Thoreau's views of Nature is primarily subjective in which he Essay

Thoreau's views of Nature is primarily subjective in which he identified himself as a part of Nature whereas those of Darwin and - Essay Example His political view seems to be much closer to the concept of Individualism but at the same time, it is of dangerous effects in terms of the line he drew through the chapters like Civil Disobedience. As any other writer, Thoreau’s writings may bear resemblance to the thoughts of different authors. To see through him from the perspective of an individualist thinker in comparison with some other individualistic ideologists is interesting. John Locke, a prominent English writer and philosopher of the 17th century who questioned the divine rights of the King, triggered a revolution of theorization in the field of political and philosophical thoughts. Locke is strictly an empiricist, who holds the view that the experience of the senses is pivotal in pursuit of knowledge. In this sense, when we turn back to Thoreau and his practical experiment with the simplicity of life in Walden Pond, can we find any similarities or dissimilarities between Thoreau and Locke? Or can we say that did the views propounded by Thoreau derive from the Locke’s writing? This research paper is an attempt to look into Thoreau’s thoughts on nature from this viewpoint. Does Thoreau’s Views of Nature Stem from Locke’s Writings? Let’s start with a quote used by Thoreau in his essay titled Where I Lived and What I lived for. â€Å"I am monarch of all I survey; My right there is none to dispute† (Thoreau retrieved from http://thoreau.eserver.org/walden00.html) Thoreau asserts that man is supreme in constituting his understanding of nature as we see in the philosophy of empiricism. From these words, it is obvious that Thoreau believes that human beings are absolutely free to lead their life in nature as they wish and a particular government or a law cannot reign over the free will of them. Again in the essay titled Civil Disobedience, one of the most controversial and influential essays by him which inspired the great social thinkers like Mahatma Gandh i and Tolstoy, â€Å"I heartily accept the motto , that government is best which governs least(Thoreau. Retrieved from http://thoreau.eserver.org/civil1.html)†. We can a draw a line connecting the main thought of both of the citations, which accentuates man’s freedom in the state of nature. In this regard, he is obliged to Locke’s views of nature as we read the essay titled Of the State of Nature: TO understand political power right, and derive it from its original, we must consider,what state all men are naturally in, and that is, a state of perfect freedom to order their actions, and dispose of their possessions and persons, as they think fit, within the bounds of the law of nature, without asking leave, or depending upon the will of any other man. (Locke. retrieved from http://www.constitution.org/jl/2ndtre). Here, we can see the meeting points of the ideology of both the writers and it is most probable that Thoreau’s views must have shaped from Lockeà ¢â‚¬â„¢s thoughts. According to individualistic ideology man is supreme and above another’s restrictions. The above-mentioned wordings of the both of the writers assert the same line of thought in different manner. It is easy to infer from this similarity in thought that Thoreau should have forged his conception of nature and human freedom from the individualistic ideologists like Locke. Through the analysis of The Second Treatise of Government by Locke it is obvious that he upholds the view that sovereignty is secured in the hands

The Causes and Effects of Violence - Essay Essay Example for Free

The Causes and Effects of Violence Essay Essay Did you know that almost 6 million Jews were estimated killed in the Holocaust? The Holocaust was when men, children, and women alike were massacred just because of their religion, which was Judaism. This is not the first human tragedy that the world has endured this century. Another violent tragedy was when African American’s were being mistreated and persecuted in the United States. This was during the Jim Crow South when black people could not eat at the same restaurant as whites. Protesting led to extreme violence and many people were killed. Another tragedy was gang violence in America. This violence was caused by race and ethnic differences. In The Diary of Anne Frank by Frances Goodrich and Albert Hackett and I Promised I Would Tell by Sonia Weitz, the reader sees how hatred and ignorance can lead to violence can and substantial deaths among people. The reason the Holocaust happened was because of anti-Semitism, which is the hatred of the Jewish people. Anti-Semitism is an example of a way that caused violence between two different groups of people. A quote from I Promised I Would Tell explains how Jewish people felt during World War II and explains the violence occurring. â€Å"The world was anything but safe for a Jew† (Weitz 1). This is when Sonia is describing how the world was to be a Jew when she was eleven years old. Sonia is being very grown up for her age and being realistic when she explains how she felt during this period of Jones, 2 the war. This was when the Germans were beginning to invade Poland. The hatred of someone’s religion is only one way that violence can massacre many people. Another way to start violence is to judge someone based on their race. In the Freedom Writers and in real life a person could be shot for waving the wrong gang banner or saying something bad about someone else’s race or gang. A good quote that describes this is from the Freedom Writers, â€Å"My brother taught me what the life is for a young black man. Pimp, deal, or do whatever. Learn what colors to wear. Gang banners. You can sell to one corner, but you cant sell another. Learn to be quiet. The wrong word can get you popped† (The violence in the Freedom Writers). This is where Andre, a character in the Freedom Writers, explains how if you join the wrong gang you could be shot, beat up, and ultimately killed. He is also explaining that if you act cocky you could get killed too. Andre is being very serious in explaining this to the teacher because every word of it is true. It is true because gangs were based on your race. So if a black person tried to join a Puerto Rican gang they could be killed. Gang rivalries and someone’s type of race are types of examples that can cause violence. Another example of a way that violence can occur is to judge someone by their particular stereotypes. A stereotype is defined as a conventional, formulaic, and oversimplified conception, opinion, or image about specific social groups, or types of individuals. A quote that can show a stereotype is shown here, Women should be respected as well! Generally speaking, men are held in great esteem in all parts of the world, so why shouldnt women have their share? † (Goodrich and Hackett 463). This is Jones, 3 when Anne Frank is saying that men get all the respect and women get close to none. The stereotype in this quote is that men are the stronger gender, which is not always true. Another stereotype is that blonde haired people are dumb. Both of these stereotypes can lead to anger which results in violence. Anne is being both truthful and honest in this quote because this is how the world was and still is, to some degree, today. This is another example of how something misinterpreted can cause violence which kills many people. The holocaust, gang rivalries, and stereotyping all have an end result of violence. Stereotypes occur because of the false statements of someone’s race, religion or gender. For example, blonde haired people have a stereotype of being dumb. The Holocaust and other human tragedies occurred because of hatred and intolerance of people. Gang violence and racism have occurred due to the judgment of a person’s race. All in all, these examples cause hatred which leads to violence and tragedy. Next time you think of judging someone based on their religious status, their personal stereotypes, or their race think about all the people who have been killed due to the violence started because of these false judgments. Works Cited Freedom Writers. Screenplay by Richard LaGravanese. Dir. Richard LaGravanese. Perf. Hilary Swank, Imelda Staunton, Patrick Dempsey, April L. Hernandez, and Mario. Paramount Pictures, 2007. Goodrich, Frances, and Albert Hackett. The Diary of Anne Frank. The Language Of Literature. Eds. Arthur N. Applebee and Andrea B. Bermudez, et. al. Illinois: McDougal Littell, 2006. 448-512. Weitz, Sonia. I Promised I Would Tell. Brookline: Facing History and Ourselves, 2004.

Analysing Sources Of Theology

Analysing Sources Of Theology Theology is the progress of exploration and thinking that leads to the interpretation of doctrines. Theology is progress rather than result. The result is doctrine. Good theology draws upon a number of sources. There has been significant discussion within the Christian belief with reference to the identity of these sources, also their relative importance for theological analysis. Generally speaking, important sources have been recognized within Christian theology: Scripture, reason, tradition, experience and creation. Each of these sources has a distinct role to make good theology. Also another important main source of Christian theology is Jesus Christ. I will discuss how Immanuel and the Purpose of Creation uses these sources, and whether this is good theology. The first major source of theology is Scripture. Scripture is recognized as authoritative for Christian theology. Most Christians agree with the authority of Scripture, because this is a foundational Christian theology. Also God comes to us through Scripture. It is the foundation and norm for all Christian preaching and teaching. In Wilkins, the author mentions New Testament references of Immanuel (14 evidences in the New Testament). However, there is a only one the Old Testament Scripture mentioned (Proverbs 8:30-31). The Immanuel in the article means, God with us (Matt 1: 28). There are several references in the Old Testament not mentioned in the article regarding this concept: Isaiah 63:11, Micah 3:8; Haggai 2:5 mention that Gods Spirit dwells within his people. And also in the book of Judges, there are many Judges who live with God. The Old Testament is a preparation for God with us in the coming of Christ. The author does not mention any of this, but only mentions the Incarnatio n Jesus. The second major source of theology is reason. This assumed an exceptional importance, and the significance of reason for Christian theology has always been recognized. In the article, there are several theologians ideas: Thomas Aquinas; John Calvin; Jim Packer; Duns Scotus; Colin Gunton. But the problem is that they have different views of the Incarnation. Thomas Aquinas says, There was no cause of Christs coming into the world except to save sinners. But John Calvin says, Even though there had been no need of his interposition to redeem the human race, would still have become man. It seems to face two choices: either Jesus becomes incarnate for sinner, or Jesus becomes incarnate for his people no matter what the reason. It makes it confusing and difficult to understand. According to Olsons thinking, reason is logic, the rule of non-contradiction. However, this article seems to ignore this. The third major source is tradition. Tradition is the consensual belief of the Church that began to be developed in the second and third centuries. Theology is based upon Scripture, and tradition refers to a traditional way of interpreting Scripture. The article only quotes Catholic and Protestant theology to comment on Calvin who was a well-known Reformer. The author does not reflect enough voices of the Christian community. Tradition is the consensus of Christian faith in common belief. We need to access it as the voice of the Christian community to understand tradition. If we follow the authority of any one theologian or part of the Christian community blindly, this is not a good model of tradition. The fourth major source of theology is experience. Experience is the human experience, not personal experience, particularly the religious experience in the Christian community. Experience is the most uncomfortable and unclear source. Nevertheless, experience has to provide a foundational source for Christian theology, and Christian theology provides an interpretive outline within human experience.The author mentions ecofeminism. Ecofeminism is a social and political movement somewhere between environmentalism and feminism. However, this is not the full human experience but only this one particular experience. Furthermore it is not religious experience. The fifth major source of theology is creation. Creation is that work of the triune God. The article suggests that the Incarnation was Gods purpose for creation to join it in his son, and the Incarnation God is directly involved in the sufferings of his creation. However, Karl Barth says This becoming cannot be brought into connection with creation. It cannot be regarded as one of its evolutionary possibilitiesà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦ Gods Word becoming a creature must be regarded as a new creationà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦ it is a sovereign divine act, and it is an act of lordship different from creation. Hence, God and Jesus are not prisoners, but they are redeemers. The author expresses the Incarnation only as the pain of Creation. Jesus is not just a creature. however, Jesus is also the Creator. This article, therefore, underestimates Jesus the Creator in the Incarnation. Lastly, good theology is centred on Jesus Christ. Jesus says I am the way, the truth, and the life .No one comes to the Father except through me (John 14:6). There is no way to know God except through Jesus Christ, if there is a way to know God except through Jesus Christ, this is not the truth. Our purpose to study theology is to know the way, the truth and the life of Jesus. Jesus Christ is the lens to see God. Wilkins says Christ is the completion of all Gods revelation in the past. This article mentions Pauls declaration there is but one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom all things came and through whom we live (1Cor 8:6). Wilkins indicates the importance of the immense basis of the linking of Christ and creation. From this point of view, this article embraces good theological point. In conclusion, Olson says A Christian theology is one that arises out of Scripture and points to Jesus Christ, is generally consistent with the consensual tradition of Christian thought, and is logically coherent with other Christian beliefs and illumines the shared experience of Christians. Good theology is reasonable. It also speaks from a biblical understanding of God, Human, and the Creation. Good theology is not fixed to a single Christian belief. Good theology does not break a balance, it speaks effectively to all. In addition, good theology tells every portion of human experience. It includes economics, science, philosophy, politics, history, and so on. Most of all, Jesus is the main character and hero in good theology. This article does not show us a good balance among these sources well, and also it is not easy to understand. Nevertheless, this article is centred in Jesus Christ as main character and hero. Hence, this article holds enough qualification to be called good theo logy.

