colonialism - 1163 Words

How should we evaluate colonialism? The colonial era lasted for 50-80 years in most African countries and left a lasting legacy. But many years pass before the definitive balance of its legacy can be properly struck. On the one hand, it is easy to see the destructive forces that were set loose; on the other hand, there was also a record of high-minded devotion and desire to serve the interest of the people who had come under foreign rule. Although Western countries had been in contact with Africa since the 16th century, it was not until the late second half of the 19th century that explorers opened its interior. And it was only in the last quarter of that century that land-hungry Western European powers divided among themselves, Africa†¦show more content†¦No understanding and appreciation for the democratic process were fostered. Hence, when colonies became independent their people were not prepared to choose their own leaders and parliamentary representation. They suffered more than 30 years of military dictatorships and African elites who legitimized oppression of their fellow Africans. In these newly independent states wealth was developed for a privileged few and not for the use of many people. Products were manufactured for the upper crust of society and the rest were for exports. But there is also another - but nearly forgotten - side to colonial history. Although it is not politically correct to say it: colonialism was a blessing in disguise. Until 1900 there were still some Arabs practicing slavery in east Africa but colonial laws wiped out this practice. In the interior, slave raids between warring tribes were also ended. The large number of tribal wars, which had weakened Africa for many centuries, were also greatly reduced. Some European powers developed the territories they colonized. They built roads and railways to connect strategic places. Telegraph lines were constructed. The Africans were amazed that these lines going through their valleys and over the hills were able to carry messages to people at various stages along the lines. A line connecting Cape Town with Cairo wasShow MoreRelatedColonialism : Colonialism And Colonialism1821 Words   |  8 PagesJà ¡fia Petersen ENL 110B Professor Evan Watkins November 18th, 2014 Post-Colonial Colonialism Although Edward Said is one of the intellectuals who helped start the field of post-colonialism, the topic of colonialism in Orientalism raise the following question: is there such thing as â€Å"post-colonialism†? Is colonialism not happening every day in various forms? It seems that the only difference from modern colonialism to its classic meaning is that a ruler representing the colonizer has physically leftRead MoreColonialism740 Words   |  3 PagesPolitical legacy of colonialism in India A lot of countries were experienced of political legacy of colonialism. This essay will focus on concept colonialism and its reasons. This notion could be defined in different ways. Colonialism is a situation of some territory which ruled by another country. Colonialism is a political-economic phenomenon whereby various European nations explored, conquered, settled, and exploited large areas of the world. Colonialism developed from imperialism, which canRead MoreColonialism2524 Words   |  11 PagesDefine Colonialism (Western) Colonialism: A political-economic phenomenon whereby various European nations explored, conquered, settled, and exploited large areas of the world. The purposes of colonialism included economic exploitation of the colonys natural resources, creation of new markets for the colonizer, and extension of the colonizers way of life beyond its national borders. In the years 1500 – 1900 Europe colonized all of North and South America and Australia, most of AfricaRead MoreColonialism : A New Type Of Colonialism2124 Words   |  9 Pagesdeveloped. Colonialism is the reason why most of the world’s countries are still described as developing Nations. Colonialism is when a ruling power takes control over an alien people or a nation that is separate from their own, over an extended period of time. The legacies left by colonialism have made it difficult for those countries to build back their economies, governments and gain overall stability. As those countries that were colonized tried to develop, a new type of colonialism called neo-Read MoreColonialism And Post Colonialism By Ania Loomba886 Words   |  4 Pagesthe concept of colonialism and post-colonialism, with a particular focus on the impact in planning. Although both concepts are not new, Ania Loomba in her book â€Å"Colonialism and Post Colonialism† provides a m ore exhaustive research on the regards. She argues that colonialism is the physical occupation of territory whereas post colonialism deals with effect of colonization on culture and societies. She also expanded the concepts including two new terms imperialism and Neo-colonialism. This is notRead MoreEssay on Colonialism740 Words   |  3 PagesColonialism It is almost a given now that most everyone considers colonialism as a mistake. They thought that the spreading of ideas, culture, and religion would have a positive effect on the native cultures they colonized. In fact though, these changes had an adverse effect on the peoples of these countries. For although many laud the efforts of these countries to spread Christianity, some question the motives of these countries in dealing the everyday needs of these people. In seeing theRead MoreAfrican Colonialism During Post Colonial Colonialism2100 Words   |  9 PagesIt is evident that European colonialism had deeply affected the political system within post-colonial Africa. One of the main leading legacies of colonialism that hindered the development of post-colonial African states would be the ethnic division and the state conflicts resulting from ethnic rivalry after independence . Scholars would argue the weakness within African politics would be due to creation of forty new states b rought about by the European colonial powers in the Berlin Conference ofRead MoreColonialism And Imperialism1836 Words   |  8 Pagesâ€Å"What do I think of Western civilization? I think it would be a very good idea.† – Mahatma Gandhi â€Å"I would say colonialism is a wonderful thing. It spread civilization to Africa.† – Ian Smith Over the centuries Colonialism and Imperialism have been viewed, justified and experienced differently throughout the world. The very idea created questions of both legitimacy as well as indignity in the minds of historians, writers, scholars and critics of the world. However, the growing incongruence andRead MoreColonialism in Nigeria1132 Words   |  4 PagesWhat is Colonialism? Colonialism is a system where one country has taken over another and foists its political power, culture, religion and language on it, or as Kozowsaki puts it: â€Å"Colonialism is a system of direct political, economic and cultural control by a powerful country over a weaker one† (Kozlowski, 46). The following essay takes two underdeveloped countries – Nigeria and Iran – and assesses the impact of the colonial era on their contemporary politics and political systems. More specificallyRead MoreThe Selfish Act Of Colonialism : A Nascent Of English Colonialism1741 Words   |  7 Pagesis completely a nascent of English colonialism, because it’s plot is based around colonialism. The story describes white men inhabiting an island and proceed to fight for control, without any input by the natives. What makes this a story specifically about nascent English colonialism is the alluding fact that humans are power hungry, which will prove to be true within the Engl ish government when they start to invade other countries. The selfish act of colonialism is revealed through the characters

The Failure of Anti-Smoking Ad Campaigns Essay - 1077 Words

For decades, researchers and scientists have been studying on the impact of anti-smoking advertising campaigns .As a result of some research , main question arises : â€Å"do anti-smoking ads really have an impact on people’s decision about quitting smoking?† or â€Å"do they really work?† It is a controversial issue and plenty of studies and investigations support that there is no clear evidence to prove they have a significant influence on adults’ or youth’ decisions. The most striking reason of why anti-smoking ads fail is that there is not enough attention to encourage smokers or they are not supposed to prevent people from smoking. The reason is advertisements are made to profit .Anti-smoking ads are not advantageous or profitable. Thus,†¦show more content†¦For example, when they see ashtray, cigarette holder, their brain gets into action for smoking. Nicotines withdrawal symptoms are powerful and hit the fastest of all drugs and it h as no alternative .So it is not easy to cope with its absence. Physical and psychological handicaps are also some negative sides of the nicotine withdrawal syndrome. These are the symptoms and people experience cigarette craving, depression, insomnia, irritability, nervousness, anxiety, concentration difficulties and weight gain. Each person has their own set of withdrawal symptoms. Usually the symptoms are most severe during the first 3 days following cessation, but may continue for weeks. Even symptoms like craving and urgently needing a cigarette may continue to show up for months after quitting. The severity of these symptoms depends on the number of cigarettes smoked daily and duration of usage. (Hesami,Alvanpour,Kashani,TaftiHeydari,2010) Anti-smoking ads don’t use much effective tactics compared with smoking ads. When we consider the smoking ads, they have a strong tactic. For example, movies make cigarette smoking cool. Similarly, in real life or smoking commercials c elebrities attract attention by their fans. Some people see them as an idol and do what they do. When we handle the anti-smoking ads, â€Å"selling disease and death† is the main theme. Disease and death messages, discuss how smokers suffer from serious diseases such as emphysema and lung cancer. The aim of these ads isShow MoreRelatedAnti Smoking Ads1293 Words   |  6 PagesCDC Anti-Smoking Campaign Ads From the common cold to deadly viruses, there are threats to public health everywhere in the world, whether they are caused naturally, intentionally, or accidentally. Providing strategic direction and support against these threats is a national health organization known as the CDC (or the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention). The CDC is one of the most predominate national health institutes the United States and the world. Its main office is located in AtlantaRead MoreThe Issue Of Cigarette Advertising1719 Words   |  7 Pagesgovernment and other federal regulations such as the First Amendment have the power to restrict tobacco advertising? Many will argue tobacco use is unhealthy and can cause long-term health related issues such as various forms of cancer, asthma, lung failure and or heart disease – the number one cause of death in the America. Although these claims may be factual, others, however, argue tobacco use eases their stress and is a habit relatable to someone who bites their nails when feeling nervous or anxiousRead MoreThe Cipollone Vs. Liggett Group, Inc. Case Against Three Tobacco Companies749 Words   |  3 Pagesrisks that came with smoking. The jury agreed that the tobacco companies had failed to warn smokers of the dangers prior to 1966. â€Å"The jury also found that Mrs. Cipollone had voluntarily and unreasonably encountered a known danger by smoking cigarettes and that this conduct by Mrs. Cipollone proximately caused her lung cancer and death† (CIPOLLONE v. LIGGETT GROUP, INC†). It was decided to appoint 80% of the blame to Mrs. Cipollone and 20% to the tobacco companies for the failure to warn consumersRead MoreAnti-Drugs Policies in the 1960s Essay1006 Words   |  5 Pages Drugs have been influencing the ideas, culture, and music of America for ages. Illicit narcotics have left the Union in a state of immense debt. Anti-drug policies have been dumping billions upon billions of dollars in prevention, punishment, and rehabilitation. From the roaring twenties, to the prohibition, drugs have always been fought (Bailey). Most times, the drugs start off as medicines and end up being harmful (Morris). Perhaps, the most prominent and influential eras of drug use in AmericaRead MoreBurger King Case Study1295 Words   |  6 Pagesset of product offerings. In 1957, the Whopper was the first major addition to the menu; it has since become Burger Kings signature product. Conversely, BK has introduced many products which failed to catch hold in the marketplace. Some of these failures in the US have seen success in foreign markets, where BK has also tailored its menu for regional tastes. After the purchase of the company in 2002, Burger King began to aggressively target the 18–34 male demographic with larger products that oftenRead MoreObesity : The Consumption Of Unhealthy And Overly Processed Foods1645 Words   |  7 Pagestax will work in an almost identical way that the tobacco tax of 1969 has reduced the use of tobacco. After the tax was passed, sales in the companies began to decline, especially so when the government used revenue to promote anti-smoking ads and campaigns to prevent smoking or help smokers quit. Multiple studies reported that tobacco taxes have a well-documented â€Å"effectiveness in reducing overall consumption and prevalence of tobacco use and improvement of public health† (Chaoupka 1). If stipulationsRead MoreThe Legalization of Marijuana: An Argumentative Essay1704 Words   |  7 Pagesapproved laws permitting land and assets build from drug revenues to be impounded and confiscated by officials. During the Reagan administration, drug therapy programs and education programs were started, which also included Nancy Reagans Just Say No campaign in which kids were educated through by media messages and slogans to refuse to accept offers concerning drugs (Hamowy, 1987). In order to express this reason, the difference between prohibited and permissible substances (particularly alcohol andRead MoreMacro Environment of Sony7795 Words   |  32 PagesCampbell’s soup, Hallmark cards, Microsoft, IBM, Apple, Pepsi, McDonald, Sony, etc. Their names have become â€Å"cultural icons† and enjoy powerful advantage over the competition Because of the escalation of new-product costs and the high rate of new product failures, many companies prefer to leverage their brand equity through brand extension rather than risk launching a new brand. Brand equity facilitates the acceptance of new products and the allocations of preferred shelf space, and enhances perceived valueRead MoreStrategic Marketing Planning for Non Profit Organization9605 Words   |  39 Pagescombine the best aspects of both these approaches, and appeal to both the heart and the head. Mothers Against Drunk Driving, one of the most effective advocacy groups of modern times, is famous for the powerful emotional appeal of its advertising campaigns and legislative testimony, which prominently feature the victims of drunk drivers. But supplementing these classic marketing techniques, MADD also deploys equally classic communications strategies — position papers, voter’s guides, legislative briefingRead MoreFear: The Potential of an Appeal Neg lected by Marketing6082 Words   |  25 PagesFear: The Potential of an Appeal Neglected by Marketing MICHAEL L. RAY AND WILLIAM L. WILKIE neglect the fear appeal a M ARKETING S failure tooftake full advantageis of prime example of the field s communication research findings. While a large number of behavioral studies on fear have been published, marketing ignores their hints for segmentation, communication goal setting, message construction, and product differentiation. Instead of looking at these detailed results, marketing seems content

