difficult to do leaving them to feel self-conscious and upset, this may cause bullying affecting their social life as they may find it hard to go swimming or bike riding leaving them with not many friends. Their behavior may be that they are very quiet and sit away from everyone or they may act out and become the bully so they don't get picked on.Their parents may be supportive or they could be pushy towards the child to lose weight making the child feel like they have no one to turn to. B. Young career. A child looking after a parent may look strong on the outside but may feel very tired ND fragile on the inside struggling to cope but putting the brave face on as they love their parent and feels this is their duty. Their education may be falling behind as they are missing days off school or struggling to focus maybe falling asleep in class.Emotionally they maybe blank on the outside and not letting anyone in , but inside all they want is a brake to be a child with friends, socially they probably don't have many friends due to the fact that their missing school and when they are at home they can't go out because their caring for their parent. They may get bullied because they not play out with the other children and they pick up on the fact that the child is different to them affecting the child's behavior they may act out in frustration to release stress or Just shut themselves off from others.C. A child with disability. A child with a physical disability such as not being able to move will have all the emotion and intellect on how they feel and think but won't be able to show them physically. They will more than likely be at a special need school which will have group activities and learning methods tailored to their needs but they can't do every says task such as getting dressed or feeding themselves. This will be emotionally frustrating for the child knowing what they want to do in their head but can't act it out physically.Soci ally they may have special groups they can go to but they won't be able to go out and do every day things like other children. This may leave them to act out by shouting and showing their angry through facial expressions. A child with a mental disability might not understand how to behave if their withdrawn and don't communicate with family or friends. Or they act out with anger shouting and being hysterical towards others. Intellectually they may struggle to learn anything as they don't have the ability or find it hard to remember or focus.They will also more than likely go to a special need school which they will have learning tailored to their needs; they will be able to move around and play but may not understand the concept of games and group activities. Socially they may find it hard to play or communicate with others leaving it hard to have many friends. C) Environment. A. Deprived. A deprived area may have fewer amenities such as Just a corner shop. They may not have anythin g for children to burn some physical energy off for example a park, library or swimming facilities.This will affect the social behavior in this area such as vandalism, graffiti and theft. In deprived areas you may find that are different ethnic and religious families which may mean feuds or language barriers. Not having a library or other amenities may affect their intellect as they don't have the tools there to help them learn. B. Peer. As a child straight away you find that they make friends and become a group or gang hose friends can be from school or their estate they live on it can also depend on the ethnic origin or religion.Being with certain friends may lead the child to truant or drink and take drugs or it may come from their parents if they have friends round all the time drinking etc. Depending on your family or friends you may fall behind in work if they aren't committed to the work or committed to helping you with the study. C. Community. If a community doesn't have the right amenities for example a corner shop they may struggle to get groceries and bits if they can't afford to travel far, which may affect heir health or diet.Also if the community don't have a library with the computers or community centre the community would suffer because they wouldn't have the help to study and better their selves for a Job not many families have internet so these are a great help also this could affect their behavior and their intellect as they have nowhere to go to study or to take themselves away from gang culture etc. Not having a park or a swimming baths may affect their social behavior as there is nowhere for the children to go to hang out and play.

Genetically Modified food should not be banned Essay

Food is the basic requirement for living, as more and more people need food while the population was increased every year, food is becoming an important issue in the world. The invention of Genetically Modified food is a reasonable solution to solve this issue. Therefore, the Genetically Modified food should not be banned for several reasons. In addition to the fact that Genetically Modified food already provides benefits to us, there are several considerable profits to agriculture, environment and human health. Genetically Modified food should not be banned while they provide benefits to agriculture. The high productivity is creating by Genetically Modified food; the GM crops double the food yield by improves the pesticides and fertilizers in the crops. â€Å"the productivity gains from G. M. crops, as well as improved use of synthetic fertilizers and pesticides, allowed the world’s farmers to double global food output during the last 50 years, on roughly the some amount of land, at a time when global population rose more than 80percent. † (Prakash, C. S. , Conko Gregory, 2004, p17) The GM food not only improves the productivity, but it also put the insect resistance and weather resistance into the crops. â€Å"Examples include insect-resistance rice for Asia, virus-resistance sweet potato for Africa, and virus-resistance papaya for Caribbean nations. † (Prakash, C. S. , Conko Gregory, 2004, p18). Compare to the traditional crops, GM crops can provide resistance to bugs and insect or virus-resistance, thus, the GM crops can grow well then the traditional crops. Because the GM crops have resistance to insect, farmers do not need use pesticide to their crops. Furthermore, using of GM crops can reduce the damage from pesticide to the land, and protect environment. Genetically Modified food has benefits to the environment when they provide advantage to agriculture. GM food can reducing the using of natural resources while they growing, such as water. â€Å"In 2000 alone, U. S. farmers growing bioengineered cotton used 2. 4 million fewer gallons of fuel and 93 million fewer gallons of water, and were spared some 41,000 ten-hour days needed to apply pesticide. † (Prakash, C. S. , Conko Gregory, 2004, p18). GM crops not only reduce the using of natural resources, but it also decreases the damage of farming land. â€Å"With potentially reduced environment consequence, such as reductions in agrochemical use, including pesticides, herbicides, and fertilizers. † (Schaal, Barbara, 2002, p110), the less herbicide used on land, the less damage that land have. In addition, the GM crops protected environment by reducing the using of natural resources and herbicide. GM food provides benefits for human health, it not only decreases the negative effect, but it also proffers nutrition which human need. The indirect negative effect from pesticide is worked on human body, and it is damaged human health, â€Å"In China, where pesticide are typically sprayed on crops by hand, some 400 to 500 cotton farmers die every year from acute pesticide poisoning. † (Prakash, C. S. , Conko Gregory, 2004, p18). Every year, people and farmers were dying from acute pesticide. However, GM crops contain the insect resistance which means farmer does not need acute pesticide to the crops. Therefore, GM food can provide advantage to human health by reduce pesticide need. GM food also can furnish nutrition that human require, â€Å"Among the most well known is Golden Rice-genetically enhanced with added beta carotene, which is converted to Vitamin A in the human body. â€Å". In next a few years, GM food will improve to provide further nutrition to benefit human health. There people who oppose Genetically Modified food suspect that long-term effects are unknown. However, the Genetically Modified food have been investigated, there are no negative effect found on GM food on current market. â€Å"While traditionally developed foods are not generally tested for allergenicity, protocols for tests for GM foods have been evaluated by the Food and Agriculture Organization of United Nations (FAO) and World Health Organization (WHO). (Campbell, Jonathan, 2006 p67). In addition, scientist still focus on develop Genetically Modified food to achieve more and more benefits to human. GM foods may give us a long-term effect, but it will not be find on the current market. The opponents also consider that Genetically Modified food is not safe and it has negative effect on human health. Nevertheless, Genetically Modified foods on the international market have no risk for human heath. â€Å"GM foods currently available on the international market have passed risk assessments and are not likely to present risks for human health. In addition, no effects on human health have been shown as a result of the consumption of such foods by the general population in the countries where they have been approved. † (Campbell, Jonathan, 2006 p67) Thus, the GM foods will not provide a negative effect on human health. Although Genetically Modified food is not used in every single country, Genetically Modified food is still the suitable solution to solve the food for hungry people. Furthermore, people will not banned Genetically Modified food, and stop the development. In the future, as Genetically Modified food will get more development, it will achieve further benefits to our agriculture, environment and human health. ReferenceCampbell, Jonathan. â€Å"Genetically Modified Organisms Production, Regulation, and Marketing. † International Debates, 4, 2006, 66-69. Prakash, C. S. , and Conko Gregory. â€Å"Technology for Life: How Biotech Will Save Billions From Starvation. † American Enterprise,15,2004,16-20. Schaal, Barbara. â€Å"Genomics and Biotechnology in Agriculture. † The Genomic Revolution, 2002, 108-123.

Customers Revenge Case Study Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Customers Revenge - Case Study Example I will not define Atida as a customer-centric company. They view customer’s complaints as a means to extort from the company by unreasonable customers. This is very evident with how they handled the complaints of Tom and Jessica. It is very disturbing that after a strong letter from loyal customer (Tom Zacharelli) was sent to the company threatening with negative publicity and a lawsuit, Lisa instead replied that â€Å"It’s not a legal problem . . . They say this customer can certainly hire a lawyer, but once customers understand how much pursuing the legal option will cost, they almost always see things differently. They take their loss, and they move on.† And statements such as â€Å"our only obligation is to ï ¬  x the car and nothing more† and sticking to a policy â€Å"for handling this stuff, one we’ve been following for decades†. Deducing from these statements, Atida thinks that they are just a manufacturing company where they just b uild cars and abandon their customers when they ask for customer service support. When customers complaint and call them, they look at it as a bother and not an opportunity to engage with their customers. This was very evident with Lisa’s mindset that their job is to get rid their phone lines with customers not realizing that getting rid their call centers of customers calling them do not mean that they have solve the customer’s problems. Second, I will revise the company employees’ mindset about customers. To achieve this, I will implement a company-wide reorientation and training about customer service for the company’s culture to change to a more service oriented one. I will introduce a service culture where each employee in the company will strive to satisfy the customers instead of getting rid of them. Lisa will be trained first and other managers will follow. I will recall the call center in India and put it back in the US. Customer service for an automobile

