Liberalism remains hugely influential in British Politics Essay

Liberalism remains hugely influential in British Politics, moulding the value systems and policies of all the mainstream political parties.’ Discuss. The prime focus of Liberalism is freedom and liberty; the type of liberty they strive for depends, however, on which of the two types of Liberalism is being referred to. Firstly; classical Liberalism, believing in negative freedom and progressive Liberalism leaning more towards positive freedom. I would argue that Liberalism does still have an influence in British politics; however I would not go as far as to say that it is ‘hugely’ influential. Firstly, I would outline that the Labour Party is possibly the least liberal in their political approach. Their manifesto does not set out many liberal policies due to their economical stance. The fact that Labour is traditionally a moderately socialist party, concentrating on equality within society and for this reason, they would steer away from the free-market and limited government intervention approaches that liberals may take to politics. The limited government that Classical liberals see as ideal would not appeal to the Labour party as they strive for the equality of their citizens and would feel that they need to impose policies, such as their policy on housing set out in their 2010 manifesto ‘No stamp duty for first-time buyers on all house purchases below  £250,000 for two years, paid for by a five per cent rate on homes worth more than  £1 million.’ This policy shows a socialist side to New Labour, highlighting a ‘from each according to his ability, to each according to his need’ ideology within Labour politics. However, progressive liberalism may be seen to have had more of an influence on Labour Party politics. The fact that the Labour party believes in imposing policies of equality on society implies that they value positive freedom. Policies put forward such as the Equality Bill; which has been justified as a consolidation measure bringing different strands of anti-discrimination law together while implementing EU directives; highlight the controlled aspect of the Labour party’s equality regime. It could be argued that in the past, aspects of Liberalism, although neither truly Classical or Progressive, such as Neo-Liberalism have had a significant influence on British politics as well as the policies and value systems of the Conservative party in particular. During Thatcher’s time in office, she highlighted an ideal of a pragmatic means to progress. The Thatcherite Conservative party saw Neo-Liberalism as an obvious way to adapt to the constantly changing nature of modern political thought. Tony Blair’s New Labour could also be seen as a Neo-Liberal third way government, on both a social and economic scale. The current Conservative party however, seem to be significantly less affected by Liberalism. Arguably, the free-market ideals that Cameron appears to hold are seen as Neo-Liberal; however, it is apparent that in the current coalition government that Britain is currently led by, this free-market and Neo-Liberal philosophy has been limited to the catch-all demands of mainstream politics. This is apparent in Conservative economic policies such as that put forward in their 2010 pre-general election manifest: ‘A five per cent pay cut for Ministers followed by a five-year freeze, and a 10 per cent reduction in the number of MPs.’ This policy in itself shows how Cameron’s Conservative party are trying to appeal to the masses in controlling the pay of ministers. This does not necessarily denote a free-market approach to the economy and does not play into the meritocratic values that have been seen in the Conservative party in the past. It could also be argued however, that more prominent economic policies put forward in the Conservative manifesto pre-2010 have shown that Cameron’s Conservatives are moving toward the Neo-Liberal, Thatcherite ideology that the Conservative party once had. Although this may not have been the case when Cameron first became the leader of the Conservative party in 2005, aspects of his party’s general election manifesto in 2010, such as: ‘Reduce welfare dependency’ and ‘Stopping tax credits to families with incomes over  £50,000’ have proven to have shown the party’s shift back towards Thatcherite economic politics. These policies show a move back towards meritocratic society and a distinct step away from the ‘something for nothing’ culture that has emerged in modern Britain. Finally, the Liberal Democrats; both by name and by nature; are arguably more influenced by Liberalism than any other mainstream political party. Progressive Liberalism can be seen clearly in certain aspects of their recent policies, on education for example: ‘Cutting class sizes to ensure children get the individual attention they need.’ This is a fine example of how the Liberal Democrats would like to impose positive liberty and freedom on its citizens; cutting class sizes would increase individual attention and therefore arguably create more freedom and liberty for pupils in the long-term. It could also be argued however, that the Liberal Democrats are no longer such a liberal party, but more of a third way political party; much like the Conservative and Labour parties who have shifted towards the centre of political ideals and values in order to also become more ‘catch-all’ and appeal to the masses. In conclusion, I would argue that broadly Liberalism is not hugely influential in British politics as a whole and does not necessarily mould the value systems and policies of all the mainstream political parties. However, I would argue that liberalism still remains influential in certain specific parts of each party’s policies and value systems; therefore remaining an influential force, to an extent, in British politics.

Apes Miller Ch. 1 Questions

Miller Chapter 1 Reading Questions 1. Three ways that human activities are affecting the environment include our exponential increase in population and our resource consumption, which have degraded the air, water, soil, and species in the natural systems that support our lives and economies. A third way is limiting the access that other species have to resources. 2. The goals of environmental science are to learn how nature works, how the environment affects us, how we affect the environment, and how we can live more sustainably without degrading our life-support system. 3.Environmentalism is a social movement dedicated to protecting the earth’s life-support systems for us and other species, and is political in nature. Sustainability, also known as durability, is the ability of earth’s various systems to survive and adapt to changing environmental conditions indefinitely. 4. The five steps towards sustainability are understanding the components and importance of natural capital, recognizing that human activities degrade natural capital by using resources faster than they can be renewed, looking for workable solutions, making trade-offs or compromises, and recognizing that individuals matter.They must be supported by sound science, or the concepts and ideas that are widely accepted by experts in a particular field of the natural or social sciences. 5. Natural capital is the natural resources and services that keep us and other species alive and support our economies. It changes over millions of years in response to environmental changes such as global warming and cooling and huge asteroids hitting the earth. 6. Economic growth is an increase in the capacity of a country to provide people with goods and services.It’s measured by GDP, the annual market value of all goods and services produced by all firms and organizations, foreign and domestic, operating in a country. It goes up with either a population increase, more production and consumpti on, or both. Changes in this growth are measured by per capita GDP, or the GDP divided by the total population at midyear. Economic development is the improvement of human living standards by economic growth. The United Nations classifies this based on a country’s degree of industrialization and their per capita GDP. 7. Developed countries are highly industrialized and have high average per capita GDP.All other nations are developing countries, whether they are middle-income or low-income. Developing countries tend to have the greatest population increases, as well as the greatest disparities between the rich and the poor as far as income goes. 8. 82% of the world’s population comes from developing countries. 9. 1. 5% of the world’s population growth comes from developing countries, as compared to merely 0. 1% in developed countries. 10. The rule of 70 calculates how long it takes to double the world’s population or economic growth at various exponential rates of growth. The formula is 70/percentage growth rate = doubling time in years. 1. The tragedy of the commons is the degradation of renewable free-access resources. The term was coined in 1968 by biologist Garrett Hardin. Basically, the logic is that â€Å"if I don’t use it, somebody else will anyway†. On a large scale, this only leads to waste and overconsumption. 12. One solution to the tragedy of the commons is to use free-access resources at rates well below their estimated sustainable yields by reducing population, regulating access to resources, or both. Another solution is to convert free-access resources to private ownership, so investments are protected. 3. Privatization doesn’t always work if a private owner values increasing profit over protecting natural resources that they own. It is also impractical for global common resources that cannot be divided up and converted to private property. 14. An ecological footprint is the amount of biologically productive land and water needed to supply an area with resources and to absorb the wastes and pollution produced by such resource use. The countries with the largest ecological footprint are the United States, the European Union, China, India, and Japan. 5. To shift towards more sustainable consumption, China and India should lower meat consumption (specifically China), limit population growth (including increased access to birth control), and promote and fund research into sustainable living. The United States, Japan, and the European Union should also promote and fund research into sustainable living, as well as lowering oil consumption by supporting alternative energy and promoting a less consumer-centric lifestyle to their citizens. 16. Point sources of pollutants are single, identifiable sources.An example is a smokestack of a coal-burning industrial plant. Non-point sources are larger, dispersed, and often difficult to identify and therefore much harder and more expensive to control. An example is pesticides sprayed into the air or blown by the wind into the atmosphere. 17. Two basic approaches to dealing with pollution are pollution prevention (input pollution control), which reduces or eliminates the production of pollution, and pollution cleanup (output pollution control), which involves cleaning up or diluting pollutants after they have been produced. 18.Three problems with relying on pollution cleanup are that it is only a temporary bandage as long as population and consumption levels grow without corresponding improvements in pollution control technology, cleanup often removes a pollutant from one part of the environment only to cause pollution in another, and once pollutants have entered and been dispersed into the environment at harmful levels it usually costs too much or is impossible to reduce them to acceptable levels. 19. Five basic causes of environmental problems are population growth, wasteful resource use, poverty, poor environmental acc ounting, and environmental ignorance. 0. Poverty causes environmental problems because the poor often deplete forests, soils, grasslands, and wildlife for short-term survival since they don’t have the luxury of worrying about the long-term environment. They also have the most population growth. 21. Affluenza is the unsustainable addiction to overconsumption and materialism exhibited in the lifestyles of many affluent consumers in developed countries and the rising middle class in certain developing countries. It is based on the assumption that buying more things brings happiness. 22.In the United States, the air is cleaner, most rivers and lakes are cleaner, and drinking water is purer. However, this is because the waste and pollution is transferred to more distant locations. 23. The environmental impact (I) of a population on a given area depends on three key factors: the number of people (P), the average resource use per person or affluence (A), and the beneficial and harmf ul environmental effects of the technologies (T) used to provide and consume each unit of a resource and control or prevent the resulting pollution and environmental degradation. 4. Three major cultural changes have impacted the environment. The agricultural revolution allowed people to settle in villages and raise crops and domesticated animals. The industrial-medical revolution led to a shift towards urban society using fossil fuels to manufacture material items, agriculture, and transportation. It also used science to improve sanitation and understand and control disease. The information-globalization revolution is based on using new technologies for gaining rapid access to much more information on a global scale. 5. To shift to a sustainable economy, we must shift to a renewable energy-based and reuse/recycle economy with a diversified transport system. This requires restructuring the global economy to sustain civilization, a large effort to eradicate poverty, stabilize populati on, and restore hope, as well as a systematic effort to restore natural systems. 26. Your environmental worldview is a set of assumptions and values about how you think the world works and what your role in the world should be.Environmental ethics is concerned with your beliefs about what is right and wrong with how we treat the environment. 27. There are three main types of environmental worldviews. Planetary management worldview holds that nature exists to meet our needs and wants, and that we can use ingenuity and technology to manage the earth’s life-support systems with unlimited economic growth. Stewardship worldview holds that we can manage the earth for our benefit but we have an ethical responsibility to be caring and responsible managers, or stewards, of the earth.Environmental wisdom worldview holds that we are part of and totally dependent on nature and that nature exists for all species. It calls for encouraging earth-sustaining forms of economic growth. 28. Four basic components of Earth’s nature that we can mimic are reliance on solar energy, biodiversity, population control, and nutrient recycling. 29. Current emphasis needs to be shifted to how the individual matters, working together and communicating for social change, and finding trade-off solutions to environmental problems, in order to achieve sustainable emphasis.