Consumer Reviews in E-Commerce Transactions

Question: Write a formal report from a management perspective that critically evaluates (a) selected Case Study/ies, analysing and discussing the management of information through the implementation of E-Business, e.g. the design/implementation, benefits and risks, models and strategies used and the impact E-Business had on the organisation.? Answer: Introduction This report analyses the E-business model of Amazon. com. Amazon.com is a well known e-commerce company operating globally in the internet based retailing domain. Information Management and Customer Relationship Managementupport the business strategy of this company. Initially, this company was in the Business to Customer and Business to Business relationships while later on it shifted to customer to customer model. The business model cannot be only termed as internet services; it is a mixture of retailing and the kindle eco system. Thorough research is made to study the implemented E-business strategies undertaken by Amazon and the benefits, risk involved and particular limitations are discussed. Benefits of this model are that many large e-commerce sites sales their own products through amazon.com. It can reach to a wide range of customers across various geographical locations, thus increasing the sales volume of the company and providing wide range of options to the customers. According to Chiu et al. (2014), the risk involved is that many retail companies are adapting e-commerce models due to which competition have become intense, for this reason Amazon spends a good amount of money in RD. Amazon is constantly explorating for new strategies to outperform the competitors and hold a large portion of the market. Amazon Marketplace is a third party selling platform offering goods and services at a discounted price through online shopping mall. Management can take the advantage of online sale 24/7 and reach to a wide geographical reach and easy buying and selling procedures helps to make a fast turnover. Amazon takes a charge derived from formula involving sale price, a variable closing fee, a referral fee and a fixed charge. Amazon web services includes a host of web services under various heads namely, computer related, Content delivery, Database, E-commerce, Storage, support. Impact of e-commerce model on Amazon is huge which helps in the value proposition of price and convenient product across all categories, allowing extending in new markets and deepening the customer relationships. E-Business Analysis and Evaluation Infrastructure: Amazon keeps the client of the data secret, unlike other companies. Consumer search directly on the Amazon website to buy goods directly and the core data of the consumers are not sold to the third parties unlike other businesses. On the other hand, Amazon innovatively uses this data to promote its own products. The entire delivery process is driven by the recipients, which supports both traditional as well as alternative delivery process. In the digital economy, this proposition helps to integrate the entire delivery process and makes it user friendly towards customers. Amazon also includes full support to online platform- from initial search for services and goods to recorded delivery and sales return. Additional customer services information and adverse search can also be initiated (Huang and Benyoucef 2013). Environment: Many retail companies are applying the same e-commerce model as that of Amazon, so Amazon has to work in a competitive environment. Companies like Amazon, maintaining large locations are facing a disruptive and dramatic change in their business model. Online business models like that of Amazon enables the users how the goods and services will be delivered to them. Interactive care services and integrated customer information based on supporting electronic identities and personal preference will quickly gain in importance (Shaikh and Gupta 2014). Strategy: Strategy Explanation Making lucrative offer to prospective clients Offers made by Amazon are well thought out and lucrative to lure in customers. Passing on only the useful information Redundant data are blotted out and only useful data are passed on to increase productivity. Keeping only small but highly efficient team Small team makes the work smooth and effective. Talking only when needed Being verbose is not all welcome in Amazon which helps to cut out wrong information. Getting adversial Adversity makes an employee build overall skill and they learn to maneuver difficult situations. Table 1 showing the strategy undertaken by Amazon (Source: Hannak et al.2014) E-procurement: The process of e-procurement done by Amazon that is spot buyer requirement is not done by conventional e-procurement shopping and search options. In the case of Amazon, user punches out to Amazon and then shops around in the consumer- oriented market before getting approvals in e-procurement application. In e-procurement process the bottom line is that the process where Amazon is financially intermediated into every transaction can be very efficient and also user friendly from a requisitioned point of view but is not very effective from a financial standpoint in the real world. This company has one of the most innovative and technologically advanced e-procurement processes in the online retailing space and the model is copied by many others online retailers. E-marketing: Marketing methods Description Onsite product reviews Inclusion of products review on site is helpful in selling of products fast. About 88% of the customers review the products review the products before purchasing. Cross selling related products Cross selling is an important method of increasing the overall average order value of Amazon. Amazon has added various sections like Same products , Customers who brought this, also brought. Creating tons of contents Amazon has nearly close to 2.5 billion on site pages on Goggle. The more pages a company has better are the chances of ranking Fast page speed Amazon has a reputation for a fast page speed, creating a large impact on user experience and sales. Personalizing the shopping experience Amazon has a personalized way of selling products. On viewing pages viewers can see sections like Related to items you have searched, Most viewed etc., thus having a personal touch to the overall experience. Reviews comments by users Reviews are a way of creating reliability in the minds of customers. Amazon has an onsite review page, thus helping customers taking a fast decision regarding purchase of products. Recommending similar products Recommending similar products helps Amazon to sell more than one products including similar products. Table 2 showing the e-marketing strategy undertaken by Amazon (Source: Einav et al.2014) E-scm: Diagram 1 showing the E-scm strategy undertaken by Amazon (Source: Benlian et al. 2012). Amazon has a unique strategy of having a supply chain management model, by starting from customers and then moving backwards. Amazon is really innovative on their supply chain management process, by constantly bringing in new technology to improve the supply chain management process. E-crm: CRM is an activity by which most regular and loyal customers are retained by the company. Relationship Management, Database Marketing is ways of CRM. Amazon builds and maintains the list of client databases and takes onsite feedback from them. The personal touch the company brings in, in the form of product suggestions helps to build trust among the customers. Amazon has realized long back that customer relation is of utmost importance and is trying hard to retain loyal customers. Benefits of implemented strategy: Benefits Explanation E-Business change management Amazon does not stick to a single model for a long time. They are constantly finding new ways to innovate the business models and upgrade their model. Prime offerings Prime offerings include facilities like 2 day delivery and access to the streaming called Amazon Instant Video and will be able to borrow millions of books from Kindle website and premium customers will be able to get exclusive offers and discounts from Amazon. Customer offerings Amazon comes under the Top 100 brands globally, known for taking care of the customers. In a recent study it was found that highly satisfied customers are more likely to do business with the company and spread word of mouth publicity. Competitive Advantage Personalization includes providing search options of similar products and provides other options like Most searched, Also Searched options thus pushing customers to purchase more products. Reliability and Security Currently, Amazon boosted up the cloud computing services and the business of leasing out of server space in the large data centers. The infrastructure of Amazon is great and they are regularly updated. The problems of Server breakdown and hacking of websites are very less due to a strong infra structural set up. Kindle Universe Kindle is one kind of innovation changing the way readers used to read books. It started as a reading device but now operates in the tablet and mobile devices. Globalization Amazon operates on a global scale. The models that are applied by Amazon are put up on a global scale, which makes the model universally applicable. Costs and Risks Amazon being an innovative company spends a good amount of money on the Research and Development. The risk of the model decreases to a low level. Table 3 showing the Customer Retention Management undertaken by Amazon. (Source: Mikianset et al.2013) Limitations Competitive Advantage and Globalization: According to Zheng (2013), business model applied by Amazon is applied by other online retail organizations. Amazon does not have that edge over the competitors as it used to have in the earlier days. The same model when applied by many online retailers does not have that appeal. The strategy of Amazon is well known to other competitors, who either copy that strategy or presents a better strategy thus robbing the company of intellectual pursuits. With the advent of globalization e-commerce businesses are springing up here and there. They are coming up with new and advanced models giving a tough competition to Amazon. Costs and Risks: According to Chiu et al. (2014), Amazon highly focuses on innovation which has resulted in sophisticated forecasting, overall operational efficiency and fast inventory. On the contrary, this has resulted in negative cash flows, which means Amazon first pays to the suppliers then receives payment. The risk of nonpayment is huge and the cost involved is also high. Many experts are of the opinion that this model cannot continue for long. Accuracy: Amazon heavily relies on computer infra structure and they have the largest cloud computing systems in the world. If the computer system is hacked or any cable disruptions happen then product delivery, receipt of order will not happen and accuracy will take a backseat (Mikians et al. 2013). Reliability and Security: Amazon operates on a global scale, so they are exposed to foreign exchange rate fluctuations which can badly affect the stock price of the company. Relying totally on the cloud computing has its share of blues. Once, the site is hacked customer sensitive data will be available to the hackers, and those data can be misused to a great extent (Benlin et al .2012). E- Business change management: Change of any management will lead to initial protests from the employees as well as from customers. Buyers are acquainted with a particular setoff models. This may lead to loss of customers and frustration among the employees. Optimization: The existing process of Amazon is very good but the optimization process is not very good. Amazon is losing the competitive edge that it used to have to other competitors (Huang and Benyoucef 2013). Conclusion The management of Amazon is able to achieve partly the objectives of this company. The objective of the management is to insist on higher standards, think on a bigger scale and recruit the best. Amazon has a lot of potentialities which is still unexplored in the cloud computing space and expansion space. Management can improve the limitations by creating an alternative mode of system of taking orders and payment process to stop relying on the cloud computing process and avoid any sort of disruptions due to hacking or other problems. Cash flow system is also not at a very good position, so advance payment for products should be encouraged. Recommendation It is recommended that the E-business model followed by Amazon is appropriate, but it lacks some applicability in the model. The e-business model followed by Amazon is replicated by many online retail stores and local start-ups are coming up, offering customers more attractive offers. Amazon should give more focus on the Research and Development division, and be more innovative in the approaches. Alternative ways of operating the model should be found out, so that in case of main server breakdown the service does not crash. References Benlian, A., Titah, R. and Hess, T., 2012. Differential effects of provider recommendations and consumer reviews in e-commerce transactions: An experimental study.Journal of Management Information Systems,29(1), pp.237-272. Chiu, C.M., Wang, E.T., Fang, Y.H. and Huang, H.Y., 2014. Understanding customers' repeat purchase intentions in B2C eà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ commerce: the roles of utilitarian value, hedonic value and perceived risk.Information Systems Journal,24(1), pp.85-114. Chiu, C.M., Wang, E.T., Fang, Y.H. and Huang, H.Y., 2014. Understanding customers' repeat purchase intentions in B2C eà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ commerce: the roles of utilitarian value, hedonic value and perceived risk.Information Systems Journal,24(1), pp.85-114. Das, K.K. and Ara, A., 2015. Growth of E-Commerce in India.Growth,2(4). Distante, D., Garrido, A., Camelier-Carvajal, J., Giandini, R. and Rossi, G., 2014. Business processes refactoring to improve usability in E-commerce applications.Electronic Commerce Research,14(4), pp.497-529. Einav, L., Levin, J., Popov, I. and Sundaresan, N., 2014. Growth, adoption, and use of mobile e-commerce.The American economic review,104(5), pp.489-494. Einav, L., Levin, J., Popov, I. and Sundaresan, N., 2014. Growth, adoption, and use of mobile e-commerce.The American economic review,104(5), pp.489-494. Hannak, A., Soeller, G., Lazer, D., Mislove, A. and Wilson, C., 2014, November. Measuring price discrimination and steering on e-commerce web sites. InProceedings of the 2014 conference on internet measurement conference(pp. 305-318). ACM. Hannak, A., Soeller, G., Lazer, D., Mislove, A. and Wilson, C., 2014, November. Measuring price discrimination and steering on e-commerce web sites. InProceedings of the 2014 conference on internet measurement conference(pp. 305-318). ACM. Huang, Z. and Benyoucef, M., 2013. From e-commerce to social commerce: A close look at design features.Electronic Commerce Research and Applications,12(4), pp.246-259. Huang, Z. and Benyoucef, M., 2013. From e-commerce to social commerce: A close look at design features.Electronic Commerce Research and Applications,12(4), pp.246-259. Lwin, H.T., Naing, T.T., Omieno, K.K., Raburu, G., Raburu, P., Computing, P., Goyal, M.J., Dadhich, M.A., Patil, P.G., Yawalkar, P. and Manoj, T., 2016. INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL SITE.Journal Publication,5(1). Mikians, J., Gyarmati, L., Erramilli, V. and Laoutaris, N., 2013, December. Crowd-assisted search for price discrimination in e-commerce: First results. InProceedings of the ninth ACM conference on Emerging networking experiments and technologies(pp. 1-6). ACM. Shaikh, A.A. and Gupta, G.K., 2014. M-Commerce Recomendation With Mobile Cloud Architecture.International Journal of Application or Innovation in Engineering Management (IJAIEM), pp.347-351. Wang, D., 2013. Influences of cloud computing on e-commerce businesses and industry. Zheng, X., Zhu, S. and Lin, Z., 2013. Capturing the essence of word-of-mouth for social commerce: Assessing the quality of online e-commerce reviews by a semi-supervised approach.Decision Support Systems,56, pp.211-222.

