Analysis on “Porphyria’s Lover” by Robert Browning Essay

In â€Å"Porphyria’s Lover†, Robert Browning dramatically builds intensity and exhibits the decline in the situation’s stability to express the impending doom of the characters’ love. The enigmatic tone suggests the fear in the lover’s heart would soon overcome him – the fear of the destiny of their forbidden love. Throughout the poem, Browning intensifies the situation indicated by each narrative shift. There are several instances of this which correspond to a new action or a fresh point of view. In line twenty-one, the transition from â€Å"me† to â€Å"she† occurs at the hyphen, indicating a new look on the situation. Before the hyphenated shift, the poem was a completely factual account of the actions taking place; it was storming, Porphyria came inside, she sat down next to her â€Å"lover† and then at the hyphen, the speaker begins analyzing the situation and interpreting her words. This creates suspense because it places the control of the poem into the hands of her lover. The second shift occurs between lines thirty-nine and forty-one. This is, perhaps, the most electrifying and suspenseful point in the poem. Preceding this narrative shift, a sense of discordance was barely present between the two characters. This is noticed when Porphyria attempts to speak to her lover and â€Å"no voice relpl[ies]† (line 15). At the shift, the plot climactically intensifies when he strangles her to death. This horrifying action goes further to prove the presence of fear in the heart of the speaker. He could see no other reasonable course of action to take that would resolve their love’s predicament but to end it – with as little residual pain as possible. Simultaneously, the poet uses normally innocent and customary descriptions in a way that highlight the degradation of the situation at hand. When Porphyria entered the cottage, she â€Å"withdrew [her] dripping cloak and shawl, / and laid her soiled gloves by† (lines 11-12). This relatively common act reveals something greater about the situation. When she came out of the dark stormy night and took off her cloak, she ultimately opens herself up completely to her lover, but the dirt on her gloves indicate something is  wrong, something dark about their past. Even more, this act shows the confinement placed upon her from the outside world’s disappointment; however, with him, she feels comfortable and trusts him entirely. This is all foreshadowing to the horrific events yet to take place and how their â€Å"struggling passion† would soon be relieved. The devices reveal the backwards morals of the poem, the outcome of ill-destined love, and the fatal alteration of human behavior when tainted by passion and clouded with fear. The thrilling and constant addition of suspense along with the dissolving strength of the plot achieves the poet’s goal of creating a stunningly suspenseful rendition of a love story.

Judaism, Islam, Christianity Essay

Judaism, Islam, and Christianity are all completely different religions from an outsider’s point of view. Yet, when you look at all three of them in depth, a person can find many of the same characteristics. From their origins to their life rituals, there are many differences and similarities between these three popular religions. Between the origins of Judaism, Islam, and Christianity, there is much overlap. Judaism was started through the Patriarch and Matriarch of the faith, Abraham and Sarah. They bore a child together named Isaac, who Jewish people believe to be their ancestor. Jewish people call themselves Children of Israel, signifying their descent from Jacob. Also, Abraham had another son with a different woman. This son, Ishmael, is believed to be the ancestor of Islam. The origin of Christianity was from Jesus Christ, who they believe rose from the dead and is the Son of God. His followers, otherwise known as disciples, spread the religion after his death in 30 CE throughout the Roman Empire. It soon became the official religion in the empire with Emperor Constantine’s decision. It has so far spread worldwide and is the largest religion in the world with almost 2. 2 billion followers. The sacred writings of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam have many similarities. Christianity and Judaism believe in the Old Testament, which in Judaist terms is the Tanakh. This consists of the Torah, the Neviim, and the Ketuvim. It tells of God making a covenant with people. They believe that Jesus is not the Son of God and that their saviour is still to come. Muslims follow the exact writings of the Qu’ran, which they believe their prophet Mohammed was told in a revelation from Allah. They also follow the Hadith and the Sunna, which are, in a way, different variations of Mohammad’s life and stories. They regard parts of the Old Testament and the Gospels as inspired, and believe the Qur’an to be a more final and complete copy. The places of worship between Judaism, Islam, and Christianity are quite different. People of Jewish faith observe the Sabbath and conduct their services in Synagogue or the Temple, Christians worship in churches, chapels, and cathedrals, and Muslims worship in Mosques. People of Jewish faith and Muslims do not allow statues in their worship places, stating that it takes away their attention from God and Allah and that it ruins their monotheistic belief. Roman Catholics do not worship statues or icons. In the Eastern Catholic churches, people viewed icons as a way to greater worship and they prayed to them for protection. In Judaism and Christianity, the Holy Land, being Israel, is considered a very sacred place due to the fact that Jesus was born there and lived there, and also because that was the land promised to Abraham. Rome is also considered a very sacred place to Christians because that is where the leader of their religion lives, otherwise known as the Pope. This is similar to Medina and Mecca in Islam due to the fact that their house of God, the Kaaba, is located there and is believed to be placed right underneath Heaven. The role of women between Judaism, Islam, and Christianity, although men and women are equal in the eyes of God, are similar. Traditional Judaism gives different roles for men and women. For example, Orthodox men and women worship separately. This is in comparison to Muslims, where the Qur’an treats men and women as equals. This is close to Christianity, where everyone is equal under God. This allows women and men to be equal. For example, both genders can attend worship at the same time in the same place. Unfortunately, women are oppressed in today’s Muslim society due to Sharia law, which they believe is the law of Allah. It often discriminates against women and strips them of their rights. For example, a women’s word does not count as much as a man’s. This is similar to Christianity where women can not become ordained priests and are not given equality within in the Church. Also, men and women worship separately in Islam, which shows similarities to Orthodox Judaism. The symbols of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam are very much different. The Star of David is named after King David, who had a shield with a star on it. It has seven spaces, including the separate points and the centre. This number seven is very important within the Jewish faith due to the six days of creation including the seventh day of rest. The menorah, another sacred Jewish symbol, also represents the seven days of creation. It is referred to as the â€Å"tree of life† because it has seven branches. The Mezuzah is also another sacred object. It contains the Shema written on a parchment. The most sacred ritual object in the Jewish faith is the Torah Scroll. It is the centre of Jewish life because it is used to teach, and it has the Five Books of Moses inscribed in it. In comparison to Judaism, the symbols for Christianity are few. They regard bread as Jesus’ body, which they call the Eucharist. They also believe that wine is Jesus’ blood. They drink and eat these at masses in remembrance of the Last Supper and the sacrifice that Jesus gave to them to wash away their sins. They regard the cross as a symbol of the sacrifice as well. Ichthus, the symbol of a fish, is a symbol for Christianity. In Islam, the Tawhid is the concept of monotheism. It holds God as one and unique. The crescent star is widely used as a symbol on Islamic flags. When babies are born in Judaism, Islam, and Christianity, there are many rituals that they attend to. In Judaism, they believe in having the baby circumcised, which they call a Brit milah. Muslims also believe in having their sons circumcised. In Christianity, they believe in baptising the baby by a Priest to rid it of its original sin. In Islam, they believe in whispering the call to prayer in the baby’s right ear, making sure that it is the first sound they hear. Also, there is a naming ceremony where close friends and family gather to decide on the child’s name. Each of these rituals is different, leading to diversity between religions. During a marriage in Judaism, Islam, and Christianity, one must use different rituals to attend to the needs of their religion. In Judaism, the couple stands under a canopy where the Rabbi reads from the Torah. Also, the marriage becomes official when the partners give something of value to each other, such as rings. In Islam, many marriages are arranged and polygamy is allowed. They see marriages as a way to gain political advantage and to tie one family to another. This is not the case with Christianity. When you marry under God in a church, they do not permit divorces unless the circumstances are dire. You exchange rings as a sign of the vow you have given to the other person. Also, you are a couple under God and are expected to baptise your children. When it comes to death in Judaism, Islam, and Christianity, there are different ways to go about it. In Judaism, a shitting shiva takes place, where the family member mourns for a period of seven days. In Islam, the family member is quickly wrapped and buried. They are then pointed towards Mecca, which holds the sacred Kaaba. They also believe that the last words on your lips should be the Shahada. In Christianity, they hold a mass where families and friends can go to mourn as one. If lucky, you are blessed by a Priest, which relieves you of your sins. This is called Anointing of the Sins and Last Rites. The beliefs of Judaism, Islam, and Christianity are quite similar. They each have a different take on past events. Christians, Muslims, and Jewish people believe in monotheism, stating that there is only one divine God. Muslims and Jewish people claim that Christians do not believe in one God, seeing as they think God exists in three different ways; the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Christians call this the Trinity. In Judaism, they do not believe that Jesus rose from the dead, is the Son of God, or was born from the Virgin Mary. In Christianity, they believe in all of those points. In Islam, they believe that while Jesus was the Son of God and was born from the Virgin Mary, He did not die on the cross but was rather brought into heaven by God. People of Jewish faith think that Jesus was crucified due to this claim of being divine. Choosing to disregard the claim that Jesus is the saviour, they believe that their saviour will come one day and will unite the world and bring peace to humanity. Muslims believe that the Kaaba, a sacred cube located in Mecca, is God’s house and is located directly underneath heaven. They trust that the point to life is to live in a way that pleases Allah to gain a spot in Paradise, which is their heaven in the afterlife. The meaning of life for Christians, though, is to seek divine salvation through the grace of God and to become one with Him. People of Jewish faith believe life should be spent helping humanity and fellow neighbours. Christianity believes that every human has inherited â€Å"original sin† from Adam, meaning that people have a tendency towards evil. This is in comparison to Judaism and Islam who believe people are capable of both good and evil actions. In comparison to Christianity and Judaism, prayer rituals are taken very seriously in Islam. They believe in prayer five times a day: dawn, midday, afternoon, sunset, and evening, which is called the Salat. This is similar to Orthodox Judaism in which they pray in formal worship services three times a day; morning, afternoon, evening. They pray the Shema, which is the most important prayer in Judaism. Before prayer, Muslims wash up to their legs up to their knees and their arms up to their elbows to cleanse themselves. This is a bit similar to Christianity, which uses blessed holy water to pray with before entering mass. This blesses one’s self, recalls the baptism, and forgives sins. Each Islamic prayer is directed towards Mecca where the Kaaba is located, which they believe is loca ted directly under heaven. Women and men pray in parallel lines at separate times, and they pray on rugs to keep themselves clean. Also, there are certain guidelines that women and men need to follow in terms of what to wear to mosque. For example, a woman should not wear clothes that attract attention. In the European Christian Churches there are many dress codes one would need to follow. This is not the case in most Western Churches. The formalities have lessened and one can wear jeans to mass without causing uproar, which is much different from Islam. Judaism, Islam, and Christianity are similar religions when it comes to beliefs. While they have diverse opinions and take place in countries all over the world, these well known religions are revered for their perseverance. All three are valid religions, which, through different takes on past events, have moulded into what they are today. For example, while Christianity and Islam choose to believe that Jesus will come again, Judaism chooses not to. This take on a past event has shaped Christianity and Judaism greatly. Also, Islam has a different view of women’s rights and placement in society in comparison to Judaism and Christianity. I think that while Islam and Christianity are completely opposite when it comes to rituals and strictness, they are very much similar in terms of beliefs. Although Judaism and Islam originated from the same family tree and Judaism and Christianity coincide on many events, such as their origins, I believe that Judaism is the most different of the three due to its views about Jesus. Judaism, Islam, and Christianity are all completely different religions from an outsider’s point of view. Yet, when you look at all three of them in depth, a person can find many of the same characteristics.