British Social Policy and the Second World War Essay

British Social Policy and the Second World War - Essay Example It was their belief that the government should be spending more time taking action than wasting its time on policy building. (Alcock, 2003, page 88) In 1942 Joseph Schumpeter proposed an idea that Britain's socialism was less ethically sound as compared to the rest of Europe's. He believed that the people did not consider social justice as an endowment but as their right. This in turn led the Britons to take an unappreciative approach to the policy makers and government as a whole. A couple of other reasons included that after the World War many people believed that they would soon lose their jobs and would emigrate to some other country such as South Africa. The state wished to build a sense of solidarity instead they were faced with a state of emergency. People believed that the government could have diverted the war and was ineffective in managing the state's affairs. The people took for granted society's business to support them when they were unemployed and to care for them in their old age. But observing the development of the English citizen's social rights it can be seen that this attitude had been prevailing since the 1 930s. An Example of a movement which signifies this phenomenon is the rebellion against the Unemployment Assistance Board in 1935. This signifies that the workers knew of their rights and what they deserved even before the war was on the horizon. So contributing the welfare movement to the war seems imprecise. (Glynn & Booth, 1996, pages 98-99). By 1939 the government had now undertaken the responsibility to keep peace throughout the state, provide protection to the people, provide for their education but now the added responsibility included providing economic welfare to all its citizens. This was harmful for the government as now they had to look after the actual deserving such as widows and retired citizens as well as the undeserving such as unemployed drunkards (Jacobs, 1993, page 46). The war helped implement military efficiency into the system of welfare but the system did exist even before the war. Many war time inventions became adapted into people's personal lives during that era. The transistor radio is one such gadget that became incorporated into people's households. Aside from the technical inventions, the social experiments also became popular in their implementation in everyday procedures. The medical profession benefited from the new techniques in managing the influx of patients and it became easier to manage large number of patients. Wars also recognize social weaknesses. Evacuating people from different regions of the country discovered potential transportation problems and terrible living conditions (Addison, 1975, page 32). Around 1940 Ernest Bevin proved to be a major influencer of the time. He was the Minister of Labour and most of his decisions were beneficial for the people working in the industrial sector. Recognizing how the people working should be given the proper atmosphere and work place environment he instigated many policies related to minimum wages in a step wise procedure implementing them in industry after industry. He believed that these measures would bring about a Social Revolution for the working class. But even he was unable to

The aspects related to the ways of operations for a German car company Essay

The aspects related to the ways of operations for a German car company in China - Essay Example According to the research conducting business in foreign market necessitates consideration of several aspects. The economic condition, industry situation, cultural aspects, foreign investment strategies, government policies and risks need to be duly considered before entering in a foreign market. The economic development of China has become an issue of concern for several businesspersons. Before 1978, China was considered as centrally strategic and closed economy. Since then, China propelled numerous economic reorganisations. The central government had introduced the price and proprietorship inducements, inaugurated four Special Economic Zones (SEZs) in order to entice foreign investment, increased exports and imports of high-tech products among others. In China, the car industry is considered as one of the major sectors for industrial development and innovation efforts. In recent times, China has become one of the fastest car producers internationally. The car industry of China has continued to expand in spite of recent economic crisis. The report will describe the business systems of China and Germany and provide brief description about the methods for a German car company to conduct business in the Chinese market. Several factors such as business systems of the countries, foreign direct investment policies, and political aspects affecting the car industries, entry strategies, and recommendations for resolving the financial risks are considered in this report. 1.0 Analysis of National Business System and Cultural Condition in China & Its Impact on Automobile Industry China is one of the significant nations in Asian region in terms of business, cultural influence and population. China has experienced steady economic development in recent times and this progression is extensively expected to continue in future (Grainger & Chatterjee, n.d.). Through analysing the national business system of China, three aspects have been identified which are adaptability, creati vity and competency; and any company entering into China must comply with these three aspects. China follows the capitalist business system. The private sector in China contains huge numbers of small and medium organisations which operate their businesses in regional market or engage

Immigration In The US Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Immigration In The US - Essay Example   The constant acculturation causes a hybrid culture as both minority and majority culture traits are fused together while assimilation assumes a majority static culture that has to be adopted by smaller ethnic groups but discounts the influence of small ethnic groups on the majority culture.  Pluralism encourages group diversity along with maintenance of group boundaries and can be seen as opposed to assimilation. Structural pluralism holds that segregated communities exist within the larger cultures who conduct social relations internally through localized institutions. In contrast, liberal pluralism allows the individual to choose how pluralist one wants to be such as many people associate with ethnic traits and practices generations after immigration. The resistance by Euro-Americans is available as evidence of pluralism such as by marriage within local groups only.  Transnationalism is the creation of combined plural civic and political memberships, economic involvements, social networks and cultural identities which link people and institutions in more than one diverse nation state in a multi-layered pattern. Immigration in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century’s created a back and forth movement of immigrants who helped move cultural values across borders through effective means of communication and transport. Such immigrants developed trans-local boundaries in order to protect the ideas of citizenship and belonging to their mother countries. Changes in the early twentieth century ensured that immigrants developed a plural identity in America and their mother state’s without fear of opposition. The present day transnationalism is far more diverse and encompasses private and public spheres of operation. Second generations of transnational immigrants display mobility in parental ethnic groups as well as in America society. The best method for immigrants to adapt to the host society derives through a combination of pluralism an d transnationalism. Immigrants cannot be expected to revoke their ethnic, cultural and religious ties to the mother country within a few short years of arrival in the host country. Instead the immigrants hold onto their identities in the form of transnatinoalism while the host society has to display pluralism in order to make the immigrants more accepted in society. The use of assimilation would on the other hand lead to friction between immigrants and host societies as a revocation of values is deemed necessary for cultural integration. Do women have more to gain or more to lose from migration (for instance, compared to men)? You can think about this issue in terms of the causes of migration, the relative difficulty/ease of migrating for women, the occupational and economic status of women migrants in the host society, or the impact of migration on women’s social status within the family/household. Women like men stand to gain and lose at the same time due to immigration but their losses are considerably greater than those experienced by men.

Strategic Management Accounting System Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

Strategic Management Accounting System - Essay Example It further explains the control procedures expected at the three levels of management control (strategic, tactical and operational) and provides a discussion of how control is exercised and information required at each management level, relates to Highline Co. Ltd. The traditional management accounting systems are of minimal use in the preparation of the strategic plans, monitoring of achievement process of predetermined objectives of the organization and performance evaluation of the employees. The failure of traditional accounting systems have triggered the process of research in order to find out the suitable methods which can eke the changing business techniques in order to achieve the organisational objectives in today's global business environment (Ittner & Larker, 1998). According to the evaluation of the manufacturing data in different companies it has been found that the manufacturing has been transformed. Labour cost is no more considered as the significant cost of manufacturing, it has been replaced by the overhead cost which has become a significant cost of manufacturing process. This change has reduced the usefulness of the traditional accounting techniques. By undertaking the examination of the material cost and labour cost data the validity and generality of these claims can be tested. Moreover, the extent to which manufacturing has changed over time and the nature of these changes can also be examined. This can help the management of the company in designing an effective and up to date management accounting system according to the current needs of the company. The changing products and management styles have reduced the usefulness of cost accounting and management control systems in the modern age of information technology which were previo usly used in many organizations. Decline in Direct Labour: The automation of the machinery assembling plant in the company has reduced the number of labour used in the production process. Labour cost constitutes a small portion of the manufacturing costs and the overhead costs have become the major constituent of the manufacturing cost. The changing trend has also raised the level of manufacturing overhead which represents 33% of the total manufacturing cost in the company. Due to the changing pattern of manufacturing process the traditional cost systems also tend to fail in the true valuation of cost. It has been noted that the management has taken inaccurate decisions and adopted strategies which have restrain the manufacturing process. In order to confirm the above assertions the management can gather data to analyze two important issues: 1. The production labour has declined as a percentage of total manufacturing costs. 2. The ratio of the total wage expenditures to production wages has been increased for all, most, or some manufacturing companies over time. (Boer and

Discuss the ways the poet develops the character Phoenix. Pay Essay

Discuss the ways the poet develops the character Phoenix. Pay particular attention to the devices the poet uses in character dev - Essay Example Although Phoenix is never discussed in the epic â€Å"Iliad† save for that time when an embassy is sent to Achilles to urge him to fight along with Agamemnon’s armies against the Trojans, his character serves as a brief yet insightful look into the great warrior Achilles’ disposition, not as a warrior this time, but as a human being with a past, a future, and a present. Phoenix’s speech is filled with the Greek â€Å"eleos† or what can be termed in English as â€Å"compassionate grief† --- an emotion that does not go well for a great warrior such as Achilles. Homer shows Phoenix as appealing more towards his father-and-son relationship with Achilles, which is a refreshing characteristic amidst this story filled with greatness and lack of the â€Å"softer† emotions of the great warriors. Phoenix says: â€Å"And I made you what you are --- strong as the gods, Achilles --- / I loved you from the heart† (9.587-8), and â€Å"Oh I ha d my share of troubles for you, Achilles†¦ / great godlike Achilles --- I made you my son, I tried,† (9.595-9).

Time Value of Money Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Time Value of Money - Essay Example It is based on the simple premise that â€Å"A penny in hand today is worth more than a penny in hand tomorrow†. This is on the basis of assumption that the money in hand today can be invested in various investment options which will increase the amount. Moreover, there is also an opportunity cost that is associated with the cash that is received later. This is the cost of the best foregone opportunity that could have been taken with the cash available (Econedlink.org, 2011). Cash received later can’t be used for any investment options present at the current time frame. The concept finds significant applications in the area of capital budgeting, lease versus buy decisions, accounts receivable analysis, financing arrangements, mergers and pension funding (Ross et.al., 2007, pg. 60). The concept of time value of money is used in every financial decision. This is done through two types of calculation. One includes calculating the present value of the cash that will be rece ived at a later stage while the other calculates the future value of the cash that is received now. One very important concept related to the time value of money is the Net Present Value (NPV). It is the sum of the present value of all the cash inflows minus the present value of its costs (Brigham & Ehrhardt, 2010, pg. 183). Net present finds usage in evaluating if the proposed projects shall be taken or not. If the net present value of the total project cash flows is negative, it should not be taken. The concept of the time value of money also finds application in evaluating the present value of various investment options such as bonds and stocks and identifying the best option to invest. 2. The formula for calculation of future value assuming that compound interest is given is: r is the rate of interest and n is the time period (Bierman & Smidt, 2003, pf. 17). a.) Present Value = $15,000 n = 5 years r = 7% b.) Present Value = $19,500 n = 3 years r = 4% c.) Present Value =$ 29,900 n = 7 years r = 2% d.) Present Value = $14,200 n = 10 years r = 0.9% 3. The formula for the calculation of present value for a given future value assuming application of compound rate of interest is: r is the rate of interest and n is the time period. a.) Future Value = $17,500 r = 4% n = 3 years b.) Future Value = $41,000 r = 5% n = 5 years c.) Future Value = $120,000 r = 12% n = 2 years d.) Future Value = $790,000 r = 1% n = 8 years 4. Let us assuming that we are getting the payment at the beginning of the years. The cash flow timeline looks like: Calculating the present value of the three future payments at the interest rate, r of 4% where, Present Value (Yi) is the present value of the cash received in year i The total present value is Thus the present value of the stream of annual payments is $519,497. 5. Let us assuming that we are getting the payment at the beginning of the years. The same is deposited into a bank account at the same time. The cash flow for the bank account w ill be: 6. Calculating the future value of the three payments at the end of third year at an interest rate of r = 2%, we get where Future Value (Yi) is the future value at the end of three years for the cash deposited in the bank account in year i. The total Future value at the end of three years is Thus, we can see that the amount in the bank account at the end of three years is $374,592 Conclusion We studied the importance of the concept of time value of money and calculated the same for different scenarios. The analysis enables us to

