Cruel and Unusual Punishment: the Death Penalty

Cruel and Unusual Punishment: The Death Penalty I remember watching the movie Dead Man Walking; it was about this man named Matthew Poncelet who allegedly raped a girl and killed a teenage boy. Poncelet pleaded not guilty, but was convicted as a murderer and put on death row. He asked for several appeals stating that Carl Vitello, the man he was with at the time, was the one that should be at fault. Poncelet seems very convincing that it wasn’t him, but at the end, the courts had enough evidence to grant Poncelet the retribution of execution.The movie has me questioning America’s justice system; what if someone was actually innocent? Is it right to kill someone as a consequence for their wrong doing? To some, it seems like the right thing to do. If someone breaks the rules you simply punish them. But how should we carry out these punishments? When eight-year-old Billy steals a candy bar from Seven Eleven, you can bet that one of the parents will deliver some whippings. In Texas, when I was in elementary school, I started a fight, and as a result I got sent to the principal’s office and received three licks with a paddle.So where do we draw the line? At a higher level, what happens to me if I kill someone? Since the beginning of time, societies in almost every culture and background have used capital punishment or physical chastisement as a consequence for the killing of others. But, we shouldn’t be doing this anymore; life is too valuable. Even though some people have made mistakes in their lives, its time for the United States to free the judicial systems from their power to take peoples life’s as a consequence for people taking the life of another. In 1972, with the Furman v.Georgia case, the Supreme Court recognized that capital punishment was indeed a roll of the dice, and as a consequence held that as practiced it violated the Cruel and Unusual Punishment clause of the Constitution's Eighth Amendment. Justice Stewart decl ared that the death penalty was cruel because it is â€Å"wantonly and freakishly imposed,† and it was like â€Å"being struck by lightning† (Hull). Justice Douglas, agreed and stated that the death penalty was unusual because â€Å"it discriminates against someone by reason of his race, wealth, social position, or class† (Hull).Justice Byron White, a man who favored more executions, agreed that he noticed, that among the hundreds of federal and state criminal cases that could have resulted in the death penalty, â€Å"only a handful of defendants were actually selected for execution† — making the system â€Å"so totally irrational as to be based on luck† (Hull). The decision removed power from the states to enforce the death penalty, and moved the 629 inmates off death row.For a few years, the death penalty remained illegal because the Justices that were on the Supreme Court at the time concluded that executions violated the Eight and Fourte en Amendments, citing cruel and unusual punishment. However, with different terms, in 1976, the Supreme Court reversed itself with Gregg v. Georgia and reinstated the death penalty to state hands. Nevertheless, this is a prime example of how the Supreme Court can change laws and set precedents by the way they interpret our Amendments.The Supreme Court is in place to dissect, and analyze the Constitution to decide what the Framers meant, and in 1972, the perspicacity of the Justices resulted in the most humane decision ever made; people where being deprived from life by serving life imprisonments instead of being executed. Since 1976, the United States has executed 1,295 people, and there are currently 3,189 people on death row (DPIC). But all murderers haven’t had the same fortune, because of Gregg v. Georgia, some states enforce the death penalty and others don’t. There are currently 33 states in the U. S. ho currently support and implement capital punishment, and 17 states who oppose. (DPIC). Murderers in non-capital punishment states can kill with the highest punishment being life in prison; but if that same murderer resided in another state, he would have the opportunity, depending on the case, to be sentenced to execution, via lethal injection. The problem here lies, that there is no consistency when it come to punishing the murderers. If a murderer lives in the U. S. the reprimands should remain the same for everyone; the penalties shouldn’t differ because what climate a killer prefers living in.The laws that we have in place now, means that if I wanted to go on a killing spree, and I didn’t want to die because of it, I would simply move from a death penalty state to a free death penalty state and make my moves there. It’s not right to pick and choose something of this magnitude. Everyone in this nation should be treated equally when it comes to a life or death situation. In 2007 at the State Bar of Wisconsin Annual Con vention in Milwaukee, pro- and anti-death penalty activists gathered to debate over the death penalty. During this debate, James P. McKay Jr. an assistant state's attorney with the Cook County State's Attorney's Office in Chicago, and a pro-death penalty supporter, stated in defense that he â€Å"absolutely believes that the death penalty brings justice to a murder victim's family† (Pribek), and that he has â€Å"never called for the death penalty in a case for political purposes† (Pribek). Professor John C. McAdams, a political science professor of Marquette University in Milwaukee, and an anti-death penalty supporter, fired back with, â€Å"The state should not implement the death penalty because of its irrevocability.Whether the state is literally taking a prisoner's life, versus locking him or her up for life, the state has taken that person's life by vanquishing his or her freedom† (Pribek). Moments after, McAdams closed out the debate with the crowd on his side, stating, â€Å"If I were on the Supreme Court, I'd say that the death penalty is cruel and unusual punishment† (Pribek). Although some death penalty advocates consider themselves the voice of the innocent victims and their families, McAdams made a very notable point.Penitentiaries don’t have to eradicate the murderer to serve justice. But you can end a life; sentence the murderer to serve permanent incarceration, and you will deprive them from freedom, or in other words, life; which in return satisfies the amendments. Yet, â€Å"we the people†, continue to put the power of life or death into the hands of fallible, sometimes prejudiced, narrow-minded people and ask them to play God and determine who’s worthy to live a life that we did not bestow upon them.Sentencing someone to life is the most reasonable solution in more ways then one. There have been 140 exonerations since 1972, and from 2000 to 2007 there has been an average of 5 exonerations per year — innocent people suffering for no reason (Woodford). The average time between the sentencing to death of the once sought guilty, to their proven innocence, is 10 years. If U. S. citizens could find it in their hearts to come together and drop down to the humanitarian level, there could be change in the system with awareness, and spread of word.There has to be other people who share the same feelings, and cringe at the thought of possible government killings toward non-guilty — it’s unsupportable. Its mind boggling to note that there has been 140 non-guilty offenders put in prison with the presumption that they are going to die, and then some years later, they are freed. The probable innocent killing can easily be solved by sentencing presumable murderers to life without parole. The death penalty is much more expensive than life without parole because the Constitution requires a long and complex judicial process for capital cases.If the death penalty was re placed with life without parole, an immense amount of money would be saved. According to a California Commission report in 2008, California could save $1 billion over five years by replacing the death penalty with permanent imprisonment (Woodford). The report stated — with reforms to ensure a fair trail to the current system in place, the death penalty would cost California an estimate of $232 million a year and the cost for a system that imposed lifetime incarnation instead of the death penalty would only cost $11. 5 million a year (Woodford). Two birds with one stone.The evidence for capital punishment as an uniquely effective deterrent to murder is especially important, since deterrence is the only major pragmatic argument on the pro-death penalty side. The theory is, if murderers are sentenced to death and executed, potential murderers will think twice before killing for fear of losing their own life; what is feared most, deters most. In 1973, Isaac Ehrlich, statistician who, after looking at national homicide rates between 1930 and 1970, established an analysis which produced results showing that for every inmate who was executed, 7 lives were spared because others were deterred from committing murder.But this however, has been proven inconclusive, and results cannot be duplicated by other researchers. Then in 1997, George Pataki, the Governor of New York state at the time, stated during the anniversary of reinstating death penalty, â€Å"To fight and deter crime effectively, individuals must have every tool government can afford them, including the death penalty† (Paraki). The governor made strong relations with the death penalty and the potential of installing fear in other potential murders.Pataki continued with strong regards to the deterrence theory after mentioning that the death penalty was a key contributor to the recent dramatic drop in violent crimes — â€Å"In New York, the death penalty has turned the tables on fear and p ut it back where it belongs-in the hearts of criminals. I know, as do most New Yorkers, that by restoring the death penalty, we have saved lives† (Pataki). I do not feel that execution best punishes criminals for their acts.Instead, in my opinion, the administration of the death penalty should end because it does not deter crime, it risks the death of an innocent person, it costs millions of dollars, it inflicts unreasonable pain, and most importantly it violates moral principles. The inconsistency doesn’t make sense either, according to Nearly everyone that has been summoned to death row, is spurred from to According to our Bill of Rights, I cannot be deprived of life without due process of law (US Const. , amend. V). So if the process of law is carried out, the courts can decide to kill me if my crime is severe enough to correspond with capital punishment.But, according to the eighth amendment, I’m protected from cruel and unusual punishment ? isn’t kill ing someone cruel and unusual? Did our Framers mean that the death penalty has to be humane, or did they mean the person has to be imprisoned for life? Is it right for someone you have never met to define these so called â€Å"rights† and never be consistent with their definitions? So here we are with a lot of questions and no right answers! Yes, Poncelet did commit a crime and he should pay; but how can someone that didn’t put you in this world, take you out?The death penalty is cruel and unusual. Why can’t the court system just sentence someone to life in prison? I believe if you take the life of another, it is a form of cruel punishment. In my eyes, it could be a violation of the eighth amendment. Our fifth amendment states, that with the processes of due law, they can deprive us of life. But how can someone construe that as killing us and taking our life? The judicial courts should have interpreted this as putting someone in prison until they die. If youâ₠¬â„¢re imprisoned for the rest of your life, then you have been deprived of life.This should be enough justice. It’s not like someone will be enjoying their time. I don’t see how the people that operate the death penalties can sleep at night; killing someone because they killed just isn’t right. They should actually make a certain prison for those who have been deprived of life, the ones who have killed. The prison should have the inmates locked up in a small dark room for 24 hours a day with no contact with anyone, no bed, no blanket, just a toilet and pictures of the victims engraved into the walls of their cell.At least this way, the killer could regret what he/she did and maybe feel some sort of remorse. It would drive the person insane. It’s also messed up for the court system to appoint a state lawyer to defend you and call that a fair trail. No lawyer really cares if you win or lose the case all they care about is the money. If one is well off when it comes to money, then of course one can afford a nice experienced lawyer that would probably bust his ass and do anything to win the case, for the reason that he would probably get more money. But if you can’t afford a lawyer, they will be happy to appoint you one.He is probably making salary and his pay isn’t justified if you win or not. If your pay doesn’t fluctuate, then there is no drive; he’s not going to work as hard and not give the case as much thought. When it’s all said and done, the appointed lawyer has nothing to lose. Maybe it’s just your luck and he is a newbie and doesn’t have any business in a case involving a murder. If they want to make it a fair trail, why can’t they pay for a top notch individual lawyer who excels in that position? We should be able to pick our own, so then at least the poor person can have a chance.I mean when you’re talking about someone’s life you don’t want any Jo e Blow defending your case. Here is a statistic for you; according to American Civil Liberties Union â€Å"Approximately 90 percent of those on death row could not afford to hire a lawyer when they were tried† (Tabak). Is it okay that only some states have the death penalty? I don’t think so. If I live in Washington State and go to Alaska to kill a man, under Alaska law I will not receive capital punishment (DPIC); the worst I would get is life in prison. But if I would have stayed and did my killings in Washington, I would be put on death row (DPIC).If the United States isn’t consistent with who dies and who doesn’t, then obviously there’s something wrong. It just doesn’t seem right to pick and choose something of this magnitude. Everyone in this nation should be treated equally when it comes to a life or death situation. Here’s yet another problem that I have found: weren’t we all suppose to have unalienable rights– ri ghts that can never be taken away from us; the right to life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness? But wait; in some states they can take away our life if the crime seems bad enough.I’m no law expert, but this doesn’t seem to mesh together either. I thought the government could only suppress these rights by dictators and tyrants under oppressive regimes. The most controversial subject when talking about capital punishment is that the executioners are actually committing a crime that should put them on death row too. It’s probably the most obvious debate, but seriously, how can the same group of people who just told you that killing is illegal, turn around and kill people? That doesn’t sound fair, does it? Shouldn’t the law be equal for everyone?If murdering is illegal, then how in the hell are these people getting away with this? There’s no reason why they should get exempt from this law. They are just as bad as the criminal who committed crim e. There’s another example of how inconsistent this â€Å"act of justice† (Volpe) is being used. Two wrongs don’t make a right I don’t care how fucked up the situation may be. This law simply contradicts itself. I know I stated that it was hard to choose a side, but while writing this paper, I am confident that I oppose the whole capital punishment bullshit.Yeah, I get where people are coming from, but the reasons to not believe in the death penalty overweigh the reasons to believe in the death penalty. The only way to solve this disagreement is to actually go in and define the wording in the fifth and eighth amendments. The Framers left the Constitution open, leaving the interpretations flexible to the generations of justice to come. Once our judicial government can come to an agreement on the wording in the Constitution, then maybe we can decide if we want to continue killing people by stooping down to the criminal level.Kartha, Deepa. â€Å"10 Pros an d Cons of Capital Punishment. † Buzzle Web Portal: Intelligent Life on the Web. 5 Dec. 2009. Web. 25 Oct. 2010. . Tabak. â€Å"Loyola of Los Angeles Law Review. † American Civil Liberties Union. 1984. Web. 25 Oct. 2010. . http://www. jmu. edu/evision/archive/volume2/Volpe. pdf Works Cited DPIC. â€Å"Introduction to the Death Penalty. † Death Penalty Information Center. 2012. Web. 1 June 2012. Hull, Elizabeth. â€Å"Guilty On All Counts. † Social Policy 39. 4 (2010): 11-25. Academic Search Complete. Print.Pataki, George E. â€Å"Death Penalty Is a Deterrent. † Ed. John Hillkirk. USA Today [McLean] 1 Mar. 1997. Print. Pribek, Jane. â€Å"Pro- And Anti-Death Penalty Advocates Square Off At State Bar Of Wisconsin Annual Convention. † Wisconsin Law Journal (Milwaukee, WI) (n. d. ): Regional Business News. Print. Volpe, Tara. â€Å"Capital Punishment: Does Death Equal Justice? † Jmu. edu. 2002. E-vision. Web. 10 June 2012. Woodford, Jeanne. â€Å"10 Reasons to Oppose the Death Penalty. † Death Penalty. Death Penalty Focus, 2012. Web. 11 June 2012.