Sexism, Prejudice, and Racism in Lees To Kill A Mockingbird Essay

Throughout the book To Kill A Mockingbird Lee discusses the effects of ignorance and the toll it takes on people such as Tom Robinson, Boo Radley, Scout herself, and many more. Through her examples of sexism, prejudice, and racism, from the populist of poverty stricken Southerners, she shows the readers the injustice of many. The victims of ignorance are the ‘mockingbirds’ of the story. A good example of this injustice is the trial of Tom Robinson, who is falsely accused of raping a white girl and is found guilty. The book is from the point of view Scout, a child, who has an advantage over most kids due to her having a lawyer as a dad, to see the other side of the story. Her father tells her in the story, â€Å"you never really know a man until you stand in his shoes and walk around in them.† (Lee 200). The most apparent theme of discrimination in To Kill A Mockingbird is racism, however there is more than just that. Other types of discrimination exist in To Kill A Mockingbird such as prejudice towards women, sexism. For example, Scout says, â€Å"Aunt Alexandra was fanatical on the subject of my attire. I could not possibly hope to be a lady if I wore breeches; when I said I could do nothing in a dress, she said I wasn't supposed to be doing anything that required pants† (Lee 59). This part of the book shows the views of how a woman should be and the importance of the female voice. The Pulitzer prize winning novel, published in 1960, To Kill A Mockingbird is written through the eyes of a young girl and follows her through the experience of childhood growing up in the racist, prejudice, and sexist south during the great depression. This serves as a platform for the guidance of her father, who she looks up too, to combat the judgment of oth... ...14 Jan. 2014. Document URL http://go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?id=GALE%7CA149353018&v=2.1&u=avlr&it=r&p=LitRG&sw=w&asid=419f38ec5c9b18412ef244089f43a576 Flynt, Wayne. "The enduring legacy of To Kill a Mockingbird: universal values: a half century after its first publication, Harper Lee's only novel continues to shape character and touch lives the world over." Alabama Heritage 97 (2010): 6+. Literature Resources from Gale. Web. 14 Jan. 2014. Document URL http://go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?id=GALE%7CA233291611&v=2.1&u=avlr&it=r&p=LitRG&sw=w&asid=3ffaf2f71f7f67751e3729418514353a Metress, Christopher. "'To Kill a Mockingbird': Threatening Boundaries." The Mississippi Quarterly 48.2 (1995): 397+. Literature Resources from Gale. Web. 14 Jan. 2014. Document URL http://go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?id=GALE%7CA17534671&v=2.1&u=avlr&it=r&p=LitRG&sw=w&asid=a34c43e478e4bcd8fc6f50ed438b281d

