Whirlpool is The Largest White Goods Manufacturer in The World Essay

Whirlpool is The Largest White Goods Manufacturer in The World - Essay Example It has introduced the concept of Innovation from Everyone, from Everywhere and for Everyone that has proved to be a runaway winning idea. People pursue good health and will do anything new that will help them to live a better life. Corporates too do the same by pursuing strategies for improvements and breakthroughs that create new products and new markets. This is a continuous exercise and any let-up, in health or corporate endeavors will invite a decline. This then is the engine that persuaded the corporates to innovate. There is a delicate difference between innovation and invention although one leads to the other. Innovation is the first happening or germination of an idea for a new product or a process while the first attempt to make it or practice it is what invention is all about. Innovation is, therefore, the creation of a new value and invention is the creation of a new product or service that offers this value to the customer. Sometimes additions to existing products are also called innovations as they enhance the value or are value creators and generate revenues. But a better way of describing an innovation is the discontinuation of an old value and replacing it with the new value. As a consequence discontinuation becomes a source of an innovation. Another name given to technological innovations is Discontinuity. Such technological breakthroughs help to create entirely new products or even new industries. This is the way the rules are re-written. It is part of corporate strategy to find new ways and means to improve products and services and discontinuation of one preceded the other. It is the brain-wracking exercise that brings about breakthroughs and they arise unexpectedly with experiments. Such results can bring about new or improved technologies.

Public Order Crimes Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Public Order Crimes - Research Paper Example Prostitution Prostitution is one of the most common public order crimes being faced by the whole world. Prostitution is the business of getting money in return of providing sexual services to other people. If we talk about Chicago, the police department registers thousands of new prostitution cases every year. I believe that this activity should be free from government and law enforcement interference because it does not produce any kind of harm to any person in the society. Prostitution as a business based totally on the will of the involved women. It provides sexual independence to women so it is not a forced sexual activity. It is a private business transaction, which cannot be performed without the will of the women. No one has the right to stop a woman from fulfilling her sexual desires whether she fulfils it with her boyfriend, with husband, or with some stranger in return of money. In Chicago, prostitution is not viewed as a serious crime, which can harm some other person. The reason is that this activity does not take place without the will of both men and women. Pornography Pornography refers to the act of using sexual images to make the viewers arouse sexually. People view pornographic material to get sexual satisfaction. Pornography is a victimless crime and is meant to provide sexual pleasure to the viewers. People involved in the act or business of pornography show pornographic material to other people through many ways, such as, through books, websites, magazines, paintings, photos, and videos. Pornography is a consensual act because a woman shows her body to other people with her own will. Snatching the right of porn from a woman is like snatching the sexual freedom from that woman. Although pornography is a public order crime, it does not violate the rights of women. Access to pornographic material is the right of every individual. Such feminists believe that pornography does not harm the status of women in a society rather it makes women fulfill their sexual frustration while keeping their privacy intact. The truth is that pornography harms the social status of women by showing them as something to be enjoyed. In Chicago, the graph of this crime seems to be low. The reason is that Chicago has a small porn industry as compared to other cities of the United States. The total number of porn movies coming from Chicago is very less as compared to the number of movies that come from Los Angeles. Almost 90 percent of the porn movies come from Los Angeles. Drug Trafficking Drug trafficking is one of those issues which are being faced by the United States for many years. â€Å"It refers to the illegal process through which narcotics and other illegal drugs are produced, transported, and sold†2 (Sherman, 2010, p. 7). Drug trafficking is the exchange of drugs between different drug dealers. It not only includes manufacturing of different drugs but also includes selling of drugs to the related people. It is also a

Aircraft Accident Models Article Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

Aircraft Accident Models - Article Example Instrumentation of monitoring equipments within the rotating parts requires design of temperature resistance sensors with ability to detect slight changes in flaws within the engine. The sensors must have excellent accuracy to deter active and latent errors that may occur due insensitivity of aircraft operators or attendants including the pilot. Essentially, such aircraft accident models including latent or active errors would greatly remain minimized with effective instrumentation of proper monitoring devices. Consequently, the article discusses initiatives explored by both NASA and AVSP in designing contemporary efficient sensors that would find proper use in monitoring flaws within gas engines. Such sensors would significantly assist in reducing aircraft accidents through effective monitoring of rotating components of the plane (Woike et al., 2005). The article remains imperative in presenting an investigative approach to other scientists towards establishing a novel sensor that would significantly reduce structural health issues and accidents associated with aircrafts. Moreover, findings and analysis outlined in the research would spur development of more novel approaches to combating aircraft accident models that have persistently caused problems within the airline

The culture and management Essay Example for Free

The culture and management Essay Sifangs recruitment of the length of time is fairly flexible from the three months minimum period to the 15 months maximum. From the previous experience, Sifang usually prepares three months necessary to advertise and fill a vacancy if no difficulties were encountered because there was nothing specific to contribute the timescale being longer. There are three stages of the recruitment process that influenced the timescales: creating and defining the position, advertising, and security checks. Recruitment success ratio in Sifang is very high because of the excellent HR department. The main reason is that the Sifangs recruitment advertisements only appear on the power system automatic protection field. The advertisements try to attract candidates who work in this field and fit the companys person specification. Another important reason is the HR department have a carefully selection process such as shortlist, interview, and probation which can reduce the failure rate. The culture and management style of Sifang  Organisational culture is a system of knowledge and standards for believing, evaluating and understanding etc that serve to environmental backgrounds (Allaire and Firsirotu 1984), which will help with the decision making and determine how the business is run. The organisations culture is very much concerned with the way in which people in the organisation interact with each other, and the typical patterns of interactions that have developed over time. Sifangs organisational culture focuses on honesty, responsibility and professional skills. Meanwhile, Sifang provides a broad stage for personal development. They always keeps in mind that qualified employees, endless self-challenging and management renovation construct the only bridge to success for a high- tech enterprise.  From the above description it can be seen that the main organisational culture in Sifang is task culture. Task culture focuses on full fulfilling the needs of the organisation and its problems by working in groups. Expertise creativity and flexibility is therefore important. This culture encourages the staffs to take more responsibility and power. Teams will have input when determining how a job will be done and their views and opinions will be listened to. For managers to be effective, they need to develop a style of management which suits the culture of the organisation. There are many different styles of management and four main styles are recognised as being effective if used at the right time and under the right conditions which are autocratic management, consultative management, democratic management, and laissez-faire management. The management style is mainly used in Sifang is consultative. The managers of the company tend to seek other employees within the company for advice before making decisions. This type of managers tends to aim to draw on more sources of opinion than just him/herself. The consultative managers will have good listening and also the capability to create the right communication channels to allow him/her to consult with other employees easily. For instance, as part of the consultative management style, Sifang uses suggestion boxes, which makes it easier for employees with new ideas to express their ideas without feeling intimidated. Managers also established an award to encourage staffs who have better suggestions and ideas. These methods bring many advantages to the company. On the other hand, sometimes the Sifangs head office takes the autocratic management style. It trend to give instructions to set the objectives and targets to staffs rather than asking them for their opinions in some situations. The company takes external recruitment because the top managers believe that the company hardly recruit candidates inside business because it will cause another vacancy will be created which might have to be filled. In the case, the head office/manager is the only one contributing to the decision-making process. The recruitment process is a part of the total organisational strategy plan for business growth. The managers of Sifang believe that market competition ultimately is enterprise talent competition. Therefore, they have attached most importance to recruit talent from its founding. Sifangs organisational culture can impact the process by taking prudent steps. The company only advertises its recruitment on the power system automatic protection field because the culture focuses on professional skills. The honesty, responsibility features can build a good reputation to candidates to make an earlier contribution to the hiring organisation. Overall, the recruitment process in Sifang has become a model of the values and methods to develop the organisation to run in an optimally human way. The recruitment of staff is a mixture of both consultative and autocratic management styles in Sifang. On the one hand, through consultative management, managers can always understand what the companys need on the recruitment. On the other hand, the head office autocratically set how much can be spent on the staffs. In the process, the final decisions are only made by managers under the autocratic management. When candidates are in the probation, the HR department only considers the feedback which comes from their managers and ignores the opinions of the candidates colleagues. Compare with the other companys recruitment in the same industry, Dongfang Electronics Information Industry Group Co., Ltd (Dongfang), which is a competitor of Sifang. There are some differences because of the different management styles. Sifang has never recruit staffs from internal environment because of the autocratic management style. On the contrary, Dongfang has approached democratic management style and the company takes a mixture of both internal and external recruitment after group discussion. Conclusion The report described and appraise the recruitment process of Beijing Sifang Automation Co., Ltd (Sifang) through analysisd its strengths, weakness, timescales, and success ratio. The companys culture, management style and how these impact in the recruitment process have also be introduced. As I come to a conclusion, I may reiterate the importance of a recruitment process to a business. Without it, corporations and organisations will run the risk of having unskilled employees and having a low profit margin. To hire people effectively, the HR department must think about the company needs over a longer period rather than simply getting next weeks job done. And also, the companys organisational culture and management styles can impact the recruitment process in both positive and negative way. References Barber, A.E. (1998) Recruiting employees: Individual and Organizational Perspectives. Thousand Oaks, Sage Publications  Barclay, J. (1999) Employee Selection: A question of Structure,  Beardwell, L. Holden, L. (2001) Human Resource management: a contemporary approach. Third Edition, London, FT Prentice Hill  Brown, A. (1995) Organisational Culture. London, Pitman Publishing.

Evaluation of Writing :: Education Educational Writer Writing Essays

Evaluation of Writing Works Cited Missing "We need to recognize that composition is probably going to remain the stepchild of rather unwilling English departments, that research in teaching and learning to write will continue to scrape by on the edges of several disciplines, and that few of those who will teach writing in American schools and universities will get much training or background as part of their regular education." -E. White (Teaching and Assessing Writing) In retrospect, I fail to remember consistent writing practices or writing assignments in English class (or otherwise) as a student in middle or secondary school. Luckily my love for and skill at creative and critical writing was encouraged by my parents and has remained at the heart of what I have chosen to pursue as a career. However, students whose writing is not only discouraged but is not treated fairly and properly in terms of evaluation have few options: to begin to regard writing as frivolous and unimportant; to remain underdeveloped in the areas of mechanics let alone harnessing of creativity and stylistic technique. Evaluation, as does actual instruction of writing, remains underdeveloped as well. Tension lingers between teachers who either are intimidated by evaluation processes or reject too rigidly structured models and the necessary aspect of not only teaching students how to write but teaching writing as a process which, in the end, requires assessment. Ultimately what has been absent in the past and is lacking still is agreed upon (by teachers, administrators, and test practitioners) theory and practice of sound writing programs and evaluation measures. Two major components, whose relationships fuel the tension that inhibits a consensus, are the contrasts between holistic and analytic approaches to evaluation and hence writing as process or a mix of isolated skills. It is with interest that I research what has historically been found to work and not work with regards to practical and purposeful evaluation procedures that, in and of themselves, should reflect thoroughness but also serve as an integral component of good writing. The Whole Picture versus Isolated Elements Surely on opposite ends of the English education spectrum are the camps who advocate subjectivity and overall quality of writing and those who approach writing with analytic reductionism. Holistic proponents value writing in terms of its ultimate expression while reductionists believe that the whole is merely a sum of its parts (White, 18). Holistic assessment contradicts the notions of not only evaluating writing as a series of independent skills but also multiple choice testing as a means of determining writing ability (testing which requires the labeling of sentence components).