Theseus’ Ship

The Ancient Identity Crises The transitivity of identity is a question often contemplated by philosophers through philosophical puzzles of change. A popular version of the puzzle includes a man named Theseus and his ship. A ship in which has undergone a gradual change where all of the lumber was replaced by the new cargo of lumber it carried. The question then remains, is this still the original ship of Theseus? Philosopher John Locke attempts to answer this question by stating that identity is a subjective matter rather than objective.He begins by separating the idea of a substance, organism, and a person and the different criteria used to determine each type of identity. Naturally we would agree with Locke that a ship is a not a living thing capable of thought and assume that it can only be talked about in reference to matter. However, Locke proposes that a substance like the Ship of Theseus can be talked about with reference to a conscious subject’s beliefs towards it.This is based off the fact that a concept of the ship’s identity could not exist without human consciousness. Locke also provides a further suggestion that two things should not be questioned as whether or not they’re simply the same. The reason for this being that criteria differs among concepts so we must be careful in specifying â€Å"the same what† when making comparisons. Therefore, Locke concludes that the idea belonging with the ship is the identity of the ship itself.In other words, identity is a relative aspect rather than absolute, one that heavily depends on context. Identity can be defined as the distinct characteristics by which something is recognized. In other words, identity is an idea created by and for people and does not exist without them. This directly links with Locke’s idea of relative identity, as the perception of an idea is a relative concept depending on what, where, when, and whom you are asking.We must also keep in mind that just b ecause things are qualitatively identical in sharing similar properties, it may not mean they are numerically identical as one and vice versa. It is ultimately up to whomever is answering the question from what angle to declare an objects identity. In this case, I will present a variety of explanations to the identity of Theseus’ ship through different contexts. In the context of defining a ship, the change in lumber does not interfere with the necessary criterion of the preconceived notion of a ship.Though Theseus’ ship has undergone a qualitative change through the replacement of lumber, it still remains the same ship by definition of a large vessel that carries goods or people over sea. So the ship may not be qualitatively identical to the old one but numerically the same because it serves the same purpose as Theseus’ ship over time. Now, consider another context where after Theseus ceases to exist, somebody purchases and moves this ship onto land to serve an d sell dinner on deck.It’s then safe to say that the object does not meet the conditions of a ship, despite being qualitatively identical. Instead, the object now serves the purpose of a restaurant, causing it to retain a new identity without losing any parts at all. However, the context changes once again when we begin to consider the identity of the ship in relation to Theseus. Despite the gradual changes, there has only ever been one beginning to Theseus’ ship, so we can assume that he has no problem claiming it as his own.But what happens when the old, original lumber is collected and used to build a qualitatively similar ship? There are now two ships that share similar properties instead of one ship that is qualitatively different, yet numerically the same over time. Theseus must then claim one ship to be the original based on the criteria he has of how his vessel should be constituted. His predetermined opinion on what conditions must be met in order for either o f the ships to be the original is what essentially establishes the identity of the old ship.In this situation, I can agree with Locke that though the old lumber is being used, the ship is still being created from a new beginning, rendering it a new ship. Though it can then be argued that if both ships match Theseus’ criteria of the original ship, this does not make it possible for them to be one numerical identity as they are clearly two. By analyzing the various contexts above, it causes us to consider identity as grey matter rather than just a simple black and white answer.It also begins to make it clear that identity is an issue of semantics and epistemology, rather than a metaphysical one. However, while the belief of an idea within a specific circumstance is important in constituting an identity, it becomes difficult to say what is true in a world of many different perceptions. That’s when semantics might be able to step in to sort out the problem of subjectivity. Still, it’s visible that identity is a relative concept that relies on perception and context rather than something that is absolute.