Career planning incorporates is long and short term goals

Career planning incorporates is long and short term goals The perfect career is not a standard of living .it’s a state of mind and state of being. In the perfect job I’m applying the talent I enjoy most to an interest I’m passionate about in an environment that fits who you are and what you value. With the rapidly changing world of work. It can be difficult to make specific career plans for the near future. Let alone for the rest of your life. Key concepts The first step in career planning is self-assessment Proper preparation is necessary for a career Setting goals/ objectives is a critical element in choosing a career path Making a career choice requires making major decisions Career planning incorporates is long term & short term career goals Long term career planning Short term career planning My knowledge, skills, values and interests Identify which new knowledge and skills I want to improve Research career opportunities Formulate a careers action plan with contingencies Up to 6 years ahead From 6 to 10 years ahea d Check the careers action plan for realism My career plan As a accounting student my personal career plan target is an finance director as my first brother who working at augentius fund administration LLP as finance associate director He is my role model. Since I was 7 years old, I started to keep expenses records with my pocket money. I have a greater opportunity to develop my career. Because two of my brothers in accounting field. Prospective career path Currently I’m doing BABS and ACCA as well after my degree it could be help to my plan to do internships in a companies which are focused on the financial sectors . Now a days a lot of opportunities for accounting field. It gives me satisfaction I have potential growth in my career. Five smart objectives I will finish my ACCA qualification within twoà Ã… ¡ years after my London school of commerce BABS graduation on self study basis Improve my English skill to excellent level in written and spoken Expand my networking thro ugh adding valuable business contacts through attend meeting, exhibition, seminars Role of the Accounting/ Financial Having noted the expanded number of tasks now undertaken by the modern financial function it is important to also note how the role of the accounting staff has changed in relation to the rest of the company. Knowing where you stand today is a necessary preside to contemplating where you might be in the future. The understanding of a company’s overall performance and its current financial standing is the key for any planning activities. The finance of the company will help to find out that information .a particular important area in which the role of the accountant has changed is related to processes. The most historically important role that the accounting staff must change is that of being a brake on other activities. The accounting staff tends to shoot down changes proposed by other department the changes will interfere with the controls. In today increasingl y competitive environment, it is very important for companies to develop strong relationships with their key suppliers and customer. These business partners will demand extra services, some of which must be fulfilled by the accounting staff. With the globalization of business, competition has become more intense. It is possible that the ethical foundations to which a company adheres have deteriorated in the face of this pressure.

Facilities stadia and the environment 2 Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2250 words

Facilities stadia and the environment 2 - Essay Example In Asia, games tend to be less physical than in the Western world, though Soccer and Field Hockey are hugely popular. One game that does draw crowds in Asia, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa and England is Cricket. The traditional form of this game, viz, the five-day Test Match has been overtaken in popularity by the one-day format. The latter, where each team gets fifty overs to bat in, is now under serious threat by the latest version, the 20-20 or twenty-overs per side matches, which last exactly three hours. These short but intense matches are generally played at night, under lights, so that people returning from office and school-going teens can drop by for a fun-filled and exciting outing, with a casual dinner thrown in. The economic aspects of popular sporting events are a challenge in themselves. If players are to be paid huge sums of money, the organisers have to be able to attract even more money. Media rights are sold by the Sports Boards of hosting nations for astronomical sums and this money is recovered through expensive prime-time audio-visual advertisements. The arena hosting the match also has to make enough money to pay the players while making a profit for itself, if it is to remain solvent. The obvious requirement is for a large audience, leading, in turn, to a large yet manageable stadium, with tickets to suit every pocket. At the highest levels of the game, the average Soccer stadium must be able to accommodate at least fifty thousand paying spectators, if not more. The crux of the matter is that the paying spectator would like a certain minimum level of comfort, so that he (or she) actually enjoys the game and would not mind coming back for other matches in the future. In this short case study, I will look at a very popular stadium, the Melbourne Cricket Ground (MCG) in Melbourne, Australia; its history and how it reached its position of eminence; pitch and ground management; sport and crowd control techniques employed;

The Roles of Family and Religion in Motivating Violent Republicanism Essay

The Roles of Family and Religion in Motivating Violent Republicanism among Irish Catholics - Essay Example Differences between religions have a long history of creating conflicts even among members of citizens living within a single geographical region. This situation has various examples, one of the most notable is the division of two sects of Christianity, with one sect having more population over another and causes issues among peoples such as discrimination against the minority group and having unfair representation in congress. In addition, bloody wars ensue as a result of such discriminations, with the minority group taking on the offensive both in the name of nationalism and of religion. These are former situations in Northern Ireland, wherein the Catholic minority has long aimed to be treated fairly and equally with the Protestant majority, as well as to be properly represented in congress. Two movies, Michael Collins (1996) and Some Mother’s Son (1996) depict such periods when there has been bloodshed due to the differences in religions and this, along with the strength of family bonds and of similar ties fuel a seemingly-unending revolt against the total control of the British Monarchy and gain both independence and recognition. The movies Michael Collins and Some Mother’s Son both show the troublesome period in Northern Ireland but were set in two different times, with the former having the settings of pre-World War period and without the existence of an independent country of Ireland, and the second movie having settings after the World Wars have ended and that the independent state of Northern Ireland has been established. Both countries portray troubles such as getting recognition and rights independent from the British monarchy, both also shows retaliations of the minorities by taking up of arms, and both movies also tell of the numerous casualties both civilian and militant personnel in the process of obtaining peace. The two movies, while showing many similarities in some themes with regards to the eruption of violence in Ireland, also show various differences in terms of the strength of religions and families in the perpetuation of violence by and against the republican Catholics. For instance, the movie Some Mother’s Son has an edge over Michael Collins in both family and religious impact on the perpetuation of violent movements due to various differences in how the themes of each movie was delivered. First is the case of the role of religion, the movie Michael Collins shows religion having a lesser role in showing how it strongly fuels the violence movement, as the movie did not show lengthy religious ceremonies and traditions other than some characters being momentarily shown to be either praying and leaving the church or talking shortly to the priest in the rectory (â€Å"Michael†). Such short portrayals imply to the viewers that religion is not a strong theme in the movie, and that it is only one component for the uprisings staged by the minority militant armies. On the other hand, the role of religion in the continuing power struggles between minority Catholics and majority Protestants were better shown in Some Mother’s Son, as it was able to show lengthy Catholic traditions such as praying the rosary, receiving the Holy Communion, anointing the sick, and holding funeral masses, in addition to the main characters praying individually (â€Å"Mother’s Son†). There were also strong implications of discriminations against the Catholic prisoners and to their comrades from militant armies outside prison, as their demands were immediately brushed off by the British control centers without any proper compromises or talks between the two parties. Lastly, the families of these prisoners do not get much decent treatment from the military either, as they are readily the subject of immediate harassment and of warrantless arrests just because they were Irish and Catholics (â€Å"Mother’s Son†). However, the strong role of religion

Financial Transaction Taxes Dissertation Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2500 words

Financial Transaction Taxes - Dissertation Example Research report by Economic & Financial Policies Directorate, Ministry for EU Affairs, Turkey (Economic & Financial Policies Directorate, July 2012. FinansalIslem Vergilerive Avrupa BirligiUygulamas?. Ankara, Turkey) Useful information about taxation. Statistical references to specific issues. Research report by Ernst & Young LLP (Tax Policy Services, April 2012. Financial Transaction Tax, Which way now? London, United Kingdom) Useful for the understanding the current situation of the holistic structure of financial taxes in EU. http://www.gib.gov.tr (2012) This website was searched throughout to gain a deeper understanding of Turkish Tax System II - INTRODUCTION A financial transaction tax (FTT) is a tax placed on a specific type of financial transaction for a specific purpose. This term is most commonly associated with the financial sector. (HM Revenue & Customs, 2001)By any name, financial transaction tax is a fee paid any time by an individual or a company buys or sells a share o f stock, any type of security, a futures contract, an options contract, or any of the commonly traded financial instruments. In recent times, the term FTT has been used to refer to the proposed bill â€Å"Let Financial Market Pay for the Restoration of Real Market Bill†. ... In this project, types of FTT researched will give information about implemented and proposed FTTs including country samples and political support with evaluation. III - HISTORY OF FINANCIAL TRANSACTION TAXES As it is known from the history of economics, financial implementations and investigations are always started in countries which see their future earlier than their economy go into the crash. In 1694, an early implementation of a financial transaction tax in the form of a  stamp duty  at the  London Stock Exchange. The tax was payable by the buyer of shares for the official stamp on the legal document needed to formalize the purchase. As of 2011, it is the oldest tax still in existence in Great Britain (Kincaid, 2009).   In 1936, in the wake of the  Great Depression,  John Maynard Keynes  advocated the wider use of financial transaction taxes (Wishart, 2012). Essentially, first tax proposal for the financial sector was put forward by Keynes. He assimilated markets that are dominated by speculation to ‘casino’. He asserted that long-term stability could be provided by taxation on security transactions. Keynes indicated that taxation on security transactions would decrease speculation and provide an effective distribution of resources in the market with ‘right’ price level. In 1972, the  Bretton Woods system  for stabilizing currencies effectively came to an end. In that context, James Tobin, influenced by the work of Keynes, suggested his more specific  currency transaction tax  for stabilizing currencies on a larger global scale (Tobin, 1993) In 1989, Edgar Feige generalized the ideas of Keynes and Tobin by proposing a small flat rate tax on all transactions (Wishart, 2012). In December 1994,  the economic crisis in Mexico  and 1997 Asia Crisis

