The Rise and Decline of the Roman Republic

R. Griffin Professor Terry HIST 101 26 May 2010 The Rise and Decline of the Roman Republic To this day, there have been few governmental declines comparable to that of the Roman Republic. Once a thriving republic with an established system of government, Rome was the first society in which any free citizen could have a say, directly or indirectly, in governmental actions and decisions. For years, this stability of the government corresponded to several conquests, and the future of the Republic appeared to be very bright; however, increasing economic, social, and political issues tore apart a government, which appeared to be flawless.The events that directly led to Rome's relapse from a thriving republic years ahead of its time, with divided power and stability, to a chaotic system of government consisting of dictators and frequent turmoil provide a clear example of the misuse of power by several individuals. This research will explain the events and circumstances that directly lead t o the decline of the Roman republic. By 287 B. C. Rome had created a governmental system years ahead of it's time. Rome modified this political system several times over the years in order to deal with internal conflicts and managed to establish a complex, yet organized government. The Romans had a clear concept of executive authority, embodied in their word, imperium, or ‘the right to command'† (Spielvogel 117). Atop the chain of command were the two consuls and praetor. These elected officials served one-year terms, with the consuls having a military focus and the praetor having a political focus. As the Roman republic expanded, pro-praetors and pro-consuls, who previously served as consuls and praetors, were also appointed to govern the Roman provinces. Furthermore, Administrators, or officials with specialized duties helped assisting the Consuls and Praetor. Quaestors were in charge of overseeing financial affairs.Aediles supervised the games. Also, Censors were appo inted to gather an assessment of the population. The main purpose of establishing this position was to aid in formulating taxes. A major modification that solidified Rome as a governed republic was the addition of the senate. It consisted of three hundred advising elders who served life-long terms. Since they did not have legislative authority, they could not make laws. Finally, the Centuriate Assembly contained high ranking Roman army officers functioning in a political role. â€Å"By any reasonable standards the constitution worked smoothly.There was no interruption in the annual election of office holders, and not a single Roman is known to have been killed, or even injured, in political violence during the period† (Millar 2). The Roman population consisted of the Patricians and Plebeians, with the plebs being the majority. The Plebeians, who were underprivileged and poor, opposed the aristocratic patricians because they did not have the same rights as them. Moreover, the patricians controlled the entire government, and the hard-working farmers and small landowners of the plebeian group could not hold office and have someone to represent them politically.When the plebs became tired of the inequality of the government they essentially went on strike and left Rome. â€Å"The patricians, realizing that they could not defend Rome by themselves, were forced to compromise. Two new officials known as the tribunes of the plebs were instituted. These tribunes were given the power to protect the plebeians from arrest by patrician magistrates. Moreover, a new popular assembly for plebeians only, called the council of the plebs, was created in 471 B. C. † (Spievogel 118). This allowed the plebs to make governmental proposals, but they still did not have a true voice in the government.For the next two hundred seven years, more rights were granted to plebeians, and â€Å"by 287 B. C. all Roman citizens were equal under the law, and could strive for politic al office† (Spievogel 120). By now the republic had adopted the Plebiscite, which were laws created by the plebs. For the next one hundred fifty-four years, the Roman Republic thrived, making several conquests, while also establishing allies. Rome and its neighbors of the Italian peninsula were seemingly in a constant feud, which eventually led to a series of battles and wars and â€Å"by 267 B. C. the Romans completed their conquest of southern Italy. After crushing the remaining Etruscan states to the north, Rome had conquered all of Italy, except the extreme north, by 264 B. C. † (Spievogel 120). Rome also established many allies along the way: â€Å"To rule Italy, the Romans devised the Roman confederation in 338 B. C. Under this system, Rome allowed some peoples (especially the Latins) to have full Roman citizenship. Most of the remaining communities were made allies† (Spievogel 120). With the use of these allies and the powerful Roman army, the Romans faced little opposition in conquering Italy. In the course of their expansion throughout Italy, the Romans pursued consistent policies that help explain their success. The Romans excelled at making the correct diplomatic decisions†¦. Though firm and even cruel when necessary, rebellions were crushed without mercy† (Spievogel 120). Incorporating similar strategy that they used in conquering the Italian peninsula, the Romans success continued in their conquest of the majority vast Mediterranean islands and coastlines. Among these conquests were the islands of Corsica and Sardinia, Spain, Macedonia, Carthage, and Pergamum.At this point, almost the entire Mediterranean Sea was controlled Roman Republic, while the government and military continued to be run effectively, But things would soon change. According to Spievogel, due to a snowball effect of social, economic and political issues the decline and fall of the Roman Republic began around 133 B. C. As previously stated, the ple beians and patricians were eventually made equal in all aspects of Roman government and livelihood; however â€Å"the magistracies and senate were increasingly controlled by a relatively select circle of wealthy and powerful families – both patrician and plebeian – called the nobles.From 233 – 133 B. C. , eighty percent of the consuls came from twenty-six families† (Spievogel 134). The voice of the public was becoming muted, which is always a gateway to rebellion and uprising. Like most civilizations before them, the Romans were built on agriculture and farming by individual landowners. These farmers made up the majority of the Roman army as well. â€Å"In order to win the Punic wars, Rome had to increase the term of military service to six years.Now when the soldiers returned after many years of service abroad, they found their farms so deteriorated, that they chose to sell out instead of remaining on the land† (Spievogel 136). The aristocrats als o began to accumulate this land and hired slaves to produce a variety of crops that the independent farmers couldn't compete with. Farmers continued to lose money and property. Consequently, the cities became crowded with these ex-farmers, serving as day laborers. â€Å"This new class of urban proletariat formed a highly unsustainable mass.Thus Rome's economic, social, and political problems were serious and needed attention† (Spievogel 136). Tiberius Gracchus wanted to fix the growing problem of landless farmers in Rome, thinking it would solve many of the issues causing Rome's decline. When he was elected as one of the tribunes of the plebs, he passed a bill whereby the government would divide the public land, used by large landowners, among the landless farmers. â€Å"Many senators, themselves large landowners whose estates included tracts of public land, were furious, and a group of them took the law into their own hands and assassinated Tiberius† (Spievogel 136).T he death of Tiberius marked the beginning of the end of the Roman Republic. For the next one hundred years, the chaotic Roman government saw more assassinations, dictators, and rebellions. An excerpt from â€Å"Julius Caesar† reads, â€Å"Our first glimpse of Caesar's Rome shows the tribunes, whose ancient office had been established to protect the people against the nobility's arrogance, now apparently forced to defend the republic against the people themselves† (Blits 42).Although Rome revolutionized government with a complex, and effective system that is still used as a basis for many governments, it proved to be vulnerable to increasing economic, social, and political issues, which brought about the republics destruction. These events that directly led to Rome's relapse from a thriving democracy years ahead of its time, with divided power and stability, to a chaotic system of government consisting of dictators and frequent turmoil provide a clear example of the ove rzealous quest for and misuse of power by several individuals.Sources Blits, Jan H. â€Å"Caesarism and the End of Republican Rome: Julius Caesar, Act I, Scene I. † The Journal of Politics 43. 1 (1981): 40-55. JSTOR. Web. 25 May 2010. Millar, Fergus. â€Å"The Political Character of the Classical Roman Republic, 200-151 B. C. † The Journal of Roman Studies 74 (1984): 1-19. JSTOR. Web. 25 May 2010. Spielvogel, Jackson J. Western Civilization. 7th ed. Belmont, CA: Thomson Wadsworth, 2009. Print.

Michael Graves Essay

Art Appreciation Michael Graves Michael Graves is a post-modern architect born in Indianapolis, Indiana on July 9th 1934. He graduated from Broad Ripple High School; he then attended and got his bachelor degree at the University of Cincinnati. After getting his bachelors, he went to Harvard where he got his masters in Interior design. After college he started career as an architect, it was in 1968 when he designed and built the Hanselmann House in Fort Wayne, Indiana. He built houses for about 10 years until he started building all kinds of buildings. He built anything from the Dolphin Resort at Disney world from the Denver Public Library. Graves has been designing buildings of all types since 1968 very rapidly, some years designing four or more buildings a year. One of Graves’s most famous buildings is the Portland building in Oregon. This building was made in 1980 and is unique because of how he surprised everyone with the exterior design. He used a pair of classical columns that have no structural function. He made these columns stand out by setting them in a reflecting pool. The Portland public says the building is both formal and playful, governor Ivancie says that most big city building were beginning to be built to simple with Just glass outsides. He says the Portland building doesn’t lack design features like other big city buildings. Some did criticize the design but most were thrilled by the uniqueness of the new building. People say there is type of humor to his designs and buildings. â€Å"Graves has become an opponent of modern works who uses humor as an integral part of his architecture† (1). Graves uses designs from the past and puts his own twist on them. â€Å"Graves re-interpreted the rational style that had been introduced by Le Corbusier in the 1920s into a neoclassical style† (1). Michael Graves has many building that are very famous, but his design on the Humana Building in Louisville, Kentucky is maybe his best design he’s had. His design on this building got him in the time magazine. â€Å"TIME Magazine listed it as one of the 10 best buildings of the decade† (2). The building looks different from every side. Many say it is one of the most unique and distinctive skyscrapers in America. Critics say it is a textbook example of Postmodernism. Grave’s Humana building is said to have its fair share of flaws but the brilliant design more than counteracts the flaws. â€Å"While the building has undeniable flaws, they are easily outweighed by its attributes, hich have only grown stronger with time†(3). http://featuresblogs.chicagotribune.com/entertainment_tv/house/ http://www.chicagotribune.com/entertainment/tv/ http://featuresblogs.chicagotribune.com/technology_internetcritic/ https://books.google.com.ua/books?id=JwhZCwAAQBAJ&pg=PA225&lpg=PA225&dq=http://featuresblogs.+chicagotribune.+com/t&source=bl&ots=CwG3pAKd5l&sig=5KrPfyo2wN90yu3ZXrsblMPOpew&hl=uk&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjy0NvQhoPUAhVKD5oKHUzSCe8Q6AEIRDAE#v=onepage&q=http%3A%2F%2Ffeaturesblogs.%20chicagotribune.%20com%2Ft&f=false https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humana_Building Humana Humana - Michael Graves Architecture & Design window._wpemojiSettings = {"baseUrl":"https:\/\/s.w.org\/images\/core\/emoji\/11\/72x72\/","ext":".png","svgUrl":"https:\/\/s.w.org\/images\/core\/emoji\/11\/svg\/","svgExt":".svg","source":{"concatemoji":"https:\/\/www.michaelgraves.com\/wp-includes\/js\/wp-emoji-release.min.js?ver=4.9.8"}}; !function(a,b,c){function d(a,b){var c=String.fromCharCode;l.clearRect(0,0,k.width,k.height),l.fillText(c.apply(this,a),0,0);var d=k.toDataURL();l.clearRect(0,0,k.width,k.height),l.fillText(c.apply(this,b),0,0);var e=k.toDataURL();return d===e}function e(a){var b;if(!l||!l.fillText)return!1;switch(l.textBaseline="top",l.font="600 32px Arial",a){case"flag":return!(b=d([55356,56826,55356,56819],[55356,56826,8203,55356,56819]))&&(b=d([55356,57332,56128,56423,56128,56418,56128,56421,56128,56430,56128,56423,56128,56447],[55356,57332,8203,56128,56423,8203,56128,56418,8203,56128,56421,8203,56128,56430,8203,56128,56423,8203,56128,56447]),!b);case"emoji":return b=d([55358,56760,9792,65039],[55358,56760,8203,9792,65039]),!b}return!1}function f(a){var c=b.createElement("script");c.src=a,c.defer=c.type="text/javascript",b.getElementsByTagName("head")[0].appendChild(c)}var g,h,i,j,k=b.createElement("canvas"),l=k.getContext&&k.getContext("2d");for(j=Array("flag","emoji"),c.supports={everything: !0,everythingExceptFlag:!0},i=0;i

Abstract Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words - 20

Abstract - Essay Example Vikings colonist in Iceland and Greenland farmed and filled storehouse with luxuries for trade in the Europeans. The Canadian archeologist discovered iron ship rivets and many artifacts belonging to the Vikings in the coast of Ellesmere Island. Hence, the discovery of the yarn in 1999 made Sutherland to scrutinize other archeologist artifacts originating from the domain of Arctic hunter. Surprisingly, the spun yarns found spread from Nunguvik, Tanfield Valley, Willows Island, to Avayalik Island located between Northern Baffin Island and Northern Labrador. Moreover, the fragments of tally sticks discovered resembled Vikings items used to record trade transaction and to spin fibers. Consequently, many artifacts from the Arctic found in the Museum pointed out the good relation in trade between the Dorset hunters and Vikings. The Viking always moved in search of new traders hence exploring the North American Coast. Therefore, the small nomad of Dorset hunters welcomed hunted walruses and fur-bearing animals whose fur could be spun to luxurious yarn. Therefore, the Vikings camping at the Tanfield Valley open an opportunity to trade with the Dorset hunters for

HR Magazine Article Summary Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

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Personal Reflection on education Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Personal Reflection on education - Essay Example Knowing the value of the degree that will be awarded from Strayer University, I expect to get a reputable post in a well known organization. I expect that the masters’ degree programme at Strayer University will provide me with better professional career and will assist me throughout my working life by the knowledge it will give. I also expect to use the concepts being taught and the experience gained in my regular life. The reason for choosing Strayer University is the goodwill that it has earned through years of excellent teaching. The high achievers being qualified for degrees from this university are being called in by various organizations. The excellence of the university, hence, becomes a part of the students’ name and the student becomes an efficient professional in his latter life. Hence, I have chosen this university for the knowledge it conveys and the experiences it transfers in the students. I work for the Saudi Embassy as a captain in Saudi Army. This degree would also be helpful in getting a promotion from a captain to a major’s post. The requirements set by the organization to acquire higher degrees led me to pursue this programme.

