Philosophy and Theory of Yin and Yang Essay

In Taoist philosophy, dark and light (☠¯) yin and yang, arrives in the dà  odà ©jÄ «ng at Chapter 42. It becomes sensible from an initial quiescence or emptiness (wuji, sometimes symbolized by an empty circle), and continues moving until quiescence is reached again. For instance, dropping a stone in a calm pool of water will simultaneously raise waves and lower troughs between them, and this alternation of high and low points in the water will radiate outward until the movement dissipates and the pool is calm once more. Yin and yang thus are always opposite and equal qualities. Further, whenever one quality reaches its peak, it will naturally begin to transform into the opposite quality: for example, grain that reaches its full height in summer (fully yang) will produce seeds and die back in winter (fully yin) in an endless cycle. It is impossible to talk about yin or yang without some reference of the opposite; since yin and yang are bound together as parts of a mutual whole. A way to illustrate this idea is to postulate the notion of a race with only men or only women; this race would disappear in a single generation. Yet, men and women together create new generations that allow the race they mutually create (and mutually come from) to survive. The interaction of the two gives birth to things. Yin and yang transform each other: like an undertow in the ocean, every advance is complemented by a retreat, and every rise transforms into a fall. Thus, a seed will sprout from the earth and grow upwards towards the sky – an intrinsically yang movement. Then, when it reaches its full potential height, it will fall. â€Å"Laozi†. Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy by Stanford University. â€Å"The Tao Teh King, or the Tao and its Characteristics by Laozi – Project Gutenberg†. Gutenberg.org. 2007-12-01.

How Would You Define the Word “Democracy” Give Full Reasons for Your Answer?

This essay will argue that there is no single definition of democracy, due to the fact that there are many models of democracy, which in turn have their own opinions on what the term means. For example direct democracy can be seen as government by the people. In contrast representative democracy can be seen as government for the people. Also depending if one agrees with political equality will alter your definition for example if a person has high level of social significance they would believe that democracy is the rule of the elite and political equality does not exist this is the view point of Marxists.However on the other hand liberal- democracies do believe it and therefore their opinion on â€Å"democracy† is political equality. As Bernard Crick 1993 stated, â€Å" democracy is the most promiscuous word in public affairs† (Andrew Heywood politics third edition chapter four page 73) meaning the word democracy can mean anything. The word democracy comes from the Gre ek word demo meaning people and kratos meaning power.So the classical term for democracy is rule by the people. However this term is very vague, who is the people in ancient Greece in order to participate in politics you had to be male over the age of twenty, excluding women slaves and foreigners. In contemporary times there is restricted political participation usually the ages from 21 to 15, to vote. This in turn shows that not everyone is able to participate in controlling his or her own government due to age.The fact that voting is based on majority shows that voting only represents the majority. So people who voted against the majority will not get their say â€Å"the tyranny of the majority† (Andrew Heywood politics third edition chapter four page 73) explains that the term people is not everyone living in the state but the majority. Therefore depending on how old you are and who you voted for will depend if you believe the word democracy is rule by the people.The most significant point of democracy is liberal democrat view of political equality â€Å"one person one vote one value† this is very true most western democratic regimes are based on voting everyone get a vote and it is equal however in contrast Marxists believe that actually this is not true. The more level of significance of social equality such as control of mass communication and economic resources as well as voting is more likely to have your point of view taken into account by the government.An example is in the 2000 presidential election between George W Bush and Al Gore, Florida was the sate that could tip the balance between who would win, many news stations counted that Al gore won. The fact that George W Bush brother Jeb Bush was senator of Florida and that his other brother was in charge of publishing the votes on Fox News meant. The fact that votes was casted on fox news earlier than most stations meant many voters changed their minds and voted Bush as he was supposed ly most likely to win.The fact is George W Bush had the backing from the mass media such as Fox media and people in power such as Jeb meant he came in to power. (George W Bush had mass media control, the average voter voice was not heard, and as Al gore was whom the majority voted for) (Film Fahrenheit 9-11 Michael Moore) This is an example of pluralist democracy in which the elite are in control of society, the capacity of organised groups to articulate government responsiveness.In countries that has capitalism as its backbone economy, the elite tend to be the ones who own or control big corporate business, you only need to look at â€Å"America political system and see that people funding political candidates are buying influence and accesses to lobby groups† (www. news. bbc. co. uk/world/america), that is why in 2000 191 million dollars was raised by oil companies and united defence for Bush. Of course through the course of history we know that theses business benefited a lot from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.This shows that corporatist pluralism is a threat to society as a threat to society because political equality does not take place, if you are considered an insider group you will benefit such as united defence and if you are an outsider the chances of you influencing government other than voting is almost nil. As Lenin said liberal democracies are seen as bourgeois democracies that are†¦ by the ruling class (Andrew Heywood politics third edition page 86). However the view that only the elite benefit from â€Å"democracy† and that political equality does not exist which is the major point of democracy in that it should exist, is not always true.Peak associations benefit the state rather than major economic associations and the elite; theses are groups that want the best interest for the workers. So you could argue that in some cases political equality does exist. An example is Obama and his democratic party in which they believe in supporting the people not the business, the creation of Medi-care is an example. The creation of the Gettysburg Address delivered in 1864 by Abraham Lincoln â€Å"government of the people by the people for the people â€Å" (www. showcase. et/ creative Lincoln speech) made defining democracy a lot more difficult, due to the fact two models of democracy have cropped up direct democracy (by the people) through systems of referendum and representative democracy (for the people) system of electing someone on your behalf. Direct democracy may be seen by citizens of countries such as Switzerland as the real form of democracy due to the fact the people are in- charge of ruling them selves all the government do is facilitate the decision and make sure it is carried through.This is most similar to the ancient Greek idea of democracy. The way it is done is through referendums’ that can only be passed if majority of cantons agree as well as a small minority of cantons. An example o f referendums in Switzerland in which the people have voted for and taken action is the Swiss people have rejected the law that state funded layers can protect animals in 2010. (www. bbc. co. uk). However the main problem with referendums’ is governments can reject them going against the principal of rule by the people.An example occurred in the state of Rhode Island in 2002, when the governor placed such a referendum on the ballot asking citizens if they wanted to change the state constitution to make the three branches of the state government co-equal. The citizens voted in favor of the measure, but the result was not binding, and the governor and the legislature were not required to take action. (www. elearnportal. com/courses/political-science).The other point is direct democracy would only work in areas with small population such as Greek city states and Switzerland otherwise a population like the UK with over 60 million people would mean any decision would take a huge a mount of time. Therefore the representative democracy exits, the argument for representative democracy is people may not have the education or background to make logical decisions for the rest of the population; therefore you vote for your constituency who on your behalf represented you.Who in turn in parliamentary democracies would vote who would head your party. This may seem democratic in the view that your MP is only interested in your constituency. However party politics play a part and some politicians may seem greedy for power and not really care or represent you. Also even though this creates accountability on MPs behalf you may only do something about it every time an election is held. We only have an input every four years (undergrounddemocracy. com).This is means if politicians go against their mandate or do something the majority of people don’t like example the student cuts you cant do something about it until the next election. Also depending on who you are in t he political system will depend on what you think is a democratic system, for example totalitarian regimes such as Hitler and the Nazi party may claim they where democratic due to the fact they represented the peoples best interest, however the German people who where not involved in politics or people in general who live under a dictatorship may not agree that they are living democratically.In conclusion the language of democracy is used as political propaganda â€Å" it is a political weapon it is shaped and honed to covey political intent† (Andrew Heywood political theory page 2) what Andrew meant is similar to what Bernard Crick in that there is no clear definition of democracy. It all depends on who is the person or group that is defining the word democracy.If you are living in a representative democracy under a totalitarian regime and you are the head of that party in power then of course you would say you are democratic working in the best interest of the people despit e the fact they could be living in the gutter starving. Or if you are the prime-minster of the Britain despite the fact you where not directly elected by the people to be prime-minster but you are non-the less creating a government for the people you would say you are democratic, in contrast to people who did not vote for you or your policy.If you are considered a Marxist then your opinion on liberal democracy is that it is false due to the fact political equality does not exist and that the elite and corporatists have more power to influence the government for them and not always the majority of people, however if you are the elite you would say it is democratic as we live in competitive capitalist environment and through peek associations we benefit the economy because we have the know how, and the majority would want that.Direct democracy is another definition of democracy stating that the citizens should have complete control however due to political restrictions such as age and the ability to reject referendums proves that rule by the people can t be fully accomplished.My opinion is that again depending on who is defining democracy will depend on what they want it to mean due to the popularity of being democratic however, complete democracy will never be achieved as there will always be people who appose an opinion causing rule by the majority. But the ability to vote enables that citizens do have some control over their society and that in most western democracies people in power are trying to do what is best for the interest of the people, even if political equality may not exist.

Cultural Background Summary

Personal Cultural Background A person’s identity is unique and has a foundation of various sources. These sources may be different for every person, ranging from a person’s upbringing to a person’s religion. This paper will define cultural background and examine the multiple sources that make up my own personal cultural background that helped mold my individual identity. Furthermore, the paper will speculate on the extent to which my current identity has been molded by assimilation, acculturation, or climate of pluralism. People are unique because no one identity is the same. Every person has his or her own unique identity, which are created by a person’s cultural background, or personal experiences. Cultural background is a primary source of identity. Self-definition, expression, and sense of group belonging are aspects of a person that derives partly from his or her cultural background. An individual’s cultural background, or personal experiences, influences the individual’s behavior, attitude, values, and way of thinking. Although numerous people can experience same situations, the individuals’ perceptions of the events are what make the experiences different from one another. For example, two students take the same test and they both fail; however, one student decides to start studying harder and the other student drops out of school. Both students had two experiences that were the same (e. g. the test and failing), however, the students had two different outcomes (e. g. studying harder and dropping out of school). Next, the paper will examine the multiple sources of my cultural background. My personal cultural background that makes up my identity consists of multiple sources. These sources have influenced me to live the type of lifestyle I live; to behave the way I behave; and to perceive the world the way I do. Several environments have contributed to my cultural background. These environments consists of my family and upbringing, school, church, past relationships, work, and past life experiences. Each of these environments played an important role in how I view the world and have instilled in me morals, ethics, and values. Although these sources have been influential in my life getting me to the point I am currently at in my life, life experiences have the potential and power to change how I perceive the world and my behavior, ethics, and values. My upbringing and the various environments I have been in have helped me evolve into my own individual person. These sources have allowed me to be able to â€Å"think outside the box† of societal norms. My family and other interpersonal relationships have been the most influential part of my current identity. These relationships have taught me respect, ethics, values, and, communication skills. Additionally, these relationships have taught me to be able to adapt successfully to change; to strive for the best and to be the best person I am capable of being; and to not settle for less than my own standards. A person’s cultural background is created by personal experiences individuals go through. However, the individual’s perception of those experiences is what makes every individual different and unique. My own personal cultural background consists of sources such as my personal upbringing, personal religious beliefs, personal values, and personal ethics. My current identity has been molded by pluralism and multiculturalism, or processes that except experiences that alter existing behaviors and beliefs. As cultures continue to interact and intertwine, cultural identities and personal identities will always be constantly changing.

Islamic style arches in generalife Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Islamic style arches in generalife - Essay Example The Generalife of Granada in Spain are the only example of Muslim architecture which gives us an rough idea of how these gardens initially, where in the Muslim spirit, in all improvised and its sensually instinctive construction, was finally carried away. The root of Islamic gardens for instance, dates back most likely to the Middle East, particularly to Persia (Curl & Curl, 2005 p., 35). The Generalife in Spain is composed of a series of huge gardens, where each corner holds a novelty or a pleasant surprise for the eyes, with less of obtrusive buildings. Many times this is considered as a true reflection of Muslim occupancy at this era of history. Uniqueness of architecture of any nation or region is more often than not related to the culture of the people and their history of civilization and Spain is not an exception. Spain as a nation has a history of invaders particularly Muslims. By the 11th century, Islamic rulers had taken over Spain, and this lasted for a period of over 800 years. Likewise, the power of unifying Christian forces made Spain lose its authority over its northern territories. The evidence is clearly reflected in the arches of Generalife and of the period that largely demonstrates a fusion of Islamic cultural traditions. The most beautiful and striking unique features in the Generalife gardens are the plants, the water with its continuous interpl ay with its sounds and light. Generalife can be considered to be one of the oldest surviving Moorish gardens. The Muslims grasped the use and design of the arch compared to any other civilisation. The unique attributes of the Islamic designs are observed all over Generalife. The gardens and were constructed when Muhammad III (1302–1309) was in power and redecorated was done shortly after by Abu I-Walid Ismail (1313–1324). Observing the Generalife keenly, one can conclude that perhaps no culture was more conversant with the design and application use of the arch more than the Muslims.