Human Resource Management of organization in Commonwealth Bank of Assignment

Human Resource Management of organization in Commonwealth Bank of Australia - Assignment Example Hereby, the paper aims at studying the overall business strategies considered by CBA for its long run improvements in order to fulfill the vision to serve customers with the best service in banking and to be reputed as one of the finest banking organizations in the Australian history. Strategies From a generalized point of view, it can be noted that the considered strategies of CBA focus largely on the primary functioning departments such as ‘customer service department’, ‘business banking dimension’ and ‘technology & operational excellence department’ which in turn can be learnt to amplify trust as well as team spirit within the employees. The strategic planning for the customer service states that it is considered in order to build a good relationship with the customers by serving them with best facilities as compared to other banks. The strategies considered under customer service mostly concentrate on redecorating the existing sales and serv ices program with innovative benefits and features for the customers (Commonwealth Bank, 2006). CBA can also be identified to take certain measures to increase its customer base facilitating them with easy processing system. Under business banking, CBA also attempted to introduce CommSee and ComBiz to enhance its functioning with informational technology so that customers avail the services smoothly. CBA also introduced the business banking dimension in alliance with other institutions to facilitate the customers with tailored services. The strategies planned for developing the technology and operational excellence are by providing the virtues of Information Technology with group-wide leadership, applying smarter sourcing and simultaneously improving the lean process with innovative ideas. The organization also believes that to have an effective outcome from the strategies, employees need to have trust and team sprit among themselves for which CBA always considers new thoughts to bu ild good relationship and collaboration within the workforce as well as with the customers. Furthermore, CBA frequently focuses on the process and the methods to develop their employees’ productivity, customer base along with their functioning. CBA also took certain measures to involve with the community by considering the safety for the people (Commonwealth Bank, 2006). CBA consequently tends to consider innovative strategies in order to become the best banking organization in the Australian history. For its profitable growth, CBA also planned certain strategies maintaining a good relationship with others along with the growth of agenda, simultaneously developing its traditional market by investing or expanding its target market. CBA also introduced a new strategy of insurance policy as CommInsure which facilitated the customers with life insurance policies. This particular strategy can be further observed as the organizational measure taken towards developing the services a nd reform the process so as to obtain better efficiency (Commonwealth Bank, 2006). Illustrations It is worth mentioning in this context that incorporating the aforementioned a few innovative customer-centric strategies, CBA was able to achieve the second position in the national banking sector under Australian Security Exchange. Furthermore, the growth of CBA also indicates the level of services owing to which, the organization has been able to satisfy the customers’

A Speechs Form and Content Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

A Speechs Form and Content - Research Paper Example King’s purpose was to educate, to inspire, and to inform: basically, to bring weight to the issue of civil rights. Therefore, he had to accomplish an emotional appeal and a logical appeal at the same time, and to galvanize his supporters and to convince his detractors. Following his prepared text, which consisted mainly of reasoned arguments appealing to logic, Dr. King progressed into a more emotional, partly improvised description of his dream of a racially indifferent country. Barack Obama’s victory speech after being elected President of the United States came in a different context in a Chicago park in 2008. The message of his speech is more general than one tied down by any specific movement or thought in America. Like King’s, Obama’s speech inspires a vision of the future; however, this vision pertains more to equality across many different spectrums. For instance, he says, â€Å"It’s the answer spoken by young and old, rich and poor, Democrat and Republican, black, white, Latino, Asian, Native American, gay, straight, disabled and not disabled† (Obama). Like any President would do, Obama generalizes the struggle for equality to many different socially-constructed distinctions between people in American society. And, instead of maintaining some of these political distinctions, Obama erases them, saying, â€Å"We are, and always will be, the United States of America† (Obama). A common feature of both speeches, making them indications of shared purpose, is the inspiration of a unified vision. In King, he makes use of the collective pronoun â€Å"we† to make every audience member feel as though he has an equal stake in this issue as anyone else. He says, â€Å"We cannot walk alone†¦ We cannot turn back† (King).

Explain in your own words what you understand either by the term Essay

Explain in your own words what you understand either by the term hegemony - Essay Example However, some philosophers have some modified the definition by involving the concept of domination. Gramsci (1971, p. 158) has defined hegemony as a tool that can be used to change a society. Hegemony is an association between societies and its associated components. He also noted that the concept of hegemony encompasses other concepts as well. It means that we really can’t define hegemony in simple terms. Roger (1991, p.24) have indicated that some of the concepts that are related to hegemony include coercion, dominance, capitalism, imperialism, strategy for revolution and absolute majority. Hegemony can be applied in many ways. One example of hegemony is through historical or political influence. This is brought about by conquering another country and spreading its political influence to other countries. A classic example of this political hegemony is through colonization. Colonization, which is started by European countries (Portugal and Spain) during the 15th century, has greatly applied political hegemony and is influence by the concept of coercion, dominance and imperialism. They have influenced the political, as well as the socio-economic, aspect of the countries which they have colonized. They have changed the traditional system of their colonies and have implied their own system here. For example, in the book of Zaide (1994, p. 218) the classic â€Å"barangay† system of the Philippines was changed by the Spain into a â€Å"colonial† system when they have conquered the Philippines during the 16th century. In the journal article of Tarak and Laffey (1999, p.30), it is explained that there are some countries, particularly the Great Britain and the United States, that have used the concept of hegemony in their goal of attaining power to other countries. The two countries have influenced other countries by consistently seeking reasons to install a particular set of political institutions and socioeconomic assemblage in other countries. This may be done in a lot of manners like for example, making sure that they have an ambassador or representative in the country which can influence the political system, or have many investments to the country which can influence the economic aspect of the country. They do these strategies to create a favorable environment for the expansion of their capitalism, as well as to improve their security and advance the ideals they have implanted, cultivated, and protected into that country. Influential countries, like the United States and Great Britain, usually have the tendency and aspiration to influence the international system of which they are included. It is really remarkable in this contemporary era that these countries are far more influential in this regard than any other. Both countries have a special strategy to determine and manipulate both the principles and systems that regulates the increasingly interrelated international system, and the conduct of the other countries in cluded that effectively constitute it. The current status of the international system, where both the United States and Great Britain are included, is the product of the persistent efforts to reshape it in their image. The process of its hegemony and influence will likely continue so long as there remain countries acting as capitalists, which is the great power at the top of the internatio

Invictus Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Invictus - Essay Example The feeling that this is a real person overcoming real problems lends â€Å"Invictus† great emotive power. The second theme is that of opposition. The author establishes this in the opening lines of the poem where we read, â€Å"Out of the night that covers me/Black as the Pit from pole to pole,† (1-2). No source of this darkness that covers the author is ever identified. The third theme introduced in the first stanza is that of the â€Å"unconquerable soul† (4). This theme recurs at the end of each four line stanza as a beacon of hope for the reader of the poem, and perhaps it did for the author as well when he wrote it. Each stanza following the first returns to these three important themes. Henley stays firmly in the first-person throughout the poem. But the themes of opposition and triumph over that opposition are nuanced and expounded upon in the final three stanzas. The author alludes to the, â€Å"fell clutch of circumstance† (5) at the beginning of the second stanza. This adds emotional weight to the opposition mentioned at the beginning of the poem by suggesting that the adverse situation the author finds himself in is not of his own doing. Chance has intervened in his life in the most horrible way. By clearing the subject of the poem from wrongdoing or negligence, the reader of the poem is enticed to have greater empathy for the subject. Everyone can relate to having bad things happen in their lives that were beyond their control. This acquittal from fault for the subject of the poem also enhances the achievements the unconquerable soul. Overcoming and defying despair in the face of obstacles you have created for yourself is expected behavior for a mature, well-adjusted member of society. The admirable behavior is recognized when one defies the misfortune life hands to you that are not of your own