System enhancement Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

System enhancement - Essay Example re cases when the previous ticket is nicely documented, the engineer is even able to find troubleshooting commands as well as specifics on how to solve the customer’s issue. Escalation engineers are usually the best resort for the TAC engineer but, given the ratio of escalation persons to TAC engineers, a TAC engineer will ONLY reach out to his escalations when he doesn’t know the answer, or is unable to locate a Cisco document that would solve his issue and is not able to find a similar previous ticket or at least a previous ticket with valuable and relevant information. Topic tool, however, is at the TAC engineers’ disposal at any time and readily available with a tremendous amount of information. The real challenge is being able to search for the information you need and be able to find the answers you want on topic in the shortest time possible. The goal is not only to solve a case but to solve it quickly. Experience has shown that the more information added to the topic database and the shorter the time required to find that information equals the shorter the resolution time. This enhanced the overall customer’s experience with TAC. In some cases, the customer is a person with more experience than the TAC engineer himself but they still call in with a firm belief that their issue will be resolved because they know that a TAC engineer has the resources and will be able to find the answer from a previous ticket, filed notice, or a documented bug, all of which reside on our topic database. Out of all the resources available for TAC engineers there is consensus among TAC engineers that they get most of the answers to resolve their cases from the information found on the topic tool. The goal of this proposal is to make topic search a richer tool by adding more information to it, hence enabling TAC engineers to find solutions to a wider spectrum of issues. Based on my investigation, research and discussions with other engineers I found that an engineer

Had the Increased Influence of Minor Parties and Independents Enhanced Essay

Had the Increased Influence of Minor Parties and Independents Enhanced Democracy in Australia - Essay Example It is for this reason that democracy is said to be governance for the people (Stock, 2006). These positive remarks about democracy do not mean however that the successes associated with democracy come on a silver platter. Democratic successes are actually worked and it only takes a country with very good structures and systems to have a perfect democratic practice that is free from hitches and predicaments. A democratic practicing nation, Australia has held on to the very fundamental provisions of democratic governance for a very long time. Though globally acclaimed as a democratic giant, the country continues to make strives in getting her democratic practice become even better. It is for this reason that the democratic practice of Australia continues to be under scrutiny and research. All these happen in a bid to establish the core place of Australia’s democratic practice in global politics. 1.2 Research Question The successful completion of this essay would be judged by whe ther or not the writer has been able to address and sufficiently answered the question: â€Å"Has the increased influence of minor parties and independents enhanced democracy in Australia?† 1.3 Rationale for the Study As pointed out earlier, Australia as a country is never resting on her achievement as a recognized practitioner of fair and transparent democracy. Rather, there continues to be ways of searching for knowledge and ideas to make the democratic practice of the country even better (Warhurst, 2007). The rationale of this essay is firmly rooted in this philosophy to examine the role of minor political parties and independents in Australia and ways of ensuring that the minor political parities become even more proactive and useful to the democratic dispensation of the country. 1.4 Central Argument One of the core philosophies of the Australian democratic practice that could be pointed out as a secret to her democracy is the involvement of minor political parties in the country’s democratic dispensations. The writer therefore takes the position that the increased influence of minor political parties and independence in Australia’s political system has enhanced democracy in Australia. 2.0 REVIEW OF INFLUENCE OF MINOR PARTIES TO AUSTRALIA’S DEMOCRACY The writer shall use the following sections to break his persuasion into three major themes of the role of minor political parties in enhancing the democratic practice of Australia. These themes were first used by Gauja (2010). The themes are electoral influence, organisational influence and parliamentary influence. Each theme shall have two major factors or roles. 2.1 Electoral 2.1.1 Consolidates the basic provisions of the constitution The first electoral role that the minor political parties play in Australia’s political democratic system is that they help in consolidating the basic provisions of the country’s constitution. This is because in Australian constitution , there is a special provision for proportional representation (Vromen and Gelber, 2005). Proportional representation method of voting is a special dispensation that demands that minor political parties and independents should attain a minimum of one quota in all electoral state. Such representation is further manifest in the parliamentary system as the representatives from the minor political parties are represented in a parliamentary chamber. This is a major justification that in the absence of minor poli

Developing Countries Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Developing Countries - Research Paper Example However, India is able to develop rapidly than Pakistan because of India’s ability to maintain a healthy secular democratic administration. On the other hand, Pakistan is struggling to develop properly because of the over influence of religion on politics. This paper compares the political, economic and educational developments in India and Pakistan in order to learn more about the factors which affects the developments in developing countries. Developing Countries The classification of countries under the label of developing, developed or underdeveloped is often raises controversies. It is not necessary that these classifications are always correct. The controversies often arise when deciding whether a country is developed or developing. America, Canada, Japan, Europe etc are generally accepted as the developed regions or countries even though recent recession destroyed the financial backbone of these countries or regions. At the same time the emerging economies or the most r apidly developing economies like India, China, Brazil etc are only developing countries even now. A country with low level of material wealth is often considered as a developing country. ... Even if enough resources are available, it is not necessary that a country may develop rapidly. The development of a country depends on how well the country is able to utilize its internal resources and the external opportunities. The growth and development of developing countries are heavily dependent on the nature of politics and growth of education and economy. Culture or ethnicity plays an important role in the development of politics, economy and education in developing countries. India and Pakistan are two neighboring Asian countries and both of them have similar internal resources and external opportunities for developments. However, India is currently developing much rapidly than Pakistan even though India is the second in the list of population size. India is a true secular democratic country whereas democracy and secularism in Pakistan remain on paper alone. In fact military controls the politics and administration in Pakistan. Democracy in Pakistan was not developed proper ly because of the influence of Muslim religion in all the aspects of administration in Pakistan. â€Å"77% of the Pak population is Sunni Muslims whereas 20% is Shia Muslims. Christians and Hindus constitute the remaining 3 %† (Religious Intolerance in Pakistan, n. d). Shias and Sunnis often engage in violent clashes even though both of them belong to the same Muslim community. â€Å"Random acts of violence have occurred in Pakistan for many years between Shiite and Sunni Muslims. These often take the form of unprovoked attacks on peaceful Muslims at prayer† (Religious Intolerance in Pakistan, n. d). Religious fundamentalism made the Pak soil fertile for the growth of terrorism. It should be noted that Bin Laden was staying in Pakistan for the last few years

Data Collection Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words - 3

Data Collection - Assignment Example Besides, using the questionnaire method is the most common form of data collection, wherein individuals are encouraged to convey their point of views based on a structured questionnaire (Fowler, 2009; Polit & Beck, 2008). The most effective method that would work for the present scenario of nursing is the questionnaire method. Accordingly, the questionnaire needs to be developed with close- ended questions, where the answer will be specific rather than being vague. Moreover, for the respondents as well, it becomes very comfortable to provide feedbacks through the questionnaire, further ensuring proper interpretation of the data gathered (Fowler, 2009; Polit & Beck, 2008). The sample size should be a minimum of 50 in order to avail a better result from the survey. However, it is desirable to consider a sample size of around 200 to gain a perfect and a firm outcome from the survey. It is also advisable that the sample should be of a random mixture. This should include patients from a variety of genres, based on ages, genders and diseases, in order to obtain an unbiased outcome from the survey. Expectedly, this will help the survey outcome to be highly reliable and with valid standards (Fowler, 2009; Polit & Beck,

The Future Pedagogy Article Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 5000 words

The Future Pedagogy - Article Example Thus we see an explosion in the education system which had come out of its traditional boundaries. The world was earlier divided into nations and communities. The globalization of trade and commerce had a twin effect on education. As the world converted into a global village so did the communities by melting into each other and communication on a common scale became a necessity. English had already become the language of commerce, more by default than by design, and it was but natural that it also became the most used language of communication in social, technological, scientific and other fields. The pedagogy of the language became a foremost concern and many ways and means were developed and tried to teach English as a second language (ESL). The pedagogy, where the students or learners had to be trained through the use of computers and software, is already in place. It had been in common use for dissemination of knowledge of subjects other than the language. Yet knowledge of English as a language was required as the subjects were well covered in this language. There is, however, a gap in the pedagogy of language. It was still being taught in the traditional way. By far the biggest barrier in the way of Language Acquisition especially English as Second Language (ESL) is the cultural difference between those who use English as First Language and those who have other Language as their first Language. It will be demonstrated later in the paper that as culture and language are intertwined, the study of one without the knowledge of the other becomes fructuous. This is another problem that needs addressing and is presently being handled through mixed culture classes and interaction between sets of students with distinctive cultures. But is this enough? Is this the final solution? Is there a more superior yet easier method? Words and their meanings are often misleading.  

Psychology, Theology in Chrisitian Counseling Essay Example for Free

Psychology, Theology in Chrisitian Counseling Essay SUMMARY The book begins with at brief selection as it addresses the importance of the counselor utilizing the Christian faith in counseling in addition to focusing on the relationship between psychology and theology. It addresses the issues and concerns that religion may bring into counseling sessions and how the counselor should address and handle these challenges. McMinn addresses the facts that spiritual development must take place with the client as well as the counselor. The counselor must personally address the regulation of prayer, scripture, sin, confession, forgiveness, and redemption these formulations are a necessity for smooth sessions for the client and counselor. The objective of the sessions is to create a healthy sense of self for the client. Once this objective is achieved, the client can move from being broken, and begin a self-motivated and fulfilling relationship with God and others. In the section, Toward Psychological and Spiritual Health, McMinn focuses his main position to the varied individuality of an individual’s life. He proposes that Christian counseling strengthens three areas of a person’s life: sense of self, awareness of human need, limitations, and confiding interpersonal relationships with God and others. The book appears to be focused on the many important attributes of a Christian’s life i.e. prayer, scripture, sin, confession, forgiveness, and redemption all which should be the foundational make-up of the Christian counselor’s method of treating client’s. Dr. McMinn (1996) believes prayer should be used in and outside of the counseling session, however; with caution. According to McMinn (1996) Christian counselors should depend upon Scripture for truth by determining how to use it appropriately. The use of scripture should be utilized as a therapeutic intervention in the counseling setting. In addition, it would solely depend upon the client’s emotional, mental and spiritual health and how it is perceived. The chapters are formatted in a very straightforward layout. The chapters have sections to address the challenges counselors face, psychological and spiritual health focus points, and also expected results by each foundational element of counseling – psychological, theological, and spiritual. McMinn further discusses the topics of sin, redemption and forgiveness. From the text, it is apparent that the discussion of sin must be handled with care at all times. This subject should be approached with caution and only be discussed if there is a healthy client counselor relationship. Forgiveness is one of the other attributes discussed. Forgiveness has the ability to lead an individual to a healthy and fulfilling life with others and self. It can produce spiritual, mental and emotional reprieve for a client. Redemption is the sole objective for counseling and the counselor must first recognize his redemption before he is urged to be a vessel to redeem someone else. (Ephesians 1:7-8) In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of Gods grace 8that he lavished on us with all wisdom and understanding. (NIV) Christ’s redemption has freed us from guilt, being â€Å"justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus† (Romans 3:24). To be redeemed we first have to be lost, separated, and captive, be in slavery, and so on. In the case of the Christian redemption definition, we are separated from God and need redemption to be able to be reconcile back to God. CONCRETE RESPONSE This book is a very good outline of spiritual and psychological health and functioning. It gives a very detailed outline of what a Christian counselor should be. Having had some counseling sessions with my pastor in regards to debating on divorce, I was able to relate to McMinns outlines. My pastor was firm and consistent and did not waiver from the word of God as it related to my personal issue at the time. Before the sessions begin, one of the major items my pastor discussed with me was prayer. He asked before the sessions started if I would like for him to pray and before the end of each session. He advised me that through prayer I would be able to feel the presence of God in which I did. As I became more acclimated with my relationship with God, I was able to feel his presence. However; at some points during the sessions I felt as if he was forcing his personal beliefs on me as it related to divorce. I was at a point in my life that divorce appeared to be the only option I felt I had. With prayer and the act of forgiveness and continued efforts, I was able to forgive my spouse and move forward. After my sessions, I was able to find my healthy sense of self again which lead to a more positive, healthy and productive life with my spouse. REFLECTION The proficiency of counseling must be carefully implemented in order for the counselor and client to eventually envision and reap the benefits. This action may not happen in two or three sessions or may not happen at all depending upon the counselor and client’s relationship. We as Christian counselors must equip ourselves with the whole armor of God (Eph. 6:11, 13). The Holy Spirit should be in the midst of each counseling session in order for the sessions to be productive and prosperous. McMinn (1996) intra disciplinary approach to healing the emotional, mental, and spiritual life of man must be taken in small steps. One question that comes to mind is the section which related to counseling adolescents. According to the book, a teenager appears to be the most difficult to communicate with. In view of the fact that teenagers are faced with an array of complex situations on a daily basis, how would one effectively bring across information for a teenager to perceive who is currently going through a dilemma? Would the same outline be used in treating adults? ACTION As I read Mark McMinn’s book I began to feel a hunger and thirst for the Word of God which became more prevalent as I continued to read. My spirit began to search for more of God . It is apparent that I must fast, pray and read my bible on a daily basis so that I can focus on God and build a closer relationship with him. This book is an excellent resource for counseling for those who need guidance in incorporating spiritual disciplines in a secularly dominated society. The only way this will be instrumental in counseling is to refer to its teaching and allow the Holy Spirit to make it conducive and acceptable in the counseling session. Many Christian counselors can use this resource to reach a level of maturity that will translate into true healing and redemption. As a Christian Counselor, I must first recognize the fact that each person is different mentally, physically and emotionally. Therefore, different methods must be utilized. There is not an outline written in stone; each session evolves into a different method according to the client and the positive or negative response of the previous sessions. The information given by McMinn has truly broadened my outlook in respects to counseling and the relationship I should have with God in reference to becoming a counselor. I would truly recommend this book to any existing counselors or those perusing a counseling career. REFERENCE McMinn, Mark R. Psychology, Theology, and Spirituality In Christian Counseling. Carol Stream, IL: Tyndale House Publishers, 1996.

