Is Wal-Mart Good for America Free Essays

Wal-shop is the most impressive business in America since it sets measures for America in general. Wal-shop is one of America’s most driving rebate stores making it progressively ideal for shoppers. Wal-shop makes things helpful by having all that you need in one store at the least expensive cost. We will compose a custom exposition test on Is Wal-Mart Good for America or then again any comparative subject just for you Request Now Wal-shop has an astounding methodology of causing things to appear to be modest; nonetheless, it’s a deception. I accept the United States hasn’t profited by Wal-Mart in various manners. Walmart has exploited their initial value point. They’re methodology is drawing out the least expensive thing before a passageway and pulling you towards it, be that as it may, as you are pulled towards it, you are driven into more costly things making the dream that the entire walkway is at a lower cost also. Buyers get bulldozed and get it and that’s how Wal-bazaar makes an enormous measure of benefit. So does deceiving shoppers truly make Wal-store a decent organization for America? Another motivation behind why Wal-store isn’t useful for America is pay cuts and position misfortunes. As indicated by PBS Frontline, â€Å"over 1 million occupations have been lost to China.† Jobs that used to be anything but difficult to get in America are being lost to China, similar to steel laborers and plastic specialists, only for organizations like Wal-store. Wal-store has an excessive amount of control over littler producers. They purchase modest imports which hurt American hands on laborers enormously. This shows Wal-bazaar isn't useful for America. Step by step instructions to refer to Is Wal-Mart Good for America, Essay models

Media Culture and Society Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Media Culture and Society - Essay Example Matthew Arnold once battled to guarantee that the social existence of a country ought to be accessible to all, not simply the wealthy in their extravagant salons, and the BBC has to a limited extent been a piece of that crucial. Be that as it may, the issue of parity is a precarious one as Scannell talks about in his article on the BBC. How far should the BBC go in speaking to the general population? What amount should the open compensation? These are troublesome issues that will be investigated in the court of this paper. Over the span of his article regarding the matter Paddy Scannell examines the BBC's imposing business model on open telecom, its history, and its duty to general society. The essential reason behind state control of telecasters is that these associations are just too critical to ever be left to their own gadgets (Scannell, p4). The administration needs to control them in light of the fact that strategically and socially they have a genuine control over people groups lives. They anticipate into people groups' homes any number of stories, news things, and recent developments. They can likewise extend into homes negative thoughts that may prompt negative results. Such was the deduction in the beginning of the BBC. Broadcasting ought to be constrained by the individuals who know best. But various individuals dislike the extraordinary control that the legislature has over communicating, and this prompted a possible advancement. Instead of having the BBC be financed out of general income, it would be done as such by membership. The TV permit disaster is behind a lot of this issue. Plain vans drive all over the roads of Britain looking to distinguish unlicensed TVs (TV Vans). To American eyes, this is something out of North Korea. To Britons, it is a piece of the historical backdrop of the BBC. For a long time, business TV was viewed as an unalloyed terrible. At the point when new stations were being sold, they were given to the BBC, on the grounds that â€Å"[i]n short, business TV was viewed as neglecting to satisfy its duties as an open help. It was not fit, in its current structure, to broaden its exercises, and the plum that the board of trustees had on offerâ€a third TV channelâ€was unhesitatingly granted to the BBC† (Scannell, p9). In any case, as Scannell contends, if an open telecaster can make the correct sort of show it can assist with building up an illuminated majority rule government (Scannell, p5). This is a piece of the obligation and challenge of open TV. It can assist with forming the psyches of residents and impart the best sort of ethics. Surely, this is the reason numerous individuals bolster open TV. However, when they see shows, for example, Eastenders and the Weakest Link on their open TV stations they wonder why they need to pay for them. This is a piece of the test of open TV: not all preferences are similar. Eastenders specifically has come in for a lot of analysis throughout the years. This drama which happens in an anecdotal neighborhood in London has been broadcasting live for a considerable length of time and has for some time been one of the most well known shows on the BBC. Eastenders is a show that presents average workers life in Britain. There are some who contend this is inside the order of an o pen supporter and that the individuals who contradict such shows are being elitist. The command of an open telecaster is to interest all sections of the populace. Few out of every odd show can resemble Masterpiece Theater or an elevated level

Combining Environmental Groups in Order to Preserve Wildlife :: Environment Environmental Pollution Preservation

Joining Environmental Groups so as to Preserve Wildlife Ecological issues have been an issue everywhere throughout the world.â Some species are continually being pronounced jeopardized and very nearly extinction.â A gathering of concerned individuals consolidate to bring assets up in request to improve the territory or produce more ofâ the imperiled species.â These associations have end up being successful.â Many have even expelled plants and creatures from the not insignificant rundown of imperiled species.â A difficult that perseveres inside the earth bunches is the utilization of funding.â The associations get a lot of cash from supporters, however the entirety of the gifts are not going toward the gatherings certain objective to spare the endangered.â Some of the cash is spent on paying workers, association costs, and above all else on publicizing (Belt 2). Â It is totally pointless for given cash to be spent just to get more contributors.â If that cash went toward the utilization of logical work or living space fix, the earth gatherings would be and significantly more prominent achievement thus considerably more should be possible to save the planets endangered.â I suggest that we consolidate every natural gathering into one.â If they were to all combine, a great deal more should be possible to spare the plants and creatures that are getting terminated. Â Environment bunches have just improved the wildlife.â Many have collected enough cash to improve the living space of and imperiled species or even support the generation of practically wiped out animals.â This is the thing that they ought to do with the entirety of the cash that is given toward the specific associations, yet it isn't (Short 1).â The gatherings need to go through a lot of their cash for a various measure of superfluous reasons.â They need to pay for voyaging, advancements, and publicizing, which not the slightest bit benefits the jeopardized plants and creatures. Â One of the primary explanations behind joining the entirety of the gatherings, is that it would be increasingly helpful forâ the going through of funds.â The measure of cash that ecological gatherings get is outrageous.â One of the bigger gatherings has a yearly financial plan of $64 million dollars.â They pivot and burn through $54 million dollars of that for publicizing so as to get more givers (Belt 1). Â So a great part of the cash gave to ecological gatherings is spent on pointless activities.â $12 million dollars is being spent to keep an incredible rib cheerful.

Consciousness Of The Competitive Business Rivals Business Essay - Free Essay Example