Organizational Influences on Ethics Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Organizational Influences on Ethics - Essay Example The most outstanding and palpable form of counterculture (as a form of subculture) that I encountered is dressing. The subculture that was most difficult to deal with was collective ambivalence towards organizational mode and policies of operation. This is because, this form of leading subculture is mostly exhibited within the organization’s high echelons (managerial positions), yet these positions are to enjoy the value of self-management and independence. Because of this relative extension of the value of self-management and independence to organizational executives, it becomes impossible to forge a definitive and defined approach to decision making and organizational approaches. As a matter of fact, a resolute attempt to draw out a clear, monolithic and definitive organizational policy may set precedence to organizational dictatorship. Just as Owen (1990) posits, it is obvious that when dealing with these three groups or subcultures, leadership styles will inevitably vary. When dealing with the executive rank of the organization to eradicate collective ambivalence, democratic leadership style will greatly helps, since dialogue will be paramount. Likewise, to deal with the issue of inappropriate relaxative by the junior management, prescriptive and delegative type of leadership became needful. As for the problem of dressing among the junior-most staff, prescriptive type of leadership became useful, since, it is important that every organization chooses its dressing code and that these rules are adhered to. One of the examples of managerial malpractice is negligent supervision. Taking the nursing or healthcare providing institution, negligent supervision may occur when the manager or an officer in the management personnel fails in supervising the activities of both independent contractors and employees at the institution, and thereby causing the medical institution, a department or its facilities to fail in its objectives (Morrison,

Reflection Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words - 78

Reflection - Essay Example The first priority of the HR managers and officers are staffing, employment, and recruitment of staff (HR’s Evolving Role†¦, 2008). However, today the HR practitioners are performing roles such as performance management, policy development, and employee communication. In addition, the HR professionals have adopted other responsibilities such as employee counseling, and account administration, which helps in utilizing the full potential of the resource managers. The other roles currently performed by the HR managers are organizational development and legal compliance. In addition, the HR managers enable organizations to perform efficiently and compete with the other businesses. Technology plays an important role in several organizations and the HR departments are currently engaging in human resource information systems. The systems help in the performance and development of the entire organization. The factors, which have contributed to the changes in the HR profession, are the technology advancement, competition, and the need to utilize the innovative potential of every employee. The development in the modern technology affects all departments in any organization especially the HR. human resource information systems management is a vital role played by the HR professionals in their daily activities. Keeping employee data and any other information requires the HR staff to be conversant with computer knowledge and many of the application software (HR’s Evolving Role..., 2008). Competition is nowadays a challenge to many organizations as everyone strives to take the organization to a higher level. Competition, therefore, has made many organizations make use of all the staff including the HR professionals to help in brainstorming and giving ideas for a positive progress of the company. Innovation is very important in ensuring the growth of

Management accounting Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words - 15

Management accounting - Essay Example On the basis of this,the budget allocation needs require to be constantly updated (Govindarajan& Shank, 1992). This report will discuss the descriptive and reflective requirement of the formal budgeting process. This has become a necessity of the business because of the increasing volatility. The budgets need to be allocated accordingly so that the benefits can be acquired. The businesses irrespective of their sizes require maintaining their budgets appropriately. With the budgeting processes,the businesses control and determine the tools through which the profits and the bonuses can be allocated within the business. The objective of budget allocation is that the companies can ensure that the financial stability is maintained and with this it also prevents the budgets from becoming negative. In the large businesses,the budgeting process has the highest priority. On the basis of this,the organizations manage their operations. The strategic managers set the goals and on the basis of finance available they allocate the budgets of accomplishing the required tasks. Once the budget is approved it becomes a road map and on the basis of this the future development is planned and structured. The budget development requires that the strategy which is approved by the strategic managers is delivered to the workforce and that they understand what the organization wants from them. The most essential use of the plan is allocation of resources and keeping the workforce prepared against the opportunities and barriers. The budgeting process can be divided into two subcategories. Theseare the traditional and zero based budgets. In the traditional budgets,the analysis is done on the basis of historical modifications and projections. All these are established on the basis of inflation and the growth rate. In the zero based budget a completely new budget is created, and all the capital is raised separately.

IMC and Customer Satisfaction Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

IMC and Customer Satisfaction - Assignment Example However, from an in depth understanding of the different ways of marketing communication this process would be discussed in detail in this paper in the context of marketing activities of the BERVET. The process of integrated marketing communications fundamentally refers to â€Å"the strategic analysis, choice, implementation and control of all elements of marketing communications which efficiently, economically and effectively influence transactions between an organization and its existing and potential customers, consumers and clients† (Smith, Berry & Pulford, 1999). In simple words it is the way in which an organization manages and controls all its market communications. It is ensured that the messages, personality of the company and its brand positioning in the market is delivered across all the elements of the market by utilizing a single and consistent strategy (Smith, Berry & Pulford, 1999). This process is applicable to any type of company dealing with any type of produ ct or service, however, BERVET can customize each step of this process in order to fit the bill of the goods and services offered by it. Although the concept of marketing communications has been put to use in companies as an all inclusive concept to deal with the different levels of communication since the 1990s, the technique of strategically integrating these diverse functional areas is unique to the approach of integrated marketing communications (FitzGerald, 2000). BERVET should develop a single communications strategy, the basic of which should be followed for each target audience that has been identified from the entire market. This strategy has to be used â€Å"as the basis for executing each communication function† (FitzGerald, 2000) throughout the marketing process by using a wide range of channels of communication. Twelve different strategies have been identified by Smith, Berry and Pulford (1999) to accomplish the process of integrated marketing communications; suc h as, advertising, public relations, sales promotion, point of purchase, packaging, exhibition, sponsorship, internet, direct marketing, personal selling, corporate identity and word of mouth. BERVET has decided to choose advertising as the basic strategy for its integrated marketing communications. Advertising strategy of BERVET Advertising can be made through different channels. BERVET keeps pace with advancement of time and revises its advertising policies and the channels used. Television commercials, print media (newspapers and magazines), bill board signs and event sponsoring have been the most popular methods of advertising for the company since it had started business in 2000. However, recently it has also started to make its presence felt by advertising on the internet. The marketing goal of BERVET is to expand to the European continent and capture the European market. The target audience includes the governments of the different countries in the region, the private sector, the retailers and whole sellers, the individual customers. The different advertising channels have been chosen keeping in mind these different target groups. The internet is the most common form of media in both the developed countries in the region that allows the people to share ideas, communicate, and build network. Hence advertisement on the internet is particularly of immense importance for the company’

The legal, ethical and operational issues Essay Example for Free

The legal, ethical and operational issues Essay In this task i will be going over the legal, ethical and operational issues regarding Vodafone. There are many laws/acts that have impacts on businesses such as Vodafone. Some of these acts are The Data Protection Act 1998 , The Computer Misuse Act 1990 and The Freedom of Information Act 2000. The Data Protection 1998 This act makes sure that a company can not share any information with anyone except from inland revenue. All of this information must be kept securely for example in a locked filling cabinet or a secure data which requires password and username. Personal information must be kept safe online as well, For example if somebody wants to make a online purchase on the Vodafone website they must make sure that the website is secure. The website must have a locked padlock at the top of the page and a HTTPS URL. All secure websites must have https and the padlock around the URL. If it does not have that, then it is not a secure website and will not be wise to give personal information. The Data Protection Act 1998 makes sure that all secure websites include these features. The Data Protection Act makes sure that Vodafone keep all their employees and customers information secure. The Computer Misuse Act 1990 This act prevents people from accessing data that is restricted. It is illegal to hack into somebodys computer and access unauthorised data. This act is very beneficial to businesses such as Vodafone as it means anyone who accesses unauthorised Vodafone data will be prosecuted. Vodafone will also have protection on their computers which will require staff to have a login and password. The Computer Misuse Act also prevents people from modifying/corrupting data, along with using viruses to gain access to computers. The Freedom of Information Act 2000- This act gives everyone the right to request information from public authority such as hospitals. This means that you can ask for any information the hospital or GP has regarding you and if they refuse the commissioners office would declare whether the information should be released or not. Ethical Issues are moral principles that concern acceptable and unacceptable behaviour by businesses. Whistle blowing- This is when a employee of a business raises concern about certain acts that impact people. For example if Vodafone where deliberately charging customers more money that they should and a employee raised awareness in the media, which ended in Vodafone getting in trouble with the law and also losing customers. Whistle blowers ensure that businesses such as Vodafone follow the law and act morally as they do not want bad media attention. Internet A lot of companies and organisations have policies regarding the internet. This can be the regulation of certain websites in company computers. For example many schools and business black social networking sites, as they distract people from work. Vodafone can black websites like Facebook and Youtube if they feel that it is distracting employees from work. Use of email- Businesses can use emails for a lot of thing such as sending standard information to people and sending reminders. However businesses can not use emails to to send a lot of things such as confidential information e. g. bank details, they also cant send large documents to many people. Vodafone employees will not be able to send bank details or complicated queries which means that they will need to do these face to face. Operational issues summarise how businesses keep their information safe. Security of information- Businesses will have a lot of vital information saved within their computers. This means that they will need to protect their computers from hacking and viruses. A lot of business and organisations have staff log in accounts which require a password. Along with this they also restrict a lot of actions, for example Vodafone staff may not be able to access information in certain areas of the system. Backups- Businesses will need to backup any information they have in order to not risk losing it. Any vital information should be backed up to another hard drive or a USB memory stick. Large companies like Vodafone will need to backup important information such as customer details in a secure location to not risk losing it and prevent from theft. Some businesses will automatically backup information every hour in order to keep information safe. Health and safety- As a lot of jobs require people to sit in front of a computer for long hours, there are a lot of health and safety issues regarding this. Business like Vodafone will need to regulate employees and make sure they know how to sit with correct postures and make sure computer screens are at correct distance/level in order to prevent eye sight problems.