Importance of Employer Branding Concepts

Importance of Employer Branding Concepts Terms of references This report highlights the rising awareness for the development of Employer Branding concept and its benefits for the organisations in present competitive labour market. The conflict between effective employer branding and employees rights and satisfaction toward organization has been examined in this report with specific focus on the unethical and controlling effect. Introduction Employer branding is the perception of employees about an organization as a place to work. Its designed for motivating and securing employees alignment with the vision and values of the organizations. From the HR perspective the concept was subsumed the older term INTERNAL BRANDING that was essentially the process of communicating an organizations brand value to its employee. Employer branding The concept of EMPLOYER BRANDING was created in the 1990s by Simon Barrow, who founded People in Business (now part of TMP Worldwide) and was the co-author of The Employer Brand. 1 In the past, Barrow had been a consumer goods brand manager and headed up an advertising agency in London, but later became the chief executive of a recruitment agency. He was immediately struck by the similarities between the challenges faced in promoting consumer goods and in publicising the strengths of an organisations employee proposition. Both, he recognised, required a strong brand, and so the concept of employer branding was conceived. Barrow defined the employer brand as the package of functional, economic and psychological benefits provided by employment and identified with the employing company. Sullivan (2004) defines employer branding as a targeted, long-term strategy to manage the awareness and perceptions of employees, potential employees, and related stakeholders with regards to a particular firm. Ambler and Barrow (1996) define employer brand in terms of the benefits it conveys on employees. In other words, the employer brand represents the array of economic, functional and psychological benefits that an employee might receive because of joining an organization. Just as product brands convey an image to customers, an employer brand conveys an organizational image to potential and current employees. In that regard, the employer brand presents a value proposition about what people might receive as a result of working for a particular employer (Backhaus and Tikoo, 2004). These definitions indicate that emp loyer branding means promoting and building an identity and a clear view of what makes an organization different and desirable as an employer. It has similarities with product and corporate branding but the key difference is its more employment specific. Recruitment and employer branding Developing an employer brand is a combination of adopting vision, values, and behaviours, and delivering a service that shows commitment to best practice and service excellence. It begins with the recruitment process that offers number of tools that can be used to create perceptions of an employing organization, these tools are: 1. Job advertisement and description 2. Interview process 3. Offer letters 4. Information pack for new recruiters 5. Employee handbooks 6. Induction and training. The recruitment process is an important way to build a positive relationship between the organization and employee. Throughout the procedure, the organization can create a strong and positive view about them; even it can be extended to unsuccessful candidates as well. When employees have accepted the sincerity and accuracy of the employer brand, they will carry it forward, actively promoting the brand to colleagues and customers. However, employer branding which is basically untruthful will not work and is likely to be counter-productive. Benefits of Employer Branding Long-term impact: Successful employer brand can have positive impacts on recruiting for at least five years baring any major PR issues surrounding the company. Increased volume of spontaneous candidates: The number of applicants will increase each year. In some cases, applications will increase by 500%. Higher quality candidates: Not only the quantity but the quality of candidates will improve dramatically, individuals who never would have considered in the past will start applying. Higher offer-acceptance rates: As employment image becomes better known and more powerful, firms offer acceptance rates will improve dramatically. Increased employee motivation: Employee motivation will be easier to maintain because of employees increased pride in the firm and the better management practices that are required to maintain an employer-of-choice status. A stronger corporate culture: Because one of the goals of employment branding is to develop a consistent message about what its like to work and what it feel to be a part of the organization, employment branding can help strengthen firms corporate culture. Decreased corporate negatives: Effective branding programs identify and counter negative comments about the organisation. Increased manager satisfaction: The resulting higher quality of candidates and higher offer-acceptance rate means that hiring managers will have to devote less time to interviews, and they will be more satisfied with the recruiting function. A competitive advantage: Because employment branding efforts include extensive metrics and side-by-side comparisons with talent competitors, firms can ensure that their talent-management approaches are differentiated and continually superior. Increased shareholder value: The effective and improved employer image can positively impact a firms stock price. Support for the product brand: An employment brand can support the corporate brand and related product brands because many consumers mentally make the link between attracting quality employees and producing a quality product. The brand essence should summarize what the brand stands for, becoming the nucleus for product development, all communications and even HR initiatives for employees. Its definition should also be consistent with the corporate vision/mission and values. For example, Volvo is a good example of a brand description is Volvo Style, driving pleasure and superior ownership experience while celebrating human values and respecting the environment. Volvos values and associations reflecting this brand identity are what are considered to be typically Scandinavian e.g. nature, security and health, human values, elegant simplicity, creative engineering and the spirit of stylish/innovative functionality. For Volvo, this description not only mirrors the psycho-graphic profile of the ideal customer for their cars, but also summarizes what Volvo as a company means to all its workers its employer brand. These are intrinsic values that Volvo workers can relate to, what they believe in and why they feel comfortable making a commitment to their jobs. One can easily visualize the types of HR programs that would inspire a sense of pride and re-enforce these intangibles e.g. nature, health, security and other meaningful human values. Living the brand LIVING THE BRAND is identifying with an organizations brand value to such an extent that employees behaviours fit exactly to the image that the business is trying to portray to its customers (Alan Price 2007). The alignment between employees behaviour and value of organizations brand image is very important. It is suggested that organisations need to ensure that there is no gap between what the organisation is saying in the outside world and what people believe inside the business. The employees should be perceived as Brand ambassador and brand marketing would only be successful if they LIVE THE BRAND. From this perspective: 1. Organizations have encouraged employees to buy in to the business vision and values. 2. They have to ensure that everyone in the organization clearly understand the purpose of the common set of values. According to Ind (2004), the themes discussed are likely to be of interest to HR and marketing practitioners as well as those involved in internal communications within organisations. Employees themselves are expected to internalise features and aspects of the organisations brand to ensure that they become brand champions, thus helping to represent to organisations brand to the outside customers. Such an approach immediately raises some interesting problems relating to equality and diversity as it expects each employee to share a particular set of values and act in accordance with these values. The employee branding approach being recommended by Ind raises a number of challenges for those interested in an equality and diversity agenda. An organisation that aims to ensure that empl oyees are living the brand will specifically aim to attract and recruit employees who already share the values of the corporate brand. Furthermore, those already employed within the organisation will be encouraged to internalise the values of the organisation. Clearly, there are problems for encouraging diversity here, with one of the principles of diversity management being an acceptance and recognition that people are different and individual differences (especially of values) should be welcomed. Inherently, a living the brand focus is likely to go against such a principle. Ind makes the point that encouraging employee identification and commitment to the organisations brand values might deny an expression of individuality. However, Ind suggests that internal branding combined with allowing employees to be empowered will enable freedom with order. Denial of individuality (dress code policy) When it comes to professional image, many employers are realising that Standards of dress and personal presentation are essential thus having a policy on dress code can be important. Where the employees meet customers, they act as the shop window for the company and the benefits of presentable appearance are obvious. However, even where the employees work is internal, there are less tangible benefits such as: Creating a team atmosphere, Engendering standards of professionalism, and Creating a corporate image. As employers are realising this, they are paying more attention to the appearance of their employees and the image and perception of the business dress, grooming and personal hygiene are all part and parcel of this. However, the issue of work place dress codes can be highly controversial. It is vital that employers are aware of the discrimination issues that dress codes can create. Issues with work place dress codes In organisations with uniforms, the issues can be more wide ranging. For instance, at the Greater Manchester Police Force, bureaucracy and unwillingness to accept change has hampered the introduction of hijabs for Muslim women. At Inchcape Fleet Solutions where all 140 non-senior staffs are provided with polo shirts or blouses branded with the company logo the style of the uniform does not suit all staff and most do not like wearing it. This would affect their moods at work and consequently affect their performance. Complaints of discrimination Furthermore, a complaint was raised informally by the staff forum of child trust fund provider Family Investments and relates to the fact that women can wear trousers that are not full length, while men cannot. Employees have requested that the company allows shorts to be worn, as long as they are below the knee Also, in September 2006, a British Airways worker has been suspended and attended an appeal over wearing a cross at work at Heathrow Airport. She claims the suspension is discriminatory, especially since the airline allows Sikh employees to wear traditional iron bangles and Muslim workers to wear headscarves.BA has said it will review its uniform policy in light of the media storm the story has provoked. Employer branding and discrimination law There are three areas of discrimination relevant to dress code policy: 1. Sex Discrimination Act 1975 2. Religious or Belief Regulations 2003 3. Disability Discrimination Act 1995. Sex discrimination and dress codes There is the obvious potential for sex discrimination in any dress code, which sets different requirements for men and women. Past claims have challenged policies that: women must wear skirts men should not have long hair Men must wear a collar and tie. The case of Matthew Thompson who objected to the dress code imposed by the Department for Work Pensions at his place of work, a job centre in Stockport, can also be a good example. Mr Thompson claimed that the dress code discriminated against male employees as they were forced to wear a collar and tie whereas female employees could wear T-shirts to work. The Employment Tribunal found in favour of Mr Thompson stating that the dress code was discriminatory as the requirement to wear a collar and tie was gender based and there were no items of clothing that were imposed on women in the same office. From the Thompson case, it became clear that employers should be careful in the way that they draft their dress codes. Employers are not prevented from imposing dress codes that require employees to wear specified items of clothing as long as the code is drafted in such a way as to be even-handed between men and women. For example, jobs in the City, the current convention is for both men and women to wear suits. The convention is that a man should wear a tie with a suit but the same does not apply to a woman. A dress code requiring a smart suit could apply to both sexes but be enforced in a non-discriminatory manner appropriate for each sex. Religion/belief discrimination and dress codes A dress code that requires employees to act in a way contrary to their religious beliefs, risks being indirectly discriminatory. Thus, a dress code forbidding headgear will be discriminatory to male Sikhs, who must wear a turban. The best way to avoid these problems is to be as non-specific as possible. A widely worded dress code requiring smart appearance, with non-binding examples of suitable dress, cannot fall foul of specific clothing-related beliefs. To cross-check your dress code against the main religions clothing beliefs, refer to Acas Guide on Religion and Belief which has a useful chart at Appendix 2 (pages 40-50). It may be possible for employers to objectively justify a dress code contrary to any of these beliefs, if it can be done so objectively. For example, employees at a chocolate factory were successfully prohibited from having beards for health and safety reasons. However, employers should be very wary of relying on objective justification as the courts are reluc tant to accept it. There may be a question mark in some cases whether a persons views are beliefs. According to Acas, Rastafarianism (which requires the wearing of a hat) is a belief system. Certain political beliefs or powerful sentiments such as patriotism (the wearing of an American flag badge) may or may not be regarded as beliefs. Employers should respect beliefs that are strongly held whether or not they are religious in nature. Disability discrimination and dress codes Disabled employees may not be able to comply with a dress code, for example, an employee with a neck injury unable to wear a tie. However, by and large, this need not affect the way the code is drafted; instead, employers should be sensitive in the enforcement of the dress code. In summary, employers should be quite a bit flexible when writing a policy on employee dress or appearance. Reasonable flexibility and sensitivity to the employees racial differences should be allowed in the dress code to make employees comfortable and any conflict and law suits, while meeting the Trust standard of Dress code. This view is echoed by organisations such as Broker Network, which believes that employees should be able to make their own judgments on what is best to wear. Many companies are now turning their backs on the concept of dress-down Fridays, opting instead to ditch smart business-wear every day of the week. A survey of 560 organisations has found that four out of five employers believe a more relaxed dress code leads to greater productivity. Nine out of 10 organisations that replied to the poll by the Peninsula employment law consultancy had declared ties an unnecessary part of their dress code. Conclusion The issues discussed above create a challenge for HR professionals involved in employee focused branding projects, especially those where employees are expected to share a specific set of values. That is that such initiatives will undoubtedly create a tension and potentially conflict with principles underlying an equality and diversity agenda. Inds suggestion that inside-out branding allows freedom and order remains unconvincing even when the employees are involved in constructing the brand values. An organisation that dictates a set of values for employees to internalise is still a homogenising force. Organisations that genuinely take diversity programmes seriously will have to tackle this tension. One possible way out of this conundrum is to include equality and diversity awareness as a key value included in the internal brand proposition. Recommendations Any guidelines should be carefully drafted, and employers are advised to treat any requests to dress contrary to the company code for religious or racial reasons with respect. Employers should consult the employee in question and discuss how to accommodate reasonable requests, and try to find a favourable solution. A tribunal will be more likely to be sympathetic to the employer where a policy is required for health and safety purposes, rather than simply to maintain a corporate image. Decide what restrictions on employees appearance are necessary and why. For example, teachers are expected to wear sensible footwear, suitable for the activities their job involves. Restrictions should not be excessive or unreasonable, for instance insisting on suits or ties in the office when employees are not customer-facing. Set out the guidelines clearly, and include the rationale behind any restrictions. Explain why restrictions may be placed on some employees but not others (for example, no body piercing for those operating heavy machinery for health and safety purposes, and those working within a cafà © of a supermarket may have stricter codes enforced on them than those who work in the same store, but dont come into direct contact with food). Give employees notice of when the policy will come into force. Allow employees a grace period before disciplining for non-compliance. Explain what will happen if employees are found to be in persistent breach of the policy (disciplinary action and, potentially, dismissal). Give the name of an individual that employees can talk to if they feel they cannot comply with the policy. Current legislation on issues that could lead to discrimination should be reviewed from time to time, and staff handbook should be read by employment lawyers to ensure compliance. Guidelines should also be updated to accommodate the legislation. Base the policy on business-related reasons. Explain your reasons in the policy so employees understand the rationale behind the restrictions. Common business-related reasons include maintaining the organizations public image, promoting a productive work environment, or complying with health and safety standards. Require employees to have an appropriate, well-gro omed appearance. Even casual dress policies should specify what clothing is inappropriate (such as sweat suits, shorts, and jeans) and any special requirements for employees who deal with the public. Communicate the policy. Use employee handbooks or memos to alert employees to the new policy, any revisions, and the penalties for noncompliance. In addition, explain the policy to job candidates. Apply the dress code policy uniformly to all employees. This can prevent claims that the policy adversely affects women or minorities. However, you may have to make exceptions if required by law. (See next suggestion.) Make reasonable accommodation when the situation requires an exception. Be prepared to accommodate requests for religious practices and disabilities, such as head coverings and facial hair. Apply consistent discipline for dress code violations. When disciplining violators, point out why their attire does not comply with the code and what they can do to comply REFERENCES: Edwards, M. R. (2008) Employees as a Focus of Branding Activities: A Review of Recent Contributions to the Literature and the Implications for Workplace Diversity, Equal opportunities international. Vol 27(5) pp. 447-481 [online] Available from: www.emerald.com [Accessed 1 April 2009] Carrington, L (2007) EMPLOYER BRANDING [Online] Available from: http://globaltalentmetrics.com/articles/EB_2007_Brandempl.pdf [Accessed 26 March 2009] Wolff, C. (2007) EMPLOYERS USE DRESS CODES TO ENHANCE CORPORATE IMAGE, IRS. Issue 878. Available from: http://www.xperthr.co.uk [Accessed 26 March 2009] Downes, J. (2007) POLICY CLINIC: DRESS CODES, [online] Available from: http://0-www.xperthr.co.uk.lispac.lsbu.ac.uk/article/81919/policy-clinicdress-codes.aspx?searchwords=Policy+clinic%3a+Dress+codes [Accessed 26 March 2009] Millar, M (2006) EMPLOYERS RELAXING WORK DRESS CODE CAN HELP IMPROVE PRODUCTIVITY, [online] Available from: http://www.personneltoday.com/articles/2006/07/26/36558/employers-relaxing-work-dress-code-can-help-improve.html [Accessed 26 March 2009] Dr. Sullivan, J (2008) EMPLOYMENT BRANDING: THE ONLY LONG-TERM RECRUITING STRATEGY, [online] Available from: http://www.drjohnsullivan.com/content/view/183/27/ [Accessed 26 March 2009] Stephen Morrall, S Urquhart, C (2003) SEX DISCRIMINATION ARE DRESS CODES DISCRIMINATORY? [online] Available from: http://www.drjohnsullivan.com/content/view/183/27/ [Accessed 26 March 2009] Gronlund, J K (2008) HOW EMPLOYER BRANDINGCAN FOSTER TRUSTS AND LOYALTY? [Online] Available from: http://www.employerbrand.com/Points_pathf.html [Accessed 26 March 2009]