Sample details Pages: 14 Words: 4294 Downloads: 8 Date added: 2017/06/26 Category Business Essay Type Analytical essay Did you like this example? Business firms these days , are ever conscious of the competition they have to face from rivals offering similar products. In the process they are on a constant look out to differentiate their brand and product with anything that can carve out a segment for themselves. Customer segment retention has become a very huge challenge that, with the ever expanding market with multiple players, distinction or a change in strategy is the prime focus of the managements. Don’t waste time! Our writers will create an original "Consciousness Of The Competitive Business Rivals Business Essay" essay for you Create order (W.Chan Kim) It has often been argued that a structuralist approach is only applicable in favorable environments where there are enough resources for an organization to achieve a competitive advantage. But, when it comes to an industry where the conditions are unfavorable, the approach could not be right. Instead, another approach like reconstructionist approach could be used. (W.Chan Kim) In this dissertation, we discuss some of the strategies and the impact on their structures and performances of some of the companies which have been listed in the fortune 500 list, 2009. Chapter 2 Literature Review Our analysis of this aspect chiefly revolves around the following set of questions. How can an organization continuously adapt  its structure to the ever changing consumer needs? In the process, what impact can it have on the strategy to ensure sustained organizational growth and performance? What is the role of competitors in the decision making process of th e company pertaining to structural changes? How can an organization ensure that there is consistency in adapting to the changed structure across all the business operating units taking into consideration the changing internal laws and the culture? As said above, we majorly focus on the structural/strategical changes of the 5 companies that we have taken as case studies on the basis of the above three questions. How can an organization continuously adapt its structure to the ever changing consumer needs? In the process, what impact can it have on the strategy to ensure sustained organizational growth and performance? Every industry has its own set of limitations and looks for opportunities to cash in. Let us consider the case of Information Technology sector. IT sector took a whole new turn with the concept of off shoring. Off shoring basically means awarding the contracts to manage the IT systems in the organization to places where the cost of labor is relatively cheaper when compared to the home country. This brought about a revolution and the developing economies immediately looked to cash in on the opportunity. Lots of countries opened up their markets by deregulation of economic policies, reduced land rates for companies willing to invest in their countries etc. So this was a major strategical change as far as the IT sector is concerned. We shall take the case of Accenture which is a fortune 500 company expanding globally and is known for its aggressive strategy making. But before that, lets take a brief look at its history. Accenture Accenture is a fortune 500 global company which is headquartered in Hamilton, Bermuda. Its operations basically involve global management consulting, technology and outsourcing services. One of their missions is to deliver innovation to their clients in terms of the solutions they provide, and contributing to the clients businesses by making them cost effective. The company divides its operations into five main groups which are as follows: Communications and high technology Financial Services Public Service Products Resources (Accenture.com) IT Industry and major developments in the recent past The need for businesses to increase efficiency and reduce costs has helped the IT sector grow at a phenomenal rate in the last couple of years. IT consulting is a highly competitive business where there is a need for innovation and effective solutions. One of the biggest threats to the bigger companies in this field is the phenomenal rise in the number of players in the market. The other challenge that this industry faces is the ever changing needs. A version of software cannot sustain in the market for a really long time. We see versions getting released over a simple piece of software. Hence, it would be an additional burden on the companies sometimes to train their employees according to the change in versions. Accenture Strategies Accentures business model is supposed to revolve around the following two main pillars : 1)Service Delivery Model (SDM) : SDM essentially consists of the following : Global Delivery entre Network which consists of 40 delivery centers around the globe providing technology and outsourcing services. Teams of professionals who are skilled enough to understand and are extremely client focused. Standard Processes, tools to enhance productivity. (Jean-Paul Thommen) 2) Changing Workforce Model CWM structure essentially means segregation of the workforce into the following layers Consulting Workforce Solutions Workforce Services Workforce Enterprise Workforce The following strategies have been adopted by Accenture ever since the Enron scandal broke out: Just like the other players in the IT sector, Accenture is expanding to emerging economies and pursuing and making the fullest use of its outsourcing operations. Accenture has laid a prime focus on volume/efficiency and over the last decade or so, it has experienced astronomical increase in the number of employees. This, in a way has lead to decrease in the knowledge productivity and has led to more stress on adherence to processes. This, in a way, has further brought down scope for innovation which is supposed to be the prime brand promise of the company. Accentures strategy is pretty plain and simple these days Hire more people to improve the turn over of the company.(Report Buyer) Accenture has always believed in enable its employees to innovate on solutions and this has been its major differentiator from others in the market. In this way, Accenture feels that employee retention will not be a problem.(Accenture.com) However, with the rising number of employees each year, stress would be more on policy and process adherence than actually giving the employees the required freedom to innovate on solutions. Accenture Corporate Structure The corporate structure of Accenture is a direct reflection of its core competencies. In terms of consulting, Accenture primarily addresses business management and IT issues. It is during this stage that individual solution strategies are chalked out with the client. This involves identifying strategic potential and and analyzing how processes like customer relationship management/logistics can be optimized. Accenture and its response to ever changing consumer needs The following developments can be talked about in the company in the last 5 -10 years. The competition in the IT industry has increased so much that every player in the field has to look out for a differentiating factor to enable them to have a competitive advantage over others. For Accenture, it is Innovation to its employees and Extreme Quality deliverables to its clients. In the process of facilitating quality oriented and effective solutions to its clients, Accenture has tied up with the major business solution providers like Oracle, SAP. The prime idea is to work closely with these companies and have a closer look at the R and D processes there. The R and D and Innovation centers are located all over the world and are still expanding Accenture has realized that quality can be a very major differentiating factor and has aligned its internal processes extremely client oriented. Some of the examples include strict adherence to coding standards, documentation pat terns etc. It is not very surprising that any employee can find relevant documentation on various technologies, thanks to the vigorous documentation standards followed. Accenture Role of Competitors in the decision making process of the company Major competitors of Accenture include IBM, Cap Gemini, CSC to name a few. Competitors play a very major role in the decision making process of the company in terms of internal processes and also in terms of the way the clients are generally dealt with. Accenture believes that it is only a very strong and skilled workforce that can ensure better deliverables to the clients. Entry level employees would have to go through close to 500 hours of rigorous training and are trained on various processes/technologies. This is the differentiation it tries to make as far far as beating competitors is concerned. Apart from developing a highly skilled workforce, Accenture also focuses on Business Consulting, which is their prime revue generator. Accenture Consistency in structure implementation across business units Accenture has a firm strategy of adapting very quickly to the changed strategies. Lets take the case of India, its major outsourcing projects destination. Accenture has so well beaten the onslaught of Indian IT service providers like TCS, Infosys that even its competitors like IBM, EDS are trying to emulate the off shoring business model flowed by Accenture in India. The fact that at least 40000 of the employees out of the total 1,60,000 employees will be in India is indicative of the aggression with which Accenture follows its business model Low cost and greater effectively. Hence, to sum it all up, Accenture has largely been successful due to its incredible outsourcing strategy, which involves rapid adaption to the country to which the works have been outsourced to. It is this quick Brand Coca Cola Coca-Cola Enterprises, established in 1986, is a young company by the standards of the Coca-Cola system. Yet each of its franchises has a strong heritage in the traditions of Coca-Cola that is the foundation for this Company. The Coca-Cola Company traces its beginning to 1886, when an Atlanta pharmacist, Dr. John Pemberton , began to produce Coca-Cola syrup for sale in fountain drinks. However the bottling business began in 1899 when two Chattanooga businessmen, Benjamin F. Thomas and Joseph B. Whitehead , secured the exclusive rights to bottle and sell Coca-Cola for most of the United States from The Coca-Cola Company. Beverages Industry Major developments in the recent years Barbara Mooray(2006) explains in her book For years the story in the nonalcoholic sector centered on the power struggle betweenÃÆ' ¢Ãƒ ¢Ã¢â‚¬Å¡Ã‚ ¬Ãƒâ€šÃ‚ ¦Coke and Pepsi. But as the pop fight has topped out, the industrys giants have begun relying on new product flavorsÃÆ' ¢Ãƒ ¢Ã¢â‚¬Å¡Ã‚ ¬Ãƒâ€šÃ‚ ¦and looking to noncarbonated beverages for growth. The market size of this industry has been rapidly changing. It would be surprising to note that soft drink industry constitutes only 46.8 % of the non alcoholic beverages industry. Data Monitor(2009) found that the total market value of soft drinks reached about $500 billion. Further in 2008, the total soft drink value was 435637.3 litres. This clearly illustrates the fact that soft drink industry is extremely lucrative with a lot of scope for high profits but the fight to capture major share of the market is still on and doesnt seem to end any sooner. The soft drink industry is majorly dominated by three players in the world . Coke which boasts of a market share up to 50%. Pepsico which has a market share of close to 21% Cadbury Schwepps which holds a share of 7%. (Murray, 2006) According to Coca Cola Annual report, 2009, it has the most bottle sales which is close to $22 billion. The Coke product line basically consists of products like Coke, Fanta, Diet Code, Burqs etc. PepsiCo comes next which has a sale of $18 billion, PepsiCos product line consists of Pepsi, Slice and Mountain Dew which make up for more than a quarter of its sales.(PepsiCo Inc, 2009). On the other hand, Cadbury Schweppes had a sale volume of close to $6 billion with a product line consisting of soft drinks such as AW Root Beer, Canada beer, and Dr. Pepper (Cadbury Schweppes, 2009) Coca Cola is currently the best selling soft drink in the world with Pepsi following behind, It is a known fact that the company has seen double digit growth rates over the last few years (Wikipedia). The only place where Coke isnt the rule r is probably the middle east but figures indicate that it is picking up there as well (Wikipedia). Competitive Forces for Coca Cola Company Players in the soft drink industry face very stiff competition from their rivals, owing to the fact that every drink is replaceable to a large extent with one of the drinks in their rival product offerings. Hence, every decision made in this sector particularly, is influenced by their rivals strategies. Substitute products can be the right word to be used in this particular context to describe the competition faced. Although Coca Cola, PepsiCo and Cadbury Schweppes are the major players in the market, the fact that they are very well established worldwide which increases the competition in the market. Coca Cola has always believed in adopting a differentiation strategy from the days of its inception. A case in point is Woodruff (President of Coke) refusing to match Pepsis 6 cent 12 ounce bottle (Pendergrast, 2000). Coke Adaptation to changing industry and consumer needs The first question that should be posed to ourselves before we can start this research is Why do people drink Cola? Cola, as with other drinks is taken to reduce the thirst in the body. But the fact is, consumers can drink water as well to do that. So, what exactly does Cola give to a person apart from eradicating the thirst factor. Is it something to do with emotional satisfaction that one gets out of drinking it? It can be noted that drinking Cola can be called as a want more than a need. Since all the brands taste alike, it is up to the companies as to how they position their brands in the consumers minds. Coca-Cola hopes to create a differentiation in the soft drink segment by a strong, loyal customer base. In the process, it has brought out various products from time to time to cater to specific segments. The major strategy of Coke was to differentiate their products into two types: Caffeine drinks Diet drinks. It was often thought that one of the major threa ts of the cola market was the lemon-lime sector which was gaining strength in the mid 90s around the world. However, Coke came up with Sprite to literally diminish the effects of the lime and lemon markets. Sprite has been giving so much competition to 7 Up that Cadbury Schweppes has to re formulate the drink to make it more sweeter and crisper. Coke has catered to diet conscious consumer segment as well by coming up with an amazing product line which consists of diet coke and a couple of other drinks. Diet Coke is thought about as a product which is low on calories and thereby very healthy when compared the regular coca cola which is believed to have a very high sugar content. Coke Influence of Competitors As discussed above, one of the major competitors of Coke is PepsiCo. Both the companies have been in a virtual war since early 90s to get a hold over the Cola Market. Both the companies have been trying to outperform each other in the form of brand image enhancement techniques/advertising campaigns. Pepsi came up with Pepsi Challenge where the consumers were blind folded and asked to choose which of the drinks was better Pepsi or Coke. Most of the consumers chose Pepsi over Coke which turned out to be a major jolt for Coke in its attempts of market capture. Market share of Pepsi jumped to 14 % from a paltry 6 %. Pepsi was ruling the roost then. Coke came up with similar tests which gave them more disastrous results. Consumers still preferred Pepsi over Coke. By 1979, Pepsi had a market share of 17.9 % and was closing in on the 23% share that Coke had. By 1989, Coke had only 2.9 % lead while its grocery store market was trailing. The management unanimously ordered for the remova l of old coke from the market. Marketing department of Coke figured out that only 12 % of the consumers showed loyalty coke compared to 18% of that of Pepsi. Market Research proved that there needed to be a major revamp with regards to the taste. Samples which were more sweeter and crisper were rolled out into the market and tests were conducted on the consumers. Consumers gave a thumping response saying that the new taste was much better than Pepsi and the old Coke. However, removal of the old formula evoked widespread protests from various corners of the country. So, the management decided to keep the old classic coke and produce the new coke. Similarly, the rolling out of Sprite much later saw to it that Coke didnt lose out because of the entry of the lemon lime club. Coke Consistency in adapting to the changed structure Coke has recently seen a lot of changes to its structure, thanks to globalization and its impact on the business world. Coke has a more decentralized process of decision making now unlike the past. As can be easily said the main departments, that is marketing and production have to work hand in hand to make sure that they counter their competitors and come up with a brilliant output. Hence, ensuring consistency across all the business operating units was never an issue with coke. Brand Wal Mart About Wal-Mart is an American corporation which runs a large group of departmental stores which offer bulk discounts and a chain of warehouse stores. Wal-Mart is also the largest private employer and the largest grocery retailer in the United States of America. Wal-Mart operates under its own name in the United States, operates in Mexico as Walmex, in the United Kingdom as Asda in Japan as Seiyu, and in India as Best Price. Wal-Marts investments outside North America have had mixed results: its operations in the United Kingdom, South America and China are highly successful, while it was forced to pull out of Germany and South Korea when ventures there were unsuccessful. Wal-Mart was rated to be the most revenue generating private organization in the Forbes list 2010. Some of the major operations of Wal-Mart include -Wal-Mart stores, US - Walmart discount stores -Walmart Supercenter - Neighbourhood market by Walmart - Supermercado de Wal-mart - Sams club - Wa lmart International Wal-Mart : Strategies Wal-Mart implements a low cost-high volume strategy. The strategy aims at customer satisfaction and at the same time providing the customer a good experience. Some of the basic strategies followed by Wal-Mart are as follows Low Cost Wal-Mart is known to have lower operating expenses than the industry average. This comes from the fact that Wal-mart has superior distribution capability which is in turn due to perfect location of the stores, warehouses, cross docking and superior information management. High Volume Wal-Mart offers low prices for its good, combined with their lower operating costs. This clearly illustrates the fact that the strategy is to grab a larger volume using mass segmentation. Customer Satisfaction Low Prices coupled with advanced data management techniques and motivated staff gives overall satisfaction to the customers than any other discount retailers. In addition to this, Wal-Mart is a one stop solution for a wide range of products. In the word s of Sam Walton, CEO,Wal-Marts aims at creating a loyal customer base by lowering their cost of living through offering quality and other products at significantly lower prices, while surprising them on the convenience and service level side. Perfect way to gauge the companys strategy of mass market segmentation. Wal-Mart acquired enough volume through extremely strategi consideration of locations which were away from competition. Wal-Mart Changing consumer needs As discussed above, Wal-Mart has a basic strategy of offering the essentials to the consumers at highly discounted rates. It is an evident fact that Wal-Mart is retail outlet offering all that are needs to the consumers. Wal-Mart follows a strategy of of focusing on the sale of popular products and discontinuing with the sale of not so popular ones. It includes pressurizing the manufacturers of the popular products to have contract with them in order to have a cost cutting mechanism as well as an efficient distribution system. Since the focus is more on sale of popular products which the consumer endorses, there need not be any special efforts needed to adapt to the changing consumer needs as such. Emphasis has to be laid on identification of the popular products in different segments. Wal- mart Competitors and effects Competition is definitely fierce among the discount retailers. Of the top 15 discount stores of 2001, at least three declared bankruptcy during the recent economic meltdown. The reasons were pretty much obvious. Lack of differentiation strategy when it came to product offerings. Extremely volume driven strategies that were aimed at grabbing the market share even if it were at the cost of denting the profits made by the organization. Wal-Mart has focused on the following aspects to beat the competitors around it Distribution Capabilities The distribution network of Wal-Mart is massive and is very difficult to replicate by any other existing discount in the market. Especially, when it comes to the efficient utilization of electronic linkage of sales and inventory information using sophisticated ERP systems, Wal-Mart are irreplaceable. Supplier Relations Wal-Mart has fostered its relations with its suppliers over the years and it is extremely difficult for other retai lers to enjoy such relations with the suppliers for 2 reasons Wal-Marts competitors cannot offer the volume of goods that it can offer to the suppliers. In addition, Wal -Mart beats the other retailers in the compensation offered to its suppliers because it reaps savings in the cost operated areas. Advanced IT Systems Wal-Marts IT systems are very advanced and aid the supply chain structure very effectively. Wal-Mart constantly upgrades its systems to remain up-to-date. Wal-Mart : Structural Changes and adaption to business units It is a known fact that Wal-Mart has been hugely successful in the US market. The overall strategy of offering lower prices can be applicable anywhere in the world and hence, Wal-Marts competitive advantages can be transferred abroad as well. This can be very well known from the fact that the number of stores of Wal-Mart outside US has gone up to 1200 (as compared to 600 in the year 2005). The number of stores in the US is 1647. However, there were cases where Wal-Mart could not successfully assimilate a similar strategy in countries like China, Japan and South Korea due to the following reasons Differences between Wal-Mart and the local suppliers over the compensations. Volume not arriving at the right time. Partnerships of the local retailers with the suppliers, confining the suppliers to have only limited agreements with Wal-Mart. Differences in consumer preferences which were totally against the pre-conceived strategies of Wal-Mart especially in countries like China . Difference in consumer purchasing habits. The Dell Revolution Dell was founded in the year 1984 by Micheal Dell. Michealo Dell is also known to be the longest serving CEO ever. Ever since Dell entered the Chinese market and began to re-structure itself after choosing a unique marketing strategy, the sales rocketed. Dells direct sales model, collaborative supply chain, direct service and efficient marketing system made it a global leader in the field of computer manufacturing by giving it an unparalleled competitive advantage. Dell Ever changing consumer needs Dell has always believed that the best way it can take a good share of the a market I by getting as closer to the consumers as possible. Ever since the late 80s when the industry was going through a lot of economical and technological changes, Dell was at the forefront of adapting to them. First by establishing the Internet infrastructure for booking/orders related activities it was able to increase its customer base from existing markets. Using the same infrastructure it was able to carry out its marketing strategies in new offices as well. Notebooks and desktops account for almost 80% of the revenue generation for Dell Computers. The company drives nearly two thirds of its business from large businesses and government entities. Corporate customers include Ford Motor Company, Boeing, and international giant Deutsche Bank Half of the sales came from PCs which had Intel 80386 microprocessor. Dell also integrated its file server with UNIX operating system. In order to get closer to customers needs, Dell opened up offices in every part of North America and Europe. Dell- Competitors and their impact On of the major strategies of Dell was to beat the competition by collaborations. Dell takes pride in actually collaborating with corporations to diversify its technological base unlike its competitors who like HP who went on an acquisition spree in order to eliminate competition. For instance, Dells collaboration with Xerox Corporation as a provider of printing products and services was an addition to the list of comprehensive business services that Dell offered. Dell believes in global collaboration and not just industry specific collaboration. Dell has offices in all parts of the world just to stay closer to the consumers and be able to capture the niche market. Every office has freedom to act independently but at the end of the day, they are wholly accountable for the results. Dell has never taken a comparison mode when it came to promotions and marketing. Even if you look at the advertisements, it can be observed that they only try to make the consumers aware of the tech nological benefits they would gather out of a particular product rather than what they would not get our of heir competitors products. The idea essentially was to project a virtual home with a dynamic wifi and an extremely jovial environment for those who use Dell products. Some of the tag lines also include I will make my PC make m stereo run for its life. Hence, the essence was to integrate different technologies into a single desktop and market the product in a Be direct way. BIBLIOGRAPHY Management Consulting Today Jean- Paul Thommon Pendergrast, M. (2000). For God, Country and Coca-Cola: The Definitive History of the Great American Soft Drink and the Company That Makes It. Basic Books.