Goverment Imigration Act Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Goverment Imigration Act - Essay Example However, regardless of how the figure is understood, the fact remains that this large number of shareholders remains in a state of limbo. Oftentimes unable to return to their home country, they are constrained to living the rest of their days in the United States without any hope of becoming naturalized or legalized. This is of course a function of the antiquated and unethical means by which current immigration policy exists within the United States. Accordingly, the following analysis will serve as something of a policy recommendation with regards to a proposal for addressing the following issues regarding immigration: what should the new immigration policy look like, the need for the government to tighten border security, a discussion and analysis with regards to the arguments for and against allowing undocumented persons within the United States to earn citizenship, a brief discussion of the means by which allowing citizenship for illegal immigrants might expect the United States in the years ahead, whether or not the dream act should be made permanent by the U.S. Congress, and a brief take on Pres. Barack Obama’s allowance for some immigrants to apply for temporary visas. Firstly, the need for the United States to produce an updated and relevant immigration policy is without question. ... wever, without specifically addressing needs of the many millions of illegal immigrants that are already within the United States, such a piece of legislation would be ultimately worthless. What needs to be affected is legislation that allows for a greatly reduce level of illegal immigration within the United States while at the same time providing option for those individuals that are already within the United States illegally to further their lives and the lives of their children. Similarly, at the same time, it is necessary for the United States to significantly increase its border security; not only as a means of stemming illegal immigration, but also as a means of providing a greater level of national security. It is been proven time and again that many of the easiest ways to do harm to the United States, or any other nation for that matter, is merely to come across the border and undocumented fashion so that the national security apparatus has no idea that the individual(s) who wishes to harm is even there (Stolz 7). With regards to the main arguments for and against providing a path to citizenship for the illegal and undocumented persons currently residing in the United States, these arguments will be briefly discussed in the preceding paragraph. Firstly, those individuals that are in favor of providing a path citizenship claim the fact that this provides an ethical and reasonable approach by which these millions of individuals will be able to further integrate with American society, pay taxes, and contribute to the society that they had so long been upon the sidelines of. Likewise, those that are against a level of reform point to the fact that any such reform would necessarily encourage further illegal immigration system (Hinojosa-Ojeda 181). However this

Social Commentary Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

Social Commentary - Essay Example All the electronics, which people use for the comfort in their routine lives, actually emit such dangerous gases and chemicals in the air that they destroy the natural composition of the environment. The disposal or the waste material of the people destroys the natural lands and the greenery of any place. Usually people do not care for the surrounding environment and just want to relax themselves. Similarly water areas i.e. oceans, rivers, seas and natural waterfalls are slowly getting polluted because of the chemicals emitting from the sea transports. Nevertheless, people are continuously using these transports without any solution to this water pollution. Due to many factors, the temperature on the planet has increased so much that it has started destroying natural beauties and even the atmospheric layers. It is evident that slowly these things are destroying natural environment and thus the natural habitat of many of the living species is not worth living now. The human beings should think over their activities and the probable ways to overcome the loss of natural

Quidelines for Communications Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Quidelines for Communications - Research Paper Example The controller is mainly nominated by the state or even the society law. It is essential and mandatory to ensure that the EU citizens are never in a position where their privileges to privacy are compromised. Therefore, there must be a satisfactory and valuable means of scrutinizing the dispensation of the personal identity data by an appointed controller. Thus, the EU member ought to assign a competent controller to do the work. When private data are accumulated, they are mainly used in a variety of ways. An individual can give his personal data when he for instance, records for a library tag, or when he signs for gymnasium association, or even opens a depository account. Therefore, personal data can be gathered unswervingly from the individual or from an existing database. This information may afterwards be utilized for other reasons and further shared with extra parties. Personal data can be any data that recognizes an entity, such as a person’s name, an individual’s telephone number, or moreover an individual’s photo. The idea of development in computer knowledge and also in telecommunications system is permitting personal data to go across borders through superior simplicity. As personal data is collected and exchanged more frequently, regulation on data transfers is necessary (Bennet & Raab, 2007). The Specific Role of the EU Member State Controller with regards to EU Citizen Privacy Protection The controller is chiefly appointed by the government body. The key roles of the controllers in the EU include a variety of duties. For instance, they must be able to ensure limited types of personal data are collected from the member states of the EU. For instance, the data that is capable of revealing an individual’s ethnic, or the race, the political conviction, religious beliefs, or even the health as well as the sexuality is not to be collected unless the individual collecting that information has the right to do so in the member co untry. For example the government body or the employers are an example of those who have full rights and privileges to collect an individual’s personal data. Secondly, the controller must guarantee accuracy of the data collected. The controller ought to ensure accuracy of data and any data without accuracy must be deleted. This is to enable the availability of correct data and therefore the inaccurate data must be removed or updated and rectified. Additionally, the controller of the EU members must further ensure that the data collected from the individuals is kept securely and safely. Moreover, the data controllers must further ensure that they have implemented appropriate technical and also organizational measures so as to protect personal data against any forms of accidental loss, or even the alterations, or from any unauthorized disclosure or even access. Furthermore, the controller’s role is also to fully guarantee redress of the personal data. This is an independ ent mechanism that ensures individuals have recourse if they want to and feel like their rights to their personal data has been interfered with or infringed. Eventually, the controllers must ensure that the individual has a right and access to the power to investigate claims of data protection violations. They must also have a right to intervene and further stop the collection of any personal data and further initiate a legal procedure against any violators of the data protection rights (Staples, 2001). The Required

Organisation Behaviour Case Study Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

Organisation Behaviour - Case Study Example The disadvantages would be that collective forward progress is slower and lack of personal creativity due to compliance to common ideals. General Electric (GE) is one of the well-known corporations of the world. It is an enormously diversified company with its products ranging from telecommunication fibre optics to large Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) machines capable of projecting 3-D images of the human brain. It makes immense aircraft engines to and advices public to reduce their energy bills. Its ability to innovate and maintain impeccable quality has helped GE to remain a market leader and function as a successful organisation. Bureaucracy has been exhaustively discussed in organisational concepts. Ideally bureaucracy is symbolised by authority relations, recruitment by competence, and fixed salaries. Max Weber described it as technically superior to all other forms of organization and hence indispensable to large, complex enterprises. Weber's Principles of Bureaucracy proclaims the following of the principles of Divide labour into specialized expertise areas throughout the organization, Pyramid position defined by a hierarchy of authority and an explicit chain of command, Formal rules governing decisions and actions of everyone that allows continuity in event of personnel changes, Be detached with employees so that sentiments do not distort objective judgment and Select workers by their technical utility to rule out friendship or favouritism is ruled out, and advancement is by seniority and achievement. Rigid documentation is followed to keep tabs on progress and evaluate. However, bureaucratic organisations seem to stifle worker creativity since omni-present rules and regulations create no room for innovation and improvisation by the workers. The inability take quick decisions due to lack of authority also results in reduced productivity. This downside of bureaucracy especially in large organisations has made it questionable as to its rationality and efficiency. Its principles have also attached a connotation of disapproval to the terms bureaucratic and bureaucracy due to its incompetence and a lack of broad-mindedness. However, although it sounds improbable considering its successful image and culture today, GE was a struggling bureaucratic organisation in the 1990's. Too many layers and no decision-making capabilities characterized it. The organisation lagged behind in making timely strategic decisions. This success is attributed to what was essentially a single managerial decision made by Welch back in the mid-90's. Jack Welch joined the General Electric Company (GE) in 1960. Welch started work as an engineer in the plastics division. However although his immediate work environment was fast paced and exciting, he felt smothered by the bloated bureaucracy of the company. He could not function to his full ingenious limits, had to wait for management decisions on the smallest of tasks. He felt under valued, and was highly dissatisfied with the standard bonus he received. He found another job and almost quit but was persuaded to stay on by Reuben Gutoff, who saw his immense potential. Although he stayed on, Welch had not changed his mind about GE's administration, which he saw as unresponsive at best and debilitating at worst. Welch carried this experience in heart and his tenure at GE was the struggle