A Network Technology And Data Communications Information Technology Essay

A Network Technology And Data Communications Information Technology Essay A WAN, or Wide Area Network, is a network that covers a large area, for example computers on opposite sides of the planet communicating. Usually, WANs are 2 or more LANs (Local Area Networks) connected together. One of the most well-known examples of a WAN is something we all use every day: the Internet. Types of WANs PTO Switched Services Here I will look at some of the most commonly known examples of PTO Switched Services. Circuit Switching Circuit switching is based on the sender and receiver making the most of the full communication channel for the length of the communication. This type of switching can be found in the Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN) where telephone calls are started by the person dialling but arent completed until the person receiving the call answers. The main advantage of circuit switching is that it is extremely reliable for what it does. Another advantage is that once the connection is set up, it is fast to use and relatively error-free. The disadvantages include the cost of the initial set up and the time that it takes to set up the particular channel. There is also the chance of a failure at one point causing a disruption in all communications. Lastly, although there are many paths available, you can only communicate on one path at a time, meaning that if you want to talk to someone else you will have to start the process again, in the same vein once a path is established that channel will be unavailable to other users. To attempt to overcome the problems of circuit switching, packet switching was introduced. Examples of Circuit Switching PSTN PSTN, or Public Switched Telephone Network, is a circuit-switching network that uses internationally agreed codes and unique identifiers (telephone numbers) to operate. The PSTN network was originally made for fixed-line analogue telephone systems but the PSTN is now almost completely digital and also incorporates mobile telephones alongside analogue ones. ISDN ISDN, or Integrated Services Digital Network, is a communications standard used internationally to send data, including voice and video, over digital or regular phone lines, at the same time. One of the most well known uses of ISDN is for Internet access, with ISDN providing a maximum speed for upload and download of 128 Kbit/s. Leased Lines A leased line is a symmetric telecommunications line connecting two locations for voice and/or data communications. Unlike PSTN lines, leased lines dont have a telephone number; instead each side of the line is permanently connected to the other. Usually, leased lines are used by businesses to directly connect offices that are far apart, however shorter distances are also used for convenience. The main difference between leased lines and dial-up connections is that a leased line is always active. The main advantage of leased lines is the guarantee of a high level of quality, this is because the connection doesnt carry anybody elses data. Packet Switching Packet switching is a communications method that works by splitting the data being sent into smaller chunks, called packets. When the data is sent it can end up being sent through different paths to arrive at its destination. Each time a packet goes through a switch, router or adapter it is buffered and queued, which can slow down how quick the packets arrive at their destination, which also means the order of delivery can also be different. Examples of Packet Switching X.25 X.25 is one of the oldest packet-switched services that are still available and used, although it is now being replaced by less complex protocols, like IP (internet Protocol). It was developed before the OSI Reference Model so the protocol suite is essentially just three layers, which are almost the same as the lower three layers of the seven-layer OSI model (Physical, Data and Network layers). X.25 is designed to operate effectively regardless of which systems are connected to the network. It is typically used by telephone service providers which allows them to charge their customers based on their use of the network. Frame Relay Frame relay is a telecommunication service geared towards cost-efficient data transmission between local area networks and wide area networks. Frame relay sends packets at the data link layer of the OSI model rather than at the Network layer. A frame can use packets from different protocols such as Ethernet and X.25 and is also variable in size with some being as large as 1000bytes or more. Frame Relay was originally a stripped-down version of X.25, but managed to distance itself from the error-correcting which is most commonly associated with X.25. Instead when Frame Relay finds an error, it just drops the packet. Frame Relay works on the basis of shared-access and uses a technique known as best-effort, where error-correction is almost obsolete however there is also no guarantee of reliable data delivery, instead it leaves the error correcting to each end of the connection. SMDS SMDS, or Switched Multimegabit Data Service, is a telecommunications service that provides connectionless, high-performance, packet-switched data transport. As SMDS is neither a protocol nor a technology, it means that it can support standard protocols and communications interfaces that are using current, as well as future, technology. SMDS can use either fibre or copper-based lines and works on the data link and physical layers of the OSI model. Mobile and Broadband Services The greatest change to WANs and most internet services in the near future is expected to be the rise and increase of quality in mobile and broadband services and standards. ATM ATM, or Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM) is a data link as well as a network layer circuit switched protocol which is connection based. For example a logical connection has to be made between both end points before data can start to be sent or received. ATM also divides the data being sent into small sized cells, each consisting of 53 bytes (48 Bytes for Data and 5 Bytes for Header Information). The process of splitting the data into a fixed size is what makes ATM different from packet switched networks that use different length packets, like IP. xDSL DSL, or Digital Subscriber Line, provides customers with digital services through their telephone system. The x simply means that there are a range of different DSL technology available. DSL is probably the most used method for people to access digital services, such as the internet as it is cheaper than leased lines and also faster than ISDN, with speeds of upto 1.5Mb/s download speed and 128kb/s upload speed available on ADSL (Asymmetric DSL). This is down to the fact that DSL uses a digital modem rather than an analogue one, meaning that the data doesnt need to be converted before it is sent.

Cultural Analysis of Pakistan

Cultural Analysis of Pakistan Definition of culture The culture of the educational system of Pakistan is comprised of a variety of local culture, social, political, economic factors, and factors from the broader global context. This system has been influenced by the many eras of numerous philosophies and worldviews. The Eastern ideas tend to highlight faith, responsibility towards one’s family and community, and the respect of elders (Gupta, 2007) as being the foundational aspects to education. Yet, it has been the western influences that greatly affected Pakistan educational culture. These Western influences emphasized the importance of education to every individual but they excluded religion and morality from academics. They also shift towards making education a fundamental right to all citizens and standardized curricula and assessments. Nonetheless, because Pakistan communities are mostly traditional, the education of females are dominated by cultural and religious values therefore obtaining an academic education is not perceived as greatly important to a female’s educational development. On the other hand the males are encouraged to obtain a solid education. Although the country’s constitutions eliminates gender inequality for education allowing and encouraging both male and females to attend schools, traditional practices are still being strongly upheld. Society perceives females as having a productive role within the confines of the home. They restrict the females to informal education such as the learning and teaching of home management and child rearing or specializing in domestic skills to be good mothers and wives. In contrast the males are strongly encouraged to attend school. They are taught that the male is the sole breadwinner of the home and he is supposed to dominate the world outside the home therefore it is imperative that he is equipped with the educational skills to compete for resources in the public arena. Recently, despite the government attempt to alleviate the gender gap in education by providing more schools and educational services for females, the rate of literacy in females when compared to males are still extremely low. Generally patriarchal values governs the social structures in Pakistan and the female gender is seen as properties to the males instead of individuals. So too, the culture of the educational system of Pakistan follows, where the male is in control and dominate over the females. In relation to the culture of educational system of America; for females, formal education was discouraged and mostly prohibited, it was seen by society as being unnatural for a woman to obtain any form of higher education. Females who venture into achieving education mostly learned forms of traditional domestic skills such as sewing, cooking and cleaning. Much like the female Pakistanis who were taught to take care of the home and trained to be good mothers and wife so too were the females of America. However, the societies have changed and the culture of education has drastically changed through the eras of females and feminist activists fighting for the right to equality in education amongst gender. Now both males and females are free to attend single sex or co-sex schools. The current societies of America strongly and equally encourages both males and females to achieve the highest forms of education in any field they desire. Society places great emphasis on obtaining solid academic education because they see education as a way of betterment to an individual’s life. Through accomplishing success in education society portrays that an individual will have all the convenience of the materialistic world. Therefore, parents and adults compel and sympathizes with the younger generations to attend school. Some children embrace this encouragement and try to achieve educational success. Although the elders see education in this light, some of the younger generations do not apprec iate the value of being formally educated. There are children who go through the system because they are forced by both the laws and their parent to be formally educated. The influence of their elders are ineffective in their educational decision in whether they choose to embrace or reject education. The government has a major role in the education system of America. Education whether privately or publicly is mandated by the laws of states to be compulsory, where all children must attend school between an average ages of five to sixteen. The government sector is primary responsible for the education system of America. They set the standards, create the curricula and assessment, provide some of the additional recourses free such as transport and lunch to all students in the public schools. The government also provides means in which children with disabilities can still attend school and achieve a degree of formal education. All these aspect are provided in an attempt to make education a successful part of human development. History of the culture In America the history of education started with, what is known as â€Å"dame schools† in the 1700s; it is where older females would teach their children basic knowledge preparing their boys for town schools, back then only the boys were allowed to attend town schools. Whereas, the girls were thought only to the point of dame school and then thought skills at home, such as cooking, sewing, washing etc. However, in the 19th century some girls began attending town school, they were only allowed to go to school at times where boys were not at school and if there were space in classes after all boys were accommodated. Soon after the wave of feminism began, when women started fighting for their rights. They fought that they should gain rights to educate themselves by attending public schools and argued that the only difference between man and women were socially created differences. After battling against the gender oppression, women finally gained rights to attend public school du e to government acts and conventions. In Cambridge, Massachusetts, Radcliffe College which is a woman’s liberated Arts College was established, which functioned as a female coordinate institute for the all-male Harvard College. The Harvard Annex, which is a private program for women created by Harvard, was found in 1879 after women determinedly try to become a part of Harvard educational program. Arthur Gilman, was the founder of The Annex/Radcliffe, at that time women education was unacceptable. Gilman was a Cambridge resident who wanted to sustain a tertiary educational opportunity for his daughter that was more than what was available in female educational opportunities; the new womens colleges. He discussed it with the chair of Harvards department, he showed a plan to have Harvard facilitate a small group of Cambridge and Boston women, and he presented his idea to Harvard President Charles William Eliot. Which was then approved; Gilman and Eliot gathered a group of well-connected Cambridge women to help facili tate the plan. 44 members of the Harvard faculty were then convinced to give lectures to female students for extra income which would be paid by the committee. The program is known as The Harvard Annex. The courses of study were 51 courses which were in 13 subject areas in the first year. Courses which were offered are in Greek, English, Latin, French, Italian, German and Spanish. Also in music, mathematics physics, natural history, philosophy and political economy. This movement was the beginning of the equality of education for both gender. In Pakistan through the eras of history education was perceived from a traditional and cultural stand point. The traditional educational system, which focuses on Islam, experienced an exponential growth since the 1970s, influenced by the wave of Islamic fundamentalism from Iran. The woman was the care takers of the home, while the men dominate by going out and working. History shows that education was always a priority to for the male, because they would have to go out into the world and work and provide for their families. But the society frowned upon women educating themselves because they were taught from their ancestors to specialize in domestic skills and take the roll of mother and wife, staying at home and providing for the family needs. However, this inequality is based strictly on the thoughts of society. As the government of Pakistan is working towards providing equality in the educating system for both male and female. The only problem they face is funding institutes to ed ucate girls. Since most girls who are educated come from wealthy families, feminist believes that helping to educate all girls, even from rural areas would help with the upbringing of the country, and increasing the funding towards educating girls would help in that aspect. It would allow girls to gain higher education, therefore relate to higher paying jobs. This would help with the uplifting of families and the country. The government of Pakistan does not stop anyone from receiving education in the country, whether it’s a girl or boy they are all allowed to receive equal education. However, it is society that places the inequality in education amongst boys and girls; it is based on certain beliefs in gender, separating their roles, causing bias in genders. Approximately twice as many boys receive academic education as girls in the country of Pakistan. But as of the year 2000-2007 the government have been taking a toll of this bias and looking to improve the inequalities that the females face as a result of gender. The Pakistani people follow traditions of their ancestors rather than what is believed by others, they see the males as the breadwinners and believe that that is the way it should be. But between the years 2000-2004 the country had a dramatic improvement in education, having a higher percentage of graduates every year, improving the countries status, however, Pakistan still has one of the highest illiteracy rates in the world. References National Womens History Museum. (n.d.). NWHM. Retrieved June 26, 2014, from http://www.nwhm.org Education in pakistan. (n.d.). Wikipedia. Retrieved June 25, 2014, from http://www.wikipedia.org/ History of women education in the U.S.A. (n.d.). Wikipedia. Retrieved June 25, 2014, from http://www.wikipedia.org/ Womens education in pakistan. (n.d.). Wikipedia. Retrieved June 25, 2014, from http://www.wikipedia.org/