The Mystics in “What the Bleep Do We Know” an Example by

Uncovering the Bleep: The Mystics in â€Å"What the Bleep Do We Know?† The possibilities presented in the book create different realties and truths for those that would read it. These possibilities can be too influential to those that do not have enough background in terms of the fields discussed in the book; the readers can be easily misled to conclusions that are drawn from questionable justifications that do not even qualify as science (McCue, 2006, p. 1). Reading the books summaries from others who opted to work on the same piece exposes possible structural problems inherent to the book. Taking for example, the Alice in Wonderland likeness of the film collages many scientific approaches into a whole form of art slash informative melodrama that does not has a definite identification of its real and unreal scientific explanations. According to some critics of the book, its authors failed to attribute the correct proportions of the reputable figures included in the book (scientists, philosophers, religious leader, etc.) drive to push forth their concep ts as real science (McCue, 2006, p. 1). Due to this failure, the book exposes their readers to questionable notions of truths and fallacies. Need essay sample on "Uncovering the Bleep: The Mystics in What the Bleep Do We Know?" topic? We will write a custom essay sample specifically for you Proceed Students Usually Tell EssayLab professionals: How much do I have to pay someone to make my paper now? Essay writers suggest: Follow Essaylab Writing Service Taking into consideration the possible structural flaw of the book leads this paper to delve further into discussing the basic criticisms to What the Bleep Do We Know?- exaggerates the value of quantum mechanics and anti-scientific. The authors of What the Bleep Do We Know? find themselves in a position that imposes a need to explain the value of quantum mechanics. Defining quantum mechanics with a single focal point is virtually impossible; quantum mechanics as a form of science has branched out to many forms (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, 2000, p. n.pag.). In mathematical terms, quantum mechanics is well explained through the measurement structures it was able to provide and even with the theoretical- practical bearing it has (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, 2000, p. n.pag.). On the other hand, in terms of quantum mechanics being a tool to draw out a concept what the world is, up to date is highly contested. The scientific community has been clamoring to debunk and prove quantum mechanics as an integral part of the sciences. The vagueness that quantum mechanics exposes through its failure to provide the interpretations that it push for, gives enough reason for many members of the scientific community to scrap the whole idea of quantum mechanics (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, 2000, p. n.pag.). In the book What the Bleep Do We Know? the argumentation for quantum mechanics is scrapped by the scientific community in the same way that it scrapped the theoretical aspect of the said paradigm. What the Bleep Do We Know? finds guilt in pursuing quantum mechanics to create realities in vital parts of the book; the book can even be said to be guilty of asserting realities through modern day quantum mechanics principles. This critics allegation can be proven through three major examples included in the book. First, Candace Pert narrated in the book that the Native American as well as the part of Columbus have major problems in seeing each other since both parties are unaware of the existence of each other (Intuitor.com, 2005, p. n.pag.). The Native American people supposedly were unable to see the gigantic ship of Columbus since the actual physical attributes of the ship is not included in the consciousness that the Native Americans have. In the same way, Columbus during that time was supposedly unaware of the canoes used by the Native Americans. Using this example exposes the bias of the book to generalize even a history that is unverifiable to has occurred in a time frame on ly explainable through quantum mechanics such as seen in the failure of the brain fluxes to explain the presence of the ships and the canoe. This example was included in the book and was treated as a verified fact; but in reality, this event is still contested in terms of it being an actual event or even it occurring at all. Second, the cited example of the P-59 and P-38 pilots who argued that the P-59 pilots claim regarding the existence of jet planes shows the inconsistencies within the books context sued in quantum mechanics (Intuitor.com, 2005, p. n.pag.). One of the pilots of the P-59 supposedly dressed up as a gorilla and passed clear of the practicing P-38. Supposedly, after the event the P-38 pilots never mentioned any articulation of doubt with the realness of the claim of P-59 pilots that jet planes exist (Intuitor.com, 2005, p. n.pag.). Finally, the water photographs used in the book depicted the different use of labels and the extent of the influence of the use of such labels. In What the Bleep Do We Know?, ordinary individuals are said to be composed of 90% water; it is scientifically known that this proportion is a fallacy to the real physical nature of individuals. The point for enumerating these three examples is simply to point out that quantum mechanics as represented and used in the book What the Bleep Do We Know? is highly contestable in terms of validity and realness. The idea that realities can be constructed in a relative manner molds reality itself in a manner that is too superficial and in the borderline of being a fallacy. The claim that the Native Americans and Columbus are not aware of each other can be contested with the generalization that inference is one of the characteristics of mentally enabled bodies. It is not historically proven that during that event, ignorance has really sprung out and affected both parties. It is also plausible that maybe the two parties are aware of each other but do not have a parallel system of representation to address and recognize such existence. Among the other possibilities, the ancient nature of such example makes verifying it even harder to achieve because there are no written history to account for it. On the second example, the authors of the book took a stand that yes perceptions can be made even without prior experience to the event; the submissive reaction of the P-38 pilots exposes the reality that consciousness and experience can lead to different perceptions. The idea that the second example showed counters the idea of the first example since the first e xample generalizes that humans are incapable of processing what they presuppose as not parts of their consciousness and experience. The last example shows the power of labels, in such a way that it can completely modify existing conventions of meaning and value. If this is the case then labels should be the only focus of all academic institutions since knowing labels literally translates to knowing everything else there is to know (Intuitor.com, 2005, p. n.pag.). Alongside with the confusing use of the concept of quantum mechanics in molding reality, What the Bleep We Do Know? is also guilty of developing a perverse advocacy to a superior being or God through quantum mechanics. In the figure of Ramtha, quantum mechanics was used as the benchmark of modernizing sciences closer and closer to what cannot be perceived by the sensory faculties such as the existence of God (Intuitor.com, 2005, p. n.pag.). There is nothing wrong with advocating for the merging of religion and of the sciences, as long as it is not achieved through the fabrication of highly theoretical and even fallacious claims that seeks to replace the existing consciousness by harnessing more popular acceptance. At this point, this paper sees the book What the Bleep We Do Know? as guilty in terms of having the motive of misleading the believers of quantum mechanics to become more anti-scientific and pro-religion, such as vocalized by the books critics as Mormonism (McCue, 2006, p. 4). Furthermore, these criticisms were articulated even by one of the featured characters in the film version of the book. David Albert of Columbia University expressed outrage with the way scientific arguments are used and fabricated in the final output of What the Bleep We Do Know? (Intuitor.com, 2005, p. n.pag.). He argued that the book and even the movie uses the purity of science to open up interpretations which are misguided and will only lead to more distortions in the understanding of science (Intuitor.com, 2005, p. n.pag.). This criticism paves the way for coining the books authors as advocates of pseudoscience. Pseudoscience is the attempt to masquerade unscientifically proven knowledge as real science by mixing it up with the genuine science (Lower, 2008, p. n.pag.). The claim of Albert shows the potential of the book to follow the same path; the book has the tendencies to make the pseudoscience of quantum mechanics as the justifying scientific proof for its claims. Putting all of the criticisms regarding What the Bleep We Know? into a holistic picture paints an image that shows the power of propaganda fuelled campaigns in construing realities for the benefit of their cause. Whether the authors of the book advocate Mormonism or simply quantum mechanics is no longer the concern of this paper. Everything presented in this paper represent the most well articulated arguments in proving the major flaw of the book put into close examination- quantum mechanics and being anti-science. Conclusion: Defining the Bleep This paper started with its thesis that the book that turned to movie What the Bleep Do We Know? is best discussed through its quantum mechanics implications. The presented arguments in this research paper show the dominant concepts of quantum mechanics in the whole book; thus making the thesis statement fully realized. Other thesis could have been put forward such as defining the bleep. However, this paper deems it to be almost cosmically impossible to achieve since the bleep as represented in the book is laden with too many definitions and meanings. On the other hand, this research paper deems that it has accomplished explaining its thesis through the arguments presented in the earlier parts of the paper. In the same way, this research paper recognizes its responsibility to generalize its position after analyzing the most pronounced criticisms for and against the main thesis of the book. Nonetheless, the authors have created more than a fun way of viewing ones reality. Truly, the authors that set out to create an alternative way of molding realities were able to achieve their goals; given that their goal really is to provide new ways of viewing reality. The arguments presented in this research paper reveal the best and worst parts of the book as an informative and transforming book; but, it can still be said that balancing the arguments is still needed. Taking into consideration the negative reactions of the science community as presented in the later part of the paper reveals that there are existing contradictions between the scientific claims of the authors and science backed up scholars. The book is guilty in terms of perverting some scientific pillars to pave way for the arguments that it would like to push forth. The authors as mentioned by David Albert are guilty of creatively fabricating the small parts of the real science to form a whole new science; a new one but not necessarily a real one. It appears that the most pronounced negative criticism thrown at the authors of the book is rooted on the grounds of quantum mechanics. This can be said to be true since most of the assertions in the paper are deemed to be fallacious even in terms of quantum mechanics. However, the most successful contributions of this book to its audience and even the scientific world also lie within the tenet of quantum mechanics. The authors inclusion of quantum mechanics made the book more vital in terms of contributing for the academic world and even to the lives of its readers. The reality dynamism that is observable in the whole book provided an escape for those that find their reality too constrained and too linear. Conclusively, it can be said that the safest way of assessing the book What the Bleep Do We Know? is through its effects on readers in terms of good habits such as positive thinking. In terms of being an academic piece this book definitely fails in the conventions of the academic world. It can be said that the use of the book would determine its efficacy and value. Bibliography Arntz, W., Chasse, B., & Vicente, M. (2005). What the Bleep Do We Know? . Florida: Health Communications, Inc. Baron, D. (2004). What the Bleep Does It Mean? Retrieved July 30, 2010, from www.scribd.com: https://www.scribd.com/document/6728559/What-the-Bleep-Does-It-Mean-By-Dov-Baron Laitman, R. M. (2006). Kabbalah, Science and the Meaning of Life. Toronto: Kabbalah Laitman Publishers. Lower, S. (2008). Pseudoscience. Retrieved July 30, 2010, from www.chem1.com: http://www.chem1.com/acad/sci/pseudosci.html Positive-Thinking-Principles.com. (2010). Dr. Masaru Emoto: The Power Of Thoughts. Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. (2000, November 29). Quantum Mechanics.