A Dirty Job Chapter 27

27 BITCH'S BREW Lily had been looking all night for a way to approach Minty Fresh. She'd made eye contact with him a dozen times over the course of the evening, and smiled, but with the atmosphere of dread that fell over the room she was having trouble thinking of an opening line. Finally, when an Oprah movie of the week came on the television and everyone gathered around to watch the media diva beat Paul Winfield to death with a steam iron, Minty went to the breakfast bar and started flipping through his day planner, and Lily made her move. â€Å"So, checking your appointments?† she said. â€Å"You must be feeling optimistic about how things will go.† He shook his head. â€Å"Not really.† Lily was smitten. He was beautiful and morose – like a great brown man-gift from the gods. â€Å"How bad can it be?† Lily said, pulling the appointment book out of his hand and flipping through the pages. She stopped on today's date. â€Å"Why is Asher's name in here?† she asked. Minty hung his head. â€Å"He said you've known all about us for a while.† â€Å"Yeah, but – † She looked at the name again and the realization of what she was seeing was like a punch in the chest. â€Å"This is that book? This is your date book for that?† Minty nodded slowly, not looking at her. â€Å"When did this name show up?† Lily asked. â€Å"It wasn't there an hour ago.† â€Å"Well, fucksocks,† she said, sitting down on the bar stool next to the big man. â€Å"Yeah,† said Minty Fresh. He put his arm around her shoulders. With Charlie pulling on the legs of the bobcat guy (who was doing some impressive screaming considering he had prototype vocal cords) and the squirrel people dog-piling onto the Boston terrier, they were eventually able to extricate their lieutenant from the jaws of the bug-eyed fury with only a few snags in his Beefeater's costume. â€Å"Down, Bummer,† Charlie said. â€Å"Just chill.† He didn't know if chill was an official dog command, but it should be. Bummer snorted and backed away from the surrounding crowd of squirrel people. â€Å"Not one of us,† said the bobcat guy, pointing at Bummer. â€Å"Not one of us.† â€Å"You shut up,† Charlie said. He pulled a beef jerky from his pocket that he'd brought for emergency rations, tore off a hunk, and held it out to Bummer. â€Å"Come on, buddy. I told the Emperor I'd look out for you.† Bummer trotted over to Charlie and took the beef jerky from him, then turned to face down the squirrel people as he chewed. The squirrel people made clicking noises and brandished their weapons. â€Å"Not one of us. Not one of us,† chanted Bob. â€Å"Stop that,† Charlie said. â€Å"You can't get a mob chant going, Bob, you're the only one with a voice box.† â€Å"Oh yeah.† Bob let his chanting trail off. â€Å"Well, he's not one of us,† he added in his defense. â€Å"He is now,† Charlie said. To Bummer he said, â€Å"Can you lead us to the Underworld?† Bummer looked up at Charlie as if he knew exactly what was being asked of him, but if he was going to find the strength to carry on, he was going to need the other half of that beef jerky. Charlie gave it to him and Bummer immediately jumped up to a higher, four-foot pipe, stopped, barked, then took off down the pipe. â€Å"Follow him,† Charlie said. After an hour following Bummer through the sewers, the pipes gave way to tunnels that got bigger as they moved along. Soon they were moving in caves, with high ceilings and stalactites in the ceiling that glowed in various colors, illuminating their way with a dull, shadowy light. Charlie had read enough about the geology of the area to know that these caves were not natural to the city. He guessed that they were somewhere under the financial district, which was mostly built on Gold Rush landfill, so there would be nothing as old-looking or as solid as these caves. Bummer kept on, leading them down one fork or another without the slightest hesitation, until suddenly the cave opened up into a massive grotto. The chamber was so large that it simply swallowed up Charlie's flashlight and headlamp beams, but the ceiling, which was several hundred feet high, was lined with the luminous stalactites that reflected red, green, and purple in a mirror-smooth black lake. In the middle of the lake, probably two hundred yards away, stood a great black sailing ship – tall-masted like a Spanish galleon – red, pulsating light coming from the cabin windows in the rear, a single lantern lighting the deck. Charlie had heard that whole ships had been buried in the debris during the Gold Rush, but they wouldn't have been left preserved like this. Things had changed, these caves were all the result of the Underworld rising – and he realized that this was just a hint of what was going to happen to the City if the Underworlders took over. Bummer barked and the sharp report echoed around the grotto, sending a cloud of bats into the air. Charlie saw movement on the deck of the ship, the blue-black outline of a woman, and he knew that Bummer had led them to the right place. Charlie handed his flashlight to Bob and set his sword-cane on the cave floor. He drew the Desert Eagle from the shoulder holster, checked that there was a round in the chamber, cocked the hammer, then reset the safety and reholstered the pistol. â€Å"We're going to need a boat,† Charlie said to Bob. â€Å"See if you guys can find something we can make a raft from.† The bobcat guy started down the shore with Charlie's flashlight, scanning the rocks for useful flotsam. Bummer growled, tossed his head like he had ear mites or perhaps to indicate that he thought Charlie was insane, and ran out into the lake. Fifty yards away he was still only in water up to his shoulder. Charlie looked at the black ship and realized that it was sitting way, way too high out of the water – that, in fact, it was sitting with its hull on the bottom in only about six inches of water. â€Å"Uh, Bob,† Charlie said. â€Å"Forget the boat. We're walking. Everyone quiet.† He unsheathed his sword and sloshed onward. As they approached the ship they could make out details in its construction. The railings were fashioned from leg bones lashed together, the mooring cleats were human pelvises. The lantern on the deck was, in fact, a human skull. Charlie wasn't exactly sure how his powers as Luminatus were going to manifest themselves, but as they reached the hull of the ship he found himself very much wishing it would happen soon, and that levitation would be one of the powers. â€Å"We're fucked,† said Bob, looking up at the black hull curving above them. â€Å"We're not fucked,† Charlie said. â€Å"We just need someone to climb up there and throw us a rope.† There was some milling around amid the squirrel people, then a lone figure stepped out of the little crowd – this one appeared to be a nineteenth-century French dandy with the head of a monitor lizard. His outfit – the ruffles and the coat – actually reminded Charlie of pictures that Lily had shown him of Charles Baudelaire. â€Å"You can do it?† Charlie asked the lizard guy. He held out his hands and lifted one foot out of the water. Squirrel paws. Charlie lifted the lizard guy as high as he could up to the hull, and the little creature caught ahold in the black wood, then scurried up the side of the ship and over the gunwale. Minutes passed, and Charlie found himself listening hard for some hint as to what was going on above. When the thick rope splashed down next to him, he leapt two feet in the air and barely contained blasting out a full-blown man-scream. â€Å"Nice,† said Bob. â€Å"You first, then,† Charlie said, testing the rope to see if it would hold his weight. He waited until the bobcat guy was about three feet over his head before he tucked the sword-cane down inside the Lexan plate strapped over his back and started the climb himself. By the time he was three-quarters of the way up the rope, he felt as if his biceps were going to pop like water balloons and he entwined his motocross boot into the rope to rest. As if being granted a second wind by the gods, his biceps relaxed and when he resumed climbing he felt as if he might really be gaining his power as the Luminatus. When he reached the railing, he grabbed one of the bone mooring cleats and swung himself up until he sat straddling the rail. He swung around and his headlamp caught the black shine in her eyes. She was holding the bobcat guy like an ear of corn, her claw driven through his skull, pinning his jaw shut. There was flesh and goo glowing dull red, running down her face and over her breasts as she tore another bite out of the Beefeater. â€Å"Want some, lover?† she said. â€Å"Tastes like ham.† At the breakfast bar in Charlie's apartment, Lily said, â€Å"Shouldn't we tell them?† â€Å"They don't all know about us. About this.† Minty held the date book. â€Å"Just Audrey.† â€Å"Then shouldn't we tell her?† Minty looked at Audrey, who was sitting on the couch entwined in a sleepy pile with Charlie's sister and one of the hellhounds, looking very content. â€Å"No, I don't think that would serve any purpose right now.† â€Å"He's a good guy,† Lily said. She snatched a paper towel off the roll on the counter and dabbed her eyes before her mascara went raccoon on her again. â€Å"I know,† Minty said. â€Å"He's my friend.† As he said it, he felt a tug on his pant leg. He looked down to where Sophie was staring up at him. â€Å"Hey, do you have a car?† she asked. â€Å"Yes, I do, Sophie.† â€Å"Can we go for a ride?† Without any hesitation, Charlie whipped the sword-cane out of his back and snapped it down on the Morrigan's wrist. She lost her grip on the bobcat guy, who bolted, screaming, across the deck and over the opposite railing. The Morrigan grabbed the sword-cane and tried to wrench it from Charlie's grasp. He let her – pulled the sword free, then drove it into her solar plexus so hard that his fist connected with her ribs and the blade came out her back, sinking into the wooden hull of the lifeboat she was reclining against. For a split second his face was an inch from hers. â€Å"Miss me?† she asked. He rolled away just as she slashed at him. He got his forearm up just in time to deflect the blow away from his face, the thick Lexan plate on his forearm stopping the claws from taking off his hand. She lunged for him, but the sword kept her pinned to the boat. Charlie ran down the deck away from her as she screeched in anger. He saw light coming from a door that must have led to the cabin at the aft of the ship – that same red glow – and he realized that it had to be coming from the soul vessels. Rachel's soul could still be in there. He was only a step from the hatch when the giant raven dropped in front of him and spread her wings out across the deck, as if trying to block the whole end of the ship. He backpedaled and drew the Desert Eagle from the shoulder holster. He tried to hold it steady as he clicked off the safety. The Raven snapped at him and he leapt back. The beak then pulled back, changed, bubbled into the face of a woman – but the wings and talons remained in bird form. â€Å"New Meat,† said Macha. â€Å"How brave of you to come here.† Charlie pulled the trigger. Flame shot a foot out of the barrel and he felt as if someone had hit him in the palm with a hammer. He thought he had aimed right between her eyes, but the bullet had ripped through her neck, taking half of the black flesh with it. Her head lolled to the side and the raven body flailed its wings at him. Charlie fell backward onto the deck, but pulled the pistol up and fired again as the raven was coming down on him. This one caught her in the center of the chest and sent her flying backward, up onto the cabin roof. The ringing in his ears felt like someone had driven tuning forks into his head and hit them with drumsticks – a long, painful, high-pitched wail. He barely heard the shriek from his left as another Morrigan dropped out of the rigging behind him. He rolled to the railing and brought the gun up just as she slashed at his face. The gun and his forearm pad absorbed most of the blow, but the Desert Eagle was knocked from his grasp and slid down the deck. Charlie did a somersault to his feet and ran after the gun. Nemain flicked her claws at his back and he heard the sizzle as the poison strafed the Lexan pad down his spine and burned onto the deck on either side of him. He dove for the pistol and tried to roll and come up with it pointed at his attacker, but he misjudged and came up with the back of his knees against the bone railing. She leapt, claws first, and hit him in the chest just as he fired the Desert Eagle and he was driven backward over the railing. He hit flat on the water. The air exploded from his body and he felt like he'd been hit by a bus. He couldn't breathe, but he could see, he could feel his limbs, and after a couple of seconds of gasping, he finally caught a breath. â€Å"So, how's it going so far?† asked the bobcat guy, about two feet from Charlie's head. â€Å"Good,† Charlie said. â€Å"They're running scared.† There was a big chunk bitten out of the middle of Bob's torso, and his Beefeater uniform was in tatters, but otherwise he seemed in good spirits. He was holding the Desert Eagle cradled in his arms like a baby. â€Å"You'll likely need this. That last shot connected, by the way. You took off about half of her skull.† â€Å"Good,† Charlie said, still having a little trouble catching his breath. He felt a searing pain in his chest and thought he might have broken a rib. He sat up and looked at his chest plate. The Morrigan's claws had raked the front of it, but in one spot he could see where a claw had slipped under the plate and into his chest. He wasn't bleeding badly, but he was bleeding, and it hurt like hell. â€Å"Are they still coming?† â€Å"Not the two you shot. We don't know where the one you stuck with your sword went.† â€Å"I don't know if I can make it up that rope again,† Charlie said. â€Å"That may not be a _roblem,† Bob said. He was looking up to the ceiling of the grotto, where a whirlwind of squeaking bats was spiraling around the mast, but above them was beating the wings of another creature altogether. Charlie took the pistol from Bob and climbed to his feet, nearly fell, then steadied himself and backed away from the hull of the ship. The squirrel people scattered around him. Bummer let loose with a fusillade of angry yapping. The demon hit the water about thirty feet away. Charlie felt a scream rising in his throat but fought it down. The thing was nearly ten feet tall, with a wingspan of thirty feet. Its head was as big as a beer keg, and it appeared to have the shape and horns of a bull, except for the jaws, which were predatory, lined with teeth, like a cross between a shark and a lion. Its eyes were gleaming green. â€Å"Soul stealer,† it growled. It folded its wings into two high points behind its back, and stepped toward Charlie. â€Å"Well, that would be you, wouldn't it?