Celebrated Voices: Toba

Organ Theater. Celebrated Voices was directed by Co-directors Doris Hudson De Trujillo, Nicole Ortega and Monica Campbell. I am going to talk about one of the dances in the performance, Toby. Toby was choreographed by Wilson M. Dominique. It was performed by Dolan Brown, Molly Buffoons, Whitney Collins, Megan Cranny, Miriam Curtis, Baby Gibbs, Adam Jensen, Joshua Martinez, Delis Merrier, Kate Monsoon, Angela Nielsen, Leash Passel, and Jon Thomas.Wilson Dominique(Wilson, 2014) was born in Venezuela when his parents worked there. He moved back to Portugal when he was a teenager. He performed with Egalitarian Ballet , Lisbon, Portugal in Europe, primarily as a Soloist , for 16 years. He was also invited to create works for the Vireo Dance Company and The Dance Project in Portugal. Wilson has taught at Brigham Young University, Utah Valley University and university of Utah. In December of 2012, as a full scholarship recipient at University of Utah, he graduated with the Master of Fine Ar ts degree.In Toby, Wilson remembers his life in South America. He's thinking about how colonialism changed many original tribe's culture and destiny. Many cultures were forced to change and disappeared. In the beginning of the dance, people In the Village were very happy and dancing around. The setting of the stage Is a big back drop that is torn and ripped. He used blue and red to contrast the emotion, warm and cold, happiness and peace. Dancers performed how the village people enjoy their life in their traditional way. The music was cheerful.The cheerful voices sang long with the exciting drum beat and Ocarina. The village people were not rich. They wore worn clothes and were barefoot but they were celebrating happily. Suddenly,the music changed. The stage light became dark. The tone of the music was sad singing along with the drums. People struggled In the village. Then came the sound of thunder. The color of the stage was dark and gray. People struggled with the change of lifest yle brought about by the Colonialists. Dancers expressed how little they can do and how they couldn't fight the change.In the end of the dance, The duet dancers seem to say † take care. † They left the stage In the opposite direction to represent they chose a different path In life. And no one can resist the change. They Just accepted the change. Toby was a very beautiful piece choreographed by Wilson Demagogues. Wilson didn't mention which tribe or which culture was suffering. He left the meaning to the audience and let us decide. By monotonically and University of Utah. In December of 2012, as a full scholarship recipient at forced to change and disappeared.In the beginning of the dance, people in the Village were very happy and dancing around. The setting of the stage is a big back was sad singing along with the drums. People struggled in the village. Then came how little they can do and how they couldn't fight the change. In the end of the dance, The duet dancers see m to say † take care. † They left the stage in the opposite direction to represent they chose a different path in life. And no one can resist the Toby was a very beautiful piece choreographed by Wilson Dominique. Wilson

Transformative Power of Civil Society

Apartheid divided people and was in favour of white people and left the majority of black people poor. This created inequality between black people and white people, thus this resulted in the people in the people who are disadvantaged by apartheid to form civil societies to help fight poverty themselves. This essay will critically discuss whether civil society has transformative potential in south Africa and also to what extent does it have transformative potential, that is if it has transformative potential. This paper will discuss this by looking at what at what civil society is, looking at development and how ordinary people challenge forced development (top down) by engaging in civil society. In this paper three case studies namely the Victoria mxenge and amadiba crisis committee and the xenophobia protest will be used as examples to analyze the topic further. Essentially this paper will attempt to show that civil society is both transformative and non-transformative. Development has been debated by social scientist and they came up with different theories of development. Development theories are trying to equalize the inequalities that were created by apartheid and anlyse and find reasons about why things are like this in south Africa. The theories of development include modernization theory, dependency theory, people centred development theory and sen’s development theory. Modernization theory implies that western culture is more superior and modernization theory looks at the different levels of technological development across the globe and explores development in terms of inequality ( Graaf, 2001). According to Davids (2005) modernization theory focuses on the fact that if the less developed country wants to develop then it should follow the developed countries. According to davids (2005,09) â€Å"modernization theory regards western culture to all others†. This notion of modernization takes us back to apartheid where the western culture was seen as the ideal culture out of the cultures we have in south Africa argues David (2005). This makes the people to start civil societies so that they can voice out their views. Roodt (2001) argues that civil society is formed when the formal government becomes more distant from rural people and the people decide to do things for themselves. Modernization theory is often challenged by civil society by counteracting and challenging the status quo. Graaf (2001) talks about the two main approaches for development which is top-down and bottom up approach. The two approaches monitors how development happens the people that are needed to participate in order for development to happen. According to Roodt (2001,469) argues that â€Å"participation is seen as one of the ingredients necessary to promote sustained development†, thus roodt further says that â€Å"this not to say that development equals sustained development†. The â€Å"top- down approach to development refers to the tendency of the state to implement development with little or no consultation with the people who are meant to benefit† Roodt (2001,469). For example when wanting to develop the poor in south Africa the rich people will come up with ways to do develop them and the poor people will not have a say or will have a little voice. Bottom up approach of development is when the beneficiaries of any proposed development participate through their organizations in determining the type of development most relevant to their needs, and may also participate in the implementation and subsequent running or monitoring of the development† Roodt (2001,469). This approach is dependent o n the needs of the community and its about how the community want to develop its self and not getting some one from the state to tell the community what they should do. But its about the community telling the state what they are doing (Roodt,2001). The bottom-up approach goes hand in hand with civil society and sen’s theory of development. According to Roodt (2001) civil society is the part is the part of the society outside the boundaries of both government and the family which is often seen to be the source of democratic innovation and of resistance to government excess. This means that people create social movements that does not include the government getting involved and so civil society is non-governmental. Walby (2009) argues that the aims of civil society is to respond in changes inresources, power, and material positioning, revorking the frames and material positioning and reworking the frames and discourses that provide meaning. Blaaw (1999) argues that â€Å" civil society is increasingly being looked on as the source of alternative and more equaltable forms of society. Civil society focuses more on people centred development and according to Scholte (1999,07) Civil society exists whenever people mobilise through voluntary associations in initiatives to shape the social order. Civil society challenges top down approach of development because it gets people involve in their own development by challenging the notion of top down approach For example according to Ismail (2009) Victoria Mxenge was building houses for poor people because the houses that the government was building were too small and the government a lot of time to build the house so they built the houses. Note Ismail (2009) notes that since South Africa is a developing country so poor people regards or acknowledges learning and education to overcome poverty. The case study of Victoria Mxenge Housing Development Association part of the south African homeless peoples federation, its an organization made up of women who wants to develop themselves by forming a housing social movement Ismail (2009). In this case study civil society has transformative potential because previously during apartheid â€Å"in South Africa poor women have been excluded from mainstream education by apartheid legislation, lack of money, no easy access to educational facilities, or social prejudices which dictate that women stay at home to care for the family† Ismail (2009,282). So by doing this civil society changed the social order or the functioning of the country by breaking the bounderies. According to Ismail (2009,292) â€Å"The VM women built on traditional notions of African ‘motherhood’ but went further in important ways and developed political skills in mobilising resources and learnt through great personal endeavour, patience, sacrifice and rigour but seldom developed a feminist consciousness and therefore made no analysis of patriarchy or capitalis According to Ismail (2009) this social movement also broke the of women learning in informal and non- formal way, there for civil society transformed them because they can now participate in learning in their every day life and support their daily struggles. Ismail (2009,01) further says that â€Å"in South Africa informal education and learning has developed so that excluded groups do have some opportunity for learning. This development is eople centred because if people where not there it wouldn’t take place. Furthermore â€Å"this development response has given rise to a ‘poor women’s pedagogy’ in which they become the advocators and innovators of development practice†. Victoria mxenge did have transformative potential because it built house for the poor and made a difference and changed the social order that not only can government can build houses for the poor but also women can build houses on their own. However in the end the organization did not have transformative because Victoria mxenge was taking loans from banks to build the houses left the organization in debt and in that sense Victoria mxenge didn’t have transformative potential. Furthermore the state ended up getting involved in the matter and they did not have much of a say now in the development so it didn’t have transformative potential because they did not change the top-down approach of development. Victoria mxenge shows that civil society can be transformative and non transformative. Roodt (2001) talks about sen’s theory, Sen’s theory argues that freedom is the primary end and principal means of development and Victoria mxenge has lost that freedom because they did not choose in the end, but the government choose for them and Victoria mxenge doesn’t have collective agency. Sen’s theory of development talks about development as freedom that looks at human well-being and how to evaluate it. According to Roodt(2001) Sen’s theory values that in order for people or a community to develop, freedon should be taken as the foundation for development. Furthermore more the theory talks about substantial freedoms or opportunities in the sense that if people have substantial freedoms they will have the â€Å"ability to achieve what they value, engage in economic transactions ,participate in political values will be equal to the capability to function in ways they consider valuable archieving the goals they have set for themselves† Roodt,2001. Sen’s theory is people centerd and participation is important in order for development to take place and thus democracy matters in the sense that choice matters and so the theory takes equality and rights of the people seriously ( Roodt,2001). So this means that people centred way of taking decisions about what the community wants and what is valuable is important. sen’s theory of development has human agency because public participation is important. â€Å"Globalization refers to the fact that we all increasingly live in one world , so groups and nations become interdependent† Giddens (2006). The interdependency takes place ecomonically, technology wise and communication wise. During apartheid in south Africa, the global civil society got involved and helped to fight apartheid. According to Klungman (2011,09) â€Å"global civil society is manifestation of social energies released by awakening of human consciousness to possibilities for creating societis that nurture and rejoice in a love of all human beings. According to Scholte (1999) argues and says that global civil society is ensures peace around the world for example if the is war global civil society has to fight and try to create peace there. So in the context of south Africa global civil society helped and fought apartheid . o in this context civil society has shown to have transformative potential by changing the social order that the apartheid government was using and brought democracy in south africa. When globalization takes place they are people who are benefiting from it and some are not benefiting but are actually disadvantaged by globalization. For example looking franchise wise mc donalidazation is not benefiting south Africa in the sense that they build their restaurants but more of the m oney that they get goes to their country of origin so it does not do much on south africa’s economy. So it does not transform south Africa in that context however it does transform south Africa by creating jobs for the unemployed and they get money so it does have transformative power because it helps fight unemployment. Blaauw (2003,02) argues that â€Å"the economic and social choices that government entails for national government also have ernomous implications for civil society organizations and formations†. By this blaauw (2003) argues that the dicisions that the government takes economically and socially affects civil society. Furthermore Blaauw (2003,02) argues that â€Å"the new global reconfiguration, which compels governments to become more responsive to financial markets than the needs of their poor citizens, has met with resistance from social forces ostensibly because of the dialectic of inclusion and exclusion†. This means that since when the state gets involved in global reconfiguration it stops paying attention to the poor and pays more attention to globalisation . n addition Blaauw (2003) argues that as â€Å"global markets forces rise the role of the state as an economic provider lacks and this calls for a need for civil society to develop and grow†. The people respond to being disadvantaged by globalization by striking, forming civil society groups and some by sticking more to their ways of doing things. For example people are afraid of getting involved in globalization because they think they will loose they will loose their money. For example looking at people in eastern cape are still farming for themselves to resist development and globalization. For that reason civil society has changed that and therefore it did not show to have transformative potential, because it did not change the social order of doing things. Looking at the under development in the transkei Bundy cited in (Graaf & Venter, 2001) argues that poverty and self-reliance in the former Transkei region was not in the form of the community not wanting to participate to the modern economic sector opportunities. Amadiba community crisis committee is Community-based organisation which has members of about three thousand local people from Amadiba. Amadiba crisis development fought the lobby group against Xolobeni sand dune mining walby (2009). The organisation was fighting to get the mine back so that it can be theirs and amadiba favour sustainable community based eco-tourism argues Walby (2009). by this the community was in charge of their development and the development it their choice . madiba crisis committee has also partnership with ACC and Sustainable community based tourism Civil society has transformative potential because looking at the amadiba case study the community fought to get the mine back from the people from austraila. The people fought by themselves without the help of the government and the government was not part of the people who wanted the mine. This brought transformation to the community because they were fighting for one thing and with the same vision and they got wh at the mine that they were fighting for . However even though they got the mine they are not using it which brings the point that civil society can have transformative potential and non transformative potential. They don’t have transformative potential in the sense that the mine is not benefiting them in any way because it is not opened and they are fighting alone and taking each other to court. Its also not transformative because the people who are fighting might be both members of the state and business and it leads to conflict, so now they don’t know what to choose between the two. his shows that amadiba crisis committee have agency, because it manage to change the social functioning . The paragraph shows that one organization can have society having transformative potential and also not having transformative potential. During may 2008 south African citizens started a xenophobic attack , where by the citizens were removing people who came from other countries to work here while they are not south African cit izens were removed ( Bond,2010). Bond (2010) furthermore argues that the xenophobic attacks were violent such that 62 migrants were murdered while hundreds of people which includes children and women were attacked and some were raped. Bond (2010) argues that not only did the people attack the migrants but they also burnt their houses and some of the houses were destroyed. According to Bond (2010) peoples reasons for the xenophobic attacks was employment in the sense that they saw the migrants taking cheap labour and taking most of the job opportunities. Employment was the key factor for the xenophobic attact because Bond (2010) mentions that some of the citizens were saying that the migrants come in to the country and open businesses so jelousy was also involved and some said its because the number of foreigners was uncontrollable. So this was implemented because of the lack of effective communication between communities and the state so it caused conflict and the citizen were angry and decided to things by the selfs and remove the foreigners out of the country. In this case civil society had transformative potential because the community did what they wanted to do because the government was not doing anything for them. A civil society was formed then to move the people who are not south African citizens out of the country. The movement was not formal in the sense that was not like amadiba crisis committee or Victoria mxenge because this social movement did’nt have a name and it was a group of people from different parts of south Africa who saw the same problem and started the attack. nd it had transformative potential in a bad way, thus according to Scholte (1999) civil society can be good and evil. Xenophobia brought social change because it resulted in the people going back to their countries and south African citizens getting the job. The movement used bottom up approach of development but the question is, is it really bottom-up because they might have been someone who incited it. The transformation also has consequences which resulted in people loosing their lives . he whole xenophobia transformed the image of south Africa and it made people to have doubts about whether the country will be able to host the 2010 FIFA World cup safely . It led to people wanting to change their minds about coming to watch the world cup. The transformation was bad in the sense that it disturbed south africa’s interrelationship with other countries. So this brings out the proves that this social movement was creating the bounderies that globalization is trying to break. So the transformation was against globalization in the sense that people were now not comfortable coming here and they lost their trust in south Africa. This negative transformation leads to a drop in the number of tourists that comes in the country and this ended up affecting the economic growth which ended up affecting those people who started xenophobia. However while people were chasing foreigners out of the country the was also civil societies formed which had people who were protecting the victims by hiding them (Bond, 2010). Bond(2010) argues that the civil societies that were formed to protect the foreigners used mostly churches to accommodate the people who were being chased out of the country until the xenophobic attacks calms down. This brings the thought that not everyone sees things the same way because some saw the chasing the people out of the country as not good and others saw it as being good. This shows that civil societies can clash with one another and throught the clashing it shows that civil society had a transformative potential because a lot of the foreigners when back to their countries. To conclude civil society has shown to have transformative potential as well as not being transformative potential in south Africa. I have proved that civil society has transformative potential it has helped the country to fight apartheid and change the social order of the way things were done during apartheid. This proved that civil society has a lot of transformative power when people have the same goal and showed that participation is important in order to change things. In the case of xenophobia civil society showed to have transformative potential in the sense that it achieved the goal of the social movement and removed the foreigners from the country. The xenophobic attack showed that civil society can be can be evil as Scholte (1999) argues because during the social movement people were killed and some were hurted and this attack showed that civil society can be negative because people ended up looting houses of the people who were foreigners. The xenophobic attack also showed that civil societies can clash because people want different things. The Victoria Mxenge showed that civil society doesn’t have transformative potential because the organization did not change the top down approach. Furthermore the amadiba crisis committee showed that civil society has transformative potential because the people fought for the mine and got the mine. However it showed that even if people form civil societies to fight for things at times they end up not using the things they are fighting for when they have it. By compering this I can conclude that civil society has more transformative potential in south Africa since apartheid as it has changed many social orders.