African American History and Women Timeline 1970-1979

African American History and Women Timeline 1970-1979 [Previous] [Next] 1970 Cheryl Adrienne Brown, Miss New York, became the first African American contestant in the Miss America pageant(January 14) Diana Ross performs for the last time with the Supremes, and introduces Jean Terrell as her replacement with the group(August 7) Angela Davis, radical black activist and philosopher, was arrested as a suspected conspirator in the abortive attempt to free George Jackson from a courtroom in Marin County, Californiafirst issue of  Essence  published, a magazine targeted at black women 1971 (January 11) Mary J. Blige born (singer)Beverly Johnson appears on the cover of  Glamour, the first African American woman to be featured that way by a major fashion magazineThe Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) founded, an evolution from the Democratic Select Committee founded in 1969. Shirley Chisholm  was the only woman among the first 13 members. 1972 Mahalia Jackson died (gospel singer)Shirley Chisholm became the first African American woman candidate for President, with more than 150 delegate votes at the 1972 Democratic conventionBarbara Jordan elected to Congress, the first African American woman from a former Confederate state to be elected to the HouseYvonne Braithwaite Burke elected to Congress, the first black woman elected to the House from CaliforniaPatricia Roberts Harris became chair of the Democratic National Convention; Yvonne Braithwaite Burke was co-chair of the conventionHaitian boat people begin arriving in FloridaAngela Davis acquitted in California by an all-white jury  of charges from a 1970 shootout(January 27) Mahalia Jackson died (singer)(July 7) Lisa Leslie born (basketball player) 1973 Eleanor Holmes Norton and others found the National Black Feminist Organization.Marion Wright Edelson creates the Childrens Defense Fund.Cardiss Collins elected to Congress from a Chicago district, succeeding her husband 1974 Shirley Chisholm became the first African American woman elected to Congress   Alberta Williams King, Martin Luther King, Jr.s mother, and a deacon, were killed during services at Ebenezer Baptist Church 1975 Mary Bush Wilson becomes first African American woman board chair of the NAACP (the first chair, Mary White Ovington, was a white woman)Joanne Little acquitted of murder charges - she had stabbed a jailer with an ice pick to avoid sexual assaultLeontyne Price awarded Italys Order of Merit(April 12) Josephine Baker died of a stroke 1976 Barbara Jordan was the first woman and the first African American to give the keynote address at a national convention of the Democratic PartyJanie L. Mines becomes the first African  American woman to enter the United States Naval Academy at Annapolis.Clara Stanton Jones becomes the first African Amerian elected as President of the American Library AssociationPresident Jimmy Carter appoints Patricia Harris as Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, the first African American woman selected for the cabinet.Unita Blackwell elected mayor of Mayersville, becoming the first black woman mayor in Mississippigymnast Dominque Dawes born (won three Olympic medals)(February 26) Florence Ballard dies of a heart attack, age 32.   She was one of the original Supremes. 1977 first African American woman ordained as an Episcopal priest: Pauli Murraythe Daughters of the American Revolution admitted the first African American member, Karen Farmer, who traced her ancestry back to William HoodMabel Murphy Smythe appointed as ambassador to Cameroon(September 1) Ethel Waters died, age 80 (singer, actress) 1978 Faye Wattleton became president of the Planned Parenthood Federation the first woman and the first African American to hold that positionUnited States Postal Service issued a stamp honoring Harriet Tubman.Toni Morrison received the National Book Critics AwardJill Brown, flying for Texas International Airlines, is the first black female pilot for any commercial airline(March 29) Tina Turner divorces Ike Turner(June 28) in University of California v. Backke, Supreme Court limits federal affirmative action 1979 Hazel Winifred Johnson became the first African American woman appointed as a general in the US ArmyPatricia Harris, who had served as Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, was appointed by President Carter as secretary of health, education and welfareBethune Museum and Archives established in Washington, DCLois Alexander opens the Black Fashion Museum in Harlem [Previous] [Next] [1492-1699] [1700-1799] [1800-1859] [1860-1869] [1870-1899] [1900-1919] [1920-1929] [1930-1939] [1940-1949] [1950-1959] [1960-1969] [1970-1979] [1980-1989] [1990-1999] [2000-] Janie L. Mines becomes the first African  American woman to enter the United States Naval Academy at Annapolis.

250 Words per Page Term Paper

250 Words per Page Term Paper 250 Words per Page Term Paper 250 Words per Page Term Paper Ordering custom term paper writing service, you expect to receive at least 250 words per page term paper. offers more: 275 words page! Thus, if you need 1500 words, you should order 5 instead of 6 pages! We are working hard to save your money while providing you with custom term papers written from scratch! Moreover, our free term paper blog is continuously updated with free samples and examples of written term papers! Term Paper Sample Free The main deterrent to permitting abortion on demand is the law which rules on abortion just as it does on crime, taxes or zoning regulations. Legally, abortion first became a crime in England in 1803. This law differentiated between a fetus that had not yet quickened or moved, the aborting of which carried a penalty of fourteen years as an indentured servant, and a fetus which had moved, the aborting of which was termed manslaughter and was punishable by hanging. The law was revised in 1860 removing these distinctions and making it equally serious to perform any abortion. In the United States, Connecticut was the first state to pass an abortion law in 1820, but abortion during the early months before quickening was not made an offense until 1860. In 1828, New York had made abortion legal in cases where such an operation would save the life of the mother. The current legal situation is a mass of confusion in the sense that there is no Federal law governing abortion and each state has its own separate abortion laws not unlike the divorce law situation. Pressure for the repeal or liberalization of existing abortion restrictions comes from a number of different groups who feel we must help women find a solution to the quandary of unwanted pregnancies. In addition to women's organizations, which insist on complete repeal (and were in part responsible for the repeal of the law in New York), religious leaders and individual legislators have suggested that some changes in the hundred-yearold legal statutes are vital since they impinge on women's constitutional rights. But even among the legislators themselves, the subject is one of emotional conviction in either direction. An example of this was the recent effort in the 1969 session of the New York State legislature to liberalize the state's abortion law. Legislators had been canvassed by su pporters of the new bill and it was thought the bill had a good chance of passing. On the day of voting, however, an impassioned speech by a legislator who was also a badly crippled victim of polio, eloquently expressing the right of every child to be born, wanted or not, deformed or not, (what if there had been no Helen Keller, Toulouse-Lautrec or Lord Byron?), caused a number of members who were pledged to support the bill to renege. The bill was subsequently defeated for the third consecutive year. Custom Term Paper Writing If you want to impress your teacher with professionally written term paper, you may freely ask our writers for professional assistance with writing! Term paper written with our help will satisfy the requirements of the most demanding teachers. Our writers are experienced, educated and never late with delivery.

Critical Analysis of BMJ article on systemic review of the literature Essay

Critical Analysis of BMJ article on systemic review of the literature - Essay Example The investigator followed the logical sequence and could comment on the work already done in the area. He was able to discuss on the gaps in the literature. Though the investigator described the methodology used and completed the study following literature review but the methodology used was not as suggested for this purpose while presenting rationale for this research. The investigator critiqued that the previous reviews were either narrative or quasi-experimental design and could not assess the effectiveness of the isolation measures therefore, he proposed a better review for valid inferences. The best methodology for this purpose is meta-analysis which has been described by Glass as "Meta-analysis refers to the analysis of analyses...the statistical analysis of a large collection of analysis results from individual studies for the purpose of integrating the findings." Although this research was carried out through a literature review process but in individual studies the investigator focused on the experiences of the patients; their stay in the hospital, course of disease and any other accompanying feature. The methodology and processes used in the analysis of the data were very well narrated and elaborated by the investigator, which reflects the grasp of the investigator on the subject area. He remained unbiased in the analysis of the literature review as he gave full attention to the errors and the issue of bias involved in these studies at individual level. 8. Credibility: The evidence of the ownership of the participants in the research could not be explored and validated. An explicit expression regarding this finding was not found. 9. Audability: The investigator has been successful in keeping the reader with him. He has been able to keep the interest of the reader alive. Although the review is difficult than meta-analysis to follow because the latter has got more scientific components involved especially at the level of analysis which uses some statistically methodology and this way makes the process simpler one. 10. Fittingness: Yes, findings of the study are generalizable. Out of the final 46 studies, 32 were with the findings, which were similar to the measures taken for MRSA reduction anywhere. Eighteen of these were weak as far as methodology or interpretation of the results was concerned while six were the strongest which were longer time series studies. This way methodology was the central point that contributed much in the strength of any study to be ranked high for more reliable results and generalizability. 11. Confirmability: Yes, the findings of the study convey the whole message as far as the experience of different players involved, the ownership, the understanding of the reader and application of the research findings. Even though the methodology was not strong for the subject (literature review vs. meta-analysis) but the investigator