African American Experience Essay

After the civil war many African Americans thought things would be different, that it would be a new beginning for them. They did gain freedom because many amendments were past so they could gain freedom. Whites didn’t like this though so they passed their own laws to prohibit these amendments and restrict their freedom. The African American experience did not get better after the civil war it actually got worse. The African American experience did not get better because the KKK was still harassing African Americans like they were before the civil war. Then black codes were passed that restricted the freedom of African Americans and then they passed poll tax because they didn’t want African Americans to vote. Another event that happened was the Tulsa race riots that destroyed the town of Greenwood and killed many African Americans. Many people believe that the African American experience got better; however, I have a different opinion. They like to argue that African Americans can vote now, but they passed the grandfather clause and poll tax. That basically made it impossible for African Americans to vote. Or they said that slavery is over so it has improved, but when they passed the black codes they were basically making them slaves again. Overall the African American experience did not improve only worsened after the civil war. The African American experience did not get better because the KKK was still harassing African Americans like they were before the civil war. Then black codes were passed that restricted the freedom of African Americans and then they passed poll tax because they didn’t want African Americans to vote. Another event that happened was the Tulsa race riots that destroyed the town of Greenwood and killed many African Americans. Many people believe that the African American experience got better; however, I have a different opinion. They like to argue that African Americans can vote now, but they passed the grandfather clause and poll tax. That basically made it impossible for African Americans to vote. Or they said that slavery is over so it has improved, but when they passed the black codes they were basically making them slaves again. Overall the African American experience did not improve only worsened after the civil war.

Which ethical principle is most prominent in your belief system Autonomy or Fidelity?

Autonomy and fidelity are both applied in my life. I am a kind of person who has strong principle in life and not easily persuade by outside forces; thus, I am also extremely faithful to what I do. However, as fidelity being describe as truthful, I would say that fidelity is more prominent in my belief system. I am very truthful in everything I do. I cherish things with all my heart. I believe that there is no autonomy when an individual does not believe in fidelity. Fidelity should come first before you will become autonomous. The individual’s principles should be strengthened with truth so that no matter how society persuade an individual to do a thing which he believe is not right, he can hold fast to what he believes in and that’s how being autonomous become visible and displayed. In addition, I believe that fidelity is not just important in relationships and friendships but also a superb requirement in serving and treating others as an act of showing love and concern. Fidelity motivates me to do what is right in the sight of our Creator and in the sight of men. It helps me not to be partial with my dealings with other people but with genuine intentions. It gives me, too, a motivation not to betray the trust of other people especially those who are so dear in my heart. Moreover, most people nowadays are having the hard time in facing their own feelings. I must say that I am a kind of an individual who does not run away from the truth. I have the courage and strength to face the reality because that is what fidelity has taught me.

The Decline of the West Essay Example

The Decline of the West Essay Example The Decline of the West Essay The Decline of the West Essay fragile, and now when loans and debt are becoming more and more spread you can fall even harder. This is well illustrated in the story where Mike uses more money than he has, to satisfy his family, and then he suddenly loses his Job. Exactly this happened to lots and lots of people after and during the financial crisis which caused an obscure number of firings. One of the other negative aspects of capitalism being described is how Mike neglects being a role model for his sons and prioritizes making money to provide for his family by working many hours. The increased unemployment has also lead to more suicide cases over the past years, which goes through Mikes mind as well, on the day hes got fired: For a second he believed he was crashing onto his back and would break his neck. How easy it was to fall, and how tempting it was suddenly would be best to die! (T. 1, p. 3, Ill. 99-101). The text is very skeptical regarding capitalism, and of course it is not flawless, but the question is if the is an ideal ideology at all, I highly doubt it. There will always be lobal issues, and there will always be people criticizing the political system. Mistakes will be made, and the task is to learn from them and not make the same mistakes in the future. Concerning the individual families, there should be less focus on materialism, resulting in spending less money, taking fewer loans, less debt and therefore less pressure to make money. But that is highly unrealistic since most people today simply need materialistic improvement, and much of the economy depend on people consistently buying new products.

Miles Davis contribution to African American music

Miles Davis contribution to African American music The history of African American music is long and rich in content. This is why the question about who qualifies as the greatest African American musician of all time always elicits big debates. When it comes to the greatest African American musician of all time, more than a dozen names come up. There are those who came earlier like Duke Ellington, Louis Armstrong, and Charlie Parker.Advertising We will write a custom essay sample on Miles Davis contribution to African American music specifically for you for only $16.05 $11/page Learn More Then there are later participants like Al Green, Jimi Hendrix, and Marvin Gaye. Both lists feature personalities of great talent. Most of these musicians qualify for the title of the greatest musician. However, when it comes to modern music, I believe Jazz musician Miles Davis deserves this title. Miles, a Jazz trumpeter has his origins in Missouri. This paper will trace Miles’ roots, his career, his contribution to African American music, and his influences. Unlike most African Americans of his time, Miles was brought up in a wealthy household. He was born in 1926 in Alton Illinois. His father Henry Davis was a successful dentist. His family owned a big town house as well as a 100-acre ranch. In his younger days, Miles frequented the ranch where he loved to ride horses. When he was young, Davis’ mother wanted her son to learn how to play the piano. However, when he was about thirteen years old, his father gave him a trumpet. After noting the young boy’s interest in the instrument, Miles’ father decided to hire a tutor for his son. Therefore, St. Louis’ musician Elwood Buchanan became Mile’s first trumpet teacher. Buchanan was the one who taught Miles how to play the trumpet without vibrato. Miles used this style throughout his career. Miles Davis was once quoted commenting on the role music played in his life. He said that music was â€Å"like a curse† to him because it dominated his every thought. However, as a young boy Miles dreamt of being a baseball player. This all changed when his father gave him his first trumpet. At Lincoln high school, Miles’ talent was well known. It is said that his first encounters with jazz were on St. Louis-Mississippi’s riverboats where artists were paid to entertain commuters.Advertising Looking for essay on art and design? Let's see if we can help you! Get your first paper with 15% OFF Learn More Miles showed great talent when it came to playing the Trumpet. By the time he was seventeen years old, Miles had already managed to penetrate the music society. When in high school, Miles used to follow the performances of Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie. Finally, the two musicians asked Miles to replace a sick trumpeter in their band. This incident marked Miles’ first appearance with a popular band. After a few gigs with Charlie Parker’s band, Mile s moved to New York to study music. This was right after he had graduated from high school and Miles thought that a chance to study classical music at the prestigious Juilliard Music School would help launch his career. After arriving in New York, Miles sought to continue his music relationship with Tony Parker. After he succeeded in doing so, Miles would be a student in the daytime and a professional musician at night. It was during these night jam sessions at Harlem nightclubs that he got the chance to interact with several musicians. Later in his career, he ended up collaborating with most of these musicians. Mile Davis is considered a pioneer of bebop style of jazz. However, this style was invented by Charlie Parker one of Miles’ earliest jazz influences (Gridley and Cutler 34). This style would later be one of the main influences of modern jazz. When studying music at Juilliard, Miles had a hard time adjusting to the school’s mostly European Classical music curric ulum. It is possibly the reason why Miles opted to drop out of the school with his father’s blessings. However, in his biography Miles admitted to benefitting greatly from the training he got during his stint at the music school. After dropping out of music school, Miles became a full time Jazz musician. The first band he worked with was Charlie Parker’s Quintet. Miles continued to work closely with Parker between 1945 and 1948. During the many times Davis recorded with Parker, it was becoming clear that he was already breaking out with a unique style. This style featured a deviation of Parker’s bebop style and it was later to be known as Cool Jazz (Meadows 98). When with Parker’s quintet band, Miles Davis had the chance of touring expansively across the United States. It was during one of such tours in Los Angeles that Parker suffered a mental breakdown and had to be hospitalized for a few weeks. Following Parker’s absence, Davis found himself wit hout a permanent band. It was during this period that Miles experimented and finally found his unique playing style.Advertising We will write a custom essay sample on Miles Davis contribution to African American music specifically for you for only $16.05 $11/page Learn More During this period, Davis teamed up with other jazz artists like Charles Mingus and Billy Eckstine (Stewart 197). After Parker came out of the hospital, his relationship with Miles began becoming more strained. Finally, the two parted ways in 1948. In 1949, Miles formed a band that featured his original ideas. The band incorporated extraordinary instruments such as the tuba. Using this band, Miles was able to make the first significant contribution to jazz music through his album â€Å"The Birth of Cool† (Meadows 45). His collaboration with composer and arranger Bill Evans was a significant development in the realization of this project. His band at the time consisted of musician Roach, piano player John Lewis, and Saxophone player Gerry Mulligan. Initially, there was controversy over the inclusion of white members in Miles’ band. Soon after, Miles moved on to another band that he co-lead with piano player Tad Dameron. However, Davis’ career hit a roadblock when a heroin addiction proved too hard to manage. By 1950, Miles’ recordings had become more haphazard mostly because of his drug problem. However, in 1951 he signed a deal to record for Prestige Records. His work for this label continued for the next few years. Somewhere in the mid 1950s, Davis was able to overcome his addiction and focus solely on his music. The strongest indication that he had completely recovered was during his performance of â€Å"Round Midnight† during the Newport Jazz festival in 1955. This particular performance caught the eye of executives at Columbia Records a major recording label at the time. He then signed a very prestigious deal with the company. His financial security made it possible for him to form a permanent band. In 1955, his Quintet began work on the band’s debut album at Columbia. The album was titled â€Å"Round about Midnight†. This band included drummer Philly Joe, base guitarist Paul Chambers, Saxophonist John Coltrane, and Red Garland as the pianist. His previous contract with Prestige Records was however not over and he still had some work left. This meant he had to work with two recording outfits at the time. However, his new permanent band enabled him to finish his previous commitment with Prestige Records. This band also became one of Miles most recorded outfits. Later on, Miles again teamed up with Bill Evans to work on his second project for the new label. The album was called â€Å"Miles Ahead† and it included the flugelhorn as the lead instrument.Advertising Looking for essay on art and design? Let's see if we can help you! Get your first paper with 15% OFF Learn More This album was later inducted into the Grammy hall of fame. After the release of this album in 1958, Miles Davis went to Paris where he met Cannonball Adderley an adept saxophone player. He then made the saxophonist an addition to his band making it a sextet. This new band’s first project was the album â€Å"Milestones†. In July 1958, Miles collaborated with composer Bill Evans and an orchestra to record a compilation that was known as â€Å"Porgy and Bess†. By that time Miles had began experimenting with his sextet. He was trying to make his inventions based on music-scales as opposed to chord-changes. His next album â€Å"Kind of Blue† featured some of these experimentations and it went on to become one of the most influential jazz albums to date. The album is practically his most popular recording and it managed to sell over two million copies. This is quite a milestone especially for a jazz album. From that time onwards, Miles formed a pattern of alte rnating his releases between collaborations with Evans and work with his sextet. One of his collaborations with Evans was â€Å"Sketches of Pain† an album that featured traditional Spanish music. The album was quite successful. His subsequent works mostly featured Coltrane, the sixth member of his band, as a guest. His quintet was also involved in the recording of two LP sets in 1961. In 1963, Miles recorded the album â€Å"Seven Steps to Heaven† using a completely new outfit. He featured future jazz heavy weights like Tony Williams and Ron Carter. The album performed well in both the charts and the awards circuit managing to earn a double nomination at the Grammys. Using a saxophonist from his 1958 band and other players from his 1963 band, Miles was able to record back-to-back successful albums. These albums featured original compositions and they include â€Å"Miles in the Sky†, â€Å"Files de Kilimanjaro†, â€Å"Sorcerer†, and â€Å"Nefertitià ¢â‚¬  In the following years, Miles kept alternating between old and new band members. With his new album of 1969 â€Å"In a Silent Way†, Miles was able to come up with an original Jazz-rock fusion. â€Å"Bitches Brew† was the most successful album that featured this new genre. In 1971, he was able to record five albums using this popular genre. In the following year, Miles was involved in a car accident that rendered him inactive for the next five years. During this period, he fell back into alcohol and cocaine addiction. In 1980, he made a recovery from his drug addiction and made a successful comeback with â€Å"The Man with the Horn†. Thereafter, he went on a successful tour. However, by this time he was already an honorary jazz-musician godfather. The next years marked an extensive touring period for Miles. He however continued to record music. His last recording was a collaboration with the famous musician Quincy Jones. Miles Davis suffered from respirato ry complications that took his life in1991. Some of his music was released posthumously. He also managed to win a Grammy award in 1993. During his later years, Miles refused to perform his earlier recordings. When asked why he did not want to play them, he simply said that their influence was over (Iyer 56). Nevertheless, there were those who felt that his earlier work was more solid content-wise. Miles is undoubtedly one of the greatest musicians in the history of African American Music. His innovative approach to music has come to dominate modern music. The Rolling Stone magazine noted that Miles was influential in every change assumed by Jazz music from the late 1940s. His role in this change has always been controversial. There is no other musician in the history of Jazz music that came close to Miles in terms of influence. His â€Å"Kind of Blue† album is still the best selling jazz album to date (OMeally 135). The album was also recognized by the United States House of Representatives. Miles has influenced tens of jazz musicians. Many other musicians also rose to prominence after being members of Miles’ ensembles. One of the things that made Miles such a great performer was his incorporation of traditional African American Music into his work. For instance, his love for Blues was particularly great. Miles also managed to preserve some of the greatest elements of African American music in his recordings over the four decades he was active. Gridley, Mark and David Cutler. Jazz Styles, Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1978. Print. Iyer, Vijay. Microtiming in African-American Music. Music Perception 19.3 (2002): 387- 414. Print. Meadows, Eddie. Bebop to Cool: Context, Ideology, and Musical Identity, New York: Praeger Publishers, 2003. Print. OMeally, Robert. The Jazz Cadence of American Culture, New York: Columbia University Press, 1998. Print. Stewart, Earl. African American Music: An Introduction, New York: Schirmer Books, 1998. Print.