Essay about Analysis of Atmosphere in Kate Chopins The...

Analysis of Atmosphere in The Storm Merriam Webster dictionary defines atmosphere as a) the whole mass of air surrounding the earth and b) the overall aesthetic effect of a work of art. Kate Chopin integrates these two definitions together effortlessly in her short story The Storm. The meteorological atmosphere parallels the literary atmosphere with the building tension, the culmination, and the aftermath. As the thunderstorm and the story begin, the reader can almost feel the tension in the air. Calixta is at home by herself, tending to her sewing, while her husband Bobinà ´t and her son Bibi wait out the storm in the shelter of the grocery store. Calixta does not notice the approaching storm (108) until the sky†¦show more content†¦She begins to nervously worry aloud about the whereabouts of Bobinà ´t and Bibi, and what their fate might be if they are caught outside in the storm, encouraging Alcà ©e to reassure her. As the storm is reaching its peak, Calixta and Alcà ©e encounter the height of their passion for one another. As she stands at the window, a bolt of lightning strikes close by, causing Calixta to jump away from the window straight into Alcà ©es comforting embrace. The two suddenly find themselves caught in the overwhelming passion they once had for one another. As they look into each others eyes, Alcà ©e finds there is nothing for him to do but to gather her lips in a kiss (109). They no longer pay heed to the thunderstorm roaring outside as their rekindled spark becomes their only concern. When the rain begins to fall quietly on the land, the lovers lie together breathlessly, fighting the urge to sleep. After the storm has passed and Alcà ©e resumes his journey home, everything returns to normal, almost as if nothing out of the ordinary has occurred. The sun comes out, turning the glistening green world into a palace of gems (110). Bobinà ´t and Bibi return home safely to find Calixta cheerfully relieved. They sit down to eat supper, talking and laughing so loud that anyone might have heard them as far away as Laballià ©res (111). Meanwhile, Alcà ©e writes a loving letter (111) to his wife, Clarisse, who is away with the children on vacation. He tells her that he misses

Applied Theories for Critique of Political Economy -myassignmenthelp

Question: Discuss about th Applied Theories for Critique of Political Economy. Answer: Introduction The discussion for the following essay is the Marxs account of history. Karl Marx has been one of the greatest political figures and reformers and philosophers who through his works have revolutionized the Russian and world history at the same time. At the Karl Marx, the world needed a world of history and he knew he had to provide it because he understood the problems within the world and the revolutionaries (Samuel 2016). In this context, Karl Marx had brought out his new theory of History in his preface to A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy in the year 1859. New theory of history The topics Marx had chosen to deal with were related to the social class and the relation with the people by means of production. He described that men had to enter into social relations which are definite. These relations are created in relation to the social production. The economic structure of the society is built around the totality of the relations of production. These things are very much relevant when one discusses about the social relations and its connectivity with history (Resnick and Richard 2013). The production that the material life gives is in close relation with the social, political and intellectual lives of the human beings. Marx had also asserted the fact of the importance of psychological consciousness in the lives of the human beings. The people can understand about these things in the context of the social class only (Resnick and Richard 2013). Marx has discussed that historical change in the society can only occur in the context of the conflict and contradiction among the social people and their relations (Ritzer and Jeffrey 2017). Marx had depicted in his description that at a certain time of the development, the material production forces meet with conflicts and contradictions with the society on the basis of the current relations regarding to the productions. The era of the social revolution begins at a time when the relations with the productive forces of the society turn to their fetters (Ritzer and Jeffrey 2017) Importance of psychology and economics There is a huge importance of psychology and economics in the context of the social history and its change (Rabin 2013). Marx has described that when one studies about the social and moral transformations, one should always keep in mind the distinction between the material transformations of the economic conditions of production. There are several parameters that can identify these economic conditions like legal, political, religious, artistic and philosophic regimes. The social change becomes clear when the people become conscious of those conflicts and they fight to establish their own viewpoints. These economic changes gradually lead to the overall transformation of the overall infrastructure of the society (Rabin 2013). Marx has said time and again that the economics should not be neglected in these issues because he has spent a large time of his life in the British Library while collecting the economic data about the social changes that influence the historical changes as well. He exclaimed that any of the social orders cannot be destroyed if the productive sources in the society have been properly developed (Bloch 2013). He said that new superior relations could be developed in the social changes in the historical contexts. However, the older relations regarding to production cannot be replaced by the newer ones in terms of production. The nature of the mankind is to set such tasks that can be done only. It has b3en found in this context that the problems can be arisen only when the material solutions for the problematic condition will be present (Bloch 2013). The rise of Capitalism It has been argued by Marx that the capitalism can do much harm to the society while it can bring in new changes as well (Acemoglu and James 2015). He has considered that after socialism, the capitalism is at the advent of emerging as the new controlling system in the society and has the ability of influencing the society at a larger level. The revolutionary transformation into socialism is at the horizon with the advent of capitalism (Acemoglu and James 2015). Karl Marx has also asserted the fact that the several ideologies like Asiatic, ancient, feudal and the modern bourgeois classes have shown several ways to amend the social conditions by a huge rate and pushing the economic development of the society. He described the mode the bourgeois class followed over the years for production in the social context was an antagonistic one. This antagonistic view is not the kind of individual antagonism but it is the one that rises from the individual social condition existence of the human beings. The contradictory part in this is that the fact that productive forces that are developed within the bourgeois society also sets up the material conditions for the solution of antagonism (Debord 2012). Stages of history In his writings, Karl Marx has shown the several things in the depiction of history in the context of social revolution. He had exclaimed at the beginning of the each stage a new class would be born in the society and this would bring a downfall for the society (Berlin 2013). However, this downfall cannot be depicted as something negative but it should gain the mankind a huge share of benefit in the progress of it. These things or especially the changes would bring in class conflicts among the people (Berlin 2013). In the first stage (primitive communism) there are three aspects such as shared property, hunting and gathering and proto-democracy. In the second stage (slave society) the social production aspects are related to class, statism, agriculture, democracy and authoritarianism and private property. The third stage is called the feudalism where the most important aspects are aristocracy, theocracy, hereditary classes and nation-state (Berlin 2013). Conclusion This essay can be concluded by saying that Karl Marx has depicted several social perspectives related to history and he has showcased the initial stages of change of the social history. The social history is very much subject to change and the different stages are there through which the transformations take place. These various aspects are very much important to connect the changes in social history so the theory of history of Karl Marx is extremely important in this regard as well. References Acemoglu, Daron, and James A. Robinson. 2015 "The rise and decline of general laws of capitalism."The Journal of Economic Perspectives29, no. 1 (2015): 3-28. Berlin, Isaiah. 2013Karl Marx. Princeton University Press. Bloch, Maurice. 2013.Marxism and anthropology: the history of a relationship. Routledge. Debord, Guy. 2012.Society of the Spectacle. Bread and Circuses Publishing. Rabin, Matthew. 2013 "An approach to incorporating psychology into economics."The American Economic Review103, no. 3 (2013): 617-622. Resnick, Stephen A., and Richard D. Wolff. 2013. Class theory and history: Capitalism and communism in the USSR. Routledge. Ritzer, George, and Jeffrey Stepnisky. 2017Modern sociological theory. SAGE Publications. Samuel, Raphael, 2016 ed.People's History and Socialist Theory (Routledge Revivals). Routledge.