Management report. It should critically evaluate the leadership and Essay

Management report. It should critically evaluate the leadership and management processes within your own organisation or one th - Essay Example 468-469, 1998). This paper is an attempt to look at the leadership dynamics of a well-known leader Ricardo Semler, who is currently the CEO of Brazilian firm Semco SA. Ricardo Semler and his company are widely known for its principles of industrial and corporate democracy, participative management, innovative business management and corporate re-engineering. Born in 1959 at Sao Paula, Semler is one of biggest names of the corporate, business and academic arena of Brazil and all over the world. Semler has repeatedly been nominated as the top 100 global business leaders. In addition, â€Å"he was named as the Latin American Businessmen of the year in 1990 by the TIME magazine† (Antonakis, Cianciolo & Sternberg, pp. 41-49, 2004). Semler has is occasional lecturers to seminars and has received immense media attention. ‘World Economic Forum’ has also nominated Semler as Leaders of Tomorrow. He is the author of many business articles in Harvard Business Review and he ha s also written best sellers such as â€Å"The Seven Day Weekend: Changing the Way it Works† and â€Å"Turning Your Own Table† (Hamel & Breen, pp. 258-259, 2007). This paper would explore his business styles, leadership dynamics; compare the information available on him with the well-known leadership literature to draw certain conclusions and recommendations. Organisational Context Antonio Kurt Semler, an Austrian Born immigrant in Sao Paulo, established his little company with the name of â€Å"Semler & Company† in 1952 to sell his patented vegetable oil centrifuge (Patching, pp. 86-87, 2007). However, as the company grew, it diversified into the business of Mixer & Agitator and other supply materials for shipping and construction. However, Antonio Semler strongly believed in the autocratic and controlled style of leadership (Antonakis et. al, pp. 41-49, 2004). At that time, Semler was a tall and hierarchal organisation with many layers of management. Ricardo wa s the only son of the Semler family and therefore, Antonio wanted, right from the started, his son to take over the company after him (Sashkin & Sashkin, pp. 379-386, 2003). However, Semler was not interested in the family business. Despite the fact that he went to Harvard Business School for business studies, his interest was to join a Rock band, like the ones that were famous in the 1970s (Semler, pp. 3-6, 1989). However, on the insistence of his father, he took the position of Assistant to the Board of Directors. Even though, the job title suggests that young Semler had quite some authority over the business, the same was not true. He had disagreements over most of the issues with the other senior board of directors most of which were the â€Å"golf buddies† of his father (Tjosvold & Tjosvold, pp. 487-489, 1995). This frustration and disappointment grew so much that young Semler finally threatened his father to leave the company. As mentioned earlier that it was the dream of his father to see his son taking over the company. Therefore, after a few weeks, Antonio Semler took a decision, which surprised everyone. He himself went on a vacation to Europe, resigned from his post, and transferred all the power to his son, leaving Ricardo Semler as the incharge of the company (Semler, pp. 3-6, 1989). After taking over the company, he fired over 75 percent of the top and middle managers of the company and took the company into a new strategic direction of acquisitions and

Greek and Roman Art Essay Example for Free

Greek and Roman Art Essay Greek sculptures embody a lot of things and meanings. The way they create a certain object reflects to their psychological state that human beings are ‘the measure of things. ’ One of the known Greek artists during the ancient times is Praxiteles. He is the most famous ancient Greek artist because of his countless masterpieces such as the Aphrodite of Knidos and Nike Adjusting Her Sandal. Another well-known magnum opus that is crafted by Praxiteles is Hermes and the infant god Dionysus. Hermes and the infant god Dionysus is created by Praxiteles in a way that it is anchored to his ultimate decision of altering the rules and principles of the standard and ideal body proportions. It is the most famous example of an adult and child statuary. Praxiteles traces the Kephisodotos step by creating and sculpting a piece delineating a relationship between two figures (Praxiteles, 2008). This sculpture is found at Olympia where it has been commissioned for the said sanctuary. It conveys and expresses the secular world of the period (Hermes and the Infant Dionysus, n/d). Due to the artist’s manipulation and alteration of the standard body proportion, the adult on the artwork which is Hermes, is portrayed as tall and slender, standing in calm, tranquil and relax position. His figure encompasses various lines—from vertical, horizontal, curvilinear and spiral. Vertical lines are visible in his nose, neck and lower part of his leg. Horizontal lines are evident in his eyes and lips. Spiral lines are noticeable in his twisted and curly hair. Curvilinear dominates the whole figure—from Hermes’ face down to his feet. His phallus is not rendered. Nevertheless, a part of the male organ is still exposed and depicted. On the other hand, the baby figure, which is Dionysus, is illustrated in such a way that it is carried by Hermes in his left arm. The infant is just composed of curvilinear. He faces sideways making its physical features appear summarily represented. The cloth that wraps his lower body demonstrates horizontal lines, as well as the trunk of the tree which functions as support of the sculpture per se. On the contrary, Roman sculptures are said to be copied in Greek’s even though they are said to be purely Roman in origin and conception. Some statues are imitations and pastiche of more than one Greek original; some are combinations of Greek gods/athletes’ image and Roman head (Department of Greek Art and Roman, n/d). One of the ancient Roman sculptures which is said and believed that is copied from Greek’s is The Hope Dionysos. It embodies a retrospective Greco-Roman style (Hemingway, 2007). It is crafted during the late 1st century A. D. but during the 18th century it is restored by Vincenzo Pacetti (Vincenzo Pacetti. The Hope Dionysos: 1990. 247, 2006). The main figure in the sculpture is Dionysos. He is portrayed standing at ease and his left arm is resting on a female figure traditionally recognized as Spes, the embodiment and representation of hope. Dionysos wears a panther skin overlapping his chiton while a cloak envelops around his upper right arm and shoulder (Vincenzo Pacetti. The Hope Dionysos: 1990. 247, 2006). The statue is composed of various intricate lines—horizontal, vertical, curvilinear and spiral. The robes of the two figures possess a myriad of draperies which illustrate various vertical lines; however the cloth that is on Spes head shows curvatures. The two sculptures are depicted realistically with their complete body parts as compared to some statues that are lacking with head, arms or feet. Both sculptures possess two figures at the same time. If Hermes and the infant Dionysus showcases Dionysus as a baby, The Hope Dionysos illustrates the grown up one. The former is accompanied by a known Greek god Hermes, the latter is escorted with archaistic female figure, Spes. If Hermes is naked, Dionysos is very well-wrapped. The two statuaries imply dichotomies: the main focus (Hermes and Dionyos) and the out-of-focus (baby Dionysos and Spes), adult and baby, male and female. References Department of Greek and Roman Art. n. d. Roman Copies of Greek Statues. In Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2000. Retrieved January 15, 2009 from http://www. metmuseum. org/toah/hd/rogr/hd_rogr. htm. Hemingway, Colette. (July 2007). Retrospective Styles in Greek and Roman Sculpture. In Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2000. Retrieved January 15, 2009 from http://www. metmuseum. org/toah/hd/grsc/hd_grsc. htm. â€Å"Hermes with the Infant Dionysus. † n. d. The Museum of Antiquities Collection. Retrieved January 15, 2009 from http://www. usask. ca/antiquities/Collection/Hermes. html. Praxiteles. (2008). PEOPLE: Ancient Greece. Retrieved January 15, 2009 from http://www. ancientgreece. com/s/People/Praxiteles/. Vincenzo Pacetti: The Hope Dionysos-1990. 247. (October 2006). In Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2000. Retrieved January 15, 2009 from http://www. metmuseum. org/toah/hd/grsc/ho_1990. 247. htm . List of Figures Hermes and the infant Dionysus. n. d. Greek Art: Hermes and Dionysus of Praxiteles. Retrieved January 15, 2009 from http://www. mlahanas. de/Greeks/Arts/HermesPraxiteles. htm. The Hope Dionysos. (October 2006). Vincenzo Pacetti: The Ho

Economic Disparity and Policies Lead to Prison Essay --

Introduction According to Marc Mauer, (1998) the prisoners detained in US jails close to half of the prison inmates are African-Americans, as compared to others (Marc Mauer, 1998). It is fared that if current policies and the state of economic disparity remain in place, it is likely that the number of this unfortunate community / minorities will increase over the next few years and the economic disorder will keep increasing the economic and racial disparities and the state of imprisonment will grow even further. The situation as is being anticipated, despite the drop in crime in recent years, may easily be said to be largely fueled by the element of poverty and the harsher sentencing policies that have resulted in more recurrent and frequent prison terms for African Americans. Marc Mauer, (1998) has opined in his article under reference that if African Americans continue to be met with the same kind treatment they are likely to continue to be drug offenders and continue to represent a substantial proportion of the prison population. The policies based on racial discrimination have been another grey area and the gap in our policies, will further affect minorities who have already been disproportionately affected by economic disparities and weak drug enforcement practices and policies. Effects of Economic Disparity and Policies on African Americans African Americans in US society have unequal access to basic necessities and other resources; due to poor economic conditions. Moreover they are being excluded from access to basic resources, and are being subjected to the degrading treatment, which causes lot of hatred and discontentment in them. The logical question that rises in every body’s mind is about the future of this communit... ...for a poor man to get due justice. The only alternate then left with him is to go for some extra ordinary act that could fetch him some money or otherwise guaranteed piece of bread in prison. References Atiq Rahman, (1998) Environment and the poor Focused action, greater attention needed The Independent (Internet Edition) retrieved from http://www.independent-bangladesh.com/news/jan/30/30012003pd.htm Internet Article, (2003) Economic Justice in America retrieved from http://www.ppjr.org/econjust/ News Release, (1997) Study of African American children in Texas shows some improvements, but many children still at risk Released October 1, 1997 A project of the Center for Public Policy Priorities 900 Lydia Street Austin, Texas Marc Mauer, (1998) Racial Disparities Hartford, Connecticut The Sentencing Project Presented to Council of State Governments June 12, 1998