Spreadsheet Report Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Spreadsheet Report - Essay Example A company’s income statement is perhaps more important because it shows whether or not the business has achieved or failed to achieve its primary objective-earning a ‘profit’ or ‘net income’ Initially, Paid-up capital of Rose, Aisha, John and David was  £2000 for the initial stock purchases in order to start their enterprise commercial activities which were received from Rose, Aisha, John and David as an equal shares of  £500 each partner. During the year 2007/08 the following financial transaction occurred. Although the enterprise has a good return on employed capital which is approximately thee time more than the capital employed, but the same time there is big difference between G.P margin and N.P margin which 33.76% (60.36%-26.60%) it means the enterprise bearing significant expenses as well the enterprise paid a big total of payable tax 1088.83 which is 17.5% of the profit before tax. In order to get the optimum profit margin the enterprise should reduce their expenses. Each of the partners Rose, Aisha, John and David had contributed and equal amount of share which is  £500 of the total paid –up capital with this connection all the profit of the enterprise will be distributed at the same ratio to all the partners as shown below: The total sales of the enterprise for the first year calculated as  £19297.10 but if the enterprise intended to increase its income by 20% from the first year with this intention the enterprise would have to increase its sales by  £3859.42 which would reach  £23156.52 for the year 2008/09. Therefore the enterprise would have to increase its purchases by 20% as like for the first year cost of goods sold was  £7650 so the enterprise will have to purchase the additional goods by 20% which will increase the expenditure by  £1530 and the total cost of goods sold will be amounted to  £9180.The whole budgeting scenario for the year ended 2008/09 is illustrated as below. By

Strategic Management- Xerox Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Strategic Management- Xerox - Essay Example Xerox Corporation is a multinational document management firm involved in production and selling of printing related products and other services. It was founded in 1906 and produced first plain paper photocopier and became one of the leading manufacturers and suppliers of the document management products and services. Its major breakthrough during recent times came during 1990s when company started to refocus and specially went on to redevelop its focus on the product orientation. It was also during this period that firm has seriously started to look for expanding into other related and unrelated businesses. Historically, Xerox has been a hard copy company means it supplied products and services which were related with hardcopy however, over the period of time, it has opted out of this business segment and is now also generating revenue from the non-hardcopy business segment. This unrelated diversification therefore has allowed the firm to increase its revenue and profitability. It is however, important to understand that unrelated diversification can benefit the firm it has the requisite expertise in management to actually strengthen the business. If management does not have the expertise and skill to actually support new business, it may become relatively unsuccessful and risky to engage into unrelated diversification activities. Xerox has ventured into financial services industry also which was a completely different business line than its traditional business. It however failed to sustain the business and was force to divest from this due to lack of knowledge and expertise to manage this business independently. (Business Week). Not having relevant skills and knowledge to manage a business which actually does not fall into the domain of senior managers therefore may be one of the key risks faced by the firms like Xerox. Over the period of time, Xerox has changed its orientation and has now become a more of a service

Response to chapter 7 STRAIN OF TWO CITIES in the book Inside Rikers Essay

Response to chapter 7 STRAIN OF TWO CITIES in the book Inside Rikers - Essay Example Nevertheless, the criminal has to make the decision of maximizing these opportunities in order to be released from the cycle of imprisonment, criminality, and poverty. Society provides the conditions for poverty, which easily breeds criminality. Angel is one of Wynn’s students at Fresh Start (Wynn, 2001). For his first job, he earned eight dollars an hour as a handyman in a hospice for people with AIDS (Wynn, 2001). Unfortunately, his contract changed, so he shifted from a full-time job to a part-time one (Wynn, 2001). Wynn was amazed that Angel did not revert back to a life of crime. Angel admitted that being poor and an ex-convict sharply decreases opportunities for advancement (Wynn, 2001). He complained about not being able to get jobs because of his criminal record: â€Å"I feel like I’ll never stop paying for the past. I’ve done my time, but it doesn’t seem to matter† (Wynn, 2001). At the same time, he did not have healthcare insurance, so when he got sick, he waited to be sick enough to be brought to the emergency room (Wynn, 2001). Wynn had to help him get a free checkup. Angel provides proof that society tends to push people to poverty, which facilitates criminal conduct. Society can reverse these conditions by offering opportunities for education and employment. John Wareham is an international executive recruiter, a psychologist, and famous business lecturer who joined Fresh Start as a teacher (Wynn, 2001). Wynn narrated a debate that John initiated, where three lawyers and writers debated with three convicts on the topic of robbing a bank versus working at McDonalds. The lawyers and writers argued for robbing the bank, while the convicts argued against it. Wynn stressed that the convicts used their hearts and minds to support their arguments. John said that this change in thinking and behavior would get

Rationalism (Rene Descartes) and Empiricism (David Hume) Essay

Rationalism (Rene Descartes) and Empiricism (David Hume) - Essay Example According to the research findings there are two contrastive schools of thought; while one gives premium to reason, the other gives premium to experience. The first school of thought that gives premium to reason is the rationalist school of thought. The second school of thought is the empiricist school. While the major proponent for rationalism is Rene Descartes, the major proponent of empiricism is David Hume. Lacey states that rationalism is â€Å"any view appealing to reason as a source of knowledge or justification.† Instead of appealing to emotions and their sensory organs, rationalists appeal to the intellect. Like all things, there are extremes in rationalism. While the opinion of some rationalists tends to fall largely in line with empiricism, meaning that they share many links with empiricism; the opinion of others see no reasons with empiricism at all. The former category of rationalists is not absolute in the beliefs they hold about the power of reason. The latter c ategory of rationalists is of those that may safely be described as extreme rationalist. They are the ones that believe that all things can be resolved through reasoning. Although, empiricism as a philosophy has already been broached in this essay, it is yet important to explain further. Unlike rationalism which states that most truths and ideas can be attained mainly through reason, empiricism states that all ideas, knowledge and truths can be attained through experience and what can be sensed by using human senses. The typical empiricist will ask 'How do you believe what you've not experienced?' So, for the empiricist, experience is all. It is through experience that one gets evidence to substantiate whatever opinion one clings to. Empiricists believe that there is no just reason to believe a thing or an opinion which one is not able to test. They do not see reasons why anyone would rely solely on abstract reasoning without applying sense-based experiments (Markie 233). To such em piricist who questions why anyone would trust what they have not seen, rationalists would argue that before that which is seen and witnessed (experience and experiments) came to being, there was that which was not seen (reasoning). Asides David Hume, other philosophers that can be categorized as empiricists are Francis Bacon, John Stuart Mill and Thomas Hobbes. Before one assumes any stance in philosophy, one must have premises that back up the point one makes. One must also be sure to know that all those who have held one opinion or the other about any issue have reasons, most times cogent, for sticking to their opinion. Yet, based on arguments that have been advanced overtime, it won't be wrong to assume that rationalsim carries the day. In putting up a paper like this together, it is important that one lends credence to objectivity. By some yardsticks, one may say that empiricists are right. This is because when rationalists carry out what they believe is the key thing—rea soning, one must note that they do not think in abstract, they almost certainly think about things that have been

Marketing matrix Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Marketing matrix - Essay Example lm which comes with a total bill of $200 million will need a staggered release so that at every stage of the release the filmmaker is able to recover a part of the production cost and hope to increase his/her profits (Waxman, 2006). To make everyone adopt simultaneous release would be to enforce an innovation upon individuals who may not wish to follow it. Therefore, for small productions and those which cost very little to bring to the market, a policy of simultaneous release would be much better and perhaps more profitable than a staggered release to the public. This idea was strongly supported by Godas (2005) who is the founder of Dogwoof Digital which is the company that went for a simultaneous release of its low budget home grown production titled ‘EMR’. In fact, while giving the advantages of simultaneous release, Godas (2005) also describes the idea of having a staggered release and mentions that â€Å"this model works well with larger films (Godas, 2005, Pg. 1)†. While simultaneous release can be seen as a well employed method for film distribution when it comes to small productions, larger films and movies which costs many millions may not see this as a useful method for allowing the public to access movies. Of course it is difficult to say how the future will take shape since major film producers such as George Lucas have already mentioned the benefits of simultaneous release as a means of fighting piracy. Additionally, the innovations used by independent producers and filmmakers may become attractive to larger movie houses but for the most part, what independent release has done for major movie studios is to shrink the window between launching a movie on the box office and launching it on DVD for rentals (Godas, 2005). Undoubtedly, the theatrical experience and the home movie watching experience are two different things and the impact of a work of art in the cinema and in the home may be quite different. Both experiences have their value and the

Alcohol-related Motor Vehicle Trafic Crashed Essay

Alcohol-related Motor Vehicle Trafic Crashed - Essay Example It has been decreasing owing to the efforts by patrol police who have worked hard to bring sanity. From 2009, the police have seen the number of death toll from university students. This made the Florida Highway Patrol to provide the names of all the students that have lost their lives in such bizarre incidents. Sixty percent of these deaths were caused by drunk driving (cited in SAMHSA 45). However, the police and hospitals have noted with concern the influence of other substances that the students use alongside alcohol. Students consume alcohol alongside marijuana thus putting them to extreme risks. SAMHSA (substance abuse and mental health services administration in their report, gives the names of students who have lost their lives in the since 2009. A good number comes from the University of Florida that is situated in the Miami De County (cited in SAMHSA 47). These statistics can be compared to the recent trends as from the year 2012. In the year 2013, a 30-year-old was sent to hospital (cited in SAMHSA 45). Officers found out that he was driving while drunk. In the year 2010, approximately 2,220 people were convicted of drunk driving. They were irresponsible enough, putting their lives and that of passengers at risk. According to high department, they recorded close to 228, 000-accident cases in the year 2011. Of these accidents, 108,000 were alcohol induced. Fatal accidents were 850 with 900 casualties. Statistics also show that many students have fallen victims of drunk driving. Most of them are from the Universities and the University of Florida is mostly affected. These students live the high life, go to parties, get drunk and choose to drive themselves. It is so painful to see the large list at the high department, which states that all of these students... This essay approves that the nurses must develop empathy before embarking on helping the victims. It helps them develop passion to help the victims. A nurse must have a positive attitude towards helping accident victims. In most cases, reckless drivers are receiving limited attention from the nurses. Nurses should also receive training from the top management to enable them develop a positive attitude towards their work. Care must also be taken to control the overacting personnel like the ones who develop compassion fatigue. This report makes a conclusion that the Miami De County is facing road accident nightmares. The county is recording a worrying trend in the alcohol-related road crashes. This is attributed to the drinking habit of the county. Statistics show that the county did record high accident numbers between the years 2010 and 2012. Recently the numbers have been increasing with alcohol contributing to almost a third of the accidents. The traffic police have worked endlessly to salvage the situation to no avail. There is a new group of drinkers: the teenagers in university. These groups lead affluent lives occasioned with drinking. The resulted is many road accidents and death tolls. The only professionals that can handle this situation are nurses. This paper recommends that nurses can use their influence on the patients they attend to reduce these road accidents. They have a variety of intervention stages, from the education sector to the alcohol advertising companies. Throughout this paper, i t is notable that nurses have less intervention with regard accidents. This paper also should bring awareness to the nurses and encourage their participation in reducing alcohol-related road crashes.