Conflict Is A Destructive Force In Our Lives Essay Example for Free

Conflict Is A Destructive Force In Our Lives Essay In our lives conflict plays a huge force in our everyday activities, social events, interaction with our friends and family. But what is the real explanation of conflict? A struggle or destructive force. This description of conflict only touches the surface of what conflict really means. People encounter conflicts almost on a daily basis, whether it is self-brought upon conflict, conflict with what religion, age, gender you are. Who your family and friends are and how they contribute to your life and how their decisions impact you and the others around you. Conflict is an unavoidable thing that we will all face and have already faced conflict in one form or another throughout our lives. How we deal with conflict determines whether it destroys us or not. Conflict, as a force can either crush or build people’s strength people depending on how they deal with it and the repercussions they have to go through post-conflict. It is known to bring trauma and devastation but has also has the ability to bring people together and settle the differences between one another. Conflict in any form can prove to be rather hurtful and brutal, either for the individual or towards multiple groups. Conflict is a destructive force as it generates separation as a result of different ideas and opinions between different people or groups. When individuals or groups of people have social orders placed upon them, there is an inclination of trust and the idea of togetherness to be damaged. We live in a world of social structure and laws that are enforced to keep society under control. This is because the majority of conflicts that occur are destructive but they try to remain constructive. In the movie ‘A Separation’ we see many examples of conflict being encountered. The film captures the reality of city life in modern-day Iran, where a woman Razieh’s decision to take up a job that she couldn’t handle entirely set a motion of events that end in the death of her unborn child.. As the adults involved turn to legal remedies and the accusations and counter-accusations build up, the conflict becomes Termeh, the eleven year old daughter of Nader and Simin. The conflict occurred and encountered with Termeh sees her becoming more mature than what her age is due to her being  increasingly burdened by her parents’ unhappiness and the wider flaws she sees in the world that she lives in. The conflict in her life becomes a destructive force as she has to watch on as her father breaks down day by day as he can no longer deal with his own conflict that he has to deal with, which results in him being arrested and leaves Termeh in a struggle as to how she is even going to live as her mother has walked out on her for just a while. The film shows multiple variations of how conflict can be so damaging to one’s life and their being. Even though Nader’s father has no will to be even able to speak you can see his condition deteriorating as he watches the world go by him and has to see his son break down as he can no longer deal with the struggle he is put through day after day. However, the burden that Nader’s father puts on Nader impeccably shows his incapability to be able to let go of his father’s inability to live. For Nader, it is all about protecting and caring for his father who once did the same for him. He encounters conflict for the first time in the film right at the beginning when he is faced in court with the decision to leave his father and go with his wife and daughter to move out of the country. Nader is in the position where he would like to go for a better life but he simply cannot leave his father which causes his then wife Simin to get boiled over as she is beyond belief as to how Nader could not want a better life for his daughter and wife. This sets the scene for the whole film as the destructiveness continues to show from this point onwards. Conflict shows as it can be a power in our lives which can be uncontrollable in that of it can tear someone down bit by bit.

Literature Review on Customer Relationship Essay Example for Free

Literature Review on Customer Relationship Essay The hospitality industry is a broad category of fields within the service industry that includes lodging, restaurants, event planning, theme parks, transportation, cruise line, and additional fields within the tourism industry. The hospitality industry is a several billion dollar industry that mostly depends on the availability of leisure time and disposable income. â€Å"CRM†, or Customer Relationship Management, is one of the most important topics in the business world. Its attributes and consequences cannot be disaffirmed. Without proper customer relationship management, there is no way you can build interest and acquire and retain customers to the business, in order to be profitable. CRM features an embryonic reputation and it is getting among the most popular educational as well as useful subjects in the industrial area. Due to the competing atmosphere, it has turn into a niche with regard to a company’s overall performance. Still there is certainly restricted investigation which shows the relationship between CRM and hotels’ overall performance. Consequently this particular research is a try to give a worth conceptual model which describes the actual speculative linkages between CRM and hotel’s performance. This particular research just not explains the connection among CRM and hotel performance, but in addition describes the actual mediation part of promoting/marketing abilities in the relationship. â€Å"CRM is never done, it is an ongoing effort.† The essence of a customer-focused environment is a preliminary indication of how the hotel industry can truly benefit from a strategic and focused approach to CRM. Hotel companies have in evidence had recourse to elements of CRM for a variety of strategic and tactical reasons. It is argued that the success of a strategy depends not only on the ability of a company to identify and understand what its target customers genuinely need and want, but also on the companys ability to deliver enhanced value in terms of these specific needs and wants (Diana Luck and Geoff Lancaster ,2013). In order to remain competitive, hospitality and tourism companies must adopt the knowledge management approach (Ruhanen Cooper, 2004). As customers become more experienced at finding the best deals for hotels, restaurants, travel agencies, and tourist destinations, the hospitality and tourism organizations face increasingly intense worldwide competition. Considering  the severe competition and the nature of the industry, employees and managers have to acquire more knowledge, in order to consistently provide the best deals and service to customers. What is more, customers’ preferences can be various and changeable, requiring employees and managers to understand the changes and continue to provide the best experience (Hallin Marnburg, 2008). However, the question often posed is: What kind of knowledge should be obtained in order to gain competitive advantage (Ruhanen Cooper, 2004). One of the basic and most common sources of failure for CRM implementations is a missing customer strategy â€Å"as the creation of a unique and valuable position involving a different set of activities†. A robust customer strategy is based on customer segmentation is one of the first steps necessary when implementing a sound CRM solution (Gillies et al.2002). Human beings have had the urge to select and choose what to them can satisfy their desires since creation and will continue to have this desire because of their changing nature. This tendency makes them explore what to them is the best in terms of quality when purchasing, especially in the area of service consumption. This is supported by Palmer’s assertion that: â€Å"customers have always been concerned about quality and that the proliferation of competitive market for a lot of services has also made customers become more selective in the services they choose†. This attitude means that service providers must be innovative in their service provision and delivery. The Hotel Industry is also experiencing increased globalization, competition, higher customer turnover, growing customer acquisition costs and rising customer expectations, meaning that hotels’ performance and competitiveness is significantly dependent on their ability to satisfy customers efficiently and effectively. To enhance profitability and guest loyalty, hotels must nowadays focus on implementing Customer Relationship Management (CRM) strategies/techniques that aim to seek, gather and store the right information, validate and share it throughout the entire organization and then use it throughout all organizational levels for creating personalized and unique guests’ experiences (Nana Yaw Asabere and Vida Doku, IJAIEM, Volume 2, Issue 3, March 2013). To retain customers, the relationship with customers has to be managed in a long-term and trusting manner for mutual benefits. Thus, the adoption of CRM should enhance the hotels’ performance through increasing customer satisfaction and loyalty, declining customer acquisition costs and increasing profitability by customers who are willing to pay a premium for better services (Piccoli et al., 2003). Although CRM is imperative for organizational survival, its implementation has resulted in mixed outcomes (King and Burgess, 2008), which is customer oriented believing that customer loyalty increases organization’s profitability. Therefore, Performance is improved since CRM involves the ongoing process development of market intelligence for building and maintaining a profit-maximizing portfolio of customer relationship (see Zablah et al., 2004). Thus, the hotels are expected to use strategy that focused on customers in order to sustain their competitive advantage. For these hotels, the use of the financial measures is not only short-term oriented but also inadequate to capture the customer perspective of performance (Kaplan and Norton, 1996). Customer-related performance measures are therefore needed to quantify customer relationships (Shoemaker and Lewis, 1999) and to differentiate customers who are worthy of the CRM efforts (Noone et al., 2003). All participating hotels have practices in place to manage customer relationships. The most commonly cited goal for CRM is guest retention. Evaluation and control are perceived as very important activities not only to create value for the customers, but also to track the performance of the guest contact departments and the customers evaluations of the hotel/restaurant experiences (Ada S. Lo, Hong Kong, 2010). Freeland (2002) suggests that organization must address four critical strategies and understand the key interplay with them: * Identifying the customer * Selecting the most appropriate channel to reach the customer * Receiving the effects on the brands value * Determining the most appropriate CRM capabilities (Wolfgang Emperger, 2004) The use of a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) application to create a business strategy is an excellent way to increase customer loyalty and customer retention. By personalizing a customers stay, a hotel can ensure that customers will come back again and again simply by remembering their favorite beverage, pillow or other preferred amenity (Nick Nikolis, Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/2066799).