Bag of Bones CHAPTER SIX

On July 3rd of 1998, I threw two suitcases and my Powerbook in the trunk of my mid-sized Chevrolet, started to back down the driveway, then stopped and went into the house again. It felt empty and somehow forlorn, like a faithful lover who has been dropped and cannot understand why. The furniture wasn't covered and the power was still on (I understood that The Great Lake Experiment might turn out to be a swift and total failure), but 14 Benton Street felt deserted, all the same. Rooms too full of furniture to echo still did when I walked through them, and everywhere there seemed to be too much dusty light. In my study, the VDT was hooded like an executioner against the dust. I knelt before it and opened one of the desk drawers. Inside were four reams of paper. I took one, started away with it under my arm, then had a second thought and turned back. I had put that provocative photo of Jo in her swimsuit in the wide center drawer. Now I took it, tore the paper wrapping from the end of the ream of paper, and slid the photo halfway in, like a bookmark. If I did perchance begin to write again, and if the writing marched, I would meet Johanna right around page two hundred and fifty. I left the house, locked the back door, got into my car, and drove away. I have never been back. I'd been tempted to go down to the lake and check out the work which turned out to be quite a bit more extensive than Bill Dean had originally expected on several occasions. What kept me away was a feeling, never quite articulated by my conscious mind but still very powerful, that I wasn't supposed to do it that way; that when I next came to Sara, it should be to unpack and stay. Bill hired out Kenny Auster to shingle the roof, and got Kenny's cousin, Timmy Larribee, to ‘scrape the old girl down,' a cleansing process akin to pot-scrubbing that is sometimes employed with log homes. Bill also had a plumber in to check out the pipes, and got my okay to replace some of the older plumbing and the well-pump. Bill fussed about all these expenses over the telephone; I let him. When it comes to fifth- or sixth-generation Yankees and the expenditure of money, you might as well just stand back and let them get it out of their systems. Laying out the green just seems wrong to a Yankee, somehow, like petting in public. As for myself, I didn't mind the outgo a bit. I live frugally, for the most part, not out of any moral code but because my imagination, very lively in most other respects, doesn't work very well on the subject of money. My idea of a spree is three days in Boston, a Red Sox game, a trip to Tower Records and Video, plus a visit to the Wordsworth bookstore in Cambridge. Living like that doesn't make much of a dent in the interest, let alone the principal; I had a good money manager down in Waterville, and on the day I locked the door of the Derry house and headed west to TR-90, I was worth slightly over five million dollars. Not much compared to Bill Gates, but big numbers for this area, and I could afford to be cheerful about the high cost of house repairs. That was a strange late spring and early summer for me. What I did mostly was wait, close up my town affairs, talk to Bill Dean when he called with the latest round of problems, and try not to think. I did the Publishers Weekly interview, and when the interviewer asked me if I'd had any trouble getting back to work ‘in the wake of my bereavement,' I said no with an absolutely straight face. Why not? It was true. My troubles hadn't started until I'd finished All the Way from the Top; until then, I had been going on like gangbusters. In mid-June, I met Frank Arlen for lunch at the Starlite Cafe. The Starlite is in Lewiston, which is the geographical midpoint between his town and mine. Over dessert (the Starlite's famous strawberry shortcake), Frank asked if I was seeing anyone. I looked at him with surprise. ‘What are you gaping at?' he asked, his face registering one of the nine hundred unnamed emotions this one of those somewhere between amusement and irritation. ‘I certainly wouldn't think of it as two-timing Jo. She'll have been dead four years come August.' ‘No,' I said. ‘I'm not seeing anybody.' He looked at me silently. I looked back for a few seconds, then started fiddling my spoon through the whipped cream on top of my shortcake. The biscuits were still warm from the oven, and the cream was melting. It made me think of that silly old song about how someone left the cake out in the rain. ‘Have you seen anybody, Mike?' ‘I'm not sure that's any business of yours.' ‘Oh for Christ's sake. On your vacation? Did you ‘ I made myself look up from the melting whipped cream. ‘No,' I said. ‘I did not.' He was silent for another moment or two. I thought he was getting ready to move on to another topic. That would have been fine with me. Instead, he came right out and asked me if I had been laid at all since Johanna died. He would have accepted a lie on that subject even if he didn't entirely believe it men lie about sex all the time. But I told the truth . . . and with a certain perverse pleasure. ‘No.' ‘Not a single time?' ‘Not a single time.' ‘What about a massage parlor? You know, to at least get a ‘ ‘No.' He sat there tapping his spoon against the rim of the bowl with his dessert in it. He hadn't taken a single bite. He was looking at me as though I were some new and oogy specimen of bug. I didn't like it much, but I suppose I understood it. I had been close to what is these days called ‘a relationship' on two occasions, neither of them on Key Largo, where I had observed roughly two thousand pretty women walking around dressed in only a stitch and a promise. Once it had been a red-haired waitress, Kelli, at a restaurant out on the Extension where I often had lunch. After awhile we got talking, joking around, and then there started to be some of that eye-contact, you know the kind I'm talking about, looks that go on just a little too long. I started to notice her legs, and the way her uniform pulled against her hip when she turned, and she noticed me noticing. And there was a woman at Nu You, the place where I used to work out. A tall woman who favored pink jog-bras and black bike shorts. Quite yummy. Also, I liked the stuff she brought to read while she pedalled one of the stationary bikes on those endless aerobic trips to nowhere not Mademoiselle or Cosmo, but novels by people like John Irving and Ellen Gilchrist. I like people who read actual books, and not just because I once wrote them myself. Book-readers are just as willing as anyone else to start out with the weather, but as a general rule they can actually go on from there. The name of the blonde in the pink tops and black shorts was Adria Bundy. We started talking about books as we pedalled side by side ever deeper into nowhere, and there came a point where I was spotting her one or two mornings a week in the weight room. There's something oddly intimate about spotting. The prone position of the lifter is part of it, I suppose (especially when the lifter is a woman), but not all or even most of it. Mostly it's the dependence factor. Although it hardly ever comes to that point, the lifter is trusting the spotter with his or her life. And, at some point in the winter of 1996, those looks started as she lay on the bench and I stood over her, looking into her upside-down face. The ones that go on just a little too long. Kelli was around thirty, Adria perhaps a little younger. Kelli was divorced, Adria never married. In neither case would I have been robbing the cradle, and I think either would have been happy to go to bed with me on a provisional basis. Kind of a honey-bump test-drive. Yet what I did in Kelli's case was to find a different restaurant to eat my lunch at, and when the YMCA sent me a free exercise-tryout offer, I took them up on it and just never went back to Nu You. I remember walking past Adria Bundy one day on the street six months or so after I made the change, and although I said hi, I made sure not to see her puzzled, slightly hurt gaze. In a purely physical way I wanted them both (in fact, I seem to remember a dream in which I had them both, in the same bed and at the same time), and yet I wanted neither. Part of it was my inability to write my life was quite fucked up enough, thank you, without adding any additional complications. Part of it was the work involved in making sure that the woman who is returning your glances is interested in you and not your rather extravagant bank account. Most of it, I think, was that there was just too much Jo still in my head and heart. There was no room for anyone else, even after four years. It was sorrow like cholesterol, and if you think that's funny or weird, be grateful. ‘What about friends?' Frank asked, at last beginning to eat his strawberry shortcake. ‘You've got friends you see, don't you?' ‘Yes,' I said. ‘Plenty of friends.' Which was a lie, but I did have lots of crosswords to do, lots of books to read, and lots of movies to watch on my VCR at night; I could practically recite the FBI warning about unlawful copying by heart. When it came to real live people, the only ones I called when I got ready to leave Derry were my doctor and my dentist, and most of the mail I sent out that June consisted of change-of address cards to magazines like Harper's and National Geographic. ‘Frank,' I said, ‘you sound like a Jewish mother.' ‘Sometimes when I'm with you feel like a Jewish mother,' he said. ‘One who believes in the curative powers of baked potatoes instead of matzo balls. You look better than you have in a long time, finally put on some weight, I think ‘ ‘Too much.' ‘Bullshit, you looked like Ichabod Crane when you came for Christmas. Also, you've got some sun on your face and arms.' ‘I've been walking a lot.' ‘So you look better . . . except for your eyes. Sometimes you get this look in your eyes, and I worry about you every time I see it. I think Jo would be glad someone's worrying.' ‘What look is that?' I asked. ‘Your basic thousand-yard stare. Want the truth? You look like someone who's caught on something and can't get loose.' I left Derry at three-thirty, stopped in Rumford for supper, then drove slowly on through the rising hills of western Maine as the sun lowered. I had planned my times of departure and arrival carefully, if not quite consciously, and as I passed out of Motton and into the unincorporated township of TR-90, I became aware of the heavy way my heart was beating. There was sweat on my face and arms in spite of the car's air conditioning. Nothing on the radio sounded right, all the music like screaming, and I turned it off. I was scared, and had good reason to be. Even setting aside the peculiar cross-pollination between the dreams and things in the real world (as I was able to do quite easily, dismissing the cut on my hand and the sunflowers growing through the boards of the back stoop as either coincidence or so much psychic fluff), I had reason to be scared. Because they hadn't been ordinary dreams, and my decision to go back to the lake after all this time hadn't been an ordinary decision. I didn't feel like a modern fin-de-mill? ¦naire man on a spiritual quest to face his fears (I'm okay, you're okay, let's all have an emotional circle-jerk while William Ackerman plays softly in the background); I felt more like some crazy Old Testament prophet going out into the desert to live on locusts and alkali water because God had summoned him in a dream. I was in trouble, my life was a moderate-going-on-severe mess, and not being able to write was only part of it. I wasn't raping kids or running around Times Square preaching conspiracy theories through a bullhorn, but I was in trouble just the same. I had lost my place in things and couldn't find it again. No surprise there; after all, life's not a book. What I was engaging in on that hot July evening was self-induced shock therapy, and give me at least this much credit I knew it. You come to Dark Score this way: 1-95 from Derry to Newport; Route 2 from Newport to Bethel (with a stop in Rumford, which used to stink like hell's front porch until the paper-driven economy pretty much ground to a halt during Reagan's second term); Route 5 from Bethel to Waterford. Then you take Route 68, the old County Road, across Castle View, through Motton (where downtown consists of a converted barn which sells videos, beer, and second-hand rifles), and then past the sign which reads TR-90 and the one reading GAME WARDEN IS BEST ASSISTANCE IN EMERGENCY, DIAL 1-800-555-GAME OR * 72 ON CELLULAR PHONE. To this, in spray paint, someone has added FUCK THE EAGLES. Five miles past that sign, you come to a narrow lane on the right, marked only by a square of tin with the faded number 42 on it. Above this, like umlauts, are a couple of. 22 holes. I turned into this lane just about when I had expected to it was 7:16 P.M., EDT, by the clock on the Chevrolet's dashboard. And the feeling was coming home. I drove in two tenths of a mile by the odometer, listening to the grass which crowned the lane whickering against the undercarriage of my car, listening to the occasional branch which scraped across the roof or knocked on the passenger side like a fist. At last I parked and turned the engine off. I got out, walked to the rear of the car, lay down on my belly, and began pulling all of the grass which touched the Chevy's hot exhaust system. It had been a dry summer, and it was best to take precautions. I had come at this exact hour in order to replicate my dreams, hoping for some further insight into them or for an idea of what to do next. What I had not come to do was start a forest fire. Once this was done I stood up and looked around. The crickets sang, as they had in my dreams, and the trees huddled close on either side of the lane, as they always did in my dreams. Overhead, the sky was a fading strip of blue. I set off, walking up the right hand wheelrut. Jo and I had had one neighbor at this end of the road, old Lars Washburn, but now Lars's driveway was overgrown with juniper bushes and blocked by a rusty length of chain. Nailed to a tree on the left of the chain was NO TRESPASSING. Nailed to one on the right was NEXT CENTURY REAL ESTATE, and a local number. The words were faded and hard to read in the growing gloom. I walked on, once more conscious of my heavily beating heart and of the way the mosquitoes were buzzing around my face and arms. Their peak season was past, but I was sweating a lot, and that's a smell they like. It must remind them of blood. Just how scared was I as I approached Sara Laughs? I don't remember. I suspect that fright, like pain, is one of those things that slip our minds once they have passed. What I do remember is a feeling I'd had before when I was down here, especially when I was walking this road by myself. It was a sense that reality was thin. I think it is thin, you know, thin as lake ice after a thaw, and we fill our lives with noise and light and motion to hide that thinness from ourselves. But in places like Lane Forty-two, you find that all the smoke and