Discuss the major components of an academic essay,outlining the role that each component plays. Essay Example for Free

Discuss the major components of an academic essay,outlining the role that each component plays. Essay An academic essay is a systematic piece of writing which has a coherent and cohesion meaning. Basically, an academic essay is mainly characterized by an introduction, the body, the conclusion and the reference as shall be discussed forth with. To begin with, an introduction as stressed by McMillan and Weyers (2010: 90) â€Å"has to be the first contact that the reader makes with the author of the text.† This, therefore means it (the introduction) has to be well organized and clear, that is, short and precise to the subject matter or the topic. In support, Cleary et al (2013: 264) writes, â€Å"The introduction is the official start of your essay and introduces your reader to the subject.† Furthermore, Gamble and Gamble (2010: 371) supports the idea of the introduction being the first to impress the subject matter or points to be stressed. They further explain that, â€Å"The functions of an introduction are to gain the attention of the audience members, to make them listen to the speech.† Just like Gamble, Payne (2001) gives an emphasis on getting the attention of the audience through introducing the subject. Payne (ibid) suggests that, the introduction has to bring about the topic, that is, highlighting the audience or the reader about the subject or topic. In addition to that, Gamble (ibid) further shows that, in the introduction one of the ultimate goals to be built is rapport. This therefore, means creating or having a mutual relation of understanding with the audience. Cleary (2013: 265) suggests that, â€Å"an introduction has to explain the title as necessary: defining terms used in the title and explains the purpose in writing the subject matter.† This means, educating the audience or reader about the topic and thereby, giving adequate information relating to the subject. In addition, McMillan (i bid) gives an emphasis on the importance of the introduction being brief and, thereby explaining of the topic context. Meaning the introduction has to be clear and making the topic being clearly understood by everyone. Pritchard (2008) also highlights on the formulation of the relation between the audiences so as to deliver the information effectively. More so, Payne (ibid), further outlines that the role of the introduction is to create focusting of the major ideas of the subject matter. Again, this creates the map of the rest of the piece of work or document or speech, giving directions and highlights of what is going to happen through the course of the writing. In support, McMillan (2010:89) suggests that, â€Å"an introduction should have an explanation of how one is going to plan to address the topic in a particular text-in effect statement on intent.† Furthermore, Cleary (2013: 265) suggests that, â€Å"an introduction has to briefly state the structure of the essay by giving the main points.† This thereby gives the reader a clear picture on the title, the purpose of writing, the focus and the essay structure writes. Furthermore, an introduction should not be too difficult to understand. The use of simple language which is widely accepted gives credibility and the use of jargons it should not be used when introducing a topic. There should not be any ambiguity when introducing a topic. After the introduction, an academic essay should have the body. This, as writes Payne (2001: 416), â€Å"Is the main portion of the speech.† This therefore, means that the use of good joints of sentences is widely encouraged. This part therefore provides all the facts, evidence, critical analysis, discussion and a well built up side line of the story or the topic. As a result, the main ideas or the gist of the topic are easily attainabl e efficiently. In addition to, McMillan et al indicates that, â€Å"This section (the body) lays out the work based on the approach which one has decided to adopt in organizing the content.† This part of the essay needs to be dealt with great care, as organizing the information is crucial. Since the idea needs proper and crucial alignment, this therefore explains the importance of a good essay structure with a good planning of words and a coherent of good words in sentence construction. Clouse (2008) asserts that, the body consists of two major parts which are the topic sentence and the supporting details. The topic sentence has to present the main topic of the paragraph and announces the paragraph’s main idea, giving a map. Also, the supporting details are the evidence details provided to demonstrate the truth about the topic sentence. In other words, the body has to explain the major points, generalizing, describing or exemplifying as part of the analysis (McMillan). In addition, these authors also allude on keeping the body part as concise and clear as possible; this thereby means the body has to have less ambiguity in it. CEES (ed.) applauds that the body part of an academic essay writing has to serve the purpose of giving evidence, examples, references which relates to the topic sentence. This as a result, gives the audience a clear and a well defined picture of what is being meant by the topic sentence in play. In addition, CEES ibid points out that, th e body presents the topic sentence or the central idea supporting the thesis  statement or line of argument. In line with Cleary (2013: 135-136), paragraphs should be well constructed and of meaning and this is when sentences are arranged in such a way that they link to one another giving clarity to the reader. Such coherence can be achieved by arranging the sentences in the sequence that will best communicate the message to the reader through the inclusion of signpost words or signals which guides the reader. Also, a smooth flow of ideas makes the essay much more interesting, that is, cohesive meaning of the thoughts or ideas pertaining to the topic being discussed. Again, this uses transitions between paragraphs in order to ensure a perfect flow of ideas. However, the conclusion in an essay serves the purpose of summarizing the presentation. More so, McMillan (91) defines a conclusion as a summary of the whole piece of work. Therefore, a good conclusion has to present and clarify what has been discussed, evaluated, analyzed, and stated in the master piece (the body) party of the essay. Furthermore, Redman (2006) gives an emphasis that, proper conclusions has to revisit the key points or the main points of one’s argument, summarizing the key debates raised and try to fuse them. Therefore, the conclusion should provide a condensed version of the essay’s core argument, and restating the writer’s position in essay. Also, Cleary ibid purports that, in the conclusion, ideas not mentioned before should not be introduced as this thereby changes the focus of the conclusion. Payne ibid (2001: 424), indicates that, â€Å"Conclusion is the summarizing of the major ideas.† One does not have to review everything said in the speech, but a short piece reminds the audience of what is important. The conclusion has to serve the purpose of clarifying the issues or ideas one has just discussed. In addition to that, Cleary ibid says, â€Å"The component of a conclusion is to serve as a summary of the main points, usually referring to the thesis statement.† Besides serving as a summary, a good conclusion should be used to heighten the impact of the presentation writes Gamble (2010: 374). The conclusion must be a synthetic summary which therefore provides a platform of mutual understanding. Furthermore, it must grace the piece of work in such a manner that the major audience notes the major points or ideas of the summary as a whole (Payne). This means, a good conclusion has to be justified for recommendations. Again, a conclusion should be short, clarifying and emphasizing on the main topic of the writing, or the subject matter. Therefore, this acts as a tool in making the presentation of the rest of the topic to be well remembered through a bracing conclusion (Payne ibid). To embrace more on a good academic essay, references should be made so as to applaud the works of others (A2Z Essay). Cleary ibid (2013: 361) defines, â€Å"Referencing as a standardized method of acknowledging printed or electronic sources of information and idea that one have used in the essay, in a way that uniquely identifies their source.† Furthermore, referencing is an act of back acknowledging the works of others in any borrowed fact so as to keep the works of others safe from any plagiarism claims (A2Z). Simply put, referencing is necessary to avoid plagiarism; to enable readers to verify quotations; and to enable readers to follow up and read more fully cited author’s argument or research. On another note, reference gives proof that allows the readers or audiences to consult the source in case of confusion or furthe r discussions. Again, references acts as an assessment tool in the sense that it requires one to find reliability of the sources of the text, similarities and differences among the sources and making connection between the details (

Term Paper (Climate Change) Essay Example for Free

Term Paper (Climate Change) Essay Acknowledgement It is a great opportunity for me to write about subject like â€Å"Climate Change†. At the time of preparing this term paper I am gone through different books and websites which helps me to get acquired with new topics. I can usually focusing on the topics which are important for us to understand about thus subject easily. I acknowledge my deepest gratitude to our dearest English teacher Sir Benedict Geropn who is always sincere and helpful in making us understand the different system in making a research paper. Introduction Climate Change is changing our economy, health and community in diverse ways. Scientists warn that if we do not aggressively curb climate change now, the result will likely be disastrous. There are many questions that is need to be answer. So that we, humans will make some moves in these problem. Carbon dioxide and other global warming pollutions are collecting in the atmosphere like a thickening blanket, trapping the sun’s heat and causing the planet to warm up. Climate change is a complex phenomenon, and it’s full-scale impacts are hard to predict far in advance. But each year scientists learn more about how climate change is affecting the planet and our communities, and most agree that carbon consequences are likely to occur if current trends continue. In addition to impacting our water resources, energy supply, transportation, agriculture and ecosystems, the United States global change research program concludes that climate change also poses unique challenges to human health such as: * Significant increases in the risk of illness and death related to extreme heat and heat waves are very likely. * Some diseases transmitted by food, water and insects are likely to increase. * Certain groups, including children, the elderly and the poor are most vulnerable to a range of climate related health effects. Climate Change affects our environment and natural resources, and impacts our way of life in many ways these are the examples: * Rising sea levels threaten coastal communities and ecosystems. * Changes in the patterns and amount of rainfall, as well as changes in the timing and amount of stream flow, can affect water supplies and water quality and the production of hydroelectricity changing ecosystems influence geographic ranges of many plants and animal species and the timing of their lifecycle events, such as migration and reproduction. We can prepare for some of the likely change impacts to reduce their effects on ecosystem and human well-being. Making such preparations is known as adaptation. Examples of adaptation include strengthening water conservation programs, upgrading storm water systems, developing early warning systems for extreme heat events and preparing for stronger storms through better emergency preparation and response strategies. We can each play an important role in stopping climate change. It is not too late to have a significant impact on future climate change and its effects on us. With appropriate actions by governments, communities, individuals and businesses, we can reduce the amount of greenhouse gas pollution we release and lower the risk of much greater warming and severe consequences. Many of the actions that we can take to address climate change will have other benefits, such as cleaner, healthier air. In addition, communities can take action to prepare for the changes we know are coming. I. Introduction The world’s climate is changing and the changes will have an enormous impact on our planet’s people, ecosystems, cities and energy use. Average global air temperatures are already 1.4 degrees higher than they were at the start of the 20th century and have risen about 1.1 degree F over just the last 30 years. What is the difference between weather and climate? Climate describe the average or typical conditions of temperature, relative humidity, cloudiness, precipitation, wind speed and direction and other meteorological factors that prevail globally or regionally for extended periods. Weather describes the hourly or daily conditions that people experience each day. Which is why it’s often said that â€Å"Climate is what you expect; weather is what you get.† People expect the weather to change, but have a harder time agreeing exactly how climate is changing. This is because climate change manifests itself differently in different places: because people tend to remember extreme events- such as very hot or cold days of hurricanes and droughts more than subtle changes in trends; and because there have been disagreements between scientists about the magnitude, causes and effects of climate change. What are the solutions for climate change? The first step is admitting that you have a problem. Some of these solutions are Energy conservation, Renewable energy and sequestration. In this research you will know how these things helps in solving climate change. II. What is Weather? Weather is what is going on in the sky and air. Different places can have different kinds of weather at the same time. In one place, there maybe a thunderstorm, in another place there may be snow. In yet another place the weather may ba sunny and warm. Temperature- how hot or cold it is always a part of weather. Rainy Weather when drops of water fall from clouds, the weather is rainy. Sometimes, lots of rain falls, which is collect heavy rain. Other times, only a little rain falls, which is called light rain. â€Å"Rainy†, â€Å"Light Rain† and â€Å"Heavy Rain† all describe the weather. Weather is violent storms, rains, sleet, rail, snow, temperature, wind and much more. It is basically whatever is happening in the air around us. Is the state of atmosphere, to the degree that it is hot or cold, wet or dry, calm or starry, clear or cloudy. Most weather phenomena occur in the troposphere, just below the stratosphere. Weather generally refers to day-to-day temperature and precipitation activity, whereas climate is the term for the average atmospheric conditions over longer periods of time. When used with our qualifications, â€Å"weather† is understood to be the weather of earth. Weather is driven by air pressure differences between one place and another these pressure and temperature differences can occur due to the sun angle at any particular spot, which varies by latitude from the tropics. The strong temperatures contrast between polar and tropical air gives rise to the jet stream. Weather systems in the mid-latitudes, such as extra tropical cyclones, are caused by instabilities of the jet stream flow. Because the Earth’s axis tilted relative to its orbital plane, sunlight is incident a different angles at different times of the year. Surface temperature differences in turn cause pressure differences higher altitudes are cooler than lower altitude due to differences in compression neating. Studying how the weather works on another planet has been helpful in understanding how weather works on earth. On Earth, common weather phenomena include wind, cloud, rain, snow, fog and dust storms. Less common events include natural disasters such as tornadoes, hurricanes, typhoons and ice storms. Almost all familiar weather phenomena occur in the troposphere. Weather does occur in the stratosphere and can affect weather lower down in the troposphere, but the exact mechanisms are pearly understood. Weather occurs primarily due to air pressure differences between one place to another these differences can occur due to the sun angle at any particular spot, which varies by latitude from the tropics. In other words, the farther from the tropics you lay, the lower the sun angle is, which causes those locations to be cooler due to the indirect sunlight. The strong temperature contrast between polar and tropical air gives rise to the jet stream. Weather Systems in the tropics, such as monsoons or organized thunderstorms systems, are caused by different processes. III. What is Climate? Is weather the same a climate? No, because weather is what happens in one place on a single day, or over a few days or weeks. When it rains or snows, people say, â€Å"The weather is wet.† When it is warm outside people say â€Å"the weather is hot.† Climate on the other hand, is the type of weather a place has over 30 or more years. For example, people say â€Å"Death valley has a desert climate.† Climate is the weather that a place usually has year after year. Scientists study temperature and precipitation records over 30 or more years to determine an areas climate such record show, for example, that Death Valley in California has a desert climate. Climate encompasses that statistics of temperature, humidity, atmospheric pressure, wind, precipitation, atmospheric particle count and other meteorological elemental measurements in a given region over long periods. Climate can be contrasted to weather, which is the present condition of these elements and their variations over shorter periods. The climate of a location is affected by its latitude, terrain and altitude, as well as nearby water bodies and their currents. Climate can be classified according ti the average and the typical ranges of different variables, most commonly temperature and precipitation. The most commonly used classification scheme was originally developed by Wladimir Koppen. A region’s climate is generated by the Climate System which has five components Atmosphere, Hydrosphere, Cryospher, Land Surface and Biosphere. A. Four Main factors that determine climate are: i. Altitude Altitude refers to the vertical distance between the lowest point and the highest point of an area. People generally compare a land’s altitude by measuring the distance from sea level to the highest point. The koppen climate classification uses altitude to divide the climate regions in to the categories for low, mid and high altitudes. Altitude or height is defined based on the context in which it is used- aviation, geometry, geographical survey, sports and more- As a general definition; attitude is a distance measurement, usually in the vertical or â€Å"up† direction, between a reference datum and a point or object. The reference datum also often varies according to the context. Although the term altitude is commonly used to mean the height above the sea level of a location, in geography the term elevation is often preferred for this usage. Vertical distance measurements in the â€Å"down† direction are commonly referred to us depth. In aviation, the term altitude can have several meanings, and is always qualified by either explicitly adding a modifier or implicitly through the context of the communication. Parties exchanging information must be clear which definition is being used aviation altitude is measured using either Mean Sea Level (MSL) or Local Ground Level (LGL) as the reference datum. The earth’s atmosphere is divided into several altitude regions. The troposphere- surface to 8000 meters (5.0 mi) at the poles- 18000 meter (11 mi) at the equator, ending at the tropo-pause. The stratosphere- troposphere to 50 kilometers (31 mi) The Mesosphere-Stratosphere to 85 kilometers (53 mi). Thermosphere- Mesosphere to 675 kilometers (419 mi) and the exosphere which is from the thermosphere to 1000 kilometers (6200 mi). Relation between the temperature and altitude in Earth’s atmosphere. The Environmental Lapse Rate (ELR), is the rate of decrease of temperature with altitude in the stationary atmosphere of a given time and location. As an average, the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) defines an International Standard Atmosphere (ISA) with a temperature lapse rate of 6.49 K (oC)/ 1000 m (3.56oF or 1.98 K(o()/1000 Ft) from sea levels to 11 kilometers (36 000 ft) Effects of high altitude in humans. Medicine recognizes that altitudes above 1 500 meters (4900 ft) start to affect human, and extreme altitude above 5 500- 6 000 meters (18 000- 20 000 ft0 cannot be permanently tolerated by humans by reducing the partial pressure of oxygen. The higher the altitude, the more likely are serious effects. The human body can adopt to high altitude by breathing faster, having a higher heart rate, and adjusting its blood chemistry. It can take two days or weeks to adapt to high altitude. ii. Latitude Latitude the distance of a region is from the equator, to the north or south. A region’s latitude determines how much solar energy it receives from the sun, which in turn factors in to the region’s over all temperature. In geography, latitude is a geographic coordinated that specifies the north-south position of a point on the Earth’s surface. Lines of constant latitude, or parallels, run equator to 90o at the poles. Latitude is used together with longitude to specify the precise location of features in the surface of the Earth. Since the actual physical surface at the Earth is too complex for mathematical analysis, two levels of abstraction are employed in the definition of these coordinates. In the first step the physical surface is modeled by the geoid, a surface which approximates the mean sea level over the oceans and its continuation under the land masses, the second step is to approximate the geoid by a mathematically simple reference surface. The simplest choice for the reference surface is a sphere, but the geoid is more accurately modeled by an ellipsoid. The definitions of altitude and longitude on such reference surfaces are detailed in the following sections. Lines if constant latitude and longitude together constitute gratitude on the reference surface. The latitude of a point on the actual surface is that of the corresponding point on the reference surface which passes through the point on the physical surface, latitude and longitude together with some specification of height constitute a geographic coordinate system as defined in the specification of the ISO 1911 standard. Since there are many different reference ellipsoids the altitude of a feature on the surface is not unique: this is stressed in the ISO standard which states that â€Å"Without the full specification of the coordinate reference system, coordinates are ambiguous, such as GPS, but in common wage, where high accuracy is not required, the reference ellipsoid is not usually stated. Measurement of latitude requires an understanding of the gravitational field of the Earth, either for setting up theodolities or for determining of GPS satellite orbits.