† Charlie said, a little breathless still. â€Å"I'm the Luminatus.† The demon stopped. Charlie took the hesitation to bring up the pistol and fire. The shot took the demon high in the shoulder and spun him to the side. He turned back and roared. Charlie could smell the creature's breath, like rotting meat, wash over him. He backed up and fired again, his hand numb now from the recoil of the big pistol. The shot knocked the demon back a step. There was shrill cheering from above. Charlie fired again and again. The slugs opened craters in the demon's chest. He wavered, then fell to his knees. Charlie aimed and pulled the trigger again. The gun clicked. Charlie backed up a few more steps and tried to remember what Minty had shown him about reloading. He managed to hit a button that released the clip from the pistol, which plopped into the water. Then he unsnapped one of the pouches under his arm to retrieve an extra clip. It slipped out and fell into the lake as well. Bob and a couple of the squirrel people splashed forward and started diving beneath the water, looking for the clip. The demon roared again, unfurled his wings, and, in one great flap, pulled himself to his feet. Charlie unsnapped the second clip and, with his hands shaking, managed to fit it into the bottom of the Desert Eagle. The demon crouched, as if to leap. Charlie jacked a shell into the chamber and fired at the same time. The demon fell forward as the huge slug took a chunk out of his thigh. â€Å"Well done, Meat!† came a female voice from above. Charlie looked up quickly, but then back to the bullheaded demon, who was on his feet again. Then he braced his wrist and fired, and again, walking forward, pumping bullets into the demon's chest with each step, feeling any second as if his wrist would just shatter into pieces from the recoil, until the hammer clicked on an empty chamber. He stopped, just five feet away from the demon when it fell over, facefirst into the water. Charlie dropped the Desert Eagle and fell to his knees. The grotto seemed to be tilting before him, his vision tunneling down. The Morrigan landed on three sides of him. Each had a glowing soul vessel in her claw and was rubbing it on her wounds. â€Å"That was excellent, lover,† said the raven woman standing closest to the fallen demon. Charlie recognized her from the alley. The stab wound his sword had made in her stomach healed over as he watched. She kicked the bullheaded demon's body. â€Å"See, I told you that guns suck.† â€Å"That was well done, Meat,† said the one to Charlie's right. Her neck was still knitting back together. She was the one he'd blasted up onto the cabin roof. â€Å"You guys do bounce back with a certain Wile E. Coyote charm,† Charlie said. He grinned, feeling drunk now, like he was watching all this from another place. â€Å"He's so sweet,† said the hand-job harpy. â€Å"I could just eat him up.† â€Å"Sounds good to me,† said the Morrigan to his left, whose head was still a little lopsided. Charlie saw the venom dripping from her claws, then looked to the wound below his chest plate. â€Å"Yes, darling,† said hand job, â€Å"I'm afraid Nemain did nick you. You really are quite the warrior to have lasted this long.† â€Å"I'm the Luminatus,† Charlie said. The Morrigan laughed, the one in front of Charlie did a little dance step. As she did, the bullheaded demon lifted his head from the water. â€Å"I'm the Luminatus,† said the demon, black goo and water running between his teeth as he spoke. The Morrigan stopped dancing, grabbed one of the demon's horns, then pulled his head back. â€Å"You think?† she said. Then she plunged her claws into the demon's throat. He rolled and threw her off, sending her sailing twenty feet in the air to smash into the hull of the ship. The Morrigan behind Charlie patted his head as she passed. â€Å"We'll be right with you, darling. I'm Macha, by the way, and we are the Luminatus – or we will be in a minute.† The Morrigan fell on the bullheaded demon, taking great chunks of flesh and bone off his body with each slash of their talons. Two took to the air and swept in, taking swipes at the demon, who flailed at them, sometimes connecting, but too weakened from the gunshots to fight effectively. In two minutes it was finished, and most of the flesh had been flayed from it. Macha held his head by the horns like she was holding the handlebars of a motorcycle, even as the demon's jaws continued to snap at the air. â€Å"Your turn, soul stealer,† Macha said. â€Å"Yeah, your turn,† said Nemain, baring her claws. Macha held the demon head out in front of her, driving it at Charlie. He backed away as the teeth snapped inches from his face. â€Å"Wait a minute,† said Babd. The other two stopped and turned to their sister, who stood over what was left of the demon's corpse. â€Å"We never got to finish.† She took one step before something hit her like a ball of darkness, knocking her out of sight. Charlie looked at the demon head coming at him, then there was a loud smack and Macha was yanked to the side as if she'd had a bungee cord attached to her ankle. The screeching started again and Charlie could see the Morrigan being whipped around in the darkness, splashing, and chaos – he couldn't follow what was happening. His eyes wouldn't focus. He looked to Nemain, who was now coming at him with her claws dripping venom. A small hand appeared at the edge of his vision and the Morrigan's head exploded into what looked like a thousand stars. Charlie looked to where the hand had appeared before his eyes. â€Å"Hi, Daddy,† Sophie said. â€Å"Hi, baby,† Charlie said. Now he could see what was happening – the hellhounds were tearing at the Morrigan. One of them broke, jumped into the air and unfurled her wings, then dove at Sophie, screeching. Sophie raised her hand as if she was waving bye-bye and the Morrigan vaporized into a spray of black goo. The souls, thousands of them, that she had consumed over the millennia, floated into the air, red lights that circled the grotto, making the whole huge chamber appear to have been frozen in the middle of a fireworks display. â€Å"You shouldn't be here, honey,† Charlie said. â€Å"Yes, I should,† Sophie said. â€Å"I had to fix this, send them all back. I'm the Luminatus.† â€Å"You†¦Ã¢â‚¬  â€Å"Yeah,† she said matter-of-factly, in that Master of All Death and Darkness voice that is so irritating in a six-year-old. The hellhounds were both on the remaining Morrigan now, tearing her in half as Charlie watched. â€Å"No, honey,† Charlie said. Sophie raised her hand and Babd was vaporized like the others – the captured souls rose like embers from a bonfire. â€Å"Let's go home, Daddy,† Sophie said. â€Å"No,† Charlie said, barely able to hold up his head. â€Å"We have something we have to get.† He lurched forward and one of the hellhounds was there to brace him. The whole army of squirrel people was coming around the bow of the ship, each carrying a glowing soul vessel he'd retrieved from the ship's cabin. â€Å"Is this it?† Sophie said. She took a CD from Bob and handed it to Charlie. He turned it in his hands and hugged it to his chest. â€Å"You know what this is, honey?† â€Å"Yeah. Let's go home, Daddy.† Charlie fell over the back of Alvin. Sophie and the squirrel people steadied him until they were out of the Underworld. Minty Fresh carried Charlie to the car. A doctor had come and gone. When Charlie came to he was on his bed at home and Audrey was wiping his forehead with a damp cloth. â€Å"Hi,† he said. â€Å"Hi,† Audrey said. â€Å"Did Sophie tell you?† â€Å"Yeah.† â€Å"They grow up so fast,† Charlie said. â€Å"Yeah.† Audrey smiled. â€Å"I got this.† He reached behind his chest plate and pulled out the Sarah McLachlan CD that pulsated with red light. Audrey nodded and reached out for the disc. â€Å"Let's put that over here where you can keep an eye on it.† As soon as her fingers touched the plastic case the light went out and Audrey shuddered. â€Å"Oh my,† she said. â€Å"Audrey.† Charlie tried to sit up, but was forced back down by the pain. â€Å"Ouch. Audrey, what happened? Did they get it? Did they take her soul?† She was looking at her chest, then looked up at Charlie, tears in her eyes. â€Å"No, Charlie, it's me,† she said. â€Å"But you had touched that before, that night in the pantry. Why didn't it happen then?† â€Å"I guess I wasn't ready then.† Charlie took her hand and squeezed it, then squeezed it much harder than he intended as a wave of pain washed through him. â€Å"Goddammit,† he said. He was panting now, breathing like he might hyperventilate. â€Å"I thought it was all dark, Audrey. All the spiritual stuff was spooky. You made me see.† â€Å"I'm glad,† Audrey said. â€Å"Makes me think I should have slept with a poet so I could have understood the way the world can be distilled into words.† â€Å"Yes. I think you have the soul of a poet, Charlie.† â€Å"I should have made love with a painter, too, so I could feel the wave of a brushstroke, so I could absorb her colors and textures and really see.† â€Å"Yes,† Audrey said, brushing at his hair with her fingers. â€Å"You have such a wonderful imagination.† â€Å"I think,† said Charlie, his voice going higher as he breathed harder, â€Å"I should have bedded a scientist so I would understand the mechanics of the world, felt them right down to my spine.† â€Å"Yes, so you could feel the world,† Audrey said. â€Å"With big tits,† Charlie added, his back arching in pain. â€Å"Of course, baby,† Audrey said. â€Å"I love you, Audrey.† â€Å"I know, Charlie. I love you, too.† Then Charlie Asher, Beta Male, husband to Rachel, brother to Jane, father to Sophie (the Luminatus, who held dominion over Death), beloved of Audrey, Death Merchant and purveyor of fine vintage clothing and accessories, took his last breath, and died. Audrey looked up to see Sophie come into the room. â€Å"He's gone, Sophie.† Sophie put her hand on Charlie's forehead. â€Å"Bye, Daddy,† she said. EPILOGUE THE GIRLS Things settled in the City of Two Bridges, and all the dark gods that had been rising to erupt out over the world remembered their place and returned to their domains deep in the Underworld. Jane and Cassie were married in a civil ceremony that was dissolved and sanctioned a half-dozen times over the years. Nevertheless, they were happy and there was always laughter in their home. Sophie went home to live with her Aunties Jane and Cassandra. She would grow to be a tall and beautiful woman, and eventually take her place as the Luminatus, but until then, she went to school and played with her puppies and had a fairly wonderful time as she waited for her daddy to come get her. THE SHOPKEEPERS While Minty Fresh had believed in the adage that in every moment there is a crisis, his belief had been somewhat academic until he started seeing Lily Severo, when it became very practical indeed. Life jumped up several steps for him on the interesting scale, to the point where the Death Merchant part of his existence became the more prosaic of his pursuits. They became renowned around town, the giant in pastels always in company with the short, Gothic chef, but the City really stood up and took notice when they opened up the Jazz and Gourmet Pizza Place in North Beach in the building that had once housed Asher's Secondhand. As for Ray Macy, Inspector Rivera set him up with a lady pawnbroker from the Fillmore named Carrie Lang, and they hit it off almost immediately, having in common a love of detective movies and handguns, as well as a deep mistrust for most of humanity. Ray fell deeply in love, and true to his Beta Male nature, was doggedly loyal to her, although he always secretly suspected her of being a serial killer. RIVERA Inspector Alphonse Rivera has spent most of his life trying to change his life. He'd worked in a half-dozen different police departments, in a dozen different capacities, and although he was very good at being a cop, he always seemed to be trying to get out. After the debacle with the Death Merchants and the strange, unexplainable things that had gone on around it, he was simply exhausted. There had been a brief time when he'd been able to leave police work and open a rare-book store, and he felt as if that might have been the only time he had ever truly been happy. Now, at age forty-nine, he was ready to try it again: take an early retirement and just read and live in a calm, unevent-filled world of books. So he was somewhat pleased when, two weeks after the death of Charlie Asher, he went to his mailbox to find a substantial envelope that could only be a book. It was like an omen, he thought as he sat down at his kitchen table to open the package. It was a book – what looked like a very rare and bizarre children's book. He opened it and turned to the first chapter. So Now You're Death: Here's What You'll Need. THE EMPEROR The Emperor enjoyed a happy reunion with his troops and went on to rule benevolently over San Francisco to the end of his days. For leading Charlie into the Underworld, and for his boundless courage, the Luminatus gave Bummer the strength and durability of a hellhound. It would fall to the Emperor to explain how his now all-black companion – while he never weighed more than seven pounds soaking wet – could outrun a cheetah and chew the tires off a Toyota. AUDREY Audrey continued her work at the Buddhist center and did costuming for a local theater group, but she also took a volunteer job with hospice, where she helped people to the other side as she had done for so long in Tibet. The hospice position also, however, gave her access to bodies that had been recently vacated by their souls, and she used these opportunities to cycle the squirrel people back into the human flow of birth and rebirth. And for a while, there were remarkable instances of people recovering from terminal illness in the City, as she exercised the p'howa of undying. She didn't give up her work with the squirrel people altogether, however, as it was a skill she had come to over a long time and a lot of work, and it could still be extraordinarily rewarding. At least that's how she was feeling as she looked over her latest masterpiece in the meditation room of the Three Jewels Buddhist Center. He had the face of a crocodile – sixty-eight spiked teeth, and eyes that gleamed like black glass beads. His hands were the claws of a raptor, the wicked black nails encrusted with dried blood. His feet were webbed like those of a waterbird, with claws for digging prey from the mud. He wore a purple silk robe, trimmed in sable, and a matching hat with a wizard's star embroidered on it in gold thread. â€Å"It's only temporary, until we find someone,† Audrey said. â€Å"But take my word for it, you look great.† â€Å"No, I don't. I'm only fourteen inches tall.† â€Å"Yeah, but I gave you a ten-inch schlong.† He opened his robe and looked down. â€Å"Wow, would you look at that,† Charlie said. â€Å"Nice.†