Black House Chapter Twenty-four

24 D'YAMBA IS A BRIGHT and powerful spell; powerful connections form a web that extends, ramifying, throughout infinity. When Jack Sawyer peels the living poison from Mouse's eyes, d'yamba first shines within the dying man's mind, and that mind momentarily expands into knowledge; down the filaments of the web flows some measure of its shining strength, and soon a touch of d'yamba reaches Henry Leyden. Along the way, the d'yamba brushes Tansy Freneau, who, seated in a windowed alcove of the Sand Bar, observes a wry, beautiful young woman take smiling shape in the pool of light at the far end of the parking lot and realizes, a moment before the young woman vanishes, that she has been given a glimpse of the person her Irma would have become; and it touches Dale Gilbertson, who while driving home from the station experiences a profound, sudden yearning for the presence of Jack Sawyer, a yearning like an ache in his heart, and vows to pursue the Fisherman case to the end with him, no matter what the obstacles; the d'yamba quivers flashing down a filament to Judy Marshall and opens a window into Faraway, where Ty sleeps in an iron-colored cell, awaiting rescue and still alive; within Charles Burnside, it touches the true Fisherman, Mr. Munshun, once known as the Monday Man, just as Burny's knuckles rap the glass. Mr. Munshun feels a subtle drift of cold air infiltrate his chest like a warning, and freezes with rage and hatred at this violation; Charles Burnside, who knows nothing of d'yamba and cannot hate it, picks up his master's emotion and remembers the time when a boy supposed dead in Chicago crept out of a canvas sack and soaked the back seat of his car in incriminating blood. Damnably incriminating blood, a substance that continued to mock him long after he had washed away its visible traces. But Henry Leyden, with whom we began this chain, is visited not by grace or rage; what touches Henry is a kind of informed clarity. Rhoda's visits, he realizes, were one and all produced by his loneliness. The only thing he heard climbing the steps was his unending need for his wife. And the being on the other side of his studio door is the horrible old man from Maxton's, who intends to do to Henry the same thing he has done to three children. Who else would appear at this hour and knock on the studio window? Not Dale, not Jack, and certainly not Elvena Morton. Everyone else would stay outside and ring the doorbell. It takes Henry no more than a couple of seconds to consider his options and work out a rudimentary plan. He supposes himself both quicker and stronger than the Fisherman, who sounded like a man in his mid- to late eighties; and the Fisherman does not know that his would-be victim is aware of his identity. To take advantage of this situation, Henry has to appear puzzled but amiable, as if he is merely curious about his visitor. And once he opens the studio door, which unfortunately he has left unlocked, he will have to act with speed and decisiveness. Are we up to this? Henry asks himself, and thinks, We'd better be. Are the lights on? No; because he expected to be alone, he never bothered with the charade of switching them on. The question then becomes: How dark is it outside? Maybe not quite dark enough, Henry imagines an hour later, he would be able to move through the house entirely unseen and escape through the back door. Now his odds are probably no better than fifty-fifty, but the sun is sinking at the back of his house, and every second he can delay buys him another fraction of darkness in the living room and kitchen. Perhaps two seconds have passed since the lurking figure rapped on the window, and Henry, who has maintained the perfect composure of one who failed to hear the sound made by his visitor, can stall no longer. Pretending to be lost in thought, with one hand he grips the base of a heavy Excellence in Broadcasting award accepted in absentia by George Rathbun some years before and with the other scoops from a shallow tray before him a switchblade an admirer once left at the university radio station as a tribute to the Wisconsin Rat. Henry uses the knife to unwrap CD jewel boxes, and not long ago, in search of something to do with his hands, he taught himself how to sharpen it. With its blade retracted, the knife resembles an odd, flat fountain pen. Two weapons are twice as good as one, he thinks, especially if your adversary imagines the second weapon to be harmless. Now it has been four seconds since the rapping came from the window by his side, and in their individual ways both Burny and Mr. Mun-shun have grown considerably more restive. Mr. Munshun recoils in loathing from the suggestion of d'yamba that has somehow contaminated this otherwise delightful scene. Its appearance can mean one thing only, that some person connected to the blind man managed to get close enough to Black House to have tasted the poisons of its ferocious guardian. And that in turn means that now the hateful Jack Sawyer undoubtedly knows of the existence of Black House and intends to breach its defenses. It is time to destroy the blind man and return home. Burny registers only an inchoate mixture of hatred and an emotion surprisingly like fear from within his master. Burny feels rage at Henry Leyden's appropriation of his voice, for he knows it represents a threat; even more than this self-protective impulse, he feels a yearning for the simple but profound pleasure of bloodletting. When Henry has been butchered, Charles Burnside wishes to claim one more victim before flying to Black House and entering a realm he thinks of as Sheol. His big, misshapen knuckles rap once more against the glass. Henry turns his head to the window in a flawless imitation of mild surprise. â€Å"I thought someone was out there. Who is it? . . . Come on, speak up.† He toggles a switch and speaks into the mike: â€Å"If you're saying anything, I can't hear you. Give me a second or two to get organized in here, and I'll be right out.† He faces forward again and hunches over his desk. His left hand seems idly to touch his handsome award; his right hand is hidden from sight. Henry appears to be deep in concentration. In reality, he is listening as hard as he ever has in his life. He hears the handle on the studio door revolve clockwise with a marvelous slowness. The door whispers open an inch, two inches, three. The floral, musky scent of My Sin invades the studio, seeming to coat a thin chemical film over the mike, the tape canisters, all the dials, and the back of Henry's deliberately exposed neck. The sole of what sounds like a carpet slipper hushes over the floor. Henry tightens his hands on his weapons and waits for the particular sound that will be his signal. He hears another nearly soundless step, then another, and knows the Fisherman has moved behind him. He carries some weapon of his own, something that cuts through the mist of perfume with the grassy smell of front yards and the smoothness of machine oil. Henry cannot imagine what this is, but the movement of the air tells him it is heavier than a knife. Even a blind man can see that. An awkwardness in the way the Fisherman takes his next oh-so-quiet step suggests to Henry that the old fellow holds this weapon with both of his hands. An image has formed in Henry's mind, that of his adversary standing behind him poised to strike, and to this image he now adds extended, upraised arms. The hands hold an instrument like garden shears. Henry has his own weapons, the best of these being surprise, but the surprise must be well timed to be effective. In fact, if Henry is to avoid a quick and messy death, his timing has to be perfect. He lowers his neck farther over the desk and awaits the signal. His calm surprises him. A man standing unobserved with an object like garden shears or a heavy pair of scissors in his hands behind a seated victim will, before delivering the blow, take a long second to arch his back and reach up, to get a maximum of strength into the downward stroke. As he extends his arms and arches his back, his clothing will shift on his body. Fabric will slide over flesh; one fabric may pull against another; a belt may creak. There will be an intake of breath. An ordinary person would hear few or none of these telltale disturbances, but Henry Leyden can be depended upon to hear them all. Then at last he does. Cloth rubs against skin and rustles against itself; air hisses into Burny's nasal passages. Instantly, Henry shoves his chair backward and in the same movement spins around and swings the award toward his assailant as he stands upright. It works! He feels the force of the blow run down his arm and hears a grunt of shock and pain. The odor of My Sin fills his nostrils. The chair bumps the top of his knees. Henry pushes the button on the switchblade, feels the long blade leap out, and thrusts it forward. The knife punches into flesh. From eight inches before his face comes a scream of outrage. Again, Henry batters the award against his attacker, then yanks the knife free and shoves it home again. Skinny arms tangle around his neck and shoulders, filling him with revulsion, and foul breath washes into his face. He becomes aware that he has been injured, for a pain that is sharp on the surface and dull beneath announces itself on the left side of his back. The goddamn hedge clippers, he thinks and jabs again with the knife. This time, he stabs only empty air. A rough hand closes on his elbow, and another grips his shoulder. The hands pull him forward, and to keep upright he rests his knee on the seat of the chair. A long nose bangs against the bridge of his own nose and jars his sunglasses. What follows fills him with disgust: two rows of teeth like broken clamshells fasten on his left cheek and saw through the skin. Blood sluices down his face. The rows of teeth come together and rip away an oval wedge of Henry's skin, and over the white jolt of pain, which is incredible, worse by far than the pain in his back, he can hear his blood spatter against the old monster's face. Fear and revulsion, along with an amazing amount of adrenaline, give him the strength to lash out with the knife as he s pins away from the man's grip. The blade connects with some moving part of the Fisherman's body an arm, he thinks. Before he can feel anything like satisfaction, he hears the sound of the hedge clippers slicing the air before they bite into his knife hand. It happens almost before he can take it in: the hedge clippers' blades tear through his skin, snap the bones, and sever the last two fingers on his right hand. And then, as if the hedge clippers were the Fisherman's last contact with him, he is free. Henry's foot finds the edge of the door, kicks it aside, and he propels his body through the open space. He lands on a floor so sticky his feet slide when he tries to get up. Can all of that blood be his? The voice he had been studying in another age, another era, comes from the studio door. â€Å"You stabbed me, you asswipe moke.† Henry is not waiting around to listen; Henry is on the move, wishing he did not feel that he was leaving a clear, wide trail of blood behind him. Somehow, he seems to be drenched in the stuff, his shirt is sodden with it, and the back of his legs are wet. Blood continues to gush down his face, and in spite of the adrenaline, Henry can feel his energy dissipating. How much time does he have before he bleeds to death twenty minutes? He slides down the hallway and runs into the living room. I'm not going to get out of this, Henry thinks. I've lost too much blood. But at least I can make it through the door and die outside, where the air is fresh. From the hallway, the Fisherman's voice reaches him. â€Å"I ate part of your cheek, and now I'm going to eat your fingers. Are you listening to me, you moke of an asshole?† Henry makes it to the door. His hand slips and slips on the knob; the knob resists him. He feels for the lock button, which has been depressed. â€Å"I said, are you listening?† The Fisherman is coming closer, and his voice is full of rage. All Henry has to do is push the button that unlocks the door and turn the knob. He could be out of the house in a second, but his remaining fingers will not obey orders. All right, I'm going to die, he says to himself. I'll follow Rhoda, I'll follow my Lark, my beautiful Lark. A sound of chewing, complete with smacking lips and crunching noises. â€Å"You taste like shit. I'm eating your fingers, and they taste like shit. You know what I like? Know my all-time favorite meal? The buttocks of a tender young child. Albert Fish liked that too, oh yes he did. Mmm-mmm! BABY BUTT! That's GOOD EATIN'!† Henry realizes that he has somehow slipped all the way down the unopenable door and is now resting, breathing far too heavily, on his hands and knees. He shoves himself forward and crawls behind the Mission-style sofa, from the comfort of which he had listened to Jack Sawyer reading a great many eloquent words written by Charles Dickens. Among the things he would now never be able to do, he realizes, is find out what finally happens in Bleak House. Another is seeing his friend Jack again. The Fisherman's footsteps enter the living room and stop moving. â€Å"All right, where the fuck are you, asshole? You can't hide from me.† The hedge clippers' blades go snick-snick. Either the Fisherman has grown as blind as Henry, or the room is too dark for vision. A little bit of hope, a match flame, flares in Henry's soul. Maybe his adversary will not be able to see the light switches. â€Å"Asshole!† Ahzz-hill. â€Å"Damn it, where are you hiding?† Dahmmut, vhey ah you high-dung? This is fascinating, Henry thinks. The more angry and frustrated the Fisherman gets, the more his accent melts into that weird non-German. It isn't the South Side of Chicago anymore, but neither is it anything else. It certainly isn't German, not really. If Henry had heard Dr. Spiegleman's description of this accent as that of a Frenchman trying to speak English like a German, he would have nodded in smiling agreement. It's like some kind of outer space German accent, like something that mutated toward German without ever having heard it. â€Å"You hurt me, you stinking pig!† You huhht me, you steenk-ung peek! The Fisherman lurches toward the easy chair and shoves it over on its side. In his Chicago voice, he says, â€Å"I'm gonna find you, buddy, and when I do, I'll cut your fucking head off.