Paintball free essay sample

Paintball is my favorite thing to do in my spare because it never gets old and is always fun. Paintball is the ultimate version of laser tag and capture the flag. It may not be the right sport for all people because and can sting at times and leaves welts and bruises. But if you’re looking for excitement and don’t hurt easily I suggest you try out paintball. The place I like to go to is the Paintball Jungle because it is not confined to small courts and the only thing there is in small courts is air ball and speedball. But when I go with my friends and we have an equal amount of players I will play speedball with them. They also have a sixty two acre forest of eucalyptus trees, forts, bunkers, and bases. There are versions of paintball such as capture the flag and elimination. We will write a custom essay sample on Paintball or any similar topic specifically for you Do Not WasteYour Time HIRE WRITER Only 13.90 / page Capture the flag is one version of paintball when you have a flag placed somewhere in the field and two teams have to battle each other to get to the flag. Once you get the flag you try to get the flag back to your starting point. Elimination is the other version of paintball. Elimination is when you battle against another team and you just have to fight the other team off until there is no one left on one of the teams. Once the round of elimination is over, whichever team still has players left is the winning team. Paintball has three types of fields. The first field that most people that have ever seen paintball on T.V. would be air ball. Air ball is one version of paintball that is in a smaller area with blow up bunkers and you can either have capture the flag or elimination. One of the other versions of paintball is speedball, speedball is basically like air ball, it is air ball mostly just its with different bunkers. Last but not least there is forest ball where there is capture the flag, and elimination. Forest ball is a bigger version of paintball and there can be bunkers forts and bases. If you are looking for excitement I suggest you try paintball. If you paintball you get used to the pain after you get hit a couple of times. Paintball is painful at first but it’s not bad, it’s kind of just a stinging sensation. My favorite thing to do whenever I can is paintball. The only bad part about paintball is that it can cost a lot of money. But if it sounds fun to you, then you should try it out.

Historical ACT Percentiles for 2010, 2009, and 2008

Historical ACT Percentiles for 2010, 2009, and 2008 SAT / ACT Prep Online Guides and Tips If you just took the ACT or if you took the ACT in 2008-2010, you might be curious as to how your percentile score compares to students with the same scaled score in other years?In this guide, I'll explain what percentiles are, how they work onthe ACT, and why they matter (even the older ones). I'll also give you ACT percentile charts for 20-2014, so you can see how your scores stack up against historical ones. What Is an ACTPercentile Score? Before I get started,I need todefine what an ACT percentile actually is.An ACT percentile score is NOT the same as a percentage score you receive on school quiz (for example, when you score 91% on your Physics test that means you answered 91% of questions correctly). Instead, an ACT percentile score tells you how your scaled score compared to that of other test-takers. More specifically, the percentile is an approximation by the ACT of how many recent US high school graduates took the SAT and scored at or below your score. A percentile score makes your scaled score easier to comprehend since it’s on a vague scale (1-36). As an example, if you have a 30th percentile score, you scored higher than 30% of ACT test-takers. If you have an 84th percentile score, you scored higher than 84% of test-takers.The higher your percentile score is, the better you compared to others who took that ACT. If you took an in-class test, you could have a high test score (such as 95%) and have a relatively low percentile score (17th) if the test was very easy for your class (83% of the classscored above 95% on that test). On the other hand, you could have a low test score (such as 35%) and have a relatively high percentile score (88%) if the test was very hard for your class(only 12% of the class scored above 35%). On the ACT, percentile shifts tend not to be as extreme as this example since the ACT is equalized, but I’ll discuss this more in depth later on.Nonetheless,ACT percentiles are helpful for understanding your scaled scores, since percentiles allow youto determine where you fall in comparison to other test-takers. Do ACT Percentiles Change Over Time? For a specific scaled ACT score, the score percentile stays about the same from year to year (typically within 2-3%). If you don’t know how your ACT scaled score (1-36) is calculated, learn how to calculate ACT score before reading further. There are only minuscule percentile changes for a specific scaled score from year to year because the ACT is equalized specifically to ensure the same curve every test date.To show the slight variation in percentile for a specific score, a scaled score of 18 was the 33rd percentile in 2008, but it was the 34th percentile in 2009 and the 35th percentile in 2010.However, a score of 33 had the same percentile for 2008-2010, 99th percentile. What does it mean for percentiles for each scaled score to remain aboutthe same from year to year?As I said above, the ACT attempts to keep score distributions the same from year to year so that the same scaled score means the same across different years.That way, a 33 means you scored better than 99% of test-takers in 2008-2010 (and any other year). What this means for you is that no one test date (or test year) is better (or easier) than another.All test dates are equalized to make sure there is a similar score distribution. Why Care About ACT Score Percentiles? EspeciallyPercentiles From Other Years? You should care about your ACT score percentile because it helps college admissions officers compare your scaled score to those of other applicants.Admissions officers need percentile scores to have a sense of how you compare to students across the country. If they just saw your scaled score without any other information, they wouldn’t have any sense of what makes a good ACT scaled score and what makes a bad one. For instance, if you’d received a 33 composite score and an admissions office didn’t know the score percentile, they might judge that asa quiz grade and think if you scored 33 out of 36, then you got a 92% or A-, good but not great. Instead, since they have score percentiles, admissions offices know a 33 is a 99th percentile score, meaning you scored better than 99% of test-takers, which is excellent. Percentile scores allow college admissions offices to have an understanding of how test-takers do on the ACT and how you stack up to the rest of test-takers. But why should you care about percentiles from other years? Because you’re submitting your college apps at the same time as students who took the ACT in other years.Although you may have taken the ACT in 2009 as a junior in high school, other students might have waited to take the ACT until 2010 as seniors in high school.This doesn’t change the fact that you’re all still applying to college the same year. While you and your friend, who took the test in 2010, both received a composite scaled score of 30. Your percentile score was 96 while his was 95. What this means is your 30 is slightly better than his 30. You scored better than 96% of test-takers while he only scored better than 95% of test-takers. Comparing percentiles for a specific scaled score across different years is a useful tool to understand how you compare to other applicants who took the ACT a different year. While ACT percentile scores are important, knowing how you fall in the ACT score ranges for your target colleges is much more important.If you don’t know what a college’s ACT score range is, the quick explanation is it’s the range in which the middle 50% of admitted students’ ACT scores fall.I.E., Yale’s ACT score range is 31-35.This means 25% of admitted Yale students scored below a 31, and 75% scored at or below a 35. Schools mostly use their score ranges when making admissions decisions. As a result, no matter your percentile score, you’ll want your ACT composite scaled score to be at or above the 75th percentile (for example, 35 for Yale) to give yourself the best shot of getting in. To locate the ACT score ranges for your dream colleges, search â€Å"[College Name] ACT Scores Prepscholar† in Google.For an in-depth explanation of score range, including how to calculate your target score, read our guide to good and bad ACT scores. The reasons schools care about their score range over your score percentile are: Their score range is typically a part of the evaluation for college ranking list, so schools want to admit students with higher scaled scores so that the school will be ranked higher. Schools publish their scaled score range every year, so the higher the range, the more impressive it seems to the general public. While ACT score percentiles are important, your overall ACT composite score is the number that is most significant in your college application. ACT Percentiles for 2008-2010 Here I’ve created a table showing the ACT score percentiles from 2008-2010 for each composite scaled score. I used data provided by the ACT to assemble this chart and the charts below (for the percentiles for individual sections). Remember, the percentile score is the percentage of test-takers who scored at or below that scaled score. I.E. below, in 2008, if your composite score was a 32, you scored better than 99% of test-takers: ACT Scaled Score 2008 Percentile 2009 Percentile 2010 Percentile ACT Scaled Score 36 100 100 100 36 35 100 100 100 35 34 100 100 100 34 33 99 99 99 33 32 99 98 98 32 31 97 97 97 31 30 96 96 95 30 29 94 93 93 29 28 91 91 91 28 27 88 88 88 27 26 84 84 84 26 25 80 79 79 25 24 75 74 74 24 23 69 69 68 23 22 62 62 62 22 21 55 56 55 21 20 48 48 48 20 19 40 41 41 19 18 33 34 35 18 17 26 27 28 17 16 20 21 22 16 15 14 15 16 15 14 9 10 14 13 5 5 7 13 12 2 2 3 12 1 1 1 10 1 1 1 10 9 1 1 1 9 8 1 1 1 8 7 1 1 1 7 6 1 1 1 6 5 1 1 1 5 4 1 1 1 4 3 1 1 1 3 2 1 1 1 2 1 1 1 1 1 ACT English Historical Percentiles for 2008-2010 Here I’ve created a table showing the ACT percentiles from 2008-2010 for each English scaled score. ACT Scaled Score 2008 Percentile 2009 Percentile 2010 Percentile ACT Scaled Score 36 100 100 100 36 35 100 100 100 35 34 99 99 99 34 33 97 97 97 33 32 96 96 96 32 31 95 95 95 31 30 93 93 93 30 29 91 91 91 29 28 89 88 88 28 27 86 86 85 27 26 83 83 82 26 25 79 79 78 25 24 74 74 73 24 23 69 69 68 23 22 64 63 63 22 21 58 57 57 21 20 50 50 50 20 19 42 43 43 19 18 37 37 38 18 17 32 33 34 17 16 27 28 29 16 15 22 23 24 15 14 16 17 19 14 13 12 14 15 13 12 9 12 12 7 8 9 10 5 5 6 10 9 3 3 4 9 8 2 2 2 8 7 1 1 1 7 6 1 1 1 6 5 1 1 1 5 4 1 1 1 4 3 1 1 1 3 2 1 1 1 2 1 1 1 1 1 ACT Math Historical Percentiles for 2008-2010 Here I’ve created a table showing the ACTscore percentiles from 2008-2010 for each Math scaled score. ACT Scaled Score 2008 Percentile 2009 Percentile 2010 Percentile ACT Scaled Score 36 100 100 100 36 35 100 100 100 35 34 99 99 99 34 33 98 98 98 33 32 97 97 97 32 31 96 96 96 31 30 95 94 95 30 29 93 93 93 29 28 91 91 91 28 27 87 88 88 27 26 83 84 84 26 25 79 79 79 25 24 73 74 74 24 23 67 68 68 23 22 62 62 62 22 21 57 58 57 21 20 52 52 52 20 19 47 47 47 19 18 41 41 42 18 17 33 35 35 17 16 24 25 26 16 15 14 14 14 15 14 6 6 6 14 13 2 2 2 13 12 1 1 1 12 1 1 1 10 1 1 1 10 9 1 1 1 9 8 1 1 1 8 7 1 1 1 7 6 1 1 1 6 5 1 1 1 5 4 1 1 1 4 3 1 1 1 3 2 1 1 1 2 1 1 1 1 1 ACT Reading Historical Percentiles for 2008-2010 Here I’ve created a table showing the ACT score percentiles from 2008-2010 for each Reading scaled score. ACT Scaled Score 2008 Percentile 2009 Percentile 2010 Percentile ACT Scaled Score 36 100 100 100 36 35 99 99 99 35 34 98 99 99 34 33 97 97 97 33 32 96 95 95 32 31 94 93 93 31 30 91 90 91 30 29 88 87 88 29 28 85 84 85 28 27 81 81 82 27 26 78 78 78 26 25 74 74 75 25 24 70 71 70 24 23 65 66 66 23 22 58 60 60 22 21 53 55 54 21 20 47 47 48 20 19 41 41 41 19 18 34 35 36 18 17 30 31 31 17 16 24 25 25 16 15 19 19 20 15 14 14 14 15 14 13 9 9 13 12 5 6 7 12 3 3 4 10 1 1 2 10 9 1 1 1 9 8 1 1 1 8 7 1 1 1 7 6 1 1 1 6 5 1 1 1 5 4 1 1 1 4 3 1 1 1 3 2 1 1 1 2 1 1 1 1 1 ACT Science Score Historical Percentiles for 2008-2010 Here I’ve created a table showing the ACT percentiles from 2008-2010 for each Science scaled score. ACT Scaled Score 2008 Percentile 2009 Percentile 2010 Percentile ACT Scaled Score 36 100 100 100 36 35 100 100 100 35 34 99 99 99 34 33 99 99 99 33 32 98 98 98 32 31 97 98 98 31 30 97 96 96 30 29 95 95 95 29 28 94 93 93 28 27 92 91 91 27 26 89 89 87 26 25 85 84 84 25 24 78 77 77 24 23 72 72 71 23 22 65 64 63 22 21 56 57 56 21 20 49 49 47 20 19 39 38 38 19 18 30 30 31 18 17 23 23 24 17 16 18 19 19 16 15 13 14 14 15 14 10 10 14 13 7 7 8 13 12 5 5 5 12 3 3 3 10 1 1 2 10 9 1 1 1 9 8 1 1 1 8 7 1 1 1 7 6 1 1 1 6 5 1 1 1 5 4 1 1 1 4 3 1 1 1 3 2 1 1 1 2 1 1 1 1 1 What’s Next? Learn more about the ACT and college application process: What's a Good ACT Score for Your College? ACT Practice Tests: 20-Hour Prep Program Low ACT Scores: What Should You Do? Disappointed with your ACT scores? Want to improve your ACT score by 4+ points? Download our free guide to the top 5 strategies you need in your prep to improve your ACT score dramatically. Have friends who also need help with test prep? Share this article! Tweet Dora Seigel About the Author As an SAT/ACT tutor, Dora has guided many students to test prep success. She loves watching students succeed and is committed to helping you get there. Dora received a full-tuition merit based scholarship to University of Southern California. She graduated magna cum laude and scored in the 99th percentile on the ACT. She is also passionate about acting, writing, and photography. Get Free Guides to Boost Your SAT/ACT Get FREE EXCLUSIVE insider tips on how to ACE THE SAT/ACT. 100% Privacy. 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Incorporating Quality Through Business Excellence Models Case Study