Outline the development of Britain's relationship with the Essay

Outline the development of Britain's relationship with the Commonwealth and discuss whether this organisation still has any relevance today - Essay Example Except Mozambique and Rwanda, all of the Commonwealth member countries were once part of the British Empire. The Commonwealth member states operate within a framework of common values and goals like the promotion of democracy, human rights, better governance, individual liberty, free trade, etc as outlined in the Singapore Declaration. Even though the member countries have diverse social, political, economical, and cultural backgrounds, all members enjoy equal status in Commonwealth. Even Britain enjoys the same status only like the other member states even though, as a courtesy, the member states give the opportunity to inaugurate commonwealth events to the British monarch. It should be remembered that the recently concluded Delhi commonwealth games 2010 was inaugurated by Indian president and the British monarch, Charles jointly. Commonwealth activities were carried out by the commonwealth secretariat headed by a secretary general. Even though Britain and its allies succeeded in winning the second world war, the after effects of that war was so profound so that the British empire started to show signs of exhaustion. Anti-Colonial movements and their agitations against Britain attained momentum after the Second World War. India, the largest colony of Britain succeeded in getting independence from British colonial rule in 1947. Apart from the Asian region, Britain forced to give independence to the African countries also in the 1960’s. The granting of independence to Rhodesia (Zimbabwe), the New Hebrides (Vanuatu) in the 1980’s marked almost the end of the decolonization process started after the Second World War. The British national identity started to exhaust after the decolonization. Earlier, British people have shown immense pride of ruling the world, in their approaches, attitudes and dealings. After decolonization, they have realized that Britain has not much role in the global

Columbus's First Journal Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2500 words

Columbus's First Journal - Essay Example It is from this statement by Hulme that this discussion is based and is intended to analyze the generic shape of Columbus first journal in regard to characteristics of a personal memoir, ethnographic notebook as well as a ‘compendium of European fantasies about Orient’. Discussion The 1492 saw Christopher Columbus plan and embark on a voyage to the Far East, which was later to gain popularity among historians and anthropologists as the great first voyage in Columbus life. In the light of understanding the objectives and purposes of the journal as is fondly, known ‘Columbus first Journal’ different literature has been written and studied. As against the common notion in which the exploratory expeditions of Columbus are often understood in, the first journal brings to light the great forces that entangled and dictated Columbus to undertake such a voyage as in 1992. It is worth noting that he was under the influence of the crown and religion as he embarked on t he voyages where the crown power required discoveries of new land for conquest and resource exploitation while the religious influence awaited such discoveries for expansion of religious influence. ... Despite the fact that the original form in which the first journal was written is not traceable to date, the truncated forms of the original documents gives great information on the details to the voyage. It is within the journal that the history of the first impression and culture that Columbus presented to the natives of the Far East and how it failed to live to Columbus’ expectations is revealed. This explains the creation of the myths surrounding the founding of the ‘new world’ as have been propelled down generational lines up to date2. It is worth noting that despite the fact that the history is seen through the eyes of Columbus as presented within the historical writings, Columbus had other people who accompanied him when in the voyage. The personnel who accompanied him in the expeditions had specific roles for which they were accountable to the crown as well as the church. They were obligated to keep Columbus under watch in order to honor the contractual ag reements to which the voyages were set. The original journal was written in first person reporting voice to imply that the author collects and puts together the accounts in detail of the first voyage as revealed by the original documents that were recorded by Columbus and the team. It gives a detailed report of the stage-by-stage or day to day exploration expeditions. It starts from the day that the sailors set off on third of August, which was on Friday 1492 and gives the account of every day as was spent before they safely landed back on fifteenth of March at the port where they had taken sail at for the expedition3. As a personal memoir or better enough a daily diary, the journal as presented contains the