paganbeo Pagan and Heathen Elements in Beowulf Essays -- Epic Beowulf

Pagan/Heathen Elements in Beowulf      Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   In Beowulf the pagan element, which coexists alongside the Christian, sometimes in a seemingly contradictory fashion, is many faceted.    Certainly the pagan element seems to be too deeply interwoven in the text of Beowulf for us to suppose that it is due to additions made by scribes. While the poet’s reflections and characters’ statements are mostly Christian, the customs and ceremonies, on the other hand, are almost entirely heathen/pagan. This fact seems to point to a heathen work which has undergone revision by Christian minstrels. â€Å"The poet’s heroic age is full of men both ‘emphatically pagan and exceptionally good,’ men who believe in a God whom they thank at every imaginable opportunity. Yet they perform all the pagan rites known to Tacitua, and are not Christian† (Frank 52).    One of the foremost pagan practices in Beowulf is the burial rite of cremation. In the narrative after the conquest of Grendel, a gleeman sings the Finnsburh Episode, the story of a Danish peaceweaver who lost husband, brother and son in the feud. Once the tribes agreed to peace:    Then Hildeburh ordered  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   her own dead son placed on the pyre  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   beside his uncle Hnaef, their bone-cases burned,  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   given full fire-burial. Beside them both  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   the noblewoman wept, mourned with songs.  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   The warrior rose up; the mighty death-fire  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   spiraled to heaven, thundered before the mound.  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Their heads melted, their gashes spread open,  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   the blood shot out of the body’s f... ...ons, edited by Harold Bloom. New York: Chelsea House Publishers, 1987.    Ward & Trent, et al. The Cambridge History of English and American Literature. New York: G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1907–21; New York: Bartleby.com, 2000                         The poet â€Å"mentions pagan error, briefly and in passing (175-88), before depicting noble pagan monotheists for some 3000 lines† (Frank 58).             SECONDARY BIBLIOGRAPHY    Frank, Roberta. â€Å"The Beowulf Poet’s Sense of History.† In Beowulf – Modern Critical Interpretations, edited by Harold Bloom. New York: Chelsea House Publishers, 1987.       Robinson, Fred C.. â€Å"Apposed Word Meanings and Religious Perspectives.† In Modern Critical Interpretations: Beowulf, edited by Harold Bloom. New York: Chelsea House Publishers, 1987.   

Beating Murphys Law :: GCSE Business Marketing Coursework

Beating Murphys Law This article deals with the topic of how organizations should go about implementing new technology systems. The article is built around Murphy's Law that, "Whatever can go wrong, will." When organizations implement new system a lot of know problems cannot be avoided and unforeseen problems arise with even grater frequency. Chew outlines seven points to help launch a new system with greater success since they are essential for long-term survival. Key Notes: Â · It is estimated 50 to 70 percent of US firms experience failure in implementing advanced manufacturing technology. Â · New technologies often cause drops in productivity following introduction of new equipment that can exceed the price of the technology. This still occurs with incremental purchases of new inexpensive equipment. Â · Performance tends to drop shortly prior to installation, as firms make ready for new systems. Performance drops can last over a year after the introduction of new equipment. Â · The greatest cost stem from mismatches between the new technology 's capabilities and needs, and existing process and organization. Â · Lack of the different required knowledge about new technologies causes the failures and problems that arise. Solutions to problems usually lead to additional problems due to a lack of knowledge. Â · Rule #1 is Think of Implementation as R&D. Acquisition should instead be considered an ongoing process of data gathering and learning that evolves over time. The introduction of technology should be considered less an investment issue or technical issue and more a question of research design. Technical and organizational concerns should be addressed. The user and technology managers should work together in research of new technologies. Â · Rule #2 is Ask "What made it hard?" Not "How well did it work?" Firms should look to outside experience to not only help them decide what new technologies to invest in but also how to avoid the problems that arose from the technology. Inquiry should be an active even aggressive targeted search for information. Â · Rule #3 Learn in Many Ways at Once. Firms can learn through four methods: vicarious, learning from others experience, simulation, using models and experiments, prototyping, building and operating on a smaller scale, and on-line, examining the

Mormonism and Christianity :: Essay on LDS Religion

Is Mormonism Christian? This may seem like a puzzling question to many Mormons as well as to some Christians. Mormons will note that they include the Bible among the four books which they recognize as Scripture, and that belief in Jesus Christ is central to their faith, as evidenced by their official name, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Furthermore, many Christians have heard the Mormon Tabernacle Choir sing Christian hymns and are favorably impressed with the Mormon commitment to high moral standards and strong families. Doesn’t it follow that Mormonism is Christian? To fairly and accurately resolve this question we need to carefully compare the basic doctrines of the Mormon religion with the basic doctrines of historic, biblical Christianity. To represent the Mormon position we have relied on the following well-known Mormon doctrinal books, the first three of which are published by the Mormon Church: Gospel Principles (1997), Achieving a Celestial Marriage (1976), and A Study of the Articles of Faith (1979) by Mormon Apostle James E. Talmage, as well as Doctrines of Salvation (3 vols.) by the tenth Mormon President and prophet Joseph Fielding Smith, Mormon Doctrine (2nd ed., 1979) by Mormon apostle Bruce R. McConkie and Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith. 1. IS THERE MORE THAN ONE TRUE GOD? The Bible teaches and orthodox Christians through the ages have believed that there is only one True and Living God and apart from Him there are no other Gods (Deuteronomy 6:4; Isaiah 43:10,11; 44:6,8; 45:21,22; 46:9; Mark 12:29-34). By contrast, the Mormon Church teaches that there are many Gods (Book of Abraham 4:3ff), and that we can become gods and goddesses in the celestial kingdom (Doctrine and Covenants 132:19-20; Gospel Principles, p. 245; Achieving a Celestial Marriage, p. 130). It also teaches that those who achieve godhood will have spirit children who will worship and pray to them, just as we worship and pray to God the Father (Gospel Principles, p. 302). 2. WAS GOD ONCE A MAN LIKE US? The Bible teaches and orthodox Christians through the ages have believed that God is Spirit (John 4:24; 1 Timothy 6:15,16), He is not a man (Numbers 23:19; Hosea 11:9; Romans 1:22, 23), and has always (eternally) existed as God — all powerful, all knowing, and everywhere present (Psalm 90:2; 139:7-10; Isaiah 40:28; Luke 1:37). By contrast, the Mormon Church teaches that God the Father was once a man Mormonism and Christianity :: Essay on LDS Religion Is Mormonism Christian? This may seem like a puzzling question to many Mormons as well as to some Christians. Mormons will note that they include the Bible among the four books which they recognize as Scripture, and that belief in Jesus Christ is central to their faith, as evidenced by their official name, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Furthermore, many Christians have heard the Mormon Tabernacle Choir sing Christian hymns and are favorably impressed with the Mormon commitment to high moral standards and strong families. Doesn’t it follow that Mormonism is Christian? To fairly and accurately resolve this question we need to carefully compare the basic doctrines of the Mormon religion with the basic doctrines of historic, biblical Christianity. To represent the Mormon position we have relied on the following well-known Mormon doctrinal books, the first three of which are published by the Mormon Church: Gospel Principles (1997), Achieving a Celestial Marriage (1976), and A Study of the Articles of Faith (1979) by Mormon Apostle James E. Talmage, as well as Doctrines of Salvation (3 vols.) by the tenth Mormon President and prophet Joseph Fielding Smith, Mormon Doctrine (2nd ed., 1979) by Mormon apostle Bruce R. McConkie and Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith. 1. IS THERE MORE THAN ONE TRUE GOD? The Bible teaches and orthodox Christians through the ages have believed that there is only one True and Living God and apart from Him there are no other Gods (Deuteronomy 6:4; Isaiah 43:10,11; 44:6,8; 45:21,22; 46:9; Mark 12:29-34). By contrast, the Mormon Church teaches that there are many Gods (Book of Abraham 4:3ff), and that we can become gods and goddesses in the celestial kingdom (Doctrine and Covenants 132:19-20; Gospel Principles, p. 245; Achieving a Celestial Marriage, p. 130). It also teaches that those who achieve godhood will have spirit children who will worship and pray to them, just as we worship and pray to God the Father (Gospel Principles, p. 302). 2. WAS GOD ONCE A MAN LIKE US? The Bible teaches and orthodox Christians through the ages have believed that God is Spirit (John 4:24; 1 Timothy 6:15,16), He is not a man (Numbers 23:19; Hosea 11:9; Romans 1:22, 23), and has always (eternally) existed as God — all powerful, all knowing, and everywhere present (Psalm 90:2; 139:7-10; Isaiah 40:28; Luke 1:37). By contrast, the Mormon Church teaches that God the Father was once a man