Give Me No Epiphanies Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

Give Me No Epiphanies - Essay Example rney and Kibbe’s views, a restricted government where politicians stand for the principles of personal liberty and autonomy and the people lobby for the restoration of these principles in the government. Arney and Kibbe are against the epiphany of Republicans that they should be more like Democrats to win, and instead, they stress that the latter must focus on the progressive ideals of good governance. Arney and Kibbe explain that Republicans should go back to their fundamental beliefs, where the people must control the government, and not the other way around. â€Å"Against Epiphanies† demonstrates that their epiphany about governance is radiant because for Arney and Kibbe, only a restricted government can resolve American society’s and government’s ills. Their epiphany lies in contradiction to the Democratic epiphany that America needs more government because they argue that the government needs more people who have personal liberty and autonomy to make individual and collective decisions. They also criticize the rise of Big Corporations that support and benefit from Big Government. Hence, Arney and Kibbe see themselves in a new light, where they persuade peop le to work together through small contributions and actions, so that they can change their government and put control back to the people. â€Å"Against Epiphanies† demonstrates that Give Us Liberty is a political epiphany because of what Arney and Kibbe discover about civil society and the government. They realized that they do not need to be politicians to promote social and political changes. They only have to gather enough mass influence to pressure politicians to change their politics by going back to the essential principles that can make the U.S. a great country once more- the principles of individual freedom and autonomy, not the principles of Big Government and Big

Interview Article Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words - 2

Interview - Article Example In the budget, the expected needs of each department in the institution are outlined and matched with the existing resources. In addition, budgeting makes the decision-making process expeditious as all capital structure decisions are always made during budgeting. It is paramount to note that the budget instrument is the only recognized tool for communicating financial requirements to the funders of public institutions. Apart from internal organizations that influence the budgeting process, there exist external forces that determine the allotment in each department. In this case, these forces usually influence the budgeting process by making recommendations and distributing circulars that dictate on various items in the budget statement. It should be noted that public institutions are mainly funded from the public coffer and hence the entire budgeting process is often subjected too much oversight and supervision. Apart from the oversight practices, the board of directors managing a given institution seeks to their interests in the budget. Their main interest is to influence and to have control over the fee pooled from the learner. In this case, the independence of the budgeting officers is not guaranteed. When filling vacant positions in the budgeting offices, all interested parties in a given institution often feel comfortable when their choices are picked. In this case, there exist situations where some candidates with good credentials miss these vacancies. For the obvious reason, every interested party seeks to have people they are comfortable with on budgeting table. History always exonerates diligent officials who occupy budgeting offices at any given time. In most case, the end products justify the process used. In this case, when an institution is hard hit by bad economic time, the budgeting office carries all the blame. Going with the history, many budgets fail to

Write about the picture and the artist Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Write about the picture and the artist - Essay Example This is evident from the main object’s piece protruding piece from the right and casts shadow just beneath it in relation to both the man and machine like forms found in the background. Diverse forms comprising this artwork their placements occupy the background whereby most of them seem to concentrate in the right side corner. This creates a negative space between the viewer and the main objects. Besides, there are scattered snow like objects characterizing the space between the viewer and the background. These objects and those forming the portrait’s ground do not appear as if the painter utilized brush, but formed them by â€Å"ripping off† technique after applying paint. Hence, revealing underlying paints but via forming patches, which gives the ground snow like forms, scattered in the entire forefront space. The background objects’ colors exhibit bold and heavy brush strokes giving them their true colors except the protruding piece that has a grey color. The protruding image seems as if the painter after applying paint embarked on â€Å"ripping off† method, which he utilized to create the forefront objects. In this image, Clyfford still’s portrait via his painting offers the audience adequate information meant to predict the time and season of the day. The snow-like objects confirm this was a summer day and in the afternoon whereby the latter depiction is evident from the long object’s shadow cast beneath it. The entire artwork’s objects and incorporation of colors gives a feeling of an ordinary atmosphere in the countryside with its normal on goings. This is evident from the busy man undertaking his activities. In addition, the depiction of varied agricultural machines emphasizes society’s daily on goings. Clyfford despite being born in Dakota, he spent 35 years of his early life in Eastern Washington and Alberta (Wà ¼nsche & Crowther 135). Clyfford’s parents were farmers while staying in Alberta, whereby these settings influenced