mirrors have been removed. What's left is the sound of crickets and the sight of green leaves darkening toward black; branches that make shapes like faces; the sound of your heart in your chest, the beat of the blood against the backs of your eyes, and the look of the sky as the day's blue blood runs out of its cheek. What comes in when daylight leaves is a kind of certainty: that beneath the skin there is a secret, some mystery both black and bright. You feel this mystery in every breath, you see it in every shadow, you expect to plunge into it at every turn of a step. It is here; you slip across it on a kind of breathless curve like a skater turning for home. I stopped for a moment about half a mile south of where I'd left the car, and still half a mile north of the driveway. Here the road curves sharply, and on the right is an open field which slants steeply down toward the lake. Tidwell's Meadow is what the locals call it, or sometimes the Old Camp. It was here that Sara Tidwell and her curious tribe built their cabins, at least according to Marie Hingerman (and once, when I asked Bill Dean, he agreed this was the place . . . although he didn't seem interested in continuing the conversation, which struck me at the time as a bit odd). I stood there for a moment, looking down at the north end of Dark Score. The water was glassy and calm, still candy-colored in the afterglow of sunset, without a single ripple or a single small craft to be seen. The boat-people would all be down at the marina or at Warrington's Sunset Bar by now, I guessed, eating lobster rolls and drinking big mixed drinks. Later a few of them, buzzed on speed and martinis, would go bolting up and down the lake by moonlight. I wondered if I would be around to hear them. I thought there was a fair chance that by then I'd be on my way back to Derry, either terrified by what I'd found or disillusioned because I had found nothing at all. ‘You funny little man, said Strickland.' I didn't know I was going to speak until the words were out of my mouth, and why those words in particular I had no idea. I remembered my dream of Jo under the bed and shuddered. A mosquito whined in my ear. I slapped it and walked on. In the end, my arrival at the head of the driveway was almost too perfectly timed, the sense of having re-entered my dream almost too complete. Even the balloons tied to the SARA LAUGHS sign (one white and one blue, both with WELCOME BACK MIKE! carefully printed on them in black ink) and floating against the ever-darkening backdrop of the trees seemed to intensify the d? ¦j? ¤ vu I had quite deliberately induced, for no two dreams are exactly the same, are they? Things conceived by minds and made by hands can never be quite the same, even when they try their best to be identical, because we're never the same from day to day or even moment to moment. I walked to the sign, feeling the mystery of this place at twilight. I squeezed down on the board, feeling its rough reality, and then I ran the ball of my thumb over the letters, daring the splinters and reading with my skin like a blind man reading braille: S and A and R and A; L and A and U and G and H and S. The driveway had been cleared of fallen needles and blown-down branches, but Dark Score glimmered a fading rose just as it had in my dreams, and the sprawled hulk of the house was the same. Bill had thoughtfully left the light over the back stoop burning, and the sunflowers growing through the boards had long since been cut down, but everything else was the same. I looked overhead, at the slot of sky over the lane. Nothing . . . I waited . . . and nothing . . . waiting still . . . and then there it was, right where the center of my gaze had been trained. At one moment there was only the fading sky (with indigo just starting to rise up from the edges like an infusion of ink), and at the next Venus was glowing there, bright and steady. People talk about watching the stars come out, and I suppose some people do, but I think that was the only time in my life that I actually saw one appear. I wished on it, too, but this time it was real time, and I did not wish for Jo. ‘Help me,' I said, looking at the star. I would have said more, but I didn't know what to say. I didn't know what kind of help I needed. That's enough, a voice in my mind said uneasily. That's enough, now. Go on back and get your car. Except that wasn't the plan. The plan was to go down the driveway, just as I had in the final dream, the nightmare. The plan was to prove to myself that there was no shroud-wrapped monster lurking in the shadows of the big old log house down there. The plan was pretty much based on that bit of New Age wisdom which says the word ‘fear' stands for Face Everything And Recover. But, as I stood there and looked down at that spark of porch light (it looked very small in the growing darkness), it occurred to me that there's another bit of wisdom, one not quite so good-morning-starshine, which suggests fear is actually an acronym for Fuck Everything And Run. Standing there by myself in the woods as the light left the sky, that seemed like the smarter interpretation, no two ways about it. I looked down and was a little amused to see that I had taken one of the balloons untied it without even noticing as I thought things over. It floated serenely up from my hand at the end of its string, the words printed on it now impossible to read in the growing dark. Maybe it's all moot, anyway; maybe I won't be able to move. Maybe that old devil writer's walk has got hold of me again, and I'll just stand here like a statue until someone comes along and hauls me away. But this was real time in the real world, and in the real world there was no such thing as writer's walk. I opened my hand. As the string I'd been holding floated free, I walked under the rising balloon and started down the driveway. Foot followed foot, pretty much as they had ever since I'd first learned this trick back in 1959. I went deeper and deeper into the clean but sour smell of pine, and once I caught myself taking an extra-big step, avoiding a fallen branch that had been in the dream but wasn't here in reality. My heart was still thudding hard, and sweat was still pouring out of me, oiling my skin and drawing mosquitoes. I raised a hand to brush the hair off my brow, then stopped, holding it splay-fingered out in front of my eyes. I put the other one next to it. Neither was marked; there wasn't even a shadow of scar from the cut I'd given myself while crawling around my bedroom during the ice storm. ‘I'm all right,' I said. ‘I'm all right.' You funny little man, said Strickland, a voice answered. It wasn't mine, wasn't Jo's; it was the UFO voice that had narrated my nightmare, the one which had driven me on even when I wanted to stop. The voice of some outsider. I started walking again. I was better than halfway down the driveway now. I had reached the point where, in the dream, I told the voice that I was afraid of Mrs. Danvers. ‘I'm afraid of Mrs. D.,' I said, trying the words aloud in the growing dark. ‘What if the bad old housekeeper's down there?' A loon cried on the lake, but the voice didn't answer. I suppose it didn't have to. There was no Mrs. Danvers, she was only a bag of bones in an old book, and the voice knew it. I began walking again. I passed the big pine that Jo had once banged into in our Jeep, trying to back up the driveway. How she had sworn! Like a sailor! I had managed to keep a straight face until she got to ‘Fuck a duck,' and then I'd lost it, leaning against the side of the Jeep with the heels of my hands pressed against my temples, howling until tears rolled down my cheeks, and Jo glaring hot blue sparks at me the whole time. I could see the mark about three feet up on the trunk of the tree, the white seeming to float above the dark bark in the gloom. It was just here that the unease which pervaded the other dreams had skewed into something far worse. Even before the shrouded thing had come bursting out of the house, I had felt something was all wrong, all twisted up; I had felt that somehow the house itself had gone insane. It was at this point, passing the old scarred pine, that I had wanted to run like the gingerbread man. I didn't feel that now. I was afraid, yes, but not in terror. There was nothing behind me, for one thing, no sound of slobbering breath. The worst thing a man was likely to come upon in these woods was an irritated moose. Or, I supposed, if he was really unlucky, a pissed-off bear. In the dream there had been a moon at least three quarters full, but there was no moon in the sky above me that night. Nor would there be; in glancing over the weather page in that morning's Derry News, I had noticed that the moon was new. Even the most powerful d? ¦j? ¤ vu is fragile, and at the thought of that moonless sky, mine broke. The sensation of reliving my nightmare departed so abruptly that I even wondered why I had done this, what I had hoped to prove or accomplish. Now I'd have to go all the way back down the dark lane to retrieve my car. All right, but I'd do it with a flashlight from the house. One of them would surely still be just inside the A series of jagged explosions ran themselves off on the far side of the lake, the last loud enough to echo against the hills. I stopped, drawing in a quick breath. Moments before, those unexpected bangs probably would have sent me running back up the driveway in a panic, but now I had only that brief, startled moment. It was firecrackers, of course, the last one the loudest one maybe an M-80. Tomorrow was the Fourth of July, and across the lake kids were celebrating early, as kids are wont to do. I walked on. The bushes still reached like hands, but they had been pruned back and their reach wasn't very threatening. I didn't have to worry about the power being out, either; I was now close enough to the back stoop to see moths fluttering around the light Bill Dean had left on for me. Even if the power had been out (in the western part of the state a lot of the lines are still above ground, and it goes out a lot), the gennie would have kicked in automatically. Yet I was awed by how much of my dream was actually here, even with the powerful sense of repetition of reliving departed. Jo's planters were where they'd always been, flanking the path which leads down to Sara's little lick of beach; I suppose Brenda Meserve had found them stacked in the cellar and had had one of her crew set them out again. Nothing was growing in them yet, but I suspected that stuff would be soon. And even without the moon of my dream, I could see the black square on the water, standing about fifty yards offshore. The swimming float. No oblong shape lying overturned in front of the stoop, though; no coffin. Still, my heart was beating hard again, and I think if more firecrackers had gone off on the Kashwakamak side of the lake just then, I might have screamed. You funny little man, said Strickland. Give me that, it's my dust-catcher. What if death drives us insane? What if we survive, but it drives us insane? What then? I had reached the point where, in my nightmare, the door banged open and that white shape came hurtling out with its wrapped arms upraised. I took one more step and then stopped, hearing the harsh sound of my respiration as I drew each breath down my throat and then pushed it back out over the dry floor of my tongue. There was no sense of d? ¦j? ¤ vu, but for a moment I thought the shape would appear anyway here in the real world, in real time. I stood waiting for it with my sweaty hands clenched. I drew in another dry breath, and this time I held it. The soft lap of water against the shore. A breeze that patted my face and rattled the bushes. A loon cried out on the lake; moths battered the stoop light. No shroud-monster threw open the door, and through the big windows to the left and right of the door, I could see nothing moving, white or otherwise. There was a note above the knob, probably from Bill, and that was it. I let out my breath in a rush and walked the rest of the way down the driveway to Sara Laughs. The note was indeed from Bill Dean. It said that Brenda had done some shopping for me; the supermarket receipt was on the kitchen table, and I would find the pantry well stocked with canned goods. She'd gone easy with the perishables, but there was milk, butter, half-and-half, and hamburger, that staple of single-guy cuisine. I will see you next Mon., Bill had written. If I had my druthers I'd be here to say hello in person but the good wife says it's our turn to do the holiday trotting and so we are going down to Virginia (hot!!) to spend the 4th with her sister. If you need anything or run into problems . . . He had jotted his sister-in-law's phone number in Virginia as well as Butch Wiggins's number in town, which locals just call ‘the TR,' as in ‘Me and mother got tired of Bethel and moved our trailer over to the TR.' There were other numbers, as well the plumber, the electrician, Brenda Meserve, even the TV guy over in Harrison who had repositioned the DSS dish for maximum reception. Bill was taking no chances. I turned the note over, imagining a final P.S.: Say, Mike, if nuclear war should break out before me and Yvette get back from Virginia Something moved behind me. I whirled on my heels, the note dropping from my hand. It fluttered to the boards of the back stoop like a larger, whiter version of the moths banging the bulb overhead. In that instant I was sure it would be the shroud-thing, an insane revenant in my wife's decaying body, Give me my dust-catcher, give it to me, how dare you come down here and disturb my rest, how dam you come to Manderley again, and now that you're here, how will you ever get away? Into the mystery with you, you silly little man. Into the mystery with you. Nothing there. It had just been the breeze again, stirring the bushes around a little . . . except I had felt no breeze against my sweaty skin, not that time. ‘Well it must have been, there's nothing there,' I said. The sound of your voice when you're alone can be either scary or reassuring. That time it was the latter. I bent over, picked up Bill's note, and stuffed it into my back pocket. Then I rummaged out my keyring. I stood under the stoop light in the big, swooping shadows of the light-struck moths, picking through my keys until I found the one I wanted. It had a funny disused look, and as I rubbed my thumb along its serrated edge, I wondered again why I hadn't come down here except for a couple of quick broad daylight errands in all the months and years since Jo had died. Surely if she had been alive, she would have insisted But then a peculiar realization came to me: it wasn't just a matter of since Jo died. It was easy to think of it that way never once during my six weeks on Key Largo had I thought of it any other way but now, actually standing here in the shadows of the dancing moths (it was like standing under some weird organic disco ball) and listening to the loons out on the lake, I remembered that although Johanna had died in August of 1994, she had died