Understanding Owner vs. Parent in Delphi Applications

Understanding Owner vs. Parent in Delphi Applications Every time you place a panel on a form and a button on that panel you make an invisible connection. The Form becomes the owner of the Button, and the Panel is set to be its parent. Every Delphi component has an Owner property. The Owner takes care of freeing the owned components when it is being freed. Similar, but different, the Parent property indicates the component that contains the child component. Parent Parent refers to the component that another component is contained in, such as TForm, TGroupBox or a TPanel. If one control (parent) contains others, the contained controls are child controls of the parent. Parent determines how the component is displayed. For example, the Left and Top properties are all relative to the Parent. The Parent property can be assigned and changed during run-time. Not all components have the Parent. Many forms do not have a Parent. For example, forms that appear directly on the Windows desktop have Parent set to nil. A components HasParent method returns a boolean value indicating whether or not the component has been assigned a parent. We use the Parent property to get or set the parent of a control. For example, place two panels (Panel1, Panel2) on a form and place one button (Button1) on the first panel (Panel1). This sets Buttons Parent property to Panel1. Button1.Parent : Panel2; If you place the above code in the OnClick event for the second Panel, when you click Panel2 the button jumps from Panel1 to Panel2: Panel1 is no longer the Parent for the Button. When you want to create a TButton at run-time, it is important that we remember to assign a parent - the control that contains the button. For a component to be visible, it must have a parent to display itself within. ParentThis and ParentThat If you select a button at design time and look at the Object Inspector youll notice several Parent-aware properties. The ParentFont, for example, indicates whether the Font used for the Buttons caption is the same as the one used for the Buttons parent (in the previous example: Panel1). If ParentFont is True for all Buttons on a Panel, changing the panel’s Font property to Bold causes all Buttons caption on the Panel to use that (bold) font. Controls Property All components that share the same Parent are available as part of the Controls property of that Parent. For example, Controls may be used to iterate over all the children of the windowed control. The next piece of code can be used to hide all the contained components on Panel1: for ii : 0 to Panel1.ControlCount - 1 do   Ã‚  Panel1.Controls[ii].Visible : false; Tricking Tricks Windowed controls have three basic characteristics: they can receive the input focus, they use system resources, and they can be parents to other controls. For example, the Button component is a windowed control and cannot be the parent to some other component - you cant place another component on it. The thing is that Delphi hides this feature from us. An example is the hidden possibility for a TStatusBar to have some components like TProgressBar on it. Ownership First, note that a Form is the overall Owner of any components that reside on it (positioned on the form at design-time). This means that when a form is destroyed, all the components on the form are also destroyed. For example, if we have an application with more that one form when we call the Free or Release method for a form object, we do not have to worry about explicitly freeing all of the objects on that form- because the form is the owner of all its components. Every component we create, at design or run time, must be owned by another component. The owner of a component- the value of its Owner property- is determined by a parameter passed to the Create constructor when the component is created. The only other way to re-assign the Owner is using the InsertComponent/RemoveComponent methods during run-time. By default, a form owns all components on it and is in turn owned by the Application. When we use the keyword Self as the parameter for the Create method- the object we are creating is owned by the class that the method is contained in- which is usually a Delphi form. If on the other hand, we make another component (not the form) the owner of the component, then we are making that component responsible for disposing of the object when it is destroyed. As like any other Delphi component, custom made TFindFile component can be created, used and destroyed at run time. To create, use and free a TFindFile component at run, you can use the next code snippet: uses FindFile;...var FFile : TFindFile;procedure TForm1.InitializeData;begin //form (Self) is the Owner of the component   //there is no Parent since this   //is an unvisible component.   FFile : TFindFile.Create(Self) ;   ... end; Note: Since the FFile is created with an owner (Form1), we dont need to do anything to free the component- it will be freed when the owner is destroyed. Components Property All components that share the same Owner are available as part of the Components property of that Owner. The following procedure is used to clear all the Edit components that are on the form: procedure ClearEdits(AForm: TForm) ;var   Ã‚  ii : Integer; begin   Ã‚  for ii : 0 to AForm.ComponentCount-1 do   Ã‚  if (AForm.Components[ii] is TEdit) then TEdit(AForm.Components[ii]).Text : ;end; Orphans Some controls (such as ActiveX controls) are contained in non-VCL windows rather than in a parent control. For these controls, the value of Parent is nil and the ParentWindow property specifies the non-VCL parent window. Setting ParentWindow moves the control so that it is contained in the specified window. ParentWindow is set automatically when a control is created using the CreateParented method. The truth is that in most cases you do not need to care about Parents and Owners, but when it comes to OOP and component development or when you want to take Delphi one step forward the statements in this article will help you to take that step faster.

Do the requirements of IFRS 8 Operating Segments enhance the quality Assignment

Do the requirements of IFRS 8 Operating Segments enhance the quality of information available to financial statement users - Assignment Example IFRS 8 states that an operating segment is a component of any organization that engages in business activities that earn revenue. The entity’s operating results must also be regularly reviewed by the chief operating decision maker. In addition, the entity must have discrete financial information. In business, an operating segment is that an independent unit that produces discriminated revenue thus necessitating preparation of separate books of transactions. It helps companies to track their performance in different areas of the market (IFRS 8 website). The paper discusses the reasons why the provision of segmental information is useful, current requirements of IFRS 8 and how they differ with other past and present accounting standards. It also presents the evidence as to whether the current requirements increase the quality of information available to users of financial statements. A good number of market participants and stakeholders are usually interested in the disclosures of information regarding the operating segments of the company. The provision of segmental information ensures that users of financial statements access information relating to the firm’s past performance, their risks and returns so as to be able to make informed decision or judgment about the entity in entirety (Christian & LüDenbach, 2013, p. 451). It ensures that users of information easily access the information regarding performance and prospects of the particular part of the entity that which they are interested. The stakeholders need to consider separate prospects and performance of each sector so as to be able to estimate the performance of the entire enterprise fully. Provision of segmental information ensures transparency. Transparency is the cornerstone of any corporate financial reporting because analysts and other stakeholders require complete and accurate information to assess the growth and

Bussines writing Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

Bussines writing - Essay Example In fact, spending thousands of dollars on leases can be cut off already because one can use his own home to sell whatever products or services one has to offer through social networking sites or blogs. People venturing into business sure have a great advantage with the wide use of the internet these days. More and more people are advertising to their friends the products they have, for free over social networking sites like facebook and twitter, send the orders via express delivery and get paid through the bank. Such manner saves a lot of money on the part of the seller with the advantages mentioned earlier and on the part of the buyer, the time and money spent on travelling to malls to get the desired product. The internet also widens the area a business can cover because friends around the world could know and buy the products and services offered online and can also tell other friends about it if they are satisfied, which saves and earns more money to the businessman. With this circumstance, it would be very logical for a business person to engage in business through the internet not only because of the prospect of cutting expenses on renting a space but more importantly the la rge number of possible

See requirements Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2500 words

See requirements - Essay Example llying with his wife lovingly during their separation on raising a son just like his father who wanted to get rid of the suitors who harassed his life and mothers life and wifes life, Odysseus has lead the life of a Greek warrior who believed that fighting wars is just a manner of appreciating the powers given to man by the gods and a way of showing himself that he lead the life of a decent man who showed perfect control of his lifes wisdom of existence and mentality, although the gods did not appreciate his believing that he had won the wards because he was fit to and not because he was backed up by the gods. The adventure is a way of saying to him that giving up in front of unjust gods would lead humanity to suffering. This is the case that portrayed the adventures he went through to his home from Troy. He lived and was alone for the rest of the journey since he left the oceans which killed his friends and warriors at sea by sea monsters, Odysseus grows to appreciate his life more throughout the journey as he knows that his wife and son are awaiting him, which is a way of believing in the reason to exist and appreciate ones own intellectual powers to face his own fate even if it means standing up in front of gods who do not appreciate mans believing in himself and his own freely willed powers of himself which are given to him by them and that they had nothing to do with his victories. Odysseus proves throughout the journey that madness is not in going to hell to ask for directions to find his way homewards with a sacrificial goat for the dead but in not taking such a step to free men who had nothing to do with the fate he had been put in but because of a personal opinion he has given which has put him in the fate and put others fates in his hands. He was given the position of a god deciding in front and against gods of what hed do with his wisdom to free or kill his companions and end his treasured memory of life with his wife and child before going to war wh ich

Energy Sources Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Energy Sources - Essay Example Surprisingly enough, the number of supporters of this source of energy was still high among the American participants of the McRumours forum that discussed the pros/cons of the nuclear energy use a few days after the Fukushima disaster.Apart from financial benefits, it is often said that nuclear power is environmentally friendly. For example, Steven Kerekesfrom the U.S. Nuclear Energy Institute believes that nuclear power generation plays a prominent role in the reduction of carbon emissions around the world. However, the arguments in favor of the nuclear energy use seem lame if one considers the arguments against it.The financial benefits are evidently outweighed by health risks associated with dealing with nuclear power waste and meltdown. While a generation of power seems relatively clean if compared to fossil fuels, the by-products need to be stored for hundreds of years in secluded facilities, some of which are situated â€Å"deep inside the mountains†. Given the fact tha t high-level radioactive waste has to be kept for hundreds of thousands of years till it is recognized safe to be released into the environment, opponents of nuclear waste rightfully contend that in reality there does not exist a place in the world which is truly safe. Indeed, as Jim Riccio, Nuclear Energy Campaign Director for Greenpeace, says â€Å"nothing you put the waste in will last longer than the waste itself, so burying it basically acquiesces to the fact that it will eventually leak†¦.just like every other radioactive dump site.†... participants of the McRumours forum that discussed the pros/cons of the nuclear energy use a few days after the Fukushima disaster (â€Å"McRumors Forum†, 2011, [online]).Apart from financial benefits, it is often said that nuclear power is environmentally friendly. For example, Steven Kerekesfrom the U.S. Nuclear Energy Institute believes that nuclear power generation plays a prominent role in reduction of carbon emissions around the world. It does not affect the climate, therefore it is quite clean and safe, Kerekes said in his interview to Earth Techling back in 2010 (DeFreitas, 2010, [online]). However, the arguments in favor of the nuclear energy use seem lame if one considers the arguments against it.The financial benefits are evidently outweighed by health risks associated with dealing with nuclear power waste and meltdown. While generation of power seems relatively clean if compared to fossil fuels, the byproducts need to be stored for hundreds of years in secluded fac ilities, some of which are situated â€Å"deep inside the mountains† (â€Å"Nuclear Power: Risks and Rewards†, 2012, [online]). Given the fact that high-level radioactive waste has to be kept for hundreds of thousands of years till it is recognized safe to be released into the environment, opponents of nuclear waste rightfully contend that in reality there does not exist a place in the world which is truly safe. Indeed, as Jim Riccio, Nuclear Energy Campaign Director for Greenpeace, says â€Å"nothing you put the waste in will last longer than the waste itself, so burying it basically acquiesces to the fact that it will eventually leak†¦.just like every other radioactive dump site.† (DeFreitas, 2010, [online]). Apart from this, the aftermaths of nuclear accidents that occasionally happen throughout