Program Analysis-Enterting the workforce at a later age Essay

Program Analysis-Enterting the workforce at a later age - Essay Example The issue is important because it ensures that all employees remain lively and with elevated spirits. Studies have confirmed that boredom in the workplace reduces employee productivity. People at a later age also continually lose taste and interest in life (Gregory, 2001). They have many depressing life experiences, have families with needs, and think about their life after retirement. These factors may significantly impact on their performance in the workplace if they are not properly looked into. They want an environment full of joy and comfort, especially joy that leads to mental comfort. The later is best attained through entertainment activities. Entertainment affects new workers, single and working couples in a number of ways. It allows the workers to have some joyous space away from the stressing circumstances of daily life. Through entertainment, new workers acclimatize better to the workplace environment by learning to socialize easily with the other employees (Gregory, 2001). The socialization factor is enhanced by the elevated moods of the employees that enable them to talk openly, share ideas and experiences of life. The workplace becomes another home with entertainment and leisure joints over and above the busy schedule. Working couples at a later age may also lack entertainment and fun in their homes. Most of their children are married, working, or studying. This creates an environment of boredom in their homes. Entertainment in the workplace makes them prefer and enjoy being at the workplace. The more they extend their stay at the workplace, the more their productivity increases. They develop a passion and preferen ce for the workplace that makes them good performers. The best workplace program for dealing with entertainment of aged workforce is by initiation of an entertainment joint at the workplace. After the busy

Monetary Policy in an economy Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

Monetary Policy in an economy - Essay Example However, the effectiveness of monetary in controlling the economy is real terms remains to be a debatable issue. If Central bank attempts to control economy by implementing monetary policy through varying interest rates, it can have some indirect impacts on the overall economic activities that might lead to problems. This paper illuminates the theoretical foundations upon which the monetary policy rests. It discusses the various methods utilised to determine and implement the monetary policy in an economy on the part of Central banks. The paper also elaborates the effectiveness of monetary policy in controlling economy and critically discusses its effectuality in meeting the intended economic ends such as controlling inflation and maintaining price stability. Developing and implementing monetary policy happens to be the most crucial responsibility of a Central Bank. Monetary policy refers to the strategies of Central Banks implemented for the purpose of controlling various economic factors such as inflation and employment etc. Bofinger, Schchter and Reischle propound that "the main aim of monetary policy is a control of final targets of the economic process (price stability, real growth, full employment), which have been set in such a way as to maximise the ultimate goal of social welfare."1 Theoretically, there are four equations that are used to evaluate the impact of money or monetary policy on the overall economy. The aggregate demand function emphasises the impact of total demand on interest rates which consequently affects inflation. The 'Philip-Lucas supply curve' or the supply function relates the total output in an economy to the rate of inflation. The third equation relates the demand of money in an economy to total expenditure as well as the interest rates. The fourth equation of monetary policy relates it to the supply of money in the economy on the part of Central Bank.2 The theoretical foundations of monetary policy rest on the fact that money plays a great role in the economy of a country. Therefore, various economic factors, in particular, the inflation rate and employment level can be controlled by an effective monetary policy. King also propounds that "money growth is higher, the higher is the inflation rate".3 The growth of money or credit in an economy goes a long way in determining the prevailing inflation rate and employment level in the long run. Monetary policy helps Central banks to achieve the goal of economic stability and inflationary targets. Mahadeva says that "Central banks have always been in the forefront of those that promote low inflation or price stability as a or the goal of monetary policy."4 It is because of the fact that controlling inflation or maintaining a desired level of prices is considered to be the important functions of monetary policy and crucial aims of a Central bank. Central banks influence the supply and growth of money in the economy by changing interest rates in order to affect the aggregate demand. Arestis and Sawyer delineate the rate of interest as, "the Central Bank rate can be viewed as the key rate on which all other interest rates are based-often explicitly so as in the case of the interest rates charged by banks on loans and paid by banks on deposits" (2004, p443). Hence the Central bank influences the supply of mon

MPH 504 - Epidemiology (Module 2 - SLP) Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

MPH 504 - Epidemiology (Module 2 - SLP) - Essay Example The first source of information for hypothesis generation in any outbreak is case-patients group which will provide valuable information on the "potential sources of exposure" (Meijia, 2006). In case the case-patient is unavailable, family member or friend must be interviewed. In case, the case-patient is a child, or guardian must be interviewed. Based on the size of the outbreak, about 8-10 cases of different demographic characteristics must be selected for the interview. Preferred are those cases which have occurred during the middle of the outbreak and those with typical case presentations. However, it is important to remember that even unusual cases may provide important clues. The following questions may be asked (Meijia, 2006): 4. Given your knowledge about E. coli O157:H7, the descriptive epidemiology of the initial cases, and the results of hypothesis-generating interviews, outline the information available at this point on the source of the outbreak and mode of transmission. The source of outbreak has been attributed to alfalfa sprouts and lettuce. Thus the possible sources of contamination are deer feces, cattle manure and irrigation water. The mode of transmission is

Career fair assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Career fair - Assignment Example It has also been known as Applebee’s Services, Inc. and it functions as the largest casual-dining restaurant chain in the world. Products: As Applebee’s functions in the restaurant industry, its theme mainly spots on a type of casual dining of food with conventional American cuisine comprising of salads, sea food such as shrimps, chicken, pasta and its signature dish, ‘riblets’. All Applebee’s restaurants contain a bar division which serve alcoholic drinks but this addition pertains to places only where it is permissible by law. According to the official website of Applebee’s, currently there are more than 1,990 Applebee’s restaurants functioning under the system in around 49 states, 15 international countries and one U. S. territory. Moreover, there are approximately 28,000 employees working under the system of Applebee’s (Applebee’s 2012). Every company faces controversies in its going concern, so has Applebee’s. Some instances include it under a forced arbitration issue when it violated the Arbitration Fairness Act in 2009 and it banned its employees to sue the company under any circumstances. This was reported by The Huffington Post on February 11, 2009. Another issue pertains to side-work payment of compensation by the company under which it was sued and this continues since 2006 regarding hourly payment of wages to servers to work for non-serviced labor. The website as a source of information for its users comprising of prospective employees and other general users is quite appropriate but it has to be enhanced for friendly user viewing. There should be a translation factor installed on the website of the company for non-English user and the absence of a proper mission statement and a vision should be taken care of as this is quite of a basic information conveyance to users. Old Navy is an

Fieldwork Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Fieldwork - Assignment Example They have children programs in which volunteers can interact with kids, and offering direct services to other homeless persons. At the organization, there is always an opportunity that fits well in an individual’s preferences. There are many homeless children all over the city who are in dire need of someone to teach good behavior, and engage them. At BBBS, adults organize museum trips, make adventures in the urban area, or just relax with young residents in their childhood and adolescence stages. With only a residency of New York City, and a dedication of eight hours every month for one year as well as a job in town, one would qualify after a rigorous screening process. Despite the immense benefits, mere volunteer work will not rid most American streets of the homeless populations. This is because, even though many people are destitute, few often think of securing a place in organizations such as BBBS. The insignificant number of the homeless in organizations providing humani tarian services calls for the enactment of more effective laws to curb the menace. According to Swartz, homelessness means an increase in crime rate, and the spread of diseases in the affected towns (407). Voting for a visionary leader who has promised to implement anti-homelessness laws could be the best way to tackle the problem, rather than volunteer work. Swartz indicates that the formulation and enactment of city laws that illegalize homelessness and provide the destitute populations adequate shelter would effectively rid the streets of such people (409). Unlike previous archaic laws which grant law enforcement agencies absolute power to confiscate whatever form of shelter is used by the homeless, the enactment of humane laws, which provide for alternative resettlement programs, would improve security on the streets once and for all. An attempt to cart away the belongings of destitute populations by force only serves to create a bigger problem of exposing the victims to crimina ls and adverse weather conditions According to Swartz, the main problem of homeless populations really is having nowhere to seek refuge. City ordinances ban the erection of temporary structures serving the role of shelter, such as tents, on any piece of land (408). A proper legislation would secure government funding and support for the homeless community. Without the law, most city councils may lack the capacity to intervene appropriately due to budget shortfalls. Owing to the fact that the problem of homelessness is not usually caused by the shortage of housing, but by soaring costs of acquiring and renting one, legislation would enable the government to start affordable housing programs to reduce the number of people on the streets. Once elected into office, a visionary politician would explore the administrative options within his or her power, to press for a change to city bylaws, because by trying to stay on the streets, the victims pay a heavy price. The act is an outright vi olation of the city laws. Ritchie says regardless of the fact that some homeless people are fully aware of the violations of the laws, they opt to camp on the streets anyway (502). In reaction to laws criminalizing camping on the streets, the political leadership can pile pressure on local governments to review discriminatory ordinances favoring unilateral action by police. Without proper laws, volunteering work would