Frankenstein Why does the creature [vow] eternal hatred and vengeance Essay

Frankenstein Why does the creature [vow] eternal hatred and vengeance to all mankind (99) Do you think the monster's treatm - Essay Example This naturally caused a great many problems. The first of these was the fact that Frankenstein himself noted, â€Å"There was none among the myriads of men that existed who would pity or assist me; and should I feel kindness towards my enemies? No: from that moment I declared everlasting war against the species, and, more than all, against him who had formed me and sent me forth to this insupportable misery† (Shelley 17). By way of comparison, one can understand the many different psychological issues and difficulties that can and will develop in a human father and son relationship when love affection or care is not given. For this reason, the reader can see a strong parallel to the way in which Dr. Frankenstein treated the creation which he ultimately dubbed a monster and the way in which countless of scarred and traumatized young people have experienced mistreatment at the hands of their own fathers. Says Dr. Frankenstein, "I was seized by remorse and the sense of guilt, whi ch hurried me away to a hell of intense tortures, such as no language can describe† (Shelley 44). ... Says Dr. Frankenstein, â€Å"Curiosity, earnest research to learn the hidden laws of nature, gladness akin to rapture, as they were unfolded to me, are among the earliest sensations I can remember† (Shelley 80). However, as a direct result of the emotional damage that the father transmitted to him, the psychological harm was manifested in his actions. Firstly, the monster felt the sense of rejection. As a way of trying to work around this and determine some sense of the world, the monster went on something of a quest to gain understanding. However, rather than finding understanding, the monster only found more and more people who were fearful of him and wanted nothing whatsoever to do with the creature. In this way, the feelings of rejection that they put upon him were taken more and more severely as the monster determined that the rejection he faced from his creator was also exhibited in the population at large. In this way the reader can understand that the emotional trauma and damage that the father passed along to Frankenstein was what ultimately pushed him over the edge to behave in the horrible way he did towards humanity. This not only helps to help the reader to understand the importance of how Dr. Frankenstein ultimately scarred and destroyed what could have been a normal, although strange, relationship between the two. This also helps the reader to begin to understand the extremely important role of the father-son relationship and the means where any type of abuse or negligence can serve to deeply and irrevocably affect the course of the future both within the relationship and within the way in which such an individual acts within the world in general. Ultimately,

Media on the War in Iraq Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2500 words

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ERP Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

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Oppotunities for Innovation - Essay Example require lightweight suitcase(s) of excellent quality that they can use to carry important documents, valuables such as cash, laptops, cell phones, books, cameras etc and other personal belongings. After conducting an extensive research (by our marketers and research and development staff) and â€Å"listening to consumers† (Flores, 1993, 95) we reached a conclusion that customers require a lightweight and multi-purpose suitcase that can facilitate them and make their traveling experience pleasant and hassle-free. The unavailability of this kind of product in market provides us an opportunity to develop and market â€Å"Ecase† that can best suit individual consumer needs and fulfill their want/desire/demand of a quality lightweight suitcase which can also be used as a handbag. Marketers have observed changes in customers’ perceptions because of globalization and more exposure to media and new advertising strategies. The fast and speedy lives of people have compelled them to demand products that suit them in this fast and changing environment. In this scenario, marketers at Albert are required to gain â€Å"new knowledge† and information so that they could develop and market new products that ease the consumers. In this case, the marketers have developed a new â€Å"Ecase† to facilitate customers and make their journey more comfortable. The marketers will focus on individualized items rather than generic products because each situations and lifestyles. Changes in designs of â€Å"Ecase† will be made by taking into considerations the above mentioned things. The first attribute is that Ecase will be made of a very light material â€Å"Carbon† to ensure a lightweight suitcase to store and keep different things. This will drastically reduce the

Technology Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words - 13

Technology - Essay Example Globally, technology has become very vital. However, as much as it has enhanced living, it has also brought some challenges like global warming, urban smoke and ozone depletion. The study seeks to outline the rational between technology and global change. Technology has played a very significant role and the transformations are evident in many areas around the planet. The first one is energy generation and consumption in both domestic and commercial use. Generally, power energy is used for warming and cooling our residence while in factories energy is essential in the production process. Currently, with energy resourceful technology, it is possible for individuals to employ a smaller amount of energy to get the same work done that before used very high energy levels. According to Brian and Gary, the use of efficient technologies has enormously contributed in saving money and energy (115). Technology has also led to new ways of generating energy such as wind, geothermal, solar and bio-energy. Energy obtained through these methods is referred to as renewable energy. It is believed to have the technical ability to meet all energy requirements, quickly and simple to set up, cost-effective and environmental friendly. With the correct tech nologies in place, environmental pollution can enormously be cut down while at the same time assist in jobs creation. The second area that has recorded enormous transformation is the transport sector. With the sector tremendously expanding, its segment’s discharges have risen at a much faster pace in contrast to any other power- using sector in excess of the earlier times. The major challenge, therefore, is how to enhance efficiency at the same time reducing discharge. Through technology, advances such as increased miles per gallon in all forms of transport and low–carbon petroleum are day in day out being developed (Brian and Gary

The Kite Runner Essay Example for Free

The Kite Runner Essay Starts off in the present day when Amir receives a phone call from Rahim Khan in Pakistan telling him that he must go and see him. We are told about the events that made him who he is today and we also find out that the grown up Amir has moved to America. Key quotes: â€Å"I became what I am today at the age of twelve. † â€Å"there is a way to be good again â€Å"the hard ripped kite runner. † Flashbacks: The story is being told from end point December 2001, the rest is told as extended flashbacks such as techniques allows the reader to foreshow events which have not yet occurred, building dramatic tension. Two key characters- Ali and Hassan are introduced. Narrator: first person narrative shows only Amirs version of events, rather than those of other characters- all coloured by Amirs personal reactions and emotions. â€Å"The past claws its way out† – no matter how much you want to forget about it, you cant escape it. The use of the word claw carries an image of the theme of redemption. Chapter 2 Amir looks back on his relationship with Hassan. He looks back at the history of religion. We learn that amirs mother died giving birth to him whereas hassans mother ran away after she had him. Hassan is abused on the street for the way he looks. Images of the past: amir take us back to his childhood. The way Hassan is described shows that he is important to amir and is important to the man he has become. â€Å"a face like a chinese doll†- poetic imagery expresses the love he feels for Hassan. Theme of friendship: Amir tells of the time when him and Hassan would get into trouble and Hassan would always take the blame. The friendship is based on Hassan’s loyalty to amir. Amirs first word was ‘baba’ whereas hassans was ‘amir’. Theme of fathers and sons: introduced to baba who is amirs father. He is a powerful man and we are shown early signs of amirs attempts to gain his fathers approval. Both boys have absent mothers which makes everyoes relationship stronger. Theme of religion and ethnicity: ali and Hassan are members of the hazara ethnic group which is seen to be inferior to the Pashtun group. Chapter 3 Chapter 3 is about amir learning that he is not good enough for is father. We see that amir looks up to baba at the beginning of the chapter when we understand how proud amir is because his father did a very selfless thing and built an orphanage with his own money. We see that amir could probably gain more comfort from Rahim Khan than he could from his own father. Yet again, we also see that Hassan cares more for amir as he stands up fr him, but we know at this point that amir wouldn’t do the same for him. Amir wants to live up to his fathers success, we see that amir becomes jealous of baba and hassans relationship as he fights for his attention over Hassan. This results to cruelty to Hassan. Chapter 4 We understand that ali was adopted and brought up b baba’s family. Even though Hassan is amirs friend, he was still treated as a servant. Hassan loves to hear amirs stories, he was the one who encouraged him to write short stories. Baba didn’t want to hear amirs stories whereas Rahim Khan praised them. Setting: rich description of Kabul; colours, noises of the city creates a wild setting for the events of amirs childhood but also provides a basis for comparison when we are presented with a much changed Kabul later in the novel. The setting can be used to portray mood, plot and character. Symbolism: the power of reading- amirs reading to Hassan seems like a friendly act as his mother was a teacher. Amir doesn’t teach Hassan, instead he teases him by teaching him the wrong meaning of words. The pomegranate tree: shows the sweetness of the bond between the two boys who share fruit before amir reads to Hassan. The cemetery and tree are symbols which can be seen throughout the novel. Chapter 5 We see that even though amir isn’t always nice to Hassan.