DB #4 Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

DB #4 - Essay Example By talking about how he conducted his study by taking care of the sick and terminally ill patients, Christakis uses the rhetoric proof of Pathos to persuade and inform his audience (TED). His storytelling of how he begun to conduct his study evokes emotion among his audience. Christakis employs the rhetoric proof of logos in showing how people become embedded in dense social networks. He uses slides to present a logical appeal of how clusters develop to form dense social networks. He also employs mathematical reasoning to present data to his audience and thus making a further logical appeal to them. Christakis makes a valid argument on the hidden influence of social networks. He argues that social networks help to define individuals’ health, happiness, and overall life goals. He presents his argument on the basis of a scientific research, which he conducted and this makes his argument to tick. He shows how social networks develop and how they get to influence different individuals dependent on their location in the network. His exploration of large-scale and face-face social networks, is able to show the impacts of social networks on a wide variety of traits such as obesity and happiness on people’s lives (TED). Simply put, he affirms the thought ‘show me you friends, and I will tell you your

The Heart and Christian Bernard Essay Example for Free

The Heart and Christian Bernard Essay The Heart and Christian Barnard Christian Barnard, the man who performed the first human heart transplant. Christian Barnard was born in Beaufort West, South Africa on November 8, 1922. He was the fourth of five sons. His father was Adam Hedrick Barnard who was a reverend in the Dutch reformed church, he preached to a non-white congregation. His mother was Maria Elisabeth Deswart Barnard who had been a school teacher before marriage. Both parents were also Afrikaner missionaries. Christian Barnard grew up in a poor environment in Beaufort West, a town on South Africa’s semi-arid Great Karroo plateau. Christian Barnard attended a local high school he went on and received an M. D. degree from the University of Cape Town in 1953. He received a Ph. D degree from the University of Minnesota in 1958. He returned to the University of Cape Town in 1958 to teach surgery. He specialized in open-heart surgery and in designing artificial heart valves. The first human heart transplant was performed on December 3, 1967, transferring the heart of a 25 year old woman into the body of Louis Waskansky , a 55 year old grocer. He died 18 days later due to double pneumonia as a result of his suppressed immune system. The second transplant was on January 2, 1968 which was for Philip Blaiberg, who lived for 563 days after the operation. Christian Barnard spent the beginning of his adult life in the United States where he gained recognition for research in gastrointestinal pathology and later went back to South Africa and introduced open-heart surgery to that country and designed artificial valves for the human heart. Christian Barnard made a huge impact and contribution to healthcare when he attempted and accomplished the worlds first human heart transplant which was a huge success in the medical field. His accomplishment led to further investigation in heart transplants and which now is a normal surgery that is performed all around the world today. Christian Barnard had been bothered by rheumatoid arthritis since he was young, and advancing stiffness in his hands forced his retirement from surgery in 1983. He took up writing, however, and wrote a cardiology text, an autobiography, and several novels, including a thriller about organ transplants. He passed away on September 2, 2001. Christian Barnard has made a huge impact on healthcare and the study of medicine. Christian Barnard is a hero to me because he was brave enough to take a chance and put his reputation on the line to make a difference. Christian Barnard’s contribution to health care has changed the years to come in medicine and his contribution will always be remembered.

Overview of the American Disabilities Act (ADA)

Overview of the American Disabilities Act (ADA) Crystal Mullen What did you learn this week that you did not know before or that you found interesting? What outside resources did you use this week? Your submission should be 1 page APA formatted paper, not including your title page. I grew up in the 70s and 80s; a time when every building, every walkway and certainly every restroom was geared toward able bodied individuals. I heard stories of my mom having to help my wheelchair-bound great-grandmother out of her chair, into a ladies room stall and then back into her chair. Certain shops were outside my great-grandmother’s ability to frequent because the door to get in was too narrow for her wheelchair or the building had to be accessed by climbing steps. If these are a few of the obstacles my great-grandmother had to overcome, I can only imagine how people who are blind, deaf, or even small statured managed to live in a world that was designed for people with two good eyes, two good ears and five feet, five inches tall. This is why I’m thankful for the Americans with Disabilities Act. The American Disabilities Act (ADA) is an all-encompassing civil statute with the magnitude of a constitutional amendment. It requires equal accessibility to interact with society and equal opportunity for gainful employment. This means that restaurants offer menus in Braille. It may also means an office adjusting a workspace for an employee in a wheelchair (The Center for an Accessible Society, 2014). As alluded to, one of the main areas that are affected by the ADA is the workplace. Employers are not allowed to discriminate against applicants who are qualified but have disabilities. This means when an employer is interviewing a job hopeful, for hire, the employer is not allowed to directly question the applicant’s disability. Furthermore, the job hopeful be given the same consideration for the job at hand as his or her able-bodied counterpart. Finally, though certainly not exhaustively, employers are required to provide reasonable accommodations to their employees with disabilities. If necessary, employers will need to make accommodations that are considered reasonable for employees who become disabled temporarily by providing temporary reassignment of duties (Kesee, 2014). One of my favorite shows is the TLC reality show â€Å"The Little Couple†, Dr. Jen Arnold, who’s 3’ 2† tall is a is a doctor who works in the Neo-Natal Intensive Unit (NICU) at a hospital in Houston. In order for the hospital to accommodate the doctor’s stature, there are step ladders strategically placed throughout the NICU as well as a motorized chair quickly transport her through the long corridors of the hospital (Wikipedia, 2014). Modifications like these are required in the workplace to accommodate anyone with disabilities and those requirements are the result of the Americans Disabilities Act. Another area that is affected by the ADA involves public transportation. Under the ADA, all modes of public transportation needs to be accessible by passengers who are wheelchair-bound or otherwise disabled. This means buses and trains must provide designated seating areas for disabled individuals. Furthermore, transit facilities are required by law to allow the entry of service animals that assist passengers onboard their vehicles of transportation. Finally, airports, train stations and bus stations are required to provide assistance when needed or when asked. These are just a few areas of transportation that are affected by the ADA (Kesee, 2014). Finally, but not exhaustively, a third area that is affected by the ADA involves access into public buildings. Public buildings must ensure that entryways as well as restrooms can be wheelchair accessible and that its accessibility to the public meets ADA requirements. Many of the public buildings are now equipped with doors that open and close automatically so that wheelchair-bound individuals are granted entry. Furthermore, public buildings with steps need to provide wheelchair ramps. Finally, though certainly not exhaustively, public restrooms are required to provide at least one stall with that has a wider entrance necessary for wheelchair entry. Public facilities like grocery store counters or gas stations however must provide some type of assistance for disabled individuals who require assistance (Kesee, 2014). These are just a few measures mandated by the ADA open the doors to those with disabilities. Every wide sweeping measure has its pros and cons and the ADA is no exception. There are instances where the ADA is both well-meaning yet problematic for small businesses – particularly those that are in areas where are few or no disabilities to address. One example is that businesses are mandated by the ADA to provide public spaces and ensure that disabled patrons can accesses needed spaces. This includes continuous railings be found along the stairs and ramps, the ramps need to be constructed with low grade slopes, designated and widened parking spaces and restrooms with hand railing. While I believe these mandates by the ADA are well-intentioned, these changes and modifications to a company’s infrastructure can be costly. However, if a business chooses not to comply, they face fine that far outweigh the cost for implementing the changes. For example, the Morena Business Association incurred many lawsuits for violating ADA requirements in their San Diego, California l ocation. Because they ignored ADA mandates from 1992 to 2007 the local business was forced to pay $1 billion in fines (Holzer, 2014). Conclusion Despite the financial challenges to small businesses, I believe the ADA has positively changed society and the workplace so that everyone – regardless of their abilities can participate in society and bring value to any workplace. Last summer I had the opportunity of working with someone who was partially hearing impaired. There was a time when she would never get a job due to her disability. However, thanks to technology, she could receive communication through emails and direct face-to-face communication; she was able to perform data-entry duties along with the rest of her team. I credit the ADA with these changes to society and the workplace and these changes have made our society and workplace a more welcoming environment for all. Furthermore, I’m so thankful to get on a bus and hear bus stops audibly announced for the visually impaired. Finally, though certainly not exhaustively, I wish my great-grandmother was alive today to see she can enter any restaurant and us e any restroom all by herself and with her dignity intact. Therefore, despite its flaws the ADA has provided a great amount of good for those with disabilities and even those who have two good arms, legs, eyes and ears. It benefits everyone across the country. References Holzer, D. (2014). ADA Compliance Issues. Retrieved March 16, 2014, from eHow.com: http://www.ehow.com/list_6611054_ada-compliance-issues.html#ixzz2SLge5VT1 Kesee, C. (2014). American Disabilities Act. Retrieved March 16, 2014, from eHow.com: http://www.ehow.com/about_6626833_american-disabilities-act.html The Center for an Accessible Society. (2014). The Americans with Disabilities Act. Retrieved March 2014, 2014, from The Center for an Accessible Society. Wikipedia. (2014). The Little Couple. Retrieved March 16, 2014, from Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Little_Couple