Males and Females in Peter Greenaways Films Essay Example for Free

Males and Females in Peter Greenaways Films Essay The following paper gives an overview of the movies of Peter Greenaway along with how he portrays women and men his films. The paper would be based on the roles of men and women in his three movies, drowning by numbers, the belly of an architect and the Draughtsman’s contract. One common aspect that would be discussed in his movies is that the men are usually thought of as victims and the women are presented as the true artistic creators. His Movies: Drowning by Numbers: In opposition to the background of the autumnal Suffolk seashore, three generations of women, each one given the name of Cissie Colpitts, assassinate their not good enough husbands by obscuring them in a bathtub, in the ocean, and in a swimming pool, correspondingly. In arrival for assurance for sexual favoritism, which the women at the end of the day refuse to give, the neighboring coroner, Henry Madgett (Hill), comes in agreement to endorse the casualties as unintentional, even though a minute but steadily-growing swarm of eyewitnesses and associations put stress on him to acquaint with the reality. His juvenile son, Smut, who is preoccupied with casualty and brings together animal and insect dead bodies, furthermore he considers his father must appear spotless. Factual to Madgetts and the movies fascination with games, he places up a tug-of-war from corner to corner of a waterway to come to a decision to the problem, where he and Smut connect to Cissie in opposition to their hecklers. Greenaway is an often-infuriating, one-of-a-kind filmmaker who repeatedly experiments the staying power of his spectators. A lot of experience it as not significant as the attempt to shape out his difficult to understand games, let unaccompanied their implication, exclusive of a quantity of kinky sex or run through to disappear the procedures. Drowning by Numbers provides up ample of this: a circumcision by clippers, a repeated repulsion for provisions and flesh, and various near-sickening views of decompose and pests. Still, as if paying no attention to the filmmakers mysterious propensities, the presentations are ironic, cynical, sardonic and over and over again blackly humorous, and each and every framework is crammed with detail and magnificence. Here was an unprincipled anecdote enlightened ethically, with a tough feminist implication—approximately all of the male characters breathe their last breath by means of the unconquerable Cissies scheme shimmering, as Greenaway himself has acknowledged that the superior do not obtain content and happiness, and the depraved are infrequently rebuked, and the above suspicion are for all time badly treated. Drowning by Numbers is typically concerning numbers and the means they are employed to systematize the games individuals take part in. Despite the fact that the greater part of the human relations of whichever significance is determined by unstructured requirements, we use up a large amount of our lives demanding to offer them shape. We look for examples and successions, and enjoyment in the psychosomatic language that comes into view to give explanation. We search for regulations and unavoidability, and identify relations as the competition in which people occupy themselves for the reason that these games have both, happiness and contention. Drowning by Numbers is crammed with games: those men engage in recreation with women, women with men, and jump rope, cricket, and some games out of Greenaways tremendous sleight of hand. For the most part continuous game is the one Greenaway plays with the spectator. The motion picture starts with a small woman hopping rope as she count from one to one hundred (Peter Greenaway, 100). The Bell of an Architect: In Belly of an Architect, Brian Dennehy plays the central character who considers the main beliefs of structural design will regulate the humankind. He struggles the backstabbing of dishonest classmates and environment’s attrition of both construction and body. Sooner than the film ends, he loses his architectural assignment and is lost to stomach cancer. The screen in Belly is beleaguered with scaffolding, drop fabrics, plaster, powder, and huge degeneration hallways and corridors seeping out with water and sludge, which Greenaway challenges to put together into well-designed symmetries much as his hero attempts to protect the architectural classicisms he stumbles on to be so comforting. Again, the ordering organization contained by the film surrounds it. An immature artiste is constricted to implement twelve illustrations of a sumptuous countryside residence in 17th century England. Drawn into an affectionate and passionate association with the two conniving ladies of the residence he outlines and fabricates illustrated indications of the assassination. He almost immediately discovers himself trapped in the rumble ferociousness of the over sophisticated spirits of the landed upper classes. As all the times, Peter Greenaway provides beautiful and stunning masterpieces that contemplate on the artists infatuation for order and the oppression of organizations—whether communal or artistic. This untimely Greenaway effort observes unfaithfulness and substantial weakening, all in the perspective of a demanding occupational existence. The cuckold is a renowned American designer, Stourley Kracklite, who goes to Rome to place on a demonstration in reminiscence of his male protagonist, the 18th century farsighted draftsman, Etiene Louis Boullee. Kracklite fails to remember the current to respect the ancient times, but at what cost? He pays no attention to his pregnant wife who searches for soothe in the arms of Kracklites opponent. He furthermore takes no notice of his physical condition and is influenced that his stomach’s throbbing are the consequences of his wifes efforts to exterminate him. The punishment for such fascination is the failure of his presentation— the extraordinarily obsession he gave up all other elements of his life to accomplish (Peter Greenaway, 105). The Belly of an Architect is a visual extravagance, approximately deference to the techniques and fashions of Romes structural designs, judged with skill, ability, proficiency and crammed with impenetrable and mysterious shades. The Draughtsman’s Contract: Greenaways foremost profit-making element, The Draughtsmans Contract, is the chronicle of a draughtsman who in 1694 is specially made by the woman of an enormous residence to do twelve depictions of her property. At the opening it gives the impression that hes to a certain extent in command of his lady and background, receiving them together down anywhere he desires them, till his meticulousness does him in. By painstakingly drafting the manor house and foundation, he unintentionally duplicates indications to an assassination. As expected, its perpetrators dont desire him in the region. The methodical little draughtsman fall’s a victim not to environment’s impulse but to mans ravenousness and violent behavior (Peter Greenaway, 45). The twelve drawings are at one time the evidences to the massacres and the arrangements of the motion picture. From then on, all noteworthy objects in the motion picture are revolving around the paintings that hold the clues and all the films action—the drawings and the assassinations—must be accomplished by the time movies reaches to its end. This is systematic Greenaway. Human games and their dependence on ritualistic traditions are both the area under discussion of the draughtsman’s contract and its form. As the characters get involve within the findings of the clues and murderer with each other, it brings in the the chaos of passion. Greenaway assembles his schemes and positions according to the murder and clues. The Draughtsmans Contract is thrice regarding commanding order on disorder, on mans unreasonable desires and natures predictable decompose: first, surrounded by the sequence of events; second in its structural association; and third, in the glance of the screen. Greenaway is an order-and-chaos fanatic (Amy Lawrence, 175). Conclusion: In all the movies of Peter Greenaway discussed above, one thing is very common, that the men are always shown as a powerless creature and the women are always dominating. All the films bring the women as murderers of men. In the majority of his films, Peter Greenaway has at least a suggestion of proposal that the most important rationale of women is to damage mens lives, typically with the aid of the men in query. More than any of his others, with the probable exclusion of the outstanding Drowning By Numbers, conveys a suggestion to the front, by using it as a primary message, rather than as an indication of the disentanglement of the plot. Unluckily, perhaps due to this approach, there are not a lot of subplots there, and therefore, the movie needs somewhat in difficulty, in contrast with some of his previous work. The Draughts men’s Contract came into view like a touching work of art with bright color and dazzling imagery. Though all are great movies, their schemes can be puzzling with the need of familiar dialogue and character progress. Greenaway movies are compactly and tightly weighed down with figure of speech and satisfied with metaphors, and are required to be moved towards accordingly, not with the similar state of mind that one would come close to a distinctive Hollywood motion picture, for an instance. Possibly furthermore supportive is a quotation from Greenaway himself: If you want to tell stories, be a writer, not a filmmaker.(IMDB, Pp1) References: Greenaway, Peter. 2001. The Draughtsmans Contract: The Draughtsmans Contract. Published by Distributed Art Pub, Pp 45 Greenaway, Peter. 1998. Drowning by Numbers. Published by Dis Voir, Pp 100 Greenaway, Peter. 1988. The Belly of an Architect. Published by Faber, Pp 105 Lawrence, Amy. 1997. The films of Peter Greenaway. Published by CUP Archive, Pp 175 The Internet Movie Database (IMDB), Biography for Peter Greenaway. (2008)Retrieved on 24th March ’09 from http://www. imdb. com/name/nm0000425/bio