† A lamp hits the floor. The slippered footsteps move heavily toward the right side of the room. â€Å"A blind guy hides in the dark, huh? Oh, that's cute, that's really cute. Lemme tell you something. I haven't tasted a tongue in a while, but I think I'll try yours.† A small table and the lamp atop it clunk and crash to the floor. â€Å"I got some information for you. Tongues are funny. An old guy's doesn't taste much different from a young fella's though of course the tongue on a kid is twice as good as both. Venn I vas Fridz Hahhmun I ade munny dungs, ha ha.† Strange that extraterrestrial version of a German accent bursts out of the Fisherman like a second voice. A fist strikes the wall, and the footsteps plod nearer. Using his elbows, Henry crawls around the far end of the sofa and squirms toward the shelter of a long, low table. The footsteps squish in blood, and when Henry rests his head on his hands, warm blood pumps out against his face. The fiery agony in his fingers almost swallows the pain in his cheek and his back. â€Å"You can't hide forever,† the Fisherman says. Immediately, he switches to the weird accent and replies, â€Å"Eenuff ov dis, Burn-Burn. Vee huv murr impurdund vurk zu do.† â€Å"Hey, you're the one who called him an ahzz-hill. He hurt me!† â€Å"Fogzes down fogzhulls, oho, radz in radhulls, dey too ahh huhht. My boor loss babbies ahh huhht, aha, vurze vurze vurze dan uz.† â€Å"But what about him?† â€Å"Hee iz bledding zu deff, bledding zu deff, aha. Led hum dy.† In the darkness, we can just make out what is happening. Charles Burnside appears to be performing an eerie imitation of the two heads of Parkus's parrot, Sacred and Profane. When he speaks in his own voice, he turns his head to the left; when speaking with the accent of an extraterrestrial, he looks to his right. Watching his head swivel back and forth, we might be watching a comic actor like Jim Carrey or Steve Martin pretending to be the two halves of a split personality except that this man is not funny. Both of his personalities are awful, and their voices hurt our ears. The greatest difference between them is that left-head, the guttural extraterrestrial, runs the show: his hands hold the wheel of the other's vehicle, and right-head our Burny is essentially a slave. Since the difference between them has become so clear, we begin to get the impression that it will not be long before Mr. Munshun peels off Charles Burnside and discards him like a worn-out sock. â€Å"But I WANT to kill him!† Burny screeches. â€Å"Hee iz alreddy dud, dud, dud. Chack Zawyuh's hardt iz go-ung do break. Chack Zawyuh vill nod know whud he iz do-ung. Vee go now du Muxtun'z and oho vee kull Chibbuh, yuzz? You vahhnd kull Chibbuh I ding, yuzz?† Burny snickers. â€Å"Yeah. I vahhnd to kill Chipper. I vahhnd to slice that asshole into little pieces and chew on his bones. And if his snippy bitch is there, I want to cut off her head and suck her juicy little tongue down my throat.† To Henry Leyden, this conversation sounds like insanity, demonic possession, or both. Blood continues to stream out of his back and from the ends of his mutilated fingers, and he is powerless to stop the flow. The smell of all the blood beneath and around him makes him feel nauseated, but nausea is the least of his problems. A light-headed sense of drift, of pleasing numbness that is his real problem, and his best weapon against it is his own pain. He must remain conscious. Somehow, he must leave a message for Jack. â€Å"Zo vee go now, Burn-Burn, and vee hahhv ah blesh-ah vid Chibbuh, yuzz? End denn . . . oho end denn, denn, denn vee go do de beeyoodiful bee-yoodiful Blagg Huzz, my Burn-Burn, end in Blagg Huzz vee mayyg reddy for de Grimsunn Ging!† â€Å"I want to meet the Crimson King,† Burny says. A rope of drool sags from his mouth, and for an instant his eyes gleam in the darkness. â€Å"I'm gonna give the Marshall brat to the Crimson King, and the Crimson King is gonna love me, because all I'm gonna eat is like one little ass cheek, one little hand, something like that.† â€Å"Hee vill lahhv you fuhr my zake, Burn-Burn, fuhr de Ging lahhvs mee bezzd, mee, mee, mee, Mizz-durr Munn-shunn! End venn de Ging roolz sooprumm, fogzes down fogzhulls veep and veep, dey gryy, gryy, gryy dere lid-dul hardz utt, on-cuzz you end mee, mee, mee, vee vull eed end eed end eed, eed, eed undill de vurrldz on all zydes are nudding bahd embdy bee-nudd shillz!† â€Å"Empty peanut shells.† Burny chuckles, and noisily retracts another rope of slobber. â€Å"That's a hell of a lot of eatin'.† Any second now, Henry thinks, horrible old Burn-Burn is going to fork over a substantial down payment on the Brooklyn Bridge. â€Å"Gumm.† â€Å"I'm coming,† says Burnside. â€Å"First I want to leave a message.† There is a silence. The next thing Henry hears is a curious whooshing sound and the joined smack-smacks of sodden footwear parting from a sticky floor. The door to the closet beneath the stairs bangs open; the studio door bangs shut. A smell of ozone comes and goes. They have gone; Henry does not know how it happened, but he feels certain that he is alone. Who cares how it happened? Henry has more important matters to think about. â€Å"Murr impurdund vurk,† he says aloud. â€Å"That guy's a German like I'm a speckled hen.† He crawls out from beneath the long table and uses its surface to lever himself up on his feet. When he straightens his back, his mind wobbles and goes gray, and he grasps a lampstand to stay upright. â€Å"Don't pass out,† he says. â€Å"Passing out is not allowed, nope.† Henry can walk, he is sure of it. He's been walking most of his life, after all. Come to that, he can drive a car, too; driving is even easier than walking, only no one ever had the cojones to let him demonstrate his talents behind the wheel. Hell, if Ray Charles could drive and he could, he can, Ray Charles is probably spinning into a left turn off the highway at this moment why not Henry Leyden? Well, Henry does not happen to have an automobile available to him right now, so Henry is going to have to settle for taking a brisk walk. Well, as brisk as possible anyhow. And where is Henry going on this delightful stroll through the blood-soaked living room? â€Å"Why,† he answers himself, â€Å"the answer is obvious. I am going to my studio. I feel like taking a stroll into my lovely little studio.† His mind slides into gray once more, and gray is to be avoided. We have an antidote for the gray feeling, don't we? Yes, we do: the antidote is a good sharp taste of pain. Henry slaps his good hand against the stumps of his severed fingers whoo boy, yes indeed, whole arm sort of went up in flames there. Flaming arm, that will work. Sparks shooting white hot from burning fingers will get us to the studio. Let those tears flow. Dead folks don't cry. â€Å"The smell of blood is like laughter,† Henry says. â€Å"Who said that? Somebody. It's in a book. ? ®The smell of blood was like laughter.' Great line. Now put one foot in front of the other.† When he reaches the short hallway to the studio, he leans against the wall for a moment. A wave of luxurious weariness begins at the center of his chest and laps through his body. He snaps his head up, blood from his torn cheek spattering the wall. â€Å"Keep talking, you dope. Talking to yourself isn't crazy. It's a wonderful thing to do. And guess what? It's how you make your living you talk to yourself all day long!† Henry pushes himself off the wall, steps forward, and George Rath-bun speaks through his vocal cords. â€Å"Friends, and you ARE my friends, let me be clear about that, we here at KDCU-AM seem to be experiencing some technical difficulties. The power levels are sinking, and brownouts have been recorded, yes they have. Fear not, my dear ones. Fear not! Even as I speak, we are but four paltry feet from the studio door, and in no time at all, we shall be up and running, yessir. No ancient cannibal and his space-alien sidekick can put this station out of business, uh-UHH, not before we make our last and final broadcast.† It is as if George Rathbun gives life to Henry Leyden, instead of the other way around. His back is straighter, and he holds his head upright. Two steps bring him to the closed studio door. â€Å"It's a tough catch, my friends, and if Pokey Reese is going to snag that ball, his mitt had better be clean as a whistle. What is he doing out there, folks? Can we believe our eyes? Can he be shoving one hand into his pants pocket? Is he pulling something out? Man oh man, it causes the mind to reel Pokey is using THE OLD HANDKERCHIEF PLOY! That's right! He is WIPING his mitt, WIPING his throwing hand, DROPPING the snotrag, GRABBING the handle And the door is OPEN! Pokey Reese has done it again, he is IN THE STUDIO!† Henry winds the handkerchief around the ends of his fingers and fumbles for the chair. â€Å"And Rafael Furcal seems lost out there, the man is GROPING for the ball Wait, wait, does he have it? Has he caught an edge? YES! He has the ARM of the ball, he has the BACK of the ball, and he pulls it UP, ladies and gents, the ball is UP on its WHEELS! Furcal sits down, he pushes himself toward the console. We're facing a lot of blood here, but baseball is a bloody game when they come at you with their CLEATS up.† With the fingers of his left hand, from which most of the blood has been cleaned, Henry punches the ON switch for the big tape recorder and pulls the microphone close. He is sitting in the dark listening to the sound of tape hissing from reel to reel, and he feels oddly satisfied to be here, doing what he has done night after night for thousands of nights. Velvety exhaustion swims through his body and his mind, darkening whatever it touches. It is too early to yield. He will surrender soon, but first he must do his job. He must talk to Jack Sawyer by talking to himself, and to do that he calls upon the familiar spirits that give him voice. George Rathbun: â€Å"Bottom of the ninth, and the home team is headed for the showers, pal. But the game ain't OVER till the last BLIND man is DEAD!† Henry Shake: â€Å"I'm talking to you, Jack Sawyer, and I don't want you to flip out on me or nothin'. Keep cool and listen to your old friend Henry the Sheik the Shake the Shook, all right? The Fisherman paid me a visit, and when he left here he was on his way to Maxton's. He wants to kill Chipper, the guy who owns the place. Call the police, save him if you can. The Fisherman lives at Maxton's, did you know that? He's an old man with a demon inside him. He wanted to stop me from telling you that I recognized his voice. And he wanted to mess with your feelings he thinks he can screw you up by killing me. Don't give him that satisfaction, all right?† The Wisconsin Rat: â€Å"BECAUSE THAT WOULD REALLY SUCK! FISH-BRAINS WILL BE WAITING FOR YOU IN A PLACE CALLED BLACK HOUSE, AND YOU HAVE TO BE READY FOR THE BASTARD! RIP HIS NUTS OFF!† The Rat's buzz-saw voice ends in a fit of coughing. Henry Shake, breathing hard: â€Å"Our friend the Rat was suddenly called away. The boy has a tendency to get overexcited.† George Rathbun: â€Å"SON, are you trying to tell ME that â€Å" Henry Shake: â€Å"Calm down. Yes, he has a right to be excited. But Jack doesn't want us to scream at him. Jack wants information.† George Rathbun: â€Å"I reckon you better hurry up and give it to him, then.† Henry Shake: â€Å"This is the deal, Jack. The Fisherman's not very bright, and neither is his whatever, his demon, who's called something like Mr. Munching. He's incredibly vain, too.† Henry Leyden folds back into the chair and stares at nothing for a second or two. He can feel nothing from the waist down, and blood from his right hand has pooled around the microphone. From the stumps of his fingers comes a steady, diminishing pulse. George Rathbun: â€Å"Not now, Chuckles!† Henry Leyden shakes his head and says, â€Å"Vain and stupid you can beat, my friend. I have to sign off now. Jack, you don't have to feel too bad about me. I had a goddamn wonderful life, and I'm going to be with my darling Rhoda now.† He smiles in the darkness; his smile widens. â€Å"Ah, Lark. Hello.† At times, it is possible for the smell of blood to be like laughter. What is this, at the end of Nailhouse Row? A horde, a swarm of fat, buzzing things that circle and dart about Jack Sawyer, in the dying light seeming almost illuminated, like the radiant pages of a sacred text. Too small to be hummingbirds, they seem to carry their own individual, internal glow as they mesh through the air. If they are wasps, Jack Sawyer is going to be in serious trouble. Yet they do not sting; their round bodies brush his face and hands, blundering softly against his body as a cat will nudge its owner's leg, both giving and receiving comfort. At present, they give much more comfort than they receive, and even Jack cannot explain why this should be so. The creatures surrounding him are not wasps, hummingbirds, or cats, but they are bees, honeybees, and ordinarily he would be frightened to be caught in a swarm of bees. Especially if they appeared to be members of a sort of master bee race, superbees, larger than any he has seen before, their golds more golden, their blacks vibrantly black. Yet Jack is not frightened. If they were going to sting him, they would already have done it. And from the first, he understood that they meant him no harm. The touch of their many bodies is surpassingly smooth and soft; their massed buzzing is low and harmonious, as peaceable as a Protestant hymn. After the first few seconds, Jack simply lets it happen. The bees sift even closer, and their low noise pulses in his ears. It sounds like speech, or like song. For a moment, all he can see is a tightly woven network of bees moving this way and that; then the bees settle everywhere on his body but the oval of his face. They cover his head like a helmet. They blanket his arms, his chest, his back, his legs. Bees land on his shoes and obscure them from view. Despite their number, they are almost weightless. The exposed parts of Jack's body, his hands and neck, feel as though wrapped in cashmere. A dense, feather-light bee suit shimmers black and gold all over Jack Sawyer. He raises his arms, and the bees move with him. Jack has seen photographs of beekeepers aswarm with bees, but this is no photograph and he is no beekeeper. His amazement really, his sheer pleasure in the unexpectedness of this visitation stuns him. For as long as the bees cling to him, he forgets Mouse's terrible death and the next day's fearsome task. What he does not forget is Sophie; he wishes Beezer and Doc would walk outside, so