Investigating Stoichiometry Essay Example for Free

Investigating Stoichiometry Essay Quantitative Data: The table shows the mass of reactants potassium iodide and lead(II) nitrate, and the mass of the precipitate from the reaction between KI(aq) and Pb(NO3)2(aq). Mass of precipitate from reaction between KI(aq) and Pb(NO3)2(aq) Mass of potassium iodide (à ¯Ã‚ ¿Ã‚ ½0.001g) 1.701 Mass of lead(II) nitrate (à ¯Ã‚ ¿Ã‚ ½0.001g) 1.280 Mass of filter paper (à ¯Ã‚ ¿Ã‚ ½0.001g) 0.798 Mass of precipitate + filter paper (à ¯Ã‚ ¿Ã‚ ½0.001g) 2.525 Mass of precipitate (à ¯Ã‚ ¿Ã‚ ½0.001g) 1.727 Qualitative Data: 1) After pouring the KI(aq) and Pb(NO3)2(aq) solution together into the beaker, a glass rod was used to stir the solution so as to make sure it was mixed properly. However, after stirring, when the glass rod was taken out, there were small amounts of precipitate (PbI2(s)) stuck onto the glass rod, and could not be removed. 2) While pouring the remaining mixture into the filter paper, not all the mixture was poured into the filter funnel and paper. Some of the mixture was stuck in the beaker even after trying to wash it down water and scooping it out with the glass rod. 3) After filtrating the mixture, it was observed that there were some parts of the filtrate that was still yellow in colour, with some PbI2 crystals floating around, which meant that some of the residue (PbI2) passed through the filter paper. Even so, another round of filtration was not carried out. The chemical equation obtained from the reaction above: 2KI(aq) + Pb(NO3)2(aq) 2KNO3(aq) + PbI2(s) Step 1) Using stoichiometry, predict the mass of PbI2(s) formed when a solution containing 1.701g of KI(aq) is mixed with a solution containing 1.280g of Pb(NO3)2(aq): First, the limiting reagent is determined by finding out which reagent produces lesser moles of PbI2. Using Pb(NO3)2: Moles of Pb(NO3)2 = 1.280g Pb(NO3)2 x = 0.0038646176mol Pb(NO3)2 Moles of PbI2 = 0.0038646176mol Pb(NO3)2 x = 0.0038646176mol PbI2 Using KI: Moles of KI = 1.701g KI x = 0.010246988mol KI Moles of PbI2 = 0.010246988mol KI x = 0.005123494 mol PbI2 ?Pb(NO3)2 is the limiting reagent. Second, we predict the mass of PbI2 formed. Mass of PbI2 = 0.0038646176mol PbI2 x = 1.781550067g PbI2 à ¯Ã‚ ¿Ã‚ ½ 1.782g PbI2 Step 2) Now we calculate the actual mass of PbI2 formed. Mass of filter paper = 0.798g Mass of precipitate (PbI2) + filter paper = 2.525g Mass of PbI2 produced = 2.525g 0.798g = 1.727g Step 3) Now we calculate the percent yield. Percent yield of PbI2 = PbI2 x 100% = 96.91358025% à ¯Ã‚ ¿Ã‚ ½ 96.9% Analysis of Results After conducting the experiment, it is found that the percent yield of PbI2 produced was 96.9%, which was rather accurate. However, it was lower than the predicted mass by 3.1%, which could be due to the qualitative results shown above, random errors and inaccuracy of the experiment. When stirring the KI(aq) and Pb(NO3)2(aq) solution, some of the PbI2 precipitate was stuck onto the glass rod used for stirring, and could not be removed without using fingers, which would have contaminated the solution. This resulted in the decrease in the actual mass of PbI2 precipitate measured, causing the percent yield to be slightly lower than the predicted yield. When pouring the mixture into the filter funnel, not all of the mixture was poured into the filter paper as some of it was stuck inside the beaker. Even though water was used to wash some of the mixture stuck in the beaker into the filter paper, not all of the mixture was filtered. The mixture stuck in the beaker and was not filtered would have decreased the percent yield. Finally, when the mixture was being filtered, some of the PbI2 precipitate passed through the filter paper and went into the filtrate. The filtrate was not filtered again, so some of the PbI2 was not calculated into the final mass of PbI2 produced. This would have decreased the percent yield as well. All the above would have contributed to the fact that the percent yield was 3.1% lower than the predicted yield. Conclusion The results from the experiment showed that the percent yield of PbI2 is 96.9%, which is rather accurate. However, due to random errors and the qualitative results shown above, the percent yield is 3.1% lower than the predicted yield. Limitations and Improvements If I could do the experiment again, As some of the precipitate was stuck onto the glass rod and could not be removed by using my fingers, I could have just used a little bit of water to wash it down back into the mixture. This would have decrease the difference in the percentage between the predicted yield and the percentage yield. Even though water was used to wash some of the mixture into the filter funnel, there was still some mixture stuck in the beaker. The process of using water to wash down the mixture could have been repeated over and over until all the mixture is in the filter funnel. After filtrating the mixture once, some of the PbI2 crystals went through the filter paper and into the filtrate in the conical flask. To make sure all the PbI2 precipitate is counted towards the percent yield, the filtrate could have been filtrated again at least 2 more times. This would have increased the mass of PbI2, which would have made the percent yield closer to 100%.

Price Elasticity of Demand and Monopolistic Competition

Price Elasticity of Demand and Monopolistic Competition The Price Elasticity of demand is inversely related to excess capacity in the monopolistic competitive market – Discuss Before we even dwell and discuss on the abovementioned topic, it would vital for us to understand and define what Price Elasticity of Demand, Excess Capacity and Monopolistic Competitive Market are all about from the economic perspective. By understanding the aforementioned than only we would be able to discuss and deliberate the abovementioned topic in detail. Elasticity From the economics perspective based on journal and article in Wikipedia, elasticity can be defined as the measurement of how receptive or responsive an economic variable is, to a change of the other. For example: If we lower or reduce the price of our product, how much more will it be sold? If we raise or increase the price of one product, how will that affect sales of the other product? If we learn that a resource is becoming infrequent or limited, will people rush to acquire it? We can further elaborate that an elastic variable (or elasticity value greater than 1) is one which responds more than proportionately to changes in other variables. On the other hand, an inelastic variable (or elasticity value less than 1) is one which changes less than proportionately in response to changes in other variables. Elasticity can be measured as the ratio of the percentage change in one variable to the percentage change in another variable, when the latter variable has a fundamental influence on the former. It is a tool for measuring the responsiveness of a variable, or of the function that determines it, to changes in contributory variables. Frequently used elasticities include price elasticity of demand, price elasticity of supply, income elasticity of demand, elasticity of substitution between factors of production and elasticity of substitution. Elasticity is one of the most vital concepts in a traditional economic theory. It is valuable in understanding the rate of indirect taxation, marginal concepts as they relate to the company, and distribution of wealth and different types of goods as they relate to the theory of consumer choice. Elasticity is also crucially imperative in any discussion of welfare distribution, in particular consumer surplus, producer surplus, or government surplus. In a pragmatic work environment, an elasticity is the estimated coefficient in a linear regression equation where both the dependent variable and the independent variable are in natural logs. Elasticity is a common tool amongst observers because it is independent of units and thus simplifies data analysis. Price Elasticity of Demand On the other hand, according to Alfred Marshall, Price elasticity of demand (PED or Ed) is a measurement used in economics to illustrate the responsiveness or elasticity, of the quantity demanded of a good or service to a change in its price. More accurately, it gives the percentage change in quantity demanded in response to a one percent change in price (ceteris paribus, i.e. holding constant all the other determinants of demand, such as income). Price elasticities are almost always negative, although analysts tend to ignore the sign even though this can lead to uncertainty. Only goods which do not conform to the law of demand, have a positive PED. Generally, the demand for a good is said to be inelastic (or relatively inelastic) when the PED is less than one (in absolute value): that is, changes in price have a relatively small effect on the quantity of the good demanded. The demand for a good is said to be elastic (or relatively elastic) when its PED is greater than one (in absolute value): that is, changes in price have a relatively large effect on the quantity of a good demanded. Revenue is maximized when price is determined so that the PED is exactly one. The PED of a good can also be used to predict the rate of a tax on that good. Various research approaches are used to determine price elasticity, including test markets, analysis of historical sales data and conjoint analysis. Nevertheless, according to Professor Dominick Salvatore in its book, Managerial Economics – Principle and Worldwide Application, mentioned that â€Å"Sometimes, lowering the price of the commodity or products increases sales sufficiently to increase total revenues. At other times, lowering the commodity or products prices reduces the firm’s total revenues†. Thus, lowering the price of a particular products will not necessarily increase the total profitability of a company. This is due to the fact that it also have an impact on the production cost. Therefore, we can also say that the higher the price elasticity, the more sensitive consumers are to price changes. A very high price elasticity indicates that when the price of a good increase, consumers will buy less of the items and when the price of that good falls, consumers will buy more. A very low price elasticity suggests the opposite, that changes in price have slight influence on demand. As such, it is imperative for a company to really understand the economics and the concept of PED before any decision is made for a price review or for a pricing strategy. Excess Capacity Meanwhile, Excess Capacity, based on our reading, as defined in Wikipedia is a situation in which actual production is less than what is achievable or optimal for a company. This often means that the demand in the market for the product is below what the firm could potentially supply to the market. The amount of excess capacity within an industry is a signal of both the performance of that industry and the demand for the products it produces. Excess capacity is also seen as a good thing for consumers, as it is not likely to lead to the price inflation that would be seen in periods of near-full capacity. A company with sizable excess capacity can often lose a considerable amount of money if it is not able to meet the high fixed costs that are associated with producers. In other words, it could also be the case that in the long run, the production is operating not at the lowest of its long run average cost curve. Instead, it is operating on a gauge that is smaller and less efficient which the company has, in fact, a capacity to produce more at a lower average cost. , each firm is serving a market that is too small, and there are too many firms, so that the product group as a whole has the capacity to serve more customers than there are. Excess capacity exists when marginal cost is less than average cost and it is still possible to decrease average (unit) cost by producing more goods and services. Excess capacity may be measured as the increase in the current level of output that is required to reduce unit costs of production to a minimum. Excess capacity may also arise because as demand increases, firms have to invest and expand capacity in uneven or inseparable portions. Company may also choose to maintain excess capacity as a part of a deliberate strategy to deter or prevent entry of new firms. Monopolistic Competitive Market Monopolistic competition from economic perspective is a category of imperfect competition such that many producers sell products that are different from one another as goods but not perfect substitutes (such as from branding, quality, or price). In monopolistic competition, a firm takes the prices charged by its competitors as given and ignores the impact of its own prices on the prices of other company. In the presence of strong government, monopolistic competition will fall into government-granted monopoly. Unlike perfect competition, the firm maintains spare capacity. Models of monopolistic competition are often used to model industries. Examples of industries with market structures similar to monopolistic competition include restaurants, cereal, clothing, shoes, and service industries in large cities. The founding father of the theory of monopolistic competition is Edward Hastings Chamberlin, who wrote a pioneering book on the subject, Theory of Monopolistic Competition. Joan Rob inson published a book The Economics of Imperfect Competition with a comparable theme of distinguishing perfect from imperfect competition. The characteristic of a monopolistic competitive markets are as follow: There are many producers and many consumers in the market, and no business has total control over the market price. Consumers perceive that there are non-price differences among the competitors products. There are few barriers to entry and exit. Producers have a degree of control over price. In the long-run characteristics of a monopolistically competitive market are almost the same as a perfectly competitive market. Two differences between the two are that monopolistic competition produces diverse products and that monopolistic competition involves a great deal of non-price competition, which is based on subtle product differentiation. A firm making profits in the short run will nonetheless only break even in the long run because demand will decrease and average total cost will increase. This means in the long run, a monopolistically competitive firm will make zero economic profit. This illustrates the amount of influence the firm has over the market; because of brand loyalty, it can raise its prices without losing all of its customers. This means that an individual firms demand curve is downward sloping, in contrast to perfect competition, which has a perfectly elastic demand schedule. Differences between Perfect and Monopolistic Competition To show that the PED is inversely related to excess capacity in the monopolistic competitive market, in this discussion, we will be comparing mostly between perfect competitive market and monopolistic competitive market which is also an imperfect market. There are two main differences between perfect competition and monopolistic competition. First is excess capacity; in perfect competition, firms usually will produce a product up to the maximum capacity of its production to get the lowest average total cost, ATC. Meanwhile in monopolistic competition, the firms will have an excess capacity if they produce less than the quantity at which average total cost is at minimum; which if they lower the price, they could sell more but they might producing at a point where their cost will exceed their revenue. The second differences are mark-up. In perfect competition, P=MC, but in monopolistic competition, P > MC because of its marked up. The marked up is because of the price discrimination which use by the firms in monopolistic market. Price and Output in Monopolistic Competition First of all, let us look at the factors affecting the PED. As we can see, in monopolistic competition market, there are high numbers of substitutes available for the products that produce by the firms. This is because each of the firms produce similar product but not identical. Because of this, the market has a greater PED. Any changes in price will make a possibility of consumer to change their demand for other substitute products. This is why, monopolistic market are also called price searcher market, as they are actually looking for the best price for their product. Since the firms produce similar product, they cannot fight their price using the ATC, where they cannot produce more than they can sell. They can only produce the quantity at which the marginal revenue is equal to the marginal cost. Can we say that monopolistic competition is inefficient? Yes, because in monopolistic competition P > MC, marginal benefits is larger than marginal cost. In order to reach the highest possible profit, firms competing in three important area of product differentiation, which is the quality, price and marketing. The quality of the product is just not only about the reliability of the product, but also about the design and the services, more on the after sales services. Using this quality aspect, firms can do the price discrimination, which differentiated their product with other product. However there is a trade off between prices and quality. The lower the price, the lower the product quality can be. As to further increase the sales, firms have to do a good product packaging and advertising. Since consumer value a variety, and variety is a cost, it is reasonable for the firms to price discriminate other products. However in monopolistic market, since no barrier to entry and exit from the market, firms have to be careful not to gain high profit in the long run as it can attract new competitors into the market. Product Development and Marketing Since monopolistic firms need to maintain their economic profit, in the condition of high ATC, there are needs to keep and sustain a continuous product development. In the market where the competitors are always looking for new innovation, new technology and attractable product, they need to be in line with the up to date trend of consumers. New product development would allow a firm to gain a competitive advantage, even sometimes temporarily before competitors imitate the innovation. Looking at the scenario where competitors usually keep imitate the new innovation produce, it might cross our mind why firms need to be the innovation leaders since after that the competitors will had it imitate. The innovation cost are high compare to imitate cost, but the benefit as innovation leaders have a value to consumer and also would increases total revenue. Firms usually will pursue product development until their marginal revenue from innovation equals to the marginal cost of innovation. As a human, consumer have a natural willing feeling to pay higher for the products that have a high value to them, even sometimes the price is ridiculous. The marginal social benefit of an innovation is the increase of price to the product and also a marginal social cost to the firms for the cost of innovation. Basically, the profit is maximized when MR=MC, but in monopolistic competition P>MR. Because of that, amount of innovation is less than efficient. Compare to the perfect competition market, monopolistic market have a higher selling cost since they need to spend a lot on promoting the uniqueness of their product compare to other substitutes product. The increase in selling cost will increase ATC at any level of output, but would not affect the MC of production. If their effort in promotion and advertising increases the demand of the product, then they are considered success. This is the cost that the monopolistic firms have to pay, to reduce their excess capacity, by increasing the demand of the products. But advertising is not only use to promote the variety and the uniqueness of the product, but also sometimes use to remind the market of their high quality product. Conclusion From the comparison that we highlight between perfect competition market and monopolistic competitive market, we can see the relation between the increasing of selling cost, increase of demand and reduced in excess capacity. When the firm concentrate in having a continuous product development with greater advertising and promotion effort, they can increase the demand of the product which in turn inversely reduce the excess capacity of the firms.