What is Architecture? Concepts in the UK

What is Architecture? Concepts in the UK ‘We shape our buildings, and afterwards they shape us’ [1] Architecture, like history, is unreliable, subjective, selective, rewritten, continues to be influenced by rich or powerful individuals or institutions, and is rarely a reflection of the common man. The vernacular aesthetic of a country has been carefully curated and developed over many years, to the point where it is no longer a true reflection of the common people. Much like national costume, country dancing or folk music, architecture is too often used to preserve the memory of a golden past. Architecture is an ideal.. It can and should evolve with the passing of time to reflect new challenges, aspirations and values. Modern western society has never been more egalitarian or democratic and its built environment caters to its inhabitants in all aspects of their existence: it’s where they live, work and play. As such the role of modern architecture is to benefit ordinary people while at the same time integrating the echoes of the past. Architecture has, and will, always be used as a symbol of power and wealth or promote ideologies. From the Roman Empire to the New York skyline, the intention of the enduring architecture of the past is to celebrate the triumph of the small class of ruling elite, despite masquerading as a cultural space, where political projects attempt to become socially meaningful.[2] Today, the majority of European national governments have an architectural policy designed to benefit their populations, and promote their unique national image or ‘brand’ abroad. This essay is intended as a limited examination of England as an example of how such a policy can reconcile the desire to preserve our heritage without hindering progress. Architecture as representation of national identity. In 2009 Denmark launched its first national architecture policy, ‘A Nation of Architecture’ with the intent of ensuring the production of high quality architecture, thereby guaranteeing a good quality of life and economic growth.[3] This policy was specifically introduced to promote the values that Danish architecture seeks to represent.[4] In 2013 Scotland introduced its own architecture policy, ‘Creating Places’, seeking to champion quality design which reflects Scotland as a modern, forward-thinking nation [5] England remains one of the only countries in the European Union without any sort of policy[6]. Earlier this year Ed Vaizey, Minister for Culture, Communications and Creative Industries, invited Terry Farrell to conduct one of the most extensive investigations into the UKs built environment.[7] Both Ed Vaizey and Terry Farrell have been outspoken about the importance of the built environment to the nation as a whole, yet a Built Environment was not a theme covered by the terms of reference for the Review[8] and even before the review had been published, Vaizey publicly stated, I havent anticipated that the report will result in any changes to legislation.[9] Architecture in the UK The Farrell Review The Farrell review is an analysis of the current built environment of Britain. It recognises that Britain has always played a significant role in architectural innovation, and that in general the standard of architectural design has improved.[10] However, this does not mean that current standards are sufficient; English architectural design has stalled and is facing new challenges. The review highlights areas which are in need of improvement over the coming years.[11] An Architecture Policy for 21st Century England In the 1970s, England moved away from its industrial past, and previous regional manufacturing powerhouses, such as Birmingham, Newcastle and Manchester were eclipsed by London’s stranglehold on the financial market. [12] In 21st century England there is once again a demand for change and a shift in emphasis from the capital to the regions.[13] RIBA argues that a Minister for the Built Environment should be appointed to sit within the Cabinet Office â€Å"promoting quality in the built environment and implementing a Design Policy across government.†[14] While ‘core’ departments such as the Treasury, Foreign Office and Home Office have continuity from government to government, architecture, housing, infrastructure, transport and planning are liable to be lumped in with any number of other ‘minor’ ministries.[15] Currently, architecture is a subset of Heritage within the Department for Culture, Media Sport (DCMS).[16] The consequence of this constant shifting around is a haphazard and disjointed system that surely indicates the dismissive attitude of central government to the role of the built environment. This lack of focus must be rectified. Nor is there any existing government appointed (or other official) representative to champion the cause of design[17] Farrell recommends that the current Design Review should be reinvented under the acronym PLACE Planning, Landscape, Architecture, Conservation and Engineering.[18] All government departments and government-funded bodies would then sign up to an agreed set of principles and a design policy statement, which would set out how they intend to co-ordinate the design quality of their respective built environment ambitions, activities and responsibilities. [19] Such a policy would also take account of â€Å"procurement (of services and products), accessibility, sustainability, information and communications technology, maintenance and stewardship a nd the public realm†. [20] This more cohesive approach lends itself not only to greater efficiency and economy, but also represent a ‘kitemark’ of uniquely English architectural design, rather than simply current British standards of constructions. Perceptions of English Architecture Scotland and Denmark are confident that their particular national identities are reflected in the values they intend their architecture to convey. If such a policy were to exist in England what would its identity be based upon? As the central, dominant nation in Great Britain for more than 300 years[21], and founder of the British Empire[22], the English have not needed in the past to worry about a specifically English national identity: the seat of government has always been in London, the common language has always been English and the established religion has been the Church of England. England equated to Britain. However the recent vote on Scottish independence was a sharp reminder that nothing is set in stone. The Empire, maritime and manufacturing supremacy have all gone, and now there is a need to rediscover an identity that is uniquely English and not simply a rehash of British clichà ©s. The danger is that a policy based on national identity might get hijacked by jingoists, sentimentalists and traditionalists. In a speech on St. George’s day, 1993, John Major attempted to dispel public fears of joining the European Union, by claiming that Britain would always remain, â€Å"†¦distinctive and in Europe. Fifty years from now, Britain will still be the country of long shadows on county grounds, warm beer, invincible green suburbs, dog lovers and as George Orwell said old maids bicycling to Holy Communion through the morning mist . . .† [23] What he was describing was middle-class, conservative, Home Counties England, which has always resisted change and modernity. This nostalgic and rural English idyll is not a true reflection of English national identity and is precisely what has to be avoided if a national Architectural policy is to be truly beneficial to the English nation. The defenders of chocolate box England side-line the impact of the industrial revolution, which funded the manor houses and mansions, and the civic buildings so dear to the hearts of conservationists, ignore the slum clearances done in the name of social justice in post-war urban planning, and hold in check building work of national importance that would benefit the vast majority of the population, in order to protect the privileged few[24]. Such attitudes in no way reflect English national character traits of ‘pragmatism, puritanism and utilitarianism that are aligned with (rather than hostile to) urbanism and economic growth’. [25] There is a real disparity between what is promoted and protected as ‘English’ architecture by these privileged classes, and what ordinary people need. Introducing an architectural policy to England would not only ensure some kind of minimum design standard, but could also stamp inclusivity, innovation and individualism as the watchwords of modern English values. â€Å"The distinction between historical and recent is redundant. All that is past is our history. That which is most ancient is likely to be valued more highly because of its rarity†¦. Our recent history may prove to be enormously important to future generations so we should attempt at least to anticipate this.† Steven Bee [26] England drastically needs to change its attitude to architecture and identity and recognise that a national identity is about the present and should not just be based on the past. Its irrefutable reputation for preservation and conservation is a relatively recent phenomenon: 75 years ago there were no listed buildings, whereas today there are over 375,000. [27]However, these are primarily buildings which are sometimes referred to as â€Å"poster British heritage† fiercely defended by certain clique of British society whose tastes are selective and blinkered.[28] Only 0.5% of all listed buildings are modern, built after 1945. [29] The architecture of the industrial Revolution (much of it based in the Midlands and the North) are less prized than the Georgian mansions of the south-east. This is not a rejection of the past: there is an undeniable relationship between heritage, place and identity.[30]However, the past is only an aspect of who we are. Individuals have dreams and amb itions, and in the same way places should be aspirational. Even HRH Prince Charles who recently released his own recommendations intended to protect English design, insists that he is not against modern design, and stresses that buildings must take peoples’ needs into consideration.[31] Rather than being run by a self-serving elite of upper and middle-class traditionalists, an effective policy should be carefully curated by a panel of experts who are in tune with the people and the nation’s needs, able to judge without prejudice the best direction for a modern England on a world stage and willing to adapt and amend plans to reflect changing circumstances. â€Å"(Britain) stands out †¦ as a country with an immensely strong and diverse cultural identity and memory expressed in its built and natural environment to which we all†¦ can relate It is those foundations of identity and memory that provide Britain with its successful future in a competitive and fast-changing world.† Alan Baxter[32] Design for the Future The term ‘heritage’ is extremely limiting, it is often only associated with the distant past. [33] The current generation does not separate traditional and modern design as it was in the 20th Century, this current mindset recognises sees the potential in what is already there, the value of place, identity and sustainability.[34] The approach is no longer to build to be remembered, but to build to benefit future generations. â€Å"‘New’ and ‘old’ need not compete.† Lucy Musgrave.[35] After publishing his review Farrell suggests that in fact England is a country which would not benefit from total, inclusive formal ‘English’ policy, and would actually benefit from regional policies which reflected our truly unique and diverse country. A policy that might work for central London could have very little relevance to a village in Wiltshire or a Northern industrial city. Such an all-inclusive formal policy is more effective on smaller countries, [36] a country like England has such a unique and vast range of regional identities that need to be protected, and perhaps England’s long history and international presence means that it is not as easy for it to present a single, universal image. Farrell also calls for a Chief Architect, similar to a Chief Planner, which would mean a consistent high standard of design our built environment must perform successfully, we must have enough homes for our population, we must tackle climate change, and even how can we design to deal with our changing environment, such as the floods which hit Britain every year.[37] Conclusion â€Å"History is not defined by the ‘discrete projects’ (one-off buildings such as stately homes or castles) but is continuous.† Hank Dittmar [38] If England is to have national identity as an aspect of national planning we must ensure that it is the best qualities that are in evidence. Whether the solution is a one size fits all approach as suggested by Prince Charles, or a more localised, regional policy, as proposed by Farrell, the aim should be to benefit the entire community by establishing standard values in architecture. That way ‘good’ builds are designed before they are erected as opposed to identifying them as worthy or significant long after they have been built. A design policy offers a centralised goal for all those contributing to the built environment. It goes beyond just design, to a aim and ultimate goal to produce well designed quality building which fully benefit the inhabitants of England. Regardless of whether a policy is for a whole country or a single village, it should be developed and enabled by government, but led independently by industry. The stewardship, long-term planning and identity of real places should be a fundamental part of built environment policies.[39] It is vital that if a policy is ever put in place it must be correctly implemented. Past RIBA President Sunand Prasad succinctly states, â€Å"It is people that make the difference not policy. Crudely put, good people can work round bad polices but good policies cannot work round bad people.† [40] Policy is not about creating a vernacular style, or trying to mimic the past, it is about ensuring quality design for buildings which properly benefit their users. [1] Churchill, Winston. Never Give In! Winston Churchill’s Greatest Speeches. United States: Sound Library, 2005, 298. [2] Jones, Paul. The Sociology of Architecture. Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2011, 2. [3] ‘2007 Architectural Policy’ (Danish Architecture Centre), accessed 20 December 2014, http://www.dac.dk/en/dac-cities/architectural-policy/architectural-policy-2007. [4] Danish Ministry of Culture, A Nation of Architecture Denmark Settings for Life and Growth, May 2007, 4. [5] The Scottish Government, Creating Places. A Policy Statement on Architecture and a Place for Scotland., 24 June 2013, 4-5. [6] Farrell, Terry. ‘Why the UK Does Not Need a Formal Architecture Policy’.The Guardian. The Guardian, March 31, 2014. http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/mar/31/uk-architecture-policy-review-built-environment. [7] Terry Farrell, ‘The Farrell Review’, 31 March 2014, 2-3. [8] Terry Farrell, ‘The Farrell Review’, 147. [9] Wainwright, Oliver. ‘What Should the Government’s Architecture Review Focus on? | Oliver Wainwright’.The Guardian. The Guardian, March 25, 2013. [10] Terry Farrell, ‘The Farrell Review’, 9 [11] Terry Farrell, ‘The Farrell Review’, 8. [12] Terry Farrell, ‘The Farrell Review’, 31. [13] Terry Farrell, ‘The Farrell Review’, 31. [14] Terry Farrell, ‘The Farrell Review’, 148. [15] Terry Farrell, ‘The Farrell Review’, 30. [16] Terry Farrell, ‘The Farrell Review’, 148. [17] Terry Farrell, ‘The Farrell Review’, 149. [18] Terry Farrell, ‘The Farrell Review’, 157. [19] Terry Farrell, ‘The Farrell Review’, 152. [20] Terry Farrell, ‘The Farrell Review’, 152. [21] Krishan Kumar, Jeffrey C. Alexander (Contribution by),The Making of English National Identity, 227. [22] Krishan Kumar, Jeffrey C. Alexander (Contribution by),The Making of English National Identity, 1st ed. (United Kingdom: Cambridge University Press, 2003), ix. [23] Lawson, Mark. ‘The Inter-Continental Address: An Analysis’. The Independent. Independent, April 27, 1993. http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/the-intercontinental-address-an-analysis-1457731.html. [24] Peter Mandler, ‘Against â€Å"Englishness†: English Culture and the Limits to Rural Nostalgia, 1850-1940’,Transactions of the Royal Historical Society7 (1 January 1997), 155. [25] Peter Mandler, ‘Against â€Å"Englishness†: English Culture and the Limits to Rural Nostalgia, 1850-1940’,155. [26]Terry Farrell, ‘The Farrell Review’, 100. [27]Terry Farrell, ‘The Farrell Review’, 101. [28] Terry Farrell, ‘The Farrell Review’, 22. [29] Terry Farrell, ‘The Farrell Review’, 23. [30] Terry Farrell, ‘The Farrell Review’, 23. [31] HRH Prince Charles, ‘Facing up to the Future: Prince Charles on 21st Century Architecture’, Architectural Review (Architectural Review, 20 December 2014), http://www.architectural-review.com/essays/facing-up-to-the-future-prince-charles-on-21st-century-architecture/8674119.article?referrer=RSS. [32]Terry Farrell, ‘The Farrell Review’, 102. [33]Terry Farrell, ‘The Farrell Review’, 104. [34]Terry Farrell, ‘The Farrell Review’, 108. [35]Terry Farrell, ‘The Farrell Review’, 101. [36] Farrell, Terry. ‘Why the UK Does Not Need a Formal Architecture Policy’. The Guardian. The Guardian, March 31, 2014. http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/mar/31/uk-architecture-policy-review-built-environment. [37] Farrell, Terry. ‘Why the UK Does Not Need a Formal Architecture Policy’. [38]Terry Farrell, ‘The Farrell Review’, 101. [39] Terry Farrell, ‘The Farrell Review’, 150. [40] Terry Farrell, ‘The Farrell Review’, 149.