The Consequences Of Sri Lankas Civil War

The Consequences Of Sri Lankas Civil War The small island of Sri Lanka is a country rich with agricultural treasures from bountiful tea leaves to lush paddy fields. However, this country has a bloody past that still haunts its present economic and political state. As a Tamil Sri Lankan, I feel it is important that the future of Sri Lanka be analyzed to determine whether it can compete in the globalized world because of its choices with regards to the civil war. As a result of colonization, Sri Lanka was torn apart by two races which ultimately caused a civil war that lasted many years. In this essay, the effects of Sri Lankas civil war will be analyzed from an economic and political standpoint. Viewed from a modernization theory perspective, Sri Lankas costly civil war has caused much damage to the countrys economy and has hindered its progress in terms of its future development projects. This conflict has also created difficulties for Sri Lanka to develop when compared to first world countries because of the macroeconomic implications such as the repercussions of its military spending, its rising international debt, lack of investment, and the weaknesses seen in its political structure (BBC, n.d.). This topic is relevant because in the evolving world, Sri Lanka will find it very difficult to succeed in the international economy because of the choices implemented by the government during the civil war. This essay will argue that the Sri Lankan civil war, brought about by colonization, has diminished the countrys growth prospects and thrown the government into political instability resulting in a current futile attempt at modernization. Theoretical Framework The concept of modernization where third world countries follow the path of first world countries in order to reach their level of development is directly tied to the development theory postulated by Walt Rowle. Therefore, the main theory that will be discussed in this essay is the modernization theory of development. However, this theory will be critiqued as a development theory that cannot be used as a guideline for countries to follow because there is no mention of colonization (Chirot Hall, 1982, p. 84). Despite this, Sri Lanka still pursues this development theory because it desperately wants to adopt Western ideals of development. Because Sri Lanka wants to establish close relationships with the Western world, they are willing to put the impact colonization inflicted on the countrys two major races aside, and continue with their goals of development, ultimately leading to a civil war. Instead of attempting to fix the politics within the country, Sri Lanka continues to follow t he developed countries to an unreachable epitome of development. This theory holds that development is evolutionary and intervention from developed countries is acceptable in order to direct change; therefore, interference from the Western world in matters of the state is not criticized (So, 1990, p. 18). Rostows evolutionary ladder of development, which is composed of a traditional society, pre-conditions for take-off, take-off, the drive to maturity, and the age of high mass consumption, are deeply flawed (Rostow, 1964, p. 4). He does not take into consideration the effect colonization has had on the country because not only does it leave an impact on the colonized countrys economic and political situation, but it also leaves the colonizing country in a very advantaged position. While Sri Lanka hopes to achieve the ideal form of development from a modernization perspective, it will suffer greatly if it does not undergo an economic reform and change its political policies. Historical Context Since 150 B.C., the island of Ceylonrenamed Sri Lanka after gaining independence from the Britishhas had tension between the two largest ethnic groups in the country: the Sinhalese majority and the Tamil minority (Grobar Gnanaselvam, 1993, p. 396). However, even though there was miscommunication from both parts for many years, they still lived in peace. Because of British intervention in the colonial period, an open conflict commenced in the 1980s between the Sri Lankan government and the Tamil rebellion. One of the reasons for the conflict was identified before independence: the British introduced the idea of territorial representation as opposed to communal representation to the Singhalese people, who agreed to it because they would have more influence in government being the majority, while keeping the Tamil people as a minority in government (Managoran, 1987, p. 7). Because of the countrys poor choices in developing their government after independence, the minorities within the country had to suffer. The war lasted almost 30 years and finally ended in 2009 killing more than 70,000 people, damaged the economy and harmed tourism in one of South Asias potentially prosperous societies (BBC, n.d.). When granted independence from the British in 1948 (Tambiah, 1986, p.68), Sri Lanka was more prosperous than most of its Asian neighbours; it had a well developed infrastructure and a well functioning judiciary and democratic political system that was both efficient and productive. However, the decolonization process played a part in the civil war because although the British colonial power left the developing country with minimal economic damage and a fairly stable infrastructure, the ideology they professed continued in Sri Lankan tradition which proved disastrous because the citizens developed a superiority complex. Colonization had its both positive and negative effects within the country. For example, the economy was strengthening because colonization increased paddy production, and even afterwards, the country utilized most of their raw materials, such as tea (Peebles, 1990, p. 37). However, a negative effect of colonization was that ethnic politics and conflicts were beginning to emerge because the Tamil population believed they were being treated unfairly after the British left. During the British colonial rule (1796-1948), Tamil people received nepotism over the Sinhalese people because they were more willing to cooperate with the British (Peebles, 1990, p. 32). Because of this, Tamils had a greater advantage of the colonial dispensation, with its connections to the Western world of commerce, professional opportunity and governmental service (Rotberg, 1999, p. 5) leaving the Sinhalese people poor and neglected. This fuelled the aggravation between the Tamils and Sinhalese because the Tamil s, being the minority, were receiving better education and employment opportunities than the Sinhalese people. The Sinhalese believed that the opportunities provided by the state should be represented by the population. The Sinhalese people were not used to being subordinate to the Tamils in terms of their level of education and financial stability. As a result, the Singhalese people subordinated the Tamils and the Tamils eventually fought back. Once the war was in full force, the country was left in economic ruin because the government began spending increasing amounts of money on the military thereby diminishing future growth prospects (Grobar, Gnanaselvam 1993, p. 396). Macroeconomic Effects: Market Mechanisms The bleak future in the business sector of Sri Lanka is due to the development policy mistakes and social exclusion of the new generation (Abeyratne, 2004, p. 1300). Some of these poor development policy mistakes include the lack of consideration in long term investments, and growth in tourism. Because of the lack of worthwhile investments in the technological sector, Sri Lanka has nothing to put forth in the industrialized market which poses a problem when Sri Lanka looks toward a modernization development scheme. In order for countries to follow Rostows ladder of development, they must begin to expand their technological sector (Rostow, 1964, p. 9). As for the exclusion of the younger generation in the business world, a brain drain phenomenon has been a crucial problem because the war has caused educated citizens to leave Sri Lanka, resulting in the country having a weak base of skilled workers. Moreover, the war has killed more than 70,000 people, many of which were young adults, thereby slashing the working force and leaving a large displaced population of children and seniors (Asia Economic Institute, 2011). However, there is still hope for the country because the Sri Lankan rupee, its national currency, which has been gradually decreasing over the years due to changing commodity prices, has experienced a boost due to hopes of a post-war strengthened economy (Asia Economic Institute, 2011). However, the tourism industry, which once brought great profit to the country because it provided an important source of foreign exchange, has been largely affected by the conflict. This sector has suffered an 11.7% drop in tourists in 2007, compared with the previous year. The violence also caused a 31.4% year-on-year plunge in visitors for August 2008 and the country expected tourism to fall a further 10% in 2009 (Asia Economic Institute, 2011). Because of the means the country deployed for the civil war, they lost the advantage in the global economy and are now left in a vulnerable situation. International Debt and Stalled Development Projects Economic growth in Sri Lanka is stifled because long term investment opportunities were not given money since government funding was fuelling the costly war effort. Sri Lanka has been heavily dependent on foreign savings to finance investment projects, and the availability of foreign savings have been a major constraint on Sri Lankas total level of investment (Grobar Gnanaselvam, 1993, p. 401). Whereas in 1982 government spending has increased in health, education and welfare, the spending on economic services that had the potential to make profit in future years have significantly decreased since 1986 (Grobar Gnanaselvam, 1993, p. 399). Sri Lanka is also sinking deeper into international debt and the large cuts in economic services ensure that projects such as the Mahaweli Dam will not be finished or maintained, resulting in a major opportunity cost to the country (Grobar Gnanaselvam, 1993, p.400). This Mahaweli Dam project is one of many examples of the investments Sri Lanka had to forsake to fund the war. According to the International Monetary Fund, Sri Lankas widening current-account deficit, a dependence on foreign borrowings and an overvalued currency pose a serious risk to the nations economic stability (Yong, 2008). The island also adopted a course of structural adjustment because the government found it necessary to develop close ties with Western countries and nongovernmental organizations (DeVotta, 1998, p. 458). Because of these policies, it will be doubly difficult for the Sri Lankan government to intervene in business matters because it follows a neoliberalism philosophy (The Social Consequences, 2005). As a result, the country will be taken advantage of by external sources because Sri Lanka will be unable to develop a technological sector due to their increasing debt and structural adjustment policies, and must constantly be relying on their raw materials for export (DeVotta, 1998, p. 461). Sri Lanka also lacks efficient capital markets to ef fectively progress in the business sector. The government has rationed investment resources; therefore due to low domestic savings, Sri Lanka has paid for its civil war by cutbacks in nonmilitary government spending and large reductions in investment. However, because of this, the long term economic implications of the war are very significant since there is no money being generated from any sources within the country and from external sources. Foreign investors were hesitant to dole money in a country with an unstable political makeup (Grobar Gnanaselvam, 1993, p. 404). Since Sri Lanka has no efficient capital flowing in from other countries, in order to progress, it must now rely on its own economic strength to alleviate its international debt. Military Expenses and Growth Prospects Currently, Sri Lanka hopes to put the civil war past them and continue in their hopes of achieving Western ideals of development. However, this will most surely not be the case when the country comes to terms with the amount of spending they have allocated for the cause. The cost of the long run civil war has significantly slowed down Sri Lankas economy and left it in a vulnerable position. For example in 2007, the government borrowed $181,449 worth of defense loans from international financial markets, which was double the amount from the year before (Asia Economic Institute, 2011). Also, in 2008, the Sinhalese government designated $1.5 billion for the defence sector to strengthen the military, which was also a 20% increase from the budget in 2007. Finally, in 2009, Sri Lanka designated $1.64 billion to  the war effort, making it a 6.4% year-on-year increase (Asia Economic Institute, 2011).  These war costs have consumed approximately 30% of the governments budget, and has been estimated to have cost the country over $200 billion over the years (Asia Economic Institute, 2011). That money could have been used to fund businesses, build infrastructure, and even decrease the poverty rate in Sri Lanka. At one point, Sri Lanka was a nation that had a great advantage over other South Asian countries, but now it is delving deeper into a debt that will be very difficult for the country to repay. Political Instability: Intergovernmental Power Struggles The political instability of Sri Lanka is an important factor when determining whether the country can be a competitor in the global market. Although it is a nation that is filled with beautiful, tropical landscape, the political infrastructure within is composed of a clashing of views from government officials and separatists. The civil war was not a linear historical process where one event led to another (Perera, 1999, p.1), instead it was a civil war fuelled by competing conceptions of nationalism (Rotberg, 1999, p. 7). Neelan Tiruchelvam, who was a leading Sri Lankan constitutional thinker and Member of Parliament until his assassination in 1999, believed one of the major problems with Sri Lanka since 1948 was the definition of the state (Rotberg, 1999, p. 15). The Sinhalese majority had always assumed a unitary entity, but something other than a unitary state truly matches the plural nature of the contemporary nation (Rotberg, 1999, p. 15). Tiruchelvam states that Sri Lankans m ust recognize Sri Lankan Tamils as a distinct nationality, acknowledge and give lasting territorial integrity to a Tamil homelandand enshrine into law the right of Tamils to full citizenship and all democratic rights (Rotberg, 1999, p. 15). It will be impossible for the Sri Lankan community to move on in peace for future generations if the government of Sri Lanka does not represent the Tamil population in government. Tamils hopelessly pushed for a federal government as opposed to a unitary government, so that there would be a decentralization of power and a better representation of minorities in government, but failed and resorted to violent means to make their voice heard (Background Notes, 2001). For Sri Lanka to progress in the developing world, it must first establish a stable government so as to avoid further conflict in the future, and then it can take control of the nation so it can prosper in the business sector. Future for Sri Lankas Government The only path Sri Lanka must take to strengthen its government and in turn regain financial vigour is to comply with some of the needs from the Tamil population. Political solutions to the Tamil situation must be devised immediately because the Tamils are not content with the outcome of the war. The governments concentration purely on trying to set the economy on track, and its failure to consider any long-term reconciliation with the Tamil minority will ultimately result in long-term grievances within the countrys society. Even though the Sinhalese population is dominant on the island, 15% of the population are Tamil and 5% are not ethnically Sinhalese (Asia Economic Institute, 2011). After almost 30 years of this ethnic conflict, the nation lies divided as racism and mistrust takes over the population, hindering any hopes of unification (Asia Economic Institute, 2011). This is sadly the case since nothing was truly gained from the war. There was no economic gain and the Tamils have lost their last hope. However, if political solutions are not being implemented, there is a great chance of a Tamil guerrilla style uprising. Not only would this disturb the peace of the Sri Lankan civilians, analysts suggest that the Tamil minority will show their dissatisfaction by hitting economic and political targets, inflicting great damage in the countrys prospects of long-term stability (Asia Economic Institute, 2011). Before the war ended, Tamils who fled Sri Lanka during the war banded together to protest in major cities of many countries including Canada, the United States and Australia to request that the government of these countries help stop the Tamil genocide (Blanchfield, 2009). But since the war is now over, Tamils must now take action within the country in a peaceful manner and hope their voice will finally be heard. Conclusion Sri Lanka is a beautiful country that is scarred by a bloody 30 year war between the two largest ethnic groups in the country: the Tamils and the Singhalese. Unfortunately, because of this civil war, Sri Lanka is left in a vulnerable position in the global market. This essay proved that Sri Lankas gradual slide into international debt, its exclusion of the younger generation and poor development choices with managing investments and the tourism sector, create many problems for the country to progress economically. The political situation in Sri Lanka is also a hindrance to its growth because it needs to change its policies in order to represent the minorities or risk another uprising. This essay shows that development needs to come from within the country; Sri Lanka needs to completely solve its political differences before it can focus on economic expansion. However, is it possible to satisfy both ethnic groups when there is still animosity between them after the war? Ultimately, th e wider economic issue that this paper addresses is the pressure placed on third world countries to try to achieve Western ideals of development. By following a modernization perspective, this cannot be done. Sri Lanka needs to take charge of its own future and unify the country to make it a stronger force in the globalized world.