Incorporating Quality Through Business Excellence Models - Case Study Example TQM is the management function, which should be incorporated in all the processes that will happen in an organization. Furthermore, if Excellence is inbuilt into that TQM, then there will be optimal quality in all the processes, making the organization’s every initiative a successful endeavor. So, this paper by focusing on the â€Å"Excellence Models† from the perspective of TQM, will discuss how excellence can be managed optimally in an organization with the leader playing the optimal role. According to princeton.edu, Excellence can be defined as the â€Å"quality of excelling and also possessing good qualities of the highest degree†. The term gives the same meaning when analyzed from the organizational perspective as well. That is, when the organization manufactures products or offers services, during that process, they have to incorporate quality in every level. Only if the quality is incorporated at every level, the product or service will be of optimal quali ty, when it reaches the intended clients. Otherwise, the clients can find out the deficiency in quality in the initial stages or later, and surely it will be disliked by them. While trying to achieve than expected quality, organizations in many sectors will also or should also try to achieve excellence. This standard or level of excellence could be something that is set by the organization themselves or by certain external agencies focusing on quality testing and certifications. Thus, if the organizations following its own quality standards or external standards, achieve excellence in quality, it can maximally reach the ‘minds’ of the customers. When they entice their minds, they can ‘make’ the customers use their hands to buy the product or utilize the services.

What is the connection between fashion and modernityUse examples from Essay

What is the connection between fashion and modernityUse examples from between 1851 and 1939 to support your argument - Essay Example Elizabeth says "Fashion" is a term that crackles up many diverse descriptions, the immense preponderance of which is individual and simplifying. Some of the foundation I comprise here do not yet use the term; Western or eastern frequently choose in place for "costume" or "outfit," and alter their provisos with adjectives such as "cultural," "nationalized," or "customary." Western learning’s of fashion frequently only engage "Haute fashion design," or "soaring fashion," and leave out ordinary working class involvements with clothes; this has started to transfer of late. Over the precedent decade, a lot of feminist theorists have happened to be appearing at womens day-by-day relations with fashion and physical decoration. I support my own examinations with this most current drift in fashion; I describe fashion as a customer action occupied in by any human being who shops for, obtain, and wears outfits. Certainly, there is variety in terminologies and thoughtfulness of fashion co mmotion; and community of changeable racial, class, national, and religious surroundings unquestionably illustrate diverse understandings from their own fashion arrangements. The resources I have accumulated here agree with fashion utilization in a multiplicity of contexts, even though the field is positively conquered by Western world. It is as well significant to remind that most of my own study benefits are centered around modernism as it is created through clothing, technique, and fashion; consequently, much of the substance move towards fashion from a modern and feminist viewpoint. Modernity is a word used to explain the situation of being "Modern". Since the word itself "Modern" is used to explain a broad range of eras, modernity must be taken in background (Lehmann, 2000, Pg 141-142). Modern can signify all of post-medieval European olden times, in the environment of seperating

Political Philosophy and National Integration Essay Example for Free

Political Philosophy and National Integration Essay 1. Central Quotation â€Å"National integration is partly a by-product of other social and economic developments, partly the result of deliberate government policies.† (Birch, 36) 2. Argument In this text Birch gives a historical overview of national integration process. He discusses different attitudes towards assimilation of minorities that existed in North America and Europe. Before 1960s that it was current believe that national integration could be challenged by the existence of different ethnic groups within the borders of the country and assimilation was desirable. After 1960 however, this attitudes has changed in favour of social pluralism. Birch also presents patterns, which describes common practices of national integration. 3. Question The question raised in this text is â€Å"Whether the process of national integration must be accompanied by wholly or partial assimilation of minorities?† Birch describes both negative and positive effects, which social, economic and political integration of minor ethnic and cultural groups could have on building a sense of nationhood. His argumentation is based on contradictory assertions. One argument is in favour of social homogeneity i.e. stresses the importance of common language and feeling of unity among people for development of democratic institutions. In the same time author mention several scientific works that question the assumption that further integration is required for establishment of representative democracy. 4. Experiential Connection Even thou I grew up in Sweden, I have a lot of friends with different ethnic origin who lives there, mostly 1st or 2nd generation immigrants. All of them had a chance, upon their own will to learn Swedish free of charge as soon as they arrived. That was the part of integration programme established by government in order to facilitate immigration process. That makes it easier for immigrants to interact with local citizens, get the jobs and thus contribute to social, political and economic development of the country. 5. Textual Connection. Birch’s argumentation is quite similar to Will Kymlicka’sagrument in the text â€Å"Western political theory and ethnic relations in eastern Europe†. As well as Birch, Kymlicka stresses that attitudes toward ethnic minorities among democratic liberals in West had changed since 1960 and multiculturalism become more acceptable (Kymlicka, s. 33). Kymlicka focuses on different ethnic groups and describes assimilation attempts made by governments towards these groups. He also emphasizes the importance of different governmental policies that determines integration process (Kymlicka, s. 42). 6. Implications. This text analyses the different ways in which minor groups can be merged into national societies and poses the question of whether national integration is a positive or a negative process. This question must be answered by citizens and representative governments in every country before there will be taken any further action toward national integration or disintegration. I think government have to consider prior experience of integration of minorities in different countries to choose appropriated policies for the particular county. This can be done throughout case studies and with help of patterns of integration drawn up by theorists and scientists.

Comparing the poems Neutral Tones and Absence Essay -- English Literat

Comparing the poems Neutral Tones and Absence Both the poems 'Neutral Tones' by Thomas Hardy and 'Absence' by Elizabeth Jennings mention and describe the poets' feelings about losing their partners. Even though the general theme, the loss of love, is the same, many features such as tone, imagery, language and rhyme scheme differ from each other. Hardy emphasises more on his feelings towards his break up. He doesn't actually mention how he feels, but instead, the imagery he uses and the way he describes his ex-girlfriend shows that he feels broken and angry. The tone in this poem is very solemn and dull, though it is quite strong in some areas like "The smile on your mouth was the deadest thing" and "your face, and the God-curst sun grayish leaves". Hardy also got more vigorous and frustrated towards the end of the poem. In Jennings's poem, the tone is much different. Unlike Hardy, she describes her surroundings and loneliness, not how her partner looks like. Jennings's poem builds up from a calm tone to an irritated one. The first stanza of 'Absence' describes her surroundings, the second, how she is alone and in the third, how her loneliness affects her. The last stanza is the fiercest, much more vigorous compared to the first stanza. "For under all the gentleness there came an earthquake tremor" The second stanza of her poem is like the balance between the first and last stanza. This stanza links her cheerful images to her exasperation. "Singing an ecstasy I could not share, played cunning in my thoughts" Jennings's poem is also more 'factual' as she talks more about the scenery around her - "The fountains sprayed their usual steady jet". The tone in this poem is steady, and her anger builds gradual... ...e landscape, colours, and facial features to convey his heart brokenness. I liked the way Hardy chose an aggravated tone for his poem and how he has developed it towards the end to describe his girlfriend's face. From his poem, I could actually feel Hardy's devastation because he even brought in the bitter side of nature to enhance his feelings. Hardy also had a dramatic ending where he used the alliteration "wrings with wrongs". I also liked the way Hardy had combined all his anger and problems and merged them into his ex-girlfriend's face. I think Hardy was successful in using imagery by describing the surroundings in the beginning of the poem and concluding with the surroundings as well. Hardy's choice of language was also appropriate to describe his emotions. All in all, I think Hardy was very successful in using vivid imagery to portray his feelings.