Analysing The Pardoner In Canterbury Tales

Analysing The Pardoner In Canterbury Tales The Pardoner in the Canterbury Tales is hypocritical, gluttenous, vindictive, and spiteful towards others; he is morally and spiritually corrupt in the extreme. He does, however, tell a tale that, as he promises it shall be in the section that precedes his prologue, a valid sermon against avarice and greed. When Harry Bailey speaks at the end of the Pardoners Tale, he does not reject the tale but the teller, the Pardoner. Chaucer the poet aptly presents the Pardoner as a skilled orator and conman and he deliberately illustrates that it is possible for a character far beyond redemption to tell a moral tale. The Pardoner tells a moral tale against avarice, gluttony, and the love of money. The latter is a theme that the Pardoner says is always central to his sermons, citing the Latin, the love of money is the root of all evil. The origin of the tale, which was part of common folklore in Chaucers day, is an Oriental myth. The three rioters who are central to the tale, damn themselves literally and metaphorically. They betray each other over gold and their desire for it. They also drink and gamble excessively. Upon learning that an old friend of theirs has died, they further damn themselves by going in search of death. The Pardoner tells a tale, however, that is both instructive and valid as a sermon because it is loaded with advice against drunkeness and gluttony. The Pardoner cites examples of stories from the Bible, too, to illustrate the dangers of drunkenness (Solomon and John the Baptist; Lot and his daughters) and gluttony (Adam and Eve). There can be no doubt that the tale is moral. The Pardoner professes himself that although he is a ful vicious man, he can still tell a moral tale. The Pardoner as a character, an individual, and a typification of a group of professional churchmen is entirely amoral and, despite telling a moral tale, Chaucer uses various markers to illustrate why he cannot be trusted or accepted on any level. One of the most telling qualities that Chaucer gives the character of the Pardoner is rhetorical skill. The characteristic essential for Chaucer to illustrate that the teller of the tale cannot be accepted is arrogance. The question of authority is central to the Pardoners tale and its significance both seperated fro and as part of The Canterbury Tales. As the Pardoner is such a skilled orator, Chaucer implies, using the Pardoner and also by selecting Harry Bailey, one of the most astue of the pilgrims and a conman himself, to expose him and silence him so he cannot speak a word more. Apparently deeply affected by the Physicians sad and gruesome tale of Virginia, the Host praises the Physician by using as many medical terms as he can muster. However, he rejects the Physicians moral to the tale and substitutes one of his own: Thus the gifts of fortune and nature are not always good (The gifts of Fortune and Nature have been the cause of the death of many a person). Thinking that the pilgrims need a merry tale to follow, the Host turns to the Pardoner. The more genteel members of the company, fearing that the Pardoner will tell a vulgar story, ask the Pardoner for a tale with a moral. The Pardoner then explains to the pilgrims the methods he uses in preaching. His text is always Radix malorum est cupidatis (Love of money is the root of all evil). Always employing an array of documents and objects, he constantly announces that he can do nothing for the really bad sinners and invites the good people forward to buy his relics and, thus, absolve themselves from sins. Then he stands in the pulpit and preaches very rapidly about the sin of avarice so as to intimidate the members into donating money. He repeats that his theme is always Money is the root of all evil because, with this text, he can denounce the very vice that he practices: greed. And even though he is guilty of the same sins he preaches against, he can still make other people repent. The Pardoner admits that he likes money, rich food, and fine living. And even if he is not a moral man, he can tell a good moral tale, which follows. In Flanders, at the height of a black plague, three young men sit in an inn, eating and drinking far beyond their power and swearing oaths that are worthy of damnation. The revelers mark the passing of a coffin and ask who has died., A servant tells them that the dead man was a friend who was stabbed in the back the night before by a thief called Death. The young revelers, thinking that Death might still be in the next town, decide to seek him out and slay him. On the way, the three men meet an old man who explains that he must wander the earth until he can find someone willing to exchange youth for old age. He says that not even Death will take his life. Hearing him speak of Death, the revelers ask where they can find Death, and the old man directs them to a tree at the end of the lane. The revelers rush to the tree and find eight bushels of gold coins, which they decide to keep. They decide to wait for night to move the gold and draw straws to see which one will go into town to get food and wine. The youngest of the three draws the shortest straw. When he leaves, the two others decide to kill him and divide his money. The youngest, however, wanting the treasure to himself, buys poison, which he adds to two of the bottles of wine he purchases. When the youngest reveler approaches the tree, the two others stab him and then sit down to drink the wine before they dispose of his body. Thus, all three indeed find Death. Commentary From the Pardoners perspective, the Physician told a cheaply pious story and the Host, a sanctimonious fool, reacts to the tale with what seems high praise. Then, after praising the Physician, the Host turns to the Pardoner and asks for a merry tale or jokes (som myrthe or japes), even though preaching is the Pardoners profession. The Pardoner agrees by mockingly echoing the same oath the Host has just used-By Saint Ronyon. The echo of the Host indicates, if anything at all, the Pardoners irritation at hearing the Physician praised as being like a Prelate (lyk a prelat). The Pardoner is further insulted when some members of the company cry with one voice, No, dont let him tell dirty jokes! (Nay, lat hym telle us of no ribaudye). The Pardoner will have his revenge on all the complacent, self-righteous critics, and he resolves to think his revenge out carefully. The ironic relationship between The Physicians Tale and The Pardoners Tale-and therefore the Physician and Pardoner-is that both men are self-loving dissemblers. However, one of the two, the Pardoner, possesses enough self-knowledge to know what he is; the other, the Physician, being self-satisfied and affected, does not. The function of a pardoner in Chaucers time was to collect moneys for charitable purposes and to be the Popes special agent in dispensing or rewarding contributors with certain pardons as a remission for sins. By canon law, a pardoner was required to remain in a certain area; within this area, he could visit churches, receive contributions, and, in the Popes name, dispense indulgences. An honest pardoner was entitled to a percentage of the take; however, most pardoners were dishonest and took much more than their share and, in many cases, would take all the contributions. Thus, as he boasts, Chaucers Pardoner belongs to the latter class-that is, he speaks of how much he collects by refusing to give indulgences to anyone except the very good people. In his prologue, the Pardoner frankly confesses that he is a fraud motivated by greed and avarice and that he is guilty of all seven sins. Even though he is essentially a hypocrite in his profession, he is at least being honest as he makes his confession. But then, ironically, at the end of his tale, he requests that the pilgrims make a contribution. Thus, for many reasons, the Pardoner is the most complex figure in the entire pilgrimage. He is certainly an intellectual figure; his references and knowledge demonstrated in the tale and his use of psychology in getting only the good people to come forward attest to his intellect. But in making his confessions to the pilgrims about his hypocrisy, he seems to be saying that he wishes he could be more sincere in his ways, except that he is too fond of money, good food and wine, and power. The Pardoner takes as his text that Love of money is the root of all evil, yet he emphasizes how each relic will bring the purchaser more money; in emphasizing this, he sells more and gains more money for himself. Thus, his text contains a double irony: His love for money is the root of his evil, yet his sales depend upon the purchasers love of money. Furthermore, his technique of relying upon basic psychology by selling only to the good people brings him more money. His sermon on avarice is given because the Pardoner is filled with avarice and this sermon fills his purse with money. Scholars, critics, and readers in general consider The Pardoners Tale to be one of the finest short stories ever written. Even though this is poetry, the narration fits all the qualifications of a perfect short story: brevity, a theme aptly illustrated, brief characterizations, the inclusion of the symbolic old man, rapid narration, and a quick twist of an ending. The entire tale is an exemplum, a story told to illustrate an intellectual point. The subject is Money (greed) is the root of all evil. The Pardoners Tale ends with the Pardoner trying to sell a relic to the Host and the Host attacking the Pardoner viciously. At this point, the Knight who, both by his character and the nature of the tale he told, stands as Chaucers symbol of natural balance and proportion, steps between the Host and the Pardoner and directs them to kiss and be reconciled. In the conflict between the Host and the Pardoner, the Pardoner-whose official role is to get men to call on God for forgiveness of their sins-is unmerciful in his wrath; that is, the Pardoner is unwilling to pardon, and the pardon is effected only when the noble Knight steps in. Glossary à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¢ relics objects esteemed and venerated because of association with a saint or martyr; here, the Pardoners relics are false. à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¢ Lot Lots daughters got their father drunk and then seduced him (from the Book of Genesis in the Bible); the Pardoners point is that Lot never would have committed incest if he had not been drunk. à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¢ Samson the biblical strong man. He revealed the secret of his strength to Solome, who then betrayed him to his enemies. à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¢ Lepe a town in Spain noted for its strong wines. à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¢ Cheapside and Fish Streets streets in London that were known for the sale of strong spirits. à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¢ Lemuel See Proverbs 31:4-7. à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¢ King Demetrius The book that relates this and the previous incident is the Policraticus of twelfth-century writer John of Salisbury. à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¢ Avicenna an Arabian physician (980-1037) who wrote a work on medicines that includes a chapter on poisons. à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¢ St. Helen the mother of Constantine the Great, believed to have found the True Cross The Pardoners Tale There once lived in Flanders a company of three rioters who did nothing but engage in irresponsible and sinful behavior. At this point, the narrator interrupts the tale itself to launch a lengthy diatribe against drunkenness mentioning Herod, Seneca, Adam, Sampson, Attila the Hun and St. Paul as either sources or famed drunkards. This in turn oddly becomes a diatribe against people whose stomachs are their gods (their end, we are told, is death), and then a diatribe against the stomach, called, at one point a stynkyng cod, fulfilled of dong and of corrupcioun (a stinking bag, full of dung and decayed matter). This distraction from the story itself ends with an attack on dice-playing (dice here called bicched bones, or cursed dice). The three drunkards were in a tavern one night, and, hearing a bell ring, looked outside to see men carrying a corpse to its grave. One of them called to his slave to go and ask who the corpse was: he was told by a boy that the corpse was an old fellow whose heart was smashed in two by a secret thief called Death. This drunkard agreed, and discussed with his companions how this Death had indeed slain many people, of all ranks, of both sexes, that very year. The three then made a vow (by Goddes digne bones) to find Death and slay him. When they had gone not even half a mile, they met an old, poor man at a style, who greeted them courteously. The proudest of the drunkards responded rudely, asking the man why he was still alive at such a ripe age. The old man answered that he was alive, because he could not find anyone who would exchange their youth for his age and, although he knocked on the ground, begging it to let him in, he still did not die. Moreover, the old man added, it was not courteous of the drunkards to speak so rudely to an old man. One of the other drunkards responded still more rudely that the old man was to tell them where Death was, or regret not telling them dearly. The old man, still polite, told the drunkards they could find Death up the crooked way and underneath an oak tree. The drunkards ran until they came to the tree, and, underneath it, they found eight bushels of gold coins. The worst one of them spoke first, arguing that Fortune had given them the treasure to live their life in happiness but realizing that they could not carry the gold home without people seeing them and thinking them thieves. Therefore, he suggested, they should draw lots, and one of them should run back to the town to fetch bread and wine, while the other two protected the treasure. Then, at night, they could agree where to take the treasure and carry it safety. This was agreed, and lots were drawn: the youngest of them was picked to go to the town. However, as soon as he had gone to the town, the two remaining drunkards plotted amongst themselves to stab him upon his return, and then split the gold between them. While he was in the town, the youngest thought of the beauty of the gold coins, and decided to buy some poison in order to kill the other two, keeping the gold for himself. Thus, he went to an apothecary, bought some strong and violent poison, poured it into two of three wine bottles (the third was for him to drink from), topped them up with wine, and returned to his fellows. Exactly as the other two had planned it, it befell. They killed him on his return, and sat down to enjoy the wine before burying his body and, as it happened, drank the poison and died. The tale ends with a short sermon against sin, asking God to forgive the trespass of good men, and warning them against the sin of avarice, before (this, we can presume narrated in the Pardoners voice) inviting the congregation to come up and offer their wool in return for pardons. The tale finished, the Pardoner suddenly remembers that he has forgotten one thing that he is carrying relics and pardons in his male (pouch, bag) and begins to invite the pilgrims forward to receive pardon, inciting the Host to be the first to receive his pardon. Unbokele anon thy purs, he says to the Host, who responds that the Pardoner is trying to make him kiss thyn old breech (your old pants), swearing it is a relic, when actually it is just painted with his shit. I wish, the Host says, I had your coillons (testicles) in my hand, to shrine them in a hogs turd. The Pardoner is so angry with this response, he cannot speak a word, and, just in time, the Knight steps in, bringing the Pardoner and the Host together and making them again friends. This done, the company continues on its way. Analysis The Pardoner has in recent years become one of the most critically discussed of the Canterbury pilgrims. His tale is in many ways the exemplar of the contradiction which the structure of the Tales themselves can so easily exploit, and a good touchstone for highlighting precisely how Chaucer can complicate an issue without ever giving his own opinion. Thus the Pardoner embodies precisely the textual conundrum of the Tales themselves he utters words which have absolutely no correlation with his actions. His voice, in other words, is entirely at odds with his behavior. The Pardoners voice, at the beginning of his tale, rings out as round as gooth a belle, summoning his congregation: and yet his church is one of extreme bad faith. There is a genuine issue here about whether the Pardoners tale, being told by the Pardoner, can actually be the moral (325) tale it claims to be. For, while the tale does indeed demonstrate that money is the root of all evil, does it still count when he is preaching agayn that same vice / Which that I use, and that is avarice (against the very vice I commit: avarice). How far, in other words, can the teller negate his own moral? Yet the real problem is that the Pardoner is a successful preacher, and his profits point to several people who do learn from his speeches and repent their sin. His Tale too is an accurate demonstration of the way greed and avarice lead to evil. Hollow execution nevertheless, the Pardoner is an excellent preacher against greed. His voice, in short, operates regardless of his actions. Hollow sentiments produce real results. This is also reflected in the imagery of the tale itself. The Pardoner hates full stomachs, preferring empty vessels, and, though his wallet may well be bretful of pardoun comen from Rome (687) but the moral worth of this paper is nil: the wallet, therefore, is full and empty at the same time exactly like the Pardoners sermon. In just the same way Chaucer himself in the Tales can ventriloquize the sentiments of the pilgrim the Reeve, the Pardoner, the Merchant and so on, without actually committing to it. Because the Tales themselves, in supposedly reproducing the telling of a certain pilgrim, actually do enact precisely the disembodied voice which the Pardoner represents. The moral paradox of the Pardoner himself is precisely the paradox of the Tales and their series of Chaucer-ventriloquized disembodied voices. There is a doubleness, a shifting evasiveness, about the Pardoners double audience: the imaginary congregation he describes, and the assembled company to whom he preaches, and tells his lewed tales, even calling them forth to pardon at the end. The point is clear: even though they know it is insincere, the Pardoners shtick might still work on the assembled company. The imagery of the Pardoners Tale also reflects this fundamental hollowness. The tale itself is strewn with bones, whether in the oath sworn by Goddes digne bones, whether in the word for cursed dice (bones) or whether in the bones which the Pardoner stuffs into his glass cases, pretending they are relics. The literary landscape is strewn with body parts, and missing, absent bodies: beginning with the anonymous corpse carried past at the beginning of his tale. Bones, stomachs, coillons words for body parts cover the page, almost as a grim reminder of the omnipresence of death in this tale. The General Prologue, suggesting that the Pardoner resembles a gelding or a mare, hints that the Pardoner may be a congenital eunuch or, taken less literally, a homosexual, and, as the Host seems to suggest at the end, might well be without his coillons, a Middle English word meaning both relics and testicles. All of the relics in this Tale, including the Pardoners, evade the grasp of the hand. The Pardoner thus can be categorized along with the other bizarrely feminized males in the Tales, including Absolon, Sir Thopas, and, if we believe the Host, Chaucer (the character). And of course, at the center of the tale, there is a search for somebody called Death which, naturally, does not find the person Death, but death itself. It is a successful but ultimately unsuccessful search. All that is left over at the center of the Tales is the bushels of gold, sitting under a tree unclaimed. The root of the tale, as its moral similarly suggests about the root of evil, is money: and money was, to a medieval reader, known to be a spiritual death. Notably, moreover, in the tale, both gold and death shift from metaphor to reality and back again; a neat reminder of the ability of the Tales to evade our grasp, raising difficult questions without ever answering them.