The Economics Of Life And Death :: Economic Theory

The Economics Of Life And Death This paper begins with an explanation of the "life sequence of value," which is defined by the formula Life->Means of Life->More Life (L->MofL->L1). The analysis then contrasts this general sequence of value to the "money sequence of value," which is shown to have three autonomous forms not before distinguished: (1) Money->Means of Life->More Money ($->MofL->$1); (2) Money->Means of Life Destruction->More Money ($->MofD->$1); (3) Money->More Money->More Money ($->$1->$2->$3->$n). I explain how the first money sequence of value, analyzed by Marx in his classical formula of industrial capital (M->C->M1), has mutated so that the standard sequence of (1) assumed by economists has, in fact, been increasingly displaced by sequences (2) and (3). The argument shows that these sequences of economic "growth" increasingly dismantle environmental and civil life-fabrics, but remain unproblematic to the dominant economic paradigm whose measures of value do not register life-losses in their value a ccounts. It is concluded that a regrounding of economic understanding in the life sequence of value is required to avoid a cumulative breakdown in the conditions of social and planetary existence. "The techniques which induce a paradigm change may well be described as therapeutic, if only because, when they succeed, one learns one had been sick before." - Thomas Kuhn (1) The life sequence of value can be formulated in simple axiom as the sequence: Life --> Means of Life --> More Life ( L--> MofL -->L1) In this formula, life refers specifically to sentient life. Sentient life, in turn, is life which can move, feel and - in the case of humans - think in concepts. These three planes of being - organic movement, sensation and thought - all admit of ranges of function. These ranges of function or capability can be reduced by their economic conditions (as with the vital capabilities of a malnourished child), or increased (as with the opening horizons of movement, felt being and cognition of the same child with access to nutritious food). (2) Means of life refer to whatever enables life to be preserved, or to extend its vital range on these planes of being alive. Clean air, food, water, shelter, affective interaction, environmental space and accessible learning conditions are such "means of life". To reproduce life is to maintain its achieved ranges of capability. To increase life is to widen or deepen them to more comprehensive range. To reduce life is to diminish or to extinguish any vector of their vital domains of being.

The Republic Essay -- essays research papers

Most normal individuals in the modern world would assume that all books written, not published, by man are based on either a portion of the author’s imagination, an event (biased or non-biased) in either history or during the life of the author, a straight-out autobiography, or a generalized biography of another person they once knew. However, this philosophical novel fits none of the descriptions above. The book is actually an in-depth recording of a philosophy contest between Plato’s teacher Socrates and several other great philosophers. What is significant about this contest is that, in it, Socrates describes his personal view of a â€Å"perfect world,† and why justice is so important in the process of creating a civilized world.The novel was completed in 370 B.C., and it describes a strong debate between Socrates and five other speakers. The two main arguments that he illustrates in this novel are that a ruler cannot obtain more power than the state, and that a philosopher is best suited to rule a nation since he has the ability to maintain this balance. Also, Socrates claims that only the philosopher has traveled beyond the â€Å"cave† of worldly desires and temptations to discover what justice really is. Socrates’ first major argument is with Thrasymachus in Book I. The current debate lies on the pure definition of justice. Thrasymachus claims that there is only one principle of justice: the interest of the more dominant force. Socrates counters this argument by using the phrase â€Å"the stronger.† He claims that the ruler of a nation will not be aided, but harmed, by an unintentional command, in the long run. Socrates then builds his argument gradually by stating that the good and just man looks out for the interest of the weaker, and not for himself. Thrasymachus tries to counter Socrates’s argument by vaguely proclaiming that injustice is more gainful than justice.However, Socrates bravely explains that the just man will live happily because he has a just soul, and the man with the unjust soul lives in poverty; therefore, injustice can never be greater than justice. At this point in the novel I saw Thrasymachus’s flaw and also the reason why Socrates has silenced Thrasymachus. Injustice, in my opinion, may be better as a short-term plan for pleasure, but in the long run the unjust man will be condemned by just men of his evil deeds, thus leading to his downf... ...nally, Socrates points out that, in his perfect State, philosophers will always have the advantage over other types of rulers because they have wisdom and knowledge, which gives them the ability to govern justly and wisely. In my opinion, Socrates’s perfect State sounded plenty like the scenario progressing in the debate. Socrates, since he is a great philosopher, had the advantage over everyone because he was wise and intelligent in his arguments; therefore he obviously knew more about justice than anyone else. So, in conclusion, Socrates won the debate on the definition of justice. The reason for this is because Socrates, as stated before, had the wisdom and knowledge to analyze, in the most descriptive way, what justice really is. Glaucon and the others lacked what Socrates had, and so they could not support their arguments as well as Socrates could. I really liked this novel a lot because I am a lover of philosophy and understanding. However, I must admit that some of Socrates’s arguments were redundant and besides the point. But other than this crucial flaw, the book showed great insight, and Socrates created a vivid description about what justice means to the modern world.