Economics of the Forex Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Economics of the Forex - Essay Example Starting from the year 1979, the Exchange Rate Mechanism -- ERM of the European Monetary System -- EMS has played a vital role in developing the foundation of the Monetary policy strategies in Europe and it has been a very striving research in the international monetary and exchange rate cooperation of the post-Breton Woods times. There has been a radical change in the nature of ERM, which is from a very fixed exchange rate with a limited mobility of the international capital to the 'hard' exchange rate mechanism which was approved by the Basle-Nyborg agreement in 1987 (Financial Markets and European Monetary Cooperation: The Lessons of the 1992-1993 ERM Crisis)During the end of the 1980's the gratified performance of this 'hard' exchange rate mechanism earned the confidence and increased the general appeal of a more total transformation of the system which was expected to result in agreement and a happening of unification. However, during 1992 a downfall on the past achievements occ urred and also undermined the process towards European Monetary Union. Thus an ERM crisis occurred between 1992 and 1993 are said to be the most historical events in the then monetary history of Europe. Thus their source, effects and inferences are one of the most important events in the current academic and political debates through out the world.The European monetary system was formulated with two major components: namely the European Currency Unit and a fixed exchange rate system known as the Exchange Rate Mechanism. ... as to whether the 1992 Exchange Rate Mechanism crisis in UK occurred due to the European monetary system being predictable, or whether it was caused due to the rising of the international financial markets May be the answers for these questions are in relevance to debates about the international financial and economic policies through out the world. These answers could also reveal the overall economic policy and the exchange rate regimes and there role on the 1992 ERM crisis. Considering a bipolar array where the hard exchange regimes on one side which involved pegged exchange rates, currency boards, taking in of another country's currency are more demanding than the flexible rate regimes. Another major point is that there cannot be any regime that can predict and offer a complete solution to the financial and economic changes that the country will undergo. (Truman, 2002) The ERM crisis was the first of its kind in the current century in terms of both private and official monetary circulation both during the crisis and also before the crisis. It could also be said as the first kind of crisis that occurred in terms of market and financial securities, derivative instruments and the financial market dynamics in the wake of building up the crisis. In view of the ERM crisis the European exchange rate regimes continued strongly support the view of pegged exchange rate mechanism. During the crisis countries and its investors were bailed out with exceptional amounts of official financing. But after the crisis the European government followed a very stringer way of its official financial management in the years that followed. (Truman, 2002) There is always a tension that reflects in every ongoing debate on the relative roles of economic fundamentals and the behaviour of

Energy Sources Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Energy Sources - Essay Example Surprisingly enough, the number of supporters of this source of energy was still high among the American participants of the McRumours forum that discussed the pros/cons of the nuclear energy use a few days after the Fukushima disaster.Apart from financial benefits, it is often said that nuclear power is environmentally friendly. For example, Steven Kerekesfrom the U.S. Nuclear Energy Institute believes that nuclear power generation plays a prominent role in the reduction of carbon emissions around the world. However, the arguments in favor of the nuclear energy use seem lame if one considers the arguments against it.The financial benefits are evidently outweighed by health risks associated with dealing with nuclear power waste and meltdown. While a generation of power seems relatively clean if compared to fossil fuels, the by-products need to be stored for hundreds of years in secluded facilities, some of which are situated â€Å"deep inside the mountains†. Given the fact tha t high-level radioactive waste has to be kept for hundreds of thousands of years till it is recognized safe to be released into the environment, opponents of nuclear waste rightfully contend that in reality there does not exist a place in the world which is truly safe. Indeed, as Jim Riccio, Nuclear Energy Campaign Director for Greenpeace, says â€Å"nothing you put the waste in will last longer than the waste itself, so burying it basically acquiesces to the fact that it will eventually leak†¦.just like every other radioactive dump site.†... participants of the McRumours forum that discussed the pros/cons of the nuclear energy use a few days after the Fukushima disaster (â€Å"McRumors Forum†, 2011, [online]).Apart from financial benefits, it is often said that nuclear power is environmentally friendly. For example, Steven Kerekesfrom the U.S. Nuclear Energy Institute believes that nuclear power generation plays a prominent role in reduction of carbon emissions around the world. It does not affect the climate, therefore it is quite clean and safe, Kerekes said in his interview to Earth Techling back in 2010 (DeFreitas, 2010, [online]). However, the arguments in favor of the nuclear energy use seem lame if one considers the arguments against it.The financial benefits are evidently outweighed by health risks associated with dealing with nuclear power waste and meltdown. While generation of power seems relatively clean if compared to fossil fuels, the byproducts need to be stored for hundreds of years in secluded fac ilities, some of which are situated â€Å"deep inside the mountains† (â€Å"Nuclear Power: Risks and Rewards†, 2012, [online]). Given the fact that high-level radioactive waste has to be kept for hundreds of thousands of years till it is recognized safe to be released into the environment, opponents of nuclear waste rightfully contend that in reality there does not exist a place in the world which is truly safe. Indeed, as Jim Riccio, Nuclear Energy Campaign Director for Greenpeace, says â€Å"nothing you put the waste in will last longer than the waste itself, so burying it basically acquiesces to the fact that it will eventually leak†¦.just like every other radioactive dump site.† (DeFreitas, 2010, [online]). Apart from this, the aftermaths of nuclear accidents that occasionally happen throughout

Causes of Stomach Ulcer Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1750 words

Causes of Stomach Ulcer - Research Paper Example It is a common convention that people didn’t identify the features of stomach ulcer until it becomes acute. Early discovery and remedy can secure one from intensified pain even death.   The objective of this research is the examinations of distinctive factors of stomach ulcers, it symptoms, diagnose, and experimental method involved in the case studies. It is believed, H. pyloric and NSAIDs are the potential risk factor behind stomach ulcer;  it interrupts the  stomach’s ability of covering itself from the perilous effect of stomach acids. Therefore, the sensitive layer of a stomach becomes  approachable for the stomach  acid, consequences in stomach ulcer. Introduction The most dilated and important constituent of the digestive system is stomach. It is situated in the midst of the esophagus and small intestine, i.e. in the epigastric, umbilical and left hypochondriac regions of the abdomen. However, due to the property of exact position and shape of the stoma ch is undefined (A). The primary functions of the stomach include; storage of foods and to form chyme by breaking it down with the aid enzymatic effect of pepsin and peptidase. Stomach ulcers (SU) and stomach cancer are the most prevalent diseases of a stomach. Stomach ulcers also known as peptic ulcer, it is the disease of elder people specially men. SU is opening sores in the lining of upper gastrointestinal tract (GIT) and usually occur due to acidity. Gastric ulcers and duodenal ulcers are the two type of stomach ulcer. The difference between them lies in the affected area, i.e. location of the ulcer. Those ulcers which are present in a stomach are referred as gastric ulcers, whereas duodenal ulcers are present at the duodenum the beginning of a small intestine. Position of ulcer and its magnified cross section is depicted in the Figure 1. Statistician predicts more than 25 million will suffer through a peptic ulcer, and if it remains untreated. SU may become life threatening as well. SU affect around 4 million people every year, forty thousand undergoes surgery because of intensified pain and around six thousand people dies in United States of American only per annum (A). Figure (1): Depicting Gastric and Duodenal ulcer It believes that SU is principally caused by bacterial epidemic, i.e. H. Pylori infection, nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs and due to unknown reasons (B). Since, SU is reported to be life threatening diseases, if remain uncured. Therefore, studies concerning the timely diagnose; cure and causes behind ulcer are the demand of today. The intention of this research is to analyse causes of ulcer, its symptoms, diagnose and experimental  processes in case studies of SU. Symtoms of Stomach Ulcer Listed below are the most common symptoms of SU. 1. Loss of appetite 2. Frequent stomach burning 3. Loss of weight 4. Vague stomach pain, and 5. Bloody vomitting If one is suffering from any of the named symptoms, he/she must undergo proper medica l checks for early prognosis of SU. Early diagnoses of SU are pivotal because usually  SU affects the surrounding nerves, resulted in intensified pain and anemia. Further, it may cause bleeding, hemorrhages, and obstruction if GIT due to bulging of the affected area. Causes of Stomach Ulcer The fiction of tangy diets, worrying, stress, etc. as a potential factor behind SU proved counterfeit in 1982, when two doctors Barry Marshall and Robin Warren presented their Nobel Prize discovery. They uncovered Helicobacter pylori (H. Pylori) are the cause behind Ulcer. It is believed that nearly all ulcers are advanced due to H. Pylori, remaining are caused by NSAIDS (such as aspirin, and ibuprofen), and other reasons. However, NSAIDs causes an ulcer once in a moon but almost all