Movie Essay - The Film Based Upon of Amy Tans The Joy Luck Club :: Movie Film Essays

Joy Luck Club - The Movie! "I am waiting like a tiger in the trees, now ready to leap out, ready to cut her spirit loose." The Joy Luck Club, an Oliver Stone production, depicts four women and their strife bringing up their American born daughters. Directed by Wayne Wang, this rated R movie featured actors and actresses such as Ming-na Wen, Rosalind Chao, Russell Wong, and Lisa Lu. The Joy Luck Club is an emotional tale about four women who saw life as they had seen it back in China. Because the Chinese were very stereotypic, women were treated as second class citizens and were often abused. Through sad and painful experiences, these four women had tried to raise their daughters to live the American dream by giving them love and support, such things which were not available to them when they were young. These women revealed their individual accounts in narrative form as they relived it in their memories. These flashbacks transport us to the minds of these women and we see the events occur through their eyes. There were many conflicts and misunderstandings between the two generations due to their differences in upbringing and childhood. In the end, however, these conflicts would bring mother and daughter together to form a bond that would last forever. The setting played an important role in the effectiveness of the movie. The setting of The Joy Luck Club was set in various locations. Some were filmed in San Francisco and others were taken in China. Because the story dealt with the Chinese people and their customs, it would be logical for the producer to direct the film in China where it all started. The producer moved the setting back to the United States when they dealt with the daughters. Because the movie moved back and forth from the forties to the sixties and to the nineties, the producers had to use various symbolic signs to tell its viewers the period of time. For example, songs, costumes, and hair-do's help us determine the time. The Joy Luck Club displayed a variety of costumes. They used Chinese garments and clothing to give its viewers a sense of the Chinese tradition and culture.

Characterization in The Little Prince and Pinocchio Essay -- essays pa

Characterization in The Little Prince and Pinocchio Children’s stories are often written about growing up or appreciating the joy of being a kid. These stories consist of characters that children can easily relate to and offer the road to exciting adventures. The main character has a personality very similar to the young readers. They have childlike qualities that are enchanting, lovable, curious and especially adventurous. The protagonist encounters individuals on his adventures, which have specific characteristics that mirror the traits of the main character. The reader may also boast these same characteristics, which guides the reader to understand the conflicts they may encounter in life. These dominant traits are very simple to spot and are used to create powerful images and send influential messages of morality either directly or indirectly to the young readers. Each character symbolizes a specific temptation or obstacle a child must take in order to grow into a good and moral adult. In the two stories of The Litt le Prince by Saint-Exupery and Pinocchio by Collodi, the authors effectively illustrate how important it is to learn self-discipline as a child even when it is so easy to get caught up in the moment and lose sight of the big picture. Through the effective character personality traits and their captivating adventures the child stays attentive and retains the moral lesson the author is attempting to convey. Pinocchio and the Little Prince are very similar characters. They are exciting, curious and adventurous and are both striving towards a particular goal. Pinocchio wants to become a boy and must abide by certain conditions before his ultimate goal can be reached. The Little Prince is on an excit... ...tle Prince’s soul rests in his home planet through the rose. Like the Prince, the rose is delicate and needs protection from outside dangers. Her roots are planted at home and she is in need of constant care. Dynamic characterization of Pinocchio and the Little Prince, as well as minor characters in the story, have created an exciting adventure for children. These stories keep the reader interested and begging for more even though they are essentially educational readings. By using minor characters to exemplify the complexity of the main character, the authors were able to deliver many powerful messages of morality and help children understand the complexities growing up. Bibliography: C. Collodi. Pinocchio. Trans. Ed Young. New York: Philomel Books, 1996 Saint – Exupery. The Little Prince. Trans, T. V. F. Cuffe, London: Penguin Books, 1995

Great :: Essays Papers

Great 1. I believe that to â€Å"seize the day† means to suck all the marrow out of life. You must grab every opportunity life gives you and make the best of it. Don’t just stop and smell the roses, you have to taste the roses, feel the roses, and be the roses! That is the difference between seizing the day and seizing the opportunity. The opportunity will sometimes seize you, but you must seize the day. It will never seize you. This is what â€Å"seize the day† meant to Thoreau. 2. To â€Å"live deliberately† is to â€Å"simplify.† What you must do is look for the bare necessities, those simple bare necessities. You’ve got to forget about your worries and your strife. If you look for the bare necessities, Old Mother Nature’s recipes, then the bare necessities of life will come to you. 3. Robert Frost wrote â€Å"Two roads diverged in a yellow wood and I-I took the one less traveled by-and that has made all the difference.† Sitting here writing this I can think of only one thing: the HOV lane on I-85 Southbound. As I watch the fools in the much traveled lanes I fight to contain my glee. My lane, the one less traveled, is much less crowded. I can go ten miles in my lane in the time it takes others to go one. I have been able to sleep much later since the opening of the lane, and that has made all the difference. I have more energy, the rings around my eyes are gone, I even have time to eat a nice breakfast, I’m less irritable, and I get more homework done. That my friends has made all the difference. 4. â€Å"Find your own walk.† Well, yes I suppose I could, but wouldn’t it be easier if I just borrowed one of yours. I mean, what does it really mean to find your own walk? Granted you must find your own walk to be your own individual, but it’s just so hard. Sure I’d be happier and fulfilled, but happiness is highly overrated. No, I think I’ll march to that big drum in the sky. I’ll march along as it whispers into my ear left, right, left, right†¦Yes, I think that’s what I’ll do. 5. â€Å"Make your lives extraordinary.† We must take our lives, our mundane little lives, and live them.