Cancer Prediction Using Data Mining

Cancer Prediction Using Data Mining Cancer Disease Prediction from Horoscope of a Person Using Data Mining D. JAGADEESWARAN Abstract This paper deals with finding out the possibilities of affliction a person from cancer disease i.e. predicting cancer disease from horoscope of a person using data mining techniques. Horoscope has 12 regions each occupying 300. Each region is called a â€Å"house† that deals with different significations. There are total 9 planets that can occupy any house in a horoscope. According to position of the planets different angular combinations can be formed and these combinations are termed as â€Å"Yoga’s† that are used in predicting features of horoscope. Each house deals with different significations and the same set of combinations obtaining in a particular house might influence the different significations comprehended by the house, in different ways. To be more specific, let us consider the 4th house of a horoscope. It is supposed to signify mother, education, land and house properties. An illiterate person may possess many houses and a long-lived mother while a highly educated person may not possess any properties. This obvious discrepancy has been submissive to some extent by the introduction of a significant factor, viz., the Karaka or indicator. This paper aims at testing new horoscopes finding out different possible angular combinations present in that horoscope and to predict the possibility of cancer disease. This is also an approach to discover out whether Astrology is a scientific study and application of language of the heavenly bodies or not. Index Terms Data Mining, Horoscope reading, Horoscope classification, cancer disease prediction etc. Introduction: Cancer is a term used for diseases in which abnormal cells divide without control and are able to invade other tissues. Cancer cells can spread to other parts of the body through the blood and lymph systems. Cancer is not just one disease but many diseases. There are more than 100 different types of cancer. Most cancers are named for the organ or type of cell in which they start for example, cancer that begins in the colon is called colon cancer; cancer that begins in melanocytes of the skin is called melanoma.Cancer types can be grouped into broader categories. The main categories of cancer include: Carcinoma cancer that begins in the skin or in tissues that line or cover internal organs. There are a number of subtypes of carcinoma, including adenocarcinoma, basal cell carcinoma, squamous cell carcinoma, and transitional cellcarcinoma. Sarcoma cancer that begins in bone, cartilage, fat, muscle, blood vessels, or other connective or supportive tissue. Leukemia cancer that starts in blood-forming tissue such as the bone marrow and causes large numbers of abnormal blood cells to be produced and enter the blood. Lymphoma and myeloma cancers that begin in the cells of the immune system. Central nervous system cancers cancers that begin in the tissues of the brain and spinal cord. Not all tumors are cancerous; tumors can be benign or malignant. Benign tumors arent cancerous. They can often be removed, and, in most cases, they do not come back. Cells in benign tumors do not spread to other parts of the body. Malignant tumors are cancerous. Cells in these tumors can invade nearby tissues and spread to other parts of the body. The spread of cancer from one part of the body to another is called metastasis. Some cancers do not form tumors. For example, leukemia is a cancer of the bone marrow and blood. Cancer is a long term diseases. Thus, it is imperative that the sixth and the eighth house forma relationship with each other. This is because the sixth house determines the disease and the eighth house signifies the diseases that last long. On the other hand, Saturn and Rahu give the indications for the occurrence of diseases that last long. The position of both the houses play a significant role in analyzing the cancer. Cancer is related to Rahu, afflicted Moon, afflicted Jupiter or Saturn and also forms relations with signs including, Aries, Taurus, Cancer, Libra and Capricorn. The native has a risk of suffering from cancer when the Moon is afflicted being the lord of the sixth house or eighth house in its unfavorable dasha. The risk of suffering from cancer is also high when there are many malefic planets in one house, especially Saturn, Rahu and Mars. The native suffers from the cancer of the respective body part that is represented by the afflicted house. Neptune and Uranus facing each other in a horoscope is considered to be a highly inauspicious position. This situation can even be fatal for the native. Afflicted dashaanath in the horoscope can also give serious diseases like cancer. The dashas that come after the dasha in which the native suffers from Cancer is also analyzed. If these dashas are auspicious, or of favourable planets, or yogakaraka planets, then the disease can be diagnosed in the initial stage only and can be easily treated. Navansh kundli, shahtiyansh kundli and ashtamansha kundli should also be analyzed before reaching to any conclusion. Rahu is considered to the karaka of cancer. However, Mars and Saturn can also give this diseases. Jupiter is considered to be lord of growth and cancer takes place with the growth of dead cells in the body. The risk of cancer is also high when the the lord of the eighth or sixth house is afflicted. Rules for cancer disese: Conjunction of Sat with moon or venus. Saturn and mars aspect or vice versa Malefic lord of 6th in ,6th,8th 10th or 12th. Lord of 6th in 6th ,8th 1oth and 12th. Jupiters aspect on waning moon . Moon and venus aspect on each other. Aspect of saturn on moon or venus. Venus or moon in Rahu ,ketu axis aspected by saturn ,mars or jupiter. I found that venus played a significant role in most charts. Maha dasha or antar of Rahu . Yogas for Cancer Disease When Mars, Moon and the lord of the sixth house conjuncts each other in a horoscope along with Sun, then the person has a risk of getting cancer disease. If Moon and Saturn are in the sixth house of the horoscope, then the person can get Cancer after the age of 55. Conjunction of Jupiter, Saturn and Ketu can become the cause of Cancer. Afflicted Mars and relation of Ashlesha Nakshatra with the ascendant and the sixth house can also result in Cancer. According to Dr. B.V Raman , the risk of Cancer is high when the lord of the sixth house being a malefic is situated in the ascendant, eighth, or tenth house of the horoscope. Saturn in the afflicted state situated in the nakshatra of Rahu can also cause Cancer. When Saturn and Mars conjuncts in the sixth house in Addra or Swati nakshatra. Planets Cancer causing areas in body Planet Body Part to be effected by Cancer Sun Head (Brain), Heart, Stomach, Blood Moon Bone Marrow, Breasts, Lungs, Heart Mars Blood, Bone marrow, Reproductive organs, Uterus, Neck and Rectum Mercury Nose, Mouth, Umbilicous Jupiter Ears, Liver, Thighs, Brain Venus Troat, Reproductive organs Saturn Hands, Feet, Legs, Gums Ketu Head, Neck, Blood, Back/Spine Houses Cancer causing areas in body Malefic Planet influencing House Body Part to be effected by Cancer 1st House Brain, Head 2nd House Mouth 3rd House Throat, Neck 4th House Chest, Breasts, Lungs, Back 5th House Stomach, Blood, Bone Marrow 6th House Liver, Cancers, Pancreas 7th House Reproductive organs 8th House Rectum, Piles, Spine 9th House Thighs 10th House Knees 11th House Legs 12th House Feet In general, Saturn is always linked with all diseases (especially chronic and long term) and if cancer causing planet is in anyway associated (conjunct, aspect, in constellation, in sign) with saturn, then cancer will take long time to cure.Also if either Saturn or cancer causing planet are Retrograde in birth chart, the disease takes longer time to get cured. Saturn and Rahu influencing second house (by placement or aspect) are main reason for tobacco chewing and smoking habits. A person with these aspects should be careful and try to quit tobacco as it can lead to mouth, throat and lung cancer. General horoscope structure for diseases: HOROSCOPE CHART Is the one in which the order of the houses is fixed. It consists of four central rhomboidal houses (which are numbered 1, 4,7 and 10, starting from the upper central rhomboid) and eight triangular houses. The sign rising at the time of birth is marked in the first house or the upper central rhomboid, and the remaining signs marked in regular order in an anti-clockwise direction. CREATING A DATABASE FROM ABOVE HOROSCOPE Every horoscope contains 9 planets, 12 different signs 12 different houses. Depending on the placement of all these different angular combinations are formed. A horoscope can be identified by 11 attributes viz. Ascendant sign signs of 9 Planets. An 11th attribute may be added to represent whether the person will suffer from cancer disease or not. TABLE STRUCTURE The table structure has 11 attributes. That means sun, moon, mars, mercury, Jupiter, venus, Saturn, rajku, kethu, ascendant and cancer disease. That is represented as: Attribute Constraints Datatype Ascendent Sun Moon Mars Mercury Jupiter Venus Saturn Rahu Ketu Cancer disease Not Null Not Null Not Null Not Null Not Null Not Null Not Null Not Null Not Null Not Null Not Null Varchar Number Number Number Number Number Number Number Number Number YES/NO The values are inserted in the database as, Ascendent Sun Moon Mars Mercury Jupiter Venus Saturn Rahu Ketu CancerDisease 2 4 4 3 4 7 4 4 2 8 NO The database can be created for many such horoscopes.This database will serve as the training set in predicting the newer dataset. The training set will contain many horoscopes (For testing, I used 2000 sample horoscope that definitely suffer from Cancer Disease 2000 sample horoscopes that do not suffer from Cancer Disease) is given as input to the classifying algorithm in WEKA. INTERFACING WEKA WITH HOROSCOPE Fig: Applying Horoscope to the WEKA WEKA (WAIKATO ENVIRONMENT FOR KNOWLEDGE ANALYSIS) WEKA is a collection of machine learning algorithms for data mining tasks. The algorithms can either be applied directly to a dataset or called from your own Java code. WEKA contains tools for data pre-processing, classification, regression, clustering, association rules, and visualization. It is also well suited for developing new machine learning schemes. A database created above can be given as input to the WEKA algorithm such as Neural Networks, Lazy, Decision Table etc. a model can be built up from this input. This model is then used in predicting the nature of new horoscope. RESULTS S.No Training Set Size Algorithm Accuracy (%) 1 2 3 4 6000 6000 6000 6000 DecisionTable MultilayerPerceptron J48 LWL 85 93 75 88 CONCLUSION Predicting cancer disease from horoscope of a person is successfully found using data mining techniques. References: International Journal of Scientific and Research Publications, Volume 2, Issue 7, July 2012 ISSN 2250-3153 Data Mining: A Knowledge Discovery Approach, K. Cios, W. Pedrycz, R.Swiniarski, L. Kurgan, Springer, ISBN: 978-0-387-33333-5, 2007. Data Mining: Concepts, Models, Methods, and Algorithms, Mehmed Kantardzic, ISBN: 0471228524, Wiley-IEEE Press, 2002. Ian Witten and Eibe Frank, Data Mining: Practical Machine Learning Tools and Techniques, 2nd Edition, Morgan Kaufmann, ISBN 0120884070,2005. WEKA manual.