Her body, her baby, her choice Essay Example for Free

Her body, her baby, her choice Essay Abortion, it’s not a choice that any woman would ever want to have to make, but it’s a decision that she should have the right to make. If it comes down to the possibility of her and her baby losing their lives, she should be able to stop this possibly fatal pregnancy. The body is hers, the baby is hers, and the choice should be hers. If you disagree, make the choice for your own body. Abortion should be legal. What people may not realize is that, legal or not, abortion still happens all around the world. Of the approximately 42 million abortions that do occur worldwide, almost half are performed by unskilled individuals, in environments that do not meet minimum medical standards or both. † (http://www. guttmacher. org/pubs/gpr/12/4/gpr120402. html). Unsafe and illegal abortion is responsible for one in eight maternal deaths and according to an estimate done by the World Health Organization in 2006 ‘back alley’ abortions cause about 68,000 deaths each year where abortion isn’t legal. There is no question that making abortion illegal in places such as the United States, will only make these numbers increase greatly. It’s no secret that raising a child requires mass amounts of money that many women who get pregnant don’t have, especially if they have no partner to help them out. Poor and low income women account for more than half of abortions in the United States. Without the option to get an abortion, there would be many more children suffering because they have to live their life in poverty. Almost half of all children with a single mother live in poverty, these children experience poverty at a rate that is more than four times higher than kids in married-couple families. Although, it is believed that â€Å"abortion legalization may have led to an improvement in the average living conditions of children, probably by reducing the numbers of youngsters who would have lived in single-parent families, lived in poverty, received welfare and died as infants. † (https://www. guttmacher. org/pubs/journals/3402502. html) Many people who are against abortion don’t take into consideration that not all women are able to safely give birth to a child and the risk of death associated with childbirth is about 10 times as high as the risk of death associated with  abortion. For example, teen girls aged around 15-19 years old have bodies that are not yet ready for childbirth. These girls are five times more likely to die, with around 70,000 of them dying annually. Their babies that do survive still have a 60% higher chance of dying than normal babies. With so much uncertainty, why shouldn’t they have the option to prevent themselves and their own parents the pain of losing a child. Many people believe that women are using abortion as a form of birth control. That they believe that they no longer need to be cautious because they can go pop over to the doctors to get an abortion whenever. However, this isn’t the case and, more often than not, women who get abortions were on some sort of birth control. Though, with any birth control there is almost always a chance of it not working properly and you becoming pregnant. Only less than one in ten women getting abortions weren’t on any sort of birth control. Making abortion illegal forces women who may have taken many precautions to not become pregnant to have a child that they don’t want and makes it so that an unwanted child is born into this world. This would not be fair to the woman or the child. Something that many people who oppose to abortion believe is that abortion, spontaneous or induced, raises the risk of breast cancer or any other type of cancer. There have been many, many studies done studies by various people such as the National Registry of Induced Abortions, the Danish Cancer Registry, Harvard researchers, and The California Teachers Study. The large size of most of the studies and the manner in which they were done provide good evidence that induced labor does not affect a woman’s risk of developing breast cancer. In 2003, the U. S. National Cancer Institute had a workshop with more than 100 of the world’s leading experts who study pregnancy and breast cancer risk. They all found that neither induced or spontaneous abortion are linked to an increase in breast cancer risk; the level of scientific evidence for these findings was considered the highest level, ‘well established’. Abortion should be legal because it saves many women’s lives from unsafe abortion, it can save families from lifelong poverty and it may save the lives of women who are unable to safely give birth to children. In a country that is based on freedom; freedom of speech, freedom of religion, individual freedom, why should this situation be any different? A law based off of a religious belief isn’t something that this country stands for, a law that prevents women from making decisions about her own body should not be a law in this country.

Divorce Separation Children

Divorce Separation Children Divorce is the separation of husband and wife after being legally married. Most times the divorce process is very painful to the couples, but the most affected are the children who lack the mechanism to fully comprehend the basis of their parents separation. This paper is going to look at the effects of this process depending on the age of the child. Introduction The separation of a husband and wife in a divorce situation can have serious and devastating effects not only for the separating couples but to the children as well. Often times the divorcing couples are too consumed with their own emotional burdens to clearly understand the trauma the divorce causes to the children. Children seemingly bear the brunt of the separation especially psychologically. (Emery, R. E., 96) However, not all divorces end up hurting children. Children in an abusive and violent marriage may in fact be spared much of the physiological torture if the parents just separated. Thus divorce can sometimes be a welcome process for the well being of the children. (Emery, R. E., 126) Various studies have in fact indicated that some children actually thrive better after being brought up in a divorce environment. Children become more responsible and loving especially because they are raised by a single parent. However, it is critical to note that the negative effects much more outweigh the positive effects. (Emery, R. E., 46) So, how are children affected by divorce? Sociologists, psychologists and other researchers have continued to study out this question and sometimes it has generated so much controversy. But all agree that indeed divorce most often times is not good for children especially when the family unit is put at risk. Studies have continued to show that children equate divorce to the pain of death of one of the parent. The experience itself brings great loss, sadness, grief and in many cases confusion to the affected children. Children may also end up blaming themselves for what has happened and tend to think that parents do not love them any more. (Emery, R. E.,123) Research world over has continued to indicate that the effects of divorce differ because of various factors; depends on the age of the child at the time of divorce, gender and personality of the child, the level of family/friends support and the extent of the conflict between the parents Age of children Divorce does not have any serious effects on children less than 3 years. Children below this age might not have the opportunity to understand conflict and might not have developed so much of a serious relationship with one of the parents. Nevertheless, if the relationship had established a bond, it may have some short-term effects. The only thing that might affect these children is the low mood and energy level of the parent albeit for a short while. This effect may be characterized by appetite lose, or upset stomach including vomiting. (Emery, R. E., 132) Children between 3-5 years are in a position to understand conflict and divorce will have an obvious effect on their well-being. Children at this age end up believing that they are the cause of the divorce, and blame themselves for it. For example they might reason out that if they ate their dinner or obeyed when told to do so, daddy wouldnt have left. The children at this age fear being left alone and would behave like toddlers by unknowingly wetting their beds, wanting their security blankets and old toys. They may end up being depressed, angry and uncooperative. They may also resort to aggressive and disobedient behavior. (Emery, R. E., 135) Children at the age of 6-10 years are school-age children. Many psychologists believe that this is the worst age where the effects of divorce are felt. Children at this age have the capacity to understand the pain brought about by the separation of the parents. However, they lack the capability to understand how to control their reactions to the pain caused. (Emery, R. E., 142) The school-aged children may experience severe psychological turmoil like embarrassment, grief, resentment, divided loyalty and at times intense anger. They may also feel rejected by the leaving parent and have cases of stomachaches and headaches. These children can cope easily with the situation if they get involved actively with play and other activities with their peers (Emery, R. E., 145) Children aged between 10-16 are already pre-teens or teens and are now adolescents. They are in a position to understand the reasons leading up to the divorce. This is because they can easily remember the stress and conflict preceding such a divorce. Such ability to remember may at the some time interfere with the capability to handle the changes that occur in the family. (Emery, R. E., 155) The teen may also be faced with emotional strain because of the pressure of trying to side with one parent as opposed to the other. This would involve faulting one parent over the other as the sole cause for the divorce. (Emery, R. E., 156) At this age they are likely to experience anger, depression, loneliness and guilt. They also end up taking various responsibilities to fill in the gap the parent has left. Such responsibilities would include house chores and caring for other siblings. This may make them feel pushed to adult-hood. Some in response to the low energy and high stress levels from the parent may want to take control of the family. The teens at this time also would be undergoing various sexual changes and may get affected because of lack of parental support. (Emery, R. E., 159) Witnessing the pain of divorce may also have serious implication on the teens perception on how well they would stay in a marriage in the future. (Emery, R. E., 159) Gender effects Various research findings have revealed that gender of the child plays a significant role on the effects of divorce on the respective children. It has been seen that boys raised by their fathers and girls raised by their mothers do better than vice versa. Boys of school age, who live with their fathers, seem to be less aggressive and have low emotional problems compared to boys living with their mothers who lack any contact with the fathers. (Emery, R. E., 164) On the other hand, girls raised by their mothers seem to be more responsible and mature than those ones raised by the fathers. (Emery, R. E., 164) Conclusion All said and done divorce has devastating and traumatic effects on the children. However the society at large has the responsibility of making it easier for the children. When parents are well supported through the divorce process especially how to incorporate the children can play a major role to alleviate serious implications. The most important thing for the children would be to adjust to the changes and the quality of child-parent relationship would come in handy Works Cited Emery, R. E. (1988): Marriage, divorce and childrens adjustments. Newbury Park,CA:Sage.

Cloning And Embryo Research :: essays research papers fc

Cloning and Embryo Research: The Science Fiction Reality   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  The idea of cloning a life form seemed like something read from a science fiction novel just ten years ago. Now, the theories, ideas and facts of cloning embryos have made cloning one of the most talked about social issues of our time. The researchers of this scientific breakthrough have made a lot of progress in recent years. Many have heard of Dolly, the cloned sheep, and that’s just the tip of the ice burg. This is undoubtedly the biggest and most recent breakthrough science has seen in some time. Cloning research started in Scotland. According to an article in Science News Online, â€Å"Scottish investigators grew embryo cells of Welsh mountain sheep in the laboratory. During a relatively stable stage of the cell cycle, they transferred 244 of the nuclei to the stripped-down eggs of Scottish blackface ewes† (Adler Par. 8). These nuclei had a full set of chromosomes, so fertilizing the eggs was not necessary. They then gave the eggs an electric shock to â€Å"initiate development† (Adler Par. 9). This was done after years of endless research. There was extensive research done in the area of embryo stem cells. Scientists have used such mouse stem cells for nearly a decade to create genetically altered mice (Travis Par. 8). Kaye Tucker of World Socialist Web Site writes, â€Å"These basic cells are present in the earliest stages of developing embryos and are able to develop into virtually any type of cell and tissue in the body† (Par. 3). This is where genes can be altered and clones can be made. It has been a hard task locating and being able to work with these stem cells because they are only around for a short time (Tucker Par. 6). The possibilities for new research are endless. Other than a social issue, the idea of cloning has become a moral issue. Many have asked the question, ‘Should we clone humans?’, and more have answered it. There are many who have strong opinions on the subject. Senator Sam Brownback of Kansas is quoted as saying, â€Å"The prospect of government-sponsored experiments to manipulate and destroy human embryos should make us all lie awake at night† (â€Å"Embryo† Par. 5). Researchers have been and wish to continue using surplus embryos for experimentation. Most of the breakthroughs made have been done using donated embryos (Tucker Par. 9). This moral issue has also come up in many theological discussions.

History Vietnam Controlled Assessment Essay

P1 Para-starter: Use of Defoliation to win hearts and minds. Point 1: Causes birth defects  Evidence: â€Å"Agent Orange is fifty times more concentrated than normal agricultural herbicides; this extreme intensity completely destroyed all plants in the area. Agent Orange not only had devastating effects on agriculture but also on people and animals. The Vietnam Red Cross recorded over 4.8 million deaths and 400,000 children born with birth defects due to exposure to Agent Orange. (http://vietnamawbb.weebly.com/napalm-agent-orange.html) Explanation: So it affected South Vietnam negatively, caused them to hate US and feel sympathy for VC. Evidence 2: Point 2: Use of napalm strikes Evidence: â€Å"Fail grey smoke where they’d burnt off the rice fields, brilliant white smoke from phosphorus, and deep black smoke from napalm. They said that if you stood at the base of the column it would suck the air right out of your lungs.† (Sauvain, Philip: Vietnam) Explanation: Consequently shows how bad it is from American POV so would be worse for random civilian. Evidence 2: Para-ender: Overall, defoliation is bad because it makes civilians hate US. P2 Para-starter: Use of Search and Destroy to win hearts and minds Point 1: Ruthless aggression of Americans Evidence: â€Å"Frustrated and frightened American troops settled on searching villages and destroying those instead. In most cases these villages played no role in supporting the VC.†(Demarco, Neil: Vietnam) Explanation: Because of this Americans would kill innocents (Refer to My Lai Massacre and Zippo lighters) Evidence 2: Para-ender: As a result, brutality of US caused the civilains to hate the US P3 Para-Starter: In addition, use of Search and Destroy to counter VC Point 1: VC were well prepared Evidence: â€Å"Such missions were ineffective because at the slightest hint of american activity the communist forces would slip away into the jungle.†(Bircher, Rob and May-History controlled assessment) Explanation: Shows how well prepared VC were compared to americans Evidence 2: â€Å"60%of US casualties from the war came from traps and mines† Explanation: Shows how vulnerable Americans were, demoralized American troops and failed to counter VC P4 Para-starter: Finally, Defoliation counters VC Point 1: Successful to an extent Evidence: â€Å"It is estimated that approximately 77 million litres of this acid was sprayed over Vietnam† (Rob Bircher and Steve May – History Controlled Assessment) Evidence 2:†Nearly 5.5 million acres of South Vietnamese forest and cropland†(Gibson, Michael – The war in Vietnam) Explanation: initial plan to uncover Ho Chi Minh trail, but not fully achieved. Para-ender: In Addition, they couldn’t do more damage cause communists are supported by USSR and China.