Practical Demonkeeping Chapter 5-7

5 AUGUSTUS BRINE He was an old man who fished off the beaches of Pine Cove and he had gone eighty-four days without catching a fish. This, however, was of little consequence because he owned the general store and made a comfortable enough living to indulge his passions, which were fishing and drinking California wines. Augustus Brine was old, but he was still strong and vital and a dangerous man in a fight – although he had had little cause to prove it in over thirty years (except for the few occasions when he picked up a teenage boy by the scruff of the neck and dragged him, terrified, to the stockroom, where he lectured him alternately on the merits of hard work and the folly of shoplifting from Brine's Bait, Tackle, and Fine Wines). And while a weariness had come upon him with age, his mind was still sharp and agile. On any evening one might find him stretched out before his fireplace in a leather chair, toasting his bare feet on the hearth, reading Aristotle, or Lao-tzu, or Joyce. He lived on a hillside overlooking the Pacific, in a small wooden house he had designed and built himself, so that he might live there alone without having his surroundings seem lonely. During the day, windows and skylights filled the house with light, and even on the most dismal, foggy day, every corner was illuminated. In the evening three stone fireplaces, which took up whole walls in the living room, bedroom, and study, warmed the house. They offered a soft, orange comfort to the old man, who burned cord after cord of red oak and eucalyptus, which he cut and split himself. When he considered his own mortality, which was seldom, Augustus Brine knew he would die in this house. He had built it on one floor with wide halls and doorways so that if he were ever confined to a wheelchair he might remain self-sufficient until the day when he would take the black pill sent to him by the Hemlock Society. He kept the house neat and orderly. Not so much because he desired order, for Brine believed chaos to be the way of the world, but because he did not wish to make life difficult for his cleaning lady, who came in once a week to dust and shovel ashes from the fireplaces. He also wished to avoid acquiring the reputation of being a slob, for he knew people's propensity for judging a man on one aspect of his character, and even Augustus Brine was not above some degree of vanity. Despite his belief that the pursuit of order in a chaotic universe was futile, Brine lived a very ordered life, and this paradox, upon reflection, amused him. He rose each day at five, indulged himself in a half-hour-long shower, dressed, and ate the same breakfast of six eggs and half a loaf of sourdough toast, heavily buttered. (Cholesterol seemed too silent and sneaky to be dangerous, and Brine had decided long ago that until cholesterol gathered its forces and charged him headlong across the plate with Light Brigade abandon, he would ignore it.) After breakfast, Brine lit his meerschaum pipe for the first time of the day, crawled onto his truck, and drove downtown to open his store. For the first two hours he puffed around the store like a great white-bearded locomotive, making coffee, selling pastries, trading idle banter with the old men who greeted him each morning, and preparing the store to run under full steam until midnight, under the supervision of a handful of clerks. At eight o'clock the first of Brine's employees arrived to man the register while Brine busied himself ordering what he called Epicurean necessities: pastries, imported cheeses and beers, pipe tobacco and cigarettes, homemade pasta and sauces, freshly baked bread, gourmet coffees, and California wines. Brine believed, like Epicurus, that a good life was one dedicated to the pursuit of simple pleasures, tempered with justice and prudence. Years ago, while working as a bouncer in a whorehouse, Brine had repeatedly seen depressed, angry men turned to gentleness and gaiety by a few moments of pleasure. He had vowed then to someday open a brothel, but when the ramshackle general store with its two gas pumps had been put up for sale, Brine had compromised his dream by buying it and bringing pleasure of a different sort to the public. From time to time, however, a needling suspicion arose in his mind that he had missed his true calling as a madam. Each day when the orders were finished, Brine selected a bottle of red wine from his shelves, packed it in a basket with some bread, cheese, and bait, and took off for the beach. He passed the rest of the day sitting on the beach in a canvas director's chair sipping wine and smoking his pipe, waiting for the long surf-casting rod to bend with a strike. On most days Brine let his mind go as clear as water. Without worry or thought he became one with everything around him, neither conscious nor unconscious: the state of Zen mushin, or no-mind. He had come to Zen after the fact, recognizing in the writings of Suzuki and Watts an attitude he had come to without discipline, by simply sitting on the beach staring into an empty sky and becoming just as empty. Zen was his religion, and it brought him peace and humor. On this particular morning Brine was having a difficult time clearing his mind. The visit of the little Arab man to the store vexed him. Brine did not speak Arabic, yet he had understood every word the little man had said. He had seen the air cut with swirling blue curses, and he had seen the Arab's eyes glow white with anger. He smoked his pipe, the meerschaum mermaid carved so that Brine's index finger fell across her breasts, and tried to apply some meaning to a situation that was outside the context of his reality. He knew that if he were to accept the fluid of this experience, the cup of his mind had to be empty. But right now he had a better chance of buying bread with moonlight than reaching a Zen calm. It vexed him. â€Å"It is a mystery, is it not?† someone said. Startled, Brine looked around. The little Arab man stood about three feet from Brine's side, drinking from a large styrofoam cup. His red stocking cap was glistening, damp with the morning spray. â€Å"I'm sorry,† Brine said. â€Å"I didn't see you come up.† â€Å"It is a mystery, is it not? How this dashing figure seems to appear out of nowhere? You must be awestruck. Paralyzed with fear perhaps?† Brine looked at the withered little man in the rumpled flannel suit and silly red hat. â€Å"Very close to paralyzed,† he said. â€Å"I am Augustus Brine.† He extended his hand to the little man. â€Å"Are you not afraid that by touching me you will burst into flames?† â€Å"Is that a danger?† â€Å"No, but you know how superstitious fishermen are. Perhaps you believe that you will be transformed into a toad. You hide your fear well, Augustus Brine.† Brine smiled. He was baffled and amused; it didn't occur to him to be afraid. The Arab drained his cup and dipped it into the surf to refill it. â€Å"Please call me Gus,† Brine said, his hand still extended. â€Å"And you are?† The Arab drained his cup again, then took Brine's hand. His skin had the feel of parchment. â€Å"I am Gian Hen Gian, King of the Djinn, Ruler of the Netherworld. Do not tremble, I wish you no harm.† â€Å"I am not trembling,† Brine said. â€Å"You might go easy on that seawater – it works hell on your blood pressure.† â€Å"Do not fall to your knees; there is no need to prostrate yourself before my greatness. I am here in your service.† â€Å"Thank you. I am honored,† Brine said. Despite the strange happenings in the store, he was having a hard time taking this pompous little man seriously. The Arab was obviously a nuthouse Napoleon. He'd seen hundreds of them, living in cardboard castles and feasting from dumpsters all over America. But this one had some credentials: he could curse in blue swirls. â€Å"It is good that you are not afraid, Augustus Brine. Terrible evil is at hand. You will have to call upon your courage. It is a good sign that you have kept your wits in the presence of the great Gian Hen Gian. The grandeur is sometimes too much for weaker men.† â€Å"May I offer you some wine?† Brine extended the bottle of cabernet he had brought from the store. â€Å"No, I have a great thirst for this.† He sloshed the cup of seawater. â€Å"From a time when it was all I could drink.† â€Å"As you wish.† Brine sipped from the bottle. â€Å"There is little time, Augustus Brine, and what I am to tell you may overwhelm your tiny mind. Please prepare yourself.† â€Å"My tiny mind is steeled for anything, O King. But first, tell me, did I see you curse blue swirls this morning?† â€Å"A minor loss of temper. Nothing really. Would you have had me turn the clumsy dolt into a snake who forever gnaws his own tail?† â€Å"No, the cursing was fine. Although in Vance's case the snake might be an improvement. Your curses were in Arabic, though, right?† â€Å"A language I prefer for its music.† â€Å"But I don't speak Arabic. Yet I understood you. You did say, ‘May the IRS find that you deduct your pet sheep as an entertainment expense,' didn't you?† â€Å"I can be most colorful and inventive when I am angry.† The Arab flashed a bright grin of pride. His teeth were pointed and saw-edged like a shark's. â€Å"You have been chosen, Augustus Brine.† â€Å"Why me?† Somehow Brine had suspended his disbelief and denied the absurdity of the situation. If there was no order in the universe, then why should it be out of order to be sitting on the beach talking to an Arab dwarf who claimed to be king of the Djinn, whatever the hell that was? Strangely enough, Brine took comfort in the fact that this experience was invalidating every assumption he had ever made about the nature of the world. He had tapped into the Zen of ignorance, the enlightenment of absurdity. Gian Hen Gian laughed. â€Å"I have chosen you because you are a fisherman who catches no fish. I have had an affinity for such men since I was fished from the sea a thousand years ago and released from Solomon's jar. One gets ever so cramped passing the centuries inside a jar.† â€Å"And ever so wrinkled, it would seem,† Brine said. Gian Hen Gian ignored Brine's comment. â€Å"I found you here, Augustus Brine, listening to the noise of the universe, holding in your heart a spark of hope, like all fishermen, but resolved to be disappointed. You have no love, no faith, and no purpose. You shall be my instrument, and in return, you shall gain the things you lack.† Brine wanted to protest the Arab's judgment, but he realized that it was true. He'd been enlightened for exactly thirty seconds and already he was back on the path of desire and karma. Postenlightenment depression, he thought. 6 THE DJINN'S STORY Brine said, â€Å"Excuse me, O King, but what exactly is a Djinn?† Gian Hen Gian spit into the surf and cursed, but this time Brine did not understand the language and no blue swirls cut the air. â€Å"I am Djinn. The Djinn were the first people. This was our world long before the first human. Have you not read the tales of Scheherazade?† â€Å"I thought those were just stories.† â€Å"By Aladdin's lamplit scrotum, man! Everything is a story. What is there but stories? Stories are the only truth. The Djinn knew this. We had power over our own stories. We shaped our world as we wished it to be. It was our glory. We were created by Jehovah as a race of creators, and he became jealous of us. â€Å"He sent Satan and an army of angels against us. We were banished to the netherworld, where we could not make our stories. Then he created a race who could not create and so would stand in awe of the Creator.† â€Å"Man?† Brine asked. The Djinn nodded. â€Å"When Satan drove us into the netherworld, he saw our power. He saw that he was no more than a servant, while Jehovah had given the Djinn the power of gods. He returned to Jehovah demanding the same power. He proclaimed that he and his army would not serve until they were given the power to create. â€Å"Jehovah was sorely angered. He banished Satan to hell, where the angel might have the power he wished, but only over his own army of rebels. To further humiliate Satan, Jehovah created a new race of beings and gave them control over their own destinies, made them masters of their own world. And he made Satan watch it all from hell. â€Å"These beings were parodies of the angels, resembling them physically, but with none of the angels' grace or intelligence. And because he had made two mistakes before, Jehovah made these creatures mortal to keep them humble.† â€Å"Are you saying,† Brine interrupted, â€Å"that the human race was created to irritate Satan?† â€Å"That is correct. Jehovah is infinite in his snottiness.† Brine reflected on this for a moment and regretted that he had not become a criminal at an early age. â€Å"And what happened to the Djinn?† â€Å"We were left without form, purpose, or power. The netherworld is timeless and unchanging, and boring – much like a doctor's waiting room.