Comparing Finance Motivation With Non-finance Motivation

Comparing Finance Motivation With Non-finance Motivation Motivation is willing to exert high level of toward organizational goals, condition the capability to meet some people need. (Hall. et al., 2008: 374) According to some business analysis, employee motivation is a good method to improve the productivity of organization. While people get motivation, they will have a reason to put more energy on what they are doing. (Echeat, 2005) Consequently motivation is an important management tool that lifted the work team ability. Therefore, this article will discusses what kind of method is more suitable to motivate employees and reason. There are a considerable number of different ways to motivate employees, including financial motivation and non-financial motivation. Motivate staff must determine which is financial motivation or non-financial motivation. This will depend on which factors have contributed to staff, in addition, it may also be the companys budgetary constraints and cannot compensate for any increase in salaries or bonuses, therefore, non-financial incentives are required to submit. Low-wage workers may dissatisfy with their work, as a result, the non-financial incentives will not be an effective motivation. Consequently, it is important to find a balance between them. Although the financial motivation has little value, most firms still use money as a main incentive. There are a variety of payment systems that a company use to motivate staff. For example wages and salaries, piece-rate, fringe benefits, free house, the educational fee of children, the cars, the credit card and share ownership which provided by the companies. (Hall. et al., 2008:381) Taylor scientific management motivation had stated that employees were heavily linked financial factor to meet their maximum gain, people acted individual, not grouped, and people acted like machine. For a pair day payment related to piece work could maximum employees potential ability and motivated and high payment in return. (Hall. et al., 2008:375) Money is the most direct way of motivate employees. People will think about salary when are looking for a job. For instance, there are 17,300 employees accept financial incentives in stock and bonuses. As a result, HBOS also accept cash reward system after merger. Each of HBOSs 65,000 employees will awarded free shares worth between  £500 and  £3,000 and totaling  £70 million. Workers will also benefit from two staff share pounds. Staff worked hard who after got money award. Moreover, to follow the HBOS shares went up more than 56% over the last three years. (BBC News, 2007) Consequently, according to the case, it not only reveals the money has encouraged, but also it is a kind of important incentive way. Financial motivation make a significant improvement on companys performance, non financial motivation also plays a key role during the continuous development. There are four kinds of main methods of non-financial motivation, including job enrichment, job enlargement, team working and empowerment. Job enrichment means enable workers to be more interested in challenging and complex task. Workers should have the opportunity to complete a work unit as a whole rather than individual task. This method can stimulate job enlargement or job rotation, because it increases the complexity and challenging, rather than provide diversification simply. Secondly, Job enlargement is simply give workers more tasks to do, just like a similar nature and complexity. Teamwork, that is to say employees in the group or team work. In the team work, a person can more easily establish friendships and have a sense of belonging to a whole, a unit or group. Team work has other advantages too. Team work can lead to greater production flexibility, employees may be multi-skilled (and can do more than one persons work), because they learn from other team members or a formal job rotation. It means that they can cover any absence from work; they can quickly adapt to new production technologies. Finally, give the power or authority to staff so that they can decide how to finish their work. (tutor2u, 2010) Even though the money may be an incentive to work; at work, payment does not change the way people pay more. Staffs need an incentive to combine. That is why the Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) offers so many non-financial incentives to improve personal life. RBS is one of the most important powers of the employees which is the good performance of the level of progress. RBS encourage citizens make it happen through the personal development. It means that RBS encourages staff to grow and develop their skills and abilities. This in turn help RBS change to a company. Employees agree development needs with line manager in their annual performance evaluation. This is recorded in the personal development plan. Development may involve more training so as to acquire new knowledge and skills. This can improve their promotion prospects, and allow employees to improve the organization and their total rewards. (thetimes100, 2010) Consequently, In RBS, employees enjoy Total Reward-A specific wages a nd benefits far beyond salary. It offers each staff not only just money, but also a personal choice, just as working hours and safety. In conclusion, in the view of financial cost there are two variety companies. One with less number of employees so that managers can easily supervise and control. Company can use finance motivate employees who does not need through evaluation process. Another one is a large company which has a significant number of employees. Managers cannot pay attention to every employee; therefore, they can encourage active employees to work by non-financial motivation. Because no company is interested in paying high capital as a reward for their employees. Relative to non-finance motivation, it is a good choice. In my view, non-financial motivation is suitable for both large enterprises and small firms, I suggest that company could use non-financial motivation to encourage staff, because not only does it widely applicated but also save money. Reference BBC News (2007) (online) Staff benefit from HBOS profits http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/scotland/6403271.stm (Access date: March 16, 2010) Echeat (2005) (online) Motivating Employees in the Workplace http://www.echeat.com/essay.php?t=27630 (Access date: March 16, 2010) Hall.D, R.Jones, C.Raffo and A.Anter (2008) Business Studies 4th education, Harlow, Essex, Pearson Education (Access date: March 16, 2010) Tutor2u (2009) (online) Motivating employees financial rewards http://tutor2u.net/business/gcse/people_motivation_financial_rewards.htm (Access date: March 16, 2010) Tutor2u (2009) (online) Motivating employees non financial rewards http://tutor2u.net/business/gcse/people_motivation_non_financial_rewards.htm (Access date: March 16, 2010) Thetimes100 (2010) (online) Motivation at RBS Total Reward http://www.thetimes100.co.uk/case-studymotivating-through-total-reward106-258-4.php (Access date: March 16, 2010)

Victorian Era Life: Inspiration Revealed Essay -- Literary Analysis, T

Is it not true that events from the past can subsequently affect or influence the events of the future? This is certainly demonstrated in the poetry of Alfred Lord Tennyson. His nineteenth century background is clearly evident in his poetry. Inspirations for majorities of his works were from people he knew, occurrences in his life, imagery of trials, tribulations, love, and death in the Victorian era. His literary works in Poems of Tennyson 1830-1870 and The Poems and Plays of Tennyson strictly show the effects of his background during his adolescence and early adulthood. Tennyson was born in 1809 in Somersby, Lincolnshire, England; the fourth of twelve children (Everett). After leaving grammar school in 1820, his father, a rector, managed to give him a broad literary education, despite difficult conditions at home (â€Å"Tennyson†¦Ã¢â‚¬ ). As a precocious young man, Alfred learned to write in styles of John Milton, and Alexander Pope, as well as established an exceptional understanding of Elizabethan dramatic verse (Everett). William Wallace Robson says that by Tennyson’s early teens, â€Å"Lord Byron was a dominant influence on the young Tennyson† (Robson). Such an influence gave way to the young Tennyson’s The Devil and the Lady, a previously unpublished collection of poems, later published in 1930 with clear inspiration from his favorite childhood writers. Perhaps Tennyson’s father should have been an English teacher instead of a clergyman. While at the rectory, the Tennyson children found their own resources. In this respect, it is said, â€Å"All writers on Tennyson emphasize the influence of the Lincolnshire countryside on his poetry: the plain, the sea about his home, â€Å"the sand-built ridge of heaped hills that mound the sea,† and... ...on of war from the influence from this historical part of his Victorian era background certainly facilitated his fame and success. Mesmerized by his surroundings and culture, Tennyson used everything he could from his life experiences to compose poetry with relevance and meaning to his time, which could also fit in the future. He used circumstances in his life to denote his own opinions. His poetry presents audiences with new outlooks on particular issues of his era, and further into our own. From death, depression and war, to love and ecstasy, Tennyson used what he was most familiar with in order to write lyrical verses that one can easily comprehend. His poetic works in Poems of Tennyson 1830-1870 and The Poems and Plays of Tennyson show the myriad ways that his background during his adolescence and adulthood affected his literary accomplishments overall.

Consciousness and the Placebo Effect Essay -- Biology Essays Research

Consciousness and the Placebo Effect In controlled studies, experimenters use placebos as medium to compare the efficacy of a drug. Double-blind controlled studies provide information on whether a drug is effective or if it is not better than placebo. The results of double-blind studies usually depict the latter. Rarely are drugs found to be significantly more effective than placebo because of the placebo effect. The phenomenal effectiveness of the placebo in controlled experiments is mind boggling. Experimenters can not fully understand the etiology of the placebo effect in relation to the nervous system but they have proposed plausible suggestions to the underlying mechanisms involved. An intriguing question raised is the placebo's ability to cure numerous symptoms. I hypothesize that the level of consciousness or alertness of the I-function, within the individual, may be the deciding factor in whether the placebo effect occurs. The objective of a placebo is to compare and assure that a new drug or operational procedure is effective. In experiments, the placebo is an inactive substance or procedure used as a control in an experiment (1). The placebo looks, tastes or feels just like the actual treatment (2). A false procedure for example, may consist of advising a person that he/she will be operated on and then making an incision into a person without operating. Subjects are advised of their probability of receiving actual treatment in order to maintain the expectation level of the participants. The efficacy of making an incision maintains the expectation level of the subject because the presence of a scar raises their belief that they were placed in the actual treatment group. Whether the placebo is a 'sugar pill' or an... ...) Alternative and Complementary Therapies: The Placebo Effect http://www.cancer.org/alt_therapies/articles/placebo.html 3) Alpha Omega Pain Medicine Associates: Placebo Power , date: 4/18/99 http://www.painmasters.com/ 4) Healthline Magazine: Placebo Effects on Pain , date: 4/18/99 http://www.health-line.com/articles/hl950404.htm 5) The Reward System, by Aryeh Routtenberg (located on N & B Reserve) 6) Thalamocortical Aspects of Consciousness From the Perspective of a Neurobiologist , date: 5/5/99 http://www.phil.vt.edu/assc/newman/grace.html 7) Why It Must Be Consciousness- For Real ! http://www.phil.vt.edu/assc/newman/baars.html 8)Other Links 9)Mind/Brain/Behavior The Pleasing Placebo http://www.med.harvard.edu/publications/Focus/Jan20_1995/Mind.html 10)What's the Placebo Effect? http://www.oakland.edu/~djcarlst/abx_plac.htm

College Admissions Essays: An Influential Person or Event :: College Admissions Essays

An influential Person/event It seemed like it would make her die, just speaking it. So I didn't tell anyone, not even my best friends. At school I would slip into a fantastical dreamland, nobody there knew that I should be troubled, pensive. I put on my best front and paraded around the school halls with some sort of smile plastered on my face. At lunchtime I'd stare at my food thinking that my friends should know. I thought of a million different ways to tell them. Each time that I came close to telling them, I would think about their potential reactions. There would be the normal lunchtime banter going on, complaints about the ranch dressing, and I would blurt out, "Hey guys, my mom has breast cancer." The whole cafeteria would turn silent and the plastic forks would drop from their hands, making a sad little clinking noise. Then I would stare at my food mentally kicking myself for having opened my mouth. I chose to say nothing. I remember very clearly the day that I went to go sit with her while she got her chemotherapy. I only did this once because it was too hard for me. I walked down an overly-lit sterile hallway trailing behind my dad. When we reached her room I wished that I could just keep walking, pretend I hadn't seen her. I went in and sat down. Her shirt was partially unbuttoned so that the IV could be inserted into the porto-cath surgically implanted under her collarbone. She was hooked up to three different kinds of poisons, and one normal IV. There were some knitting things spread across her lap and the ever present bag of lemon drops was faithfully at her side. Her head was laid back in the chair, she was tired. She and my dad tried to involve me in some nice chit-chat, I met and shook hands with the doctors and nurses, "It's nice to meet you Dr. McCoy." Yeah right. They complimented her on what a beautiful daughter she had. I blushed, smiled politely then excused myself to the bathroom. I wiped away my forming tears and gave myself a mental pep talk to be cheery. As long as I didn't look at her tired eyes I was OK. Half an hour later, she was done and we got to go home. College Admissions Essays: An Influential Person or Event :: College Admissions Essays An influential Person/event It seemed like it would make her die, just speaking it. So I didn't tell anyone, not even my best friends. At school I would slip into a fantastical dreamland, nobody there knew that I should be troubled, pensive. I put on my best front and paraded around the school halls with some sort of smile plastered on my face. At lunchtime I'd stare at my food thinking that my friends should know. I thought of a million different ways to tell them. Each time that I came close to telling them, I would think about their potential reactions. There would be the normal lunchtime banter going on, complaints about the ranch dressing, and I would blurt out, "Hey guys, my mom has breast cancer." The whole cafeteria would turn silent and the plastic forks would drop from their hands, making a sad little clinking noise. Then I would stare at my food mentally kicking myself for having opened my mouth. I chose to say nothing. I remember very clearly the day that I went to go sit with her while she got her chemotherapy. I only did this once because it was too hard for me. I walked down an overly-lit sterile hallway trailing behind my dad. When we reached her room I wished that I could just keep walking, pretend I hadn't seen her. I went in and sat down. Her shirt was partially unbuttoned so that the IV could be inserted into the porto-cath surgically implanted under her collarbone. She was hooked up to three different kinds of poisons, and one normal IV. There were some knitting things spread across her lap and the ever present bag of lemon drops was faithfully at her side. Her head was laid back in the chair, she was tired. She and my dad tried to involve me in some nice chit-chat, I met and shook hands with the doctors and nurses, "It's nice to meet you Dr. McCoy." Yeah right. They complimented her on what a beautiful daughter she had. I blushed, smiled politely then excused myself to the bathroom. I wiped away my forming tears and gave myself a mental pep talk to be cheery. As long as I didn't look at her tired eyes I was OK. Half an hour later, she was done and we got to go home.