Coyote Blue Chapter 14~15

CHAPTER 14 Lies Have Lives of Their Own It took just six weeks for Samson Hunts Alone, the Crow Indian, to become Samuel Hunter, the shape-shifter. The transformation began with the cowboy on the bus mistaking Samson for a Mexican. When Samson left the bus in Elko, Nevada, and caught a ride with a racist trucker, he became white for the first time. He expected, from listening to Pokey all those years, that upon turning white he would immediately have the urge to go out and find some Indians and take their land, but the urge didn't come, so he sat by nodding as the trucker talked. By the time he got out at Sacramento, California, Samson had memorized the trucker's litany of white supremacy and was just getting into the rhythm of racism when he caught a ride with a black trucker who took amphetamines and waxed poetic about oppression, injustice, and the violent overthrow of the U.S. government by either the Black Panthers, the Teamsters, or the Temptations. Samson wasn't sure which. Samson was booted out of the truck in Santa Barbara when he suggested that perhaps killing all the whites should be put off at least until they told where they had hidden all the money. Actually, Samson was somewhat relieved to be put out; he'd only been white for a few hours and wasn't sure that he liked it well enough to die for it. His immediate concern was to get something to drink. He bought a Coke at a nearby convenience store and walked across the street to a park, where, under the boughs of a massive fig tree, amid a dozen sleeping bums, he sat down to consider his next move. Samson was just summoning up an obese case of hopelessness when a nearby bundle of rags spoke to him. â€Å"Any booze in that cup?† Samson had to stare at the oblong rag pile for a few seconds before he noticed there was a hairy face at one end. A single bloodshot eye, sparkling with hope, the only break in the gray dinge, gave the face away. â€Å"No, just Coke,† Samson said. Hope dimmed and the eye became as empty as the socket next to it. â€Å"You got any money?† the bum asked. Samson shook his head. He had only twelve dollars left; he didn't want to share it with the rag pile. â€Å"You're new here?† Samson nodded. â€Å"You a wet?† â€Å"Excuse me?† Samson said. â€Å"Are you Mexican?† Samson thought for a moment, then nodded. â€Å"You're lucky,† the bum said. â€Å"You can get work. A guy stops near here every morning with a truck – picks up guys to do yard work, but he only takes Mexicans. Says whites are too lazy.† â€Å"Are they?† Samson asked. He figured that after persecuting blacks, hiding money, stealing land, breaking treaties, and keeping themselves pure, maybe the whites were just tired. He was glad he was Mexican. â€Å"You speak pretty good English for a wet.† â€Å"Where does the guy with the truck stop? Has he been by today?† â€Å"I'm not lazy,† the bum said. â€Å"I earned a degree in philosophy.† â€Å"I'll give you a dollar,† Samson said. â€Å"I'm having trouble finding work in my field.† Samson dug a dollar out of his pocket and held it out to the bum, who snatched it and quickly secreted it among his rags. â€Å"He stops about a block from here, in front of the all-night diner.† The bum pointed down the street. â€Å"I haven't seen him go by today, but I was sleeping.† â€Å"Thanks.† Samson rose and started down the street. The bum called after him, â€Å"Hey, kid, come back tonight. I'll guard your back while you sleep if you buy a jug.† Samson waved over his shoulder. He wouldn't be back if he could avoid it. A block away he joined a group of men who were waiting at the corner when a large gate-sided truck pulled up, the back already half full of Mexicans. The man who drove the truck got out and walked around to where the men were waiting. He was short and brown and wore a straw Stetson, cowboy boots, and thick black mustache over the sly grin of a chicken thief. The men who worked for him called him patron, but ironically, the common term for his profession was Coyote. He scanned the group of men and made his choices with a nod and the crook of his finger. The men chosen, all Hispanic, jumped onto the back of the truck. The Coyote approached Samson and grabbed him by the upper arm, testing the muscle. He said something in Spanish. Samson panicked and answered him in Crow: â€Å"I'm on the lam, looking for a one-armed man that killed my wife.† To Samson's surprise, this seemed to satisfy the Coyote. The Coyote had been smuggling illegal aliens into the country for five years, and from time to time he encountered an Indian from the South, Guatemala or Honduras, who could not speak Spanish. Not being able to tell one Indian language from another, he assumed that Samson was one of these. All the better, he thought, it will take longer for him to find out. After the Coyote brought his men over the border, he gave them a place to live (two apartments in which they slept ten to a room), food (beans, tortillas, and rice), and three dollars an hour (for backbreaking work that most gringos would never consider doing). He charged his customers eight dollars per man-hour and pocketed the difference. At the end of each week he paid his men in cash, after deducting a healthy amount for food and lodging, then drove them all to the post office, where he helped them buy money orders to send home to their families, leaving them nothing for themselves. In this way the Coyote could keep a crew under his thumb for three or four months before they found out that they could make more money working at menial jobs in restaurants or hotels. Then he would have to go back to Mexico for another load. Lately, however, he had been augmenting his crew with Mexicans who had found their own way over the border, and this allowed him to stretch his time between bord er runs. The work was the hardest Samson had ever done, and at the end of the first day, back knotted and hands bloodied from swinging a pickax, he slept in the back of the truck until the patron slapped him awake and led him into the apartment to show him his cot. Sleeping in a room with nine other people was nothing new to Samson, and the food, although spicy, was plentiful and good. He fell asleep listening to the sad Spanish love songs of his co-workers and feeling very much alone. As the weeks passed he would hear the other men in the room whispering in the dark and this made him feel, even more, that he was the only person in a world of one. He had no way of knowing that they were talking about him, about how they never saw him send any money home, and about how they could take his money and no one would know because he was a dumb Indian and couldn't speak Spanish. Samson listened and imagined that they were talking about their homes and missing their families. He knew nothing of the Latin quality of machismo, which tacitly forbade the admission of a man's melancholy except in song. The plan was to wait until the boy was taking a shower, then go through his pants and take the money. If he protested, they would cut his throat and bury him on the large estate where they were terracing hills into formal gardens. Whether they would have really killed the boy was doubtful; they were good men at heart and had only turned their minds to murder because it made them feel worldly and tough. When the boy was gone their nocturnal whispers turned back to boasts of the women they would have, the cars they would buy, and the land they would own when they returned to Mexico. Samson was saved on a hot afternoon when the owner of the estate approached the Coyote while the crew was taking a break, eating cold burritos in the shade of a eucalyptus tree. â€Å"Immigration took one of the busboys in my restaurant,† the rich man said. â€Å"Do any of your guys speak English? I'll pay you to let him go.† The Coyote was shaking his head when Samson spoke up: â€Å"I speak English.† The Coyote's chicken-stealing grin dropped like a rock. He had thought that he would be able to hold on to the Indian boy for a long time, and here he had gone and learned English in his spare time. The boy was worthless now. Better to cut the loss and see what he could get. To quell their curiosity and dampen their ambition, the Coyote told the rest of the crew that the rich American had bought the boy for sexual purposes, and they all grinned knowingly as they watched Samson ride away in the long white Lincoln. Samson found that it was easier to be Mexican while working in the restaurant. The work, although fast paced, was not heavy, and he was given a cot in the storeroom to sleep on until he found a place of his own. The owner was content with speaking a pidgin English peppered with Spanish words and Samson answered him by speaking a modified version of Tonto-speak. By this time Samson had also picked up a few essential Spanish phrases (â€Å"Where are the spoons?† â€Å"We need more plates.† â€Å"Your sister fucks donkeys in Tijuana†) which helped him make friends with the Mexican dishwashers and cooks. From the moment he had arrived in Santa Barbara, a grinding homesickness began to settle in Samson's heart. When he lay in the dark storeroom at night, waiting to fall asleep, it would rise up and wash over him like a black tide, carrying with it a slithering blind predator that gnashed at the last shreds of his hope. â€Å"Forget what you know,† Pokey had told him. With this in mind he set to do battle with his rising hopelessness. He refused to think of his family, his home, or his heritage. Instead he concentrated on the conversations he overheard in the restaurant as he cleared tables and poured coffee. Because he was Mexican, and a menial laborer, he was invisible to the affluent Santa Barbara customers, who spoke openly about the most intimate details of their lives, oblivious to the Spanish fly on the wall†¦. â€Å"You know, Ashley has been having an affair with her plastic surgeon for six months and†¦Ã¢â‚¬  â€Å"If I can get my legal ducks in a row, I should be able to push the convention center through the city council and†¦Ã¢â‚¬  â€Å"I want the bathroom Southwestern, but Bob likes Art Nouveau, so I called our attorney and I said†¦Ã¢â‚¬  â€Å"I know the offshore drilling is ruining the coast, but my Exxon shares have split twice in two years, so I said to my analyst†¦Ã¢â‚¬  â€Å"Susan and the kids went to Tahoe, so I thought it was the perfect chance to show Marie the house. The bitch spilled a whole bottle of massage oil in the hot tub and†¦Ã¢â‚¬  â€Å"I don't give a damn whether they needed it or not. If you do your job right you can sell air conditioners to Eskimos; need has nothing to do with it. Remember the three m's: mesmerize, motivate, and manipulate. You're not selling a need, you're selling†¦Ã¢â‚¬  â€Å"Dreams,† Samson said, coming out of his shell to finish the sentence of a young insurance sales manager who had taken his agents to lunch so he could chew their ass. Samson surprised even himself by speaking up, but the man at the table seemed to be giving the same speech that he had heard from the powder-blue dream salesman. He couldn't resist. â€Å"Come here, kid,† the man said. He was wearing a wash-and-wear suit, as were the other five men at the table. A half-dozen acrid aftershaves clashed among them. â€Å"What's your name?† Samson looked around the table at the men's faces. They were all white. He decided at that moment to use a new name, not the Mexican name he had taken, Jose Cuervo. â€Å"Sam,† Samson said. â€Å"Sam Hunter.† â€Å"Well, Sam† – he extended his hand – â€Å"my name is Aaron Aaron. And I'll bet with some training you could outsell every man at this table.† He put his arm around Samson's shoulders and spoke to the rest of the group. â€Å"What do you say, guys? I'll bet you each a hundred bucks that I can take a busboy with the right attitude and turn him into a better salesman than any of you hotshots inside of a month.† â€Å"That's bullshit, Aaron, the kid's not even old enough to get a license.† â€Å"He can work on my license. I'll sign his applications. C'mon, hotshots, do I have a bet?† The men fidgeted in their seats, laughing nervously and trying to avoid Aaron's gaze, knowing from Aaron's training that the first one to speak would lose. Finally one of them broke. â€Å"All right, a hundred bucks, but the kid has to do his own selling.† Aaron looked at Samson. â€Å"So, kid, are you ready to start a new job?† Samson tried to imagine himself wearing a suit and smelling of after-shave, and the idea appealed to him. â€Å"I don't have a place to stay,† he said. â€Å"I've been saving so I can get an apartment.† â€Å"I've got it covered,† Aaron said. â€Å"Welcome aboard.† â€Å"I guess I could give my notice.† â€Å"Fuck giving notice. You only give notice if you're planning to come back. You're not planning on moving backwards, are you, Sam?