Black House Chapter One

1 RIGHT HERE AND NOW, as an old friend used to say, we are in the fluid present, where clear-sightedness never guarantees perfect vision. Here: about two hundred feet, the height of a gliding eagle, above Wisconsin's far western edge, where the vagaries of the Mississippi River declare a natural border. Now: an early Friday morning in mid-July a few years into both a new century and a new millennium, their wayward courses so hidden that a blind man has a better chance of seeing what lies ahead than you or I. Right here and now, the hour is just past six A.M., and the sun stands low in the cloudless eastern sky, a fat, confident yellow-white ball advancing as ever for the first time toward the future and leaving in its wake the steadily accumulating past, which darkens as it recedes, making blind men of us all. Below, the early sun touches the river's wide, soft ripples with molten highlights. Sunlight glints from the tracks of the Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railroad running between the riverbank and the backs of the shabby two-story houses along County Road Oo, known as Nailhouse Row, the lowest point of the comfortable-looking little town extending uphill and eastward beneath us. At this moment in the Coulee Country, life seems to be holding its breath. The motionless air around us carries such remarkable purity and sweetness that you might imagine a man could smell a radish pulled out of the ground a mile away. Moving toward the sun, we glide away from the river and over the shining tracks, the backyards and roofs of Nailhouse Row, then a line of Harley-Davidson motorcycles tilted on their kickstands. These unprepossessing little houses were built, early in the century recently vanished, for the metal pourers, mold makers, and crate men employed by the Pederson Nail factory. On the grounds that working stiffs would be unlikely to complain about the flaws in their subsidized accommodations, they were constructed as cheaply as possible. (Pederson Nail, which had suffered multiple hemorrhages during the fifties, finally bled to death in 1963.) The waiting Harleys suggest that the factory hands have been replaced by a motorcycle gang. The uniformly ferocious appearance of the Harleys' owners, wild-haired, bushy-bearded, swag-bellied men sporting earrings, black leather jackets, and less than the full complement of teeth, would seem to support this assumption. Like most assumptions, this one emb odies an uneasy half-truth. The current residents of Nailhouse Row, whom suspicious locals dubbed the Thunder Five soon after they took over the houses along the river, cannot so easily be categorized. They have skilled jobs in the Kingsland Brewing Company, located just out of town to the south and one block east of the Mississippi. If we look to our right, we can see â€Å"the world's largest six-pack,† storage tanks painted over with gigantic Kingsland Old-Time Lager labels. The men who live on Nailhouse Row met one another on the Urbana-Champaign campus of the University of Illinois, where all but one were undergraduates majoring in English or philosophy. (The exception was a resident in surgery at the UI-UC university hospital.) They get an ironic pleasure from being called the Thunder Five: the name strikes them as sweetly cartoonish. What they call themselves is â€Å"the Hegelian Scum.† These gentlemen form an interesting crew, and we will make their acquaintance later on. For now, we have time only to note the hand-painted posters taped to the fronts of several houses, two lamp poles, and a couple of abandoned buildings. The posters say: FISHERMAN, YOU BETTER PRAY TO YOUR STINKING GOD WE DON'T CATCH YOU FIRST! REMEMBER AMY! From Nailhouse Row, Chase Street runs steeply uphill between listing buildings with worn, unpainted facades the color of fog: the old Nelson Hotel, where a few impoverished residents lie sleeping, a blank-faced tavern, a tired shoe store displaying Red Wing workboots behind its filmy picture window, a few other dim buildings that bear no indication of their function and seem oddly dreamlike and vaporous. These structures have the air of failed resurrections, of having been rescued from the dark westward territory although they were still dead. In a way, that is precisely what happened to them. An ocher horizontal stripe, ten feet above the sidewalk on the facade of the Nelson Hotel and two feet from the rising ground on the opposed, ashen faces of the last two buildings, represents the high-water mark left behind by the flood of 1965, when the Mississippi rolled over its banks, drowned the railroad tracks and Nailhouse Row, and mounted nearly to the top of Chase Street. Where Chase rises above the flood line and levels out, it widens and undergoes a transformation into the main street of French Landing, the town beneath us. The Agincourt Theater, the Taproom Bar & Grille, the First Farmer State Bank, the Samuel Stutz Photography Studio (which does a steady business in graduation photos, wedding pictures, and children's portraits) and shops, not the ghostly relics of shops, line its blunt sidewalks: Benton's Rexall drugstore, Reliable Hardware, Saturday Night Video, Regal Clothing, Schmitt's Allsorts Emporium, stores selling electronic equipment, magazines and greeting cards, toys, and athletic clothing featuring the logos of the Brewers, the Twins, the Packers, the Vikings, and the University of Wisconsin. After a few blocks, the name of the street changes to Lyall Road, and the buildings separate and shrink into one-story wooden structures fronted with signs advertising insurance offices and travel agencies; after that, the street becomes a highway that glides eastward past a 7-Eleven, the Reinhold T. Grauerhammer VFW Hall, a big farm-implement dealership known locally as Goltz's, and into a landscape of flat, unbroken fields. If we rise another hundred feet into the immaculate air and scan what lies beneath and ahead, we see kettle moraines, coulees, blunted hills furry with pines, loam-rich valleys invisible from ground level until you have come upon them, meandering rivers, miles-long patchwork fields, and little towns one of them, Centralia, no more than a scattering of buildings around the intersection of two narrow highways, 35 and 93. Directly below us, French Landing looks as though it had been evacuated in the middle of the night. No one moves along the sidewalks or bends to insert a key into one of the locks of the shop fronts along Chase Street. The angled spaces before the shops are empty of the cars and pickup trucks that will begin to appear, first by ones and twos, then in a mannerly little stream, an hour or two later. No lights burn behind the windows in the commercial buildings or the unpretentious houses lining the surrounding streets. A block north of Chase on Sumner Street, four matching red-brick buildings of two stories each house, in west-east order, the French Landing Public Library; the offices of Patrick J. Skarda, M.D., the local general practitioner, and Bell & Holland, a two-man law firm now run by Garland Bell and Julius Holland, the sons of its founders; the Heartfield & Son Funeral Home, now owned by a vast, funereal empire centered in St. Louis; and the French Landing Post Office. Separated from these by a wide driveway into a good-sized parking lot at the rear, the building at the end of the block, where Sumner intersects with Third Street, is also of red brick and two stories high but longer than its immediate neighbors. Unpainted iron bars block the rear second-floor windows, and two of the four vehicles in the parking lot are patrol cars with light bars across their tops and the letters FLPD on their sides. The presence of police cars and barred windows seems incongruous in this rural fastness what sort of crime can happen here? Nothing serious, surely; surely nothing worse than a little shoplifting, drunken driving, and an occasional bar fight. As if in testimony to the peacefulness and regularity of small-town life, a red van with the words LA RIVIERE HERALD on its side panels drifts slowly down Third Street, pausing at nearly all of the mailbox stands for its driver to insert copies of the day's newspaper, wrapped in a blue plastic bag, into gray metal cylinders bearing the same words. When the van turns onto Sumner, where the buildings have mail slots instead of boxes, the route man simply throws the wrapped papers at the front doors. Blue parcels thwack against the doors of the police station, the funeral home, and the office buildings. The post office does not get a paper. What do you know, lights are burning behind the front downstairs windows of the police station. The door opens. A tall, dark-haired young man in a pale blue short-sleeved uniform shirt, a Sam Browne belt, and navy trousers steps outside. The wide belt and the gold badge on Bobby Dulac's chest gleam in the fresh sunlight, and everything he is wearing, including the 9mm pistol strapped to his hip, seems as newly made as Bobby Dulac himself. He watches the red van turn left onto Second Street, and frowns at the rolled newspaper. He nudges it with the tip of a black, highly polished shoe, bending over just far enough to suggest that he is trying to read the headlines through the plastic. Evidently this technique does not work all that well. Still frowning, Bobby tilts all the way over and picks up the newspaper with unexpected delicacy, the way a mother cat picks up a kitten in need of relocation. Holding it a little distance away from his body, he gives a quick glance up and down Sumner Street, about-faces smartly, and steps back into the station. We, who in our curiosity have been steadily descending toward the interesting spectacle presented by Officer Dulac, go inside behind him. A gray corridor leads past a blank door and a bulletin board with very little on it to two sets of metal stairs, one going down to a small locker room, shower stalls, and a firing range, the other upward to an interrogation room and two facing rows of cells, none presently occupied. Somewhere near, a radio talk show is playing at a level that seems too loud for a peaceful morning. Bobby Dulac opens the unmarked door and enters, with us on his shiny heels, the ready room he has just left. A rank of filing cabinets stands against the wall to our right, beside them a beat-up wooden table on which sit neat stacks of papers in folders and a transistor radio, the source of the discordant noise. From the nearby studio of KDCU-AM, Your Talk Voice in the Coulee Country, the entertainingly rabid George Rathbun has settled into Badger Barrage, his popular morning broadcast. Good old George sounds too loud for the occasion no matter how low you dial the volume; the guy is just flat-out noisy that's part of his appeal. Set in the middle of the wall directly opposite us is a closed door with a dark pebble-glass window on which has been painted DALE GILBERTSON, CHIEF OF POLICE. Dale will not be in for another half hour or so. Two metal desks sit at right angles to each other in the corner to our left, and from the one that faces us, Tom Lund, a fair-haired officer of roughly his partner's age but without his appearance of having been struck gleaming from the mint five minutes before, regards the bag tweezed between two fingers of Bobby Dulac's right hand. â€Å"All right,† Lund says. â€Å"Okay. The latest installment.† â€Å"You thought maybe the Thunder Five was paying us another social call? Here. I don't want to read the damn thing.† Not deigning to look at the newspaper, Bobby sends the new day's issue of the La Riviere Herald sailing in a flat, fast arc across ten feet of wooden floor with an athletic snap of his wrist, spins rightward, takes a long stride, and positions himself in front of the wooden table a moment before Tom Lund fields his throw. Bobby glares at the two names and various details scrawled on the long chalkboard hanging on the wall behind the table. He is not pleased, Bobby Dulac; he looks as though he might burst out of his uniform through the sheer force of his anger. Fat and happy in the KDCU studio, George Rathbun yells, â€Å"Caller, gimme a break, willya, and get your prescription fixed! Are we talking about the same game here? Caller â€Å" â€Å"Maybe Wendell got some sense and decided to lay off,† Tom Lund says. â€Å"Wendell,† Bobby says. Because Lund can see only the sleek, dark back of his head, the little sneering thing he does with his lip wastes motion, but he does it anyway. â€Å"Caller, let me ask you this one question, and in all sincerity, I want you to be honest with me. Did you actually see last night's game?† â€Å"I didn't know Wendell was a big buddy of yours,† Bobby says. â€Å"I didn't know you ever got as far south as La Riviere. Here I was thinking your idea of a big night out was a pitcher of beer and trying to break one hundred at the Arden Bowl-A-Drome, and now I find out you hang out with newspaper reporters in college towns. Probably get down and dirty with the Wisconsin Rat, too, that guy on KWLA. Do you pick up a lot of punk babes that way?