History of the Mandan Indian Tribe Essay -- American History, native a

The Mandan are an indigenous tribe native to North America. The Mandan’s are known for being one of the earliest tribes to live on the great plains of the Midwest. Unlike other plains Indians the Mandan were a settled tribe who lived along the Big Bend of the Missouri River in what is now called North Dakota. While most tribes that lived in the plains were hunter/gatherers who lived a nomadic lifestyle following their food, the Mandan were planters living mostly off their crops. Warriors left once a year in hunting groups to go out into the plains in search for Buffalo, which was not only their major meat source, but was also used for clothing and shelter as well. Although the Mandan may differ from other Plains Indians in the fact that they live in a rooted community, they share many traditions with the neighboring tribes. They believe in a great spirit, they use medicine bundles, sacred pipes, have a sweat lodge and conduct many religious and spiritual ceremonies. The Mandan have a ceremony like no other recorded that is exclusive to their tribe called the Okipa or Okeepa. The Okipa is a four-day ceremony that is held annually in spring or summer. According to George Catlin, a painter, who spent time with the Mandan tribe in 1832, because the Mandan tribe had no official record or way to mark specific days, once the Willow leaves reached full size it was time for the ceremony. The purpose of the Okipa was to reaffirm the bond between the people and the natural world.(). More specifically the ceremony was held as a celebration of the Mee-nee-ro-ka-ha, it was for the dancing of the Bel-lohck-na-pic and for initiating young men into manhood. Mee-nee-ro-ka-ha translated means the sinking down of settling waters. One of the majo... ...hed the last race and made his way home the end of the ceremony may begin. The Okipa will enter the medicine lodge alone and will bring out with him all of the offerings Mohk-Muck-a-nah collected from the villagers on the first day. Then, along with the entire village he walks up to the top of a cliff and throws the tools into the water. The tools are offered as a sacrifice to the water, exactly at sun down on the fourth day, closing out the Okipa ceremony. In 1837 a smallpox epidemic almost completely wiped out the Mandan tribe leaving only 125 out if 1600 Mandan’s alive. In 1845 the surviving members of the Mandan tribe moved to Fort Berthold Reservation. The last Okipa ceremony was held in 1890, after that the army officer in charge of the Fort Berthold Reservation banned the ceremony and although it was lifted in 1934 the Okipa ceremony was never held again.

Where Are You Going, Where have you been? Essay -- essays research pap

Connie’s Decision   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Nobody really knows what the future holds. We all live day by day wondering what God’s will is for our lives. Yet we carry on and make decisions that may or may not shape what our lives turn out to be. In Joyce Carol Oates’s â€Å"Where are you going, Where have you been?,† we meet Connie, a fifteen year old beautiful girl. Connie like most teenagers is a little boy crazy and at times rebellious. She and some girlfriends would get together and go to a local drive-in restaurant where older kids would hang out. (153) One night at this drive-in a boy with shaggy black hair, in a convertible caught Connie’s eye. (154) Connie had never seen him before. He made the sly statement of â€Å"Gonna get you, baby,† and she just ignored him and walked on. (154) Little did Connie know he was speaking the truth. In a very short period of time Connie was about to make the biggest decision of her life, literally.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Connie was at home alone one day sitting in her room listening to music. Her mother, father and sister were out to a barbeque. An unfamiliar car pulled up in the driveway and Connie at first was worried about how she looked. This was the least of her troubles. When Connie got to the front door she was faced with two men. The driver whom we come to know as Arnold Friend and the passenger whose name was Ellie Oscar. Arnold comes off at first as kind of strange yet nice. He asks Connie, â€Å"You wanta come for a ride?† (...

Death Penalty Essay -- essays research papers

Death Penalty The death penalty, outlawed in most of Europe, Canada, Australia and most other countries in the world, is still practiced in almost 40 states in the U.S. Today, there are more than 3,000 people on death row waiting the day of their execution. They are put to death by methods such as hanging, electrocution, lethal injection and by firing squad. Since the death penalty was reinstated bye the supreme court in 1976, by the Gregg v. Georgia decision, more than 525 people have been put to death. Today there are many people for the death penalty and see nothing wrong with it but there are many people who feel hat it constitutes cruel and unusual punishment. The 8th amendment of the U.S. protects its citizens from cruel and unusual punishment but the death penalty hasn’t fell under the amendment yet. Nobody on either side of the death penalty debate wants to see an innocent person put to death, and yet studies have found that one in seven people sent to death row are later proven innocent. Still more innocent people are being sent to death row each year. In one case a prisoner was two days away from being executed when he was proven innocent. That means that many people reach death before they are proven innocent. In the last twenty-four years eighty-five innocent people have been released from death row, and will never get back the years of their lives they missed but just escaped a murder of themselves. In Illinois the governor has blocked executions to find out why more death row inmates have been found innocent and released than executed. The governor of Illinois is not the only one examing the death penalty but many others are looking further into the capital punishment. New technologies, like DNA testing, have made it possible to definitely prove or disapprove innocence in hundreds of cases where genetic evidence has been preserved. In many cases DNA evidence has been a troublesome effort, requiring lots of resources and sometimes taking years of effort to work. Many people, regardless of their viewpoint about the constitutionality of the death penalty, would agree that if a person was going to trial and could be executed, he would be represented fairly. However there are factors unrelated to the crime that have been committed that determines who gets executed and who doesn’t. Those factors are poverty, race, and geography. It has been pr... ...egulations concerning the death penalty. Something so important as a person living or put to death should be a nation wide regulated act not for each state to have its own standards and rules. The death penalty should be banned because of many reasons, which make it unfair. In order to live if you are innocent and convicted of a crime and receive the death penalty you have to be white, very wealthy to provide a good representation and have to live in a state, which doesn’t strongly use the capital punishment for sentencing. Many studies show that a majority of people favor alternatives to the death penalty such as life in prison without parole plus restitution to the victim’s family. Out of three hundred and fifty convictions in which a person was given the death penalty and proven that they didn’t commit the crime, twenty-three were executed before they could be released. This means all of the years they sat in jail knowing their innocence they didn’t get to find out that they were proven not guilty by the system. I don’t think anyone would want to be in their position so the death penalty should be abolished for many reasons until it is fair and 100 % right in its convictions.