† â€Å"But you're here, you're not in the netherworld.† â€Å"Be patient, Augustus Brine. I will tell you how I came here. You see, many years passed on Earth and we remained undisturbed. Then was born Solomon the thief.† â€Å"You mean King Solomon? Son of David?† â€Å"The thief!† The Djinn spat. â€Å"He asked for wisdom from Jehovah that he might build a great temple. To assist him, Jehovah gave him a great silver seal, which he carried in a scepter, and the power to call the Djinn from the netherworld to act as slaves. Solomon was given power over the Djinn on Earth that by all rights belonged to me. And as if that was not enough, the seal also gave him the power to call up the deposed angels from hell. Satan was furious that such power be given to a mortal, which, of course, was Jehovah's plan. â€Å"Solomon called first upon me to help him build his temple. He spread the temple plans before me and I laughed in his face. It was little more than a shack of stone. His imagination was as limited as his intelligence. Nevertheless, I began work on his temple, building it stone by stone as he instructed. I could have built it in an instant had he commanded it, but the thief could only imagine a temple being built as it might be built by men. â€Å"I worked slowly, for even under the reign of the thief, my time on Earth was better than the emptiness of the netherworld. After some time I convinced Solomon that I needed help, and I was given slaves to assist me in the construction. Work slowed even more, for while some of them worked, most stood by and chatted about their dreams of freedom. I have seen that such methods are used today in building your highways.† â€Å"It's standard,† Brine said. â€Å"Solomon grew impatient with my progress and called from hell one of the deposed angels, a warrior Seraph named Catch. Thus did his troubles begin. â€Å"Catch had once been a tall and beautiful angel, but his time in hell, steeping in his own bitterness, had changed him. When he appeared before Solomon, he was a squat monster, no bigger than a dwarf. His skin was like that of a snake, his eyes like those of a cat. He was so hideous that Solomon would not allow him to be seen by the people of Jerusalem, so he made the demon invisible to all but himself. â€Å"Catch carried in his heart a loathing for humans as deep as Satan himself. I had no quarrel with the race of man. Catch, however, wanted revenge. Fortunately, he did not have the powers of a Djinn. â€Å"Solomon told the slaves who worked on the temple that they were being given divine assistance and that they should behave as if nothing was out of the ordinary, so the people of Jerusalem might not notice the demon's presence. The demon threw himself into the construction, honing huge blocks of stone and hauling them into place. â€Å"Solomon was pleased with the demon's work and told him so. Catch said that the work would go faster if he didn't have to work with a Djinn, so I stood by and watched as the temple rose. From time to time great stones dropped from the walls, crushing the slaves below. While the blood ran, I could hear Catch laughing and shouting ‘Whoops' from the top of the wall. â€Å"Solomon believed these killings to be accidents, but I knew them to be murder. It was then that I realized that Solomon's control over the demon was not absolute, and therefore, his control over me must have its limits as well. My first impulse was to try to escape, but if I were wrong, I knew that I would be sent back to the netherworld and all would be lost. Perhaps I could persuade Solomon to set me free by offering him something he could attain only through my power to create. â€Å"Solomon's appetite for women was infamous. I offered to bring him the most beautiful woman he had ever seen if he would allow me to remain on Earth. He agreed. â€Å"I retreated to my quarters and contemplated what sort of woman might most please the idiot king. I had seen his thousand wives and found no common thread among their charms that revealed Solomon's preferences. In the end I was left to my own creativity. â€Å"I gave her fair hair and blue eyes and skin as white and smooth as marble. She was all things that men wish of women in body and mind. She was a virgin with a courtesan's knowledge in the ways of pleasure. She was kind, intelligent, forgiving, and warm with humor. â€Å"Solomon fell in love with the woman as soon as I presented her to him. ‘She shines like a jewel', he said. ‘Jewel shall be her name.' He spent an hour or more just staring at her, captivated with her beauty. When finally his senses returned, he said, ‘We will talk later of your reward, Gian Hen Gian.' Then he took Jewel by the hand and led her to his bedchamber. â€Å"I felt a strength return to me the moment I presented Jewel to the king. I was not free to escape, but for the first time I was able to leave the city without being compelled by some invisible bond to return to Solomon. I went into the desert and spent the night enjoying the freedom I had gained. It was not until I returned the next morning that I realized that Solomon's control over me and the demon depended upon the concentration of his will, as well as the invocations and the seal given to him by Jehovah. The woman, Jewel, had broken his will. â€Å"I found Solomon in his palace weeping one moment, then screaming with rage the next. While I had been away Catch had come to Solomon's bedchamber, not in the form that Solomon recognized, but in the form of a huge monster, taller than two men and as wide as a team of horses, and the slaves could see him as well. While Solomon watched in horror, the demon snatched Jewel from the bed with a single, talonlike hand and bit her head off. Then the monster swallowed the girl's body and reached for Solomon. But some force protected the king, and Solomon commanded the demon to return to his smaller form. Catch laughed in his face and skulked off to the wives' quarters. â€Å"Through the night the palace was filled with the screams of terrified women. Solomon ordered his guards to attack the demon. Catch swatted them away as if they were flies. By dawn the palace was littered with the crushed bodies of the guards. Of Solomon's thousand wives only two hundred remained alive. Catch was gone. â€Å"During the attack Solomon had called upon the power of the seal and prayed to Jehovah to stop the demon. But the king's will was broken, and so it did no good. â€Å"I sensed then that I might escape Solomon's control altogether, and live free, but even the idiot king would eventually make the connection and my fate would lie in the netherworld. â€Å"I bade Solomon allow me to bring Catch to justice. I knew my power to be much greater than the demon's. But Solomon had only the building of the temple by which to judge my powers, and in that example the demon appeared superior. ‘Do what you can,' he said. ‘If you capture the demon, you may remain on Earth.' â€Å"I found Catch in the great desert, wantonly slaughtering tribes of nomads. When I bound him with my magic, he protested that he had planned to return, for he was enslaved to Solomon by the invocation and could never really escape. He was only having a little sport with the humans, he said. To quiet him, I filled his mouth with sand for the journey back to Jerusalem. â€Å"When I brought Catch to Solomon, the king commanded me to devise a punishment to torment the demon, so that the people of Jerusalem might watch him suffer. I chained Catch to a giant stone outside the palace, then I created a huge bird of prey that swooped on the demon and tore at his liver, which grew back at once, for like the Djinn, the demon was immortal. â€Å"Solomon was pleased with my work. During my absence he had regained his senses somewhat, and thereby his will. I stood before the king awaiting my reward, feeling my powers wane as Solomon's will returned. â€Å"‘I have promised that you shall never be returned to the netherworld, and you shall not,' he said. ‘But this demon has put me off of immortals more than somewhat, and I do not wish that you be allowed to roam free. You shall be imprisoned in a jar and cast into the sea. Should the time come when you are set free to walk the Earth again, you shall have no power over the realm of man except as is commanded by my will, which shall be from now to the end of time the goodwill of all men. By this you shall be bound.' â€Å"He had a jar fashioned from lead and marked it on all sides with a silver seal. Before he imprisoned me, Solomon promised that Catch would remain chained to the rock until his screams burned into the king's soul – so that Solomon might never lose his will or his wisdom again. He said he would then send the demon back to hell and destroy the tablets with the invocations, as well as the great seal. He swore these things to me, as if he believed the fate of the demon meant something to me. I didn't give a camel's fart about Catch. Then he gave me a last command and sealed the jar. His soldiers cast the jar into the Red Sea. â€Å"For two thousand years I languished inside the jar, my only comfort a trickle of seawater that seeped in, which I drank with relish, for it tasted of freedom. â€Å"When the jar was finally pulled from the sea by a fisherman, and I was released, I cared nothing about Solomon or Catch, only about my freedom. I have lived as a man would live these last thousand years, bound by Solomon's will. Of this Solomon spoke truly, but about the demon, he lied.† The little man paused and refilled his cup in the ocean. Augustus Brine was at a loss. It couldn't possibly be true. There was nothing to corroborate the story. â€Å"Begging your pardon, Gian Hen Gian, but why is none of this told in the Bible?† â€Å"Editing,† the Djinn said. â€Å"But aren't you confusing Greek myth with Christian myth? The birds eating the demon's liver sounds an awful lot like the story of Prometheus.† â€Å"It was my idea. The Greeks were thieves, no better than Solomon.† Brine considered this for a moment. He was seeing evidence of the supernatural, wasn't he? Wasn't this little Arab drinking seawater as he watched, with no apparent ill effects? And even if some of it could be explained by hallucination, he was pretty sure that he hadn't been the only one to see the strange blue swirls in the store this morning. What if for a moment – just a moment – he took the Arab's outrageous story for the truth?†¦ â€Å"If this is true, then how do you know, after all this time, that Solomon lied to you? And why tell me about it?† â€Å"Because, Augustus Brine, I knew you would believe. And I know Solomon lied because I can feel the presence of the demon, Catch. And I'm sure that he has come to Pine Cove.† â€Å"Swell,† Brine said. 7 ARRIVAL Virgil Long backed out from under the hood of the Impala, wiped his hands on his coveralls, and scratched at his four-day growth of beard. He reminded Travis of a fat weasel with the mange. â€Å"So you're thinking it's the radiator?† Virgil asked. â€Å"It's the radiator,† Travis said. â€Å"It might be the whole engine is gone. You were running pretty quiet when you drove in. Not a good sign. Do you have a charge card?† Virgil was unprecedented in his inability to diagnose specific engine problems. When he was dealing with tourists, his strategy was usually to start replacing things and keep replacing them until he solved the problem or reached the limit on the customer's credit card, whichever came first. â€Å"It wasn't running at all when I came in,† Travis protested. â€Å"And I don't have a credit card. It's the radiator, I promise.† â€Å"Now, son,† Virgil drawled, â€Å"I know you think you know what you're talking about, but I got a certificate from the Ford factory there on the wall that says I'm a master mechanic.† Virgil pointed a fat finger toward the service station's office. One wall was covered with framed certificates along with a poster of a nude woman sitting on the hood of a Corvette buffing her private parts with a scarf in order to sell motor oil. Virgil had purchased the Master Mechanic certificates from an outfit in New Hampshire: two for five dollars, six for ten dollars, fifteen for twenty. He had gone for the twenty-dollar package. Those who took the time to read the certificates were somewhat surprised to find out that Pine Cove's only service station and car wash had its own factory-certified snowmobile mechanic. It had never snowed in Pine Cove. â€Å"This is a Chevy,† Travis said. â€Å"Got a certificate for those, too. You probably need new rings. The radiator's just a symptom, like these broken headlights. You treat the symptom, the disease just gets worse.† Virgil had heard that on a doctor show once and liked the sound of it. â€Å"What will it cost to just fix the radiator?