they could see what is happening, but more than that, he wishes Sophie could see it. Perhaps, by grace of d'yamba, she does. Someone is comforting Jack Sawyer, someone is wishing him well. A loving, invisible presence offers him support. It feels like a blessing, that support. Clothed in his glowing black-and-yellow bee suit, Jack has the idea that if he stepped toward the sky, he would be airborne. The bees would carry him over the valleys. They would carry him over the wrinkled hills. Like the winged men in the Territories who carried Sophie, he would fly. Instead of their two, he would have two t housand wings to bear him up. In our world, Jack remembers, bees return to the hive before nightfall. As if reminded of their daily routine, the bees lift from Jack's head, his trunk, his arms and legs, not en masse, like a living carpet, but individually and in parties of five and six, wander a short distance above him, then swirl around, shoot like bullets eastward over the houses on the inland side of Nailhouse Row, and disappear one and all into the same dark infinity. Jack becomes aware of their sound only when it disappears with them. In the seconds before he can once again begin moving toward his truck, he has the feeling that someone is watching over him. He has been . . . what? It comes to him as he turns his key in the Ram's ignition and flutters the gas pedal: he has been embraced. Jack has no idea how much he will need the warmth of that embrace, nor of the manner in which it shall be returned to him, during the coming night. First of all, he is exhausted. He has had the kind of day that should end in a surreal event like an embrace by a swarm of bees: Sophie, Wendell Green, Judy Marshall, Parkus that cataclysm, that deluge! and the strange death of Mouse Baumann, these things have stretched him taut, left him gasping. His body aches for rest. When he leaves French Landing and drives into the wide, dark countryside, he is tempted to pull over to the side of the road and catch a half-hour nap. The deepening night promises the refreshment of sleep, and that is the problem: he could wind up sleeping in the truck all night, which would leave him feeling bleary and arthritic on a day when he must be at his best. Right now, he is not at his best not by a longshot, as his father, Phil Sawyer, used to say. Right now he is running on fumes, another of Phil Sawyer's pet expressions, but he figures that he can stay awake long enough to visit Henry Leyden. Maybe Henry cut a deal with the guy from ESPN maybe Henry will move into a wider market and make a lot more money. Henry in no way needs any more money than he has, for Henry's life seems flawless, but Jack likes the idea of his dear friend Henry suddenly flush with cash. A Henry with extra money to throw around is a Henry Jack would love to see. Imagine the wondrous clothes he could afford! Jack pictures going to New York with him, staying in a nice hotel like the Carlyle or the St. Regis, walking him through half a dozen great men's stores, helping him pick out whatever he wants. Just about everything looks good on Henry. He seems to improve all the clothes he wears, no matter what they are, but he has definite, particular tastes. Henry likes a certain classic, even old-fashioned, stylishness. He often dresses himself in pinstripes, windowpane plaids, herringbone tweeds. He likes cotton, linen, and wool. He sometimes wears bow ties, ascots, and little handkerchiefs that puff out of his breast pocket. On his feet, he puts penny loafers, wing tips, cap toes, and low boots of soft, fine leather. He never wears sneakers or jeans, and Jack has never seen him in a T-shirt that has writing on it. The question was, how did a man blind from birth evolve such a specific taste in clothing? Oh, Jack realizes, it was his mother. Of course. He got his taste from his mother. For some reason, this recognition threatens to bring tears to Jack's eyes. I get too emotional when I get this tired, he says to himself. Watch out, or you'll go overboard. But diagnosing a problem is not the same as fixing it, and he cannot follow his own advice. That Henry Leyden all of his life should have held to his mother's ideas about men's clothing strikes Jack as beautiful and moving. It implies a kind of loyalty he admires unspoken loyalty. Henry probably got a lot from his mother: his quick-wittedness, his love of music, his levelheadedness, his utter lack of self-pity. Levelheadedness and lack of self-pity are a great combination, Jack thinks; they go a long way toward defining courage. For Henry is courageous, Jack reminds himself. Henry is damn near fearless. It's funny, how he talks about being able to drive a car, but Jack feels certain that, if allowed, his friend would unhesitatingly jump behind the wheel of the nearest Chrysler, start the engine, and take off for the highway. He would not exult or show off, such behavior being foreign to his nature; Henry would nod toward the windshield and say things like, â€Å"Looks like the corn is nice and tall for this time of year,† and â€Å"I'm glad Duane finally got around to painting his house.† And the corn would be tall, and Duane Updahl would have recently painted his house, information delivered to Henry by his mysterious sensory systems. Jack decides that if he makes it out of Black House alive, he will give Henry the opportunity to take the Ram out for a spin. They might wind up nose-down in a ditch, but it will be worth it for the expression on Henry's face. Some Saturday afternoon, he'll get Henry out on Highway 93 and let him drive to the Sand Bar. If Beezer and Doc do not get savaged by weredogs and survive their journey to Black House, they ought to have the chance to enjoy Henry's conversation, which, odd as it seems, is perfectly suited to theirs. Beezer and Doc should know Henry Leyden, they'd love the guy. After a couple of weeks, they'd have him up on a Harley, swooping toward Norway Valley from Centralia. If only Henry could come with them to Black House. The thought pierces Jack with the sadness of an inspired idea that can never be put into practice. Henry would be brave and unfaltering, Jack knows, but what he most likes about the idea is that he and Henry would ever after be able to talk about what they had done. Those talks the two of them, in one living room or another, snow piling on the roof would be wonderful, but Jack cannot endanger Henry that way. â€Å"That's a stupid thing to think about,† Jack says aloud, and realizes that he regrets not having been completely open and unguarded with Henry that's where the stupid worry comes from, his stubborn silence. It isn't what he will be unable to say in the future; it's what he failed to say in the past. He should have been honest with Henry from the start. He should have told him about the red feathers and the robins' eggs and his gathering uneasiness. Henry would have helped him open his eyes; he would have helped Jack resolve his own blindness, which was more damaging than Henry's. All of that is over, Jack decides. No more secrets. Since he is lucky enough to have Henry's friendship, he will demonstrate that he values it. From now on, he will tell Henry everything, including the background: the Territories, Speedy Parker, the dead man on the Santa Monica Pier, Tyler Marshall's baseball cap. Judy Marshall. Sophie. Yes, he has to tell Henry about Sophie how can he not have done so already? Henry will rejoice with him, and Jack cannot wait to see how he does it. Henry's rejoicing will be unlike anyone else's; Henry will impart some delicate, cool, good-hearted topspin to the expression of his delight, thereby increasing Jack's own delight. What an incredible, literally incredible friend! If you were to describe Henry to someone who had never met him, he would sound unbelievable. Someone like that, living alone in an outback of the boonies? But there he was, all alone in the entirely obscure area of Norway Valley, French County, Wisconsin, waiting for the latest installment of Bleak House. By now, in anticipation of Jack's arrival, he would have turned on the lights in his kitchen and living room, as he had done for years in honor of his dead, much-loved wife. Jack thinks: I must not be so bad, if I have a friend like that. And he thinks: I really adore Henry. Now, even in the darkness, everything seems beautiful to him. The Sand Bar, ablaze with neon lights in its vast expanse of parking lot; the spindly, intermittent trees picked out by his headlights after the turn onto 93; the long, invisible fields; the glowing light bulbs hung like Christmas decorations from the porch of Roy's Store. The rattle over the first bridge and the sharp turn into the depths of the valley. Set back from the left side of the road, the first of the farmhouses gleam in the darkness, the lights in their windows burning like sacramental candles. Everything seems touched by a higher meaning, everything seems to speak. He is traveling, within a hush of sacred silence, through a sacred grove. Jack remembers when Dale first drove him into this valley, and that memory is sacred, too. Jack does not know it, but tears are coursing down his cheeks. His blood sings in his veins. The pale farmhouses shine half-hidden by the darkness, and out of that darkness leans the stand of tiger lilies that greeted him on his first down-valley journey. The tiger lilies blaze in his headlights, then slip murmuring behind him. Their lost speech joins the speech of the tires rolling eagerly, gently toward Henry Leyden's warm house. Tomorrow he may die, Jack knows, and this may be the last night he will ever see. That he must win does not mean that he will win; proud empires and noble epochs have gone down in defeat, and the Crimson King may burst out of the Tower and rage through world after world, spreading chaos. They could all die in Black House: he, Beezer, and Doc. If that happens, Tyler Marshall will be not only a Breaker, a slave chained to an oar in a timeless Purgatory, but a super-Breaker, a nuclear-powered Breaker the abbalah will use to turn all the worlds into furnaces filled with burning corpses. Over my dead body, Jack thinks, and laughs a little crazily it's so literal! What an extraordinary moment; he is laughing while he rubs tears off his face. The paradox suddenly makes him feel as though he is being torn in half. Beauty and terror, beauty and pain there is no way out of the conundrum. Exhausted, strung out, Jack cannot hold off his awareness of the world's essential fragility, its constant, unstoppable movement toward death, or the deeper awareness that in that movement lies the source of all its meaning. Do you see all this heart-stopping beauty? Look closely, because in a moment your heart will stop. In the next second, he remembers the swarm of golden bees that descended upon him: it was against this that they comforted him, exactly this, he tells himself. The blessing of blessings that vanish. What you love, you must love all the harder because someday it will be gone. It felt true, but it did not feel like all of the truth. Against the vastness of the night, he sees the giant shape of the Crimson King holding aloft a small boy to use as a burning glass that will ignite the worlds into flaming waste. What Parkus said was right: he cannot destroy the giant, but he may find it possible to rescue the boy. The bees said: Save Ty Marshall. The bees said: Love Henry Leyden. The bees said: Love Sophie. That is close enough, right enough, for Jack. To the bees, these were all the same sentence. He supposes that the bees might well also have said, Do your job, coppiceman, and that sentence was only slightly different. Well, he would do his job, all right. After having been given such a miracle, he could do nothing else. His heart warms as he turns up Henry's drive. What was Henry but another kind of miracle? Tonight, Jack gleefully resolves, he is going to give the amazing Henry Leyden a thrill he will never forget. Tonight, he will tell Henry the whole story, the entire long tale of the journey he took in his twelfth year: the Blasted Lands, Rational Richard, the Agincourt, and the Talisman. He will not leave out the Oatley Tap and the Sunlight Home, for these travails will get Henry wonderfully worked up. And Wolf! Henry is going to be crazy about Wolf; Wolf will tickle him right down to the soles of his chocolate-brown suede loafers. As Jack speaks, every word he says will be an apology for having been silent for so long. And when he has finished telling the whole story, telling it at least as well as he can, the world, this world, will have been transformed, for one person in it besides himself will know everything that happened. Jack can barely imagine what it will feel like to have the dam of his loneliness so obliterated, so destroyed, but the very thought of it floods him with the anticipation of relief. Now, this is strange . . . Henry has not turned on his lights, and his house looks dark and empty. He must have fallen asleep. Smiling, Jack turns off the engine and gets out of the pickup's cab. Experience tells him that he won't get more than three paces into the living room before Henry rouses himself and pretends that he has been awake all along. Once, when Jack found him in the dark like this, he said, â€Å"I was just resting my eyes.† So what is it going to be tonight? He was planning his Lester Young?CCharlie Parker birthday tribute, and he found it easier to concentrate this way? He was thinking about frying up some fish, and he wanted to see if food tasted different if you cooked it in the dark? Whatever it is, it'll be entertaining. And maybe they will celebrate Henry's new deal with ESPN! â€Å"Henry?† Jack raps on the door, then opens it and leans in. â€Å"Henry, you faker, are you asleep?† Henry does not respond, and Jack's question falls into a soundless void. He can see nothing. The room is a two-dimensional pane of blackness. â€Å"Hey, Henry, I'm here. And boy, do I have a story for you!