Bloodlines Chapter Seven

â€Å"ADRIAN?† I SAID IN SURPRISE. â€Å"What's he have to do with any of this?† Jill simply shook her head and looked at me beseechingly. â€Å"Please. Just take me to him.† â€Å"But we'll be back there in a couple days for your feeding.† â€Å"I know,† said Jill. â€Å"But I need to see him now. He's the only one who will understand.† I found that hard to believe. â€Å"You're saying I wouldn't? Or that even Eddie wouldn't?† She groaned. â€Å"No. You can't tell Eddie. He'll flip out.† I tried not to frown as I mulled everything over. Why would Jill need to see Adrian after this mishap at school? Adrian couldn't do anything to help that I couldn't. As an Alchemist, I was in the best position to file a complaint. Did Jill just want moral support? I remembered how Jill had hugged Adrian goodbye and suddenly wondered if she had a crush on him. Because surely, if Jill needed to feel protected by someone, Eddie would be a better source to turn to. Or would he? Eddie was likely to go throwing office desks around in his outrage. Keeping this from him might not be a bad idea. â€Å"Okay,† I said at last. â€Å"Let's go.† I signed us out for off-campus travel, which took a little finagling. Mrs. Weathers was quick to point out that Jill had been banished to her dorm for the rest of the school day. I was equally quick to point out that classes were almost done, technically meaning the school day was almost finished. Mrs. Weathers couldn't fault the logic but still made us wait the full ten minutes until the last bell rang. Jill sat there, tapping her foot anxiously against the chair. We drove the half hour to Clarence's estate in the hills, saying little. I didn't really know what kind of small talk to make. â€Å"How was your first day of school?† was hardly an appropriate topic. And anyway, each time I thought about it, I just grew angrier. I couldn't believe any teacher would have the audacity to accuse Jill of drinking and having a hangover. There was really no way to prove something like that, and besides, you could tell after spending five minutes with her that it was impossible. A middle-aged human woman greeted us at the door. Her name was Dorothy, and she was Clarence's housekeeper and feeder. Dorothy was pleasant enough, if a little distracted, and wore a stiff gray dress with a high collar to hide the bite marks on her neck. I smiled back at her and maintained my professional mode but couldn't help a shudder when I thought about what she was. How could anyone do that? How could anyone offer their blood up willingly like that? My stomach lurched, and I found myself keeping my distance from her. I didn't even want to accidentally brush her arm when I walked past. Dorothy escorted us back to the room we'd all been sitting in the day before. There was no sign of Clarence, but Adrian was lying on a plush green couch, watching a TV that had been cleverly concealed inside an ornate wooden cabinet last time. When he saw us, he turned the TV off with a remote control and sat up. Dorothy excused herself and shut the French doors behind her. â€Å"Well, this is a nice surprise,† he said. He looked us over. Jill had changed into her normal clothes during her isolation today, but I still had on the Amberwood blouse and skirt. â€Å"Sage, aren't you guys supposed to have uniforms? This looks like what you usually wear.† â€Å"Cute,† I said, suppressing an eye roll. Adrian gave me a mock bow. â€Å"Careful. You almost smiled.† He reached for a bottle of brandy sitting on a nearby table. Small glasses were arranged around it, and he poured himself a generous amount. â€Å"You guys want one?† â€Å"It's the middle of the afternoon,† I said incredulously. Not that it'd really matter for me what time of day it was. â€Å"I've got a wicked hangover,† he declared, giving us a mock toast. â€Å"This is just the thing to cure it.† â€Å"Adrian, I need to talk to you,† said Jill earnestly. He looked over at her, the smirk fading from his face. â€Å"What's up, Jailbait?† Jill glanced uneasily at me. â€Å"Would you mind†¦Ã¢â‚¬  I took the hint and tried not to let on how irritated I was by all the secrets. â€Å"Sure. I'll just†¦ I'll just go outside again.† I didn't like the idea of being exiled, but no way was I going to wander the halls of the old house. I'd face the heat. I hadn't gotten very far down the hall when someone stepped out in front of me. I let out a small scream and nearly jumped three feet in the air. A heartbeat later, I realized it was Lee – not that it reassured me much. No matter how ostensibly friendly I was with this group, old defenses inside me kicked up at being alone with a new vampire. Running into him didn't help matters either because my brain processed it as an attack! Lee just stood there, staring at me. From the expression on his face, he was just as startled to find me in his house – though perhaps not quite as alarmed about it as I was. â€Å"Sydney?† asked Lee. â€Å"What are you doing here?† Within moments, my fear became embarrassment, like I'd been caught prowling. â€Å"Oh†¦ I'm here with Jill. She had kind of a rough day and needed to talk to Adrian. I wanted to give them some privacy and was going to just†¦ uh, go outside.† Lee's confusion transformed into a smile. â€Å"You don't have to do that. No need for exile. Come on, I was going to get a snack in the kitchen.† My face must have shown abject horror because he laughed. â€Å"Not the human kind.† I blushed and followed along with him. â€Å"Sorry,† I said. â€Å"It's instinct.† â€Å"No problem. You Alchemists are kind of jumpy, you know.† â€Å"Yeah.† I laughed uncomfortably. â€Å"I know.† â€Å"I've always wanted to meet one of you, but you guys certainly aren't what I expected.† He opened the door to a spacious kitchen. The rest of the house might be antique and gloomy, but inside here, everything was bright and modern. â€Å"If it makes you feel any better, you're not as bad as Keith. He was here earlier today and was so nervous, he literally kept looking over his shoulder.† Lee paused thoughtfully. â€Å"I think it might have been because Adrian kept laughing like a mad scientist at those old black-and-white movies he was watching.† I came to an abrupt stop. â€Å"Keith was here – today? What for?† â€Å"You'd have to ask Dad. That's who he talked to the most.† Lee opened the refrigerator and produced a can of Coke. â€Å"Want one?† â€Å"I – uh, no. Too much sugar.† He grabbed another can. â€Å"Diet?† I hesitated only a moment before taking it. â€Å"Sure. Thanks.† I hadn't intended to eat or drink anything in this house, but the can seemed safe enough. It was sealed and looked like it had come straight from a human grocery store, not some vampiric cauldron. I opened it and took a sip as my mind spun. â€Å"You have no idea at all what it was about?† â€Å"Huh?† Lee had added an apple to his menu and hoisted himself up so he sat on the counter. â€Å"Oh, Keith? No. But if I had to guess, it was about me. Like he was trying to figure out if I'm staying here or not.† He took a giant bite into the apple, and I wondered if having fangs made that harder at all. â€Å"He just likes his facts straight,† I said neutrally. As much as I disliked Keith, I still wanted a unified human front. I wasn't entirely inaccurate, though. I was pretty sure Keith felt undermined at learning there was one extra Moroi in â€Å"his territory† and was now making sure he was in on everything. Part of it was good Alchemist business, sure, but most was probably Keith's wounded pride. Lee didn't seem to think much of it and kept chewing his apple, though I could feel his eyes studying me. â€Å"You said Jill had a bad day? Is everything okay?† â€Å"Yeah, I think so. I mean, I don't know. I'm not even sure how things got messed up. She wanted to see Adrian for some reason. Maybe he can help.† â€Å"He's Moroi,† said Lee pragmatically. â€Å"Maybe it's just something only he could understand – something you and Eddie couldn't. No offense.† â€Å"None taken,† I said. It was only natural that Jill and I would have distinct differences – I was a human, and she was a vampire, after all. We couldn't be more different if we tried, and in fact, I kind of preferred it that way. â€Å"You go to college†¦ in Los Angeles? A human school?† It wasn't that weird a behavior for Moroi. Sometimes they stuck together in their own communities; sometimes they tried to blend into large human cities. Lee nodded. â€Å"Yup. And it was hard for me at first too. I mean, even without others obviously knowing you're a vampire†¦ well, there's just a sense of otherness you're always aware of. I eventually adjusted†¦ but I know what she's going through.† â€Å"Poor Jill,† I said, suddenly realizing I'd come at this situation all wrong. Most of my energy had been fixed on the school believing Jill's illness was a hangover. I should've focused on why she was sick in the first place. Anxiety over this new life change had to be taking its toll. I'd battled my own uneasiness, trying to figure out friendships and social cues – but at least I was still dealing with my own race. â€Å"I didn't really think about what she's going through.† â€Å"Do you want me to talk to her?† asked Lee. He set the apple core aside. â€Å"Not that I'm sure I have that much wisdom to share.† â€Å"Anything might help,† I said honestly. A silence fell between us, and I began to feel uneasy. Lee seemed very friendly, but my old fears were too ingrained. Part of me felt like he didn't so much want to get to know me as study me. Alchemists were clearly a novelty to him. â€Å"Do you mind me asking†¦ the tattoo. It gives you special powers, right?