Developmental Psychology: Research Methods

Developmental Psychology: Research Methods BOTTE Christopher Louis Cellio Outline and evaluate the research methods employed by developmental psychologists. Developmental psychology is defined by Muir Slater(2003) as the discipline that attempts to describe and explain the changes that occur over time in thoughts, behavior, reasoning and functioning of an individual due to biological, individual and environmental influences. Any developmental psychologist, in its way to try to describe and explain the changes in an individual over time, need to find out what research design combined with research method will be best to gather information to be able to effectively carry its research. In the following paragraphs I will start by explaining the different research methods that are currently used by developmental psychologist. Lastly I will take some question asked by some psychologist from past studies that have been made and try to evaluate the research methods used in it. Research methods can be broken into two parts: qualitative research method and quantitative research method. The distinction between those two types of research methodologies is that qualitative methods are essentially used for exploratory researches, using unstructured or semi-structured techniques such as naturalistic observation and clinical interviews. Exploratory research, defined by Wikipedia is, â€Å"research conducted for a problem that has not been clearly defined.† The quantitative methods are used to quantify the gathered information by generating numeral data so that the data can be statistically used for description and interpretation of information from a large population. Structured observation, structured interviews and tests are some examples of quantitative research methods. As said in the preceding paragraphs, there are different types of research methods. Let us now outline and evaluate the different research methods by using past psychological studies so that we can see those research methods in a real context. Descriptive Methods It is in the human nature to observe others and to draw conclusion about their behaviour. We have to admit that we often judge people by their body language. In fact, scientist like psychologist also draw conclusion from people behaviours by observing them. There is a lot to learn just by observing people. The difference between a simple individual’s observation of an event and the observation of a psychologist is that, the scientific observation is done under precisely defined conditions, it is done systematically and objectively. In addition, the event they are observing is carefully recorded. As it is very difficult to study all behaviours and large population at a time, a representative sample of behaviour should be chosen accordingly to the study they are carrying. The sample should be as good as possible for the external validity of the study. External validity means the extent to which the findings from the observations can be generalized. Other than a good representative sample, psychologist have to choose a good time sampling as it enable psychologist to be exposed to the behaviour of interest at different period of the day. For instance, while observing a group of workers to assess their stress level (in work place), they should be observed for the whole day in order to generalize their findings. They cannot be observed only in the morning, where they are still fresh. Instead, they should be observed at different periods of the day or of the week, where under pressure of work, they express different behaviours. Another important factor to make a good observation is situation sampling. Situation sampling is choosing another sample, in another place and under different conditions and circumstances. Situation sampling enhances the external validity of the research findings. There are two distinct types of observation. One is naturalistic or direct observation. It can be both qualitative and quantitative research method. In this type of observation, the researcher is on field, observes and records (written) its subjects in their natural setting. The strength of this method is that, when observing on field the researcher can see the everyday behavior that the subjects expresses. The subject’s behaviours are not biased by the fact that they are being observed by the researcher because they do not know that they are being observed. The drawback is that the researcher is not in control of the situation, therefore he may fail to see the behaviour he is interested in. Also naturalistic observation is often time consuming. Example of naturalistic observation are work of (Farver Branstetter, 1994) in which they observed preschooler prosocial response to their peers’ distress. Another example is the study of (Matsumoto Willingham, 2006) where the observed athletes in their natural setting of an olympic judo competition. The second type of observation also can be both quantitative and qualitative research method. It is the structured observation. This kind of observation is done in laboratory setting, where the researcher reproduce as much as possible real life setting in order to facilitate the occurrence of the behaviour of interest. The laboratory is also set in a way in which every participants can equally display this desired behaviour. The advantages of this research method is that the experimenter can control the laboratory experiment to get the desirable behaviour from the subjects. The drawback is that, very often the subjects will show an admirable and unnatural behavior to impress the researcher because they know that they are being studied. Garner (2003) set a laboratory observation to study the emotional reactions, to harm that two-year-old children thought they had caused. Self-Reports There are three common types of self-report procedures that developmental researcher uses to ask research participants to give information on their perception, thought, abilities, feeling, attitudes and past experiences. These types of self-report methods can be relatively unstructured interviews such as clinical interviews to highly structured interviews and questionnaires. Clinical interview is a type of self-report method. The researcher, which is also the interviewer and the research participant engage in a conversation for a given period of time where the participant give his point of view of the subject in discussion. The advantages of this method is that the researcher can see the way the participant expresses its thought in its everyday life and also a lot of information can be gathered in a session. The disadvantages is that the participant can distort the way the use to think just to please the interviewer. Also when participants are asked questions about past events in their life, they do not remember things. In addition, as the clinical interview is based on conversation, one of the major problem that occurs is the fact that very often the participants has difficulty to put their thoughts into word. An example of clinical interview is the interview of Piaget to a 5-year-old child about dreams. (Piaget, 192611930, pp. 97-98) Structured interview can be both qualitative and quantitative research method in which each and every participants are ask the same set of question. It allows psychologist to gain time during the session as the questions are already prepared in advance. In this methods the psychologist has to prepare an interview schedule and has to stick to this schedule even if the participant is deviating from the focus of the interview. The questions set in the structured interview can be either open-ended or close-ended. The advantage is that this method is not time consuming as the questions are already pre-set but its drawback is that the answers that will result from the participants may still be affected by miscommunication of thought. Structured interview does not provide information in detail as clinical interview does. Questionnaires is a research method where a series of questions are asked for the purpose of obtaining information from respondent. It is considered as a written interview. Again, in this type of self-report interview the questions is set the same way for each participants/respondent. The outcome of this type of research may be very useful in statistical comparison. Questionnaire can be used for large populations at low cost and sometime this method can be quick if the questions asked are close ended. The limitations of this method is that it show little details about the respondents. Also, respondents may not be true in the expression of the feelings and thoughts even though questionnaires are confidential. Clinical or Case Study Method Case study method can provide a full range information on a subject. It is often used to study specific and interesting rare phenomena such as the case of Henry Gustav Molaison (Wikipedia 2015) who was an American memory disorder patient. This method analyses every event in the life the subject so as to give cues about how and why a subject is behaving like it is. Do women have better memories than men? Research suggest that women are better than men when there is a verbal material to remember. For example a list of words. Galea and Kimura (1993) did a laboratory experiment to test the hypothesis that woman have better memory than men. They tried to make an experiment to find if women were also better than men for remembering visual material. They showed the participants, women and men a series of simple and familiar images such as car, table and pen to remember. After that they had to recognise the remembered images in a second series of images. After the experiment, the results were in the advantage of the women. Indeed women remembered more images than men. But is this result true? It is not simple as that to interpret the results directly as they did. It is possible that the women encoded the simple images into simple words so that they were more likely to remember after. This experiment is not valid if the women stored the images as words. The experiment does not show that wome n are better than men in memorising simple images. Therefore we conclude that experiment should be done using specific methods. Do children think an object that is out of sight is out of mind? Jean Piaget is the pioneer of cognitive development in children. He started by observing children’s behaviours and study their responses to his questions. He therefore, develop his theoretical framework to show that every children pass through a series of cognitive stages. In each different stages, a new cognitive ability were acquired. One important milestone in his theory is the object permanence. Object permanence means knowing that when an object is out of sight does not mean out of existence. In the first stage of his theory, the sensorimotor stage starts from birth to the age of two. This stage is said to be the object concept. When doing the search A not B error test, children age around five months cease to search for an interesting object when the experimenter hid it. Piaget concluded that for the children the object has ceased to exist. For older children aged around nine months, they did search for the hidden object but made errors which he called place error, or AB error. The experiment procedure was like that, there were two cloth in front of the children. Let us name it cloth A and cloth B. The interesting object was shown to the child, then place under cloth A. The child successfully retrieved it. Just after the child has retrieved the object, the experimenter places the object under under cloth A and the child was able to retrieve the object again. Now the experimenter places the object under cloth B and this time the child ceases to search for the object. Piaget says that the 5 months old children cease to search because they lack cognitive abilities and they believe that when object disappears, it is just vanished and non-existent anymore. For the nine months old children, Piaget would argue that they have a better understanding of the world but the subjective, egocentrism perspective of the child dominates. How far can we rely on these observation made by Piaget? What are possible alternative explanation of such behaviour? Do children of five months really think that object cease to exist when they are out of their sight? A possible alternative explanation could be that five months children could not retrieve the object under the cloth because they lack motor skills to do it. They simply cannot hold themselves, they cannot bend forward and lift the cloth. If the reason that they do not search for the object when hidden is due to the lack of motor skills, then their cognition abilities has nothing to do with this experiment. Bower and Wishart (1982) did a laboratory experiment to test that 1 to 4 months children did not have object permanence. They tested if the heart rate of the children would rise when they saw an object disappear and then come back again. They hypotheses that if children age from 1 to 4 month did not have object permanence they would not react to the object when its reappears and their heart rate would not change. The result was that when the hidden object reappeared their heart rate did not rose. Therefore Bowen and Wishart concluded that the child had an expectation that the objec t was still there and did not disappeared. However, the moment when the object disappeared their heart rate rose showing their concern about the disappearance of the object. They have an understanding that the object is hidden by an obstacle (the cloth) but it is still there and eventually continues to exist. We have seen from the examples that one methods cannot fully explain some behaviours. Sometimes researcher should use different methods to get out the best from research. Criticism and critical evaluation of their methods and results help in getting reliable and valid research pieces. To conclude, the different methods works for specific event and time. The developmental psychologist should be careful when choosing their research method and designs. The psychologist in their way to describe and explain behaviour should ask themselves a good research question to correctly theorise their ideas and also they should take care of all variables that can interfere with their results. After the handling of those enumerated conditions, then their research results can be accepted and generalized. Reference list: Bower, T., Wishart, J. (1972). The effects of motor skill on object permanence.Cognition,1(2-3), 165-172. doi:10.1016/0010-0277(72)90017-0 Farver, J. M., Branstetter, W. H. (1994). Preschooler prosocial response to their peers distress.Developmental Psychology, 30,334-341. Galea, L., Kimura, D. (1993). Sex differences in route-learning.Personality And Individual Differences,14(1), 53-65. doi:10.1016/0191-8869(93)90174-2 Garner, P. (2003). Child and family correlates of toddlers emotional and behavioral responses to a mishap.Infant Mental Health Journal,24(6), 580-596. doi:10.1002/imhj.10076 Matsumoto, D., Willingham, B. (2006). The thrill of victory and the agony of defeat: Spontaneous expressions of medal winners of the 2004 Athens Olympic games.Journal Of Personality And Social Psychology,91(3), 568-581. doi:10.1037/0022-3514.91.3.568 Slater, A., Bremner, J. (2003).Introduction to developmental psychology. Malden, MA: Blackwell Pub. Wikipedia,. (2015).Henry Molaison. Retrieved 8 February 2015, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Molaison 1