Materialism vs. Simple Living

The definition of materialism is not far-fetched from the word material, from which it was derived. Materialism simply means the quest for possessions. Some would readily call it acquisition of goods. It is a term encoding a life style born in a continuous desire to acquire goods of this world with possibly an end result of deriving satisfaction. Hardly any will argue that human needs some basic things in life, conversely, what has been an imprecise issue is, what these human’s needs are. This has generated a lot of argument both in the distant and recent past. However, an agreement has been arrived at that human’s needs are basically Food, shelter and Clothing. Virtually all schools of thought have given assent to these three basic needs, but the question yet unanswered is, will life be bearable with just these three things? Apparently, anybody attempting the above question will answer with a salvo no!, for the idea of human without cars, mobile phones, computers etc is a painful conception itself not to mention human practically living it. At this juncture, we cannot but subscribe to the materialist doctrine, for all logical human know that these material things do not only make our everyday lives easy, they virtually make our existence possible and a reality. Following a logical trend, few would disagree with the fact that too much of many human’s habit is bad. Like a medical doctor will rightly explain that too much smoking is dangerous to health, psychologists would claim that a child being exposed to too much film full of violence is wrong, consequently, it will not be far away from truth to claim that too much desire for materials things is wrong. After all, these things we claim give satisfaction to us are short termed, that can be referred to as timed satisfaction, such as things that do not stand the test of time after a longing for them. It is simply ephemeral (short live). Taking a philosophical flight, one would realize that human can be considerably happy with little or few material things. Imagine the sheer pleasure of sitting under a tree in a nearby park on an early morning before sunrise, with the natural bliss of early singing birds waking all the blossoming flowers. This priceless experience could be unparallel to any acquisition of all the wealth in the world. Aren’t the best things of life free? Living a materialistic existence is a habitual passion to quench thirst for unnecessary luxuries that probable in the end bring pain to human. Imagine the expense of maintaining tax on a garage of cars of different models and brands. The lifestyle could be based on some objective and subjective reasons. For example, a quest for comfort at all time backs up the need to get equipped with different form of   expensive automobiles even though it is certain that more than one cannot be in use at the same time. Some will rather submit that materialistic existence is more than ninety percent base on psychologically reasons that may be unfit to hearing. Many rather remain silence at such a question about the necessity of getting those materials. â€Å"We are dust, and to dust we shall return†! This was an aged verdict of the creator of men. Who sees us occupying space for only a calculated period of time. With a strong holding on this believe, majority of the people who consciously live a simple lifestyle attached reasons to this. Others who are known to live a simple lifestyle really do not have a genuine excuse other than the financial strength to maintain the pace of materialism without wearing out in the lane, but several surveys have proved them the happiest people. We also have the ‘busy ones’ who do not care about other things beyond a single purpose of contributing to their generation. Scientists are categorized in this class. They experiment new discoveries all and derive joy solely in their works, which they consider as the only relevant essence for living in this world. These categories have been the ones that contributed mostly to the world. Their discoveries generate all the expensive gadgets the materialists seek with lust. Personally, I believe most of material things human acquire are not only meant to satisfy their needs but to either impress or entice this or that person, â€Å"vanity† to borrow a word from the bible. Many have gone bankrupt trying to maintain the exotic lifestyle of the society they chose to belong to. Many cases of suicide have been traced to this source. However, between materialism and simple living the thin line separating the two can be difficult to mark out, after all, no human can claim he or she does not enjoy the pleasure of the good things. Today, even the so called men of God are known to have all the material benefit this life could offer, what they renounce is an excessive lust for these things which they claim leads to evil. Summarily, since it has been proven that man cannot do without some material needs and that too much lust after material these things is uncalled for, it will be a logical conclusion to claim that human should pursue their need with moderacy, by limiting their pursuit to their basic need of existence. References Linda Breen Pierce , Choosing Simplicity: Real People Finding Peace and Fulfillment in a Complex World . The Gallagher Press. Dr. Peter C. Whybrow American Mania, Neuroscientist: When More Is Not Enough (W.W. Norton), 2005. Mark Brandenburg MA, CPCC, Secrets of Emotionally Intelligent Fathers, www.markbrandenburg.com n.d.

Sociology & Suicide

Introduction to Sociology Performance Assessment Task #1: Sociology & Suicide Amy M. Ehlert Northcentral Technical College Abstract In this paper, I introduce Emile Durkheim's ideas of suicide and the four types. I also discuss the sociological perspectives of the variations in suicide rates that Durkheim's theory is able to explain. Finally, in conclusion, I offer my own personal views on the topic of suicide and propose ways that society could prevent suicide. Emile Durkheim was a French sociologist who published one of many books, entitled, â€Å"Suicide†. In it, he showed the different suicide rates between Protestant and Catholic people. This book was published in 1897, so, it reflects his findings at that point in time. Some of the theories that Durkheim established about suicide being at a higher rate include the following: * Men than women * Single than married * Childless than with children * Protestants than Catholics/Jews * Soldiers than civilians * Times of peace than in times of war * Scandinavian countries * Higher education level The four subtypes of suicide that Durkheim recognized were: egoistic, altruistic, anomic, and fatalistic. Egoistic suicide resulted from a feeling of not belonging or having no sense of meaning. Altruistic was being overwhelmed by a society's beliefs and they feel less important. Anomic was from a person's basic lack of not knowing where they fit in. Finally, fatalistic suicide, which is the rarest, is when a person's future or what they are passionate about are oppressed by harsh discipline. The longitudinal variation in Durkheim's theory is pretty much constant in that during each decade, the rates stay about the same. They range from a low of 10. 6/100,000 in 1960 to a high of 12. 4/100,000 in 1990. The average rate remains around 11. 39/100,000. No matter the difference in integration, social ties or freedom, the suicide rates remain about the same. Suicide rates are higher among college students because they tend to have more stress in their lives or more things to worry about. They have all new things to worry about and do not have the closeness of their parents to help them as they did before. Some occupations can increase suicide rates and they include dentists, artists, teachers, etc. The type of work the person does and if they are depended on by others for their work can push these people to suicide. Single people tend to have higher suicide rates than married. When you are married, you are part of a functioning unit and dependent upon each other. Adding children into the mix does and can add stress but also makes one happier, in my opinion. Single people are more isolated and less likely to have such close bonds. As for those with advancing age, they just seem to have given up. They think they have lived their lives and what more can they do? The late Dr. Kevorkian tended a lot of assisted suicides requested mostly by elderly people. The median age of Dr. Kevorkian's patients was 74. That really shows how the elderly just seem to want to give up and pass on. Among the black and white youth population, Durkheim showed it was more likely for white youngsters, especially those who were wealthy, to take their own lives. This seemed to be due to even though these white youths had more economic advantage, they were often socially isolated. However, black youth suicide is on the rise in our country. I read that this is due to the breakdown of family and easier access to alcohol and drugs. However, the biggest factor is the increase of the black middle class, which puts more stress on these kids from their new social surroundings. In conclusion, I believe a lot of suicides generally stem from a cry for help. In my past, I have had these types of thoughts and am currently on an anti-depressant. There should be more literature available, especially for our youth, so they can be thoroughly educated on suicide. From my own personal experience, most attempted suicides are a cry for help. These people want help but not in a condescending way. They don't want to be made fun of or made to feel like crap for their feelings. They just want to be understood. At least that is how I always felt. I believe there should be more youth groups or places youngsters can go and get involved in a healthy manner. Even for those who feel isolated by the normal groups in schools like athletics, choir, etc. There should be a community center specializing in groups of different interests; that are not offered in a typical educational environment. So, overall, I propose more education on suicide, a better understanding of those who are suicidal or depressed, and a place for the community to help them, not just our youth but all of our society. REFERENCES Macionis, J. J. (2009). Sociology (13th Ed. ). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Education, Inc. , publishing as Prentice Hall. Suicide (book). (n. d. ). In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved Sept. 11, 2011, from http://en. wikipedia. org/wiki/Suicide_(book). Randall, Vernellia R. (1993, 2008). Suicide Among Black Youth 1980-1995. Retrieved Sept. 11, 2011, from http://academic. udayton. edu/health/01status/suicide01. htm. Massango, Rataemane and Motojesi (2008). Suicide and suicide risk factors: A literature review. CPD Article, p. 25-28. Retrieved Sept. 1, 2011, from http://www. safpj. co. za/index. php/safpj/article/viewFile/1302/1305. Maris, Berman, Silverman and Bongar, (2000). The Comprehensive Textbook of Suicidology: Part II: Sociodemographic and Epidemiological Issues, p. 194-203. Retrieved Sept. 11, 2011, from http://books. google. com/books? id=Zi-xoFAPnPMC&pg=PA202&lpg=PA202&dq#v=onepage&q&f=false. Physician-Assisted Suicide Advocate Dr. Jack Kevorkian to be released from prison. (May 27, 2007). Retrieved Sept. 11, 2011, from http://www. foxnews. com/story/0,2933,275712,00. html.