Myths in Tom Robbins’s Another Roadside Attraction :: Another Roadside Attraction

Questioning Myths in Tom Robbins’s Another Roadside Attraction Tom Robbins’s controversial first novel, Another Roadside Attraction, epitomizes the declination of religious devotion, especially Catholicism, in America during the 1960s. Influences on Robbins while conceiving this novel include the early history of Christianity, eastern religion, and author Joseph Campbell. Campbell is famous for his massive and detailed comparisons of Western and Eastern spirituality, myth, and belief. Additionally, the experimentation with psychedelic drugs such as LSD and psilocybin mushrooms led Robbins to new perspectives and mind expansion and consequently to question the validity of Christianity and the divinity of Jesus Christ. Robbins was intrigued by the extent to which Western Civilization—from its cultural myths to individual behavior—was predicted on the divinity of Christ. He wanted to explore questions and possible answers about what would happen if American Christians learned conclusively that Christ was not divine; questions s uch as, "What would this say about Western Civilization, about the future of Western Civilization? Could we continue to lead moral and ethical lives if Christ was proved to have died and stayed dead?" (Whitmer 245). This premise, conceived while writing art reviews for the Seattle Times, led Robbins to speculate about the consequences of world religion if the corpse of Jesus Christ was unearthed. When he approached Luther Nichols, west coast editor of Doubleday Books in 1968 with the concept for Another Roadside Attraction, Nichols bought the idea and Robbins was off and running on his first piece of fiction (Hoyser 9-12). While Robbins’s work was at first ill received, by the mid-1970s the public had started to warm up to this quirky and thought provoking writer. Even today, his work invites inquiry about what prompted him to write this controversial novel. That is, who and what influenced this line of thought? What was happening in America and with Christianity during the period, in which he wrote and researched this piece of fiction? And, finally, why did he write in this sporadic, nonlinear fashion, inserting seemingly non-related details and encrypting an official report within the structure of a novel? And how does this relate to the influences mentioned above? All of these questions and more offer themselves up from the pages of this funny and whimsical, yet philosophical and wise novel, Another Roadside Attraction. Robbins began penning his first novel in 1968 while working for the Seattle Post-Intelligencer. Before that he held many journalistic jobs and had a varied and colorful education.

The History of the Roy Adaptation Model Essay -- Nursing Roy Adaptatio

The History of the Roy Adaptation Model The Roy Adaptation Model for Nursing had it’s beginning with Sister Callista Roy entered the masters program in pediatric nursing at the University of California in Los Angeles in 1964. Dorothy E. Johnson, Roy’s advisor and seminar faculty, was speaking at the time on the need to define the goal of nursing as a way of focusing the development of knowledge for practice. During Roy’s first seminar in pediatric nursing, she proposed that the goal of nursing was promoting patient adaptation. Johnson encouraged her to develop her concept of adaptation as a framework for nursing, throughout the course of her master’s program. Von Vertalanffy’s use of systems theory was a key component in the early concept of the model, as was the work of Helson. Helson defined adaptation as the process of responding positively to environmental changes, and then went on to describe three types of stimuli, those being focal, contextual, and residual. Roy made derivations of these concepts for use in describing situations of people in both health and illness. Roy’s view of the person as an adaptive system took shape from this early work, with the congnator and regulator being added as the major internal processes of the adapting person. After 17 years of work with the faculty at Mount St. Mary’s college in Los Angeles, the model became the framework for a nursing-based integrated curriculum, in March 1970, the same month that the first article on the model was published in Nursing Outlook. The four adaptive models were added as the ways in which adaptation is manifested and thus as the basis for nursing assessment. Through curriculum consultation and throughout the USA and eventually worldwide, Roy received input on the use of the model in education and practice. It is estimated that by 1987 at least 100,000 nurses had been educated in programs built around the Roy Adaptation Model. As the discipline of nursing grew in articulating it’s scientific and philosophical assumptions, Roy also articulated her assumptions. Roy’s first descriptions included systems theory and adaptation-level theory, as well as humanist values. As time progressed, Roy developed the philosophical assumptions of veritivity as a way of addressing the limitations she saw in the relativistic philosophical basis of other conceptual approaches to nursing and a limit... ... night within 1 week of HS Prozac cessation'. Another goal could be 'The client will report less anxiety within 2 weeks as evidenced by a reduction in her use of PRN Xanex'. Interventions would be carried out as applicable to the client and would be specific to the nursing goals. They are directed at promotion of adaptation. The final stage of the nursing process is evaluation. Evaluation includes the observation of change in the client’s behavior. One would determine if her goals are met or not met. One would ask the client about changes in her sleep pattern. One would evaluate any changes in behavior related to anxiety. If the behavior is not adaptive, then more assessment is needed and the interventions would be adjusted. In this manner, Roy’s model would be applied to most any clinical situation. References Roy, C. (1998) The Roy Adaptation Model 2nd Edition. New York: Prentice Hall Andrews, Heather A. (1986) The essentials of the Roy Adaptation Model. Connecticut: Appleton-Century-Croft. Roy, C. Akinsanya J. Crouch C. Fletcher L. Cox G. Price B. (1982) The Roy Adaptation Model in Action (Nursing Models in Action S.) New York: Palgrave Macmillan