† It was nearly a repeat of the conversation at school, except Lee actually knew the truth behind it. I absentmindedly touched my cheek. â€Å"Not powers, exactly. There's compulsion in it to keep us from talking about what we do. And I get a good immune system out of it. But the rest? I'm nothing special.† â€Å"Fascinating,† he murmured. I looked away uneasily and tried to casually brush my hair back into my face. Adrian stuck his head in just then. All his earlier humor was gone. â€Å"Ah, there you are. Can I talk to you in private for a sec?† The question was directed to me, and Lee jumped off the counter. â€Å"I'll take the cue. Is Jill still in the den?† Adrian nodded, and Lee glanced at me questioningly. â€Å"Do you want me to†¦ ?† I nodded. â€Å"That'd be great. Thank you.† Lee left, and Adrian glanced back at me curiously. â€Å"What was that about?† â€Å"Oh, we thought Lee might be able to help Jill with her problems,† I explained. â€Å"Since he can relate.† â€Å"Problems?† â€Å"Yeah, you know. Adjusting to living with humans.† â€Å"Oh,† said Adrian. He produced a pack of cigarettes and, to my complete astonishment, lit up right in front of me. â€Å"That. Yeah, I guess that's good. But that's not what I wanted to talk to you about. I need you to get me out of this place.† I was startled. This wasn't about Jill? â€Å"Out of Palm Springs?† I asked. â€Å"No! Out of this place.† He gestured around him. â€Å"It's like living in a retirement home! Clarence is taking a nap right now, and he eats at five. It's so boring.† â€Å"You've only been here for two days.† â€Å"And that's more than enough. The only thing keeping me alive is that he keeps a hefty supply of liquor on hand. But at the rate I'm going, that'll be gone by the weekend. Jesus Christ, I'm climbing the walls.† His eyes fell on the cross at my neck. â€Å"Oh. Sorry. No offense to Jesus.† I was still too baffled by the unexpected topic to feel much offense. â€Å"What about Lee? He's here, right?† â€Å"Yes,† agreed Adrian. â€Å"Sometimes. But he's busy with†¦ hell, I don't know. School stuff. He's going back to Los Angeles tomorrow, and that'll be another boring night for me. Besides†¦Ã¢â‚¬  He looked around conspiratorially. â€Å"Lee's nice enough, but he's not†¦ well, he's not really into having fun. Not the way I am.† â€Å"That might be a good thing,† I pointed out. â€Å"No morality lectures, Sage. And hey, like I said, I like him okay, but he's not here enough. When he is, he keeps to himself. He's always checking himself out in the mirror, even more than I do. I heard him worrying about gray hair the other day.† I didn't care about Lee's eccentricities. â€Å"Where would you even want to go? You don't want†¦Ã¢â‚¬  A very unpleasant thought came to me. â€Å"You don't want to enroll at Amberwood, do you?† â€Å"What, and play 21 Jump Street with the rest of you? No, thank you.† â€Å"Twenty-one what?† â€Å"Never mind. Look.† He put out the cigarette – on the counter – which I thought was kind of ridiculous since he'd hardly smoked any of it. Why bother with such a filthy habit if you weren't going to use it all? â€Å"I need my own place, okay? You guys make things happen. Can't you get me some swank bachelor's pad like Keith has downtown so I can party with all the rich vacationers? Drinking alone is sad and pathetic. I need people. Even human people.† â€Å"No,† I said. â€Å"I'm not authorized to do that. You aren't†¦ well, you aren't really my responsibility. We're just taking care of Jill – and Eddie, since he's her bodyguard.† Adrian scowled. â€Å"What about a car? Can you do that?† I shook my head. â€Å"What about your car? What if I drop you guys back off at the school and then borrow it for a while?† â€Å"No,† I said swiftly. That was probably the craziest suggestion he could've made. Latte was my baby. I certainly wasn't about to lend it out to a heavy drinker – especially to one who also happened to be a vampire. If there was ever a vampire who seemed particularly irresponsible, it was Adrian Ivashkov. â€Å"You're killing me here, Sage!† â€Å"I'm not doing anything.† â€Å"Exactly my point.† â€Å"Look,† I said, growing irritated. â€Å"I told you. You're not my responsibility. Talk to Abe if you want things changed. Isn't he the reason you're here?† Adrian's annoyance and self-pity shifted to wariness. â€Å"What do you know about that?† Right. He didn't know I'd overheard their conversation. â€Å"I mean, he's the one who brought you guys here and made the arrangements with Clarence, right?† I hoped that would be convincing enough – and maybe yield me a little information on what Abe's master plan was. â€Å"Yes,† Adrian said, after several seconds of intense scrutiny. â€Å"But Abe wants me to stay in this tomb. If I got my own place, we'd have to keep it secret from him.† I scoffed. â€Å"Then I'm definitely not helping, even if I could. You couldn't pay me to cross Abe.† I could see Adrian bracing for another argument and decided to make my exit. Turning my back on him and any further protests, I headed out of the kitchen and back to the living room. There, I found Jill and Lee talking, and she wore the first genuine smile I'd seen in a while. She laughed at some comment he made and then looked up at my entrance. â€Å"Hey, Sydney,† she said. â€Å"Hey,† I said. â€Å"Are you about ready to go?† â€Å"Is it time?† she asked. Both she and Lee looked disappointed, but then she answered her own question. â€Å"I guess it is. You probably have homework, and Eddie's probably worried already.† Adrian entered the room behind me, looking pouty. Jill glanced at him, and for a moment, her gaze turned inward, like her mind had gone somewhere else. Then she turned back to me. â€Å"Yeah,† she said. â€Å"We should go. I hope we can talk later, Lee.† â€Å"Me too,† he said, standing up. â€Å"I'll be around here, off and on.† Jill hugged Adrian goodbye, clearly reluctant to be leaving him too. With Lee, she'd looked mostly like she was sad to leave something that had just gotten interesting. With Adrian, there was more of a sense like she wasn't sure how she was going to get by. Her next scheduled feeding was in two days, and Adrian was encouraging, telling her she was strong enough to get through the next school day. Despite how much he kept annoying me, I was moved by his compassion for the younger girl. Anyone who was that nice to Jill couldn't be that bad. He was starting to surprise me. â€Å"You look better,† I told her as we drove toward Vista Azul. â€Å"Talking to Adrian†¦ to both of them†¦ it was helpful.† â€Å"Do you think you'll be okay tomorrow?† â€Å"Yeah.† Jill sighed and leaned back against the seat. â€Å"It was just nerves. That, and I didn't eat much breakfast.† â€Å"Jill†¦Ã¢â‚¬  I bit my lip, hesitant to plunge forward. Confrontation wasn't my strong suit, particularly with awkward personal topics. â€Å"You and Adrian†¦Ã¢â‚¬  Jill gave me a wary look. â€Å"What about us?† â€Å"Is there anything†¦ I mean, are you guys†¦ ?† â€Å"No!† Out of the corner of her eye, I saw Jill turn bright pink. It was the most color I had ever seen in a vampire's face. â€Å"Why would you say that?† â€Å"Well. You were sick this morning. And then really adamant about seeing Adrian. You're always sad to leave him too†¦Ã¢â‚¬  Jill gaped. â€Å"Do you think I'm pregnant?† â€Å"Not exactly,† I said, realizing it was kind of a nonsensical answer. â€Å"I mean, maybe. I don't know. I'm just considering all the possibilities†¦Ã¢â‚¬  â€Å"Well, don't consider that one! There's nothing going on between us. Nothing. We're friends. He'd never be interested in me.† She said it with a dismal certainty – and maybe even a little wistfully. â€Å"That's not true,† I said, fumbling to undo the damage. â€Å"I mean, you're younger, yeah, but you're cute†¦Ã¢â‚¬  Yes, this was a terrible conversation. I was just babbling now. â€Å"Don't,† said Jill. â€Å"Don't tell me I'm nice and pretty and have a lot to offer. Or whatever. None of that matters. Not when he's still hung up on her.† â€Å"Her? Oh. Rose.† I'd nearly forgotten. The trip to Court had been the first time I'd seen Adrian in person, but I'd actually seen him once before on security camera footage when he'd been at a casino with Rose. The two of them had dated, though I wasn't entirely sure how serious the relationship had been. When I'd helped Rose and Dimitri escape, the chemistry between those two had been off the charts, even if they'd both been in denial of it. Even I'd been able to spot it a mile away, and I knew next to nothing about romance. Seeing as Rose and Dimitri were officially a couple now, I had to assume things with Adrian hadn't ended well. â€Å"Yeah. Rose.† Jill sighed and stared vacantly ahead. â€Å"She's all he sees when he closes his eyes. Flashing dark eyes and a body full of fire and energy. No matter how much he tries to forget her, no matter how much he drinks†¦ she's always there. He can't escape her.† Jill's voice dripped with astonishing bitterness. I might have written it off as jealousy, except that she talked as though she'd been personally been wronged by Rose too. â€Å"Jill? Are you okay?† â€Å"Huh? Oh.† Jill shook her head, like she was shaking off the cobwebs of a dream. â€Å"Yeah, fine. Sorry. It's been a weird day. I'm a little out of it. Didn't you say we could pick up some things?† A sign for the next exit advertised a shopping center. I rolled with the change in subject, glad to be away from personal matters, though I was still pretty confused. â€Å"Uh, yeah. We need sunscreen. And maybe we can get a little TV for the room.† â€Å"That'd be great,† said Jill. I left it at that and took the next exit. Neither of us spoke about Adrian for the rest of the night.