† More dead silence. â€Å"Huh,† Jack says, and steps inside. Immediately, his instincts scream that he should get out, take off, scram. But why should he feel that? This is just Henry's house, that's all; he has been inside it hundreds of times before, and he knows Henry has either fallen asleep on his sofa or walked over to Jack's house, which come to think of it is probably exactly what happened. Henry got a terrific offer from the ESPN representative, and in his excitement for even Henry Leyden can get excited, you just have to look a little closer than you do with most people decided to surprise Jack at his house. When Jack failed to arrive by five or six, he decided to wait for him. And right now, he is probably sound asleep on Jack's sofa, instead of his own. All of this is plausible, but it does not alter the message blasting from Jack's nerve endings. Go! Leave! You don't want to be here! He calls Henry's name again, and his response is the silence he expects. The transcendent mood that had carried him down the valley has already disappeared, but he never noted its passing, merely that it is a thing of the past. If he were still a homicide detective, this is the moment when he would unholster his weapon. Jack steps quietly into the living room. Two strong odors come to him. One is the scent of perfume, and the other . . . He knows what the other one is. Its presence here means that Henry is dead. The part of Jack that is not a cop argues that the smell of blood means no such thing. Henry may have been wounded in a fight, and the Fisherman could have taken him across worlds, as he did with Tyler Marshall. Henry may be trussed up in some pocket of the Territories, salted away to be used as a bargaining chip, or as bait. He and Ty might be side by side, waiting for rescue. Jack knows that none of this is true. Henry is dead, and the Fisherman killed him. It is his job now to find the body. He's a coppiceman; he has to act like one. That the last thing in the world he wants to do is look at Henry's corpse does not change the nature of his task. Sorrow comes in many forms, but the kind of sorrow that has been building within Jack Sawyer feels as if it is made of granite. It slows his step and clenches his jaw. When he moves to his left and reaches for the light switch, this stony sorrow directs his hand to the right spot on the wall as surely as if he were Henry. Because he is looking at the wall when the lights go on, only his peripheral vision takes in the interior of the room, and the damage does not seem as extensive as he had feared. A lamp has been toppled, a chair knocked over. But when Jack turns his head, two aspects of Henry's living room sear themselves onto his retinas. The first is a red slogan on the cream-colored opposite wall; the second, the sheer amount of blood on the floor. The bloodstains are like a map of Henry's progress into and back out of the room. Gouts of blood like those left by a wounded animal begin at the hallway and trail, accompanied by many loops and spatters, to the back of the Mission sofa, where blood lies pooled. Another large pool covers the hardwood floor beneath the long, low table where Henry sometimes used to park his portable CD player and stack the evening's CDs. From the table, another series of splashes and gouts lead back into the hallway. To Jack, it looks as though Henry must have been very l ow on blood when he felt safe enough to crawl out from under the table. If that is the way it went. While Henry lay dead or dying, the Fisherman had taken something made of cloth his shirt? a handkerchief ? and used it like a fat, unwieldy paintbrush. He had dipped it in the blood behind the sofa, raised it dripping to the wall, and daubed a few letters. Then he'd repeated and repeated the action until he had wiped the last letter of his message onto the wall. HELLO HOLLYWOOD CUM GET MEE CK CK CK CK But the Crimson King had not written the taunting initials, and neither had Charles Burnside. They had been daubed on the wall by the Fisherman's master, whose name, in our ears, sounds like Mr. Munshun. Don't worry, I'll come for you soon enough, Jack thinks. At this point, he could not be criticized for walking outside, where the air does not reek of blood and perfume, and using his cell phone to call Sumner Street. Maybe Bobby Dulac is on duty. He might even find Dale still at the station. To fulfill all of his civic obligations, he need speak only eight or nine words. After that, he could pocket the cell phone and sit on Henry's front steps until the guardians of law and order come barreling up the long drive. There would be a lot of them, at least four cars, maybe five. Dale would have to call the troopers, and Brown and Black might feel obliged to call the FBI. In about forty-five minutes, Henry's living room would be crowded with men taking measurements, writing in their notebooks, setting down evidence tags, and photographing bloodstains. There would be the M.E. and the evidence wagon. And when the first stage of everybody's various jobs came to an end, two men in white jackets would carry a stretcher through the front door and loa d the stretcher into whatever the hell they were driving. Jack does not consider this option for much longer than a couple of seconds. He wants to see what the Fisherman and Mr. Munshun did to Henry he has to see it, he has no choice. His grim sorrow demands it, and if he does not obey his sorrow's commands, he will never feel quite whole again. His sorrow, which is closed like a steel vault around his love for Henry Leyden, drives him deeper into the room. Jack moves slowly, picking his way forward the way a man crossing a stream moves from rock to rock. He is looking for the bare places where he can set his feet. From across the room, dripping red letters eight inches high mock his progress. HELLO HOLLYWOOD It seems to wink on and off, like a neon sign. HELLO HOLLYWOOD HELLO HOLLYWOOD. CUM GET MEE CUM GET MEE He wants to curse, but the weight of his sorrow will not permit him to utter the words that float into his mind. At the end of the hallway to the studio and the kitchen, Jack steps over a long smear of blood and turns his back on the living room and the distracting flashes of neon. The light penetrates only three or four feet into the hallway. The kitchen is solid, featureless darkness. The studio door hangs half open, and reflected light shines softly in its window. Blood lies spattered and smeared everywhere on the floor of the hallway. He can no longer avoid stepping in it but moves down the hallway with his eyes on the gaping studio door. Henry Leyden never left this door yawning into the little corridor;he kept it closed. Henry was neat. He had to be: if he left the studio door hanging open, he would walk right into it the next time he went to the kitchen. The mess, the disorder left in his wake by Henry's murderer disturbs Jack more than he wishes to admit, maybe even more than he recognizes. This messiness represents a true violation, and, on his friend's behalf, Jack hugely resents it. He reaches the door, touches it, opens it wider. A concentrated stench of perfume and blood hangs in the air. Nearly as dark as the kitchen, the studio offers Jack only the dim shape of the console and the murky rectangles of the speakers fixed to the wall. The window into the kitchen hovers like a black sheet, invisible. His hand still on the door, Jack moves nearer and sees, or thinks he sees, the back of a tall chair and a shape stretched over the desk in front of the console. Only then does he hear the whup-whup-whup of tape hitting the end of a reel. â€Å"Ohmygod,† Jack says, all in one word, as if he had all along not been expecting something precisely like what is before him. With a terrible, insistent certainty, the sound of the tape drives home the fact that Henry is dead. Jack's sorrow overrides his chickenhearted desire to go outside and call every cop in the state of Wisconsin by compelling him to grope for the light switch. He cannot leave; he must witness, as he did with Irma Freneau. His fingers brush against the down-ticked plastic switch and settle on it. Into the back of his throat rises a sour, brassy taste. He flicks the switch up, and light floods the studio. Henry's body leans out of the tall leather chair and over the desk, his hands on either side of his prize microphone, his face flattened on its left side. He is still wearing his dark glasses, but one of the thin metal bows is bent. At first, everything seems to have been painted red, for the nearly uniform coat of blood covering the desk has been dripping onto Henry's lap and the tops of his thighs for some time, and all the equipment has been sprayed with red. Part of Henry's cheek has been bitten off. He is missing two fingers from his right hand. To Jack's eyes, which have been taking an inventory as they register all the details of the room, most of Henry's blood loss came from a wound in his back. Blood-soaked clothing conceals the injury, but as much blood lies pooled, dripping, at the back of the chair as covers the desk. Most of the blood on the floor came from the chair. The Fisherman must have sliced an internal organ, or severed an artery. Very little blood, apart from a fine mist over the controls, has hit the tape recorder. Jack can hardly remember how these machines work, but he has seen Henry change reels often enough to have a sense of what to do. He turns the recorder off and threads the end of the tape into the empty reel. Then he turns the machine on and pushes REWIND. The tape glides smoothly over the heads, spooling from one reel to the other. â€Å"Did you make a tape for me, Henry?† Jack asks. â€Å"I bet you did, but I hope you didn't die telling me what I already know.† The tape clicks to a stop. Jack pushes PLAY and holds his breath. In all his bull-necked, red-faced glory, George Rathbun booms from the speakers. â€Å"Bottom of the ninth, and the home team is headed for the showers, pal. But the game ain't OVER till the last BLIND man is DEAD!† Jack sags against the wall. Henry Shake enters the room and tells him to call Maxton's. The Wisconsin Rat sticks his head in and screams about Black House. The Sheik the Shake the Shook and George Rathbun have a short debate, which the Shake wins. It is too much for Jack; he cannot stop his tears, and he does not bother to try. He lets them come. Henry's last performance moves him enormously. It is so bountiful, so pure so purely Henry. Henry Leyden kept himself alive by calling on his alternate selves, and they did the job. They were a faithful crew, George and the Shake and the Rat, and they went down with the ship, not that they had much choice. Henry Leyden reappears, and in a voice that grows fainter with each phrase, says that Jack can beat vain and stupid. Henry's dying voice says he had a wonderful life. His voice drops to a whisper and utters three words filled to the brim with gratified surprise: Ah, Lark. Hello. Jack can hear the smile in those words. Weeping, Jack staggers out of the studio. He wants to collapse into a chair and cry until he has no more tears, but he cannot fail either himself or Henry so greatly. He moves down the hallway, wipes his eyes, and waits for the stony sorrow to help him deal with his grief. It will help him deal with Black House, too. The sorrow is not to be deterred or deflected; it works like steel in his spine. The ghost of Henry Shake whispers: Jack, this sorrow is never going to leave you. Are you down with that? Wouldn't have it any other way. Just as long as you know. Wherever you go, whatever you do. Through every door. With every woman. If you have children, with your children. You'll hear it in all the music you listen to, you'll see it in every book you read. It will be part of the food you eat. With you forever. In all the worlds. In Black House. I am it, and it is me. George Rathbun's whisper is twice as loud as the Sheik the Shake the Shook's: Well, damnit, son, can I hear you say D'YAMBA? D'yamba. I reckon now you know why the bees embraced you. Don't you have a telephone call to make? Yes, he does. But he cannot bear to be in this blood-soaked house any longer; he needs to be out in the warm summer night. Letting his feet land where they may, Jack walks across the ruined living room and passes through the doorway. His sorrow walks with him, for he is it and it is he. The enormous sky hangs far above him, pierced with stars. Out comes the trusty cell phone. And who answers the telephone at the French Landing Police Station? Arnold â€Å"Flashlight† Hrabowski, of course, with a new nickname and just reinstated as a member of the force. Jack's news puts Flashlight Hrabowski in a state of high agitation. What? Gosh! Oh, no. Oh, who woulda believed it? Gee. Yeah, yessir. I'll take care of that right away, you bet. So while the former Mad Hungarian tries to keep both his hands and voice from trembling as he dials the chief's home number and passes on Jack's two-sided message, Jack himself wanders away from the house, away from the drive and his pickup truck, away from anything that reminds him of human beings, and into a meadow filled with high, yellow-green grasses. His sorrow leads him, for his sorrow knows better than he what he needs. Above all, he needs rest. Sleep, if sleep is possible. A soft spot on level ground far from the coming uproar of red lights and sirens and furious, hyperactive policemen. Far from all that desperation. A place where a man can lay his head and get a representative view of the local heavens. Half a mile down the fields, Jack comes to such a place between a cornfield and the rocky beginnings of the wooded hills. His sorrowing mind tells his sorrowing, exhausted body to lie down and make itself comfortable, and his body obeys. Overhead, the stars seem to vibrate and blur, though of course real stars in the familiar, real heavens do not act that way, so it must be an optical illusion. Jack's body stretches out, and the pad of grass and topsoil beneath his body seems to adjust itself around him, although this, too, must be an illusion, for everyone knows that in real life, the actual ground tends to be obdurate, inflexible, and stony. Jack Sawyer's sorrowing mind tells his sorrowing ache o f a body to fall asleep, and impossible as it may seem, fall asleep it does. Within minutes, Jack Sawyer's sleeping body undergoes a subtle transformation. Its edges seem to soften, its colors his wheaten hair, his light tan jacket, his soft brown shoes grow paler. An odd translucency, a mistiness or cloudiness, enters the process. It is as if we can peer through the cloudy, indistinct mass of his slow-breathing body to see the soft, crushed blades of grass that form its mattress. The longer we peer, the more clearly we can take in the grass beneath him, for his body is getting vaguer and vaguer. At last it is only a shimmer over the grass, and by the time the Jack-shaped pad of green has again straightened itself, the body that shaped it is long gone.