Bag of Bones CHAPTER SIXTEEN

The book was big, okay? The book was major. I was afraid to change rooms, let alone pack up the typewriter and my slim just-begun manuscript and take it back to Derry. That would be as dangerous as taking an infant out in a windstorm. So I stayed, always reserving the right to move out if things got too weird (the way smokers reserve the right to quit if their coughs get too heavy), and a week passed. Things happened during that week, but until I met Max Devore on The Street the following Friday the seventeenth of July, it would have been the most important thing was that I continued to work on a novel which would, if finished, be called My Childhood Friend. Perhaps we always think what was lost was the best . . . or would have been the best. I don't know for sure. What I do know is that my real life that week had mostly to do with Andy Drake, John Shackleford, and a shadowy figure standing in the deep background. Raymond Garraty, John Shackle-ford's childhood friend. A man who sometimes wore a baseball cap. During that week, the manifestations in the house continued, but at a lower level there was nothing like that bloodcurdling scream. Sometimes Bunter's bell rang, and sometimes the fruit and vegetable magnets would re-form themselves into a circle . . . never with words in the middle, though; not that week. One morning I got up and the sugar cannister was overturned, making me think of Mattie's story about the flour. Nothing was written in the spill, but there was a squiggle as though something had tried to write and failed. If so, I sympathized. I knew what that was like. My depo before the redoubtable Elmer Durgin was on Friday the tenth. On the following Tuesday I took The Street down to Warrington's softball field, hoping for my own peek at Max Devore. It was going on six o'clock when I got within hearing range of the shouts, cheers, and batted balls. A path marked with rustic signs (curlicued W's burned into oak arrows) led past an abandoned boathouse, a couple of sheds, and a gazebo half-buried in blackberry creepers. I eventually came out in deep center field. A litter of potato-chip bags, candy-wrappers, and beer cans suggested that others sometimes watched the games from this vantage-point. I couldn't help thinking about Jo and her mysterious friend, the guy in the old brown sportcoat, the burly guy who had slipped an arm around her waist and led her away from the game, laughing, back toward The Street. Twice over the weekend I'd come close to calling Bonnie Amudson, seeing if maybe I could chase that guy down, put a name on him, and both time s I had backed off. Sleeping dogs, I told myself each time. Sleeping dogs, Michael. I had the area beyond deep center to myself that evening, and it felt like the right distance from home plate, considering the man who usually parked his wheelchair behind the backstop had called me a liar and I had invited him to store my telephone number where the sunshine grows dim. I needn't have worried in any case. Devore wasn't in attendance, nor was the lovely Rogette. I did spot Mattie behind the casually maintained chickenwire barrier on the first-base line. John Storrow was beside her, wearing jeans and a polo shirt, his red hair mostly corralled by a Mets cap. They stood watching the game and chatting like old friends for two innings before they saw me more than enough time for me to feel envious of John's position, and a little jealous as well. Finally someone lofted a long fly to center, where the edge of the woods served as the only fence. The center fielder backed up, but it was going to be far over his head. It was hit to my depth, off to my right. I moved in that direction without thinking, high-footing through the shrubs that formed a zone between the mown outfield and the trees, hoping I wasn't running through poison ivy. I caught the softball in my outstretched left hand, and laughed when some of the spectators cheered. The center fielder applauded me by tapping his bare right hand into the pocket of his glove. The batter, meanwhile, circled the bases serenely, knowing he had hit a ground-rule home run. I tossed the ball to the fielder and as I returned to my original post among the candy-wrappers and beer cans, I looked back in and saw Mattie and John looking at me. If anything confirms the idea that we're just another species of animal, one with a slightly bigger brain and a much bigger idea of our own importance in the scheme of things, it's how much we can convey by gesture when we absolutely have to. Mattie clasped her hands to her chest, tilted her head to the left, raised her eyebrows My hero. I held my hands to my shoulders and flipped the palms skyward Shucks, ma'am, ‘t'warn't nothin. John lowered his head and put his fingers to his brow, as if something there hurt You lucky sonofabitch. With those comments out of the way, I pointed at the backstop and shrugged a question. Both Mattie and John shrugged back. An inning later a little boy who looked like one giant exploding freckle ran out to where I was, his oversized Michael Jordan jersey churning around his shins like a dress. ‘Guy down there gimme fifty cent to say you should call im later on at his hotel over in the Rock,' he said, pointing at John. ‘He say you gimme another fifty cent if there was an answer.' ‘Tell him I'll call him around nine-thirty,' I said. ‘I don't have any change, though. Can you take a buck?' ‘Hey, yeah, swank.' He snatched it, turned away, then turned back. He grinned, revealing a set of teeth caught between Act I and Act II. With the softball players in the background, he looked like a Norman Rockwell archetype. ‘Guy also say tell you that was a bullshit catch.' ‘Tell him people used to say the same thing about Willie Mays all the time.' ‘Willie who?' Ah, youth. Ah, mores. ‘Just tell him, son. He'll know.' I stayed another inning, but by then the game was getting drunk, Devore still hadn't shown, and I went back home the way I had come. I met one fisherman standing out on a rock and two young people strolling along The Street toward Warrington's, their hands linked. They said hi and I hi'd them back. I felt lonely and content at the same time. I believe that is a rare kind of happiness. Some people check their phone answering machines when they get home; that summer I always checked the front of the fridge. Eenie-meenie-chili-beanie, as Bullwinkle Moose used to say, the spirits are about to speak. That night they hadn't, although the fruit and vegetable magnets had re-formed into a sinuous shape like a snake or perhaps the letter S taking a nap: A little later I called John and asked him where Devore had been, and he repeated in words what he had already told me, and much more economically, by gesture. ‘It's the first game he's missed since he came back,' he said. ‘Mattie tried asking a few people if he was okay, and the consensus seemed to be that he was . . . at least as far as anyone knew.' ‘What do you mean she tried asking a few people?' ‘I mean that several wouldn't even talk to her. â€Å"Cut her dead,† my parents' generation would have said.' Watch it, buddy, I thought but didn't say, that's only half a step from my generation. ‘One of her old girlfriends spoke to her finally, but there's a general attitude about Mattie Devore. That man Osgood may be a shitty salesman, but as Devore's Mr. Moneyguy he's doing a wonderful job of separating Mattie from the other folks in the town. Is it a town, Mike? I don't quite get that part.' ‘It's just the TR,' I said absently. ‘There's no real way to explain it. Do you actually believe Devore's bribing everyone? That doesn't say much for the old Wordsworthian idea of pastoral innocence and goodness, does it?' ‘He's spreading money and using Osgood maybe Footman, too to spread stories. And the folks around here seem at least as honest as honest politicians.' ‘The ones who stay bought?' ‘Yeah. Oh, and I saw one of Devore's potential star witnesses in the Case of the Runaway Child. Royce Merrill. He was over by the equipment shed with some of his cronies. Did you happen to notice him?' I said I had not. ‘Guy must be a hundred and thirty,' John said. ‘He's got a cane with a gold head the size of an elephant's asshole.' ‘That's a Boston Post cane. The oldest person in the area gets to keep it.' ‘And I have no doubt he came by it honestly. If Devore's lawyers put him on the stand, I'll debone him.' There was something chilling in John's gleeful confidence. ‘I'm sure,' I said. ‘How did Mattie take getting cut dead by her old friends?' I was thinking of her saying that she hated Tuesday nights, hated to think of the softball games going on as they always had at the field where she had met her late husband. ‘She did okay,' John said. ‘I think she's given most of them up as a lost cause, anyway.' I had my doubts about that I seem to remember that at twenty-one lost causes are sort of a specialty but I didn't say anything. ‘She's hanging in. She's been lonely and scared, I think that in her own mind she might already have begun the process of giving Kyra up, but she's got her confidence back now. Mostly thanks to meeting you. Talk about your fantastically lucky breaks.' Well, maybe. I flashed on Jo's. brother Frank once saying to me that he didn't think there was any such thing as luck, only fate and inspired choices. And then I remembered that image of the TR criss-crossed with invisible cables, connections that were unseen but as strong as steel. ‘John, I forgot to ask the most important question of all the other day, after I gave my depo. This custody case we're all so concerned about . . . has it even been scheduled?' ‘Good question. I've checked three ways to Sunday, and Bissonette has, too. Unless Devore and his people have pulled something really slippery, like filing in another court district, I don't think it has been.' ‘Could they do that? File in another district?' ‘Maybe. But probably not without us finding out.' ‘So what does it mean?' ‘That Devore's on the verge of giving up,' John said promptly. ‘As of now I see no other way of explaining it. I'm going back to New York first thing tomorrow, but I'll stay in touch. If anything comes up here, you do the same.' I said I would and went to bed. No female visitors came to share my dreams. That was sort of a relief. When I came downstairs to recharge my iced-tea glass late Wednesday morning, Brenda Meserve had erected the laundry whirligig on the back stoop and was hanging out my clothes. This she did as her mother had no doubt taught her, with pants and shirts on the outside and undies on the inside, where any passing nosyparkers couldn't see what you chose to wear closest to your skin. ‘You can take these in around four o'clock,' Mrs. M. said as she prepared to leave. She looked at me with the bright and cynical eye of a woman who has been ‘doing for' well-off men her entire life. ‘Don't you forget and leave em out all night dewy clothes don't ever feel fresh until they're warshed again.' I told her most humbly that I would remember to take in my clothes. I then asked her feeling like a spy working an embassy party for information if the house felt all right to her. ‘All right how?' she asked, cocking one wild eyebrow at me. ‘Well, I've heard funny noises a couple of times. In the night.' She sniffed. ‘It's a log house, ennit? Built in relays, so to speak. It settles, one wing against t'other. That's what you hear, most likely.' ‘No ghosts, huh?' I said, as if disappointed. ‘Not that I've ever seen,' she said, matter-of-fact as an accountant, ‘but my ma said there's plenty down here. She said this whole lake is haunted. By the Micmacs that lived here until they was driven out by General Wing, by all the men who went away to the Civil War and died there over six hundred went from this part of the world, Mr. Noonan, and less than a hundred and fifty came back . . . at least in their bodies. Ma said this side of Dark Score's also haunted by the ghost of that Negro boy who died here, poor tyke. He belonged to one of the Red-Tops, you know.' ‘No I know about Sara and the Red-Tops, but not this.' I paused. ‘Did he drown?' ‘Nawp, caught in an animal trap. Struggled there for most of a whole day, screaming for help. Finally they found him. They saved the foot, but they shouldn't have. Blood-poisoning set in, and the boy died. Summer of ought-one, that was. It's why they left, I guess it was too sad to stay. But my ma used to claim the little fella, he stayed. She used to say that he's still on the TR.' I wondered what Mrs. M. would say if I told her that the little fella had very likely been here to greet me when I arrived from Derry, and had been back on several occasions since. ‘Then there was Kenny Auster's father, Normal,' she said. ‘You know that story, don't you? Oh, that's a terrible story.' She looked rather pleased either at knowing such a terrible story or at having the chance to tell it. ‘No,' I said. ‘I know Kenny, though. He's the one with the wolfhound. Blueberry.' ‘Ayuh. He carpenters a tad and caretakes a tad, just like his father before him. His dad caretook many of these places, you know, and back just after the Second World War was over, Normal Auster drownded Kenny's little brother in his back yard. This was when they lived on Wasp Hill, down where the road splits, one side going to the old boat-landin and the other to the marina. He didn't drown the tyke in the lake, though. He put him on the ground under the pump and just held him there until the baby was full of water and dead.' I stood there looking at her, the clothes behind us snapping on their whirligig. I thought of my mouth and nose and throat full of that cold mineral taste that could have been well-water as well as lakewater; down here all of it comes from the same deep aquifers. I thought of the message on the refrigerator: help im drown. ‘He left the baby laying right under the pump. He had a new Chevrolet, and he drove it down here to Lane Forty-two. Took his shotgun, too.' ‘You aren't going to tell me Kenny Auster's dad committed suicide in my house, are you, Mrs. Meserve?' She shook her head. ‘Nawp. He did it on the Brickers' lakeside deck. Sat down on their porch glider and blew his damned baby-murdering head off.' ‘The Brickers? I don't ‘ ‘You wouldn't. Hasn't been any Brickers on the lake since the sixties. They were from Delaware. Quality folks. You'd think of it as the Warshburn place, I guess, although they're gone, now, too. Place is empty. Every now and then that stark naturalborn fool Osgood brings someone down and shows it off, but he'll never sell it at the price he's asking. Mark my words.' The Washburns I had known had played bridge with them a time or two. Nice enough people, although probably not what Mrs. M., with her queer backcountry snobbishness, would have called ‘quality.' Their place was maybe an eighth of a mile north of mine along The Street. Past that point, there's nothing much the drop to the lake gets steep, and the woods are massed tangles of second growth and blackberry bushes. The Street goes on to the tip of Halo Bay at the far north end of Dark Score, but once Lane Forty-two curves back to the highway, the path is for the most part used only by berry-picking expeditions in the summer and hunters in the fall. Normal, I thought. Hell of a name for a guy who had drowned his infant son under the backyard pump. ‘Did he leave a note? Any explanation?' ‘Nawp. But you'll hear folks say he haunts the lake, too. Little towns are most likely full of haunts, but I couldn't say aye, no, or maybe myself; I ain't the sensitive type. All I know about your place, Mr. Noonan, is that it smells damp no matter how much I try to get it aired out. I ‘magine that's logs. Log buildins don't go well with lakes. The damp gets into the wood.' She had set her purse down between her Reeboks; now she bent and picked it up. It was a countrywoman's purse, black, styleless (except for the gold grommets holding the handles on), and utilitarian. She could have carried a good selection of kitchen appliances in there if she had wanted to. ‘I can't stand here natterin all day long, though, much as I might like to. I got one more place to go before I can call it quits. Summer's ha'vest time in this part