The Silver Linings Playbook Chapter 43

Best Intentions Pat, It's been a while, hopefully long enough. If you haven't ripped up this letter already, please read until the end. As you have discovered, I am a much better writer than I am a speaker at this point in my life. Everybody hates me. Did you know your brother came to my house and threatened to kill me if I made contact with you? His sincerity scared me – enough to keep me from writing earlier. Even my parents have reproached me for pretending to be Nikki. My therapist says my betrayal might not be forgivable, and by the way she kept repeating the word â€Å"unforgivable,† I could tell she was very disappointed in me. But the truth is, I did it for your benefit. Yes, I was hoping that once you found closure and got over Nikki, you would want to give me a shot – especially since we are such great dance partners, we both enjoy running, we are in similar housing situations, and let's face it, we're both fighting hard to maintain our grip on reality. We have a lot in common, Pat. I still believe you fell into my life for a reason. Because I love you, I want to tell you something I have never told anyone – except my therapist. It's sort of screwed up, so I hope you will be able to handle it. At first I wasn't going to tell you, but I figured the situation couldn't get any worse, and maybe a little honesty could go a long way right now. I don't know if you know this, but Tommy was a cop. He worked for the Meadowville Police Department and was assigned to the high school sort of as a counselor. So half of his hours were spent working with and counseling troubled teenagers, and the other half of his hours he was just a regular cop. I'm telling you this because it is important to understand that Tommy was a good man. He did not deserve to die, and his death absolutely proves that life is random and fucked-up and arbitrary, until you find someone who can make sense of it all for you – if only temporarily. Anyway, Tommy was really good with teenagers, and he even started a club at the high school designed to raise awareness about the dangers of drinking and driving. Many of the parents thought the club condoned underage drinking, because it was not an anti-underage-drinking club but just an anti-drinking-and-driving club, so Tommy had to fight really hard to keep it afloat. Tommy told me that a lot of the high school kids drank every weekend, and underage drinking was even condoned by many of the town's parents. And the funniest thing to me was that the kids came to him and asked him to start the club because they were worried that someone was going to get hurt or die if their friends kept driving home after parties. Can you imagine talking to a cop like that when you were a teenager? That's the kind of guy Tommy was, people trusted him instantly. So Tommy organized assemblies and even put together this teacher karaoke night where students could pay money to hear their favorite teachers perform the current hits. Tommy could talk people into doing things like that. I'd go to these events, and Tommy would be up on the stage with all those teenagers, and he'd be singing and dancing with the other teachers, all of whom he had convinced to dress up in wild costumes – and parents, students, administrators would be all smiles. You couldn't help it, because Tommy was such a burst of positive energy. And he always gave speeches during these events – listing facts and statistics about drinking and driving. People listened to Tommy. People loved him. I loved him so fucking much, Pat. A funny thing about Tommy was he liked to have sex a lot. He always wanted to make love. I mean, as soon as he got home from work, his hands were all over me. I'd wake up every morning and he'd be on top of me. We could hardly eat a meal together without his hands sliding under the table, searching for my legs. And if Tommy was home, there was no way I'd ever get through a television show, because as soon as a commercial came on, he'd be rock hard and giving me that look. It was pretty wild, and I loved it for the first ten years of our marriage. But after ten years of nonstop sex, I got a little tired of it. I mean – life is more than sex, right? So one bright sunny morning, after we had just finished making love under the kitchen table, the teakettle whistled, so I stood and poured two cups. â€Å"I'm thinking maybe we should limit sex to so many times a week,† I said. I'll never forget the look on his face. He looked as if I had shot him in the stomach. â€Å"Is something wrong?† he said. â€Å"Am I doing something wrong?† â€Å"No. It's not like that at all.† â€Å"Then what?† â€Å"I don't know. Is it normal to have sex several times a day?† â€Å"Don't you love me anymore?† Tommy asked me with this wounded-little-boy look I still see whenever I close my eyes at night. Of course I told Tommy I loved him more than ever, but I just wanted to slow down a little with the sex. I told him I wanted to talk with him more, take walks, and find some new hobbies, so sex could be special again. â€Å"Having this much sex,† I told him, â€Å"sort of takes the magic out of it.† For some odd reason, I remember suggesting that we go horseback riding. â€Å"So you're telling me the magic is gone?† he said, and that question was the last thing he ever did say to me. So you're telling me the magic is gone? I remember talking a lot after he said that, telling him we could have sex as much as he wanted and that this was just a suggestion, but he was wounded. He was looking at me suspiciously the whole time, as if I were cheating on him or something like that. But I wasn't. I just wanted to slow down a little so I could appreciate sex more. Too much of a good thing, was all I wanted to tell him. But it was clear I had hurt him, because before I could finish explaining, he stood up and went upstairs to take a shower. He left the house without saying goodbye. I got the call at work. All I remember hearing was that Tommy was hurt and had been rushed to West Jersey Hospital. When I got to the hospital, there were a dozen men in blue uniforms, cops everywhere. Their glistening eyes told me. Later I would find out that Tommy had gone to the Cherry Hill Mall during his lunch break. They found a Victoria's Secret bag full of lingerie in his cruiser – every piece was my size. On his way back to Meadowville, he stopped on the highway to help an elderly woman whose car had broken down. Tommy called her a tow truck, but then he stood at the nervous old lady's window chatting with her, keeping her company while she waited. Tommy was always chatting with people like that. The cruiser was behind him, the lights were going, but he was standing at the edge of the highway's breakdown lane. Some driver who had drunk his lunch dropped his cell phone, and when he bent down to pick it up, he pulled the wheel to the right, crossed two lanes, and †¦ The lead in the local paper read â€Å"Police Officer Thomas Reed – who was responsible for starting Meadowville High School's Anti-Drinking-and-Driving Club – was killed by a drunk driver.† It was all so ironic, almost funny in a sadistic way. There were so many cops at his funeral. Kids from the high school made our front lawn into a living memorial – they stood on the sidewalk with candles and flowers. When I refused to go outside, these teenagers sang so sweetly to me through the first few evenings, a chorus of sad, beautiful voices. Our friends brought food, Father Carey talked to me about heaven, my parents cried with me, and Ronnie and Veronica stayed at our house for the first few weeks or so. But the only thing I could think about was how Tommy died believing I no longer wanted to have sex with him. I felt so guilty, Pat. I wanted to die. I kept thinking he would not have gone to Victoria's Secret on his lunch break if we had not had the fight, an d then he would have never passed the old woman in the broken-down car, which meant he would not have been killed. I felt so guilty. I still feel so fucking guilty. After a few weeks I went back to work, but everything in my mind got switched up. My guilt turned to need, and suddenly I was craving sex very badly. So I started to fuck men – any man who was game. All I really had to do was look at a man in that certain way, and within a few seconds I knew if they were going to fuck me. And when they did, I would close my eyes and pretend it was Tommy. To be with my husband again, I'd fuck men anywhere. In a car. In the coatroom at work. In an alley. Behind a bush. In a public restroom. Anywhere. But in my mind, it was always under the kitchen table, and Tommy had come back to me, and I had told him I wasn't tired of having sex, but would make love to him as many times as he needed, because I loved him with all my heart. I was sick. And there was no shortage of men who were eager to capitalize on my sickness. There were men everywhere who – with glee – would fuck this mentally ill woman. Of course this led to my losing my job, therapy, and many medical tests. Luckily, I did not contract any diseases, and I'd be happy to get tested again if that ever becomes an issue for us. But even if I had contracted AIDS or whatever, it would have been worth it to me at the time, because I needed that closure. I needed that forgiveness. I needed to live out the fantasy. I needed to fuck away my guilt so I could break out of the fog I was in, to feel something, to feel anything, and begin to start my life again, which I am only now beginning to do – since we became friends. I have to admit that during Veronica's dinner party I only thought of you as an easy lay. I sized you up in your stupid Eagles jersey and figured I could get you to fuck me, so I could pretend you were Tommy. I hadn't done it in a long time. I no longer wanted to have sex with strangers, but you weren't a stranger. You were handpicked by my own sister. You were a safe man with whom Ronnie was trying to set me up. So I figured I would begin to have sex with you regularly, just so I could fantasize about Tommy again. But when you held me in front of my parents' house, and when you cried with me, things changed – in a very dramatic way. I did not understand it at first, but as we ran together and ate raisin bran at the diner and went to the beach and became friends – simply friends, without any sex to complicate things – it was sort of nice in a way I hadn't anticipated. I just liked being around you, even if we didn't say anything. I knew I had feelings for you when I began to cringe inwardly at the sound of Nikki's name. It was obvious you were not ever going to get back together with your wife, so I called your mom and got her drunk at the local bar, and she told me everything about you. You didn't see me, but I was in the driveway when she came home so loaded and you helped her into the house. I drove her home that night. After what happened to Tommy, I don't drink at all. We've been meeting every week since, Pat. She needed a friend; she needed to talk to someone about your father. So I listened. At first I was just using her for information, but now we are sort of girlfriends. She did not know about the letters I was writing as Nikki, and she was really mad at me for a while after the Christmas episode, but she knows about this letter obviously, since she delivered it for me. She is a very strong and forgiving woman, Pat. She deserves better than your father, and maybe you deserve better than me. Life is f unny like that. I wrote those letters hoping to provide you with the closure I somehow found through casual sex after Tommy died. Please know I began the liaison scheme only after I was certain that Nikki would never agree to talk to you again under any circumstance. Maybe you will never be able to forgive me, but I wanted you to know I had the best intentions – and I still love you in my own fucked-up way. I miss you, Pat. I really do. Can we at least be friends? Tiffany