† Virgil stared deep into the grease spots on the garage floor, as if by reading their patterns and by some mystic mode of divination, petrolmancy perhaps, he would arrive at a price that would not alienate the dark young man but would still assure him an exorbitant hourly rate for his labor. â€Å"Hundred bucks.† It had a nice round ring to it. â€Å"Fine,† Travis said, â€Å"Fix it. When can I have it back?† Virgil consulted the grease spots again, then emerged with a good-ol'-boy smile. â€Å"How's noon sound?† â€Å"Fine,† Travis said. â€Å"Is there a pool hall around here – and someplace I can get some breakfast?† â€Å"No pool hall. The Head of the Slug is open down the street. They got a couple of tables.† â€Å"And breakfast?† â€Å"Only thing open this end of town is H.P.'s, a block off Cypress, down from the Slug. But it's a local's joint.† â€Å"Is there a problem getting served?† â€Å"No. The menu might throw you for a bit. It – well, you'll see.† Travis thanked the mechanic and started off in the direction of H.P.'s, the demon skulking along behind him. As they passed the self-serve car-wash stalls, Travis noticed a tall man of about thirty unloading plastic laundry baskets full of dirty dishes from the bed of an old Ford pickup. He seemed to be having trouble getting quarters to go into the coin box. Looking at him, Travis said: â€Å"You know, Catch, I'll bet there's a lot of incest in this town.† â€Å"Probably the only entertainment,† the demon agreed. The man in the car wash had activated the high-pressure nozzle and was sweeping it back and forth across the baskets of dishes. With each sweep he repeated, â€Å"Nobody lives like this. Nobody.† Some of the overspray caught on the wind and settled over Travis and Catch. For a moment the demon became visible in the spray. â€Å"I'm melt-ing,† Catch whined in perfect Wicked Witch of the West pitch. â€Å"Let's go,† Travis said, moving quickly to avoid more spray. â€Å"We need a hundred bucks before noon.† JENNY In the two hours since Jenny Masterson had arrived at the cafe she had managed to drop a tray full of glasses, mix up the orders on three tables, fill the saltshakers with sugar and the sugar dispensers with salt, and pour hot coffee on the hands of two customers who had covered their cups to indicate that they'd had enough – a patently stupid gesture on their part, she thought. The worst of it was not that she normally performed her duties flawlessly, which she did. The worst of it was that everyone was so damned understanding about it. â€Å"You're going through a rough time, honey, it's okay.† â€Å"Divorce is always hard.† Their consolations ranged from â€Å"too bad you couldn't work it out† to â€Å"he was a worthless drunk anyway, you're better off without him.† She'd been separated from Robert exactly four days and everybody in Pine Cove knew about it. And they couldn't just let it lie. Why didn't they let her go through the process without running this cloying gauntlet of sympathy? It was as if she had a big red D sewed to her clothing, a signal to the townsfolk to close around her like a hungry amoeba. When the second tray of glasses hit the floor, she stood amid the shards trying to catch her breath and could not. She had to do something – scream, cry, pass out – but she just stood there, paralyzed, while the busboy cleaned up the glass. Two bony hands closed on her shoulders. She heard a voice in her ear that seemed to come from very far away. â€Å"You are having an anxiety attack, dear. It shall pass. Relax and breathe deeply.† She felt the hands gently leading her through the kitchen door to the office in the back. â€Å"Sit down and put your head between your knees.† She let herself be guided into a chair. Her mind went white, and her breath caught in her throat. A bony hand rubbed her back. â€Å"Breathe, Jennifer. I'll not have you shuffling off this mortal coil in the middle of the breakfast shift.† In a moment her head cleared and she looked up to see Howard Phillips, the owner of H.P.'s, standing over her. He was a tall, skeletal man, who always wore a black suit and button shoes that had been fashionable a hundred years ago. Except for the dark depressions on his cheeks, Howard's skin was as white as a carrion worm. Robert had once said that H.P. looked like the master of ceremonies at a chemotherapy funfest. Howard had been born and raised in Maine, yet when he spoke, he affected the accent of an erudite Londoner. â€Å"The prospect of change is a many-fanged beast, my dear. It is not, however, appropriate to pay fearful obeisance to that beast by cowering in the ruins of my stemware while you have orders up.† â€Å"I'm sorry, Howard. Robert called this morning. He sounded so helpless, pathetic.† â€Å"A tragedy, to be sure. Yet as we sit, ensconced in our grief, two perfectly healthy daily specials languish under the heat lamps metamorphosing into gelatinous invitations to botulism.† Jenny was relieved that in his own, cryptically charming way, Howard was not giving her sympathy but telling her to get off her ass and live her life. â€Å"I think I'm okay now. Thanks, Howard.† Jenny stood and wiped her eyes with a paper napkin she took from her apron. Then she went off to deliver her orders. Howard, having exhausted his compassion for the day, closed the door of his office and began working on the books. When Jenny returned to the floor, she found that the restaurant had cleared except for a few regular customers and a dark young man she didn't recognize, who was standing by the PLEASE WAIT TO BE SEATED sign. At least he wouldn't ask about Robert, thank God. It was a welcome relief. Not many tourists found H.P.'s. It was tucked in a tree-lined cul-de-sac off Cypress Street in a remodeled Victorian bungalow. The sign outside, small and tasteful, simply read, CAFE. Howard did not believe in advertising, and though he was an Anglophile at heart – loving all things British and feeling that they were somehow superior to their American counterparts – his restaurant displayed none of the ersatz British decor that might draw in the tourists. The cafe served simple food at fair prices. If the menu exhibited Howard Phillips's eccentricity in style, it did not discourage the locals from eating at his place. Next to Brine's Bait, Tackle, and Fine Wines, H.P.'s Cafe had the most loyal clientele in Pine Cove. â€Å"Smoking or nonsmoking?† Jenny asked the young man. He was very good-looking, but Jenny noticed this only in passing. She was conditioned by years of monogamy not to dwell on such things. â€Å"Nonsmoking,† he said. Jenny led him to a table in the back. Before he sat down, he pulled out the chair across from him, as if he were going to put his feet up. â€Å"Will someone be joining you?† Jenny asked, handing him a menu. He looked up at her as if he were seeing her for the first time. He stared into her eyes without saying a word. Embarrassed, Jenny looked down. â€Å"Today's special is Eggs-Sothoth – a fiendishly toothsome amalgamation of scrumptious ingredients so delicious that the mere description of the palatable gestalt could drive one mad,† she said. â€Å"You're joking?† â€Å"No. The owner insists that we memorize the daily specials verbatim.† The dark man kept staring at her. â€Å"What does all that mean?† he asked. â€Å"Scrambled eggs with ham and cheese and a side of toast.† â€Å"Why didn't you just say that?† â€Å"The owner is a little eccentric. He believes that his daily specials may be the only thing keeping the Old Ones at bay.† â€Å"The Old Ones?† Jenny sighed. The nice thing about regular customers is she didn't have to keep explaining Howard's weird menu to them. This guy was obviously from out of town. But why did he have to keep staring at her like that? â€Å"It's his religion or something. He believes that the world was once populated by another race. He calls them the Old Ones. For some reason they were banished from Earth, but he believes that they are trying to return and take over.† â€Å"You're joking?† â€Å"Stop saying that. I'm not joking.† â€Å"I'm sorry.† He looked at the menu. â€Å"Okay, give me an Eggs-Sothoth with a side order of The Spuds of Madness.† â€Å"Would you like coffee?† â€Å"That would be great.† Jenny wrote out the ticket and turned to put the order in at the kitchen window. â€Å"Excuse me,† the man said. Jenny turned in midstep. â€Å"Yes?† â€Å"You have incredible eyes.† â€Å"Thanks.† She felt herself blush as she headed off to get his coffee. She wasn't ready for this. She needed some sort of break between being married and being divorced. Divorce leave? They had pregnancy leave, didn't they? When she returned with his coffee, she looked at him for the first time as a single woman might. He was handsome, in a sharp, dark sort of way. He looked younger than she was, twenty-three, maybe twenty-four. She was studying his clothes and trying to get a feel for what he did for a living when she ran into the chair he had pushed out from the table and spilled most of the coffee into the saucer. â€Å"God, I'm sorry.† â€Å"It's okay,† he said. â€Å"Are you having a bad day?† â€Å"Getting worse by the minute. I'll get you another cup.† â€Å"No,† he raised a hand in protest. â€Å"Its fine.† He took the cup and saucer from her, separated them, and poured the coffee back into the cup. â€Å"See, good as new. I don't want to add to your bad day.† He was staring again. â€Å"No, you're fine. I mean, I'm fine. Thanks.† She felt like a geek. She cursed Robert for causing all this. If he hadn't†¦ No, it wasn't Robert's fault. She'd made the decision to end the marriage. â€Å"I'm Travis.† The man extended his hand. She took it, tentatively. â€Å"Jennifer-† She was about to tell him that she was married and that he was nice and all. â€Å"I'm not married,† she said. She immediately wanted to disappear into the kitchen and never come back. â€Å"Me either,† Travis said. â€Å"I'm new in town.† He didn't seem to notice how awkward she was. â€Å"Look, Jennifer, I'm looking for an address and I wonder if you could tell me how to find it? Do you know how to get to Cheshire Street?† Jenny was relieved to be talking about anything but herself. She rattled off a series of streets and turns, landmarks and signs, that would lead Travis to Cheshire Street. When she finished, he just looked at her quizzically. â€Å"I'll draw you a map,† she said. She took a pen from her apron, bent over the table, and began drawing on a napkin. Their faces were inches apart. â€Å"You're very beautiful,† he said. She looked at him. She didn't know whether to smile or scream. Not yet, she thought. I'm not ready. He didn't wait for her to respond. â€Å"You remind me of someone I used to know.† â€Å"Thank you†¦Ã¢â‚¬  She tried to remember his name. â€Å"†¦Travis.† â€Å"Have dinner with me tonight?† She searched for an excuse. None came. She couldn't use the one she had used for a decade – it wasn't true anymore. And she hadn't been alone long enough to brush up on some new lies. In fact, she felt that she was somehow being unfaithful to Robert just by talking to this guy. But she was a single woman. Finally she wrote her phone number under the map on the napkin and handed it to him. â€Å"My number's on the bottom. Why don't you call me tonight, around five, and we'll take it from there, okay?† Travis folded the napkin and put it in his shirt pocket. â€Å"Until tonight,† he said. â€Å"Oh, spare me!† a gravely voice said. Jenny turned toward the voice, but there was only the empty chair. To Travis she said, â€Å"Did you hear that?† â€Å"Hear what?† Travis glared at the empty chair. â€Å"Nothing,† Jenny said, â€Å"I'm starting to go over the edge, I think.† â€Å"Relax,† Travis said. â€Å"I won't bite you.† He shot a glance at the chair. â€Å"Your order is up. I'll be right back.† She retrieved the food from the window and delivered it to Travis. While he ate, she stood behind the counter separating coffee filters for the lunch shift, occasionally looking up and smiling at the dark, young man, who paused between bites and smiled back. She was fine, just fine. She was a single woman and could do any damned thing she wanted to. She could go out with anyone she wanted to. She was young and attractive and she had just made her first date in ten years – sort of. Over all of her affirmations her fears flew up and perched like a murder of crows. It occurred to her that she didn't have the slightest idea what she was going to wear. The freedom of single life had suddenly become a burden, a mixed blessing, herpes on the pope's ring. Maybe she wouldn't answer the phone when he called. Travis finished eating and paid his bill, leaving her far too large a tip. â€Å"See you tonight,† he said. â€Å"You bet.† She smiled. She watched him walk across the parking lot. He seemed to be talking to someone as he walked. Probably just singing. Guys did that right after they made a date, didn't they? Maybe he was just a whacko? For the hundredth time that morning she resisted the urge to call Robert and tell him to come home.