of the world, you know. Now remember to take those clothes in before dark, Mr. Noonan. Don't let em get all dewy.' ‘I won't.' And I didn't. But when I went out to take them in, dressed in my bathing trunks and coated with sweat from the oven I'd been working in (I had to get the air conditioner fixed, just had to), I saw that something had altered Mrs. M.'s arrangements. My jeans and shirts now hung around the pole. The underwear and socks, which had been decorously hidden when Mrs. M. drove up the driveway in her old Ford, were now on the outside. It was as if my unseen guest one of my unseen guests was saying ha ha ha. I went to the library the next day, and made renewing my library card my first order of business. Lindy Briggs herself took my four bucks and entered me into the computer, first telling me how sorry she had been to hear about Jo's death. And, as with Bill, I sensed a certain reproach in her tone, as if I were to blame for such improperly delayed condolences. I supposed I was. ‘Lindy, do you have a town history?' I asked when we had finished the proprieties concerning my wife. ‘We have two,' she said, then leaned toward me over the desk, a little woman in a violently patterned sleeveless dress, her hair a gray puffball around her head, her bright eyes swimming behind her bifocals. In a confidential voice she added, ‘Neither is much good.' ‘Which one is better?' I asked, matching her tone. ‘Probably the one by Edward Osteen. He was a summer resident until the mid-fifties and lived here full-time when he retired. He wrote Dark Score Days in 1965 or '66. He had it privately published because he couldn't find a commercial house that would take it. Even the regional publishers passed.' She sighed. ‘The locals bought it, but that's not many books, is it?' ‘No, I suppose not,' I said. ‘He just wasn't much of a writer. Not much of a photographer, either those little black-and-white snaps of his make my eyes hurt. Still, he tells some good stories. The Micmac Drive, General Wing's trick horse, the twister in the eighteen-eighties, the fires in the nine-teen-thirties . . . ‘ ‘Anything about Sara and the Red-Tops?' She nodded, smiling. ‘Finally got around to looking up the history of your own place, did you? I'm glad to hear it. He found an old photo of them, and it's in there. He thought it was taken at the Fryeburg Fair in 1900. Ed used to say he'd give a lot to hear a record made by that bunch.' ‘So would I, but none were ever made.' A haiku by the Greek poet George Seferis suddenly occurred to me: Are these the voices of our dead friends / or just the gramophone? ‘What happened to Mr. Osteen? I don't recall the name.' ‘Died not a year or two before you and Jo bought your place on the lake,' she said. ‘Cancer.' ‘You said there were two histories?' ‘The other one you probably know A History of Castle County and Castle Rock. Done for the county centennial, and dry as dust. Eddie Osteen's book isn't very well written, but he wasn't dry. You have to give him that much. You should find them both over there.' She pointed to shelves with a sign over them which read of OF MAINE INTEREST. ‘They don't circulate.' Then she brightened. ‘Although we will happily take any nickels you should feel moved to feed into our photocopy machine.' Mattie was sitting in the far corner next to a boy in a turned-around baseball cap, showing him how to use the microfilm reader. She looked up at me, smiled, and mouthed the words Nice catch. Referring to my lucky grab at Warrington's, presumably. I gave a modest little shrug before turning to the OF MAINE INTEREST shelves. But she was right lucky or not, it had been a nice catch. ‘What are you looking for?' I was so deep into the two histories I'd found that Mattie's voice made me jump. I turned around and smiled, first aware that she was wearing some light and pleasant perfume, second that Lindy Briggs was watching us from the main desk, her welcoming smile put away. ‘Background on the area where I live,' I said. ‘Old stories. My housekeeper got me interested.' Then, in a lower voice: ‘Teacher's watching. Don't look around.' Mattie looked startled and, I thought, a little worried. As it turned out, she was right to be worried. In a voice that was low-pitched yet still designed to carry at least as far as the desk, she asked if she could reshelve either book for me. I gave her both. As she picked them up she said in what was almost a con's whisper: ‘That lawyer who represented you last Friday got John a private detective. He says they may have found something interesting about the guardian ad litem.' I walked over to the OF MAINE INTEREST shelves with her, hoping I wasn't getting her in trouble, and asked if she knew what the something interesting might be. She shook her head, gave me a professional little librarian's smile, and I went away. On the ride back to the house, I tried to think about what I'd read, but there wasn't much. Osteen was a bad writer who had taken bad pictures, and while his stories were colorful, they were also pretty thin on the ground. He mentioned Sara and the Red-Tops, all right, but he referred to them as a ‘Dixie-Land octet,' and even I knew that wasn't right. The Red-Tops might have played some Dixieland, but they had primarily been a blues group (Friday and Saturday nights) and a gospel group (Sunday mornings). Osteen's two-page summary of the Red-Tops' stay on the TR made it clear that he had heard no one else's covers of Sara's tunes. He confirmed that a child had died of blood-poisoning caused by a traphold wound, a story which sounded like Brenda Meserve's . . . but why wouldn't it? Osteen had likely heard it from Mrs. M.'s father or grandfather. He also said that the boy was Son Tidwell's only child, and that the guitar-player's real name was Reginald. The Tidwells had supposedly drifted north from the whorehouse district of New Orleans the fabled crib-and-club streets which had been known around the turn of the century as Storyville. There was no mention of Sara and the Red-Tops in the more formal history of Castle County, and no mention of Kenny Auster's drownded little brother in either book. Not long before Mattie came over to speak to me, I'd had a wild idea: that Son Tidwell and Sara Tidwell were man and wife, and that the little boy (not named by Osteen) had been their son. I found the picture Lindy had mentioned and studied it closely. It showed at least a dozen black people standing in a stiff group in front of what looked like a cattle exhibition. There was an old-fashioned Ferris wheel in the background. It could well have been taken at the Fryeburg Fair, and as old and faded as it was, it had a simple, elemental power that all Osteen's own photos put together could not match. You have seen photographs of western and Depression-era bandidos that have that same look of eerie truth stern faces above tight ties and collars, eyes not quite lost in the shadows of antique hatbrims. Sara stood front and center, wearing a black dress and her guitar. She was not outright smiling in this picture, but there seemed to be a smile in her eyes, and I thought they were like the eyes in some paintings, the ones that seem to follow you wherever you move in the room. I studied the photo and thought of her almost spiteful voice in my dream: What do you want to know, sugar? I suppose I wanted to know about her and the others who they had been, what they were to each other when they weren't singing and playing, why they'd left, where they'd gone. Both of her hands were clearly visible, one posed on the strings of her guitar, the other on the frets, where she had been making a G-chord on an October Fair-day in the year 1900. Her fingers were long, artistic, bare of rings. That didn't necessarily mean that she and Son Tidwell weren't married, of course, and even if they hadn't been, the little boy who'd been caught in the trap could have been born on the wrong side of the blanket. Except the same ghost of a smile lurked in Son Tidwell's eyes. The resemblance was remarkable. I had an idea that the two of them had been brother and sister, not man and wife. I thought about these things on my way home, and I thought about cables that were felt rather than seen . . . but mostly I found myself thinking about Lindy Briggs the way she had smiled at me, the way, a little later on, she had not smiled at her bright young librarian with the high-school certification. That worried me. Then I got back to the house, and all I worried about was my story and the people in it bags of bones which were putting on flesh daily. Michael Noonan, Max Devore, and Rogette Whitmore played out their horrible little comedy scene Friday evening. Two other things which bear narrating happened before that. The first was a call from John Storrow on Thursday night. I was sitting in front of the TV with a baseball game running soundlessly in front of me (the MUTE button with which most remote controls come equipped may be the twentieth century's finest invention). I was thinking about Sara Tidwell and Son Tidwell and Son Tidwell's little boy. I was thinking about Storyville, a name any writer just had to love. And in the back of my mind I was thinking about my wife, who had died pregnant. ‘Hello?' I said. ‘Mike, I have some wonderful news,' John said. He sounded near to bursting. ‘Romeo Bissonette may be a weird name, but there's nothing weird about the detective-guy he found for me. His name is George Kennedy, like the actor. He's good, and he's fast. This guy could work in New York.' ‘If that's the highest compliment you can think of, you need to get out of the city more.' He went on as if he hadn't heard. ‘Kennedy's real job is with a security firm the other stuff is strictly in the moonlight. Which is a great loss, believe me. He got most of this on the phone. I can't believe it.' ‘What specifically can't you believe?' ‘Jackpot, baby.' Again he spoke in that tone of greedy satisfaction which I found both troubling and reassuring. ‘Elmer Durgin has done the following things since late May: paid off his car; paid off his camp in Rangely Lakes; caught up on about ninety years of child support ‘ ‘Nobody pays child support for ninety years,' I said, but I was just running my mouth to hear it go . . . to let off some of my own building excitement, in truth. †T'ain't possible, Mcgee.' ‘It is if you have seven kids,' John said, and began howling with laughter. I thought of the pudgy self-satisfied face, the cupid-bow mouth, the nails that looked polished and prissy. ‘He don't,' I said. ‘He do,' John said, still laughing. He sounded like a complete lunatic manic, hold the depressive. ‘He really do! Ranging in ages from f-fourteen to th-th-three! What a b-busy p-p-potent little prick he must have!' More helpless howls. And by now I was howling right along with him I'd caught it like the mumps. ‘Kennedy is going to f-f-fax me p-pictures of the whole . . . fam' . . . damily!' We broke up completely, laughing together long-distance. I could picture John Stor-row sitting alone in his Park Avenue office, bellowing like a lunatic and scaring the cleaning ladies. ‘That doesn't matter, though,' he said when he could talk coherently again. ‘You see what matters, don't you?' ‘Yes,' I said. ‘How could he be so stupid?' Meaning Durgin, but also meaning Devore. John understood, I think, that we were talking about both he's at the same time. ‘Elmer Durgin's a little lawyer from a little township tucked away in the big woods of western Maine, that's all. How could he know that some guardian angel would come along with the resources to smoke him out? He also bought a boat, by the way. Two weeks ago. It's a twin outboard. A big ‘un. It's over, Mike. The home team scores nine runs in the bottom of the ninth and the fucking pennant is ours.' ‘If you say so.' But my hand went off on its own expedition, made a loose fist, and knocked on the good solid wood of the coffee-table. ‘And hey, the softball game wasn't a total loss.' John was still talking between little giggling outbursts like helium balloons. ‘No?' ‘I'm taken with her.' ‘Her?' ‘Mattie,' he said patiently. ‘Mattie Devore.' A pause, then: ‘Mike? Are you there?' ‘Yeah,' I said. ‘Phone slipped. Sorry.' The phone hadn't slipped as much as an inch, but it came out sounding natural enough, I thought. And if it hadn't, so what? When it came to Mattie, I would be in John's mind, at least below suspicion. Like the country-house staff in an Agatha Christie. He was twenty-eight, maybe thirty. The idea that a man twelve years older might be sexually attracted to Mattie had probably never crossed his mind . . . or maybe just for a second or two there on the common, before he dismissed it as ludicrous. The way Mattie herself had dismissed the idea of Jo and the man in the brown sportcoat. ‘I can't do my courtship dance while I'm representing her,' he said, ‘wouldn't be ethical. Wouldn't be safe, either. Later, though . . . you can never tell.' ‘No,' I said, hearing my voice as you sometimes do in moments when you are caught completely fiat-footed, hearing it as though it were coming from someone else. Someone on the radio or the record-player, maybe. Are these the voices of our dead friends, or just the gramophone? I thought of his hands, the fingers long and slender and without a ring on any of them. Like Sara's hands in that old photo. ‘No, you can never tell.' We said goodbye, and I sat watching the muted baseball game. I thought about getting up to get a beer, but it seemed too far to the refrigerator a safari, in fact. What I felt was a kind of dull hurt, followed by a better emotion: rueful relief, I guess you'd call it. Was he too old for her? No, I didn't think so. Just about right. Prince Charming No. 2, this time in a three-piece suit. Mattie's luck with men might finally be changing, and if so I should be glad. I would be glad. And relieved. Because I had a book to write, and never mind the look of white sneakers flashing below a red sundress in the deepening gloom, or the ember of her cigarette dancing in the dark. Still, I felt really lonely for the first time since I saw Kyra marching up the white line of Route 68 in her bathing suit and flip-flops. ‘You funny little man, said Strickland,' I told the empty room. It came out before I knew I was going to say anything, and when it did, the channel on the TV changed. It went from baseball to a rerun of All in the Family and then to Ren & Stimpy. I glanced down at the remote control. It was still on the coffee-table where I'd left it. The TV channel changed again, and this time I was looking at Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman. There was an airplane in the background, and I didn't need to pick up the remote and turn on the sound to know that Humphrey was telling Ingrid that she was getting on that plane. My wife's all-time favorite movie. She bawled at the end without fail. ‘Jo?' I asked. ‘Are you here?' Bunter's bell rang once. Very faintly. There had been several presences in the house, I was sure of it . . . but tonight, for the first time, I was positive it was Jo who was with me. ‘Who was he, hon?' I asked. ‘The guy at the softball field, who was he?' Bunter's bell hung still and quiet. She was in the room, though. I sensed her, something like a held breath. I remembered the ugly, gibing little message on the refrigerator after my dinner with Mattie and Ki: blue rose liar ha ha. ‘Who was he?' My voice was unsteady, sounding on the verge of tears. ‘What were you doing down here with some guy? Were you . . . ‘ But I couldn't bring myself to ask if she had been lying to me, cheating on me. I couldn't ask even though the presence I felt might be, let's face it, only in my own head. The TV switched away from Casablanca and here was everybody's favorite lawyer, Perry Mason, on Nick at Nite. Perry's nemesis, Hamilton Burger, was questioning a distraught-looking woman, and all at once the sound blared on, making me jump. ‘I am not a liar!' some long-ago TV actress cried. For a moment she looked right out at me, and I was stunned breathless to see Jo's eyes in that black-and-white fifties face. ‘I never lied, Mr. Burger, never!' ‘I submit that you did!' Burger responded. He moved in on her, leering like a vampire. ‘I submit