Importance Of Volunteering To Better Your School And Community Essay

With busy lives, it can be hard to find time to volunteer. However, the benefits of volunteering are enormous to you, your family, and your community. The right match can help you find friends, reach out to the community, learn new skills, and even advance your career. It will also look good on any of your college applications, because in this competitive world, most colleges or universities are looking for people that are actively involved in their community. Mostly those who volunteered are those who did really well in their school. Volunteering connects you to others. One of the better known benefits of volunteering is the impact on the community. Unpaid volunteers are often the glue that holds a community together. Volunteering allows you to connect to your community and make it a better place. However, volunteering is a two way street, and it can benefit you and your family as much as the cause you choose to help. Dedicating your time as a volunteer helps you make new friends, expand your network, and boost your social skills. Volunteering helps you make new friends and contacts. One of the best ways to make new friends and strengthen existing relationships is to commit to a shared activity together. Volunteering is a great way to meet new people, especially if you are new to an area. Volunteering also strengthens your ties to the community and broadens your support network, exposing you to people with common interests, neighborhood resources, and fun and fulfilling activities. Volunteering can provide career experience. Volunteering offers you the chance to try out a new career without making a long-term commitment. It is also a great way to gain experience in a new field. In some fields, you can volunteer directly at an organization that does the kind of work you’re interested in. For example, if you’re interested in nursing, you could volunteer at a hospital or a nursing home. Your volunteer work might also expose you to professional organizations or internships that could be of benefit to your career. Volunteering can teach you valuable job skills. Just because volunteer work is unpaid does not mean the skills you learn are basic. Many volunteering opportunities provide extensive training. Volunteering can also help you build upon skills you already have and use  them to benefit the greater community. For instance, if you hold a successful sales position, you raise awareness for your favorite cause as a volunteer advocate, while further developing and improving your public speaking, communication, and marketing skills. Volunteering brings fun and fulfillment to your life. Volunteering is a fun and easy way to explore your interests and passions. Doing volunteer work you find meaningful and interesting can be a relaxing, energizing escape from your day to day routine of work, school, or family commitments. Volunteering also provides you with renewed creativity, motivation, and vision that can carry over into your personal and professional life. Lastly, volunteering helped a lot of people and while helping others you will feel very happy because you actually did something for them. Sometimes, it is not always about what you want, but what other want. You will also encounter a lot of different problems while volunteering, but if you actually take some time and helped them solving it, you will find out that volunteering is a very happy task. The highest of distinctions is service to others. To serve is beautiful, but only if it is done with joy and a whole heart and a free mind.

How to Write a Perfect Case Study

How to Write a Perfect Case Study A case study enhances existing research findings and helps researchers conduct generalizations and stratifications of the issues concerning a problem, question or contradictory point. Case study skeptics claim that a limited number of real situations – cases – can never be based on when a problem is solved. Still, many researchers and management specialists proceed with using case study analysis results for their companies obvious profit. According to a statement by D. B. Bromley, a case study may be defined as a â€Å"systematic inquiry into an event or a set of related events which aims at describing and explaining the phenomenon of interest.† Thus, a case study is a type of written research paper that has earned enormous popularity in all spheres of knowledge, in life, and social sciences in particular. The key to a successful case study lies in the thorough and in-depth analysis of a given concept, strategy, idea or program. The paper, in most cases, will be descriptive or explanatory, and thus providing concrete conclusions. The results and limitations of an effective case study may be further used in practical activity of an enterprise, establishment, or institution. A modern case study may be composed by a person individually or by a group. In the latter case, each member of the team carries out certain stages of the research. What is more, it is up to you to choose the type of case study to compose. A case study may be fictitious (with consideration of a hypothesis or an abstract situation), as well as true-to-life (even with no real name changes or describing the actual business cases of a certain firm). A case study cannot, however, contain universal answers to the given question. It can only present possible solutions to an issue or improve it by means of implementing certain complex measures. The case study approach in paper composition presupposes a certain structure and style of narration. When you need to complete a case study in your profiling subject, it will be far easier to begin with a general outline and draft of the future paper. Try to briefly delineate the range of questions set in the introduction, main body, and conclusion. This will give you the general idea of what to begin with. It is sometimes easier to begin writing a case study from the main body and not the introduction. Still, it is up to you to decide on the stages of both the analysis and writing processes.

Are You Distracted by Technology essayEssay Writing Service

Are You Distracted by Technology essayEssay Writing Service Are You Distracted by Technology? essay Are You Distracted by Technology? essayNowadays technology entered all spheres of human life and contributed to significant changes in these spheres. Communications were dramatically reshaped by technology: the availability of social networks, video games and various smartphone and computer applications allows to stay connected 24/7 and to construct own virtual world in the most convenient way. Despite numerous advantages, active use of technology also has some notable disadvantages such as excess flow of information and frequent distractions damaging the ability to concentrate. Multitasking which is so common for all technology-related activities also alters the ability to focus on particular tasks and reinforces patterns of brain activity which are different from less technology-involved generations. The purpose of this paper is to discuss the distracting impact of technology and long-term consequences of this impact.The role of technology in educational sphere and in information p rocessing is invaluable; for example, technology changed the way of conducting research for students, made research findings more accessible and comprehensive for students and eased access to information in general. At the same time, mental habits of multitasking and staying online in social networks and messengers have a negative impact on the ability of students to process information, to concentrate on particular sources and to establish analytical connections between different sources of information. According to Prakash (2012), 87% of teachers note that students of the wired generation have shorter attention spans and 64% of teachers admit that technology is rather distracting students than helping their academic success.The way how information is presented and shared nowadays encourages people to focus on key concepts and sentences and skim the meaning of the messages. These skills are needed in order to navigate through multiple sources of information and multiple messages re ceived from these sources. Communications in social networks and messengers are also brief and are restrained either to sharing some information (links, photos, videos, etc.) or to exchanging short messages. Twitter actually embodies the essence of current communications 140 symbols might be enough for average information exchange activities. Furthermore, the availability of internet connection almost anywhere allows to stay online and receive updates at any time.The specifics of technology described above leads to shortening of attention spans; frequent checks of updates in various networks create distractions, and the need to stay updated and to know all the latest news hinders long-term concentration and affects the quality of activities which require thoughtful approach. Furthermore, kids who grow up in the conditions of information overload have difficulties in mastering time management and attention management. While for older adults who already have mastered time management it is easier to avoid distractions when needed, kids might not be able to develop the right skills and traits due to challenging environment.According to Rosen (2012), observation of the ability to concentrate of students of various age (middle school, high school and university) revealed alarming trends. The students had to study something important for 15 minutes, and their behaviors and distractions were observed during that time. The average time span that students spent on the task without distracting was 3 minutes (Rosen n.d.). This result was similar for all age categories of students. The major sources of distraction were technology sources such as laptops and smartphones (Rosen n.d.). These results show that the impact of technology is similar on all age categories. Furthermore, the researchers explored the relationship between academic performance and distractions, and it turned out that students who consumed more information and media every day and were prone to multitask ing had worse results. Students who were able to work longer on a specific task and developed focused study strategies showed better results (Rosen n.d.).Another study focused on the types of distractions which have the most impact on young people. It appeared that the choice of favorite distraction depended on psychosocial characteristics of an individual (Richtel n.d.). The students with a need for socializing tended to engage in texting, communicating in social networks and sending instant messages; the students who wanted to escape from the society chose video games and those students who had a tendency to procrastinate surfed various websites, watched videos and sometimes shared links with others (Richtel n.d.). Therefore, technology allows to choose the types of distractions that are most appropriate for an individual. In any case, the results of the research show that technology is a universal distraction and that active use of technology for entertainment can affect academic or working performance.Evidence shows that technology is a powerful distraction for most people. Active use of telecommunications leads to multitasking, reduces performance and attentiveness, affects attention spans and the ability to concentrate. While working with multiple sources of information might develop flexibility and short-term involvement, it is necessary to avoid excess multitasking and being distracted by technology since it can reduce the efficiency of in-depth thinking activities. In this context, it is important to remain focused in the modern world and to train the ability to concentrate on important things instead of switching between various distractions.