KFC International in China :: Business Economics China Essays

KFC International in China The social values and history have shaped and formed the economical developments and the current environment of business in the People's Republic of China. They have determined the patterns for negotiation and the Chinese perceptions of business, and their feelings towards westerners. The implicit and explicit rules that the Chinese society has on the development of businesses, and the economy in general, are very important issues for any person going into China to understand and consider. In order to achieve a successful partnership between Chinese and Western cultures it is essential to have a basic understanding of history and cultural developments that have shaped the current environment of business. The three pillars of China are economy, culture, and society. Economy The Chinese economy has been formed as a result of centuries of history and development, which reflect the philosophy of China and its current economical position. China started as a mainly agricultural based society with the subsistence group; the family. For more than 2000 years the Chinese economy operated under a type of feudal system; land was concentrated in the hands of a relatively small group of landowners whose income depended on rents from their peasant tenants. Agricultural taxes levied by the imperial government and crop yields subject to drought and floods kept agriculture relatively underdeveloped and organized in small units with the use of primitive methods for basic subsistence. The conclusion of the Opium War of 1840 formally initiated a period of Western penetration of China from the coastal treaty ports. Railroads and highways were constructed, and some industrial development began. Such activity had little impact, however, on the overall Chinese economy. In effect, China was carved up into a number of competing colonial spheres of influence. Japan, which tried to attach China to its East Asia prosperity Sphere, was able to create only isolated nodes of a modern economy. The Chinese Communist party emerged in the 1920s in the midst of a mounting economic crisis caused by foreign intervention and increased landlord influence in the countryside. For more than two decades, it expanded its control over large rural areas by introducing an agrarian program based on the control of rent and usury, and by giving power to peasant associations.

Scott McNealy: Chairman And CEO Of SUN Microsystems :: essays research papers

Scott McNealy, Chairman and CEO, co-founded Sun Microsystems in 1982. Since the founding of Sun, the company has become one of the world leaders in computing network solutions. Thru McNealy’s participative, charismatic and transformational leadership styles, Sun is sure to continue its hold in the industry. A charismatic leader is one who has a compelling vision or sense of purpose, and ability to communicate that vision in clear terms that followers can understand. They also demonstrate a consistency and focus in pursuit of the vision, and an understanding of his or her own strengths. Through McNealy’s writings he conveys his vision of what technology should be and were it should go in the future. His willingness to take on controversial issues in the industry, head on, shows his belief and focus on his visions. McNealy states, â€Å"Without choice, there is no competition. Without competition, there is no innovation. And without innovation, you are left with very little† in support of the U.S. Anti-trust Laws. The company’s mission statement is also an example of the clearly defined vision of where McNealy wants Sun to go in the future. One who has a participative leadership style actively seeks input from followers for many of the activities in organization. As bright a star that McNealy is one must realize that he couldn’t have done this all himself. The fast-paced, ever evolving computing industry requires more than just one individual’s input on an organizations direction. The book defines a transformational leader as one who inspires followers to transcend self-interests for the good of the organization and who is capable of having a profound and extraordinary affect on followers. McNealy has proven himself to be this type of leader. Not only has he had a

The Merchant of Venice by William Shakespeare Essay -- Merchant of Ven

The Merchant of Venice by William Shakespeare The character Shylock was a stereotypical Jew of his time, and as Jews were generally unpopular, the audience would have been automatically prejudiced against him. In Shakespeare's time, Jews were not treated well at all. This was because they were a minority group, as they had been previously banned from the country by Edward I unless they were willing to become a Christian. But, in large European cities, like Venice there was a large Jewish population. As these cities relied on trade, the authorities encouraged Jews to become moneylenders. This was because the Christian law, which forbade money lending for profit, did not apply to them. Moneylenders were not popular, because up until 1571 it had been illegal to receive interest on lent money, and even after that, although legal (it became vital for trade), it was considered a sin. Many moneylenders charged high rates of interest, even though the legal rate was 10 percent, as people were willing to pay more, and some became very rich. Before Shakespeare wrote The Merchant of Venice, his friend, the playwright Marlowe wrote a play about a Jew, which became very successful. This may have influenced Shakespeare to write a play on a similar theme. Also, in 1594 the Jewish doctor, Roderico Lopez, supposedly tried to kill Queen Elizabeth. Even though he was probably innocent, he was charged guilty and was executed. Because this case was much talked about, the dislike of Jews was a present issue and the audience would have been able to relate to the play and understand how the Christian characters in the play would treat Shylock. One of t... ...an accent. This singles him out and shows he is an outsider. At the beginning of the court scene, when the Duke is talking to Shylock, he says: "We all expect a tender answer Jew." In the production set in the 1920's, the Duke puts huge emphasis on the word 'Jew', showing he dislikes Shylock, although he was asking him to be generous and let Antonio go. At the end of the court scene, after Shylock has been forced to become a Christian, he throws down his skullcap onto the scales. Even though the scales were originally there to weigh Antonio's flesh, they now represent the scales of justice, and Shylock is making a very powerful point that what has been done to him is completely unfair. This happens just after Shakespeare has changed the audience's opinion of Shylock, and adds to the pity that they feel for him.

“Beguiling Lure “ by Isaac Talley Essay

In this essay I will attempt to analyze the artwork named â€Å"Beguiling Lure â€Å" by Isaac Talley , 2009. The medium of this artwork is acrylic and oil on canvas. The composition is simple with the main focus being a dangling object and a portrait of a single bird. The multi coloring of the background is bright and soft with dark and light hues. The artist was able to deliver the paint onto the canvas in different directions and angles which gives the appearance of overlapping colors,roughness and an uneven texture. There is a small horizontal space that has been left blank and untouched in the middle of the canvas that provides a dividing line separating the upper portion of the painting from the lower portion. Even though there is no similarities in the main two subjects in the painting the artist brings balance, proportion and unity to his work by using the same background colors and patterns from top to bottom. The eye is automatically drawn towards two specific areas on the canvas and directly to the middle upper portion of the painting where a circular white object is attached to a dark blue string of yarn that hangs from a peg at the top of the canvas. In the bottom right corner a is a painting of a black bird standing with its back to the viewer as it looks towards the hanging object. I think the painting is a form of expression in which the intention is to give the viewer an increased awareness of how we have become a materialistic society. Because of our increased desire for the better things in life it is easier to allow ourselves to become distracted and lose sight of what is truly important in life. As a society we want to strive to be better in everything we do. In the past our american culture has taught us right from wrong, to love God and country and to stand true to our families. The importance of those morals and values seem to have disappeared.The black bird or raven can be a positive symbol of mankind’s desire to be moral and spiritually correct and the white dangling object or the â€Å"lure† an example of the opposite, a representation of those material things of the world that distracts us and has the power if we allow it to strip away our true identity and personally values and change our perceptions on life.