that you ‘ The TV suddenly went off. Bunter's bell gave a single brisk shake, and then whatever had been here was gone. But I felt better. I am not a liar . . . I never lied, never. I could believe that if I chose to. If I chose. I went to bed, and there were no dreams. I had taken to starting work early, before the heat could really get a hold on the study. I'd drink some juice, gobble some toast, then sit behind the IBM until almost noon, watching the Courier ball dance and twirl as the pages floated through the machine and came out with writing on them. That old magic, so strange and wonderful. It never really felt like work to me, although I called it that; it felt like some weird kind of mental trampoline I bounced on. Those were springs that took away all the weight of the world for awhile. At noon I'd break, drive down to Buddy Jellison's greaseatorium for something nasty, then return and work for another hour or so. After that I would swim and take a long dreamless nap in the north bedroom. I had barely poked my head into the master bedroom at the south end of the house, and if Mrs. M. thought this was odd, she kept it to herself. On Friday the seventeenth, I stopped at the Lakeview General on my way back to the house to gas up my Chevrolet. There are pumps at the All-Purpose Garage, and the go-juice was a penny or two cheaper, but I didn't like the vibe. Today, as I stood in front of the store with the pump on automatic feed, looking off toward the mountains, Bill Dean's Dodge Ram pulled in on the other side of the island. He climbed down and gave me a smile. ‘How's it going, Mike?' ‘Pretty fair.' ‘Brenda says you're writin up a storm.' ‘I am,' I said, and it was on the tip of my tongue to ask for an update on the broken second-floor air conditioner. The tip of my tongue was where it stayed. I was still too nervous about my rediscovered ability to want to change anything about the environment in which I was doing it. Stupid, maybe, but sometimes things work just because you think they work. It's as good a definition of faith as any. ‘Well, I'm glad to hear it. Very glad.' I thought he was sincere enough, but he somehow didn't sound like Bill. Not the one who had greeted me back, anyway. ‘I've been looking up some old stuff about my side of the lake,' I said. ‘Sara and the Red-Tops? You always were sort ofint'rested in them, I remember.' ‘Them, yes, but not just them. Lots of history. I was talking to Mrs. M., and she told me about Normal Auster. Kenny's father.' Bill's smile stayed on, and he only paused a moment in the act of unscrewing the cap on his gas tank, but I still had a sense, quite clear, that he had frozen inside. ‘You wouldn't write about a thing like that, would you, Mike? Because there's a lot of people around here that'd feel it bad and take it wrong. I told Jo the same thing.' ‘Jo?' I felt an urge to step between the two pumps and over the island so I could grab him by the arm. ‘What's Jo got to do with this?' He looked at me cautiously and long. ‘She didn't tell you?' ‘What are you talking about?' ‘She thought she might write something about Sara and the Red-Tops for one of the local papers.' Bill was picking his words very slowly. I have a clear memory of that, and of how hot the sun was, beating down on my neck, and the sharpness of our shadows on the asphalt. He began to pump his gas, and the sound of the pump's motor was also very sharp. ‘I think she even mentioned Yankee magazine. I c'd be wrong about that, but I don't think I am.' I was speechless. Why would she have kept quiet about the idea to try her hand at a little local history? Because she might have thought she was poaching on my territory? That was ridiculous. She had known me better than that . . . hadn't she? ‘When did you have this conversation, Bill? Do you remember?' ‘Coss I do,' he said. ‘Same day she come down to take delivery of those plastic owls. Only I raised the subject, because folks had told me she was asking around.' ‘Prying?' ‘I didn't say that,' he said stiffly, ‘you did.' True, but I thought prying was what he meant. ‘Go on.' ‘Nothing to go on about. I told her there were sore toes here and there on the TR, same as there are anyplace, and ast her not to tread on any corns if she could help it. She said she understood. Maybe she did, maybe she didn't. All I know is she kep' on asking questions. Listenin to stories from old fools with more time than sense.' ‘When was this?' ‘Fall of '93, winter and spring of '94. Went all around town, she did even over to Motton and Harlow with her notebook and little tape-recorder. Anyway, that's all I know.' I realized a stunning thing: Bill was lying. If you'd asked me before that day, I'd have laughed and told you Bill Dean didn't have a lie in him. And he must not have had many, because he did it badly. I thought of calling him on it, but to what end? I needed to think, and I couldn't do it here my mind was roaring. Given time, that roar might subside and I'd see it was really nothing, no big deal, but I needed that time. When you start finding out unexpected things about a loved one who's been dead awhile, it rocks you. Take it from me, it does. Bill's eyes had shifted away from mine, but now they shifted back. He looked both earnest and I could have sworn it a little scared. ‘She ast about little Kerry Auster, and that's a good example of what I mean about steppin on sore toes. That's not the stuff for a newspaper story or a magazine article. Normal just snapped. No one knows why. It was a terrible tragedy, senseless, and there's still people who could be hurt by it. In little towns things are kind of connected under the surface ‘ Yes, like cables you couldn't quite see. ‘ and the past dies slower. Sara and those others, that's a little different. They were just . . . just wanderers . . . from away. Jo could have stuck to those folks and it would've been all right. And say for all I know, she did. Because I never saw a single word she ever wrote. If she did write.' About that he was telling the truth, I felt. But I knew something else, knew it as surely as I'd known Mattie had been wearing white shorts when she called me on her day off. Sara and those others were just wanderers from away, Bill had said, but he hesitated in the middle of his thought, substituting wanderers for the word which had come naturally to mind. Niggers was the word he hadn't said. Sara and those others were just niggers from away. All at once I found myself thinking of an old story by Ray Bradbury, ‘Mars Is Heaven.' The first space travellers to Mars discover it's Green Town, Illinois, and all their well-loved friends and relatives are there. Only the friends and relatives are really alien monsters, and in the night, while the space travellers think they are sleeping in the beds of their long-dead kinfolk in a place that must be heaven, they are slaughtered to the last man. ‘Bill, you're sure she was up here a few times in the off-season?' ‘Ayuh. ‘T'wasn't just a few times, either. Might have been a dozen times or more. Day-trips, don't you know.' ‘Did you ever see a fellow with her? Burly guy, black hair?' He thought about it. I tried not to hold my breath. At last he shook his head. ‘Few times I saw her, she was alone. But I didn't see her every time she came. Sometimes I only heard she'd been on the TR after she ‘us gone again. Saw her in June of '94, headed up toward Halo Bay in that little car a hers. She waved, I waved back. Went down to the house later that evenin to see if she needed anythin, but she'd gone. I didn't see her again. When she died later on that summer, me and ‘Vette were so shocked.' Whatever she was looking for, she must never have written any of it down. I would have found the manuscript. Was that true, though? She had made many trips down here with no apparent attempts at concealment, on one of them she had even been accompanied by a strange man, and I had only found out about these visits by accident. ‘This is hard to talk about,' Bill said, ‘but since we've gotten started hard, we might as well go the rest of the way. Livin on the TR is like the way we used to sleep four or even five in a bed when it was January and true cold. If everyone rests easy, you do all right. But if one person gets restless, gets tossing and turning, no one can sleep. Right now you're the restless one. That's how people see it.' He waited to see what I'd say. When almost twenty seconds passed without a word from me (Harold Oblowski would have been proud), he shuffled his feet and went on. ‘There are people in town uneasy about the interest you've taken in Mattie Devore, for instance. Now I'm not sayin there's anythin going on between the two of you although there's folks who do say it but if you want to stay on the TR you're makin it tough on yourself.' ‘Why?' ‘Comes back to what I said a week and a half ago. She's trouble.' ‘As I recall, Bill, you said she was in trouble. And she is. I'm trying to help her out of it. There's nothing going on between us but that.' ‘I seem to recall telling you that Max Devore is nuts,' he said. ‘If you make him mad, we all pay the price.' The pump clicked off and he racked it up. Then he sighed, raised his hands, dropped them. ‘You think this is easy for me to say?' ‘You think it's easy for me to listen to?' ‘All right, ayuh, we're in the same skiff. But Mattie Devore isn't the only person on the TR livin hand-to-mouth, you know. There's others got their woes, as well. Can't you understand that?' Maybe he saw that I understood too much and too well, because his shoulders slumped. ‘If you're asking me to stand aside and let Devore take Mattie's baby without a fight, you can forget it,' I said. ‘And I hope that's not it. Because I think I'd have to be quits with a man who'd ask another man to do something like that.' ‘I wouldn't ask it now anywise,' he said, his accent thickening almost to the point of contempt. ‘It'd be too late, wouldn't it?' And then, unexpectedly, he softened. ‘Christ, man, I'm worried about you. Let the rest of it go hang, all right? Hang high where the crows can pick it.' He was lying again, but this time I didn't mind so much, because I thought he was lying to himself. ‘But you need to have a care. When I said Devore was crazy, that was no figure of speech. Do you think he'll bother with court if court can't get him what he wants? Folks died in those summer fires back in 1933. Good people. One related to me. They burned over half the goddam county and Max Devore set em. That was his going-away present to the TR. It could never be proved, but he did it. Back then he was young and broke, not yet twenty and no law in his pocket. What do you think he'd do now?' He looked at me searchingly. I said nothing. Bill nodded as if I had spoken. ‘Think about it. And you remember this, Mike: no man who didn't care for you would ever talk to you straight as I have.' ‘How straight was that, Bill?' I was faintly aware of some tourist walking from his Volvo to the store and looking at us curiously, and when I replayed the scene in my mind later on, I realized we must have looked like guys on the verge of a fistfight. I remember that I felt like crying out of sadness and bewilderment and an incompletely defined sense of betrayal, but I also remember being furious with this lanky old man him in his shining-clean cotton undershirt and his mouthful of false teeth. So maybe we were close to fighting, and I just didn't know it at the time. ‘Straight as I could be,' he said, and turned away to go inside and pay for his gas. ‘My house is haunted,' I said. He stopped, back to me, shoulders hunched as if to absorb a blow. Then, slowly, he turned back. ‘Sara Laughs has always been haunted, Mike. You've stirred em up. P'raps you should go back to Derry and let em settle. That might be the best thing.' He paused, as if replaying this last to see if he agreed with it, then nodded. He nodded as slowly as he had turned. ‘Ayuh, that might be best all around.' When I got back to Sara I called Ward Hankins. Then I finally made that call to Bonnie Amudson. Part of me was rooting for her not to be in at the travel agency in Augusta she co-owned, but she was. Halfway through my talk with her, the fax began to print out xeroxed pages from Jo's appointment calendars. On the first one Ward had scrawled, ‘Hope this helps.' I didn't rehearse what I was going to say to Bonnie; I felt that to do so would be a recipe for disaster. I told her that Jo had been writing something maybe an article, maybe a series of them about the township where our summerhouse was located, and that some of the locals had apparently been cheesed off by her curiosity. Some still were. Had she talked to Bonnie? Perhaps showed her an early draft? ‘No, huh-uh.' Bonnie sounded honestly surprised. ‘She used to show me her photos, and more herb samples than I honestly cared to see, but she never showed me anything she was writing. In fact, I remember her once saying that she'd decided to leave the writing to you and just ‘ ‘ take a little taste of everything else, right?' ‘Yes.' I thought this was a good place to end the conversation, but the guys in the basement seemed to have other ideas. ‘Was she seeing anyone, Bonnie?' Silence from the other end. With a hand that seemed at least four miles down my arm, I plucked the fax sheets out of the basket. Ten of them November of 1993 to August of 1994. Jottings everywhere in Jo's neat hand. Had we even had a fax before she died? I couldn't remember. There was so fucking much I couldn't remember. ‘Bonnie? If you know something, please tell me. Jo's dead, but I'm not. I can forgive her if I have to, but I can't forgive what I don't underst ‘ ‘I'm sorry,' she said, and gave a nervous little laugh. ‘It's just that I didn't understand at first. â€Å"Seeing anyone,† that was just so . . . so foreign to Jo . . . the Jo I knew . . . that I couldn't figure out what you were talking about. I thought maybe you meant a shrink, but you didn't, did you? You meant seeing someone like seeing a guy. A boyfriend.' ‘That's what I meant.' Thumbing through the faxed calendar sheets now, my hand not quite back to its proper distance from my eyes but getting there, getting there. I felt relief at the honest bewilderment in Bonnie's voice, but not as much as I'd expected. Because I'd known. I hadn't even needed the woman in the old Perry Mason episode to put in her two cents, not really. It was Jo we were talking about, after all. Jo. ‘Mike,' Bonnie was saying, very softly, as if I might be crazy, ‘she loved you. She loved you. ‘Yes. I suppose she did.' The calendar pages showed how busy my wife had been. How productive. S-Ks of Maine . . . the soup kitchens. WomShel, a county-to-county network of shelters for battered women. TeenShel. Friends of Me. Libes. She had been at two or three meetings a month two or three a week at some points and I'd barely noticed. I had been too busy with my women in jeopardy. ‘I loved her too, Bonnie, but she was up to something in the last ten months of her life. She didn't give you any hint of what it might have been when you were riding to meetings of the Soup Kitchens board or the Friends of Maine Libraries?' Silence from the other end. ‘Bonnie?' I took the phone away from my ear to see if the red LOW BATTERY light was on, and it squawked my name. I put it back. ‘Bonnie, what is it?' ‘There were no long drives those last nine or ten months. We talked on the phone and I remember once we had lunch in Waterville, but there were no long drives. She quit.' I thumbed through the fax-sheets again. Meetings noted everywhere in Jo's neat hand, Soup Kitchens of Maine among them. ‘I don't understand. She quit the Soup Kitchens board?' Another moment of silence. Then, speaking carefully: ‘No, Mike. She quit all of them. She finished with Woman Shelters and Teen Shelters at the end of '93 her term was up then. The other two, Soup Kitchens and Friends of Maine Libraries . . . she resigned in October or November of 1993.' Meetings noted on all the sheets Ward had sent me. Dozens of them. Meetings in 1993, meetings in 1994. Meetings of boards to which she'd no longer belonged. She had been down here. On all those supposed meeting-days, Jo had been on the TR. I would have bet my life on it. But why?