An Analytical Essay on the Humor in Hamlet The Tragedy of Hamlet Essays

Humor was added to Hamlet by two major scenes, along with Hamlet's use of his antic-disposition. These two were: the scene between Hamlet and Polonius in the library, and the scene with the grave diggers (the clowns).    The scene between Hamlet and Polonius took place in Act II Scene 2. In Hamlet's first encounter with Polonius, he immediately insulted the old man by calling him a "fishmonger". He then quickly changed his opinion and complemented Polonius by calling him an honest man. Hamlet said, "to be honest, as this world goes, is to be one man picked out of ten thousand". As we know Polonius definitely was not such a man. Hamlet was portrayed as a clever lad, who was playing a psychological game with an old fool. He asked Polonius whether or not he had a daughter, pretending he did not know that Ophelia was Polonius's daughter. When Hamlet was asked about what he was reading, he replied by saying, "words, words, words". Throughout this scene, Hamlet revealed himself to Polonius as a mentally unstable man. He was playing a fool himself, while ingeniously using this to make Polonius look like an even bigger fool. He cleverly insulted Polonius' appearances indirectly, by referring to the book he was reading. According to that book old men had grey beards, their faces were wrinkled, they had a plentiful lack of wit, and so on. He was describing Polonius exactly. Perhaps the most humorous part took place when Hamlet, while saying, "for yourself, sir, shall grow old as I am, if like a crab you could go backward",   he advanced towards Polonius, causing him to walk backwards. Those words and the actions on the stage   revealed Hamlet to be a daring young man. When Polonius finally left, Hamlet dropped his pretense and yelled, "These tedious old fools!". In Act III Scene 2, Hamlet used a recorder, the musical instrument, as a telescope when Polonius entered the scene. He asked Polonius, "Do you see yonder cloud that's almost in shape of a camel?". Hamlet always pretended to be the madman in front of Polonius, while he actually made him look like an old fool.    The scene with the grave diggers (the clowns), took place in Act V Scene I. The clowns were discussing Ophelia's death and were making fun of the case of Sir James Hales, who also drowned himself.

The bloody revenge Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

The bloody revenge - Essay Example 67). Body The Music Lesson, This is Your Brain on Music Most times music education is introduced to students when they are still very young at home and when they get to primary and secondary schools they are introduced to music through being given opportunities of participating in school choirs, bands and orchestras which increases their urge to learn more concerning music education. Due to the fact that music education is very essential, it is usually included as part of the school curriculum and other musical classes are also observed to be important and very effective in the educational life of a student (Wooten, p. 47). When students reach at the University level they are also introduced to music as part of the humanities and arts programs and those who perform well are even credits for their effort of taking the course of music which they are given as history of music or just any other course that appreciate music and focuses on learning different styles of music and listening t o music. In the university music lessons take very many different forms and these are such as music psychology, ethnomusicology, philosophy of education and music education historiography among other forms. Although music education has been in existence for a very long time, it still continues taking place in the modern world in very many forms including individualized forms and in community forms that entails introducing music styles from different parts of the world such as westernized music and African music which is non-western cultured. Even those people who have basic elements of music still find it important to have a private class with a music teacher who has some musical knowledge higher than theirs. Amateurs in music find it important to take musical classes just to increase the knowledge that they have in music and this means that they want to continue their music lives having reached the intermediate level of music techniques. Music education is one of the courses that h ave been very effective as in the development education because since its existence it has covered all the aspect of education and it has been very effective to both young students and adults in the society. Music & Attitude The main reason behind music lesson is to create a positive attitude towards music in the schools and the society at large through showing people its importance. Generally, many people have a positive attitude towards music at large and this is because it has a tendency of sticking into their memories for a while and this is the reason as to why many people will continue listening to specific types of songs continuously without getting tired or bored with it. People form their attitudes by either becoming fanatics or by becoming extremists and this means that they can either know how to sing or they can just love someone who sings the type of music that they like. The effect that music has on human beings is relative since there are very many genres of music in the society and this means that people chose the kind of music they want to listen and this is only according to their taste (Wooten, p. 111). Music & Motivation One of the most powerful ways that a good composer of soundtracks plays with a person’s or people’s emotions is through introducing a very good piece of music in

Management of Organisations Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2500 words

Management of Organisations - Assignment Example 1.) Therefore, organisational performance should be measured. Assessing an organisation's performance also helps to determine whether or not the company has a clear mission (one that addresses the needs of a particular marketplace) and whether or not people on all levels of the organisation understand the mission. Assessing the performance also allows the organisation to review the mission statement and to determine if the mission is referenced when developing organizational strategies. Assessing an organisation's performance will help to determine the procedure and processes that are set in place and whether or not these are in compliance with federal, state, and local laws. Examining the current ethics compliance programs (if there is one) and the processes which are set in place to assess compliance with accounting and financial management system helps to determine if the system that human resource uses is effective. Examining how the organisation measures employee satisfaction and how it handles employee satisfaction and how the processes of accreditation and certification operate along with their effectiveness can be determined by the assessment of an organisation. These methods are just some way that a manager can assess internal environment of an organisation. organisation is service oriented and its focus is on the c... The organisation is service oriented and its focus is on the clients. Fitness First is the largest health club operator in the UK and Europe. Having grown from a single health club, twelve years later Fitness First has 1.2 million members in fifteen countries. There are 166 Fitness First clubs in the UK, which is the focus of this case study. They provide top-quality service and equipment at a value price in a non-intimidating environment. Regardless of an individual's current fitness status, they offer the opportunity to improve his/her fitness level.Fitness First strives to deliver its members the best experience each and every time he/she walks through their doors. It was found that the customer service to clients is impeccable. Through word-of-mouth, feedback, increased membership, etc. the assessment of this portion of the organisation was excellent. However, the assessment of employees, staff, and policies regarding staff were assessed, the results were not the same. The company pl aced much emphasis on meeting the needs of its clients which left a gap in meeting the needs of its employees. Perhaps by implementing Investors in People, the largest health club operator, which caters to people can also provide cater to their people (employee) and reach its objectives more effectively. Management 4 In order to improve the company's weaknesses, based on findings during the assessment, the company decided to invest in its staff and employees in addition to investing in its clients. Taylor & Thackwray, (1996:1), as cited in Scutt (1998) stated that, "Investment in equipment depreciates whilst investment in people appreciates". As this quote points out, investing in people will deliver a huge return.

Two Works Response Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Two Works Response - Assignment Example This discussion talks that  starting with the Campbell Soup cans, Andy started his artwork on these cans by painting them. He borrowed this idea from Muriel Latow, who was an interior designer since this cans were familiar with the people thus he was supposed to paint the objects that people saw every day. He did some artwork on this cans first by created an image which he repeatedly traced   so as to enhance a two-dimensional graphic aesthetic. He further made two types of the Campbell soup cans whereby he employed visual differentiation to show the difference between the two. This was in terms of portraits were of the first type was the â€Å"Monchengladbach type† having an illustrated image. The other type was â€Å"Virus type† which had a log on the envelope of the soup company.  This paper discusses that  Roy’s work as a pop artist with a majority of his initial works varying in style and subject with enhanced display of increased understanding of mo dern painting. His important art came with the drowning girl. The source of the image had been the boyfriend of the woman standing on a boat that was above her. His interests traversed both the subject matter as well as the qualities of images that were abstract. The high impact of the iconic images he created has synonymously involved cropping images in creating new compositions.  Lichtenstein further involved condensing text from the comic book panels portraying language as a vital visual element.

Trans World Airlines Flight Attendance Case Study

Trans World Airlines Flight Attendance - Case Study Example The strike happened at a time when the airline business was highly competitive (Wallace, n.d.). All airlines were aiming at making huge profit margins. The industry had become deregulated. This case study is a summary of the issues that characterized the strike. It also gives an opinion on the subject supporting it with similar occurrences and common practice. It also makes recommendations on the best way to solve predicaments similar to the one faced by the IFFA and TWA. The recommendations analyze the most favorable solutions to parties embroiled in similar trade disputes. Icahn was faced with the need to cut on costs to bolster TWA’s profits. One way of doing this was by reducing labor costs. It was the easiest way out owing to the fact that other management teams apply it when faced with situations that demand to lower operational costs. Icahn required wage concessions and benefit costs amounting to about 300 million U.S. dollars. This would reduce labor costs and expenses before tax by 20% and 8% respectively. The Air Line Pilots Association (ALPA) and the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers (IAM) were agreeable. The two groups granted Icahn concessions worth $100 million and $50 million respectively, the consideration being profit sharing and worker stock-ownership plans. Icahn was expected to get the remainder from IFFA (Wallace). ALPA and IAM expected the same. If not, he would have to sell the airline because there were some interested parties. IFFA’s leader, Victoria Frankovich, had her reservations about the wage concessions. This was coupled with Icahn’s demands that the flight attendants would be required to put more hours to increase the airline’s productivity and competitiveness. It was intimated that the airline paid a lot more in wages as compared to other airlines with whom it competed; thus justifying these demands.