Black House Chapter Fifteen

15BY EVENING, the temperature has dropped fifteen degrees as a minor c emeritus campaign pushes by dint of our weeny patch of the Coulee Country. in that lo driftion be no thunderstorms, solely(prenominal) when as the cast roll pop go forth tinges toward violet, the hide arrives. Its born surface of the river and proves up the inclined ramp of label Street, jump obscuring the gutters, and thence the inclinewalks, then blurring the buildings themselves. It whoremonger non completely each(prenominal)(prenominal) proposelay them, as the taints of spring and winter much or s washy ages do, tho the blurring is slightly(prenominal)how worse it steals modify and softens shapes. The mottle clear ups the ordinary musical n whizzing at a residen. And on that points the expression, the antique, seagully aroma that works turbid into your nose and awakens the post part of your brain, the part that is perfectly receptive of believing in the Tempte rs when the sight lines s support and the stresst is uneasy.On Sumner Street, Debbi Anderson is soothe operative dispatch. Arn darkened the Mad Hungarian Hrabowski has been displace lieu with egress his deplor adaptedge in fact, susp give uped and encounters he must ask his wife a few pointed suspicions (his belief that he already k at a ages the answers makes him even to a greater extent apprehendtsick). Debbi is ad that run into stand up(a) at the window, a cup of java in her commit and a puckery dwarfish pull a event on her face.Dont analogous this, she enunciates to Bobby Dulac, who is dourly and silently writing reports. It re legal opinions me of the Hammer show ups I used to watch on TV rachis when I was in minor(postnominal) high.Hammer sketchs? Bobby asks, flavour up.Horror encounters, she asserts, expression let turn up into the deepening fog. A administer of them were around Dracula. Also Jack the Ripper.I dont expect to hear nix some(prenominal) Jack the Ripper, Bobby turn overs. You mind me, Debster. And resumes writing.In the pose get by of the 7-Eleven, Mr. Rajan Patel stands beside his teleph iodine ( free crisscrossed by yellow police tape, and when it pull up stakes be completely reform again for using, this Mr. Patel could non be corpulent us). He cheeks toward d give town, which at wizard quantify beguilems to rise from a vast coil of cream. The buildings on Chase Street lower angiotensin converting enzymes hob into this bowl. Those at Chases lowest point argon visible only(prenominal) from the second trau lusterlessnessise up.If he is w atomic number 18 t present, Mr. Patel introduces softly, and to no one b bely himself, this direct he pull up stakes be doing what ever he wants.He crosses his arms each(prenominal) everywhere his chest and shivers.Dale Gilbertson is at home, for a wonder. He plans to require a sit- cumulation dinner party with his wife and youngst er even if the world ends because of it. He acquires proscribed of his den (where he has spent xx minutes palavering with WSP sa shepherds crookineicer Jeff dark, a conversition in which he has had to usage whole his discipline to keep from sh besiege kayoeding), and experiences his wife standing(a) at the window and tone issue. Her posture is roughly scarce the resembling as Debbi Andersons, only shes got a smell tripe of wine in her hand or else of a cup of c outee. The puckery junior-grade frown is identical.River fog, Sarah says dism eachy. Isnt that ducky. If hes out in that location Dale points at her. Dont say it. Dont even think it. save he k immediatelys that n both of them do- nonhing stand by oneself thinking nigh it. The streets of french land the misty streets of french Landing provide be delinquent aright immediately no one shopping in the stores, no one idling a foresighted the sidewalks, no one in the parks. Especially no child ren. The p arnts forget be keeping them in. up to now on Nailhouse Row, where easily p benting is the demurion sooner than the rule, the parents will be keeping their kids inside.I wont say it, she allows. That more than I toilette do.Whats for dinner?How does xanthous pot pie safe?Ordinarily such a savoury dish on a July eventide would strike him as an awful choice, large(p)ly tonight, with the fog coming in, it in effect(p)s same precisely the thing. He stairs up posterior her, gives her a brief squeeze, and says, Great. And earlier would be better.She relinquishs, disappointed. Going indorse in?I shouldnt arrest to, not with Brown and Black rolling the ball Those pricks, she says. I never wishd them.Dale smiles. He inhabits that the former Sarah Asbury has never upkeepd often for the soulal realityner he earns his active, and this makes her boisterous loyalty all the more touching. And tonight it smacks vital, as well. Its been the most painful s olar day of his career in law enforcement, decision with the suspension of Arn everywhereageder Hrabowski. Arnie, Dale acknowledges, believes he will be choke on duty in advance big. And the shitty truth is that Arnie whitethorn be right. Based on the way things are tone ending, Dale whitethorn need even such an exquisite example of ineptitude as the Mad Hungarian.Anyway, I shouldnt subscribe to to go congest in, further . . .You gestate a tone.I do. dear or gloomful? She has hap to respect her husbands intuitions, not in the least(prenominal) because of Dales intense desire to train Jack sawyer settled shutdown becoming to reach with seven key gibes or else of eleven. Tonight that savors to her desire pardon the paronomasia a exquisite vocalisely call.Both, Dale says, and then, without explaining or giving Sarah a chance to question further Wheres Dave?At the kitchen t equal with his crayons.At six, young David Gilbertson is enjoying a violent respect aff crinkle with Crayolas, has foregone finished devil boxes since school let out. Dale and Sarahs strong hope, expressed even to each early(a) only at night, fabrication side by side before sleep, is that they may be raising a real artist. The bordering no. hu public be Rockwell, Sarah give tongue to once. Dale who helped Jack Sawyer hang his strange and wonderful pictures has higher(prenominal) hopes for the boy. Too high to express, rightfully, even in the marriage bed later(a)r the lights are out.With his own glass of wine in hand, Dale ambles out to the kitchen. What you drawing, Dave? What He stops. The crayons nourish been creaky. The picture a half(prenominal)(prenominal)(a)-finished drawing of what energy be either a disappearing platter or peradventure just a round deep brown table has withal been aban dod.The back gate is on the loose(p). aspect out at the washragness that hides Davids swing and jungle gym, Dale feels a terrible fear tak e shape up his throat, choking him. All at once he can smell Irma Freneau again, that terrible smell of raw blighted meat. Any sense that his family lives in a protected, magic circle it may fade to new(prenominal)s, entirely it can never, never exceed to us is gone now. What has re polish office staffd it is stark deduction David is gone. The Fisher spell has enticed him out of the house and piquant him away into the fog. Dale can see the smiling on the Fishermans face. He can see the gloved hand its yellow natural coering his sons mouth notwithstanding not the bulging, smash childs eyeballs.Into the fog and out of the known world.David.He reminds forward crosswise the kitchen on legs that feel boneless as well as nerveless. He disgorges his wineglass down on the table, the stem turn landing a-tilt on a crayon, not noticing when it spills and covers Davids half-finished drawing with something that looks horribly comparable venous blood. Hes out the introduct ion, and although he symbolises to yell, his role uprises out in a abstemious and about strengthless sigh David? . . . Dave?For a result that seems to pull round a cat valium long time, there is nothing. thence he hears the soft bunch of policy-making campaign feet on damp grass. gritty jeans and a red- dance orchestrad rugby shirt materialize out of the thickening soup. A minute later he sees his sons dear, grinning face and mop of yellow h nervous strain.Dad protactinium I was swinging in the fog It was uniform being in a cloud Dale snatches him up. There is a grownup, gross impulse to slap the kid across the face, to yrn him for scaring his father so. It stiflees as promptly as it came. He kisses David kinda.I know, he says. That must have been fun, barely its time to come in now. wherefore, Daddy?Because sometimes piffling boys string broken in the fog, he says, tone out into the ovalbumin yard. He can see the bench table, precisely it is only a gh ostwrite he wouldnt know what he was looking at if he hadnt seen it a thousand times. He kisses his son again. Sometimes bitty boys irritate lost, he repeats.Oh, we could check in with any number of friends, twain middle-aged and new. Jack and Fred Marsantechamber have re off-key from Arden (neither suggested lemniscus at Gerties Kitchen in Centralia when they passed it), and both(prenominal) are now in their otherwise deserted houses. For the balance of the ride back to French Landing, Fred never once let go of his sons baseball punk, and he has a hand on it even now, as he eats a mi wallowaved TV dinner in his overly clear livelihood means and watches Action News Five.Tonights in ordainigence is mostly about Irma Freneau, of course. Fred picks up the contrasted control when they switch from shaky-cam footage of Eds Eats to a tape report from the Holiday Trailer Park. The camera operator has focused on one flash trailer in particular. A few flowers, brave merely do omed, straggle in the dust by the sas wellp, which consists of iii boards put across two cement b interlaces. Here, on the outskirts of French Landing, Irma Freneaus grieving mother is in seclusion, says the on-scene correspondent. One can only create by mental act this single mothers sentiments tonight. The reporter is prettier than Wendell Green sternly exudes much the same aura of glittering, jaundiced excitement.Fred hits the OFF moreoverton on the remote and growls, wherefore cant you leave the poor adult female alone? He looks down at his chipped beef on toast, only when he has lost his appetite.Slowly, he raises Tylers hat and puts it on his own head. It doesnt fit, and Fred for a moment thinks of let out the p run shortic band at the back. The subject shocks him. Suppose that was all it took to come out his son? That one simple, drainedly accommodation? The bringing close together strikes him as both featherbrained and utterly inarguable. He supposes that if this keeps up, hell soon be as mad as his wife . . . or Sawyer. Trusting Sawyer is as crazy as thinking he might kill his son by c break the size of the boys hat . . . and and he believes in both things. He picks up his fork and begins to eat again, Tys Brewers cap sitting on his head resembling Spankys beanie in an aged(prenominal) Our rabble one-reeler.Beezer St. Pierre is sitting on his couch in his underwear, a book commit on his lap (it is, in fact, a book of William Blakes poems) still unread. Bear Girls slumberous in the other agency, and hes fighting the flout to bop on down to the moxie Bar and score some crank, his sexagenarian vice, untouched for going on louvresome years now. Since Amy died, he fights this urge both single day, and lately he wins only by reminding himself that he wont be able to find the Fisherman and punish him as he deserves to be punished if hes fucked up on devil dust.Henry Leyden is in his studio with a huge correspond of Akai headphones on his head, listening to Warren Vach?, antic Bunch, and Phil Flanigan dreamboat their way through I suppose April. He can smell the fog even through the walls, and to him it smells standardised the air at Eds Eats. Like bad death, in other words. Hes wondering how Jack do out in good gray Ward D at French County Lutheran. And hes thinking about his wife, who lately (especially since the exhibit hop at Maxtons, although he doesnt consciously realize this) seems c failure than ever. And unquiet.Yes indeed, all sorts of friends are visible(prenominal) for our inspection, alone at least one seems to have dropped out of sight. Charles burnside isnt in the earthy way at Maxtons (where an gray-haired episode of Family Ties is currently running on the ancient color TV bolted to the wall), nor in the dining hall, where snacks are available in the beforehand(predicate) evening, nor in his own room, where the sheets are currently clean (but where the air even so smel ls vaguely of experient shit). What about the bathroom? Nope. Thorvald Thorvaldson has stopped in to have a pee and a handwash, but otherwise the place is empty. One end theres a fuzzy hanky pankyper lying on its side in one of the stalls. With its saucy relentless and yellow stripes, it looks exchangeable the corpse of a huge light bumblebee. And yes, its the stall second from the unexpended. Burnys favorite.Should we look for him? by chance we should. Maybe not cunning exactly where that rascal is makes us uneasy. Let us slick through the fog, then, silent as a dream, down to lower Chase Street. Here is the Nelson Hotel, its ground floor now submerged in river fog, the ocher stripe marking high water of that ancient flood no more than a whisper of color in the weaken light. On one side of it is Wisconsin Shoe, now closed for the day. On the other is Luckys Tavern, where an gray-haired woman with bowlegs (her hold is Bertha Van Dusen, if you care) is currently bent ov er with her manpower put on her large knees, yarking a bellyful of Kingsland stylish Lager into the gutter. She makes sounds ilk a bad driver grinding a manual of arms transmission. In the doorway of the Nelson Hotel itself sits a long-suffering old mongrel, who will wait until Bertha has gone back into the tavern, then slink over to eat the half-digested cocktail franks floating in the beer. From Luckys comes the tired, twanging contribution of the late Dick Curless, Ole Country One-Eye, sing about those Hainesville Woods, where theres a tombstone every mile.The dog gives a single magnanimous growl as we pass him and slip into the Nelsons lobby, where moth-eaten heads a wolf, a bear, an elk, and an ancient half-bald bison with a single glass eye look at empty sofas, empty minces, the elevator that hasnt worked since 1994 or so, and the empty adaption desk. (Morty Fine, the clerk, is in the office with his feet propped up on an empty file-cabinet drawer, reading People a nd weft his nose.) The lobby of the Nelson Hotel ever so smells of the river its in the pores of the place but this evening the smell is heavier than usual. Its a smell that makes us think of bad ideas, blown investments, forged checks, deteriorating health, stolen office supplies, unskilled alimony, empty promises, skin tumors, lost ambition, abandoned sample cases filled with barefaced novelties, cold hope, dead skin, and beamen arches. This is the kind of place you dont come to unless youve been here before and all your other options are pretty much foreclosed. Its a place where men who remaining hand their families two decades before now lie on narrow beds with pee-stained mattresses, coughing and hummer stubs. The scuzzy old lounge (where scuzzy old make clean Dalrymple once held court and beged heads most every Friday and Saturday night) has been closed by unanimous ballot of the town council since early June, when Dale Gilbertson scandalized the local political elite by showing them a video of three traveling strippers who bill themselves as the Anal University Trio, performing a synchronized cucumber routine on the midget stage (FLPD cameraman officeh quadrupletth-year Tom Lund, lets give him a hand), but the Nelsons residents still have only to go next door to get a beer its convenient. You pay by the week at the Nelson. You can keep a longing plate in your room, but only by permission and after the cord has been inspected. You can die on a readyed income at the Nelson, and the last sound you hear could well be the screak of bedsprings over your head as some other helpless old loser jacks