Dilemma: African American and Nonviolence Essay

The omnivores dilemma is a modern problem for all human beings. These days, there are many options for a person to eat, but not all are healthy. Every day people go to supermarkets and feel totally lost because there are so many choices. Source #2 â€Å"Louis Armstrong. † Grolier. Web. 1 Jan. . Source #3 â€Å"Armstrong,Louis. † Grolier. Web. 1 Jan. . Source #4 â€Å"Louis Armstrong. † Facthound. Web. 1 Jan. . Source #5 Raum, Elizabeth,ed. Louis Armstrong : Jazz Legend. 2007. Protesting Nonviolently Did you know that three major figures used the method of nonviolence to change the world? Nonviolence has been a successful way to protest for many years and has provided major changes in life for people. Nonviolence is the best way to protest and make a major point. Gandhi was one of the first people to use nonviolence in a major way. A book tells how Gandhi went to jail instead of others because he did not fear a jail cell and proved he was nonviolent. When Gandhi organized a march officers beat the protesters and injured them severely, but they did not raise an arm to fight back. Gandhi sent a letter to Lord Irwin saying how british rule is a curse and he will stop at nothing to free his people from british rule. Gandhi initiated the first acts of nonviolence and won freedom for the people of India. Martin Luther King Jr. used nonviolent acts to fight against segregation. When MLK was part of a boycott he took full responsibility when he was arrested and said he wasn’t going anywhere or going to fight back. Martin was picking up more volunteers for protesting and said that it was hard not to fight back but they still had to lay down their weapons. The time MLK led the bus boycott he was arrested, people who had participated in the boycott actually walked down to the sheriff’s office to be arrested and to see if their name was on the list. Martin Luther King Jr. used nonviolence to get rights for colored people and followed Gandhi’s example. Nelson Mandela worked fighting racial segregation in South Africa, or apartheid, using nonviolence. Mandela’s organization started out using violence but soon converted to Gandhi’s way of nonviolence which was better morally and tactically. Nelson Mandela took lots of his time recruiting helpers for the cause. Although the work was dangerous, he was convinced that nonviolence was the way to win. Mandela talked about how if he was put to a death sentence his work work and actions would live on. Nelson Mandela adapted Gandhi’s work to help free the people of South Africa from racial oppression. Nonviolence worked to help lots of different kinds of people throughout history and proved major points. Gandhi started nonviolence and became a major figure for lots of people. Martin Luther King Jr. used nonviolence to gain rights for colored people in america and became a pivotal figure in american history. Nelson Mandela became the first South African president and is also a major figure in history. Nonviolence has changed the world majorly and next time you see a picture of Gandhi, Martin Luther King Jr. , or Nelson Mandela you might think a little more about them.