† â€Å"I guess not,† Samson said. At twenty-five, Aaron Aaron had already accumulated fifteen years of experience in the art of deception. From the time he skimped on the sugar at his first lemonade stand to the time he doubled the profits on his paper route by canceling his customers' subscriptions, then stealing the papers out of a vending machine to continue the deliveries, Aaron showed a near-genius ability for working in the gray areas between business and crime. And by balancing dark desires with white lies he was able to sidestep the plague of Catholic conscience that kept him from pursuing an honest career as a pirate, which would have been his first choice. Aaron Aaron was a salesman. At first, Aaron's only interest in Samson was to use the boy as an instrument of embarrassment to the other salesmen, but once he dressed the boy in a suit and had him trailing along on sales calls like a dutiful native gun bearer, Aaron found that he actually enjoyed the boy's company. The boy's curiosity seemed boundless, and answering his questions as they drove between calls allowed Aaron to bask in the sound of his own voice while extolling the brilliance of his last successful presentation. And too, the rejection of a slammed door or a pointed ;no; seemed softened in the sharing. Teaching the boy made him feel good, and with this improvement in attitude he worked more, sold more, and allowed the boy to share in the prosperity, buying him clothes and food, finding him an apartment, and cosigning for a loan on a used Volvo. For Samson, working under the tutelage of Aaron was perfect. Aaron's assumption that no one beside himself had the foggiest idea of how the universe worked allowed Samson the opportunity to hear lectures on even the most minuscule details of society, information he used to build himself into the image that Aaron wanted to see. Samson delighted in Aaron's self-obsession, for while the older man waxed eloquent on the virtues of being Aaron, it never occurred to him to ask Samson about his past, and the boy was able to surround himself in a chrysalis of questions and cheap suits until he was ready to emerge as a full-grown salesman. As the years passed and his memories of home were stowed and forgotten, learning to sell became Samson's paramount interest. And Aaron, fascinated with seeing his own image mirrored and his own words repeated, failed to notice that Samson had become a better salesman than himself until other companies began approaching the boy with offers. Only then did Aaron realize that most of his income was coming from the override commission on Sam's sales, and that for five years Sam had trained all the new salesmen. To avoid losing his golden goose, Aaron offered Sam a fifty-fifty partnership in the agency, and with this added security, the business became Sam's shelter. -=*=- Now, after twenty years with the business as his only security, Sam was going to Aaron to sell his shares. As he entered Aaron's office he felt a deep soul-sickness that he had not felt since he had left the reservation. â€Å"Aaron, I'll take forty cents on the dollar for my shares. And I keep my office.† Aaron turned slowly in the big executive chair and faced Sam. â€Å"You know I couldn't come up with that kind of cash, Sam. It's a good move, though. I'd have to keep paying you out of override, and with interest you wouldn't even take a cut in pay. I don't think you're in a position to negotiate, though. In fact, after the call I got this morning, I think twenty cents on the dollar would be more than fair.† Sam resisted the urge to dive over the desk and slap his partner's bare scalp until it bled. He had to take his fallback position sooner than he wanted to. â€Å"You're thinking that because Spagnola can put me with the Indian I have to sell, right?† Aaron nodded. â€Å"But just imagine that I ride this through, Aaron. Imagine that I don't sign off, that the insurance commission suspends my license, that criminal charges are filed and my name is in the paper every day. Guess whose name is going to be right next to mine? And what happens if I maintain my association with the agency and the insurance commission starts looking into your files? How many signatures have you traced over the years, Aaron? How many people thought they were buying one policy, only to find out that their signature showed up on a different one – one that paid you a higher commission?† A sheen of sweat was appearing on Aaron's forehead. â€Å"You've done that as often as I have. You'd be hanging yourself.† â€Å"That's the point, Aaron. When I walked in here you were convinced that I was hung anyway. I'm just making room for you on the gallows.† â€Å"You ungrateful prick. I took you in when you-â€Å" â€Å"I know, Aaron. That's why I'm giving you a chance to stay clean. Actually, you've got more to lose than I do. Once your files are open, then your income is going to become public knowledge.† â€Å"Oh!† Aaron stood and paced around to the front of the desk. â€Å"Oh!† He waved a finger under Sam's nose, then turned and walked to the water cooler. â€Å"Oh!† He kicked the cooler, then returned to his chair, sat down, then stood up again. â€Å"Oh!† he said. It was as if the single syllable had stuck in his mouth. He looked as if he were going to launch into a tirade; blood rose in his face and veins bulged on his forehead. â€Å"Oh!† he said. He fell back in the chair and stared at the ceiling as if his brain had pushed the hold button on reality. â€Å"That's right, Aaron,† Sam said after a moment. â€Å"The IRS.† With that Sam moved to the office door. â€Å"Take your time, Aaron. Think about it. Talk it over with your buddy Spagnola; he can probably give you the current exchange rate of cigarettes for sodomy in prison.† Aaron slowly broke his stare on the ceiling and turned to watch Sam walk out. In the outer office Julia looked up from applying lacquer to her nails to see Sam grinning, his hand still on the doorknob. â€Å"What's with all the ‘ohs, Sam?† Julia asked. â€Å"It sounded like you guys were having sex or something.† â€Å"Something like that,† Sam said, his grin widening. â€Å"Hey, watch this.† He opened the door quickly and stuck his head back in Aaron's office. â€Å"Hey, Aaron! IRS!† he said. Then he pulled the door shut, muffling Aaron's scream of pain. â€Å"What was that?† Julia asked. â€Å"That,† Sam said, â€Å"was my teacher giving me the grade on my final exam.† â€Å"I don't get it.† â€Å"You will, honey. I don't have time to explain right now. I've got a date.† Sam left the office walking light and smiling, feeling strangely as if the pieces of his life, rather than fitting back together, were jingling in his pocket like sleigh bells warning Christmas. CHAPTER 15 Like God's Own Chocolate I'd Lick Her Shadow Off A Hot Sidewalk Santa Barbara In spite of the fact that he was losing his home and his business, and was precariously close to having his greatest secret discovered by the police because of an Indian god, Sam was not the least bit worried. Not with the prospect of an evening with Calliope to occupy his thoughts. No, for once Sam Hunter was voting the eager ticket over the anxious, taking anticipation over dread. Calliope lived upstairs in a cheese-mold-green cinder-block duplex that stood in a row of a dozen identical structures where the last of Santa Barbara's working middle class were making their descent into poverty. Calliope's Datsun was parked in the driveway next to a rusy VW station wagon and an ominous-looking Harley-Davidson chopper with a naked blond woman airbrushed on the gas tank. Sam paused by the Harley before mounting the stairs. The airbrushed woman looked familiar, but before he could get a closer look Calliope appeared on the deck above him. â€Å"Hi,† she said. She was barefoot, wearing a white muslin dress loosely laced in the front. A wreath of gardenia was woven into her hair. â€Å"You're just in time, we need your help. Come on up.† Sam took the stairs two at a time and stopped on the landing, where Calliope was wrestling with the latch on a rickety screen-door frame that was devoid of screening but had redwood lattice nailed across its lower half, presumably to keep out the really large insects. â€Å"I'm having trouble with the dinner,† she said. â€Å"I hope you can fix it.† The screen door finally let loose with the jattering noise one associates with the impact of Elmer Fudd's face on a rake handle. Calliope led Sam into a kitchen done in the Fabulous Fifties motif of mint enamel over pink linoleum. A haze of foul-smelling smoke hung about the ceiling, and through it Sam could make out the figure of a half-naked man sitting in the lotus position on the counter, drinking from a quart bottle of beer. â€Å"That's Yiffer,† Calliope said over her shoulder as she headed to the stove. â€Å"He's with Nina.† Yiffer vaulted off the counter, on one arm, fully eight feet across the kitchen to land lightly on his feet in front of Sam, where he engaged a complex handshake that left Sam feeling as if his fingers had been braided together. â€Å"Dude,† Yiffer said, shaking out his wild tangle of straw-colored hair as if the word had been stuck there. Feeling like a chameleon that has been dropped into a coffee can and is risking hemorrhage by trying to turn silver, Sam searched for the appropriate greeting and ended up echoing, â€Å"Dude.† In jeans, a sport shirt, and boating moccasins with no socks, Sam felt grossly overdressed next to Yiffer, who wore only a pair of orange surf shorts and layer upon layer of tan muscle. â€Å"Calliope biffed the grub, dude,† Yiffer said. Sam joined Calliope at the stove, where she was frantically biffing the grub. â€Å"I can't get the spaghetti to cook,† she said, plunging a wooden spoon into a large saucepan from which the smoke was emanating. â€Å"The instructions said to boil for eight minutes, but as soon as it starts to boil the smoke comes out.† Sam waved the smoke from the pan. â€Å"Aren't you supposed to cook the noodles separately?† â€Å"Not in the sauce?† Sam shook his head. â€Å"Whoops,† Calliope said. â€Å"I'm not a very good cook. Sorry.† â€Å"Well, maybe we can salvage something.† Sam removed the pan from the heat and peered in at the bubbling black magma. â€Å"Then again, maybe starting over would be a good idea.† He put the pan in the sink, where a trail of ants was invading a used bowl of cereal. Sam turned on the water and started to swivel the faucet to wash the intruders away when Calliope grabbed his hand. â€Å"No,† she said. â€Å"They're okay.† â€Å"They'll get into your food,† Sam said. â€Å"I know. They've always been here. I call them my kitchen pals.† â€Å"Kitchen pals?† Sam tried to adjust his thinking. She was right – you couldn't just wash your kitchen pals down the drain like they were ants. He felt like he'd been saved from committing genocide. â€Å"So, I guess we should start some more spaghetti?† â€Å"She only bought one box, dude,† Yiffer said. â€Å"I guess we can eat salad and bread,† Calliope said. â€Å"Excuse me.† She kissed Sam on the cheek and walked out of the kitchen while he stared at the ghost of her bottom through the thin dress. â€Å"So, what do you do?† Yiffer asked with a toss of his head. â€Å"I'm an insurance broker. And you?† â€Å"I surf.† â€Å"And?† â€Å"And what?† Yiffer said. Sam thought he could hear the sound of the ocean whistling through Yiffer's ears as if through a seashell. â€Å"Never mind,† he said. He was distracted by the sound of a baby screaming in the next room. â€Å"That's Grubb,† Yiffer said. â€Å"Sounds like he's pissed off.† Unable to see the second b, Sam was confused. â€Å"I thought grub was biffed?† â€Å"No, Grubb is Calliope's rug-rat. Go on in and meet him. Nina's in there with J. Nigel Yiffworth, Esquire.† Yiffer beamed with pride. â€Å"He's mine.† â€Å"Your attorney?† â€Å"My son,† Yiffer said indignantly. â€Å"Oh,† Sam said. He resisted the urge to sit down on the floor and wait for his confusion to clear. Instead he walked into the living room, where he found Calliope sitting on an ancient sofa next to an attractive brunette who was breastfeeding an infant. The sofa was lumpy enough to have had a body sewed into it; stuffing spilled out of the arms where the victim had tried to escape. On the floor nearby, a somewhat older child was slung inside of a blue plastic donut on wheels, which he was gaily ramming into everything in the room. Sam gasped as the child ran a wheel up over his bare ankle on a kamikaze rush to destroy the coffee table. Calliope said, â€Å"Sam, this is Nina.† Nina looked up and smiled. â€Å"And J. Nigel Yiffworth, Esquire.† Nina pulled the baby from her breast long enough to puppet-master a nod of greeting from it, which Sam missed for some reason. â€Å"And that,† Calliope continued, pointing to the drunk driver in the blue donut, â€Å"that's Grubb.† â€Å"Your son?† Sam asked. She nodded. â€Å"He's just learning to walk.† â€Å"Interesting name.† â€Å"I named him after Jane Goodall's son. She let him grow up with baboons – very natural. I was going to name him Buddha, but I was afraid that when he got older if someone met him on the road they might kill him.† â€Å"Right. Good thinking,† Sam said, pretending that he had the slightest idea of what she was talking about and that he wasn't wondering in the least who or where Grubb's father was. â€Å"Nina moved in when we were both pregnant,† Calliope said. â€Å"We were each other's Lamaze coaches. I was farther along, though.