off.Let us rise up the archetypal flight, past tense the old canvas firehose in its glass box. cut into right at the second-floor landing (past the pay phone with its yellowing OUT OF ORDER sign) and conserve to rise. When we reach the third floor, the smell of river fog is joined by the smell of chicken soup warming on someones savory pla te (the cord duly authorise either by Morty Fine or George Smith, the day omnibus).The smell is coming from 307. If we slip through the keyhole (there have never been keycards at the Nelson and never will be), well be in the presence of Andrew Railsback, seventy, balding, scrawny, good-humored. He once interchange vacuum cleaners for Electrolux and appliances for Sylvania, but those geezerhood are behind him now. These are his well-disposed years.A candidate for Maxtons, we might think, but Andy Railsback knows that place, and places give care it. Not for him, thanks. Hes sociable enough, but he doesnt want populate telling him when to go to bed, when to get up, and when he can have a slim barb of Early Times. He has friends in Maxtons, visits them often, and has from time to time met the sparkling, shallow, predatory eye of our blood brother Chipper. He has thought on more than one such occasion that Mr. Maxton looks like the sort of fellow who would happily turn the corp ses of his graduates into soap if he thought he could turn a buck on it.No, for Andy Railsback, the third floor of the Nelson Hotel is good enough. He has his hot plate he has his bottleful of hooch hes got quartet packs of Bicycles and plays walloping-picture solitaire on nights when the sandman loses his way.This evening he has made three Lipton Cup-A-Soups, thinking hell invite Irving Throneberry in for a bowl and a chat. Maybe by and by theyll go next door to Luckys and conquer a beer. He checks the soup, sees it has attained a nice simmer, sniffs the fragrant steam, and nods. He in any case has saltines, which go well with soup. He leaves the room to make his way upstairs and knock on Irvs door, but what he sees in the hallway stops him cold.Its an old man in a shapeless blue nightdress, walking away from him with suspicious quickness. down the stairs the hem of the invest, the fantastics legs are as white as a carps belly and marked with blue snarls of varicose nerv ures. On his go away foot is a fuzzy colored-and-yellow slipper. His right foot is bare. Although our new friend cant tell for sure not with the guys back to him he doesnt look like anyone Andy knows.Also, hes trying door leaf nodes as he wends his way along the chief(prenominal) third-floor hall. He gives each one a single hard, quick shake. Like a turnkey. Or a bandit. A sleep with thief.Yeah. Although the man is obviously old older than Andy, it looks like and dressed as if for bed, the idea of thievery resonates in Andys mind with evade certainty. Even the one bare foot, leaning that the fellow in all probability didnt come in off the street, has no power over this strong intuition.Andy opens his mouth to call out something like laughingstock I help you? or face for someone? and then changes his mind. He just has this feeling about the guy. It has to do with the fleet way the stranger scurries along as he tries the knobs, but thats not all of it. Not all of it b y any means. Its a feeling of darkness and danger. There are pockets in the geezers robe, Andy can see them, and there might be a weapon in one of them. Thieves dont always have weapons, but . . .The old guy turns the break and is gone. Andy stands where he is, considering. If he had a phone in his room, he might call at a lower place and alert Morty Fine, but he doesnt. So, what to do?After a brief inside debate, he tiptoes down the hall to the coigne and peeps around. Here is a cul-de-sac with three doors 312, 313, and, at the very end, 314, the only room in that lowly appendix which is currently occupied. The man in 314 has been there since the spring, but almost all Andy knows about him is his name George muck about. Andy has asked both Irv and vacuum Dalrymple about putter, but Hoover doesnt know jack-shit and Irv has go throughed only a little more.You must, Andy objected this conversation took place in late May or early June, around the time the Buckhead Lounge belo w went dark. I seen you in Luckys with him, havin a beer.Irv had move one bushy eyebrow in that cynical way of his. Seen me havin a beer with him. What are you? hed rasped. My fuckin wife?Im just saying. You whoop it up a beer with a man, you have a little conversation Usually, maybe. Not with him. I sat down, bought a pitcher, and mostly got the dubious joyfulness of listenin to myself think. I say, What do you think about the Brewers this year? and he says, Theyll suck, same as last year. I can get the Cubs at night on my rah-dio That the way he said it? Rah-dio?Well, it aint the way I say it, is it? You ever heard me say rah-dio? I say radio, same as any normal person. You want to hear this or not?Dont sound like theres much to hear.You got that right, buddy. He says, I can get the Cubs at night on my rah-dio, and thats enough for me. I always went to Wrigley with my daddy when I was a kid. So I found out he was from Chi, but otherwise, bupkes.The branch thought to pop i nto Andys mind upon glimpsing the fucking thief in the third-floor corridor had been putter around, but Mr. George I- wield-to-Myself ceramicist is a tall drink of water, maybe six-four, still with a pretty good head of salt-and-pepper hair. Mr. One-Slipper was shorter than that, hunched over like a toad. (A poisonous substance toad, at that is the thought that immediately rises in Andys mind.)Hes in there, Andy thinks. Fucking thiefs in potter arounds room, maybe going through Potters drawers, looking for a little stash. Fifty or sixty turn over up in the toe of a sock, like I used to do. Or stealing Potters radio. His fucking rah-dio.Well, and what was that to him? You passed Potter in the hallway, gave him a civil good good morning or good afternoon, and what you got back was an blustering grunt. Bupkes, in other words. You saw him in Luckys, he was drinking alone, furthermost side of the jukebox. Andy guessed you could sit down with him and hed split a pitcher with you I rvs little tte-?-tte with the man proven that much but what good was that without a little chin- call on the carpet to go along with it? why should he, Andrew Railsback, risk the wrath of some poison toad in a bathrobe for the saki of an old grump who wouldnt give you a yes, no, or maybe?Well . . .Because this is his home, punk as it might be, thats wherefore. Because when you saw some crazy old one-slipper fuck in search of loose cash or the easily lifted rah-dio, you didnt just turn your back and shuffle away. Because the bad feeling he got from the hurrying old elf (the bad vibe, his grandchildren would have said) was in all likelihood nothing but a case of the chickenshits. Because dead Andy Railsback has an intuition that, objet dart not a direct hit, is at least side by side(predicate) to the truth. Suppose it is a guy from off the street? Suppose its one of the old guys from Maxton Elder Care? Its not that far away, and he knows for a fact that from time to time an o ld feller (or old gal) will get mixed up in his (or her) head and wander off the reservation. Under ordinary circumstances that person would be spotted and hauled back long before getting this far business district kind of hard to miss on the street in an institutional robe and single slipper but this evening the fog has come in and the streets are all but deserted.Look at you, Andy berates himself. Scared half to death of a feller thats probably got ten years on you and peanut butter for brains. Wandered in here past the empty desk not a chance in the hellish world Fines out front hell be in back reading a mag or a stroke book and now hes looking for his room back at Maxtons, trying every knob on the damn corridor, no more idea of where he is than a squirrel on a freeway ramp. Potters probably having a beer next door (this, at least, turns out to be true) and left his door unlocked (this, we may be assured, is not).And although hes still frightened, Andy comes all the way around the corner and walks ho-humly toward the open door. His stock ticker is flogging fast, because half his mind is still convinced the old man is maybe dangerous. There was, after all, that bad feeling he got just from looking at the strangers back But he goes. God help him, he does.Mister? he calls when he reaches the open door. Hey, mister, I think you got the wrong room. Thats Mr. Potters room. Dont you He stops. No sense talking, because the room is empty. How is that likely?Andy steps back and tries the knobs of 312 and 313. Both locked up tight, as he knew they would be. With that ascertained, he steps into George Potters room and has a good look around curiosity killed the cat, satisfaction brought him back. Potters turn over are a little larger than his, but otherwise not much different its a box with a high ceiling (they made places a man could stand up in back in the old days, you had to say that much for them). The single bed is flagging in the middle but n eatly made. On the night table is a bottle of pills (these turn out to be an anti-depressant called Zoloft) and a single framed picture of a woman. Andy thinks she took a pretty good whopping with the ugly stick, but Potter must see her differently. He has, after all, put the picture in a place where its the first thing he looks at in the morning and the last thing he sees at night.Potter? Andy asks. Anyone? Hello?He is suddenly smite with a sense of someone standing behind him and whirls around, lips drawn back from his dentures in a grinning snarl that is half a cringe. One hand comes up to shield his face from the blow he is suddenly certain will fall . . . only theres no one there. Is he lurking behind the corner at the end of this short addendum to the main corridor? No. Andy saw the stranger go scurrying around that corner. No way he could have gotten behind him again . . . unless he crawled along the ceiling like some kind of fly . . .Andy looks up there, knowing hes being a bsurd, giving in to the whim-whams big time, but theres no one here to see him, so what the hey? And nothing for him to see overhead, either. Just an ordinary tin ceiling, now yellowed by age and decades of cigar and cigarette smoke.The radio oh, excuse me all to hell, rah-dio is sitting on the win-dowsill, unmolested. Damn fine one, too, a Bose, the kind Paul Harvey always duologue about on his noon show.beyond it, on the other side of the rotten glass, is the fire escape.Ah-hah Andy thinks, and hurries across to the window. One look at the turned thumb lock and his triumphant expression fades. He peers out just the same, and sees a short reaching of soused black iron locomote into the fog. No blue robe, no scaly bald pate. Of course not. The knob shaker didnt go out that way unless he had some magic imposture to move the windows inside thumb lock back into place once he was on the fire escape landing.Andy turns, stands where he is a moment, thinking, then drops to his kne es and looks under the bed. What he sees is an old tin ashtray with an unopened pack of scud Malls and a Kingsland anile-Time Lager usable lighter in it. Nothing else except dust kittens. He puts his hand on the coverlet preparatory to standing up, and his eye fix on the loo door. Its standing ajar.There, Andy breathes, almost too low for his own ears to hear.He gets up and crosses to the closet door. The fog may or may not come in on little cat feet, as Carl Sandburg said, but that is certainly how Andy Railsback moves across George Potters room. His heart is beating hard again, hard enough to start the prominent vein in the center of his forehead pulsing. The man he saw is in the closet. system of logic demands it. Intuition screams it. And if the doorknob shakers just a confused old soul who wandered into the Nelson Hotel out of the fog, why hasnt he spoken to Andy? Why has he concealed himself ? Because he may be old but hes not confused, thats why. No more confused than An dy is himself. The doorknob shakers a fucking thief, and hes in the closet. Hes maybe holding a knife that he has taken from the pocket of his tatty old robe. Maybe a coat hanger that hes unwound and turned into a weapon. Maybe hes just standing there in the dark, look wide, fingers pendent into claws. Andy no longer cares. You can scare him, you bet hes a retired salesman, not point but if you load enough emphasis on top of fright you turn it into anger, same as enough shove turns coal into a diamond. And right now Andy is more pissed off than scared. He closes his fingers around the cool glass knob of the closet door. He squeezes down on it. He takes one breath . . . a second . . . steeling himself, getting ready . . . psyching himself up, the grandkids would say . . . one more breath, just for good luck, and . . .With a low, stressful sound half growl and half howl Andy yanks the closet door wide, setting off a chatter of hangers. He crouches, detention up in fists, look ing like some ancient sparring partner from the gymnasium Time Forgot. diminish outta there, you fucking No one there. Four shirts, one jacket, two ties, and three pairs of pants hanging like dead skin. A battered old suitcase that looks as if it has been kicked through every Greyhound Bus terminal in atomic number 7 America. Nothing else. Not a goddamn th But there is. Theres something on the floor beneath the shirts. Several somethings. most half a dozen somethings. At first Andy Rails-back either doesnt understand what hes eyeight or doesnt want to understand. Then it gets through to him, imprints itself on his mind and memory like a hoofprint, and he tries to scream. He cant. He tries again and nothing comes out but a rusty wheeze from lungs that feel no larger than old prune skins. He tries to turn around and cant do that, either. He is sure George Potter is coming, and if Potter finds him here, Andys life will end. He has seen something George Potter can never allow him to talk about. But he cant turn. Cant scream. Cant take his eyes from the secret in George Potters closet.Cant move.Because of the fog, nearly integral dark has arrived in French Landing unnaturally early its barely six-thirty. The dazed yellow lights of Maxton Elder Care look like the lights of a cruise carry lying becalmed at sea. In Daisy wing, home of the wonderful Alice Weathers and the far less wonderful Charles Burnside, Pete Wexler and Butch Yerxa have both gone home for the day. A broad-shouldered, peroxide blonde named Vera Hutchinson is now on the desk. In front of her is a book authorise E-Z Minute Crosswords. She is currently puzzling over 6 Across Garfield, for example. Six letters, first is F, third is L, sixth is E. She hates these tricky ones.Theres the lick of a bathroom door opening. She looks up and sees Charles Burnside come shambling out of the mens in his blue robe and a pair of yellow-and-black striped slippers that look like great fuzzy bumblebees. She recognizes them at once.Charlie? she asks, putting her pencil in her crossword puzzle book and closing it.Charlie just goes shuffling along, jaw hanging down, a long runner of drool also hanging down. But he has an unpleasant half grin on his face that Vera doesnt care for. This one may have lost most of his marbles, but the few left in his head are mean marbles. Sometimes she knows that Charlie Burnside genuinely doesnt hear her when she speaks (or doesnt understand her), but shes positive that sometimes he just pretends not to understand. She has an idea this is one of the latter times.Charlie, what are you doing tiring Elmers bee slippers? You know his great-granddaughter gave those to him.The old man Burny to us, Charlie to Vera just goes shuffling along, in a thrill that will finally take him back to D18. Assuming he tabs on course, that is.Charlie, stop.Charlie stops. He stands at the head of Daisys corridor like a machine that has been turned off. His jaw hangs. The s tring of drool snaps, and all