Fluke, or, I Know Why the Winged Whale Sings Chapter 1~2

For Jim Darling, Flip Nicklin, and Meagan Jones: extraordinary people who do extraordinary work Fluke (flook) 1. A stroke of good luck 2. A chance occurrence; an accident 3. A barb or barbed head, as on a harpoon 4. Either of the two horizontally flattened divisions of the tail of a whale PART ONE The Song An ocean without its unnamed monsters would be like a completely dreamless sleep. – JOHN STEINBECK The scientific method is nothing more than a system of rules to keep us from lying to each other. – KEN NORRIS CHAPTER ONE Big and Wet Next Question? Amy called the whale punkin. He was fifty feet long, wider than a city bus, and weighed eighty thousand pounds. One well-placed slap of his great tail would reduce the boat to fiberglass splinters and its occupants to red stains drifting in the blue Hawaiian waters. Amy leaned over the side of the boat and lowered the hydrophone down on the whale. â€Å"Good morning, punkin,† she said. Nathan Quinn shook his head and tried not to upchuck from the cuteness of it, of her, while surreptitiously sneaking a look at her bottom and feeling a little sleazy about it. Science can be complex. Nate was a scientist. Amy was a scientist, too, but she looked fantastic in a pair of khaki hiking shorts, scientifically speaking. Below, the whale sang on, the boat vibrated with each note. The stainless rail at the bow began to buzz. Nate could feel the deeper notes resonate in his rib cage. The whale was into a section of the song they called the  «green » themes, a long series of whoops that sounded like an ambulance driving through pudding. A less trained listener might have thought that the whale was rejoicing, celebrating, shouting howdy to the world to let everyone and everything know that he was alive and feeling good, but Nate was a trained listener, perhaps the most trained listener in the world, and to his expert ears the whale was saying – Well, he had no idea what in the hell the whale was saying, did he? That's why they were out there floating in that sapphire channel off Maui in a small speedboat, sloshing their breakfasts around at seven in the morning: No one knew why the humpbacks sang. Nate had been listening to them, observing them, photographing them, and poking them with stick s for twenty-five years, and he still had no idea why, exactly, they sang. â€Å"He's into his ribbits,† Amy said, identifying a section of the whale's song that usually came right before the animal was about to surface. The scientific term for this noise was  «ribbits » because that's what they sounded like. Science can be simple. Nate peeked over the side and looked at the whale that was suspended head down in the water about fifty feet below them. His flukes and pectoral fins were white and described a crystal-blue chevron in the deep blue water. So still was the great beast that he might have been floating in space, the last beacon of some long-dead space-traveling race – except that he was making croaky noises that would have sounded more appropriate coming out of a two-inch tree frog than the archaic remnant of a superrace. Nate smiled. He liked ribbits. The whale flicked his tail once and shot out of Nate's field of vision. â€Å"He's coming up,† Nate said. Amy tore off her headphones and picked up the motorized Nikon with the three-hundred-millimeter lens. Nate quickly pulled up the hydrophone, allowing the wet cord to spool into a coil at his feet, then turned to the console and started the engine. Then they waited. There was a blast of air from behind them and they both spun around to see the column of water vapor hanging in the air, but it was far, perhaps three hundred meters behind them – too far away to be their whale. That was the problem with the channel between Maui and Lanai where they worked: There were so many whales that you often had a hard time distinguishing the one you were studying from the hundreds of others. The abundance of animals was a both a blessing and a curse. â€Å"That our guy?† Amy asked. All the singers were guys. As far as they knew anyway. The DNA tests had proven that. â€Å"Nope.† There was another blow to their left, this one much closer. Nate could see the white flukes or blades of his tail under the water, even from a hundred meters away. Amy hit the stop button on her watch. Nate pushed the throttle forward and they were off. Amy braced a knee against the console to steady herself, keeping the camera pointed toward the whale as the boat bounced along. He would blow three, maybe four times, then fluke and dive. Amy had to be ready when the whale dove to get a clear shot of his flukes so he could be identified and cataloged. When they were within thirty yards of the whale, Nate backed the throttle down and held them in position. The whale blew again, and they were close enough to catch some of the mist. There was none of the dead fish and massive morning-mouth smell that they would have encountered in Alaska. Humpbacks didn't feed while they were in Hawaii. The whale fluked and Amy fired off two quick frames with the Nikon. â€Å"Good boy,† Amy said to the whale. She hit the lap timer button on her watch. Nate cut the engine and the speedboat settled into the gentle swell. He threw the hydrophone overboard, then hit the record button on the recorder that was bungee-corded to the console. Amy set the camera on the seat in front of the console, then snatched their notebook out of a waterproof pouch. â€Å"He's right on sixteen minutes,† Amy said, checking the time and recording it in the notebook. She wrote the time and the frame numbers of the film she had just shot. Nate read her the footage number off the recorder, then the longitude and latitude from the portable GPS (global positioning system) device. She put down the notebook, and they listened. They weren't right on top of the whale as they had been before, but they could hear him singing through the recorder's speaker. Nate put on the headphones and sat back to listen. That's how field research was. Moments of frantic activity followed by long periods of waiting. (Nate's first ex-wife had once commented that their sex life could be described in exactly the same way, but that was after they had separated, and she was just being snotty.) Actually, the wait here in Maui wasn't bad – ten, fifteen minutes at a throw. When he'd been studying right whales in the North Atlantic, Nate had sometimes waited weeks before he found a whale to study. Usually he liked to use the downtime (literally, the time the whale was down) to think about how he should've gotten a real job, one where you made real money and had weekends off, or at least gotten into a branch of the field where the results of his work were more palpable, like sinking whaling ships – a pirate. You know, security. Today Nate was actively trying not to watch Amy put on sunscreen. Amy was a snowflake in the land of the tanned. Most whale researchers spent a great deal of time outdoors, at sea. They were, for the most part, an intrepid, outdoorsy bunch who wore wind- and sunburn like battle scars, and there were few who didn't sport a semipermanent sunglasses raccoon tan and sun-bleached hair or a scaly bald spot. Amy, on the other hand, had milk-white skin and straight, short black hair so dark that the highlights appeared blue in the Hawaiian sun. She was wearing maroon lipstick, which was so wildly inappropriate and out of character for this setting that it approached the comical and made her seem like the goth geek of the Pacific, which was, in fact, one of the reasons her presence so disturbed Nate. (He reasoned: A well-formed bottom hanging in space is just a well-formed bottom, but you hook up a well-formed bottom to a whip-smart woman and apply a dash of the awkward and what you've got yo urself is†¦ well, trouble.) Nate did not watch her rub the SPF50 on her legs, over her ankles and feet. He did not watch her strip to her bikini top and apply the sunscreen over her chest and shoulders. (Tropical sun can fry you even through a shirt.) Nate especially did not notice when she grabbed his hand, squirted lotion into it, then turned, indicating that he should apply it to her back, which he did – not noticing anything about her in the process. Professional courtesy. He was working. He was a scientist. He was listening to the song of Megaptera novaeangliae (â€Å"big wings of New England,† a scientist had named the whale, thus proving that scientists drink), and he was not intrigued by her intriguing bottom because he had encountered and analyzed similar data in the past. According to Nate's analysis, research assistants with intriguing bottoms turned into wives 66.666 percent of the time, and wives turned into ex-wives exactly 100 percent of the time – plus or minus 5 percent factored for post-divorce comfort sex.) â€Å"Want me to do you?† Amy asked, holding out her preferred sunscreen-slathering hand. You just don't go there, thought Nate, not even in a joke. One incorrect response to a line like that and you could lose your university position, if you had one, which Nate didn't, but still†¦ You don't even think about it. â€Å"No thanks, this shirt has UV protection woven in,† he said, thinking about what it would be like to have Amy do him. Amy looked suspiciously at his faded WE LIKE WHALES CONFERENCE 89 T-shirt and wiped the remaining sunscreen on her leg. † ‘Kay,† she said. â€Å"You know, I sure wish I could figure out why these guys sing,† Nate said, the hummingbird of his mind having tasted all the flowers in the garden to return to that one plastic daisy that would just not give up the nectar. â€Å"No kidding?† Amy said, deadpan, smiling. â€Å"But if you figure it out, what would we do tomorrow?† â€Å"Show off,† Nate said, grinning. â€Å"I'd be typing all day, analyzing research, matching photographs, filing song tapes –  » â€Å"Bringing us doughnuts,† Nate added, trying to help. Amy continued, counting down the list on her fingers, â€Å"- picking up blank tapes, washing down the trucks and the boats, running to the photo lab – ; â€Å"Not so fast,† Nate interrupted. â€Å"What, you're going to deprive me the joy of running to the photo lab while you bask in scientific glory?† â€Å"No, you can still go to the photo lab, but Clay hired a guy to wash the trucks and boats.† A delicate hand went to her forehead as she swooned, the southern belle in hiking shorts, taken with the vapors. â€Å"If I faint and fall overboard, don't let me drown.† â€Å"You know, Amy,† Nate said as he undressed the crossbow, â€Å"I don't know how it was at Boston doing survey, but in behavior, research assistants are only supposed to bitch about the humiliating grunt work and lowly status to other research assistants. It was that way when I was doing it, it was that way going back centuries, it has always been that way. Darwin himself had someone on the Beagle to file dead birds and sort index cards.† â€Å"He did not. I've never read anything about that.† â€Å"Of course you didn't. Nobody writes about research assistants.† Nate grinned again, celebration for a small victory. He realized he wasn't working up to standards on managing this research assistant. His partner, Clay, had hired her almost two weeks ago, and by now he should have had her terrorized. Instead she was working him like a Starbucks froth slave. â€Å"Ten minutes,† Amy said, checking the timer on her watch. â€Å"You going to shoot him?† â€Å"Unless you want to?† Nate notched the arrow into the crossbow. He tucked the windbreaker they used to  «dress » the crossbow under the console. It was very politically incorrect to carry a weapon for shooting whales through the crowded Lahaina harbor, so they carried it inside the windbreaker, making it appear that they had a jacket on a hanger. Amy shook her head violently. â€Å"I'll drive the boat.† â€Å"You should learn to do it.† â€Å"I'll drive the boat,† Amy said. â€Å"No one drives the boat.† No one but Nate drove the boat. Granted, the Constantly Baffled was only a twenty-three-foot Mako speedboat, and an agile four-year-old could pilot it on a calm day like today. Still, no one else drove the boat. It was a man thing, being inherently uncomfortable with the thought of a woman operating a boat or a television remote control. â€Å"Up sounds,† Nate said. They had a recording of the full sixteen-minute cycle of the song now – all the way through twice, in fact. He stopped the recorder and pulled up the hydrophone, then started the engine. â€Å"There,† Amy said, pointing to the white fins and flukes moving under the water. The whale blew only twenty yards off the bow. Nate buried the throttle. Amy was wrenched off her feet and just caught herself on the railing next to the wheel console as the boat shot forward. Nate pulled up on the right side of the whale, no more than ten yards away as the whale came up for the second time. He steadied the wheel with his hip, pulled up the crossbow, and fired. The bolt bounced off the whale's rubbery back, the hollow surgical steel arrowhead taking out a cookie-cutter plug of skin and blubber the size of a pencil eraser before the wide plastic tip stopped the penetration. The whale lifted his tail out of the water and snapped it in the air, making a sound like a giant knuckle cracking as the massive tail muscles contracted. â€Å"He's pissed,† Nate said. â€Å"Let's go for a measurement.† â€Å"Now?† Amy questioned. Normally they would wait for another dive cycle. Obviously Nate thought that because of their taking the skin sample the whale might start traveling. They could lose him before getting a measurement. â€Å"Now. I'll shoot, you work the rangefinder.† Nate backed off the throttle a bit, so he would be able to catch the entire tail fluke in the camera frame when the whale dove. Amy grabbed the laser rangefinder, which looked very much like a pair of binoculars made for a cyclops. By taking a distance measurement from the animal's tail with the rangefinder and comparing the size of the tail in the frame of the picture, they could measure the relative size of the entire animal. Nate had come up with an algorithm that, so far, gave them the length of a whale with 98 percent accuracy. Just a few years ago they would've had to have been in an aircraft to measure the length of a whale. â€Å"Ready,† Amy said. The whale blew and arched its back into a high hump as he readied for the dive (the reason whalers had named them humpbacks in the first place). Amy fixed the rangefinder on the whale's back; Nate trained the camera's telephoto on the same spot, and the autofocus motors made tiny adjustments with the movement of the boat. The whale fluked, raising its tail high in the air, and there, instead of the distinct pattern of black-and-white markings by which all humpbacks were identified, were – spelled out in foot-high black letters across the white – the words BITE ME! Nate hit the shutter button. Shocked, he fell into the captain's chair, pulling back the throttle as he slumped. He let the Nikon sag in his lap. â€Å"Holy shit!† Nate said. â€Å"Did you see that?† â€Å"See what? I got seventy-three feet,† Amy said, pulling down the rangefinder. â€Å"Probably seventy-six from where you are. What were your frame numbers?