† The caller says he missed the first inning on account of he had to pick up his kid after a special counseling session at Mount Hebron, but he sure saw everything after that. â€Å"Did I say Wendell Green was a friend of mine?† asks Tom Lund. Over Bobby's left shoulder he can see the first of the names on the chalkboard. His gaze helplessly focuses on it. â€Å"It's just, I met him after the Kinderling case, and the guy didn't seem so bad. Actually, I kind of liked him. Actually, I wound up feeling sorry for him. He wanted to do an interview with Hollywood, and Hollywood turned him down flat.† Well, naturally he saw the extra innings, the hapless caller says, that's how he knows Pokey Reese was safe. â€Å"And as for the Wisconsin Rat, I wouldn't know him if I saw him, and I think that so-called music he plays sounds like the worst bunch of crap I ever heard in my life. How did that scrawny pasty-face creep get a radio show in the first place? On the college station? What does that tell you about our wonderful UW?CLa Riviere, Bobby? What does it say about our whole society? Oh, I forgot, you like that shit.† â€Å"No, I like 311 and Korn, and you're so out of it you can't tell the difference between Jonathan Davis and Dee Dee Ramone, but forget about that, all right?† Slowly, Bobby Dulac turns around and smiles at his partner. â€Å"Stop stalling.† His smile is none too pleasant. â€Å"I'm stalling?† Tom Lund widens his eyes in a parody of wounded innocence. â€Å"Gee, was it me who fired the paper across the room? No, I guess not.† â€Å"If you never laid eyes on the Wisconsin Rat, how come you know what he looks like?† â€Å"Same way I know he has funny-colored hair and a pierced nose. Same way I know he wears a beat-to-shit black leather jacket day in, day out, rain or shine.† Bobby waited. â€Å"By the way he sounds. People's voices are full of information. A guy says, Looks like it'll turn out to be a nice day, he tells you his whole life story. Want to know something else about Rat Boy? He hasn't been to the dentist in six, seven years. His teeth look like shit.† From within KDCU's ugly cement-block structure next to the brewery on Peninsula Drive, via the radio Dale Gilbertson donated to the station house long before either Tom Lund or Bobby Dulac first put on their uniforms, comes good old dependable George Rathbun's patented bellow of genial outrage, a passionate, inclusive uproar that for a hundred miles around causes breakfasting farmers to smile across their tables at their wives and passing truckers to laugh out loud: â€Å"I swear, caller, and this goes for my last last caller, too, and every single one of you out there, I love you dearly, that is the honest truth, I love you like my momma loved her turnip patch, but sometimes you people DRIVE ME CRAZY! Oh, boy. Top of the eleventh inning, two outs! Six?Cseven, Reds! Men on second and third. Batter lines to short center field, Reese takes off from third, good throw to the plate, clean tag, clean tag. A BLIND MAN COULDA MADE THAT CALL!† â€Å"Hey, I thought it was a good tag, and I only heard it on the radio,† says Tom Lund. Both men are stalling, and they know it. â€Å"In fact,† shouts the hands-down most popular Talk Voice of the Coulee Country, â€Å"let me go out on a limb here, boys and girls, let me make the following recommendation, okay? Let's replace every umpire at Miller Park, hey, every umpire in the National League, with BLIND MEN! You know what, my friends? I guarantee a sixty to seventy percent improvement in the accuracy of their calls. GIVE THE JOB TO THOSE WHO CAN HANDLE IT THE BLIND!† Mirth suffuses Tom Lund's bland face. That George Rathbun, man, he's a hoot. Bobby says, â€Å"Come on, okay?† Grinning, Lund pulls the folded newspaper out of its wrapper and flattens it on his desk. His face hardens; without altering its shape, his grin turns stony. â€Å"Oh, no. Oh, hell.† â€Å"What?† Lund utters a shapeless groan and shakes his head. â€Å"Jesus. I don't even want to know.† Bobby rams his hands into his pockets, then pulls himself perfectly upright, jerks his right hand free, and clamps it over his eyes. â€Å"I'm a blind guy, all right? Make me an umpire I don't wanna be a cop anymore.† Lund says nothing. â€Å"It's a headline? Like a banner headline? How bad is it?† Bobby pulls his hand away from his eyes and holds it suspended in midair. â€Å"Well,† Lund tells him, â€Å"it looks like Wendell didn't get some sense, after all, and he sure as hell didn't decide to lay off. I can't believe I said I liked the dipshit.† â€Å"Wake up,† Bobby says. â€Å"Nobody ever told you law enforcement officers and journalists are on opposite sides of the fence?† Tom Lund's ample torso tilts over his desk. A thick lateral crease like a scar divides his forehead, and his stolid cheeks burn crimson. He aims a finger at Bobby Dulac. â€Å"This is one thing that really gets me about you, Bobby. How long have you been here? Five, six months? Dale hired me four years ago, and when him and Hollywood put the cuffs on Mr. Thornberg Kinderling, which was the biggest case in this county for maybe thirty years, I can't claim any credit, but at least I pulled my weight. I helped put some of the pieces together.† â€Å"One of the pieces,† Bobby says. â€Å"I reminded Dale about the girl bartender at the Taproom, and Dale told Hollywood, and Hollywood talked to the girl, and that was a big, big piece. It helped get him. So don't you talk to me that way.† Bobby Dulac assumes a look of completely hypothetical contrition. â€Å"Sorry, Tom. I guess I'm kind of wound up and beat to shit at the same time.† What he thinks is: So you got a couple years on me and you once gave Dale this crappy little bit of information, so what, I'm a better cop than you'll ever be. How heroic were you last night, anyhow? At 11:15 the previous night, Armand â€Å"Beezer† St. Pierre and his fellow travelers in the Thunder Five had roared up from Nailhouse Row to surge into the police station and demand of its three occupants, each of whom had worked an eighteen-hour shift, exact details of the progress they were making on the issue that most concerned them all. What the hell was going on here? What about the third one, huh, what about Irma Freneau? Had they found her yet? Did these clowns have anything, or were they still just blowing smoke? You need help? Beezer roared, Then deputize us, we'll give you all the goddamn help you need and then some. A giant named Mouse had strolled smirking up to Bobby Dulac and kept on strolling, jumbo belly to six-pack belly, until Bobby was backed up against a filing cabinet, whereupon the giant Mouse had mysteriously inquired, in a cloud of beer and marijuana, whether Bobby had ever dipped into the works of a gentleman named Jacques Derrida. When Bobby replied that he had never heard of the gentleman, Mouse said, â€Å"No shit, Sherlock,† and stepped aside to glare at the names on the chalkboard. Half an hour later, Beezer, Mouse, and their companions were sent away unsatisfied, undeputized, but pacified, and Dale Gilbertson said he had to go home and get some sleep, but Tom ought to remain, just in case. The regular night men had both found excuses not to come in. Bobby said he would stay, too, no problem, Chief, which is why we find these two men in the station so early in the morning. â€Å"Give it to me,† says Bobby Dulac. Lund picks up the paper, turns it around, and holds it out for Bobby to see: FISHERMAN STILL AT LARGE IN FRENCH LANDING AREA, reads the headline over an article that takes up three columns on the top left-hand side of the front page. The columns of type have been printed against a background of pale blue, and a black border separates them from the remainder of the page. Beneath the head, in smaller print, runs the line Identity of Psycho Killer Baffles Police. Underneath the subhead, a line in even smaller print attributes the article to Wendell Green, with the support of the editorial staff. â€Å"The Fisherman,† Bobby says. â€Å"Right from the start, your friend has his thumb up his butt. The Fisherman, the Fisherman, the Fisherman. If I all of a sudden turned into a fifty-foot ape and started stomping on buildings, would you call me King Kong?† Lund lowers the newspaper and smiles. â€Å"Okay,† Bobby allows, â€Å"bad example. Say I held up a couple banks. Would you call me John Dillinger?† â€Å"Well,† says Lund, smiling even more broadly, â€Å"they say Dillinger's tool was so humongous, they put it in a jar in the Smithsonian. So . . .† â€Å"Read me the first sentence,† Bobby says. Tom Lund looks down and reads: † ? ®As the police in French Landing fail to discover any leads to the identity of the fiendish double murderer and sex criminal this reporter has dubbed â€Å"the Fisherman,† the grim specters of fear, despair, and suspicion run increasingly rampant through the streets of that little town, and from there out into the farms and villages throughout French County, darkening by their touch every portion of the Coulee Country.' â€Å" â€Å"Just what we need,† Bobby says. â€Å"Jee-zus!† And in an instant has crossed the room and is leaning over Tom Lund's shoulder, reading the Herald's front page with his hand resting on the butt of his Glock, as if ready to drill a hole in the article right here and now. † ? ®Our traditions of trust and good neighborliness, our habit of extending warmth and generosity to all [writes Wendell Green, editorializing like crazy], are eroding daily under the corrosive onslaught of these dread emotions. Fear, despair, and suspicion are poisonous to the soul of communities large and small, for they turn neighbor against neighbor and make a mockery of civility. † ? ®Two children have been foully murdered and their remains partially consumed. Now a third child has disappeared. Eight-year-old Amy St. Pierre and seven-year-old Johnny Irkenham fell victim to the passions of a monster in human form. Neither will know the happiness of adolescence or the satisfactions of adulthood. Their grieving parents will never know the grandchildren they would have cherished. The parents of Amy and Johnny's playmates shelter their children within the safety of their own homes, as do parents whose children never knew the deceased. As a result, summer playgroups and other programs for young children have been canceled in virtually every township and municipality in French County. † ? ®With the disappearance of ten-year-old Irma Freneau seven days after the death of Amy St. Pierre and only three after that of Johnny Irkenham, public patience has grown dangerously thin. As this correspondent has already reported, Merlin Graasheimer, fifty-two, an unemployed farm laborer of no fixed abode, was set upon and beaten by an unidentified group of men in a Grainger side street late Tuesday evening. Another such episode occurred in the early hours of Thursday morning, when Elvar Praetorious, thirty-six, a Swedish tourist traveling alone, was assaulted by three men, again unidentified, while asleep in La Riviere's Leif Eriksson Park. Graasheimer and Praetorious required only routine medical attention, but future incidents of vigilantism will almost certainly end more seriously.' â€Å" Tom Lund looks down at the next paragraph, which describes the Freneau girl's abrupt disappearance from a Chase Street sidewalk, and pushes himself away from his desk. Bobby Dulac reads silently for a time, then says, â€Å"You gotta hear this shit, Tom. This is how he winds up: † ? ®When will the Fisherman strike again? † ? ®For he will strike again, my friends, make no mistake. † ? ®And when will French Landing's chief of police, Dale Gilbertson, do his duty and rescue the citizens of this county from the obscene savagery of the Fisherman and the understandable violence produced by his own inaction?' â€Å" Bobby Dulac stamps to the middle of the room. His color has heightened. He inhales, then exhales a magnificent quantity of oxygen. â€Å"How about the next time the Fisherman strikes,† Bobby says, â€Å"how about he goes right up Wendell Green's flabby rear end?† â€Å"I'm with you,† says Tom Lund. â€Å"Can you believe that shinola? ? ®Understandable violence'? He's telling people it's okay to mess with anyone who looks suspicious!† Bobby levels an index finger at Lund. â€Å"I personally am going to nail this guy. That is a promise. I'll bring him down, alive or dead.† In case Lund may have missed the point, he repeats, â€Å"Personally.† Wisely choosing not to speak the words that first come to his mind, Tom Lund nods his head. The finger is still pointing. He says, â€Å"If you want some help with that, maybe you should talk to Hollywood. Dale didn't have no luck, but could be you'd do better.† Bobby waves this notion away. â€Å"No need. Dale and me . . . and you, too, of course, we got it covered. But I personally am going to get this guy. That is a guarantee.