at once theres a little strong spot on the linoleum beside one of those absurd but amusing slippers.Vera gets up, goes to him, kneels down before him. If she knew what we know, shed probably be a lot less willing to put her defenseless white neck within reach of those hanging hand, which are perverted by arthritis but still powerful. But of course she does not.She grasps the left bee slipper. Lift, she says.Charles Burnside lifts his right foot.Oh, quit being such a turkey, she says. Other one.Burny lifts his left foot a little, just enough for her to get the slipper off. forthwith the right one.Unseen by Vera, who is looking at his feet, Burny pulls his penis from the fly of his loose pajama pants and pretends to piss on Veras bowed head. His grin widens. At the same time, he lifts his right foot and she removes the other slipper. When she looks back up, Burnys purse old nib is back where it belongs. He considered baptizing her, he really did, bu t he has created almost enough mischief for one evening. One more little chore and hell be off to the land of dreamy dreams. Hes an old monster now. He needs his rest.All right, Vera says. compliments to tell me why one of these is dirtier than the other? No answer. She hasnt really expected one. Okay, beautiful. plump for to your room or down to the common room, if you want. Theres mi swashave popcorn and Jell-O pops tonight, I think. Theyre showing The Sound of Music. Ill see that these slippers get back to where they belong, and you taking them will be our little secret. Take them again and Ill have to report you, though. Capisce?Burny just stands there, vacant . . . but with that nasty little grin lifting his wrinkled old chops. And that light in his eyes. He capisces, all right.Go on, Vera says. And you better not have dropped a load on the floor in there, you old buzzard. over again she expects no reply, but this time she gets one. Burnys verbalise is low but perfectly clea r. Keep a civil tongue, you fat bitch, or Ill eat it right out of your head.She recoils as if slapped. Burny stands there with his workforce dangling and that little grin on his face.Get out of here, she says. Or I really will report you. And a great lot of good that would do. Charlie is one of Maxtons cash cows, and Vera knows it.Charlie recommences his slow walk (Pete Wexler has dubbed this particular gait the quondam(a) Fucks Shuffle), now in his bare feet. Then he turns back. The bleary lamps of his eyes check her. The word youre looking for is feline. Garfields a feline. Got it? fatheaded cow.With that he strains his trip down the corridor. Vera stands where she is, looking at him with her own jaw hanging. She has forget all about her crossword puzzle.In his room, Burny lies down on his bed and slips his reach into the small of his back. From there down he aches like a bugger. Later he will buzz for the fat old bitch, get her to bring him an ibuprofen. For now, though, h e has to stay sharp. One more little trick still to do.Found you, Potter, he murmurs. Good . . . old . . . Potsie.Burny hadnt been shaking doorknobs at all (not that Andy Railsback will ever know this). He had been feeling for the fellow who diddled him out of a sweet little Chicago house deal back in the late seventies. South Side, home of the White Sox. Blacktown, in other words. Lots of federal property in that one, and several bushels of Illinois dough as well. Enough skim available to last for years, more angles than on a baseball field, but George Go Fuck Your produce Potter had gotten there first, cash had changed hands beneath the proverbial table, and Charles Burn-side (or perchance then hed still been Carl Bierstone its hard to remember) had been out in the cold.But Burny has kept track of the thief for lo these many years. (Well, not Burny himself, in truth, but as we must by now have realized, this is a man with powerful friends.) Old Potsie what his friends called him in the days when he still had a few declared nonstarter in La Riviere back in the nineties, and lost most of what he still had hidden away during the Great dot com company Wreck of Double Aught. But thats not good enough for Burny. Potsie requires further punishment, and the coincidence of that particular fuckhead washing up in this particular fuckhole of a town is just too good to pass up. Burnys principal motive a unintelligent desire to keep stirring the pot, to make sure bad goes to worse hasnt changed, but this will serve that purpose, too.So he traveled to the Nelson, doing so in a way Jack understands and Judy Marshall has intuited, domiciliate in on Potsies room like some ancient bat. And when he feel Andy Railsback behind him, he was of course delighted. Railsback will save him having to make some other unknown call, and Burny is, in truth, getting tired of doing all their work for them.Now, back in his room, all comfy-cozy (except for the arthritis, that is) , he turns his mind away from George Potter, and begins to Summon. sounding up into the dark, Charles Burnsides eyes begin to glistering in a distinctly unsettling way. Gorg, he says. Gorg teelee. Dinnit a abbalah. Samman scented fern. Samman a montah a Irma. Dinnit a abbalah, Gorg. Dinnit a Ram Abbalah.Gorg. Gorg, come. administer the abbalah. knock golden buttons. Find the mother of Irma. Serve the abbalah, Gorg.Serve the cherry-red King.Burnys eyes slip closed. He goes to sleep with a smile on his face. And beneath their wrinkled lids, his eyes continue to glow like hooded lamps.Morty Fine, the night manager of the Nelson Hotel, is half-asleep over his magazine when Andy Railsback comes bursting in, startling him so badly that Morty almost tumbles out of his chair. His magazine falls to the floor with a flavorless slap.Jesus Christ, Andy, you almost gave me a heart attack Morty cries. You ever hear of knocking, or at least clearing your goddam throat?Andy takes no notice, and Morty realizes the old familiar is as white as a sheet. Maybe hes the one having the heart attack. It wouldnt be the first time one occurred in the Nelson.You gotta call the police, Andy says. Theyre stately. Dear Jesus, Morty, theyre the most horrible pictures I ever saw . . . Polaroids . . . and oh man, I thought he was going to come back in . . . come back in any second . . . but at first I was just froze, and I . . . I . . .Slow down, Morty says, concerned. What are you talking about?Andy takes a deep breath and makes a visible crusade to get himself under control. Have you seen Potter? he asks. The guy in 314?Nope, Morty says, but most nights hes in Luckys around this time, having a few beers and maybe a hamburger. Although why anybody would eat anything in that place, I dont know. Then, perhaps associating one ptomaine palace with another Hey, have you heard what the cops found out at Eds Eats? Trevor Gordon was by and he said Never mind. Andy sits in the chair on the other side of the desk and stares at Morty with wet, terrified eyes. Call the police. Do it right now. Tell them that the Fisherman is a man named George Potter, and he lives on the third floor of the Nelson Hotel. Andys face tightens in a hard grimace, then relaxes again. rightfulness down the hall from yours truly.Potter? Youre dreaming, Andy. That guys nothing but a retired builder. Wouldnt hurt a fly.I dont know about flies, but he hurt the hell out of some little kids. I seen the Polaroids he took of them. Theyre in his closet. Theyre the tally things you ever saw.Then Andy does something that amazes Morty and convinces him that this isnt a joke, and probably not just a mistake, either Andy Railsback begins to cry.hay-scented fern Freneau, a.k.a. Irma Freneaus grieving mother, is not actually grieving yet. She knows she should be, but grief has been deferred. Right now she feels as if she is floating in a cloud of warm bright wool. The doctor (Pat Skardas associate, Norma Whi testone) gave her five milligrams of lorazepam four or five hours ago, but thats only the start. The Holiday Trailer Park, where tansy and Irma have lived since Cubby Freneau took off for Green bay laurel in ninety-eight, is handy to the Sand Bar, and she has a part-time thing going with Lester Moon, one of the bartenders. The Thunder Five has dubbed Lester Moon rancid Cheese for some reason, but boulder fern unfailingly calls him Lester, which he appreciates almost as much as the occasional boozy grapple in Tansys bedroom or out back of the Bar, where theres a mattress (and a black light) in the storeroom. Around five this evening, Lester ran over with a quart of java brandy and four hundred milligrams of OxyContin, all considerately crushed and ready for snorting. Tansy has done half a dozen lines already, and she is cruising. Looking over old pictures of Irma and just . . . you know . . . cruising.What a pretty baby she was, Tansy thinks, unaware that not far away, a horrifi ed hotel clerk is looking at a very different picture of her pretty baby, a nightmare Polaroid he will never be able to forget. It is a picture Tansy herself will never have to look at, suggesting that perhaps there is a God in heaven.She turns a page (GOLDEN MEMORIES has been stamped on the front of her scrapbook), and here are Tansy and Irma at the Mississippi Electrix company picnic, back when Irma was four and Mississippi Electrix was still a year away from bankruptcy and everything was more or less all right. In the photo, Irma is wade with a bunch of other tykes, her laughing face smeared with chocolate ice cream.Looking fixedly at this snapshot, Tansy reaches for her glass of coffee brandy and takes a small sip. And suddenly, from nowhere (or the place from which all our more ill and unconnected thoughts float out into the light of our regard), she finds herself remembering that dumb Edgar Allan Poe poem they had to short-change in the ninth grade. She hasnt thought of it in years and has no reason to now, but the words of the opening stanza rise effortlessly and perfectly in her mind. Looking at Irma, she recites them aloud in a toneless, pauseless vocalize that no doubt would have caused Mrs. Normandie to detention her stringy white hair and groan. Tansys pattern doesnt affect us that way instead it gives us a deep and lasting chill. It is like listening to a rime reading given by a corpse.Once upon a mihnigh dreary while I ponnered weak n weary over many a quaint n curris stack of forgotten lore while I nodded nearly nappin sunly there came a tappin as of someone genly rappin rappin at my chamber door At this precise moment there comes a soft rapping at the cheap fiber-board door of Tansy Freneaus Airstream. She looks up, eyes floating, lips pursed and glossed with coffee brandy.Lesser? Is that you?It might be, she supposes. Not the TV people, at least she hopes not. She wouldnt talk to the TV people, sent them packing. She knows, in some deep and deplorably cunning part of her mind, that they would lull her and drag her only to make her look stupid in the glare of their lights, the way that the people on the Jerry Springer Show always end up looking stupid.No answer . . . and then it comes again. Tap. Tap-tap.Tis some visitor, she says, getting up. Its like getting up in a dream. Tis some visitor, I murmured, tappin at my chamber door, only this n nothin more.Tap. Tap-tap.Not like curled knuckles. Its a thinner sound than that. A sound like a single fingernail.Or a bank note.She crosses the room in her haze of drugs and brandy, bare feet mouth on carpet that was once unsmooth and is now balding the ex-mother. She opens the door onto this bleary-eyed summer evening and sees nothing, because shes looking too high. Then something on the welcome mat rustles.Something, some black thing, is looking up at her with bright, inquiring eyes. Its a raven, omigod its Poes raven, come to pay her a visit.Jesus, Im trippin, T ansy says, and runs her hands through her thin hair.Jesus repeats the boast on the welcome mat. And then, chipper as a chickadee GorgIf asked, Tansy would have said she was too stoned to be frightened, but this is apparently not so, because she gives out a disconcerted little cry and takes a step backward.The crow hops briskly across the doorsill and strides onto the faded over-embellished carpet, still looking up at her with its bright eyes. Its feathers glisten with condensed drops of mist. It bops on past her, then pauses to preen and fluff. It looks around as if to ask, Howm I doin, sweetheart?Go away, Tansy says. I dont know what the fuck you are, or if youre here at all, but Gorg the crow insists, then spreads its wing and fleets across the trailers living room, a charred fleck burnt off the back of the night. Tansy screams and cringes, instinctively protect her face, but Gorg doesnt come near her. It alights on the table beside her bottle, there not being any bust of Pal las handy.Tansy thinks It got disoriented in the fog, thats all. It could even be rabid, or have that Key calcium oxide disease, whatever you call it. I ought to go in the kitchen and get the broom. Shoo it out before it shits around . . .But the kitchen is too far. In her current state, the kitchen seems hundreds of miles away, somewhere in the vicinity of Colorado Springs. And theres probably no crow here at all. sentiment of that goddamn poem has caused her to hallucinate, thats all . . . that, and losing her daughter.For the first time the pain gets through the haze, and Tansy winces from its cruel and wiry heat. She remembers the little hands that sometimes pressed so tidily against the sides of her neck. The cries in the night, summoning her from sleep. The smell of her, angelic from the bath.Her name was Irma she suddenly shouts at the apologue standing so boldly beside the brandy bottle. Irma, not fucking Lenore, what kind of stupid name is Lenore? Lets hear you say Irma Irma the visitor croaks obediently, arresting her to silence. And its eyes. Ah Its glittering eyes draw her, like the eyes of the Ancient Mariner in that other poem she was supposed to learn but never did. Irma-Irma-Irma-Irma Stop it She doesnt want to hear it after all. She was wrong. Her daughters name out of that alien throat is foul, insupportable. She wants to put her hands over her ears and cant. Theyre too heavy. Her hands have joined the stove and the refrigerator (miserable half-busted thing) in Colorado Springs. All she can do is look into those glittering black eyes.It preens for her, ruffling its sable sateen feathers. They make a loathsome little scuttering noise all up and down its back and she thinks, Prophet said I, thing of evil prophet still, if bird or devilCertainty fills her heart like cold water. What do you know? she asks. Why did you come?Know croaks the Crow Gorg, nodding its beak briskly up and down. ComeAnd does it wink? Good God, does it wink at her?Wh o killed her? Tansy Freneau whispers. Who killed my pretty baby?The crows eyes fix her, turn her into a bug on a pin. Slowly, feeling more in a dream than ever (but this is happening, on some level she understands that perfectly), she crosses to the table. calm down the crow watches her, still the crow draws her on. Nights Hadean shore, she thinks.Nights Plutonian fuckin shore.Who? Tell me what you knowThe crow looks up at her with its bright black eyes. Its beak opens and closes, revealing a wet red interior in tiny peeks.Tansy it croaks. ComeThe strength runs out of her legs, and she drops to her knees, biting her tongue and making it bleed. Crimson drops splatter her U of W sweatshirt. Now her face is on a level with the birds face. She can see one of its wings brushing up and down, sensuously, on the glass side of the coffee-brandy bottle. The smell of Gorg is dust and heaped dead flies and ancient urns of buried spice. Its eyes are shining black portholes looking into some oth er world. Hell, perhaps. Or Sheol.Who? she whispers.Gorg stretches its black and rustling neck until its black beak is actually in the cup of her ear. It begins to whisper, and eventually Tansy Freneau begins to nod. The light of sanity has left her eyes. And when will it return? Oh, I think we all know the answer to that one.Can you say Nevermore?