† She was reaching for the notebook as she looked back at Nate. â€Å"Are you okay?† â€Å"Fine. Frame twenty-six, but I missed it,† he lied. His mind was shuffling though a huge stack of index cards, searching a million article abstracts he had read to find some explanation for what he'd just seen. It couldn't possibly have been real. The film would show it. â€Å"You didn't see any unusual markings when you did the ID photo?† â€Å"No, did you?† â€Å"No, never mind.† â€Å"Don't sweat it, Nate. We'll get it next time he comes up,† Amy said. â€Å"Let's go in.† â€Å"You don't want to try again for a measurement?† To make the data sample complete, they needed an ID photo, a recording of at least a full cycle of the song, a skin sample for DNA and toxin figures, and a measurement. The morning was wasted without the measurement. â€Å"Let's go back to Lahaina,† Nate said, staring down at the camera in his lap. â€Å"You drive.† CHAPTER TWO Maui No Ka Oi (Maui Is the Best) At first it was that old trickster Maui who cast his fishing line from his canoe and pulled the islands up from the bottom of the sea. When he was done fishing, he looked at those islands he had pulled up, and smack in the middle of the chain was one that was made up of two big volcanoes, sitting there together like the friendly, lopsided bosoms of the sea. Between them was a deep valley that Maui thought looked very much like cleavage, which he very much liked. And so, to that bumpy-bits island Maui gave his name, and its nickname became â€Å"The Cleavage Island,† which it stayed until some missionaries came along and renamed it â€Å"The Valley Island† (because if there's anything missionaries do well, it's seek out and destroy fun). Then Maui landed his canoe at a calm little beach on the west coast of his new island and said to himself, â€Å"I could do with a few cocktails and some nookie. I shall go into Lahaina and get some.† Well, time passed and some whalers came to the island, bringing steel tools and syphilis and other wonders from the West, and before anyone knew what was happening, they, too, were thinking that they wouldn't mind a few cocktails and a measure of nookie. So rather than sail back around the Horn to Nantucket to hoist noggins of grog and the skirts of the odd Hester, Millicent, or Prudence (so fast the dear woman would think she'd fallen down a chimney and landed on a zucchini), they pulled into Lahaina, drawn by the drunken sex magic of old Maui. They didn't come to Maui for the whales, they came for the party. And so Lahaina became a whaling town. The irony of it was that even though the humpbacks had starting coming to birth their calves and sing their songs only a few years earlier, and in those days the Hawaiian channels were teeming with the big-winged singers, it was not for the humpbacks that the whalers came. Humpbacks, like their other rorqual brothers – the streamlined blue, fin, sei, minke, and Bryde's whales – were just too fast to catch in sailing ships and man-powered whaling boats. No, the whalers came to Lahaina to rest and recreate along their way to Japanese waters where they hunted the great sperm whale, who would literally float there like a big, dumb log while you rowed up to it and stuck a harpoon in its head. It would take the advent of steamships and the decimation of the big, floaty-fat right whales (so named because they did float when dead and therefore were the  «right » whales to kill) before the hunters would turn their harpoons on the hum pbacks. Following the whalers came the missionaries, the sugar farmers, the Chinese, Japanese, Filipinos, and Portuguese who all worked the sugar plantations, and Mark Twain. Mark Twain went home. Everyone else stayed. In the meantime, King Kamehameha I united the islands through the clever application of firearms against wooden spears and moved Hawaii's capital to Lahaina. Sometime after that Amy came cruising into the Lahaina harbor at the wheel of a twenty-three-foot Mako speedboat with a tall, stunned-looking Ph.D. sprawled across the bow seat. The radio chirped. Amy picked it up and keyed the mike. â€Å"Go ahead, Clay.† â€Å"Something wrong?† Clay Demodocus was obviously in the harbor and could see them coming in. It wasn't even eight in the morning. He was probably still preparing his boat to go out. â€Å"I'm not sure. Nate just decided to call it a day. I'll ask him why.† To Nate she said, â€Å"Clay wants to know why.† â€Å"Anomalous data,† Nate said. â€Å"Anomalous data,† Amy repeated into the radio. There was a pause. Then Clay said, â€Å"Uh, right, understood. That stuff gets into everything.† The harbor at Lahaina is not large. Only a hundred or so vessels can dock behind her breakwater. Most are sizable, fifty- to seventy-foot cruisers and catamarans, boats full of sunscreen-basted tourists out on the water for anything from dinner cruises to sport fishing to snorkeling at the half-sunken crater of Molokini to, of course, whale watching. Jet-skiing, parasailing, and waterskiing were all banned from December until April, while the humpbacks were in these waters, so many of the smaller boats that would normally be used to terrorize marine life in the name of recreation were leased by whale researchers for the season. On any given winter morning down at the harbor at Lahaina, you couldn't throw a coconut without conking a Ph.D. in cetacean biology (and you stood a good chance of winging two Masters of Science working on dissertations with the rebound). Clay Demodocus was engaged in a bit of research liars poker with a Ph.D. and a naval officer when Amy backed the Mako into the slip they shared with three tender zodiacs from sailing yachts anchored outside the breakwater, a thirty-two-foot motor-sailor, and the Maui Whale Research Foundation's other boat (Clay's boat), the Always Confused, a brand-new twenty-two-foot Grady White Fisherman, center console. (Slips were hard to come by in Lahaina, and circumstances this season had dictated that the Maui Whale Research Foundation – Nate and Clay – perform a nautical dog pile with six other small craft every day. You do what you have to do if you want to poke whales.) â€Å"Shame,† Clay said as Amy threw him the stern line. â€Å"Nice calm day, too.† â€Å"We got everything but a measurement on one singer,† Amy said. The scientist and the naval officer on the dock behind Clay nodded as if they understood completely. Clifford Hyland, a grizzled, gray-haired whale researcher from Iowa stood next to the young, razor-creased, snowy-white-uniformed Captain L. J. Tarwater, who was there to see that Hyland spent the navy's money appropriately. Hyland looked a little embarrassed at the whole thing and wouldn't make eye contact with Amy or Nate. Money was money, and a researcher took it where he could get it, but navy money, it was so†¦ so nasty. â€Å"Morning Amy,† said Tarwater, dazzling a perfectly even, perfectly white smile. He was lean and dark and frighteningly efficient-looking. Next to him, Clay and the scientists looked as if they'd been run through the dryer with a bag of lava rock. â€Å"Good morning, Captain. Morning Cliff.† â€Å"Hey, Amy,† Cliff Hyland said. â€Å"Hey, Nate.† Nathan Quinn shook off his confusion like a retriever who had just heard his name uttered in context with food. â€Å"What? What? Oh, hi, Cliff. What?† Hyland and Quinn had both been part of a group of thirteen scientists who had first come to Lahaina in the seventies (â€Å"The Killer Elite,† Clay still called them, as they had all gone on to distinguish themselves as leaders in their fields). Actually, the original intention hadn't been for them to be a group, but they nevertheless became one early on when they all realized that the only way they could afford to stay on the island was if they pooled their resources and lived together. So for years thirteen of them – and sometimes more if they could afford assistants, wives, or girlfriends – lived every season in a two-bedroom house they rented in Lahaina. Hyland understood Quinn's tendency to submerge himself in his research to the point of oblivion, so he wasn't surprised that once again the rangy researcher had spaced out. â€Å"Anomalous data, huh?† Cliff asked, figuring that was what had sent Nate into the ozone. â€Å"Uh, nothing I can be sure of. I mean, actually, the recorder isn't working right. Something dragging. Probably just needs to be cleaned.† And everyone, including Amy, looked at Quinn for a moment as if to say, Well, you lying satchel of walrus spit, that is the weakest story I've ever heard, and you're not fooling anyone. â€Å"Shame,† Clay said. â€Å"Nice day to miss out on the water. Maybe you can get back with the other recorder and get out again before the wind comes up.† Clay knew something was up with Nate, but he also trusted his judgment enough not to press it. Nate would tell him when he thought he should know. â€Å"Speaking of that,† Hyland said, â€Å"we'd better get going.† He headed down the dock toward his own boat. Tarwater stared at Nate just long enough to convey disgust before turning on his heel and marching after Hyland. When they were gone, Amy said, â€Å"Tarwater is a creep.† â€Å"He's all right. He's got a job to do is all,† Clay said. â€Å"What's with the recorder?† â€Å"The recorder is fine,† Nate said. â€Å"Then what gives? It's a perfect day.† Clay liked to state the obvious when it was positive. It was sunny, calm, with no wind, and the underwater visibility was two hundred feet. It was a perfect day to research whales. Nate started handing waterproof cases of equipment to Clay. â€Å"I don't know. I may have seen something out there, Clay. I have to think about it and see the pictures. I'm going to drop some film off at the lab, then go back to Papa Lani and write up some research until the film's ready.† Clay flinched, just a tad. It was Amy's job to drop off film and write up research. â€Å"Okay. How 'bout you, kiddo?† Clay said to Amy. â€Å"My new guy doesn't look like he's going to show, and I need someone topside while I'm under.† Amy looked to Nate for some kind of approval, but when he simply kept unloading cases without a reaction, she just shrugged. â€Å"Sure, I'd love to.† Clay suddenly became self-conscious and shuffled in his flip-flops, looking for a second more like a five-year-old kid than a barrel-chested, fifty-year-old man. â€Å"By calling you ‘kiddo' I didn't mean to dimmish you by age or anything, you know.† â€Å"I know,† Amy said. â€Å"And I wasn't making any sort of comment on your competency either.† â€Å"I understand, Clay.† Clay cleared his throat unnecessarily. â€Å"Okay,† he said. â€Å"Okay,† Amy said. She grabbed two Pelican cases full of equipment, stepped up onto the dock, and started schlepping the stuff to the parking area so it could be loaded into Nate's pickup. Over her shoulder she said, â€Å"You guys both so need to get laid.† â€Å"I think that's reverse harassment,† Clay said to Nate. â€Å"I may be having hallucinations,† said Nate. â€Å"No, she really said that,† Clay said. After Quinn had left, Amy climbed into the Always Confused and began untying the stern line. She glanced over her shoulder to look at the forty-foot cabin cruiser where Captain Tarwater posed on the bow looking like an advertisement for a particularly rigid laundry detergent – Bumstick Go-Be-Bright, perhaps. â€Å"Clay, you ever heard of a uniformed naval officer accompanying a researcher into the field before?† Clay looked up from doing a battery check on the GPS. â€Å"Not unless the researcher was working from a navy vessel. Once I was along on a destroyer for a study on the effects of high explosives on resident populations of southern sea lions in the Falkland Islands. They wanted to see what would happen if you set off a ten-thousand-pound charge in proximity to a sea lion colony. There was a uniformed officer in charge of that.† Amy cast the line back to the dock and turned to face Clay. â€Å"What was the effect?† â€Å"Well, it blew them the fuck up, didn't it? I mean, that's a lot of explosives.† â€Å"They let you film that for National Science?† â€Å"Just stills,† Clay said. â€Å"I don't think they anticipated it going the way it did. I got some great shots of it raining seal meat.† Clay started the engine. â€Å"Yuck.† Amy untied the bumpers and pulled them into the boat. â€Å"But you've never seen a uniformed officer working here? Before now, I mean.† â€Å"Nowhere else,† Clay said. He pulled down the gear lever. There was a thump, and the boat began to creep forward. Amy pushed them away from the surrounding boats with a padded boat hook. â€Å"What do you think they're doing?† â€Å"I was trying to find out this morning when you guys came in. They loaded an awfully big case before you got here. I asked what it was, and Tarwater got all sketchy. Cliff said it was some acoustics stuff.† â€Å"Directional array?† Amy asked. Researchers sometimes towed large arrays of hydrophones that could, unlike a single hydrophone, detect the direction from which sound was traveling. â€Å"Could be,† Clay said. â€Å"Except they don't have a winch on their boat. â€Å"A wench? What are you trying to say, Clay?† Amy feigned being offended. â€Å"Are you calling me a wench?† Clay grinned at her. â€Å"Amy, I am old and have a girlfriend, and therefore I am immune to your hotness. Please cease your useless attempts to make me uncomfortable.† â€Å"Let's follow them.† â€Å"They've been working on the lee side of Lanai. I don't want to take the Confused past the wind line.† â€Å"So you were trying to find out what they're up to?† â€Å"I fished. No bites. Cliff's not going to say anything with Tarwater standing there.† â€Å"So let's follow them.† â€Å"We actually may get some work done today. It's a good day, after all, and we might not get a dozen windless days all season here. We can't afford to lose a day, Amy. Which reminds me, what's up with Nate? Not like him to blow off a good field day.† â€Å"You know, he's nuts,† Amy said, as if it were understood. â€Å"Too much time thinking about whales.† â€Å"Oh, right. I forgot.† As they motored out of the harbor, Clay waved to a group of researchers who had gathered at the fuel station to buy coffee. Twenty universities and a dozen foundations were represented in that group. Clay was single-handedly responsible for making the scientists who worked out of Lahaina into a social community. He knew them all, and he couldn't help it – he liked people who worked with whales – and he just liked it when people got along. He'd started weekly meetings and presentations of papers at the Pacific Whale Sanctuary building in Kihei, which brought all the scientists together to socialize, trade information, and, for some, to try to weasel some useful data out of someone without the burden of field research. Amy waved to the group, too, as she dug into one of the orange Pelican waterproof cases. â€Å"Come on, Clay, let's follow Tarwater and see what he's up to.† She pulled a huge pair of twenty-power binoculars out of the case and showed them to Clay. â€Å"We can watch from a distance.† â€Å"You might want to go up in the bow and look for whales, Amy.† â€Å"Whales? They're big and wet. What else do you need to know?† â€Å"You scientists never cease to amaze me,† Clay said. â€Å"Come hold the wheel while I get a pencil to write that down.† â€Å"Let's follow Tarwater.†