† He pauses for a second. â€Å"Besides, Hollywood retired when he moved here, or did you forget?† â€Å"Hollywood's too young to retire,† Lund says. â€Å"Even in cop years, the guy is practically a baby. So you must be the next thing to a fetus.† And on their cackle of shared laughter, we float away and out of the ready room and back into the sky, where we glide one block farther north, to Queen Street. Moving a few blocks east we find, beneath us, a low, rambling structure branching out from a central hub that occupies, with its wide, rising breadth of lawn dotted here and there with tall oaks and maples, the whole of a block lined with bushy hedges in need of a good trim. Obviously an institution of some kind, the structure at first resembles a progressive elementary school in which the various wings represent classrooms without walls, the square central hub the dining room and administrative offices. When we drift downward, we hear George Rathbun's genial bellow rising toward us from several windows. The big glass front door swings open, and a trim woman in cat's-eye glasses comes out into the bright morning, holding a poster in one hand and a roll of tape in the other. She immediately turns around and, with quick, efficient gestures, fixes the poster to the door. Sunlight reflects from a smoky gemstone the size of a hazelnut on the third finger of her right hand. While she takes a moment to admire her work, we can peer over her crisp shoulder and see that the poster announces, in a cheerful burst of hand-drawn balloons, that TODAY IS STRAWBERRY FEST!!!; when the woman walks back inside, we take in the presence, in the portion of the entry visible just beneath the giddy poster, of two or three folded wheelchairs. Beyond the wheelchairs, the woman, whose chestnut hair has been pinned back into an architectural whorl, strides on her high-heeled pumps through a pleasant lobby with blond wooden chairs and matching tables strewn artfully with magazines, marches past a kind of unmanned guardpost or reception desk before a handsome fieldstone wall, and vanishes, with the trace of a skip, through a burnished door marked WILLIAM MAXTON, DIRECTOR. What kind of school is this? Why is it open for business, why is it putting on festivals, in the middle of July? We could call it a graduate school, for those who reside here have graduated from every stage of their existences but the last, which they live out, day after day, under the careless stewardship of Mr. William â€Å"Chipper† Maxton, Director. This is the Maxton Elder Care Facility, once in a more innocent time, and before the cosmetic renovations done in the mid-eighties known as the Maxton Nursing Home, which was owned and managed by its founder, Herbert Maxton, Chipper's father. Herbert was a decent if wishy-washy man who, it is safe to say, would be appalled by some of the things the sole fruit of his loins gets up to. Chipper never wanted to take over â€Å"the family playpen,† as he calls it, with its freight of â€Å"gummers,† â€Å"zombies,† â€Å"bed wetters,† and â€Å"droolies,† and after getting an accounting degree at UW?CLa Riviere (with hard-earned minors in promiscuity, gambling, and beer drinking), our boy accepted a positio n with the Madison, Wisconsin, office of the Internal Revenue Service, largely for the purpose of learning how to steal from the government undetected. Five years with the IRS taught him much that was useful, but when his subsequent career as a freelancer failed to match his ambitions, he yielded to his father's increasingly frail entreaties and threw in his lot with the undead and the droolies. With a certain grim relish, Chipper acknowledged that despite a woeful shortage of glamour, his father's business would at least provide him with the opportunity to steal from the clients and the government alike. Let us flow in through the big glass doors, cross the handsome lobby (noting, as we do so, the mingled odors of air freshener and ammonia that pervade even the public areas of all such institutions), pass through the door bearing Chipper's name, and find out what that well-arranged young woman is doing here so early. Beyond Chipper's door lies a windowless cubicle equipped with a desk, a coatrack, and a small bookshelf crowded with computer printouts, pamphlets, and flyers. A door stands open beside the desk. Through the opening, we see a much larger office, paneled in the same burnished wood as the director's door and containing leather chairs, a glass-topped coffee table, and an oatmeal-colored sofa. At its far end looms a vast desk untidily heaped with papers and so deeply polished it seems nearly to glow. Our young woman, whose name is Rebecca Vilas, sits perched on the edge of this desk, her legs crossed in a particularly architectural fashion. One knee folds over the other, and the calves form two nicely molded, roughly parallel lines running down to the triangular tips of the black high-heeled pumps, one of which points to four o'clock and the other to six. Rebecca Vilas, we gather, has arranged herself to be seen, has struck a pose intended to be appreciated, though certainly not by us. Behind the cat's-eye glasses, her eyes look skeptical and amused, but we cannot see what has aroused these emotions. We assume that she is Chipper's secretary, and this assumption, too, expresses only half of the truth: as the ease and irony of her attitude imply, Ms. Vilas's duties have long extended beyond the purely secretarial. (We might speculate about the source of that nice ring she is wearing; as long as our minds are in the gutter, we will be right on the money.) We float through the open door, follow the direction of Rebecca's increasingly impatient gaze, and find ourselves staring at the sturdy, khaki-clad rump of her kneeling employer, who has thrust his head and shoulders into a good-sized safe, in which we glimpse stacks of record books and a number of manila envelopes apparently stuffed with currency. A few bills flop out of these envelopes as Chipper pulls them from the safe. â€Å"You did the sign, the poster thing?† he asks without turning around. â€Å"Aye, aye,† says Rebecca Vilas. â€Å"And a splendid day it is we shall be havin' for the great occasion, too, as is only roight and proper.† Her Irish accent is surprisingly good, if a bit generic. She has never been anywhere more exotic than Atlantic City, where Chipper used his frequent-flier miles to escort her for five enchanted days two years before. She learned the accent from old movies. â€Å"I hate Strawberry Fest,† Chipper says, dredging the last of the envelopes from the safe. â€Å"The zombies' wives and children mill around all afternoon, cranking them up so we have to sedate them into comas just to get some peace. And if you want to know the truth, I hate balloons.† He dumps the money onto the carpet and begins to sort the bills into stacks of various denominations. â€Å"Only Oi was wonderin', in me simple country manner,† says Rebecca, â€Å"why Oi should be requested to appear at the crack o' dawn on the grand day.† â€Å"Know what else I hate? The whole music thing. Singing zombies and that stupid deejay. Symphonic Stan with his big-band records, whoo boy, talk about thrills.† â€Å"I assume,† Rebecca says, dropping the stage-Irish accent, â€Å"you want me to do something with that money before the action begins.† â€Å"Time for another journey to Miller.† An account under a fictitious name in the State Provident Bank in Miller, forty miles away, receives regular deposits of cash skimmed from patients' funds intended to pay for extra goods and services. Chipper turns around on his knees with his hands full of money and looks up at Rebecca. He sinks back down to his heels and lets his hands fall into his lap. â€Å"Boy, do you have great legs. Legs like that, you ought to be famous.† â€Å"I thought you'd never notice,† Rebecca says. Chipper Maxton is forty-two years old. He has good teeth, all his hair, a wide, sincere face, and narrow brown eyes that always look a little damp. He also has two kids, Trey, nine, and Ashley, seven and recently diagnosed with ADD, a matter Chipper figures is going to cost him maybe two thousand a year in pills alone. And of course he has a wife, his life's partner, Marion, thirty-nine years of age, five foot five, and somewhere in the neighborhood of 190 pounds. In addition to these blessings, as of last night Chipper owes his bookie $13,000, the result of an unwise investment in the Brewers game George Rathbun is still bellowing about. He has noticed, oh, yes he has, Chipper has noticed Ms. Vilas's splendidly cantilevered legs. â€Å"Before you go over there,† he says, â€Å"I was thinking we could kind of stretch out on the sofa and fool around.† â€Å"Ah,† Rebecca says. â€Å"Fool around how, exactly?† â€Å"Gobble, gobble, gobble,† Chipper says, grinning like a satyr. â€Å"You romantic devil, you,† says Rebecca, a remark that utterly escapes her employer. Chipper thinks he actually is being romantic. She slides elegantly down from her perch, and Chipper pushes himself inelegantly upright and closes the safe door with his foot. Eyes shining damply, he takes a couple of thuggish, strutting strides across the carpet, wraps one arm around Rebecca Vilas's slender waist and with the other slides the fat manila envelopes onto the desk. He is yanking at his belt even before he begins to pull Rebecca toward the sofa. â€Å"So can I see him?† says clever Rebecca, who understands exactly how to turn her lover's brains to porridge . . . . . . and before Chipper obliges her, we do the sensible thing and float out into the lobby, which is still empty. A corridor to the left of the reception desk takes us to two large, blond, glass-inset doors marked DAISY and BLUEBELL, the names of the wings to which they give entrance. Far down the gray length of Bluebell, a man in baggy coveralls dribbles ash from his cigarette onto the tiles over which he is dragging, with exquisite slowness, a filthy mop. We move into Daisy. The functional parts of Maxton's are a great deal less attractive than the public areas. Numbered doors line both sides of the corridor. Hand-lettered cards in plastic holders beneath the numerals give the names of the residents. Four doors along, a desk at which a burly male attendant in an unclean white uniform sits dozing upright faces the entrances to the men's and women's bathrooms at Maxton's, only the most expensive rooms, those on the other side of the lobby, in Asphodel, provide anything but a sink. Dirty mop-swirls harden and dry all up and down the tiled floor, which stretches out before us to improbable length. Here, too, the walls and air seem the same shade of gray. If we look closely at the edges of the hallway, at the juncture of the walls and the ceiling, we see spiderwebs, old stains, accumulations of grime. Pine-Sol, ammonia, urine, and worse scent the atmosphere. As an elderly lady in Bluebell wing likes to say, when you live with a bunch of people who are old an d incontinent, you never get far from the smell of caca. The rooms themselves vary according to the conditions and capacities of their inhabitants. Since nearly everyone is asleep, we can glance into a few of these quarters. Here in D10, a single room two doors past the dozing aide, old Alice Weathers lies (snoring gently, dreaming of dancing in perfect partnership with Fred Astaire across a white marble floor) surrounded by so much of her former life that she must navigate past the chairs and end tables to maneuver from the door to her bed. Alice still possesses even more of her wits than she does her old furniture, and she cleans her room herself, immaculately. Next door in D12, two old farmers named Thorvaldson and Jesperson, who have not spoken to each other in years, sleep, separated by a thin curtain, in a bright clutter of family photographs and grandchildren's drawings. Farther down the hallway, D18 presents a spectacle completely opposite to the clean, crowded jumble of D10, just as its inhabitant, a man known as Charles Burnside, could be considered the polar opposite of Alice Weathers. In D18, there are no end tables, hutches, overstuffed chairs, gilded mirrors, lamps, woven rugs, or velvet curtains: this barren room contains only a metal bed, a plastic chair, and a chest of drawers. No photographs of children and grandchildren stand atop the chest, and no crayon drawings of blocky houses and stick figures decorate the walls. Mr. Burnside has no interest in housekeeping, and a thin layer of dust covers the floor, the windowsill, and the chest's bare top. D18 is bereft of history, empty of personality; it seems as brutal and soulless as a prison cell. A powerful smell of excrement contaminates the air. For all the entertainment offered by Chipper Maxton and all the charm of Alice Weathers, it is Charles Burnside, â€Å"Burny,† we have most come to see.