† â€Å"What about Yiffer?† â€Å"Scum,† Nina said. â€Å"He seems like a nice guy,† Sam said, and Nina shot him an acid look. â€Å"As scum goes,† he quickly added. â€Å"He only lives here sometimes,† Calliope said. â€Å"Mostly when he doesn't have gas money for his van.† Nina said, â€Å"We're having a yard sale day after tomorrow to raise some money to get him out of here. You might want to look at the stuff down in storage before the sale, pick up a bargain before it gets picked over.† Yiffer entered the living room munching on a loaf of French bread. He stood next to Sam and thrust the bread under Sam's chin. â€Å"Bite?† â€Å"No, thanks,† Sam said. â€Å"Yiffer!† Calliope said. â€Å"That bread was for all of us.† â€Å"Truth,† Yiffer said. He held the loaf out to Calliope. â€Å"Bite?† â€Å"You ruined their dinner,† Nina said, letting J. Nigel's head drop and wobble. Yiffer grinned around a mouthful of bread and gestured toward Nina's exposed breast with his beer hand. â€Å"Looking good, babe.† Nina reattached J. Nigel and said to Sam, â€Å"I'm sorry, he's only like this when he's awake.† To Yiffer she said, â€Å"Take some money out of my purse and go down to the corner and get a pizza.† Sam reached for his wallet. â€Å"Let me.† â€Å"No,† Calliope and Nina said in unison. â€Å"Cool!† Yiffer exclaimed, sandblasting Sam with a spray of bread crumbs. â€Å"Go!† Nina commanded, and Yiffer turned and bounded out of the room. In a moment Sam heard the screen door open and footfalls on the steps. â€Å"Sit down,† Calliope said. â€Å"Relax.† Sam took a seat on the couch next to the two women and for the next forty minutes they exchanged pleasantries between the screaming demands of the babies until Nina handed a damp J. Nigel to Sam and left the room. Like most bachelors, Sam held a baby as if it were radioactive. â€Å"That fucking asshole!† Nina shrieked from the other room, frightening Grubb, who screamed like an air-raid siren. J. Nigel was following suit when Nina returned to the living room, her purse in hand. â€Å"He took my rent money. The asshole took all my rent money. Can you guys watch J. Nigel for a minute? I've got to go find him and kill him.† â€Å"Sure,† Calliope said. Sam nodded, adjusting J. Nigel for long-term holding. Nina left. Calliope turned to Sam and over the din of screaming infants said, â€Å"Alone at last.† â€Å"I think J. Nigel needs changing,† Sam said. â€Å"So does Grubb. Let's take them into Nina's room.† Sam had slipped into the personality he referred to as â€Å"tough and adaptable,† one he reserved for the more chaotic and bizarre situations he had encountered in his career. â€Å"I can do this,† he said with a grin. He hadn't changed a baby since the days on the reservation when he used to help with his cousins, but when he opened J. Nigel's diaper the memory came back on him like a fetid whirlwind, and he had to fight to keep from gagging. The adhesive strips on disposable diapers were a completely new adventure and he found after a few minutes that he had diapered his left hand perfectly while a squirming J. Nigel remained naked to the world. After changing Grubb and returning him to his plastic donut, Calliope liberated Sam from the diaper and started on J. Nigel, who giggled and peed like an excited puppy at her touch. Sam sympathized. â€Å"Don't feel bad,† she said. â€Å"The last time we let Yiffer baby-sit he duct-taped J. Nigel's diaper on and we had to use nail-polish remover to get the adhesive off.† â€Å"I haven't had much practice,† Sam said. â€Å"You don't have any kids?† â€Å"No, I've never met anyone I wanted to have kids with.† Sam wanted to smack himself for saying it. Remember, tough and adaptable. â€Å"Me either,† Calliope said. â€Å"But Grubb is the best thing that ever happened to me. I used to drink and do a lot of drugs, but as soon as I found out I was pregnant I stopped.† Sam looked for an opening to ask about Grubb's father, but none came and the silence was becoming awkward. â€Å"That's great,† he said. â€Å"I had my own battle with the bottle.† Actually it hadn't been much of a battle. Aaron had insisted that social drinking was part of the job, but each time Sam had gotten drunk he was haunted by the stereotype of the drunken Indian that he thought he had left behind. It had been ten years since he'd had a drink. â€Å"I'm going to put these guys down,† Calliope said. â€Å"Why don't you go in the living room and put some music on.† In the living room Sam found a briefcase full of loose cassette tapes. Most of the tapes were New Age releases with enigmatic titles like Tree Frog Whale Song Selections by artists with names like Yanni Volvofinder. With further digging he found one called The Language of Love by a female jazz singer he liked, but when he opened the box he found that the tape had been replaced with one called Catbox Nightmare by a band called Satan's Smegma, obviously a Yifferesque selection. Finally he found The Language of Love languishing boxless in the bottom of the case and popped it into a portable stereo on a bricks-and-boards bookshelf. Calliope returned to the living room just as the first song was rising in the speakers. â€Å"Oh, I love this tape,† she said. â€Å"I've always wanted to make love to this tape. I'll be right back.† She left the room again and returned in a moment with an armload of pillows and blankets, which she dropped in the middle of the floor. â€Å"Grubb sleeps in my room and he won't be asleep for a while.† She began to spread the blankets out over the floor. Sam stood by, trying to fight the objections that were rising in his mind about the speed at which things were progressing. She just assumed that he would say yes; it made him feel like – well – a slut. Then again, if this beautiful girl wanted to make love with him, who was he to object? Okay, so he was a slut; he was a tough and adaptable slut. Still, there was one thing that bothered him. â€Å"What if Yiffer and Nina come home with the pizza?† â€Å"Oh, I don't think they'll be home that soon. This first time will be pretty fast.† â€Å"Hey.† Sam thought he might have just been insulted, but on second thought he realized that the girl had just voiced something that he had really been worrying about, without even admitting it to himself. On second thought, she had relieved the pressure on him to perform. Calliope finished fluffing the pillows, then unlaced her dress and let it drop to the floor. She stepped out of it and went to the stereo, where she turned up the volume, then she crawled naked under the top blanket and pulled it up to her neck. â€Å"Okay,† she said. Sam sat on the couch, stunned. She was stunning. But where was the seduction, the deception, the sweet lies and tender posturing? Where was the hunt, the cat-and-mouse game? Sam just stared at her and thought, This is entirely too honest. â€Å"Are you okay?† she asked. â€Å"Yes, it's just kind of†¦Ã¢â‚¬  â€Å"You want me and I want you. Right?† Who did she think she was? You can't just go around blurting out the truth like a prophet with Tourette's syndrome. He said, â€Å"Well, I guess. Yeah, that's right.† â€Å"Well?† She threw the covers back to make room for him. Sam leapt off the couch and fought his way out of his clothes. He was under the covers, taking her into his arms, before his shirt settled to the floor. At the touch of her skin, her warmth, he felt every muscle in his body tense, then melt against her. He kissed her for a long time with none of the fumbling or awkwardness that he expected. He entered her and they began to move together in slow rhythm to the music. Calliope let out a long, low moan and dug her fingers into the muscles of his back. He joined her in the moan and pushed deeper, losing suddenly any thoughts or images or reservations, damn near losing consciousness to the warm, dark rhythm. A door slammed, violently shaking the windows of the apartment. Sam pushed up on his arms. â€Å"What was that?† â€Å"Nothing,† she said, pulling him down. Another door slammed, louder than the first. Sam pushed up again. â€Å"They're home.† â€Å"No, that's downstairs. Please.† She wrapped her legs around his back and pulled him tight. Distracted, Sam began to move again and Calliope moaned. A door slammed, glass shattered, and J. Nigel began crying in the front bedroom. â€Å"What in the hell was that?† â€Å"Nothing. Not now. Make love to me, Sam.† The house shook with the impact of a slamming door, then another, and Grubb began to cry as well. Sam winced, and came completely without pleasure. â€Å"Sorry,† he said as he rolled over onto his back. Calliope stared at the ceiling for a moment as if she was bracing for the next impact. When it came she leapt to her feet and stormed naked out onto the balcony. She bent over the railing and shouted, â€Å"Why are you doing this?† Sam turned down the stereo and listened. Another door slammed, shaking the house, then a pathetic male voice came from below. â€Å"You've got someone up there. You slut.† â€Å"Don't talk to me that way. I don't act this way when you have someone down there.† Sam wanted to join her on the balcony, come to her defense (â€Å"Hey, buddy, she's not the slut here!†), but he couldn't seem to locate his pants. â€Å"You whore!† the male voice said. â€Å"I'm taking my son.† â€Å"No, you're not!† â€Å"You'll see,† the voice said. Another door slam. Sam flinched. He was getting a little shell-shocked trying to put the pieces of this mystery together between slams. â€Å"Jerk!† Calliope screamed. She stormed inside, slammed the door, and breezed by Sam on her way to tend to Grubb and J. Nigel. Sam sat naked on the floor wishing for a cigarette, or a clue, and repeating his new mantra in his head, tough and adaptable, tough and adaptable†¦ In a few minutes, after the door slams had dwindled to one every few minutes, as if the guy downstairs was calming down, then losing his temper in spurts, Calliope appeared in the doorway, still naked. â€Å"We need to talk,† she said. Sam was dressed now, desperately yearning for a cigarette, but he'd left them in the car and he wasn't about to pass the maniac downstairs without more information. â€Å"That would be good,† he said. Calliope picked up her dress and slipped it on, then sat down on the couch. â€Å"You're probably wondering who that is downstairs.† For the first time she seemed really uncomfortable, and Sam felt for her. â€Å"It's okay. I've had some trouble with my neighbors recently. It happens.† She smiled. â€Å"I used to be with him. He's Grubb's father.† â€Å"I gathered that.† â€Å"I was doing a lot of drugs then. He was exciting: riding his Harley, tattoos, guns.† â€Å"Guns?† â€Å"I left him when I found out I was pregnant. He didn't want me to have the baby and he didn't want me to quit getting high.† â€Å"But why move upstairs?† â€Å"I didn't. He moved in downstairs. You're the first man that I've had over since the split. I didn't know he'd act this way.† â€Å"Why don't you move?† â€Å"You know how Santa Barbara is. I couldn't even pay rent here if it weren't for Nina, let alone come up with first, last, and a cleaning deposit.† Sam could see that she was still embarrassed. â€Å"You could ask the landlord to remove his doors. It would be quieter.† â€Å"I'm sorry. I really wanted it to be nice.† â€Å"Maybe I should go.† Despite the weirdness, he didn't want to leave. â€Å"I wish you would stay. When Grubb goes to sleep we can go in my room. If we're quiet†¦Ã¢â‚¬  â€Å"I'll stay,† Sam said. â€Å"He won't come up here and shoot us, will he?† â€Å"No, I don't think so. He keeps talking about getting custody of Grubb. Killing us would look bad with the judge.† â€Å"Right,† Sam said. So what if she had been involved with a psycho. At least it was a psycho who thought ahead. Calliope led Sam down a hallway to her room at the back of the apartment. â€Å"I'll get us some salad,† she said, leaving Sam to sit on the twin bed next to the crib where Grubb was drowsily gnawing a pacifier. The room looked like it had been decorated by a Buddhist monk from â€Å"Sesame Street.† On top of the dresser sat effigies of Buddha, Shiva, Bert, Ernie, and Cookie Monster, as well as an incense burner, a small gong, and a box of Pampers. A stuffed Mickey Mouse on the dressing chair wore a necklace of quartz crystal and a rawhide ring that Sam recognized as a Navaho dream catcher. The walls were hung with pictures of the Dalai Lama, Kali the Destroyer, and the Smurfs. Looking around, Sam felt tempted to construct an excuse and bolt. Now that he'd had a moment to think about it, his tough and adaptable veneer was feeling pretty thin. If he could just get back to normal for a while he'd be okay. Then it hit him: there was no normal to return to. The controlled status quo that had been his life was no longer there; it had been shattered by Coyote, and Coyote was out there somewhere. Calliope, and all the chaos around her, had made him forget. Even with Smurfs, psychos, and kitchen pals, the forgetting was worth staying for.