in Derry. It had been miserably hot in the city . . . so why had we been there? Why hadn't we been sitting out on our shady deck on the lake side of the house, drinking iced tea in our bathing suits, watching the boats go back and forth and commenting on the form of the various water-skiers? What had she been doing in that damned Rite Aid parking lot to begin with, when during any other August we would have been miles from there? Nor was that all. We usually stayed at Sara until the end of September it was a peaceful, pretty time, as warm as summer. But in '93 we'd left with August only a week gone. I knew, because I could remember Johanna going to New York with me later that month, some kind of publishing deal and the usual attendant publicity crap. It had been dog-hot in Manhattan, the hydrants spraying in the East Village and the uptown streets sizzling. On one night of that trip we'd seen The Phantom of the Opera. Near the end Jo had leaned over to me and whispered, ‘Oh fuck! The Phantom is snivelling again!' I had spent the rest of the show trying to keep from bursting into wild peals of laughter. Jo could be evil that way. Why had she come with me that August? Jo didn't like New York even in April or October, when it's sort of pretty. I didn't know. I couldn't remember. All I was sure of was' that she had never been back to Sara Laughs after early August of 1993 . . . and before long I wasn't even sure of that. I slipped the key into the lock and turned it. I'd go inside, flip on the kitchen overheads, grab a flashlight, and go back for the car. If I didn't, some drunk guy with a cottage at the far south end of the lane would come in too fast, rear-end my Chevy, and sue me for a billion dollars. The house had been aired out and didn't smell a bit musty; instead of still, stale air, there was a faint and pleasing aroma of pine. I reached for the light inside the door, and then, somewhere in the blackness of the house, a child began to sob. My hand froze where it was and my flesh went cold. I didn't panic, exactly, but all rational thought left my mind. It was weeping, a child's weeping, but I hadn't a clue as to where it was coming from. Then it began to fade. Not to grow softer but to fade, as if someone had picked that kid up and was carrying it away down some long corridor. . . not that any such corridor existed in Sara Laughs. Even the one running through the middle of the house, connecting the central section to the two wings, isn't really long. Fading . . . faded . . . almost gone. I stood in the dark with my cold skin crawling and my hand on the lightswitch. Part of me wanted to boogie, to just go flying out of there as fast as my little legs could carry me, running like the gingerbread man. Another part, however the rational part was already reasserting itself. I flicked the switch, the part that wanted to run saying forget it, it won't work, it's the dream, stupid, it's your dream coming true. But it did work. The foyer light came on in a shadow-dispelling rush, revealing Jo's lumpy little pottery collection to the left and the bookcase to the right, stuff I hadn't looked at in four years or more, but still here and still the same. On a middle shelf of the bookcase I could see the three early Elmore Leonard novels Swag, The Big Bounce, and Mr. Majestyk that I had put aside against a spell of rainy weather; you have to be ready for rain when you're at camp. Without a good book, even two days of rain in the woods can be enough to drive you bonkers. There was a final whisper of weeping, then silence. In it, I could hear ticking from the kitchen. The clock by the stove, one of Jo's rare lapses into bad taste, is Felix the Cat with big eyes that shift from side to side as his pendulum tail flicks back and forth. I think it's been in every cheap horror movie ever made. ‘Who's here?' I called. I took a step toward the kitchen, just a dim space floating beyond the foyer, then stopped. In the dark the house was a cavern. The sound of the weeping could have come from anywhere. Including my own imagination. ‘Is someone here?' No answer . . . but I didn't think the sound had been in my head. If it had been, writer's block was the least of my worries. Standing on the bookcase to the left of the Elmore Leonards was a long-barrelled flashlight, the kind that holds eight D-cells and will temporarily blind you if someone shines it directly into your eyes. I grasped it, and until it nearly slipped through my hand I hadn't really realized how heavily I was sweating, or how scared I was. I juggled it, heart beating hard, half-expecting that creepy sobbing to begin again, half-expecting the shroud-thing to come floating out of the black living room with its shapeless arms raised; some old hack of a politician back from the grave and ready to give it another shot. Vote the straight Resurrection ticket, brethren, and you will be saved. I got control of the light and turned it on. It shot a bright straight beam into the living room, picking out the moosehead over the fieldstone fireplace; it shone in the head's glass eyes like two lights burning under water. I saw the old cane-and-bamboo chairs; the old couch; the scarred dining-room table you had to balance by shimming one leg with a folded playing card or a couple of beer coasters; I saw no ghosts; I decided this was a seriously fucked-up carnival just the same. In the words of the immortal Cole Porter, let's call the whole thing off. If I headed east as soon as I got back to my car, I could be in Derry by midnight. Sleeping in my own bed. I turned out the foyer light and stood with the flash drawing its line across the dark. I listened to the tick of that stupid cat-clock, which Bill must have set going, and to the familiar chugging cycle of the refrigerator. As I listened to them, I realized that I had never expected to hear either sound again. As for the crying . . . Had there been crying? Had there really? Yes. Crying or something. Just what now seemed moot. What seemed germane was that coming here had been a dangerous idea and a stupid course of action for a man who has taught his mind to misbehave. As I stood in the foyer with no light but the flash and the glow falling in the windows from the bulb over the back stoop, I realized that the line between what I knew was real and what I knew was only my imagination had pretty much disappeared. I left the house, checked to make sure the door was locked, and walked back up the driveway, swinging the flashlight beam from side to side like a pendulum like the tail of old Felix the Krazy Kat in the kitchen. It occurred to me, as I struck north along the lane, that I would have to make up some sort of story for Bill Dean. It wouldn't do to say, ‘Well, Bill, I got down there and heard a kid bawling in my locked house, and it scared me so bad I turned into the gingerbread man and ran back to Derry. I'll send you the flashlight I took; put it back on the shelf next to the paperbacks, would you?' That wasn't ‘any good because the story would get around and people would say, ‘Not surprised. Wrote too many books, probably. Work like that has got to soften a man's head. Now he's scared of his own shadow. Occupational hazard.' Even if I never came down here again in my life, I didn't want to leave people on the TR with that opinion of me, that half-contemptuous, see-what-you-get-for-thinking-too-much attitude. It's one a lot of folks seem to have about people who live by their imaginations. I'd tell Bill I got sick. In a way it was true. Or no . . . better to tell him someone else got sick . . . a friend . . . someone in Derry I'd been seeing . . . a lady-friend, perhaps. ‘Bill, this friend of mine, this lady-friend of mine got sick, you see, and so . . . ‘ I stopped suddenly, the light shining on the front of my car. I had walked the mile in the dark without noticing many of the sounds in the woods, and dismissing even the bigger of them as deer settling down for the night. I hadn't turned around to see if the shroud-thing (or maybe some spectral crying child) was following me. I had gotten involved in making up a story and then embellishing it, doing it in my head instead of on paper this time but going down all the same well-known paths. I had gotten so involved that I had neglected to be afraid. My heartbeat was back to normal, the sweat was drying on my skin, and the mosquitoes had stopped whining in my ears. And as I stood there, a thought occurred to me. It was as if my mind had been waiting patiently for me to calm down enough so it could remind me of some essential fact. The pipes. Bill had gotten my go-ahead to replace most of the old stuff, and the plumber had done so. Very recently he'd done so. ‘Air in the pipes,' I said, running the beam of the eight-cell flashlight over the grille of my Chevrolet. ‘That's what I heard.' I waited to see if the deeper part of my mind would call this a stupid, rationalizing lie. It didn't . . . because, I suppose, it realized it could be true. Airy pipes can sound like people talking, dogs barking, or children crying. Perhaps the plumber had bled them and the sound had been something else . . . but perhaps he hadn't. The question was whether or not I was going to jump in my car, back two tenths of a mile to the highway, and then return to Derry, all on the basis of a sound I had heard for ten seconds (maybe only five), and while in an excited, stressful state of mind. I decided the answer was no. It might take only one more peculiar thing to turn me around probably gibbering like a character on Tales from the Crypt but the sound I'd heard in the foyer wasn't enough. Not when making a go of it at Sara Laughs might mean so much. I hear voices in my head, and have for as long as I can remember. I don't know if that's part of the necessary equipment for being a writer or not; I've never asked another one. I never felt the need to, because I know all the voices I hear are versions of me. Still, they often seem like very real versions of other people, and none is more real to me-or more familiar than Jo's voice. Now that voice came, sounding interested, amused in an ironic but gentle way . . . and approving. Going to fight, Mike? ‘Yeah,' I said, standing there in the dark and picking out gleams of chrome with my flashlight. ‘Think so, babe.' Well, then that's all right, isn't it? Yes. It was. I got into my car, started it up, and drove slowly down the lane. And when I got to the driveway, I turned in. There was no crying the second time I entered the house. I walked slowly through the downstairs, keeping the flashlight in my hand until I had turned on every light I could find; if there were people still boating on the north end of the lake, old Sara probably looked like some weird Spielbergian flying saucer hovering above them. I think houses live their own lives along a time-stream that's different from the ones upon which their owners float, one that's slower. In a house, especially an old one, the past is closer. In my life Johanna had been dead nearly four years, but to Sara, she was much nearer than that. It wasn't until I was actually inside, with all the lights on and the flash returned to its spot on the bookshelf, that I realized how much I had been dreading my arrival. Of having my grief reawakened by signs of Johanna's interrupted life. A book with a corner turned down on the table at one end of the sofa, where Jo had liked to recline in her nightgown, reading and eating plums; the cardboard cannister of Quaker Oats, which was all she ever wanted for breakfast, on a shelf in the pantry; her old green robe hung on the back of the bathroom door in the south wing, which Bill Dean still called ‘the new wing,' although it had been built before we ever saw Sara Laughs. Brenda Meserve had done a good job a humane job-of removing these signs and signals, but she couldn't get them all. Jo's hardcover set of Sayers's Peter Wimsey novels still held pride of place at the center of the living-room bookcase. Jo had always called the moosehead over the fireplace Bunter, and once, for no reason I could remember (certainly it seemed a very un-Bunterlike accessory), she had hung a bell around the moose's hairy neck. It hung there still, on a red velvet ribbon. Mrs. Meserve might have puzzled over that bell, wondering whether to leave it up or take it down, not knowing that when Jo and I made love on the living-room couch (and yes, we were often overcome there), we referred to the act as ‘ringing Bunter's bell.' Brenda Meserve had done her best, but any good marriage is secret territory, a necessary white space on society's map. What others don't know about it is what makes it yours. I walked around, touching things, looking at things, seeing them new. Jo seemed everywhere to me, and after a little while I dropped into one of the old cane chairs in front of the TV. The cushion wheezed under me, and I could hear Jo saying, ‘Well excuse yourself, Michael!' I put my face in my hands and cried. I suppose it was the last of my mourning, but that made it no easier to bear. I cried until I thought something inside me would break if I didn't stop. When it finally let me go, my face was drenched, I had the hiccups, and I thought I had never felt so tired in my life. I felt strained all over my body partly from the walking I'd done, I suppose, but mostly just from the tension of getting here . . . and deciding to stay here. To fight. That weird phantom crying I'd heard when I first stepped into the place, although it seemed very distant now, hadn't helped. I washed my face at the kitchen sink, rubbing away the tears with the heels of my hands and clearing my clogged nose. Then I carried my suitcases down to the guest bedroom in the north wing. I had no intention of sleeping in the south wing, in the master bedroom where I had last slept with Jo. That was a choice Brenda Meserve had foreseen. There was a bouquet of fresh wildflowers on the bureau, and a card: WELCOME BACK, MR. NOONAN. If I hadn't been emotionally exhausted, I suppose looking at that message, in Mrs. Meserve's spiky copperplate handwriting, would have brought on another fit of the weeps. I put my face in the flowers and breathed deeply. They smelled good, like sunshine. Then I took off my clothes, leaving them where they dropped, and turned back the coverlet on the bed. Fresh sheets, fresh pillowcases; same old Noonan sliding between the former and dropping his head onto the latter. I lay there with the bedside lamp on, looking up at the shadows on the ceiling, almost unable to believe I was in this place and this bed. There had been no shroud-thing to greet me, of course . . . but I had an idea it might well find me in my dreams. Sometimes for me, at least there's a transitional bump between waking and sleeping. Not that night. I slipped away without knowing it, and woke the next morning with sunlight shining in through the window and the bedside lamp still on. There had been no dreams that I could remember, only a vague sensation that I had awakened sometime briefly in the night and heard a bell ringing, very thin and far away.